Archive for the ‘Friends’ Category

Back in November my friend started having health issues and the doctors ended up putting her on a special diet thinking she was allergic to certain things and since then she has lost 35 pounds!   I was so excited for her when she wrote it on her FB page today as I remember how I felt when I had lost that much weight.  People always assume that you must of done diet pills or a quick trim fast cleanse, but it is possible to lose the weight the cheaper way by just watching what you eat (don’t have those 2nd’s and 3rd) and just going outside and enjoying the outdoors by walking, bike riding, playing tag with the kids.

Let me just say I’m so proud of all my facebook friends who set a goal this year of loosing weight as I swear every one of them are still updating their facebook pages letting us know how they are working out (Cardio, weight training), what they are using (Treadmill, Elliptical or dip machine) and to top it off, they also have been excited telling us how much they have lost! I have one friend who has lost 14 pounds this year so far!! (Way to go Heather!)

Reading all their posts gets me motivated as I keep thinking if they can do it, so can I! So far I’ve only lost 5 lbs this year, but that’s with me not trying hard and not doing the exercising I should.  My goal is when we get back from our vacation to haul out the treadmill and start working out again on that.  After all it worked a year or two ago, I’m sure it will this year too!

I still can’t believe while we were in Vegas we went to one of the hot clubs where you have 2 forever long lines.  (Thankfully for them they are located in malls and not outside in the cooler (or hot in the summer) weather.   If it wasn’t to our friend having connections we would never of gone just because of the lines. 

From a 35 year olds standpoint this is how I felt at it.  I felt a little out of place when I was there.  First off I’m overweight and honestly I don’t remember seeing anyone else that way.  It seemed like it was full of young 20 year olds with short, strapless dresses.   Secondly I was the youngest in our group and while we all felt a little old there, some ended up pointing out that they were old enough to be a lot of those youngin’s mom’s!   (It made us feel like reading some wrinkle cream reviews after that)

Finally, if you ever want to go to a club in Vegas and you can spend the $$$$ for the cover & drinks, then make sure you go when your feet aren’t hurting.   Since we had done a lot of walking that day a lot of our feet weren’t to pleased with us.  We just kept thinking at least once we are inside we can find a place to sit, but there isn’t.  Yes there were a lot of open booths, but every table there is reserved so you can’t just find a seat and sit like you can when to you to the bar.

So what did I learn?  I am much more comfortable going to a bar versus a club any day!  Bring me that bar that plays the country or 80’s music any day! 

A few weeks ago the for sale sign went up in their yard and rumor was they needed to sell their house ASAP.   Normally it probably wouldn’t be to hard, but with today’s housing markets in west Michigan.. good luck!   Here they built their dream home that they thought they would live in forever.  I’m sure they put the best of things in like Danze faucets instead of just grabbing something from the big box stores.

Yesterday I saw 6 cars over there with a big truck so I wonder if they are already moving out. I don’t see it saying sold on their sign yet, but I hope for their sake someone did fall in love with it and will be buying it sooner than later.

I’m just bummed they will be leaving our neighborhood as just this past year we started to get to know them better when we hired them to install our kitchen floor after the mess we had with the water damage due to the refrigerator.

I just wish them the best and hope that the new family has a little girl Katie’s age since she is the youngest girl on the street by quite a few years. 

Next year will be the year of travel for me as I will be going on 2, maybe 3 different trips for ME!!  I wonder how I’ll do since only one of them will be with the family, the other one (or two) will be just me, no Paul or kids.  I know I’ll have a good time, but I also know I’m going to be missing the kids like crazy.  Especially at bed time as I love to snuggle with Kevin & Katie.  I swear that’s my favorite part of the day.

In January I’ll be heading out to Vegas with my friend who will be turning the big 4-0.   When we first started talking about going somewhere we thought about looking at what kind of mexico vacation deals there were out there, but ended up deciding on Vegas since there are usually some really cheap airline flights out there which was making us think more people would be more apt to go out there versus Mexico.

Then in February I’ll be heading south with Paul and the kids for a couple weeks.  The first week will be spent in the Orlando area where we ended up renting Scrub Jay Villa for a week!  Paul’s parents are planning on coming up and spending a couple nights with us so they can go to Disney with us for one of the days.  Then the following week we will be driving over to Orange Beach, Alabama where we will be spending that week with my parents.   We did the exact same thing last year and it actually worked out great because we played hard at Disney and then by the time we got to Orange Beach we were ready to kick back, relax and listen to those waves crash on the beach.

