Update on Lil Birdie & Her mom Stacy:

LIL BIRDIE (ABBY FAITH)
ASLEEP AT FOUR DAYS OLD






Good news and bad (see previous post)...Lil Birdie (Abby Faith, my niece) is doing better. The tests were all good, and she is now filling those itty bitty diapers like a champ. They took the tube out of her nose, and are bottle feeding her again. She still has the IV, and can't be moved from the nursery, though.











Stacy ( her mom) is still in critical condition in ICU. They had to give her a blood transfusion this afternoon, I assume due to anemia following the c-section. They tried to wean her off of the coma inducing meds, but her blood pressure and pulse shot through the roof....again, so the sedative was started again. They still don't know what is causing the rise in her BP and heart rate.


I would love for you guys to keep them in your prayers and thank you for the ones that have been said so far, they do help! I will update again soon!

:) Terri

Prayers PLEASE...

I would like to first apologize to all those whose blogs I love and comment on daily. I have spent the last two days at the hospital.

My sister-in-law, Stacy, was rushed to the hospital Wednesday morning, where they had to do an emergency c-section.

She was having seizures, and had gone into full blown Eclampsia (sp?). As of Thursday evening, she is still in ICU in critical condition.

The baby, Abby Faith (I call her Lil Birdie, which I will post about later), was doing wonderful...yesterday. She is a beautiful, tiny thing at 5 lbs 6 ozs, and a head full of brown hair. The minute they brought her into the nursery, we all stood there, my husband, mother-in-law, her big sister Alyssa, and the new daddy, Jay. The tears were flowing with joy and relief, we were all so concerned about her, as Jay had lost his first son 12 days after he was born due to multiple health issues. She seemed to be healthy and the most beautiful thing!

My husband got home from the hospital after lunch today, and a few minutes later we received a call from Jay that Lil Birdie had taken a turn for the worse. I rushed out the door and went to the hospital. They ran multiple tests on her this afternoon. She hasn't had a bowel movement, or urinated since she was born. She can't keep any formula down now. She has started to have tremors and jerk...they are not sure if it's seizures yet.

As of an hour ago, the pediatrician still hadn't given them any of the test results. I would ask that any of my wonderful blogger friends that read this say a prayer for Lil Birdie and Stacy, her mom. It would be great if you could ask others to remember them in their prayers. I will post any updates when I get them.

Thank you all!

Terri

Exotic Dancer...Moi???

LiteralDan (aka One-Eyed Dan) tagged me last week, possibly even the week before, and I am just now sitting down long enough to type out my answers.
Hope you spent Memorial Day with your family and remembering those who are no longer with us.

#1-What were you doing five years ago?
Going through a really hard time following my husband's first (yes, he had another one a year ago) heart attack and resulting job loss.

#2-What are/were five things on your to-do list for today?
Laundry
Clean
Laundry
Clean
Laundry

#3-What five snacks do you enjoy?
Chocolate covered peanuts
Chocolate covered cherries (I'm seeing a pattern here)
Baby carrots w/ ranch dip
Apples w/ caramel dip
Granola bars

#4-What five things would you do if you were a billionaire?
Go to Scotland
Set up college funds for all five kids
Pay off my mom and mother-in-laws houses for them
Buy a 2009 Chevy Camaro
Send my husband Elk hunting in Montana (while I went BACK to Scotland)
(I know I should have said "feed the children", or "give to charities", and I'm sure we all would, but AFTER I did the things listed above.)

#5-What are five of your bad habits?
I smoke (horrid I know)
I eat HORRIBLY (see #3)
I spend too much time reading blogs
I PROCRASTINATE
I watch too much reality TV

#6-What are five places you have lived?
Ardmore, Ok
Albuquerque, NM
Moore, OK
Oklahoma City, OK
Um...that's it, no fifth here!

#7-What are five jobs you have had?
Respiratory Therapist
Phlebotomist/ Receptionist at a plasma center
Pawn Broker
AOL Customer Service Rep
Exotic Dancer (okay, not really)
Writer

#8-What five people do you want to tag?
I am far too slow to catch anyone in order to tag them! If you want to share, by all means take the questions and run with them.

My First award!

I've won an award!!!

Okay, I'd like to say it was for my writing, which, I suppose without writing (blogging) I wouldn't have been given an award (funny how we can turn things around just enough to make them fit our own expectations)!

