Wow!

I can't believe it has been over a year since I've blogged!!

I don't even know where to start. But, I will be back more often.

I hope to graduate in May, 20100. After this semester I only have 3 classes left, and I'm pretty sure I can do them all next semester. Although, after the way this semester has gone, maybe not.

This school year my son started Junior High and my daughter started High School. Can we say too much change and drama??

I've also had several other family issues this semester. I am so burned out on school!

Since this is just a bunch of rambling, I think I will stop now. I'll have a subject next time!

Words to live by

Never make a priority out of someone who only makes you an option.

Hello there!

I am still around! Life is crazy right now, and has been all summer. For a VERY short summary:

-Our puppy is now 90 pounds! And a total goofball. We love him.
-I passed all three summer classes!
-I'm taking three more classes right now.
-Still employed, and so is hubby (so thankful!)
-We put Sebastian down in August. He did great for several months with the cancer, but when he went downhill, it was fast.
-We did make it to Mexico in July! it was fabulous! We made some new friends from LA that we plan on taking more trips with!
-My best friend from here moved to LA in August.
-We are going to LA in October to visit.
-Debt is still going down! and savings going up!
-Reading is slow, but I've read some great books. Hopefully I can do a post with the good ones soon.

I have some pictures I want to share, but that will have to wait. I'm off to get some homework done and then get stuff for daughters birthday party tomorrow. We're going to play airsoft (like paintball, but no paint in the balls). Wait. Did I say we and play in that sentence? Ha, I'm going to watch!

Hope to catch up more very soon!

Procrastinating

I have one paper to finish, only about 2 paragraphs left.
I have one final to study for.

I left work at 2 pm today so I could get busy and get everything done.

I paid bills.

I watched the storms on TV.

I have not started studying.
I have not finished my paper.

2010 Vacation

My mom has a time share. She is giving us a week next year, but we have to make a decision soon. We can go anywhere in the US.

If you could take a family vacation anywhere in the US, where would you go? And what time of year would you go there?

Snow and ears

I love his ears!!






The poor trees!
What every puppy house needs. A good beer and a bottle of spot shot!

Look at that ice! So glad I didn't put the plants in the garden last weekend. I spent so much time pulling weeds and getting a sunburn, I didn't get a chance. Those poor trees look so sad. Like me. I don't like snow. But, it is fun to watch the dogs in it!! All these pictures were taken in the comfort of my nice warm living room.

The KU game

The night started out like this:

But that didn't stop us, we went to a friends to watch the game.


Daughter took pictures.
Son played the Wiiand we watched KU give the game away :(

Maggie tired of us all soon and took a nap.

Anyone need a new shirt?

I came across this site, Wild Olive Tees through another blog. If I remember correctly, I found them on the very first blog I ever read on a regular basis.

Anyways, I haven't bought one of their shirts yet, but do intend on it. I have to wait until April though. Financially I've been very bad this month. Which reminds me, I still need to post my January AND February spending.........

Ok, back to the shirts. I think they look very cool, there are lots of designs, and it looks like they come out with new designs pretty frequently. This is what they have to say about themselves, "At Wild Olive, we are passionate about spreading God’s word and building His kingdom on earth through generous giving and effective stewardship of the resources that He entrusts to us. To this end, Wild Olive donates 10% of the profits from sales of its products to Christian-based charities and non-profit organizations."

I can't wait until I get one! Since I've dropped 2 sizes since starting Jenny Craig, I am currently building a new wardrobe.

Have fun looking around, and let me know what you think.

St. Patty's celebration

Here's the girls.
I can't remember the name of this game. There was a word and you had to give clues for your team to guess the word. It was a blast!
Some of the guys.
I am in the middle
And our wonderful hostess! I wish I would have got pictures of the food. Corned beef, cabbage, potatoes and carrots. And some wonderful homemade bread!!

Day out with the girls

Last Saturday I spent the day with girlfriends. I didn't take my camera, so I don't have any pictures.

We started of by attending Wichita's annual Women's Fair. We walked around to all the booths, a couple of us got our hair done, massages, and 4 of us signed up for the Genesis Fitness Challenge.

It's a local gym and they give us an 8 week free membership. When we go workout we get points. The team with the most points and the team with the most weight loss get prizes. We did this last year and totally sucked. This year will be different!

Then we went out for lunch and then caught a movie. Shopaholic. It was cheesy. I had started the book, but need to finish it. My friend swears the books are better. I'm kinda glad I didn't finish it before the movie.

