Me, Myself and Poppy

Adjusting to a new life

2011-05-13T21:21:00.001-05:00

The last 3 weeks have been full of adjustments for me. I posted all about my flare during my last post. I really thought things would be much better now. Usually, my function has more than 50% returned by the time I finish the oral steroids. This time, nothing. My right leg has been paralyzed for almost 3 weeks now. My whole life has changed in the last 3 weeks. I can't do things the same way I used to. I have to be careful about where I park or I can't get back into my van because there isn't enough room for the wheel chair ramp. I can't go to the grocery store by myself. I can't go to the fabric store by myself. That is the hard one for me. I love going to the fabric store and picking out the fabric for my next project and getting all the notions. Joann's, the fabric store I visit most, is hard for me to get around at all. It's a small, cramped store and my wheel chair doesn't even fit down all the isles. I have to take one of my kids with me. Rachael likes to go, but Andrew just complains and Jeremy isn't big enough to be much help. I can't go over to friends house very easily because I can't always get into their house. I can't just run into 7-11 for a drink. I've been really trying to just take things one day at a time. I've been trying to do as much as I can to keep some of my independence. I know when my mother in law had to go into a wheel chair, she had a hard time too. She and I are both very independent people.

Tonight, I just about had a total break down. I usually use the walker to get from the car to the house and just drag my leg. This evening, I had a few bags of groceries plus my dinner and no one else was home, so I thought I would take the wheel chair in so I could get everything in. Big mistake. I picked up a new wheel chair tonight, and it doesn't "off road" as well as the one I've been borrowing. Trying to get up on the side walk, I got stuck. The front wheel was against the side walk side ways and the power wheel was off the ground. I tried to stand up and pull it up, but it didn't work. I called every person I could think of that lived anywhere close to me. I don't know a lot of my neighbors very well. We mostly just say 'HI" in passing. I don't have any of their phone numbers except my next door neighbor on the right and she was pulling out as I pulled in. No one I called was home. I had to walk and drag my leg over to the neighbors on the left. No one answered at first. I got all the way back home and they came out-they had been taking a nap. He was able to get the wheel chair unstuck and back into the van. One of my closest friends, and the person I called first, called me back as I was coming into the house. I broke down and cried hysterically. I still start to cry every time I think of it. Just that small ordeal totally exhausted me. My leg is in spasms from the extra activity. I just hate this. I have known since I was first diagnosed with MS that I had a higher chance of ending up in a wheel chair. I just didn't think it would happen so soon. I thought I would have 10 or 12 years before a wheel chair was necessary and I thought it would be a little more gradual. I'm still holding onto a little bit of hope that I will get some function back. It may just be denial though.

I have a few new jobs lined up. I"m excited about them. I've been asked by an old high school friend to make a few ruck sack style back packs. I made a prototype for myself to make sure I had the pattern correct (I made the pattern myself from a photo). Now, I am working on hers. It's a nice, big back pack and carries a ton of stuff. There are also lots of pockets. Jeremy's occupational therapist wants one too now. I am also going to be making a quilt for one of the other VIR moms. I may let the things in my Etsy store expire and just make things custom for friends and family who request things.

Jeremy has decided he wants to learn to sew. He wants to make a book bag for his cousin. We did some embroidery together on it and now we have started sewing it together. I'm going to be doing some sewing with my cub scouts next year when they are Webelos. This will be good practice for me to teach boys how to sew. I hope the other boys are as excited as he is.

Already missed

2011-05-03T22:08:00.001-05:00

Well, I was planning on posting at least once a week, but I've already missed. I have a good reason though. My monster of a disease, also known as multiple sclerosis, has shown it's ugly head again. I was really hopeful that the Copaxone I have been switched to would be effective faster than expected, but that is not to be the case. I am currently having the worst MS flare I have ever had. It started 10 days ago. I woke up with my hip flexors feeling a little weak. I could still walk normally, but I felt it when I stepped up. It just seemed to take a little extra effort. This was the Friday before Easter. We had a normal Easter weekend, including an Easter egg hunt on Saturday. Things were still the same on Monday when I went to physical therapy. I asked my therapist about it and he assessed my hip strength and he said it was just a little bit weak. He gave me soeme exercises to start doing at home. Tuesday brought more weakness though. I sent my neuro an email about it and by the time she got back with me, my entire right leg from the hip down was paralyzed. I can't even take a step on my own now. I was so not ready for this. My neuro got me started on IV solumedrol right away. However, it didn't help at all this time. I usually get 50% or more of my function back from the IV steroids. I didn't get anything back this time. I'm on an oral taper right now and still no improvement. I have to go get an MRI tomorrow. I'm hoping they can find where the problem in on the MRI. I'm also hoping they can do something about it. I can take a few steps if I pick up my leg by my pant leg and make it step. Other wise, I'm stuck in a wheel chair. I'm grateful that I have access to a handicapped van, wheel chair, walker, etc without having to wait to get all of that stuff. My mother in law left her handicapped van to us when she passed away. Stan's grandma has been using it for the past 2 years. I feel bad we had to take it back from her, but Beth wanted to make sure I had it if I needed it. I'm trying to cope the best I can, but it has been really hard. I will be the first to admit that I am scared. I'm scared I'm going to be in a wheel chair for the rest of my life. I don't feel like I can take care of my family the way I want to either. I'm glad my kids are older and can help me out around the house. I don't want to put extra stress on them. I'm suppose to be the mom and I'm suppose to take care of them. They are my life and I love them dearly.

Rachael is getting ready to officially graduate. She won't have an actual graduation since she is homeschooled, but she will be considered graduated. She has been taking some classes at ACC for the last 2 years. She will start college with 26 credit hours. We went to a local art museum with a beautiful garden a few weeks ago and took some great pictures for her senior pictures. They turned out so good. I'm pleased with my work, if I do say so myself. I"ve been trying to load them onto FB, but I keep getting an error message. I"m going to try to put them on here now and see if I can get them to load. My daughter is so beautiful and she is so photogenic. If she was taller, she would make a great model. She isn't interested in modeling though. She only wants to dance.

Speaking of dance, her very last VIR show is this Saturday. She has a solo in the show. I"m really excited to see the show. I love watching her dance. If your in Austin and want to see a good show, it is at the Carver at 2pm and 7pm.

Mormon Prom

2011-04-12T21:14:00.000-05:00

This weekend was "Mormon Prom", more formally know as the Priest & Laurel Formal. Rachael wasn't really sure she wanted to go, but all of her friends really wanted her to, so she decided to go. One reason she didn't want to go was because Andy is on his mission. She didn't really want to go stag, so she asked one of the boys in our ward, Aaron Stoddard, to go with her. She figured that was pretty safe since he is younger and she wants to wait for Andy anyway. She didn't want a long, formal prom dress this year. She did that last year. She found this fabric at Joann's in the fall and fell in love with it, so she decided to make a wrap dress out of it and wear it to prom. I think it turned out great. There was a few frustrations with it, but she still did a great job with it. I made Aaron a matching tie. Now that prom is over, he gave the tie back and we are going to send it to Andy so he and Rachael can match when he gets back. She had a good time at the prom. She is kinda outgrowing youth dances though. She usually comes home and says they were lame. She has gone to a few young single adult dances and she likes them a lot better. The picture below is one of Rachael and her cousin Aashlie. Aashlie designed her dress and drew it out and her mom made it. She did a really good job on the dress too.

I wanted to share with everyone the bag that is a Poppy Mom Gifts original. Rachael gets credit for the design. She drew it out for me and then I had to figure out how to sew it. Her original design had 4 sections in the front rather than the 5 I put in this bag. It was easier to alternate fabrics with an odd number of wedge pieces. I made this one for my niece, Jessica. She picked out the main body fabric from my stash and I found a few others that went with them. I actually used upholstery trim for the strap. I made one using the same pattern for Rachael, but ended up having to alter the pattern a little bit. I thought I had taken a picture, but I can't find it right now. Rachael's used the Indian silky fabrics that are so beautiful and intricate. The problem was that they are thick and didn't lay flat when I sewed the small strips together. I had to make the wedge pieces bigger and use only 3 instead of 5. The Indian fabric has a unique property that it was teal with a gold print on one side but gold with a teal print on the other. Rachael's bag alternates the teal and the gold, then I used a gold drapery tie for the handle. I have a pattern with instructions written out. The next time I make one, I'm going to take photos of each step so I can put a tutorial on my blog for this bag. I didn't take a picture of the inside. It's just lined with a black satiny type fabric. This one has a pouch style pocket, but Rachael's has a zipper pocket. I would have preferred to put a zipper in this one but I didn't have any black ones. This is probably the nicest bag I've made, meaning that it isn't a casual type bag. It's fancier and can be really fancy depending upon the fabric I use. Rachael's is really fancy since we used fancy fabric.

I really need to find the time to start working on more bags for my Etsy store. I've been working on the quilts for the quilting club and a bag for the YW auction. I'll put pictures of the bag and quilts on my blog and on my FB when I am done with them. If anyone in the Austin area wants to come to the YW auction, it will be May 7th. I know it will be at the Parker Lane chapel, but I don't know the time yet. I'll post that when I find out. Everyone have a great week.

Not much going on

2011-04-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

There isn't really much going on right now, but I really want to try to post something once a week more so I get into the habit of posting. If I don't get in the habit, then it will end up being months before I post again.

Life is just on auto pilot right now. I started physical therapy about 6 weeks ago to see if I can get some strength back into my foot. With the flare I had in December, I lost most of the movement in my right foot. I can twitch it a little bit, but not much more than that. I really want to be able to drive normally though. Right now, my van is equipped with a left foot accelerator. This means my van is the only thing I can drive. It is difficult when Stan has a scout camp out. No one else has a large vehicle to take the boys anywhere except the Stoddard's and Stan always feels bad that they have to use their van each month. He used to leave me with the Rio, but now I can drive it. I will be suprised if I get all the movement back in my foot, but I would like to get enough to drive. I have made some progress, but it is so slow. Last week, every time I had PT, my foot would just lock up. This week was better but I still have a long way to go.

The kids are also on auto pilot. We still have cub scouts, boy scouts, mutual, dance, cooking class, OT, home schooling, chores, and play time. Jeremy has been struggling to get his school work done lately so we started a reward system. He wasn't getting done until 5 or 6 pm. It was crazy. Now, he gets a star if he gets done by 2:30. After the first 5 stars, he got to go mini golfing. We did that today at Peter Pan Golf. It's the only mini golf place open in Austin. There used to be a few really cool one on 290 when I was dating Stan, but it closed. Peter Pan is just ok, but Jeremy loves it. Now, he has to get 10 stars and I will take him to a movie of his choice. Then, he has to get 15 and we will go roller skating.

I started working on 2 new quilts recently. We started a quilt club at church called Sisters-in-Stitches. Last month, I taught the nine patch to everyone. I started a regular nine patch for the purpose of teaching the class. I also wanted to show some variations, so I also started a disappearing nine patch. I finished the top of the disappearing nine patch, and I have it basted to the batting and the backing. I need to quilt it now. Rachael has been making her prom dress though, so I had to wait until she finished that. She did so today, so I need to put the serger away so I have room to quilt. I'll post some pictures on here once I'm done. My regular nine patch squares are done, so I need to get the sashing fabric for the class in April. I can't decide what color to do the sashing, so I need to just look around the fabric store. That is a pretty dangerous thing for me though. I've also started another bag. This is going to be a huge bag with an oriental flare for the YW auction fund-raiser for girls camp. I didn't realize how big the bag was when I picked it out. It is about 21 inches wide. It will make a good mom bag though. I love the combinations of fabrics I chose, so I'm excited to get it finished. I have a list of projects I need to start and finish before the end of the year. I"m excited about all of them and can't wait to try some of the new quilt patterns. I'm especially excited about the new x-block I got at the Georgetown quilt show. Hey, I just realized I should have posted about that. I have lots of great pics. I'm sleep and ready for bed, so I'll post about that next time.

Have a great week.

Spring Break

2011-03-22T21:34:00.001-05:00

I am still trying to recover from spring break last week. We had so much fun. Monday was spent just running errands. Tuesday, we went to the zoo in San Antonio. I think the entire city of San Antonio was there. It was a mad house. I thought we were going to have to park a long ways away, but I lucked out and there was a special parking area for handicapped. I guess MS has a few advantages (they aren't usually worth the disadvantages though). At least when the zoo is busy you don't have to stand in long lines to get on rides. We were able to see all the animals we wanted to for the most part. They have this new indoor area for the African section of the zoo. The hippos are outside, but there is a big window so you can see them under water. We couldn't get around to some of the windows to see some of the smaller African animals. The big ones were outside though and they were the ones the kids wanted to see. We took lots of pictures of the snakes since Andrew and Jessica (my niece) are obsessed with snakes. They both own Ball Pythons. My favorite part of the zoo was the big cats, especially the tigers. I was able to get a good photo of the sleeping tiger thanks to my 300mm lens. The weather that day was wonderful. It was a little cool and overcast at the beginning of the day, but it ended up really nice but not too hot. After the zoo, we went to the temple to exchange Jeremy's scriptures. We have had them for 4 months and a page came out. Then we stopped at IHOP and they came home. We were all pretty tired, but it was great fun. It would have been much better though if Stan could have gone with us. There were already several people off at work so he couldn't get any time off during spring break. Usually, since we homeschool, spring break doesn't matter much, but with Rachael taking classes at ACC, she has class every day except Friday and Jeremy has OT on Friday.

Wednesday we all slept in, then I did some sewing while the boys just watched TV. Rachael took a master class from the modern teacher at Tapestry during spring break, so she went to dance. After I got some sewing done (I was hired to make some curtains and they were the BIGGEST pain in the world), then I took the boys bowling. I watched them bowl. I used to love to bowl, but since I have chronic back pain, I just can't handle bowling any more. I tried with the cub scouts 2 years ago and I had to have one of the other moms take over for me after only 3 frames. Anyway, Andrew got a gutter ball his first roll, so he asked to have the bumpers up. He decided in the second game that he should probably man up and bowl like an adult. Needless to say, Andrew won the first game and Jeremy won the second. That's ok, because we had fun. The kids had mutual on Wednesday evening, so I worked on the curtains some more.

Thursday was quiet around the house. Andrew spent the night with Ryan and Rachael was at dance, so it was just Jeremy and I. In the afternoon, we went to see Rachael dance showing off what she learned in her master class. It was pretty cool, but kinda strange compared to what she usually does. She loved the class though. She hasn't been able to take the modern class because she teaches a little kids class during the modern class. This teacher is doing her senior solo though, so she does get to learn from her and she loves her technique and her style.

Friday we had OT and spent the rest of the day cleaning so we could have Jeremy's birthday party on Saturday. His birthday was actually in January, but he wanted to have a party that needed to be outdoors, so we had it in March. We had a Nerf war in the back yard. It was so much fun and it was so easy. I put out a few snacks and we had lots of ammo and Nerf guns and it was a total free for all. They played Nerf war for about 2 hours and then the Hess's stayed and played for a long time after. I highly recommend this party for any little boys

Now life is back to normal. The curtains are done, school is back in session and things are calm. I have to say that I will never do curtains like that again and I now see why people charge so much for custom curtains. These were curtains for an area that was 8 ft tall and 10 ft wide. They fabric was very thick and heavy too. I don't have a single flat area in my entire house, including floor space, to measure and cut curtains that big. I am actually really surprised they turned out really well. They are all even and they hang just the way they are suppose to. Now I can get back to the things I like to make; bags and quilts. I'm working on a new quilt right now. I have no idea what I am going to do with this one. I'm doing a 9 patch and I'm doing it only because I am teaching how to do this kind of quilt at our quilting club at church. I took the easy way though though and I bought a jelly roll and a charm pack to make the squares of this quilt. I might sell it in my Etsy store, if I can get anything to sell. I"ve been open 3 weeks and nothing so far. I need to do something to get the word out and to get people to look at my store. When I put things in the store, they are buried pages and pages back within 24 hours, so my bags are not the first things to come up when people look at bags. I'll take any suggestions on getting my name out there if anyone has any.

Everyone have a great week.

My next set of bags

2011-03-13T21:28:00.001-05:00

I just uploaded a few more bags to my Etsy store. In addition to bags, I now have a few water bottle holders. I love these water bottle holders. It makes it so convenient to always have water with me. They are especially nice when you are hiking or taking long walks. I also plan on using mine when we go to Six Flags this summer and during girls camp. Here are a few pictures of what I put in the store this weekend. You can find the links to my store on the side bar.

In addition to making bags and water bottle holders, I have been busy with lots of other sewing projects. I never thought I would do this much sewing in my life. To think, I used to hate to sew. It just goes to show you that you have to find the right thing. I still wouldn't make a dress, but I've made Jeremy some shorts with matching do-rags. For some reason, he is obsessed with these do-rags lately. He has 3 pairs of shorts that have a matching do-rag. I also made another quilt that has a roller derby theme. I used the same fabrics I did for my nieces quilt, but used a different pattern so they are both unique. Then lastly, I've made LOTS of curtains for Jeremy's occupational therapist. I made 4 sets of curtains for her windows and I'm about to start on a large set of curtains that are going to be used as a partition in her small cabin that she shares with her daughter. It will basically serve as a wall to give her daughter some privacy.

I've also been having some fun playing around with Emily's sewing machine. She let me borrow the embroidery/sewing machine she inherited when my mother-in-law (her mother) passed away. It is so nice. The entire thing is computerized. It sews, has lots of decorative stitches, self threads plus does lots of different embroidery designs. It has a bunch pre-loaded, but then you can hook it directly up to your computer and load lots of other patterns into it. There are so many free patterns all over the web. I've downloaded a bunch but haven't moved them over to the machine yet. I haven't even had a chance to embroider with it yet. I have to finish up these partition curtains this week, then I will have time to play with the embroidery machine.

This may be old news as I can't remember if I posted this the last time, but I had to switch my MS medication. I was on weekly shots of Avonex, but I have had 3 flares in the past 7 months so it doesn't appear to be working any more. Now I am on Copaxone. There are some pros and cons to this. It doesn't have the really bad side effects that the Avonex does, but the shots are every day. The only side effects I've found with these shots is that I get this intense stinging and redness at the injections site starting 2 minutes after the injection. I've been told it gets better and I hope it does. I have to hold an ice pack on the site for about 30 minutes after the injection. I really hope this works and I don't have any more flares.

This week starts spring break. I'm planning on having a lot of fun with the kids this week. We are going to the zoo in San Antonio on Tuesday. The other days, we are just doing lots of fun things around town. We are also going to be cleaning the house this week. Jeremy is finally going to get to have his birthday party on Saturday. His birthday was 2 1/2 months ago, but since he wanted to have a Nerf war in the back yard, I didn't think January would be a good month to have that kind of party. A lot of the people we invited can't come because of spring break, but enough people are going to be there that it should be fun. I feel sorry for any girls that show up though. This is totally a boy party.

I hope everyone has a great week. Please send prayers my way giving me enough energy to keep up with my kids this week.

Etsy

2011-03-03T10:18:00.001-06:00

I have an Etsy store now. I'm super excited about this. I started making bags about 6 months ago and I've been hooked on it ever since. I've made probably 30 bags since I've started. I've given away lots as gifts. I've had several people tell me I need to start selling them, so that is what I am doing. Here is what I have in there right now, and there are several more things I need to put in there soon.

The top one is a purse with a magnetic snap and a pouch pocket inside. The second 2 are little girl's dance bags. These are the kind of bags Rachael would have loved when she was a little girl. It's big enough to hold tap shoes and ballet shoes plus a few other small things. The last one is the Schelpp bag. I've made lots of these type bags. Here is the link to my store- http://www.etsy.com/shop/poppymomgifts?ref=pr_shop . My store is called Poppy Mom Gifts. I do take requests, so feel free to contact me about making a bag. I also make throw size quilts, but won't be selling those on Etsy. I make those on an individual request, so if you want a quilt, contact me and we can discuss it. Feel free to pass this along to all your friends.

Now that the business part of my post is done, onto life. Life has actually been pretty stressful lately. My health is just giving me lots of trouble. In December, I had a really bad MS flare that left my right foot completely paralyzed and my right leg fairly weak. I was just starting to feel like I had gotten my energy back when I was hit with some really bad migraines that started off with pain behind my right eye. I dismissed them as just migraines, until my vision started getting blurry in my right eye. After connecting the dots, I made an appointment with the ophthalmologist to have this evaluated. I was correct in my assumption; I have optic neuritis. It is a common problem in MS patients. This is about the 5th time I have had it. I elected not to treat this one though. I saw the neuro the next week and we decided that my current MS management isn't working, so we are going to change things up a bit. I'm going to stop my weekly Avonex injections and start daily Copaxone injections. I'm actually looking forward to the change. The Avonex makes me feel like I have the flu for 24 hours each week. I won't have those side effects with the Copaxone. I'm just hoping it works and continues to work for longer that the Avonex did. There is a new oral medication out now, but I want it to be on the market for longer before I start taking it. I want to see what kind of side effects show up in real life and if there are any problems with it.

This weekend, we had our packs Pinewood Derby and Blue and Gold banquet. We had some trouble with Jeremy's car, but it still did well. The wheels were having trouble staying on the day of the race, but he still got 2nd place over all. His car looked really cool this year. I have pictures on my camera, but I haven't downloaded them yet. I"ll get that done soon. Jeremy also got his Bear awarded this weekend. Of my 5 Bears, all but one got his Bear. The one that didn't started the year late because of sports. We are working on getting his done by May. I really have such a great group of Cub Scouts. They have lots of energy, but I love them. This coming weekend, a bunch of the scouts are going to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco for a camp out. Andrew is going to go with them this time.

If you are interested in seeing Rachael dance, and you live in the Austin area, this weekend is your chance. Rachael has a preview dance show on Saturday at 6:30 at Tapestry. Admission is free with donations accepted at the door. There is also a silent auction, in which I have donated several bags, a quilt and Stan has made several wooden puzzles. I love watching Rachael dance. I can't believe this is her last year in VIR. It's not her last year dancing by any means, but no more recitals for us after May. She is going to be majoring in dance at Texas State, so there will be other shows in her future. I'm just not ready to have an adult child. I don't know that you are ever ready.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Snow Day in Texas

2011-02-04T10:01:00.001-06:00

I know to all my family in Idaho, Utah and Pennsylvania, this is no big deal, but it isn't something that happens here very often. Under the snow is a layer of ice, so Austin pretty much grinds to a halt. The boys are having a lot of fun in the snow. Jeremy's friends are all home from school, so they have been playing in the snow. He plays for a while until his hands are numb, then comes in for a little while, then goes back out again. Rachael isn't interested in going out at all. I'm getting ready to start sewing some more. That's how I plan on spending my snow day.

I finished the quilt for VIR 2 days ago and turned it into Stacie last night. I took a good photo of it before I turned it in. I wish I would have taken better photos of my bags before I turned them in. I took those photos with my iPhone, so they are kinda blurry.

The theme of this quilt is "When Life Hands You Lemons...". This quilt will be auctioned at the VIR silent auction and dance show that will take place on March 5th at Tapestry. This was the most challenging quilt I have ever made. It was also the biggest I've done so far. I'm pretty proud of it. I didn't think it was going to turn out for a while there as I struggled to make some of the stars. I tried a short cut I learned on You-Tube and it fails to mention that you have to add extra for seam allowance and I'm new enough at quilting that I didn't think of that myself. Lesson learned though and I won't make that mistake again. I'll post pictures of my bags soon. If your my friend on FB, you can see the photos of my bags on there until I get to post them here.

Long time, no post

2011-01-24T14:52:00.003-06:00

I haven't written anything on my blog for a very long time. It's been like 9 months. There has been a lot going on. I'm not going to get into it all, but I will summarize the last 9 months as quickly as possible.

Most of the year has gone by pretty uneventful. We have just been going about our daily life. During the summer, we had girl's camp, youth conference, cub scout day camp and boy scout camp. Youth conference was a pioneer trek, including authentic pioneer attire. They had to trek in the Texas heat in the middle of June. It was a good experience for them.

After all the camps were over, July brought be a mild MS flare. I lost the sensation and a lot of movement to my left hand. I had gone 25 months without a flare. I did my steroid treatment and I got all the function back in my left hand. I had the normal side effects of the steroids-high blood pressure, diabetes, thrush, and just general yuck.

