P.T.P.D. and the long road to recovery........

.......i know exactly what all of you are thinking....what the heck is P.T.P.D and i bet what she really meant was P.T.S.D. (post traumatic stress disorder).  nope.  i meant P.T.P.D.   so what exactly is that???  well it stands for Post Traumatic Polyester Disorder.  it's a disorder that's been kept well hidden for many years.  nobody really likes to talk about it.  but thousands have suffered through it.   many without even realizing it.  and sad to say there's no real cure.  there are those who like to say that time heals all wounds but that's a lie.  some things just scar us and we are forever changed.  so now i bet you want to know who exactly are the victims of this terrible life-altering disorder.   well anybody unfortunate blessed to have lived through the 60's and 70's may suffer from some form of P.T.P.D.   yes, that's right.  those of us that lived through this time were exposed to POLYESTER.  polyester in it's most basic form.  i'm guessing polyester means many different fabrics.  "poly" meaning many....and "ester" meaning...idk.  i guess i could google it but i'm not really sure i want to know what's in polyester.  i've always thought maybe recycled plastic bottles or something.   i can only speak for the 70's because i was born in 1970 but i remember polyester being this rough awful feeling fabric.  oh and the colors were awful too.  baby blues and plaids and oranges.  help me i'm having flashbacks now.  ahhhhhhhhhhh............     

oh and to add insult to injury....as if the fabric itself wasn't bad enough, they made sure they used plenty of it.  big giant wide lapels.  huge....i mean HUGE bell bottoms.  bell bottoms for those of you who don't know are the extremely exaggerated version of flared pants today.  extremely exaggerated.  awful.  see i'm still scarred.   well the 80's got a little better.  thought by the 90's i'd be over the whole polyester thing but i was still having flashbacks.  i remember walking through a store one day with christian and my mom.  christian had to be about 4 yrs old.  too young to know any better.   we were in one of the clothes sections.  christian grabbed a shirt and said he liked how it felt.  he said it was soft.  just by chance i saw the label and the dreaded word....polyester.  i looked at my mom and laughed.   "it's polyester!!!!!" i said.  we both laughed.  really hard.  then i grabbed christian's hand and pulled him away as fast as i could.  i discussed the dangers of polyester w/him and instructed him that he is NEVER to go around the polyester again.  ever!!!  

flash forward....oh say 20 years and here i sit.  fully recovered??? ummmmm....i don't think so tim.  i bought a pair of pajamas a couple of weeks ago.  what drew me to that particular pair you ask???  no, it wasn't the fact that they were 65% off w/an additional 50% off that or the fact that i desperately needed a new pair.   it was.....i'm ashamed to say....the feel of the fabric.  so soft.  i had let my guard down.  i had no clue polyester was still lurking in the shadows.  not in 2012.   they are so soft and comfy.....like wearing nothing.  one morning when i took them off and i said to myself......self, wonder what exactly these pj's are made of.  looked at the label and to my horror saw once again the dreaded word.....polyester.   for a moment i felt betrayed.  fooled.  i justified it by saying well it's only 90% polyester.  it's not ALL polyester.  10% spandex.  now let me tell you, spandex is the best thing that's happened  to women in 100 yrs of fashion.  don't get me wrong, it had a rocky start in the 80's.  there are just some things that should not be stuffed into spandex.  and there will forever be a select few who abuse it.  but spandex....well it's helped us all breathe just a little bit easier.   so i got to thinking if i could learn to love spandex so much couldn't i find a little spot in my heart for polyester too.   couldn't i???  idk.  but i'm gonna try.  it seems polyester mixed w/a little bit of spandex is a beautiful thing.  maybe i've been a little too hard on polyester.  maybe it's time to let go of all those hard feelings and learn to forgive.  maybe.  the road to recovery is not always an easy one........

                                                      

the grinch who stole coleridge.........

