Welcome Collin, and my view from the sofa

Before I tell you why I've been absent from blogging lately I wanted to introduce our newest Grandson, Collin Joel Lightner who was born yesterday morning at about 8 Eastern Time (2am in Hawaii). Mom and baby are doing fine, and Dad and big brother Aidan are as well. Our daughter Jenn should be discharged with the new baby today. :) Collin, not surprisingly, looks like his big brother did with a head of blonde hair (it's a tiny bit darker) and as a proud grandmother, I'll have to say that I think he's perfect! But then again, Aidan is perfect too...what a wonderful gift at a challenging time.

Besides the good news, I've been kind of hunkering down and not blogging very much. When I don't have good things to report or cool pictures to share, I tend to keep my posts to a minimum. I don't like being negative, but we've had a kind of challenging couple of weeks here. On Monday the 29th, my husband's division at work was pretty much all let go. The sudden job loss drove us into shock, then sadness, then the realization that we had to completely cut costs in every way and save every cent that we could because in this economy there is no telling how long we'll need to survive and we were not in any way prepared. I picked up as many trips for July as I possibly could because we need to make expenses and also make sure there is money going to savings to last us through until we're on our feet again. Unfortunately I had to call and cancell all my sewing classes, and any other unnecessary expenditures, as well as trips (I'd planned to go be with my daughter when the baby was due), and we also sat down and made up a realistic budget that didn't have any room for anything but necessities, and won't for some time to come.

The previous weekend our reenacting unit had our annual fund raising weekend encampment at the Civil War Wax Museum in Gettysburg. We went Friday evening and helped put up our tents and had some good conversations with our friends...but as I sit I began to start having some symptoms of what I thought was IBS. It was horrible but we made it home, and the symptoms got bearable by about 3am. Needless to say I didn't go to the weekend encampment, I was still feeling horrible. Then Monday the job news hit while I was off not feeling well. I was able to work my trips on the following Thursday and Friday and looked forward to the weekend.

On the 4th of July we had dinner with some dear friends and I got to feeling badly again, but this time after we got home I couldn't get on top of the pain. I was up all night, never being able to find a comfortable position to lie or stand or anything. About 5:30AM I woke Mark up to take me to the ER. Long story short, they did some tests, and quickly admitted me and removed my very nasty, infected and full of stones Gall Bladder. I was in the hospital a couple of days, and I'm very lucky that it hadn't ruptured. I'm home now, recovering, taking it very easy and trying to rest. Some days are better than others, and it's challenging to try to learn to eat without it, all trial and error. Needless to say, I haven't been able to fly all of the trips I picked up for July, timing certainly wasn't in our favor. I'll try to go back to flying as soon as I can, but it's going to be at least a couple-few weeks. I don't have any sick time to speak of saved up so it's all without pay. But somehow we'll be ok. We have to.

So that's why I haven't been around much...it's not very comfortable for me to be negative or to complain, so now that you know...it's on to bigger and better things!