Well I jumped into the extreme coupon world and it is a lot of fun yet frustrating at the same time. We did save TONS which was awesome for our budget and will allow us to shop more if need be. We spent a total of about $210 on all these groceries: 14 boxes cereal, 10 boxes fruit snacks, 8 boxes chex granola bars, 3 bags chex mix, 6 jars pasta sauce, 4 jars alfredo sauce, 4 bottles snapples, 1 box suddenly salad, 1 pkg. Soliel razors, 1 box capri sun, 2 jars roasted honey peanut butter, 4 tubs frosting, BUT only paid $69.79 WOW!!

This was our second trip but we didn't get a photo of the first to post so we thought this would do for show. We not only used the in-store sales but also the coupons we had on hand. I think the frustrating part of it all is the checkers don't really want to utilize the coupons when you have more than say 6 coupons, it takes up their time. Yet they would be standing there whether I had coupons or not! This trip was to Albertsons. We also made a different trip to Walmart which in the very end of scanning all my coupons they decided they were going to have a fit. I bought 6 desserts and had a valid coupon for each one of them. Now get this: I am able to buy as many things of one item that I want to BUT when it comes to you having a coupon for all those items all the sudden their excuse is that you need to save some for other shoppers. Not sure where or why this can possibly fit into my shopping habits, but I can buy however many items I want and no problem but then if I have a coupon for those items I need to not buy them and save some for other customers?? Whatever!! So these 2 girls actually made me take 3 of these desserts and buy them on a different transaction. ONLY 3 ITEMS!! Hello who does that??!! Ok so this was one of the coupon frustrations!

My other one was Albertsons DOES NOT allow ANY coupons over $5. Can you believe this, now the manufacture will not only pay the store the full price for that $7.99 item but they also just screwwed me out of $2. I think after this first shopping experience with the major coupon usage and seeing exactly the way these stores work frustrates me A LOT, but I will still take advantage of the savings. Not only do these stores get our products for pennies on the dollars but they are also paid full price for any coupon they do not honor to the fullest from the customer also. GRRR!!

To say the least we did have fun getting our plan all together and acting on it. We learned a few things the hard way yet had a lot of fun shopping!! I hope all of you will take advantage of the coupons and save your family plenty of dollars and cents to live in the economy we are in today. Good Luck!!

What would you say?

1. Love is...something I could not live without.
2. Marriage is...for eternity!
3. Somewhere someone is thinking... damn she could have been mine. LOL!
4. I'm always...wishing I was debt free.
5. I have a secret cheesy crush on...Matthew Macon -a-hottie.
6. My cell phone... is always getting lost and the bad thing is it's on silent.
7. I've come to realize that my last kiss was...from my sweet baby and slobbery!
8. I am listening...to my hubby clean Hope's bathroom at 10:25pm. Crazy!
9. I talk...not enough to my sisters.
10. I love...reading, reading and books!!
11. My best friends are...my sisters and my itty brother.
12. My car is...FAST!!
13. My love life...is a blessing. I need to appreciate my hubby more for all he does. I love you Travis!!
14. I hate it when people...don't use a blinker and are talking on their phone while driving.
15. When I wake up in the morning...I love the silence and darkness.
16. When I go to bed at night...I love reading a book til I fall asleep.
17. Right now I'm thinking about...Khristapher and how I miss him being gone for the week.
18. Babies are...beautiful and such a great blessing to our family, I want more.
19. Tonight I will...tell Travis how much I appreciate him and how blessed I am to have the best husband on this green earth!
20. I really want to...be debt free and be a stay at home mom again.

What is a hole?

We all know a hole as a dip in the ground one of the kids dug for a truck to utilize, what you put your earrings in, the entrance where you put your foot into your shoe, a place where a dog saves that yummy bone for later, the small place in the middle of a CD, the opening to light a smelly candle, or as Khristapher says what's between your cheeks (lol), etc. So you get the idea of what a hole is and many places where they are to be and it's ok, but let me tell you where this "hole" poses a problem: IN MY HEART!!

After checking into the cardiologists office this morning we sat in the lobby for about 25 minutes. I read a book as Travis and the 2 small boys looked out the window at all the cars in the hospital parking lot. I was then called back to start my "bubble test" as she called it. As she starts with the IV for the test she asks which arm would you like it in? Hmm, as I look at them both all bruised from the weeks of many pokes, I just tell her to take the right since just 2 days ago the left was a bit bruised from the last IV.

