I've been tagged by Military Wife...so here it goes!

I should start by saying I love being tagged. It's like PE in grade school all over again but without the shame if nobody tagged me or getting picked last.

What I was doing10 years ago: 10 years ago I was living proof that a person can walk away from a pulmonary embolism unscathed (but scared), working at a radio station that just did not appreciate me at all and watching my mother fight a battle with breast cancer which, I am happy to say, she is still winning.

5 years ago: Five years ago I just found out I was pregant when I was told that would never happen. The happiest day of my life to be exact. I told that little baby growing there that he was the most wanted baby in the world and FIGHT...he has never stopped.

1 year ago: Working a job I hated but needed and working too hard for too little pay. I was also loving being a work-from-home mom, well, at least a mom. LOL.

Yesterday: Trying to figure out what I was going to wear today for the first day of my new job and wondering if I would EVER fall asleep. I did with the help of a Benadryl at 2 am and had to get up at 5:15.

5 snacks I enjoy: I enjoy popcorn, dark chocolate, coffee, ice cream and hot buttered bread, all of which I very seldomly get because I just shouldn't except the coffee. I also like sour patch kids. LOL.

5 Song I know all the words too:
Hmm... Any song by Charlie Peacock or Margaret Becker, Any Pink Floyd song, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin and for some reason, going through my head as I try to answer this is Jenny (8675309)......why....why... oh the humanity!

5 Things I would do with $100 million:
1) Pay off the bills including house and car.
2) Buy houses for my family and a sprawling ranch for us (with a basement)
3) Give each family member 1 million
4) Tithe...oh would my paster LIKE that one!!
5) Start a charitible organization, philanthropy baby, while living off the interest.

5 locations I would like to run away to:
1) Sicily.
2) Lithuania.
3) Ireland
4) Hawaii
5) Chicago. LOL...I know, I'm pathetic, but I love Chicago.

5 bad habits I have:
1) Eating things I shouldn't
2) Not exercising like I should.
3) Not sleeping enough ever
4) Thinking too much.
5) Assuming the worst case scenerio will happen

5 things I like doing:
1) Teaching the 1 year old Sunday School Class.
2) Playing with kids.
3) Sleeping.
4) Cooking, not baking, cooking.
5) snuggling with DH.

TV shows I like: CSI, the original, Robot Chicken though they really need to put it on earlier, Biggest Loser, Survivor, and I'm again ashamed to admit, Family Guy.

Biggest joys of the moment:
1) That MB is still with us and doing great afteralmost 3-1/2 years post transplant.
2) I have a good job with a great company.
3) I found good in-home daycare for MB with a friend.
4) That I have friends here finally after 7 years.
5) That DH and I have survived and managed not to kill one another and we will be married 7 years this July. I love this guy more and more.

Now, I get to tag 5 people....so here we go.

Tamwill...where are ya? I believe you are still here somewhere
Little dreamer....yeah, you ....blog already would ya.
Karmon....please.
Hunzer you out here? Missing your cranky pants
and
Shannon. I'd love to learn more about you.

Thanks people.

Simple question today

If people are crazy enough to freeze their bottoms off standing in line for a few discounts (and other mark ups) at 4 am the day after thanksgiving at a retail store why don't grocery stores follow the retailers lead and have giant mark downs on food the day after thanksgiving when we have spent our food bugets for 2 weeks on one meal? Now THAT I'd stand in line for. Sorry retail, I've done your lines once and that was enough.
*grumbling to self* people getting trampled for the latest toys...people, what have we become???

My Thankful Post

This is going to seem like a total update post, but they are all things I am thankful for this Thanksgiving day, and I am only scratching the surface here:

1) Soldier J is home, safe, has a new job and his family is all together again. V and baby K are back in the same home with Soldier J and God brought him back to us whole. In a war where there are so many who are not so lucky, I am thankful Soldier J is back. I am also immensely grateful for his sacrifice as well as the sacrifices of everybody involved in this war to give another country something to be thankful for.

2) Our little friend Andrew had his adnoid/tonsil surgery and now is sleeping well without apnea. He also had a G tube placed so the yellow, ugly NG tube is out of his face for good. I can't wait for his momma to send me some pictures of that little guy without the tube. He's such a sweetie. I am thankful Andrew is healthier than he has ever been and his mom can now enjoy being and OUTPATIENT mom instead of the usual "freak-me-out-cause-my-kid-stopped-breathing-and-turned-blue" inpatient mom. A whole new life girl. Get ready for some freedom you didn't think you had coming. I am also thankful our guys are still with us and still fighting.

