Ho Hum!

I'm still working out. I don't remember if I said before but I've been doing 6 miles after work and 15 miles on my days off. For the most part, I stick with it. I do occasionally just don't because I'm not feeling it. Actually, most of the time, I'm not feeling it but I still force myself. It helps that I have mile goals set it my head depending on the day so I usually get that. I even rode for 20 miles one day last weekend, rode hard too. Cranked on my workout playlist, shut my eyes and rode. It was rather enjoyable, I wish it could be like that every time.

Generally, on Fridays, I listen to New Releases so I don't push as hard but I still put in the 15 miles, usually just a few minutes longer than I usually do.

I finished up the Star Wars challenge sometime since my last post. I received this in the mail yesterday.

It's pretty cool, I really like it. I've been putting all my miles now on the Route 66 one. I think I'm going to put those pages on my side bar somewhere so you can just follow along there.

I mentioned I was listening to my New Releases this morning. Beth Crowley's new album was pretty good, lots of lyrics kind of hit home. I really enjoyed it and added the majority of it to my playlists. Coldplay's new one however, was a waste of my time but I'm not a huge fan of theirs but I do have some of their songs that I like so I'm a lot more critical when listening to them.

Cheri goes for her annual MRI today. I'll be her driver because they have to drug her up to get her in the MRI tube. We're hoping nothing has progressed because she stopped doing the MS drugs awhile back. She still takes LDN which helps with the symptoms but we don't know much about it. The MS drugs side effects were too much for Cheri, she couldn't function doing her daily tasks because of them which is why she quit. I think every MS drug has treated her that way.

Update - Wife

Since I have a couple of weeks off (not Covid related but I'll get to it), I figured I could take some time to throw some updates here.

Cheri

An actual recent photo - we don't take very many.

She's doing okay, I guess. With all her issues it's hard to tell. She wanted to go the chiropractor yesterday but they were closed and the guy she likes has Tuesday off so she has to wait until Wednesday.

She has finally taken some advice from me. I've been telling her for years that she needs to get a hobby. Her old "hobby" was sitting on her phone, playing games. She wasn't so bad that she ignored everything to play, just that it was all she did. It would annoy me that she would play while she was eating. She'd say something about me keeping my stats, or blogging about my cards. I would just say at least I feel like I'm being productive on my down time.

It was tough for her to find something because there is all kinds of things she would like to do, but her body won't permit it. She likes doing things with her hands but her hands say no. She used to do woodworking and staining and big projects like that. She really enjoyed the creativity of it but like I said, her body just won't let her do that. She googled hobbies and went down the list and finally settled on cross stitching.

I don't know that she absolutely enjoys it, but she feels productive and she is creating things which I know she loves. She dove right in on it and picked a pretty detailed picture for her first one. Made lots of mistakes that frustrated her but she also knows that she's still trying to figure out the best way for her to complete it. She finished it (it looked really good) but I can't show it as it is a Christmas gift and I'm not sure if that person would see it here or not. She's working on another one now for her mom for Christmas. I can show that one when she's done because her mom can barely figure out the internet.

She's now getting injections in her neck and back to help alleviate pain. She's done the neck one a few times and they have really helped with it and her shoulders. She has a bulging disc in her spine that they really can't do anything with so this gives her some less painful days. I want to say it'll last a few months. She just got some in her lower back a couple of weeks ago (I think). I don't think they were as helpful but any help is good at this point. We're waiting to see how long until she needs another one of those. If she decides to do them back there again.

All in all, she's better than she has been in awhile. She has actually gotten off a lot of her meds and is more reliant on herbs and natural supplements and they have helped her quite a bit. She has reduced how much insulin she has to take for her diabetes, her goal is to get off of it all together. Her A1C has gone way down compared to where it was. Even her doctor has told her to keep doing what she's doing. She's actually more active around the house and has even taken the dog for an occasional walk when the dog guilt trips her into it (and she complains about my guilt trips.)

So while she still has all kinds of medical issues, she is doing better.

I was going to do one post with updates on everyone but this one is now over 600 words so I'm going to cut if off after Cheri and come back tomorrow and tell you why I have a couple of weeks off work (again, not Covid related.) I already know that update will be a fairly decent sized post so maybe another post with the kids. We'll see. I have the time, just have to take the time to do it.

Hopefully see you again soon.

Randomness

I've been MIA for a long time now, I haven't really done a whole lot worth talking about but I'm going to try to do some regular updates every so often. Try being the key word there.

Not much going on this Good Friday. The kids went to theEx's last night. I told her she could have them today and tomorrow but they come back tomorrow evening so I can have them for Easter. Then they start spring break next week as well. I don't think I've mentioned that she moved again, she now lives an hour and a half away so I have a 45 minute drive, one way, to meet her on her weekends now. They moved (supposedly) closer to his family and further from hers, which is I'm sure what the JackAss wanted. I imagine, the weekends she takes the kids will get less and less as we go on.

Back to today though. Not a whole lot planned, we need to get some shopping done but Cheri is napping right now because she hasn't been able to sleep worth a crap in awhile. She'll sleep a couple of hours, wake up for awhile, sleep for a couple more. Even the sleep she gets is restless so I don't know if you can count it so sometimes, she has to take a good nap in the afternoons which is what she's doing now. Which gives me time to catch up on some of my recorded sports. Watching the White Sox game from yesterday right now and plan on watching some (depends on how long she sleeps) Bulls games afterwards.

I've been working where I'm at now for over 6 months so the job is going fine. I don't mind the job so I don't hate what I do, I just hate that I have to work, like millions of other people. I would prefer to be rich and lazy instead of broke and lazy.

I have been reading still and have finished some books, I just don't ever take the time to post a review, which is pathetic on my part because it's not like I write out huge reviews. One of these days, I may even update my books page on this blog, maybe.

