Happy Hump Day!

Kim was admitted last night for round two of chemo. She should be there for about two weeks.

Her hair is a massive dredlock and is super thin in front from her pulling on it.We were supposed to get our cuts together but she hasn't felt well all weekend. She loves my hair though. She still wasn't feeling well Monday night and seemed depressed. I hate seeing her when she is down.

Rob and I went up to see Kim. She is in room 115 and they started her chemo today. She is having a great day. It was the old Kim again. We brought up Robs clippers and right after we walk in she hands me a pair of scissors. I told her we brought the electric shaver. rob did the honors and she now has hair about 1/4in. Boy does she look like her mom. She did a great job handling the cut. no tears. We all agreed it was because she knew it needed to come off and that it was just us in the room and not at a salon with people staring. She loved it when i rubbed her head and said she felt so free. It looked pretty cool. We are looking to get some of that colored gel to spike up whats left and maybe tomorrow I will go looking for a cap to wear when she gets cold. She is starting to go thru menopause and was having hot flashes. Kim will be 33 in March. Her mother went through menopause at 29.

**Can you believe a week ago we had snow? Today was great with the rain.

I went through the kids' rooms and got rid of two lawn bags of toys. It felt great to get rid of stuff and to have room to roam around. Washed all the bedding and did a great job vacuuming all the nooks and crannies. I think in a couple of months I will do round two of the great spring clean out.

I'm gonna sign off for now. I'm really tired and I'm making stupid typing errors. You'll see one night I'm gonna just keep typing and you will see all my typos.

Lotta love Carrie

ode to Kim

Well we did it. we cut off our hair.

Now I wasn't willing to go as drastic as Rob but i did take it very short. We like it. Actually Rob had been itching to cut his hair off. this is just clippers no blade. I don't want him to really shave it but this is close. Rob and the kids came with me to get mine done. At first they were surprised. then all Rob would say is I like it, I like it. so who knows, maybe it will stay this way for awhile.

I was suppose to do this with Kim but she hasn't returned my calls all weekend. I hope all is fine. And I want to be there for her when she gets hers cut.

Kim is suppose to start round 2 of chemo this week. hopefully she will have a slightly better go of it and can come home sooner than last time.

Otherwise not much new is going on. I made a pair of pajama pants from start to finish yesterday before work and wore them to bed last night. oh so comfy. amd cute. I plan to make another this week.

really cool... the girls at Tres Amigos want me to teach them how to scrapbook!! So next sunday night i will teach them here at my house. I'm so looking forward to it. One of the girls, Jade, bought me the necklace that you see in the photo. She has one just like it and i adored it on her so she went next door and got me one. How cool is that??

It has been a gorgeous weekend here in Tucson, hope you are freezing your butt off where you are. HAHAHHa.

Oh guess what. I was looking at our fish tank thinking, "boy we need to clean it bad", when i found 9 baby fish swimming around. now we can't clean it till they get a bit bigger. The fish are mostly black and with all the muck they were hard to see. I might try to take a picture later.

Happy sunday. Carrie

Good News

Kim has come home!! She came home yesterday afternoon and is so grateful to be in her own space again. the downside is that she will need to go back, I believe, on Monday to start round two of chemo. I'm very excited for her and probably when i get done bloggin i'll give her a call and see how her night went.

Just dropped Kelly off to school. She didn't do her homework, which was practicing her "K's". one of the words she was suppose to write on the worksheet was her name. I thought that was cool. Ask my mom, she refuses to write her letters. "I don't wanna", and "I'm tired", are her favorite excuses. It's so frustrating. I do know that if i force her it makes things worse so I'll just let her struggle. We give her tons of encouragement but she doesn't care.

Working on my Wyatt photo library. Caught him in the laundry basket looking at a book. this tends tobe a favorite place for him to sit. He'll even sit on tons of toys in a basket. this kid is strange but so cute a cuddly.

Hugs. carrie

oh beautiful Tucson

oh how amazing. it is so beautiful this morning. and it was so quiet. I even heard the base play their morning bugle.

I got kinda nervous driving in it but it was so cool to see. Boy I have missed this.

Why couldn't we have a White Christmas?? That is my dream every year. Kelly kept asking if santa was coming again. uh no.

