Weds

Monday evening was tough for us, but truthfully, the viewing/visitation was comforting. Many friends were there to lend their support and as my cousin said, "when someone passes away, family HAS to attend, but it is a true testament to the person who passes when so many friends come from so far to be there." I completely agree and thank everyone who attended and sent messages to my family.

The funeral service yesterday was far more difficult, but it truly was a celebration of Uncle Bill's life and gave us the closure that we all needed.

I am thankful for so much as this year closes and hope and pray that 2009 keeps those that I luv, safe, happy and healthy.

Bring on '09!!

He is at peace

We got the call this morning that Uncle Bill was at peace.........my aunt's phone rang just after 6am and they rushed over to the hospital one last time. Uncle Bill waited for them. His O2 level jumped into the 90;s when Aunt Sue took his hand and then he flatlined.

By 8:05 he had left this world peacefully and will endure no more pain. Now to try to pick up the pieces and move on for my family, esp. for my dear aunt. She and Uncle Bill were married for 39 years and she has NEVER ever lived alone..........

My heart is aching and my eyes are puffy from crying, but I am so very thankful that he is no longer struggling for breath and that he is at peace.

I hope that the hospital can ultimately figure out what happened and I pray for the nurse that administered the wrong medication. I am not xactly certain how she will live with her mistake...

I just don't get "it"

We enjoyed a very nice, yet brief visit with my Virginia family for Christmas. Actually opened gifts and then took a nice drive down to Venice Beach. Yes folks we were at the beach in 80 degree weather on Christmas Day. The water was crystal clear and the VA crowd found lots of sharks teeth. Venice is known for them. I spent the better part of the afternoon getting to know my new camera and zoom lens. What fun. Yesterday we went up to Homosassa and spent the day at the park with the manatees. Truly a gorgeous afternoon.

I am fuming angry right now and somewhat afraid of what I might say, so I will say just what I can to vent.........I just don't get "it".
Why things happen the way that they do and how to get past being so incredibly angry right now that I just can't let it go.............

I pray for the ability to do so. I hope for the strength to get passed all of this and I truly wish that I could make it better........
I realize that we are all human-I "get" that, but how/why do things happen and what/who is controlling it? Gosh, I wish I had some of the answers. In the meantime, say some prayers tonite PLEASE. A prayer for the "human" and her grave error, a prayer for our family to be strong enough and most especially for my incredible Uncle who has endured wayyyyy more than anyone should ever have to and now this.

And for those small minded, completely and oh so totally ignorant human beings-I hope that you are truthfully so ignorant as to know how much pain you cause others, but truthfully, u are so simple minded, you don't even "get" it and I do so totally "get" that.........

Off to bed...........I NEED to let it all go,
Jax

Tuesday Tuesday

Went to bed WAAAYYYY too late for me yesterday, well late for most. It was after 1am, but dh and I finally had a few minutes of peace and quiet and I got scrappy after that. Made a cute lil something.
Woke up tired this morning and before i had done anything it was like 11am. YIKES.
I have been trying to clean up as my sister and family arrive tom. night(not to mention the BIG guy who will be here too and he doesn't like messy houses any more than my bil Jason).

Off to Kohl's to try to find a pair of pants that fit. I have dropped several sizes lately and the 10P's are falling off despite the belt that is trying to hold them up. NO luck. I found nothing for me. Oh well. Punch another hole in the belt.
Almost out of gas and boy was it nice nice nice to fill up the entire tank for under $18. YEAH. QUICK and I mean QUICK run into the mall. Mind you, I am NOT a fan of the mall at any point in time, but the day before the day before Christmas, NOT my favorite place. It is esp. not fun with a four year old who also woke up tired and a bit on the whiny side. But seriously, parked in handicapped at Sears, ran into Sears, bought one item, and outta there. The parking lot was a zoo, so glad that I didn't have to deal with more than that.

Off to feed the lil bugger at Chick Fil A. He snorked SIX nuggets and 3/4 of my chix. sandwich as well.........then played HARD. Nice breeze blowing outside and although the grocery store is on my agenda today with a list at least half mile long(6 xtra people arriving), I did NOT want to attempt that with the mood either one of us is in. So, we came home to wrap the gift from Sears, and relax a bit. Hoping that Daddy gets in soon and I will run out to the grocery store before I completely and totally run outta gas.

That's all that is new here for the most part. I am also hoping to run over to the hospital. Uncle Bill is reportedly cranky today, but he has been in a chair for two days in a row and was moved OUT of ICU today down to the second floor. The man is truly amazing.

Going to go and lay down for a few. Have a great Tuesday all. It is nearly 80 degrees here today. NOT feeling much like Christmas but the Virginia crew will def. enjoy it.

It was brought to my attention that I hadn't blogged in awhile(thanx Darren), so I thought that I would check in.
Nothing has changed around here.
We had a nice, yet busy weekend at the Palatial Durning estate. Finally got some holiday cheer going by attending the Bay Crest faculty party at Theo's. I swear they will never let us come back as Joshy NEVER wants to leave every single time we go there. Stac-want a 4th child??

The boat parade was new to me and it was so nice. Really a great time........got some good pics too.
We decorated the tree as well, some nice family time.

Other than that, today is our first real day of "vacation" and we are looking forward to the Marmor's arriving on Weds.
Happy Holidays to all,
Jax

the end is near

The hospital just called and it looks like the end is very near. Sadly, his respirations are very low. The rest of the family is on their way over there to say their good-bye's. I hope they get there in time so that he is not alone or afraid.

My Uncle sure is a trooper. He is soooo loved and will be dearly missed by those of us around him-NOT just his family, but everyone who knows him.

Say a prayer for a peaceful ending to a long and difficult fight..........34 days, but who was counting.

Sunday updates

Wish there was actually something to update, but there really isn't.

Joshy and I drove all the way down to South Tpa this morning to see another pediatrician. I swear that I am going to just have my entire paycheck assigned to PHA this month as I think we have seen 4 doctors in 6 weeks time. But, truth be told, I am glad they were open and glad that we went. I just hate seeing my lil guy sick. Another prescription and hoping it will clear him up.

Uncle Bill is a STRONG man as he is still hanging on. I am going to run over there in a bit as soon as John gets home with Joshy's meds. My heart is breaking for Aunt Sue and there is nothing that I can do or say to make it better.

We did some major straightening up yesterday in the hopes that we can attempt to decorate somewhat before the day ends. I will keep you posted.

Enjoy this glorious day.
Jax

we survived

the first week of pre-school and actually, surprisingly, it went pretty well. as far as i know, he hasn't been expelled yet. lol.

uncle bill continues to hang on and to be honest, i am more worried about aunt sue at this point....this is REALLY taking a toll on her.

the weather sure has changed again and it has gone from hot and humid to damp and chilly. but rest assured it will be eighty something degrees once again come monday.

we have no "plans" for the weekend at this point. it is pretty much day by day round here right now. i am guessing that at some point in time i will begin wrapping some gifts. i hope to get some time to complete some crafty ones and perhaps decorating would be a good idea. seriously, if it weren't for joshy, i would just cancel the holidays this year completely.

i am far from being in a festive mood of any sort at all.

the combo of the drs. office on monday, pre school and the weather changing has made my lil man sick ONCE again. i honestly think he has not had a runny nose for a total of 5 days since the ms crop. poor lil guy. his eyes look soooooo watery and crappy.

enjoy your weekend whatever u have planned.

Sassy with Santa

just another day

Tues has come and gone and it was just another day in this wacky dream that has become my life.

Joshy didn't "take" to beign dropped off too easily as they had to pry him off of me and I made a quick exit to the lobby. There the receptionist allowed me to watch via video that he wasn't still crying for too long. I was for awhile, but he was just fine when I picked him up. I didn't call to check on him, but I did think about it.

Uncle Bill continues to hang on although getting increasingly aggitated esp. towards the end of the every two hours he can have medicine. Aunt Sue is doing as well as we could expect her to and we are all just going thru the motions.

Today is a VERY busy day for me so I am going to make this a short post.

Thinking about Laura and her family today. Hoping that everything goes well at their drs. appt this afternoon.

Happy Hump day to all.

I cried myself to sleep last night which means my eyes are puffy and swollen shut this morning, making typing this early even more difficult.

Joshy did great at his first day of preschool yesterday and so did I. No tears and I didn't even call to check on him. Can u believe it?

I have always been a creature of habit and I am not one to deal well with change. Pretty much anyone who knows me can attest to that. So, the tears last night came from my toes when it hit me like a TON of bricks that my entire life as Iknow it is never going to be the same and it makes me SAD.

I know that I will fall into this new routine and it will be fine, but for now, I JUST DON"T LIKE IT ONE BIT.
Hearing my Aunt Sue cry breaks my heart cause there is NOTHING that I can do to make it better. She has always been there to make it better for me, so I just feel totally helpless.
I am the caretaker, the strong one and I am crumbling.

It really does STINK and oh great, I am crying again. UGH.

One more morning

My four year old counts things(days) by how many mornings. When my sister was here a few weeks ago, she stayed for 2 mornings. When i was in Sebring for the Crop 4 Hope, i was gone for 3 mornings.

Well, we have just ONE more morning til my lil man starts pre-school. I am xcited as I KNOW he will LUV it. I have NO apprehension about the school whatsoever, I just HATE that he is going for the reasons he is going.

But, I am certain he will have a wonderful day. After school tomorrow, we have our 4 year old check up at the pediatrician where he will receive more shots than i am sure that I want him to have at one time. They were out of one last year so add that one in too. If it is too many, I will schedule another appt just to split them up. No one should have to be stuck too many times in one day. Which reminds me, i have only 5 minutes before I need to go and stick myself.

I am completely and totally emotionally xhausted. I spent the better part of the weekend at the funeral home and cemetary planning for a funeral that is impending. It is awful. Uncle Bill has gone from bad to worse with NO hope for any sort of recovery. At this point, we can only hope that he is comfortable and can hang on until Jaime gets here tomorrow night. It is dreadful......
I have cried buckets in the last few days and it pains me to see him in such distress and Aunt Sue, omg it is heart wrenching.

The hardest thing that I have ever done since my daddy died was to tell my son(who luvs Uncle Bill beyond belief) that his Uncle(and for all purposes, his grandfather truthfully) isn't coming home. I don't wish that on anyone.