I haven't only slacked on this blog throughout the last few months, I've let most of my tumblr's go as well so don't be too offended. I have, however, been working on my baseball card blogs. My Sports Obsession has been pretty steady, a few posts a week. My Sports Obsession-Index is a little more sporadic because I've been posting on the next 2 more often. My Personal Collections, where I post pictures of all my cards, tagged with which collection it belongs 2. The goal is to eventually have all my cards posted, I'm still going through My Sports Obsession blog and adding what I've already added there before I can even start posting the newer cards. Last but not least, My Baseball Card Obsession, which is really my newest obsession. Right now, I'm doing the same thing as My PC Collections blog where I'm going through My Sports Obsession and copying stuff over here. The only difference is, on this blog, I'm posting any single card I can find. The majority of the blog right now is cards from My Sports Obsession, but it also has cards from other people's blogs. So eventually, when I get caught up, It'll be a database of a crap load of cards. You can search by player, team, or even the set of the card. When I collected back in the day, I wanted every card that I didn't have, this blog is my way of collecting that way without having to physically purchase every card. You can see why it's my latest obsession.

The usual.

Psst. Over here.

I know you’re not used to seeing anything here. As a matter of fact, my last post was almost a February month ago (25 days). I’ve had stuff to say, but to be honest, I just generally don’t feel like taking the time to say it. The main reason behind this post was because I hit my 4 year anniversary for this blog earlier in the week so I felt obligated to post something. I guess I’ll just update you on what all is going on.

I have the kids this weekend. There were some issues with the JackAss and the way he treats my kids so I took away the every weekend to the state mandatory every other weekend. The kids don’t like seeing their mother less but they say they understand because they can’t stand the JackAss. On top of that, theEx hasn’t worked much since she quit her factory job and has gotten behind on support. In January, she went to the court to get her support lowered but all that did was bring the fact that she was behind to the court’s attention and they scheduled a court date to find out why she is behind. Worse than that, she didn’t show up for court, called and said she couldn’t make it because of the weather. The judge didn’t like the fact that she wasn’t there and charged her with contempt of court and she now has a warrant for her arrest. I haven’t told her, I figure she’ll figure it out when she gets pulled over for something. I did tell her sister, I figured if she wants to tell her, she would. I don’t know if she has or not.

As much as the kids enjoy going to their moms every weekend, I’m pretty sure they’ve enjoyed being home every other as well. Samantha tends to spend the weekends with her friends, she doesn’t get to do that much during the week because of school and her mom lives to far away to do it when she’s over there so she’s been taking advantage of being home.

Trevor is taking advantage of having no sister home by inviting his friends over. They pretty much sit in his room playing Xbox all night long but that’s what boys do. I’m just glad they’ve been hanging out with friends.

I went and watched my niece (technically ex-niece) play basketball. I do love to support the kids in their sports. The bad part is it makes me mad that Samantha quit during tryouts for her school team. I really like watching her play softball, but I was a basketball player and I would have loved to watch her play. I do need to remember to sign her up for softball. I have her set up to go to a softball camp at her school so I’m hoping she’ll get noticed by some of the coaches since she got screwed out of the traveling team. She was just as good as the other girls during tryouts and didn’t make the team. I had other parents tell me that she should have been on it. Hopefully she’ll get a good coach on her team this year.

If you remember, almost a year ago I left my job of 14 years because I hated the swing shift hours they switched to. I got a job where my brother works before getting laid off 5 months later and now work where I do. My brother just informed me last week that his job is switching to the same swing shift hours that I worked at my first job listed. So at this point, I’m glad they laid me off. At my current job, I put in a bid for a different job in a different plant and am waiting to see if I got it. I’m going against 3 other candidates, one of those would be my group leader. While she has way more experience, she has a pretty crappy attitude and she’s been in trouble at work for it so I’m really hoping that counts against her.

Cheri is starting to get going on her annual MS Walk. She always does a bunch of stuff trying to raise money for when we walk. While she gets lots of support from the family as far as them coming out and walking for us, them walking doesn’t help raise money. We’ve asked, but not really pushed that those coming out to raise a little bit of money to turn in. So this year, Cheri is a little bummed and really debating on walking at all. She gets tired of going through all the efforts of raising money and being the only one that does so we’ll see how that turns out.

That’s about all that’s going on over here. We’re trying to stay warm like a lot of the country. I’m going to work every day while the kids get days off all over the place, pansies. Listening to music and reading books. Watching a lot of TV and a lot of sports. The usual.

Flashback Friday’s #10–I Love My Wife

I have decided that every once in awhile, I’d throw up an old post for Flashback Friday’s.  It’s a flashback of sorts.  This post was from June of 2011.  It’s a few weeks after Cheri was diagnosed with her MS.  I still feel this way, but I probably show it even less.  I suck.  The post is called “I Love My Wife.”

 

I know, everyone says that.  But I mean it too.  Not only does she take care of this family.  But she does it all with MS (Multiple Sclerosis).  She’s probably had it for years even though she was just diagnosed a few weeks ago.  She was diagnosed with other things before so through all that time, she was on meds that would help for a month or two, then stop helping.  Well, now we know why.  They weren’t treating the right disease.  It sucks that the diagnose was that, but our hope is, now that we know what it is, maybe she can get the proper help.

Even though she doesn’t sleep worth a crap at night (I still say it’s because she’s in bed with me).  She wakes up every morning and wakes me up.  And for the last few weeks that’s been at 4:20 am.  Then she tries to sleep a little bit before having to get up to get my two kids (8 yrs. & 6 yrs.) up for school.  Takes Samantha to school, comes home and then takes Skyler to school, then comes home for a few hours before taking Trevor to school.  In between all that, she’s making sure they are fed and looking good.  Then a couple hours afterwards she picks up Samantha and Trevor.  All this while some days she can barely move without pain, days where her head hurts so bad she looks drugged, days where she’s so exhausted, it’s all she can do to just get up to go to the bathroom.  Then after everyone is home, she makes supper.  Not always just 1 supper as Skyler doesn’t eat meat so she cooks 2 meals for us.  But that isn’t all I love about her.

She is so strong, when she feels so weak.  So smart, even though she feels like her mind is failing her.  So loving, when all she feels is pain.  She has taken this diagnosis in stride and just keeps plugging along.  She complains about the pain, who wouldn’t, but she never says “Why did this happen to me?” or “What did I do to deserve this?”  She just keeps going and tries to do all she can.  I have to tell her to stop and I get on her all the time for not asking for help.  I have to tell her it’s ok to not go to the kids games because it’s 100 degrees out.  That it’s ok to sit on your butt once in awhile and just take it easy.

