Oh, and no need to answer that question!
My attempt at documenting the everyday life of my little family through stories and photography
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Old Photos
Scanning a few old photos tonight and came across this one ~ can I tell you how happy I was to see that I had a double chin at under 1 year of age? Doesn't that mean that my double chin has nothing to do with the extra pounds I'm carrying around? I was born with it!
Oh, and no need to answer that question!
Oh, and no need to answer that question!
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Fall has arrived
I'm pretty sure anyway! It's raining today and I'm loving it, except for the part that I'm helping at the Brentwood Halloween Party later today, which is outside! I've been told I won't melt! I love the rain, when I can be in the house, reading a book or playing on the computer, nice and warm and DRY!
I can't believe that it is almost the end of October, we finally made it to Party City yesterday and got the kids Halloween Costumes, here is a sneak peek ~


Trev is going to be Charlie Brown and Meg Gabriella from her latest favorite movie High School Musical. I think I need to do a little work on that wig!
Most of my free time the last few weeks has been spent working on researching my family history, I've spent hours on-line TRYING to figure out my family tree! I have to say, I knew that there were a few stray branches, but some of the things I'm finding and hearing I had no clue about! I'm taking a class over at JS.com on Family History, something that I have always wanted to dive into but haven't because it seems to get to complicated, and it still is, but I'm going to get through it this time! I'm amazed at how much I don't know about my family going back several generations and kicking myself for not trying to get some of this information while my grandparents were still alive. I can't wait to get this big puzzle put together and am loving going through all of the old pictures and documents I have, getting them organized and doing a lot of scanning. I know it will be worth all of the time in the end.
And I know that the holidays are near because next Saturday is our Annual Baking Day, well, we don't really bake on baking day so I guess it should probably be called Mixing Day. Either way, I can't believe it's already time. I think Karen and I have been doing this for at least 10 years, and I love it although I'm sure Karen's kitchen is not the same for months with all the flour and powdered sugar flying! We have never had mixing day at my house because my husband would probably have a heart attack with all of the flour and powdered sugar flying!
Happy Saturday going to start checking a few things off of the to-do list before I waste away anymore of this rainy day.
I can't believe that it is almost the end of October, we finally made it to Party City yesterday and got the kids Halloween Costumes, here is a sneak peek ~
Trev is going to be Charlie Brown and Meg Gabriella from her latest favorite movie High School Musical. I think I need to do a little work on that wig!
Most of my free time the last few weeks has been spent working on researching my family history, I've spent hours on-line TRYING to figure out my family tree! I have to say, I knew that there were a few stray branches, but some of the things I'm finding and hearing I had no clue about! I'm taking a class over at JS.com on Family History, something that I have always wanted to dive into but haven't because it seems to get to complicated, and it still is, but I'm going to get through it this time! I'm amazed at how much I don't know about my family going back several generations and kicking myself for not trying to get some of this information while my grandparents were still alive. I can't wait to get this big puzzle put together and am loving going through all of the old pictures and documents I have, getting them organized and doing a lot of scanning. I know it will be worth all of the time in the end.
And I know that the holidays are near because next Saturday is our Annual Baking Day, well, we don't really bake on baking day so I guess it should probably be called Mixing Day. Either way, I can't believe it's already time. I think Karen and I have been doing this for at least 10 years, and I love it although I'm sure Karen's kitchen is not the same for months with all the flour and powdered sugar flying! We have never had mixing day at my house because my husband would probably have a heart attack with all of the flour and powdered sugar flying!
Happy Saturday going to start checking a few things off of the to-do list before I waste away anymore of this rainy day.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Friday, October 1, 2010
Fall Break
I can't believe that it is "fall" already! Especially when it was over 100 degrees this week, crazy. I guess that is what we get with having such a mild summer.
Kids are off of school for 2 weeks and I've taken a few, very much needed, days off. I have to say that I really do like this school schedule, it is early getting back to school in July, but now when we are off it makes it worth it.
We are getting used to our new normal these days. The weeks seem to zoom by . . . between Trev going to school at 7:30 2 days a week, my Singing Hands class on Monday nights, Daryl's bible study on Tuesday nights, the kids have Awana & Youth group on Wednesday nights, by the time we get to Thursday's I'm ready for the weekend. Although I have to say it's really nice that both of the kids have church groups on Wednesday nights, Daryl and I have made every Wednesday night date night. Dinner with no children, who could ask for more!
Meghan has recovered from her little bout of pneumonia! Can I tell you how shocked I was when the doctor said she had pneumonia? She had been coughing and I had been giving her the breathing treatments for her asthma, but by the end of the week it wasn't getting better and I was running out meds so I took her in thinking it was just asthma. Although the day before her teacher told me that 2 other kids in her class had pneumonia. So Meg and I spend 5 days of togetherness at home. We had a camping trip planned so Daryl took Trev and Meg and I stayed home. The bad thing was that other than the cough she was acting totally normal and didn't feel sick, which while good, hard to keep her down. After 5 days of antibiotics and breathing treatments, Singular & Advair she is all clear and we are weening her off of the meds.
