The Phab lives of the Parker Phamily

My Baby Story...so far

2011-03-22T18:22:00.001-07:00

(ok... I just have to say that when I typed out the title, my finger slipped, and far turned into "fart". hehe)

Now, to the real post.

I realized that I had never really posted anything about my pregnancy up to this point. In the short time I was pregnant just over a year ago, I was all gung-ho about keeping everyone updated with every little detail. THis time has been different, because I've just been trying to keep myself calm, and stay relaxed so that I can at least enjoy this precious little life inside of me. :-)

So here's my story so far.

On January 8, my mom got that horrible horrible stomach virus that landed her in the ER that evening. If you know me at all, you know I'm horrified of vomiting. HORRIFIED. (Look it up, it's a real phobia - called Emetaphobia) When someone around me is sick, I completely freak out. Sooo... I was terrified I was going to catch this stupid bug, so I was bleach happy, and lysol happy. I mean, mom's really lucky that I didn't spray her down with lysol. I was on the internet researching how long this virus can stay alive on surfaces, and if you catch it, how long would it take to show up... and much more... I was freakin' paranoid!!

As that week progressed, I worried so much that I began to lose my appetite. I couldn't eat anything, and I actually would be nauseous some nights. Sometimes, I worry so much about it, that it does actually make me nauseous. That following Friday, John and I went with a Sunday School class from our church to Crossroads Bowling. We had supper, and then went to Ihop. I felt ok that night, but by the time we got to Ihop, I knew I wasn't hungry at all, so I played it safe, and ordered "air pudding." :-)

On the way home that night, I was super car sick, and thought I wasn't going to make it home. It was in the 20s outside, but I was rolling down windows, and turning the A/C up as far as it would go!! Poor John had icicles hanging from his ears.

Saturday night, we had a huge Shrimp cooking party, in honor of my dad's birthday weekend. I was able to eat a few, but not near as many as I normally would have!

By this time, I knew that something was going on. There was no way this was that silly virus, and while I still worried about it some, it wasn't the main thing on my mind at this point. I kept telling John I should take a test (even though I had already taken one way earlier in the month, and it was a BFN). That Sunday, I confided in Lauren and Shana that I was really suspecting, and that I was going to take a test soon, but wasn't going to get my hopes up.

Sooo.. That Sunday night, John and I "pretended" to go to WalMart to rent a RedBox, but we really went and bought the test.

Monday morning, January 17, I took a test... and it was a BFP!!! It wasn't like last time, where it was so faint that I had to look real hard to see it - it was blatantly there. Singing to me. :-) I calculated that at this point, I should have been 7 weeks along, so I was already farther along than last year. I was SO relieved to know I wasn't catching the stomach bug, but my loss of appetite, and random nausea was real, and not made up in my head!

We of course we told our parents, but after last year, we really didn't want to tell anyone, because retracting it was so crazy hard, and we just didn't want to go through it again. Well, of course, that didn't work, and we were telling everyone when I was 8 weeks or so. (I was still nervous about telling, but in this little town, there are no secrets!)

On January 31, I was at Happy Racket Band practice (a group I sing in from the church), and wasn't feeling all that great. When I stood up to leave and go home, I felt a huge gush, and I was just praying it wasn't blood. I called John on my way home to let him know, and that we needed to decide about going to the ER or not. I was so scared we were about to go through a loss all over again.

I got home, and it was a lot of blood, so I knew immediately we should go. We headed to Baptist Hospital, and they got me right in. Sparing the ER details, the results were:

We had an itsy bitsy teeny weeny little tiny baby that seemed to be doing just fine! I never got any true results as to what is was (though now I have my suspicions), but I didn't care. My HcG levels were good and strong, and the baby had a heartbeat of 147, so I was happy. :-) We did find out also that the baby was measuring 7 weeks instead of 9! It was a little disheartening to go back two weeks, and I thought they would never end, but they went by pretty fast!

I stayed home most of that week, and just tried to rest.

On February 6 (Super Bowl Sunday), John and I decided to just stay home. We grilled steaks, and had a great evening together. and then it happened again. great. I knew I felt the same as the weekend before - no cramps, no nothing... so I just sat down, and took it easy the rest of the night.

Since then, it's been pretty non-eventful. I've felt ok off and on, with super sensitive gag reflexes, and crazy fatigue. The fatigue was borderline miserable, because I HATE staying on the couch all the time. I want to be moving around, and be active! I have pushed through as much as I've been able to...

I had one Dr. appt so far, and to be blunt about it, I pretty much peed in a cup, and they told me I was pregnant. I was so disappointed. This office is so busy that even though I should have already been back by now, I still have another 2 weeks to wait. I will be a little over 16 weeks, so maybe... just maybe, we can find out what we're having! I can't wait! I want to be able to call our little monkey by his/her name! I have a sneaking suspicion it's a boy, but we'll see!

ok, I think I've rambled on long enough - I guess that tends to happen when you only blog once in a blue moon. :-)

I have other things I could tell, but I'll leave those for the next novel.

Here's what's happening with our Little Monkey this week - I'm 14 weeks, 3 days today:

Week 15

Your growing baby now measures about 4 inches long, crown to rump, and weighs in at about 2 1/2 ounces (about the size of an apple). She's busy moving amniotic fluid through her nose and upper respiratory tract, which helps the primitive air sacs in her lungs begin to develop. Her legs are growing longer than her arms now, and she can move all of her joints and limbs. Although her eyelids are still fused shut, she can sense light. If you shine a flashlight at your tummy, for instance, she's likely to move away from the beam. There's not much for your baby to taste at this point, but she is forming taste buds. Finally, if you have an ultrasound this week, you may be able to find out whether your baby's a boy or a girl! (Don't be too disappointed if it remains a mystery, though. Nailing down your baby's sex depends on the clarity of the picture and on your baby's position. He or she may be modestly curled up or turned in such a way as to "hide the goods.")

Target Exclusive Chicco Travel System in Vega Giveaway

2011-02-15T18:16:00.000-08:00

3 Kids and Us has partnered with Target Baby to offer one lucky mom or dad the chance to give their baby gear a Spring upgrade. New and exclusive to Target, the Chicco Vega Collection (features 3 popular products including the Chicco Cortina KeyFit Travel System, Lullaby Playard and Polly High Chair. Each piece covered in a woven jacquard fabric in gray with pops of bright orange, perfect for boys and girls.

Grand Prize
Chicco Cortina KeyFit Travel System in Vega, valued at $299.99

How to Enter
Visit 3 Kids and Us Mommy Review Blog before February 25, 2011 11:59am CST and leave a comment sharing your favorite feature of the travel system.

Welcome Home...

2010-09-13T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Blog! Long time, no write!

I think I have quite a blogworthy post finally. :-)

sooo... It's been a while, and a lot has changed since my last post. I'll try and keep it as simple and non-boring as I can.

On July 21, John quit his job with Knight Office Solutions, because he and the company just weren't compatible. He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do once he quit, but we knew that we couldn't afford for him to not work at all.

On July 26, I sent out an email to the staff at Oak Hills that basically said "Hey! John's not working, but if you'd like to help us out - John can detail your car for cheap!" Oh. My. Goodness. Within 20 minutes the rest of that week was totally booked! He extended a great price to the OHC staff, and word has just continued to spread. Here it is - now the middle of September, and he has been booked solid since! There have literally been 2 days (not counting sundays) that he hasn't scheduled a car. It's been unbelievable! At first we joked about him just continuing to do cars (it was making almost double the money he was making at Knight Office), and not looking for a job. He had a few dead-end interviews, so he just kept detailing cars....

Fast Forward to late August... John and I were having a random conversation and something came up about my grandfather's shop that he had in Buna. He used to do some car remodeling, and carpentry inside. I have lots of memories in there from when I was younger! Fun times...

Anyways - that interested John, so I told him I would just throw the idea out to my dad. My grandfather is now in the nursing home, so there's a pretty good chance he would never operate out of the shop again. :-(

I sent my dad a text message: "Do you have the keys to gpapa's shop?" , "Yes, why?"

I called him - told him our idea. He said that it was so strange - he had been thinking about that shop for the past month, and wondered what he could do with it - he didn't want to see it get run down and fall to pieces.

Soooo.... *insert a bunch of boring details here*. John and I visited the shop and Gpapa's little house right next to it on Labor Day weekend. Both buildings need a lot of work, and clean up - thanks to Hurricanes Rita and Ike, but when John walked in - he saw a blank canvas. Both places have such potential, and could really be fixed up nice.

When I moved to San Antonio on August 13 2005, i wanted out immediately. My main goal in life became "How am I gonna get out of this place?" Several times I've asked God to let me move home, and several times, God has said "NO!" There have been times I was angry, because there was so much going on, and I was so far away. I've missed weddings, funerals & significant events in the lives of many of my family, but God has kept me in San Antonio. I do find it a bit ironic that once I finally settled in, and accepted that I was going to be in San Antonio, and got all comfy cozy with my feet up, God was like "Welp, time to go, Melissa!" I questioned it and questioned it, and prayed for clarity, and God has given us that through several different events - both big and small.

San Antonio has brought me some of the most wonderful things in my life as well. I met and married the most wonderful husband! I got to feel what it was like to be pregnant, even if it was for a short time. I've grown some wonderful friendships. I've had some incredible singing opportunities... I mean, I've sang with Kim Hill, Melissa Lawson (Winner of Nashville Star), Michael Boggs (Of FFH), and Michael W. Smith!!! I mean - for a small town country girl - these things are HUGE! Not to mention I've worked with Max Lucado for 5 years.

There are things, however, that are in our lives for just a season, and over the past few weeks, God has revealed to us - San Antonio is one of those.

After much prayer and consideration - John and I will be leaving San Antonio, and heading to Buna to pursue building his business, Perfections Detail. We have no idea what we're doing - how to run a small business, remodel a house, and a shop... I have LOTS of researching to do between now and then. I know one thing for sure - QuickBooks!!

Our projected "leave San Antonio" date is - November 26-27. We will spend Thanksgiving with John's family, and then hopefully roll out a couple of days after that.

This has been a very tough decision, as I'm having a very hard time leaving Oak Hills. This is my family. They have seen me through some of my worst times, but they have also gotten to rejoice with me in celebrations as well!

I ask that you pray. Pray for John and I as we embark on this new journey. We really don't have any financial resources to take this project on, but i know that if God is telling us to do this - then He will provide those resources.

I will do my best to keep the blog updated with pictures and progress for my friends who will be far away!

until next post...

The future Perfections Detail & Parker House!

Under Construction

2010-06-29T18:03:00.000-07:00

ok - so today, i was for some reason inspired to redo my blog. Thanks, Sarah. :-)

Since mine has been very umm... bland lately, why don't you hop on over, and make a new friend like I did! Check out BioGirl's blog. She has an adorable little boy, and is just fun to read! :-)

Just be patient as I work on this. I'm really not experienced at all in redesigning, but we'll see how it goes! You'll see things come and go over the next few days, I'm sure.

He Gives and Takes Away

2010-03-25T05:21:00.000-07:00

God gives. God takes away.

I think as Christians, we become pretty familiar with how God gives and takes away in our lives. I can think of many times when He's done just that. My latest example? Our little baby. He gave us that baby. and He took it away. I'm ok with that, really, because He is God. Was I angry at God? yes. Was I completely devastated? yes. Did I question God? at first, yes. But no longer do I question Him.

There has been no news on the fertility front lately, because my body still hasn't "reset" yet.

John has been working as a cable technician with Time Warner Cable for a little over 2 years now. While it had its good times sprinkled in, it was so inundated with negative things, and the longer John was with them, the unhappier I saw him get. Never seemed to fail - he would be having a good day, and at his very last job, something would happen, and he would be two hours past when he should have been off. Or, he would actually get off on time, but would have to take teammates jobs, because they were running behind.. (Don't get me wrong, they had to do that for him, too..) The late nights were becoming more and more common, and yet when his paychecks would come, there would be 1-2 hours of overtime on them... HUH? you've GOT to be kidding me. They give these techs soooo many jobs a day, and expect them to get everything done within a short amount of time; they aren't able to eat lunch half the time, but you know what? Time Warner still docked an hour from their paychecks every day for lunch, whether they went or not. This year - came tax time. We were so excited! and then I sat down to file them, and realized something was horribly wrong. We owe $800!!!! Again - what the heck? John started doing research and realized they were not pulling the right amount of taxes out. One check - they had only pulled $5 in federal withholdings!! Before you ask - yes, we checked, and he was filing Married and Zero. I didn't make much more than him, but I had double the taxes withheld from my checks he did. He called corporate, and the lady was so ready to get him off the phone - she was like "Yep. Everything looks good over here!." She made up something along the lines of "Texas must have changed something, because we didn't." bleh. Texas, first of all, doesn't pay taxes, and second of all - BS!

Anyways - I could go on and on and on, but I won't.

John had a job. He had an income. We were ok financially, but could have been a lot better. John wasn't getting paid what he deserved for all the work he did, and it didn't look like things were going to get any better, despite all the promises made to him by different people...

Time Warner had excellent benefits, though. Remember this post? In case you don't, or you dont' have time to read - this is the post where I celebrated the fact that we found out John's insurance would completely cover our fertility treatments.

Let me tell you - there has been a lot of praying in the Parker house about this. We knew that if John left Time Warner, the wonderful benefits would go away, and the fact is - we cannot afford fertility treatments on our own. Those benefits are really the main reason John didn't look for another job sooner. We want more than anything to have a baby.

Yesterday, John resigned his position with Time Warner. He accepted a new position with a company called Knight Office Solutions. He is moving into sales, and if you know John personally - you know this will be perfect for him. His personality just says it all! He will be making more money, and for the first time since we've met (and for the first time since he can last remember) he will be working Monday - Friday! Normal Business Hours! No more working holidays!

So God is giving John this great opportunity, but He is taking away the means for us to get the fertility treatments we have been so excited about.

I'm ok with this, though. John is who I have right now, and nothing broke my heart more than to hear of his bad days every single day. I couldn't stand to see him so unhappy. My main concern became John's happiness, and success in his career. This job caused a lot of stress, and has made some life living very difficult for us. John is the most important person in my life right now, so I'm willing to give up something I have wanted for years now because he means just that much to me.

Once again, I'm at peace.

I totally hate the cliche statements -

"It's all in God's time."

"God's gonna give you a baby when He thinks you're ready."

"God just has other plans for you." yadda yadda yadda...

While these are some of the least comforting statements, I believe they are true. I believe that even though it seems as if God's closing the fertility treatment door, this may be His way of telling us that we don't need the fertility treatments anyway. I got pregnant once, and maybe that's why we went through the first one, just so He could show us that it IS possible for us to get pregnant.

God is moving in our lives right now in more ways than I can even tell right now! I'm nervous and excited and all sorts of things right now - strapped in and ready to go along for the ride.

Thank you for your continued prayers for us. This will be a bit of a rough transition for a few weeks, but we're up for it! John starts his new job on Monday!

Here we go God!

Officially Over

2010-02-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

The fatigue is gone. The soreness is 95% gone. The physical pain is gone. The baby is gone.

The one thing that is not gone, however is my love for our baby. More love than I thought possible in such a short time.

I was in such pain Saturday, I finally lost any little bit of hope I had that our baby would survive, and would be born big and healthy in October. I couldn't move. I was confined to the floor. My breasts ached worse than I had ever felt, and I couldn't turn over, move, or anything without wanting to scream. On top of the pain I was already feeling. I found myself yelling at God. Begging Him to take the baby if that's what His plan was. To please not drag this out (me, on the internet again had read stories of people who waited WEEKS to miscarry a baby - I could not imagine...) and let us have false hope. The pain subsided temporarily. Until about 3 AM Sunday. It was agony. I seriously felt like I was in labor. I'd have major sharp pains, and then they would die down, and I would doze off. Then they'd come right back, and we repeated this process. I tried to wake John up, but couldn't. I managed to get up and get my phone, some headphones, and a cold rag. I put Pandora on my Fernando Ortega station, and tried to relax.

Of course all that did was make me cry. and then bawl, and then blubber... This woke John up. I finally got him to get me some Tylenol PM (i hadn't taken anything, since I hadn't started bleeding yet). I just laid in his arms and we cried together until about 5 that morning. When the meds kicked in, i finally was able to get some sleep, and we slept until after 11.

I got up that morning, and it had begun. I knew it was over. I was still in a lot of pain off and on Sunday, and was still dog tired. John and I laid around, played a bunch of WoW, and just tried to keep ourselves occupied.

Yesterday morning, I was going to try and go to work, but when I got up, I was very weak and pretty dizzy. I decided I should just stay home and try to rest some more. John got up to go to work as usual, and I was just about to doze back off when I heard the door open. I thought he had forgotten his phone, but he came back into the bedroom, put his stuff down, and told me his boss had told him to stay home. :-) I was very happy. We went back to sleep for a while.

Later, I found out that John had completely forgotten his schedule changed, and he doesn't work on Mondays anymore! HA! Silly John and his poor memory. :-)

I have thoroughly enjoyed the time I've gotten to spend with him over the past week. I feel this sadness has brought us closer together than we've ever been. We're coping really well together, and have had a lot of deep talks about our future and what our plans are. What we hope to see accomplished.

God has definitely been there, too. I can feel the prayers. I can feel His love. I can feel Peace. He has shown me in so many different ways how He is there. A friend of mine shared this scripture with me last Friday:

Psalm 34:17-18
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

To say my spirit was crushed through all this would be an understatement - but I feel He has done just that. He has saved me from that darkness. He has heard my cry. He has given me a peace about this all, and I have hope that John and I will have a baby. I have hope that we can try again soon, and be successful.

Thanks to each and every one of you who has called, emailed, or contacted me in some way through this. I'm sorry if I missed your call, and didn't return it - or if I seem distant. At this point, I'm really not up for talking about it in person with anyone - I'm ready to go on. I know eventually, I will want to talk about it again, but i feel right now that bringing it up will not help us to move ahead.

Just Waiting...

2010-02-19T07:34:00.000-08:00

I don't feel any different. I still feel as pregnant as I did last weekend, when everything was fine.

I wish I hadn't had that bloodwork done on Wednesday. At least if I was going to miscarry, then i would only know when it already happened. But sitting around, waiting to miscarry? This is for the birds.

I just hope it happens soon. I want this to be over with.

I'm sooooo very thankful to have the support of family and friends... What would I do without y'all?

And just like that....

2010-02-18T08:30:00.001-08:00

It's over.

There will be no baby in October.

5 Weeks

2010-02-16T06:06:00.000-08:00

Last Monday morning marked day 13 after my first IUI. I had prepared the night before and laid out an HPT, and told John that I wasn't sure if I was going to take it the next morning or not. I was a nervous wreck. I had taken so many only to be disappointed. I could buy stock in the HPT companies I've used so many in the past 9 years.

