Proud New Owner

Check out my group on Cafe Mom!

The Hot Seat

When the owner of my most favorite group on CafeMom stepped down and picked me to take over the ownership, I was flattered...she picked me! This was the very first group I joined when I found CafeMom and it remains my most visited group even today. We are a very intimate group of about 20. The group is called the Hot Seat and what we do is pick one mom from our group to be in the Hot Seat and everyone can ask her questions on anything and the MOTW (Mom Of The Week) has to answer them. We also have games and QOTD (Questions of the Day). It's just a fun, no stress, no drama group. Now that you've heard my plug, please won't you visit and join us?!

One of those *cough, cough* blonde moments...

I mean no insults to my fair haired friends but, do you remember my mild protest to the limitations of my "new" blog? Well, today, I was bored and decided to look amongst the widgets on Blogger and what did I find, after scrolling almost to the bottom of the list on the first page? A widget that allows you to add ANY html/Javascript code to your blog. So, *drum roll* I was able to add back my cool Flickr badge, Library Thing list of my recent reads and my Weather Pixie! It was one of those "duh-o" moments, for sure and I couldn't be happier about it! I may add back my buttons from my favorite sites, or I may let the new blog roll do it's job. Either way, I'm now a firm believer in the goodness of converting my blog--heck yeah!

Check it out, doesn't it looks so much snazzier?

I'm a Doris, I like to help...

You Are a Doris!

You are a Doris -- "I must help others."

Dorises are warm, concerned, nurturing, and sensitive to other people's needs.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Tell me that you appreciate me. Be specific.


• * Share fun times with me.


• * Take an interest in my problems, though I will probably try to focus on yours.


• * Let me know that I am important and special to you.


• * Be gentle if you decide to criticize me.

In Intimate Relationships

• * Reassure me that I am interesting to you.


• * Reassure me often that you love me.


• * Tell me I'm attractive and that you're glad to be seen with me.

What I Like About Being a Doris

• * being able to relate easily to people and to make friends


• * knowing what people need and being able to make their lives better


• * being generous, caring, and warm


• * being sensitive to and perceptive about others' feelings


• * being enthusiastic and fun-loving, and having a good sense of humor

What's Hard About Being a Doris

• * not being able to say no


• * having low self-esteem


• * feeling drained from overdoing for others


• * not doing things I really like to do for myself for fear of being selfish


• * criticizing myself for not feeling as loving as I think I should


• * being upset that others don't tune in to me as much as I tume in to them


• * working so hard to be tactful and considerate that I suppress my real feelings

Dorises as Children Often

• * are very sensitive to disapproval and criticism


• * try hard to please their parents by being helpful and understanding


• * are outwardly compliant


• * are popular or try to be popular with other children


• * act coy, precocious, or dramatic in order to get attention


• * are clowns and jokers (the more extroverted Dorises), or quiet and shy (the more introverted Dorises)

Dorises as Parents

• * are good listeners, love their children unconditionally, and are warm and encouraging (or suffer guilt if they aren't)


• * are often playful with their children


• * wonder: "Am I doing it right?" "Am I giving enough?" "Have I caused irreparable damage?"


• * can become fiercely protective

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

It's all my fault

Proof that each and every vote can make a difference. My old college roommate sent this to me and I got a laugh, hope you do too.

Rated: PG-13 for some mild, brief language, watch at your own risk.

Click here to see what I'm talking about.

The best part, you can customize the video and send to your family and friends.

I'm a winner, a winner, a winner...