I'd like to thank God first (I watched the CMA's last night...can you tell?).
And of course my family, although I'd get a whole lot more writing done if they'd quit makin me clean, do laundry and feed them. But I'd most like to thank my blogger friends.

http://mrs4444.blogspot.com/ (I have got to figure out how to do that whole link thingy right, but till then, you get the point)

Mrs. 4444, you are the best, thank you for thinking of me for this award (along with everybody else, but I'm not bitter, at least MY name was first on her list, hehehe).

I also wanted to say that I have been tagged by LiteralDan (http://literaldan.blogspot.com/), but I will save that post for later in the week! I would, however, like to let you guys know that Dan is up for an award for the Best Daddy Blog, so everybody go vote for One-Eyed Dan!

http://www.thebestofblogs.com/2008/05/12/best-daddy-blog-vote-here/

Graduation ceremonies for six year olds....

My youngest, Tory, graduated yesterday. Is she a child prodigy, you may ask? A midget? Small for her age?

Noooooo...she graduated from kindergarten! If any of you out there have children, you have, or will have to sit, sardined in with the other parents/grandparents, ooohing and aaahing at the cute songs they sing, and clapping loudly when they call your child's name to walk across the stage for their completion certificate.

All I can say at this point, is thank God that she is the youngest (knock on wood) and that I don't have to go through even one more of these!

Of course, I still have many other mile markers with my kids...

another kindergarten graduation is thankfully checked off and no longer on that list.

I am now PUBLISHED!

I took the Pre off of Published tonight!

Here's why:

Love Unlimited, the quarterly magazine that Guardian of the Veil; Gerard the Gede will be in, comes out on the 20th! The cover art is wicked (Thanks Marsha for sending it to me)!

I should be receiving my first check in June. Pretty cool stuff...Too bad I'm not taking one of Mel's classes right now, he'd owe the class a pizza!!!

Here's a link if anyone would like to check out the magazine. It's a bound paperback!

http://www.lulu.com/content/2531490 (Scroll to page 4 and you'll find my story in the contents!)

Now I am just waiting for the response from the agent I queried...that would be the icing on the cake...well, icing if it's a positive response, some other form of topping (hint: It's brown, and is STINKY) if it's negative...

With any luck that will be my next post...I'll let you know what type of topping my cake has arrived with!

:) Terri

Scotland Obsessions and Belly Button Piercing

Do you see what my husband has to put up with?

My den is where I write, so I have been slowly adding all things castles, Scotland, and now my cute little Arthur. He is my 3 feet tall knight in shining armor! If you are like many others who have seen him, you just rolled your eyes....

I decided to also show you some of my other acquisitions. I actually found a black velvet oil painting of a castle (Elvis or the poker dogs just wouldn't go with my decor).

I have a gorgeous roll top desk that I had every intention of using to write, HOWEVER, you can see my monitor sits on my tiny computer desk next to my book shelf.

Moving onto to other topics, this weekend has been another crazy one. My oldest, Tiffany, turned 14 and we had a sleep over.

Dear God....I have turned into my mother! Their music gives me a splitting headache after only a few hours. In spite of their choice in music, I think it was a success. We decorated tote bags (thanks Mrs. 4444!), they munched on veggie, meat & cheese trays, then we had chocolate and caramel fondue (thanks again Mrs. 4444). The last thing that we did that night was roast Starburst using tea lights (once again, thanks Mrs. 4444).

The following day, I loaded up Tiffany, my niece Alisa, and their friend Sam, picked up Sam's mom, and all the girls had their belly buttons pierced. That was what my daughter wanted for her birthday. My husband was none too happy that I agreed! I think it's cute though.

:) Terri

RIP Short-Bus Hannah

We had a death in the family tonight. Her name was Hannah. In the picture, Hannah is being held by my 6 year old, when she was only 4. She was on borrowed time, the way I see it. Let me start at the beginning.....

Over a 2 years ago, my daughter's cat had a litter of kittens (big shocker there). When they were about 3 weeks old, I put a baby gate up to keep her from taking them back to my bedroom (my husband didn't care to wake up with baby kitties dangling from his toes). She, being determined to take them back there anyway, tried to carry them over. One tiny tabby didn't make it and was dropped on her head, from about 3 feet up. Needless to say, she suffered severe head trauma. Nature should have been kind and taken her then, or perhaps I should have NOT intervened. As it was, I couldn't stand by and do NOTHING, so I kept her warm in a heating pad, bottle fed her kitty formula, etc.

