tagged...again

i was tagged by the inimitable hannah.

first, i'm going to talk about hannah. hannah's like a leather sofa. you're pretty sure that you're not lucky enough to have one. and then you get one. and it only gets better the longer you have it. only with hannah, unlike the sofa, she speaks. and what comes out of her mouth is usually funny, sometimes poignant, and always bare naked.

here are the instructions for "eight things":
. mention the person that tagged you
. complete the list of eight things
. tag eight of your wonderful blogger friends
. go tell them you tagged them

eight things i look forward to:

1. dennis learning to drive. this means a stepping stone for him...a grocery-getter for me;

2. our trip to cancun in august...sort of;

3. having a baby some day. really. i'm almost there;

4. my parents being well;

5. going to heaven.

6. writing a book. i will do it...someday.

7. figuring out exactly what i want to be when i grow up

8. buying this new bedding from pottery barn.

eight things i did yesterday:

1. volunteered to host a cocktail party for my entire office.

2. genuinely missed my husband.

3. read a couple of pages of the mermaid chair...for the third time.

4. cried over melissa's post.

5. played wii boxing...and did 10 squats every time i k.o.'d someone. and super hula-hooped.

6. drafted swine flu memos

7. was really thankful in a sordid sort of way when my son fell asleep during the president's speech. and i didn't wake him up. i then proceeded to watch american idol instead of lost. and cheered for kris allen when he stayed.

8. wished the swine flu would go away (reference #2 above).

eight things i wish i could do:

1. fly. seriously.

2. live in arkadelphia, but keep my job.

3. convince jon that he is the best ever at what he does...both at home and at work.

4. host flawless parties every night of the week. with nothing to clean up. in a dress. with pearls. and heels.

5. find a community group.

6. work out 5 days a week and not whine about it. OR just magically lose 50 pounds.

7. have raised my son since birth. only i'm pretty sure he wouldn't have turned out as well.

8. turn my house by about 90 degrees so i'd have morning sunlight flood through the house. only then i'd be facing the neighbor's house. that would be bad. so i guess in my next house, i'll make sure that there's morning light.

eight shows i watch:

1. desperate housewives

2. grey's anatomy

3. 24

4. the office

5. medium

6. jon and kate plus 8

7. every show on the food network. marathon-like every saturday and most sundays.

8. all the CSIs

i tag: jessica, laura haywood, kristen black, dayle carozza, and heather wolfe. i have no idea who's even reading this any more!

parental updates

it's been awhile since i've posted about the cancer. i think in some way, i was hoping it would just disappear.

my dad completed the 6-month round of chemo initially prescribed. he got the results of the follow-up PET scan today. and the news, well...the news was good. it wasn't what my dad wanted to hear, but it really was good.

so, initially, his oncologist told my parents there were "multiple lesions," to me, meaning numerous...too many to count. and when he got his halfway checkup, the lesions were "20% percent reduced...some as many as 50% reduced." this, to me, means that he had a. lot. of. tumors.

and today, he and my mom heard that he has 4 tumors. 2 of them could be cut out today. and 2 of them have not quite shrunk enough. since that halfway checkup, one of the tumors has gone from 7 centimeters to 6.

y'all. that is a BIG tumor. possibly TWO BIG TUMORS.

there is no way my dad should have made it this long. his liver was just plum eat up with lesions. but my Almighty Father, the Great Physician, saw fit to spare him. to shrink those nasty tumors. and put doctors in our life that know just what to do for him.

not only did those tumors shrink and all but disappear, but the CANCER HAS NOT SPREAD.

y'all. merciful days. the cancer that so easily spreads...the liver is practically a conduit for cancer. spreads cancer like cheerleaders throw candy in the christmas parade. and that cancer is contained. praise the Lord.

please join me in lifting up praise to our God for sparing my daddy thus far. for shrinking those tumors. for knitting our family together. and for teaching us all that He truly does know the plans he has for us...no matter what that entails.

