Damn...

I went over to my Mom's for a bit and left MrKB home with four kids by himself for a change. It's SO quiet over there! But when I got home, there was more bad news about his Mom.

Apparently, today she's had the worst day yet. She again is not able to see, and now she's lost control of her bowels, which I imagine means her body is starting to shut down. She still has no medical care whatsoever....it's like the ER can tell her, "Well, you've got some tumors in your head and looks like you have lung cancer too, but other than telling you about it we can't really help you since you have no money." Such bullshit! I wonder how many people die waiting like she is to MAYBE get some help.

They had applied for emergency Medicaid with a referral from a doctor MrKB's Aunt has been seeing for her own cancer...get this...Mom's husband makes just $200/month too much for her to qualify!!!!! I'm so mad, and sad, and upset that I just want to SCREAM!

They've been married for over 17 years and are going to DIVORCE just so Mom can get some medical care. Ain't that a bitch?? I can't believe this country...it's just freakin' unbelievable that citizens of a country as rich as ours suffer like this. I really hope the next President we have does something about it.

This much we DO know...if she doesn't get treatment, she's been given about two months to live. Which means she wouldn't make it to her next birthday in December, or Christmas, or to see the girls be adopted.

Damn....I feel so helpless....

Wow...10 Days Already??

Since my last post?? Damn, I HAVE been busy, haven't I? It's a wonder my head is still attached to my shoulders, 'cuz I feel like a chicken running around with its head cut off these days.

First of all...Mom...yeah...not looking good. She is still feeling really bad most of the time and still gets headaches. She sleeps a lot. There's also been additional...ummm...I guess you'd call them "symptoms". One day she couldn't see anything. Not like total darkness not seeing, but she couldn't tell what ANYTHING was. She's also been having a lot of double vision. Also, one day our Aunt who she's staying with found her passed out in the sink in the bathroom. She's been doing strange things too....like the day she just suddenly got up from the couch out of a dead sleep and went to walking around outside. When our Aunt asked her what she was doing, she looked dazed and confused as she said, "I don't know."

Still no official date for any kind of surgery. We're still waiting for financial assistance...docs won't do anything until then. Found out just one surgery is going to cost a MINIMUM of $100,000!! That's right. One. Hundred. THOUSAND. Good grief! Yeah, and while we wait, she gets worse. Prayers and good vibes are desperately needed, y'all! I'm so worried that something terrible will happen and we'll lose her before she can get the help she needs to possibly get better. (Odds of her getting completely better are slim, I know, but we're not ready to let her go yet. I want her to be able to be around to see these girls be adopted, for one thing.)

Her kids are still here with us. It's been 3 weeks as of last Thursday, and I'm ready for them to go home. I love them dearly, but they aren't my kids and I've got enough to deal with already. Don't get me wrong, I will help out and take care of them as long as I'm needed. I do it because I love my Mother-in-law. Doesn't mean I have to like it though.

NOW...moving on...looks like finally something else is happening with the adoption process. We have a caseworker coming out to the house on Thursday for the home assessment. Which means I will be cleaning like a mad lady over the next couple of days. There is a problem, though. A few days ago the ceiling in Des' room starting leaking. Turns out a hot water heater from another apartment was leaking and traveled down to our place. (didn't come from directly upstairs either, go figure.) So right now there's a giant hole in the ceiling where the maintenance man cut out sheetrock, and there's a nasty smell in the room now. I'm guessing they're gonna have to pull up the carpet in her room now and replace it. I am going to talk to the manager after I pick the kids up from school and let her know we're having the home assessment done on Thursday, so they need to get people here to fix this shit a.s.a.p. We can't even let Destiny sleep in her room right now, much less play in it because it stinks so badly. I hope this doesn't cause problems with things as far as the adoption goings on.

That's the major news in my life right now....I'm just taking it day by day, trying to hold on to my sanity.

I'm Still Alive...

Though I am freaking EXHAUSTED!

MrKB's Mom has been sick every day since she went to the hospital. She spent a couple of days in the hospital while doctors ran a crapload of tests, and then basically kicked her out for not having insurance. So she's still been staying with MrKB's Aunt and Uncle, and we are all just waiting to hear SOME sort of news. We don't even know the results of all the tests!! She is supposed to see a different doctor today, so hopefully I'll have something new to report soon...I dunno.

Her kids have been living with us for just over two weeks now, and I don't know how long they will continue to stay with us. They keep asking when they will go back home, and all we can tell them is that we don't know. In the meantime, I have been the one taking them back and forth to school, which I hate, because it means I have to be up way earlier than I'd like...especially on Tuesdays and Wednesdays because my nephew has tutoring before school and has to be there at 7 freaking 30 a.m.! Bleh!!! I not only have to get those two up and ready every morning, but there's my own two also, because of course I have to get them dressed and load 'em up in the carseats and take them along.

