How Genetics Work

When a Mommy and a Daddy are in love, sometimes the Daddy plants a seed inside the Mommy. It grows and grows and grows until the Mommy has a clone of herself.

The End.

Baby News

No, I'm not pregnant. Stop it.

I haven't talked about the reversal because Mr. R and I have been going back and forth on the situation, and posting about it was making me feel like I was complaining, so I just didn't. I've had days when I'm furious with ol Mr. R for stalling. Then I have days when the three kids I already have are driving me nuts and I think "Phew, I don't have to have any more kids!" Plus, there is the fact that I work...full time. And I go to school...part time. And my husband is gone...all the time! But that desire inside me to have another child is so strong, that even on days when I feel like total crap, when I'm exhausted, when work has me fried, I still feel that urge. Funny how God made us women, isn't it. Fifteen years ago, I never would have considered myself a maternal person. Now, I feel like it's one of my strongest traits.

Mr. R wants to wait another year, which I am not happy about. My thing is, the longer we wait, the easier it is to put stuff off. I'd still have to work if and when I had a baby, because I carry the health insurance on the family. Heady stuff, that is.

Anyway, for anyone who was wondering what was going on with my uterus, that is the news. Basically, there is no news. We are still in stand-by mode.

Locks of Love

Almost waist length, but not quite. I was going for that, but I give up.


14 inches later, I have a sassy new 'do.



I gotta fire that housekeeper. What a lazy woman!




Yes, I love it. Now I need to pick a new hair color. You can't tell in this picture, but the top of my head is almost totally gray. I am thinking RADICAL CHANGE. If you could pick my new color, what would you do? Note: I have straight, very thick, prone to frizz dark brown hair. Blue eyes, and a pale olive complexion. What would YOU do?

Tell Your People You Love Them

It's been a hard week for me. Even though I posted cheerful back to school pictures on Monday, I was crying inside. One of my dear friends, a coworker named Tammy, lost her precious husband over the weekend. He drowned in the surf off the very beach I just vacationed at, due to Hurricane Bill.

I simply can't imagine having a great day at the beach, swimming with my husband, then watching him get swept out to sea, trying to reach him and instead watching him drown. I am weeping now, just thinking of my friend desperately trying to reach him, and not being able to. Blessedly, they were able to find his body, and they are having a funeral on Thursday. He was only 54.

So please, when you get home from work tonight, forget about the frustrations of work, traffic, and silly crap. Kiss your husband, hug your kids, and remember what's important in life. Life can be horrifyingly too short for some. Just love them while you can, ok?

Growing Up...

Missy with our cat Jack.


Missy with a ticked off Hercules.




Missy and our depressed dog Roscoe. If Roscoe had thumbs, he'd kill himself when she leaves the house. He is HER DOG.


Missy showing off her outfit.


Missy and her friend Kayla. I think Kayla looks a bit like a younger Winona Ryder. You?






Look who's excited about middle school. NOT.


Neither one wanted their picture taken this morning, but Mama wins every time.



"Mom! STOP IT!"






My babies started school today. Missy is in her first year of high school, Tiger is in 7th grade, and Bucket started sixth grade which is the first year of middle school around these parts. No more elementary school for us. Wow.

Anyway, here are some (blurred) pictures. I didn't have my glasses on and didn't realize that they were going to come out like this. But for reals, this is how I see without glasses on. This is Sarah-vision.

HOORAY!!!

As I posted several weeks ago, my regular pcp, Dr. B, fired me from his practice. I had questioned him on the results on one of my diabetes test. Apparently, being an advocate of your own health is sternly frowned upon over there. I was angry at first, then relieved. The guy was a jerk and I don't miss his condescending nature for one minute.

So I looked through the FH directory and tried to find a new pcp, simply by looking at names. Yeah, that's really hard to do. I didn't want to drive to Orlando every time, and I wanted a doctor who speaks English proficiently (harder to find in my area than you'd think.) So I came across a female doctor whose name I could actually pronounce, and I called up to make an appointment. They asked me if I wanted to transfer my records from another physician, and I said, "No, I'm going to be interviewing your physician first to see if we're a good fit." You see, peeps, you can do that. Doctors work for YOU. Not the other way around.

Anyhoodle, I was pleased as punch to find out 1) She spoke English clearly 2) She listened to me speak. Really! 3) Asked me what approach I wanted to take regarding my medications 4) was fatter than me!

I haven't weighed myself in months, and was glad that I was 266. Not low for me, but I haven't gained a ton back either. Still too high by about 100 pounds, per the world, but meh. She asked me...she actually asked me!..."Are you happy here, or would you like to lose?" I said, I'm not happy here, I'd like to lose, but until my bp is under control, I am scared to exercise vigorously. She nodded and said, "Your blood pressure is 130/100. If you did exercise vigorously, you would probably pass out from the pressure. Let's work on your bp, get it down, and then you can get back in the gym, or on the bike, or whatever makes you happy."

