Sunday, September 30, 2007

Gone in 14 hours-ish...

At approximately 7:45 tomorrow morning, we will be leaving for Chicago!!! We'll be back Thursday, so expect an update sometime between Friday and Sunday. Feel free to leave lots of comments while I'm gone!!! :)

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

SO MUCH TO DO, SO LITTLE TIME!

I am a busy, busy beaver! Let's see...where to begin. I am up to my eyeballs in daycare registration stuff. I have my fire safety inspection here tomorrow morning and then I send all of my stuff to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment...they process it and send it all back and VOILA! I'm a registered daycare provider. SHEESH!

Not only am I in the midst of all of this, but we're leaving Monday morning at the butt crack of dawn to travel to Chicago. The trip is 2-fold. This has me completely busy because Cassie is staying here with Mark's mom and then my mom. SO, I have to get us all ready to travel and get her all ready to stay. You just have no idea how much planning and preparation this takes if you've never done it before. Just trust me.

To explain the main purpose of the trip, let's travel back a few years. Mark and I were talking about his passion for music and all of the concerts he's been to. I asked him what his dream would be and he said that it wasn't even possible so why think about it. I encouraged him to tell me and he said it would be to see a Genesis concert (Phil Collins). HOWEVER, they broke up in like 1992 or something. They've been his favorite band for a long, long time. Their last tour was around 92.

Fast forward to a few months ago. He came home all excited saying that he THOUGHT he heard the end of an ad on the radio talking about a Genesis reunion tour. He found it hard to believe and really didn't find much on the internet about it. A few days later, he heard the ad and found out that they were, indeed, touring. SO, we started thinking about seeing them to fulfill his life's dream. The closest that they're coming to KC is either Denver or Chicago. Chicago was not only a bit cheaper, but also has the Shedd's Aquarium, as well as tons of other stuff to do. SO, fold 1: Genesis concert...fold 2: Our 5th anniversary is Oct. 26th.

There you have it folks. That's what I've been up to...that's what I AM up to...that's what I'm GONNA be up to. You know the whole story....though it wasn't much of a story.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

*YAWN*

So, it's almost midnight. I got in bed at 8:20 tonight...could I sleep? NO! UGH! SOOOO irritating! I really, really needed some good sleep tonight. 3-1/2 hours later...no sleeping.....

So, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything I have in my head right now. I've got all of the stuff going on with registering for daycare (I have orientation in the morning at 9). I have had Emberley a lot lately (though she's developing a definite napping schedule, so that's exciting to me). I am headed to Wichita tomorrow for a wedding while Mark is staying here. I am getting a root canal on Tuesday. We are going to Chicago in a week or so and so I have to get everything ready for that...my house up to my mom's standards (she's staying here with Cassie part of the time)...everything situated with that including preparing to leave Cassie for the 1st time (extended time anyway). Starting Oct. 8th-ish I will have 2 more kids with daycare. If my registration isn't complete until after that, I'll be keeping them at their house. I have more out of town times coming up in the next few months. EEK! It's just CRAZY! I just have a lot going on in my head right now. That is just a list of the things off the top of my head. Trust me, there's more. I just feel a bit overwhelmed. Going to bed super early tonight was going to be my thing to help me refocus and re-energize. Guess not. Instead, I'll be extra tired and maybe cranky. :)

Have I complained enough?!? OK...I'm done.

I'm going to bed and hopefully to sleep.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Busyness

It's awful when you feel that life is passing you by before you even notice that another day has begun. My days lately just seem to melt into each other. Last week, it was because of the pain medicines. :)

We went to a marriage retreat this past weekend and it was really good. We were there without Cassie in a hotel. We were the typical "old" married couple...we didn't go up to our room from fellowshipping until 1:30 and promptly fell asleep. So much for a hotel room to ourselves! Seriously, though, the retreat was really good and even if there had been no cirriculum whatsoever, the fact that we were together...absent of responsibility...for a night and day...it really brought our focus together again.

The retreat was on personality types. I'm an otter ("i") and Mark is a beaver ("C"). Basically, we're complete opposites in every way possible. :) We already knew that. I'm not sure that we really learned much about each other, but we did confirm things that we knew and had an explanation for our behaviors that drive each other bonkers. It was fun and uplifting.

I really don't have anything too exciting to say today. We're going to ta-town (Wichita) this weekend for my cousin, Ali's, wedding. I have 2 cousins named Ali and 1 cousin-in-law named Ali. It gets kinda confusing. This is Alison Dopps...from my dad's side. Hopefully, I'll be able to see a few other people while I'm there. Cami--are you coming to the reception?

Today is my brother's first day of his new job...I'm still so excited for him! I really hope that he enjoys it and that this can turn into a full-fledge career for him!

Well, like I said...not too exciting, but there's your update. Everyone have a great day!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Much Ado About....well...stuff

So, as I mentioned, there has been much going on. First and foremost, I want to give a HUGE shout out to Mr. Levi Jaxson born on MY BIRTHDAY! Congrats to Ben and Tracy on their beautiful new baby boy. He really is a doll.

So, why have things been rough? Well, we had company this weekend. Don't get me wrong...they were perfect houseguests...it was just the fact that we had company. It was Ben's parents and sister. We enjoyed visiting with them, but it was just the prep for them coming, the day spent at the hospital on Friday, then the company being there and then leaving with the clean-up.

