VACATION!!!

it has been as expected. the first two days...well....very very stressful. but i was proud of myself for holding my ground. we went to the fair and spent some time with the inlaws, and i still held my ground when i was told that i can't go to my friends houses and that on thursday, i needed to be back by monday morning so that she could have her time with the baby. um, no. i have carefully planned this entire trip so that i would have time with everyone. she even went as far as to tell me that my friends don't matter and that she is the only one who does b/c she is the grandma. I said, true, but you the grandma is working until 3 am on monday morning and that we have planned on giving you a day to recover from working 21 straight - so we will be back when we are back.

hubby is docked, and he called today and we are going to drive 2.5 hours and go pick him up for dinner. we have a lot to hug and celebrate -

i got a call from my MW and they want to put me on heparin shots, so that was a cluster on friday - calling the insurance, then the doc, then the insurance and then the doc, then the pharm, ugh....my head was spinning. but in the end i got my medicine - and I HATE GIVING SHOTS TO MYSELF. they seemed to hurt less the last time i did this and well...my belly also seemed to be in better shape the last time too lol...

ok, off to chill out before dd wakes up from her nap - which she really needed :)

headed out of town...

curlyinco we are excited, but i am a bit stressed. thank god for my mom today she is taking dd for the entire afternoon/evening so that i can finish packing and clean the house!! :) distructo thinks that since i am packing she can destroy the house. lol. oh well - the joys of a toddler.

i am a bit nervous to go on this plane flight. she is getting to the i never want to sit still age and this might pose a challenge on the flight. i am afraid, but am sure i will survive. and if it is that bad, she can fly back with dh on his flight!! lol.

Aspartame sidenote...

curlyinco

saw a tv new thing today where they studied Aspartameand mice and the mice who had Aspartame had an increase in lukemia and lypmhoma -

ok, so why do people use Aspartame in products that we consume?

Reliving old times...

Last night was fun. Finally I have had one night w/o the lil one, and I met some friends that I used to work with. They were visiting in town and we got together w/our fairly large group of friends for dinner and then drinks after. It was great fun! Sooo nice to see all my friend's kids and how they have grown up and to reconnect with my friends.

We are getting ready to leave for a trip - and that has me a bit stressed, but not so stressed since I spoke with the ILs and everyone that I will be staying with. Makes my mind at ease, and that is nice.

I just had 3 days w/o internet cable - that sucked, but i am finally back online!! WOO-HOO!!!!

I might explode...

from keeping my secret! We are pregnant and found out last week. My hubby doesn't want me to tell any family members, b/c he wants to be there when we tell them, which is fine. I only have another 2 weeks before everyone will know, and that is great. :) I have my first dr. appt on the 26th, and given my health history, going to the dr is imperative. At any rate, I called the insurance company and OMG we have GREAT insurance, thank god. We only have to pay ONE copay of $25.00 and then that's it for the remainder of the pregnancy! :) All prenatal care is covered. YIPEE. And we only have to pay the facility copay for one person when I deliver, which also rocks.

I miss my hubby, I can't wait to see him.

On the brighter side, our daughter told me today that she had to pee - which rocks b/c i am not trying to potty train just yet. Sooo, this is kinda cool. :)

WE ARE PREGNANT!

I took a photo of our daughter in a shirt that said, big sister - so hubby called from the ship and said, um, what is that shirt supposed to mean? LOL - silly boy! We are both extatic! Hubby is worried about my health, but i feel great and am praying that it stays this way.

Our families do not know yet, and we aren't going to tell them until later next month. Hubby really wants to be there to tell both of them. So, thank goodness no one from my family knows about this blog site :)

Lisa

Fighting with my brain.

When I get overly stressed, I lose my mind. I FULLY blame this on chemo as once I started, I forget the smallest things - where I put my keys - and now it has moved onto bigger things.

I, for the life of me, can't find two things. I know that they will turn up, but I need them NOW and not in two weeks when I come across them.

grr...

Today has been ROTTEN :(

I am really upset. I have had the WORST day with our daughter. I think that she popped her last tooth (thank god) but her attitude today has me almost in tears. I just put her down for a much needed nap and maybe both of us can regain our sanity.

