Cancer

It's such an ugly word. For some reason, it seems like I'm hearing about (and knowing) more and more people being diagnosed with it. I don't know if it's just because I'm getting older or if it's because it's becoming more prevalent.

Over the past few years, I've read at least 3 different blogs written by parents who were in the throes of battling cancer with their children. One was an 18 month old boy who lost his battle recently. Another was a 2 year old girl who also lost her battle. And still another was a kindergarten girl who is fighting hard as we speak. I don't know why I read these blogs. They're certainly not uplifting, save for seeing the grace of God so blatant and real with all of these families. But I still read. And I cry. And my heart breaks for these families. And I pray fervently that this will never be me. I will be honest and say that I take that one step further and pray that if cancer must enter our home, that it's me who would deal with it. Not my kids.

While cancer hasn't entered our home, it has certainly pushed it's way into our realm. That's not to say that I've never known people with cancer before now. I know I had a great uncle who lost his battle with it many years ago, but I am much more aware of it and knowledgeable of it now than when I was a child.

My uncle Mike is currently in the fight. He's undergoing treatment out in California where he and my aunt Debbie live. He has written many letters to his family and friends during this battle and they have always been so encouraging. Even in the midst of a literal fight for his life, he shares his uplifting attitude and spirit with us. Could I be so positive while dealing with cancer? I don't know.

My friend and coworker Beth just recently found out that she has pancreatic cancer. She's a mom of 2 kids in her 30's. (I'm pretty sure that last sentence describes me too.) She and her husband shared her story at church this past Sunday. It was simply amazing the grace and peace that poured out of them while they were speaking, a few short days after receiving her diagnosis. She leaves on Sunday for MD Anderson in Houston to begin her fight.

Beyond the obvious, the hard part about watching someone you know and love go through something like this is not really knowing what to do about it. How can I help? I don't truly know the answer to that, but I will direct you to my friend Steve's blog. He is taking on an interesting method for raising awareness and money for cancer. Prostate cancer specifically, but also cancer in general. You should check it out.

I think the first, and most important, thing to do is to pray. I am specifically praying for God to heal Mike and Beth if it's his will. God can perform miracles even in the grimmest of circumstances. I would ask you to pray for them as well.

Aldi

When I was growing up, one of the grocery stores that I remember my mom shopping at was Aldi. Of course this was pre-Super Walmart days. We would go to Aldi and then go to one or sometimes two more stores before grocery shopping was officially done. But I know Aldi saved them money which is why we shopped there. And when you have 5 kids, saving money is pretty high on the list of priorities.

Texas has not had any Aldi stores, atleast not any in our area. Until recently that is. I'm usually trying to find different areas where we can save money when possible. Though I know coupons are a way to do that, I will admit that I haven't spent the time and devotion to that aspect of savings yet. So yesterday I decided to look on Aldi's website and find where the closest store was. I also read up a little on the store to familiarize myself with it since it's been awhile since I've shopped there. I'm glad I did because one statement included that they do not accept credit cards. I am absolutely NOT a proponent for people having credit cards and using them like some magic money tree. Keith and I explicitly use our cards solely for necessary purchases that we could afford to pay cash for, but instead use credit for convenience as well as the benefits that our cards afford to us. We always, ALWAYS pay our credit card bills in full every month and have never had an outstanding balance on them before.

I say all that to say that I typically pay for our groceries with my credit card. I refuse to use my debit card outside of my bank's ATM because I don't want my account information to somehow end up in someone else's hands. It's one thing for someone to get their hands on my credit card. Bottom line, that's the credit card companies problem should my card get stolen. If my debit card gets jacked, that's my personal bank account that's effected. There's a huge deference between the two. So, I took out some cash and headed to Aldi first thing this morning. (You've gotta love rabbit trails...)

Garrett was not too hyped about trying a different store for our shopping this week. If for some reason we don't go to our local Walmart, we typically shop at another Walmart in our area. So Walmart is basically all he knows for grocery stores. I had no idea he would care one way or another, but he most definitely did...

