My 2 Cents Worth

If you are looking for a current Reeder family update read the prior post that I wrote earlier tonight. This post is just some rambling opinions that I feel compelled to write. I am very opinionated, confident and never sorry about my opinions and beliefs. So if you are easily offended by a Christian, Republican, Conservative point of view - perhaps you should just close this and go find something liberal to read ;). Your thoughts and opinions are yours as mine are mine...

First an easy one - I am so sad about Michael Jackson. Like most of my generation he was a major part of my life for several years. I loved his music and his original look and style. One of my most prized possessions was the Thriller album (yes album), given to me by my dear friend Kim on my birthday that year. I actually don't have an opinion about what he did or did not become, etc. All I know is that when I was young he was way cool!!!! and my friend Shannon could mimic him - her dancing with the glove is a great memory LOL.

Jon & Kate - seriously can people quit beating them up. Yes divorce is sad and in my belief wrong, of course adultery is wrong, etc. but give it a rest. I'm tired of reading it everywhere I turn. Yes it's interesting and of course I've talked about it, but I'm not publicly judging them...

And it seems like people who think Obama is great (the guy who wants it to be legal for my 13-year-old to have an abortion and not tell me, among other heinous things) are some of the loudest bashers of Jon and Kate. I mean do people watch or read anything besides ET and gossip mags? How is it that what's going on in our country doesn't bear talking about, but Jon & Kate do... UGH!! Oh - I know, people are afraid of offending someone - seriously, grow a spine. If you are not strong enough in your beliefs that you can talk about them... Enough said on that one.

Montgomery, Alabama - like it? love it? don't care? hate it? First of all, don't bash where you live. Have a little pride. When you live here be kind to where you live - if you don't like it move. Or go to city council meetings, write letters, run for public office, etc. We live here and like it. I actually love my state. The things we don't like about Montgomery - my husband has a permanent path to city council meetings and has met multiple times with the mayor and routinely writes other leaders in our community. But we don't sit around bashing it in mixed company, or on blogs or on Facebook. And crime - do we have it, yes in this world where God is taken out of everything and people are entitled and divorce is rampant and children aren't taught things at home... yes there is crime. But you know what - there is crime in other cities too. We're not the worst, by far!

Last one, I have some old friends that I am no longer friends with. As I would imagine several of you do. Through life I have also formed smaller relationship with their families. I periodically run into members of their family and am friendly and gracious. A Christian southern woman as my mother taught me. So the other day my step-mom runs into one of my old friends and is snubbed... How about that?

Oops - I do have one more. For our own personal reasons Dan and I chose to have one child, his daughter Emily gives us two. I don't have an opinion on people that have none, 1, 2 or 10. Whatever makes them happy and works for their family. Lately though I have heard multiple people make comments about people that choose to have large families. Very judgemental and ignorant comments. What is up with that? It's like people think children in large families have it bad and are mistreated or don't get enough love or whatever. It's so stupid!!!!

Anyway - that is enough for tonight!! I'm going to read for a while and go smoke! And don't even start on that LOL. I love you all and am sure you mean well, but actually it just pisses me off and makes me want to light another one!! And I must say if you've made it through this long rambling boring post on my opinions you must be really bored or you must really love me!!!!!

A Week of Many Titles...

Well as I was typing the title of this post I realized I had way too many things to talk about. The "draft" title went something like this: Golden Eye No More, An Organized House & a Polka Dot Room, Swimming With Friends, Japanese Steakhouse Yummy, Paperwork, Snow White, Antique Cars, The Big Green Bus & a Waterfall.

Our week started with outpatient surgery for Dan. Those of you who were following our story on carepages during his cancer journey will recall that he had to have a gold weight placed in his eye because the eye wouldn't close after the initial cancer surgery. Well now that he is in remission and the surgical site and facial nerves have all finally healed his eye will close on its own and the weight is making it close too well, like a lazy eye. We knew back when it was put in that it would probably be a temporary thing so this removal surgery was not a surprise. It went very well - they knocked him out, made a small slit on the top of his eyelid and pulled out the weight. Woke him up and we came home. He took it easy for a day and that was it. You can't even see the incision.

