Erica

I’ve been having a bit of a conundrum lately. A couple of years ago, Jeff heard about a few celebrities getting licenses to marry online so he thought it would be neat do to the same. So, for his birthday a couple of years ago, his mom ordered his credentials online for him. He got his “marriage book”, several certificates, ect.
I really, truly have a problem with this. I truly think these kind of things should be reserved for people who have earned the right to perform these ceremonies. Whether it be a judge, or a pastor, minister, bishop, whatever name a religious person may have.

Jeff recently has been offered the opportunity to marry a friend of his and his fiance. I told him I support his friend and his fiance, but I do not support this online credentialing he has. And granted, it is legal in the eyes of state of New Mexico (he called to make sure). I just think it’s wrong. And I feel sorry for all the men and women who have worked so hard to be able to have those privileges, then there are those like Jeff who fill out a free application for those same privileges and get them. This has really started much contention in our home because I just don’t think it’s right…morally. I know I should get over it because he can’t marry us again. And I really know it’s not my place to judge. But I really don’t think it’s right. This is something him and I will have to “agree to disagree” on. Ugh.

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So I know I have neglected this page, badly. I didn’t realize it had been so long that I had written on my blog. Now is a good time though. So much has happened in the past year and so much more is going to be happening.

As many of you have read or heard rumors on facebook, my goal for this year is to run a 5K with 2 of my cousins, Amy and Jaelene. Over the past year, both have really inspired me to get off my butt and get moving. Amy lost 25lbs, Jaelene ran her first 5k and if they can do it, so can I. I want to be in the cool club! After some not very hard twisting of arms, both have come to my rescue and are helping me get through this so we can all run together this fall. Now to pick a date so it is set in stone. Then there really is no backing out.

Today was day 1 of training. There is a fantastic track not too far from the house we can run on. I say we because the kids are doing this with me.  It is 1/2 mile track around so it doesn’t seem so daunting ( 6 laps for 3 miles instead of 12 seems better to me anyway). I got around the track 3 times, switching between walking and running which I thought was pretty good for the first time. Zack ran 4 laps (show off), Taylor walked 2 laps with her friend and Jeff barely made one lap but like he said, that was more than he was going to do in the first place so he gets props for that. My legs are starting to feel a little sore now but my biggest problem was breathing! Most of you know I smoked for several years, quit almost 2 years ago (yay me!!) but still led a pretty sedentary life. Now I’m making my lungs breath good and hard for me and they don’t like that! We’ll come to some kind of deal though I’m sure.

Life is finally getting back to normal after the holidays. The kids are back in school, but Jeff is still home. He was laid off right before Christmas but will be going back to work soon. His company won the bid to do the electrical work for the new hospital they are building in Santa Rosa, NM which is in eastern NM. He will be gone during the week and be home on the weekends unless we opt to get out of town and go see him instead. There are some pretty fun things to do in little Santa Rosa so i’m sure this summer we will be spending quite a few weekends there.

The kids are great, like always. Logan is still in Oklahoma with her dad. She’s an Okie at heart, and I can’t fault her for that. She didn’t come down for Christmas this year which was a bummer. We really missed her but I know she enjoyed spending it with her dad as Christmas is his birthday as well and she hasn’t spent it with him in a few years.

So that’s the happenings around here. Keep on me about my running, I need all the support/encouragement I can get!

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It’s funny how things just work out. How bad things can actually turn into good things. Several weeks ago, the back window of my Tahoe was busted out while we slept with a big rock, in my driveway. I was very upset, called the neighbors to see if they had heard or seen anything, and called the police dept. to make a report. Neighbors heard the crash but didn’t see anything and didn’t know which vehicle had been hit. Anyway, my neighbor Rocky, and his wife Eileen came over and Rocky took some pictures with his digital camera to forward to me in case we needed them for insurance purposes. Rocky retired from the Albuquerque Police Dept several years ago and now works for Geico Insurance as an investigator.