Well, lots of things on the to-do list for today so I better get going! Here is my latest favorite picture of Meg.
Kids are off of school for 2 weeks and I've taken a few, very much needed, days off. I have to say that I really do like this school schedule, it is early getting back to school in July, but now when we are off it makes it worth it.
We are getting used to our new normal these days. The weeks seem to zoom by . . . between Trev going to school at 7:30 2 days a week, my Singing Hands class on Monday nights, Daryl's bible study on Tuesday nights, the kids have Awana & Youth group on Wednesday nights, by the time we get to Thursday's I'm ready for the weekend. Although I have to say it's really nice that both of the kids have church groups on Wednesday nights, Daryl and I have made every Wednesday night date night. Dinner with no children, who could ask for more!
Meghan has recovered from her little bout of pneumonia! Can I tell you how shocked I was when the doctor said she had pneumonia? She had been coughing and I had been giving her the breathing treatments for her asthma, but by the end of the week it wasn't getting better and I was running out meds so I took her in thinking it was just asthma. Although the day before her teacher told me that 2 other kids in her class had pneumonia. So Meg and I spend 5 days of togetherness at home. We had a camping trip planned so Daryl took Trev and Meg and I stayed home. The bad thing was that other than the cough she was acting totally normal and didn't feel sick, which while good, hard to keep her down. After 5 days of antibiotics and breathing treatments, Singular & Advair she is all clear and we are weening her off of the meds.
Well, lots of things on the to-do list for today so I better get going! Here is my latest favorite picture of Meg.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Finding a routine, again . . .
or maybe it should be still? I don't know. It seems as soon as I try and get it all figured out and planned, things keep changing. For example our summer. I had it all planned out, what to do with the kids in the mornings between the time I needed to leave for work and Daryl got home from work, what to do with Meghan a few days a week so Daryl could get some sleep since he was back to working graveyards . . . had it all planned, I like a plan! Well, those plans never got implemented, the kids got out of school on June 3rd and on June 6th Daryl ended up in the ER with chest pains, it ended up that he was home all summer with the kids, well the 7 weeks that they had off anyway!
Needless to say it was a summer of doctors appointments and tests and trying to figure out what was going on with his heart, since the tests were coming back ok, it was troublesome and very unsettling going through the process. I now have a completely different picture of healthcare, and I work in the industry. But being on the other end is totally frustrating and I can see why people can get so discouraged with the process and with doctors.
We left the hospital after a 2 day stay knowing that his heart was strong and that there were no blockages and with instructions for a follow up appointment in a week with the cardiologist. Unfortunately he was still feeling terrible, had a few blacking out episodes and in general was just not his self. We went to our follow-up appointment and let the doctor know all of this and also reminded him of his family history and he said that he didn't know why he wasn't feel good, his heart was fine, he was fine, he probably had the flu, take a vacation and go back to everyday life, there was nothing wrong with him. We left that appointment a little bit discouraged.
While we were in the hospital several of the nurses commented on his unusually low heart rate and that there was something not quite right with it. The cath lab manager kept checking in with me and saying that there was an issue with his heart rhythm, he saw it when they did the angiogram, and recommended that we get a second opinion, which we did.
After connecting with another doctor, an arrhythmia specialist, they sent him a heart monitor that he wore for almost 3 weeks. The doctor discovered his average resting heart rate was 33, and that he was having 2 -3 second pauses between heart beats. Dr. E diagnosed him with having "sick sinus syndrome" while his heart muscle was fine, he had electrical problems with the sinus node and the blood was not getting sent to his brain like it should be. This is the same problem that his mom has and is not typical in people Daryl's age, which may be why it was difficult to diagnose. But I can't tell you the relief that we both felt when the doctor said he needed a pacemaker! Not that I wanted him to have one, but finally, after 2 months, knowing what the problem was and being able to fix it was music to our ears. I think Daryl was beginning to think he was just going crazy and making himself feel terrible!
He had the pacemaker implanted on August 2nd and only spent 1 night in the hospital. Overall he is feeling much better but still having some minor issues. He went back to work last week!!!! That was great, he was off for 3 months and his boss was great during the whole time he needed to be off. The best part is that now that he is back his boss doesn't want him working the graveyard shift and being in the office alone or with just one other person, so he is back to working a day job!!! Now here we go . . . trying to find our routine, again . . .
So I have adjusted my work schedule a bit to try and inconvenience my mom the least amount possible!!! Thanks mom for always being there to help me!! So 3 days a week I will be off work in time to pick up the kids and 2 days a week I'll work all day (yuck!) and mom will pick them up.
