Return of the Husband

The past few days have been so fabulous! Roy is finished with school, and we have been able to spend all kinds of time together. It's like a breath of fresh air!!!! On Friday we had some of his Ph.D. friends over. It was such fun! We grilled and ate outside and then played some bocce ball and horseshoes. Our back patio looked so nice; Roy had strung white lights all around, and we had some Tiki torches going. It was very pretty. Roy had also cleaned the entire house, so I didn't have any house cleaning to do this weekend! On Friday I received three orders for jewelry and sold two pieces, so Saturday night I was "working," making jewelry. Today Roy and I saw Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. The 2hrs and 20mins went by so fast; I had no idea the movie had lasted that long. Excellent film. I work this week M-TH, but I took off Friday to go to OK for Gregg's graduation from highschool. He is Roy's youngest brother, and the only one of the five kids to get a high school diploma. We will be in OK until Monday; I am off for Memorial Day, too. Then I work T-F, get my hair cut on Sat., and we are headed back home for OK again. We are splitting our trip there with our trip to CO to see our good friends, Cary and Melissa. I can hardly wait! Not only am I excited to see them, but I have never been to CO before, so I am looking forward to the scenery. Well, it is late and time for bed... Don't forget to go to www.freewebs.com/debbeads to see my newest creations. The "necklaces" page has the newest three strand wood necklace.

The Countdown

Twenty-two days until I go off my birth control!!!! Roy told me not to "do the countdown thing" because it's too much pressure on him, so I just have to blog my excitement! So many great things are happening this year, specifically in the area of finances. I won't go into details, but just know that most of my worries about financial issues related to having a baby have been dissolved, and I am beginning to believe that God is in the timing of our planning a baby. God? Yup, go figure! LOL One great thing is that my health insurance at work is changing, and it will only cost us $750 to have a baby, assuming there are no complications, which includes all the doctor visits and everything! Hey, maybe we should have two!!!!

We are in the process of getting bids for remodeling our bathrooms. The one today was $3,500 for both. That is about 1k more than what we want to spend; we have a couple more estimates to get, so we'll see what happens. We wish our friend Cary was here to help us do-it-ourselves.

Roy has one week left of school/work, and my last day is the 30th. I can't believe this year is gone already...

Maggots!!!

Yes, you read the subject line correctly - we have maggots!!!! This morning we got up and went downstairs as usual. While we were in the kitchen, Cleo went into the laundry room, and I noticed she licked something up - I thought it was a crumb - but then she walked into the kitchen and spit it out, and it started moving!!! I looked at it and thought it was very strange to have a cream colored mini worm in the house. But then I stepped into the Maggot Hall of Fame - the laundry room!!! In there I found about 15-20 live maggots inching around on the floor. (I still thought they were mini worms until Roy clued me in!) We started picking them up one by one. We checked cracks and crevices, but could not find where they were coming from. I have found about 5 more since the initial clean up, and now I am just grossed out. I called our pest control guy, and he said it's likely a rodent has died under the house or between the walls, and the maggots are eating it. He is going to come by tomorrow and try to figure it out. We've also killed a few spiders in the livingroom in the last few days, so he needed to come anyway. Gross!!!!!!

Mom's Visit

My mom came to visit last weekend. It was so much fun. We shopped and shopped, and then we shopped some more. With my mom's knee replacements being so successful, I think she can go longer than me without wearing out! It was so great to just have fun together without worrying if her back or knees were hurting. It was like shopping with a young friend - and I was the oldest!!!! Anyway, we both found lots of cute clothes, and I, of course, made new jewelry to match my new outfits (see the "sets" page on www.freewebs.com/debbeads.)

Since our birthdays are only two weeks apart, we decided to celebrate them together with a Baskin Robbin's ice cream cake!!!!!

Mom also took some pics of Cleo and I while she was here. I used one for my jewelry site (after I made a matching necklace for the shirt I was wearing!).

Cleo kept begging to go in the car. I guess since mom and I kept going all the time, Cleo thought she should go, too. In the above pic, she kept begging, and I kept telling her that we're not going anywhere...

This is how worn out we felt after a long day of shopping!

