So my Dad just got off the phone with my Aunt (his sister) and found out my Uncle has cancer. It is inopperable and he has about 4 weeks to live. He just suddenly wasn't feeling well and went to see the doctor and after many many tests they came back with the diagnosis. My dad doesn't know what kind of cancer it is, my uncle will see another doctor on Monday to get more details. This is totally a shock for the family. Uncle John is the happiest most cheerufl person I have ever been around. His smiles light up a room.

Hillary is in GA right now to be with her father during his cancer battle and I have so much repsect and love for her during this time. Finding out about my UNcle brings up the age old debate. Is it better to know you are sick for a long time and have time to spend with your family and do things you wanted to do although it may mean you suffer at the end or is better to have things be short so you and your family don't suffer as much. Of course there is still the chance that he will suffer. The cancer is inopperable because it has already spread through his entire body.

I ask everyone to pray for my aunt, my cousins, the 3 grandchildren, and my Uncles mother who is still alive b/c no mother should ever have to bury thier child.

Baggage

So I'm having guys issuse, but really they are issues with me and baggae from before. Almost none of my current friends have ever even met Jonathan so it's hard to explain him but I'll try. Jonathan was a complusive liar who was so gooda t lying he could convince himself one of his lies was the truth. Serioulsy there were stories that when I talked to the rest of the family they all said weren't the truth but he would not accept that it wasn't the truth. In the beginning I belived everything he said. Then I started to realize things weren't as good as he said and I started to not believe him. But I felt like I was too tied to him to just cut the crap so I stayed with him and kept hoping that just once it would be the truth. He also cheated on me the entire time I was pregnant and I finally caught him the day before Reese was born. Well we'll move to after Reese was born and I was finally done with it and knew I had to stop for Reese's sake. He still lies about everything and gets made when I call him out on it but I don't want to get sucked in again.

And this leads to my dating now. Ever since I started dating again (including last year) the fear of being lied to again has haunted me. Things got so bad with Jonathan that even little things I think are lies. If a guy says he'll call and doesn't I wonder if he's talking to someone else. If he has to change plans I wonder if he's telling me the real reason. I have always had low self confidence which adds to making it hard to belive a guy when he says nice things about me. I can tell one major difference between now and then. Back then I could tell when Jonathan was lying to me and just chose to ignore it. When I talk to the guy I'm dating now there is nothing that causes falgs. We have good conversations and talk about alot of things and have fun. But then I leave and later I start to doubt myself and wonder if things are as good as I think they are or am I fooling myself again.

I want to be trusting and I want to belive that someone does like me and someone does feel somehting for me. But I don't want to be gullible and let myself be walked over again.

This is one of the main reasons I'm not rushing onto anything because I want to make sure I know someone really well and help rebuild my trust. It's going to take lots more talking and lots more praying so that I will have the wisdom to make the right choices and trust myself. So I ask for you guys to pray for me and occasionally let me vent to you. However please don't get mad if I don't listen to you when I vent b/c sometimes my venting may be the scared side of me freaking out and in the end I over reacted.

Funny Reese story: I made pizza dip last night and I was reheating it for Reese for lunch today. She was sitting watching me reheat it and said "mommy you made pizza?" with a very excited look on her face. I said yes and she started clapping saying "I so proud of you"

My Lasik story

So I will try to type about my Lasik although I have to wear sunglasses while I type so it's a little hard. The description may sound freaky and I'll start by saying it wasn't painless or completely easy but I had the hardest most expensive surgery. I would say it's like going to the dentist. A little unpleasant and painful but in the end you feel better.

I went in this morning at 11. The place it set up so you can watch people getting the surgery before you go. I watched a little but it started to make me feel queezy so that stopped. Around 12:45 they finally called me back into the doctors office. They tell you ahead of time you will be at the place for 2 hours and since the actually surgery is only about 10 min technically they weren't late so I wasn't mad.

