Oldies but Goodies

Monday's Meme

Remember back in the days....

1. What were your favorite cartoons when you were a kid?
Loo.ney Toons, Smu.rfs, The Flin.tstones, and The Je.tsons

2. What was your favorite music? Your fave singers?
I grew up on all the music my folks collected so it was very eclectic… some of my fave’s in the late 70’s/early 80’s were Flee.twood Mac, Car.ly Sim.on, Ala.bama, and Ken.ny Rog.ers.

3. Who was your best friend growing up?
I don’t know that I had any single best friend as there was a group of us who went from day care to graduating high school together. I was also really close with one of my cousins, who was practically like another brother growing up.

4. Any embarrassing fashion fads? Example: funky clothes, wild hair etc....
Junior high to early high school… the rolled and tucked pant bottoms, men’s funky print shirts, those sweaters with huge blocks of bright colors all over, colored socks to match the shirt, and the female mullet hair-do. At one time, I even wore a dog collar as a bracelet.

5. What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you become that?
I thought I wanted to be a pediatric nurse or elementary school teacher. No, I didn’t become either of those and it’s probably a good thing. If I had to be either one of those while dealing with infertility, I’d probably have been committed to the insane asylum by now.

6. Are you still a kid at heart?
About 50% of the time, yes I am. The world is a much brighter and happier place when you can find the novelty in basic everyday things.

Meme courtesy of Randomness.

Lost in Chaos

Wow. I do believe this is the longest absence I've had from blogging. And here I swore to be better this month... and the month is almost over. Needless to say, life has been extremely chaotic of late.

Gil has been looking for a new job since Christmas, something more in line with his ethical business beliefs and personal morals. Positions for his level of education and experience are difficult to come by, as are most any type of job in this economy. Almost 3 weeks ago, Gil's boss from a short-lived job he had last summer called him out of the blue, said he knew he was looking for work and to come talk with him. On the spot, Gil was offered a position that was too good to pass up and it means we will be moving closer to my family. We are sad to be leaving the home, family and friends we have here, but are excited for this next leg of our journey.

(** As is my way, I will give no specific identifying information on my blog about names or locations and I would appreciate anyone leaving comments who know us and where we're moving to please not write about it. Thank you. **)

I had to talk with my own boss about my position and I gratefully and thankfully can say that they are working with me to allow me to keep my job and work remotely from home. I am very blessed and do not take this for granted.

Gil started training with his new job this week and in the midst of that, we began to try and find realtors to list with for the sale of our home. We met with two on Tuesday and were supposed to meet with another last night and another on Monday before making our choice. Again, through the grace of God and His expeditious ways, the cousin of one of my co-workers was looking seriously to buy and we had them over last night to look at the house. We made a buy-sell deal on the spot so... we've already sold our house! Before we even had a chance to list it! Yay!

Now we're working with a separate realtor where we're moving to find a small piece of land on which to build our house! Yes, we're planning to build! We drew our plans ourself and are so excited to be able to see it come to fruition. We have another crazy, busy year ahead of us. Then, hopefully, we will start to feel more settled into our lives and can start living without constant change.

The biggest downside to all this is that it will put our adoption(s) on hold. They won't place with us if we're homeless, which is essentially what we'll be until our new home is finished enough to pass inspections. I'm still on track, however, for having my lap surgery to see if I have endometriosis or not and I'm still requesting a referral to the new REI starting in July. So we're not totally delaying everything in trying to grow our family.

And with that, I'm off to finish packing up my books. I may be lucky to have only 2 boxes left... lots and lots of books. Then it's off to all the pictures. Whew!

First Last Now

Monday's Meme (on Tuesday... oops!)

I did fill this out yesterday on Monday... apparently, I just forgot to hit "publish"! Sorry 'bout that. Puts my whole week off kilter.

First Last Now

First

* First job: sales clerk at a Trading Post and Native American Museum
* First funeral: I don’t really remember but it was one of my great-grandmas.
* First pet: a puppy named Trouble, though I only know this from pictures. I was just a little tyke.
* First piercing: My ears when I was 12.
* First tattoo: a Celtic knot band around my right ankle about 10 years ago.
* First credit card: a mastercard probably around 10 years ago.
* First kiss: first real kiss when I was in 9th grade.
* First enemy: I don’t have enemies but it would probably be my high school boyfriend’s now-wife. I have no real problem with her, and I loved her sister, but she just doesn’t like me for some reason.