August was a hard month, especially for Rachael. Her boyfriend of over a year left for his mission. He entered the MTC on August 20th. He spend almost every waking minute before that over at our house. The week he left was also the week Rachael started back at school and in dance. She was an emotional mess for the first week. He has been gone for 5 months now and she still has a hard time sometimes. I think what is hardest for her is that he is having a hard time, especially with being home sick. She has gotten to talk to him twice since he left. She talked to him when he left for Norway from the MTC and she got to Skype with him on Christmas too. He is also struggling with his testimony right now and wondering if his mission is really worth it, which is really hard on her. I think it would be better if she could just talk to him rather than relying on the written word. She might be able to talk him through this much better if they could actually talk.

In October, my mom and step dad visited. It was a pretty good visit. I kinda freaked out before the visit and cleaned fanatically. She didn't even criticize my house. It was nice to have it cleaned though. I took advantage of the bunch of energy I had and the motivation for cleaning to purge my house of all the clutter. The holiday season brought more clutter, but it is still better than it was.

The holiday season also brought me another flare. This one was really bad. I lost almost all the function in my right leg. I had to go back to walking with a cane. At first, I couldn't walk very well at all. I did steroids again, although this time they didn't work quite as well. I got the feeling back in my leg and some of the strength, but my entire foot is now paralyzed. We had to install a left food accelerator in our van so I could drive. It's a little bit of a pain because now I can drive any of our other vehicles, but I'm at least grateful that I can drive.

Rachael did really well with school in the fall semester. She got A's in both of her classes. She took environmental science and government. This semester,, she is taking Texas government and english. She will officially graduate from high school in May, although she has been taking only college classes for the past 2 years. She will do one more semester at ACC to finish out her basics, then transfer to Texas state. She wants to save as much as possible so she isn't in a lot of debt when she graduates.

The boys are doing well. They are both still in scouts. Jeremy is a Bear in cub scouts. Andrew is in boy scouts and is a 2nd class. We are working on lots of merit badges with Andrew and lots of various cub scout things with Jeremy. Andrew was able to graduate from OT right before Christmas. He was really excited about that. He has come a long ways. His sensory issues are much better and his handwriting is a lot better too. We still need to practice with him so that it flows better and quicker, but it is so much better than when we started.

Andrew is still enjoying his cooking classes. He goes back and forth about being a chef. He has plenty of time to make up his mind though. He likes his classes, but doesn't want to just experiment in the kitchen. He does like baking more than cooking. Jeremy really wants to start Ti-kwon-do. He will probably get to start during the summer. We wanted to start in the fall, but we just couldn't afford it.

Stan and I both have new hobbies. Stan got interested in doing wood working puzzles in November. He made some for all of our nieces and nephews. They turned out really well. He has more he wants to make. He got a lot of new wood working tools with his bonus. He may even look into selling them when he feels he is good enough. I've started quilting and making bags. The bags started off as just a way to have a messenger bag that was the right size and wasn't stiff and ugly like a lot of them on the market. I made one for Margie for Christmas as a practice and found that I LOVED making bags. I bought a quilting book while my mom was here. We found a bunch of quilting squares that Rachael and Beth started 10 years ago. I finished up that quilt top and put it together. Next, I made a roller derby quilt for Jessica for Christmas. It's a lot of fun. It's not as fast as bag making, but I still like it. I'm working on one for the VIR auction now. I have the top together and it is sandwiched with the batting and the backing. I still need to quilt it. I'm waiting on a part to my walking foot to help keep my lines evenly spaced. I see a lot of flaws with my quilts, but most people love them. I made one for someone at church this past week. It was my favorite one so far. We are even starting a quilting group at church.

Christmas was really good for us. The kids got spoiled as usual. It was fun to spend time with family and friends. We cut back a lot on the extras of the holidays because of my flare. It was ok though. I think it was one of our best Christmases ever.

I'm going to be opening a store on Etsy soon. I have to get my bag stock up so that I have things to sell first. I made my first sell bag on Saturday. I have a bag I have to make for my mom, then I can start making more store bags. I think I'm going to make baby slings, car seat tents, maybe a few quilts and lots of bags. I have a few quick and inexpensive bags I can make and some more complex bags, like diaper bags I'm going to make. There are lots of pictures of my bags on my Facebook page. I need to download them off my phone so I can put them in my blog.

I will try to blog more often. I know a lot of my family use this blog to keep up with me. I'm sorry I let you down.

Creekhaven Inn

2010-04-10T15:12:00.010-05:00

Stan and I got a rare treat recently. We went to Wimberly and spent 2 days and nights at a bed and breakfast called Creekhaven Inn. It was a wonderful trip. My friend Lynn took care of the boys for us while we were gone. Rachael was home alone on her own. The room was beautiful, the bed comfortable and the surrounding area was lovely. The top picture is of the creek that ran in front of the B&B.

Here are some pictures of Stan and I that we took using the tripod.

Here is our room. It had a huge garden tub as you can see that look out onto the creek.

This is a tree that was in front on the B&B. It is a 1,000 year old cypress tree.

We want to try to go every year. We thought we might try other B&B in the area, but we loved this place so much that they will probably get our business each year. We really needed this break. While the boys were with Lynn, she took them geocaching. We are hooked now. We have found 9 geocaches so far. Every time we go some place, so see if there is a geocache in the area. If you don't know what geocaching is, go to www.geocaching.com . Be careful though, you might good hooked too.

Pictures from Spring Break

2010-03-30T12:50:00.010-05:00

Spring Break

2010-03-29T13:08:00.006-05:00

We had a marvelous time during spring break this year. We didn't go anywhere like we did last year, but we still had fun. I took lots of pictures, but I am going to have to upload those onto the blog later. For some reason, my computer isn't showing me any pictures. I've tried to upload 2 on here and they just aren't showing up. I don't know what is wrong. It could be Mozilla, or Blogger. I don't know. I'll tell you about spring break and you can see the pictures later.

The first day was kinda boring. We had some errands to run, so we did that. Andrew mowed the lawn and I worked with Rachael on learning to drive a standard. It wasn't very successful. She stalled a lot and was kinda freaked out.

On Tuesday, it rained all day. We stayed inside and watched movies and just hung out. The rain slowed down in the afternoon so I took Rachael to drive more. She did a lot better this second day. Unfortunately, we didn't get any more practice in that week, so she still needs to work on it more. Part of why we didn't get to practice is because we discovered her license was expired. It had expired back in October. I thought they were good for a year from the time you get it, but it was only 6 months. OOPS!!! She has been driving with an expired license for 5 months. Stan was able to take her in and get it renewed on Thursday, so that is taken care of now. It is good until her 18th birthday, then it will be good for a few years.

By Wednesday, the rain was gone and the sun was shining. It was beautiful. We went to Zilker Botanical Gardens. We spent about 3 hours just walking around. I look just over 100 pictures. Some of them turned out sooooo good. I can't wait to post them on here once my computer lets me. The Hess's went with us. It was a lot of fun and everything was so pretty. It will be even better in a few weeks when all the flowers are actually blooming. Everything was green, but there wasn't very many flowers out.

On Thursday, we went to the Nature Center. They have a bunch of animals there, like a mini zoo. Most of the animals were wild animals that had been kept as pets, or injured animals. They can no longer live in the wild either because of their injuries or their lack of ability to take care of themselves because of living with people. We got some good hiking in. There is a little stream that connects 2 small ponds at the nature center. The kids all took their shoes off and went wading through the water. Andrew and Jeremy ended up being soaking wet. Rachael also managed to lock her keys in the car there. It's a good thing we got a copy of her key for me or her dad would have had to come down to open the car. Andy and Rachael then went to help Ammon with his Eagle project. They had to work really hard cleaning up a bunch of tires that were buried under a play area. They fixed some benches too. They came home exhausted.

On Friday, we went roller skating. There is a new roller rink open in Manchaca. I hadn't been roller skating in years. I was surprised how much my legs hurt while I was skating. We skated for about a hour. It was good exercise. I didn't take any photos of skating because the rink was pretty dark. I didn't think they would turn out between the lack of light and the movement of the subjects. Jeremy didn't quite get the hang of skating though. He couldn't seem to move his feet properly. Andrew didn't want to go at first, but he was the one that didn't want to leave. He is also the one that has asked many times when we are going back. Jeremy has to skate for 3 hours before he can get his roller skating belt loop anyway. This means we will probably go at least 2 more times over the next few months. After we got done skating, we went to this little frozen custard place called Licketty's. It was yummy. The Davis's were suppose to meet us at the rink, but they got held up at the allergist office, so we went over there to hang out for a little while.

Saturday turned out to be very cold and wet. We had planned to go out shooting at Cannaday's ranch Saturday morning. We decided not to wimp out, but I wish we would have. It was really windy and the temperature was only 36 degrees. The low for the day was suppose to be 45. Boy were they wrong. It was so hard to believe it was so nice the entire week then it was like the middle of winter again. I shot Stan's new .22 hand gun about 8 times then I went back to the car to warm up. Jeremy came with us, but he never shot any of the guns. It was just too cold for his skinny little body. He stayed in the car the entire time. Now, we need to go out again when the weather is nice so we can do some real shooting and not be rushed to avoid freezing.

I'll try to post pictures tomorrow and hope it works. I also need to download my camera and post about the mini vacation Stan and I took in Wimberly at a bed and breakfast. Stay tuned!

Happy Valentines day

2010-02-14T21:37:00.002-06:00

Stan and I aren't really big on celebrating Valentines day, but it is a good excuse for us to go out on a date. We really don't go on dates as often as we should. Life gets busy with 3 kids and just life in general. Yesterday, we went out to Joe's Crab Shack. It was super yummy. We had lots of crab, including some yummy crab nachos. Tomorrow, Stan doesn't have to work, so we are going to take the kids to see Percy Jackson-The Lightning Thief. I'm really looking forward to it. Stan, Andrew and I have read the book. Andrew loved the book. I'm sad that there are only 5 books in the series. It is the first series that he will actually read just for fun. He is on the 4th book, so I need to find a new series that he loves just as much.

I got a new calling today. I was called as ward historian for our ward. I'm really looking forward to it. It's right up my alley. I've been helping out the former ward historian for the past 2 years and she keeps telling me that I am going to take her place every time I create a layout for her. I guess she was right. I was asked about the calling 2 weeks ago, but not officially called until today. I already have 4 events I need to create layout for. I finished up the last of the layouts for 2009, and I'll start the 2010 layouts this week in between doing my ADSR layouts. For those of you not familiar with ADSR, it stands for Amazing Digiscrapping Race. Think of The Amazing Race TV show with scrapbooking. It is a 6 week race, with 2 scrapbooking challenges each week. The challenges really take my scrapbooking to the next level most of the time. They get me out of my comfort zone and help to make me a better scrapper. Plus, you get a different prize for each challenge you complete and are entered in the drawing for the big grand prize at the end of the race. I don't ever count on winning the big grand prize (which is usually a huge pot of scrapbooking kits) but the weekly prizes are so worth it. A lot of the sites create huge collaborative kits for the prizes, or let racers chose from a selection of monthly collaborative kits. It's a great way to restock my scrapbooking supplies.

My diet is going pretty good right now. I'm still doing the Primal Blueprint. I've lost a little over 6 pounds in 6 weeks, which is more weight than I have lost in the previous year, so I'm glad for that. I'm hoping this week will bring me to the 60 pound mark since starting Weight Watchers. Even though I am following the PB plan, I am still doing WW also. I count points each day but I just don't eat any grains. Since my highest weight, I have lost a total of 67 pounds, but 59 pounds since starting WW. I feel pretty good right now. I just can't wait for my hip to heal so I can do exercises besides working out in the pool. I have bursitis in my hip, which constantly aggravates my chronic low back pain, so either my hip or my back seems to hurt all the time. As a result, I'm only allowed to work out in the pool. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Birthday and baptism

2010-01-20T10:59:00.006-06:00

January has been a busy month for Jeremy. On the 7th, my "baby" turned 8 years old. He woke me up at 8am so he could open his presents before dad went to work. He got a Lego set and a Bumble Bee cannon blaster. He was super excited about both of them. I think I am crazy for getting the cannon blaster. That thing makes a lot of noise, and loud noise too.We celebrated his birthday on Saturday, the 9th, by going to Wazoos with his cousins. Wazoos is a big inflatable fun park that is close by our house. It's all indoors, so I don't ever have to worry about the weather. It's fairly new, so it usually isn't super crowded. It's co-owned by someone in our ward, so the youth are going to go there for a mutual activity this week.

On the 16th, Jeremy got baptized. Stan baptized and confirmed him. My dad and uncle Herb were here from Idaho for a visit, so they got to be at the baptism. My uncle Herb was able to stand in the confirmation circle. We had a good visit with them while they were here. It was pretty laid back, but that is the way I like it.

Here is our family after the baptism. I didn't realize we were standing where the powerline created a shadow right across our heads. I'm going to have to see if I can get rid of that in photoshop.
These are the men who stood in the confirmation circle to confirm Jeremy. From left to right, Brother Yu (he is the ward mission leader), Bryon Hess, Stan Hodge, Richard Hodge, Andrew Tarver, Herb Hess, Matt Thompson, then Jeremy right there in front. Again, stupid powerlines.

Christmas Pictures

2009-12-29T16:19:00.004-06:00

Here are the Christmas pictures I promised.

Here are the kids at Emily's house on Christmas afternoon

Jeremy got a UB Funkey's set he has been wanting for a long time.

Here is Andrew's favorite gift, a gaming chair.

The boys pitched in and bought Rachael Corpse Bride.

Here I am with the game I got for family game day.

Stan plays MC and hands out all the Christmas gifts.

Jeremy with his Wii game

Andrew's DS game he got in his stocking

Rachael got unlimited text messaging. She had to decipher a puzzle that said "unlimited text messaging" from her stocking. It was in a little pail with some chocolate "coal" on top of it. She didn't think it was funny, but I did.

2009-12-27T14:11:00.002-06:00

Wow, this has been a busy month. I'm not surprised though as December always is busy. That is one reason we frequently don't do school during December. Last week, Rachael had the opportunity to dance with the Tapestry Dance Company in their production of "Mice and Music: A Jazz Nutcracker". The nutcracker music was jazzed up and the dancing was tap and jazz rather than ballet. It was really cool. They did a fabulous job. She was busy with that Monday thru Thursday, then danced at the Trail of Lights on Friday. To her, spending an entire week dancing is just like heaven.

Unfortunately, there were a few bad things that happened last week. Rachael was in her first car accident. She wasn't hurt at all and there is very little damage to the car thank goodness. Someone rear-ended her then took off. That same night, I found out that my Grandma Hess had passed away. I wasn't really surprised at all considering she was 95 and had been telling me for a few years that she was ready to go. I'm grateful I was able to see her in September when I was up there for my other grandmother's funeral. She will be missed though. Lastly, our heater went out on Thursday. It was a bit chilly that night, but not terribly so. It was fixed on Friday at the cost of $567. OUCH!!!!

Christmas was really good at the Hodge house. Stan and I both got our main gifts 6 weeks ago. We both got iPhones for Christmas. We love our iPhones and wonder what we ever did without them. We each got a few other items-I got some clothes and the boys got me some jewelry and Rachael got me a book. Stan got some new speakers for his computer and a desk calendar and the kids got him a book, a card shuffler and a shirt. The kids got lots of things, pretty much every thing they wanted. Rachael got lots of music, some clothes, 5 pairs of earrings and a game. Jeremy got some toys, Transformers, Imaginext, books, a model and some games. Andrew got some computer and Wii games, a DS game, a board game and a gaming chair. We bought each one of us a new game for our family game day. We play a game every Sunday afternoon. We have some unusual games that came from a comic store. We now have Martian Fluxx, Munchkin Bites, Bridge Troll, The Adventures and Boy Scout Monopoly. We have so much fun playing games as a family and these new games will make it more interesting.

I'll post some pictures of Christmas in just a little bit. It's game time now.

2009-12-09T20:37:00.003-06:00

There isn't really much happening, but it has been a while since I posted, so I thought I would babble on here for just a bit.

Stan and I recently got our Christmas presents for each other. They were about a month early, but we got such a good deal we decided not to wait. We both got iPhones for Christmas. I love my iPhone. It combines my iPod, my phone and my palm pilot all together in one handy gadget. It hasn't totally replaced my iPod. I still use that a lot since it holds way more music plus videos. I use it at the gym all the time (the iPod not the iPhone). The boys think it's their own personal gaming system. They are constantly asking to play games on it. I have had to charge it almost every day because somebody seems to always be using it. I have to say that I love my iPhone. I don't know how I got along without it.

Thanksgiving was really good, but also hard. It was the first Thanksgiving since my mother-in-law passed away and it was sad to have Thanksgiving without her. We went to Richard and Michelle's this year. Emily went out of town for Thanksgiving. I think it made it a little easier being that we didn't have it in the same place as normal. I did well on my Weight Watchers program that day but didn't feel deprived or anything. It was a good day.

Speaking of Weight Watchers, the scale still isn't budging much. I have lost 1.5 pounds in the last 6 weeks. It's better than gaining, but it is frustrating. I talked with one of the personal trainers a few weeks ago and he wanted me to change my work out around a bit. I have been doing that for about 3 weeks and still not much change. I talked to him again today and he wants me to eat even more. I think I am going to start counting calories rather than counting points. I need to be more mindful of how much protein I am getting. He wants me to have 50% carbs, 25% fat and 25% protein. I can't really track that kind of thing with tracking points. I can easily get a free calorie tracker for the iPhone. That will make it easy to track. I know tracking is a vital for my success. I have also recently weaned off the beta-blocker I take for migraines. It causes my heart rate to stay really low, like it only gets to 95 when I am working out really hard. My doctor hopes that will make a difference in my weight loss.

Rachael's dance schedule this month has just been crazy. She has a big show next week with the professional company. They are doing a Texas Nutcracker. I am bummed I can't go see it. The show is already sold out. Then she is dancing at the Trail of Lights on Friday. I hope the trail is still really good this year. They have cut it way back. It's just going to be on the side of Zilker where the Christmas tree is every year. I am worried because we always love going to the Trail of lights. It's a big Austin tradition. I am going to try to have an open mind though. I am excited to see Rachael dance though. I got to go to her ballet class today. She has grown so much as a ballet dancer just in the past 6 months. She is looking so strong on her pointe shoes.

I'll try to post again before Christmas. I am so ready to have a break from school. So is Rachael. She has her last final tomorrow. It's been pretty busy lately, so the boys have just been doing a minimum of school work the past 2 weeks. Usually they get the entire month of December off, but we took too much time on during the summer, so I am making them go longer before the holidays.

I hope everyone is ready for a great Christmas.

A few non-scale victories

2009-11-16T19:19:00.002-06:00

I think when I posted last week, I must have been in a funk or something. I felt really anxious and stress out about my diet and weight loss for about 2 days. Then, I just suddenly felt better. I don't know what caused the initial change or the change back, but I feel normal again. I went to weight watchers last Friday and I weighed in. I only lost 0.8 pounds over the past 3 weeks, but that is ok. It's a loss, so I'll take it. It's a milestone even. I weigh less now than I have since before I got pregnant with Jeremy. I'm not going to weigh again until the first week in December.

One of the things I have been doing lately is reminding myself of all the good changes that have occurred with me since I started this journey. I call these non-scale victories (NSV for short). So, here is my list. I am constantly adding to this list, so you may see me refer to these NSV in other posts.

1. I feel better now, despite my many physical challenges (I am mildly disabled due to recently diagnosed multiple sclerosis), than I did 3 years ago prior to starting WW (and prior to the start of any of my medical problems). I think that is a pretty major NSV and one that I am very grateful for.

2. I got sick last week and I really missed going to the gym while I was sick. I couldn't wait to get back into my exercise routine. I never thought I would miss going to the gym.

3. My rings are loose and need to be resized.

4. I am wearing a pant size that I haven't fit into in over 8 year.

5. I sleep a lot better than I used to before I started exercising.

6. Even though I haven't lost a pound in 9 months, I have had 3 people tell me this week that I look so much thinner.

2009-11-10T11:39:00.003-06:00

I am finishing up a really good book. It is called "The Amazing Adventures of Dietgirl". It is about an Australian woman who loses a lot of weight, like 175 pounds. It has been inspirational for me, but also discouraging for me. I don't know how it can be both at the same time, but it is. I think I have done a better job of eating well since I started reading it. However, it has also served to remind me how little progress I seem to be making. I have been stuck at the same weight for 9 months. I have done lots of different things to get the scale moving and it just won't budge. In July, I got a gym membership and started going to the gym regularly. I met with a personal trainer who told me I wasn't eating enough. I started eating more, making sure it is healthy, along with exercising 6 days a week. I gained 5 pounds in the first month. Since then, I have lost that 5 pounds plus 2 additional pounds, but that still puts me only1 pound lighter than I was in February. I'm sure not going to get very far by losing 1 pound every 9 months. I have now cut out most of the sugar from my diet, although there wasn't that much sugar in my diet to begin with. I have been obsessively following the WW program, working out religiously, except for the 10 days I was sick, and drinking lots of water and it just isn't working. This week, I am finding that I am getting scared to even eat. Every time I go to eat something, I fret over the calories and points in it. I don't eat anything until my stomach is growling because I want to make sure I am truly hungry before I eat and that I am not eating out of boredom, stress or any other emotional reason. I was becoming obsessed with the scale, so I stopped weighing in at WW, but now I keep getting on the scale at home. I didn't weigh at all for almost 3 weeks. I got on the scale this morning and my weight is the SAME!!! How can it be the same? I am beginning to think the only way I am going to lose weight is to just stop eating. It's not like I am getting close to my goal weight so my body is holding on to the little bit of fat I have left. No, I have a lot of fat left. I still have 65 pounds to be at the max weight my doctor recommended and 80 pounds to lose to be at the max weight that WW says I need to be. With 80 pounds to lose, my body should be willingly getting rid of the extra fat. I talked to my neurologist and endocrinologist about it and they ordered a thyroid test. I had that drawn last week. My neuro also wonders if my migraine preventative medication may be slowing my metabolism, so we are weaning off the beta blocker to see if that will get my metabolism going. When I exercise, I can't get my heart rate out of the 90's because of the medication, but just decreasing the dose has been helping that. I was able to get my heart rate up to 105 yesterday. I am really hoping that this helps. I just don't know what else to do. Giving up is not an option. Maybe I'll get a lap band or bariatric surgery. That isn't my first choice, but neither is staying fat. I'm tired of feeling like a blob.

Aside from my weight loss woes, life is going pretty good. Things are status quo around the house. The boys keep me busy with home schooling, occupational therapy, scouts, cooking classes and just being boys. Rachael's schedule is really busy, but it doesn't effect me nearly as much now that she can drive herself. She is going to have some great opportunities with dance this year. The Tapestry Dance Company (the professional dance company at the studio where she takes classes) is going to involve Visions in Rhythm in a few of their professional shows this year. This means she is going to be dancing at the Long Center and people will actually be paying to see the dances. They are going to be doing a big Christmas show that showcases performers from all over the central Texas area. They are getting to re-do some of the professional companies dances from over the past 20 years. This is all to celebrate Tapestry's 20th anniversary. She is excited about all of these opportunities she is getting. She is doing fairly well with her college classes, but we have completely fallen down on keeping up with her high school home school classes. She just has so much work that she needs to do for her 2 classes that I hate to add more work onto her. We really need to work on math more t hough so she can be ready for the SAT. I think we will work on a bunch of math in between ACC semesters.

I think I would have rather had the flu

2009-11-02T18:09:00.002-06:00

A week ago on Saturday, I started not feeling good. I really thought it was just bad allergies. I didn't have a fever, but I had a sore throat, congestion and a headache. I took some migraine medication, but the headache stayed just under the surface all day. I felt better on Sunday, so we went to church. I didn't want to miss church for 2 reasons. First, it was the primary program. I love the primary program every year. Second, it was Andrew's first time to pass the sacrament. It was a great Sacrament meeting. We left after sacrament though.

