Catching Up

Well, I've got some catching up to do! It's been a crazy sort of week. Mark has developed some new and rather worrisome symptoms. But let me back up a bit.

We found a dog! Well, Judy Herring (Jason's mommy) called and asked what we were looking for, etc. She has seven dogs herself, and so (obviously!) knows and loves them well. She told me about a young dog on petfinder.com and said she'd be willing to go in with me and take a look at him if I wanted. So Saturday morning we set out to meet Rikki.

On the way to Salem with my boys, Kayte, and two of her friends (whom I had just picked up from a slumber party), the cell phone rang. Mark had gone into SVT and was on his way to the hospital with our friend Rod. I thought about turning around, but we were halfway to Salem by then, and Judy had taken this time out to go with me, and Rod and Mark both said to just keep going. So we continued.

We got there and discovered that Rikki was not for us. He LUNGED into the room, clearly intent on exploring and conquering. Brendan, from his perch on the chair in the corner, said, "We don't want that one!" But we fell in love with this other little mutt named Monte. He was busy enough to entertain the boys, but he was equally happy to climb up in our laps and be petted. Perfect! So we started the process to adopt him, although we were told that we would have to leave him there over the weekend to be neutered.

So I left there, drove 40 minutes back to Dayton, dropped off Kayte's friends, took my own kids home, and went to the hospital to see Mark. Got there to find that he had slipped back into SVT and this time they'd had trouble getting him out. They had been on the phone with the anesthesiologist, getting ready to put him under so that they could shock him. Thankfully, he did convert without that, eventually, but the medication they gave him made his blood pressure crash through the floor, so then they had to deal with that! It was a little scary to walk in on that and realize what could have happened while I was off dog shopping! Well, they kept him overnight, but Sunday afternoon, he got to come home.

Meanwhile, Kayte's plans to go to the fair with her friends had fallen through at the last minute. I didn't have anything planned for her because she had planned to be gone from Saturday afternoon until LATE Sunday. I have a party planned for today, but I didn't have anything going Sunday for her. And I was nearly broke! So I had to scramble in my mind for something not too expensive and somewhat fun to do so that she didn't end up spending her 13th birthday bored and alone. I picked up a cake mix and made her a cake. Then, after I got Mark home from the hospital and settled, I took her and two friends for pizza. Then we did a little browsing Third Street. (Kayte bought herself some cute earrings.) Then Rod, Billie Jo, and Shawn joined us for cake back at our house. Mark was even able to come down and join us for about an hour. It wasn't nearly as exciting as going to the fair, but Kayte seemed happy, so that's what matters.

Yesterday, I was getting ready to head back to Salem to put down the deposit on the pup when Mark's heart starting acting up again. I stalled, waiting to see how things would go, and ended up taking him to the hospital instead. I called the Humane Society from the hospital, and they quite graciously agreed to hold the dog for us without the deposit since I had "legitimate circumstances." I was really relieved. The kids have been SO excited about this dog. I couldn't exactly not tend to Mark, but neither did I want to lose the kids' dog!

Well, with that out of the way, I was able to turn my attention back to Mark. His cardiologist had originally said he wanted him up at OHSU, but he and the doc on call in the ER decided he was stable enough to come up later in the week as an outpatient. They put him on a new medication to hopefully keep his heart from slipping into SVT anymore, but they are probably soon going to do an ablation, which is like a cardiac catheterization, except that they go in and locate the area that is sending out the faulty signals and burn it so that it stops misfiring.

Late afternoon, they released him. I came home to a call from the Humane Society. The lady was SO sorry, but it turns out that when Monte is under stress, he bites. Hard. Oops. She was so apologetic. I said, "Hey, it's not your fault! I'm rather glad we found this out ahead of time." They know our situation and are going to help up look for a dog that will fit our needs better. In the meantime ... I guess we wait!

But for now, I need to get off my bootie! I need to cook up the "batter" for the blueberry ice cream for Kayte's family party tonight, and then I need to go school supply shopping. And then off to the park to meet Brendan's kindergarten teachers...

