A Sigh of Relief

I almost cried tears of joy when the on-site team informed the Director and I that we were fully compliant for the teacher training course. We have worked on the paperwork for almost a year now. Just to let you know how much writing we had to do...the binder we turned in with our paperwork was over 4 inches thick and the application alone was almost 40 pages! We thought for sure that there would be 2 or 3 minor things that would be partially compliant, causing us to have to change some paperwork, but we don't have to make any changes! The process over the past year was tedious (to say the least).

We were more than half way through when we were informed that Jeannine had to remove "college" from her program name (a name she has used for over 12 years). The commission is making all programs remove the word. So, we had to file all of the paperwork with the state and change all of the wording in the paperwork we had already completed. Then, move on to the rest.

I was honored that Jeannine recommended me to sit on the commission. I found a lot of areas where they need improvement and I do have a background in quality improvement, but I never imagined being recommended to be that involved. It would be voluntary, but is something I am really interested in doing. We'll see what happens down the road! It is based out of Wisconsin and I imagine would involve some travel.

I am starting the teacher training course with Jeannine next fall. I will take two years to finish the program and receive my Montessori Teaching Credential. I don't want to teach, but this will allow me to contribute more to the school, gain more knowledge and then both Administrators will have credentials. After that, we are talking about going through to get our Master's in Education together. That is a couple years down the road.

Jeannine and her husband gave Angela and I a generous gift of a week at their time share at Lake Chelan in January. There are all sorts of winter sports and other activities to do there. She said it was the gift for all of my hard work on the accreditation process. So, we will take off a week in mid-January to get away and relax at their condo. What a wonderful gift!

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I made a very difficult decision this past week. I am adding some meat back into my diet. I am going to try this for a month and see if I start losing weight again. I traced back when I stopped losing weight (other than fluctuations) and it all started with me going vegetarian. This was a difficult decision because most of my decision to stop eating meat was for ethical reasons. I am only going to eat meat 3-4 times a week. If I don't get back on track by the end of December, I will stop eating it again. We'll see what happens. I am honestly having a lot of internal struggle with this decision, but I need to lose the weight.

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My Mom called on Friday to let me know that one of the boys I grew up with in our church passed away this week. He was a year younger than me. He left a wife, two children and another on the way. It was sudden. He went into the hospital not feeling well and they found a tumor behind his heart, which was putting pressure on his lungs causing him to have problems breathing. They tried to transport him and he made it to the larger hospital, but died before they could triage him.

I had not seen him since high school, but it really makes you stop and think. This type of thing doesn't typically happen, but you realize that anything can happen in life. It makes me want to tell Angela that I love her as often as possible. It makes me want to cherish every moment with her. Don't take anything for granted.

New Glasses

Angela took a picture of me with my new glasses. I love the frames and can't wait for the new lens to come in on Thursday!

A Test of Patience and Weight

I promise to have a positive blog tomorrow...

My patience and weight have been tested this past month and I have to admit, I have failed on both counts.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do the 12K race in December. I went for my long run (which was supposed to be 5 miles) last Sunday. About 1/2 mile into the run, I knew something was wrong with my leg. At first it felt like really bad shin splints and I tried to run through the pain. It only got worse. I walked awhile, then tried to run again and couldn't. It progressed to what I would describe as a bony pain on my tibia. My fear was that I had a stress fracture. My leg swelled. I attempted a low-impact workout on Monday at the gym to test it. I made it most of the way through, but felt worse after. I spoke with my sister, who recommended I stay completely off of it this week and take loads of Ibuprofen and ice it. The Ibuprofen did nothing for the pain.

I saw the Doctor yesterday. The good news is, she thinks it is muscular. We can't do an X-ray for another week or so because stress fractures don't show up for a couple weeks. She gave me the green light to do low-impact cardio, but to hold off on running for now. And, to listen to my body.

The bad news...I'm up 5 pounds from my lightest weight and it is completely stressing me out (which doesn't help matters). I started gaining when the Dietitian switched my diet...it leveled out so I was only up 3 pounds...then I had to stop exercising this week and I'm up another 2. I've worked WAY too hard to put weight back on. I am tracking what I eat. I haven't been bad, but I need to do better. Ugh...

