Closet cleaning follow-up

Well, in cleaning out my closet yesterday (or at least starting to), I managed to throw out my back. Thank heavens my chiropractor was able to fit me in at lunchtime. He said my sacrum was out of wack. After being adjusted I felt great for about an hour. The chiropractor mentioned that if the pain was still there Friday morning I needed to call him early, because he's heading out of town at 10:00. With how I'm feeling right now, I think I'm going to have to go in to see him, but I don't know how to fit an appointment in. I have Visiting Teaching starting at 9:00 and, of course, the chiropractor is on the other side of town. I'm hoping for a miracle: that I'll wake up feeling 100% tomorrow morning. Wish me luck!

The Big Read

I found this info on someone's blog archive, so the list is probably outdated.

The Big Read is a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage community reading initiatives and of their top 100 books, they estimate the average adult has read only six.

Here’s what you are supposed to do:
*Look at the list and bold those you have read. I had to italicize mine because the bold just doesn't look bold when the font is white.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare - I've read many but certainly not all
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Of the 100, I have read 40. How many have you read?

OK - just one more itsy, bitsy complaining post

I spent an hour and a half today preparing material for my first tutoring lesson tomorrow. The boy I'll be tutoring just passed out of the multiplication unit at Family School. I prepared material to review the things he missed on his multiplication test. I emailed his mom to let her know that I'd be starting off with this review for our first lesson. She emailed me back and said she didn't want me to spend time reviewing, that she wanted me to dive right into division with her son. So there's an hour and a half of wasted time.

And now, instead of relaxing with a good book, I'll be spending another hour, at least, preparing division material for tomorrow. I feel like the world is out to get me lately.

And, yes, those pictures I mentioned in my last post are GONE. :o(

The beginning of summer...

is not off to the best start.

The kids got out of school last Thursday. Friday, after being told he couldn't play on the computer or Wii anymore (as he'd already done so for over 2 hours), my son announced, "I'm bored." Before I even had a chance to respond, he said, "And, no, I don't want to read a book, or practice piano, or do a chore." Boy - he knows me well. That was the exact response I was going to give!

Today, Emily and Peter went bike riding with friends who live across the street. My mom and I were planting Laura's birthday garden - which Laura was so excited about but didn't really want to help with - that I didn't realize how long the kids had been outside. without. sunscreen. Emily got quite the sunburn.

For dinner tonight, I decided to make potato soup, since I had an entire gallon of milk that expired yesterday to use up (problem #1). I burned the bacon (problem #2). As Emily talked to me, I poured in twice as much flour as I needed to make the roux (problem #3). Thankfully, I had another cube of butter to throw in and the meal tasted just fine (I threw out half of the roux before I added in the milk).

I tried to relax with the kids and watch a "watch instantly" movie from Netflix. We had seen half of the movie when it stopped "streaming." I tried everything my non-technical brain could think of in order to fix it, but no go. We'll have to try again tomorrow.

To top off the night, someone's car alarm has been going off for the past TWO and a HALF HOURS! I called the non-emergency police line fifty minutes ago, so maybe they won't be too busy and will be able to come out and get the alarm to stop.

I'm going to go to sleep with my fingers crossed and my prayers said and hope that things go better tomorrow!

P.S. As I went to export the above photos, I discovered that all of the pictures Emily and I took of the last day of school did not upload. And, of course, we had hit "delete originals," so I have very little hope that the pictures are still on the memory card. URG! Maybe I should go to bed right now, before anything else can go wrong.

*** I promise that my next post will be happy and without a single complaint. ***

*** However, you might have to wait till December for me to be able to do that. ***

Mid-life Crisis

Shad says I'm right on time with my mid-life crisis. I turn 37 in July. I will give a list of some of my issues and see if getting it off my chest helps me feel better.

• What am I going to do with my life? Last year, I worked for 4 months as a substitute teacher and realized I do not want to do that for a living. I think I would enjoy being a tutor, but I can't do that while the kids are at school, because no one can come see a tutor during school hours.

• I am sick and tired of trying to get dressed in the morning. Who was the idiot who decided that shirts should be skin tight, even when you buy size XL?! And pants - why can't they come to my belly button like they used to? Why do they have to sit right at my hipbones? Don't fashion designers realize that only 1% of the population looks good when they're wearing tight shirts and pants that aren't helping to hold the belly in?!

• And why did having my third baby ruin my body? I was able to bounce back into shape pretty easily after the first two, but Laura ruined me. Or was it the fact that I turned 30 two months later that did me in?

