Big News!

I have an announcement to make…

I will be an Assistant Choir Director at Jane Long Middle School in Bryan ISD starting in January.  Bryan ISD is located in Bryan/College Station, Texas…home of Texas A&M University.  Jonathan is OVER THE MOON about relocating back to his Alma Mater!

We will be moving from Conroe to Bryan before Christmas so that we can get settled in before I start my new job.  Jonathan is looking into relocating as well so that he doesn't have a really long drive to work in Houston (about 93 miles or 1.5 hour commute).

We have already found an apartment to live in, away from the student living apartments by the university.  The apartments are called Park Hudson Place.  We have secured a 3 bed/3 bath place with a good-sized kitchen.  We will use one of the bedrooms as an office/craft room.  We got lucky in that we were able to reserve a first floor apartment…NO MORE STAIRS!!  Here is what our new pad will look like:

Camry Chaos

Jonathan came home from work one day and told me that something was wrong with the Camry.  He said that the windows were covered in dew in the morning, so he rolled down all the windows on the car.  The back passenger window rolled down and then "popped"; the window was not rolling back up.  When Jonathan got to work he had one of his co-workers help try and get the window working again, but they couldn't.  He taped the window up with packing tape as a temporary fix.

I took the Camry over to Karl and Audrey's place Saturday to see if Karl could take a look at it since Dad was just coming back from Paris.  We took the door panel off to find that the scissor system that operates the window have partly broke.

This is the part that broke.  The motor worked but the bolt used as the fulcrum of the system had broke and basically corroded.  The bottom picture is the bolt that had broke. Notice that the bolt use to have teeth.  The "teeth" broke off, half still on the bolt and half on the system.  Unfortunately the 

Karl called around to O'Reilly's and Auto Zone with no luck.  We took a 30 minute drive to Deer Park to Advanced Auto Parts who had the replacement system.  Total cost for parts: $112.04.

We got back home then started to reassemble the door.  We ran into a bit of trouble trying to figure out how to put the scissor system back into the door, but Karl eventually figured it out.  I was the ignition girl....turning on the ignition and checking to see if the window motor works.

Once we got the system back in the door, it was cake from there.  We put all the screws and bolts back together....even had to go hunting for a screw that got lost in the grass!
It only took about 3-4 hours to fix, but a big THANK YOU and shout out to big bro Karly-boy!!

Death to Computer!

Just at the beginning of the school year, my laptop was not working.  I could not get the screen to turn on.  The lights on the keyboard would turn on, but the screen wouldn't come up and the hard drive would not run.  I called Lenovo because the computer was still under warranty thinking that it would be covered....not really.  They said it was a software corruption and fixing that would not be covered under warranty.  They told me that I had to factory reset my laptop; I said that I couldn't because all of my data was still on the laptop and there was no way of getting it off because I couldn't get the computer to turn on, and how am I to factory reset it when I can't even see the screen.  I was a little heated in the moment.  They basically were of no assistance, telling me that there was nothing they could do.

A couple days later, after school had already started, I took my laptop to Geek Squad at BestBuy and got my data off my hard drive.  2 days later I picked up my data and then said goodbye to PC laptops!  I am now the proud owner of a new MacBook and I love it.  I figured that since I have an iPod, iPhone, and iPad that it makes logical sense to get an iMac.  Now that all my Mac devices are synced, I get to use the cloud (...yay, cloud!) to help keep track of all my data on all my devices along with an external hard drive.

Back to School

School has started up again!

It's my last semester at SHSU....yippie!!  This year is very different because I now have added help.  There are a total of 4 grad students in my program track....3 boys and me.  They have been such a help because now i'm not stuck doing everything myself!  The first couple of weeks have been stressful, but since we got all the starter jobs done, the stress is starting to come back down.  Including passing my normal classes this semester, I will have to pass what are known as "orals".  These are an oral test of my complete knowledge of musical topics.  I will be tested over music theory, history, and choral music.  The testing will be an 1.5 hours in front of 3 professors.  I have to pass each of the 3 content areas before I can graduate.  I've built in time to my schedule to study since this test is a comprehensive knowledge of music.  I'm just looking forward to getting them over with!!