Cooking for six people every night really sucks too....especially since I HATE to cook, and ordering out is not an option since MrKB missed so much work the last couple of weeks. His paycheck last week was only $37 after taxes and child support got taken. I hate being so broke....we've actually started arguing about money lately...something we've never really done before.

My niece was a brat yesterday morning and royally pissed me off. She's grounded today because she ended the day pissing me off as well. Not a good idea to majorly piss me off first thing in the morning, and then for her to go and do it right before bedtime...GRRRRR! I tell you what, those two had better wise up and QUIT FUCKING LYING TO ME about all kinds of stuff!!! They've both been caught in lies every time they've tried and still haven't got a clue. And now they wonder why I don't believe a word out of their mouths! Well, duh!! I will ask questions of your teachers when it comes to school....I WILL find out the truth of whatever the situation is, so make all our lives easier and just tell the truth in the first place, kiddo...even if you get in trouble, you'll be in a lot less than you would be if I find out you lied to me!

Oh yeah...she also got completely banned from picking Meghan up for any reason for a long, LONG time. Remember when she dropped her while trying to put her over the baby gate?? Well, the other night her and Meghan were both in here in the living room playing. Niece kept picking her up every 2 or 3 minutes even after being repeatedly told not to pick her up so much by both me and the hubby. Well, she kept doing it, and ended up dropping her AGAIN...This time on her head!! The back of it, but still. (Meghan is okay, thankfully, but lord how she screamed!) Oh, she was in SO much trouble!

My nephew hasn't been too bad the last few days...but then again, he's been grounded for almost a week now. Grounded in our house is a whole lot different than it is at his Mom's house! All he's been allowed to do is stay on his bed and read. Period. No TV, no video games, nothing. We'll see how long the good behavior lasts when he's ungrounded...but he still won't have his video games since he is already FLUNKING the 5th grade and it's still just the first quarter!! The boy has a 28 average in math!! He brought home math homework Monday night, and he sat at the table for 4 freaking hours and didn't get a single problem done!! He refuses to seriously TRY to even do it...and it's not math that is all that hard...it was division, like 32 into 2,348 or something. Math is not all he's failing...the only real passing grades he has are in Music and Gym for fuck's sake. Yeah, so no video games until his grades are all brought up to at least a C average. D's are not acceptable any longer. (They never were to my parents at all, but his have let them slide since they were at least passing grades.)

Top it all off with not having sex lately, thanks to a particularly nasty yeast infection from all the antibiotics that were loaded into my body after surgery. TMI, I know! Yeesh...I haven't had one in years, and MrKB and Aunt BOTH had to go and say I might get one 'cuz of the antibiotics, so I blame them!! Fun stuff.

Sorry if it seems I'm just complaining in this post. I am tired. Mentally, physically, and emotionally, and it's got me in a funk big time. I'm frazzled, stressed, worried about Mom-in-law, and just life in general sucks.

I'm glad today is Friday...I'm SO finishing off that tequila that's in my freezer tonight!

2,996 My Tribute In Honor and Memory of Daniel Lugo

September 11, 2001 is a day that will never be forgotten in the minds of many Americans...or the world. "2,996" is a project that was started to bring bloggers together to honor each one of the victims of that awful day. I am proud to be a participant, and to share what little I know of Daniel Lugo, who perished in the World Trade Center at age 45. Parts of this tribute are my own words, and parts are from information I was able to find about Daniel online. My words will be in purple. I've never done something like this before, so please forgive me if I'm not particularly eloquent!

I Remember
Daniel Lugo,45
World Trade Center

DANIEL LUGO
World Trade Center

TOO PROUD NOT TO WORK

Daniel Lugo's asthma was acting up, and his physician had detected the advent of prostate cancer and was debating the most effective course of treatment. Everybody gave him the same advice: leave his job as a Summit security guard at the World Trade Center, and concentrate on getting healthy. But Mr. Lugo, 45, didn't listen.

Instead, he switched from the night to the day shift on Sept. 10 and asked his supervisors to give him lobby duty rather than the usual spot shifts throughout the towers. That was his only concession to his iffy health. He told his sister Eneida Lugo that he had no intention of dozing on the living room sofa collecting disability: "I'm a man," he said, "I need to work."

She cannot remember a time when he was not industrious on all fronts: back in Puerto Rico, their mother had taught him to cook, clean, and fend for himself. A bachelor until a few years ago, when he met his wife, Olga, at a Pentecostal church in Upper Manhattan where he served as a pastor, Mr. Lugo kept up with his mother's lessons. "He even did his own laundry," Mrs. Lugo said. "He was taught that you don't depend on anybody else."