The worst part is the rest of us in the house take advantage of her and she lets us.  The kids are horrible about this, but I don’t think all 3 have a clue what she deals with on a daily basis.  2 are just too young to understand, and the other is afraid to admit that it’s happening to her mother.  Even I’m guilty of this, I try to help out and I think I do help some, but she always does things for me that I could do for myself.  I tell her to leave it for me, but I know she won’t.  I need to just take over and do it for myself.

I won’t even get into what she deals with emotionally with dealing with certain family members of hers, or either of our exes, and even myself and the kids.  The whole time she deals with those emotional rollercoasters, she deals with this ugly disease.  But I believe that things will get better, because I can’t see why this awesome woman was brought into our lives, just to suffer with pain and anxiety.  I see her strength fighting this disease the whole time.  And I will be by her side the whole way.

So in closing, I love my wife, not only for the love she shows me but for the strength she shows everyone else.  She doesn’t even have a clue how strong she is, and I love her for that.  My job as her husband is to make sure she knows how special she is to me.  I don’t always show it, that’s my flaw.   A flaw she more than makes up for with all the ways she shows me that she loves me.  I will try to live up to her expectations because it’s the least I can do for my wife, the love of my life, my everything.  My heart and soul belongs to her.

I love my wife!

MS Walk: 2013

I completed the A to Z Challenge, posted my weekly book meme and then took a couple of days off.  Back to normal I’d say.

Cheri and I had our annual MS Walk today.  It takes place on the campus of IUSB here in South Bend,  Our team this year consisted of Cheri and I, Samantha and Trevor, my mom and stepdad, my grandmother and my mom’s cousin.  All family, we’d have friends walk with us but we really don’t have any.  This year we about doubled our donations because of the fundraiser and a couple of generous donors   Cheri is already planning a bigger and better fundraiser for next year.

You have the option of a 1 mile or a 2 1/2 mile, we opted for the 1 mile due to the fact that I’m not sure any of us (maybe the kids) could even make 2 1/2 miles with ailing injuries and age.  Not to mention, with Cheri’s ruptured disc she couldn’t walk the mile so I was pushing her in a wheelchair.  We all donned our shirts that Cheri had designed (pic above) and Samantha took off and was the first of “Team Laws” come in, followed by Cheri and I and then the rest of the family.  Everyone survived it.  It really was beautiful day to walk, it was in the 60’s so it wasn’t hot or cold, it was just perfect.

Our tally as of right now is $936.  I say right now because you can still donate.  That’s right, you haven’t escaped.  This is my last plea for money until next year.  At least in regard to Multiple Sclerosis.  I don’t care if you donate $1 (theEx did, she sponsored both of her kids for $1 because they were raising money for their stepmom) or you can donate $1000 (really, I wouldn’t mind).  But please click the banner below and help us fund a search for a cure.  You can usually donate for a few weeks after the walk, I’m assuming that’s the case this year as well.

If you can’t afford to help, I certainly understand.  Do me a favor and go to our Team Laws facebook page and give it a like.  It would make my wife extremely happy to get some likes at least.  Plus, we’ll eventually get pictures posted from today there as well.

Sunday Randomness #9

Due to the A to Z Challenge, I’m not posting much this month other than those posts.  But I have Sunday’s off from the Challenge so I’ll throw a Randomness post to cover the week.  I typed this out throughout the week.

Monday

April Fools day, pffft.  Don’t care.  It’s Opening Day baby!  The Chicago White Sox have their first game today.  I’ve already warned the wife that I’d be watching the game.  I’m really excited due to the fact that I didn’t get to see any of their spring games.

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I’m trying to at least check out all 1759 blogs on the A to Z Challenge board.  I’m realizing there are a lot of book and writer blogs out there.  I’ve gone through the first 300 and I’ve saved 26.  I may delete some of those as it goes but those are the ones I’m keeping an eye on for now.  I started an A to Z Challenge folder on my reader and I throw them all in there, if I end up not liking them, they are easy to find and delete.

Speaking of the A to Z Challenge, I realized today that on the master list of blogs that joined the challenge, apparently, when I added my link, I put jccsst-random@blogspot.com instead of jccsst-random.blogspot.com.  Notice the difference?  Obviously I didn’t when I checked everything over before I submitted.  So the whole reason I joined this challenge is to possibly boost my viewership and nobody can go to my blog unless they figure out the problem.  I’m an idiot.  I sent them a tweet asking them to fix it, even though the bottom of the blog post says this.

I swear I doubled checked it, so I feel like an ass asking, but if they don’t change it, it’s all for nothing.

Tuesday

I started Tuesday off arguing with Cheri about Skyler.  She came home from dropping off her boyfriend complaining that she hadn’t eaten in 22 hours and that she was hungry.  Cheri kept asking her “What do you want?” but she wouldn’t say, Cheri kept making suggestions, we are going here, do you want something?  No.  Well we can go here?  No.  It’s just majorly got on my nerves.  If she won’t tell you what she wants, don’t get her anything.  I’m not going to have sympathy for you if you weren’t smart enough to get something to eat for 22 hours.  She was home all evening, there is food here.  It may not be what you want because every time we ask you what you want from the store, you give us nothing.  But there is food here.

Anyways, I was annoyed at all that happening and Cheri knew I was and prodded.  I ended up telling her everything about the whole money issue.  She thinks that I think since she’s more or less old enough to be on her own that I don’t want to parent anymore.  In actuality, I’m trying to make her responsible for her own crap, I believe that is parenting too.  She said that I get mad anytime she asks for money.  I get mad because she’s gotten a couple of packages in the mail or come home from the mall with new clothes or boots and then asks me for money.  The last time we paid her insurance, was right after she gets home from her week long spring break that she spent in Virginia, then gets home and tells us she has no money for it.  I don’t have a problem helping her out, but it’s hard helping someone who won’t help themselves.

