ifyourstomachoffendsyou

Well, I got my husband programming the LV group's phone #s into my cell. Does anyone know what the avg. temp is supposed to be while we're there? Do they over-air-condition everything to compensate? I'm thinking jeans will be too hot unless we're indoors all the time. Swimming suit? Flip-flops are my favorite shoes. It's getting real now. I'm actually starting to plan. Janet. Hugs on the DS. Congrats on refusing to be a co-dependant. Exasperating and frustrating though. He should know that as a drug addict he can never safely drink either. Obviously he's not working a 12-step program, and his wife can't be either if she keeps taking him back. But poor Kaitlyn. Took my 2 grandson's to the Dutch fest at Elim Christian School. They rode horses and petted llamas and I ate a little of my ethnic food. Pigs in blanket -sausage in pastry (could only eat a little of the pastry) and peasoup. Also bought some metwurst, a delicious Dutch sausage that I like to put into peasoup along with smoked ham hocks, onions, celery, carrots, cabbage, and potatoes. A fork would stand up in my peasoup. One of the few things I enjoy cooking. They were out of banquet, a wonderful Dutch pastry made of almond paste wrapped in very thin flaky pie crust into rolls. My mother makes the best. Her rolls are skinny and her pastry is thin, not thick, and very light and flaky, not chewy. Fortunately, she hardly ever makes it because I find it irresistable. They had other Dutch food, but I got the stuff I wanted the most. The Dutch are not noted for their cuisine, but they are noted for their pastries and Cookies, peppermints and chocolate. Cheri

Lori, Thanks for the invitation! LOL! And thanks, Janet, for raining on the pity party parade so effectively! Cheri

Janet, Your posts to Lori were incredible. I needed to be reminded of all of it.

Melissa, I have got to say I seldom hear people complaining about a job because they have too little to do. Ask your boss for more work. Tell him some of the things you see that need doing on the computer and the files. You have the ideal job if you can change your thinking. You can create it yourself. The boss may be seeing how you work out personality wise with everyone before he gives you more work. Prove yourself trustworthy and earn their respect and this could become the best job you've ever had. QUOTE=IndioGirl55;1529802]Good Evening Peeps... Cheri - What time are you arriving? F9765 arrives 9:06 a.m. Cheri - You have alot of issues and I would be afraid too - as most trainer don't have to do much to get certified.. My trainer use to be a body builder - Nurse - Correctional officer - in the Air Force and sales.. He has never pushed me and if my knee is acting up he lightens the weights - I think it's really the individual and you can fine good ones out there.. I'm sure there are good ones. But like you said, it doesn't take much to get certified. One time my husband was taking yoga and the instructor pushed down on his back and put his back out. My own lower back is bad right now. I started stair walking at work this week and I did some bend and stretch exercises with the Kdg/1st graders to give them a fun break and yesterday, throughout the day, I could feel my back starting to hurt. I did nothing that was extreme in any way. My legs don't hurt at all from the stair climbing so I think it was just the couple times I touched my toes. Although lifting my legs repeatedly to climb the stairs may also have pulled the spinal muscles. Repetition is the enemy of those with osteo-arthritis. We are very prone to repetitive stress syndrome type injuries. I hung from my inversion table last night and slept very carefully using pillows to support my spine last night. I think its the muscles around the spine that are inflamed and its not a disc problem. I'm not feeling nerve compression. When I touch the area it hurts, so that's tissue. However, inflamed muscles can pull the discs out of place so I'm taking great care with my movements today. By the way, my cell phone # is 708/829-2842. Hate traveling by myself on the plane. Have to do a transfer in Denver that's making me nervous. I'm traveling very light so I don't have to check any bags. If I forget something I'll just have to buy or borrow it. By the way, I've never heard of a lap-band card. I'll try to call my Dr. Monday so they can mail it to me. Don't know if it'll reach me on time. I have no desire to drive down to U of I Chicago to pick one up. Cheri Cheri

