my first ever political rant

I have never been more educated about an election as I have been about the 2008 election. I am voting for change. I think Obama holds the best hope for our country. I think McCain is a 'mini-Bush' and Palin is just a flat out idiot who has no business even thinking about running our country.

I am terrified of this new 'bail out plan' to help the idiots on wall street at the expense of the little man. So we bail out these big companies who screwed themselves, and in return we get stuck with higher (a lot higher I hear) income tax. But then the economy is still screwed because now the little man's paychecks are greatly reduced to help the rich idiots and there is no money left over to return to the struggling economy. Hello recession. Then the little man who may have had a few bumps in the road of credit, can now never dream of having that house b/c the loans needed to aquire said house have interest rates that are incomprehensible.

Oh well...at least when you rent, you have maintenance free living...that is if you have a landlord that gives a fuck....I love being a little man.

a cruel twist...

Everyone who knows my husband knows that he has horrible knees. You dont evenreally have to know him to know this, you just have to watch him walk. For years now, he has been living with the pain and being the 'tough guy'. He can't do it anymore. We made an apointment with the Dr who did Mom's knee replacement. Dr. Salin (aka...dr hottie-pants) is a very nice guy. Durring Charlie's first appt with him, he could deffinitely feel somethinns were not right, so ordered an MRI on both knees. The next day we went in and had it done. We were relieved to finally get to a point where they will finally be able to tell him what is wrong and what to do to get them fixed so he won't be in pain anymore. We wait for a few days and finally get a call from Dr' Salin's nurse. Turns out the MRI's were clean...as in they showed NOTHING wrong with his knees. My jaw dropped. I couldn't belive what she just told me. She tells me Dr Salin wants to have Charlie come in for cortizone injections b/c now more than likely the pain is caused by inflamation since nothing showed up on the MRI. I hesitate to call Charlie with the news because A. it wasn't the news we were hoping for, and B. my big bad burly manly man is reduced to a weepy sack of sap at the sight of needles. Reluctantly I call him and relay the news. I can hear the disappointment in his voice. He promised me that he was not making this up and it wasn't all in his head. Which I have never doubted in a million years. We make the appointment for the following Monday for the injections. We get in there and the Dr pretty much tells us he is baffled at the lack of anything on the MRI compared to the pain Charlie is experiencing. After many many questions and I dont know answers, it was time for the shots. My poor hubby. He was terrified! He practically hyperventillated right there on the bed. The Dr was very patient with him and we all remained light hearted. I love this kind of stuff so I watched with excitement... The shots are administered rather quickly. Immediately his right knee feels 100% better. He says its like he just got a brand new knee. The left one however, had no effect. Still as painful as ever. The Dr says give it a couple of hours for the numbing agent to work and a few days for the cortizone to work. Charlie calls me 3 hours later, still no change in his left knee and now his right knee is going back to being just as painful. By that evening, it was like nothing had been done at all. He came home and broke down. I feel awful for him. Being in pain for years, being told there is nothing worng, and the one thing that should 'fix' it did absolutely nothing. The next step is scoping the knees to find the problem. This sucks.

Ok...

Here is what I am going to do to better our lives.
I am going back to school. Not a quick fix by any means, but in the long run things can only get better. I am going to enter **fingers crossed** the pre/nursing program at johnson county community college. Not exactly sure how I'm going to pay for this, but god-willing, it will happen.
I have filled out the FAFSA form, but am worried b/c last year was a high income year for us. Now with me not working and Charlie losing all of his OT (not to mention about to be out of work b/c of surgery) we're bringing in about 1/4 of what we were bringing in then. However, based on what I entered, they estimate my expected family contribution to be almost $10,000....TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS....What the hell??? Things are NOT the same now as they were last year. So am I screwed as far as getting aid? I really do need it.
My other obstical is math. I am HORRIBLE at math. Give me a novel and I can produce a fine essay about it, give me a few letters and numbers and I can tell you the elements which make up whatever, in fact give me anything but a mathimatecal equation and I can probably figure it out, but give me an algebra question and the likely response from me will be...duh? Numbers just dont add up in my head. I barely graduated with enough credits in HS for math, I tried taking the lowest math course at KU and failed, same thing at Juco a few years back. I just can't figure it out. For the nursing program I have to make a c or above in college algebra. What am I going to do???
All I can do is my best. I know I need to do this. I've never had a family depending on me to motivate me to understand, so hopefully something will click in my head to make all the numbers and symbols have meaning to my brain. I can't really be that math stupid can I???

