Mission Accomplished

Well, it is done! I had surgery today, it was fairly uneventful. I was "out" for about 1 1/2 hours and then in the hospital for another hour after that. They took out the cyst and my ovary, which was the size of a softball. Needless to say, I am quite sore, but doing well otherwise.

I have some super duper friends who brought us dinner so that Dave could take care of the kiddos and I could rest. THANKS!

I am a little loopy from pain meds, so I can't think of much more to add at the moment, but wanted to thank you all for your thoughts and prayers on my behalf, and let you know that all went well.

Out of a Steven King Novel

Dermoid cyst of the ovary : A bizarre tumor, usually benign, in the ovary that typically contains a diversity of tissues including hair, teeth, bone, thyroid, brain, skin, cartilage etc.

This is one of many definitions I found when I googled the term. I have one of these in my left ovary. It was discovered when I had my 20 week ultrasound with Amira last May. It was about pea sized at the time. I had another ultrasound in January to see if it was still there, and it had grown to the size of a tennis ball. I haven't had another ultrasound, but chances are it has grown since then as well.

Tomorrow I am having an outpatient surgery to remove the whole ovary. Yes, the whole thing! Anyways, I went in to see the doctor on Friday morning for a pre-op appointment to receive all my do's and don'ts. I will be "under the knife" for about an hour, and then in recovery for a few more after that.

I am not at all concerned, my understanding is that this is fairly easy, and common enough.

BUT...

I spent the whole time during my appointment and have been obsessing since then about the fact that the stupid scale that they MADE me stand on, said that I gained 10 pounds!!!

WHATEVER.

It better be gone after they take that thing out of me!

I'll keep you informed!

UPDATE on Rockband

It appears as if the 30th is double booked for some...myself included, so I (being the host of this event in particular) had made an executive decision and changed the date to the following Thursday, the 6th of November. Additionally, I feel that 7:30 may be a more apporopriate time for several moms to get their kiddos off to bed first.

I hope that this doesn't change the availability for those of you who have already booked the date, and hopefully a sister can still come!

Girls Night Out ROCK BAND

I said I was gonna do it, and now I am.

Thursday, October 30th, how does 7 sound? All the ladies need to come on over to play Rock Band. There will be at least 2 systems set up!

Ooooh, I can't wait. Bring some munchies to share!

Christmas party in the works!

I have sent out an evite for those whose emails I could find, but apparently don't have current ones for everybody, and I prudently want to express that nobody is being left out....

We are hosting a Christmas Party on Friday the 19th of December. Please save the Date!

When do you think we will get it?

Every fourth weekend, we gather our family and head out for a trip down to King and Pierce Counties. Why, you may ask? Well, we have to share our children with their other parents and to make things fair, we do half of the driving. Fortunately my parents live there so we have a nice warm (free) place to sleep. Additionally, I used to live down there, and since David and I have been married, I have continued to work on the weekends that we head down. It is really a winning situation, as we have to be down there anyhow, why not take advantage of the fact that I have an opportunity to earn some money to contribute to our family budget.

To the point now...I was in Costco this weekend picking up a couple of things for the office and did some of the usual browsing that accompanies a trip to the ginormous "store". I saw a really cool serving platter / lazy susan, and thought "hmmm, that would be kind of cool to use if I had one." The thought ended there though, as $39.99 was not burning a hole in my pocket, and it was not on the list of things that I needed for my office. The thing is, it would take more than one of my hands to count the number of carts being occupied with that neat tray. Now don't get me wrong, it was a super cool platter, but I highly doubt that a single one of those people went to Costco with the intention of purchasing a lazy susan platter. Which leads me to my title question, "when do you think we will get it?" The economy is crashing around us, unemployment is on the rise, houses are foreclosing like crazy, and there really isn't any indication that these circumstances are going to change anytime soon, so...what is the deal with thoughtless spending?

I am not judging, I have a bad habit of spending unnecessarily all the time, and it is something that takes a lot of effort to control, but I am scared of the financial future of our country, and it has effected the way I "shop"... in fact, I don't really do that without a list, and leave with only what is on the list (yes, I am currently patting myself on the back). I just wonder what it will take for the affluenza bug to be realized as a whole!

Any thoughts?

Quotes of Today!

We had Chinese Chicken Fried Rice for dinner tonight, (bear with me, this leads up to the story) and so I steamed some rice earlier in the day today so that it would be cold tonight when it was time to cook. I cooked too much (better than not enough) so I decided to make some rice pudding for desert. I haven't ever had this before, so I am not sure if it is normal for it to be quite runny, not unlike rice-y milk, only really sweet and yummy. We ate it with cinnamin...YUM! Back on to the point now. Reiley said that it reminded him of egg nog, which was his favorite drink (of this conversation anyhow) and then Maira added her two cents. This is how it went:

"V-8 is my favorite drink. It is made by the Power Juicer Deluxe, because there is no food in it at all when you drink it."

This is entertaining for those of us who remember the infomercial brain washing from early in September. If you didn't get to see that post, please refer back so that you can properly appreciate Maira's quote of today.

Arami's quote of today....

"Brooke, did you know that blood tastes like metal?"

hmmm, who knew. I have a Twighlight fan in the making!

Trampoline

This is one of the best purchases we have EVER made. All of the kids love it and I can see the love continuing for years to come.

When I saw this from inside, I was a little worried that she didn't like it, but then I saw her face, and she was having the time of her life.

Popcorn Popping...

...on the apricot Tree. This was caught "behind the scenes". Those are the best kind!

Words to live by!

I watched part of General Conference today. It is a semi-annaul conference where the leaders of the church speak to us. Having children in the home and life, makes it difficult for me to watch all of it, added to the fact that we have to download it from the internet, but I have found that it seems to me, the talks that I do get to hear are definately the ones I need.

In particular today, there was a talk about how to respond to negativity in regards to who we are. It really was an answer to prayers.

My favorite though was by our prophet, Thomas Monson. I absolutely loved that he was speaking to young families about the importance of being present with our children. Loving the laundry and the toys all over the place, because not too long from now, we will miss them.

This isn't a new concept for me, but one that I needed to be reminded of.

TWILIGHT the Movie

Nell, you are on top of it!!! I had intended to do this a couple of weeks ago as a result of talking to a friend of mine from school. This post is in no-way intended to surpass yours, but to included those people who I know from other circles!

So, as mention in the mysteries blog, the movie comes out in middish November, and I think that we need to fill the theatre with a bunch of middle aged women!

Let's do it.

Paella

Yum! I made this for dinner the other night. We had some great company and great food. It just looked too good to not take a picture of. Paella is a Spanish dish, with rice (cooked with Saffron) and seafood, chicken and sausage. Typically this is a big mixture, but with a handful of kids to feed I figured it would be more successful to seperate things. The chicken and shrimp were cooked in a marinade of paprika, onion, red pepper, oregano and olive oil. The scallops were just plain grilled, and the sausage (not pictured) was also just plain grilled. It really is the best though if you mix it all up on your plate and then eat it.

Story Time

We read a lot at our home...to ourselves, to each other, in a group, you name it, we probably do it. So, it does not surprise me to see how much Amira enjoys story time. This is a book we got from Grandma Bonnie. It is a series about a boy named David, who is amazingly similar to my David.

You can see in this video when she looked up and saw me sitting there. This was close to bed time, so she is a bit fussy and seemed to think she needed to be with me.