3) I am thankful I have a new job that starts Monday. I'm a bit nervous, but excited. Lots of changes rolling down the line, but God is faithful and we will make it work. I am thankful for my job.

I am thankful for food, water, a place to live, friends, neighbors, good health, the ability to walk, see and that I can take things for granted.

I am thankful for my church body, my pastors, the kids in my Sunday school class.

I am thankful for cashiers that get up at 4 am so people can shop tomorrow at 5. I am thankful I don't have to be one of them.

I am thankful you are reading this now because it means you are still among the people I call friend.

I am thankful for my husband who DOES work hard even though I take him for granted too and assume he enjoys his life. I am thankful for my step sons that they are growing up and discovering who THEY are. I am thankful for Monkey Boy that he is independent yet still needs his momma. I am thankful for my in-laws because they are just plain awesome. I am thankful for my parents that they are there when I need to talk.

I could really prattle on all day, but I promised DH I would bring him some of the apple coffee cake I made this morning and MB needs a new strap for his glasses (we lost it at the doctors office yesterday). SO

HAPPY THANKSGIVING. What are you thankful for?

A Thanksgiving feast for kings

My husband and I have decided that we have to introduce MB to traditions. I have to admit I have been lazy. Lazy...you heard me. If the step kids are not coming to dinner I don't bother with the whole lets-cook-more-food-than-an-entire-platoon-could-eat-and-eat-till-we-puke dinner for Thanksgiving, or Christmas for that matter. I figured why...but you know what, MB is why. He needs to know I would do the same for him that I would do for his half-brothers. I want him to know he is special enough for a Thanksgiving dinner complete with all of the fixings. So, I'm off to shop for a feast while the turkey is thawing in the fridge. I do have a problem with the fact that DH wants a traditional feast. In my family, there are 4 of us kids and both parents, not to mention grandparents, aunts and uncles. I'm used to cooking for a proverbial army. How on earth do I pare down the feast for 3? I have invited people to come to dinner, but they are not coming. I don't like to think anybody should be alone for the holidays, but they don't care...darn it.

So I'm preparing a feast....I have about 8 extra servings...anybody want to come to dinner?????

Bye Bye Byetta

Well, I did it. I had to really. I stopped smootching the lizard. WHAT? It was working. Yes, it was working well. I have lost about 20 pounds now since I started taking the Byetta, but it also had a nasty little side effect for me that did not ever go away or even become manageable, feeling like I had the flu all the time complete with body aches and extreme nausea (and the "other" end problem, if you get my drift). I could not risk it anymore.

"Risk it. What ARE you talking about?" I hear you asking. I did it. I got a new job. I start next week. I will have 3 weeks of training and then get my new shift. The job is apparently highly technical and there is a lot to learn in 3 short weeks, and I can not be missing work literally or figuratively because I zoned out until the nausea passed. Do you know what I mean? I just could not see myself sitting in a training class praying "Please don't puke" or suffering chills etc.

So I emailed my doc and she agreed that I should stop. SO now I can eat more and have to put an effort into NOT eating. I still get full REALLY fast and feel queasy if I eat too much or the 'wrong' things, so I am hopeful. I am also hopeful because I will be working outside of the home and that means set lunch periods in which I can walk around the generous parking lot at the new job, or next door to the Target shopping center or, if it's cold, around the buildings in the work complex. I am even contemplating joining the Y which is just down the street from the new office.

Yes, you heard me right. The job is out of the house. I have had to find daycare for MB. That totally sucks, but I needed a job and I REALLY don't ever want to do medical transcription again. Too unpredictable and, to me, boring. I have a friend with 2 kiddos who will be taking on MB as one of her own during the day too. She's a lot like me, so I am comfortable, sort of, letting MB go...it's hard to let them go. We are also looking into getting him into a Christian school for kindergarten. I think this will help him. He LOVES other kids. He NEEDS other kids. School will be good...I pray anyway. It is hard when they grow up.

I start one week from today. If you are a pray-er, pray for me. This is going to be hard. This will be my first out of the house, 40 hour per week job since MB was born. I'm gonna go through some difficult stuff.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful....

