One of our very close family friends, Bob, who is like a second dad to me had surgery yesterday for a tumor they found near his pancreas. He had what is called a whipple procedure and it lasted about 7 or 8 hours. He did great and everything went well except they ended up taking more of the pancreas out than they had thought. We got to see him and talk with him a little bit after the surgery and he was in good spirits….although he probably will not remember seeing or talking to any of us, he was still doped up on pain meds and anesthesia. He stayed in ICU last night and will hopefully go to a regular room on the floor sometime today. With this type of tumor the doctors say there is usually only about 2% of cases thatit is NOT cancer but they also said they think there is a possibility he is in that 2%. They will not know anything definite until the end of the week so keep praying he is in the 2%. He will stay in the hopsital for about 15 days and we will just have to wait and see what the doctors say about where to go from here. I just want to thank everyone who has prayed for Bob and the rest of the family and keep them in your prayers as he starts the healing process.

I’ve been known to drop things quite often–mainly cell phones. I’ve been through numerous cell phones in the last year! I had a beloved Palm Treo that I was kind of rough on and eventually the keypad just stopped working. It’s been out of service for a while now and about a month ago I got a motorola Razr. Don’t EVER get a motorola Razr–this phone has been nothing but trouble since I got it. It locks up, turns off and won’t receive or send text messages half of the time. So I call Motorola and tell them about it so they said that my phone was shipped from over seas in Singapore, as are most other cell phones. This is the best part, the lady told me “Well since it was shipped overseas, you’re going to HAVE TO GO TO THE COUNTRY IT WAS SHIPPED FROM”. I just laughed and said “just to make sure I heard you right, you said I have to get on a plane and fly to Singapore to get a new $140 phone?” Motorola obviously doesn’t stand behind their products. So I have a nice new Razr that is broken and kind of useless…oh ya, it always has static when I’m on the phone too. Well, I was thinking last night and instead of getting yet another phone, why dont’ I just see how much it would be to fix my treo. So this morning I called Cingular–AT&T now–and asked them if they could fix it. They walked me through steps to reboot it and see if they could fix it over the phone and nothing–still broken. So the nice cingular lady said “well since you’ve had this phone a little under a year it’s still covered under warranty and we’ll just send you a new one.” YIPPEE for Cingular–my faith is restored in them.

This semester I am taking a photoshop class at Richland to fulfill my fine arts credit. I decided since I have to take a fine arts class, I might as well take a class I will use and learning how to use photoshop is very useful for me. Each of us in the class have our own web server type thing (I’m not the computer geek in our household) that we upload and post all of our exercises and projects to. So Jonathan and I decided to just link it to our casadeblundell.com. If you would like to check out my progress through the class or see what I’ve done so far you can click on the link below. Oh, and the majority of the pictures I use in the class are taken by either Jonathan or myself. The pig in one of the pictures was cut out of a picture taken at Scarborrough Faire.
Enjoy!

Click here to view projects

So Jonathan and I signed a contract on a house yesterday–more details to come later…I don’t want to jinx myself by telling you everything. We have to wait and see if we are approved for the loan and all that whooplah first. So if everything goes as planned we should be in our new house in Red Oak by September 28–that’s like 13 days!! So pray it all goes through and the stress level isn’t too bad….this afternoon sure has been. We are trying to get all our paper work together for the loan officer so they can get it all put through fast due to the short closing period. I have pictures on my flickr page if you want to take a gander at our possible future home!

Yesterday millions of children started back to school with their new school uniforms, book bags and notebooks. My nephew, Jake, is one of the few that don’t start until Wednesday I believe…so he’d better enjoy his last day of summer. He starts 1st grade this year, I can’t believe how fast he is growing up, I remember the day he was born! ahhhh the memories. I have to be a proud aunt for a second and show you a picture of him because he’s just SOOO cute–oh wait, I don’t have one here b/c I’m at work–I’ll have to show you another time. Anyway, millions of kids, teens and college students went back to school yesterday, including me. For any of those who don’t know, yes I’m back in school (and no, I’m not crazy)…I’m just getting my degree again! I have an associates degree in Respiratory care and I’m completing my Bachelor’s degree in Respiratory care from Midwestern state university. I am basically repeating my main respiratory classes b/c i have to have residency credit at Midwestern to graduate from there, and then I have to take some of the core classes that I didn’t need for my associates degree like government, history and stupid courses like that. I am supposed to graduate in May (if all goes as planned, which never seems to happen) and then I might get a teaching certificate or go onto a masters degree, who knows. Anyway, I am taking 3 classes this semster, working full time (in Dallas so it turns into a 10 hour day) and then fitting life in there. It’s going to be a busy semester….I have 2 classes that are going to be very very time consuming and I have to study because I’m trying to make an A in all my classes so I can graduate Summa Cum laude, if I make an A from here on out, I should be able to do it. I am taking Microbiology this semster and it is a very hard course, but I like science so if I spend time studying, I will hopefully do okay. But that takes time away from my other 2 classes so I have to balance my time between those 3 courses and fit time in to actually have a life with my husband and not totally neglect my dog. Let’s just say little things I do will be cut from life right now…I know I’ll have to miss some small group nights to study and maybe other things but in my opinion, it’s worth it because after may it’s all over with and then I can relax. It might be crazy around casa de blundell for a while!