Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Short Post

I don't really have much to report. So, I am going to tell you that last year for Halloween we went to Huber's and let the kids ride the wagon to the pumpkin fields and pick their own pumpkins. After the pumpkins started to rot, we threw them (literally) off the side of the steps into the landscaping. We didn't know when to plant seeds so we simply hoped for the best. Here's what we have in our front yard and are barely keeping at bay so that we can actually walk up the front steps.
I took a few pictures and I'm not impressed with any of them. They all turned out blurry but you can see that the sidewalk is covered and that they are growing right outside the door.

This one is the biggest right now.




These two are buddies. Some of the leaves on this plant are monstrous! There are at least four pumpkins on the vine and if you get a pumpkin for every bloom on the vine, we'll have a good 20 to 25 pumpkins. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the blooms in the morning before I head to work and edit it into this post tomorrow. Just thought everyone might enjoy seeing my pumpkin patch in the front yard. ;o)


Picture of the day! I love these big, fluffy clouds. I'm a dreamer at times and these clouds make me wish I could just lay in one and drift away for a while!


I also like the church steeple from across the street in the center of these clouds. Let's me know that God is working in my life and I need to be paying closer attention!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Insulin Resistance

So...for those of you who are following my blog, I wanted to post an update on a previous post where I let everyone know that I felt like things were getting a little out of hand and life just seemed way more stressful than usual.

I received a call from the Dr.'s office mid week last week telling me that at my follow up appointment, when I had them redo my blood work to test my blood glucose levels, the test has come back that I have a condition called insulin resistance. My body produces higher levels of insulin because it is not properly using the insulin that it produces. Many patients who have it, have a combination of the following: they have a family history of high blood pressure, gestational diabetes, (which I had a mild case of with the twins) family history of type 2 diabetes, and are over weight. I fit into all of these categories. Some of the symptoms are a discoloration in the "creases of skin" such as the arm pit and neck. I haven't noticed any discoloration around my neck, but have in the arm pit and skin tags. I noticed I started getting these several years ago. Just small "tags" of skin that develop and protrude from the surface of the skin.

When I spoke with the nurse, she explained to me that Insulin Resistance can affect many areas of my life, several that you wouldn't think of, and that don't really make a lot of sense. Mood, menstrual cycle, weight gain, stress levels, hormone levels, ...... the list goes on and on. So... the Dr. has prescribed glucophage, it is a medication developed to help the body properly process the insulin that is produced by the body, or converted to insulin from the foods that we eat.

When I picked up the prescription tonight, the pharmacist told me that I should expect "dramatic" weight loss. I'm trying to keep my hopes to a minimum on this little tidbit of information. Also, she asked me to take a "gentle" smell of the bottle. These pills stink to high heaven. I MEAN THEY REEK!!! Michael says they smell like the penguin exhibit at the zoo. Thank you sweetheart for that mental picture. The last time I had to take a pill that smelled this bad, it also tasted like a tin can. So, from previous experience, I have found that Sunny D is the only beverage that I can use to take these gag inducing prescriptions that tastes good and masks the taste so that I can get them down.

I know that this is a lot of personal information, but, I wanted to keep everyone posted and let you guys know that I am not crazy, which was my own self diagnosis a few weeks ago, I am just a little imbalanced right now and the Dr. is staying on top of my condition and is also following up with me on a regular basis to see if an anti-depressant is needed to help me feel more like myself and less like the crazed lunatic that yelled at my boss even when I knew that he was only teasing me and felt like I was constantly yelling at my entire family all of the time, even though I really wasn't.

I love you all, and I thank you all for being so supportive. Especially Michael who has put up with my crazy behaviour through thick and thin and still loves me anyway, and Billie who lets me call her every single day and vent about the crazy clients at work and the general everyday nonsense of life and never judges me and always makes me feel better just for hearing her voice.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

I follow this blog.

It's called On the Front Porch, because Wendy has two little boys, like I do. They aren't twins but they are both boys and plus, I think Wendy's hilarious. Anyway, on Sundays, Wendy posts Small Town Snapshot Sunday pictures and I have linked a post from the Clark Co. 4-H fair on her post. Here is the link to my STSS. http://www.linnsstss.blogspot.com/. Hope you all had a great weekend.
Here are a few more pictures from this weekend spent at the Zoo, Falls of the Ohio and the fair.

Is this not one of the cutest things? He's called a cotton top tamarin and He's in the monkey house for the woolly monkeys. I haven't seen them before yesterdays visit, but I'm sure he's been there for a while. There are two of them, but the other one was kinda camera shy.