VACATION BABY!!

So I have been officially notified by my family that there will be a vacation the first week in October. This is for my 30th birthday and for being cancer free for one year!! :) I have no idea where we are going, although I could take a stab in the dark b/c I have been hinting at a place for over a year, but...we shall see!! It will be my parents, sister, hubby, baby and I. I CAN'T FREAKIN WAIT!

Now on the flip side, I still haven't heard back from my ILs re: our visit. So I have looked online at a place that rents baby equipment in the area. Although slightly pricy, it saves us on the convenience end and I think I am willing to pay for that now. That being said, if they can't help us this tiny bit, they why do I bust my ass to get to their place to make sure that their grandchild knows who they are?

Diet Coke Problems!

I have been having major headaches and now I think that diet coke is the culprit:
I took this from another blog - grrrr diet coke!:

Gosuke sent me this interesting link. It is about the dangers of Aspartame. Nutrasweet in the US and "Pal Sweet Diet" in Japan are Aspartame. Aspartame is an active ingredient in Diet Coke which I drink A LOT of. I am going to definitely take dive into the links on this page. If what this page says is true, I probably should stop drinking Diet Coke today...

I have attached some of the highlights from the page below, but I would go to their page which has a lot of links if you currently drink a lot of diet soda products.

Here are some highlights from the page:

Aspartame is poison!
Aspartame/Nutrasweet is not very sweet in itself, that may be why Equal puts Dextrose (sugar) and maltodextrin as the first ingredients, so that it tastes sweet.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet is a brain drug that stimulates your brain so you think that the food you're eating tastes sweet. If you pay attention you'll notice that when using Aspartame/Nutrasweet, everything you eat at the same time also tastes sweet! This may be why Aspartame/Nutrasweet causes you to crave carbohydrates. Hence, you won't lose weight using it.
BTW, cyclamates got pulled off the market in the 70's in the US (but not Canada or the rest of the world) because the sugar industry saw too much of their market disappear.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet (aspartylphenylalanine-methyl-ester) breaks down to its poison constituents at 86 degrees (Aspartic Acid 40%, Phenylalanine 50%, and Methanol 10%). Remember your stomach is at 98.6 degrees! Therefore you should never use Aspartame/Nutrasweet in hot beverages or cooked foods such as Jello. How the FDA allows this remains a mystery. There is mounting evidence that the "Burning Mouth Syndrome" experienced by the Desert Storm troops was actually Methanol poisoning from the Diet Coke they drank lots of, after being exposed to desert temperatures.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet's 10% Methanol appears in the body quickly and is the same alcohol (wood alcohol also in lacquer thinner), that your mother correctly warned you could make you blind. Many skid-row alcoholics had major problems with this cheap but deadly form of alcohol.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet's 40% Aspartic Acid is an "excitotoxin" in the brain and excites neurons to death, i.e. it kills brain cells and causes other nerve damage.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet triggers Migraine Headaches This even happened to me!. The Usenet is filled with posts by people who have pinned their migraines down to aspartame/Nutrasweet consumption.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet's breakdown products attack the bodies tissues and create Formaldehyde which builds up in the tissues forever. Remember the smelly, eye watering fumes from the frogs you dissected in school? They were preserved with Formaldehyde! Formaldehyde is thought to cause cancer.
The American Bottlers Association did not want the FDA to approve Aspartame/Nutrasweet because of what the test report showed. But the FDA approved it anyway!
Airline pilots stay away from Aspartame/Nutrasweet because they are well aware of the documented dangers.
Aspartame/Nutrasweet also breaks down to diketopiperazine [DKP] which is proven to cause Brain Tumors! Brain Tumors used to be rare. Several of the rats in the original study formed brain tumors during their Aspartame/Nutrasweet exposure. The researchers surgically removed the tumors and returned the rats to the study and discounted the tumors.

