Please pray.

Update Tuesday, February 3:
My mom went to see the doctor this morning and found out that the bleeding from the surgery had not yet stopped. They told her to go home and look at the floor all afternoon and they would see her again at 3. (sounds funny, doesn't it?) When they checked her again this afternoon, the bleeding had slowed, but still had not stopped. She left to go home to continue looking at the floor and will be checked again tomorrow morning at 8. Pray that the bleeding stops completely and that her sight will begin to return. She was in really good spirits this evening when I talked to her and I pray that the recovery will not dampen her spirits. Thank you for being faithful with your prayers!

Update 7:47pm:
The surgery was delayed until 5:30 pm and ended up lasting until just a few minutes ago. The surgeon said there was more fluid behind her eye than he expected and they had to drain it and almost re-inflate her eye (if that makes sense). She will be going home tonight and will see the surgeon again tomorrow morning at 8 to remove the bandage. Her sight won't come back immediately but will be a more gradual process. I'm really not sure how long that will take but he has told her she can't work this week or weekend. My great uncle is in the same hospital on a different floor and is doing well considering what he's gone through. My sister was able to see him and while he was groggy after the surgery, he seems to be his same old self- no pun intended about his age. Thank you for your prayers! God is good.

Original post:
Today at 4:30, my mom will have surgery to re-attach her retina after it detached on Saturday. She was told yesterday that she could not eat/drink anything after midnight and still will not be allowed anything until after the surgery. An avid coffee drinker, she is suffering from caffeine withdrawals and the headaches that come with that. Please pray that her headache will go away and that the time will pass quickly before the surgery. Please also pray for my great uncle who is in the same hospital having surgery after he broke his femur delivering a calf. He's 87 years old, so naturally we're worried about how he will do during and after the surgery. And hopefully no one else in our family will be giving the hospital any more business today. or this week.

Texas + winter ice storm=...

... school delayed until 9 this morning. The extra hour of sleep was great- and it was nice to wake up to the sun shining through the window, instead of the usual pitch black darkness. The roads weren't bad for me since I don't drive far to work, but others weren't so lucky and had to drive across ice-covered bridges to get to school this morning. At 9 this morning, only half of my class had arrived yet, but throughout the last hour, all but one have trickled in.

Tonight D will be getting home early, but tomorrow will be a late night for him. We should do something fun, like rent a movie, but I've had my nose stuck in the last book of the Twilight series and really want to finish it.

This is such a random post- hope you have a happy Wednesday!

This sums it up...

A typical morning in kindergarten...

C: Mrs. B, can I chap my lips?
Me: Can you what?
C: Chap my lips?
Me: How would you do that?
C: I have chapstick in my backpack to put on them.
Me: Oh, you want to put chapstick on your lips?
C: Yeah, I guess.

I love my job.

The Joys of Being Lame

This past Sunday (through the help of good friends), D and I (re)-discovered our love of puzzles. After working on one puzzle for the majority of our Sunday afternoon, I decided to make a trip to my secret addiction favorite store Target to pick up a puzzle for us to work on this week. After browsing for way too long, trying to decide on the right puzzle to purchase, I finally decided on this one:





Then as I was talking to one of my friends at work about our feat of completing this puzzle in two nights, she started telling me about a puzzle she had been working on and finished. We discovered that our puzzles were closely-related as I had Times Square and she had the New York skyline. Thus, the idea of swapping puzzles was born. Let me introduce you to our weekend project:





And yes, that's a glow-in-the-dark puzzle. Which equals awesome in the world of puzzles. Thanks K for letting us borrow the puzzle!

The Office

The Office is back on and this makes me happy jump-for-joy-excited similar to the way I did when the Longhorns won the National Championship. I didn't realize how excited I get about this TV show until I noticed I was shaking my hands up and down like the proverbial kid in the candy store... and this was during a commercial.

A little much? Nah...


Hurray for The Office!

Hurray for Thursday night!

And hip, hip, hurray for early-release Fridays!

Looking back...

At lunch this week, the topic of conversation was the recent Bridal Extravaganza that one of my friends from work had attended with her roommate who had recently gotten engaged to her boyfriend. I don't know what it is about women and weddings, but we all quickly started giving out opinions, advice, asking questions about the wedding being planned... and reminiscing about our own weddings (or dreaming about our future wedding, depending on our marital status).

How big was the wedding going to be? Where are they planning on getting married? When is the big date? And of course, with these questions came stories of how we did it or how we want it done when its our time...

D and I were married at a fairly young age in the church where we grew up and eventually met. My brother performed the ceremony; my sister was the maid of honor. D's older brother was his best man. Our friends and relatives made up the rest of the bridal party. On June 26, 2004 at 3:00 in the afternoon, my dad walked me down the aisle, telling jokes to keep me laughing and smiling the entire way.

