Misc. stuff

O's school had a fun run this morning.  He won 1st place in the 1st grade division!  He is a great runner.  Now I'm trying to figure out how to use that to my advantage.  Can we train together, logging mother/son time training him to be a great runner and shaving pounds off of mommy's butt?

C said I looked like a homeless woman.  I was wearing my sleep shirt with socks.  I was cold.  I put on sweat pants.  Still cold.  Put on a sweat shirt.  STILL cold.  Put on a stocking hat.  Slept dressed like this all night long.  Very comfy, toasty warm.  Screw fashion.

Spring cleaning the house tonight for our Stupid Bowl party tomorrow.  I actually vacuumed the window blinds.  I plan to polish my stainless steel fridge tomorrow.  Been up since 6 am.  Am going to bed.  Goodnight all!

January Birthdays

Just wanted to take the time to honor those friends and family who have January birthdays!  Between the post-holiday food coma, C's birthday cake and 2 different batches of Magic Cookie Bars  for two different occasions, I chose not to make a birthday cake/dessert.  But know that you were all thought of just as much when we were eating the other stuff.  We sang too.

Hope you all had/have a wonderful birthday!

Craig M

Mom/Nana/Trudy J

Karen N

Grandma J

cousin Sydney V

cousin Tom J

cousin-in-law JoLyn J

cousin Charlie M

Uncle Ron J

Uncle Jim S

Uncle Jim M

cousin Ricky P

Marisa M

Nina R

Todd W

Eric R

Love to you all!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Just wanted to wish my wonderful mom the happiest of birthdays.  You are and have always been a great inspiration.  Thank you for being my mom.  I love you to pieces!!

Thank You

There are two posts on other blogs this week that I wanted to share.  

Thanks LW for this reminder of NASA's fallen heroes.

Thanks to Da Momma for helping me get past my feeling of inadequacy for being unable to breast feed my kids for more than a few months.  

Have a great week everyone.

25 Random Things About Me

I was tagged twice in the same day on facebook by 2 different friends to make a list of 25 random things about me.  They gave their list and tagged 25 friends to do the same so we may, perhaps, learn something new about our friends.  I thought it sounded like something fun to duplicate on my blog so here goes nothing.

25 Random Things About Me

1.  I HATE WalMart

2.  I regret that I shop at Sam's Club (same company as WalMart) because the closest Costco is 22 miles away from my house.

3.  Some days I almost drive the 22 miles to the other side of downtown Houston just because I really hate WalMart that much.

4.  I try my hardest to be environmentally friendly.  I recycle everything I possibly can, I drive a Prius, I use a Sigg water bottle, I use cloth grocery bags, I used cloth diapers on my oldest child...  I really work hard to tread lightly on this earth.

5.  Contradictory to #4, I am a HUGE fan of zip-lock bags.

6.  I am afraid of loud noises.

7.  I have near panic attacks in crowded spaces.

8.  Toilet paper MUST feed from the top of the roll.  (And don't come over here and change all of the toilet paper rolls in the house, PC!!)

9.  My children are the biggest challenge I've ever experienced.

10.  I would love to become a vegetarian.

11.  However, I believe I would die if I were restricted from eating a good burger or a steak.

12.  It is hard for me to ask for help.  

13.  I slept naked for 7 years before the kids came along.

14.  I've visited France 4 times.

15.  And I'd go back again tomorrow and live there for a few years if I could.

16.  I've also visited London and a small area in Germany.

17.  I would love to visit Ireland, Austria, Italy and Australia/New Zealand.

18.  I prefer the mountains to the beach.

19.  I prefer the cold to the heat.

20.  I always wanted to be a doctor.  However, I knew I couldn't handle having people die on me and abandoned that idea.  Well, that and I could never pass the science classes.    