Around the house this week we went through every drawer, closet, nook and cranny in Emily's room and totally reorganized in there. And finally her polka dots are on her wall, which completes her room makeover. My back hasn't allowed me to do that type of deep-cleaning nor allowed me to climb on the ladder to place the polka dots. However, our fabulous housekeeper came to the rescue :). Speaking of fabulous you should see what she did with our Florida room this week. I honestly don't know how I lived without her for so long.

Swimming has become the norm around here. Deep south, 95+ degree days, a pool in the backyard... what else is there to do. My regular swimming buddies, Leslie and kids and Kim and kids were over and that always makes for fun times. The mommies enjoy visiting and the kids love the pool. Speaking of which, David has turned into quite the little swimmer. He uses no floaties or rings, etc. and is jumping in the deep end and swimming underwater to the shallow end. He's throwing toys in and diving down and getting them. He loves the water and if he had his way we would swim from about 10-5 everyday.

One night this week Leslie and I slipped off from our families and went to our favorite Japanese Steakhouse for sushi and hibachi steak and chicken!! YUMMY - I could eat that everyday, especially the rice and veggies and spicy tuna roll. I always miss Jennifer though when we eat there because it's one of her favorite places too and she's the one that introduced me to spicy tuna rolls. After dinner we stopped by Starbucks and then went to Target. I don't think a girls night is complete without a trip to Target LOL.

I don't know what it is about the business and my workload, but it is growing and I am so busy and so darn unmotivated. I love summer because the kids are out of school and we do lots of fun things and spend lots of time with friends, but I don't get anything done. If I wasn't married to the "boss" I'd probably be fired by now ;). I am dreaming about paperwork. And I hate to work on Sunday's, but I am going to have to do some tomorrow or I'll never get caught up because next week is busy yet again. No surprise there ha ha!

We had a birthday party to go to this afternoon and the theme was Snow White, my friends little girl turned 2. Now David wants the movie, I thought it was cute because he is usually anti-princess stuff. I think his good friend Jace is wearing off on him because she is a princess fanatic, as most little girls are. The party was alot of fun and it was nice to see several girlfriends I hadn't seen in a while and several babies and kids that are getting really big.

After the party David and I headed to Flip's for dad's car club's cruise-in. David always likes going out there and seeing grandaddy and annie and the old cars and I enjoy visiting with them and their friends and eating at Flip's, best BLT's in Montgomery!! The theme tonight for the cruise-in was 4th of July so there was lots of patriotic attire and all the cars were decorated as if they were in a parade. According to David the best part of Flip's this month was the Big Green Bus. It's a preschool gymnastic birthday party bus thing that we've seen around town, but not had the opportunity to check out. It was really nice and David played in it for well over an hour.

Dan's been working like a fiend on his waterfall. He can now see the light at the end of the tunnel and we are all starting to get excited. He still has some back-breaking days ahead with rock placement and final landscaping, but it won't be too much longer. The worst part now is the heat. He's trying to go out real early each morning and then stay out until dark - skipping the hottest part of each day. Well skipping isn't the right word for my work-aholic husband, rather switching to another project better describes it.

Emily has been in Tuscaloosa for the last couple of days with her aunt. They are working on her individual dance routine. This is what she will use for all-star try-outs at camp later this summer. I'm not sure when she'll be back, but I'm pretty sure it'll be the first of this week. We miss her around here. It's never the same when she's not here.

I think that's it for the Reeder's this week. Oh - I am having some pretty bad back issues, yet again and actually worse than ever so I'm going to the doc Wednesday morning to see what we can try next. Actually though the site that hurt so bad prior to surgery is still ok - surgery evidently worked on that part. The issues now are in another area...

Shopping, Shopping and more Shopping!!

