I swore I'd never...

Okay, it's official...

The end of the world is near...

I let my kids get a dog. Not only is it a dog, but it's an "inside dog." We had a member of our ward pass away recently (he died in a bad motorcycle accident) and it's left his wife pretty devistated. She is having a hard time making ends meet, and taking care of this dog was just too much for her right now. We also took her chickens, so now we have a total of around 14.

In case you can't tell from the picture, it's a Boston Terrier--we named it "Polly." (So, yes, it's a girl.) It's cute and VERY hyper, but I think it will be fun. We need to house train it, which will be a challenge, but we'll make it work. Ian is SO happy, and I even let it sit on my lap and petted it today--a HUGE step for me.

So now at the Cobb Family Farm, we have four goats, about 14 chickens, one dog and two kids. We're happy...

My Pity Party

So, I'm a little self-centered. This isn't a big surprise to anyone who's known me for ANY period of time.

I've been to the doctor twice in the past week and it has caused me to reflect on my body and why it seems to be fighting me all of the time. Don't get me wrong, I'm SO glad I'm here, but I get down sometimes thinking about WHY I can't just have a normal body.

In the past 18 months, I've had the following:

1. Gallbladder removed.
2. Two stents put in my arteries in my abdomen area. My aorta was 70% blocked and my left renal artery was 60% blocked.
3. I have what I thought was a simple cyst growing on my right kidney. Turns out (I found this out last Friday) it's actually a "mass." It covers 1/4 of my kidney. Not cool. I'm seeing YET ANOTHER specialist in the next few weeks to see where we go from here on this one.
4. Three CT scans, complete with my Benadryl cocktail that makes me feel drunk (or what I can imagine drunk feels like) because I'm allergic to the contrast dye they use.
5. Three MRIs, where I have to hold my breath for way to long so that they can get a good view of my abdomen region.
6. Four blood tests. These are NOT fun because I don't have ANY veins. Why is it that people who never need blood drawn have fantastic veins, and I've been "blessed" with the most difficult veins known to mankind? When I go into the lab, they know me and automatically call for their supervisor. Last week when I got this done, it took 90 minutes (and seven pokes) to finally get enough blood.
7. I've also been diagnosed with high blood pressure and have osteoporosis. I also found out that my triglycerides are a bit high, which may be an early sign of diabetes. COOL!

Okay, now that I'm done complaining, here's what I'm grateful for: (in no particular order)

1. My amazing family. I have the greatest husband and the two best kids in the world. I'm so lucky to have them. I also have a great set of parents and really cool brothers and sisters. I'm looking forward to seeing some of them in June.
2. My body still works--I can walk around, and thanks to the stents, I can now walk relatively pain-free.
3. Insurance. With all of the crap I've been through, I'm grateful that I haven't had to pay for very much of it at all.
4. Medication. Thanks to meds, my blood pressure is controlled and I am re-gaining bone strength. I am also mentally relatively stable...but that's a story for another day.
5. The gym. I look forward to my 45-60 minutes at the gym every day. I feel stronger and happier when I leave. Even though I'm not losing as much weight as fast as I'd like to, I'm doing something.
6. My job. I have the best job in the world. You wouldn't know it by looking at my desk right now, but I really love it.
7. My membership in the church. I love the sweet peace the Gospel brings into my life. It is my compass and my light, and Christ is my strength when I feel down about all of the other things seeming to go wrong in my life.

So see, it isn't so bad! :^B

Relay for Life

On May 2-3, I participated in our high school's Relay for Life to support cancer research. I was asked by several of my band students to be their team's chaperone. It was a lot of fun (we were "Team Pirates," in case you were wondering why they're all dressed that way!) We stayed up all night walking around the track at the high school--well, we almost made it anyway! I slept from about 2:00-4:00 a.m., and when I woke up the track was pretty much empty. It was also fun because Ian and Courtnie stayed with me. It was nice to have them be a part of something so important to me.

