She's With the Angels Now....

God took Jenn about two hours ago, a little after 3:00 p.m. She lived for two days after they took her off life support. She was such a fighter.

I'm gonna really miss her...and I can't believe she's really gone. :(

 

It's a sad, sad day :( :(

My dear, sweet friend, Jenn, is being taken off life support tomorrow. She has had a long, hard battle with cervical cancer. You may remember me posting about her less than a couple of years ago when she was first diagnosed (Jan 2012). She just had two emergency surgeries in the past two days. They say there is nothing more they can do for her and so they are unplugging the machines tomorrow. She is in a medically-induced coma right now. My daughter is one of Jenn's daughter's very, very best friends. She is only 11 years old. Her family is taking her up to Pittsburgh to say good-bye to her Mom in the morning before they take her off life support. This all seems so surreal. It's like a nightmare actually. I can't believe this is happening. I so hoped and prayed every. single. day. for the past two years that she would make it through this and be there with all of us when our children graduate someday. Jenn is so young and one of the most beautiful people I know inside and out. My heart breaks for her children and her whole family.

Then on top of all this, we lost a dear family friend, Cliff, a few days ago. He was 71. He had cancer too. He helped us build our house and was such a good man. Just went to the funeral home for his family earlier this afternoon. His funeral is tomorrow.

So so very heart wrenching.....If you're reading this, please pray for both families. 

Exciting News!!

B. tried out for drums yesterday for the school band and found out this morning that she made it!! She is sooooo excited! Turns out that drums were her #1 choice and Saxophone was her 2nd. Only nine kids made it out the 40 or 50 that tried out. I'm so happy & excited for her! She knows of two other girls who made it for drums too besides her. Her daddy played drums in band back in the day too. So she will be following in his footsteps. Our high school has an awesome drum line. She says this year will be all practice and then next year they can start playing at the games (middle school). She hasn't been too happy since middle school started last week (doesn't get to see her friends much anymore or they act different (don't talk to her as much), or she's not allowed to sit with them at lunch, etc. etc.) So this has definitely boosted her spirits and the two other girls who made it for drums are already friends of hers.
 
Try outs for the other instruments are in two weeks. I'm sure we'll still have to go that meeting and besides, we want to talk with the band directors to find out what we'll be expected to get for her drum-wise.

I know I haven't been on here since the beginning of summer. B. was in a full-arm cast for 6 weeks from May 30th when she broke her arm until July 9th when the doctor removed it (that was a happy day to say the least).  But then it took another 6 weeks for her bones to completely heal. So she couldn't do much all summer. She only got to go swimming maybe 3 or 4 times because once her cast came off,  the weather was either rainy, cold and crappy, or we were having problems with the pool. I took her back to the doctor for her last appointment with him the day before school started last week and she's completely healed now. Thank goodness.

 

 Back on July 10th, the day after B. got her cast off, we had a bad storm come through here. It took out the tree at the top of our driveway, causing it to pull down the phone line. We also lost our power for three days. As usual, everyone else around us had their power back on a day earlier before we did. Our neighbor came over when the rain stopped long enough to cut the tree up with a chainsaw. We were so thankful. We are blessed to have good neighbors. My husband's sister and her husband's yard got hit the hardest though. It took out a bunch of their trees including one in their front yard that came up by the roots....

My husband went up and helped them get their yard cleaned up after the storm. There was a path that you could see where "something" had twisted the tops off of the trees in the woods behind their house and the trees in their yard.

  B. did get to ride a horse for the very first time back on July 26th on the last day of Vacation Bible School and she was pretty excited about that, although a little nervous at first. She got to ride the horse twice.....

 And we did get to go to a Pittsburgh Pirates game back on Sunday, August 4th along with my husband's co-workers and their families and that was exciting.....

The Pirates have been having a good season this year, and so the stadium was packed. It was a sold-out game. We had tickets for the "all you can eat" section (hotdogs, hamburgers, ice cream, popcorn, peanuts, drinks, etc.). We went with our brother-in-law and my husband's dad too. It was a lot of fun and the first time my husband, B. and I had been to PNC park to see the Pirates play. And all the kids got free shirts. Which was really cool and the whole stadium did "the Wave" like four times. We had a really good time.....

  

 

This will be the last year for our pool. First, we had a tree fall on it last fall when the remnants of Hurricane Sandy came through here, bending a part of the frame and it put a hole in the liner which my husband was able to patch. Then we had so many problems with it this summer. We were going through chlorine like crazy and then it started turning green and nasty. We've never had problems like that during the three previous summers. Plus all the rain & crappy weather didn't help matters. And it has a leak somewhere. My husband had drained it out, scrubbed it down with bleach. Put some water back in it with shock and by the next day, it was empty. It's sickening the about of money we spent on chemicals (HTH) this summer. Hopefully we'll be able to get a new pool next summer and we won't be using any more HTH. We got our pool at Wal-Mart for $250 four summers ago. So we're happy it lasted as long as it did. We had more in building the deck than what the pool cost. lol! Plus we bought a new ladder (hated the one that came with it) and had gotten a bigger, better pump for it. But, unfortuately, these types of pools aren't meant to last forever. *sigh* The yellow thing you see on the side of the pool is a light that we used to go night swimming. It attached to the side of the pool with magnets. Got it at Big Lots the first summer we had the pool with my 20% discount for only $20.

  I will miss having our pool and playing Marco Polo with B. and watching her have fun with her diving sticks and rings. It sure was fun while it lasted.....

I started taking spinning classes twice a week the end of July in addition to my regular trips to the gym with some brisk walking outdoors for exercise. I go mostly with my one sister-in-law K., and sometimes with another sister-in-law as well. It's an intense workout. But I really love it. We have a nice small group that do the spinning classes regularly and they are all really nice.

I went to the doctor this morning and my labs came back saying I'm healthier than the last time I was there three months ago. My triglycerides have come down quite a bit since I started eating healthy and exercising regularly back during the end of January.  My doctor says that my whole metabolic panel (or whatever it's called) is really looking good. And that even my "good" cholesterol has gone up. It's very encouraging for sure.  I've lost 36 pounds so far.  And even though it seems like it is taking a long time to lose the weight, my doctor says that all my exercising and eating well is improving my health in other ways that I can't physically see. Even my pulse rate has come down quite a bit and that's because my heart doesn't have to work as hard as it used to. The doctor was really concerned about my pulse rate and had sent me for an EKG this past winter just to make sure something wasn't wrong. Exercise is definitely good for the heart and now I have proof of this. So that's good and very encouraging to know that all of my efforts to improve my health and to try to get to a healthy weight are not all in vain. I have about 40 more pounds to lose to get to where I need to be and 50 to get to where I want to be. I am bound and determined to get there. My husband has started riding his bike over the summer and has also lost some weight as well.

Anyway, I just wanted to share my happy news with you and do a little bit of catching up here on my blog.  We're getting ready to head out to a football game with my sister-in-law, K. and niece, H. It's an away game, so we have a 40-45 minute drive.

Til next time....