........woke up this morning a tab bit on the grumpy side.  no.  that's a lie.  i was ok for the the first few minutes.  that's about how long it took me to convince myself to get up.  but once my feet hit the ground it was all down hill from there.  luckily for samantha she was already awake when i got up.  it was a good morning for everybody involved to skip the routine fight to get up & get ready.  if she had pulled that on me today she might be walking around headless right now.  i went to her dresser to get her a pair of pants & realized she had worn all of them this weekend.  ughhhhhh.....so my first load of laundry starts @ 6:47am.  as i'm walking thru the kitchen the frying pan that i cooked supper in saturday night before work stares at me from the sink.  yeah i see you.  throw the load of laundry in.  thinking about the pan the thought hits me.  wonder if anybody emptied the dish washer from saturday????  you already know the answer.  so i fix the kids breakfast....yell at them to come get it.  i'm not serving ANYBODY today.  proceed to empty the dish washer making sure to bang, clank, smash as loud as possible.  nobody was sleeping in this morning.  childish???? yup.  that's me..little suzy-q-who who acts no more than two.  on to the frying pan and the sink full of dishes.  book bags...snacks....ponytails...shoes....coats.....off to school.  i had planned on exercising this morning after i dropped them off.  what did i do instead?  crawled back in bed.  set the alarm for 9.   hit the snooze three times.  finally dragged my butt out of the bed & got in the shower because today's "GROCERY SHOPPING DAY"  must never mess w/grocery shopping day.  i'm starting to feel a little better after my shower.  showers & mt dew are good for that.  then....as i'm blow drying my hair i get a text from my spoiled rotten adorable son christian.  he tells me he's droppin out of school for the semester and running off to australia.  haha.  hilarious huh.  my reply?  ummm...yea right.  turns out he just wanted to see what i'd say.  he said there's gotta be more to life than"this".  i reminded the spoiled brat cutie pie how fortunate he was and how many people would love to go to college.   i also reminded him that if he'd like to run off to australia that would be fine.  his student loans will be waiting for him when he got back.  end of conversation.   when did the world decide that every moment of life had to induce some kind of adrenaline rush.  kids are so disillusioned today.  yup...sometimes this is all there is.   book bags...snacks....laundry...cleaning....work....grocery shopping!!! somebody's got to do it.  and the maid and the butler are off today.  arghhhhhhh.  as i'm muttering under my breath i climb into the van.  i look out the back window as i'm pulling out and there's the drawling that ryan made me last night.  he told me he had made me something.  couldn't see it last night when we went to church and honestly i didn't pay attention this morning when i took them to school.   yes, the fact that he could draw something on my van means that it is totally nasty but that's ok.  matter of fact i'm hoping it doesn't rain anytime soon.  soooooo.....there it was....i love you mom and dad with a beautiful little smiley face.  it was just what i needed and my grinchy old heart......that felt ten times too small.....began to grow & grow.  yesssssss.....some times this is all there is.  what a rush....

yes i would. i really would......

......like a bag with that.  that is if it's not too much trouble (i know. you thought it was gonna be something exciting. hehehe). i remember back in "the day" when every store purchase was placed in this nifty thing called a bag.  and i know....times are tight.  the economy is bad and businesses everywhere are looking for ways to cut back.  but come on people.  a bag.  seriously???  we're talking about something that costs the store what....maybe 1/100th of a penny.  now i'm not talking about those ridiculous bags that they give you at abercrombie....ya know the fancy bags that cost more than the item you just bought on the 80% off clearance rack.  i'm talking the el cheapo wal-mart plastic bags.  this whole "do you want a bag for that???" thing has been building and in my opinion (which counts for little) has gotten just a wee bit out of control.  i get groceries and for about 1/4 of my stuff i get asked the question....you want a bag for that???  YES, i do.  thank you.  go to jcpenney's.  buy a shirt.  you want a bag for that??? ummmm, yes please.  i spent over $300 yesterday at wal-mart and as the cashier was ringing up my stuff she placed one of the boxes on the spinny thing and you guessed it...asked would i like a bag for that.  now it wasn't a big box.  slightly bigger than what would fit in a normal bag so if i did want a bag it would require her to reach over and get one of the bigger, more expensive bags.  maybe managers are saying....look folks, it's the holiday season, people will be buying a lot let's see if we can get them to carry it out on their own instead of wasting money on bags.  orrrrrr maybe the cashier just doesn't want to bend over and get the bigger bag.  idk.  or maybe i just look like the type of person that wants to carry all my stuff individually.  i really thought maybe it was me until i went with my sister to this high-end luggage store in the snooty friendly shopping center.  she made a purchase and i almost died when the man asked her....would you like a bag for that??? ahahhahhaha.....so it's not just me. although we look a lot a like and maybe the evil bag lords are just getting us confused.  idk.  all i know is YES i want a bag for that.  whether i spend $5 or $500.  so quit asking me. 

"S" is for super. super what is the question......

this is something i wrote over the summer.  so why am i posting it now???  well, i've got a couple of minutes to kill but not long enough to actually write something & i miss writing.  besides i don't want anybody to think all i did this summer was lay on the beach & sip margaritas.  i was a little productive.......