I am one of those people who never has issues with items purchased or customer service, but I have been tested this past month! It started with my Zune. After having it for a few days, I had to send it in because the screen was broken. Customer Service was awful...I think she would have been nicer had she known that my partner knows people. Angela spoke with someone there after the experience. They give you no clue as to when to expect things to be done, except some vague sentence about getting it back 10-15 days after they receive it...and they don't give a tracking number. When I try to look up the progress online, the link is broken. I called CS and spoke with someone who agreed that the link was broken and gave me the 10-15 days "line," but obviously had no clue what he was talking about. I hope I get it back before our trip over Thanksgiving.

Next....my new glasses. I ordered a new pair of glasses around a month ago. It took 2.5 weeks for them to come in because the lab broke a lens and had to re-start. That's fine...things happen. I went in and picked them up, got home and noticed that there was a small chip along the edge of the left lens and the frame had a small paint chip. I took them back a week ago Monday and they said that, while they didn't see the chip (which I saw with my naked eye and felt), they would have a new lens made and order new frames. They said it would be ready in 1.5 weeks. I waited until Thursday to call and they told me they would be in yesterday.

At the end of the day on Thursday, I got a call that there was another problem in the lab and that they would have to start over and it would be the 19th before I get the glasses. I asked to talk to the manager and the woman said she would have him call me. He called yesterday and I told him that it was going to be over a month now and I wanted some sort of compensation...not money, but in warranty with the glasses. He agreed to it, but then started telling me how nice they had been to replace the lens when they had to use a magnifying glass to even see it! I told him I thought that was funny because I saw it with my naked eye when I had my glasses on and that I could feel it when I ran my finger over the edge.

He said "of course you would see it...you are quite near-sighted...you're going to see the flaw when you have them on." I told him two other people saw it as well...I was not the only one. I have to say...he was quite rude with me. Their store is under my Opthamologist's office, but I will go elsewhere from now on. My lens will be in on Thursday. In the meantime, they are allowing me to wear my new frames with the old lenses until the new ones come in. Over a month for glasses...give me a break! I hope the lab doesn't drop another lens!

We canceled our cable and home phone this week. It felt liberating in a way. We will save a lot of money, even with the upgrade on our cell phones. Customer Service was also awful during this experience, but at least it's over.

This week brings our on-site accreditation team at work. Thursday and Friday, I will have to work at least 14 hour days, with a final meeting on Saturday morning. Then we will have four short days until our little trip to Cannon Beach for the holidays! There have been a lot of changes at work over the past month or so and some have been quite stressful, but I won't talk about that in detail on here. I will only say that I'm learning a lot about managing people, it has been a stressful time for both the Director and I (not between us, but dealing with an employee) and I think everything is finally coming together.

We are looking forward to a movie night with friends tonight. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be around people when things are like this, but it is actually good for me to get out in the world. We are going to the gym tomorrow to test out my leg. I hope to be able to do the race, but really it is secondary...health is most important.

Weekend Update

It's been a year since we lost our beloved Buddy. It's hard to believe. Sometimes it feels like we lost him yesterday. We had a good cry this morning and lit a candle for him. We kept things positive; thinking about all the fun things we miss about him. He was our beautiful baby boy!

Our nephew, Derrick, returned to school this past Thursday. My brother told me that he got himself completely caught up with his studies and is back on track. We were so relieved to hear that!

I am going to get on the treadmill this afternoon to run my five miles. It is quite rainy and windy outside today. I can run outside when it's rainy, but the wind has been bad the past few days. I was able to run outside on Friday with my friend, Erzsi. The weather stayed calm and dry for us, then the rain came about 30 minutes after we were done. I'm trying to get outside as much as possible...mostly for my interval training, short runs and Sunday longer runs. I'm not worried about getting through the 7.46 miles when the time comes. I want to finish in under 1:30 and I know I need to get my speed up. I'm sure my times will get dramatically better over the next few weeks. My illness really set me back last month and I'm having to make up for it now. I must be doing something right. I'm not in pain, but I am feeling my workouts each day...I feel the aches of my muscles. It is a good pain though.

