A Week of Recovery

So... recovery has been a roller coaster ride, but MUCH MUCH MUCH less exciting than an actual roller coaster ride.  I guess I should just say that there have definitely been good days and bad days.  The morning after surgery was one of my better good days, so I'm glad I was able to update you all so quickly afterward.

Tuesday was basically a blur.  I mostly remember writing my blog post and then posting it on Facebook.  Then, I remember sleeping A LOT. And that is really all. :)

Yummy home-cooked meal

On Wednesday, my good friend Caitlin picked me up and let me join her for her errands of the day so I wouldn't be stuck at home.  She even brought me chocolate milk in the morning!  She made me feel like I was helping her move into her new house when in reality, I was probably sitting on her couch drooling while she moved and packed boxes.  Well, maybe not that bad, but I was pretty out of it.  My BRAND NEW visiting teaching companion from church who JUST moved into the ward made me the dinner to the right on Wednesday.  It was beautiful!  I seriously started crying in the middle of the prayer while blessing the food.  I can't believe that she barely knows me and was willing to cook up quite the meal for Doug and I! 

Yay for color-coded schedules!

On Thursday, I got to go to a meeting at work to help with making the master schedule for all of the teachers in the building.  I woke up feeling pretty awful that morning, but I was determined to go.  I had been wanting to help with the scheduling since I started working there, so I was going drugged or not.  My friend Caitlin was my designated driver once again.  Surprisingly, I was able to help, not by actually creating the schedule, but by putting it into an organized, clear, and easy-to-read format that was colored-coded.  I was worried for a while that everyone there was just trying to make me FEEL like I was being helpful when I was really just sitting there playing and color-coding things on the computer in la-la land.  Haha!  :)  My little chart ACTUALLY did end up helping and was able to keep teachers from getting doubled booked or having weird 15 minute breaks in between specialty classes.  I LOVE using Microsoft Word to create tables and organize information.  I know that this is probably a weird talent, but it really does come in handy.  I think I only slightly offended one person by my drugged behavior, but I'm pretty sure others at the meeting found it rather entertaining.  It turns out I'm still an anal perfectionist on drugs. :)

On Friday, Doug and I went to the new Cobb movie theater nearby and watched the movie, Captain America.  We both really enjoyed it.  As we were leaving the theater, there was this group of boys that were horsing around right in front of us on the sidewalk.  I smiled a little and the dad that was supervising the group of boys started to turn around and apologize, but then said, "Hey, I thought you looked familiar!  It's Mrs. S-!  THIS is how they act when you're NOT around.  I'm sure you had to have had one of these troublemakers in your class this last school year."  One of the boys turned around and smiled and ran up to me giving me a big hug.  I hugged him back and (hopefully) smiled, but to my horror I had NO CLUE what the kid's name was... only that he looked vaguely familiar.  He ran back to his friends to continue horsing around and we waved goodbye to the group and continued on our way.

I then had a FREAK OUT moment.  One thing you need to know about me as a teacher is that I love my students as if they were my own children.  I DO NOT FORGET NAMES!!!  I stood there and dug through my brain trying to remember his name... even one name.  I couldn't remember a single name of a single student that I had taught EVER.  In fact I couldn't remember a single thing from teaching except that I knew I was a teacher.  I took out my iPad and started searching my address book that had my parent list from this past year.  Luckily I found it quickly and it all started to come back.  I had been feeling okay at the theater, but I really hadn't realized what an impact the Percocet had been having on me.

Even as I write this blog post about my last week it's weird to think that it hasn't been that long since I last posted.  The thing that I noticed the most about being on the Percocet is that it really messed with my sense of time.  It seriously feels like I had surgery FOREVER ago.  When I was with my friend on Wednesday, only two days after my surgery I remember telling her to let me do stuff because I needed to heal SOMETIME.  She kept on reminding me, "Jen, you JUST had surgery!"  I still feel really frustrated that I'm not better yet because it feels like so much time has passed.

One thing I've learned from this whole experience is that I HATE narcotic painkillers.  I took what I hope was my last dose Saturday evening.  I still have more than half the prescription left, but I seriously don't want to take even one more pill.  The last pill I took on Saturday made me really nauseous.  It's a good thing I still had a plastic baggy in my purse from the hospital or I would have been cleaning puke out of my car.

I told Doug last night that I was feeling 65% of the way there.  By teacher standards, that's still a D, but it's more than halfway to the 100% mark.   I can't wait to feel good again!

Illness and injury sure do make you feel grateful for the times when you're healthy.

I'm Alive!

First off, I want to thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes.  This was a pretty scary experience for me and it was comforting to know that I had so much support from friends and family.  You'll also have to forgive me of the typos that will exist throughout this post because I am on Percocet.

As you can probably tell by me updating my blog, I am doing well.  I'm pretty dang sore and I'm walking around like a grandma lady, but I made it!  I seriously never thought that I would be so happy to find out that I have endometriosis.  Yep, that's right!  NO CANCER!!

So now that you know the news, you don't have to read the rest, but you can if you like.  My bonky brain never remembers anything so I need to record it all.

Yesterday morning, I woke up at 5am with Doug and couldn't get back to bed.  I gave him like 5 billion hugs and kisses and just watched him drive his car down our street.  After he was gone, I was in complete busy-body mode.  I made sure that his lunches were packed for this week, that all laundry was done and put away, and that my house was somewhat presentable in case someone would be coming to help. I didn't know how I would feel after my surgery and I wanted to make sure that everything was ready.  I had actually stopped taking my pain medication on Saturday because I hated the way it made my brain feel and the pain had subsided somewhat on my right side.  I was rather productive.

