Oh, How Time Flies

When Ted and I were in high school and had our senior pictures taken, we had a 20 minute appointment, and that was it. Now it's a TWO HOUR appointment!

This coming Saturday Alex will have his senior portraits taken. Yes, they now refer to them as portraits. Joey had this done almost 4 years ago, and I was surprised at how different things were. Obviously I had totally put it all out of my mind after the fact, because now I'm just really amazed at how serious of an issue this is.

We're to arrive 15 minutes early to get all the paperwork completed, even though we already received a couple of pages in the mail to fill out ahead of time. We'll also have to select the "special effects" backgrounds that we would like to use. Alex will need to arrive wearing his first outfit, so they can immediately get started after the paperwork is completed. Yes, that was his FIRST outfit...the first of FIVE.

When I made the appointment, I was also asked if he would be bringing any props along with him. Alex had told me that he wants some shots with the guitars, so we will be bringing along a total of 6 or 7 guitars. And that is exactly why Ted is going along too. I know nothing guitars. Nor do I want to be the one hauling all these guitar cases into the studio. It will be enough for me to handle the garment bag.

Which brings up another thing...FIVE OUTFITS??? We have two figured out for sure. We're definitely going with a formal look, with the black suit that he got for his cousin Kelly's wedding two years ago. Thank goodness it still fits and looks nice on him! I just dropped it off at the cleaners this morning, so it will be in good shape. He tried it on a couple of weeks ago and I was really quite surprised that it fit as well as it did. Of course I better knock on wood, because Saturday is still five days away, and he could still grow a few inches.

Another "look" he wants is the jeans/guitar shirt to go with his guitars. He's a huge AC/DC fan and has at least 10 t-shirts with either them or some other guitarist or just guitars on the front. He needs to decide which one he'll be wearing, so that I can make sure that it looks okay...no stains or wrinkles. But heck, that's the style these days, so who would even notice??

I told him he needs some kind of a sweater to wear with khaki pants. He seems to think that he has all the time in the world to pick something out, but he doesn't. He went to the mall about a week ago, looking for a sweater and they still didn't have them out. The ONE time that I want them to get their fall/winter stuff out early....they DON'T. Maybe this week something will be out. Otherwise, he may have to dig through his winter clothes to see if he can find one from last year.

And that leaves two outfits yet to named.

He was always so picky about his clothes. He went through about a 6 or 7 year time when he refused to wear jeans, and didn't even own a pair that fit. He had to have certain shirts too, in certain colors, along with specific shoes AND only certain kinds of socks. The entire family referred to him as "Mr. GQ" for quite a long time.

He's relaxed a little on his clothes, thank goodness. But all winter long, it's hoodies, with the "right" t-shirt underneath. That's right folks...the "right" shirt that NO ONE WILL SEE. Thank goodness he's been working the past few summers and can contribute to his clothing collection a little.

Anyway, I can remember having my senior pictures taken like it was yesterday. I also recall that my parents paid somewhere around $100 for what they ordered. We paid around $800 for Joey's, and I have a strong suspicion that Alex's will be closer to $900.

Now don't get me wrong. We were extremely pleased with Joey's pictures, and I'm sure we will be with Alex's too. If it takes two hours, five outfits, and $800-$900 to get those wonderful shots, then that's okay. For that kind of money, we can go all day long if necessary!

That's okay though...we've been blessed with good kids and are thankful for that. Senior pictures, excuse me, senior portraits, and all the other things that go along with being a senior in high school only come around once in a lifetime, so it's all worth it.

But I may need to be reminded of that by the time the graduation party rolls around next May!

Parenthood, Part Two

So that summer I had a regular checkup with my gynecologist and just casually mentioned that we might be thinking about trying to conceive. He told me that at that point he saw no reason to worry and that he wasn't anticipating any problems. If I was not pregnant in a year, we would talk about things. Okay, that seemed fair enough.

We had decided that we weren't going to tell ANYONE that we were going to try. It was going to be our little secret until it happened. But that wasn't going to take long. I would probably be pregnant within two months at the most. That's the way this whole trying to conceive thing worked, right?

I was desperately trying to remember everything Shannon had ever told me about her infertility issues and whether or not there was anything in all that information that could make this happen for us immediately. All I could come up with was a temperature chart. So I bought some graph paper and created my own chart. Remember this was back in the mid 1980s, before the internet could provide anything like that at the stroke of a few keys.

