Not Just Any Ol' Piece of Furniture

The picture below is our new TV chest. But it’s a very special TV chest. I love the back-story to it, not gonna lie…

So this all started as an idea for a wedding present. Rick (on left) has made both Jarrod’s parents a mantle for their fireplace and one for Justin and Mallory as a wedding present. He knew we did not have a fireplace, so he asked what we might like. We felt we would really like a nice stand for our TV. That’s a little much for a wedding gift, so we all agreed it would just be a separate project. Rick just wanted us to let him know what we wanted.

So I sketched it out, we decided on cherry wood, and a dark stain similar to our bedroom furniture. We then had two options, we could buy the wood or get it from a cherry tree. Rick was able to find a cherry tree at a job he was working on for someone. We decided on the tree. I think they were going to cut it down anyways, so he asked if he could have it. We obviously saved a lot of money versus buying the wood, but the tradeoff was that we’d have to wait another year or so because the wood had to dry out.

There was a lot of love, thought, and talent put into this. Rick found us the tree, for starts. Then another family friend, Dan, has a saw mill. So he made the boards from the tree. Then it went back to Rick, who does woodworking, and he made the chest for us. Then it went to yet another family friend, Danny (on right), who stained it and finished it for us.

The finished product is what you see here, but it’s a lot nicer to see in person. Rick and his wife Terry are on the left, Dan and Sherri are on the right. This is something we are so thankful for, and will forever cherish.

New Blog, New Beginning?

For some reason, I have been itching to do a new blog. I’ve done this once before, where I ‘moved’ blogs.

Previously, I did it because I knew there were people who looked at my blog that I no longer wanted to. So I switched, emailed the new URL to specific people, and never looked back.

But the main reason I am switching things up is because my old blog is tied to an older email address, and I can’t change that.

I mean, REALLY?!

Something I love to hate on the news are new studies that prove things any knowledgeable person could already assume to be true anyways. Things like 'New study finds that smoking may lead to other types of cancer besides lung cancer' or 'Leaving your child alone with strangers is a bad idea' or 'Spending too much time on your cell phone may cause pain on your ears.'

But this one is just SO dumb I can't believe that a MILLION dollars was [supposedly] spent to do this study. Here is how it goes: "Cheap Drinks At College Bars Can Escalate Drinking Among College Students— It's no secret that alcohol use among college students can cause a number of problems, including injury, violence and even death. A new study has examined the impact of drink discounts at college bars, finding that low alcohol prices at drinking establishments pose genuine threats to public health and safety." And so on.

Really? REALLY? Lower prices at bars means people drink more? Holy shit, what a revelation. I never knew that.

Take it away Kermit.

A 'final' update

I'm calling this my final update because I am also calling this day the end to my crazy 4-month lung saga.

I had a follow-up appointment today, and it went ok. On the bright side, my oxygen was where it should be, but that's about it. Let me review since I just realized I haven't written anything since Easter...

Mid-April (actually, that week after Easter) I went into the hospital suddenly after a morning of coughing and a week of feeling like crap. Lo and behold my numbers had really dropped and my oxygen levels were only 89%. I went into the hospital straight from my doctor's appointment, and spent 8 days there. I did a full two-week course of antibiotics and we got my numbers back up to 28%. Still not where I was...

My doctor wasn't ready to call this a home run quite yet, so for the past three weeks we tried a few more things. Like usual, I had side effects with the meds and had to end a little early. But I didn't know that I felt all that better; it was slight, if any.

Well, today confirmed what I thought which is that: I am no better. In fact I'm slightly worse than three weeks ago...

And that's just the way it's going to be.

We're going to continue my normal regimen, give my system a break from antibiotics for as long as possible. And I'm hoping I can try to come back from this a little bit by taking some walks, and eventually building up to using our elliptical again. I have been telling myself, and I even promised Jarrod, I would take walks every other day, but I still haven't made it happen. I can't even describe the internal frustration with myself that I have right now because I still haven't done it. But the fact is that I can't just continue on like I did 5 months ago; I have to be extra diligent with my treatments, stay up on my rest, and exercise. Or else I will continue on this downward path, end up in the hospital constantly, and yeah, that will pretty much define my life every couple months.