So, the plans are all set and in place. I just hope that it is peaceful............I pray that it is. It is breaking my heart as I feel like the last month has been a horrible nightmare.

We all luv you Uncle Bill. JD3

Wow, it is DEC already

I can not even believe that we are on the 4th day of the 12th month of this year already. BLOWS my mind.

Uncle Bill continues to have good and bad days. We truthfully thought that we were going to lose him on Sunday. I mean, I actually told him to tell my Daddy that we were doing okay and tell him about Joshy............
Then, he had a couple of good days. Last night they confirmed with Aunt Sue that he had a DNR order in place as even though he had had a wonderful day, it was rapidly going downhill. I fully expected the phone to ring before morning, yet it didn't.

I got to the hospital this morning to find him looking good(even better than Sunday) and cracking jokes with me. The last 23 days have truly been a rollercoaster ride and I am NOT a fan of them in case you didnt' know.

We did solve the "who is going to watch Joshy issue" as none of us could take the stress of the uncertainty any longer. Starting on Monday, Joshua will be going to pre-school from 11 am until 4pm each day. I was very impressed with the facility as it is very new and didn't smell. I met with the director, the asst. director and the 4 year old teacher, all of whom I liked very much.

We were there both Tues and Weds of this week and John and I feel comfortable with the decision we have made for the time being. Joshua will LUV the opportunity to interact with other children on a daily basis and I KNOW that this is going to be very good for him. My heart just aches because I didn't want to HAVE to put him in daycare.............I wanted it to be because we wanted to. KWIM?

So, please continue to pray for our family and the recovery of Uncle Bill. As I told him on Sunday, Joshy cried for two weeks when Jack the jack-o-lantern died and there is NO way that I am going to even try to xplain to him that Uncle Bill isn't coming home. So, he had BETTER get his strength back and come home SOON.

Hope that everyone else is doing well. Hug your luved ones xtra tight tonite and say a prayer for our Uncle Bill. thanx,
Jax

Ups & Downs

VERY bad day yesterday for Uncle Bill and scary to say the least. Seems to be better today. This is just been a very DIFFICULT time for all of us.

Say an xtra prayer please. We NEED them.
Thanks,
the whole family

oops

Sorry. It has been brought to my attention that I was so xcited bout my new camera, I forgot to tell what kind it is.
Silly me.

I went to Best Buy fully prepared to purchase the Cannon XSI digital SLR, but I actually walked out with the Nikon D-60. I took a bunch of pics yesterday but to be honest, we had a REALLLLLY rough day today with Uncle Bill, so I haven't had a chance to even view what I took.

I promise I will post some soon and report in. I like what I have done thus far and the dvd instructionals were very inspiring.
Hugs and happy rainy Sunday eve.

OH MY GOSH!!!!

well, i just HAVE to tell you that Santa and Hanukkah Harry came early for me.
Although I thought there was NO way on g*d's green earth it would ever happen, I got a BRAND NEW digital SLR camera last night............
I was so xcited that I could hardly breath. I watched the dvd until after midnight and I am now waiting for the battery to charge so I can "play".
WOO HOO. I guess I really was a good girl this year and 18 months interest free financing at Best Buy didn't hurt either.
YEAH. Did I mention how happy I am right now???Oh YES!!
Hoping for NO more pictures of the back of Joshy's head with 3 shots per second on the new one and about 3 shots per 3 minutes with lag time on the old. ha ha.
Happy Jackie

BRRRR

woke up this morning and baby it is cold INSIDE. cold for us anyway. snapped the heat on a bit and made sure all the fans were off. it will be a beautiful day i am sure but let that sun warm it up a bit first.

dh walks in the door after 7pm last night, plops down at the table, eats dinner and in less than two minutes flat passed out on the couch, never to be heard from again til his snoring wakes me up at 2am. oh gotta luv it.

this morning he is his cheerful self. boy would i ever just luv to come home, completely ignore my child, have dinner waiting on me and go to sleep just cause. ROTFLMAO. that would NEVER happen, but it is a nice dream isn't it?

I made it

my week at school is over and I am off until Monday. woo hoo.

Joshy isn't feeling well again so we may end up at the drs office, but I am just glad for the chance to recharge my batteries. I NEED it.

My BABY turned 4 yesterday!!

They tell u when they are born, "you won't believe how quickly it goes". I am here to tell you, they are right, whomever "they" are.

I was so sad to tell him we weren't going to Disney for his birthday, but he could have cared less. However, i felt like the WORLD's worst Mommy when it dawned on me that he had NO party planned since we were supposed to be in Mickey Land.

So, I went into overdrive to figure something out. We went to Helen's and shared Robbie's party first. FUN times there. Then, we drove over to the hospital and snuck the birthday boy up to Uncle Bill's room. We only stayed about two minutes, but both of them were grinning ear to ear.

Off we headed to St. Pete for a makeshift, thrown together birthday party at Chick-Fil-A. It is one of his favorite places and most of his favorite people were there. Laura, Alex and Jonathan joined us. Alex and Joshy have never missed a party of each other's and this one was no different. Charlotte and Zaydin arrived a bit later and all the boys had fun playing, eating and mine especially luved ripping into his presents. We have spent the better part of 3 hours this morning trying desperately to organize the playroom and it is overwhelming to say the least.

This child needs NOTHING from the toy store ever again, seriously. However, after packing up almost 3 FULL trash bags of clothing, he sure could use some warm clothes. It is truly sad that I am giving away clothing that still has tags ..........apparently he has pretty much skipped the size 3T entirely and I am guilty of purchasing items super cheap(Target for 99 cents) when they have their amazing sales.
So, some lucky sole will be inherriting a TON of very gently used clothing in the near future.

Other than birthday-ing life here is the usual. Uncle Bill remains in the hospital and at this point I can honestly say that I am MORE concerned about Aunt Sue. It is def. draining her and I wish that I could do something other than just offer support.

Not a clue what we are doing for childcare this week. Thankfully, it is a short week with me working only Mon and Tues before being off for Turkey Day holiday. Now that birthday has passed, I guess I had better start thinking about Turkey Day.

Enjoy this wonderful Sunday. The weather here is near perfection. Luv Florida this time of year.
Jax

it's almost friday

Happy Thursday. Boy, I am so confused as to what day of the week it is.

Uncle Bill was taken by ambulance to the rehab hospital yesterday. I haven't seen him but he is apparently very cranky, which I take to be a good sign. NO ONE likes to be in the hospital right? I stayed home with Joshy yesterday and Aunt Sue did take a break and watch him today. She said she needed some time with her boy to cheer her up.

Life is moving way too quickly for me right now. I had a marathon meeting at the ms office last night for the walk in march. LOTS to be done but we accomplished so much it was great.

Joshy's birthday is Saturday and still NOTHING planned. With a blink of an eye it will be THanksgiving and then the holidays. I am not feeling very festive this year, it just isn't in me yet. I am usually pretty close to having my holiday shopping completed by now but I haven't even begun.

It is going to be a lean year around here. I am going to talk to dh about NO gifts this year except for the lil guy. That is what holidays are all about anyway-the kids. We truthfully don't have xtra and I hate the whole buying and spending cause u r "supposed" to buy someone a gift. It truthfully annoys the heck out of me to think that I "have" to buy someone a gift cause it is xpected, not appreciated and never awknowledged. Oh well.

I would luv to have some down time to perhaps create some gifts but that isn't likely, so I will keep dreaming. LOL.

Off to make some dinner and try to get 5 minutes to myself. That truthfully doesn't happen very often, if ever, so I guess I will do some more laundry.
Good tv on tonite. Hope that I can make it up thru ER.

Oh My

It has been a LONG time since I have posted, sorry.

The MS Crop 4 Hope was by far the MOST successful crop that I have ever hosted. I could not have pulled it all off without the help that I had, so THANK you to everyone who pitched in and made it such an incredible weekend.

We arrived home at about 7pm, emptied the cars as we brought home a ton of stuff......including numerous prizes and baskets that were won by those who didn't attend. We got a car seat in the car and dh headed off to pick up our lil guy. Oh boy was he SICK. Poor Aunt Sue. What a trooper she is I tell you.
We ended up at the doctor on Tuesday and he had two ear infections and a cough like I haven't heard before. Bless his heart. He was quickly transformed into a medication induced lil devil but steroids are known to do that. However, after a week on them, he is no longer coughing and is acting like his ole self.

Tuesday also brought Uncle Bill to the hospital for a procedural surgery.......however more than a week later, he is still there. We had several scares with him in the last week and back to Aunt Sue the trooper, she hasn't left the hospital since last Tuesday. Scary moments but as of last evening, he was looking so much better and there was talk from his doctor while I was there of transferring him this morning to a rehab hospital for a week or two until he gets stronger. Fingers crossed...........

My sister flew down for the weekend to lend emotional support. It was nice that she could and now that she is in Virginia instead of Colorado, she was able to. Joshy enjoyed having Aunt Fran here for the weekend.

School has been wonderful however figuring out who is going to watch ds has been a daily challenge. Today is a half day so my co-teacher is going to just stay the xtra 45 minutes for me and I will stay home with ds. Tomorrow? who knows.

Joshy turns four on Saturday. Not sure how that happened cause it seems like yesterday he was born. We had planned for us to all go spend the weekend over in Orlando and take him to Disney for the first time, but with all going on with Uncle Bill, Aunt Sue just wouldn't leave and we decided that "Rich" can't see Disney w/o "Scott" so .............the poor kid doesn't know it yet, but as of this moment, there is NOTHING planned for his birthday :( Any ideas are greatly appreciated.

After 3 more visits from the plumber since returning from Sebring and more $$ than I care to admit, our issue is now fixed, replaced and repaired. Turns out that the topiary tree that John and Joshy bought me for Valentine's day 3 years ago had taken root INSIDE the water pipes, which does explain why it is so much larger than the one on the other side of the garage. So, we removed the tree and replanted it in the backyard away from all pipes and as of last night, have a new pipe out front. OY.

I am off to jump back under the covers with my lil man as it is a bit chilly here this morning.

Say a prayer for Uncle Bill and send me emails about what to do for a non birthday party that doesn't exsist for a lil guy who is going to be just a bit disappointed bout not seeing Mickey this weekend.

Nov 1st

Holy cow where did the month of October go to? It just FLEW by-literally.

