Bowl Bound!!!!

It looks like we got our four "wished for and anticipated" tickets to the Las Vegas Bowl.  My Dad and Karla will be going with us to Las Vegas.  We will fly out Tuesday morning and return on Wednesday.  Now we just need to arrange for a car and a hotal.  Gary and I will work on that later today.  As my dad said, "You can watch it better from your living room, but everyone should say that they went to a BYU bowl game once in their lives." and then Gary said, "But you have already been to one...the Cotton Bowl in 1996(7)?"  I said that didn't count because we just drove to Dallas from Plano and  stayed in our own house at night.  That was a great game that BYU won late over Kansas State.  We also had great seats from Rick's work.  I think our tickets are in the middle of nowhere with all of the other Cougar fans.....Go Cougars!

Migraines and such things....

My brother commented in the summer when he returned some of my Mom's journals that he had read that he was amazed how often Mom was sick, ecpecially with a headache or migraine.  She clearly had migraines which I apparently inherited and passed down to Jessica as well, we think.  She also had lots of sinus headaches which became better over the years as understanding of allergies improved.  Perhaps, she wrote most often as she was recovering from a headache, because she was in her room without children bugging her.

So, for the record, I am recovering from a migraine, just in case some distant great grandaughter may happen upon this record and wondering if I suffered from them or not.  I am doing much better in the past few years since I started taking Lyrica.  It is an off-label use of this medication, but helps me by dramatically reducing the number of migraines and actually how my migraines manifest themselves.  I usually go 5-8 weeks without a migraine and then will have a series of them over a couple of days or weeks.  The first week of December I had one almost every night during the night until I finally went to bed at 4:00 in the afternoon one day and took medication until I felt great the next morning.  This one started yesterday after a morning of Christmas Party (Utah Down syndrome Foundation), bowling  (Special Olympics), and Christmas shopping with Jena.  I decided to try the "rest and medication until it is better" approach.  I woke up about 5:00 a.m. and felt great, but it didn't last.  However, I am feeling much better now (with medication) except for a small headache on my right side.

And that is how it is.....for the record.  My sympathy goes out to all of you who also don't feel the best.  Have a quiet Sabbath.

Journaling and Blogs

Is a blog like a new toy....after awhile the newness wears off, I will will go back to days or months behind posts...or can I really ease into being a journal writing through this new medium which makes me look creative and smart by being about to cut and paste from one site to another.

I have recently reorganized rooms and bookshelves as I have mentioned.  In the process, I set up a bookshelf in "my office/gym/craft room"  (I heard snickers from those of you who know I don't really 'craft'.  However I do apparently collect scrapbook paper and lettering to do scrapbooks and that is the room I keep all that stuff in.  I prefer to think of it as "Family History", sounds much better doesn't it!)  ANYway, getting back to the subject at hand:  I have pulled out my Mom's journals and also the volumes of Giberson Trivia that she made.  So now, I have started looking through her journals.  For those of you would don't know, my mom was a journal writer.  Fairly consisent from 1960 on although there are things before that.  Amazing for someone who had eight children and a busy load in the Church especially since she was musical and creative--(think choirs, roadshows, and plays during the 1960's and 70's in the Church).  Many of her entries were simple things like "we got to of our sisters visiting taught today and still need to do two more.  Richard had two meetings tonight at the Church.  We enjoyed ice cream when he got home."  I love to read those things but I have never in my spotted attempts at journal keeping, even noted things like that.  Certainly not if I did my visiitng teaching or not.  But it is a sweet legacy for her to leave behind.  Quiet service and obedience, that was my mom.  (For the record, I have not done my visiting teaching for December, but I have brought my Christmas gift for them.)

I am not sure that a blog matches that type of private record keeping, but perhaps it is a start.  It does feel like a way to be more personal with family and friends far away.  Perhaps more like a conversation with each other than a general e-mail of the surface details of our lives.  Any thoughts!

Quick Jena Up-date

We had another post-op appointment and the doctor gave Jena some great news.  She can now eat gradually eat more solid food, although she will need to conitue to avoid very crewy or tough food like candy bars and steak which is easy for her since she doesn't like those.  She is excited because he told her she can have CHIPS.  She hasn't try them yet, because it is still a bit of a production to chew and swallow things but she might try chips for her after school snack.

Things were all looking great.  The plan is to return in 2 months and take a cranial x-ray.  If her healing is completed, then they want to do surgery the next week.  So we are tentatively set for Feb. 12th.  She should just be in the hospital 3-4 days and out of school for about 2 weeks again.

And yes, I have slowly begun removing my Thanksgiving stuff and soon our Halls will be decked with folly...(poor pun, I know, but it is Christmas............)