Blog contest update

Just wanted to remind everyone of my blog contest, also post what your favorite color is or multiple if you have more than one. For those that have already entered please let me know your favorite color. Blog contest ends Sept. 2nd!!!! So Hurry!

Also I had a good hair day today so I wanted to take a picture, I'm not wearing make-up and since I'm naturally a blonde if I don't wear make-up my eyes look really bad, if only I could get permanent dark eyelashes!!! You can color them and even perm them so you don't have to curl them, but like all or other hair it will soon fall out and new stuff grow in so it won't ever be permanent.


And another video of my dogs playing:the sound at the beginning is the TV then I got smart and muted it, then you have to turn it up because Chugs makes the funniest sounds when she plays, then the end is just boring you can stop it when Chugs looks towards the door she thought she heard a noise!

I can't do it!

I know you aren't suppose to say things like this to yourself but it's true! I do keep trying and trying and trying but I can't do it! I don't have the talent! I made some 'just because' cards to send out to blog friends (at least I hope they will be). And I can't make cards! They look so bad! I have 'scrapbook' stuff, some scissors, paper, stickers etc.... but I can't make them! I wish I was better. So I'm sorry in advance if you get one of my cards, remember it's the thought that counts right?


sidenote:I will post the continuing story about my health once a week.

The Crown Award

I was chosen by Dancin' Queen (sorry I think her blog is private) for the crown award, Thank You I am glad that my blog is 1)being read and 2)it is helping others. That is the purpose of my blog that is why I am sharing my story though it is very personal and I am not a very open person.

Anyway I now award to three people:

Dancin' Queen~ I know you nominated me so I would say you off the hook for doing it again, but I really am inspired by your blog! I love how open you are with your religion, it's the same as mine and has inspired me to be more open on my blog, thank you so much for that.

Life is a spasm who flow~ I love Lucy's writing style! I love her book reviews and her attitude is happy through everything she goes through.

Gummiespazz~ I love reading Hannah's blog because she is totally honest about her day like 'I didn't take a shower or get dressed' me either!!!! Her kids are cute and I love the stories she writes about what they do.

creativity, musings & such~ What can I say... Jill is the reason I blog! I thought about doing an anonymous blog but after reading Jill's for awhile I loved how open she was and that she blogged everyday (I'm trying) I wanted a blog like Jill's! This is a perfect award for Jill, thank you Jill even though you didn't know it for getting me started blogging.

Okay your turn to choose three people who you feel deserve the 'Crown Award'

More about me....

This is a little harder than I thought! I love reading blogs and then run out of time to write mine! I need to dedicate time to writing my blog and not get caught up reading blogs!!!

I feel like I need to back track more so you will understand my story better as I tell it. As you already know I was born with Cystic Fibrosis I have had an older brother and younger brother both pass away due to complications with Cystic Fibrosis, I have had very good health considering what it could be, I did the usually IV 'clean-ups' at least twice a year, but was able to do anything I wanted to like hanging out with friends, sports, etc... I have known since I was little that I wanted to do hair when I grew up and I did just that I have now been doing hair for 8 years (anniversary next month!) I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!!!! I worked at a salon until two years ago, I then got a job at that paid steady (hair can be really unsteady) and was only 20hrs. no weekends or holidays, I did that and then hair out of my house. All until a year ago.

My hemoptysis started really when I was a teenager but it got worse over 5 years ago, it still wasn't as bad as it got now but my doctor didn't do anything about it. So.... Nov. '02 After a spell of hemoptysis I went to the hospital and finally the dr. decided to do an embolization and clot off the bronchial arteries they thought were bleeding. I was so happy that they were finally doing surgery and felt like it would solve everything, well, I went for surgery and little did I know that I barely made it, I was bleeding so much that after one short month of being married my husband was told his wife had 24hrs. to determine if I would pull out of it or not!!!!! I just can't imagine what my husband went through. I did make it through but then proceeded to have a rough couple of months where I ended up having 7 embolizations in 6 weeks! But we made it through and I got better, over the next year I went in a couple times but was able to recover, I believe I had maybe two more surgeries that year. The next year was better, still some surgeries (I mean I had to rack up to 15 somehow!)

