December 3, 2007

Well, here we are a full seven months later. I'm just not good at this blog thing at all. I will try to bring you up to date.

I am still having the same problems with my stomach, although it isn't as bad lately. They ran every test in the books, and found nothing wrong. Well, nothing that would cause the kind of pain that I experience.

The garden was hit and miss this year. We are not sure that we are going to keep the raised beds. I have most of my winter garden planted now. The spinach died right away, and I haven't been able to find anymore. I still need to plant my Brussels sprouts, carrots and onions in January. The cabbage, lettuce and squash are doing well so far.

Cliff was finally able to get the acre cleared that we were waiting on, and the weather has cooled down enough for us to work outside again. Charles ran over a nest of land hornets this summer and got stung about 18 times. It was pretty bad. The next weekend our neighbor ran over one and got stung about 22 times. We watch very carefully now when we are working in the yard. I threw my back out really bad this summer too. Doing something really stupid, like trying to lift the tractor..:( It is doing much better now though. We bought a thing called a 'garage in a box' and finally got it put up a couple of weeks ago. We have moved the tractor and a bunch of the yard tools, the wheel barrow, the trailer, etc. in there so that we have more room to work in the garage.

Ruby is doing great. She loves being outside with us when we work on the yard. She loves to help also. When she sees us pull the vines down out of the trees, she will jump up and grab some too and try to pull them down. When she sees us pulling limbs and stuff from the wood piles left from the clearing, she tries to pull limbs out too and carry them to the burn area. When Charles occasionally leaves her in the house when he is mowing or something, Ruby lays on the couch watching daddy out the window and sighs heavily. Our little farm is starting to grow a bit. We had the two rabbits that we had bought from Jan until last weekend. The female was dead when we came home from Oklahoma. We also still have the two pet rabbits that we bought and now have two babies that will be ready to sell in a week or two. We bought two turkeys, Thanksgiving and Christmas. We went to butcher Thanksgiving that morning, and found that a raccoon had gotten to her first. Ruby's dog run had been turned into the turkey run. We now have wire over the top of it also so the raccoon’s can't get to Christmas. We have five roosters that run the property during the day. We lock them up in their own little 'stud row' building at night. When they get too far from their area, I turn Ruby loose and tell her to 'take them home' and she runs them back to the animal area. She has started to be bored with that little game now and I sometimes have to help her with that. We have 17 hens, which include Jan's last two hens. We have Barred Rocks, Black Astroloups, Rhode Island Reds, New Hampshire Reds, and Buff Orpingtons. The ladies are kept separate from the roosters. We plan on butchering the roosters soon. The ladies laid really good for us all summer. They have slowed down a bit now that the weather has cooled off. Next year, we plan on building a bigger coup and run and getting 50 layers and 25 meat hens that we will butcher when they are about 6 months old so that they are still tender. We are hoping that 25 will last us through the year and that the 50 layers will keep ourselves and the few customers that we have found this summer in eggs almost all year anyway. We have started looking for a few more meat rabbits now. We would like to find a couple Californians and a couple New Zealands. We have two cages that Charles built that we use for the momma and baby rabbits and then we have bought the rest. We found that we can buy them for cheaper than we can make them. We are once again working on the fences, now that the weather is not too hot to be out there working. We have about 90 feet left on the front three rail. We have decided where the horses will be, where the pigs and goats will be also. We just have to get the cross fencing done and the barn and out buildings built. I still don't have my flower gardens planted yet, or my seating area or hammock area done. The outdoor kitchen hasn't even been really planned out yet. We are making progress though. I still wish I could just twinkle my nose and have it all done. We also have an African Grey parrot named Mickey that was given to us. He is starting to get used to us and we work with him every night. He is starting to talk again too. His previous owner had him for 15 years, but recently got a divorce and had to go back to work. She didn't have time to spend with Mickey anymore and he was getting some bad habits going from being neglected. He was biting, pulling all his feathers out and just being a big brat when we got him. He now will sit on our hands and play on the back of the couch a bit. Him and Ruby are learning to respect each others space and he is starting to talk and whistle pretty little tunes. He says the funniest things. He still calls for his previous owners daughter now and then. Her name is Jennifer. He says 'Oh my god!', 'come 'ere', 'you brat' and silly little things like that. He makes noises that sound like Ruby's squeak toys too. If he thinks we are ignoring him too much, he lifts the floor of his cage and lets it fall loudly back into place. We also still have the main three cats, Schizzy, Ebony, and Whiskers. Whiskers hurt her back leg (we have recently decided that Whiskers is a she) and has stayed in the garage for a little over a month now. She still won't let us touch her, so we just put food and water and a litter box out there for her and hope that she heals well. I saw her moving around yesterday and she didn't seem to be limping anymore, but she is still afraid to leave the garage. Ebony comes into heat regularly and sometimes seems to be pregnant, but in the two years we have lived here, I have yet to find any kittens. I don't know what she does with them. I am really starting to miss having an inside kitty, so I wouldn't be surprised if we add another inside animal soon. We also have two new puppies. They are about 8 weeks old now. One is a lab/blue healer mix that we named Gigi. She is such a cutie and really innocent. Her paws are huge though, so she promises to be a pretty good size girl when she is full grown. The other is a red healer/blue healer mix. He is such a cutie too. We named him Squiggy because when you try to hold him, he squiggles around so much. He is a little piggy and is getting really fat. I'm not too worried about it right now though, since they are still puppies. I am sure he will thin down. For the time being, we fenced off the 8 foot add on to the garden to give them a place to stay. Once we get the main fence up, they will have the run of the yard. We bring them in one at a time now to try to house break them in case we need to bring them in for bad weather or something, but they are mostly outside dogs.