So I had a thermometer and graph paper and I was ready to go. Every morning I would take my temperature around the same time, then graph it. When I saw that ovulation was about to take place, I told Ted, and that evening, we let "nature take its course."

Afterwards, I can remember thinking to myself, "Oh no...what have we DONE???" I got so worked up about this that I was sick to my stomach. And then I thought that, hey, what's done is done, and our lives are about to change forever!

Oh wow...I can't believe how naive we were. We just assumed that it would work the first time. Heck, we were even looking at possible due dates! We thought that a spring baby would be so exciting.

We found out a couple of weeks or so later that it didn't work.

What's up with this??? It didn't work?? Why not? It was supposed to work. We did it at the right time. What was the problem?

Off I went to the book section of our local K-Mart. I was looking for books on getting pregnant, and found a few. I purchased the one that seemed to give a lot of practical information. I was already doing one thing (taking my temperature) so we needed to know what to do next to help achieve conception.

I knew I could have just asked Shannon, but of course did not want to let her know that we were trying. How could I possibly be the next person to tell her that there was a baby on the way?? She really suffered emotionally every time someone she knew got pregnant and knew that she could always talk to me about it because I was not expecting, nor (to her knowledge) were we trying. I felt like if I told her, it would be like abandoning her, so I just couldn't do that. I had way too much respect for her.

So the next month we tried the pillow trick. After our "session" I slid a pillow underneath myself and stayed that way for about 30 minutes. Surely that would work.

It didn't.

Nick, Our Former Ghost

So Nick never showed himself after those two incidents in our old house, but I somehow knew he was around.

When we decided we would be building a house, we spent a lot of time in the dining room, spreading papers and things out on the big table. We were taking a lot of notes, looking at a lot of pictures, comparing pictures of house plans, etc. After we met with a house designer, and got some preliminary plans to look at, we had those spread out everywhere. If anyone had walked into our dining room, it was very obvious that we were preparing to build a home.

The entire process takes months. We first met with the designer in December of 2004, broke ground in July of 2005, then moved in early March of 2006.

I do NOT have a green thumb, so we never had many inside plants. However, there were a few that we kept in the dining room, as there was a bay window there and it got a lot of sun. In February of 2006 we were trying to organize the upcoming move. I was off work at that time due to my colon cancer/colostomy/chemo and was getting ready to have surgery again on February 22. Because I didn't need to get up at 5:15 a.m. I would stay up a little later than everyone else. It was like my "quiet time" and I looked forward to it. I would usually be in the dining room, on the computer, either IMing friends, playing games, catching up on email, or doing something related to the house.

I was always the last one to go upstairs and go to bed. On weekday mornings, no one ever went into the dining room. There was never any need. Bookbags, lunches, or whatever were always in the kitchen, ready to be picked up on the way out the door. I was the first one to go into the dining room in the mornings, and that was usually to turn on the computer to check email or whatever.

One mid-February morning I went into the dining room to see that two plants had fallen over. One had been on a small table and had just fallen over, but fortunately had NOT rolled off the table onto the floor. The other was on the floor and had just fallen onto its side. How weird...I was sure no one had been in the dining room that morning, and the plants had been fine the night before when I went to bed. They had both been on solid surfaces and were not wobbly in the least. The pots were both sturdy too. It was COLD outside, so no windows had been open and therefore, no breeze had knocked them over. I cleaned up the mess, and put them upright.

That evening I asked if anyone had been in the dining room that morning. As I suspected, no one had.

A couple of mornings later, I saw the exact same thing. I cleaned up the mess again and that night asked, yet again, if anyone had been in there in the morning. Once again, no one had.

That's when it hit me.

Nick had knocked over the plants, both times. I decided that Nick knew that we were moving and was not happy about it.

The next morning I had a little "talk" with Nick. No one else was home, and I spoke out loud to him. I told him that we had loved living there, but that it was time for us to move to a different house. I told him that someone else would be moving in and he could take care of them, as he had taken care of us.

There were never anymore incidents.

After we moved, it took about a month to get the old house ready to sell. Once it went on the market, it took 4 months to sell it. That's when the real estate market was starting to take a dive and I now feel we were fortunate to get it sold as quickly as we did. A year earlier, our house would have probably sold in about 2 weeks due to the condition of the house and especially the location, but everything happens for a reason.

