You are now a NINJA

I'm feeling pretty butt-kicking happy right now, so I thought I'd share how to become a true warrior in cotton. This is something that a very good long-distance friend in college shared with me, and it just hasn't gotten old.

Went to the cardiologist today. And hurray! It looks like I have nothing worse than a very irregular heartbeat. Huzzah! I have a little valve regurgitation, but that's not un-normal. The irregular heartbeat can cause the problems I've been having, supposedly, and as long as nothing else is going wrong with my heart, I'm fine. (Meaning as long as I stay healthy and take care of myself, I shouldn't have a problem, is how I understand it.) I'll have to have check-ups every four months for now, but my stress tests and echos, etc., all came back fine. I still have to go in for a carotid exam this Friday to make sure there isn't anything going on in my neck that's causing my dizziness and shoulder pains. And I should still wear my monitor if I have a bad day with my heart, since I've already paid for a full month with the monitoring company. But....YAY! I don't have to wear that evil thing all the time any more. And I can stop making myself sick with worry about my heart spazzes. *happy sigh*

We just got back from a four day visit up in Azle. We ran around a lot, visiting family and going out with family, but we had a really good visit. Matt's mom is in pretty good health, considering she just celebrated having her one year anniversary for her cancer surgery. She's back to shopping with friends and seems to be enjoying her retirement again, and her hair is starting to grow back. And Dad/David seems to be doing better now that Mom is.

We got to see Kara's new apartment and take her out to lunch and bought her a new plunger for her bathroom. (What are big sisters and brother-in-laws for?) Natalee and I saw my grandparents for a little while, playing on the floor with toys and picking flowers out of their yard. We went out to eat with Matt's parents and my own two different nights. And we went Easter egg hunting with Brent, his two little boys, Eric, Pam, and their daughter Kaitlyn, and Daniel and Gabby. Natalee conquered the Easter egg field, but Matt and I (and all the other guys) stunk it up practicing golf swings in the backyard. Well, I did more than the others. We had a really good time, we're all sunburned, and Natalee's got a whole bunch of Easter goodies. Plus we had Jennifer over for most of last week, helping me with the Natster and shopping for her prom regalia. All-in-all, it's been a really great week.

So now we should all kick butt like ninjas to celebrate. *strikes an interesting, yet threatening ninja pose*

On a better note...

Check out my bread! I made it two weeks ago or thereabouts, but it kind of got displaced with all the heart stuff. It was my first time to make focacia bread, but I think it came out very well. Next time I'll have to preheat the stone so that the outside crust will be a little crisper. And for some reason, it was a little sweet. I'll have to mess with that some. It made awesome panini sandwiches. Yum! I was so proud, I took pictures of it. The rosemary in it smelled divine, and I daydreamed about having my own little bakery or cafe while it baked. Fat chance though it be. Matt ate a piece every morning for breakfast. We finished off two loaves in less than a week between the three of us.

Natalee has definitely entered the terrible twos. Everything is "MINE!" or "No!" or "I'm stuck!" She rarely eats her meals, vegetables, or fruits nowadays, things that once were her favorites. But she's suddenly liking meat. She was begging for the taco meat that fell out of Matt's tacos at dinner. She used to despise any kind of meat besides McDonald's chicken nuggets, so Matt and I are a little confused. She's learning her colors and still working on her vocabulary. She doesn't speak in her gibberish language so much anymore, thankfully. But oh man, I'm grateful Jennifer's coming to hang out with us next week. Admittedly, Matt's been wrangling the Natster a lot more this week, to help me out. But she's a handful. A much-loved handful. Even when she's her worst, I can still cry with gratitude for her at the end of the day.

I'm making zucchini bread and hopefully whole wheat bread this weekend. Maybe even some chocolate whole wheat waffles. (I made some plain whole wheat ones that came out pretty well a few weeks ago.) I'll try to post up a recipe or two of anything that comes out well.