DH arrived home with the sniffles and I swear if I get sick........okay, not even going to go there.

I am busy this morning doing scrappy stuff and getting ready for the crop next weekend. Things are falling into place.

We had a very nice Halloween as we went over to Aunt Sue's with some pizza for dinner and then we went trick or treating on Snapdragon. My lil fireman sure hauled in a TON of loot. I haven't even got thru it all yet.

I am off to finish up some baskets and inventory it all. I am getting very excited and sure hope this event goes off w/o a hitch.

Happy November 1st.

Oh what a day........

but I survived-an entire week as a single parent with the Crop just days away. My hat's off to all of you who do it daily or have done it. You are MUCH stronger than I am. I am oh so ready for dh to be home sometime in the wee hours of this morning.

My munchkin is still crying over the loss of his beloved jack-o-lantern, Jack, but we will bury him in the garden tomorrow and hope for new pumpkins. LOL.

16 conferences tonight, all went well. All of this after being in COMPLETE and total LOCKDOWN at school this afternoon while they finally caught the dirtbag who escaped from jail this week just a block away from our school. FUN TIMES I tell ya.

Okay, I am DEAD tired and going to hit the hay.
Happy Halloween to you all tomorrow.

MIA

So I realized that I have not been all that diligent in keeping up with my blog lately, however, unlike my dear friend, Miami Dawn, it isn't just because I am addicted to Scramble.
I do have valid reasons(excuses) but.........

The 3rd Annual MS Crop 4 Hope is next weekend and it has become a full time job. It is going to be an amazing event and I will so very happy when it is here. Things are falling into place and I am surprising myself remaining calm and relatively unstressed about it all at this point.

I think that I have attended to most of the details and just need to call one of the food vendors to ensure that we have dinner on Saturday. Lunches are taken care of, as is the hotel, UHAUL, table rental...........well you know. I luv the planning and I just can't wait to see it all.

We are even advertised on the TBOextra webpage of the Highlands area newspaper.

In the middle of all of this, John is in Virginia for the entire week at a conference for work. Joshy and I are doing just fine and we look forward to his return on Friday. At that point, he WILL be in full Daddy mode.

My sister closed on her house in VA yesterday and they can finally say that it is HOME. I am so relieved for her and her family and now we will have a place to visit.

Well, I need to go and make some more baskets. Remember to check out my other blog
www.mscrop4hope.blogspot.com
to see all the excitement going on.

a LONG weekend for me

So, Friday was professional day for those of us teachers in Hills. County. Our 6 hours of training was wrapped up in under two hours, which was very nice. Then I got to spend an entire day with my ds and Aunt Sue. We went shopping(haven't done that in FOREVER) and I actually bought myself NEW clothes.
It was relatively xciting for me as I purchased a clothing size that I have NEVER in my life and i mean NEVER before have worn. Now, I could typically assume that they were just a pair of pants that were generously cut, but I came home with several pairs(all different brands and styles) that we the same size. It is truthfully not even REAL to me, but I guess it is. I still look in the mirror and see a fat person, but according to my clothes, I am no longer that plus sized(22) that I used to be.

After shopping, we went to Celebration Station and we played putt putt. It was so much fun especially because ds actually followed the rules and I am a proud Mommy when I admit that he got a hole in one. Now anyone who has known me for a LONG time(ex ex this is you :) I do NOT like putt putt. In fact, one could go as far as to say, that I hate putt putt.........however, when you are playing with one adorable little blondie, it just seems like a whole lot more fun. The go carts were an experience and just when my back was finally beginning to feel better-WHAM. we got rear ended by the same kid TWICE. So, they blew the whistle at him, BIG deal. Still hurt BADLY. My back may not be right til after the crop, but it was a really great afternoon.

The weekend went too quickly as it always does. Got bunches accomplished for the crop when Amanda spent the night and had a beautiful afternoon at the park in Largo for my teaching partner's lil one's FIRST birthday.

I took the day off yesterday-LONG story, but after running round town to THREE banks, waiting over an hour for blood work and more shopping...........came home to have a super pleasant afternoon. It is so much nicer now that my lil guy is not constantly trying to butt heads with me :)

Imagination Movers tickets went on sale Saturday and proudly, Mover Mommy and Mover Daddy will take Mover Rich with Scott to see them in January. I often have to ask my lil man who it is I am talking to. What an Imagination HE has. I luv it.

Tomorrow is the 22nd, which means in one month from then, he will be FOUR years old. When he was born, everyone told me enjoy it cause it goes too quickly. Yeah Yeah. Whatever , but OMG does it ever. In a blink of an eye, my little tiny baby, turned into a toddler and wham, as if almost overnight, he has turned into an amazing little man with a vocabulary that is just awesome.

Okay, off to start cooking dinner and work on the crop. i am going to be so happy when it is all said and done.
TTFN.

playing my usual game

of catching up. I have been a BAD blogger, although it doesn't seem that anyone has noticed.

life has been crazy busy as always. today we completed our first nine weeks of school. very hard to believe that the first nine weeks is done already and it is time to work on grades and report cards. YIKES. where does it all go?

my class is a good group and I am enjoying them. I have adjusted to our crazy schedule and pretty much find myself to be going with the proverbial flow. our new reading series appears to have some wonderful components but def. difficult to fit all the parts in with the scheduling. tomorrow is professional study day and we will get part two of the training. perhaps it will seem a bit less overwhelming than the first part as we have been utilizing it for some time now. fingers crossed.

Joshy passed his speech screening last week which comes as a HUGE shock to most, esp. me. I asked the SLP if she could fail him and she agreed that his "issues" were real, but also being that he is still THREE, they were within the limits for a 3 year old. She did rec. he be rescreened in six months after he has turned 4 and unless he self corrects by April, he would fail at that point. Now do not get me wrong, I am not looking to have my child qualify for any programs that he doesn't truly need, but I would hate for him to continue lisping for the rest of his life because he missed that fateful cutoff of fixing it by FIVE cause he won't be in kinder til almost 6.

My sister and the rest of her family are now firmly planted in Virginia and when Joshy heard that he cried. Although they are now MUCH closer and in the same time zone, we will all miss them being in Colorado however, we promised a visit to see Colorado Henry in our futures.

Well, other than the MS Crop stuff taking OVER my entire life, I have just caught ya'll up on the goings on with me. Wish I could share something truly interesting, but I can't. I have too many raffles to organize and a t-shirt order to generate.

Hugs to all,
Jax

BUSY weekend

It sure was a busy weekend. They never do seem to be long enough. However, I got a WHOLE lot accomplished.

DH and I enjoyed celebrating our FIFTH wedding anniversary yesterday. We did a bunch of talking over a nice dinner. AMAZING how much can change in 5 years. WOW.

I had a reading at a psychic place yesterday........not the best one that I have ever had. She said absolutely NOTHING that anyone reading this couldn't have come up with, honestly. I have had good ones before and other people who said things that were truly intuative, but this lady, waste of mil $$. u enjoyed the fall festival at wsd. i always luv bumping into scrappy peeps that i haven't seen in awhile. margot, great to see you looking so wonderful :)

got some nice donations logged in and made a HUGE dent in the pile of ms crop stuff taking over my house.

ds and dh went to the choo choo show today giving me time to organize the stuff. nice weekend, just not quite long enough.

listening to the rain fall and just finished soaking in a long hot bath. i am going to go watch my shows and relax.
have a great evening all.

Happy Friday dance

I am seriously doing the Happy Friday dance. I am ever so glad that this week is over. Seems that I say that every Friday, but it is so darn hot outside and having car rider duty in the afternoon literally WIPES me out. UGH.

It has been a relatively good week otherwise. I am still way behind on my laundry, but working on it. I often wonder how three people can possibly dirty sooooooo many clothes. It is unreal.

I am starting to have slight panic attacks with relation to the Crop 4 Hope. There is still so much to do and i am feeling pressure and I am running out of time.

Tomorrow John and I will celebrate our FIVE year wedding anniversary. I have NEVER been married to someone for FIVE years before. LOL.

Sunday, I plan to start laying out all the stuff for the crop and hope to make some progress with prepping it all.
YIKES. just a bit overwhelming.

I wish that I could attend a crop tomorrow or a Fall Festival but it isn't likely.......oh well.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Tag, I am it.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

TAG! I'm It!
Chris tagged me :D
THE FIVE TAG
5 years ago I1. was frantically getting ready for my wedding(5 years ago on Saturday 10-4)
2. Lived in my townhouse 3. Still had my Daddy to talk to on a daily basis 4. Had only fur babies and no Joshua 5. weighed more than i do today :D
5 things on today's "to do" list 1. Pick up Crop 4 Hope donations 2. take my shot 3. Laundry 4. do this tag 5. call some parents of students
5 snacks I enjoy1. ice cream 2. more ice cream 3. peanut butter and apples 4. ice cream 5. Chex mis
5 things I would do if I were a millionaire 1. Keep the fact that I was a millionaire a secret2. travel 3. retire4. Help others5. build a huge scrap room
5 places I have lived1. River Vale, NJ , 2. Fort Lee New Jersey, 3. Tampa, 4 Miami 5. Winston Salem North Carolina for about six weeks, I HATED it.
5 jobs I have had 1. Worked at Carvel before/during/after college2. I worked at Target for one day 3. Teaching elementary school 4. Waitress at assorted Pizza Places in Tampa 5.mommy!
I am tagging: 1)Amanda, 2- Miami Dawn, 3-Stacey, 4-Anyone else who hasn't done it yet.
(if not link their blogs are linked on the left)Each player answers the question themselves. At the end of the post the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blog and leaves them a comment letting them know that they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog. Let the person that tagged you know when you've answered the questions on your blog.

LONG Monday

It is always hard to get back into the routine on a Monday esp. after being away. I am happy to report that I survived school today. We actually had a really good day and I accomplished alot more than I usually do on a Monday.

It was hazy and overcast at dismissal which was just fine for me and car rider duty. Not being blazing and sunny was sure helpful. Hoping it remains that way for the rest of the week.......fingers crossed(one can wish right?)

I still need to get to the store but lil man was NOT in any mood to do that, so I will wait for dh to get home and then run out. I am on laundy load number 3 and making good progress.

All in all, a GOOD Monday.