The next two years were great! My health had improved a lot and we put in our papers for adoption, I had a great job at a salon where I was building a clientele and that was fun, my husband was making through school, life was good. Now granted I would still get sick, but I would always recover within about a week.

Then all of a sudden came last Aug. so now you are caught up I think. So I came home to recover and as you can imagine I just thought, hey, this one really knocked me down, so it will take longer to recover but I will do it. I never doubted! I had always recovered in the past! Then one week turned into two, and I still wasn't recovering as fast as I normally do, and I was on home oxygen too so it was a little weird for me, I didn't feel as energetic, I wasn't as hungry, and according to everybody my color was awful! actually when my brother-in-law came home from being gone all summer, he came home just a day or two from when I got home he told my husband later that he was scared to even hug me!!!!!! Here is a picture of me and my new little pup Texas, and Chugs, taken around that time, Chugs is in the front and Texas closer to me.

Sorry this one is side-ways

Little Video

I took a little video today of the dogs playing tug o' war. It's just a short one and the sound is just the TV on about Tsunami's (so you can have the sound off). Usually my dogs are much more play full than this but I wanted to try and post a video. Now if they can do a slide show option it would be the best ever!!!!

BLOG CONTEST!!!!!

Yippee!!!!! Jill inspired me to have a blog contest! I really can't think of anything except just leave a comment and you are entered! I want to see how many friends/readers/lurkers I have, I hope a lot:) You will receive a hand crafted item personalized for you! READY, SET, GO!!!!!!!!!!

No internet!!!!!!

That's right, I got on to write another post and no internet!!!! So I tried getting it to work all night (alright gave out after six attempts). I tried again this morning...found the problem, one of the wireless routers had come unplugged!!! (give me a break it was hidden underneath lots of cords!). So I'm sorry about that. Let's continue on shall we?.......

So after being in ICU for two weeks they move me to a regular floor, while I was in ICU my dad made me a poster of different dogs since I was beginning to love my dog, see it was last summer that my brother-in-law left and we took over Chugs care, we would go on walks every night and if I had to take a break to cough or catch my breath Chugs would sit by me or even put her paws on me to make sure I was okay! We started calling her my 'CF dog' because even if I was in the other room she would come running to me if I was having a coughing fit. So while I was in ICU my husband was talking to his mom about how attached I was getting to Chugs and that he was afraid that when his brother came back if he took the dog back I would be heart broken and after being so sick he didn't want that! They were also lonely because they had grown attached to Chugs when they lived her as well so they were missing having a dog around. Well I didn't know but they bought two Puggles! One for me and one for them! (story continued in a second).

After being on a reg. floor for a week I went home! it was the thursday before labor-day weekend I think and the day before (or the day of actually) my in-laws flew in. My husband kept telling me he had a surprise for me, I thought it might be some article of clothing because he likes REI and I thought he had ordered it off the internet because he said it would be coming that weekend. Well we go out and have to meet this guy at Krispy Kremes! What does he bring? two little puppies! as soon as he opened the little (and it was little and he stuffed both puppies in there! I felt so bad for them!) one shot out, the other was more shy, I wanted that one, I'm a shy person, they were also very thirsty and my puppy made funny noises when it was breathing so I definately liked it more because I sometimes make noises when I breathe! We looked up girl dog names on the internet and went down the list when my husband said 'Texas' we both went that's cute, okay. And that is when Texas entered our family, and my in-laws took her sister 'Annie' back with them (down to Texas actually, we are both from TX just different areas). Here are some pictures of them the first day we brought them home.

This is the first night, I was in my bed and my husband brought her in and she fell asleep in my arms!

They both loved the pool!

The top two are the ones we got, this is the picture my in-laws got before they bought them.