Onward

All right. I know my last post was pretty bare bones, but I was so horribly depressed by the news we got yesterday that I really didn't want to let myself start "oozing" in public. Today, I'm much more "together," so ... here I am! Mark is still not well, although that is no surprise. He has always been full of surprises, medically, and this may just be a phase. But my strong suspicion is that he has pretty much seen the end of "good days." I found an email from him when I got up to write this morning. "Wake me at 7:15. I don't want to lose another day." He really wanted to go in and do some work at the church, but once he had showered, he was too exhausted. By late afternoon, the pain had picked up again. He was afraid we would have to go to the ER again, but the Vicodin he took seems to be keeping the pain steady. It's still there, but it's not increasing so I THINK we should be able to stay home tonight. He's having trouble sleeping though. Even with three pillows, the pain in his chest is just too severe when he lies down. I think we may have to think about getting a recliner soon, or a bed that goes up and down.

The thing that concerns me is that this is his "good" time of year, historically. Ever since I've known him, the winter has been hard on him, starting in about October. If he gets worse than this ... Well, I guess there IS worse than this. He's not completely bedridden. He CAN still shower by himself, even though it wears him out. He CAN still walk to the mailbox. Slowly, but he can do it most days. So ... it could be worse. But he's seems to me to be on a pretty slippery slope the last three weeks or so.

But ... we do have some good news! Several points, in fact. First of all, some good friends of our paid the fees for us to get a companion dog for Alex!!! We are all pretty excited. Brendan asks me several times a day, "Can we get it TODAY????" We had planned to go through the program which I mentioned on Saturday, which IS an excellent program! But there is a 1 1/2 to 2 year waiting period, and they choose the more needy kids over the higher functioning one. That's quite understandable! But I don't think Alex would be chosen. And even if he was, this program requires that the child and a parent go down and be a part of the training for two weeks. At this point in the game, that could be a little complicated! It could be done, of course! But ... it'd be tricky. So I got to thinking, "What do we really need?" Well, we need to either get a dog that is certified as a companion dog, so that our landlord will have no choice but to let us have it. Or we need to find one under twenty pounds. Getting a certified dog would be more challenging (and expensive) so we're looking to find something smallish. The thing is ... it needs to be mellow, too. Relatively. I mean, we can't have something like our neighbor's yippy Pomeranian! That would kind of be counterproductive if the goal is to provide a "relaxing canine therapy" for the kids. So I emailed the Humane Society, told them what we are looking for. Also, I am putting the word out to people we know (including you! that is, assuming "you" live in the area!).

Also, the church is sending us gift cards to buy the kids school supplies and school clothes. And they've set us up with a mechanic in the church who is going to tune up our van for free. It's humbling to have to accept this kind of help, and yet ... it's touching, too. It makes me feel like we're really a part of a community, that we have this rather sturdy safety net underneath us, that while we may bounce frighteningly high sometimes, we aren't going to crash into the floor.

No Surgery

Well, the verdict is in. There will be no surgery. The doctor wants to start Mark on a new medication, but it costs $1200.00 per months so we have to go through a process to get Medicare to approve it. It will probably take a couple of months. Also, they're going to put him through a sleep test to see if he has apnea, if that might be causing the severe fatigue. Other than that, Mark's heart seems to be functioning reasonably well, and the doc has seen people with worse hemotocrits and saturations who were functional. But what we see "on paper" doesn't match what we see in Mark. Dr. Broberg said straight out, "We're playing a guessing game with you."

We were in the ER tonight. Mark had a lot of pain: liver area, chest, head, arm ... I think today was just a bit much for him.

Fly Day!

Dad and I went flying with Alex today!! It was SO much fun. Seriously, today was one of those days that's going into my mental scrapbook on the "favorite days" page. The people who run Challenge Air (and the pilots, too) do this totally free of charge for kids with disabilities. It was started many years ago (37 years ago, I think?) by a man who was a pilot in Vietnam. He survived a terrible crash but was wheelchair bound for the rest of his life until he died of cancer ten years ago. But he still lived a full life: flying and skiing and doing any number of things he loved. And he started this program, which his friends carry on. They do it all over the country for the simple purpose of showing kids with challenges that having a disability does not mean that you can't have a fulfilling life. It was really inspiring. The kids there were SO happy. So many gleeful faces ...