I survived the weekend

In Daytona Beach........it was actually MUCH better than I had anticipated it would be. Our hotel was nice, right on the beach. We spent a whole lotta time out there as the weather was beautiful.

I will tell you that I KNEW that I enjoyed the Gulf beaches but after a weekend on the Atlantic side, I am more than certain that I enjoy the GULF beaches a whole lot better. It was a nice change, but even after three days there, I could NOT get the whole stop and look for cars/trucks crossing the beach. WEIRD.

The class of people who hang out there were NOT impressive. Of course, strip clubs on every corner and tatoo shops should have been a big clue. I can now say that we have been to and stayed at Daytona Beach, but give me Sanibel anytime.......seriously.

Joshy was absolutely perfect, didn't talk to him or argue with him once which is a refreshing change. he had a blast hanging out with Nanny and Pop Pop.

I had the chance to check out the lss in Daytona and really enjoyed a Page in Time and the owner, Mary Ann. I luv finding stores with unique items to the area and I got a bunch of Daytona scrappy stuff to use with the pics that I took.

The highlight for me was going to the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse yesterday. It was awesome. John and Joshy climbed up the 203 steps to the top(the rest of us opted out of that climb), but we all enjoyed a fabulous lunch afterwards at a cute little beachy rest. We also enjoyed the company of the squirrels that would take food right out of our hands. Fun.

Now with our water issue solved, I have MORE than the usual laundry to do as there is some that wasn't done before we left, not to mention EVERY single ick towel used to mop of water more times than I care to count.
So, unpacking, laundry and more laundry on my agenda before going to school today. Then of course, I MUST get to the grocery store at some point.

I also have car rider duty this week-UGH, but at least it is a tad bit cooler than it has been.

Happy Monday to all.

Good morning

I hadn't realized that it had been so many days since I posted. I was very happy to see last week end. After locking my keys in the car Friday morning, I was DONE. LOL.

Our weekend was not overly exciting, in fact we didnt' do a whole of anything, but sometimes that is better. I tried to rest some as I have been fighting this cold for a week or so now. I don't feel sick, but I am a bit stuffy and coughing every now and again.

Sunday we went to St. Pete and spent some time with Nanny and Pop Pop (Aunt Pat too) and went to the hands on children's museum. Joshy always has fun there. We stopped by Laura's and Joshy got to play for about ten minutes with his friend Alex. They have known each other since they were only a couple of months old. Sooo cute to watch them grow up together.

Yesterday was a good day at school and so far this week is off to a good start. Enjoy your Tuesday. I am hoping to.

doing the happy FRIDAY dance

oh what a week it has been and i am every so thankful that it is OVER. yikes.
between the fall on mon(still bruised and sore), the dr. referral nonsense, my fil moving permanently to FL,aunt sue having to spend the day with uncle bill at the ER(side note, he is MUCH better), one little blonde kid who seems to have a severe case of selective listening and the cherry on top of the ice cream sundae was locking my keys in the car at the pediatrician's office today............. I AM SOOOOOOOOOO ready for this week to be over. I MEAN it.

do you know that I am 41 years old and today was the first time that I have ever locked my keys in the car? What a pain. The pop-a-lock guy tells me that these new cars lock themselves all the time and he is right. If I use the remote to unlock and don't open the door fast enough it does re-lock itself. Joshy has been known to lock me out or be a stinker when I try to get him out of his car seat, but today it was 100% MY FAULT. no one else to blame.
I am pretty consistant with my car keys go immediately into my right pocket, but for some reason, they got laid on the back seat when i got him out today and there they were when we left the drs. office. oh well. hyundai has roadside assistance and the guy was there in 15 minutes, car opened in less than 30 and I wasn't late for school. Best part was little man sat patiently and waited and thanked the guy VERY much. LOL.

One of my former teaching buddies picked Bay Crest out of the county pool today and after being gone for 5 years or so is now back and in my building. So glad she is "home". My former teaching assistant came by for a visit this afternoon which was a NICE surprise. She was a fabulous aide in my PEP class with me for years and she has since retired. What a team we were.

Okay, I am off to try to relax. I NEED it. Have a fantastic weekend. I wish I were going to crop somewhere but I wouldn't even be able to find my pictures this room is SUCH a disaster.

Have a FANTASTIC Friday.

Happy Hump Day

So Tuesday was a MUCH better day than Monday and other than some fighting with my doctor's offices for the correct referral it was a pretty peaceful day. I even got to go to the grocery store, so it was productive.......

This morning went well at my neuro's office. She changed one of my meds and I am hopeful that it will lengthen my fuse which has been entirely too short of late.
The crop is coming along and donations arriving daily. It is fun to go thru all of the packages and see all of the goodies.

A shout out to my good friend MIAMI DAWN and best wishes for a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY.

Jax

Monday UGH

I know it is a full moon and maybe that would account for some of it, but NOT a good day in the neighborhood for me :(

I guess I should be happy that I didn't break anything, but oh boy........

Started with an eyebrow waxing incident(will NOT go into detail on that one), a FALL in my classroom(in front of 21 students) OUCH, not sure if my pride or my bruises hurt more at this point, my name being paged over the intercom THREE times at school today(yea, I am the naught one today-NOT) and did I mention that my back hurts now too? But, i am not going to the walk in clinic for workers comp.

So, i am going to crawl into a hot tub and soak and hope and pray that tommorow is a MUCH better day.

Fun Saturday

I was woken up at the crack of dawn this morning-ugh. Some days I would give my right eyeball to sleep passed 7am-seriously.

We drove over to St. Pete and we dropped John off at his mom's house so he could help her take some paneling off her bedroom walls....this is NOT an easy task, but it seems they accomplished it all. Then Joshy and I headed over for a playdate with Alex and Laura. Laura and I met online when we were both newly pregnant and although we do NOT gtg as often as we should, it is always nice to catch up. The boys have been "friends" since they were only weeks old and now at almost 4, it is so cute to see them interacting together and really playing together. We had great fun although we didn't get to stay long enough.

I dropped Joshy off at Nanny's to help daddy and I headed over to the lss for a super cute class. Stacey is an amazing teacher and very patient, knowing that I can only handle one set of measurements at a time-lol. I completed my entire friends 7 gypsies album minus a few embellies and it is adorable.
the best part was getting to spend time with my scrappy friend Jan-who looks AMAZING after surgery in case any of you were wondering.

Her ds, James, came by to see his mama and he is adorable.........
It was really a lovely afternoon. I walked outta the lss without buying one single thing........and let me tell you, IT WAS PAINFUL, but I showed amazing restraint as I am still playing catch up from the summer.

Had a quick dinner with the St. pete family and we headed back over the bridge. DS is snapping and dh is piddling in the garage.......he is going fishing in the am.

Other than that a really nice day here in Tpa town. Hope to hit the beach tomorrow, maybe.
Have a great Saturday eve-
TTFN

GOod Morning

I had a hard time getting out of bed this morning-still VERY tired from a long, but fantastic weekend down in Bonita Springs.

I left school early at xactly 2:30 and arrived at 5pm, which means that I made pretty good time down there as it was over 160 miles. Although my good friend, Miami Dawn was "supposed" to meet me there at approx. the same time, I had checked into the hotel and gotten gas in my car before she had even left Miami. As many of you know, Miami Dawn is NOT known for being punctual and although her kitty was not in need of being extricated this trip, it seems that her laptop needed a MAJOR tune up.........turns out the connection speed at the hotel kept her from using it nearly as much as in Sebring, but she had to have work done on it. So, she didn't arrive til 8pm, but made a grand entrance anyway.

The crop was Hoe Down themed and let me tell you, those girls down in the Ft. Myers/Bonita area KNOW how to put on a crop. The classes were jam packed with product and techniques-sooo far outta my box, but wayyyyyyy cool. I got to re-connect with ole friends, Ginni and Dee and long story short, we got to see the hottie fire dept. from Bonita Springs at 1 am. (Engine 22:)

I had such a great weekend and hated to depart at 4pm, but I knew that my boys were waiting for me. Joshy had the sniffles before I left and although I had spoken to him over the weekend, the Mommy guilt of sick kiddo was starting to kick in. So, I hit the highway, but not before a quick stop at the QVC outlet and you will NOT believe the bargain I walked outta there with. OMG.

I made it home by 7pm, which included the hour stop at the outlet and it was nice to be home and share my weekend with dh and dinner with them both.

Although I slept better in Bonita than I do at home, I was beat and glad to be back in my own bed-actually with my own pillow. I need to start taking my pillow when I travel, but the bed at the hotel was VERY comfy.

School yesterday went quickly although I wasn't feeling as prepared as I usually feel. This new reading series is throwing a kink in the planning as it is alllll soooo new and there is soooooo much to digest with it.

Moe our ext. lady arrived to finish our spraying of the yard and house. Took the poor woman THREE treatments to get it all done and we haven't seen an ant in a few weeks now. Lemme tell you, our ants were taking over our lives. She says it has been a BAD year. I AGREE.

Off to after hours with ds last night.......I KNEW that was coming as he just could NOT seem to shake this cold with over the counter meds. I really like the dr. we saw and we left with a prescription for antibiotics and samples of cough meds(before it gets croopy). I did make him go get us cough stuff with NO antihistamine in it cause my kid is "one of the 15% who react ". Oy NO ANTIHISTAMINE for my child EVER.............he will literally scale the walls.

He fell asleep in the car before I got him out of the parking lot of the drs office and seems in good spirits today-yeah.

I feel better after having called to complain about the arrogance and disrespectful way that we were spoken to at the Hamtpon Inn by the Manager after our gas"situation-NOT leak" and M. Dawn had already called in with her side of it. I told the girl who I spoke with that the manager clearly needed a refresher course in hospitality, but the gas story will be journaled in my pages I assure you.

Okay, off to go and get ready for school. i could use another cup of coffee too. Have a great Tuesday and HUGE thanx to Janet, Gerri-anne, Barb and everyone who made the crop so much fun.

peace and quiet

that is what I had in my house yesterday after school and it is truly an unusual sound. Aunt Sue had taken joshy with her to Kissimmee to visit her friend and he had a delightful day at Downtown Disney, and behaved fabulously.

