Much Needed Boots

UGGS OR UGG MOCK UPS!          Which do I want?         Which can I afford?

Cute but worth the price?($159.95)

I like these in a lighter brown ($229.95)

I just love these! ($229.95)

Couldn't shovel snow in them but dang they're cute! And I'm a clog fiend($89.95)

I have noticed lots of women around here are wearing boots that are Uggs or Ugg mock-ups! They usually tuck their pants inside them and look really really cute.  The girl I work with had some on the other day and I knew they were expensive (she had them given to her).

So I went online tonight to see about getting me some!  Yikes!  $150-$240.00 buckaroos!   The boots above are Uggs originals! 

I guess they're out of my price range.  I've gone to Target, Kohls, Walmart and either they were out of any kind of snow boot I liked, or they didn't have my size (remember I'm dealing with a major drive to go to other stores here!)

I really need something other than my old moon boots.  Yes it's embarrassing to even admit I still have them. They're disgustingly ugly and a dull pink.  But they were in style one time! Now, I only keep them because the only other boots I have are my children's throw-me- downs (No they're not hand-me-downs.  They were in the D.I. pile and I fished them out.) 

Heather needs snow boots too so I thought I'd shop for us both.  Looks like neither of us are getting any unless prices come down or other stores start to carry our size! 

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Here's wishing you a Happy New Year!  I worked today and will work the next two days.  

I officially begin my new job in January and I feel I'm just about as trained as needs be, the rest will come with experience.  I've been orienting since the beginning of November (OVERTIMEOVERTIMEOVERTIME)  Probably why I've been sick!  I've had to learn the computer system, and that's the biggest part. 

I'm super psyched about it as this is basically where I've been aiming my career.  I've always wanted to be able to help people with their exercise plans, but was afraid about if I got a client with a heart history.  That's largely why I went into the cardiac unit in the first  place.  I've taken care of post cardiac surgical patients, and now, I'll be able to monitor them on telemetry and write exercise prescriptions for them well after heart surgery!  Fantastic!

So as far as celebrating goes, I'm going to get my P.J.'s on and go to bed with a movie on!

May you all have a  HAPPY NEW YEAR~  Tami

Shock Collar Trials

You've got to watch this video.  This guy tries a dog shock collar and experiences the 6 levels of shock with his "barking".  Hilarious!

We bought one for Cisco because she starts "singing" around 05:00 a.m. and Heather's room is right next to the garage where Cisco sleeps and "sings".  Her collar doesn't seem to be working as we are listening to her howling at the neighbor dogs right now.   Go figure!  

Pika Updates

My dog has gas.

Yeah, she's dinky but boy can she pack a punch. Especially since she likes to sleep on my neck.

I gave her some of the left over Christmas ham that I put in my omelet this morning.  It's hard not to give in to her.  She sits so pretty, looking up at me with her cute little sweater on, and her little "bug eyes" staring up at me, I couldn't help myself, and I gave her, oh, maybe three or four small chunks. I guess for her, that would amount to an entire ham dinner!  Little did I expect I get farted on while she was twitching in her sleep.

We did give her a name, but I'm not sold on it entirely.  We had to call her something and we were coming up with some good names but not agreeing on one all together.  Pika is short for piccolo, which is Italian for small flute.   I call her monkey and peanut.  She looks like a peanut. If she's like all our other animals, she'll have a multitude of names.

Back to the subject of where we got her name.  We were looking for something that described her size.  Aub threw out a few names and suggested piccolo.  I liked the name Mika, but Heather knows another annoying dog named Mika so that was out.  Pika sounded like Mika and it meant something small so it stuck.

Small flute doesn't begin to describe the noise she makes when we put her in her crate at night. Boy can she scream!  High pitched screams.......going on and on for minutes that seem to stretch on forever!  It's not a little wimper or cry, but an all out SCREECH! We're crate training and she seems to suffer separation anxiety.  I finally had to put her and her crate in my closet down the hall in order to get a few hours of shut eye.  It is getting better though, lasting about 20 minutes as compared to two hours when we started.  

