Not quite to plan.

About a year ago, I started to have these sharp pains in my right side. As most of us busy people do, I lived with it for a couple weeks. In the middle of a styled wedding shoot at work, the pain became unbearable and my mind immediately went to appendicitis.

My doctor was able to get me in for an office visit that afternoon, so off I went to her office in Folsom. After poking around my stomach for awhile  she determined that I did not have appendicitis, but believed I may have a hernia- not much of a relief in that diagnosis. Unfortunately after my ultrasound, my pain sky rocketed and I landed in the ER.

My ER doc confirmed that it was not a hernia, however he did not know what it was. In the ultrasound all they could see was a hazy circle. On top of that, they also could not pinpoint where this hazy circle was actually located. He recommended a more in depth ultrasound and scheduled it for the next day.

When my primary doc received those results the diagnosis was just as hazy as the circle they had seen in the initial ultrasound. They believed it was some sort of an encapsulated mass likely in my right lung. Now the use of the word "mass" sends shivers down just about everyone's spines no matter where it is. I still don't know how I managed to remain as calm and collected as I was through this whole process. With each new test and office visit there really wasn't much certainty. What is was, was anyone's guess.  I was referred to a pulmonologist who ordered more tests. Another ultrasound, a couple of x-rays, and a cat scan did not give us too many more answers. We narrowed it down to, yes it's in your lung, its 3.7 x 3.2 cm and it's a round density and besides the pain, I was asymptomatic. 

My pulomonologist poured over medical texts, asked pretty much all the pulomonologists in the office for their professional opinions, but overall they were stumped. We finally settled on a ct-guided biopsy to take a sample of the "density".

My husband, Jeff and I had decided earlier in the year that we wanted to add to our family, but when all of this started, we thought it was best to table having another child for the time being until this was resolved.

When the day for my CT guided biopsy came, they asked me all the typical questions and if I was pregnant. Of course, I emphatically said no, as I had had so many pregnancy tests done on me throughout this process that there was no way. They drew blood anyways and sent it off to the lab for some pre-biopsy testing as well as another pregnancy test. Since I was so sure that I was not pregnant, especially since two weeks prior they had done a test, we went ahead with the biopsy.

The biopsy went smoothly and they discovered that my "density" was a cyst. The doctors were able to drain it and get clear samples to send off to the lab in order to determine what it actually was that was growing in my lung. After waiting the obligatory hour or so, to make sure there were no complications, I got to go home with my husband.

I settled in at home with Jeff, to relax and rest and wait for the meds to wear off. We had just turned on the TV and settled onto the couch when the phone rang. I picked it up and it was my radiologist. My blood work had come back, and it showed my HCG levels were 25,000.

I was pregnant. 

He recommended a secondary test be ordered and he and my primary physician wanted me to see an OB right away.

My OB confirmed that I was in fact five weeks pregnant.

Not quite the timing we were hoping for. 

We were thrilled to be expanding our family, however the timing was less that desirable, and presented a whole list of concerns, questions, and frankly anxiety. We had no choice to rely on each other, my doctors and put our faith in God that this would all turn out the way it was meant to.

Here was the start albeit rocky,  to our second time around.

A new feel, for an old blog

It has been many years since I have written on this blog. I graduated college, started a career, got married, had a little boy, moved, bought a home, changed direction in my career, and had a little girl.

Life took over and I let my writing fall away.

Writing has always been a release for me. An opportunity to get all my thoughts and feelings out, whether it be in a short story, poem, or song. My pen and paper, or in this case laptop and internet, have always been there as a tool for creativity and relaxation. A tool I've missed.

I went to school to get a degree in Journalism/ Marketing, because of my love for writing in its many forms. I wrote many articles for the Auburn Journal and a few for the Sac State Hornet, and loved every minute of it. I even edited a sci-fi novel for a gentleman who was fulfilling his dreams and self publishing.

Somewhere down the line, I let life take over and stopped writing. If I had told my younger self, that I would go years without writing anything- I don't think she would have believed me.

When I had my son, I dipped my toes back into writing again, but life took back over. I started writing press releases, newsletter copy and social media copy at work and realized how much I missed being able to express myself through writing. It was so much fun and I remembered how good I was at it.

With my daughter here, I feel like I have so much to say about being a mom in this crazy world, not to mention writing helps me keep my sanity! I have learned so much since having my son, that has made the second time around so much easier and I want to share. Maybe I will be able to help someone else too.

Here's to the second time around!

Christmas is a time for....