But anybody could depend on him, his sister said.

Profile published in the NEW YORK TIMES on October 12, 2001.

Unfortunately, this was the best as far as information about Daniel that I could come up with...Most sites with his name were lists of all of the victim's names. I did see one place where a couple of people who had known Daniel commented. One gentlemen commented that he had worked with him years before, and remembered him as a kind and gentle soul, who always had a smile on his face.

*edit* I thought there MUST be more I can find out about Daniel, so I did a little digging. I was able to determine that Daniel had a twin brother, David, who misses him terribly. I cannot imagine the pain he must have felt, losing his mirror image. Twins have an extra special bond, and I know that Daniel is probably up in heaven watching over his brother and all his family.

Dear Daniel,
From what little I know about you, I'm sure that I would have been proud to know you, had we ever met. I hope that you are happy wherever you are now, and that you are at peace. Thinking of you during this time...you are not forgotten!
Love,
MamaKBear

*The site for Project 2,996 has unfortunately been shut down due to traffic. Please click here for the complete list of links for all the tributes.*

*please note* This is a sticky post...it will remain at the top for about a week, so it will be easy for other participants in 2,996 to find. Other current posts are below. Thank you for stopping by!

Remembering September 11th

September 11, 2001...it goes down in my mental memory bank as a day in my lifetime to never forget. Has it really been five years since that terrible day??

It was kind of weird, really, for me. I am from Oklahoma City, born and raised, and on the day of the OKC Bombing, I was in bed asleep when it happened. My Mom called early in the morning (early for me, since I worked evenings) and told me to turn on the news. Fast forward to September 11th, it was the same thing! My husband and I were both asleep in bed, and once again Mom called and told us to turn on the news. Talk about deja vu!

We turned on the TV to see the first tower had been hit, and we were just incredulous to hear that an airplane had slammed into it. I remember thinking it must be some sort of freak accident...but then...as we watched on live television, the second tower was hit. It was then that I knew that it was no accident. I got the same sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had six years before on the day of the OKC bombing. The same helpless feeling. The same scared-to-death-omg-I-can't-believe-this-is-happening feeling. It's a feeling I hope to never have to feel again!

Like the rest of the nation, and then the world, I spent the rest of the day glued to the images I was seeing on the TV. I thought about a friend of mine...one I only knew online, who at the time was living in New Jersey. I could only imagine the chaos he must be witnessing as people made their way across the Hudson River and streamed into New Jersey. I remember watching in absolute horror as people started to actually JUMP to their certain deaths from high up in the towers. Tears streamed down my face as I thought about the desperation these people must have been feeling to do such a thing. And then...my husband and I, holding hands so tightly our fingers were surely turning white, watched as the first tower fell...and then...the second one. I remember thinking, "My God...the New York skyline will never be the same...New York, America, the WORLD will never be the same!

And we're not. Just as I'd witnessed in Oklahoma City, people immediately came to the aid of their fellow human beings. They came together....to help....to mourn....and to heal. At the time of the OKC bombing, New York reached out to us, sending in crews to help in the search for survivors. This time, it was our turn to help, in any way we could. It always amazes me to see people come together in situations like this. To help, give, and heal...with no thought, and no hesitation....no concern over it being just another stranger, or to race, or religion. In situations like that fateful day in September, it's about compassion for fellow human beings. I see that happening, and I wonder...WHY can we not have peace in the world??

On this day, I remember. I remember Mr. Daniel Lugo, whose tribute you see above is my small part in the project "2,996" which has brought bloggers from all over the world together, each to honor one specific victim with a tribute in their memory. I hope I did Daniel justice with mine. I also remember each of the 2,995 others who were lost on this day five years ago. My heart goes out to each and every one of their friends and family on this difficult anniversary.

Join me in remembering, won't you?

Update.

Mom went into the hospital on Monday. They were going to put her in ICU but decided to give her a regular room for now so that family can come and visit her. We still don't know very much, and they haven't done any surgeries on her yet, possibly will be doing one on Friday. From what I've heard from what MrKB's found out, there is even more than the 3 masses already found. He talked to her this morning, and she herself doesn't know anything. The hospital has been running like a gazillion tests on her, and still has tests to run, but they haven't been telling her the results of any of them. She says her doctor keeps beating around the bush about it, and it's pissing her off. I don't blame her! The not knowing would drive me insane. She talked to the hospital administrator and told him that she can't take the being kept in the dark and that she wants to know everything step by step, not when they finally finish all the freaking tests.

