Every now and then I find a link to jibjab.com. I found this parody of Wal-Mart today and think everyone should watch it. It certainly will explain why I try to avoid Wal-Mart, though I cannot say that I never shop there. When you live in a rural town, it's hard not to shop there, but I only do it when I can't find something somewhere else in town. Check out the parody. It's pretty neat.

I am a newer, younger woman. In celebration of being cander-free for 5 years, I took off work early today and had a salon day. We wacked 10-inches off my hair to donate to Locks of Love, then I looked at magazines for a style I liked while the stylist colored my hair. NO MORE GRAYS!!! I have a cute, sassy new style that will be easy to care for yet looks professional.

Those grays were starting to drive me crazy. In the past year or so, they've really gotten bad. I was going to gray naturally, but I just can't handle having that much gray at only 40 years of age. I got my brows waxed, too.

John didn't notice at first. I showed off where I had no hair going down my back anymore. No big deal. Then I said, "Look, no more gray." His only comment was "How much did that cost?" Actually, it wasn't as much as I would have expected. The color, cut, style, brow wax and tip cost $80 all together. Not a bad deal. She said touch-up will probably run me $25 and I probably will only need to do that every 2-3 months, depending on how fast my hair grows. I don't think that's all that bad, really. With the short hair cut, I'll probably need to have it trimmed that often anyway.

I'll try to post a pic in the next couple of days. I had John take one with my cell phone earlier but I didn't have the time to download it off yet.

To my dad and my father-in-law,
who served during Vietnam

To my husband and brother-in-law,
who served in Operation Desert Storm

To my nephew,
who is currently serving in Iraq

And to all the other veterans
who put their lives on the line
so I may live free...

Thank You!

I'm sitting in the hospital now, waiting on a chest x-ray. I guess the doctor ordered it after my last checkup. I'm irritated that I have to have another one again. This comes out of my own pocket so when they are super over protective, it's annoying. Especially when they charge a few hundred dollars for such a chest.

But, I'm thankful for the computer in the waiting room. Ha.

My mammogram was ok. They did a little extra checking for me on the left breast because I felt something there during my last self-breast exam. I didn't say anything to anyone because I didn't want to worry anyone else, including myself. The only person I told was so

they called me. back later.

That was much quicker and much less painless than the mammogram. As I was saying, I only told one person and that was so they could pray with me. I wasn't sure if what I was feeling was normal or not. They told me my mammogram looked exactly like the last few, but because I had already had cancer, they wanted to do an ultrasound, during which we did find a cyst. Because it is clear and symmetrical, I am willing to accept it as benign, but you can bet your butt I'm going to keep an eye on it. It was close to the nipple like the tumor on the right breast 5 years ago, but deep so it was hard to feel.

Now I'm off to see the oncologist. I will ask her why we had to do this chest x-ray. I don't really like her. I wish I had my old doctor back, but he moved to Ohio to head up a cancer hospice program there. *pout*

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ U P D A T E ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Clean bill of health - come back next year. I liked Dr. Roman much better this visit. Last time she seemed a little dictatorial, which bugged me. This time around, she was more agreeable to working WITH me. I explained that I am not on insurance and have to pay for this out of my own pocket anymore, but I also want to take care of myself. I told her that I don't mind the tests if they are necessary, but if we are doing x-rays just because she's cautious, I'm against that. She agreed that she tends to lean on the conservative side and that we could take chest x-rays every other year. She said the lungs are the only soft-tissue organ they cannot detect cancer in from the blood work, sooo, I'll meet her halfway and have an x-ray every couple of years just to rule out the cancer spreading to the lungs.

I'm really excited that I'm knocked back to annual check-ups. Woohoo!!! Major milestone in cancer survivorship.

We opened the store late today. I did not realize until just this morning that when we moved a couple of months ago, we ended up moving precincts. We are just a few blocks away from either of the two places we've last lived, and they were both in the same precinct, so I guess I just assumed we were here. While I was waiting on John to finish shaving this morning, I went to the Secretary of State's web site to check on my voting precinct and sure enough it was somewhere else. We had a lot of waiting to vote while they looked for our name in a book and made us fill out change of address forms. The important thing is we did get to vote. I wanted to go early this morning so as to avoid anything getting in the way. We have a hotly contested governor's race here in Iowa this time around, as well as congressional district AND state legislature.

Thursday I have to go to Iowa City for another cancer checkup. I'm hoping this is my last semi-annual checkup and she puts me on annual visits after this one. The fun part, of course, will be the mammogram. It always hurts my cancer boob so much, but since I learned that taking a couple Tylenol an hour or two before the exam helps so much, I'll be doing that again. It worked great last time.

I've been very tired lately and sleeping a lot. I'm not sure if it's stress, just plain being worn out, or trying to come down with a cold. Me and Zicam have been friends the past few days. I'll ask about a flu shot while I'm at the cancer clinic. If they won't give it to me, I'll hit the public health clinic next week.

Please pray for our son. He's going through a really tough time right now. Growing up is so hard to do and he's at that stage where he's not a child but not yet considered an adult. Lots of upheaval in his world as he tried to assert his independence.

Hope everyone has a great week. Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away, which means Christmas is about 6 weeks away. YIKES!