So - Monday morning, I wake up - take the test. As I'm sitting there, I'm anxiously watching the little lines all show up as they're supposed to. And then I see it. But was it really there? I had slept in my contacts, so my eyes were pretty fuzzy, and I really wasn't awake yet. So I sat it down, and waited a few more minutes and looked again. It was barely there, but it was there. I didn't know what to do. I just started shaking, and immediately went to wake up John. It was such a surreal moment. I honestly don't remember exactly what I told him, but I think I said something about "There are two lines!"

I knew that I wasn't far along at all, and figured that's why it was so faint. I called my mom at 6:30 that morning, and woke her up, and told my dad right after. I told a few people at work, but asked them to keep it quiet, because I wanted to wait until I got the results from my bloodwork, which was Thursday.

I got home Monday evening, and immediately picked up the test. I freaked, because the line seemed to totally disappear! (Now, I know you're not supposed to read them after 10 minutes, but i couldn't control my mind.) I was so freaked out that John and I went that night and bought more. I took another one that evening, and i had prepared myself that since it was so late in the day, and so early in the pregnancy, there would probably be nothing there. I was wrong. There it was again. Faint, but there. I took another one Tuesday morning, and another one Wednesday morning. All very faint positives. Stupid me, though. I'm such a googler. I'm looking up all kinds of stuff about faint positives, and disappearing positives, and evaporation lines, and anything else I could conjure up in my tee-niney little brain.

By Wednesday night, I was in tears, because I had convinced myself those were all evaporation lines, and I wasn't in fact pregnant. I started regretting telling anyone, and wondering to myself - "Why didn't I just wait?" /sigh

I barely slept Wednesday night, knowing i had bloodwork at 7:30 the next morning. I had called them Wednesday and asked how long it would take to get the results back, because by this time, I was ready to check myself into a nut house, and ask them to knock my lights out.

So we got up, gave the Doctor's office some of my blood, went home, and waited. and waited. and waited. I paced, tried to sleep, paced, played wow, watched TV, tried to sleep, paced... you get the picture.

Thank goodness I set up my iPhone to sync with my work email, and now when we get voicemails on our phones, we get an email as well. I was sitting there, and heard an email come in on my phone, and I saw RMA of Texas. When I listened to the message - I just heard "Congratulations" and didn't hear the rest of the message. I had no clue what else she said. Once I went back and listened again, I was glad I did - because i needed to schedule another appointment! hehe...

So here I am. My second round of bloodwork was yesterday, and she said the HcG hormone was rising beautifully.

Oh. My. Goodness.

I still can't believe it. I had no idea I would be this way. I thought - meh - pregnancy, I'll be excited. I find myself moving around carefully (cause at first I didn't want to "shake" anything loose. HA!), and i worry about every little pain, or strange feeling I have. I still had almost convinced myself even the bloodwork was wrong. After yesterday's results, though, I'm just like - "Hey! Dummy! Sit back, relax and enjoy the life God is growing inside of you!" So that's what I'm going to do. I'm so very thankful that God is giving us this opportunity to have a child of our own. To love, to care for, to be needed...

I'm five weeks today, So - Here's what my baby will be doing this week:

(Taken from babycenter.com)
Deep in your uterus your embryo is growing at a furious pace. At this point, he's about the size of a sesame seed, and he looks more like a tiny tadpole than a human. He's now made up of three layers — the ectoderm, the mesoderm, and the endoderm — which will later form all of his organs and tissues.

The neural tube — from which your baby's brain, spinal cord, nerves, and backbone will sprout — is starting to develop in the top layer, called the ectoderm. This layer will also give rise to his skin, hair, nails, mammary and sweat glands, and tooth enamel.

His heart and circulatory system begin to form in the middle layer, or mesoderm. (This week, in fact, his tiny heart begins to divide into chambers and beat and pump blood.) The mesoderm will also form your baby's muscles, cartilage, bone, and subcutaneous (under skin) tissue.

The third layer, or endoderm, will house his lungs, intestines, and rudimentary urinary system, as well as his thyroid, liver, and pancreas. In the meantime, the primitive placenta and umbilical cord, which deliver nourishment and oxygen to your baby, are already on the job.

Seriously? My baby's heart will begin to beat this week! Wow. Amazing. This is going to be a great journey!

Symptoms so far: Mild mild nausea every once in a while, extreme fatigue (i slept in my car before coming into to work), and crazy emotions - cry like a baby. Other than that, I think i feel pretty decent. Oh... and the girls are soooo sore, that it hurts to lay in bed, and wakes me up all night long. bleh.

Hmmm... ok?

2010-02-04T07:41:00.000-08:00

First of all, if you're expecting a little one in the near future, or you have recetly had one - please please please do not be offended. I just have to get this off my chest.

This week alone, i have learned of about 5 people who are pregnant (on top of those I already knew about). /sigh ok. Seriously? I mean, really?

Lord, what are you trying to do to me? Especially in my 2WW? I seriously would like to crawl under a rock until next Thursday, or whatever day I finally give in and POAS. It's still way to early, being only 9DPIUI, but I'm like. hmmm... can I wait until Monday? who knows?

I'm so silly sometimes, tho - sitting still and just trying to see if I feel anything. anything. A little sharp pain somewhere, a tiny bit of nausea, dizziness, fatigue, anything. I even sit there, and think about different foods, and see what I feel. Do I feel repulsed by it? Do I all of a sudden want it, and will not stop until I get it? nope. Of course - I can make myself feel all of those things if I want to.

Like - I'll get a quick 5 second wave of nausea, but it passes. I wanna fall asleep on my desk, but yet, I can't sleep. The other night, I felt this crazy little numbness come and go on the left side of my belly, and I thought to myself - hmm... implantation that might have touched a nerve?

I'm seriously torturing myself. I so want this to have worked. I'm actually not sure if I can handle this crazy emotional roller coaster again if it doesn't work. I do not like the demon that comes out in me when I get angry. and I mean angry. Things breaking and flying across the apartment angry. Uncontrollable anger with shaking and wanting to pass out anger. that's only come out of couple of times, but that's more than plenty.

Last night - I went from raging to crying uncontrollably. Everything made me cry. Then John made me laugh and I was actually laughing and sobbing at the same time. geez...

All I can do at this point is pray. If this IUI didn't work - i either need different meds, or to not do this at all. While I want a baby more than anything in this world right now - I'm not willing to let John stay in the line of fire constantly. I love him with everything that I am - he's the most amazing man, and I'm not gonna lose him.

ok -done ranting now. now back to your regularly scheduled programs.

2WW - Half way there!

2010-02-01T06:02:00.000-08:00

I'm halfway through my two week wait now. /sigh. Can I just go to sleep, and wake up next Thursday? Here's an update since my IUI last Tuesday. (this is an email that I sent to several friends on Facebook, but I thought it would work here, too.)

It was not a great week. Last Sunday evening, I took the HcG "trigger" shot, and Monday morning, I was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable. I just felt really "full." Tuesday morning, John and I went in for the IUI, and it wasn't my normal doctor that did it. It was another lady in the office, and she really doesn't say much. She was just like "well, everything looks good! Lay here until this timer goes off, and then you can leave." I have no idea what size the follicles were, how many had developed, or anything. Silly me kept thinking she would take the measurements, but by the time I thought to ask, she was already out. So, anyways... By Tuesday afternoon, i was VERY uncomfortable - Like I had been pumped full of air. I did go to work, but i couldn't sit in my chair very long, so I ended up just going back home to the couch. Wednesday was ok, and ThursDAY was meh.. Thursday night, tho. Oh. my. gosh. It was awful. I was in tears from the pain, and i don't generally cry from pain. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. THe pressure was almost more than I could handle, and well, it was just painful. I was about to have John take me to the ER, but i decided to call the Doctor's office first. I left a message, and within 5 minutes. yes, FIVE minutes, my doctor called me back. He's so funny. He was apologizing to me for calling from a restaurant that decided to start playing disco music right as he called. haha... anyways - as soon as I told him what I was feeling - he knew what it was. He told me to take a couple of Extra Strength Tylenol, and come in Friday morning. It took a little while, but the meds kickd in, and i got some relief.

Long story short - once he did the ultrasound, he was right - I had Moderate Ovarian Hyperstimulation Sydrome (OHSS). My body had way overreacted to the meds, so I really was "full." :-) I did have a cyst rupture as well, so there was quite a bit of fluid build up. This one was mild compared to the ruptured cysts I had in 2003 in Houston, that landed me in the hospital for 2 days. He told me to just take it easy - not to make any brisk movements, just so that another didn't rupture as well. He also told me to stay home - not to sing this weekend as I was scheduled to do.

The good news is - he said that this could be a positive thing. He said a lot of times this develops and goes to the moderate stage (of the three stages, mild, moderate, severe) if there is a pregnancy. :-)

I couldn't help but smile, but it's way too soon for me to get my hopes up yet. FOr the most part, the pain has subsided. I still get small waves of pretty crazy pain, but i can walk normal now, where as last week, i was crouched over when i walked.

Thank you for your prayers, and please continue. One more week, and while i feel like this week is going to last forever - I look back, and can't believe the IUI was a week ago tomorrow! wow.

I'm incredibly sleepy this morning after a good night's sleep, and have a small headache. hmmm...Of course - I'm so mental - i could make myself have every symptom there is if I wanted to. bleh. :-)

I will continue to keep you updated!

It's HOT!

2010-01-19T14:26:00.000-08:00

So, in honor of our A/C being out here at the office, I would like to share one of my favorite Shel Silverstien poems.

We have hit a smeltering 82 degrees in the office (I know, that's not THAT hot, but inside a stuffy building with 50 people.... it's HOT!!!!) Thankfully, it seems to be only one unit out.

Now, without further adieu...

It’s Hot!
By Shel Silverstein

It’s hot!
I can’t get cool,
I’ve drunk a quart of lemonade,
I think I’ll take my shoes off
And sit around in the shade.

It’s hot!
My back is sticky,
The sweat rolls down my chin.
I think I’ll take my clothes off
And sit around in my skin.

It’s hot!
I’ve tried with ‘lectric fans,
And pools and ice cream cones.
I think I’ll take my skin off
And sit around in my bones.

It’s still hot!

Happy Chillin!

Happy New Year, some updates, and new car!

2010-01-02T08:51:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

So, for my first post of 2010, I'd like to start out by saying that as far as my goals for last year... well, EPIC FAIL. I'm ok with that, tho, because 2009 was one hell of a year. (sorry for the use of the word hell.)

I can be totally ok with the fact that I didn't accomplish the goals I set for myself, because I, in fact, accomplished a lot of things this year. The biggest? My $61k debt - paid off. I am free from my debt! Well, until my impulse buy took place on December 30. (more about that to come.)

I also accomplished some pretty major projects at my office this year, including helping facilitate three major moves of our office staff into separate locations. I learned so many new things, but I will say this - If the word "Move" comes up in regards to the offices, I'm runnin! :-) hehe... nah - I really enjoyed almost every minute of it.

Other major things for 2009: My grandmother learned she had breast cancer, and had a mastectomy to remove it, my mom was admitted into ICU on her death bed due to Aspirin Toxicity, and we certainly will never forget the loss of someone who fought so hard against that nasty "C" word we hate so much. Troy will always be missed and loved, but knowing he is cancer free - Well, you can't help but celebrate that! There is not a day that goes by that I don't think about him and Jeremy and PawPaw. I just wish we were all there with them!

John and I took a vacation to Destin, FL, and this was the first actual vacation I had been on since I still lived at home with mom and dad. 1992, i believe it was. We had so much fun. The sights were beautiful, and since we were there in the off season, there were no crowds, and our condo, which was absolutely GORGEOUS, was so cheap!!! I would love to go back next year, but due to our impulse buy (mentioned above, and to be described below) might have just cancelled that trip for us! (Unless, some others wanted to go and split the costs!) :-) Any takers?

So, with that being said - I'm not going to set any goals this year for myself. I plan to take this year one day at a time, because you never know what could happen, and what could change. Here's to 2010!

-

I got to go to Buna this year for Christmas - and other than the above mentioned happenings, this is the first time I got to visit since LAST year. We got to spend quite a bit of time there, so that was good. My mom is doing WAAAAAY better than I've seen her in years, and that made the visit so much more enjoyable. I've always had a hard time leaving her when she wasn't doing so well, because I was worried about her. I thought it would be easier if she was doing better, because I wouldn't worry so much. I learned pretty quickly this wasn't the case at all. It was MUCH harder to leave her - because she's the mom I've wanted back for a long time. The mom that i could actually get out and do things with. The mom i could go [window] shopping with, and take out to eat. The mom I could enjoy - and yet - I'm hours away, and don't get to enjoy those times with her. We both cried extremely hard when John and I packed that little red rocket up and headed back west. I also got to spend some good time with my dad and grandfather, not to mention a lot of my family that I haven't seen in forever! /sigh What a wonderful holiday it was. The best I've had in a long time.

On the way home from Buna, John and I got to talking about the future. We were talking about how there could be a baby this year, and as we began looking around the car, we realized that if there's a baby - there's NO ROOM!!! That car was packed so full, that John had to empty our food bag, and slide food into any little nook and cranny he could find. My Honda is bigger than his car, but it had sooooo many miles on it, and was beginning to have little problems here and there, so we didn't like to travel in it. I basically used it to go back and forth to work. It was still a great car, don't get me wrong - and I loved it, but we didn't totally trust it. We kinda tossed around some SUVs we liked, and then that was the end of the conversation.

Tuesday morning (Dec. 29), I emailed my mother in law, who works at Tom Benson Chevrolet here in town, just to check in with her, and at the end, I just asked if she could get me a price on a couple of SUVs there at the dealership. Told her we weren't doing anything right now, just kinda starting to plan for the future.

Wednesday, we had off, and I asked John if he would like to go pick his mom up, and take her to lunch, since we didn't get to spend Christmas with them, and she's been pretty stressed lately. Soooo.... We went and picked her up, and took her to lunch. When we got back to the dealership, she told us she had spoken with someone who could give us more info on the cars we were looking at. So we walk over to the used car lot, because there was an Equinox there, and we got a little interested in a couple of other SUVs sitting on the lot as well. One, however, caught our eye. a 2006 Nissan Murano. It was beautiful. and not a color that you see on the road every day. I've seen a ton of white ones, and those wine colored ones, but not this gray. When I peeked in through the window, I just knew we couldn'y afford this car, but we asked for the keys anyways. When he came back out, he told us the price. We were shocked! This car had some minor body blemishes, but nothing that couldn't be fixed with a high speed and some polish, and it only had 15k miles on it! On top of the already low price, we got the employee price as well, because of John's mom. sweet! We took it for a test drive, and fell in love with it.

I hesitated, though, because of the whole financing thing. We knew what we could afford, and really hated the thought of having two car notes. We knew that if we could get something for about the same as what we're paying for the SRT4, we could do it. We told him we had a Honda for trade in but it was at home, and needed a little cleaning (We left it at home on purpose. So that we couldn't leave the lot with something.) HA! that didn't work! So, we drove home, cleaned out the Honda, took it to the car wash, and went back to the lot. As we were cleaning, I was praying. "Lord, if it's your will for us to have this car, and you know that we can handle the payments of two cars, then I pray you work this out. If it's not in your plans for us to have this car, then I pray the financing doesn't work out. But Lord, if it doesn't, please help me to be ok with that. Please help me to not be too disappointed, because at least the Honda still runs, and I'm thankful for that."

Fast forward FIVE HOURS. Yes, FIVE HOURS. I was nauseated i was so nervous. I really thought we'd be leaving with that Honda, which was ok. We had told each other that that would be ok with us. We didn't need to get rid of the Honda, per se. Robert, our salesman, walked out of the finance office, and gave us the thumbs up, and proceeded to write our name on the "Today's Sales" board. WOOT!!! I can't believe we got it!! We waited about another hour before everything was finally done, and we signed a ton of paperwork.

Now, for the neatest part of this story?

I had to drive the Honda across and park it at the used car building. As I was getting out, there was a lady and her daughter standing there. She was like "Is this your car?" I said "Yes Ma'am." She said "We saw it, and they told us it was being traded in, and would be for sale. We want that car!"

Do HUH?? Are you serious???

These people had been car shopping ALL DAY LONG (it's about 7pm by now), and everything they found within their price range had a ton of miles on it, but was in crappy shape. My car had 120k on it, but was still in good shape. I almost wanted to cry! I told her what a great car it had been - that I was the only owner - and had put every mile on it myself. I thought she was gonna cry. I seriously saw God's hand in that whole situation. This girl is a senior in high school, and is going into the military next year, and needed something while she was still here. She was about in tears - she even asked me if I had named it! She thought it was pretty funny when I told her it was Hellina. Get it? Hellina Honda? :-) ok - cheesy I know, but they thought it was funny.

I handed the keys over to the dealership, hugged the girl's neck, and John and I left in our new car. The next day, when we brought the Honda title back, They were there, getting their financing worked out for it. I saw my little car there, and felt at peace, because I knew the right thing had been done. It may cost John and I little extra in the long run, but we helped a family out, and that makes me feel good. That car took me through a lot of stuff. Jeremy drove it when it was just a couple of weeks old to Buna for he and I to surprise mom for her birthday. Just a couple of months later, it would be driving me to his apartment after I learned he had passed away. That car took us on numerous trips to see family - it carried my dogs in it, and it protected Scott and I when we hydroplaned off of Interstate 45, almost right underneath an 18 wheeler. It nearly got traded in back when we lived in Houston, and couldn't afford to pay the note. We couldn't get financed. Then I listed it on Auto Trader, and ended up getting to keep it, because Scott got a job in San Antonio. It carried my most precious belongings to San Antonio on August 13, 2005. It was the first car I ever had that was paid off. That car helped me move my stuff out, when Scott and I split up.

Time for me to move on now, and let someone else make new memories with my Hellina! She was good to me for 7 1/2 years, but I have someone new to make memories with now. I don't have a name for her yet, but I will come up with one.

So - there ya have it. A totally unexpected New Year's present!

Here are some pictures. Since these were taken, we've cleaned the car totally and conditioned the seats and complete interior, so it looks even better!

When You Wish Upon a Star

2009-11-16T05:05:00.000-08:00

Hello! It's me! :-)

I don't have much time to write this morning, but this is something short and sweet that I just felt I had to share.

November 16, 2002 - 5:30 a.m.

The phone rang. Since i was asleep, i didn't make it to the phone, but when i checked the caller ID, and it was my dad, my heart sank. I just knew that my grandfather or someone close had passed away. There was no way I could prepare myself for the words that would come out of his mouth when I called him back.

