Least Favorite Part of Christmas

Absolutely has to be the commercials from the jewelry stores. The number one culprit has to be Kay's. I have been sitting here watching television commercials and it seems as if every other commercial has been for jewelry. I am not sure what my major beef is with jewelers. It might be the idea that a young couple, just starting out, needs to spend at least 2 months salary on an engagement ring. Or maybe it's the idiotic way the women in those commercials act. Anything can be excused and gushed over with some sort of jewelry purchase. I hate that my girls are watching them. They can't help but absorb the message. It adds to the whole happily ever after idea that's not reality. Give me a guy who will pick up after himself, or take the kids out, alone, to give me a break, versus the guy who does whatever he wants and then brings home some bauble or flowers to "say" sorry.
Now, it seems we won't get a break for the next six months from these sort of commercials. We will get through Christmas and then they will start recycling them for Valentine's Day and then for Mother's Day.
Oooo- I take that back. It's a toss up between Kay's and Jared's. You know..." He went to Jared's!" Now it's not only will everything be okay with a purchase, but all of your friends will be jealous too. Gag.

Thanksgiving and Holidays

I got most of my cooking done on Wednesday and only had to make the potatoes, shape the rolls and roast the turkey breast on Thursday. TD was finishing our fence repair and Moe had gone for sparkling cider when everything was done. We ate, did our usual what we were thankful for and then it was over. By the way, I said I was thankful that Fiona was finally done with chemo and that TD had such a great job. Then I started the clean up. But all of the while, I felt strangely let down. I thought about it a lot while I was cleaning up and finally came to a conclusion. As a child, everything about a holiday was fun and exciting and yummy. As a grown up, we are now in charge of putting everything together ourselves, which seems to take some of the magic and fun out of the day. I think also, for me, I miss the huge groups of family. We could've gone back to Oregon for the holiday but I don't think it would've solved anything. I love the idea of family, especially my big one, but actually being around everyone is sort of depressing.
I think I also like to cook for a lot of people. There's something about cooking for someone who doesn't eat (and sneer) at my food on a daily basis. Thank heavens for Moe, she never has an unkind word to say about dinner. It helps that I don't serve her two least favorite foods, baked potatoes and green beans, very often. We did get an invitation to a Christmas Eve dinner and I think we will take them up on it. I have been used to being around large groups of people at the holiday and I think I really miss it.
PS, I think next year, I will make a couple of different kinds of pie. Pie always makes me feel better. Of course, I think I will be better prepared to eat lots of pie next year. I won't be feeling so miserable and not so much wanting to work out.

I Couldn't Resist the Pressure

***Semi Spoilers below

So Moe and I were all set to see the movie of Twilight just about the day it came out. Then I started reading the reviews and they pretty much all said the movie stunk. So, I told Moe we would wait and rent it from Redbox and throw popcorn at our TV. She said, " You would let us do that?" I told her if we promised to vacuum it up right after the movie, we could totally do that.

Then I read all of your reviews and women whose intelligence I value and entertainment IQ I respect were all saying they enjoyed it. So, I thought that it couldn't be that bad. I told Moe that if I got my chores done today, we could go and watch it. I figured we both were going to earn it this weekend being stuck home with the girls.

We went all out. We even stopped by BJs and got an order to go, smuggled it in and ate it while watching the previews. Mmmmm.

So, I was getting ready to take the movie with a grain of salt. I am glad I went in with such low expectations. I did enjoy myself. A lot of the movie was pretty hokey and Moe and I guffawed in several places, but we had a good time together discussing the movie while watching it. I don't think it's something we would buy, but it was great for girl bonding. I told TD we will rent it when it comes out and he can have a good chuckle

So, Carlisle? What was with his fake hair and really bad makeup job? I also noticed that the white makeup didn't extend to Edward's neck. I thought Bella was as white as the vampires wanted to be. What was with the twin fit at the end of the movie? Our newspaper warned us that there would be a dramatic part that just invited hysterical laughing and the sight of Ed sucking out the venom was too much. I think the worst part for me had to have been the casting of Edward. He, how shall I put this?, just didn't do anything for me. I remember him being cute in Harry Potter. Here, he just glowered at everything. I thought, in the book, he seemed to be more of a suave ladies man.

But it definitely served it's purpose of entertainment, at least for us this afternoon.

