New glasses

I just got new glasses. Aren't they pretty? Maybe you can't tell from
the picture that they are a beautiful irridescent tortoise shell. They
are also Kate Spade frames, and I paid a pretty penny for them. But
they make me happy. And they make me want to actually wear glasses
instead of contacts.

See last two posts

More firefightes and more fire. It may be a little sick, but I love
the smell of buildings burning down on a cold night. It brings back
good memories. It reminds me a little about bonfire build. Sitting
around the perimiter fires trying to stay warm and waiting for stupid
redpots and brownpots to hurt themselves. Also reminds me of my days
with the fire department in Cy-Fair. Hanging out with engineer at a
house fire, waiting to see if anyone got hurt and waiting for the
firefighters to finish up their job. Can you be too warm and freezing
at the same time? Only at a house fire on a cold night.

Fire

This is the building next to mine. See previous post.

Apartment fire

This is a building in my apartment complex burning down. I was lying
in bed wondering why I kept hearing sirens. I looked out my bedroom
window and saw fire engines, ladder trucks, police cars, and flames
coming from the other side of the building next to mine. I didn't
think to take a picture until most of the fire had been put out. It
was somethig aweful when the flames were shooting 30 ft out of the
roof. The building to the right of the burning one is the building
next to mine.

Scary stuff. This makes me want to be in a house. I don't like the
security of myself, my kitties, and my stuff compromised by the
responsibility (or lack thereof) of my neighbors.

I don't know what started the fire, or if anyone was hurt. I will look
for it on the news tomorow.

hospitals

We are back in the hospital with Rachel. She was admitted last night by her new Internist in order to find out why she is having such severe chronic pain. She has also been getting recurring UTI's despite being on continuous antibiotics and having the deflux procedure last week. I skipped the first part of my shift today in order to play fetch and keep her entertained.

Jerry is not handling this very well. He's not sleeping, and he is very worried. I guess I would be too if I weren't around this all the time and if she were my daugter instead of my sister.

Ok, gotta go. Stuff going on, will finish later.

Nice view of the midway. Why is it called a midway? I don't get it.

Rae doesn't like ferris wheel.

State fair

Getting on the ferris wheel at the state fair of Texas.

More Elvis

Elvis is apparently live an well. This guy sounds just like him, even
when he just talks in his Elvis voice. The rest of the time he has a
Mexican accent. The food is so-so, but the salsa is delish.

That's what I call ambiance

Right now I am eating Mexican food with friends and watching a
performance by Mexican Elvis. I guess I like impersonators, because I
have never LOVED Elvis, but I am totally digging this. More to come.

expanding the family

So this has been a very exciting week for my family. Last Saturday, at the Discovery party, in front of about 300 people, Jerry, my stepdad, proposed to his girlfriend Stacy.


Of course, we think she is great. I think she is perfect for Jerry. Her only flaw is that she is so easy to get along with.

She has two daughters, Samantha, 16, and Stephanie, 12. Rachel and Samantha were friends at school before Jerry and Stacy started dating, and Samantha and I went through Discovery together, she is like my little sister. Stephanie is a good kid, but she is shy about interacting with us all as a group, but even she was crying Saturday night when Jerry proposed. Everyone is really happy.


This is Jerry and Stacy one night when we went to play Putt-Putt.










And these are Samantha and Stephanie, respectively. Can you believe that Samantha's hair is that curly naturally!

Sammie and Stephie's dad is just like my mom. So we all kinda understand each other. And they all lived about two blocks away from our old house for about 15 years, and we never knew it. It's craziness. I'm excited about getting two more sisters. They haven't set a date for the wedding, but I don't think they are going to wait for all the kids to graduate first, so I don't think it will be too long.


And yes, I got a new kitten.

Isn't she the cutest thing?!

My new kitten climbed into my makeup bag and fell asleep.

Isn't she adorable?

Meet Rini. It means "little bunny" in Japanese.

Proof that I am a Sucker:

THE DIET

Ok, due to popular demand, I am updating.

I started this diet on August 2, 2008. Today is August 27, 2008. 25 days have past. 30 pounds have been lost. Please do not return if found.

Ok, so I miss flavor. And I miss being able to eat whenever I want. I miss cheese. And I miss pasta. And I miss ethnic foods. But damn I don't miss those two pant sizes I have lost. I am wearing clothes that I haven't been able to wear since before I broke up with what's-his-name. That's two years, people. All gone in 3.5 weeks; and I have 2.5 weeks to go before I am done with this round. I am going to have to find an occasion to take some pictures, and as soon as I do, I will post a couple. I will have 6 weeks off this diet, then I am going for another round. I have no idea what my ideal weight is, because I have never been there, but I will be there within the next 6-8 months. Yay!

