Round and round and round she goes...

Where she stops, nobody knows.

This summer has been one big giant whirlwind of change, not my strong suit I must admit. I am getting a little dizzy; and it is not over yet. I have a second interview with a home health care organization that I am pretty excited about. They need someone to do their billing and collections for them and I am just the girl to do it.

It can't be any harder getting money out of insurance companies than it was to get cable companies to pay their subcontractors, something I have had a little experience with. These giant media conglomerates work very hard to complicate their billing procedures to the end that payment can sometimes take months to process while the little subcontractor companies are scrambling to make payroll week to week. I can't tell you how many hoops that I have had to jump thru to get a positive cash flow... "stand on your left foot, pat your head, close one eye... ship three copies of the invoices to two different locations (overnight, of course), call Joanie or Mark or Steve". And of course they changed my contacts constantly; either they were in a different office or a different state or had been replaced altogether.

Been there; done that. Bring it on:)

Three blind mice

When I think of mice, I think of cute little furry faces sewing and singing things like, "we can do it, we can do it. We can help our Cinderelly, we'll make a dress so pretty; there's nothing to it really..." BUT, when they are scurrying across my peripheral vision thru the laundry room and leaving evidence of their presence in the pantry baskets - that is just not cool. Especially when you throw into the equation the three yorkies that live here on purpose. Yorkies were especially bread to combat rodent issues, so they take great offense at the little interlopers.

Because of the dogs, I refuse to use any kind of poison to rid myself of these little critters. Hubby thought that the glue traps would work, but one very early morning session with a tiny little cartoon character sealed to a black death trap and screaming its lungs out assured me that this was not for us. I much prefer the old tried and true "bait and wack" trap of our forefathers. After the glue strip fiasco, three other bait and wack successes, and several nights following with no results I decided that I could ditch what was left of my traps. What a fool was I:)

Yesterday, Schatzi had a fit in my bedroom while I was cleaning. This usually means that she has inadvertently rolled her beloved tennis ball into an inaccessible area. I tried to convince her that her ball would not fit behind the dresser, but after a half hour or so of whining and scratching I finally pulled the dresser out from the wall for her to have a look see. Picture this... I am moving furniture at the request of a five pound ball of hair. Of course, by then the mouse was long gone and I got the satisfaction of being right.

However, today as I was checking my mail and various other online stuff I happened to see the dreaded flash of scampering feet running under the dryer. Needless to say, I have purchased a new round of traps and will start them tonight. Unless someone knows if singing, sewing mice also do laundry.

Dogs days

As we approach the end of the work day, it appears that we have had what appears by all rights to be a good day. We say that with caution because every time we think that, it all goes to caca... but you get the point.

Having said that, my version of a good day these days is that I took a shower and made my bed. Oh, and I put a roast in the oven to cook for supper. Hubs will be so proud - especially of that shower thing. Hair is clean. Legs are shaved. Not a stitch of make up. Oh well, you can't have it all; at least not at the same time:) Hey, and I just have to say that shaving those legs is no small feat, given the amount of drugs I have been taking lately. He should just be thankful that I still HAVE two legs.

I just would like to take a moment to thank Spike TV for having non stop CSI episodes all day every day. I never have been into soaps, but a good murder? who can resist that? It also helps that I have already seen most all of those episodes, so as I drift in and out of consciousness I can still keep up with what is going on.

The dogs have come to think of me as just one of the girls. Laying around all day. Just getting up now and again to pee or get a drink. I am resisting the urge to chase the ball down the hall right now.

Bethany is doing very well in school and I am so proud. The year is already flying by with pictures taken and homecoming this week. Tomorrow is field day. She doesn't even know what "field day" is. She has never done homecoming. It's kinda neat to see her experiencing some more traditional school things. Don't get me wrong, we loved the home schooling thing. I guess this just reaffirms our decision about the timing of this move. Her grades are good, and she is developing good relationships with teachers and students alike. Wow; she amazes me every day. Take THAT, you anti-home schooling "they-will-never-learn-social-skills" dummies. Whew - please excuse me; it's the drug talking:)

Back to the couch people. ttfn.

It's a boy

Twenty years ago you gave me the most precious gift of being a mom. I gave you the gift of 19 hours of natural childbirth. I may have mentioned it a time or two in the last twenty years...

As you grew...

you became athlete,

and musician,




and hero...

and your mom's pride and joy.

Love you SO much, Brian

Hello again, hello.

yeah yeah yeah. I know. It's been a month. I've been a little busy having organs removed and stuff. I am having a momentary break where the level of drugs is high enough to blur the pain without turning my brain to mush, so I thought I would give out a little update to my friends who think that I have been abducted by aliens.

