10 Years

This weekend I was gathering up laundry in the bedroom when I came across a box of pictures that I had shoved under the bed long ago. They were all (or mostly all) pictures of Emily when she was about two. Looking at all of those pictures and knowing she was turning 10 on Monday I realized they represented a lot of hopes and dreams I have for my little girl. (Don't tell her I just called her a 'little girl'. I called her that earlier today and was promptly scolded)

So, in honor of Miss Emily Rainn Warren turning 10, here are a small sample of those pictures and my hopes for her.

Even though you're no longer going to be taking any dance classes this year, I still hope you take the time to dance. Dance by yourself, dance with your friends, dance with your daddy, but just dance. Like the saying goes, "Dance like no one's watching."

It's cheesy, but I hope you take the time to stop and smell the flowers. Don't rush through life, just wasting time waiting to be in high school, or in college, or out on your own, married, having babies, or whatever the next goal you want for yourself may be because pretty soon you'll look back and wonder where all the time went and you'll wish you would have done this or that or enjoyed more moments. Enjoy your moments, no matter how small.

 The world is a big, scary place but your parents will always be there next to you, supporting you, no matter what.

I'm sorry we ruined Twinkies for you last year by giving you one of those "Shrek" Twinkies with the green creme filling. They totally freaked you out and you hate Twinkies now. I hope you can love them again. (Sorry also to my best pal Tanya Jo! She loves Twinkies and is probably cursing me for doing such a horrible thing to an innocent snack cake.) 

I hope you always have a caring spirit that wants to take care of others, no matter how small.

I hope you always love the simple things in life like Nemo balloons and early morning Sesame Street. 

May you never lose the excitement of a really cute pair of shoes.

I hope you always enjoy nature and enjoy learning about science and all those things I thought were lame and boring. Learn everything you can about anything. You never know when you'll need to know it.

I hope you take the time to relax and enjoy yourself once in a while. Soon your life is going to get even more crazy with friends, activities and social engagements that you think you can't miss out on and before you know it you're all grown up and wishing you could go back to this moment. Take advantage of naps. ;)

...at the same time, take the time to spread your wings and explore. Be adventurous. Don't look back and wish you would have done more while you were more of a free spirit. Fly.

I hope we've made you happy as you've made us. 

I hope you'll always remember how to laugh and have a good time. You have THE BEST sense of humor and it's something that can easily get lost. Nothing ever needs to be taken so seriously that you can't smile about it.

Now, and this is the most important thing I could ever express to you. No matter WHAT happens, I'm always a phone call away. Call your mother. Always. 

Happy Birthday Emily Rainn Warren!! I love you!!

(September 15, 2001. Emily and I getting ready to go home from the hospital)

Sad, pissed, hurt and disappointed

A few weeks ago I found out that one of my co-workers, we'll call her "Beth" has breast cancer. She is my age, had a baby last year and has another two boys that I would guess are under the age of 11. She beat breast cancer before 5 years ago and was looking to fight the good fight again. Last week she went to the Cancer Center in Chicago to find out exactly was going on in her body and start a game plan and treatment. Yesterday was her first day back to work. Unfortunately she had to leave ill due to the effects of the chemo she was given in Chicago. This morning I found out her cancer is stage 4, it has spread to her lungs, her liver, her bones and two other places that I don't even remember. This is not a fight she will likely win. I was heartbroken. I don't work with her often, mostly in passing and usually that only happens once every couple months but ours is a small department and we are all close.

Our department lead is a 25 year old "girl" who I used to have a lot of respect for. I don't always believe in the way she deals with things in her personal life, such as buying $80 swimsuits for her 5 year old, simply because they're Burberry (yes, she is a name-brand whore) and she smothers her two kids to the point that they will most likely hate her by the time they reach 12. (for example, she won't let her daughter eat lunch by herself at school because she--and I quote--"doesn't think a baby should have to eat lunch without her mommy." WTF, people???) but I digress. How she runs her personal life and raises her kids are her business, I only have to hear about it when we work together.

So my 25 year old "boss" doesn't like "Beth". She never has. She was hired just as my boss was coming into the department so she never really had a say when she was hired. "Beth" is not rich, by any means. She wears clothes that are either homemade or are pretty obviously old and outdated. She does not look sloppy. She comes to work clean and tidy but she doesn't not wear name brands. (oh the horror!) But guess what? Neither does anyone else in our office! At every opportunity my boss is given she gives "Beth" as much shit as possible. Things everyone else in the department gets away with, "Beth" does not. Keep in mind, "Beth" is not full-time. She works 4 days a pay period, just like me and also has another part-time job somewhere else where she does similar work as we do in the Switchboard. She's a nice person who was just dealt a very shitty hand.

