Road Trip

I made an unexpected road trip this weekend to Leroy, Ohio to see Steve and Robbie. I didn't get to see Shane and Dina. Apparently Shane was spending his time with a bunch of Boars somewhere out of town. It's really nice to be able to call family and be welcomed with opened arms and cake! Robbie made this banana cake and cream cheese with roasted pecan frosting. I think it was pecans. Whatever it was I thought I died and went to dessert heaven. I don't even really like banana flavored things but this was SUPERB! Oops, I went off of my no flour no sugar diet. Oh well, I deserved it I had a bad week. I have lost 5 lbs but I'm still bad about the exercise thing. I am planning on doing some yard work tomorrow so maybe I can do a little aerobic mowing again. But I digress.... I went to Ohio to pick up my pink pistol. Yea, that's right a pink pistol. It's a Taurus .380 that has a pepto bismol pink grip. I ride a motorcycle and I have tattoos so a gun is the next natural progression...Right? Now if I can only get Joe to tattoo my name across his back I will be set!
By the way Robbie, thanks for the free therapy! It was free wasn't it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAXON

Happy 1st Birthday Jax. It's been a long year but you finally made it to the big number 1. You however have been doing number 1 for quite some time. Jax got to hang out with his cousins Julian and Nicholas today. He's one of the boys now. Julian adores Jax, but Nicholas isn't quite sure yet. I can picture them on Jax's 21st birthday. Julian will say: "Ok Jax you've had enough, lets go home." Nicholas will say: "No dude do one more shot you'll be fine." I hope I'm too old and senile by then so I don't have to be the one to pick up Jax passed out in the lawn at Pizza Hut. Oh wait, no, I've already done that with Brad. Enjoy your birthday little man.

Annual Event

I think I received the most comments so far on my Colonoscopy blog. Soooo, in honor of that, May 6th will be an annual Colonoscopy Awareness Day. I'll put it on the family calendar so no one forgets. By the way I have one scheduled for June 9th. I'll tell you all about it then. Ha ha, just kidding. Even I have a few boundaries.

Jaxon's 1st Birthday Party

We lucked out with a beautiful day for Jaxon's 1st Birthday Party. All of the little rug rats....I mean children could be outside. There really were children at the party and adults as well but you wouldn't know it by looking at my pictures of the day. The only child other than Jax that I have a picture of is the back of Julian's head. The other people just happen to be in the shot that I was taking of Jaxon. Oh, and of course there are the pictures of my confection creations. The monkeys on the cookie cake were actually edible. My photographic ability needs a little help.
I started out the day by traumatizing Jaxon with the air compressor when I was blowing up balloons. The compressor made a god awful noise and Jax started shaking and screaming. I felt awful. I figured he would never want to see another balloon. Luckily he was ok and played more with the balloons than any of the toys he got. Right before the party started he fell down in the driveway face first and got his nose all scraped up. Amanda had to console him while I consoled her and tried to convince her that she wasn't a bad mother. Actually Amanda is a great mother, she is way too hard on herself. The presentation of the cake was less than enthusiastic. Jaxon seemed to care less. Adults have such expectations and the kids have their own agenda. The sugar seemed to have an effect though. Amanda said Jaxon was wired the rest of the day and evening. All in all the day was a success. After everyone left and I was rethinking the events of the day, something occured to me. Things will not stay this way forever. I know that sounds like a "DUH" moment, but for whatever reason it really hit me. I am not always going to have to watch the steps so the baby doesn't try to go down them or make sure the furniture is arranged so that little heads are less likely to get bumped. I won't always have a supply of fruit snacks in the cupboard and there won't always be someone around that thinks I am so cool because I can peel an apple in one long strip. I hardly saw Julian today because he was off playing with another little boy. Nicholas still needs me to drive him around on the 4 wheeler but one day soon he'll be driving it himself. I hate getting older, it makes me all sappy, or maybe it just makes me smarter because I know that I have to live in the day and savor every moment. I have a mantra: "Let the past influence you, let the future entice you, but let the present envelop you". Ponder that for awhile.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARAH

Happy birthday to my favorite daughter-in-law. I didn't get you a present yet. OOps! Maybe next year. You know I love you!

