meeting baby Amelia

I love kids. Love 'em. Three-year olds, eight-year olds? Great! We can have a good time. But babies terrify me. Preemie babies take that to the extreme.

If I ever have a kid of my own I will be fine and I will get over it, but my general rule is that if they can't hold their head up on their own, I don't want to hold them.

So I passed on holding Amelia, my teeny tiny little niece. But I'm so glad that I went with to meet her at the hospital. I sat and talked while Kelly held her. She is quite the trooper and is putting on tons of weight- up to six pounds which is impressive since she started at 3 pounds 14 ounces. And she may get to come home soon!



We also went back to the hospital a few days later but with all the little kids. The kids (and anybody feeling kind of sick) were not allowed in the room with her, so Kelly held her up to the window for everyone to see.

coolest museum in the world

Having grown up right next to Chicago, I have been pretty spoiled when it comes to cultural things. We have some of the greatest museums ever in Chicago so it takes a lot to impress me when I go to other towns and visit their museums.

I was a little skeptical when my brother told us we were going to Tellus museum about an hour outside of Atlanta. I'm so glad I went though because it blew my mind! It was the greatest museum ever, filled with a rather random collection of exhibits.

My favorite was probably where you got to pan for gemstones like old fashioned miners and actually keep the gems (shards really) that you find.



Then you get to go excavating! There is a "sand" pit, filled with little rubber bits that are similar to sand in that they can cover things up and you can brush them away, but don't make nearly the mess. So you got to take your brush and unearth dinosaur bones!



You also got to dig through the sand to find fossils, which you again got to to keep.

They had a sweet dinosaur exhibit... where you got to touch fossilized dinosaur poop! Yuck!





This guy's head was like two and a half feet across!

They also had an amazing gem/mineral/rock exhibit.

Check out this periodic table! They gave you examples of things made from a lot of the elements!



If you are ever in the area you HAVE to go there, especially if you have young kids with you! Or 31-year old girls named Nikki!

favorite niece

It's a really hard call deciding who is my favorite niece. But Ella is definitely up there. The girl cracks me up. Her favorite song is "I love rock and roll" by Joan Jett. I was lucky enough to catch her singing a bit of it. She only knows the chorus but loves to belt along...

say no to November

Alright, November, I've had just about enough of you. Your days are numbered. (heehee, get it?)

I think I've been handling all of this crap remarkably well... up until today at least. Today was the funeral for my uncle Gary who passed away the day after Thanksgiving.

He had liver cancer. We knew it was a terminal case but thought that he still had a few more weeks if not months left.

What more needs to be said? It sucks.

I want to go to bed and wake up someplace warm and happy with a baby panda wrestling his siblings in my yard. That sounds like a pretty reasonable request to me.

I don't even want to talk to people anymore because it seems like I keep just having more and more bad news.

No more complaining. Let's talk about happy things. Spread some joy. It is the season, or so I've heard.

Obligatory thanksgiving post

Thanksgiving! My favorite holiday! Seriously, can you think of a better holiday? It's not religious so nobody is excluded. It doesn't involve gifts. It just involves food! Lots of glorious food!

Plus it is a day to think about what you are thankful for.

Which is the best thing EVER!

Of course, every day should be a day to think about what you are thankful for but I'm glad people are doing it at least once a year.

This year has been a bit rough with a lot of medical problems in the fam but there has still been so much to be thankful for!

1. Though she still may need to do some chemo or radiation because she had such an aggressive form of cancer, but my mom's cancer surgery went super well.

2. My nieces are off entertaining themselves and are not harassing me.

3. Amelia, my premmie niece, is eating really well and might get to come home from the hospital next week!

4. My sister-in-law is a good cook and has kicked me out of the kitchen (because she doesn't want help) so I get to chill.

5. I went on amazing vacations this year.

6. My friends make me laugh like nobody's business.

7. Giving up diet coke has been going remarkably easily.

8. Pink stuff. I don't know what "pink stuff" is but I think cool whip, cherries and pecans and pineapples are involved as well as some other ingredients. The end result is a delicious pink blob.

9. Sunshine and 60 degree days in November (in Atlanta.)

10. Baby panda bears.

11. My family and friends being there to support each other.

12. The amount of support and love that I have.

13. Salad forks. Yup. Random, little known fact about me... I love to eat all my food with salad forks.

14. Sweet tea. Did I mention I'm in the South?

I'm writing this post on my iPhone which just goes to prove two things: a) how bored I am and b) how much I love you guys.

I'm still sitting in the hospital room while my mom naps which is just about as exciting as it sounds. But she is supposed to be going home later this morning which will be awesome.

She is restricted to not lifting anything over five pounds. Do you know how impossible that is? That means she can't even carry her purse!

I drew some pictures yesterday to decorate my mom's room... which is super blah and doesn't even have a picture in it. The night nurse commented on what a good drawer I was. I laughed and said that the night nurse who said that probably thought they were done by a seven-year old! Maybe I'll include a photo of my drawings when I get back to a computer... the dogs that I drew did turn out kind of adorable if I do say so myself.

