Happy New Year!

I am so far behind with my blogs. When Sage goes back to school next week I hope to catch up.

We are having a quiet New Year's at home. I never go out on New Year's - too many drunk drivers.

Have a Happy New Year!

My Colonoscopy

I had another colonoscopy yesterday and the results are that I have Crohn's Disease. No big surprise there. I've had it for 14 years now. Each year my doctors seem compelled to confirm this. I think my doctor was really hoping that my stomach problems were due to the shortening of my bowel from my last surgery. I really don't see why this would have been good news. Every time I eat, I need to run to the bathroom. It keeps me thin but not exactly feeling healthy and it really interferes with my life. I was really hoping that my last surgery would have made me normal. It was far from successful. I guess I really needed it because at the time my intestine closed down almost completely. Now I have two ulcers and inflammation at the surgery site and inflammation in my rectum. What a pain in the butt!! For anybody who doesn't know: Crohn's disease is an inflammatory bowel disease that could occur anywhere in the digestive tract. It causes inflammation deep into the the tissues of the intestinal wall. This can cause the intestine to narrow. I think of it as a kinked hose. The intestine is supposed to be opened and flow smoothly. If it gets kinked, a lot of pressure builds up until it finally pushes its way through. I am in lots of pain while it builds up and then I literally have to run to the bathroom. This is how my life has been for a long time now. Nobody knows what causes Crohn's disease. There have been studies linking it to a certain bacteria and other studies believing it has to do with missing chromosomes. There have been studies that have connect the two theories. It is hard to treat a disease when they don't know the cause. The one thing they do know is that something causes the body's immune system to become overactive thus causing inflammation. It's as if the body thinks there is something that needs to be attacked but since nothing is there, it attacks itself. There are all sorts of medications with all different ways of treating the inflammation. So far, none of them has ever helped me where I felt like I was in remission. All of them had some sort of adverse affect on me or just plain didn't work. I have gone the natural route to no avail. I hope someday I find something that will help me. Until then, I try to live every day as happy as possible and I try not to let the Crohn's disease get in my way too much.

Our Gingerbread House

We made our own Gingerbread House at home. We had a lot of fun. Sage had a whole bag of candy left-over from school and since I would rather her not eat too much candy, we used it for our gingerbread house. This is one of our family traditions.

Gingerbread House

It was Gingerbread House Day at Sage's school, Lost Lake Elementary. Every student in the school makes a gingerbread house. Each class has a different theme based on a book. The entire cafeteria was filled with kids making their houses and parent volunteers helping. In the morning the kids came over to build their houses using graham crackers and lots of icing. In the afternoon, after the icing set, the kids came back to decorate. The theme for Sage's class was Rainbow Fish. One of the parents volunteered to be the lead parent. Her mother made the huge beautiful display. Each of the kids received a bowl filled with candy and a tray of icing. They had about 30 minutes to decorate. They all had a bag for the left-over candy to bring home since we didn't want them eating it there. The kids had a great time. All of the houses from the entire school were displayed in the Music room. Lost Lake has been doing this for years now. There were wooden display benches with colored lights for each class. It reminded me of the Grove Park Inn during Christmas. It was absolutely beautiful. Of course, Sage was in a bad mood so I didn't get the pictures I wanted. I hope to go back this week to take better ones. The room smelled delicious too.

My New Camera

You know you're old if you recognize this TV show!

Sage's self Portrait

One of her zillion pictures of Princess. Torture time!

For Hanukkah this year, Scott bought me a camera. As you know, I have cursed my Nikon for years now. It has the slowest shutter lag I have ever seen. I have been researching cameras for months now. My main requirement was that it had to have a fast shutter lag. Meaning, when I press the button, the camera takes the picture. It takes my Nikon 5 - 6 seconds to snap the picture after pressing the button. I always missed my intended picture. I chose the Canon SD790IS because picture-taking seems instant even indoors with poor lighting. The second feature I love is the 3" LCD screen. Most cameras have a 2.5 screen. There are a lot of other great features. Since I am a technology moron, it will take a while before I learn how to use most of my camera. I already figured out most of the basics for my camera so get ready to see some great pictures coming up soon. One more great thing about my new camera - I no longer have to share my camera with Sage. I know she's only 6, but she loves to take pictures. She is actually very good at it. She practices all the time. Except she likes to take pictures of her toys, TV shows, the toilet, a zillion pictures of Princess, food, stuffed animals and so on. I have to delete most of them before I upload my card to Picasa. This usually results in a bout of crying because I erased her pictures. Now I will have my own camera and she could take pictures of every toy, toilet seat or anything else without me complaining. What a great gift!
Above are some of the pictures Sage has taken with her Nikon. The first picture of the Jetson's is a little blurry because it was on TV.