January seems to be a LONG month

Guess what. Even though we got the refrigerator fixed, I couldn't stop thinking about refrigerators. So when we went to Home Depot to pick out a storage building we just went ahead and ordered one. I talked myself into it because I've ALWAYS wanted a fridge with the water dispenser on front and I've lived for 17 years or so without it. And I ain't getting no younger. So. It wasn't hard to talk myself into it, or Rusty either for that matter lol. He is going to take the old refrigerator up to the shop where he works because they are in need of one. We also got the new stove in on Tuesday night and got it installed. It's AWESOME!!! It cooks so evenly. And all the pans just sit flat on it, no rocking around from uneven surfaces lol. It's a dream come true up in the kitchen this week!

We enjoyed last Monday off for MLK Day or whatever. Just kinda lazed around the house. (And shopped for refrigerators). The kids finally got their haircuts Monday evening. They think Steven is just the GREATEST. He can cut their hair in such a way that it does not look freshly cut lol. He got Tanner's out of his eyes and shaped up, but it's still kinda longish. They don't EVER want to go to anybody else again.

Last weekend we got together with Keith again for some more playing. Mike and Cheryl came over on Wed. night, and Ken and Heather came also. It was a nice visit with everyone. Rusty gave Connor a guitar lesson, and Ken gave Tanner a drum lesson. Cheryl and I are trying to cook up another trip to Destin before the summer season officially starts. Like in late April or early May. I'm ready to go right now!

Tanner's teacher's husband got transferred to Wisconsin so she had to leave our school and move. This past week was her last week. We will miss her for sure because Tanner has done so well with her this year. But she gave them a party on Friday and gave each of them a little award of some kind, unique to each of them. Tanner got the "Best Personality" award lol. Not surprising at all. He was proud of his award. He also received his award for Honor Roll during the Awards Day program at school on Friday.

The money for our home improvements came in on Thursday and I've been running around like crazy since. Had to pay off a few things, open a new checking account just for that money, and go shopping shopping shopping for what we're going to want to use! The first step is that storage building though. We have to have somewhere to put the stuff that is currently in the garage, and Rusty wants to use it as a guitar workshop also. So they will be coming and setting up our storage building this coming Tuesday. Then we will be set to begin taking in the garage. Woohoo!!!!

Not much else has happened this week. It has been COOOLD here most of the week, but still no snow. Tyler is still doing better I believe. He says he doesn't know if it's the medicine making him do better, or if it's his own willpower and the fact that he's trying really hard. But he's still discouraged about continuing to have spells. Hopefully we will have that taken care of very soon. We go to our regular doctor tomorrow to follow up on the asthma thing. But this week he asked me to take him shopping to pick out some binders, notebooks, pens, and pencils for him to work with at school. He said he was tired of dealing with the mess in his bookbag and tired of not having things when he needs them. I was pleasantly shocked! lol He has never cared about having the right supplies or not, or having a "good" pen or a specific kind of paper, etc. It's a good sign that he cares suddenly.

Tanner had Cody, Dustin, and Drew spend the night here last night. Tanner ran fever all night for no apparent reason. But they were up til nearly 5 am playing video games last night. Kevin V came over yesterday and played some guitar with Rusty, and Ken and Connor came and visited again. We visited with Terri, Donnie, and Dale for a bit last night. And I've spent a good bit of time working on the @#$%&( yearbook this weekend. And still have more work to do on it today. I haven't had as easy a time on the diet this week, and I didn't lose anything because of it. Why does it seem so much harder now???? lol I joined the gym where Cheryl goes so that we can work out together some. I've had a hard time making it there this week, but next week should be better. The cats are still not completely better, but seem a little bit improved. It's hard to tell. They might just sneeze forever.

Mid January

It's just been a regular old dull week around here. But it's those boring times I like to write about the most because 10 years from now I won't remember them. I'll always remember the exciting, out of the ordinary stuff. But reading about this dull, uneventful stuff is what I'm going to really enjoy one day. I just know it.