No, I am not hungry; and no, I am not going crazy; and no, my body is not falling apart from lack of nutrition. I am fine. The worst part is the habits that are being broken, having to take my food with me everywhere, and eating the same few things over and over again. I crave variety. But when I am all done with this, my weight will never be the first thing people notice about me. It will never be a topic again.

On to other things:
Rachael is having surgery soon. I don't know how soon; it was supposed to be in the middle of October, but it might be moved up to the end of September. She has a reflux problem with her kidneys, so she has to have surgery on her bladder and kidney to keep urine from going the wrong way. She has some crazy kidney damage, and she has apparently been having kidney infections since she was 9 or 10, and we nevery knew. But her hopes are high, and all the antibiotics have been keeping the infections at bay for the last few months. I am worried, but I guess that's my role: I am her mommy surrogate. So everyone, pray for my baby sister. I am sure things will be fine, but then... Or rather, pray for me. I may need it more than her...

Ok, if you haven't read the Twilight series, READ IT! Stephenie Meyers is the best author I have read in a long time. And these are supposed to be teen books! I just downloaded the fourth and final book in the series to my kindle, but I figured I would update my blog before I disappeared from the face of the earth for the next three days. Only 4 months and 9 days until the movie comes out!

So now I am working a shift that makes me work every Wednesday and Sunday. All in all, it's not a bad shift, but I have to miss Wednesday night dinner with the girls every week, so I rarely see that crowd now. And working on Sundays makes it nearly impossible to be as involved with Discovery as I would like. I finished the program in July. It was awesome. I have all of these new goals, and I have a mission. But now I am sponsoring Joey for the program. He starts on August 15, and I don't have enough PTO to take off the whole shift, so I have to find someone who might be willing to cover me for a few hours or more so that I can be there on Sunday for him when he finishes the first session. We will see how that goes. I think I am going to have to make some phone calls and beg some people.

I am so excited to see what he gets out of the program. Rachel went through the first two sessions over a year ago, but she agreed to go through the third session with my class. It was great. She opened up her heart again, learned how to trust strangers, and has allowed some of her barriers to come down. This is good, considering she has had some issues come up. She has been able to reach out and ask for support from people, which she has never been able to do before. We recently found out that she has a congential defect in her ureter from her right kidney that causes her to have almost perpetual kidney infections on that side. She has only had symptoms that were recognized as UTI's for the last several months, but apparently has been having UTI's for many years, resulting in some damage to her R kidney. We are looking for a doctor that can perform the correction procedure within a timely manner. She seems to be managing fine right now, but she was not coping well with idea that her R kidney might be severly damaged.

I started the hCG diet that I wrote about earlier. My doctor basically gave me a good bill of health. My hormones are at a good level without causing me any more PVCs, and all of my infections are under control. My lab values that were too low or too high, have all come to either normal or close to.

I didn't realize that for the first two days of this diet, you have to force yourself to eat high-fat foods to capacity while taking the hCG, in order to fill the "normal" fat reserves that get depleted during normal dieting. That way the 500 calorie diet is "more comfortable" because your body isn't trying to fill those reserves with restricted calories. Well, I gotta tell ya, I can't wait to start not eating. the hCG makes me not hungry, and then to eat heavy, fatty foods is just disgusting. I start the "normal" low cal diet tomorrow. I will be on this diet for a total of 6 weeks. Everything I have read about it gives me hope. I am sure I will be writing to tell everyone how it goes.

Don't forget to read Twilight!

So early in the morning, and yet still so late at night.

I finally get to go to the station. Two hours left of my shift. And 0
hrs of sleep so far.

I guess this one never got sent

The kids are feeling photogenic tonight.

My other kitty

I am in Heaven!

I don't even remember how I came across this. I rarely ever get on the Amazon website anymore. It has proven too dangerous for my checking account. Hello, my name is Liz, and I am a bookaholic. But somehow, providence guided my mouse clicks to exactly where they needed to go, and I stumbled across the Kindle. As a child, when I was first learning about computers, I wished they had one that had all of the books in the world on it, that I could read whenever I wished. Then, in college when I got my first PDA, I wished I could put a book on it and take it with me. But then it was impractical. Now it is reality. I will have one. As soon as I have a spare $400. But hey, I don't have a car payment anymore, and my credit card is paid off. So feel free to buy me Amazon gift cards for birthdays (anyone's), graduations, christmas, hanukkah, and kwanza. And I will fill my soon-to-be-my-very-own Kindle with books galore. This is yet again proof that God really does love me. And I never have to worry about whether so-and-so particular book will fit into my purse. They all will. All of them at once.