A Few Christmas Pictures

Nate, Earl and Veloy

Vernal stayed over. 

He looks bored!

Grandma and her earphones. She always looks like she's gonna fly a plane

Heather with her new t.v.

Whit gets a little "LED"

Pika shots

Helping unwrap my presents

Waiting to see the vet at Pet Smart

Asleep in Whitney's arms

 

She's in her holiday attire. One of Heathers socks cut into a sweater

A bit of wrapping paper in her mouth

This was taken on our second night with her.

Finding sweaters to fit is terribly difficult as she is so tiny and most wouldn't fit her. 

Pika the Pup

We got a puppy last Sunday.  She's a Rat Terrier and last night we finally agreed on the name Pika (pronounced PEEKA as in Pika-boo!) She weighs only 1.9 pounds and has a lot of spunk for her size. The first night we got her scared me so bad I almost called the sellers the next morning to see if they would take her back as I couldn't see how we were going to potty train her and get her to sleep at night.  I feared Nate would be angry because this training time would halt his working on finishing the gym.  I didn't know how I would be able to get her trained and work full time without his help.  

I apologized because I've finagled him into things like kids, and dogs and houses before he was ready before, and I didn't really give him much choice in this matter either.  But she was there and I wanted a dog.  I had planned to wait until spring when things would be more convenient. But I saw her picture online and I had the money now so I got her. 

Heather, Nate and I traveled to  Colorado Springs and met the owner  half way as he was from Pueblo to bring her to us. We met in the Target parking lot.  It almost felt like a drug deal or something. Rich handed the puppy over to Nate and Heather to get her out of the cold and while they walked over to the car, I pulled out a wad of cash and handed it to him.  His hair, beard and mustache were gray and he wore a black vest and cowboy hat.  He seemed really nice and in the pause in his speech he would make a clicking sound.  I thought it was kinda cute.

He gave me a little bag of goodies for her which included some of the food she's used to, a collar, a leash, a chew toy and her papers with the parents picture on it.  We went to Petco right away to get a small kennel and attracted everyone in the store with our new little bundle of joy. She was shaking so bad from the cold the next thing we bought was a sweater.  After making our purchases, Nate and I went home and Heather went to see Parker.

Nate had our puppy in his jacket and I wanted to hold her so bad I could taste it, but I wanted him to bond with her and her with him, so I tried to sit still and act like I wasn't jumping out of my skin to hold her.  I sat very patiently waiting for him to offer her up to me but he didn't so my impatience took over and I fetched her for myself but my jacket wasn't as loose so I couldn't bundle her up and she wasn't as warm so I gave her back. 

Everyone is now taking turns with the baby.  Watching her, playing with her, and having her sleep with them, sharing responsibility of taking care of her.  

She's so small, it would be easy to crush her under foot, so we are having to take special care when she's out and about the kitchen.  

We're all in love with this new little bundle.  I'll post pictures of her tomorrow and show off our new Christmas present.

Christmas Eve 2008

Sniffle, sniffle, try to keep the snot from dripping down my face.............this Christmas Eve is filled with watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, coughing and the unwillingness to go to bed because........well..........IT'S CHRISTMAS EVE!

Does it ever go away?  That excitement about the next morning and being woken by your kids to GET UP.....LETS GET UP AND OPEN PRESENTS!

My kids are grown......my baby is nearly 20 years old.....the last of my kids in their teens!  All grown up. 

No more hiding the Christmas wrap that "Santa" used.  No more disguising the handwriting on the present name tags.  No more guarding the presents until morning, monitoring every sound in the hallway or worrying they'll get up and peak before I get up to see the excitement on their faces.  No more wrapping until 2 a.m. 

Someone get me a hot cup of coffee.  What shall we have for breakfast.....a unanimous................. CREPES with blueberry or cherry pie filling.  