Then my finally trip of the year would be out to see my friend in Portland, OR.   The only reason why I can’t say for sure I’m going is because I don’t have the dates scheduled in yet, or the money saved up.  I know my friend had said spring would be the best time, but with me going away in Jan & Feb, I don’t know if it would be to much to also go away in March or April.  It would be kind of nice if I could go more in the fall, that way I also would have time to save up for it as I know the airline tickets out there can be quite expensive.

Oh how I wish it was 2010 already!

Yesterday was quite the day for me.  I woke up thinking I was going to finish playing musical furniture….. I ended up moving Katie’s bookcase out of her room, moved her dresser where her bookcase was and then moved her Ryan’s Room Dollhouse back into her room from the basement as she wasn’t playing with it much when it was down there.   I then moved the desk out of our bedroom so I could move the bookcase in, but to put it where I wanted it to go I ended up moving the nightstand that was on Paul’s side of the bed to my side and moved the filing cabinet over to his side of the bed.   Then with Paul’s help we moved the desk downstairs so Kevin’s computer could go on that instead of the kids table we had it sitting on.  Now Katie will be able to use the kids size table when she gets her tea set for Christmas (or her Birthday which is only a few days after Christmas). 

While cleaning my friend ended up calling wondering if I could help her out as she ended up locking her keys in the car at Wal-mart.  She knew she had a spare set at home, so I started getting the kids ready to go pick her up.  Then she remembered.. the garage door opener was in the car so she had no way to get into her house.   She ended up calling the Lexus dealer to see if they could open her car and they said they couldn’t and they wouldn’t send out a person to unlock it as with those cars it would do more damage than anything.  If she wanted to call someone to try to get in the car she could, but they didn’t really recommend it.  So I picked her up and off to her house we went.

We tried getting in by pushing the garage door open, didn’t work.  We double checked all her windows and even tried to get Kevin up on her deck to see if he could somehow get her slider to open (she doesn’t have stairs off her deck) and that didn’t work either.   We had called all her family members to see who had keys to her house and the only person who did was her step-mom and that didn’t help as she is in Florida right now.    We called her friend who does windows in hopes that he could remove her garage window, but we were unable to get a hold of him.  We even called a local locksmith to see how much it would cost to have someone come out to pick her locks (normal & deadlock) and we were looking at $100-150, plus they didn’t have anyone in the area anyways to help us.  So that left us one option.. to break a window to get in.  We both didn’t want to do it, but it was our only way.  Thankfully Kevin was with us as we put him through the window (it was the slider kind and thankfully the side we broke was the side that stayed still so he didn’t have to go through any glass.   Once in the garage he was able to get into the house and unlock the door for her.    On the way home I talked to the kids about what happened and told them we shouldn’t break windows, only if Mommy says it’s ok. 

I got home and Paul had ended up finding the deer he had shot the day before.  Unfortunately he was unable to find it the day he shot it (he looked a LONG time) so by the time he found it, the buck was quite bloated and was unable to be saved.  He still had brought it home and OH MY!  Did it stink up not only our garage, but I could smell it in the house as well! 

Then I found out that there was a wedding reception that we were invited to by word of mouth and it was to start in 2 hours!  I was so not in the mood for it, I don’t have any good clothes to wear as I really don’t get out much being a stay at home mom that all my good clothes no longer fit due to the weight I have gained.  (I can’t believe I wrote that on here)  I probably could of found something in my closet if it wasn’t for my stupid belly fat.  Of course it would of been a lot better had I not of had a 2 hour notice.  So between me having nothing to wear and being behind in my plains for the day Paul and I both had decided it be best if we didn’t go.  He had a lot of things he had wanted to get done too as he was going to go deer hunting this morning due to it being gun opener.  Plus maybe if we had actually gotten an invite like everyone else it would of been a little different too because my thoughts were we never RSVP’d, did the bride and groom know or think we were coming?  I just felt as if we would of been wedding crashers and it wasn’t feeling quite right to me.   We did end up sending a card with money in it with our friends that were going, so it’s not as if we ignored them all together.    What would you of done?  Would you of gone to the wedding?

My friend is going to be turning the big 4-0 this upcoming January and a group of us girls have decided to fly to Vegas for the weekend.  (Leaving Friday night and coming home Monday)   The last time I was in Vegas I was in 4th grade so needless to say the only thing I can remember is circus circus. 