I felt fairly normal, except the sore throat, for most of the day. Around midnight that night, everything changed. I got a sudden severe migraine and had a fever of 100.6. I took some migraine medication, but couldn't take anything for the fever since I had taken 2 Aleve prior to my Avonex (the shot I take for my MS). I took another migraine pill at 2, the slept for about 30 minutes. At this point, my fever was 101. By 6am, my head hurt so bad that I couldn't stop crying even though it hurt my head to cry. I took some Demerol and tried to sleep. I ended up moving to the recliner though because it hurt too bad to lay down. By this time, I had a severely stiff neck. I went to the doctor at 9:30 that morning. They ruled out strept throat and flu, but he was really concerned I might have meningitis. He sent me over to Seton SW ER. It didn't take them long to get me back and get the IV started. They gave me some morphine with some phenergan. It took the edge off the headache, but didn't take it away. The second dose of morphine brought the headache down to about a 4/10.

Now the fun really began. To find out if I had meningitis, they had to do a spinal tap. I have had a number of these in my life for various reasons. This was my 11th spinal tap. Needless to say, I have a lot of scar tissue in my lower back. I also have chronic low back pain. They failed to get the spinal tap in the ER, so sent me to have it done under x-ray. That failed 3 times, so they transfered me to the main Seton hospital to have a neuro-radiologist do the tap. It took him 3 attempts to finally get spinal fluid. So, 8 huge needles into my back to find out I didn't have meningitis. They diagnosed me with viral upper respiratory infection with sinusitis. They sent me home on antibiotics and symptomatic care. Like I said, I would have rather had the flu.

Today is the first day that I have felt normal. I found that I actually missed going to the gym while I was sick. I went today and did water aerobics. I managed 35 minutes, but felt exhausted after about 20 minutes. It's going to take a little bit to get my stamina back to normal.

The good news for the day though came from my neurologist. I saw her this morning for a normal follow up visit. She said my reflexes are almost normal except my left arm. I have hyperactive reflexes as a part of my MS. They are now only 2+ rather than 3+. I also have less spasticity to my legs. She was very pleased with how I am doing from a MS stand point. The only new abnormality is that my left pupil is bigger than my right and my left eye-lid is drooping. She said that could be from the migraine, so we will just watch that for now. I don't have to go back to the neurologist for 6 months unless I have a new problem develop. Seeing the neuro every 6 months is normal for most MS patients when they are doing well. She is sticking with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis as my diagnosis. There is still no diagnostic test supporting that diagnosis, but I wouldn't be doing so well on the Avonex if it was some other neurological disease. I have found lately that I am a little paranoid about my MS. I have gone 18 months without a flare. I feel as close to normal as I have since this whole thing started. I just wonder when the bottom is going to fall out. I guess I should just count my blessings. I went through more than 2 years of the unknown. I'm grateful for how well I am doing and I am grateful that I found such a wonderful neurologist who will listen to me and know that I am not just crazy.

Another priesthood holder

2009-10-15T17:01:00.002-05:00

We now have a second priesthood holder in the house. Andrew turned 12 on September 29th. He was interviewed by the bishop that same day. This past Sunday, he was sustained and ordained as a Deacon in the Aaronic priesthood. He will get to pass the sacrament on the 25th (this week is stake conference). I think he is a little nervous about passing the sacrament for the first time. He asked me about a week ago if they would show him how to pass. I reassured him that they would and that his dad would be right there with him to pass. Stan is the one that ordained him also.

Rachael's birthday is tomorrow. She turns 17. You can sure tell she is a teenager because we will hardly see her tomorrow. She will leave about 3:30 to go to the studio for a master dance class by the dancers from Grease. After the class, she will go pick up her cousin, Aashlie. The 2 of them are going to go to the Aikens-Bowie football game with her friend Megan. I suspect they will be home pretty late. On Saturday, we will go to Andy Tarver's Eagle court of honor. Andy is Rachael's boyfriend and also a family friend. Saturday afternoon, I am taking Rachael to the Long Center to see Grease. If we have time after the show, we will go out to dinner. I don't know when we will do her birthday dinner if we don't have time on Saturday. It will probably have to wait a week for dinner. I hope she enjoys her birthday. I can't believe she is 17. It won't be long before she is on her own. I have to admit that this thought scares the crap out of me. I just don't think I am ready for her to be on her own. She is planning on staying at home for college though, so I have a little more time at least. She has sure grown up to be a beautiful young women.

Jeremy has started having occupational therapy once a week. I was starting to have some concerns about his handwriting also. It is better than Andrew's, but it is still slow and painstaking when he writes. He also has dysgraphia. That means all 3 of my kids have now been treated for this. We also discovered why he always talks so loud. He failed a part of the evaluation. He also has central auditory processing disorder. What this means is that he can't differentiate background noises from normal speech, including his own, so it is almost like he has a hearing problem. I have noticed that he is much louder when there is competing noise going on so this explains the problem. He will have to do some therapeutic listening to over come this problem. His problem is moderate. He would probably have trouble in school though because of it. It is a good thing he is homeschooled so that this doesn't present a problem for him. Hopefully he will over come it before he goes to college. He has about 10 years to work on it, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Hess family photos

2009-10-02T13:44:00.006-05:00

Here is my dad and step-mom, Sharon

Me, Dad and Grandma-Great

Aunt Sallie, Dad and Grandma-great

Dad and Grandma-great.

Here is my grandma. Everyone calls her grandma-great. She is actually a great-great grandma. She is 95 years old. She has had 2 major back surgeries this summer. I was really worried she wouldn't pull though considering her age. She is pretty healthy for a woman of 95, but her bones are like wet toilet paper. She is in pain all the time. She told me she wishes she knew why God kept her on earth. She must have something to do, but she wants to know what it is so she can get it done and she can pass on. I fear that this will be the last time I get to see her. I also thought that 4 years ago when we were up there for a summer vacation. She surprised me by still being around. She is an amazingly strong woman. I hope I inherited just a little bit of that strength. She still lives at home, walks with a walker, and generally takes care of herself. My aunt Sallie takes care of her a lot and helps with the things she can't do or doesn't have the energy to do. I really think I have an amazing family.

Idaho

2009-10-02T13:30:00.004-05:00

On Sunday afternoon, my mom took me over to the Denny's in Layton to meet my step-mom, Sharon. I rode with Sharon to Malad City where she and my dad live. My dad was smoking some sausages and some ribs. Shortly after I got there, Logan, his wife, Amber and their girls Cara and Chloe came over to have dinner with us. They didn't know I was there. Chloe was even wearing her Longhorn outfit that my dad had bought her. Cara wasn't shy at all with me. I got my camera out and took a few pictures of her. After that, she kept saying "I smile" and wanting me to take her picture. She was so cute. Logan is sure going to have his hands full with her. She has such a fun personality. I probably have about 15 photos that are similar to this one, but this is the best of them. I even deleted a bunch that didn't turn out very good.

Here is a picture of Chloe. She is about 2 months old. I wish I lived closer to them and could really get to know them and really be an aunt to them. Logan is looking for a new job. Maybe it will bring him to Texas, who knows.

That evening, we went out to see my Uncle Herb. I forgot to take a picture of him while I was there even though I brought my camera. My uncle has gone back to church and he and his wife, Sherry, have gone through the temple. We talked a little bit about geneology work and temple work while I was out there. It was a different side of my uncle that I have never seen before. Growing up, he drank and smoked and never went to church. It was pretty neat to see this side of him. His home teacher came while we were there. He is a pretty neat guy.

On Monday, my dad tried to take me out to Holbrooke to see where my grandpa was born and raised. I thought Malad was tiny. Holbrooke was almost non-existent. I think I would go insane living out there. I might go insane in Malad, but as I get older, I long for the quiet life that a small town like Malad would offer. Stan would never move there though. I'm not sure I would either. It gets too cold. We may have to look into a place like that around central Texas when we retire. I do wish we lived someplace small when I taught Rachael how to drive.

Family Pictures

2009-09-28T12:30:00.008-05:00

Patricia Hodge, Catherine and Eugene Kochan

Bob and Francene Thomson with Harmony, Kimble Thomson, Noah, Benjamin and Timothy Stuart, Cheri and Mark Stuart, Lynsie Thomson, Troy and Bambie Thomson

David and Denise Thomson

Jesse, Charlotte and Deborah James

The cousins-Lynsie Thomson, Troy Thomson, Cheri Thomson, Deborah James, Patricia Hodge

Bob Thomson, David Thomson, Jim (this is their cousin who is like a brother)

Charlotte James, Catherine Kochan, Peggy Garrison

The Funeral

2009-09-28T12:12:00.006-05:00

My grandmother was buried next to my grandfather, Kenneth Thomson. I never met my grandfather. He died in 1961 in a car accident. He was buried in Salt Lake. That is why my grandmother was buried in Salt Lake even though she died in Pennsylvania. Here are the pall bearers carrying her casket and also a photo of her headstone and some photos of her when she was first married. My grandmother was a beautiful women. I never knew that she was 17 when she got married. My grandfather met her on his mission and fell immediately in love. He brought her home with him and they were married shortly after that. I also learned that my grandmother had a rough life prior to that. Her mom died when she was very young and her dad traveled around a lot for his job. He couldn't take care of his girls, so he put them in the orphanage that was just down the street until he could care for them on his own. We drove by the orphanage when we were driving around Salt Lake.

There was only a grave side service. My cousin Cheri wrote the eulogy and they asked me to deliver it. We sang a song then dedicated the grave. Then, the opened the floor for anyone who wanted to share memories of grandma. My aunt Peggy, aunt Charlotte, my uncle Bob and my mom all stood and shared some memories. My uncle David didn't want to get up, but as we were pulling away, he knelt down my the casket and told his mom good-bye. It brought tears to my eyes.

We got together after the services at my uncle Bob's house in Layton. We had a big family dinner and sat around talking. We got pictures of all the families that were present. I hadn't seen some of these people in 30 years. I met a cousin that I had never met before. I really had a great time.

Blogger is being strange and not letting me move my pictures around, so I will post them in a different post.

Temple Square

2009-09-28T11:55:00.008-05:00

I got to go to Utah for my grandmother's funeral. I left Austin early Thursday morning (the 17th). My uncle Bob picked me up at the airport. We went back to his house and picked up my mom and Eugene then went down to Salt Lake to visit Temple Square. Here are some of the photos I took that day. The first 2 photos are the ones I turned in for my photography class.

The weather was absolutely beautiful as we walked around Temple square. The sun was shining and the sky was clear blue. I felt very much at peace. I wish my husband and kids could have been there to share it with me.

My grandma

2009-09-13T14:34:00.003-05:00

My grandma Thomson passed away this morning. I am a big mix of emotions right now. She has been battling cancer for several years now. She was doing fairly well for quite a while, but really started having more problem recently. She has been on Hospice for a little over a month now. For the last 2+ weeks, she has needed around the clock care from both my mom and my step dad. She has been in a lot of pain. I am relieved that she is out of pain now but sad that she is gone. I am glad I got to see her in March when we went to Pennsylvania. She sat down with me one afternoon and we went through a bunch of photos from when she was growing up. I scanned a bunch of them while I was there. She also gave me a bracelet that had belonged to her aunt, given to her by her fiance when they got engaged. She got to see my kids. I felt bad though because Jeremy was scared of her and wouldn't go near her. I don't know why he was acting like that. He has never been afraid of anyone. I think it really hurt her feelings. He acted the same way around my grandma Kochan. I'll be flying to Utah for her funeral as soon as my mom figures out when the funeral is going to happen

I started taking a photography class 2 weeks ago. I have already learned so much. We got our first assignment last week. One photo needs to be a photo showing motion. I wanted to do some pictures of Jeremy on the swing, but it has rained every day since my class. I took advantage of a short rain break yesterday and photographed Jeremy riding his scooter. He is totally blurred, so that shows the motion. I would actually rather have him in focus and the back ground blurred. I care more about what he looks like than I do the car and house behind him. I may try it again and see if I can move my camera to follow him so the background blurs and not him. I just don't know if I can move the camera at just the right speed to follow him and keep him in focus. It's worth a try. The next assignment I still need to do is to have a narrow depth of field. With a photo like that, the subject will be in focus while the background and foreground will be blurred. I haven't decided what I am going to do for that one yet. I need to get busy with it though because the pictures are due at the next class Wednesday evening. I am hoping my grandmother's funeral doesn't interfere with my class.

2009-08-23T18:30:00.002-05:00

Rachael will officially become a college student tomorrow. She is technically still in high school also though. She will be attending Austin Community College in their co-enrollment program for high school juniors and seniors. She is taking Spanish and US History. I think she is a little nervous. I know I am a little nervous for her. She has never been in a formal school setting except for seminary. She is a smart girl though and I know she will do fine.

I continue to be very frustrated by my weight loss efforts. I have been going to the gym regularly, every day but Sunday, for 3 weeks now and I have gained 2 1/2 pounds. My personal trainer said it is because I am eating more and exercising more and my body has to get used to it and realize it is going to get the food it needs consistently before it will start releasing the fat I have stored. I can understand the explanation, but it doesn't make it any less frustrating. I'm going to stick with the program, because I know it has to work eventually. I also don't want the alternative which would be to continue at the same weight forever, or worse, gain this 50 pounds back.

I am so grateful that I got to go to Pennsylvania in March and that I got to see my grandmother while we were there. A few weeks ago, my mom told me that my grandma was having increased pressure on her brain from an age related problems. This is in addition to the cancer she has been dealing with. She was already on hospice for the cancer, but had several months to still live. With this new problem, she has gone down hill very quickly. She is now completely dependent on both my mom and Eugene to take care of her every need. She can't communicate any more and doesn't understand a lot of what people say to her. My mom is asked for us all to pray the end comes quickly for her as she is in a lot of pain and discomfort all the time. When she passes away, she will be sent to Utah to be buried. Her husband was buried in Utah when he died (my mom was only 9 when her dad died). I am assuming my grandma will be buried next to my grandpa. I am going to be flying to Utah for the funeral when the time comes. I'm glad to be able to go up there and see all of my family, I just wish it was for a better reason and that I had more time to spend up there. While I am there, I am going to go see my grandma Hess. This will probably be the last time I get to see her. She is 95 years old. She has had 2 major back surgeries this past summer. I was really impressed she did so well with the surgeries considering her age. I'm also looking forward to seeing my dad and step mom as well as seeing my mom and Eugene again. Like I said, I just wish it was for a better reason and that I had more time.

Wish me luck

2009-08-13T14:49:00.002-05:00

I am taking Rachael to the Jonas Brother's concert tonight. I am sure I am going to be surrounded by squealing girls. I'm glad I don't mind their music at all. Rachael listens to them all the time. They are pretty good and not at all like "boy bands". I overall think they are pretty talented.

I am really struggling with my diet and the idea that I need to be eating more. Last week, I went to my weigh in and I had gained 0.2 pounds. I was really disappointed. I really felt like I had lost a little bit. I would have understood if I had stayed the same, but to have gained even a little was just yuck. As of today, I only have 1.5 flex points left and then my 17 activity points. I won't eat all of the activity points, but will probably dip into them just a little bit. I wish the online tracker would deduct my activity points before my flex points. I have never eating all of my flex points in a single week while still being on program. I have been perfectly on program for 2 weeks now. I got on the scale at the gym this morning and it looks like my weight is exactly the same. The trainer said I should lose 1-2 pounds a week if I started eating more and working out regularly. I have worked out every day but Sundays for 2 weeks and I have been eating more, but still eating healthy.

The school year is about to start again. I should have started with the kids school work last month, but I just haven't felt like doing it. I gave them the entire summer off this year where as they usually only get June off. We have spent a lot of time in the pool. Rachael starts dance classes again on Monday, the 17th. Then she is going to start classes at ACC on the 24th. She is going to take US history and Spanish. We will work on math and science here at home. I'm a little nervous about how she will do with college classes, but I'm sure she will do fine.

A positive step in the right direction

2009-08-06T18:41:00.002-05:00

I have been doing Weight Watchers for 3 years now. In February, I posted that I had finally lost 50 pounds. At this point, I am now down 51 pounds. I have only lost 1 pound in the last 5 months. Not a very impressive feat. I decided it was time to do something about it. I have been on program most of the time, but I have not been very good about exercising. I don't take the time to exercise while I am at home. We have an elliptical trainer and a recombant bike, but I don't like using them right now. They are in our family room, formerly our garage and it is just hot in there. We have AC out there, but it doesn't work as well as it does in the rest of the house. I can't stand to work out in the family room right now. My friend Lynn has been telling me she wanted me to come to the gym with her. Stan though we got a discount through his employer, but we don't. He discovered they were having a special though. It was only $9.99 initiation fee and $26 each month to join 24 Hour Fitness. Stan gave me the green light to join, so I did so last Friday. Since then, I have gone to the gym every day but Sunday. It has felt good. I am a little sore from exercising though. It is a little different from normal work out soreness. It is more like my MS pain flaring up due to the extra exercise. I know it will get better as my body gets used to working out. Most of the exercise I have done has been in the pool. I am not as susceptable to the heat when I do water aerobics, but I still get a good work out in. They were also having a special on 3 sessions with a personal trainer, so I got that. The first thing he told me is that I am not eating enough. The extra activity has made me really hungry this week, so I was kinda glad he said that or I would be feeling guilty about eating so much more. I'll find out tomorrow if this is going to pay off when I weigh in at WW. I will be devistated if I gain weight tomorrow. I have to realize that it may take me a few weeks to start seeing the scale move. I need to not let the scale dictate what I do or don't do though. I know the work outs are good for me and this has to be my next step in losing weight. I am really glad I joined the gym. I have loved getting together with Lynn to work out. Tomorrow, we are going to ride the exercise bikes because I have a limited time to be at the gym. I am usually there for an hour and a half when I go to the pool and I just don't have that much time tomorrow. I have appointments scheduled all day tomorrow. Wish me luck on the scale tomorrow.

18 years together

2009-07-28T12:43:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, Stan and I celebrated our 18th anniversary. He couldn't get off work since his office is shorthanded anyway, so we went out for lunch together on Saturday. We really want to go to a bed and breakfast in Fredricksberg or some place like that for a Friday/Saturday get away. We have to find someone to watch the kids though. Rachael has dance Saturday mornings, so we don't want to just leave her with the kids. We are hoping my friend Cyndi can watch them, but she can't commit to it yet.

Rachael went to ACC yesterday and took her assessment test. She did fairly well. For the reading and writing, college level was considered a score of 81 (it isn't percent, just a raw score and I'm not sure what it means). She got a 94. For the math, college level is a 39 and she got a 36. I wasn't surprised by this. She hates math and struggles with it like I did. She will have to take elementry algebra before she can take college algebra is all this means. She is planning on majoring in dance, so it isn't like she will need have lots of math credits for her major. She just has to worry about her core classes that will require math. We are going into the advisors office today to find out what she should take first, then we will get her registered. The only thing we are going to have to pay for is her books, which will be enough, but better than having to pay for the classes also. Hopefully she can get financial aid for when she has to start paying for classes once she has graduated. She will probably spend one year at ACC then transfer to Texas State University and get on their dance team.

2009-07-22T16:19:00.002-05:00

Rachael and I went to Austin Community College today to get her registered to take some classes there this fall. They have a program where students can take college classes their last 2 years of high school. They are free of charge also, which is an even better reason to take them. We are in the frustrating paper work phase of getting ready for college. She has to go take her assessment test on Monday to see where she stands over all in her basic knowledge. I am nervous about her taking this test. I hope I have taught her well enough. I worry the most about history and science. We have been working on biology for quite a while. She is planning on being a dance major and just doesn't see the point in doing biology. I understand her thoughts, but still feel she needs to have a basic understanding of biology. I have felt so inadequate about being a homeschool mom at times. That has especially been true since I started having health problems a few years ago. I just recently got to the point where I could keep up with the kids school work. I know she will do fine once she starts classes. She is very smart and knows how to apply herself. She is not used to doing all the studying, yet on the other hand, she has to teach herself so much with her homeschooling. She is good at independent learning. I'm sure every mom goes through this nervous phase as their child transitions into college. I'm sure every mom worries if their child is ready.

Nothing else is really happening. We got about 5 minutes worth of rain the other night. I wanted it to rain a lot more than that. It was suppose to rain every day this week, but all we got was that 5 minutes on Monday. Nothing yesterday or today. We still have a small chance tomorrow. It will probably rain tomorrow because we are planning on going to the water park tomorrow with Emily and her kids. It is just my luck that it will rain then so we can't go. Andrew has a friend spending the night tonight, so it will be a fun thing for them to do besides play video games together. It seems that is all they want to do it play video games. Andrew could live playing video games. Stan is like that too, but he is really good and playing for a few minutes, the stopping to do something constructive. Andrew doesn't pull himself away from the game to do anything.

We finally got to see the new Harry Potter movie last night. It was better than I thought it was going to be. I think there was really only one scene that I could have done without. The Weasley's house never caught on fire in the book. I'm not sure where that scene came from. I would have rather seen the DA fighting the death eaters in the end and left out that scene. Other than that, the movie was really well done. Rachael's friend thought it wasn't dark enough, but I was ok with that. I wouldn't have wanted to take Jeremy had it been any darker. He got bored through part of the movie. It was just a little too long for his attention span. If you haven't seen it yet, it is worth seeing it in the theater.

My first photo shoot

2009-07-17T17:03:00.004-05:00

I had the chance to do my first photo shoot this week. I was excited and nervous all at the same time. This is the Peterson family. I have known them for almost a year. The mother is the Young Women's president in our ward and my visiting teacher. She asked me a few weeks ago if I could do their family photos. I was flattered though. We went down to the capital and took some photos of their family. Here are the best of the bunch. In total, there was about 10 good shots.

It has been a bit of a struggle lately figuring out what to do every day to stay out of this heat and not just be a couch potato. It is just too hot to go outside for any length of time except for in the morning. Most days, we spend the afternoon at grandma's house in the pool. It is the best way to beat the heat. The pool is about 84-85 degrees. It is just cool enough for me to feel cooled off the rest of the day after spending time in the water. I also get a little bit of exercise in during our daily swims.

Today, we did something a little different. We decided to go bowling. The kids had a great time. Jeremy actually got the best score, although Rachael declared she was the winner since she didn't use the gutter guards and Jeremy did. I didn't actually bowl, I just watched. I tried bowling with the cub scouts a few months ago and only made it 3 frames before my back hurt so bad I could hardly move. I didn't need a repeat of that, especially since my back was bothering me yesterday. Jeremy really loves bowling though. Andrew says he hates it, but seems to have fun while we are doing it. Andrew really wants to go mini golfing again, but I way not until it cools off a little more. Rachael would rather bowl over golfing. Jeremy likes it all. He is so easy to please.

Random thoughts

2009-07-12T19:22:00.003-05:00

This past month has kind of gotten away from me. There just hasn't been much to say on here. Nothing exciting has happened in our life. We seem to just be going from day to day doing basically the same things. We have been spending a lot of time in the pool lately. It is just too hot to do anything else, especially anything outside. We have had something like 25 days of 100+ degree weather since school got out. Hot is an understatement. I am so glad that we can go to MeeMaws house and use the pool. I'm not fond of public pools since I am usually the biggest person there. I get very self conscious at public pools. It has been a little better since losing some weight, but I still have some weight to lose, so I am still self conscious. I'll stick with the private pool, thank you. The pools has also been a great source of exercise. I have taken a few water aerobics classes in the past, so I am tried out a few of those moves inn the pool.. It seems to be working out pretty well.

Last October, I had the chance to go to Time Out for Women with my daughter and my SIL, Michelle. It was a great opportunity and I really enjoyed it. I wanted to go this year again, but they were in Houston in March while we were in Pennsylvania. I was bummed, but figured I would just go next year. They have come out with a great new way to enjoy TOFW. You can now do TOWF Webnars. That is another term for seminars on the web. You can go to http://www.timeoutseminars.com/index.php?p_resource=faq and try out one for free. The seminars, called "semesters", are 3 classes over a 3 month period. Each class has 4 parts and are posted once a week. The freebie is only one part of one class, but it was really good. I am going to sign up for a semester this week. The freebie was done by Sherri Dew, president of Deseret books. It is about having influence on others in your life. It was really an answer to my prayers. Since I haven't been working, I really wonder sometimes if I am making a difference by being here on earth. As a nurse, I could clearly see where I was making a difference. I have loved being a stay at home mom, but it isn't as easy to see how you make a difference in the lives of others. I know I make a difference to my children, and I know deep down that this is where it is most important for me to make a difference. I don't have to be so concerned about my health anymore, so I have finally noticed that I do miss working just a little bit. Don't get me wrong, I don't miss it enough to go back. I love being home with my kids. I think I am just going through a little transitional period. I am trying to find more hobbies and things to do with my time. I have things I want to get done around the house. I need to purge so much junk from my house. It is a cluttered mess most of the time. There are so many toys the boys don't touch any more. I'm slowly getting rid of all of those. If they don't pull them out of the box and pile, they just need to go away because they don't play with them. They don't even miss them.