21.  I have huge mood swings and I will cry at the drop of a hat.

22.  My favorite thing to do to relax is to watch t.v.

23.  I've gone skinny dipping in a high mountain lake in August when there was ice still on the lake.  Yep, it was cold.

24.  Grand Teton National Park is the most beautiful place on the face of the earth if you ask me.

25.  I'm an insomniac.  That explains #21.  Well that plus those evil things called hormones.

The Gods Granted My Wish

There is a store in the mall called Club Libby Lu.  It is supposed to be a store for 'tweens and has all of this girly, fu-fu stuff in it like lotions and glitter stuff.  Young girls have parties there and get makeovers.  90% of every birthday party I've seen when going by the store ends with a bunch of 8 year old hookers.  I swear these girls have their hair all done up and makeup on like a 20 something woman.  It gives me the creeps.

Then I gave birth to a girly-girl.  I anticipated that within 10 years of her birth we would be arguing about whether or not she would be allowed to either have her birthday party there or attend a birthday party there.  To be fair, I've seen one or two parties over the years where the girls come out looking cute and age appropriate.  They have cool hairdos, lots of glitter and maybe lip gloss.  Like I said, it just gives me the creeps and I didn't want M ever going there.

We were in the mall on Monday and walked by the store.  IT IS CLOSED!!  WAHOOOOOO!!!  I checked online and they closed all of their stores.  It is a small victory for mom but a terribly important one.  Thanks be to the Gods of mothers with 'tween girls.  

I've taught my kids the "F word"

I've tried to parent with the idea that I never want my kids to hesitate to talk to me about anything.  I hope to be able to speak without hesitation to them if they ask me a question about what shoes to wear or if they ask me about sex.  I don't want them to see any flicker of uncertainty in my eye nor do I want to display any discomfort about any topic.

With that in mind, O, M and I were watching the Biggest Loser from this past week.  I had already seen it but O has become quite a fan so I saved the show on the DVR so he could see it too.  I knew in advance that Bob, the trainer, was going to have a bit of a melt down and use some bad language.  In teaching my kids about bad language, I try not to make a big deal out of it.  I use bad language.  Not to an extreme.  But I have cussed in front of the kids.  I feel like if I make it some sort of forbidden thing that they will gravitate towards it as they grow up.  So, if they use bad language we have a chat about how some people see those words as "bad" and they need to be careful about where they use those words and who they say them to.  So far it isn't a huge deal for them.  O is now getting to that concrete stage of development where the rules are the rules period and he is the first to point out if anyone breaks them.

So, as we are watching the show and Bob is screaming at one of the contestants, O says, "Oh, I know what he said.  He said shoot."  I kind of laugh and neither confirm or deny his assumption.  Then he realizes that Bob probably really didn't say shoot.  So he starts pressing me, "what word did he say, mom?"

What was I supposed to do?  So we had a chat about the F word.  How it is a really bad word and the kids need to be careful not to say it.  Then he wants to know what it means and we touch on how it is slang for sex but we also use it in other ways.  The whole time I'm thinking, "how do I get into these conversations with my 6 and 3 year old kids?"  I feel like I explained things to their satisfaction and at their level.  I asked if they had any questions.  We also talked about alternative words to use.  I told them that a lot of people use the word "frick or freak" instead.  He giggled and laughed as we watched Bob have his fit and we all knew what he was saying even though they beeped it out.  

I think it was a good bonding experience for us.  I also took the opportunity to remind them that they can always come and ask me about anything.

Now I wonder if frick and freak will become a regular part of their vocabulary!  I can't wait.

Happy Eyes

Yesterday I had my annual eye exam.  I have had an annual eye exam every year for the nearly 30 years that I've worn contact lenses.  It is just the norm for me.  At my appointment last year, it was revealed that I might be developing signs of glaucoma. My intraocular pressures were high which is the first indication.  This disease of the optic nerve almost always leads to blindness and, while it can be treated, is not curable.  I was devastated upon hearing the news.  At a young age, I had decided that losing my sight would be the hardest thing for me to cope with and I would choose to lose my hearing, a limb...anything else instead.