Oh, and my job interview at BUMC went well, and I got a call today for a second interview with the HR department for next Thursday. Hey, if I can charm my initial interviewers, then I can charm the HR guy or lady into a good pay rate. ;) So my birthday party will also be a Yay I Got A New Job party.

I have managed to keep up with my email lately. I bought an iPhone. It's the best phone ever. It does everything I need except acting as a portable modem, but I can live without that because my iPhone does everything that I would want to do on my computer. Yay. And I finally have my desktop set up with wireless internet access. I no longer have any excuses to not update my blog. There you go. Lets see if I can do it.

A position finally came open at Baylor Dallas, and I interviewed yesterday evening for that ER tech position. They said that the HR lady that I have been conversing with a lot lately, Lisa, will be getting in touch with my by the end of the week. Hopefully it will be a good offer. No one at Careflite, except Marty and Molly, know that I interviewed yesterday, so as not to jinx myself. I might be working nights, and I think that would be cool. I have a blackout shade for my bedroom window that I bought from IKEA, so I can sleep during the day. And I would go to the gym in the morning after getting off work. Of course, it would mess up my ability to hang out with Rachael and Joey, especially now that summer is coming up. Well, I think either way I will be happy. I liked working nights before when I was at Medstar. It had it's advantages.

I had a doctors appointment yesterday. I have been seeing Dr Stevens' nurse practitioner, Mindy for the last couple of appointments. I like her a lot. She explains things better and discusses things more with me. We decided to check all of my labs that have been abnormal in the past, to see if any of them have corrected. We discussed what meds I might have to stop or start again, depending on the test results. Then I mentioned that mostly I was concerned with my potential for weight loss. Dr Stevens had told me that once my thyroid hormone was corrected, I would just start losing weight, but all that has happened is a weight gain of 20 lbs since they started treating me. Mindy told me about this diet that has been studied and evaluated by multiple doctors, that they (Fibro and Fatigue of Dallas) have been not only placing patients on but have been using amongst themselves. It is called the hCG diet. HCG is the hormone that women's uteruses release during pregnancy; the hormone that pregnancy tests detect. She told me to go home and research it, and I talked to one of their nurses who used the diet. In this diet, you take hCG either orally, or through a cream that you rub on your wrists, and you follow an ultra low calorie diet (ULCD), approximately 500 calories/day. The hCG activates your body to use fat stores for energy, and the ULCD prevents the fat cells from immediately filling back up. But the hCG also prevents hunger and cravings, and improves mood and stress from not eating anything. You can only be on the diet for 45 days at a time, then must be off of it for at least 45 days. The nurse I talked to said that she lost 34 lbs in 45 days. The average weight loss is 1-2 lbs per day. From what I have read about the diet, no side effects have been found. They want to put me on this diet as soon as my thyroid hormone is at the level it needs to be. How about them cookies?

I know why I can't stand Hillary

Hillary reminds me of my mom. The way she looks; they way her cheeks are too big and end unnatually too far down her face; the way she talks; the way you can't trust anything she says. It all reeks of my mom. I realized that today when I was watching all of my Tivoed programs about the primary election from last night. I am glad Hillary won Texas and Ohio, because that means that we are in for some Democrat priamary fun. I would have gone and voted for her too just to make it harder for Obama to win if I hadn't been working yesterday and sick with the flu all through early voting.

I have a new partner at work. His name is Marty. He's a county boy, a firefighter-EMT, very confident, always smiling, usually very pleasant, easy to talk to. No one else at work likes working with him, and I can't imagine why. I think they think he's cocky. But transfer EMTs are a different breed from 911 EMTs, and he and I are the latter kind. We had our third shift yesterday. We got a few hours of sleep, then we got a call around 4am that we finished around 5:30. Since we were going home a little while after that, we decided to just go get breakfast at IHOP. We had a great conversation about religion and salvation and the afterlife, just sharing our differing religious views with interest. It was a great conversation. I was kinda sad it had to end. And the other sad thing is that he is expecting to be offered a job at a fire department soon, so he will be leaving me soon anyways. I just finished my application to be an ER tech in the Baylor system, so hopefully I will be leaving soon too.

Well, I said I would start blogging again. There you go.