First picture once I finally got in the gown.

Kate took me to the hospital.  The hospital has valet parking at the entrance we were going to, so it was nice to not have to walk far.  She was really concerned trading in the keys to my dad's car for a little piece of paper.  We got there more than 30 minutes early, so I was really surprised to wait less than 5 minutes before they had me registered and wearing a bracelet. I sure do love souvenirs! :) 

When I showed up at the next desk, they looked at my paperwork and had us sit down.  I thought that we were going to be there for a while, but before even 5 minutes had passed, they were already calling me back.  I kind of felt bad for Kate because she brought a bunch of stuff to keep herself busy during my surgery and just as she got comfortable they would move us to another room and she would have to gather all of her things again.

So, I got into a hospital gown (Those things sure are airy!) and socks.  It took me forever to get into it because  I couldn't figure out all of the ties in the back and I was trying hard not to moon anyone.  I had just barely gotten into my gown and was sitting on my bed talking to Kate when DOUG SHOWED UP!!!!!  Doug had just changed jobs and had zero days of sick leave or vacation, but they let him leave early because he had been working a lot of overtime.  I wasn't sure if I was going to see him at all.

So funny side story... when Doug got there they had a hard time locating me.  The nurse was bringing him around and after checking different numbers she said, "Here's your wife!" and flung open a curtain that had a big black woman behind it.  Doug was kind of like, "Um, that's not my wife."  So they continued to walk around and he finally spotted my purse underneath the curtain and was able to join Kate and I.

My IV

Doug had to leave the room not too long afterward because they had to put in my IV.  (He seriously almost passed out in the hallway just listening to us talk about it through the curtain.)  The nurse started having me pump my fist to show her a vein for the IV.  I have had two IV's before.  The first one was when I got my wisdom teeth out and that was on my left arm in the crook of my elbow.  The second IV, I had just gotten with my MRI on Friday in the crook of my right elbow.  I assumed it would be in one of those two places, but the nurse gave me the bad news that they would be moving me around a lot during my surgery and that it would need to be in my hand.  She told me that I had a great vein and used a little needle to numb the surface, then she put in the IV.  It wasn't bad at all.  Something I learned through this whole experience is that there is actually no needle in an IV.  I had been scared to move my arm, but my nurse showed me that the needle was only being used to put this long thin tube in my vein.  Weird!

We waited around for a while and Kate and I watched some little show on her iPad that was making us laugh pretty hard.  (I really needed it!)  Doug made me a turkey out of a blown up glove that I could hold onto.  I met and talked to my anesthesiologist and signed more papers.  The anesthesiologist turned up the drip on my IV because she was worried about me being hydrated enough.  It made my arm really cold, so they got me more heated blankets.

Me with my blown-up turkey glove before surgery.

Finally, my doctor came in and talked to Doug, Kate, and I.  My final MRI reports had come back and they showed that my body was reacting very badly to whatever the growth was and that she very glad it was coming out today.  She still was hoping for a chocolate cyst, but told me that an oncologist surgeon would be next door just in case the surgery got tough.  I was pretty scared that I actually had cancer whenever she started talking about how my insides were reacting.  I remember picking at my gown nervously the whole time she was talking.

Not too long after, the anesthesiologist nurse came and gave me my first dose of the good stuff.  They said that I wouldn't remember anything, but I'm pretty sure I remember most of it.  I remember when I could first feel it kicking in and I remember them putting up the sides of my bed.  They wheeled me into the operating room and there were a lot of different instruments everywhere with bright lights and lots of people.

The next thing I remember is waking up in recovery.  My doctor gave me a kiss on my forehead and told me that she was able to keep both of my ovaries and that it was endometriosis.  For the next while I remember drifting in and out and being in A LOT of pain.  My mouth was really dry, my throat was sore because they had needed to put a tube in it, and my abdomen just felt awful.  A nurse asked me if I wanted ice chips, but I told her I didn't.

I woke up again I don't know how much later and decided that I really needed ice chips.  My nurse had left and I was saying as loud as I could, "Please, ice chips" over and over until someone came over and checked my chart and gave me some.  Once again, I'm not sure of the time frame.  They wheeled me into the last recovery room and let Doug in.  I started crying as soon as I saw him.  He said to the nurse, "Uh oh, I made her cry maybe I shouldn't be here."  But I told him I was crying because I was happy he was here.  I was feeling pretty nauseous from the anesthesia so they gave me some stuff in my IV to help.

This picture was taken AFTER my color was better.

I have to admit I was probably not a very nice person in this recovery room.  They gave me one Percocet and the nurse asked me how much I hurt on a scale from 1-10.  I told her a 7 and half.  I kept on telling her that the medicine wasn't working and that when my dad took medicine it didn't work for him either.  She told me that it probably didn't have enough time to kick in yet, but after I was still in a lot of pain, she gave another one.  I kept on apologizing saying that I was sorry I was being so mean and that I really was a nice person.  I kept on telling Doug, "I hate this.  I hate this.  I hate this.  It hurts so much.  I never want to get surgery again."  He told me that this is what they needed to do so I could have babies.  He said it was the first time I smiled.

