Well, Well, We Finally Have An Answer

Or, no I'm not a hypochondriac after all.

After months and months and months and months (we're talking a good year or two) of having major digestive issues and problems, I finally got an answer today.

Gallbladder.

It hates me and wants out.

Never mind that last May I went to the doctor for "Upper Right Quadrant Pain" and he immediately sent me across the street to the hospital for a CT Scan of my gallbladder. Never mind that I had the same symptoms way back then now only worse in the last couple of months. Never mind that when the results were negative he never suggested an ultrasound or HIDA scan of my gallbladder. Never mind that when I tried to get into my doctor's a couple of weeks ago on a Friday they had no openings and then finally said they'd try to get me in the following Wednesday but first they'd ask my internist if she'd work me in that day and NO ONE EVER CALLED ME.

So when I finally pursued it again, this time with yet another doctor at the practice who said she'd see me last Wednesday, she said right off the bat, sure sounds like gall bladder to me and this time had a game plan. She had a course of action to get to the bottom of it all. She was on the ball and I was and am impressed. She informed me that I'd first have to do an Ultrasound of my gallbladder and usually, especially with women, they are negative. SO, if it was indeed negative, THEN we'd do a HIDA scan which is the test that gives them pretty much the final answer. I asked why not do that one first then and she said they want the Ultrasound done first. Which is exactly what the tech said today stating that if they do the HIDA and you have gallstones it can be extremely painful. So, there is a valid reason.

It was negative and the HIDA was scheduled for today. They injected me with two substances and the girl happened to mention that the report would probably be written up today and I could get it from their medical records dept before it got over to my doctor's office. So, I called them tonight thinking I'd be going tomorrow and it was ready and they were open until 7pm.

So, off I trotted to the hospital, getting up from the bed where I was laying feeling nauseous and reading a book.

And, I got an answer. Finally.

I was told that a normal ejection fraction rate is 30% or better.

Here's what my report states: "A gallbladder ejection fraction of 6% in addition to the reproduction of symptoms upon CCK stimulation suggests gallbladder dysfunction.

Sounds like it's hardly functioning at all. Therefore, explaining my symptoms and why I've basically felt like crap and have been nauseous when I eat, smell food, think about food, shop for food, etc, along with several other symptoms that I won't bore you with.

Waiting now to talk to my internist when she gets the report and a little scared to boot.

But at least now I KNOW and NOT KNOWING drives me crazy!

Do You Have Dry Skin?

Do you have persistantly dry skin? Unsightly eczema? Have you made repeated trips to your dermatologist? Have you tried every hand lotion on the shelf and multiple prescription treatments?

Well, let me highly recommend this product to you! In just one day, my dry hands are 90% better. I can't say enough about this miracle product. I have tried everything and finally succumbed to first aid cream and Vaseline out of complete desperation to do something for my dry hands! So bad this winter that they were cracking and hurting terribly.

A visit to my internist yesterday prompted me to ask her opinion, informing her that nothing the dermatologist gave me works for any length of time, if at all. First, she informed me that she has the same condition on her hands and when I professed that I never USED to have it, she said I was getting older. (um, okay, thanks for mentioning that, I hadn't noticed!) BUT, she highly recommended Aquaphor and stated that it could be found at any pharmacy in the lotion aisle.

A trip to Wal Mart and I had it in my cart. As I was pulling it off the shelf, another customer noticed and praised it, showing me her hands and telling me more than I needed to know about her dry scalp. But, she raved about it and said the very next day after using it for the first time, she could tell a big difference.

For $14.97 I was willing to invest if this was the magic potion I'd been looking for all this time.

I couldn't help but apply it several times from about 5pm till 11pm yesterday and the difference in my hands today is unbelievable. Oh, and my feet too!

I'm sold.

Go, now, buy yourself some. I recommend it. (They also make it for baby's skin too!)

So What Became of My Wood Infested Tire?

Well, I got up bright and earlier Tuesday morning (along with the snow) and was at Firestone at 8:15am buying a brand new tire 6 months after just buying four in July. When I got bored with my book, I wandered around the waiting area noticing the framed newpapers advertising Firestone tires, 4 for $99 back in the late 60s. I wanted one for that price but figured it was pointless to even ask.

They did give me a "deal", ha. I paid $99 for each tire in July and due to tire price increases they were now up to $109 per tire. The guy said they'd sell it to me at the $99 price. Wasn't that sweet of him? Wow, saved $10. That paid for half the repair job last Friday.

