Second day of my August Challenge

Day two of the challenge and things are ok. I haven't managed to get in my 5 servings of fruit and or veggies but I am going to the store so that shouldn't be a problem for the week. I plan on getting plenty of fixings for salads and veggetable side dishes and fruits.

I haven't wanted to work out (big surprise) but Sarah has been really inspiring. She has no idea. I hope she realizes that all her hard work (despite whatever results they avail to herself) is going to a good cause. Me!

In other news, I miss my husband. I see him 30 minutes a day and for a few hours on Sunday nights. I can't wait until he starts getting two days off in a row again. We all miss him so much.

I think we are going to try and take the Kidlet to see Madagascar today. I hope it pans out!

Night!

First day of my second week.

Well I hope that I'm on the road to breaking the pattern of not working out more than 1-1.5 weeks at a time. Today was the first day of my second week. I did not want to workout tonight. I had last night off and it was so difficult to want to get up, straighten the living room and walk my booty off with Leslie. Her people annoy me. But then again, most people in the background of workout annoy me.

I'm pretty tired so this is going to be short. Maybe I'll update earlier in the day so that I'm not completely brain dead when it comes to trying to think of something to say. We can hope right?

Latah gatah's!

First week down, a million to go...

I completed my first weeks worth of exercise. 5 days of working out in 6 days. I'm pretty proud of myself there. Eating sucked but it could have been worse. I'll concentrate more on eating next week, or well the lack of so much of it. Eating isn't the problem! Portion and quality is.

I don't know if I mentioned here but I got a Brita water dispenser and I'm in heaven at having good tasting water again. I'm leaving none for da fishies. Suffer! My water now...

Nothing of real importance going on this week. Wee One finally cut the fourth tooth on the bottom so he has a total of 8 visible teeth and 1 molar that has just broke through as well. I can't see it but I can feel it. He also has a bad diaper rash and I just feel so aweful when he does. I know his little bum hurts and there's nothing aside from keeping him dry and rash creamed up that I can do.

I guess I could mention my ebay addiction. Well it isn't an addiction as I have ebay'd before and probably will again. It was just, more like a random night of ebay frenzy. I spent too much for one week but the Hunk said that it was cool and if da man says he's cool with it, who am I to argue? No one, that's who! So I have goodies coming to me. Hopefully. I'm so afraid that I'm going to have horrible ebay sellers that forget me or steal my money or not ship the items I want or they come all horribly ruined or nothing like I hope. Does that happen often?

Oh and the Hunk is really enjoying the new job! I don't care for his hours as I feel I have traded my husband for money - ok not entirely a bad thing hee hee! But he's really doing well. He's trying to learn as much as he can, and the co-workers and his supervisors actually want to teach him. He jokingly said something to his boss (who will now be referred to as "Boss Man") about hitting his 45 day probation period to the effect of, "Well do you think I'll be around when my probation ends?" and Boss Man told him, "Oh you aren't going anywhere. You are stuck right here with us." It made him feel great to finally be appreciated and wanted for the employee that he is. I'm just so happy for him.

I'm off to go watch a movie. I love me some Netflix. I send a movie, next day it is there with a new one shipped out that arrives the day after that. Totally fast service. If you don't have Netflix and you love movies, get it!

Ok my little snuggle bunnies, I'm outta here!

For this week

I'm not going to work out tonight. My legs are just too tired and I noticed there was more cramping doing the 2 mile WATP DVD than there had been. So I have 4 days in a row, take tonight off and finish my 5th day tomorrow. Then, July 29th I start the Strive for Five Challenge from The Skinny Bitches website. (I'm too lazy to link right now but you can find the link in my list o' links to the left.)

Not a bad way to end the week. I just wish I could say the same for my eating. Will work on it more tomorrow though.

Night...

I faced my fear

I faced my fear of getting on the scale again. I had a rough guesstimate of what I might weigh and frankly, I really didn't want to know any different. I wanted to just let my clothes tell me how I was doing.

Yeah, pretty much denial people.

I was scared. I didn't want to weigh. Heck who does. I didn't want that little 3 digit number to dictate to me how to feel. Oh sure we can all say that the number doesn't matter, you can change it, your clothes tell you the "real" progress. All of which is very true but sometimes, sometimes, you just have to face that bastard scale and look at just exactly approximately where you are at.

It was a hot summer day... The wind blew through the trees on the quiet street. There was the whistle of a showdown in the air.... I stood on one side of the silent bathroom. The bastard scale loomed on the other....