I got home around 6 that night and played with the new puppy. It was an exhausting, but fabulous day!

Reading progress

I don't know that I would call it progress. I was sick for a week. Which usually means lots of time to read. But, I was so weak that I couldn't even hold a book. It was pathetic. I got really behind in my school work. So, all I've been reading are textbooks.

I did finish the Club Dumas for bookclub. Hopefully I will find time to do a review.

Everything else is on hold until I get caught up with homework.

My week in review....

Wow, a week it has been.

Well, we are moving on from our news last week of Sebastian's cancer. By watching him, you would never know. I'm going to have to get video of him and Angel playing, it is the best thing to watch.

Hubby and I have been sick all week. So sick we could hardly get out of bed. It was a respiratory viral thing. The Dr. gave us Loratabs. I think that was so that we would not kill each other. It was a tough week. Thank goodness for kids! They took care of us after school everyday. I'm finally feeling better, but DH is not.

Daughter is at a weekend retreat for church this weekend. I'm sure she's enjoying her break from us!

Son finished reading all the Indiana Jones books, so we rented a couple of the movies for him. Those books are amazing. Son used to HATE reading! It was a fight every week to get him to read. Then we found the Indiana Jones books. Now he gets upset if he doesn't have time to read at night! Someday I'll do a post on all the books he reads now, it might help someone else having the same problem.

I'm catching up on blog reading right now. So, be prepared for all the comments!!

I also need to catch up on reading. I was so weak while I was sick that I couldn't even hold up a book!

And homework, wow am I behind.

So, I'm off to blog read, homework, and then pay bills! I did get some pictures downloaded, so hopefully I'll be able to put those up this weekend!

It's all the rage on facebook, 25 Random Things

And I decided to blog them too. Will anyone join me? Just blog 25 random things about you.
On facebook you are supposed to tag 25 people to do it, but I'm not doing that here.

1. I've never had to really deal with death. I've known people who have lost loved ones. But, I've never lost anyone close to me.

2. I hate feet. I don't like them near me. They are gross.

3. I like raw tomatoes, but not cooked.

4. I used to be a cat hater. I now love them.

5. My favorite class in high school was Accounting. My favorite class in college was Philosophy.

6. I have a degree in Criminal Justice. I'm working on another one in Accounting.

7. I don't have a dad. Ok, technically I have 3, but I don't talk to any of them, haven't in years.

8. My kids have 8 grandpas and 6 grandmas.

9. I don't share my feelings or talk about things that might upset me. This is hard on my husband.

10. I feel as though I've lived my life backwards. Maybe that's why I act so young sometimes.

11. From the time I was 5 until 13, my mom was single. She worked alot. I was alone alot.

12. I've milked cows, gathered eggs from chickens, and fed pigs. I hope I never have to do any of that again.

13. I enjoy a life of immediacy. Is that a word?

14. My kids have tamed some of my OCD tendencies.

15. My son has 2 middle names. My ex-inlaws hate me for it. Considering one of those names was after my step-dad, maybe they were right.

16. One reason I got married on a beach is because I didn't have anyone to walk me down the church isle. As the planning went on, I had my mom walk me down the beach.

17. My mom is the strongest person I know. Everyone should admire her like I do.

18. I stole my moms car when I was 15. I drove clear across Kansas to Missouri. I spent a night in juvenile hall for it.

19. I tried to count how many times I've ran away. It's way too many.

20. I'm already planning my next runaway. In 9 years. When the kids are out of high school. We are running away to somewhere warmer and bigger.

21. I have a minivan. Those who know me from high school will be shocked by this.

22. I make my husband drive the minivan and I drive his car. For mileage purposes.

23. I sometimes think I'm a horrible mother.

24. I have worked in many different jobs. Dishwasher, receptionist, waitress, front desk supervisor at a Super 8, bartender, home daycare, accountant in training, telemarketer, drug/alcohol counselor, corrections officer, psychosocial therapy group leader, owner of a petsitting business, legal assistant, bookkeeper. I have worked since I was 14, sometimes 2 or more jobs at a time.

25. I've only consistently stayed in touch with one friend from high school. She's the only one who still lives back home.

How do you put a price tag on a life?

This is my dog, Sebastian.
Poor guy had a paw injury and wouldn't stop licking it. I'll let you imagine all the damage he did to the house with this thing on.
Patiently letting me snap away with the camera.
Playtime with his sister.
A visit to a girl scout troop to teach them about dog manners and what therapy dogs do.


