what a week!

What a week! Wow...it just flew by.

I spend last week hanging out with my lil sis, Mary, while she had her third chemo treatment. I'm gonna channel my 80's voice now........ "Dude, chemo sucks". It's a strange experience to sit in a room full of people being pumped full of poison, hoping that it kills enough bad cells, but leaves enough good ones so they can recover. The next two days to follow are more awful, then slowly gets better until......guess what?........it's time to go get pumped full of toxic crap again. I am so glad that Mary is 1/2 way done now though. It may be a Merry Christmas after all! Jay's mom is about 1/3 of the way through her treatment, but her "toxic coctail" isn't as strong as Mary's....so I just hope she stays as "healthy" as possible through the rest of it. So far, so good.

I flew home on Sunday afternoon, to a nice, happy-to-see-me family. They even met me with a Diet Coke! And a clean house! Maybe I should go away for a week more often:) Monday morning brought me right back to the thick of a very full schedule, not enough hours in the day, and definately not enough energy to take care of it all. Talk about a rude awakening! I keep thinking it's still Monday, and it's Thursday already!

I'm sure everyone has heard....but I've got to add it... Holly and Brad are finally parents! Yay! Grady Floyd McMorrow was born Sept 5th. I am soooo excited to meet him. I'm so happy for Holly and Brad. I tear up everytime I think about them and their little fam. I am now the proud aunt of 9 nephews and 3 nieces. Wow!

Well, I'm off to cross country practice (Bekah) and a football game (Eric).

Family Friday at Chase Field

We went to the Diamondbacks vs. Dodgers game on Friday night. They had a Family Fridays special.....these special seats are in the nose-bleed section. Somehow it was also LA territory. Eric of course fit right in. He LOVES to stir the pot and vocally root for "the other team". Actually, the Dodgers are his fave, I just have no idea why. We had a ton of fun. DBacks kicked butt. Eric was sad. :)

This is Bekah shouting "Dodgers suck!" just for Eric. Everyone else in the section were Manny fans....so it was funny that she was so loud.

The traitor. The signs all said "Beat LA". Eric is such a funny boy...NOT!

What do you eat at the ballgame? Peanuts and CrackerJack.....duh!

Craptacularly Craptastic

Tuesday was absolutely craptacular. I got major teenage 'tude from both of my teenagers, a pissed-off husband and a near emotional meltdown. Tears and all. It was super. Apparently, for those of you who don't know....I know nothing, all of my complaints are my own fault, I'm too hard on everyone, I may do a lot of things...but none of them are done well, etc, etc, etc. It was basically an I Suck At Life and I'm NOT up for Mother Of The Year day. Oh yeah, I'm 35 years old and still burst into tears if someone yells at me (except kids....I'm strangely immune to their fury). I feel absolutely craptastic.

Wednesday brought apologies from teenagers...because I WAS RIGHT, as usual. haha.

Wednesday was also Eric's first VARSITY football game. He's a sophomore. He's on the JV team. The Skyhawks had a pre-season scrimmage vs. Centennial (2x state champs) on Wednesday. They invited only 8 sophomores to go. Eric did really well. It was weird to see him looking small on the sidelines. He's usually right in the middle or one of the bigger guys. Put him next to seniors....and geesh! Mommy instincts take over. As far as being picked to play with varsity, I sure am glad that SOMEONE made him go to practice Tuesday, when the coach decided. That person must be a freakin' genius.......to know that it shows the coach that you really want to be there when you show up even when your shoulder got jammed the night before and, and, and.....

This is the jersey presentation after last week's Blue vs. Silver Scrimmage.

This is the scrimmage vs. Centennial. My boy is #44. Half-back and Middle Linebacker.

see that little guy pushing around the big Centennial dude....that's #44.

This is the "holy crap, I'm suppose to block those guys?" ready-stance.

In the middle of the big-boy tackle.

So, I know that these are all views coming from "mommy" and that Eric would die if he saw those captions. However, I was extremely worried that some big senior was gonna lay him out. When the game was over, there was no injuries and a HUGE smile on the kid. After that, next week's 1st season game will be nothing...it's just JV.

Next week I get to go hang out with Mary for her 3rd round of chemo. Yay! Hopefully this will be the 1/2 way point (only 6 rounds-depending on how much the tumor has shrunk). I'm so excited to spend time with her. Maybe I'll shave my head to match hers:)

Wasted Week

I can't believe it's been a week since I blogged. I've been down for the count with some back-to-school, cold-like/flu-like, PITA virus that one of my little angels brought home from school. Of course, they get the sniffles for a couple of days and I get sick for almost a week. I just love my immune system. Even Jay's been sick all week.....both of us only worked 1 day. Crap. Next week is gonna be hell.