I hate to say it guys, but I don't trust trainors with my body. They can show me how to do certain things, but I find there's too much of a no pain no gain mentality and they don't know how to take into consideration things like fibromyalgia, trigger points (myofacial syndrome), various forms of arthritis, adhesions, and age. They push you too hard, too fast. I am very cautious with my exercise because even trained physical therapists have put me in pain or made my pain worse. Water aerobics put my neck and shoulders in pain because they were doing exercises above where the water level reaches so the benefits of doing the exercise weightless with less strain were lost. The one time I had good results from therapy was with a therapist who worked with me in an arthritis pool with very warm water. He made sure all the exercises I did all my joints, including the base of my neck, were underwater. All stretches were very gentle and if he saw me wince he backed it off. You have to know your own body and its limits and not let anyone push you beyond them or you may pay dearly. I've learned the hard way that I'm the only expert on my body. Cheri

Hi all. Need to buy silly bands. I'm looking for cheap rewards for my students. Where do I buy them? Cheap? I'm keeping up with readings. Posts are going to be short for a while yet. I've been seeing various specialists because of the higher calcium in my blood and the Sjogren's Syndrome. With my new insurance it is now $45 a pop to see them. Ouch! No more HMO. I'm now on a PPO. Some advantages, some disadvantages. Thursday is my toughest teaching day. I get the eighth graders twice. Kdg/1st grade class only once today though and they really wanted to earn their stickers. I can see them making progress, however slow it is. Actually, all the kids are making progress. Cheri

Today was the first normal teaching day from beginning to end that I've had this year. It felt easy and right. Scheduling difficulties pretty much resolved. All emergencies dealt with--for now. I've whittled down unmanageable classes that were too big where the advantages of small group instruction were being lost. Especially with the very youngest and the oldest groups. My oldest group is eighth graders. Big eye-roll. Even three of them is too much. They have their own social interface. And I am only marginally linked in. I've also got 4 first graders who should have repeated kindergarten and 4 who did. They are close to special ed level if not actually sped. One is autistic-much worse than my grandson. One has very major spatial issues. Can't copy anything accurately. Moves his hand in the opposite direction of what he wants. He's already 7 yrs. old and repeating kindergarten. Can't tell beginning and ending sounds at all. I have all 8 at once on most days. Sometimes twice. Aargh. I haven't bent over to teach this much since I started teaching. I have to do everything for them, including holding their hand in correct placement on the pencil and moving their hand to accurately make letters and numbers. Today I gave them sensory breaks and rewarded them several times with stickers for being quiet and doing the work. We got 1 page done in a 35 minute period. That was major progress. Aargh. But it felt like I was getting the hang of teaching again without living in constant reaction to various emergencies. Cheri

Hi all. Went to funeral yesterday. Open casket. Big swollen head and face, didn't look like Michael at all. Hardest part was seeing his older brother who was involved in the incident read his apology to his brother. Man! After the funeral I had a meeting at Elim with the other Discovery teachers from the other Christian schools. Then I had choir practice. Got up early and climbed steps at the school at 7 and then started teaching at 7:30. Finished teaching at 4:35, came home and ate then tutored from 6:30 to 7:30. So not much time to post. Cheri

Just patting myself on the back. Julie, did I not talk about trigger points in the muscles and how one of the treatments was injections into the trigger points in the muscles? That was one of the treatments for Myfascial Syndrome. Anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers can also be prescribed; I take a very mild one before bed so my muscles will lay down overnight and not wake me up. I'll be interested to know what physical therapy they recommend. I read that very very gentle stretching of the muscles helps. If your muscles have atrophied you'll have to build them up very slowly or you'll just put yourself in more pain. I had read that accupressure (not puncture) directly on the trigger points can bring relief as can very gentle massage. Also warm moisture, not cold, to relax the muscles. Also, have to be very careful with chiro as adjustments can trigger muscle spasms. Probably the hardest thing will be getting off your pain meds.