"Melissa. Jeremy died." I literally told him to hang up, and call me back later when I was awake. It couldn't be true. Jeremy? OUR Jeremy? This isn't possible. I got to his apartment as fast as I could. That was the longest 4 mile drive of my life. I swear it took 6 hours. Didn't it?

The rest of the story is really too painful to talk about - but every year, at this time, I remember him, and am overcome with sadness. I suppose it'll never get easier.

The day before he passed away, he called and left a message on my answering machine. It was the last time I would hear his voice. I have it saved - and I can't remember what all it said, except for him being funny, and then at the end, he said "I love you." I can't tell you how grateful I am that those were his last words to me.

---
November 16, 2009, 6:30 am

I was on my way to work, having a long talk with God. I began to pray for mom and dad as they remember Jeremy today too. I kid you not - at the very moment I began to pray for them, and I mentioned Jeremy's name - I saw a falling star. The tears began to flow, and I was just speechless.

When I first began praying - i asked the Lord to forgive me for Him not being the focus in my life, as He should be. When I saw the falling star, it was just like the Lord telling me a whole bunch of things...

"I forgive you."

"Everything will be ok."

"Jeremy is safe in my arms."

I have a couple of very crazy weeks ahead of me, and after my long talk this morning, I feel like I can handle it. I feel like everything's going to be ok.

Thank you Lord for showing me you're there for me.

There is Hope!

2009-09-10T05:41:00.000-07:00

John and I had our follow up visit yesterday with Dr. A. I had been praying about this visit, and when we went in, I really had a peace about everything. Didn't know why, but I did. (Well, I know that God gave me that peace.) I had been praying about it so that I would be prepared for anything he had to say.

Dr. A told me that everything looks perfect, and is functioning correctly, other than the fact that the sperm seem to be going to the dance alone. My eggs aren't showing up. :-) hehe. we thought that was cute. He presented a treatment option to us (150 mg Clomid + another med that surpresses the male hormones that apparently are keeping me from ovulating - I knew I was feeling strong lately!) Then I could go through another series of ultrasounds, but the cost would be $950. If it didn't work, it would be $950 for each cycle until I got pregnant. or until we moved to another method of treatment, where the cost escalates dramatically. I was a little crushed, because there's no way we can afford that. They want the payment all at once.

I asked them about John's insurance, because I will be solely on his in January. She said she would try, but generally, insurances don't cover fertility treatments at all. She said she was going to go try and find something out.

While she was gone, John and I discussed a few other things, and when she came back in, she had a big smile on her face. She said "um. I have very good news. Your insurance covers three IUIs and three IVFs!!"

Thank. You. Lord.

That's amazing. Less than 15% of insurances cover those treatments, much less cover IN FULL. That's 6 whole months of treatment covered, and Dr. A just looked at me and said "I think it's only gonna take one - two treatments at the most IF you aren't pregnant by the time you come back in January. "

WOO HOO!! He also said "Now, Melissa. You CAN ovulate on your own, and I'll tell you how, but you can't hit me."

"I'm listening."

"You need to lose about 5% of your body mass, and it will start happening again on it's own."

--
So, my friends, I already know the reason why things have worked out the way they have. I have the next 3 1/2 months to work on getting my weight down to where it's supposed to be (my height and age indicate I should be between 125-135, and I'm at 146 now. Was at 153 when I started!!), and just prepare myself for what could come in 2010! Maybe, just maybe, if I get the weight off, i'll start having my monthly visitor on a regular basis, and not have to induce her medically. Dr. A. prescribed me Provera, but wants me to wait two months before taking it.

Our plans for the next few months are to just enjoy each other as a couple, with no stress about babies, but if it happens, we'll be thrilled.

Woo Hoo! Thank you Lord for answered prayers!

Opening the Door into the Infertility World

2009-09-04T08:24:00.000-07:00

My name is Melissa, and I'm infertile.

Hope is not lost at this point, but disappointment has set in.

I do love the New Living Translation version of Psalm 130:5.

I am counting on the Lord; Yes, I am counting on Him.
I have put my hope in His Word.

This is all we can do at this point. Trust in the Lord. His way is perfect.

Please do not be offended, but while encouragement is appreciated, the last words i want to hear right now, are:

"If it's meant to be, God will give you a baby when it's the right time." (or any variation on that) While true, that's not very comforting to me right now. Yes, I know that God will give me a baby when "the time is right," but those words are not going to make me feel better right now. They are not going to take away my desire to have a little one.

---

I do not want to post details of this week's Doctor visit yet. I want to wait until we sit down with Dr. A next week and actually hear what our options are. All I can ask of you right now is to pray for us. Pray for the right treatment plan, and for us to be wise in the decisions we make as to how far into this journey we want to venture.

I have made some lifestyle changes in hopes of getting in front of the PCOS (lost 5 lbs already!), and maybe... just maybe... I can convince my body to do normal girly things without a lot of intervention.

Our next scheduled appointment is Wednesday - 09.09.09 :-)

The good news? I put the deposit down on our Destin, FL Condo yesterday! It's OFFICIAL! We're goin! Woo Hoo!!

The First Visit

2009-08-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Well,

I've got the baby fever now, and I have it bad. I'm slowly but surely coming out of the "funk", and the baby fever is almost full on. :-)

I decided that with the two crappy ObGYN visits I've had already this year, I would just take the advice a friend gave me several years ago, and just skip straight to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE). I kept seeing signs telling me to go there. Well, so maybe it was the actual sign on the side of the building that I pass going to and from work every single day, but it's still a sign, right?

I visited their website, and after digging through, wondering if I should do it or not, I used the little "contact us" link, and sent them an email. 2 hours later, I received a phone call. Not only did I get a phone call from the office, but the Doctor himself. Yes. That's right. THE ACTUAL DOCTOR CALLED ME. Huge plus in my book. When I called back, i got the lady he had mentioned in my voicemail, and it was like she knew me already. He had given her the information from my email, and she was expecting my phone call.

We set up the appointment. August 12. (ironic, seeing as how this would have been my 9th wedding anniversary with my first husband..) We entered the office, and immediately, i was relaxed. They were friendly, and they didn't treat me like I got treated at this OB visit.

I turned in my what seemed like 500 forms I had to fill out before coming in, and then they took mine and John's picture together to put in the records. They said "Y'all are in this together, so we treat you as one." again. i like this.

We got called back to this little open area that had sperm all over the floor, and I wondered to myself if the sperm were leading to the little dark rooms in the back for a reason. :-) I would later find out they were. hehe That's a part of the office I don't care to go into. Don't wanna know what all's back there!

Then the Doctor came out, and called us in his office. He had already read through my paperwork, so he began just asking me questions. He was very thorough. He even asked me if some of my family members were bald. He knew he was asking me strange questions, but he said this was to try and get as much of a hormone background as he could. He then gave us a power point presentation with some statistics, and other interesting information. Did you know that one in three infertile couples is due to the male? That seemed like a pretty high number to me. I had no idea! I also didn't know that in 100 pregnancies, only 30 will actually make it to live healthy birth. The percentage of people who are pregnant and miscarry without even knowing it is huge! Anyways - I asked him about PCOS, and he really didn't seem to be phased by it at all. He told me there was no cure for it, and (another statistic here) 90% .. 90% of women have PCOS. Most are just asymptomatic. I wish I was one of those!

After the visit, we went into another room where I had my vajayjay probed by the ultrasound mechanism. I hardly noticed though, because I was intrigued by the fact that they actually thought of putting a monitor on the ceiling so that when you're lying on your back with your legs spread open for the whole world to see, you can see what the doctor's looking at. Doesn't mean I could tell what I was looking at. Just a bunch of gray matter, and every-once-in-a-while, I could see one little round thing, and apparently one was a cyst, and one was an ovary. :-/

That was my exam. The doctor is working with me to make this as affordable as possible, since they don't take my primary insurance and I'm self pay. $$$$$ (they accept my secondary, but they won't file on it. I'll be switching over in January. Thank goodness. :-) ) - this means I'll be going to my regular Doctor to get my blood work drawn, and then just have the results sent over. John, however, got to have his blood drawn, because UH is his primary. Apparently, for some infertility treatments, it's required by law for both partners to be tested for HIV, Hepatitis, and other diseases.

So... Here's the plan. Summarized.

I started taking Provera, since I haven't had a period since April.
On CD1, I call the doctor, and we set up a schedule for the following:
- Days 5-9 take Clomid (bring on the hot flashes, baby!)
- somewhere in Days 9-11, have another ultrasound to see the status of my system.
- Around days 11-13, start an antibiotic, and have an x-ray procedure done to make sure my tubes aren't blocked.

Next week, John gets to bring a cup full of his "goodies" to the office for his Sperm Analysis. For the record - we chose to do this at home, rather than follow the sperm on the floor to one of the little back rooms. :-) We just have to get it to the office fairly quickly. It is precious cargo, you know! Thank goodness we live about 3 miles from the office!

Once all that's done, then we sit down, and talk about all the results, and what the next plan of action is.

I'm excited, and nervous all at the same time. I feel like we've officially started. I've read so many blogs with these same type stories on them, and now I are one of them blogs!

John and I have already had long discussions about how far into this we want to go, and already talked about the possibility of adoption if it comes to that. For now, we are going to take this one step at a time, and see what God's will for us is.

I ask that if you made it this far, reading this long blog, that you take a moment and pray for John and I as we prepare to take some pretty big steps to help make our family grow. We both want this really bad, and already many tears have been shed from the disappointments we've already had.

I will keep the blog updated as much as I can with updates.

DING... You are now off track…

2009-07-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Just a forewarning: This is not a fun, happy post. This is a post about what I’m feeling right now, and have been feeling for a while… If you are bored to tears, or this post brings up any other emotions, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. For others, it may just be affirmation that someone else out there is going through the same struggles. Oh, and it’s long.

Movin’ on now.

I laid down in bed the other night, and John was in the shower. It was pitch black, and quiet, except for the sound of the fan in the bedroom, and the running water in the bathroom. I had just barely dozed when I hear *DING* “You are now off track.” Huh? My first reaction was to jump outta bed with the .45 and ~~shoot whoever just entered my apartment~~ run and hide in the closet.

It was one of those times when a thousand things can run through your head in a time that feels like forever. But, it didn’t take me but a minute to realize that the silly little female animated voice was John’s phone that must be possessed. It was sitting on the dining table, and just kicked itself into GPS mode. I’m not sure where it thought I was going, but something has been ringing in my head since that night.

Maybe it wasn’t the silly phone being weird, yelling out that I’m not headed in the right direction. Maybe it was a subtle (ok, maybe not so subtle) message from God telling me I’m not headed in the right direction in my life. Funny thing is that I feel I’ve been running in circles for a while now, and can’t seem to get to where I want to be. I have so many good intentions, but no motivation.

I suppose you can say I’ve been in a bit of a pity party for myself for a little while now. I’ve had some health issues that have been buggin’ the fire out of me. Something is going on that makes me absolutely so tired that I can barely hold my eyes open a lot of the time. John and I were in a raid on WoW the other night, and I actually fell asleep in the middle. For those of you WoW players, you know that raids are intense, and there’s so much going on, you don’t have much time to think about anything else. Yeah. Out. Right in the middle of it.

My attitude has been down right sucky lately – my poor husband catching a lot of it. I thank God I have such a patient man. I know I’m not the easiest person to live with sometimes. I don’t want to do anything around the house, and we’ve eaten out so much, because I don’t have the energy to cook. To cook, you have to have food. To have food, you must go to the grocery store. To go to the grocery store, you have to have motivation. To have motivation, you have to have energy. Oh. That’s the problem.

Of course the lack of energy leads to laziness, which leads to…you guessed it! Weight gain. Weight gain = severe self esteem issues. I’m supposed to be on synthroid, but I’m too lazy to take it. I know that if I were to take it – I would probably feel somewhat better. I’ve been injecting myself with triple the dose of B12 just to be able to function throughout the day. Sometimes, that works a little. (yes, it’s ok. It’s a water soluble vitamin. Not gonna hurt me.)

I’ve been to the doctor, but nothing’s coming up right now. I do know that I’ve had some sort of a bladder/kidney infection since about November of last year – and the doctors can’t seem to get rid of that either. Which leads me to another issue. I don’t like to leave the house, since every trip to the bathroom is an emergency. I have to plan everything around places that have restrooms. I’ve had one – yes ONE monthly cycle since January. And that one was medically induced. I want a baby. Yes, I know I’ve only been married 9 months – but remember – I was married for 7 years before that with the same issues.

I’m just frustrated with a lot lately – I’m frustrated that the nights I actually do something, and I’m not home, John gets off of work on time. Then, the nights that I’m home waiting for him to get there, he gets off at 9:30. I wish he had a job that he could be home on the weekends. If my family was closer, it may not seem so bad, but it’s an act of congress to get a day off from Time Warner on a weekend if we want to do anything. And we all know what Congress is like now.

My biggest issue right now though is my self esteem. It’s so in the dumps right now. I know I’m not fat, but I’m well over the weight I need to be . I can’t wear half the clothes in my closet, and I don’t have the money to buy anything else (a large chunk of my paycheck goes to my ex each month). The ones I have – I wear the tale off of. They are faded, have holes in them, or are just about to fall apart in general. Shopping depresses me because I’m a hard body to fit. My chest is quite a bit larger than most people my size, so in order to fit that, the clothes swallow me everywhere else. If they fit decent through the waist, then I can’t zip it all the way up. I found the perfect dress for my wedding day, but couldn’t zip it past my chest. Grrr.. My face is broken out like a 14 year old kid. Nothing in this world hides what is going on there. I’ve tried all sorts of different products – but I think the hormones are completely overriding any product I buy. I look at pictures of me recently, and I barely recognize the girl I see. My eyes almost shut, and I seem to get all stiff when a camera is in front of me. I think that's the self esteeem part coming out.

Bleh.

Yeah, there’s a lot more, but I suppose I’ll stop. If you’ve made it this far, wow. Thanks for stickin by me.

I'll get better. I'm just in a lull right now, and will get out eventually. Prayers are appreciated. :-)

Friday Flashback

2009-06-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

Do you know what it's time for?

Didt Didt Didtldidt Didt Didt Didldidt didt didt didldidt didt deeeet!!!

(cue Cotton Eyed Joe)

HIK NOOZ!!!

Well, i'm sure only those that went to SLC, and know what Hik Nooz was are the only ones who can say "Didt Didt Didledidt"... hehe Can you believe how crazy we went when brothers "Brian" and "K-Brian" hit the show with Cuz Hurl? wow...

We all know that FBC Buna was famous on Hik Nooz... We made it on the show every year. Or I did, at least.

Hmmm... I got my name monkey girl, because they got told about me hanging from streamers in Taco Bell making monkey noises.... They made me do my monkey sounds in front of the whole camp, and then they pulled out their "guns" and pointed them at me... HA!

The next year - I made it because of this story:

I was having a conversation with someone about my new hair dryer I was so proud of..(yeah, i know..) I was talking about how powerful it was when I turned it on and POP!!! Fire came out of the plug, and it knocked the lights out in the whole dorm!! oops.

The next day, on Hik Nooz, Brian and K-Brian came out with hairdryers, dancing around to the music from "Mission Impossible." And then they told me story... thankfully, once people found out who was responsible for knockin the lights out, they didn't do the same to me. :-)

Oh, how I miss Student Life Camp! Those were the days!!

Here's me today, sporting myHik Nooz shirt...(Why did I buy such a huge shirt? It swallows me now, and I'm 50lbs heavier than I was then!)

Friday Flashback

2009-06-12T05:19:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm sure you all notice one common denominator in each of these pictures. Yep - one of my dearest friends, Mitch Keeler!

Mitch and I go way back - farther than anyone in my entire life. We have been singing together for years, have some umm..Children's Church memories, mistletoe memories, GA party memories, we went to 8th grade prom together, Many plays - Buna Children's Theater, learning the "real words" to the Cotton Eyed Joe, The night I proposed to him in a Wendy's in Baytown, where he turned me down, and some of our favorite memories together are from our Drum Major times... I still believe we were two of the best drum majors that went through! If you look at any picture of us in action on the field, we are in the same exact position... To this day, we sing together when we can...

Here we are leading worship this past Christmas:

The reason my post is about Mitch, is because he is taking the plunge this weekend, and I'm so happy! He met a beautiful girl by the name of Jamie while he was in Austin, and it was all up from there! I'm honored to be singing "But Beautiful" for the Bride and Groom's first dance.

Mitch,

We've been through a lot together, and I'm so thrilled that God has sent you that someone special. I pray that you have a very happy marriage with kids that can sing and act (hehe). :-) At my [first] wedding, you gave Scott some advice, which thankfully, he never followed - but my advice for Jamie -

If Mitch makes you mad - Stand under a bundle of mistletoe, call his name, and when he comes to kiss you - RUN!! :-) (or throw a party at his house that he's not allowed to attend, just to watch him kick his legs and scream.)

- and that's all for pouring sprite on my head because i wouldn't sit by you.

Love ya Mitch!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO BOTH OF YOU!

Happy Birthday Troy

2009-06-08T05:56:00.001-07:00

You are greatly missed, but I know you're celebrating in Heaven! Tell Jeremy to make you a big cake! :-) Maybe his baking skills are better in Heaven than they were here!

Update on mom...

2009-06-05T15:25:00.000-07:00

Today has been absolutely crazy, but I've finally made a decision on what I'm going to do. I will be leaving San Antonio in the morning about 4:30 am to be in Beaumont for the 9:45 am visitation to see mom. I'm praying that my grandmother will let me have some "mom time", and let me go back by myself...

I got to talk to mom a couple of times today, which is why I'm not already there. This morning, I called the ICU nurses station, and the lady of course couldn't tell me anything, because I didn't have the "password". bleh. All she could tell me was that she had been changed to "Stable Condition" from critical.

I wasn't mad, because I know there are rules, they have to follow them. About 20 minutes later, though, my cell phone started ringing with an unfamiliar number, but i went ahead and answered it.

....Melissa?

....Yes Ma'am?

....This is _____ from St. Elizabeth hospital. One second, here's your mom.

The sweet nurse at the nurse's station had taken my number down earlier, and she used her personal cell phone to call me, and then handed the phone to mom. WOW! that meant so much to me.

Mom sounded ok when I talked to her. She had already gone down for her scope, and boy was there bleeding. She said the pictures of her insides were horrifying. (Lesson learned? Let's hope so...) She was still waiting on the doc to come in and give her the official results, but she could see with her own eyes something was not good.

