May Birthday's & Anniversary's

We have several birthday's in May (I remembered to look!)

Happy birthday to: Nick; Kenny; Phil; Eddie; and Andrea.

Happy anniversary to me and Chris.

And Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's.

Bass Performance Hall Angel sculpted by Marton Varo

Truckcab27

Truckcab27
Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Close up of cab damage. Actually not very big at all. Still makes us worry about frame damage, even though it drives fine.

Truckbumper25

Truckbumper25
Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Other side view

Truckbumper24

Truckbumper24
Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Side view

Truckbumper23

Truckbumper23
Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

This is the rear view of the truck with some notes about additional damages you can't see in this view. You have to click on the picture to see the notes.

Truck Damage & School

I'm going to try to put in 1 picture, and see how it goes. I actually have 5 total I took of the truck. If this one works, I'll put in the rest.

Gee, Imagine that, it didn't work. I guess I'm going to blog from Flickr this morning. Be prepared for several posts.

Okay, got that done, and got up a picture of the angel Marton sculpted!

Wednesday afternoon as I was leaving work, dude whose wife hit me called to see if we would let him pay out of pocket instead of having insurance pay. So I went on Friday to get an estimate. (I couldn't go before then because of school and doctor visit). First estimate was $2628.90, so we called dude back and said "I don't think you want to pay out of pocket." So hopefully on Monday the adjuster will call and we can get the truck fixed pretty quickly. It's still drivable and all that, but Chris can't pull his boat to the lake in it, and the bass just finished spawning, and they're hungry, and he wants to be out there catching them!

I was sore for about three days, but am mostly over that now. This weekend has been spent taking tests (have 2 take homes - and think what you like, a take home test is much harder than one in class.) and making sure my notebooks are ready to be turned in, and studying for 2 other tests I have next week. The good news is that next week is it for me, unless I just totally bomb one of these tests. I love it when the final is optional!

And then a full month off! I'm only taking one class this summer, so I should have a lot more free time. Of course, it's a math class, so who knows.

I'm also running for a PTK office. We didn't have enough people running, so I let myself get pushed into doing it. We're still one person short, I guess we'll continue trying to get someone to fill it. This isn't a very active club. There's a handful of active people (who turns out are mostly the officers) and everyone else just sits back and watches. If I can find the time, just about anyone can find the time. Oh yeah, we'll decide among ourselves who gets what position after the election (which is via email this weekend and Monday - I should know Tuesday if I won - the suspense is killing me;).

They're having a small ceremony before class on Wednesday to give me the accounting student of the year award. My boss and Chris plan on being there. And they're going to have a photographer from the school newspaper there too. I guess I'll have to see when that edition is coming out and figure out how to get a copy of it (since that's my last night of class. I have a test Thursday, but I doubt the paper is out that soon.)

Time to get back to work.

What a lovely day, Not

Well the colposcopy came back mild dysplasia, which is what the pap came back, so there's almost $900 wasted. Now he wants to do the L.E.E.P. procedure. It's an outpatient surgery to remove the abnormal tissue from the cervix. Since we don't have insurance it'll cost around $3,000.

So the first thing I did when I got back to work was look up the nearest indian hospital which is in Ada (about 85 miles from OKC). I called them, and yes, they do the procedure so they won't refer me back to my doctor even though they are 85 miles away. So I asked about making an appointment and I'm supposed to tell them what day of the week I want it on and the doctor will schedule an appointment at his convenience and they will mail the appointment date to me. That's for the first appointment so that they can examine me and decide whether I need the procedure or not. Then, they'll make another appointment for me to go back for the preop, and then a third appointment for the actual surgery. And then I'm sure that there will be a fourth follow-up appointment that I haven't heard about yet.

Shit. Repeat 10 times with lots of other curse words in the middle.

Okay, so I have to look at this from the money angle, rather than the inconvience angle (and the a total stranger is going to perform surgery on me angle). If I miss 5 days of work (1 day recovery) and Chris misses one day of work to take me for the surgery, we'd only lose around $750. Mathwise it makes sense. It's just not what I want to do. I've been getting alot of that lately, you'd think I'd get over expecting things to be easy.

I just got off the phone with Chris, and he said that we should at least go to the first appointment to see what I thought about the doctor. I told him there was no guarantee that I'd see the same doctor each time. For surgery, maybe I would. I know that when Lesley had Kyra she saw a different doctor every time she went in. Of course, that was in Claremore, Ada may be different.

