Long Time, No Post - Sorry!

Well, hello there!  I’m sorry – it has been a long time with no post and I’ve gotten a few people frustrated with me! 

It has been an incredibly busy few months at the Williamson house.  I’ll just give some of the highlights:

1)      My new job is exciting and also keeps me busy.  I started part-time at Overstock.com in mid-June while still teaching 3 classes for the U of U summer semester.  After that, in the first of August, I began full-time at Overstock and then immediately went on a business trip to San Francisco and LA to meet with partners.  I’m managing the Emerging Businesses at Overstock which includes Cars, Travel, and Insurance.  So, here’s my shameless plug…if you need a new or used car, a good deal on flights, hotels, car rentals, vacation condos, etc. or if you would like a quote for home and auto insurance, I know a great website for you to visit!      

Sidenote:  I can manage web pages for a Billion dollar online company, but I cannot figure out Blogger and get pictures to post where I want them to!  They are all above their explanation, not below!  Oh well.

2)      U of U football!  The season has been a bit of a bummer, but we are undefeated in tailgating this year, so that is a plus!  


 

3)      Troy ran the Huntsville & South Jordan marathons.

 

4)      In October, my sisters Kristy, Liz, and Hilary and I all met up in San Francisco for the Nike Women’s Marathon!  It was all 3 sisters’ first marathon AND we all finished!!  It is a super cool marathon with 30,000+ runners.  Plus, it raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!  At the end, instead of a medal, you are awarded a Tiffany necklace on a silver platter by a fireman in a tuxedo!  How’s that for awesome?!? 

5)      Right after the marathon, I headed to Las Vegas for a JD Power online Automobile convention. 

6)      Fras got his wisdom teeth out and E got braces. 

7)      Miss S has made 3 trips to the Emergency room for asthma.  We’ve had two 3-day extended stays at Primary Children’s Hospital.  I keep telling her she could have picked a nice hotel in Hawaii for as much as we’ve paid out in medical!  She’s worth it, but in all seriousness….HOLY CRAP we’ve had an expensive medical year.  We have good insurance but we have still paid OUT OF POCKET more than $6,000 in medical expenses this year.  So, my financial tip of the day is…whenever possible have insurance and a good emergency savings fund built up.  We had one, adopted a baby and depleted it, built it up a bit, then along came 2012.  So, we are working to build it again.  But, had we not had savings, we would be in bad debt at this point.  I’m grateful that we have been able to survive this year in both health and financial aspects and know it is because we’ve always tried to be smart with our money, we’ve always given to our church and to charity (even when things are tough) and we’ve always tried to save for times when we need to spend.

 

8)      Halloween – need I say more? 

9)      IT SNOWED!!  Bring on ski season!!

 

10)      We are now starting to decorate for Christmas!  If you didn’t know this about me…Christmas is my favorite holiday and I go a bit overboard!  I decorate THE ENTIRE house; every single room!  It takes about a week to do and I admit that I have a problem, but I collect nativities and have about 75 that get set out all over the house.  So far, I’ve got 2 new ones this year.  Yay!!  My next tip has to do with holidays:  I love them and I go all out for them.  Decorations are all over.  It is a lot of work and sometimes I wonder if it is worth it.  But, the other night I went to Enrichment meeting (a meeting of ladies in my church) and it was all about the holidays.  How to wrap presents, cheap present ideas, how to invite Christ into Christmas, etc.  It was wonderful!  They talked about how the holidays “kill” moms and are exhausting, but they also talked about how worth it it really is!  Sometimes in this cruel world, the only place our kids feel safe and loved is at home.  If you make home fun and special, they will always know they are loved, they will feel the spirit of the Lord, and they will want to keep coming home for the holidays.  Remember the immortal words of Karen Carpenter: “Oh, there’s no place like home for the holidays!”  It was so inspirational and also renewed my holiday vigor!  So, watch out!  The living room is done.  The rest of the house is left to go, but the Christmas bomb has begun to explode!

And now, for a big announcement and the Cancer update…. 

