October 6, 2008

Happy Fall!

Yes, I do know that fall came several days ago, but to me October seems to really be the start of fall, even if it's still 80+ degrees outside.

Yesterday, we went to the Dixie Classic Fair! It was fun for the whole two hours or so that we were there. If you don't want to pig out on greasy food or hurl from riding carnival rides, there isn't really enough to keep you occupied for the whole day, just a few hours. We enjoyed ourselves anyway. I think we both especially liked seeing the animals. I only sneezed three times! I took lots of pictures and am in the process of uploading them to Flickr as I type. I think I might enter some of my photos into the amateur adult photography competition next year. I don't know that I'd win anything, because the photos that won this year were very very good, but it'd be cool just to have my picture on display for lots of people to see.

Also uploaded to our Flickr album are pictures I took last week of the construction on our new wing at work. All of this is happening right outside my window. Everyday. While it is very fascinating, it is also very loud and distracting. I'm sure it's only going to get louder once they break through the wall of our existing building. I hope to take some more pictures this week, because over the weekend they'd done even more work!

Mom had her second chemo treatment last Tuesday. She's taking it all in stride and getting tons of support back home. She's trudging through the uncomfortable days after her nulasta treatments, but by the fifth day or so after her chemo she doesn't sound so uncomfortable anymore. One of the worst side effects for her is that everything she eats or drinks tastes the same, and it all tastes terrible. Luckily that only lasts a few days. She hasn't had much in the way of nausea, but she's made sure to take her anti-nausea medications well before she even starts to feel queasy. Her next treatment will be on October 21. Then her next one will the week after Thanksgiving. We're still praying and hoping and wishing that she and my grandparents can come to our house for Thanksgiving. I've already got the menu planned out! Here's a picture of Mom and her fabulous new hair:

At first she said she wouldn't get a wig. She'd just go bald and wear a hat. But then she found this awesome little wig that was styled just like she wears her hair and it came in the same brown color with gold highlights. Plus, it wasn't expensive at all! Ain't she purty?

September 29, 2008

Argh! I went outside to take some pictures of random stuff and now my feet itch. The mosquitoes must have been out for one of their final meals of the season. I'm horrible when it comes to scratching an itch. I will literally dig a hole in my skin. I've been itchy my whole life. Scratching is sort of like a drug; you get used to a certain and have to do it progressively harder and harder to get any relief. Is there a program for scratchers anonymous?

On to the mom update. Jamie's mom came home from the hosptial a couple of days after her heart issue. From what I can tell, she's doing ok. My mom has lost most of her hair. My Uncle Don, her brother, now finally has more hair than somebody in the family. But, Mom is rockin' her new wig, even though I have YET to see a picture of it (hinthint). She has her second chemo treatment tomorrow and hopefully she'll do as well with it as she did with the first round. By the fifth day after her treatment she was starting to feel better after only about three days of discomfort. We're all very hopeful that she and my grandparents will be able to come to our house for Thanksgiving. She will be on her third week after a treatment, going in for the next treatment on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. She was feeling pretty good on the third week after her first treatment, so hopefully the trend will continue.

Argh! A mosquito got my arm too.

We've both gotten into a new online game, much like the one we were playing when we met. Unfortunately we can play together since we only have one computer that will run the game and it would require paying for two separate accounts. For the time being we just watch each other play. My character is a Black Orc named Htebazile (a prize to the person who figures out how I came up with that one).

The dude in the red robe in the background is one of Jamie's characters -- a magus that rides around on a hover-disc.

Jamie doesn't have to work this Sunday. I'm hoping I can drag him to the local fair. I think the fair should have some pretty good photo opportunities. I've just about exhausted all the ones around the apartment. I can only take so many pictures of leaves. Hopefully I can get some cool action shots of rides, animals, people, mums (I love mums in the fall!), and other stuff. We're finally getting some really good fall light. Fall light has such a nice golden color to it that makes for really pretty, soft pictures.

There was a HUGE crane with an American flag flying high at the top it at work today. When I saw it I immediately wanted my camera. I think I might drag the camera to work someday soon to get pictures of the construction work. This morning they brought in HUGE steel beams, so maybe there will be some more big crane action.