As she starts this test and the IV is all in she puts this funky bar looking hat on my head that will monitor the bubbles that reach my head from the hole within my heart. As she finds the path on my head she tightens the little bars until this is feeling like an overly tight pony tail. The next thing is to push some saline through the IV into my heart, then to shake up the IV with some bubbles and then push that through the IV as I bare down (as if I am going #2), and then the last one was as she pushed the saline through I was to blow into a tube as if I was blowing up a balloon.

Now these sound really easy but have you ever tried blowing up a balloon that just wouldn't blow no matter how hard you tried and your head kinda started hurting? Or have you ever tried to bare down and not let anything out, not even a fart in front of others? It wasn't that easy it actually made my head hurt worse than it already was. (I know, nothing knew for a chronic pain/migraine patient right?)

She took the IV out and the head set off, wrapped my arm up as it bled profusely (as I am on aspirin to thin my blood so it is a less chance of blood clots forming and traveling to my brain) and then took us back to the waiting room for another 25 minutes. Thank goodness I had a book to partially keep my mind off of things for a minute or two. The nurse opens the door and invites us back again to another room. The way she starts in on the conversation I knew things were not good. She tells me how things will work for a heart surgery to happen and what I would need to take and do "if" the doctor feels this is the right path. Tells me he'll be in our room in a few moments.

Ok so the longest few moments later (30 min.) doctor comes in and immediately tells me I am very high risk for strokes and that he needs to give me some results to weigh my options at this time. **SCARED** On a scale from 1 (being pin size hole) to 5 (being very large hole) I rate at a high 5. I also have 3 white lesions on my brain from 3 minor strokes, and the extreme migraines that I have weekly put me at a very good position of getting things taken care of now before anything else happens that could cause permanent damage to my heart.

Even after this day is about to end I am still in awe and not really believing, I guess you could say, that I am scheduled to have heart surgery, due to the hole in my heart, at the end of June. I am so scared and stressed at the same time I don't think I can even think positive right now. I know many have told me to and give me time and I will get stronger but right now I am going to cry and cry and cry until I can't cry anymore and wait for my last two tests results to come back and just pray they are of good news and not bad this time around.

I am a little scattered brained and a nervous stressed wreck right now so if this is a bit scattered and hard to understand believe me that is how I am feeling and thinking on the inside also. Until I can think again I am off to rest, it's been a very long day.

Do you ever wonder what's NEXT?

I am starting to wonder what can possibly be next. I have finished another week of doctors and testing along with some very scary results. First, I followed up with my balance and hearing therapist who worked with and taught me a few skills to work on with stress, relaxing and ME time. (this will have to be another blog) But as she was doing the testing for 2 hours she reiterated the Nystagmus within my eyes and that we have small exercises to help with this but it will not cure it, it's main goal is to help it from not getting worse which would cause surgery and such, so we will continue to work hard on that one. She also gave me more results after a few short tests that my front neck muscles have been damaged and are not working as a normal muscle should work, making my back neck muscles work extra hard adding unnecessary strain to my nerves adding to the neck nerve damage. (did that make sense, cuz it all is spinning in my head and I am having a hard time comprehending it all also).

Anyways after Wednesday comes Thursday and Thursday brings me to another doctor visit and more results not really wanting to hear. This was my cardio exam, due to the black outs I have started having, to check for any stroke activity or signs of things to worry about. Oh I now have things to worry about alright!! Went through the whole hour testing to be led to another room to have a nurse come and talk to me about the results. Um, can I say SCARY!! We sat about 15 minutes in this little room with a cold drink they offered to us, which led me to believe something else was wrong. After our wait a great nurse came in and she discussed a few things about the heart and then gave me some results. I have a hole in my heart which is called "Patent Foramen Ovale" or (PFO). I can try to explain in a few words best I can.

While we are babies we all have a small flap within our heart that allows the blood flow from right to left as it creates the two upper chambers (atria) of the heart. At about 18 months this fuses together and we no longer have a hole within our heart it will now be two separate chambers for the blood to flow into the right side, into our lungs to be filtered, then to the left side clean and pure and off to the rest of our bodies including our brain.