The kids sure liked it more this morning than they did last night. I let them run the yard while i warmed up the van.

this is just so cool. no one can remember how long its been since we've had snow that stuck and lasted overnight. It was cool that after we dropped Kelly off we drove around and took some more shots of Tucson and the mountains.

Forecast says we still could get some more but right now the sun is shining and the snow is falling off the streetlights and trees.

Have a great day. this is almost as good as getting rain!! :)

Love Carrie

its SNOWING!!!!

Yes, it's snowing in Tucson!! And it has been for a few hours, but the snow wasn't sticking so we didn't go out to take photos till we saw it staying on the ground.
This was Wyatts first time in snow and he wasn't really happy about it. he kept whining so we were only outside for about 5 minutes.
Kelly on the other hand was all over it. She would have stayed out there if i had let her.
But instead we snapped off these fast shots and headed back inside to take a nice hot bath.
So now the kids are clean and warm in their jammies playing nicely.






Rob put the red and blue tables out in the yard so that we could see how fluffy the snowflakes are and how thick it was coming down.
I still can't believe it is snowing in Tucson. it hasn't snowed since 1999? and it was in April.
So please enjoy your Sunday evening:)
love carrie
*** its about an hour later and there is like two inches on the truck and van!! All the pictures are kinda orange because of the street lights but i'm gonna take some more pics tomorrow. (if it's still here)

danger will robinson, DANGER!!!! Wyatt has learned to open the refridgerator. God help us all.
i'll keep you posted on what he gets into.
;) carrie

lots to say

where to start....... I will start with last night. I taught the scrapbook basics at Joanns and i had 5 students!! I have never had that many. It went okay, i wish they would have been a bit more lively. one girl looked bored or mad but she said she was seeing new products that interest her. We did have a creative memories "fan" who was not part of the group that kept interupting. otherwise the lady that looked bored did some shopping and she was the only one to get a page done. they all seemed to enjoy themselves and some tools and products were demystified. Tonight is the social from 6-9

After the class i got the low down on whats up with the store. seems ms. lupe kept some of the girls or had a team that stayed until 3:30am to get the store ready for a visit. of course the visit went great. the associate i talked to said she left at midnight (still in high school) and her mom was pissed and called lupe and chewed her out. one of the new girls they hired to replace me is so hated by all the associates i'm suprised they haven't strung her up. I'm told she is even rude to customers. I guess after her second week she was bossy people around, refuses to do carts or bathrooms and usually will not help recover the store because she can't get guest services closed. how pathetic. I got comments from 4 team member about how "less tired" and happy i look. I just gave them a shit eating grin cause i love it.

**went up to see Kim after joanns last night. she has begun losing her hair. at first she wanted me to help her wash her hair because she wants me to take pictures but she was too cold when i got there and is afraid of getting sick. so we decided to hold off til today. her spirits are on the rise and she is hoping to come home for a short time. the reason they haven't let her out is because her potassium and magnesium are very low. they have her on Zofran for the pain but its still the one they put in her port. she going nuts because they won't let her take a shower only spit baths and she really needs her hair washed. she has started answering her calls and she even called me before i went to joanns. warmed the cockles of my heart.

** around the ross house. the kids slept in their own beds last night. YEAH!!!! and they have been really good this morning.

my damn direct deposit still hasn't gone through so now i have to go pickup my check to be deposited. how inconvienent.

but hey at least its raining.

the van is offically fixed from my break in a couple weeks ago. i was hoping we would make the zoo yesterday but the guy didn't get done fixing it till after 11 so it didn't work out. maybe next time.

what other random stuff can i tell you?? oh yeah this is rob with hair, we are buzzing it off tonight and then i will take new pictures to post. and seriously he can't wait for me to shave it. now him and kim are trying to get me to buzz my hair off. sorry don't think so. i'll do short but no buzzing.

so have a good day and i'll post if anything new comes out.

Peace out dudes

carrie

home group night

tonight we begin to host home group and have dinner starting at 6pm. It was asked if we could switch nights and thanks to my great management team at Tres Amigos it was quick and painless. SOoo now my days of are sunday, tuesday, thursday.

Today i'm doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen and getting ready for the scrap social at Joanns on friday.

Moms client gave me her old photoshop elements 2 so now i can play. i tried using it on a couple of photos last night but they turned out odd so i didn't save the changes. and yes i did read the manual about the technique i was using.