............everybody wants to be somebody's hero right???? we want to save the day.  we want to right the wrongs.  we want to make things better.  not necessarily for the world at large but atleast for those in our own little worlds.  i believe somewhere deep inside each of us lies the makings of that hero.  some of us are born with an "S" sewn onto our bibs.  we come straight out of the birth canal slaying dragons and saving damsels in distress.  while others of us.......well, lets just say it takes some of us a little bit longer to tap into our superhuman abilities....to believe enough in ourselves that we are capable of superhuman feats.  by virtue of default, the day we become parents we also become "somebody's hero".  we don't necessarily sign up for it but believe me if you read the fine print, it's in the job description.  right under the section about being chief cook & bottle washer.  trust me, it's there.  i pulled out my contract the other day just because i was having my doubts.  sooooo you ask what exactly is my point in all this????  wellllll you see i've been at this "parent hero" thing for a while now.  almost twenty years to be exact.  i'm thinking i should have my hero skills tweeked by now.  i have perfected the "mama kiss".  mama's kisses have the power to make everything better.  everything.  yes, thank you.  i've worked hard on that one.  but honestly other than that what kind of real hero power do i have.  i mean every hero has some kind of super power right.  wonder woman had that oh soooo cool lasso.  spiderman can sling webs.  superman leaps tall buildings in a single bound.  batman has the batcave & a really awesome car.  so i'm standing in the bathroom tonight brushing my teeth wondering what exactly is my superhuman hero power.  well, ask and you shall recieve.  in walks samantha.  she plops herself down on the commode and declares she's needs to poop.  my immediate response was....of course you do.   as i'm trying to hurry up and evacuate it finally dawned on me what my power was.  i have the superhuman power to make my children have to use the bathroom by merely stepping into the bathroom myself.  some would scoff and say that this was just a mere coincidence.  i'm here to tell you it's not.  it doesn't matter what they are doing.  if i go in to the bathroom for any reason, they're drawn to me like white on rice.  the minute i take a seat, somebody's got to "go" and it's an emergency that can't wait....doesn't matter that there's another bathroom down the hall.  i can't tell ya how many times i've been stunk out of the shower.  i've even been requested to wipe a butt while i was in the shower.  and again some would say well this is not a true superhuman power....they're just little.  no....no.  my superhuman powers have been proven to work on the oldest of my children.   just last week i decided to get up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.  i have a bad habit of leaving the door open.  and it was the middle of the night.  two seconds after i sat down the big huffalump comes plowing around the corner at ninety miles and hour.....oh, oh, sorry, excuse me, i gotta use the bathroom.   seeeeee.  superhuman hero power.  doesn't matter.  old or young.  early morning...middle of the night.   they are useless against it.  now if i could just figure out a way to channel it for the good of all mankind, that would really be heroic..........

Martha Stewart I'm not.....

I spent most of today working on my domestic “goddess” duties. Grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, tending to sick children & ummmm…did I mention cleaning??? For all my effort, I look around me and everything still looks like a tornado hit it. ***Sighhhhhh*** Why is that??? I’m convinced there’s some evil invisible force working against me. How else would one explain the mystery surrounding the fact that 10 minutes after I clean a room it looks exactly like it did when I started??? How??? I really want to know. There are so many days I want to just say forget it. Let the dust bunnies have their way. Does anybody really have any business looking under my couch anyway??? So what if there’s dust so thick under there that you can write your name in it. Who really cares if there’s two tennis balls, a chewed up wiffle ball, three red dust-covered squishy balls, a chewed up bone (wondered where that got to), a Woody doll, 3 pennies and a reindeer ring. I mean really. Who cares! Obviously not me. LOL. I’ve kinda been on strike for the last…oh say two years. Figured if nobody else was doing anything, neither was I. Welllllllll, a lot of good that did me. Now I just have ten times the work to catch up on. Oh I’ve done “surface” cleaning. It’s the deep down cleaning and the decluttering (is that a word???) that I’ve been avoiding. Ryan wasn’t feeling so good today so he stayed home from school. Grocery shopping was his punishment (yes…punishment. He foiled my plans!). After we go back home and I put up all the groceries and fixed him pancakes, I started working on my bedroom & bathroom. An hour later, my bathroom was sparkly clean. As I stood back and admired my handy work….everything neat and in it’s place, I saw myself. No. Not in the mirror. I saw myself in a “catch all” pitcher that sits on my sink. And THIS my friends is the real point of my blog today. Not the fact that I’m no Martha Stewart. Obviously. This pitcher sits on my sink and has served as a storage container for all my little junk for years. I have a terrible habit of coming home from work, emptying my pockets and throwing everything on the sink counter. When I straighten up I’ll put all the odds & ends into this pitcher. There’s alcohol wipes, needles, band-aids, my raise (lol), and a million other little things. Well as I’m looking around the room and it looks so organized & together, I see the pitcher and it strikes me that that pitcher is me. That is what I feel like on the inside. No matter how well I clean up the outside. No matter how well everything is organized & no matter how together everything appears from the outside, I’m just a pitcher crammed full of mixed up junk. There are a lot of days I feel disorganized from the inside out. As Lisa Guy would say…..does that make sense??? And I’m not looking for somebody to say….oh poor Sue, she’s always seemed sooo together….who would’ve thunk it. Lol. Because truly I have no idea how I appear to others and I‘m not so sure I really care. What I do know is I think most people strive to look like they “have it” together. Some are just better than others at masking the truth. I laughed when I looked at the pitcher and saw myself. Why? Maybe because that’s who I’ve always been. A little disorganized and cluttered on the inside. I was a slob growing up. There Mom. I admitted it. As I grew up, I learned it was not socially acceptable to be a slob on the “outside”. I learned to shove things under my bed and into my closet.  I learned to hide my "mess".  A master of disguise.  And to this day I still do the same thing. I took some pictures of my linen closet and my cabinets but really…I’m too embarrassed to show them. Lol. Hopefully by the end of this week my house will be looking a little more presentable. At least the parts that are visible to the naked eye. Please….just don’t open anything or take a look on the inside. You’ll see how mixed up and disorganized I truly am. And besides….we might both get hurt when the ugly truth reveals itself. Lol. You see, the more things change, the more they really stay the same……

ok, time for a dream analysis please....