Last

* Last car ride: this morning as I drove to have breakfast with my parents before they left to go home.
* Last kiss: this morning after breakfast when I said “see you later” to my hubby.
* Last movie watched: We watched “Ghos.trider” last night with the ‘rents.
* Last beverage drank: coffee with hazelnut creamer at breakfast.
* Last food consumed: eggs, toast, and bacon.
* Last phone call: just a few minutes ago to discuss lunch plans with Gil.
* Last time showered: this morning.
* Last CD played: AC/DC’s Stiff Upper Lip.
* Last website visited: face.book

Now

* Siblings: one brother
* Hair color: auburn
* Eye color: green
* Shoe size: 9
* Height: 5’9”
* Wearing: jeans, black t-shirt, harley cap, and flip-flops
* Drinking: nada at the moment; soon to get a glass of water
* Thinking about: how sweet my little devil Karma can be as she’s curled up on the couch next to me.
* Listening to: the tv… silly soaps are on in the middle of a weekday. Who'd a-thunk?

Meme courtesy of The Daily Meme.

He is Risen!

Happy and Blessed Easter to you!


Friday night, we all shared in Mom's daily penance by partaking in Stations of the Cross with her. We watched The Passion, which is a true penance. It's a film that realistically captures all Christ went through for us. It's difficult to watch someone undergo such treatment but necessary to remember the depth of His love for us.

Last night, we went to Easter Vigil Mass, celebrated the true start of Easter. I love the Service of Light, where we start in the darkness... a dark and empty tomb... the Paschal candle is lit from a new fire outside the church and the light is passed person to person, candle to candle, until the whole church is lit. The simple drama of lighting candles speaks of how the Church overcomes a world darkened by sin with the light of Christ, until the day when we enter that whole new level when all of the lights will come on, that is, in the brightness of eternity.


The second part of the Vigil is the Liturgy of the Word, done by candlelight only. We had 4 readings from the Old Testament and 1 from the New, each followed by a reflective song. The readings chosen for this Mass are from Genesis, Exodus, Isaiah, Ezekial, and Romans... chosen specifically to help us meditate on God's wondrous works for His people from the very dawn of time. The lights then come one and we sing the Gloria and Alleluia.

Then there are the baptisms and confirmations, a beautiful time where the waters are blessed and new members are brought into the Church. It's a joyful celebration to be a part of.

The Liturgy of the Eucharist brings back to the forefront the whole meaning of celebrating this Last Supper, so newly refreshed in our memories with what Christ has given us in Him.

It's a long service - we didn't get home until close to midnight - but to me, it captures Easter so much more than Sunday morning Mass. I loved being able to celebrate it with my parents last night.

So today... I hope you have a happy and blessed Easter! Celebrate - He is Risen! Alleluia, alleluia!

New Bumper

And the upgrades begin...

First to arrive and be installed: the front bumper. Here's what the front of my Jeep looked like last week:

Here's Gil taking off the stock (plastic) bumper this past Sunday...

And bolting on the new steel Ran.cho bumper.

Here it is, tow hooks and everything . However, the tow hooks have since been removed and painted black.

I didn't think I would, but I really like that the whole tire is exposed. We will have to get the fog lights re-installed. The holes on the front of this bumper are supposed to allow function of the stock lights but the spaces are quite a bit smaller and don't work. There's some additional work needed to make them work. We'll add a winch and Gil will also bend and weld on a grill guard.

Therapeutic Parenting

I've been meaning to update about our class on Saturday but the weekdays really get away from me. I can't believe it's already Wednesday night and now I don't have to go back to work until Tuesday! YAY!

The class on Saturday was to earn continuing education for our foster/adopt license. The morning session was titled "Therapeutic Parenting". As with pretty much every bit of information I've received during this process, I didn't learn anything. The whole thing is that adopted children (due to their "primal wound" of loss) don't react the way biological children do (this is paraphrased and not typically my own gut feeling). I think this pertains to children who are adopted older a bit more often than those adopted as infants and it really, really depends on the amount of bonding that's established. Natural consequences and time-outs are not punishments that typically work on these children because they could really care less about anything or anyone outside themselves. "Empathic discussions" were role played to demonstrate how to help a child understand our feelings without telling them they're bad or that we're mad at them. That was essentially it. That's the summary of 3 hours' worth of class.

The afternoon session was a cultural awareness session with an historian from a local tribe. He discussed traditional family structures and what-not. This is important in the foster/adopt community in our region because of the high number of Native children. Because of my own background, I didn't learn anything new at this one, either.