Lets see, what else can I tell you before I get to the sad stuff? I am still rolling my own smokes and still making jerky. I got a laptop this summer so that I don't have to go upstairs to work on the computer, so I am able to spend a lot more time working on the TV MegaSite again. Gisele took over the daytime manager job and Thane took over the volunteer manager job, so I am just operations manager now. I work a lot more on the primetime side of the site now and am trying to put together our Boston Legal section. Hopefully, I will have that ready to go public soon. I still haven't quite figured out how to mess with 'myspace' yet, so Rene went in and did a bit of touch up for me. I hope to be able to work more with it pretty soon. At least I know how to put the blog stuff up. I will also post this on 360 and my other blogspot, if I can remember how to do that one. I am still doing my crochet, sewing, and needlepoint. I also started getting into making jewelry. Wire and beads stuff. It is interesting and I am having fun. I want to get back into the candles, oils, and learn how to do the soaps and stuff too. Of course, I also plan on doing all the canning and stuff, and want to learn to make butter and cheese once we get a milk cow. Charles is trying to rebuild our server, so we should have our websites back on line before long.

We went to Ren Fair and the Civil War thing again this year. I got me a bonnet and a couple of snoods. Charles thinks I look 10 years older in the snoods, but I don't care. I really like them. I also love my bonnet. I put my hair up in a bun when I work out in the yard. When it is up in a bun, I can't wear my hat to keep the sun off my head. The bonnet solves that problem. It has the sun visor thing, and is big enough in the back to fit over the bun. It might look silly as all get up in this day and age, but it is very practical and I like it. I know this last weekend I looked utterly ridiculous. I had on jeans, a t-shirt, my boots, a tool-belt full of nails, hammers, levels, pencil, and measuring tape, and my bonnet. We were building the fence. Our neighbor, Scott, drove by and stopped and had to comment on how 'cute' the bonnet was. LOL. I know he was thinking how 'stupid' I looked, but I don't care. Looking 'pretty' just doesn't mix with building fences.

