Updates!
One baby born! This little boy was actually born last week, but as you all know, I am lame. Hopefully any family people saw it on facebook. I mean, you can just go with this site for your local, state, national, news, but you will be getting very specific, and very late updates. Specific to me and my life and the things I feel strongly about, and, more importantly, anything I actually have time to post about. Good thing it’s not my job. Anyway, this is my brother’s new baby. About a week old now with several names. John Thomas James. It’s a nice strong set of names. I just looked up the date and it was May 16th. Now all of my siblings have children in May. (My one sisters kid was actually born June 1, but I’m counting it because it’s close enough and I still have to send the card in May) I guess I know what everyone’s been doing in the fall. Labor Day Fun Times. Ah love. So he is pretty cute huh? And he’s already got that look in his eye that my brother has most of the time. Congrats!
And a special thank you to my brother for telling me the good news in a hilarious and awkward fashion. It made me laugh all the way to work. You know you want to know, and I hope it translates here as funny as it was when he did it. He calls me and of course I figure it has to be about the baby so I just say, “Hello? What’s going on?” And he says (very seriously and literally), “Uh, well, um, well, you know, uh, we, uh, um, the baby, you know, um, well, it’s here. The baby is born and you know, it’s, um, it’s born now…” That may not be word for word, since he was mixing those “ums” and “uhs” and “wells” up all over the place, but it’s pretty damn close. I said, “Geez Tom. Could you tell me any more awkwardly? Just say ‘we had the baby!’ It’s not like, Oh hey, you know that thing that’s been growing in April? Maybe you noticed that she’s been getting kind of fat lately? Well, we went to the hospital because she was complaining about some pain in her stomach, and well, turns out it was a baby! So they, uh, got it out of there and it’s here and we have one now that we get to keep and take home!” Man, I love my little brother!! Hopefully he won’t be mad that I shared in this public place! Love and all that stuff. Later.
I gotta say…
I don’t know who the heck is still looking at this every day, but, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my 15-week-jammed-up-school-crazy-going-no-time-to-post-anything heart! Someone is keeping me alive and on the charts and I thank you.
I literally have one more clinical and one more week of class to go this semester. One care plan. One evaluation sheet w/ goals. One Hesi test. One Lab Final and one final Final. Now that I have typed it…it seems like alot. But trust. It is not. Actually it is but that’s just because I have to study everything, all over again, and then answer even MORE questions. But then I’m done. Until January. One post in 15 weeks…not bad.
Here’s a quick update: School. Football. School. Football. I take the kids to bowling. I go to clinicals. I don’t play any games anymore on facebook, but I do check the site. I stay up way too late. And not for good stuff. I rebooted my Ipod but I am not in love with it anymore. I lost all my playlists and a few hundred songs when I re-loaded the back up discs. I haven’t exercised in weeks. Unless you count the few pushups I do every few days to make sure that I still can. Which I do. But I still fit in my small pants so I don’t care too much about the extra flab hanging over the top for now. I can hit the gym in about a week. School is busy but fun this time. Stressful but in a completely different way from last semester. And my license is calling. I can almost hear it now. I haven’t really been drinking either. Not even enough time for that. Or movies. Or pleasure books. Or mags. I have alot of gossip news to catch up on. My mags are from August…I know I should just throw them away…I’ll decide at Christmas about that. Anyway, I am having a drink now and it is good.
The two things for fun that I have still been doing is collecting change off the street (and keeping it in a cup) and playing my pocket poker game (the quest for the royal flush). Don’t I sound like FUN?? I will post the amount for the last few months in a few days maybe.
AND….wait for it……the quest is over!!
I GOT THE ROYAL FLUSH!!
Oh yeah! No kidding. I think it was clubs. I got it awhile ago but saved the pic for just this moment. I am a wild woman! Do not mess with me and my mad fake poker points skillz! The back of the game says I get 2500 points for the royal flush but I got 5000! What?? I know! It was an exciting day! And just when I did not think it could ever happen again….IT DID!!
TWO Royal Flushes! This was a hearts set. Another 5000. Oh yeah…I’m going for the 10,000. I am unstoppable.
I need to go eat dinner and study something. Thanks for hanging again with me thru the weeks of drought! I really do appreciate your time! I’ll have more later! Pictures are below.
The first one. And that was pretty exciting.
Ugh! Blurry! But you can see it! Another 5000.
That was the high score but I am going for more points. I think I am over 7100 now. Yes I know. Sad life. That’s what the vodka is for. See ya!
The Scotta Story—Sort of…
So the bottom line is a diagnosis of aplastic anemia. Idiopathic. A serious shortage of red blood cells due to a serious malfunction of the bone marrow. No good reason for it. 40-70% of all cases are idiopathic and common in the younger adult. Not real comforting when it’s you, but that’s just info from the med book.
