Postpartum Depression

Postpartum Depression can start anytime in the first year after delivery of a baby. In the first 1-2 weeks after birth 80% of women experience some "baby blues" which are wide mood swings brought on by the hormonal changes taking place in a woman's body during those weeks (see about.com:pregnancy and childbirth).

If the feelings of depression continue beyond that, it is then considered Postpartum Depression (PPD). Sometimes the fatigue and depression can be from anemia or low thyroid. It is best to have those things checked out in a blood test by a physician. If those items check out fine, often the depression is linked to continuing hormone imbalances (Dalton, Katharina: Depression after Childbirth. (Oxford University Press, 1985) . Dr. Dalton explains in her book that the pituitary gland doesn't send the message to the endocrine system to produce the necessary hormones, including estrogen, progesterone, and thyroid. According to Dr. Dalton, natural progesterone is safe for use during breast feeding and can help with most symptoms of PPD. With my fifth child, my doctor had me have (I believe the dosage was 100 mg) progesterone shots for 10 days, and then wrote me a prescription for 2 100 mg progesterone suppositories a day, one in the morning and one in the evening.

I felt better than I ever had after any of my other childbirths. I took 50-100 mg. of B6 and a good multi-vitamin, and made sure that I got plenty of rest. (One way to help insure that you get plenty of rest is to read On Becoming Babywise by Robert Bucknam and use his methods. I wish I'd known them with my first four!) At about 4 months postpartum, I walked a minimum of 30 minutes 4-5 days a week. I should have started at six weeks postpartum, but I still felt great even though I wasn't exercising.

I would say that my PPD was moderate with 3 of my first four children and moderate to severe after having Tessa and a traumatic delivery including severely hemorrhaging and being anemic. After having Tessa (who is #3 for me) I was almost completely cured when I started walking 4 days a week on a treadmill when she was 3 months old. I didn't even know what PPD was at the time. I just knew that I felt incredibly better after exercising for only a week.

The link above from About.com is a very helpful website. I have been searching for websites that offer natural remedies for PPD, but haven't seen any that recommend progesterone therapy so far. I know that it made my postpartum experience 95% better than the others had been previously.

If a woman has a history of bipolar disorder or prior depression before childbirth, she is much more likely to have PPD and should talk to her doctor/midwife about prevention of PPD before she delivers her baby.

The nice thing about this treatment for PPD is that it treated the root of my PPD and didn't have the side effects that other treatments can have. The progesterone did increase my appetite, but that is the only side effect that I noticed. (Another reason that I should have started exercising sooner!)

A good book to read about PPD is Behind the Smile: My Journey Out of Postpartum Depression by Marie Osmond. I like it because it has a quiz in the back the take to see if a person is experiencing PPD and helpful natural remedies that Marie used which were given to her by her doctor. I have a signed copy and got to visit with Marie at her book signing in the Phoenix area. I was thrilled that she wrote the book because I'm sure it has been read more because of her celebrity status.

Frustrated Blogger

Today I had such high aspirations of posting on both of my blogs. But my children kept interrupting me when I was trying to write and I just don't multi-task well. Now I'm going to go watch Dan in Real Life again. I love it! So much for blogging tonight! So look forward to a blog post on postpartum depression. Hold me to it. It is important.

I Am an Addict

My name is Terry and I am an addict. My family has known for years that I have many addictive behaviors. I'm not going to list them because most of them are obvious to those around me. But finally recognizing this addition completely took me by surprise.

Brace yourselves.

I am a scale addict. That is right! For years I have been weighing myself almost daily. I did miss a few weeks here and there two years ago when we were moving. I actually lost weight because I was so busy that I forgot to eat(and had some anxiety). But when we got moved and somewhat settled, the weight started creeping back on. I went from being 5-10 lbs "too thin" according to my family to again being 15 lbs over weight in about 5 months. I was only weighing about once a week at first, but as the numbers on the scales climbed (in spite of any exercising or healthy eating on my part), my need to weigh everyday took over.

Only after talking to a couple truly healthy friends of mine, did one of them tell me that I was too focused on what I weighed and not focused enough on my overall health. She told me to not weigh myself for two months and focus on being healthy by good eating and exercising. I reacted to the advice quite strongly. My face told her that I couldn't even fathom it. She then said that I was addicted to weighing myself. She is right.

