Pain

I've been in a lot of pain the last few days.  I'm pretty sure kidney stones have reared their ugly heads once again because of where the pain is.  Several years ago I had lithotripsy done twice, but of course, the stones still remain.  I can't have the lithotripsy done anymore because I can't have the anesthesia, unfortunately.  All I can do is drink lots of water and lemonade (lemons help break up whatever mine are made out of), carefully monitor the pain, and pray that there are no complications.  The pain comes and goes, so I'm not worried about there being a bigger problem, but it just becomes annoying.

I've also been nauseous a lot more lately.  Jake and Kati are convinced it's my blood pressure meds.  (Although, it could be partly from the kidney stone pain too.)  I'll monitor that more in the next week or so and if it doesn't get better I'll call my endocrine docs and see if there's anything they can do about it.  Until then...I just eat what I can, when I can.

Unfortunately, not being able to eat much lately means I've also lost some weight.  Kati and Eric said several times they thought I'd lost weight, but I thought I was still okay.  Yesterday, though, I weighed myself and I've lost about 6 pounds, so...ya.  Once again, I'll just eat whatever I can, when I can.  

Hopefully, all this stuff will clear up enough so I'm not miserable when there are Christmas gatherings.  Not to mention that my cousin, Ryan, and his wife, Logan, are going to be here before New Year's and for about a week after.  Ryan is in the Navy and stationed in Connecticut.  They're expecting their first baby in April so we're having a baby shower for them while they're here.  Ryan (and now Logan too) has always had a special place in my heart so I'm really looking forward to seeing them and seeing little Lyle in-utero :)  So I need to be feeling decently when they get here!!

Thanks for praying!

It's been almost 3 weeks since I've blogged.  Not sure why exactly, but I just haven't been all that talkative.  Plenty has happened, though, so I'll try to catch you up.

On November 25th I turned 27.  I love my birthday.  Almost in a child-like way, I love my birthday.  I think part of it has to do with the fact that my parents were told that I wouldn't live to be 1, and here I am 26 years later still proving them wrong.  I like proving them wrong :)

Jake added to my all-things-game-related addiction and got me the official Scrabble Dictionary.  I then kicked his butt in 3 or 4 games in the next few days.  He also took me out to Buffalo Wild Wings to eat dinner and play trivia...one of my FAVORITE activities :)  

My 16 month old niece, with some help from her mommy (my sister, Staci) called to sing me happy birthday.  It was priceless!  It made me cry, but in a good way, of course.  If you're on Facebook, you can hear the message on my page.  All in all, a great birthday.

Thanksgiving was a lot of fun.  My brother (Matt), sister-in-law (Chris), niece (Mahkayla) and Aunt Nancy came to the house for lunch and afterwards we played Mega-Monopoly.  Such a great game!  Chris and Mahkayla ended up calling it a draw after about 5 hours of playing and bankrupting the rest of us.  We all had a lot of fun and laughed a lot...such great family time.

The next Saturday Jake and I went out with our best friends, Kati and Eric, to see the movie "Fireproof" at Wehrenberg Theaters.  We'd already seen it once, but it's such a great movie we wanted to see it again.  This was also further celebration of my birthday (which actually turned into a birth-week instead of day).

Unfortunately, on Saturday night I was already starting to feel kinda icky.  By Sunday I was feeling really badly and had a full blown cold (and a GI bug to be named later).  We ended up missing our godson (Kati and Eric's son), Malaki's, first birthday party, and were really bummed about that.  But by Sunday night, Jake was sick too, so we were very glad we didn't go.  Jake ended up staying home Monday and Tuesday, and tried to go into work on Wednesday, but came home after only a few hours.  Thursday, we were feeling good enough that he went back to work, and I did payroll.  We're still feeling the effects, but the Puffs consumption has gone down dramatically.

Friday night we had our annual Franmar Christmas party.  We always love going to the party.  For me, it's a time to put faces to the names I write checks for every week, and to see the ones I  know but don't get to see very often.  It's a fun group of people to hang out with, so the party is always a good time.

Here's Jake and me at the party:

This year the entire company surprised me with a new game...Franmaropoly!  They spent the entire last year creating this thing.  From writing new Chance and Community Chest cards to all the employees HAND-MAKING the playing tokens.  They had a local printing shop we do business with print the cover for the box lid and the board itself.  It's absolutely incredible.  I am completely blown away that they would do this for me.  I'm still in shock that I held back the tears (you know how emotional I am!) while at the party, but there were plenty when we got home.  Now I just have to get Jake to play it with me :)  (I'll add photos as soon as I have some!)

I guess that's it for now!