I was reading the from the link above, and it says that I'll have to go back in 2-4 weeks, and then I'll have to have a pap every 3 months for the next 2 years. Oh, and that most women are okay after this procedure, but that it can weaken the cervix, causing fertility problems or complications in pregnancy.

Life sucks. Out loud.

Sorry, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself right now. The worst thing is that there is no guarantee that this will even work. The idea is that they remove all of the abnormal cells, allowing normal cells to grow back. That's the idea anyway. Knowing my luck, it won't be nearly that easy.

Sorry, I'm feeling a little sorry for myself right now. I'm here to tell you that health insurance is a must. Unfortunately, I can't afford $500 a month premiums.

I guess I'm going to call back the indian hospital and make that appointment now.

Pictures

Well, that pictures in that last post didn't work very well. I really don't like the blogger method of inserting photos, I have more problems with it than successes. Unfortunately, the Flickr method only lets you do 1 picture per post, at least so far as I've figured out.

I'm going to have to mess with it later. I'm leaving in about 15 minutes to go find out the result from the colposcopy last week. Cross your fingers that it's good news.

Dallas

We had a great time this weekend in Dallas. We drove up Friday night and stayed at a motel, and the Saturday went to visit Chris' friend Susan.

She's a really remarkable woman. I can't imagine finding out that you only have 3-6 months to live (of course, they're wrong lots of times, we're praying so). She is determined to enjoy what time she has left, and has gotten to see a bunch of people that she hasn't seen in a long time.

After we left Susan's, we were going to go see 3 sculptures that Chris' cousin Marton Varo has displayed. One in Dallas and two in Ft. Worth. On our way to try to find the Dallas one (it's at the Plaza of the Americas, but I don't know where that is), we passed this humongous adult video store, so we had to go in and check it out. I had NO IDEA there were that many adult videos. I noticed 2 predominate categories: teens (I'm assuming they're 18 or 19) and anal.

We never did find the Plaza of the Americas, so we went on to Ft. Worth cuz we knew where we were headed, the Bass Hall. Marton did the two angel scupltures on the front of the building.





There's a third of Marton's scultures at TCU, but we ran out of time and didn't even try to find that one. We'll have to make another trip to see those.

After that, we drove to the Blue River. I've talked about that before, it's one of my favorite places to go. There's a motel in Tishamingo that we normally will stay at when we don't want to camp. It never even occurred to me to make a reservation - Tishamingo for heaven's sake. So we get there and OF COURSE, they don't have any rooms available. So we drive back to the previous town (where we got stuff for about half an hour waiting on a train to go thru) and looked for a room there. They have 2 motels and we chose the better looking of the two, but I'm here to tell you that you really don't want to stay in that town. In our bathroom, you couldn't just sit down on the toilet, you had to straddle it, because they put it to where you had about 5 inches between the front of the toilet and the wall. I tried to take a picture, but there just wasn't enough room to even get in there to take a picture. And I refused to take a shower the next morning. Chris took one, but he wore his flip flops. Nasty. I did take a nice long shower when we got home.

So the next morning we went onto the Blue River, but we were so worn out from all the driving over the previous couple days that we just relaxed. We had planned on doing some walking to get to the waterfalls, but it was too much work. I didn't even get any pictures, except this one:


He doesn't really look very happy, does he?

We've decided that we try to do too much on our trips, so we need to just pick one place to go and enjoy that place. Next time we can go somewhere else.

We did enjoy ourselves, and we've decided that regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives (which is ALWAYS something), we have to make the time for us. From now on, at least once a month, we are going to go somewhere, just the two of us. Camping, hunting, fishing, hiking, with the occasional Renaissance Fair (or whatever) thrown in.

Dangerous Intersection

Well, I’ve had an interesting morning already. I got rear-ended on my way to work this morning by a pregnant lady. Everyone is okay, I’m still a little freaked out, but no one was injured, and it was just a fender bender. The bumper to the truck is folded down, and there’s some paint damage. What’s really funny (ha ha) is that Chris had a wreck last week in the same intersection. That one was his fault though, and he was in the company truck. He was so afraid he was going to get fired for that one. Of course he didn’t. Shit happens right?

I had stopped in the right hand turn lane at a red light. The car in front of me turned right, so I pulled forward and stopped. I had time to look left to see if I could go, there was a car coming and then enough space after them for me to go, so I was waiting for them. Then WHAM. I was pushed into the oncoming traffic, luckily, they were able to stop without hitting me. I pulled onto the shoulder out of the way and the lady who hit me did as well. No one else stopped (even the other car that almost hit me went on after I was out of the way). I walked back to her car to see if she was okay and found out she’s pregnant (probably about 5 months or so), so she was pretty freaked out – the seat belt had tightened across her stomach. But we were all okay (she had a kid in the car with her, 10-12 years old).