We got there and I discovered that you have to rent a cart for a quarter (you get the quarter back when you return the cart so it really doesn't cost anything). I got lucky and found a cart in the parking lot instead. I don't particularly enjoy juggling 2 kids while walking through a busy parking lot, so any chance I get I always load them up in a cart to walk from the car to the store.

I knew going into the store, that they only sell their brand of things with a very few exceptions. I really didn't think name brand stuff mattered to me. Most of the time I buy the Walmart brand for a lot of things, who cares if it's another store brand, right? Well, I must admit I had a harder time shopping there than I was expecting. Though 99 cent gallons of milk certainly made it easier on me. Bottom line, Aldi may end up being a good place for me to go once every month or every 6 weeks to stock up on canned goods and meat (and milk!). But I just can't bring myself to buy off-brand soda. Yes, I should just stop buying soda in the first place, but I only drink one a day, so please allow me that luxury. I also must buy Kleenex Viva paper towels. And Cottonelle toilet paper. And Ruffles potato chips. Turns out I'm more of a namebrand snob than I knew. So for this week, we're trying Aldi's brand of chips (maybe we'll convert). But I will confess to stopping by Walmart on my way home to buy a couple 2 liters of Coke ($1 each).

Besides the cheap milk (seriously, that is so cheap. It wasn't that long ago I was paying $4 a gallon at Walmart! Now it's around $2 or a little more...), I also found a Butterball turkey for 99 cents a pound (Christmas dinner's main course? check...), most meat was a good deal cheaper, and they had a stack of Dr Suess books for half off of what you can buy them at Walmart or Target. Can you believe this former elementary school teacher did not own "Cat in the Hat" or "Green Eggs and Ham" prior to today? It's a travesty.

Aside from no credit cards and "renting" a cart, you also must bring your own bags and bag your own groceries. That's not a problem for me, however, when you throw in 2 kids in the mix (one being Mr. Uncooperative this morning) the bagging thing becomes a bit of a challenge. I ended up walking out to my car with a cart full of unbagged groceries and a bunch of recycled Walmart bags, strapped both of my boys into their carseats and then proceeded to bag my groceries and load the bags into the car at the same time. Had I actually put my own quarter in to rent my cart, I would have then had to walk it back to the store in order to get my quarter back. But since that wasn't the case for me this morning, I ended up giving my cart to another shopper who had parked next to me. He tried giving me a quarter for it but I didn't take it.

So all in all I would give this attempt at saving money a thumbs up if only for the fact that I did save a little money. I also got to experience a different store and learn what is important to me in the grocery scheme. I probably will go back again closer to Christmas and stock up on freezer related foods (and milk) but I don't think it will be my weekly choice for grocery shopping.

Happenings

I have many random and varied things to say today, so I'm going to go with the tried and true bulleted list.

•Allergies have been kicking.our.butts. this season. I'm not sure why, but all 4 of us having been suffering over the past several weeks, it's ridiculous. I took both of the boys out of school early last Tuesday because they were both not feeling the greatest, we missed Wednesday Story Hour at the library and then missed Wednesday night activities at church, thanks to the loads of snot and lung hacking going on. Stayed home from work and school on Thursday due to the same. We also missed Sunday activities at church because of it. I think we are FINALLY turning the allergy corner the last couple of days. Cooper's nose is still snotty and Garrett still occasionally sounds like an emphysema patient (but what asthma child doesn't on occasion?). But I'm done keeping them at home. They're not contagious so I think they're just going to have to deal with their issues until whatever is bothering us, finally goes away.

•On Saturday, Garrett was feeling pretty decent, so we went to a friend's birthday party. Keith stayed home with the snot monster. I was glad we went to the party because the attendance was low due to it being a holiday weekend. Garrett had fun and was super hyper thanks to his asthma meds. Everyone got to see albuterol-Garrett, who is apparently lots of fun at a party, but not as fun at home.