I don't think I've ever had a more stressful few weeks in my life. Hubby is still quite upset, and has broke down a couple times. I haven't cried much yet...I feel like I need to be the strong one this time, for him. He actually said at one point while in tears, "I'm not ready to lose my Mama." He's NEVER called her Mama in all the time we've been together! It really broke my heart to hear my husband, who has always been so strong for me, sound like such a lost little boy! All I could do was wrap my arms around him and hold him close. I can't fix this for him, and I hate it!

On top of everything else, we still have her kids staying with us. Two extra kids (ages 10 and 9) and that means more food to buy...more laundry to do...more overall aggravation. They don't have any idea what all is going on yet, we haven't told them. All they know is that Mom is sick and has to be in the hospital for a bit. I'm guessing they'll be staying with us indefinitely. They have school, and their Dad goes to work hours before they leave and gets off work hours after they get out. Then of course Mom needs him with her at the hospital as much as he can.

Insert big sigh here...

Oh yeah...I got the first couple of bills from my own hospital stay...$866 for anesthesia?!!? WTF?? and something like $349 for the CT scan they did on my belly. Already over $1,000 worth of bills, and that's not counting the ones I'll be getting from the hospital itself....or the doctors....Good grief.

Please...we need all the prayers we can get!! And if you wanna send me money, that helps too! (only halfway joking there...but I don't expect it, really! This is definitely a time when I wish there was such a thing as a Money Tree!)

Anyway, I'll let y'all know when I know....Thank you all for the comments on my last post! Oh, and I'll let you know about the drama filled weekend, sometime soon...that happened the one BEFORE I had my surgery. It was a doozy, lemme tell you. I've had a post about it in draft, but I haven't got around to finishing it yet. I will tell you this much...I literally lost my best friend.

How Much More???

As if we don't have enough drama in our lives already...this weekend is a good example of irony. You know last weekend I spent it in the hospital getting an appendectomy. (I am doing fine, still a little sore, and still can't pick up Meghan or even vacuum the floor, but I'm healing well.) We were supposed to watch my Mom-in-law's kids that weekend, and she ended up watching ours (again!) instead. I felt SO guilty, you wouldn't believe!

Well, THIS weekend, we have her kids so she could have a garage sale without them underfoot. Last night SHE went to the same hospital E.R. that I did, because she has had a horrible headache for two days that she couldn't get rid of. We thought it might be stress, but the doctors there discovered THREE tumors in her head!! MrKB is down right now at his Aunt's house where she spent last night and apparently the family has decided he's the one that should make any of Mom's medical decisions. The doctor wants to talk to him...I'm not sure if it's the one she saw at the E.R. or the neurosurgeon she's going to see on Tuesday.

Don't know if y'all saw the irony of the situation...I just found it ironic that just last weekend she watched our kids while I went to the E.R. and this weekend we are watching hers while she went to the same E.R. She would be staying in the hospital too, but they didn't have any beds available. I guess I lucked out last weekend.

All I know so far is about the 3 masses that were found in her head, and apparently the doctor is wanting MrKB's Aunt and Uncle to wake her up every two hours and check on her.

My question is how much more are we going to have to deal with??? Besides the stuff with the girls, we've also been dealing with watching MrKB's Dad battle cancer. We've watched him deteriorate A LOT in the past year, and don't expect him to make it much past Christmas. Found out recently that MY Granddad has lung cancer...MrKB's Aunt (the same one taking care of Mom now) has also been battling cancer for awhile now. She is stage 4 and doctors don't give her much time left either, but to look at her you wouldn't have a clue she's even sick! So that's 3 people close to us...Now this with Mom! No idea yet if these tumors are cancerous or benign...let's hope they're benign, and they can get them out.

This all just really sucks...and I'm scared.

*edit* Yeah, so he just came back home to let me know what's up....It's definitely fucking cancer...not only in her brain, but apparently her lungs too, which is where the doctors think it started. My poor hubby is trying so hard to keep himself together. Now he has BOTH parents with a cancer diagnosis, and it doesn't look good for either one of them.

Spent My Weekend in the Hospital

Yep, me. In the hospital! Friday I woke up to my belly hurting, and it hurt all day long. Wasn't getting any better, and wasn't a pain I'd had before. Finally, that evening we decided maybe I better go to the E.R. Good thing I did...turned out to be acute appendicitis, and I had my appendix removed around midnight Saturday.

First surgery I've ever had, and I also ended up staying a couple days in the hospital afterwards. My white blood cell count was highly elevated and they had me on IV antibiotics. Besides my appendix being swollen and close to the point of bursting, I also had an infection. Fun weekend...NOT!

I'm at home now, and recovering...just wanted to post real quick and let y'all know. I'll be ok...MrKB is taking off of work tomorrow and was due for his vacation the first week of September, so he's going to see if he can just go ahead and start it early, so he can take care of the kids while I recover from surgery. I can't pick up Meghan or anything right now, which sucks...she doesn't like it either.