This morning is ours.  OUR  families time together.  Just us.  My three kids and my man. No one else.  This is OUR special day!   These are most important people in the world to me and I get to be with them today.

I'm so blessed that I've been able to bear and raise my own children.  To watch them grow into the wonderful people they are today.  Even though this Christmas we are not all together, I still feel the love and embrace my memories of the past, and hope to be together for Christmas again.  I love you all, and Merry Christmas..............Mom.

 

Just Updates

I put down the book "Wicked" a while ago and couldn't pick it back up.  Not that it wasn't good, but Halloween's come and gone and I've lost interest. 

I've since picked up the book "The Third Jesus" by Deepak Chopra (quite a shift eh?).  I've been feeling like my soul needs a lift.........man does not live by bread alone........ and my soul has been feeling a bit starved! 

I prayed for enlightenment and for a door to be opened to feed my soul and I picked up this book I bought a while ago and started reading it.  It's funny, but I feel so much more like I can allow spirituality back into my life without being threatened that someone else's idea of God will try to engulf me and take over. 

I feel I can choose! And it's nice!  I'm enjoying the book tremendously and when I had it with me in the doctors office the other day a guy stopped me and said he'd read it and loved it too.

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Whit punched a guy in the face the other day and hurt his hand.  The guy deserved it... he hit Whit's girlfriend so hard  it made her nose jewel fly out.  We took Whit to the doctors office and had his hand x-rayed!  They told us the doc would review the film and then come give us the result of the x-ray.  The doc entered the room and spoke directly to Whit and said... There is no break my brother!  (He always addresses someone by "my brother" or, well, I don't know if he says "my sister" or "sister". He wears a cross on his white coat, has glasses and is very tall! He's a DO (Doctor of Osteopathy) so I was expecting he would know his stuff). 

I was really relieved and was so happy I could hardly believe it so I said....That's great! Then, circling the room and landing in front of my son, I grabbed his hand and pointed to his sunken yet raised knuckle and asked...  Is "that" normal!

The doc took one look and said.......Uh, let me go review the x-ray again.  Sure enough, he comes back and says.........Yeah, that's a classic boxers break (his knuckle is basically gone, but there's a bump above it).  When did the doctor start looking at the x-ray before examining the patient?  I thought that was weird. 

So he gives us a referral to an ortho doc.  After seeing the orthopaedic doc, the conclusion was made it wouldn't be worth a surgery and possible infection to fix it... too risky so we decided not to do it!  Now he's wearing a type of bone straightener to put the bone back in place.  No, it's not cast.  Looks kinda like brass knuckles only plastic.

Whit says it seems to be helping straighten the bone out.

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The gym is coming along beautifully.  New pics to follow.  

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My new job is around the corner!  I've oriented about 4 days for a total of 24 hours (that would be only two days on the regular floor!)  I begin in January and I'm sooooooooo psyched!  I'll be helping people who have had cardiac surgery or stents to get fit on the treadmill, elliptical and stationary bikes while monitoring them on telemetry!  This is the job of my dreams!

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Pilates training begins in March.  Reformer to be purchased soon!

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We just finished watching the movie Black Beauty (we've seen it so many times and never tire of it).  The tears are rolling.  I just love this movie, the beautiful imagery, the music, the transitions, the filming, the editing, the little boy, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr.  It is one of the most satisfying movies ever made (along with Pride and Prejudice).  Francis Ford Coppola is truly amazing.  So is the person manning the camera, the editor.........  I could go on and on.  

The film is a piece of art.   There are so many scenes I watch over and over again.  Nate and I love watching movies in bed and this and Pride and Prejudice relax us both so much. 

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My M-I-L  fell again last night.  This time she fell out of bed. Their bedroom is upstairs above our room and the thud jolted Nate and I to a full state of arousal in  a second flat and we both bolted up the stairs like it was nothin!   She was alright.  Just trying to get up and go to the bathroom and slipped from sitting on the bed to sitting on the step up to the bed!  Ja..E..sus our hearts were in our feet for the next few minutes.  

