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!