Josh's Graduation!

Joshua getting his diploma!

Me and Joshua :)

Josh's grandmothers, Meme and Granny

Josh's Great Aunt and Great Uncle, Aunt Cindy and Big Jim, along with Meme

It was a good night!

and we had cake!!

Yum!

High School

5 years ago, on this very day, I graduated from high school.

 I'm half way to my 10 year reunion!! It is so hard to believe how fast time flies and how much things change! I mean, my hair is a little shorter, but just as much curl. My eyebrows... they're still bushy- ha jk! Ok, maybe they are a little curly. Anyways....

Tomorrow I will be attending another high school graduation. Joshua, my sweet baby, graduates from high school tomorrow!

I'm excited he gets to start the next chapter in his life! Maybe, when he is finally in college, I won't look like a fool for dating a guy 4 years younger than me! He makes me happy, and that is all that matters!

So, congratulations, Joshua!! I love you so much and I hope you will do great, great things! I know you will. You are so smart and such a hard worker. You will achieve everything and anything you put in front of you! Since you have such and 'old woman' girlfriend, if you need anything you can always count on me to help you! Especially all those science classes! Just not Organic Chemistry! ;)

I love you!

Woo Hoo!!

I can walk!!! and drive!!

I can't ride my horse yet though.

or take a shower.

or run.

or swim.

or walk my baby cow around.

Please let me do these things soon.

Especially shower.

Thank you.

Foot Update

My sister assisted me in taking my bandage off this morning and we finally got all 50 feet of ace bandage and cotton wrap off my foot. As we were unwrapping it, it felt like instant relief. They had that bandage really tight! It did start hurting a little when the pressure was relieved, but I fixed that with some medicine. Here is what it looks like right now:

I already have short, stubby toes. Now they just look obese!
I didn't expect the incision to be the whole length of my scar from the last surgery. I guess he needed extra room to work! I'm just glad he didn't make it any bigger than it was. I thought for sure he would cut up closer to my ankle.
I can tell they had to mess with my nerves- It is really sensitive to the touch above my scar near my ankle. Hopefully that will go away. I did get some of the feeling back in my toes, but I can't really feel anything where my toes attach to my foot.
Notice the difference in the sizes of my feet? I think my foot shrinks every time I have surgery on it. I hope this is the last surgery for my foot. My right foot is a good 1-2 inches shorter than my left. Oh well! At least I have 2 feet!
My doctor autographed my foot incase you were wondering what those black things were. Last time they put a huge, black, permanent X on my right leg. I think I like the autograph better!
Hopefully I'll be walking very soon!

Making History.

I finally did it! I finally made it into one of Pioneer Woman's Photography Contests groups! It's a photo from over a year ago on May 16th that I took at my best friends wedding! :)

I took it with my little point and shoot camera. I don't even know which one! I think my little canon powershot sd1100. And I thought I had to use my fancy smancy camera to get in one of those photography contests! What do I know.

See Pioneer Woman's Post here!

It's the fifth photo down, but how could you miss my beautiful best friend as the bride?
The finalists from the 5 groups will be posted tomorrow. I don't expect to be in that at all, but it would be nice!
I'm going to keep trying though!

On another note: My foot will come out of the bandage tomorrow. Thank goodness. I can't move my ankle because they have it wrapped so much, so my foot is a little stiff and painful. I can't wait to see what it looks like. I don't even know if I have stitches or anything about it... but that I am going to have a purple scar for a while again. 

My goal is to be on the move and walking by Friday. I'm pretty sure I can make that happen!

I almost pulled a great move- almost slipped and busted my butt in the mexican parking lot. I have to get rid of those crutches.

Back to the Crutches!

†A little back ground of me: On June 1, 2003 early in the AM I rode my horse (Rose) back to my friends house. We had a sleepover the night before and our horses had a sleep over too! I know, cute huh! She had a softball game at the local rec. department (so did I! I just didn't know I did!) so she had to get home! Anyways, I was on my way back to my house, riding bareback on Rose and she slipped walking onto some concrete from the grass, right in front of their Barn/Shop area. We went down and all I remember was a big "Umph" from both of us.

Before I knew it I was on my feet, well foot, with my boot ripped off my other foot. A german man that was working in their shop heard he and ran outside and grabbed me up like superman and took me into the shop. It set me on a wood working table and left me! He didn't speak english very well... I know that was just perfect... so all I remember was saying "go get help!!" He puttered up to the house on the golf cart and soon Mary and Carol were there. 

