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Nicole
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My life, as exciting as it is :-)
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Monday, January 01, 2007
and again, no updates - created another blog at www.nicole.mays.blogspot.com and I *will* update it almost daily!
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Wednesday, May 31, 2006
It seems pointless to point out that I, again, have gone forever without updating this lol. Today I created a myspace page and blog lol, so I guess if I update anything it will be that. www.myspace.com/nicolemays
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Friday, December 09, 2005
Hmm... well, again I didn't keep my promise of frequent updating - I'm obviously not a "blog" person lol
However, in the interest of keeping this somewhat current - another list of things that have happened since my last post (almost a year ago lol)
- Chris and I went to NYC for a wonderful vacation - we saw Spamalot on Broadway and had a really good week!
- I had my birthday party at Chuck E Cheese and had an Elmo birthday cake - it was really fun!
- We still haven't succeeded in having a baby ... but we're still trying!
- I have a new parapro in my classroom who is amazing - now I have the 3 best!! My classroom is wonderful, I have 9 students with autism and one w/ down syndrome
- I am finished with my first semester towards my PhD
- Snickers died, so now we only have one guinea pig (Hershey)
- My parents sold their house in Blairsville and got two new dogs (now they have four!)
- We redid our living room and painted the kitchen and Elmo bathroom
- I found a lump in my breast, had a biopsy and found out it was benign (thank God)
Obviously I'm sure more has happened but this is what I can think of right now!
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Sunday, January 23, 2005
Wow. I'm really good at keeping this thing current, huh? Good thing no one reads it!
Let's see -- what has happened since July 8 2003?
- Chris and I moved into our beautiful new home
- We got two dogs (Buffy and Faith)
- I have my master's degree
- I presented at an autism conference
- My classroom is going to be videotaped to use as a training video for other teachers
- Oreo (guinea pig) died so now there are only two
- I play my clarinet again! I'm in two community bands in Gwinnett County
- Chris is still in Wisconsin
- We're trying to get pregnant! So I came off the Enbrel (which worked like a MIRACLE!) and now my psoriasis is getting bad again
- Oh yeah! Chris and I were married in April 2004
- We went to Hawaii on our honeymoon and had a blast
- Everything else is still pretty much the same!
Does this sound familiar? I really am going to post to this more regularly now! Honest!!
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Tuesday, July 08, 2003
Once again, long time no post! Well, Jodi and Matt are married, the wedding was very very pretty. I've been living in Midtown for the summer, real estate agents have been by often showing the place but so far ... no offer. Soleil has enjoyed being here, as have the guinea piggies. Our house is coming along very nicely! (Have I mentioned that Chris bought us a house?!) It's in Loganville, about 15 miles from Kennedy (where I work). It's SO pretty. There are pictures of the outside at www.picturetrail.com/mnicolem .
School -- The movers are supposed to be putting our stuff back in our classrooms tomorrow so I am going home tomorrow afternoon to work on my room. (They ripped up the carpet throughout the school and put linoleum floors down and they repainted all the classrooms and halls -- so they had to move all of our stuff into the gym and lunchroom for the summer)
I still miss my kids so much! I can't wait till school starts back!!!
My psoriasis is getting very very bad again, I am on new medication for it, called Enbrel ... it's a shot that I have to give myself twice a week (not fun!) but it is supposed to be very effective ... guess we'll see! The accutane is making my cholesterol very high, not a good thing ... Otherwise my health is suprisingly good! (Knock on wood)
Cant think of anything else worth writing about!
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Tuesday, May 20, 2003
OK, obviously I'm not as good at updating this as I intended to be! It is now almost the end of the school year (three more days!). We are getting new floor and paint so everybody in the building has to pack up EVERYTHING and it all has to be moved into the cafeteria or the gym. So We've been packing and labeling boxes and cleaning shelves and cabinets! Fun fun fun! Mr. Chris joined us for field day, which was a blast. Chris is now working in Madison, Wisconsin for 20 months. He signed the contract on our house the weekend of Mother's Day and they started grading our land last Friday! Exciting! Cross your fingers that he gets his condo sold - we close on September 15. Didn't get the classroom I wanted for next year - long story. Oh well, I guess we'll make do! Daddy is diabetic, that was bad news. Matt (my cousin Jodi's fiance) broke his foot last week. He had surgery Monday and has surgery again and gets a cast 4 days before their wedding. They had to cancel their honeymoon to Hawaii! (They're going to go on their first anniversary). Our pastor left, so now Frank can officiate my wedding! The community center was booked for my date so we will probably have the reception at the legion in Statham. Hmm... what else? I can't think of anything :-( Will write more later!
