MY FAVORITE PICTURE SO FAR THIS YEAR

TEN THINGS I HAVE BEEN UP TOO

K reading to M.  So cute!

1.  A visit from my brother:  November my brother came for a visit.  It was wonderful.  I got to meet my niece for the first time!  She is so cute!  K loved playing with her cousins and being a big sister to M and A.  I loved seeing my brother.  I made me miss him even more!  I wish he didn't live so far away.  But, we made plans to see each other at least twice a year now!  Lets hope we can.  The visit brought all kinds of emotions for me, but that is for another post.

2. Around Christmas, K and I decided that we missed the snow so much that we had to make our own.  We decided since we where studying chemical reactions that Ivory Soap in the microwave was the best substitute.  Of course if you have EVER tried this, you will know, it is a MESS!  We had soap sprinkled EVERWHERE!  But, it was a lot of fun and so fun to play with in the shower!  I think "exploded" about 15 bars!

3.  We made a very "spare of the moment trip" to Disney World to see all the holiday decorations!  It was so fun.  I must say it was one of my favorite trips.  One of the reasons I love going there is just before my mother died(literally about two weeks before) she went there for a convention with my dad for work.  They had a tiny plate made in front of this "giant golf ball."  So, in a way, it is like going to their memorial.  It is a great picture of my dad and mom, so happy.  It makes me happy!  I miss them so much!  K misses my dad too! But, since it is such a happy picture, in such a happy place, it reminds me to be happy!

4.  December 1:  Jim and I celebrated our first transplant anniversary.  It was fun.  We went to Totem and watched Chinese girls flip tea cups and saucers on their heads while ridding tall unicycles.  I have finally started to feel better, it is amazing that I feel it took me a year to recover.  Sometimes I still feel like I am recovering.  It was a hard year!

5.  Christmas!  We had a nice Christmas.  I love our tree, but it is fake.  This is hard for me.  First, I hate fake trees.  I grew up in Oregon and we NEVER had a fake tree.  Second, I have decided fake trees are not good for my type A personality.  I have a tendency to think they should look perfect, but alas, they don't.  Then they look plastic. A real tree, you can accept imperfection, but with fake you are deceived into believing that it should be perfect.  Oh well, I love my ordainments.  Each one represses something.  In fact, the two doves near the top where on our wedding cake!

6.  Christmas was fun!  Nothing like a princess shooting a bow and arrow!

7.  New Year!  It was fun.  We now have the tradition of watching "old" movies.  You know the ones you remember as a kid.  Last year it was Superman and Back to the Future.  This year it was the Star Wars Trilogy.  As you can see our Little Lucy, is not so little anymore.  In fact, yesterday she got spayed and I coughed up the big $ to have it laparoscopic, I hope her recovery time is less and she is back being K's little sister soon!

8.  I have been trying to obtain my New Year's resolution to get my photo's in order, but spent 2 DAYS--yes, 2 DAYS on the computer trying to get my programs to work.  Atlas, they aren't.  I just have to get a new computer.  UGH.  I am beyond frustrated.  I love to take pictures.  This is a major problem!  HOUSTON, we have problem.  So, I spent more $ and bought one that can handle my pictures.  So here is to 2013 and many scrapbooks and pictures!

9.  My brother-in-law came for the weekend, which meant, my in-laws came for the weekend.  It was so stressful and full of torture.  First, the brother-in-law stated that their is NOTHING you can do for prostate cancer. That he is "just going to die of it, before getting checked."  Well, this is not really a nice thing to say to a person that, had a father die of it a year ago and watched him suffer.  But, my brother-in-law is very narcissistic.  In fact, we had to hear (suffer) through, not one, but two concerts of him playing the guitar.  Now, I wouldn't mind this if they were NEW SONGS!  But, this guy has been playing the same songs since K was two.  That is eight years people!  And the songs are so, down.  Plus, no John Denver. But, the best part was the comment my father-in-law made while he gave us his second concert.  "Too bad non of the grandchildren are here to hear you play."  Yeah, K was right there.  UGH!  He was probably getting her back for correcting his English!  lol.  He said "ain't" and she was right on him!  Kinda of embarrassed, but, glad she is learning something!

10.  We went to DC!  Yes, we went for the inauguration.  It was so fun.  We didn't have tickets, but walked down there early in the morning and saw Obama and his family riding to the inauguration.  We could see the Capital from where we stood in the parade line too.  So we could hear him and then the crowded and then it was broadcast over the loud speaker.  We also went to the Spy Museum, Natural History Museum, US History Museum (my favorite), and saw the Constitution.  It was fun!  Now back to reality and taxes.

I hope 2013 is filled with adventure!  I know it has started off very fun!