As I have alluded to in the past, I have an autoimmune disease that my doctor refers to as Mixed Connective Tissue Disease which of course no one has ever heard of. Even the nurse at the hospital when I was doing the pre-op work up seemed confused by the name and the list of meds that I take every day. These med keep in the inflammation in my connective tissues from irritating things like... oh... my heart and lungs and junk like that. The amount of pain that I am in pretty much depends on how much inflammation I am experiencing, so we like to keep that down in order for me to do stuff like get out of bed.

Anyhoo... these last years the meds have been doing a better than fair job of keeping things under control. Guess you could call that a remission of sorts. In any case, it seems that the stress of gall bladder surgery was more than my immune system could process because as the pain from surgery began to subside, I was left with more than my fair share of inflammation and therefore the chest pain has returned. Guess you could call this a relapse.

I am being kind of flippant here because no one likes to get bummed out, but this is pretty much my worst nightmare so I could use whatever love and support I can get. and prayers. and cookies. just kidding:)

Moving on... surgery went off without a hitch, you will be glad to know. Woke up in recovery without orders for pain meds. That wasn't too much fun. Anesthesia apparently makes me violently ill, which wasn't too much fun either, but over all it was fine. And, that pain the in wrong side of my abdomen seems to be gone as well. who knew? And the dogs??? they were all over momma and laying around during recovery. Discovered that Schatzi really is that lazy.

Surgery happened to fall on Bethany's first week of school. I didn't cry as much as I thought I would about her leaving. Could have been because I was pretty much unconscious. Good thing she can drive. I'm just saying.

emergency room adventures

In my relentless effort to stick it to the insurance company, I decided to make a little run to the emergency room the other night. It turns out that your gall bladder can cause a whoppin' bunch of pain when it gets a little testy. It also turns out that they like to remove it when that happens. yay me.

I have an appointment with the surgeon tomorrow, to the end that I follow the ER instructions to "have it out within the week". Sure hope he has an opening. So, off I go to another surgery. Two in three months. wow; that's crazy. Sure hope it works. I have spent years on the treadmill of testing/no diagnosis/throw pills at the symptoms. I don't really have alot to faith in the medical community and since the pain that I am having is nowhere near my gall bladder... well; we'll see. BUT, my deductible should be met so I say go for it.

For some reason hospitals don't just give you a blanket... and if you need a pillow; forget about it. In my genius, I rolled up the pants that I had worn into the hospital to use as a pillow. While they were transporting me all over tarnation checking for gall stones and kidney stones, it suddenly occurred to me that in my drugged stupor I may lose track of my makeshift pillow. I could just picture me trying to leave the hospital without my pants. hm. that was funnier when I was drugged. go figure.

While I was donating blood and other bodily fluids, they discovered that I had a UTI. hmmm. They gave me an IV drip of leviquin for the UTI, which apparently my stomach does not care for. I would say that I was projectile vomiting by the time I got home, but that would just be gross. It took me a couple of days to be able to pick my head up off of the pillow, but its all good now. They also gave me some good pain medicine for the gall stones. For some reason it gives me a raging headache which makes no sense at all. All in all, it's shaping up to be a pretty poopy week.

After the wonderful night at the ER, hubby was driving me home thru a very violent lightening storm that proceeded for several hours. The strobing effect of the lights was really not helping my nausea, but we made it home without getting electrocuted so I was thankful. We got home to find Truly anxiously awaiting our arrival. The thunder was scaring the bjeepers out of her. I relented and let her sleep in our bed, but I spent the next couple of hours peeling her off of my head. It wasn't pretty.

I will be SO glad when this week is over.

Summer Reading

Bethany's summer reading assignment includes Silas Marner, which I distinctly remember as being the most boring book of all time with the possible exception of The Good Earth, and a biography or autobiography of her choice. She didn't have any particular preference for the biography, other than it should be as short as possible, so I went to the used book store to pick up a little something on her behalf. There was a whole shelf of possibilities, but since I didn't really think that she would be interested in the life of Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana, I was stumped. I did run across a couple of copies of Mommie Dearest, which brought back a deluge of memories of junior high when the girls were passing around a copy of that with the "good" pages marked. Most of what I learned about boys and girls came from Margaret's talks with God and Christina Crawford. I decided to pass on that one.



I finally found a relatively small biography of C.S. Lewis which I thought that she would enjoy. She has always been a big fan of the Chronicles of Narnia, so this should keep her interest for a bit.



I have mostly been reading junk... and alot of it here lately. I guess that it is time for me to dig out my copy of Jane Eyre or maybe The Scarlett Letter. Bethany and I read To Kill a Mockingbird together last year and she enjoyed it so much that she has read it again just for herself, although we haven't gotten thru the entire video of it yet.



I love that my kids are old enough to enjoy literature with me. Brian and I spend alot of time tearing the movie version of The Count of Monte Cristo apart, but the Bethany and I love Pride and Prejudice. We both think that Mr. Darcy is the most romantic character of all time.



Do yourself a favor... get a bookcase and start stocking it. Your kids will be there before you know it:)