DH went to St. Pete on his way home from work in Sarasota and I had about two hours of total silence. AHHHHHHH.
It was very rare and an enjoyable peaceful time.
Amanda stopped by after she worked a few hours at Pottery Barn and we chatted and caught up for a bit. It has been toooooooo long since we just hung out. I got papers graded, scrap stuff packed(okay, so I emptied one bag and threw stuff into another but that is packing right?) regardless, I have scrappy stuff in my car, not sure what it is exactly, but I WILL make do and accomplish at least my Bo Bunny Travel album and perhaps some pre-made vacation pages or something...........I will let ya know.

Now as most of you would know, I am so NOT a hoe down country kinda girl-not that there is anything wrong with being one but there is not a pair of cowboy boots in my closet(nor gingham anything that Amanda could find despite her best efforts) and you will NEVER see these thighs in a pair of Daisy Dukes, so Amanda became frantic to find me something to wear that was appropriate. It was kinda funny. I promised to take pics for her of everyone decked out in their hoe down attire this weekend.

So, I am as good as ready minus the toiletry bag to use this morning and a few hours that I will spend at school. I will boot scoot outta there as close to 2:30 as I possibly can and head south. I am excited to see everyone and just to get away.

I am not taking the puter, but I am sure there will be a few there, MD could not survive w/o her live feed of Big Brother.......so I will check in when I can.

thursday already

how the heck did it get to be thursday already? omg. this week is flying by.
tuesday felt like monday all day and i had to double check to make sure it was really tues and was shot night. lol. don't like to be messed with like that but i was glad to have mon. off.

we went to beef's on tuesday to celebrate the triplets birthday. it was fun and joshy had a great time playing with his Jenn. soooooo cute. i don't think he has a clue that jenn is only 5 years older than he is. lol.

last night was a MARATHON walk ms meeting. LOTS of new people interested in serving on the committee. my wheels are spinning from all of the great ideas, but they will have to take a back seat for a bit while I work on the Crop stuff first.

I leave tomorrow for the crop in Bonita and although I am xcited, I am completely unprepared. I have done nothing to pack clothing, and lets not even talk about my scrap bags still being packed from last month's fried green tomatoes crop. lol. I will grab a bag and some tools and do nothing more than likely, but I do NOT care. It will be a nice group and a nice getaway.

Off to go and get a much needed haircut this morning, then school, then finish laundry, then pack and hopefully head out straight from school tom. at 2:45-ish. Wish I could just take the day off and head down early, but I feel too guilty doing that. Maybe I will see if Charlotte wants to switch morning and afternoon. Regardless, I will be there,.........bout dinner time.

Have a fantastic and productive Thursday,
Jax

relaxing

so far it has been a very nice and relaxing weekend. i have enjoyed doing very little and just hanging out at home.
i did tackle super wal mart yesterday and a STACK and a half of papers to be graded today, but not much of anything else and sometimes that is just necessary.

hope that everyone else has had a nice, relaxing weekend. i am going to attempt to be creative and do something crafty.........fingers are crossed.

The end of Summer

Labor Day weekend historically marks the end of summer and the wearing of white, however, since we now live in Florida, summer NEVER ends and one may wear white all year long.....woo hoo.

For those that still live up North, it means that school is going to begin-yet I have been back in school since Aug. 8th.

I am still trying to get acclimated to a new grade level, new team, new building, new classroom, new reading series and a few new students. The most difficult aspect for me has been my new schedule. It is far from ideal and squeezing everything in just isn't happening yet. However, I am confident that the kinks will get worked out and that I will stop bringing work home with me.(fingers crossed on that one).

Despite my best efforts, I have been suffering from some SERIOUS insomnia lately. I am talking, I have been WIDE awake since 1am. I have watched infomercials on more products than I care to. Did you know that you can try not one, but TWO new flat irons for your hair TOTALLY for free(plus shipping) for 30 days????? One is ceramic thru and thru and has gems inside that keep it hot and the other one uses steam? Why would u want to steam the frizzy hair you are trying to flat iron, I don't know, but this one does it and Carmen Electra swears by the first one.

There are new pieces of exercise equipment that guarantee to give one the perfect abs for another unknown amount of money, vitamin pills that will make you lose every ounce of fat you have and the very best part is:

I will NOT be losing any weight with vitamins, I will stay fat with no new gym equipment AND my curly, kinky, thick hair will STAY curly unless otherwise blown dry by my most amazing former sil the hairdresser :)

I think that I will start taking some of my newer meds in the am as it seems that my sleeping patterns have changed since starting them and even my Ambien isn't working. NO sleep is NOT a good thing for me as I NEED at least 6 hours and I am def. feeling deprived.

Hope that everyone has a great long weekend. I hope to.

Lost and FOund

so, last night I was going thru my email and somehow or other found a tab that I had never seen before. Low and behold, I FOUND ALL MY MISSING EMAILS. yeah.

our Board meeting never happened and Junior Mint took a very LONG nap(of course, he had Daddy up til 1am afterwards but I went to sleep). I got a bunch accomplished including some lesson planning that needed to be done. Our new reading series is daunting, but I am hoping to get the hang of it before school ends. LOL.

Joshy was thrilled to see the airplane take off yesterday............YEAH.

The Board Prez. came by last night to have me sign some checks and informed us of something that blew me away. Ready for this? Let me tell you how VERY lucky I consider myself for many things, but for this for sure: Our fabulous pool company, NOT, Capital Pools and Spas was featured on Channel 8 not too long ago as the owner and president idot of the company, Greg Luce, had closed the business and taken off with MANY people's $$. THANK GOODNESS our pool is complete. I am not sure where that will leave us with NO ONE to take care of any warranty issues, but I am so very thankful. So many of these poor people lost their money, projects incomplete AND now have liens on their homes. JEEZ. The FL laws really do protect the contractors and NOT the homeowners.

What a mess. I researched this company and they had two complaints at the BBB but both were resolved in a timely fashion. Now what for these people?

I can NOT even imagine what I would have done if I had paid what I did and had NO pool. JEEZ.

It looks to be a beautiful day here, although HOT. Have a fantastic Tuesday and be thankful. I know that I sure am.

NIGHTMARE

so, for the last week, I have been reading my inbox FULL of emails(this morning there were 127 of them). I minimize the box and come back to it and POOOOF, the inbox is TOTALLY empty.

I have decided that this is considered a NIGHTMARE ON VISTA Street(thanks Jules) and I am HATING Vista. You see these emails are just GONE. not deleted, not in outbox, not in my docs, GONE.

Sooooooooo, with that said, if there is anything that you would like me to read, PLEASE send it to scrapnfla@hotmail.com cause tad is not being good to me.

PS Miami Dawn can u please resend what you sent on Fri cause I never finished reading it and it is among the missing :(

spoiled rotten

So, I got a phonecall last week from one of the MS Society girls, they were having a continuing education class for PT/OT's this weekend in Orlando and due to the crummy weather going on, several people were forced to cancel.

However, the NMSS had already paid for the rooms and had to guarantee a certain number of them, so they were being offered to the volunteers. I am happy to report, that I was spoiled rotten by them on Friday.

I met dh in Lakeland and dropped off my car and we headed over to O-town. OMG was this hotel beyond fabulous. I was very fortunate as a kiddo to go on my dad's insurance conventions twice a year and we stayed is some magnificent hotels, but the ROSEN SHINGLE CREEK has them all hands down. WOW. Absolutely phenominal. The welcome reception on Friday night was great and dh and I enjoyed a night of being spoiled without anyone tagging along. However, ds spent the night at Aunt Sue's going to Chuck E Cheeses on Fri and Celebration Station on Saturday. So, who was spoiled more?? LOL.

All in all a great evening, super nice day yesterday and then time spent in St. Pete with Nanny.

Not sure what is on the agenda today, but good to be home and ds was so happy we came home.
ps, for those of you who "know", the houseguest that overstays her welcome every year is leaving a WEEK early and flying out tom. morning. Just a few people here are VERY happy!!

shout out

I am hoping that Melanie reads my blog lately as I REALLY need to ask you something. So, Melanie, send me an email please, pretty please.
Jackie
tad64@verizon.net

Go away Fay

So we have been fully prepared for some NASTY weather today and so far(thankfully) not even a raindrop. I sure hope that others are fairing as well. Prayers for everyone.

Yesterday was the student's first day of class. I had 22/24 show up and I knew that the other two were not going to be there. Dismissal and the bus situation were CRAZY and car rider duty that is typically over by 2:35 at the latest, ran til nearly 3:15. At that point I was HOT and completely over it.
It usually gets better by the end of the first week and although I don't officially have that duty this week, we are all asked to come to the cafeteria and assist in any way that we can. FUN TIMES I tell ya.

I was surprised by a nice email when I got home from the walk ms manager. I have been invited to and graciously accepted the invite to a glamorous hotel in the Orlando area this Friday evening. There will be a cocktail reception and I chance to meet other volunteers and chit chat.

I used to adore hanging out with my school friends etc, but since meeting all of the amazing MS peeps, I realize how much I luv to gather with them and share ideas and fundraising stories. Someday I WILL be a professional fundraiser. My former principal used to tell me that all of the time and I do not disagree. I LUV it and especially love doing it for a cause that is so near and dear to me.

So, we are hanging out at home today, basically doing nothing. Johnnie is working from home which leaves us pretty much confined to the upstairs of the house and keeping lil man entertained up here isn't exactly the easiest of all tasks.

SO I am off to try to find something cool we can do up here. Stay safe everyone and hug yours a bit tighter.
Jax

Among the MISSING

I have been completely among the missing for the last week or more and that is all due to going back to work. I have one word to describe the last six weekdays and that is EXHAUSTED.......

Now most people would so, "big woopdiedoo you worked a whopping six days, who cares", but it has been REAL physical work. I am talking moving furniture, unpacking nearly 100 boxes and up and down off of chairs and tables. I am BEAT.
I now totally understand why it is that I am only allowed to work part time and I can't wait til Monday.

We also had Open House last night, which made for a 14 hour day for me. YIKES. Today, we literally got thrown out of the bldg at 5 :30 pm. I don't think that in 18 years of teaching that has ever happened to me. I am typically outta there when I am supposed to be. But, the room is as done as it is gonna be(however, if given the opportunity, I would go in tom, but that wasn't offered to us), planning will get done and Monday will go off without a hitch for us I am sure.

We have 24 on our roster, but I KNOW that they aren't all coming back to our school. We will see who shows up when Monday rolls around. Open House was BUSY. I didn't expect to have so many as I have had 16 of my kiddos before, but they came to meet their new math/science teacher and to check in. It was fun, but I am so paying for it today.

