"You say it's your birthday..."

Ok...just a couple of pictures..(Sorry Michele!)

Today is my 45th birthday! And, it is the 50th birthday of my husband's favorite (my favorite, too) cousin Jeff. So we spent the day up at Jeff's celebrating his birthday! It's very odd singing "Happy Birthday" to someone else on your birthday! Herman took me out for my favorite dinner last night: Shrimp cocktail, dozen steamers, Mahattan clam chowder and a 1 1/4 lb. broiled lobster..rice pudding for dessert! (All this for $29.99 at The Barge in Perth Amboy!!) Oh, they make the BEST Bloody Mary, too! Herman said that he is taking me away next weekend..we'll see. I hate leaving 3 teenagers home. We're thinking of going to Mohegan Sun Casino in Ct or doind a cheesy hotel up in the Poconos. (Think champagne glass and heart shaped tubs.) We may wind up in Atlantic City for all I know. We don't really gamble but the hotels are worth the sightseeing trip. I'll let you know where we wind up...after the fact. (Insert dirty little laugh here.)

On other fronts: Jackie had decided to move back home at the end of this month. I really wished that had waited a bit longer to return home, but oh well. She has to learn how to be clean wherever she goes.

Rachel is Boca Raton at the home of a childhood friend who moved there several years. She's having a great time and claims that we will all envy the tan she has accomplished. She'll miss Easter at home but she'll live. Her Easter basket will sit on the table til she gets home. (Tuesday at midnight.)

Anyway..I'm outta here for now..I'm really beat from the day.

Peace!

I got 'em good!

Well, last weekend (April 1st) I got my kids good...REAL good! I picked up my nephew that Saturday, under the pretense of picking up an old friend, "Dianne". I told him that my own children wouldn't accompany me to the airport and that he was a real sport for helping me out. I had a bouquet of flowers that I'd like him to hand to "Dianne" when she showed up. We waited for her down by the security area. When she didn't show up, we decide to move sown to the baggage area. I told him that we needed to keep an eye out for her. I told him that she kind of looked like Jackie, tall and blonde. Well, here comes Jackie down the ramp!! He looks at me and says, "Aunt Sharon! Your friend looks EXACTLY like Jackie!" Well, I cracked up as Jackie ran up to him and gave him a huge hug!! He pulled away from her , as to say "Why is this stranger who looks EXACTLY like my cousin hugging me?!" We both looked at him and said, " It IS Jackie!!" He nearly hit the floor!!! I gave her a long hug and we headed for home, where only Herman and I knew she was coming home for a visit.

I had left a note earlier in the morning (prior to my leaving for the airport) stating that each child (Rachel, Becky and John) had a chore to do and that they MUST all be home when I got back from "the store". (A little background: I told Rachel that she absolutely must be off from her job as we were having a huge family dinner.) I told them that I would have numerous packages that I owuld need help unloading. So, now here we are, heading towards the house. I called and told them that I had a bit of a surprise for them a rather large package that would require all 4 of us to get out of my truck and into the house. Becky pushed for more info, but I wasn't giving any. I told her that they ALL had to be outside or no deal. So when I pulled up to the house and only Becky and John were outside, I refused to let them approach the truck til Rachel was outside to help. When Rachel showed up, my nephew jumped out of the truck exclaining "April Fools, suckers!!"  Rachel said, " I can't believe you got me outta bed to unload groceries..bad joke." I told Rachel that I really DID have a surprise for them and that she should just open the back door. WELL!!!! The screaming and crying that ensued after that!! They were sooooo happy to see their sister after 7 long months!!!

Yeah...I got 'em good!

We had a great time: did dinner with my family, did dinner with Herman's family, did a lot of talking...oh we had such a great time! She looks GREAT!! (I will post pictures next post...whenever that may be!) She returned back to AZ that Wednesday...not willingly, but she did it. (Good girl, Jackie!!) Jackie will be moving back in late June...

