CHRISTMAS.....

Okay, once again, I'm remiss in blogging. And honestly, there really is much to discuss. But, at the moment, I'm just not into getting into it all, so I'll just say, Christmas was great... 

starting with Christmas Eve~

We went to my sister's, she made lasagna, it was delish.  It was my nephew Gabe's 10th birthday party too. So there were a lot of presents... an enormous amount of legos.  I forgot how fun they are to step on with your shoeless foot. 

then my kids all came back here, (Blain, Dan and Mark seemed to avoid the camera)

and there was laughing...  

a LOT of laughing.

We didn't head to bed until 3:30 a.m.  It was a short night.  Stay tuned for Christmas day... you know you just can't wait....

THANKSGIVING AND.......PAIN

Odd title? Stick with me.

Hosted Thanksgiving here. Missed a few key people, but had fun with those that were able to come.

We pretty much had the standard Thanksgiving fare... and everyone seemed to fill themselves to that delightful, gluttonous moment, where you've just got to have a nap!

Here's a birds-eye peak into our holiday

 
And, yes, things did kind of go to the dogs, so to speak!!

Classy huh?

I was tired, but why wouldn't I be? I had dinner for 12 and ran around all week preparing.  After everyone left, I sat down to peruse the Black Friday Ads. My friend and her sister were heading out that night, and I was contemplating going too... but there just wasn't anything I needed bad enough to roust me off the couch and I felt kinda like I was coming down with something. Little did I know...

I woke up on Black Friday in PAIN.  I mean OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING PAIN. The night before I thought maybe I was getting a UTI, but something told me this must be.....

a kidney stone.

After a couple hours of agony and throwing up,  I was finally able to get dressed and we headed to the ER. They drugged me up, did a CT Scan and yes sirree.. there she was, lodged between the kidney and the bladder. And just because I'm an over achiever, it was BIG. Like between 5 and 6 mm big.

So long story short, I was going to have to have it blasted. Boo. On Thursday, we headed to the hospital for the procedure (I HATE THAT WORD). Of course, before the fun began, they needed to do another x-ray to determine where it was...

and... it appeared to be.....

GONE.

Well the urologist and the radiologist could not find it! And, I was symptom free and had been for several days. So, avoiding the radiation of another Cat Scan, they went with the notion that I'd passed it. How, unnoticed, he wasn't sure, but he really felt I'd done it. Out came the IV, I got dressed and we headed home.

So, with that said, I'm cautiously optimistic and praying that it is indeed gone and I am making life style changes...

I'm no longer living on a diet of coffee, diet coke, chocolate and nuts....and I'm drinking water. LOTS and LOTS of water... sloshing as I type...

And it's not so easy, but, I'd do anything to avoid having this bad boy attack me again.