BUGGED

it's just been one of those days.
i think i'm just finding things to be irritated about now.

quirky pregnant moments:
are all of my brain cells gone?
the other day i went in to turn off the light in the bathroom and turned on the water instead. i actually walked out of the bathroom before i realized what i had done and went to correct my absent braindness.
tonight i am standing in my living room getting ready to settle in for some tv.my normal lamp is shining brightly in the corner but it still seems dim. i think to myself "it sure is dark in here. i better turn on another lamp." but rather than cross the room to the lamp that is off that i meant to turn on i cross the room to the lamp that is on and turn it OFF so that the room is completely dark.
gimme a break!


there are a couple of ppl whose blogs i keep up with. and comment on regularly. i never know if they check their comments b/c no one ever says anything about what i say! and i don't think they ever come here and read my blog b/c they never comment here either!i didn't know until i was informed by a fellow blogger that it was proper blog manners to comment on what your commenters had to say. and it's been great fun ever sense.
i started a blog to keep up with a friend. it worked out great for keeping up with them, i guess my life just isn't interesting enough for them to keep up with me. but i have great new blogging friends since i became a blogger anyway. and that is very nice!



dr.s and insurance..... again.

TJ had his one year check up monday last week. he got 2 shots he hasn't had before. the MMR(for measles mumps and rubella) and the chickenpox vaccine. plus a flu shot and another shot he's had a few boosters of already.
he rarely shows any side affects from the vaccines. other than a decreased appetite, some crankiness, and maybe some redness and swelling at the shot sight.
well, a week exactly after his shots both spots on his left leg flare up. i'm used to them flaring some. they'll pop up and look like mosquito bites. but are never bothersome. but this time it was a HUGE flare up. if i hadn't known better i'd have thought he had been burned with a curling iron. it was just that red. not swollen so much. you could feel bumps where each shot was given but you couldn't tell there was any swelling unless you touched it.
so i get out the list of vaccines/symptoms they sent me home with and guess what? redness and swelling aren't on the list for any of the shots. so is it just common sense that that could be a symptom of any shot? go figure.
so i keep an eye on it.
during the day yesterday it seemed not to change. but after bath time the area of redness had grown to be as long/wide as my thumb.
i decided to call in the am, just so they would know he had had a bad reaction and could chart it for future notice.
the nurse finally gets around to calling me back nearly 3 hrs later.
me: "where he got his shots has had some swelling and redness. i'm used to this looking more like a minor mosquito bite type reaction, but this looks more like a welt."

her: "well you should bring him in b/c the 2 new shots he got are actually live viruses that are injected in their system. if they have a reaction we need to know b/c we won't be able to vaccinate him anymore if he does indeed have the virus from the shot"

what?? isn't that why they give vaccines is so they don't get the disease or whatever?
i argued with her some. trying to tell her again that it's only where they shot was given in his leg and he didn't have any other symptoms.spotty rashes are common with both of the new vaccines. i was just concerned b/c it was such a bigger reaction at the shot sight than normal and wondered if that was due to what he was given.

her: " well you're telling me it's red and swollen and there's spots and the only way for us to know what's going on is for you to bring him in."

me: sigh "well then i guess we'll come in"

it was 10 35. it takes me a half an hr to get there and they asked me to arrive at 11 15. and i didn't care if i was late.
i got TJ up from his nap and changed his clothes and got us snacks and drinks for the road and off we went.

i got there at 11 15 exactly.

i waited until 11 50 before i was seen.(the new thing for dr's to do these days is block off appts for same day calls so don't tell me i was squeezed in b/c i was given an appt time to show up. they didn't just say "come on in and we'll get to you when we can" like back in the day.

i got the bitch nurse that i HATE! there's actually 2 nurses there i don't like and you never know which nurse you're gunna get and it drives me nuts!

she had me put TJ on the scale. i normally lay him down. when i tried to do this she grabs him and sits him back up which resulted in him leaning and reaching over for me to pick him up. i was standing right next to him so he wouldn't fall off the table and he just kept grabbing at me so i grabbed his upper arm to keep him still and from falling.