After seeing 2012 the other night, it made me think about the coming holiday. Even if the whole theory about the world ending in 2012 isn’t true, it still makes you want to spend time with your family.
The whole premise of the film is that the world is falling apart and is soon to be gone. It really makes you think about how precious time is. Even though the movie is not real it still brings up good points. In the film John Cusack’s character is divorced from his wife and barely spends anytime with his two children. As soon as the Earth’s destabilization starts he sees just how important his family is to him and how much he wants to be with them and an active part of their lives.

The thought that springs into my mind is the old adage of; you never know what is going to happen, as well as be prepared for anything to happen.
During this time of year we want to be around those we love and care about as much as possible.
As I mentioned in my Thanksgiving column, my grandmother is in a nursing home. Do to school I don’t get to see her as much as I would like to, especially with school. With the holiday season in full swing, it is hard to be away from family.
When I was younger the only time I saw my grandparents was during the holidays. They always worked and barely came up to see us. They only lived in Los Angeles, which at the time was only about two hours away from us, on a good traffic day.
I always have remembered that whenever it was Grandparents day, they were never there. I was always the only kid, who didn’t have her grandparents there with her. I went to a private school, so we always did something special. At the time I played piano, so I usually performed a song or two during chapel. Some of the other kids would “lend” me their grandparents for part of the day. The other grandparents were really generous about sharing their appreciation for all of the kids.
Once my grandparents retired, I hoped that the work excuse would no longer be there and that I would see them more often. Unfortunately I didn’t see them as often as I had hoped. Once we moved up to Northern California, not much changed either. We constantly tried to get them to move up here to be surrounded by family. My sisters both live up here, and my uncle is only a couple hours away. They still resisted coming up here though.

When my grandmother first became sick, the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong, but for months they could not come to a solid conclusion. Finally they found a mass on her lung. She went into surgery about a month later, and my mother went down to help. She stayed down there for two months helping with my grandmother’s recovery.
She was getting better.

About two months after, my mom came back home. Shortly after m grandmother started feeling ill again.

Once again the doctors poked and prodded at her.
She had scan after scan done, to see what was wrong.

They found that there was another mass on her adrenal gland.

It was inoperable.

My family started the long search of finding somewhere for her to go to be treated.
We found a doctor up here, and we made the decision to move her and my grandfather up to Grass Valley, and into our home.

Unfortunately treatment was not working for her, and she stopped.

Out of all the years I wanted to spend with my grandmother, this was not really what I had in mind.

Now all I want to do is spend as much time with her as possible.

This Christmas may be the last that I spend with her, and I want to make the most of it.

As Cusack found out in 2012, being with family is the only thing that matters.

Not so Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving was a very different one.

It was the first Thanksgiving without my grandmother there.

She is still alive, but she is now in a care facility.

She has stage four, adrenal/lung cancer and for her own safety, due to a fall, and to lessen the stress on my grandfather, she went into one of the top of the line care facilities in Auburn. My sisters and uncles visited her during the day, but my mom and I stayed at home to prepare for the meal.

Naturally my grandfather didn’t come to Thanksgiving dinner. He stayed at the care facility with my grandmother and ate dinner with her. So Thanksgiving was short two people, leaving us with only thirteen at the table.

My mom had made a fabulous turkey and my sisters had made wonderful sides. It was great to see my family. My cousins I only see once a year, even though they only live in Minden, Nevada, which is like a two-three hour drive.

Not really that far.

Every Thanksgiving they come over to see us and stay for a couple days. Their dad comes with them, my mom’s brother, but their mother never comes. I would say that I haven’t seen her for a good seven, maybe eight years.

Being the youngest, I am still not quite clear on why she does not come. She used to come to Thanksgiving, but ceased to do so when they move to Minden. Though even when we lived in Solvang, my uncle would come all the way down with my cousin and spend time with us.
Apparently she stays home while they are gone and decorates the house for Christmas and has her “me” time. I find it to be very bazaar that she would not want to spend her Thanksgiving with her family.
I’ve heard that it’s because she does not like my Grandfather, which is understandable, since he isn’t the easiest to get along with.

He’s an Aries. Need I say more?

He likes to work the room, tell his jokes and be the center of attention. After awhile it really gets to be kind of old. Also it is near impossible to have a conversation with him. It’s very one-sided.

He talks.

You listen.

That’s it.

So if that were the reason I would completely be on her side, and understand. I’ve also heard that it is because my uncle told my grandparents something embarrassing about her and her family.