All in all, it hasn't been a bad stay at the hospital. This hospital has figured some stuff out... for example when we are waiting for her to get out of surgery we got to sit on either rocking chairs or lazy-boy type chairs that fully reclined. And in the room they have chairs that pull out so you lie down.

They also have a fun crazy robot that zooms down the hall bringing trays back to the cafeteria. Don't get in its way!

scam artist?

I gave money to a guy on the el today.

I mention this because it is not a normal occurrence.

I get asked for money all the time. But I rarely give. Why? Because I am bitter and jaded. I believe the majority of them are scam artists. And as for the people who claim to be so hungry? I know that the homeless shelters have a SURPLUS of food. If you are hungry, go there.

So why did I give this guy money today? Because he had a REALLY good spiel! And quite frankly, even if he does end up being a scam artist, he did such a good job asking for the money that I feel he deserves it.

His whole approach was that he had gotten out of jail (was released, not escaped!) a week ago and is looking for work. He had resumes with him and asked if anyone knew of a job that would hire an ex-convict and asked for us to take his resume or give him any leads.

He also asked for money so that he could continue his job search and buy a 7-day train pass. He was asking us for money because he never wants to resort to stealing again.

A bunch of us gave this guy some spare change or a dollar. Interesting how if someone is just down on their luck, we won't necessarily help them, but if we see someone who is trying to better their life, we are willing to lend a hand.

Do we believe that lending money to people who are down on their luck won't help them get to a better place? Why don't I give to those people?

This guy had it right... he knew exactly what we wanted to hear... that people can change... that given a chance and a little help, that he could avoid a life of crime and become a good, hard-working citizen. He gave us hope. And I will gladly give up a few dollars in change for a little hope.

ailments

You know how people get old and all they talk about are their ailments and their last bowel movement?

I feel like this blog is heading in that direction.

Not about me. I am doing great.

But my family is falling to pieces!

I won't even run down everything that is wrong with people. The most serious being my brother's preemie baby that was born at 29 weeks, my two uncles who are battling very serious cancer and my mom who has surgery this Monday for her cancer.

But THEN just to top it off, I found out today that my uncle on the other side of the family had a stroke yesterday and is now paralyzed on his left side!

That poor man! His poor family!

It's been one of those months where things keep going wrong.

But, despite being paralyzed and having slurred speech, my uncle has not lost his sense of humor.

The doctor asked him, "How do you feel?"

And my uncle responded, "With my hands!"

Ba-dum-dum!

A little laughter and positive thinking and I think we are going to get through this a-okay.

a bit irreverent

So you know that old fun trick of adding "in bed" to the end of fortune cookie sayings to make them funnier?

Taking "You will get lucky" and changing it to "You will get lucky... in bed".

Last night I was drunk and when I am drunk I have very weird dreams.

In my dream I came up with the fun idea of doing that to Bible verses!

Some of them actually work...

"Do unto others as others do unto you... in bed."

Teehee!

"The Lord says to Jerusalem,

'Foreigners will rebuild your walls,

And their kings will serve you.

In my anger I punished you,

But now I will show you my

favor and mercy... in bed.' "

"I will protect and defend you like a wall;

You will praise me because I have saved you... in bed."

"My people, foreigners will

serve you... in bed

They will take care of your flocks... in bed

And farm your land and tend your

vineyards.

And you will be known as the priests of

the Lord... in bed."

"Your shame and disgrace are ended... in bed."

"Your joy will last forever... in bed."

My sister just informed me that I am going straight to hell.

boo hiss on this!

Ugh. Chugga chugga chugga ugh.

I've decided that my family needs to send out random happy emails. Because now whenever I see an email from a family member, I cringe, knowing that it is going to be bad news.

The latest is that the polyp that my mom had removed from her cervix a few weeks ago, turned out to be malignant.

Awesome. Fucking awesome. This will be my mom's third go round with cancer.

They caught it early and I'm sure it will be fine. But nobody should have to deal with cancer three times in their lifetime.

I don't write for weeks and then THIS is what I choose to write about? Ugh. Sorry blog readers.

Let's think of some positive things to add to this post...

I bought a new pair of pants yesterday that fit perfectly. And show off my booty.

I get these amazing coupons from Victoria Secret so that I ended up getting 6 pairs of underwear for only $16 yesterday. Since each pair retails for $8.50 individually (which is RIDICULOUS!) that is quite a steal. And they are really cute. And have snowflakes on them. And little wooded fairy scenes and other cuteness. What can I say, if you want to feel cute you've got to start on the ground floor and work your way up.

Do you know what I'm going to go do? Go throw out my old ratty underwear. You know, the pairs that you keep just in case all your other ones are dirty but that you never, ever want anyone to see. Gone. Time to purge.

My shopping trip yesterday took me less than twenty minutes! I'm a super shopper!

I got to work on my favorite coworker yesterday and I totally helped fix her messed up shoulder!

I have a great family.

I'm in good shape. And now that it is too cold to run outside I have turned the tv towards the treadmill and have found that I can run even longer when I am distracted by a good movie.

My friends rule.

See, things aren't so bad!