Can I get an AMEN around here?!?! Finally! She said EXACTLY what I've been trying to tell the jerk pcp for months. How do you expect me to drop pounds when I feel like my head is going to ricochet off my neck at any minute?!?! All he kept saying was, lose weight, lose weight, lose weight, and the bp will come down. Actually, he had those steps backwards. The bp needs to come down, before I can exercise in a way that will take those pounds off. I'd been trying to say that for months, and this new pcp got it right. I had my records transferred from the jerk and will be happily staying with Dr. V. (the new lady I like so much.)

** disclaimer: If you have a doctor you like who is foreign or has a heavy accent, and you LIKE him/her, then by all means, stick with that person. My physician search was about ME, and what makes ME comfortable, and I don't like having to translate from one language to another in my head. My health is too important for me to have to ask someone to constantly repeat themselves so I can understand them. My kids' pediatrician is from India, and I understand her perfectly. If Spanish or Creole is your first language, then I bet you'd be more comfortable with someone who speaks those languages too, and that's fine. Remember, it's all about YOU!

Quick!

They sent me 101 accounts to authorize today!



Someone send me a medic and a margarita, stat! (not necessarily in that order.)

Rest, My Weary Soul

Hey there everyone. I didn't mean to disappear after I posted my vacation pics, but I have just felt run down and sad the past few days. Yeah, I know. I just got back from a vacation with my husband and I'm sad. I mean, what is wrong with me?

Well, lots of things. Work has lately been draining my soul. Where I normally have 50 accts faxed to me per day, I've been getting 70-100 per day. As the summer lingers, the kids are being nitpicky with each other. My AC broke AGAIN. Third time in less than three months. My vacation, honestly, was not that great. Mr. R had a fabulous time, fishing and getting some sun. Me? I tried, peeps. But I seriously can't take the heat, and I spent a lot of time by myself in the condo watching Food Network. I was relaxing, but I wasn't happy. We might as well have taken separate vacations. I missed the kids (?!) and was glad to be home in my own house (except for the Sleep Number Bed. I miss you, SNB.) I have an appointment with a new pcp on Friday, and I am fervently praying that she is not a fat basher. Also, I forgot the middle school orientation for Bucket last week. There goes my Mom of the Year Award. Hmph.

So as you can see, lots of little things, all balled up into a few weeks. I just felt heavy. Heavy with worry, and problems, and issues. So when I received an e-mail from my pastor about a prayer meeting tonight, I resolved myself to attend. I *never* go to these things. I always tell myself that I'm too busy, or that my prayers don't matter, or since I'm not a powerful person, that I can't have powerful prayer. I didn't let me talk myself out of it, and so I went.

Oh peeps, it was nice. I spent an hour praying. I can't remember the last time I spent an entire hour just talking to God. I don't do fancy prayer stuff. I talk (in my head) just as clearly as I'm typing this out right now. No "thees" and "thous" for me. I prayed for the world, our country, missionaries, families, and so many more things than just me and my particular situation. But I prayed for those too. And I guess it worked, because I ran into Nicola at Publix afterwards and she told me I looked happy. Getting milk. Go figure!

Anyway, I feel a lot better now. I'm about to clear off my desk, then I'm going to take a long shower, shave my legs, and wear my favorite red pajama bottoms and black tank top to bed. I think I'm going to pluck my brows too, they are getting to be a bit much again. I feel good. :)

Pictures, Pictures Galore

I'm back from my anniversary trip. I'd like to say I had fun. I'd like to say it was romantic, and sweet, and that I'd do it again.
Nope. Yes, I'd go back, and yes, I had fun. But 2009 Sarah would like to smack the crap out of 1994 Sarah for having the idea of getting married in August. I mean, UGH!!! It was so hot, we stayed inside most of the time, and when it was finally cool enough to be outside, it was 300% humidity, mosquitoes and sand fleas everywhere, and still 95 degrees outside. Oh, but don't worry. The heat index was only 105! *rolls eyes*
Anyhoo, we decided to bring the truck so that in case he caught a fish, my car wouldn't smell like a tuna factory. He's romantic like that.

The harbor. I like pictures like this. It's almost New England-y, except for the heat and the palm trees.

Full kitchen in this condo.



FAVE!!! Sleep number bed, ya'll. I don't know how much one costs, but it will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine. Best sleep I've had in the seven years since my first car accident. I literally woke up pain free. I cried when I came home and had to sleep in my regular bed. I want a sleep number bed. I'll send ya'll to my paypal account if you want to donate.


Doesn't he look sad, looking for the elusive fishy. On this day, it never came.


Nope, not here either.


Ahhh, New Smyrna Beach. Love!