That is about all I have to say. I can't promise when I will post again. I have to figure out what to post about. I don't really care to just ramble on here, which is what I just did. I'm going to wrap this up and go watch Jeff Dunham, Spark of Insanity with the rest of my family. We are big Jefaafaa Dun-ham fans. Achmed is one of our favorites. We can't say "silence" in this house without someone saying "I kill you". At least it does stop the fighting and usually results in several more Jeff Dunham lines from various members of the family.

A week at camp

2009-06-14T21:17:00.005-05:00

Rachael and I just got home from a week at Girl's camp. We had a great time. Rachael was a JC this year. She loved being a JC. She was in charge of the 1st years. She would have loved to have her cousin, Jessica, in her group, but she didn't. She really loved her first years though. Here are a few photos of her doing JC activities/skits. In the first photo, she is doing a yoga skit. The legs are not her legs. They belong to Brittney, one of the other JCs. In the second photo, they are doing a game that is sort of like Deal or No Deal. She has her shirt and shorts on with her bathing suit over them, with socks and stilletos. Isn't that just sexy ?!?! It was a really fun game with lots of silly activities that the girls had to do. They all had a blast doing the games. It is likely to be played again in the coming years.

I was the camp nurse again this year. Rather than having an assistant, there were 2 full nurses. Since we didn't have the golf cart this year, the other nurse was the roaming nurse. She went out to the activities and treated any injuries/problems out at the activities. I stayed up at the office and in the cafeteria area. I was probably far busier than the other nurse was because a lot of the girls wait until they are up by the office to get the small things treated, like bug bites or medication for aches and pains. We have a new camp director and stake young women's presidency this year, so there were a lot of things different. The girls only did out door, non-water activities in the morning and they were allowed a little more free time. It made a huge difference. I had only 2 or 3 girls the entire week with heat related illness. I mostly treated insect bites this year. I actually got to do the crafts this year. I have never had time in the past. I still came home exhausted, but I didn't feel as worn out at camp as usual. I also didn't have any girls that needed to be driven to their activities.

Here is a photo of our ward at the end of camp. We always stop at Dairy Queen on the way home from camp and get lunch. We take a photo in front every year. It was a really good year.

2009-05-22T19:42:00.003-05:00

I'm not really sure why I am posting anything since I don't really have anything to say. I want to start posting a little more often though. I figure something will occur to me as I start typing.

May has been a really busy month. Rachael has had her VIR show. VIR stands for Visions in Rhythm. It is a pre-apprentice performance dance troupe. They did a big show on May 2nd and now she is getting ready for her academy demo. That is what Tapestry calls their recital. They don't do frilly, expensive costumes like they did at Jackies. The teacher usually picks out a simple costume and it can't be over $15. It is a huge relief not to have to spend a ton of money on costumes, especially since Rachael is taking 4 classes plus VIR. She was in 9 dances for VIR. She has 3 performances this coming weekend. I also have to do concessions and flower sales with VIR at each of the shows. I think Stan and the boys will only need to go to 2 of the performances since several of her dances are repeated in several of the shows.

Jeremy had cross over with Cub Scouts on Tuesday. We had a picnic at Mary Searight park, then the award ceramony. He is now officially a Wolf. It looks like I will be the Wolf den leader again next year. I'm going to ask one of the mom's to be my assistant and see if we can trade off each week. It will be nice to share responsibility. There is one mom there that helps me a lot anyway.

My body sure is messed up lately. Aside from my normal MS problems, I started having problems with my stomach in the fall. I had to have an upper endoscopy and they found that my stomach wasn't digesting food fast enough and it was causing reflux and esophagitis. They started me on 2 medications for the problem. It pretty much took care of it, except I quit having a menstrual cycle. One of the medications is causing that problem, so now I have to take another medication to fix that problem. I went off the offending medication for a week, but I was miserable. I lost 3 pounds that week because I was having trouble eating and felt nausous all the time. Being off the medication for a week didn't bring back my cycle anyway. My gyn put me on a 10 day coarse of progesterone to see if that would cause me to start, but still nothing. I know this is probably more information than you ever wanted. I am so frustrated by all of this. I hate having to take one medication to treat the side effects of another medication. Will it ever stop? The endocrinoligist wants me to take this medication to treat the problem but this will make the medication for my stomach ineffective and could cause interactions with my migraine medication that could potentially be life threatening. Not fun. Welcome to my world!!!

Not a bad post for not having anything to say.

BTW, I lost another 1.4 pounds at Weight Watcher's this week bringing my grand total to 60 pounds, although only 53 since starting Weight Watcher's.

2009-05-15T12:07:00.003-05:00

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted. A lot has been going on around here. Rachael has had her license for about a month now. It has been nice not having to run her to dance all the time. It is still nerve racking for me sometimes. I worry about her when she is on the road. On Saturday, she is driving herself and Aashlie to the stake dance. Normally, that would be no big deal, but the dance is in Marble Falls, which is a 55 minute drive from our house. I'm sure she will get out there fine, but it will be late when she comes home and that makes me nervous. There won't be a lot of traffic, so that will be good, but I still worry. I guess the worry never stops though.
Here is a picture of Rachael in her prom dress. She has some photos she took at prom and I need to get those from her. Boy, our house looks bad. We are going to be getting siding put on next spring. We need to paint and we have some rotting wood on the house. Anyway, I digress. She looked beautiful and so grown up. She went with her friend Daunte. His dad rented a limo and 3 or 4 couples shared the ride to the prom.

I have had a really long week this week. I had to have a root canal done on Tuesday. I went to the dentist Monday with a tooth ache. I had a cavity filled in December and she told me it went very close to the root and may end up needing a root canal later. It did. I couldn't eat anything on Tuesday and survived the day on milkshakes. Wednesday was a little bit better, but I still had to eat mushy food. I'm back to normal now. You can tell my looking at my house that I haven't felt well this week. It is a disaster.

The kids are all doing well. Jeremy is so funny. I was leaving the house the other day and it was just him and Rachael at home. In a very sultry voice, he tells her "now that we are alone, what do you want to do?". He is too young to be saying things like that. I'm going to have to watch him when he gets older. Andrew has been really enjoying his cooking class. He has been doing it every other week, but I think I am going to sign him up for weekly classes for the summer. Once he gets a little faster, then I will start having him cook dinner. He does a good job at baking and making simple things like pancakes. He is really slow when he has to cut things. I would rather he be slow though than have him rush through and cut himself.

Rachael had her dance show a few weeks ago. It was called "To sleep, per chance to dream". It was all about dreams. She had a dream solo about deja vu. She did a great job. The group dances were amazing. They all did such a great job. She has become an amazing dancer. She wants to become a professional dancer/choreographer as well as teaching dance and maybe opening her own studio when she gets a little older. I think she will do great.

2009-04-20T16:33:00.002-05:00

Our final trip on our vacation was to Philadelphia. We went to independence hall, saw the liberty bell, Franklin's printing shop, and the first post office, which is still functioning. It was really neat to stand in Independence Hall. You could actually feel the spirit in there witnessing that the Declaration of Independence was divinely inspired.

That pretty much wraps up our trip. I'll post some family photos I took next time. Now onto what has been happening around the house. Rachael had her prom this past weekend. It was the Priest/Laurel Formal on Saturday. She was suppose to go with Jovence Vital, but he ended up having to work, so she called up Dante Clark and they went together. Dante had asked her to the Mormon Prom, but she had already told Jovence she would go with him. I haven't downloaded my camera yet, so I will post photos later.

Also, Rachael got her driver's license today. We tried to get it last week, but every time we went, the computers were down. Stan took her today and they finally had success. She drove herself to dance this afternoon. I haven't gotten a call from her, so I am assuming she got there ok. I'm not as nervous about her driving as I was in the beginning. Teaching a child to drive is a very nerve racking process. She has turned into a pretty good driver. She is very cautious when she drives. She never speeds, although sometimes she is guilty of going too slow. It is kind of nice not having to take her to dance. I will still need to driver her out to St. Stephen's next week for tech week for their dance show as she has never driven there and she doesn't think she can find it on her own. I don't want her getting lost. I drive with her on the first day and hope she can find it after than because I have a schedule conflict on Tuesday and won't be able to get her to tech. I may have to find a ride for her if she doesn't think she can find it alone. That is my biggest fear with her driving is her getting lost. She isn't very good with directions and knowing where she is going. She can easily get herself to and from dance going multiple different directions, but that is pretty much it. I know it will get better as she starts driving more.

Days 4 and 5

2009-04-07T10:51:00.004-05:00

I didn't forget to finish our vacation post, but things just got a little busy. I'm trying to get the boys room painted so Stan can get the new floor installed. I have about 1/4 of the room done and lots more to do.

So, day 3 and 4 were spent in Washington DC. My biggest regret was that I completely forgot that a high school friend of mine lived in DC. I'm sorry Michelle. I wish I would have contacted her prior to going so she could have met up with us there. We had a great time. We got there about 1 or 2 pm and walked around the monuments. We saw the WW II, Vietnam, Korea war monuments, the Lincoln memorial, the Washington monument and the Jefferson memorial. It was a lot of walking and I was really worried about it. I really only had trouble with the last leg of the trip when my bad leg started spasming and it became difficult to walk. I was actually pretty proud of myself for being able to push through the walking.

We stayed the night in a hotel in the Washington area, in Virginia actually. We decided we wanted to go to the Aerospace museum that was in Virginia since it held the shuttle. Stan really wanted to see the shuttle. It was about 30 minutes into Virginia but it turned out to be a good choice. My parents said the Virginia museum was way better than the DC one. We drove back into DC and went to the aquarium. That was a waste of time and money. We have way better aquariums here in Texas. Next, we went to the Natural History museum. That was pretty cool. I was so tired after those 2 days of walking every where. We got home at about 10pm that night and crashed pretty much right away.

Day 3

2009-03-25T14:38:00.004-05:00

I know what you are thinking, what happened to day 2. Day 2 was a Sunday, so we went to church and hung out around the house and did nothing. Day 3, we went to Hershey. I would have loved to been able to do the amusement park, but it wasn't opened yet. We did a trolley tour of the area, saw Mr Hershey's home, the school he and his wife opened and the town he built. We learned a lot about Mr. Hershey. He was a very generous man and worked hard to build his company after going bankrupt several times. After we did the trolley tour, we went back to the main area by the factory and did a little ride that showed how chocolate is made. It was pretty cool. We also toured through a museum about Mr. Hershey's life. Andrew surprised me while we were there and bought a cook book full of desserts. He is interested in learning how to cook more, especially how to make desserts. He made some cookies while we were at my mom's from a recipe in the book. They were really good. We are thinking about signing him up for some cooking classes at Young Chef's academy.

Our vacation

2009-03-24T16:32:00.006-05:00

We just got back home from a 10 day vacation to Pennsylvania. I had planned on blogging while I was there so I could keep you all posted on our trip, but I forgot that my mom was on dial up and it was so slow managing any type of photo. I also didn't have a lot of time. We were on the move constantly during those 10 days. I am going to start with the first day and post about a different day each day I blog. I don't want to create a ridiculously long blog post by giving you the details of our vacation all at once.

We got there on the 13th. By the time we got to my mom's house, we had been traveling all day (we flew) and it was almost 10pm. We were exhausted. My mom rented a camping trailer for us to sleep in since she lives in a small home. It was a little cramped, but not bad since all we were doing was sleeping in there.

The next day, we went to the Crayola factory. It was about an hour away from my mom's house. The kids had a blast, and so did we. It was cool to see how they made the crayons. I had no idea they did it that way. They heat up the wax, then pour it into a mold that will make like 100 crayons all at once. They mix the wax around then drain it off and scrape it, cool the crayons off and dump them out. It was cool. Here are a few photos we took at Crayola .

In loving Memory

2009-02-12T20:56:00.004-06:00

My mother-in-law passed away this week, on Monday. She was diagnosed with cancer 3 years ago in March. For the last 11 months, she has been fighting for her life even more than the previous 2 years. The cancer had spread to her brain. She underwent radiation and more chemo and they were able to shrink the tumors some, but they came back with vengance and there was nothing they could do for her. She spent the last 6 weeks in a lot of pain.

She will be dearly missed. She was the most amazing, caring, loving, generous person that has ever lived. I hope I can be like her some day. I know she is in Heaven with her husband and I know she is happy. She is free of pain now and she is with the person she loves the most. She has missed him dearly. I know that we will be reunited when our time to leave this earth comes. We are an eternal family. My inlaws were sealed in the temple before my husband was born and Stan and I have been sealed in the temple. We are sealed as a family for time and all eternity through the power of the priesthood. I am so grateful for the restored gospel in this later day so we have the opportunity to be sealed together in the temple.

I made a slide show of photos from her life. I hope you enjoy this. You can find it at www.hodgefamily.net/elizabeth/ .

A big milestone

2009-02-07T20:28:00.002-06:00

I have been doing Weight Watchers for over 2 years now. I have not been 100% on program the entire time, but I have been on program most of the time. My medications have the side effects of weight gain. I could tell that I have been fighting that side effect because when I started the medication is when I noticed I was having to work very hard for every little ounce I lost. I am very happy to announce that I have now lost 50 pounds. When I started WW, I was hoping to lose 50 pounds my first year. It has taken me longer than I had hoped, but I am still proud of this accomplishment. Here is a layout I made showing me and my WW leader, Jamie, taken the day I reached the 50 pound mark. Now, onto the next 50 pounds.

Good weekend

2009-02-01T14:08:00.002-06:00

This has been a really good weekend. It didn't exactly go as planned, but that is OK. Stan and I were suppose to go to the temple yesterday, but Rachael ended up having a last minute dance rehearsal, so we had to postpone our temple trip. We are going to try to go on the 20th now instead. Saturdays are just so busy for us. It seems to be worse the older the kids get. We got some cleaning done around the house and a few errands taken care of.

Rachael and I got to go to a baptism yesterday evening. Her friend Natalie was baptized. She is the sister of the woman who directed the Savior of the World production. Natalie started coming to rehearsals to help her sister out. By the time it was over, Natalie had a testimony. Her parents didn't let her get baptized until yesterday though as they didn't want her to rush into a decision like this at such a young age. The baptism was wonderful. There were a lot of people there. I felt the spirit so strongly. I am so grateful for Natalie, Casey and Jane and the friendship they have with Rachael. She is so happy when she is around them. She is like that at dance too.

Speaking of friends, things are going so much better for Rachael at church. The girls are all getting along again. Rachael hung around after New Beginnings last week talking with the girls she previously hadn't been getting along with. It was good to see them talking like that again.

On Thursday night, we had a visit from Ben Parker. When I first moved to Austin, I started baby sitting Ben and his little brother Danny. Ben was 3 years old. Now, he is married and has a child of his own. His family left Austin in 1996 when they moved to Denver. I lived with his family for about 6 months when I was in high school. It was so good to see him again. I really miss the Parker family. I miss the long talks I would have with Jera. Their youngest child, Maegan, was my baby when she was little. I took care of her, did her hair and taught her all kinds of things. Maegan is all grown up and has 2 children now. It really makes me feel old.

photography class

2009-01-27T10:24:00.005-06:00

I signed up for an online photography class that started this weekend. Our first assignment is about ISO. I've never really understood it much, but I think I do now. I still have 3 more photos to finish out the assignment, but here is my first photo for it.

This was my midday, outside shot. I need to do an inside shot, a shade shot, morning and night time shots. The morning one is going to be the hardest. I don't think about my camera first thing in the morning.

Sick Sunday

2009-01-25T16:02:00.002-06:00

That is what today is. Actually, that would describe the entire weekend. Rachael got sick on Friday with cough, congestion and fever. Jeremy woke up in the middle of the night Friday night with a fever. He was so upset because yesterday was the Pinewood Derby for Cub Scouts. He has to miss the entire things. He has been looking forward to this for several years now. Each year that Andrew did the Pinewood Derby, Jeremy would tell me how long it was before he could race his own car. Now, the first year he can race and he is sick. Stan took his car and they raced it anyways. He got second place. Andrew took my old camera and took lots of pictures and video taped Jeremy's races for him. That made him much happier. He was surprised and excited about the trophy.

Everyone is doing better today. Rachael's fever is gone. She just has the cough and congestion left. She is going to go to New Beginnings tonight even though she didn't go to church today. She is suppose to sing a solo tonight at New Beginnings. Hopefully she is able to sing ok with the cough and congestion. Jeremy woke up with a fever this morning, but it is gone now, without any treatment. Hopefully it will stay away and not come back tonight. We will be staying away from grandma for a few days until we know for sure no one is contagious. Now, I just hope Stan and I can avoid getting sick. Stan can't afford to miss work and having a fever will mess with my MS.

Blown out of proportion

2009-01-17T11:36:00.002-06:00

I comment that I made on my blog a week ago has been completely blown out of proportion. I never intended to attach anyone or offend anyone or be mean. What I meant when I talked about the problem being made worse with the girls at church is that Rachael has expressed concerns that she is very emotional right now and worries that things she may say or do are going to be taken personally and not in the context that she is trying to deal with her grandmother dying. In the past, things have been taken personally when they weren't meant that way and feelings were hurt that shouldn't have been. She started feeling like she always said the wrong thing and she is worried about that again. I wanted to express my hope that there would be more understanding than there was in the past since some of them have recently experienced what Rachael is going through. That I am aware of, there has been very little problems expressed between the girls involved. Rachael and I just FEAR that things will be misunderstood and that is making the issue worse from our point of view. In talking with the YW president, she said things seem to be going good with the girls. I was thrilled to hear that. I really want the drama to be over. Rachael is really trying to be kind. She did not talk with the girls about their father's death because she remembered that she didn't want to talk about her grandpa's death right after if happened. She didn't give them a hug or try to "distract" them because she didn't want to appear to be a fake since they have been fighting. She thought the nicest thing she could do was to just leave them alone so they could deal with their grief without being reminded of the problems. She was torn for days though, wondering what was the best thing to do. They seem to be trying to include her. They keep asking if she will play basketball, but she can't because she has a dance class on Saturday morning when the games occur. She was asked to play at mutual on Wednesday, but she had to rehearse her song for New Beginnings. I am pleased to hear this.

When I typed up the entry in question, it was only to express my concerns over my daughter and not to attack anyone or be mean. The purpose of this blog is to keep my family updated on how things are going. This blog isn't for attacking anyone or spreading rumors or anything else. If you come in contact with me in any way, then you might be mentioned on my blog. It just depends upon what is going through my head when I sit down to type. Iwas trying to be vague about the problems. Most people I talk to only know about the problem at church as a "personality conflict". It isn't something Rachael or I talk with many people about.

2009-01-15T18:56:00.003-06:00

Today has been such a long day. I had an appointment today at 9am, so I got up at 7. Usually, that isn't bad, but I could not sleep last night. I finally fell asleep at 1:30am. Jeremy woke up at 4am, then again at 5am. He couldn't get back to sleep, so he got up and watched cartoons.

After my appointment, I came home to take the truck to Stan. He had gone out this morning to find the back window on our Rio shattered. We have no idea how that happened. We did a little bit of school work, then I took Rachael over to Grandma's. Their great grandma needed to go to Walmart and needed someone to sit with my MIL. Rachael finished up her geometry there while she helped grandma with anything she needed.

I took Jeremy and went to Walmart myself, then to Target. I had to get my Avinza prescription filled. They didn't have any in stock. I was so mad. It takes a week to get in once they run out because it is a catagory 1 controlled substance. I fill that Rx every single month annd this is the 2nd time in the last 3 months they have run out. I don't get it. They know me well there and even the tech and the pharmacist said they knew I filled it every month. I don't know why they ran out. It was the only reason I went to Target, so now I had to go to CVS to fill the script. They couldn't do it right away, so I had to go back again, then I had to pick up Rachael and take her to dance, then come home and make dinner. At this point, I am so tired. I honestly haven't felt like this in a long time. I will be going to bed early tonight especially since I have to get up early again tomorrow.

Lately, I have been freaking out about Rachael getting her license. I worry constantly about her driving in the dark, or bad weather or during rush hour. I get anxiety attacks about her driving. She isn't a bad driver, but I just worry about something happening to her. I have had an anxiety disorder in the past and I wonder if it is popping up again with all the extra stress that is going on in my life. Millions of people drive every day and very few of them get in accidents when you think about it. The odds are low that anything will happen to her, but I still worry. I may make her keep her permit for a while longer until I am more certain of her driving skills. I need to let her drive more though so she can get better. She has 2 months before she can even get her license, but we still have half of the driver's ed lessons to go, so she may not be through them anyways. I don't want her to know that I feel this anxiety though, so if you are reading this, don't tell her if you talk to her. I do trust her and this anxiety has nothing to do with her. It is just senseless anxiety that comes up when I am experiencing a lot of stress. I had the same problem when Jeremy was a baby. I constantly worried that something was going to happen to him. I even had to go on anxiety meds because it got so bad.

I am also worried about Rachael's stomach. She has been having trouble eating lately. She is going to see the GI next week. She takes medication for reflux, and that helped for a while, but it isn't helping as much anymore. She frequently isn't hungry, then when she is, she will gag easily on her food, then get nausea and can't finish eating. She was having heartburn, but that went away when she started the prilosec. I wonder if some of this might not be the stress of her grandmother dying and the problems she has had with her friends over the past year and this is her physical reaction to stress. The gagging did start around the time her grandmother was diagnosed with the terminal brain tumors, although the reflux problems she has had off and on her entire life, including as a baby. I'll post an update after we see the GI next week.

The end of a busy week

2009-01-10T09:47:00.002-06:00

Wow, I have sat down several times to blog this week and I keep getting called away from the computer. Well, I have no excuse now. My house is silent except for the sound of my keyboard. I send my family off this morning to visit the Lexington. The cub scouts have a Lexington trip planned for this weekend. I called before we signed up and was told I would have to be able to go up and down ladders, or I would have to stay in a separate area and miss some of the activities. I decided I would just stay home. Rachael took Aashlie so she wouldn't be alone with a bunch of women she didn't know. I"m going to have to trust Stan to take the photos. I know he won't take as many as I would. I bet they are going to have a blast.

My baby turned 7 on Wednesday! We went out to Gatti Town for his birthday on Monday since half the family has to be at the church on Wednesday night. He had a blast. We all got up early Wednesday morning so he could open his presents. We bought him a Lego Indiana Jones set and the Batmobile for his Imaginext. He loved them. He got money from Granny, Grandma Hodge and Grams, so he bought more Imaginext toys. He has spent hours playing with them this week. We decided since he is so into Imaginext now, then it was time to retire the Little People. I have pictures of him playing with his Little people so I sent them all to Emily. I know they will get good use there. I thought about saving them for his kids, but we just have too small of a house and a complete lack of storage space. He was completely OK with giving away the Little people and that is the most important thing.

In addition to my normal busy schedule, I have been worried about my mother in law all week. She went back into the hospital on the 1st due to change in neurological function. She was confused with memory loss, visual disturbances and even some hallucinations. She had a CT of her brain and her tumors are bigger and there are more of them. This time, there is nothing anyone can do. Her oncologist was planning on starting some growth inhibitor chemo for the liver tumors, but now he said that this is no longer necessary as it won't do anything for the brain tumor. They gave her some steroids for the swelling and they have helped a lot. She has been more with it since she started the steroids. Now, we have to take advantage of all the time we have with her, because it won't be long.

