DAMN

We bought our house a little over two years ago from the original owners and were lucky enough to still have original owners to the west of us. They were the only neighbors to really give us the time of day and proved to be the best neighbors that one could ask for: Hap and Helen. Helen hasn't been in the best of health since we've moved in so Hap takes great care of her meanwhile, tending to his AMAZING garden, golfing and give our rowdy pup love through the fence. He even saved the pup one day when he got out!

Hap would mow his own lawn, till his own garden and harvest the growth from it, he'd fill up the bird fountain everyday in his Surivor t-shirt, always with a smile on his face. He was by far our favorite and most personable neighbor.

Yesterday I came home from teaching and heard sirens CLOSE to home. We live near a large city street so I went out front to see if a wreck had occured but to my surprise, nothing. Turned the other direction to return to our house and there was an ambulance in front of Hap and Helen's house. After an hour of the ambulance being there, two cop cars showed up. I just had a bad feeling.

Unfortunately, in my life, I've had two elderly neighbors die and I've watched them being wheeled away. Not great visual memories to take as a child but part of life I suppose. They were both elderly and one I know for sure lived a full life. I know this about Hap too.

We were not sure until this morning what had happened. We were both very surprised to find that it was Hap that had passed away. I wonder what will become of Helen. Will she have to move into a home? Will a home nurse move in? It's just so very very sad. There's also selfish sadness as well. He was the only neighbor that we really connected with. Eating his home grown vegetables was an event all in itself and the rose bouquets they brought to us gave us such great delight. You don't meet people like Hap and Helen every day. Even though we only knew him for 2 of his 93 years, he touched us greatly and he will be tremendously missed.

I've seen the other side and it's not pretty.

Oh. My. Goodness. I can't believe I'm alive.

This weekend was such a good weekend...for the most part. Friday night, the mister, daddy and I went to our first official dance to put the learned steps to use and had a good ol time! We partook in dinner and drinks before arriving (late) to the Night Club Sway dance class and did our best to stumble our way through that one. It was fun though. It was most enjoyable to watch the mister give it a go as he's never done any of the dance classes! Watching some of the more experienced dancers throughout the night was so entertaining and only inspired me to want to learn more and perfect what I've already learned!

Saturday the mister and I journeyed to 'the city' for an interesting wedding complete with a communion service and a conga line. This was a wedding of one of the mister's good friends. Nobody knows the new mrs very well but we're all hoping she is a keeper! Fingers crossed! We had a wonderful time hanging with old friends, laughing and staying up way too late which always seems to occur when we venture that direction :)

Sunday we returned back home in a leisurely manner and once we had arrived back at the casa, I took a nap to catch up on the sleep lost from the night before. I woke up with a very very odd feeling in my stomach. Not a good odd feeling, if there is such a thing. Within the next hour, I found myself perched upon the toilet, buck-naked with a bucket in my lap getting VIOLENTLY ill for the next SEVEN hours. I know that is NOT a pretty visual but it is the truth. And I'm not shy. :) It was truly complete and utter hell. I had caught the nice and contagious stomach bug floating around these parts. The mister is one of those people who hurls at the thought of hurling alone so I was amazed to find him as a wonderful and supportive nurse! Thank god I wasn't alone through all of that! He's seen me at one of my worst points now and still loves me and my vomit! Yeah unconditional love! ;)

One funny story through all of this, if there is one, was that I eventually made my way from the john to the floor, yet still in the bathroom, and would doze on and off between bouts of sickness. at one point, the mister came into our teeny-tiny bathroom to check on me, not knowing I was passed out in the floor and SLAMMED the door into my head. Didn't phase me one bit though. I believe that was hour five or six and by that point, I felt no pain.

So now it is Wednesday night and today was my first day back 'to the grind' and I barely made it through it. I am SO weak and am still having pep talks with my tummy to be ok with food but I will survive. When you get sick like that I guess it takes more of a toll on your body than you think!

On the flip side, during all of my time becoming more familiar with our bathroom, I found that Vimmy, my orange devil of a cat, is fascinated with the loud ticking second-hand on our bathroom clock. It is incredibly entertaining :) Maybe you can leave this post with that image as opposed to the previously mentioned one ;)

Change of Plans

Well, I had already planned on double posting today but my second post was initially planned to be an introduction to my time spent studying in Mexico. Instead, you get my thyroid update.