We're on a protected beach here. It's actually a national park. There are yellow sticks everywhere sticking out of the sand, where sea turtles lay their eggs. These eggs are protected and if you are caught touching them, it's a fine and probably some jail time. We're serious about our turtles around here.


This is where my feets belong. At da beach. These are my beloved leopard print flip flops. I adore them. I will cry when a strap breaks.


The hair. It is bad. Normally waist length. Do you see what the humidity has done to me? It is NOT GOOD.


My posture is not good. I never knew that before. Love the shirt. $5.80 at Kohls!



Mr. R called these three pictures the "Cousin It" series.


Hmmm, maybe there are fishies here.


A belligerent little hermit crab who kept waving at me. I guess he figured I was the paparazzi, so I had to oblige.


Atlantic Avenue.


Early morning walk on the beach. Humidity still a factor. Do you see the haze on the right of this picture? That is not fog. It is literally the humidity floating in the air, with the sunlight filtering through it. Every picture I took in the morning has this haze in it.


The only picture of the two of us! I know I look red, but I assure you, I'm not sunburned. Literally, this is how hot it was outside. I just got red from being hot, but I'm still my normal pale self. We were at Chase's on the Beach, and I probably drank 6 glasses of water at dinner. I may have lived here for over 20 years, but I am a northern girl at heart. I gave up on styling my hair and put it in a bun, and didn't even bother with makeup, as it slid right off.


Yay, he finally caught something! The elusive redfish has met its match. I found it amusing that when he caught the redfish, he was wearing the redfish shirt I bought him.


This guy is actually thawing in my sink for dinner tonight. No, not Mr. R. The fish. Silly.


And that is the end of our vacation. I'm already back home, already working, and already missing that delightful Sleep Number Bed!

Short But Sweet

Mr. R and I are going away for a few days to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. Nothing extravagant, nothing crazy, just the two of us. My mom has the kids and the dog, we bought automatic feeders for the kitties, and I am crazily trying to tidy up so I don't come back to a mess. Finishing up work, doing laundry, and keeping the kitchen clean are my goals for the day.

I should be posting again come Wednesday, hopefully with some awesome pictures of our special time.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Have You Ever Tried to Cancel a Credit Card?

Oy vey. I just got off the phone with my old credit card company. It took me 18 months to pay this bad boy off, which was done back in May. In May, I tried to cancel it, but they told me they had a 10 day waiting time on canceling accounts once they are paid off. So of course, I forgot about it...which I'm sure is what they're counting on.
I was going through some paperwork this afternoon after I clocked out (this is an excellent reason to keep up on your paperwork, peeps!) and found the paid off receipt. I suddenly realized that I had never canceled this card, so I grabbed my phone and went to work.
Peeps, I work in health insurance. You KNOW I am used to phone trees, operators who can't speak English, automated systems in Creole, and being disconnected when you hit "0" for the operator. It's hard to fool me and I know my way around these systems. It didn't take me long to get to an "Accounts Manager" who gracefully tried for fifteen minutes to talk me out of canceling my card. She had good points, of course. If I cancel the card, my credit score will go down. (I have a decent credit score. In the low 700s) Well, that's fine. I'm not planning on financing anything right now. They were willing to cut my annual fee in half, down to $40. $40 for what? Seriously, what in the world is the annual fee for? The card had 15% interest. They were already making money off of me. Then she mentioned the perks of the card. I said, "WHAT PERKS?" This card has no points, no free towing, no airline miles. This was a first basic card after college that I maxed out, paid off, maxed out, paid off, maxed out, paid off. Enough is ENOUGH.
Finally, after about fifteen minutes of this woman basically arguing with me over why I should keep the card, I said, quite firmly, "Ma'am, if you are unable to process my request, I will need to speak to your manager and tell him or her why you are wasting my time." Problem solved. Card canceled, documents mailed to me in ten business days, and have a nice day.



So, do you think I did a good thing? Should I have kept the card and paid the $40 to keep my credit score? Or is it smart to get rid of temptation? (I do love to shop.) How much debt are you in these days? Does it keep you up at night, or do you not care about your credit score?

August 6, 1994 - August 6, 2009

1 Corinthians 13

Love

¹If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ²If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. ¹¹When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. ¹²Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

¹³And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Happy 15th anniversary to a man who has loved me, forgiven me, put up with me, cried with me, rejoiced with me, took care of me, sympathized with me, and rolled his eyes at me.
To a man who has shared my life, my fears, my bed and my weirdness.
He cried every time one of our children was born. He turned to stone when he heard the autism diagnosis. We've lived through my parents living with us, then us living with them, and then both his mom and sister moving in with us.
I've given birth in front of him, cried in front of him, thrown up in front of him. I've seen him cry, seen him thrown up, and I took care of him through appendicitis and five kidney stones and really gross gastric reflux.
He is simply my better half.
Happy Anniversary, Mr. R. I love you.

