birthday weekend

This morning mom had an appointment for another PET scan and should have the results on Monday. The scan shows her doctors where the cancer affected lymph nods are. They did one before the chemo started and now this one is to see how well the treatment has been working. So far all of her tests have come back in the 'good ranges' and this one should be no exception. It will be nice to be able to see that the cancer is going away though. Right now the only physical reminder that she is sick is her wig.

Tonight though we are celebrating my birthday with a family dinner- my birthday isn't until tomorrow but Russ has made plans for just us two tomorrow evening. Birthday girl gets to choose the restaurant and dad pays. :) It's an excellent arrangement. The dinner used to consist of just dad, mom, me and my brother Daniel. Now it includes Russ and Kirsty (my brother's fiance). I picked a restaurant I've never been to but have heard good things about. It's called Macca's Florida Grill and has tons of seafood on the menu. Yum! Daniel and Kirsty however, won't be able to make it tonight. They have to retrieve some of their stolen property...

Last week on Wednesday and Thursday, my brother was having new windows put in the house. The house used to be my Papaw's but when he passed away earlier this year, Daniel started getting things fixed up on the house so he could buy it. It desperately needed new windows, not for looks but efficiency. Day one the crew had all the main house windows done and they would come back the next day to do the basement windows. On the second day they were finished by noon. Both days that the crew was working my uncle and Kirsty's grandparents were all there to "oversee" things. Once the crew was done, my uncle went to lock up and noticed the side door knob was pretty loose. He thought mental note to tell Daniel to fix it. Everyone left and when my brother got home a mere 3 hours later, he could tell the door knob was loose before he even got out of his car.

Every room he went in throughout the house had cabinet doors and drawers open. By the time he got upstairs he realized someone had broken in. They had only moved in a week prior to this so he was struggling to figure out what was actually missing. Both the police and my brother believe the break in was by one of the window crew members or at least someone they knew. Daniel would have never left the house knowing the door knob was ready to fall off.

Then a few days ago someone made an anonymous call that they had found some credit cards and a watch in their trash. They said they lived just down the street from a local window company...hmmm. Yeah, I'm not buying it either. Anyways, Daniel is going to retrieve his stuff from this nameless person tonight. The police told him they couldn't send an officer with him because the location is in Indiana (and we're across the bridge in Kentucky) but I highly suggested he take someone with him just in case. You never know what might happen and the whole thing is just too fishy.

mom's cancer and her progress

This morning mom had to get more blood work done. Which brings me to my next topic in the 'what's been going on lately' writings.

In mid-August mom was diagnosed with cancer. Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma to be exact. She hadn't been sick so the news came as quite a surprise. Her doctors said they would be aggressive with the medicine and that this was very treatable. Mom is generally pretty healthy so the doctors didn't really have any concerns as to whether or not she could beat this. The scary part for mom was that this is the same type of cancer that her mom had and she didn't make it. Now that was 26 years ago and the medicines have come a long way since then so her oncologist has been nothing but positive about the whole thing.

It's been a very weird couple of months since her diagnosis. First letting the news sink in and coming to the realization that mom really was sick. Then there is all the information that they give you to be prepared for what's going on. When she had her first chemo treatment August 24th, (which happened to be the 26th anniversary of when her mom passed away) we were kind of holding our breath not knowing what to expect.

So far though mom has responded very well to the chemo and she hasn't had any bad side affects from it. Mom never misses work so when this all started she had over 200 sick/personal days available. She's been taking them whenever she feels the need so she can get lots of rest and make sure she's taking care of herself. Chemo #5 is in about another week and then the 6th and final one will be done before Christmas.

It's such a relief that things have been going so smooth throughout all this. I just have my fingers crossed that the cancer goes into remission and stays that way.

when the work day is done...

I'm currently taking my last break of the work day. Normally I don't take any breaks at all but today I just really needed them. All the big guys in the company are in town for meetings this week and our conference room table happens to be right in front of my desk. See, I don't really have an office so to speak. I'm out in the main room of our building and most of the time this is not a problem because we only have four people that work in our office. Plus I like the space. However, whenever there are any meetings (which thankfully don't happen very often) it all goes down right in front of me. I can usually tune out most of it but as they discuss things they yell out for me to look something up or print off something, etc. It's frustrating to say the least.

On the bright side, I'm walking out the door in 15 minutes. Clocking out. I may even run to my car. Not really but it fits the mood.

So, tonight's plan is to have a quiet dinner with a nice glass of wine and relax. Tomorrow it starts all over again.

the hunt is on...still

Days. Weeks. Months have gone by and there's been so much going on with so little time to write. One thing at a time for now or I will drive myself crazy.

For starters I'm still house hunting and by hunting, well, the word says it all. I've been thinking of buying a house for almost a year now but didn't begin to seriously look at them until around June. The tax credit was a great incentive for me to finally put everything on paper to see where I stood financially. That being done, I got my pre-approval and began the search.

My price range poses a small problem in that I can't afford to live in the areas of town that I would like. Most of the houses I have seen need some work or need to bulldozed to the ground. Most are small and I'm OK with that. I am not OK with mold, wavy walls, a vinyl ceiling, uneven door frames, or floors that sink as you walk towards the middle of the room. Oh it's been fun to say the least. Quite the learning experience and often when I leave I think "how can people live like this?"

