2009 Recap
I really can’t believe what a blur 2009 was. Every year I think, ‘this is the year things will slow down’ and all it does is speed up. I guess the older you get the faster time flies. I wish I had known this when I was younger and quit being in such a dang hurry to get older! 
Here’s a 2009 recap with some Christmas, Birthday, and Mia (who’s doing great, btw and did NOT come down with Parvo!!!) pictures thrown in for fun.
January: We purchased a new camera and I’ve bombarded this site with photos since. I’d like to think I’m getting better at taking good photos at least. 
This was the month I also revealed how obsessed my kids have become with nerf dart guns. Kayla finished and came home from her internship at Disneyland.
February – March: I (Tracie) turned 29 AGAIN. For the 11th time. Imagine that? We spent a beautiful weekend at Lincoln City, OR for my birthday. Cody turned 8 in March. I didn’t report much else in February or March and now it seems to be a blur. I really must post more often! If for nothing else, so I can remember what the heck happened throughout the blur of each passing year.
April: I remember April without even having to look at the archives. April was the month that I discovered Thing #1. While having Thing #1 investigated, the docs found Thing #2. April was the month my poor poked, prodded, dyed, cut open, accessorized, and even burned boobies will never forget! April was pretty much all about my boobs. How fun! Except, not. April was also intense for other reasons (court hearings related to Lil Miss H’s adoption) that was supposed to but didn’t happen and a crap load of phone calls and drama related to that.
May: This was the month we bought our Suburban and spent the first of THREE weekends at Cathy’s house. How cool is it that we got to go to Trout Lake three times this year? And technically we went for a few hours one other time and to BZ on Christmas Eve too. That’s five trips east of Hood River this year to see Cathy and family. Maybe we can shoot for even more in 2010?? My mom also took me to see the American Idols live in concert which was pretty fun. I also remember complaining a lot about medical bills this month.
June: Ahhh June. How could I forget E. Coli June? June was the month I gorged myself on ate a little too much cookie dough and will never forget it. (Remember the whole cookie dough recall thing?) Technically I don’t know for sure that I got E. Coli but I know I got damn sick and that’s just too much coincidence. I rarely even eat cookie dough. Kat turned 18 and got her GED. I went with Lil Miss’ kindergarten class to the Oregon Zoo and I got a lot of laundry done.
July: was memorable for the record breaking heat. 108 degrees was just way too freakin’ hot! It was the month we camped downstairs by air conditioners, and spent money we didn’t have to buy more air conditioners. Oi. We had our annual Fourth of July party and had a blast! Casey turned 11. I also did a lot of laundry.
August: Jack and I celebrated our 15th year together and our 10th wedding anniversary in gorgeous Seaside, Oregon; the same place we honeymooned. Someone ran over our mailbox kiosk, we spend insane amounts of money we didn’t have on school supplies and clothes for the kids, and I did a lot of laundry. I’m sensing a theme here.
September: was all about Pearl Jam! Well, not JUST about Pearl Jam but it was definitely one of the highlights of our year (along with our anniversary). Jack turned almost 40 (muhahahaha) and we spent Labor Day weekend at Cathy’s in Trout Lake and had a blast. The kids started back to school.
October: Miss H’s adoption was finally finalized! Jack’s Godzilla got an upgrade, and of course there was Halloween.
November: Kayla turned 20 (*gulp*), Jackie turned 15, and Kevin performed a solo in choir. We spent Thanksgiving weekend with almost all the family at Jack’s grandmother’s.
December: Much holiday and birthday madness ensued. Kevin turned 18, Melissa turned 14, and Lil Miss turned 7. We adopted Mia, our little Rat Terrier from the Oregon Humane society who rescued her from an overwhelmed breeder in Tillamook, Oregon. She was quite sick and the first week with her was a blur of sickness, vets, and crap loads of money we did not have flying out our window to get her better (in addition to all the Christmas and Birthday shopping…) Hopefully the insurance she came with will come through and cover most of it! We spent Christmas eve at Jack’s Grandma’s and paid Sarah and her family a visit. The day after Christmas we drove up to Cathy’s and spent the night so we could visit and fix her door. New Year’s eve was spent quietly at home with family. It was a good end to a great year.
2009 had its ups and downs for certain. I look back on the year and feel lucky and very thankful that mostly there were ups. We are certainly blessed.
Happy New Year!
Exercise and weight loss
Remember this rant? Exercise only affects 5% of weight loss… WTF?
Ever since then, I keep hearing that this may actually be true: Exercise has a lot less of an affect on weight loss than previously thought. I had such a hard time wrapping my brain around that concept, but more and more articles are saying so and it’s starting to make a little bit of sense to me.
I know many who have lost weight with the “eat less move more” mindset as posted in this article, “Exercise? A fat lot of good that is for weight loss”. I’ve lost weight with this mindset. But everyone I know who’s gone this route has gained most, if not all of it, back. I lost 50 lbs! But I gained 15 back, then lost five again and am currently plateaued and have been for two years.