I am struggling a little bit with some guilt about my MIL. We have plane tickets to go to PA to see my mom and grandma in March. I haven't seen my mom in 5 years and I haven't seen my grandma in 11 years. My grandmother also has cancer, so this may be the last chance I have to see her. Also, our plane tickets are non-refundable. Here is where the guilt comes in. What if Beth is still arouond when it comes time to go? What if she passes away while we are gone? I just have to deal with the guilt, because we are going. My kids are looking forward to this and so is my mom. She sounded so excited when I told her we had our plane tickets bought. She doesn't get excited very easily.

If you are reading this, please pray for my family, especially my MIL. It is so hard to see her in pain yet I'm not sure I'm ready to lose her yet. I know I don't have any choice in the matter. I know Heavenly Father will help us through this challenge if I have faith. Now, I just have to keep that faith going. I'm really worried about how my daughter is going to handle this. She is really close to her grandmother. She thinks of her as a second mom. She has already had a few tearful moments. She couldn't even go to church on Sunday because she was so upset. The stress of losing her grandmother is making the problem with some of the girls at church even worse. She is really sensitive right now and a few of the girls give her no slack and no understanding at all. Two of them just lost there dad, so I hope they can understand a little bit what she is going through. It is really hard to watch a loved one suffer like this.

The last entry of the year

2008-12-30T15:05:00.003-06:00

I can't believe the year is almost over. It has been a pretty good year. My health has improved quite a bit, Stan is doing well at his job, the kids are healthy and happy. I have much to be thankful for. I consider myself very lucky.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. We did. The kids got very spoiled this year. We could actually afford more for Christmas than we have been able to in quite a few years, so I went a little crazy. We got lots of new Wii games and movies that the entire family can enjoy. The boys got some Nintendo DS games. Jeremy got some Imaginex play sets and Andrew got some new accessories for his bike. Rachael got a big docking station/speaker set for her iPod. Grandma and Grams (great grandma) got Jeremy a new bike since we have been trying to repair Andrew's old one and it has been a losing battle. He was very excited. Stan got a Nintendo DS along with several games and I got lots of jewelery, an extra battery and a new lens for Christmas.

The most important thing was that we got to spend the day together, enjoying each others company and being together. We played Mario Kart that evening after we got home from Grandma's house. It was so much fun to play together. We kept switching out since there are 5 of us and it is only a 4 player game. Poor Jeremy kept coming in last place, but he was having fun and didn't care at all. He was just having fun playing along with us. Here is a photo of us in our Christmas pj's. They coordinate with each other some, although you can't really tell from this photo. I'm taking the photo with the remote control I got for my camera. Maybe there will be more photos of me now that I can take them myself.

Snow in December

2008-12-10T09:14:00.005-06:00

I know it isn't much, but we got a little bit of snow last night. It didn't stick, but it looked cool. Here are a few photos I got of our "snow". It was the most noticeable on the car and the trampoline. There was just a little bit on the ground by the time I got out there with the camera.

I know those of you who live in areas of the country that regularly get snow are laughing at these photos. I live in Austin, Texas. Snow is not a common thing around here. I don't remember ever getting snow this early in the year even during the coldest winters. IF we get snow, it is usually in January or February. We will see what the rest of the winter brings us

Crew's Journey

2008-12-04T20:09:00.004-06:00

I stumbled across a blog that has really touched my heart. This is a blog about a tiny little baby named Crew. He was a twin born at 28 weeks. His twin brother passed away prior to birth due to twin to twin transfusion syndrome. Crew is fighting for his life now. He is progressing and doing really well for such a tiny little guy. I read this blog every day and I have added Crew to my prayers each day. You can read about him here. His mom is a digital scrapbooking designer also. The designers she sells with have created a kit to help the family pay for Crew's NICU cost, which will be huge, even with insurance. I didn't hesitate to purchase it. It is on sale at Plain Digital Wrapper. I'm posting about this on both blogs. This is a very worthwhile kit. It is huge and adorable.

When you say your prayers, please include Crew. He could use all the prayers he can get.

Stories at Hand

2008-11-27T20:45:00.002-06:00

I just completed a class at Jessica Sprague.com. It was about writing your personal history. When I first signed up, I thought it was going to be a digiscrapping class. It was more of a hybrid class as we had to build our prompt book using digital supplies she gave us. We created a prompt book that we then use to write out our personal history. Some of the prompts are things like "What was your first pet?" . You are suppose to read the prompt, then let your words flow. She encourages the use of things like blogs and digital journals, but I like the idea of it being in my handwriting. I am doing all of mine by hand. I may do some digitally on here if I run out of things to write about. I doubt that will happen with how busy my kids and life keep me, but you never know. I need to just work on posting here more frequently.

Today is Thanksgiving. We went to Emily's and spent the afternoon with Stan's family like we normally do. It was loud, but fun. The food was good, but I did my best to get just a little bit of the things I wanted and not waste the calories on anything I didn't love. I started eating some pumpkin cake, but it had a strange after taste by the time I got less than half way through, so I quit eating it. I made pies from scratch this year. I usually let Emily make the pies, but Andrew really wanted to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. We made it from an actual pumpkin and not from canned pumpkin. It was so good. It was much better than any pumpkin pie I have ever had. I will be making my pies like this from now on.

I feel totally blessed right now in my life. My MS has been under control, I'm feeling pretty good these days. Stan's mom is home from the hospital. Stan has a great job. Everyone is healthy and strong. I have a nice home, even though it is small. I have amazing children and a wonderful husband. We aren't hungry or cold. We have clothes. Most importantly, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in our lives. I know that my Heavenly Father loves me and cares about me and my family. I have SO much to be thankful for. Life is good, even when it is hard, it is good.

I did find out today that Stan's family will be going their own way this year for Christmas. Emily and Frank will be going to Colorado, Ben and Wendy won't be doing Christmas (that is all we were told) and I'm not sure what Richard and Michelle will be doing. It will be the first time since Stan and I have been married that we haven't had most of his family together on Christmas. I'm sure we will go to his mom's house, but otherwise, it will be a nice Christmas at home. It will be kind of nice not to have to worry about going anywhere. I'll give Grace and Jacob their present early. I'll check with Michelle and find out what they are doing. I may give Faith and Samantha their present early also.

I have a ton of scrapbooking layouts to finish up this week. I have to have an entire book worths done by Friday. I won't elaborate on it any more than that, but I have about 15 layouts to get done. Monday, Rachael and Andrew both have physicals. Rachael's is in the morning and Andrew's is in the afternoon. Tuesday is our normal crazy day, with Grace being here in the morning, then Andrew has OT, then dance and scouts. Wednesday I should be able to get a lot done, and probably on Thursday also. Friday Rachael has to get a barium swallow done and I have Weight Watchers. Rachael is having trouble swallowing at times. She will be eating, then she will gag on her food and then feel like she is going to vomit. We have her on reflux medication, but it isn't getting better. She is going to see a pediatric gastro, but her appointment isn't until the end of January.

I had to go see the gastro 2 weeks ago. For about 4 months, I keep feeling like I am going to throw up. I had an EGD done on Monday (a camera down into my stomach) and they found that my stomach is not emptying like it should and I have a red, inflammed area on my esophagus. Aparently, I have been having reflux without the heart burn sensation. I used to have heart burn all the time, but it has been years, like since I was pregnant with Jeremy, since I felt like that. I have added 2 more medications to my growing pile of pills I swallow each and every day.

I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving and that we can all remember those things we have to be thankful for all year round.

Feeling old

2008-11-13T09:42:00.002-06:00

I got an email the other day from a dear family friend of mine. Her son had just become a daddy for the first time. When I first moved to Austin, I started babysitting this boy and his older brother. Danny was almost 2 and Ben was 4 I think. Jera, their mom, was in the YW program and later was my YW president. We became very close. When she had her daughter, I was so close to her. I was her second mom. Part of that was because I ended up living with them for 6 months during a time when my own family was having a lot a troubles. The Parkers were my stability. Maegan and I shared a room when I lived with them. She was just a baby when I lived there. I gave her her first real hair do. She loved for me to do her hair, even when she was tiny.

I am so grateful for the time I had with the Parkers. I learned so much being around them. Their family life was so different than mine. My mom and Eugene loved each other, but they dealt with things my yelling. Even now, I think they yell when they are frustrated with each other. I was so amazed when I lived with the Parkers that they didn't yell at each other. When I get to my breaking point, I will yell and my kids, but most of the time, I don't yell. I don't yell at Stan either. It just isn't me. It always freaked me when my mom and Gene would yell at each other. I was sure they were getting a divorce when they started yelling. I would go for a walk and cry about it. I would come back home and they would be acting like nothing was wrong. I just didn't understand it. I didn't understand why you would yell so much at someone you were suppose to love so much. I still don't really understand it, but I know that it is just the way they are. It is their way of dealing with their frustration. I guess it works for them. It doesn't work for Stan and I. He didn't grow up with yelling. His parents never yelled at each other. I never saw them say a negative thing to each other.

Anyway, so now I feel old. I found blogs for Ben and his wife. Maegan has a blog but it is private, so I couldn't catch up with her. I do know that she has 2 babies, a girl and a boy. Ben has a baby girl and now Danny has a baby girl. I feel so old. I miss them all dearly. I really wish they hadn't had to move to Colorado. For those of you wondering where the Poppy came from in my title, this is a good time to explain. When Maegan was a baby, she couldn't say Patricia. What baby can? She started calling me Poppy. Prior to that, Danny had called me ti-a. I still get called Poppy or ti-a by the Parkers. Poppy is much easier to spell and have people know what it says. I will forever be Poppy and I will think of the Parkers every time I use it. It has actually become part of my user name on several forums. Poppy is frequently taken, so I have become Poppymom or Poppymom23. The reason for the 23 is because I am Poppy, mom to 3 kits-poppymom23. I know it is lame, but now you have it. I also use it for my email address.

I started an online class this week. It is called Stories in Hand. This is a free class done by Jessical Sprague. It has been so much fun. It is a hybrid project. I put together this book already. It is full of journaling prompts to write my life history. I have always wanted to do something like this, but never really new how to start. I plan on taking the book places with me so I can just write when I have the time, such as waiting for Rachael to get out of dance, waiting for a doctors appointment ( I have WAY too many of those unfortunately). I have enjoyed it so far. I need to do better about writing here.

My mother in law is finally home. She has been in the hospital and in rehab for about 2 month or more. We have really missed her. The rehab center was way on the other side of town, which made it hard to get over there. I think we are going to run over to see her before we get started on school. I need to go jump in the shower so I will end this post. My daughter would be reminding me that jumping in the shower is not safe, especially for me since my feet don't work right. She is just like her dad-She and Jeremy both have the Hodge sense of humor. Andrew does a little bit, but not as much as Rachael and Jeremy. For those of you who know my family, do you feel sorry for me? I am surrounding by that punny sense of humor, even from my 6yo. On Tuesday, Rachael told her dad that she hadn't gotten around to it when he asked about her math. He picked up my circle punch from the book I am working on, punched out a cirlce and wrote "to it" on the circle and gave it to her. Now she had a round "to it" so she didn't have any excuses. Bad isn't it-UUUGGGHHH!!!!

Our Halloween

2008-11-02T18:37:00.007-06:00

We had such a fun day on Halloween. Stan works for Tokyo Electron. They take Halloween VERY seriously. I doubt much work got done on Halloween. They had a decorating contest between the different departments. Stan's area did a Dr. Seuss theme. His smaller area was assigned "How the Grinch stole Christmas". Stan was Max the dog. His boss, Mark Leverette, was the Grinch. Here they are in the costume contest. They didn't win, but Stan did get an award for the biggest ham. They gave him a refrigerator ham as his prize. I have no idea what we are going to do with it, but I will put it to use somehow.

Andrew managed to avoid my camera at the ward Trunk-or-Treating activity. This is the only photo I have of him in his costume. He dressed up as a ninja. He is standing in the Grinch cave they made at work as a part of their decorations. They really did go all out for this contest. I forgot to mention that they did get first place in the contest. Halloween is a favorite holiday among many of the employees there.

Jeremy went as Indiana Jones, in case you hadn't guessed. He made sure everyone knew who he was. I think he made a pretty cute Indiana Jones. My niece, Megan, is in the background. She is wearing her mother's wedding dress. I think her mom was pretty brave, especially since Megan is the biggest dirt magnet I have ever known.

I figured since Stan was going to be going straight to Trunk-or-Treating from work in his costume, then I would dress up to match him. My Grinch costume is not as good as Stan's boss costume. It took me forever to get that stuff out of my h air. I had to wash it twice. My hair was so stiff that it didn't move when I took the ponytail holder out.
Finally we have Rachael. She is Morticia Adams. We had to settle for the dress, so it isn't exactly as sexy as Morticia's dresses usually are. That's ok by me though. I don't like to see my daughter in anything sexy.
We had a fabulous Halloween. I hope you all did too.

Busy month

2008-10-30T16:08:00.002-05:00

This month has absolutely flown by. We have been so busy this month. The kids are so ready for Halloween. We finally have all of their costume stuff done. Now the only thing left to do for costumes is to get the pants for Stan's and I need to finish up his antler. His office is doing a theme this year for the costume contest at work. They are doing characters from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". Stan was assigned to be Max the dog. He told me about it and said to keep my eyes peeled for a dog costume. I never saw one and asked him a few times what he had in mind for this costume. He procrastinated getting what he needed, so I have been running around trying to get his entire costume this week. He even had a 4 day weekend this past weekend and didn't do a single thing to get his costume ready. I have the antler almost finished and I need to make the ears. I found a brown sweatshirt on Wednesday, but no brown sweatpants. We need to hit the other Walmart tonight and see if we can find the sweatpants. After I take Rachael to dance, then I will finish up his antler and ears. He saw the ears he wanted last week but didn't pick them up.

Rachael is taking lessons from him this year. She has been telling me for months that she was going to be a pirate for Halloween. She decides a few weeks ago that she didn't want to be a pirate, but could not decide what she wanted to be. On Saturday night, she decided she was going to be Morticia Adams. We went to several stores trying to find the right dress. Her dress doesn't really look like Morticia's dress, but it will have to do. The dress we got is an adult witch dress, so it has some silver lacing on the bodice, and it is a full skirt rather than the form fitting skirts Morticia usually wears. We bought a long, black wig. She made me buy lice killing spray so she is sure she won't get lice from the wig. I think she is going to look great.

Andrew is going to be a ninja and Jeremy is going to be Indiana Jones. I had both of their costumes done by last Thursday. I am going to go to the church Trunk-or-treating as the Grinch so that Stan and I match. I bought a green sweatsuit, green face paint and green spray for my hair. I am going to buy green nail polish tonight just for added effect. I can't figure out what I am going to do about my feet though. I don't have any kind of green shoes and it is hard to find something that fits over my braces. I'll figure something out though. I'll post pictures after our Halloween activity tomorrow night.

Wonderful weekend

2008-10-12T21:31:00.002-05:00

This weekend, we had a stake conference. We have a new Stake President as of this morning. President Palmer and his counselors, President Kent and President Williams, were released. I will miss having them as our stake presidency. I will especially miss having President Kent visit our ward. I'm sure our new stake presidency will be wonderful. Our new stake president is President Spears. I don't really know him although I have met him once. I spent a week at girl's camp with his wife last year. She is an amazing woman. Any man married to her is most likely just as amazing. His counselors are President Rawlinson for the first counselor and President Trejo for his second counselor. I don't know either of these men, but I do know Sis Trejo just a little bit, again from girl's camp. I'm excited to get to know these men through their talks and presence in our stake.

We heard some wonderful talks this weekend. We had a visiting member of the First Quorum of the 70, Elder Hamula. We also had an area 70 here, Elder Villareal. They spoke at both the adult session and the session today. One of the things they talked about was the importance of unity. They also talked about going to the temple more. That is something Stan and I have been wanting to do anyway. We keep saying we want to go more, but then our schedule gets busy. We need to make a point to make our appointment and set our scheduled date to go to the temple early so nothing gets in the way. We have a very full schedule for the rest of the month already, so we won't be going in October, but I want to go in November. It would be wonderful to some day get a temple in Austin, but that won't happen until we keep the San Antonio temple so busy that they need to put another temple in the area. That isn't going to happen if we aren't doing our part. The Savior will come again and soon. It may not be soon to me, but it will be soon to our Heavenly Father. Our life is but a binking of his eyes. There is so much work still yet to be done in the temple. If we don't get this work done, then everything will be wasted. I can't assume that other people will do it. I need to do my part. I need to do as much work as I can. My goal is to go to the temple every 2 months. Since we are going to go to the temple in November, then I guess we are going to go in the odd months.

If you are a member of the church and you are reading this blog, I challenge you to go to the temple as often as you can. If you are not a member of the church, then I challenge you to learn as much as you can about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Our trip to the coast

2008-10-08T21:13:00.012-05:00

We went down to Corpus Christi this past weekend for a short family vacation. We had a great time. We rented a condo on the North beach in Corpus. We had to walk across the parking lot to be right on the beach. The weather was really nice. It wasn't too hot, but it was warm enough that we could swim in the ocean without getting cold. The water temperature was in the mid 80's and felt really good. I got to really break in my new camera. I took my Powershot as well as my Rebel. When we were on the beach, I had my Powershot with me. I didn't want to leave my Rebel sitting in my bag while we were in the water. My Powershot takes great photos still. I took a bunch of pictures at the aquarium and the art museum on Sunday. I used my Rebel then. Here are a few of the pictures I took this weekend. They are in no particular order and definitely not in the order they were taken.
This is a picture I took at the aquarium of the Bull shark that was in the big tank. I took this one with the Rebel. I tried a manual setting without a flash. I didn't want to use a flash and have it reflect off the glass. It turned out a little creepy, but cool.
Here are the dolphins. They were getting ready to do their show, which takes place right above the tank. I loved this shot. It looks really cool. I think I got better photos in the viewing area below the tank than I did during the show. I did get some with the dolpins in the air though.
Here is Jeremy in an observation bubble inside one of the tanks. He said it made him feel like he was in the water without getting wet.

Here is a picture of the Lexington at night. The Lexington has a nickname of the Blue Ghost. I don't know how it got that nickname, but because of that, they shine blue lights on the ship at night. You can see them quite a ways away. It looks neat and this photo doesn't do it justice.
Here is the sunrise from the balcony of our condo. It was very pretty. I wished I would have been down on the beach for those. Stan and I went down to the beach on Monday morning to watch the sunrise together and take pictures, but there was a lot of clouds in the distance and the sunrise was not as spectacular and colorful.
We went out to the National Seashore on Saturday. There was a lot of debris on the beach from Hurricane Ike. They had garbage bags available and everyone picked up trash along the beach until it got too heavy for Stan to carry. A lot of it was wet as it has just poured down rain. You can still see all the rain clouds in the background.
This photo is actually suppose to go the other direction, but Blogger keeps turning it and I can't figure out how to turn it back. I thought the footprints in the sand looked neat. There were no other prints on this area of the beach and it had just rained rather heavy, so Rachael's footprints were the only ones there.

This was actually taken the first day we were there, the first time they got into the water.Here are 2 pictures of my kids being eaten by a giant shark at one of the gift shops on Padre Island. We actually have a picture of Stan's dad that is very similar to this one. It may have even been at the same place, but I have to find it and compare. They really hammed it up for these photos. It was not planned that Jeremy would be playing dead when I took Rachael's picture. I didn't even notice it until we downloaded the camera. It makes Rachael's expression even funnier seeing Jeremy "impalled" on the shark teeth.

The kids already want to know when we are going back. We will probably go down next fall again. Stan is planning on doing the MS bike ride next year. That ended in Corpus on Sunday while we were there. The Cub Scout pack is going to the Lexington to spend the night in January also. I don't know if I will go yet. I have to call them and find out how accessable it is to the mildly disabled and how bad the beds are going to kill my already sensitive back.

We had a lot of fun, no one got hurt (I only got a mild sunburn, but no one else did) and there was very little fighting among the kids. We made some very good memories and I am so glad for that.

The best birthday present

2008-09-25T21:00:00.002-05:00

My 39th birthday was on Tuesday. My husband surprised me with the best birthday present. He bought me a digital Canon Rebel XSi. I have been wanting a digital SLR camera for a long time. I didn't think I would get one for a long time. I have taken over 100 pictures in the 2 days I have had it. I have been reading the manual. I'm still in the auto part of the instructions. There are still buttons on there that I don't know what to do with. I am going to have so much fun learning how to use this. Stan had my camera ready to take pictures of me opening it. This is the second time he has surprised me with the camera I wanted. Now I have a list of accessories to go with it. It came with one lens, the 18-55mm lens. I want the 75-300mm lens next. It is the telephoto lens. Here is the layout I made from the pictures he took.

Andrew immediately asked if he could have my old camera. For now, I am holding onto it. I may need a camera that I can just throw into my bag. I also want it to take to the coast. I want the older camera for at the beach. I can more easily put it in my bag plus I don't want to worry about sand ruining it. I let them use it all the time anyway. I've let them both take 1 or 2 pictures with my new camera, but they have to put the neck strap on. I don't want them to drop it. It is a little bulkier than my older camera. Andrew loves to take pictures. He is going to be just like me.

Adventures in driving

2008-09-15T18:32:00.002-05:00

I have started teaching Rachael to drive. We had to do 6 hours of classroom portion, then she was able to get her learners permit. She got that on Thursday. Now, we are doing the driving part, and the rest of the classroom part together. On Friday, she drove for the first time. She was having a little bit of trouble getting used to the feel of the gas and the brake. She was putting too much pressure of them and would forget which was which. She also kept trying to use her left foot for the brake. The other thing she was having trouble getting use to was the steering. She would over turn as she went around the corners. I had her go around our little block a few times. There was no other cars driving on our street as she drove around the block. We were on our 6th and last time around. She seemed like she was starting to get the hang of it. I was wrong. She turned the corner from our street onto Elderberry. She turned a little too sharp and then hit the gas. She went up over the curb and I yelled "hit the brake". She took her foot off the gas, but couldn't think of how to hit the brake. She took our our neighbors mail box and almost ran into a bush. It scared the living daylights out of me. Stan and Rachael spent a few hours on Saturday fixing the mailbox for the neighbor. We are going to have the second driving lesson in just a little while. We are going to a big, empty parking lot where she can't hit anything-I hope! I'll let you know how it goes

As you all know, hurricane Ike went through Texas over the weekend. On Wednesday, they predicted that Ike would go right through Austin. The whole city was preparing for rain and high winds. We have this tree in our backyard that has been dead for quite a while. It is very sad. We used to have 2 huge maple trees right behind our house that provided lots of shade from the blazing afternoon sun. Bore beetles decided to make those trees their home until they killed them. By the time we knew they were there, the trees were dead. When the weather people were predicting 70 mph winds were coming, Stan decided the tree needed to come down. The last thing we wanted was for the gust of wind to blow it over into our house. Wednesday night, Stan called Justin, Ben and Jacob over and they moved the trampoline. On Thursday, Stan went and bought a chain saw the cut the tree down. It fell very easily. I am amazed it hadn't blown over already when I saw how dried out the wood was. There are huge cracks that go up the entire length of the tree. Stan is going to cut it up and use the wood for smoking meat. Maple makes really good wood for smoking chicken and pork. We will also use it to take to Cub Scout camp outs. We don't have a fire place, not that anyone needs one in Austin. Stan is going to spend the next week or so getting the tree cut up. Here is the tree laying across our backyard. After all of that perparation, all we got was 15 minutes of rain late Saturday night. UT postoned the football game, schools let out early on Friday and lots of people got ready for bad weather. It never happened. It was so hot over the weekend. I kept wishing it would rain to cool things off. It did cool off today. The temperature is very nice today. I like this kind of weather.

I can't believe it is September

2008-09-06T10:01:00.000-05:00

WOW, this year has flown by. I can't believe it is already September. My September started off with a bad migraine. It just would not respond to my medication. My PCP gave me another medication to try, but that didn't really help either. They both just took the edge off. I emailed my neuro and she misunderstood my email and told me to do the same thing I was already doing. By the time they opened again on Tuesday, I had had a headache for more than 7 days and had been a migraine level for 3 days. I went in to see the neuro and they gave me a shot of Demerol/phenergan and another one of Toradol. I went home and slept for several hours, but the headache was still there. It was mild now though. By the next morning, it was migraine level again. I took some new medication the doctor had given me samples of. It wasn't going to work either. On Thursday, I went to the infusion center and got an infusion of phenergan, magnesium and then depakote. It felt so good to be headache free. It was the first time in 10 days.

