Christmas parties, pics and more!

Not really too much to say right now, besides a very hectic ongoing schedule. We just wrapped up our churchwide Christmas program this past weekend, which went beautifully, I might add. With practices for Aaron almost daily though, I for one am glad for it to be over with. He was starting to become a little irritable (ok, a lot!).

The children's program and the handbell's program is Dec 16 and 19, respectively, and Aaron will be part of these two events as well. I think he has picked up the acting/drama bug. He is really enjoying himself this year!

My office Christmas party was this past Saturday night. It was the first time since the accident that Michael and I had been able to have an adults only night. Even though he was using a walker, we're incredibly happy that he was able to attend. We had great fun, a night of rejuvenation, free food and fellowship; the few drinks I had helped round the evening off nicely. :)

I won't go into it right now, but Michael has a (different) job prospect that is waiting for him if he wants it. The employer wants him to come to work for him at any capacity he can after the first of the year, until he's 100% again. I'm not sure how that will work out though. Kind of concerning to me, actually. In this position, there will be no out of state (a 100 mile radius maximum) traveling. This will bring him home with us...on a regular basis. We're not sure if it's what God wants us; so we continue to pray about it. He is supposed to meet with him again by the beginning of next week. I'll give out more info when/if Michael makes the decision.

More later!

Je suis fini (with shopping, that is)!!

Our Thanksgiving meal went very nicely. My sister and her husband, and the four of us went out to a place in town to eat our turkey, and it was splendid. The best part? No clean up, and no leftovers for daaaayyys! :)

Black Friday had Michael and me up before the crack of dawn (3:45) and out the door by 4:15. Aunt Gail's $1,000 gift (can you believe the amount?!?) was well worth the early rise. Michael waited in line at one place while I waited in another. The one family gift (The W!!) we wanted to get this year was what we were hoping to get our hands on - and the demand for it was very high everywhere. I had no success where I was. Michael was #6 in line at the place he was waiting, but the store didn't open til 7:00. Come to find out...they had only 9 in the store, so we got what we were searching for! Yes, we waited in line over 2 hours to get it, but I think it will be well worth it.

I do have to look for Michael another gift -- a small one that he can open and be surprised about -- we were present with the gifts that we bought for each other. I have had my eye on some cookware for awhile, and finally found it on sale at K0hl's. He picked up some tools at Lowe's that he had been wanting, so we are through with each other's big gift. We also got Aaron a 2GB MP*3 player with case, charger, and armband for less than $50 on sale. A rubik's cube was also something we found for him that he'd been asking for, along with some Transformer type figurines. We picked up Zack a couple of shirts along with some Georgia Bullog lounge pants.

I found some jean's for the boys -- Goody's had all their denim on sale the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, including Duckhead, Polo, and Levi; so that is out of the way.

We'll be getting Zack's car for him sometime this week. We got a 1996 Mercury Sable with just under 100K miles on it, and runs wonderfully. What's not so wonderful is the insurance premiums--$1,100 for 6 months just to add him to our policy!! Can you say sticker shock!?! And that's with the good student and driver's education course discount!

I can hardly believe that Christmas is less than a month away. After the accident happened, the rest of the year has been a blur, and therefore, has passed at record speed. Michael's PT begins tomorrow-yay!

The month of December holds a very busy schedule for our family, with Church Christmas programs (x 3 - to include Aaron's handbell program), Christmas parties and (x 2, possibly 3). I hope we can get through it all without too much stress. :)

I'll close this entry for now, but look to post another entry before the week is up. Bye for now!

Shopping, Physical Therapy and Thanksgiving

First of all, I wanted to share details of my shopping venture this past Saturday. Although I had lots of fun just hanging out with friends all day, I didn't get done as much as I wanted to. Aside from a few things for the house (ornament, dishcloths and dishtowels), I was only able to find a (very) few Christmas gifts. The big need was finding the boys some jeans, which I haven't been able to find yet. I'm going out this week to the mall hoping I can get some good finds. We're not going to be getting Zack too much. We've spent nearly $1,000 on him since school began this year, with purchasing his class ring last month and the mandatory driving course that he just completed. Plus he'll be going on a big youth trip (to Niagra Falls and Canada) with the church next summer, so we'll be putting money away for that each month, so that we won't have to pull it out of the air come June.

I wanted to give an update on physical therapy as well. Michael is scheduled for his evaluation for PT on Wednesday. He will be going 3 x a week for 6 weeks, then be re-evaluated to see how the recovery effort is coming along. His foot is really beginning to look (half)-normal again, And that combined with beginning PT is helping us to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We just have to keep reminding ourselves how much worse it could have been.

I'm sad about Thanksgiving plans this year. In my thirty-eight years of living, I have always been surrounded by a house full of people for this holiday. This week, only my sister and brother-in-law will be joining us. I'm trying to be thankful (hello, it is Thanksgiving after all!), but I'm having a very difficult time about it for some reason. I guess I'm missing my folks this time of year as well.

If I don't post before the holiday, I hope everyone enjoys their time with family and friends. Stay safe!

Arrrrgggghh!!!