When "Beth" found out she had cancer she told our boss and she also told her she was going to Chicago for treatment. With the way "Beth's" schedule works, she was basically going to have to miss one of her scheduled days for her trip to Chicago last week, but she had Earned Time to use in it's place. This shouldn't be a problem. Quite honestly our department could probably make due without "Beth" on the schedule but it works out a lot better with her there. We would just be shorthanded occasionally. Our supervisor didn't take this well though and called her at home and just ripped into her. Actually yelling at her and telling her she didn't have anyone to cover her. Why would you treat someone who just found out they have cancer like that you ask? Because my 25 year old boss doesn't think "Beth" has cancer. She has told a couple people in the department that she thinks she is lying. Who lies about that kind of thing???

Flash forward to yesterday when "Beth" came in for her first day back to work. She ended up having to leave early, as I said, because of the chemo treatment she received in Chicago. She called our boss at home and also explained to her the extent of her illness. Immediately after hanging up with "Beth" my boss called Employee Health about "Beth's" so-called illness.

Outing an employee's illness to Employee Health is a lot like telling your Nazi neighbors that your very Jewish friends are coming over for dinner tomorrow night at 7:00. Ok, maybe that's a little over the top but seriously, was that phone call necessary?? She did it because she doesn't believe "Beth" and wants her to have to prove herself. She's basically trying to shove her out of the department. What did Employee Health do? They immediately called "Beth" at home and told her she had two choices, 1. Keep working her scheduled days with no issues. 2. Quit. They said she does not qualify for FMLA because she is part-time and that if she can't work when she is scheduled then she doesn't need to return to work. WHAT. THE. FUCK??

Until about an hour ago I loved the company I work for. I really thought it was a great place to work that took care of it's employees. How can I support a hospital that would treat what is basically a terminally ill employee so badly? If we can't take care of our own, how are we taking care of our patients? I am sad, I am pissed, I am hurt and I am disappointed.

sad

Not long after I started at Trinity in 2006 I happened upon a blog quite accidentally. The author lives in Canada and had been writing his blog for several years (the blog recently turned 10) but he had just found out that he had colon cancer. This was in 2007. Most of his posts after that were about his fight with that cancer, but he was also able to blog about the things he loved blogging about, which was music, photography and techy/geeky crap, which quite honestly I had no interest in. It was his fight with cancer and most of his posts about music that interested me.

I never put it in my blogroll so his blog was one I normally only read at work whenever it crossed my mind to do so. In November of last year he realized he would not be winning his fight with cancer so he decided to stop his treatments. He started writing about death and what was happening to his body. I sort of put his blog out of my mind for a while and had a panic earlier tonight at work when I realized it had been a couple of months since I had read it. Sadly, on May 3rd, he passed away. His last post (besides one he had written to be posted after he died) was on April 27th. I had to go back to the last post I had read and start reading until what I knew was his last post. He left a wife of 23 years and two daughters.

What I know about Derek from reading his blog is that he was not afraid to die. Sad, of course that he would be leaving his family and that he would be missing out on all of the things that they will experience in life from this moment on, but not afraid. He was a man of science, studying biology so he knows that dying is a natural course of nature.

One of his lasts posts struck me as he talked about one of my favorite artists, Adele. He had been listening to her new album, which is simply fantastic, and was struck by one of her songs for his own reasons. You can read this post here:

Derek K. Miller

I have known since he posted back in November that he was ceasing his treatments that he would one day pass, but I had no idea how sad it would make me feel. A man I never even knew. I feel sad for his daughters who will not have their dad there with them through life. I feel sad for his wife who has lost the partner she has shared over half of her life with. Fuck cancer.

Love is a Battlefield...and so is Emily's room.