Next week at school is super busy with TAKS testing most of the week. My classes have a 91%pass rate in reading and math so far; the retakes for reading are next week, so I could end up with a 100% pass! Looks like either way, we should get the state incentive money in the summer. Also, I am teaching summer school in July, so that will provide more for baby savings. Our school is changing health insurance for the fall, and it looks like for only $20 more p/mth, I can get on a plan w/no deductible and only a 1k out of pocket maximum. Oh, and there are no pre-existing conditions or waiting periods for new members, which means even if we happen to get pregnant immediately, we will be covered! SO cool!

Looks like we will need to change churches ... again. Roy's professor (a world-reknown scholar) pulled him into his office a few weeks ago and talked to him about the whole getting-a-job-when-you-graduate thing. He gave statistics and everything. It was helpful because it was something Roy and I had talked about but didn't really know what to do. We are going to start looking again this summer. Looks like we will need to be Baptist. I am not looking forward to the hymns, but normally their preaching is great, and they generally are not dogmatic, which is good seeing that we rarely settle on any one "right way" anymore.

I have a TON of grading to do, so I best end this. I am already feeling like I need a nap! Not good.

Colorado or Bust!!!

Yea! We are going to CO in June to see our long lost friends, Cary and Melissa!!!!! I can't wait! Maybe I will get pregnant while I'm there!!!!!! Okay, that really wouldn't be the best timing, but it would be a memorable souvenir! We are going to make it a split trip between Ponca and CO. We are also taking Cleo, and I am trusting Roy that we are not crazy for doing so. Things are going fine here. I am in the last few weeks of school and already planning for next year. Roy only has 3 weeks left! Hurray! I will be glad to have my husband back. My mom is coming down this weekend to shop till we drop for our birthdays. I just turned 31 on the 11th, and now I feel way beyond old. One of my sixth graders told her classmate, "You know, 31 is not the new 20; it's just 31!" Nice.

Update on Cleo

Cleo had her follow up X-rays yesterday, and the vet said her fracture is half the size, and there is no more inflammation in her back!!! Hurray!!!! She had gained a pound since the last visit, but that's probably due to the steroids and the lack of activity while she recovered. Now we are really working on not letting her jump on and off the couch... She's very stubborn - like her daddy, of course!

One other thing, I got a Betta fish!!! It has been almost two years since I have had one, and I decided it was time. No feeding it people food like I did the other one - which died, incidentally, of a disease that I had caused! This one is a beautiful blue color. Cleo thinks it's the coolest thing, and just wants to get ahold of it!

Spring Break!

I had the best spring break! Technically it is not over until tomorrow (Sunday) night, but seeing that I have to prep tomorrow for school on Monday, it seems like it's over today...

I went to OK to stay a few days with my sister. It was great! My mom was watching John and Sarah, so on Saturday my sister and bro-in-law and I painted Sarah's room pink!


Then we went to this really great pizza place, and then watched a movie together that night - all w/o the kids! I hadn't spent this much time with my sis w/o the kids since ... well, I can't remember when.

On Sunday my parents brought the kids back home, and I got to visit with my mom and dad for a few hours. I rested my head on my dad's belly, which was nice and cozy, and kind of made me feel like a little girl again being rocked to sleep by my daddy. Oh, and did I mention I had a cold?!!!! Yea, on the Friday before I left, I started catching a cold, so my whole trip at Kim's was full of snot - literally!

On Monday I got to just hang out and play with the kids. John and Sarah and I built a rather elaborate Lego house - so much fun.


On Tuesday I went to Tulsa with my sister and the kids. Kim had a doctor's appointment, so I watched the kids in the waiting room. I was so amazed at Sarah's abstract thinking abilities. The waiting room ceiling had a square cutout all around, and Sarah looked at the corner of the square and said, "If you cross it that makes an 'A'" And sure enough, it did!!!! She's not even 4 yet!!!! She knows many letters and can write them, but to make an A out of the corner of a square w/o any prompting is impressive. Okay, on with my vacation... After the doctor we went to the mall and to the Cheesecake Factory to pick up some dessert, then we headed home.



That night Kim and I went (by ourselves!) and got a spa pedicure and then to Chili's to eat. When we got home, I was trying to take a pic of my, Kim, and Sarah's toes (I had painted hers earlier), and John kept sticking his foot in the pic!!!



After a long day, I had to pee, so I went in, did my thing, and flushed. As I was walking out of the bathroom, I heard a trickling sound ... yep, toilet overflowed! I hollered for Kim and she hollered for Steve, who was in the middle of eating, and he had to come in and step in the pee water to turn off the water. So Kim and I spent the next little while vacuuming up water! It was quite funny!


