FireKite

10:23pm: A morning commute conversation
Me: I can't wait for the new Harry Potter !!!!
Josh: Weeee... *not enthused*
Me: Psh, whatever. I'll take Dorky Harry Potter Boyfriend with me to see it!
Josh: Fine by me, I'll be with Violent Movie Girl!!!
Me: Great! Now I don't have to watch all the bloody stuff with you! Woooo Hooo!!

I win and I win! LOL

1:06pm: Gin and Titonic!

Titanic ship and Iceberg!


My favoritest ice cubes ever!

11:27am: Hey Portland people!!
I want to go to Nancy's memorial service but I've never been to Portland before. Any tips for hotels & interesting places to eat?

9:59am: Nancy's Italian Delight Cake Recipe (from Jerri)
Italian Delight Cake Recipe
Greetings Cake Lovers,

Well, here it is at long last the famous Italian Delight Cake Recipe. My mom made it famous first and Nancy carried on the tradition

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup Crisco (I substitue butter)
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups sugar
1 cup chopped nuts(walnuts or pecans)
5 egg yolks
1 cup Baker's Angle Flake Coconut
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
5 egg whites stiffly beaten

Cream together margarine and Crisco (or butter). Add sugar and beat until smooth. Add egg yolks, beating well. Sift together flour and soda and add alternately with buttermilk to creamed mixture. Stir in vanilla. Add coconut and nuts. Fold in egg whites.

Grease and flour ppans and cut a circle of waxed or parchment paper to fit the bottom of the pan (REALLY keeps it from sticking!). Bake in 2 or 3 layers at 350 degrees for 20-35 minutes until fully cooked and shrinking away from the side of the pan.

Italian Delight Frosting

8oz cream cheese
1/2 cup butter
1lb (box) powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans)
1 cup coconut
juice of 1/2 lemon (optional)

Mix together first 5 ingredients until smooth. Mix in nuts and coconut. Garnish with more coconut or nuts. For fresher taste add lemon juice when mixing first 5 ingredients.

Well, there you go my friends. Bake on and enjoy.

Happy baking to all,
jerri
the older sister

9:52am: Memorial Service for Nancy Cooley
Greetings Friends of Nancy Cooley,

This is to let you all know that the official date for Nancy Cooley's Memorial service will be August 1, 2009, at 11:00am. The service will be held in Portland, Oregon at Riverview Cemetary.

The address is 8421 S.W. Macadam Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97219. The telephone number is 503-246-6488 or 503-246-4251. The website is www.riverviewcemeteryfuneralhome.com. We will be having an after party at my cousin's in Vancouver.

On behalf of my sister, Wendy and I would like to invite all you to join us in a celebration of the life and times of Nancy Carol Cooley.

Thank you all for your continued support and love. It means the world.

10:05am: Tell me something anonymously
I'm cleaning the house today and need some entertainment! Tell me a secret.

All comments screened.

9:17am: 4th of July!
I ended up having a pretty good 4th- even in the house of sickies! Decided to BBQ via George Foreman because it was too hot outside. Marinated, grilled veggies & portobello mushroom steaks, plus hamburgers with all the fixings. Then to our surprise, there were some great fireworks visible from our front porch so we watched the show from the porch swing and had a great time!

9:25am: Duke Nukem's Disease
Hilarious!

8:32am: My initials are all over the Mission

Josh says they are messages from the future me!

10:58pm: What lasik really looks like: drugs and wine glasses full of artificial tears

6:22pm: Great, NOW who am I going to get to be narrator of my life's reality show???


AND SHE'S STIRRING THE VEGGIES. THE LAUNDRY IS ALMOST DONE!!! NOW SHE'S MAKING ICE CUBES!!!

8:31am: This kid is my hero!!!


I can't stop laughing!