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Sunday, March 23, 2003
It's been a while! Over a month ... Well, we're still engaged, my ring is still beautiful. Chris is still working in Danville and still hates it. Nothing too exciting has happened over the course of the last month ... There's only 41 days left of my first year of teaching ... hopefully next year I'll have a better room -- the one with the kitchen and washing machine so I can do some life skills lessons with my kids. I'm losing one kid to middle school and gaining possibly 2 new students. This coming Thursday is our CBI trip to the bank, McDonalds and the dollar store. The kids are excited, it should be fun. Hmm... my life is obviously pretty boring, I have nothing to say.
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Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Well, last week on Tuesday night I got sick and was running a fever. It was down by Wednesday morning so I came on in to work since I had an IEP meeting and one of my parapros was already going to be out. Out of the eight students in my classroom, only 5 of them were there that morning ... by the end of the day two of them had thrown up all over my room and another had had diarreah so there were two students left. My fever went back up to almost 104 so I left too. I missed the Valentine's Day party on Friday, home with the flu and a stomach virus :-( But today all of my kids are well and back at school. Friday night Chris's flight (oh yeah, he got a client! He is working in Danville, VA for at least 6 weeks) didn't get in till late. By the time he got to Winder, it was after 11:00 and I was asleep and feeling lousy. He woke me up and told me he needed me to come into the other room for a minute. He got into the hall and got down on one knee, pulling me down with him. I was not completely coherent and wasn't sure what he was doing. Then I thought it was an evil joke because I had told him not to buy a ring until he had had a job for a while. He said "Meeting you was the best thing to ever happen to me" and at that moment my dog Precious walked up between us and licked his face lol, like "well, what about when you met me?!" So he said lots of sweet things and then "I can't imagine my forever without my Nicole ... will you marry me?" My response? "You're not supposed to do this yet!" So he asked again, and my response was the same ... Third time's a charm, though -- Will you marry me #3 was asnwered with an "of course" and Chris put the most beautiful ring on my finger. I couldn't kiss him properly because I was germ-infested but we did kiss briefly. By about 11:20 on Valentines night, we were officially engaged!
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Tuesday, January 21, 2003
I went to Orlando for an ATIA conference this past weekend and Chris went with me. It was a very enjoyable trip! The conference was great, I learned so much and I am so excited about using all the new stuff I learned in my classroom. Saturday Chris and I went to Universal Studios which was very fun. I got to meet Scooby and Shaggy, which thrilled my class, and I got to get my picture made with Curious George and the man in the yellow hat!! We ate at Margaritaville one night and Motown another night. The whole Universal City Walk place was pretty cool. We saw About Schmidt while we were down there ... last Sunday we also saw Adaptation. Both were good movies, I think Chris enjoyed them both more than I did though.
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Tuesday, January 14, 2003
Well, on Sunday I realized that my conference is this week and I'm leaving Wednesday morning... so I have to write sub plans for the end of the week ... Yesterday, neither of my parapros were here so I had NO time to write them. I didn't take anything home last night because I had class from 5:00-9:30, but then my teacher didn't show up, so I could have done some work!! Today, Mrs Bare still won't be here, I haven't heard from Dee so I assume she will be, maybe I can get something done!! Tonight I'm going to Chris's so we can get to the airport Wed morning without me having to get up so dreadfully early :-) Then I'll have loads of fun at the ATIA conference in Orlando until Saturday. Monday we have no school because it's MLK day, so that's good ... a little break :-) Now it's time to make it through today ...
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Wednesday, January 08, 2003
Well, the kids came back. Two weeks of Christmas break and now back to reality. My class was so good, though! They walked through the door and fell right back into their routine. I could hear the classrooms around me being loud and not wanting to be back and I was so thankful that my class is full of kids who love their routine lol.
Chris and I had picked out a house that we loved but then when daddy went and looked at it, it apparently wasn't built well. Daddy had a list of things that were wrong with it. I was telling Chris and he said "that's great to hear!" ... I was confused, I thought we loved the house, why would we want things to be wrong with it? Well, I was so in love with the house and he couldn't get it right now so he was glad that now I wouldn't want it so I wouldn't be disappointed. He's so sweet ... it's an amazing feeling to have someone want you to be happy! He put our Christmas pictures up on his webpage. (I put them up on mine too.
