Saturday, October 23, 2010

We've got ourselves a blogoversary!

On October 23, 2008, I started this little blog.  My husband was violently ill with rotavirus.  My daughter had just recovered from that and I was ducking my head, fearing that the Presidential war phone would ring at any moment.  (Let's face it, no one likes to vomit.)

We've celebrated things.  Anniversaries, birthdays, milestones, recovery from whatever plague, rash or hive had settled upon us. 

We've reflected upon things. 

We've shared stuff that required many Kleenex. 

We've laughed.  We've talked about giving brooms hair cuts, caffeination and crazy Virgo organizing (yes, my sock drawer still looks all neat and tidy.  Just skip looking at my computer desk when you come in the bedroom.)  I've shoveled you a path to my door, shown you around the Christmas decor and very artfully cropped undone sections of my house out of the photos.  You've also come to see the display I do at work and enjoyed the Ladies Christmas Tea.

We've talked about parenting stuff, you've given me your quarter's worth and y'all have fixed many yucky parental moments.  I owe you lots of nickels for the psychiatric consultations.  (Think of Lucy and Peanuts.) 

We've discussed cleaners, being environmental and money saving stuff.  I've just finished cleaning the floors and right now, my house smells of vinegar. 

We've become friends.  I'm very thankful.  Thanks for reading!

Smiles in my day:
-  Being here and doing this for two whole years.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

At least each week is themed right now, right?

Oh my.  I think that we have an ear infection.  K- hasn't had one of those since she was probably 2, maybe earlier.  I really can't complain.  Where she has picked up everything else under the sun, it seems as though her ears have been kind.

Not now. 

She has a painful outer ear and it appears as though that pain is traveling inward.  We have an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow right after school.  They didn't have anything any earlier.  It's okay.  I've been watching and waiting on this all week.  We'll be okay for another day. 

Let's hope that it's a minor blip of a thing.  Bless her heart.  I hate an ear ache.

Smiles in my day:
-  My father-in-law had his ICD replaced today and had no complications.  The leads were good, so they didn't need to be replaced.  He is at home, resting in front of a game on TV, I'm sure.
-  Watching K- go all the way across the monkey bars.  She had a real fear, but she has tackled it.
-  Hubs thought he lost his cell, but I found it in his coat pocket.  He was 2 minutes from calling the hospital about it.  I'm sure that a big hospital would be very concerned about his little tiny cell phone.
-  Did I mention that K- got a 100% on her vocabulary quiz?  25/25.  We're working hard on getting the math scores that good.  The teacher doesn't want them using fingers, which is certainly completely understandable, so it is like memorizing sight words.  It takes time.  (Not that she's failing math, but I'd like to see it more automatic eventually.)
-  My new hair cut is doable.  I can do the triangle until I get it cut in December.  I just have such fiercely thick hair that it just needs thinned in a massive way to not give a full puff out on the bottom. 

Have a great day!

A bunch of junk that you probably don't care about.

I got my hair cut.  I'm not sure that I'm thrilled with it.  I had her cut two more inches off of what she did initially, because it was too long.  The stuff that she put on my hair made it gluey and I came home and washed it.  I know that I told her long layers, but I'm not quite certain that she put in enough layers.  At least it isn't too short.  I'll look at it again tomorrow and see what I can do to it.  I hate feeling that way about a hair cut, especially since it has been a year and a half since my head has seen some shears.

Some idiot threw a soda can out of his window while driving 65 down the expressway.  It sucked under my vehicle (he was to my left), I ran over it then it smacked up under my passenger door.  I couldn't see damage, which is good.  The tire pressure sensor light wasn't on, which is good.  What would possess someone to do that?  Was the soda can littering his car that much at that moment that he needed to hurl it out the window to decorate the roadway with his discards? 

People have been shopping a lot for Christmas.

I had a lady come in and insist that she was given a box for an item that comes with no box.  Then, she brings the tag out to show me.  Both sides of the tag were attached that tells me (we always take the actual price portion of the tag off) that she wasn't being honest with me and I'm afraid that she lifted the item that she insists that she had a box for, but that her daughter tossed it.  I had a similar situation happen at the old gallery where someone came in, helped themselves to merchandise, then came back for the boxes.  (She told me that her cat had vomited in it.)  Both women came in at close.  Both women had the flimsy box excuse.  Could both women be the same woman?  Different year, same story?  The other lady told me the item that she needed the box for, but didn't actually bring it in.  What's funny is that where I work, 99 % of the items are without boxes.  In fact, I told her that we're a boxle*ss society.  I gave her an empty bag, but the item that she was speaking of is a two part item that comes with one rather long piece.  When we receive the items, they are packaged all together in a giant box.  I don't know.  It just doesn't jive to me.

K-'s hives are gone, but now the outer portion of her ear hurts.  Let's hope that the witch hazel and Advil make it go away.  Speaking of, I do believe that I will put some more on it before I go to bed.

Have a great day!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

For the love of hives.

I called my mother-in-law last night to warn her about the rash situation.  When K- goes to hang with them on Tuesday and Wednesday, my mother-in-law readies her for bed by having her get a bath, changed over to jammies and whatnot.  I didn't want her to go into rashland unprepared. 

I almost always call when I know that they arrive home just to check in with K- to see how her day was.  My mother-in-law expressed concern about the rash.  She was talking to me about calling the doctors office, so I did.

Bless her heart.  I got the nurse, Kathy, who I kind of flipped out on at this same time last year over K- having H1N1.  At that point, the office wasn't seeing those patients, as the protocol was to have them try to get over it themselves.  If there was any residual, they would see patients that seemed to backslide after they appeared better.  I was panicked and ended up telling her that she had just shoved us out to sea on a ship with no help.  When I came in the next week and K- ended up having gone into clinical pneumonia, I apologized for my being stressed out.  The doctor brought it up to me and I apologized to her.  I didn't scream or swear, but I wasn't as nice as I could have been.  104 F with a sick child can do that to a sleepless mother.