THERE WAS GOING TO BE A LONG POST

I was going to write a long post to catch people up on what was going on, but atlas, I just returned from the dermatologist and now have very numb fingers.  But numb is better than feeling to pain--the nurse did not put enough numbing medicine in my left finger at first.  OUCH.  Does not begin to describe it.  So now my whole hand is numb.  Finger typing.  Well, be back soon!

DON'T MOVE TO ATLANTA IF YOUR CHRONICALLY ILL

I just spent TWO HOURS waiting for a blood test.
Frustrating doesn't even begin to describe how I feel.
Scared is more like it.  Scared for my health and wellness.

MAMA DON'T LET YOUR BABY GROW UP TO BE A CHEMIST....

One thing my parents ALWAYS stressed was that I had to have a career that would give medical insurance, and that I would have to find a job that I could at least pay for my medication.  Now, this is an interesting way to grow up.  I was always very attracted to creative writing. Even when I was my daughters age I had a wild imagination and would create stories.  My mother even saved the stories I wrote in 1st grade. I can remember going to one of my creative writing professors for a recommendation. He was very disappointed that it wasn't for a master's in creative writing.  I could tell a story, I think it came from my dad.  He could tell incredible stories.  I had an incredible life.  Kidney transplant, crazy family, I always had great writing material. So,  I did a double major:  creative writing and chemistry and had great friends that would look over my stories for grammar and spelling mistakes.  But, the one thing I remember is my mother telling me that creative writing was a hobby and I would never be able to afford my medications with a MFA degree.  Of course to this day the I think about how my life may have been different if I didn't have to pay for my medical insurance.  Now, I know Obamacare is a major issue right now, but heck, we are one of the only places that I feel don't take care of our people.  I mean all of Europe you have medical and an education.  I watched SICKO and cried.  I thought, wow, my life would have been so much different if I had grown up in Europe with medical care.  I can remember my dad saying that he could never start a company on his own because he had to pay for my medical insurance.  My husband now says the same thing.  That is one reason I LOVED BOSTON.  In MA insurance companies cannot deny you.  It is great.  I love it.  GA is a different story and I am sure they are going to fight Obamacare until the end.  But, hey--I will never be denied insurance again.  It is a sense of freedom that I cannot explain.

 
At first I thought I would become a doctor.  I would be a doctor and help people.  Then I realized that the majority of the people out there are nuts and probably would not take their medicine and that would just frustrate me.  So I went into chemistry. I had glorious aspirations, just like any other chemist of finding a drug that would help or cure cancer or the ultimate transplant drug.  Well, I worked for about 8 years in chemistry and all the dreams were ruined.  One thing that was difficult was the fact that there was all men in the industry.  For four years I worked at a small biotech in San Diego where I was the only women out of 24 men.  Then it was the foreign men.  They have their own ideas about women.  And then there was the overgrown Mormon who lived with his mother that grabbed me in a fight!  Yes, it was so nice to work in chemistry.  I would just focus on my work, and watch the men get raises. I always thought it was one place that the women's movement never seem to have gotten too.    But, the worst part was the skin cancer.  It started about a year after I started working.  I thought it was a wort, or a sore that won't go away.  It was basil or squamous skin cancer.  And little by little my fingers and hands would be cut up and the cancer would "be gone."  It never really has had been that way.  It has been 10 years since I have worked in a lab and I still have this problem.  Of course the main reason behind the skin cancer was the fact that I was immune suppressed for so many years of my life.  In fact, it is probably the major reason.  But just Tuesday, as I spent all day at the doctors office getting MOH's and coming out with a stitches in my arm, and two skin grafts on my middle finger, I thought just maybe I should have gone into creative writing.

IN-LAWS

I know everyone has in-laws that are married, or is an in-law, and I too will probably become an in-law, but let me tell you---I don't know how I got the set I did.  It is horrible.  I can't say I hate them, that is too strong of a word, but I can say that if I never saw them again, I would be so, so happy.

Let me give you some background.  My husband grew up in a Catholic Family, went to Catholic School and after awhile his mother was driven to becoming super over the deep end Catholic.
Side note:  It was my husband's brother who drove her off the deep end--he dated his best friends mother and broke up the marriage.  Anyway, I always knew I was not going to be the best fit for this family.  I was NOT Catholic.  When we first dated, it was--"she was not Catholic."  Then once she found out that I could not have children, it was horrible!  I then got comments like--"I will never get a true child out of her."   "I will never have a grandchild from my BOYS."    The peace of resistance was the comment they made when I was saying my brother was a start basketball player.  He is 6'7".  They said,  "What happened to you?"  I happily said--"I'm tall!  Kidney disease stunts your growth.  The doctors where always running test to see why I was so tall!"  Their response:  "You use kidney failure for an excuse for everything."