Keys

Remember when I blogged about TD's new Honda? We recently sold his truck because Moe starts working at TD's place of work and they can ride in together and on the weekends we can share the magic school bus and TD's Civic. It was nice to get rid of the truck because it was a severe gas guzzler and I am pretty excited to have some money in the bank. I don't know about you, but the economy is starting to freak me out and I am just grateful that we seem prepared, so far, to weather the storm.
Anyway, we only have one key to the Civic and in order to minimize the fuss and make it easier for TD and Moe to share, we have to get another one. I called up a nearby Honda dealership to find out what that entails. We managed to get a spare key for the truck at Walmart because it didn't require computer programming like apparently the Honda keys do. We have to take the car and all of the key(s) we have and go to the dealership. After paying $165, they will present us with another key. What is up with that?! We told Moe we would go halfsies with her on it, thank heavens for both of us. That's still $82.50 a piece. Thank heavens the mini van came with two keys. I guess I should never have to worry about either car getting stolen. Which would be sad. I think I have a whole 'nother post inside about the joys of driving my van. Whoever thought anyone could write about that? Let's just say it has a lot to do with my height and finally finding something that fits.

More TMI

I got my ultrasound on Monday. This time I got a chatty tech, which is so much better than the ones who won't tell you anything. It's a good thing she was, because half way through it, she said, huh... I need to check out your old ultrasound. Nothing like trying to strike fear into your heart, right? She came back and said I just had weird anatomy, which included a tipped uterus, which apparently doesn't help with pain, just makes it worse. Awesome. Then she asked how big the cyst was last time. It was 4cm and now it's 6cm. And it's not a simple cyst, it's complex, which means there is stuff in there and it won't resolve on it's own. I should guess not, since it's been there since at least May. The tech recommended that I have it removed before my next cycle, which I don't think it's possible. I guess maybe I should take a bunch of pills every day that week and hope for the best.
I was looking at things online. Don't worry, I don't take everything at face value. Trust me, I learned my lesson after Fiona was diagnosed. Some of those sites were incredibly scary and didn't differentiate between kids and adults. The odds for adults are so much worse than the odds for kids. Anyway, if the doctor can just do it through the camera, it will probably take a week of recovery. If she's forced to make it a bit bigger, we are looking at 4-6 weeks...during the holiday season. I can't wait to talk to the doctor and discuss everything with her. I told TD he has to come to that appointment because he's such a worrywart, I think he needs to hear everything from the doctor herself.
The main thing I am worried about is that I don't do narcotics well. So unfortunate. I get an injection in my line and literally 30 seconds later, I am sitting up puking. So that's something I will be discussing with the doctor.

See's Candies

When we moved to Texas, I started looking up familiar places in order to find out where we could visit them. Disney Store? One of the few here was close by! YEAH! My favorite restaurant is actually here, when I thought it was a NW institution, BJ's. See's Candies store....WHAT? I called TD up and said we had to move back, there were no See's stores in the entire state of Texas. What is up with that? When we lived in Oregon, if you asked Fiona what her favorite store was in the mall, she would say the chocolate store, it even beat out the Disney Store. And who doesn't love the free samples?
When Moe moved out here, she brought me 2 1lb boxes of See's candies in her carry on. Because she loves me. And she probably figured I wouldn't let her in my house without it. Which may or may not have been true.
So, yesterday I was at our local mall getting a water filter for our refrigerator. We cannot drink the water around here without it. Then I was headed to the Disney Store because you can't go to the mall without doing that. Between the two stores I saw a familiar logo. I was SO excited. They had a small temporary kiosk in our mall! The lady there saw me coming and figured this was not my first time there. I told her my See's stories and she gave me 4 samples! Plus two suckers when I told her I had two girls that would be disappointed they missed this. I also bought a box of chocolates. I came home and told Moe that she and TD had better buy some more and put it in my stocking... because I have been a very good girl this year.