But I really don't want to go cold turkey because I'm counting calories and exercising everyday to lose 10 pounds by October 1st. So I committed to not weighing for a week. I started today. I didn't weigh. It was hard not too, but I didn't. I can see it getting harder each day. I'm going to have to use some EFT for this one!

So the focus is now on health. Mind, body, and spirit.

A side note, I bought a mountain bike today to save gas and get some exercise. I'm going to work up to riding it up to school. I rode a mile uphill without stopping today and 3 miles down. School is 2 miles uphill. It might kill me, but if it doesn't I'll be stronger!

Julie Allen is giving away an activity book on her blog!

My friend Julie Allen has made very fun activity books for her children and is giving one away on her blog. Go enter her contest. I did!

Renewal!!

I got an email today that said I was approved for academic renewal through Utah State University. For those of you who don't know, I made a mistake when I went to my first quarter of college at USU. I got sick for a couple of weeks right before finals, was totally overwhelmed, and didn't take my finals. That equaled 2 F's and a D on my college transcripts. Five years later, I returned to school, retook the two failed classes and got A's, but have always had that D from Geology on my transcript calculated into my otherwise perfect GPA.
Yesterday, I went and registered and applied for academic renewal. They approved it and award it today! Those bad grades are still on my transcripts, but they don't calculate in my GPA any longer! I have a 4.0 on as my overall GPA! It feels wonderful!!! Now I just have to keep my grades up for the next . . . ummm, 4 years until I graduate with my bachelor's. Piece of cake!

Two More Beautiful Girls

Beautiful Girl

Balance

Striving for balance in life is such a challenge. I have a tendency to get so involved in things that I don't leave room for quiet time or enough sleep. More things than that suffer. I could list them, but it would be a long list.

I'm going back to Utah State this fall and taking 9 credits to finish my associates of science. I haven't taken 9 credits since before Tessa was born. I'm sure I'll be fine, but I want so badly to do it without negatively impacting my family. My children are much older, but their needs are different, too. Maybe we can have family homework time in the evenings.

I want to stay in shape and feed my family healthy meals. I know how important family prayer and scripture time is. But we have done that for years at 6:30 am, so it should still work.

It will be an experimental semester because then I'm thinking about going on to get a bachelor's in health education with at least an LPN in there. Only 4 more years of school full time! I'm not getting any younger!

My motto-enjoy the journey! I'm actually excited about it!

I'm Tagging Myself

3 Joys
My family (that is way more than one and hopefully growing more soon!)
Close Friends
Learning

3 Fears
Going crazy (again)
Never graduating from college
Losing more of my hair

3 goals
Completing college
enjoying the journey
being more self-reliant

3 current obsessions/collections-
school
being healthy
reading


3 surprises about me-
My favorite bumper sticker says, "Question Authority"
I was born at home in England
I was ticketed for riding a mini bike when I was 12 and had to do community service

Summer Vacation

We have had a full house this last week. Mindy and her family are here. Grandma Jo came for the week. We have done some great things. We went to Thanksgiving Point in Lehi, UT and walked the gardens. We went to the play "Chuck Wagon" at Pickleville Playhouse over by Bear Lake. We've gone hiking, fishing, and camping. I think we are going to go to Bear Lake and swim tomorrow. We have barbecued, and eaten well, way too well. Dan actually took the week off from work. It has been so nice. I love building memories with my family.
Tomorrow , April goes to Especially for Youth. This week I should finish up at work for the summer and get registered for college. Then summer will be half over . . .sad! This is my 3rd vacation so far. I'm hoping to still go to Jackson Hole or western Washington before it is all over. We are so blessed to live in such a wonderful, and beautiful country.

Far World Book Contest

FREE ARC of Far World by J. Scott Savage.
All that is required to enter the contest is to:

#1 post a comment here with your blog address included and
#2 create a link from your blog to this post telling others about my contest.

There will be a random drawing of the comments for the book in the first week of August. The publisher will directly send the winner an Advanced Reader's Copy of the book. The winner must supply their regular mailing address to me to receive the book. (Must live in the USA or Canada to win.)

I just finished reading Far World by J. Scott Savage. It pulled me in and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm slated to write a review of it around the end of August.

