Our Chtistmas Story

Today I feel a lot better than I have the past couple of days, with the flu and almost popping an eye out. I hope to continue with the good fortune. In a wacky way this Christmas was a lot like "A Christmas Story". Let me explain what I mean. First off I almost poked my eye out, just like Ralphie almost did with his Red Rider BB gun. I almost poked my eyeball out differently but, in any case it happened. Now for the Christmas tree. All the trouble I had with it. Putting one up , taking it down and putting another tree up and still had problems. Finally getting the not exactly the lights I wanted (green alien lights as Sally puts it), but never the less ones that worked and I didn't have to return. The difference between me and Ralphie's dad( Mr. Parker or the Old Man) is I didn't topple the tree in the process. I came close ( thank goodness the wall was there) but it didn't go over. Now for Sally, saying a naughty word. I am not sure exactly how it happened but, Sally said the word A$$. Zachary heard and Said," MOM YOU SAID A NAUGHTY WORD. YOU SAID ASS." She didn't get soap in her mouth like Ralpie did but she did get a tongue lashing from Zachary she will not soon forget. Mr. Parker had some trouble with the furnace . I had issues with the Bathroom sink. Different household things we worked on but, same choice of words used while trying to fix the pesky things( sink is unclogged by the way). Our Christmas meal wasn't a traditional meal like we would have liked. Ralphie's family was going to have Turkey, ruined by the neighbors dogs. They had to settle on roast duck with the head still on Chinese style. We were going to have a feast at my brother Mike's house , ruined by illness, had to settle on lemon rice soup and couscous made Sally style. We took Kaity and Zachary to see Santa , at the Indiana Visitors center that was having a tribute to "A Christmas Story"( 5 of the cast members were also there,Flick, Farkus,Randy, Grover Dill and Miss Shields). The Santa area was set up just like the movie. After she saw Santa and went down the slide, she started to climb back up the slide not to tell Santa what she didn't tell him like Ralphie did but, to slide back down again. Now if I only went to Zachary's school I am sure one of his friends probably stuck there tongue to a pole like flick did during the triple dog dare.We also like to bundle up Kaity so much like Ralphie's brother Randy, that I had a hard time buckling her in her car seat. After further reflection, I really wished I would have won the Leg lamp or at least bought one at the visitors center. I believe " The Christmas story "tribute will be there until the 6th of Jan.

In the picture with Kaity in front of the Christmas tree, Sally was taking the picture and Zachary said to Kaity," watch it Kaity or you will get sucked in". This was in reference to Sally's Alien tree comment that she said 5 days ago

Hope you all had a great Christmas and great coming new year. God bless you all!

There was a Chirstmas After All

I had a week off before Christmas. I had made a bunch of plans in my head of things I wanted to do, to insure a Norman Rockwell painting like Christmas. Of course by now, everyone knows my luck so I am sure everyone knows it didn't go quite as planned. If you are one of the few lucky ones to be one of my Myfacebook friends you are probably aware of the unfortunate events.

It all started with the Christmas tree. In fact that could be a blog in itself. I will give the short version instead. The newer pre-lit tree wouldn't light in the middle. Took it down and put up the other tree. None of the lights worked. Had to go out and buy new lights. Not much of selection 3 days before Christmas. Found some I like. there was only 4 packages left. Grabbed them hung them on the tree to find the last string didn't work. Had to take them off and go out again. Couldn't find multi color lights so I ended up buying all green lights. Sally calls it the alien tree. The little kids decorated the tree all by themselves. We were just glad to have it up and done with by this point.

While the tree fiasco was going on, another pot was brewing. Monday evening Sally wasn't feeling well. She woke up in the middle of the night with a full blown stomach flu. Zachary woke up with it as well. Wednesday afternoon Michael and Kaity came down with it to. Wednesday night I went to bed figuring I dodged the bullet but I woke up yesterday to the mighty terror flu. I felt like I was close to death, my time was coming.

Last night Zachary was very excited about Santa. Kaity still didn't feel to well and she really doesn't understand the Santa thing. It was after midnight and Zachary was still awake, telling us to go to bed so Santa can come. Finally around 1AM the big guy arrived. I was told Michael was snooping around under the tree acting like he was 9 instead of 19. He had no will power and opened his gift and jumped around like a little kid. Zachary climbed into bed with us around 4:30. Sally got up with him and they looked at his stocking and both of them fell asleep on the couch. 8am on the button, Zachary was waking everyone up. At that point I realized I left the diaper bag that contained the camera at my mom's( although we did have the camcorder going). So I have no pictures to post. Kaity kept saying "Oooooo" to everything. She sat there with a pile of toys eyeing what she wanted first. She smiled big, made her selection and took her chocolate candy to me to open. She is truly my girl. Zachary said Santa did so well that he can't think of anything he wants for next Christmas.