Peer Mediation

So, Buttercup was picked to be a peer mediator. Nope, this isn't going to be a post on the merits of such an idea, but more about the peer mediation graduation that I went to this morning. Buttercup got up this morning, moaned about her split ends and got dressed in normal school clothes. That's right, split ends. She doesn't even know what that means, because I asked! It's not something she hears me moaning about. TD and I had a discussion about little kids and the things they come up with and how we need to not bust out laughing and mocking her. TD says it's hard especially when she speed talks about boys. It makes him nauseous.
Anyway, I walked her to school and sat down in my spot, while she sat down in hers. They had a pretty good little baked goods buffet going but when little kids served themselves in the midst of their hacking coughs, I figured it would be best to stay away from that. So, I turned my attention to the kids and their parents. The dads pretty much all looked the same. It was the moms and their children that ran the gamut. There were the usual sweat outfits that have become regular everyday clothes. Then there were the moms who were obviously on their way to work and then there was even a mom who wouldn't have looked out of place at a more formal dinner, her suit jacket was that fancy. The kids were dressed in their regular clothes, but there were some girls who had sheer black nylons and nice dresses on. One poor kid had starched khakis, a pressed long sleeved church shirt and nice leather belt and loafers.
Poor Buttercup. It's tough that she's my first kid and we moved in the middle of her elementary experience. I don't know that I would've encouraged her to dress up. She still has to go through the rest of school. Also, I just wore jeans and a polo shirt. I don't know where that put me on the spectrum. I also forgot the camera, which just makes me a bad mom. It was actually okay because when they put the kids together for a photo op (which they do a LOT at this school) she refused to smile. She had a pained, pinched lip sort of thing going on, even though I can making goofy faces at her. I gave her a hard time about it and she said she couldn't smile when she was so nervous.
So, I guess I am lamenting that I don't know exactly how things work down here. It would never have occurred to me to tell her to dress up, especially with the shoes those girls were wearing, how can you run on the playground in 2 inch heels? Several girls were wearing those kind of shoes.
But all of this gives me something new to think about. Do I encourage her to overdo things in order to fit in and probably make her feel uncomfortable in one way, but more likely to fit in. Or do I just keep things how we were in Oregon and she can make her own way of thinking, which might make her feel comfortable, but uncomfortable when she doesn't go with the status quo?
I guess I might just have to amp up my predicting of things that might happen...

A Few Updates

Let's see, I went to the lady doctor and they ordered another pelvic ultrasound. What is up with that? But based on what she's seeing already, I should basically be ready to have the cyst removed around the first week of December. That's fine. I am ready for it to come out. It's at least the size of a golf ball and I don't have that much space in my stomach area, no wonder things are irritated.
TD has his second sleep study appointment next week, which is a good thing. I have had no sleep and I am sniffling and having a hard time swallowing. I told him this and he said, well, it's going around. Both of the other managers have been out in the past week with something similar. Great...not only is he depriving me of sleep, but he's bringing illness home? Not to mention! I just remembered, he emailed my Dad when I called him yesterday and told him what the doctor said. Which led to a phone call. TD, don't we have rules about those things? I was going to give them the obligatory phone call when we had a set plan and plenty of answers. Thank heavens I didn't call before with the kidney problem news. I merely mentioned one doctor said maybe kidney stones and of course this is set to freak out my parents. Which, I can understand. We all kind of fought for the one kidney I have. Anyway, so now I feel awful and I had to call and cancel a baby playdate I had for tomorrow, which included two babies at once! The girls are going to be so bummed too.
I did manage to take care of the study, the wii room, the pantry and Fiona's room. That last one was kind of a shocker. To go into her room after she leaves, her room looks nice and clean. I managed to remove 1 large trash sack of junk from her room. I am not sure where it came from. So four areas down, another 12 to go. I don't have that many rooms, but clearing our large walk-in closet should not be lumped in with cleaning my bedroom and master bath. They are each their own area.
Are you starting to plan your Thanksgiving? I am looking forward to making all of the food! Yum.

Fall Cleaning

Twice a year, I try and thoroughly clean pretty much every part of our house. Baseboards, doors and corners wiped, etc. That way, the rest of the time I can clean normally and not make myself totally crazy. I started in the study. It looks so pretty and nice now that everything has been organized and decluttered. I have forbid the girls from going in there, at least as long as I can. Yesterday, I couldn't stand it any more and started in our pantry. Moe and I went to IKEA for some of their clever organizational products, which ended up not fitting or working as well as we would've thought. Then we went to our good old standby Walmart and got totally hooked up.
Now, to make everyone feel better, I will show you the before. The girls love to go shopping in there and not put stuff back where they need to.

What dump. Plus it was totally frustrating to deal with, I could never find what I was looking for and people would eat food and not tell me they had and I wouldn't know, until I went looking for it.
It took forever to clean it out. The kitchen was totally trashed, plus I brought groceries home yesterday and didn't bother unpacking everything that went into the pantry because I didn't want to do it twice. But everything got wiped down and organized and grouped together in reasonable spots.

