July-August 2008; Summer fun!

Wow! I have been busy! I did have my nephew come and visit for a week. He and Tyler had a nice time and got along with each other most of the time. I took them to Holbrook to see the dinosaurs and the trains and we did a bunch of other stuff as well. When Michael went home, I went to my 20 year high school reunion. It was nice and I was happy to get to see people I hadn't seen for such a long time. I did end up in the hospital there with pancreatitis, but that is another story. After that I went to the Mayo Clinic for an appointment about that very thing. I have surgery scheduled for October 10th...the day before my birthday. Maybe that will turn out to be a great present if it will stop these attacks. I was in the hospital here after that, but my enzyme levels were not high. I still felt horrible, though. A fun thing I did was take my six kids to Big Surf. That was both fun and horrible at the same time. Mostly, it was fun, but the horrible part was that I had to cram myself into a swimsuit in public. That was not a pretty sight. The good thing about that is that you can always find someone who looks worse than you. I saw a lady wearing a bikini with the whole, "I've had a bunch of kids" look going on. I know that look, because I see it every day. However, I do have the presence of mind to not display such a gross sight to the whole world. Ewwww!!! Need I say more? So...yes, I did try to hang around in close proximity to her. Somehow, only Tyler and I got really sunburned. We all used sunblock, too. Tyler's was pretty bad, but I actually had blisters from mine. Nothing like cultivating the ol' skin cancer. I actually felt sick from my sunburn for a couple of days. I took a few pictures and sometime I will have to figure out how to get them on here. They loved all of the water slides, but I think the wave pool was everyone's favorite part. The waves are big enough that you can actually surf on them or just ride them in to the shore. Zachary (my five year old) was a natural at that. He caught every single wave and rode them all the way to the shore. We had a great time.

Update on the last couple of weeks

Wow...have I been busy since the last time I wrote! I can't believe that school starts in less than a month! I believe that the last time I wrote about something I was actually doing was when I was visiting my parents for a week. I enjoyed that visit quite a bit. On the way home, I met my older brother and his family in Miami. I picked up my two nieces, Sarah and Amanda, so they could come and stay with us for a while. We had a nice time visiting. They stayed until the following Saturday, June 28th. I really enjoyed having them here. I am hoping to have their older brother, Michael, come visit in a couple of weeks. I have enjoyed having my siblings children visit. My younger brother has three children as well, but most of his children are too young to visit on their own yet. Kevin is six, so he would probably be okay for a visit. I do not see Chris and his family very often because they live in Bullhead City. For those of you not familiar with Arizona, it is on the western border of the state. Show Low is on the eastern border of the state. I was wanting to go visit this summer, but it may have to wait until some weekend in the fall.

After my nieces left, we came home and I mostly rested. I wasn't feeling very well. In fact, my pancreas had been hurting some during my nieces' visit. It wasn't horrible or anything, but it was hurting more than usual. I was able to patch the holes in the wall. I was feeling pretty proud of myself for that. I am not exactly the most handy person, but I am slowly learning more things. I started painting the living room, but I have not finished it yet. That job is on hiatus at the moment because we are going to try to see if we can get things ready for a yard sale. I was thinking it would be nice if we could have one this Friday or Saturday, but we may have to do it at another time. I almost forgot to mention that my chest freezer somehow got unplugged. Unfortunately, I did not notice it soon enough and my food was ruined and had to be thrown away. It made me sick to have to throw away hundreds of dollars worth of food. On the bright side, I did get the freezer cleaned out.

This week I have been doing a little mystery shopping. I went to a sub shop first and either today or tomorrow I am doing an oil change shop. I kind of like getting free products or services. I just have to fill out a form when I'm done. Not bad.

Today I need to get some sewing done. I have been telling the kids I would make them new blankets for a while now, but haven't done it. I also need to make some new curtains for the dining room and a shirt/dress. I need to go to the store, the post office, pay a bunch of bills, and get some forms filled out for Alex. I also need to remember to send my money for my high school reunion. Yikes!! How can it be twenty years since I was in high school?!!! Okay, I'm off for now. Who knows when I will write again.

Threes
I got this one from my sister. I don't know that anyone actually reads this, but it will be fun to do. I'm supposed to list: 3 joys, 3 fears, 3 goals, 3 current obsessions/collections, and 3 random surprising facts about myself.

THREE JOYS
1. My children
2. My extended family (including the one in which I was born)
3. My friends

THREE FEARS
1. Okay, I know I'm a dork, but...spiders.
2. losing a child
3. dying alone

THREE GOALS
1. Get my house (the mother of all messes) cleaned
2. lose weight (realistically, that won't be happening due to lack of effort)
3. get some scrapbooking done

THREE CURRENT OBSESSIONS/COLLECTIONS
1. woot.com I always check it at 10:00 p.m. every night, even though I seldom buy it.
2. half price Sonic drinks (not helping with the previous #2)
3. ebay-I can get everything WAY cheaper on there and I do love a deal.

THREE RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS
1. I do not have television. I have A television, but no cable or satellite.
2. I can walk on stilts and am pretty good at it.
3. When I was little, I wanted to be a trapeze artist in a circus. Now, I sometimes feel like I live in a circus which alternates with times I want to run away to the circus, so it's all good. :)

I'm supposed to tag five people... But I won't tag anyone. If you don't complete this, you will have bad luck for fifteen years. All of your hair will fall out, you will get boils, someone will poison your dog and/or cat, the IRS will demand that you pay back the economic stimulus check, you will rip your pants in public, and AOL IS TRACKING THIS AND WILL DEMAND THAT YOU PAY 15 CENTS EVERY TIME YOU DON'T FORWORD IT. I guess that's all for now, but I will let you know if I think of more.

