The tree is up!

I'll try to be brief in explaining the last post... Let's just say that my eye testing (all day) went great and my eyes have not worsened as had been expected. You see, I'm blessed with a genetic eye disease called Retinitis Pigmentosa... It's a hereditary disease that my father has. So every few years I have to go be a "lab rat" and give them my day for testing, measuring, blood etc. for researching a cure and monitoring my eyesight. They had told me that I was going to lose at least 10% of my vision when I got pregnant and it was a loss we were willing to take given the blessing of pregnancy and motherhood.

To keep it short, not only have I NOT lost the 10% they predicted since my last visit, but I didn't lose anything else from just aging a few more years!!! Woo hoo! My greatest hope and prayer is that Nicholas has not received the gene(s) responsible for the blindness that it entails. He will be able to be tested with me the next time I go in two years. Pray for him!

Michael and I went to an Ethiopian restaurant in Boston the day after being in Boston for my eye stuff! It was a wonderful treat to be out in the city with him two days in a row - alone...
We checked out the coolest hotel that used to be a prison! Very swanky - $500 a night for their basic room - eek! So, we just hung out at the lobby bar called "Clink" and had a nice glass of wine. I could go on, but who cares, it's only a hotel!

The Ethiopian restaurant was very good, but I don't know if I'm going to have cravings for it, perhaps if we go there again the tastes won't be something new and will be less of an "experience" and more of a fun night out! The people that were working there were unmistakably Ethiopian. It's funny how you can spot that in a second when you go through this process. Their features and characteristic's were just striking and to say that we can't wait to go to Ethiopia is a tremendous understatement. Our waitress was gracious, and gorgeous. We told her toward the end of our little adventure that we're adopting and she thanked us! What the heck! Don't thank us - please - we thank these wonderful people for allowing us the honor and gift of a child from their country. It was embarrassing to say the least and I almost had an ugly cry moment (not unusual for me to cry during a meal as I get overwhelmed with gratitude when eating - does that tell you how much I love and cherish food or what).

We left the restaurant arm and arm and approached my car. Let me back up here and tell you that I did a map quest before leaving our house to the nearest parking garage to the restaurant. I like parking garages, they're safe, and it gives you the opportunity to walk a bit and take in the sights... Well, my darling husband insisted that I park "on the street". I didn't want to start any conflict and just went along after expressing my opinion. So, we parked on the street. Wouldn't you know that when we got to my car, the front bumper and side molding were laying on the ground!!!! GRRR. There was a wonderful lady standing on her "stoop" on the phone with the police and shouted to us because she had seen the whole incident happen - thank goodness. He hit my car, took a swig of booze, and then drove off!!!! She took his plate number -(bless her soul, I'm sending her a card and a gift card too.) As we were driving home I heard another part of my car fall off on the highway.

For those of you who don't know the ordeal of my poor car/truck, in the last 15 months:

$11,000 damage from a crazy hail storm with hail the size of BASEBALLS
$6,000 damage from a man in a big truck who T-boned me (on my way to a wake - still receiving physical therapy/testing from the injury)
$????? damage from a hit and run in Boston

Needless to say, I may be one of those stupid people we all see at Christmastime with a new car and a huge bow on it (from dear old me)!!! My car is obviously "marked" and it's time to say goodbye!

I'm excited to get a new vehicle, but the timing is very, very, very bad to cough up the cash!

On one final note, the tree is up!!!!! Not decorated yet, and Michael insisted on a new location which I don't agree with (my tongue is actually bleeding it's so bad in the new spot) but in the grand scheme of life, I can deal with it! :)