Chris' Favorite Shirt

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Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Chris got this t-shirt before we ever met. It's his favorite t-shirt, and he wore it at least once a week until shortly after we moved into the house we're in now. At that point, the shirt disappeared, and search where we would, the shirt was nowhere to be found.

Chris accused me of getting rid of it, his buddies of stealing it because it was their favorite shirt, and even my sister of "accidentally" packing it up when she stayed with us for a few days before moving to Washington.

Last Friday, the shirt magically reappeared. Does anyone want to guess where it was THE ENTIRE THREE YEARS IT WAS MISSING? Go ahead, guess. That's right, hanging in his closet, right where it should have been.

Actually, it WAS found in my closet, but I have a perfectly rational explaination for that. See, we have small closets, so all of my clothes hang in the master bedroom closet (cuz I have more of them), and his clothes were hanging in the spare room closet. Then, when Mom stayed with us last May, right at wedding time, and I thought she was going to be staying permanently, I moved all of his clothes into my closet. And then they never got moved back.

Still, found hanging in the closet, right where it was supposed to be!

Healthy again?

For the last year or so, I’ve had a periodic malaise that I’ve been unable to describe to my doctor. It’s in the muscles of my upper chest and back, and in my arms. They are tingly and numb all at the same time and I’ll have some nausea and heart palpitations. Sometimes if I eat it helps, sometimes not. I never could trace it to anyone one thing – I thought it was heartburn for a while, then I wasn’t taking my blood pressure medicine exactly every 8 hours, and I don’t even remember what all else I thought it might be. But it was frustrating and a little scary.

Sometimes, I’d have it for several days in a row. Then I might go for a couple weeks without an episode. Then I might get it for 1 day only. No rhyme or reason to it at all.

So I was telling Mom about them telling me I had low potassium when I went for my surgery, and she said that water pills will do that to you, flush the potassium out of your system. When we decided we wanted to get pregnant, I went to the doctor and had them change my blood pressure medication to something that would be safe for me to take while I was pregnant. Turns out good that I did, because it took about a year to get the dosage correct and my blood pressure stabilized. But the blood pressure medicine that she put me on causes me to retain water – especially around my period (usually the week after rather than the week before). So she put me on a second medication that I take only as needed, that works as a water pill and helps to keep my blood pressure normal when I’m retaining water (the water makes your heart work harder).

When I talked to the anesthesiologist right before the surgery, he asked me about the water pill I take, and after I explained went “Oh, okay.” like that explained everything. But he didn’t tell me that caused the low potassium or anything. Of course, about 30 seconds later I was out cold, but still….

So this morning, I finally get around to looking up low potassium, and guess what the symptoms are? Just guess. You’ve got it. All the ones I listed above, plus a few more that I don’t have, but that’s enough for me. So I’ve put a call into my doctor’s office to talk to her about it. They do make water pills for this specific issue, that won’t flush the potassium out of your system. I’m hoping she’ll just switch me to that, but I’m sure I’ll have to go in, give some more blood, go back, and then switch.

I’m just excited that I (think) I’ve finally figured out what’s wrong with me. It’s terrible to know that something’s wrong, but not be able to describe it. “I’m tingly and numb all at the same time” just doesn’t sound right, ya know?

Speaking of getting pregnant, the surgery doctor told me that the (probable) reason my HPV hasn’t gone away on its own, like so many peoples do, is that Chris and I keep re-infecting each other. So he told me that for 6 months after we’re able to have sex again, we should use a condom every time. Then for the next six months, we should continue to use a condom except on my fertile days. The main point here is that in 6 months (from July 25th hopefully), we can start seriously trying to get pregnant!!!J We’ve been waiting so long to get everything ready – blood pressure under control and this mild dysplasia thing taken care of, and I was truly afraid that it would take too long, and I would be too old to have any kids. I’ll be 36 before we can start trying, but that’s still young enough. Everyone cross your fingers that this all works.

Chin Hairs Suck

Okay, admit it. We've all got them. Don't we? Please tell me that I'm not the only one. Please.

