It's been a long, long, time...

Wow. I can't believe how long it has been since I've had an entry in this blog. So many things have happened since July of last year...way too many to put down in one entry, so I guess I'll hit the highlights.

The biggest, and worst news of all, is that our family lost our dear Nadine in October. She succumbed to the brain tumors that were discovered by the doctors in June, and quickly deteriorated until God chose to take her home. She was surrounded by family and friends in her last moments. She will be missed forever--she was a beautiful, kind, loving lady. I was lucky to have such a wonderful mother-in-law.

Greg is plugging away at school--doing well, making good grades. Hopefully in another year or so he will be teaching. He's excited, and I can't wait to see him in "action" as a teacher. He truly loves the special ed kids, and he'll be so good with them.

My "bonus" son is wonderful, as usual--getting more handsome all the time, about to turn 11 in March, and smart as a whip. Makes awesome grades. He's pretty darn near perfect.

Biggest news with me is health-related, of course...seems like the past three years I've done nothing but fall apart physically. I had major hospitalizations in 2007 & 2008, managed to escape 2009 without one, but man, did I bust 2010 wide open!

January 6th or so I had a stomach pain attack and went to the ER--not here, in Murfreesboro. I won't go back here to the hospital unless it's a life or death situation. Anyway, turns out it was a partial bowel obstruction, which corrected itself with a few days of no food/drink and a tube down my nose into my stomach (ugh). The surgeon scheduled an appt. to talk about surgery in the summer so I wouldn't have to be out of work...

nope.

January 25th I had another attack, only worse. Much worse. This time it was a total bowel obstruction, and the doctor had to operate, no putting it off. So he went in and fixed two hernias and removed 1 1/2 feet of my intestine which was damaged from the hernia. I've been on medical leave ever since (no pay, of course). I go back to work Monday...I can't wait. I know my kids can't wait, because they've told me so.

So that's the update, in a nutshell. Hopefully, I'll get better about keeping this thing up to date.