Prayers for a great school year, and a low-stress one at that!!  :-)

Jonathan Sleep Study

Jonathan's snoring is a little unbearable....sometimes I sleep on the couch if I can't get him to stop.  His allergist suggested we see an ENT for his deviated septum anyways, so why not make it a two-fer!!

We went to see Dr. Clilento in The Woodlands and he discussed all of our questions.  He did a nasal scope, which Jonathan didn't thouroughly enjoy, and found nothing wrong with his throat, but that he does have a severe deviation of his septum.  He said that he could fix that with surgery easily.  We also talked about his snoring problem and said that his deviation could have some cause to that as well.  The doctor also noticed that he has a "thick tongue base", meaning there is not enough room between his tongue and the back wall of his throat for air to get passed.  The doctor ordered a sleep study to check out his sleeping habits and to try a C-PAP machine if necessary.

Jonathan went to The Woodlands Premier Sleep Center one Saturday evening at 8:30.  They hooked up all the wires and electrodes to monitor his sleep.  Here are some of the pictures he took while he was there.

Jonathan came home around 5:30 Sunday morning, slept for a while then had to get up for church.  He told me later after church that he didn't get much sleep and got up several times during the night.  The office called him a couple days later to tell him that based on his results he needed to come back for a second night to do a "therapeutic" testing, using a CPAP machine.

I called Dr. Cilento's office to talk about the pros and cons of doing this before he got his nose fixed.  He told me that the reason they do this is to cover their bases for insurance purposes, so that when the insurance company calls and says if the surgery was necessary, they can say yes and give proof of testing.

We will be scheduling Jonathan's second night soon.  We'll keep you posted on how it goes!  :-)

Jonathan's Final Update

Jonathan had a doctor's appointment with his Primary Care doctor this past Thursday.  We met with Dr. McAden who did a full physical workup: blood tests, EKG, and regular exam.  We discussed with Dr. McAden about all of Jonathan's recent ER visits, Allergist follow-ups and findings, and what his symptoms still were.

Jonathan's doctor prescribed him some medication that will hopefully help and will be the ultimate solution to the problem.  Dr. McAden feels that the diagnosis he made and the medication he prescribed  will solve the problems that he found.

Jonathan and I sincerely thank you for all of your prayers and well wishes that you have sent our way.  We greatly appreciate the support from our family and friends!

Jackie's Journey

On Tuesday I went to see my Endocrinologist because my Primary Care doctor was concerned about my thyroid functions and my weight.  I booked an appointment at The Endocrine Center in Katy (about an hour south from Conroe) to see Dr. Daniel Tung.  In his bio from the website he specializes in hypothyroidism (which is what I have) and weight management....perfect!!

After waiting for a while, we finally got back to see the doctor.  He was very thorough with his questions asking about my major complaints, my eating habits, thyroid symptoms, and more.  He told me that he was going to increase my thyroid medicine as my labs showed that it needed to be increased, and he put me on a strict diet plan to help lose weight.

My diet is based on eating 4 major groups: meats, veggies, eggs, and nuts.  Dr. Tung said I could have any type of these categories, whether it is steak, pork, chicken, fried chicken (YES,he said i could eat fried chicken), barbeque, all types of veggies, eggs any way, and nuts of all varieties.  For beverages, I can only drink water, unsweet tea, and black coffee.  I have been enjoying drinking unsweet tea, which isn't that bad, and water with flavoring.

Everything else that is not encompassed in that list is pretty much a no-go.  I am not allowed to have pasta, rice, potatoes, cereal, milk, soda, sugary snacks, and anything that is high carb and high fat.  Jonathan and I have cleaned out the pantry and cabinets so that I am not tempted to sneak anything.  I have had a hard time finding something that is sweet to eat.  My sweet tooth is STARVING, but I usually just make some ice water with some flavoring, and it helps.

So far I have lost 4 pounds!!  I made a chart that I put in the bathroom to help keep track of my progress. Every day I weight myself and then mark it on the chart.  Dr. Tung said that he would like to see me at 170 lbs and he talked about making long term changes so that I don't relapse back.  My goal is to get to 170 lbs, but then go a little lower, maybe to 160 lbs or 150 lbs.