I Just Had To Steal This Quote

"Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat." ~Author Unknown

So Didn't We Just Do This, Again?

Okay, it really does come in three's but now we are up to four! AND we are getting our money's worth from our AAA Good Basic Member membership!

In the continuing saga of our weird, fluke car problems, here's what happened today...

Tim's van is still in the shop so he took my car to work again. This was fine as I didn't need to go anywhere today.

Mom had a sudden change of plans today so I decided to pursue a doctor's appt since no one would see me last week at my internist's. So, they could see me at a different doctor's today at 3:00pm since they weren't celebrating MLK Day. Mom came on over and I took her car to Georgetown, IN.

While still in the waiting room, Tim called from way across Louisville where he was doing another video shoot for this freelance project he's been working on. Guess what, my car has a flat again, same tire!!!!!!!!!!!

SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There was absolutely nothing I could do where I was and nothing mom could do who was now stranded at our house (never mind our used car lot....the Miata has a broken windshield, the Chevy Impala classic is tucked away in the garage for the winter, the Honda is begging to be hauled off and the husband keeps promising he is going to sell it, and can't drive his mom's car (not sure why exactly, but something about salt on the roads, being covered up for the winter and seeing if it will start. So, mom's basically stranded at our house as I have her car.

Told him he would have to call AAA and see about getting the tire fixed. At this point he wasn't sure if we just got a bad patch job or if it was another hole! (Turned out to be another hole, this time from a big chunk of wood...looking suspiciously like the wood they've been using at the station along with those drywall screws...)

So, AAA came and changed the tire and fortunately the spare was okay. He came back to town and ran by our car repair place (who are frantically trying to get the van fixed before they closed because I've now called them 2 times begging for it so I don't have to walk to work in the snow tomorrow or beg a ride from a neighbor) with the flat. They say they'll check it out and try to repair it tomorrow.

Tim comes home dead tired as now he's been going strong since 2:30am and has worked two jobs. I'm on my way home from Georgetown after 2 1/2 hours there!

Meanwhile the car repair place has called and informed Tim that we'll need a new tire, as this hole is too big to repair. Nice. This is my new tire that I just bought along with the other three for $99 each in July.

I see no Road Hazard anything on the receipt so chances are tomorrow when I get up early and take it back to Firestone before work, I'll just be getting a new tire for another $99.

So, do I bill the tv station or the husband?

WAH!!!!!!!

Scrapbook Layouts

Did these two last night...I worked hard all day putting ornaments and trees away in the attic and finally sat down to scrapbook about 4:40pm. It was right at that time we decided to order pizza and I remembered it's literally half the price to just do carryout at Papa John's so off I trotted in the cold temps! (Woke up to 5 degrees yesterday and it only climbed into the very low 20s if that!)

So, after yummy pizza I tried again and completed these two before heading to bed.

I accomplished two goals. One, to finally use a pack of the My Mind's Eye Magnolia line that is essentially a kit in itself although I added more embellies...and two, to scrapbook the quilts from the state fair over a year ago! That was 14 pictures on one page....cut down of course but I was thrilled! AND I used an old piece of Flair Designs pp that looked like old feed sack material! Woo hoo!

So, Didn't We Just Do This?

It's apparently "car be towed" month at our house! Tim had problems with the van this morning as he was leaving for work, so after loading all of his equipment into it for a freelance shoot this afternoon, he had to switch vehicles and take my car, unloading everything and reloading to mine!

Not too big of a deal as my plan for the day was to still work on undecorating trees! A quick run to the pharmacy to get Garden Kitty's magic medicine was on the agenda, however, but mom came to the rescue on that one!

So, Tim said although the battery light indicator was coming on and staying on, I could get it to start and drive it to the car repair place. So, I went to do just that and could hardly get the brakes to work! In fact, while in reverse with my foot on the brake the car was rolling backwards and I could hardly get it to stop! I pushed with all my might and it finally did! Weird! Tried one more time, same issue.

Back into the house I went to call AAA, for the second time this month! (Remember, Happy New Year!) This time, though, I had the shower out of the way! The same tow truck driver showed up and said it seemed to be a loose belt and that made the power steering and brakes not work!

Okay, so then Tim calls me from the parking lot at work and said he was there with my car which now had a completely flat tire! No way! Someone had a pump so they got enough air in it for him to get to a repair place a block away. They couldn't get to it all day though so he headed back home to Firestone where we normally go with tire issues. Meanwhile, I had called mom and had her return back to my house which she had just left after dropping of GK's medicine so Tim could take her car to the freelance job!

