It's Not ALL Bad

I'm not dead (although I walk with the living dead- working the nightshift). I am not sick (although I sometimes am sick to my stomach and constantly tired). I am really alive and kicking (sometimes kicking mad- but that is not for today's story).

So, since I haven't died I thought I would bring some holiday cheer to y'all! True story! (and I'll try REALLY hard to only add the important details since I am famous for too many details)

FiM lost his wallet today, while he was at an unnamed store (Ross Dress for Less- which to me is the equivilent of ghetto shopping- sorry for those of you who love the place, I'd rather shop at Wally World- never had a good experience at Ross). Anywho... He was at the counter, checking out and reached for his wallet, which he knew he had with him. Apparently he had to go back and look for it, people just stared, no one offered assistance. UGH! Where is the Christmas Spirit of kindness, love, charity, giving???? It was totally missing. No one offered to help look, so he ran home to cancel all the cards.

A little side note, which is uber-important to this story, FiM worked a side job this month to make some extra money for Christmas. He was paid in gift cards... which happened to be in his wallet.

Missing items : license, debit card, work debit card, temple recommend, library card, social security card (don't even get me started on this one) and 4 gift cards (non-replaceable). Other things too, but this just gives you an idea of the stress he had when he lost it, and the stress I had when I found out.

After confusion and annoyance on the phone with the credit union and such to cancel said cards and shaking from frustration with whoever thought it was okay to take it right before Christmas I just wanted to cry. Thankfully my wonderful friend/sister Sherry was here and she helped me through it.

THEN....

All of a sudden....

I kid you not....

a car pulled up to the house (like 2 or 3 hrs later).

Sherry and I looked at each other wondering who the heck was parking in front of my house. Didn't recognize the car, didn't recognize the lady...

But I did recognize what she had in her hand as she walked up the front steps. I ran to the front door and pulled it open before she even had a chance to knock. Think I probably scared her. I already had tears in my eyes. She said she found it at Ross (yup). She had called the library to get the number, they wouldn't give it but they tried to call us to let us know. They didn't know we disconnected our house line. Oops! Then the lady called blockbuster. Same problem. Oops, again! So she then decided to just drive over to the address on the driver's license. She apologized for looking through the wallet. Ummm, I don't care, she brought it back. I only wish I had something to give to her to tell her thank you. I hugged her and thanked her and told her she was so wonderful.

So for all of you out there.... no everyone is a selfish, rude, obnoxious, awful person this time of year. There are good people out there who will do the right thing. I doubt this lady will ever look at this blog, but I want to thank her and tell everyone I know that an angel touched my life today!

Lesson from the Bits

I was on my way to the instacare (Snake has Strep throat) when I got stuck behind a man riding a bike. Now, I don't mind sharing the road with bikers, but this guy was literally in the middle of the road. The road was wide enough for a bike lane (and to my understanding bikers should ride in the understood bike lane if possible). If I am wrong don't bother telling me. It isn't like I care. I only tell you this to set the stage for what happened.

Me: Oh, come on! Move over guy! (there were cars coming the other way so I couldn't just go around him)

Bits: (as we passed him FINALLY) MOM! Hims can't ride fast. He is an old man.

Me: (smiling) Oh, really?

Bits: Ya, we have to be nice, mom!

There you have it. Straight from the mouth of a 4 year old. Guess I needed my kindness lesson for today.

Halloween Prep

I am not a huge fan of Halloween. Never have been. Wanna know my reasons? No dissing on the list (yes, I am making another list cuz I'm all about the lists).

• For 364 days a year we teach out children not to beg. Then magically on Oct. 31 we decide to make our kids go out, door to door (or however you do it in your family) and make people give them candy.
• I am not an actress. I don't enjoy dressing up. I don't enjoy pretending to be someone else.
• I don't like the competition of "who has the best costume."
• People hand out the crappy candy. If I want candy I am not going to waste time or money on the crap like smarties. I want the chocolate. GIVE ME THE CHOCOLATE!
• I am the biggest scaredy cat you will ever meet. I don't like horror films, I hate haunted houses, and don't like to have to crap scared out of me.

All of this aside, some of our friends host a Halloween party every year and it is a blast. I could do without the dressing up personally but I love to see what other people dress up as. But, since it was a Halloween party, couples party at that, we needed to get into the spirit. After consulting a number of out of town friends and the internet I had a few ideas. At first I was going to use some of the TOTALLY AWESOME 80's clothes I got when I was visiting my mom in California. But that didn't feel right. So then we thought about going as Father Time and Mother Nature. Pretty easy, right? Just get a whole slew of watches and a big clock on a chain for him and sew leaves and branches all over clothes for me. But, then we stopped at a Halloween Super Store to check out the merchandise. Guess what we found? You'll never guess, so I will tell you. Stuff for FiM to be a pimp. AWESOME! So, we got a hat, cane and nasty accessories for him. Fishnet stockings and a monster nasty wig for me. Put that together with a corsette, my 5 inch hooker heels and thick makeup and I was my pimp's hooker. Now, mind you, this was a party with a ton of friends from church, so if you are thinking that I am gonna look totally immodest, think again. I was a modest hooker. Just ask my bishop, he was there. We both even topped the outfits off with a few fake tattoos (cuz you all know I have a thing for tats).