•I'm feeling a touch of the Mommy guilt because, even though the boys missed school last Thursday thanks to allergies, I let them miss again yesterday. Keith took the day off and we went to the great State Fair of Texas. I had to keep telling myself they're just missing preschool, but I still felt bad for doing it. However, we had lots of fun at the fair. Keith and I haven't been in 6 years, so obviously the boys have never been. We got there right when things were getting started for the day. We looked at the new vehicles that they always have on display at the fair. I took pictures of Garrett in all the sports cars (I'll post them later.) And Keith insisted it was time we buy a new vehicle. It won't happen, but he loves to talk about it. After the car show, we caught a dog show. The cool part about the dog show was that all of the dogs were dogs that had been rescued from shelters across the country. They did some really cool things. Then we got stuck in Stroller Traffic Jam '10. The overwhelming majority of the people in attendance at the fair on Tuesday were mostly families with small, stroller-riding children, like us. So when you attend something like a dog show where you have to park your stroller in a designated Stroller parking zone and then sit in the stands, you know it's going to be crazy when it's a free-for-all in the parking zone after the show. Thankfully I didn't have to throw too many elbows to make it out of there alive. Garrett and I did "Little Hands on the Farm" after that. Which is a joke unless you were born and raised in the city and have never seen a live farm animal up close and personal. We got to feed "chickens" (read, plastic birds that didn't move), gather their "eggs", milk a "cow", sheer a "sheep", etc. It was a crazy maze of fake animals which I couldn't have found my way out of if I wanted to, so we had to complete all the tasks so we could leave. Thankfully at the end, the kids got to "sell" their goods (the "eggs", "milk", "wool", etc) and get money that they could use to buy a snack. So we got a free bag of Cheetos for our trouble. I know I shouldn't make fun because I'm sure Garrett enjoyed himself, but I don't think it would have been that hard for them to get some real animals for some of those barns. This is Texas after all.

•I figured I should split by fair talk into 2 bullets, lest I look ridiculous. (Who am I kidding..) After feeding plastic animals, it was finally time for the entire reason for Garrett wanting to come to the fair. Rides. He has never ridden any amusement park type rides before (with the exception of a carousel). So he was super psyched for this part. The fair has a "kiddie" ride section next to the bigger rides, but we couldn't find it at first, so I decided to ride the "Tilt a Whirl" with him. I figured that would be a pretty tame ride to introduce him to rides, plus I've always loved those. It has been years since I've ridden any type of ride like this and it was so fun. Though I will say my stomach isn't quite what it used to be. Garrett loved it and we both laughed and screamed the entire time. After the ride, we finally stumbled upon the Kidsway. Garrett rode an airplane ride and then the bumper cars. At which point we had to tell him no more rides. (The cost of things at the fair is simply absurd.) Plus it was lunchtime. If you know anything about the Texas fair, then you know about the variety of fried foods they have. I wouldn't have minded trying some of those, but we ended up getting some chicken tenders and rolls for our dinner. At the chicken place, the girl gave us a free cookie for Cooper. He had fallen asleep on Keith's shoulder, so she found him extremely cute and wanted to reward that with a cookie. It wasn't the first free thing we were give while there, when we first got to the fair and were about to buy our tickets, a woman walked up to us and handed us a free child's ticket and said they didn't need it. Awesome! She saved us $11. Yes, $11. I'll get into the cost aspect of this in a minute. After eating, we had a grand total of 2 tickets left. (You have to buy tickets to pay for everything at the fair, including food. We had guessed how many tickets we would probably need for the food and rides and came pretty close.) Unfortunately, 2 tickets doesn't buy you much of anything, but thankfully on our way out, I saw a vender selling popsicles for 2 tickets. Killed 2 birds with one stone. Used the remaining tickets and consoled my child who was crying over not getting to ride any more rides.

•I just have to add that Garrett has been excited about the fair for months. He happened to spot the enormous Ferris wheel that sits at the fairgrounds year round one day and has talked about going to the fair and riding that ride ever since. We told him a few days ago that we would be going to the fair and every morning he would wake up with an updated tally of how many days were left until fair day. When we finally got to the fairgrounds and approached the ferris wheel, Garrett got to see exactly how big this ride actually is. (It's huge! I was having some anxiety issues just thinking about riding the stupid thing because I knew Garrett wanted to ride it. I have huge fears of height.) He decided that was a ride for a 6 year old, not a 5 year old and he would wait and ride it next year. Good call.