Before I get started, let's take a look together at a drawing that Tanner did his first week back at school. I've studied it and decided it's one of my favorite drawings that he's ever done, and he's done some terrific ones.
I asked him about the picture and he said that the teacher had them draw their family at Christmas time. So, here are the four of us at Christmas time. For those of you who have been to my house you will recognize the kitchen and the den. Tyler and Tanner are laying in the floor playing video games, Rusty is sitting at the bar drinking coffee, and I.....I am the one in the lower left corner. I am cooking AND sweeping at the same time. He told me that he had messed up a little and never could get my head right so that's why my head looks all fuzzy and foggy. I told him he had drawn my head PERFECTLY, because I was probably pretty fuzzy and foggy while getting ready for Christmas. It kind of looks like I have at least 3 arms also. I certainly need 3 arms if I'm going to cook and sweep at the same time. There is a plate of cookies on the bar, and there's the 4 barstools and the Christmas tree. That's a door at the upper right I believe, to the living room. An interesting perception Tanner had about Christmas. Everybody chilling out but me! lmao
Anyway¦
Tanner made the A/B honor roll for the semester, we are so proud!!!! From what I hear Kyle and Blake did well on their report card also! Tyler is hopefully going to get his grades back up now that he's doing better.
Sunday Keith came over for football and to play through some songs we're talking about learning. We had fun. If we get this going into a band situation, it's going to be totally different music this time. I will enjoy the change, I think I've had about all of the Poison, Bon Jovi, and Motley Crue that I can stand for a few years. We're going to be doing some Allman Brothers, Beatles, Skynard, Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, etc.
Monday was time to take the cats back to the vet. They weren't much better still. Tanner and I started trying to catch Eva at 3:20. By 3:55 we still had not caught her and she was STARK RAVING MAD. We were chasing her around my bedroom and she kept hiding under the bed. We'd try to pull her out and she'd growl and hiss and go nuts. Rusty came in and saved the day for her at 3:55 and refused to let us keep trying to catch her. He was probably right. I don't think we WANTED to catch her by that point. She was furious. So we just threw Jack in the car and ran to the vet with him by himself. The vet could see Jack was still sick with the upper respiratory stuff and told me the decision to test him for leukemia and AIDS was up to me. He didn't think he was quite bad off enough to have those things, but couldn't promise me that he didn't have them. I was tired of worrying myself about it, and wanted to be positive I'm not pumping money into cats that are going to die of a fatal disease within 2 months. So I had him tested. He tested negative for leukemia and AIDS both, thank goodness. So the verdict is that they just have a very severe, stubborn case of upper respiratory disease (something-itis) that they will eventually recover from. It's viral, so nothing to do but treat the 2ndary bacterial infections which we've already done. But in the meantime, we just have to put up with sneezing cats with runny eyes. Ick!
He wants me to bring them back in 2 weeks for their shots. I didn't make an appointment though, I just told them I would call them on whatever day I could manage to catch Eva and tell them I'd be there in 5 minutes.
Smokey is still roaming. Following Bubba, the grouchy stray. He's been spotted across the highway at Bowmar Church now. He always comes home I reckon. The youth director at the church has called about him this week and says they are trying to do something about the stray dogs wandering around the church property. One of which is mine. The others include Bubba the grouchy stray, and Timbo the community dog that actually belongs to my neighbor but NEVER goes home. I don't know what I'm gonna do with Smokey. Rusty has had it with him, but it doesn't take much for that to happen!
I forgot to mention last week that I had gone to yoga class with Cheryl on Tuesday. We're making it an every Tuesday thing so I went again this week. It's fun and good exercise. It's not yoga in the sense that I've been reading up on. Rusty has been calling me a meditating yoga fruitcake, but there is no meditating and stuff. Although I would do the meditating if they had it lol. But it's mostly an exercise class incorporating many different things including yoga, but also pilates, tai-chi, aerobics, you name it. And none of it is too hard for me to do. It's a good workout without making me feel inferior to everyone else because I can't do it or be coordinated enough to do it lol.
Tuesday evening it was time for what Tanner and I have been waiting for for months. Our guilty pleasure, that I'm ashamed to admit. But American Idol began Tuesday night! Woohoo! Rusty was not pleased, but Tanner and I sure like it. Rusty kinda likes it too sometimes, but he probably won't own up to it. I guess there is just nothing more entertaining than watching people get in front of some judges and have their entire self-esteem and all of their dreams crushed right in front of them. That's what makes me feel so guilty about it. But, dang, the people are just ASKING for it! And where are the people in these folks lives that tell them "Look, don't go on there, you really can't sing well, they are going to chew you up and spit you out"???
Rusty did get my vent-a-hood put in on Sunday. We're still waiting on the stove top and I am looking forward to it.

We've all been dieting again. I started New Years Day actually. But at that point, I had gained back 30 pounds of the original 70 that I lost. I'm ashamed to say. So, it's back to the Atkins diet for me. Sounds like Mom and Chris are doing pretty good on it over there, also.

Wednesday there was more American Idol for me and Tanner. I went to the tanning bed, and made a haircut appointment for Tyler and Tanner for next Monday. Ken and Connor came over for a visit also. Some how our refrigerator mysteriously broke! The door would NOT shut. We checked everything we could figure out to check but nothing fixed it. So Thursday I called Pat to come give us his expert opinion. It didn't take long, but we figured out that the lower shelf was broken and sticking forward just enough to stop the door from shutting but not enough to be visible to us. I was certainly glad, although my mind had already begun to wander towards a NEW stainless steel refrigerator with the water spout thingy and freezer at the bottom.........oh well. I don't need it now lol.

