4 Years

Today is an anniversary of sorts for me. Four years ago today was my surgery to remove a Nerve Sheath Schwannoma Tumor from my spinal cord.

Part of me feels like the last four years have been the longest in my life, and part of me feels like it has gone by pretty fast. The first year and a half was the hardest, and even though I still have really really bad days, it is so much better than it was in the beginning. The best part is that I'm here, I can walk and I can live a mostly normal life.

The pain is still there. The nerve pain in my left leg is irritating, the numbness is annoying but it is the muscle pain in my back that has the capacity to bring me to my knees. But most days I can deal with the pain with little problems and I'm grateful for that.

With Emmi being older now and able to help out so much more than she could at age 4 it certainly helps. She can help with chores around the house so that I don't overdue it. (even though I still sometimes do)

I haven't had my MRI for the year, so I can't post that there is no regrowth, because I don't know that yet. I need to call and schedule the appointment, but part of me is always frightened to find out. It is that part of me that is afraid that Dr. Bryson Smith wasn't able to get it all, or that I have another one growing somewhere else. That is my worst fear.

I'm sure everything is just fine... it has been for several years. I just have unnecessary fears.

I'll let you all know what the results are in a month or so when I know.

But until then... Happy Anniversary to ME!

MY FIRST RAG QUILT

So what did I do with my yesterday, when Emmi was at day camp. Well, I could have gone to see a movie that was NOT made by Disney, or taken myself out to eat at a nice restaurant. But I didn't. Instead I spent 5 hours making my first rag quilt.

On Thursday a lady in the neighborhood demonstrated how to make these at a church thing. I took the instructions, mulled them over in my mind and came up with this:

The top picture is the back. Normally it is only one color, but I really wanted to have a design on it too. The front has squares of ladybugs, purple pokadots and pink checkers. It turned out much better than I thought it would and took WAAAAY longer than I wanted it too, but it is so very cute. Emmi has pretty much decided it is hers. I THINK NOT!

THE COW BUNNY

So we got another bunny. *snort*. We just couldn't help ourselves. We picked her out and bought her a few weeks ago but she wasn't ready until this week.

She is a broken black mini rex or as we call her "THE COW BUNNY". Her name is Daisy the cow bunny.

Pokey doesn't know what to think of her, and freaked a little when we put her in Pokeys cage (Pokey doesn't really use her cage, she just stays out in the play area). So I went and bought Daisy her own cage and now Pokey is fine. But for a while we will be keeping Daisies cage locked. We need to let them get used to each other before we let Daisy hop around the play area with Pokey.

She is soooo cute huh?

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE

Em and I went to Chili's on Saturday to have dinner and ordered the Molten Chocolate Cake for dessert. It wasn't the first time we have had it, in fact it was the whole reason why we went to Chili's in the first place.

After eating dinner we gobbled the thing down in record time and giggled the whole time.

Then we sat back and groaned from the pain of "Death by Chocolate". But ya know, What a way to go.

There is the guy on YouTube that shows you how to replicate the cake. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hz4jSM8D5o4

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks promising. However, the cake we had last night also had caramel on it and his didn't. Hmmmm We will have to try it someday, but for now I know where to go to get my chocolate fix.

BIRTHDAYS AND MORE!

It has sure been a busy month.

My little girl turned 8 years old on the 2nd.
Can you believe it?
I sure can't.

We had a friend party full of lots and LOTS of screaming second grade girls (shudder).
Then came the family party which we combined with her baptism on Saturday the 3rd.
It was such a beautiful day and many friends I had not seen in a long time came.

Then the rest of the month started passing so fast that I feel a bit shocked that in 5 days my daughter will be out of school for the summer. WHAT????

We have spent almost every weekend in the yard planting bushes, flowers and killing weeds. The garden is finally in and hopefully will grow. (keep your fingers crossed)

The weather is finally warm. This spring so far has been very cold. So the past week of warm weather is very very nice.

It has been a good month.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMI

I NEVER THOUGHT

I grew up in the age of electronics and consider myself pretty savvy. I'm the one my co-workers look for when they can't get the system in the auditorium working, or their computer isn't doing what they want it to.

So I never thought the day would come when I would think of myself as electronically challenged. Well, that day came last week when I bought my daughter an ipod and wanted to give it to her with songs already loaded onto the thing.

The ipod itself didn't stump me, although the instruction manual was the shortest thing I have ever seen come with an electronic item before. It was the stupid itunes website that got me. Downloading the software was a complete and total joke. I'd download it only to try and purchase a song and have it tell me I needed to download 5.2 or higher, since I had just downloaded 5.6 it seemed kind of pointless, but I did it again anyway, just to please the big-wigs at Apple. But I kept getting the same error.

I figured that all out and then purchased the songs I wanted. The site said they had been downloaded and the little (you ipod has been sync-ed) came up. So I'm thinking. "WOW, and it only took me two hours to get this done" *said sarcastically* Only I spoke too soon. Nothing had been downloaded to the ipod, so I plugged it back in and low and behold a new screen appeared that allowed you to sync the ipod.

It works great now, and I understand how to do it again. But geez, I sure hope the 7-10 year olds struggle with this one too, or I feel really really old.