I am trying really hard to get back on track with Weight Watchers. I gained 2 pounds this week. I wasn't really surprised. I didn't track for 3 days during the bad migraine and I ate whatever I wanted. I wasn't eating much at a time, but I guess I was snacking more than I should. I am going back to the basics. I have started measuring again and jouraling things as I eat them rather than doing all of my journaling at the end of the day. My friend Lynn and I are going to try to support each other daily. We are going to send each other our daily trackers and email each other when we are tempted or when we have a victory too. I am pretty pumped about this. I have been at the same weight for over a year. My WW leader keeps telling me that this is good considering all that has happened in the past year. That isn't enough any more. It was for a while, but I am ready to lose more. I also feel so much better when I am eating healthy. Plus, my blood sugars are under control and I need to keep them that way.

Rachael is so excited to be back at dance. She went to VIR auditions on Tuesday and started VIR on Thursday. VIR stands for Visions in Rhythm. It is a pre-professional, apprentice dance company. They have a new director this year and she wants to do a lot more community performances than we did last year. Rachael is excited about the work they are doing. She is loving all of her classes this year.

It looks like I am going to be the Tiger Cubs den leader this year. None of the other moms have stepped up to the plate to volunteer. I am going to talk to them and see if any of them would be willing to fill in if I cannot be there. As long as the other moms or dads would be willing to fill in at the last moment, then that is fine. I am actually excited about doing this with Jeremy. The Tiger requirements are pretty easy so I don't think we will have any trouble getting them all done quickly. They are pretty fun also. Jeremy is so excited to be starting Scouts.

My MIL has moved to rehab. I don't know if I have posted about this before, but she had to have emergency surgery for an abscess. They abscess had started at her artificial hip, so that had to be removed and a c-block that was infused with antibiotics was placed. She will be in rehab for at least 4 weeks. She is determines to not leave there until she is walking. She is so determined. I wish I could have even a little bit of that determination. I often think that I would have given up by now if I were in her shoes. She is a constant example to me.

I was going to post some new photos, but I can't get this computer to recognize my SD card. I need to go figure that out. I'll post some photos when I get it working. My computer has been a mess this week. Stan turned the power off last Friday to fix the garbage disposal. My computer was in the middle of updating Windows at that time, so it corrupted. We had to wipe my computer and start all over again. It has been a mess.

It's too early

2008-08-26T04:06:00.003-05:00

I can't believe I am wide awake in the middle of the night. This is going to make the day VERY long. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to sleep. I have a sinus infection (I think-nurses are so bad at diagnosing themselves) and I am so congested that I am having a hard time sleeping. I got up with the intention of sleeping in my recliner, but now I can't fall asleep. I figured I would take advantage of the quiet and my ability to freely type. Lately, if there isn't a cat in my lap, then Jeremy is there. Sometimes, both Lucky (the cat) and Jeremy occupy my lap at the same time. I try to take advantage of those times that Jeremy wants to snuggle. Being only 5'1", I don't have a very big lap, so I don't know how much longer Jeremy is going to fit into it. I also don't know how much longer he is going to want to snuggle.

When I last updated, I was getting ready to take Rachael to a friends house. That turned into quite the adventure. The sleepover was at the married sister of Rachael's friend. This married sister also happened to be the director of the Savior of the World play. Her sister, Rachael's friend, was converted because of her sister's involvement in the play. I thought that was cool. She lives in Lakeway, which is about 20 minutes north west of Austin. It is a beautiful community out by Lake Travis.

I really should have listened to the little voice inside my head before we left that said "get better directions". Initially, I only had an address, but the community was not on Google maps yet. We then got directions from a teenager who doesn't drive. There are a few non-driving teenagers who can give good directions. Rachael's friend Megan is one of those. This was not one of those. We are driving on Hwy 620, looking for the street into the subdivision on the left hand side of the road. They are all well marked. We go completely through Lakeway and beyond. When we reach Mansfield Dam, I tell Rachael to call and see if we are suppose to be this far. We aren't. She gives us more detailed directions from where we are. As we get back into Lakeway, Rachael says to look for the entrance of the subdivision on the left. Wait a minute-it was suppose to be on the left the first time, so shouldn't it be on the right now? We call back and she says the entrance will definitely be on the left. I had not paid any attention to the right hand side of the road on our way through Lakeway. I also discovered that she gave me the name of the subdivision and not the street name, even though she gave street names for every other turn we were suppose to make. The subdivision name was hard to see because there were cars blocking it at the stop light. We did finally get there and Rachael had a great time at her sleepover. They stayed up all night. She couldn't be pranked my Andy this time either. He was at a scout campout and he didn't know how to get to this house anyway. He has pranked almost every sleepover Rachael has been at since they started liking each other.

After I finally got Rachael where she needed to be, it was almost 8pm. Jeremy and I were going to meet Stan for dinner. We ate at Jason's and got done at 9pm. We let Jeremy get a game at Hollywood video. We used some of the disability back pay to get a Wii for the family, so we picked up a Wii game. We also got a Wii Fit for the family recently. That has been a blast. I really need to be better at doing it every day. The activities really do give you a lot of exercise and I can do a lot of them. The balance exercises have been great at improving my stability. That is one of the biggest reasons I wanted the Wii and the Wii Fit. Some of the balance exercises are exactly like the ones I did at physical therapy. They are way more fun that the home program exercises they gave me. I think I'll let the Wii Fit become my physical therapist for now.

I have been given an award. My sweet friend, Corine, gave me this award. Corine recently moved to Hawaii. Her blog is so much fun to read. She is a way better writer than I am. She really should write a book. She said she would if she got 403 people to comment on a specific entry. Go to her blog and check out that entry and leave her a comment. I would love to see her write that book that I know she has in her. You can find that entry here.

Speaking of books, I have spent way too much time reading lately. I have a hard time being a casual reader. When I start a book, I let it suck me in. I don't get anything done until the book is finished. That is why I will go months without reading a book even though I love to read. My current favorite author is Stephanie Meyer. I started off with her Twilight books. I had the first 3 from my SIL. I read them in about 2 weeks, but only because I took a few days off in between books. I bought the 4th one the day it came out. They were fabulous. I just finished her other book "The Host" on Saturday night. I was up until 1am finishing it. I was sobbing like a baby all through the last few chapters. It is amazing I could read through the tears. Then she played a mean trick on the readers. The book ends, then there are about 3 blank pages, THEN she puts the epilogue. I really thought it ended in that sad way. I could understand 1 blank page, but 3!!! I almost closed the book, but there were so many pages after the end. I though they might be a bio about the author, but I checked them out anyways and was glad I did.

So, if you are looking to get completely wrapped up in some good books and completely ignore your chores and your family (not really), then there are 5 Stephanie Meyer books I can recommend to you. The Twilight books are pretty well known, but I don't know how many people have heard of The Host. Check it out. You won't regret it.

Tagged again

2008-08-22T16:02:00.002-05:00

I have been tagged so many times lately that I can't even keep up with it anymore. The past 3 tags have been repeats of tags I have done in the past 3 months, so I didn't do them. Sorry. One of the designers I CT for tagged me with this one. This one is completely different from anything I have done before so I thought it would be interesting to do this one. This tag is called Pregnancy Bumps.

Preggy Facts:

1. Who did you first inform about your pregnancy and how?
All 4 times I told my husband first. I was boring and just called him to tell him. The next person I called was probably my mom. I remember with my 2nd and 3rd pregnancy, I also called my best friend, Lisa. We tried for a year to get pregnant with our second child only to have my 2nd pregnancy end in miscarriage at 7 weeks, but I got pregnant again very fast.

2. Maximum weight?
I won't tell you my weight, but I gained 38# with the 1st, 13 # with the 3rd and 60# with 4th pregnancy

3. Cravings?
1-Coffee rolls from Dunkin Donuts
3-grapes
4-nothing specific

4. Aversions?
1-baked potatoes-I didn't eat them for 5 years after that pregnancy
3-anything sweet
4-it was something different every week it seemed

5. Morning Sickness?
yes, but mild and stopped by the 13th week

D Day Facts:
1. Number of Kids/Deliveries?
3 children, 4 pregnancies

2. NSD or CS?
All 3 were normal vaginal deliveries. All 3 were natural childbirth.

3. Girl or Boy?
girl, boy, boy

4. AOG (age of gestation) on Birth?
34 weeks after 1 week of bedrest in the hospital
36 weeks after 6 weeks of bedrest and in the hospital 4 times
37 weeks after 14 weeks of bedrest and in the hospital 9 times

5. How long in labor?
I am not counting all of the times I was in preterm labor. I am only counting the time I spent in labor that lead to my actual delivery.
1-3 hours
2-miscarriage at 7 weeks
3-4 hours
4-1 hour

I'll try to post an update later. I need to get ready to take Rachael to a friends house for a sleepover.

Savior of the World

2008-08-06T15:25:00.003-05:00

The youth of our Stake just finished putting on the play, Savior of the World, last week. It was a pretty incredible experience. I was back stage quite a bit during rehearsal and then during the dress rehearsal and the first performance. I got to see the entire play in it's completion on Saturday with Stan and the boys. It was so good. I was in tears off and on throughout the entire play. The girl who played Mary was so talented. The music was beautiful.

Here is a layout I did with a few of the photos I took this past week. Some of them were taken by other people throughout the month during rehearsals. The youth started working on this in November, so a lot of time went into this production. I'm glad I was only our ward's coordinator and I wasn't in charge of the entire thing. It was a little overwhelming just to help. It is something I will never forget though.

Things are getting a little better with my health. My MS seems to have stabilized, at least for now. I never know when it will show it's ugly head. I am hoping I have been on the Avonex long enough that I won't have a flare for quite a while. There are people on Avonex that don't have flares for 2 years. I can only hope for that. I haven't gone more than a few months without a flare so far.

I went to the orthotics place last week. I had to get fitted for a new AFO for my left foot. I also tried out the Walk-aid while I was there. It worked this time. I couldn't get one though. When they called me in April to try it out, they told me that insurance companies were paying for them now. When I went last week to get fit, they told me that a few insurance companies were paying for them, but I would have to get pre-authorization, then I would have to pay for it myself and then get reimbursed by my insurance company. I was so upset with them. Each device is $5,000, and I need two, one for each leg. Who knows how long that is going to take. Hopefully one day that will be the treatment of choice for foot drop rather than the AFO I currently have to wear to keep my foot from dragging.

My diabetes is getting more under control. I have been really careful with my diet. I am still on insulin, but I am hoping I can try diet only when I see the endocrinologist in 2 weeks. My PCP wanted me to decrease my insulin from 4 units to 2 units and my body didn't like that sudden drop in the dose. I went down to 3 units for a while and then decreased it to 2 units after my blood sugars were normal for close to a week. I have been on 2 units for 2 days. My blood sugars have been elevated today, but I'll give them another day or two before I go back up to 3 units. I have been so tempted to see how I do without any insulin at all, but I should probably listen to doctor's orders.

The kids are all doing well. We started school back up again. They aren't really thrilled about that. Rachael is doing driver's ed. We are half way through the first section, then she can get her permit. We need to add her to the insurance first though. She is also registered for dance classes again. She is going to be a teaching assistant in a 5-6 year old basic combo class. She is really excited about this. Andrew has been talking about playing a sport this year, but he doesn't know which one. Stan is going to start doing some training on his bike. He wants to be able to ride from San Antonio to Corpus Christie next year for the MS bike ride. Andrew wants to start riding with him in the morning when he does. I think it will be really good for him and give him and Stan a chance for some time together. It will also give Andrew something besides video games to focus on. Jeremy is his same happy self, although he and Andrew have been fighting more than ever. I guess that is what brother's do.

Officially disabled

2008-07-16T02:06:00.002-05:00

I have been struggling to deal with my own disability since the beginning. At first, it was hard to accept that I may be permanently disabled. As time went on, it was obvious the disability was permanent. However, then the long term disability company denied my disability not once, but twice. Their basis for denial was that I had no diagnosis. I even called them back once I got a diagnosis and they wouldn't allow me to reapply unless I had gone back to work. Seton wouldn't let me go back to work because I was no longer capable of doing my job. I was stuck. The disability company said I was able to do my job and my employer says I was not able to do my job. That left me wondering if maybe I could do more than I thought I could. I wondered if maybe I could work in a doctors office again. Then I thought of how I felt when I had a very busy day. I was never as busy as I would be if I worked 8 hours. I was useless the next day if I had a very busy day. I could only work one day before I would need one off. That wouldn't work. Plus, some days are better than others. It was an internal struggle. I really needed to start owning my disability.

It took me a while to apply for state disability. Part of it was because I didn't have the energy to fight. I had heard story after story of people having to fight for their disability. I had also heard of many stories of people getting their disability approved yet they were perfectly capable of working. I decided in April to go ahead and apply. I was prepared to get denied the first time. I was prepared to have to hire a lawyer and appeal the decision.

I got a call yesterday. Andrew tells me it is the disability people. My stomach jumped in my throat. She told me that my disability had been approved. I was shocked. She proceeded to process the application for my children over the phone. I had no idea my children would get benefits too. They each get money sent each month to be used for food, clothing, etc. For now, we are going to put that money in a savings account and use it only when we have to. We can save for college, and then use it if something big comes up such as one of them needing braces or something like that. The best part is that they are going to pay 1 years back pay. After we get that, we are paying off our car and we will be completely debt free except our house payment. I still can't believe it.

It is a huge weight off my shoulders to know that my family will be taken care of financially. I didn't ask to have MS. Prior to this MonSter moving into my body, I took care of my family physically, emotionally and financially with the help of my husband. I can still take care of them emotionally and physically, but I can't take care of them financially any more. With inflation, it is very hard to be a single income family anymore. Even within the church where it is more common to stay home, more and more moms are having to work part time to help make ends meet. I have always dreamed of being a stay at home mom and now is my time. I am so grateful that my prayers have been answered.

I'm much better

2008-07-12T20:07:00.003-05:00

It has been quite a while since I updated this blog. Things are going much better for me know. I had to do IV then oral steroids for my MS flare. I have finished both now. I can move my toes, but my left foot is still weak and I still have the foot drop. I am walking better though. I am a lot slower that I used to be and I have had to move to a quad cane. I was thinking I was going to have to start using a walker though, so I am grateful for the quad cane. The week of girls camp, I actually ditched the cane and was able to walk without it for about 2 weeks. I guess it was 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I'm not sure if I can still expect some improvement or it this is as good as it is going to get. I'll see Dr Westgate in about 9 days, so I will ask her about it then. In addition to the foot drop on my left, I have increased spasticity on the right. I have had the spasticity for quite a while, but it got worse with the flare. Along with the steroid treatment came steroid induced diabetes. Right now, we are just monitoring my blood sugars. I am getting more and more normal levels the longer I have been off steroids. About half of my levels are higher than the normal range, but they are getting closer to normal every day. My last really high level was on Thursday when it was 209. Today, my high was 141, so much better than 209. I hope they continue to get better. I would hate to have to add diabetes to my MS. I will know to watch my blood sugars a lot closer the next time I have to do steroids. I wish I could say there wouldn't be a next time, but that isn't exactly realistic.

I have a new niece. Emily had her baby on Wednesday morning. My new niece is Katelyn Emily. She was 7 pounds 4 ounces. Emily brought her down to see grandma today. Stan took the kids over there to see the new baby. I had a migraine, so I stayed home. Here are Rachael and Jeremy with Katelyn. Andrew has never been that interested in babies, so I doubt he got too close to her. Jeremy LOVES babies.

The MonSter strikes again

2008-06-26T12:47:00.002-05:00

I am officially having my second major MS flare this year. I was sitting in my recliner with my feet up, doing some designing on Tuesday. I noticed that both of my feet were asleep. I always have some numbness and tingling to my right lower leg, but this was a lot worse than usual. I started moving my legs around to "wake" them up. I noticed that the toes on my left foot wouldn't move and I had a foot drop on the left. I had to calm myself down. I could feel the "freak out" building within me. I went and layed down on my bed for a few minutes to figure out what I was going to do. DUH!!! I need to call the doctor. I don't know why it took me 20 minutes to think of that. I had just seen the neuro last week and she went on and on about how good I looked. I went back into the doctor yesterday. When I saw her last week, she discussed the possibility of this being Devic's syndrome since I have had so many episodes of optic neuritis. She ordered an antibody test for Devic's. This antibody shows up in 70% of Devic's patients. She also wants to repeat the MRI of my spine. We are hoping something will show up at some point, but I am not holding my breath. It will probably be normal again. Most people pray for normal results, but not me. I am past that. I just want something to show up to give us proof of what is going on. I want to be able to say "nanny, nanny boo boo" to all of those doctors that said there was nothing wrong with me.

Tomorrow, I will start IV steroids again. I have to do 5 days this time, then do a 9 day oral taper. I am not looking forward to this. I just had to talk to the insurance company about this. The home health company told me they were denying to authorize this because I had already had it this year. When I called the insurance company, what they actually needed was clinical symptoms. All they had was that it was an MS exacerbation. I told them my symptoms and they said that met the criteria so it should be approved soon. Having to do the steroids is bad enough, but having to fight to be able to do them is awful. It's not like this is something that makes you feel good. Who would want this if they didn't absolutely need it?!? I should be able to start the steroids as scheduled tomorrow morning. I now need to pray really hard that it works and I get my sensation and movement back. I really don't want to have to wear an AFO on both legs.

Girls camp

2008-06-15T18:40:00.006-05:00

We have survived another year at camp. It was challenging, but worth it. Things started to go downhill on Saturday. Our van bit the dust Saturday evening. I was suppose to drive to and from camp. We found out that the stake did not need my van to take girls and we arranged other drivers for the drive home on Saturday. First hurdle crossed. Dad was here visiting and leaving for Alabama on Monday morning. He drove Aashlie and me out to camp on Monday. It was nice to ride with him and get a few extra time to talk. Stan and Bryon got the van working on Monday for a fraction of the cost as it would have cost at a garage.

When I got to camp on Monday, the camp director told me that I would not have a golf cart to use this year because it was broken. I almost freaked. I explained to her that I needed to be able to get to the girls if they are injured. Plus, I was only able to go to camp because I had access to the cart to get around. I don't have the stamina or the range of motion in my leg to be able to walk all over the place. I spoke with Sis Toler and Sis Hollingsworth about the issue and they spoke with the head camp director. They borrowed a golf cart from another camp and had it to me by Tuesday afternoon. I let it charge and started driving it after dinner. It was good timing too because not long after that one of the Kyle Stake girls slipped on the gravel and injured her ankle. I thought it was broken. After going to the ER and getting an x-ray, it was badly sprained. She wanted to stay, but was in too much pain by the next day so she went home. They also came and told me on Wednesday night that I could not be in the cart after dark. I explained to them that I had girls with injuries that needed to be brought back up from the amphitheater and our schedule was already set so that we did not get back up until after 10pm each night. I told her that I would be very careful and would only use the cart after dark to get the girls back up to their camp sites and then for emergencies. She said that was fine, but then a sign showed up on my cart on Friday afternoon stating the carts could not be used after 9pm. I talked to the camp person that was placed in charge of our group and he said to just use it. Sherri and Kris were going to discuss this with them when they settled things for next year. I want to be prepared for next year. If I am not going to have access to the cart to get girls up from the amphitheater after dark, I need to know about that. I will have to arrange something else. I am going to have to trust in the Lord that he will arrange things to work out. In total, I sent 2 girls to the ER, one for stitches in addition to the ankle injury. I also almost had to call EMS when one of the leaders broke out in hives and was having a little bit of wheezing. I gave her 50mg of Benadryl and things started improving after about 15 minutes. If at any point she had told me she was feeling worse, then I would have called EMS. It was scary.

There were lots of girls that were dehydrated, had heat exhaustion and were depleted of electrolytes. It was a lot of work having 2 stakes of girls there. I ran non stop the entire week. The Kyle stake was on a different schedule that we were, so I got calls on my cell phone during the testimony meeting, during a fireside and during the Hill Country ward skit. Some of them were for very simple things because they were us at the cafeteria and that is when the girls go to the office for the simple things. It was embarrassing for my phone to go off in the middle of a spiritual moment though. I know everyone understood though. They knew I wasn't just getting calls from friends. They knew it was a call to take care of someone. If it hadn't been my cell phone, it would have been the walkie-talkie.
Here is a picture of Rachael when she got back from her hike. I didn't notice that her eyes were closed. DARN!!! She had a great time on her hike. They went rock climbing and she loved that. During the hiking part, they hiked in 3.5 miles, set up camp and did dinner. They made pasta with alfredo sauce. I never ate that well on a camping trip. When they were hiking back out, the girls were exhausted and over heating. They sent the priesthood back to get the girls with the truck. Rachael was getting close to the end and refused to get into the truck. She said Andy would never let her live it down if she didn't finish the hike. He would have called her a wimp. She did the entire hike with her pack on the entire way. I was told she never complained. She had a few blisters when she got back. She didn't break her boots in before the trip. She had lots of bug bites as usual and she was really tired, but she would do it again in a heart beat. She is already planning on doing the hike when Aashlie does her 4th year hike. Now that she is officially a JC, she is planning on doing the 1st years next year and she wants to be Jessica's JC and then be Aashlie's JC on her 4th year. She is going to make a great JC. Sis Leese was excited that she was finally "hers". She is going to be a pro since she has been there on Monday the past 2 years.

Here is Rachael just before the carnival on Thursday. They had the 4th years leading the girls with songs while the rest of the JCs got things ready for the carnival. Rachael said the other girls didn't want to listen to the 4th years since they weren't really JCs. She was good though. She got really into the songs while she was leading them. She even lost her voice because she was trying to sing above all of them.

This is Rachael's new boyfriend. In the carnival, they did "pin the tag on the missionary". They had some games that were church related such as this one and name the church song, "Who said" where you had to say which prophet said each thing and lots of others. They got a punched ticket for that. They had other games such as bowling, tattoos, piercings, hoola-hoop, etc. They got non punched tickets with that. They periodically took girls out of the carnival. Those girls were "dead". If they had piercings or tattoos, they had to remove them and repent. If they had at least 15 punched tickets, they got to go on to the iron rod (a rope strung tight between the trees). They were dressed in white and blindfolded while they walked along the iron rod. Along the way, they had some of the JCs trying to trick the girls into letting go of the iron rod. Vanessa Sellers was one of the tempters. She convinced Rachael to let go of the rod because there was a big ant hill in front of her. There wasn't one there, but Rachael let go just in case. She had to repent to get back to the iron rod. It was a neat activity. I didn't go the iron rod, but I really enjoyed listening to the girls all talk about their experiences. At the end, there was a tree covered with white Christmas lights for the Tree of Life. The girls got these ornaments made from tissue paper pressed into a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. They were so fragile though. Most of the girls had theirs rip before they even got them back to their tents. I don't know how anyone got them home. The JCs sang some songs from Jenny Phillips that went with this years theme. Our theme was "Walk in his Path". The Kyle stakes theme was "Shine like a Star" or something like that. The songs actually fit with both themes.

It has become a tradition for Rachael and I to have our picture taken together after the water fight. We did this one before either one of us got wet. Right after that, Rachael dumped a cup of ice water over my head. Most of the girls didn't stick around for the water fight. After the certification relay, they were allowed to swim so most of them took off for the pool. I was disappointed there wasn't much of a water fight. They had the water slide again. Sis DeLeon tried to go down it but she didn't get a good enough run. The girls had to pull her down the slide. It was really funny.

Thanks for reading through my very long post. A lot happened last week and I only scratched the surface. It was a long, hot week with lots of trials but lots of joy. Give me a week to recover and I will be ready to go back. Somehow, the Lord takes care of me when I am at camp. I have fewer MS symptoms while I am at camp. The foot drop is still there, but the pain is gone and the fatigue is better. I actually didn't have to use my cane all last week. I lost my balance a few times, and I tripped once and bruised up my knee badly. I wonder if I would have fallen if I had been using my cane. I'll never know.

Corrine tagged me with a photo tag. I am too tired to do it right now so I will do it later. I promise I won't clean anything up before I take the pictures.

