Sometimes A Kind Gesture From A Friend...

...can make everything seem okay again! :) My best friend Lisa did the kindest thing for me. Our trip to North Carolina prevented me from taking a class with her that I really wanted to take. It was making a beautiful actylic album and I was going to use it to document my weight loss journey - even though I am stuck right now... *sigh*!

Anyway, she went on and did the class even though I couldn't and she made the album for me! And it's beautiful!!

I'll post a picture here when I put my pictures and journaling in but here is a picture of what the album looks like!

Lisa, it really meant a lot to me! You are the best!!

No Good News!

This week hasn't been the best of weeks.

We did have a great trip to North Carolina last weekend. But, I got a bad cold on the trip and have had a hard time shaking it. We sort of celebrated MomMom's 85th birthday early. Don, Katie and I went in together with Mom and got MomMom a 42" LCD TV for the living room. Her eyesight has continued to deteriorate and she's had an increasingly hard time watching their old 26" TV in the living room. MomMom enjoys politics so much - we wanted to go ahead and give it to her early so she could be enjoying the debates and stuff now. It really seemed to make her happy.



When she first realized what we had done, she started crying and Katie threw her arms around her to tell her it was okay!

We even had a major milestone on this trip. Katie spent the night with Mom and MomMom two nights!! She had a lot of fun, they enjoyed it so much and Don and I got to have some time together!! That was great!!



We got to have a great visit with Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Linda too! It just makes me miss Kim, Sarah and Jacob so much when we visit. I'll be glad to see them this summer!!! It's really been hard on Aunt Linda for them to be so far away!



Well, now to the bad news!

We have gotten partial results back from Katie's MRI. We are waiting now to be referred to a neurologist. It's nothing we weren't expecting but still not the best of news!

Then, my dad went to go have a growth removed from his scalp on Wednesday. This had been a scheduled procedure for almost two months. When the doctor saw it, he was concerned because it had changed drastically. They biopsied it and it came back melanoma. They sent Dad to a surgeon on Thursday who removed several other places from Dad's upper body and they've scheduled surgery for March 14th. I'm pretty concerned about him.



Then, we took Maggie to the vet on Friday. She's lost a dramatic amount of weight the past couple of weeks and she's been getting sick a lot. Turns out she has a growth on her mediastenum. They've sent it to UT to find out more. Maggie weighed 10 pounds in the fall and now weighs 6.4 - that's pretty dramatic weight loss.

Maggie is 14 so she is old but she's my little Maggie Doodles! She's such a part of of our family!!

The vet gave us medicine to try to help her getting sick and it has helped. We are fixing her food with rice and cream of wheat to make it more palatable and that seems to have helped.

I'm so ready for spring! I'm so ready for some happy days!

LA :)

Which Austin Heroine Are You?

Take the Quiz here!

The results of the quiz I took stated the following:
You are Emma Woodhouse of Emma! You like being the queen of your social circle (small and provincial as it may be), and feel it's your duty to help those less influential than you. You often meddle in the affairs of others, though you do it with a pure heart. You are often deluded in your flights of fancy, but your good intentions and creative spirit make you someone anyone could like.

I don't know how accurate that is at all...lol!

Let me know which Austin heroine you are!

LA :)

In The Spirit Of Valentines Day

I definitely am with my soulmate but this is a fun little quiz...


Take the Quiz

Happy Valentines Day

Sometimes You've Just Gotta Play

So after STAR yesterday, I'm settling in with my laptop to do some work for ACM that I'd been procrastinating on... and Katie starts saying "mom, please play with me". The days have been fewer and farther between when Katie wants me to play with her anymore so I don't think that it was that I was postponing the inevitable work when I jumped at the chance to play dress up with her.



The child has such a vivid imagination - it's so much fun!! She didn't seem to mind me having my great big camera in her face at all...lol! Although, I much prefer being in the distance with my zoon lens capturing her play without her knowing.



We went to see Movin' Out last night with Rick & Lisa. We had a great evening out with them - as we do always. However, I was disappointed in the show. The tickets were pretty expensive - almost $70 and it was basically a ballet to Billy Joel's classic hits.

I have never been a big fan of ballet - it's just not my thing. I had no idea that it was a "dance play" with no spoken word. The music however was fantastic. If you closed your eyes - it could have been Billy Joel belting out those songs.

Irregardless of the dance play - we did have fun being out with Rick and Lisa. Oh, and Lisa's daughter Sienna babysat for Katie and Katie is really warming up to Sienna. YAY!! She was talking a mile a minute about her this morning... "we ate pizza together, we played swords (katie makes imaginary swords with paper - again YAY!!!) and then we watched tv together and had a slumber party. I do believe that they did have a little bit of a slumber party because Sienna was sound asleep with Katie when we got home. Katie wanted me to call her this morning to see if she wanted to go to Build-A-Bear with us. :) Sienna hung out talking with Don and I last night for a while before leaving. I'm so happy that we finally have a babysitter that I don't fret over.

This is going to be one busy week!! It starts tomorrow with meeting an attorney for some difficulties I'm having with Gran's finances... mainly medical bills that she doesn't have the resources to pay. Again, evidence of the fact that America isn't the place to grow old if you aren't packing away the assets.