Thursday we finally heard back from the bank and we should have our money to take in the garage by next Thursday. We're excited. But it's going to be a lot of work. I wish it was just already done.

Tanner has been hearing from Brooke all week about how much FUN she's having in the SNOW and how she's not going to SCHOOL. Then we heard from Mom Thursday evening how much fun Emma was having seeing her first snow! And then there's Uncle Mickey calling us from Montana a couple of times a week with all his snow stories. Tanner's been SO jealous. He thinks life is just not fair. He told me last year that all he wanted in life was for it to snow just one time while he is still a kid and able to appreciate it. So once he said that, I've prayed for snow also. Bless his heart. so today when we woke up up, to our surprise it was indeed snowing!!!! But it was brief. It was light. It was very melty. And it didn't last but a couple of hours, and didn't stick much either. But he and Rusty and Drew had a really good time scooping up what they could and throwing it. Even Tyler got out of bed at 8 am to come out and see the snow, it was so cute. Here are a few pictures I managed to get. Don't worry, I did make Drew come back in and get his jacket lol. (The haircut appt. is on Monday, by the way)

Tyler has continued to improve in a lot of ways. But in some ways he's still not as better as he wants to be. He's much less sleepy at school. He does get sleepy in the afternoon when he gets home though. And he is still having "spells" so I expect that we will have to add that other medication. He is really disappointed that he is still having the spells though. I'm trying to keep him from getting discouraged. Some of the things he did this week that are out of the ordinary, or perhaps examples of his improvement are:

1. We sat down to watch the Saturday night NFL game and I look over and Tyler has his HISTORY BOOK in his lap reading the chapter that he had a test on for Monday.
2. I passed by his room one night and saw him sitting at his computer like he normally would be. But when I looked closer, I saw that he had a book in his lap and was working on some homework.
3. Out of all the times I've looked in on him in his room over the last week, about 75% of those times he was awake. As compared to normal when I would have found him asleep about 75% of the time.
4. He went to a friend's house to hang out and visit on Sunday. It's been awhile since he's been interested in going anywhere much.
5. He sat down with Tanner one day and tried to teach him how to draw some character from TV.
6. He asked Rusty to teach him how to play bass guitar, and actually sat down for a first lesson.

First Week Back

Ok so I never can remember where I left off when I go longer than 7 days. But we started back to school this past week. I've been NON STOP busy at work. I didn't do ANYTHING before Christmas as far as preparing for the week we came back. And then every time we have a holiday EVERYONE's computer is messed up as soon as we get back. My evenings have been busy also with various different things. But overall it's been a good week for us.

TYLER - I guess the greatest thing that happened this week was Tyler finally received a diagnosis and began some treatment. He has been SO HAPPY and relieved. The sleep doctor and the neurologist conferred and decided that even though they did not find one of the things they were looking for in the sleep study, they found all the others and with the spells that he is having along with the sleep study results they diagnosed him as having "narcolepsy with cataplexy". The neurologist started him on the lowest dosage of medication possible, and said we will work upwards from there. If this doesn't cure it all, we go up in dosage. If that doesn't do it all, we'll have to add another medicine too. He's only on his 3rd day with it today. The very first day he was so happy. We texted all day long while he was at school, and he said it was amazing how alive and awake he felt, and that he wanted to do things and cared about things again. He even wrote down his homework assignments. And he stayed awake the entire day except for one minute during Algebra he said, but it was only one minute during an extremely boring time lol. He has not stopped having the spells completely, but he says that he's not having near as many as before. On day 2, he did just as well, but he did get sleepy in the afternoon once he got home. So we will probably try that larger dose next week sometime and see what happens. But for now he's just doing the small dose. His report card was terrible. But he told me that he believes he can do this now that he has medicine. Has assured me that all his school problems came from being ill, and that now he is going to do better and he has a plan for doing so. I told him to prove it to me. But I really am putting a lot of hope into it.

Last weekend I had a friend suggest a book to me that she has been reading that she says has "changed her life". So I went out and bought "The Secret". I've heard of it and seen it on Oprah or something. But decided I'd open my mind and take it in and see what it was about. It's pretty simple and makes sense, it's a whole lot of tricking your mind into being positive all the time. It's a good book I believe.
Somehow last weekend our minds wandered back to the subject of needing more space in the house and we talked about taking in the garage as a room again. So Monday I went to the bank and began the process of getting the home equity loan to finally make a step towards solving the problem instead of just thinking and whining about it lol. And that was all I needed to get a fire lit under me because now this remodeling is ALL I can think of. Rusty cleaned out the garage today so that Mike's dad could come measure and help us plan for materials. We have SO MUCH JUNK it's unbelievable. I don't know where we'll ever put it without our garage. Once he moved it all out in the front yard, we looked like Sanford & Son.