• I have dreams of traveling with my entire family to Europe. We've been planning it for years. We've been saving for years. I had it all budgeted out, so that we could save up enough to go in 2013. But now the city is going to cut Shad's pay. My job at Family School is being reduced by 75%. Laura and Peter are getting braces as soon as school gets out, or rather, they're starting their first phase of braces. Then a few years later (probably 2013 exactly, with my luck), they'll do the second phase. And in between their first and second phase, Emily will be getting braces. I just can't afford to have three kids in braces at the same time! All of this means - no more saving up for our family trip. The family trip that has been my dream for as long as I've had children.

• I have a friend who loves to exercise and does not like sweets. She never eats them. Why can't I be like that? I HATE to exercise. If I didn't have my back to worry about, I wouldn't exercise at all. And I LOVE sweets. I'm addicted to them. I can never just have one slice of cake or one cookie. No, I have to eat six servings. I try not to have sweets in the house, because I have no self-control.

OK, I think those are my main complaints at the moment. I should probably just delete this post and spare you. But, I'm not going to. Sorry.

Durango Get-Away

Shad and I rewarded ourselves for surviving my 4 months of teaching by heading up to Durango for a few days, without kids. We stayed at a FABULOUS bed and breakfast, Country Sunshine B&B.

This was one of the views from our bedroom.

The owners were fabulous. The husband could be a chef - the food was so delicious. We had potato pancakes one morning (which I haven't had since the last time I saw my uncle over 20 years ago) and french toast with coconut maple syrup the next. They always served a heavenly fruit cup with some yogurt and granola on top. The breakfasts really filled you up!

Walter is from Austria and he always had a cookie platter available for guests to munch on (while we were there the cookies were all Austrian recipes and they were heavenly). Also, a true bonus for this dessert lover, every night he would make a dessert for the guests. We could have stayed forever just for the desserts.

The b&b is about 10 miles outside Durango and has trees surrounding it. We enjoyed some birdwatching while we ate breakfast each morning.

Walter and Jody (the owners) had 2 big dogs and Shad had fun playing with them (he loves dogs - the bigger and dumber, the better).

We were so lucky because it snowed for an entire day while we were there. We haven't had a full-day of snow since we left Utah 13 years ago. We took a scenic walk along the river while the snow came down. We were in heaven!

While in Durango, I satisfied a dream I've had for a long-time; we went on a horse-drawn sleigh ride. And it was a one-horse open sleigh! It was fun, even though it was snowing and my coat wasn't waterproof.

Here's a picture of us halfway through our hour-long sleigh ride.

If you're ever in Durango and need a suggestion of a restaurant, may we suggest Mutu's Italian Kitchen or Olde Tymers Cafe (they had the best french fries I have ever eaten). There is an amazing bakery, simply named Bread, that we discovered after enjoying the fabulous ciabatta Mutu's served. I asked the waitress where they got their bread from, and she told us about Bread. Divine!

It was such a relaxing trip. Much needed!

I survived!

Today was my last teaching day. I just have a staff meeting to attend tomorrow and then my long-term substitute assignment is complete. I am glad to be done. I will still go in and help out each day until the winter break, but I won't be in charge and that will make all of the difference. No bringing home assignments to grade, no putting together lesson plans, no planning projects or assignments. From now on, "it's not my problem!"

I learned a lot through this experience. I don't think I'm cut out to be an elementary school teacher, certainly not for grades K through 3rd. I just don't have the patience for it. If educational assistants weren't paid less than substitutes, I'd happily do that. I'd love to work in a classroom without being in charge of that class, to walk in and have the teacher say "here, do this with that kid today" and then be able to leave without bringing home 2 to 3 hours of extra work in preparation for the next day. Actually, I didn't really mind the preparation. It was working with kids who don't follow directions, who talk when I'm talking even though I've already told them twice to stop, who forget to bring their homework to school, who look at me as if I'm speaking Greek when I explain what they're supposed to do - that's what I minded. And I imagine that I'd encounter that no matter what grade I taught, so I think I've learned that teaching isn't for me. Maybe I should just stick with homeschooling my 3 kids and leave the "real" teaching to the professionals who have patience.

Finally!

I finally did something I've wanted to do for about 24 years -

got tickets to the Nutcracker!

Talk about some delayed gratification.

This is long overdue, as evidenced by the fact that my almost 12 year-old has been to the Nutcracker at least FOUR times already.

Shad and I will go see it at Popejoy the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It's sort of my early reward for surviving my long-term substituting position, because at that point I will only have 4 days left of teaching!

First Day of School

Thursday was the first day of school and Family School finally has its own beautiful building. It's an amazing facility.

Emily is back with her beloved teacher Ms. Heather

(she taught Emily from 1st through 3rd grade),

and Peter and Laura are in Ms. Chantel's class.

