Update on Stormii

Well... The day I have waited for with a mix of dread and anticipation finally has a date attached to it. The nurse called Stormii yesterday and they have set March 29th as the date for her surgery. We have to be there at 6am- she is scheduled to go in at 8am.

Lost in a video game...

Well.... Saturday I was over at Half-Price Books and noticed Roller Coaster Tycoon (With 2 expansion packs) cheap as could be... You can imagine what I did for the rest of the weekend... Well- not entirely true... Saturday evening we went to church and then to my Grammy's birthday party, and Sunday- me and lil-one made crystals and tried to go launch rockets (we discovered we need wading to make em work)... But Saturday night, Stormii had to work overnight so I sat up playing most of the night. I've had this game before (not sure what happened to it) but I get hopelessly addicted... I'd hate to see how I'd be if I got one of the newer versions... Anyway... if you don't see me around... I'm probably lost building my dream park!

Butterfly Pics

But first.... Did you know I have lesbian guinea pigs? Did you know they had their own blog? Did you know they actually posted 3 times this week? Check em out HERE! Just some more pics from our trip to the Butterfly Center

Survivor

At La Mina... Sally realizes she is the odd woman out... She had no clue Misty was going... And she's worried (like they always are...) Meanwhile... Dan decides that they will need a fifth person in their alliance... and wants Ruth-Marie... He thinks she'll be more loyal after a merge... At the other camp... Bruce, Shane and Aras are gathering snails... but they get back to find a bunch of lazy-asses at the camp have let the fire die. People bitch at eachother... The alliance of idiots looks shaky... And Cirie couldn't be happier. REWARD CHALLENGE: PUZZLE PARANOIA Each tribe gets six floating puzzle pieces. One tribe member at a time will swim out, dive down, unclip a puzzle piece, and bring it back to the puzzle frame. Once the piece is placed in the puzzle frame, the next person can go out. When all six of the puzzle pieces have been collected, the tribe may start assembling the puzzle by matching corresponding symbols on each side of every piece. First tribe to get it together correctly wins the Reward: Casa de Charmin: a full-service bathroom courtesy of Charmin. Casaya wins the reward and gets the bathroom.... and gets to choose somebody to send to exile island.... They send Terry. La Mina falls apart without Terry's leadership.... *******Can I say something here- The last few Survivor seasons have just really killed my entertainment value with rewards like this. Why baby these people? A reward challenge should have been for just the toilet paper. or a couple of towels... Not a friggin bathroom, shower, and all the other stuff they got. That was ridiculous! Let's get back to playing Survivor- Not Vacation!******** At Casaya- they decide they should keep towels and firewood in their new bathroom to keep it dry... Bobby sees it as an opportunity to use it as what it was intended for... and christens it properly... Terry is on exile island and looks at the clues... and then heads straight over to where the immunty idol is buried. Gee... what punishment Casaya piled on him, eh? Back at Casya... Shane and Danielle argue over work ethic... Cirie is overjoyed... At La Mina- they are trying to fish. They are failing miserably, but they are trying. I bet Sally regrets dropping that spear more and more every day.... IMMUNITY CHALLENGE: SEA LEVEL TREE LEVEL One person is seated in a chair attached to a pulley, while another person is situated directly above them in a crow's nest, where an empty water drum hangs. The other four remaining tribe members are together in pairs, which will race across a balance beam carrying buckets. Once they reach the water, they must dip their bucket in, get water, race back and empty the water into a larger pail. The person in the crow's nest will pull that pail up and empty the water into the drum. As the drum takes on water, it will lower, but the person in the chair will rise until they're high enough to pull a pin releasing their tribe's flag. First tribe to release their flag wins Immunity. Casaya squeaks out the win due to Dan falling at one point, and then Austin pours like a little girl trying not to spill a drop... back to Tribal council for La Mina.... The guys decide that Dan was the only one who told Ruth Marie she would be coming with them.... the rest never said a word. So they decide to vote her off instead- keeping the spear dropper for her strength.... We'll have to wait and see how that works for them.... ************************************* Some of you who have been reading my blog for a long time may wonder why I'm not giving the play by play for American Idol. We have been watching it, but there are just too many people still in it right now for me to go thru them all. I will wait until we're down to the final 12 before I start. I can't say I'm dissapointed with the vote outs last night though... None of the folks who left had a shot anyway.

How we spent our Thursday.....

Well... we went to a new doctor today.... And I feel better. Stormii will need surgery to have her cysts removed. I hate that - BUT - We finally are headed in some direction. We aren't just sitting in limbo anymore waiting for what the next doctor might say. We aren't getting passed around waiting for someone who thinks he can handle it. Looks like around 6 weeks before they do it. Then, they said she'll probably need 3 or 4 days in the hospital, then around 6 weeks to recover completely. So... Since we took the day off to visit the doctor, and since we were at the medical center which is right by the zoo and the museums and things.... We decided to head over to the butterfly center at the museum. That was a blast... we had butterflies landing on us and surrounding us and everything.... Then... we went to the zoo. Walked around till they closed... We had a really good day. Thanks everybody for the prayers!

American Idol Wednesday

A cry for help/random gibberish

Well... tomorrow is the big day... We go to another doctor to try to find out what is up with the cysts my wife has. Hopefully this one will be the right one. I've discovered something about myself during all this... I am real good at turning stuff over to God for him to handle- But I am better at snatching it back and hanging on to it with all I have. I worry. I'm anxious. I drive myself nuts. I smoke a lot- even though I'm supposed to have quit. I dwell on things and close in on myself. It's sad... I know what I should do with this- I should trust in God to take care of it- in His time- in the way He thinks is best.... But I have problems letting go. I know that there are more people praying for my wife than I ever thought could pray about something. I know that no matter how much worrying I do- I will not change things by doing so. I know that it is in God's hands- not mine. Yet I still hang on... How do you deal with this? How do you let go and just trust in God to handle things? And when you do hand them over... how do you keep yourself from grabbing it back? *I've witheld writing this post for quite some time... I try to be Stormii's rock even when I'm not feeling like I can be. I hate to let her know I am worried- and I hate not letting her know also. Some days it eats me up inside because I don't have a clue what I'm doing... Last night- She was upset about my smoking... I totally understand that, but until we are through this- I don't think I can quit. But that started us down the track where she thinks I am smoking because of her... In a way- she's partially right... but it's MY MONKEY- not hers... I am smoking because it's a way I've always dealt with things... it's a comfort thing for me in a way. It really has nothing to do with her. I don't even know if any of this is making sense... Anyway... Maybe somebody has some advice for me? Maybe on how I can leave things in God's hands and not try to take it all on my shoulders? ****It was brought to my attention that some of you may not have a clue what I am talking about with the cysts.... Basically, last year Stormii's doctor felt something in her abdomen that felt a little odd to her. She sent us to get a CT scan- that showed a rather large mass of cysts. A trip to the surgeon, and then he recommended a uroligist. Urologist sent us for an MRI- then decided it was a bigger job than he can handle, and he has recommended us to yet another Urologist. We go tomorrow to the new one. The mass of cysts in her belly can be seen on the scans starting around the lungs and diapragm, continues down to her bladder- touching pretty much everything inbetween. They think it is connected to her kidney (the one that looks like a pancake in the scans) and we will probably need more tests to find out for sure. A quick scan of our posts about it are here, here(bottom), here, here & here. A few of Stormii's can be found here, here & here.

American Idol

1-866-IDOLS-07