Something a little less depressing :)

Things are getting back to normal at the Beam house, thankfully! Johnathan was cleared by his surgeon to drive as of yesterday, so last night HE drove ME to Wal-Mart to get groceries :)

Otherwise, he went back to work today at his actual office. And I swear, those guys at Visual South (where he works) are amazing. We have been very fortunate to have Johnathan at a place like that one.

We had an exciting weekend, Matt and Erin came to visit and we saw the movie "The Book of Eli" which I liked, but wasn't an "everyone must see it" type film for me. The message was clear. The plot twist was good. But eh. I'm way more interested in Avatar or Sherlock Holmes myself.

I have a great story to tell about just how sweet and wonderful my husband is, but I'll get to that in a separate post (it deserves its own space). But I want to add some photos here of some recent happenings on the homefront.

THE NEW DISHWASHER!!!







This beauty was installed on Monday, which brought about heavy sighs of relief because a) the old one wasn't getting water to it and b) I hate doing dishes AND to top it all off, we were afraid with the hardwood floor we put in around the dishwasher we inherited from the previous owners that either the old one wouldn't come out or (worse) the new one wouldn't go in.
Sheesh.
But it all worked out (the 4 of us meditated to the appliance gods to make it happen, I think)

We also received a new over the range microwave from Johnathan's parents for Christmas. It has been installed in the kitchen too, so it feels like a whole new space!!


I spoiled myself just a little after all of the stress we've endured and bought myself a little something. Say hello to this lovely bag, courtesy of my bank account and the good people who sell Coach at Dillards.



Overall, (aside from the gorgeous purse, which is a splurge) I feel like Johnathan and I are getting a do-over when it comes to a lot of things. Before his surgery, we would have thought twice about new appliances and making lots of plans with friends but now things seem different. In spite of all that has happened, we are pretty happy folks all the way around. We pulled through this together, and in some ways it has really changed our perspectives (but more on that when I tell the sweet story!).

I'm very glad to be back to work, back to working on the house, back to grad school and most of all back to a normal routine with my little house, my cute husband and my precious dog. We hope all of you are well!

In a Haze… New Year’s 2010

“Your husband has cancer.”

Those words hit me like truck. Not a pickup truck…more like a Fedex truck. And not the FedEx Ground one, THE FREIGHT TRACTOR TRAILER.

There were other words that followed out of the doctor’s mouth after those, but who could think straight in the wake of this news? My husband is 25. We haven’t built our dream house, or traveled to Europe, or had our 2 beautiful children.

“He needs surgery right away.”

He was still coming out of sedation from his endoscopy. He was asking for me. I couldn’t go into his room. How was I going to tell the love of my life, the person who loves me more than I could ever love myself, that he has cancer?

It wasn’t going to be me. No. I would not be the one who would devastate him.

There were a lot of choices to make. Where will we have this done? What surgeon will do it? How long is the recovery? Who will pay our bills? What will we do about work? And the question that lingered that I would never utter…

Will. My. Husband. Live?

At this point, no one knew. No one had any idea how much or where in his body the cancer was or had spread. All I knew was that he needed to know; he needed to have a say in his medical care.

If my husband is one thing, it’s brave. And another: strong. And a third: practical. I knew he would want his surgery done quickly, I knew he would want answers and want to strategize, make the best decisions for himself and for us as a family.

He did. The surgery happened 2 days later. They removed the part of his right colon where the tumor was growing and reconnected the rest.

The short version: he was a champ. He was back in recovery quickly and is doing well. All we could do for a week (happy new year!) was wait for a pathology report that would give us the information we needed about the stage of the cancer and his treatment options.

Good news: stage one, no spread, no lymph nodes involved.

And there was much rejoicing (and texting and emailing and facebooking and laughing and kissing and hugging and…you get the idea).

That’s why I’ve been away from the blog so long (and I was just getting good at it, too!). But my husband is home from the hospital, he is as close to well as one who had colon cancer can be at this point. We are meeting with an oncologist soon to discuss possible chemotherapy as a precaution. Overall, we are very lucky that the experience we had has been short-lived (ish) and as uneventful as possible.

