Hound Dog

I've been pretty lazy about posting here, so I decided to do a little something to get things caught up. This morning, Tommy played "hose" with Penny... these pictures are the after-effect of her having some good fun!

That's her little stuffed lambie... she never comes to bed without it!

As for the rest of our week... well, I've been dealing with some pretty miserable back & neck pain for a while... I finally went for a full MRI and saw a Neurosurgeon last week. I'm going Monday for a 2nd opinion, but the long & short is, I have some pretty bad discs, and need to have some surgery. SO... that's what will be in my very near future. I'll probably have 2 seperate surgeries. The first for the bulging/herniated discs in my lower back. The 2nd for the 4 herniated in my neck.

The Dr said that the lower can be done arthroscopically, which I like... minimally invasive, nowhere near the spinal cord so no paralysis risks, etc...

The ones in my neck... well, we'll just wait and see and keep thinking good thoughts...

I'm also trying to pull together some kind of special birthday party for Tommy... he will be 50 in just a few weeks and I totally screwed up and didn't realize just how soon his birthday was until I was putting the new dates on the dry erase calender on the fridge! OMG... now I have to make something spectacular for his big day! I'm hoping that some of his friends or family might be able to make it down here for the weekend and we can surprise him... but since it's such short notice (yes, I DO feel guilty and yes, I AM a moron for not doing this sooner) I don't know if we can pull it off...

Our 10th wedding anniversary is 2 weeks after his birthday too... and then we have our 1st annual Hunan Spicy Girls REUNION! WOOHOO... I can't WAIT to see our travel mates! All the girls have been growing so fast, it will be SO much fun to see them all together again! Just sorry not ALL our group will be there... but next year... NO EXCUSES WILL BE TOLERATED! LOL...

That's about it for now... we are getting another summer storm, so I'm going to shut down before my laptop gets fried..
See you all soon!

more pigtail pics

I can now update my blog from my cell phone... so this post was my first experiment. I had taken a couple of shots of Rachel with my cell phone, so here it is!

Food Glorious Food

What a busy day we had. And what awesome friends... Our original schedule was a little hectic, but we would have had to make it work. We were invited to our friend Meri's for a housewarming party. Of course we are going! Well, I made my lasagna and promptly invited my mom & Margie & Charlie to come for dinner! Now in between all of this, we were going to the Lee County Waste Management to pick up a truck load of free mulch! Charlie was going to go with Tom and load up Charlies pick up. So here is how it went instead!

After I came home from work, it was time to get a tiny bit of cleaning in (vacuum, etc). I was going to take my nap when Rach went down for hers... but wait! what's this I see? It's Margie & Charlie in the pick up... Margie texts me... "where do you want your mulch?" HUH???

Well, our dear friends decided to go to the mulch area early, so they wouldn't have to deal with it in the middle of the hottest part of the day. They unloaded it all onto our lawn (by the way, we realized after it was OUT of the truck, that we are going to need a heck of a lot more mulch! uh oh...

Ok, anyway.. they came with the mulch... then they went swimming for a bit... they needed to cool down after all that manual labor!

They left around the time Tommy got home. After that, I closed my eyes for a few minutes... after getting up, it was time to change rachel into something adorable! And look! She finally let me put pigtails in her hair! She was about to pull them out, when I scooped her up and brought her to my bathroom so she could look at herself in the mirror. She apparently agreed with me that she looked SOOO cute so she left them in for the rest of the day!!! WOOHOO!!!

We headed over to the party.. had a terrific time. Rachel enjoyed being the center of attention for a while. She made some new friends and was (of course) totally taken with Meri's son Kane. Shortly before we left, some other kids arrived and she was equally taken with them. She even went around hugging all the kids before we left! I was sorry we had to leave there early, but we had to get home since we were having our big lasagna dinner!

Margie & Charlie came back to the house... Mom got there a short time later. We all went swimming, then it was time for Lasagna, Garlic Bread, & Mom's famous salad! It was a really terrific day. The lasagna was a big hit, even with Rachel. She especially enjoyed squishing it between her fingers!

After dinner, it was time for dessert. My homemade Mango Ice Cream! All in all, I'd say we had a pretty terrific day with some pretty terrific friends!

Art School Girl

First thing this morning when I was on my way home from work, I found a yard sale and this art easel thingy jumped right into my car! So I guess there is no doubt in anyone's mind now... Rachel is definitely LEFT HANDED! So at least now that means her Auntie Marla will be able to teach her how to knit & crochet! YIPPEE!!!!

