Physical

I went to my doctor and had my physical today.

Long story short… by the end of September, I will have had another mammogram (a screening this time) and another ultrasound of my neck (nodules on my lymph glands).  I totally forgot about the fact that they found nodules before.  What happened was I had the u/s done on both my neck and my legs for my bad veins.  I was supposed to have my veins worked on, and the day before the procedure I found out I was pregnant.  Of course it was cancelled, but then shortly after that, I lost the baby.  Within months, I was pregnant again, and all thoughts of any of the stuff that was supposed to be done was gone from my head.

So, what’s going on:

-Waiting for the results of my bloodtest.  There are different ways to test your thyroid, and two of those ways showed a bit of wonkiness.  So they decided to retest all the ways again.  Yay.

-Having the mammogram done at the same time they will do an ultrasound of my neck.  The mammogram is being done only because I had one done a bit over two years ago.  Because of that, now I’m on a regular “schedule” for them.

-After the scans are done, I’m having a surgical consult.  The same surgeon who can take care of my varicose veins will check the nodules on my lymph nodes, too, and we’ll talk about what needs to be done.

I know I HAD to go to the physical, but I wish I didn’t GO to the physical.  Ugh.

Since Tuesday…

My blog break is over. It was unintentional… it started out innocent enough. Bill left for Vegas on a business trip on Tuesday morning. Monday, I decided to leave shortly after him for a visit to himsMom so Fae and Liam could see their Grandma. My sister in law Lynn offered to let us stay in her home, which was very kind of her, since she said it’s been 10 years since anyone has stayed there. Lynn has Internet, but it’s not wireless. I thought I could “borrow” the signal from the neighbor, who just happens to be Lynn’s sister Patti, but it was too far away. Add to that a very clingy Liam who was cutting even more teeth, there was no internet time.

So, during this past week:

-We headed to NY while Bill headed to Vegas. The flight for Bill was turbulent, which made it fun for him (he hates to fly so this just gives him another reason). The drive for us to NY included lots and lots of road construction with lots and lots of being completely stuck at a standstill in the construction; blinding rain that made me panic to the point of nearly hyperventilating when I could no longer see ANYTHING; driving over a shattered piece of wood wondering if I got nails in my tires; and a car fire that closed the exit I needed (thank goodness for my little gps that helped me find an alternate route).

-My SIL loves cats. She has two. One little one, and the other the size of a Golden Retriever. She doesn’t clean the litter boxes everyday, though that big cat uses it every 15 minutes. Fae loved the little cat, and she pretended that she was the little cat throughout the whole visit.

-My SIL has a piano. She didn’t mind that Fae “played” piano all the time. I think she rather enjoyed it, and tried to teach Fae “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”. My brother in law plays in a country/western band. One night, he sat strumming his guitar while Fae did this little freestyle interpretive dance in front of him. That was cool.

-Did I mention that Liam was cutting teeth? He now has both eyeteeth, and they both came in as we were in NY. He was not a happy camper. Neither was Mommy, who couldn’t even go to the bathroom without having to deal with a shrieking baby. I was not allowed to leave his sight. Grandma and aunts weren’t happy about it either, because they couldn’t hold him due to his demand to be near me at all times.

-When Bill was filling out his paperwork prior to his trip, he asked for a non-smoking room. When he got to the Venetian, he learned that his room was smoking. He “complained” and was upgraded free of charge to a fancy multi-room suite. What was that they said about the squeaky wheel? hehehe

-I took the kids and their cousin Sarah (she’s now 21. She is so awesome with kids… Fae adores her) into Ithaca where we went to the Science center. When I get the photos upgraded, I’ll talk about that. It was AWESOME.

-My SIL’s house was built in 1840. My over-active imagination led me to believe that it may be haunted. It’s not (as far as I know), but I laid in bed (with Fae next to me and Liam in the pack and play) wondering how I’d react if I awoke to a “shadowy figure” standing at the foot of the bed. Yea, I’m a goof. But it could have been all of the dolls and angel figurines that decorated the room that made me feel antsy. I felt as though they were staring at me.

-My mother in law had a great idea of going to a little town fair. Fae has never been to one, since Bill doesn’t really care for the crowds and stuff. She didn’t know what to expect. It was great fun! They had four rides for kids her age. She went on each one more than once. She was in heaven, and the smile on her face wouldn’t go away. Photos to come. I captured a few great moments. A great moment for me was when my SIL gave me a taste of her caramel apple. I’m used to the apples on a stick that are enrobed in caramel. This was a sliced apples, with some caramel sauce on top, sprinkled with chopped peanuts. It was SOOOO good. Since it wasn’t smothered in caramel sauce, you didn’t feel like you were eating something you shouldn’t have if you are trying to diet!