.....a couple of weeks ago i had a dream that someone gave me a set of twins.  newborn twins.  a boy and a girl.  i don't know who it was that gave them to me but all i could remember thinking was......do i really want more babies???  i felt guilty for keeping them bc i have a friend at work that's been trying to get pregnant for a while now without any luck.  i thought....i should give her the babies or atleast one of them.  anyways, i end up keeping them.  in my dream i take them to this surprise birthday party for a friend.  the party is outside @ this beautiful park.  after a couple of hours at the party, i can't find the babies.  i'm thinking to myself....how could i have lost the babies???  it's not like they could've crawled away from me or anything...they're newborns for pete's sake.  so much in dreams doesn't make sense.  i end up frantically searching for them and finally find them.  guess where.  ughhhh....face down in a pond!!!  they're blue and their little gowns are floating around them.  i'm thinking...oh i should've given them to christy!!!  i grab them out of the water and then i enter the "twilight  zone".....you know that place where you still have one foot in your dream and one foot in reality.  i was conscious enough to tell myself this is only a dream.  don't panic!  i refused to let those babies be dead.  so i forced myself to go back to an earlier part of the dream when they were still alive.  this time i was gonna keep my eye on them.  and then i woke up.....


.......fast forward to yesterday.  i had a dream that i went to see a friend in new jersey.  i had my kids, his kids and then two other little ones that i didn't know.  the little girl was blonde & maybe one or one & a half....old enough to toddle around.  the little boy was dark headed and maybe about three or four years old.  i was alone with them and for some crazy reason i fell asleep.  when i woke up the two little ones were gone.  i asked the other kids if they had seen where they went but they hadn't.  so, once again, the frantic search begins.  i run out of the house and they're having a party across the street with a bunch of little kids.  my two little missing ones are not at the party.  i turn around and there's a pond in the distance and you guessed it, i see the little girl's body floating on top of the water....face down.  i think GOD NO...not again and i start running.  as i'm running i enter the "twilight zone" again.  i start saying to myself over and over.....you don't have to do this...she doesn't have to be dead.....go back to the part of the dream when she was still alive....i grab her out of the water and then wake up.

this is a disturbing little dream pattern for me.  why on earth would i be dreaming about babies drowning???  i've had alot of what i like to call "panicky" dreams in the past.  these are always dreams that i get stuck in for hours.   looking for an emergency phone #,  looking for money to get back over the walt whitman bridge,  looking for a way to reattach my sons feet to his body,  crazy stupid dreams that i can't seem to get out of.  i had a dream once that i lost ryan in a crowd at a flee market and i search for hours & hours & hours for him and finally found him face down in a pond.  that was absolutely horrible.  these dreams i'm not getting stuck in though.  it's like when i get to the bad part i slip into some kind of awareness that it's only a dream & that i can change it.  i still don't like the subject matter though and think i could really do without all the babies dying.  not sure what it all means but i think i deal with that enough in reality.....

ughhhhhhh...........

........so the rush is on.  can you feel it????  did i say "ughhhhh" already???

Freckle Juice.......

......growing up, i was slam pack full of freckles and i hated every last one of them.  my brother and sister suffered the same fate.  we were a family full of freckles.  so when i was little and dreamed about what my future children would look like i always had a clear cut picture in my mind.  they would have brown hair, fair skin and of course be full of freckles.  i never thought to take into consideration what the father of my children might contribute to their looks.  so along comes christian.....he's got the dark hair but he's also got dark skin and absolutely NO freckles.  he didn't look like what i thought my kids would look like.   round two.....here comes samantha.  blonde hair, dark skin and a couple (and i mean just a couple) of freckles.  once again, not what i pictured.  my sisters kids are what i pictured my kids to look like.   of course her husband is also fair skin & freckled faced too so i guess that's makes a difference.  finally along comes ryan.  my sweet little ryan.  he is mine.  brown hair, fair skin and chock full of beautiful little freckles.  it's amazing how time changes our perspective on things.  i absolutely adore his freckles.  to me it looks just like God took out his freckle shaker and sprinkled perfect little freckles all across his cheeks.  how beautiful.........

this is the last one........

......promise.  no more graveyard pictures after this.  atleast for this week.  lol.  good thing it's friday.  i've always had a secret fascination with graveyards.  when i was little me, my sister, my brother and my one & only infamous cousin joey would sneak into the graveyard in clayton (that's in new jersey).  we would never vandalize anything or hurt anything but we would occasionally walk off with things that were left at the graves.  why???  idk.  we were kids.....unsupervised kids.  lol.  but i still love to explore graveyards.  it's not like i have some kind of fixation with dead people or anything.  i just like the history aspect of it.  it's like a 3D history book.  you can read about somebody that was born in the 1800's but it's not the same as standing in front of and touching the gravestone that was actually made for that person.  it's like touching the past.  call me wierd.  i know it doesn't fit the traditional definition of beauty but to me it is an eerie kind of beauty.......... 

Veteran's Day......