nurse: "you can't hold him, the scale picks up your weight."
(well what do you want me to do lady? he's just gunna fall off the damn table.)
after the 3rd attempt to get him to sit still she has me stand at the end of the table so he is reaching forward rather than to the side.
and fussed at me again for "holding him" when he reached far enough forward that he was almost on his knees.
these scales aren't the nice flat kind like what we get to stand on. they're like little tiny tippy metal baskets, so of course i'm going to grab when he moves!
we finally get him weighed (Which i still don't see what the big deal is b/c she didn't have me strip him naked so they weren't looking for an exact weight anyway.(which they did just get a week ago bay the way))

settled in the room she goes thru the routine questions:
her: "are all his immunizations up to date?"
i wanted to scream at her! if you had read his chart you would have seen that we were just here a week ago for that EXACT REASON!
but managed a restrained "yes. we were here last week for his 1 yr appt"

her: "is he on any medications?"

me: "no"

her: " Really? you don't give him any vitamins? motrin or tylenol?"

me: "oh well, he does get motrin for his teeth."
i didn't know they counted that as an actual medication. i was figuring more like antibiotics and stuff.
then she wanted to know when the last time he had any motrin was.
then we started talking about his leg. i told her my thoughts on it and she just stares at me! like i'm an idiot.
i even showed it to her.

me: " we came in b/c he never gets a reaction like this. he may get a red dot like a bite a couple days after the shot but it's been a week and i thought maybe it was the MMR vaccine that cause such a big irritated area."

her immediate response: "what makes you think it would be the MMR?"
and she didn't say it nicely. she just sounded snotty, like i didn't know what i was talking about.

at this point i'm frustrated.

me: "well it's the only shot he hasn't had before. well, he did get the chickenpox too, but the list ya'll gave me said symptoms for mmr show up 1-2 weeks after the shot is given and it's been a week so i figured the MMR made sense."

she looks right at me without batting an eye and says : " but he didn't get the MMR in that leg."

me: " whatever! i asked the nurse on the phone if they documented what legs got what shots and all's she said to me was that i needed to bring him in regardless of where the shot was given b/c they needed to know if it was a reaction to the virus or just an aggravated shot sight."
(common sense would tell me that he got both new shots in the same leg b/c he had such a bad reaction.what i think happened: he got the MMR and the pneumonia vaccine in the same leg, and the flu and the chicken pox in the other. either way he still got 2 new shots in 1 leg and thus resulted in a very inflamed shot sight.)

the nurse just stared at me for a minute. and then she left.
she just left!!!
a few minutes later the dr came in. examined the area and said it was normal!! i knew that it was mostly normal though it looked terrible! b/c he wasn't bothered at all by it. but it's always better to be safe than sorry. but your stupid nurse wanted me to come in. if it had been a reaction to the shot wouldn't he have shown the bigger symptoms like seizures and stiffness and fever and all that? rather than just an enflamed rather large area around the where the shot was given? i swear sometimes a mother is smarter than her dr!

then she tells me "don't be surprised if he breaks out in a rash from head to toe in another week."
great. thanks for the warning.
so remind me if i freak out next week about a rash.
and then she says he has to come back next month for a 2nd flu shot.
what? no one mentioned that last week.
"yeah this is the first year he gets the shot so he gets 2."
that makes no sense unless they can't give babies a full dose.
i kind of feel like they just had me come in today so they could squeeze more money out of my insurance co.

i called my insurance co. when i got home.
i had been thinking about getting TJ set up at my clinic b/c it's literally 5 minutes up the road.
it's just so much easier to run him up the street rather than spend 30 minutes to make what is less than a 10 mile trip to the dr if you could cut straight thru to the office, but know that it takes that long b/c you have to stop at a million red lights and there's always bad traffic and you have to hope on this hwy and then dodge over to that hwy and dodge the tolls in between.

the dr i wanted to get TJ in has reached her max for taking patients with our insurance. the one thing i hate about the military: the free medical is great! but hardly any one wants to take it, or much of it, b/c they never get all of their money.
so i picked a new dr at the same clinic.
the operator suggested i call the clinic to dbl check she was indeed taking new patients.
i did this. yes she's taking new patients. i set us one up for his 2nd flu shot in dec, as crazy as i think it is.
called insurance back. got a new operator. explained the problem to him. explained WHY i wanted to change dr's b/c it's such a big deal to my insurance co to change our PCP! and he says it's not a problem.
until he notices that said dr has "nearly reached her thresh hold for patients with this insurance." he tells me that billing and enrollment won't approve a transfer to her b/c she only has "11 slots open for patients and that's too close to her cut off."
does that make sense to you? if she has the room why can't i ask for a transfer to her?
i ask to submit the request anyway and he says "sure, but my personal recommendation is to find a new dr b/c billing and enrollment will reject this"

