Wow, it's almost 2008

I have this post I am working on, as a year end review of the best and worst of 2007 - however there is still much work to be done to it and we are heading back down to the French Quarter this afternoon. We want to pick up some UH Sugarbowl stuff for my sister who wanted to come so bad, but couldn't.

So hopefully tonight I will finish my prior post on the events of 2007 - but I can tell you that personally speaking my 2 "BEST" moments of 2007 happened just a few days ago.

1) getting a Chase Disney Rewards Card. It has a $5k limit, earns 1% rewards back as DDRD (Disney Dream Reward Dollars) that can be used on all sorts of Disney stuff - a must have living this close to Disney World! Besides, who doesn't like a card with a reward? This may be kind of a silly "BEST", but it surprised me and made my day, therefore it qualifies to me!
2) finding out that my bestest friend in the whole wide world, whom I've known more than half my life, went to school with since 6th grade, and haven't seen in nearly 12 years (since we both live in different states, are married, and have kids - though hers is younger than mine......) has FINALLY gotten an internet connection and has email. This to me is definitely one of the "BEST" for 2007! I'm always so excited to hear from her, but now she can keep up to date on my blog and recent pictures and videos I post. WooHoo!!!!

So as for the rest I will hopefully get to it tonight, as now I must go get ready to leave. But for now, Happy New Year, or at least New Year's Eve. Go Get your party on, just don't drive!

Online Madness

Natalie has been busy playing online checking out all her favorite sites and making sure to take care of her Webkinz - I however have a bit of a problem with the amount of traffic online, as she keeps getting kicked off the Webkinz site! They should have anticipated this "craze" and upgrade the site. It seemed all of Christmas and the day after, there was no getting on. Somewhat upsetting when you buy these little stuffed animals that come with an online game, yet you can't access it. To me it's it's just about the same as Nintendogs, the game made for Nintendo DS - Natalie has every single one made! But to her DS is kinda out, and Webkinz is the new fad. Besides learning and getting experience using a computer will be very beneficial for her. I posted some pictures on Flickr, one is posted below.

French Quarter Fun

Went downtown today to visit the open air market, which is somewhat like a flea market. Natalie had taken $30 with her - $20 of which she earned helping around the house, and the other $10 was from 2 visits from the Tooth Fairy.

On the way there, we stopped and watched some street performers that were hilarious. I uploaded some pictures onto Flickr for you to enjoy - but I also took 2 short videos, that are posted below.

I had brought my camera along just in case we happened to see Brad and Angelina somewhere down there, as they are (or were) back in town at the house they own in the French Quarter for Christmas - but I had no such luck seeing them, dangit! We even saw some fancy tour bus parked in front of the House of Blues, but never got a peek at whose bus it was. Turns out it was either Dr. John plus Jon Cleary OR Slang Angus plus V.I.T.A.L. emcee with Illegal Alias - neither of which are artists that I know of!

So anyway, once we got down to the open air French Market, we really couldn't find anything to buy - although along the way we came across some cool shops where we picked up more movie memorabilia, like a little Yoda, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, Gizmo, The 3 Stooges, and Napoleon Dynamite. Natalie bought herself a set of Dinosaurs, an Alligator hand back-scratcher (and yes, it is a real hand, it has scaly skin, and claws!) We also stopped in one place and bought a variety of chocolate items to share. Then we went through Jackson Square and into St. Louis Cathedral. In a matter of 15 minutes, we witnessed 4 weddings going on in various places in the square. I went into the church entryway, purchased 3 candles - 1 for Ruben's dad, 1 for my mom, and 1 to bless our family & friends. I even put on Holy Water without burning, so I guess I am not pure evil. I've always wanted to go into the Cathedral and light candles, so I'm glad that a year later I finally got the chance (in the past the cathedral has either been closed, or the gift shop where you purchase the candles at had been closed.)