Well...I've had a BUSY day...so I'm soooo outta here!

Peace!

 

Catch up time!

Can anyone tell me why the font online has been so large lately? (Like the past 2 months or so?) Are there setting on AOL or on my computer that I need to change? Anyone?!

Ok...seems like we may survive this winter after all! My mother in law recently (last Tuesday) had surgery to remove a thymoma from her chest...that is, a tumor of her thymus gland. The dr cuther straight down the breat bone...OUCH! Then he sewed her breasbone back together with stainless steel thread..cool! We don' have the biopsy results yet but I'm sure that it will be good news. The surgeon was pretty confident that it's not cancer.

Jackie update: She has decided that she will be returning to NJ for good in the mid-summer. I'm worried about this move, BUT she has to be able to live anywhere in her recovery so she may as well be here. I still plan on returning to AZ, especially Sedona.

Rachel is going to Boca Raton to visit a childhood friend from grade school. She's going over Easter break with her bestfriend Nikki. I know that they'll have a wonderful time!

Becky and John are hangin' in there. John is especially happy that Herman bought a 2006 black 350Z this past weekend. Yeah I hear all of you screaming "MID LIFE CRISIS!!"...and maybe it is. But he's always wanted a sports car so now was the right time for him to get it. I love driving it! We still have my Ford F150 supercrew truck so that we can still take the kids with us. But boy oh boy! I can't wait to cruise down the shore in that car!

Work is fine. We had a particularly slow winter so we're looking forward to the warm weather and air conditioning season! Did you know that more people call when they don't have a/c as opposed to calling when they don't have heat?  Amazing! People will wait a day or so to get service when they don't have heat but they will not wait more than 4 hours to get a service call for no air conditioning!! Just an observation..

Hey! I guess you all noticed that Remo went private?! Damn, I'll miss him! I was always a "lurker" in his journal...didn't post many comments..I always appreciated his opinions, if I agreed with him or not. At least he has the cohones to stand by what he believes in. He was a real breath of fresh air and I'll miss reading his journal.

Oh, special mention to CHOY...he became a US Citizen recently! You can read allabout it here. A great big congratulations to him! I'm sure he'll be one fine citizen!

Well, time to fold some laundry...I'm outta here..Oh, one more thing...I've kind of been lurking in everyone's journals, not leaving comments..I'm sorry about that (Brian, Michele, CHOY, deborah, Amy, Jason, SunflowerKat,Ms. HillareeDay, Gordy,Heimdall... pretty much everyone I read) It's been a long and difficult winter for us (my family)...your stories, pictures, posts have brightened my days! It's so nice to be part of a caring community! And some of the laughs I've gotten from your posts have really lifted my spirits! Anyway, thanks for sharing your lives with me through your blog!

Peace!

"It-Sucks-to- be-Me" Day!!

Yes, it sucks to be me today. I had a tooth extracted about 10 days ago. It was a very traumatic extraction. Took near to half an hour and when the sucker FINALLY came out, the roots were 3/4"-1" long and they were curled in at the bottom!! The dentist stitched it up and said come back in a week. Well, can I tell you that I've been in pain ever since then?! I went back Monday to get the stitches out. It was then that he discovered that I have "dry socket", a condition where the blood clot gets dislodged and exposes the bone. This causes the nerves to react, causing a great deal of pain from my ear to the middle of my mouth!! So, I've been taking Advil, lots of it. I think I have a hole in my stomach from taking so much of it. He packed my extraction site and said to come back on Wednesday. Went back, they removed old packing and put new packing in. Said to come back Friday. Thursday the packing fell out. More pain. Friday (today) I woke up sneezing my butt off. I have a cold. Damn. Went back to dentist..he said that the wound appears to be healing and that he can't really pack it anymore because the it would only fall out. (Note: The packing made the pain less severe..helped the healing progress.) So, he said to just rinse with salt water and take Tylenol #3..it has codeine in it and won't give me an ulcer.

