A Smashing Good Morning!

What a way to start the day! Nothing like a Mammogram to get the blood pumping! It was that time of year for me - time to get the "Girls" checked out. If you've never had one of these tests done, let me enlighten you...

First off most clinics are SUPER DUPER nice and respectful. Mine is no exception! The women who work there do there absolute best at trying to make the whole experience as pleasant as possible given the circumstances and the pain involved.

Into a dressing room I went to change into a drape (waist up). The machine has two plexiglass panels that you put your boob on - one at a time - the tech pushes and pulls to try and get, not only the boob in position, but as much as the chest wall tissue also. The whole time she is doing that she is lowering one panel down to completely smash all the tissue. After a few turns of the shoulder here and there and 'please hold your breath'...one picture is done. There are 2 to each breast, each with its own level of discomfort. By the time she says "hold your breath" I couldn't even take a breath at all because I was so constricted.

                                                (This is not me and this is not my boob)

Almost immediately the Technician pulls up the images and we scan them together. She explains what we are looking at and what she would see if there was some issue to see at all. I was all clear and out the door. The whole process from check-in to walk out took 20 minutes.

My chest wall muscles are a bit sore right now but it's a small price to pay for prevention!

Boobs up ladies...save them at all cost!!

And The Lights Came On...

Thursday morning I went back to work following the tornadoes that ravaged so much of the South. I arrived early to the company gym for a HOT shower...it was WONDERFUL despite forgetting to pack a razor to shave my legs! By the time I arrived home that afternoon our electricity was on (cable/Internet came back Sat.).

I have to admit that I CAN live without electricity (with a generator, of course)...my family and I spent time huddled around the kitchen table talking, laughing, sharing by oil lamp and candles. Dinners were more intimate with friends and it was actually...Fun! The ONE thing that almost sent me over the edge was not having hot water! Lukewarm bird baths and lukewarm leg shaving (shiver) was not my kind of roughing it and I hated those moments of  "damn, I need to warm up some water on the cook stove so I can take a bath"...trust me when I say that it was not the least bit warm!

Saturday Rich & I worked in the yard getting it all 'back to normal'. There's almost a guilt there that we are able to do that when there is not a normal anymore for 70 families in our neighborhood.  I feel guilty every day when I drive in/out of the neighborhood, past house after house that has been utterly destroyed...I drive on up the hill to my street and the only reminder of the tornado is downed trees that have been cut up. There is nothing more to do for the neighborhood; all that's left is to bulldoze the debris and repair house that are salvageable. It's eerily quiet down there when I drive through..ghost-town'ish.

Yesterday Rich & I took a long bike ride across Alabama and up to Tennessee. Along the way we passed so many neighborhoods that look just like ours. It's easy to sit back (because I've done it) and thought...what about our neighborhood?? Where are the resources? It took 5 days for the Red Cross to start showing up...and EMS? Well, we think about the same time, but we can't be for sure. Then I see that there aren't just  MANY places just like our neighborhood....there are actually TOWNS. We are not the only ones! It's heart-breaking.

These were totally just random words...

15 Seconds ..

That's all it took for this

(taken a few miles from my home)

to go through my neighborhood and leave this...

So...Rich & I (and my brother and his wife) left Tuesday afternoon for Bike Week, a day early to beat the rain and storms that were predicted for North and Central Alabama. We rode late into the night before stopping South of Montgomery to sleep; then on to PCB on Wed. around noonish.

While high-fiving ourselves that we skirted the storms and arrived safely, Alabama was being hit my multiple tornadoes (EF4 and EF5). Around 4pm Wednesday our daughter calls from underneath our basement stairs, frightened, as she listens to the tornado raging outside our home in the neighborhood below (our house sits on the side of a hill). It was over in 15 seconds - taking one life and totally destroying approx. 50 homes and severly damaging at least that many.

We started receiving texts and pictures the next day (Thurs) - the pictures just didn't do the actual any justice at all. Our home sustained minor damage (some roof damage, downed pine trees, shutters and window screens blown off, debris from other areas..) and electricity for most all of North Alabama was out. Knowing our home was safe in the hands of our neighbors, we made the decision to stay where we were until Sunday (the kids and their spouses drove down on Friday to join us).

The ride home was....almost sickening. There was complete dread of seeing what we knew to be true. Once we got to our little community and began to see a fraction of the damage done our hearts just sank. We rode in to our neighborhood and were met by a police officer from Mobile, AL..we had to tell him that we lived in the neighborhood before we could go in. Once we got into the streets all we could do was stop and cry. It was so surreal...still is.