After our day of fresh air and exercise, we headed home and I mentioned to Ruben how I would like to have a fire as it plans on being both warm and cold next week (it was chilly today), but we didn't have any firewood and the gas station down the street doesn't sell any either. I mentioned to Ruben to drive around the neighborhood cause someone may have recently chopped down a tree and put the wood out to be picked up by the trash guys. We were in luck, right by where you turn on our street a house had just put out quite a bit of wood similar to that we burned at Christmas which had come from this little patio-like area we had out back. While it may not be tree wood, it was burnable wood - and it was sitting on the street to be picked up, so we loaded up most of it in the back of my Durango. If you ask me the timing was perfect, although we did feel a little strange just taking the wood from a house in our neighborhood - but if they didn't want to get rid of it, they wouldn't have put it at the curb, right?

Anyway, here are the 2 videos I took today, plus a picture of Natalie with her hair in pigtails. She looks so cute. I need to take a picture of her without the cap on, as I just highlighted some strands of her hair that frames her face for her birthday party. I'll try to get some tomorrow, as right now it's time to hit the sack! Enjoy the videos!

What I love most

about this time of year........all the Best & Worst recaps of 2007. It seems just about every type of magazine has some kind of recap of the events of 2007 - and me being the celeb-gossip junkie I am, absolutely LOVES it all. Besides, you can learn a lot of useless pop culture trivia out of it, aside from good movies to see or music to listen to. As Entertainment Weekly says, it's your guide to the Good, the Superbad, and the Ugly - and People named Patrick Dempsey star of the year, which I think I most definitely agree with! So keep posted, I will post my list as soon as I can!

A Recap of Events.....

Things around here were a little lonely for us as we have no family here and the few friends we have obviously had plans with their own families. Also not helping matters was the fact that Ruben and I agreed not to buy for one another. I mean really, we are adults and buy whatever we want when we want, so who needs Christmas gifts? When it comes down to it, the whole holiday is for kids. Our mission was to make it special for Natalie, and keep the belief in the whole magic of the holiday and Santa alive - which we succeeded in for another year.

Since Ruben and I didn't buy for one another, all the gifts we spent the last few days wrapping had been for Natalie. After I laid all the gifts out, I saw it was going to be a VERY Pokemon Christmas! Natalie is so into collecting all the Pokemon figurines and cards that nothing else really mattered to her. In fact, I think she only asked for one other item - an art easel! She is such a little tomboy!