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Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Hmm... Well, it's only been a month but a lot seems to have happened! The long term EEG was completely uneventful. I was in the hospital for the whole 5 days with cement in my head (every time the tech would have to change or replace a lead she told me how there were blisters and bloody spots where they had been in my head). Chris was with me most of the time, daddy stayed for a few hours one day and mama stayed the night I had to stay up all night. We all played lots of Outburst, Racko and Trivial Pursuit. One of the techs let us borrow her UNO for a while too. It was incredibly boring, I didn't get anything productive done lol. We watched Miracle on 34th Street a few times, Home Alone, Jerry Maguire ... but it was over eventually. I had no seizures while I was there and thankfully haven't had any more since, either. I went back to the doctor the week after that and he said that the EEG looked normal and he still wasn't sure what was causing the seizures. He said as long as I don't have another, I can drive in March.
What else ... My class, Angela's class and Bruce's class took a CBI trip to Lakeshore Mall in Gainesville, that was fun. My kids drew names and then they each got $3 to spend at the Dollar Store -- to buy a gift for mom, a gift for dad, and a gift for whoever's name they drew. Some of them brought in extra money from home for grandma and brothers, etc. They seemed to have a really good time, they had a shopping list of who they had to buy for ... they had fun picking out gifts. They also go to see Santa and have their picture made with him, and we rode the caurosel. They also had to order their own lunch at the Food Court, which was an experience. "Mr Chris" went with us and I think he had fun too. Our class Christmas party went pretty well too, I was really ready to get out for Christmas break though!! I needed it ...
Christmas! Christmas Eve Chris went down to Columbus because he wanted to be there when his brother got into town. (Jason has been working in Bosnia for 6 months ... and Chris hasn't seen him or his wife and child since last Christmas) So I went to the family Christmas dinner alone. Almost everyone was there, me, mama, daddy, Aunt Brenda and Uncle Wayne, Brooke, Jodi and Matt, Paulina and Uncle Dwayne, Miriam, Vince and Madison. only missing Melissa and Chris. Chris came back up to Winder and got there about 9 and we opened some Christmas presents then went to the candlelight service at church. Christmas morning we did Santa and then around 10:00 Chris and I left to go back down to Columbus. I finally got to meet Jason, Kristina and Alex (what a cutie pie!) and also his Uncle Terry and cousin Andy. His mom and dad and Aunt Pat and Grandma were there too. Opened more presents and ate more, played with Alex lots ... I'm Aunt Co-co! (he's 2 1/2) That night we went over to Chris's dad's and opened more gifts lol. We spent the night there and the next day Chris and I got to keep Alex while Jason and Kristina went to get Josh (another cute kid! - he's 10). Friday Chris and I went to see Jeff and Melissa and Harrison (also adorable - 1 1/2), played with him for a while. I met Chris's friend Joseph and his dog Blake, and then we had ribs that Jason had grilled. Saturday we played with Josh and Alex some more and then left to come back to Winder. Spent the night, got up and left around 10am for TN. What a long drive! We stopped somewhere in Alabama for lunch and Jason, Kristina and Alex (also on their way to Deanberg) stopped too. Drove some more and finally got to Deanberg that night. I met Chris's other grandmother and grandaddy (his dad's parents) and lots of cousins and aunts and uncles. More cute kids, too. I mostly played with Madison and Alex and Tiffanny till bedtime. Monday morning, we left TN about 11:00 to drive back to GA. The drive was still long! We stopped more on the way back, so it was actually longer.
Chris had a doctor's appointment today, it went very well. Dr Austin took a chest x-ray and an EKG and he said they both look good, he took blood and urine too. He has high blood pressure but Dr Austin wants him to try to bring it down by exercising so he dind't put him on any meds for it ... he goes back in 3 weeks to see how he's doing.
So, tonight is New Year's Eve and we don't have any big plans. I cooked dinner and we're just going to hang out here and watch a movie. Tomorrow he's cooking pork chops and black eyed peas (no collard greens! yuk!)
Blaine called on Christmas Eve and they were going to be in town, but I wasn't ... so we are going to try to get up to Toccoa to see them this week .. Monday I go back to school and the kids come back Wednesday ... Karen called and asked if I could keep her kids the last weekend in January, I'm looking forward to that, I haven't seen them since they changed churches (I take that back, they were at Bible School this summer) ... We also have to get to the girls' house this week and take their presents.
OK, fun time ... rundown of Christmas gifts!!!