In addition to flying (and Alex got to actually "steer" for a bit), they had breakfast food, a pizza lunch, ice cream, soda, cotton candy, snow cones ... firemen who let the kids dress up and spray the hose ... a bouncy slide (Brendan's favorite, by far! He saw one of the boys do flips off the top, so off course he had to try that! Ah, my little dare devil. I heard a rumor that his guardian angel is growing weary and has put in for a transfer ...) No, but seriously ... they had companion dogs, too. For a hundred dollars, we could sign up for a dog that would be specially trained for Alex. Only a hundred bucks! Of course, we'd have to pay $200 for the pet fee here, but the people at the booth said that our landlords can't forbid us from having a companion dog because of Alex's disability. Yey! Not that we have $300 right now to do this, but ... maybe someday soon. (I keep saying that, don't I? One of these days ... Anyway, back to the scene of the action ...)

The plane ride was a thrill! I've been up in jets several times, of course, but never in a small plane like this. There was quite a bit of turbulence, and when we would sort of free fall (very briefly), I would gasp and jump. I think my dad kind of got a kick out of my reaction! (He told Alex later, "You should have seen your mother's face!") I just kept trying to be logical, telling myself how much safer this is than driving through the Curves, for instance. But it sure didn't FEEL safe! I wouldn't trade away the experience, though, that's for sure! What a rush! It was ... just gorgeous up there. We really live in a beautiful part of the country! And it sort of helped me put everything into perspective, to realize (again) how many people there are in the world, many of them with equally great challenges, that I don't (by any stretch of the imagination) have a monopoly of Life's Challenges, that life really IS what we make of it.

For more information on this program, click http://www.challengeair.com/. This program is held in several locations around the country on an ongoing basis. Parents of children with any kind of disability are encouraged to apply at their website.

(Note: To see the pictures in a window of their own, click on the collage.)

Just Waiting

Well, Mark is home. Apparently, we will know on Tuesday at our follow up appointment what they have decided to do. Until then ... we wait! Meanwhile, I'm going with Ruth today to a lavender farm in Silverton. Surprised? Yeah, me neither! But seriously, it'll be good "bonding" time, and who knows? I might get some good pictures out of it!

Success

Well, the cardiac catheterization went well today. They started about 8 a.m. and he didn't reappear until almost 2:00, but it wasn't because anything went wrong. They were just keeping an eye on him. He did have some bleeding from the site when he stood up to use the little boy's room, but his (excellent) nurse quickly got it under control. He was in a lot of pain when he got back to the room--not from the incision, though. From his chest. He couldn't have more morphine yet, but the nurse gave him dilaudid. He soon fell asleep, snoring loudly, but then he'd wake up and crack a joke and promptly fall right back to sleep. At least he's in good spirits! I don't know how much of that is chemically induced! but, hey ... we'll take it! No, but seriously, his joking around is a good sign. He only stops goofing off with people when he is REALLY ill. During past "events," I've felt myself relax when he started joking again because I knew then that he was on the mend.

I've been having some good times with Ruth! I'm actually REALLY surprised. I think ... she actually likes me! I mentioned that to Jason today, and he said (and I paraphrase), "Duh." No, what he said was, "You are your own harshest critic." I guess maybe, after all the "work" I've done with Dr. Warren, that I am finally able to recognize love and admiration?? I don't know. This feels SO different from past times with her that I'm tempted to think she has changed. But chances are ... I'm the one who has changed.

She just about blew me out of the water yesterday. She told me that she has to keep working until November, when her full retirement kicks in, but then she wants to move back here to be near her son and her grandkids and to help out with them. I could have cried! But, being a dignified woman (Hah!), I didn't. I just said, "That would be really great!"

If she does move back here, though, I'm going to have to learn to enjoy conversations about lavender and cooking and lavender and decorating and lavender and ... did I mention lavender?? I like to have conversations about books, about politics, about sticky issues of faith and religion, things like that. Ruth would really rather not talk about politics or the news. While I have no doubt that her faith is completely genuine, she doesn't seem to wrestle around with tough issues. It just ... is. And we're not interested in the same kinds of books. And as far as cooking goes, if I could somehow avoid having to do it ever again, I'd be a happy camper. She does it for FUN! And the whole lavender obsession ... I mean, I like the stuff. I do. But this woman is completely head over heels in love with the stuff!! She grows several varieties, reads about it, cooks with it, visits lavender festivals, talks about it, talks about it, and ... talks about it. But, you know? I realized this week that she really loves her son and her grandkids (and maybe even me?!?), and ultimately that's all that really matters. And who knows? If she moves this way, maybe she'll teach me to make her scrumptious lavender cake. . .