Isn't it pretty? I got up this morning and spent time just staring at it. Of course, it's not quite as exciting when I realize that I have cleaned 2 areas and I have about 14 more to go. That makes it not quite as happy. But I think today I will clean the Wii room...I like that room so much I don't mind being in it. Not to mention, it's quite a bit bigger than being stuck in the pantry for several hours.

What a Week Part 2

Fiona had her 3 month CT scheduled for Friday. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it. TD took the day off to be there to get Buttercup off and be home when she was if I needed it. I figured he could go in my stead if I didn't feel well. When I got up at 5:15am, nothing felt wrong, so I decided I could be the one to take her. I am glad I did, after our day.
I numbed Fiona's arm up before we got to the hospital. When we got there, they didn't like the veins in the arm we numbed up, so they put some numbing cream on the other arm while she drank her contrast. That takes at least 30 minutes, so that would be enough time for the cream to work. Fortunately she was numb when the nurse started because they dug around for quite some time. They resorted to a freeze spray and the back of her hand. That didn't work out so well. They sprayed her hand and went right to work. Fiona started crying, I don't know if they gave it time to work. I felt so bad. She informed me that I now owed her $4 for the two sticks. I told her she owed me $2 for my flu shot.
She was feeling a bit traumatized after all that. After a few minutes in the scanner, she asked the nurse if I could stand next to her. The actual scan didn't take long, so we were soon off for a breakfast of doughnuts and milk. Oh, she doesn't get to eat before the scan, which doesn't help.
We were 3 hours away from our Dr.'s appointment. We had them leave the IV in so that she wouldn't have to be stuck again for the blood draw. I signed in early at the front desk and then we took a seat. We hadn't been sitting for a minute when a woman approached wanting to know if Fiona wanted to record a song. Seriously. Um let's see...Fiona...sing? There is an actual recording studio at the clinic. She was in there before I could say anything. The director interviewed and they settled on writing a song about the cats. During this, our beeper (think Olive Garden) went off and we went for a blood draw.
Another problem. Her IV wasn't working very well. We did all sorts of things to get a better blood return and then the nurse started talking about a finger poke or another needle. My sweet girl just started weeping. I felt so bad. We had had enough trauma today. Wasn't being off treatment supposed to be easier. I had settled on another needle because she hasn't had a finger poke and she doesn't like new medical procedures. The great nurse took pity on us and sent back what she had in the vial and luckily, that turned out okay.
After another long wait, we were able to see the doctor. Once again, Fiona's scan is clear, nothing to see. The poor baby fell asleep on the way home. After dinner, I got her $4 out of my purse and put it in her money jar. We counted it and found out she had $17.81. I asked her, " Aren't you glad we didn't take you to the dollar store to buy silly things and now you are saving up. What do you want to get?" " Oh, I am going to buy a flat screen for my room." Of course she is. Aim high honey.
PS: I am trying to get a link to a place where I uploaded her song

What a Week

I think it was Tuesday that I got the results of the IVP back. They said they couldn't see any stones. What the radiologist from the CT might have seen was the natural changes from having a kidney removed 23 years ago. You think he might have looked up on the other side and noticed it wasn't there. I guess you can never been too cautious. I was relieved to know that the one kidney I have seems to be doing it's proper job.
That night TD had his sleep study. I know, he actually made the appointment!! You get two appointments. If you flunk the 1st one, meaning they find signs of sleep apnea, then they call and make another appointment. He got into the car just before 9pm and drove to the address on mapquest. What he found was a Residence Inn. How nice is that? Instead of some sterile, antiseptic hospital room and bed, he got to hang out in a nice hotel. Of course, this was attached to electrodes, but you can't have everything. The guy, on the way out, reminded him he had two appointments, so he must have flunked the first one.
Moe worked that night and when she got home after 10pm, she found me hunched over my bed. Once again, I had another one of my episodes, meaning an extraordinary amount of pain, so much so that I can't even lay down. What I do is take some good painkillers and basically wait to pass out. You know, where my need to lay down and sleep is more than the pain. Moe had some nice sticky heating pads and I put those on my stomach. After about two hours of just standing there, I was able to carefully lay down and sleep periodically. And that's how I spent that night. TD came home thinking he would win the lack of sleep competition, but I don't think so. I spent that day pretty miserable. Kind of like having a really bad back spasm, only in my stomach area.
I had made an appointment the day before with the OB/GYN to talk about removing the cyst from my ovary. Unfortunately, I remembered why I hated that sort of doctor. Their first open appointment was the 11th...of DECEMBER! The day after my episode I called the other doctor and I could get in with the nurse practitioner the 13th of this month. I figured I would at least get my foot in the door. Hopefully I can avoid any of those episodes. By Thursday, I could just about stand up straight.