Hurled a big lemon..take that as you like

I have recently been hurled a great big lemon. Figuratively speaking. I've been dealing with symptoms normally associated with heart attacks. Racing heart. Heart palpitations. Heart beating so hard that you can see my chest bouncing. Shortness of breath. Tight feeling in the chest. Soreness in my chest, shoulder, and left arm. Thankfully, this doesn't happen on an everyday basis. Just on days when I take my propranolol late (a low level beta-blocker I originally started taking for my tremors) or I get stressed out, like I was today.

I started seeing a cardiologist last week. Today, I had an echocardiogram, a stress test, another smaller echocardiagram, an ultrasound that is pretty much the same thing as an echocardiagram, and had an event monitor strapped on me. My day, from the moment I got up, till I got out of the doctor's office at nearly three p.m., sucked. No holding the onions or stinky feet cheese.

Heart problems, having all these tests done, waiting for answers, terrify me. I watched my little sister Elizabeth go through so many tests, so many trials due to her heart problems, watched my parents and close relations constantly falling apart with anxiety, during the fourteen months of her life. So much was done to try to help her, so much was done to her tiny, frail little body in the hopes of giving her a semi-normal life, and she still passed away. I was six when she died. And I didn't realize how much of a phobia I had built up about heart problems and the resulting procedures until this past week, and especially today.

So things that shouldn't have been so bad today, were horribly frightening. I feel burpy just thinking about it. (I burp when I'm nervous. Matt has to pee a lot. And I burp and hope that this one won't bring something up with it.) But now that they're over, I'm glad they're done. And pray to God I don't have to do them again.

I had to arrive, fasting, at the hospital at noon. (Pity my poor family who had to deal with me beforehand. I was bad.) We had to get registered at the Heart Center and pay the whopping $400+ bill that was after the insurance covered its part. The registrar was nice, but didn't help saying things like 'you poor thing.' I started getting twitchy thinking I was possibly in for worse if a hospital employee was trying to be sympathetic AFTER she got our money. I clipped off my nails last week after my last bout of heart-related nervousness, so I had to pretend to bite my nails and pretend that that helped. Yes, seriously, I did. Ask Matt.

Thankfully the wait was short once we paid up. We went back to a nuclear lab in the heart center. Matt had to wait in a tiny waiting room next door, because the lab/stress room was hardly bigger than the waiting room. I had to strip my top half and put on one of the ubiquitous thin cotton, back-tied gowns so fashionable at hospitals and lay down on my left side on a very skinny bed. A Russian-accented technician/nurse then proceeded to do my full echocardiagram. An echocardiagram is, as far as I can tell, a lot like an ultrasound. In fact, I really don't know the difference. I watched my heart on the little slice-of-cone window for a few moments before I had to turn my head. The normal heart says something like "lub-dub" for every beat. My heart says "lubdublub." This is because, according to my cardiologist, the lower ventricles of my heart are trying to stay in time with the top ones of my heart. So I get an extra beat every other or so. And let me tell you, my heart beat was already a little high from anxiety. Watching my heart and knowing it wasn't right made it speed up and my breath to become shorter. The echo tech and the lady administering my stress test were both very nice and polite. Unfortunately, the echo tech was of the school of thought that the closer you can get your little ultrasound wand to the heart, the better. So she jammed it as hard as she could against my breast, under my breast, and the thin skin of my chest. It felt like Natalee was elbowing my really painfully and really hard in the chest. Repeatedly. So my chest feels bruised now, and I have some pretty little red spots where I bled just under the skin.