It started out so innocently. A casual glance in the mirror and then "What the hell is that?" It's a really long hair coming out of my chin. Just one to begin with, but over the years, a few more have popped up, until now I've got several. Hell no, I'm not going to count them. Besides, they come up at different times, and I don't really want to know if I have 10 of them.

So the question now is, "Is it time to start waxing, or should I just keep plucking?" Of course I go to the internet for answers and find.......NEITHER ONE. Turns out, you're not supposed to pluck or wax chin hairs. Everything I looked at said do the laser hair removal - and spend a bazillion dollars doing it.

So, how do you guys handle your chin hairs? (At least have the decency to lie to me and tell me you have them too).

Freaky People

I was reading some blogs at lunch today, and there are some truly scary people out there. What's really sad is that the ones I'm talking about are self-proclaimed Christians! I truly can't decide if they are serious or not. I think they are, and then I read a little more and think "No Way". And then I wonder.

I don't know where I originally got this link, I ended up bookmarking it and was reading it again today. Then I got to reading a few other posts, and I'm sitting here thinking that I don't ever want to be a part of their religion.

I'm not a big fan of organized religion. I've never believed that there is only ONE true path to God, and that anyone who didn't believe EXACTLY how I believe was going to go straight to hell. No two people share the exact same belief system, so of the billions of beliefs out there, I find it hard to imagine that any one person has it exactly right, therefore everyone else is wrong. Most organized religions are in essence the same. God may be called by a different name, there may be some dispute about the interpretation of a particular line of gospel, whatever.

So I'm sitting here reading the post that I linked to above, and I can't remember reading anywhere in my bible (the one that was written by men, has been translated how many different times, and edited for content) that says that if I use frozen orange juice in the morning I'm a whore.

What would they say if they knew that currently, I work, my husband doesn't. I go to school, my husband cooks dinner?

And, (gasp) I enjoy sex!

PS - Be sure and read the comments on that post - hilarious.

He's Coming Home

Or at least to the nursing home! After several phone calls between me, Mom, the hospital, and the nursing home he finally gets to get out of the hospital! So far, his plans are to chain smoke 4 or 5 packs of cigarettes - gotta make up for lost time, those lungs are much too clean at this point!

He was actually out of danger on Wednesday of last week, but he ended up with this toxin known as c diff. It's a common something - not sure if virus, bacteria, toxin, what - that people get after being on antibiotics for an extended period of time, and it causes diarrhea. It's highly contagious, and the nursing home couldn't take him back while he had it (it runs (HA) thru nursing homes like crazy). At this point, I don't know if he had it to begin with and that's what caused all the problems, or if he developed it in the hospital or what. I don't even care anymore, he's over it, and he gets to go back home.

The hospital called Mom this morning and told her that they were releasing Dad but that the nursing home wouldn't take him. WHAT? And what are we supposed to do with him? Then the nursing home said that they couldn't take him back until he'd been on this one antibiotic (to get rid of the c diff) for 14 days, but that the hospital had to keep him. It went back and forth for a while, but it finally got all worked out. Thank God.

My surgery

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Originally uploaded by bookworm91770.

Mom convinced me to go ahead and have my surgery done on Tuesday. Dad had stabilized, and I was scheduled to be there at 10:30. Even assuming they didn’t start the surgery until 12:00, I should have been out of there by 1:00, and back at the hospital by 3:00. 4:00 at the latest.

We arrived, and they took me back and took a little more history, then started my IV. They let Chris come back and sit with me. After a little while, the doctor came by and told us they had booked 2 rooms, but only got 1, so they were running a little behind and it would be another hour or so. So we waited. And waited. And waited. We never saw anyone, no one told us what was going on, we just waited. About 2:00, the anesthesiologist assistant came by to ask some more questions, and told us that my potassium was too low, so they were going to draw some more blood to test it again, and that if it was still low, they might not even do the surgery.

We had a couple of problems with that. Mostly: They couldn’t tell us that when we got there this morning and had us do the blood work then, and if it was too low reschedule me for a later date? And, THEY COULDN’T TELL US THAT 3 ½ HOURS AGO?

