up, up, and away

even super heroes have their beginnings.

bruise free area

okay peoples! sing with me. . .

"one of these things is not like the other, one of these things doesn't belong. can you tell which thing is not like the other, before i finish my song."

mmm, puffball anyone?

every year a crop of giant puffballs crop up in our back yard. some years are better growing years than others. cool temps, lots of rain at the right time and voila! you get puffballs!! when we first bought out home we had a few very large puffballs grow. they were bigger than gianna's head. literally not figuratively. this year in order to get a good perspective i had the girls pose next to some of the puffballs. as and added bonus - they are edible. simply slice them like bread and saute in butter. make sure that they are completely white with no brown beginning to show. i personally do not like them, but it is considered a delicacy.

mommy! i caught three crappies!!

yesterday i took maya fishing. with a little help from phil, and a disney princess fishing pole, we had a great time and it was a perfect night to be out on the lake.

here kitty, kitty, kitty

fish: flat head catfish

caught: June 20, 2009

weight: approx. 25 lb

location: mississippi river in st. paul, mn

shoot my foot is numb again

from the time that i first wrote about "throwing out" my back, i have since done it again. this time around it was compounded by the fact that i was playing soccer. it was causing enough pain that i went and got an MRI. that was an experience. it took me two tries to do it because the first time i went to the imaging center i drove myself and didn't take the strong pain pills. they make me really drowsy. the pain was so intense from laying on the flat table that i couldn't do it. so four days later i tried again (with a chauffeur). this time i was lucid enough to lay flat for a little over 30 min. and not even realize the time had passed.

it turns out that i have a bulged disc in my back that is pinching the root of the S1 nerve. OUCH! i believe that the S1 is the sciatic for the right side of the body. basically from the hip down to the foot i either have sever pain or numbness on the right side. if i sit for too long then my foot goes numb. well what do you know! its numb right now!!

from here i get to receive a steroid injection into my back to make it feel better. gianna and i get to bond in yet another fun way. we both get to experience an epidural!
yippie.
whahoo.
yeah.
bleah.

coming soon to a grocery store near you

stay away from my garden!!!

for the first time in the six years we have lived in our home the grackles are out in force. some people may like this bird since it has a very cool metallic purple head.

i don't like them.

i planted lettuce in my garden about three weeks ago and had two very nice rows of little plants coming up. to date i now have about four little leaves of lettuce. i don't really have any proof that these pesky birds are the culprits, but from past experience i would guess they are to blame.

the only reason that i have any lettuce at all is due to the fact that i put a milk jug on top of my remaining plants. time will tell who will win this battle, but i do have the upper hand.

a bb-gun.

falling apart

exactly one week ago i threw out my back. i have always had problems with my back a little bit due to a pre-existing condition that i have had since birth, but this was completely different. i was getting ready for work and needed to get a box of cereal from the basement. while rummaging through a bag of groceries i had a coughing fit. the next thing in knew i felt a pain in my back. dead center, in the area of a person's L5.
so i went to work, emptied a truck, got home and was doing okay, but not great. on friday i went to work to unload another truck, and without thinking i assisted in moving the dock plate. dumb! that was about all i could handle with my back. i was about ready to lie down and not move. for the rest of the weekend i pretty much was flat on my back trying to move as little as possible.
on monday i went to the doctor (after talking with a friend of my who is a sports trainer) to get official documentation in my medical record, and to get a muscle relaxant. it has been determined that i have a swollen disc in my back. if the pain doesn't get better in a week then they will check me out again and possibly schedule a mri.
so when you hear stories about people throwing out their back because they tied their shoe, sneezed, or simply turned wrong, it is true!! i didn't even get to pick up the cereal box.

getting older stinks.

reality check

late last night i learned that my dad has colon cancer. gianna got home from cubbies with the kids and after we put them to bed she asked me if i knew about my dad. so i was rather blown away when she told me what was going on. my first reaction was "wait a minute, why didn't they tell me this!?!?" after going to bed a little concern crept in and i couldn't sleep last night. if you know anything about my family, you know that my mom is a serious cancer survivor (4x). there has never been too much ever mentioned about my dad since he is a healthy person. yeah, there are some minor issues, but nothing big like this.

