Fffffrrrrreeeeezzzzziiiiinnnnngggg!!!!

Well, I have managed to miss both of the really cold fronts that have come down through Austin, the first when we were in Phoenix, and the second when I was in the hospital, but I didn't miss this one. Yesterday it was near 80 and today it didn't get above 42, and drizzling all day. Yuck! There is a reason I don't do winter!! I hate being cold. I guess it makes it feel more like Christmas time, but mostly I just feel cold. :-)
We had a really nice weekend, before it got cold. Last Friday night we went to eat at a Chinese restaurant that had been recommended to us, and I was not disappointed. It's hard to find a good Chinese place, either they're way too Americanized or just a little iffy in the sanitation department. But this was a very nice place (but not too nice, or we couldn't bring the boys!), and very good food. Afterwards we went to a Christmas tree lot and picked out a tree. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is, but it is the best tree we've ever had! It must have been cut very recently because the needles are all still soft and green, and it is naturally just the perfect cone shape. Ben got it all trimmed and set up in the Christmas tree stand that night while the boys rode their bikes in the driveway.
Saturday morning was our ward's Christmas breakfast. This in lieu of a ward dinner, and I thought it was great. MUCH better for kids to have a breakfast, than to be up too late and tired and grumpy sitting through a program. There were musical numbers, our bishop spoke, and good food. This was my first time showing up at our Church building in more than a month! (Because we had Stake conference, and then we were gone to AZ for two Sundays in a row, and then I was in the hospital). It was nice to see everyone and everyone was really, really nice and came and asked how I was doing and everything.
After the breakfast the boys rode their bikes in the parking lot again. A few months ago I had brought them all up to the Church to practice on their bikes, and they just weren't quite big enough/strong enough/coordinated enough, so it was fun to see how they've grown and improved since then. Then we did a Walmart grocery store run to get a bunch of food ready for the afternoon. At 2:00 three Young Women from my ward came over and helped me make food. I'm going to try a once a month (or maybe once every two week) cooking thing to simplify things around here, and to give my kids something better to eat that frozen pizza, macaroni and cheese, and ramen noodles! LOL! So we made meatballs and chicken paprakash (sp?), and chicken enchiladas, and now my freezer is full. The girls were great, they did most of the work and I sat at the table and directed, and afterward they cleaned everything up! I think they had fun, too. We ate about half the meatballs last night (I just boiled some spaghetti and heated up the sauce), and I think it was a hit. We had no leftovers, anyway.
Sunday was church, and guess what, they moved the Young Women room for me! It used to be up a half-flight of stairs and now we're down on the regular floor so I don't have to try to navigate the stairs. I feel bad, though, because the only available closet is in that upstairs room, so now the girls have to lug everything up and down the stairs every week.
After church Ben put lights up on the tree and then our home teacher came, bringing Christmas cake which is always welcome. Later on the boys and I decorated the tree. The big boys are now old enough to be interested in this process, and actually help. I believe every year until this one, I've been the sole tree decorator. Of course the ornaments did tend to accumulate right at the arm-level of 3 and 6 year old boys, so I had to surreptitiously reposition some of them, but the end result is beautiful. Ben put up the star that mama got for us when she was here last week.
Monday was back to school for the boys and just me and Mosey at home. He is heavily into these bead thingamajigs that you iron to melt together to form various shapes. Hard to explain. He's made probably 8 of them so far, and he spent most of the day after preschool making more. Well, he starts them anyway, and then comes up to me and tells me he *needs* my help, so then I go and finish it for him. I'm sure it's great for his fine-motor skills. Heck, it's great for mine! Mosey is such a funny little guy. He's definitely learning to be a bit more of a contrarian than he has been thus far. The other day I was saying something, I can't remember what, and he says in reply, "Mom, when you tell me something, I just say no!" And isn't that the truth! He's also got this mistaken belief that if he just says "please" often enough and loud enough, that I will ultimately relent. So far he hasn't been justified in this belief, but not for lack of trying on his part.
I also had a long conversation with the stem cell transplant coordinator from Seattle. She was also very positive and I'm getting all my records faxed and mailed up there this week. The only down side of that conversation was when I asked her if this procedure is ever done for MS patients outside of the clinical trial arena, and she said, no, so far it's only been done in studies, it's not the kind of thing you can just ask your doctor to do. I'm not sure I understand the reasons for this, but anyway, it is what it is. So the pressure is still on for me to get accepted into this study.