At first she was paralyzed. After a day or so, she regained use of her front legs. Another day, her back legs. That's when we realized she was blind. At about 6 weeks, I took her to the vet, who confirmed that her skull had been crushed, but she was mending. She was however, blind and deaf. Of course we had to keep her, who would want a special needs kitty?

After more weeks, she did regain some of her sight, and some hearing. She had ZERO depth perception though, which made for seriously amusing antics. She ran into things ALL the time, while playing with my small poodles. She would also jump for the bar stool, miss it by a foot, promptly hitting the wall and sliding down, much like a cartoon character.

It was NOT all fun and games with Hannah, though. She had serious litter box issues...The last straw for me was when she peed on my kitchen counter. I COULD NO LONGER TURN A BLIND EYE TO HER DISGUSTING HABITS!

Hence, I put her outside. Before anyone starts to think badly of me, we have a fenced in yard, and she never left it. She actually seemed happy. We would laugh at her trying to chase a bird that was flying over, even though she had no hope whatsoever in catching it.

Then it happened.....

She climbed over the fence. Just in time for a big black chow and his demon spawn buddy to come along and get her. She didn't even know to run, she just rolled over to let them play with her, only they didn't want to play. They wanted to KILL her. My 7 year old was out there, and watched the whole thing, she ran in to get us, and the dogs were chased off. At first we thought she was okay...must have been the adrenaline that made her look unhurt.

We brought her in. She was clearly messed up. We watched her helplessly as she struggled to stand, then as she struggled to walk. We put her into the carrier, so we could take her to the vet in the morning. My 6 year old came home from Grandma's, and stuck her finger into the carrier, unaware she was hurt. Hannah, the sweetest cat I've ever known, was in so much pain, she bit all the way through her finger. She died less than an hour later.

I do feel guilty. She should never have been outside, but a part of me feels relieved that she is gone, and I feel even worse about that. Maybe I shouldn't say that, but it's true. I only hope that she is now in kitty heaven, unperturbed by her sight or hearing loss, or her mental deficiency.

Rest well sweet Hannah.

May in Oklahoma is SCARY!

This picture was taken a full 30 mins AFTER the hail had stopped! The size range on this hail was between marble sized, all the way up to golf ball. We had almost NO warning...Here's how events played out last night:

I knew there was a chance for severe weather, since, as stated in a previous post, I am "weather aware". I pulled up the National Weather Service web site around 5:30 pm and checked radar...we were under a tornado watch, but no storms yet...I checked it again 20 minutes later, still clear. I went about my normal routine, and the phone rang a little after 6:00, and it was my mom, followed by a call a few seconds later from my friend Kim...

"Are you watching the weather???" Were the first questions from both...NOT A GOOD SIGN!

A large wall cloud was forming, with circulation, only a few miles to the SW of me, headed my way.

CRAP!!! I turn on the weather, then go outside with hubby and watch the looming black wall cloud closing in on us. I went back inside to go bring my son's dog in the house, as the rain drops started. Within 30 seconds, they had turned to hail. And not just any hail...the kind that crushes crops (my poor pansies look awful), the kind that you fear will break out your windows, THE KIND THAT WON'T ALLOW YOU TO LOAD UP YOUR SMALL CHILDREN AND DRIVE TO YOUR FRIEND'S SAFEROOM!

Not only was this hail massive in quantity...it was possessed! Instead of falling or slanting toward the NE, the direction the storm was moving, at close to 50 mph...IT WAS COMING DOWN HORIZONALLY FROM THE WEST!!!!

"This can't be good!" I say over and over to my husband.

Of course not, the damn thing has a serious updraft, which means it's sucking air up inside the wall cloud, which we have already established is rotating, and therefore organizing, so it can drop down a tornado at any point and take us all to OZ!

Luckily for us, the storm WAS moving so fast, that by the time it did produce a tornado, it was about 6-7 miles past us.

WE have dodged the first bullet of May, but I am sure there will be a few more before it is all said and done.

For more pictures, go check out Skeeter's post...http://atomiczebra7.blogspot.com/2008/05/another-tornado.html...he works about 4-5 miles NE of my house!

Terri