Hope y'all had a better weekend than me!

I am SO Freakin' Excited!!!!

So excited I almost can't stand myself!!

Yesterday I was over at MySpace just passing some time....I was bored, so decided to do a search of a couple names of people I know and haven't been in touch with for awhile. First couple I came up with nothing...then I put in the name of a cousin of mine who lives in Maine. I've googled him several times over the years, hoping to find out what happened to him. We lost touch years ago, and it always made me sad.

Well, I FOUND HIM!!!!! That's not the best part, though! We talked until 2:30 am on Yahoo last night, just kinda catching up. We talked about him coming to visit me here in Oklahoma sometime, and he goes "Well, I have the next 11 days off with nothing to do until school starts again." Next thing I knew, we were both checking flight prices online, and then he actually booked a flight, printed out his ticket, and WILL BE HERE TOMORROW!!!! This is BIG, y'all!! Do you realize it's been 21 YEARS since we've seen each other????

Damn, I'm excited!!! I can't freakin' wait!! We're gonna have a blast together!

Yeah, I Know...

I pretty much suck at posting with any kind of regularity lately...but I try! Really I do! The last few days I've been over at MySpace messing around making a new layout. Check it out if you wanna, I'm pretty proud of myself, 'cuz the background pic on the layout code didn't work...it had been removed due to high bandwith usage, so I did my own. I also made my own Contact Table and Online icon thing. I SO rock! LOL I've actually been learning a little bit about HTML stuff while trying different things. You can see my page here and I had so much fun doing mine, that I made an account for MrKB and did a page for him also, that you can see here. Please take a look and let me know what you think! I also made the Contact Table on his, too, as well as the Extended Network banner and the background. Yep, I'm proud! :) (Plus if you go look you'll get to see pics!)

So, anyway...I was reading a few blogs, and I've been seeing lately quite a few bloggers with a button in their sidebar saying they are honoring a particular person who was a victim of September 11th. Chris is the latest one I noticed, so I decided that I would participate also. I will be honoring Daniel Lugo with a post of my own on September 11th. He was 45 years old at the time he was killed at the World Trade Center.

The idea behind this project is to have one blogger post for each of the victims of that day. There were 2,996 victims, so we'll need 2,996 bloggers to commit to posting about a certain person that lost their life. I was number 1,881 to sign up, so we still need a lot more to get involved. Such a simple thing to do, won't you sign up too?? You can go here to read the blog that's been set up about this touching tribute project, and go here to sign up for your own tribute. See my cool button over there ------> with my links in the sidebar? You can get one of those for yourself too. C'mon, y'all...it won't take a lot of time or effort! Please join us in remembering those who died!

As an Oklahoman, from Oklahoma City, who will never forget April 19, 1995 when the Murrah Building was bombed, New York and September 11th touched me deeply, and I am honored to be a part of this project. Won't you be, too?

Adoption...

No...not my adoption of the girls, I don't have any news on that other than I finished the paperwork for the "application for adoption" and got it sent in. Now I hurry up and wait. Andy's foster parents' lawyer says this should all be done by the end of the year. So hopefully by Christmas, they will be ours forever!

All this adoption stuff has got me to thinking about my own. You see, the man I call "Daddy" is not my biological father. Even so, he is definitely Daddy! He's been there for me since I was younger than Meghan is now, and he means so much to me. He adopted me when he and my Mom got married, and gave me his last name. His is the name on my birth certificate where the Father's name goes.

I've known since I was a kid that he wasn't my biological father. My Mom told me that the man who got her pregnant when she was 19 took off when she told him, and never wanted anything to do with me. She's even told me that when I lost my hearing in my good ear at 10 years old she got in touch with him to try and find out some medical history, and she says that he STILL didn't want anything to do with me, 10 years later.

Forgive me if this post doesn't always make sense. I've just got these thoughts going around in my head, and I'm trying to get them out.

Anyway....so I'm grown up now...34 years old and have never met my biological father. He's never contacted me. I don't even know if he's tried to find me, but he's got a better chance of finding me than I do him. Why? Because my Mom REFUSES to give me any information about him other than his name is "David" and he had red hair. That doesn't help in a search, that's for sure.

Believe me, I've TRIED several times to get her to give up more information, but she just won't!! She's stubborn and has her reasons, I suppose, but I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KNOW!! She told me one time when I was asking her that it would really hurt my Daddy if I was to go looking for biodad. So a bit later I sat down with Daddy and talked to him about it. Maybe it hurt him a little to know that I wanted to know, but he didn't show it, and he told me he understood. He said that he thought it might hurt my Mom more. He gave me his blessing, but he wouldn't give me any information about biodad either. He might honestly not know though...but he said it wasn't his place to tell me, that it was something my Mom had to do.

