Time Passing

So let's see...well, the big stuff first I guess!

I finally got the hell out of Wal-Mart after 5 years there!  I started working for a pharmacy that distributes to long-term care facilities...so no customers!  That seems to be the first thing I say about my new job, and still after 5 months there it is by far my favorite part.  There are other perks, but after some of the people I dealt with over the years, no customers is a huge bonus.  Let me be clear, though...I miss the hell out of most of my coworkers!  We had that whole "bonding in the battlefield" mentality thing and I still feel the need to lean behind the counter and chuckle when I get an order written out for a drug that is so misspelled it looks like my 4-yr old tried to spell it out!  Hopefully that doesn't offend...in the pharmacy world, those kinds of things are sometimes the highlight of our day!

The girls are growing more and more every day...Sophia turned two a few weeks ago and I thought I would bawl my eyes out. 

But now my oldest is turning 4 in just a few short days and I can't believe how fast time as gone!

  And soon after my two girls have their birthdays I will be celebrating one more year closer to 30.  However, I think I have accepted the next decade with a positive outlook.  I mean a few small twists of fate and I could have missed them altogether, so why not be excited for my 30's, right?  And I feel like my twenties was a collective assortment of bad decisions, colossal fuck-ups, and treading that thin line between oh-so-sweet middle class lifestyle and poverty.  Granted, I got some beautiful things from it!  So I made a list...that's right! The top twenty things I learned in my twenties...and I plan to share these with my girls!

1) Never EVER stay with a man who gives you an ultimatum.  Period. I could elaborate, but I won't bother.

2) Stay in school. Sounds cliché, but believe me, an education is always worth it.  Because if you take that one semester off, or even one year, the odds are you will get sucked into the work force and won't go back.  Don't take the chance.  Power through the first semester that feels like torture and keep at it.

3) Know your credit score and do everything you can to keep it as high as possible.  Wish I had listened to my mommy on this one! 

4) Don't gossip.  No one is perfect and most of the time you will probably get sucked into the gossip, but in my experience, "What Sally says of Susie says more of Sally than it does of Susie."  <---Word.

5) Know that there are just some people you should not trust, and learn how to identify them.

6) Travel.  As far and wide (and safely!) as possible. 

7) Never take a nude photo.  This should be self explanatory, but for some reason it isn't and is easily forgotten with a bottle of tequila...and a pack of cigarettes...and a water hose...not that I'm speaking from experience...

8) Watch Disney movies after a movie that has scared you or shaken you...it may not make you feel better right in that moment, but when you're curling up to go to sleep that night and can't stop thinking about that disturbing movie, you can replay the Disney one a lot easier after a fresh viewing.

9) Learn to clean your entire house, top to bottom, and learn to take pride in your work.  <---still working on this one!

10) Learn what clothes fit your figure and, more importantly, which ones do not. 

11) Don't focus on what doesn't look good on you, because even if you can't wear skinny jeans or bikinis or whatever the newest fashion trend is, it doesn't mean that you aren't absolutely beautiful just the way you are.

12) Know when you (YOU!) are comfortable with how you look and when you (YOU!!!!) want to make a change.

13) Don't be a mean girl.  Bringing someone down does NOT lift you up, it tears your soul down and takes a long time to forgive yourself.

14) Know when to shut your mouth and walk away. 

15) Be a kid for the first 18 years of your life...don't force yourself to grow up unnecessarily early.

16) There is never going to be a perfect time to have kids.  No matter how clearly you plan it out, kids will absolutely turn your life completely upside down...in incredible, amazing ways and scary, annoying ways.  Still...get through your teenage years. Once you are out of your teens, you have the next 20-something years to consider having a family. Teen parents aren't cool just because they are on TV.  Honey Boo Boo is on TV too...'nuff said!

17) Harry Potter = awesome....Twilight = pathetic.  I know...I read them all and saw all the movies.  I'll take Harry, Ron, and Hermione over Edward, Bella, and Jacob any day.

18) Never believe what you see or hear on the news. If you hear about something that interests you, research it yourself through multiple different sources and learn how to form your own educated opinions on the subject.  And don't let all of the sources be on the internet...sometimes another person's opinion can really affect how you feel on the subject, in a good or bad way!

19) Never hate anyone for whom they choose to love.  Everyone deserves to love and be loved. 