This morning I was in the bathroom drying my hair when the kids came in to tell me the police were at our door. Not sure why they would come to our house. Everyone has been behaving (as far as I know), maybe something happened on our street we didn’t know about? The officer asked for Jeff or I, I said I’m Erica and he said he was there to return our camera. I told him we hadn’t lost a camera, I had no idea what he was talking about. He says that there was a picture of our license plates on the camera and that’s how they knew who’s camera it was. He pulled it out and began showing me pictures and sure enough, there was our street, our neighbors mailbox, and low and behold a picture of Rocky with his grandson. It was Rocky’s camera that he apparently lost, someone turned it in to the police dept and since there were still pictures of our vehicle on it with the license plate clearly visible they were able to find out who it belonged to and return it. So, something bad that happened to us turned out to be something good for our neighbors and for that I am grateful.

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I know I blogged about Logan’s finger but we have much to update so here we go again. I took her back to the doctor last week for a check-up and xrays to see if it was healing correctly. The regular doctor was on vacation so we saw the P.A. She told us that it looks likes it is healing well and she can go back to normal activities, including soccer as long as she wore the splint they gave her. We were very excited about that and so was her soccer team. She played on Saturday (they lost) and all was right with the world.

That is, until the hand clinic called me yesterday afternoon and said Dr. Richards had reviewed her xrays and thinks something is going on with her finger that is not right and to bring her in right away. The soonest we could get there was this afternoon, so off we went. Dr. Richards said she doesn’t like how the xray looks.

This is the xray they took last week. I put a pink arrow where the break is. You can see that the chip isn’t attaching to the bone and that has her concerned. She said if it was an older person she would probably just let it go, but since she is so young she doesn’t want her to have problems with that finger as she ages. Logan will be going in for surgery first thing Thursday morning. They will put 3-4 pins in her finger to hold that bone together so it will heal better. After surgery she will be in a big splint for 6 weeks. Absolutely no soccer for the rest of this season. She is pretty bummed about that and I think she is kind of scared to have surgery, but she is already worrying about if it will hurt when they take the pins out.

I mentioned this is her right middle finger right?  Did I mention she is right handed? Yeah, she is. Isn’t that great! They also have state mandated testing coming up after spring break which starts next week and she’s worried about being able to write for those.

I’m ready for this year to be over already!

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We were so broke it was unreal. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. But we went to the courthouse in Pauls Valley, OK and got married by Judge Blalock. We had no flowers, no photographer, no bridesmaids or groomsmen, no wedding dress, and no tux. We had ourselves, my girls and our 2 witnesses, Chilo and Jimmie. After our very small ceremony, we took our friends to Denny’s for breakfast then both of us went to work. We had no honeymoon. And I wouldn’t change a thing.

10 years later, here we are. It’s been a very bumpy road at times. There are times I’ve thought, “what the heck was I thinking?!” Through it all though, we’ve stuck together and weathered the storms. I’m sure there are more to come because my life wouldn’t be normal if there wasn’t. But I love Jeff more and more everyday, and I know he loves me. He’s a great father, a loving husband and my best friend. My life wouldn’t be complete without him.

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The weather lately has been incredible so we’ve been spending a lot of time outside. Soccer has started again, but Logan can’t play right now because she broke her finger playing indoor soccer on Valentines Day. She chipped the bone right at the top joint on her right middle finger. We go back to the dr. this week to re-xray and see if it is starting to heal correctly. If it’s not, she may have to have a pin put in to hold it in place. Right now she has to wear a splint 24/7, so hopefully that will do the trick. If she’s healing like she should, she may be able to start playing again next week, but will still have to wear the splint and no playing goalie which is the position she plays.

Zack’s team tied their first game of the season. We were very happy about that. His team is like the Bad News Bears of baseball, or the Detroit Lions of football. Hopefully this season will be better and it won’t be so hearbreaking to watch them get beat every single week.

So the kids and I decided to walk the dogs up to the dog park close to our house. Zack rode his bike and the girls walked the dogs and I walked behind them. When we were getting ready to leave the dog park Zack rides up to me and says “Mom, see that girl in the dress? She likes me!” Oh man, here we go. As we were walking home a little girl was in her backyard and saw him and started waving like crazy at him. He’s only 9!!! I already have 2 girls to worry about. I found out the other day they are both texting boys. What happened to the good ol’ days when girls don’t even think about boys until they are in high school? Ugh, no wonder I am going gray already.