Okay, I guess I have put this off as long as I can. Most of you know that I found my birth family a few years ago. We were lucky enough to visit with them a few times since then and I have gotten to know them all a little bit. Mom and dad came and stayed a week with me when Charles went to Singapore. It was the week we closed on this house, so I am very thankful that they got to see our place and spend a bit of time here with me. We didn't move in until they went home and Charles was back, but they were here with me a few times. We got to go to Oklahoma and spend time with them and my siblings a few times also in the past few years. This last July we were lucky enough to pull off a surprise 40 year anniversary for mom and dad. It was totally awesome. We had so many people show up that they hadn't seen in a long time, plus closer relatives and friends of theirs. We were able to all keep it a secret and mom and dad were so surprised. Then in September, Joe and Bridget were able to come home and surprise mom with a birthday party for mom, Peg, and me since our birthdays are so close. I am so very thankful for all the time that I got to spend with mom. I found out that mom's health wasn't doing so well about the middle of October. I knew she wasn't doing 'good', but I guess I just didn't realize how bad it was. She passed away the day before Thanksgiving. I have such a roller coaster of feelings on this. Some of them I know what they are. I cry a lot. I recognize that, I know it is sadness. I am really angry a lot. I feel jipped, twice. I recognize that feeling too though. I know what it is, and most of the time I know how to deal with it. I'm not angry at any one person. Just life! That is what I have a hard time dealing with the anger though. I am not used to being angry at anything, let alone something that I know there is nothing I can do to change. There are other feelings too though, that I don't recognize. I don't know what they are, and I don't know what to do with them. Gisele told me the other day that people are wrong when they say that 'you can't miss what you never had'. Oh man, is she so right about that. There are parts of me that still feel so empty. So void. I also feel a little bit of guilt I guess. My adoptive parents were so good to me. They loved me so much and gave me everything my selfish little heart desired. I am such a 'daddy's girl' still to this day when it comes to my adoptive father. I can't imagine him not being here. Even though he is miles away from me now, I know he is there if I need him. What right do I have to want more than what they gave me? I have no right. Some people don't have that. Yet I DO want more. I want more time to get to know my birth mother. I want to not miss the holidays that they all spent together when my siblings were growing up. I want to not miss the every day life of having my siblings beside me at the playground. I want to not hurt inside from missing being there when those little shoes were supposed to make one of them run faster. I want not to wonder what it was like sitting on that curb waiting to meet my step-dad for the first time. I want not to wish I had been there when my sister was born, or when my brother was brought home for the first time. I have so much to be thankful and grateful for. I have a whole huge adoptive family that loved me, raised me and give me so much happiness. I have the most awesome husband in the world that breaks his back to give me the things I want, I have awesome kids and grandkids that make me swell with pride every time I lay these eyes on them. I have a best friend that anyone would be proud to stand next to, and many other friends on line and off that are just awesome. Now I have a whole new birth family to be thankful for. But I am still such a selfish spoiled brat that I want more. I want so much more. That makes me feel guilty as hell. I also feel a little guilty when I morn what I missed, and now when I morn my birth mothers death. I want to somehow take away the burdening guilt that my birth mother felt for giving me up. I want her to know that I understand. Does that betray my adoptive family that love me so much? Does it hurt them that I still want so much more? I don't want to hurt them at all. I don't want to hurt anyone. I just don't know what to do with some of these feelings. Hell, I don't even know what to call some of them. How do I learn to deal with them if I don't know what they are? I plan on going back to Oklahoma in January and spending some time with my dad. He seems to be handling momma's death pretty well, everything considered. My youngest sister is staying on with him for a little while now, and Peggy and John are always close by. Joe was able to stay until this last Saturday before he had to go home to Washington. I wish I lived a bit closer so I could spend more time with all of them. Actually though, I am doing much better all in all than I thought I would. The weekends are the easiest because Charles is home and he is really good at keeping my mind busy with all the projects we have going on around here. Weekdays are a bit harder. Without Charles here to push me, I tend to sit and stare and think. Thinking leads to tears. I'm not so good at motivating myself here lately. Which I need to do now. I have two weeks worth of ironing and folding to do, just sitting over there staring at me. I also have tons of stuff that needs to be done for the Boston Legal site to go public, and a craft room that sorely needs organizing so that I can get all of mom's jewelry making stuff set up and I can start learning how to use all of it.

Yep, there is enough here to keep my mind busy this week anyway. One day at a time, right? For all that read this, as John Edward always says at the end of his show. Be sure to validate those that you love. Tell everyone that you hold close to you just how much they mean to you. Don't put it off. Sometimes, we don't have more time.

New critters for our growing family

Take a peek for some pics:
http://www.metamorphosites.com/livestock.htm

April 24, 2007

Well, here we are again. A good two months plus since I updated the blog. Things have been so crazy busy around here. My stomach is still messed up and we are still taking tests. The last one was another blood test to check for Celiac Disease. I have good days and bad days.