I'm having a really hard time with today's results. I don't know what is going on with my health that I can't stay healthy anymore. It seems like any hard work, IV meds, hospital stays all help for such a short period of time, and after that it's all for naught.

I'm sorry these blog posts as of late aren't filled with better news. I wish they were.

Easter

Happy Easter everyone! It's been a good day today, starting with mass, visiting with family, sitting outside, and then visiting with more family. Mass was great. We decided to go to Lourdes, so that was nice to see everyone; Lourdes is still my parish 'family'. Our priest told a cheesy joke to start off his homily, and it's hilarious to see him sprinkle everyone with holy water because he just laughs the whole
time watching everyone's reactions to getting wet. It was some of the most beautiful weather today too, and it was great to sit outside all day. We're back home now, and trying to chill a little.

Easter today meant a little more to me than usual. I can't remember the last time I updated this, but here's the latest on my health: I'm doing so-so. Unfortunately all the meds and treatments we did in the past few months did nothing for me, and I'm still where I was when we started. That's just the way things have to be right now. My body needs a break from meds right now, so that's mainly why I'm not back on something. Of course, were I to get sick, we would treat it, but since I've not caught something, I just have to hang tight. But I'm not gonna lie: it sucks. It really sucks. I'm coughing more than I ever have in my life (for a normal day), my treatments don't go too far, and I am frequently tired and worn out. I'd say almost every day, by the end of the day, I'm feeling pretty blah (as in, not breathing well) and I'm also tired. This past week I've been waking up every night coughing as well, and/or coughing when I lay down to fall asleep. So I've probably been averaging four hours of sleep on top of all this.

I had a huge breakdown and let out a lot of anger and frustration about this on Friday, and then today's Easter message spoke to me. In our priest's homily he was talking about believing in the risen Lord
and turning to Him when we feel hopeless and helpless... I can't think of two better words to sum up how I felt on Friday night. So Easter, for me, really felt like God was trying to call me back, remind me He's still there.

But I now realize that He's been doing that for a while. And will continue to. Yesterday at the baby shower, I had many people ask me how I was doing. But it wasn't your typical greeting of "How are you?" It was a true, caring "How have you been doing?" or "How are you feeling?" This morning at mass, I had more people ask me how I was doing and said they were praying for me. My friend Doris, who is the most religious woman I know, greeted me with "May the risen Lord heal you!" and hugged me saying she had been offering up Holy Week for me. God is definitely talking to me through all these special people. It's slightly strengthening, even when I feel like I have none.

Checkupdate

I figured this might be the best way to give everyone an update, especially after I heard how much exposure my previous post received.

Today I went back to Barnes for my checkup after that last appointment. It just struck me how different the two days were weather-wise. Talk about a crazy winter: last week when we went, it was snowy, wet, and cold. Today, as I type this, I am sitting on the porch basking in the sun, enjoying the 70 degree weather.

Unfortunately, I can't say that my appointments had the same extreme differences. Today I was slightly better, though not nearly as much as we'd hoped; let's call it a mostly cloudy day in the 40s as compared to last week's snow. As I said before, my numbers are usually around 45-50 when I come off of IV antibiotics. Today, I was at 35%. Yes, that's an improvement over 29, but not by much. I still haven't broke the 40s. So what does this mean?

Well, it means a few things. One, I will stay on one of my medicines for the time being. Apparently they have some patients who just stay on this medicine for life, so it is not uncommon. They want to see me in a month again, versus the normal three months, to check how things are going. I also am going to get back to exercising so I can try to get my lung functions back up that way too. My "exercising" is not really much of anything at this point, but it gets me huffin' and puffin' which is what we want.