But let's back up...
The week before the wedding, our area was experiencing heavy rains- very unusual weather for that time of the year. The fields and yards were a beautiful, lush green (much prettier than the usual yellow-brown that signifies summer is here). This also meant that things were very moist and muddy- but we'll get to that part of the story later.

D's mom and my mom had purchased coordinating dresses for the wedding and were having them steamed at a local dry-cleaner... which caught fire overnight and burned down the week before our wedding day. All was fine though as they quickly found other dresses to wear and looked beautiful all the same.

As the week before our wedding dwindled down, the rains started to pick up even more. Our reception was to be at a local camp/ retreat center overlooking a lake. The parking at the camp was already going to be a little tricky, and muddy conditions would only make it more complicated. On Friday morning, the skies were clear and blue- the perfect weather for making sure all the finishing touches were ready for the big day. I was busy helping decorate for the rehearsal dinner in the morning, then off to a local nail salon to experience my very first pedicure as well as a manicure, grab lunch, then decorate for the reception. Finally, finish up, go home, shower and get ready for the rehearsal later that evening.

Somewhere along the way, we got behind schedule and ended up running a few minutes late to the rehearsal. Now, if you know me, then you know that being on time is a huge deal to me. Needless to say, this left me a little frazzled. Not to mention, the sky has started to darken and rain clouds are headed our way. As we pull up to the church, the heavens let loose and the rain pours. It continues to pour throughout the rehearsal and the dinner, both of which were at the church. As the evening winds down, D and I say our good-byes, taking notice that this would be the last time to say good-bye as an engaged couple. I head home to shower and get to bed early, as the next day was going to be long and exciting. D stays at the church to help his family clean up after the dinner and spend time with his relatives.

Sometime during this, a local nursing home begins to flood from all the rain and this is brought to the attention of our church. Nursing home residents are brought to the church to spend part of the night while the water problem is taken care of. D, being the sweet guy that he is :), stays with the residents, singing hymns with them and trying to make them feel comfortable in a foreign place. The water is taken care of and the residents are taken back to the home before morning.

Our wedding day was beautiful. The rain clouds had disappeared overnight. The sky was blue and the sun shone brightly. The whole day is pretty much a blur, but I do know that I was just so happy and calm. Amazingly, I wasn't nervous at all. Hair appointment. Finishing touches on decorations. Lunch. Make-up. Dress. Pictures. And then a time of prayer with the girls who were such a big part of our day. Then it was off to the ceremony where D and I became husband and wife. More pictures. Reception. More pictures. Give my bouquet to my little sister and best friend. Oh to remember the look of surprise on her face. :) Finally, leave the reception and start our new life together... after a trip to Disney World, of course.

The day was perfect. And while I know you're not supposed to want to change anything about your wedding day, if there was one thing I would go back and do differently, it would be to have the whole thing professionally videotaped. And have a smaller wedding. Ok, now I've re-capped mine- what about you? Is there something you would have done differently? Or if you're not married yet, what is the one thing that is non-negotiable about your wedding day? Lastly, here are some pictures from our wedding. Enjoy!

First game of the season...

...the Upward Basketball season, that is. And we won! But that's not the important thing, is it? The girls had fun. They played really well for their first basketball game. I had fun yelling at advising the girls to get down court, to find their girl, to take the ball out, to not take the ball out, to dribble the ball, to pass the ball, to shoot, shoot, shoot!

I'm making it sound like I lost my voice with all the yelling, but with two games going on at the same time in the gym, we had to yell to be heard... and even then, it was still a guessing game as to whether they actually heard us or not. We= myself, B- the dad of one of the girls, and S- the mom of another girl. One of the challenges for the coaches was making sure the girls all had equal playing time. We had worked out a system before the game about what we were going to do, but the girls had a different plan. One girl, H, was so nervous that she made several trips to the restroom, sick to her stomach. I felt so terrible for her. She still played several of the 6 minute periods. We were all so proud of her. Another girl, M, walked off the court without the referees even seeing because she had hurt her arm. I don't know if we would have even noticed that we didn't have five girls out there had she not come to sit down on the bench. Did I mention that D was one of the referees? He was. I teased him before the game about all the things I was going to yell at him. I didn't have to. He was a good ref for the girls and helped us coach them on the court... because, let's face it- the girls could actually hear the refs.

All in all, our first game was successful- and I think I would say that even if we had lost. Yes, I just said that. Super-competitive, too intense for my own good Leslie just said that a game would have still been successful even if we had come away with one in the loss column. Progress? Well... let's not jump ahead of ourselves.