Such a great celebration!

First off, yesterday was the last day of my low iodine experience for this year. Since it was thyroid cancer, this will be repeated for the next few years.

To begin with, I need to go back to Thursday night. I’m part of a Guild Wars “guild.”

We play almost every night – myself, my husband, a friend and my brother in Ohio. After Thursday’s game, my brother called me and asked me about some Bay City Rollers song he had going through his head and wanted to put on his iPod. I didn’t know what it was but I gave him some pointers on using Google to find it.

So, Friday I got up very excited because the low iodine diet was almost over and I had plans to “break” my dairy and chocolate fast with a trip to a frozen yogurt store, Menchie’s, at our local mall. My daughter was going to join me after her only Friday class.

Before I left the house to get my body scan and blood work done, I texted her that I would meet her at the Border’s coffee shop before we went for our treat.

As I was lying on the scanning bed, my phone rang, but of course I couldn’t answer it and then the little bell that I had a voice mail went off. I figured it was Juliette telling me either she was going to be late or something like that.

When the scan was over, I headed for my car to go get the blood work done. I’d been told a couple of times by my endocrinologist’s nurse that the blood work was CRUCIAL. I had to get it done IMMEDIATELY after the scan and if I didn’t, then everything – the 19 days of low iodine diet, taking the radioactive iodine and having the scan – ALL OF IT – was for nothing and I seriously didn’t want to go through that again, so as excited as I was for the ice cream, I kept reminding myself, Blood work, Blood work, Blood work.

I looked at my phone and the missed call and voice mail was from my brother. He’d found the song – La Belle Jeane.

La Belle Jeane

His voice mail said, “Thank you so much. You’re awesome. Love you.”

I called him back and told him he was a goof ball and we chatted until I got to the lab for my blood work.

I went to check in and the receptionist took my information. She said, “You just left your doctor’s office?”

“No,” I said. “I just had a body scan done.” The nurse had told me the orders were already in the system, so she told me to take a seat.

A few minutes later, she called me back and said my doctor’s office had no record of me needing blood work done. I thought, what happened to without blood work it was all for nothing??? I told her that and said I just had the scan done.

“Oh, you just had a body scan done?”

“Yes.” I just told you that. She called the nurse back and when she said “body scan” she stopped, then said, “Oh, okay” and hung up. Then she told me to take seat and she’d send the order to the techs.

I don’t know how long I waited. I saw everyone that was there before me go in, but I kept thinking – it’s a lab. Not everyone is here for the same reason, but when the techs are standing around outside one of the doorways chatting, and people who are coming it now aren’t even getting their butts in a the chairs before their names are called, I knew something was up.

I went back to the same receptionist and asked if she could give me an idea of how much longer I needed to wait. She asked my name again. (Seriously, I was here twice about twenty minutes ago, you don’t remember me???)

“They haven’t called you yet?”

Well, yes, they did call me but having blood drawn is so much fun I thought I’d wait and see if they could do it again!

Well, yes, they did call me which is why I’m asking you WHEN they’re going to call me.

“No.”

“Okay. I’ll send the orders back again.”

I went back to my seat and was called almost instantly – or about a minute later so I know the orders didn’t go back the first time.

So, after that, I headed to the mall and got my celebration going.

My daughter, who is a junior in college and therefore broke, bought me a slice of pizza and then the frozen yogurt. She said it was lame but that was her birthday gift to me.

Now, if I hadn’t been on that restricted diet and if she lived at home and I saw her all the time, she might have been right. It wouldn’t have been a great gift, although getting to spend time, just us girls, and walking around the mall was fun.

As it was, it was great. We talked and laughed and had fun until I had to get Noah from school.

Today was the real celebration.

We went first to Noah’s basketball game. The Saint-Bulls are still undefeated and my son, who is excellent at defense, got the ball a couple of times and once even on offense and attempted a basket! He’s getting better; several of the fathers even told him and me that. Again, we were told that he needs to get into track because he’s fast. Now if we could just get him to run with his dad!!

After the game we went to a restaurant near the mall, BJ’s Brewhouse We got their before my in-laws. Steve had told me after lunch we’d go shopping for my present because he hadn’t had time to buy me anything. I had picked out at Sephora what I wanted the day before, so we went there while we waited.

I wanted the Too Faced Romantic Eye palette.

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However, they were out of that one. I have the Natural Eye one so I opted for the Naked Eye one.

I also got some mascara and then my birthday gift from Sephora, Birthday Cake body wash from Philosophy.

We had lunch and it was great. I started with a chocolate covered cherry martini, had Texas style chicken fried steak and chocolate ice cream on a hot chocolate cookie for dessert.

I’m not sure I’ll eat again for awhile.

For gifts, I got a lovely pearl necklace, $100 and an Olive Garden gift card from my in-laws and a cool head set from our friend who plays Guild Wars with us (he joined us for lunch). We’re hoping to be able to actually talk to each other during the game instead of using a chat window.

So, it’s been a great birthday and I’m a lucky, happy woman!

Have a great day, all my friends!!!

Today is Valentine’s Day and as a romance/fantasy author, I wanted to tell you a little about my Valentine.

We met 25 years ago. I saw him first. He was singing in the church choir with his dad at a Lenten Wednesday night service. The church we attended at the time was populated mostly by older people – elderly or our parents’ age. There were very few young people who weren’t in high school or younger.