Later this afternoon, i called the waiting room a couple of times, in hopes of catching Totsie or Aunt Tammy, but they had been allowed to stay back with mom for more than the allotted 15 minutes, so I missed them. I decided to call the nurses' station again. This time i got another sweet lady, who, after I gave her the password, told me that she would take a phone into mom's room, and let her call me. 5 minutes later, my phone was ringing again!

I told mom of my plans to come, and she told me not to come, because she would be worried about me driving that distance by myself, but little does she know I will be walking through her door in the morning! :-)

She had found out that she has a pretty bad bleeding ulcer, and they are giving her some meds to try and heal that. She's been told to never put another aspirin in her mouth. ever. She's craving them right now, so her they are giving her a little more xanax to curb those cravings...aka: knock her out. :-) It's a possibility she may get to come home tomorrow, but she was recieving several more units of blood as we were speaking. She was also severely dehydrated, so she's recieving lots of fluids as well.

Some of my details in my earlier post were incorrect - such as - Mom didn't call Totsie (makes more sense). Totsie just happened to call her. Thanks goodness. Mom's blood volume was so low, it could have been fatal.

I told some people mom had recieved 5 units of blood last night, but she had only received 3. I think by now, she has gotten at least 5.

Mom didn't get into her ICU room until between 6-8 this morning, after having been in the ER since yesterday morning/afternoon. I think they even did the scope before she got to her room!

Anyways - all this to say - she is doing much better, but I'm still going. I won't really be able to report from there, because I won't have internet access. I'll be sitting in the ICU waiting room most of the day, I'm sure, unless she gets to go home. Then I'll take her home.

Thanks oodles and oodles to Aunt Tammy and Totsie for being there with mom. They stayed at the hospital till around 4 this morning, waiting on her to be transferred into a room, and then were back before 10, and are still there. Tammy is going to have some much needed "Tammy Time" tomorrow, and I'm glad for that. She needs it. She deserves it. She has kept me informed every step of the way - and kept me sane! Love you!

---

Wanna know what else?

My Aunt (dad's sister, L.) was admitted into the hospital today. She had some medication reactions that were sever enough to be taken to the hospital by Ambulance.

Prayers for L & J, and their three boys are appreciated as well!

Again, pray for safe travels, and that everyone is ok....

Knock Knock!

2009-06-05T05:07:00.001-07:00

Um... Lord?

I know you say you won't give us more than we can handle, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed here! You know that we are barely past Totsie's surgery, and all the cancer, and Troy's death... and already something else? *selfish statement ahead* I'm tired Lord! Exhausted! and so is my family... I'm begging you - please give us a break.

So, my mom woke up yesterday morning, apparently very disoriented, dizzy, out of it.... She somehow managed to call my grandmother, who I think called my aunt, who went straight to mom's. At some point, EMS and the cops were called out, because the house was locked, and mom couldn't get to the door to unlock it. Aunt Tammy ended up being able to jimmy the lock on her storm door, and got in to her.

EMS arrived, and mom had a very low pulse, and a blood pressure so low that the EMTs couldn't get a reading with the BP cuff. They took her to the ER at St. Elizabeth where they found that her hemoglobin levels (blood levels) were at 5.5. Um. Normal is between 12 and 18. Doctors normally do blood tranfusions when levels get to 8. Turns out she has Aspirin Toxicity. She took too many aspirins trying to ward off a toothache. (there's more to this story i don't care to explain, so if it seems incomplete, well...it is.)

She was going to be admitted to ICU last night, but as of 11:15ish when Aunt T called me, they were still waiting. They are going to do a scope this morning, to see if they can find where the bleeding is coming from, so they can stop it. (I just called the ICU, and she's downstairs for testing, so i wasn't able to get any information).

I really really need to be over there - but I have a few things standing in my way -

- I'm in the middle of a HUGE project, and my boss, who is the one who's been working with me on this - is on vacation. (the whole copy machine install...)
- I've made several trips back to East Texas this past month for hospitals, and doctors, and funeral, so I've already missed quite a bit of work.
- My car's timing belt still hasn't been changed, and it's 13,000 miles overdue. The transmission fluid is low, and i just don't trust it to take it that far by myself.
- My driver's license expired last month, so I can't even rent a car.

I also just got a call from John, and he's not able to take off to come with me, so it looks as if I'll be travelling alone. John's cousin has offered to trade cars with me for the weekend, so thank goodness for him! Thanks B!

ok - i must cut this short so that I can tie up my loose ends here at work and get on the road this afternoon.

Did i mention that I have a very hard time staying awake lately? Please be in prayer for safe, awake travels.

Friday Flashback

2009-05-29T05:15:00.000-07:00

I was drum major my Junior and Senior years of high school, and back then, it was sortof a tradition for the new drum major to have some kind of band party. (Oh yeah, pardon the band nerdiness of this post...)

My first one was at my house - nothing special, but a lot of people were there. So...the next year, We got to have it out at my grandparent's camp on the Sabine River...gosh how I miss that place... The water was a little low, so there were logs and such everywhere, making it less than ideal for swimming. So we opted for seeing how many people we could get on one log before it broke...The result?

On this log:
Kevin Burton, Daniel Hawk, Mandy Bonner, Shalanda Girlinghouse, Jessica Colling (Wow...her married name is so stuck in my head, I can't remember her maiden name!), Joe Moss, and Myself. Not too shabby. I don't think it ever broke.

I don't even know who took these pictures, but then this picture came out, and it's one of my favorite pictures from my younger years. I hope I never lose it. :-)

Straight Trippin'

2009-05-28T13:03:00.000-07:00

What do you get when you cross the following:

- hubby who hasn't been home all day, finally arriving at 9:30 pm.
- Excited Wifey who's excited to see hubby who hasn't been home all day.
- Crazy dog
- stairs
- darkness

Ready for the answer?

WIFEY. SPLAT. ON THE HARD TILE FLOOR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE STAIRS.

Have a great trip, I'll see you next fall.

Friday Flashback

2009-05-22T10:22:00.000-07:00

Ok - Jo -you started this, and Katie picked up on it - then Megan did it today, so I found one that seemed appropriate for the weekend...

Without further ado - my first Friday Flashback...

This was 11 years ago. I graduated at 7 pm May 26, 1998 from Buna High School, and my brother Jeremy graduated at 10 am May 27 from East Texas Baptist University (several hours away). It was a crazy weekend, but so well worth it!

A chapter of life is closed...

2009-05-08T09:24:00.000-07:00

Troy went home to be with our Lord this morning. While we are grieving, Troy is finally pain and cancer free.

i love you troy - and you will be missed.

Praise You in This Storm

2009-05-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

I was sure by now, God,
that You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away,
stepped in and saved the day.
But once again, I say amen
and it's still raining
as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain,
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away.

Chorus:
And I'll praise you in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for You are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

I remember when I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to You
and raised me up again
my strength is almost gone how can I carry on
if I can't find You
and as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise
the God who gives and takes away

I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth
I lift my eyes onto the hills
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth

Praise You in This Storm
words by Mark Hall/music by Mark Hall and Bernie Herms

Update from Galveston

2009-04-30T23:01:00.000-07:00

So Totsie's surgery went very well this morning. We arrived at the hospital around 7 am, and got her all checked in. About 8:15ish, they came to get her to take her down to the nuclear medicine department. They injected some dye into her left side so that they could check to see if the cancer had invaded the lymph nodes. If so, they would just go ahead and remove them while they had her cut open.

Mom and I were sitting the waiting room when I happened to notice Totsie rollin' on by, so Mom got up to go catch them, and I waited for John to come back so he would know where we were. By the time he got back, we were walking down the hall, and found out that Totsie had already been taken back to the holding area for surgery...three hours early! I don't know about your doctor, but i've neveer seen one be early like that!

If i hadn't seen her rolling down the hall, she might have been in and out of surgery before we even knew it! :-)

Dr. T was able to go in and remove all the cancer, and it had not invaded any lymph nodes that he could see at that point. Great news!

By the time she came out of recovery, she was talking and has done very well. She ate two meals, and has even walked to the bathroom a few times. Well, to the chair next to her bed. This room is literally so big, that they didn't want her to have to walk that far when she needed to go.

She started off in a room that was so small, only one person could barely fit in. This room has a love seat that folds out into a twin bed, a recliner, another small chair, a small table, an armoire, and the hospital bed. Not to mention the HUGE bathroom. :-)

We were all going to stay, but soon realized that the sleeping situation wouldn't allow for a comfy night's sleep. Mom and John went on back to the hotel, and I'm now here taking care of Totsie. She's done good for the most part. She's in some pain now, and we almost have to force her to take pain meds. :-/ Her body has been through a lot today for a 78 year old.

As I type this, I finally hear her snoring a bit, so she's finally getting some rest.

me? It's 1:12 am, and I'm not wide awake, but I'm definitely not tired enough to sleep now. I've probably had about 30 minutes so far.

Dr. T should be coming in around 8 am, and once he's been in to see her, she will be discharged. Hopefully, we'll be out of here by noon. :-)

That's it from here for now!

Please run over to Katie's blog to see the updates about Troy. I would post, but i want to be sensitive to anything that might be going on over there, and right now, I only get bits and peices after mom and Totsie talk to Aunt Tammy! I sure don't want to post any wrong information out there.

Thanks to each and every one of you for praying. Again, this is such a trying, difficult time for our family, but the power of prayer is truly amazing.

Devastation Restoration

2009-04-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today, for the first time since Hurricane Ike, I drove through Galveston Island. As i drove past some of the devastation I was reminded of something. I've been angry at God lately for what He has been doing to our family. I mean, how much tragedy can one family handle? Today, I saw some homes that were completely destroyed, and obviously abandoned. In the midst of these homes were homes that were being rebuilt, and homes that had obviously been totally redone. Most of the roofs have been replaced.

I was reminded that this is so much like many of our personal lives. I imagined the totally devastated homes as those who have gone before us. Those who have passed, and are now enjoying that wonderful place called Heaven. Maybe the people who lived in these homes now have something newer. Nicer. better.

All around those who have gone are those who are being built back up. Restoring. Renewing, and going on with life. When they walk out of their house each day, they are constantly reminded of those no longer there, Just as we always think of those no longer with us.

I was reminded that even though life may seem like a hurricane right now, it will pass, and God will restore us. He's done it before, and will do it again. We may not know what God is doing, but He's got a plan. I have to just remember that.

I actually even smiled a little. :-)

I'd love to expound on this even more, but I'm right where I want and need to be right now, and don't want to spend too much time in front of this computer.

I'm with my mom and my grandmother and my husband, and I'm much better than I was this morning.

I will try to post some updates as the surgery takes place, and you can keep up with Troy's updates by reading Katie's (sister) blog. (Find her on my sidebar "Randomness of a Wannabe Mommy".

My heart is completely broken for her, knowing that she is experiencing what I had to experience 6 years ago.

Troy is now the same age as Jeremy was. *sigh*

Continue to pray. Totsie's surgery is Thursday morning at 9 am at John Sealy Hospital here in Galveston.

until then...signing off.

Hmmph...

2009-04-23T19:22:00.000-07:00

Ok, remember the part last night where I said I haven't thought of baby in a month? Well, my medicinally induced "aunt flo" finally showed up today! I haven't seen her in 5 months. I suppose it's time to think baby again! :-)

Broken

2009-04-22T18:16:00.000-07:00

I don't even know what to say, really.

I'm so torn apart right now, being so far away from my family. I feel guilty. They are all suffering together, and I'm over here - 6 hours away, feeling totally detached.

4 - yes... 4 of my family members have been stricken with this stupid thing that's killing everyone.

For the first time - I have started to question God. Why is He doing this? Why is He allowing my family to suffer? Why does He bring us up, give us hope, just so we can be let down again? Why does the end seem to near for someone who has barely had a chance to live life? I saw it happen to my brother, and i can't believe I'm seeing it with someone who is the exact same age.

I see my grandmother, who basically has had a pretty healthy life. Minor heart palpitations, and arthritis, but never anything life threatening. Why? Why now? Why her? I've seen her overcome the loss of a husband and a grandson within a few months. I've seen her overcome the loss of several life long friends. I've seen her overcome the loss of her home of 54 years. I will see her overcome this.

I went to EZ's today with John, and this mom came to the table next to us with a little boy who is obviously going through Chemotherapy. He looked so sick, but he seemed so happy. He couldn't have been more than 8-9 years old. I totally lost it sitting at the table. So completely overwhelmed with grief, and heartache and anger. I prayed for that boy as I walked out. I prayed that he would be healed of this terrible killer. I prayed that he wouldn't have to suffer like others have.

It's killing me to be over here. I want to be with my family. I want to see them before it's too late. I just want some time with them. You know how bad I want a baby? The thought has barely crossed my mind in a month. I've barely remembered to take the medication i'm using to jumpstart my body's cycle again. It just doesn't matter to me.

I don't know what I would do without the Oak Hills Staff. They ~~have been like~~ are my family here. They rally around me in prayer when they can't rally around my family. I always felt it kind of strange to lay a hand on someone or outstretch a hand to someone being prayed for - until they did it to me. That can be overwhelming in itself. It's like you can feel the Holy Spirit when people are praying. I have no issues now with outstretching a hand to someone in need.

Almost every day, I recieve an email, or just a kind word from at least 2-3 people on staff, asking me about someone specific in my family. Most of whom they've never met, but they ask about them by name. Wow. They are why I'm here. (Well, John is why I'm here, and not there, but they are a huge part of it too...)

i really don't know what else to say - except PRAY. PRAY. PRAY.

I pray for a peace for my family. I pray that whatever God's will is - that we somehow learn to accept it - good or bad. I am a believer that there is a reason for everything, even if there doesn't seem to be an answer.

remember...when you're praying for someone - it's ok to pray with an outstretched arm or a lifted hand.

God's still in control.

So cute!

2009-04-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

I think I have the most precious nephew in the world! He came for a visit, and all of a sudden, Daisee started barking at him...We thought it would scare him, but we were wrong. He burst out into the CUTEST laughter!

The more Daisee barked, the more Nicholas laughed, and the more he laughed, the more she barked...it resulted the the following....

Man, I can't wait to hear my own baby laugh like that!

Drama meant for a Theater....

2009-04-06T05:46:00.000-07:00

So, in John's "previous" life (aka: before Melissa), he worked Security at the Alamo Quarry Theaters on the weekends. John is like me, and is just very friendly to most people he meets. Sometimes, that friendliness can be taken as "flirtiness" instead, and then it can be a big mess. Why can't people just accept that people are being nice to them? Maybe because they crave that attention for some reason or another.

Well, I'll be the first to admit that my dear hubby is HOT in a security uniform. (What do you think drew me to him? hehe) Of course that meant he was getting hit on non-stop. (I witnessed it, either while I was on the phone with him, or while I was there, watching from the background...) He used to have this really bad habit of giving out his phone number to flirty girls who would approach him at the theater, while they were trying to get into a rated R movie... Once we met, he changed his phone number, so that no one could call him. :-)

Ok - to my real reason for this post...

Some adults are the most childish people. Ever. This one, though, actually falls in to the category of "pathetic" and Selfish.

There was this manager at The Quarry who had a huge crush on John. Did I say huge? I meant HUGE. Ginormous, obsessive. One night, when I went to meet him there on his break, she got all mad and stormed out. bleh. oh well.

John hasn't worked at the theater now since January of LAST YEAR. I think we've been back once since then to visit an officer he used to work with.

One of those officers called him last week and informed him of some very interesting news....are you ready???

That manager lady is pregnant. and she's telling people it's John's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe that?? What a sicko... I'm not sure what her point is, but the officer said other workers at the theater just laughed at her. Thank goodness no one believes it. I mean, what if someone I knew was there, and happened to hear this lady say John Parker was her baby daddy??

I trust him more than I've ever trusted before (you have to when he's in people's homes all day long...and I don't mean just their living rooms. People get cable in their bedrooms, too.), and I know where he is every minute of the day.

I am not angry at this girl, really - in fact, I down right feel sorry for her. The girl seems so desperate...She knows he's married now...maybe that's why she did it. hmmm..

Speaking of sad - John went to a lady's house to install her cable, and she didn't have the COD. John was about to leave, since she didn't have the money, and she apparently broke down in tears...She said there was a COD, because the cable was in her daughter's name, but her daughter had fled the state, because she was in trouble. Since the daughter wasn't there - she couldn't transfer the cable into her name.

In the midst of her tears, she told John that he just didn't understand. she had to have her cable, and she would do anything.

ANYTHING....

Catch my drift?

Thankfully, he just left without saying a word.

Is it the water?

2009-04-03T08:56:00.000-07:00

I seriously have NO idea what's going on, but this is crazy.

First of all, please continue to pray for Troy. His tumor markers are extremely high right now. The highest they've been ever. He had a really bad weekend, but hopefully some adjustments to medications will help him to feel better. To keep up with his story, you can Click Here.

My Aunt Helen (My maternal grandfather's sister) was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer. I'm not sure what type, or the severity, but I do believe she will be doing radiation treatments 5 days a week for 8 weeks.

Last year, my Aunt, Joyce Kay (My dad's sister), was diagnosed with Breast Cancer as well. Again, not sure of the type, but i do know she had a mastectomy in Feb of 2008.

Yesterday, my grandmother (Mom's mom) was Diagnosed with Breast Cancer. Invasive Ductal Carcinoma. Apparently this is the most common type of BC, so that gives me hope that there is a good shot this can be taken care of. Totsie may be in her late 70s, but she's active! She's not an "old" 70.

Lord, I'm not sure what is going on with my family right now, but I just ask you to please lay a hand of healing on them. I boldly ask that you keep them around on this earth with us with no suffering, and no more pain. Lord, each of them has so much life left in them, and I know that they can touch others with their stories. I ask that you be with the rest of the family too, so that we can stand by them, and support them in any way they need. Help us to be strong, and to just be an encouragement to them, so that they never give up on life, or on You. We love you Lord, and know that YOU are the Great Physician, and that healing is a business you will always be in. Please heal Aunt Helen, and Troy, and Totsie.

Debt Free, and it feels good...

2009-04-02T12:38:00.001-07:00

Almost there. here's the story..

In August 2000, i got married to S. By our 3rd wedding anniversary, we had racked up some MAJOR debt.

Define "Major", you say?

18 Credit Cards.
21 Creditors.
2 new computers.
1 new house.
1 new car.
new couches for the new house.
new bedroom furniture.
new refrigerator.
Hospital Bills
Doctor Bills
Student Loans...

Is that enough? I'd say so.

With just the Creditors, we were over $60,000 in debt. (not including cars, house, computers, doctors, student loans...yadda yadda yadda...)