I don't know.

It makes me angry with my Mom. Why can she not see and understand that I need to know? I have the right to know where I "come from". My biological roots. I don't look like my sister at all, and only a little like my Mom. My sister is lucky, by the way, Daddy IS her biodad...so she KNOWS where she comes from. Half of my family tree I'm only related to by marriage!

I wonder if I look like him....I wonder if I have other brothers or sisters out there somewhere...I wonder if they know about me...I wonder if he ever thinks of me, or regrets not knowing me...I wonder if he's ever tried to find me. (I've spent hours on adoption search boards though, and have never found anyone looking for me.)

Trying to get my original birth certificate would be difficult. Adoptions are closed here in Oklahoma...at least ones from when I was born. To get my original certificate, I would have to go to the courts and try and get my records opened. If it ever comes to that, I will, but I hope it doesn't.

My Granddad is not my Mom's biodad either, but at least she KNOWS who hers is...though I've heard stories that he's not a nice man at all. But still, she knows.

It's not her right not to tell me. I should be able to make the decision of whether or not I want to contact him. And if I do, and I find out myself that he doesn't want a relationship with me, so be it. I just want the chance to know.

My girls will know they are adopted when they are old enough to understand. I will tell them who their bioparents are and how they came to be adopted. I don't want them to find out on their own when they're teenagers or something that the people they know as their Aunt and Uncle are actually their parents, and Mom and Dad are really their Aunt and Uncle. I know that if I grew up and found out something like that it would make me very angry. Being partially adopted myself, I feel they have the right to know. Right now, of course, they aren't old enough to understand.

Ugh...Every time I get to thinking about this, I get mad at my Mom. I've tried MANY times to get her to give me information, but it gets me nowhere. She just can't, or won't, see things from my point of view. I'm thinking about asking my Grandmother, but I don't know if she'll tell me either. Can't hurt to ask.

Thanks for listening to my vent....it's been on my mind for awhile lately, and I needed to get some things out.

Horses Need Help!

I came across this post over at Kidd's about Blaze's Tribute, an Oklahoma-based non-profit horse rescue group. She received the following email from them this morning:

Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue
August 8, 2006

Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue, Inc. is a non-profit Organization that strives to improve Neglected, Starved, and Abused Horses' Lives. We provide Equine Rescue regardless of age or disability. We provide Rehabilitation, Education, and Adoption Services. We promote and teach horse care and humane, natural methods of training for horses.

EMERGENCY REQUEST FOR DONATIONS!

We are in desperate need of donations. We are currently caring for 32 horses at this time. Hay prices continue to increase. Unfortunately, with the drought-like conditions, more and more horses are being neglected and leaving us at full capacity. Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue is currently spending $440.00 a week on 8 Round Bales of Bermuda Hay, and $210.00 a week on 1 ton of Grain. We have limited funds available to barely meet our feed needs, therefore, many medical conditions are left untreated due to the lack of funding. We are extending an Emergency request for Donations in order to get us through the remainder of the summer. Please consider sending any amount possible, as anything will be greatly beneficial and much needed.

We also request that you share this with all your friends and family. Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue needs Donators, but we also need Adopters. We have many wonderful horses available for immediate adoption. Please tell everyone that you know that may be seeking to add a horse in their family to come visit us. You can view all of our horses available for adoption online at: http://blazesequinerescue.com. You can also place your donations online through PayPal.

Donations can be mailed to:
Blaze's Tribute Equine Rescue
17667 Markita Drive
Jones, Oklahoma 73049

Remember, all donations are tax deductible according to the current IRS regulations. Donations of Hay or Grain are also accepted and welcomed. You may contact Natalee or Shawn Cross at 405-399-3084 or 405-615-5267 or e-mail at blazesequineresc@aol.com.

THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR CONTINUED SUPPORT! BLAZE'S TRIBUTE EQUINE RESCUE, INC. WOULD NOT BE WHAT IT IS TODAY WITHOUT YOUR ASSISTANCE. TOGETHER WE CONTINUE TO SAVE HORSES IN NEED DAILY.

"SUCCESS COMES ONE BIT AT A TIME."

I wish I could send them something to help out! Best I can do for now is spread the word. MrKB has always wanted to get a couple of horses of our own someday...they are his favorite animal! Until we have a house and not an apartment, that will be impossible. Please help these people if you can, and pass the word along!

Difficult Anniversary...

August 8, 1993...that was one of the worst days ever in my life...the day I miscarried the baby that took a year to conceive. I was about 2 months along, and lost it in the waiting room bathroom of the ER, since this particular hospital had me waiting over FIVE hours to even be seen. (My Dad was furious when he found out!)