We headed up to Firestone to meet him and he had to unload all his equipment yet again, now into mom's car! We trotted off in 20 degree weather to eat lunch downtown and when we came back the tire was fixed and we had working wheels again!

Verdict on my car: Drywall screw (most likely picked up from the station where Tim works as they have been doing drywall work all week, hmmmm) Total Cost: $20

Verdict on his van: Alternator Support Bar snapped in two thereby causing the Serpentine Belt to come off which in turn caused the alternator, power steering, water pump, and brakes not to work right. They have to find one Monday and they think it will run somewhere around $40-50 and maybe 2 hours of labor. Total Estimated Cost: at least $160.00

WAH!

It Snowed!

Woke up to a Winter Wonderland, just enough to make things pretty and magical and to cover my car windows! Good thing I got some early morning shots as it was gone just a few hours later! More to come though I hear...along with the temp of 7 degrees Saturday night!

This Idea Alone Was Worth The Trip To Phoenix

We were in a little antique mall in the Phoenix area last September and I saw these wonderful little O rings with clips attached...they were hanging from a wire that was attached beneath a little shelf in someone's booth. Hanging from the clips were old photos/instant ancestors.

I loved the idea! I loved the clips. I wanted to know what they were and were they'd been all my life so I asked the man at the register if he would call the booth owner and ask for me! He did but she wasn't home. He promised to call me back on my cell if he heard from her. Well, he did and said that they were drapery hooks of all things!

So, off we went to hunt down an Anna's Linens where they'd been purchased. Found them and brought them back to IN, some for me, some for mom. We have since realized that they can be found at Target, Lowes and almost any Bath/Bedding type of store.

AND, then I saw the idea on the internet where a scrapbooker had taken drapery rods and hung her layouts from them with these little clips! Light bulb moment!

So, as you can see in these pictures, my mom has used them not only for the old photos she collects but also old greeting cards and handkerchiefs. Cool, huh?

Saturday's Finds

As requested, here are the items I found Saturday! Doesn't that old recipe binder have great potential for an altered recipe album? Might have to get busy on that one!

Scraplifted Layout Almost

This layout is pretty much a scraplift although as usual it went its own way once I started in on it! So fun though, it went super quick and I decided it was worthy of some of my favorite, really good, hoarded brads and blossoms. And you know what? It felt good to put them on a page. Now I can actually enjoy them! What a concept! Will have to try that again sometime.

Definitely going to be into more scraplifting this year, I need to plod through these backlogged pictures faster...

Do We Really Need The Noodles?

Well, I made spaghetti for supper tonight. I gave in the other night at Kroger and bought more expensive spaghetti sauce. I give up on Ragu. I simply can't eat it. Unless it's in lasagna or something. So, I decided to have it tonight. Cooked the ground beef and added the sauce. Doctored it up a little and let it simmer. Threw two garlic breadsticks in the toaster oven and went back to undecorating my Noah's Ark tree.

Called Tim to come eat and started scooping some sauce out on his plate when I suddenly realized there were no noodles. No spaghetti noodles. None. I never made them. My bad. I completely forgot that part! So, informed Tim there would be a slight delay in supper and went to cook the noodles.

Once it all came together, it was pretty darn good. Good sauce too.

Fellow Collectors Unite!

Yesterday we went to visit friends in KY and made a day of it. Went to lunch at a little restaurant that made cheeseburgers out of fresh ground beef (yum) and then hit a Traderbakers which we had heard was a pretty good one. We all found some goodies...Tim an almost professional quality VCR, light bulbs we use like crazy for 25 cents each (new in the pkg) and an old Kodak 3D movie camera still in the box...me a variety of little things for scrapbooking of course, including some old game cardboard pieces, sewing notions and my favorite- an old recipe keeper binder with a box to keep it in (the booth owner was there and let me have it for $3 down from the original $8)...mom some vcr movies, a book about tea parties and a cute little red rack!

Then on to our friends restored farmhouse. They have wonderful collections of KY and Southern IN beer advertising as well as vintage holiday items, other advertising items, bunnies, crazy quilts and garden items to name just a few! A whole restored outbuilding decked out like a saloon too! So fun to talk collecting and enjoy dinner with them! Oh, and they have 16 peacocks! Real ones! How fun is that? Tim and I got to see them in their barn although right now they are pretty much featherless.