Earthquake Quiz

Take this earthquake quiz. I saw it on Anne Bradshaw's "What to do in an earthquake" blog post. I got 90% on it, but only because I just attended an earthquake preparedness class put on by our stake. There was so much good information there. I'm still working on getting some of the things that were suggested. There were probably 15 handouts and so much to take in! Good luck, and let me know how you do.

Food Storage, 72 hr kits, and 5 Gallon Porta-pottys.

Today Ryan sent me Glenn Beck's Get Prepared Part 3. It is as follows:

Get Prepared: Food Storage

Family Emergency Survival - Air, Water, and Food
by: Arthur B. Robinson, PhD

During emergencies - natural and man-made - one's family and friends may find themselves without ordinary essentials that make life possible. A human can survive only a few minutes without air, a few days without water, and a few weeks without food. Each of us has a fundamental moral responsibility to make certain that those people for whom we are responsible can get to the other side of an emergency alive, regardless of inconvenience or unhappiness that may occur during the event.

A safe air supply can be lost due to chemical, biological, or nuclear fallout contamination, or, of course, through simpler means such as flood waters over one's head. These threats are best met by public civil defense preparations - preparations that U.S federal and state politicians and bureaucrats have been unwilling to make. So, concerned private citizens must either buy costly air protection systems or arrange to live in locations that are less threatened. These preparations are beyond the scope of this article. Definitive and comprehensive civil defense information is available here.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, performs exactly the function that its name indicates. FEMA "manages" emergencies. It does not prepare for emergencies. The last remaining civil defense functions - physical preparations for emergencies - of FEMA were defunded by the Clinton Administration. People deprived of safe air die within minutes. All that remains to be "managed" is their burial.

A safe supply of emergency water is relatively easy to provide. One method is to simply close the inlet and outlet valves of the home water heater in case of impending emergency. This will preserve many gallons of life-saving drinking water. Storage of additional water is also prudent. This can be done in one gallon milk containers, 50 gallon plastic drums, or most other containers of convenience. It is best to use multiple containers rather one container, the possible loss of which endangers the entire supply. As time passes, regardless of the water treatment method, stored water usually accumulates contaminants that one would ordinarily prefer to avoid, but which are acceptable during an emergency. Excellent purification systems are available from many sources, although emergency preparation funds are probably better spent in other ways.

Stored water must, however, be protected from poisonous biological contamination that can accumulate with time. The simplest way to provide this protection is by addition of chlorine compounds available as ordinary bleach. This must be done safely and correctly. These procedures are given in the book, Nuclear War Survival Skills, available on-line without cost here. This book also provides instructions for expedient water purification procedures.

A safe and sufficient supply of food is also easy to arrange, but provision of emergency food is often misunderstood.

First, most adults and children - with the exception of infants - can survive for several weeks without food. Survival food storage is required primarily for emergencies lasting for weeks, months, or even years.

Second, stored food should provide essential nutrition - not gourmet satisfaction. Storage of freeze-dried ordinary food, for example, caters to the illusion that a food-requiring emergency will be such a benign event that the participants will be very concerned about the tastiness of their food. Nothing could be further from the truth. Emergency food preparedness involves staying alive and in functional good health - not catering to one's pallet. Every food storage dollar should purchase the greatest quantity of nutritious food possible - not unneeded luxuries.

Third, a family food storage program should include as great an amount of nutritious, long-lasting food as the family can afford - not an amount estimated for the family's personal needs. The family friends and neighbors who have not stored food will need to be fed, too. Very, very few Americans would, in an emergency, eat stored food while allowing their neighbors and friends to die from starvation. Consequently, a family must realize that their food will likely last only so long as they can feed themselves and their friends and neighbors.

Fourth, stored food should last for 50 years or more in good condition.

During the 1980s at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, we developed food storage recommendations that consider these requirements. These recommendations were subsequently adopted and publicized by FEMA. Our food storage suggestions are as follows:

1. Store whole grain - not ground or otherwise processed - corn, wheat, and soybeans in a ratio by weight of 2:2:1. In other words, if one is storing 40 pound plastic, nitrogen-packed pails of grain, store 2 pails each of wheat and corn for each single pail of soybeans. Combined in these proportions, ground to flour, cooked (as in corn bread), and eaten, 2 to 3 pounds per day of this mixture will provide the nutrition required for a marine in combat - except for vitamin C and salt. An ordinary person surviving during an emergency would require perhaps half as much. Note: soybeans must be cooked before eating to avoid danger to health.