Scotta, on the other hand is awesome! Never met her in real life, but love her and her style! SO the website link is in the above post–buried in the middle—gotta promote my insignificance too…and here is her last e-mail to the fam and friends. Check it all out and dare to tell me she’s not a cool chick! (This is straight copy/paste from the lady herself—if there are any spelling errors or weird grammer, that’s all on her! I even left in all the little triangle more/less things that pop up throughout the note! Haha):
Something major to report! Not health related, really, but still big!
Since I have nothing but time on my hands these days and love planning parties and creating things, I have finally decided to try my hand at doing this to a living. Well, not a living so much as a way to supplement my income a little but mostly just give me something to do.
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> So, allow me to introduce The Paper Gal! Check out my brand new website at http://www.thepapergal.com/ to see everything that I can do. There you can also join the newsletter list or become a fan on Facebook. After this (and maybe a reminder or two) I promise all “work” information will come from those places and this will go back to just being about my health and what not!
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> Even if you don’t think you’ll want to buy anything, follow the blog or become a fan on Facebook because I’ll also be giving great party planning tips, ideas, where to find deals, etc.
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> Let me know what you think! I’m really excited and am putting as much energy into this venture as my little blood will allow me!
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> Oh, and speaking of blood, my doctor’s visit last week was uneventful. H&H are the same. Platelets were down to 50, but no real need to be alarmed. They can fluctuate so we are ok right now. I did have a paper cut that bled for about 30 minutes last night, but I am going to say that was just a fluke!
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> Don’t forget to check out the website: http://www.thepapergal.com/ and to become a fan on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Paper-Gal/279528000966?ref=ts. Oh, and please tell all of your friends, family, coworkers, even people you don’t like! And, they don’t have to be local. Everything can be done over phone and email and mailed anywhere in the world!
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> Thanks for your support throughout this and hopefully in this new venture, too!
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> Scotta
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> —
> Visit our community site: http://aamds.lotsahelpinghands.com/c/618225/
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> Powered by Lotsa Helping Hands and Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation, Inc.
What is going on?? Why am I so popular??
I am NOT complaining, but I sure needed a day like today! BIG GIANT THANKS to whoever (any and all) out there, generating some traffic to this site! I think it’s cool and hopefully you will too! Don’t be fooled by that long standing Christmas Tree…I am updating I swear!!! See?!? Right this minute! Fresh material!
This was the first school related day that I have had to have in about a week and a half…holidays and all…I even had to dress up! Well, black pants, black top, tall shoes (not boots–the weather is a bit crapola around these parts and supposed to get worse in the next 24–not big news to those east of here (Chicago) but crap for us just the same–last report puts us at 6-10 inches of snow! Joy!) off track…business casual dress, second semester orientation (nursing), pictures will be taken for the Illinois Education Foundation that helps me achieve my goals! It’s all good.
So, I had to get up early anyway because the kids are back in school this week. So fine. The weather is a sunny 2° (TWO degrees). Whatever. With the wind chill it’s a brisk -15 or something. I drive to the school and there is literally, NO ONE, in the parking lot. At least not the one I park in. It’s the far one. The one that usually has less people than the front so I can park closer…to the back of the school (Ha. It is actually farther, but I hate the regular lot—too much traffic and you need a permit and blah blah blah) ok back to the story…walk from the lot to the school, climb FOUR flights of stairs to the class, enjoy some speech, sign some papers, go buy the syllabus, get my I.D. updated/punched, walk back to the car, drive home. (Are you still reading? Sorry about that…turned into kind of list thing…)
Open syllabus. Get school papers/books/highlighters/reading…reading…skill…reading…reading…skill…reading…reading…endless reading/complicated (?) skills/scary clinical stuff (?)/ on and on and on…realize that I haven’t eaten from the nervousness (I don’t know why–fear of failure makes me overly crazy and unduly paranoid) then realize right after that I might actually vomit from the whole afternoon. My crazy is just like an adverse side effect: unpredictable, unavoidable, and undesired. (Studying for the day: Done! And we all learned sumthing!)
So anyway, I basically marked everything I need to read, gathered my materials for said reading, collected the necessary objects that I will be lugging back and forth to school with me in two weeks, steth, BP cuff, pens, pencils, spirals, binder, scissors, tape, stapler, books, books, books (one book weighs NINE pounds!! as usual I have them all weighed and measured for your enjoyment—to be posted later) and in order to carry all this around I had to break out the…GASP!…Rolling. Book. Bag. Horror! It’s not even a book bag really…it’s more like luggage. I hate it. But I hate breaking my shoulder and spine worse, and I am not even entertaining the “backpack” route so just leave it alone. If you knew me—like all close and personal and all—I am hardly the backpack wearing type. I’m more like the make everything as hard as possible before giving in to any idea that is even remotely smart and sensible type—but that’s another webpage.