Good thing I remembered I had a box of colored chalk stuck in the back of my desk drawer. She was having a good time scribbling away and then erasing her artwork. I have to get her a real eraser, since the one she is trying to use is actually for a dry erase board... not quite the same thing. I also want to get her alphabet letters, since the other side of the chalkboard is a metal material to hang magnets from... of course, we are going to have to be careful with them. This afternoon, we found her friend Zia's picture on the floor... a little while later we realized that the magnet that held Zia's picture to the fridge was gone... and loe & behold, there was Rachie sucking on that thing like a gumball!!! Needless to say, we made some major changes to what gets hung on the fridge and how we hang them!!
After She finished her nap time, she was very good about keeping herself busy while her Mama took on a major cooking project. I generally only make lasagna once a year, around Christmas time. I always make a tray for mom's Xmas Eve Party, and an extra tray for our freezer... well, last year we were up north for the holidays, so I never made my lasagna... Tommy had a special request for lasagna this weekend, so I naturally agreed! Ok, so let me make this clear... I now remember why I only make lasagna once a year! I had to take 4 Advil by the time I was done, just so I could stand up! I was in total agony by the time I got all the trays into the oven! We are going to have a tray for dinner on Sunday, plus I'm going to freeze a tray and will probably split the other tray up between my folks, Margie & Charlie (who are coming for dinner too) and us. We had a quickie dinner of soup, salad & sandwiches tonite since there was NO WAY I was going to be able to cook after my lasagna extravaganza! Oh, and for anyone wondering: 4 lbs of Ricotta, 4 lbs of Mozzerella, 1 & 1/2 lbs of lasagna noodles, and at least a gallon of gravy... uh... sauce.. lol...

After all that fun, Rachel was WAY ready for bed... she has that cute little sleepy eye thing going too... so I just had to snap a couple of shots of her just before she went down... Night-night little princess...

World Without Love

Another sad day in the music world... a lovely man and a great talent passed away. Gordon Waller, from the duo Peter & Gordon, has died.
Tommy & I met Gordon many years ago at a Beatles convention. We spent lots of time together that weekend, and maintained a friendship for quite a while. He came darn close to being a houseguest of my mom when we were trying to find him a good dentist! LOL... anyway, he had some great stories that he shared with us and we will both remember him with love... RIP Gordon...

We also lost another icon... Walter Cronkite died today too. The most trusted man in America was 92... what a legend... "and THATS the way it WAS".... RIP "Uncle Walter"

Kingdoms For Horses

Got some sad news today... My girlfriend Z's beautiful sweet dog Timmy passed away... Timmy was a great big adorable black lab and an absolute doll. Such a good boy... but he'd been sick lately, and finally lost his battle... so RIP, Timmy...

There really has not been very much excitement around lately... Yes, I AM still working on the closet, HOWEVER... I am finally down to having to go thru the miscellaneous JUNK. The clothing is ALL IN!! Yippee! Now I also have to work on selling off all the stuff I pulled out of there!
Today I spent a few hours at the Dr's office. My leg has been numb since early November, and finally the chiropractor told me to go to a neurosurgeon... today was the day. Spent 2 hours in the waiting room, and then another 20 minutes or so in the exam room before he finally got there... long & short of it: Next week I go for a full spinal MRI (my request, rather than constantly being sent for a little view here and a little view there... look at it all and see where the damage is at!) Then go for the follow up the next day... he's already talked surgery for the one area in my lower back... we will see what the MRI shows for the rest and make all decisions then...

Who Let the Dogs Out

Today sure started out on a crazy note. I got out of work and headed home as usual. I spotted 2 dogs walking along US-41. One was a Pit Bull mix and the other was its identical shrunken twin in the form of a Chihuahua. They were cute, but obviously had been on the street for quite some time. They were both horribly undernourished and probably loaded with fleas etc. Well the problem was that they both kept running out into the middle of 41! Now luckily, being a Sunday morning, traffic wasn't THAT bad, but I put my hazards on, and kept trying to stay as close to them as I could while honking my horn to get them to get back on the sidewalk.

I then called 911. Ft Myers PD showed up pretty quickly. We corralled the dogs yet again and they called animal control. For the next 25 minutes, I stood with 3 of Ft Myers finest, trying to keep the dogs from running away again. I gave them some dry cat food I still had in the back of the car. They both kept licking us and it was clear they had been buddying around together so they started to play with each other. Finally animal control arrived and I carried the little Chihuahua into the truck and they had to convince the bigger dog. Eventually, they got him into the cage as well. I was so glad to be able to help these guys... they were really sweet dogs and I an sure that if I hadn't driven along side them at 3 mph they would have ended up getting run over for sure.

Once I got home, there was no way I was napping. Rachel was awake already and Tommy had to run, so I had to stay up. I fell asleep after I put her down for her nap at 11:30. I guess Tommy forgot all about the fact that we were supposed to go to Mango Mania early this afternoon, because he ended up coming home from church, changing his clothes and then just hanging out in the family room until he fell asleep too... He was up when I woke up at 3, but by then it was far too late to go to the festival. I was so disappointed. I was hoping to find out exactly what kind of mango tree we have, and then I was going to buy 2 more of them.. one for my parents and a 2nd one for us!