Ok ok so this isn't an old western but I have to admit there have been times where I have wanted to shoot that damn thing as if it were.

Ok so anyway, I'm getting so off track here. I don't have a working scale (and by not working I mean that this scale loves me. It tells me the weight I want to see and not the weight I really am. Isn't that a nice scale?) so I weigh in at the MIL's house. We went over there after we finished eating. At a restaurant. Why, why, why I chose to do this, I don't know but I knew it was now or never (never really meaning next Sunday when we go back to the MIL's house). I decided that I would automaticallyl take 5 lbs. off because I know from past experiance that you can see a 5 lb. gain on the scale after eating.

So I had this one number in my head and I hoped that I would be no more than 5 lbs over it. In reality I had a feeling I had kicked myself up into the next bracket of 100's. I was prepared (so I thought) for that. Turns out that I was 1 lb. less than what I thought I was. I then took my jeans off. Down 2.5 lbs! -5 lbs. that I said I'd take off anyway and it left me with a number of 9 lbs lighter than I thought I might be in the first place (based on what I weighed at time of surgery). So yeah, I'm happy. I know it isn't an "exact" number but you know what? I don't reallly give a care. It's close and it motivates me at the moment in a happy way so I'm just going to take that.

Anyone who wants to rain on my parade can email: me@Icouldcareless.com, and don't hold your breath for a response. Whatever works to get me motivated in the right direction is right the right thing for me right now. Right? Right.

Well, the Wee One is crying and I haven't even been to sleep yet. Fun, fun.

I'm one crazy girl

I just finished up 3 miles of WATP. The DVD that I have has a 1 mi. and a 2 mi. workout and I did both tonight. Pretty darn good considering I didn't want to do any miles at all.

I've worked out the past 3 nights and I have noticed that I'm not coughing quite as much. For those of you who don't know, I had gall bladder surgery in Dec. in which I developed a respiratory infection in which made me cough and wheeze so hard that I got a hernia in which I had to have surgery for in April. At which time I was still coughing like mad. They put me on advaire and singulaire and right before surgery I'd say my cough was 98% cleared up. The wheeze was gone! Then I had surgery for the hernia and it all came right back. The congested cough, the wheeze only this time it isn't nearly as bad, just... once or twice a day I get into a coughing fit. The doctor already said it wasn't asthma (which runs in my family and I was so worried about) but more allergies. I've noticed since working out though I have had about 2 coughing fits in about 3 days. I hope it clears up all together!

What to tell you? Nothing. Nothing is going on. The hamster is still alive and what I hope is well. I never take her out because being the dwarf hamster that she is, she can run even faster than her fatter, bigger counter parts. With a cat in the house that already eyeballs her cage (and has knocked it down to the floor before aiding in Caylie's escape once) that's just not a good idea. Sometimes we put her in her little dwarf hamster ball (about the size of a softball) and let her run around. Again though, the cat thinks she's a real life toy ball so we have to lock the cat in my room in order to give Caylie some freedom.

The cat has also been eyeballing the fish. Only I could care less if she gets that fugly bastard fish. He's mean and deserves someone his own size picking on him. (He's about the size of the Hunk's hand... I kid you not. He is the Boss Hogg of the family.)

Well it is about that time. I'm off to bed!

{title space for rent}

So I can't think of a title. If you'd like to rent out my title space, I'd be glad to sell it to you. I have paypal and I do accept money orders and cashiers checks and lavish gifts. All can be forwarded to me, your lovely hostess.

I haven't written in a while because I've just been vegging out. Nothing interesting is going on here. I always say that but it's true! I do the same thing every day at the same time. I'm sure that you guys don't want to hear a play by play, moment for moment accounting of my day so I just wait until I have something of value to say.

Ashame because I really, really love my Hello Kitty layout and she's just begging for wonderful and humorous essays and stories to fill her html with. I've let the Hello Kitty down.

In a bit better news though, despite my lack of working out for oh, say a week and a half... I fit into size 24 (stretch) jeans! Woo! Actually, I'm happy but not exactly happy because those stretch jeans are awesome and so comfy and can really stretch a lot so I don't feel it is a "true" size 24 until I can fit into the jeans that don't stretch. I just can't accept a victory can I? Nope. Especially one that I haven't really worked for. My eating is lame and no workouts for a week and a half? How is losing a size possible? I don't know. But I'll keep wearing my size 24's until they fall off.

