Happy Birthday to Me :-)

Yep, today there's another candle on my cake! And you shoulda seen the cake we had at my party last night. It was an enormous tower of pure chocolate heaven!!! I'd seen it at Costco the last couple years, but never had a good excuse to buy it. But yesterday was all the justification needed--and the wait was worth it. MMMmmm good. :-)~

Thanks to the family and friends who celebrated with me yesterday, and for the great gifts. And thanks to everyone who couldn't come for the cards, e-cards, and emails. You made me feel special.

My ankle surgery went really well on 5/24. Turns out there were TWO bone fragments floating around in there. The doctor got 'em both out and debrided the scar tissue in the area etc. I was only at the surgery center a few hours; Dave and I were home by 11:30 am. My only problems were a headache and getting sick to my stomach a few times from the anesthesia. But by about 6 pm, most of that had subsided.

My foot was wrapped tightly in bandages, which stayed on for 5 days. The pain wasn't too bad at all; I only took Vicodin for a couple days, and even then only used half a pill at a time. I used crutches to get around the house but mostly tried to stay in bed with my foot up. Dave and Brenden were good nurses when I needed anything.

By the weekend I was only using one crutch to get around, and I could get down the stairs, very slowly. Sunday night I even went out to dinner with my girlfriend, RM. I was getting cabin fever! Tuesday I took the bandages off--what a relief. It was itchy under there. There are two incisions, one on either side of my ankle, and the suture threads are sticking out. They don't seem to be the dissolving type, so I presume they'll be removed at this Wednesday's post-op appointment. Every day my foot feels better. I have good range of motion and I think the remaining pain is the healing type. So, thank you for all of your ankle prayers! They seem to have worked.

Other family news... Today Breanna had a court date and she was told she's been granted all she requested in the divorce--the main thing being full custody of Cassidy. Nick wasn't there, nor was he expected to be. We don't know where he is but assume he's back in Missouri. Hopefully he'll stay there forever. Breanna was very happy. The divorce will be final on July 31.

Cassidy is 12 weeks old today. She's cute, chubby, and happy. She still can't roll over, but gets real close. She might crawl before she rolls. Get her on her tummy and she's determined to scoot. That's when she's most vocal--grunting and squealing as she's trying to move. It wears her out. She takes her best naps after crawling practice.

Brenden graduates high school this week! Hallelujah!!!!!!! Thursday he is done with classwork, and Saturday is graduation. Until today, he was saying he had no desire to walk through graduation. He's only been in this independent study program for about 6 months and isn't attached at all to his "classmates." So a ceremony seemed pretty meaningless. But his teacher called today and she reallllly wants him to participate. I gave Brenden one last appeal, and he conceded. He'll have a cap and gown and everything. Truly this is a miracle, considering Brenden's turbulent and circuitous high school career! But we've reached the finish line, tattered and exhausted, but DONE!! I'm proud of him.

Brenden loves his glass blowing class and has brought home some nice creations. His teacher says he really has potential. The only problem is that both Brenden and I misunderstood the schedule when we signed him up for this class, and it conflicts with his phlebotomy training. He tried to switch to an evening phlebotomy class, but it was full. So he dropped it for the time being. (It would've been harder to drop glass blowing, believe it or not. It was a paid community college class; the other was a free city Adult Ed class.) He says he intends to sign up for the phlebotomy training again when the class restarts in a couple months. We'll see. We are holding him to a September 1 move-out date regardless. If he didn't have this pressure on him, he'd lounge around here all summer without working, trust me. As of this moment he doesn't have a job, but he swears he's been hired as a pizza delivery driver. He just hasn't been put on the schedule yet. Hmmm.

I think that's all the news from here. Drop me a line and let me know what's happening with you, especially if I haven't heard from you in a while. You know who you are!! :-)

God bless....
~Kim