It was depressing. We paid what we could, but it wasn't much. The car fell behind. The house fell behind. One by one...credit cards were becoming later and later and later. We really did what we could. We cut our eating out down to almost nothing, we cut off cable, and really, not one morsel of food was wasted. There were nights of coming home to no electricity because we couldn't pay the bill. We borrowed money from parents on countless occasions just to make ends meet. We knew we couldn't afford to sell the house, because there's so much money involved in that. Besides, to get back into an apartment would require a credit check. Need I say more about that? Our car wouldn't fit us, our stuff and our two dogs, so we stayed with the house.

Our phone rang constantly from 8 am to 9 pm with rude, harassing creditors telling us how bad our credit was going to be messed up, and my response was always the same. "You're not going to make it any worse than it already is."

A couple of loans ended up defaulting, and with some more borrowed money, we got a computer paid off.

Finally, when we couldn't take it anymore, we tried some financial counseling, but it wasn't a fit for us and the situation we were in. For you Dave Ramsey fans out there - if it works for you - great. keep it up. It wasn't feasible for us to work the way he thinks you should live your lifestyle.

We finally asked around, and decided to step out on a limb, and try a debt consolidation company. There are a lot of scammers out there, so we had to be very careful. I made a phone call to Money Management International (referred to from here on out at MMI), a Consumer Credit Counseling Service company, and began the process. That was by far the best decision we ever made. It took a lot of time, and we had to gather so much information, and then proposals had to be sent to each company.

Many of the creditors agreed to the proposals, and they even lowered interest rates to almost nothing. Most of them were at 0-1%, one stayed at 17%, one was at 5% or 9%, so they were all in all pretty low. We had to sign an agreement that we would not open any other credit cards, apply for any loans, or ANYTHING that touched our credit as long as we were on this plan. If we did, they could kick us off the plan, and we were on our own again. We had so much debt that the consolidation plan payment was more than our house note each month. For nearly 5 years, that payment was made on time each and every month. Never late. Even when our house payment was 3 months behind - our MMI payment was taken care of.

MMI was so easy and friendly to deal with. If a creditor contacts you, you just refer them to MMI, and MMI deals with it.

Along the way, we've had a few troubles with one or two creditors, and one ended up taking themselves off the program, and then refused to accept a new proposal. Their loss for that time.

Here it is - April 2, 2009, and S made the final payment to our Debt Consolidation Company yesterday. No April Foolin' here.

It.
Is.
Finished.
Oh.
My.
God.

And God is who I owe this to. Without His help, we couldn't have done this. Not only did we keep this up through a major move from Houston to San Antonio, but we managed to keep it going through one of the toughest times ever - our divorce. No matter what, God always provided for us. We had a car up for sale that we ended up being able to keep - we were able to sell our house in a fairly short amount of time, and now we are seeing the rewards.

We have one more credit card to pay off, and it will be paid off in a matter of a couple of months, and then we're done. S was gracious enough to let me skip a few payments when times were tough for me financially on my own, so I will make those up at the end. I can't wait for the day I put that last amount of money into S's account, and then i can actually say "I'm debt free..." It will feel like I just got a huge raise.

Both of us have actually been able to finance cars in these last months of the plan, because our credit shows most of those credit cards paid off.

I can say this: (and this is my advice - ) If you are able to have a credit card that you pay off each and every month, NO MATTER WHAT - more power to you. That's awesome. If you can't pay your debt off each month - I would highly suggest you stay clear of the credit cards. If you don't have the money for it, don't buy it. Everything I buy now is paid for when I walk out of the store with it.

With all that being said, here is a link to a pretty great video that sums it all up. I'm sorry I couldn't add it straight to the blog...

Enjoy!

Stay out of Debt Video (Seriously - watch it...)

BOO!

2009-03-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

Scared ya, didn't I?

:-)

I suppose I should give an update since my last update! I've really gotten lazy with my blogging, but have a few minutes, so I'll let you in on what's going on here.

First a few Random Bullets -
- I'm so excited! My sister-in-law just got a job up here at the church. It's a part time position in our Bibleland Buddies! She started Saturday, and she told me she LOVES the 2 year olds. She was impressed with how they teach such young children about God. I'm excited that I'll get to see her every week, and that precious little nephew of mine. :-) I took him to support staff meeting last week, and he just ate it up. (So did they!)

- I think for the second time in 4 years - I've decided I'm not going to pursue moving away from San Antonio. The first time, God gave me a physical sign as to why I should stay where I was, but this time, I just feel Him telling me to stay put. This is hard for me to understand, because I really really really really miss East Texas, and want to go back. Technically, I could see physical signs again, because I'm in absolute AWE of God's creation every day I drive home...(For those of you that see my "hateful" traffic updates on Facebook, this part comes AFTER i've sat in traffic for a bazillion hours) I see scenery that i would never see in East Texas. The Hill Country is absolutely beautiful, and I can't believe I'm honored enough to live amongst such greatness. I wish my words could describe the beauty I see everyday when I walk out my front door. I love that. I want to keep that. If God has plans for me to go back to East Texas, then He'll open that door when the time comes. for now - I'll be content where I am (just as he told me the very first time...)

- I really wanted to start car shopping sometime this summer, since my debt management with my ex will be COMPLETELY gone in the fall. My car will be 7 this summer, with well over 120K miles on it, and frankly, it's starting to have some minor little problems that I don't want to turn into major ones. I still haven't gotten the timing belt changed. It sucks that John works on Saturdays, because these are the days we could be getting this stuff done! I've just recently learned of all the perks from buying a house in San Antonio, and if that's a possibility for us to pursue - I'll keep Hellina (My car - Hellina Honda), for a while so we can afford a house note IF we are able to pull that off by the time our lease is up this year.

- Lately, I've been really jealous of those who get to enjoy weekends with their husbands. The weather is absolutely beautiful right now, and I would love to be outside, working in the yard (if I had one), going to the lake, bike riding, and well, just being together. I know, I know...some of you don't have that. Maybe you're ok with it, maybe you're not, but I don't like it. It'd be one thing if I knew when he left in the morning that he would be home that afternoon, but I never know when he's gonna be home. He doesn't get off at a certain time. He can't just call it quits when 7 pm rolls around. He may not get off till 9-10 at night. Yes, we have Wednesdays together, and this is great, but anytime we want to take a weekend trip, it's a big hassle, because Time Warner can't seem to get their stuff together, and make those vacation days happen. Enough about that. :-)

- ok - now to my update from my last post. I did go back to my old OBGyn, and am so thankful I did. Except for the whole insurance fiasco. Then the nurse comes to the door, and I hear "Mrs. Drake?". "My name is not Drake anymore, it's Parker." "Well, by LAW I have to call you by what is on your insurance, so until you change that, I'll call you Drake." wow. umm...Haven't been a Drake in a year, and my insurance says PARKER!!!! My only comment to her was "this is the only office that has given me a problem over changing my insurance."

Dr. B. came in, and when I started telling her that I STILL haven't seen Aunt Flo, (It's been since January), she was a little concerned, and unlike the previous Doc who asked me what I wanted her to do about it - she immediately started trying to figure out what might be going on. She did blood work, and an ultrasound. The ultrasound revealed that I had just ovulated, and that i have PCOS (Poly cystic Ovary Syndrome). yay. It's a big cause of infertility, so she wanted to see if the cysts were the only thing I have, or if I had something else going on. She checked my thyroid, and my insulin resistance. Dr. B. was great. John was with me (imagine the look on his face when the lady called me by my previous married name!), and she made sure to explain everything very clear to him as well. He liked that. I was glad to have his support because I was really bummed. We concluded the visit, and she said that if my visitor didn't come in two weeks, since I ovulated, to take a pregnancy test, and if it was positive, come back and see her, and if it was negative, to fill the prescription she gave to me to force my visitor to come.

As I left the office, i gave them the insurance card that had PARKER as my last name, and requested it be changed.

The following monday, Dr. B called me to tell me that my thyroid meds were working because my levels were perfect, and I'm not insulin resistant. :-) Yay!! My treatment for PCOS? Weight Loss. I've already lost 3 pounds, so I'm excited about that. This is good motivation for me.

This Thursday will mark the two week wait, so we'll see what happens! I don't feel pregnant, but at this point, anything happening will make me happy!

----
Well, I suppose that's it for now...I really should be working, but wanted to do this while I was thinking of it. My dream would be to have something to report this week, but we'll see.

until then...

Exposed and Unhappy

2009-02-24T16:36:00.000-08:00

*WARNING* Feminine details ahead...

So - As I've mentioned in previous blogs, John and I would like to have a baby. Since I've moved to another side of town, and I like to try and schedule my Dr. Appointments for my off days, i decided to change doctors. I liked my other one, she's just a good long way from here. Soooo...I get a referral from my PCP. Let's just call the new ObGYN Dr. K.

First, I had to wait nearly two months to get in, so I thought - wow. She must be great! I patiently waited, and as the time got closer, I was getting excited. I've tried for a baby in the past (well, sorta tried, I suppose. - no sex when you're on Clomid? Is that really trying?), and knew there were some small issues. Well - a big one - I wasn't really ovulating.

Ok - so I'm on my way to the office. I leave in plenty of time, knowing there's gonna be paperwork, and all sorts of other HIPPA stuff to deal with. I have the address and the map printed out, and it seems really easy to find. It's right next to North Central Baptist, and I've been there a couple of times, so I sorta knew what was around. The address was 502 Madison Oak. I'm driving around, and the map takes me directly to the "Emergency Vehicles Only" entrance, and the HELIPAD!! Oh CRAP! I need to get out of here quickly. I drove all the way around the hospital, and I saw 505 Madison Oak, and then it jumped to 540 Madison Oak. What the..?? Of course, I didn't have the phone number, so I had to call someone back at my office to get the phone number off of the website. I call them, and it's THEN they inform me that they are located INSIDE the hospital. Hello? That would have been a nice bit of information to give me on the phone.

I arrive at the office, and I'm greeted by a girl who obviously is annoyed by having to come to work every day. I hate the HIPPA junk, where the office is all enclosed behind a peice of glass. The girl watched me sign in through the glass so that she would know who I was...went to the back, did a few things, and then opened the glass. There was no "hello...how are you..." nothing. Just a "there's a lady in front of you. Have a seat, and have your ID and insurance card out when I call you back up." By the time I got to my seat, she was calling me back. Grrr...

She was just very cold, and that pretty much set the tone for the rest of the visit. It wasn't long before I was called back, and the nurse was pretty friendly. She talked to me more than anyone else. She took me down a long hall to a bathroom, cause I had to take a pregnancy test. I'm a week late, and have had two negative tests so far. So...lovely - I had to carry my cup of pee all the way back to my room. For those of you that know me really well - you know I have bathroom phobias. I can't pee or anything if someone else is in the bathroom. I get all freaked out. So to carry this cup down the hall was pretty traumatizing. :-)

Finally, Dr. K comes in, and asks me what the purpose of my visit was, so I start explaining...new patient, no period, have been irregular for years now, want to get pregnant, yadda yadda yadda... She was very hard to talk to. I never got really comfortable with her. As a matter of fact, I felt plain stupid. After a couple of minutes talking to her, she left out, so I could put the gown on. It takes me less than 2 minutes, and I can hear her outside my door, talking to two men. 10 minutes later, she finally comes back in, and proceeds with the examination. Sshe asked what steps I had taken previously to make sure I was ovulating, and I told her that i physically went to the doctor, and had an ultrasound done to check.

The breast exam - I'm a very modest person. I don't like for people to see my body. My previous doc would always keep the gown closed, and respectfully do the exam under the gown. Not Dr. K. She's gonna totally expose me while laying on the table, and while I'm on the table, totally free to the world, her nurse is going to open the door wide open, and just walk on in. Lovely.

Well, basically, after I talked to her a little bit, she looks at me, and says "Well, what do you want me to do? Your previous problems could have been your ex husband, so try some OPKs, and chart your BBT. If you're not pregnant in three months, come back and see me."

No. Thank. You.

In the mean time, I still haven't started and with my history of ruptured cysts, it makes me a little uncomfortable that she didn't give me the normal meds to jumpstart my cycle.

I think i'll go back to my old doc. Oh, and remember the part where I said I try to make appointments for my days off? My days off are Wednesdays - She doesn't work on Wednesday either.

hmmph.

It's a 'Dull' Life!

2009-02-18T14:39:00.000-08:00

Well, once again, it's been a month! So much has happened, but not much to blog about.

I would like to re-vamp my blog a little. I need a new title. Something....catchy. Fun. What can you do with Parker?? Any ideas?

I'm still here...

2009-01-16T12:49:00.000-08:00

somewhere.

It's been a while since I've posted, huh? oops.

Truth is - i just haven't felt like it. I've been suffering lately from the big "D".

depression.

So much has happened over the past month or so, but truth is, i still don't feel like posting.

Let's see, there was Christmas, New Year's, a terrible week back at work, the Christmas ornaments I promised to show you (last post), my "hope to accomplish in 2009" list, fully restored relationships, and maybe a few other things.

I suppose for now, I'll just write out my "Hope to Accomplish List for 2009".

(Goals is a very nasty word to me right now, due to the week I had at work last week. :-) )

Accomplish at least 80% of this list.

Read and Study "The Heart of the Artist"

Go on a honeymoon with John

Have a baby, or at least get pregnant (not looking so good so far).

Have all Drake debts paid off - Will post about that in March.

Get my teeth straight again

Grow and strengthen my relationship with my Lord.

Grow and strengthen my relationship with John.

Tithe weekly

Move back to Houston by this time next year.

Well, those are them for now. Most of them are pretty big, but at least they are all achievable, right?

One thing I do feel is worth mentioning is the "restored relationship" I mentioned above.

In 1993-1994, a very special family moved to Buna, TX. My new youth minister, his wife, and their 5 children. I remember those of us my age were disappointed to learn that there wasn't a really hot guy our age that we would be sharing classes with. (This was the case with all the previous ministers...they all had sons that Jamie, Lauren, and I all took turns dating, and fighting over. HA!) Turns out, that was just fine. I soon became close to one of the daughters, who was a few years younger than I. I was also very close to her mom. I really looked up to her for everything.

Well, I'm not sure what happened, but she (the daughter), and I grew apart. We both talked about each other, backstabbed each other, and sometimes, I think we competed for the same friends...

One night, my mom and I went over to their house, and had a long talk to try and get it all out, and figure out what went wrong. We mended things right then, and although we were never close as we used to be, we didn't seem to have some kind of vendetta against each other any longer. Honestly, I think we really only talked a handful of times over the next 13 years.

This past October (15 years later), she was in San Antonio for a conference. John and I ended up picking her up from her hotel, and we went out to eat. I took her on a tour of Oak Hills Church, and we really had a great visit. I remember calling my mom and just telling her how mature and grown up she was.

Last Saturday, I got a message from her. She is studying the Fruits of the Spirit, and her focus now is Love. "Show me how to love like you have loved me." After 15 years, Jo Lynn Hawk apologized to me for all the crap that went on when we were in Jr. High and High School. I was in awe of how God is working in her life, and I put this out there publicly for everyone to see, because it meant that much to me. I apologized back to her, and told her I had forgiven her years ago.

The following week, I did the same thing. I made amends with people at work, and now, I'm working on who I need to go back, and ask forgiveness from.

Thank you, Jo Lynn for touching my life with a simple little note. You are truly growing into a mature woman of God.

Favorite Christmas Memories

2008-12-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

As I sit here at work, listening to Christmas music and looking out the window into the dense fog, I reflect on some things that have happened over the past few weeks that I'm so thankful for, and things that I look forward to.

Things I'm thankful for:
- my dear husband, who sticks with me no matter what. He has so much patience. He makes me laugh and smile.

- my mom seems to be doing better. She has actually gotten out of the house, and visited with friends, and she even went to the Christmas Program that FBC Buna put on last week.

- my new little nephew, Nicholas Ryan. What a precious addition he is to the family.

- that God has once again spoken clearly to me about some things in my life. and that He is opening the door again for me to once again sing on the praise team.

- that John and I are trying for baby.

Things I'm looking forward to:
- waking up with John on Christmas morning

- singing Away in a Manger with my dad playing the guitar at the Candelight service Christmas Eve.

- singing with Heaven's Breath at the Candelight service

- leading music Sunday morning (dec. 28) at FBC Buna with one of my dearest friends, Mitch.

- Christmas eve with my family - Singing Christmas Carols, listening to dad play the guitar, hearing the Christmas story, and singing Silent Night, as we all think about my brother Jeremy, and how he used to sing it in German every year.

- refreshing old memories

This year is the first year I've really been in the Christmas Spirit since Jeremy died.

Now...For my favorite Christmas memories...

Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, Jeremy, Dad, and I would always go out to Double S Tree farms, and pick out the perfect Christmas tree that we were going to decorate that year. We'd go get the saw, pick it out, cut it down, and off we went. We'd go back to the house (we even did this after my parents split up), and turn down the lights, and it would begin. Dad would pull out his guitar, and Jeremy and I would begin to decorate the tree. Mom would sit back, listen and watch. We'd string the lights out, find out which ones were working, and which ones weren't. After we strung the lights on the tree, we'd pull out the ornaments. We'd laugh, and cry, and make fun of the poor little angel I made in the third grade. You see, my third grade classroom had a terrible leak in the ceiling, and one day, part of the ceiling collapsed. I'll never forget Mrs. Gerald saying "well, a couple of your Christmas Angels were crushed, but we managed to save them." Of course, mine was crushed, and wet, so the marker smeared, and well...I hope to get a picture of her while at mom's to share. Then there are all the silly little ornaments made of sweet gum balls, and lifesaver wrappers, and popsicle sticks, and then the ultimate ornament. I must preface this with - I AM NOT AN ARTIST. I should not have taken art my freshman year in high school. We made paper mache' ornaments. We blew up mini balloons, and paper mache'd them, and then painted them. My forementioned angel above looks like she came from heaven compared to my paper mache' sorry-excuse-for-an-ornament-made-by-a-14-year-old. :-) It's all caved in on one side, and it looks like I took it to a Mission Friends class and let one of the kids paint it.

It just hasn't been the same since Jeremy died. I took to some of the traditions with decorating my own tree, and still do what I can when I decorate mom's tree. Sadly, the Christmas tree farms in town have all closed, so if we want a real tree, we just go to wal-mart and pick it up. I throw on some Kenny G Christmas music, and decorate by myself.

I'm hoping as each year comes, John and I can start our own Christmas Traditions together, and that just as my parents' traditions have been passed on to me, we can do the same with our future children.

Do you have any favorite Christmas Traditions? I'd love to hear any!

I will post plenty of pictures next weekend when I'm back in San Antonio. In the country, it's hard to get any kind of good internet connection, so this will probably be my last blog for a week or so.

