Honestly, I'm honest!!!

I had a pair of shoes to return to Target today. Nothing was wrong with them but they were put in the wrong box so they were the wrong size. They were for Isaac and since I didn't have him with me to try them on I wasn't paying too much attention.

I usually have all my receipts in a certain spot in my purse. When I was at the return counter I couldn't find the receipt anywhere. So I gave the lady my credit card and told her to look it up on my card. I have had them do this many times before and had no problems. It is the ONLY card I ever use at Target. She swiped it and told me that I didn't use that card to purchase the shoes. I told her yes I did. She told me no you didn't. Fine. Whatever. Do you want to do a return with your ID for store credit she asked? Fine I said, as I was telling her how I always keep my receipts and I was mad I couldn't find it. Target has a non-receipt policy of only letting you return things twice a year without a receipt so I was mad I was wasting it when I might need it for a gift return at some point.

As I was rummaging through my purse I found it! HERE!!! I pushed it into her hands. Then I grabbed it back. Wait let me show you something I said. I was looking for the four digits to show what card I used. I pulled out my credit card again and held it up to her face. See, I DID purchase it with this card, I exclaimed! Your machine was wrong. I was right. I am a honest person. Grrrrrr......

This being said. I still love the place. It's kinda like that saying we have in our church. The church is true but the people sometimes aren't. Well Target is the bomb but the workers sometimes aren't.

Celebrate

I had a strange dream last week. Considering the fact that I wasn’t sleeping much at all and how vividly I remembered the dream, it was unusual. I dreamed of NieNie. If you are a blogger you have probably heard of Stephanie Nielson and visited her blog. If not you can check it out here. She has had a lot of struggles in the recent past and talks openly about how the plane crash has affected her life and the life of her family.

I am a frequent reader of her blog but with having surgery hadn’t been keeping up. So I thought it was odd that I had a dream about her. In this dream Stephanie and I were like old friends. I was visiting her house and our kids were playing together. We were taking pictures together and talking. Nothing was said of our problems or health issues. It was a sweet dream and when I woke up I realized I needed to catch up on her blog.

So I started reading. I am sure it was a tender mercy from our Father in Heaven that I dreamed about her because her insight from her blog was just what I needed. I had really been in a rut with having a pity party for myself and it reminded me of the wonderful blessings I have. (Just FYI these are a couple of the blog posts I read that day; HERE and HERE.)

Today I am also reminded of those tender mercies. Today I am 7 years cancer free. You would think I would forget this day at some point but I doubt it. I can still remember that day 7 years ago when I called the nurse to get my results and she gave me the news. I remember crying to her in happiness. I hung up and called Chris right away and we cried together. So today we celebrate our blessings, celebrate life, celebrate tender mercies. Take a moment today and celebrate yours.

P.S. For a great talk on Tender Mercies go here.

Surgery

Well I had a discectomy on August 30th to remove my herniated disc and cut away part of the disc that was pinching my nerve and causing me problems. I wish I could say this was my surgeon:

But sadly it was more like this:

We had to be at the hospital at 5:45 am. Yikers! Everything went well. One funny story is that the anesthesiologist was briefing me before hand about what she was going to do. She told me that she was going to put some medicine in my IV and I was going to feel like I'd had a few drinks and then I wasn't going to remember anything else. I told her that I had never had a few drinks. She was shocked and said I was the first person who had ever said that! After she put the medicine in she said something like, "Enjoy, here are the first two drinks you have never had!"

I had two really good male nurses. Sadly they didn't look like McDreamy either, (although I am sure I wouldn't have noticed in my drug induced state)but they were really nice and took super good care of me.

I came home the same day and was told to rest for the next 4 weeks. I can't sit for longer than 15-20 minutes or stand for two long.

Now I am about 10 days post op and feeling stronger each day. I was told that the only exercise I could do for the next 4 weeks was to walk and I could walk as much as I was comfortable doing.

The second day I had Chris take me out for a walk. I told him I was going to walk to the corner of our street. I got about 3 houses down and had to come back. But now I am walking up and down the street and going out about 3 times a day for a little walk. I am still slow but have definitely picked up speed from last week.

I have already noticed more muscle strength returning but still have the numbness and tingling in my left leg. That can sometimes take longer to heal.

My mom has been a saint and has been taking the three younger kids during the mornings to entertain them. Did I mention my mom and dad cut their vacation short to come home and help me?