We are so thankful for the doctors (well, all but one anyway) and nurses that we saw and all of my nurse friends who were there to ease our minds and answer our questions through this journey. I'm so thankful that whatever it was that triggered the episode in June, which I truly believe was job stress, lead us down this path so that it could be corrected and we didn't find out when it was too late. All things happen for a reason so in this case job stress was a good thing. This has probably been a problem for awhile and he didn't know it. It's so easy to blame being tired or not feeling well on working graveyards and not getting the sleep you need. So now he is getting used to having the heart rate that the rest of us have!
We went for a follow-up appointment the week before last and it is amazing what they can do to that little box through the computer. Here he is all hooked up, he got on the treadmill and ran and then the doctor holds a little mouse looking thing over the pacemaker and she starts making adjustments. There were a few things that she wanted to change as she watched how the pacemaker responded while he was running. Pretty amazing!!!
.
So . . . for now we are feeling blessed for health and jobs and everyday life. Things like this really make you think and try and keep things in perspective.
Needless to say it was a summer of doctors appointments and tests and trying to figure out what was going on with his heart, since the tests were coming back ok, it was troublesome and very unsettling going through the process. I now have a completely different picture of healthcare, and I work in the industry. But being on the other end is totally frustrating and I can see why people can get so discouraged with the process and with doctors.
We left the hospital after a 2 day stay knowing that his heart was strong and that there were no blockages and with instructions for a follow up appointment in a week with the cardiologist. Unfortunately he was still feeling terrible, had a few blacking out episodes and in general was just not his self. We went to our follow-up appointment and let the doctor know all of this and also reminded him of his family history and he said that he didn't know why he wasn't feel good, his heart was fine, he was fine, he probably had the flu, take a vacation and go back to everyday life, there was nothing wrong with him. We left that appointment a little bit discouraged.
While we were in the hospital several of the nurses commented on his unusually low heart rate and that there was something not quite right with it. The cath lab manager kept checking in with me and saying that there was an issue with his heart rhythm, he saw it when they did the angiogram, and recommended that we get a second opinion, which we did.
After connecting with another doctor, an arrhythmia specialist, they sent him a heart monitor that he wore for almost 3 weeks. The doctor discovered his average resting heart rate was 33, and that he was having 2 -3 second pauses between heart beats. Dr. E diagnosed him with having "sick sinus syndrome" while his heart muscle was fine, he had electrical problems with the sinus node and the blood was not getting sent to his brain like it should be. This is the same problem that his mom has and is not typical in people Daryl's age, which may be why it was difficult to diagnose. But I can't tell you the relief that we both felt when the doctor said he needed a pacemaker! Not that I wanted him to have one, but finally, after 2 months, knowing what the problem was and being able to fix it was music to our ears. I think Daryl was beginning to think he was just going crazy and making himself feel terrible!
He had the pacemaker implanted on August 2nd and only spent 1 night in the hospital. Overall he is feeling much better but still having some minor issues. He went back to work last week!!!! That was great, he was off for 3 months and his boss was great during the whole time he needed to be off. The best part is that now that he is back his boss doesn't want him working the graveyard shift and being in the office alone or with just one other person, so he is back to working a day job!!! Now here we go . . . trying to find our routine, again . . .
So I have adjusted my work schedule a bit to try and inconvenience my mom the least amount possible!!! Thanks mom for always being there to help me!! So 3 days a week I will be off work in time to pick up the kids and 2 days a week I'll work all day (yuck!) and mom will pick them up.
We are so thankful for the doctors (well, all but one anyway) and nurses that we saw and all of my nurse friends who were there to ease our minds and answer our questions through this journey. I'm so thankful that whatever it was that triggered the episode in June, which I truly believe was job stress, lead us down this path so that it could be corrected and we didn't find out when it was too late. All things happen for a reason so in this case job stress was a good thing. This has probably been a problem for awhile and he didn't know it. It's so easy to blame being tired or not feeling well on working graveyards and not getting the sleep you need. So now he is getting used to having the heart rate that the rest of us have!
We went for a follow-up appointment the week before last and it is amazing what they can do to that little box through the computer. Here he is all hooked up, he got on the treadmill and ran and then the doctor holds a little mouse looking thing over the pacemaker and she starts making adjustments. There were a few things that she wanted to change as she watched how the pacemaker responded while he was running. Pretty amazing!!!
.So . . . for now we are feeling blessed for health and jobs and everyday life. Things like this really make you think and try and keep things in perspective.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Project 365 - July
Here are my July layouts. And if you happen to be keeping track, yes, I am missing March/April/May/June. Those are almost done too . . . but needed to get July done and try to make the incentive discount over at Weeds & Wildflowers, so I skipped ahead to get them done.










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