Well, let me think. Since the last time I updated we decided to go with a raised garden this year. We built all the boxes 4 x 8. We have two boxes of onions, two boxes of potatoes, one box with spinach and lettuce, one box with carrots and okra, one box of green beans, one box of lima beans, one box with zucchini and brussel sprouts, one box with blackeyed peas and pinto beans, and one box with cantalope and cabbage. We also have a 4 x 4 box with my herbs in it. We planted four rows of corn and a row of cucumbers in the ground instead of in boxes. We also have our tomatoe plants and pepper plants in old tires instead of boxes. We moved the watermelon out of the garden and put them in tires also. They are next to the garage. We almost lost half the garden when we had a late frost. April in South Texas, and we get a cold front that dropped the temperature to about 34. Not freezing, but cold enough to hurt the garden. Jan saved hers by using the Miracle Gro food, so we have tried that too. It looks like most of it is going to pull out of it and do just fine. We extended the garden about 8 feet this year also. When we did that, we came across a pile of concrete that was buried in the back yard. I think it must have been the 'trash pile' while they were building the house. The slab was HUGE. It was about 6' x 10' x 2' deep. The hole we had to dig to get it out was awful! We had to buy a sledge hammer to break it up. We didn't even dig the whole thing up. What was beyond the garden, we just left and filled in the hole. Now I have a pile of broken cement in the back yard that I have no idea what to do with.

Ruby used to run free in the yard when she needed to go out. She loved terrorizing the cats and chasing them all over the property. Then she started to explore outside of the property. Kippy (our neighbor) called one day and told me that Ruby was headed for the highway. She has been pretty much grounded to her pen and the leash since then. She went through her first 'heat' and was under total house arrest for that. We decided it was time to get a fence up so that she could run free again. We marked out an acre immediately around the house and decided to put up a three rail with field fence across the front and one side. The back and the other side will just be the field fence. About the time we were ready to buy the materials, Home Depot had a big sale on landscape timbers. We decided to use those to build the three rail and the boxes for the raised garden, so we bought three pallets of them (231 timbers). We got the three rail done all the way down the one side, and about 1/3 of the way across the front of the property. Then we decided to get our neighbor (Cliff, who is Kippy's hubby and clears for a living) to clear an acre and redo the driveway. We stopped working on the fence until he can get that done for us so he doesn't have to work around the fence. It has been raining so much here that we haven't been able to get the clearing done because the ground is so soft. We still want the coverage around the house so that we are isolated though, so we plan on planting honeysuckle bushes all along the front fence, down the driveway and around my sitting area. In the front of the driveway is where we will put the fruit trees. We haven't quite decided WHAT fruit we want yet. We will probably also plant some nut trees out there. I want to get one or two Weeping Willow trees for the main front yard too. I still need to plant my flower gardens also. We have decided on three different perennial flowers for the flower beds in front of the house. We are going to put a strawberry pyramid in the middle of the circle drive. I also want to have a nice cactus garden in each end of the main flower beds in front of the house. I found a wonderful arrangement of perennial plants and flowers that do well in shade that I am going to put around one of the trees in the side yard. I saw in a magazine some molds to make your own stepping stones and edging blocks. One of them had a really nice set for both with an awesome celtic design on it. I have been thinking about using the stepping stones instead of doing another flagstone sidewalk in the front yard. Then I would use the matching edge stones for the flower beds. I haven't really decided on that yet. I am just so anxious to get it all done so that we can relax and enjoy it. Cliff came by this morning to let us know that he hasn't forgotten about us at all. We just need to wait till the weather dries up a bit.

On the critter front, things are growing rapidly. Sadly though, Mini Me has gone missing. We haven't seen him around for about 3 weeks now. He was just getting to the point that we thought he might let us pet him before he went missing. I don't know if something got him or he just decided to move on to a different home. Tabby has started coming around again a little bit and lately this grundgy looking gray cat has started coming around. Ebony went into heat again and cats started crawling out from under all the rocks. Schizzy, Ebony, and Whiskers (Whisky) are still our main cats though. Ruby is doing great. She is such a loving little thing. Very smart and very eager to please. About a month ago, we went to one of the feed stores in Conroe and saw that they had baby rabbits for the Easter season. I called Jan and told her we were going to get a couple. She had us pick up a couple for her too. They were too young to tell the sex, so we just picked four that we liked and hoped that one of us would end up with at least one male. Neither of us has ever raised rabbits before, so we weren't sure what to look for. Since we got them, we have done a bit of research about them. I think one of the rabbits we have is a Satin. The other one is a chinchilla mix I think. Last week we saw an ad at the feed store for a man that was selling all his rabbits and the hutches. I told Jan about it and she ended up buying all of them. She got 6 hutches that have four cages each and 24 rabbits with 6 of them being male. Out of the females she got, 2 and possibly 3 of them are pregnant. We are going to build another cage and buy one of the males from her and possibly a female. Jan's are mostly the New Zeland rabbits that are all white with red eyes. She has one black one and a couple red ones. Jan already had a small chicken coup on her place when she bought it, so they bought 6 chicks a while back. Charles went out and found some plans for a chicken coup for us. We got it put up last weekend. He has the nesting boxes built but we haven't installed them yet. We got it painted with a coat of fence and barn paint, but plan on going over it again with regular exterior paint. I think the rabbits will be moved out close to the chickens once the clearing is done. Also after the clearing we will finish the fence up and get our round pen panels back from Jack and Jan and buy the first horse. Which means we will be needing to build a barn. We both have our saddles now and quite a bit of the tach. We will wait to buy the bits and the cinches until after we have bought the horse. We still need to buy the feed buckets and water trough. We will probably buy a hay feeder also. Things are starting to come together. Just not quick enough for me. I want to just twitch my nose and have it all done. We also still need to build the well house and the storage shed.