then he gives me some schpeel about upping my chances for approval on the new dr if i go and get a letter of acceptance from the dr, fill out the paper form for a PCP change and then take it all the way down into down town austin to the insurance office there so that my request is submitted before the holiday. if we waited til too close to thanksgiving it would be jan before i could see the new dr. which would have been fine b/c we'd be covered by the old dr in the meantime if something came up.
so i politely told him i'd see about doing all of that. hung up. gave it 3 hrs. called back when i was nice and calm and had decided it wouldn't be the end of the world if i had to keep going to the other place. got a new operator. walked him thru my conversation earlier that day with the first operator. left out what the 2nd crazy person wanted me to do. and asked simply to have my request verbally documented and processed.
he takes care of it all and ends the conversation with "once this is approved it should be effective dec 1. but they'll send you a letter out saying whether or not it was approved."

was that so hard??

i figure by the time the new baby is here we'll all have different dr's anyway. my dr's not taking more patients, and those other 10 slots for TJ's hopefully-new dr. will probably be all taken by the time new baby needs a dr. but so long as we can all go to the same clinic at least, i don't think it's that big of a deal.

and my head hurts.
it's that horrible pregnant lady head ache that is caused by the blood vessels expanding due to increased blood flow. my dr says caffeine should help b/c it makes the blood vessels constrict. it doesn't. my head just hurts. all the time. an aching dull pain.it goes away with tylenol but comes back unless i take tylenol all the time! and i don't want to do that b/c of new baby, even though i can take quite a bit. in the long run it is still better not to expose your still developing baby to stuff.

i guess getting off the computer might help this. i guess that's all the irrational bugginess i had to get out.

blad de blad de blah......

it rained this morning.
it was nice.
but now the sun is going to come out and it's going to be a steamy 80 degree day for freakin' novemeber. gotta love TX right?
i swear one day i am going to have to move up north if i want to experience real Christmas weather.

my coffee is cold.

i need to clean house.
well, pick up house atleast.
i cleaned before i went and spent 5 days at my moms. but now all of our "going out of town" gear is strewn about and needs to be put away.

it's 10am.i'm still in my jammies.

i think, since there's money left over and it's almost pay day. i am going to attack itunes today. i've just learned you can get the Twilight soundtrack already. and there's some other stuff i want. like the new No Justice album.( have no idea how to put music links up but if you haven't heard them and you like contry you'll love them!! They're i believe what they call Red dirt country. TX/OK contry. they really are great. kind of like corey morrow or blue edmonson or Pat green,only better.)

i want to make pumpkin cake. i just can't seem to get motivated. and it's not even hard!!

oh well, i guess i better go and do something productive before teege wakes up from his nap.

Aunti shades!

how's this for messy?? :)
dinners like this always end with an early bath!

almost forgot....

here's some of my favorite NICU pics.

here's the pics of the flight nurses getting him ready to go in the helecopter.
see? they really do glow!

baby TJ is in that big box looking thing but you can't see him. they called after they got him to the new hospital and told me he slept the whole way there.



and here's some birthday pics from last weekend:

reflections

one year ago today:

i was laying in the living room floor at about 10 am thinking to my pitiful self " i have to get up! i need to go fix my hair in case we have to go to the hospital!"

but i could only lay there, with my leg thrown up over the fireplace. there was no way i could get myself standing upright without help.so i called in my husband and asked him to help. when he asked me why i wanted to get up i explained. he laughed. not in a bad way. just in one of those guy like "that is the silliest thing i have ever heard. but i am going to humor her so i don't loose a limb."

i had to sit on the edge of the bath tub while wielding my flat iron skills. i was so tired. and achy. and i just didn't feel good.

flash forward:

i went out with TJ to run some errands. i had had success the day before - when i thought i was in labor also-with moving around helping stop contractions.that was what the book said to do. the contractions would stop with activity if they were false labor contractions. so i went out and rode around while TJ picked up transcripts from the local college.

when we got home i started to cry when i had to get out of the truck. i just could thinking of climbing down to the ground. TJ drives a plain old chevy silverado 4x4. it's not that big. oh but it felt so very high up that day. i sit in the front seat and cry. as TJ comes around to help me down i just cry harder b/c crying made the cramping and aching in my belly and legs worse.