Only 1.5 weeks until our on-site re-accreditation visit for the college! I can't stress enough how ready I am for this to be over. I will only have three days to wait for our Cannon Beach trip after the visit. It will be a little strange to be away from our usual Thanksgiving group, but we really need this. We are keeping it low-key. We will take along the laptop, books, journals, etc. And just enjoy time together. We think this trip will help us come to some decisions for the future.

We are now less than 10 months away from being debt free. We were not good with money when we were younger and we had a few big things come up in our lives that cost a lot of money during our 20s. Of course, both of us attending private Universities for our college education did not help. We've done well; staying comfortable...but, it never felt like we were getting to that point in our lives where we could be free of some of the bigger debt. We really tightened our belts over the past several months and the end is in sight. Hopefully nothing big will come up in the next year to delay the celebration. Once we make some life decisions, we will know what type of house we are looking for and will be able to start our search.

School is closed this Wednesday for Veteran's Day. I will still work with the Director. We hope to get a lot accomplished with the students off for the day.

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!

5 Random Things

Five things that happened to me today:

1. I cherish the 15-30 minutes I have at school by myself each morning. It's quiet, I can get my thoughts together and no one asks for anything. I had about a dozen thoughts running through my head on the way to work this morning. When I arrived, the Director, a Teacher and an Intern were all there already...standing around my desk, which was covered with so much crap that I could not even put my bag down. I immediately felt crabby that, not only did I not get my 15-30 minutes of peace and quiet, but it happened on a Monday. I put my bag on the floor and left the room to open up the school...and that is how my Monday was.

2. I got to rock a baby to sleep. One of our Teachers is coming back from maternity leave soon and she was in to catch up on a few things. She met with one of the Interns and I got to hold the baby while she was in the meeting. He was cranky until I sang to him...then he fell asleep within a few minutes.

3. I took my glasses back to have them fixed. I picked up my new glasses this weekend, only to find that one of the lenses had a chip along the edge and that there was a chip of paint missing from the side of the frame. They are sending them back and I should have my new ones in a week and a half or so. I will post pictures once I receive them.

4. Angela picked up our new phones today. We are going to cancel our home phone in the next week or so, once we've made sure they work well at our home (we tend to get terrible reception because part of our place is underground). I've been playing with mine all evening.

5. I ran 4 miles yesterday and feel like my body is back to 100%, or close to it. My lungs felt it after...it was cold outside!

Home from the Hospital

I spoke with Lorri this morning before leaving for work. Derrick was released last night. He still has the PIC line and will receive antibiotics through it for the next 10-14 days. The hospital taught Lorri how to administer them. She has to do it every six hours. He can't return to school until the line is taken out. He woke up this morning and immediately started working on his homework.

Lorri said they are running into major issues with the school regarding his return. He will miss at least 3 weeks all together. His teachers have all said they will work with him to get him caught up, even stating that they will stay after school if he needs it. His guidance counselor and the principal are now trying to talk Bret and Lorri into pulling Derrick out of school until January, saying he can't possibly get caught up with his class. Lorri was disgusted this morning when I spoke with her. One of her friends told her there is a state law that states the school must work with them and provide an in-home tutor for Derrick, if he needs one. She thinks the school is trying to save money by not offering the tutor. She was going to call the principal again today. She already reminded them that it's not like Derrick is just an "A" student...he's an "A+" student. He will get caught up.

It's like they're trying to set him up to fail. I feel like they are trampling all over his civil rights. I suggested that Lorri ask our friend Marlane if she would be willing to help him with his Math and I gave them the name of a possible person for Spanish. Hopefully the school will come around. I know they aren't saying much about it to Derrick because they don't want to upset him. He's so focused on getting caught up...he also needs to get better.

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I don't even know where to begin with our lives out here in Seattle right now. There is so much going on at work, both with the pre-school and college...employees, children, parents, accreditation...head...bursting...not going to go into work right now.

I can't wait for the time to change this weekend. I'm actually getting up 30 minutes later each morning because of the darkness.