after calling him this afternoon to talk, i feel better about the situation. basically my dad tells it like this: everyone gets polyp's in your colon, and most everyone will have one be cancer. with screening the doctors find them, cut them out, and put you back together.

to put it into other words, my dad will go into surgery on thursday next week. the cancer will be taken out and along with it 12 inches of his colon. from there he will have about a three month recovery time table. yikes.

i have never thought that my dad would be the one to have cancer. there is so much focus on my mom's side that i must say that i do neglect the medical stuff from my dad's side of the family. in three weeks i myself have to go get screened for cancer. i wasn't really thinking about it at all until today. i don't anticipate there to be anything wrong with me, although others may debate this fact, but there is that little bit of doubt that lingers in the back of my head.

this is all a little too sobering.

man! this is time consuming

over the past few days i have been setting up my wifi here at home. i wanted to be able to use the wii's internet feature. after much grief, it is done. the bummer is that you have to download the internet channel in order to use it!!! so after spending $5, we can finally surf the web from the wii. a disappointment that i already found is that adobe flash player doesn't work so we can't watch some videos. oh well. so for fun i decided to blog using the wii. not too bad other than typing one letter at a time using the remote. with that said i am going to quit now,

a major milestone

last week we all noticed that dane was really ramping up to start crawling. he would get up on his knees and think about moving. then he would slap his hands on the floor, rock back and forth, and then ultimately sit back down. oh well, nice try buddy. on occasion he would lean forward and then lay out flat on his stomach in a spread eagle fashion. it was really funny, and it moved him around.

a few days ago, i don't remember exactly which day (gianna wrote it down), dane made those first official crawling movements. it was only one or two paces, but hey it counts. and it is on video!! since then dane has gotten more bold and is beginning to scamper across the floor at an alarming speed. **sigh** we had to put the baby gates back up. so, once again we will discover what items around the house will need to be put away. an almost 9 month old doesn't have a sense of what he can or cannot touch, and everything must be licked. yuck.

i can only long for the days that i don't have to hear maya and brin yelling at the top of their lungs that they need to come up out of the basement. i don't think i will teach them how to open the gate.

jumping into the modern world of gaming

okay, so for the longest time i didn't really care about getting a new game system. i have my sega genesis from back in high school and roughly 60 games to go with it. quite a collection if you ask me. this past summer my family got together for vacation and we played the wii a lot. i had played a wii before and didn't really care, but this time it was fun. i think it was the most fun because gianna got into playing. (she doesn't play video games) it then became my mission to get a wii for our family. as gianna stated in her blog we bought a wii last friday. yippee!! it is an instant hit with the girls as they race their cows around the track knocking over scare crows. we had fun playing tennis last night and i am sure that it will continue for many times to come.

let us know of any great games out there that are worth playing.

what! you said its how cold?

okay, so its not this cold here, but it sure feels like it. we are projected to have the coldest night tonight since 2004. i think they said we are going to get to about -24 tonight. yikes!! one thing that is cool about it being this cold is that you can take a cup of boiling water and create an instant cloud by throwing the water up into the air. if you have never tried this before it is really kinda cool. all you need is subzero temps and a cup of hot water. it also helps to be bundled up a little bit too, but for those brave enough you can simply run outside throw the water and then run back inside.

hopefully the car will start tomorrow.

its times like this that i often wonder: was it really worth sacrificing my garage spot for the boat?

exhaustion

as some of you know, i was shipped off to the sister store of the company i work for. i would tell you the name, but i signed a paper that states i will not disclose my work place in a blog or other internet messaging site. stupid i know, but hey the rules are the rules. anyway, since i couldn't get any hours of work at the roseville location, i switched to the maplewood location for the season. because toys are much more popular at xmas than baby strollers, it was easy to get lots of work. i chose to work the overnight shifts. for the most part i really liked it, but it made quite an impact on home life. gianna and i didn't really see each other too much.
after thanksgiving the overnight crew was told that we could earn overtime and work as much as we desired. with the thought that i don't know what will happen in jan. or feb. i chose to begin my crazy, insane, and slightly deranged work schedule. i don't know exactly when it started but by xmas eve morning i had worked seventeen days (nights) straight. the last full week that i was there i think i had close to 60 hrs. i am thankful that i had the opportunity to work at the store, but i am glad to be back at the roseville location now. plus working during the day and sleeping next to a warm body at night is very nice.