Is it Friday yet?

It's been a long week. There has been a lot, as usual, going on. School, church, friends, Dr.'s appointments with my mom, animals everywhere. You know how it is.

Well, the stray cat that I posted a picture of a bit ago is now our kitty. I couldn't help it. I became very attached, and I knew he either needed to be taken in by somebody, or turned into the humane society and adopted out. Although Paul was supportive of my desire to keep him, I decided it would probably be better to turn him in. Well, that was too hard, so I took him (after a long morning of traveling all the way out to Avondale where they were having a free spay/neuter clinic that day, only to find out they'd been booked an hour before they even opened!) to the humane society and had him tested for illnesses, neutered, given his shots, and cleaned up a bit. Yikes. It was a lot of money. If I'd turned him in, had THEM do all that, and then adopted him back it would have been much cheaper :) but there's no gaurantee I'd be the one to adopt him, or what if they decided he was unadoptable?? So... that's that. Now we have 3 cats, a bunny and 3 fish. It's a zoo. I feel like digging a pit in the backyard and buying some hippopotomi (that's the plural right? :) ) I've already got 3 monkeys too (the kids! HA HA HA!!! Oh my gosh... I'm a bit slap happy apparently!) So, our 2 cats absolutely hate Tayte, the new cat. They feel extremely threatened by him, can't stand the smell of him, and I'm pretty sure would like to tear him to pieces. Why do they have to be cranky??? Sheesh! Anyway, we are slowly trying to introduce them to each other with as few negative encounters as possible. The new cat usually just goes straight under the couch where my big cats can't get him. It's very sad for all of them. I feel bad that Arthur and Jasmine feel like we've allowed an enemy into their territory, and they feel obviously very betrayed. And I feel bad for the new guy, being taken from the nice big outdoors where he could roam free, and being put into a hostile environment. Paul reminded me that the outdoors are dangerous... there's a lot of other very nasty stray cats in the neighborhood, cars, dogs etc., and that he's getting a lot of love that he wouldn't get in the cold cruel world. Well, not sure how it's all going to turn out. We'll just have to see!

In other news... my mom had one of a few tests the Dr. ordered for her before she starts chemo. It was just a pulmonary functions test to use as a baseline for the future. We also met with the education nurse at the oncologists office yesterday. She is one of the chemo nurses, and she was awesome. She spent a very long time giving us all answers to all the questions we'd had for a long time. She was so kind, so caring, and very hysterical. When she found out mom had 10 kids, she said very seriously, that chemo would be nothing compared to that. She said that the anti-nausea drugs now days are incredibly good and that that part of chemo isn't bad at all anymore. There are other drugs that will cause her pain (neupogen or neulasta, can't remember which one she'll get) but are important to have to keep her white blood cell counts high to decrease the risk of infection. Hopefully the other drugs that she talked about will help keep that pain to a minimum, and this experience will be tolerable for her. After the appointment, for fun, we stopped by a wig store and she tried on some wigs. It was super cool. The store owner was pushier than a cars salesman, and almost wouldn't let us out the door without buying a couple of the $200 wigs! She was crazy.

So, now my mom is going to Disneyland with her sister for a few days. My older brother Scott and his family, my sister Heidi and her family and my other brother John and his family are going as well. So jealous, but so excited for them all to go! I love that place. It really is the happiest place on earth (oh, except for home of course.... right? That's what I'm supposed to say... let's say next to home on the GOOD days!!)

Sorry to ramble on! Just for fun, here's a picture of my mom with the kids on the trampoline. She was very brave to get up there. It's scary the first time after many years... believe me! The kids thought it was totally radical that she was up there jumping with them.