Speaking of working out. I've got my butt in gear again. Sarah over there who's eating all my oxygen, is totally rocking the house with her working out and weight loss. We had tried to start a system together but she and I both got pregnant at the same time and then she got pregnant again and out of solidarity to her I didn't workout during her pregnancy (snicker!) But now, she's like haulin' booty over there and working out every night and has lost like 13 lbs. I think!! I'm so not letting her leave me in the dust like this! I will not be the "fat friend"! Ohhh no! I'm not going to watch her lose a bunch of weight, look great, and know that I could of been doing it with her but I was too lazy. Nuh uh, nosiree Bob.

So we're going to finish out July according to her goals. At least 4 days a week of working out but trying for 5 and watching the whole eating thing. Next month, we'll formulate more of exactly what workouts we're going to do since we have a lot of the same workout tapes and our new motto is going to be "Strive for Five". Five days of working out a week. Also we're going to strive for five with fruits and veggies and getting at least 5 servings a day (3 of one, 2 of the other). So, hopefully now that I have some motivation (to not choke on Sarah's dust) I'll get my rearend in gear. I haven't weighed because I've been in denial and I've just wanted to let my clothes tell me I'm losing. Oprah's trainer Bob Green also says not to weigh for the first 2 months because your body is so unstable with water changes and stuff but I think I just need to see that initial number to know if I'm losing again or not.

We'll see. I'm still scared.

Also on another positive note, my wonderful sister in law bought the boys a TON of clothes. I wish she'd adopt me!

Latah gatah...

A cause close to our hearts... Important!

This is a story about the Hunk's best friend who he's known since 2nd grade. He's suffered so much to serve this country and has asked for nothing in return. Please, if you find it in your heart to help him and others like him, support Operation War Hero. This family deserves our help and support for what they sacrificed to serve their country.

One soldier's never-ending battle

Reservist Eric Richardson came back from Kuwait with nerve damage caused by too-small boots and lives each day in excruciating pain. His young family was struggling until a determined woman stepped into their lives and altered the path of fate.
~JESSIE MILLIGAN STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER

Although it was not a Jesus image seen in a window's sheen nor a bolt-of-lightning intervention, it was as if the heavens allowed a small miracle one day this past spring when Jeff Gowins pulled his City Roofing truck into Racetrac Petroleum on Texas 183 in Fort Worth.

"Are you a roofer?" asked a woman at the gas pump next to him, looking at the sign on his truck. "Sir, I need your help right now. I'm trying to help a veteran. He's terribly injured, and his roof is leaking, and the ceiling is falling in at his house ...."

Gowins was stunned at the story that gushed from the woman.

A bad beginning
It started with a pair of too-small combat boots. The pair issued to reservist Eric Richardson of Saginaw was one full size too small for him. Richardson spent three months in the desert with his feet painfully crammed inside them. Nerve damage set in, and then a rare condition spread through his body and into his brain, he says.

Now, three years after coming back from Kuwait, his memory fails. His vision and hearing are fading. He can barely swallow, and he cannot walk. All because he wore a pair of combat boots one size too small. Back home, there is little relief from his constant pain. One day, the ceiling in his 4-year-old child's bedroom collapsed after rain leaked in. As their 40-year-old home falls into disrepair around them, his wife, Shelia, 31, struggles good-naturedly with his care.

By the time Gowins left the gas station that day, he was fired up to help the Richardsons. City Roofing already had helped re-roof several veterans' homes.

And the woman, Vicky Field, a particularly passionate employee of the U.S. Department of Defense newly charged with aiding injured veterans, had found someone with the skills to support her work. It was a chance meeting at a gas station, but together Gowins and Field would do what neither could do alone. They would start a new foundation to aid severely injured veterans, and they would set out not only to fix Richardson's home, but to build him a new one as well.

Hurting and hope
Small miracles are long overdue in the Richardson family's life. Go back some years, to 1996, and you'll see that life was sweet when Eric and Shelia Richardson married. The couple moved into a home on a street of few-frills ranch houses not far from the industrial main street of Saginaw, bordering north Fort Worth.

Shelia Richardson's parents live just up the street. It felt like home to Shelia, an eighth-grade science teacher at Tison Middle School in Weatherford, and to Eric, a Keller policeman.
He'd moved around Tarrant County so much as a kid that he'd never really been able to make close friends. Finally, he was settled, and he wanted to bring in extra income for his new family.
In August 2001, he joined the 610th Security Forces, an Air Force Reserve unit based in Fort Worth. A month later, the military's mission changed dramatically. By May 2002, he was in Kuwait.