While he’s telling me this, the lab lady shows up to draw the blood. I don’t like needles, so I always turn my head while they are sticking me. I have one good vein for getting blood from, but it’s in my right arm, and that’s where the IV was, so she couldn’t draw blood from that arm. I have no idea which is a good vein in my left arm, I just assumed that she would find one. Next thing I know, it feels like she’s stuck a spike in my arm, so I turn to look and she’s not getting any blood out of it. So she pulls it halfway out and repositions it. She did that three times, each time hurt a little worse, then on the fourth time I about came out of the chair. “Oh my God, what are you doing to me?” It felt like she had ripped my vein in half – a very sharp pain. Chris came out of his chair and said something to her and I was crying so she pulled the needle out of my arm and bandaged it up. She disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with one of those little butterfly needles, poked my hand and that easily got the blood she needed.

Poor Chris, I cried for the next hour. It wasn’t my arm so much, though it did (and still does) hurt. I guess with Dad, and the stress of the surgery, and waiting all day, once I started crying I just couldn’t stop. I told Chris I was ready to go home. Forget the surgery, we’ll come up with the money somehow, I just wanted to be home. Right about then, the doctor came by and said they were prepping the OR for me.

From there on it was smooth sailing. I went into the OR, talked to the anesthesiologist for a minute, and the next thing I know I’m in recovery and they are handing me a glass of ice water. Heaven is…a glass of ice water after almost 16 hours of nothing except for an IV. They got me dressed, handed me some drugs and wheeled me out to the truck, where the very first thing Chris handed me was a lit cigarette! I love that man.

I didn’t, and haven’t had any pain. There’s been no bleeding. Chris has been over-protective, when we got to the hospital to see Dad, he made me wait until he got a wheelchair and he wheeled me around. He won’t let me do anything, every time I get up he gets onto me and goes to get whatever I was after. Apparently they put a tube down my throat, that and my arm has hurt worse than anything else. They gave me Tylenol 3, which I’ve taken a few of today for my throat. I’ve actually got a nice little buzz going on right now, vision is just a little blurred, feeling pretty good.

The above was written last night, but posted today. I'm not going to go thru and update all of the days, so there.

I’m back at work today. I missed class this week, and I had a test last night that I’m going to have to make up before class on Monday. We’re meeting with the nursing home tomorrow to discuss things. We have a list of questions to ask them, and we have to make sure that what went wrong this time isn’t going to happen again. We’ve all agreed that the nursing home has taken good care of him up to now and they know him and his quirks, and that if possible, it’s in Dad’s best interest to keep him in familiar surroundings.

Dad

Well, it’s been a hell of a week in the Rado/Martin family. Let’s start with Dad.

Dad’s had diarrhea since Monday or Tuesday of last week. He’d just gotten over a bladder or urinary tract infection, and every time he takes antibiotics, he goes thru a bout of diarrhea, so we didn’t really think too much about it. Then on Thursday, he told me that he hadn’t been eating very much, and what he was eating was soup, and that he was drinking a lot of pop. So I told him that No, he needed to be eating real food and drinking lots of water, and any juice they’ll let him have. (He’s diabetic, so he can’t drink orange juice, but I wasn’t sure about apple, grape, cranberry). I’ve tried to explain to him before that pop actually dehydrates you, I think he just doesn’t believe me.

Anyway, Saturday we had to go to Ada for more blood work, and on the way, we stopped in to see Dad and drop off some supplies. It was about 9:00 when we got there, and Dad was laying down in bed – which didn’t worry me because he’s supposed to lay down for at least an hour after every meal to help prevent him from getting pressure sores, or at least keep them from getting too bad. Then on Sunday evening, Mom and I went to go visit him. We were actually supposed to go earlier in the day, but I’d fallen asleep and taken one of my patented four hour naps. When we got there, Dad was in bed asleep. It was only 7:00, but he’s been sick, so again I didn’t really worry too much about it.