Nitrogen packing helps to assure that insects cannot infest the food. Containers should be long-lived and rodent resistant. There are several good commercial sources of food already appropriately packaged for storage - for example, Walton Feed in Idaho.

2. Store 1 kilogram of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) for each person-year of food. This is 3 grams per day. People under stress require extra vitamin C for optimum health. For prevention of death from scurvy, however, about 1% of this amount will suffice, so storage of vitamin C in these amounts might save the lives of an entire community.

Store crystalline vitamin C - not pills. During storage, the pills may deteriorate. In a cool, dry bottle, crystalline vitamin C will last indefinitely. Vitamin C can also be obtained by simply sprouting some of the food grain before eating. In a serious emergency, however, sprouting may prove difficult. Store also, in a cool place, a supply of ordinary multivitamin pills.

3. Store lots of salt. This could be crucial to saving many lives. An inexpensive and convenient form is in bags or salt blocks obtained from a local farm feed store.

4. For infants, store dried milk available from food storage suppliers in #10 cans. Infants can live on the grain ration, but they may refuse to eat less familiar food and will do better with milk.

5. Store several 4 gallon plastic buckets each containing 25 pounds of ordinary table sugar - sucrose; 1 pound baking soda; 5 x 11 ounce containers of Lite salt - KCl &NaCl; and a teaspoon for measuring. Dehydration from burns and diseases such as cholera can be treated with proper oral administration of these items. Instructions can be found in the March 1988, Volume 1, # 12, Fighting Chance newsletter. These buckets could save many lives during a serious prolonged emergency, where ordinary medical care is not available.

In ordinary times, soy bean, corn, and wheat flour can serve as a base for delicious and nutritious corn bread - when cooked with lots of baking soda, vegetable oil, and fruit for flavor.

Prior to the current U.S. government program to burn America's food for fuel, the rations above could be purchased and stored for about $100 per person per year of food. Prices now are between $200 and $300 per person year. If Americans continue to allow repressive government regulation and taxation of their nuclear and hydrocarbon energy industries and tax-subsidized use of food for fuel, these prices will rise much higher.

It is best to store food now, while it is still available at a reasonable price.

Art Robinson is a scientist and currently a professor at the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has commended and utilized Robinson work on emergency preparedness.

So we went to Walton's Feed and bought a three month supply of dried corn, soybeans, and salt for our two families, to go with the wheat my dad has canned. It isn't a lot, but it is a start. I use to have a good supply of food storage, but we left a lot in Mesa with Mindy and company. It is heartening to know that if stored properly some things can last over 30 years according to Walton's website. Yet after reading on their website, I'm betting that the wheat and things I left Mindy aren't good anymore because we kept them in our garage and the storage got too hot.

Ryan and Becky are going to use the food canned in #10 cans as a foundation for their bed so that they can store it. Yes, it is a bit like the family in the movie The RM, but it will be worth it.

I've been reading a novel called "Patriots, Surviving the Coming Collapse". It is more than a novel. The author tries to make it a guide in how to prepare for the next depression, collapse of government, anarchy, and chaos. It is a bit thick to wade through, but it is making me think. I know that I'm not as prepared as I should be as far as food storage and things go. I've spent several hundred dollars lately getting 72 hour kits ready and some earthquake preparedness items since the Utah "earthquake lady" came and spoke at our stake. I feel a little more ready, but I hope we are never going to need it.

One of the things we did was to move our water storage and 72 hour kits out of our basement and into our garage so that they are easily accessible. We purchased 2- 5 gallon bucket toilets with garbages bags and kitty litter. It is exciting, I know, but I still feel better. My sister said that she needs to store hundreds of pounds of kitty litter for her big family. I thought about giving one of these toilets as a bridal shower gift . . . it would have been memorable.

Like I said before, it is a start. Ryan called it our life insurance. Now we just have to get it canned after we go on our trip.