Today I recreated the final dance scene from the "Love Is A Battlefield" video for Adam while we were emptying Emily's room of all of her prized possessions. (More on that in a bit). Of course then I had to go watch the video on YouTube and then write a recap of the video for my Facebook friends because I think they count on me for these kinds of things. At least that's what I pretend. Now, I'm going to do the same for you:

Here is the word for word recap I posted to FB:

In case you forgot what the final dance scene in this video was like it starts at 3:20. If you need a little background, Pat Benetar is a 32 year old woman playing a 17 year old girl who gets kicked out of her house by her father who is a butcher played by Trey Wilson, who looks like Gny St. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket, but isn't. Pat then wanders the street in cool 80's/hooker clothes and finally lands a gig in a sweaty club as some sort of girl who dances with dudes while having a wishful/bored look on her face. Also, she writes letters to her little brother back home via snail mail. It's at this point the final dance scene begins when Pat and all of the other bored hooker clothing clad dancers start group dancing towards the club owner in some sort of angry "you can't tell us what to do because we have this dance thing and can snap our fingers" display. Pat declares "WE ARE YOUNG!" but really, they're all pushing 30. Pat throws a drink in the owner's face, they continue coming at him with their dance moves and then finally take their army to the street in 3x3 fashion. It's out here where they hug Pat good-bye and she hops on a bus going where...we do not know. Awesome video.

Now, regarding Emily's room. It's AWFUL. And I mean awful. It rivals any episode of Hoarders. So, last Monday I told her she had until this Monday to get it cleaned up or else we were packing everything up and storing it in the garage. At any point did Emily lift a finger last week to clean any of it? Nope. Are all of her toys, art supplies and the pile of earrings I found on a random piece of furniture now packed up and in the garage? Yep. Surprise!!! I don't know if she thought we were kidding but it turns out we weren't. She's gonna be so happy! Ok, maybe that's just us.

Updates

I'm skipping this Saturday's (and obviously last Saturday's) untitled posts simply because I've just become uninspired by them and want to wait until I have fun things to share, instead of a bunch of crap thrown together just to simply post them. Instead I thought I would ramble about things that are going on in our little family.

As per usual for us, when it rains it pours. It never fails that when one thing goes wrong in our family, everything else just starts to crumble slowly like an Angry Birds structure. A couple weeks ago we were notified by mail that Adam's unemployment was going to start being cut by about $125 a week. For those not very good with math, that's $500 a month. For a family that pretty much lives paycheck to paycheck this means something or somethings don't get paid. For us this week it meant groceries and cable. In fact on Monday night Adam fed the kids spaghetti noodles flavored with a packet of french onion soup and we didn't eat. The kids loved it. Thought it was Ramen.

On Tuesday I was driving the hour to Iowa City to take Blake to a doctor appointment at the Children's Hospital and my car overheated. The most awesome part was that I knew when I left the house that we had no money in our bank account and I had a whopping $18 in cash on me. I put $15 of it in my gas tank before we hit the interstate. Now we're sitting there on the shoulder of I-80 and I'm thinking, what the hell am I going to do?? I called our insurance company about our roadside assistance and explained that I needed a tow truck but didn't have the luxury of being able to pay for it and then get reimbursed. She hooked me up with a company that would just bill them for the tow. Thank you kind insurance lady!

So after two very sweaty hours of being stuck on the interstate, the tow truck came and Adam picked Blake and I up to take us home. Adam, also had very little gas in his tank so I gave him the $3 I had left to put in his tank. I figured it could make the difference between us getting back home and getting stuck on the interstate again. While I was digging in my purse I found a hidden eight bucks! Whoohoo!! I snatched the $3 back from Adam, gave him the $8 and took Blake inside the gas station for a much needed bottle of whatever he wanted to drink that didn't have "Monster", "Red Bull" or "Boone's Farm" on the label. He chose the biggest bottle of sweet tea he could find and sucked most of it down before we pulled up in front of the house. Way to dehydrate your six year-old, mom!

That night I talked to a close family member and they were able to loan us some money so we can afford gas and groceries. Thank you kind family member! As far as the car we still don't know what's wrong with it. It's still in the shop. Our mechanic is a friend of the family and we told him the car was being towed to him but that we were not in a hurry for it. It sucks being down to one car but we're making it work.

Today we dropped Emily off with her Girl Scout troop and they went on an overnight camping trip. It's been raining all day, it's supposed to rain all night but they have decent tents and a small cabin so they're making it work. I'm just hoping she doesn't come home with a bad cold or worse.