I have to say, it was probably the most fun I have had in years... especially at a halloween party.

Our Fabulous Host and Hostess, the Grays.

Our Friends, Sick and Tired Lefler...

Bushman Zombies

Love this pair! The Joneses

No, he isn't Obama... he is too dark. He is Buckwheat of course! The Harrisons.

The Burger King with his Dairy Queen... the Macbeans.

So much silver! The Johnsons

The Barretts... my super hero and super star.

A pair of blue jeans (and genes)... The Belkas.

The Thurbers... I mean Cruella and her dalmation.



The kids had a little fun as we were getting ready.

We are attempting...

I'm trying to manage my computer time better so as not to neglect my wifely/motherly/homemakerly duties. We'll see if I can hack it!

This isn't gonna be the most uplifting post ever because I thought that maybe I should tell y'all a little something about me that most of you don't know.

Almost 3 years ago I was pregnant with my little angel/devil MMIT. She is a gem. However, about 3 months into the pregnancy I noticed my heart was doing some really funky things. I would just be laying down and all of a sudden my heart rate would jump like I was running the 100meter dash. I had a lot of light-headedness and dizzy spells. I'd get winded really easily and such, so at one of my regular appointments I asked my midwife about it and she and I decided I needed to just have a check up with a cardiologist.

8 weeks later- the soonest I could get in to the appointment... I found out a list of things:

1. I have a heart murmur
2. my heartbeat was WAY too high
3. my blood pressure was in the normal range

The blood pressure thing is what really threw them off. The EKG didn't really give any enlightenment to the situation so we schedule an echocardiogram. Another month of waiting. This was getting scary/ridiculous.

The echo enlightened us as to the problem, though... but maybe it would have been better for me not to know.

1. Yes, I did have a heart murmur (duh!)
2. I have an enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy)
3. My left ventricle is weak (causing the left side to have to work almost twice as hard, causing the excelerated heart beat.)

So, I was given 2 options...

1. terminate the pregnancy to stop the strain on my heart
2. go forward with the pregnancy but be under a drs care the whole time.

There were a lot of stipulations if I went with #2, which I obviously did.

No more details. Suffice it to say, I survived the delivery, and since then I have had to have yearly checkups with a yearly echocardiogram. I did pretty good until 2 weeks ago. My ejection fraction is not good. I have a leaky valve and my heart is still enlarged (more so than when I was pregnant). So I have had to start on medicine which makes me even more tired. Ugh! Like I wasn't tired already with my heart not working right.

We are surviving... I am surviving. Another appointment to come in 2 more weeks and we'll see how the medicine is doing. We probably won't see a change in my heart for at least 3-6 months, but as long as my blood pressure doesn't dip too low we are hopefully on the right track.

Sorry for the depressing crap. Just thought I'd get it off my chest.

Sometimes

Sometimes in life we are lucky to have a chance to be happy.

Sometimes in life we are lucky to have a family.

Sometimes in life we are blessed to find THE ONE!

Sometimes in life we are happy in our jobs.

Sometimes in life we feel good about ourselves.

Sometimes in life we have the best friends EVER.

Sometimes in life we feel content.

Sometimes in life we have everything we could ever dream of...

and yet we still screw everything up.

This is a fairwell... for the time being. I need to focus on being a wife, mom and friend. Hopefully I will get over to the library to check y'alls blogs, but I can't guarantee how often that will be since I currently have a late fee due there and I am boycotting the outrageous late fees! I'm really gonna miss ya! You probably have no idea how much I'm gonna miss ya. But at least for a little while I am gonna have to take a hiatus. Hopefully I will be forgiven for my absence by you later and you will want to come by and visit again. But for now... so long, farewell, (whatever the heck the next word in the song is), adeiu.

Funny to come home

Snake showed me one of the "creations" made by the Bits while I was gone. It is 2 blocks taped together.

He handed it to me and said, "try to break them apart."

I took it and tried- but the tape was layers thick and I couldn't do it.

Oldest Child looked at Snake and said, "it is too hard, no one can break it apart."

Snake said, "Uh huh, Dad can. He has a table muscle."

Heehee!

the week continues

• Finished shopping for the freezer meals
• Mixed and bagged meatloaf for freezer
• Cooking chicken (currently) for the rest of the freezer meals.
• Checked my emails, FB and Twitter, but haven't been around the Blogosphere to do my daily visits...sorry! I need to catch up when I get back, but I won't be doing much in the way of visits this week. Don't judge me.
• Laundry for my parents (which is SO much easier than doing laundry for 4 small children)
• Still helping with the daycare
• Have not caused any harm to any of the kids - I'm not really violent, I promise!
• Took a few pics of places that mean something to me so that I can have a super-cool post after I get home.
  
• Vacuumed the downstairs
• Showered today... yes, this is a major accomplishment for me because I am not sleeping so well so to get up early enough to shower was a HUGE deal!

That's all folk...

Oh, and for the 3rd day in a row- UMM cried while we video called. She has yet to make it through talking to me without crying. It is breaking my heart. I miss my kids! (Never expected that, did ya?) If being gone for 9 days doesn't make me the winner of the Most Neglectful Parent Award this year, I really have no idea what will clinch it for me.