-I decided to go home on Thursday. We went to breakfast with my SIL, then visited Grandma and the other SIL before we hit the road. It was deja vu. Road construction even worse than the drive there, torrential downpours, it was just awful. What should have been a four our drive extended to 6 hours. We didn’t even stop at my brother’s restaurant as planned. When we finally got home, I got out of the car, fell to my knees and kissed the dirty floor of my garage!

-Bill came home on Friday… well actually he arrived home 3am Saturday morning to be technical. His flight was delayed first because of thunderstorms in Philadelphia. Then, there was a malfunction and they had a meeting of the minds to see what to do with the flight. When they decided to fly with the malfuntion, a woman freaked out and wanted off the plane. For some reason, they wanted to search her luggage before the flight was allowed to take off. And add to that more turbulance, and you have a man who was also very happy to be home!

Pass the Smelling Salts

My classes start in a week, so I went over to the campus bookstore to pick up my texts.

Holy Cow.

Books were nearly $500!

After I was given a sniff of the smelling salts, I used my student loan to pay for it.  Thank Goodness for the student loan.

It wasn’t the Pre-Algebra book, it was all the books I needed for the Anatomy & Physiology class & lab.  The gal who helped me find those books (all five of them) snuck in a medical dictionary that wasn’t a requirement for the class.  It was listed on the bookshelf, but not on the syllabus.  I’m assuming I’ll need it eventually, but I’m not sure if I’m gonna return it yet… that was a good chunk of the $500.

I glanced through the books, and I was actually pretty comfortable with the A&P stuff.  Even the labs look interesting (except for the dissection of a rat.  I hate rats!)  What made me nervous was the math stuff.  It was like Latin to me.  Bill said he’ll help me, since he LOVES math (nerd!), but I’m still worried.  It’s also an online class, and I’m not sure how they do algebra online.  The A&P class officially begins on the 22nd.

The Story of the Eggrolls

We went to another development-wide yard sale today.  This thing was huge.  Picked up a few new playthings for the kids, and a cookbook (vegetarian - Laurel’s Kitchen) for me.  I wasn’t surprised to see another sign advertising “eggrolls and fried rice”.  We’ve seen the sign at so many neighborhood-wide yardsales, that Fae recognized the writing and immediately demanded eggrolls.

Before we went to the “eggroll house”, I stopped at a sale a few houses down the street from the food.  I started talking to them about it, and they said that the people running the stand do not live in the house. Now I was curious.

I went over, and the people who owned the house were having their sale at the house-end of the driveway, and the big food tent was at the street end.  I asked the owner if they knew the people, and she said no.  She also admitted she’s getting a kickback, but she wouldn’t tell me how much.  She said she had the eggrolls before and she loved them, and she gave them they can use her driveway when her neighborhood had their sale.  She didn’t think they were associated with any local restaurant, but she wasn’t sure.

What a racket!  What a moneymaker!  There was a line for the eggrolls, and I was lucky enough to stand there with my daughter who had no patience for waiting on line for food!  They had a little kitchen set up… with a stove for the fried rice, and two electric fryers for the rolls.  A buck a roll, and $3 for the fried rice.  They were so busy they could barely keep up!

After I paid, and was waiting for my rolls to be bagged, I saw something that made me make a mental note to never buy from them again.  The old man making the rolls pulled a big ziploc bag out of a cooler, and there were a dozen eggrolls in there.  He reached in and tried to pull out 4 rolls, and one fell onto the ground.  Without missing a beat, he bent over, picked up the eggroll from the ground, and used the kitchen tongs he was using to cook the rolls to “clean” off the eggroll, and IN FRONT OF EVERYONE put the eggroll in the fryer with like a dozen other rolls.

I know everyone talks about that mysterious 5 second rule, and I’ve used it before on some food items I’ve dropped, but I was never trying to sell the items I dropped!  I kind of jumped when he did that, and immediately looked back through the line to see how many other people caught it.  Apparently, quite a few did, because 4 people left the line.  The old lady taking cash and bagging the food saw them walking away, and she started yelling at them, “I go faster!  I go faster!  You come back!  No problem!”  She looked at me and said “They don’t want to wait!”  Obviously, she didn’t see what her husband did.

Now, as I write this, I can’t help but wonder if he thought it was ok to put a roll that’s been on the ground into the frying pan with other food, what does he do in his own kitchen when he makes them?

Blech!

Stuck

My son will be the death of me.

