New Year, Renewed Resolve

I love the new year! Certainly not because of the weather, but I love it because I can feel good about doing all of the the things I put off last year. I keep wanting to catch up on all the blogs I've missed reading as well as doing a little blogging of my own, but now that it's a new year I can start fresh instead of feeling like I have to "catch up". Whew, what a relief! So here I am again folks. Y'all ready for this?! Dun dun dun da da da dun dun dun dun...

Let's see, where to begin.  I'm well into married life and all of the joys and challenges that brings. It will seem sappy but I try to only post details about the positive things my husband does. I"ve learned in the past that when I vent about my significant other, it gives people (especially family) the wrong ideas about that person and casts them in a different, not so flattering, light. Mostly my venting is me not understanding him and vice versa. Once we talk it out and have a better idea, I find the same things that drove me nuts aren't driving me nearly as nuts and then I feel bad for making such a big deal out of it. So don't think that because I post lovely things that I'm trying to make us look perfect. I'm not. And it drives me batty when people do. Makes me kind of want to smack them up their pretty, smiley little heads. Anyway, I'll end this thought with some nice things Jeff did for me this morning. He packed a little lunch for me, went out in the freezing cold to warm up my car, put the lunch in the car so my scatterbrain couldn't forget it, and then started my Keurig (which incidentally was my Christmas present from him. Score!). He does such a good job of keeping me from being late to work.

 Let's see, what else. Oh yeah. I'm obsessed with my dogs. Sorry, it's kind of like I have kids. Anyone who's friends with me on Facebook knows this as the dog pictures outnumber the people pictures like 4 to 1. But lucky for you, they are cute, funny, and very entertaining. On a more somber note, my older dog has lumps all over her belly that the vet is pretty sure are cancerous.


Look close, they're there

So pretty soon here she'll be having surgery. I'll keep you up to date on that one. Cross your fingers for this precious face!

Look how cute I am


In other medical related news, I'll bet you're wondering what's going on in kidney-land. It's been, and still is, a bit of a roller coaster. Everything after the surgery was good. I can't recall if I posted about my experience during recovery. It's full of not so much fun, but good stuff to know if you're ever going to have abdominal surgery. If I didn't, I'll post that soon with a disclaimer about how old it is. In any case, the kidney was doing great, no more dialysis, and things were getting better. Although my dad has seemed to have less energy ever since he first started treatment, that was starting to come back a little. Then the kidney started having some issues. Just not functioning as well. Turns out he has something called the BK Virus which is common in transplant recipients. Ever since, we've kind of been walking two roads. One path has us hoping the treatments for the virus work and the kidney rebounds. The other has us preparing for the need to get a new kidney. So far things are slowly looking good on the virus end. Levels are going down and functionality is going up. But again, it's sloooooowly happening. I'm very hopeful but trying not to get those hopes up too high. During the preperation for the surgery, the doctors warned you could get depressed from losing a piece of your body. I did not, but I do think if that kidney ceased to function that might be another story. We'll just have to take it a test at a time and see what happens.

On the bright side of medical news, all of Jeff's post cancer testing has been good as gold. So woo hoo go team!!!

Well I feel better already. Look at all this progress I"m making. My big project for the month is well under way. Stay tuned to find out what it is and for before and after pictures. Eeeek, I'm excited!