Monday, July 20, 2009

Been A While

Well I haven't posted anything lately - I've been tooooo busy!

On the 27th of June, we went to hubby's 15th Class Reunion. We had a good time - minus one girl...Ugh! I have NEVER been so angry! Some girl kept whispering dirty things in his ear. I wanted to hit her (and I don't hit people! lol). I wasn't mad at him - he handled it well. He kept walking away from her and avoiding her. I was soo irritated with her though. Some people...

Anyway,

Fourth of July came and went. We spent it at the mountain with hubby's family. His cousin from NJ came in with her baby. Ben is about 3 weeks older than Cayden. We had a nice day.

David had his left hand operated on on July 10th for carpal tunnel. He is stillhaving a lot of pain. And tomorrow he is having his right hand done. Oh my!

Cayden is starting to walk. He has taken several steps now. It's sooooo cute!

My best friend also found out she is pregnant. Due in February. I am very excited for her. But it made me realize how very badly I'm ready for #2...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Another year older






So yesterday was the big day. The big 2-3. lol.






I worked all day... but it was a good day. I had sooo much cake. Wilma at work bought me a birthday cake.






The ladies in the cafeteria made me a pineapple upside down cake.






David bought me an ice cream cake.






My mom made me chocolate cheesecake.









Needless to say, I was STUFFED!









On Wednesday, me & my mom and Cayden drove my little brother to Baltimore. He moved there for school. Cayden screamed the whole way - except a few smiles that I caught on camera...



So Thursday I took off work since I was up so late. Rachel and I went and got our nails & toes done (my birthday present from her!) It was so fun. Then we went to the new chinese buffet. Cayden had lots of pudding and the asian guy wouldn't leave him alone.


Then we went swimming again. Cayden LOVES the pool!

We have David's class reunion this evening.. He's not very excited.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Father's Day




So I hope all the dads out there had a great Father's Day.... I think David did.

We spent the morning out looking at trucks. David wants a truck - so we've been running all over creation trying to find what he wants






. I feel like I've now seen every truck in America lol.

Then we went to his sisters new house. It is so beautiful. They lost their home last April (2008) to a new CFL lightbulb fire.






It took them about fourteen months to get into the new house. It is beautiful. I'm really happy for them.

We had a yummy father's day dinner - crab legs and shrimp and lots of other goodies. Cayden really liked the pound cake with strawberries & blueberries. He ate it up. He's eating so much "real" food now.

Saturday, he ate only "real" food all day. He had pancakes for breakfast, a chicken nugget happy meal for lunch, a hot dog, some grilled zucchini and some strawberries for dinner. And then later a little dessert. He's getting to be such a big boy! :)

I'm trying to get my camera to work with my new computer. I haven't been able to upload any pictures lately. So I have pictures to add to the last several posts.

My birthday is on Friday. Nothing too exciting is going on. We have David's 15th class reunion the whole weekend. We were discussing going to Kings Dominion on Sunday but I think we're gonna wait another week or so.

Well... good day to you all :) Now I sound like Mary freakin' Poppins!

Oh yeah and you can vote for Cayden in the cute baby contest at http://gapc-vote.com/?p=1546927&a=2.

Friday, June 19, 2009

just some reflection...

I came across something today that reminded me of Susan. Susan was my mom's cousin. She gave me my first hair cut - she was a renowned hair stylist with a fine shop in PA. I remember being there several years ago... she served wine while you got your hair or nails done. She was bubbly and full of life. Short, with long bouncy curls. She loved to laugh and her laugh was contagious.

Two years ago next month, Sue took her own life. She was going through a divorce and couldn't stand to watch the struggle that her two girls were going through - bouncing back and forth between her and her husband. Her husband was an @$$! She hung herself, at the age of 43.

I'll never forget her funeral. It was the saddest funeral I'd ever been too. And I've been to my fair share of funerals. I remember looking around - and seeing her two little girls, and her mom, and my great-aunt. Her two little girls were now destined to a life lived with their dad, without a mom. No one to braid their hair, or to teach them how to do their makeup. No one to help them get ready for prom. Her mom, was devastated. She now knew how it felt to lose a child. My great-aunt was in her 80s. She'd lost brothers and her husband and many others in her 80-some years. And yet she sobbed like I'd never seen.

And as I looked around, I thought about how unfair this was to everyone. How selfish this was. I cannot imagine how someone so loved could feel so horribly that they can do that. Didn't she think of the life she was leaving for her girls? How it would affect them?

This week, my little brother had a friend hang himself. 22 years old.
At Christmas, we had a guy at work shoot himself. 23 years old.
2 years ago, I had a former classmate throw himself out of a moving car & kill himself. 20 years old.

How do people get so low that they feel this is all that is left for them? Susan was a remarkable, successful, beautiful woman.... how did this happen?

And then it makes think about how to prevent things like this. How do you? How can I make sure that 30 years from now, my children don't feel the need to do this. I can't. And that scares the hell out of me.

I guess before Susan's death, I thought suicide was for people who were bums. Nothing worth living for. But since then, I've realized that's not true at all. And that's the scariest part of all.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Pray for Rachael!

I thought I'd post this today. My cousin Rachael has cancer and there was an article about her in today's paper. You can see the article at http://www.times-news.com/.

