Ranting about .....

As usual, it's been another couple months since my last entry, so there are oh so many things I can talk about, some of which are reasons for not allotting my time to this blog. The first is a nice one, vacation. We went to Williamsburg, VA for the week starting with Holy Saturday. It was a really good trip. Normally I would prefer to south, but there aren't many options for exchanging a time share last minute over Easter break, so to VA we went. The resort was nice. We've gotten a bit spoiled staying apt. style, but for a weeklong stay, it sure beats a hotel room, and the extra space keeps the kids from getting on each others nerves too much. The weather was fab, cool early in the week, and warmer as it went along. By the end of the trip we were in shorts. We wandered thru Colonial Williamsburg, had two great days at Busch Gardens, a day playing golf in Va. Beach, a day at the Jamestown settlement and museum, and an hour at Yorktown. The first day at Busch Gardens was a little drizzly and overcast, so the park was wide open. It was great, hardly any waiting even at the big coasters. T and I could easily take turns going on the bigger rides together with one of the older two kids without taking forever, and while waiting, we could get onto one of smaller rides with our youngest. It was also the first time at a big amusement park with kids and no stroller, in part because our youngest is 7, and the park isn't nearly as spread out as Disney, though there seemed to be as many rides. It was very liberating! I was really impressed with the museum at Jamestown settlement. I would highly recommend it if you are in that area. The golf was at the course run by a pro, Dean, who was the assistant pro at the course where I grew up playing. I haven't actually seen him in probably 30 years, but my brothers have, and it is really amazing how you can instantly feel the same connection you had so long ago. Back then I spent a lot of time hanging aroung the pro shop when I didn't want to practice and thus goofed around with the staff and had a few nicknames. When I called Dean and gave my nickname, he knew who it was almost immediately and after that, it was like no time had passed. He most gracioustly let my husband and I play his course and gave us an extra cart so the kids could ride along. I must add that this was a very nice course in Virginia Beach. All in all, the trip went pretty much without a hitch. All vacations must end, and as usual the return to reality often gives more work than seems fair, and this was no exception.
On the second day back at work after working late, I stopped at the grocery to get one item and apparently left my wallet sitting at the checkout or dropped it, leading to my first rant. Unfortunately some not very scrupulous person picked it up and decided to use a couple credit cards. I was not even aware the wallet was missing until T called with a message that a credit card was asking about some purchases that morning. I told him "not me" so tell them to cancel, then discovered the missing wallet. As any of you who've had similar misfortune know, it really isn't the money unless you were really carrying a wad of cash. The card companies take care of the fraudulent charges. It's the sense of violation, followed by the hours on the phone and computer cancelling cards and having items replaced. I ordered my credit reports and found an incorrect previous address (from before the theft) and had to go thru the added steps of desputing that on each report. Thank goodness I think I've done most of what needs to be done on that front. Of course, tax info needed to be gathered and taken to the accountant at the same time. The icing on the cake, we had to pay some federal back for the first time ever. Yuck. After that, we did get to have some fun at a costume party with the theme "so you want to be a rock star". T was a rhinestone cowboy and I was an old Tine Turner with the long straight hair, at least that was what I was supposed to be even if I didn't look much like it. The following day, I came down with a case of laryngitis and had to nearly whisper my was thru a week of patient care.
This past weekend I took P, my 10 year old to a national chess tournament in Atlanta. It was a HS event, but open to all grades K-12. Most of his opponents were a lot older, but he still managed to ge a few points.
Well, it's gotten really late and I haven't even gotten to my ranting, but the preview is that it has to do with schools and their inability to exercise common sense in bothe the educational and health/medical arenas in regard to students and their families. I'll try to get back to this in a day or two.
good night

Catching up on this and that...

It's been a long time since I've even had much of a chance to think about a topic to post, let alone sit and post an entry that I feel compelled to do so now. It's quiet, not too late, and no pressing last minute jobs to do like studying for boards or sending out birthday invitations, so even though I don't have any particular subject in mind, I think I'll just ramble on the keyboard a bit. My spouse hasn't really been talking to me for a few days and won't tell me why, so I'll just pretend someone is listening.

Let's see, where to start. I think I mentioned last fall that my mom was diagnosed with breast ca. Since then, she had surgery to remove the tumor, but didn't require mastectomy or chemo. She finished radiation therapy last month and if all goes well, that will be it! Another one of life's hurdles cleared. Thanksgiving was great because we had a house full of people. My mom and dad, my mother-in-law, and my brother-in-law, S, and his wife, C were with us. It had been along time since we had family stay with us and it was really nice.

The weekend before Christmas was spent in NC with my husband's side of the family. The rough part was coming home really early Christmas Eve with very little sleep and stilling having a lot of preparations to do, but we made it and things were ready for Santa by the time we went to bed. I'm happy to report that we had nowhere to go on Christmas day and I never got out of my pajamas.