On Wednesday morning I left to come home to TX. My old college roommate picked me up from Love Field, and I hung out at her place that afternoon. Her mom ordered a bracelet from my website! That's my fifth order! Roy and Cleo came and picked me up and brought me home. Thursday and Friday I worked on the house and on my website (www.freewebs.com/debbeads), which is so cool now, by the way, because you can click on the "buy now" buttons and it calculates the total with shipping and all, and you can pay through Paypal. Last night I spent a couple hours making several new necklaces.

Today I spent 3.5 hours on the lawn - mowing, weeding/feeding, and watering - and then Roy and I went and got a Fuddrucker's burger. Now I am typing this super long blog like you all having nothing better to do than read for hours.... LOL

Cleo is feeling much better, by the way. She is finished with her steroids and other meds, and is back to her old self. We take her in for the follow up X-ray on Friday.

Cleo and Jewelry

Cleo had a bad spasm or something in her right leg/hip last night. She cried for a long time and didn't want to move much afterward for a while. She was shivering really hard, too, from the pain, I guess. Anyway, she seemed to get a little better (she was walking w/o crying), so instead of taking her to the animal emergency clinic last night, we waited and took her to the vet today. Vet did an x-ray and saw inflammation in her back (which we knew about because she went in last Fri. and got meds for it), but then he also saw a fracture at the top of her femur on the ball. Weird thing is, it's on the left leg, not the right one that she's been favoring. He said it's possible that the disc is causing a nerve in her right leg to hurt only at certain times when she turns a certain way, but he said with medicine the back stuff will probably be okay, though we have to be very careful and retrain her to not jump up and down on the couch and all. Anyway, he was really concerned about the femur thing, and said he wants to see her again in two weeks to do another x-ray. If it hasn't started to heal up on it's own (with the 4 meds she is on), then we will look at our options - one being surgery.... Kids can't be any more expensive than our Cleo!!!! Actually, it was only $100 today for the visit, exam, x-ray, and meds, so that wasn't bad at all. Roy said she is really prepping us for kids...

I am leaving on Sat. to go see my family in OK. I will get back on Wed. and then I get to see my old college roommate for a few hours before Roy comes to get me. After that, I still have Thurs.-Sun. of my spring break to enjoy! I can't believe the school year has gone by so quickly... only two and half months of birth control to go!

I am officially a jewelry business! I have my own business cards, website, and state sales tax ID! I have sold a bracelet/earring set, two necklaces, and a necklace/bracelet/earring set! Yippee! I have updated my website with a few new items. www.freewebs.com/debbeads. Go see! Below are a few new ones.

Roy is 32!

Tomorrow Roy will turn 32! Geez, it seems like just yesterday that he was 21 and I was 20, and we were getting married! For his birthday I got him a library embosser. He was wanting one to mark all of his books. The seal has "From the Library of R.E. Garton" around the circle, and in the center is an open book. I tried to take a picture of it, but it was just all white, and you couldn't see a thing. Well, you get the idea, anyway.

Today I spent way too long making curtains for my kitchen. Since we painted the kitchen red, the brown curtains I had up just didn't go, and we needed to get more light into the room, so I made some white ones. I had seen some similar at Target, but didn't want to pay for plain white curtains, so I thought I would make them out of a sheet. Sounds easy, right? Well, it took me about 3 or 4 hours, which is totally ridiculous, and the curtain I made for the other kitchen window is too bad to post on this blog! Maybe Target will have a sale on curtains soon...

I made some more earrings last week. These are two of my favorites. Don't forget to tell everyone you know about www.freewebs.com/debbeads!

I looked at over 1,000 baby names last night, and I still can't find a girl name better than Alyssa Mercedes. I am now trying to bribe Roy to let me name our little girl: I offered him sex and ice cream! LOL He still doesn't like Alyssa because I initially chose the name spelled Ellissa, after his middle name - Ellis - which he dislikes, but now I just love the sound of the name, and it goes perfectly with Garton. Plus, if we have a boy and name him Warren Van, then we need a girl name that goes along with it in style and tone. Warren and Alyssa sounds sweet. I also spent time last night calculating my ovulation schedule from June to December and reading tips on getting pregnant. It's getting closer to trying time....

debbeads

My jewelry website is up and running!!!! Okay, it's not perfect, heck, it's not really even professional, but it's free!!!! (I make jewelry, not webpages!)

http://www.freewebs.com/debbeads/