A fun day and a much needed break for Tim who has been working a rather grueling but rewarding freelance job for the past several weeks!

Junkin' Friday

Sometimes you hit it just right and today was one of those times! Three of us went out "junkin" in Clarksville today and hit four thrift stores and scored some great finds! The above pictures show just the scrapbooking goodies! My favorite things were the old Avery labels from the 60s which are still sticky ($1.99) and the little black letters on ivory, which are already perforated and ready to use! (two sheets for 19 cents each) Found some neat Valentine's bag attachments (50 cents) which I'm totally going to someday use on a mini album instead and I chopped up some brand new hair bands to get the adorable flowers and butterflies off (33 cents each)! Couldn't pass up more fibers for 29 cents each or Creative Memories Sentiments album refills for 49 cents! And, the best buy of all was the rubber stamps (mainly Stampin' Up and some brand new to boot) for 50 cents each! The ones I didn't take, my friend scooped up so none got left behind at that price. All in all, a super good junkin' day!

So Back At The Kitty Cat Veterinary Specialist

After many weeks of GK just not being right and having some odd symptoms and behaviors and dragging her almost weekly to our vet's they finally ditched us and referred us to a Kitty Cat Internist over in L'ville. Yep, when I called first thing Monday morning to report in that she was STILL the same after another round of antihistamines, they called me back and said, Dr. Hayes is referring you to Metro Vet Specialists...here's their no. and let us know when you have an appt and we'll fax info over. We're getting tired of seeing your credit card, bye now.

Okay, so in the middle of cropping with friends Monday I had to arrange all of this and switch my work schedule because of course the appt would be Thursday!

She finally seemed more like herself yesterday and then I hated to drag her over there today and put her through the stress of it all. But, off we went.

And, we've got a condition. We finally have an answer. It's not the top end of her this go 'round, it's the rump end.

Diagnosis: Bilateral Perenial Hernias

So super impressed with the vet and he wants to try an increase of the mineral oil/tuna oil we've been giving her and see if we can correct the symptoms without ultimately doing surgery.

And, they are testing her thyroid and won't have the blood test results back till Monday.

To be continued...

Another Easy Breezy Layout for 2007

So, this was created in record time last night...right before the power went out for three hours...


And, I just want to share the most appalling thing I found in my scrapbook room. Yes, I have FOUR sheets of this paper, now it's cute paper and has little words and definitions all over it but wonder why I needed FOUR of them? No idea.

Sad thing is, I have many sheets in multiples like this. I don't do that anymore.

Easy Breezy Layout

First let me give credit where credit is due! My friend Janie does awesome layouts and a couple of months ago I took pictures of at least 15 of them that I might want to scraplift sooner or later. Well, I finally got them developed and was putting them away last night and one in particular really caught my eye!

So, I thought, well why not scraplift this one right here, right now and see how it goes! So, I used TWENTY, yes, TWENTY pictures and 5 pieces of patterned paper, punched squares, corner rounded the edges, added some embellies, and voila! Done! The thing I am most thrilled with is that I used TWENTY pictures! Did I mention that? That is so exciting to someone who just got over 1000 developed after Christmas and New Years (going back to Oct)!

I hate having such a backlog of pictures and not always the best ones left at that and now I've found a way to make that backlog go down!

So, the theme was sort of a year in review with pictures representing highlights of 2006. Love it!

Tonight I'm going to tackle 2007 and use up 20 more pictures!

Happy New Year? (Sounds Good In Theory...)

Ahhh, a new year; a time for new beginnings, fresh starts and good things to come.

Four days into the new year as of Friday and it has just not been real "Happy" so far.

Garden Kitty is STILL not right; we have literally been to our vet's at least once a week, sometimes twice a week for weeks. We are there so often that we are getting the cut rate discount for follow up visits within 30 days. I half jokingly suggested a frequent shopper punch card might be nice. Ever since the stupid tooth pulling at the Cat Dentist, she's not been right. In fact, the Monday after the surgery we were at our vets 15 minutes before closing. She's been doing this swallowing, gulping, burping thing for weeks, she twitches her head like she's feeling a sharp pain, we had some major kitty constipation going on that ultimately resulted in a kitty enema; her blood work's fine, no fever, back to the $30 a month bottle of mineral oil/tuna oil to lube her insides (working by the way), not wanting to eat which resulted in stuffing an antihistamine down her to increase appetite (worked), not wanting to eat again but not sure if it's because something's wrong or the fact that Meow Mix stinky wet food with mineral oil/tuna oil mixed in sure tastes better than Science Diet Prescription Diet Dry Cat Food does so why eat the crap stuff. She bakes kitty by the electric radiators, is not as active and is just plain not herself and we miss our little Garden Kitty the way she was! It's very upsetting and stressful and expensive!