Ok. That works, but after awhile you’ve got to get over it. It’s not like anyone is going to hold it
against you. Everyone’s got their own issues, so it doesn’t really matter.
But whatever the reason is, I think it’s kind of silly for her not to spend time with her family on Thanksgiving.

My cousin’s are six and twelve. The oldest is getting to an age where she has to be wondering why her mother doesn’t come, and knows that it probably isn’t because she has to get the house all ready for the next holiday.

That would be an interesting conversation to be a fly on the wall for.

Then we get to my other uncle and his new wife, wife number three. You know what they say, third time’s a charm. I swear they are absolutely perfect for each other.

Each perfectly giving the rest of the family the cold shoulder. Got to love a couple who are so perfectly matched.

For reasons that I won’t go into, since I am steadily approaching the word limit, he and my mom aren’t entirely getting along at the moment and the sentiment has stretched to the entire family.
He and his wife were very guarded the entire night and where among the first to leave, with my late arriving grandfather.


Everyone was out by nine, which was perfect since I had to be up at three, to go to work for the ever exciting Black Friday.

But that’s a story for another column.

You killed it....

Achmed, Bubba J, Walter, and Peanut.

All are dummies.

Well, dummies for the ventriloquist comedian, Jeff Dunham.

Jeff Dunham has an interesting routine for a standup comic.
It is hard to come up with new, funny jokes all the time, but it is even more difficult to do so with characters. You need to have jokes that fit the character’s personality. This is something that Dunham does well.
He has done many shows and various specials for comedy central. Clips from his routines are all over YouTube. His current venture is a half hour comedy show on Comedy Central.

The show opens with Dunham talking and then it moves on to one of his characters. He starts out with a standup style opening and then it goes to a skit of one the characters. They either go to the doctor, or some other event that works with the character’s personality.

It’s usually a five minuet short, with the characters by themselves without Dunham present.

In itself that’s kind of interesting, since they are puppets.

In an episode he has Achmed the dead terrorist, who is a skeleton with a turban on his head; try to become a U.S. citizen. He sits in the class and answers the U.S. history questions with his funny smart ass remarks. It gets so ridiculous that even though you try, you can’t help but laugh. Achmed’s signature line is “I kill you!” In the short he becomes fed up with the teacher and says “I kill you!” She then straight faced critiques him on how to properly say the phrase. By the end, the entire class was attempting to repeat the phrase with an appropriate American accent.
Horribly painful by the end, but so bad you had to laugh at the ridiculousness.

Most of his characters show up in every episode, even if it is for a brief moment. Though it is nice to see his whole cast of characters, the little throw-ins do not make any sense. Even worse, they are not even funny.

In one episode they had Walter giving advice to a couple. The segment is titled Walter’s relationship advice. In the segment Walter does not cover anything relationship related. He gives the guy advice on how to get a job. It wasn’t to particularly funny and subpar to what his normal routines are.

As much as I hate to agree with the critics, the show is not as good as his regular comedy. His normal routine is far superior to this show. I am not sure if it was because I was expecting it to be like his stand up, or if it is really just a crappy set up.

During his stand up, he does a bit with one of his characters and then movies on to another. Even when he is on another character’s routine he will still incorporate one of the others.
For example, if he was doing a skit with Achmed, you would hear comments from Walter. You would never see Walter, but you would hear him or his laugh from somewhere off stage.

Also Peanut and Jose did a whole segment together, and even though Dunham put Jose away he would still talk from the box, which added a lot of extra humor to the routine, though his puppets are hilarious by themselves.

It really is a shame that his comedy central show is not quite as good as his stand up. It has, though, gotten an enormous amount of ratings

One critic, Randee Dawn, pointed out that just because it is popular that doesn’t mean that it is good.
As much as I disliked the rest of what the critic said about the show, I have to agree.

Maybe if they can work out the kinks within the show, then maybe it will improve. But until then I wouldn’t recommend watching the show.

For more of Dawn's review http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/tv-reviews/the-jeff-dunham-show-tv-review-1004026350.story

It's the most stressful time, of the year

As fall 2009 semester is winding down, the students stress levels are winding up.

Projects and tests are moving into the forefront of professors agendas. Not to mention that they are trying to wrap up the semesters, on target. They take the last couple weeks to cram as much information into our brains in order to “teach” us all they had planned, and have us spew it back out on a test the following week, plus everything we learned at the beginning of the semester.


Many students tend to put things off a little bit, which never helps. This is the time of the semester were people have to buckle down and focus on school, while still trying to maintain a reasonable social life, as well as their work schedule. If you work in retail, you know this is the biggest and busiest season, with Christmas coming and all.