So my doctor's office just called to tell me the results. Firstly, let me tell you what a normal thyroid level is: .35 to 5. Well, my level is 23.92. Hypothyroidism. Again. Sucks. So now I'm back to taking synthyroid everyday and back to having effing blood tests done WAY too often. I'm glad to get things back in order but am not happy about having this thing dictate my life again. It may not make sense to any of you but when you've grown up having to deal with this forever and are given the impression that you are doing well and then come to find out it is WAY off, it just sucks. Boo Hiss.

Dance the Night Away

Group dance lessons were last night and our private lessons were today...and Friday is our first 'party'!!! We will be attending a 'night club sway' class before the dance. I am told that the night club sway is a romantic slow dance. Gee, that should be sweet with my DAD. I'm hoping to convine my mister to go since he won't have the excuse of school! I'm super excited to dance without teachers telling us what to do though! Should be an interesting time!

One interesting fact I learned about West Coast Swing is the evolution of how the dance came to be what it is today. Apparently, Lindy Swing was the thing (I believe Lindy Swing is the 20's type swing most people are familiar with) to do back in the day and then some war ended (like how specific I am? ;) and there were LOADS of people then frequenting the dance clubs! The Lindy Swing took up LOTS of floor space so not as many people could dance when Lindy was going on, which led people to adapt the dance and dance in a 'slot' which is what West Coast Swing is. A slotted dance is a dance where the woman keeps her footwork in between the 'railroad tracks' and the man must step out of the 'slot' to allow the woman to pass. It's much easier to show then tell ;) A slotted dance also allows more people to be on the dance floor at the same time! Now, I should mention that there is another type of swing called East Coast Swing which I believe is a more bouncy dance??? But I'm not 100% certain. I just know my West Coast Swing...and soon will also know my Night Club Sway!

Roses & Blood...

Hey there, Hi there, Ho there. It's been a while, I know. I manage two blogs...this one and my jewelry blog www.sheezkrafty.blogspot.com and I seem to update a widdle more on that one than on this one. My apologies. But here I am!

This one will be short and sweet and will not involve anything having to do with travel. EXCEPT that after my last post, I found great motivation and scanned a whole album of my schooling in Mexico! I've so much to tell about that trip :)

Soooooooo....what's been going on? Well, we had V-day pass last weekend. The mister is NOT a go out and eat kind of person. He really does not dig waiting and since he worked in a restaurant for years, he's just burnt out on the scene. I, on the other hand, LOVE to go out to eat. We both know these facts about the other well. So what does the mister do for V-day? He takes me to a fancy schmancy Lebanese restaurant where we had to wait for about 45 minutes to eat...and he didn't grimace once! ;) We went early to avoid the 'rush' but ended up being stuck in the 'rush' of all of the senior citizens who eat at 4 and 5 in our town. I was brushed up against a mixture of Nascar jackets and fur coats...when choosing which to be closer to, I would choose the Nascar coats. Yucky fur coats. He's not a flower buyer since we grow our own flowers and use those for gifts BUT lucky for him, the restaurant gave all of the ladies roses when they dined with them! Ha! I thought that was kinda cool. So I did get flowers after all! In addition to that, I was informed that he will take me to a spa nearby our house for a massage one of these days (and I am needing it BAD! I've got a bad thing going on in my back right now) and also gave me a box of blank switchplates. He's so good. :) So we had a really nice dinner and I had about 5 million nice glasses of wine which put me in not so good shape for the remainder of the evening into the next day. BUT it was so nice he took me out and wined and dined me! Literally! :)

My other item of note for this widdle blog is an update on the thyroid front. A few weeks ago I went back to my awesome doctor to see how these new anti-everything pills were working out...which they are working out great! I am really enjoying enjoying life! He did still want to check out my thyroid but didn't seem horribly concerned. He gave me my labslips for my bloodwork and told me to do it when I got the courage. You see, I grew up doing bloodwork from anywhere to once a month to once a year depending on my levels. It sucked royally. I was always fine with bloodwork (well, after the age of 12 or so, that is) until once when I was 16 and went without my mom for the first time and instead took the bff and my sista with me. It was that time that I fainted and my body went into shock. I don't remember much of it except it was a new tech and I watched them do the blood test (which I always did then) and he had missed my vein. Then, he pulled the needle out partially and continued to retry and find it without ever pulling the needle all of the way out. Well, I was watching this and feeling the sticking somehow in the back part of my elbow. I think I said something about not feeling well and then I woke up with blood on my arm and my two supporters FREAKING out. I guess my body went into shock for some reason and the supporters were scared I was having a seizure! I had to drink some juice and eat a cookie or something and was on my way. After that incident, I've always had a much harder time getting my blood drawn for some reason. (wow, this isn't so much a short post anymore, is it?!) Moving on...... So I kept this lab slip in my purse for a few weeks basically ignoring its presence. Then Sunday night I had a dream that I had gone and done the bloodwork and felt very accomplished that I had done so! So yesterday morning I got up and decided I would get it done after class...by myself...which is a big deal for me. Yes, I know I'm a 'grown up' but somethings make me childlike. Whatever. So I didn't tell a soul and after I was done teaching, I went and got my blood drawn all by myself! I was so proud :) One small step for mankind, one GIANT leap for little ol me :)

I'll let you know what I find the results to be! Toodles!