He complained, of course, when the size 9 combat boots were issued. He wears a size 10.
"He kept telling them he needed new boots," Shelia Richardson says. "They told him no, so he wore 'em anyway." New equipment, from body armor to boots, was slow in coming in the early months of the war.

One day in August 2002, while carrying about 70 pounds of equipment on his 200-pound frame, he jumped out of a Humvee and heard a sharp snap in his foot. He thought he had broken his toes.

"Nerve damage," a military doctor told him and ordered him to wear athletic shoes.
The Richardsons say his superiors nixed the tennis shoes and ordered him back into his boots.
Roberta Smith, the public affairs officer for the 610th Security Forces, citing privacy issues, said recently that the Air Force Reserves are supportive of Richardson but cannot confirm the cause of the injury nor can it confirm any disciplinary action against the officers who Richardson says ordered him back into the boots.

Two weeks later, the pain was so unbearable that he was sent home on crutches, expecting that the damage would heal in about six months to a year. Eric Richardson and Shelia had a baby boy on the way, a little brother for their tiny red-headed daughter, Rebecca. Eric bought a shiny black pickup truck. Things would be OK, he thought.

Instead, the pain escalated.

Name the pain
Mysteriously, maddeningly, Richardson's nerve damage spread. His limbs were swollen. His joints ached. Muscles and bones weakened. Pain was constant. The disorder is one originally identified during the Civil War, when soldiers complained of constant pain originating from long-healed wounds. Doctors now identify the disorder as chronic regional pain syndrome, so called because in most cases the pain stays close to the original injury. More infrequently, the body's sympathetic nervous system kicks into overdrive, and the damage spreads along this network of nerves that control automatic body functions, from the dilation of the eyes in low light to the heightening of the heartbeat when in danger.

Usually, if the nerve damage spreads, it travels to one other limb, sometimes all of the limbs.
In even fewer cases, as in Richardson's, it also wreaks havoc with the central nervous system, the pathway to the brain, and spreads throughout the entire body, damaging cells along the way.
Theories exist on what causes the advancing nerve damage, but the exact cause of its spread is not agreed upon. Surgery to sever the affected nerves sometimes stops the spread, although the technique was not successful for Richardson.

There is no cure.

Mysteriously, miraculously, the condition can go into remission.

For the better part of a year, Eric Richardson was treated at the highly regarded Wilford Hall Medical Center at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. He was released from the hospital in 2004 under a program to manage his pain. A drip of pain killers, often morphine, is released from a surgically implanted pump that sends the medication directly into his spine. A hospital bed has been wedged into the couple's bedroom. There, he spends most of his time, even on warm days, with nine blankets, one of them electric, piled on his legs to ward of the feeling of cold that is typical of the syndrome.

Furniture has been pushed against the walls and piled high in other rooms to make way for Richardson's wheelchair. Most doors in the couple's home are too narrow to allow for wheelchair passage. He can't get into the bathrooms because of the narrow doors. One bathroom sits just as he left it three years ago, torn apart for a remodeling project he was to finish on his return home. He can't get to the back yard. He can barely navigate the kitchen.

Doctors tell him to stay in bed most of the time, but Richardson is the kind of guy who used to like going shark fishing in the Gulf of Mexico or helping his brother build a house. Once in a while, he likes to get out of bed.

Pulling together
"The doctors say this condition will kill him," Shelia Richardson says. Maybe soon, maybe years from now.

"One of his biggest fears is that I will leave him," she says. "I took the vows. I meant it when I said I'd be there in sickness and in health." Shelia is a patient, calm person, the kind of mom who can gather up two tiny children fighting over a stuffed toy and comfort them in her lap while the dog barks and the phone rings. She knows which is the most important. Ronnie, almost 3, is a happy redhead who just got his head shaved for summer.

"This is all he's ever known," Shelia says. "He was born after his dad got home." Rebecca, 4, gets scared when her dad is having particularly hard times. Mostly, she is a helpful child with serious eyes. She straightens the blankets on her father's legs or helps her mom get him out of bed and into the wheelchair.

"She says she wants to be a doctor so that she can help people who hurt like her father does," Shelia Richardson says. "Either that or a cheerleader."

Humor helps when emotions are drained at the Richardson home. So does logic. "We are all going to die," Shelia says. "None of us knows when. We just have to live each day. "In my mind, I still see us old together," she says, brushing her long, dark hair back. Her eyes look very, very tired.