Hate me because I am done Christmas shopping! LOL...yes, with the exception of needing 1 Bible for a teenager (he asked for a new one) I am done. I got the rest of DH's gift last night at good old Wally World (Wal Mart for the moniker impaired) and I am D O N E. (except the gift certificates I need for DH's father and sister)...but NOOOOOO I do not have to step foot in a store on Black Friday unless I really want to....and I may. Who can resist a great deal, but it would really have to be a GREAT deal to drag me out of bed at 6 on a Friday after Thanksgiving and get myself and MB to a mall. You see, DH has to work that day and I don't start the new job till the Monday after Thanksgiving.

I may be trimming a tree, napping or trying to finish organizing my house (ROFLOL) before I start an out of the house job. Yep, it's out of the house. But, as usual, I digress.

I sure hope you all get your shopping done (if not and you want a cool educational toy, call me or message me and I can set you up till the 12th of December with guaranteed delivery of a Discovery Toy or 10). I will be wrapping into the wee hours so MB is actually surprised this year. I got to go shopping without him and "santa" got the goods. LOL

Oh yeah, and if you see MB, yes Santa is real. Not the jolly red suited fellow, but the REAL St. Nicholas. (He loves the red suited fellow, but knows that St. Nicholas was a real man who gave dowerys to poor women so they could get married).

We will bake cookies and plan meals later. For now...I am relaxing in the fact that I am DONE Shopping. Join me for coffee won't you?

My 4 year old piano protege

LOL...well, maybe he is no Mozart, but we started MB taking piano lessons this month. He's 4-1/2 and is DYING to play a musical instrument. His older brother plays saxophone (and is quite good I am happy to report, he's only had a couple of lessons and they are talking about putting him in the school band). His oldest brother is learning to play guitar. MB is wicked excited to be taking piano lessons. I have to admit I'm pretty excited that he is taking piano too because "I" want to learn how to play piano. Since I practice with him 30 minutes each day I am learning as much as he is. His piano teacher LOVES him and he made a Christmas present for her already. She has 2 children too, and MB, I think, would rather play with her son than play piano. LOL...typical social critter he is. But he muddles through the lesson and is actually doing quite well. The teacher told me that "he's so smart". My reply..."scary huh!". So I have a musician on my hands and I couldn't be a prouder momma about it. On the way home from piano lesson last night he actually said : Warning: Proud momma moment alert!!!

"mommy, I want to pray."
"Okay. What do you want us to pray about?"
"NO mommy...I want to pray and thank God for my singing." (he only recently started singing even if he does not know all the words...before I had to sing and he played air guitar. He also recently told me he wanted to be in the Children's Choir for the Christmas program at church).

So, for the first time ever, without me nagging or leading, my son WILLFULLY prayed to God and prayed:

"God, I thank you for my singing."

Never a better prayer has been uttered.

Oh, and I have to give a shout out to Handsomeeddiefamous. Sorry I did not see your Monical's pizza reply back in September...I'd have known it was you! LOL...Love and miss Monicals and Papa Del's. Tennessee has no real pizza....I miss real pizza.

I thought this "mom" thing was supposed to get easier....

Nope. I don't think it does.

I went to visit the principal at the school MB will go to if we end up going that route (and with the potential new job situation it will have to go that way). The kindergarten classes are 18 to 22 kids. That is 18 to 22 potential germ carriers in contact with immunosuppressed MB 5 days per week. Yes we take him to church and put him in Sunday School and nursery during service, but that is once per week and 10 kids at most. Yes I take him to MOPs which is 22 kids in his class, but only once every other week. Calculated risks really. We want him to be social because he IS very very social and LOVES people. But 18 to 20 kids in a class every day is a high risk situation. really. I think.

I have till next school year to figure this all out (unless you count that we have to register him in April). That just seems like such a huge risk.

The school, btw, is just as awesome as I had heard. The secretary has a bible picture dictionary sitting on her desk in plain view. Awesome! The K-2 program is designed to keep them busy so MB will not be bored. He already can read and knows all his letters and sounds, is working on math, knows that a dime, 2 nickels and 10 pennies are all the same thing......he's smart....he works at it what can I say. The 3rd grade on program has honors classes....so he will be advanced as necessary.

I wish this were easier.

Then there is the fact that he NEVER sleeps anymore. He keeps coming into our room at random wee hours of the morning and climbing in our bed. Not a problem except I can not sleep when he is in there because I'm afraid of hurting him or pushing him off the bed.
Anybody have any tips on keeping him in his bed???