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Christmas tree isn't up!  I figured if no one asked I'd leave it alone. Largely because I put it up, put on the lights, put on the ornaments, decorate the whole house, then take it all down myself! If they want it up, they can help!

Dear God

I send out this plea to the universe for help.

From Whit's car damage, to Heather's car damage, to Nate's back issues which are debilitating, to Veloy's back issues and not eating, to me starting a new job and dealing with being a nurse both at work and at home, to Whit's most likely broken RIGHT hand (that found it's way to the jaw of the boy who hit his girlfriend right in front of him) and having no health insurance..............AND HE'S A WELDER!  My nerves are shot and I am finding no solice!

I need assistance.  My son and daughter desperately need assistance for the issue of the cars and their repair as well as the need to get into school and medical attention. 

My husband may need surgery.

Veloy needs motivation.

I need a break. 

I ask for help in these things God...........  Thanx, Tami

 

My husband entered our room through the sliding glass door after getting the garbage out this morning. Our conversation went something like this.

 

N: Has Whit come in...?  

Me: No, why?

N: Well, Heather ran into his truck this morning.

Me: How bad is it (after all it was in the driveway)?

N: Front bumper dented, light gone........(silence)

Me: Any body damage?

N: Yes

I get on my slippers and go outside to inspect the damage. The whole front right side of his bumper is hanging off, the light is crushed, the grill is toast.

She had to have been moving really fast and not looking where she was going when she was backing out.  

How hard is it to see a dark green X-Terra in the morning when white snow is all around?

She had to have deleted the option of:  

a) Opening her eyes to see an obviously large truck behind her car

b) cleaning off her rear window 

c) watching out the back to see where she what she was backing up into.

The insurance company said she will have a $1000. 00 dollar deductible before repairs. 

Yay!

Just as she got out of debt!   

When does the madness stop?

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Whit was amazingly calm through all that.  We ate breakfast, talked about how we are going to have to help Veloy around the house, (she appears to be bruised but has no obvious breaks...THANK GOD!) and I don't know how we got onto the conversation of circumcision.

It went from what molasses comes from, what sorghum is, and how Whit saw a program about how eggs are actually being manufactured now.

We were looking all this up on the Internet when the subject of what fertilized and unfertilized eggs are and ended up on the subject of circumcision (don't ask how we got to circumcision from eggs?!)

So I go on You Tube to see if there was any footage posted of male circumcision because Whit hadn't ever seen one and couldn't believe how little there was available. 

I found the a couple clips and we watched them! 

His eyes were teary and he couldn't understand how anyone could justify something so tortuous as cutting off the skin of an infant boy's penis after only being a day or so old. 

Neither could I!  I saw a couple circs done in our clinicals during nursing school.....way after Whit was born......and had to keep from bawling while I watched it, only renewing my vow not to circumcise.  It disgusts me how cruel and tortuous we humans can be to our infant boys so new in life.  It leaves me wondering how this scars our boys. 

Have you ever seen a circumcision? Please, humor me and go to You Tube and watch Penn and Tellers Circumcision 1 of 3 clips.  Or find one that shows an infant being circumcised. It will make you cry.  

When a circumcision is performed, the baby isn't given sedative nor is he given local anesthetic. They are screaming their GUTS OUT (and don't try telling me they don't have any feeling, or that they haven't developed enough nerve to feel it.  Try using old time diapers with pins and accidentally miss! THEY FEEL IT!)  It isn't just because they are pinned down and are unable to move that they're screaming at the top of their lungs!

