how things are going!

Well it is a week today since I had my surgery and it feels almost like I have been working out and just have soar muscles in my belly!! I went to the Dr. on weds. and he took out the stitches which made the cuts very tender for a couple of hours. He has decided to give my body a swift kick in the rear end and prescribe some fertility medicine!! I don't know how long I will be on it but hopefully it works! He said the reason that he feels like I need it goes along with being aggressive on the trying part as soon as I am healed and also because my body has had the endometrioses for so long, he is not sure what to expect to for us to hit the ground running!! I am excited for next month to get here so that we can hopefully give myself a birthday gift!!!
I was disappointed in the "help" that my kids were to me the last week. I asked about getting help with the little things before the surgery and when the towel hamper was overfilled and falling on the ground, who was it that washed, dryed, and fowled? I can give you allot of guesses but to save time, it was me! I asked them about it and the reactions from Ashley was tears and then the silent treatment as if I had done something wrong by asking why I was having to do it. From Adrian I got the I don't care attitude, almost as if it wasn't even a big deal that he hadn't done anything to help out. Having that conversation done, I decided that I was going to give the relaxation thing a try again and give them the opportunity to redeem themselves. What do you think happened today!!!
Hint, I washed, dryed, and fowled towels. I would do more around the house except I am being stubborn to see if they will be considerate and give me a hand every now and again without attitude from asking them to do something, and even for that matter, without asking!
I keep the counters washed down because I cook and serve food on them everyday and it would be horrible to not serve food on a clean surface. If I didn't enjoy the cooking thing as much then I would be stubborn on that as well.
Sometimes I get frustrated but then I just tell myself that they are my kids and I get to "enjoy" all aspects of their personalities, even if they are showing the lazy part or what have you!!

I am working on getting the pictures downloaded so I can post them, the kids got the school pictures in. I will post Ashley's and Samuel's pictures as soon as I can as well as get some mailed out to family members.

Happy Anniversary

We didn't forget about your special day, happy anniversary from the Rushing family. We hope that it is a wonderful reminder of another year that you were able to share in all the memories with each other!

Happy anniversary!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID!!!

Happy 18th birthday to David!! As is tradition in this house for birthday meals the person who is celebrating the birthday can decide on any meal that they would like to have. I previously wrote about the meal choice but am doing it again!!
He chose to have ham. candied yams, a veggie tray, rolls, and pumpkin pie for dessert!! I have decided to ad a little to that since some people don't like yams. I am adding on the yummy potatoes and some spinach (David enjoys both of those things)! I am feeling well enough that I am making the rolls rather than but them from the store as well as all the other items. It feels good to be back to cooking after only a few days "off"!!

I hope you have a fabulous day David and take time to enjoy yourself!!!

Happy Birthday!

After the surgery

Well Friday was the day of the surgery and I found it to be faster than what my last one was four years ago. We got there to the hospital at 8:15ish and checked in, the nurse's did the regular blood pressure test and list of questions, then put me in a bed. It was only a couple of mins and they had the iv in my hand. One of the nurse's that was helping in the operating room came and asked the regular questions like when the last time I ate or drank, allergies, etc. As soon as she went out one side of the curtain the anesthesiologist came in asking the same questions. He left and about 15 mins later they came in to take me in to have the surgery done. I was given a shot of something into the iv (they referred to it as a cocktail) and I was wheeled away, getting a kiss from Kevin right before of course! I don't even remember getting to the operating room, what a cocktail!!! The next thing that I remember was waking up saying to the nurse in the recovery room that I was having a good dream I thought and asking what I was listening to in the earpiece that I had in my ears. I remember it was saying something about the surgery was a success or something like that, was kind of loopy! After about 20 mins after waking up I was wheeled back to the room that I started from and was pleasantly surprised to see two yellow carnations in a vase on the table, I have a sweet husband don't I!?!? I was in pain and was given loratabs for it but it didn't work so they busted out the good stuff, morphine!! Wow, it worked but I don't think it would be good to have on a regular as I got a horrible headache later as it wore off as well as a terrible taste in my mouth that took several hours to get rid of. Try eating with the taste of morphine in your mouth, not to tasty! In comparison to the feelings of pain from my first surgery (that I can remember of course, four years ago is a long time), this time is allot less!!! I am already able to sleep on my side without to much pain, where as before I was on my back for almost a week solid, not wanting to move even to breath. I do have bruising around the cuts, but even that isn't as bad as my first time. I am not even as swollen as I was with my first surgery, very little swelling at all really! I was very impressed with this experience and am positive I chose the best Dr.