The people that bought our house were buying it for their son, daughter-in-law, and infant grandchild. It was perfect for them. They were paying cash, so the closing was about a week and a half after we accepted their offer.

The last weekend before the closing we went there and went through every room from the attic to the basement, to make sure that we had everything. Afterwards, when everyone was outside, getting ready to leave, I had another little chat with Nick. I told him that a nice, young family would be moving in and that once again there would be a child in the house. I also asked him to treat them as well as he had treated us. Then I told him to take care of himself, and goodbye.

And that was the last I had contact with Nick.

Amazingly enough, Nick and his wife had raised four children (two girls and two boys) in that house. We found it to be small for the four of us, so I can't imagine what it was like for the six of them, but back then, they didn't have as much "stuff" as we have nowadays. Nick's wife loved to can peaches too. Up until the summer before we moved, we would still find the occasional peach pit in the backyard. I always used to wish that walls could talk. I wondered what it was like for Nick's family in that house...how each mark in the wall got there, when they planted certain trees, things like that.

So, Nick, I hope you're doing well and haven't given that new family any trouble!

Nick, Our Former Ghost

We purchased our old house in 1983, and spent about a month and a half working on it before we moved in. It was in dire need of some updating, so for a while we were working at our day jobs, then spending evenings and weekends at our new house, which was really an old house.

The house had been built in 1929, and was a 2 story with an unattached single car garage that had at one time been used as a chicken coop, but caught fire when a chicken knocked over a candle. That's all I know about that incident, honestly. We had the interior of the garage checked out and the wood was simply charred, not burned, so that was a definite plus.

Back then electricity wasn't nearly as important to people as it is now (point driven home after our power went out around 6:30 p.m. yesterday due to a nasty storm and didn't come back on until around 1:30 a.m.!), so one of the first things we did was get in touch with our electrician.

He added 29 outlets to our house, light fixtures in the kitchen, the bedrooms, the closets, the dining room, the hallway, the basement, the garage, and updated our service. Wow! The smaller two bedrooms each had ONE outlet before they started, and our bedroom had NONE! That's zero, zilch, and nada. They really had a lot of work to do.

While this was all going on, Ted was replumbing the house and I had decided to take down the wallpaper in one of the smaller bedrooms. Thank goodness our bedroom didn't have any wallpaper.

The "blue" bedroom was closest to ours and would be painted blue when everything was finished in there. I honestly cannot remember what color the walls were before I started stripping wallpaper, but I DO remember that there were SIX layers of various patterns of wallpaper on the walls AND the ceiling, AND the top layer was painted.

But I was ready for it! I was so excited to actually be doing something in the house. I had a garbage can, a couple of scrapers, a shop vac, and I was ready to go!

That first evening in the "blue" room was long and excruciating. It took me about four hours to clear off one square foot of wall space. I couldn't believe it had taken so long to do so little. That's when I realized that there just HAD to be something I could do to speed things along. Fortunately someone told me about some spray stuff to get and a special wallpaper scrapper. Of course since we now had a house payment in addition to rent for our apartment and we had hired an electrician, we didn't have too much extra money to toss around, so we were trying to do as much as we could without spending much. That plan sort of went out the window. It eventually took about 3 weeks to get that room finished, and my mom was a HUGE help!

As we were finally seeing moving day in the not too distant future, things were starting to fall into place. One typical evening we had a quick, early dinner at our apartment, then I told Ted I was going up to the house to wash out the inside of the kitchen cabinets. He said he would be up there in about an hour, as he had a few things to do at the apartment first.

So about 15 minutes later, I was sitting on the kitchen floor with two buckets of water and some old rags, reaching into the lower cabinets, washing things like crazy.

The house had three outside doors. There was a front door that opened to the front porch. There was a kitchen door that opened to the back porch, and there was also a side door that opened to the driveway. When coming in the side door, you could either go down the steps on the left side to the basement, or go straight up three steps into the little vestibule space between the kitchen and foyer.

And of course, being an older house, the floors, steps and doors all creaked.

So as I was sitting there, reaching inside the cabinets, I heard the side door open, and the steps creak. I said, "I didn't think you would be here for a while yet."

Silence.

"Ted?"

Silence.

I pull my upper body out of the cabinet and quickly glance toward the vestibule, then back to what I was doing.

Then I realized what I had seen when I glanced, and looked back at the vestibule. This time there was nothing there.