We jumped in to help with our little neighborhood food/water/ice station - cooking meals and delivering them to the masses that were glass-eyed, picking through the rubble that used to be their homes trying to find anything that they could salvage. We listened to stories, we shared and we cared for our own.

Without electricity (still without - the utility company hasn't been able to get into the neighborhood to replace the broken and lost poles/lines) we haven't been able to follow news and email (much less blog) but we know there are so many towns and communities completely obliterated and there was much loss of life. When I've grown tired of heating water on a cook stove just to take a lukewarm bath, or having to grab a flashlight or oil lamp to get dressed, or start to whine about not having internet or tv, I look out my back window to the streets below.

We are blessed and grateful!

Born to Be Wild...

"Get your motor running
Head out on the highway
Looking for adventure
In whatever comes our way"......................

In one hour I will blow this popstand (work), go home and kick off my heels and professional clothes. I will emerge from my garage in boots, jeans, chaps, leather jacket and  my motorcycle helmet with flames on the sides!! My handsome husband will be ready and waiting - looking all bad-ass and hot - in his leathers and shades (okay...maybe not shades..it's a bit overcast outside). From there we will head South to Panama City Beach for Thunder Beach Motorcycle "Bike Week"!

We KNOW we will hit some rain between this afternoon and tomorrow (we are leaving this afternoon to try and get in front of most of the storms) and will try to make it half way so we won't have to ride throught the worst of the storms that will hit tomorrow morning.........but the rest of the week will be GORGEOUS!!

Eeeekkkk.... I am so excited that we are going!

I will not have any access to blogging until Monday..so if you want to follow the adventure...hunt me on Facebook!!!

VROOOOOMMMM!!! VROOOOOOMMMMM!!!!

"It's Gettin' Hot in Here...."

EVERY night after my Honey and I got to bed and I turn into one HOT woman. I know what you're thinking.....'That Rich is ONE lucky SOB'. However, I'm HOT but NOT in the "Oh, Baby you are Smokin' HOT" way but more in the "Damn Honey, you've got to get the hell away from me. You are melting my fillings" kind of HOT!

We start out with good intentions. One of us spoons the other for...oh....about 5 minutes. Then we have to peel apart and go to our separate corners. We try to touch arms or a leg before we finally give up and settle for just a foot for a little bit. It never fails - we wake up in the night having to start stripping clothes and drying off from sweating so much. The other night the mattress got so wet that I thought someone had peed the bed!
Now, I will admit that our bedspread may be contributing to some of the heat problems (its cotton underneath a nylon-y material ...we will be getting a thin cotton bedspread very soon) and may be holding is the body heat; but the overruling factor is just my internal body heat issue! And it's not a hormonal menopausal hot flash thing, either (I've been there and been doing that for 20 years now - it's under control at this point).

Rich says I am like a furnace - which is good when we go to bed when it's freezing cold (instant warm up), but then I radiate this inferno of heat that just about makes it impossible to get a good night sleep. I actually had to get out of bed about 2am this morning to guzzle a bottle of water, dry off my arms and wipe the sweat between my boobs! Needless to say I slept restlessly after that for the rest of the morning.

Its the craziest thing! You'd think after 14 years we would be used to the nightly inferno...but we wake up each morning saying, "Oh. My. Gosh...it was so HOT last night".

You can imagine the money we save on heating cost!

Brought to You by the Letter....

As in PEE!

Yep, I think I have pee'd 8 times since 4:30am! Could be more but I think I've lost track! Woops...BRB...gotta go "P" now.....

Make that 9 times! I'm getting a hell of a cardio workout just running - or gently walking fast so not to pee on myself before I get there - in heels ('cause I'm at work) to the restroom!

Rich and I hit the gym this morning bright and early in our 10 day fit challenge - it's 10 days before we hit the beach!!!! - kind of like the 'last chance workout' on the Biggest Loser. Not only will serious gym time and sweat be the keys but hydration is too. Hydration means go 'ol H2O...hence the need to run (gently walk fast) to Pee EVERY 10'ish minutes!!

I had my Camelback Water Bottle (LOVE IT) filled and emptied twice at the gym..then another 16 ounces at home before going to work. That set-off my marathon pee-fest!

I feel like I've just prepared for an old school baby ultrasound - which, if you not had one of those, is when you have to drink a gallon of water then go lay on a table with the ultrasound tech does the ultrasound while you try desperately not to start peeing! The whole time your bladder is screaming and busting at the seams! Yea, good times!

Damn....gotta go!

Excited!!

This HOT couple

Is also known as 

Grandmama & Papa. 

We are excited 

to have this little bundle

of sweetness

coming Sept. 1st.

Today we found out 

this sweetness 

is

 A  

GIRL!!