We Just Do

There are nights I just don't want to go to bed. It's not that I'm not tired, because I am ... It's just that I feel hypervigilant, like I can never quite let down my guard or I will get swamped with all of this. I do sometimes. (Let down my guard, I mean.) I can't seem to help it. And then ... wham! It's not a good idea, I've discovered (repeatedly), to let your guard down too, too much.

I wonder what it would be like to feel safe in the world? I don't know that I've ever really felt that. I don't always (or even often) feel physically unsafe. Living out in Poedunkville, I'm far more likely to get sprayed by a skunk then to be the victim of a crime, so it's not that kind of feeling unsafe. It's just that feeling of ... precariousness, of everything being transient.

I sleep in my clothes sometimes these days. I don't know why. I just feel ... ready? Ready for what? Just ... ready. But I'm drooping. I can't stay awake much longer. I've calmed by mind with classical music and Sudoku, and there is a huge part of me that just wants to give in to sleep. But on the other side of sleep is another day. And when I get to that day, I know I will have the strength for it. It just seems like more than I can conjure up right now.

I have a dear friend who also lives a challenging life. I asked him the other day, "How do we keep on?" He said simply, "We just do." It wasn't said flippantly. It's just ... that's the truth. Plain and simple. We just do. So I think I'll take off my headphones and dry my tears and go get some sleep. Tomorrow's a new day.

What's Up, Doc?

Not much news here today. Mark's mom and stepdad arrived last night. As predicted, she commented on my weight within three minutes of arriving ... Sigh. The thing is, I finally have a backbone! She said, "It looks like you've filled out some since I saw you!" I said, "No, actually, I just lost eight pounds." I refuse to be neurotic about my weight, my house, my children. I don't have the energy to try to please the MIL anymore. Take me or leave me. (To her credit, she did say that I made a great chicken soup and set a fabulous table. "Where did you GET these roses?" Um ... I grew them. Right out front. If I "don't care" what she thinks of me, why did those comments feel so good? Okay, so maybe I do care a little bit ...)

She wanted to go on an outing as a family. Mark tries to be the ultimate stoic in front of his mom, but I had to intervene. I put my arm around Mark and said, "You know, Ruthie, Mark will tell you he's okay, but the truth of the matter is that outings generally land us in the hospital. He really needs this cardiac catherization, and I don't think we should do anything that would make it iffy whether or not he's able to get it." So if Mark can manage later today (he had a rough night, again), we're going to go over to the RV park for dinner and a swim later this afternoon.

--Interesting timing, here! I just got off the phone with Dr. Weiss, one of Mark's cardiologist. We were going over what's ahead. Apparently there are four possibilities, which will be decided after the results are in from the cath. 1) surgery to reduce the constriction on his pulmonary artery so that he can get more oxygen to his lungs, 2) an arterial shunt, 3) a heart transplant, or 4) continuing to medically manage symptoms as well as we can without surgery. (Number four would be the "fallback" option, if he fails to qualify for any of the above.) None of these options will "cure" Mark, but Dr. W says we might be able to buy him five years.

A Bit of Rest

Well, Mark is home again. He seems relatively comfortable for the moment, just extremely tired. He walked around Fred Meyers for about 15 minutes while we waited for his prescription, and that pretty much wiped him out. He came home and fell asleep for several hours, wandered downstairs, got a couple of cookies and went back upstairs and back to sleep.

Sounds inviting to me, honestly! I came home from the hospital just drooping with fatigue. I haven't been sleeping well, but any of you who know me well will know that's nothing new for me! I feel really bad though because I feel like I let my dear friend Andrea down. See, Brendan fell asleep in the car and stayed asleep when I moved him inside so I laid down, too. Then Andrea called. Her nephew, Boone, who just miraculously just reached his first birthday after nearly dying twice already in his short life, has come down with a virus and was headed back to the hospital. I knew this, but I just couldn't talk. I hate it when I can't be there for those I love. I don't have to "be there" for the entire world, but it is crucially important to be available, if at all possible, to those I love. And I love Andrea dearly. But she seems to have understood that I had reached my limit of "stretchability," and I DID call her when I woke up, an hour and a half later, feeling more or less human again! And Boone? He's going to be okay. Yey! That kid ... God really must have plans for his life.