The start of another crazy week

2008-05-19T21:10:00.002-05:00

This week is going to be nuts. Tonight, Rachael had dance class and then my brother and his family came over to celebrate Brandon's birthday. He turned 6 on Saturday. They were only here for a short time, but that is OK. I am so tired just from all of the stuff I have been trying to get done today. I did a ton of laundry, got some of the kitchen cleaned, got my disability application complete and ran a bunch of errands. We had to go pick up some supplies for the cross over tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night, we have a cub scout cross over. Andrew will become a Webelos 2. Jeremy gets to cross into Tiger cubs. He is so excited. He has wanted to be a Cub Scout since he turned 6 on January. During the day tomorrow, Andrew has a dentist appointment and I have to go get Rachael some black tights for her dance show on Thursday and Friday.

On Wednesday, Rachael has to be at dress rehearsal from 5:30 to 9pm. She will miss YW, but that is unavoidable. Andrew is going to have to miss church scouts (it is confusing, don't ask LOL) because Stan has to be at the Stake center for his stewardship interview with the Stake President. During the day on Wednesday, I have weight watchers in the morning, then a GYN appointment in the afternoon. I am hoping to have a good WW meeting. Last week, I had gained 3.4 pounds, which was not surprising considering all the junk I ate and the multiple BBQ trips we made while my dad was here.

Thursday and Friday we have Rachael's end of year demo. Stan and the boys will go on Thursday, but not Friday. On Friday, they have a Father/Son campout for church. The boys look forward to this every year. We thought it was going to be next weekend. The Elder's Quorum is in charge of breakfast on Saturday. Rachael is not worried about them missing the demo on Friday since they saw some of these dances at her VIR show a few weeks ago.

Since they will be at the camp-out on Saturday, I get to go down to San Antonio with Rachael on Saturday. I figure since we are going to go down anyway, I'll fill the van with as many of the VIR girls as I can. I am most worried about the trip home. I will have lots of them in the car to keep me awake though, so I don't have to worry about falling asleep on the way home. I know I am going to be dead tired though.

With the crazy schedule of the week, I decided we were not going to do school work on Friday. Instead, I am going to take the kids to see Prince Caspian at the theater. We took the boys to see Ironman on Saturday. They asked if we were going to see Prince Caspian that day. Rachael would have been so mad if we had seen that without her, especially since she is the only one that has read all of the books. My MIL might go with us if she feels up to it. She gets stronger and stronger all the time.

So, there was my boring post summarizing my not so boring week.

Up to my ears in BBQ

2008-05-08T21:57:00.002-05:00

My dad is here from Idaho. They just don't have great BBQ in Idaho. Texas has some of the best BBQ in the country. Whenever he comes down, we always go out for BBQ. We used to always go to Salt Lick. About 2 years ago, we introduced him to Rudy's. They are both great BBQ, just different styles. Rudy's sauce is spicy and Salt Lick's is sweet. On Monday, we went to Salt Lick. We had to roll out of there. They have an all you can eat family style dinner. This morning, I was talking to my dad about making dinner for everyone since it is his last night here. He offered to take us to Rudy's so I didn't have to cook. BBQ twice is one week is hard on a body without a gall bladder. It was so worth it though. I love BBQ. My dad leaves tomorrow and I will really miss him.

Ramblings

2008-05-06T11:01:00.002-05:00

This may truly be ramblings too. I could not sleep last night and so I have only had about 4 hours of sleep today. Please forgive me if I ramble.

Rachael's dance show went really well. The bio-boards got all done in time for the show and they were a big hit. Tasha loved her book and several other mom's want the info on ordering one for themselves. Rachael danced so well. My dad is here from Idaho and got to see her dance. He always seems to enjoy watching her dance. Aashlie and Jessica got to come. They don't always get to come to her shows. Aashlie was going to figure out a way to go even if she had to pay for herself. Amira and Andy also went. On the way home, Andrew and Jeremy rode with grandpa. In the van, I had Rachael, Amira, Aashlie, Jessica and Andy. WOW, it was loud in the car. Andy and Amira constantly pick on each other.

On Sunday, I made chicken Parmesan with pasta and marinara. Margie and the kids came over for dinner. I figured if I had several dinners for everyone at my house, then my dad wouldn't feel like he was having to chose between the 2 places. Bryon didn't tell me he had to work on Sunday. When I told him Dad was coming, he told me he was off on Sunday and Monday. His schedule got changed around but he didn't let me know it did. That is pretty typical of my brother.

Last night, we all went to the Salt Lick for dinner. It had been years since I had been there. I forgot how good it is. The last few times my dad was here, we went to Rudy's. They are both some of the best BBQ I have every had, but they are just a little different. Rudy's is spicy and Salt Lick is sweet. I do like the sides at Rudy's better though. I love their cream corn. I was so full after dinner last night. I don't know how my brother walked out of there. He ate about 10 times what I did. I do have to be a little careful when eating BBQ though. My body doesn't always like it since I don't have a gallbladder.

Busy life

2008-04-27T17:05:00.003-05:00

Now that May is almost here, life is going to get crazy. You would think that things would not be so nuts since we homeschool. We don't have the end of school stuff. Yet, we do. Rachael's dance troupe is getting ready to do their spring show. Their show will be on Saturday. They have tech rehearsal all week. They will rehearse from 6pm to 10pm Monday through Thursday this week. On Saturday, they have to be at St. Stephen's at 4:30. This is just for Visions in Rhythm, her pre-apprentice dance company. Then, her regular academy classes will start having rehearsal for their end of year demo. After the end of year demo, then she has a performance in San Antonio with RPM Tap Ensemble on the 24th.

In between all of this dance stuff, we will start having a lot more practices for Savior of the World. She is actually going to miss one practice because of the RMP show. They will be blocking the second act at that rehearsal. She is at least familiar with blocking so she should catch on pretty fast. Yesterday, she went to the first practice for the women's ensemble for the play. I can start to see the youth being more and more excited about the play. They are starting to have more practice sessions. I think it is seeming more real to them. It is more than just these Wednesday night practices of all of this complicated music. I'm glad that there has been less complaining about the music. It has helped that they had practice with the choir director for the entire stake so they could get some of their questions answered. Some of the girls were having trouble with how high some of the music was, but I was instructed to teach them a certain part. It was not in my power to teach them something different. There was also complaints that the orchestra was going to play with the CD and not just be a full orchestra on their own. Again, this was not within my power to change as I was not in charge of the orchestra. This decision was based on the recommendation of the General Authorities in Salt Lake. Who am I to argue with General Authorities? I haven't heard as many complaints, so I am glad of that. I really hope that they are feeling the spirit behind this play. This play is an inspired work. I feel so honored that I can be a part of this play. I hope each youth feels as fortunate.

On Friday, Stan and the boys went camping. They had to come home though. We got a bad storm through Austin. Stan was going to stay, but he and the boys were the last ones there except the pack leader. The pack leader couldn't leave them because it was on base so he had to stay. Stan and the boys ended up coming home so that Mr. Lloyd could come home. We seem to have bad luck with camp outs this year. One has been canceled for a bad storm. It was suppose to be nice for the next one, but it turned very cold and the boys got their Polar Bear patch. The boys did get to ride around in a Hum-V before they went home. This is the real thing. These are nothing like the Hummers you can buy at the dealers. The helmets were required during the ride. They boys said they felt like bobble head dolls. The helmets weigh over 4 pounds each.

American Idol

2008-04-25T11:26:00.002-05:00

I know a lot of people blog about AI. I figured I would join the crowd. This past week on AI was one of my favorite themes ever. I have never understood when Simon would say something was a Broadway performance and mean it in a negative way. Those Broadway songs are so much harder than the pop songs they want these guys to sing. Andrew Lloyd Weber is such an amazing composer. I love Broadway plays. I have never seen one in real life though. I have only seen the versions they put out on DVD. We have just never had the money to go to the real thing, even when they come to Austin. We definitely don't have the money to go to New York City.

My favorites on American Idol have changed as the season progressed. I have always liked David Cook, but he wasn't my favorite. In the beginning, it was a toss up between Brook and Carly. Carly started to really pull ahead of Brook though. I like Brook when she is singing the Carly Simon, ballad type songs. I felt bad for her when she had to start over. She sounded so shaky at first, but then pulled it together. She is the "Vote for the Worst" candidate, so I think that saved her. I really don't agree with the whole "vote for the worst" thing, but that is a whole different post. Carly does really well with the big, powerhouse rock songs like Heart. I love Heart. I am still shocked that Carly went home this week. I think she will get a recording contract.

David A has a really pure, beautiful voice. He has good control over it and stays on tune really well. He is boring though. Sorry David A. All of his songs start to sound the same. The only song that really stood out for me this year was "Imagine". I can't remember anything else he sang this season. He is "forgettable" like Simon likes to say.

Seyesha is just kind of there. I think she really did shine this week and I think she could have a great career on Broadway.

Jason Castro. He has just got to go. His voice is just so so. He was HORRIBLE this week. I hate his dreads too. The only thing I can say is he has nice eyes. His attitude this week of "I don't care about your opinion Andrew Lloyd Weber" was such a turn off. I just can't believe he wasn't voted off. I understand he is a big favorite amongst the teenagers. My DD BFF loves him.

David Cook is my favorite right now. He can sing anything. There are times when he is a little "pitchy", but that happens to almost everyone. As he gets better and works with voice coaches, he will improve. I was worried when it was Dolly week, but he amazed me. I was worried again with Mariah Carey week, but he did awesome. He has a really good range and a really strong voice. He is not a one trick pony. He brings something unique to every song he sings.

My prediction is that it will come down to the 2 Davids in the finale. I am hoping that David Cook will win, but it could easily be either one. David A has a huge following.

So, there you have it. American Idol according to Patricia. I am such the expert. HAHAHA!

Walk-Aide

2008-04-23T12:33:00.002-05:00

I have a foot drop on the right due to MS. I have been wearing an AFO for over a year to prevent my foot from dragging when I walk. Yesterday, I had an appointment to try out a Walk-Aide.
I was so excited about trying this out. Because of my AFO, I have to buy 2 pairs of shoes as the AFO is about 2 sizes larger than my normal shoe size. The back of it is wider too. It is so hard to find a shoe that will fit over the AFO. When I do find one, I have to find a matching shoe in my regular size. That can be really hard. Dress shoes are the hardest to fit. I have one pair of tennis shoes that I wear almost every day. I have 2 pairs of dress shoes. How many women do you know that only have 3 pairs of shoes. I bought a pair of sandals that are adjustable so they fit over the AFO, but they end up pinching my foot after I walk in them. That is dangerous for me as I don't feel my foot very well so I can't always tell when things are pinching.

Anyway, I had an appointment yesterday to try this new device. It didn't work for me. The problem is that I had too much swelling to my leg to get a good signal to the nerve. I have struggled with swelling to my right foot and leg since the foot drop developed. The muscles don't work right, so they don't pump out excess fluid. I cried all the way home. I so wanted to get rid of my AFO. I stopped at the medical supply store and picked up some compression hose. I wore one all day yesterday. I had no swelling last night when I went to bed. The tech wasn't sure if she could put the electrode under a stocking though. I am hoping that I can get the swelling to stay down enough to get the walk-aide to work. Once I am using it, that means the muscles will work better and then they will pump out the excess fluid on their own.

My friend, Corrine, tagged me a few days ago. I can't think what to do for this tag. I'll think about it some more and then answer it. I have just been a little bit frustrated this week so I can't think of anything to write. It doesn't help that I have been really down on myself about not staying on program with weight watchers. I need to get back on track. I wonder if I lost more weight if the Walk-Aide would work better.

Still Alive

2008-04-20T10:06:00.003-05:00

I wanted to make a quick post to say I am still alive. It has been over a week since I posted. My original goal was to blog here twice a week. I have kind of bit off more than I can chew. Rachael's dance team, Visions in Rhythm (VIR), is having their year end show on May 3rd. In the lobby, they post a bio board that has bios for all of the dancers. I am doing those bios. I am making digital scrapbooking layouts and then I am going to post them on a science fair board. Rachael is going to paint the board so it isn't just plain white. I am going to make the layouts into a book for Tasha, the director of VIR. I want to have it professionally printing and hard bound so it will last longer. In order to have time to get it printed, I need to have them submitted to the company by Monday. The problem is that I don't have all of the of the bios from the dancers. I have 6 out of 14 bios. My best friend is going to try to get all of the bios from the girls at practice today. We won't be there. Rachael is excused from practice today as she told Tasha in the beginning that she could not do Sunday practices.

I really hope Cyndi is able to get those bios from the last 6. I really want to do this for Tasha. She has really helped Rachael this year. She has always loved dance. There was a time that she wanted to dance every day of the week. After a while of being treated like a second class citizen at Jackie's, she lost that desire to dance so much. She still loved it, but I could tell she needed a break. Now, she is back to having that love for dance like she used to. It helped that she had one year in which she only had dance one day a week. She kind of had a break from things. She was able to rejuvenate. Now, she is ready to dance almost every day again. She takes about 11 hours of dance classes per week. She is so excited about this year end show.

Here is one of the layouts I will be displaying on the bio board. I didn't want to display one of the bios as some of the parents may not want their kids pictures on the internet. You can't really see faces in these pictures. They were taken during dance class. The name of their show is "M brought to you by the letter T". I put an "M" and a "T" in every layout. That is why there is a random "M" and "T" in this layout. I don't have any credits for this layout. I didn't keep track of the products I used since I wasn't going to upload them to a gallery.

It's Thursday

2008-04-10T13:19:00.002-05:00

I had no idea it had been so long since I had blogged. Shame on me. There has been a lot going on. We had a great visit with Jen and her family. Rachael wants her cousins to live closer to her again.

This weekend was General Conference. I watched all of it, but I have to admit that I didn't listen to all of the talks. I listened to some of them. We have it on our DVR though and I am going to go through the talks one by one. I did watch the Solemn Assembly though. When they first asked the first presidency to stand and sustain the prophet, it was so amazing. I could just feel the swelling in my heart and I knew that he was called of God. It was amazing to watch the solemn assembly.

My mother in law has been ill for quite a while with cancer. The cancer has recently gone to her brain and we have been told she is terminal. She is seeing the radiation oncologist now and he said he can completely get rid of her tumors with radiation. I really hope he is right. I am afraid to get my hopes up. We will find out in 3 weeks if she is responding to the treatments.

I saw my doctor this week for my 3rd sinus infection in 10 weeks. This is getting really old. I am going to see the ENT at the end of the month. I hope he has an easy fix for this.

I got a call from the Hanger Brace today. They are the ones that made my AFO. There is a new device called a Walk-aid. You wear it on your calf in place of the AFO and it stimulates your nerve to life your foot when you walk. I am going to meet with them the end of the month to see if it will work for me. I would love to get rid of this AFO. I hate it.

cool website

2008-03-31T08:48:00.000-05:00

I found this really cool website that will make your photos into a museum exhibit. You can put any jpg on there and then pick your museum scene. It is really neat. You can find it here.

Here are some things I have done with it. I took these pictures over this weekend while the kids have been playing with their cousins.

Art Museum by dumpr.net

Art Museum by dumpr.net

Create your own Rubik's Cube

This site will do a few other things, almost like actions for Photoshop. You should check it out.

Visiting with cousins

2008-03-29T22:45:00.001-05:00

My nieces and nephews are here from Idaho for a visit. They are the kids of my husbands brother, Peter. He is divorced from his wife, Jennifer. They are both remarried. Jennifer and Cory are visiting Jennifer's mom for a week. On Thursday, we went to Brenham for a tour of the Blue Bell factory. It was a lot of fun. We had a picnic before we took the tour. It was a beautiful day even if it was a little bit windy. Here are Kirstyn, Rachael and Allison standing outside of the factory after our tour and after we ate the free ice cream we got at the end. That was the best part of the tour.

Today, Faith was baptized. Their stake does a baptism day for all of the kids that turned 8 that month. There were 8 kids that got baptized. It took 2 hours. After the baptism, we went to Emily's house for lunch. Emily and Richard are in the same stake, but not the same ward. so they live fairly close to each other. Before we would let any of the kids change out of their church close, we wanted to get a picture of all of the grandkids together. It has been a long time since they have all been together. It is hard getting this many kids to be still, especially the little ones. With the lighting in Emily's house, the older kids in the back were shaded a lot. I messed around with it in photoshop and adjusted the lighting. I think it looks pretty good. I am going to print a copy and frame it for their Grandma Hodge since she didn't get to go today.

Fly Lady and an Easter Egg hunt

2008-03-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

I know, a strange combination. A friend of mine introduced me to Flylady. I need to declutter my house so badly. Suzanne gave a challenge to declutter one item per day. It is an individual thing and so you chose how much you want to do, but it needs to be at least one item each and every day. Even on those days when my MS has me exhausted, I can manage one thing. It may be just throwing away something on my desk or in my room. I can do this. I am publicly announcing my intentions here. I started today. I cleaned off my kitchen table. We can't eat at it as a family as it isn't big enough. I do want to use to more though even if we can't eat at it. My table is cleaned off and functional. If you want to take part in this challenge, Suzanne set up a blog here.

Yesterday, the boys had their pictures taken with the Easter Bunny. Andrew didn't want to, but I wouldn't let him have the candy if he didn't. Rachael wasn't with us as she had spent the night with Megan. She wouldn't have gone for it anyway. She won't even take a picture with Santa, even if she doesn't have to sit on his lap. Before you know it, I will only have one child that will take pictures with "holiday characters". I'll take advantage of still being able to bribe Andrew. After we went to Walmart, we went to the park. It was such a beautiful day yesterday and again today. It was nice to sit outside and enjoy the day. It feels good to feel good again. It has been a while since I have felt good.
We had a family Easter egg hunt today. Bryon and Margie came over with their kids and Emily came down with her 2 kids. It was so much fun. Jacob and Grace were so fun to watch. This was Grace's first year for hunting eggs. Jacob was excited about getting eggs too. Here are a few pictures I took. I tried not to take up too much room so I made a collage to show a few of them. I will be doing scrapbooking pages with them later in the week.

Here is a picture I took of Grace before the egg hunt started. She looked so cute in her hat and glasses. I can't believe she leaves them on. My kids never left their hats and glasses on. I would have been happy if they had left a hat on. She loved the trampoline as long as no other kids were on their with her.
I hope you all have a great Easter.

Why am I awake?

2008-03-21T03:20:00.001-05:00

It is 3:20 am and I am awake. I have no idea why I can't sleep. I have been tired half of the day. It seems I only sleep well every few nights.

We had such a good day today. We were suppose to take Grandma's surger and swap it out for her. Michael ended up having to go up north anyway, so he drove her van and they went together. I had to get some scout stuff for Andrew, so we went to the Scout Shack. I talked with the kids all the way up there. We looked at all kinds of stuff in the shack (that isn't it's official name, but the scout store has been called that for a long time). I had to buy Andrew his Webelos colors. I also bought Jeremy his own Polar Bear patch. I thought he deserved something for sleeping in a tent in 25 degree weather with a burn ban in effect.

After we finished there, we had to go to Michael's (the craft store, not my BIL). Rachael wanted to buy more painting canvas. She got some for Christmas from Grandma and really enjoyed painting on canvas. She used her babysitting money to get more. She wants to do more modern art paintings. Her favorite artist right now is Jackson Pollock. Here is a part of one of Rachael's paintings. I got a little too close. I need to put it in a better place and take a better picture of it.

Next door at Petco, they had the puppies out front. We HAD to go look at them before we went into Michael's. Rachael wanted to get this really cute small tan and white dog. When I told her we didn't need another dog, she said we should call Grandma so they could get it for Grams. I didn't think that was a good idea since they are dog sitting Baily right now. We went into Petco and looked at the fish and reptiles. We ended up at the small animals. This is my kids favorite part. Rachael wants to save up her money for a ferret. I'm not sure that is a good idea. We have 2 dogs and 3 cats. I could see a ferret becoming dinner. She also said she wanted to get a mouse. We tried hampsters. They didn't last long an I'm not sure about doing a mouse. We don't even have a place to put it. She definitely can't put it in her room. There is just no space. We have to make sure the poor thing is safe from the cats. They would love to get a hold of a little mouse.

We got home a little after 4pm. I was pooped. I was suppose to make pizza for dinner, but I didn't have the energy. I couldn't have gotten it ready before Rachael had to be at dance anyway. We ordered pizza for dinner though.

Rachael went to dance, then she went to spend the night with Megan. They boys played outside for a while, then they watched a movie. They didn't even fight about who got to pick it. Stan and I went out into the garage and watched "Next" with Nicholas Cage. It was really good. We blocked out the windows and closed the door and watched the movie in the dark. The boys only interrupted the movie a few times and always with important things. Not once did they fight all night. It was so nice.

I hope I can get to sleep soon so I can have another good day tomorrow.

Getting back on track

2008-03-13T17:21:00.000-05:00

I have been doing Weight Watchers for 18 month. In that time, I have lost 48 pounds. I had hoped to be at goal by now, but I didn't anticipate MS coming into my life. For the past 10 months, I have gained and lost the same 5 pounds. I do well for a while, then slip up and then do well again. My biggest problems is that I HATE journaling. On the flex plan, success is based on journaling. That is where I fall down. My pain specialist, Dr Ximenez, wants me to follow a Mediterranean diet. He thinks I will feel better if I do. I have been resisting it for a long time. I saw him yesterday and decided I needed to start taking his recommendations on my diet. My first step in doing that is switching to the Core plan. The other advantage to Core is that I don't have to journal everything I eat. I only have to write down those things that are not core. I can only eat 35 points worth of them. I feel good about this decision. After I get used to core, then I will start the stricter died that Dr Ximenez wants me to try. I'll let you know how it works. I am hoping to lose weight better on Core. I don't know what I am going to do while I am at girls' cam. The only thing core there is fruit and salad. I may just need to switch to flex for that week. We will see what happens.

Last night, we had a sleep over. I had 6 teenage girls at my house. I am so grateful for our new family room. They were able to go into the family room and watch movies all night and I never heard them. They had a great time. I have no clue what time they went to sleep. Here is a picture of the group. I took this during the commercial break while we watched American Idol.

As a side note, I don't think the right person was voted off. I don't not like that girl that takes the rock and pop songs and makes them country. I can't even remember her name. When they did 80's week, there are tons of great country songs that came out in the 80's. I don't understand why she took a Journey song a made it country. Then she took a Beetles song and made it country. YUCK!!!

Sleepovers at my house are suppose to be top secret. This is why. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but these are plastic forks in my lawn. Andy has a tradition of pranking our house every time we have a sleep over. The only time he doesn't is when we keep in secret. That is OK, the girls got him back. They took the forks and stuck them to his truck. I think they taped them on. I'm not sure how they did it though.

A cure-yeah right

2008-03-11T15:52:00.000-05:00

Have you ever noticed that when someone hears you have a chronic illness, they have the cure? Never mind that I have seen many doctors and everyone knows that MS is not curable at this point. Here is what happened today:

I had to go to the pain specialist today. I ask him about lots of other things besides just pain. He has gone back to school and did some extra training in acupuncture, nutrition and alternative medicine. I asked him about this sinus infection I am working on. He recommended some herbal drops to mix with saline and use for irrigation. After my appointment, I headed to Sun Harvest to pick these up. I was asking one of the clerks about where to find what I needed and also if there was a lotion that could be used for sore muscles (for Rachael after dance). They mentioned she should take some Magnesium after class to help with the soreness. I mentioned that I had some as I take it for my MS. One of the clerks asked me if I was open minded. I told him "fairly". He said that he knew something that was "guaranteed to cure MS". He said he had a friend that had been in a wheelchair from MS and died from pneumonia last year. He showed me this bottle of stuff that contained elderberry extract and several other herbs that I can't remember. He told me that I would need to take 3 times as much as what was recommended on the bottle though. He also recommended I eat at this little shop half way between here and
Bastrop as their food would help me a lot. Apparently it is expensive, but they give out free meals on Sunday. I told him I would check into the supplement and ask my doctors about it, but that I would not be eating at that place on Sunday as the Sabbath day is very important to me and my family. He proceeded to bash my doctors. Even when I told him that he uses a balance of traditional medicine and holistic medicine, he said "he probably took a 3 day class". Next, he told me that my health should come before my religion. At this point, he had irritated me. Some clerk in Sun Harvest should hardly be my go to person for all of my health concerns. If this guy had a cure for MS, then why did his friend live in a wheelchair up until he died. Why are millions of people taking injections to decrease their MS flares when they can go to Sun Harvest and buy a cure for less than $20.00. I believe that nutrition is extremely important and I know I will feel so much better if I would eat better. I also believe that all of the answer lie with a combination of traditional Western medicine and holistic/nutritional/herbal medicines. I am not going to hold my breath that a cure will come out of Sun Harvest though.