I am at about 85% health-wise right now. I've worked out some this week, but instead of feeling energized at the end of the workout, I feel wiped, which tells me that my body has not completely healed and I shouldn't push myself too hard. At least I'm listening to my body. My Dietitian changed up my diet, putting me on a week-long modified elimination plan (meaning lots of low-calorie protein shakes). I got so sick from them. I went off of them after 3-4 days because I felt so bad...I immediately started feeling better. I told both my trainer and dietitian that I want to stop focusing on my weight and put all of my focus on fitness. I already eat healthy...the weight will come off, if it's supposed to.

Angela had her tattoo consult for her seashell tattoo, in honor of me! I'm excited to see the results. We scheduled a date in December, to give the artist time to finish the sketch and for us to approve it.

My cousin Laura had her third child this past week...a baby girl. Naomi Ann weighed 8 pounds 9 ounces. She joined big sister Elaina and big brother Lucas.

And...tomorrow is Friday!!! Have a wonderful Friday everyone!

Saturday Morning

It's Saturday morning (almost afternoon). We went to our friend Jack's 40th birthday party last night. There were easily almost 100 people there. It was fun and exhausting after being sick all week. We slept in this morning. I am going to start back on my training schedule tomorrow. We feel like I probably shouldn't be at the gym yet. I don't want other people to get sick because something might be lingering with me. I'm feeling at about 75% right now. This thing wiped me out this past week. I'm supposed to run 4 miles tomorrow, but will probably walk most of it and will likely do it on the treadmill instead of outside.

We are excited to go to the Sounders game tonight! Cheryl and Brian are picking us up late this afternoon and we'll go to dinner first. It's going to be a lot of fun!

I spoke with Lorri this morning. Derrick's temperature is holding steady at around 99.5. He is VERY weak and can hardly get out of bed to use the bathroom. He still has the chest tube, so isn't allowed to wander, but a few feet from the bed, which he can't do without assistance. There is still more fluid coming off of his lungs. They are concerned about his weight and diet. When he had his physical for tennis, he was 5'11" and weighed 122 pounds. When he went to the doctor, he was down to 118. Lorri said she knows he's lost more since. They haven't been able to get him to eat anything. The doctor wrote orders to weigh him every day now, but they had not weighed him today when I talked to her. The dietitian said that they should order him whatever he wants, even calling down to the cafeteria, but he has no appetite. Someone brought them pizza and he only took 2 bites.

The nurse says he'll be in the hospital until Tuesday, at least. He has done little homework and missed two finals this past week. I reassured Lorri that when I missed a lot of school as a teen, they worked with me and I was able to make up everything. She just wants him to focus on getting better. She asked if they thought he would be able to return to school the following Monday after release and the nurse said they might not want him around anyone at that point. His immune system is so weak.

I don't mean for this to all be about Derrick's illness, but he is on my mind and it helps to get it out. I am concerned about long-term impact on his health (physical and mental). He is the top of his class and he has a lot of pride in his grades. I hope the school works with him so he can stay there. He has never had to work hard for his grades, but getting too far behind could be too much for him. I'm concerned about his weight getting too low and him not eating. His recovery will be much longer if he doesn't get the nourishment he needs. I mean, he does have the IV, but he really needs to start eating. I know it sucks when you're already weak and the sound of food just makes you feel even more sick, but he needs to start somewhere.

Just lots of thoughts running through my brain...

Update on Derrick

I spoke with my sister-in-law this morning. Lorri informed me that Derrick spiked a fever of 103.5 last night and that they skipped the xray this morning and did a CT Scan instead. She was doing her best to stay strong for Derrick, but everything is taking its toll.

My brother called a little while later to let me know that the results came back and they were going to put in a chest tube this afternoon. They were going to keep him there, instead of transporting him.

Right before I left to come home this afternoon, my brother called again and said that everything went well. They put in the chest tube and removed almost a full gallon of fluids off of one of Derrick's lungs! He was able to cough for the first time in days. They expect the antibiotics to start working now and that he will make a full recovery. He will have the chest tube in for a couple days.

Let's hope he's back on his feet soon. I'm just so happy that they think he's going to be okay. I love that kid.

My Beautiful Nephew

I was 16 when my nephew Derrick was born. It was so strange when he turned 16 in September. I remember weekends babysitting him during my Freshman year of college. He was 1 1/2 at the time. His bright blue eyes would sparkle up at me as we read books and played games all day. I never got homework accomplished when I was there. I cherished those days. I wasn't paid to take care of him. My brother was a college student and him and his wife struggled to pay the bills. I told them I would watch him for free and they let me do my laundry there and fed me. Derrick and I shared a bond.