Joshy has had a very hard time this week without me, esp. the last two days or so. Aunt Sue has called a few times and spelled out how much he is missing me. He came to school to visit yesterday, which was super nice.

So, for those of you wondering where I have been, the answer is BAY CREST or bed. LOL.

I am excited for Monday and NOT going in until 11:30am.

Nothing on the agenda for the weekend, but catching up.
Have a good one all.

BLAH

I have been feeling a bit BLAH for the last couple of days and it isn't a good feeling.

Friday was a LONG HOT day back to school. Good to see everyone but somewhat, okay, VERY overwhelming. I am so sick of moving, unpacking and setting up a classroom each and every year. It would be so nice to just begin decorating and not unpack and have to figure out where everything should go first.

Tomorrow should be better as Charlotte and I moved most of the boxes to where we think they should go and then I can start organizing tomorrow. All my stuff made her feel totally overwhelmed I know but it will all come together and the sooner the better.

Joshy appears to be fighting a cold......ugh. Poor lil guy. He gets mopey when he is sick and he is all snuffly.

I am desperately trying to put all my scrap crap away. I am not buying another thing until I use up half of the stuff in here....................or have one year of NON stop cropping time to use it up. Like that is gonna happen.

Crop 4 Hope is getting FULL. woo hoo. Not too many spaces left..........yeah.

Okay, break time is over. Happy Sunday

What time is it?

Well, by the time that I hit PUBLISH POST it will be pretty much 8pm exactly on 08-06-08.

Exactly six years ago right now I was excusing myself from table #64 at Outback Steakhouse on N. Dale Mabry to go to the ladies room and make a phonecall. You see, I was on a blind date(courtesey of an email that I sent in response to a certain someone's personal ad) and I had strict instructions from two of my nearest and dearest friends(Helen and Elissa) that if I went on a blind date with any guys from there, I had to let them know where, when, with whom AND check in precisely ONE HOUR from the beginning of said date.

Thus, the phonecall from the bathroom at 8pm. On Aug. 6th, six years ago, my dh and I were eating our first of a gazillion meals together. Who would have "thunk" it?

You just never know where life is going to take you. So buckle your seatbelt and sit back for the ride, for now matter how bumpy it may be, it is TRULY an experience and so much better to have someone wonderful to share it with.

Happy Anniversary Froggie. We luv you,
The Tadpoles

It's the FINAL Countdown

I can not even begin to tell you that I am sitting here and that song just keeps playing over and over in my brain. THE FINAL COUNTDOWN. How can that even possible? I have recuperated from my weekend away scrapping. I had such a great time and although my body has caught up on some much needed sleep, I am not completely unpacked just yet. I figure there is no great hurry since I won't be scrapping for a bit now anyway.

DS has been WONDERFULLY behaved since I got home, which is very nice. We went to Wal Mart today and I told him that it was a "Grocery buying day and not a Joshy buying day". He "got" it and told Aunt Sue that he couldn't get the Thomas waterfall he saw because it wasn't his shopping day. YEAH. No meltdowns, helped load and unload the cart FULL of nothing but groceries. WOO HOO. Some of you would not completely understand this, but it is a tremendous feat.

We spent a really nice afternoon at Aunt Sue's in the pool. He and Brianna totally got on each other's nerves(for a change) but I got to soak in some sun and just relax. It was very nice.

So, I am hoping for a day trip to the beach tomorrow and then on Thurs. I have my back to school hair cut appt. Friday morning at 7:30 am I must report to school for 6 days of pre-planning, meetings, trainings and unpacking and setting up my room.

It is still unbelievable how quickly this summer has passed and I am happy to see it end and sad at the same time. I am oh so looking forward to being back in 4th grade and I miss my kiddos. I should have 16 out of 17 of the same ones and I have missed the lil buggers a bunch.

I have two pirate-y projects to complete before going back to school so I am going to go and put dinner in the oven and see if I can squeeze one in before dh gets home from work and ds wakes up from his snap.

Have a great Tues night...........two more mornings and back to work as Joshy would say.(that is how he counts days...........by the number of mornings).

another ducky day

so yesterday was a total washout as well. gotta luv living in the SUNSHINE state when it never seems to shine. Dh was working in Sarasota yesterday and it never even rained where he was, yet it didn't seem to stop here. Our front yard is about an inch or more deep in water and the side yard is even worse. Trying to get the mail is a squishy icky mess. LOL.

i finished packing my scrappy stuff and my car is packed. just need to get some clothes thrown into my duffle bag and i am good to go.

ds slept for 13.5 hours last night. WOW. I am guessing he TRULY needed it, I know that I sure did.

have a great weekend. I am off to the Kenilworth today and will check in on Sunday if not before. I can NOT wait for a weekend with the girls.
Jax

wet FEATHERS

that is what I would have if I were a duck and the eight inches or more of rain we have received this month are perfect if you happen to be a duck. However, I am not a duck, I do not like wet, ruffled feathers and I would LUV to actually see the sunshine again BEFORE i go back to school next week.

Okay, I digress, it has been a bleary couple of days around here. The pool is about to overflow, but that has allowed me to get a BUNCH of scrappin organizing going on. I ordered some more of the Pioneer albums that I am using for my Photo Freedom organization and I have filled the six I already have. I am luvin it.

I packed ALL my stuff for the crop this weekend and it is ready to be loaded in the car to go on Friday.
Aunt Sue got thru her colonoscopy this morning just fine and got a good report. YEAH. I did not enjoy driving her there at 6 am........can NOT remember the last time that I was on the road at that hour of the day, but it was well worth it.

I am looking forward to a weekend away and catching up with Helen, Miami Dawn and "Big Amanda". (she joined us for CEC and Target last night too). Joshy luvs his Big Amanda.

Verizon never even showed up yesterday which is not like them. THey are usually pretty good with customer service and were more than apologetic this morning when I finally spoke to them. They promised to be here between 8-10 am on Friday...........hope so.

I hope to run by school tomorrow and drop off another car load of stuff, including the Battle Books I have been attempting to read this summer. I haven't accomplished as many as I had hoped, but that is fine. I will get thru them all in plenty of time.

Well, wish there were something xciting to report, but that is probably a good thing. I have been up since 3am with a scathing sinus headache so I am going to take my meds and crash.

Let's hope for SUNSHINE tomorrow........and Friday. I hate driving long distances on po dunk roads in the rain.

Happy Hump Day Duckies.

I admit that I start and end most of my days reading blogs. I will also admit that it "bothers" me sometimes when I go to a blog I check daily and it hasn't been updated in DAYS, sometimes WEEKS and then there are those that haven't posted since XMAS.

While I am nowhere near as guilty as some, I realized this morning that I hadn't posted since last Thurs so I am going to attempt a catch up. Not too much going on which is why i am guessing that I didnt' get around to posting.

We had a nice weekend. Saturday we went to Jeffrey's 2nd birthday party at the spray park. OMG did the kids have fun. The black clouds held out long enough for them to really enjoy themselves. GR-8 party Lauren. Joshy was thrilled to play with Nina and Julia again. Twice in one week. What a lucky guy.

Saturday evening was amazing. I know this sounds silly coming from a 40+ year old woman but we got tickets to the Backyardigan's Live on Stage. We had fabulous seats in row "D" and the entire row in front of us belonged to the family of the wonderfully talented singer/actress playign the lead role of Uniqua........Okay I am laughing as I type how silly this sounds but for those of you that watch the Backyardigan's, this live show did not disappoint. My son was enthralled the ENTIRE time. He was mesmorized. They had the audience involved and at the end my kid was up and dancing in the aisle.(as were most others).
AWEsome show and I will tell you that it was so nice to see so many families there together.....all different races, colors, ethnicities. VERY well done performance.

Yesterday I had the chore of running errands around town-Wal Mart, Home Depot, Dollar Tree, Michael's, Verizon and some more I am sure. It was kinda nice to have a few hours to myself and the best part of it all was going to Verizon Wireless to have John's phone turned off. YEAH. contract fullfilled........$$ in our pocket.
Now some of you might know how much I HATE my chocolate phone. It is awful but I was not go ing to spend the $139 to upgrade early.
Well, this led to that and so on and so forth and by the time I left Verizon with my new motorola phone(that is PURPLE) i got it FREE and now save 15% off of my portion of the bill. So I walked outta there saving money woo hoo and got the phone service in my name with NO deposit.(which thanx to a certain someone many years ago who shall remain nameless), was a BIG deal for my credit.

So a quick catch up. Going to run over to school this morning and drop off the "stuff" that has been accumulating in the back of my car and then some more work to be done on the crop.
Miami Dawn & I did a whole lotta brainstorming last night on the phone and we will do even more when we meet up on Friday before the crop.

Have a great Monday-no it is NOT an oximoron..........

what a difference

a day makes!!

i truly thought that i would lose what was left of my mind yesterday....juts NOT a good day all around.
but today was like a different child woke up. he listened, followed directions and only went to time out once-lol.

it also helped that we got out of the house. we went over to my former teammate Patty's house. BEAUTIFUL house in Tarpon.......Joshy had so much fun playing with her two girls, Nina and Julia. It is amazing how well the 3 of them play together. Nina is going to start K in a few weeks and Julia is about 6 months younger than Mr. Joshua.

They were NOT happy when it was time for us to go so Patty and I had to schedule another playdate for before school starts just to get them to put the choo choos away. LOL.
My former teammate Lori was there too and after watching 3 rambunctious kidlets run around like crazy, she proclaimed that she was NEVER having children. I could empathize with her. LOL.

I tell you, I am not sure how people who have multiple kiddos so close in age handle it, but I guess they do it pretty well. I for one, am tooooo darn old for that. So, I will be thankful for the one I have and often be even more thankful that he is JUST one. LOL.

Dh got home at a reasonable hour tonite for the first time in a couple of weeks. We actually all got to eat dinner together for a change. I KNOW that he is working hard esp. with his buildings with new office managers and he got thru the audit they had yesterday. So, I am not complaining.

Well, the pool is calling my name so I think I will end here and go jump in and try to relax a bit .

Happy Thursday and hoping to get some scrappy time in SOON.