..........since today was veteran's day, i took the kids to their papaw's grave so they could put out a flag for him.  my father-in-law was a beautiful man.  i know you're not supposed to describe a man using the word beautiful but i honestly can't think of anything that fits him better.  he was beautiful and i miss him more than he'll ever know.  he was a man of God and it showed in every thing he did.   lloyd was a veteran of the United States Army.  he served God, his country and his family.  in a world where so many people don't like their inlaws, i consider myself blessed.  i couldn't be more proud to call Charles Lloyd Smith my father-in-law......

A HOME INVASION.....

........my house was invaded yesterday by ladybugs.  they were everywhere.  guess it was the warm weather.  i've always loved ladybugs.  my most favorite ladybug story is about the time samantha ate one when she was a baby.  she was sitting by the window when she saw one crawling along the track inside the window.  i didn't think she could get it bc honestly i didn't think she had the dexterity (big word lol) yet to manipulate her little fingers between the track and actually grab the ladybug.  so i stepped out of the room for a minute leaving her and her new little friend by themselves.  when i came back she was chomping away.  i ran over and opened her mouth but it was too late.  ladybug parts were everywhere.  lol.  oh well.  i'm sure they're a good source of protein or something.  so yesterday i tried to get a picture of this cute little creature.  i actually stole this idea i think from megan.  was that you megan who took the picture of the ladybug & the ring??? well, anyway i thought it was a neat idea so i tried to replicate it....gosh another big word....replicate.  why i chose my wedding rings i'll never know.  to be honest i haven't worn them in along time.  i just grabbed them.  turns out my ladybug was not real cooperative.  she just sat there.  i wanted her to crawl on top of the rings.  atleast move a little.   something.  anything.  so i finally gave up.  she won.  she proved to be more stubborn than me.  when i down loaded the pictures to my computer, i laughed so hard when i saw her face.  look at it.  look closely.  have you ever seen such a sour puss???  lol.  it looks almost like i painted it on there myself.  like it's not real but trust me it's real.  i'm sure it's some kind of defense thing to protect her out in the wild.  you know....like scare off the bad guys with her mean face.  what struck me funniest was the irony of the whole picture.  i'm not gonna try to explain it.  i'm probably the only person in the whole world that would actually get it so i'll just spare you.  it made me laugh though and we all know there's beauty in laughter......

i wanted to share this picture too.  i just loved it.  look at the mean little eyes on this ladybug too!!!  i guess i've never really taken the time to look closely at a ladybugs face before.  i'm shocked.  anyway, this is ryan holding the ladybug he caught.  obviously she's scare bc she won't put out her legs but i loved the lighting in this picture and i loved that you could see all the detials in his hand.  just too cute. 

mighty is the oak.......

.........when i first bought my house it was nothing but a hayfield.  no trees.  just grass and a lot of those huge thorny weeds.  it took forever to get rid of the weeds and even longer for the trees that i planted to start growing.  my big joke was that by the time the trees were big enough to offer some shade, i'd be too old to enjoy it.  meaning older people get chilly faster bc their skin is so thin....or maybe it's their blood that's so thin. idk. and don't say a word megan!  anywayssss, i had great hopes for my trees.  i have two maples in the front and two in the back.  i absolutely love...love...love those maples trees that turn orange on the outside and yellow on the inside.  that's what i wanted.  well, apparently i bought the wrong kind.  they've grown big & strong but they are stubborn and resist changing colors each fall.  when they finally decide to change they turn red which is ok i guess but not what i wanted.   is it possible to be disappointed in a tree???  yeah, but i won't say it too loud.  wouldn't want to hurt their feelings.  i am bound and determine to find a tree like i want and i know just where i'm going to plant it when i find it.  until then my favorite tree in my yard is my oak tree.  i like it's shape....sorta triangular.  it tries reallllly hard to change pretty colors.   the one thing that i struggle with is it's branches.  they're are wild.  they go in every different direction.   and the branches' branches'  have branches.  understand??? lol.  i trimmed off some of the lower branches last year or the year before.   what a job.  but look what i found when i was taking pictures this morning.....a smiley face.  my oak tree was smiling at me.  and see you thought i was crazy when i said my trees had feelings.  silly you. but seriously, oak trees are know for their strength and that's why i chose it for my subject today.  there is infinite beauty in strength........ 





who turned the lights out........

..........it's 6:54 pm and it feels like it should be midnight already.  i despise day-light savings time.  i love fall but hate the fact that they have to ruin it by making it dark so early.  ughhhhhhh.  i guess there's no sense in whining.  it won't do any good.  i've decided to go back to my "beauty" pictures.  i miss my camera and as usual need something else to focus on.  i think the first day of winter is december 21st or 22nd.  that's also the shortest day of the year....a turning point.  i think i'll try to take a picture each day till then......

this is a mum that my church got me while i was in the hospital.  love the colors.  just B*e*A*u*T*i*F*u*L.......

ok, soooooooo.............