Doug gave me my phone and I'm pretty sure I texted a few people.  My doctor came back and talked to Doug outside of my room.  She then came back and said, "Who has TWO ovaries?!" with her fingers up and a big smile on her face.  She said, "YOU DO!" and started doing a little dance.  My doctor said that removing the cyst was very challenging, but it was like peeling an onion.  Doug was very impressed with her (He is not easily impressed.) and said that she was a very skilled surgeon. She showed me a picture of the surgery, but told me that she would talk to me about it more in depth at our post op appointment when I would remember better.  She told me that I had probably had endometriosis for a long time and that there were a lot of little specks in my abdominal cavity.  Doug said it was mostly on my kidney.  My doctor also told me that I apparently have some killer stomach muscles that were getting in the way and she had to have two different nurses holding them back the whole time because they were so tight.  She said that she was glad I didn't work out more. :)

Doug said that the surgery took 2 hours (only a half an hour longer than they were anticipating).  I was in a recovery room for two hours where they would not let him see me and then I was in my last room with him for another two hours before they wheeled me out to our car.  Unfortunately, Doug left my iPad at the hospital, so hopefully he remembers to pick it up today after work.  He took me straight home and we called some family members through the blue tooth on his car.  I also remember talking to my sister on the phone at home.

Getting up and down is quite the pain, but I got used to it last night when I had to get up about 8 different times to pee.  Besides a lot of random bruising on my body and three band-aids on my abdomen, I think I am recovering just fine.  I will be hanging out here at home for the next week or so thanking my lucky stars that I don't have cancer.

Day Before Surgery

Last night Doug and I went to my parents' place for dinner.  I finally watched the first part of the big Harry Potter movie, so I will understand what is going on when I go to see the last one.  We celebrated Shelly's 17th birthday.  Her actual birthday will be on the day of my surgery. (Way to ruin all the fun, Jenny!)

Shelly getting ready to blow out her candles.

It was admittedly a lot less eventful than her 15th birthday when we had the cops called on us.  This year, we had a full house with Heather and her four kids from Virginia Beach, my parents and their two kids still at home, plus Liza from college, plus Doug and I.  My dad smoked some really tasty ribs.  After all of the birthday festivities, Doug and my dad gave me a blessing to help prepare me for my surgery.  I guess I'm ready now.

My diet until midnight tonight.

This morning I started my liquid diet.  My doctor had me drink this stuff called Magnesium Citrate.  Drinking it was pretty terrible as well as the after effects which I will spare you.  I started with water this morning and graduated to chicken broth.   I actually like the broth a lot.  I went ahead and ate JELLO for lunch.  Hopefully that is not forbidden.  I never thought I would be so excited to eat JELLO! :) 

Doctor told me to skip church today because of the unpleasant after effects of the magnesium citrate.  I'm really bored and I can't really do much, so I'm trying to stay busy by leaving you all with an update.

My surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 1:30pm.  I check at 11:30am to get registered and everything.  Kate will be driving me, so hopefully we actually make it to the hospital. Haha... Sorry Kate, but you need to start using your blinkers!

Next time you hear from me, I'll have a few new scars. :)

Pre-Op Appointments

So today I had a few doctors appointments to get ready for the big day on Monday.  I haven't been able to drive because of my pain meds, so my sister Heather who is in town from Virginia Beach, was my DD (designated driver) today.

First stop this morning was to get an MRI done of my abdominal area for better picture of "Goliath."  Right now it's measuring at about 8 cm by 6 cm (a little bigger than the size of a kiwi fruit).  A standard ovary is usually the size of an olive.  The strip of pictures below are from my MRI.  I asked for a picture and they gave me a CD full of them.  Of course, I don't really know how to read these, but my doctor went over them with me a little.  Everything in these images is flipped, but you can see "Goliath" in most of these.  It's the big white thing.  You can also see my poor left ovary and how tiny in comparison it is.

Back in high school, I got an MRI because I was complaining of shin splints.  I'm not sure why I even got one because they just told me to stop marching so much.  Anyways, that was not bad at all.  They strapped my leg down, gave me ear plugs and I just sort of hung out for a while while the machine did its banging thing.

Today was completely different.  I had to change into hospital clothes and get an IV put in.  When I got on the table, they had me lift my arms above my head and put a cage over my abdomen.  I got ear plugs and they covered me with a blanket to keep me warm.  The table started sliding into the machine and then it stopped so the lower half of my body was in the really narrow part and my head was in the less narrow part.  I thought, "Oh this won't be bad."  I assumed that I was going to stay this far in because it wasn't like my head was getting scanned.

Then I started sliding in further until my head was in and THEN my elbows which were sticking up slightly because the arms were above my head were scraping on the top of the machine.  I had to close my eyes because I had a little freak out moment.  I'm not even claustrophobic.  The top of the machine was only about 4-6 inches away from my face and my elbows were uncomfortably touching the top of the machine.  No part of my body was outside of this narrow tube.  I was instructed to stay this way without moving for...

 25 minutes!!!

I don't think I had mentally prepared myself for this.  I really figured that my head wouldn't have to go inside because it wasn't getting scanned.  The machine knocked and banged for quite some time and all I could do was sit there and focus on my breathing.  After what seemed like forever, I heard a speaker come on and a woman asked how I was doing.  She told me that I may feel something cold in my arm because they were going to inject the dye.  She told me I was about done and it would only be about three more minutes.