Well with this hole within my heart it is having blood enter the right side and a large portion going the correct way and a small portion going the wrong way. Now with the portion that is just going from the right side leaking through the hole to the left side it is not only unfiltered but it can also have a clot within it and travel to my brain causing me to have a stroke. This may or may not be the reason adding to my migraines, but we will soon find out. I am now diagnosed with being a very high risk stroke patient and will be watched and monitored often.

It doesn't stop at this. . . .we have to return to the cardiologist on Friday, May 29th to have an additional test done to view how large the hole is within my heart. Depending on what is said and how big the hole is I may or may not be in for open heart surgery within the next month or so. If it is not significant enough of a hole I will continue to take meds to thin my blood, be on a high risk stroke list and also be checked to make sure the hole is not growing that will make surgery happen also.

When I left the hospital today I felt so alone even as I walked next to Travis and the two babies. I felt like crying and screaming because of the news I was just given, yet I felt I needed to be the strong one and keep it all together and not cause any additional stress than what we were both feeling at the time. Travis immediately suggested we up my life insurance and get things written down of what, where, when if something does happen when we least expect it.

This is all so crazy to me that I feel like I am in a dream half the time and I just can't wake up to see the light of day again. Some days I feel as if I am numb, like I am just here yet I am really not. Do you just grin and bare it and continue to the doctors only to hear another bad result? I know keep my chin up, be strong, this is just something I have to go through to make me stronger . . . to hell with that do you really know what it feels like? Do we ever just stop and think of how others may feel? Do we realize some of us (ME) are not as strong as others (possibly YOU) to go through all the stress to learn a lesson?

I will continue to fight and be as strong as I can BUT I can NOT guarantee that I will be my best at times. I cry, sulk, be ornery, get mad, cry some more, wish I had someone by my side to give me support, cry again and try to smile to push my pain and stress away to take care of my family like I should be doing. I will wait a week and give more results then. I will continue to pray for the best as I hope you will with me also. Until then I will get on the life insurance for my babies.

More Results

I guess I really should blog more often if I have this much to say lol. I couldn't end the day without writing down the new results to date about my head. I visited the neurologist on Friday and did a few new tests and also have quite a few more scheduled. Life is crazy but it will be like that as I go through all my testing to get some relief. So besides the nerve damage within the sides of my head and the Nystagmus within my eyes, I also have Occipital Neuralgia. This is just the beginning of the tests though.

So here is a little in site on what this entails: Occipital Neuralgia is a chronic pain disorder caused by irritation or injury to the occipital nerve located in the back of the scalp. Individuals with the disorder experience pain originating at the nape of the neck.

When she did the tests to find these results it was extremely painful. She does a few exercises testing my bodies reflexes all over and then tests different muscles in my neck and head. I came into the office having a good pain day (if there really is such a thing) and left hurting needing to take drugs again. All day up to the time I came into her office I had the worst anxiety, stressing about all the different things that she could say to me and because I had to go in all by myself. Yes I am a baby and want someones hand to give me support.

She gave me some new meds to try for pain and get me to sleep better, than gave me a prescription that is a cream and works to numb yet help the damaged nerves in the back of my head to not cause the pain to get so bad.

We are next off to a MRA of the head and neck at the end of the month and then also a EEG of the head to see how the neurons are all transmitting in there. Kinda complicated but as I get all the information/results from my tests back I will then do my best to update them on my site. So if there is anyone out there ready to stay up all night with me in order for me to take this test correctly with no sleep let me know, lol. By the way I was told an MRA is different from a MRI as it reads what the brain is doing and how it is reacting and working, as a MRI only shows the masses within the brain. Kinda scary, but I am ready to find some relief.

Crazy Hair Day

Our kids had spirit week at their school a few weeks ago. One of the days was to have crazy hair. I got up to help them try to be the craziest, here are some of their pictures.
Khristapher had a separated ponytail Mohawk and Hope had fuzzy little ponytails everywhere.

They really had a lot of fun being CRAZY!!

Yes, Khristapher had enough little hairs to put in a few ponytails. lol

Just A Thought

Each life is so precious and so fragile.

Each life, each breath, each moment is a gift.

At any given moment our lives can change.

We simply must make the most of this moment now

And fill it with all the love we can.

Today I have only today. Tomorrow is only a hope.

Yesterday is but a dream.

I must live today to realize the hope that tomorrow's

Yesterday will be a pleasant dream.