I love Nancy Grace!

The truth is, since I no longer work or get out of the house for any other reason than to go to the grocery store, the hospital or to church....  I have been feeling a bit sheltered.  To help me feel a little more in touch with the world that exists off Knoll Dr.  I have been watching (and surfing) a lot of news so that I can stimulate my brain once in a while.  I figure if I ever do apply for another job I should at least be able to carry on a conversation about who the new president is.... Or to be able to offer my stand on Sam Adams...  (Portland's new gay mayor, not the new winter lager..)  but my favorite news program is what some call trashy, but I like to refer to as, my all time favorite hag...  Nancy Grace..

When she was in college, studying english lit.. her fiance was randomly murdered...  This prompted her to change her major. She went into law, eventually becoming a special prosecutor covering felony cases with ABSOLUTELY no sympathy for the accused.  She has made it big by becoming a legal analyst and appearing all over the place on CNN and shows like Larry King...  Now, among other things, she hosts her own show each nigh on the HLN network covering large cases primarily where children are involved.  She is hard and bossy and at first, a bit annoying.  She yells at people on her show who try to see it from the "accused" point of view or who don't answer her questions the way she would like..  She will throw people off, cut them off mid sentence and frequently say "Woah woah woah! Back the truck up a moment!"  to call someone on a statement they made that does not agree with her point of view...  She is, in the same breath, so very sweet and nice to people who call her show with questions and nasty and bitter to the defense attorney on her show trying to answer.  I don't think she's always right, but she makes me cringe under my covers at 10 pm every night and laugh hysterically at the way she acts...   she is currently covering the Calylee Anthony case. Which is not funny...  I'm totally obsessed with this case and feel soooo sorry for this baby.  I can hardly wait each day to see the newest development on the Nancy Grace Show.  As a matter of fact, If I see something on the internet or in the news...  I am always hesitant to check it because I sort of want to stay loyal to Nancy... (weird I know..)  I believe this case will be blown wide open any day now and I'll be tuned in to see all the gory details... 

Some people really HATE Nancy... If you google her you will find websites like ~nancygracemustdie~ and  all sorts of bogs protesting her harsh nature...  she was even accused of causing one person to commit suicide after being interrogated on her show...  Probably that was already in the works... just bad timing for Nancy... but who knows.. she is harsh, no doubt about it!!  

Of course I believe her to be somewhat trashy and similar to those magazines I've become obsessed with in the checkout at the grocery store...  but she gets the facts.. and she states the case...  My husband, although sweet and patient, doesn't really like her at all... I'm sure most men don't.  She's scary...

The First Date...

The first date is a wonderful and amazing phenomenon.  Oh I don't mean when you are 15 and you go to a movie with a bunch of friends... I don't mean a blind date when you haven't met your date...  I mean the kind of first date that makes you crazy thinking about it...  Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to be dating today for all the gold in Fort Knox..  I found and married my actual soul mate...  but... aahhhhh...  the feeling of the first date.

Recently a friend of mine had a "first date"...  my friend happens to be female and her date happens to be male... which in this day, I think this information is relevant and needs to be noted.  The excitement and anticipation was so much fun.. I think it should be posted..

First, you see the guy, he's good looking..   I mean, REALLY good looking and you imagine maybe talking to him... this might go on for some time, but then, through what can only be classified as fate, you end up engaged in a conversation with him.  During this conversation you are stumbling over pronouncing your own name because your mind is chanting.. "I can't believe it... I can't believe it..."  your heart is in your throat and you can't seem to steady your breathing.  You are forced to take a step backwards because you suddenly realize that you didn't plan for this and just maybe you didn't apply enough deodorant this morning...  The conversation ends after a surreal five minutes, and lets say, for whatever reason,  he got your number.  You have successfully burned 350 calories as the instant jump in your heart rate is better than 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.  Plus, all the running to get to a safe place to call someone and spill the good news...  You don't really know the guy, but you start counting all the things you have in common....  We are both human, we both have a head, we wear shoes in public... and he's sooooo cute.... oh my, this could be the one!!!

Then comes the wait....  you wait, and wait and wait...  you've started strapping your phone to your arm just so you don't miss the call.  You and your friends talk for hours about when the call might come in...  you attempt to analyze the information, taking into account what little you do know, while reserving some dignity just incase he's not that into you...  you guess 5 days because that covers all possible scenarios...  just incase he has a vacation planned he forgot to mention...  but if he calls before that time... it means he really IS into you!! 