Let's hope that it doesn't suck to be me tomorrow...

Peace...

Finally! Some snow!

Well, winter has finally arrived! Yes, it took awhile but it's here now. We spent the better part of Sunday digging out from the 20" of snow we received Saturday night/Sunday morning.

Spoke to Jackie yesterday...she's homesick. I reassured her that she would, on occasion, be homesick but that she has a better life out there. We're trying to figure out how we're going to get her car out to her. I wanted her to fly out here and then I'd drive out with her. No deal. Herman doesn't like that idea, for numerous reasons..one being the whole safety thing. 2 women traveling alone...not good. I, on the other hand, thought it would be a great deal of fun!

Not too much else to say so I'm outta here! Peace!

More updates..

Today is Jackie's 24th and Rachel's 18th birthdays! Yes, they have the same birthday. And yes, we celebrate them together...actually, since John's 15th birthday is on the 18th, we celebrate ALL three birthdays on the same day! (Does it get any easier?!) Becky will be 17 on June 21 so she's the only one who gets her very own party and cake. Enough about that..

Jason continues to make big strides in his recovery. His dad, George, had his cancer surgery yesterday. He's doing very well. He'll get out of the hospital on Thursday.

A few weeks back my mother in law had chest pain that radiated into her back. It wasn't a heart attack, thank God. She had some scans done and it came back that she has a mass in her chest. I spent the night up by them (NY) last night so that I could accompany them to the thoracic surgeon today. ( A few months ago we {Herman, his sister Maureen and I) decided that they could not go to the doctor's without one of us present..Why, you ask? Well...my father in law is very hard of hearing and the stories he comes up with are unbelievable!! He takes whatever he actually hears and expounds on it so that he we think he heard the doctor!!) Back to the story: Turns out that she has a thymoma, a tumor on her thymus gland. It is in front of her heart so it will need to be removed. She has to see a cardiologist to examine her heart and then we'll go back to get the determination from the surgeon. She's in no imminent danger right now so there is no hurry to get this done. It will, however, need to removed in the near future as it could possible turn into cancer. Anyway, we were kind of relieved about this because when someone says it's a tumor, you automatically assume the worst. So this was, in an odd way, good news.

All is well here. Been busy. Had tooth extracted on Monday...SUCKED. It's ok now, tho. Work is fine...a tad slow right now...since it's been in the 60's (on a few occasions) there have been no "no heat" calls...Funnily enough, a few weeks ago I had a customer call to say that it was too hot in their office and could we come and fix the air conditioning!! It's been a strange winter here in the northeast...not really cold at all.

I guess that's about it for now...Peace!

Jackie

Well, just an update on Jackie's situation:

She returned back to WINR's when she was released from the hospital. She was met by the director of the program who began to complain to Jackie that her diabetes was a burden to the program. (Side note: Jackie asked about this when she originally applied to this program.) In the meantime, no one from staff has ever A) taken her to the hospital B) called her at the hospital to make sure she was ok nor C) visited her. The woman who was saying this to Jackie didn't even know Jackie's name or that she had diabetes before all of this!!! Then the woman told Jackie that there were rumors and suspicions that Jackie and this other girl (the lesbian) were becoming "intimate" and that she broke the rules by doing so. Jackie denied this vehemently (because it's NOT true) and they still told her that she had 2 choices: either start the program over from the beginning (she has 5 months in this program!!) or leave. Jackie told her that she absolutely wouldn't start the program over because she did NOTHING wrong. So, they told her to pack her things and leave immediately. And she did. I've spoken to her 3 times today. She was in tears because she really wanted that graduation under her belt. She wanted the satisfaction of knowing that she completed something. She wanted that acknowledgement of success. I felt so badly for her....still do.

So, in the meantime, she has decided to stay in AZ and look for her own place. She has safe friends to stay with for however long it takes. I just feel that she'll be fine...she WILL make it!!

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO JACKIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We love you!