So anyway, Ruben and I had spent the days leading up to Christmas wrapping packages, but we didn't put any gifts under the tree till midnight Christmas Eve when we had just finished wrapping the last of the gifts. We took all the gifts downstairs, put out a half-eaten cookie on her "Cookies for Santa" plate, and a glass of milk (later after Ruben had eaten the remaing piece, she had said she wanted to send it in for DNA testing - LOL!). Ruben was concerned because we had a fire burning that night, but I told him not to worry about it, it's all in the "magic" of Santa. So at about 12:30am Christmas morning, we went to wake Natalie up, telling her that a sound on the roof and Lexie's subsequent barking had woken us up - we decided to wake her then cause Ruben's mom always calls right around midnight and wanted to talk to her. At first she was dazed and confused and had no idea what we were talking about as she sat there trying to wake up. Then suddenly it dawned on her that it was Christmas and Santa must have come. She couldn't get out of bed fast enough, and pushed at us to get out of her way so she could run downstairs and see. She got to the bottom of the steps, saw the tree and just said OH MY GOD. She couldn't get over all the present that sat beneath the tree. I told her that they were all hers, and she just sat there not knowing where to begin. Finally she realized that one half eaten cookie sat on the plate, and began to tell us how Santa comes down the chimney - she said he touches his nose and the fire just goes out allowing him to come down the chimney and not be burned - and that once he leaves, the fire just starts again. I even managed to capture a picture of her pointing to her nose as she told us the story, it's 1 of nearly 200 I took that night! All are posted on Flickr, just follow the link. At first she was very slow in un-wrapping her gifts (cause she was on the phone), but after about the 10th one she finally picked up speed. Other than all the Pokemon gifts she got from Santa, us, and Grandma - she also got a reindeer Webkinz from Santa, although she thinks it came from Rudolph, and a cocker spaniel Webkinz from Lexie (our dog). She was actually very excited about those gifts, even though I think all the Pokemon's were her actual favorites. After about an hour she was finally done unwrapping them all, and she started playing with them as Ruben and I tried to surprise each other. We weren't supposed to buy gifts for one another as I had just gotten a new camera and s Bamboo Fun tablet, and he had bought a Blu-Ray DVD player, as well as a new laptop as his dvd drive quit working. But I tried to surprise him with something kind of small. I bought him seasons 1, 2 & 3 of The Office. He loves that show so much, but has missed so many episodes. He bought me a 18kt and diamond Fleur De Lis pendant cause I've been wanting some Fleur jewelry for a while now. Living in New Orleans you'll find that everything is Fleur De Lis, it's just that I couldn't find any jewelry in yellow gold which is my preference - but he managed to find it somewhere. We were both pretty happy with the results. Christmas was pretty spectacular. Even the weather managed to co-operate, as it got a tad chilly just in time. The only thing that we didn't do was the "traditional fare" (normally I would have cooked just like Thanksgiving) for dinner, as this time around I am still in pain and healing from my surgery, so I just roasted a small turkey breast in the oven, made my mom's famous fried green beans, this cajun rice stuffing dish I had tried at the store, and a pan of rolls for dinner. Dinner turned out great, and was much better than the Burger King we ate for dinner on Christmas Eve - I had been out running around all day getting my prescriptions filled and ended up being too exhausted to cook! We spent Christmas evening watching season 1 of Heroes, and just enjoyed the time together as a family. Tomorrow I'm sure Ruben will be back to work, then it will just be me and Natalie till school resumes on the 7th - although we do have her birthday party coming up on the 5th (her actual birthday is on the 4th, but it's a Friday), which will be a bowling/High School Musical theme & be just as hectic and as crazy as Christmas, so wish us luck. It's always so hard dealing with both events so close together.

Ok, so it's time to go back to cozing up on the couch and watching the rest of Heroes. When we stopped the last disc at 1:30 this morning, it had ended in a real climax so I gotta go watch the last couple discs! Hope you had a fantastic holiday as well!

Merry Christmas

Here's a picture of Natalie that was taken shortly after Santa left very EARLY this morning! She was very excited, and had a wonderful Christmas, as we all did.
For more pictures take a look at Flickr, I just posted nearly 200 pictures from about 1:00am this morning. Enjoy, and Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to You

Buried at PhotoCasket.com

I just had a moment....

Ok, so everyone knows that I have this list of 5...you know, like as on Friends - the 5 people you could sleep with if ever the chance & it would be okay with the hubby cause he has his list. Kinda like a get out of marriage (for one night) free card. So I've mentioned in the past Viggo Mortenson, although I have more of a "thing" for Ashton Kutcher, Orlando Bloom, Patrick Dempsey, sometimes Nick Lachey, other times I come up with fresh faces, like Emile Hirsch (although he is a bit younger I suppose) or the guy from Chuck - he's a cutie, and it shows to bring out my "inner" geek. Well I was checking out IMDB for the movie Eastern Promises in which Viggo has a nude fight scene. Well if you've ever been to IMDB you know it is chock full of info - like did you know he was in Witness with Harrison Ford, or A Perfect Murder? Both are old movies, before I even knew who he was. This was pre-LOTR. Just like I learned the guy that played Gimli in LOTR was also in 2 Indy Jones movies. My God he looks so different when he's not portrayed as a dwarf!