So, after discussing options with my eye doctor we decided to take a "wait and see" approach.  Her thought was that my symptoms weren't dramatic enough to begin medication, especially at my age, knowing that I would be on medication for the rest of my life in order to try to control the damage.  We planned for a 6 month follow up to do another visual field test.  The visual field test basically looks for blind spots in the visual field.  The visual field test that I had done in January of last year showed some possible abnormalities but nothing major.

I decided to put my faith in acupuncture and Oriental Medicine to the test.  I quizzed my instructors and I set up appointments with several interns who worked really hard to research acupuncture, chinese herbs and eye diseases.  We all worked hard together for 6 months to get my intraocular pressure under control.  Without any specific symptoms of the disease it was difficult to tell what, if anything, was working to my advantage.

I went to my 6 month follow up with much hope.  The tech did the test for my intraocular pressures and they were down!  Back to high normal.  Then she did the vision field test.  I had to wait to see the doc to get those results though and when she looked at them, the results were confusing.  Looking back, I believe that the tech switched my eyes when she input the info because the results came back opposite to the results 6 months previous.  The doc was baffled.  So, we redid the test and it came back correct--well, the same as it had 6 months before.

So, in the middle of all of this testing I was excited to tell my doc that I had been using acupuncture and chinese herbs to try to bring down my intraocular pressures.  She immediately was alarmed and wanted to know what herbs I was taking.  I told her that I could get her a list but that she would probably have to look them up.  She didn't seem to be listening.  In fact, she actually said, "the only herb that I know for glaucoma is pot."  I was really shocked that she said that and that she was so closed minded--she wasn't even listening to what I said.  The rest of the appointment went downhill from there.  She was focused on the fact that I was possibly "over supplementing" according to her.  She said she had a friend who is a rheumatologist and she treats so many people who take herbs and medicines from other countries.  While I could appreciate that that was her experience I was just uncomfortable that she really didn't seem to know what to do.  We agreed that we would wait another 6 months and see where things were then.

In the fall I began thinking about changing doctors.  I wanted to find a glaucoma specialist and I also wanted to find someone who was more open minded about alternative treatments.  I found a doc that I emailed and she seemed great.  So, when it came time for my annual exam (ie, I was out of my disposable contact lenses!) I decided I would go see the new doc.

Immediately I saw the difference.  The office was bigger, there was more staff, everyone was kind, helpful, cheerful.  Not that the other office was negative or rude.  It was just a different feeling being in the new office.  The testing that they do just as routine was much more thorough and I really felt well taken care of.  More importantly, I felt listened to.  That means everything to me.

So, to make a really long story short, after all of the tests and conversations, the new doc was comfortable saying that she sees absolutely no sign at all of symptoms of glaucoma!!  In fact, if she did not know my history she would not suspect a thing.  YAY!!!  I am going back next week once in the morning and once late in the day just to make sure that my pressures are within normal range and that my new contacts are working out fine.  I feel so much better.

Her only suggestions for me are to take a supplement with luteine and make sure I wear sun glasses with 100% UV protection.  This supplement has shown to help with vision problems especially those related to macular degeneration.  Macular degeneration (another eye disease that causes blindness) runs in my family.  That, in addition to the fact that I have blue eyes and fair skin, puts me in the high risk category for macular degeneration.  The luteine supplement along with taking care to wear sun glasses and continuing my yearly eye exams will help as I age.  

Over the past year I've also come to terms with the fact that I may eventually have serious vision problems.  I've discovered that I'm pretty sure that I would be able to deal with such a situation.  So, over all,  the news and the results are more than I could have hoped for.