I actually won something recently on CafeMom! They randomly select members to be part of an influencer program. Simply put, these moms are chosen to receive products for free, test them out and then write about their experiences for other CafeMom-ers to read. In the past, I have won two Playskool toy contests, but this time, I didn't have to do anything and was chosen to receive a free 20-page 8x8 photo book (that's about a $50 value folks)from Shutterfly! I have never used Shutterfly or any site like it, so I was a bit intimidated, after all, I'm not crafty in the slightest. So, imagine my joy to find out that not only was Shutterfly so simple to use, they even recommended cute page layouts for me. I have to admit that I never thought I'd finish because just when I thought I liked a layout or a page background, I'd click around and find something else that I liked even more. Shutterfly is not for the indecisive--haha! I finally finished my book yesterday and am very pleased with the results. It should be here by Halloween and I cannot wait to see it. The finished product will be the real test. If I like it, I can see many more books being created in the future. For $40 or so, I figure they would make great presents for grandparents. Plus, Shutterfly is always offering up great savings, including, at times, free prints, free photo books and percent off coupons. You know me, I love a great deal! If you haven't already, check out the site, it's so much fun & addicting. Oh yeah, I highly recommend joining Cafe Mom too, not just for the giveaways but for the community.

**I had to take down the link for my completed book because I read somewhere that anyone can print a book once they have the access link--scary thought--so, if you'd like to see it, please comment, and I'll send you the link via email.**

Change, it's good right?

I finally bit the bullet and converted my blog to the new customized (read: XML) template. It was a pain in the butt to get everything transferred over, but I have to admit that I'm in love with the widget option and the ability to easily change the layout of the page.
Some of the new changes that you'll see:

1. Obviously, a totally new "skin". It was time for a change and I finally realized why those spiffy layouts from pyzam.com weren't working, so I was stuck with Blogger's limited options.

2. A much-improved blog roll list. It's very click-able and alphabetized for your convenience. Check out my frequent reads, they are just great.

3. A new look to my Flickr "badge". Technically, it's not from Flickr anymore but rather an application created for use among Blogger's widgets. Granted, it's not as pretty as Flickr's create-a-badge, but it gets the job done. Now, if someone wants to rewrite the Flickr badge code into XML for me, I'd be more than happy to use Flickr's. In the meantime, you'll see 6 of the new photos on my account and clicking on one photo will still take you to my photostream on Flickr...so, it's all good.

4. Bye bye Weather Pixie and hello Weather.com widget. I will miss my mountain pixie but, at the end of the day, the weather is the weather.

5. My "About Me" profile is displayed on the page now so you'll get to read a bit about me, not that you didn't already know it, and see my cool signature picture.

Have fun looking around and be sure to drop me a comment and let me know what you think. Hopefully, my hard work paid off.

It's Gray Area

A quick update following Cara's neurologist visit on Tuesday (10/7/08).
We met with Dr. Maddox to review the radiologist's finding from the MRI. Initially, the MRI was ordered to check for any abnormalities which could explain Cara's speech delay as well as to check for any fibromas which would indicated neurofibromatosis. The report was very positive! The radiologist found no lesions, tumors or blockages in Cara's brain. He reported that her ventricles had decreased in size though the left was still a bit larger than the right, showing that she does, indeed, have hydrocephalus. There was some scar tissue around her shunt, but that was to be expected. The only "helpful" thing that we discovered from the report was that Cara has a very thin corpus callosum, the large bundle of nerves (essentially) that separate the two hemispheres of the brain. The corpus callosum allows both sides to communicate with each other and the thicker it is, the better the communication due to the more nerves that exist. If it is thinner than normal, there is a potential for communciation between the left & right sides of the brain to be slowed. This could(there is no way to be 100% certain) explain Cara's speech delay.
So, while we breathed a big sigh of relief after hearing the mostly positive report, we are still left to wonder what is truly causing Cara's lack of speech and also, if she does indeed have neurofibromatosis. For now, we will continue with her speech therapy and also stick with our appointment to see a genetic counseling team in December. It will be their job to decide where we go from here.

All's Well

We are home from Cara's MRI and she is back to her normal self--playing and eating. In fact, she woke from the anesthesia very quickly and just as quickly consumed two bananas and two packages of animal cookies. She was starving, having gone without anything but apple juice since 9pm last night!

The follow-up with neurosurgery went well also. We saw one of our favorite nurse practitioners, Jenn, and she reset Cara's shunt setting. It went from 1.0 to 2.5 due to the magnetism of the MRI machine! That's going from having her value open quite a bit to having it almost all the way closed. Heck, when I was in the room while Cara was going under sedation, the machine grabbed onto the medal in my ID tag and tried to strangle me! What really amazed me was that Jenn could both check her shunt setting and adjust it without even having to touch her shunt! The wonders of modern medicine.