-4 Barnes and Noble giftcards, 2 Borders and a Books a Million --- almost $200 total bookstore money! and a Bath and Body Works card, too
-DVD player, Monsters Inc, Face/Off
-silver heart locket
-Anne Geddes butterfly babies picture
-rolling cart thing to take my stuff to school in
-a new toolbox since Rob rusted parts of mine, broke the screwdriver, and kept the toolbox anyway!
-sweaters, shirts, skirt, pants, panties/bras, socks, PJs, scarf and hat, gloves
-butterfly kit thingy where I can get caterpillars and have my own butterflies!!
-butterfly necklace, earrings, bracelet, bookmarks
-CHICKEN DANCE ELMO!!
-a soft fuzzy teddy bear named Boswell
-lots of stuff for my classroom, a teacher calendar, teacher book
-I can't remember some stuff ...
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Saturday, November 30, 2002
Tuesday I felt really strange at school so I went home around 11:00. That night, probably around 9ish, I had ANOTHER seizure. Chris was just about to leave so I was walking him to the door and I apparently had a seizure at the end of the hall. This is getting very old lol. Thanksgiving, Chris played games with me - lots of Outburst, Racko, Mastermind, Rummy, Backgammon, etc. Uncle Dwayne and Paulina were in Florida so Melissa and Miriam didn't come either so at Thanksgiving dinner it was just me, mama, daddy, Chris, Kelly, Aunt Brenda, Uncle Wayne and Brooke. Jodi and Matt went to Matt's family but they came by after dinner and hung out for a little while. Friday, Chris and I went to the school and I got my classroom partially ready for Christmas and then we came to his place. That's pretty much all the excitement in my life right now lol.
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Saturday, November 23, 2002
Well, the sleep deprivfed EEG and the MRI both came back normal. I had a seizure Wednesday in class and scared my students, went back to the doctor and had another EEG that came back normal, too. Now I have to go in the hospital for 2-5 days the weekend after Thanksgiving break and have a long-term monitored EEG. That's exciting
Chris and I went to see Janeane Garofalo and she was so se ... I mean, funny! We walked around Centennial Olympic Park first and looked at all the pretty Christmas lights in the FREEZING cold lol. We're about to go out to eat and a movie with Michael ... haven't seen him in a while ... hope he and Chris get along! Don't have time to write a lot, just wanted to catch up a little bit!
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Thursday, November 07, 2002
Well, for Chris's birthday I took him to see Wilco - I think he enjoyed it. We had dinner at Compadre's first ... On his actual birthday we picked up BBQ from my church and delivered it to my Aunt Brenda, Aunt Lois and Janice - then we ate some lol. We had a DQ ice cream cake too ... then we went to his place and hung out ... I was feeling pretty lousy, very sick, but I think all in all it was a good weekend :-)
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Sunday, November 03, 2002
Hope Chris had a Happy Birthday yesterday!!!
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Monday, October 28, 2002
Well ... it's almost November and the last time I wrote was in July! Just a little bit of catching up, huh? Chris and I are more in love than ever. Muffin is in heaven :-( I have three guinea pigs at school - Snickers, Oreo and Hershey - and one beta fish - Skittles. I'm teaching at Kennedy, I love my job. I'm in the graduate program at Piedmont. I have a truck (Reggie) that I can't drive lol (cuz of the brain damage). He's a 2002 Ranger Edge, black (of course). I've had 3 more seizures - one at Tybee Island where Chris saved my life and dragged me to shore and called 911. I'm seeing a neurologist - I've had an EEG that didn't show anything so I have to have another one next week sleep deprived. And an MRI that same day. Had to come off the Wellbutrin so we're going to see what happens with that. Chris turns 32 this Saturday... he sent me flowers today :-) This is very choppy and not-complete-sentence filled but hey, I'm trying to catch everything up. I met Chris's parents a few weeks ago, I met his Aunt Pat and grandma this past weekend. His mom made chicken 'n dumplins for his birthday. We've been to Chuck E Cheese with the girls twice, that was fun. I guess that catches most everything up. Time to go home.
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Friday, July 19, 2002
I went to school today, excited and ready to set up my classroom. Then I opened a cabinet ... and realized I had a lot of work ahead of me before I could set up anything. I spent the day throwing away tons of crap and organizing what was left ... I have one big cabinet and my filing cabinet and desk left ... then I get to go through all the boxes and throw away stuff that's really yucky and clean the stuff that's salvagable. Then I get to figure out what furniture I don't need. And finally I will get to set up my room. Chris is going to help me on Saturday and hopefully we will get most of it done.