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I have a friend who lives in Illinois. She has 2 girls, her oldest is the same age as Logan and her youngest is the same age as Zack. Her youngest daughter has a project for school, it is a travel log. She sent the papers to me, I will fill them out with information about where we live, our climate, industries and other fun things and send it along to someone else. Then I will send a postcard to her school so she knows where her travel log has been, and each person who gets it will send a postcard to the school for her. It keeps getting passed along to different people in different places until it is time to be returned which is May 1st.  I would like to see if there is anyone who would like to help us out. I think it would be neat to get this travel log to as many places as possible before it needs to be returned. The address and the log are all together, all you need to do is buy a postcard, send that to her school and mail the travel log to someone else. If you would like to help, please email me your info (don’t post it here) and I will go from there. My email is erica2509@hotmail.com

Thanks!!

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So today has been one year since I quit smoking! It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life, but I did it and now I am shouting it from the rooftops. I get cravings every single day, even more so when I am stressed out, but my motivation to not light another one up is how long I have gone so far. I also feel a lot better. I don’t cough anymore, I’m not out of breath all the time, and I don’t stink . On the downside though, I did gain a lot of weight so now I am on a mission to lose it. I’ve been in a bit of a funk for the past few years and it’s time to pull myself out of it and do something with myself. I’d really like to get back into swimming. We have an aquatic center here in town, but I can get a monthly gym membership for less that has a pool so I think I will go for that. I’m going to wait until March to get started though because on the 14th I’m getting Lasik and I won’t be able to swim for a couple of weeks afterward.

Speaking of the 14th, Jeff suddenly is upset that I will be without sight that day. It’s not a holiday that is important to me. If we do anything we do it at home, we don’t go out to dinner or the movies or anything else. For Jeff’s birthday this past year his mother paid for him to get a “minister” license online. Apparently it is totally legal and he is also able to marry people legally. His bright idea is to marry a bunch of people on Valentine’s Day since the courthouses will be closed.

Zack called Jeff and I into our room the other night because he needed to talk to us. He is tired of being surrounded by girls and is tired of being picked on. His solution to this problem? He wants a little brother. I laughed at him, and told him Duke the dog is his little brother. He wasn’t happy with that answer but oh well! I can’t blame the kid though, he does have 4 older sisters. I keep reminding him that soon enough he will be taller and stronger then his sisters and the tables of torture will turn in his favor.

We still have 2 Christmas reindeer in our front yard. I asked Jeff when he was going to put them away. He said when deer season was over. At this point I think he’s making a game out of it and they will remain there until next Christmas.

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Whew what a week this has been! I know it’s been a long time since I’ve posted so I better catch up. Last Wednesday Zackery started having stomach pains. It was his night for dishes and at first I thought it was his way of getting out of doing them. We were up that whole night so I kept him home from school. I thought he had food poisoning. He was the only one sick in the house with stomach cramps and vomiting. We were up all night Thursday night as well and when he finally got up Friday morning he came in and said it hurt to walk, sit, stand, anything and I knew it was now more than food poisoning. I took him to see his pediatrician and she told me to get him to the e.r. right away because she thought it was his appendix.

Nine hours later in the emergency room they told us he had a perforated appendix and took him straight up for surgery. Only one other time have I been that scared and that was when I had Taylor. At first they weren’t 100% sure that was what was wrong with him because his pain was on the left side of his abdomen. He had all the other symptoms though so they sent us up for an ultrasound. That came back with them telling us it looked normal. They then sent us up for a ct scan and thankfully that showed his perforated appendix.

It has been a very long week, a very stressful week and I’m glad we are now home and my son is healthy and safe. He is sore, but otherwise back to normal. They did his surgery laparoscopic so he has 3 little incisions and that is it. The surgeons also took some really cool pictures to show us what was going on inside his body. I won’t post those pictures because I know some people have weak stomaches, but if you would like to see them, let me know and I’ll send them to you. I am really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight! I haven’t had a full nights rest in over a week now and I am ready for one.

Thank you everyone who prayed for him, sent well wishes, and everything else. It really helped us get through this rough time. It’s amazing how so many people pulled together for my little guy. I can’t say how much I truly appreciate all of you, and how lucky I am to have you all in my life.

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I got my pictures all uploaed. I thought I had them all resized but it turns out I don’t. So they are big. You can look at them if you want now, or you can wait until I resize them.

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