Aspiring nurse fighting rare form of bone cancer
CUMBERLAND — Since she was a toddler, Rachael Sensabaugh wanted to be a doctor.Then she got sick.“I knew who my doctors were, but I never saw them,”said Sensabaugh, 20, who was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer in November 2005 — the beginning of her senior year at Allegany High School. “It wasn’t my doctors who were helping me when I was feeling bad, it was the nurses. I got to know them. They got to know me. They understood me. They knew what I needed.”So when Sensabaugh’s cancer went into remission, she enrolled in Allegany College’s two-year nursing program. She’d completed one semester when the cancer came back.Now, a month before her 21st birthday, she’s fighting for more than the chance to return to school. She’s fighting to receive experimental treatments that could save her life.“The medicine she needs costs $200 a vial,”Sensabaugh’s aunt, Elena Steele, said of a drug called Sargramostim, which is sometimes used to treat leukemia patients. Though it doesn’t actually treat cancer, Sargramostim, also known as GM-CSF, accelerates the recovery of white blood cells following chemotherapy.“She needs eight vials of the medicine a day,”Steele said. “That’s $1,600 a day. She needs this for six month. That’s $288,000.”Sensabaugh’s health insurance provider, Maryland Physicians Care, has denied to pay for the drug. “They do not feel like I need this medicine,”said Sensabaugh, who has received three rejection letters so far and is trying for approval again. “Right now, my oncologist is saying that it’s the only other medicine out there that will help me. How can somebody tell me I can’t have the one treatment I need?”Sensabaugh and her family aren’t giving up. Steele, who helped raise more than $30,000 to pay for some of her niece’s previous medical expenses, plans to rally for community support again. “I’m not even sure where to begin, at this point,”Steele said. “I’m going to be writing letters to all kinds of people. It may be a stretch, but Montel Williams sometimes contributes to cases like this. The American Cancer Foundation. If I have to write letters to Oprah Winfrey, I will.”Sensabaugh, who was tumor-free during her latest checkup six weeks ago, is focusing on regaining strength and stamina after surgeons removed a third of her lung in February. She desperately wants to return to Allegany College of Maryland, where she took a medical leave last winter. Administrators have said they can’t promise her a place in the fall, Sensabaugh said.A spokeswoman in ACM’s nursing school said the college couldn’t talk about individual students. “I’m actually feeling pretty good,” said Sensabaugh, who is taking long walks and doing dance exercise videos to rebuild cardio strength. “I don’t really have any pain. I get out of breath pretty easily. The more I exercise, the more my lungs will compensate. I figure the more I do the better I’ll be.”A new Chihuahua puppy named Bella also keeps Sensabaugh on her toes. “The only way I’m ever going to get better is to keep pushing myself,” said Sensabaugh, adding that nursing school was “pretty tough.” Five years down the road, she hopes to have completed ACM’s program, worked for a couple of years, plus completed a bachelor’s degree at West Virginia University so she can work as an RN.“My thinking is, I’ve been through this once,”Sensabaugh said of fighting cancer. “I know I can do it again.”
You can follow Rachael's story at www.caringbridge.org/visit/rachaelsensabaugh.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

So I forgot...

So I forgot about my scare of the weekend....

Last Wednesday, Cayden spiked a fever of 101.4. After some tylenol, the fever went down. And never came back.

The rest of the week, as I think I mentioned, he had the "green apple splatters" as David likes to put it.

Friday night, I put him in the tub about 8:00. He seemed fine. As I started washing his hair, I noticed a rash all over his neck. Within minutes it was on his belly & arms. Then his back and his diaper area. THen his face.

I pulled him out immediately and called my mother in law. She came down to look (she only lives like 5 houses away). So we called the dr. Well being 8:30 on a Friday night, the on-call doctor took 1 hour to return my call. Roseola.

So I panicked, thinking my child was having some weird reaction to something and his throat would be closing and blah blah blah and it was just damn Roseola. So Sunday, the rash disappeared and he's back to normal...

Anyway...

This morning as I was leaving the house, David yells because there is now a Columbia Gas backhoe in my driveway! Ugh!

So I had to wait for him to move - took me a while. Then the backhoe driver proceeds to tell me "ma'am you got yourself a flat!" Another one? I swear!

So I had to go fill that up again. Ugh! Was 10 mintues late for work. Great...

Monday, June 15, 2009

Big boy!

So Cayden had a very busy weekend for such a little guy.

Saturday, we got up early and were out the door by 9. We met Rachel J. and headed to the Heritage Days festival with her mom & grammy. We walked around for a few hours - Cayden had a snow cone - some guy tried to tell me how to dress my child and stole Cayden's binkie...
Anywho..

we left Heritage Days (I officially had only bought that one snowcone - amazing I know!) and headed home. I called my mom and they were headed to Heritage Days - so I turned around and back we went. This time, I bought a little more. We had a fresh squeezed lemonade (Yummy!) and some kettle corn. Then we went to my parents and had some sausages. Cayden showed us that he can climb stairs...


and then we went swimming! Cayden loved it! My mom bought him this cute "pool patrol" floatie.

Sunday - we went and looked at the rental property. I think it went very well - more to come on that perhaps. Cayden spent some quality time with Nana.

Then we drove aroudn looking for a lawn mower. never found one. Instead, we decided we're buying two new tires for the Durango - since I've had a flat three times this week :(

Aroudn dinner time, David's family came over and we had a bonfire and a little cookout. THe babies played and had some fun... Cayden danced;)

Well I suppose that is all for now. I will add pictures to the post later - my desktop crashed and Ican't get the pics off my camera onto the laptop. We ordered a new desktop but it won't be delivered til next week!