Wow! You guys really like to party. Cruise is out for me. Teaching school, can't take off. Plus we're paying each month so that I can tour Europe with this new choir I joined. Tour will be at the end of June and into July. 10 days. Germany, Austria, and Czechoslavakia. Lots of cathedrals. Some of the music is really ethereal and some is monk-like. Should sound fantastic in the cathedrals. Any get-togethers for me would have to be in July or August and within driving distance for me. Probably north of here as I'm not a huge fan of heat and humidity. MI or WI maybe. Even MN or Canada. Actually, I love Chicago and a weekend in Chi-town could happen anytime. Spring or Fall are good times. Maybe in 2012 I could swing a cruise, but since I'm only free in the summers I'd make it an Alaskan cruise. LOL. My daughter, who has suffered with anxiety and depression in the past, really got herself in a frenzy this past week with her husband out of town. Instead of being happy for him for the honor he was getting (he was given a presidential award for notifying and working with the FBI to break up a prostitution ring working the State Line between Calumet City, IL and Hammond, IN. He's a Hammmond PO who works the gang unit.) She had herself convinced he's been having an affair and would meet a woman out there. She called me almost every night and I went out there after work several times because she was so hysterical. She recognized that she was being irrational and was stuck in circular obsessive thinking and in behavior that could drive him into an affair and eventual divorce, but she couldn't stop herself. I kept urging her to get in to the Dr. and get on meds and she finally did. I also encouraged her to get counseling while on the meds so she could change her thinking. I also reminded her that she was expecting the same behavior from her husband that her dad engaged in. That seemed to be the thing that really clicked with her. She'd blocked out a lot of her Dad's behavior prior to our divorce. So between my student's death and my daughter's meltdown, it's been quite a week. Tomorrow I'm singing in church choir and then going to my GD Leah's 3 yr BD party. food has not been great this past week but I'm forgiving myself for that. I had to get thru it as best I could. Good news on my niece Olivia. She has been seizure free for 2 weeks. She misses her old school and friends but is making new ones. Her teacher or counselor at the new school chose a girl Olivia's age to befriend Olivia and to sit with her at lunch. The teacher told the girl that Olivia was epileptic so she wouldn't be surprizsd if Livvie seized. The girl replied that it wouldn't be a problem-her little brother had seizures, too. I'm convinced that was a God-thing. I'm taking it easy today. I am going to go outside and walk. Slept in. Gotta buy a present for GD. Gotta find out if I should bring food. DIL is pregnant so Leah will have a sibling come next April. Life goes on. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good. Cheri

Hi all. Been busy saving my daughter's sanity. When I have time I'll explain. I also wrote a piece for development to raise funds for a Michael Pierce Memorial Scholarship today. Gotta go to bed. Cheri

Thanks for sharing. And thanks for the condolences. You are welcome to comment anytime. Whatever method we use it all boils down to working together to keep ahead of our addiction. Cheri

Thanks for all your condolences and prayers on the loss of "little Mikey". He was always small for his age and class even though he repeated 1rst grade. But eager to learn. His face just lit up when he "got it." Today I deleted him from my schedule and took his work folder out. There's just a hole where Mikey should be. Cheri

Frontier F9765 I think arrives 9:06 am--I'm assuming mountain time? I leave 3:22 p.m. F9770 on Sunday. School is adjusting to tragedy. Counselors were brought in. We're running smoothly on schedule. I'm actually catching up now on all the scheduling conflicts. Got a few more things to set up and resolve, but, now, I'm mostly teaching. Cheri

Today I got to school and found out one of my students had been killed over the weekend. He had found the key to a locked gun cabinet and he and his older brother took out the shotgun and the older brother accidentally shot him. I've had Michael, the boy killed, since 1st grade and he was now in 6th. I also taught the brother who killed him. I've taught two older siblings as well. I had a very rough day today and cancelled my classes and went to hug my grandchildren. I just couldn't function at school. Both those boys were good boys. They worked hard and brought their grades and test scores up. They could be silly but they were never malicious and never disrespectful. The last time Mikey was in my room I'd had to discipline two boys and after they left he said to me, "I didn't get in any trouble!" And I replied, "No you didn't! Good Job." Then I gave him his treat and he said, "Thank you." He always said it. And I said, "You're welcome." And now I'll never see him again--not in this lifetime. His older brother was taken by the police and questioned a long time. I just saw a post by him on Facebook asking for prayers. I was so proud of all the RCS students who responded with love. Pray for the family and for RCS. We are all in deep shock and mourning. Cheri