20) Forgive.  If you hang onto hate long enough, the only person it harms is you. 


I still have 39ish months before I officially enter my 30's, so I'm sure I will learn more in that time.  These just happen to be what I was feeling passionately about right now.

As for the super-special heart, things are mostly good in that department.  I've been having a little more frequent episodes of palpitations and shortness of breath.  I contacted my cardiologist and we're in the process of setting up a time to fit me with a halter monitor to make sure nothing more serious is going on...I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I'm officially at my heaviest! 

The Hubby and I had agreed that if we were going to have a third baby any time in the next 3-5 years we would have to make some serious changes and stick with them.  Both of my previous pregnancies were a nightmare, and not just because of the mostly silent heart condition.  With Penny, I was nauseous literally up to the day I had her.  Not kidding, I threw up, peed, and passed my mucous plug in that order...nice visual, right? You're welcome.  But that was just the tip of the iceberg.  With Sophia I was pretty nauseous, but mostly just when I ate meat or got too hungry...freakin' Granola fetus.  But that wasn't all!  I developed a pregnancy-specific rash that was just awesome, so basically my body was allergic to being pregnant...and then I failed my glucose test and with the threat of having to inject myself with insulin every day I just barely escaped being classified with "gestational diabetes" because I drastically altered my diet.  Don't know why I can't do that when I'm not pregnant!  Oh, and did I mention that with both pregnancies (both long SUMMER pregnancies) I got to go through record high temperatures?  Yeah, with Penny it was a record-breaking summer with like 80+ days over 100 degrees...and then with Sophia, that summer broke the previous record with over 100+ days of 100+ degree weather. Seriously, like two weeks after she was born was the first rain we had seen for MONTHS!  So, it's not just a fear of how my super-special heart would handle the pregnancy but the rest of my body as well.

At this point in time, I'm ready to turn in my baby-making card and get a puppy.  But all of my darn friends have these super cute babies that smell so darn good and look so cute with their chubby cheeks...and of course Penny asks occasionally for another brother or sister.  Really, she asked for four brothers but I just laughed at her. That's so not happening.  And if someone says the word "twins" I'm going to make YOU carry my next child! As for my husband, well he comes from a pretty large family and still insists he knows I will change my mind.  He's probably right. But not any time soon. 

I'm actually enjoying where our family is at right now.  Both of the girls are old enough that they are mostly self-sufficient.  Sophia is still quite young so she's still quite needy.  Plus she's the baby of the family and loves it.  However, she's still at that sweet age where she holds my hand everywhere we go, even if I'm just riding in the car next to her.  And she loves her big sister so much!

As for Penny, she just started Pre-school and it seems to be a great step for her.  Though at this current moment while I am writing this, she's curled up in our pink rocking chair cuddled under a blanket sniffling and looking quite pathetic.  She's a little stopped up and our normal routines aren't working for her, so I had to give her a gentle laxative and don't know what to expect so I'm keeping her up.  I get to be one of those parent's who complain about those gosh darn school lunches!  Honestly I think she hasn't been getting enough fiber and water, so we will just have to get that in at breakfast and dinner.  BTW for those of you who don't have kids...just wait. You, too, will talk about poop in every day conversation and not even realize that people might be grossed out. Frankly, I don't care because I'm pretty sure most of the people who read this are parents. I wanted to get Penny into some kind of a dance class but gymnastics was such a disaster last year that I'm hesitating hardcore to sign her up. 

We have a trip down to the beach coming up soon. We had to fill out a form to take her out of school for the week, but that is what makes this trip awesome!  It will be during the week during the school year so I'm hoping the beaches won't be so packed and maybe even have a small amount of rain while we are on our trip.  I shouldn't have said that, though...I usually run into bad weather on my road trips anyway, so asking for it might be a bad idea...but still, is there anything more beautiful than a calm rainy day on the beach? 

 

 

 

Still Determined to Find the Silver Linings!

Since the last post, I reached the one year anniversary since my heart surgery!  It fell on January 31st, and it got me thinking about where I was a year ago and where I am now.  Not just with my heart, everything is just peachy on that end, but where I am in life.  