~I got in touch with people at UGA and actually spoke to live people. Found out that the man I need to talk to is Dr McLoughlin and he's out of town, coming back Friday. So I left a message on his voice mail, Cathy e-mailed him, and mom and I are going to UGA tomorrow morning to try to talk to him. CROSS YOUR FINGERS!!
~Also this afternoon, Lance came by to swim for a while and it was like old times! He played around and laughed and everything! If I hadn't been so excited to see him happy and normal, I would have been pissed at him for dunking me so many times and trying to drown me. And tickling me and poking at me. But for once, I was glad he was tickling and poking and wrestling me. Just because it was the real Lance again.
~Michael is going to his parents' house for a week, leaving tomorrow. I have never met his mom but apparently she knows my life story lol. She knows all about Soleil and Muffin (and the rest), the whole Rob deal, the rape, my whole trying to get into grad school saga, Chris ... bless her heart lol, Michael says I'm the daughter she always wanted and I haven't met her!
~I am so tired and I can't sleep. Strange, because I didn't have a nap today and have been up since 6 and actually exerted lots of energy today. I'm so stressed though, I threw up for a while and now can't sleep. I love being me. I said that sarcastically but when I think about it, I do love being me. Everything in my life is going really well right now (except Muffin) -- especially if this McLoughlin guy will let me in his class! So I shouldn't be getting depressed. And this stress isn't helping any!!!!!! I can't wait till Saturday morning when I get to see Chris. He's a saint, offering to help me all day in my classroom. We were going to go to Centennial Olympic Park and play in the water but he said we can do that next weekend. This is a fun-filled weekend for him, Saturday spend all day working in my room and Sunday go to a family reunion! I know his friends are jealous (C.D., I know you're jealous too!! It'll be OK, there's gotta be somebody ALMOST as sweet and wonderful as me in California, right?)
~OK, I'm going to try sleeping again, since we're leaving at 7am ... g'night
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Wednesday, July 17, 2002
Well, I am determined NOT to get depressed. I talked to my psych, he said I could take an extra wellbutrin in the morning for a week or so and see if it helps. I've got 4 new coloring books to occupy my sad time. I'm getting outside and getting sun and fresh air for a few hours each day. But then my mom calls and says that the vet is putting Muffin on the second medicine, the one he said he wouldn't start until she was in her last few days. She's becoming very restless and limps really bad. She doesn't seem too unhappy but it's obvious she's in pain and uncomfortable. I think we WANT her to be happy so that's what we see. She has times when she isn't so bad but then there are times when you can tell she hurts. So I'm spending a lot of time lying with her crying.
~On a happier note, my friend Michael put some pictures up on his webpage that I took :-) Yay, I had a part in a computer geek's webpage! I helped a smart person!! www.scubacat.net/picture - I took the top 6 of them, there's one with Precious's leg across Mike's head lol. I also put pictures of me and Chris up www.angelfire.com/nm2/mnicolem/pics7.html (for you, C.D., the one person who reads this blog lol - don't forget to tell those elphalents I said Hey!)
~Even though I figured out my surprise, I still had a message from Chris on my surprise webpage today :-) It made me feel very special when I saw it lol ... I just looked at the page to see if he was going to put a hint up anyway, and there was a message to me :-)
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Tuesday, July 16, 2002
I should be well rested lol. I have slept the majority of the last 2 days away. Part depression-induced, part ny-quil-induced, I guess. And I threw up, which my mom believes is all the "drainage" (yum) but I think is the crying lol. Oh well! I's much rather her worry about my physical state than to know I'm getting depressed, I don't like putting her through that. So I'm grateful to Chris for giving me a cold so I have an excuse for a lot of this lol. Oh! I got get well balloons and a teddy bear from Chris today. I have never gotten balloons from anybody other than my mom (except when I was in the hospital ... I forgot about that ... but that was a pretty major event, this is just a cold lol) and I feel really special lol. Like when he brought me flowers that day for no reason? I'd never gotten flowers except for birthdays and "gee, I'm sorry I'm an ass, maybe flowers will make you forget that I hit you" flowers lol. But that's beside the point, I was really excited to get the balloons. My mom said they seemed to do more than the medicine at making me feel better lol. Oh! And to continue on my spoiled rotten feeling special kick, I figured out my surprise (with the help of a pretty obvious clue) I'm going to see My Fair Lady!! YAY!! I sound very materialistic right now ... but I swear, I don't think I am. The thought behind the My Fair Lady tickets is what means the most, since it's one of my favorite musicals and he doesn't like it lol. And this Saturday I get to go to Centennial Olympic Park and play in the water and watch the water show thingy! I'm very excited about that, too.
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