Anyway, I learned on IMDB that Viggo is 49! Now I know Patrick Dempsey is a bit older than me (he's 41 - so 8 years), but most of my celeb-crushes are around my age. But 49! Holy crap! Never have I found a man old enough to be my daddy so freaken sexy. I mean c'mon, have you ever wanted to screw someone 15 years older than you? Okay, so he's not exactly old enough to be my dad, but 15 years is still quite an age gap - and NO I DO NOT have a daddy complex! In fact, I used to have a rule no one over 30, but I had to revise it considering my hubby is 34 and I am 33. I'm no cradle robber either! I'm just blown away by the fact that he is that old, cause he looks damn hot for his age! I'm just in shock!!

What about you, do you have a list of 5? Do you harbor celeb-crushes, and if so who? Are they older than you? Is it okay to crush on someone 15 years your senior?

Happy Holidays

Saw this on Lora's blog and I loved it so much. Everyone knows how much I love Ashton Kutcher, and even posed as Santa, he is still freaken hot!

This is surely rated R, so beware - but then again, I think my whole blog contains a whole lot of NSFW!

School Pix

Been meaning to scan and post these for a while now. One is Natalie's fall 07 school picture, the other is when Santa came to visit the school - we're lucky that on that day she didn't have to wear her uniform! Enjoy!

Party Like a Rockstar

Ugh! I'm so worn out and I haven't even done much. Guess I'm just burnt out. It's this time of year - all the shopping, presents, cards......and then 10 days after Christmas we do it all again for Natalie's birthday. Actually from like now till February is "our" busy year. We've got Christmas, and all it entails, then Natalie's birthday(1/4), then mine (1/26), then our anniversary (1/30), then Valentine's Day. All those days take a lot out of a person (shopping & doing cards) not to mention their wallet!
This Christmas I prepared about 90 cards to send out, and now I'm filling out about 30 invitations for Natalie's birthday. My hand needs a break from all that writing! Plus I am still in pain from my surgery. I saw the doctor the other day and all is good, but he agreed that it is going to take some time before the nerves in my armpit area calm down and stop hurting so bad!
Anyway, back to Natalie's party. She wanted a Pokemon theme, but you can't find party goods for that theme anywhere. So instead she's having a whole High School Musical theme, cause as she said, she doesn't want anything girlie themed cause there will be boys there. So Princess stuff is out. I kinda figured so since she does play mostly with the neighborhood boys. Her age group is kind of young, but even so I've noticed there is a lot of cattiness between the girls around here. But I figured HSM is neutral, and she is a fan of it. Next I had to figure out the whole party thing. Chuck E. Cheese is booked solid till February, and honestly not something I want to do. McDonald's is out of the question because our local Mickey D's has horrible service. A few weeks ago we went to a Bowling Birthday party - and as much as I hate doing the same thing so close to the original party, I really didn't have many other options. It's not like they have karaoke bars for kids, and I thought the 6 to 8 year old crowd might be a little too young for laser tag. In any case, Natalie really enjoyed the bowling party she went to. It was her first time, and she didn't do half bad. So she's excited about what was booked, and at $12 a kid the price isn't half bad. I don't have to set up or clean up, so no complaints there!
So at least that's taken care of, now we move on to wrapping gifts which hasn't been done yet. I'm not looking forward to it - in fact I think I hate wrapping for Christmas! Ruben and I didn't buy for one another, so it's all for Natalie! Each year we always buy too much stuff for her, especially when she has Christmas and her birthday within 2 weeks of each other. She can't even keep her room clean now with all the crap she has! I foresee a hefty donation to Goodwill in the coming weeks!

The long road to recovery.......