Where was I?? After my panic episode I decided it was time to, 1., eat something before I passed out, 2., turn up the heat–I was freezing at 60 degrees in the house, making me feel worse, and 3., sit on the couch and stare at the wall until my son came home from school. You will be happy to know that I did indeed do all these things.
And now I am here.
My kids are here too and that is making this extra difficult because they can’t seem to do simple math and vocab without asking me every 2 seconds what something is. For instance: What is the past tense of thrive? And what is another common multiple of 11 and 4? Why did you have kids mom?? (Ha ha ha, I threw that one in from my own brain…I was thinking it in my head… But still, why?)
Meltdowns are occurring so I must wrap this up for now. Plus I need to make dinner. I am the controller of food at the moment since we are all on intake-reduction, exercise and all around better health. Learn new stuff and everyone around you must suffer for it. They’ll thank me when they are old and can get up from a chair without the help of a hydraulic system on their furniture or a robot-servant or whatever they’ll have in the future to assist with the decrepit. I’ll be dead so I’ll have to watch from…heaven?? We’ll save theology for a later date, I gotta go.
To sum up:
School is almost rolling.
I am panicking.
Kids are trying to incite me to murder.
I have books and icicle and food and nature pictures to share.
I have the final Street Money Update for 2009 (I know! Can you believe I waited all the way until now to reveal this hot info???)
I have a new year, 2010, Street Money tally to roll out—already found some!!
I have more Weird Sh*t You Find Around the House! (I’ve been saving some! Dedicated to my new friend Merianne–shout out! “Hey!! I hope I spelled your name right!!”)
I have a new movie clip with the New York Coffee Cup. Mmmmm…
I have movies to talk about! I saw some over the holiday break! Some were even new(-er)!!
I have words and quotes and all the fab random riff raff that people, like you, hopefully, like to waste even a minute of their time with, with ME! (Thanks again! I am feeling the love. Or the boredom. But I’m feeling something!)
Check back later. It’s going to be an early bed time for the kiddies—they are throwing broken pencil pieces at each other so I better get the tweezers and the alcohol (I use the vodka–tastes great, steadies my hand and dulls their cries of pain) and close this thing. In the words of my favorite ex-husband:
“Roger that.”
“Over and Out.”
“Dork.”
Here’s a picture. For continuity.
It's a snow-dirt snowman that my son made with the first of the snow we got way back when. Look for a larger more exciting snowman in the near future!
And since I’m posting…
Let this be my personal little reminder so I can bring you all the news that’s fit to print. Ha. That’s why I have my own personal web blog here, so I can put whatever I want out there and no one can tell me it’s stupid. Well, you can tell me it’s stupid but I don’t have to approve the comment.
Looking back on some of my other stuff…I have music, sushi, exercise, mysterious dish soap in a bowl on a table, quotes, words, commercials we like, Pat Tomasulo stuff, Germany, pie!…
This is turning into a grocery list. (It’s all for you sister…haha) Speaking of groceries, I was supposed to go get some—all part of the healthy eating initiative I started again—but, alas, the internet got me and it’s too late to go out and then make something. We’ll just have to get something from the fast food world. Darn. I will be running again tomorrow so it should be fine. (I ran yesterday–3 miles! I just wanted to put that out there! And I’m falling in love with hard boiled eggs again. Gross.) I also need to get to the laundry, another plan for the day since I am not going to study, but that didn’t happen either. Interesting note about the jeans I have on. I noticed that all of my pants are getting kind of snug (hence the new plan) plus, my scrub top is getting a little too scrubby and snuggy, so I start working out and I swear, my pants feel even tighter! What the?? Oh well, my son is hovering over me to finish this up because he can’t do his homework in a timely manner when that tv is on…so I better go. Sixth grade should only be done once in your life…
Just so we’re clear: Spilling a load on the highway is NOT a good thing??
For those of you who live and work in Chicago, that may or may not be funnier, than to some others. No one was hurt so I can joke a little. Please see the following news article:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/1738200,bracket-interstate-80-082709.article
I have to add it because I didn’t write it. But here is a sample from it if you are too lazy to click, as I often am…It is from the Sun-Times, internet news source/wire…something…I really don’t know how it works, but I am just sharing info here, not claiming it as my own. See if you can spot my favorite part! Below.
Cars damaged after bracket load spills on I-80
A dozen vehicles were damaged Thursday morning and the eastbound lanes of Interstate 80 were closed after a semi-truck spilled metal brackets onto the road.
Truck driver Douglas Jordan of Houston was cited with spilling a load onto the highway east of the Des Plaines River bridge, said Illinois State Trooper Mark Dorencz. (HINT!! It’s right in this sentence!!)