The first echo. took 20 to 30 minutes. Afterwards, once my cardiologist showed up, was my stress test. It should have been a lot easier than it was, but it wasn't. A stress test is where they put you on a tread mill with electrodes to an EKG hooked up on your chest (still wearing only a hospital gown and the bottom half of your clothes), and they try to make you work hard enough that your heart races hard so they can get a really good look at its beats on an echocardiagram. They angle up the treadmill and speed it up every three minutes. Still shouldn't've been hard. But I had been lying there on my left side (which isn't comfortable for me nowadays with my heart probs) for thirty minutes. To lie there for thirty minutes, with my heart phobic-ly racing already, and then be expected to get on a tilted treadmill and start off at a good clip, was beyond my abilities. I was on the treadmill for six minutes before I felt like I was going to pass out from shortness of breath. And so the pictures from my second echocardiagram weren't as good as they could be. Hopefully they'll be well enough. I won't know till I talk to the cardiologist on the 24th. After being jabbed with that ultrasound wand for so long, I was ready to leave.

Matt drove me over to the cardiologist's office after that. I got to sit in the waiting room, wolfing down a Snickers marathon bar while all the cardiology patients glared at me for it. I had an ultrasound on my heart done there at the office by a lady who has been doing it for thirty years. Thankfully, she is not of the school of stabbing you with the wand. Yay. She said she couldn't really say what's wrong with my heart, since she's not a doctor, but it looks like mitral valve prolapse to her. (My aunt has this. You can learn about it here: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/mitral-valve-prolapse/DS00504. It has a tendency to run in families, so it's not entirely surprising.) And then, joy of joys, I got outfitted with an event monitor. Three more little electrode stickers with wires were stuck on my chest, attached to a MP3 player-sized electronic recorder that monitors my heart beat. And I get to wear it for thirty days. Maybe more. It's like a class pet that I wear on my hip and poke when I start feeling unwell. And then I write down my side of the story, and I call up the company so it can screech its side of the story to its.....tech on duty, I guess. It's not so terrible. It just makes me focus more on my heart problems, something I've been trying to avoid. And it's so avant-garde-fashionable to go out with a pedometer looking thing attached to my hip, with wires hanging out from the bottom of my shirt. Maybe people will think I'm some greenie nut who powers her pedometer with body heat or heartbeats. Who knows?

Matt's been really wonderful to me, helping me, doing a lot of the dirty work around here, especially with Natalee, taking me out to lunch. But the day still wore me out. So I'm going to finish sipping my nighttime, no-caffeine herbal tea that really isn't tea, and go to bed. Huzzah.

Newsweek

Okay, through some randomly connected links across websites, I came across Newsweek's articles about Mormons and the LDS church. Newsweek reported on the death of the President and Prophet of the Mormon church, Gordon B. Hinckley. And I see it nowhere else on the news websites. You'd think it would make the news, since the LDS church is one of the largest and fastest growing in the nation. It makes you realize which magazines and online news sites turn the proverbial cold shoulder to Mormons.

But, on the other hand, great big kudos to Newsweek. They write articles sensitive and open to the Mormon church. They try to view the topics under discussion objectively, but with respect that is sorely lacking in other online magazines' articles. So I think I might be visiting Newsweek's website a little more often than the other online mags I used to read regularly. *cough*Time*cough*

I haven't been an active church member during a large part of Gordon B. Hinckley's presidency. But I can respect what he did for the church, the changes he made in order to halt the erosion of the moral values of church members and the cohesiveness of the family. He was a good man who spoke with honesty and openness of the church, who encouraged doubts and discussion as a way to build faith. He was an excellent example of what a latter-day prophet should be. He will be missed.

Here are a few of the Newsweek articles I came across about Mormons, Gordon B. Hinckley, and the choosing of a new prophet.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/105857
http://www.newsweek.com/id/50844
http://www.newsweek.com/id/50728

Wow!

Wow! Finally, Time magazine has put up an article that isn't wholly aimed at tearing down Mitt Romney.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1707342,00.html?xid=site-cnn-partner

Happy 2008

I'm having one of those days when I'm so infuriated by a few people that I feel like I should have steam coming from my ears and tongues of flame from my nostrils, but I'm trying to set it aside.