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I’m thinking about quitting the A to Z Challenge at this point.  I was mainly doing it to drive a little traffic my way and since they aren’t going to fix my link, that isn’t going to happen.  I don’t really have a problem with them not fixing it, it was my screw up, but let me know.  I have yet to receive a response to either of my tweets.  The first one asking, the second one begging.  At least tweet back, I’m sorry, there is nothing I can do.  Is that really that hard?  I think I’ll finish this week off and then see where I stand.

I do still plan on going through all the blogs for some more reading material, not that I need anymore.  Today, I got through another 210 and added another 15 to my reader.

Wednesday

Not much to say, I worked today so after 12 hours of being on my feet.  I generally come home and do nothing.

Thursday

If you follow me on Instagram, Twitter or my Facebook page, you know that I received my 5 year anniversary coat today at work.  It’s a nice Columbia jacket with my work logo on the front.  It’s a nice gift, especially since I’ve been there over 13 years.  I guess slow is better than nothing.

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I spent an hour or so last night creating a folder on Feedly called “Android All.”  I have an “All” folder that has all my PG blogs, I have an “Adult” folder for, um, stuff I can’t open in public, I have an “All-Stars” folder for all those blogs that I try to stay up to date on (because I have a habit of getting a week behind) and I now have an “A to Z Challenge” folder for the blogs I’m following through the challenge.  I had to create the “Android All” folder because my Android devices (phone & Kindle) apps didn’t have an All-Items that I could read them all in order, which is what I normally do.  So I created the new folder so I could do just that.

About half way through my day at work, my devices both updated the Feedly app.  Guess what it added?  Yep, an All Items folder.  Just my luck to waste my time first.  Now if I could read them from oldest to newest on my devices, then I would use the Feedly apps.  Right now, I still use the Google Reader apps while it’s still here.  I’m hoping they add the option before July 1st when Google Reader quits.  I have that option on my laptop, just not on the apps.

Friday

I went to the A to Z Challenge page today to see if they fixed my link.  They didn’t, but I noticed they are deleting blogs that aren’t participating because I was #1109 and now I’m #1090.  So they are taking the time to check blogs, but can’t take 2 seconds to change the @ sign to a period in my link.  Not real happy about that.  I realize it was my fault but if you know me, then you know I check everything before I post anything.  I just didn’t catch it because it looked right, my brain just didn’t connect that it’s not an e-mail address but a web site address.  It’s supposed to read jccsst-random.blogspot.com but what it reads is jccsst-random@blogspot.com, notice the difference?  One freaking symbol.

I have been getting a few more comments but no new followers.  Of course, since I’m following a bunch, I’ve been commenting on some and I think that’s where they are coming from.  I also have a bunch of followers now that don’t ever click the follow me button too so that happens a lot too.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to quit the challenge or not.  I’m not really a quitter so I’ll probably stick it out.  I’m hoping to get through some more blogs tonight while watching the White Sox game.

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I have decided to do mini reviews of the movies we watch.  Why not, it’s just something else I can do here.  I will tag them with Laws Reviews which used to be my entertainment review site.  But I was doing to much and deleted it.  They will be just quick reviews on whether or not we liked them, I probably won’t go into the stories much.

 

Red Dawn (2012) – Cheri and I watched this Friday night.  It wasn’t horrible, had some good action and the story was decent.  If you don’t compare it to the original and watch it as a stand alone movie then I’d say it wasn’t bad at all.  It’s still far fetched as far as someone actually taking over America but that’s alright, as long as it entertains me, and this movie did.  Cheri was baking for her MS Fundraiser so she didn’t just sit and watch it, but she said what she saw it didn’t look bad.  I’d probably give it 3 out of 5 stars.

 

Saturday

We had our MS fundraiser today, it went really well.  I’ll probably do it’s own post soon on it.  We raised almost $500 so far but you still have time to order from 31 Gifts.  Go to the site and order anything and 25% of proceeds will go towards the MS Walk or more directly, the MS Society.

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Killing Them Softly (2012) – The only thing I liked in this movie was the killing in one scene.  It was cool because it was in slow motion.  The gun shots, glass shattering and the car accident all in slow motion but it was so cool.  Now the rest of the movie was horrible, although I probably shouldn’t say that because in fact, it didn’t really hold my interest long enough for me to pay to attention.  As a matter of fact, the movie isn’t even over yet, I’m paying more attention to this review then the end of the movie.  I give it 1 out of 5 stars.

 

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I got through another 90 blogs tonight in the A to Z Challenge.  Mostly during all the timeouts and half time of the Michigan/Syracuse game.  I added 4 more to my reader.  There are a crap load of writer’s that write blogs.  After the first 600 blogs, I’d have to say 80% of them are writers.  I don’t really follow any of them, that I know of.  I seem to be following blogs that are doing TV, Movies or the 80’s as their themes.  That’s the majority of the ones I’ve added so once they go back to their regular content, I’m not sure how many of them I’ll be keeping.

I already had next weeks blogs typed out for the challenge so I’ll probably post through this week as well.  We’ll see about after that.

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MS Walk

Even though I’m in the midst of the A to Z Challenge, I need to get this annual post out.  That’s right boys and girls it’s my annual plea for money.  On May 4th, we (my family) are doing the MS Walk to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis.  Here’s the post from last year after the walk.  For those not aware, my wife has MS.  She was diagnosed a few years ago but has battling it for many years, maybe over half her life.  But we have done this walk for 3 years now, and this year there will be a few changes.

• The Positive - We should have a lot more money to donate this year.  Cheri has been planning a 31 party and has worked out a deal with the local 31 representative.  We have rented out a local fire station (it’s really cheap) and she is throwing a fundraiser 31 party.  She has been busting her ass making the food and planning this.  She even got the local theater to donate 24 hours on their marquee for someone to win.  And we bought tickets for a 50/50.  Why a 31 party?  The 31 agent is donating 25% of all sales to the MS Walk.  And this agent has been great as well, with giveaways and such on the Facebook page.  The biggest part is Cheri is learning a lot about fundraising and will probably start earlier and have a bigger party next year.
• The Negative – As it is looking right now, this will be the first year that Cheri won’t be able to walk.  If you followed this blog any, you know she has been fighting a ruptured disc which was pinching a nerve in her foot.  She has been getting steroid injections right into the site and things are getting better, but there will be no way that she would be able to walk it.  So I’ll be pushing her in her wheelchair, she’s not happy about it.  But I think she is more than making up for it with the party.

