My new blog

This is not my first blog. I have another one. My other blog is devoted to digiscrapping and digidesigning. I wanted a personal one. I don't care who reads this one. I don't really care if anyone reads this one. I wanted this one to be just for me.

Let me start off by explaining the name of this blog. My nick name has been Poppy. It was given to me by my little sister when I was a teenager. She couldn't say my name, Patricia. She called me Poppy when she started learning how to talk. She still calls me Poppy. I have found that this name is taken a lot on different web sites. I frequently go by poppymom (because I am a mom) or poppymom23(because I am a mom to 3 children), but I use Poppy whenever I can. I really do prefer this to my other names.

So now a little about myself. I am 38 years old. I have been married for almost 17 years. I have 3 wonderful children. Rachael is 15, Andrew is 10 and Jeremy is 6. I would love to have more, but pregnancy is not nice for me, so we stopped at 3. I used to be a pediatric nurse. I stopped working as a nurse about 16 months ago. I was struck with debilitating low back pain and a slew of other neurological problems including a paralysed right foot, poor balance, vision problems in the form of optic neuritis. In December, I finally found a neurologist that didn't dismiss it all as "in your head". I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. It was bitter sweet. It was nice to finally have a diagnosis, but I couldn't deny any longer that I had a life-long, degenerative disease. I know that I can live a full and complete life. I never know what this disease will bring though. I am currently experiencing a 3rd episode of optic neuritis. I take weekly injections for my MS. They are getting easier to deal with. Initially, they made me really sick. I felt like I had the flu for 24 hours after the shot. I take 2 Aleve right before my shot and I only run a low fever during the night. Each shot gets better than the one before.

I have the best husband in the entire world. I couldn't possibly handle all of this without him. He is my life. He is wonderfully helpful to me. He is supportive and loving and caring and funny and handsome and just plain wonderful. Stan and I knew each other in high school, but we were not sweethearts. I had a huge crush on him, and he thought I was crazy. We started dating after he returned from his mission. We were at a YSA dance. I had worked a 12 hour night shift the night before and I had stayed up all day long. I was going to Houston with my room mate. I was so tired. I layed my head on his shoulder and took a short nap. He asked me out. He had tickets to the Randy Travis concert. My best friend loved Randy Travis but Stan was not that fond of my best friend. He didn't have anyone else to go with and didn't want to go with Melissa. We got engaged 1 month later. We had so many people tell us "It's about time". WHAT!!!! I guess a lot of people saw what we didn't.

Here is a little about my kids. Rachael is 15. She has been a dancer since she was 4. She takes tap, jazz, ballet and modern. She started pointe this year. She also got accepted to a pre apprentice company this year. It is called Visions in Rhythm. She loves it. She was previously involved in a competition troupe for 7 years. It got to be too much for our family and we switched studios. She loves her new studio, Tapestry.

Andrew is growing up to be a geek. That is ok, his dad was a geek. Andrew loves computers, video games and cub scouts. He is a webelo scout this year. His dad is is cub leader. He almost has his Webelo earned and then will start on his arrow of light. Andrew is 10 and he annoys his sister and picks on his brother. He really is a typical middle child.

Jeremy is the baby. Rachael was 9 when he was born. It is almost like he has 2 moms. He and Rachael are really close. Jeremy has a great sense of humor. It is a Hodge trait. It is inborn in Jeremy. He comes up with funny stories and can think up witty things so fast. Jeremy can't wait to start Cub Scouts. He will be official in the summer. He attends a lot of the activities already.

This has been a prett long post. You will be hearing more about my family. I'm sure you will get sick of it.