Wonderfully and Fearfully Made

I took down that ridiculous weight counter.

Look, I'm fat. I get it. I can cut myself down to 1500 cals a day, bike ride my tukkus off, drink water until my bellybutton is peeing, and not lose weight.

Sometimes, you just have to accept who you are.

I'm Sarah. I'm plus sized. I wear an 18/20. I have stretch marks, and a decent fat roll around my gut where my body held three amazing children. Maybe someday, I'll have even more children and get even more stretch marks. I have super strong legs, feet that can take me on walks (except in the heat because no matter how long I live in this swamp, I can't get used to this weather. Sorry!) I have a curvy butt, a rack of doom, a squishy tummy and flabby arms. My mom loves me, my kids love me, my husband loves me, JESUS LOVES ME, and I love me! I'll be concentrating more on eating healthily, putting more miles on that bike, walking a 5k without dying, and being the best danged Sarah I can possibly be.

Psalm 139:14 says "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."

I am going to remind myself of that every day when I feel I don't measure up in the world against models who are a foot taller than me, who are fifteen years younger than me, who have not had any children, who smoke cigarettes, heroin and whatever else it takes to remain thin. I'm going to have my coffee, have an awesome meal with my man, and I'm going to have dessert. I'm going to drink a margarita without wondering about the caloric content, and I'm not going to hide myself in swaths of black and brown to hide myself from the world. I like red, and I like orange, and I'm going to wear those colors even though they're probably not the "correct" colors for a plus size girl! I'm going to be beautiful despite what the world thinks about me and I'm going to have fun! I'm going to the beach this weekend, and I'm going to wear a swimsuit! I'm going to lay out in my chair, read a magazine or a book, and melt into the sand. I'm going to buy clothes that fit me, or make them myself. I'm going to wear make up and not fade into the background. I'm going to laugh loudly, smile widely, and not be ashamed just because I don't fit into the social strata.

Yeah. That's what I'm going to do. I'm wonderfully and fearfully made. I'm not a mistake, an aberration, or a mutation.
Now, excuse me. Missy made tacos for dinner and they smell FABULOUS.

More Random Randomness, Because That's How I Roll

1) It's raining. Yay!

2) Does anyone have any ideas on what freezes well for a long period of time in a deep freezer? I'm trying to get a month's worth of meals pre-cooked in case of emergencies.

3) Speaking of emergencies...I may be out for a bit in September. I am having horrific nosebleeds that leave me feeling weak and anemic. The jerk pcp who fired me as his patient did tell me I had a deviated septum. I am going to make an appointment with an ENT and then possibly with a surgeon to have a septoplasty done. Which is what brings us back to point number 2. When I'm out for a week having my possible nasal surgery, I don't want poor Missy to be in charge of cooking while she's in school.

Soooo...any thoughts?

Random Stuff

Our vacation starts Saturday afternoon. Mr. R just took a quick run to Mississippi and took Bucket with him. I'm almost ashamed to say how happy I was to see him go. I love him so much, but he is such a difficult child to live with! As soon as he left, the mood in the house instantly changed. And in a way, that made me sad.

Right now, Missy and Tiger are still sleeping, and I'm working away and drinking my coffee. I like early mornings like this, even though it's Monday and the first business day of the new month. I find a calm repetition in work that is strangely satisfying. You see, with hospital work, my kids can't mess it up. Once I complete an account, it's done. Unlike cleaning my floors, or doing laundry...lol!

I had a previous post in July talking about having a stockpile of food. Well, I've been very slowly working on that. I made buttermilk biscuits and froze them. They came out delicious and reheat quite well. I've noticed Mr. R and Missy foraging around in the deep freezer for them. I made two banana bread loaves, froze one and left the other out to enjoy. I made a homemade strawberry sauce to go over a homemade pound cake. My next step is to purchase dry items such as pasta, rice, and crackers as they go on sale. Unfortunately, my house has next to no storage and I'm stacking all this stuff in a corner of my bedroom. I have grand plans to expand my kitchen, but no money to do so, poor me!

I also experimented making my own soup. Oh my word, the canned soup at the store has nothing on homemade. It takes so little effort, makes the house smell awesome and is easy to can up on your own. Plus you can control the foods and salt. For example, Mr. R won't eat most canned soups because they all have celery, and he HATES celery. I can't even use celery salt around him, he can taste even a pinch of it and won't eat whatever dish has it. He also doesn't like carrots and green peppers (seriously, what is wrong with this man? I love carrots and green peppers!) and so a lot of pre-made dinners are out of the question for him. Whenever I find a recipe I like, I end up taking out some ingredients and substituting others. For example, he won't eat green peppers, so I substitute corn. Sometimes it works, sometimes not. I guess that's part of cooking, switching stuff out to appease the picky eaters in your life.