I'm not normally in our first day of school pictures, but this year I will be a long-term substitute for one of the Family School teachers while she's on maternity leave. The baby is due in two weeks, but we're not sure she'll wait that long. I'll be teaching for 3 months, and at this moment, I'm scared to death and

wondering why I ever agreed to be her sub.

The green-eyed monster

My sister and her dear husband and daughter head off to Denmark and the Netherlands tomorrow. And they'll be hitting Germany in the fall.  I'm jealous. I don't normally get jealous (anymore) of people, but if you're traveling to Europe, I will be jealous of you. I have this great wanderlust that just can't be satiated. (And yes, I know I've been very fortunate to do so much traveling. I'm not ungrateful, just greedy!)

Do you remember last September when this post appeared on my blog. You know, the one where I said we'd done so well saving money that we were going to go to Vancouver for the Winter Olympics and London for the Summer? Well, part (but not all) of that was a ruse to throw my sister off track since she'd pretty much figured out Shad and I were accompanying her to Paris. We really had been saving to go to London.

Well, that dream is gone. 

Instead we have this sitting in our garage now.

(And we think the garage is a better place for it than the living room!)

We took a HUGE chunk of cash out of savings and paid 80% of the car with cash. We sold our old Odyssey and are down to $750 owed on the car. While it's nice to have a new car and to practically own it outright, I'd rather have my old Odyssey in the garage while I was on a plane to London. 

But oh well.

So if you're driving around Albuquerque, and you see a green-eyed monster - don't worry. 

It's just me.

Undermining my best intentions

I set a goal for myself several weeks ago to work on being more nurturing. I want to praise my children more. I struggled with my goal, mostly because I'd forget about it. So this week I renewed my goal and put a reminder on my bathroom mirror. I am trying to find things to praise, but my children are making that very difficult. Laura and Peter will NOT do anything that I ask them to do when I'm helping them with their homework, with chores, at meal time, at bedtime, when its time to get dressed, time to get in the car, time to breathe! They struggle with something, and then when I give them a strategy to make their struggle easier, they promptly ignore my advice. It's as if they know I'm trying to become a better person and they don't want me to, so they're doing everything in their power to make me want to kill them, instead of praise them.

AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*** Can you tell I'm a little frustrated as I type this? Just imagine one of those cartoon bulls with steam coming out of its ears - that's me right now! ***

Grateful Sunday

I'm grateful for people who see something good in me!

I substituted for Kris, one of the Family School teachers, Wednesday. My friend Leah called me the next day to pass on a compliment. Her son's teacher had a student author night Wednesday night, and Leah ended up in Kris's room with her son's group. Leah's teacher asked if Kris's room was a disaster when Leah's group arrived, because the teacher knew Kris had had a sub that day. Leah was able to tell her the room was in great shape, because I had been the substitute. Leah's teacher said something to the effect of that since I had been the sub, she was sure the room had been just fine after all.

It was so nice that Leah passed that compliment on to me. Things have been incredibly difficult for me with my kids lately and I haven't heard many nice things said to me lately. It really made my day. Thanks, Leah!

Bacon

Do you like bacon? I like bacon. It tastes delicious in breakfast burritos, on baked potatoes, and in my tossed macaroni recipe (one of my favorite meals). 

Shad LOVES bacon. He loves, loves, loves bacon.

But, unfortunately, Shad does not get all of the bacon that he desires, and I will tell you why.

I HATE the fact that my house smells like bacon for at least 24 hours after I've cooked it!!!

I made tossed macaroni last night. After the kids were in bed, I washed the pan that the bacon had been fried in. I loaded the dishwasher with all of the plates that we had used to eat the dish which included bacon. I wiped down the stove and counter with Clorox wipes (orange scent) to make sure all of the bacon grease was gone. Shad took out the garbage that held the paper towels that had absorbed the excess grease from the bacon.  I lit a triple berry candle from Salt City Candles (very powerful, yummy smelling candle) and left it lit for at least 2 hours. 

But, alas, this morning the house still smelled like bacon! I opened up the back door and turned on the ceiling fan (even though my children kept trying to shut the door because they were cold) to exchange the bacon-scented indoor air for some fresh-smelling outdoor air. I lit my candle, again.

It is now 29 hours since I cooked the bacon.

My house still smells like bacon.

I just may have to move!

Have I ever mentioned that I have an incredibly sensitive sense of smell?!

Back to School Blues

Usually parents are excited for school to start again. But at Family School, when school starts for the kids it starts for the parents as well.