I know that I don’t write about serious things very much. But I want to say this: if you think that you or someone you love is exhibiting any kind of symptoms, SEND THEM TO A DOCTOR. Johnathan had some complaints of fatigue, so our best (uneducated) guess was anemia. A blood test got us to his diagnosis in a matter of 2 weeks. I’m not writing to scare anyone or create a panic or hysteria or paranoia, but I couldn’t be more fortunate to have been aware enough to send my husband to his doctor.

You can follow my updates on his condition on the facebook group Go JoBe, Go. Otherwise, I will be returning to my regular programming here on the blog, keeping it as light and fun as possible.

Happy (Belated) New Year!

In short: Christmas 09

Christmas in the 'Ville was W.E.T.

As in, pouring rain and "sorry your wrapping paper is soggy." Ick.

Overall, it was a good day despite the disgusting weather. We enjoyed the day with both families and while the time together was great, we were exhausted by the time we were finished. I can't believe we spend almost a full month waiting and decorating and baking and shopping for this one day. It's incredible (and tiring!). However, it's totally worth it to be with the ones we love on such a special day.

But life does go on...

There's something soothing about digging your house out from under the clutter that is Christmas. We gave out all of our gifts but 2 yesterday, so down with the tree and the stockings, the cards, the candles, the china...it all went back to its happy place or bin or cabinet :)

We hope you had a fantastic holiday, too! I'm working on a post for New Year's, so check back for my 10 goals for 2010!!

Sign, Sign, everywhere a Sign(ature)

I've taken it upon myself to make this little corner of the internet look more like a "normal" blog. I have added a followers panel, a counter and some other fun items. Today, I decided I wanted a signature.

I am married to an IT guy. But do you think for one second I was about to ask him for help on my little fledgling pet-project blog? Absolutely not!

I'm stubborn like that.

I figured it out, though. It wasn't too hard. I used www.mylivesignature.com and had a fabulous signature in just a few steps. Adding it the blog posed a little more difficulty, but here are some instructions if you're interested.

• Get the html code for your signature
• If you're using blogger, click the Settings tab in your dashboard
• Under settings, select formatting
• Scroll to the bottom of the page, paste the code into the box marked "post template"
• CLICK SAVE!!

My signature appears at the top of each new post, so I type above it and it moooooves on down! Can't wait to see your fancy signatures!

Holiday Goodies

Winter break has finally arrived in the school district, and as if it were the perfect holiday gift wrapped up with a big shiny red bow :)

Students and staff were dismissed at 10:30 Friday morning. YES. That means I had students in my classroom for a grand total of 90 minutes, because I have 2nd block planning. The cancellation of said school day also meant the cancellation of the evening's basketball games, which would bum me out except that I had (foolishly) signed up for gate duty that would last 5 hours. So, two gifts in one for me!

Having that said, I spent most of the early dismissal day and today cooking and baking lots of holiday treats. I like to cook and bake year round, but with graduate school and the band program in full swing August-mid March, there isn't a lot of time to do it.

I have made (so far) butterscotch haystacks, oreo truffles, peanut butter chocolate chip cookies (from scratch!) and plan on making at least one cake and my husband's favorite chocolate/peanut butter layered dessert.

For your enjoyment, I'm sharing my recipe for butterscotch haystacks, which I modified slightly from many I saw at allrecipes.com

Butterscotch haystacks

makes 12

2c. chow mein noodles (I prefer La Choy brand)

1 large scoop peanut butter (probably 1/2 c. or so)

1/2 bag Nestle butterscotch chips

Melt butterscotch chips (any method, I use the microwave for about 90 seconds, stirring every 30)

Stir peanut butter into melted chips

In a large bowl, pour mixture over chow mein noodles, stir until coated

Drop in stacks onto wax paper, allow to harden (may be refrigerated)

A Big Reveal!

Introducing...

The new (not quite decorated) dining room!!

(Continuously) Under Construction

If you go back to some of our earlier posts, you will see that our dining area has come a long way from its poorly painted, linoleum-floored predecessor. Our first big step was putting hardwood floor in both that space and the kitchen. Add table, chairs, additional table for china, baker's rack and viola! we have a dining area :)

However, we are slowly working on restyling this dining space. The process started with purchasing a new cabinet from Ikea to replace using my grandmother's dining table as a makeshift server. Ikea has been a fantastic find for us since we are shopping for our first home on a budget. Big things are happening again, and I am SO excited.

If I ever scrounge up a new adapter for my camera, there will be photos.