I just had the weirdest dream; so weird in fact that I thought it was real when I first woke up and was indignant about it.

I dreamt of a television commercial featuring an animated Ellen Pompeo (Merideth Grey on Grey's Anatomy) advertising a contraceptive device of some kind. In the ad, it talks about being surprised she's advertising such a devise on television. The animated Ellen Pompeo has bare breasts in the commercial, and as the commercial goes on, the animation slowly "tears" away from the top to reveal the real Ellen Pompeo bare-breasted stating something like "not embracing out-dated standards rules."

This was so real in my mind that I was shocked with disbelief that they would run something like this on television, and in my waking moments as I'm getting ready to go to the bathroom, I'm even thinking about the kinds of fines they are going to have to pay for airing such a commercial, and then I think, "No wonder, it's ABC. They have seemed to embrace everything that the rest of society considers unsuitable for network television."

How weird is that? What bothers me the most is now I'm sitting here thinking maybe I should stop watching ABC altogether, to include Grey's Anatomy, which is one of my favorite shows.

And, this is ALL FROM A DREAM!!!

This really surprised me...

You Are 64% Republican

You have a good deal of elephant running through your blood, and you're proud to be conservative. You don't fit every Republican stereotype, but you definitely belong in the Republican party.

You Are 12% Democrat

If you have anything in common with the Democrat party, it's by sheer chance. You're a staunch conservative, and nothing is going to change that!

We didn't get very many trick-or-treaters last night, but we got some. I noticed many people walk past our house, even though the porch light was on.  I don't understand that. I caught a few of them by popping my head out the door often. No one told me any jokes or performed any tricks for me, unless you count the four girls who were dressed as a cheerleading squad. They were my favorites because they trick-or-treated in cheer. "Trick, or, TREAT!" Then, once I threw a handful of Snickers, Hershey Miniatures and mini Reese's Cups in their bags, they cheered, "You, Are, SO, Sweet!" It was hilarious.

My other favorite was three little children who were dressed as pigs, and their parents were dressed as wolves. ADORABLE!

I've got tons of candy left over because I bought three huge bags wanting to be sure we didn't run out. At least I bought good candy that hubby and staff will eat, too. Maybe next year I'll put decorations up in the yard to attract people. I've got a bird bath out front. I could put a jack-o-lantern on top of it for effect!

When we were kids, my mom had this gorgous 2-tier fountain in our front yard. One year one of us got the idea to put the jack-o-lantern on the top layer and fill the fountain with something red. So, we took off the statue of the lovers that was on the top and put a jack-o-lantern carved with fangs on it, and put packet on packet of red Kool-aid in the water. We put a trouble light in the back of the jack-o-lantern and a hole in the bottom so the red water would run through. When the fountain was turned on, it looked REALLY eerie. It was so cool and everyone loved it. We used to go all out with Halloween when we were kids. Us older kids used to fight over who got to stay home and help over who had to take the little kids trick-or-treating.

Whew, time sure flies. I cannot believe it's Halloween already and in a few short weeks it will be Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to having trick-or-treaters tomorrow. We've lived way out in the country or in an apartment in the downtown area (above a business) for most of our married lives so we haven't had much call for trick-or-treaters. Now that we live in a house on a corner lot, I am hoping to get at least a few.

Saturday was downtown trick-or-treating in Knoxville. I found Pixie Stix at Wal-mart for $2 a bag, and there were 120 in a bag. It was a great buy and a great hit with both kids and parents. Being that the Knoxville store is half a block off the city square, we had to wave people into the store at first, but once they started coming there was a fairly steady stream. I think my favorite costumes were one of a dragon that reminded me of the Chinese dragons on this firecracker game I play sometimes at Shockwave, and a cute little sunflower costume on a baby. I took my witch bowl over there and it was a hit with those people. John hates my witch bowl - he finds it annoying because it's always taking saying stuff like "That's my candy," and "Trick-or-treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat."

I guess in the Midwest it is commonplace to tell a joke when you trick-or-treat. We got a few kids telling jokes. Some were age-old riddles like we used to tell. My favorite was one a 7-year-old told us.

"How do you catch a polar bear?" he asked.
"Very carefully," I guessed
"No. You go out on the ice and cut a hole in the ice. Then you put peas all around the hole. When the polar bear comes to take a pea, you kick him in the ice hole."

The new employee and I laughed at it, but we were shocked by it. His mother said it was better than the one he went around telling last year. He started to tell it, but she told him not to, then after he left the store, she stayed back and told us:

"What do you call two gay guys in a sleeping bag? A fruit roll-up"

We agreed it was bad - definitey politically incorrect - but we still died laughing just the same.

Wonder how many jokes we'll get told tomorrow night. I think even John is looking forward to it. When I mentioned we may not get home from work before the trick-or-treating started, he told me that he was planning on exercising owner perogative and leaving early. This is going to be so much fun. I only wish we had the time and energy to decorate the house up for it. Maybe next year.

Mom and David just left. It was a wonderful visit. It wasn't long enough, but then they never are, are they? We had a good time and I think they did, too. Mom said it meant a lot to her that John took off work to spend time with them. I am thankful we were able to do that this time. I pray that they have a safe drive home, and that we see them again soon.