So Monday I went into surgery for another go around with reconstruction. The procedure was successful, and I was sent home afterwards once I was stable. I really preferred having it done at the hospital versus the surgical center I had my last day surgery at. The hospital took really good care of me, as they always do - and even made sure to feed me before sending me home. My past experiences (at other facilities) when waking up hungry usually lead to saltines and a sprite, but when I requested crackers and a soda this time, I was giving a full lunch. Can't complain about that. Usually they won't give you food right after surgery, as they don't want you throwing up from the anesthesia or morphine shots for pain - throwing up can rip your stitches. But I had no problems and went home feeling well.
Once home I did little more than sleep. In fact the first 2-3 days are just a blur to me.....I slept so much and had such a problem staying awake that my dear hubby thought I had been taking too much medicine. But I think it was a combination of things that left me so sleepy. Besides, better to sleep through the pain than to be awake and in agony! So like I said, the first few days are kind of hazy to me, but I do recall on the 2nd day I think, a problem with my drain tube. Each time I go in for surgery the doctor places a drain tube in my side so that any fluids from surgery can drain from my body. The drain itself consist of a tubing like that of an IV. About a good 12" of the tube is placed inside my body, held in place by a single stitch that wraps around it, then several feet ending with a suction bulb. While the purpose is so the fluid drains from my body, the doctor warned us that in some cases infection can travel upwards. It's one of those things you have to watch carefully for several days, recording the amount that drains each day. Once it reaches a certain point where hardly anything is coming out, it is then time for it to be pulled out. The drains them self are not all that pleasant to have - especially if you're a side sleeper like me. I've had so many of these things you can almost play connect the dots with all the little round scars I have on my sides! So anyway, it seemed as though I had a problem with this particular drain, cause on the 2nd day it back flowed. As I had been in and out of sleep I didn't notice much of a problem with it. I remember the bulb being near full and ready to be emptied when Ruben found that I had what appeared to be blood all over me. Instead it was fluid from my drain. I'm not sure why I didn't think much of it - must have been cause I was so out of it, but I never thought about calling the doctor because that had been the only problem we had with it until Saturday.
During the week I'm mostly sleeping, which is amazing since it was so hard to get comfortable. It seems that this time around I have had more pain in more places than any other time. My chest doesn't hurt so much as my side, underarm, and back. Many of these areas hurt with a painful, stabbing, burning sensation. All week I've been looking for a bruise to develop on my inner arm, but there's nothing. For whatever reason, all my nerve endings in these areas are freaking out. So I'm in tons of pain and my drain isn't working correctly. Saturday night had been Ruben's work Holiday Party. Obviously I wasn't able to attend - I would have been a major party pooper! As Ruben was getting ready, I had him help me with changing my bandages. He asked me how my drain has been lately - if I have had anymore problems, etc. I noticed that the bulb was full of air instead of being compressed as it should be, so that the suction works right. I drained it, squeezed it tight, then returned to bed. Ruben came up to say goodbye before leaving for his party and once again noticed that my drain was not compressed, which means there had to be a leak somewhere. He left for his party, and I decided to call the doctor about it. The doctor agreed that it wasn't operating properly, and said it needed to come out right away. Well since Ruben had already left it meant that I had to do it myself. Oh joy! He told me to carefully use scissors to clip the stitch and not the tubing. If I accidentally cut the tubing he'd have to take me back into surgery to remove it - so no pressure there! I was careful to wash and sanitize my hands and scissors. I cut the stitch, opened the valve, then had the hard part of pulling about 12" of tubing out, which really didn't feel that good - especially since the tubing tends to stretch thin. But despite the pain, I was able to successfully pull the tube out before some type of infection traveled upwards and caused some kind of sepsis. However, pulling the drain didn't relieve the pain in my side and underarm as I had hoped. All I can do is hope the pain goes away in a few days. But despite all the pain and problems I've been having at least the incision site looks great, which is a big relief! Maybe, just maybe this expander will be a keeper.