So I just uploaded my most recent pictures so i can show you that i do take pictures of wyatt. This is the species known as "wyattus maximus boogerus". Always has his finger up his nose digging for gold. If you tell him how yucky that is he just smiles and goes back for more.

I did take some shots of him at the park mall play area that i will show later. And i'm thinking i might take the kids to the zoo on thursday with lindsey and the mommy group.

this is Lindsey and Annika or Nika for short. I met lindsey at joann for the social. pretty cool gal and lets me ask tons of questions. She does the stuff i'm to chicken or unsure of doing.

So enjoy your day and this cold weather. lots of hugs Carrie

friday! friday! friday!

of course i know longer work the 9-5 route but gotta love fridays. I'm off today! yipee....
cleaned up almost all of the scrap room. i have a lot of projects in my head that i need to get off the computer to go do. except... almost all my ideas come from the computer!!
so i'm just piddling around today. i need to grocery plan and walmart plan but except for us working on wyatts room tonight i don't think we have anything going on.
i kinda want to go downtown and do some shooting but i have no one to go with me and i would need help if i brought the kids. sigh..... maybe rob would be up with that. the kids in the wagon, plenty of snacks, strolling through downtown on a sunday late afternoon. there are a lot of cool things to photograph downtown. huuummmmmm. something to consider.
**Kelly just told me i need a timeout. Ha ha ..please can i have a time out? no talking or dealing with anybody for 31minutes. (time out is one minute for your age) please can i have a timeout!!!
no really they have been good today. last night was another story. Kelly wanting to sleep with us at 12:30 and then starting to cry when we put her back to bed. then it was wyatts turn and his crying woke kelly back up and she started crying again. eventually we put wyatt in the same bed as kelly to get him to calm down and go back to sleep. but of course they were both back up and raring to go at 6:30am. As long as we can keep them out of our bed the better we will sleep.
We are still trying to decide if we want them in the same room. i think we will come to a decision tonight.
Well we need lunch and rob should be home soon so enjoy your weekend. Carrie

nothing new

seriously. Kim has not gone home, in fact i sat with her for 15 minutes before i left because she was so tired that she couldn't keep her eyes open and started mumbling in her sleep. it was kinda funny.

I'm meal planning for the rest of the month and getting ready to do some grocery shopping this weekend.

I have tomorrow off and work 5 to close on Saturday. hope to get the rooms switched. Did i forget to mention we are moving the kids into the same room and making Kellys room the playroom. well we are. All their crap in one room and also punishments will be easier because there will be no toys in with the beds.

But first i need to pick up and get rid of some toys and then i need to clean out wyatts closet. ya know the stuff you really don't want to do?

Any whoo, i'm into my new year thing of trying to get organized and get things done. Maybe if i actually got up and did it instead of writing about it i would get more done.

But i must say i have been feeling very inspired lately by different blogs and websites. i think this year i will try new things in scrapbooking and photography.

There is a small hope that one of moms clients will let me download photoshop to my computer for my pictures. i am uber excited if i get to do this. Plus one of my new things to try is to shoot in RAW. lots more detail to work with. Also my friend Lindsey wants me to help her with a photo shoot with triplets. this way i can learn lighting and other techniques.

Are you snoring yet?????

I know it's only exciting to me. but otherwise there is really nothing new to update.

So I will sign off for now

hugs carrie

"Life itself is a most wonderful fairytale", Hans Christian Andersen
Yeah well there is always a wicked witch somewhere.
Love the quote but had to add that last part. I was on the Ali Edwards site and she typed up over a 130 words that people were going to focus on this year. I retyped them in excel and saved them for me to use throughout this year. Most of the words offered touched me in some way. So who knows, maybe if i get creative i can make some layouts featuring more of the words that i felt pulled to use.
** This just in ...... .... ... Kim may be coming home tomorrow. it's still tenative but it is a big hope. She gets really tired from the chemo and nauseous but otherwise so far so good. the nodes in her neck have shrunk and that is a good sign but in all reality this cancer is fatal.
* So just another ramble and i know i complain way too much about this but I sincerely wish i didn't have to work. I know, I know, it's a fact of life but i keep thinking of all the stuff that we could do as a family, me as a photographer and me as a friend. This is something i will continue to pray but right now it's not in the cards.
There is a saying, that a year that starts off bad ends good. i really hope that this is the case for 2007. I took the truck in for an oil change and they gave me a list of recomendations that the pickup needs. add that to new tires and my expense for the truck in the next few months is about a grand. Thank god for tax returns.
Okay gotta go! Have a great day. hugs Carrie

oh yeah shes back!! *** Kim update at end****

okay i know it's scrapbook cheesy but CATHY Z is back to blogging!! this lady is such a riot to me. she lives in minnesota takes pretty good pictures and i love her scrapbook pages. so glad to see she is back.