Then on Monday, right after lunch, I got a call from the nursing home. One of the residents (thanks Cheryl), had gone to get one of the nurses because Dad had come outside and was slumped over so far that he was about to fall out of his electric cart, and he was not making any sense. So the nurse came to check on him, and decided that he might have pneumonia. She contacted his doctor and he agreed that Dad needed to be sent to the hospital. They asked me which hospital I wanted him sent to, and I told them to take him to one right by where I work. (There’s a local hospital that’s closer, but I’ve heard not good things (not bad, just not good) about their emergency room – and it’s also the place that told Mom after her wreck that she was fine and then called 2 days later and said Oh, by the way, you have a broken rib. Not bad, but not good either.)

So I get to the hospital and ask if Dad has arrived yet. Nope. Okay, so I sit for about 10 minutes in the waiting room and go check again. They quit accepting ambulances 10 minutes before I arrived, and he was diverted to another hospital. Thanks for telling me that when I arrived. Turned out the nursing home, Chris, and my boss had tried to call and tell me, but I had turned off my cell phone since you’re not supposed to use them in the ER. So I went to the other hospital and when I got there, there was a doctor and 3 nurses in working on Dad. They said that they had him on an external pacemaker and his kidneys were failing. They were drawing blood for all kinds of test, the external pacemaker wasn’t working very well, so they started him on dopamine??? to speed up his heart. And they asked me what kind of extreme measures I wanted them to take if it came to that.

Do you all realize how many times Dad’s been the hospital after having an infection, for exactly the symptoms I listed above? Get an infection, take antibiotics, get diarrhea, get dehydrated, get weak, go to the hospital for fluids, and then normally into a rehab hospital for physical therapy. I walked into that hospital thinking he could have picked a better time to get sick than the day before my surgery, and they tell me that he sick enough that he could die. And I know that that doesn’t make me a terrible daughter, or mean that I love him any less, but it makes me feel like less.

I called Chris and Mom and told them to get there as quickly as they could. This hospital is wonderful, and is now my hospital of choice. I went back into the ER room after calling Chris, and they let me stay in there while they worked on him. The nurse stayed in the room with him almost the entire time, and was never more than 5 steps away from his room. 4 or 5 hours people. They took really good care of him.

Turned out that his potassium levels were too high. He takes a daily potassium supplement, and I’m not sure which order this happened in, but because of the dehydration either the kidneys shut down and weren’t processing the potassium, or the kidneys weren’t processing the potassium which then shut down the kidneys. Same difference either way. So they decided to do dialysis to clean the potassium out of his blood. They told us he was “fragile”.

Here's about the only information I found about High Potassium

Hopefully, the dialysis would clean all the potassium out of his blood and that would free up his heart and kidneys. Or it wouldn’t help. Or anything in between.

Mom had decided to spend the night up there, and she wanted me to go ahead and do my surgery on Tuesday (she’s been really worried about that, I can’t convince her that it’s not cancer, and it doesn’t mean I’m going to get cancer). I had told her we’d wait and see how Dad was doing after the dialysis. So we went home to get stuff for spending the night and called Lesley to see if she wanted to fly down yet. Poor Lesley – to be that far away. We finally decided to wait and see how he did overnight. If we lost him, she wouldn’t be here in time anyway, and if the dialysis worked, she wouldn’t need to come at all. Other than that, there would be time to get here. They got everything set up (short of the plane tickets of course) and can leave as soon as needed.

We got back to the hospital at 11:00 Monday night and he was stable. They had the temporary pacemaker off of him, but had left him on the ventilator. They had had to put him on a ventilator earlier because he stopped breathing when they put the dialysis catheter in him, so they vented him, then they no sooner got the ventilator hooked up and he started breathing on his own. They left the ventilator on him just in case. He was awake and very agitated. They had had to restrain his hand because he was trying to pull out the dialysis catheter, and he had the ventilator tube down his throat so he couldn’t talk. He wasn’t really aware, he didn’t know that Mom and I were in the room. The nurse ended up having to sedate him because he was fighting her so hard, and they had to keep him sedated part of Tuesday as well.