so we've got six more months of chemo - 12 treatments. the other good news is that the doc released him back to work. i truly believe that will be good for him, too...being able to have a reason to get out of the bed and into the shower and into the car. it's a different drug, and i sure couldn't tell you the name of it. but i can tell you that he is NOT excited about the chemo. it pretty much just makes him feel like crap. but i'm not going to pray that it doesn't make him feel bad. basically, you're pumping poison in your body to kill the foreign stuff. and that's not supposed to feel good.

and please lift up a little prayer, that this new chemo drug will shrink those last two tumors to a managable size, so that we can whack them out of him ASAP. i'm ready to NOT count white cells.

vocabulary monday

this evening at dinner, jon and i learned a new word. not really a word...an acronym. dennis is usually pretty quiet at dinner. there's usually something on tv worth watching (i know, i'm a bad mom for allowing tv during dinner, but really, we sit down and have dinner together almost every night. how many families really do that? we'll work on no tv with the next one...right.)

so dennis hollers, "oy tay! you will never believe what happened today at school." and we waited. he said, "this girl, she made a strange sound from a strange place." and i got nervous, because that sounded a little shady. 

and then he said, "t.o.l."

pregnant pause.

"she tooted out loud."

and i almost shot cilantro out my nose. seriously.

easter and giving back

along with the excitement of dennis's car, i also made a giant easter dinner. i even remembered to document the feast: ginger-aled ham, orange and cumin-scented carrots, smashed potatoes and deviled eggs. i was pretty proud of myself...it was fairly pretty, too.

this weekend, i took a group of STARS (opryland employees) to volunteer at the country music marathon. we served water to several thousand runners at mile marker 23. it was REALLY hard work. things i learned this weekend: (1) i need to workout. seriously, at one point i thought my heart was going to give out. and today i am 17 different kinds of sore. (2) there are some very selfless people in the world. i wish i had a picture, but there was a handicapped gentleman in a wheelchair whose brother was pushing...PUSHING him through the marathon. i started crying right there. i sat down on the asphalt and just cried. then there were the team-in-training folks. the ones that run to raise money for cancer. and they had ribbons tacked to their shirts...in memory of...in honor of... again, tears fell freely. i am so thankful that there are people in the world who will use the simple (though painful) act of running a marathon to raise money to cure this awful disease. 

also: mixing sports drinks is gross. here's a shot of me and my boss. i work for the coolest company ever.

interlude

when i order sushi, i always ask for two sets of chopsticks, so the tiny japanese lady will think that i'm going to share all that raw fish.

i don't ever share that bag of goodness, for the record.

today, when i did this, the tiny japanese lady...snorted. i think she's on to me.

new beginnings

i concur with many of my fellow bloggers. i adore easter. for some reason this year, easter seemed to mean more to me than usual. don't get me wrong. i was raised in church and among believers, and know that the easter bunny has his place, but it most certainly is NOT in the Bible. but this year, jon and i have ALMOST found a new church. and this new church does church very well. not just on sunday or saturday, but all the time.

i went to good friday service on my way into work on friday. the service involved a congregational reading where the congregation read the words of the crowd that sentenced jesus to death. i have never felt more humbled...we're talking low, low to the ground...when i said, "crucify him! his blood is on me and my children's head!" it really brought home the idea that it was for me...and all my low-down dirty sins...that an innocent man died. as much as i wish i was mary magdalene or the woman who poured oil on christ's head...i was the crowd. the crowd that begged pilate to release a criminal instead of the innocent son of God. so easter meant more this year. 

also. i could not spend it with my parents in arkansas. my mom was not feeling up to hostessing. she is not "coming off" her radiation as well as one might think, and quite frankly is feeling pretty crummy. this hurts my heart. please pray that her body continues to heal; that her spirits will be positive as she "recovers." she goes again for chemo tomorrow. chemo weeks are not fabulous weeks for her, so pray that for all the suffering she must endure that that chemo is wiping out the remaining cancerous cells. i am ready for this season in my family to be over, but for all we are going through, i have to think that it is to pray harder for the cure...that we all might be done with this nightmare that affects so many.

