We got the most wonderful news last night!

Gutburner's brother's partner and his mother are in Vietnam adopting their second child. They took custody of him nearly a day early! Vietnam has this beautiful ceremony, although quick, for handing over babies from orphanages to their adoptive parents called a giving and receiving ceremony. No eye is dry in the place except maybe some unsuspecting children! Although spread thin, the orphanage nannies are very loving and their hearts do break as they hand off the children.

So T&E's new son is 9 months old and already a size 12 months--absolutely humongous by Vietnamese standards! Just to compare, they recieved their daughter, also from Vietnam, at the same age and she still wore a 3-6 month size, weighing something like 13#. She's currently the size of an average American 5 year old at nearly 8. She is perfect, and smart and healthy and beautiful however!

So, E should have gotten back to their hotel about 2 1/2 hours ago. There are many of us at the computers drumming our fingernails waiting for promised pictures!

The 90's are gone! The 90's are gone!

No more 90F+ weather in the 10 day forecast which might as well be through the end of the month. That means probably until May, except for the occasional heat blast which might last 2 days! My time of the year has started--the reason I moved to Florida--which is most of the year.

I still need to get the air conditioning fixed on the van though. It works--just takes 20 minutes to start feeling cold. And most of my trips are only 10....

Well, I did it

scheduled foot surgery. You know its bad when 5 days of prednisone does nothing to reduce the swelling. It's not that I'm not functional, I am, but its getting hard to wear shoes that aren't sneakers. I was surprised to hear that I'll have to have physical therapy and through home health no less. He's removing 2 Morton's neuromas, scar tissue, inflammed tissue and cutting the tendon that causes plantar fascitis to stop the bone spurs. I guess its that last one that calls for the need of therapy. Its such a crazy year that I'll probably go over the out of pocket limit on my health insurance, so now's definitely the time. Too bad I don't know what else will need doing soon, LOL!

Kids are back in school today. Gutburner was a dufus on Friday and took the boy to Cub Scouts even though he didn't go to school. I was asleep and didn't realize he was taking him. Another parent chewed him out about it and now she's blaming me that her kid has strep and tonsillitis--and guess who definitely doesn't have those things? She'll never believe me. Too bad. I've long since given up on winning her high and mighty approval.

Sister's so relieved--she (her baby) qualifies for Medicaid only for maternity services until her 6 week post-partum appointment! Her insurance didn't have maternity so she's so relieved. I can't wait to see her with a bump! Now she has no excuses left not to come down here for Christmas! I guess I now have something good to say about Indiana.

I have to cheer for my sister again! When she called to talk to our aunt about her pregnancy, my aunt used it as a reason to get on her soap box about voting Democrat. My sister was able to blast her arguements and threatened to hang up on her if she continued to bring down her news by talking about politics. Good for her!!!

I did something somewhat stupid on Saturday. I pulled weeds in the lawn without gloves when it was over 90F. After an hour and a half, Gutburner ordered me inside for watering. I'm now sporting some nasty broken blisters on my fingers. I suppose I'll have to find some vinyl (allergic to latex) gloves to do the dishes because soap sure does burn. I have too many pots & pans that aren't dishwasher safe, or just too honkin' big.

I have to LOL at Thing 1. He's really working hard to earn money. Now all of my toilets are marginally clean, his room is clean and he even makes his bed sometimes! The power of money for video games will never cease to amaze me. Just so you know he hasn't suddenly turned into the perfect child, it was like pulling teeth to get him to do his homework last night. He had procrastinated that since Thursday.

I suppose I should upload my camera soon......

Stacey

Love and best wishes to the kids!

I did it again!

Got to my next doctor's appointment, that is. And was so happy to hear that they might be able to fix the vertigo that's been plagueing me for 2 1/2 weeks! SO I went back an hour later to see the audiologist who hooked me up to some space goggles and told me to follow the light. They test your level of dizziness by watching your post-rotary nystagmus. That is, how your eyes shake when you're dizzy. So after following the light left and right and up and down came the fun part--lying backwards and to the left and to the right. Left is obviously the big problem. Then came the wierd part--did you know that air blown into your ear for extended periods of time could make you dizzy? Well it most certainly does. Cold is far worse than hot.