Here’s a quote from The Times article where The Mayo Clinic concluded, from recent research, that:
Most studies have demonstrated no or modest weight loss with exercise alone … patients should have realistic expectations, an exercise regimen … is unlikely to result in short-term weight loss beyond what is achieved with dietary change.
So I guess instead of looking for a gym membership, I should be consulting with a dietitian?
Want a side of E. Coli with that?
If you follow me on Twitter, you likely saw this update:
Pretty sure I just got over a touch of food poisoning. Blech. Feeling a bit better now. #fb8:15 PM Jun 3rd from TwitterFon
Then I posted the next Friday about it:
Wednesday I got some sort of food poisoning or a strange 8 hour bug or something. Around 1 PM or so, I started feeling like crap, continued to feel like crap while spending lots of time in the bathroom until about 8 PM. Then I miraculously felt better and ate some soup. I’m leaning toward food poisoning.
Then I hear about this: Toll House cookie dough recalled, linked to E. coli
Guess what I was nibbling on the prior Tuesday night and Wednesday morning?
.
.
.
If you guessed Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough… you’re 100% accurate. Jack and Sissa bought a tub of it the day before and we had a few nibbles off it before cookies were baked that night. Wednesday morning I ate a spoonful right out of the tub. As a diabetic I know that’s a no-no but it was only a spoonful. Or maybe it was two? I love chocolate chip cookie dough.
But really? E. Coli?? Did I get a touch of E. Coli? I was sick for about 8 hours… Can someone even get a “touch” of something like that? I was the only one who got sick… and it didn’t last days like many with E. Coli symptoms do.. but still. That’s a weird coincidence.
New Graduates
Here’s a quick update on the new happenings in our crazy household. This week flew by in a whirlwind of activity:
Jack had surgery on Tuesday to correct the issue with the gland in his neck. That went very smoothly and fairly quickly despite the surgery taking a bit longer than anticipated due to scar tissue build up from his surgery 11 years ago. Basically it was the polar opposite of my recent surgery experience.
Thursday was the last day of school for my kiddos. Their first day of summer was stormy and a bit wild weather-wise. There were even warnings of cold core funnels. (I’d never heard of those before) but fortunately we didn’t see anything like that and our patio furniture survived the weather this time.
And to top if off Kat turned 18 and we went to two graduation ceremonies. Casey graduated elementary school and will be in Junior High School next year. Katherine graduated high school. Here’s our new graduates:
Congratulations to Mo, and Kat!
More Medical and Health Woes
As if my little medical issues lately weren’t enough, there’s more!
Those of you who know us in the real world (as opposed to the cyber world) know that Jack’s goatee has gotten him into trouble a time or two in his life.
Almost 11 years ago (1998, about a month before Casey was born) he was chewing on a whisker from his beard / goatee (’cause he’s weird like that) and the whisker broke, flew into his mouth, burrowed under his tongue, and proceeded to cause a massive infection behind and below the base of his tongue that could have killed him.
He was sick for several weeks and had doctors confused as to what was wrong with him. We went back and forth to various doctors several times in a five week period who would only prescribe antibiotics then send him home. He’d get a little better from the antiobitics but as soon as they ran out he’d be sick again. Jack eventually ending up in the ER when he became delirious with a 104 temperature and his throat was almost swollen shut. I threw a small fit demanding someone do *something* and refused to leave till we had an answer. We were finally referred to an ear, nose, and throat specialist.
He too almost sent us away not knowing what was wrong. None of the doctors could see or even feel the infection because it was lodged so far back under his tongue and moving inward, almost under his jaw. The specialist finally found the abscess and was quite shocked at how bad it was. He sent us to the hospital right away and did an emergency surgery to fix it. Jack was in the hospital for almost five days after. It was a major ordeal and left him with an almost 3 inch scar on his neck.
The reason it could have killed him is the infection was close to the vein (artery?) that goes from your tongue down to your heart. If the infection had gotten in that vein, he wouldn’t have made it.
Fast forward to today, he still has some issues with the area, usually in the form of a clogged salivary gland under his tongue from time to time. It’s always cleared up on its own, but this time it didn’t and he started getting swollen in the same area as his scar.
He has another infection that we now know needs attention asap. He had it looked at Monday and today he had a quick little surgery to extract the infection. He’s being referred to another ear, nose, throat specialist because he shouldn’t be having these problems. The oral surgeon’s theory is the infection/surgery from 11 years ago may have disturbed the way his salivary glands are functioning and the area will need to be revisited with another surgery and possibly a correction.
Do we have some crazy shit happen to us or WHAT?? Actually, Jack has the crazy stuff happen to him. He’s the one who can’t be normal. (And anyone who knows him knows this to be 100% accurate!) He can’t just break a leg or something. Oh no. He has to go and almost kill himself because he happened to chew on his whiskers. Do normal guys even do that? He seems to think so. I think Jack’s just… weird.
Our medical bills this year are going to really REALLY suck. At least we’re doing our part in helping the medical field stay in business. 
