Call Me . . .

if you want the latest on my dad. I don't feel like posting all the details, but I'll just say that he's back in the hospital, had another surgery yesterday, and will have to have another surgery in the coming days. On the bright side of things, I now feel as familiar with the hospital as I did when I was 13 and volunteered there for the summer.

Spelling bee on Saturday :)

Can someone please tell me . . .

why formatting is such a pain in Blogger? To get spaces between paragraphs, sometimes I have to hit enter a few times and even then it doesn't put a space in. And I cannot change the size of the font on that last line. It is driving me bonkers. Those of you who know me well know that I am an absolute perfectionist when it comes to that kind of thing. Suggestions are appreciated!!!

When It Rains . . .

it really pours around here! So, I'll try to keep this brief and then move on to less depressing topics. Since my last post, I got really, really sick. I thought it was allergies at first, but then I ended up with 104 degree fever, coughing, sore throat, sinus infection . . . the list goes on and on. I decided to go to the doctor on Tuesday, and found out that I have an ear infection in both ears! I don't even know how the heck that happened, especially since my ears weren't even bothering me. So I've been in bed pretty much since Saturday night. I couldn't do anything fun with my kids on their Spring Break, and even though I've been up and around a little the past two days, I still don't feel back to my normal self yet. It's been awhile since I was that sick. Now I just have a lingering cough, which is still painful and annoying, but so much better than being in bed! I'm so grateful to be feeling better, though. My sweet husband stayed home from work on Monday just to help take care of me and the kids, and my dear friend Tonya helped me out so much by watching my kids twice and even bringing me groceries. She's a saint!

I haven't been able to see my dad or help out over there at all since he's been home from the hospital, and he now has an infection in his incision. We are hoping that antibiotics will treat it because if not they will have to do more surgery. Yuck. We don't want that. I'm still staying away until I'm confident that I'm better.

Also, my grandma (my mom's mom) is most likely having heart surgery next week to replace her aortic valve. She's in Kentucky, so it will be hard to be so far away and not get to see her before the surgery. Love you, Grandma!

In better news,

my handsome little brother is killing the ball and having a phenomenal senior season. I'm hoping to catch more of his games in the next few weeks. I've never known a kid who loves to play ball as much as he does. Doesn't my cousin take great photos? Here's her website: http://flickr.com/photos/paperdollimages


And for all those still wondering about Coupon Sense, visit www.couponsense.com. I can tell you more about it, but it's absolutely amazing and I can't believe I've been missing out all this time. Seriously, why didn't one of you tell me about it before? I consider it my new part-time job--getting free stuff. I love it, because it satisfies my shopping addiction and gives me great deals at the same time. The grand total for all that stuff: about $17. (Think of it this way: the razor and vitamins together would have cost $17 full price). I got a lot of it free or even MADE MONEY, and that was just my first week. I have been able to get so much more free stuff since then. I don't think I'll ever pay for shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, or soap again. Let me know if you are interested, I can have a little party and have my instructor come and tell you all about it. (And no, Mel, I haven't taken any more pictures of my groceries. I was tempted to take a picture of the 14 boxes of cereal I got for $4, but I resisted.)

Okay, that was long. Thanks for reading to the end.

The Latest

My dad is doing really well. He ended up having a quadruple bypass, but everything went as expected. Within an hour after surgery he was awake and cracking us up trying to do some kind of sign language to tell us what he wanted. Within a few hours, he was able to get the breathing tube out and he hasn't stopped talking since. He is, of course, entertaining all the hospital personnel and the nurses were threatening to cut off the visitors yesterday because he had so many people going in and out. We're hoping to get him out of ICU and into a regular room today.

Personally, I want to thank all of my friends who offered help, phone calls, etc. My cell phone battery was almost dead by Tuesday night because I had so many phone calls checking on my family, offering meals and babysitting and moral support. Every time I would be on a call, my call waiting would beep, and then I'd get a text message. I could hardly keep up with it all! It is nice to be reminded of how much you're loved.

On a lighter note, I have a new obsession. I've always been a shopping addict, but these days I'm doing things a little bit differently. I'm so excited about it. Can you guess how much I paid for all of this?

Let me give you an idea of what is there: 12 boxes of Fruit Roll-ups, 8 boxes of Nature Valley Peanut bars, 6 bottles of Herbal Essences shampoo (okay, there are seven in the picture, but I accidentally put one in that shouldn't be there), 6 pounds of chicken drumsticks, 2 big bags of M & Ms, 2 boxes of Mama Bella garlic bread, a 24-pack of water, Garnier moisturizer, Yes to Carrots body butter, a tube of Colgate, 12 bars of Zest soap, 4 bars of Ivory soap, 4 bars of Safeguard soap, and a Venus Embrace razor.

Come on, take a guess in the comments section. I'll post the answer once a few people have guessed.

Just a quick post . . .

So if you're not busy on Tuesday, say an extra prayer for my family. My dad is having open heart surgery tomorrow to bypass some blocked arteries. It's a little scary for us all, but we have faith in the doctors and are praying that all will go well. This is my favorite picture of my dad, I took it at Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, when we went there a few years ago as a family. I just threw this page together, I'll have to go back and perfect it later. The hardest part for my dad so far is missing Andrew's baseball games. He missed the first game tonight since Andrew's freshman year, but Andrew knocked one out of the park for him. Gotta go to bed, I'm exhausted from being at the hospital all day, and tomorrow will be even more exhausting. More posts soon.

Happy Heart Day!

This is the Valentine that I helped Hannah create on the computer. We had them printed 4x6 through Winkflash and she is passing them out at school. I think they turned out pretty cute. To explain the elephant, they are her current obsession and she had to have one on there. I told her it looks like a subliminal message of "Vote Republican" and she thought that was pretty funny. I'm just glad she is over the cow obsession so that she'll eat beef again.

So, I think Valentine's Day is pretty much a Hallmark/florist holiday. We don't really celebrate it much as a couple, probably because his birthday, our anniversary, and my birthday all fall within about two months of each other, so who needs another holiday in there to buy something else?! And the cost of flowers is just ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, there were times in the past that I would have been offended if I didn't get a present and a night out, but it's just not that big of a deal. Not that I'd be mad if I did get something now, but I just don't really care all that much. What do you think? Is it a big deal for any of you to celebrate Valentines Day? Do you have any fun traditions or stories?

She's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

Apparently I'm a blog slacker. It's been awhile, and I didn't even notice that I changed my comment settings so that they had to be moderated. I just changed them back. Anyway, to update you all on the spelling bee saga, Hannah competed in the regional spelling bee last Thursday, February 9th. She took second place!!! She was so close to winning . . . the other girl misspelled a word, Hannah spelled it correctly, but then missed the winning word, and that gave the other girl a chance to swoop in for the win. Here's the list of words she spelled correctly: biblical, sputnik, adamant, praline, misanthropy, malaria, coyote, myriad, eiderdown, homogeneous, notochord, gestalt, megalopolis, synchronous, bellicose, dressage, sevruga, and homburg. The only word she missed was belay, but to give her credit it wasn't on the study list, and being pronounced "buh-lay" she spelled it bilet, like a French word. So she now goes to the state spelling bee on March 29th at ASU, which of course being my alma mater she's sure to have some good karma coming her way. It was so exciting (as much as a spelling bee can be), but I would literally hold my breath every time it was her turn. The only bad thing is that I was so ready to be done studying. Those words are hard and they make me tired!

Great job Hannah!!!!