January brought a mixture of emotions. S and C got to visit the baby girl who will hopefully be joining them in the states in a few months, but during the same trip, C's father lost his battle with cancer. I think he was a really great person. Two of my own children had birthdays, my son,P, now 10 and my baby girl,K, now 7. Both chose to have good old fashioned parties at home, even with the offer to have it at an outside location. I think both of them and their friends had a fun at each. For those of you with young children, you likely know what webkinz are. That was the theme of K's party. All the little girls brought their favorite webkinz, made a crown for it, went on a gem hunt and used the gems to decorate the crown, and then had a candy land type game spinning a wheel of fortune type spinner (the wheel of wow) to pick the color. P and his friends played foosball, ping pong, and capture the flag, and finally took turns dropping a beanbag with their feet onto a target while riding down a zip line. No injuries!

My oldest, closing in on 13, had a valentine's day dance to go to. All the girls got dresses and made a big deal out of getting ready, nail polish and straightening hair, etc. It was funny, because for the most part, they were still pretty well divided into groups of mostly boys or girls when i saw them. I'm sure that won't last much longer, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can. I am glad they had fun, because I was feeling a little guilty about making her upset earlier in the day. We had to meet with the guidance counselor to make some class choices for next year. Basically it boiled down to what level math and english (regular, college prep, or honors), and what language. Both her math and english teachers recommended her for the honors level in each, so I figured it was a no brainer to choose those. She felt a lot differently and was brought to tears before I relented and let her back down to cp in the english, with the counselor guiding me that way. I had no idea she was so stressed about the honors, because she gets good grades now with what doesn't appear to be much effort. Thinking about it later, it is just 8th grade, as long as we don't let her go too easy, it's not apt to be a life changing decision, and since she'll be thirteen, it will probably make all our lives better next year. As I eluded to earlier, I had to take an exam to recertify for my boards. I was otherwise so busy that I didn't have time to stress over it, or prepare for it for that matter. I just took the practice test and hoped for the best. It had to be taken at one of those testing centers, almost 4 hours at a computer. I am happy to say, that I did pass, Yeah, and even better, I only had to wait a week for the results. I am now a board certified pediatrician for another 7 years. I am also getting to be tired as the time ticks later so I'll wrap it up soon. The last month has been pretty busy in the office with the flu upon us, so my days are pretty steady. It's good for business, but I do fall behind on all the admistrative type stuff, forms, returning calls, resident evaluations, etc. I'm quite happy that we are closed on Monday since we are a university office.

Good-bye for now. I hope I didn't bore you too much. Next time, more interesting fodder, tales of laser hair removal!

Reunions

I recently received an invitation to my 25th high school reunion. Due to several factors, short notice, busy time of year at work and school, the fact that I live 10 hours away by car thus requiring a plane flight for a short weekend, and that my parents will be out of town, I will not be attending. Initially I was not that disappointed. I've only kept in touch will a few old classmates, most of whom will not be attending. But after spending several evenings this past week going thru old photos and emailing them to a classmate who is preparing a slideshow for the event, I find myself a bit more disappointed that I'll be missing it. I'm not entirely sure why, nostalgia, curiosity, or maybe it's more selfish. Maybe it's a need to be remembered, a need to let them know that the girl they voted most likely to succeed (in a tie with another girl, a singer, even though I wasn't the most popular, or the prettiest or the funniest) has succeeded in some ways. Maybe because I feel I struggle in so many other ways to succeed in simple day to day things, like getting the kids ready for school without a mad rush, or to bed on time with all homework done, or getting places comfortably on time. Perhaps seeing myself thru the eyes of others who might be more likely to see the big picture of what I've managed to do thus far might be reassuring. Whatever it is, I hope I make it to the 30th.

More good news...

Mom had her lumpectomy last week. The tumor was localized, pathology showed it was ductal (if you've got to have it, it's the kind to have said my mother's surgeon), and the nodes were not involved. Now after she heals adequately she'll have a round of radiation and hopefully be done with this. The down side is that she's had to stop taking estrogen which means her risk for osteoporosis goes way up, so she'll have to start taking fosamax (sp?). A small price to pay I suppose.
I figured it was self evident, but yes, the photo with the last post is of my mom and dad taken this summer.
That's all for now. I'm going to go read for pleasure. Something I don't get to do nearly often enough. Much of the reason is that I allow myself to get caught up in things like this and the time flies away before I know it. I will therefore say, "Good night".

Good News

We have some good news about my mom. The melanoma on her leg was not deep enough to warrant any further surgery, like node biopsy, etc. YEAH!
Now we just have to wait for the lumpectomy and results from that next week.

School meetings, vomiting, and long division, oh my...

