Monday

Look what my Mom did with some of the photos I sent her! This is a sub-category of digiscrapping called "ATC" - "Altered Trading Cards." Of course, like digiscrap, ATCs were first done with paper baseball cards or playing cards. Very cool! She's very talented, my Mom. If I inherited just 1/10th of her artistic ability, I'll be happy (and I'm not just saying that because she reads my blog).

Today we are getting our water heater replaced. What is it when one person is out of work - everything keeps breaking!! But oh well. Hot water is a necessity in a home with children. I'm very grateful the Deac qualified for short-term disability. It by no means covers everything, but we're not sinking yet. Speaking of the Deac, he's not feeling much better. He has another CT scan next week to tell us if the current treatment is doing anything.

Well, as I expected, the girls LOVE their water clogs. They call them "crogs." It's cute. And I'm still in the Zone. Doing well, even though I pretty much took the weekend off. It's much easier to diet at work where my food storage is limited. The real challenge is going to be the Dormition fast that starts tomorrow. Will I be able to stay in the Zone with severely limited protein choices? We'll see, I guess.

In other news, Maura is getting 2 molars - no wonder we're not sleeping well at night! Poor bean.

Oh, and this is amazing, particularly if you remember all the angst we had about planning Emmelia's fourth birthday - she's already got her fifth birthday planned out. Complete with location (indoor "bounce" facility here in our hometown - thanks to field trips and another birthday party, completely scoped out), cake decor & flavor, and date. Excellent! I think I may just go ahead and book it - why not? Why save all the stress for October? Maybe I'll even design the invitations now. Hee.

Clog success!

Ah, the mundane excitements of parenthood. Today at lunch I decided to check out the Payless store near my office. And look what I found!!
It's a little sad how excited I am to have found these in perfect colors and all 3 pairs for only around $40! The girls are going to be absolutely thrilled with their pink and purple water clogs! And I love my blue pair. They are very light and comfortable.

That excursion didn't take long, so I also found some time to put together a quick layout about swimming lessons. I decided to use one of the photos I took Wednesday night that wasn't perfect but that at least shows the kids are happy. The kit I used is a freebie this month from 2Peas, but the title strip and "enjoy life" tag were actually freebies from ScrapGirls. The journalling on the tag reads: "Maura didn't feel like posing for photos this night, but enjoyed her parent-child swim class. Her favorite activities were swimming through the hula hoop and jumping in from the edge. Emmelia did two sessions of the Pike level and learned to kick and dog paddle with a noodle. She has really gained a lot of confidence." I decided to leave out the story about how Maura puked in the kiddie pool one night and they had to close it (I think she had swallowed some water) - that was memorable. But I do kind of wish I'd found a way to include my favorite quote from Maura this year: "No Mama! I swim by myself!" She's so into trying new things and saying "I do it myself!" that she wanted to swim in the big pool without me. I don't think she fully understood what she was asking.

Cutie Patooties

We had a parish picnic after liturgy this past Sunday to celebrate St. Elias' feast day last week. It was a fun time. I got my camera out kinda late - after I noticed Maura and one of her little friends hugging and just generally being cute. Of course, by the time I got the camera out, they had stopped that, but I still snapped a couple cute ones of the kids.

Last night at swimming lessons I tried to take a cute photo of the kids. Maura wanted NOTHING to do with it, so wouldn't look at me. Emmelia just froze in place with a goofy smile on her face, hoping that Maura would accidentally look at me for a second and I could snap a photo. It didn't work very well. So suffice it to say I'm glad there are 4 more weeks left of swimming lessons this summer. The kids are really loving the water and both have become a lot more confident with it this year.

Emmelia really wants croc sandals - you know, those ugly little rubber clogs that look so comfortable? The ones that cost $30 even for kids whose feet grow quickly? I want some too. Sigh. So we'd be looking at a $90 deal if I got them. Not likely! But I did a little web research today and found some cheap knock-offs for half the price at Payless. The girls don't care if they are the real thing or not - they just want the "cool" shoes their friends have. I thought about ordering them on-line, but it would take 2-3 weeks for the free in-store delivery and I figure I can probably at least go look in the store to see if they have the right sizes before I do that. And maybe later I can get myself some real ones. {evil laugh}

Still in the Zone (yeay!)