After an appropriate amount of time, almost when you least expect it, the phone rings and you look at the caller ID... because at this point, you NEED the warning..  you see that it's him.. you do a quick voice check...  la,la,la,la,laaaa.... then flop onto the bed and start

twirling your hair, wait till the third ring and then answer like you are totally preoccupied by something....  then you recite the words you have been waiting to say... ''oh, yeah... hi"  The preplaned casual response that says...  'I forgot you were going to call but I'm really glad you did... '

The call lasts two hours and you hang up with a real live first date!!

The call ended at midnight so it's not like you can call your friend and go over all the details, and by now you know that you have more in common than just inhabiting the same planet. You now have real connection... something to talk about...  you stay awake going over every word, you don't want to forget anything so you can give a correct play-by-play when you finally to get to talk to your BFF.  Two whole days till the date...  44 hours, 36  minutes... there is so much to do...  

You spend the next two days thinking about what to wear and calling everyone you know to subtly let then know that if they want to talk to you on Saturday night you won't be available because you have a date....  You go to work, but don't really remember getting from start to finish because your mind is so busy thinking about... him...  You go through your closet and find something cute and casual, but your friends think that you should buy something new...   it's not like you will ever have this first date again... and suddenly, nothing in your closet is good enough for this guy...oh no... only 27 hours 6 minutes left....  When you imagine the moment of his arrival your stomach turns over and you feel warm and tingly through your limbs... You forget to eat lunch and then can't figure out why you feel like you could sleep for a week...  

The day of the big date finally arrives..  it's all you can think about..  10 hours 22 minutes... (but only 8 hours 22 minutes till the grooming process begins)  you have to get busy or you'll be late.  Of course no shower this morning, so you find a hat and do your best to look presentable.  You head out to find that perfect something to wear, meet up with your friends... tell them everything you know about the good looking guy you have a first date with...  grab lunch and shop, shop, shop...  you find 3 or 4 perfect tops... but which to choose??  You buy them all...  and head home to get the house cleaned up.  He might look inside when he picks you up and certainly we can't have clutter...  you try on every outfit you have until you come up with just the right combination and then you wait....it's an hour before it's time to take a shower... you lay on the bed and look at the clock and mentally will it to hit that exact moment when it's acceptable to begin the process of getting ready...  you want to look your best tonight...  but as any woman knows, if you give yourself too much time, you could ruin it.... not enough and there is too much stress... yes, there is an exact amount of time to allow for primping.  You slowly shave your legs to get every hair... why?  You are wearing pants after all... no good reason, but a woman just feels prettier when her legs are smooth..  You get out of the shower and check your whole face for any rouge facial hairs or eyebrows and get them plucked immediately...  you apply lotion and body spray and powder and all the things woman put on to give us that "smell"....  all the while, of course, the butterflies in your stomach are making you question weather you can really go through with this date after all...  you begin thinking about things like... what if he doesn't like me...? what if I don't like him...? what if he wants a kiss..?  What if he wants kids and a big white wedding...? Oh, wait....  sometimes it's hard not get ahead of yourself...  he's sooooo cute!!  

26 minutes to go... you are ready.  Dang..  Too early. What do you do for the longest 26 minutes of your life...?  Check your hair, pick up carpet lint... check your makeup, light a candle...  check your hair, open a book.... check the clock, check your breath, check your smell, sit down and pretend to read...  check your phone to make sure you didn't miss a call from him canceling...  feel panic...  call your friend, feel better... check your make-up, look out the window, check the clock.... sit down and pretend to read some more....  wait, wait, wait... and then finally...  The doorbell rings...

Aaaaahhhhhh the first date...

Meet Mikalie...

This is my niece Mikalie Joey Frei.  That's Joy, like what you experience when you find true love...  not Joey, like a  baby kangaroo..  It's a family name that she loves and fits her perfectly.  Mik, is what she likes, I call her Mikay.  She's amazing, so amazing in fact that I feel the need to make an entire post about her...

Mikay is 14 years old.  Sometimes she acts her age and sometimes she comes up with the most profound and insightful comments, I wonder if she's not really going on 30.  She's in the 8th grade.  If you listen to her talk about school you will realize that being in the 8th grade is a wonderful and very dramatic experience, unlike last year when she was just in 7th grade...  I think they call them... sevies?  She's much more mature now than when she was a sevie..  just ask her. She's a good student... but if she could text in all her assignments, I'm sure she would be an excellent student...  her thumbs are quick and accurate, but I'm sure she will need some sort of surgery on them by the time she is 17.