Kathy has apparently forgiven me.  She was so sweet.  The diagnosis?  Hives.  We don't know the originator, but we do know that heat makes them bloom in color.  They aren't numbering anymore and had actually decrease significantly from the first night to the first waking morning. 

I told her, "Kathy, whenever I've brought her in for a rash, you guys have told me . . ." she finished my sentence, "That it was viral." 

"Yup." 

She said that most times, they can't actually give a name to a rash.  She confirmed the sit and wait routine.  K- has no fever, her cough that started Saturday is much, much better and the rash hasn't gone anywhere else than it's original surface area.  She said to re-evaluate at the end of the week.  She's fine to continue to function as she is. 

I've sent K- to school with tights, but will be sending her in leggings-type shorts underneath.  I just don't want anyone to freak out at the sight of the ink-blotty hive thing she has going on.  I did speak to the mother of one of K-'s friends just to clue her in on what's going on, but her daughter has been battling a skin condition on her face for the last month.  She said that she completely understands. 

So, we're still battling the skin funk.  We've skipped lotion this evening.  (I tried the Aveeno Overnight Itch cream.)  I've also had her wear her little bike shorts to bed, thinking that if her legs aren't stuck together all night long, maybe that will help.  I also hit her with an evening dose of Benedryl.  Rrrrrr. 

Smiles in my day:
-  Starting to put a dent into Christmas transportation at work.
-  Taking my niece's Flat [Stanley] to school with us this morning, then on to work with me.  I hope that it all works out well!

Have a great day!

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Tales from the Trenches: Rashy skin strikes again

Our poor child.  The dear would break out into a rash if the wind shifted slightly. 

Last night, she was taking a bath.  She called me in.  "Mom, you have to come here."  "K-, use your words."  "No, you have to come here."  "Really, you need to talk to me about what you want."  (She thinks I have to be there all. the. time.)  "Mom, but it is really impordant!"  (Misspelling to show how she said it.) 

My heavens, the child's thighs were broken out into an ink-blotty rash.  It was itching her and for some reason, it was beginning to make her panic.  I explained that it was all okay, I'd give some Benedryl and all would be well. 

Then I walked away and took a very deep breath and tried not to start to panic myself. 

I gave Benedryl.  It didn't really help with the appearance of the rash, but it did help with the itch.  At least that was something.

I checked it several times before bed.  It actually got darker.  When I awoke in the middle of the night (a couple of times because I was concerned), I prayed much.

This AM, I'm glad to report that it was lighter and a bit of it had disappeared.  We had concluded that she was having some sort of allergic reaction to something and that she didn't have some communicable disease.  (Though, I did look things up on the CDC last night.)  I put her in tights (it was 56 F as a high this morning anyhow) and sent her to school.  I threatened her not to tell people she had a rash, because I didn't want people to think that she brought the Bubonic Plague to the local elementary. 

Hubs called after he picked her up from school.  He called to report that the rash was almost all faded.

Thank goodness.  :wiping the brow:

Smiles in my day:
-  A rash that is only a rash.
-  My good friend, Laurie, fixed sleeves on a new coat of K-'s.  It is dark pink with a polka dotted lining.  She was so excited for it.
-  Hubs working hard on wood work.

Have a great day!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Can the mud slinging PLEASE stop?

To all the politicians that are running for office,

Though this does not involve every single one of you, I would appreciate it if your mud slinging stops.  I am so tired of seeing clips of people that are obviously taken out of context or clipped together to make what you want.  Even if it is someone that I am clearly not voting for, I think it is terribly uncool.

Why exactly do you believe that it is so necessary to put so much money into slam ads like you do?  Wouldn't it be grand for you to run a positive campaign and give all that extra attention towards some positive change? 

Don't think that you should be getting a "caught being good" award.  If you do positive work like working on building a trail, handing out food at a soup kitchen or other some such charity, you should NOT be using this time as a photo op.  Really.  Do it to do good.  Don't do it as a PR thing. 

Do you know that children watch TV, too?  Are you aware that some of your attack ads stick with children like my 6 year old and I have to answer questions about why someone seems so mean?  I can't even have the news on while she is up and around because the ads are vile. 

Stop wasting money on attacking each other.  Mud slinging does not make me want to vote for you.  It makes me wonder why you have to go down such a nasty road as opposed to highlighting or constructively dealing with allegations through frank talk.  Are you that bad or that insecure that you must attack people to make yourself seem like the only one for the job? 

Stop the flash ads.

Stop the Power Point-type ads.

BE NICE!

Thank you,

Amy from Ohio

Smiles in my weekend:
-  Though it was terribly jam-packed, we had breakfast with April, lunch with Grandma and Aunt Donna and dinner with K-'s brother and sister all on Saturday.  I got up at 8 AM to bake rolls and a homemade apple pie to take to the sibling dinner and took muffins to breakfast with April.  Grandma and Aunt Donna had a hunger for Wendy's.  (They are both not able to get it for themselves and it is their favorite.)  Everyone was well fed and we were able to have a lovely time.
-  Falling asleep at 8:30 PM on Friday while watching Storm Chasers in bed with Hubs.  That may not seem that big of a deal to most, but considering I was making it to bed at about midnight every night this week because of school obligations, it was major.
-  Chicken and noodles tonight for dinner.  The chicken cooked on high in the crock pot while we were gone at soccer and Hubs worked on dishes while I assembled dinner.  We had lovely talks about schools, crappy lunches, rise in obesity among children, teachers forced to teach a prescribed curriculum without much wiggle room because of state testing . . . 

Have a great day!