No blame assigned
The family holds no bitterness toward the Air Force, even as their lives continued to fall apart, even when the roof on their home started leaking every time it rained. But in Shelia's mind, all this — the injury, the financial woes — was the result of falling through the cracks of a system lumbering under the weight of war.

"The way Eric looks at it, bad things can happen in any business or corporation. This was war. It was just one or two individuals, not the whole system," Shelia Richardson says. They have looked beyond the military for help. The Richardsons applied for TV's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in April. They were not selected. Shelia says she was told by show representatives that their situation didn't make the Air Force look good, although the Air Force had been involved in the nomination.

Charitable organizations turned the Richardsons down for aid because Shelia's teacher's income disqualified them. Just a few weeks back, Shelia brought Eric to the dentist. Nerves to his teeth had begun to die. The dentist took one look at the resulting infections that had spread through his teeth and called an ambulance.

Eric Richardson refused to be admitted to the hospital.

He wanted to be at home.

A lucky break
Luck hadn't turned the Richardsons way in three years. Then, in April this year, they met Vicky Field. Just this spring the Granbury woman took a U.S. Department of Defense job with the newly formed Military Severely Injured Joint Operations Center. Her job is to make sure veterans are hooked into the military benefit stream and to rally community support to do what the government cannot.

Her first project: Help the Richardsons.

She approaches her job with zeal. Her passion has a source of ignition. Her own son, Chad Snowden, is a veteran of Iraq who is gradually recovering from a gunshot wound to the head.
Field is determined enough that she thinks nothing of stopping a guy in a roofing truck at a gas station and asking for help. She's just enthusiastic enough that people tend to respond.

Jeff Gowins inspected the Richardsons' home not long after that chance meeting at the gas station. Along with him came another construction pro that Field found after visiting the office of U.S. Rep. Kay Granger. A representative of a housing developer, who wishes to remain anonymous, pored over the darkened rooms, where the lights are kept low to avoid hurting Eric Richardson's eyes. They poked around at the ceiling, they measured doorways.

The Saginaw home cannot be remodeled to accommodate a wheelchair, Gowins and the developer decided.

They'd build the Richardsons a new home instead.

A fresh start
Field and Gowins have worked quickly. Groundbreaking on the developer-donated lot at the Marine Creek Ranch subdivision is to take place later this month, and Gowins says the 2,100-square-foot home with donated materials and labor should be ready within three months. The Richardsons will have no mortgage payment. Even the landscaping is being donated.

Field and Gowins quickly mustered a six-person board of directors to manage donations to the Richardsons and, afterward, to other veterans. Paperwork is under way to register the foundation as a charity that can accept tax-deductible donations. The new nonprofit is to be called Operation War Heroes, and a Web site, www.operationwarhero.org, was recently constructed.

"That should go a long way toward relieving the burden on this family," Gowins says. "This has really been a God thing. The right people are being put on the right path to meet at the right place and the right time."

Meanwhile, Field has been out rallying more support. She's spoken at the Saginaw Chamber of Commerce requesting donations for the new home. She's visited area businesses and politicians. She's fielded hundreds of e-mails from people expressing interest in helping out — from the Quilting Grannies of Pecan Valley to the employees of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics' joint strike fighter program — after the story about her and her son, Chad, was featured in the Star-Telegram on Mother's Day.

Shelia Richardson, out of school for the summer and busy taking her husband to doctors' appointments several times a week, was at first too wary and too tired to let the goodness of the offer sink in.

"We'd been through so many letdowns. We didn't want to get our hopes up," she says. "Really, all I was expecting is maybe having a door widened." She says she and Eric are somewhat uncomfortable about receiving charity. They counter this by knowing that, when they are able, they'll do what they can to raise money for Operation War Heroes.

"Eric says he'd like to rally some support for them," Shelia says. "Maybe on the Internet."

She's beginning to let a little joy in.

When the developer's architect meets with the Richardsons to ensure they'll be happy with the home, Shelia Richardson tells them not to do anything "fancy." "I just want Eric to be able to get around," she says.

The new home emerges in her dreams.

Sometimes they are bad dreams where everything goes wrong. Usually, however, they are dreams where she sees Eric in the wheelchair, moving comfortably about the house.

Daughter Rebecca's only request: a pink bedroom.

Eric Richardson's only request: room to maneuver in a wheelchair.

"I'd really like to be able to move around," he said one recent afternoon before drifting off to sleep. These days he isn't always able to muster the energy for a conversation. He has told Shelia that he wants a flagpole in the front yard of his new home.