Since Texas put the new tax on cigarettes the first of the year, we tried buying smokes on line. That didn't work out too well, so I have gone back to rolling my own. They have this really cool machine that pretty much rolls them for me. Doing it this way, my smokes only cost me about .67 a pack. Very nice..:)

Charles was talking to his mom one night and mentioned to her that we had talked about getting a dehydrator so that we could have other choices on how to keep the vegies we are now growing, like the onions and peppers and stuff. She said that she had one we could have as she didn't use it anymore. We have now fallen in love with this thing. We make beef jerky regularly and really love it. I tried to make fruit rolls, but it was a total disaster. I won't give up though..:)

Our neighbor Mr. Faulkner passed away a few months ago. We had talked to his son about buying 4 acres of the land, but at the estate sale he told us that they are really wanting to sell the whole property together without splitting it up. He said he would keep us in mind though. We went to the estate sale and got quite a bit of stuff. Chalres got some tools for really cheap. I got a whole set of China for 30.00. It is really nice. I have no idea what I will do with it, as I already have the set that mom gave me. I just couldn't pass them up though. Now I have a whole set to give to Shawn and a whole set to give to Jeff and Maggie.

We have been so busy on the weekends I don't have time to do the laundry, so laundry day has now moved to Mondays. Which means I usually have a horrible day on Mondays since doing the laundry usually sets my back off. I am really behind on the site too. I plan on spending the whole day working on the site today and trying to get caught up on the screencaps. I have about 25 tapes to get screencaps off of. Which means I need to stop messing around here and get to work..:)

Waving hello

I have had quite a few good days now and I am starting to be very hopeful that they have finally figured out what is wrong with me. It took me a couple of days to get the house cleaned up since I hadn't really done any cleaning for about a month. The dust was at least an inch thick. I still am not caught up with all the filing, but I hope to be done with that sometime this week. I am finally able to work on the site again. Suzanne has found some people to take over some of the stuff I was doing on the site in order to help me out and to free up some of my time. I have a lot to catch up on, but I am really looking forward to having help.

Our weekend didn't go quite as planned, but still a good weekend. As of the 1st of January, Texas put into effect a new cigarette tax that adds 10.00 to a carton of smokes. Charles started doing some searching on the net and found a place we can still get smokes for what we used to pay for them without the tax. He ordered four cartons. They came Friday. Since we will be getting those in the mail regularly, and because Suzanne and I frequently send packages back and forth, we decided that our little bitty mailbox wasn't near what it should be. We decided to get a big one.

We left Friday when Charles got home to go and do our shopping and headed to Tomball. We went to the tractor supply store and picked up some new toys for Ruby and found Charles a new stocking cap and a couple pairs of work gloves for the both of us. Then stopped at the liquor store to pick up something for the weekend. We made it to WallMart and did all the shopping there. We weren't done with that until about 9:30, so we decided to wait to go to Brookshire Brothers. I won't buy my meat and produce at WallMart, so we always buy that stuff at Brookshire Brothers here in Magnolia. Home Depo is the opposite direction of WallMart in Tomball. It is in a little town called Egypt. We decided to wait to go there also.
Saturday, when we were supposed to go to the Clinton Anderson thing (the horse guy from Australia) I realized it was the first Saturday of the month. We have a roaming vet that comes to town once a month, always on the first Saturday of the month. He is a lot cheaper than the other vets around here. I Really wanted to take Ruby to get her shots. It worries me a lot out here when she is out running the property and all the other critters we have around here. I always worry about Porvo too. So I called Jan and asked if they could stop and pick up Charles on the way to the show. She said they could, so I decided to stay home and do some errand running while they went to the show. Jan and Will stopped to pick up Charles about 6:00 Saturday morning. I went back to bed. When I got up, I messed around cleaning a bit more and then loaded Ruby up in the car. I was worried about taking her to town because she normally gets car sick as soon as she gets in a vehicle. I put her in the front seat and rolled the window down a little bit and just talked to her all the way to town. She did pretty good. We got her shots and I brought her back home then went back to town to go to the library. Spent some time there, then stopped at Popeyes to pick me up some lunch. Came back home and got to working in the yard. I have a couple of areas around about 3 trees that I want to clear out and put flower beds around them. I started clearing out from one of them. Time went by so fast. Charles called a couple of times from the show and told me all that he was learning. He said they were all freezing to death because no one had expected it to be cold and they didn't dress for cold weather. When they got home, we fixed supper and then headed to Brookshire Brothers to finish up the shopping.

