Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I made it through

Surgery without anesthesia. That was fun. I had about 20 or more shots around my eye socket and eyelids. One was in my eye socket, that sucked. I didn't feel about 3 of them. The rest were nasty. But I didn't feel the cutting, scraping, stitching or cauterizing, so that was positive.

The juvederm filler was the worst. I think Taylor's hand were wondering when the baby would be there because I was squeezing so hard.

Either way, it's over. I have to ice it for three days now breaking as little as possible. And sit sleeping up. (I just saw that I wrote that wrong, and I think I'll leave it as a testimony to my percocet---And that's also a good clue to stop typing before I hurt myself or my editing reputation :) ).

Monday, March 23, 2009

I'm an aunt!

I totally forgot to post about the most exciting thing ever. I became an aunt on February 13. My brother Jake and his wife, Britten, had a darling tiny tiny tiny little girl named Bailey Eliza. Here is a picture of her, and a scrapbook page to commemorate:

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Mother I love you...

Conversation I had with Claire yesterday:

Me: "Claire, Mom is going to have surgery in a few days. I will have a hurt little eye, so I may not be around for a few days. Will you be okay without me?"

Claire: "Oh yes! I would love it."

Me (hurt a little): "Oh. Well, I will miss you."

Claire: "Well, I won't miss you!"

I'm hoping she was trying to make me feel better. But I think it was a little too much honesty. Aren't moms special?

This goes hand-in-hand with how when Taylor gets home he gets happy dances and shouts of jubilation. I get the silent treatment or yelled at.

I'd just like to publicly apologize to my mother for all of the mistreatment she's surely experienced from me. Sorry Mom.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Congratulations are (almost) in order

FYI: I haven't blogged for a while because I've been hard at work on Grandma's book and away from home.

For the last 6 months (okay, the last 8 years...) I have been working on my grandma's life history. TODAY it is at the printer! Yeah! Well, not officially to be printed, just for a proof, but still---all I have to do is read through it, fix the mistakes, and it's done. I'm so excited to see the finished product. And I'm so excited that it's almost done.

I worked on it every spare moment all last week. The kids and I stayed in Lehi while Taylor finished up his thesis. My aunts each took a day to watch Claire and Kyle while I worked on the book. As expected my children truly charmed their great-aunts, but were a little less-than-favorable after the long week.

In other big news Kyle has finally stopped calling me Daddy. He brought back Momma (his first word) on Saturday night, and I couldn't be happier.

Last week also marked my return to the public speaking circuit after a 16 month hiatus due to my temporary facial disfigurement. I spoke on Monday and Thursday at luncheons for different groups of women. It felt good to be speaking again, so feel free to refer me to all of your friends who are in young womens or have other needs.

Also, on February 13 I wrote a letter to a couple of the directors of the Moran Eye Center complaining about what happened during the last 16 months. I've received three replies none of which admit any errors (how could they with lawyers these days [sorry rob]). However they did sincerely apologize a number of times. The surgeon (who shall remain nameless, though not faultless) offered a big old crappy reason for why all of his decisions were correct. He used a lot of big medical words in an effort to show me that I don't know anything---but I'll have my current surgeon translate soon.

I wrote the letter not really just to complain, but to give them a patient's perspective, and also to offer up some suggestions as to how to improve their program. I'm sure my suggestions will be implemented, and it's my hope that no one will experience the things that I did.

And as continually ongoing this eye stuff is, I will have my next surgery next Tuesday, March 24th. I opted to save several thousand dollars and forgo anesthesia. We'll see how fun that is! But it will make for a faster recovery. I am so grateful to have Dr. Engen as a surgeon. He explained every portion of the procedure in detail to me. He also told me that they'll be filling my eyelid hollowness with Juvederm--a synthetic filler. The silver lining to all of this is that (although I have to pay for the entire vial of Juvederm when they won't use even half of that and it's only good for a few months) in the future when I have this procedure (it'll happen almost yearly) and my face is a little bit older, they'll use the rest of the vial to fill my wrinkles! Wahoo! It's something I'd never just sign up for (well, probably not) but if it's offered and paid for, I'm signing up!

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

My little business

I'm so proud! I just got my first order on my pageant paperwork business. And not a small order either. This is just what we need right now. What a blessing!