On Sunday morning I noticed my big ol' dog limping. Then I noticed he had a fever. Then I noticed a lump on his front leg, where what a human would call, the knee. There really wasn't much we could do, it didn't seem like an emergency, so we waited it out. He didn't seem in pain, but he's a tough and stubborn guy, so who knows.

I had class this morning, so DH took the morning off and took Sebastian into the vet. I may as well missed both classes, as I don't think I really heard the teachers. I called DH after my first class and he had just left the vets. My favorite vet had the day off, so he saw another one. She kept Sebastian to do blood work and x-rays.

The blood work was ok. The x-rays were inconclusive. There is something wrong, but they could not tell what. It may be an infection or it may be bone cancer.


He also has lost 12 pounds in the last 4 months. They actually weighed him 3 times and tested the scale with another dog.

He's a very big dog, with lots of hair, so it's hard to tell if he has a weight change.

This is a dog who used to be a therapy dog. He would go to schools and visit nursing homes and cancer patients. He is so sweet.

We rescued him from our local Humane Society. He was an adult, but nobody know how old he was. Everyone guessed around 3. That was 5 1/2 years ago. So, he's around 8 1/2, which is pretty old for a Great Pyrenees.

Gosh, I'm rambling.

Anyways, after spending all day googling Osteosarcoma, it really looks like it's very possible that he has it. Bone Cancer.

The treatment? You start by amputating the leg, then doing chemotherapy. You might get another year of life by doing this.

The question is, is that worth it? Chemo isn't exactly fun. Do we put him through all that, just to spend a few more months to a year with him????

Then we have to consider the cost. Obviously we are willing to spend money on him. And if there was a guarantee on the time we would get with him, it wouldn't be so hard. But we don't even know if it will work. Bone cancer spreads very quickly, it may be too late already. We can make the finances work, without using credit cards. Our cards won't get paid off in the time frame we have. We would use the money that we are currently using for extra credit card payments for his treatment. Our emergency fund will already be depleted by the end of this month. We bought the new TV, I sent $500 to my mom to help with medical expenses, today's vet trip was $272 and Fridays vet trip will be $360.

I will have more answers on Friday. They are doing the biopsy then. A bone biopsy. A very painful process with lots of healing time.
Of course we won't have the results yet, but I will have a huge list of questions for the vet. We weren't exactly prepared for cancer questions this morning.

I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. I don't think it's going to get done.

My week ahead............

Monday:
Work all day, 8-5.
Son has boyscouts
Workout
Pay bills
get stuff ready for classes to start
download pictures, maybe blog some
finish W-2's and mail out
organize garden stuff and start planning
finish reading Be Happy or I will Scream (loving it so far)
work on confirmation stuff with daughter

Tuesday:
work all day, 8-5
Class 7-9:45
Read one chapter of Club Dumas

Wednesday:
Class, 8-10:45
work, 11-6
confirmation with daughter 7-8:45
Read another chapter of Club Dumas

Thursday:
work, 8-5
Jenny Craig weigh in
read with kids

Friday:
class 9-12
work 1230-630
relax

Saturday:
do any homework I may have
balance checking accounts/pay bills
blog (read and write)
clean basement and make space to start growing seeds
church/bible study (We're going to try doing this on Saturday evenings, I'm selfish and want to sleep in on Sunday)
groceries
Read something

Sunday:
read with the kids
help daughter with confirmation work
read my own books
relax

I also want to workout everyday. Not sure when I'll have the time, but I really got off track this week, so I need to catch up.

How my week went.........

It was super busy!! I'm glad I did a bunch of posts last Sunday and scheduled them to post throughout the week.

I'm pretty sure we had some kids' activity every night. And we had to buy another new TV. Remember in December when I needed a new TV for the Wii we were getting? And I decided 32" ones were too expensive just to be put in the basement for the Wii? So we ended up getting a new 42" for the upstairs and moved the one we had to the downstairs?

Well, after I got done working out on Monday, my daughter went down to play the Wii. Pretty soon she's yelling that the TV is broke. I thought she threw one of the remotes into it, like people have been know to do. Nope, she didn't do anything. It just died.

So, we were on the search for a 32" again. And again I decided they were too expensive. Why spend more on a 32" than a 42"?? Yes, I found another great deal. And we bought a 42" for the Wii. This was 5 days AFTER all my friends came over for some rockband action! Guess it's time for another get-together!