I’m not to much into gambling.. $20 and I’m done.  Thankfully my friend isn’t either and she would like to do some fun things like maybe taking a tour of Hover Dam, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, things like that. 

So, here’s my questions to those have been to vegas….

1.  Beside gambing… what was something fun that you would recommend doing?
2.  Is there a certain place you highly recommend eating at?
3. When you are there.. are you a contant busy?  I’m debating if I would want to bring my laptop or not.  My guess is it will be staying home since I have a feeling we will be busy, but sometimes it’s nice to have to look something up.  Of course the hotel my friend was thinking we were staying at you have to pay extra to be able to go online, so maybe I will just pass on that.
4. Is the strip far from the airport?  If you were going to be staying at a place on the strip, would you rent a car, take a shuttle ($14.50 a person) or pay a taxi?  (there currently are 4 or 5 of us going)
5. Is there a hotel you would recommend over another?  My friend was thinking Planet Hollywood…

If you have anything else you would like to add that I might want to know, please leave me a comment!!

Thanks in advance!!

It seems like every year a family from my Michigan Mom’s group seems to be moving away.  I think it started off with my friend Erin moving to Colorado and from then on someone has decided to move due to Michigan’s economy and not being able to find a job here.   It just stinks having to say good-bye to people I know. 

There have been times we have thought of leaving here too, but the only thing keeping us here is our family.  After talking.. neither one of us could move away from them as we enjoy living 1/2 mile away from Paul’s folks and only 15-20 minutes away from mine.   The one reason why I wouldn’t mind moving would be because then I would be forced to decutter. 

What I should do is put it in my head that we are moving and then go buy moving boxes and sort by putting the stuff I know I wouldn’t want to move with me in some of the boxes and then just drop them off at Love Inc. (Like a goodwill) Of course my luck Love Inc. would be open and I would do a little shopping while I’m there and would be coming home with bags full of stuff. But bags are smaller than boxes right? ~grin~

I have three friends (neighbor, friends 6 yr old son and another friends wife) who are all battling cancer right now. Two of them are battling brain cancer I don’t remember where the friends wife’s cancer started, but it is now in her blood stream. 

We had thought my neighbor was doing good until this week when they found another pea size spot on her brain and it looks as if it’s a regrowth of the tumor since it’s in the same spot.  They are now at the hospital waiting to hear back from Duke University as to what the next course of action will be.   She is 40 years old and has a girl going into 3rd grade and a son going into Kindergarten.  I just pray that the doctors can once again be able to remove it and that this time it doesn’t come back.  All I know is she is willing to do the best, most effective, most aggressive treatment available so she can kick this cancer’s butt.

Then there is our friends son who is also battling brain cancer.  Last week his counts once again went low and ended up getting another blood transfusion.  Then a couple days ago he ended up getting another high temp so he had to go back in.  It turned out he had a serious infection going on and at one point his temp got up to 104.something.   Thankfully his temp has broke, but with his blood counts still being low and having to get an IV Antibiotic he will be stuck in the hospital for 14 days!  Not what a 6 year old boy wants to hear in the summer.    His doctors have decided that for the remaining chemo treaments for him, they will reduce the chemo he gets by 20% since everytime it’s taking longer and longer for his counts to recover. 

I haven’t heard any new news on our friends wife, but since so much bad news has been going on regarding cancer I’m not sure I dare call to find out.

It just seems like there are more and more younger people I know fighting cancer and unfortunately three of my classmates (I graduated in 92′) have already passed away due to cancer. I’m not sure what kind of cancer they had (mesothelioma or something else) but either way it makes me worry and think when is it going to be my time? I keep thinking why are more and more people getting cancer?  Could it be because of all the chemical’s they put on or in our food? I had heard that MSG and Aspartame actually grows cancer like weeds and if that’s they case why does our government let the food companies put it in our food & drinks? It sure makes me think twice about eating some food and drinking pop!

UPDATE:  I have an update on my neighbor!  I went over at 6:15am today so her husband could get to the hospital and they could hear the results of the MRI from Duke and I guess it’s not a regrowth after all!  They believe it to be scar tissue!  I guess they have been keeping their eye on it the past six months and I guess that kind of cancer grows fast so there should of been a change had it of been cancer!  They still are having a PET scan done and will look at those results, but so far so good!