What happened to my photo? and does anyone know a simple way to add a slideshow? I've downloaded all the photos into snapfish found out about slide.com and went there, they don't support snapfish but they do photobucket! So I downloaded everything into photobucket (and everyone knows how long it takes to download pictures each time). But then after I uploaded the photos I couldn't find them! it didn't make a slideshow! And then if I wanted to upload directly to slideshow they only upload the pictures one at a time!!!!!!! which would take all day!!!! I don't have that much patience!!! HELP!!!

Also I will continue the story but was using all my time to try and do the photos!
This is my dog Texas with her 'texas' collar on.

One year ago.......

This was the reason for creating this blog so I would get my feelings and experiences out. I stopped writing in my journal, I don't know why. But I will try and write things down here.

Aug. 7th, 2007 I was just finishing a day at work, I wasn't working at a salon at this time (in between, I did hair at home though) I did software tech support for a certain company, I actually did enjoy it since it was kinda challenging at times and only four hours a day, no sat//sun or holidays! I got my own little cubicle and computer. I really wish I knew about blogging then because I had a lot of free time at work at the beginning I was able to bring my cross-stitch but then they said no it looked like we weren't busy but that is what I love to do, multi-task, the long phone calls weren't bad if I had cross-stitching to do, anyways we had to 'look' like we were busy and so we could surf the internet whatever but we had to stay on the internet.

Sorry off track already-I started to walk down to my car and suddenly my body froze 'oh no' my mind yelled 'not again!' I ran back the other way to the bathroom, ran into a stall and there proceeded to cough up a lot of blood. I have to make a side note here: I have massive hemoptyis (coughing up blood) my bronchial arteries will bleed therefore forcing me to cough up blood. It finally stopped but this was a big one and not the first of the week, I went straight to this house my husband had been working on for a neighbor (who the wife happened to have a brain tumor removed at the end of June and suffered a rare complication where the brain doesn't return to normal right away so she has had to relearn everything! And she still is struggling after more than a year!) I walked inside and told him we have to go to the hospital, he dropped what he was doing, grabbed his tools and we went home to pack a tiny bit.

By now it was late evening we knew we would have to go to the E.R. we have been down this path so many times that I have a letter from my dr. to speed up the ER experience and get to ICU. We get into the ER, show anyone and everyone the letter and within the hour we were up in ICU, I could feel like I was still bleeding and so I told them I felt I needed to be intubated (put on a ventilator) and the docs would probably decide surgery. I have been intubated for an extended amount of time 4 other times and this would be my 12th Embolization (they go in and clot off the bronchial arteries they think are bleeding) usually I am only intubated for a few days to control the bleeding, until it stops.

I'm not afraid of being intubated, at least I wasn't up until that time, you see this time was different, I ended up being intubated for a week and then in ICU for an additional week, making two in all and I only remember about 4 days of it! My wonderful sister came up and brought my nephew but I don't remember seeing my nephew! I remember just waking up and my sister was there! I wasn't shocked (which I should have been, I mean when I got there my sister wasn't there and she had no plans on coming!) but I think that's because she had been there for 4 days already! and she was leaving in two! She was wonderful, she painted my toenails a beautiful bright pink, I've never painted my toes a bright pink before but you know I liked them! It's nice to have good looking toes when you stare at them a lot during the day! She also just kept me company, I couldn't talk I was on the bi-pap, she brought me water though, I told her I wanted a cherry limeade from Sonic but they weren't letting me eat or drink yet.

I didn't know until months later just how bad I was....my dear sweet husband actually told me that I had fought a good fight and if I couldn't fight anymore it was okay!!! I was on the vent so long because they couldn't stop the bleeding and if it didn't stop soon I wouldn't live much longer. Since I was on the ventilator for a week so many bugs were able to grow and make a nice breeding ground in there so I was on antibiotics a four drug combination, two of which are given through IV and continuous! So I carry this big fanny pack around with me wherever I go!

I think I'm getting ahead of the story, I think that's all for now, I was on a ventilator for a week, we will pick-up from there tomorrow. Let us end with some cute pictures of my dogs.