A lot of other miscellaneous stuff but then on Thursday we have the IEP team meeting at Katie's school to discuss making some adjustments and changes.

Oh and I guess the "I should have maybe gone to Berkley, political radical activist in me" has overflowed into my eBay life. I've joined the thousands of sellers in protest by boycotting and by making my store invisible for two weeks and committed to not listing anything for two weeks. The thinking is that this will prove to eBay that without the sellers providing product for the buyers - there is no eBay!

eBay has made a TRAGIC mistake by the new policies that they have just announced. I don't know what I'm going to do going forward. The income I earn from my eBay store pays for our horses, STAR and anytime we travel. I don't want to loose that - but I may be searching for an alternative other than eBay! Dog Gone It!!!

More later...
LA :)

Katie's MRI

Well, after four years of wanting Katie to get an MRI - the day finally arrived and now it's done. She did great! She wasn't happy about not eating breakfast this morning since it's the one meal daily that she truly enjoys but she did good.

They told us that the sedative would knock her out in literally 10 seconds and for it not to worry us how she'd be alert and talking one minute and gone the next. They weren't kidding... actually they asked her if she had a boyfriend (nice!!!) and of course, she said "yes" and they they started injecting the sedative and she said "I have two, Sam and Russ.."

She has two little friends at school named Sam and Russell... so she didn't even get Russell's name out! Everyone involved in working with Katie this morning was WONDERFUL!! I continue to be amazed at how blessed we are at every turn with Katie medically and with her education! Nothing but wonderful, caring people who are definitely in their field because of their love for helping children.

They told us that they got great pictures. Now the MRI gets read and goes back to Dr. Belmont, the Pediatric Otolaryngologist who diagnosed Katie with the CAPD (Central Auditory Processing Disorder) and then she will be referred to a Neurologist.

I guess another journey begins but at least we will continue to get answers and hopefully additional help for Katie's development and future.

We already have an IEP (Individual Education Plan) team meeting at Katie's school on Thursday afternoon to implement some of the suggestions made already by the audiologist and Dr. Belmont due to the new diagnosis of CAPD. One being that Mrs. Crawford (Katie's teacher) wear a wireless FM transmitter mic and Katie will wear headphones and it will help her to hear what the teacher is saying without trying to filter out competing noise - like other children talking.

Don has really been working with Katie about being more attentive and looking directly at the person who is talking - ie: Mrs. Crawford and trying not to let anything else interfere. Already, just reinforcing that every morning on the way to school has made a noticeable difference.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers! I'll keep you posted! Literally! :)

LA :)

Loving My Photoshop Class

My class project blog is here...



Thanks for looking!

LA :)

Winter Duldrums

*sigh* It is turning out to be a long winter! Katie and I have had cabin fever BAD! So it was nice yesterday to finally enjoy some time outside and in the sunshine! We went to STAR and to the farm. I wish that darn groundhog had not seen his shadow! I am more ready for spring than I've ever been in my life! I know when the weather turns a little more sunny and warm, my exercise and activity level will pick back up and hopefully those numbers will continue downward! I am so stalled!


I took this picture of Katie on Thursday when she played outside for a while. Muddy yucky yard and it was a dreary 45 degree cloudy day but she had fun. Cabin Fever!!!


Katie was very happy to go to STAR yesterday. She loves her horse Maria! It's the best horse that she has worked with so far at STAR. Although at one point yesterday when she was grooming her, Katie gave Maria a kiss on her nose and Maria was like "What was that?" Katie gives Sunny kisses all the time and that gentle giant is use to it. Maria - not so much!



Katie has been doing so good with her riding. She is finally looking where she wants to go, paying very good attention to the instructor, doing good with her 2-point (shown here in the picture). She's going to do a few shows this year. That should be fun!



Everybody - meet Gremlin! Most of you have heard Don, Katie or I talk about this maniac bird... here he is! Hate him! Never met an animal that I didn't like... til Gremlin!!



You know how much we love the farm but it's just a mud pit right now. Poor Sunny and Belle - they make these horrible sucking mud swooshie noises when they try to walk around in it. Although - Sunny does love her horsey spa treatments. Don got a lot of caked mud off her yesterday but she has really been rolling in the mud and sunning herself. Makes a lovely horsey mud mask!



Right as we were leaving, Amy started riding her thoroughbred, Madge out in the pasture bareback. We love to watch her ride bareback because she makes it look so effortless - when it's totally not! Madge is a beautiful horse!

Had so much fun with Lisa scrapbooking but I have no pictures as evidence! We've got to get better!!! Made a new friend, Shar. A fourth grade teacher at Rocky Hill. She was a lot of fun. I also had such a nice time catching up with my friend Sheila at STAR yesterday! She's such a fun gal!

We took Gran out to dinner last night... that was emotionally exhausting as usual. I so miss having fun with her... she just is so bitter and never has ANYTHING good to say about ANYTHING anymore! It's even on Katie's nerves! We just all try to be as positive as possible.

SuperBowl Sunday!? Seems a little strange. Don't really even care who wins... except I guess I'll pull for the Giants because I don't like Tom Brady AT ALL. Maybe the commercials will be good. Budweiser always has the clydesdale horse commercials which of course, I love!

More later!
LA :)