What a great week this has been. Jennifer and Paul were here for the week on their way back to Houston from Myrtle Beach. The boys attended VBS at my dad's church in Wetumpka from 8:00 - 12:00 each day and they had a blast! They played and sang and made crafts and learned about Jesus - when we picked them up each day you couldn't make out what they were saying because they were both so happy they were talking fast and at the same time LOL. Thursday night was the "performance" night where all the classes sing and recite bible verses, etc. The boys did a great job with their two songs. We videoed it and maybe I can figure out how to get a little clip on here. Yall forget I'm a little old and still not up on all the computer stuff :).

While the boys were in VBS Jennifer and I went to Starbucks and went shopping. We made the most of our few hours sans boys each day and it was wonderful. We've been to Target, Kohl's, Ross', Belks, Avon, Ulta, Lifeway, Kinnucan's, Bath & Body, and many more. After picking the boys up we'd come back here and relax and do some prep work for supper and hang out by the pool. We did take them to Build-a-Bear one afternoon and Chuck E Cheese another, but essentially afternoons were restful. And amazingly, unlike other times when I am so busy, my house still looks great and my laundry is all done!!! Thank God for Hayley (the housekeeper).

Emily is having a good week. The "resting" is hard for her. She is a very active child and having to take things easy for this month are hard on her. She can still enjoy life and swim and all that - she just has to do it at a much slower pace than she's used to. She was with us a good amount through the week and worked with her mom a couple of days.

I cannot believe tomorrow is Father's Day - this year has flown by. I am really excited about our day though and the presents we have for the dad's in our life.

We are off to a birthday party this afternoon so I need to gather the troops and the sunscreen!! It will be 100 or more today! We were blessed to be invited to two, at the same time... What a conundrum. It's happened to me before though and I just always go with the first invite - don't know if that's the right etiquette or not, but it's the best I could come up with :).

...the space ship goes to Mars and it goes "KABOOM!"

David has such an incredible imagination and capacity to learn and create stories. He continually amazes me and constantly entertains me. In addition to his love of trains he has a love of space. This is in response to his father's love of space and the fact that Dan watches tons of the shows about it. If I watch a show David says "change it to my show". If daddy watches a show David sits down and is fascinated. In fact, so much so, that even when daddy's not here he asks to watch those shows. He's the only 4-year-old I know who watches Discovery Channel and NASA Space DVD's by request. Along with this absorption of information about planets, stars, space ships, etc. he makes up stories. He'll start by telling you how the sun doesn't go up and down to make day and night. The earth spins and that's how we get day and night. Then he'll go into this bizarre "made-up" story and go on and on and on. I need to write a couple of his stories down and save them in his memory book - that will be a cute story years from now.

Arlene (Emily's mom) and I took her to Children's Hospital in Birmingham Thursday to meet with the Pediatric Endocrine specialist. We liked the doctor alot - she was very nice, compassionate, clear spoken, etc. Emily has Grave's Disease (google it if you want). It is a pretty straightforward hyperthyroid situation. Her last labs showed her making 4 times the normal amount of the hormone, hence the symptoms we have been seeing along with quite a few others that we had no idea were attributable to this. There are a few treatment options, but we decided we would go the route of oral medication to start. She will take it 3 times a day and it should stop her thyroid from producing all this excess. The dosage may have to be tweaked as time goes on and there is a small chance she may not be able to take it at all. The doctor will do regular blood work to see how Em's responding to the medicine. She will take this medicine... actually forever, unless she has a bad reaction, we opt for an alternative treatment or she goes into remission (30% chance). One of the particularly dangerous side effects of Graves Disease / hyperthyroidism is racing heart / palpitations / rapid heartbeat / or whichever you call it. A normal resting heart rate is 60 - 100. Emily's was 158 the other day. They took it several times. This was after watching TV. Until the new medicine has a chance to "kick-in" she will also take a medicine to help lower her rate. For the next month until we get that aspect under control she is on "rest". No dance, no running, no jumping, nothing to get hot, no rough-housing or flips in the pool - only lounging. She is supposed to stay cool and relaxed. Since her resting heartbeat was so high - it is very dangerous to think what it could be if she was active. Dance starts back on July 7th, which is a little under a month away. The doctor said to call her and she would let us know if Emily could be released or not. She is taking blood every week for the first month or so. This will give her a real time picture of how the medicines are working.