Sadly the only good night sleep I have got since the surgery was the night I got home. I think I was so drugged I slept like I had never slept before. Now my body is all messed up (like right now it's 1 am...). I have been trying to spend more time out in the living room laying on the couch than in bed so my body can differentiate when it is time to sleep vs. rest. It's just so hard because I am use to being more active. I am sure my body just doesn't know what is going on. I am looking forward to returning to normal.

One of the nice things is that I have plenty of time to read. I think I have read 5 or 6 books since the surgery!

I have had a pity day today. I just have felt so discouraged. I know it is still early on but I was hoping to be see more of an improvement by now. Here are some of the things I miss and have taken for granted:

• bending over to wash my face or brush my teeth



• Picking anything up off the floor



• getting the milk out of the fridge when its full



• Picking up Lily



• Shaving my legs



• going up the stairs (haven't been up yet!!)



• driving (hopefully by next week I can do this??)


• TARGET!!! I so miss this place. Chris says he is sure there stock has dropped significantly since I have been away.


• acting like a mom

I do have to give a huge shout out to my dear hubby. He is amazing. He does everything around the house and doesn't complain at all. Em and especially Abby (since she is off track) have also been a huge help. They are such troopers.

Okay enough of the complaining. Thanks for all the prayers. Keep them coming!

P.S. I wrote this a couple days ago very late at night when I couldn't sleep. Today I went to see my Dear Friend, TARGET. Oh, how I have missed you. I am trying to do more and more...I told my mom she is just going to have to drive me around for all my errands!

P.P.S I also walked around the block yesterday! :)

August in Review

We had a busy August around here. I think I say that every month so you would think I would be use to it by now!! Emily had her first year at Girls Camp!! She had such a great time and loved it all! I am so glad she had fun.

Isaac finished Pee Wee Soccer. He was so excited to get his trophy, can you tell?? He finished off by scoring 24 goals during the season. He is already looking forward to playing next year!

Chris also went to Scotland to golf with his Dad and his two brothers, Matt and Brad. They had a great time as you can imagine. Here are some pictures.

They did some sight seeing as well. I wish I could tell you what this is a picture of but I don't know the specifics. Some Castle or something. Whatever it is, it's pretty!

I love this picture below. Look what is at the end of the rainbow....My pot of gold! :)

While Chris was gone Isaac turned 5 and being the man of the house he started to shave....

I asked him if he wanted to eat cake on his birthday or wait until Dad got home to eat it then. HA! You see how I am huh!? You already know that he is my son so he choose to eat it on his birthday. After all it's not your birthday without Nugget Cake!

I did let him open a few presents throughout the day on his birthday and also took treats into his classroom. It was fun to see him with his peers. When they went outside to eat the treats all the kids wanted to sit by him. So cute!

We opened most of his other presents after Chris got home. I love this picture of how excited he was!

Emily also started MIDDLE SCHOOL! CrAzY huh?! Doesn't she look cute on her first day of school? Are you in shock that is wearing some pink??

She actually choose her laces first and then looked through her new school clothes to find a shirt that matched!

Somewhere during this time we also had a friend party for Isaac. Here he is with his best buddies. I have tons of pictures of him holding up 5 fingers. I didn't even tell him to, he just would!
Dang is he cute (It's MY blog remember....?).

We also had some injuries this month. Luckily Dr. Sarah and Dr. Abby were able to take care of this. Their patient was in very good hands.

Soccer season is also starting. Here is Em during her pre game scrimmage.

And Abby...

Abby also had a small friend party. The great thing about Abby and Isaac's birthday's are that they are in the summer so it is so easy to have some kids over to swim and have pizza and cake and call it a party. Love it! The funny thing is that the day of Abby's party it was actually cold and cloudy in the morning. Luckily by the afternoon it had warmed up, but the kids were happy to have the hot tub.

I just had to include this awesome picture of Lily. Does it make you crave a cupcake???

Nana and Grandpa came back from vacation and brought these Silly Bandz for all the kids. They loved them!! If you don't know what they are then you don't have kids in school! Google it!

I am so mean and told the kids if I saw them lying around the house there were mine and they could buy them back for a quarter.

This is my favorite shirt that Abby got for her birthday. It has Yoda on the back of it!

Here are some pictures Chris took of the kids last Saturday. I wish he had got pictures of Lily swimming. She can go all the way across the short length of the pool by her self (swimming to someone on the other side). I was trying to teach her to come up for a breath and sometimes she will but she would rather hold her breath. It's funny because when she has to take a breath instead she will keep swimming and shake her head back and forth as if to say underwater, "I will not come up for a breath, no, no, no!"

Don't worry. No children were harmed in the taking of these pictures.