.......we won't be doing that again anytime soon.  atleast not in this lifetime.  if anybody ever offers to shove wires up your groin and into your heart with the intentions of burning your precious cardiac muscle while you are awake, all i can say is....RUN!  fast! and don't look back.  lol! apparently (according to the crna) "most" people don't ever feel anything during the procedure.  there are a "few" that will feel a little discomfort.  and then there are the "rare few" that will actually feel pain.  geeeee...guess what category i fell into.  OMG...it was horrible. i will NEVER voluntarily do that again.  i'd have a panic attack before they ever had the chance to start.  let me explain how it went.  apparently i have or had a "stubborn" arrhythmia. it's been with me for so long i guess it just didn't want to give up w/o a fight.   i was in the or for almost 3 hours.  first i want to say that everybody at high point regional hospital was wonderful!  the dr....he was ok.  he did manage to say hello to me before he started jammin needles in my groin....without warning.  it would've been nice to have a little heads up.  but i just smiled figuring it was lidocaine and the area would be numb soon.  opppsssss....don't forget the other side.  jam...jam..jam....for the sake of space i'll stop @ 3.  was more like 10 or 15 but who's counting~*smile*~ they had talked about goin thru my neck so i was just thrilled that they decided to stay @ my groin.  so then he makes the incision and starts ramming the wires up to my heart.  at first i thought well this won't be too bad.  i could feel them just a little.  then i could feel them more.  i don't think it took them much to get my heart "irritated" because all i could feel was this enormous pressure....sorta like the proverbial elephant sitting on your chest.  thought this must be what it was like to have a heart attack.  i just laid there and cried.  never said a word until the nurse anesthetist asked if i was ok.  with crocodile tears running down my face, all i could say was...it hurts.  one time it actually felt like they were jammin the wires up my neck on the right side.  oh and the best part was the "diaphragmatic spasms" which felt like somebody was literally inside me kicking the right side of my chest with a combat boot.  you could actually see my chest wall moving under my gown.  i did speak up between kicks when i had enough breath and asked if that was normal.  then to add insult to injury when they finally felt like they had all the wires where they wanted them they gave me some med that they titrated until my heart rate was over 180.  that was  pleasant but still not as bad as the spasms.  so after that they "burned" whatever area it was that they felt was causing the arrhythmia but i guess my little svt wasn't given up that easy.  they had to come back and manipulate the wires more.  which of course brought more tears.  when they finally thought they were in the "right" place they gave me some versed.  precious sweet versed.  but i never did fall asleep.  everytime i would start to doze they would move the wires or zap me or something and i would feel this excruitiating pain again.  finally after almost 3 hours they were done.  thank you jesus.  they were jokin with me....said now i could go birth some babies.  now that i think about it they probably meant i could go back to work but i thought they meant I could go have a baby.  i told them....HECK (might've used another word) i'd rather go birth a baby than do this again....matter of fact i don't think i'll ever be doin either again!!!!!  atleast after you have a baby you have something to show for all your suffering.  so now i guess i just wait & see.  i was a little nervous the first couple days bc i was feeling little skipped beats.  i thought....ohhhhh, if i've gone thru all this for nothing!!! but so far i haven't had anything today.  it's funny bc i've learned to bend a certain way with my svt.  i could get it started by bending over so i've learned to bend at the knees instead.  i still find my self being careful how i bend so that i don't get it started.  so anywayssss...i guess i just wait and pray.  will it have all been worth it if it works???  yeah, now that i'm on the other end of it.  could anyone ever talk me into doing it again??? ummmmm....NO!  not in a million years........

before i go i want to give a big KUDOS to our girls at RH.  apparently our customers must be a little too picky.  one of our lowest scoring areas on our survey is always response time to call lights.  well let me tell ya....we have to have hprh beat by a mile on response time.  that was my one and only complaint.  i think i hit the call light three times while i was there and the fastest time they answered was around 5 mins....the longest was over 10 mins.  and that was literally just to answer.  atleast we answer right away.  we may not get to the room in 10 seconds flat but we atleast answer on the second or third ring.  so i just want to tell you girls that you rock!  you ARE doing a wonderful job no matter what anybody tries to say!!!!

LATER ALLIGATORS........

.......well tomorrow's the big day.  i'd be lying if i said i wasn't a little nervous.  the whole concept of being awake for the entire procedure is what bothers me most i think.  i've tried to convince myself that i'd probably be ok if i didn't have it done.  i've tolerated it for 15 years now.  what's another 15 years right??? then i was blowing drying my hair the other day. i was bent over with my head upside down and set off a run of svt that made me have to sit down.  decided then that.....yup, i'm ready to be done with all this nonsense.  anywayssss....say a prayer for me.  pray that all goes well, that i behave myself (you know how nurses are, lol) and that i don't say anything i shouldn't while under the influence of versed.  and i'll pray that they're actually gonna give me some versed.  lol.   i'll see ya when i get home.....

P.R.E.T.T.Y........

.....wanted to share this video that megan showed me this weekend.  she said she thought it went with my last blog and i agree.  it has a HUGE message.   thanks megan......

mirror, mirror on the wall.......