Hair Day

I highlighted my friend Hannah's hair today, I just love doing highlights! I love doing hair period! I also used a new way to texturize it and loved it! While she was processing she asked me to give her little boy his first haircut, I thought of taking pictures for that but also should have taken pictures of her hair too! So here is her little boy Jake getting his first haircut! In the second one he is looking at me but I seriously don't look good so I cropped myself out, but I left myself in the last one because hopefully it will be small and you won't see too much of me.

Nap time

This is what I found when I went into the bedroom this afternoon Texas was half-in and half-out, but not the way we think of it!




Chugs of course is always all the way under, she curls up next to your leg (yes, Chugs sleeps with us at night but Texas has a pen she goes too).

And if that wasn't enough sleep this is how I found them just now!!!! I love them they are adorable. I am trying to figure out how to put all of my husbands hiking photos into a slideshow so I can just post that, what do you guys use? and then how do you post it? Thanks.

Object Lesson

So I taught Mia Maids today and the lesson started out with a story from Pres. Kimball about a tidal wave and how these two young girls tried to run to higher ground but the wave was coming too fast and so they clung to these trees with all their might. This is a quote from him:

“The Lord holds forth a glorious promise to those who love him and demonstrate this love by faithful, devoted service and the living of his eternal principles. When the winds of change blow fiercely and the waves sweep over us, we have a tree or rod of principle to which we can cling for safety. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ which has been restored to the earth in its fulness”

So I wanted a visual for the girls and something they could take home to remind them that the tree represented the gospel that we should cling too.

I thought of seeing if the dollar store had any little trees or if I could somehow make some, then a brilliant idea came to me! Those air freshener trees!!!! But I don't personally like the pine one and luckily they had this one called Sweet Pear, at least it's still green! I put the quote above on it. I'm sure they won't be forgetting this lesson for awhile!

And the beautiful sunset tonight taken with two different light settings.

Bored

Well sort of, my husband has been camping since thursday and so I haven't had the camera, I don't really get 'lonely' when he's gone, just less motivated to do things. But he comes home today! so I will post pics of his camping trip later, for now here is the picture I promised from photobooth (on a mac) with comic book effect.

I'm so glad when Daddy comes home...

This is what my dogs do when my husband is gone.....



This is what they do when I say 'Daddy's coming home!'...


Seriously, no kidding!

Beautiful Rainbow

My husband was able to catch this beautiful double rainbow, and then only a single on in the second picture.

Puggle Trouble

This is what happens when your dog gets a hold of your toilet paper!


Who Me?

This is our Puggle (pug/beagle mix) her name is Texas.

Need Help!!!!

My sister has been trying to find a White short-sleeve button-up shirt for her little boy, 3T-4T. Any help? Are there internet places or any place here in Utah I can go to for her? I found a picture, but it's blue, she wants white for church. THANKS!

Pay it forward Goodmail Swap

This is a Pay-it-forward goodmail swap. All you have to do is be one of the first 3 bloggers to leave a comment on this post and you win. What, you ask? The winners get something home-made and crafty from me within the next year, but you have to promise to post the same on your blog and follow suit for 3 new people. Sound fun? Comment away :) Hurry!

To the first three people, leave your email if I don't have it!

Saturday's Fun

I didn't feel to hot in the morning, sometimes if I sleep in I feel even more tired! So I hate to sleep in but I did so I was dragging all morning, finally felt better after lunch, the hubby made a wonderful toasted pastrami sandwich!!!! And then decided to finally go see a movie, like the Temple we have been wanting to see a movie for months now! (but I couldn't justify being able to go to the movie and not the Temple so I had to go to the Temple first, weird I know) we finally saw Ocean's 13, it's in the dollar now but that made it a lot nicer on the pocketbook!

I totally LOVE Ocean's 11 & 12, I thought 13 was okay, a little disappointing, didn't hold up the the other two (do any third ones? though I heard Bourne Ultimatum was suppose to be the best third movie ever) I'm also one of those people who has to watch a movie like that a couple times to catch everything but I was a little disappointed in some of the characters not holding up to who they were in the previous film! Like 'the fox' (can't think of his name right now) I totally thought he was going to pull some kind of prank! I mean he was mad at Ocean for showing him up! And especially the way 12 ended I thought Fox was going to be pulling something! And the job wasn't as cool as it should have been, maybe because they have done a casino before I don't know. All in all I think I will need to watch it one more time before I decide if I will buy it or not (I own 11 & 12, love to watch them) need to determine if it is worth watching again.