Mary and Carol are my neighbors nannies and they are the sweetest women!! Carol took me to the ER in our small town. I got there and my dad wasn't there yet. Mary found him at the ball park and he was on his way to the hospital.. while the police were on their way to the ball park to find him. A family friend was my nurse and she and the doctor were fighting about if I was going to get pain medicine or not. She said 'I know this child and I am giving her pain medicine!!"

 I wasn't there long! They moved me to another hospital.. a bigger hospital! My doctor was amazing. I saw him today! :)  Ended up that my metatarsals were dislocated out of all five joints and a couple of them were broken and fractured. I had surgery that night when my mom and sister got back from a senior cruise they had just gotten off of. I remember the doctor telling my parents that it was going to be a difficult task, but when he got done he said he did a heck of a good job and that he was exceptionally pleased! 5+ months on crutches later and a hardware removal surgery later I was on my feet again! I limped for almost a year before it went away.

Now almost 8 years later, I am back on crutches! BUT only for a few days I hope! Somehow, a cyst formed on the very top of my foot. A ganglion cyst. 

This is what my foot looked like right before surgery! Yummy huh.

My doctor told mom,after he removed it, that it had tentacles like an octopus wrapped around the main nerve that runs along the top of the foot. Well about 2 hours ago.. I could tell that! I had my foot elevated and I have never been in so much pain in my life. My friend leslie witnessed. I felt bad she saw my like that, but it hurt so bad! I was thinking "I have nerve damage... does it need blood flow? does it need to be elevated for no blood flow?" Well I decided to get up and walk around to see what would happen. It instantly went away. It was incredible. So... no more elevating my foot! This is what it looks like right now!

I'll have to post a picture in a few days when I can take the bandage off.

The surgery went well, I got to talk to all the nurses about my future nursing career and my anesthesiologist! He was really nice as well. My Doctor said to get in touch with him if I wanted to go around with an anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist to make sure that's what I want to do. I'm really excited!

Crawfisin' and Fishin'

Crawfishing? is that a word? I'm going to make it one because that is what I did this weekend!

The boyfriend's family is from a small town in Louisiana down by the water. They are some crawfish eating folks! So, they were on a mission to catch some crawfish. Have you ever eaten real cajun crawfish? "Suckin' heads and eatin' tails" is how they say it... I think. It's pretty gross. I don't suck on their heads! I just eat their tails.

Well, Josh's dad had put out some crawfish traps in a small ditch filled with water that was dug off of the creek that runs through our town... and half of georgia. All three of us, Mr. Troy, Joshua and I, all loaded up in the golf cart to go down to the creek to check the traps the next day. Mr. Troy told us to put our wellies on. (I like calling them wellies!) He didn't call them that... they call them rubber boots or something boring like that. So, we did... thank goodness!

it gets much worse.

baby had him a walking stick! and a gun.

I stepped in a hole that went to the top of my wellies! I got stuck.. but I got out after some tugging. I never knew a place like this existed where we live. I only thought I would experience this at Driftwood when we went to Cumberland Island in the 6th grade! We walked through the marshes and it was so cool! Anyways, this marsh was.. worse. Every step I took, I sunk well up to my ankles... Slinging mud on the backs of my legs as a result. I was pretty gross afterwards. and scratched up... I mean welted up.

but we finally made it!!

It was really pretty down there. We fished, didn't catch any fish, and checked the crawfish traps!

Success!!!

look at those iiittyy bitttyy crawfish! Who would have thought... crawfish in middle georgia. Not me! I thought it was a crazy louisianian thing!

and then we walked back through this. yuck.

MMMM...

But then Josh and I went FOR REAL fishing!

and had a nice catch at the end of the day!

I won't mention who caught more fish! Let's just say.. I know how to cast a fishing pole in the right spot! :)

Armadillo Killers.

Saturday night we had our yearly fiasco! Josh and I were sitting on the couch watching 27 Dresses, which I love, when Cutie Pie started barking. This bark was not a "I hear something out there!" bark or a "get out of my way Tug!"... it was a "There's an ARMADILLO digging at my people's house!" kind of bark. I said I bet there is an armadillo out there! Last time she barked like that there was an armadillo digging down into the corner of the concrete walls that make up our basement.