I have three incisions one in the bellybutton (the same as the first one), one on the left side of my "pooch" and then one directly bellow my bellybutton, right in the center of the "pooch" area. The one in the middle is the most painful of the three. My Dr is Dr. John Nolte and he is completely awesome, he is great!!! He said every bit of the endometrioses (if I spelled it right) was removed that he saw and he did a intensive check just to make sure! While in surgery he made sure that everything looked good, the ovaries and the toobs. He was amazed by the amount of endometrioses that he had found to remove and was surprised that I was able to handle the amount of pain that he could only imagine I had each month with my cycle! He said I was a tough cookie!!

I go in on Wednesday for the follow up appointment and he will remove the stitches I believe at the same time. He said that now we (Kevin and I) are going to be aggressive in trying to conceive and he will have the whole thing planned out for us when I get there for my appointment. I am way excited and hope that we can have a baby soon, I am about to turn 28 and would like to avoid being to old when I have a baby as I have heard the older a woman is the more painful it can be as well as a possibility for complications to happen. Everybody cross your fingers, toes, and everything else that can cross for me!!!

My latest thoughts on the reunion.. help!

After talking to mom and reading the messages about the cousin reunion I have decided that I don't want to have the cousin one interfere with the potter family one for the following reasons...

1. It isn't fair to our family to change plans that the kids as well as some of us adults are excited for.

2. We would have to take a day if not two away from the time set aside just for our family to be together.

3. I am understanding that allot of the reason for going to New Jersey was because Isabel is getting baptized and it is not at all fair to her to change something that is that important to her without at least getting her approval on it. If it was me I would want to have all my friends see me go through something that big and share in my enjoyment as well as have my family around.

There are of course other things that cross my mind to say do it here so that we could guarantee that most if not all of the cousins could be present but I am very well aware of the price for travel as well as the financial strains that most siblings including myself are having, and to have a trip here when previously not planning on it may not be in the budget for some. I am leaning toward not combining the times for reunions and sticking with the original plans of having the potter family reunion there in New Jersey and then planning the cousin reunion to be sometime before the date for ours. What does anyone think??? It of course would be sad if say Amy, Alison and their families were not able to make it to the cousin one, but there would always be the next year and all years after that when it could be better planned and budgeted. Not to say that y'all wouldn't make it to this year, I am just assuming of course, and if it was an accurate assumption you would be very much missed!!

Please everyone let me know what you think of my thoughts here before I try to set a date and go forward with plans on anything. I have to say though I am one of the adults that would love to go to New Jersey since I have never been that far before nor have I ever been to the areas around such as New York!! I just don't know and I go back and forth so I need input!!

cousin reunion?!?!

So I was approached today by Toni Ann and Jeremy at the lake today when we were there for the starvation family fun day. I was told they nominated me to be the in charge person and put together a reunion for all the cousins come next summer sometime. I'm not so sure that I am the person to do it but they are convinced that I am. So I am needing to get some input on it for starters, when will the reunion be for the potter family and where, and then also I need input to figure out what kind of activities would be good. I have several months obviously but the sooner I get ideas in my head the easier it will be to get things planned. They want every cousin to come so if everyone can plan to come that is great but if not it will be understood. Please let me know something on it, I am not sure what to do.

