XM: Stone Temple Pilots – “Big Empty”
Mood: Stir crazy

It’s been all numbers at work today. As much as I love numbers, I need a break every now and then. I took a very short lunch break and now I’m regretting it. I’m getting all jittery and 5:00 can’t come soon enough. So I thought a long, rambling blog post would help (because coffee sure doesn’t).

I had my follow up visit with the doc regarding my surgery. He explained the photos (this is your liver, this is your uterus, this is your stomach, etc.) so I know myself even better now than I did before He said removing the polyps from my uterus will undoubtedly improve my chances of conception. He wasn’t able to look at my fallopian tubes so he would like to schedule an x-ray. I asked when he would want us to try the IUI, and he would like us to try as soon after the x-ray as possible. Although if he finds in the x-ray that my tubes are blocked, then we won’t be doing IUI because that would just be throwing our money down the… um… tubes. I’m just hoping that this next cycle finds us pg so we won’t even have to mess with all of that. Man, this is so much harder than they made it seem in sex ed.

Mike and I are really close to having all the money we need… for fixing the carport and the driveway. If anyone is willing to work for food, we plan on doing the work on two weekends in late September/early October. After that project is finished, the rest of the remodeling that remains will just be odd jobs here and there. We are going to make a list, estimate the cost, and set a goal to have it all done by fall of 2007. We have played around with the idea of moving, but decided we’ll wait a year and then talk more seriously about it. That gives us time to fix up the house and give this baby thing one last shot.

I received an acceptance letter from Ele’s Place for entrance into their facilitator training program, but two of the training dates conflict with Chrysalis (dang all this volunteer work) so I may have to wait until the spring to attend the training. I also put a call into the volunteer coordinator at Rainbows in Chicago to see if they have any programs here in Michigan that I could get involved with. If they have something nearby, I would rather work with them than at Ele’s Place. Rainbows offers grief counseling for kids who have experienced many different kinds of loss, whether it be from death, divorce, separation, incarceration, etc. Ele’s Place deals strictly with grief from death of a loved one. I’m reading a book written by the founder of Rainbows. It’s interesting to hear how she started because it’s everything I have said I want to do. She has done all the legwork, so why wouldn’t I take advantage of that and join their team if I could? They have an outstanding program that reaches worldwide, so it would be a waste of time for me to try to reinvent the wheel.

Okay, jitters are gone now. I’m ready to get back to my beloved spreadsheets!

Camp Forget-Me-Not was again a success! This is a weekend day camp that Ingham Hospice and Ele’s Place put on for kids who have experienced the death of a loved one. They held the first camp in Lansing in 2002 and I have volunteered for them every year. The camp is held at Woldumar Nature Center and the staff there is amazing. We do support group sessions with the kids but we also do a ton of fun activities. I look forward to it every year!

Grieving kids are just like other kids, but often they feel alone because their peers don’t understand what they are going through. Other kids and even adults don’t know how to treat them sometimes because they haven’t experienced tragedy like these kids have. There’s fear of saying the wrong thing so often they don’t say anything at all. This camp gives kids a chance to feel normal and know they are not alone in what they are going through.

Last year I was a “buddy” in the oldest group, the 12 & 13 year olds. I had such a blast with them so I requested to be with that same age group again this year.

Left to right: Maddie, Lauryn, Tabby, Kim, Cindy, Kayla, Mindy.

Local Camp Helping Kids Cope

Above is a link to the story Channel 6 News aired. The girl who was interviewed, Kayla Cooper, was in my group for the past two years. The age range is kindergarten through 7th grade so this was her last year. She’s an amazing young woman and I hope to stay in touch with her in the years to come.

My hair shows up in the video several times, and you’ll see me at the end pictured standing next to Kayla. Thank goodness they didn’t show my face in the Chubby Bunny marshmallow eating contest. In this picture I only have one marshmallow in my mouth. My max was five, but my camera battery died so we didn’t get any shots of it. I would have made it to six if I wasn’t laughing so hard. Dad, what’s your record in this game?

Update: Here is the article from the Lansing State Journal.