I ran out side and sure enough there was an armadillo waaay down in a hole in the same corner! I ran inside and told dad he said 'go let Tug out, he'll get him!' By that time mom was outside with a flashlight along with Josh and I was hanging out the window above the armadillo getting ready to go let Tug out. Well, Mom touches the thing with the flashlight and it jumps up out of the hole at her. She was freaking out and trying to get back up on the porch and Josh and I were about to die laughing.

I ran to let Tug out of the pen and brought him to the porch. Oh man, he saw that thing and they were gone! The armadillo, lets call him Dan, went up under a bush and dug its way down. Tug starts digging after him, and digging, and digging, and digging! This picture does not do this hole justice.. it just kept going and going.

Tug finally caught Dan and drug him around by his tail... a bunch of crunching and ripping later... they finally got him to where he couldn't run very fast.... so we thought.

They played a little tug-a-war

Tug carried him around... dropped him and tried to get Dan to start running around...

and then he did!! right towards me and mom! I jumped probably four feet off the ground and ran the other way while it tried to attack mom! 

Then the killers were proud.

Cutie the Killer!
and posing Dan

and Tug the real killer!

Eventually Dan just looked like a normal armadillo.

Poor Dan!

Congratulations, you have been accepted to...

Nursing school!

I have finally chosen my life path.

Who would have thought it was going to be becoming a nurse?! not me! I thought for SO long that I was going to be a veterinarian. I would LOVE to be a veterinarian, but I'm am just as happy.. if not more happy with my decision on nursing school. I interviewed with them this past Monday and found out Tuesday that I got in.

So, on Monday (yes, this monday) I will be joining my sister in the accelerated nursing program (sort of). I have to take my pre-requisites first and then I start the real nursing classes in the Fall. This summer I am taking Concepts of Nursing, 2 history courses (dread!), and Human Pathology. All are online except the Concepts of Nursing. I only have to go to campus one day a week! I'm pretty pumped about that! I thought I was going to have to be there tues, wed, thurs.. but now it's just thurs.

Why did I choose nursing?
1) it will be more flexible when I need it to be in the far off future.
2) I like taking care of people just as much as I do animals. I prefer younger people to older though.
3) I can make just as much if not more money. I'm not really worried about money... but hey, it's nice to have!
4) There will ALWAYS be a job. People are always getting hurt. Animals get hurt a lot too, but Veterinarians just can't up and move from location to location as easily as a nurse can.

What kind of nurse do I want to be?
A nurse anesthetist- unless I become more interested in something else along the way! I was interested in the anesthesiology part of my 2 surgeries back in 2003 and I am still interested. I would love to be a nurse anesthetist. It will be just as challenging as studying to become a veterinarian.

and that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

136th Kentucky Derby!

I LOVE the Kentucky Derby!!

This year my pick is the 6 horse, Stately Victor. He has a sweet sweet story (named after the owners sons best friend that was killed in a car crash). He races good in the slop and he's pretty!

Stately Victor

I will also be cheering on the number 1 horse and favorite. Lookin At lucky. That was my favorite horse by looking at them (i always cheer on the pretty ones!). Then I saw it was the number one favorite.

The number 3 horse, Noble's Promise. I like that horses story as well. 25 owners just looking to have a little fun!


I like the number 4 horse, the 2nd favorite, Super Saver. It's a 'Pletcher' horse. He has been training for YEARS. Has had 24 horses in the Kentucky derby and has never won! I just feel sorry for him. He has FOUR horses in this race! Maybe he'll win with one of them! Calvin Borel is one of his jockeys. Last year, Calvin Borel won the kentucky derby on a 50-1 shot horse, Mine that Bird. He went from DEAD LAST to first on the last turn. It was incredible! I don't like calvin... but you have to give him credit. he likes to ride the rail... they call him Calvin Bo-Rail at the track. haha.

and I also like Jackson Bend. I think I just like his name and he's very pretty! :) He's number 13.

So there's my pick!!

Riders up!!!!

And They're Off!!!!!!!


UPDATE: Once again... Calvin Bo-Rail did it again. (I'm kinda tired of him winning... but I'm glad Pletcher finally has a derby win!) Super Saver was able to grab the win. He was in fourth and fifth places the whole time and then took the lead right after the final turn.
I called it before it started... I said talking to my mom "the 4 horse is going to win no doubt. I wish Victor would get it though! but, the pletcher horse has it." she said ok and then it happened!

But I enjoyed watching it as always!