After the presents were opened and I put batteries in everything I went back to bed. I am still not feel well but much better then yesterday. All of our Christmas plans went out the window because of us being sick. We stayed in our P.J.s all day. It was nice to relax. Kaity was watching Angelina Ballerina. She hurried up and put her Tinker Bell dress on and was trying to mimic Angelina. It was fun watching her. After that I went to clean up a bit. I had another battle but this time it was with a box. I almost lost my eye to the box. I can't say it was a bad Christmas. To see the joy in my kids faces is everything to me. No matter how old we are there is always magic in Christmas.

Merry Christmas everyone. Hope your day was truly a blessed one.

PS I love you

Hey everyone. I am doing well. I have been collecting lots of blog material in my little handy note book. I will be home from the next two weeks so hopefully I will be able to write more frequently. Not sure if it will be daily but I will try since I know how popular my blog has become (cough cough). I wanted to write sooner but between Monday and Wednesday I put in an extra 16 hours of over time. I figure I will catch up on my rest during my vacation.

Thursday I had chemo. The first of the year I will be going for a CT scan and a PET scan. After that I will meet with the doctor and discuss the next round of treatments. If everything goes well the plan will be for another 6 more treatments minus one drug. It's the one that causes the most side effects. He said here and there I will be getting the full treatment but it won't be every time. Which is good because the numbness sensation is becoming worse. Sometimes while I drive my leg goes numb. It takes awhile before it feels some what normal again. The cold is also bothering me and the effects are lasting longer. I use to be able to have a week where I can have cold food and drinks without it bothering me, now it might be a day or two before the next treatment. At least now I have about month break from chemo which I am happy about.

Yesterday, my company had their Christmas party. There was a lucheon at work followed by bowling at Star Dust. I am relectly telling you something that I know I will catch some heat. What is told in this blog must stay in the blog. I write about everyone elses mishaps so it's only fair to share mine as well. Sally and I were on the way to Star Dust. Almost everyone else left directly after the luncheon but I stayed to wait for Sally. On the way there Dan called me asking me where I was at. I was talking to him, trying to listen to Sally as she was telling me which way to go and at the end of conversation to Dan I said "Bye I love you". I always tell Sally (even though she never hears me) "I love you" when I hang up with her. I couldn't believe I told Dan I love him. Even though we are suppose to love everyone, I don't go around tell people especially men that I love them. I was hoping Dan had hung up before he heard it. I know if had heard they will never stop the tourmenting during bowling. So Sally and I walked in and I held my head up high hoping Dan didn't hear. Sally on the other hand kept giggling. I saw Dan and he didn't say a word. I felt very relieved. He didn't hear but he will know now once he reads this blog. Hopefully, by the time I go back to work this will have been forgotten.

After bowling pizza was served and score were calculated to see who had the top scores. Every year I think Sally and I will get the booby prize but we always manage to stay away from it. This year I knew we were going to get it. I am an olympic bowler but my wife on the other hand is not. She usually drops the ball at least once during a game. The game at Avery isn't a typical bowling game. It's 40 frames and each frame has a special. For example there is a Migiligian which when that happens if you don't like your first throw you can reset it. There is also a thing called "sour grapes", which if you don't get a strike then you loose 2-5 points for every pin that is left. Sally kept getting the sour grapes. Every time she got she would get a gutter. The next frame though she always managed a strike. I think she really wanted a prize and knew the only chance was to blow the game and get a booby prize. She managed to cost us 130 points. I decided to wait until the end to recieve the booby prize, since Sally worked very hard to get it. While we were waiting Sally and I were talking with another guy at work. Sally was talking to Tony D. so I thought it would be fine if I left her alone for a couple of minutes. While I was gone a lady took a picture of Sally and Tony. The lady thought they were a couple. I can't leave Sally alone any more. By the way we were not awarded the booby prize. Someone else was actually worse then us. I am still puzzled how anyone could be worse then us. I think a blind couple could have had a higher score then we did.

Tonight we took the kids to a house by Sally's mom. The house is a corner house and they go all out every Christmas decorating. I am not exaturating when I say all out. Some nights Santa is even outside waving. This year we have been driving pass the house looking for Santa and finally we found him tonight. The pictures posted are from the house tonight.

