NYC.

Today I am grateful for another safe flight.

My best friend, Kristy, who I have written about before, has FINALLY made her way back to the states.

She was in London for five weeks, and then spent the last 10 days in Spain. She is finishing up the last leg of her trip in New York City before coming up here to spent a couple weeks at her parent's camp before heading home to start grad school.

As of a couple hours ago, her flight successfully landed in NYC.

I will always be grateful for any flight that lands in one piece.

It's a crazy irrational fear. and I cannot help it. but i just go crazy with worry when friend's and family fly.

and Kristy flying across the FREAKING ATLANTIC OCEAN makes me crazy nervous.

So tonight I am extremely grateful that she made her way back states side without any hiccups. and she doesn't have any immediate plans to be flying any crazy long distances anytime soon. I'm grateful for this too. a girl's heart can only take so much stress.

Thanks for reading!
Lana

The Anti-Pool Party.

I hate water.

It's really not much of a secret that I hate water.

It gives me the heebie jeebies.

and you know, sharks live in it.

or Norman Bates stands outside of your shower while you're in it.

It's just pretty freaking horrible all around.

I think the funniest thing about my hatred of water, is that once upon a time, i almost drowned. How is that funny? because I never blame the fact that I hate water on my near death (can you feel the drama?) experience. people assume all the time that it's the reason i hate water. but seriously it's not. it's the sharks, i'm telling ya. and norman bates. and just the feeling of being wet. i hate it.

why the running hate commentary on water?

well tonight i am grateful that someone else this time didn't drown.

This little guy.

heart attack anyone?

My kids are super rambunctious. in all aspects of their life. swimming in their little swimming pool at my in-laws house isn't any different. tonight while they were playing, my daughter thought it might be a super great idea to jump on Brey, and the didn't realize that she was holding his head under the water.

The Marsh was on top of things and managed to get Brey up before things got too scary, and he was a little shaken up, coughed a bit, but not bothered enough to get out of the pool. and while this whole incident could definately have been scarier, i'm not going to temp fate or karma or whatever by NOT being grateful that he was okay tonight. I'm absolutely grateful with my whole being that he is okay. that this wasn't serious. and he just continued on playing like nothing happened.

I'm perfectly okay with him not realizing shit could have just gone seriously wrong.  but I obviously am aware....and cannot even begin to talk about what could have happened.

so please just know how grateful i am that this little dude is perfectly safe and healthy. I would say that he is also all tucked into bed safely and sleeping, but he's spending the night at my mother in law's, so he is probably still awake and eating junk food.

and tonight i don't even care.

Thank for reading!
Lana

Gazuntite.

Today I am grateful for a sneeze.

yup.

Thank goodness for one's ability to project snot and other such things out of one's nose with just one single bodily function.

Let me explain.

Having a three year old is challenging. everything in life is a game to them. they want to explore it. and own it. and see what everyone's reaction to it is. they are also just beginning to grasp the concept of one's self. and one's body. this is not the fun part of being a parent.

today in the midst of such exploration, my daughter decided she would like to see what happens when you shove something up your nose. by the intense horrible screaming and crying that followed, i hope that she has decided that it wasn't the brightest of ideas.

after hearing said screaming and crying I ran into the bathroom not knowing what in the heck i was going to discover. it sounded remarkably like "a bee got on my nose!" and i kept looking around asking her where the bee was thinking she has been stung. and then finally i worked out "a peanut got in my nose!"

also a fun fact about three year olds? they are still capable of thinking about their own welling being while in intense pain because when i asked her if she stuck a peanut in her nose, her response was "no, it just got there by itself!"

Lovely.

when I tilted her head back to examine inside her nose I almost had a heat attack. or threw up. pick one. The peanut was wedged up so far that i could just barely see it. I started to panic thinking i might end up having to take her to the emergency room. i grabbed the tweezers and tried to hold her as still as possible while trying to grab the peanut. the whole time i was completely terrified that i was going to end up shoving the thing even further into her nose. i'm telling you, parenting really needs a better manual. What to expect: The Toddler Years doesn't really seem to be working for me. Jesus.

anyway, after poking around inside of her nose for a few minutes, i did manage to do some good. no, i didn't ever get ahold of the peanut. but i did manage to tickle the inside of her nose. and then she got that screwed up look on her face. and then she proceeded to sneeze right in mine. I've never been so happy to be covered in baby snot in my life. along with the snot, came the peanut flying out at my face. I was so relieved.

