As has become fairly common around these parts, I’m going to do a basic ‘catch all’ post to cover the things I’ve hinted to earlier in the week, with more depth.

First, I’m going to give an update on my step mom. Earlier this month, she had her left kidney removed because they’d discovered cancer and felt that was the best course of action, based on her medical history. During the surgery, the discovered ‘something concerning to send off to the lab’ and so she was waiting to hear back from that.

Well, she heard back on Friday and the surgeon basically said that there was more cancer than they’d originally thought and they were sending her back to the regular ole non-surgical oncologist.

Naturally, she’s freaked out and so are we. At this point, we’re not sure exactly what it all means, but it most certainly means more treatments. The Dr. made some cursory statements that have basically made us all freak out – but at this point, we’re going to wait until she’s had a chance to speak to her regular oncologist.

So, that’s what the Tweet and Facebook messages were about last week. I certainly appreciate all of the positive vibes/Karma/thoughts/prayers directed her way and I will, of course, update when I know more.

Secondly, you may remember a few weeks ago that I tweeted (at length) about our Chili’s experience. It was awful. I actually had to get on the phone and call the restaurant to request our drinks finally be delivered, this was after having placed our order for both drinks and food and had our food brought to us. It was a real stupid-fest.

At any rate, I sent @Chilis a tweet and told them how unhappy I was and I sent Corporate an email spelling it out in depth.

I never did get any kind of email from Chili’s, which I thought was sort of disappointing, since my contact had been made via email, But when I checked my snail mail yesterday, I discovered they’d sent me a letter and a $20 gift check, so we decided to give it a shot for lunch.

In the end, our service yesterday was much better than the service we’d experienced previously – and when we pulled out the gift checks to pay for our meal, the guy asked us if we’d had a bad experience and if it had been at their location. When I shared our experience with him, he looked at me us and said, “You know, we had retraining this morning and I wondered what had happened – it sounds like we really needed it, so thanks for writing in so we could make your experience better”

It was great that we actually went in on the day they’d done training – but even better was the response from their staff.

So, this is another one of those “bad experiences gone good” – I’m disappointed when I go some place and the service is crap – but I am always happy when I go some place where I’ve told them their service is crap and their service is crappy no more.

Sadly, that never happened with On The Border. Their loss.

In other news – I hinted in comments that someone at work had finally ‘delved deeper’ into the ‘my daughter doesn’t live with me’ statement I had made previously. Basically, she wanted to know who my daughter lived with, since she didn’t live with me. I shared that I had placed her for adoption and that she lived with her mother in the Chicago area and just kind of left it at that. She did ask if we knew each other – which isn’t an a-typical question from people inexperienced with adoption – and I shared a bit about our openness.

It was a great chat. She was super friendly and totally nonjudgmental about it – I didn’t have that ‘crushing guilt’ that usually accompanies these types of conversations. I’m sure some of you know what I’m talking about there.

At any rate – I feel much better now – way less apprehensive and a whole ton less worried about how to deal with it going forward.

Finally, I am looking at options to help with productivity in my drive. I’ve got to find a good ear phone/mic option – the Apple Ear Buds don’t work for me – I’ve installed the Dragon Naturally Speaking App on my phone and I’m unsure of one of the Borg-Style Bluetooth Headsets will also work with Dragon. I haven’t been able to find anyone who knows that answer either (Anyone know? Can you use a Bluetooth headset to talk to your ‘voice control’ on an iPhone 4?)

Now, if I could just get my work email on my phone – I need to look into that.

Anyway – that’s pretty much all I have going on right at the moment. Ready to start my week with a bang.

Damnit, I forgot to get gas. Crap.

Well, I’m alive.

It was touch and go there for a minute I think.

Actually, it wasn’t so bad. I enjoyed meeting new people. I really hope to be able to get up to speed on things very quickly.

The processes and procedures are much different than what I’m used to and that scares me. I just need to remember to ask questions.

There’s nothing wrong with that, right?

As for the job – I love it. I do. I think once I’ve found my footing a bit more and I have a better feel for things – I will love it even more.

As for the commute, it is everything I knew it was going to be and more. I need to get an aux jack installed in my car – it’s on the short list of things I want to do, but it hasn’t been far enough up the list to get done – but that’s about to change. Seriously, who decided it was a good idea to make the ‘rush hour’ prime time to trashy radio?

I’m so done with prank calls, nasty jokes and stupid-human-tricks.

Yes, an aux jack is totally moving up the short list.

Overall, I am happy. It is a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say. A very good thing.

This entire post was brought to you by the fact that I failed to hydrate almost all day today, so now I have a dehydration headache – which is awesome!