I hope that each of you has a very Merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

Here's to a better year in 2009! *clink*

:-)

Thanksgivin' Happenings and More

2008-12-01T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ok, so before I start my actual post, I have to tell y'all about something I heard this morning. I made an order with shutterfly and I never recieved my pictures, so I picked up the phone to call them this morning to check on what might have happened. The prompt menu seemed normal enough until i hear "To hear a Pirate read these options, press 6". HA!! And it actually works. You press 6, and you hear all the options read in pirate talk. Too cute. If you wanna hear, call (888) 225-7159.

ok. For my real post -
My Thanksgiving holidays were pretty fun! I got some much needed time off from work, and got my apartment all decorated up. (the first one is kinda hard to see...but all the lights are ours, and you can even see the Christmas Tree through the window. :-) )

Wednesday, John and I decided that we were going to go ahead and get our tree, and get everything decorated because we weren't going to be home on Thanksgiving, and he had to go back to work the next day. Once we picked out our tree, shoved it into the back of the Honda, and got it home, we realized we were a little short on decorations for it. It's a huge tree. Needless to say, John had to make an extra trip back to Target to get more lights.

We went with the LED lights this year. They are beautiful. So vibrant, and the colors are much more true than the regular lights. I have a lighted wreath I used to hang on my house in Houston, and when it's lit up against my LEDs on my patio, it looks so yellow. It's still pretty, though. We seem to be the only ones so far who have done anything. We've seen some other decorations, but I feel like we went all out, compared to anyone else. Maybe I'll take a drive around the complex at some point to see what else is out. Our neighbors have been very complimentary. We did have "bellicide", though. That could have been tragic. We had some bells hanging in the arch of the patio, and when they fell, they hit our neighbor's car. (Our patio is located directly above our neighbor's garage, and they park outside the garage). oops. Thankfully the only evidence was the red glitter everywhere. broke the bells, but no damage to the car, so they'll never know! :-)

That same night before Thanksgiving, my SIL, Kelli asked me if I would help her bake a Carrot Cake. I love to cook, and now that I have space, I was like "Yeah! Come on over!" so, she and her BF Chris came over. John went to the movies with a friend. Kelli, Chris, and I visited for a while, and finally went to HEB about 8:30ish. once again, like in an earlier post, i left my list at home. Thankfully, this time, we were barely out of the complex, so we turned around, picked up the list, and off we went! After our shopping trip, we came home, and started cooking. I got out everything on the list, and made the cake. I also needed to make a squash casserole, so while the cake was baking, I was clearing some space, and when I picked up the flour to put it up, I was like..."Hmmm...I wonder why I pulled this out. I didn't use it. Oh well, guess I didn't need it." WRONG! Kelli and I noticed that the cake was starting to fall, rather than rise. oops! Turns out I DID need the flour. 2 freakin' cups of it. That was the NASTIEST cake ever!! See for yourself. NOT pretty.

Kelli and I were both bummed about it, but I just promised her I would get up the next morning, and make another cake. I almost overslept, but I got up just in time, and made the cake again. This time, I only had 2 eggs, when the recipe called for three, and all the stores were closed. It still came out great! Here's my second attempt.

The actual Thanksgiving festivities were nice. We had about an hour long drive to Devine to go to an Aunt's house. They have about 33 acres of land, so it was a lot of fun to walk around. They have all sorts of trails on the property. Oh, and we visited the 10 foot rattlesnake John's uncle had shot two days before. That sucker was HUGE. I've never seen an actual rattlesnake in person. Calvin had blown it's head off and then cut the rattles off to keep as a keepsake. Or trophy. Oh, did i mention it had 15 rattles? Long rattle! calvin said he was just walking around, and that snake popped it's head up and immediatly started rattling. I would have freaked.

You can find out about my other Thanksgiving Day happening on my other blog.

On another note...At 28 years old, I discovered these. :-)

...and like them a lot.
Don't worry - not gonna get drunk or anything - I think you know me better than that. :-)

Hope y'all had a great Holiday!!

Beautiful Sunset...

2008-11-19T16:19:00.000-08:00

It's amazing how God paints the sky in such vibrant colors. Yesterday, I rushed home, and John and I immediately got on our bikes to try and catch a sunset. We could not have timed it more perfect. We went out on the dam at Mud Creek, and captured some pictures. The great building you see with the sunset is the San Antonio, TX Mormon Temple on Stone Oak Parkway. Enjoy...

These are just some scenery pics from the same location. It's so beautiful out here.

And now for a couple of other pics...Check out the hubby...So GQ! :-) I just think he's HOT! It's ok, you can agree if you want...

Crazy Weekend...

2008-11-17T07:43:00.000-08:00

And what a weekend it was!! Saturday started off kinda slow. I got up, got John off to work, and then just chilled on the couch and watched TV for a while. I don't get to do that very often, since I always feel like I need to clean my apartment, clean my car, run a few errands, or whatever. I'm not saying that when I need to do those things I don't watch TV, but I just feel so guilty while I'm sitting there doing it. :-) About mid-afternoon, I got up, and went to the church, because our workroom was in need of some MAJOR TLC. My little brother-in-law has been volunteering at the church on weekends, so he helped me out. It looks GREAT! That only took a couple of hours, so then I went back home and vegged for a while. I had the windows and doors open, and this is silly, but it was so cold in the apartment, I didn't want to get out from under the covers and do anything. Finally, when it reached about 55 inside, I decided to shut the doors.

John actually got off on time Saturday, which was SOOOO nice. Our off days have not lined up in two weeks, so we haven't gotten to see each other much the past couple of weeks. Just the evenings. By the time he gets home alot of nights, it's time for me to go to bed, since I have to get up so early in the morning. Last week, I traded in Resident Evil for the Wii, and got a racing game. I used to play Burnout on the Playstation 2, and loved it! Prostreet is good, too, but Burnout is still the best. (Boy, I sound like a game nerd.) Anyways - John and I make such a good team together, because he can do the drift, drag, and top speed races really good, and I can do the Grip, Sector Shootouts, and Time Attacks very good, so we dominate every race. It's awesome! hehe--

Yesterday morning, we got up and went to church, where I met the Author I am going to be working for. I've taken on a second job to make a little extra for the holidays. I'm typing a book for a new author. He will be dictating the book onto microcassettes, and he even bought me a transcribing machine to play the tapes. I do so much transcription at work, that this should be pretty easy. I just have to get used to using the machine, and also to hearing someone's voice besides my boss's. :-) Do I feel a full time, at home job in the works? :-)

After church, we went to John's parents for a little visit, and then we went to buy a wireless keyboard for the computer. (Turns out, I'm going to use my old computer, so I didn't need it anyways, but..oh well.) We went to Best Buy, and as we were walking across the parking lot, this lady stopped to let us cross the street. John made a comment about the guy behind her that had just honked at her, so we were surprised she stopped. She was on her cell phone, so she probably didn't realize she was being honked at. Well....about that time, the impatient guy behind her floored it around her, totally oblivious to the fact that we were in the street, and she was being curteous. He really didn't come that close to hitting us, but it was the principle of the matter. He could have. John decided he was going to wait at the door for the guy. He informed the employees standing at the door that he was going to have a little talk with this guy, and promised him he was going to be nice about it. Me, not wanting to see my new husband get arrested for fighting in the store, went to the back to look at keyboards. Apparently what happened was John told the guy he needed to have a chat with him, and even though the guy ignored him, John informed him that he almost hit he and his wife in the parking lot, and maybe he should be a little more considerate of pedestrians in the parking lot next time. He said the guy got really angry, and started yelling, cussing, calling him names, and all of a sudden, they were surrounded by several employees and security. The guy ended up walking off, and John apologized, and that was it. We bought our keyboard, and we were leaving the store, the lovely gentleman was in front of us. As he was backing out of his spot, he saw us, proceeded to flip us off, and flew out of the parking lot. jerk. At least John and I were ok. John only wanted to confront him, because he figured if no one ever tells this guy how inconsiderate he is, he may never think about it, and one day, he might actually hit someone. Maybe he'll at least think next time before he goes flying around someone in a parking lot. Maybe he won't.

Last night, I finally got to ride my new bike I got last week. There's a park right down the street that has some mountain bike trails so we ventured off on those. wow. that was some tough riding when you're not used to it!! I loved every minute of it though. The weather is perfect right now, and the scenery is just beautiful. Maybe next time we go out riding, I'll strap the camera on and take some pics. I love living in the Hill Country. It makes me forget I live in San Antonio.

Have a great work week!

TTC Blog...

2008-11-11T05:47:00.000-08:00

I am creating a blog that i hope will follow the TTC journey of John and I. I pray that it's a short blog, but we'll see! Sooo...for the millions of you that read my blog out there (HA!), the address is http://littlemojoparker.blogspot.com. Bookmark it if you wanna follow along. I haven't posted anything yet - that will probably come tomorrow.

Anything is Possible if You Have Enough NERVE...

2008-11-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

But, apparently, some of us actually don't!

This morning, I finally got the answer to why I've been dizzy off and on since January of this year. :-)

After a series of testing - one test in particular showed that I have a degenerative Inferior Vestibular Nerve on the right side. Lovely. It is 54% gone, so I have 46% of my balancing ability on my right side. This would explain why everything I do with the right side of my body makes me dizzy! Turning over in bed to the right, raising my right arm, i fall to the right when I stand up, etc...

Crazy stuff.

The Good News? It's treatable. With simple-stupid exercises!

One exercise, for example, is to stand in a corner on a hard surface with my feet together, my arms crossed, and my eyes closed. Sounds easy, huh? Well, for you it may be. For those of us with balance issues? One of the hardest things to do. I would also fail a field sobriety test if I were to take one. I can't walk in a straight line. I can't put one foot in front of the other, and stand straight. I fall to the right. Even though I have a hard time with this, these are the exercises that will rehibilitate me. These simple exercises will teach the left side of my brain how to compensate for the right side not holding up it's end of the bargain. :-) I guess it just got lazy all of a sudden.

Did you know that you have "crystals" in your ears? When these crystals get out of place, this can cause some serious vertigo. One thing you can do is the "Epley Maneuver", and this will put those crystals back into place. I had a few out of place, so hopefully those are back where they belong. The person performing the manuever can tell when you get dizzy, since your eyes are bouncing back and forth. If they do that during this manuever, then you can almost guarantee there are some out of place!

Anyways - I'm so excited to find out what it was, because I'm normally the one that is going to have something that the doctors can't figure out. of course.

On another note - Some of you will know what it means, and some will have to look it up if they want to know, and others wont care...but John and I are about to start a new journey in our lives. We will soon be joining the TTC club. In the past, I have had problems TTC, so I want to start as soon as I can, so that I know what's in store for us. say a little prayer!

The Cheapest Grocery Trip

2008-11-04T06:22:00.001-08:00

Well, last night, I had the cheapest grocery shopping trip ever...Let me tell you how I did it. :-)

Sunday night, I sat down, and planned out a menu for the week, and had the website I was using take those recipes and create a shopping list for me. I was so proud, and ready to go try out the new HEB Plus on 281 Monday night after work.

So last night we got in the car, and headed on over. The store is only about 2 1/2 miles from the apartment, so it's going to be very convenient. It just opened on October 27, and I've been waiting for a good night to check it out. This was a great night - surprisingly enough, it wasn't packed like I expected it to be.

Ok - we get to the grocery store, and let me tell you - this place is freakin' HUGE!! I've been to a couple of these HEB Plus stores, but this one tops them all. (For those of you not familiar with what an HEB Plus store is - think HEB on steriods. You can now go to HEB and buy many of the same items [and sometimes more] that you would find at your local Wal-Mart or Target. Clothes, furniture, and even a trailer hitch if ya like!) I get in the store, and I'm like a kid in a big ole' toy store...wow. Then i realize I forgot the list. grrr... Most of the time, I can remember what I've put on the list, but it's because I've actually written it out. I didn't write this one, and I was so overwhelmed by the store that i couldn't remember anything past bread.

I opted to leave John in the magazine section (he can read car mags forever!), and I ran home to get the list. I started not feeling so well. My stomach was a little queasy, but since my husband was carless at the store, I knew i had to press on, and get back. 15 minutes - I was back with the list in hand. :-)

We started down an aisle, and I was like, babe - I really don't feel that great- can we just get what we need, and get out of here? He told me his stomach was feeling really weird, too. Neither one of us felt like walking around. After all that...

we went home.

"He went to Jared!!!"

2008-10-27T13:40:00.001-07:00

Wow...it's been almost a month, and SOOOOO much has happened since my last post.

As most of you know, I married Mr. JP, Jr. on October 12. John proposed on Ocotber 2, and of course, I said YES! I have known for a long time I wanted to marry this man, and I can't believe it's actually for real now. It's not really sunk in completely yet since I didn't go through all the hu-bub of a big wedding. He just decided to do it - not even the way he had planned. The proposal went a little something like:

(We were already just sitting on the couch, talking about getting married to each other some day)

Melissa: Look at this face (au naturale - no makeup. Hair in a very messy ponytail). Is THIS the face you want to wake up to for the rest of your life?

John: Well, yes it is. Now. Let me ask YOU a question.

John pulls the ring out of his pocket -

"Will you marry me?"

it was absolutely so sweet, and how funny that I just happened to ask him that question, and opened the door right up for the proposal!!

I knew he had been up to something all day, but I had no idea what. He called my dad to ask his permission to marry me, he had been across the street from the church at Jared for several hours, knowing that I ALWAYS go to the shopping center where Jared's is. :-)

It was so sweet and tender. A moment I'll never forget.

The wedding was very simple. My boss, Jim, married us in the amphitheater located on the grounds of the church. Only John's family was able to make it. It was such short notice, it was hard for my parents to make it. My dad tried to fly in from Midland, but the weather was too bad in west Texas. He was pretty hurt that he couldn't make it. I would have loved to have had someone from my family there, but I know things don't always work out, and I still had a good day. I married the man of my dreams!! Doesn't get much better than that! After the wedding, we went with his family to Alamo Cafe' and they surprised us with a couple of gifts and a wedding cake!! Yummy! I had gotten a gift certificate to a brand new hotel here in town, and when we got there, our room wasn't ready, so we were upgraded to a 2 bedroom 2 bath suite. It was SUPER nice. :-)

The week after the wedding - we moved into a new apartment. We absolutely love it. I was so excited to get in and get it set up, that I had it done within 4 days of moving in. John's a go-getter too, so that helps. We installed shop lights in the garage last night, so that should help John be able to see well enough to work on cars and stuff.

I just want to thank everyone who's been praying for John and I lately. I'm so glad that we have gotten off to such a great start. I especially love the fact that not only did I marry the man of my dreams, but that man became a Christian on October 5!!! YAY!

hmmm...maybe a baby in the future? We'll see how my body does. It was pretty uncooperative in the past. Hopefully this time will be a success...

Of to straighten up the apartment, and do my wifely duties! Yay!

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words...

2008-10-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

Thank you Lord for answering prayers...

Mojo Superhero

2008-09-29T17:25:00.000-07:00

I know many of you have seen this in my writings, in my usernames, and some website addresses, so I thought I'd take some time to explain. It's simple, really.

Last fall, we had some sidewalks and other concrete areas repoured at the church. I've always been the one that wanted to make a lasting imprint in wet concrete. (My Reebok High Top pumps shoeprints still remain at First Baptist, Buna!) Well, I did it. and then it rained, so they had to repour the sidewalk I had so carefully put my initials in. Drats. So thought maybe that was God's way of saying I shouldn't have done that in a place that was so prominent. one day, one ofthe maintenance workers came and told me of a spot they had poured hours before that was starting to set. perfect!!! I found an old pen, and to the "chiller yard" I went. :-) Well, the concrete was already set enough that it just crumbled. This is how it turned out...

yes, it says "MO". It was supposed to be M.D. Just a little ironic now, seeing as how my last initial is no longer D. John was still working as a security guard at the church, and he was walking past there one day, and thought it was so funny that my "criminal act" had gone sour. That's kinda when he started calling me Mo. We didn't talk that often, but that's what he would call me when we did talk. When we started talking more, we kinda came up with the whole "MoJo" thing - as a combination of our names. :-) You can imagine the looks on his friends' and families' faces when they would hear me call him Jo. :-) One day, I happened to call him my mojo superhero, and that has stuck every since. He even had shirts made for us...

You should know that I wish that John and I had met under different circumstances. My life had been totally turned upside down last fall. John has kept me from going under. He's allowed me to greive the loss of my 7 year marriage, and he's been there for me - even when I had friends that wouldn't be there for me. I'm having to deal with my past, but it's just that now - the past. There are no plans to revive the marriage, as we have both moved on. THe fact of the matter is - I love this guy. He has made leaps and bounds in many many ways over the last 8 months. Sometimes, I just stare at him and wonder how someone so amazing could be a part of my life after all the wrong I did in the past??? There's never a time he's not there for me. He knows my thoughts, and can finish my sentences. He always makes sure I have everything I need, even if he has to make big sacrifices. He stands up for me against people who talk down to me, or treat me wrong (He actually confronted the neighbor that yelled at me about Daisee). His family even sticks up for me against him!!! HA! He will tell me thank you 100 times for fixing a pot of ramen noodles. I love that he appreciates the small things. Nothing goes unnoticed with him. I'm not in it for the praise - but it sure makes me want to do a lot more!

Life's not all peachy-keen, and smellin' like roses. We can aggravate the crap out of each other, but that's normal, right? the most important part - he loves me. and I love him.

Jo,
You truly are my Mojo Superhero!

Thank you for being you. Thank you for everything you've done for me. Thank you for all of your hard work to make sure I have what I need. Thank you for making me happy at one of the toughest times in my life. Thank you. I love you baby...

-Mo

Russell who? I don't think so...

2008-09-08T09:57:00.000-07:00

Ok. I watched the MTv VMAs last night, cause i like to watch the live performances sometimes. I mostly do it to see who can really perform live, and actually sound good, and who's lip syncing, and who just flat out can't sing. well, I didn't last night, and I don't know that I will again.

I only watched the first 10 minutes, and I was so angry, I turned the tv completely off. I was absolutely horrified that some idiot such as Russell Brand would come to the US from another country, and bash our government the way he did. If you didn't see it,and you dont know what I'm talking about - you didn't miss anything. First, he assured everyone that he is very famous in the UK. Of course - no one here knows who the heck he is???? Then, he "begged" America, for the world's sake, to vote for Barack Obama. Then he began name calling, and called Bush a "retarted cowboy fellow." Excuse me? Who do you think you are? You can't tell people who to vote for! You can't even vote in this country! I'll admit, I voted for Bush, and I know he hasn't been the greatest president ever, but he didn't deserve that. He proceeded to go on bashing Sarah Palin, and republicans in general. I couldn't take it anymore, and not just because I'm a Republican - which, really, I'm an American - isn't that all that matters? His remarks were just crude and very ugly. Of course, they're in Hollywood, so there were cheers, but when they showed the audience- there faces told a different story. It was apparent that some of them were not impressed.