High School Graduation

Tessa graduated from Mt. View High School in Mesa, AZ on May 22nd. It was memorable. It had been raining off and on all day and the higher powers were talking of separating the class into two groups to hold it indoors. The 803 graduates didn't want to be separated, so many sent texts to the head of the school board and said, "We are the class of 2008. We started together and we will end together. . ." It was held outside in the rain. We had a wool blanket and an umbrella, and it was still pretty miserable. I was happy that they let them graduate together. It would have been sad for them to not see 1/2 of their classmates and friends walk. Tessa thought it was neat. It was 52* when we drove away.
Tess was so sad to graduate. It meant that she had to come back to Utah and not be where her heart is, but many of her friends are already leaving, going in all the directions that kids go when they graduate.
I remember being so sad when I graduated 26 years ago. I loved high school, and all my friends. There were many that I have never seen again. There are a couple that I saw once and then learned of their deaths years later when I was hoping to see them at the next reunion. Life really does change so much after high school.
I really enjoy my high school reunions, or seeing old friends from that time of my life. Something about being with them makes me feel young and invincible again. I usually end up laughing and feeling carefree, and forgetting I'm an adult. I don't know if others have that same experience, but I look forward to it every 5 years. I hope it is the same until I'm 70+.

Singing in the Tabernacle

As some of you may have read already, April and I sang in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle with composer and conductor, Rob Gardner in his work of Joseph Smith the Prophet this weekend. It was a wonderful experience. We sang for the prophet on Friday night and got a standing ovation.
Another fun part of the experience was singing all the professional singers (which we are not, but April has high aspirations to be). Jordan Bluth was one of the soloists. I love his cd! April laughed at me because I couldn't wait to meet him. She rolled her eyes and told me that I was silly. I made her come with me as moral support and introduced her and myself. He shook both of our hands, as I told him that I had to meet him because he was my new favorite tenor, even over Josh Groban. He said, "wow," and then put his hand on my shoulder, smiling as he left, having to run because Rob called for all the soloists to meet with him right then. April clearly was reveling in what she thought should be my great embarrassment. I wasn't embarrassed. I joked that I would never wash my right hand or shoulder again. He is rather dashing, and what a voice!

Rob Gardner is such a gifted man, too. He is truly a genius. This is the third time in five years that I have performed with him in the Spire Chorus. It is wonderful that it is a volunteer choir, because I may have been too chicken to audition if it had been otherwise. But most of the volunteers are incredibly talented singers.

April and Terry with Rob

I Lost 4 Pounds in Two Weeks

I am so excited. I got on the scales and was down another 2 pounds. I have struggled at this weight for the last year. At one point, I lost six pounds (last October) after counting calories for three weeks and kept if off until January when I put 8 back on even though I was exercising very regularly. So I had almost resigned myself that I was going to stay at this weight. I joked that if I had lived during the Renaissance my beautiful body would be preserved in the art of the time. I would be included in Michael Angelo's murals.
But after everything I've been doing since my 44th birthday, I've lost 4 pounds! I don't have the cravings for the carbs! It is terrific! I just had to share. I only want to lose 11 more to be at my pre-Katrina weight. Sweet!

Emotional Freedom Technique

EFT is a relatively new therapy that involves tapping on acupuncture sights for emotional issues of all kinds. When I was searching for something to help my hormone problems I linked to it through the Women to Women website. Since finding out about it, I had two sessions with Dr. Arden Compton at Abundant Health in Brigham City. I was quite skeptical at first, but I've found many testimonials from people that have had great success with it. I even found that the Discovery Channel did a show on using EFT for weight-loss. Well known Dr. Andrew Weil of University of Arizona uses a similar method for food cravings.

Because I spilled my guts in my last post about my depression this spring, I want everyone to know I feel incredibly better than I did one month ago. I don't know if it is the EFT, the better diet, the more consistent exercise, the new vitamins that I'm on, the fact that it is spring and there is more sunlight, or all of the above. Monday morning I found myself looking forward to work, to singing in Joseph Smith the Prophet, and to starting school in the fall. I was thinking about all the possibilities for my future and felt so excited about life! I stopped, amazed. I realized that I hadn't felt that positive about things in a balanced and whole way for two and a half years, since my personal Katrina (which happened the very same week).