The Day is Here

As always the weekend flew by leaving us still much to do - hang more lights, another load of laundry or two, steam clean the upstairs carpet, spot steam a few areas downstairs, run to the grocery store for a few items, plus many other "To Do List" items. Oh well, eventually they'll get done, but I am doubting we will return home early enough from my surgery today for Ruben to knock out the majority of them, but I'm sure he'll do a grocery run and possibly a load of laundry. It's too bad he can't run home and do these things while I am in surgery, but the hospital is way on the other side of town from us. It's easier for him to wait or run down the street and shop. More than likely he'll just hang out playing his PSP till they tell him I'm out. I don't think he relaxes (at all!) until he knows.
It's hard to believe that in about a half an hour I have to start getting ready to go. I got up early to let Lexie outside. It's not like I have much to do. I can't eat, I can't drink, but I can brush my teeth provided that I don't swallow (who swallows toothpaste???), and I can take my morning meds with just a sip of water. I don't have to be to Kenner Oschner Regional until 8:30, but we'll want to leave about 7:15 in case of traffic. And while I may not have to do much prepping to leave - just throw on comfy clothes, brush teeth, and finger-comb hair (can't really "do" much with it. I'm not even supposed to have any gels, lotions or hairsprays in it!) We're mainly getting up so early as I've got to get Natalie ready for school. Even though we'll be leaving long before the bus comes! My neighbor Nina volunteered to take her before school, and after if we aren't home by 4pm. I didn't want to impose, but she's not working today, and said she'd have no problem with it. Luckily it's not like we have to be at the hospital at 6 - 8:30 is a much more reasonable time!
Anyway, I was just checking in before I head of to surgery. Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted, and will post as soon as I am up to it. Just cross your fingers that this procedure goes well and I heal right this time!

Surprise!

Got a delivery today. It was actually meant for yesterday. I know this because the card said "Just because it's Friday". Guess the flower shoppe made a little mistake. Especially cause yesterday I would have answered the door, but this morning when they came I was still asleep and Ruben answered the door. Big surprise, or at least it was once I woke up. They're beautiful though. It's nice because these are the first flowers I've gotten since my surgeries began in July. Besides, it always nice to get flowers from the hubby, and I love tulips - almost more than roses I think!

SuperFan

Had to do this after the whole Elf Yourself thing.

This time I created a Saints SuperFan. Check it out here and create your own - or at least get a good chuckle!

Enjoy!!

Mental Constipation

Was checking out Lora's Blog earlier, where I happened to pick up a new link among other things. The Urban Dictionary , is definitely not your Merriam-Webster Dictionary. In fact, the Urban Dictionary is a slang dictionary containing YOUR definitions. I can actually see the need for a reference item such as this - especially in today's society which is laden with Reality TV, Sidekick's, Internet, and email/text messages. As I browsed the site I came across this:

• mental constipation
  An inability to articulate one's thoughts or ideas, resulting in significant psychological distress and frustration.

An example of Mental Constipation is:

Mark: "So, you know, it's like... uh, er... damn, you know, that, uh... thing!"

Dave: "Yeesh. It's too bad that they don't make a laxative for mental constipation!"

This slang term and definition was perfectly clear to me. Some people I know - myself included, has suffered from some sort of Verbal Diarrhea. The kind where you run at the mouth, excessively. But the slang definition for Mental Constipation so accurately describes me post chemo. It's so funny that I can relate to this so much, and even makes me glad that there is finally a word describing my condition. I just wish that this was something my doctors would have told me about as a side effect to chemo. But it's all good now. I totally understand. Sometimes I wonder how Ruben understands half the things that come out of my mouth. Especially when maybe only every other sentence makes sense, I often combine parts from 2 different words to make a new word, and how sometimes I am at such a loss for words that I often feel like chemo reduced me to that of a 5th grader despite college education. But it's nice to finally know that there is a word for it, one that is PC.

I have this feeling I will be adding lots of "new" words to my vocabulary thanks to them. = )

I couldn't resist

Saw this on Cynthia's Blog, and I laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants!

Check it out for yourself. I'm sure you'll get a good laugh at this and soon have your own!

Go Elf Yourself!

Also check out some of the new pix on Flickr. Natalie & I got our flu shots today and she handled it sooooooooooo well!