First Diss by O and the long, slightly related story

On Wednesdays, O is set up to take a kid transportation service from school to the childcare place we use since I'm in class when he gets out of school.  I drop M off at childcare on my way to school, O joins her after he gets out of school and C picks them up when he gets off work.  Understandably there are several people who need to know that O needs to do this since it is not a regular/daily thing:  I remind O before he gets on the bus in the morning, I remind the bus driver that he won't/shouldn't be on the bus after school, I put a note in his folder to remind his teacher, I tell the childcare people when I drop M off to expect him after school and I pay the transportation people for their service.  You'd think that would cover it, right?

Yesterday I forgot to put the note in O's folder.  I decided that I would surprise him by joining him for lunch (M and I do that a few times a month) and, while at school, pass the note along to his teacher.  Problem solved.  We arrived a few minutes late so his class was already seated at their assigned table.  I ran into his teacher in the cafeteria though so I gave her the note and said that this would be the norm for the next 3 months or so.  She appreciated the notification and said she would make a note for herself just in case I forgot to send a note.  Perfect.  I can depend on her even if I mess up.

M and I head over to O at the table and he is enjoying lunch with his friends.  The kids each have assigned seats so if parents and siblings come for lunch then we go out of the cafeteria to eat in the common area where they have tables provided.  O was very excited to see us but made no move to collect his lunch to move to the common area.  I asked if he wanted to come eat with us.  He said, "but Robbie is going to tell us a funny story!  Can you sit here with me?"  I told him that there was no room for us and we'd have to go out into the common area.  He suggested that we could just stand there while he ate with his friends.  I told him that he didn't have to eat lunch with us if he preferred to eat with his friends and he said ok.  So, M and I left.  At first I was ok with it because I had achieved my goal of getting the note to his teacher.  Plus since I hadn't taken the time to pack a lunch, I was not really looking forward to a school cafeteria lunch!  Then, as I was driving away, I found myself getting a little weepy.  I realized that he just chose his friends over me.  It makes me infinitely happy that he has good friends.  I also knew that this day was coming.  But I was still a little sad that it had finally come to pass.

I went on with my day without thinking much more about it.  I got to school and had only a fleeting thought during the class break to check for messages.  However, I got distracted as I chatted with fellow students about a group project that was just assigned so I didn't check messages as I had planned.  Once class was back in session I remembered to check my phone and saw that I had had 5 missed calls.  I walk out of class to check my messages finding 3 of them:  one from the school district transportation service stating that O had mistakenly gotten on the bus and was at the bus stop, please call them; another from a great neighbor who's son also rides the bus, she was trying to help correct the situation; and the third message was a reminder call for my dr. appointment this morning!  I rarely get phone calls and they all seem to happen at the same time!

This had all taken place roughly 45 minutes before.  First, I'm concerned wondering where my son is.  Then I'm pissed because, for crying out loud, what do I have to do to get him where he needs to be when I can't be there??!!  Finally, I'm wondering, who am I supposed to call?  The school district transportation people?  The school?  The neighbor?  The childcare place?  The kid transportation service?  S*#T!!!  AND I'm missing class to deal with this!!!  Grrrrrrrrrrr...

So, I call the neighbor.  Not sure why.  She was the one furthest removed from the situation so I couldn't blow up at her.  I guess that is why I called her first.  Amazingly, she knew what was going on!  The bus driver had taken O back to school and the kid transportation van met her there to pick him up and take him to childcare.  I thanked her profusely and she assured me she had had a similar experience with her son this year.  I calmed down then and called the childcare place to confirm that he was actually there.  He was present and accounted for so I headed back to class.

The exact same thing happened once last spring with the same results.  I guess if it happens again I know it will get taken care of.  What a pain in the butt.  Seriously, I have enough stress without these experiences!

Birthday Boy

Wednesday was C's 38th b-day.  He had a tough day at work so the kids and I tried to put nice things for him at the beginning and end of his day.

The kids made him cards and gave them to him before he left for work.

