So I have tried to blog, but I must admit.. I have never been any good. It is only in the wake of reading friends blogs, that I have decided to try again. This being said, I think I have maybe 4 enteries in the journal that I tried to start too... If I have a hard time writting for myself, I am not sure I will be any good at writing for others. Lord knows I have enough to say, so we will give it a go.

My name is Julie for those who do not know. I am a 28 year old mother of three gorgeous daughters, who, at any given moment, I am ready to strangle... Ok, maybe not all of them... but at least one of them...most of the time anyways...ha.
I am happily married (Except for when I want to shoot him) to my soul mate (Yes, fate can be cruel...). He has to be my soul mate because there is no possibilitie that I would get near as angry, happy, sad, loving, frustrated (the list goes on) with anyone that I was not completely, and madly in love with. There are people in my life who don't get our connection. We fuel each other's fires on occasion and we bicker more than Lucy and Ricardo, but in the end, it is our business and we have made it through pretty well every obstacle life has thrown at us. I am proud of our relationship and that's all that matters!

I work partime at Blockbuster Video. Honestly? I was never a fan of movies, or even TV for that matter, but I have to say that being with Chris, it has become an acquired taste, maybe not such a gain for my brain, but so be it. Working at blockbuster has made movies my passion... I watch *ALOT* of movies. I am also a huge "Reality" TV buff. Yes, we all know what the quotes are for!!

I work shifts of 5 hours or less and no more than 10 hours a week, which pretty much exhausts me. Sad huh? 28 years old and I nap more than I work (I nap pretty near every day from 11-1). Why you ask?

I have a rare "condition", "syndrome", "ailment", "DISEASE"... call it what you will.. everyone else does. I will go into detail later, as I am trying to keep this a brief -me- introduction. I have VHL - Von Hippel Lindau. It is a cancer causing syndrome that basically means, I grow tumours. Like I said, we'll get technical later. Most of my tumours are "Friendly" HA! I love that term... benign.. look it up! But anything in my kidney area, is cancer. So far I have had a brain surgery ,to remove a "Friendly" tumour in 2006 and also had 20% of my left kidney removed the same year, for a less than friendly tumour. The theory is, that although right at this given moment, I appear to be NED (No evidence of Disease) that I always HAVE cancer. tumours are there, waiting. We screen for them constantly. Watch, wait, surrender to these little bastards, until such time they show themselves. Ahhhh.. but I must own my disease, not let it own me... Ok.. we're working on that part.

As if all that is not enough of a kick in the ass... My three beautiful girls, also carry this defective gene. The truth is, I was told in 1997 that I did not have the illness... My DNA test (because it is genetic) came back clean. OOPS! Test was wrong. I have said before that had I known that I was positive for the genetic illness, that I wouldn't have had children. My girls are an amazing gift and I would never, ever, take them back. I do have a tremendous amount of guilt, knowing they may one day, have to deal with this crappola too... I know it was out of my hands, and unintentional, but it is what it is. How do you watch your babies get sick? I hope I never have to, because I can't imagine.

I lost my mom to the same illness in Sept, 2004. I miss her like you can't even imagine. When I think about her, every part of me hurts. I feel like I lost part of me. My mom was never very good at being a mom. Her mom was gravely ill (Also with VHL) since she was little, and the father she was left with, didn't exactly show her how you parent a child, but mom loved me, and she did everything she knew how to do to take care of me, but above all of that, she was my bestest friend. She was the only person in the world that I could call and wake up at 2am and just say nothing... and she got it. I don't know how you go on after you lose that. I am still trying to cope, and I am taking alot longer than I know I probably should, but man, it's hard.... really damn hard.

I've got a whole lot more to say, but it's late, and I don't want to bore you all in one sitting. I am excited about being able to write here. I hope I can keep it up. I will tell you, that it is not going to be a well versed, witty, perfectly grammered blog. Hell, there will probably even be typos and other randomn unexpected crap, but isn't that what life's about? A bunch of randomn, poorly put together thoughts that on occassion, work out alright, but other time's just make no sense?
My therapist (and yes, that's a whole nother topic...) told me to always make sure when you end a journal entry, to end with a happy note on the day. I am going to keep that tradition here.

It's Sunday, March 9, 2008. I think it's 1:42 am, but I am not quite sure because I don't know if the time has officially changed forward an hour yet!

I made coworkers and customers laugh tonight at work. It felt good to make people happy and to have afew good laughs.