My best friend was the deaconess at the church and she was sitting with me when I saw him. I asked her who he was and she told me what she thought his name was and that he was probably a few years younger than I was. I had just ended a relationship with a guy four years younger and the one before that had been that age, too, and I wasn’t eager to meet another guy in that age range.

However, he was tall and cute, so when Jenni introduced me to his mother at the coffee hour after the service I was polite but figured nothing would come of it.

A couple of weeks later I was in the church office on a Saturday (I had been the temporary secretary for awhile and thus, knew my way around the office.). Why I was there on a Saturday, I don’t remember, but I had the door partly closed as it was cold and the heat hadn’t been turned on in the building. I left it partly open so that if anyone came in they’d know someone was there.

He came in. In peeked his head in the door and asked me if I knew anything about the bowling party that was scheduled for that night. I was planning to go myself and I told him who was organizing it.

I went home excited because he was going to be there.

We spent the whole bowling party talking, but when all of us “adjourned” to a nearby pizza place, he didn’t come. I tried not to be upset, telling myself there could be all kinds of reasons why he didn’t come.

The truth was he went to the wrong pizza place!!! He showed up late and he sat at our table and we talked some more.

After that, I asked him to come to another church event and afterward he helped me return some soda to a nearby grocery store. It was then I confessed my dream of being a romance author.

He didn’t laugh. He said he thought that was great.

Maybe I fell in love that night.

That was in March. He went back to school in Boston soon after that and I traveled up there several times to spend weekends with him and he came back to NJ for me. His parents loved me because he came home more often.

We knew pretty early that we wanted to get married, and we did on 4 April 1987.

We’ve been through a lot, together.

I nearly died giving birth to our daughter, Juliette, who was born 9 weeks early and weighed 2 pounds 7 ounces. Steve suffered a lot then because he knew what what happening whereas I was too sick to know.

We knew I could go through the same thing if we got pregnant again, so we decided to adopt which was a horrible experience for us, but ended up happily.

When Juliette was 6, we moved to Germany for his work and two years later, we moved to Pennsylvania. Then we moved again a year later to the Philadelphia area.

While there we went through me almost dying again due to metabolic acidosis for which the doctors had no explanation, but it ended up with me needing to go on dialysis for my polycystic kidneys. Steve gave me a kidney on 20 Feb 2001 (almost exactly 10 years ago).

Then we finally adopted a little boy, Noah, and I got two books published.

We moved again in 2005 to Louisiana, and in the almost 6 years we’ve lived here, I’ve lost 3 family members (a grandmother, an aunt, and my mom) and Steve’s jumped in to get me on flights to Pennsylvania and Ohio as quickly as I could and helped me deal with the sorrow, and in the case of my mom’s death, physical pain as a bout of sciatica started then. Sometimes it was a debate over whether I should suffer the pain to get out of bed or just lie there and hope life would go on without me.

Through all of that, Steve has been a model of Christ’s love of us – giving of himself – sometimes literally – for our welfare. He has seen me at my absolute worst and never noticed. He thinks I’m beautiful whether I’m dressed up to go out or just out of bed with my old bathrobe on and my hair uncombed.

He is the world’s best daddy, drilling Noah on math every night and cheering him on in basketball. He even attended a Justin Timberlake concert with Juliette, which was a really mark of a good father!!

Steven Robert Brandt, you are my Valentine and the most amazing hero a romance author could ever wish for!!!

The Boy and I were sitting at the dining room table this morning after he’d eaten breakfast but before it was time to leave for school. He had just finished writing his spelling words for the test today.

Me: Go put your belt on.

The Boy (making sarcastic quote marks in the air): Put your belt on. Put your belt on. Everyone tells me to put my belt on.

Me: You know what would stop that?

The Boy: If I put my belt on.

Background: If you’ve never seen Galaxy Quest, first – what’s wrong with you, and second – you just need to know that Captain Taggart (Tim Allen’s character) is the star and he’s a big ham, stealing all of Alan Rickman’s lines (in the “show” Galaxy Quest, not the movie itself) and showing off. In one scene, of which I couldn’t find a video, where Alan Rickman’s character saves the alien crew by forcing open a door and letting in air. When he walks into the room, they all start cheering and he thinks he’s going to get the recognition he has missed all those years on the show.

One of the aliens says, “He did it. He saved us.”

Alan Rickman’s character smiles and the alien says, “Captain Taggart has saved us.”

—-

This morning the weather is bad here in Baton Rouge and the powers that be overreacted a bit and closed the schools and even the university. So, Beloved and the Boy are home today. (The Girl has moved into her own apartment, for those of you concerned.)

The Boy wanted waffles for breakfast. I’m on a low iodine diet and can’t have anything from a mix or anything baked I don’t make from scratch. I looked for a recipe that didn’t use milk or eggs, which I can’t have right now, but couldn’t find anything (it was a brief search), so Beloved said he’d go out to the store and get some mix.

I made the waffles when he got back, even though I can’t have any.

As Beloved and the Boy sat at the kitchen table, he looked at his dad and said, “Oh, these are great waffles. Thank you, Daddy.”

I looked at my husband and said, “He has done it. Captain Taggart has saved us.”