I didn't do much the rest of the day. I'm reading Anne Lamott's newest book, Grace (Eventually), Thoughts on Faith. Even though I defected to the Democratic party last year, Lamott is still a little liberal for me. Okay, a LOT liberal. (I'd be considered a moderate Democrat, although Rush Limbaugh says there is no such thing, which really doesn't concern me much since I think Rush is ... never mind! Some thoughts are better kept to oneself! But back to Lamott's book ...) I just LOVE her writing because of the depth of her honesty and perception. She is a recovering addict, sober for a couple of decades now, but ... once an addict, always an addict. There's really no such thing as a recoverED addict. It's an ongoing process. And she talks so openly and honestly about her struggles, not so much with drugs and alcohol anymore, but with negative emotions, with the need to "bury" the pain that still bubbles to the surface sometimes. She talks about jealousy and loss, about parenting, about feeling inadequate, about making restitution for old wounds, for the sake of your own healing. And she's funny. SO incredibly funny. Besides my friend Libby, Lamott is the only one who makes me throw back my head and ROAR with laughter.

But in addition to reading and napping, I played a game of Assault Yahtzee with the boys. What? You've never heard of that game? Well, quite frankly, neither had I--until I saw it demonstrated in front of me. Leave it to my boys to turn combine five dice and a cardboard box with something that looked remarkably like Taekwondo. Oh, and did I mention the profusion of loud noises? Yeah, well, I guess that's kind of a given ...

And now? Now I'm drooping again, but ... I'm peaceful. I feel like sometimes I battle and battle, trying to fit life into my mold, and wear myself out trying ... and then I let go ... and let God have his way in his time and just trust that he will always give me the strength to face whatever is right in front of me. And really? That's all we have to handle--just that step right in front of us.

Sudden Change

Well, Mark is back in the hospital. He had a syncopal episode last night after I had fallen asleep. (In other words, he passed out just long enough to fall down.) Jason took him to the ER, and I stayed home with the boys. When I heard from him about 7:30, he was in severe pain and the doctor wouldn't give him anything more than Tylenol. I called and talked to his nurse, Andrea, who is an absolute sweetie. She said her hands were tied, but "allowed" for the fact that a patient's family had the prerogative to push for better care if they didn't feel they were receiving what they needed. She put me through to the Doc, and I got him to agree to at least call and have a chat with the specialists at OHSU. When I talked to Mark again about an hour later, he said that they had decided to admit him.

But .... the big "but"... No more narcotics. Even the cardiologists, who have encouraged us time and again to go to the ER for pain relief, have suddenly cut him off. We don't know why. But they have also moved up his cardiac catheterization to Wednesday. We have to be there at 6:30 a.m. After that, they will decide what procedures he might be eligible to relieve some of his symptoms.

In addition to his pain, he is throwing a lot of PVCs (heart arrhythmias), which hurt quite a bit but are apparently benign. His BP is a bit high but stable. His body temperature is low. 95 degrees. I looked up what that could mean, but there are any number of possibilities, and nobody is rushing around like the sky is falling, so I assume it's okay for now.

I talked with the hospitalogist before I left today, and we worked out a narcotics-free plan that will (we hope) enable him at least to sleep.

Unexpected News

We got a call from one of Mark's doctors this afternoon. I had gone out to take Kaitlyn over to the Sweeney's. (She's going backpacking with them over in the Bend area for three days. I thank God for that family. They are the reason Kaitlyn is having a more or less normal childhood. Or ... more normal than she would otherwise! They take her all over the place with them, pay for her to go to camp, stuff like that. And they just love her up. Well, it goes the other way, too--just without the money aspect. I love their daughter Shawne to pieces. She is SUCH a character, and I couldn't ask for a better best friend for my daughter. A while back, Shawne called me her "other mom." All right! I'll take it!)

But I've gotten totally off track again, haven't I? I was saying how I went to drop Kaitlyn off at their house and when I got back, Mark came out of the house, looking a little stunned. It turns out that Dr. Weiss, from OHSU, had called. They--as in, the whole team, all six doctors--want to see him on Wednesday in their offices. Within a couple of weeks, they want to do a cardiac catheterization (since the one that was done a couple of years ago at St. Vincent's was botched). They are thinking, apparently, that they are going to do surgery to open up the oxygen flow to Mark's lungs. I'm not sure how they plan to do this. I'm almost certain it would involve removing the band on his pulmonary artery that was supposed to have been removed years ago, but somebody forgot. (How do people forget this kind of thing?) I had been under the impression that it couldn't be removed now, but ... maybe it can? Or ... maybe they're thinking of doing something else?