"well i could have told you that!" he chuckles as he helps me climb from the seat.

"maybe we should call the hospital" he suggests.

"not yet. i want to eat lunch first. i don't want to go and then have them send me home b/c it's not real labor."

i prepared a lovely lunch of grilled cheese and tomato soup.......i never got to eat it.

as soon as i sat in my chair i jumped right back up.

"i can't sit down!!" i screeched.

TJ is sitting in the chair - looking at me like i have gone nuts

i'm pacing - no, more like dancing - about the kitchen. shaking my arms and hands like i'm preparing for a boxing match.

i felt like i was having the worst back pain in the world! the kind of back ache that comes with "aunt flo" only it was, well, impossible. all's i could do was stand up and lean over the counter with me head in my hands.

wave one went away almost as quick as it had come.
i sit again. only to experience the exact same thing.

on wave 3 i asked TJ to please bring me my cell phone so i could call L&D at the hospital.

there was no since in calling the dr. it was friday. there was no way i could get in to be seen. i just wanted the hospital to know we were on our way.

the nurse there tried to contact my dr at the clinic -which is part of the hospital thank GOD!
with no luck she told me to go ahead and come in. skip all the admissions and registration, just come straight up stairs.

we were out the door when the phone rang again. the dr had called the nurse back and told her to have me come to the clinic first.

i have no idea how i made it from the parking lot up to the clinic. i remember the nurse calling me name and when she saw me leaning against the wall, breathing thru my teeth with my eyes shut tight she says "are you in labor?" all shocked like she thought i was crazy- or possessed.

i glared at her "i hope so b/c if this is false labor i will die before this baby is ever born! i can't move right now, give me just a sec.

she stands there waiting. and then puts me thru the routine check in. vitals. weight check. blood pressure. urine sample.

i have no idea how i made it thru all that other than sure fire will.

flash forward:

i was admitted to the hospital between 2 and 3 that afternoon.
baby TJ was on his way.

the nurses yelled at me for moving when i got my epidural. you're not supposed to do that. of course. a giant needle in your back, why would you move? funny thing,even though i was still having crazy close together contractions,all's i could think about when i was having my epidural was that there was a totally young and VERY HOT anaesthesiologist performing the task and my butt was showing.

they eventually had to let my body labor the baby down before i do any real work b/c lo and behold those epidurals kick ass!! i couldn't feel anything! which means that i could DO anything to get the baby out. so they turned the dose down. they turned it down a little the first time. nothing happened. so the next time the dr came in she had the anaesthesiologist come back and turn it down again. another hot dr! at least me butt wasn't showing this time! he turned it down so low that i could feel, well, more than hoped for. my back was on fire.i was terrified.i even tried to tell my dr that i was too tired to do anymore at one point.

no one listened. once i got over being scared everything clicked in to place.

Baby Timothy James was born at 9 33 pm. weighing a healthy 7lbs 10oz. he was 22 inches long.

he never cried. he kind of screeched -like a dinosaur. then he would just moan. kind of wheez.

his lungs were still full of fluid. the pediatrician on staff said "as wierd as it sounds he just doesn't smell right. all new babies have a new born kind of smell right after they are born and they all pretty much smell the same. he smells off. with the leak you had in your water going undetected we don't know how long he was unprotected. he needs intravenous antibiotics and we need to get his lungs clear and i think ti's in his best interests to send him to the NICU over in temple."

it took them 2 hours to come and get him.

which means that he wasn't totally as seriously threatened by death as i thought.looking back on it now i'm sure it wasn't as tragic of a situations as it felt at the time. but in my new mommy brain all's i could think of was that they were sending him away b/c he was sick and it was bad.

they had him on oxygen.

no one brought him to me though he was just across the room.i had to ask to hold him before they took him away. i had to ask to try and nurse him -actually my sister asked for me b/c i was so confused about things i wasn't thinking about nursing him before we were separated for days at a time.

i got to hold him and cuddle him and try and nurse him for a few minutes.

then his oxygen level alarm went off b/c it got too low and the nurse took him back. it was too risky for him to be messed with.

all's i could do then was sit in my bed and watch him from a distance.

the helicopter came with a team of nurses to prepair him for his first helicopter.i'll put up pics of this. their flights suits had reflective material on them. when ever one of the nurses got in a photo their suits would light up. they look like angels come to see him safely thru.

they put leads on him hooking him up to monitors for his breathing and his heart.blood was drawn. they wrapped him in blankets and put him in an incubator.

once all was settled and ready to go they wheeled him away.

i didn't even get to tell him good bye.

flash forward:

we were released from the NICU a week later. on November 9th.

the baby and i were separated for a mere 48 hrs or so -if that. it seemed like forever.