Then we just went out for burgers (since we saved some money on the movie). Not much but I don't get out of the house to often so it was nice to go out and have a little date with my man. And forgive me I totally thought 'I should have brought the camera' because I knew I would blog about this but I didn't, sorry I will do better.

Temple Day

My husband and I were finally able to attend the Temple today! it has been such a long time and it feels like everyday of every week for a couple months now we have been saying 'lets go to the Temple tomorrow' and something happens or I'm doing good health wise, sometimes I honestly just plain forget!!!!! But finally today, it was so great, though a tad hot for me inside and it made me want to nod off. There were so many brides there as well, I can't imagine getting married in August (or July, or June even) I can not stand being hot and today was a killer! I would have taken one picture and said I'm done! Luckily it worked out that I was able to get married in Oct. and it was a perfect weather day.

Also today President James E. Faust passed away, what a great man. I took a religion class from BYU and had to write an essay about his life and it was so great to read about all he has done and get to know his character, does he have a biography out? if so I need to read it, if not, they need to write one.

What am I doing????

Well, I am trying to spend my spare time (which I have a lot of) reading the second book in this series because the third came out yesterday and I really want to read it! So I have neglected playing with my camera (I know big sin) in hopes of finishing this book so I can move on the third!

Don't worry I do take breaks to read blogs (have to do my treatments). And lets face it, I still use some of my spare time and watch tv, need to just turn it off!!!!!

Problem Solved

Finally, my problem of not being able to do word links is solved! I figured out that blogger doesn't have that option if you are using the web browser from Mac called Safari, so I am on Mozilla Fox and I finally found what everyone was talking about! Lets try it out. I made this for dinner tonight. I'll let you know how it turns out.

I'm back....

Home again after a brief stay in the hospital, it was uneventful, that's what we like. I'm not a very open person and so I am hoping that this will help make me a more open person since it is not face to face. But then sometimes I get nervous with too much imformation but then I say oh well sometimes too! I mean if everyones blog was invitation only I would have 1 blog friend! So I'm so greatful that so many of you have great blogs that are open.

Alright some background on me..... I am 27,F,Married for almost 5 yrs., We are currently on hold with LDS Services for adoption, we have two of the cutest dogs in the whole world! My husband is a student I am a cosmetologist though currently not working. I was born with Cystic Fibrosis it is genetic and I will let you google it to find out more so I don't make this a super long post, in short it affects my pancreas and lungs, we have and produce thicker mucus than the normal person so our ducts get clogged (like the pancrease, that's why it doesn't work and we take enzymes to help us digest food) and we cough a lot more than others! It also means that if we get a cold it could very quickly turn to pneumonia because of the mucus, we have to do treatments every day to help thin and cough the mucus out. That is usually what I am doing when I read blogs.

I wasn't expected to make it to my teens, then out of my teens, now the average life span is 36 yrs. I had been doing very well until I got married! a month after we got married I was on a ventilator and they told my new husband I had 24 hrs. to make it out. I did but it was rough for a little while, then we had about 2 good years and applied for adoption, got approved and have been waiting until just about a year ago I had another really bad spell was on a ventilator for a week and then another week in ICU, since last August I have visited the hospital about every three months, I had a lobectomy (removal of the upper right lobe) done in Feb. in hopes of helping my little problem. I have massive hemoptysis (coughing up blood) my bronchial arteries will bleed and I will cough up blood, sometimes so much they have to intubate me to control my airways, they usually do an emblization and clot off which arteries they think are the problem (I have had over 15 embolizations).

