Week of single-mommying ended with an awesome girl's night!

Yup - I was a single mom yet again last week, thanks to J going down to sunny Florida for a week of training. But it ended up being a good week. And B behaved most of the time or at least whenever mommy started growling at him when he was up to no good. So the next time your child gets unruly, making really freaky animal sounds is guaranteed to get their attention!

But J came back home right in time for me to take off the following evening for a fun-filled girls night with the FunnyGals KAT and SJ along with another one of my and SJ's childhood classmates K. The night started with a nice dinner at J-Tim's - yummy buffalo wings and nachos and calamari that was spiked with fried jalapeno pepper rings... not sure about those, but the calamari was good! Following dinner we determined that it was far too early to arrive at the night's hot spot, so we invaded the boy's poker game going on at KAT's house for a few rounds of Dance, Dance Revolution. KAT was by far the best dancer among the 4 of us, but watching each other hop around like crazy (while getting booed - the nerve of that game!) was just hilarious! But then we got a real dance lesson - KAT very patiently taught the rest of us a few country line dancing moves in preparation for fun to be had at the Caddy Ranch which was our next stop. I can honestly say I felt fairly comfortable with the steps by the time we left her house, but by the time the song came on at the Ranch, I only remembered half of what I had learned! Maybe I should blame the rum and coke I had when we first arrived. Or the free shot of Jameson... Anyway, once we were out there and dancing, the steps came back to me and by the time the song was over, I was wishing it hadn't ended! I had finally gotten a handle on all the moves! And of course the night wouldn't be complete without some crazy stuff going on - like some guy trying to pick me up! All I can say is thank god we left when we did - right at the start of a slow song with that guy walking back in my direction! And honestly, who goes to a country line dancing club wearing sneakers anyway?!?!?

Another month - another post?

So we're now into March...in like a lion and out like a lamb, right? I sure hope so. Lots of stuff has been going on with us lately - I'll have to elaborate more about that in another post. As for my friend with her twin boys - they are both fighting like champs right now. Both of them have been transferred to another hospital which is connected to a children's hospital with surgeons, specialists, etc. So they are both receiving top-notch care right now, which they need desperately! The bigger one had issues with his small intestine that required the removal of at least 80% of it. So they have some challenges ahead of them in the feeding area and making sure that he can digest food. They would like to put him on a transplant list at some point, but they can't do that until he is at least 2 years old. The smaller one is fighting right along and will soon be undergoing surgery to connect his esophagus to his stomach. So there will be a bit of a battle for him to fight soon too. All in all, the parents have remained very optimistic and are leaning heavily on their faith to get them through all this. Last weekend I dropped off some food and her baby shower gifts since I won't be able to attend her shower in person. And next week will be the last week of her 6-week maternity leave, so she'll be returning to work the week after that. That will make visiting the babies very tough I'm sure.

On to home improvements... The dining room wall has been patched and sanded and is ready for painting, but last weekend we re-painted the ceiling in the kitchen and the dining room and going up the stairs. And since the idiots who built our house didn't bother priming the sheetrock on the ceiling prior to spraying the ceiling, we had to use this nasty oil-based paint to seal the existing junk to the ceiling. I forgot how bad oil-based paint stinks! But now we have a nice flat white ceiling that looks really nice and we can move ahead with the wall painting. Actually we won't be doing the walls right away. My plan there is to install a chair rail that will run the length of the wall and turn to follow the wall up the stairs. And there are several funky angles there so we'll definitely need my dad's help to cut the chair rail correctly. Once we know where on the wall the chair rail will be fastened, we'll start painting. Above the chair rail will be a nice dark red and below will be an almond/cream color. Should look nice once it's all done.

In other news - my mom was in the hospital last week for shortness of breath. Thankfully she was only there for a week, but they had to drain quite a bit of fluid from around her lungs so that she could breath easier. The doctors seem to think that a virus could have caused her system to weaken which would explain the fluid levels since her heart is weak enough as it is. She's home now and the oxygen machine is back so hopefully she will get stronger in the next few weeks.

Update on the twins... and home renovations...

The good news is my friend's preemie twins celebrated their 2 week birthdays this past Saturday. The bad news is that they still have a long way to go. I am starting to lose track of all the surgeries, procedures and issues that they have been dealing with lately (nevermind which one has had which surgery and such) but I can sum it up by saying when one appears to be doing good, the other starts to go downhill and vice versa. So far they have had to deal with bleeding the brain, surgery to disconnect a windpipe and connect the esophagus to the stomach, heart murmurs, a hole (maybe 2) in the small intestine (possibly caused by the medication for the heart murmur) and now possibly a staph infection. Those last 3 are in reference to Isaac's condition from yesterday after talking to my friend. We originally had dinner plans with them for Sunday evening, but we ended up cancelling due to impending surgery for Isaac to see why things started going downhill yesterday afternoon. But it turned out that they didn't put him through surgery after all. Poor thing is getting pumped with 6 different antiobiotics to try to clear that infection. Despite all that, they are trying to stay positive but I can tell they are getting worn down and they just sound exhausted. I just wish things would level out so they didn't have to ride this crazy roller coaster everyday.

In other news, I have started doing some work in the house over the past few days. I spent this past weekend removing the wallpaper from the dining room as well as the wall that followed up the stairs. Boy what a mess that was. Thank goodness I rented a steamer, otherwise that stuff was never going to come off. Next I need to do some prep work, but before I start painting the wall, I'll be painting the ceiling in the kitchen and the dining room. So I've got lots of work ahead. Stay tuned!