So, yeah...It's been 13 years since that day, and it's still very painful. More so considering I haven't been pregnant since.

Excuse me while I go cry now...

Sorry, Sorry, Sorry!

Life gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it? Sorry for the lack of updates since my last post! I am here now, and have been catching up on reading your blogs. Takes quite awhile to go through that blogroll of mine!

Anyway, part of my absence was due to things beyond my control. My friend's boyfriend updated some software on my computer. I was running Windows98se, and he installed XP for me. Trouble was it wasn't working right at first...I could get online, but could only go to two or three sites before I would just get "page cannot be found" over and over. I would have to reboot my computer only to have the same thing happen! Believe me, I was VERY frustrated!! He came over again and got it working like it should (though there are still issues with it and IE...I haven't been able to leave comments on a few of your blogs, for one thing.) THEN I lost my internet connection for almost a week!!! Ack! Dang bills...

Things with this XP are gonna take some getting used to! Some stuff looks different, like the Blogger Dashboard I'm typing on now. Fonts are different for the most part, at least to me.

So...here I am...not much going on in my life really. Well, I am having some problems with this girl who is supposed to be my best friend, but I don't want to get into it here because she knows about my blog. Kinda sucks, 'cuz it would help to vent to y'all. I vent to MrKB, but he got all mad at me the other day because I was pissed off all day long and he's the only person that was here to talk to (really he's my true best friend...check that, pretty much my ONLY friend) and I guess he got tired of my bitching, 'cuz he got the attitude that he didn't want to hear anything anymore. He said, "You've bitched all fucking day about everything, you go through all that's bothering you, then you start all over again." Well....EXCUUUUUUSE ME for thinking I could talk to you! It wasn't like I was bitching AT him, it was more like TO him. I guess I can understand though. I WAS in a very foul mood that day, and you know how it is when you are around someone else that's in a bad mood...it starts to affect your own mood.

I just discovered a few minutes ago, that Meghan has two more teeth coming in! There's two more on the bottom front that I can just barely see, but they're there! :) She's had more teeth start to come in this past month than any other so far. These two will be her 7th and 8th. I really need to get out her baby book and write this stuff down! I'm glad I have a blog so I can go back in my archives to check dates on some things.

There's a new casino in Norman, OK called Riverwind. It is freakin' HUGE! We've been twice now, and it's not bad. It's got thousands of slot machines, lots of blackjack and poker tables, a couple of sit-down restaurants, along with a Burger King, Taco Bueno, and a couple other little fast food places right there in the building. Also has a theater for performances by bands and such. They have Pat Benatar coming soon, and also Jewel, the Commodores and others I forget right now. I'm hoping maybe my favorite comedian, Bill Engvall will be on the list before too long. He does shows a quite a few casinos around the country, so who knows?

I don't know what else to blog about right now. I am fine, the girls are fine, no new news on the adoption front at the moment. So I will end this post here and hit publish. Thank you to all y'all who left comments asking about me, and thanks Velma for keeping me in the loop! ;) Big hugs!

It Really IS Amazing...

How much Meghan has grown and changed since the day we brought her home from the hospital! I got to thinking that the pic from last year I threw in with this year's really doesn't show you...so I decided to make a post of pictures from the very first day we ever saw her so you can really see for yourselves! LOL This should keep me busy for awhile!

This is MrKB holding Meghan at the hospital on the day we got to see her for the first time. She's not quite 3 weeks old here.

This one was taken the evening of the day we brought her home from the hospital...3 weeks old and still so tiny!

Meghan at 2 months old.

Meghan at 3 months old.

Meghan at 4 months...this is one of my all time favorite pictures of her.

Meghan at 5 months....gettin' big! :)
Meghan at 7 months...don't she look pretty?
Meghan at 8.5 months...this one was taken on Destiny's 3rd birthday.
Meghan at 10 months old, and the first time she really got sick...poor thing was miserable!
I think she's 10 months old in this one too...if I remember correctly, we took it after she got better.
Easter portrait...taken on her 1st birthday. :)
With Mommy at her 1st Birthday party. Hmmm...looking at these pics now, it seems her hair turned blonde somewhere between 10 months and a year old.

This one was taken just a couple days ago. This is her feeding herself with a spoon for the very first time. 15 months old!
Last one, I promise! Took this one just a few minutes ago...not the greatest picture since I couldn't get her to be still! Had to snap it while she was on the run. Man, she's grown!

Picture Post :) (FINALLY!!)