In the 'long-term' I will probably be back in the hospital before long since I didn't get a whole lot better this time. However, when that happens, my doctor wants to hook me up with an allergist and go through the desensitization process for some of these medicines I am "allergic" to. I am "allergic" to quite a few medicines, so our choices are limited. This time, with the germs I have in my system, we could not use the best meds because I am allergic to them. Some of these allergies are old as well, so there is a chance I have outgrown them, which is why keep saying "allergic" in quotes. So anyways, in order to avoid the 'half-ass better' state I'm in right now, we are going to find out what I truly can and can't tolerate. I know this will be a bit of a pain, and probably uncomfortable at times, but I'm ready to do it. I don't want to face another hospitalization like this one again where I did so much and gained so little.

For now, though, I am considering myself no longer sick, per se. I don't know what came over me, but I am not accepting this for the long term. I know that I will get back to where I was, and hopefully even better if this exercising starts to work out a few months down the road. But in the mean time, I am at peace with where I'm at; I'm not worse, I need to keep working on it, and I guess it's just not in the cards for me right now.

I know many of you are praying for me, which literally brings tears to my eyes when I try to grapple with just how many people are thinking of me. I thank you. It means very, very much.

Life Is Precious

It's days like today where you find yourself in a whirlwind of emotions and slightly intertwined lives, leaving you to ponder the meaning of it all.

I give you three tales of life, in mostly chronological order as they happened today.

The first is a story from this morning. This morning's commute was not quite normal in that it snowed the first "major" snow of this season. Many people ventured out, some people turned around to head back home after deciding it was too slick (like me), and some people got stuck in traffic on the interstate. The interstate was shut down this morning due to an accident. A man in a tractor trailer began to swerve after a woman tried to merge into his lane, he lost control his vehicle, and crashed into the concrete pillars in the median of the highway that hold up an overpass. Jarrod was the first person to help this man.

Jarrod said he was over a quarter of a mile away when he saw it happen, could not believe anyone else hadn't stopped, so he did. He pulled over and headed over to the truck where he found the driver gasping for air and unconscious. He did what he could to help the man, and eventually more people stopped to help too. One of them was a doctor, so at that point Jarrod said he got out of the way so the doctor could take over. By the time Jarrod left the scene, the driver had stopped breathing.

First of all, I find it greatly brave that he decided to be the first person to stop and check on the man. I don't want to go on about that, but I just find it courageous. Secondly, it made me take pause and think 'That could have been him.' We all are slammed with moments like this from time to time; you start thinking about how you didn't hug them long enough, kiss them enough, or said "I love you" with enough meaning, had this been their last day. In an instant, this man was on the edge of life, and it feels odd knowing that my husband and a handful of other people were some of the last people he ever saw. I have no idea who he was, but my thoughts are with his unknown family and the sudden loss they've been dealt.

The second tale is from this afternoon. At my doctor's follow-up, I saw a guy in the waiting room for PFTs who smelled like an ashtray. I almost coughed just from breathing the air he stirred up as he walked by; it was pretty bad. Later, when I was done with my test and in the waiting room for my doctor, he was there too. He walked out of the doctor office, into the waiting room, and said "Well, they told me to quit smoking cigarettes," threw away a paper they gave to him about quitting, and laughed.

Now, here is a guy who most likely has a genetic, debilitating lung disease (I'm pretty positive they only see CF patients on Mondays), and he SMOKES!? I had heard from a few people there, in clinic and in the hospital, that there was a patient (or two) that smoked. It obviously baffles everyone. Why a person would choose to smoke, on top of having a lung disease, is beyond my level of comprehension. You would truly be speeding up death by at least 150%. This man's complete disregard for life astounds me. He must not value much of anything. And the fact that he laughed at the thought of quitting smoking just adds insult, if you ask me.