afterward we had this big conversation about how it's not okay to stick things in her nose. and she was feeling decidely better, so she indulged me for about a half a second before running off and ignoring everything i was saying.

but man. i have never been so grateful for a sneeze in my life. now, after thinking about it all day, i realize now that the thing probably would have just gone down into her throat and she would have choked for like a half a second, either spitting it back up or swallowing it. and it would have been fine because it was just one little half of a peanut. but at the time the whole thing was happening, my brain just could not process that kind of information. i kept thinking the peanut was just going to end up inside her fucking head. and how i was the worst mom ever for letting it happen. and why does this always happen when The Marsh is working a double shift?

anyway. I'm glad the whole ordeal is just over. I'm glad the peanut came out. and i'm so glad that she sneezed and I didn't have to traumatize her by pulling  the peanut out with the tweezers.

so Bless You. or Gazuntite. whatever you want to say. just know I'm grateful.

Thanks for reading!
Lana

Hernia.

Today I am choosing to be grateful in advance.

please body. do not protest the god awful strain i put on you today by helping my brother move THE HEAVIEST COUCH IN THE UNIVERSE up the steepest stairs EVER.

I have no particular need to find out what a hernia feels like. So i would be extremely grateful if you just let this one slide, okay?

seriously people.

This morning when I started talking to my brother about what he had left to move into his apartment, i had no idea what i was getting myself into. Note to self: when brother says he is going to be moving a couch into his second story apartment, DO NOT VOLUNTEER TO HELP.

man. I should be grateful that I am still alive.

and that my brother is too. that couch was seriously heavy. I mean, i'm not exactly She-Ra or anything, but I can lift some heavy stuff when I want to. I thought helping him out might suck a little bit, but man I seriously over estimated myself. I was physically incapable of taking a step up the stairs backwards while holding this couch, it was so heavy. My sister decided to help out too, her and i on one side, my brother on the other. I don't know how he didn't drop dead of a freaking heart attack. between the heat and the heavy lifting the three of us literally had sweat dripping off of us. and it wasn't as easy as just hauling it up in one go, it didn't fit exactly right so we had to try and angle it. and everytime it got stuck, sometimes we would have to switch sides so that my brother could fix it mid way up the stairs. which meant there were moments when either he was holding the couch alone while my sister and i had to run out the back door and all away around the house to get to the bottom of the stairs to help him...or he had to make the trip, leaving my sister and I to hold the couch while he was gone.

my back and arms are screaming as we speak. but hey, he's got a couch now right?

My best option is to hope at this point that my body loves me enough not to give me a hernia. i'm sure the pain tomorrow shall be torment enough. and hey if anyone else is out there listening please make sure my brother doesn't end up with one to, okay? I'd be grateful for that.

or at least wait until he's finished moving all his stuff in.

you know, so I don't have to help again.

:0)

Thanks for reading!
Lana

Pete and Repeat.

Today I am grateful for The Marsh.

and for my bedroom ceiling fan.

both of which i have been grateful for before. actually they are both things that i am grateful for everyday, but i've been grateful for both here on this blog before.

So why then am I posting about them again?

because last night when I crawled into bed at whatever time it was...11:30 or so, I had been laying there for about two minutes when I realized my fan wasn't spinning. even though I knew I turned it on.

So i calmly got out of bed and walked over to the switch and proceeded to turn it off and turn it back on again.

nothing happened.

now, I wouldn't exactly describe my reaction as "blind" rage because i could clearly fucking see the fan wasn't working. I was not impressed. So then i whined loud enough that The Marsh half woke up, pulled on the pulley string things a couple times and VOILA! the thing starts spinning.

So me being the awesome wife that i am, I told my husband thank you and let him know i was grateful for him and his ability to fix things for me. his response? "oh yea. i bet if i go read your blog right now it won't say how grateful you are that i fixed your fan or got the dishwasher to drain (long story)! and I was like "uhh no it won't, because i already wrote tonight's blog." and then he got all fake huffy and went to sleep.

SO TONIGHT! here i am being grateful for my husband who fixes things like my ceiling fan so that i am able to get some sleep at night. he's a rockstar. and i couldn't' imagine my life without him.

I'm also extremely grateful that my fan started again. because I really couldn't imagine my life without that either.

Thanks for reading!
Lana

Early.

Today I am grateful for my Grandmama and how crazy she is about her health.