Going to call inlaws today....

and tell them that they need to mail me a few things that I left there in JANUARY that they have been promising to mail to me all year. AND I need to know if they still have the pack n play for the baby and if they don't (which I am suspecting that they brought back to the store the minute we left) I have to figure out what to do for our trip out there. Hubby emailed me and said he wants me to make plans w/o them and then if they want to join in, then they can. Hmm...sounds like a good idea to me. Whenever we go there, our lives are planned for us and for once I want to do things that I want to do - so I rented a car (that's the first step!) and have already made plans to go to friends houses when we get there and then meet up with the ILs after their fair is over. I am not sure they are thrilled with that, but oh well! :)

On a side note, we finally met another cool family!! :) it is about time that I found another family that I would LOVE to spend more time with. I loved their kids and they are both very cool too :) Spending time with them made me realize that I can't wait for our daughter to grow a bit older :) I always feel bad when my daughter has an "issue" I know that she is 16 mos old and needs to figure out how to share, but it always freaks me out when she misbehaves with other kids. I know she will grow out of it, and she did cut another tooth when we were there, so I guess all is well.

why i think the way i do.

some have asked why the dislike for my grandma. there is a hugly long story and i acutally have the time to type it out tonight.

we spend a lot of time with our families and always have. both mom and dad's parents have been married forever. my dad's parents and mom's parents are two TOTALLY different types of people. dad's parents are/were outgoing, athletic and very trendy. my grandpa had major health issues his entire life, and passed away, i think about 8 years ago. however, when we were growing up we would always take summer trips with them b/c they had a motor home and boat and we loved to go go go... :)

well, we took a trip to a mountain lake and the olympics were on. my grandpa muttered something mean about black people b/c track and field was on. so i stepped up and said that i think his accusations were wrong. that set him off, and my grandma too. apparently kids aren't supposed to have an opinion, even if their opinion is directly related to how they were brought up. so the conversation then extended to the point at which my grandparents told me that i couldn't be friends with people who weren't white. at that point in time, i lived in white suburbia, but did have a few close friends, one was hawaiian and the other one was vietnamese. i was told that i had to end my friendships with them immediately and while we were on the subject, never make friends with non-white people and i can't date or marry anyone who isn't italian. um.......WTF?

i was soo upset about the whole exchange, i think there was 3 days left on the trip so i didn't fish or anything or talk to anyone and stayed in the motorhome until they drove us home. so i get off the motorhome and my dad asked me how it was and I told him that i hated his parents and ran into the house. dad and mom took my sis and i out for dinner and i told them everything. they then told us how life has been with them and what they had been sheltering us from. i remember the feeling after talking to my parents. it was like i was told that there is no santa. i always looked up to my grandparents and respected them, but i wasn't brought up like they were - i was brought up to respect everyone and that friendship should be based on the person, not the color of their skin.

well, things just got worse and worse. then they decided to live here part time and to live in sun city the other. that's fine, but then they started to get pissed when we wouldn't go to sun city to spend holidays with them. they are the ones that moved away from the family, not us. the entire rest of the family was still here, i saw no reason why we had to travel to spend a holiday with them.

FF to college. my parents 25th anniversary - i organized, paid for and did almost everything for this. 2 girls and i were living together. one girl graduated, and we needed a roommate. i talked to my dad about this first, and even took ed to meet my dad, and dad was ok with it, not thrilled, but ok with it. you see, ed was this HUGE almost 7' black basket ball player. well...i didn't tell anyone in my family what was going on. then when grandma and grandpa came into town for the surprise party, she called my house trying to tell me what needed to be done and how to do it. so i stopped answering the phone - she YELLED at me for getting a cake 'waste of money and no one eats it' (it was almost gone after the party) well, i show up to my cousin's house to set up for the party and my grandma pulls me aside and here is the conversation:

g - i called you today
me - really? i didn't get the message?
g - well i didn't leave one. i called and a gentleman answered.
me - oh yea, that's ed. he lives with us. you should have left a message, i would have caled you back.
g - well, i didn't b/c he sounded black.

holy fucking shit. are you serious?

me - um, that's cuz he is.
g - oh.

so we go our separate ways and then she, all happy and giddy, tells me that grandpa and her want to take me out to lunch. um, ok - that's nice.