Tonight we had to pick up a few things from Wal-Mart. We were heading home around 9:00 and had just passed the movie theater. We got to the next intersection and standing there on the corner, in the dark, and the rain were five teenage girls, probably age 14-15. We had a red light and they ran across the street in front of our car. They all stopped in the median in the middle of the road and then, without realizing that traffic was heading into the intersection to turn left and head the opposite way we were heading, they all started running across the street again. A car turned and the first girl ran right after the car. A second girl didn't realize there was another car coming and she ran across the street too. This car just barely, and I mean BARELY missed her. In fact, if she felt the car tap her heel as she ran it wouldn't have surprised me. Adam and I saw it coming and I screamed as the car whizzed past her. All of us just sat there, frozen. The rest of the girls ran across the street laughing and one of them hugged the lucky girl. The worst part is that one of their parents had probably just dropped the girls off at the movies. Who knows where they were headed. Blake was watching all of it from the backseat and was just as freaked out as the rest of us. I'm soooo glad that the worst didn't happen and even more glad it didn't happen in front of my little boy. If I would have been the lady that was driving that car I would have pulled over and freaked out on them. I would have asked for their parents phone numbers so that they knew where they were. If me almost hitting you with my car didn't freak you out, lemme see what happens when you know I'm about to call your dad. Stupid, lucky little girl.

Eff You, April!!

I hate the month of April. So did my mom. Everything bad that ever happened to our family happened in April. My brother drown on April 27, 1983, ten days after his 23rd birthday. On April 27th, 1995 my mom had congestive heart failure. April 26, 1996 she had it again. This time it was worse and was followed by a mild stroke that went undiagnosed for about a week despite me and my sister telling the hospital staff that something was just not right. We thought it was a stroke. She had gone blind and paralyzed on her left side. They said she was just on a lot of meds and weren't concerned. Idiots. Luckily her strength and sight came back eventually. When my sister was driving mom to OSF St. Francis hospital in Peoria towards the end of March 1999 my mom commented that April was coming up. "Oh I hate that fucking April." She died on April 6th, 1999.

For me every year when May 1st rolls around it's a lot like coming out of the basement after a bad storm. I sort of pat myself, check for bruises, scrapes and broken bones, do a head count of everyone and take a deep breath. Then I put two fingers in the air. "Fuck you April! I made it!!"

Untitled Saturday

**In my own defense, I totally started this blog on Friday night, so it would be ready to post on Saturday but then Adam got all whiny and guilt tripped me into hanging out with him.

Because I know you're all wondering, yes, I did get up early Friday morning to watch the Royal Wedding. No, I don't care if you think it was stupid, nor do I care that you're "over it". Some people are into sports and playoffs and yada yada. I then get to read all about your wishes for draft picks, hopes for games you want won or and rants about missed plays. I get this one thing, ok? Ok.

So, even though it was just me and my Hello Kitty blanket wrapped up on the couch at 5am, (sigh....ok...yes, I have a Hello Kitty blanket. She's got street cred so shut up.) I still shouted "PIPPA!" every time they showed Pippa Middleton. Couldn't help it. In the end I enjoyed the quiet time sitting in the house with everyone sleeping while I watched the wedding, but most of all I liked the nap I took on the couch, still wrapped up in my HK blanket immediately afterwards.

For this week's post I have decided to share with you some of my favorite sellers and/or items currently found on Etsy. If you did not know, I have my own Etsy shop, http://www.ransomink.etsy.com/ where I sell brutally honest cards and mustache pins. I haven't sold much but I have sold a few dozen things and I like using my creativity to create my own merchandise. My cards and pins are also available at http://www.derbylittlesecrets.com/.

The first shop I ever purchased from on Etsy was from Snarky Cards. The shop is owned by Alisa Starr and she was my inspiration for my own line of cards. I purchased three cards, I believe for Jim. She hand paints them and then types the message using an old typewriter, leaving blanks for you to fill in whatever information is necessary. She also sells them in bars in a box that hangs around her neck, nestled under her boobs, old school cigarette girl style. Very clever indeed!

I love sugar skulls. In fact if I ever get a tattoo I think it would be a sugar skull. A couple years ago I decided I wanted some sugar skull paintings for our master bath. I bought them from Creepy Sugar. They match our shower curtain perfectly.

Loopy Boopy sells beautiful, haunting dolls. They are handmade of clay and I think most are around 10 inches tall. They are pricey and out of my budget but if I had the cash, I would consider treating myself to one of these dolls. They remind me of that NIN video.

An item I would love to have as well is the Dave Grohl finger puppet. Love it. Love Dave.

Not as cool or exciting as some of the other shops or items I've mentioned is this jewelry holder. I have a shit ton of jewelry, earrings mostly and they are becoming cluttered in my jewelry armoire. This will most likely be my next purchase. I plan on getting an all black one, wall mounted and the seller said they will add pegs to the bottom for me so I can hang necklaces or bracelets if I want, no extra charge. I thought that was cool of him.

These are pricey, but considering the work that went into them, probably reasonably priced. I am a huge RENT head and would covet these on my fridge. (How cute is Angel???) Would make a fantastic birthday gift!! Hint, hint.