These pictures on the carousel at the zoo are from several trips around. Apparently, for zoo members, in the summer they have free rides on Saturday evenings, starting at 6 p.m. You might be able to see the green stickers on our shirts that say, "Get Wild at the Zoo". For the last ride, Tyler finally decided that he wanted to ride a horse that goes up and down. He loved it and we laughed through the biggest part of the ride. He's so sweet when he wants to be.





Me, Tyler, Jake, Eden and David at the Falls of the Ohio, it wasn't an easy trek to get down to the fossil beds, but it was worth it, they all had a good time, poor David slid on a slippery rock and got a little wet and the boys had to be told repeatedly not to run since there isn't an inch of level terrain but all in all it was fun. I love the picture of Jake playing in the sand. He loves to get dirty.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Date night

Michael and I don't ever "plan" a date night. On very rare occasions, someone will offer to take all three kids off our hands for a little Mike and me time, and trust me, I know they are a handful. On Friday, my father in law took the kids with him and they spent the night with grandma and grandpa.

I know it won't seem overly exciting to anyone else, but I truly enjoyed every minute of our time together. Here's a recap of what we did. First we went to Hooter's to eat. We could have gone anywhere I wanted and we were planning to go to Mark's Feed Store and then we started listing all the places we hadn't been in a while and Hooter's was one of them. They have the best fried pickles and I was also wanting some buffalo tenders. It was pretty good!

After we left Hooter's we decided to take the cameras and walk across the 2nd Street Bridge, also known as the Clark Memorial Bridge, along with the tripod. I didn't think to factor in the the bridge would have movement due to the traffic on it, but we still got some really nice shots. I love it that we have found something that we can do together! I miss Tae Kwon Do and I'm glad that since I can't do that anymore, we have a common interest again in photography. I think I would like to eventually set up a spot in our basement where we could take family photos for our friends and family and possibly anyone else that wants a good deal on some great shots.

Michael took these.

The Belle of Louisville returning from its Friday night cruise.



Setting up my shot. This is one of the rare occasions of me actually looking through the view finder instead of using the "live view" on the camera while it is on the tripod. The tripod is not fully extended in this picture because if it were, I wouldn't be able to see through the viewfinder. I'm to short, when this tripod is completely set up, it's about 5'6" tall. I'm a whopping 5'2"!
I took these.


I didn't realize I was shooting in black and white for the first few pictures I took. I like this one because you can see what I call "heaven's rays" shooting out the top of the cloud that is covering the sun.
I seriously could not possibly love this man anymore than I already do. I honestly don't know what he sees in me or why he puts up with my bullshit, but I love him for it and thank God every night that he loves me too.


These last two pictures I have been wanting to take since I saw a picture of light streaks on someone's Flickr page. I took the tripod and put the legs down so that all I was using was about three feet off the ground, maybe four and the feet of the tripod are sitting right on the black line that you can see on the side walk. Then, I opened up the shutter for approximately 20 seconds and waited for passing cars. I think the first one is my favorite. It looks kinda like the bridge is on fire. The first is pointing across the bridge heading into Jeffersonville, Indiana and the other is pointing into downtown Louisville, Kentucky.
Michael and I actually walked farther across the bridge than we thought and so we walked back to the truck and were trying to decided what to do next, go home or go to a movie. We opted to go see Transformers 2. The reviews have not been kind and while there are a few parts of the movie that are not necessary, I did enjoy it. Of course, part of the reason is I love the sound of the robots transforming and HELLO.... Shia LaBeouf. The down side to see a movie.... HOLY CRAP it's expensive. For two tickets, a large coke, a small coke and a box of sweettarts it was $40. No, that's not a typo! $40.00.
So that was my date night, followed by a nice evening without having two little boys enter our bed sometime in the middle of the night and sleeping in past 7:30. I think it was around 8:15 when Mike got up and I finally got up around 8:45. I still consider this early. If I'm up before Target is open, it's still early. Right?

Sunday, July 5, 2009

Long weekend fun.

Have I mentioned just how much I love my BFF Billie??? I'm pretty sure that I have, but just in case.... I LOVE BILLIE FLENER (and her hubby too!!!) Don't think I forgot you Jay! ;o)


A few weeks ago Billie called to say, "Hey, it's a long weekend comin' up and Emily (that's my niece, and her oldest) wants to see the Panda's. Wanna go to Memphis Zoo with us?" and I said, "I'm sure Mickey won't mind if I leave early but let me run it past him, just in case." Plus, it's really close to Tunica, Mississippi which is where the casinos are so we stayed for free because the rooms were comps that Billie and Jay earned. You can't beat a free stay in a hotel!
Here is a picture of Michael and the boys while we were waiting for Billie and Jason to get there with Eden, Emily and David. The parking lot fills up quickly.