Now ladies, if you believe all the cock and bull told you about it continuing to be done because of cancer, then why don't we just lop off our little girls boobies at an early age because there is much more breast cancer than penile cancer! If it's for hygiene purposes, please don't tell me you can't clean your babies teenie peenie and that you can't teach him to do it for himself, because I would hate to admit that kind of stupidity if I were you!  Which leaves one of the last arguements............"I don't want him to look different than the other little boys".............. or............"I want him to look like his daddy"...............or............"I don't want him to be made fun of by the other boys".   Pa-leeeeeeeeeze!  Seriously, you are going to cut off the tip of your newborn baby boys penis because of VANITY!  We live in a seriously f**ked up world if that is the biggest reason we are doing it. 

Ladies, did you know girls can be circumcised too!   Only, for girls the act is seen (in our country) as "genital mutilation".  Oh yeah.....why isn't it considered that for our tiny boys?

Like we mothers can't clean our infants penises and don't have the brains to train them to clean themselves!

On one of the anti-circ clips I saw on You Tube, I noticed a few choice statements I thought stood out, so I though I'd pass them along:

Genital integrity

Vital part of anatomy

Genital mutilation

It's a normal body part and should not be removed without the consent of the owner!

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One of my favorite scenes in the movie 28 Days (Sandra Bullock) is when they are in the group therapy session and the gay guy says he wants his foreskin back....... "They didn't ask me if they could take it.....they just took it!"     Cracks me up every time.

Now, this wasn't meant to make all those mommies and daddies out there who did have their little boys circumcised feel all bad inside, or make them feel they need to go out and hunt down data to substantiate their decision on Pro-circumcision.......I'm just putting out another one of those very big opinions of mine and am hoping to educate someone with it!

  

What's Happening In Our World

So have you been asking yourself and those around you why have gas prices plummeted since before the election and stayed down? 

Makes you wonder what the hell our government is/was doing......don't it?

Who's making the GD money off us eh?

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My mother-in-law fell in her bathroom tonight.  Scared the holy F**K out of me!  I'm laying on the couch kinda half asleep and I hear this thud and light high pitched noise.  Nate was already up off the floor and heading into to her bathroom before I could wrap my mind around what heavy object the kids could have dropped and broken in the stairwell to make such a huge thud. 

I shot off the couch in hot pursuit.  We found her with her head wedged between the toilet and the wall, her new knee bending in the wrong direction and she was complaining of her back hurting!  Damn it!  She was in obvious pain, looked like she was ready to cry. 

She's still recovering from from both a hip and knee surgery!  What if both are screwed up from this fall?

We laid her down for a second.......her face was pale, she was shaking and nauseous. We gave her a minute and then got her up and to her bed.  

She continued to shake.  I ran for my blood pressure cuff and stethoscope! 

We waited for her to stop shaking.  Did a full assessment on her knee, back, hip and waited for her to stop shaking. B/P.......ok..........HR.........ok.........Resp.......ok....

So now what? We'll wait.

We'll see tomorrow if her back continues to hurt tomorrow and see if we need to take her to get an x-ray.

Yikes!

 

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Sometimes I feel like such a dunce!  Last Sunday the kids went snowboarding and on their way home I-70 was closed.  Poor kids were panicked and called me for help!

What could I do!  I couldn't come get them!  They were stuck in the mountains and there were no motels, no place to go.  They thought they were gonna have to sleep in the car overnight! Nate told them to find a car-wash to park in to keep the snow out of the tail pipe!  Boy are we a lot of help...........GREAT PARENTS EH?

After getting several calls, I finally figured I'd try to do something.  So I  called my dad.  

He always knows what to do.  

He give me a Utah Highway Patrol number and after being transferred around to three different people, I got the Colorado Highway patrol and we found out they actually opened and then closed a recreation center in the city the kids were in (the rec center filled so fast) and had to open an elementary school.  I don't know how anyone sent off the highway found out about this.  What if you don't have a cell phone to call your parents, to call their dad, to get a Highway Patrol phone number, to give directions to an outlet until the highway reopens?

The kids had no more than found the school and the road was reopened!  Hallelujah!  They got in real late but safely.

That'll teach 'em to go boarding on a "snow day".  I-70 is not a road you want to be on when it's snowing!