Voting Rights

So I hopped on to a website where the topic was appropriately titled Hot Topic Tuesday. It asked if we were voting and if so why? I got on there and said I wasn't voting because I didn't feel properly informed (unfortunately Texas doesn't have that big booklet we got in Oregon, so I have no idea who people are and in fact, half of what they do... railroad commissioner?). I also said Texas is a firm red state and it wouldn't matter how I voted. Plus I promised not to complain because either our taxes were coming down or I could say I told you so in four years. Good grief, you would have thought I was advocating drowning kittens and puppies. I wasn't the only one who said they weren't voting, but I bet more people wouldn't admit to it after what people started saying. One person even said she contemplated voter fraud because she didn't get her new voter registration in, so she should've gotten an absentee ballot in California because that was where she had moved from. But she was sad because after this historic election she was going to have to lie to her grandkids about voting....and she was casting aspersions on my character? Ugh. One lady said she felt sorry for the kids of people who didn't vote because we were essentially teaching the kids that their opinions didn't count.
Well, call off DCFS.... TD and I went down and voted. And guess what, he voted one way and I voted the other, Texas has already been called for McCain and Obama has pretty much already won the election... So yeah, I don't feel my vote was particularly relevant. If we had lived in a swing state then I am sure I would've been more excited about voting.

Girl Stuff

Yesterday, Moe told me that we should stop by Target on our way to the Y and get a flu shot. They were holding one of their flu shot clinics. Since TD was home, I told him that he and Buttercup had to follow us over there and we would get it done in one shot, haha. Buttercup instantly started crying. Part of me felt sorry for her. I told TD he owed me a hand holding because the day before, when I had my IVP, the nurse used a monstrously sized needle and had a hard time getting the vein. She actually brought tears to my eyes with all of her digging around. ( Still waiting for the results on that)

We all got our shots and then TD took the girls back home while Moe and I shopped a bit. We had to make a trip back to the house because I had forgotten my MP3 player. I also wanted to give Buttercup a little special treat for getting stuck to keep her baby sister healthy. Last year I bought them both a book for their flu shots and they get $2 a poke. So, I bought Buttercup this book. I love that my girls think of books as special treats. Girls after my own heart. Which then led to this:

Because every good Girl's Book needs to give instructions on a proper facial, right? I told Buttercup that she doesn't look a day over 7 and a half. She assured me that she could rid me of my wrinkles and bags under my eyes. Thanks, honey.

PS

I cook too!

Happy 7th Birthday Fiona!!

Here is the birthday girl. Check out how cute Moe was when she was 11. Buttercup is the new big sister. Also, get a load of those huge cheeks on Fiona. If she wasn't wearing that outfit you could check out the fat roll on the back of her neck. Have I mentioned that she was 10 and a half pounds at birth?

Here is what I used to have to deal with on a daily basis. My little Fiona. She is such a delightful little girl...now. But this is pretty much the view I got for the first 8 months of her life. I was the only one who could make her happy and there was only one way I could do that.

But, by the time she reached her 1st birthday she turned sweet. However, with her sweetness, came a new daring sense of adventure. So, half of my time was spent wanting to just chew on her yumminess and the other half was putting out fires. Sometimes it would be convincing her that climbing on the dining room table and attempting to swing from the chandelier was not a good idea. Or getting her off the kitchen counter. We had to upgrade our babyproofing in the kitchen. The white plastic that you push down to open the drawer? She could brute force it open, we had to go with the magnetic opener.
Her love affair with food continued and I had my hands full cleaning up after her. This was back when she would eat, or at least try, just about anything.

This is a sight that would greet us regularly. We would put the girls to bed and shut our bedroom door to watch TV for the evening. Around 10pm we would go out to make sure everything was locked down for the night and this it what we would see. She would grab a pillow and her blanket and fall asleep in front of our door.
Then here's where our sweet little 4 year old was diagnosed with cancer. She still had her big mess of hair we would call a fro. And then she became the cutest little bald girl I have ever seen. She went through this time with an attitude and dignity I don't see in many adults. I was truly proud to be her mama and be given the privilege of serving her during this time. We had some amazing times together. And now, I am so delighted to tell people that she made it to seven. Back when she was four, I wasn't sure she would.
Happy Birthday sweet girl, thanks for picking me to be your mom.