I can feel it coming on

The temperature around here finally dropped for at least a few days in a row. The high will be close to 80 again on Friday, like it was last week. Yesterday I woke up to 42 degrees. This morning wasn't much better. This has been like the 3rd time the heat has been on "this" winter. Now here I am, the countdown is on for surgery on Monday, and I have a slight tickle in my throat and a bit of a cough. It's bad enough I'm all stuffed up, and I can feel it in my head when I bend over. I didn't get my Flu shot like I should have (I usually get one every year). I'm going to have to make it a point to get there before they close sometime this week - and somehow I need to find a way to talk my daughter into going with me and getting the shot as well. She's not too keen on shots, but with all the germs at school and a parent that cannot afford to get the flu, it's kinda important. Ruben however is an absolute NO! He refuses to get the shot, and there is no talking him into it. I doubt if sexual favors would even get him to do it! But anyway, with all the running around I've been doing, it certainly feels as if a cold is coming on. Being worn out no doubt helped this cold incubate. But if I am to get there before they close, AND bring Natalie along, I will have to pull her out of school about 30 minutes early. Maybe I can bribe her with an early Christmas present - one she doesn't know about yet.

Have you gotten your Flu shot yet? Do you plan on getting one? Do you get one every year?

I'm not usually a germ-a-phobe, it's just with all these surgeries, healing, and cancer remission, it's important that I protect myself as much as I can. So this ought to be fun. You know I just love needles so much, although a shot is nothing compared to an IV. Let's just hope that I haven't already been exposed.

It's all set

Went to my Surgeon's office yesterday to fill out all my pre-op paperwork, then headed to the hospital for my labs and to have a chat with the anesthesia department.
Of course along the way I had lots of stops to make. One of which was to buy Natalie a new mattress. At first I wasn't too sure if she had enough room in her current location. Even though her room is a whopping 20x18, the wall where her bed sits now isn't just a flat 18' wall. Our house is an Acadian style (4 sets of windows with a slanted roof in between) So each window section is 6' wide, she has 2 of them with a 6' closet for her toys in the slanted portion in between (she also has a 2nd closet not counted in the square footage that is for clothes!). On one side she has her bed and nightstand, the other is strictly a play area where she has a little table and toys. The rest of her furniture (a chest, mirror, dresser, trashcan, hamper, and dollhouse) is along the opposing 18' long wall, then along the 20' wall when you walk into her room between the door opening and the "play area" she has her other furniture - a desk, hutch and 2 bookcases. The size of her room, and the furniture set she has played a huge part in our decision to buy this house! So anyway, without re-arranging her room she only has so much space for a bed and her nightstand. Luckily just enough for a full size, which will at least give her a bit more room. I made sure to buy her a comfortable, quality Simmon's mattress, so it will hopefully last years -although this low end twin has been around for about 3.5 years. We picked up a bed frame, but I forgot the sheet. We'll also have to eventually look into getting a new headboard from Ashely Furniture that matches the set. But that will have to wait till after her birthday.
After getting the mattress, and having Ruben come load it in his truck, I went on to my next stop, Christmas Village. Yeah I'm still on the hunt for yard decorations. Theirs can be so expensive, but are much cheaper if you buy just the frame. Besides, Nina told me that she had some lights I could use if I bought the frames. Of course these people have no idea what's going on. They didn't know what was in stock or what was sold - so I'm waiting for a call back from them. Hopefully it will be soon, since Christmas IS in a few weeks!
From there I headed over to Esplande Mall. I had to have my jewelry inspected per the ESP, plus I had to send my diamond tennis bracelet off for repairs. The last time I sent it in to have the clasp repaired, and a link fixed I ended up losing a diamond in less than a week. So much for inspections! So for the last 6 months I have not worn the bracelet, because I don't go to Kenner much - it's about a 25 mile drive for me one way. Also I wanted to complain about the sizing they did on my wedding set. First off they didn't make it small enough. Secondly they did a crappy job which left the gold worn and thinning, as well as indentation marks from where they cut the rings and soldered it back together. I expected better quality of work, cause what I ended up with is reminiscent of a Flea Market job. However as bad as a job they did, I did not have them repair the rings as they are telling me that even with my ESP, I will have to pay $135 per band to have it fixed and filled. You would think my jewelry was bought from Zales. I expected more from Kay's as a VIP customer, but I guess from now on we'll buy my things at Jared or Aucoin Hart Jewelers!
Finally after all that running around I made it to Kenner Regional and did all my pre-op stuff. I'm all set for surgery on the 10th, but I don't know what time yet. They'll call me on Friday to let me know what time I have to be there. I'm sure it will be near the crack of dawn - it always it!
Also - I posted lots of pictures on Flickr of our neighbor's yard decorations. I wanted to re-do some of our own yard work today, but it's downright chilly out, but that's to be expected for a temp of 49. Anf to think just a few days ago it was 80 out. This is some crazy weather!