I felt the cold dye coming into my arm and got this metallic taste in my mouth.  I think I could smell it too, but I'm not sure.  I started counting VERY slowly to sixty three different times to get myself to the end of it.  It actually ended up being more like 6 minutes before she started moving me out of the tube.  They removed my IV which didn't have any ink color in it, so I'm not sure what color it was.  I didn't ask, but I wondered if my pee was going to be blue. (it didn't)

My next appointment was with a nurse from the hospital that gave me my schedule and did a surgical interview over the phone.  It only took about 15-20 minutes with a lot of questions about medical history that I was luckily able to say no to.

My sister and I then took an extended lunch at Panera Bread.  We sat and talked for probably three hours.  I love having sisters because you can basically talk about anything for any amount of time and not feel bored at all.  I was really worried about all of the extra time that we had before next appointment and I guess I didn't need to be.

My last appointment was with my gynecologist who is going to be doing the surgery on Monday.  She is really an amazing doctor and I'm really glad that she's taking care of me.  She said that all of the blood work and the MRI that I was able to get really helped her feel better about the mass.  She had initially been so concerned that she booked my surgery in an inpatient room next to where the cancer doctor operates.  Eek!  (It's still there just in case.)

So they did a whole work up from the blood I had drawn on Tuesday, but she really only explained the CA-125 test out of like 15 different tests that were done.  An elevated level (<35) on this test is a possible sign of ovarian cancer.  My levels were only very slightly elevated at 36.79.  She wasn't too concerned because a slightly elevated CA-125 level supported a new theory of hers.  She think that my tumor may actually be what is known as a chocolate cyst which you can get when you have endometriosis.

The GOOD news is that women with endometriosis can get pregnant!  So, I may not be a hopeless cause after all. :)  She said if that is the case, we will talk about it more in detail at my post op appointment.

We're still not sure EXACTLY what the mass is, but we'll know by Monday at 1:30pm when I'm on the surgical table.  She going to try to do it all laparoscopically, but she may have to make a bigger incision if there are issues.  She's really going to try to keep my ovary if possible.  One weird part is that they're going to be filling my abdomen with carbon dioxide so she'll be able to navigate easier!  Now my image of me on the operating table includes me being blown up like a balloon!  If there are no issues and she can do it all laparoscopically, I'll be able to leave that night.  If she has to make a bigger incision for any reason at all, I'll probably be staying the night and leaving whenever I'm released.

I'll be on a clear liquid diet (water, chicken broth, apple juice, clear jello, etc) starting Sunday and I'll need to drink some pretty awful stuff that will basically clear me out, so my bowels are completely out of the way for surgery.  My doctor said that the operating table would be slanted so my head would be facing down and my feet up.  This will make it so that my internal organs get out of the way and won't get nicked during the surgery. 

I'm a little nervous because she said I will be in A LOT of pain afterward.  When I asked her how it would compare to the pain that I was currently feeling, she said that what I was feeling was a "dull ache" compared to what I would be feeling.  She said that I would hate her the day afterward and want to throw darts at her picture.  She prescribed even stronger painkillers for me to use after the surgery.

So I know that basically all sounds terrible, but I feel better.  I just like being informed... and now you are too!  Please keep the prayers coming my way!

Surgery

I mentioned I was having health problems a few posts ago.  I am usually a pillar of health, seriously.  I've taken maybe one sick day in the past four years.  I've only been to the hospital twice in my life.  The first being the day I was born and the second a short visit to the ER to get a tetanus shot after a car accident. 

So my health, yeah...

Back in April, I visited my gynecologist for an "Infertility Appointment."  After hearing my history, my doctor felt pretty confident that she could help me get pregnant.  She decided to put me on a low dose of Clomid, which is a pretty well-known fertility drug, to give my ovaries a little boost.  She also ordered blood work to check my different hormone levels.  My levels came back and they were all normal.  We were very optimistic.  She told me that the next time she saw me that I should have a big smile on my face and a growing belly.

I was hoping to get pregnant on my first Clomid cycle, but it didn't happen.  Instead, my period brought on massive cramping and severe nausea.  I still went to work, but I had to teach either sitting down or if I was standing I was usually grasping my sides.  It was pretty terrible.  My doctor was obviously concerned and scheduled me for an ultrasound in the local office the next day.  They saw what looked like a cyst on one of my ovaries, so they sent me to radiology in the city to get better pictures.  I had to drink like a billion gallons of water and they did two different ultrasounds, one internal and the other external.

I had a phone appointment with my doctor a couple days later to discuss the findings and she told me that they found multiple cysts on both of my ovaries.  She was going to continue to monitor me to see if I had something called PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome).  My blood test results had been normal and did not support PCOS, but she said that not every person is the same with PCOS.  She said that she wanted to see a picture of my ovaries NOT on Clomid, so she took me off of it, and wanted me to get another ultrasound in July to see how everything looked.  She warned me that she may need to put me on birth control for a while to shrink the cysts if I still had them in July.

No baby in there, only a big ugly tumor.

So, it seemed like forever, but I finally had my ultrasounds on Tuesday last week.  I had been having some pain in my right back side, so I was pretty sure that I still had some cysts in there and was mentally preparing myself to go on birth control.