The third story is my own. I did not have a good checkup today. My numbers were the same as they were when I went in to the hospital, in fact slightly worse. And to explain that: usually my lung functions hover around 48-50, which is considered my baseline. But today, my numbers ranged from 27 to 34. What this means, friends, is that I am using 34% of my lungs. Yes, one third. The rest of my airways are either blocked, clogged, damaged, scarred, or just plain unusable right now. I've done two weeks and two days of antibiotics and gained nothing. I'm out of breath sitting still, I can barely get around, I have random coughing fits that tire me out to the point of falling over, and the good effects after doing a treatment barely last me 10 minutes. I feel, almost, as if I'm beginning the fight for my life. I'm not ready for this to be the state I will always be in from here on out. I've done everything the doctors asked me to do, but it hasn't helped. Now, I have 1.5 weeks more of antibiotics, and if that doesn't do the trick, then we are truly up a creek.

So maybe this blog does not make much sense, but to me I found these three things oddly connected today. One individual lost his life, one doesn't care about his life, and one is trying to get her life back.

How complex life is. How trying.

How precious.

My Christmas tradition

Many of us have traditions we repeat each year around Christmastime. And lots of these involve movies. I know many people enjoy "It's A Wonderful Life" or "Christmas Vacation."

But my biggest tradition I can't stray from is my "Christmas tape." I've had my Christmas tape since I was 2. Granted, I don't remember it then. But every year, I have to watch this thing from start to... almost-finish. I'll explain...

My Christmas tape is an old, Polaroid VHS tape that my mom and dad recorded for me sometime between 1987-1990. It contains 5 main shows that I have to watch every year, and a few towards the end that I might watch.

First up on the tape is Christmas Eve on Sesame Street. It was made in 1978, and my parents recorded it in either 1987 or 1988 from PBS. What a trip down memory lane as far as PBS goes... remember how all episodes of Sesame Street began with the Ralston-Purina sponsorship? And the blue screen with the text "Financial support, from viewers like you." Anyways, Oscar the Grouch gets Big Bird believing that Santa is not real and since so many people don't have chimneys, they won't get gifts. So Big Bird and gang set out to prove Santa is real. Also, there is a great sub-plot with Bert and Ernie and Mr. Hooper that is essentially "Gift of the Magi." It's a great, great movie. I just looked, and it can be bought on Amazon, but I'm curious to know if it is truly the original or has been edited. My guess: edited.

Moving on to Christmas special #2: Rudolph. In all it's claymation glory. Who doesn't love Burl Ives?

The third one on the tape is old Frosty the Snowman cartoon. My favorite part of this whole cartoon is: when the kids are trying to name the snowman, one kid says "Oatmeal?" in the cutest, high-pitched voice ever. If you know me, you've probably heard me say "Oatmeal?" at some point. I use it when I can, but no one ever knows I'm referencing something.

Fouth in line is A Charlie Brown Christmas. The Vince Guaraldi Trio made some of the best music for that show. I listen to that soundtrack the most out of all the Christmas music I have. It's timeless, half of it's just a piano and a bass, and it's great. And, if you ask, I might do my little dance from this movie. I have a weird imitation of the kid that just bobs his head unnaturally from side to side during the Linus and Lucy song. This is a yearly request from my friend/cousin Jeff.

Fifth is my favorite, partly because of who it is and also because it is lesser-known: Muppet Family Christmas. This one originated in 1988, I believe. I'm not quite sure when we recorded it, but I'm pretty sure it is the original. I say that because (didn't realize this until recently) this one got seriously edited through the years because of copyright laws and some of the songs. But this one is a lot of fun. It is quite possibly the only time where nearly all, and I REALLY mean that, of the Muppet creations of Jim Henson were united together for one movie. I'm talking The Muppets, I'm talking Sesame Street, Baby Muppets, AND Fraggles. Not to mention a little cameo from the master himself at the end. It. Is. Spectacular.

Since I am a big fan of Sesame Street and the Muppets, it is also interesting to me (in a fun way) how much they have changed over the years. Not just voices and puppeteers, but in main characters and minor characters. For instance, in both Sesame Street and Muppet Christmas shows, Elmo is not a main character. At all. He doesn't even talk in the Muppets one. Bert and Ernie, Cookie Monster, and Big Bird used to be the real stars of the show, yet nowadays they have been pushed aside for Elmo, Abby Cadabby, Murry, and Rosita. Interesting little things to notice, that's all.