ok. that all seemed heavy. on a lighter note:

jon, dennis and i celebrated easter on saturday. i've posted before about how much i adore saturday services. but in addition to service, we hid eggs for dennis this year:

 

And we made him hunt for them:

And Max looked on (this one is a little indulgent):

And in the last egg was a key:

And the key was for his easter gift:

And the gift looked a little like this on the outside:

there might not be a better feeling than the feeling of providing for your children. it's a little tangled up in "ohmygoodnessihopethisisn'tthemachinethattakeshislife," but it's still pretty powerful. 

now we just have to teach him to drive. scary? definitely. 

as days go by...

i am just terrible at blogging. it's just like many things in my life...healthy eating, exercising, not cursing, that i decide to do and then shortly thereafter, i fall off the wagon. i know i should document this crazy life for a couple of reasons. (1) so that i'll remember what REALLY happened and (2) so that other people can figure out what's going on with us. and also: i really do love it. it's nice to "get it all out." so, here are a few short stories to catch up:

a. hangin' tough.

jon took me to the new kids on the block concert for my birthday. my THIRTIETH birthday. it was great, and even though i was a number 1 debbie gibson fan during that era, i still knew all the words, and was even pleasantly surprised. i don't think they were lip-syncing. however, i left with the knowledge that i've aged well. or at least, i've learned to cover up what body flaws come with being thirty. seriously, i turned around when the boys sang hangin' tough and there was this sea of flabby arms waving in the air. i had worn a tasteful jacket so that no one would be exposed to that "extra" bit of skin. my counterparts in crime were wearing sleeveless little numbers and quite frankly a bit of modesty was called for. oh, well...they all had fun, i had fun, even jon had fun, and he was pretty jet-lagged from returning from moldova the NIGHT BEFORE. how great a husband is he?

b. the week without jon

i never posted follow up on this week. oh, did dennis and i bond! dennis decided to just ask about a million questions that i shouldn't have had to field alone. he was just incensed by the american red cross and wanted to donate blood at school - only he's 16 and needed parental consent. nice. and also, he decided that he wanted to go to prom with his (then) girlfriend and who should pay? oh, my. who would have thought that i would be pulling out emily post at this point, right?

c. the break-up.

we had to counsel dennis through the first break up. he broke up with (or vice-versa) afore-said girlfriend. who then proceeded to tell him that she MIGHT still want to go to prom with him. there are not words for this in mommy-speak. really. i saw red for days, i tell you. but after we explained to big d that prom was, like, the most expensive night EVER for a boy under 18, he pretty much told her that he was uninterested. NICE. here's how the conversation went:

"you know, you're going to have to buy her flowers."

"how much is that?"

"probably about $50." 

"can you delete the flowers?"

*snickers* "no."

great, huh?

d. the visit from the principal.

big d's principal from his  moldovan orphanage is in america for a visit. we got to see her on our soil, instead of the other way around, and it was nice. it was also awfully nice of her to explain to our little darlin that he had a pretty great life in america, and that even on his worst day, life in america was pretty sweet and way easier than life in moldova. sometimes it helps to have perspective - when you have evil parents that *gasp* make you keep your room clean.

e. our visit to miami:

here's a snapshot of jon and me on our way out to dinner. notice how relaxed! we took a long weekend to miami and had just the best time. we laid on the beach and got lost in coconut grove. we had fancy italian dinner that went on for DAYS (or at least a couple of hours). we had really fancy breakfast at the delano hotel and then noticed that rihanna had been sitting right beside us. but the coolest thing? my dear husband  called ahead and had an arrangement waiting for me when we got to our hotel room:

 

great, right? Those are yellow calla lillies, just like i carried in our wedding four years prior. undoubtedly the best husband ever.