I have been on the Zone for a week now! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this diet! For some reason it just works for me and makes sense. This morning I had a lovely breakfast of a 2-egg omelet with cheddar cheese, red bell peppers, tomatoes and spinach; canadian bacon; cantaloupe and red grapes. SO yummy! And I won't be hungry until lunch time when I have a yummy taco salad waiting.

I am finding that I have a ton more energy than I used to have and many fewer food cravings. I have lost 4.5 pounds this week, but know most of that was probably water weight. I'm hoping to start doing 30 minutes on the elliptical 2-3 times a week starting this week. I'm also planning to continue my stretches and exercises for my back so I don't strain it again.

We have gone on family walks around the block a few times this week. It's hard with a toddler and an invalid - it's not really exercise, per se. LOL. But it does get us moving and out together doing something besides watch television.

The Deac and I also started organizing the basement this weekend. This is something we have needed to do since we moved into the house 6 years ago, but always feel overwhelmed by all the clutter we've managed to accumulate through our lives. Getting more organized will really help us both feel better and I'm hoping we can get to the point that we can finish the basement and make it useable space so that the girls can each have their own bedroom upstairs before they go off to college. That's my goal.

I've decided to not take Russian this year. I feel stretched way too thin with all that has gone on this summer and need to take some time to get my life in order. There will be time for more Russian in years to come. In the meantime, I have a basic knowledge of the language now and can practice by reading Russian books and newspapers. I still want to know the language better, but this year need to have some flexibility in my schedule and life. Besides, I really need to devote some quality time to studying for the Certified Health Physicist exam I will be taking next summer.

We signed Emmelia up for soccer in the fall. She is really excited about it, particularly since she'll (hopefully!) be on the same team as her friend R. (the same one in the following layout). So she'll have violin lessons and soccer, and for all that I will need to be able to play with my work schedule a bit. Next year Maura will be starting activities so it might just get worse from here, but I've always felt that one reason I work is so that I can provide for activities like this for my kids. I just don't want to end up over-scheduling them. I think sticking with one music activity and one sports activity is reasonable.






I haven't had a lot of time for scrapping lately, but did manage to put together this layout this week. It is a "scraplift" of a layout I saw on e-scapeandscrap and uses my friend Ginger's "Rain" and "Blush" kits. It's not your traditional princess layout, but I think the colors work well together and with the outfits the girls are wearing in the photo. Ginger's kits just have the richest, most saturated colors. I made the border on the right using Ginger's "Princess Doodle" kit. This week, when my computer started running a little slowly, I took a look at the folder that contains all the digi-scrapping kits and freebies I've downloaded. The folder was over 9 GB! GIGA-bytes! Holy smokes! So I'm devoting a little time now to reducing the size of all the papers in the kits from 12-inches by 12-inches to 8-inches by 8-inches. This is saving a ton of disk space and I never scrap in the larger size anyway. Once I get that done I'm sure I'll have a bug to scrap again.

In the Zone

Today is going well. Although I'm aware of the dangers of weighing in too often, I had to peek and... I've lost 1.5 pounds already! Sure, I know it's just "water weight," but it's still encouraging. More importantly, I have energy and haven't been craving any bad stuff. This is good! Love the Zone. I just had a delicious snack of string cheese, red seedless grapes and almonds along with a big glass of water.

This afternoon I am sitting here at my desk waiting for my Multi-Channel Analyzer to take multiple readings of some new radioiodine sources I am going to use for my bioassay program. This leaves some free time in between readings, during which I put the finishing touches on this layout of some of the 4th of July photos I took of Maura. There were just so many good ones, I had to scrap them! This was a fun layout to put together. I'm still not completely sure that the quote is THE one, but for now it works.

Happy Name Day - to me!