[Edited to add: I forgot to mention - I'll do a more comprehensive post tomorrow about my step mom and her medical related issues. I tried calling all evening and the phone was off the hook (do people still say that?) so I don't have any real firm or updated info. Good karma is, as always, appreciated.]

Well, the testing is done and here are the results:

Grasses

• Bermuda
• Johnson
• Orchard
• Timothy
• Kentucky Blue
• Perennial Rye
• Western Wheat

Weeds

• Careless Weed
• Russian Thistle
• Western Ragweed
• Allscale
• Lamb’s Quarter
• Plantain
• Dock Mix
• Kochia

Trees

• Cottonwood
• Arizona Ash
• Mulberry
• Olive
• Mesquite
• Pecan

Also, positive, randomly, was Peanut.

They’re working on getting his insurance coverage squared away – then he can start exposure injections and hopefully be done with this all in the next several months.

In other news – I was doing nothing but killing time at the office – so today, I suggested I leave early, rather than having them pay me for surfing websites with Cat photos and reading CNN.

They agreed – so my last day was today.

School starts tomorrow for the kid – so that’ll be fun!

Yesterday was a busy day for John.

First, he had an appointment at his allergist. It went something like this:

John's actual back after allergy testing

John: I am allergic to something.

Dr: Here, lets put these 63 common allergens on your back to see what you might be allergic to.

John: Ok!

Dr: Hmmm, I think you’re right, you are allergic – come back tomorrow and 3 PM and pay another $40 copay and we’ll tell you what it is!

John: ($%*#@!!$

Brandy: )$*(%*(@

Dr: Bye now!

I was a little frustrated, especially since I had asked all the questions before and during the appointment about what we could expect. I was assured we’d walk away from testing yesterday with the answer – but alas, that didn’t happen. Based on what we saw in the testing room, those spots on the left are a response to trees and grasses – the few spots on the right are responses to inhalant based allergies.

They did give him some nasal spray, which he took last night, but he gets a major headache from it – so he’s not a big fan. We’ll just have to see where it goes. He goes back today to find out what he’s allergic to and what he can do to ‘fix’ it. The major problem being – I can’t really go with him…so *sigh*

In other news – John went to his first counseling session yesterday. He told me he was kind of looking forward to it. I, on the other hand, ended up some some freak of a headache, took some pills and went to bed at 6:30, so I didn’t get to hear about it when he got home.

But this morning we talked about and basically he said it was a flop. He’d look for another counselor, but the guy last night wasn’t ‘it’. I thought it was great that he was able to identify that so quickly and I told him that, to which he responded: Well, it wasn’t that hard – they told me to get there 15 minutes early for document fill out, which of course I did – but the clients before me ran over their session by 15 minutes so when it was my turn and I was finally called back at 7:20, the guy did nothing but clock watch the whole time, with a bunch of passive ‘uh huhs’ and disinterested ‘oks’ when he finally announced at 7:50 (30 minutes of a 50 minute session) that time was up.

Poor guy. He wasn’t happy. Here he is trying and it was a big flop!

In work related news – we had pie. It was delicious, so I guess the entire day wasn’t a fail

It’s 6:30 am, I’m sitting here drinking my second cup and catching up on overnight ‘goings on’. It’s so much easier now that my first gut reaction to the morning isn’t ‘What happened overnight at work and what crap do I need to take care of first while I wait for my coffee to finish brewing!” – I like *this* kind of morning much better.

It’s my last week at Adoption.com – I’m happy and I’m sad. The last two weeks have been hard for a number of reasons – but I think I needed them to be harder than normal, if only to solidify my reason for making this jump in the first place. I’ll miss the people I’ve forged friendships with, the wonderful contractors and staff who have made the projects I’ve worked on a joy and the experiences that taught me things I never dreamed of learning.

In addition to this being my last week – it’s also the kids first week of school and today starts a mad dash to get everything done by the first day of school that needs to be done. Things like attending open house tonight, getting lists of supplies/junk needed for classes and finishing up the school gear shopping, which I readily admit, I have put off until the very last possible moment.

John is also going to the Allergist today – he’s been suffering so badly this season, he finally gave in and decided to see a specialist. I’m anxious for him, because he’s not a fun person to be around when his allergies are raging full force. I am really hopeful that they can help him and he can get on some injections that will ease his suffering.

John also has his first appointment to see a counselor – I had originally planned to attend, but then I realized it conflicted with the open house tonight – so hopefully, he can go and be ok.

It promises to be a busy week filled with a lots of stuff going on. I’m looking forward to the new stuff to come