Here are the kids enjoying the tiger exhibit. They had a male, female and white tiger. Their "habitat" was beautifully designed. There was a waterfall and shade trees. All amazing. Can you see the male laying in the shade behind the kids?


Look how close it looks to the camera. This isn't even zoomed in all the way. It's amazing that it feels like you can just hop in with them and take their pictures. The whole zoo is laid out this way.

Apparently, there are only 4 or 5 zoos in the United States that actually have panda's and not just any old panda but the really for real, china pandas. The black and white ones, not the red ones.
Their names are YaYa and LeLe. One male and one female panda bear. They were both just kinda lounging around. Of course, it could be because it was 97 degrees out.

I know this isn't a great picture, but this one didn't move the whole time we were in the panda exhibit.


I must say, Memphis Zoo is a terrific zoo. The exhibits are well thought out, there is shade at almost every exhibit, the ones that don't have shade have those misting poles that put out the fine mist to help cool you off and for every two or three outdoor exhibits there is an indoor, air conditioned exhibit. I won't say that I didn't get hot, because we all did, but it was still a wonderful trip to the zoo. Even when we had to fight with the boys and make them ride in the rented zoo stroller. By the way, I would love to have one of those things. You couldn't even tell they were in it, it was so easy to push! Also, the Memphis Zoo didn't have any of the ridiculous hills like the Louisville Zoo does and no wide open, empty fields full of nothing either. If it didn't take 6 hours to drive there, I'd go to the Memphis Zoo every weekend. Did I mention the Memphis Zoo is GREAT?!!


Here is another picture that isn't really great, but it does show just how close you can get to the animals. If this glass weren't here you could reach out and touch this beautiful mountain lion. She was laying in the top of her area and they have a look out spot so that you can go in and see her laying on top of her "perch". Like I said, simply amazing!


Here's another exhibit where you could almost reach out and touch. Not to worry.
The thought didn't cross my mind, especially after these two started growling at each other over this particular patch of shade. The snow leopard on the right was there first and had no intention of sharing her shade with the one on the left. (I don't know if it was a female or not, but it seems appropriate to assume it was.)



After the zoo we headed over to Mud Island in downtown Memphis and let the kids walk along the scale model of the Ohio and Mississippi river that covers are very large area and follows the river from the northern most points all the way to the Gulf of Mexico and into the ocean. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's probably about three city blocks long. You can wade in the water that flows along the path and I really wish that I had done that with the kids. It would have helped cool me down. Like I mentioned, it was really hot! In case you couldn't tell from the picture above.
The boys really liked riding in the "upside down train car" better known as the monorail to get over to the Mud Island park. Eden however, was not impressed. She's not a big fan of heights and the monorail travels across the Mississippi river a good distance above it. I would say at least 6 stories.




This is just a small portion of the model I was talking about. A big thank you goes to Michael for taking us all down there. His brother went to school in Memphis and he remembered going to Mud Island as a kid, so we went to follow in his childhood footsteps with our boys and Eden.


Trips like these are so trying with twin 3 year old boys, but it's so worth it to me that our kids will remember taking trips like these when they are older and for as much of a pain as it is to ride for long hours on a trip with them all in the car, the rewards are so worth it. They really had fun and Tyler is still talking about the trip and asking us questions. I think he just really likes to say the word "Mississippi". :o) Eden keeps talking about where we can stay the next time we go. I don't know that we'll go back to Memphis but I did enjoy the trip and the famous Rendezvous ribs. They were delicious! They didn't even bring me a knife and fork because these ribs literally fall of the bone they are so tender and juicy!


PS: To Billie and Jason, thank you both so much for taking trips like this with us and inviting us along. I know that we are not always the easiest people to travel with, but you guys always make us feel like you wouldn't rather be with anyone else. Billie, thank you so much for being my "knight in shining armor" when we came over to swim with you guys while Michael and Jay went out for a while. I honestly felt like hell had reached out and touched me and I thank you for being the angel that took care of my kids while I was in the restroom contemplating the best way to evacuate the demons that had apparently possessed my soul and were trying their best to kill me right there on the thrown! I love you girl! I couldn't possibly ask for a better friend. Well, I guess I could but they would just be like, "No, sorry, you can't have another, that's the best one we got!"