Thanks in advance....but really, I thought I'd be out of the "midnight feeding" end of this by 4-1/2.

Harry Potter and the biggest let down ever.

Okay, I have finished the Harry Potter series (thus far) recommended to me by people who write as excellent, must read books. I would one day fancy myself a writer for children, though I prefer the 4 year old and below age range myself. Anyway, the books came highly recommended. I SWORE I would never read the Harry Potter books. Just didn't want to read them. I had seen the movies and enjoyed them and am looking forward to the newest one, but just was NOT going to read the books.

I LOVED the first one. Wow. The Sorcerer's Stone was fantastic. I read it in about 4 hours (longer if you count I had to put it down to cook dinner, do laundry, all the normal wifey things.

The 2nd, The Chamber of Secrets, took me a bit longer to read, but I really enjoyed it as well. Fascinating use of characters and plot twists and turns.

The 3rd. Good book, The Prisoner of Azkaban had the ultimate twist...again a page turner. I looked forward to getting back into it when I had to put it down, but life prohibited me from getting into it very quickly and my interested waxed and waned, but I wanted more.

the 4th book, The Goblet of Fire.....ummmm *yawn*. There were a few good parts but this is no where NEAR as interesting as the other 3. The end was the best part, not because it was over, smarty pants, but it was exciting. The rest was hard to get through.

5th book, Order of the Phoenix.......BORi*snore snore snore*...oh wait. Oh yeah, boring. Again, the END of the book was the best part, the parts leading up had little to none of the adventure I had long come to expect.

and last night I finished the Half-Blood Prince. The thing I enjoyed about it was trying to figure out WHO could be the half-blood prince. I won't spoil it for you, I would have been mad if somebody spoiled it for me, but again, the ONLY good, exciting part was the end. Rowlings threatened many times with events that COULD have been exciting. They started out titillating, but then just fizzled out, not building suspense, but just fizzling out. The end was unexpected and I kept waiting for a "different" outcome (those who have read it know what I mean).

I hear there is one more in the series. I will read it too, but this time, Ms. J.K. Rowling, please....keep the action, keep the suspense, LOVE the character building skills you have, skills that have allowed you to not only keep the players true to their roles over 6 books, but also develop and grow them (or in some cases help them seethe in their anger). I have highest hopes that the supposed final in this series will not disappoint me. I have come to expect so much more.

Book 5.

Parenting full circle

Odd title, yes, I am aware thank you. I have had a theory for a long time now and said if I ever did a masters or PhD paper I would research this phenom. I call it full circle parenting. It works essentially that you start out as a child with a parent, you grow up and your relationship changes from parent/child to peer and then is destine to become child/parent where the child parents the parent. Does that make any sense?

I see it actually happening more and more in my relationship with my parents and I have to say, parenting my 4 year old is an awful lot like parenting my parents. They are in their 60's and early 70's (I think...isn't that terrible, I don't really know how old my own parents are. I think my mom will forever be 45, but since I'm heading to that age soon, she must be older by now). I live a considerable distance from my mom and dad, but talk to them often. Mom has been sick a lot lately and it worries me for several reasons: 1) she has never taken decent care of herself. 2). She had breast cancer in 1996. 3) Uncontrolled diabetes mellitus for a number of years (though I have been told her numbers are normal now) and 4) a recent history of kidney problems.

So when she tells me she has been sick for a while and now the docs want an MRI or CT scan I get nervous. Maybe 4 years of typing medical reports for oncologists makes bells ring for me or maybe I know she is given to bouts of misinforming me of circumstances. She tells me they think she has a brain tumor. Ok, mom is so not high drama, so I wonder, since I have not seen her in about 9 months, if she has some strange growth on her noggin the size and shape of a pineapple that would make them wonder this. She says she is having headaches. (she has ALWAYS had headaches).

So I tried my best nag to get her to go get the MRI or CT, whatever it was they wanted to do, to no avail. She says she does not want to know. Isn't that special.

So the parent turned child is nagged by the child now turned mother (and many many years of this, I remember many a times as an 11 year old comforting my mom about stuff. I was the first one she told about the cancer and we prayed together for the first time ever at her request...on and on really). So do I let it go and know she is an adult, I believe still fully capable of making her own decisions or do I nag (like a mother would nag) until she does something.

Parenting a 4 year old is eaiser, his butt I can spank....my mom's....well, she is too far away.