Happy 2008! 2007 was an eventful year, bad in some ways, but good in others. It's always good to look back as the new year begins and try to remember the good things that have occurred and the obstacles you have overcome in the past year.

We had a very good Christmas. Natalee got a lot of toys and clothes and books that she's littered across our apartment several times now. Matt and I got gift cards along with a lot of other nice things, like kitchen gadgets, new sneakers, computer gadgets, and things for our home. With Christmas money and gift cards I was able to go buy a beautiful new rug, wall sconces, and couch pillows for our living room. And Matt's holding on to his gift card, watching and waiting for a good HDTV to come on sale. It'll be a relief to get a new TV. The one we have in the living room now is nice, but nothing special. The one in our bedroom, on the other hand, is so old and has been moved so often that the shell of it is falling apart. It's been superglued a few times, but the superglue will no longer hold it together. So we can't ever move it again, besides out to the trash. So whenever Matt finally finds a TV to his particular standards and price range, we'll be moving the old TV out of the living room to the bedroom and tossing out the TV in the bedroom. Hurray!

We welcomed another cousin to the family a little over a week ago. My uncle JM and his fiancee April had a healthy little girl named Samantha on December 28th. Matt, Natalee, and I got to visit them and their 6 year old daughter Taylor at the hospital, and I got to be a baby hog and held Samantha for a while. It was a shock to hold a baby small enough to keep in the crook of my arm again. It really is true - you don't realize how big your own kid has gotten until you hold a little one again. Right now it's looking like I'll be babysitting Samantha when April goes back to work in a few months. It'll give me a baby to play with, Natalee some big sister practice, and us some extra money. All nice things. I'm looking forward to taking care of a child that spends most of the day sleeping. Ah, what bliss! I took it too much for granted when Natalee was that young.

Christmas is great and all, and I am sad to see all the anticipation go, but I'm glad the holidays are over. It's good to be home, to sweep and mop and catch up on laundry. To have friends over for dinner. To enjoy cooking and baking for the sake of it again. All the things you really can't do with all the hustle and bustle of the holidays. It's good to be home, away from all the relatives and rude opinions and obligations that visiting during the holidays seem to entail. JM and April recently bought a house and stayed home with Taylor for Christmas. When they told us their plans, I was a little shocked, thinking 'Staying home on Christmas?!' But wow, it sounds divine now. I haven't had a Christmas at home since I was 17 or 18. Maybe someday soon we'll have a Christmas at home ourselves.

So, for 2008, I'm appreciating feathering my nest. My resolution this year, after some instances that caught me in the teeth and made me think, is to take care of myself. Spend more time on myself, doing things like fixing my hair, ironing my clothes, talking to and spending time with my friends, worrying about myself. I will still take care of my family, first and foremost, but I'm going to stop feeling guilty for spending time on myself. It's a luxury I can have now that Natalee's two.

So, what's your new year's resolution? Anything that made you feel really stupid or that you regret from the past year that you resolve not to let happen in the new year? I think my resolution, and my private, half-thought ones, have more to do with that than making a fresh start. Learning from your mistakes and blind spots is always a good resolution.

Post Surgery

Matt's doing okay. The surgery was Thursday - Dr. Bonner removed a cyst from Matt's sublingual gland, and hopefully most of the gland so that it won't happen again. It was agonizing, nerve-wracking, and painful Thursday and Friday, but today's been better. Matt's doing a lot better than he was at first. He was so pale when we first got to see him after the surgery that I just wanted to curl up in the bed with him and hold him. And yell and smack around the nurse staff and doctors who had kept me and his parents away from him. But, aside from wanting some real food and not liquid stuff, he's doing pretty good now. He's helped me with Natalee some today and helped me make out all the Christmas cards. As long as he doesn't try to wolf down anything harder than a smashed ravioli, takes his painkillers, and takes it easy, he'll be fine. I keep repeating this in the hopes that I'll remember.