My phone conference with my doctor on Monday was definitely NOT what I was expecting.  It turns out that the little cysts were basically gone, but what we thought was a cyst is really a rapidly growing tumor on my right ovary.  My doctor tried to ease me into it, but warned me that there was a small possibility that it could be cancerous.  She thinks that it is probably a dermoid cyst, but they can't tell from the ultrasound pictures.  She also told me, no running, bouncing, jumping, etc.  That my poor little ovary is dangling there with twice as much weight on it and she doesn't want to have to do emergency surgery with a big ugly scar if it becomes twisted.  I've been in a lot of pain the last few days and was taking the max dose of Tylenol without any improvement, so my doctor prescribed me some codeine to help.

I went in on Tuesday to pick up my prescription and get more blood work done.  I've been getting a lot of blood work done lately so that was pretty routine for me.  The only thing that wasn't routine was the fact that they took SIX vials of blood from me instead of the regular 1-2 vials.  When I went to pick up the prescription, they warned me about driving while on my medicine, so I'm basically stuck at home.

At first, my doctor didn't have any openings in her schedule until mid-September.  That was going to be awful because I would be starting school and Doug is going to be out of town for six weeks starting the end of August.  Fortunately (or unfortunately, I guess) my case was marked as urgent, so someone got bumped and I got their surgery slot.  I have laparoscopic surgery scheduled for this coming Monday, July 25th.  I'm really nervous.   I keep on imagining myself in a hospital gown laying unconscious on a surgical table and it kind of freaks me out.  I'm mostly nervous because of the mention of the C word, but also because the doctor warned me that I might lose my right ovary with the surgery.  So much is really unknown at this point.

I've been watching all kinds of laparoscopic surgeries on the ovaries online.  They'll be making tiny incisions on my abdomen at my belly button for a little camera and in other places for their tiny tools.  I'm kind of confused as to whether it is inpatient or outpatient surgery.  The nurse on the phone told me that it may be possible for me to leave the same day, but my doctor will probably have me stay overnight for observation.  I have two different pre-op appointments this Friday, so I should be more informed by then.  My mother-in-law, who is a surgical tech, has participated in tons of these surgeries and was able to calm some of my fears by telling me exactly what to expect.

So, it's almost 4am and I've been up for three and a half hours.  The dreams I have while medicated are not pleasant.  I'm sick to my stomach from the pain pills and I stepped in cat puke as I left my bedroom to blog. I hate the brain fuzziness I feel from the pills, but the pain in my abdomen is pretty intolerable without them.  I hate even more that I'm stuck at home all day lacking the brain function to even read a simple children's chapter book.

My teacher friend, Caitlin is planning on picking me up tomorrow/today so my drugged self can tag along with her throughout the day instead of sitting around at home watching YouTube movies of laparoscopic surgeries.  Now that's a good friend!  I don't know what she has planned for her day tomorrow, but I'm actually looking forward to whatever it is.

If you could maybe say a tiny little prayer for me that would be really great.  I'm really feeling like crap.

Welcoming Another Honda to the Family

Old 2004 Honda Civic Hybrid

So Doug has been looking to buy a car for a while now.  His reasoning being that my car has issues and we didn't want to be in the same situation as we were before desperately looking all weekend in the rain for a car.

Back in 2007 when we came out to Virginia, we both had jobs that required commuting and needed two cars ASAP.  Doug found a 2004 Civic Hybrid and bought it privately from some guy in DC.  He figured that it would be a smart buy to save on gasoline.  Not too long afterward, he started feeling a teeny tiny shake whenever he accelerated the car up a really steep hill.  That shake progressively got worse over the four years we had the car.  I have been the one driving it the past two years and I have HATED it.  Every time I would accelerate, even if it wasn't on a hill, the car would go dldldldl.  That's the best I can type the shaking noise.  The car never actually had issues with reliability, but it always made that horrible sound.  We figured it was either going to die on us soon because it was transmission related or need a $4000 battery replacement because it had over 100,000 miles on it.  We probably will never buy a hybrid again.

So, back to car buying... Doug had been to the Honda dealership down near his work a couple of times to test drive a few cars and he basically liked them all, but they didn't have all of the features he was looking for.  Unfortunately with the situation in Japan after all of the earthquakes and tsunamis and such, it makes it difficult to get the car you want.  They offered to put Doug on a waiting list 30+ people long for the 2012 Honda Civic.  The problem was that they were only getting cars in randomly and they didn't have any choice as far as the color, the interior, or other features.

We decided to go to the Honda dealership way out in the boonies where we bought our Accord used almost two years ago.  It turns out that they have like the biggest inventory in the area because they have a smart conservative owner AND well... they're out in the boonies.  :)  They had FOUR 2012 Civics on the lot!  One of them had the leather seats and was the right color, but didn't include the navigation system, but it was really close enough AND there was no waiting list here.

We took it for a test drive and Doug absolutely loved it.  The car had blue tooth and paired right up with his phone and started playing his favorite soundtrack from the movie Inception.  It was perfect!  The dealer had already added this extra "appearance package" that we weren't interested in, but thought we could haggle it out of the end price.

SO, we finally found THE car, we just needed to haggle a little, right?  WRONG.  Our salesman said in the nicest way possible that there was absolutely no wiggle room at all.  They had barely gotten the car on the lot and it had several potential buyers.  We still tried to see if they would pay to add a remote start onto the car and that was a no as well.  We were pretty turned off by their unwillingness to negotiate, so we left for lunch to talk about it.  I figured the salesman would offer us something before we left, but he only offered us lunch at the dealership so we wouldn't leave.