I am really enjoying my Overstock job, but I admit that I also really miss teaching!  More than I even thought I would!  So, imagine my excitement when I was given the most amazing opportunity!  My former boss at the U contacted me and told me about a study abroad program in June 2013 in Paris.  The best of the best business students go for 8 weeks, and take a couple of 3 week intensive business courses, plus do cultural excursions, business visits, etc.  The asked ME (can you believe it!?!) to go to Paris for 3 weeks and teach one of the courses!  At first I thought there was no way I could make it work, but Troy said go for it and my Overstock boss said I could do it…so, I will be heading to Paris in June!!!  I will arrive back home just in time for the Coeur d’ Alene Ironman that Troy and I are signed up for. 

I am so excited!  There is no way I could do this without the support of my awesome, ROCKSTAR husband who told me to go for it!  He is the best!!  And might I add, really cute, and super helpful with the kids and the housework!  People ask me how I do everything I do and the answer is I have the most amazing support crew – my hubby and kids – to make it all happen.  They are incredible!

On that note, I will be gone from the kiddos for 3 weeks, which will be hard, but at the same time, I am the type person that wants my kids to go, and do, and achieve, and experience!  I think that one of the best ways to teach them to do that is to also go, and do, and achieve, and experience.  It is the biggest falsehood out there that parenthood = boring, repressed life!  Plus, who wouldn’t take an all expenses paid 3 week trip to Paris?  I mean…c’mon! :)  P.S.  I wish flights were cheap enough for the whole family, but Troy will be coming for a week to visit.  

 Somewhere in the midst of all our happenings, I have had two Huntsman appointments.  The truth is, while I was really busy, I was also a little down and wasn’t really excited to post after my doctor’s appointment two months ago.  My counts had gone up and it was actually harder on me than I thought it would be to get that news.  How up?  Well, not much, I could have them go up each visit at that rate and treatment would still be a long time off (they say “when”, and I say “if”) but still, I wanted an appointment where they went down!  So, I promise, I won’t not post again after an appointment, but I just had to digest the info for a bit.  

I did have another appointment last week as well.  At that one, my white blood cell numbers stayed stable AND it was a good appointment where my red counts actually went up a bit and (it was probably just hiding) but one of my enlarged nodes in my armpit was “missing”.  They couldn’t find it to measure it.  So, I realize they won’t all be good appointments, but they won’t all be bad appointments either.   I really am doing soooo good!  Every time I head to Hunstman, I see other patients and am reminded how blessed I am!  I pray for them.  Some people are in pretty bad shape, so please keep them and their loved ones in your prayers too.

All in all, life is good.  We are really busy which is exactly how I like it.  I still think about cancer multiple times daily, but I have gotten to the point where it isn’t consuming.  I can function and my mind wanders to other things for hours sometimes.  I’m so grateful for that!  And, so far I have the energy to keep on keeping on, so that is a huge blessing.  I hope you are all well!  

I think that’s about it for this post.  Rock on!

Stable Is Good!

Life has not slowed down a bit.  But, I’m hoping things start to get a bit more predictable.  Keep reading!

First off, I went to Huntsman again on June 12^th and I stayed completely stable!  No increase, so that is AWESOME!!!  I really think it would be super amazing if my numbers went mysteriously down one appointment, but I’ll take stable at every appointment!  They did a lot of bloodwork this past appointment and they are running some tests to do some modeling to see if they can “predict” anything.  I asked why that hadn’t already been done and they said because CLL is so slow, they usually wait until they know you are their patient for sure before they do those tests.  So, I should hear about those in about two weeks.  Not that it would change anything other than I would go in even more often if the predictions say I need to.  But, I’m counting on, and basing my life decisions on, the fact that I have the slowest growing CLL ever.  So I’m really not too worried about the tests.

The past year has really been just a ridiculously crazy year with a lot of happenings.  To name just a few:

* I got in a car wreck (not my fault), totaled our car, and got a new car.

* Frasier started Jr. High, made the wrestling team, track team, and is now training this summer with the Davis High Cross Country team.  He has seriously grown about two feet and is a teenager all of the sudden!

