Daily Ponderings

I usually don't mind cooking. Sometimes I put no effort into it, because I just don't feel like it. But there are times I really do surprise myself. I woke up from a nap this afternoon wondering what to have for dinner. I decided to have leftovers from the other night: marinated chicken, brown rice, and peas. Then I thought, I really need to make the yellow squash and zucchini I have, so I decided to sautee them in olive oil, and add the peas and rice to it, and mix it up. Then I thought, why not cut the chicken up into small pieces and throw it in there? So I did! Lastly, I realized I had a can of Italian flavor canned tomatoes, and I thought, hey I'll throw that in! My goodness, it was such a yummy meal! I only had a small serving of it, and I'm still stuffed. I have to say I'm quite proud of myself. And of course, it made so much that I can have it again for lunch and dinner for 2 days probably. I didn't even use a recipe! I can't say the same for my spli...

I can't believe it's Saturday already. Where did this week go? It seemed to start out sooooo slow at first. Monday was such a long day. Twelve hours at a hospital is just not fun, not to mention it was a gorgeous day that I missed, too! Tuesday, I was back there again with my mom. But the good thing was, we brought my dad home. :) He's doing pretty good, just in a little pain and discomfort with the catheter. This coming Thursday can't some soon enough for him. He gets it out then, and I'm sure he's counting down the hours!! Wednesday I went to my sister's house, and played with my niece. I hadn't seen them in awhile. The kids are just so cute. And spending time with Mandy is always fun. I am proud of her. I never thought she'd be the first to be a mommy out of the 4 of us, but she's done such a great job so far. She loves those kids more than anything, and I admire her for her strength. Thursday was chore day. I didn't do too badly. I washed...

This is going to be brief, since I'm exhausted from being at the hospital for 12 hours. My dad's surgery went well! There was a slight complication in the beginning, that his doctor almost didn't think he'd be able to continue. But, his doctor persisted, and overcame the obstacle, and the rest of the surgery went smoothly! It took almost 5 hours, and around 9pm we got to see him. He was still rather groggy, so we didn't stay too long with him. But I am so relieved that everything went well. We will go back tomorrow morning, most likely, and my dad can come home around 2pm. So right now, I'm off to bed!! Thanks for the prayers out there, I know they have helped my dad through this surgery!

This October flew by, and although there are still several days left, I'm rather relieved. I don't usually like when the months fly by, but this month was just so busy for me. Between going back to Cleveland in the beginning on the month, to three weekends in a row with major plans, I'm wiped! This weekend was my support group meeting, and it went really well. I had two UB students come talk about diet and nutrition. I had given them the PHA's website so they could learn more about pulmonary hypertension, and I was very impressed with how much of their talk incorporated appropriate ideas for PHers. I learned quite a bit, and the PHers who came to the meeting were great and asked alot of questions. It definitely went well! Tomorrow, my dad is going to Roswell Park Cancer Institute for surgery. He discovered a couple years ago that he has prostate cancer. The doctors took a wait-and-see approach in treating it, and while the cancer is still not at a high risk point, the d...

Once again, it's that time of month for dear Judi's Artsy Essay Contest! Please see the rules and regulations for this month here . I entered a couple month's ago when Judi decided to revive this wonderful contest, and decided I'd like to give it a shot this month! Here goes! My Ideal Day My ideal day would start out at 7am to get ready for work, instead of getting up to take a pill. My ideal day would be going to work as a teacher, instead of wondering if I'd feel well enough to do anything for that day. My ideal day would be working out at a gym, instead of hoping to have enough energy to just walk for 6 minutes on the treadmill at home. My ideal day would be to freely walk about around my home and in public, instead of being tethered to a plastic tube going into my nose, providing oxygen to keep me going. My ideal day would be remembering meeting times with friends or family, instead of keeping track of the 8 different times I need to take a pill or vitamin in ...

Today is the wedding I've been planning on going to for like months! My sister, Lisa's, best friend is getting married. Kat has had her wedding planned out for months, and she's been looking forward to it. Lisa flew into town on Thursday, and her husband got here yesterday. Lisa's been pretty busy since Thursday! We haven't seen much of her, but that's to be expected. The wedding is at 2pm, and the reception is at 5pm. So I'm just trying to get as much rest as I can so I can make it all day. The weather is so much cooler than it should be this time of year. Which is kind of funny, because just last weekend it was so much warmer than it is for this time of year. I wish the weekends could have been switched around! Anyway, that's my Saturday. Started off with a flu shot at 9am, so I am hoping I won't be in pain later on. That might not be fun!

I don't know where the energy came from today, but I have accomplished quite a bit. Even despite feeling a little blah. My sister and her husband are coming into town this weekend for a wedding that my whole family has been invited to. Lisa is in the wedding, since it's her best friend from high school getting married. So, I needed to clean up around here before they were coming! Well, I needed to clean period, but they were just motivation! So from about 11am-2:30pm, I did the following: -cleaned the bathroom -vacuumed: thank goodness for the removal of carpets this summer from my place, because vacuuming takes far less time and effort to do now! -hung up a couple pictures, and hit my thumb with the hammer AGAIN -cleaned the glass table and mirrors -hung up Halloween decorations, including those fake spider webs, which now makes it look like I've never cleaned! haha! So, I guess maybe the Revatio is kicking in?? I don't know! I think what helped me along was the fact ...

I got all ready for a huge flea market that I signed up for today this week. I was so excited! I was hoping to sell at least one or two of my jewelry items or tealight lamps. My mom came over and got me around 8:30am. We packed the van with stuff (she had also some miscellaneous items she wanted to get rid of), and headed to the place where the flea market was supposed to be. It was nice and sunny, and I was prepared to have a nice afternoon! We got to the place, and there were a ton of people setting up their tables. I found my table after trekking all over looking for it, and I started setting up my items. My mom made several trips to the van to bring all of her stuff, and eventually we got things situated. People started coming, and it was nice! About 45 minutes later, ominous clouds started hovering above us. I thought, geesh, it isn't supposed to rain today. I saw the weather report at least 4 times for Saturday, and there was no rain involved. So I thought we should be alrigh...

I got back from Cleveland last night around 7:30pm EST. It was a long day, with some interesting results. Not exactly terrible news, but not news I was expecting to really hear either. First of all, I had an echo. Now I've never had an echo done by a man before. I was a little concerned about it, but the guy was very nice! His name was George, and he was from Romania. George was quite entertained by my last name, which means "hurry up" in German. So he did the echo, and he was very good at it. I've had some techs who I've wanted to slap because they were pressing so hard, it hurt like crazy. He told me if he was pressing too hard, to let him know. But he wasn't! I hope that George is around the next time I need to have an echo done! My bloodwork was next, and that went just fine. I didn't have to wait in the long line I saw when I passed by on my way to get the echo done. There were like 25 people in line then, it was nuts!! After having some soup for lunc...