I’m not going into all the issues that Cheri deals with, just click the MS tag on the right and you can find out.  But what I am going to do is ask for your help.  I’ve asked for donations before and if that’s what you want to do, that would be awesome.  But this year, you can also help by placing an order for a bag, then we both get something.

Donate or not, I’ll still love you.  But if you donate, I’ll love you more.

Links

• Click here to donate on the MS Walk website.
• Click here to by a 31 gift and help the cause. (Now thru Saturday, April 6th)

The 31 party is on Saturday and that is also the last day you can make online orders so go do it now if that’s the option you want.

Thank you all for reading even if you can’t donate.  Believe me, I understand being broke.

VD sucks

This is what I have to resort to.  For the last few weeks, when a good (cheesy) Valentine card showed up in my reader, I saved the picture and the plan was to post them on my wife’s Facebook timeline throughout the day.  When I post on my Random Thoughts from a Random Guy Facebook page, I can set stuff to post in the future.  I’ve done this a few times when I’ve had funny pictures to share just so I didn’t post a bunch of stuff at once.  So I thought I would do that on my wife’s page.  Tomorrow we are leaving after we drop the kids off at school and heading for Virginia, which will take us a little over 9 hours to get there.  So I ended up saving 9 cheesy ass Valentine cards and tonight I went to her page to post date them tonight and apparently, you can’t post date stuff on someone else’s page.  Ok, fine, I went to my page and figured I’d post date them and just tag her so they show up on her timeline.  No dice, still can’t post date stuff.  So apparently you can only do that with group pages.  Alrighty then, I went to my RTFARG Facebook page and was going to post them there and tag her.  Yeah, I can finally post date them but because I post as RTFARG, I can’t tag anyone.  Damn it.  So I switched over to post as myself but post on the RTFARG Facebook page.  Yeah, I can tag her, but now I can’t post date.  So my great idea is shit.  Screw Valentines day.

So all I could come up with after all my hard work is post them here and post date it for tomorrow.  And after it posts, I’ll have to look over and say, since your not doing anything, go read my blog.  Bah Humbug, Happy Valentine’s day.  So here’s the cards.

She probably won’t get it, she doesn’t follow Star Trek, but I thought it was hilarious.  So sue me.

This is so true, I’m too fat to chase other woman, I might as well hold on to her.

Yeah, it’s a cheesy Tony Stark.  But at least she’ll get this one.  I think.  But it’s true, I enjoy anytime she’s stark naked in front of me.  Although when this posts, I’ll be driving, probably around Cincinnati, so maybe naked in front of me is a bad idea.  But she can certainly strip down in the passenger seat.  I won’t mind.

This is hilarious because about a month ago, she fell down when her leg issue just started and literally couldn’t get up and I was at work and she was home alone.  Now I’m making fun of my wife’s MS issues.  This isn’t going so well.

Yeah, now I’m working my swag (whatever the hell that is).  Data is hooking this brother up!

She thinks Dean is hot so this should be a good one.  Or am I making her think of Dean when she should be thinking of me.  Now she’s thinking how Dean is doing himself, and is getting kind of grossed out.  This is going so wrong.

Awww!  Hulk is so sweet and I replicate his sentiments.

Bahahaha!  Number 1 is killing me, it’s such a cheesy line, it may actually work.  I only have one more, I better make it count.

Perfect!  And it’s true.  Although technically, I guess I’m cheating on her since I never stopped looking at porn.

I suck at this Valentine’s day crap!  Screw this!

Actually, my wife and I don’t really celebrate Valentines day.  We both call BS on this holiday.  We tell each other we love each other all the time, we don’t need a holiday for that.  Usually we don’t even buy for each other.  We buy stuff for the kids to make sure they know we love them.  Because telling them doesn’t mean anything to them, you have to buy them shit.  Bastards.  By the time you’ve read this, she’s already gotten in my car to the box of chocolates and card that I have hidden in her door.  I even wrote something special in the card, just for her.  It’s so cheesy that it just might work.  Don’t worry, it’s much better than this post.

Stupid holiday.

Randomness #5

I’ve been really tired this last week, and it’s lead to me not working out much anymore.  Or at least that’s what I’m blaming.  It also lead to no Weekly Catch-up post on Sunday.  I just didn’t want to take the time to do it.  My eyes have been really tired most of the time.  I should probably take my contacts out every so often, that might help that issue.  But even on my days off, I get up at 7 to feed the kids and take them to school.  I used to come home and watch a couple of episodes of Star Trek TOS while I wait for Cheri to wake up.  I’m usually on the laptop while watching and getting things done.  But last week and this week, I’ve been crashing on the couch.  Why the couch?  I used to sleep on the couch when I didn’t want to sleep very long because I would generally wake up within a couple of hours.  But the last couple of week, I’ve ended up sleeping almost till I have to go get the kids again at school.  I’m sleeping the same amount of hours as usual and I’m sleeping through the night.  So I have no idea why I’ve been so tired.  All I know is, I’m tired of being tired.

Speaking of Cheri, she went to her neurologist today about her recent issues.  Her neurologist is a MS specialist so we wanted her opinion on it.  She seems to think it’s more of a back problem with a disc but the thing is, she’s always had back pain and now she doesn’t.  So we’re pretty sure it’s not a disc.  Although Cheri made the point that maybe she’s always had a disc problem and now it’s popped back into place but it pinched a nerve, causing the issue with her leg and foot.  Makes sense.  She has an MRI scheduled in a couple of weeks.  They are going to MRI her back and her head because as a MS patient, they like to do them yearly to see if there are any more lesions on her brain.  So I guess we’ll figure it out in a few weeks.

And speaking of MS, we’re starting to get paperwork for this years MS walk.  So start saving up money so you can donate to help find a cure.