..........who's the fairest of them all???  betcha thought i was gonna say me huh.  not hardly.  i think we expect mirrors to be a reflection of the truth.  you should be able to stand in front of a mirror and see reality.  the problem is that the reality reflected back is often distorted.  not only by the actual craftmanship of the mirror but by the person standing in front of it.  we all know mirrors come in all shapes and sizes and different degrees of quality.  absolutely LOVE those mirrors that make you look long and skinny.  lol.  but is it reality??? nope.  it's distorted.  and we've all seen those people out in public who we just know without a doubt that they couldn't have looked in the mirror before they left the house.  when in reality they did...and heck yeah they thought they looked good.  it's all about perception.  how WE see ourselves.  what do i see when i look in the mirror??? depends on the day.  some days i think i look ok.  most of the time it's the hypercritical self-conscious little girl that stares back at me....even at the age of 40.  honestly, when does she grow up and move out???  but so many times when i stand in front of the mirror the same words that have echoed in my ears for ages come rushing back....you're fat, you're ugly, you're not good enough,  not important enough.  now i get to add wrinkles and gray hair to the list of things staring back at me in the mirror.  lol.  but is that reality??? is it the truth???  maybe the gray hair and wrinkles part but not the other stuff.  the mirror lies. it lied to snow white's stepmom and it lies to us.  i'm more than the sum of my parts.  i'm more than love handles and thighs that are too big.  i'm more than crows feet and a pointy nose. and i'm definately more than gray hair & wrinkles.  the mirror doesn't "see" what's inside me. it never tells the whole story.  i think instead of lookin into the mirror for validation of self-worth a more accurate reflection of who we are is in our children.   and that includes the good, the bad & the ugly.  bc if we want to take credit for the good, we also have to acknowledge and take credit for the not-so-good.  before i go any further i want to say that i know there are people out there with children who have problems like autism and such.  who deal with behavioral issues day in and day out despite being the best parents they can be.  and i also realize that all children have different types of personalities.  but i do believe no matter what, they reflect the best and worst in us.  there are things my kids have done that have made me cringe and i thought gee i know where they got that from....me.  i see how my husband can be short-tempered and impatient with them sometimes and how they react to him in the same way.  and he wonders why.  they react totally different with me bc i interact with them differently.  we teach our kids the basics.  how to be kind or how not to be kind.  do you stomp the little bug on the side walk or do you help him back to the grass???  do you hold the door for somebody or let it slam in their face???  they pick up on everything we do and don't do.  they are a reflection of us.  and the proof is in the pudding.  when i doubt myself....when the voices in my head scream maybe you really are that bad....when i look in the mirror and think ughhhhhhhhh...i need to look instead to my children.  they are living proof of all that's good in me.  they are the mirror that reflects "who" i am.   when samantha looks at me and tells me i'm beautiful....that's what i am if only in her eyes.  when people see what a good person christian is, they're seeing a part of me.  and when the ladies gush over ryan bc he's held the door for them, i smile on the inside bc i know i taught him that.  do i take credit for all that's good in them???  no, most of it's comes by the grace of God.  but they spend the majority of their time with me & i feel like i have the biggest impact on how they turn out.  so therefore i also take credit for some of their short-comings....not that there's many.  lol.  but our children are like mirrors that we walk past day in and day out.  we get so busy and so used to them being there that we forget to truly "look" at them.   we forget that if we slow down & look, we can catch a glimpse of our own reflections and that the truth is ours to see if we really want it.  that is something we may never find in a distorted piece of glass hanging from a wall...... 

this is a note i got home from ryan's teachers last week.  i have always been my own worst critic....as i'm guessing most of us are.  for alot of reasons that go wayyyy back i have never had the best self-esteem either.  so between that and some other things goin on in my life i struggle with doubting myself.  when i saw this note it made my day.  i couldn't be more proud of the wonderful little person he has turned out to be.  it's also a reminder of everything right that i'm doing in my life and it couldn't have come at a better time.

TOTO, I DON'T THINK WE'RE IN KANSAS ANYMORE.....