She is one of the most "aware" of herself people I have ever known and she certainly isn't shy about letting her doctors know whats up with her. She's kind of a "my way or the highway" type person. (You wonder where the rest of us get it from?) and she is absolutely take charge when she thinks there is a problem.

This came in handy a few weeks ago when she noticed something wasn't quite right. and instead of ignoring it like something people may be inclined to do (MOM) she immediately called her doctor and explained her situation.

An ultrasound and a biopsy later, I'm so grateful that she called them right away.

We got the news yesterday that she has endometrial cancer.

Maybe it was just the shock of finding out the test was positive or maybe it was hearing that my grandmother has cancer on top of handling my father-in-law's situation right now, but i didn't handle the news super great. lots of tears shed. BUT The Marsh has been dealing with everything with his dad for months now and it was my anniversary, so i attempted to pull myself together and get a grip. plus, my mom said that its seemed very likely that it was in the early stages.

I went out to visit her today, even though she didn't seem all that excited about company. i can understand, talking about it is thinking about it and I'm sure she's already driving herself crazy thinking about it. but i feel better after seeing her today and talking to her more. The doctor that she was seeing has referred her to a specialist and it may be a couple weeks before she can get in there, but he told her that the pathology lab the diagnosed that cancer believes that she only has Stage 1. They can't officially stage her, but still, it makes me feel better knowing that they believe her to be so early in the staging process. The cancer can basically be "cured" or removed completely rather by a radical hysterectomy if she is only in Stage 1. so mostly she just has to worry about recovery time. She's already post menopausal so it's not like she has to worry about the hysterectomy screwing with her hormones too much.

If it's progressed further than Stage 1...well, we're not really thinking about that. or I guess I'm going to say i'm not really thinking about that. She is pretty dead set right now that she is not having chemo or radiation. and i'm not going to argue with her about it. I prefer to just believe she only has stage 1, she is going to have a hysterectomy and that will be the end of it.

happy thoughts people. happy thoughts.

Anyway, i created this blog because i was trying to find the positive in everyday after my father-in-law was diagnosed with cancer. and having someone else i love diagnosed makes it hard sometimes to find something to be grateful for. something to be angry at, maybe. or to worry about. but it's hard to be thanful. I'm not walking around thanking the universe for bringing this horrible disease into my life yet again. but in the spirit of being positive I will say that I am so grateful they seem to have caught it early. and this whole thing will just seem like some crazy bad dream in a few months time.

and if it all works out exactly like that, I will be even more grateful indeed.

Thanks for reading!
Lana

Five.

Today I am grateful for five years.

because that is the exact length of time today that The Marsh and I have been married.

Happy Anniversary to me.

and my husband splurged and got me pizza. he's a charmer, that one.

But in all seriousness, I am grateful that we've made it five years. I know compared to some people that doesn't seem like a long period of time, but hey, how many marriages do you see even make it past that first year nowadays.

I'm not going to stand here on my soapbox and say it was super easy. but i'm not going to try and tell you it was a struggle either. I would definately say we fall into that easier side of the marriage hardship spectrum.

I guess the best way to describe it is to say that loving The Marsh is easy, it's the rest of life that's hard.

unexpected pregnancies. stressful jobs. parenting in general. crappy apartments. buying a house and then having to deal with what being a home owner in new england actually means. sick family members. it all adds up. it can take a toll. and alot of people let it affect their marriages. or maybe they try really hard not to, but it happens anyway.

I think somewhere along the way The Marsh and I silently agreed to hold our marriage seperate from everything else thats going on in our life. It doesn't matter if we had a fabulous day and everything was peachy or if we had a horrible day and we just couldn't wait for it to be over. we always kiss each other goodnight, say we love each other, and tell each other how grateful we are to have each other. I'm dead serious. We literally say thank you to each other for being there almost everyday. and maybe it's cheesy or corny. but i've never once doubted that my husband loved me. I would rather be tacky romantics than be left in the dark wondering how my husband feels about me any more. Sometimes he initiates it, sometimes I do, but it just happens. I'm grateful for that too.

It seems so amazing to me that it's been five years. sometimes it feels like it went by in a blink of an eye. other times I remember that five years is essentially a fifth of my life and I cannot believe we've been together that long. either way i hope the next five years are just as amazing.

and the five years after that....

and the five years after that...

well, you get the point.

Thanks for reading!
Lana