Yesterday we had our house cleaners come for the second time, and it was great. At least one day every two weeks when I can feel peaceful and calm about the state of affairs in this house. Tonight as I'm looking around, well, it's probably still fairly sanitized, but not so peaceful anymore. This is my fault, though, because this afternoon I was quite occupied getting some stuff ready for mutual tonight, and then the boys had TKD until 6:30 and then I had to run off to Church, leaving Ben with dinner, reading, and bedtime. Tomorrow afternoon I'll put them to work. Anyway, back to yesterday. Stephanie Coleman from my ward (she's the one who's been coordinating everything from the ward) came and took Mosey and me to the mall and then to Burlington Coat Factory to do some Christmas shopping. I'm reminded again why I don't enjoy shopping, but I did make some good progress. And I couldn't have done it without her. I'm doing ok walking short distances around the house, but even walking the length of Burlington a time or two, let alone the mall, wouldn't have been possible. So she pushed me in the wheelchair and carried bags and stuff. I had a great time, although I don't think she got much shopping done for her own family.
In the afternoon after the boys came home from school, my physical therapist came to work with me for about 45 minutes. It was good but very hard, and honestly a little depressing. I know, I know, two weeks ago I could barely move my toes, and today I'm walking, so what's there to be depressed about? And I'm not really depressed, it's just... weird. One of the exercises she had me do was to sit on the edge of the couch with my feet extended on the floor and then draw my feet back toward the couch. This is to work on the hamstrings. Ok, so I barely managed to do 10 with my right leg, and then with my left (my worse side), I *barely* was able to do four before my leg just wouldn't obey me anymore. The boys were watching me, and Joseph was very proud of himself as he was sitting on the floor also doing the exercises, and excitedly telling me how many *he* could do... She's coming three times a week for three weeks so we'll see how much I can get back. I don't know how much I am going to regain after this last attack. I'm not going to get as much back as I did after my last round of steroids, I can tell that already, but I do think in two or three weeks, if given plenty of time, and a very straight, very flat surface, I could do the 100 meters without a cane. A day or two ago I was feeling a bit more cocky, but today I was in the bathroom just walking to the closet (thinking I didn't need my cane since I was just going from the bedroom into the bathroom) and somehow lost my balance and ended up on my back on the tile floor. So that kind of sobered me up a little. And I'm sporting another lovely bruise, this time on my backside. Sigh... I am getting better at falling, though, isn't that a great skill to have? You have to think FAST when you're falling, and try to land in the least painful way. I didn't smack my head on the tile floor, which I very well might have considering the way I fell, so I was pretty proud of myself. I'll definitely need to add that life skill to my resume, don't you think?
But other than my lovely bathroom acrobatics, today was a good day; I drove my van!! I felt good driving, too, my legs were able to do what they needed to do to drive safely I thought. Mosey and I did a couple of errands and I think he was just happy to not be trapped in the house all day with me! After school the boys played, Brigham and Mosey very busily making more bead creations. Joseph wanted to make one too, but he just doesn't enjoy the little detail work, and he kept accidently knocking his beads off and getting really frustrated and crying. Finally I told him that he had to either pull himself together, or I wasn't going to let him play with the beads anymore. I told him the beads are supposed to be fun, and if it isn't fun for him, there is no point in doing it! I told him that Dad really doesn't like doing that kind of stuff and it's perfectly ok if he doesn't either. He actually seemed to accept this pretty well, and then brought in Mosey's tricycle and rode it around and around the house instead. :-)
Brigham was SO excited this afternoon. I think he's been bitten by the Christmas bug. He was so funny talking with Mosey, at one point he said, "When I talk to you, do you get excited and have the feeling that we're going to Disney World?" And Mosey answers, "Yeah, I think I do!!" The two of them can get *really* enthusiastic about stuff. Earlier, when opening one of the bags of beads, Brigham accidently spilled a whole bunch of them. I sighed loudly and told him he needed to let ME open those bags up, and he said, "I'm sorry you are stressed out, mom, don't worry, I will pick them up, I don't want you to have to do more work." Awwwww, isn't he sweet? Of course, I did end up cleaning up most of it because those little beads just roll away whenever you try to sweep them, it's really pretty hard. As I was sitting on the floor (ouch, on my poor, bruised bum!) sweeping them up with a broom and dustpan, Brigham says, "Mom, you're really GOOD at that!" Yes, I am very talented.
Tonight we had a "Gifts from the Heart" program for mutual which was beautiful and fun. Everyone brought or did something demonstrating a gift they've been given, and then our YW Pres did a really good job pulling it all together and talking about using our gifts to give to others, how gifts from the heart are much better than any other kind. She did a really good job and I can't do her justice trying to describe it. There was artwork, crafts, music, food, story-telling, and a really nice slideshow one of the girls put together with pictures of Christ set to "What Child is This." It was nice.
And now it is 10:16 and time for me to go to bed!!
Thanks for reading my laundry list of everything that's been going on in the last few days. Note that there was no actual laundry listed anywhere on that laundry list. That is because Ben has been doing the laundry. My hero...