yall can check her out by the link on the side.

There was a word challenge that Ali Edwards offered. this is word or maybe phrase that you will work on all year. last year she chose "play" and this year it is "peace". I'm still struggling to find my word. do i go for "hope", "relax", "patience"? i'm about to head off to the shower and of course you know thats where i get my best ideas.

The van window is getting fixed this morning and then the kids and i are heading up to see kim. The results have come back but she is waiting till this morning to get them. she wanted one more night of good sleep before getting "the news". me, I would need to know now. that way i could plan my mental attack. lets hope the news is not as bad as i'm thinking.

So i finished my second and third photo books i got for christmas and new years.now i just need patience to go out and do a lot of shooting to get the understanding. i have book learning i just need experience learning. See i really want to take my pictures and make my own art. see photo. i want to take photos of food to frame for kitchen decor. i was practicing on these ginger snap cookies.

Okay seriously i need to get in the shower. i'll update when i find out kims diagnosis.
Hugs, Carrie
'kay just got a call from Kims dad. kim has small cell cervical cancer, an extremely rare cancer. they are doing a ct scan on the brain to make sure it hasn't gone that far and they will also be starting chemo today. the prognosis is not good is what the doctor told kims dad. no stage info, no percentages, just that it doesn't look good. tried to call kim but no answer, wyatt crashed out on me so it will be awhile before i can head up. i know they gave her something to calm her down but then i don't know if she is out of the room either. just pray for her okay? C

impotent anger

oh am i pissed off!!!

last night when i got off work someone had smashed the passenger side window of the van and all they took was a bag of nightgowns for and pants that i washed for kim and the stuffed animals that people have given her while she has been in the hospital. these j-holes also took a comforter set out of my friend michelles camper shell but didn't break anything and the car next to that got hit and those fuck nuts took the guys coat and cell phone. This just so sucks. because they had broken into two vehicles they sent out a cop, so we had to wait in the cold for them to show up. obviously the security in this parking lot sucks. we are told to park on the side of the building but this is the second time a vehicle has been broken into in the month i have worked here. screw that, i'm now parking in front of the building and in sight of our cash register.
So today i have the fun of calling the insurance and my brother (glass man) to come hopefully fix the window. i say hopefully because they messed up the window frame alittle.
In other news Kim is suppose to get her results today so if i hear anything i'll check back in.
Carrie

NEW YEAR 2007

nothing new to report, just thought i would drop in and say hi.
HI!!!
mother in law took the kids on new years night and we watched pirates of the Caribbean2 and went to bed at 12:15a. got woken up at 3:30 by the back neighbors laughing and yelling OOOOOOO! thats all you could hear. so i went outside to ask them just to keep their voices down just a tad. keep partying no prob just lower the volume. yeah no, i yelled but they couldn't hear me and after 45 minutes we just called the cops and they sent the fire dept cause of this big bonfire they had going. within 20 minutes of the TFD being there they put water on the fire and went to bed. not me, i didn't fall back to sleep till almost five and then didn't get up till nine. ugghhh.

got all the christmas decor down and put away today. thats a relief and now my living room is back to normal. Yeah!
got all my pictures printed from the month of december. now i just have to finish the rest of the year.
i have finished both of the photo books i got for christmas. now i just need to right down all the notes that i want to remember when i'm out shooting.
but i've been playing around.
monday night therob, kids and i went to a church familys house and did some karaoke. and yes i actually sang a couple of songs. it was loud but alot of fun. i really like the layout of their house and the backyard is set for kids and there was 13+ kids running around. it was very fun.
i haven't downloaded the pictures that i took but they look pretty good.
have a good wednesday. carrie