I'm not even going to go into how I feel about all of this because I have too many confused and contradictory feelings. Mark is clearly nervous, and I certainly don't blame him for that. His docs are excellent, but there is always some risk with this kind of thing. And I have to think that there could be quite a lot of risk involved, but ... it might do some good. I think ... a certain amount of risk is warranted for a chance at improving his life. But I can't honestly say that I'm not nervous, too. And I'm not the one going under the knife! Well, one step at a time, right? Right.

Blackberries, International Loans, and a Bit of Writing

I have blackberry thorns embedded in the bottoms of both of my flip-flops. I looked up from the computer screen about 7:00 and decided to indulge Brendan's begging with a trip to the berry bushes. What is it about berry picking that is so addictive? It's like playing Pacman. I am SO not into video games, but Pacman is a different story. I start gobbling those dots, and I just can't stop! I thought of that feeling as I reached for "just one more patch" of berries. We came back with a good sized bowl, some of which I'm now eating with Cheerios. (Why can't we always eat that way? If I lived on my own, it would be cereal and soup and ice cream. Oh, and the occasional salad. Anyway! I'm getting off track.)

I really wasn't staring at the computer screen constantly today. We were in the hospital last night, so I slept in until 9:00 this morning. Then I spent a half hour reading an article in Sojourners about how some Christians are calling for a return to the principles of the year of Jubilee, in which all debts were forgiven. (This year is, actually, a year of Jubilee in the Jewish calendar.) This article was discussing the fact that some of the countries which most need help--Haiti, Kenya--are struggling to pay back just the interest on loans that wealthier nations (the U.S. included) made to them while they were under the control of corrupt dictators who took the vast majority of the money for themselves. They can't even start paying back the principal, and the vast amounts of money that are going out to pay back the interest alone could be far better used under the new governments to pay for health care and education and other services. But instead the poor people are paying for the sins of their former "dictators."

But again, I digress. After I woke up enough, I got to work on my new assignment. Of course, I had to get up once or twice (or twenty times) to tend to kids, etc., but most of the day I did spend working on the first ten groups of my current (okay, so it's my only!) assignment. I formatted and edited and battled with those #$%% grids. Sorry, Rod, if you're reading this! I didn't mean to swear at your lovely grids, but those things are freaking ORNERY! Well, when I got to dinner time and went to look back over my beautifully finished groups, I found ... only eight. One, thank goodness, had relocated to my email folder and was easily persuaded to join his brothers on the desktop. But the other--the one with most of the grids?--yeah, well ... they had turned into gibberish. Nothing I did could make it speak English again. So I started over. I got a headache from staring at the screen and still ... you know what I thought? I thought, "This is great! I love doing this! I love working for myself, feeling like I'm putting one foot in front of the other and doing something for myself, for my family, something that (with a lot of work and some divine blessing) could, eventually, help pull us out of this hole." It feels so good to be doing something concrete to improve our lives.

It's Official!

Well, folks, my business is official. As of about five minutes ago, Dot the I Writing Service has an official number and slot in the computers down in Salem. (For those of you who didn't know that I have a writing service, click http://www.dot-the-i-writingservice.com/default.aspx to check out my website.) I had dragged my feet on registering my business because of the $50.oo fee to do so, but I must fork out money in order to be paid, so ... here goes! Also, I have my first client! Hoping and praying that this job will be just the first of many.

I know I haven't written much lately, but there really hasn't been much to write! Mark hasn't been feeling well, but hasn't been too terribly bad either. (Three evenings in the ER last week for pain management, but that's nothing new.) We've been (until yesterday) incredibly broke. Beyond broke. (I took our account down to $2.oo when I paid the water bill, but forgot about the auto-withdrawal of my life insurance. Dang! Nothing like starting the month $50 in the hole due to fees.) So, without funds to even do so much as buy gas, we had a very uneventful week.

Our anniversary came and went without much to report. Becca took the kids, and Mark and I had a special dinner alone. It was kind of weird at first! Without the kids there to drive the conversation, we had to think a bit to come up with things to talk about. Unless we wanted to talk about the kids, of course, but I wanted to stretch a little beyond that well worn topic! It was nice, though. It's SO easy for a couple to just become "Mommy" and "Daddy."

What else? Nothing really. I've been writing up a storm. I've decided that this is the year I break in. Don't ask me why. I just feel it in my gut. Of course, it may be indigestion. I guess we'll see!