THE "C" word

No! not that "C" word... COLONOSCOPY. You have to read Lauren's blog about her trip with her mother to the ass doctor. It's hilarious. It's also a pretty common response from people when you try to talk about the subject. Butt holes and what they are connected to are taboo. Being a nurse I feel it is my duty to educate my family and whoever happens to read this about the importance of colonoscopies and to help alleviate your butt function phobias. First of all farting is good for the most part. It pretty much depends on if you are the receiver or the sender. It basically means your bowels and colon are working. The gas is formed because your bowel doesn't have all of the enzymes to break down certain foods and since your bowel is a muscle that is contracting and relaxing to move the digested food through, the gas comes with it and hence the fart. Beano does work by the way, that is if you remember to take it. A healthy bowel should poop everyday. If you aren't then you need to look at a few things like: how much fiber are you getting, are you hydrated, are you eating enough, are you constipated? Your bowel should work like a machine. Food in, poop out. The colonoscopy is a great tool to help find out maybe why you have problems or to see if anything is cooking in there that will cause you problems later. For the record, I have had three colonscopies. I was 36 when I had the first one and it is usually not recommended that you need one until you are over 40 and in some cases 50. I was going in for some colon repair work (caused by childbirth) and my doctor said that he was going to do a colonoscopy as well since he was going to be down there anyway. Since I was being violated anyway and I was going to be completely out I figured what the heck. He found 3 polyps, 2 of which were precancerous. Kind of freaked me out. 1 years later I had another one and he found a polyp. Finally the third one I was squeaky clean. During the colonoscopy the doctor looks for raised polyps and even flat lesions that may be suspicious. If he finds them he removes them at that time. polyps are usually benign (not cancerous), but if left in the colon they can turn cancerous. Which is what the 2 polyps that I had were doing. I think about what would I be dealing with now had I not went in and had the colonoscopy when I did. Our family needs to be diligent with our health concerns because the McKee side of the family has a high incidence of cancer. My grandpa McKee died of colon cancer. Family history of cancers puts us at a higher risk. Colon cancer is curable if caught early. Colonoscopies really aren't that bad. The worst part is drinking the prep the day before. Then, your given some nice drugs so you won't even remember the procedure. Afterwards the nurse will encourage you to fart. How cool is that...permission to fart. You should have no pain. The next day it's like it never happened.
This has been a public service announcement from nurse Patti. (Sarah is going to love that the blog right before her birthday announcement is about butts.)

Exactly what is good for you?

It's been almost 2 weeks since I have been trying to eliminate flour and sugar from my diet and I have lost 2 lbs. It seems that the longer I go without breads and sweets and such, the less I crave them. I did however partake in a piece of Nicholas's birthday cake. (Sarah made me, she secretly wants me to be fat). Anyway, I have been noticing commercials and ads more lately regarding weight loss and beauty and diet aids and I am amazed at what is being offered. Are we as a culture so lazy and gullible that we are buying these products and making some moron rich. As far as I'm concerned the only thing that will make you lose weight is discipline and hard work. The other thing that bugs me is the health claims that companies make to entice you to buy their products. For instance Green Tea. Green tea is in everything from beverages to nail polish. I saw an ad for a stretch mark cream "now with green tea". Are you kidding me! First of all there is no effective stretch mark cream. You will either get them or you won't, don't waste your money and the green tea isn't going to do shit. To even get the benefits of the antioxident in green tea you have to drink at least 12 cups a day. So drink it if you like it, but it's not the cure all. Since I'm on a roll...how about all the products that claim to detoxify your body. The best thing to detox your body is a good pee and poop, along with a good diet and physical activity. All the waste and "toxins" come out of our body the good old fashioned way as God intended. Not through the soles of our feet by putting some magic pad on them. My all time favorite though is ear candling. In case you've never heard of it, it's a long tube of a cloth like nature with beeswax to make it stiff where one end is inserted into your ear canal and the other end is lit on fire. The premise is that it will remove ear wax and clear up all kind of ear ailments. I read one web site where it claimed that ear candling will change your DNA. Just for the record, nothing will change your DNA. I was exposed to this technique when I was in Massage Therapy School. There are people who swear by it. It is the biggest hoax there is. So if you want to buy some ear candles and do it for fun, go ahead (just try not to set yourself on fire) but if you go to a spa and pay $70 or more to have it done you might as well roll up the $70 and set it on fire. Save your hard earned money for your children's education so that they can go on to college and invent some quick fix health treatment and make themselves rich off of the gullible american public.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KENNY

I bet you didn't think that this picture would come back to haunt you now did you? Sorry I couldn't help myself. I hope you have a Happy Birthday!