We talked about calling the police, but since neither of us was injured and both of the vehicles were drivable we decided not to. In my experience, cops will tell you that if there are no injuries and the cars are drivable, and there’s no question about fault that you don’t need to call the police. In Tulsa, you can go to QT and pick up accident reports and fill them out yourself. At least you used to be able to. So we exchanged info and went on our merry ways.

I know, I can hear you all out there going “You didn’t call the cops? You should always call the cops no matter how minor the accident was.” And, “You moved the vehicle? You should never move the vehicle until the cops get there.” I have actually watched a cop chew out someone for not moving a moveable vehicle when it was blocking traffic. If there’s an injury or the vehicle can’t be moved that’s one thing, but why do you want to block traffic for miles at 8:00 in the morning if you don’t have to?

So anyway, I’ve already talked to her insurance, and I went ahead and called mine cuz several people (who also said I should have called the cops) said I should. My insurance said to let them know if I have any trouble with the other insurance, but otherwise they didn’t need to be involved. I should be hearing from an adjuster sometime today.

And of course I didn't have my camera with me, so I'll have to take pictures tonight and post them later.

Random

Here we are just over a month away from my first wedding anniversary, the 4th anniversary of when Chris and I first got together. I just realized that this is the longest relationship I have ever had. I’m not quite sure what that says about me. I do know that I love him even more today than I did on the day we got married, and I didn’t think that was possible. Everyone talks about being nervous on their wedding day, Chris says that he was. I never was. Of all the decisions I have ever made in my life, marrying Chris is the only one I KNEW was the right decision. I thank God every day that he’s a part of my life. The most important part of my life.

I’ve got to call and see about getting a cake for our anniversary. It’s a good thing I’m not superstitious, since we don’t have the cake from our wedding, but I still want to follow the tradition. And our cake will taste a whole lot better than most peoples, since it’s going to be fresh!

I spoke with Lesley the other day, very briefly cuz they had to leave for Taylor’s baseball practice. Beamer is up to 10 lbs. 4 oz., and 23 inches long. Everyone is doing well. Mom wanted to know if they were going to come down for the summer, but they aren’t this year. Maybe next.

Today is my last day of work before I get 4 WHOLE DAYS off to myself. Well, not entirely to myself. Tomorrow I have a PTK meeting at school – I figured this will be the only time I’ll ever get to go to one, so I’d better go. Wednesday is mine, I’m going to get some flowers to plant (pictures to follow), and maybe go get a manicure (haven’t had one of those in years – I didn’t even get one for my wedding), and then relaxation by the lake. Thursday I have another meeting at school – some leadership conference deal. It only lasts 45 minutes, then I’m off to the doctors for the colposcopy. Happy Happy Joy Joy. Friday I’ve got to get ready to go to Dallas. A lady that Chris used to work with has a brain tumor. They operated but weren’t able to get it all out, so we’re going down to visit, and then spending the rest of the weekend camping out somewhere in Texas! I’m so excited, it’s been a long time since Chris and I got to go do something together without a bunch of other people involved.

Oh, and somewhere in there I have to go get my ring cleaned and the prongs tightened, do some shopping for both Dad and the house, try to talk to DHS about future plans, get Mom signed up for the Medicare prescription drug coverage, go by the Indian clinic and try to get signed up. There was something else – oh yeah, catch up on all of my homework.

Actually, speaking of homework, I think I actually managed to get a little ahead. I completed homework in one class that we haven’t even had the lecture on yet and finished all but 3 of the homework problems in the other class. Of course, I haven’t started on the reading for the quiz tomorrow night – I’ll be working on that tomorrow.

Bowling

Chris and I went bowling Saturday night with some of the people from PTK. We had a really great time, and it was nice to meet some people in the group (most of our communication is over the internet - nice to have faces to go with the names). Pedro takes pictures at all of the PTK functions, I don't think he'd mind that I'm posting these 2 he took of me and Chris.

The great debate

Greg and Amber are getting married June 3rd (someone remind me to add that date and Amber's birthday to the calendar I keep forgetting to check). Congratulations to them. I've only met Amber a couple times, but she seemed very nice and I've heard some wonderful things about her. I hope that they are as happy as Chris and I are.

