B Positive

Well, Ill be honest. When I was growing up, I never imagined this was where I would spend my child's fifth birthday.

It would have been festive with family and friends, and there wouldnt be tears, and shopping for a gift wouldn't have me gulping often as I aimlessly walked up and down the aisles. I settled on a Halloween/Autumn tree with little orange and white bells. I know the cemetary has a "wipe em clean every season or so" policy, but it seems as though they have exhibited a laissez faire policy on the baby section of the cemetary. I dont talk out loud when I visit JP. I mostly just think to him. I apologize for anything I might have done wrong to have made this happen, and I assure him that if he were still with us, he'd have a great life. He'd be in kindergarten now. Can you belive it? No doubt with John's genes he'd be academically advanced and having learned from my scrapbooking skills he'd be taking art classes with the 3rd graders. At least thats how I imagine it. Happy Birthday JP. We miss you so much.

Luckly, I have a lot of things in my life that keep me smiling...

Mom & Dad had Drew yesterday and last night. They pretty much beg Nick & Mere to "take him off their hands" on a semi-regular basis. Living 2 miles apart doesnt make this a difficult setup. I woke up early waiting for Drew to get up. He's so cute in the morning. After I got him out of the crib and played with him for a while, I let him kick it hillbilly style in the family bed with gma and gpa.....yee haw!!! (AND NO, DAD NEVER TAKES OFF THE MICHIGAN STATE SHIRT AND NO, LETS NOT TALK ABOUT THE OSU GAME BY THE WAY...)

Saturday night I came up to watch Fairmont's volleyball team play in the state tournament. They played the #1 seed (Lebanon) and played great & took them to four games but ended up losing after four really close hard-fought games.

Before I went to the game, I had to stop in a Speedway to get cash to get into the game, and I overhear one of the employees having a conversation with someone. I dont even know what he was talking about, but as he walked back to the stockroom, he laughed and exclaimed, "YEAH! I guess thats an effort in fertility!!!" Reminded me of Joey Tribiani talking about a "Moo point". I called Stacy immediately to tell her and she laughed and confessed that up until recently she had been saying - oh, I cant even remember what the phrase was, and she'd probably kill me if I put it on the blog anyway - I REMEMBER! - she would say, "For all intensive purposes". Sorry Stace.

After I visited the cemetary, I went over to Nick's softball game at Delco. Mere and a happy Drew were waiting.....
Go Daddy!
He just makes it so easy!!

Nick, cranking up to send a line drive over the shortstops head. Thats dad coaching first in the background.
Awwww....
(a la Captian Kirk) Cant.......stop......tak-ing......pictures.....
The sunset at the end of the game was spectacular so we had someone take our picture as we were walking out.
As we left, the sunset became more beautiful by the minute as sunsets do, and I was able to take a number of shots on a barely-there battery.

This one was with flash.....
And without.....
Such a cool tree...I love the fall.

Donny Fortener Home Improvement update: New lights on the deck and, for those of you who havent seen it yet, dad replaced EVERY plank on the deck (they didnt seal it properly when they made it years ago) and it looks BRAND NEW!
Its hard to tell from this shot, but he's pretty much replaced 75% of the deck with new wood and stained it with a nice dark color.
Tomorrow is chemo #5 of six. Just ONE MORE after tomorrow. Ill be so excited to detox for hopefully a VERY LONG TIME and get some of my energy & wind back. While I dont HATE getting blood transfusions, (I mean, theres worse things I could be enduring) it is getting to be a little annoying and predictable. I suspect another tumor marker test will get done tomorrow. My last one went down about TWO HUNDRED points, so lets hope this next one goes down another two hundred.

Im having my last two chemos on Monday. This past Friday was really busy at work and last week was the busiest week Ive had since Ive worked there....it was HEAVEN. The days went by in a flash, and it was the closet thing Ive felt to having a "workout" in about six months. I was physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day and it was great.

Tomorrow will be a full day of procedures....after chemo, Im finally going into the dentist to get some repair work done. A few months ago I literally flossed a filling right out of my mouth. I mean, the sucker popped out of my mouth and hit the mirror and I havent seen it since. This means I have a gaping hole in my mouth and I have to floss everytime I pop something in my mouth. Every snack, cracker, breakfast, lunch and dinner I gotta floss out a filling sized chunk of food out of my grill. So annoying. Thank God for those little mint flavored flossers - what a great invention!

Can you believe scrapbook weekend is just around the corner? Hopefully Ill have enough energy to finish my college scrapbook. Last year I was so sick and hardly got ANYTHING done. I know Stacy and Jami dont like when I "pre-work" my pages before we go, but that might be the only way I can get that done, along with a secret project that I cannot speak of. Also, Jami invented the term "Scrapbook Mountain"......as of late, I have heard her referring to it as "Scrapbook Island", and Stacy informed me yesterday that she was renaming it "Scrapbook Resort & Casino".
Hope everyone had a great weekend.