After lunch, we were on the way back to the Honda dealership when we drove by a Toyota dealership.  We went ahead and turned around and decided to test drive a few cars.  We've always been Honda loyal, but the Toyota line has a great reputation as well.

We started with the 2011 Toyota Corolla. which is the equivalent for the Honda Civic as far as size.  This is just my personal opinion, but I thought that the inside of the car looked a little cheaply made. (Hopefully I'm not offending any hardcore Toyota fans.)  The salesman knew right away by our faces that we were not impressed with the Corolla, so he put us in the much bigger and luxurious Camry.  We drove the Camry and it was really nice.  The sticker price was about the same as the Honda Civic and Toyota was offering free oil changes for life!  Doug tried for a while to pair his phone with the bluetooth in both cars, but for some reason they kept rejecting his phone.  Silly as it sounds, it totally put him off from really loving the cars.

We were really close to buying the Camry and decided to go out and sit in the car to talk about it.  I could tell by Doug's face that he wasn't as thrilled with this car as he had been with the Civic, but he kept on saying, "This car makes more fiscal sense. We SHOULD buy it instead."  I told him that we were not buying a car that day unless he was ABSOLUTELY thrilled with the purchase.  You shouldn't spend that much money on something that you aren't absolutely thrilled about.  The Toyota salesman gave us the keys and told us to take it for another drive with just the two of us.  I really thought that Doug was going to buy the Camry.  (I think the salesman did too.)

NEW 2012 Honda Civic

Doug drove straight over to the Honda dealership just to LOOK at the Civic one last time to decide if it was something that he could live without.  I was quite embarrassed because we were PARKING a TOYOTA that we were TEST DRIVING in the customer parking of the HONDA lot.  It even had the big sticker in the window and the license plate on the front dash.

Doug walked right over to the Civic we had test drove earlier, opened up the door, and sat inside the car.  He put the key in the ignition and his phone's blue tooth chirped at the car remembering it once again,  He got this big smile on his face and it was then, before he even said anything, that I knew we were purchasing this car TODAY.  He told our salesman to get it ready and we would be right back... we had to drop off the Toyota we had been test driving and get back our old car. :)

They still didn't budge on the price of the car, but gave us a much higher trade in value than we thought we would ever get with the obvious issues on our hybrid.  In the end Doug got exactly what he was looking for.  A comfortable commuting car that gets good gas mileage and is reliable.

My commuting car is now the Accord and I'm super excited.  When we bought it two years ago, I was really shopping for ME even though Doug was going to be the one driving it.  For the first time in my life I have.. like.. a little pride in my vehicle.  I may actually wash this car. :)

Running FAIL

Last week after I posted my "Report on Running" I hurt my right knee.  I'm not actually sure when I did it or if I had been running on a bad knee, but it hurts and swells whenever I even walk on it now.  I've been limping around for the last week and icing it and it's just now barely getting to the point where I don't get shooting pains from walking.  It's been extremely frustrating because I just barely got to the point where I was enjoying running and looking forward to it each morning.

For those of you that are starting an exercise regiment, you probably should do some sort of warm up and get yourself a good pair of shoes if your going to get serious about it. Both pieces of advice I was going to take, but didn't get the chance to until I was injured and swollen.

I was going to dedicate a post to my running partner in the picture to the right.  This white kitty would run alongside me for a good portion of my running back when I was running.  Whenever I would stop, he would rub up against my legs and want to be pet.  I do not know who he belongs to or if he even has an owner that cares about him.  I want to adopt him.  I'm thinking about putting a sign around his neck that says something to the extent of, "Does anyone own me?"  I've been able to go on one walk since and he was there waiting for me in exactly the same place.  I was bad and brought some food to feed him later.  He ate it, but seemed more interested in being pet than eating the food.  Unfortunately, that's probably a pretty sure sign that he has an owner.

I'm dealing with some other health concerns that I'll probably blog about later.  My doctor told me that I shouldn't be running, so I think I'm going to have to put the running talent on hold for a while until I am healed which hopefully is in the next month or so.

New Shopping Addiction

My students know how much I love books, so I get Borders gift cards pretty frequently.  Back in April, I was shopping on their website when I saw a USED book tab.  I was just looking for book club books, so they didn't have to be in pristine condition. Why not?  When I clicked on it, I found multiple copies of the book I wanted for $1.06.  So, I selected the six copies that were described in best condition.  I went ahead and bought a couple new books to bring my order up to the $25 free shipping limit and then completed my order.

My new books came within 48 hours and my used books took about a week to two weeks to get here, but most of them looked BRAND NEW.  In fact some of them were hardbound!  (Okay, this is the silly teacher part of me getting excited.)  If I was at a bookstore I would be spending between $5-15 for most these books and I was getting them for a DOLLAR!

Now, I inherited this thing from my dad where I can't resist a good deal, so I got on the site again and started filling up my cart with used books.  I'm a teacher.  I can't have TOO many books.  (I think my current collection at school is up to about 600+ chapter books by now.)  Anyway, it turned out that there was an unspoken 20 book limit in your cart, so I wasn't going to be able to get the free shipping buying only used books.  SO, I went ahead and upgraded to a Borders Rewards Plus membership for $20 for the year, so I could get free shipping on all orders.  I've been shopping away ever since.

