Home Again

Hi All!

We're back from vacation, and as I type this, some 275 pictures from our trip are slowly being uploaded to Flickr. We had a wonderful vacation with the exception of the heat and rain. I'll never book another trip there in the middle of the summer. It wasn't just that the temp was in the 90's, it's that with the heat index the temperature was well over 110! Heat like that just really zaps the energy right out of ya! We got back Tuesday evening, and we're still trying to settle in. Ruben of course unpacked as soon as we got home - my suitcase is still sitting on the floor. Luckily, the house we rented was equipped with a washer and dryer, so we brought back very little dirty laundry.

Now that we're back, we're hitting the diet hard! I was fortunate enough not to gain anything while we were gone - but I didn't lose any either. Of course there is no such thing as dieting while on vacation, so I ate like a mad woman. I only broke even due to the many miles we walked daily.

Yesterday I finally got my car back from the Dodge dealership after two full months! Once I got in my car I discover that my stereo and XM reciever were not working - and since it's aftermarket equipment they are not responsible for it. I was completely livid, cause the service manager was a complete jerk about it. He tried to make like since he gave me a oil change on the house, that we were even. Ha! A $30 oil change does not make up for possibly frying more than $1000 worth of stereo equipment. Ruben took it to the place that installed it, Car Audio Connection over in Harahan and the guys there fixed it for free. I'm just so relieved that I didn't need a new unit. When they pulled out the deck they found that the dealership hadn't even re-connected the wires. So now I wonder what else they may have done half ass.

Also, yesterday I had a follow up appointment with my plastic surgeon. Sometime in the near future I will be going back into surgery to correct my left breast. I don't really know when yet, cause first we have to get approval from the insurance company. But I will keep you posted.

Pictures from the Party

I posted 30-plus pictures from the birthday party we went to yesterday afternoon. You can find them at Flickr, just click on the link to take you there.

Events that make for a bad doctors visit and day.

• Your favorite leather wallet broke cause you have too much crap in it.


• Your new watch broke after only a few months.


• You find out that you had/have two different cancers.


• You find out your current cancer is not a recurrence, but rather a SECONDARY occurrence.


• The doctor wants to run some tests on 3+ year old samples that your insurance may not cover.


• You doctor decides to do a BRCA I and II gene mutation test to see if you're a carrier that ultimately may affect your child's life and future.


• While performing said test, the nurse has to poke you twice and fish for your collapsing vein just to get some blood.


• Your vein is collapsing cause your sick with a cold and dehydrated.


• You get snubbed by a breast cancer survivor group who is having an event in the hospital you are at upon asking for info on the charity.


• You go to the mall to pick up your wedding ring and indulge in a little retail therapy, which results in a watch bought that is too big and a new purse that is too small.....so now you have to go back to return the item and pay to have links removed from the watch.....but if you wanted to pay to have a watch repaired you would have repaired the one you've got!

Also, I have FINALLY posted pictures of our house all decorated for Halloween now that we are sans bushes. Check out the rest posted at Flickr!

So much to post about today....

First off - my new look! I'm still tweaking it some (the layout, colors, etc.) BUT Melissa made time in her SUPER busy schedule to squeeze in the task of making a banner for my site. How do you like it? I SOOOOO LOVE IT! I'm all about the pink, black, distressed, grunge, tattoo look - so this banner fits me to a tee! However it did not fit my previous layout, so the tweaking began and probably will continue till I feel as though I have the colors "just right."

I'm also sure you've noticed a change in names. Hope, Strength, Courage was more for my days when I was going through chemo. Now that I am in the reconstruction phase, I'm Reconstructing Life and all that is in it - more of a trying to put the pieces back together, and slowly I am getting there. It's for sure that I am having surgery on Tuesday, just don't know what time I have to be at the hospital yet. And I'm still not sure what all is being done, but it will be a day surgery and he will be performing surgery on both sides - so wish me luck!

Oh, and of all the times, we will be having visitors just days after my surgery - but I wouldn't miss it for the world! It's Natalie's godmother Cecy & her hubby Mario. They will be stopping here, among many places, as they vacation from California! It will be great to see them, and if I'm not up to it, Ruben can still take them around town while I rest.

We spent most of the day Saturday at the SuperDome for Monster Jam. Even though I paid an insanely ridiculous amount for the tickets (cause we didn't buy them early and I was forced to use TicketOutlet.com - so the mark up was nearly 4 times the amount of the original price!) it was still worth the price we overpaid. We had awesome seats, that were at the perfect level. Just wish the people sitting behind us had been as nice as the seats! You know how you cheer and yell when one of the trucks crash, or for your favorite truck? Well this girl had this scream that made you turn around each time, and the more she did it the more you just wanted to punch her! She had this scream like something was wrong, like she was being attacked - not cheering on a Monster Truck Rally. It became so overwhelmingly annoying that I had to shove paper towels in both Natalie's ears and mine! You'd think that would be a clue for her to maybe tone it down some - that maybe her parents should have said something to her. But no, she continued to scream till my eardrums bled!

But other than annoying people in the stands, it was a very awesome event that sold out. There were lots of good crashes, wheels & body parts flying off, air time and destruction - not to mention lots of souvenirs, hot dogs, nachos, pretzels, nuts, fries, and drinks. All your basic stadium junk food! But that's all part of the experience - and we learned that Natalie is a Digger Girl. We didn't even mention truck preferences, or our personal faves - she just decided on her own out of nowhere that SHE liked GraveDigger. It's kind of funny, cause I thought she'd like Monster Mutt after seeing it, but nope - as she said, not impressive! LOL! The things kids say! She had a great time, but was TIRED by night's end. We didn't get home till nearly midnight. There was one idiot and his car full of friends that though he'd stand in front of Ruben's truck to stop him so his friend could forcibly back out of the packed parking garage. Dude so not cool. If you're nice about something, then no biggie being nice and doing the right thing - but if you're an ass, don't count on getting you're way, not with us. Ruben pulled right up against him, leaving his friends no room to back out. The guy got all mouthy - obviously some boys who had too much to drink at the event. Words were exchanged, but they didn't get out in front of us. Idiots. It's a shame that events like this bring them out by the dozen!

Anyway, I posted 400 photos from the event over on Flickr. Got some really great ones. Hell we had 3 cameras with us! Below are some of us, hope you enjoy them!

Oh YAY!!! Spell check is working again!!!

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!

A Post for Lora

As promised, these pictures are for Lora.

She had posted some pictures of her nightly walk, and one of the several 8 legged friends she encounters each night.

Well this may not be a spider, but I think I may have her beat. Ruben came across this beast while cutting the grass a couple weeks ago. It is known as a "Devil's Horse" grasshopper that averages about 3 inches in length. It doesn't really hop all that well, but it had no problem crawling up the brick of the house. I took this picture as it was just across from the 2nd story window. Upon first glance I thought it was a tarantula.

This last picture is in regards to how kids never seem to cooperate when you take them to have professional pictures done. Her little girl had posed beautifully for some pictures done at her school while mom wasn't around. These pictures here happen to be my favorite of Natalie, even though they're a few years old. The lady who took them worked her magic, while I just sat back and watched. She was a real natural getting the best to come out of Natalie. In fact, if I were still in Vegas I'd love to go back to her. I think I'll have to see if the Target Studio here is just as good! I couldn't find all of the originals, so I had to take a picture of the ones I have hanging on the wall.