Ok here comes the details stuff so you might want to skip if you don't like reading medical stuff. I laid down on a table and they gave me little squeexe balls if it hurt, They put the anesthsia drops in my eyes (liquid cocanie for those of you who didn't know) Then they taped my eye open and put these frocep type thing that pried my eye open. The next step was the worst part of the whole prcedure. They put this lifesaver looking thing on my eye and used it to push my eye into my head so they could make the flap. This pressure hurts and actually made my eyesight go away. Then they cut the flap. Again this doesn't feel good. It wasn't the laser but the pressure that really hurt and freaked me out. It was the longest 30 seconds ever. Then they slide you to a different machine to do the actual laser fixing. This was just weird b/c you have to focus on a blinking light right above you but it's actually really hard because your eye wants to wander and you have to focus alot. Then they do the same thing on the other eye. Seruioly it was 10 min and I could open my eyes afterward and I could see across the room to my mom in the waiting area. It was cool. Having worn contact 24/7 it was like having my contacts in so not totally cool like for people who only wear glasses but still cool. They give you tylenol PM before the surgery and I was def ready for bed. But I stayed up in the car so I could walk into my room at home.

When I got home I was supposed to go to bed to sleep off the pain. However I had hit the point where the pain had started and I couldn't sleep. You have to wear these goggle things so you don't poke your eye while you sleep. However they were catching the tears from my eyes making me very uncomfortable. After about 1/2 an hour of pain I finally got my mom to dial the phone so I could call the lasik place. They told me unfortunately it was normal and to take more Tylenol PM. If you wear contacts the feeling was like when it feels like you contact has dried to your eye and you do the popping thing the get it free but I couldn't pop my eye. If you don't wear contact then just REALLY dry ecxecpt my eyes were watering faster than I could wipe. So my mom gave me an ambion and I finally passed out and slept for 5 hours.

I woke up feeling good. Started my eye regieme (there are lots of drops and lots of different times) I slept more than I expected b/c of the ambion so luckily my mom and dad kept Reese all night. I woke up in time to put her to bed. So now I sit here wearing my hot sunglesses not feeling any pain and able to see as good or better than w/ my contacts. So while it wasn't a walk in the park I'm glad I did it. I'll update again in a few weeks once my eyes are healed.

Dating, the new way

So I am dating again. I've told serval of you about him but I will wait till a later blog to give more details since it just started and I don't really know where it's going right now. This instead is about my new outlook on dating and trying to accept it into my life. We had a seminar at Church about marriage and having expectations instead of desires and I relized even without ebing marreid I always put alot of expectations into a dating relationship. Maybe that is one of the reasons I'm still single. When you are dating and put expectations on someone they don't have that married commitment to you to work on them. They can just leave. Now I should back up and say you shouldn't have expectations in marriage either, you should have desires. Read Hillary's blog for an awesome explantion of this.

So back to me dating. For me a big part of not having expectations is not rushing. I am a scientist, I like things to mean something and I like to see a conclusion. I hate this does he like me, are we a couple, what might happen feeling. But I am trying to realize that I need this time. There needs to be time for reflection and thinking and to enjoy the dating period and not try to push and rush into a commiment that wasn't meant to be. It's not just me that is affected anymore. I have to think about Reese and making sure that who I choose is right for me as well as her.

The last challenge for me is my decison regarding sex. Obviously I didn't wait till marriage in the past. However hearing stories from Anne and Hillary (not with lots of details obviously) about how amazing it was to wait until they married thier husbands and how that helped thier marriages inspires me to this commitment. I'm not gonna lie, I might miss it and I know I might be tempted. But it something I will be open and honest with in any relationship and whoever I date will have to commit to that as well. If they aren't willing to then they aren't the man God has sent for me.

It's a little scary right now for me because Anne is moving and Hillary might be moving as well. Anne has been in my life forever although we just really reconnected a few years ago. Hillary and I have formed a strong bond (I am her SWF afterall). I will still have Katy but she will have some big shoes to fill if I loose Anne and Hillary. I pray every day for strength turning this time b/c I'm even strating to cry while writing this blog. But I know God has a reason, maybe he will choose this time to show my the man I am supposed to marry and he will be there for me or maybe I am supposed to have some time to figure things out on my own without leaning on Anne and Hillary too much. Whatever it is only time will tell.

So as promised I will always end with a funny Reese story (who by the way is almost 3 feet tall!!) Reese misses her friends Owen and Blake (they are in GA w/ Hillary) and since I have told her that several times she now thinks everyone who leaves goes to GA. The facial expressions with the extreme seriousness (forrowed brow and everything) and she says "No Dad-dad in Georgia, ok" makes it hard not to laugh.

