The Aftermath of Katrina

New Orleans, Still a Forgotten City

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Every Scar Tells a Story

Jacki Donaldson, writer for That's Fit is featuring my port-a-cath scar revision story over at her Breast Cancer Blog, CancerSpot.org . Please stop by and check it out!

I like this tree

Every day I ride my bike through the neighborhood. And every time I go
through this one area I stop to admire this live oak. Isn't it
gorgeous? Well today I finally remembered to stop and take a picture.
It looks like the ones you see in movies. This is a southern oak at
it's finest.

Today on my ride I had a beautiful stray lab running next to me. I was
going to take a picture but by time I got my phone out of my pocket he
had got tired and stopped. Maybe next time.

Come Monday this should look better

Monday I will be checking into the hospital for my ELEVENTH breast surgery. Hopefully this will be my last one. Aside from removing capsular contracture, and repositioning my implant, my surgeon is going to perform a revision to my port-a-cath scar. It's not much, but this scar hurts like a sonabitch. I can't stand to have my seatbelt across my shoulder. And whatever you do, don't touch it cause I still have some of those nylon sutures in the midst of all this scar tissue. So I'm really hoping that will all change come next week and it's all healed. So say bye bye ugliness!

Rain, rain go away!

Today I was out running errands before my surgery on Monday, and let me just say the weather was god-awful. I got soaked on several occasions. It seems to have let up now, so I'm debating about whether or not I should go for my bike ride or not. I'm afraid it will start raining half way through it.

Facebook Addiction

Alright, I admit it. I'm addicted to Facebook and may soon need an intervention. The problem is they have these games that are so damn addictive. It's like Hotel California I swear. You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. The past 2 weeks I've been scrapbooking like crazy. 15 pages, which is more than I created in the last 2 or 3 years combined. Thing is I would probably have done more if it weren't for stupid FarmVille. I don't think I've ever been sucked into a game like I have with that or the others made by Zynga. Aside from the games though, I've really enjoyed talking with old friends. They're all sure to make me LOL daily. I feel bad for neglecting my blog, but most of the blogs I read have also slowed down a lot. Anyway, if you're looking for me, well now you know where to find me. I'll be tending to my farm. LOL!

The Beginning of Fall

Fall is officially here, at least to me it is. I know that technically fall doesn't start for a while. But since school is back in session, it is for all intensive purposes, fall. Now I just wish that we would have fall like weather as well, then I would be absolutely tickled.

Natalie started school this past Thursday, which I honestly don't see the point to. I mean really, what good is it to go for two whole days? Monday will be her first full week. I am thoroughly enjoying the peace and quiet. Especially now that I am scrapbooking again, which I didn't get to actually do enough of this past week.

I spent one day attempting to organize all our pictures, which isn't quite as bad as it seems. It turns out that I have not printed any pictures since December 2005. Needless to say I am uploading obscene amounts of pix to have printed. And while I said I spent a day organizing photos, that did not include organizing digital files, which I need to do desperately. Luckily I have files left to go through, cause after my hard drive frying last weekend, I wasn't sure if I had lost everything or not. As it turned out, I had backed up about 6 months ago, so the loss was minimal.

Wednesday Natalie lost her first molar. I panicked when she told me it was loose. For some reason I didn't think it was normal for a molar to be loose. But my friend Joanna told me it was normal and no big deal. I was so relieved cause I thought for sure we'd have to make an emergency visit to the dentist. Natalie got to meet her new teacher at a back to school bash at the school. Afterwards, we attempted to watch a Saints practice game. But due to the weather it had been canceled. It really had me bummed, cause I was looking forward to hopefully getting some pictures and autographs...oh well, I'm going to try to make it to the practice tomorrow mourning if I can. Thursday Natalie came home from school missing another tooth! She had lost her second molar while at school. Thing is, we didn't even know it was loose!













Friday Ruben hooked up my new computer. He had gotten all the parts in on Thursday, and got it all put together. Once Natalie got home from school, we got ready to head to the Dome. Ruben was given tickets to the first pre-season game against the Bengals. We're splitting season tickets with one of his friends from work, so we get to go to half of the regular season games and maybe both pre-season ones. It seems everyone at the office had plans and were unable to go to the game. So we had extra seats. Me, Ruben, Danny and Natalie got to go, and we had two extra tickets to bring along our friends Arlene and Abby. We had a lot of fun, and the Saints won. I have some 500 pictures to go through and post onto Flickr, but here are a few for you to enjoy now.....

Scrapping Away

I've been a busy little bee this past week. Last Saturday I finally decided that it was time to get back into my scrap studio and create something. I completed one layout for each day this past week, and still going strong. That's why I haven't blogged any.

Aside from scrapbooking I followed up at the clinic, losing 10 lbs. since we returned from Disney. Then Thursday, Natalie and I had a girls day out since Ruben was out of town. We went out to lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings, then we did a little shopping, went to the salon and got her hair cut and brows done. Yesterday Ruben came home just in time for me to fry my desktop computer that was in my scrap studio. I kept getting error messages about corrupt files, and Firefox would just shut down in the middle of whatever I was doing. So Ruben suggested I install this program that would help resolve any issues. Well as I was restarting the computer after install, I got an error message that basically said this hard drive is screwed. It wouldn't boot up at all, not even in safe mode. Needless to say, I was a bit depressed when I went to bed last night. I had no idea if any of my files had been backed up, as it had been several months since I had even turned it on.

I couldn't wait till this morning to hook up my laptop and start checking all my external drives. So far it looks like I have everything, or at least everything that I know of. Ruben's researching parts to build me a new one. It really bummed me out cause I have been sitting here all week scrapping and playing on Facebook, but it's all good now. You have no idea just how addictive that damn Farkle game is - as is the silly farm games, and war games I've been playing while creating.

Oh, I do have some good news to share with everyone. I'm so excited, even though it's not that big a deal.....I just found out that one of my photos of Jackson Square is being used in Schmap New Orleans Eight Edition. No, I'm not getting paid for the use of my photo. But I am getting recognition, and that's just as good for now. So that's what's going on here. Please check out the link above for Schmap and also take a look at my Flickr account. I posted my layouts there along with some pictures of Natalie's new do.

Broken Window

Friday we noticed that something appeared wrong with one of our new
windows. The new windows that are supposed to be unbreakable and
hurricane rated. The windows that withstood Ruben standing on them.
Upon closer inspection we did indeed find the pane was cracked and we
don't know how it happened. It's a second floor window and there's no
sign of anything hitting it or chipping it. Luckily there's a lifetime
warranty on glass breakage. One that also has limits and exclusions. We
called the window company expecting a fight and what we got was no
questions asked. They must know that something like this has to be a
defect in the materials. They ordered a new pane and in a few weeks
things should be good as new again.