She wakes up at 5:00 am to take a shower and do her hair to meet a 7:15 bus.  Her hair is so long and beautiful, but takes her about 2 hours everyday to perfect and most days she comes home with it in a pony tail anyway.. I guess it doesn't matter what it looks like once everyone has seen it looking it's best for at least a few minutes each day.  I get that logic..  Some mornings I see her wearing three or four different shirts before she finally decides on exactly which one fits her daily mood best. 

She lives and breathes by her phone.  If she's misplaces it for even a minute (which, by the way, I have only seen happen once) the entire house comes to a standstill as the panic settles over us and we begin to follow the "lost cell phone" drill we've been taught.  To locate said phone, but don't touch it!!!  just point it out so that Mikalie can retrieve it.  Her phones is hands off for the rest of us.. don't answer it, don't open it, don't even look at it...  I suppose some of you might be saying that's because she must have something on there she doesn't want us to see...  maybe that's true at times, but she does still have a mom who frequently plays the "because I said so" card and reads through the text messages...  She's fairly tame in all that she says, but once I did she her get her mouthed soaped for using less than lady like language..  I have it on video just in case her future husband needs to see it...  She really is a good girl.

She is a photographer...  she loves the camera, she takes more pictures than I do if that's possible...  the difference between me and her is that she only has one subject.. herself.  There are memory cards full of pictures of her... all at arm's length or if she's feeling really creative, a picture of her taken in the mirror, with the camera out of view... It's a difficult shot really, takes practice and patience... she's the master of it.. all the pictures of her on this page is her work..  Most of the shots are in black and white, more dramatic that way, most with kissy lips and then various other accessories such as the "peace" sign, sunglasses, occasionally a friend or her brother...  she's good huh?  Helps to have a beautiful subject.. But what do I do with 200,000 pictures of Mikay???  

Mikalie is a friend of the people.  She is friendly with most everyone.  She doesn't really allow herself to fall victim to "clicks" or groups of people who have so much drama.  Mikalie believes in peace, love and happiness.  She would actually make a great hippie if she could stay away from the mirror for an hour or so and ditch the make-up.  She sort of flits around making friends where ever she goes.  She's a good friends but will bail if the person she is friends with is rude to another, or to her.  Oh, sure she's had her own girl drama it's true, but mostly because she ends up having to defend herself for hanging out with someone another person might not consider "cool" enough.  That is a big turn off for Mikay...  

 Mikalie is saved, she has a strong believe in Jesus Christ and wants to live according to His word.... she is also funny, witty, sensitive and sassy...  she has a mouth on her that will defeat even the best debaters...  She is fun to tease and most days takes it well.    She is giggly and dramatic and crazy..   I am proud beyond words of the way she has faced some very adult situations and survived with her head held high, still looking for the good this life has to offer.  I love having her as part of my family.  I look forward to watching her cut her own way through this crazy world...  She will definitely make a difference... watch and see!!

Random Facts..

We all have quirks, pet peeves, idiosyncrasies...  Things that make us unique and special (not always the good kind of special either).  I have lots of habits...  not any of them good either.  But there are a couple of things about myself that even make me wonder if I'm playing with a full deck..  I'm noting these things because my friends deserve a pat on the back for putting up with me sometimes.  If you seen any of them on the street, give them that hand shake or hug that says..  "good for you, you angel of mercy"... 

I know where every single bathroom is in any building I have ever been to.  It's the first thing I start scoping out when I enter any structure..  A restaurant, mall, bank, grocery store or even the Wal-Mart...  I won't consider enjoying any outdoor activity until I've spotted the Port-A-Potty..  Yes ladies and gentlemen, I've peed in some pretty questionable places, I'm not proud of it, but unfortunately I'm not the person who can hold it until I get home.. My point is however, that once I have used any particular stall of my choosing... I must use that stall every time.  Oh, it's not that I fear change, I worked at Western Millwork for 15 years...  the company who's motto should be "if you don't like it, stick around, it will be different tomorrow"...  I can't really put my finger on what the problem is...  It's not just bathroom stalls either..  I get a little snippy if someone takes my parking place... or even if my kid takes my seat at the dinner table..  It's so bad that I even get irritated if someone else doesn't park in their parking space.. (appointed 'theirs' by me in my head, sometimes unbeknownst to them...)  It's a problem that seems to be getting worse with age, (yes, I'm getting to an age where it's okay to say that).  I recently worked with a group of guys who, I believe, parked in a different spot on a regular basis to upset me and knock me off kilter...  It worked every time.  I take the same route to work or school or the grocery store every time and am visibly irritated when my husband varies from the course, and when I arrive, I park as close to the same spot as possible.  When we go to the hospital I will actually circle around until I get a spot on parking level 4 and if the nurse puts us into an examination room other than #4, I ask if we can switch. I sit in the same seat in waiting rooms and use same checkout line at the grocery store if possible...  Please don't think I'm Adrian Monk or anything...  I WILL vary if necessary... but I don't like it!!  What is the name of my problem and is there a medication?  Can the obsessions be transfered to.... oh... say my house work???  or the laundry, were I seem to find it difficult to remember how I accomplished the task last time??   It's something to think about...  Suggestions please.