No joke, the postman either loves me or hates me because my mailbox was stuffed with books basically EVERY DAY for a while there.  I kept on meaning to take a picture because it cracked me up how good he was getting at fitting them all in there.  Using mostly gift cards, I've bought over 70 used books (hardbound too!) in practically brand spanking new condition for a few cents over a dollar each.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty whenever I see the cost of shipping on the label.  It usually costs a little over $2 to ship the average book... and I only paid $1 total for the whole thing with NO shipping cost to me at all.  So I know that SOMEONE has to be losing money.  I can't be the only teacher that has figured this out.

Report on Running

Those are runnin' legs!

So I blogged in this post about my desire to become a runner and I just wanted to report back to tell you how I am doing.  

The first two days that I went running I had no clue how far I was going.  I just wanted to start running, so that's what I did.  Before going to bed on day two, I talked to Doug about my running and told him I wished I knew how far I was going.  He told me that there was a free app that I could download on my phone that would use GPS to calculate the distance of my run.  REALLY???  So before I went to bed, I found and downloaded the app.

The next morning, I was very excited to start my run.  My biggest worry was that I was only running like a half a mile because I really had no clue how far I had really been going.  So I ran the same route as I had the two previous days and checked the app for the distance. I had been running 1.8 miles a day!!!  So, I went ahead and did 0.2 more miles so I could make it an even two miles.  That was really good news to me because I honestly thought I had running been running maybe a mile.

After I finished my run that day, I saw that it had taken me 26 minutes to go the two miles.  I hadn't even thought about timing myself!?  So the next day I wanted to see how long it was taking me to run just one mile of my run.  I found out that it was taking me a little over 12 minutes to do the first mile of my run.  Each day I ran, I pushed myself just a little harder to see if I could get a faster time.  My fastest mile so far has been 8 minutes 45 seconds, but most days I'm between nine and a half to ten minutes.

As I run, I give myself short term goals and landmarks.  When I start getting tired, I look for a landmark in the distance. (a tree, a fire hydrant, a car, etc...)  I push myself to get to that landmark and then I try to go another ten paces or so if I can.

It turns out that my estimate of being able to run for "only two minutes at a time" in my last post would have actually been good.  I didn't realize until I was actually timing myself that in reality I was probably running in bursts that lasted maybe a minute and half.  Now two weeks later, I can run for a little over two straight minutes.

I took this picture with my phone during one of my runs.

I don't listen to music when I run.  Not yet, at least.  I'm thinking about getting a shuffle or something, but I'm feeling broke because I'll be spending all of my personal savings on finishing the basement.  So right now I'm just enjoying listening to the sounds of nature around me.   My housing development in the middle of the country and we are surrounded on three sides by farmland.  I run early usually around 5:30am because that's right after Doug leaves for work.  The crows are usually cawing and a few birds are singing.  The roosters crow every morning when the sun comes up and there's usually fog in the fields.  One morning I was pushing myself to finish my mile at a faster time and I wasn't watching where I was running.  I almost ran into a herd of deer!  It really scared me because there were suddenly a bunch of them running all around me.

So I've been keeping track of my running as a form of accountability to myself.  I usually run two miles a day.  I ran four miles on the 6th because I was trying to reach a 20 mile goal.   Then, I went running with a friend on the 8th after my morning run to try to push myself and see how I was doing in comparison.  My friend runs two miles, but does more prolonged running stints than I do.

This is my running calendar so far.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
May 26	27	28 1.8 miles	29 1.8 miles	30 2 miles	July 1 2 miles	2 2 miles
3 2 miles	4  2 miles	5 2 miles	6 4 miles	7 2 miles	8 4 miles	9 2 miles
10 1.5 miles (walking)	11 2 miles	12	13	14	15	16

The biggest problem I've been running into lately is that I'm SO STINKING SORE!  For the first six days, I had been running like I felt came naturally to me, but my shins had been bothering me.  A friend of mine at church that is a runner told me since I had just started running that I should train myself to run the correct way.  I researched it a little and I've been running more on my toes than on my heels. (if that makes sense)  I think it's called the POSE method or something and its supposed to help reduce injury.  When I started that I was actually feeling A LOT better after running, but my calves were a sore instead of my shins.  I'm pretty positive I'm not doing it the right way because I am seriously the least coordinated person in the world, but I AM trying.

I didn't want to lose any momentum, so I've been forcing myself to go out EVERY DAY.  I'm worried that if I take a break one day that I won't start up again.  I keep on saying that I'll run through the pain and wait for my body to catch up with me.  Yesterday (Sunday), I was feeling particularly sore, so I asked Doug to go on a walk with me instead.  Today when I ran, my pace was a lot slower, but I actually started to feel better as my run progressed and I finished in 10 minutes.

I'm sore, but I still feel energized by my run, so that's a good thing.  I just hope this achy stuff dies down a little so I can feel good again.

On a side note: Happy 27th birthday 7/11 to my main man, my dearest hubby, my one and only DOUG!  :)

School Year in Review

So on the last day of school, I had a student bring me a card. It was the picture to the right with a sweet letter on the back. It came in a bag with some sweet beach gear for the summer. :) The picture is from the FIRST day of school before I really got to know this student and her wonderful family. I don't know why, but I got all teary and sentimental as soon as I pulled it out of the bag and saw it.