It was also an emotional night for me, as they had a "survivor lap" for those who had battled cancer and won. You could also buy luminarias in memory of those who had lost the battle. Cancer is such a personal issue for me, as I'm a cancer survivor, but have also lost two very important people in my life to cancer. My mom's mom passed away while I was fighting cancer myself and Gordon's dad passed away about 10 1/2 years ago. At about 10:00 p.m., we all did a couple of laps around the track while they read the names and messages about the people who had died. There were luminaries around the track and in the stands they spelled the word "HOPE" with the luminaries. It was very cool, and very touching.

As I'm still dealing with the after-effects of my cancer treatments, I hope for the day that we don't have to worry about cancer. I know it may not come until MUCH later, but until that day comes, we can all hope.

What??

So about a week ago someone came to me at school (one of my LDS band kids) and told me that someone scratched "I love Ian Cobb" into the bathroom stall at church. How funny.

Our school resource police officer here at BMHS (Paul Dunn) is also in our bishopric. He came and talked to me today to see if I'd heard about it. Evidently they also scratched a pair of lips into the stall and wrote "kiss me." The bishopric had a good laugh about it at their meeting last night. Bishop said, "Well, he is a ladies man."

It's strange, because you see things like that at school or in a public restroom, but I've never seen it done at church. Paul said they don't even know if they can paint over it because it's scratched in so deep.

I'm not ready for this!!

I'll try to sneak a camera into the bathroom Sunday to see if I can take a picture of it. If I do, I'll post it.

Improve the Shining Moments

I really love my job. It gives me a great deal of satisfaction to know that I'm making a difference.

Today was a "teacher in service" day--normally pretty lame for me. Today we started working on the process of accreditation for our school. Basically, it's what we have to do to ensure that our students' credits are accepted...it proves that we're a viable school. Whatever...

Anyway, we're starting a new "cycle," and there's a new process we have to do. As a result, we're doing everything different, including a new set of chair people (or is it chairpersons?) As a way to get the ball rolling and remind us why we were doing this, she had us write down three of "shining moments" we've had as teachers.

Here were my three:
1. I love it when the students start to really love the music. When I first hand out a piece of music, they don't especially like it. They hate it if it's hard. I love the moment when they start to feel successful and then start to really love the music.

2. I love it when one of my students asks me what they need to do to become a band director. They say that imitation is the greatest form of flattery, and this is very true!

3. I love my students' faces after a concert, when I can look them in the eyes and know that they feel good about what they've accomplished.

After the meeting, I returned to my room and was working in my office when a former student walked in. He graduated 2 years ago, and we had a pretty good relationship when he was in the band. He's a goofy guy who has had his fair share of ups and downs.

He gave me an invitation to his wedding in July. I was so excited for him. He looked so happy...he has a plan for his future, and I'm really glad. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half--just talking. It was great...another "shining moment."

Here's to more "shining moments" in the future!

Life on the farm, part 2 (the sequel)

Courtnie is afraid to pick up her goat herself, but she'll hold it if Ian gives it to her.
Ian loves having the responsibility of taking care of his pet.

He gets up at 5:45 every morning to feed him--I don't even have to ask twice!

A few of our chickens. You can't hear it, but the rooster was crowing right when I took this picture. We hate the rooster, but don't have the heart to kill it. Maybe someday...
The goats are really playful, and the kids love being with them.

Life on the farm

Here is Ian getting the bottles ready for the goats.

They have to be fed three times a day, and boy do they love it!
Okay, so I didn't mean for this photo to be in with these photos, but here's Courtnie with her HUGE gap where her two front teeth used to be. She lost one on March 20 and the other exactly a week later. The first one Gordon had to pull out with pliers--it was SO wiggly and she refused to pull it out. The second one came out in her Taco Bell taco! How strange! :)
This is our "big boy" goat--Basil.
Speaking of big boys, here's Ian feeding our two baby goats. Left goat is Midnight and the right goat is Spot. Midnight is Ian's goat, Spot is Courtnie's.
They CHOW DOWN on the milk! It's gone in less than a minute!