The other disorder I seem to be suffering from is the fear of mouth noises...  I'm sure there is a name for this, something unpronounceable that makes it sound incurable and fatal.   I can't listen to chewing, or swallowing, or biting or crunching... or swishing!!  that's the worst..  I would rather hear the crushing of my own toes under the wheels of my husbands truck than hear someone swallow a hot sip of coffee..  I even have to move away from my own sweet child when he's at the table making all sorts of sucking  and chomping noises with his mouth, that turns my skin inside out...  I can't comfortably eat chips with other people, or heaven forbid, talk with a friend while they are crunching on the ice left over from a large fountain drink.  It's bad.. Biting nails, picking teeth, slurping soup...  nope, not near me..  I'm even grossed out by my own mouth noises if I'm not careful.. eating or drinking alone needs to be done with the radio or TV on...  Help!!!   I'm sure these things are not normal...  But on the flip side... I find men who chew gum sexy...  hmmmm... bizarre.

Well...  this I guess did not really needs to be discussed..  but I'm sure you now see why my friends are saints and need to be acknowledged...  Snaps for Allie's friends!!

It's a special day for Jess...

How many special days a year should one kids get?  Mine has so many it's almost too much to track...  Let's see...  Of course his birthday, that's a given...  but then he has his transplant day, his "Gotcha Day", that's a big one, and let's not forget his actual adoption day and I guess now we will have an end of chemo day...  That's a pretty major milestone if you ask me.  Today however, we are talking about his Gotcha Day...  Basically the day we got him..  It's a bit confusing for us however... we actually got him on the 12th of January, meaning that we were awarded custody as parents..  but we brought him home and introduced him to our family on the 15th..  so which day do we celebrate?, both are meaningful in their own way...  Personally I choose to recognize the day we brought him home.  Because we had unsupervised visitation of him  in Nebraska several months before we could bring him home, it's wasn't exactly new for us to have him in our arms and sleeping in our bed, we had already been blessed with time alone with him... although once the paper is signed it's admittedly different..  The new and VERY exciting part was getting to bring him home with us... to meet his brother and sister and cousins...  what an incredible day for us..

He got on the airplane and immediately started to cry hysterically...  which was not so normal for him, he's always been a pretty happy kids who transitions well...  but, the plane we were on was one of those puddle jumpers planes that seat like 30 people and you have to sort of bend over because even in the center isle it's not really tall enough... I was pretty frightened myself... Jesse held on to his new mom for dear life and soon fell asleep in my arms..  The best plane trip of my life..   I remember the clothes we brought him home in... he was so stinkin' cute.. I remember seeing my family at the bottom of the stairs at the Salt Lake Airport and started crying I was so happy...  (note:  anyone who know me well, knows that the crying part is nothing special... I cry at dog food commercials....).

So.. Today, or tomorrow actually, we acknowledge his Gotcha day...  He still has no clue what that means.. I start tell him about his adoption and his eyes go sort of glassy and pretty soon he's checking out the paint bubbles on the wall and not listening to a word I'm saying.  He's really not interested in hearing about his story.. Which is okay, someday he will and I'll be ready to tell him..  For days like today, he loves to call them special no matter what the reason.  

What do you do for a kid who has 5 or 6 special days a year???  Nothing is what we do.. We acknowledge it and tell him how much we love him and share stories and tell him he's special.  But.... no parties, no gifts, no excuses from homework or chores..  Heck, a guy as special as him would spend his whole life in the 4th grade if that were the case... ;-)  We just make sure that he knows how luck we feel to have him as our kid...  