However, when I glanced over the first time, there had been an old man walking up the steps, turning the corner into the foyer. He had on a light colored shirt and dark pants. He was at least 85 years old, if not more.

Weird.

REALLY WEIRD.

When Ted got there, I told him about it and he told me it was just my imagination. Yeah, right. HE didn't see what I saw. It was NOT my imagination.

About four months later, I was home by myself for the evening, sitting on the couch in the living room. I heard the steps squeak, as if someone was walking upstairs. I glanced over, then looked back at the television, realized again what I had seen, and looked back again. There was nothing there. But I knew what I had seen!

I had seen that same old man walking up the steps, dressed the same way, but this time he had on glasses.

Again, I told Ted when he got home and he sort of acknowledged that I had seen something, but didn't make a big deal out of it.

That following summer, I was talking to my next door neighbor about it, and she told me that the old man who had lived in the house before us, had died at the bottom of the basement steps. She also told me that he was 87 when he died. Then I described to her what I saw and she went in to her house and came out with a picture of Nick, the former owner of our house.

I got chills and had goosebumps all over me. That was who I saw both times.

Before this, I had never really believed in ghosts, but once I saw the picture, that changed. Ted believed that I had seen a ghost too. I never felt threatened or uncomfortable when I saw him, so I'm going to assume he was a "good" ghost.

After that, anytime we heard an unexplained noise in the house (as will happen quite often in an old house) we blamed it on Nick.

The rest of the story is coming....tomorrow!

I Have a Confession

Okay, here goes...my confession.

I watch some reality TV.

And I really enjoy it!

I've been watching this season of the Bachelorette with DeAnna Pappas, except for the first episode. Last night DeAnna accepted the proposal of Jesse, and I sat there with tears in my eyes.
I really do think that she had the right two at the end. Prior to last night's episode I felt that either one would be great for her, however, that changed as the 2 hour episode went on.

Jason has a three year old son, and he introduced DeAnna to him. They seemed to get along great. DeAnna is 26 years old and wants to have three children by the time she's 30 (very naive, but I hope it works out for her). Jason said TWICE last night that if DeAnna accepted his proposal his family would be COMPLETE. Hmmmm....does that mean that he doesn't want anymore children? That bothered me immensely. I will give Jason credit though...when he first met DeAnna's family, he was able to impress them, and seemed to be very honest.

Jesse seemed to have matured a good bit throughout the process. A few weeks ago he commented to DeAnna that if she chose him she better be ready to get married because that's where he was in his life. I don't think she is the type of person who could be talked into anything she didn't want to do. She seems to be very strong, and I think she's at the same place in her life. The fact that they said on "After The Final Rose" that they have their wedding date set (May 9, 2009) pretty much indicates that.



I like DeAnna. She was honest with the guys, sometimes brutally so, but that's good. She even eliminated two guys at one time when she only needed to eliminate one. I really don't think that she led anyone on, at least not intentionally. She said what she thought.

I haven't watched The Bachelor/The Bachelorette for quite a while, and I found myself enjoying it this time around. Heck, I might even watch it again!

The Mole is another reality show I really enjoy. I watched it when it was on 6 or 7 years ago (two seasons), and then the two seasons of Celebrity Mole. This time around it's pretty good too. Of course I'm lousy at it. My top two choices for the mole have already been eliminated.

Holiday Gathering

When we lived at our old house, we were a block and a half from the city park, where the fireworks were held. Our park also hosts our town's annual festival.

Doesn't every small town have an annual festival? Where they have a queen? And a parade? And lots of contests?

Our festival is always over the 4th of July, and they usually hold the fireworks on the Saturday night of the festival, and that doesn't always fall on the actual 4th.

We always had a cookout on the night of the fireworks and half of the fun of the evening was watching people drive slowly up and down the street looking for a parking place while we sat on the front porch. It was also nice to see people walking along the sidewalk, heading over to the park. Often we'd see people that we hadn't seen in a long time and would get to chat for a minute or so.

Some of our guests would walk over to the park a few minutes before the fireworks actually began at 10:00 p.m. and the rest of us would sit on the front porch and watch them, which was sometimes a little challenging, but if you looked between the trees, it was okay.

ANYWAY, we have been continuing the tradition of the cookout on the night of the fireworks, even though we no longer live by the park, nor can we see them from our house. The boys wanted to keep this going, so that's what we did.

We had food out the wazoo (is that a word? I've used it before, but never thought about how to spell it) and I think everyone had a great time. Most of the people went swimming, so that was nice too. There were only about 15 people here, but that was okay.