These are the rough days

So this morning when I dropped off Reese at school I was told that of her classmates (Ibi) had lost his older brother who was only 4. The boy died in his sleep. He had not been sick, it was totally sudden. I can't imagaine what his family is going through right now. I thank God for keeping Reese sick but I constantly worry that something might happen to her.
I know that God has a plan for our lives and everything happend for a reason but these are the rough days. It is hard to accept that a small innocent 4yr old had to die suddenly. I'm not questioning my faith, I still love God and everything he does for us. We read a book in HS called When Bad Things Happen To Good People and it explined about the tapestry of life and how from our side we see the underneath of a sewing project. All we see is the threads, some tied together, some very long, some cut very short. It looks like a mess to us and we don't understand it, we're not supposed to understand it b/c God's plan is too big for us to get. However when we join God in heaven we will see the other side and see the beautiful tapestry that we helped weave. And we will know that even those very short threads were critical to making the picture as beautiful as it is.
So please pray for Ibi's family that they will feel God's love for them right now. And pray for your family, remember we don't know how long our thread is.

Reese's Baby Book

My Mom actually encouraged me to start this blog several months ago (and I should have listened to her. . . good thing she'll never read this) because I never made a baby book for Reese. I have special dates and memories writeen down on calendars and other places but not in a baby book. Not for a lack of one. I actually think I have 3 (one goes all the way to 5 years) but because I don't like filling it out.
Everytime I open her baby book to start transferring infomation in I pass the pages labeled "Our Family Story" where you list how Mom and Dad met and why they decided to have a baby, and the pages for his side of the family, and "The Day Your Were Born" where I capture cute memories about being in labor and at the hospital. Well for those of you who know me you know that none of these pages would be particularly happy pages for me to fill out. Do I want to write that the day before she born I caught her father cheating on me? Do I say how he was barely there for her birth and left shortly after only to visit once more over the 3 days I was there for 10 minutes.
Yes I could "edit" the memories and only include the happy memories so Reese would have at least something but is that how I want her to grow up. With an "edited" past where I only tell her the happy things. I've looked for baby books for single moms. You would think they make them but no. I found books for gay couples, for grandparents, but no single moms. What's up with that? Oh and definately none for single Dads (I can't leave them out). I could leave the pages blank but then she would ask questions. And I know the questions are coming but I don't want them to be prompted by her empty baby book. Seeing empty pages might make her feel like part of her life is empty and it's not.
So luckily my Mom and I take lots of pictures and I've been comiling them with little notes and memories I write down. So I'm going to make my own book. A little scrap book with events and pictures that will show her how much she is loves and all the cute things she did growing up. I will also be posting updates here to help me remember cute things she does from now on. So here is my first:
We are trying to teach Reese to pray. At dinner we do a standard Catholic Grace and she's good at making the sign of the cross but at bedtime I'm teaching her to make up her own prayers. I ask her what makes her happy and she says thank you to God for those things. Here is how it usually goes "Reese did you a good day? Say thank you to God for your good day." "Thank you God good day" "Reese did you have fun with Grammy, Grandad, and Mommy? Say Thank you to God" "Thank You God Grammy, Dad-dad, Mommy" "Reese Did you get to play with your friends? Say thank you to God" "Thank you God my friends" "Ok now what else makes you happy? Say Thank you" "Thank you God . . . Bandit, cookies, and napkins!"

Gotta love a 2 yr old. As and FYI cookies are actually the cat treats b/c it's her job to give bandit treats in the morning (It makes up for all the times she grabs his tail) and the napkin is b/c she has her own special cloth napkin at dinner to use.

One more fun memory to wrap up with. If any of you watch the new Mickey Mouse Club House you know who Otoodles is. if not in breif he looks like Mickeys head and if you have a problem you call for him "Otoodles" and he bring you a Mouse-katool to help solve your problem. The other day Reese wanted to get something off the counter. After realizing she couldn't climb or jump she stopped. Tapped her finger on her mouth and then threw her arms up and said "need a Mouse-katool, Otoodles" and waited patiently hoping he would come. It was precious.