My brother and his family have been struggling with illness over the past month or so. My brother had an operation and developed pneumonia after. He is recovering, but four out of five of his children got the flu, with Derrick developing pneumonia.

He has been in the hospital for a few days now and isn't doing well. If he doesn't improve by tomorrow, they will transfer him to the childrens' hospital in Indianapolis...and they will put in a chest tube. His chest xray is in the morning. He spiked a temperature at least twice today and it was 103 when my Mom was there. He is having severe chest pain. He had a PIC line placed today because the antibiotics were too hard on the peripheral veins. My Mom said the infection is reminding her of the days after my father developed his post-bypass surgery infection. My father almost didn't make it through that ordeal.

I spoke with Derrick yesterday and he talked to me in his laid-back, thoughtful voice. He said I sounded awful. I told him to worry about getting better...that I'm okay. What a kid! He knows I love him and he told me he loves me too. All I could think about was that tiny child crawling up on my chest and falling asleep on the weekends in their apartment.

Derrick is such a special kid (I know...all Aunts think that). You see...he almost didn't make it as a baby. He was born in an emergency C-section a month early. There was a placenta abruption and he was without oxygen for almost an hour. He was in the NICU for two weeks. He had to go to a developmental clinic for the first two years of his life because they thought there was a possibility of brain damage.

This same little boy learned to read by the age of four, could add four-digit numbers before Kindergarten and has over a 4.0 GPA now. He wants to be a Civil Engineer when he gets out of college someday. He beat the odds. I hope he does it again. Please keep him in your thoughts!

Amused and Annoyed at the Same Time

Earlier this year, I joined the world of Facebook. People from my past came out of nowhere with friend requests and questions about my life. I accepted from people I was/am friends with and with whom I want to stay connected. A couple of recent "incidents" have made me laugh, think and wonder all at the same time.

I've been dropped by two people in the past few months. This doesn't surprise me because I know as my list gets larger and I am not really in contact with some people (likes ones who aren't family and I haven't spoken with in 15 years), I will drop some people too. The thing is...I've been dropped when I change my profile picture...both times. The first time was when I posted the professional pictures Angela and I had done in Michigan. Someone, who I considered a wonderful friend during childhood, dropped me that day. I was disappointed because he was someone I cared about following. His listed views are very different than mine and maybe he just can't handle having someone as a friend who is "out" or has different views than his own.

I was dropped again by someone today, right after posting a political picture as my profile pic, asking people to support Domestic Partnership laws.

I can't say that I'm hurt because I am not. I just don't get it. I have so many friends on Facebook who have VERY different political, religious, life views than my own. But, I don't care about that. It's about connecting and caring about how happy people are...or being support for them when they go through a rough time in their life. And, besides my pictures, I am low-key about my views compared to many of my friends and family.

Reading this sounds very cheesy to me now. However, I do find human behavior interesting in this setting and am disappointed in how lame people can be.

Don't Breathe on Me

I am officially "under the weather." Here is the run-down of last week. You will all probably figure out why I'm sick once you read it.

1. The college is going through re-accreditation. Our on-site visit has been scheduled for the week before Thanksgiving. Let the stress begin! I've done so much writing with the Director over the past few months. It will be nice to FINALLY be done with this process. Our binder is about 4 inches thick! Lots of paperwork! The next month will bring lots of steps in the process, lots of mail sent out, lots of planning for the on-site, lots of weekends worked and hopefully a great feeling of accomplishment and happiness in the end (knowing we won't have to go through this for another 7 years). I honestly don't know how she did this without assistance before. I have taken over most of it and have been completely stressed out by it at times. I won't get into all of the issues I have with the process as a whole. We get to give feedback. My work background is in quality improvement and this process has shown me that they need a good QI person to change their process. It is wretched! I told the Director that I would love to serve on the board for the commission at some point to help guide them on the right path, but I'm too new to this business for anyone to take me seriously at this point. Next thing to look forward to...we get to start a new accreditation process with the pre-school. Yay???