I went to get my camera to start taking pictures, because there were many photo opportunities earlier...but I couldn't find it! I was looking everywhere for it, but it was nowhere to be found. Later on in the evening, just as people were getting ready to leave...I found it. By then it was too late and only took a couple, but they weren't exactly what I was looking for.

It was a challening time for Ted though. His mom was here and we celebrated her 82nd birthday (which is actually today) with a cake and gifts. She is living in an assisted living facility and is struggling with her memory. She was diagnosed with dementia several years ago, and even though she's on medication for it, it is still progressing. She has trouble remembering names, but still knows her relationships. For instance she referred to Ted and me as her son and daughter-in-law, but couldn't recall our names. She knows that Joey and Alex are her grandsons, but couldn't tell you what their names are. She gets somewhat confused pretty often too, especially when she is away from the facility where she lives. When we visit her there, she seems a little more secure in her surroundings.

It's been rough on Ted, watching her progress through this dementia, knowing that it's basically the beginning of Alzheimers. Hopefully that can be held off for quite a while yet though.

She struggled a little bit here Saturday night. She was outside walking around a little and Ted got nervous because he thought she was going to wander off. He went out to get her and lead her back inside. We had all three cats in our bedroom (with food, water, and a litter box) so that they wouldn't be going outside with the doors opening and closing constantly, and so no one would trip over them. We were afraid that she would open the bedroom door and let them out. She looked for the least little bit of lint or anything on the floor, and would pick it up and hand it to either Ted or me. (with all the food here, naturally there were going to be some crumbs on the floor) She also starts to get really nervous after a little while and says she's ready to go home. We try to get her to relax and stay a little longer, but that doesn't work often. She laughed though, when I asked her if she brought her bikini so she could go swimming. I think she knew what I was talking about.

For the most part though, it was a nice celebration. It's always good when the family gets together. We have a great time and will have wonderful memories down the road.

Parenthood, Part One

After Ted and I had been married for 4 years we decided to venture down that path of procreation. There was so much that went into that decision and we talked a lot about it before we felt it was the right time.

One of the issues was, of course, money. Would we be able to afford a child? Would we be able to provide for that child down the road? What about college?

Another issue was that I had a very good friend (who shall be referred to as Shannon) who was traveling down the infertility route at that time, and had been for several years. I know that it was a very difficult time for her, and when someone she knew became pregnant she always knew that she could call me and just let her feelings out. How would she be able to take it when her "sounding board" and last childless friend left her in the club all by herself? Ted and I decided that we would not tell her or her husband about our plans until we absolutely HAD to...like when we hit the second trimester!

And then of course, there was fear. Fear of the unknown. Would we even be able to get pregnant? What about this labor and delivery stuff? Being that I did NOT like pain or discomfort of any kind, and that the mere thought of a needle sent my blood pressure through the roof, would I be able to handle this?

We pretty much decided that we would just jump into this journey feet first, without thinking analyzing each and every little aspect of it, and then deal with things as they came up.

Afterall, it wouldn't take long, right? I mean, when you start trying to have a baby, it just works right away, right? And my very good friend Shannon was just a HUGE exception, that only happened to maybe one out of around 100,000 women, right?

HAHAHA...talk about naive.

Chaise Longue

I was reading a book over the weekend and just about jumped out of the chair when I came across a typo!

The book was Sail by James Patterson. Probably somewhere around halfway through, I read about one of the main characters and a woman (who was NOT his wife *imagine that*) wrapped up in each others' arms on a chaise LONGUE.

It stuck out like a sore thumb. A couple of pages later, the book again referred to the chaise LONGUE, and I was really surprised that they would make the same error twice.

So, I immediately reached over to my laptop and went to http://www.dictionary.com/ and typed in "longue" and got "No results found for longue."

Well...I was just tickled beyond belief that I caught an error and was actually thinking about sending an email to the publisher. I was almost giddy because try as they might, they were NOT going to pull one over on ME!!

By yesterday morning I had decided that I wasn't going to email them, but was curious as to how many others had caught the mistake, and then thought I would google the word, just to see what happened.

Aha! It IS a real word! A chaise longue is a long seat for reclining and is from the French, meaning long chair.


Thank goodness I didn't make a fool out of myself by emailing them.

And for the record, the book was pretty good. Not a 10, but a solid 7.