I did get caught up on all my blog reading over the weekend.  We worked, and it was dead at work so I got a lot of reading done.  Of course, I haven’t read any the last 2 days that I’ve had off but I should get caught up tomorrow or Thursday at work.  It was so slow last weekend, I almost read a whole novel on Saturday.  I was only 27% into it when I went to work and finished it after finishing my Google Reader first.

I’m done for today, my eyes hurt and I feel tired.  It’s taken me over 2 hours just to type the above.  I can’t keep my concentration into what I’m typing.  I don’t know if I’ll even do a WWW Wednesdays post tomorrow.  Guess we’ll see then.

MS Flair Up

I haven’t done any updates on Cheri and her MS lately, mainly because she’s been ok with it.  If you know anything about MS, you can go a long time with no real problems and then symptoms hit for awhile, then go away.  These flair up’s can show up at any time and can last for long periods or short periods.  The only real symptom that she battles is the overheating anytime she does something but it isn’t a flair up because it really never goes away.  That’s something she has dealt with for years.  She also deals with weakness of muscles all the time to but she has learned her limits and (mostly) doesn’t push it.

A little late for Christmas

Until Thursday night.  As much as I would like to take credit for throwing out her back because it happened after sex, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t me.  Muscle spasm are also a big deal to MS patients.  And that is what she’s been dealing with since.  Since Thursday, she has barely been able to move.  She’s embarrassed by the fact that she has had to use her walker, cane and even her wheelchair just to get to the bathroom.  But I can tell you one thing, we are glad that we got those when we did because they have been a life savor for her this weekend.  She got the cane and walker through a MS site and qualified for them for free.  At the time, we were thinking she was years away from using them.  Guess not.  My mom purchased the wheelchair for her but we use that time to time now when we have to do a lot of walking so she’s no stranger to it.

Sort of like this, but without the basket band blue

She has compared the pain to labor pains if that tells you something.  She has even fallen and can’t get up (you know you read that in an old ladies voice) and has had a lot of crying.  Cheri deals with pain everyday of her life so if she is crying, she’s is in pain that the rest of us would just want death for relief.  And what made all this worse, after all the days off of work that I’ve had the last few weeks, it happens the day I have to go back.  So on Friday, she was home alone while dealing with all of this.  I wanted to leave work so bad but if I did, I lose all my holiday pay as well and we just couldn’t afford that.  So she took care of herself all day until I could get home.  She feels so weak right now but I know how strong she is.  I’m not sure how she did all this because when I got home and saw what she was going through, I felt horrible.  It literally took her 15 minutes to just get out of her recliner and over to the wheelchair so I could push her into the bathroom.

She called her doctor and he called her in some muscle relaxers which we are grateful that he trusts her enough to do that without seeing her.  It helps that his mother had MS so he’s got first hand experience with the disease.  I picked them up after multiple trips to Walgreen’s.  I went once, picked up all her meds, but apparently the one we really needed so I had to go back.  She has been on those for a little over a day now and is getting better.  She still has trouble getting up but she is moving better and walking better.  She is still using the walker because her legs give out on her while she’s walking but she’s definitely getting better.

One other thing that hasn’t gone away yet, is the extreme pain when she turns the wrong way.  Last night, she would out of the blue scream and smack me.  She thinks her body would just flinch a little bit just as she was drifting off and it would hurt like hell.  She still has the issue because she’ll be sitting in the recliner and all of the sudden scream out.  Usually scaring me as well.  But she is getting better.  We’ll see if tomorrow morning she can get out of bed without calling and waking up her daughter to come to her room and help her.  Because nobody wants to see a cranky teenager first thing in the morning.

As long as she continues to improve, she should be ok.  Hopefully by Wednesday.  I have Monday and Tuesday off so I’ll be able to take the kids to school but Wednesday is a different story.  Like I said, hopefully she’s better by Wednesday.

FREE MS talk with FREE food

I’ve been a little MIA the last few days.  I’ve been busy or not busy, both being the problem.  I had yesterday and today off work.  Yesterday, I got the kids up and took them to school, came home and about an hour later, I crashed.  I ended up sleeping for a few hours, even when I woke up, I had trouble waking up.  Picked up the kids from school and ran them over to my moms a little later so Cheri and I could go to a MS talk at the local “Papa Vino’s”.  We went to one there last year and it was good, we actually learned a little more and her description of MS hit home with me and I understood how the disease worked more.  So they invited us back this year.

We believe the drug companies are required to set up so many of these a year.  I don’t know why they have to but I think all they do is pay a doctor to come in and talk to us about MS and they leave.  What do we get out of it?  A free meal, and a good one at that.  First they started us out with appetizers of Calamari and small pizza slices.  Now Cheri was grossed out about the Calamari, but I’ve never had it, so I grabbed some.  For those that don’t know, Calamari is squid.  She probably would have been fine except for some of them actually looked like squids, or spiders as she said.

It was good.  Tasted a lot like seafood normally tastes but it was very chewy, like rubber.  They also brought out a Caesar salad that was very good.  Then the doctor came in and breezed through the production like he really didn’t want to be there and then took off.  Then they brought the main course, and then some.  There was Penne alla Vodka, Tuscan Potatoes and for the meat they brought Chicken Marsala and Chicken Picatta both on beds of spaghetti.  They brought so much food it was ridiculous, they even brought all kinds of boxes for all of us to take food home.  After stuffing our faces and our boxes they came out with desserts – Raspberry Cheesecake, Tiramisu and Cannoli’s.  The food was so good, who cared what the talk was about. 

The really nice thing is (other than not costing us a dime) we met some other people that had MS as well as we got to sit next to the couple that we liked from last year.  It was a really nice evening.

MS update and art class

I’ve mentioned before that my wife is now taking Copaxone for her MS.  The medicine itself hasn’t been an issue but the shot sites are starting to be a problem.  She’s been taking it now for about 5 months so the sites are really starting to get used up over and over.  They are daily injections and she rotates from each arm, each leg and each hip.  But like I said, 5 months of shots means approximately 25 shots in each spot so you can see why it’s becoming a problem.  Certain spots looked more bruised than others, people probably think I beat my wife.