So, the great debate is do we take Dad to the wedding or not? See, the problem is that after about 5 minutes in the car, Dad is uncomfortable, after 30 minutes he's ready to get out of the car. It's a 3 hour drive to Tahlequah. I personally say that he's just going to have to suck it up and deal with it, cuz if he finds out we went to the wedding without him, all hell's going to break loose. Chris thinks we can keep him from finding out about it. Mom says she'll take him.

So here was my first thought: We'll leave early enough that we can stop and get him out of the car a couple times, give him a break. Then I thought: What the hell am I thinking, this is Chris and me that we're talking about. We'll be lucky if we get there in time for the I Do's!

One way or the other we'll all be there, and I'll even try to make sure that we're on time.

Now, if someone will just remember to let me know where they registered so I can get a gift, we'll be good.

Birthday oops

Well, I set up the online calendar so that I wouldn't forget anyone's birthday, and guess what? I missed Kyra's - sorry sweetie. I just made Sandie's - it's tomorrow. So happy birthday to both of you.

Panera Bread

Unfortunately, my teacher's husband had to sign a non-disclosure agreement, so I am not able to get the recipe for Cinnamon Scones that I wanted (or any of the other ones). Darn. I did tell her about the TGI Friday's Jack Daniels sauce that I found a recipe for - on their website no less. It was gone again shortly thereafter, someone got in trouble! I need to dig that thing up again.

"You're 100% Oklahoman If..."

What's really, really sad is that I've had this conversation:

"You wanna Coke?"
"Yeah."
"What kind?"
"Dr. Pepper."

Miscellaneous

Have ya’ll eaten at Panera Bread? Wonderful food, always fresh, they do all of their baking in house. They have the bakery, and they offer soups, salads, and sandwiches – again always fresh. It’s one of my favorite places to go eat. It’s a little expensive – I spent almost $9.00 on my lunch today, but well worth it.

Chris always laughed at me when I talked about how good Panera is. They have these asiago cheese bagels – pop it in the microwave for a few seconds and OH MY GOD they are GOOD. He doesn’t like them cuz the cheese kinda smells. You know, like hot cheese!

(Side note: I’m typing this in word, cuz Blogger is kinda slow when you’re trying to type an entry, I get about 15 words ahead and have to wait for it to catch up. Anyway, the spell checker in Word accepts ya’ll as a word)

Anyway, I finally got him to go with me one day for lunch and he’s been hooked ever since. I swear he’s eaten there 5 times in the last 2 weeks! I had to go get me some today.

Turns out my accounting teacher’s husband is a manager at one of the Panera Bread’s. I’m going to see if she can get me the recipe for those asiago cheese bagels and their cinnamon scones. Yum.

I found this Subversive Cross-stitch link on dooce. I'm going to have to order something from them. This is the post that she is talking about the comments on. If you want to check it out, click on comments and then scroll down to the very bottom and read up. I never realized what a hot topic child rearing could be.

More school stuff

In other news, we owe Phil and Grandma big THANK YOU for coming over and helping load up the U-Haul to move Mom. Jamie wasn’t there, I didn’t ask why. I haven’t seen her in a long time cuz she’s pretty busy with her school activities as well. Still, it’d be nice to see her every once in a while (HINT HINT).

I get my accountant’s holiday in a couple weeks – I’m still not sure which days I’m going to get off (there’s still payrolls that have to be done, so we have to split the four days up between the two of us). I’m really wanting to get away for a day or two, but I don’t think that Chris would let me. I’m at least going to spend one day at the lake, basking in the sun, reading my book with no interruptions.............Sorry, got off in a little daydream there for a minute!

In the meantime, I got invited to join another Honor Society. The benefits to these honor societies are that they offer scholarships that aren’t available anywhere else. The disadvantages are that they all cost money - $65.00, $75.00. Not a whole lot for a lifetime membership, but how long am I really going to need the membership?

Then, last night, I found out that the accounting department at school selects 1 student every year as the Outstanding Accounting Student, and that person gets a plaque from the Oklahoma Society of CPA’s. Never heard of such a thing, but turns out they selected me. I had to email my teacher, cuz she’s the only teacher I’ve had for accounting at this school, therefore, she had to have a big hand in getting me this award. I was dumbfounded to say the least.

I had to enroll for the Summer and Fall semesters last night. I’m only taking 1 class this summer, a basic math class. People are always amazed to see me counting on my fingers: “You’re an accountant, what do you mean you can’t do math?” That’s what computers and calculators are for. Anyway, I have to take this basic math class before I can take the Business Math class that’s required for my degree. The good thing is that this basic math class doesn’t count towards my GPA, so if I flunk it, at least I can still claim my 3.885! Isn’t that sad? Then in the Fall I’m taking the Business Math class and US History to 1877. Doesn’t that sound fun?