Then his parents sent him a care package of  Zweigle's White Hots  (Wikipedia Explanation here) along with the required Zweigle's Hat.  I searched out a Carvel Ice Cream Cake  which is also a birthday staple of his childhood.  Along with wonderful cards from many family and friends I think he had a nice day.   

WHEW! I passed!

I'm doing the happy dance.  I passed the two classes that I was worried about after I took finals before Christmas!  Physiology=C  and Herbology 2=B!!!!  They must have REALLY had to curve it for me to get those grades!  That's all I have to say.  Acu 2 was an A like I expected.  Thank the gods of multiple choice finals.

Classes started back up for me this past Weds. (1/7).  Unfortunately they canceled one of my classes (Herbology 3) because only 4 people signed up for it.  But they added a class that I need to take in order to continue on with the Western Medicine part of my degree.  Histology.  Wow.  My least favorite part of physiology (cells and tissue) and now I get to take a class that focuses entirely on cells and tissues.  Someone shoot me now.  But, it is a prerequisite for pathology and microbiology and on up so I needed to take it now.  And I thought I was a big grouch LAST semester!  But, I do get a break from the herbs which should give me plenty of time to review (yeah, right!  Like THAT will happen).

To make a long story short, my schedule went from going 3 nights a week to classes to just 2 nights a week:  Tuesdays 5-9p and Wednesdays 230-1010pm.  Wednesdays are going to kill me so I still plan on taking Thursdays to recuperate.  Tuesdays are my acupuncture classes:  Acu 3=learning point locations beyond the 14 channels and Scalp Acupuncture=just what it sounds like) while Wednesdays are Western Medicine focused (Counseling and Patient Communication, Psychology and Histology).  I have hope I will make it through this semester without too much pain.  15 weeks and counting...

The Beasties

So the animals made the pet sitter (CL) work very hard for his money while we were out of town.  Brody was pretty destructive but we expected it.  I think that CL felt bad about it but he went above and beyond to try to stop him.  The dog mostly just peed on the carpet and had to be exiled from 3/4 of the house.  Luckily most of the downstairs is tile so CL was able to contain him there.  He chewed up a couple of stuffed animals but we made sure that the bulk of the kids' toys were closed off in their bedrooms before we left.  The one thing that he damaged that I could probably fix ( IF I knew how to sew!!)  is my Garfield.  I've had the thing for nearly 25 years.  I guess Brody didn't like the little faces in Garfield's slippers:

He just worked them out yet left them all intact.  Crazy pooch.  It cracks me up.

Before we left we got a tip from C's sister, CF, about these dog toys made from fire hose.  According to C, he said that CF's dogs are big chewers yet it took them several years to break through these things.  Brody had 2 for roughly 3 weeks.  This is what is left of the first one:

The second one succumbed to the same fate just last night.  

Rusty the cat also gave CL a scare.  He somehow acquired an infection in his left eye.  It was very swollen and CL had to take him to the vet the day before we returned.  Jetta, the other cat, was the only one who didn't cause any problems.

Dang critters!  It is a very good thing they are all so lovable.  It saves their hides time and time again.

Another Season!!

I'm so excited!  I didn't have to wait long (only 3 weeks) for the next season of the Biggest Loser!  YAY!  I love that show.  It is inspirational.  I love the twist they are pulling right off the bat where nearly half of the players have to go home and lose weight on their own for 30 days.  Awesome. 

Adventures in airline travel

It feels like I have several topics to catch up on from the past 2 weeks so I'm trying to break them down into manageable short stories instead of one big novel!  So, with that in mind, here are our stories from our flights to and from Rochester.

As I may have mentioned before in previous posts, we traveled from Houston to Rochester, NY ON Christmas day.  The airports weren't jam-packed with people but they weren't exactly quiet either.  Thanks to Delta and their itinerary change, we had to bounce twice to get there instead of the usual once.  We bounced through Atlanta then Cincinnati before hitting Rochester 2 hours later than what we had originally planned.  We knew about this change well ahead of time but we were still very annoyed by it.  We had some compensation though when we flew from Houston to Atlanta with no incident, took off from Atlanta with no problems and were treated to an incredible view of a Christmas sunset that lasted for a really long time.  It went from brilliant yellow to bright orange to blood red over about 30-45 minutes time.  I just now am asking myself why one of us didn't grab the camera and try to get a photo of it.  We were just too tired I guess.  

