Hey - I'm BACK!

I have not blogged in such a long long long time. No one was reading it, so I stopped. I guess I do not care if people read it or not, but it seemed a bit odd to ramble on and on to no one. Let me know if you are reading this - I will be competly blown away if someone actually is reading it!

Lotsof things have been going on in the past year and half. Biggest news is Lauren was diagnosed with arthritis. Luckily it is not too painfull for her, but still lots of inflimation and loss of range of motion and strength in her wrists/hands. We are now seeing the pediatric rheumotologist every 3 months, and an eye doctor as well, because there is a small possibility of inflimation occuring in her eyes. (thankfully her eyes have not shown any signs of inflimation, and we just got the OK to go every 6 months rather than 3 months.) However, we are struggling with medicines and side effects. After 6 months of being on NSAIDs she is still experiencing inflimation. One drug (which was added in additon to her NSAID) gave her anxiety and depression, so we took her off that combo. Now we are on a new and stronger NSAID and she is experiencing headaches and possibily stomach upset. Poor thing worries too much, and it is hard to find out what her real side effect is vs. self-inflicted anxiety.

But, that is our daily background struggle. We try not to dwell on it, because really she is in pretty good health right now.

Both girls are now involved with our local youth theater group. I always thought I'd have athletic kids, since I did all sorts of sports as a kid. But neither one really likes sports, so we have theater nerds. grin. It is a really good group, of both kids and adults, and the experiences and "lessons" learned are are more than I ever thought possible. Lauren is currently in her 4th play, and Annika is now in her 2nd. Bill has been in charge of constructing the sets, and he loves it. I'm just glad that he has found a past-time that involves something besides the kids and work. Yes it is for the kids, but he is using his creative building skills and does not really interact with them while he is there.

I also have a part time job. I work for the Livingston Hunger Council as their Community Garden Coordinator. I enjoy the job, the work, and the cause, so it is a great opportunity for me. I just wish that the bulk of the job did not occur when the girls were out of school. Oh well. I'll post more on this later. THis is enough update for now.