Yay, insomnia!!!! (Thanks, menopause.)

With a title like that, you might think I am slightly nuts. You will notice, however, that during this little time of sleeplessness I have updated my blog some. So...yay insomnia!!!! This is probably when I will write the most. Since the whole hysterectomy thing, this insomnia business has happened more frequently. I think it is because I am getting "old". Yes, I am aware that 37 is not really old, but my body has decided otherwise since there is no uterus or ovaries and I am now one of those menopausal-type (or is it post-menopausal type?) of people. My body is doing all of those "I don't have a uterus anymore" kinds of things. It is actually kind of an adventure. You never know what surprises await you. There's the whole waking up with your pajamas stuck to your sweat-drenched body and then the bipolar body temperature changes. Then there are the unanswered questions of, "How in the world can I still be getting pimples, when the rest of my skin resembles cracked mud?" -or in my case, extremely white, cracked mud. I can't help but notice that it is 4:00 a.m. now and I am not asleep yet. I guess I better go back to bed and see if sleep comes before the light does. So, until the next time, I'm signing off.

My evil nemesis

So, I do have an evil nemesis called pancreatitis. It has been the bane of my existence for the last four years or so now. The first time I was hospitalized with an acute attack (which wasn't very cute at all), I spent about three weeks in the ICU. Now I seem to be more of a chronic pancreatitis-type of person. Here is my little link with information about this stupid and annoying problem:

http://www.medicinenet.com/pancreatitis/article.htm

It is interesting that most cases are caused by alcoholism (I NEVER drink) and the gall bladder acting like a big jerk-organ (I don't have a gall bladder). The bad thing about the pancreas is that it is one of those non-disposable (necessary for life) organs. Otherwise, I would have had somebody hack it out and pitch it in the trash with my uterus and gall bladder a long time ago.

I guess pancreatitis is not a cool thing to have, what with all of the stuff about complications and all. Mostly it bothers me when it is hurting too darn much. I think that if I die from natural causes someday, that it might have something to do with this junk. I don't really care, though. That's one thing about life...none of us are getting out of it alive. Ha-ha. The trick is to see who can stay in it the longest and have the best time. :)

June 23, 2008

Wow! How can it be that I haven't written in here for so long?!!! This is actually my biggest problem...keeping up with all of the junk I start. Let's not even mention my poor kids' scrapbooks. So I am getting it-that this blogging thing is basically your online journal. While it may not be very exciting for others to read, it will be here for when I'm old and senile and don't remember who I am. I don't even know how to add friends or other links. Yikes! I just don't have time to be learning all of this technological stuff.

Since I last wrote, I have spent some time with my extended family. My niece, Erin, came to Show Low for a week to visit. It was fun having her there and I was very happy that she was able to spend time with us so my children can know their cousins a little better. I brought Erin back to the valley last Monday and have been staying at my parents' house ever since then. The four younger boys are at their dad's house for three weeks and Tyler went to stay with my brother & his family during that time. Later on today I am heading home. I will pick up Tyler and my two other nieces, Sarah and Amanda, in Miami. They are going to stay with us for a few days.

You know, I hear people complaining about their family members and I guess I have always kind of just taken it for granted that my family is so wonderful. My parents, brothers, and sister are amazing. I love my sisters and brother in-law. They are kind, thoughtful, and loving people. My nieces and nephews are without a doubt the best ones there are. (I may be a little biased, but that doesn't mean I'm not correct.) I have enjoyed getting to spend time with my family the last couple of weeks.

People talk about heaven and what it is supposed to be like. Honestly, when I am with my family, I think I know how it really is.

Today I am back from a trip to Phoenix for some ELL training. While I was there I was able to visit with my parents a little in the evenings. That was nice. I have wonderful parents and I do not often get to see them so I was happy for the chance to visit them. The trip home was quite the adventure. I could feel myself falling asleep just between Superior (a town that I always refer to as "Inferior") and Miami. That is not a good thing since there are still about two hours of travel time to get home after getting to Miami. I decided that I would just keep driving and if I got too tired, I would pull over and sleep in the van. Then I noticed a bad odor. I wasn't sure where it was coming from, but thought that it might be from the car in front of us. I passed that car, but the smell stayed. I decided that I better stop in Miami and boy did I find a nice surprise. One of the little boys (name not mentioned to save future humiliation) had diarrhea after he had fallen asleep and it was EVERYWHERE. I only had napkins in the car to try to clean it up. He had a similar accident just before leaving Mesa and we had already thrown away his underwear as a result of that. So here it was 10:00(ish) at night, diarrhea everywhere, no running water to clean up the mess (literally), two more hours of travel time, and an exhausted mother with six other kids along. (Did I mention that Erica's friend had come along?) I decided that was the end of our travels for the day and we checked into a Motel 6. I had Tyler help me get his brother out of the van without getting poop on anything else. (He held the shoulders and I held the ankles.) The other kids took stuff necessary for sleeping into the room while I stripped him down from the waist down, threw the shorts away (there was no saving them), and hurriedly got him into the shower. After he was cleaned up, we all went to sleep with him nearest the bathroom. We slept in, which was nice, and arrived home in the early afternoon. I took a nap when I got home and I am still actually tired if you can believe that. Alex and Jared missed cub scout day camp, which was this morning, but there is another day of it tomorrow. Erica and Tyler are doing road shows tonight and tomorrow night so I took them to that this evening and will pick them up later on tonight. This weekend I plan to clean and do laundry. I am hoping to maybe pick up my neice on Monday for a short visit. TTFN. (Tigger quote.)