Walking into the mall is a reminder of that. However pretty the decorations are, you always wonder, why can’t they wait until after Thanksgiving?
Though there are plenty of reasons for them to start the decorations and visits with Santa early. Ok how about waiting until after Halloween?


The decorations go up overnight anyways. There’s a thought, you never see half finished decorations in the mall. It’s not there one day, and boom! It’s all decked out the next.
So getting back to how this affects school, and the students. If you work in retail, the stores start staying open later and later the closer it gets to Christmas.

Our favorite is when the stores are open until midnight. In Grass Valley, no one is out at midnight. No one is even out past nine o’ clock. You maybe get a few people until ten, but past that, is pushing it.

So we poor associates have to stand around and do absolutely nothing. Sure we have to straighten and do go backs and make the stores look presentable for the next day.


That was done around seven thirty, and due to lack of traffic, hasn’t changed much.

In the back of your mind you find yourself thinking, there was a test that I could be preparing for, or I need to do my part of our groups power point presentation.


But no, we have to be there, in case someone wants to come shopping.

The other thing that is adding to the stress this year is planning for next year’s classes. This week they just released the new sign up dates for spring 2010. For me, the spring semester will be my last. So, of course, I submitted my graduation application last spring so I would be all set.


I wonder that if when they took in all of our graduation applications, if they knew that half of the classes we put down on the sheet wouldn’t be offered for the spring.

Sure the mock up of the schedule that was posted on My Sac State, said the classes would be offered, leading us into a false sense of security that everything would be fine and all we would have to do is sign up on our registration date.

Ah, but then we get down to our little budget crisis. Now half of the classes that are listed on my graduation application are not being offered anymore, and another one is moved to a different day.

A class being moved to a different day is a huge deal for me, because I drive in from Grass Valley every day. Well, every day I go to school that is.


It’s a bonus for me to get all my classes on two days so that I won’t have to use as much gas, and spend as much time driving.

Not to mention keep my work schedule, semi-normal.

So now, on top of projects and tests, I have to worry about if I am going to be able to get all my classes, including the substitute ones, so I can actually graduate in the spring.

This truly is the most stressful time of the year.

Pole-Dancing Cat

“You should carry it around with you, then you can do a little pole dance.”

Ahh…A kind customer’s suggestion for an improvement to my Halloween costume.

A few moments before, my well-meaning customer, came to me looking for a hook to get a workout top down from one of the face outs. (Face outs: metal bars protruding from the wall, where retailers put merchandise high up out of the average customers reach, to torment them, of course.)

First, she complimented me on my outfit saying that I looked “cute” and then proceeded to ask if I knew where the “pole that is used to get things down with” is, aka a hook. During the hunt for the elusive hook, slyly hidden on the opposite wall from the shirt she wanted down, came her good natured suggestion.

Ah the costume.

At my work, we are allowed to dress up for Halloween, as long as the costume does not interfere with our ability to do our job and as long as it is within dress code.
Check. Check.

Mine, consisted of an animal print dress with a six inch band of fur across the bottom. Faux fur, of course. It also had a layer of faux fur around the neck and attached to the back was a black tail. The dress wasn’t that short, but to prevent any situations arising, I added black leggings. Also in order to keep the outfit appropriate, I added a shrug to the top just in case people thought the cut of the shoulders was too revealing.

With black boots, and black gloves, I was almost all set. I painted on a nose and whiskers and made ears with silver pipe cleaners. For whatever reason, the outfit also included a blonde wig. As a brunette, I thought this could be kind of a fun experience, being blonde for a day.

I pinned the ears onto my blonde wig and I was set.

A blonde cat. It was Halloween, so it worked.

My co-workers got a kick out of the blonde wig, and the outfit in general. Most of the customers did as well. Plenty of “Oh my gosh! That is so cute!”’s were thrown my way. I was the only cat out of all the associated in the store, followed by a witch, a “shot in the dark”, and I’m assuming the other associate was a, putting it nicely, lady of the night. Though she was referred to, multiple times, as our bosses, “ho.”

Overall we were a pretty creative and eclectic bunch. The only other person that did not approve of the outfit was in fact not a person at all.


It was my tortoise shell cat, Kaci.

She happened to be in the front yard when I was on my way out. The look that cat gave me said it all.
“What is wrong with you?, What have you done?, and Why?,” were combined all into one, and followed swiftly by a disapproving “meow” and a shake of her little head.

With that she turned away and as if to prove that a real cat was the only cool cat, she gave me a sassy swish of her tail.

With that reaction, I guess I should have known better than to actually go out in public.