Legally Blond weekend

Last night was the first of my Christmas gifts from the girls. Kaci drove to Tulsa and we saw Legally Blond, the Musical. It was touch and go as to whether Kaci was going to be able to come. She woke up with a horrible headache and as late as 2:30, she didn't think she could come. But after meds, a hot shower and a long nap, she felt well enough to come. Unfortunately that meant we didn't get to have a nice dinner, but at least she made it.


The show was good, but I have to say, Wicked is still my favorite, with The Lion King a close second. Can't wait to see the rest of the shows with Alissa, Kari and Ed.


The actress who played Elle came out into the lobby while we were still there, but I couldn't talk Kaci into taking a picture with her. So instead we took this picture of the two of us. That's my new scarf she brought me as a surprise, I really love it!

The diet is going very well, Ed and I have both lost a total of 20 pounds. I lost 7 last week! Beginning to see it in my clothes a little. The next 20 should really make a difference. Working hard to get healthy and fit, lots of reasons to live a long, long life!!

Alissa and Brek will be here a week from Tuesday, so excited to see them, it has been much too long, August actually. I have a feeling we will be seeing much more of them in the coming months! : )

Back to the dentist tomorrow, I truly hope he can finish this darn root canal this visit. I know I will still have to go back to have the crown fixed, but I just want this part of it over. I hope I never have another of these things.

Ed's Mom and Dad are doing so much better. So thankful to see them feeling better and getting around so well. We know it won't always be this way, just going to enjoy the good days and try and prepare for the not so good ones.

That's it, I am pooped. But I have some big news to write about very, very soon. Nope, not telling yet, but I promise it won't be long at all..... : ) Night!

Christmas is over, the New Year begins

Today I took the tree down all by myself! Ornaments, lights and even carried it outdoors! Now, if this was only a 5-6 foot tree, you might not be that impressed, but it was a 9 -10 ft. tree!! I posted a picture of it in an earlier post. Quite an accomplishment, right? I thought so too. But...
my darling husband comes home from work, walks right past the tree outside, comes in the house, is here for at least 30 minutes and when I finally say I can't believe he didn't notice I took the tree down, he actually said he had not noticed it was gone. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? A 9-10 ft tree is no longer occupying a large portion of our living room and you didn't notice? His excuse? Well, it was only there a couple of weeks. I give up...

The decorations are all in the dining room, just waiting to be put back in the appropriate boxes and carried into the attic. Hopefully I will finish that tomorrow.

Had a nice dinner last night with our friends the Martins and Charles and Irena Newland. Irena is from Siberia and it is always fun to chat with her. She brought me a lovely hand painted pin from her most recent trip to Russia. The last time we saw her, she gave me a beautiful black lacquer trinket box that was also hand painted. Charles' family owns Newlands on the White River here in Arkansas. It is a great place to relax and if you like trout fishing it is the place to go. We spent a few days there in the summer of '06 and this wonderful man Alvin cooked all of our meals over an open fire. It was so awesome! The food was amazing, we canoed, fished and just relaxed in general. Would love to go back and do it all again, just longer next time.

Supposed to get crazy cold later this week, we actually had a dusting of snow last night/early this morning. Lows are supposed to be in the single digits by Friday and Saturday. Gotta love January.

Why I love PIP(picture in a picture) and DVR's

Because I am able to watch both OU and Navy play in their bowl games with it, flip back and forth and rewind if I missed something good.

I am not a technology genius, but I sure love the little I know how to do! Now if I could just figure out how to post pictures with captions below or above them easily. I can do it, but it sure is a lot of work and there must be an easier way....

Boomer Sooner, OU just took the lead over Stanford! Navy is up 14 -10 over Missouri. If Texas were playing their bowl game right now, it would be a Lightner Girls College Trifecta!! : )

Is this a sign of the times, so far I have spent most of the last day of 2009 glued to this computer. Wonder what I will be doing 10 years from today.....