So....this week I got NOTHING done on my house. Last Saturday I painted my bedroom, about 1/2 way done. After the bed/bath is painted and another whole-house deep cleaning, the inside of the house will be done.......ready for the For Sale sign. Unfortunately, we still have some yard sprucing-up to do. At this point, we know that we probably won't be moving anytime before the end of the year. Possibly next summer. Who knows. At this point, we are just doing what we can and letting the guy upstairs take care of the rest. I know that a normal person/couple/family could get their house ready for the market in about two weeks. It's taken us two months+. We started remodeling two years ago. With life, work, kids, church stuff.... it takes me FOREVER. I don't get it. It's frustrating. I wish I knew what I could do to "get better", but I am what I am. As of today, I'm not real thrilled with that.

Today Jay and I ventured out of the house, to Paradise Bakery for lunch. We split the large Crumbly Bleu Salad with Chicken. At the checkout counter, I tell the lady that I also want a large diet coke. She asked Jay if we wanted any cookies. He looked at me and said "do you want a cookie?" I apparently gave him some sort of look....because the lady started cracking up. She said "well, duh!"....we proceeded to get our usual 2 chocolate chip cookies and the lady was still dying! I wish I could have seen the look I gave Jay, because I can only imagine that it looked like a "Mary" look. (You can always see what she's thinking because it's all over her face...I love it).

That's all I got........super boring.
Oh. I'm also looking for a triathlon.more on that on Tri-ing to Stay Fit.

Have a good weekend!

Summer Review in Pics

TONS of photos:

Pt. Magu...lookin' at planes and bombs.
My "happy place", the cave at Leo Carrillo

My new underwater camera is soooooo fun.

Bekah at the campfire (which you can't see) at Leo Carrillo

David's such a goof.

Me and Bekah at Girl's Camp. We climbed to the top of a 80 foot Wildfire Lookout Tower.

Eric turned 15!

Eric surfing in HB

David loves the ocean as much as Eric does. I think they're both part shark.

Even Bekah likes the water....when she feels like it.

The boys playing Wii fit at Aunt Jen's house. Eric's hoola-hooping and David's doing balance exercises.

We went to the US Open of Surfing while Eric was at Football Camp. This is actually on his birthday....David, Jay, and Grandpa Johnny thought he would like to see the models he missed.

The kids went back to school and I got a new 'do. I went shorter and lighter than I have in a long time. I'm still working on the styling....but considering that I haven't really cared about what I look like for a few months, the fact that my hair's not in a ponytail is an improvement. We'll see if I can get a better pic of the hair over the weekend...but I told Mary I'd post one.

The Best Day of the Year

Ahhhhh, back to school. It's the best day of the entire year. Better than Christmas. After three months of bickering, fighting, too much tv, bored kids, etc..... they are back where they belong. In school! Don't get me wrong. I love the little devils. The first week of summer break is fun. After that, it's just crappy. Now they're back with their friends, back in sports, back using their brains. Yeah! My annual "take-myself-out-to-breakfast-on-the-first-day-of-school" celebration for not killing them over the summer was spectacular. I just LOVE Paradise Bakery. Tomorrow I plan on continuing my celebration by going out to lunch with Julianne. Yippee!!!!!

The C Word

no, not that one, you sickos.

My mind is a jumble of stress, worry, and general pissed-off-ness... so I'm sure this is going to be one incoherent mess. My sister Holly seemed to do a great job describing things...read that.

The "C" Word is cancer. Cancer sucks. It has taken and effected many people in my life, but right now it's messin' with two of my favorites. Jay's mom has breast cancer and started chemothereapy today. My 22 year old sister has Non-Hogkins Lymphoma and started chemo last week. She was diagnosed and started chemo within 5 days. Both Sandi and Mary will be fine....in about a year. It's gonna be a long year. My insides actually hurt for them. I wish I could take their pain and suffering away.....I'd do it in a heartbeat.

I went and visited them both this last weekend and had to see with my own eyes that they're okay. That made the worry a little better, but the pain is still there. I can't wrap my head around it....WHY? I know that's the question everybody asks when things go badly, but I can't think of another way to say it. How does this happen to someone so young? Why does she have to put her life on hold for a year+, when it hasn't really started yet? I know, there are no answers. It's all just CRAPPY.

I want so much to make things better, but am helpless. I don't know what to do, don't know what to say. A bowl of homemade chicken noodle soup and a knit hat don't even scratch the surface, I know. But it's all I can think of. I'm sorry.