2. I started training for the 12K race this past week. My trainer put me on a grueling workout schedule. I ran 3 miles on Wednesday in the rain to time myself for her. I completed the run in under 34 minutes. I went for, what ended up being a four mile run (with about 1/4 of it walking), on Friday with a co-worker. She is going to start running with me every Friday. She kicked my butt. She is in great shape and has a runner's body. It will help me, but boy was it painful on Friday! It was pouring down rain during most of our run and the shower felt so good when I got home. I was soaked and cold.

3. I worked on Saturday morning and the Director took me out for lunch. It was a free lunch for all of us, but the details would take too long to explain here. The food wasn't good and I felt sick after. I thought it was the food, but now I think I was just starting to get sick.

4. On Sunday morning, Angela and I went on what was supposed to be my long run. We covered the distance, but ended up walking most of it. I couldn't understand why I wasn't able to run it. It was only 3.5 miles this week and I've done more than that before. My lungs felt quite full (I thought that was from getting used to the colder weather). I felt weak, like I had not eaten enough. When we got home, I started feeling really bad. It progressed to a sore throat, sore chest and general weakness last night.

5. We canceled all plans this weekend for me to rest. Our weekend was jam-packed and we have another one coming up. We were busy all week last week. I woke up Saturday, looking forward to a quiet afternoon after work. One of our friends wanted to get together with us and we turned her down because we needed the down-time. Then, we had to cancel everything else and stuff tonight. I need to get some rest and Angela could use the down-time.

6. I got up this morning and had to go to work. There were deadlines to meet today for the accreditation, so I trudged in. The Director took one look at me and listened to my voice...she told me I needed to go home. Unfortunately, there were deadlines to meet and she had to go to a Practicum Site to observe one of her college students. So, I needed to be at school to cover for her. I stayed most of my scheduled time and came home to find that I had a fever. So, now I can't go to work tomorrow because we have a 24 hour policy in place for fevers. I know I need the rest, but I feel a responsibility and commitment to my job. I love it there. I also know I will be better for them healthy.

7. There were also the normal employee and children issues last week that normally don't phase me, but when it gets quite busy can just add too much to the pile of stress.

8. We found out that Aphrodite has the beginning stages of kidney disease this past week. We already switched her food and will have her checked again in a month. It will be an expensive change, but that's what we do for our kids! It was tough news to hear, but the Vet said if we make these changes, we could have her for another 5-6 years. My baby girl!

So...I'm going to lay low, take some wonderful Nyquil, sleep a lot, maybe be online and get better so I can contribute to the world.

Fun at the Vet

Persephone (a.k.a. Momma) totally cracks me up at the Vet. She is 13 years old now and has always been unpredictable while at the Vet's office (okay...so she's unpredictable at home too). After she ripped open a tech's arm when she was young, almost every Vet has made the wise decision to take her to the back to do her exams. She is usually "all bark and no bite," but no one wants to take a chance with her.

Upon arrival today (with both her and Aphrodite for their annual exams and blood work), our Vet Tech Kate asked if I wanted her to go to the back with Momma. I told her that Momma seems to be mellowing in her old age, so we could try doing the exam in the room this time. She was cool with that. We took care of the always wonderful Aphrodite and moved on to Momma.

I had to reach in to pull her out of the carrier, which caused her to growl and hiss at me. We got her weight and temp without any issues, except more hissing, spitting and growling. Our Vet came in to examine them and I plopped her on the floor and immediately picked up Aphrodite (Momma has been known to attack other cats when in uncomfortable situations).

Aphrodite - always behaves

And then there is Momma, who never behaves!

Aphrodite was fine and Kate took her to the back to get her blood work done. I had to pull the chair out to get Momma, who always crawls into the corner behind the chair. She immediately started hissing and spitting at me, but kept her claws to herself. Everything went fine and the Vet went to the back to assist with Aphrodite. Momma sat still for me for a few minutes, then faced me and put her paws up on my chest. I picked her up and she curled up and let me rub her stomach. So sweet! I was able to hand her off to Kate when she brought Aphrodite back in. She immediately started complaining. This is about the time I couldn't stop laughing.