Sixth on the tape, which I don't have to watch every year, are Winnie the Pooh Christmas, and the infamous cartoon where Donald Duck plays hockey with his rambunctious nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

And that's my "Christmas tape." Year after year, I would start to worry that the tape might break, snap in two when I'm rewinding, or just become so fuzzy it became unwatchable. Well, this year we got in preservation mode and my dad lovingly put them all on DVDs for me. I can't explain how excited this makes me. No more worries [for now, haha]! Oh and the other best part about this tape/now-DVD: it still has all the old commercials in it. And those are a riot in themselves.

Anyone else have a movie or two they have to watch every year? Thanks for readin'!

First Android experience: D+

I'd been up for an upgrade to my phone since August, and my husband had been for quite some time. Still rockin' a Palm phone, he really needed the upgrade more than myself. We decided we were ready to delve into the smartphone universe, and finally made that jump in the middle of October.

Then the obvious question: which phone to buy? I wanted to wait to see what kind of new iPhone Apple released, and if I maybe wanted to get that or the iPhone 4 for cheaper. Not all too impressed by the 4S, I didn't feel it was worth $200, and the more I looked into the specs, I didn't feel the now-outdated 4 was even worth the reduced price of $100. So, I went with the HTC Inspire.

The Inspire turned out to be nothing by trouble for me. My Facebook app crashed every frickin' time I tried to post a status update. I had to uninstall the updated app and run the old one in order to ever post anything. I'm not a Facebook addict, but come on. That's pretty ridiculous. Then, other things started to never work on the phone. I finally had it when, in trying to open a game, the phone did nothing buy black out. The screen went black and I couldn't do anything. I tried tapping the home button, which lit up, meaning the phone was still on, but nothing would respond. I couldn't hold in the power button to turn it off either. I finally had to take OUT the battery to shut the damn thing off. I was done. I had only had the thing for a week and had this many problems. I wanted Jarrod's phone, the Infuse. He had not experienced any problems, and I was still in the one-month span of time you can trade your phone no questions asked. I will never buy an HTC again. It was an awful experience and not to mention, the thing was a brick. I know 5-6 ounces doesn't sound like much (the Infuse is, like 3 oz.), but my arm would actually be tired from holding the phone up to my ear. Their phones are all really heavy for some reason.

So I traded in and got the Infuse to much excitement. Things seemed to work better, the screen was much sharper, all was well. I was delusional... The only noticeable 'flaw' was that wifi signals were weaker, which Jarrod did warn me about. Other than that, seemed fine. Until... I went to the Facebook app. Same problem. I am currently running the old version, because once again it crashes every time I want to post something! Furthermore, turns out the Infuse is still running Froyo, with no upgrade in sight (for you non-tech'ers out there: this is kind of ridiculous.) Despite it's flaws, the HTC was at least on Gingerbread. I've toyed with the idea of rooting my phone, but never actually have gone through with it.

Anyways, so Facebook still crashes, and in less than a month's time I have also had another wealth of problems: 

• I can't send picture messages--this only works about 50% of the time.
• I can't download picture messages--the message says it's "downloading" but never ever finishes downloading and I never see the photo.
• I can't watch any YouTube videos. My video player NEVER works, in either the YouTube app or the web browser.
• My internal video player never works, so videos I myself record on the phone never play. The only time it will work is if I restart my phone. But the fact that I have to do that is stupid, and then it never fails that it just goes back to not working soon after.
• Just in last week: my phone's video recorder does not work either. I tried to take a video at a store, and it would not work. I had to resort to a boring photo instead.
• Half of my games never load properly, so I never get to play those.

On Friday, I realized I actually hate my phone. I hate my phone, so boy is it going to be a looonnngggg two years, when I'll get my next one. My old 1st generation iPod touch from 2008 is more reliable than this piece-of-shit Infuse! 