While they were messing with that I decided to clean my stove top and such. While scrubbing the stove top I decided I'd been dealing with this old, out of style, stained, inefficient stove top for far too long now. The "good eye" on it that I use the most heats hotter on one side than the other. So I'm constantly spinning my frying pans around so that the food gets cooked evenly in both sides of the pan. And I decided I want a new one NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So, I talked Rusty into going ahead to Home Depot and getting just a stove top and vent-a-hood thing. But, unfortunately, the stove top had to be ordered and I wont have it for 7-10 days! It is one of those flat top stove top things. But we did get the vent-a-hood and I'm trying to sweet talk Rusty into going ahead and putting that in tonight. Anyway, here are pics of my old stove as I was cleaning it today. And my new vent-a-hood that will hopefully be installed tonight.

So. I have spent a lot of time this week just TESTING the motto on the shirt that I bought myself. We're biting off a LOT, that's for sure lol.

Animals are a big topic around our house over the last week. I don't think I mentioned it last time, but Smokey has taken to wandering around and finding regular visiting places. It could be something he's been doing the entire time and we just didn't know it. Right before Christmas I bought him a name tag with our number and address on it and stuff. Well, the week after Christmas I had to go pick him up WAY down the road in Marion Park. I don't know how many miles that is, I'm not good at estimating miles. But it's quite a LONG way from here for a dog I would think. Tanner and I went to pick him up though, from some teenage kid with green hair lol. 3 days later we got a call again. This time from down the highway in the other direction, but not nearly as far. He had traveled through the woods at the end of our dead end street to some houses that are on the other side. A little girl around Tanner and Brooke's age called me and we went and got him again. Since that day, he has returned to her house TWICE, including just a few minutes ago as I'm writing this blog. She said she saw him chasing a deer and he then came back to her house. So. Rusty wants me to take the name tag off of him lol. So he'll just do whatever he does and come back when he feels like it and we won't have to bother with going and getting him.

Our new cats are doing terrific as far as fitting in with us. Eva shows up about twice a day and I have no CLUE where she is the rest of the time. Jack is in the middle of EVERYTHING and he loves everybody. He's the sweetest little thing. But I have a bad feeling about them. They had an upper respiratory infection when we got them. The vet gave them a round of antibiotics and told me that if they weren't better in a week that we would have to wait yet another week before giving them shots. Well, they weren't better so I called and told them we were going to wait another week. He gave us another round of antibiotics and told me that if they weren't better after yet another week that we would need to have them tested for cat leukemia and cat AIDS. And in 2 days that week will be over and they're just not better. They are a little better maybe. Jack now has a voice when he meows and doesn't seem to sneeze as often. But they still have the eye infections and sneezing, etc. So I just know we're going to find out they have some incurable, fatal disease. And that's going to be VERY difficult on Tanner because he's become totally attached to Jack. Here is Jack admiring Rusty's guitar playing, and then Jack and Eva in the chair being buddies.

The war over Tanner's hair has raged on. Don't know if I mentioned it last time or not. But Tanner decided he wanted to let his hair grow out and I was going to make him get a haircut because it was in his eyes. Rusty stepped in to defend Tanner's right to self-expression and stated that Tanner would not get a haircut unless Tanner himself said he wanted one. That was around the first week of December. So I've been trying to talk Tanner into getting a haircut. He would have none of it. I had pretty much given up and was trying to learn to like his hair and trying to picture what it's going to look like long, etc. And finally one day this past week he came to me and said "Mom, my hair actually touched my EYEBALL today and I couldn't stand it so I want a haircut." So I told him we will get one next week! lol. Here is a picture of how long Tanner's hair has to be before he himself will get tired of it:

We got together with Keith this week and talked about putting together some songs to play for fun and just for the heck of it for now. I'm looking forward to it. But it won't be the 80's stuff, thank God. I kinda got burnt out on most of that lol. And no one will be wearing wigs. And everyone is going to practice and learn their stuff lol. So, all that should be fun. We're going to do some southern rock classics for the most part. And from there we'll just do a "potluck" type of thing lol. It will be nice to learn some new stuff and play again.

I'm going to have to spend a large portion of January working on the @#$#%$ yearbook that I got volunteered to do. I used to do it every year but I passed it on to a fellow unsuspecting co-worker about 4 or 5 years ago. Well, she had her fill last year and my boss gave it back to me. I intend to do it this year and maybe next year but then I will make my move to pass it on to some new teacher that comes in or something and thinks doing the yearbook will be fun! lol.