Laura K, so sorry. It stinks having your emotions jacked up and around all over the place. Sick people (whether physically or emotionally or both) make us feel crazy. Go for the sanity. Us granma's gotta stick together. gotta go Cheri

Jessica, Good for you on following through with Jake. Chewable Vitamin D for kids is available. It is good for the brain but it is not a cure-all. Consider investigating Interactive Metronome. It's a form of occupational therapy done to a metronome that increases attention and processing skills. Not cheap but changes the brain, kind of rewires it. Meds aren't always necessary, but I've seen children make almost miraculous gains once they're on them--both behaviourally and academically. But there's a lot of testing to go through first. Sensory issues, mild autism, and auditory processing issues can all present as ADHD or be present along with ADHD. The school will provide most of that testing if you insist on it. Check out his proprioceptive and vestibular senses as well. Had a kid this summer who appeared ADHD, but who couldn't sit still because he couldn't keep his balance or center his body. I have to admit I'm not too fond of drama queens myself. So many of the kids I teach are addicted to drama. When there isn't any they create it. Dutch people from my background don't do drama. They could give the British lessons in being stoic. I have no patience for it. I love to act, but only on the stage or in front of a class when I'm trying to catch the kids attention and keep their interest. But anywhere else? I like a peaceful life. I refuse to fight with such people. Gwen, have you tried the synvisc injections in your knees? They do help for a while. I bought myself some time before my double knee replacements by getting those injections. Water exercise will help you strengthen your knees which makes you rebound from replacements much better. Losing the weight will also help reduce the pain prior to knee surgery, and you'll bounce back much faster after knee surgery. Gotta go to bed now. Gotta sing in church tomorrow. Cheri

Arlene the two blonde boys are hers. The oldest is the autistic one who is also diagnosed Mildly Mentally Handicapped. He was smart enough however to get his classmates all wiggling their butts like him while they were supposed to be standing quietly in line. Rachel got a note home about it but had trouble reprimanding him while keeping a straight face. The 3-yr.old, Josh, has been going to pre-school 2 days a week and has a girlfriend, Kaitlyn, who runs up to him, gives him a kiss, helps him take off his coat, holds his hand and tells him she loves him. They play together all the time because they both love dinosaurs. They've had to be separated at times by the staff. His older brother David asked him if Kaitlyn was his girlfriend and he said yes. So David asked his usual "Why?" Josh said, "Because she's sweet and so am I." It's starting young. Rachel's in big trouble with that one. David is the one who started asking his mom about where do dead bird's go when they die because a couple of birds hit their patio windows. Rachel was explaining about heaven and how there would be no more getting hurt and how people wouldn't be naughty anymore and dismayed he said, "But, but, I like to be naughty!" And he is! Cheri

Arlene, Your grandbaby is adorable. She looks like she's smiling. My son Tim was already smiling at me in the hospital. That kid smiled from the day he was born. He had huge dimples and everytime you talked to him he grinned. He also grinned when my mom's dog barked and if the wind blew in his face. His grin is his entree to society and makes everyone his friend. My daughter's having one of her breakdowns. She had her hair cut at a cheap place and they totally ruined it. It took her a couple years to grow it out and it was beautiful. And she's havin all her friends over next week using a jewelry party as an excuse. She's lost weight, toned up, and grown out her beautiful hair, and now she's in tears. I think she feels like her marriage is in trouble, also, and she's stuck home with two little boys, one of whom has very high needs and is coming home from kindergarten stressed out and angry. She can feel herself slipping into depression but doesn't like how she feels on anti-depressants. My mother keeps doing stupid things on her computer and asking everyone to help her but my husband who knows her computer and worked as a help desk for computers and fixes it regularly (cleans out all the stuff she clicks on and overclicks on), so when she finally does call him its more messed up than ever. This time, she kept calling my daughter, who thought it might be a virus, so she had her download Norton during a 2 and a half hour phone conversation. However, Norton is a resource hog and monopolizes the machine and the memory, so while it was still downloading she clicked 23 times on her g-mail and crashed her computer. So Ken is still over there now fixing everything she messed up. She clicks on all these things that interest her, not realizing she's clogging up the memory. Lord, relatives are fun. I hope Julie brought along a record of all her surgeries on her abdomen. I know there are nerves that go straight up to the neck and shoulders and cause severe pain there because I've had that pain more than once since my lapband. Being stuck, having severe gas, having a belt pressing on the band, and over-eating have all done that to me. It just doesn't make sense that in the morning she has minimal pain and as the day goes by the pain starts coming and is worse at night. I know when I lay slightly propped up to read, like in my chair with my feet up, or in the tub, I can't eat for an hour or two afterwards because there's no room. The old stomach clogs up the port. I ate some sugarfree candy at my son's vacation camper that gave me unbelievable gas and eventually diarrhea. I walked and walked and walked in severe pain in my shoulders and neck until I passed it. It felt like my discs had re-herniated and my bad shoulder joints were acting up. Oh well. Hope Mayo gets to the bottom of it. Lori, I hope you just left the house while that alarm was going off. That would have worn me out to my last nerve. You were probably fuming (pun intended) about what your DH did to your oven the whole time, too. Too funny. Janet, you go girl. Great advice. Cheri