Christmas Decorations

Man I tell you this house is humongous! Ruben has put up lights, but they are hardly noticeable. We have numerous yard displays, but not enough to cover our yard! Our house is on a corner, so we have front and side yard visibility. Ruben has already overloaded the circuit a few times with what little we have - then yesterday it happened. One of our neighbors decorated their house. OMFG, let me tell you I swear you can see it from space! They have some really cool, but unusual pieces. Keep in mind this IS Louisiana when I tell you that they have lighted displays of Santa fishing, fish whose lights have movement so they look to be jumping, frogs that do the same, a gator that I love, a crab, a shrimp, a crawdad, Santa on a boat lead by 2 gators, several candy canes, 2 huge wreaths and 2 huge angels. Oh, and none of these displays are small by any means! I will try to sneak over after dark and take some pictures. I couldn't get any last night as it was too late by time we got home and their lights were off. What's cool is that Nina used to have a shop where she sold these things (that why she has so much!) Craig took us into the attic and they have tons of pieces for sale. I'm not sure what it's going to cost us yet, but we picked up 2 lanterns, a nutcracker drummer boy, and a nutcracker horn blower - oh and a big snowman which they are working on. I'm afraid of the price she'll charge, but these things are awesome! So here is a picture of our house kinda as a before shot, like as in before we found the good stuff. We plan to change quite a bit, but not sure when we'll get to it. I'm hoping to drive over to River Road (borders the Mississippi) and take our annual family picture there with one of the bridges in the background - it's slightly overcast which may be a good thing as I am aiming for a certain look. So I don't know how much we'll get done on the house - it's like 80 today, and the mosquitoes come out at dusk and attach with a vengeance. But I will take plenty of pictures as we go about and get it all done. The first year of decorating is always the hardest, lots to figure out. Next year we'll have a better plan I hope. I posted lots of pictures on Flickr, some of outside, ones of some of the rooms (so you can finally see how we remodeled), pix I played with in CS2 using different action preset made by Holly - whom I am still waiting for assistance with my Bamboo Fun. No I haven't figured it out yet, and she said she'd help me accomplish at least one thing I'd like to be able to do! But in the meantime I am having a blast playing with & figuring out my new camera. Man I can't wait till next year to take those Photography and Photoshop classes! You know I have Photoshop 7, CS2, Element 4, 5 & 6 and I'm hoping to soon add Lightroom to my collection. I have all this software, and lots of actions, filters and stuff, but I really don't know how to use it fully.



Oh, almost forgot - tomorrow I go back to my surgeon to start my pre-op stuff. Get my lab orders, RX's, and such. So tomorrow I will hopefully have a nailed down date for surgery. We have been shooting for the 10th, but tomorrow I will know for sure. I'll keep you posted.



Take a look at all the new pix on Flickr and enjoy them. I will post more soon! In the meantime, I'll be doing the usual - laundry, cooking, wrapping gifts and playing Lego Star Wars The Complete Saga. Yes I found a game I like to play! Woohoo!