Tidbits

I was reading my sisters blog and then Sherelle's blog, and they both had this tag so here goes.

10 years ago.....I was pregnant with my second child Jessica and in the process of moving off the mountain and building a new house. Also, my dad died 10 years ago.
Things on my to do list today.....Go to work, come home, cook dinner, probably do some housework, read my blogs, go to bed. Exciting, huh!
What would I do if I were suddenly made a billionaire? I'd crap a brick. Then I'd go to the Mediterranean. Then I'd buy a new truck. Then I'd buy/build a new house. Then, I don't know what. That's a lot of money. I think I'd be pretty overwhelmed.
Three of my bad habits.....I eat too much chocolate. That's my addiction. Hershey's kisses are my favorite. I dwell on the negative too much. I have little pity parties for myself daily. I'm trying not to do that anymore, but it's a hard habit to break. I spend too much time on the computer. I'm trying to work on that one too.
Five jobs I've had......Burger joint right out of high school. Dental Assistant for 2 years. Security Receptionist for Micron. Laboratory Technician for the American Red Cross. I processed blood after it was drawn. Cashier for Winco Foods.
Five things people don't know about me.....I'm grossed out my bad teeth and filthy mouths. I guess it's from being a dental assistant. I'm a very shy person and have very little self esteem. Remember the pity parties. I hate talking in front of groups and I absolutely hate being the center of attention. I want to sit in the corner and be unnoticed. My toenails are always painted. I have ugly feet and they look better with polish. I am very emotional. I cry over everything. Someone can look at me wrong and I get teary eyed wondering what I did to upset them. I am extremely sensitive. I want to please everyone. I hate conflict of any kind. I have lost a lot of weight and have gained a lot of new friends. It bothers me knowing that most of them wouldn't be my friend if I were still as big as I used to be. Most of them don't know that I was as big as I was. Yes, people are like that. I am speaking from experience. I am proud of my weight loss, but am still emotionally scarred from it.
Now, if you read this, and you have a blog.......I TAG YOU!

Happy Birthday Sarabeth

My oldest just turned 13 on the 7th. Holy crap! I have a teenager. Certainly I'm not old enough to have a teenager!! What a journey this has been. My first child. My first pregnancy. It wasn't a good pregnancy. At my 24 week checkup, they discovered that I didn't have very much amniotic fluid. The very stuff that helps the baby's lungs develop. The very stuff that protects the baby from the walls of the uterus. Imagine a carrot in a ziploc baggie. Empty all of the air out of the baggie so that there is no air around the carrot and it can't move. That was Sarabeth in my uterus.

I was put on bedrest for the remainder of my pregnancy, had a nurse come to my house every day to draw blood to check for infection, and to monitor the baby's heartbeat. I also had to go into the doctor every week for another ultrasound and to monitor the baby. At 35 weeks gestation, I had an amniosentisis done to check the development of the lungs. The results were not good. The lungs were not developed enough yet. But, the baby was getting too big to be in my uterus without fluid protecting it, so they decided they needed to deliver.

On Feb. 7th, 1995, the day after my 2nd wedding anniversary, I went in for a C-Section. I couldn't deliver her naturaly because the stress of it would have been too much on the baby. And because I had no fluid, they still had a hard time getting her out via C-Section. And she wasn't breathing. NICU was there waiting and immediatly started performing CPR. After 7 to 10 minutes (according to her chart) they intubated her. That means they put an air tube down her throat into her lungs to help her breath. She was rushed to NICU and put on a Oscillator to breath for her.

After my hour in recovery, the doctor came in to tell me that I had a severly retarded and deformed child that probably wouldn't live through the day. They were in the process of performing chromosome tests on her to properly diagnose her. But the doctor was wrong. Every day she blossomed like a flower. The chromosome tests all came back negative. The only problems she had were underdeveloped lungs and a club foot. She stayed in NICU for 31 days and then came home and was kept on oxygen for 5 months until her saturation level was o.k.

Over the course of 13 years, she has had 4 surgeries on her foot and on both knees. Other than that, you would never know that she was a preemie who was severely deformed and retarded and was pronounced dead in the delivery room. All of her baby pictures are in storage so this is all I have. Read about her birthday here.

15th Anniversary

Today is my 15 wedding anniversary.

Don and I at the Harvest Hoedown my senior year of high school. Circa 1988. I was 17, he was 19. We were so young. This is my favorite picture ever taken of us together.

This was taken in December '07. We're not so young anymore.

More Snow

This is what I woke up to yesterday morning. We have gotten more snow in the last month than we've gotten in 20 years. O.k. Maybe I'm exaggerating. But still. We haven't gotten this much snow in many years.

It took me 15 minutes to clean the snow off my Expedition before driving to work.

But by the time I got off work at 5pm, the roads were all clear and wet. Most of it melted away.

Psychadelic Man!

I was going through all of my old digital pictures and found these cool pictures of my animals. I used to have a camera that had "negative" as a color option. Here are a few pictures I took in negative form.

This is a picture of Bandit. Cool, eh?

Here's a closeup of Elizardbutt (a.k.a. Olivier)

This is my favorite. Elizardbutt looking wicked cool.

These pics are about 5 or 6 years old. I wish I had the negative option on my current camera.