Oh well... guess we will wait till next year... but to make up for it, I made Mango Ice Cream. I just had a little taste (since I fell asleep while it was churning, so now it needs to go back to the freezer for a while) and it came out super yummy... Gonna write down exactly what I did this time so I don't forget how to make it for next year! Sure hope Rachel likes it! Oh wait... I'm talking about MY KID... of course she's gonna love it!

So here is my little hippie flower child, just having some random acts of cuteness... I LOVE those jeans... but they fit a bit funny in the tush... she doesn't seem to have enough of one to fill them out!

Life is a Celebration

Today marks one year since we first saw our beautiful daughter's face for the first time. It is the one year anniversary of our referral... what a difference a year makes! Here are the first pictures we ever saw of our precious little girl...
July 7, 2008...

I spent that entire day refreshing my computer screen and carrying the phone around, just waiting for the big news. I set up the video camera in the nursery so that I could record "The Call". My girlfriend Rita was there, helping me keep my wits about me. Later on, Nancy & Kim came and waited (about as impatiently as I did) for the email with all the info and the amazing photos of my little girl. The photos above were the only ones we had of her until the day we met her! I was an absolute basket case. And poor Tommy was at work so he couldn't share in the insanity! But as soon as I got the call, I started telling everyone! I called my mom (of course) and Victoria, Margie, Z, and oh, I don't even remember who else! I sent out an email to everyone, letting them know the good news.. and naturally the phone started ringing off the hook after that...

Wow... that was really a year ago...

These pictures were actually taken yesterday, but I just couldn't wait to post about one of the most incredible days of my entire life.

July 7th, 2008... that is the day I officially became a mom.
Now, a year later, I look at this beautiful, happy little girl and my heart could just explode...
I don't think anyone could be any happier or more in love with this miraculous little gift... she is the light of our lives, and we will forever be grateful for having her in our lives... We are SO blessed...

My Country Tis of Thee

Happy Birthday America! Today was a really nice day. It was Rachel's first official Independence Day!

We started out by having a tailgate party with Margie, Charlie & the kids. Charlie BBQ'd some hot dogs, I made macaroni salad, & we had watermelon too! Rachel ate 2 whole hot dogs! We also picked up a little inflatable kiddie pool so the kids could play in the water.
After we ate, Margie's kids shot off some fireworks. Nothing really big, just a little something to entertain the little ones for a bit. Then we packed up all the cars and headed across the street to the Landings. We parked down near the water and set up our chairs and blankets to watch the big fireworks display across the river. We met my folks and all their friends there too.
We were set up on the Ft Myers side of the river to watch the Cape Coral fireworks. Red White & Boom was bigger than ever this year, but I have a real hard time dealing with crowds, so this was MUCH better! The weather was perfect. Not TOO hot & sticky... there was even a bit of a breeze going, so it wasn't as miserable as it could have been! We sprayed everyone with bug spray. That didn't help all that much, but maybe it cut it down a little! My ankles got bit up pretty good...

Anyway, the show was fantastic! MUCH better than last year. They lasted a good amount of time and Rachel really seemed to like watching. She bounced from my lap to Nana's lap, Papa's, Daddy's, even Uncle Charlie's lap! Whenever the fireworks would light the sky, she would point to them and say "more" or "again" and when they were done, she shouted "YAY"... so it looks like she really enjoyed them!
By the time the show ended, we were all pretty tired. We barely got out of the parking lot when Rach fell asleep in the car. Yes, she had a fun day!

Nature's Way

Living in Florida can be such a joy. Yesterday we had the "bug guy" come out because I started hearing noises from up in the attic. My worst fears were realized when he said we have a rat! The good news is that it appears to just be one, and that he hasn't been up there long. Since they wanted $250 to sign up for their "rat irradication program," Tommy opted for us getting some rat traps and he will go up there to take care of the situation. The bug guy did tell us we should use slim jims for bait! too funny... so I went to Walmart. Got the slim jims, but they didn't carry the old fashioned spring loaded traps.. tomorrow I will hit Lowe's to pick up a few of those.
My comic relief for the day came when Tommy dropped and broke the Pyrex measuring cup. No, that was NOT the funny part... the funny part was discovering (not too much of a surprise) that he had absolutely NO CLUE how to turn on the vacuum cleaner! That sure explains a lot! LOL...
As for our little princess... she is getting a couple more teeth, so she's been feeling a little under the weather... clingier than usual, running a little bit of a temp, but still running around like a wild child... she's so good. I think this may be the last of the teeth for a while. As far as I can tell, I think she's got all the ones she's supposed to once these pop thru! and based on the bruise on my shoulder from where she bit me this afternoon, they are working perfectly!