When I read the news this morning, I found out he had poked fun at those who wear "Promise Rings", as a promise to God and their future mates to stay abstinent until marriage. Jordin Sparks - wow. She got up and said "I just wanna say, it's not bad to wear a promise ring because not every guy and a girl wants to be a slut, OK?" I'm proud of her for that. The Jonas Brothers were poked fun at too, because they all three wear promise rings as well. Their faces had sheer horror on them as Russell "apologized", and then ended his "apology" with "a little occasional sex never hurt anyone."

Who does this guy think he is? I hope he got on a plane last night and went back to the UK. That was ridiculous.

Now, let me end by saying this - I'm not saying that people shouldn't get to pick who they vote for. I know who I'm voting for, and although it's probably obvious who I'm voting for, that's between me and God, and the machine counting my vote. If you choose to advertise who you're voting for - that's fine. I know, I know - Freedom of Speech. That's why I get to post these opinions on my blog! But just as a lot of places are not allowed to "sway" people to one side or the other - they should have been a little more careful with that. Especially since he was from another country. *sigh*

What's happening in this world? If you didn't see the awards show, you can do a search. he made every news site there is out there.

The Things We do for Love...:-)

2008-09-05T07:41:00.001-07:00

Ok, so I had started a post with all the hurricane happenings, but there really weren't any, so maybe when I get home, I'll add some pictures of the weekend activities. I do, however, think the most exciting part was....

I bought a car.

yes. My very first one. all on my own. I felt like a big girl.

Then I handed John the keys.

John has been driving a 1992 VW Corrado for the past several years, and lately, it's been giving him MAJOR problems. Just since I've known him, he's made so many repairs, it's not even funny. He's replaced, axles, wheel bearings, wheel hubs, batteries, hoses, and I can't even remember what else. not to mention, in Texas - he has no A/C. He's also been having to push start it every single morning before he goes to work. It won't even jump start sometimes. This made for very frustrating starts to what have been VERY long, hard, hot, annoying late days at work.

A few weeks ago, he casually started looking, because he didn't know if he could get financed or not. Well, last week, he got financed through one company, but they were going to charge him 18% interest!! yikes! It was also a smaller amount, so he had a hard time finding anything he liked in that price range. He did find a Mazda rx-8 that we test drove, but both of us were extremely disappointed. I offered to apply, and see if I could get financed, but no success. They said I have an excellent credit score (almost 700!), but I'm on a Debt Management Plan, so they wouldn't touch me. ok. so we'll wait another 8 months, and try again. John's very picky about his cars, too. Not only does he like them fast with turbo, and boost, and blow-off valves, but he likes what we call "rice boy" cars - loud exhaust (not the fart can kind, tho), and big spoilers. ew. Cars are just something we never seem to agree on.

Until Tuesday.

On our way back from Buna to San Antonio, we stopped in Houston to check out a couple of cars that his friend Jason had told him about. Two Dodge SRT-4s. One Red, One Yellow. One with 19,000 miles. One with 70,000. One 2005, one 2003. One $17,000, and one $12,000. *sigh* decisions. We thought it there would be no decision to make, because neither one of us could get financed for the larger amount. Of course, though, when we get there, we can't test drive the cheaper one, because they are making repairs to a worn seat in the cheaper one. John took the keys to the red one, and off he went. 95 mph in a 35 mph zone. The salesman and I got a good laugh off of that one. I just said 'Well, he's gonna test it to it's limits." :-) John doesn't always drive like that - but he LOVES fast cars, and this one is fast. It's got a turbo, and it's a good turbo. Of course, we know what happens next. He falls in love. he fell hard. He wanted that car so bad. Neither one of us liked the yellow one, so basically here's what happened.

John filled out the financial paperwork, and then we jetted, because we didn't think he'd get the financing. The sales guy called about 35 minutes later, and asked if I would co-sign. Sure...I love this guy, and he deserves this new car. I'll help him out. While I'm giving him the information (we had made it to the Love's in Katy by this point, and stopped to get gas), John realizes his wallet's missing. I asked the sales guy, and he went and checked the SRT-4. Sure nuff. It was in there. GRRRRR....ok. Do we drive back in Houston's 5:00 traffic? Do we have the guy mail it to us? Are we gonna get the car, and have to come back to Houston tomorrow anyways? We opted to go on back to San Antonio, and leave the wallet in Houston. We had already been on the road 6 hours, and had 3 more to go.

Anthony (the sales guy) called about 2 hours later, and said he was 99% sure that they could get me financed for the car, but by myself, without John. WHAT?? Are you kidding? He said he would call back the next morning, and let us know. We waited...and waited...and waited... Finally. the call came. 3 hours later than he said....WE GOT THE CAR!! WOO HOO!!

I was so excited. John had his friend, Carlos, ride with us to Houston, and we got there about 3. It was quite an ordeal to actually get the car, but we finally drove it away at 5:45 that evening.

I now own a car that at this point, I had never even sat in. hehe. Oh, and I have to learn to drive it. I haven't driven a stick in about 15 years.

I prayed long and hard about this, and asked God to somehow get us the financing if it was meant to be. I never dreamed it would actually happen. I just told John that if anything happens, I have a new car! :-) Oh, and I begged him to please not get a ticket in it.

oh, Did I mention I'm not the one making payments? :-) That's the best part!

Anyways- He's so proud of it, and I am too. He needed this. I finally got to ride in it for a 20 minutes yesterday. :-) I like. I'm hoping to take it to Buna when I go back in a few weeks. Meet the "Mojo Mobile" :-)

It's Raining...It's Pouring...the old man is...what? It's Flooding!!

2008-08-27T16:41:00.003-07:00

I got home today, and it was absolutely coming a down pour. The water was within an inch from coming into the apartment. My neighbor heard John and I talking and he poked his head out, and said that the water fortunately has never come into the apartments. There was a pretty good flow. I suppose you could say we had the Abbey River flowing through here. I took a couple of videos, but they didn't turn out great. I'll post them, and see what happens. I took some pictures too. Oh, did I mention Niagra Falls came to visit too? See for yourself: (click picture for larger view)

1. "Niagra Falls"
2. You can see the water quickly rising to the threshold.
3. Standing outside my front door.
4. My patio. The water is rising nicely here, too. You can tell by the leg of the bench.

This first one is a tad bit hard to see, but wait till it gets towards the end. You'll see when I get the camera to focus the water coming up at the bottom of the video. The roar is the rain and Niagra Falls at the end of the sidewalk.

This second video is shorter. At one point, i show my feet completely submerged, but it'll be hard to see on this small shot. You'll hear my neighbor (One of the TWO nice ones here) talking about how it flows and disappears as soon as the rain is over. He's right. It's already gone.

S.P.A.S.I.C.

2008-08-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

S ome
P eople
A re
S o
I n-
C onsiderate

*UPDATE* I added a picture at the bottom of the post showing what happens outside my door when it rains...

So only a few of my oldest friends would remember the days of screaming SPASIC!!!! when someone was rude to them, or just had no concerns about anyone but themselves.

Today, I went over to some friends' house to see their new baby, and help out with a few things around the house. When I got home, I followed my normal "come home" routine.

Daisee had been locked in the crate for several hours, and when this is the case, I leave the front door open, go to the crate let her out, and she runs straight for the door. If I don't do this, she'll pee on the floor, cause she's so excited. usually, on the way out the door, i grab a poop bag and her leash. Today, I couldn't find her leash quickly, so I went on outside with just the poop bag. I normally don't put her on the leash anyways, because she stays right with me most of the time.

Well, I have these semi-new neighbors who seem like the unhappiest people ever. I've said hi to them, smiled at them, John's said hi, and both of us get the same response: "Go to hell" looks, and they turn and walk away. At first, I thought maybe they didn't speak english, because in this lovely town, you never know. BUT - Hello, Hi, and a smile are universal - everybody knows that! These are the kind of people I dread running into when I'm outside, and it seems like they come and go so much that i ALWAYS see them. grrr... This was the case today-

As they are getting out of their car, Daisee is minding her own business, and sniffing out a poop place. She then spots him, barks one time, and then goes on about her sniffing. Well...Mr. Nice Guy turns around, raises at her the shoes he has in his hands, and says "Shut the F*ck Up." Yeah. I was kinda mad. I'm non-confrontational (especially with a stranger), so I didn't say anything. UNTIL...he started to walk off, and Daisee started walking the same direction. He turns around, and stomps at her to scare her, and mouths something else to her.

HECK NO. So I said something, and this is how the conversation went:

ME: Look, you don't have to talk to my dog that way and threaten her.

MR. NICE GUY: I didn't threaten your dog. besides, you need to have her on a leash.

ME: She's not bothering you or anyone else. She's fine. Leave her a lone

Mr NICE GUY: I'm gonna turn you in for that. You also need to have a doggie bag.

ME: What do you think this is in my hand?

--
The whole time, he won't even give me the respect to talk to my face - he's walking off the whole time. JERK.

My dog has been at the Abbey MUCH longer than he has. This is why I hate this stupid apartment complex. Rude people, and holy cow- just in the year I've been there- it's so trashy now. Daisee has quit peeing outside because they don't mow the dang grass. It's so tall, she doesn't like to walk in it. She poops, but she will not pee outside. yeah- you guessed it. She pees inside. AARRRRGGGHHH!!!! My creepy upstairs neighbor has started a new trend with several people - Hey! Let's all just drop our trash out the side of the car instead of taking it inside or 25 yards over to the trash dumpster. There was a hypodermic needle on the ground last week, surrounded by about 30-40 cigarette butts. Hmmm...wonder was going on there. This weekend, someone dumped HUNDREDS of strip club ads all over the place. They are everywhere. My neighbors all smoke, and they love throwing their butts down at my front door. What have I done? Maybe it's because we all got the notice NOT to throw butts on the ground, and they don't want people to know it's them. hmmm..let's see- what else? oh yeah - the flooding. Now there's mud all up to my front door, and it's covering my door mat, so mud is getting tracked into the carpet. I found a bottle of KY Jelly at the end of my sidewalk. huh??? How does that happen? It's nothing to walk out to the grassy area where I take Daisee and it be covered in beer bottles from the party the night before. Of course, she likes to lick them. yuck. I'm amazed the poor thing is still alive.

<-- This is what happens outside my door when it rains. My door is to your right. The water is about 2 1/2 inches deep, and is about 1 1/2 inches from getting into my door.

ok- well, I've vented about this place long enough. Thanks for listening. :-)

oh yeah - i got my hair cut off yesterday. It's cute, but i'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I had grown my hair out for a long time, and I'm now wishing I had just gotten it trimmed. I was enjoying it. most of the time. I convinced myself otherwise when I was sitting in that chair yesterday. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Prayer Requests

2008-08-18T20:02:00.000-07:00

Ok - So there aren't any rules about posting two times in one day, are there?

I have some prayer requests I'd like for you to pray for. Little to no details. God knows who I'm talking about, and knows their needs.

*Mom - Needs a new job, and to get meds lined out
*Dad - getting over flu
*John - job is extremely stressful
*Katie
*Troy - Cancer Treatment
*Ray - Parent Matters - wants to return to church
*Karen - Parent Matters - Wants to return to church
*Kevin - Had a very scary event happen in his life.
*Marcelle - has been feeling bad lately. no explanation for it
*Bruce - juggling many tasks at once.
*Scott - on the search for a house. deals keep falling through. adjusting to new life up north.
*Jim - Needs to slow down a bit.
*Jason and Karina - new baby - Mary Katherine
*Daron and Sarah - new baby - Katherine (Katie)
*Justin and Shannon - almost new baby! -Hudson
*Oak Hills Church - about to launch a HUGE series, following the book, The Story
*Nathan - was in emergency room this week with heart issues
*Bill - getting married Labor Day weekend
*Dawn - leaving Oak Hills for a new position elsewhere

These are just some for the people closest to me...there are plenty more. Join me in prayer...

God is Working overtime in my life...

2008-08-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

Wow. that's all I have to say about the past couple of days.

What normally would be an ordinary weekend, turned out to be EXTRAordinary.

It started with leading worship this weekend. I absolutely LOVE to sing, and I think God has blessed me with a natural gift, and I love to just give it back to Him. Well, not only was this just an awesome weekend music-wise, but in so many other ways. We have so many talented people on the worship team, and this weekend, I felt like it just meshed. I had a blast. I clapped my leg so hard, it was bruised when I got home. oops. I guess I got a little into it.

Well, Sunday morning was extra special. John's mom, stepdad, and little brother came to church. THey had said several times they were going to come, but this time, they really did. There have been some life-changing events for them lately, and they felt they really needed Gods help. God totally brough them there this weekend. Randy's message? "Do the Right Thing". It was the story of David and Bathsheba, and then he went into the part where Nathan confronts David, and tells him that because of the wrong he had done (adultery, trying to cover up the resulting pregnancy, and then sending Uriah [Bathsheba's husband]out in the battlefield to die), his baby with Bathsheba would die. Randy is a phenominal speaker, and it really hit home with a lot of people (including myself), but John's parents...oh my goodness. They were so excited. They LOVED Oak Hills. They want to come back. Kevin, John's little brother has been reading his bible faithfully, and has set time aside each night for his time with the Lord. Let me just say - this is HUGE...I even glanced up to see John walking back to his seat, after praying with Max Lucado. This is another blessing. Not that Max can pray better than others, but it's a big deal for John. I really can't put it in to words how exciting that part of the weekend. Thank you Lord for bringing them to Oak Hills. I pray they come back. Would you pray for them, too?

This morning, I was in prayer time and made a prayer request that I have been making for 3 weeks now. it went something like this: "I know I sound like a broken record, but please continue to pray for my mom. She's STILL without airconditioning, and it's getting very frustrating. It's only a WINDOW UNIT..." Without going into all the details...my mom now has a brand new air conditioning unit being delivered to her house tomorrow. Dorothy Bagley at Oak Hills Church is an absolute angel to me and my mom. She is one of the dearest, sweetest, ladies you could ever meet. and I mean that. I never mentioned that my mom only had a window unit, so everyone had been picturing a big central air unit. When they heard window unit - they were shocked. Several people stepped in and wanted to go get her one, and install it TODAY...until they found out she's 6 hours away.

This was an email from one of those dear people...

Melissa,
It’s just so simple... There are many prayers that are sought in our Prayer
Time that only God can answer... But getting a window air conditioner is
something God can do through US...

What sweet words. I never thought of it that way.

I have really been so moved by people the past couple of days. These are the days that are worth living.

Thank you, Lord, for taking care of my family and friends the way you have. You have not only answered one prayer, but several in just a matter of 24 hours. All glory to YOU!!!

--

I started my 10 hour work days today. It was still dark when I got to work this morning. yuck. 5:30 am?? I didn't know such a time existed! HA! I enjoyed it. I was extremely busy all day, and I didn't even leave until 5:15!! Normally I'm beatin' the doors down and OUT...let's see how long it takes me to get used to this one!

Bedknobs and Broomsticks...

2008-08-14T16:43:00.000-07:00

She's driving me nuts...Daisee that is. It's been almost a month, and I still have all this coke stuff in my apartment. I can't keep Daisee from eating the corners of the boxes, and well, to be blunt, it's making her constipated. Poor dog can't push it all out. I feel sorry for her, but she just won't stop. She's always got something in her mouth. It just never seems to be something she's allowed to have.

I did manage, though, to get all of the coke stuff back in boxes - 11 boxes to be exact. They are in a neat stack in my dining room now. This is not great, but it's better than my living room. I had to even put my ottoman out on the porch. Ok, so I did that because Daisee peed on it, and it stunk really really bad. Hopefully it's aired out.

I've got some more changes to talk about! First of all - by just changing my diet - I've lost 5 pounds. I finally saw something below 140 on the scale. yay! Maybe it's because I've been incredibly stressed out, and haven't had much of an appetite. I'm still eating, just not as much. not a bad thing.

Yesterday - I found a new apartment!!! I'm so excited. I don't move until October, but I had to get my hands on this one, because they say they rent out very quickly, and this is the ONLY one they had open for now. I got an incredible deal on this really nice apartment. visit http://www.estatesatcanyonridge.com/ to see the new place. :-) Here's my floorplan.

Of course, i'm not paying the price listed. I'm paying a LOT less. :-)

Another change is going to be my working hours. I'm starting four 10s next week. It's on a trial run basis. With high gas prices, they are providing people with the opportunity to use less gas on trips to and from work. I thought it was a nice gesture - however, I don't think it's going to save anyone on gas. People are using those days to run all over town! So, as opposed to my 18 miles a day to and from work, I'll probably put more on than that some days. :-) Thank goodness for Hondas. My odd thing is I will have Wednesdays off. I think it will break the monontany (do doo do do do...manamana...do do do do...manamana. <-- sorry...a little muppets humor). I will work two days, be off one day, work two days, and be off two days.

Jim (my boss) and I sat and had a really long talk this morning about how we can help each other be more productive, since I'm going to be there for 10 hours. See - as I mentioned in one of my very first posts, i generally don't have too much to do, so I'm bored. Adding two more hours to nothing could be a killer. I'm trying to avoid that. Since I'm feeling better, though, I'm much more productive, and can generally stay pretty busy. We'll see how that goes.

oh...as far as the title of my blog today - it has absolutely nothing to do with the contents. :-)

thanks for dropping by...

Vitamins, Schmitamins

2008-08-04T16:39:00.000-07:00

ok. so my life story is ever so changing. day to day to day.

as mentioned in the previous post - i went to the doctor last week. I got the call on Saturday. "Melissa, Dr. Anson wants to see you. It's about your bloodwork." WHAT? ummm..ok. "It's not urgent, she just wants to see you." *whew* not urgent. I feel a little better. But i'm still nervous. What are they going to tell me? What's wrong? Thank goodness I was leading worship this weekend. That meant I was out of the house, and didn't have to sit here and think about it. Anyone who knows me at all knows I don't like the unknown. I dont like surprises, and I'm impatient. :-)

So I go this morning at 9:30. Here's what I find out. My thyroid levels are still low, so more than likely, i'll have to increase my dosage when I have this tested again. That explains a little.

Here's what explained a lot. - I'm extremely B12 deficient. did I mention extremely?? She said she's been seeing a lot of Vitamin B deficient women lately, but mine was the lowest she's seen. On a scale of 200-1100 - I'm at 204. She was like - "Look Melissa, your B12 is in the toilet." Also, though- due to my age, she thinks I could respond well to B12 vitamin pills, rather than having to get the shot. I'll have that checked again in a month. If this super b complex vitamin doesn't do it, then bring on the needles!!