Well, needless to say  I married my husband and didn't see much of my in-laws. (They still don't like the fact that I kept my last name.  I know, rebel, but I wasn't Mrs. M-s-n.  Believe me.  I wanted no part of that!  Plus, I had publications in the line of work I was in, and didn't want to give that up!)   We would see them maybe once a year.  It was for 3-4 days.  It was manageable!  Well, we adopted K.  I thought just maybe they would be nice grandparents.  I thought just maybe they would be the grandparents I never had.  I thought they would love K, just as much as they loved the 6 grandchildren from their daughters.  Well, not surprising, they came and visited once and after that it was a year later, etc.  We would maybe see them, once a year.  We would have to buy them tickets to come and see her.  They never call her on the phone, they never really made any effort.   Well, this was okay.  I accepted it.  She really didn't know them, she was young.

Fast forward to moving to ATL.  They live 3 hours away now.  Now, you must think, this is great, they must visit often, come to her plays and choir concerts etc.  What I see all Southern Grandparents do.  Ha!  HA! HA!  No, in fact, it is worst.  Yes, worst.  The first year we were here, they expected her to act like they had been in her life for years. The perfect grandparents.  Like they are to the 6 up in WI.  She was like--I don't know you.  I'm not going to run into your arms.  I don't blame her.  Then "grandma" would spend all summer up in WI.  So, K didn't really get to see her.  Now, it is just causing problems in our marriage.  My husband, of course, loves his parents.  I don't blame him.  I can't stand his parents.  They started to make more comments.  This time it is directed towards K.

I was showing "grandma" K's 10 year old pictures that I had taken.  They are beautiful.  She turns to me and says "Too bad, her biological mother can't see her."Okay, I know, some of you may think I am too sensitive.  But, lady, give me a break.  K is my daughter, and has been for 8 years.  Why on earth would this come to your mind?  Why would you say something like this?  Why won't you say something like--"Too bad your mother and father aren't here to see her grow-up."  I mean does she say to her daughters--"Too bad the biological father can't see the child?"  (By the way--all the other grandchildren born out of wedlock.)---NO!  NO!  She doesn't say this.

Well, thank God, K didn't hear this.  (She know that she is adopted, but really hasn't expressed any interest besides the country itself.  We are very open about it.)  But, I was thinking.  Does "grandma" still feel like she is not part of our family?  Yes.  It is so sad to me.  Well, I told my husband,  he needed to talk to her.  He does, very reluctantly.  Thanksgiving comes around, and they come for the day.  I was all ready in the dog house because I wasn't fixing a turkey, (I ran in my first 5K since my transplant instead!)  They show up and watch football.  K tries to engage them in a game.  They would rather watch football.  The Green Bay Packers weren't even playing.  That was the day.  Normally, I won't say anything, but she usually asks me to help her "buy" K's Christmas present.  She didn't this year.  I ask my husband.  He says she is sending gift cards instead.  Okay.  A week later, a check made out to my husband arrives.  Yes, to my husband. In the same card that was given last year.  I'm insulted.  I don't know why, pent up anger.  They can't even make an effort to buy one little thing for her?  They can't even ask me to help them buy it on-line?  NO!

This is not the worst of it--I know, some effort would have been nice on her part, but it isn't likely when it comes to K.  K is realizing it.  She knows now.  She sees how the others are treated.  Pictures all over the house of them, one tiny one of K, cookies made for them, trips to WI to visit and take care of them. She is sad.  I don't blame her, and tell her, I wanted so much more from them.  She says she misses Grandpapa.  I agree.  I do too.

Still--my husband cashes the check.  He goes and buys what I got him for Christmas.  I am pissed!  Not only was the check, made out to him, un-personal, but he goes out and buys what I got him for Christmas.  He doesn't understand why I am so upset.  Finally, I am like, your parents, I can't stand them.  Why can't a women who doesn't work, just go on the internet or buy some gift cards at the supermarket?  WHY ARE YOU BUYING THINGS BEFORE CHRISTMAS?  I ended telling him, I bought you the exact same things and took them back.  Yes, as you can see, the in-laws are causing conflict in our marriage.  A fight over a check.  UGH. He can't believe I am so upset about all this.    I'm over them.  If I see them soon it will be too soon!  I want to go back to my once of year visits!

MOMMY!

It is hard to believe that today has been 13 years since I have heard your guidance, laugh, and encouragement.  I think of you everyday.  I so wish you could have met Klaire.  I know you would have been the world's best grandma.  I miss you so so much Mom.   I miss you everyday.    I love you.  I hope you and Dad are out having fun and you have a bridge game everyday!