Sunday, we got up and started working in the yard again. I started laundry also. I was having trouble digging up some of these stupid little weed trees and had called Charles over to help. He started digging while I was trying to clear some of the dirt away with the hoe and the silly shovel broke. It was about 30 years old, so I guess we got our money out of it..LOL. We loaded up and headed to the feed store to see if they had a shovel. We wanted to check if they had the 1015 onion in yet and seed potatoes also. They didn't have the kind of shovel we wanted, so we just bought the onions, the seed potatoes, and a bail of hay. We brought that stuff home and decided it was time to make it to Home Depot. We got the mailbox and found the right shovel. I also found some stuff that was supposed to clean pergo floors really well. By the time we got back home, it was time to gather up all the tools and start the grill up for the evening meal. We had stuffed pork chops and purple hull peas. Good meal..:)

I got most of the laundry done yesterday, but washing bedding and blankets and stuff today. I tried the pergo floor cleaner this morning also. It cleans okay I guess, but I had hoped it would make the floors shine. They don't really shine like I wanted them to. I will have to keep trying different cleaners I guess.

I am thinking of having the MRI done on Friday, since Charles will be off. I am feeling much better which makes getting the test done anyway a bit hard. I am tempted to put it off now. We have spent so much money on these damn tests and gotten so far behind. Charles had wanted to start putting up the fence this weekend. His company bought off some of the vacation time that he has been carrying over year to year. We thought it would be enough to start the fence. After paying some bills that we have been putting off paying though, we still don't have the money for the fence. Poor Ruby will just have to wait a bit longer.

I am posting some picutres today too. Just random recent pictures. It is such a beautiful day out. I think I may go sit on the front porch for a little bit and do some reading here in a bit. I have so much to do to catch up on the site, but it is such a shame to waste such a beautiful day being inside. I think I may try to do a bit more clearing for my flower gardens also. I also need to clear out the hammock area. Or where the hammock area will be anyway. Till next time. With love to all.