I've got to share a couple of God moments, as Christy calls them :) related to this. Normally this is diagnosed in women around age 20. The doctor said we were unusual and lucky to have diagnosed this so soon. Well think about it - the only reason it came up is because of some slight swelling at her neck. I know God put that there to warn us. Next - we weren't supposed to be able to get into the specialist until sometime in August. They had a cancellation, which is how we got the appointment this past Thursday. If there had been no cancellation, if we had let Emily proceed with her normal active lifestyle and do the 3-hour per day dance practices and dance camp... there is no telling what would have happened to her, probably cardiac arrest. God set up that cancellation for us so we could keep her safe!!! Thank you all my prayer warriors. Please keep it up.

Well all else is going great around here. Spent alot of time this week with friends and with the pool, LOL. I'm going to do a little work and then go junk store shopping.

Cough, Cough Go Away!!

So I'm thinking of just digging and hole and burying myself in it. I cannot stop coughing - like not sleeping, choking, can't breathe, throw-up coughing - constantly!!!! UGH - as my mother used to say "I've had it up to HERE!!!". I guess I should back up a little first. I mentioned in the last post that I had come down with a cold - aside from getting the laryngitis with it I thought it was a typical viral deal. I even talked about it with the ENT and he too thought viral. With that in mind I just went about my normal routine after a couple of days down. My brother made it in town Friday around lunch time and we planned our weekend with games, eating, shopping, movies, etc. But by Saturday night I felt like death. On Sunday I got up and went to Pri-Med and found out I am sick - like for real sick. White count very elevated - chest x-ray ok though so it's not pneumonia. Bad case of bronchitis. So after a breathing treatment and an antibiotic shot and $100+ worth of prescriptions (with insurance and with a coupon) I am on the road to recovery. Or so I hope. I actually feel marginally better, but I cannot stop coughing and that is keeping me from sleeping and actually keeping the whole family from sleeping. I feel like I felt when I had whooping cough last year - the cough reflex does not go away, no matter what I do.

Well I guess that's enough whining :). Let's see what's going on with everyone else...

Emily's ultrasound results came back and showed no goiter and no masses - thank you GOD and all my prayer warriors out there. Next step is to see the pediatric endocrinologist at Children's in Birmingham on Thursday. Her mom and I will take her to the appointment together.

David, I think I reported, saw his ENT last week on Monday and all was fine (surgery follow-up). Thursday he saw his pediatrician for his 4-year-old check-up. After the usual height and weight and physical exam we discussed his behavior and not-sleeping, etc. She had some very positive things to say and prescribed for me a new sleeping medicine for him (this is the 3rd thing we will try). The weird thing was his ears and throat looked fine. Then he blew his nose towards the end and when he turned around I saw bloody drainage coming out of his ear. I called her back in and she looked in the ear and it was full of the stuff. So we left with an antibiotic. I just can't believe that it's been only a month since his 4th surgery and we already have another ear issue. And it's not getting better, or it doesn't seem so. He's been on the antibiotic twice a day since Thursday and the ear is still draining and he cannot stop messing with it. I looked inside it this morning and I see something in there. The tube already coming out???? The osteoma (bony growth thing)???? A foreign object???? Seriously - this ear thing is driving me batty!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say I'll call the ENT today and assume we'll go in to see him.

Dan's fine, just working way too hard and too many hours. His vegetable garden is doing great and he laid sod in the back yard, which is a dramatic improvement around the swing set.

I guess that's all my whining for today - thanks for listening and thanks in advance to my loved ones and prayer warriors out there!!! I know you are thinking of us and that means a ton.