So, we went another round of a different antihistamine and gave it through the weekend and I'm making another call to the vet tomorrow as she is still not any different...sigh...

And then there was the mouse. I'm just not going to go into a lot of details here because it's just plain nasty and disgusting but Old House = at least one per winter. But, please, stay out of my bedroom and the nightstand in the future. And don't tell your furry friends my husband keeps snacks in there. (finally got him, in the drawer no less, can we say ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING?) So, on that note, let's talk about my car problem!

Here comes last Thursday night and I leave work at 5 and head home. I get about 5 blocks down Main St. and my car makes this beeping noise and a light/symbol comes on my dashboard and I hear clunking underneath the car. The symbol looks like the back of a car with swerve lines behind each tire so I figure I'm losing my brakes or something. Pull over and pull out my trusty Toyota Highlander manual and find that it is a SLIP LIGHT INDICATOR. Okay. So, I sit there and ask myself, well, what the heck is a SLIP LIGHT INDICATOR? Look that up in the back index but no such mention. Call Husband. He has no idea. Call EZ AutoCare where we take our cars and they know us by our first names. They have no idea. But they are hunting on the internet for me and all they are coming up with has to do with jet planes.

Dale says go home and I'll stay on the phone with you. That was nice of him. So, I get home and pull in the driveway and get the heck out of the vehicle. Tell Dale bye and thanks and head inside to call Toyota before they close.

Call Greentree Toyota's service dept and the guy there has no idea what it is either! That's always a bad sign. So, he puts me on hold forever, so long in fact two other people pick up thinking I've just been left dangling forever, which I, too, am beginning to think. He finally comes back on the line and says it's a safety feature and has to do with my traction system and blah blah blah and I mention there was a little, teeny, tiny piece of compressed snow turned to ice under my front tire as I pulled away from work...he says well must have been enough to engage this and all you have to do (now, important, remember this) is turn the car off and it will reset itself and Voila, when you turn it back on all is well in my Happy New Year again!

So, we wait awhile and Tim goes and checks and sure enough, still doing it. Okay, so we'll give it overnight and it will be ok in the morning right? Well, I'm in a tizzy trying to figure out come 8:30pm if I'm really going to need to plan on dealing with this in the morning when it hasn't reset itself before going to copy files for work at 11 or if I can sleep in a little and not have to deal with it. So, I get in the car and mind you, it's like 16 degrees outside, so it's freezing cold and the car is REALLY cold. Go for a little drive down Main and yep, you guessed it, still doing it.

At this point, I realize I am going to need to plan on dealing with it Friday morning all before 10:30 when I need to head to L'ville.

Okay, so get up Friday morning and pile on warm clothes and hope no one sees my bad hair and no makeup and go for another spin. Oh yeah, still doing it. Am very mad now that it just hasn't "reset itself" and this is now going to cost me time, money and aggravation! I call Toyota back and get Scott who actually has heard of this and assures me that my regular car repair place wouldn't be able to deal with this problem and actually maybe it just needs to sit over the whole entire weekend to reset. Is this guy kidding me? No car all weekend? I have plans buddy! I need my car, one that doesn't clunk and have a STOP LIGHT INDICATOR coming on. I mention the clunking noise and his tune changed to oh, could be a mechanical problem then and you had better go ahead and bring it in and you shouldn't drive it because it could definitely make the problem worse and so just call AAA and have it towed.

Okay! That's what I'll do then! And, everyone in the world of AAA membership has free towing, right? I mean, that's sorta why you have AAA, right?

Not us! Nope! We are their "Good Basic Customers" and have free hook up and the first 3 miles free, after that it's $2.50 per mile. That's what we pay $80 a year for, sounds like a deal to me. So, they will send someone within 60 minutes or less to my house to tow my car and I'm doing calculations and figuring it's gonna be about $20 overage. Am not happy. Mr. Towing Guy calls me and says he'll be there in about 30 minutes and agrees that I do have time to take my shower if I'm not a marathon showerer, which I'm not, so that makes me happier to know that I will at least look human when he comes knocking. And, he'll call me back with the overage amount, just like AAA said he would and AAA said it wouldn't be a problem that I could pay with credit card or cash. I don't even have to go to the dealership w/him because they took all my info over the phone and all I have to do is call and let Scott know when it's on its way!