I have tapped through a few of my issues since Saturday. It has been surprising where the sessions have led. I didn't realize that I have felt so inferior to a particular person in my life. I know that this person doesn't feel that I am inferior to them, but that it is my own issue. It is very interesting, to say the least. I am still skeptical, but not as much as I was because of the way I feel. I feel lighter, more capable than I have in so long. I don't know quite what to think. Even if it is placebo, I don't care because I feel better this week. And it is the week, if you know what I mean.

Depression and Swine Hormones

The last few months I've been experiencing some hormonal and seasonal related depression. I usually have kept this at bay with consistent exercise, good vitamins and amino acids, and learning something that I'm excited about.

I was doing well until the first of February when I cut the fleshy tip of my thumb off and started working again. That was the week. I dragged myself to our sales training for three days. I didn't want to be there! I wanted to be at the gym, dancing. I wanted to be at school finishing my open-enrollment computer class, and enrolled in school for fall. I wanted to be anywhere, but there. My thumb was hurting so I couldn't exercise even if I wanted to. I had to be at the sales training. I had committed to working another season. It is a great job, and I know it, so I felt guilty. My boss, (my sister) knew that I was thinking about more schooling and told me that I wasn't obligated to work for her. But I had committed, not only to her and my sales manager, but to my husband and myself. And it kept snowing and snowing and snowing. It all seemed to go downhill from there.

I took my computer test on Microsoft Word as soon as sales training was over, and set school aside until June when our sales campaign is over. But it seemed I had a mental block. The phone at work weighed a hundred pounds. I was having anxiety and guilt. But I started. Slowly. I called my best clients, and had some success. I remembered that I really like the people with whom I work. I was feeling somewhat better, but still dragging. My negative thoughts were getting the best of me. My heart wasn't in it. It felt as if I were carrying 100 lbs to work each day. I spent hours reorganizing my contracts, and checking my email (OK, it wasn't really hours). It kept ringing in my head, "don't want to be here, not a career, can't do it, heart's not in it, have to do it, have to do it, I'm committed, I'm not a flake," and so it went for a couple of weeks.

My emotions were right on the surface. I cried at work, about work. (I can honestly say that that is a first!) I had a confrontation with my sales manager (who is not my sister) about the fact that he didn't give me any of the good sales leads.

Description of said confrontation:
Me, smiling, and arrogant, as I handed him a renewed contract, "My last client just increased his ad by $2000!"
"That is great, kid!" looking at my contract.
"Do you know how I got that client last year?" I said, proudly. "I got it from the white lead sheets, which I didn't get any of this year."
"How would you know that?" he said, surprised, and puzzled.
"I saw that the others had them and I didn't. When did you hand them out? Were you thinking that I didn't deserve any because I am only part-time and in school, too?"
He paused, thinking, "I honestly don't remember, but it could have been something like that. I did it at the beginning of the campaign. Did you lose sleep over it?"
"No, I just was wondering how you expect me to increase my sales without any good leads." It was matter of fact. I didn't feel emotional. I felt better. It was out in the open. I was part-time. It isn't my career of choice. I really didn't want more work, more hours. The weight had lifted. (I know what you are thinking, big, scary confrontation, NOT!)
I remembered, I like my job. I'm good at it! I am an asset to my sister's company, if only for one more season, or if I decide to stay for many. I can pick away at my other dream education in the summer and fall, and enjoy the journey. The guilt is gone! I am committed for this season, and it is good.

Work has been so much better. Life has been better . . . except when those swine horrormones change. I have violent, scary nightmares for a couple nights around day 14, and feel withdrawn, sluggish, and worthless days 20-25, and then achy for days 1-3. In March on day 14 I was crying, feeling hopeless, and in the depths of despair and everything was GOOD! Logically, I knew it was good. I could spend days, even weeks counting my blessings. I was exercising some, but not enough and it was still cold, overcast and snowing. I knew I had to do something! In a 24 day cycle I had 11 days that I felt off! That is almost half of month feeling yucky!

I googled PMS and found Dr. Northrup's women to women website. I ordered her wellness program for my birthday. I started exercising 4 days a week. I have started a better diet, lower in refined carbs. I started taking the prescription of Prometrium (bio-identical progesterone) that my doctor prescribed in November that I had only tried for 2 months. I linked over to a website on Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) that Dr. Northrup's site said can help with health issues. I called Arden Compton, ND and set up an appointment. (more on this later)

My last cycle was much better. I'm excited about life again.

