Category: A Better Me

Just a general update.

Maybe I’ll never get around to finish blogging about my trip over Spring Break. We’re getting pretty far removed from it all now….

Well, this week, to be supportive to my friends and for curiosity’s sake, I joined SparkPeople.com. It’s a website that helps you log and monitor your food as well as exercise on a daily basis. I’m not on a diet, really but I lost 13 pounds (in 4 days) when I got really sick at the end of March and while I’m perfectly okay with how I looked before being sick, I figure I might as well work at keeping it off. Also, I bought a glider and have been using it since January so keeping track of all my exercise might help me be more regular about keeping up the habit. The other good habit this website is helping me keep is drinking plenty of water. There’s a nifty little icon to help you log your water intake (by 8 oz glasses) and on Monday, I drank 12 glasses of water. That’s around 3 liters of water!!! Man, did I stay close to the potty that evening. 😉 Since I got sick, being able to drink anything has been like a blessing so I’ve been drinking lots of water anyways. Now, I know how much. 😀

So, this getting sick thing. I know most of my loyal readers (and not so loyal readers) knew about my getting sick but in case you didn’t hear, I had a thyroid gland infection at the end of March. I was out from Friday afternoon through Wednesday and from Saturday-Tuesday, my thyroid got so swollen, drinking a small sip of water became a earth moving experience. It was really bad…BUT, now I’m all better. YAY me.

The school year’s wrapping up and I can’t wait until summer. I have a job being the Jazz Conductor at the Texas State Univeristy Middle School Band Camp the first week of June and Tiger Band Welcome Week the second week. I’d like to travel somewhere this summer but we’ll see if I can work that into my budget. My big thing for this summer will be building furniture and fixing up my backyard. Growing up, my dad and I used to do a lot of wood working projects together and I found that I love using power tools. I’ve got a couple of easy to moderate projects planned and as soon as I get going on them, I’m sure I’ll share with everyone the results.

Ooh, I’m gonna get the iPhone. I found out today that it should release on June 1 but I’m going to wait until July, I think. I made a friend at the Cingular Store in Round Rock a year ago when I bought my Razr and she said she’s going to see what she can do to help me get a good deal. I love being a school district employee…some people still do give discounts to us.

I’m still considering doing video blogs periodically so (John) if you don’t like them, I’m sorry but they won’t happen every blog. First priority is to get my office to a state that I can work in it regularly. It’s become a bit of a storage room for stuff that I don’t need immediately but will need periodically. I need storage in there!

Oh yeah, speaking of John Mackey, the Wind Ensemble is playing his Strange Humors for Spring Concert on May 14. The kids just love the piece and that’s all they want to practice! I wish he’d let me conduct it…one day!

Okay, I think that’s it from this front for now. Hope all is well with you all. Love you, mean it!
~C

Saturday

Yesterday was yard day. I worked 5 hours in my front and back yard trimming trees and bushes. Fred and the kids came to mow and edge the yard and I showed him my live oak leaves that had spots on them. He said it might be ick so I headed to Home Depot with a chunk of tree and low and behold, it is. I have to rake up all the leaves from the front yard and once it rains (it’s supposed to today), I need to spray my trees with something that’s actually made for roses. Hey, if it works, I’m all good with that. I love being able to work in my yard. It’s very theraputic. WhenI was done, I had filled 6 – 30 gallon recycle bags and my regular trash can with clippings. I’m so excited about how much I was able to accomplish yesterday.

I’ve got some plans for my both my front and back yards for this summer which includes building so I need to go borrow my dad’s power tools for my builds. My dad and I have built lots of things together and he’s always been good about letting me do the work with his supervision so I feel confident about doing some simple projects on my own. Because I love working with my dad (most times) on these types of projects, I’m sure he’ll be showing up at my house on my project days.

Last night, Mon, Naomi and I headed to a white trash party. It was quite interesting and I’ve got a few pics I’ll post at some point later.

Today, I’m sore. I was going to roast a chicken and have some folks over but I’m so tired and sore, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I’m gonna go get a massage from my mom today! You guys know she’s a massage therapist, right? If it’s going to rain today, which it seems like it might wait to just drizzle tomorrow, I was going to work on cleaning up my office. I might just be lazy today and do some laundry, vaccuum a few rooms and be done with it. My arms and abs say that’s what I should do. 😉

I still have more on my Chicago/Indy trip to update. It’s hard to do those updates ’cause my Gallery permissions stopped working correctly after I had that faux-virus thing fixed and finding answers on their forums is a real pain in the butt so I may just have to install a 2nd gallery so I can keep up all the old pictures but still be able to add more pictures as well. The Chicago/Indy trip may be just 2 (maybe 3) more updates and I’ll be done. I need to go eat something now so I’m signing off. Love you, mean it!
~C

Tears

Tears are such a healing release of emotion. Sometimes, I get so stressed out that all that can help calm me down is a good cry. Other times, I’m so excited about something that I can’t help but cry. Today, there was quite a mix of emotion and so many reasons to cry. Today was Katie’s funeral.

She really was a bright and beatiful young lady. There wasn’t much that was going to get her down for any extended time. She wasn’t afraid to face the issues and she wasn’t just about to sit around pondering how to pitty herself once she figured out some problem she may have been having. She went to work to find an answer to that problem. This is why I absolutely loved Katie Ewing. I see so many people of so many ages sit around finding problem after problem and never doing anything about them. It’s almost as if they want to have the problems. Maybe that’s the way they define life, somewhere in their psyche. Not Katie. When she was diagnosed, she had no problems with going to chemo…unless she was going to miss a game. She made them work around football season – she was a drum major and had those responsibilities to the band. 😉 Once she found out the treatments were not working as well as planned to shrink the cancer, she decided (and without much back and forth about it) that amputation was going to have to be the choice she was going with. She had stuff to do and she had learned that this was going to be the option that would give her more choices in life later. When the post surgical chemo and radiation were done, she was right back in school. We had UIL Concert & Sightreading contest and she had classes to go to.

And this all continues. One thing after another. And she didn’t make these decisions with any haste, either. They were all well educated and thought through decisions she made. All this between the ages of 17-18!

She would be 20 this coming June. It’s amazing what one person can accomplish and how one person can grow in under 20 years of her life. As the minister said, it really is a tribute to her parents and the others that influenced her life.

So, the tears today were sad – because we don’t have Katie in the world with us anymore. And the tears were happy – because we were able to come together as her community and celebrate what a wonderful person she was. We also all knew that all the pain and frustration of years of this disease is now over. There were tears for that as well.

Katie, you’re more special than words can say. It’s obvious how you’ll be missed. Thank you for being in our lives and showing us that there always is a way and it’s easier to find the way than to find an excuse. Love you, mean it!

Better


I wish my bathroom looked like this!

It’s amazing what talking to good friends, some sunshine, a great day with kids and a relaxing bath can do for one’s soul. Saturday was not a good day. If it weren’t for the little girl time I got to have, I honestly don’t know if I could have recovered so quickly. Thank goodness!