I made big TJ go with the baby. he needed us. and i couldn't go. TJ still says to this day that was the hardest thing he ever had to do was leave me after everything i had just been thru, even though he knew the baby needed him more. i had to just about force him. managing to convince him finally that i would be fine b/c i was old enough to tell folks what i needed and the baby wasn't. he needed a familiar voice amongst all the chaos. and i knew that my parents wouldn't leave me alone under the circumstances.

the days spent in the NICU were almost sleepless- alot of that was due to hormones and adrenaline overload. the rest was due to pure new parent worrying.

with his conditions and breathing lapses and chocking spells -mostly due to him not clearing his airways well when he would spit up- and the reflux we were put thru an infant cpr class. that was tough for me to get thru. especially since the day they asked us to go was the day we found out that he had chocked on his own bile and quit breathing long enough to turn blue.

he was the healthiest baby in the nicu. had he not been hooked up to all those machines he might have suffocated himself if not for the oxygen alarms.

teege was sent home with an apnea monitor to avoid any future serious breathing lapses and a couple of medicines for the reflux.

on a lighter note: some humor we found during our stay: the dr that did his circumcision was named dr. whacker.

isn't that funny!!

when he was 3 months old he was removed from the apnea monitor. the specialist that we took teege to see looked at the monitor activity and examined him well and instructed us to "get rid of that machine. it's doing you more harm than good. he's just having normal infant breathing lapses that all babies have, most parents just don't know they have them b/c not everyone is sent home with a monitor."

at 4 months his dr had us start him on cereal. it would either worsen the reflux or make it better.

it helped tons! and he was off his meds by 5 months.

he is now a healthy loud rough tough little boy.
he is a happy kid! he never cries or fusses unless his teeth hurt, he is hungry or tired. i have to monitor his diaper changes or he would sit in a wet diaper all day. he just doesn't care.

he cut his first 2 teeth at the same time at 7 months old.

he was crawling by 8 months.

he was pulling up on furniture by 10 months and cruising around while holding on to things by 11 months.

and today he is 1 year old.

he dances to music. he loves to bop around to the theme for General Hospital.

he thinks everything is some kind of wonderful new treasure.

and he loves to learn new things!

he picks stuff up off the floor he doesn't think he should have - like pieces of dog food or plastic or wads of dog hair -and brings them to me to throw away.

he knows when i have food. i can't eat anything when he is awake without having to sneek it if i don't want to share!

he says "da da" and "ko ko(which is the name of one of our cats.) "nana" for banana. and "nye nye" for "nite nite" when he's ready to go to bed. yes! that's right. it's very helpful. when he's ready for sleep he tells us! he only says "mama" when prompted. unless he is crying. then i don't hear the end of it.

he loves to turn the lights on and off.

he has 5 teeth.

we are introducing baby signs and he can tell me when he see or wants to see the dogs.
when he wants "more" of something to eat or when he "all done" with what he is eating.

he is a joy.

he can be extremely hard to keep up with at times b/c he is super fast. and i get tired of chasing him at time. but i can see what a wonderful gift he is.

we are blessed. i believe that, even though alot of his problems found in the nicu were fixable and probably somewhat normal for new borns, we are lucky to have him.
i love you little baby!
my precious little boy!
I hope that the world is kind to you.I hope that you stay a little boy for as long as you can because no one should have to grow up before their time.there is much responsibility that comes with being a grown up so enjoy your time as a kid.But more than that I pray that you are never afraid to take on the challenges that life offers and learn from each mistake you make along the way. Life carries great lessons. Find eagerness to learn them.

You are a blessing to us. A gift that will never go without us giving thanks for.

you make me very happy little one! you have presented to me a new meaning for life.

I love you always.

Happy Birthday.