Today is the feast day of my patron saint, St. Marina the Great Martyr (a.k.a. St. Margaret of Antioch). One of my favorite stories about her life was that the devil appeared to her in the form of a dragon and swallowed her whole. She then used the cross (in some stories, she was holding a cross, in others she made the sign of the cross) to cause the dragon's belly to burst and release her! For this reason she is considered the patron saint of childbirth. I also just noticed she's considered the patron saint for kidney patients. I don't know why. But, I'll have to mention that to my friend J. Here are the Troparian and Kontakian to St. Marina:

Troparion tone 5
O glorious Marina betrothed to God the Word,
thou didst abandon all things earthly
and contest victoriously as a virgin.
For thou didst trample
on the invisible foe when he appeared,
O holy trophy-bearer,
and thou dost now bestow gifts of healing on the world.

Kontakion tone 3
Adorned with the beauty of virginity,
thou hast been crowned with unfading wreaths, O Marina.
Having shed thy blood in holy martyrdom
and radiant with miracles of healing,
thou hast received the prize of victory from the hand of thy Creator.

I just finished this layout of a photo I took of the girls back in January. They both decided to use the potty together - since Maura was only one year old at the time, it was basically the beginning of her potty training. It's the sort of layout I know they'll hate me for when they are teenagers, but this time in our life still deserves to be documented. I used about 4 of my friend Christine's kits to make this layout, but I think all the pieces come together nicely.

This week Emmelia's class finishes up their two-week "Cooking Camp." Last week they toured Pizza Hut and got to make their own pizzas (a HUGE hit!) and on another day made their own ice cream sundaes. Today they visited a local buffet restaurant to see how the kitchens operate. I'm sure that was a lot of fun - I can't wait to hear about it. Emmelia loves to cook, so this unit was right up her alley.

Yeay! It's "just" pneumonia!

Good news on the biopsy front - no sign of malignancy! I was really worried about that possibility. The lab was also able to culture out a bacteria and test different antibiotics against it so that now the Deac has started on a course of what should be the correct medicine to finally treat this infection. Hopefully the follow-up CT scan in a few weeks will show marked improvement.

Speaking of improvement, here's some things I've done to help life go on a little better lately:

• I started on the Zone diet again. It is the best diet I've tried over the years. It gives me energy and helps me lose weight. I'm excited to try it again.
• I have been taking a big cup of ice water with me to work each morning. I usually don't drink enough water throughout the day and especially at work, so now I drink at least 64 ounces during my work day. This has already helped me feel better!
  
• I've been consistent about flossing my teeth every morning. This is a big step for me.
• I've been remembering to use moisturizer on my face every morning.
  
• Last night we prayed the Akathist with the girls before bed! This prevented me from falling asleep trying to put them down and missing the opportunity. It worked well.
• After the Akathist, Emmelia practiced her violin. We've been bad about finding a time during our busy evenings for this to happen, but it worked well right then and I think this will become a habit.

Things I hope to implement this week:

• A family walk around the block each evening, provided the mosquitos aren't too bad.
• Be more consistent about encouraging the girls to brush their teeth TWICE a day, not just in the evenings. One of these days we'll throw floss into the mix here, too.

Scrapper's Choice

The Deac's home safely and we are anxiously awaiting the results of the biopsy. Hopefully it's something treatable and simple.

In the meantime, I have been nominated for a "Scrapper's Choice" Award for my 4th of July layout! Voting will commence towards the end of the month, at which time I'll shamelessly beg for you to log on and vote for me. I have no idea what I'd win, actually - it's just kind of fun to even be nominated.

Well, best get back to it. I've been away from work for a couple days taking care of the Deac and the piles on my desk are beginning to get to overwhelming heights.

Biopsy - well, it's over at least

We had a nice, if hectic weekend. My mom was kind enough to come up and take the kids for a few hours while we squeezed a movie and dinner around a professional society meeting and 2-year-old birthday party on Saturday. Had my car not lost it's front muffler on the way to my morning meeting, the schedule would've melded a little better. But she also did dishes and laundry and that made Sunday a LOT more relaxing for me (I actually got to take a nap!).

The new Pirates movie is pretty good, although I was disappointed in the ending. That's all I'll say for now. Other than that Johnny Depp still looks delicious in eye liner.

So today was the Deac's lung biopsy. Before he went in, the Interventional Radiologist (I had never heard of this medical specialty before - it sounds very cool!) told us there was a 20% chance the procedure could cause a pneumothorax (collapsed lung, basically - air gets into the chest cavity where it's not supposed to be and the lung can't inflate). They were going to use the CT machine to make sure they were at the level of the mass to take samples and give them immediately to the pathologist to make sure they were getting what looked like the right kind of tissue cells. Hopefully they managed to get something that will give us an idea of just what exactly we're dealing with here.