Just a few things going on here

Well Nathan and Tim Cook have moved in so to speak. They came out to make the oil field wages since they are neither one working out in Orem. Today was Tim's first day of work but Nathan has not gotten a job yet. Tim got the job yesterday, Nathan called the guy first but didn't leave a message then Tim called, left a message and what do you know, he got the job. The food bill has now gone up because there is now 10 mouths that have to be filled everyday. I enjoy cooking large meals, I don't think I would know how to cook a small one anyways, its just expensive to buy. I have to go to Costco and Wal mart on thursday the 18th, the day before my surgery, so that I can make sure that I have all the food and things for the two weeks since I will not beable to go to any store for that time frame. I will also have to let go of the kitchen for the couple weeks and let someone else do the cooking (for the most part anyway) I will have the meals started in the time frame that needs to be done to avoid us eating at midnight and then when Kevin gets home he will take over the remaining cooking that needs to be done. He was not going to stick to the menu but wasn't giving me any ideas to what he was going to cook. I explained as nicely as I could that without knowing what he was going to cook there was no way of knowing what items I would have to buy for him to use and that he would have to do the grocery shopping out at Costco and Wal mart otherwise. As we all know how much he loves Costco he decided that if I would just start the meals cooking then he would stick to the menu and not have to come up with his own ideas for meals. This is good and bad. Good because I know exactly what things are going to be cooked so the preparation can still be done on it plus I still have some control over the kitchen happenings!! The bad part is that I still have to do some cooking, more likely than not I will be doing most of the cooking and it will just be the smallest amount left if anything for him to do when he gets home. Most of the meals on the menu are simple and don't take much time at all but there are a couple that have alot of chopping and monatoring that has to be done. For birthdays around here we give the person having the birthday the choice of what we will have for dinner, on the 25th, David has chosen to have ham, candied yams, a relish tray, homemade rolls, and pumpkin pie for desert. That is a meal that I will cheat on a little and buy a frozen pie and the relish tray already ready to go (no chopping) The rolls will be made and the rest of the stuff, I will be halfway healed from the surgery by his birthday so I may decide to do it all myself, we will see how I feel!!! Mostly my job for two weeks (after 9-19) will be to do nothing, that will be the hardest thing for me to do since most of the things that get done around the house from cleaning to cooking is what I do. I will start on a paint by number and catch up on some reading. I will most likely be done with the latch hook that I am doing now, I am down to the last 23 lines across to do. I work on it on Sundays so it has slowed down the finishing progress. Ashley hasn't done to much more on hers, she watched tv and plays games instead, haven't seen any drawings from her yet either. I will have to find the camera and take pictures of the two latch hooks and then as I start on the paint by numbers post the progress for that as well. Thats all that is happening here besides school things. With Adrian being a senior he is getting all the senior packets for the pictures and class rings. He failed to mention to me that he needed a deposit of 50 dollars to put down on his ring until last night and he said the people are there today so he needs it today. I told him that I didn't have it til next friday and then we can just get on line and order it that way. The look on his face could have made me cry, he doesn't hide disapointment very well. I wish he would have told me when he first got the packet almost a week ago and I could have had it for him. He and David are ordering the cap and gowns also. As a parent this is a horrible year that is going to be over to soon and then he will be all grown up and on his own.

Camping at moonlake

We went to moon lake for the labor day weekend, only stayed one night up there since Kevin called up on Friday and decided that was what we were going to do on Saturday night, no planning!! It was fun, to cold to swim!!

He is so proud of his fire, I told him if I had to make the fire nothing would have happened and we would still be looking at a cold pit!!
Adrian had to pose while setting up the tents, he is crazy sometimes but it makes me laugh!!
The picture above was of the tree tops we were camping under, I think there is a couple of the same shots on this blog, I couldn't get them to delete off. The picture below was of the camp site next to us, we had to give them money to stay since they had reserved two sites but only needed one. The sites were 10 dollars a night but since no other sites were available we had to pay what they asked and that was 30. Robbery in the woods!!!