But this post isn’t about all that, the people we get the Copaxone from sent us a couple of things I want to show off.  I know, it’s been 5 months but I’m remembering them now.

This thing is way cool and my wife and I love it.  We used to have to keep a sharp’s container to put all the needles in and then find a place to get rid of it when it’s full.  What this does is, you stick the needle in the small hole on the side (there’s a small hole in the silver part), then you press the other 2 ends together, like nail clippers, and it cuts the needle off and stores it inside of it.  Now you just put the cap back on where the needle was and just throw it away in your trash.  They said it holds up to 500 needles before you need to get a new one.

I know it probably doesn’t mean much for you, but we struggled trying to find a place to get rid of the containers of needles on her other shots.  Some places we called just said to throw them away, which didn’t seem right to us.

They sent us this fridge magnet.  Your supposed to take out the yellow section and insert a photograph showing why you take Copaxone.  I got bored one evening and drew the picture of my wife, she’s the one with the huge hair and the butt chin.  It took her a few days, but she noticed it and drew the picture of me in all my handsomeness.  Then my daughter saw it and wrote the Love Forever on it.  We are easily entertained here.

To sleep, or not to zzzzzz

I haven’t talked about my wife’s MS in awhile so think of this as an update on her.

She’s been on Copaxone for a little while now.  The only issues she has with the drug itself is the shot site on her legs.  She doesn’t seem to have much problems with her arms or her stomach, but her legs always swell up and look really red.  There is no way to actually tell if the drug is doing what it’s supposed to since it’s job is to slow down the progression of MS.  So no real issues there.

One of the two issue’s that’s really been affecting her is all the heat we’ve had this summer.  Heat absolutely kicks her ass so she does what she can to not go out in it.  She’s missed a few gatherings with the family (birthdays, 4th of July, ect) because she can’t be outside and they are held outside.  Tomorrow we are celebrating the kids birthdays, outdoors.  It’s supposed to be 86° and sunny, she’s going to suffer through it as much as she can since it’s the kids birthday.  We have some shade so as long as it’s not majorly humid, she should be ok.

But it’s not the only heat that bothers her.  Today, she is baking everything for the party.  So it’s warm in here and she’s been sweating profusely.  Between being in the kitchen and laying on the floor to stretch out her back, she’s been at it for around 6 hours.  But in order to keep herself as cool as she can, the air is kicked way down.  Here I am.

It hasn’t been so bad most of the time because it’s been so hot outside that the AC hasn’t been able to keep up and keep it cool enough.  But we use hoodies around here all year long.  She’s always apologizing that she keeps it so cold, I keep telling her we can put more clothes on.  It doesn’t bother me at all.  I think it bothers her more that she’s freezing us out then it does me.

So now if we can do something to fix the arthritis in her back, she would be doing better.  With all the baking today and being on her feet as much as she has, she’s been hitting the meds to alleviate the pain.  Which brings us to the second issue she has to deal with.

It’s all about sleep.  Most nights, she can’t.  Some days, she can’t stay awake.  Right now she’s in a drug induced stuper and trying to stay awake because of the pain meds.  But come bed time, she’ll fall asleep, only to wake up a little while later.  Eventually fall asleep again, to wake up a little later.  Part of it is me, part of it is the cat, almost all of it is because she’s way too light of a sleeper.  During the day, if she does too much (which she tends to do) it exhausts her body and she’s tired.

If she could find a happy medium somewhere, to only be tired at night and be awake during the day, she’d be fine.  But until she finds it, or the right combination of meds to not put her to sleep, she’ll do like she does with all of her other symptoms.  She’ll keep pushing on through it.

MS Parking and Drugs

I should be reading my Google Reader, I’m so far behind.  I’m on June 14th and it’s now the 21st.  So I’m a whole week behind.  But I’m just not in the mood to read blogs, no offense to you fellow bloggers.  It’s my day off and it’s my lazy day off.  No plans, no need to leave the house other than to return a Redbox DVD to Walmart but I can walk that over there and be back in 10 minutes.  They repaved our parking lot so now I’m waiting for it to dry otherwise I have to walk all the way around to get to Walmart.  I may be the only person in our house who isn’t lazy enough to walk next door, but I’m not going to tack more mileage on it if I can wait a few hours.

Our parking lot had a few spots that needed paved but doing the whole thing was unnecessary.  But I am glad they did.  I think all they did was kind of a spray thing on the top but what I like is they are marking the handicap spots.  Before, all they had were signs marking the spots with arrows.  So people would park in them all the time.  And even though Cheri has a handicap placard, we don’t use it all that often.  But regardless of at the apartment or anywhere else, I get pissed when I see people abusing the handicap spot.  I’m trying to be a little better about it, now that I see the looks we get when we use the spot.  Because on first look, Cheri doesn’t look like she needs it.  Which is why we only use it on certain occasions.  If it’s really humid out (heat kicks her ass for days) or if there is going to be a lot of walking (such as the mall) but if there is going to be a lot of walking, she generally uses her wheelchair so we don’t get the looks once we start breaking that out.  I’ve always gotten upset at people abusing the spots, that’s nothing new.  But I try to be a little more sensitive if they get out and don’t look handicap, because you never know.  But I’m still thinking they aren’t because people suck and are lazy so that’s where my mind always goes first.  Cheri has purchased and placed this on her car as well.

I’ve read on MS forums where other MS patients have had people say things to them about using the handicap spots.  I’ve actually read it a bunch of stories about it.  Nobody has said anything to us, but I have seen some looks.  And I dare them to say something because I won’t be biting my tongue.

Since I ended up talking about MS, I’ll give an update on how things are going here.  She still has her days where she’s just exhausted, too exhausted to do anything but not really as many days as before.  The recent heat wave has really been keeping her homebound as of late.  She hasn’t even been able to go to the last couple of Trevor’s games because of it.  It has been mid 90’s here for a week or so.  It’s cooled off today so hopefully it’ll stay a little cooler.