So I went on home and decided to go ahead and do my surgery and Mom spent the night up there. I called and checked on him early Tuesday morning and he was still stable and made it thru the night okay.

We called again while waiting for my surgery, and they have him in isolation because he has this virus or bacteria that I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s common after taking a lot of antibiotics. I’m not sure whether this is what caused the problem to begin with or if he got it from the antibiotics they gave him at the hospital. Still stable, still sedated.

After my surgery (I’ll write about it later), we went straight to the hospital. We got there just about 7:00, and the only times during the day you can’t visit is from 6:30 to 7:30, so we had to wait before we could go in and see him. He was sleeping, they had just finished a breathing treatment and he had slept through that, so I just talked to him for a few minutes and then we all headed home.

I called to check on him this morning and he had a rough night. He kept calling for us and didn’t understand why he was in the hospital, and was worried about where he was going to go when he got out. They tried to call the house once, but I never heard it ring. He’s sleeping now, so I told the nurse we’d be up there soon. Mom and Chris are both still asleep, I’ve got to go wake them up and get us moving.

The nursing home…They have called to check on him, and someone from there went to see him last night. We’re going to have a meeting with the director and the head nurse, and we’re going to find out how no one up there figured out there was something wrong with him. They fucked up, and they fucked up bad. One more day and he’d have died. But right now I’m feeling pretty guilty myself. Why didn’t I see that something was wrong with him? Well, I did see, but I was busy, and had my own shit going on, and I knew he did have diarrhea, and I just didn’t worry too much about it. Same old shit, different day.

The nursing home has taken good care of him for over a year now. In the last few years, Dad has gone into the hospital at least 3 times a year, every year. Since we put him in the nursing home last May, he’s been so much healthier. He hasn’t fallen and he gets his physical therapy. They aren’t perfect, and there’s been a few minor wrinkles, but I’ve always been confident that they were taking care of him. And now they’ve fucked up bad. My first, gut reaction is to move him somewhere else, but that is so hard on him. When we first put him in the home, it messed him up for over a month. For three weeks, he would call me in the middle of the night wanting to know where he was, where I was, what was going on. When they moved him to a different room, we went thru the same thing for about a week. And then trying to find another good nursing home, that will take good care of him. With him asking about where he’s going when he gets out of the hospital, where does he want to go? Of course, I know the answer to that, he wants to come home, but we just can’t do that. We are not capable of giving him the care he needs.

No big deal

I finally found out what was going on with the blood work. My DAT (data antibody test) came back positive, so they wanted more blood to verify and determine what was causing it.

That didn't mean squat to me, so I called a lady I know that is the supervisor of the lab at a local hospital. She said that it just means that there are antibodies attached to the outside of my red blood cells, and that it is probably left by one of my medications. No big deal at all. Well, except for having to drive a total of 4 hours so that they could take a tube of blood.

Big relief.

It couldn't be that easy, could it?

I just got a call from the nurse, after getting my blood work back, they want to run additional tests before the surgery on Tuesday. Couldn't tell me exactly what or why (it was the nurse). Great.

Ada

We went to Ada yesterday for my preop appointment. I always hated walking into the Indian Hospital (sorry, Native American) in Tahlequah, because there is no way I look Indian, and everyone in Tahlequah does. I always felt like taping my card to my forehead to prove I had the right to be there too.

Ada was different. It's the Chickasaw Nation rather than the Cherokee Nation, but that really didn't have anything to do with it. There were just a lot more people like me - not 100% Native American.

I do feel alot better about using the facility than I did before I went. Mom and Dad are pretty prejudiced about using the Indian centers - I'm not sure why - and I guess a little of the prejudice had worn off on me. Anyway, it's nice, fairly new, modern - and everyone is so very friendly and helpful. We walked in the wrong doors and this lady walked us all the way over to the registration desk. No one had told me to bring my social security card - no big deal, bring it next time. Do I have any questions or need any help with filling out the paperwork? What can they do to make my experience there as pleasant as possible.