We had hobo dinners to eat so these pictures are of them cooking! They were awesome!!

We had marshmallows (nobody wanted smores, just the marshmallows) As you can see, one didn't make it and landed on the ground, poor marshmallow!
Here is the duplicate picture I was talking about, Adrian is waiting for a marshmallow, that is how the lonely one ended up on the ground.

Morning after... It rained all night long and David's tent leaked the worst! The top part of the tent that Ashley , Kevin, and myself slept in wasn't put on right so Ashley got wet also. I was dry but when Adrian set up the tent he was suppose to get the rocks and twigs out from under the tent but instead piled them up right were I was sleeping. Thanks Adrian!!

This picture accidentally got put in here but it is the picture on game day when Kevin is wearing the hat that Adrian bought for him when we were in Michigan, Kevin doesn't wear hats but we made a promise to Adrian that on game days we would wear the hats that he bought for us. I have worn mine but the camera wasn't around to take the picture!
This one is when they were putting up the tent, should have put it up at the top, oops. All in all we did have fun, joked allot around the fire and then went to bed. I think we will plan better for next year or any other activity we do, planning makes it all better!!

Dad's Birthday!

Yesterday was dad's birthday, he is 58 years young now!! I gave him a frazzil (sort of like a slurpee) and said that was his gift til I could get out to the city this weekend and get him something that he could actually use and want. I guess he liked it, he drank it!! He was able to choose anything that he wanted to eat for dinner that night and I would make it. Our menu was as follows... Clam chowder (new england style of course), cod fish, and hushpuppies! I had never made any of the items so it was a first all the way around. Everyone was iffy on the food until they tried it. The clam chowder was gone as well as the cod fish, and very few of the huge plate of hushpuppies that I made was left. I was impressed with myself and had to pat myself on the back!!! I myself was nervous to eat last night because I am not a big fish eater however, cod fish is very delicate so there was no fish taste to it at all plus the seasonings that I used blended together very nicely. I put a touch to much pepper in the clam chowder but it still tasted nice. The hushpuppies didn't look anything like what you would see at long john silvers but tasted yummy, looks can be deceiving!!! At the same time I was preparing all three of the dinner items Ashley and myself made alot of cupcakes for his "party"! When I say party I just mean singing the happy birthday song and he blew out a candle. We also made the frosting for the cupcakes as well. The frosting ended up being more like marshmellow cream than frosting but it was good none the less. We sang happy birthday and out of the 8 people singing, 2 of them was grandchildren, 1 was a son-in-law, 1 guest, and then 4 children. When we got to the "name" part everyone was looking around with funny expressions on not sure if they should say grandpa, dad, or Nolan, it ended up being all three!!! I think he enjoyed it or at least I hopw he did!!!

Not Cancer!!!

The last two weeks have been a little bit of a nail biter as I went to my OBGYN and had a biopsy done to screen for cervical cancer. I went to the Dr today to get the results and fortunately I am ok in that area and even though there is abnormalities, it is not serious dealing with the cervix. However, on September 19th I go to the hospital and check in for surgery. I have had the same sergury done before back in 2001 when living in Lubbock. It is a scopic sergery to remove endometriosis. My last Dr did not get it all when she had done the sergery before and my Dr now wants to go in and do a more thorow job of it and if possible remove all of it, including that which is on one of the overies. He is also going to check while in there to see if there is any other reason on my end as to why Kevin and I are not conceiving as of yet. The sergery itself isn't bad, i am put to sleep during it, it is the after that I don't like at all. For about two weeks after I will be inpain and very swollen. One good thing about haveing it done before is that I know what to expect. As of right now we don't know what time the sergery will take place, I will call and find out on monday 9-15, and then on 9-17 or 9-18 I go into the office to have a pregnancy test run just to be on the safe side of things. When I go into the office I get the instructions to follow before surgery like how long before I have to go without food, water, ect. I hope that after it is all said and done that I will be ok and beable to have a baby! Cross your fingers everyone!!!