Selfishness is...

People are inherently selfish. Everyone is. I am. You are. Something comes up and the first thought any of us have is “What’s in it for ME?” and “What’s it going to cost ME?” And that’s okay. That’s how we’re built, and after that first thought, most of us move on and think about the cost and benefit to the group, whatever group that is.

When Chris first brought up the idea of buying a duplex and moving Dad in and having me quit working, my first thought was “Hell no, why do I want to give up my job and have to stay home all day and take care of someone else?” I love working, I love the independence it gives me, the sense of accomplishment, the knowledge that I’m doing SOMETHING with my life. Not to take anything away from those people who stay at home, it’s just not something I’ve ever really wanted to do. Even when we talked about having kids and Chris wanted me to stay at home with them, at least until they were in school, I swore that I’d go crazy in a month and that I’d have to work at least part time.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of days where I think “God, I just don’t want to go to work, maybe I could just call in sick and enjoy the day.” And there’s even been a few days over the years where I’ve done just that (thank God for vacation days!) Today is one of those days where I wish I didn’t have to be here – have you looked outside? It’s gorgeous!

So my first reaction was HELL NO to staying home with Dad. And then as the days passed, I kept thinking about positives to staying home – I could get finished with school earlier. I would have time to do some of the projects that I’ve wanted to do. I wouldn’t have to get up and rush around in the morning trying to get out the door by a certain time – while trying to stay out of Chris’ way while he does the same thing.

And now, I see more pluses than minuses when I think about the idea.

So we broached the idea to Mom, and it went over like a lead balloon. I can understand her point, she’s enjoying her freedom, the first freedom she’s had in a long time. I can appreciate that, I’ve been looking for a little myself. So we decided to let her stew about the idea for a few days and see if she feels a little better about it.

I still don’t see a better solution. The money is going to run out in 2-5 years. So, do we leave him in the nursing home until the money’s gone and then scramble around trying to figure out what to do, or do we take steps now to try to solve the problem? No decisions have to be made right this minute, but it’s still something that we need to plan for.

What do you do?

We only have 2 rules at our house. The same 2 rules that have been in effect for the entire time that Mom's been coming down and staying with us. I think that they are reasonable rules, and they are rules that I follow myself.

1. The theromstat can't go below 72 degrees
2. No smoking in the bedrooms

Rule number 1 came into effect because we have birds, and if it gets too cold in the house, the birds can get sick or even die. This has been an issue because Mom has hot flashes, and has been known to set the t-stat at 60 degrees (just aske Sandie). The second rule came into effect because the carpet, bed, and all of the bedcovers have burn holes in them. So, we feel that if you want to be able to smoke, you should be awake enough to not burn the house down around you. The idea being that if you have to walk 15 feet into the living room, hopefully you will be awake enough to not burn anything. This has not always been effective, but we have much fewer burns on the couch than we do in the bedroom.

So, what do you do when someone just flat out refuses to follow the rules?

We got Mom moved on Saturday, by the time we got everything unloaded and got back to the house, it was around 9:30, and everyone was worn out. We all headed straight to bed. Sunday was pretty lazy, I had a whole lot of studying to do - I have a test today (Monday) and I hadn't finished reading one of the chapters yet, much less even started the homework, so I had a lot of catchup to do. At one point, I went into Mom's room to see how she was doing, and while I sat there she lit up a cigarette. I reminded her that there was no smoking in the bedrooms, and her response was that I was sitting right there so could watch her. So I explained (again) to her that we only have the 2 rules and that we expected her to respect us enough to follow them.

So we agreed that she would not smoke in her room. At least I thought we did. When I got up this morning, I had to go in her room, cuz we haven't moved all of our clothes out of there yet. Guess what I smelled as soon as I opened the door? Just guess. Yep, cigarettes.

So, what do I do? I don't want a big on-going battle about rules, but I refuse to allow her to smoke in the bedroom. How do I stop her though? Chris and I are both at work all day, and so have no control over her actions. Obviously, she's not going to control herself (I don't think either her or Dad have any concept of the meaning of the words Respect, Control, Responsibility - I think they did at one time, but they sure as hell don't now.)

Dennis suggested that I tell her that if she won't follow the rules, we tell her she has to move back to the Tulsa house. Unfortunately, I can see her doing just that, and I'm not moving her again.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with a parent who acts like a child? I don't have kids, so I just don't know what to do.