Soon after lunch I get a call to pick up Thing 1 from school with a sore throat. He's acting fine now. But now he can't go to his karate thing. Right now he and I are excited about the new Leapfrog toy, Didj. You can plug in your spelling list for the week and it will make games with them. Maybe we'll get one for his spelling tests because he's having a hard time with them. And I'm having far too little patience for 3rd grade spelling.

Done for now, tis taking far too long to type this in.

I finally made it

to a doctor's appointment, that is! It seems I've been having a problem in that area lately. Probably because I see too much of them. Yesterday it was the pulmonologist. That one's been scheduled for months. However, the ones I recently scheduled last week and even re-scheduled for this week were 1) canceled due to illness, 2) missed because I slept right through it after going back to bed on same ill day, 3) canceled due to being up north due to the funeral and 4) forgotten because Outlook didn't remind me until 5 minutes before it was scheduled--and I was still in bed. The last one--rescheduled--is in an hour. Think I'll make it?

So the pulmonologist, after seeing that I had wonderful PFT's (9 years of playing a wind instrument will do that to you, even if you're near death with wheezing), took my word for it that I've needed the inhaler up to 4 times in a day, said that wasn't cutting it and gave me Prednisone. Please send prayers or vibes for "boobs don't grow" like DFIL's did post-transplant.

Thing 1 is doing cruddy in spelling. Teacher added that bit of info (which I already knew since his school has a great online grading system) to a thank-you note for some pencil grips I sent in. So my mom quizzed him last night, probably will again tonight and I think he'll ace tomorrow's test. He has some kind of karate demonstration thing for the city tonight at an event where the city shows off its services. He's worried he'll hurt his foot trying to break a board.

Thing 2 has a busy schedule of speech therapy and dance class after school. That's what Thursday's like. Hopefully that will go better than 2 weeks ago where she rebelled over everything.

Its Raining Uncles

Yep, that means I've lost a few uncles this past year. I just got back from the last funeral--the 3rd. Hopefully that means the superstitions are right and its the end of that for a while. Each was a blessing due to long illness.

I don't think I know of anyone else in the family who is that sick. Hopefully it's not just because I can't think.

Gutburner stayed home with the kids. They all survived. We'll call "him" "Gutburner" due to his love of all things spicy. I apologize to his stomach on frequent occasions.

It was good to see many members of my family I hadn't seen in a few years. I only managed to offend one of them--unless no one else mentioned it to me. It had to do with Indiana probably being second only to North Carolina in the number of smokers per capita and the fact that I didn't have asthma the last time she saw me. Apparently pulling out my inhaler when its needed jabs the knife in too far. That and my habit for being recklessly blunt. That's what you'll find here. So I apologized knowing that anything I do certainly won't change her.

Oh! My sister's pregnant! We're still wondering if that will change her status as single seeing as she's been with the guy for over 14 years--I don't have to count since its only 2 weeks after my wedding that she started dating him. Or if she can convince him to change his unfortunate last name for the sake of their child's social health. I'm sure there's lots she's hiding in regards to both of those things. On the plus side, her SO did come to dinner with us! Yes, this is right up there with miraculous considering the first time we met him, he whispered all the answers to any questions we asked of him into her ear for her to speak! No, that's not an exaggeration in the slightest, believe it or not! Unfortunately the gorgeous dress she bought a few years ago for the wedding doesn't fit anymore. Don't you just want to shoot her in this picture? Skinny bitch.

I guess karma is biting her there. Really, I'm not bitter! I'm just glad she's finally having one of those kids she has wanted badly since we were calling her Chubawubz when she was 8 months old. Doesn't matter where the sperm comes from. Even if her new last name will suggest that nickname if she ever marries him.