I was alone in the room with Aphrodite. I put her back in her carrier and got her all set to go home. I heard a cat screaming down the hall where their lab is located. It took about 5 seconds for me to realize it was Momma. It continued for over a 1:30! It was non-stop screaming, growling, whining and hissing...and yes, I could even hear the hissing with her being down the hall and me being behind a closed door! I felt so bad for her...at first. Then, I just could not stop laughing. It was so over the top!

The funniest part though was when they brought her back in. I said, "She had a lot to say back there!" They then informed me that they weren't doing anything to her the entire time she was complaining. They were only holding her. Once they started to do the labs, she was completely quiet. What a stinker!

Both of our "old ladies" are still quite healthy. We will get their labs back in a couple days. Our Vet clinic is so awesome. They know Momma is Buddy's mother. They still talk about him when we see them. They love all of our cats and take such good care of them and us. We see both Dr. Crauer and Dr. Rogers when we go in. Dr. Rogers is the one who was with us Buddy died and she is so amazing. We have seen Dr. Crauer the longest and he loved Buddy so much and felt so bad for us when we lost him. I would highly recommend them both to anyone...such compassionate people.

When People Disappoint....

I really hate it when I'm loyal to someone and then they disappoint me. It's frustrating and it hurts. This isn't about family or friends. This is about my Fertility Dietitian.

I started seeing J during our fertility journey. I saw her a few times during that time period and 3 or 4 times after. J doesn't bill insurance and we didn't want to send in the bill to insurance because it would take away from our fertility coverage. It wasn't like my appointments were $50. Each time I saw her, it was $125. She said that follow-ups were $75, but since I didn't agree to see her every month, it was always $125. I felt loyal to her though because she saw me through the most difficult times in the journey. The bills are not why I'm frustrated with her. I'm frustrated about the email she sent me this morning...but, I will get to that in a minute.

A couple months ago, I decided to see a new Dietitian to get a second point-of-view. Insurance covers it (not fertility reasons for going) and I was stuck and wanted a second opinion. I went and saw C for the first time. C told me that I might end up doing a combination of her plan for me and J's plan. After following C's plan for a couple months and not moving, I decided to give a combo plan a try.

The last time I saw J, she told me that if I ever needed her to send me a specific plan on what to eat (i.e. protein, carbs, etc for each meal), that she would send them over email. Well...I emailed her yesterday and asked her to send the information to me. She emailed me back and told me that she wanted to set up an appointment to go over the information with me. Okay...so this made me mad because she knows I'm savvy when it comes to nutrition and also because she told me she would email me the info. Now, I felt like she was just trying to get another $125 out of me.

I emailed her back and told her that money is tight and that we're trying to save for fertility treatments that we hope will come in the next six months (give or take). I reminded her that we are out of fertility coverage through insurance so it's all out-of-pocket and that she told me she would send it to me over email. I told her I would schedule an appointment with her in the future when the holidays are over.

She emailed back and told me she would wait for me to schedule an appointment. I have to say...I'm pissed. I know that she is probably having a difficult time getting more clients because of the economy, but if you promise something to a client...follow through! I've decided I'm done with her. I stayed with her even when her plan was not working because I felt a loyalty to her, but I have to think about my health and our own financial plans.

I spoke with my trainer and let her know not to discuss anything about me with J anymore and explained why. She is on board with me. When (you notice I say "when") I get pregnant, I will ask for a different Fertility Dietitian.

I guess I feel like she doesn't care enough about her clients...that the bottom line is the most important thing. That makes me sick to my stomach.

It's Monday...

I feel like I should blog, even though I feel like I don't have anything important to say. Let's see...we got our hair cut this weekend and went to the Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI). I was able to cross that off of my 101 goals, so I guess that is an accomplishment.

I found this adorable picture of Calliope a few days ago. Life is hard, man!

2009 Hiking Highlights

Some pictures from hikes this summer...

Rattlesnake Trail, before the spring thaw

Boulder River, the muddy hike of the season (and my favorite this year)

Cedar Butte - this is a view of Mt. Si from the trail

Cannon Beach - I can't wait to go back in November!

View from Mt. Si - it feels so good to reach the top

Rhododendrons on Mt. Walker - I think this might have been the hike that ruined my knees