Happy Selfless Birthday Scott

My wonderful husband Scott's birthday was on Friday. We have been spending our time since last week in the early stages of tearing out and remodeling our kitchen. Since we were in the beginning of a huge undertaking, my selfless husband would not let me take him out for his birthday. Instead, he chose for us to stay home and work.

Well that's fine with me, but I wasn't going to let his birthday just go by without any kind of recognition ;) So I came home from work early (he thought I was still at work hehe) and I decorated the remains of the kitchen with balloons, signs, and oh yes, I made him wear a PARTY HAT WHILE HE WORKED ;) So despite having to work, we ordered his favorite pizza, I bought him his favorite beer, and got him a wonderful ice cream cake and decorated it myself. I know it wasn't an "ideal" birthday for him, but I think it was better than what he expected.

We'll celebrate his birthday in any way he wishes once this project is done :)

Sorry to Disappoint

Have you ever felt like no matter what you do it’s just not enough? Or maybe it’s that your efforts just aren’t noticed? Perhaps that’s how I’m feeling these last few weeks. I don’t like to focus on the stressful stuff, but rather just go day to day and make the best of situations and do my best. Well sometimes best isn’t good enough.

I’m doing my best to take care of myself first and foremost. Let’s face it, even in rough times there’s no room for skipping treatments or the gym. It’s just not something I do. So it’s become a struggle to keep up with work, gym, help Dad with taking care of my parent’s dogs on my way home, try to visit Mom at Nursing Home (if time allows), then feel the guilt of not visiting, attempt to fix dinner (not happening) and spend quality time with my husband, try to get to bed early, only to get up at 4:30 am and get to work to start the cycle all over again. And that my friends, is every single day.

Needless to say that leaves me no time to try to keep up with the phone calls, messages, and emails that have been accumulating for the past month. I’m sure, scratch that, I know that I’ve pissed off some of my family members with my lack of phone skills and updates on my Mom. Is it on purpose? Of course not, but I’m doing my best and I just wish people were a little more understanding, that’s all.

On top of these daily life fiascos right now, Scott’s Grandfather passed away. Poor guy has lost 2 family members in 2 weeks. Thinking positively that this is all happening for a reason, and will calm down soon….

What A Week!

This week goes down as one of the craziest weeks we've had in a while. From good, to bad, to celebratory...

Scotts uncle passed away suddenly last week so we had to go to his services, very sad. It always scares me to hear that someone passed away suddenly without (yet) any kind of explanation. I know it sounds so cliche' but it really does make you realize how you just never know and to enjoy each day.

I've been trying to help out my Dad everyday with taking care of his dogs on my way home from work and the gym. He works right near where my Mom is, so it's alot for him to come all the way home and go back. I offered to help him out and take some of this off of him. Truth be told, I'm beat. This week was a little nuts, but in times like this you have to pull together and help each other out.

I had a week day off work. Not a big deal right? Wrong! Ha ha I usually don't get weekdays off so I took full advantage of it. My best friend and I went shopping all day from about 9-5. Ahh retail therapy ;) I got a bunch of things I need for upcoming events like a wedding and a First Communion. I also got to buy new pots for my plants since the 2 blizzards killed mine, or maybe I did since I didn't put them away ;) I finally found SHORTS!!! This is a big deal, believe me! In my size I can only find ghetto skank looking booty shorts, LOL, so I was very happy that Target had something cute and decent! It was definitely a day of accomplishments, fun, laughter, and down time that was oh-so-needed.

I visited my Mom this week and got to participate in her physical therapy with her. It was pretty cool to see her do her exercise and to see how far she's come with all of this. They are hoping to try to have her stand up and maybe start walking soon.

Yesterday was our 6th wedding Anniversary. Wow, I really sat there and thought about how fast the time has gone by these past 6 years, and it really has. We got dressed up and went to dinner at our favorite seafood restaurant. We each got a Lobster, shrimp, and clams. OMG it was delicious! Overall it was a great way to celebrate :)

Today, as I type this, our kitchen cabinets are here and being unloaded in the garage !!!!!!!!! I am so excited, but this is kind of surreal. The reason is, we've been talking about re-doing the kitchen for years now, and it's actually here, right now!

I'm also spending time with my Dad today. Each Spring we go out together and get our herbs, plants, flowers, and gardening stuff together. Can't wait, it's a beautiful Saturday, I'm up early, and ready to tackle and enjoy this beautiful day.

Tomorrow we are going on another hike with our Best Friends. Scott and I did this hike last year and thought it was so beautiful that we still talk about it. I'm definitely looking forward to using my new hiking backpack, seeing some waterfalls, and enjoying time outside.

That's it for now. Have a great weekend Bloggie Friends :)

Hiking

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Hiking and we went for a great hike recently here in MD. We went to Gunpowder Falls State Park and did about a 5 mile hike with our best friends. The scenery was beautiful and the falls were simply gorgeous. Oh and the exercise, wow, it was excellent!

Updates, CF stuff, and other Ramblings

Man I'm really not liking how I've barely had time to blog lately. Anyway.....there is still a ton going on, but I think things are slowly getting better for my Mom. She's still in the Nursing Home doing her physical therapy everyday. According to the family meeting that was had today, she will be there until she gains more strength in her lower extremeties. That being said, I think she'll be in a while longer. However she looks better, and is getting stronger and for that I'm very thankful.

I have to admit though that all of this family stress has definitely taken a toll on a lot of stuff. Nothing horrible, but I'm definitely feeing the effects of missing my "normal" life. I know these things happen, and in the grand scheme of life I'm so grateful for the supportive and wonderful people in my life. I guess I just miss some things right now, and am ready to be stress-free and focus on my goals again.

In other news of my life and CF, I'm happy to say that I started Cayston on March 31st and so far so good, well great actually. I really like it and am very pleased with how I feel. No awful side effects to report, still have a voice (bonus!), and my lungs feel very strong. I actually feel like I am taking much deeper breaths now, and I didn't realize that I wasn't before. It's even improved my running, and I'm running so much longer and actually losing track of time, awesome! Today @ the gym the only reason I had to stop running after 22 minutes was that my knees were killing me, not my lungs-yay!

CF wise, I also participated in a talk at University of Maryland about CF in which I was a guest speaker. I was so nervous, but it went very very well. I think I was able to give a lot of people some great perspective about CF and just what our daily life consists of to stay healthy. I took in ALL my meds, nebulizer, treatments, etc, I definitely opened up some eyes for sure. I was even told that I should look into doing more public speaking for CF, whoa :)

That's it for now...