I am sitting here taking a break in fustertarion from trying to put the Christmas tree up. A couple of years ago we purchased a pre lit tree. We thought it would be much easier then trying to mess with the lights. Plus, we needed a smaller one because the other one took up to much room. Last year after we had decorated we noticed a small section was not lit up. This year the entire middle section is not lit. I drove all over looking for fuses thinking it's the fuse but I can not find the fuse any where. Not sure what we are going to do. I thought about putting up a string of lights but the tree lights are green, red, and white and I don't think they sell strings of lights that way. All I know, Zachary is going to be disappointed because he really wanted the tree up and the house decorated.

I am going to take a hot shower (finally after not be able to take once since Thursday) and maybe I will just sleep on it about the tree. Sally mentioned I can take the tree down and put up the other one that is to large for the living room. I am tempted to buy a Charlie Brown tree and be done.

God Bless,
Bill

Zachary and his wisdom part 2

The past week has been pretty good , just the same old tiredness. I feel that most of that is because I am putting in some overtime the last few weeks. Other than that I feel really good. I still have the numbness in my hands and feet, that makes it hard to do a few things at work , but I manage. I try not to make any indication that I my be having some issues. I have one more week of work than two weeks off , I am looking forward too that. I have a lot of things that I want to be able to do with the kids.

Zach the other day told Sally that he felt lonely. I felt really bad that he felt this way. I am back to work and trying to put in some overtime to help catch up on bills and buy Christmas presents. Sally is keeping up the house and Kaity being only two will sometimes demand Sally's time. Zach was always playing with his legoes without a worry in the world. So I always thought he was content. So I will now make sure I am up with him in the morning and call him from work before he goes to bed to let him know that his Daddy is thinking about him and loves him. I will have conversations with him about whatever he wants to talk about. Sometimes that could be a mistake. We were driving in the car going to pick Michael up from Cabela's and he started asking me questions about Mountain Goats. I don't know a lot about Mountain Goats, so I was trying to get off the subject. When Zach would ask me a question, I want to be able to answer it correctly if I can. Mountain Goats is not my expertise. "Hey, Zach lets talk about Three toed Sloths". That is a subject I could talk about and actually answer more of his questions correctly. He asked me "What is a Sloth, Daddy". Now I have him, I thought to myself. "There animals that live in trees and move very slowly". "Daddy will Mountain Goats eat me". Back to those damn Mountain Goats. Yes, they are very mean and like to eat little kids and you should never talk about them again. This is what I wanted to say. I actually said no, they are timid animals and would probably run away from you if they saw you coming. Now we finally made it to Cabela's to pick up Michael. We were a little early, so we decided to go in and look around. We made it in and in front of us was a mountain scenery of all kinds of stuffed animals and on the top of this mountain landscape was none other then a Mountain Goat. Come over here Zach and lets look at the really big Elephant. Then he asked me if Cabela's had all the animals in the world. Another time we walked around Cabela's waiting for Michael again. This time he was interested in the fish. Most kids will run by and glance but not Zachary. We had to tell him the name of each fish. Luckily the names were written underneath each fish. Sally told him to that if he didn't behave there, he would be left to spend the night. She went on to tell him all the animals come to life when the stores closes. So Zachary tried to spend his time at Cabela's trying to prove Sally wrong. He pointed to the birds that were hanging from the ceiling and said they can't come to life because they can't come unattached. He then started to point to some animals asking Sally if they came to life and roamed around how would they be able to leave their spot and get back.

Zach mentioned to Sally earlier this week that he has a friend that doesn't believe in God and that he didn't want to be his friend anymore. Sally told him just because he doesn't believe in God doesn't make him a bad person. It's what you believe that matters. Zachary after a long pause asked Sally if he could invite his friend over to watch a video he has about The Stories of the Bible. I guess he wants to try and convert his friend. Zach is such a good boy and he always asking questions about the Bible, Jesus and Mountain Goats. Sally really did a great job leading him on the right path. Except now he is asking all sorts of questions about religion. Luckily he ask Sally the questions because for most of them I would have no clue how to answer. Sally is calling her mom asking the questions. I would love to see Zachary with a priest asking him the questions. For example last Sunday at Faith Formation, they had a party for baby Jesus. Zachary asked Sally if there are 2 Jesuses. Jesus the baby and Jesus the Savior. Sally had to explain there is only one. When Advent began Sally took him to the religious store to buy Advent candles and an Advent calender. There was a display of holy cards and Sally told him he could get one. Instead of picking the card out by the picture (which is what I would have done) he kept asking the owner of the shop who each Saint was. While they were in the car Zachary came up with a zillion questions to ask. He asked if St. Michael the Arch angel has a sword in Heaven. Then he asked if there is only one devil or many. He then got really sad and Sally asked him what was wrong. He said he is about to cry thinking that the devil doesn't love God. He then started talking about David and Goliath and asked since Goliath was bad did he go to hell when he died. I am sure glad he saves those questions for his mother.