Wow! What a bummer. I'm trying to figure out what you're doing differently from when you were losing weight, besides not keeping a journal. What have you added that's unhealthy? You do need to eat less as you approach menopause or just if you want to maintain your weight. Unfortunate, but true for most of us. Are you exercising? That helps with the depression as well as the metabolism. Beer and tortilla chips might just be the culprits. They are carbs. You might also be missing your therapist. Getting dismissed from therapy can also bring a certain hubris--the I've got my shit together so I don't have to watch it anymore. I'm not one to journal food or count anything, but my deal is that as soon as I gain a lb or two I have to lose it right away. Before it gets to be 5 or 10 lbs. Was your original goal too low and therefore impossible to maintain without constant starvation? I'm glad you posted. That's a great first step. Cheri

Wow! What a discussion I came home to! First of all, congrats to you and yours Arlene. Glad all went well. Now, births and deaths. Whew! The whole gamut! I cry for other people's pain at funerals. For them missing the person. Open casket or cremated makes no difference. The two worst and best funerals I was at were when two women, one a friend, one a co-worker, both highly involved with young people, with children still at home, church packed with young people whose lives they'd impacted, died with what seemed like unfinished lives. Yet they'd had such a tremendous impact. The faith and love in those rooms was palpable. No doubt about the faith of these women and the knowledge they'd been welcomed home with a "Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into your Master's rest." People who've really suffered I feel a sense of relief, older people who've lived full lives a sense of gratitude. For my grandfather, whom I'd loved, but who abused my mother, very mixed feelings. Felt like God was a better judge than me. My parents are still alive. I'll miss them but I also have a certain amount of detachment towards them. However, if it were my kids or grandkids I'd be devastated. Just the thought of going to their funerals fills my eyes with tears and my heart with sorrow. The funeral would be almost unbearable, no matter what kind. If someone deliberately hurt and killed them, that would be an unimaginable grief. I just pray I never have to go through that. I can't watch movies or the news when such stories are on. The thought that one of my students or former students might be on the news because they've been murdered (which has happened to former RCS students) is almost as bad. So now that I've really gotten morbid, I have to say that funerals and memorials do serve a purpose. Whatever their ritual. We can mourn with others and share our loss, and somehow that loss is more bearable. Knowing they're "in a better place" does not diminish that loss. Remembering their lives communally validates their lives and allows us to Celebrate those lives. I always joked that as the ultimate co-dependant they'd put on my gravestone, "She meant well." LOL. For my song I want "Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, let me stand, I am tired, I am weak, I am worn. Through the storm, through the night, lead me on to the light, take my hand, Lord, and lead me home. When my way grows drear, precious Lord, linger near, when my life is almost gone, at the river I stand, guide my feet, hold my hand, take my hand, Lord, and lead me home." Mourn my loss, celebrate my life, and believe that I've gone home. No more pain, no more sorrow. Cheri

Hi guys. Crazy day today. I am overscheduled with students but I don't see how to schedule them any other way. I have a student coming shortly to my house. He is a former student from RCS now in highschool. Mildly Mentally Impaired. Mom called this summer to see if I'd tutor him. She wants to keep it up over the school year. Tues. is the only night he's free and I'm free. Ran into someone else who found out what I do and wants me to tutor privately. Might try to do her Saturday mornings. Right now I'm thinking I'm nuts. However, I'd just spend the time watching TV and being on the computer, so an hour tonight and an hour from my Saturday aren't that much. Gotta go.