I was so upset a few months after my surgery because I was feeling as though I hadn't accomplished anything with my life.  I was living at my parents house (again!) with my two girls and my husband and it was more difficult than I had anticipated.  But my wonderful husband reminded me that I had accomplished what I had wanted to do when we had first met.  

I guess it's a pretty typical first or second date question, when you ask the other person where they see themselves in the future or what they want to be.  Or at least it is for me, apparently.  Anyway, when he asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I hesitated.  I knew my answer would probably send him running for the hills and since we worked together that could be awkward.  But I told him the truth.  I wanted to be a mom.  And not just be a mom, I meant I wanted to get married and have children (that I could support) and have a career that allows me time with them.  I wanted to raise them to be good people and learn from my mistakes in life, and I wanted to marry someone who wanted children as much as I did, and would be there for our children.  

Minus a few bumps in the road, I have done that.  I have two beautiful girls who, despite some bratty stages, are wonderful.  I have a job that I can work as much or as little as I would like that provides good insurance for my family.  And above all of that, I have a husband who never stops working for our family.  He killed himself for a year trying to cover my medical expenses from my surgery and paying off other credit cards and bills so that he could go back to school for his masters, which he is doing now.  

Now, unfortunately we did have a development that shook me to my core.  As you all know, I never knew about my heart condition until I was in my surgery delivering Sophia, my youngest daughter.  Since my condition is hereditary, my husband and I have had to have hundreds of conversations about whether or not we are going to have any more children.  When we got married we had decided that three felt like a good number for us.  However, bringing another child into the world KNOWING they could have a very good chance at inheriting my "super-special" heart is different than having children and THEN finding out about your condition. 

Having said this, when Sophia was sick earlier this winter we found out that she has a heart murmur.  Immediately, I had her pediatrician make her an appointment to see a pediatric cardiologist.  I'm also pretty sure I cried myself to sleep and cursed my bad genes.  Yesterday was her appointment and we didn't really find out anything.  The only thing the doctor really had to say was that she is too young to show any signs but the odds are not in our favor.  Then she was poked on for about 20 minutes at the lab to draw some blood for genetic testing so that we can find out once and for all if Penny and Sophia have whatever gene I have that causes the condition.  

I keep going back and forth between level-headed person hearing heath information and taking it in strides and super-crazy Momma Bear who wants to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep and curse my genes again.  Today I'm focusing on the positive.  Those same genes could mean she gets my awesome sense of humor and favorite music styles, or my ridiculous habit of crying at anything from music (again) to movies, books, pins on Pinterest...hell, even commercials.  She could get my hair that stays stick straight until you hit puberty, and then suddenly curls and waves appear and you have NO idea what to do with them.  Part of me even thinks her eyes could still turn blue *fingers crossed!!!*  So for the one bad gene I probably passed on, there are lots of other good ones that she can get, too!  Her big sister already inherited my fantastic fashion sense *see Facebook pictures* so I think as far as good genes go, there's plenty to go around between the two of them and probably any other sibling that joins our crazy little family.  

And, as always, I am humbled and extremely touched at how much my family and friends have once again rallied behind us.  I am so lucky and fortunate to have you all in my life, and I'm going to change the subject because apparently I can even make MYSELF cry....

For the Meiris side, today we mentioned a family reunion and I WANT TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN!  It has been TEN YEARS since the last one!  That is just too darn long.  I don't care where we have it, count me in!  Tennessee sounds like a blast since that was the first place that was thrown out there, and I plan to show up all the boys again with my fishing skills =)

Oh yeah, one last thing!  My totally awesome sister was contacted by this totally awesome compounding pharmacy that makes this cream for scars.  So she wrote me a prescription and even with my insurance the price was well over $500, so I politely asked them to cancel it and thanked them for their time.  Well, their pharmacist called me back the next day and told me that since my sister is a physician, they were going to extend a professional courtesy for me and fill it free of charge.  WOO HOO!  I've only been using it for about 3 days so no results yet but I'm excited to see what it will do for me!  The entire scar is about 4-5 inches long and the bottom 2-3 inches has already flattened and turned flesh colored instead of bright pink, but the top 2 inches is still puffy and pink and it drives me crazy.  Mederma makes me want to scratch my skin off, so I'm very excited to try this new stuff out.  I refer to it as the "Gold-Infused Miracle Cream" and hopefully it has good results. 


Anyway...that's all, folks!