Enjoy the recent pictures of leaves and mushrooms and fenceposts on our Flickr album!

Two weeks ago, I fiddled for school's international festival with our Dean of Learning Resources (who plays way more instruments than I do, if you can believe that). Someone in the crowd captured a few low-quality video clips of the day. I am officialy on YouTube now, though the only clip that has me playing fiddle really sucks. I promise that I do play much better than that. Oh, and I was wearing my boots with the two-inch heels that day. I can't play in heels, so I played in my sock feet. Here are links to the videos:

Video 1 - I am playing the fiddle in this one, but you can't see me. You can hear me playing for all of about 2 seconds before the sound goes wonky.

Video 2 - The Dean of Learning Resources plays the electronic bagpipes. So cool!!! Check out my socks.

Video 3 - I have mad bodhran (Irish drum) skillz.

Video 4 - You can actually see me play fiddle in this one. But then we decided to play two different tempos (I slowed down, he sped up) in the same song and it sounds horrible. Please forgive the ahem...dancing...

Maybe one day we'll get a digital video camera and I can post my awesome fiddling skills to YouTube for all the internet to see!

September 15, 2008

We haven't been up to much lately. Working. Being bored. Playing video games. Not a lot of money to do much since we've had a few computer problems that required buying a new motherboard, though we did have date night several weeks ago. We went to see Tropic Thunder -- very funny!

The last of summer is still hanging on and I feel like everything is just waiting for fall to really begin. I don't want the days to get shorter (though they already are), but I do want the sky to turn that certain lovely shade of fall blue. I love when the trees around here turn brilliant fiery orange and make the sky even more blue. Plus, there are more things to do in the fall. Fairs come to town. The Dixie Classic fair is the first weekend in October. Hopefully I can drag Jamie off to Grandfather Mountain one weekend to take pictures of the fall leaves. I bet our new camera does wonders with the fall colors. Maybe we can go back to the zoo -- fewer people, cooler weather, animals that might be a little more active since it isn't sweltering outside.

Check out the neat shots I got of a flock of geese that grazed in the vacant lot across the street from our place. They let me get pretty close. I had fun traipsing amongst the goose poop. Hehe.

Mom had her first chemo treatment on September 9. Her chest port worked really well for that. The next day she went back to the doctor to have a shot of Nulasta, which ramps up production of white blood cells. She's on several anti-nausea medications (including one that is $100 a pill!) and they seem to be holding off the nausea that usually comes with chemo. She is suffering from the side effects of Nulasta -- pain in the hips and legs where white blood cells are being pumped out from the bone marrow. But other than that she's doing ok. Only five more treatments left! She should be done with chemo by the end of the year and will start radiation at the start of 2009.

Jamie's mom had a heart attack Saturday night. From what he told me, it wasn't a normal heart attack but a spasm. Luckily she lives next door to her local hospital and was able to get there quickly.

Hopefully both of our moms will be better soon!

August 26, 2008

It's finally raining!! We've had rain for the past two days, and we're supposed to have rain for the next three. HOORAH!

I took some flower pictures this afternoon in the rain. Rain always looks nice on petals and leaves. I added this afternoon's rain pictures to our Flickr album, and I added a few pictures from a rainy afternoon several weeks ago including a shot of a rainbow.

Mom is having her chest port implanted on September 3. Yes, we joked about her getting implants. HA! Then she starts chemo on September 9. She will be on a 21-day chemo, meaning that she goes in for chemo one day then goes back for more 21 days later. By her calculations, she should be finished just before Christmas.

[I want to put a picture here....but Jamie's computer crashed and he hasn't re-installed Photoshop, so I can't resize the picture I want to put here!]

August 18, 2008

My grandparents came for a visit this weekend! I like having folks over to entertain. They didn't want to do much while they were here, just hang out at our house for a few days without having to worry about a yard or a doctor's appointment. Mema did water my flowers though. They got in just a little before I got off work on Friday and left around 11am on Sunday. Mema and I did a bit of shopping (Hamricks for clothes and AC Moore for decorations) on Friday and Saturday evening after I dropped Jamie off at work, and Friday after we got back from shopping we played games. I love games! On Saturday they took us out to eat. It was a sweet little visit, but didn't last long enough!