7:44am: Went to Nancy's house to get the rest of her things
I hadn't really given any thought to how difficult that might be. Josh and I drove to Oakland in the uhaul and met Nancy's sister and friend at the house. Most of her things were already moved out so the place was very empty. I think in a way that kinda helped. PLUS, I had never been to her new place so there weren't any memories for me there- wich also helped. But still, her things are so filled with memories. That chair! the table! ohhh, that silly tin stick-match holder with the drawing of a cartoon Italian chef! Her shoes. Cookbooks. The big candle holder. everything everything everything It felt very strange to be taking her things. I almost felt like I was stealing. How is Nancy supposed to cook without her waffle maker??!? Many of her clothes were on the street corner for people to take. A woman who was down on her luck bought Nancy's vanity for the same price ($20!) that Nancy bought it for in the 80s. Nancy would like that.

I am now the proud owner of Nancy's fabulous 50's table and chairs, the waffle maker, cookbooks, and all of her Beatles albums. I will cherish them always.

Once we got everything in the car and said a tearful goodbye, we got in the uhaul to head home. And then it hit me. Nancy is really gone. I bawled my eyes out for the first time since her passing almost a month ago. I did lots of crying the week that I spent with her in the hospital before she died, but I haven't cried much at all since. I think the horrible anticipation of her passing and watching her decline was so difficult that death seemed like a relief. I couldn't feel sad about it because I knew she was finally at peace. But maybe now, the mourning process has begun. It's good. Like Nancy said, "Of course it's ok to cry, this is a big event!"

crying again

So we got everything home and then got Jaden from his Auntie who was watching him for us. We went about the rest of our day and then after Jaden fell asleep that night, Josh got out his boombox record player and we sat on the porch at Nancy's table and chairs, listening to her Beatles albums, with her candle holder all set up, and read through her cook books. We toasted her life, I babbled some of my favorite Nancy stories, we hung out in true Nancy style under the dim light of white christmas lights and feeling the cool night breeze.

It was good.

7:43am: WOW, I forgot about LJ for a second
I'm back now! i think. There's too much going on and I don't think I've had the energy (or vision) to write it down or read entries.

Um, ... HI!

11:57pm: I can kinda see now!
My vision is still very foggy but I can see well enough to get around and the pain level is down to almost nothing! My left eye is still worse than the right but now it just seems like I have left my contacts in for days and they're foggy. I keep wanting to take them out to clean them...

The past week has been a blur of crazy pain and lots of eyes-closed listening to movies, especially director's commentaries of movies. Because really, when else are you going to do that besides when you're stuck in bed and can't SEE.

BTW, when I went back for a checkup, i asked the doc what my beginning vision was before lasik. DUDE, it was 20/2000! No wonder why I couldn't see!

9:12am: Typing wiht my eyes closed
i hope this works! i'm sitting in my room listening to jaden scream about how he needs to come in a d sleep with mom but really he just can't stand that I'm in here with the door locked because it's too painful to do anything else.

the past few days have been really painful. it's like holding an onion up to your eye constantly for days. it's all consuming and makes you feel miserable. I can't do anything. when I open my eyes, everything seems soooooo bright and my eyes tear up and start dripping. oy. if I keep them closed, it feels like i'm holding in the burn and my face wants to scrunch up into a grimmace which hurts my eyes more. then I get headaches!

I've been taking numbing drops but they're gone now. the weren't doing anything to help anyway. Also, the other pain drops are gone now. All I have left is the antiniotic and the codine. I called the doc this morning to check in and make sure that all this is normal. My eyes are swollen and puffy. I spent most of yesterday with cold towels and gel masks on my face to cool the burning and reduce the swelling. I conldn't tell that the swelling was going odown but it would make me feel better in that moment to have the cool towel so I kept it up all day. I listened to four Harry Potter movies, which was really trippy because the codine makes me hallucinate just slightly. I was floating in and out of dreams involving the movies, Jaden and a bunch of other random stuff like being chased by buildings that were made of coke bottles or car stereos or something!

today i feel better though. i can open my eyes and blink without so much pain. They still burn but it's manageable for a few moments at a time to open my eyes and be part of the daylight experience. provided I have my sunglasses on! The contact lense bandaids are making my vision foggy but still it's better than before surgery. I get those things take ou tomorrow and I'm kinda nervous because my eyes still hurn and I don't want anyone near them! ouch ouch ouch.