Free Book, Check Here

I was linking through the wonderful world of blogs and found out that J. Scott Savage will give away an advanced reader's copy of his new book Farworld if a blogger will be on his book blog tour, review his book after reading it and have a Q and A with him for a post. The only thing is . . . I have to have an active blog to do it. First, I need to post more often, and then it may be active. But, I can't even get my kids to read my blog! Hmmm. It is a problem.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

I got this email today, and it made me laugh! I thought I'd post it after adding some of our Funny Family Folktale Kid Funnies.

TESSA (age 3) was sitting by the bishop's wife in sacrament meeting. She looked up at her and said, "You must be really old."
The bishop's wife smiled and replied, "Oh, I am really old."
Then Tessa looked at her and asked, "then why aren't cha dead?"

ROSS (age 5) "Mom, you need to buy a new bed."
"Why do we need a new bed?"
"For the baby," he said.
"Oh, honey, your Dad and I aren't going to have any more babies," I replied.
My husband piped in, "When you get married, you can have all the babies you want."
Ross could hardly contain his joy and said, "When I marry Hunter (little girl that he played with), I'll just cough it [the baby] out!" Cough was the word he used for vomit. Dan almost crashed the car, and I about peed my pants.

RYAN (age 11) After we had driven up Arizona's dirt "Hell Road" into the Superstition Mountains for 20 miles of narrow switch-backs, white-knuckle blind turns, and thousand foot drop-offs, we finally reached Roosevelt Dam. Ryan asked what the piece of equipment on the top of the dam was. Dan said, "it is a crane." Ryan replied, "I've seen a lot of cranes in my life, but I've never seen a dam crane!" It was just the comic relief that we needed. It was a good thing that the road had straightened out.

ROSS (age 7) While living in Mesa, Arizona, we would go to my brother, Jamey's house and the kids would jump on his trampoline. In the 110* weather, the sun had deteriorated the trampoline mat and whenever the kids would jump they would be covered in black. One day I said to Ross, "There is black all over you. I see you've been jumping on the trampoline again. " He said, "the bad guys snuck into the backyard at night and painted the trampoline black!"

Now the email

TAMMY (age 4) was with her mother when they met an elderly,
rather-wrinkled woman her Mom knew. Tammy looked at her for a
while and then asked, "Why doesn't your skin fit your face?"

SUSAN (age 4) was drinking juice when she got the hiccups. "Please don't
give me this juice again," she said. "It makes my teeth cough."

JACK (age 3) was watching his Mom breast-feeding his new baby sister.
After a while, he asked: "Mom why have you got two? Is one for hot and
one for cold milk?"

MELANIE (age 5) asked her Granny how old she was. Granny replied
she was so old she didn't remember any more. Melanie said, "If you don't
remember, you must look in the back of your panties. Mine say five to six."

STEVEN (age 3) hugged and kissed his Mom good night. "I love you so much
that, when you die, I'm going to bury you outside my bedroom window."

BRITTANY (age 4) had an earache and wanted a pain killer. She tried in
vain to take the lid off the bottle. Seeing her frustration, her Mom
explained it was a child-proof cap, and she'd have to open it for her.
Eyes wide with wonder, the little girl asked, "How does it know it's me?"

DJ (age 4) stepped onto the bathroom scale and asked, "How much do I cost?"

MARC (age 4) was engrossed in a young couple that was hugging and kissing
in a restaurant. Without taking his eyes off them, he asked his dad, "Why is he
whispering in her mouth?"

CLINTON (age 5) was in his bedroom looking worried. When his Mom asked
what was troubling him, he replied, "I don't know what'll happen with
this bed when I get married. How will my wife fit in?"

JAMES (age 4) was listening to a Bible story. His dad read, "The man
named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city, but his
wife looked back and was turned to salt." Concerned, James asked, "What
happened to the flea?"

The Sermon I think this Mom will never forget ... This particular Sunday
sermon ... "Dear Lord," the minister began, with arms extended toward
heaven and a rapturous look on his upturned face. "Without you,we are
but dust ..." He would have continued but, at that moment, my very
obedient daughter, who was listening, leaned over to me and asked
quite audibly in her shrill, little, four-year-old-girl voice, "Mom, what
is butt dust?"