Tuesday, August 31, 2010

clearing out the camera






I don't know why I always take a buncha pictures, and rarely put them on the computer. But, I emptied the camera out and am sharing a few!

We've went to several pool parties at a friend's house, so I got a poolside shot of JP.

We went down to the Battleship Texas with my parents, so there's a few shots of that. John Paul was trying to decide how to get that big shell home with no one noticing... don't worry, it's still there ;)

John Paul's employer has a group for new people to the company called Endeavor. They get together for social networking and this year celebrated the 3rd birthday of the group, so that meant a party! We had a blast at Dave and Busters!! I thought John Paul looked like he was having fun blowing that stupid favor in my face!

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Gentle nudge

So, I was told I haven't been blogging. Which I realized was true when I looked and my last post was about my kidney stone. I've sat down many times to put my thoughts out there, but they always seem too radical, too whiney, too personal too boring or any other number of things, not to mention would people even care? Since I've gotten a couple of comments, I'll see what I can do about catching you up. (This might be long, but I'm going with you asked for it? lol)

So, since June, I've recovered from my stone completely, but have had a few apts with the urologist. I'm going to say I got really lucky with finding a great doc. He listens, and he doesn't want me to have any more stones! They did a few tests, and I got the results last week. I'm watching what I eat to prevent stones. We will do another test in a few months to see if changing my diet is enough, or if I need medicines to prevent stones. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the things I can't eat. I'm supposed to cut back on sodium, calcium, and fat, Yet I'm supposed to not eat a lot of veggies because they contain a lot of Oxalate, which is a component of my stones. I'm drinking at least 3 liters of water, and working in fresh lemonade.

We have had quite a few visitors. John Paul's parents came down around Father's day. I was pretty sick at the time, but it was nice to see them. It was nice to spend a little time with my father-in-law before he got deployed to Afghanistan. Then John Paul's little brother came by with a few friends. They had went to Mississippi to pick up a new car, and Houston is way on the way back to OK so they stopped by :). They were only here a little over 24 hours, but it was nice to have people in the house. My parents came down as well. We did a Texas history weekend, visiting 2 state parks that were focused on the founding of Texas. It was great to have people in the house, even though the house seems a lot more hollow after people leave, and there's a little bit of homesickness that flares up when they leave too.

I helped plan a trip to AZ, which I posted pictures of here on Facebook. I've sat down, and wrote several posts about this trip, but didn't post. So, here I'm just going to say that I support AZ's new immigration law because if our federal govt doesn't enforce laws which makes citizens unsafe, I think a state has a right to protect it's citizens. The trip was a hoot, and I really enjoyed meeting lots of other conservatives and seeing AZ from top to bottom! A group from AZ posted a movie they made about our trip here. The video is like 9 minutes long, so no pressure to watch.

The other exciting thing going on is FRIENDS! It's been really cruddy moving here not really knowing anyone. But one of John Paul's co-workers has had people over to his house several of times over the past year (yea, we've been here a year, crazy) And we've recently been really hanging out with several of his co-workers. There's 2 couples getting married in Sept, so we are kind of in the same stage of life, and it's so great to have some people to spend time with. We did a bowling league for 6 weeks. I stank mostly, but got better. I increased my avg, and bowled over 100 once! One co-worker hosted my birthday party, and that was the first time that I really felt like we were finally getting friends. I've went wedding dress shopping, and we are planning a bachelorette party too!

I've been making cakes for, well years, but I've been making several lately. I've got a couple of orders too. I'm really excited about it! Who knows where it will lead!

So, Houston isn't as bad as it was a few months ago. We still haven't found a church home, we're just going to church. It's pretty hard to not have a church family, but God has a plan for that.
I'm still working at Staples as a cashier, but I've been looking for something else, but there's just not a lot. We are praying for God's leading in that area, and are waiting to hear from Him on the issue.