How convenient would it be to have his end of chemo day and his gotcha day be on the same day...?  Super convenient, and possible because his scans are tomorrow...  which could make it true..  Nice..

Here's to Jesse's Gotcha Day.... 

Cancer Sucks!!

I keep a Caring-bridge page for Jesse's update's.  He has Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, or at least did have it.  He was diagnosed on August 28, 2008.  We have been fighting the battle against the big "C" word for 5 months now.  The updates I give on the other site are very accurate and true, I don't really sugar coat any information... but the things I don't say are the things I'm screaming to say.. so here goes..

Cancer Sucks!!  It does.. even a little bit of cancer sucks.  Jesse does have only a little bit.  The tumor in his belly was the size of a small football, so that part was huge.  So big in fact that it wrapped around his bowel causing too much pressure resulting in a hole.  Basically it popped his bowel....  wow,  how big does that have to be?  Of course there were other contributing factors and the details were not pretty, but for about two weeks I think I was pretty sure we were going to loose our precious baby...  That was a stupid time I unfortunately won't soon forget. (Back to the part about only a "little bit"...)  One tumor in the world of cancer is really only a little bit.. not matter how big the intruder, it's only a" little bit" if it's only one tumor...  Many times with lymphoma it can spread to your whole Lymph system causing tumors all over your body, or spread to your blood stream so you have cancer cells floating freely and randomly throughout your blood stream... now that's a lot of cancer..

I say it sucks because even if it's only a little bit... it's still life consuming.  Thought consuming, time consuming, energy consuming, stress consuming, sleep, work, play, school, emotionally consuming and the list goes on..  I'm positive that not one second in the past five months has been about anything other than cancer...  Can you imagine if he had something really, really bad?  I've seen really, really bad... I CAN compare...  But... because of the fact the I have seen the worst (and it's not us)...  and it is only a little bit of cancer... I don't really feel entitled to be as upset as I actually do...  and that part is the suckiest!!!  (does that count as a word?)  Being the grown up sometimes bites when you are the mom....

Yes, it sucks for Jesse, his beautiful hair, and eyelashes are gone..  the color of his skin sometimes look like ash and the dark circles around his eyes remind me of those kids you see on the paid advertisements on TV for 'Save the Children'..  But, for the most part, he actually feels better than he did the months prior to his diagnosis...  Which is wonderful to see and he has made so many friends with his nurses, and he has Gage...  who, for Jesse has made this whole experience bearable, even fun...

For me...  it' s not all bad either.  I have three of the most fabulous friends on the planet.  The four of us are one pair of traveling pants away from a major motion picture.  A Sisterhood that would be far more epic than anything YaYa or magic pants wearing...  I love them and they are a wonderful warm pile of rocks for me...   (but that's a different post completely).  And my husband..  boy did I hit the mother-load there...  a man every woman wants and I have.  He's amazingly strong, and caring and sensitive and supportive.  I am truly the luckiest woman on the planet when it comes to family and friends.   And a bit sappy huh???

The chemo period in the Fontenot household is almost over (I think) Jesse has scans on Thursday and hopefully that will be it... the tumor should be gone.  If it's not, we'll cross that bridge next week... but if it is, we close the treatment door and open the maintenance one.. For the rest of his life we will be visiting the cancer clinic along with transplant clinic for regular check-ups... could be worse I guess... Yes.. it could be a lot worse..  I still say it SUCKS!!

Allie's Random Life..

I looked up the word Random in the dictionary.  I love Webster's. I have an old tattered copy of the Webster's Seventh New Collegiate edition, copyright 1970, I keep it handy at all times, It's been with me for about 16 years.  It's far better than the computer.  Sort of comforting, like an old blanket. The world random means: (according to Webster's): lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern. Basically the story of my life...  Oh of course we all have an idea of what our lives should look like, and a purpose, but what we are so often given doesn't seem to match exactly... Which is not bad at all.  I sort of look forward to the random places I know are ahead of me, of course with all with wisdom I've gained from the past...  

As you all know I was in a horrible auto accident when I was seventeen...  The day my life changed direction forever I guess you could say.  I would call that accident random for sure.. but for all I've been through I can not say that I'm sad the accident happened... I believe we are stronger and better people for the trials we've survived.  Usually anyway..

Lacking a definite plan.... yep that' s pretty much it..  My life in a nut shell.  Something new nearly every day.. This blog I think is my way to cope and write the soap opera that is my life. Read or don't read, either way, the junk will be here.