Some friends of ours came over Friday evening to visit (*gasp* ADULT company!!) and it was miserably hot and humid so we decided to go to the pool here in our complex. It was the first time since the pool opened that we actually went, and boy did it feel great! I took the camera with me since the girls hadn't been since last summer. Meghan was only a couple of months old then, and Destiny was scared.

This year, Meghan is 15 months old (as of the 13th!) and she loves playing in the tub, but she wasn't too sure about swimming. She was kinda tired, though, maybe if we take her when she's at her most alert she'd have more fun. Destiny is 3 1/2 now, and she was scared at first...I suppose all that water is kinda intimidating to a kid her age. She had on a life jacket, of course, and if we let go of her she just would tip over backwards or even sideways! Kinda funny, but only scared her even more. The problem was she wasn't moving her arms and legs at all. Once we got her to really get her legs kicking and use her arms too, she actually swam and started having fun! I was so proud of her! :)

So, without further ado, here are the few pictures I did manage to get, with minimal editing. (I had to lighten a couple and remove red eye in at least one.)

Daddy and Destiny...of course she WOULD close her eyes just as I snapped the picture! This was taken when she was still tipping over if we let go of her. LOL

Destiny with our friends in the background. She was practicing swimming on her back in this one. Once she finally caught on to what we were telling her, she did really well going forwards on her belly. I would walk backwards in front of her, staying just out of her reach....she went back and forth across the pool all on her own steam. (and a little encouragement from Mommy!












Couldn't get these last three arranged quite how I wanted them...The one with Meghan in a car seat is a pic from last summer when she went to the pool for the first time ever. It's actually the same swimsuit too! She's 3 months old in that pic...wanted to post it so you could see how much she's grown in a year.

Pics above are of Meghan and my friend, and of Meghan and Daddy...you can see she's not too sure about the swimming thing!

Hope you enjoyed them...sorry it's not that many, but it took FOREVER just to get these up!

Ughhhh...Stupid Blogger!

We took the girls swimming last night for the first time this summer, and I took a few pictures I wanted to share with y'all, but Blogger ain't lettin' me!

I will try again later!

Update

First, I had to turn of the anonymous comment option....I rarely ever had spam, and between yesterday and today I got 8 spam comments! Annoyed the hell out of me, so I did what I had to do.

This morning my MIL brought her kids over for me to watch while she went to work today. Before she left we were talking about the paperwork that we got to fill out...she adopted the two oldest kids that belong to my BIL, if you remember. Well, apparently she didn't have to do this stuff. The lawyer took care of ALL the paperwork, and all she had to do was go down to his office to sign things when it was all together.

Like I said before...it is the EXACT same paperwork we did when all this started. Makes no sense to me...why put us through it again when they have all the information they need already?? We're going to contact our lawyer that we've been talking to on and off about this case and see what he has to say. I'm betting he's gonna have a cow when he hears how our caseworker has been handling things!

Wish us luck....and by the way, I can't believe not one single person commented on the last post! That was BIG news! *sniff* and nobody cared?!?

*edit* Thank you Mamamel for your comment! It came while I was typing this post! Y'all...meet Mamamel...she is another foster parent I came across through MrsCoach's blog. :) (sorry I will link later!)

Adoption News

Well, we received some paperwork in the mail finally! But it's not what we were quite expecting...it's an "Application for Adoption". It's basically the SAME stuff we had to do to become foster parents of the girls in the first place. Literally, the SAME stuff, only some of the wording has been changed.

So now we have to fill this out. Stuff about health, work history, background checks, that kinda thing. Also have to get physicals done again at the doctor's office. After that someone will come out to our house to do a "home assessment" AGAIN.

I'm not worried about any of it...I know we passed everything once, we will again. It just seems kinda silly when they could just pull up the records from when we did all this in the first place. Unnecessary paperwork, I suppose is how I feel about it. BUT, it's a start...this will get the ball rolling to where we want to be, and that's to be the legal, official, PARENTS of Destiny and Meghan!

I'll be glad when it's all over!

Ch-ch-ch Changes

Hmmmm...so whaddya think?? I'm not completely sure yet if I'll keep this template or not...I have another that I tried right before this one that I'm considering using too. I do like this one though, and I AM a Sagittarius. Also was pretty cool that it's got my favorite color as the base color.

I don't particularly like the black font. I wish I knew how to change it to maybe a deep purple color that would blend in more with the rest of the template. Anybody know how to help with that?

When I decide for sure which of the two templates I like better, I will get my blogroll and stuff put back in the sidebar. Yes, I backed up my old template...so all I'll have to do is copy the links from there.

Anyway...I'm pretty much over my cold...Yay! MrKB thinks he may have it now though, and Meghan has had a bit of a runny nose....fun stuff. My mood has also been a bit better. Guess not feeling good made me cranky!