I had completely forgotten that her mom had taken this picture, but I remember what I was thinking the day that she took it. Even though you can't tell by my face, I was completely overwhelmed and worried about the school year ahead of me. I was worried about meeting my 28 new students. I wanted to be able to make a special place in my heart for each one of them and make them feel loved and special this school year. I just worried that it would be too much. I was worried about my new job as team lead for fourth grade. Would I be letting people down this year because I couldn't do it all? I was wondering if this would be my last year teaching.

When I saw this picture, all of that played quickly in my mind with the school year as it played out included. And then I thought,

WE MADE IT!

It was a great school year. BOTH the kiddos and I learned and grew so much this school year. I just feel lucky that it's my job to work with these kids and teach them.

I love teaching.

Virginia Beach

The next couple of days of our vacation, we went to Jamestown and then to some historical sights in Richmond. I was ready to be done with the learning (I'm a great teacher, I know!) so Doug and I escaped down to Virginia Beach a day ahead of his family. The last time we went to Virginia beach was in the off season. Here are some pictures of us then.  This was from earlier in 2008 BEFORE I started a blog.  Aren't we so young!

We really enjoyed ourselves that time, so we were really looking forward to it this time. We were able to get a reservation at one of the THREE Marriott hotels along the beach for a somewhat decent rate with Doug's government discount.

We went ahead and ate at the same place we had eaten at during the off season. It's this restaurant that is on the bottom floor of the Hilton hotel.  You can request a seat outside and you're facing the ocean and about 20 feet from the beach.  Apparently their menu prices change in the off season.  Last time we went it cost us $30 for two meals and an appetizer.  This time it cost us more than twice that much for basically the same stuff.  I think our next visit will be in October like it was last time.

The beach was great.  Doug and I both sat and read on the beach after dinner.  I finally was able to finish the last book of the series, Hunger Games.  I really enjoyed that series!  We then walked and collected lots of shells.  We don't really spend too much on souvenirs, but we do like to collect shells and put them in decorative glass jars.  Doug fed the seagulls goldfish crackers.  Here are some pictures from this last trip.

So anyways, Doug's family joined us at the beach the next day.  I taught Lexi, Doug's little sister how to boogie board and then we built a sandcastle together.  I was also able to meet my sister and her kids who actually live in Virginia Beach for lunch that day as well.  Overall it was a lot of fun.  I love the beach!

Basement Floorplan x 14

So, I found a bunch of contractors in my area through some website called Service Magic about a month ago and scheduled four different appointments to try to get some estimates of how much it would cost to finish our basement.  Our estimates ranged from $13,000 to $25,000.  Luckily the contractor with the lowest bid proposal was the one that we liked the most BEFORE we knew what the bids were and that we were going to pick him.

Yep, that's right.  I think we're ACTUALLY going to finish our basement.  This is, if the contractor doesn't give up on me and decide that I'll be too much of a pain in the butt to work with.

At this point, I've come up with 14 different floor plans for the basement.  Luckily for him, I've only emailed him four of them.  So here are SOME of the different floor plans I've come up with.

 Plan 1: This was the ORIGINAL plan that we sent to the contractor.  Simple, but the office isn't separated by a wall and I thought it might be nice for Doug to have his own computing space that I DIDN'T see. :)

Plan 2: I decided that this plan didn't use the space well AND I didn't like the random pole in the middle.

Plan 3: I sent this plan to the contractor and I really liked it because we had added a whole room and changed the old office in the upper right-hand corner to a library with built in shelving. But then I taped it out for Doug to see on the basement floor and he thought the section of the office closest to the bathroom was too small to make it into a room... and I kind of agreed with him begrudgingly.  Sooo, back to the drawing board.  I was worried that I was trying to do too much with the space we had, but the levels above the basement do more with the same amount of space, so I was determined to keep trying.

Plan 4: I really was liking this plan because it increased the size on the office and changed the entry of the food storage room so I wouldn't have to go into "Doug Territory" each time I needed an extra can of tomato sauce and such.  It also had the added advantage of a big linen closet in between the storage and workroom. I didn't like the small entry way into the office, but it was doable.  THEN we ended up going to Washington DC with my cousin and saw this amazing salt water aquarium display at the Museum of Natural History, so we needed an unfinished place for a tank.  If Doug decides that he's not going to do a tank after all, I guess this plan could still be in the running.

Plan 5:  I still like this plan, but I'm not sure what I would do with the 7x5 space in the middle of the basement, so I added it to the storage space in one of the final versions of the plan.

 Plan 6 (above) and Plan 7 (below): I sent these last two plans to the contractor yesterday.  I know that the ceiling is going to need to be lower in some places because of the central air ducts in the basement, so I'm not sure if I can place the bathroom where I did in plans 4, 5, and 6. I'm not sure if I like the little hallway in plan 7, but I do like the little linen closet off of the bathroom.  Also, it won't be a problem having Doug's workroom right off of his office because he's the only one that will really use it.  The one thing that I kind of don't like about either of these plans is that the door to our unfinished space is right in the middle of the basement.  There's a part of me that thinks that the entrance to storage should be tucked away in a corner like in Plan 4.

Yep, so now I'm waiting for him to respond back to my email from yesterday.  Usually he responds within a day, but he could be on vacation or something or just really busy on a job.  One of the reasons we really like him was that he was easygoing, but very business-like.