The thing I remember most about Tahlequah was the get there very first thing in the morning and wait - we'll get to you when we get to you, and if we don't get to you today, you'll just have to come back tomorrow. My appointment was at 2:30, but we had to be there at 1:30 to get all of the paperwork done. By 2:00, I was in the doctor's office and he was going over the procedure and what I should expect. And reassuring me that this IS a minor procedure, could actually be done in the doctors office, and that while they have to tell me about the possible complications - specifically the possible weakened cervix which could cause complications in future pregnancy - they are not likely to be a problem. Which is what I've been reading online, but it doesn't hurt to have the reassurance again.

So then to the lab for 6 (count them - 6) tubes of blood (I've never had that much taken from me before. I asked them how much blood that really was - meaning a pint or what - and she told me it was about 20 mils - which told me absolutely nothing!), and off to the pharmacy for an antibiotic (to help prevent an infection after the surgery), and then back to admitting to get the surgery paperwork finished up. 3:30 and we were out of there.

And then of course the 2 hour drive home.

But, I'm feeling much better about the whole situation, and that's the important part.

I am working on some information to post on here about HPV, mild dysplasia, and cervical cancer. Having been talking to several different women about it all, I've found that most people really don't know what the difference is between mild dysplasia and cervical cancer - and ladies, I'm here to tell you that while they are related, and the mild dysplasia can be a precursor to cervical cancer THEY.ARE.NOT.THE.SAME.THING. And this is very important to know and understand, especially since 80% of all sexually active adults end up with HPV, which starts the whole cycle. 80% - men and women. Using our family for an example (ignoring the kids since they aren't (better not be) sexually active), out of the 25 adults, 20 of us should have HPV. That's something we should all know about.

So I'm still working on it, but plan on posting it over the weekend. I hope that you will all take the time to learn about something that will affect us all.

Parents

I just don’t know what to do about Mom. Now, all of a sudden, I’m not letting her eat anything??? It’s a joke at my house that you can’t bring anything food related home without Mom getting into it. Leftovers from going out to dinner? Gone. Frozen dinners meant to be taken to work for lunch? Gone. Leftover wedding cake from our anniversary trip? Gone. The woman eats constantly, and is always coming in and telling us she’s hungry, and that we don’t have anything to eat.

Granted, we don’t keep a lot of junk food in the house, because if we do, I eat the same way – eat it all until it’s gone, then bitch cuz we don’t have anything to munch on. So we generally only keep food that takes some preparation. At least then, I have to be hungry enough to cook.

In Mom’s case, all she wants to eat is: 1. ice cream 2. ice cream 3. ice cream, and then whatever she can open and eat directly from the box/bag/carton or throw in the microwave for 5 minutes.

So last night, Chris was cooking dinner (honey chicken fajitas – sounds weird but OH so good), and Mom came in and didn’t want to wait for dinner to be ready. I’ll grant her that we eat late. Chris always has been a late eater and no matter how hard I try, we do not eat dinner before 9:00 PM if he’s cooking. We’ve eaten as late as midnight before. So I understand, if you’re hungry at 7:00 and know that dinner’s not going to be ready before 9:00, you go find something to munch on in the meantime.

Except Mom starts getting into Chris’ leftover bbq ribs he was saving for lunch today. Not just 1 or 2 mind you, but a whole SLAB of ribs. So Chris asks her to please not get into them cuz he’s saving them for today. She doesn’t completely ignore him, she put ½ the slab back in the fridge, and puts the rest into the microwave.

The biggest problem I’ve had with Mom staying with me (and this goes all the way back to when she stayed with me last year) is that I don’t feel like she has any respect for me or my home. It doesn’t matter what it is, if I ask her to do something she won’t. If I ask her not to do something, it’s the very first thing she goes to do. Please don’t smoke in the house. If you go get the mail, please put it on the coffee table so I can be sure to get my part of it. Please don’t do my laundry, all of my work clothes are shrinkable.

She wants to rearrange my living room because she doesn’t like it – I had to threaten her with death to keep her from moving my furniture around.