It's so funny, because I never even thought about B12. I know so many people who are B12 deficient, but I never thought about that for myself. I've never read up on it, so I didn't know it could cause this whole list of symptoms, which I happen to have. You would know, I'd be in the 10% of people who show neuropsychiatric symptoms, too. That would be the memory loss, and the depression. Other things that are also the cause of this: my hair falling out by the handfuls, sleep problems, numbness and tingling, and falling asleep at my desk.

Other than that - all my levels are perfect. yay!

All this being said - I don't think I'm going to be doing the Alli. It works in a way that keeps vitamins from being processed naturally in your body, so I think since I'm deficient here, I shouldn't do anything to make that any worse. Now - I hope I can get my money back!

My Friend, my ALLI

2008-08-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

Ally: al·ly –noun , a person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.

Well, I have an ally now. my supporter. It's called "alli". Some of you may have heard of it. It's a weight loss aid that came out a while back. If you've heard of it, then you know some of the nasty "treatment effects" that can come along with it if you don't follow the diet very well. Maybe you've heard of the drug "xenical" (zeenuhcal) - this is the same thing, in an OTC form. It's also FDA approved. Not many of those out there! Perhaps your familiar with the little blue alien looking thing in the packages.

Don't worry, I'm not counting on the alli to do all the work for me. It's not that kind of medicine. It doesn't claim to be some miracle drug. You have to work for it. You have to eat so much healthier, or else. If you want to know the side effects, just look it up. Warning: Not for those with a weak stomach. If nothing else, it scares the crap out of you (literally?) enough to make you eat healthier. For me it means no more fast food all the time. I need to suck it up, and learn to cook for one on the nights I'm by myself. I've never had to do it, so It's a learning thing for me.

I'm not really in the mood for a whole lot of details, but here's what my plans are to make this one successful: (this is straight from the "myalli plan" website, customized for me).

my goals
I am concerned about my health and want to improve it.
Target Calories/Day: 1400
Target Fat/Meal: 15g
Activity/Week: 60 minutes
My Check-In: Monday
Next Check-In: Aug 18

If I don't stick to this - I could have a really bad day. a REALLY bad day.

My plan is to go with the 60 pills (which will be about a month for me, since I generally don't eat breakfast), and by then if I'm in the habit of a much healthier diet, I'll discontinue the alli.

I did go to the doctor the other day - I asked her to run a "blanket" blood test on me. Cover everything. My upper lip has started tingling the last week, to go along with the dizziness that's still there a bit, and some strange headaches. I pray it's stress.

In about 6 weeks, I'll have my cholesterol and thyroid checked. Isn't that for old people? I guess not. :-)

On a side note- Saw Dark Knight last night. Loved it. The only thing was, even though John and I got there way before the movie started, and we were in the huge IMAX theater - it was already packed. We had to sit on the end of the 3rd row. Kinda made me nautious at first, sitting that close, but I got used to it. If you haven't seen it - go.

I think Coke threw up in my apartment...

2008-07-29T17:22:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to sell my coke collection for a little while now, and I have finally started taking the time to pull it out of storage, and making an inventory of everything I have.

Here's the deal. I've been collecting for about 15 years now. This means I had 13, yes, THIRTEEN boxes in my storage unit. Here's where I get bright! :-) I decided that it would be better to bring all of it to my apartment, in case anyone wants to buy it. My Apartment is only 650 sq. ft, so I'm already cramped!! You can only imagine what adding all this did. I don't even have a place to sit!!

I put out an email to my staff at work, and already sold about $100 worth, so I knew there was a possibility of selling more...

I would normally never invite you into my apartment when it's turned upside down like this, but I actually find it quite humorous this time. :-)

Daisee loves it!! It's one massive chew toy for her!!!!!

She's tried every corner of every box. / Living Room...

Dining Table / Computer desk...books are to find values

Behind chair in living room / Stuff i threw in Dish Washer to clean

My kitchen counters!! This is all the counter space I have in this measly apartment too!

*****************
ok - since I took the pictures, I've moved most of the boxes to one area while I pull each bottle (I have about 200) out, re wrap it, and label it. Now I just have bottles everywhere. ugh.

I'm just a little black rain cloud...

2008-07-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

"Hovering over the honey trees...I'm just a little black rain cloud...pay no attention to little me." - Christopher Robin in Winnie the Pooh.

I love that silly little song. and I love to sing it when it's raining outside.

This is a meaningless little post. I just wanted to say I love the rain. (I don't love that it almost gets in my apartment everytime it rains. oh well. 3 months. then i'm out.)

Growing up in the country makes it really hard for me not to just run out and play when it's falling.

The smell. The coolness. The darkness. The sound. relaxing.

Isn't God amazing with what He can do?

Now sit back...relax...enjoy the rain. (But run if a tornado comes your way!)

Finally Human

2008-07-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

This was my to to list at work today. May not seem like much to some people, but this is HUGE compared to what I normally have to do. I normally have time to change my myspace page 5 to 6 times a day, and rearrange my desk about 3 times, check the kitchen for snacks randomly throughout the day, and occasionally take a nap (not on purpose, either! HA!). Anyways - So this morning, I felt great when I got up. Even got up about 7, ate breakfast, watched the morning news, and then got ready for work. I was even on time for the first time in several weeks. I was reminded when I got to work what kind of week I had last week, because I couldn't clock in. See, once you've been clocked in for so many hours, you can do anything with the time clock. I clocked in on Friday, July 11, and hadn't clocked out since. That meant I had to go through and write all my hours by hand so someone else could go in and fix my big mess. Thanks Angie! :-) Thankfully, I got most of the things done on my list. I only have one boss in town this week, so my work for her can be done at a slower pace. I'm hoping the rest of the week will be the same! I have a conference on Friday, so I'm only in the office 4 days this week. Love those weeks!

Not only have I been productive at work, but at home, too. I had let my apartment get a little out of hand, and I took care of that Saturday. ALL clothes washed, folded, and put up. Toilet scrubbed, sinks and bathtub scrubbed, floors mopped, everything dusted, and things just back in order. *sigh* Now I don't feel guilty for sitting here, writing this blog!

Ok, now, as promised. My update from yesterday. The shower was great! Even though I knew like 4 people, it was still good. She didn't come - for reasons that are a little fuzzy. I heard one reason from her brother while I was there, but John thinks that she probably found out he and I were going to be there, so she didn't come. I don't know which is true, and I'm not going to waste my time thinking about it. There's actually a part of me that wants to meet her. I've really only heard good things about her. We all have our baggage, so why should I use that against someone I don't know?

The baby shower did make me a little sad. ok. jealous. so Christian-like, huh? I'm so green right now. :-( I want a baby so bad! One day, I'll be married again, and that will come true.

ok...well...no news on the weight today. I'm holding steady, but hopefully my new found energy will start helping that. The only thing I'll say is - I CAN'T DANCE (not even to the exercise dance videos!!) Dang my Baptist feet!! HA HA

Laterz....

*UPDATE*

I forgot! Some of you may know that I sing. I love to sing. I feel it's my God-called talent - to stand on a stage and lead worship. I couldn't find a place more rewarding, and more comforting, than in the presence of my Lord...singing, and worshipping him - hands raised, and vulnerable. Thank you Lord for the voice you've given me. Well, I have also been singing the National Anthem at airshows for 6 years. I kinda have an "in", since my dad's the airboss (air traffic control for all the planes in the shows). Shows I've sang at include: Galveston, Wings over Houston, Laredo, New Braunfels, and Jasper. This year, I've done Laredo and Galveston- well the one day it didn't rain... I had been invited back to Wings Over Houston, but today was informed that the announcer they hired also sings the anthem, so it made more sense to use what they already had, rather than pay someone else to come in. I was totally fine with that. It's kind of an answered prayer, anyways. I'll explain that one later too. The good news from my phone call was this...I'm being HIGHLY recommended to sing the anthem at the Lackland AND the Randolph AFB shows this year!! WOO HOO!! I think it would awesome, and a great honor to be chosen for these two shows. Randolph would actually be next year, but Lackland is the first weekend in November. I'm praying I'm chosen for this one!!!

Tough Week...

2008-07-17T08:18:00.001-07:00

Well, I'm one week in, and boy, let me tell you. I always choose the absolute worst times to start these things, and satan always throws things in my way to deter me from my goals. He's normally successful. I refuse to let him be this time. Here's a summary since my last post.

I was suffering from an inner ear infection, so I was barely able to stand up part of the time, due to the vertigo, and dizziness. Hard to do any exercises through all that. I did use the bean, until the dizziness was unbearable.

I have managed to start taking my Synthroid every day. I've started taking it at night, rather than in the morning, and this helps. I already feel a lot better since getting that back into my system on a regular basis.

The eating? well, that's a hard one. You see, I'm one that tends to eat when I'm upset or depressed. and I've been depressed this week.

Friday night, I went to Scott's house to get the last of my things. Scott is moving this coming weekend to Dallas. Even though we aren't married anymore, and both of us know that we aren't going to get back together, I've had a very hard time dealing with the fact that he's moving. He's the reason I moved to San Antonio in the first place, and even though I have John, I feel like I'm all alone out here. This one is hard to explain, so I'm not even going to try. I couldn't even watch him drive off the other night. I haven't cried that hard in a long time. I will miss him. I also said goodbye to my dogs. Only if you're a dog lover would you understand how hard it is to let them go. I don't know when I'll ever see them again. As a going away present from their momee, I bought them a big bag of rawhides to take with them. They're going to need something to keep them occupied, since they will be living with Uncle Mike, Aunt Patti, Cousin Katie, and newest cousin, Tinkerbelle (the cocker spaniel). Thank you to John for being so understanding when I am upset over this. I can't imagine how hard it is for him to see me grieve over Scott. I will always grieve the loss of my marriage. I will always love Scott, just not as my husband.

my mom has also been back on a downhill slope. I try my best not to get frustrated but I can't help it. As if I don't have enough going on over here...My mom's down, and several of my family members have had serious health issues, and it stresses me to no end that I'm 5 hours away from all of them. I need to be there. but I can't. We got in a big argument the other day over something I can't talk about on here, and that's the first time that's happened in a LONG time.

I have tried to be more active...get up and do things (which is so hard when the depression and the "oh woe is me" crap kicks in). John's parents have a swimming pool, and since i LOVE to swim, I've enjoyed spending Sunday afternoons swimming. It's great exercise. I finally had some motivation to get up and clean my apartment Tuesday. It's a wreck since I had to make room for my entertainment center I got from Scott. Yesterday, I decided to take the day off. I needed a day where I could just have fun. Not worry about work, not have to go to the doctor, not be at home sick....John and I went to Schlitterbahn. What a blast! I've never been there, so i just had a ton of fun. I did learn, however, that I may be allergic to the tubes, since I have a HUGE rash on both arms where I was resting on the tube. Yuck! I would say I got plenty of exercise out there, though! Lots of walking!

All that being said - I have lost 2 pounds this week, which puts me at 143. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it's perfectly healthy to lose it slower like that. Here's hoping to three more pounds by the end of July!

On another note...here's something weighing on my mind right now...---This is totally a girl thing, since even though we may not think we are, we are so competetive when it comes to relationships, and our significant others. I have never been with a guy before that blatantly gets hit on - RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. I'm like HELLO!!! Stupid girl, can't you see he's with someone?? Sometimes, it's humerous, but sometimes it's not. In case you don't know, John is an installer for Time Warner Cable. This means - he goes into people's houses. all. day. long. There have been a couple of times where he and a teammate have had to leave a house because the girls were hitting on them so bad. Recently, he had one follow him every where he went, asking him questions about cable. I'm like "silly John! She didn't care about the cable!!" HA! Ok, so this weekend, some friends of ours are having a baby shower. I don't care for showers right now, seeing as how I want a baby, but am not at a stage in life right now where I can have one...*this can be another post*. I've already skipped on two showers. I can't miss this one. The husband in this couple also happens to be John's best friend, who also happens to be the brother of John's ex. the ex he dated for 7 years. SEVEN YEARS. I was married that long. John went through a lot with this girl. She knew/knows? him better than anyone else. Until I finally put a stop to it, she was still texting him his horoscope every day. She was still calling him when her car broke down (oh, she lives in Dallas). She apparently got upset when she showed up at his parent's house one day, and saw a picture of us on the fridge. While I was out of town, he stayed at my apartment, because she spent the night at his house. (She's still good friends with John's cousin Brian, who he was living with at the time.) Soooooo....Is she gonna be at the baby shower Sunday?? Jason has requested John's presence, so that they can keep each other occupied while the girls are doing their thing. :-) She could be a perfectly nice gal, but I think this could be really awkward. John showing up to her parents house for a baby shower with his new girlfriend. *sigh* I'll definitely let you know how that one goes. I forgot how dating relationships were! I'm over my insecurities with him, and I totally trust him. I know without a doubt that he loves me, and would not do anything to hurt me. I just need to meet the girl and get it over with. I'll be better after that.

ok...I've ranted long enough on that one. Gotta work now. ugh. work.

New Beginnings

2008-07-08T16:11:00.000-07:00

Well...here it is. I'm about to do something I've never done before. This is the beginning of my new Journal, if you will. I've decided to make some changes in my life, and I'm going to document them here.

Since my divorce, I've really let myself go. I've not felt great physically, and I've just not taken care of myself like I should. There have been countless nights of no sleep, eating out, veggin' on the couch, and turning down opportunities of going out, and actually getting physical. oh, and let's not forget the Myspace addiction.

I made myself a promise a long time ago that I would not end up like my mom. Depressed, locking myself in the house with every door and window shut, and in bed by 6:30 each evening. I love my mother dearly, but this is not how I want to spend my life. I want to get out, and be happy, and have lots of friends...

Since moving to San Antonio 3 years ago, I have gained over 20 pounds. This sucks, not only because I'm gaining weight, and I'm miserable, but I don't have the money to just go out and buy new clothes. I have nothing to wear, and no way to go out and get any. I've finally recieved my IRS Stimulus check and have decided that I'm going to put most of it in savings, and use is as a reward for meeting some goals I've set for myself.

John has promised me that he would be there to encourage me, and motivate me, and make me get up and do something, even if I don't want to.

Here are my current stats - probably a little more information than most people would want to see, but here they are -

Weight - 145 lbs
Height - 5'3"
Waist - 38"
Hips - 39"
Chest - 34"
Bust - 41"

Now - before anyone says anything - I'm not in any way saying I'm fat, and I need to be 100 lbs again. I'm sick of hearing "You're so skinny, you don't need to lose weight." grrr...I've heard that all my life. Just like large people don't like hearing they are large and need to lose weight, some small people don't like hearing they're too skinny all of the time. The fact of the matter is - I AM overweight for my age and height. I have only gained it in my stomach and my boobs. Women pay thousands of dollars to have the bust size I do, and right now, I'd pay thousands to shrink them down. I don't like the attention they bring. Boys will always be boys, and fact of the matter is - they're gonna look. I'm just not comfortable with that.

I need to get this under control, and beat the large family genes. That's all I need to say about that.

Ok - for my goals:
I'd like to lose between 15 - 20 pounds. I'm going to try for 5 lbs a month, or 3 months. I'd like to be healthier all the way around. I want to feel better, as well as look better, and be able to wear cute clothes again! :-)

The way I plan to acheive this is -
1. 8 hours of sleep
2. Get up early enough to eat breakfast
3. Smaller food portions
4. Less fast food
5. Use my newly acquired "Bean" for the recommended 7 minutes each day
6. Take a walk/jog a couple of evenings a week
7. Take my Synthroid medication regularly again
8. (this is the hardest one) Cut ~~Out~~ down Dr. Pepper

I know there are a ton more things I could do, and I know I won't do all of these, but these are a start for me. The downside for me, is that since I've been small most of my life and had the metabolism of a 5 year old - i never had to watch what I ate, and I was definitely more active, and not purposely. I never knew how to work out, eat right, live healthy. Now I sit at a desk all day, and I eat when I get bored. I now have the metabolism of a 36 year old. that HAS to change. So, I guess it's time I learn all those things.

I start by praying to God that He would help me through this new way of life, and to bring people to me that will encourage me to keep on, and bring me friends that might actually like to work out with me eventually. It's got to be more fun than doing this alone. I pray that God gets all the glory for any accomplishments and goals that I reach.

Phillipians 4:13 - I can do ALL things through Christ who strenthens me.

Lord,
I come to you today, broken, and broken-hearted. I come to you boldly asking you to help me through this tough time in my life. I pray, Lord, that you give me my strength back, and my motivation to live life again. Help me to let go of the past, and move on with the future. Please help me to look to You, and You only from here on out. I pray specifically that you help me through my new exercise regimen, and help me to stick with it, even when Satan tempts me to stay down. My body is Yours, Lord, and I need your help to take care of it.

My reward?
I'm going to let my hair grow out until I reach my goal weight - then I will go someplace nice to have it cut, styled, and maybe even get some lowlights. I will also be pulling some of the money from my check out of savings to buy some new clothes. Then I'm going on a hot date. :-)

The Phab lives of the Parker Phamily

My Baby Story...so far

Target Exclusive Chicco Travel System in Vega Giveaway

Welcome Home...

Under Construction

He Gives and Takes Away

Officially Over

Just Waiting...

And just like that....

5 Weeks

Hmmm... ok?

2WW - Half way there!

It's HOT!

Happy New Year, some updates, and new car!

When You Wish Upon a Star

There is Hope!

Opening the Door into the Infertility World

The First Visit

*DING*... You are now off track…

Friday Flashback

Friday Flashback

Happy Birthday Troy

Update on mom...

Knock Knock!

Friday Flashback

Straight Trippin'

Friday Flashback

A chapter of life is closed...

Praise You in This Storm

Update from Galveston

Devastation Restoration

Hmmph...

Broken

So cute!

Drama meant for a Theater....

Is it the water?

Debt Free, and it feels good...

BOO!

Exposed and Unhappy

It's a 'Dull' Life!

I'm still here...

Favorite Christmas Memories

Thanksgivin' Happenings and More

Beautiful Sunset...

Crazy Weekend...

TTC Blog...

Anything is Possible if You Have Enough NERVE...

The Cheapest Grocery Trip

"He went to Jared!!!"

Pictures Worth a Thousand Words...

Mojo Superhero

Russell who? I don't think so...

The Things We do for Love...:-)

It's Raining...It's Pouring...the old man is...what? It's Flooding!!

S.P.A.S.I.C.

Prayer Requests

God is Working overtime in my life...

Bedknobs and Broomsticks...

Vitamins, Schmitamins

My Friend, my ALLI

I think Coke threw up in my apartment...

I'm just a little black rain cloud...

Finally Human

Tough Week...

New Beginnings

DING... You are now off track…