STAY @ HOME MOMS

can someone PLEASE tell me how you do it????????????????????????????

i am NOT kidding.

when we are home with no company, i feel like I am going to LOSE IT!!! my precious, adorable, ds(not so darling at this very moment) moves from one room to the other creating NON STOP destruction.

i can't seem to get him to clean up anything he does. if i "help" clean/pick up, he will, only to move to the next room and DESTROY it. i just literally threw half of his stuff downstairs in the trash and my heart is racing and I CAN NOT WAIT TO GO BACK TO WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

any and all advice is appreciated. someone, anyone PLEASE................

LISTEN

to what your body is trying to tell you.
when it is nearly 100 degrees outside and you are under the covers feeling "cold" and chilled-when u put on warm footie socks cause your feet feel like frozen popsicles, chances are-YOU ARE GETTING SICK!!

you would think after all these years, I would know that......duh.
so, I woke up this morning not feeling cold anymore, but feeling like i am getting a cold. YEAH.

so, i will try to take it easy today-yeah, that is likely to happen-NOT. back to bed for me..........

lifted from Ginni

I CASED this from Ginni's blog. (CASED by the way is a scrapbooking term that means Copy and Share Everything.)
1. Where is your cell phone? Pocket
2. Your significant other? working
3. Your hair? desp. in need of a GOOD cutting
4. Your mother? birth mother, Ft. Lauderdale, step mother, Hallandale
5. Your father? in my heart. he left me on jan. 27th, 2004
6. Your favorite thing? sunning myself
7. Your dream last night? ???
8. Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? prof. fundraiser
.10. The room you’re in? kitchen
11. Your church? Jewish
12. Your fear? not living to see my son grow up
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? xactly where i am
14. Where were you last night? Aunt Sue's
15. What you’re not? PERFECT
16. Muffins? OK
17. One of your wish list items? Alaskan CRUISE
18. Where you grew up? New Jersey/Miami
19. The last thing you did? finished a layout
20. What are you wearing? t-shirt and ratty jean shorts
21. Your TV? HUGE
22. Your pets? 5 pekingese pups and a tank full of fish
23. Your computer? HP laptop
24. Your life? exhausting
25. Your mood? good
26. Missing someone? Daddy
27. Your car? Tucson 2007
28. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
29. Favorite store? Too many to list
30. Your summer? chaotic, LOTS of family but nearly over
31. Like (love) someone? LOTS
32. Your favorite color? PURPLE
33. Last time you laughed? every day. I live with a cutie patootie 3.5 year old
34. Last time you cried? not sure
I tag MIAMI DAWN!!

LONG time

since I have posted, I know.
That should tell you that something is going on. Internet connection is just fine, as am I and all that I am close to.

It was an incredibly BUSY BUSY long weekend. Cousin Jaime arrived last week to celebrate Aunt Sue's birthday. Step-mom arrived as did my Colorado family. We spent much time at the pool(s)(mine and hers), Adventure Island water park and at the beach. Thankfully the weather gods heard my pleas and we had glorious sunshine the entire time. YEAH.

Colorado(soon to be VA) family left way too early this morning and everyone else left last night.

I am DEAD tired and hoping for a great day of relaxation. I have laundry to do and get to the grocery store at some point. I might just go now while I have a little bit of energy(not very much) and then chill.

Back to school is weighing heavily on my mind and all that it entails. I am actually QUITE excited and the pirates(our theme for the year) are "ARRRGING" in my mind.

Well, the shower is calling me as is a cute lil guy who already misses his cousin, Amanda.

TTFN.

I will start by wishing Miss Linda and Barb a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!
Two great women sharing a birthday........and of course, both are Cancers!! Gotta luv the crabs.

Aunt Sue's birthday is also this week, another amazing woman.

I have finally unpacked and gotten very used to being home again. Like I have said before, "Luv vacations, but luv coming home too".

Our tropical paradise has turned into a rainy swampy mess outside. I do not think that I have ever seen our side yard so saturated. It is awful and dreary and I could def. use about a week of nothing but FL sunshine, so bring it on.

My sister and her youngest arrive tomorrow evening and have ordered some FL weather so that we can go spend time at the beach, AI and the pool. Hope the rain GODS are listening-pretty puhleeze.

I have spent about three days TOTALLY going thru ALL of my random photos laying all over the place and have nearly finished categorizing and organizing and becoming Photo Freedom-ed.
Let me tell you, it feels GOOD!!
Now if I could just get the rest of the scrappy stuff all organized and put away, I would be one happy camper.

I will attempt to do some more tomorrow and then the rest of the weekend will be FULL of family and houseguests. I am thrilled they are coming to visit and so is Joshy. he just luvs "little Amanda" as he calls my niece. They are very cute together and due to their upcoming move, only the "girls" are coming down while the guys stay in Colorado and attempt to begin packing and whatever needs to be done to move across country.

Everything else is going quite well. The MS Crop 4 Hope 08 is promising to be the biggest and best one ever. The response is overwhelming and some of the stuff we have planned is going to knock your socks off, but alas, I can't let it all outta the proverbial bag, just yet. Suffice to say, I am very xcited and it is going to be unreal.

Hope that everyone arrived safely in Chicago for CHA. I am vowing to NOT be too tempted with all of the fabulous finds they report in to us as I have wayyyyyyyy toooo much "stuff" at this point in time and very little budget to play with until I go back to work and have an income again.

Okay, off to figure out what we are going to do for dinner around here. That is one thing I do not like about being home, I admit it.

TTFN,
Scrappin Jax

Home Sweet HOME!!

There is nothing like a good vacation, which we most DEF. just had 9 days of, but to be 100% honest, there is NOTHING like coming home!!

I am a homebody and I luv my home, so sleeping in my own bed last night was a pleasure!! Mind you, after 13 hours on the road, I would have been happy to be sleeping anywhere that wasn't dh's car. LOL.

Seriously, we had a wonderful trip-full of lots of adventure. I promise to share some pics as soon as I am recuperated from it all and unpacked.

Thank GOODNESS for relatives that can be counted on. Aunt Sue called several times the other day to say it was hotter inside my house than it was outside. Now admittedly, I DID turn the thermostat up to 80 degrees and left ceiling fans on-thinking that was fine for the pooches.

Well, it was 98 degrees INSIDE my house, so clearly the a/c was NOT working. Got ahold of the company that I USED to have a service contract with(of course that had xpired), but $333 later our a/c is working again.

Once again, thank goodness for relatives you can count on. I can NOT live w/o air conditioning and Momma Bailey apparently wasn't luving it either.

All is well and I will post more when I have recuperated. We have a few down days before the Colorado clan arrives for a LONG weekend and Aunt Sue's birthday. My summer is flying by.

I NEED to scrap.
Jax

Thursday

Well, I just returned from the funeral of my teaching partner's father. It was very emotional for me(anyone losing their daddy) but it was actually quite a funny celebration of his life. He was apparently quite a character!! I had never met him, but it is clear that he will be terribly missed by many. My heart breaks for Charlotte and I know that the enormity will not hit her until everyone has gone home and Helen and I will surely be there to help her pick up the pieces. We told her hubby to call us when she has hit the bottom and we will continue to check in with her.

I am nearly all packed for our vacation. I have just a few more things to cross off my list and put into the suitcase or travel bag. I am oh so ready to spend a week up in North Carolina doing nothing. Helen just returned from there and says that we will LUV it. I can NOT wait.

So, hope that everyone has a safe and fun 4th of July and a fabulous week that follows. I am bringing my laptop with me, so I will try to post some pics and update during the week. I expect the photo ops will be plentiful.

Until then, enjoy your family and hug those you luv a little tighter.
Jax

MELTDOWN

OMG, in the last three and one half years, I have certainly learned MANY things about being a parent that I never thought I would. The first thing is for certain that I can actually be a good parent. You see, I had SUCH a bad role model that i never thought I would be able to.

However, my child just had a FULL FLEDGE total and COMPLETE meltdown in a store and I could NOT believe that it was MY child doing what I have watched other children do for so many years. I became the person that every single person in the store was saying in their heads or outloud for that matter, "Get that screaming child out of here". Except that I couldn't just scoop him up and go cause I had something at the front register to xchange and of course this all occured in the farthest back corner of the store.

I must say that I was proud of the way that I handled it, but WOW, that was truly a test I never want to have to sit thru again.............

Have a fabulous hump day everyone.

I was so dead tired yesterday, dragging allllll day and cranky from lack of sleep over the weekend. however, i am feeling better so far this morning.

i went to my doc yesterday to get a new rx for cholesterol meds. he gave me a month of samples while i was there which helps the bank acct a bit. i go back for blood draw in a month and hopefully this will bring it down some.

i did empty my car out finally of all my stuff. gosh, there are piles that you can not even imagine in my scrap room right now. i can't like it but really do NOT have time right now to go thru it all and put it in it's proper place.

i failed to mention that when i walked in my house on sunday, i literally said outloud, "am I in the right house?" you see, while the aunt and nanny were spending time with the kiddo on sunday, dh took it upon himself to de-clutterfy(is that a word?) the ENTIRE kitchen..........i mean the bill holder, the impt papers in the files, the bakers rack, you name it and it is GONE from my kitchen.
Now most people would say, wow, what a great guy. and i do NOT disagree. however, just like my father and his piles of crap on his desk that NO ONE was to ever touch, my kitchen desk may have been cluttered, but until sunday, i knew xactly where everything was. I knew where my bloodwork results were, my prescriptions to be filled, my bills to be paid, okay so you get it now.
while he truly was trying to be helpful and i DO appreciate it, I am going to have to spend a great deal of time that I don't truly have at this point trying to re-organize everything he decided needed to be somewhere. I told him I appreciated his efforts and knew what he wanted to accomplish, but I wished he had waited for ME so WE could have re-organized. Now i understand how my dad felt.

Speaking of dad.............yesterday was a HUGE day of emotion about daddy for me. You see, my teaching partner, Charlotte lost her 56 year old father last night when the family made the decision to remove life support. I talked(really just listened) for over 40 minutes yesterday about how she felt and what she should be doing/feeling at that point. She knew in her heart that the decision was going to be what it ended up being. I cried for her, I cried for her family and I cried for myself.
Her dad will not be here to see her 9 month old take his first steps..........but he will see. She believes there is a reason and a purpose for everything(as I do) and she hopes that ultimately she will know the reasoning behind all of this.