Well, I didn’t keep my promise again. Things have gotten so much worse with my stomach problems. The meds they put me on didn’t help at all. The pain has steadily gotten worse and is constant now. About a week before Christmas, I started hurting so bad I couldn’t breath. It was hurting in my stomach, but also traveled around to my back. I kind of thought that maybe I had some how pulled a muscle in my back. I came down and lay on the couch with the heating pad and it eased up and went away after a couple of hours. I didn’t think it has anything to do with my stomach problems at that point. A few days later, it started hurting like that again, only this time it didn’t go away. I called the GI doctor and was told that it sounded like I was having a gallbladder attack. They told me to get straight to the hospital and to expect emergency surgery. I had to wait for Charles to get home from work before I could go though. Charles got home and we headed back to the Memorial Hospital in the Woodlands. So many people had warned us to never go to the hospital in Tomball, so we went to the Woodlands. Jan and Will met us at the hospital expecting me to go into surgery. They had came to keep Charles company while I was in surgery. When we got there, the admitting nurse took one look at me and also thought it was the gallbladder. They hooked me up to an I.V. right away and gave me a massive dose of liquid Protonix. That is a new acid reflux drug. They also gave me something light for the pain. Then they took me in for an ultrasound of the gallbladder and brought me back to the stall in the emergency room. We waited about 20 minutes for the doc to look at the ultrasound. The pain meds they gave me were helping a little bit, but I still was in so much pain that I couldn’t hardly breath. The doc came in and asked me what was wrong with me. I told him that my GI thought I was probably having a gallbladder attack. He said that wasn’t the case as the ultrasound had came back negative. I told him about all the other tests that they had ran on me and the results. When they did the Endoscopy, they found four problems. A gastric ulcer, a sliding hernia, gastritis, and duodenitis. The GI told me that none of those would causes me to have the kind of pain I was describing to him. The emergency room doc told me that the gastric ulcer could cause the kind of pain that I was experiencing that night. I told him that I had never heard of an ulcer causing pain in the back. He informed me that the stomach is in the back, which I never knew. Anyway, they gave two more kinds of pain shots and assured me that it would knock me out for the night, then gave me a prescription for Vicodin and sent me home. I was a little upset about that, since I still didn’t know what was causing the pain. The GI doctor then told me that they wanted me to have a hydroscan done on the gall bladder. They still thought the gallbladder was the problem and explained that the ultrasound only showed that I didn’t have gall stones. The hydroscan would show them if the gallbladder was functioning like it is supposed to. It was so close to the holidays and the new year, we decided to wait until after the new year to have the hydroscan done. That way the new insurance would be in effect and it wouldn’t cost us so much. Since all the other tests I had done before this has pretty much wiped us out. Our savings are completely gone. We are once again living paycheck to paycheck, which is something neither of us is used to anymore. We went to Christmas dinner at Charles sister’s (Karen) new home, and I was scared to death that I would have another attack while there. I didn’t want to be at someone else’s house and be like that. Thank the Goddess, I didn’t have another attack and the afternoon went really well. The next day I wasn’t so lucky. I had another bad attack. I didn’t go to the hospital though, as I didn’t think there was anything else they could do for me. I just laid on the heating pad all day and took some of the Vicodin. On New Years Eve, oour neighbors had invited us over for a party. I really wanted to go since we really haven’t been able to meet very many people since we moved out here. We thought it would be a good chance to meet some new people. I felt the pain coming on strong again around 7:00. The party was supposed to start around 8:00. I thought I could handle the pain though and since we are only across the street from them, we decided to go anyway. It was a bad mistake. We were only there long enough for Charles to have a plate of food, then the pain really kicked in and I almost couldn’t make it back our house. I was so embarrassed. It seemed like we only went for the free food, and then left. I haven’t been off the couch since that night except to move the heating pad to the bedroom when we go to bed. The Vicodin help, but they don’t completely take the pain away. We set the hydroscan up for the 12th and just waited for that to be over with. I was so happy to get the hydroscan done. I was sure that would give them the proof that they needed to finally do the surgery and then I would be all better again. I haven’t even been upstairs to the office in so long, I hope I can even remember how to get to the site. Bless Suzanne and all the other volunteers that have pitched in to help her out during all of this. I was so worried about the site. Suzanne told me not to worry about the site and to just concentrate on getting myself well. After the hydroscan was done last Friday, I was disappointed to find out that it would take a couple of days to get the test results back. I ran out of the Vicodin Monday night and was so afraid of what kind of pain that would bring back on Tuesday. I was right. The pain was unbearable again. The GI didn’t want to give me any more Vicodin until he saw the test results. Fay called and asked them to rush the test results to her. She finally got them back around 4:30 yesterday afternoon and called to tell me that the hydroscan had also came back negative. At that point, I was in so much pain I couldn’t breath. I just broke down and started crying. Fay couldn’t understand why I was so upset. She thought I should be happy that everything had all turned out negative because it meant there was nothing wrong with me. I told her that was not true. There is something very obviously wrong with me if I am still in this much pain. I was so sure that this was going to be the end of it. She said that the doctor wants to see me in person. All the other times we went to his office, I only saw Andrew the PA. Dr. Fein wants to see me himself now to see if he can figure out what is wrong with me. Charles doesn’t have another day off until a week from this Friday, so I have to wait till then to go in. (He was home with me yesterday, today and maybe tomorrow because of the ice storm that we are having now, but everything is closed because of the ice storm, including Dr. Fein’s office.) They did give me enough Vicodin to carry me over till the office visit. I hate taking the damn pills though, I don’t want to end up like Dr. House and be addicted to the damn things, so I wait to take them until I just can’t stand it anymore. I just live on the heating pad. I am really trying to keep a positive outlook, but it gets hard sometimes. Charles held me most of the day yesterday. I think I must have just bawled for a whole hour yesterday after I got off the phone with Fay. I just felt so hopeless. I have been dealing with this for 6 months now. It seems endless. Taking all these stupid tests, waiting for the test results, being told that test is negative and we have to do another test. It seems like I am caught in a horrible circle. Charles has his laptop home with him today, so he set me up down here on this stupid couch so I could type up this blog entry and maybe send it to myself in mail so I can post it. I can’t sit at the computer for more than five minutes. I owe a great deal of gratitude to Charles for trying so hard to take care of me. He works all day, then comes home and fixes supper and takes care of everything around the house. He holds me when I cry and has been so supportive. I also owe Jan a bucket full of thanks for always being there for me. I know it must get old to listen to me ball bag all the time about hurting so bad. She keeps me grounded and has kept me from giving into the depression. She calms me down and reminds me that even though I am in so much pain, all the tests that have came back negative really is a good thing. I also want to thank Suzanne and all the volunteers on the site for pitching in and covering for me. You all have no idea how proud I am of all of you. It really does mean a lot to me to know that so many people out there care about me.