I also bought my books for school. $460 for 3 frickin classes!!! INSANE!! Luckily the 4th class doesn't require a book.

Classes start on Tuesday:
International Business
Management
Cost Accounting
Economics

Don't expect to hear from me much! I will try to keep up with ya'll though.

I was honored to be mentioned in Sheri's blog. I'm doing one of her challenges. I'll be putting my books on the site soon, it's on my to-do list!
And Sheri, I don't think you will be my neighbor. You see, I'm a city girl. I don't do farms anymore. Maybe I'll talk about my days of living on a farm as a young girl sometime. I hated it. I will never go back. But, if you can change that dream around a little and move to the city, that would be awesome!!
Be sure to check out her post and all the other blogs she mentioned!!

Oh, and even with the expenses above, happy to say that there has not been any credit card use!!!!! Gotta love the emergency savings fund! I also was able to send some money to my mom this month. She had some unexpected medical bills that she was having problems with. I hate my ex step-dad.

Oh, he had nothing to do with the medical bills. That just came out as I was typing. I should probably delete it, but I don't feel like it. Maybe someday I'll do into his story. He was a great dad while I was growing up, but he changed a few years ago. 'Nough said for now.

Where have I been all week?

Well, the holidays are over, days off of work are gone, and it's time to get back to the rest of the world. Over my break I found so many new blogs to follow, and I'm struggling to keep up, leaving me no time to blog myself. I'm going to have to figure something out. Maybe I should read that book that I say I'm reading, Find More Time!! ha, ha

Anyways, it has been a busy week. Daughter had two basketball games this week. She has a very good team. They lost the very first game they played this season, and then kicked butt at every other game. (with a15-25 point spread!!) This week they got to play that team that beat them. They were pumped and ready to go. They lost again. That was Thursday. This morning we played them again. We lost again. They have lost a total of 3 games this season, all to the same team!!

Last night we celebrated my friend K's birthday. We went to Firkin and Bull for dinner. Since the kids are here this weekend, we rented them movies, went to dinner with our friends and then planned to come home by 9. Well, somehow we decided to all go to my house. I'm going to have to download my pictures, it was a Wii Rockband blast!! I finally snuck up to bed around 1:30.

Then I got up at 6 for daughter game.

Then I met up for brunch for S's birthday.

Now it's time for a nap!!

I'm supposed to go bowling with friends tonight, but I'm not sure if I have the energy!

Ok, I'm forcing myself off of here and I plan to finish A Rare and Curious Gift, then drift off to sleep. (or try, K left rockband here and the kids are enjoying it!)

When I wake up I'll be catching up on everyone's blogs!!

Another blog look change

I decided I wanted a three column blog. And I wanted it stretch. And I wanted my widgets with a highlighted title bar.

I guess I just want it all.

I found this. Some guy who has created a 3 column stretch denim template! It took a few HTML changes to my current one, and TA-DA! My newest look!

Thanks Raymond!

Blog changes

I've never really liked the look of my blog. It was always to crunched up. I've been playing with templates all day.

I found some 'stretch' ones that I really liked, but everything was still just there. Then I found one that stretched and highlighted!!
It's a little plain, but I don't want it to be too 'busy', so here is a new template, for a new year!

Hope it helps things look a little more organized!

Who knows, maybe later I'll even completely move my blog. I've been playing with wordpress, and I really like it. I've started a new blog over there, but I'm not ready to share it yet. It's not a personal one, completely different than what I have here. It serves a central purpose. When I get more work done on it, I will share!

I am happy to say that I have some followers!

Bree started following me a month or so ago. To my knowledge, she is the first! I know other people read my blog, but she was the first to say she regularly follow me. She found me because I commented on one of her posts one day. I believe she was talking about procrastinating and I told her how I do it. Seems that we have a lot in common!

Next up was Sheri. I entered one of her contests and she came over to check me out. Seems she likes my blog too! Sheri does this and this. I'm still checking her out, she's got lots of cool stuff over there!

I need to thank Amanda and Katie Sue for having blogs that have a lot to do with reading. I found lots of cool blogs to follow through them. I've been able to expand my reading genre (or whatever) because of those two! I have gone from only mystery books to almost everything this past year!

I've had this blog for around a year now. It started out as wedding stuff, then a debt blog, then some personal stuff, then books. It has no real theme. Now I go all over the place! Which is why I thought I would never have anyone who keeps up. All those 'successful' blogs have one central idea. Oh well.

A successful blog. How do YOU define that?