She’s been doing her daily injections of Copaxone,  We still don’t use the injector pen and to be honest, I don’t know why anyone would.  Yes, it’s more convenient.  But there is so much more pain when the med is shoved into your body at that rate of speed.  We inject the meds in about a minutes time, just push the plunger nice and slow and she feels very little.  Plus, when using the pens, the needle goes straight down into the skin.  When we inject manually, we pinch the skin and then go in at a 45 degree angle and most of the time, she doesn’t even feel it.  She still has the injection site stuff, itching and knots, but nowhere near the pain.  And this doesn’t make her sick all the time like Rebif did.  Really, as far as we know, it isn’t really doing anything.  But they told us that it was just to slow the progression so I’m not sure we would see any improvement on anything anyways.

We seem to be in a financial hole this week and it may get deeper before we get out of it, but we have gotten good news in that respect.  Cheri has been approved for disability, which is great.  Because we can’t make it on my paycheck alone and there is no way she could work on a regular basis.  If disability didn’t get approved, I was going to have to work another job, which is more time away from my family.  And that’s the last thing I want.  Well some days anyways.

I really should drop that DVD off being as I hear thunder.  So before I go, if you see me post a comment on one of your posts from a week ago, you know why.

Copaxone

A nurse came by yesterday and taught us about giving my wife’s injections of Copaxone.  We had done a bunch of other medicine injections before so we knew the basics anyways, but Nora taught us a few other tips so we definitely appreciated her coming by.  She even said I was the best husband that she has ever taught.  She said that I was very attentive.  I don’t think that says as much about me as it does all the other husbands.  It’s going to be a huge part of your wife’s life, why wouldn’t you pay attention.

I had always given Cheri her injections, so the nurse had Cheri give herself one yesterday, and in a place she had never taken an injection before because she was afraid to get one there, her stomach.  She did it just fine.  She made fun of my look while she was doing it, she said I had a “so proud of you” look.  Which is what I felt, and apparently shown on my face.

We use the manual injection rather than the injector pens because they cram all the medicine into her at once and it usually burns.  We’ve found with the manual injections, I can push the plunger really slow and it takes away a lot of the burning.  They’ve been a lot easier on her.

I ended up giving her the shot this evening as I will probably do again from now on.  At least I know if she has to, she can give herself one.  Tonight’s injection only had one minor hitch.  After I pulled the needle out, I dropped it.  And as my habit, I tried to catch it.  The needle poked me but didn’t break skin because of the angle it hit me.  So nothing major.

It did bring back the memory of once I used to work with a solder iron and dropped it.  I caught it though, pinned it against the table and burned my hand.  I didn’t learn then, so I probably won’t learn now.  It takes a few times before I figure things out.  Just ask my mom, I’m a slow learner.

MS Walk: 2012

If you’ve been following me any, then you know that my family and I did a MS walk last Saturday.  We did one last year just after Cheri was diagnosed but it was in Highland, IN.  We had already missed our local one.  This year we got in the local one, it was much bigger than last years.  A lot more walkers.  It started on the IUSB (Indiana University – South Bend) campus and we walked along a sidewalk along the river.  Or the “River Walk” as South Bend has named it.  Probably spent thousands of dollars coming up with the name.  We got there early and got registered and got our free t-shirts (being modeled by my awesome grandmother below).  We turned in our donations and waited for the walk to start.

While we waited, we took a couple of team shots.  One with my grandma.

 

And one with my mom.

Guess none of us thought of grabbing one of the thousands of other people there to take a picture of the whole team.  It was still early, we were half asleep.

And of course the happy couple sporting the team shirts that my lovely wife designed.  The orange ribbon for MS with Team Laws across it.  And she was especially proud of how she made the footsteps start dark and big and got lighter and smaller the more they walked.  She did a great job on these.

                    

front                                                         back

Cheri was feeling pretty good on this morning and we opted to go for the 2.5 mile walk.  Last year we did the mile and it took everything it could for Cheri to finish it.  But she’s been doing a little better the last month or so with the help of a chiropractor.  We started off and Cheri was raring to go.  She has a much faster pace than the rest of us do.  She claims her body can’t walk that slow.  She hits that fast pace and can’t slow down till she stops because if she does, she won’t make it.

    

But in the end, we all made it to the finish line.

That’s my bald head under the F in finish and my grandmother to my left (your right).  And Trevor is leading the pack with Samantha just behind him.

I like this picture of Samantha and Trevor.  They both look so grown up.

While Cheri did make it the whole 2.5 miles, she was hurting when she was done.  Her feet were hurting (which used to be a real problem, not so much anymore) and her hand had a spasm and was froze into kind of a fist and she couldn’t move it.  After taking some meds and relaxing some she finally got her hand moving again.  But the worst part for her, is her hand has been a little swollen since the walk, so she still can’t put her wedding rings back on and that upsets her.  She needs to get those on so I quit fighting off the men trying to get them some of that.

It was a good day for the walk, the weather was great.  But the real reason we were there, was to raise money for the MS Society.  With the help of some of my blogger friends and real life friends, family and coworkers, we raised a decent amount for our team.  After everything was totaled, Team Laws ended up in 11th place for amount of money raised.  That’s pretty awesome.  And we raised close to 3 times the amount we did last year.  I believe the goal for the weekend was $72,000 but I don’t know if we reached it or not.

         

My wife is pretty amazing.  She put her heart and her feet into raising money for this.  She got our team together, designed the shirts, setup Facebook pages and Tweeted for donations.  She doesn’t get to hear it very often, but she is pretty incredible.  I’m especially proud of her for taking on the walk and beating it.

And mad props to my mom, who always supports everything we do.  Whether it be this MS walk to supporting her grandchildren at scouts and baseball/softball.  And she’s a survivor, she survived raising my brother and I, that’s amazing in itself.

And a big thanks to all of you who donated and supported this cause.  It means nothing without all your financial support.  If you’ve been meaning to donate and you forgot, don’t worry, you still can.  Click the link below for up to 30 days from last Saturday.

And lastly, as I was proofreading this before posting it, there is one thing I would like to also tell my mother.  The date on your camera is off, by a day.  You ruined my whole post, I’m so disappointed.