Over all, my vision right after surgery was almost as good as with glasses. My glasses weren't the best perscription either but close enough that I could still use them. My vision has fluxuated from great to blurry very randomly but that's expected for thefirst few weeks or even months. Still, i an function way better than I ever could have with my old vision. that was like zero visability. I was looking at the framed pictures on the wall of the docs office of all the patients before and afters, there was one woman who had vision not even as bad as mine and she was listed as 20/400 so i know I was worse than that. i only know my contact lense perscription was much worse than hers. I forgot what my vision was before surgery but I'll get that the next time I call in or go or my contact lense removal.

God, this is probably the most obring entry ever. I'm just been typing away with closed eyes and don't even remember all I'm said. OK enough! More later when I can see. or I get bored. which ever comes first!

9:02am: Me, after lasik


This was my stress ball to hold during the surgery. Ha!

It went really well and my vision is already almost as good as it was the other day with glasses. Of course, the glasses weren't the proper prescription either but yeah, I'm impressed by how well I see! Up-close is still weird so I'm mostly typing with my eyes shut but it shouldn't take long before my eyes level out and I'll have an easier time. Right now I have those clear eye protectors on my eyes to make sure nothing gets in and jaden can't do his "kachow!" thing where he pokes me in the eye! I have hourly saline drops and then a bunch of other drops that I take every 4 hours. My plan is to keep my eyes closed as much as possible, put the cold compress on to reduce swelling, and just hang out. Yesterday I listened to Young Frankenstein which was fun. I'm going through movies that I know so well that I don't have to watch, I can just listen and enjoy. Princess Bride, Raising Arizona, Harold and Maud, Young Frankenstein, Ghostbusters, etc...

k, time to lay down for a bit.

12:48pm: Lasik eye surgery right now! Josh will film it if they let him...

Nervous!!!

3:22pm: Never a dull moment on the walls of the Mission

5:39pm: The Secretary Starring Nancy Cooley


I didn't know she was in a film! Nancy's friend Nancy H. sent me the link to her student film today. It's awesome to see her again! This was from 1996, right before I met her. yay, I'm all happy!!

12:52pm: From visiting Nancy a few weeks ago

T-Mobile

8:56pm: Question for the moms: skin tags?
Did you get those little skin bumps around your neck and shoulders when you were pregnant? Skin tags, i think. They drive me crazy. Like banana sandwich, crazy. The other day I decided I'd had enough so I cut them off with cuticle scissors. A bit extreme maybe, but it seems to have worked! Ahh, no more weird bumps!

This moment of over-sharing has been brought to you by... me.

8:54pm: flea market & sick baby & lasers in my eyes
Man, the great things we found at the flea market and thrift store! Words can not describe, so I'll take pictures tomorrow. I thought that first clock was cool until I found an even cooler clock a few hours later. Bought them both, of course!

Jaden has been asleep since 6pm. How much do you want to bet that he wakes up at midnight and is ready to play? yeesh. But he's been sick so I'm hoping he stays asleep to aid his getting rid of that pesky cold.

5 days and counting until my lasik surgery. EEEP! I will never wear contacts again, and after thursday, never glasses again. Unless they are awesome sunglasses. But, I'm starting to really wonder what it's going to be like when they do the surgery. I mean, that is exactly the type of thing I would like to never see in progress. Any other surgery, my eyes would be firmly shut! But, my eyes will be open because it's surgery on my EYES. K, i'm not going to think about it any more. nope. frikin' lasers! on my EYES!

1:37pm: Flea Market gleeeeee!

8:41am: Lots of events coming up
Friday 12th: lasic eye surgery!
Following weeks: recover from surgery
Sunday-ish: Visit with Rachel

The next Saturday 20th: Katana's birthday party in SJ and Jamaal's birthday in the east bay (yikes, I hope we can make it to both!)
Sunday: Father's Day and Ollie's Birthday BBQ