Reasons why I'm already missing Winter Break:

• having to wake up at 5:45 a.m. to exercise and shower before homeschool time with the kiddoes

• trying to convince my children to get dressed before they come downstairs for breakfast - again

• spending 45 minutes trying to convince my youngest two that they need to decide what they want for breakfast, and then finally having them decide 1 minute before it's time to start homework

• realizing that my bright children aren't that bright after all - it's 30 degrees outside and they're wearing Crocs without socks!

• arguing about doing homework

• hearing the phrase "but I don't want to" at least 20 times before 8:00 a.m.

• realizing that my kids would be geniuses if I actually did all of the extra things Family School asks parents to do and feeling guilty because I don't (and can't - it's impossible with 3 kids!)

• wishing there were 30 hours in a day so that I could homeschool each child individually for 2 hours and still get 6  1/2 hours of sleep a night

• knowing that complaining doesn't change a situation - but doing it anyways!

(Since Emily reads my blog, I must post this disclaimer - the above comments about uncooperative children do not apply to her.)

A New Word for a New Year

I never seem to have much luck keeping my New Year's Resolutions. Last year I wanted to focus on enjoying the journey that is life. While there were some very enjoyable moments last year, there were also many difficult ones.

I have chosen a word that I want to focus my goals around this year. 

RECOGNIZE 

Here are some of the things I hope I will be able to train myself to recognize throughout 2009 (and the rest of my life).

• That I am a daughter of God. I have worth, even if my house isn't clean, my clothes aren't stylish, and I'm not perfect.

• That I am a good mother, even though I make mistakes and am not the perfect parent.

• That my children are GOOD kids, even when they aren't behaving perfectly. (Have you noticed that I have a little bit of a problem with perfectionism?!)

• That I am so blessed. Deep down, I know I should be satisfied, but sometimes I don't recognize just how good my life really is.

• That I can choose happiness. I constantly tell my kids that they can choose their attitude, but I don't always take my own advice in this area.

I hope that as I come to recognize truths about myself and about others, that I will let myself enjoy life one day at a time, instead of waiting until I'm "perfect" to be happy.

A Spiritual Experience

Tonight I accompanied Shad to a missionary discussion. He is helping the sister missionaries teach a Spanish-speaking family in our area. I was amazed how much of the conversation I was able to follow. But the best thing about the night was how strongly I felt the Holy Ghost. Feeling the Spirit does not come naturally to me. I really struggle to feel promptings and to recognize answers to prayers. What a blessing for me to be able to have that experience while I was "serving" someone else!

A Wasted Day

Last night before I went to bed, I made a list of things I needed to do today. The day is over and my list is just as long as it was when I wrote it last night. I didn't do any of the things on it. And yet, I was busy every moment of the day. So what did I do today?

• Got kids to practice for today's piano lesson

• Put laundry in the washing machine

• Tidied up the downstairs at least enough so that I wouldn't die of embarrassment when the piano teacher showed up for the kids' lesson (she's so awesome - she comes to my house for their lessons!)

• Ate breakfast while reading articles about Mary, the mother of Jesus, in preparation for the talk I'm giving in the Christmas program Sunday

• Put a few more dishes in the dishwasher and turned it on

• Helped entertain piano teacher's little boy while she taught my monsters, I mean kids

• Reported my Visiting Teaching for December

• Cajoled Peter and Laura into spending 20 minutes doing 1 or 2 math problems (actually I cajoled for 17  minutes and they did math for 3)

• Went to a doctor's appointment

• Drove past the new school that's being built so that Family School actually has a brick and mortar campus instead of all portables (it is going to be such a beautiful building - we're so excited!)

• Picked up Emily and her friend from school where they had been putting in some "overtime" doing art for Art and Poetry Night next week

• Tried to comfort Laura after she fell down and scraped her hand and knee exactly 2 seconds after I told her and Peter to stop running around before they knocked someone over

• Dropped off Emily and friend at friend's house and picked up friend's brother and sister

• Drove back to my house

• Had 15 minutes to make lunch for myself, Peter, and Laura and wolf it down

• Drove back to Family School for art "overtime" in Peter's and Laura's class (and brought the friend's brother and sister along - they're in the same class with my younger 2)

• Stayed and helped do art for 2 hours, which included sewing paper books with leather covers and blistering my thumb and middle finger from having to pull so hard to get the needle's eye to come through the leather

• Took all four kids with me to drop off the books my book club had collected for foster kids at Children, Youth, and Families Department

• Dropped off the brother and sister and allowed them to cajole their mom into keeping all 3 of my kids for another hour (if you've read some of my earlier blogs, this mom's name is Heidi and she is Wonder Woman incognito)

• Went home and started water boiling for baked ziti for tonight's High Priest Group Social

• Moved load of laundry into dryer, put new load in washer

• Helped Shad put lights in our front yard

• Prepared a double batch of baked ziti

• Sent Shad to rescue Heidi from our children

• Got first load out of dryer, put second load into dryer

• Figured out our credit card statement and how to pay for it (we never have a balance on it)

• Fed half of one batch to my kids and mom for dinner

• Read a chapter from our family Christmas book "Guess Who's Stealing the Twelve Days of Christmas?"