Hubby is at the doctor's office for a scheduled visit with the plastic surgeon as I type this, but the skin graft took a turn for the worse over the weekend. Over the last few bandage changes, we've noticed what appeared to be skin peeling off. Saturday night's change showed that most of the skin was just hanging loose around the edges of the wound. When I looked at it this morning, the hanging skin had turned black, so...not sure what that means, but he says he's not going to do another graft, and let it heal on its own. This may delay the physical therapy even further. We'll have to see what the surgeon says today. He also has an appt with the orthopaedic doctor tomorrow. Depending on what the doctor says today will depend on what the ortho doctor wants to do next.


I'm feeling very frustrated at the moment. We think we make 1 step forward, then we have to take 2 steps back. Michael is feeling very discouraged at the moment as well. Will update after the appt.


I'm going on a ladies Christmas shopping trip with our church this Saturday. For obvious reasons, at first I had decided not to even sign up to go. But I received a phone message from Michael's aunt Gail on Friday afternoon telling me that she wanted me to take a friend along, and enjoy the day. The message stated that she was going to give me some shopping money to shop for Christmas for my family. I was speechless! What a blessing this woman has been in our lives throughout the good times, and the bad!


Appt update:

Apparently, only about 30% of the graft took, so we'll have to take measures to prepare the exposed skin for healing on its own. The doctor told him that the ortho doctor can safely allow him to begin physical therapy. He was instructed to begin scrubbing it with soap and hot water every day to help promote healthy skin growth.

So...not as bad as we thought!

Calling all blog friends...remember me?

Hi all: Good grief -- has it really been over 10 months since I've last posted an entry? I'm sure some of you *still* remember me, right? ;)


We've had lots of goings on since my post way back in January, that's for sure! Some good, some tragic. I wanted to try to begin blogging again so that I could have a place to put my thoughts.


Firstly, in February, Zack went on his very first date!! As a matter of fact, nine months later they are still dating. Her name is Arrie (sounds like "sorry"); she goes to a rival school in town and is a whole year older than he (which also means she will be 18!! in December). They've known each other as friends from church for a couple of years; i.e., hung out with the same crowd. He finally got the nerve enough to ask her out and the rest is history. ;) She is such a sweet girl; very polite and well-mannered, and seems to have a good head on her shoulders. Dating Arrie has definitely helped Zack become grounded in a real way! He turned 16 in April, and is currently finishing up the newly 2007 mandated driver's education course. His goal is have his Class D license by Christmas. We need to log more supervised driving hours before he can actually go take the test.

Aaron played tackle football this year, and his team came in 3rd place overall. He loved every minute of the season, and is already looking forward to playing again next fall. He is still playing handbells at church, and has recently become a member of a 10-member children's choir ensemble at church. Never a dull moment for him!

In June, Michael celebrated his 40th birthday. Friends hosted a big swimming social with 20 of our friends and grilled out. We had a wonderful time together.


June also brought us some rather shocking news. Michael's sister was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. After undergoing a major reconstructive surgery at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, she is currently in her 6th round of chemotherapy, and seems to be doing fairly well. She has kept her hair, and her spirits are wonderful. She's kept busy with attending her son's football games - where he plays the first string running back as a senior.


It was two months after his birthday that our family began the hellish journey of helping Michael recover from what could have been a fatal motorcycle accident. He broke his left leg and foot in multiple places, which included two compound fractures. His foot required a skin graft, which was done just two weeks ago. Thirteen weeks after the accident, we are still more than a week away from beginning physical therapy. Needless to say, you can imagine the financial and emotional strain this has put on our family. Michael is doing fairly well, and is very anxious to be able to get back to work. He has just been changed from a short term disability employee to a long term disability one, which means that he currently is unofficially a terminated employee. What this boils down to is after he is back to or near 100% and is released medically, he will need to reapply for his old job, or other similar jobs. This may even require applying for a job that would cause us to move away from our home. His boss(es) has/have assured him that he won't have any problems getting back into their employment. We can only pray that this happens. Since the accident though, his boss has moved elsewhere. This means that he'll have a new one to discuss position(s) with once he is ready to go to work.


I hope this post makes sense. My plans are to begin blogging again at least on a weekly basis. And if I can post more frequently than that, it'll be . I have missed blogging dearly!


I appreciate all the prayers you can muster for our current situation. Until next time.

Happy New Year, and Happy birthday to my beloved mother!

2007 already? Wow...did 2006 just fly by at an incredibly crazy speed, or is it just me thinking this?

The past year brought about some wonderful changes to our lives, the first (February) was discovering what the concerns with Zack and his academics were, and finding the right medication to help Zack to succeed (incredibly so!) in school. Also last year, Dh got his much awaited and much deserved promotion in September. Last year also was a couple of near hits on having to pack up and move away from the hometown we've been in for 18 years. Thankfully, for now anyway, we are staying right where we are.

My hope is for 2007 to be an even better year for our family.

I'm having a pretty difficult time these days of being painfully aware that Zack's 2nd year of high school is already half over. Next year at this time, he'll begin to seriously consider what college he wants to attend, and begin taking graduation tests (in Georgia, they begin this process in their junior year).

Today would have been my mother's 67th birthday. How I miss her terribly so, especially at the tail end of the Christmas holidays. Happy birthday, Mom!