We also learned that Cara's head circumference has decreased in size to 51cm and we're down to the 98% from over 100% prior to the shunt...very good news! Jenn also said that her ventricles looked good, both have decreased in size since her last MRI in July of last year. All is well, shunt-wise. We will continue to count our blessing for every day that goes by without a malfunction with her shunt.

We will hear from neurology tomorrow as to what the radiologist confirmed from the scan. Watch for another update soon.

A Big Day

Today, Cara has her MRI at Children's Hospital to check for any structural problems *read: tumors or other growths* in her brain. We are leaving shortly as we have to be there an hour ahead of schedule for sedation. I'm really hoping that they will give her an oral sedative and not through an IV and that they will let us hold her until she drifts off. It's much peaceful of a transition that way, I think.

Right after the MRI, we have an appointment with neurosurgery to reset her programmable shunt. Due to the magnetism of the MRI, it is suspected that her set will de-program itself and will need to be reset. Thankfully, this is so very simple. There's a device that they "attach" to her shunt from outside of her head and it will set the shunt back to the correct setting, no invasive surgery needed!

All in all, we expect to be out of hospital and on our way home around 4-4:30 this afternoon. Once again, I am asking...if you pray, please do so; cross fingers and toes if that's more your cup of tea. Whatever it is you do for good luck, please think of Cara while you do it. I will update everyone later. This should be a very smooth procedure and Cara is an old champ! :)

All About Ben

Judy had this test of sorts up on her blog. It's all about your spouse or significant other. Let's see how well I know my husband of almost 8 years...

1. Sitting in front of the TV, what's on the screen? Family Guy, football, CNN.

2. You're out to eat; what kind of dressing does he get on his salad? Italian or a vinaigrette. Sometimes, he'll surprise me and order a salad as a main course.

3. What's one food he doesn't like? Melon--how can you NOT like melon?!

4. You go out to a bar. What does he order? Fat Tire or Coors but, he doesn't drink much.

5. Where did he go to high school? John Glenn High School

6. What size shoe does he wear? 13-14 depending.

7. If he was to collect anything, what would it be? Music & DVDs. He has an impressive collection already.

8. What is his favorite type of sandwich? The sweet onion chicken teriayki sub from Subway.

9. What would this person eat everyday if he could? Spaghetti, without a doubt.

10. What is his favorite cereal? He doesn't normally eat cereal, but I know he likes corn flakes and corn checks.

11. What would he never wear? Anything other than polo shirts! LoL Seriously though, that's about all I can get him to wear. I need to nominate him for What Not to Wear on TLC.

12. What is his favorite sports team? Football-Steelers or Broncos; Basketball-Pistons; Hockey-Red Wings (it's fun in our house because I'm an Avs fan); Baseball-Yankees.

13. Who will he vote for? Let's just say that we're blue.

14. Who is his best friend? Besides, me?! Geoff & Jason but he's horrible about keeping in touch with them.

15. What is something you do that he wishes you wouldn't do? Nag, I tend to get on his case if I don't like what he's doing or I need him to so something.

16. How many states has he lived in? Three--New York state, Michigan & Colorado.

17.What is his heritage? Easy--African American. He's a first-gen American-born. His parents both grew up in Ghana.

18. You bake him a cake for his birthday, what kind of cake? Hmm, this one I'm not sure about. I *think* he'd prefer brownies.

19. Did he play sports in high school? Nope, he was a nerd on the knowledge bowl team. He tried out for football, but didn't make the cut.

20. What could he spend hours doing? Programming on his laptop or playing old school games on our Wii.

21. Does he belong to any men's organizations? Other than fraternal alumni? Not really, he's part of the computer ministry at our church, but that's not just men.

(I just read my answers back to Ben and I'm proud to say that I got them all write, even the cake one! Go me!)