• Got second load of laundry out of the dryer

• Accompanied my husband and 1 1/2 pans of baked ziti, across the street to the High Priest Group Leader's house for the Christmas Social

• Compared myself to the other women there and found myself lacking; commented to my husband about one woman in particular who is perfect (I'm surprised her family hasn't been taken up to heaven like the city of Enoch); my husband told me that I was just like her, just not as good at keeping the house clean (gee - thanks!)

• Ate appetizers, salad, Chicken Parmesan, Baked Ziti, more salad, more Baked Ziti, chocolate chip cheesecake, and angel food lemon pie

• Talked with the Joneses about our trip to France (their son had served his mission in France) and vowed to myself that I will go back and next time I'll go see the Loire River Valley

• Came home and folded laundry for an entire hour while I watched Wednesday night's Law and Order on my DVR

• Wrote this blog so that I could keep up on my goal to blog every day this month

• Going to go to bed after I make another to do list for tomorrow, which will inevitably remain unfinished, again

Self-Portrait Tues - uh - Thursday

Lelly was inspired by the upcoming Olympics 

when she issued the SPT challenge for August.

"Each week, think about the Olympic motto, 

and how it can apply to our every day lives. 

Citius. Altius. Fortius. 

[faster, higher, stronger]

Are we giving our best? Can we find victories 

in the efforts we make every day?"

Today I decided to put these babies on and 

work on getting STRONGER again.

It's been exactly a month since I went under general anesthesia and had a bad reaction to it. It has been a month of nausea, headaches, and eye pain, with some general misery mixed in. I've had a CT scan, blood work, and many doctors appointments. No one can explain what's wrong with me. On my last doctor's visit, my primary care doc finally admitted that my symptoms could be a reaction to the anesthesia (none of the doctors I saw were willing to accept what I was saying - that all of this had to be a reaction to the anesthesia).

A month later, the headaches are still here, but they're not constant any more and they aren't as painful. I can actually look at the TV, computer, or a book now, just not for very long.

So this morning, I was determined to start making myself STRONGER again, by exercising. It felt good to hit the pavement again.

Sadly, I had only done one block of my walk when the headache came, but I stuck with it and finished my regular course.

I'm just hoping they're right when they say:

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Self-Portrait Tuesday

Lelly issued a feng shui SPT challenge for July: sun, water, shade, grass, and ice cream.

This week's focus in on water.

Despite the fact that most of New Mexico is a desert, there are parts (up north) that have water.

This was a gorgeous little stream next to our Girls Camp site.

I had to laugh because last Tuesday the SPT challenge was sun. I posted about how much sun we have in Albuquerque, but that day ended with a rain storm. (You can see some raindrops on the bottom part of the picture.) We even got a double rainbow.

We're always so grateful when water falls from the sky around here!

But this is my favorite type of water ... the kind that goes in my water bottle.

I'm the hydration queen! My water bottle goes with me everywhere. I even used to take it to church, until my kids started begging to take their water bottles to church, too.

Straws on This Camel's Back

I've been battling giving in to my feelings of frustration. Emily just provided the final straw which has broken this camel's back. So I'm using my blog to vent my frustration in the hopes that I will not take it out on my children. 

• Emily spilled an entire glass of lemonade all over the kitchen floor. I had to mop it up with paper towels and wash clothes because our micro-fiber mop is still filthy from when my mom spilled apple juice all over the kitchen floor. 

• Shad's paycheck was the smallest one this year - and gas prices are the highest they've been in a year.

• The five pounds I want to lose has now become eight pounds!

• Shad was in his 4th accident with his patrol car (that car is jinxed!) and so he will be given a day off without pay.
  

If you have bad news, please don't call me. I can't take ANYMORE!

*** Edited to add -- Laura just peed all over herself and the bathroom. Yes - she is FIVE, but this week she did number 2 in her swimsuit at the pool and peed in her clothes TWICE!!!! Someone - please shoot me and put me out of my misery! ***

*** Edited again to add - I just found a receipt for $22.00 that I had NOT entered into my checkbook. Why didn't you shoot me when I asked you too?! ***