Here are some "before" shots of the walls. Notice the lovely "pizza hut tablecloth" wallpaper! Also notice my trusty little sidekick observing from the dining room table.



And the "after" shots...Going...

...Going...


...GONE!

Prayers and hopeful thoughts urgently needed!

This past Saturday I received a very startling phone call from a close friend and co-worker. This is the co-worker who is pregnant with twins. Well I should say was pregnant with twins, as the reason behind her phone call was to let me know that she is now a Mom! But right now she needs support and many, many prayers, because her two little boys (Isaac and Christopher) were born at 25 weeks. Isaac weighed in at 2lbs, 1 oz and Christopher weighed in at 1lb, 10oz. I visited them at the hospital on Sunday and couldn't believe how tiny they were! They made my own 4.5lb preemie look like a giant! Only a few days old but they are already having to fight a battle for each day. Christopher has already had surgery and Isaac (the bigger of the two) had been doing well, but ended up having bleeding in his brain yesterday.

Both my co-worker and her husband are very active in their faith and several of their friends have put together a prayer blog for them: Campbell Babies' Prayer Blog

These 2 little boys need all the prayers they can get!!

The end of January is nigh...

It's been almost a month since my last post so I should probably update this before it gets too old and I lose all my readers (not sure how many there are anyway, but I don't want to lose the few I have!) Not too much has been going on though. Both J and B have been battling either a cold or the flu lately and I'm doing my best not to catch what they have. I think everyone is starting to get cabin fever though. I would love to air out the house, but that's not happening anytime soon with this chilly weather. And B would love to play outside, but that doesn't really help his cold. And even J is getting antsy to be rid of this cold weather.

On a brighter note, I have been working out somewhat regularly (my goal is 3-4 times a week) on my trusty elliptical machine. I think it's working out well - so far I have managed to lose the weight I gained over the holidays. And I was able to add a little weight-lifting to the routine on Saturday as I helped one of my friends move into a new apartment. It went really quickly - they had a lot of friends over to help. In total they had one moving truck and 7 cars/trucks packed
with stuff. Their new place is really cute. It definitely has that cozy cottage feel to it and so far they love it. And the location is perfect - one of America's top 10 best small towns! They're really close to us now - which is great!

On to 2008...

While 2007 ended on a sad note, we are doing our best to move ahead to make 2008 a good year. Last year was filled with many changes and a few firsts for B - new job for me (a new car too!), B starting nursery school preceded by his first summer camp at that school, his first flight, his first trip to Disney, his first realization that Santa really does exist...the list goes on. And while I am not good at keeping New Year's resolutions, I do hope to keep one and that is to blog much more. Especially when it's one of the main methods of communicating with a childhood friend who lives 5 minutes away from me - yes that's you SJ!!

And I guess it wouldn't hurt to through in - exercise more, eat healthier, and spend more time with the family. I'm bound to get a few of those in during the next 362 days, right?

Happy New Year everyone!

Christmas 2007 - the Good, the Bad and the Heartbreaking

Ok - I know I haven't posted in a while but I have a very good reason. I'll get to that in a bit. First, let's start out with what happened the Friday before Christmas. I picked up my cousin from the airport right after work and that was the start of a very fun weekend. That night we saw the lights up at Forest Park and had dinner and drinks down in Hartford. The next day we went down to New York City and let me tell you - the Saturday before Christmas is NOT a good day to visit Rockefeller Center. I swear half of Manhattan was present in that one city block. But at least it wasn't freezing cold, which would have made it twice as unpleasant instead of just bumping into a million people to get a good shot of that huge tree. We also spent quite a bit of time in Times Square, stopped at an Irish pub for a few beers, headed to the Charmin holiday bathrooms after that (Free toilets in Times Square! You can't beat that!) visited Madame Tussaud's wax museum and had a great dinner at the Heartland Brewery. All in all it was a great trip. Sunday we spent most of the time closer to home and preparing a bit for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, the good cheer ended on Christmas Eve. First a little background...

The week earlier, J's grandfather had gone into the hospital mostly for shortness of breath. They discovered that he had a few blood clots in his lungs as well as fluid around his lungs (he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure a while back) that were making it hard for him to breathe. They gave him medicine to break up the blood clots, but that in turn negatively affected his kidneys. Fortunately, the medicine to remove the fluid from around his lungs appeared to be working rather well. By the end of the week, he was doing pretty well and we were anxious to know whether or not he'd be discharged from the hospital in time to celebrate Christmas with us. Unfortunately, that all took a bad turn on Christmas Eve. His body stopped reacting to the medications. The fluid came back around his lungs and the doctors began talking to the family about hospice care and prepared us for the worst. They pretty much gave him 24-48 hours to live.

The dreaded phone call came at 5:15 am on Christmas morning that he had passed away around 5 am. So Christmas this year was a very somber one for J's family. Despite the fact that his grandfather's health had been declining over the past few months, none of us was prepared to see him go that quickly not to mention on Christmas day. The family had a small private service for him a few days after Christmas and now we are in the process of healing and trying to move forward. And everyone is doing their best to stay strong for J's grandmother, who has not been taking things very well at all.

I think you'll remember my post a while back about Christmas-giving... Well I honestly believe that something was telling me to break out the holiday cheer a little early this year. Thankfully we had the whole family together for Thanksgiving and I'll never forget grandpa's face when he went into the living room after dinner and saw the tree. I'm so glad he got to see it one last time.

Here's a great picture of B w/his great-grandfather C. A. Rowley 1918-2007.