May there be many many more to come!

halloween pics

here he is folks!
Baby Rambo!
it was all big TJ's idea.
and it was PERFECT!
everyone knew who he was dressed as. he even carried his candy bag like a big boy!
all's we had to do was cut up a red t-shirt for the band around his head and find some dark clothes. we ended up with a pair of green camo pants and a black t-shrit. and i muddies up his face with wet and dry brown eye shadow.
it was such fun!
the pictures didn't stay in the order i up loaded them in(which irritates me) but at least they are here.





leaving in the waggon




look at all the candy!


hhmmmmm.......you mean we go out and run from door to door and ppl hand out free candy?




daddy and me walking down the street(we went with some neighbors. thier kids were a clown, a pumpkin, and a skelton)

the finishing touches are added and it's time to hit the candy trail!

i did it!

this is going to sound like a silly post to most of you. but it was a big thing for me.

i voted today.

by myself.
those stupid electronic machines weren't going to hold me back!

i took teege with me, strapped him in his stroller, looked horrifyingly at the VERY LONG LINE of ppl streaming out of the public library and cowered there in the parking lot, on the phone with my mother, wondering if i had it in me to wait THAT LONG! it's early voting folks! hadn't you already done this? shouldn't you be at work at 9 30 in the morning? where did they all come from!
jeeze!
it was growing steadily closer to nap time, and even closer to the moment where i knew that "new baby" was going to demand that i EAT SOMETHING!
but i loaded us all up and off we went, hurrying across the parking lot trying to get in line before anyone else showed up!!

good grief.

as i took my place in line a nice lady came out to make sure that everyone had what they needed to vote. then she rambled on about the "other 2 voting locations that have very minimal waiting. the ymca and the ACC college campus......." both were across town from where i stood. and i was deathly afraid to put teege back in his car seat and unload him again. i could feel the melt down coming on. i knew he'd be happier if left alone. ".........please be aware that once you hit the sidewalk the wait is 25 to 30 minutes" i'm looking up ahead, way ahead, at the sidewalk, wondering how long it will take me to get up there. also the "clerks" kept marching down the side walk yelling at folks to "turn off their cell phones once they entered the building b/c the computers were crashing!" i turned mine off before i ever got close to the front doors.

i see several women in line up ahead with more than one kid and finally i figure to myself that since i had thought to bring all the staples needed to stave off any serious events of craziness i could stand there amongst the other crazies trying to beat out standing in line for hours on election day. i knew if i didn't do it now i never would. so i quit trying to think up reasons to get out of line and come home.
besides i just felt quilty when i thought of NOT voring.and it had been bugging me ever since TJ started going on and on about how if he didn't do it today he either wouldn't get to or he'd have to vote absintee -since he's leaving this weekend for OK-which neither of us know anything about and i just felt guilty every time i though to myself "it's really not that big of a deal."

well, yeah, i mean, it could be my "non vote" that tipped the election in the direction that i didn't want it to go!(not that i can say much about how i want the election to go b/c i do not follow politics. i never have. this is only the 2nd time i have voted in my life! i just don't pay attention to it. i never have. until i met TJ. he's all over the politics, and the stocks and bonds. he knows about all that stuff. i feel so dumb sometimes when he's rambling on about these types of things b/c i have no idea how it's supposed to be, or how we should "Want it" to be, or even what he's talking about)

anyway, all in all i was there from start to finish for 30 minutes. give or take. not nearly as bad as i though.
there were 2 life saving little girls there with their mother. they were tori-5, and marlee-3 and they were the BEST DISTRACTION for me and little tj. they played peek a boo and patted his head and talked to him and IT WAS GREAT!

once i came in to view of the room we were to vote in i started to shake. literally.
those machines were HUGE! and so intimidationg looking. enough that i actually felt sorry for the old man standing behind me. i felt like there was no way he'd figure it out!
and no one told me when i went to vote for my very first time that you could vote straight party so i sat there, in my little box, filling in each bubble, like an idiot.
so i was totally grateful for the sweet old ladies that were patrolling the room giving instructions and helping everyone at least get up to the point where they could cast their vote.
it really wasn't a big deal.
but i felt so big for going and doing it all by myself.
especially since it's not something i have ever cared about before, nor am i familiar with the process -which was more the problem than anything
and no. i made sure not to check each box this time.
nope. i knew all about voting straight party this time.

oh, and when i relayed all this to TJ when he was on his way back from ft hood and told him he might want to try one of the other voting places b/c the library just seemed to be way popular!(the library moved over 1500 voters yesterday and the other 2 places moved less than 1000 combined.) he went to the YMCA and waited for - yup- about a minute. there were like 3 ppl in line when he got there.
i should have been brave enough to load us up and try it out.
oh well.
i guess all the folks down here only know where the library is.