Goodbye 2009

I must say I am not going to miss 2009. While it started off well, we spent New Years with Alissa and Brek in Boston, it pretty much went downhill from there. I managed to work 4 days of the New Year and then the bottom fell out. I became sick at work on the 4th day and pretty much lost the rest of January and almost all of February. We thought it was just a stomach virus, but after being very sick all weekend and going to the Dr. on Monday, blood work showed I had the H Pylori bacteria. Now I don't know about you, but I had never heard of this particular bacteria before. All I knew was that I was extremely nauseated and wanted some relief. 2 weeks and 2 antibiotics later, same song, different verse. Back to the Dr., the bacteria appears to be gone, but I am still sick and losing weight. 5 pounds in 2 weeks, creeping towards a total weight loss of 20 pounds.

So, we began testing. I had so many tests in one week! I can't even remember them all. It was finally determined that my gall bladder had ceased functioning! No pain, no stones, just decided it was tired of working. So.... on February 19th, I had my very first surgery ever. Made it 50 years, but finally had to do it. Thankfully it wasn't a really big one and the recovery was pretty quick. It had to be, because I wasn't going to miss my trip to Cali with my girls for Alissa's 30th birthday! I wasn't at full strength, but I went. Thank goodness for Kaci, she was a lifesaver on more than one occasion. I think she will definitely be the child who cares for me in my old age, which some days seems much closer than I would like.

But, things began to turn around, I felt better, left my job, which I totally blame for the stress that I think led to my illness starting and started looking for something else to occupy my time. I found blogging! Started reading them and decided I wanted to do that too. Now, mine isn't as interesting as many I read, but for me it is more a way to chronicle what is going on in my life. The hardest part is censoring myself and not posting things about others that they don't want posted. I would love to be able to write about what is going on in my girls lives and how that affects mine, but out of respect for them, I don't. I might write something that is public knowledge and that they have already talked about, but not the more personal things. After all this is my blog about me. But they are such a part of who I am, it is hard not to discuss them here. Guess I will just have to find ways to do it without compromising their privacy.

Things were going pretty well until October. My in laws began to have health problems and that meant we needed to help them. We took turns staying with them, cooking, cleaning and taking them to Dr.s appointments. Thankfully they are doing much better, still not 100% but so much better.

Another first for me, my first root canal. Unfortunately it will not be completed in 2009 and will carry over to the New Year. Have I mentioned I hate going to the dentist? Well I do. Hate it with a passion. Didn't even go for the first time until I was 21. I had been thru 27 hours of labor and was still terrified to sit in that dentist's chair. And all I needed was a simple filling. I had a very good dentist in Waxahachie, Dr. DeHay. I really liked him, he is very good as dentists go. Haven't found anyone who quite measures up to him here in Arkansas.

I know 2010 is going to be a life changing year for my family. I am so excited to see all this new year will bring. My only wish is for good health. Because it is so very true, if you have your health, you have everything.

Happy New Year!!

It's a very Merry Christmas!!

We have had a wonderful day today. We had a White Christmas, a wonderful meal and amazing gifts. I think my favorite (so far) would have to be my season tickets to the Tulsa Performing Arts Broadway shows. Not the tickets themselves so much as the fact that I will be attending with Alissa, Kari, Kaci and Ed! Individually!! There are 4 shows and each of them will go with me to a show! The first will be in January with Kaci to see Legally Blond, then in April with Alissa to see the Beatles, May and June are yet to be determined, it will be The Wizard of Oz and a Cirque de Soleil show with either Ed or Kari. I am so excited the girls are going to do this with me!!

I also was given a web cam so that I can have video conversations with the girls!! Can't wait to "see" them when we chat!

More on Christmas later, back to family time!!

Merry Christmas!!

Will this ever end???

Ok, today I was supposed to finish my root canal. But no, couldn't be finished, will have to go back yet another time and hopefully finish it then. But of course that won't be the end of it, because then I will have to get the crown replaced that he had to destroy in order to get to the roots. My mouth is so sore and I hope I never have to do this again.

Finally!!

I have a tree!! A week before Christmas even. No lights or decorations on it, but it is in my living room and it smells like Christmas in my house.

Now, on to the decorating!!