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were at Tar-ghet today.  TWICE I looked away for a second only to look back and find him standing up in the cart’s seat.  Yes, he was strapped in, but that didn’t stop him from figuring out how to swivel and get his legs out so he could stand up.  I swear, he’s Houdini!  Normally I use on of those grocery cart covers, but today I forgot to put in on the seat.  Go figure.

We were roaming around the baby section were I was picking up a pack of diapers.  I looked at him and told him what we were doing, and he was fine.  I looked at a pack of Pampers, checked the size number, and suddenly he was crying.  At first I thought he was just being his normal crabby self, but then I realized his arm was behind him.  When I looked closer, I realized he stuck his arm through the thin metal bars of the seat.  I figured I’d help him pull it out, but when I tried, it was stuck fast.  It was in past his elbow.  I carefully tried to wiggle his arm, but nothing would give.  He started crying louder, and you could see he was getting scared.  I worked his arm a bit more, but nothing.  I started thinking this was turning into a situation.  I looked around for a red-shirted Tar-ghet employee, but I didn’t see any.  Finally, a woman was coming towards me… pushing her daughter (seemed to be Fae’s age) in the cart.  I immediately asked her for help.  She took his arm, and I shifted the weight of his body around, and after practically an eternity (2 minutes) she got him loose.

I took Liam in my arms, and then practically hugged her.  I laughed and said, “Oh, it must be a boy thing!” and she said she hopes not!  She moved her hand down on her stomach, and I noticed the baby bump.  She said she was having a boy, and didn’t want to know how different they are from having a girl.  I laughed, put my finger to my lips and did the “shh” sound.  I thanked her again, and wished her luck with her son.  I was so grateful for her help!

Liam does stuff like this all the time, and he’s only 10 months old.  I think I’m really in for quite a ride with this boy!

Results

I FINALLY heard from the doctor today.  There was no explanation as to why it took so long.  Even when I said that I was getting nervous, and the old adage “no news is good news” never applies to me in different situations, she didn’t say anything.

Oh well.  It doesn’t matter.  Fae’s ok.  Her current scans were no different than those done a couple years ago.  She mentioned a VCUG a few times.  Fae had one of those before she turned one, and I’m still haunted by the images of my daughter’s legs strapped together while I’m helping hold her arms down as this big machine takes images of the dye moving through her kidneys and bladder.  I wouldn’t want to put her through that again, but if it was necessary, I would consider it once weighing the factors involved.  After the doctor mentioned it again, I interrupted her and said, “Is there any reason for Fae to have a VCUG now?”  I sighed with relief after she said no.

We are doing things to make sure the bladder infections don’t come back.  These are things we’ve already been doing… no bubbles in the bathwater, cotton panties, cranberry juice often, etc., but we are ramping them up a notch.

I’m just glad she’s ok.  I really was starting to pace the floor.

Sample Knitter

I went to my favorite yarn store (www.yarn-love.com… I don’t want to link to it) today.  I wasn’t going to stop, but I was in the area for another reason, but as I was passing by, I had to go to the bathroom.  I know that’s a bad reason to stop, but I really didn’t want to drag the kids into a fast food joint or something like that.

I started yapping away as I usually do, and asked her if she heard about the supposed new yarn store opening up in Lancaster.  She said he hadn’t, and I told her that it’s quite the mystery.  I was contacted by Rachel, the gal I knit hats for, and she told me about it.  (Honestly, I think that was a set up.  I think she knew that I would mention it to my knitty friends.  They are doing their “marketing” in a very strange way.  There’s no build-up.  No advertising.  No signs in the windows of where they are located.  She’s just going to open one day as though she’s always been there!)

Anyway, Rachel mentioned the need for some possible sample knitting, and Jan immediately said she was looking for “samplers”!  She asked if I’d be interested.  OF COURSE I’M INTERESTED!  She explained she does it two way.  One is that the sample stays in her shop for a year, then it becomes mine to keep.  The second is I knit the item, and it becomes property of the shop.  My payment will be the cost of the yarn as store credit.

She showed me what she needed done… this adorable Garter Stitch Matinee Jacket from Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino 2 in color 012 Mauve.  Since the size I’m knitting (3-6 month) won’t fit Liam in a year (and the color is for a baby girl), I’ve opted for store credit.  I’m using 3 balls of the yarn which retail for $9 a piece, so I’ll have $27 in store credit.  I have until September 10th to finish it… two days before her Fall Open House.

Hopefully, she will like my work, and it’ll lead to more store credit!