Matt's parents and Jennifer were a big help. Natalee hardly missed us having her best pal Aunt Jenna here. (She was pretty unhappy when Jennifer left this morning.) Matt and I didn't worry about Natalee since we knew she was happy and with someone responsible looking out for her. And it was a relief having Matt's parents here, having somebody else to agonize with during the wait, run errands for Matt's needs, and laugh and talk about less stressful things with. My mother came by to check on Matt (but mostly to see Natalee and Jennifer). And Brent came by and visited with us for a few hours. (He was in town interviewing for residency programs.) We've been very blessed to have friends and family around us when we needed them.

My early baking-and-freezing cookies regimen has been going slow, needless to say. I made a double batch of Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels (recipe courtesy of Alton Brown's "Good Eats") this week. The first half of the batch only came out so-so, but the other half came out really well. I'll have to make another batch to make up for the less-than-stellar ones and for the ones that everybody who visited scarfed. I'll post the recipe at the end. Here's my take on them - they take a long time to make, so be certain you have plenty of time or plan on spreading them out over a while. Make certain you put the chocolate dough on bottom, or it really won't look right. And you have to have parchment paper. HAVE TO. And plastic wrap is good too. The dough, possibly because of the chocolate, is hard to roll out. It falls apart and sticks to everything that's supposed to be nonstick. Putting a layer of plastic wrap on top helped a lot. You have to have parchment paper to put on the cookie sheets when you bake them. I tried spraying the pans really well, and I tried silicone mats. Parchment works best because the candy cane bits in the cookies melt and adhere to the pan/mat and won't come off without breaking. So be certain you have parchment paper for these, or you'll waste a lot of time making pretty cookie....crumbles. Oh, and if you have the food-safe gloves/whatever for hand mixing the dough, wear 'em. The little chunks of candy cane are sharp. But hey, they're really pretty and taste pretty good when you do them the right way.

Chocolate Peppermint Pinwheels

1 batch Sugar Cookies, recipe follows

3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted (I used Ghiradelli chips)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon peppermint extract

1/2 cup crushed candy canes or peppermint candies

Divide the dough in half and add chocolate and vanilla to 1 half and incorporate with hands. Add egg yolk, peppermint extract, and crushed candy to other half of dough and incorporate with hands. Cover both with plastic and chill for approximately 5 minutes. Roll out doughs separately to approximately 1/4-inch thickness. Place peppermint dough on top of chocolate and press together around the edges. Using waxed paper or flexible cutting board underneath, roll dough into log. Wrap in wax paper and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Remove dough from the refrigerator and cut into 1/2-inch slices. Place cookies 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat and bake for 12 to 13 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking time. Remove from oven and let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes, then move to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week.

Sugar Cookie:

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 tablespoon milk

Powdered sugar, for rolling out dough

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. Place butter and sugar in large bowl of electric stand mixer and beat until light in color. Add egg and milk and beat to combine. Put mixer on low speed, gradually add flour, and beat until mixture pulls away from the side of the bowl. Divide the dough in half, wrap in waxed paper, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Sprinkle surface where you will roll out dough with powdered sugar. Remove 1 wrapped pack of dough from refrigerator at a time, sprinkle rolling pin with powdered sugar, and roll out dough to 1/4-inch thick. Move the dough around and check underneath frequently to make sure it is not sticking. If dough has warmed during rolling, place cold cookie sheet on top for 10 minutes to chill. Cut into desired shape, place at least 1-inch apart on greased baking sheet, parchment, or silicone baking mat, and bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until cookies are just beginning to turn brown around the edges, rotating cookie sheet halfway through baking time. Let sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes after removal from oven and then move to complete cooling on wire rack. Serve as is or ice, as desired. Store in airtight container for up to 1 week.

Yield: approximately 3 dozen, 2 1/2-inch cookies

Prep Time: 15 minutes (they lie!!)

Cook Time: 7 to 9 minutes (they lie!!)

Inactive Prep Time: 2 hours (they lie!!)

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_25190,00.html