Population & Peace

I've been thinking about things I'd like to post about and one of the things that keeps coming back is to blog about some of my past travels. I journal as I travel and I love to go back through my memoires so I think this would be a nice way to share my experiences in a reflective manner and will be a good motivator to get old trip photos finally scanned in! What do you think? Think you can put up with more of my babbling? ;)

So at this point, I've only had a digital camera for about 4 years and have only visited 4 countries during that time. Before that though, I had visited 7 others so I've got lots of scanning to do!

Now don't worry, I'll still share tidbits about dancing, beading, teaching, parenting animals & a husband, and all of the oh so exciting things that accompany my life.

So what trip reflection to share first??? Such a difficult thing to choose!

I just went back to the first trip I had a digital camera on (2004) and here you go...my first travel post! The first trip I took with a fancy schmancy camera was to Switzerland and India with a dear dear friend of mine. This picture comes from the India portion of that trip. There was so much that happened on that trip that it will take many many posts to cover it all but here's a taste.

When I tell people about India, I tell them that there are three 'P's that can't be explained in words. Those are Pollution, Povery and Population. This picture obviously catches the population P.

One evening, my friend, her aunt and myself traveled to a mall of sorts for dinner and to meet some other family members. I had Pizza Hut (which, if I recall correctly, was the only true blue 'American' food I had on the trip!) in the food court and did lots and lots of people watching. When we first arrived, the mall was not near as crowded as the picture shows but I began to notice that hoards and hoards of people kept showing up! It wasn't long after that that a stage emerged and a new Bollywood singer named Shaan took the stage. Apparently he was quite the Indian hearthob at the time! By the time Shaan had taken the stage, the place was more full than anywhere I've even been I believe. When the show ended, the place cleared out like you could never imagine and we were back to being comfortable.

That's a taste of how India was though, packed. It runs on some sort of organized chaos that I don't know if I'll ever fully understand but I will always fully respect it. There's this amazing balance that just works there. I don't know how they do it, but they do. And I'm grateful to have experienced that balance.

Houdini Lives in my Backyard

I find that I'm not very good at keeping up with this blogging business...I only tend to write to kill time....lucky for you I'm killing time right now!

Let's see....last weekend was a good one. We spent time with some VERY dear friends of ours who've recently had a BEAUTIFUL little baby girl. Dinner, drinks, laughs, dirty joking, baby holding and cards were played...spades to be exact. Why I mention the card game is because I found it so bittersweet to be playing the game with our good friends. You see, my parents and their best friends who arranged for them to meet used to play spades together and did so for YEARS until one of the four passed away; which was spoken of in a previous post. It was kinda cool to rekindle that tradition within our generation of friends but also kinda sad to think that the original four who used to play aren't four anymore. Regardless of that, it was a wonderful wonderful time and much needed for myself, and I assume others. We spent another night hanging with the aforementioned kickin' friends in a more social setting with others and had another rocking evening! It was a good weekend, did I say that already? ;)

One item of note for this week is that I got my diploma in the mail! Now I need not worry anymore about if I met this requirement, or that requirement or did I sign that form or did I butter that prof up enough or not (just kidding on that last one!)? Now I know I did it all and I need not worry anymore! It's a great great weight lifted off of my shoulders :)

Last night was my weekly dance lesson at the community center. I just really can't get over how interesting it is every single week. I also can't get over how much I'm enjoying it and how good (I feel) I am getting! Last night, before class, we went out for dinner and a few drinks....well that loosened us up just perfectly and we were 'on' wonderfully! I think that's the trick - have a toddy and lose those inhibitions!

So today we had our private lesson and as it was ending, I heard my phone ringing over and over again. When I finally answered, it was my mister informing me that someone had found our dog and had him in their backyard in our neighborhood! Apparently, Pongo pushed apart an older area of our fence and took off joyriding on all fours around the hood until an angel caught him, called us and locked him up until my dad and I could get to him! What a little scoundrel!!! I'm so glad he didn't reach the big road nearby and that we have him back to slobber all over the place and to headbutt everyone's crotch! Wouldn't be home without him ;)