Weeds Galore

I was outside last night for two hours, pulling weeds.  I hardly made a dent.  I’m so disgusted.  Now there’s some kind of weed that’s growing over everything.  It even has flowers on it.  WHITE flowers.  Too bad it’s not pretty.

I have become the owner of *that* house.  It never really bothered me before, but I realized last night that it’s much worse than it ever was.  The problem is:  I don’t enjoy weeding.  Digging in the dirt does nothing for me.  I admire the beauty of a well tended garden, whether it’s a neighbor’s house, or the amazingness of Longwood Gardens.  But I don’t enjoy doing it myself.  I have a brown thumb.  If I had the money, I’d hire someone to do it, but right now, I don’t have that expendable income.

The next step for us is finding help.  Someone to show us what to do.  There are butt ugly bushes that we want removed.  Where the weeds are growing, it’s very steep.  We need to figure out how to stop the weeds and grow grass.  So Bill asked around at work today, and one lady said her husband will come over and take a look at it.  He’s the same guy who helped fill in our pond, so he has his own backhoe if we need it.  I’m hoping he has some good ideas.  I can’t take the ugliness anymore!

A test with a new laptop.

I have to test Margie’s new pc to make sure it can still post….so hope this works.

Test Picture

Lucky

Two weeks ago, we went to a yard sale because the ad in the newspaper stated that they had lots of yarn and crafts books for sale.

When we got there, I noticed that it seemed to be a bunch of elderly friends who were selling their stuff. One side of the front porch was all plastic canvas pattern books. That lady must have had every craft book/pamphlet published on the subject! In the middle was the lady with the yarn. She did have alot, but it was all acrylic and was VERY old and smelled musty. Since I tend to use natural fibers, or at least a natural fiber blended with acrylic when I knit, I didn’t buy any. I did buy a very pretty purple crocheted dishcloth from her, though. What caught my eye was the guy at the end of the porch.

He must have had hundreds of ziploc bags filled with assorted cancelled postage stamps. He had the US represented, but also had bags from just about every country in the world. He was asking a buck a bag. I thought Fae’d enjoy seeing the stamps, so I picked out five bags from countries with more artwork on their stamps rather than just the heads of royalty.

I told the guy that my Mom used to collect stamps. She had albums full of stamps… mostly from the US. She also collected first day covers. One thing she did that was really cool was if there were a historic event, she’d send a pre-addressed and stamped envelope to the area post office and request that they cancel it and send it back. (I don’t know if I’m explaining it correctly). She had sent one to the Naval ship that was to “pick up” the astronauts and their spacecraft splashed back down to earth. It was canceled the same day the craft splashed down.  I don’t remember the particulars, but they guy seemed to know what I was talking about. I told him that in honor of her Grandma, I was getting my daughter the stamps. I guess I appeared authentic, because as I was walking away, he called to me and asked me to wait. He dug through the boxes and pulled out five other packs (one of which featured the X-Men - issued in Mongolia - because I mentioned Fae loves superheroes), and told me to give them to my girl. That was so sweet of him.

When I got in the car, I explained to Fae about the Grandma she never met, and of her love for stamps. We drove for a bit, then she asked if she could look at the stamps. She sat back there for about half an hour, going through the bags, carefully pulling out her favorite stamps, saying “Grandma would love this one, Mom!”

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Today, I stopped at a farm to pick up some fresh blackberries and melon. While Fae went out behind the stand to see the goats and the chickens, I was holding Liam and talking to the farm-woman about how I’m making more homemade foods for him. I told him that when my daughter was born, I lived in Connecticut. My Mom had passed away years earlier, and I had no family nearby to help with “baby advice”. I was taking care of an infant “by the seat of my pants”. She said that it must have been difficult, without the help of my Mom. I agreed.

Then, a bit later, as I was at a stop sign while driving through the residential neighborhood on the way home, I noticed a woman. She looked as though she’d be close to my Mom (before she passed) in age. My Mom wore orthopedic shoes with white socks, and this woman had what looked to be orthopedic sandals with white socks. My Mom wore the polyester or cotton pants with the elastic waistband, and this woman was wearing what looked to be purple cotton stretchies. She just got out of a younger woman’s car. I imagined that it was her daughter who was helping her along the sidewalk. As I drove by, I watched the older woman put her hand on the younger one’s arm.

I barely made it to the end of the street before I was overcome by an intense sadness and longing for my Mom. Luckily, both kids were asleep in the back of the car, otherwise I’d have to undergo “Twenty Questions” from Fae about what’s wrong with me since I started crying. I can’t help but think about what my kids are missing, and how lucky my nephews (the youngest just turned 18th) were to have her in their lives. I hope they know that.

I really do.