Today was generally a pretty good day. I got the kids to school on time by more than the skin of our teeth. My husband remembered the kids' dentist appts. early enough for me to call in the antibiotic Rx that O (my oldest) has to take prior to her dental exams and to get her out of school in time for the appt. I even finished up my work early enough clean off another shelf in my office (in preparation of a meeting next week with the assistant to the new dean of our medical school) and still get out at a reasonable time. From there things changed. On my arrival home my son (M) informed me that he was feeling queasy and still had a lot of homework to do. I figured it was probably from swallowing too much of something at the dentist and he would feel fine once his homework was done. Unfortunately, I couldn't stick around to see how that turned out because there was a back to school meeting at D's school. On my return all was quiet and everyone was asleep, but then I heard that dreaded and unmistakable sound of a child vomiting. The good news is that he made it to the bathroom, so I didn't have to change sheets or scrub rugs. Actually, that was GREAT news as I can do blood and bugs, but I hate vomit. The bad news is that it happened several times and he hadn't finished his homework. He presented me with a sheet of long division problems (something new for him) with only a few problems done, and most of those incorrectly. I know what you're thinking, "I can't believe she tried to make him do his work when he was sick". Well, I did try when I thought the vomiting was going to be a one time thing and he'd be going back to school tomorrow. I thought it was important to do a few with him to make sure he understood it before he started doing them tomorrow since I won't be around. He is now soundly asleep on the couch with a bucket next to him. He normally sleeps in a top bunk with his sister underneath, so I don't want to take the chance of hitting her if he wakes up and can't get out of bed on time. We've had some close calls before.

On a bit heavier note, I received some scary news the other night. My mother, 77 years young, had a breast biopsy come back positive for cancer. With the stats being what they are, I know many of you can relate all too well in regard to a mother, sister, friend or self in this matter. She actually had a wide excision of a melanoma on her leg at the same time they did her needle biopsy. When I called my parents to find out if they had any results, my father said yes, and not good. I immediately assumed it was the melanoma, but it was the breast. We're still waiting to hear about the margins of the skin lesion so we'll know whether they'll have to check groin lymph nodes when they have her in next week to do her lumpectomy. You have to understand that my mom is really healthy. I don't mean she's a fitness nut or into health food, she's just never sick other than a cold here and there. She's lived a good moderate life. I don't think she knows how to be sick. She's worrying about whether her kitchen which is currently being redone will be done in time for her to get everything back into the cabinets before she has her surgery next week. Yes, I did tell her to quit worrying about that. Any way, please keep her in your prayers, thoughts, meditations, or whatever it is you may do to send positive energy her way, and for my dad too. They've been married more that 50 years and this will be tough on him too. I do mean emotionally, he isn't helpless and he can certainly step up to the plate as far as pitching in to get things done.

Time for bed if I'm to get up and go to a 6 a.m. body pump class. I took the summer off and just went back yesterday morning after about 2 1/2 months and boy am I sore. Good Night.

And so It begins again ...

For anyone who may have seen my first entries and figured I had fizzled out when they hadn't seen any more postings for a few weeks, I'm back. It isn't that I haven't thought about sitting down to do this on several occasions, it's just that sleep, or reading a bit, or retouching the trim in the new (redo) bathroom have seemed to take precedence. I'll admit, that all of those were still in competition for my time tonight. There is one more reason I have put off doing this and it has to do with some views I read in a few blogs when I was going from one link to another a few weeks ago, but that will have to wait. I didn't have a chance to compose myself in a thoughtful manner when the fire was hot, so I just didn't write at all. Now I've cooled off a bit, but I'd still like to put in my views, but not tonight.

The last few weeks have been filled with finishing up and enjoying the last of summer break while starting to gear up for "back to school" again. My 12 year old spent a week at the beach with her cousin and family, then my 9 year old went to camp for the first time (during the hottest week of the year-we're talking over 1oo for days in a row in the southeast, no, not the dry heat). He still came home with a resounding YES when asked if he wanted to go back again next year, and no this camp does not have ac in the cabins. It's pretty rustic. Since we've been slowly finishing off school supply lists and trying to comply with recent uniform policy changes at one school while trying to learn everything about the middle school my daughter will be attending this year. I've had two years with all three children in the same school, but now that will change as my oldest is moving on. At least we got to wait until 7th grade unlike most of the middle schools in our area that start at 6th grade.(sorry about the grammar)

Work too is picking up as parents realize that it is time for that back to school check up or those school medication forms that have been sitting on a counter all summer suddenly need to be filled out yesterday and oh yes, sorry, but we just realized that Johnny doesn't have any ADHD medicine to start school tomorrow. Alas, I am not the only procrastinator out there.

On top of that our long standing remodel of our master suite is making progress to the point that I can start letting myself imagine where we'll hang the towels and what will go in the drawers of the vanity. Finding currents is my current quest. If anyone knows a good site to look for panel drapes by color and length, let me know. I found a nice set at Linens n things, but I'm going to have to hem then and I'd prefer not to.

Once again, the time is past midnight, so I'll sign out. Hopefully I'll return sooner than last time, though probably not before next week with open houses, parent teacher meetings, checkups, karate, soccer, chess.......

One last thing, when I went to edit this posting, I found a draft that I composed a few weeks ago and thought I lost. It's showing up in order of when I first wrote it, so if you have time, scroll down and take a look. It gives a little more insight into me that I haven't had time to go back and recompose.