I pray for her and her family right now and hope that she realizes just how much she is loved. Mostly, and I know this firsthand, she DOES know how proud her daddy was of her as a person, daughter and now as a mother. It just hurts w/o measure how much losing your daddy can break your heart.
Hugs to you my friend and may your daddy be free of any and all pain now,

Have a good day all and say a prayer for Charlotte please.

good morning,
i returned home just in time to run out to dinner with the family and collapse in bed exhausted from my weekend away.

i had a very nice cropping weekend. i was productive, got to see some long time scrappy friends, make new ones and learned and saw so many new techniques. there were some fabulously talented women in that room. OMG. there were also some very generous ones, donating items to my ms crop 4 hope and asking to make donations in the future. BRING it on :)

amanda and i also did some store hopping and i went to a truly amazing scrap store that i have never been to before. wow. my car is still full and it needs to be unpacked, but i really had a great time and i am thrilled that i decided to go.

now i need to unpack, do laundry and begin packing for our road trip up to the mountains in north carolina for a week.

before i do that, i would like to ask any and all of you who do, to please pray for my teaching partner charlotte and her family. her father was perfectly well on friday, less a scratchy throat and by fri night had a fever of 107 degrees in a coma. the outcome is scary for this man of 56 years old and all prayers will be greatly appreciated.

preparing

I have been trying to perpare for my TWO upcoming trips for the last couple of days. The crappy weather continues, which gives me inside time to do so.

I compiled most of my scrapping stuff and put it back in one locationa & then attempted to pack some page kits etc. I always over pack for crops. I bring way more than I can actually complete, but I am always afraid that if I bring only one or two projects that I will be bored with them or complete them and then what will i do? so, I over pack page kits and 'stuff'. In the middle of doing all of the page kit planning, I got a bright idea, or so I think. I will let you know when the weekend is over and see if I got any of it accomplished.

I have been reading a new book about organizing my photos and to let go of scrapping chronologically. I LUV it and it has been very freeing to work on what I WANT to work on. I used to be so very date oriented, most esp. because I used CM albums which required that. It is nicer for me to have the freedom. I did still feel like I had to scrap last year's pumpkin patch photos before the following Oct when we went back to the Pumpkin Festival (right Dawn and Amanda??) LOL.
I can happily say that I do not care if I ever scrap another Pumpkin Festival and that is okay. (said while repeating it over and over again-ha). So, back to my original thought. I packed up several storage containers and most if not all of my unscrapped photos from the last couple of years.

My hope is that perhaps I can actually get them organized at least by year and/or theme and feel much relaxed about it all. In between, i can scrap a page kit or so.

That is my plan and we shall see. I have the inflatable bed and pump in the car already. I paid some bills and now I just need to finish up some laundry so that i can pack a bag of my clothing and toiletries(after a take a shower).

So, I am off to have a birthday crop weekend and I can really use the time away. Joshy and I are driving each other up a wall literally as we have pretty much been indoors and that isn't any fun at all.

Have a great weekend,
Scrappin' Jax

tired

i woke up at 6am to dh's alarm clock going off for seven minutes. for some unknown reason, it was not quite loud enough for HIM to hear it and turn it off, so I got up, walked over there and hit snooze. being one who is a self defined NON morning person, this was not a good way to start the day. it proceeded to get even worse when snooze was up and it began ringing again. this time, i did NOT hit snooze but hit HIM to turn the blasted thing off. URG.

so now, joshy and i have returned from a $200 shopping trip to super wal-mart(hate that place esp. with a 3 year old that manages to load my cart with stuff i would not even consider purchasing ever) and now i am listening to MORE thunder and rain.

i swear, i am OVER the gloomy rain. actually, i am exhausted and if said 3 year old would cooperate, i would def. take a nap, but hmmm, that isn't likely. so, here i type and gripe about being tired of the gloomy weather. it is seriously beginning to make me down and out and i do NOT like feeling that way.

of course, i have not ONE thing packed for the weekend, although I am in the middle of laundry load number 3, so at least I will have clean clothes. I just can't figure out what I wanna scrap or work on, so I am putting it off. I swear that if the sun is brightly shining the entire weekend, i will be scrappin outside just to see it.

i guess i better go and search for the air matress and wash some sheets/pillow cases and a lite blanket to pack too. i would much rather go take a snap, but, oh well.

rain rain go away, come again some other day PUHLEEZE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

twice in one day

can u believe it? lol.

i have gotta tell ya that iam way sick and tired of this gloomy, rainy weather. i am not complaining cause there are areas in the country that are being much harder hit than we are, but my raincoat and umbrella are working overtime the last couple of weeks. jeez.

okay on to better things. i returned from my neuro appt with better than xpected news. i had been dreading going for my MRI follow up cause I really had a bad feeling about it ........like I said before, it started while waiting nearly two hours for the procedure and I have anxiety for the last ten days.

I am very happy to report that there are NO changes on my current MRI. that was such a HUGE relief. I guess my rebif is doing the job that it is supposed to do. Thank goodness for the chinese hamsters!! If I could say thank you in chinese, i would.

My blood results were not as bad as I expected which was a nice surprise. Now mind you, my cholsesterol and triglycerides are almost double and triple what they should be respectively, but hell, I have been off my meds for like 6 months. So, I have an appt with my PCP on Monday to review my neuro's rec. of going back on something for the cholesterol. Genes are powerful and I apparently am a TINSKY(not that there was any debating that). However there are studies that say statins and interfeurons don't mix well and neuro wants me on something else.

So, she is sending her rec. to my primary care doc and hopefully by this time next week I will be on Zetia or something............who knows.

I FEEL good and I am guessing that should be what I go by and not my nerves or anxiety about unknowns.

All is well, Yes, I have MS, but so what are a few white spots on my brain. Apparently, i can live with em just fine.

Off to make something for dinner. Woo hoo. LIFE IS GOOD.

Mid week already

This week seems to be flying by already. WOW. Hard to believe that it is already Weds. Which means that in exactly two days I will be scrapping and I have not one thing compiled to bring with me......yikes.

I literally have scrappy stuff on the kitchen table, the dining room table, the dining room chairs, and all over the scrap room. I am guessing that I have my work cut out for me to get organized and packed up. Then I also have to pack clothing and air matress/bedding.

I am guessing I will pretty busy the next couple of days doing so. It won't be done this afternoon though, as I have an appt with my neuro. I had my yearly MRI done last week and my appt today is to go over the results.

I am a bit apprehensive, but I am not "going to worry til I really have something to worry about" as my dad always said. Now, I DO have MS, that could be something to worry about, but I don't. I will be sitting on the edge of the examination room table/bed awaiting the possible changes that could/would typically occur from year to year. The meds that I take are only used to slow down the progression of the disease. So fingers, toes and everything else crossed that there are no new lesions and little if any progression please.

One has got to be hopeful that shots that hurt as much as mine do(very painful) surely stop something, right?

I will report in later for anyone who is interested. I also DID get my bloodwork done yesterday-FINALLY. I have walked out of that lab 4 times prior due to the wait. Yesterday, no wait. And although she wont' have my results by my appt. today, I am sure I will get a phonecall telling me when they do arrive to neuro and primary doc.

Ugh too much medical jargon. I need more coffee.

Back from Sebring

just returned from a day trip over to Sebring and a long visit at the Kenilworth.
BIG thanks to Amanda for driving over there with me and to Tenille for helping answer my gazillion questions.

I am so glad that I spent the time and did this as I have a MUCH clearer picture in my mind of the "plan" and the layout. Being an extremely visual person, I NEEDED to do this.

Amanda and I mapped out the whole room and did wonders with the tape measure that I brought.
I now know xactly how I am going to lay out the room with tables, where the vendors will be etc.

So, all in all, despite the NUMEROUS turn arounds for fast food for Miss Amanda, it was a VERY productive day.I am getting so very xcited about this. It is going to be phenominal.

Another year

Well, another year older. I am not certain how xactly I managed to arrive at the ripe old age of 41?! Although I am quite fond of having the opportunity to be another year older(it sure beats the alternative), I just don't know how I got here.

I remember when I was a little girl(okay, I am still "little") , a YOUNG girl, attending the 30th birthday party of my birthmother and as a 6 year old, she was OLD. So how did I manage to hit 41?! and for the most part, not feel old???????????? If anyone has a valid answer, please feel free to jump in here.

My birthday was of the gloomy sorts. My mood tends to be inspired by the weather outside and as much as i know that we NEED rain, it truly does NOT have to rain NON stop for two entier days straight, esp. on the weekend and esp. on my birthday.
So, yesterday was quite uneventful. Despite Johnnie's efforts to do something fun, it really just wasn't a fun day whatsoever.

So, dinner was truly the only highlight for my special day. We went to Kado. I luv that place and dinner was delicious, although not quick. Joshy did well for the first hour and a half, but into the second hour, he was BORED and doing a bit of running around. Now being potty trained completely, he must have visited both bathrooms a dozen times and Stacey will appreciate this, came running out of the men's room at one point naked from the waist down. LOL. I swear that kid will be a nudist someday...........ROTFLMAO. Thank goodness I had given in when getting dressed for dinner and allowed him to wear a shirt(size 5T) that truly was wayyyyy too big on him. However, for these purposes, it worked just fine.
what a trip.

So, all in all, I am now another year older, a bit more tired, but still STUFFED from my amazing dinner. Thanks for all of the warm birthday wishes from everyone. They made me smile on an otherwise gloomy day.

This morning I am off to go have my bloodwork done for my neuro appt on Weds.-trying NOT to think about the MRI report and then off to Sebring for the day.
I am meeting up with Amanda in Brandon and then we are heading over to the Kenilworth to measure out the room and vendor space. Being a very visual person, I NEEEEEED to do this so that I can map it all out both in my head and on paper.

So, the sun is shining. DH has reported for Jury duty as summoned and I am going to drink another cup of coffee, even though my bloodwork is supposed to be "fasting". Fasting to me included coffee and my neuro knows that unless someone will do the blood draw from my bedroom, there is NO way I am going anywhere without some caffeine in my veins. I figure if I always have coffee, then the results should be comparable each time I have it done-every 3 months.

Have a great Monday. Sad to hear of the passing of George Carlin, comedic icon. Gosh, I had NO idea he was 71, but boy has he left his mark on the world.