Since I've had both the Apple experience and now the Android experience, I now understand why Apple costs more. iOS is more refined, and if you want that, then that's why you pay extra; makes sense, that's how all of Apple's products are. Granted, a lot of the little buggy things that tick me off about Android (like how your text box where you're typing does not expand, so if you have more than two lines of type, you can't see the rest of it and have no way of seeing it unless you want to tap and tap away trying to get the cursor up there) have probably been fixed with the newer OS versions. 

But still. For my first Android experience, I can't say I'm impressed. I guess I just have terrible luck with phones, too. Yes, I do plan to go by the store sometime soon and tell them all of these issues I'm having with my phone. I've done nothing wrong, so hopefully they can help me out.

Next time, I think I'm just buying an iPhone. 

Muppets

We saw The Muppets last night, and we saw the late show. I only mention this because that dictates the type of audience you get, meaning no kids, a handful of adults, and some teens.

I'll start by saying I really liked the movie. If I could do half-stars, I think I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5. I'm a huge Muppet fan; love the sense of humor, but mostly love it for its pure creativity, and I truly enjoy those little characters as if they were real, which is how it's supposed to be. I've been known to cry a few times listening to Kermit sing "It's Not Easy Being Green." And I gotta say when they were panning through Kermit's old office last night, looking at all the banjos on the wall, the pictures with multiple guests on The Muppet Show, and numerous other iconic props, I teared up.

We saw the movie with my cousin and his fiancé, who are also fans. The rest of the people in the theatre, hard to tell. We were definitely the 'most-laughing' group in there. And as I mentioned there were teens there too, who, as teens usually are these days, were completely disrespectful of everyone else there and annoying. They made fun of the movie the entire time. Why in the world would you go see something you have no intention of liking? And when they weren't doing that, they were talking, for the whole theater to hear. I seriously contemplated being that chick who walks out, asks management to ask them to leave, and hope they can't subconsciously pick out my car in the parking lot. It was beyond annoying. So this leads me to my [now obvious] realization: if you are under the age of, let's say, 20, you should not see this movie. Exceptions to this rule are if you are indeed a Muppet fan, like British and dry humor, or are involved in the arts somehow.

So moving on from that. The movie was great. They took an angle to the story similar to Toy Story 3. In Toy Story 3, the 'old toys' are dealing with the fact that Andy got older and doesn't play with them any more, and they've been kind of forgotten about. It had been ten years, I believe, since the previous Toy Story 2, so that is exactly what they acknowledged with the story: Hey, it's been ten years, so let's do that and ask what has changed in the last ten years? The Muppets is a similar thing. The story is set up around the fact that it's been years since their last gig, and they've been forgotten about and replaced by other things. So they try to round up the gang, and you get to see what each Muppet found a separate career in once "the old gang" fell apart. The story itself felt natural and geniune, as did Toy Story, because it is fans like myself revisiting things we loved in our childhood that have since gone by the wayside.

I don't think it was quite the epic, comic genius of Jim Henson 30 years ago, but it was as good as it will ever get for modern times. Yeah, some of the voices were a little off, but the differences were forgivable. The jokes were very well done though, and they referenced themselves often just like they used to; referring to the camera being there, Statler and Waldorf asked a question and were like "Did we just reveal a key to the plot?" "Well I hope so, otherwise I just wasted the audience's time!" "Doh-oh-oh-oh!", etc.

There were a few more songs than normal, though. Even though I'm a fan of musicals, some of them just felt unnatural. When Amy Adams sang a song solo at a diner, it just felt kind of off. That song was not needed. But! Many of the other songs were hilarious and the lyrics would take you where you didn't think they would go, one of my favorites being the "Am I a Muppet? Or am I a Man?" or whatever it's true title is.

I had heard from a movie critic that Jason Segel, who helped write, and the director, James Bobin, approached this movie very carefully. They didn't want to blow it out of the water or make it so over the top, as many movies are these days (kids ones especially.) They really wanted to make it like the Muppets they remembered as a kid. I appreciate that, and it definitely came through. They did NOT try to outdo the movies of old, just be on par with them. All in all, it was a lot of fun and if you laughed at the Muppets back then, you should give it a shot.