I have found blogging my new passion because I no longer work or run errands and can't take care of my house the way I would like, blogging lets me know that there is still life going on out there. I hope to make some friends out of it as well and I think I can already feel some (at least I hope so). I will try and be open and fun. I can't wait for my camera so I can post pictures too. Hope I'm not too boring since I really don't do much during the day, I think this will be motivation for me as well, do something so I can blog about it!!!!

You must wait......

I know everyone was looking forward to this day, find out what my big secrect is!!!! Well, unfortunately I won't have time to post it, I am off to the hospital:( I hope only to be there over the weekend but then again you NEVER know what will happen, with my health history (which I will share when I can) anything can happen, I hope all goes well and I can return home again.

I will really miss everyone, it is times like this that I wish we had bought an apple laptop instead of desktop (though it is so easy to move it makes me want to take it sometimes). Well I will have a ton of posts to read when I return. Have a good weekend everyone!

Oh yeah, a picture......

How I got started blogging

My best friend lives on the east coast, I live on the west, we weren't doing to great at the whole emailing thing or phone thing but we kept in touch, finally she told me she had a blog! It was at a time when she was pregnant with twins (her first preg.) and so it was fun keeping track of her progress and being able to see pics, I then start 'lurking' around what a wonderful world out there! I loved clicking and clicking and finding lots of different people it was great! I have yet to find someone I know though!!!

I then stumbled on Jill's blog and Donna's blog, those two really caught me, they updated daily and were always great reads, with what is going on in my life it was great to have a blog to look forward to everyday. Now granted I had over 50 in my google reader and so I always had about 40 blogs to read a day but I did have my favorites that I liked to read. I was living vicariously through everyone because right now I mostly stay at home and so it was nice to know that life was happening in the outside world still.

What do you ask is my problem???? I think I will let you hang on one more day..............in the meantime here are the most adorable dogs in the whole world, one is a Chug (chihuahua/pug) and one is a Puggle (pug/beagle).

Frustrating......

You know that saying 'if it's too good to be true it probably is'? it is soooo true! Not just this time but every time I've ever experienced something that seems too good, it usually isn't! So, we are buying a digital camera right, found one online for a good deal, researched the company alittle and found out that they are out of business so we didn't want that, found another good deal for only $10 more so we went with them, bought it on the weekend so we didn't expect anything until monday, not until 4pm on monday do I get all these emails (seriously ten of them) one saying it was out of stock one saying it was in stock, one saying call to confirm, another call about credit card verification, blah blah.... so I call and mind you I am the one that doesn't like crap, don't sell me extra crap, do I want a warrenty? NO! so this guy is just rattling on and asks me if I want a 2hr. or a 4hr. battery and do I want a 1gb or 2gb card, I didn't look (my husband did the research) to see if the camera included a battery but I thought it did and I didn't have it pulled up on my screen so I didn't know right then and I asked if it included a card and it didn't, I thought oh well we will have to buy one anyways. Yeah hello, he tacked on $200 more dollars! I just felt pressured and confused, I hate that! well we didn't plan on that amount and therefore didn't have that much money in the bank and so it was declined! Good thing! So my husband called yest. morning and they totally gave him the run around four different people! all he wanted to know what if a battery was included with the camera and why we needed another battery, he got mad a frustrated, called back again in the afternoon, still same thing, he told them he didn't want the camera anymore, he talked to a local reliable camera store and they told him that what non-reliable stores will do to ya and they fit the bill perfectly! He also said there is no such thing as a 2 or 4 hour battery, it goes by how many shots etc.... and that outfits like that open the package and will take the battery out and sell it seperately. And so the price looks low but then it ends up being higher because you pay for extra stuff. And they usually aren't 'Authorized dealers'. But for customer service alone we decided to not go with them.

Then today the bank calls and I'm all worried that they are still trying to charge us and they attempted to three times yesterday! None today so far, now I'm worried, I guess I will just make sure we don't have enough money in the bank! What crooks. So I still don't have a camera, husband went to the reliable camera store but they didn't have the kind he wants so we need to order it online from them, bummer, I want my camera!!!!

So......no picture.....oh, I will post a picture of the camera I hope to be getting soon.