"He wants his buddies to know he still supports them," Shelia Richardson says.

The Richardsons can finally think about the future. Shelia already has started packing.

With help from Vicky Field and others, ground will be broken this month on the Richardsons' new home.

How you can help
For more information, e-mail info@operationwarhero.org
Operation War Heroes' new Web site is at www.operationwarhero.org
Jessie Milligan, (817) 390-7738 jlmilligan@star-telegram.com

SPECIAL TO THE STAR-TELEGRAM/JESSICA KOURKOUNIS


Please, I hope you find it in your heart to support this charity and our friends Eric and Shiela. If you believe in the power of prayer, please send up one for them.

Happy Independance Day!

I just wanted to wish everyone a very happy and safe Independance Day. Please be careful! And eat lots of bbq for me since we don't have plans to go anywhere. Hehe.

Also, in response to Sarah's request to "Share him, pretty please!".... All I have to say is:

Nuh uh.

Happy 4th!!

New Computer Desk

This is the new computer desk and set up I have going. There's more figurines on the top of my shelves, the mess from the top of the desk is gone (nearly) and the drawers are cleaned out. I used to have a "corner" desk that took up the entire room right there. Both walls! I loved the desk but I had everything piled on top of it and even though it was "bigger" it did not afford me any more room. We got thid smaller desk on sale and I love it! I have drawers now, I can hide the subwoofer, I have the shelving unit that fits with all my larger hardware items and Caylie. Much more efficient for me. Whee!
© 2005 MaiaRayne. All rights reserved.

Hamster Caylie

This is Caylie. Our Roborovski Dwarf Hamster. You can't tell how tiny she is but the ball she's in is no bigger than the size of a softball. That's the vaccum she's running towards.
© 2005 MaiaRayne. All rights reserved.

Yet Another One

So I have yet another layout. Some might say that it is a wee bit childish, being a cartoon and all, but I don't care.

This is my blog and I have the password dammit. *phbbt!*

I love Hello Kitty. Oh you didn't know that? Well I do. I have since I was a little girl becuase it has apparantly been around forever. I'm almost thirty and this little kitty and all her Sanrio friends make me giddy. This paticular Hello Kitty layout was summer appropriate and I loved the rainbow like feel of the colors. I have other HK layouts stashed in my "Templates" folder so you might be seeing more of this cutie.

If you don't like HK, well it's going to be a tough road ahead. All I can suggest to you is embrace the Kitty. Here, this might help you A LOT. If I was rich and frivelous, I'd totally buy it for my collection. My collection of Hello Kitty you perverts!

So what's been going on in my life? Nothing. For someone who spends most of her time teaching boys to be good, sociable, law abiding citizens you'd think that something would just jump out at me as blog worthy. But no, got nothin' for ya people.

Want to know how the weight loss is going? Me too. I haven't worked out in a week. I've suffered from severe insomnia all week. 2 hours a night people! One of those nights I went without that even. I'm going to the store and buying over the counter sleep aids. Normally they don't work for me but every couple of years I give it another go, remind myself that they don' t work for me and usually try and see a doctor.

However, we currently are health insuranceless until sometime in September when our new health insurance with the new company kicks in. There's a 90 day wait before being eligible for insurance. I'm hoping that when the Kidlet starts back to school, that the colds he brings home are minimal because we won't have insurance. Of course if they are sick I will take them to the doctor.... it's just going to be one huge bill that we'll have to make payments on and we just got their medical bills paid off.

Of course when the Kidlet started to school last year, he had pneumonia 3 weeks in. I hope his immune system is stronger now.

My parents went to Hawaii. I think I wrote about that. I'm like jealous and all. Of course. They should be back soon and then I get to hear all about it. I'll let you guys know how it went. I know that you are all so interested in the vacations my parents take.

I currently have a new movie lust object. Feast your
eyes on Gerard Butler. Isn't he just the dreamiest? I don't know what it is about this man but... he makes my heart flutter.

Normally I'm not a huge fan of facial hair but he just looks so... manly. And his accent.. oh that scottish accent of his.... it just makes me swoon.


He's mine lovelies! Alllllllll mine! I'm telling you... that voice could talk me into anything.

His movie, Dear Frankie comes out tomorrow on DVD and I hope I can get it here. I want to see it!!

There are rumors he could be the next James Bond. I don't like those movies but I sure as hell would become an avid fan if he was in them! I think I'm off to watch Attila or Timeline... yumminess.