A cardboard box holding the brackets became soaked from the rain and tore open, Dorencz said. Eastbound I-80 was closed about 7 a.m. for 15 minutes.
OK, back to me now. I’m thinking the guy (or girl–don’t want to assume anything) who wrote the article was being funny. Your job is to write small news items on the internet everyday and you don’t know if anyone actually reads them, or at least beyond the first few lines, so you want to spice it up a bit! Flex the language skills. Make that degree earn its money. I would. There’s nothing really inaccurate about the article, but I love the phrasing. I’m a big word buff. A lover of big words or a big fan of actual English words…See?? I love the way words sound and look and string together to mean a million different things just by moving one around or altering a punctuation mark. (I find myself to be annoying too most of the time, don’t worry, and I write WAY too much crap)
Anyway, I thought it was clever and humorous. And I am wasting time so I don’t have to study. No excuses. The BF is on his way home! The kids will be here shortly. We have a very quick birthday pop-in to do for the kids’ friend (Happy B-day Devin!) and then it’s Open House for Mason. We have to see the school and chat up the teachers. It’s perfect timing too, because Mason is already going to miss a day of school on Friday and I get to tell the teachers personally. Make sure he doesn’t have any homework like he said! Then dinner, bedtime, playtime, and I think I am getting back up. I am bone-ass tired from this week. My adrenaline level is too high and I can’t sleep, and coffee builds up in the blood, but I have to get the required things for school done and out of my mind. I like to believe that I can study at any time, but I work best late at night, if, I don’t get on here. My peeps. I need to stay connected to my peeps. Look here! A whole paragraph dedicated to nothing, just so I don’t have to study. Terrible. I should do another playlist. I should go on I-Tunes. I joined FaceBook and that is a whole other connection I have to wire up. And then fight the urge to scope it out. There are too many people in this world that you never knew you knew and then more you forgot you knew. But they are all out there waiting…and your name is about to drop back into their stratosphere. Now how will you get on?
As a disclaimer, I know FaceBook is not new. But I have been avoiding it for those very reasons. This site is hard enough to maintain in an even slightly interesting way, but you get my point. There is no sum up. Just a finish. I’m out of words.
Alright, here’s another picture. It’s the city!
Hot Breaking News From the Suburbs!! Rita Wears Her First Summery Outfit In Years!! Ankles EXPOSED!!
We have photo’s of this magnanimous event! I took the pictures! With my camera! She let me!
It’s true. It’s all true. Rita NEVER wears anything that goes above her elbows or the tops of her shoes. EVER. Heck, she never even wears OPEN toe shoes.
But today, for whatever reason, she showed up, at my house, with a light blouse and jeans on, that were rolled to mid-calf! And cute, little Sketcher shoes with multi-colored bands. They had a closed toe, but they were definitely summery! I am so proud of my mom!
If I can be serious for a minute, this is the first time, as an adult, I think I can remember her exposing her ankles in such a fashion. And, I might add, she looks pretty good! (The skin on her ankles is probably all freaked out though wondering what the hell happened and who dares to parade them around in the daylight!?!)
Enough of my talk talk. This is for my mom. Here’s the shots:
Hot Mama! Looking Good!
Chicago Support! And something funny after all the sadness! (By season, because I may have overdone it and I need some kind of purpose other than my lack of self control)(I also may have taken some liberties with the whole “season” thing too…)
Summer Time, summer time, sum sum summer time…
I have to say I am hitting that “celebrity” Tag a lot lately…but it’s getting into August…dog days of summer…my life is kind of boring…seriously, this is my day: Run and finish painting the kids room. I’ll post pics later of my progress. (Don’t roll your eyes)
Winter Time. There’s no song for that.
Since I am feeling out of touch with the world, I started getting up early again to watch the news which then segways into Regis & Kelly. Channel 9. WGN News/Station, Chicago, Illinois. I love the morning team. I think they are all pretty funny. I suppose I should shout out: Robin Baumgarten, Larry Potash, Ana Belaval, Dean Richards, Valerie Warner, Paul Konrad.
Forward Time. No, it’s not a season….YET.
But I especially love Pat Tomasulo! The Sports Guy. So funny! And apparently America thinks so too, or at least Chicago America because they voted him to be a co-host for Regis & Kelly when Regis is on vacation or days off or whatever! I didn’t even know there was a contest!! Local news people all over the country, men and women, (for when Kelly is gone). Anyhow, I have been laughing at him way back when I still had a job! This was my:
First Time. (with Pat)
So, in honor of him winning I turned to good old You Tube and posted just a few videos, so you could laugh too! As you may have guessed. Don’t give up right at the end here! This is one of the best! Come on! 3 more minutes of your life is all I’m asking!
Good Time.
just shy of pretty 