On a lighter note, I got my hair done last week. It was the first time I went somewhere besides Super Cuts to get my hair cut. I love the way it turned out. I told the stylist that previously, if I didn't curl my hair, you could see every one of the cuts and it looked horrible. I liked it when it was curled, but not when it was straight. She cut it a little differently so it looked more natural. Here is me with my haircut. The picture isn't the best. Rachael still needs to work on her photography. She gets better and better. I am usually the one behind the camera and not in front of it. I hate getting my picture taken.

All is Well

2008-03-10T00:34:00.001-05:00

The boys got home Ok on Saturday. They were tired, but fine. Jeremy told me it was super cold. I had to rent a car dolly from U-haul Saturday morning. Michael met me there and then drove out and picked everyone up. They drove straight to the car place and dropped the car off. It was closed but Stan left it in the parking lot and he will be there tomorrow (this) morning as soon as they open.

Poor Stan had to work a 12 hour night shift Saturday night. He showered up and took a nap as soon as he got home. He doesn't usually work nights, but the night person for the end of the week quit and so Stan has been picking up extra shifts to cover. The ironic part is that the person that quit asked Stan if he would trade shifts with him. This guy was having trouble adjusting to the night shift. Stan said he would. The other night person that works the beginning of the week was making a fuss because he wanted to go to days first, but Stan couldn't work the beginning of the week. We had too many things that conflicted. Stan's boss basically wouldn't let Stan go to nights because he wanted him to stay on the accounts he is on. There has been no complaints from the account since Stan took it over and there used to be constant complaints. So, the told this guy that he couldn't move to days so he quit. Stan is going to be working at least one night shift every week, on top of most of his normal day shifts. It will be a good amount of over time. I just hope he doesn't burn himself out.

It is spring break this week. Spring break really means very little to a homeschooling family. What it usually means is that my kids friends are home and are a distraction while we try to get school work done. It means Rachael doesn't have seminary. She is happy about that since she has early morning seminary. It also means she doesn't have dance. She hates it when they have time off from dance. She loves dance class. Since there is no school this week and no dance, Rachael's friend, Megan, is going to go to YW with her on Wednesday. She will then spend the night that night. My nieces are going to come over too. Amira is going to try to come and then we are going to invite Julie also. Julie just moved into our ward in January. Rachael and Julie hit it off really well. They knew each other from girl's camp. Julie and Megan also get along really well. Megan goes to most of the stake dances with Rachael and has met Julie through them.

Here is a picture I took at our after choir choir practice. I am suppose to take some pictures during practice, but I forget. I got glares from Rachael and Aashlie for this one. Jessica thought she was in the clear since she isn't officially part of choir practices. She wasn't though. (Insert evil laugh here)

Speaking of Jessica. She called tonight to give us some good news. She got accepted to the Ann Richard's school for girls. It is an all girls charter school here in Austin. She had to get letters from all of her teachers and write an essay about why she wanted to go to that school. I am so proud of her. WTG JESSICA!!!!!

What Emoticon are you?

2008-03-08T09:50:00.000-06:00

Your Emoticon is Cool

You're not feeling particularly up or down, just relaxed and calm. You're ready for whatever is going to happen next!

What Emoticon Best Represents You Right Now?

Camp-out trouble

2008-03-08T08:38:00.000-06:00

Stan told me yesterday that the clutch on the Rio was having problems and we needed to look into getting it fixed. I guess it was worse than the thought. He called me from the camp site yesterday and told me that he barely made it there. The clutch was slipping so bad that he had to drive on the shoulder and could only go really slow. He was going to have his brother go out to tow them back this morning. He also told me that there was a burn ban out there so there would be no fire. It was suppose to get down below freezing last night. I hope they were warm enough. I sent the boys with their long john pajamas. I was so worried about them last night. I hope they were warm enough.

Yesterday, I was clicking on people's links on the side bar of blogs and I came across this blog-Calling all LDS Women Bloggers. I found a bunch of links to blogs belonging to LDS women. So many of them were inspirational. I spent way to much time reading blogs yesterday. I know where I need to go to get uplifted now. This blog, http://wearethesimmons.blogspot.com/ , was so wonderful. I went to her old one and read over 2 years worth of posts. It was like a good book that I couldn't put down.

In my wanderings, I also found this wonderful poem. It really touched me. I don't remember where I got it or I would give them credit.

~Dancing with God~
When I meditated on the word GUIDANCE,
I was drawn to”dance” at the end of the word.
I reflected upon how doing God’s will is a lot like dancing.

When two people try to lead, nothing feels right.
The movement doesn’t flow with the music,
and everything is quite uncomfortable and jerky.
When one person realizes this and lets the other lead,b
oth bodies begin to flow with the music.

One gives gentle cues, perhaps with a nudge to the back
or by pressing lightly in one direction or another.
It’s as if two become one body, moving beautifully.
The dance takes surrender, willingness,
and attentiveness from one person
and gentle guidance and skill from the other.

My eyes drew back to the word GUIDANCE.
When I saw “G,” I thought of God,
followed by “u” and “i.”
“God, “u” and “i” dance.” !
God, you, and I dance.
This statement is what guidance means to me.

As I lowered my head, I became willing to trust
that I would get guidance about my life.
Once again, I became willing to let God lead.

My prayer for you today is that God’s blessings
and mercies be upon you and your family
on this day and everyday.
May you abide in Him as He abides in you .

Dance together with God, trusting Him to lead
and to guide you through each season of your life.
I Hope You Dance !!!

I will never look at that word the same way again.

Our Weekend

2008-03-07T08:42:00.000-06:00

We always seem to have a lot going on for the weekend. This one is no different. Stan actually took the day off today. There is a Cub Scout camp out this weekend. I don't do well with camping since my back pain started. Stan is taking the boys with him. Right now, he is doing some work stuff from home before he packs up the car and heads out to Perdenales State Park.

Rachael is volunteering to help out at a dance show tonight. Tapestry professional dance company has a show tonight. The VIR girls run concessions and help usher the shows. It is a fundraiser for VIR, plus then the girls get to see the show for free. This is the only way she would see the show as they tickets are $25. I know that isn't a lot, but it is more than we can spend on going to a show. I drop her off at 6:30 and pick her up and 10:30.

I am going to be home all by myself for several hours this evening. The last time I was home by myself it was because I was sick and my family was at church. It is going to be so nice. I am going to enjoy the quiet. I will probably scrap or design and maybe watch a movie. I just sent my Netflix off, so I don't have a movie here. I'm sure I can find something.

Savior of the World practices are going really well. At Stake conference, Sis Toler, our stake YW president, spoke on how much Satan is trying to make sure this play doesn't happen. I immediately felt the spirit witness to me that what she said was true. I have seen it in my own ward. Each of the wards were assigne parts when the song had 8 parts. Our ward was assigned 1st Alto and 2nd Soprano. The alto part actually goes higher than the soprano part in a few places. The alto's are constantly complaining about it. I have tried and tried to make it managable. I even stay after practice so they can learn the 2nd Alto part. Rachael stays and learns the 1st Soprano part since she has a pretty high range. While I was listening to Sis Toler speak, I realized that every time the girls complain, they are letting Satan put his foot in the door. This is such an amazing experience for the youth. Their testimonies are going to grow so much from this. I spoke with the girls on Wednesday about the prompting I had recieved. I told them each time they complained, it was Satan trying to stop them from learning and growing from this experience. Practice went really well on Wednesday. Now, it was only the girls. I still need to give the "speach" to the boys next week. I hope as they are practicing, they will just do their best. I know that if they really focus and let the spirit be with them, they can sing things they didn't think they were capable of singing. I hope they have the faith to test this. I feel so fortunate that I get to be a part of this play. It is going to be amazing.

I feel alive again

2008-03-03T08:02:00.000-06:00

I have finally recovered from this stomach bug. I was really hungry yesterday and it felt good to eat again. I have more energy that I have had in 2 weeks. I wear out very easily though, so I need to make sure I don't over do it.

This weekend was pretty full. Stan went up to see his mom Saturday morning, then went to his brothers to pick up a TV. Ben and Wendy got a new flat screen TV for their livingroom. They own a huge big screen (60 inch) that they were going to move to their bedroom. They couldn't fit it down the hall. Ben had won it in a drawing at Dell, so he gave it to us for our newly refinished family room. It is so cool. We watched National Treasure out there last night. We had all of the lights off. Jeremy loves watching movies like that.

That afternoon, the boys had a birthday party at Cabella's. They had so much fun. They did a scavenger hunt. Jeremy loves doing scavenger hunts. He makes them up all the time. They got to shoot in the gallery and feed the trout. The boys could spend all day at Cabella's. I sent Stan with the camera and he got some pretty good pictures.

I was feeling pretty worn out, so I didn't go to the party. Rachael and I stayed home. I had planned on getting my hair cut, but there was a really long wait at Super Cuts. We went to Ulta to look for a make up case for Rachael. We found a great deal on one and then proceded to spend way to much money on make-up there. I am never knew they had a hair saloon in there and Stan has given me permission to go get my hair cut there. I have never gone anywhere except Super Cuts before. I never minded before when I would just get my hair trimmed, but now that I have them layer it, I'm not fond of the job they do. I can always see all of the cuts. My hair is really fine. I'm going to go to Ulta today or tomorrow for a cut. I'm excited to actually get it styled.

I hope everyone has a great week.

Spoke too soon

2008-02-28T09:08:00.000-06:00

I am going to make this short. I wanted this week to be better, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. I have been struck with a stomach bug. I am starting to feel human again, but I still feel yuck. I'll post again when I feel better. I hope all of you are having a good week.

I'm so glad it is a new week

2008-02-24T21:13:00.001-06:00

This week has got to be better than last week. I know people say you should never say that, but I just have to. My MS flare ended up needing to be treated with IV steroids. It was the biggest mess getting them set up. My doctors office has a new nurse and her communication skills need a little bit of work. This is a new neuro office for me. I just started seeing her in December. This is the first flare I have had since officially being diagnosed with MS. No one told me that there protocol was to have IV steroids given at an infusion center. I was really upset when I got to the infusion center and found out I wasn't taking my meds home with me to do there. I couldn't come back the next 2 days as I had tons of stuff going on plus I was having trouble with blurred vision. Why would someone make a patient with blurred vision drive all the way across town to get an infusion? I finally was able to get my infusion set up at home. I finished my last one last night. I hate the way the IV steroids make me feel, but at least my vision is better. It isn't completely resolved, but it is a lot better. Now I am on a 2 week oral taper. This is really going to mess up my Weight Watchers. I am going to watch my portions carefully and make sure I am journaling. I won't weigh in for the next 2 weeks though since I know I am going to be retaining a ton of water. I am already feeling my feet swell and my hands also. This too shall pass.

Andrew had his Blue and Gold banquet yesterday. We always have some sort of entertainment for the boys there. This year, they had a snake guy. He brought all kinds of snakes for the boys to look at. He did a little presentation about all of the snakes he brought. He had a few venemous snakes there but he didn't bring those out. After his presentation, the let them pet on of the bigger snakes and hold one of the smaller snakes. Jeremy just couldn't manage to touch them. He was so grossed out by it. Andrew didn't have any trouble touching them. No one really got to hold the little snake. He wrapped his tail around Mr. Llyod, the scout Master, and he wouldn't let go. The boys would hold the snakes upper body while Mr Lloyd held the end that was attached to his arm.

Andrew got awarded his Webelos badge yesterday. We had to work really hard the week before to get it done in time. We worked on his art badge most of last week. He managed to get it all done though. Now, we are going to start working on his Arrow of Light. He has a lot of work to do to get that done, but I know he can do it. He really loves scouts. I'm so glad too. I think it helps a lot that we are in such a good pack. He really gets along with all of the boys and he loves all of his scouting activities. It is an added bonus that his dad is his Webelos den leader.

We also have a cake auction every year at the banquet. This is what we eat for dessert and we make a fair amount of money for the pack. Each family will make a cake and then it gets auctioned. Everyone always ends up sharing the cakes they buy with everyone there. I'm glad too because I never want to have that much cake at home. We made a yellow cake and decorated it with Swedish Fish to look like the ocean. The cake we bought was a chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. It was so good but so rich. We only ended up bringing a little bit home. Next year, Stan has big plans to make a "fire" breathing dragon cake. It will be our last year for Andrew is Cub Scouts and Jeremy's first year in Cub Scouts. Stan wants to bring in a ton of money with that cake. I hope this isn't going to be hard to make. His sister, Emily, has a book with the instructions in it. I also hope he remembers to plan way in advance so I'm not trying to make it at the last minute.

MS sucks!!!

2008-02-19T19:52:00.000-06:00

I'm sure I am not telling anyone anything they didn't already know. I just had a vent this a little bit. I went to the eye doctor last Tuesday becuase I had been having eye pain and mild blurred vision. Sure enough, I had optic neuritis again. She said it was mild so far, but it could get progressively worse over the next 10 days. I spoke with my neuro and she wanted to just watch it unless it got a lot worse. I had a routine follow up appointment yesterday and she still wanted to watch it although I could tell she was considering doing the IV steriods. She said if I was having a lot of eye pain or the blurred vision was causing a lot of problems, then let her know and she would start the steroids. I almost asked her to start them yesterday because I am having trouble working and doing school with the kids. You never realize how much even a little bit of blurred vision can make life difficult. Today, I kept having to just lay back and close my eyes to relieve the eye pain. I finally called her and asked her to start the steroids. I am still not certain it is what I really want to do. The side effects of the IV steroids are horrible and I am not looking forward to them. I don't think I can handle this blurred vision for the next 1-2 months. We are only going to do 3 days of IV steroids instead of the 5 I had last time. We are going to follow it up with oral steroids. I am so worried I am going to gain a bunch of weight. I have finally been on the right track with my weight watchers. I have lost 4 pounds this month and I don't want to gain it back. I am going to have to be so careful. I am really stressing about this. I am so worried about the side effects. I am beside myself about it. I hope the 3 day course is better than the 5 day course. I guess I'll know if a few days.

Andrew finished up his Webelos badge today. Stan finished up his citizenship requirements last week and I have been working with him on his art requirements this week. He finished the Fitness badge a month ago. Now that he has his Webelos badge done, we can start working on his Arrow of Light. There are a lot of the Cub Scout requirements that he can do for school. They really fit into our school work nicely. Andrew also does his school work much better when he does scouts for school. It is something that he is interested in. It is like he is doing scouts and not school. It makes the world of difference.

I have a friend that has 2 boys. They both have autism. Her oldest is Jeremy's age and the younger one is 3, almost 4. She is always talking about all of the wonderful things they do. She gets so excited about the small things they do. She is so excited that Cal is learning the value of money and thinks it is so funny that he will repeat what his teacher tells him, but when she tries to expound upon that and teach him further, he just repeats to her what his teacher taught him. He can't grasp the value of money in a different way except the way he was taught (his teacher taught him 1 dollar is 100 pennies so therefore 1 dollar can't be 4 quarters). This is a concept that Jeremy understands, but it made me think of how many times I get frustrated with him for not understanding things or I get frustrated at his little quirks. The other night, the tooth fairy visited our house. The tooth fairy is always late at our house. He has been known to show up during the day while we are busy. I guess he gets lost of something. Jeremy was not upset Sunday morning when the tooth fairy hadn't come. He didn't even say a word to me about it. I remembered when I got home from choir practice and asked him if the tooth fairy had come. He said no, and I asked "are you sure?" He went into his room to double check and the tooth fairy had been to our house while we were at church. He got really upset at this. He started crying about the tooth fairy coming during the day. Then, he started crying even more because the tooth fairy put the money in the tooth pocked on his tooth pillow and not in the money pocket on his tooth pillow. I really found myself getting upset at him for this. There was no good reason for me to get upset about it. I feel guilty for it now. I should have just cuddled with him and comforted him rather than getting mad at him. He is really picky about things. I know this about him. I need to just accept it and learn to work with it rather than trying to change him. He does need to learn how to manage when things don't go the way he expected it too, but he doesnt' need his mom getting mad at him. As my health has gone down hill over the past year, his compulsive behaviours have gotten worse. I need to work harder to be there for him and help him. I need to work more on getting less frustrated at all of them. I have been very frustrated at them today.

Johnny Dep

2008-02-16T19:25:00.000-06:00

My daughter is obsessed with Johnny Dep. Last night, her cousins, Aashlie and Jessica spent the night. We went to the video store and picked up movies. She wanted all Johnny Dep movies. She went on and on and on about him. She especially loves Johnny Dep movies directed my Tim Burton. We watched The Corpse Bride and Benny and June last night before I went to bed at midnight. They were watching Music and Lyrics when went to bed. I think that was the only non Johnny Dep movie they watched. They watched a few more today. I can't even tell you which ones they watched. Rachael thinks he is the HOTTEST thing ever. I will admit that he is cute, but he has also been in some very strange movies. The ones directed my Tim Burton are even stranger than his normal movies. The Corpse Bride was a very strange movie. She wanted to see Edward Sisscorhand, but I really didn't want to see that one. I really didn't like that movie when I saw it the first time, in the 80's. She will have to watch that one another time.

Rachael's taste in movies is so different from my own. Her favorite movie is Nightmare Before Christmas. It took me a few times of watching it to start to like that. I really didn't like it the first time I saw it. She loves it. She wanted that movie for Christmas but it isn't out on DVD anymore so she is going to have to wait until it gets released again. I'm sure we will buy it the first day it comes out again. I don't even know when that will be.

Last night, before the movies started, we all went out to dinner. Last night was suppose to be a girls only night. The boys were suppose to be camping. The campout got canceled because of severe weather. They were going to Pedernales State park. There is a river going through the park. It is notorios for flash flooding within a few minutes of the start of a storm. We had Girl's camp there when I was a youth. It rained all night and the river rose close to 30 feet overnight. We were by an area that was very slow and shallow. By morning, it was raging white water and had come most of the way up the hill, almost to where we were camping. Anyway, back to dinner last night. I took 4 teenage girls to a mexican restaurant. We had a lot of fun. They were giggling and laughing and goofing off just like teenagers do. Amira went with us to dinner, but she wasn't allowed to stay the night. I felt bad that she couldn't stay the night. I always have so much fun when I am out with the "girls". I feel so young again. I'm glad the girls like to be out with me and they don't feel embarrassed by me.

Today, Rachael and Aashlie went to the Savior of the World auditions. Neither one of them wanted big parts. Rachael is OK with singing, even a solo, but she doesn't want to have to memorize lines. Aashlie just wants to be on stage. She refused to sing in her audition. They told Rachael they wished she wanted a bigger part because her audition was really good. Call backs are next week by invitation only. I hope she gets a call back. She would probably want more of a roll if there was dancing involved. She would want the lead if it was a dancing roll. Isaiah was going to audition also. He was going to have to arrange a special time because he had a conflict. he loves acting, so I think he will get a good part. He was in a local presentation of High School Musical. Andy was bribed to audition. His mom told him he couldn't go to San Antonio unless he auditioned. I don't think he wants a part at all. There were a few people there that really wanted big parts in this show. It is going to be amazing and I am really lucky to be a part of this.

Jeremy lost his second tooth today. He lost his first one the other day. He had a tooth with a crown that had a disolved root. He is scheduled to have it removed and a spacer put in. We don't have to have the extraction now. He will still have to have the spacer though since it is a molar. Today, he lost one of this bottom teeth. He has another one that is loose. He is so excited about having lost a tooth. Several other kids in his primary class have lost teeth. He is the oldest one in the class but he only lost his first one this week. He is also one of the smallest ones in his class even though he is the oldest. I'll post a picture of his toothless grin in the next few days.

Happy Valentines day

2008-02-14T18:50:00.001-06:00

I saw this on a friends blog. I am going to steal it from her. Thank you Michelle.

I feel so lucky to be married to the most amazing man. Here is a picture of my husband and I that was taken on our anniversary. I had to force one of my kids to take this picture. I am usually the one behind the camera, so there really isn't a lot of pictured of the 2 of us. I used photoshop to get this cool effect on this picture.

His name-Stanley H. Hodge. His dad is Stanley M. Hodge, so that is why I put the H in there.

How long have you been married? We have been married for 16 1/2 years.

How long did you date? We only dated for 1 month before we got engaged. We were engaged for 4 months before we got married. Before you are absolutely shocked at this, let me tell you that we went to high school together and were in the same ward all through high school, so it isn't like we were strangers when we started dating.

How old is he? He is 39. He is 13 months and 8 days older than I am.

Who eats more? He does.

Who said "I love you" first? I have no idea. I really don't remember who said it first. I can't believe I don't remember. I do remember that I wanted him to kiss my way before he did. I didn't dare kiss him first. I set up the Little Mermaid movie so it was at the beginning of the part where they sing "Kiss the girl". I paused the movie there, then when he knocked on the door, I played the movie. My room mates helped me think this up.

Who is taller? Anyone who knows us is laughing at this right now. I am just under 5'1", so can you guess who is taller. He is taller by a long shot.

Who sings better? I think I do. We both like to sing, but I think I am the better singer. I did choir in high school and I will sing in the choir when I am able to. We haven't had a ward choir in a really long time, so I haven't had the chance.

Who's temper is worse? That is hard to say. He tends to get mad at the kids faster, but when I do lose my temper, watch out. It isn't a pretty site. I have my parents to blame for this. They both have bad tempers. I control mine quite well, so I don't really lose it very often. My kids know that if I slam a door, they better just leave me alone.

Who is smarter? I don't think I can answer this. We are both smart, but we have completely different strengths. Stan is way smarter than I am in anything mathmatical. I know more about medicine, anatomy, etc. He knows more about computers, but I know more about photoshop. It is pretty even.

Who does the laundry? Most of the time, I do. He does help a lot and he helps fold it. I usually do laundry on Friday and we fold it on our bed Friday night or Saturday as we watch TV.

Who does the dishes? Generally, I do, but he does help. He will do them if I don't feel good. I don't even have to ask.

Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I do. It is the closest side to the door. I started sleeping on that side when we had kids because it was easier to get to the baby. When the baby was sleeping in our room, there was more room on the right side of the bed. When I was pregnant, it was closer to the bathroom door.

Who does the bills? He does. I used to do them, but they would always stress me our really bad, so he took them over and has been doing them ever since. I think Rachael was a baby when he took over.

Who mows the lawn? He does. My allergy to the grass is worse than his, so he does it. Now that Andrew is getting older, he is doing it more and more.

Who cooks dinner? Most of the time, I do. He does any grilling or smoking though. He will help out with dinner a lot on the weekends. He gets home too late during the week to help much with dinner.

Who drives when you are together? He does

Who is more stubborn? That would definitely be me.

Who's parents do you see more? His mom lives 1 mile away from us. My mom lives in Pennsylvania and my dad lives in Idaho.

Who proposed and where? Neither one of us. Stan had already had plane tickets to go to Utah to see this girl he knew from his mission. We had only been dating almost 4 weeks. I was freaking out that he wanted to marry this girl. When he came back, he gave me a necklace and bracelet as a promise that he was going to ask me when he had the money to get the ring. His grandfather was down visiting the next week and we decided that we should tell him we were getting married. We just kind of agreed on it. It was a good thing we told him, because he grandfather died in a car accident before we got married.

Who has more siblings? If you count step sibings and half siblings, then I do. I have 1 full brother, 2 step sisters, 1 step brother, 2 half sisters and 1 half brother for a grand total of 7. He has 1 sister and 5 brothers. All of his are full siblings though.

What is your song? Our song is Battle Hymn of Love by Kathy Matea. We loved that song while we were dating. We danced our first dance as a married couple to that song.

So, there we are. I can't imagine my life without this wonderful man in it. Now, if you are reading this, then I hope to see your answers on your blog.

My new blog

2008-02-13T18:57:00.000-06:00

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.