•The cost of the fair. How so many families can go to the fair and seemingly do it up way more than we did, is far beyond me. It cost us: $15 to park, $30 for Keith's ticket and mine (as I mentioned above, Garrett's was free, otherwise that would have been an additional $11), $30 in tickets for food and rides. Obviously Garrett rode 3 rides, I rode 1, and our lunch was 8 chicken tenders, 2 rolls, and 2 bottles of water split 4 ways. It's crazy how much everything costs and yet people still go! I'm glad it's there because it's a fun time, but it's certainly not an inexpensive time. I can't imagine how it would have been if we had let Garrett ride more rides or if we were all super hungry at lunch. Of course our remaining 2 tickets, I spent on a popsicle, otherwise we would have been out $1 because you can't trade your tickets back in for money.

•OK. No more fair. The other night we kept our friends' kids for them for a few hours. It's so funny listening to two 5 year olds talking. Here's one of their conversations:

G-"Drew, you want to play with Playdoh with us?"

A-"Drew hates Playdoh."

G-"What? Who could hate Playdoh?"

A is Garrett's best friend. She told me many times throughout the evening that Garrett is her boyfriend and they are going to get married some day. She also tried to kiss him several times. I am very interested to see where their friendship is at in 10 years.

•Someone in my area drives a Tony Micelli van from "Who's The Boss." Every time I see it, I always start singing the theme song "There's a time for love and a time for livin'..." It's made me really miss that show. I think I'm going to have to see if I can buy the seasons and rewatch them. That was good TV. Though I know back then it was a bit scandalous to some that he would live in her house, but boy is that tame compared to what we see now. The next time I see this van, I will try to take a picture.

October

I can't believe it's already October. But I am loving the weather we've been having. Everyday we get to play outside, get some fresh air, and add something new and different to our daily schedule. Unfortunately during the majority of summer, we can't do much outside because of the heat, so we're trying to soak up the sun now and make up for it.

The boys are still loving school. Garrett has taken more naps at school this year, than he ever has in the past years combined. I guess in his old age, he's discovering the pluses to a good nap in the middle of the day. Cooper is also napping wonderfully on his nap mat. I actually got to see him yesterday during naptime. He was laying very peacefully on his mat, covered up with his fuzzy blanket, sound asleep. It was really cute. The other kids in his class were still awake even.

He's not a big fan of playing with other kids yet. Or even having them play in his general vicinity. Apparently he gets all the playtime he needs with Garrett. His teacher said he has a well defined "bubble of personal space" and he does not let anyone in that area except for the teacher. She has discovered that when she has the other kids doing something like playing with Playdoh or coloring, that's a good time for Cooper to get to play. Then when it's playtime for the rest of the class, she lets Cooper color or do something else. He likes to do his own thing. And I'm ok with that.

I'm wanting to get back into my workout routine. It's been a few months since I've exercised and I'm actually missing it. I'm still watching what I eat, for the most part, and have lost an additional 5 pounds, for a total of 25 pounds gone thus far. But I know if I would start back with exercising it would come off faster. Back when I was exercising, I would do so during Cooper's morning nap. He slept just long enough to give me 30 minutes on the treadmill and then 10-15 minutes showering and getting dressed. Of course he now only takes one nap a day and that's in the afternoon. Honestly, after lunch I have little energy to do necessary cleaning, much less voluntarily get on the treadmill for half an hour. So I'm going to attempt getting up 45 minutes early every morning (starting Monday) and try to do my exercising before the boys get up. The drawback to this is that it means bothering Keith a bit earlier than he normally starts his day. But I can't avoid that with the treadmill in our room (and no other place to put it in the house). When I asked him about it, he was fine with it, so I'll hopefully try this out next week and see how it goes.

Hand, foot, and mouth disease is going around Cooper's class right now. I'm crossing my fingers that he doesn't get it, but it won't be the end of the world if he does. Garrett had it around Cooper's age and the worst part about it was the high fever. Here's hoping Cooper's antisocial tendencies will pay off in a lesser number of germs coming his way.