So thats it in a nutshell. How I am going to save my family from living in a cardboard box under a bridge somewhere.

Wish me luck!

What makes it all worth it...

my beautiful family...




finger painting w/ my friend's boy Caleb (occasional daycare kiddo...LOVE those cheekies!!!)



Makenna's halloween costume...a princess of course...(btw, BAD idea trying it on beforehand. It has been hidden now!..lol)

Jack update~A bit irritated...yet so relieved!

So since Jackson was born, his pediatrician has been telling us he has to have this surgery before he turns six months. He made it sound like its a matter of Jack being able to have kids or not or developing cancer or not. So naturally we've been worried sick about it. Making sure that we got him in right away to the Urologist like we were told to. Today was the meeting with the Urologist at Children's Mercy hospital and you know what he said to me? "Why are you bringing him in for this already?" At first I was thinking F-You! Then he explained that they RARELY do this surgery before 14months. The only ones he does sooner are ones with special circumstance and medical needs. He takes a peek re-affirms that yes indeed there is not a palpable testicle on his left side and give him a call when Jack is one, and we will go from there. Thanks and have a nice day... I told him the what the pedi said and he said he was going to call him and tell him that there is no rush on correcting this. So all these months of worry and stress have been for absolutely NOTHING!!! I am so upset at his pediatrician for putting us through this. If I didn't like him so much I would switch.

However, can I tell you how relieved I am that we dont need to worry about this for another year! Woo hoo...no cutting on my baby...yet.

He did say that most likely they will have to go through his belly button to find his testi and then go through his abdomen to bring it down which is the outcome we were hoping to avoid, but he couldn't feel it at all. He also told us to be optimistic but realistic and that it probably will not end up dropping on its own.

Walls closing in quickly

I have so much on my mind lately. I could write it all down, but it would be a novel. But things are about to get a lot harder on us, and considering we're already pretty bad off, I can't wrap my mind around how bad things are going to be. I am desperately looking for evening work and the only probable option I've found is a job that has the hours of 5pm-5am Sun-Wed, on top of watching kids durring the day to make ends meet. So pretty much I'd be working 24 hours straight....wait a minute...when am I supposed to sleep??? But unfortunately I don't have much choice if I want to keep us afloat. See, Charlie has decided he can't take the pain in his knees anymore. I dont blame him, he's gone 5 years with torn ACLs in both knees. This just couldn't be a worse time for him to be off work. But then again, its to the point where it hurts too bad for him to go to work. So for 4-6 weeks at least, he will be out of work...with no money...with bills still coming in... We have plenty of accident insurance that would cover his pay, except this isn't covered under the term 'accident' since the 'accident' happened years ago and he doesn't have short term disabliliy through his work. So the only choice is for me to go to work. I would just work FT durring the night, but I wouldn't make enough so I would still need to watch kids durring the day. And since he'll pretty much be milking the shit out of this ordeal, I'll have to watch our kids, plus daycare kids, plus him, plus take care of the dog, then go to work all night, just to get back home in time for it to start all over again. Its impossible, but I dont know what other choice we/I have. Plus we have Jack's surgery coming up so we are going to have even more medical bills out the wazoo. I just want to scream. I don't know what to do. His 1st appt is Friday at 12:30. Jacks sono appt is tomorrow at 1:15 and we will schedule surgery.

the mommy-do

I cut all my hair off...well my friend, Tana, cut it actually. I now have the short mommy-do. But thankfully Tana put some pizzaz and 'spunk' into it so its not so 'mommy-ish'. I love it though!!! I just wish that I could recreate the look of fresh out of the salon hair. It never quite looks the same when I do it. I'll try tp get a pic of it tomorrow.