One thing I have going for me is that since I'm living with my parents I don't have a deadline to move out. So for now I just keep on saving money and when the right house comes along I'll be more than ready.

looking up

I'm proud to say that although my conversation with Russ started off a little rough, it ended very nicely. To say I was a little mad on Monday would be quite the understatement. To make it worse right off the bat- I had driven over to Russ' apartment as planned (my plan) and called to tell him I wanted to meet there. I got a solid 20 seconds of dead silence. When he spoke he asked me to come to his office and talk there. We went back and forth because I wanted to know was there something in his apartment that he didn't want me to see? No but he just didn't want to meet there. Back and forth...

I ended up at his work. We hashed it out and when it was all said and done we were agreeable on several things and planned to work on them- seriously work on them. If it doesn't get better now it never will and I will have to accept that and walk away. Since my biggest complaint was the communication we don't have, he vowed to work on it. And if I get to a point where I'm happy with how that's going then we'll start working on what he wants. (Just as an fyi this is his suggestion) I did not agree to this because then he still won't be happy.

Anyways, we talked for the whole commute home on Tuesday and he was upbeat and actually did most of the talking. Wednesday and today we had lunch together. Tonight we are also meeting for dinner in a little bit. There was even talk of going golfing this Sunday. I have to say that I am impressed, happy and impressed. I truly hope that this continues because despite all of our issues over the last couple of years I can say that this is what I want. I want to be with Russ. I have had my doubts in the past but my heart just seems to keep coming back to him. Hopefully he still feels the same but only time will tell.

give me strength

So I'm not real sure how I'm going to go about this tonight. I am meeting Russ after so we can talk and I know he is thinking we will most likely be grabbing something to eat. The thought of food right now turns my stomach in knots. I am not excited about seeing him. In fact, I'm hoping that by getting all this out I will be able to finish concentrating on my work. Thankfully it's been a relatively quiet day here in the office.

This weekend was not good. Last week was worse. Tuesday (I think) Russ called me to ask if I could take care of Ally over the holiday weekend and I assured him it wouldn't be a problem. He told me he was driving home to Michigan. That very day on my lunch while looking at the status updates of my friends on Facebook, I notice that his sister had just written that she was excited about her parents coming to visit her...in Iowa...

The next evening when I talked to Russ I asked if his parents were even going to be in town when he got home.

Oh, you know what, I don't think they are. I forgot... I think they're going to be at my sisters.

Yeah, I thought I saw her post something about that. So I guess you're not going to go, huh?

I guess not.

So I'm off Friday... do you want to make plans to do something this weekend?

Yeah that sounds good.

Wednesday- I call when I leave work to run some ideas by him and I get his voicemail. I assume he's working late and say so in the message and ask him to call me. At 9:30pm I try calling again... and get voicemail. I assume he worked really late and then went home and went to bed so I tell him to call me in the morning. At 1:12 am I get a text that reads "drove to Michigan, just got in. call me tomorrow. just don't call between 12:30 and 3. Dealing with Churchill." Can I just tell you how furious I was?! First of all, you just drove 7 1/2 hours to your parents house and THEY ARE NOT EVEN THERE. Second of all, we had tentative plans for the weekend. Third, you always tell me you don't have service up there so how do you expect me to believe you will be handling a work account for a three hour period. I called him Thursday from work at right around noon... got voicemail. Called when I got home from work... got voicemail. Friday around lunch I called... got voicemail (noticing a pattern here?) By this point I was done leaving nice messages. So I told him that he obviously didn't want to speak to me and I thought he was being rude for not returning my calls, to have a nice weekend and I'll talk to you whenever because I'm done being ignored. Eight hours later, I receive a text that reads "such a mean message! What are you up to? Miss u!" SERIOUSLY! OK, let me go over this again, first of all you wouldn't get such a mean message if you would simply CALL ME. Second of all, if you want to know how I am doing, CALL ME. And third, if you miss me then CALL ME. Or better yet you could have invited me to go with you but I understand that that's just not how our relationship operates anymore. We no longer make public appearances around people we know. The occasional dinner out is fine every now and then but we don't do that much anymore either because you say you can't afford me. Whatever the F@#K that is supposed to mean. We have been together for 4 years now, I think it's quite alright if I pick up the check sometimes.

I did not call him back Friday night because I fell asleep on the couch. Would you believe that the next morning he sent a text saying "Happy 4th. Guess you are too busy to respond to anything I sent yesterday." I about lost it. So I called and when I got his voicemail and let him him know that he has got some nerve to try and tell me that I'm hard to get a hold of.Needless to say I have not slept well all weekend and I have had some bad dreams that I wish I could say were just dreams. They seem more like a gut feeling which is very disturbing.

In about 30 minutes I'm going to put my brave face on and drive to his apartment. When he calls to ask where we're meeting I will tell him that I'm already at his place so he can't try to back out of it. I really don't think the conversation we'll be having will be suitable for public places and since I haven't been invited to his apartment in about a year I'd say it's a good time to go in there and see what's going on.

the waiting game

It seems all I ever do anymore is wait. Most of the time it's frustrating- say when I'm waiting on the return phone calls from Russ that never seem to come. But that's a whole different issue and one that just doesn't seem to get any better.

Today I'm waiting yet again on a phone call. I spoke to a mortgage broker this morning to get pre-approved for a home loan. I know that my phone will ring at some point today and that I may end up very disappointed or extremely excited. (I'm definitely pulling for the latter) So I sit... and wait...

Hopefully I will hear something soon *fingers crossed*