* Sloane started walking.   (Enough said about busy!)

* I found out about CLL.

And, just recently,

* Troy moved from teaching at Hunter High in the Salt Lake Valley to Woods Cross High in Bountiful.

* Now that Troy isn’t driving to SLC everyday; I figured I ought to start!  So, I got a new job!  I started today.  I will be the Manager of Emerging Business at Overstock.com.  I’ll post more about what that all means as I get more involved but I am really excited about this new chapter of life.

It will be a full time job (right now I am part-time until the U of U summer semester ends).  I weighed all of the pros and cons before making my decision.  One of the cons is that I LOVE teaching at the U.  So, I am really going to miss it.  As I type right now, I am watching students take a midterm.  I’m really going to miss the students! 

One of the pros, as odd as it may seem to some of you, is I actually might see my family more!  I have been part-time at the U, but I have also been doing all of my consulting work.  So, I’m gone a lot – especially at night.  I do all my prep and grading from home, so when I’m home, often times I’m working.  That is great when you have little ones, but now that the boys are in school all day, I sometimes go days without seeing them.  Starting in August, I will go to work at Overstock and then come home and be with them.  I’m really happy about that.

Until August, I am teaching three different classes at the U, so if you can follow this, I’m at O.co on Monday and Wednesday mornings.  Then, at the U in the afternoons.  I also teach a night class on Wednesday nights.  On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I teach in the morning and then head to O.co in the afternoons.  On Fridays, I’m at Overstock all day.  On the weekends, I’ll try to prepare for teaching!  Holy Cow!  So, if you wonder why in the next 6 weeks you don’t see or hear much from me, that would be why! :)

At Huntsman, they ask all kinds of questions to assess my health status.  They also do blood work and they “map” my nodes and spleen (feel and dig all over to measure their size).  The worst ones are the armpit nodes!  Anyhow, one of the questions is always: “Are you tired?” and the answer is always “Yes, exhausted, and I don’t think it has a thing to do with the cancer!”  I think every mom is always exhausted – don’t you!?!

The kiddos are on summer break and enjoying every minute! Sloane is SO happy to have her brothers around!  She’s in heaven!   I have such great kids and a great husband!  I could never do all that I do if I didn’t have such a great support team!

Last, I need to update you on the triathlons!  Troy and I headed to Boise for the “epic” race of 2012.  The weather was horrible!   It was 42 degrees, raining, and windy (up to 50 mph gusts).  We still swam, but the bike was shortened from 56 miles down to about 15 just to get us back into town for the run.  My blazing fast transition was 17 minutes from the swim to the bike! Ha ha! (3 or 4 minutes is optimal.)   

I was so cold when I got in the water that I was chattering.  When I got out, I think I was near hypothermic!  I could not stop shaking!  It took a long time to get dressed because I couldn’t put on my socks or zip up my jacket!  I’ve NEVER been that cold before!  But, Troy and I both did it, we survived, and knock on wood, we won’t ever race in such bad conditions again, so anything else will be a piece of cake.

One of my very favorite events of the whole year is the Desert Shark Kids Triathlon in Riverton.  The boys did that last Saturday.  I’m posting some pictures.  It is so fun to watch the kids and the determination on their faces.  They did awesome too!  Fras actually completed in the adult Sprint and took 1^st place in his age group.  Elijah took third in his age group.  Bodie didn’t place, but he was awesome!  A few of their cousins did the Tri too, it was so much fun! 

I think it is really important to be physically active.  I am attributing a lot of my health to eating healthy and exercising!  One thing that I have found for me is to always have something that I am registered for.  That way, it keeps me in training.  I think it is the fact that I am so darned cheap that I can’t stand the thought of not participating in an event that I’ve already paid for.  I also find, that when I am active, my kids want to be active too!  Sign yourself up for a race sometime.  See if that helps motivate you to get out.  Also, sign your kiddos up for a race, it will be one of the cutest things you’ve ever witnessed!

Well, I’ll post again when I can, but I cannot guarantee that I’ll have a ton of spare time the next few weeks.  Thanks for continuing to pray for me! Rock on!