I am trying to make the blogs a little shorter ,because I don't want anyone to get bored. I hope you enjoy what content I do put into them. Thank you and God Bless!

The words of wisdom by Zach.

This has been a long week for me. I had chemo on Wednesday. I am also working 6 days this week plus I had two 12 hour shifts. I am attempting to write this before I go to work. This way tomorrow I can relax and spend the day with my family.

I am doing well. I wasn't able to get the patch for nausea filled because the insurance only will pay for a refill every 23 days and my chemo sessions are every 14 days( duh). I am a little nauseated, just enough to feel uncomfortable. Obviously, I am tired as well. I can't wait until I don't have to wear the pump at home. That is what bothers me the most. The 2 nights I have it on I don't sleep very well. Hopefully in 2 weeks that will be the last of the pump wearing days. During this last treatment I sat next to a gentlemen who has colon cancer to. It had spread to his liver and lymphnodes as well. He had surgery to remove the tumors on his liver. Sally was asking him questions and I just kept watching her. I knew what she was doing by drilling him. We found out he has been in treatment for 2 and half years. He said that just when you think you are almost done with treatment, you find out there is more. I am an optimistic, I believe I am going to beat this. Sally on the other hand is a pessimist and continues to research and ask questions. If you ask her though she would say that I am in denial and that she is trying to be realistic. That could be the reason she has to take "happy" pills now. So as of now I have one more full treatment of chemo. After that I will have another CT scan done. If everything looks good (which I am sure it will) I will start 6 more partial treatments ( a treatment every 2 weeks) which does not require me to wear a pump( just the the one that is already in my chest).

Enough about the cancer stuff. I really need to write more often but because of time I can't. Lately Zachary has been giving me loads of blog material. In fact I will have to have a part 2 of this blog to continue about Zachary. I am not sure what goes through that little brain of his. Quite a bit , I am sure I often wonder what he is going to become when he gets older and I would love to be able to see what he dreams about. The thing that he asked and comes up with is just mind boggling to me. Sally and I are often lost for words during conversations with him. Thanksgiving we had dinner at my mother in law's. She wasn't feeling well because of back pain. The kids were getting rowdy and Sally told Zachary to clean up after his little sis. Well, of course Zachary wasn't to eager to do so. So he stood there for a few seconds goofing around and looked at his grandma (who was watching him) he then turned back around and said "Uh Oh! The camera is watching me" and went and put the toys away. He was so clever that he left Michael pondering what he meant. Sally and Michael proceeded to argue what Zachary meant by that. Michael thought he was talking about a doll and said it was her mom. When Zachary came back we asked him what he meant by camera and he said "Grandma". It was his way of saying his grandma has a watchful eye and that he better be good.

Our kids will put their shoes out the night before St. Nicholas day which is Sunday this year. During the night St. Nick will fill their shoes with some treats. I have never heard of it until I met Sally. It's a Catholic tradition. I have been deprived during my youth so every year I leave my shoe out next to the kids. Hoping St. Nick will make up for all those precious years that was taken from me.(Can't blame this one on Dawn) Every year I try and in the past 11 years the only thing that managed to appear in my shoe was a deodorizer. I will be leaving my shoe out again this year. A dying man can dream right? Anyway, one day Zachary asked me if St. Nicholas is dead or a live. I replied "St. Nick has been dead for many many years.", Zachary quickly replied "If he is dead, how can he leave treats in my shoe?" "Ummm" I thought. Sally was next to me giggling and said "He got you again" which he did. Last night the kids were not going to bed very good. Sally told them if they don't get to bed St. Nick is going to leave rocks in their shoes. Zachary came running from his bedroom excited. He said "Good, I like rocks. I can add them to my rock collection"( I was the one this time that was left giggling thinking to myself she is such a fool.) At least it's nice to know I am not the only one Zachary stumps.

High Ho High Ho off to work I go. I will continue with Zachary and his wisdom soon. Take care and enjoy the rest of the weekend.