I am so sorry for my lack of journaling entries. I swear to goodness, I had the purest of intentions when I started this blog. hell, I always do whenever I start and form of journaling. But I am one fo those blondes not so good at multi-tasking and definatelty one who gets caught up in the every day chaos that life brings my way. I have been quite the drama queen as of late. I hate it. I am even starting to severely annoy myself. But slowly, I'm coming out of it. And it's about damn time too!

I have so much I want to say about everythign that's beengoing onin my life that I don;t know where to start or even if there is enough time to fit it all in here before I have to start my day. So I will do my best to upate anyone reading on how things have been going for me. There have been an amazing amount of good days versus the bad ones for a change of pace which is both welcomed and appreciated. I surely did need a break from all of the doom and gloom.

As far as my Aunt Brenda goes, she's still fighting for survival. From what I've been told- she's having her good and bad days. She's been openly acknowledging the fact that she believes she will not be around this holiday season. It saddens me. The Christmas season has always been her "thing." To think that she would miss them all but kills me. I fully realize and understand taht we're all going to pass on into the ever after at some point whatever that turns out to be. But she's not even mid-fifties yet! It seems like sucha waste of a beautiful life. So I continue to pray for her. And am grateful tot hose of you who have been reading my lacking updates and have been praying for her with me.

Shawn and I were recent;y given quite a scare. We have 3 cats and 4 dogs. # of teh dogs are just barely a year old. One night, when we got home from work, one fo the puppies (My baby) Sassie was quite ill. We rushed her to the vet the next a.m. to find out that she had a severe viral illness dogs can get called Parvo. The vet asked if we wished to have her put down. I inquired as to her survival rate and was given a 50/50 chance. Well what tghe fuck. Hell NO! Why would I put down an animal I love for a chance that kind? So we took bags of I.V. fluids and the instructions as to how to care for her. And amazingly enough, Sassie has overcome the parvo and is doing quite well. And even more fortunate for us, the other pups never caught it. Hoorah for that!

My nephew Ethan celebrated his first birthday last month. Due to the dogs illness, Shawn stayed home. he wanted me to also- but how could I miss my nephew's first birthday? I just couldn't. Especially after making my sister switch dates due to a close friend's wedding. So I went. Paid hell for it and still am on some days. But man, was it worth it. His party was so much fun! My sister Lisa could not wait to get her paybacks. When her kids Cassie and Carter had their first birthdays, it was tradition for Gena to take their personal cakes and mash their faces in them. Lisa finally got her payback. Lisa was quick to get Ethan's fashed mashed into his cake. And then, it wasn't long before Aunt Sara stole the cake and smashed Lisa, Gena and Adam all with it. We were all covered in chocolate frosting goo. We had a blast!

My love life has been... interesting. Shawn and I are still in couple's therapy. Dr. Fix-It is very good and it is helping. But I'm not sure still as to how much. Shawn really has made a concentrated effort to make me happy and to work on being a fully functionally couple. It really is endearing. And it should be making me more sure of what we have and where we're going. And yet, I still have my reservations. I often feel guilty about that. I know he thinks he's making progress. ANd I guess in a small way, he is. Defnately baby steps. But I don;t talk openly about all of this because he gets frustrated and/or upset. I can;t help but feel often that it seems like it's often too little, too late. And that afetr 12 years of being made to feel like I wasn;t good enough or worthy of being loved, taht that can't just happen to change over night. Yanno? But I'm trying in all hoensty to be fair. fair to him, fair to us. I am doing everythign I can to give "us" a chance.

We bought another new vehicle. After purchasing my '05 Kia Sorento 5 months ago... this evil cruel world raised the gas price to $3 a gallon. Well, that gets expensive when you drive 60 plus miles a day in a big tank of an SUV. So Shawn traded in his '98 GMC Sonoma for a '05 Kia Optima that's fully loaded. Power everything, leather seats, the infinity sound system and the rear view mirror can be programmed to turn lights off and on in the garage and open and close the door to the garage. If only we had a garage... and it also has this cool feature that when a cars lights are in the mirror for any length of time,. it automatically tints to save the glare in the drivers vision. THAT freaked me otu for awhile. Its a nice ride. I am so in love with our Kia's. But we sure did take falck being UAW workers buying Korean cars! BUt we even talked 2 other guys at work into buying Kias. One guy even bought 2. So now there are 5 brand new kia's in the lot. Wee! And kick ass for me is that since Shawn and I are not m,arried, I got th e$50 referral bonus for him, plus one from each of the other 2 guys. I can;t wait until those checks arrive! Momma needs a new pair of shoes, Baby!

I am slated to have surgery on my kidney stone down state on the 30th of this month. I'm a bit freaked but I guess that's normal. The last time I had surgery there were complications. This one is less severe though and should go well. They're just going to knock me out and put me onto some device that will lower me into a big pool where they will sonically zap my kidney stone so it breaks up and will be able to pass. Then I will go home, have to pee into a strainer until it comes out so I can take the pieces in and have the lab analyze the. Fun, fun. Since the surgery for some reason is beign performed 2 hours or so down state in Grand Rapids (stuoid since they do have a facility at the hospital 35 minutes away in Traverse City) we're plannign to spend the night in G.R. at the hospice there just so I dont; ahev to travel so far after that.

Then, I plan tog o see my friend Michelle whom I haven;t seen in a year. She has not seen me since I was realeased from the hospital after my gastric bypass. I'm 152 pounds lighter. (I lost another 10 lbs. btw! Go, ME!) She's in for a shock.

Today has been such an awesome day. I got to chat on line in some way interesting conversations for way longer than we've ever managed in quite some time. What a trip to have a friend you can open up to and cut loose. I have to sign this off now as the conversation is much to awesome to not devote every bit of my attention to. not to mention I ahev to start ramping up to go start my work day officially!

Til next time... love and well wishes Y'all!

Always,

Sara