So last night, when I heard Chris ask her not to get into his ribs and she did anyway, I got a little upset. Not over the ribs per se, but over the fact that she acts like we’re in her home inconveniencing her. So I tried to talk to her about it, and that’s when I got the we’re starving her to death speech and tears.

(Just for the record, I went and bought a weeks worth of frozen dinners for me to take to work, and some for Mom as well, so she’s have something easy – besides sandwiches which she flat refuses to eat – for lunches during the week. I bought them on a Friday, when I went to get some to take to work on Monday, they were ALL gone.)

The most frustrating thing about it is that you’ll be talking to her (calmly and without assigning any blame) and you think that she understands what you’re talking about and why you feel the way you do, and then she says or does something that proves that she wasn’t even listening to you in the first place.

It’s like talking to a 3 year old child, and trying to explain to them why they can’t play with fire, and they say OK, I won’t play with fire. And then they run right out and play with fire.

Oh yeah, and it’s my fault that she doesn’t have a car anymore.

Oklahoma Wind

You will periodically hear me complain about the constant wind that blows thru Oklahoma. What's that saying? "Oklahoma's so windy because Kansas sucks and Texas blows." It's very rare that there's not at least a gentle 10 mph breeze blowing here, and I've often wished I could sit outside for JUST 5 MINUTES without having to worry about my shit blowing away.

Then we went to Indie. It was the 2nd hottest race day ever - a whopping 89 degrees! And of course I scoffed, because hey, I'm from Oklahoma, and there's days it reaches 89 degrees by 8:00 in the morning. But guess what? That wind that I keep bitching about? They don't have it in Indiana, and 89 degrees and 100% humidity and no wind feels a whole lot hotter than in Oklahoma.

I just came back in from taking the mail out, and its about 94 degrees right now and not a whole lot of humidity, with that mild 10 mph breeze, and it's pretty damn nice outside. And then one of my smoke buddies tells me it's supposed to get to 101 on Saturday, and I thought it's not that warm out here, are we really ready for 100 degree weather? So I came in and checked the temp and realized just how lucky I am that I live in a state with a constant wind.

Miscellaneous

I haven't had time to post anything lately, so thought I'd just get a quick update out of the way....

Sandie's figured out how to post multiple pictures from Flickr, so as soon as I get time, I'm going to try it out and see how it works for me (since we all know that just because it works for Sandie, doesn't mean it'll work for me). Thanks Sandie!

Lesley hasn't been updating her blog lately, but she called me last Friday and said that she was taking Beamer to the emergency room for some blood work. He had a high fever (over 101) with no obvious reason for it, so the doctor wanted a complete blood workup. So I told her to call me as soon as she knew something.......still waiting. I did call her back and left her a message, so she called me back and left a message (on Sunday I think) that he still had a fever, but that it wasn't high enough to take him to the emergency room and that they were still waiting for the blood work to come back, but that they believe it's a viral infection. That's all I know at this point.

School started again, first class was last night. I'm taking a basic math class (and we have a math teacher in the family - for shame on me!). Last night we added, subtracted, and multiplied whole numbers. WooHoo. Actually, the reason I'm taking the class is for the fractions and on up - I really can do basic math, as long as you don't mind me using my fingers to count on. On of our homework questions was: "The decimal system uses ten digits. Fingers and toes are often referred to as digits. In your opinion, is there a relationship here? Explain." Well, duh, so people can count on their "digits".

I got my grades for the Spring semester - I have a 3.906 cumulative GPA, so it's slowly moving up. Can I ever get a 4.0 again after getting that 1 B? Don't know but probably not.

We totally missed Greg's wedding this weekend. Mom had said that she didn't feel up to going and then I just zoned it out. So congratulations Greg and Amber, sorry we didn't show up.

We did go the the Red Earth Festival on Saturday. I took a few pictures but haven't posted them on Flickr yet. It was pretty neat, but Chris was disappointed because they weren't wearing traditional costumes made from traditional materials. They were very colorful though.

I guess that's all that's going on around here. Lesley - let me know when you find out something, please.