.......no, definately not kansas.  more like winston-salem.  went with samantha on her field trip to old salem today.  it's been probably more than 10 years since i've been there so i was actually excited about going.  i'm not really a field-trip kinda person.  i always go but i don't necessarily enjoy it.  shhhhhhh...don't tell my kids.  i go for them.  i just hate the whole concept of following fifty cars behind a smoking school bus going 45 miles an hour just to go some where for an hour then turn right back around.  but anywaysss i love old salem and like i said was looking forward to goin.  well it took an hour and half to get there.  when we finally got there we stood outside the bus for another 45 mins while the teachers decided how they were gonna split the groups.  when the groups were finally divided it was time to go to the bathroom.....all 80 kids at one time. everything was just really unorganized.  nobody knew where they were going or what exactly they were doing.  we got to see 2 houses and then it was time to rush back to the start so we could see a 15 min puppet show.  after that it was time for our "scheduled" tour of one of the churches.  part of our group got there before we did so they started without us.  lol.  do i sound like i'm whining???  if i don't then i'm not doin my job yet.  so anyway now it's lunch time.  we were supposed to eat at 12:30 but the other class still had all the picnic tables.  we had to find somewhere else to eat. most of the kids had to sit on the ground.  me, samantha & her friend beat the little rugrats to the bench....hehehehee.   finally lunch is over and the teacher tells us we can go off on our own in our groups. yayyyy. we just had to meet back at the main building by 2:30.  so i have samantha and this other little girl.  we spent forever in the gift shop deciding what to buy.  i had to buy samantha's little friend something bc she didn't have any money.  that was my good dead for the day.  we went to the old tavern and the vogle house which was nice bc it was just us three and an older couple.  we went into the little merchant shop.  as we were goin in i hear this blaring noise over some intercom outside.  i didn't pay any attention to it like the rocket scientist that i am.  while we were in the shop i took out my phone to check the time.  i knew we were gettin close to 2:30.  i had a "newsflash" alert from fox 8 on there saying there was a tornado warning out for forsyth county.  for a split second, i thought to myself....gee, are we in forsyth county???  duhhhhh.  i started out the door and a lady stops me.  she told me indeed there was a tornado warning out.  that's what the siren was for.   i said....well, ok but i need to have the kids back to their school bus by 2:30.  she just shrugged her shoulders and said ok.   so i get no more than 2 houses down and this little old woman right out of the 18th century comes barreling out the door and tells me i need to get in the house.  i said....but i need to get the kids back....she wasn't hearing nothing about it.  she said we needed to get in the house NOW.  one of the other parents who was inside must've heard us bc he stepped out and told me that they had spotted a tornado and that part of the class was already inside the house.  i got the girls and went in. that's when mass hysteria set in.  kids were crying.  when samantha saw them crying she started crying.  they made us get in the basement of this very very old house.  it was actually pretty cool.  i felt safer there than any place i've ever been during a tornado warning.  here we are in a house well over 200 years old...obviously it's weathered a few storms in it's time.  samantha wasn't so convinced but i just loved on her and after about 20 mins they let us out.   when we got back outside the rain had died down to just a drizzle.  that lasted all of about 4 mins then the bottom fell out again.  by the time we made it back to the main building we were all soaked.  then they wouldn't let us leave again!  held hostage in old salem....sounds like some lifetime movie-of-the-week.  lol.  idk if there was another tornado warning or what happened but they made us get in this large room, closed all the doors and wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom.  finallyyyyy after another 30 or 40 mins we were told "the warning".....whatever warning that was had been lifted and we were allowed to leave.  thank you Jesus.  i think next time i'm just staying home.  of course then i would've been torn out of frame knowing samantha was there and i wasn't with her.  so never mind.  it worked out just fine.  i'll just have to bring my ruby slippers next time and maybe an umbrella.......

MY SAMMY GIRL STUCK IN AN OLD BASEMENT THINKING....THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME....THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME......

 

wow what a day......

.......so what was so special about it??? nothing really.  just had my feelings hurt twice in the matter of a couple hours.  maybe i need to quit being so darn sensitive huh.  need to toughin up or something.  anything.  the first offender??? the hospital where i'm having my cardiac ablation done.  today was my "preadmission" day.  in other words...."how you gonna pay your bill" day.  now the plan is for me to spend the night.  i'll be out in less than 24 hours so technically it's still considered an outpatient procedure.  i want you to take a wild guess at how much this little outpatient procedure costs.  come on.  just a take a stab at it.  did i hear $5,000???  oh wait....did someone say $10,000???  no, no...keep goin.  $20,000???  getting closer.  no don't tell me.....$30,000???  not quite.  give up yet???  oh ok.  i'll tell ya.  THIRTY SIX THOUSAND DOLLARS!  can anybody say OMG???  or how bout WTF???  i can.......OMG & yes WTF???  i almost fell off the chair.  told the lady....ummmmm, i don't think i can do that.  even with the insurance covering 70% i just couldn't fathom what i'd owe.  when it was all said and done....when all the "out-of-pocket expenses" and "deductibles" and everything else was calculated, my part of the hospital bill will be $2450.  wow...what a deal.  they were so kind as to set me up with a payment plan.  first payment due today.  mind you none of that includes the dr's fees or the anesthesiologist fees....which are subject to my deductible.  and i'm not real sure why i'd be having an anesthesiologist fee when the plan is for me to be awake the whole time.  i know a little secret they don't think i know....nurses can do iv conscious sedation without an anesthesiologist around.  hmmmmmm.  so needless to say my feelings were extremely hurt by all this horrible talk of copays, deductibles, out-of-pocket expenses...blah, blah, blah.  but i need it done and i AM grateful that i have insurance.  so i'll just suck it up and go on.  i have a feeling the hospital has no intentions of apologizing for hurting me so deeply.  as for the second offense of my day.  a friend hurt my feelings.  i was just starting to get over the shock of the first assualt when...bam.  i'll blame it on myself tho.  i shouldn't care so much.  bc that's what happens when you do...you get your feelings hurt.  and i'm more upset by this then anything some big ole bad hospital can dish out at me.  money doesn't matter.  people do.  family & friends do.  so anyway now i feel a little sadder.  it's already been an incredibly "fantastic" week.  this was just the cherry on the top.  could've sworn i ordered my week without cherries.  oh well.  tomorrow's another day.  right???????

nanny...nanny...boo...boo.....

.......i've got three followers now!  lol...amanda & megan are here now too.  yayyyyyyy!