Enough ball bagging. Lets move on to other things. On Christmas day when we were on our way to Karen’s for dinner, we were driving on this old two lane highway. It had been raining a lot around that time and the ground was really soft and muddy all over the place. Coming towards us in a big Chevy truck, this man let his two right tires go off the road. He swerved back onto the highway and it looked like he had straightened up pretty well. Then the weight of the truck touched back on the two right tires and the mud that he had picked up caused him to lose it again. He fishtailed back and forth across the highway a couple of times, then went off the road and slammed into the embankment. That sent the tail up over the hood. He rolled once that way, then started flipping over side to side about three times before coming to a stop on the side. We stopped and called 911, then ran to the truck to see if we could help. The guy was alone and was trying to get out of the truck. I tried to reach up and open the door, but it wouldn’t open. The windshield was shattered, so he tried kicking out the windshield, but it wouldn’t budge. Then he realized that he could climb out of the sliding window in the back of his truck. He seemed to be okay, but said his head hurt a bit where he hit it on the steering wheel. Another car stopped with two women in it and they wanted to see if they could also help. The man was trying to call his wife on his phone, but wasn’t getting a signal. One of the other women called his wife for him on her phone. We waited till the police and the ambulance got there, told them what we had seen, and were once again on our way to Karen’s house. It really did scare the bejeezes out of both of us though. We had no place to go to get away from this rolling truck. I had never seen a bad wreck like that before. I have driven by after a wreck has happened, but never seen one in the process. I’m just glad the man was okay.

I got a Christmas card from Jeff and Maggie. It had a picture of them and the four boys. Things seem to be going a lot better for them. I am so happy that they are starting to get their lives together. I can’t wait to see them again.

Shawn and Teresa have decided not to move back down here. Things are going good for them in Tennessee, so they are going to stay there.

I got my ring from Charles that I wanted for Christmas. It is a beautiful dark blue sapphire. I can’t wait to get more rings. I don’t really like diamonds that much, but I love the gemstones and stuff.

Really not much to talk about, since I have been a prisoner to the couch for so long. Charles has started to lay out the fence line for around the house. He has done quite a bit of clearing where the fence will be. He isn’t going to fence the whole property yet. Just a portion of it so that Ruby can have a place to run. Poor girl gets so depressed when she can’t just run and play. The pen really isn’t big enough for her to get the exercise that she needs. The winter garden was doing really well. We have lettuce, brussell sprouts, spinach, and onions growing. As I mentioned earlier, we are in the middle of a bad ice storm. I don’t know how the garden will survive. We will just have to see. I brought all my plants in that I could. We covered the garden and my aloevera plants that Jan gave me. We took pictures this morning of all the ice. My poor eucalyptus tree is so weighted down with ice, it is almost doubled over. There are a couple of other trees in the same predicament. Charles went out and tried to shake some of the ice off of them, but it didn’t help much. I kept telling Charles that he needed to go out and check our propane out. He didn’t listen until today. When he did check it, we only have about 15 gallons left, so we have turned the heater off and lit a fire to try to stay warm. We ordered more today, but they won’t be able to get it to us until tomorrow, so we are doing what we can to keep from running out.

I got email from my sister Rene about three weeks ago saying that she had sent me a package for Christmas. I need to try to get a hold of her and see if she can have them track it or something because I never got it. I hope she sees it here. We didn’t really do Christmas this year because money was so tight. We hope to be able to make up for it in April when Charles gets his bonus. We will have to see how that works out.

Well, I think this brings all back up to date for now. Hopefully, they will finally find out what is causing me so much pain and I will once again be able to do something. I am bored out of my mind being on the couch so much. Love out to all of you.