we get to lunch, they were facing south and i was facing north in the restaurant (I still remember this b/c i almost walked out of the restaurant) and YELLED and LECTURED me about having friends who aren't white, and living with a black person. i told them it wasn't like i was screwing him (they didn't like that) and that i have TONS of hispanic and asian friends and i am not willing to give up their friendship just because my grandparents, whom didn't raise me, disapprove. they were pissed. you want to know why? because they knew a lot of the administration at my college and 'what would they think' i said, 'the only people who would even judge me are old, like your age and i really don't care what people your age think' and then i asked them how my dad is soooo different than they are. they are the most prejudice people i have ever met and how did my dad turn out sooo different? there was no answer from them.

so i couldn't talk to my parents about this b/c they coudln't know that i saw them that day and that i talked to them. i lost 20 lbs in 1 week b/c of hte stress that my grandma and grandpa put on me. it was horrible. i wasn't even 20 yet and i got to my cousins after the 'surprise' part and walked into the kitchen and he just handed me a glass of wine. i just kept drinking...

i just can't respect someone who doesn't have a general respect for all life. I value ALL of my relationsihps, no matter what heritage they are from. I am not saying that i am not prejudice, i probably am. I probably judge people, and i probably have made some incorrect judgements. but i think that is a natural part of being human. but to take it that far, and to try to parent me when my parents were in now way shape or form of the same ideology, is beyond me.

the icing on the cake was when i graduated from college. i was the first one on my dad's side to do it in 4.5 years, double degree, 3rd one total to graduate from college in his entire family, and my grandma and grandpa called that week to tell us that my grandpa was too weak and sick to travel. we found out the day before graduation that they drove to vegas for the weekend.

two birthdays ago, my grandma called me to go to lunch for my bday on my bday. we scheduled it. the day before i called her and said that i had 2 client meetings for work and i would have to reschedule, would breakfast work? she agreed so we met for bkfst. after i returned from bkfst, i had 2 vmails, cancelling the 2 meetings. so i spoke with my mom and she then asked me to go to lunch. i said ok. we went to lunch where my cousin's girlfriend worked at the time. well, my cousins girlfriend innocently mentioned that she saw us and OMG it was like a bomb going off. my grandma called me and yelled at me and told me what a horrible person i was for lieing to her about my lunch b/c i went to lunch with my mom and her parents and cancelled on her. i let her rant and then said did you ever think to ask me what happened that i was able to go to lunch today? and she said, well no. so i told her the story and she said her feelings were still hurt. i said, well, i didn't know that i had to run every single thing by you first. she hates my mom's parents, so that's why she was mad. and she has no right to hate my mom's parents, they are the most sweet, non-judging, loving people i have ever met.

so that is major points of the story. many smaller things have occurred since then (like telling me this weekend that i will never be good at golf b/c she isn't and we are the same height and therefore i will always not be good - bitch), but i write them off now. i don't care - if i care then i will be hurt and it is less time and pain wasted if i don't care about her anymore.

Pubic Hair Head

I can't take the curly hair anymore. You know, just my luck that the stupid hair grows back after chemo looking like an afro. Tight-ass curl.I am sooo embarASSed to go out in public. My hubby calls me pubic hair head and he is sooo right. I can't do a thing with it, it isn't long enough to take a curling iron - to straighten it - it frizzes out when I try to blow dry or use that stupid curling iron blow dryer - and yes, I am happy to be alive, but couldn't my hair have come back beautiful?!? You know, when I lost my hair, I quit looking at myself in the mirror - I HATED how I looked - and it was funny b/c since I didn't look in the mirror, I still felt "hot" and like I had hair. lol - power of thinking eh? But now that I have to stare at myself and use every product known to mankind, this just flat out stinks.

ok, rant over.

Having a pity party today, anyone want to join me?

It always hits me about a week after hubby leaves, and then I get bummed. I am very sensitive this week and am thinking of checking out of all the chat groups I am in for a few days.