Julie, I am so excited about Mayo. They're tops. Let's hope they put their finger on it right away. So I went to my son's camper on a permanant campground in Corey Lake, MI. Took only a little over 2 hrs. Nice campground on a beautiful lake. He has lifelong friends in the same campground and some of those friends parents are there as well. He got the camper for $7800. Modest but nice. He picked up a pontoon boat for $750, fixed the leaks in the pontoons and is planning on replacing the carpet and making other improvements, I'm sure. He's very handy so he can go after great deals, which seem to fall into his lap, and improve them. I had a good time with his wife, who is newly pregnant, and my almost 3 yr. old grand-daughter, Leah. She was so excited to see me. Tim and his wife are gone most weekends during good weather to their cabin so I don't get to see Leah as much as I do my other grandchildren. My son treated me really well as his guest and I treated them to Breakfast this morning. Unfortunately, the weather did not live up to its promise but I did have two nice rides yesterday, one during the afternoon and one at night where we were hoping to see the stars. We glimpsed a few stars but there was too much cloud cover to see them well. But it was still very neat to be out on a glass smooth lake in the dark. This is the son who's given me more grief growing up, but he was on his best behavior yesterday and today. He didn't make any of his usual racist remarks to try to get my goat. Saturday, my husband and I went to Navy Pier on the North side of Chicago. We walked quite aways down the lakefront. Beautiful, sunlit blue-green Water. Then we walked inland and toured an art gallery we like and lunched at a Tai restaurant. Walked back to Navy Pier in time for live music outdoors in the Beer Garden overlooking the lake front. Good country music, not our favorite, but we could dance to it and we did. Now tomorrow, back to work. Gotta get there early to make sure I'm prepared. Will start getting kids before and after school and will be tutoring kids as well both at school and at home. We'll have to see how well I can handle it. So, bedtime for me. Hope everyone else had a good weekend. Cheri

Hi guys, LInda, glad your daughter is doing better. I'm so sorry for your pain with DGS and having to allow him to be raised by another family. Sounds like he had multiple issues. My DGS has been diagnosed MMR (mildly mentally retarded) as well as autistic. However, autistics are notoriously hard to test accurately, so I'm treating that as a soft diagnosis. I think with some of the brain training things available, especially impacting language processing, which is what autistics have trouble with, he could make remarkable gains. Jessica, keep an open mind about the ADHD. I'm not saying he has it and if he does medicate him, but I've seen so many parents in denial about their child and how much the inattentiveness, lack of focus, and hyperactivity are damaging their academic career, and not only theirs, but also the rest of the class. A child can be completely different in the classroom than he is in most other places because of the overabundance of distracting and stimulating things. Start him on fish oil supplements and keep him on high Protein, low carbs. Some of the brain training programs could also have a high impact on his classroom behavior. The IM (Integrated Metronome) training I did this summer is highly effective as is a computer program called Fast Forword. He may also have inherited some of the issues that you have and this may be how they're manifesting at his age. Generally, the school has you take him to a specialist for diagnosis. You don't have to wait for them to get their rear in gear. If you have good insurance, that is. Charlene, a God thing indeed! Lori, our kids want to have fun, and they look for the invitation that will afford them the most entertainmnet. I've learned to accept that. It's not a diss unless you take it as such. I'm a lot more boring to be with than the other options my kids have, and I don't want them choosing me over those options just to spare my feelings. Still, it does hurt, so "hugs" girlfriend. I'll tell you about my weekend later. Wanna go to Kohl's and see if I can pick up some flip-flops on year end sale and maybe some flat shoes with a wide toebox. I'm dreading having to wear regular shoes again. My feet don't get cold easily so I'm going to wear flip-flops as long as I can. CHeri

Fly by. Hi all. Bye all. Cheri