I have had a roller coaster ride this week, but totally not in a fun way!  I had my tonsils out on Monday, and no amount of preparation could've geared me up for what I've endured. It's only day 5, but I feel like I've been run over by a freight train.  Insanity!  I've already lost 10 pounds and feel weak as a kitten.

*sigh*

But, this, too, shall pass.  I'm ready for it to pass.  I miss eating. :p

When you have enough spare time on your hands, beautiful things happen...

I've always wanted to get into digital scrapbooking, but never found the right software to assist... I usually use PSP 7.0 for photo editing, but it can still be a little complicated, and I'm just an amateur user... but Hannah's school fundraiser had software called Digital Scrapbook Artist by Serif, and I decided to give it a shot... behold, the evidence. :)

I'm in love... I have so many hobbies now, I can hardly keep straight what I wanna do!  :p

After years of resistance, I finally gave into the begging of my family... and opened my heart to a four-legged creature named Heidi.

Heidi before she joined our family

She's a full-blood, AKC-registered Weimaraner... and don't let those long legs fool ya!  She's still just a baby at 6 months old!

Such a pretty girl!!

She's smart, loving, and a bit on the hyper side at the moment (given that she's still a puppy and in a new place), but she loves to cuddle and fetch, too... but all of us are in love... welcome to our family, pretty dog!

A third blog in ONE DAY!?!  What!?!

I just couldn't let it go without saying here in our family blog...

Someone turned 35 today. Someone's 35 birthday candles leaked their wax onto the requested angel food cake.  Someone's wife is amazing & picked off all the wax before serving it up.  Someone is loved.

Happy Birthday, JC!

I'm a crafty person (thanks, Mom, & shout-out to Grandma up in Heaven!), which is both good and bad.  It's good because it gives me something to do on the most boring of days, but bad because I become a little obsessed about it quite often.  Take this last move of ours... I put my beloved boxes of glass beads in the hands of the movers... they were neatly compartmentalized into matching colors when they left my house at Ft. Hood, but upon arrival at my house at Ft. Detrick, they were all mixed up. The horror!!!  So I spent 2 hours sorting them back into their color piles recently... obsessed much?  Yes, I thought so, too.

One of the craft projects that I've made in the past & wanted to make more of was vintage button bracelets.  I used to love pilfering through my grandma's coffee can of buttons, so I always have my eyes peeled for cool ones.  Before I found this project in a beading magazine, though, they always just stayed in that coffee can.  No more!  I present to you, the latest in my vintage button bracelet project line!

Look!

Awww, look, just my size!

Close-up of some of the buttons... including sweet buffalo nickel buttons!

And nifty-keen, I have one of the buttons featured in the tutorial!

I can't wait to make more projects like these, but for now?  My hands hurt!  I may be crafty, but I don't have the nimblest of fingers.  It ain't easy being a Yeti.   ;)

It's no secret (well, maybe YOU don't know, but... it's no SECRET) that I've always had throat problems... I got a particularly memorable case of strep throat back in 4th grade that made me miss school for like 2 weeks and take "horse pills" for a month beyond... I remember Mr. Couch being shocked at how big these pills were!  Tonsillitis, laryngitis, you name it, I was frequently sick with it.  Once I hit adulthood, though, I kinda stopped having throat issues for awhile... it was more a sinus thing after that, though I have mini-reprieves from sinus issues, too, depending on our geographical location at the time...

My throat issues have returned, though, and with a vengeance.  I've had strep throat 3 times this year already, a terrible case of tonsillitis after that, and my tonsils still aren't back to normal after 2 rounds of antibiotics this last go 'round.  They're still swollen (although not red or sore anymore), the left one is touching my uvula, and I find myself gagging and having trouble swallowing thanks to that... I saw a doc yesterday, though, who referred me to an ENT.  I get to have a tonsillectomy, 'cause I'm 6, not 32!  After all these years of doctors threatening to do it and just dropping the ball, or not wanting to deal with it, or not having insurance to pay for it, I finally, at 32, get to have a tonsillectomy!

Now, don't get me wrong, adult tonsillectomies are apparently no joke.  You bleed more, it's more painful, and it's a longer recovery time... but I am SO excited to get these useless balls of flesh cut out of my head... I'm assuming that I'll have my adenoids removed, too... could it be??  Could I finally be able to breathe better?  Could I finally be able to sleep better?  Stop snoring?  Avoid throat infections!?!

Remind me I was this gung-ho about it when I'm whining and crying about how bad it is and begging for my mother... ;)

Apprehensive? Huh? No way!

Because our first trip to Washington DC had been so miserable with Ian in tow, JC and I made the executive decision that any future trips would be taken 2 at a time (meaning 1 would stay at home with Ian while the other took Hannah to the city)... so yesterday, Hannah and I took our first trip to DC alone!

We got up before the chickens and headed to catch the train in Shady Grove... the train was full of Washington Capitals hockey fans, so I had already determined that we should probably stay away from downtown... then, at one of the other stops before we got to the Metro Center station, people that were going to DC for an AIDS Walk loaded up.  Whoops, guess we should stay away from Pennsylvania Avenue, too.  :p

When we got off the train, we consulted our handy-dandy map, then headed to Ford's Theater.  It's fascinating!  I had been there before, back in the early 90's when I went with Mr. Shaw's group between 8th and 9th grade, but to experience it as an adult was pretty dang awesome.  They've redone the museum, and it's amazing.  They now house the pillow that has Lincoln's blood on it in the museum itself (it had been in the Peterson House across the street, where they took him after he was shot)... and they have the actual gun that fired the shot.  Pretty amazing stuff.  See?

Afterwards, some nice ladies took our picture outside the theater... because I took theirs for them!  :)

We took off for Constitution Avenue, with our ultimate goal being to hit the Lincoln Memorial... along the way, Hannah decided she felt strong enough to uproot the Washington Monument...

She felt bad, though, so she put it back... ;)  Unfortunately, while our efforts to skip the AIDS Walk and Capitals hockey crowds were successful, our efforts to skip the 10.02.10 One Nation Working Together march on the capitol weren't.  Thankfully, it WAS a peaceful march, and thankfully, we managed to avoid the actual march itself, but it was an experience for we small-town girls from Texas!  The Lincoln Memorial area looked like a scene out of Forrest Gump, though, so we didn't make it all the way down there... we'll have to hit it our next trip...

We opted to eat an over-priced hot dog, then, and checked out the American History and Natural History Museums, walked through a few memorials, and then came on back to good ole Frederick.  Perhaps, later today, we'll check out Frederick's Oktoberfest festivities with Daddy and Ian, but for now, we're just a momma and a daughter, who are super-silly, and enjoying our time here in the big M-D!