Mom went away for the weekend too, but she didn't come see us. She went to our Aunt Gloria's sister's house and they played card games all weekend. Mom, Aunt Gloria, and I play cards when they come up to Winston. I love cards!

Mom will be starting chemotherapy sometime in the next few months, unfortunately not as soon as she'd like. She went for a CT scan last week that required the injection of some dye with a really big needle. Two nurses (including a Chemo nurse who is used to working with big needles) had a very hard time finding a vein to accept the needle for the dye. So, Mom will have to have a port in her chest for her chemo, which will require another appointment at the surgicenter to be put to sleep. She won't be able to start the chemo until after the port site has healed up completely. The good thing about a port is that medicine can be delivered there and blood can be drawn from there -- she won't have to get stuck every time she goes for treatment.

I bought two yellow mums to replace our dahlias that died. They're kinda small at the moment, not picture worthy yet, and one of them has been almost completely eaten by a squirrel. Mema suggested I put cayenne pepper on it and that seems to have kept the squirrel from doing any more damage. Right before we left to go out to lunch on Saturday we saw the little booger on the porch and shoo'ed him away. He went as far as the tree in the front yard. As we were driving past the house, I watched him sneak back onto the porch. He did MAJOR damage to the plant in the hour that we were at lunch. MEH!

If you want to see a really cute baby, go to theharrisonhome.blogspot.com. That is the blog of my best childhood friend, Angie. She had a precious little baby boy on July 15. Go marvel at his CUTENESS!!!!!!

July 27, 2008

Here's a picture of the necklace I made last night while I was bored.

I put two different pictures of it on the Jewelry Page of Stylishly Crafty. Enjoy!

July 26, 2008

Last weekend we trekked down the road to see my folks. Mom had to have a lumpectomy on July 18, so we went down to be with her for the weekend. Her surgery went well and she didn't have too much pain afterward; she even went to Sunday school just two days after her surgery. The doctor was concerned that he might have to go back for more surgery, but said he'd wait for the pathology report before making anything definite. She got her follow-up report from the pathologist this past Thursday and the report was very good. She gets to keep her boob! YAY!

On Saturday of last weekend we went to the Nature Center in Kinston. They had HUGE snakes and lots of other things, as well as a nice nature trail by the Neuse River. It was very hot and very humid. Then we hit the road for Greenville to see The Dark Knight. Awesome movie. If you haven't seen it and are a Batman fan, it's a must see. Even if you aren't a Batman fan, it's still a very good movie. So far this summer we've seen Incredible Hulk, Wall-E, Hellboy 2, and Dark Knight. All have been awesome.

On Sunday (since there wasn't a NASCAR race), we headed down to the coast so Jamie could see the Atlantic. We went to Beaufort (we NC'ers pronounce it BOW-fort, not Bew-Fort like those weird SC'ers) to visit the NC Maritime Museum and check out the boats at the marina. Then we went to the NC Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, which had undergone a HUGE expansion and renovation since the last time I was there. The largest exhibit is a huge tank with a 1/3 size replica of a German U-Boat that was sunk off the NC coast during WWII. We actually got to see three divers in the tank with all the fish, including some really big sharks. After our visit to the aquarium, we went to Fort Macon and to the beach. It was a very nice day trip. Pictures of our beach trip are in our Flickr album, as well as some pictures I took out in Mema's yard. I'll warn you now, my husband takes really good pictures of snakes.

On Monday before we left, we took Mom out for lunch in Greenville. It was a good weekend and we were all very glad to have the opportunity to be together, even under the circumstances. Mom will see an oncologist in a few weeks to make the decision on chemotherapy. We're all still hoping that she'll only have to have radiation, which is a lot less taxing on the body than chemo. She just wants to be able to go to the Charlotte races in October, since she already has her tickets bought and her hotel room booked. We'll be doing a lot of praying in the meantime!