I swear while in the shower five minutes later that I hear the doorbell ringing. Sure enough, just as I step out, I get a call on my cell phone from a rather irritated Mr. Towing Guy. He wants to know if I'm with my car. I said, well, it's in the driveway and I'm in the house and he proceeds to describe how he's rung the door and banged on the door and no one has come. I said, we'll I'll be right down, let me put a robe on okay?

I let him in and tell him that he told me I had time to take my shower and he sure got here faster than 20 minutes. (I have learned that since I was a beginning driver and it used to take at least 2 1/2 hours for AAA to come, they now always come in less than 15 minutes, not giving you time to get ready for them) I then remind him that he was going to call me back with the overage amount too. He then looks at me and says, well, he has no idea how many miles it would be to Clarksville and he doesn't take credit cards anyway! AND, listen to this: I'm going to have to go with him to pay the overage! Excuse me, AAA said he would figure it and I could pay him at my house! I point out that I have JUST gotten out of the shower and can't go anywhere and, hey, I have cash and that still works doesn't it?! He still stands there like he can't figure out the mileage so I offer up that it takes me exactly 8 minutes to get from my house to Hobby Lobby and it's right near the dealership. So, he decides it will be 4 miles total and I owe him $2.50 which I'm sure AAA will never see. At least it wasn't 10 miles....

Bye car! Off it went to Greentree Toyota and they'll call me when they determine the problem.

Change my copy time to the afternoon when I can use Tim's van and go upstairs to finish up the beauty routine.

Scott calls me in the early afternoon and says, Good News (Happy New Year!), there isn't actually anything wrong with the vehicle, it's just that apparently the conditions were EXACTLY right (wow, wonder how often that happens because I've driven and slipped and slid all over ice getting out of our driveway for the past couple of winters and it's never engaged before to help me out) for this safety feature to engage and it's just not resetting itself so they'll have to hook it up to their computer to reset it and then all will be well again in my Happy New Year!

Total Cost: $80 Toyota
$2.50 Mr. Towing Guy

Here's the description straight off my receipt (it's so hilarious, I have to share):

Customer states that VSC Light is on and there is a noise from under the cart when the light comes on like a clanking noise.

VSC System has activated and locked the traction control and stability control system in.

Performed recalibration to repair VSC System.

(For $80)

Happy New Year!

New Years' Eve

Tim had to work New Year's Eve day but we headed over to Mom's house around 5:30 for supper. Stopped at Kroger "real quick" to get bread and there was not a fresh baked loaf to be found! Ended up with Kroger Garlic Breadsticks which I now highly recommend. The lines were unbelievable....everyone in New Albany was at the grocery picking up stuff for parties or the impending possibility of inclement weather. I finally snuck over to customer service to pay for my two little items!

Noticed that one of our New Year's light up tiaras from Target was not working but as we pulled into their parking lot to change it out, it came on. (Note: It continued to act up, however, the whole evening so Tim didn't always light up as planned)

Finally got to mom's after 6pm and my aunt and uncle had arrived and we were all hungry! Mom made a yummy new lasagna recipe, salad, my breadsticks, and then we had homemade hot fudge sundaes for dessert. My aunt and uncle left around 8 to get back home before it got too crazy on the roads and we stayed and hung out for awhile. While there, Tim worked on gluing a hall tree back together for mom after it took a tumble down the back stairs Sunday afternoon. While we were hanging out in the storage room we found some "liquid refreshments" which made for some funny kodak moments!

Only I could go bargain shopping on New Year's Eve but when I'd heard that all Christmas was 75% off at Walgreens how could I not stop on the way home? Tim was a sport and turned around to go back as I wistfully mentioned this as we drove on by.
Wrapping paper rolls were now 50 cents. Rest assured, we can now wrap gifts for at least the next 5 years.

We were planning to stop by a little party we'd been invited to but by then it was after 10 and we were getting tired! So, we wimped out and headed home! Took some more pictures and attempted to stay up till midnight, which we did and watched the new year roll in both on our clock and on tv. We kissed then promptly fell asleep.

So, with the passing of another whole year, we look towards a new year, our 9th year together and all the kodak moments and fun times it is sure to bring us!!