Anyway, the doc also said the procedure would take an hour. So, when they came out an hour and a HALF later, I was already beginning to suspect that something had gone wrong... you guessed it, he got a pneumothorax. So they put in a chest tube to let the air out and admitted him to the hospital for at least one, possibly two nights (it is a small one so it should resolve quickly).

Some friends of ours were wonderful enough to answer the call and pick our girls up from daycare for the evening. Apart from being a bit tired this evening, the girls seemed to not be as worried as I thought they might be. I must've done a good job of playing off my stress about it. The last thing I wanted was for them to recall that Grandad spent a night in the hospital before he died, and so far so good on that one. They went to sleep pretty quickly once we got home. Sleep sounds pretty good - maybe I'll go join them.

Tea came out my nose

I really needed a laugh today and this link a friend sent me fit the bill. I had to share it...

Weight Watcher recipe cards from the 1970's. What could be better than FRANKFURTER SPECTACULAR!?

Hee. Have a nice weekend.

Oh, one more layout from my backlog of photos - this was from last Labor Day:

Burnt out

I am so tired lately, even though I've been having less trouble with insomnia. The girls wake me up at least 3 times a night, and lately I haven't been able to get to bed earlier than 11 pm or later.

But more than that, even, I just feel burnt out... life has been a constant drain on the energy reserves for the past 2 and a half months, and there is nothing there to replenish it. It would be nice if we could even think about going on a get-away or vacation when the Deac gets better, but we are both being forced to use any time off we get from work for various doctor's appointments, etc. If I ever strike it rich, I think I might start a foundation that pays for family vacations after a parent has been ill for a long period.

What's really scary is that, depending on the results of Monday's biopsy, this could just be the beginning of a very long road. Let's hope not.

It's funny - the more stressed I feel, the more I feel like scrapping. Although lately it's been a struggle to find the mental energy to even plan a layout. I just had to use these new kits by Ginger and Christine (Rain and Don't Bug Me). I get double points for the blue one because I finally got around to scrapping photos from last year. I'm on a major tear lately to scrap some of the old photos I've got stored.

The Palm Sunday layout uses the Sweet Sprinkles freebie kit from Shabby Princess. I wanted a kit that matched the girls dresses and finally found one!

Here it is...

Using my friend Christine's Red Bright and Blue kit. It was SO much fun making those stars! Have a happy and relaxing holiday!

Happy 4th of July!

A day in advance, since I probably won't be online tomorrow. I got so many cute photos of the girls in their patriotic dresses after church yesterday that it's going to be hard to narrow it down to ones to use in a layout. I think these 3 are my favorites.

Sometime this week the Deac will have a needle stuck into his chest to withdraw material from his lung for a biopsy. Pending the results of that, he may then undergo a PET scan to further characterize what we are dealing with here.

I think to me the worst part is not knowing what we are dealing with. It is like we are treading water and waiting for someone to throw us a life preserver. Only the people on the shore (i.e. the different doctors) are debating over which life preserver to send out. It's exhausting and we hope the life preserver will come sooner rather than later.

Last week our priest gave the Deac some oil from the tomb of the Mother of God (Greek: Theotokos) to annoint himself with for 40 days. Each night before he annoints himself, we pray the Akathist together. This has been lovely mostly because it's good to make an effort to pray together again - we had become lax about that. But also, I've been wanting to learn the music to the Akathist hymn and learn to sing it for quite some time now. Doing it every night gives me the opportunity to learn to sing the refrains and it's really a beautiful hymn.

Anyway, there is a part in the Akathist which seems significant to me in our present circumstances - where the Theotokos is referred to with the following allegory:

• Raft for those who desire to be saved.
• Haven for those who fare on the sea of life.

So the point may be that instead of relying soley on doctors to send us our life preserver as we tread water here, we should also be sure to rely the care of the holy Mother of God. It certainly can't hurt to entreat her for prayers. It's nice to have more than one option on the path to healing and wholeness. Besides, it's probably because of her support that we're still treading along above water at all.