CaseyAndKelly.Com

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We have a lot to be thankful for this year. The things I’m most thankful for:

1. Our expanding family – yes, we’re expecting again and due in June.
2. Friends – near and far, frequent or infrequent communication.
3. Our health – Casey’s cholesterol is under control and he’s off medication and overall we’re pretty healthy.
4. Casey’s job – while it’s pretty stressful for him most days, he has a secure job that he excels at.  Now just waiting on the raise to accompany the promotion – 2nd quarter.
5. Our dogs – no matter how expensive they are, we love them and they’re definitely a part of the family.

I hope everyone has a great day with lots of food and family (and/or friends)!  Try and catch a nap today if you can and enjoy the football games!

Oh that Dudey Poo. On the 10th, I took Dudey into the vet because he was crying when he’d roll over and he had this lump on his side that had gotten bigger in just a few days. The vet told me that he had a tumor on his side and that she would need to remove it that day. So that day Dude had his fourth major surgery in his three short years alive. When the vet called to tell me I could pick Dude up, she said that they would have to send out the tumor for pathology and that it would be the most expensive (individual component, not overall) part. Of course, we said yes to sending it out. We don’t want him walking around dying of cancer and not doing anything about it. On Monday, we got the pathology back and it was not cancer. I scheduled an appointment for Dude to go in the next day to be checked since he had new bumps appearing. It turns out that he has ringworm (not caused by an actual worm but a fungus which can be in the soil) and his body created a tumor to block off the ringworm. Ringworm is typically contagious (even in humans) but the vet says that all of us (including Stoli) must be immune since we haven’t gotten it. I guess that’s the only bright side to this whole thing.

Now he’s on antibiotics and a topical lotion to hopefully get things under control. He has a ton of these round, scabby spots all over his body (about a dozen in random places). I have to take him back next week for a follow up for the roundworm treatment. I’m also a little concerned that he has a puffy spot near where his incision is healing. It’s a good thing we paid the truck off so we could pay for all of this. Stoli’s due to go into the vet in a couple of months and I’m nervous about taking her in for an annual visit because who knows what she’ll pick up from going in just once.

Due to some bad moves on my part (dropping or benching players), I’ve lost two games in a row in my Fantasy Football League. 🙁 I don’t like losing! Now I’m in third place and hoping I’ve got my lineup where I want it to make it through the rest of the season. And after my vent on Kitna (and dropping him for one whopping week in which he scored 35 points to the guy I swapped in’s 11 points), I picked him back up again. He did really well with 33 points this week so I’m hoping the new head coach has helped turned his game around.

Happy Veteran’s Day to all the men and women that have fought and continue to fight to protect our country and ensure our freedom!

We’re actually going to be moving the baby steps around due to the economy.  Instead of attacking my student loans next, we’re going to jump to BS3 and save up 3-6 months living expenses.  At the same time, we’re going to start a new car fund since our almost 16 year old other car isn’t safe and probably won’t last much longer.  We’d like to drive the thing into the ground so it won’t go anymore and we have more time to save.  But at the same time, we’re planning to donate (tax deduction) it to Goodwill or some other charity and doubt that they’ll take it if it doesn’t run.  So hopefully we’ll be prepared when a good deal comes along.  Once this step is done (which should take the entirety of 2011) then we’ll go back and back off the student loans (consolidated and I think I still have like 15 years left to pay back).

(Word Press is doing something to my formatting.  There are separate paragraphs here.)

I guess I should post this while it’s still true.  I’m in first place in our fantasy football league.  And yes, there’s more than one other person in there with me.  It’s a bunch of people that James knows and there’s 12 of us in all.  I’ve been totally obsessing over this and it makes me want to watch nothing but football all day on Sunday if one of my players is playing.  My quarterback was Tony Romo and since he got injured the week before last I’m a little concerned about his backup’s (Jon Kitna) performance.  I’m definitely thinking a new quarterback is in order before the deadline for trading ends.  Fingers crossed I stay on top again this week!

Republican governor reelected and control of the House! Looking good so far but I’m still nervous about the Senate. They’re estimating that 50% of voters voted, whereas usually it’s around 20%. I don’t know if these stats apply to just mid-term election or presidential elections as well. It makes no sense to me why more registered voters don’t vote. You registered, you put yourself at risk for jury duty, yet you don’t make a difference?

Where has this year gone?! I can hardly believe it’s November already. Only 60 days left of this year and the holiday season is upon us. Halloween was only yesterday but on several websites today I saw countdowns for Christmas shopping. But next up – Election Day. I’m dorky and can’t wait to watch the numbers tomorrow evening and hope that change is afoot. Casey and I did our civic duty, have you?

Wednesday, Brady and I went to the library for dress up story time.  Usually story time is broken up among the age groups: 3-24 months (baby), 2-3 year olds (toddler), and 4-6 year olds (preschoolers) but today everyone was there for dress up story time at the same time.  The librarians counted 50 kids!  The songs and stories were all Halloween themed and really cute.  Brady behind the librarians watching everyone and playing with their note cards.  She’s really into pumpkins right now and their construction paper story that turned into a jack-o-lantern was a big hit.

Brady’s Princess Leia costume was so big on her last year I figured it’d still fit her this year and it did.  With one extra piece of velcro in the back.  I told her the Leia hair/wig was a hat and she kept it on a lot more than I thought she would.  Only a few people could figure out who she was dressed up as and even then they were asking how to pronounce Leia.  She was definitely an original amongst the princesses (although she was a space princess), witches, fairies, and superheroes.

After story time all of the kids got in line and paraded around the shopping center the library’s in and trick-or-treated from the businesses.  She ended up with about 10 pieces of candy, a shampoo sample, and a marker coloring thing.  The people handing out candy were a little misinformed as to what babies can eat and were giving her gobstoppers versus other candies.  She only ended up being able to eat two pieces of chocolate from what she received including trying to eat a Crunch bar through the wrapper.  It was still really cute and I can definitely see us doing it again next year!

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Brady loves pumpkins!  She has one that Casey drew a (sinister) face on and another I bought on Friday that is just her size.  She loves just carrying it around the house and taking it with her in the car and in the stroller.  I found a Sesame Street carving kit on eBay and Casey carved Brady a Bert pumpkin and an Ernie pumpkin.  He did a really great job and Brady loved them!  We’ll definitely need to wait longer to carve pumpkins next year because they don’t do so great in the hot weather.  A week before Halloween is way too far ahead.

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