To make matters worse, my tooth started bothering me on Saturday. It wasn't too bad...just annoying. Well, Sunday, it got bad. Really, really bad. I told Mark that it hurt worse than labor. It was excruciating to say the least and I was in agony. I've been drugged up on pain meds as much as possible (I had to take a break from the heavy-duty stuff Monday, as I had Emberley). I ended up throwing up 4 times Monday night from medicine. It's been rough. So, today, I went for visit 1 of 3 for a root canal. It was so badly infected that he cleaned out all 4 roots and filled the tooth with medicine. I am also on an antibiotic. I will go back in 2 weeks to have the root canal completed. After that all heals, then I will get my crown restored. Fun process. Let's just say with that $995 bill PLUS quarterly taxes coming due for Mark's business....things are tight. Really tight. Kinda scary, but we've always made it through financial stresses before.

This whole thing did put 1 thing into perspective, however. I now know why I didn't get pregnant when I wanted to. I would have been living with this agony until my 2nd trimester. Do you KNOW that I wouldn't have survived that?!?!? I cannot imagine not being able to get this taken care of immediately! Waiting 2-1/2 days was pure torture. I can't imagine if I was just barely pregnant and had to wait until it was a safe time to do dental work. Man, I am thanking God for not putting me through that!!! Everything always has a reason. Sometimes you see the reason in retrospect, sometimes you don't. I'm sure that God has a grander plan than just avoiding tooth pain, but overall, I'm extremely thankful that He worked this out this way.

Well, it's late. I'm tired. I have Emberley tomorrow. The more tired I get, the more yawning I'm doing and DANG IT! That HURTS!!! So, I'm going to end this and go to sleep.

OUT!
Sorry once again for the lack of postings. I have had lots of crazy stuff going on. SO, I will update soon. Thank you all for the b-day wishes, e-mails, and calls. More later...

Thursday, September 6, 2007

My apologies

I apologize for all of you avid blog readers that I'm just now updating. We've been without internet since Friday due to switching providers, people being idiots, and general technology issues. However, I am now back online and for this month only, we have over 400 channels!!! WOW! Guess we're all being lazy slobs, huh?!? :)

I am very, very excited, as I FINALLY, after waiting sooooo patiently, got a new kitchen sink, faucet (and as and added bonus), disposal. Our sink that we had was 6" deep. SIX! The faucet was the 2-knob type, which I absolutely hate! Our disposal was okay, but Mark ended up breaking it trying to remove it because it was stuck. My new sink is TEN inches on 1 side and EIGHT inches on the other side! WOO-HOO!!! The 10" side is considerably larger than the other side. Let's just say this...no more baby bathtubs for us with our next kid(s)!!! They will be bathing in this deep, white, accrylic beauty!!! My faucet is a single handle operation where the faucet is the sprayer. The faucet pulls out...you do your spraying...then, it slithers right back into place. YAY FOR ME!!! :)

Now that I've gloaded about something so...mundane...let me tell a little bit about our journey to the new sink to see if you all can relate. So, when we moved in, the kitchen faucet did not function properly. As my dad was installing the cheapest, 2-knob faucet available, I said, "NO! Don't install that! I HATE those kind!!! Let's just buy the one that we'll keep!" Well, much to my 2-year demise, he installed it saying that it needed to be done now and we would go pick out the "real" one and install it after they fixed a few other things. Over 2 years later, I was still in misery every time I had to use the hunk'o'junk.

So, Mark gets this great idea that: A)I should use my b-day money on a new sink and faucet and B) we should get the black sink that he wanted and he should have equal input into what we were getting. Let's back up 2 weeks to his birthday...what did he get? Let me think......oh, yeah. I new CD player for his work van. Not something that I had input into or would benefit from...

He figured that I didn't want a new sink and faucet bad enough if I wasn't going to use my b-day money for it. Well, a few days later, he started talking about how he went to PetSmart and saw this 10-gallon aquarium that he was thinking about getting. STOP! If you've been to our house, you'd know that he has 2 huge, full-functioning aquariums. Now, he has another 5-gallon set up to help him with an algae problem. He has bought so much stinkin' aquarium stuff since we've had this house (including fish, animals, etc.) and yet I CAN'T AFFORD A STINKIN' SINK!!! I thought that that was complete crap and I told him so.




And he agreed.




So, I got my sink. Without spending my birthday money. I counted up the change in our change can so that it could go towards it. Our sink was $139.00. The change can had $139.50 give or take a few cents. God is good and so is Mark when you reason with him.... :)

So, I have my sink and such and...in case you can't tell...I love it!



The only other thing going on is that I'm gearing up for the birth of little baby Ellis. That's Tracy's baby if you've read comments. Today is her due-date. She is scheduled to be induced tonight/tomorrow morning. They're doing cervadil (sp?) tonight and then will start the pitocin tomorrow. We are praying that she goes into labor on her own before then, but we'll let God take care of that! Either way, it looks like baby E and I will have the same birthday!

Oh, AT...how come I'm not a registered user of your blog?!? :( Could you send me an invite to chesmnisteruy@hotmail.com? I would LOVE it! :)

Well, ta-ta for now...my corndogs are ready! :)