I think I have realized that my "best friend" is no longer, and we really do not have any close 'friends' that aren't our family. And even that is sketch b/c I guess I would consider my best friend my mom, and I think that might depress me. NOT that my mom is bad, she is wonderful....its just that I guess that both of us would like to become close with a couple that is around our age, has kids or doesn't, we don't care, but they have to like them and tolerate them.

I have tried not to grow apart from my friends, but when they don't call you back or tell you that they are just soooo busy they can't call back or whatever, then I just can't be the only one working on a relationship. You know, I am busy too - I read one of my friends posts of the recount of her day and it made me giggle. Just because I am a stay at home mom doesn't mean that I don't do anything all day and some days you just don't stop moving - literally. My point is, I usually make it a huge point to call or email people back and I haven't seen this happen recently.

I also take things with my business personally. I have been thinking of a way to NOT take things personally, but I guess that is the nature of being a woman. I want to make sure that people are 10k % happy with what they received - for example, my grandma ordered some jewelry. She tried it on and hated it on her, so I told her I would take it back. She was shocked, and happy. I told her to find something else b/c I want her to be happy with her purchases and never upset. I also misprinted a name on a card, and immediately fixed it. The client was happy, but it upset me - I guess I am just harder on myself than others would be.

Ok, see told you PITY PARTY - woo-hoo. Sit down, crack a beer and join me. lol.

Had a good weekend

Well, sort of.

You see, my grandma came to the mountains with us. Which isn't all that bad. It was nice to hang out with her, but unfortunately I do not consider her, or most any of my dad's family, family. They are just plain mean. Anyway, my grandma OMG, she just doesn't quit. I was fine with her, until Sunday. So, my grandma is my dad's mom, and then my mom's parents and my uncle drove to see us for the day. Well, as soon as they got there, my grandma went to her bedroom to call her boyfriend in san diego - yes, my grandma is in her late 70's and has a boyfriend and does everything she lectured us NOT to do when we were teens and even into college.

anyway, so she is on the phone with him for an hour or so and then I go upstairs to get something and she asks if I have a tv in my room - so i tell her yes. Then she asks if I have MSN or some goofy channel with a golf tourni on it with Tiger Woods - I tell her that I do not know the stations here (not my normal cable company offerings) and that I really don't pay attention to golf tournis b/c they don't really mean anything to me - and then she tells me "that's because you are not a golfer"

hmm....that was the end of my rope - dead silence as I sit there contemplating punching her or ignoring it. THen she digs her hole even further - 'I mean it is because you are not interested in golf" more uncomfy silence, and then finally "I mean the way that I am"

ok, glad that was over- Um, let's start fromt he beginning. 1 - golf would have NEVER EVER paid for me to go to college the way that softball did. That's why I didn't focus on it growing up - 2 - I LOVE golf. I play it whenever possible, but she has never seen me as a golfer, so that is just her being blind. 3 - I just got over cancer just in case you didn't notice - I haven't done ANY FREAKING ACTIVITY for 3 years. I went out and hit 117 on a hard mountain course and I think I did just fine TY.

But really, did you have to sit up there and watch golf and talk to your boyfriend the entire time that my mom's parents were there? You couldn't come down and visit and at least pretend that you like them? It was really sad and quite rude of her not to - and my mom's feelings were hurt bad.

But the funnies thing happened - my grandma is kind of like a teenager. So she asked my mom if we were going to put sunscreen on my daughter and a lot of it b/c it was sunny out. and my mom - he he he - said "I think that we know to do that" and my grandma yelled "well then I will just keep my mouth shut" and then took off - we giggled b/c she went walking towards the 4th of july parade and didn't know where she was going and OMG, she didn't talk to us the entire rest of the day.

lol - you just can't win with her. But then I return to find that our building had a fire outside it and it was by our unit and I want to ring the kids's neck who did it. More to follow on that subject after our HOA meeting on thursday. The HOA is a completely other post - one board member wants to put a claim into the insurance company (which we have already had 2 this year). So I responded back, this was an owner caused issue - I personally am completely against turning this into our insurance company. this will make for great discussion at our next meeting.

Huh...for not working and spending my time applying for jobs, I have been kinda stressed lately!