But heck! We got 10 of our 15 continuing ed credits in one day. That's kinda cool. Now we'll just need 5 more before December.

We did get to talk with our social worker a bit, which was nice. He told us he's thought of us for a couple of different situations now but for one reason or other, didn't want to "burden" us with children who have severe disorders, whether they're behavioral or physical. This is fine, and I truly mean that. I really don't want to have to think about adopting a little boy who has been known to walk around the house in the middle of the night with a knife. But I still feel a bit guilty that we have someone picking and choosing for us when most parents don't get a choice when they have their children. Then again, a child is God's choice for that parent, whether there's a human intermediary on earth or not, right?

This or That?

Monday's Meme

Would you rather...

1. sky dive or bungee jump?
Honestly, I’d love to try sky diving. Unfortunately, I was told years ago by my otorhinolaryngologist (ENT doc) that I would not be able to because of my ears and bad ear drums... so, as is the course of nature, I crave to do the very thing I'm not allowed to do.

2. eat a hissing cockroach or eat a slug?
Yuck. Bugs. Probably the slug because I could chase it with water or pop and just wash the slippery little sucker down.

3. have lifelong free entry to all theme parks or lifetime free entry to all movie theaters?
Easy… movie theaters! I love movies but never go anymore because of the cost.

4. spend one month without books or one month without tv?
Go without tv… I already choose books over tv, anyway, and don’t watch much of what they’re broadcasting on tv anymore. Most of the programming stinks, in my opinion.

5. have the ability to fly or be able to become invisible?
Fly… then I could jet home to see my family whenever I want!

6. to have a personal shopper for life or a personal fitness trainer for life?
A personal shopper… because, unlike most girls, I hate to shop… for groceries or clothes or anything.

7. be spiderman or be superman?
Superman… it brings me back to the flying thing.

8. be stuck in the 70's or be stuck in the 80's?
The 80’s… there was so much uniqueness and individuality in the 80’s that it didn’t matter who you were or what you wore… everybody was different and totally acceptable. And despite of – or because of – all the one-hit wonders, there was some great music!

Meme courtesy of Randomness.

April Fools? I wish...

This past week has been interesting, to be sure. For the past three weeks, I've suffered worse pelvic pain than what's been normal over the past year. It was so bad this past Sunday-Tuesday that it made me nauseous to the point of vomiting, as well as causing diarrhea. TMI, I know... I apologize. Tuesday, I ended up calling in sick to work because I couldn't uncurl myself from the fetal position, I felt so sick. I didn't eat until evening because the nausea was so bad I was afraid I'd lose whatever I did eat. (This was also the afternoon I went to the endocrinologist.) The pain lessened yesterday and is totally gone today...

However, the pain is now in my head. Yep, the atrocious headache is back. Ugh. It's definitely light and sound sensitive so I'm trying to really take care of it before it progresses even more and ruins my weekend. I asked my endocrinologist on Tuesday if the headaches could possibly be related to the pituitary microadenoma in my brain (seen on an MRI that led to my PCOS diagnosis). This micro "tumor" has never been re-addressed and I've been told it's pretty irrelevant but... I had to ask. Dr. F basically told me that because of how whacky my hormones are, my body is basically acting like a woman in pre- or peri-menopause. That sure explains the night sweats, but she also said headaches are one of those symptoms, too. I've experienced chronic headaches since about age 12 or junior high, which is when my hormones started going out of control. So... what I'm taking that to mean (hopefully) is once my hormones are under control, I'll stop having headaches. Yay!

Switching gears... Late this afternoon, we were called to the clinic. Gil's uncle had his 3rd chemo infusion this week, was just disconnected this morning, and the nausea and heaving reaction was so bad he had to be rushed back into to have heavy-duty anti-nausea meds infused through his port, and then they pushed 2 bags of fluids w/nutrients to try and rehydrate him. We were there for about 3 hours. By the time he was finished getting liquified, his ears were showing a bit of pink and he was smiling.

In other news... Gil and I have a class on "Therapeutic Parenting" we're attending Saturday. Because of our foster/adopt license, we have to maintain a certain number of continuing education credits related to parenting. Parents who can have children biologically don't have to take classes to learn how to parent but we do. Yet another difference with our infertile lot in life. Y'know the funny thing? Our social worker told us that people can actually get credit for watching Sup.er Nan.ny! How crazy is that?! So that's what we'll be doing all day Saturday. At least we receive credits individually rather than as a couple.

It's just been an interesting week... lots going on.