Our landing in Cincinnati was a bit out of the ordinary for us.  The female pilot brought us in rather quickly with many turns and steep drops.  Even the flight attendant who was hanging out just behind me made the comment, "wow, this is some crazy flying tonight!"  Our only disappointments for the day were that Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream was closed in Atlanta and many of the food court restaurants were closed or nearly out of food when we had our short layover in Cinci.  Besides that, we landed on time, received our luggage without having to wait forever and headed out into the snow!

Our return to Houston was much more exciting.  First, we started the day out by taking off nearly an hour late from Rochester.  It seems they had to fill the plane with extra fuel and in doing so caused the plane to be overweight.  They needed 10--that's TEN--people to give up their seats so that they would be within the weight restrictions of the FAA.  I had never come up against that one before!  Ten people over weight??  Seriously??  That must be 1500-2000 pounds!  I guess between the number of kids (obviously not weighing what an adult weighs) and 7-8 passengers who gave up their seats we were back in compliance and we took off for Atlanta after getting de-iced.

Atlanta was incredibly foggy.  Thank goodness for flying by instruments because that was the only way we were landing there.  Visibility was poor and the runway had just barely popped into view about 2-3 seconds before we landed!  It was still foggy when we took off but it didn't seem to slow us down any.  Between Atlanta and Houston we hit some bad turbulence.  Fortunately C and the kids were all fast asleep and they didn't even stir.  I was fine as it was more of a rough dirt road kind of a bounce instead of those quick falls and climbs that get your guts all churned up.  The flight attendants had to sit in their jump seats for about 20-30 minutes but then things seemed to calm down.  As we were landing, however, we were getting hit by some pretty strong cross winds and the pilot was having one heck of a time keeping the plane level.  I was thinking to myself "I will be so impressed if he lands this thing."  Just as the image came to mind of that famous 1989 plane crash footage from Iowa where the landing plane goes cartwheeling down the runway in a ball of flames (I couldn't find footage on the internet but I've seen it numerous times on t.v. programs)...  Now where was I?  

Oh, yes, as that image came to mind roughly 150 feet above the runway at Hobby Airport, the pilot revved up the engines, brought up the landing gear and we took off again without touching down.  I looked back at C and said, "I guess we got waved off!"  It took a good 5 minutes before the Captain came on and said that we were doing a come around or something like that.  The winds were hitting us at 20 knots and they weren't comfortable landing so, in the interest of safety blah, blah, blah...  I was perfectly happy with with their decision.  So, as we did our 15 minute tour of the city we did a little rockin' and rollin'.  Again, it wasn't consistent or extreme enough to get my guts churning so I didn't think much about it.  M started crying complaining that she really wanted to get off the plane.  I was trying to calm her down and encouraged her to look out the window to see that we were indeed coming in for another attempt at landing.  About 200 feet above the runway, she threw up.  I couldn't get a barf bag fast enough.  She was a mess, the seat was a mess, I was gagging.  It wasn't pretty.

But, we managed to get cleaned up, get home and, needless to say, momma was DONE.  The kids went off to AB's to play while C and I showered and got some food.  Then we both just crashed on the couch.  

We are always so happy to see our far away family and friends but it is so very nice to come back home.  And that is my story about our travels.  

Quiz

These two handsome young men are in first grade.  Can you tell which one is O and which one is C?  Ok, so they aren't identical but it is fun to see them side by side.  Thanks to Grandma (and her amazing gift for storing photos so she knows right where to go in her house to find whatever one she needs at the moment) we got the chance to compare!