The Land of the Measle-Free

Second post for the day, y'all. What can I say? Couldn't leave you hanging!

I am thrilled to report that K- DOES NOT have measles. She has a measle-like rash that is overtaking her babyson body, but NO measles. When I called my sister, I cried. I told her that I had to tell her last night, but didn't sleep well between all of the late night vomiting that K- did and the fact that I was so worried about Leland. I heard her breathe deeply. Wow.

So, what does K- have? She has a virus. A non-specific virus that is running about (or aboot depending upon your locale) that has a low-grade fever for about a week. She cashed in on the no eating for days, limited drinking and full torso rash that is spreading. Advil and plenty of fluids. Dr. P- said that we are on the backside and that in 24 hours, she'll be feeling much better. They did test her for strep, which came back negative, but they are sending it off to the lab just to double check.

This is what I have lying on my living room floor right now.

Nevermind the unswept rug. My sweeper broke.

Now you can see why I was freaked out. When I said that she had a rash, I was not lying. Since she is young and clearly I could get away with taking a close-up of her arm pit, here it is. She has the rash up her neck, down her brea*st bone, along under her bre*asts, down along her sides wrapping under her belly, across her back, along the front of her panty area, partially down the top and back of her left leg, her palms and the top of her feet.

Have I mentioned that I'm tired? So tired, in fact, that I was talking to the Diet Coke 2 liter today. "Hello, friend. You look so glorious this morning." Mommy by caffeine. What can I say?

I'm planning on breaking until Monday. I'll be reading, just not writing. Have a great weekend! Thank you for the well wishes.

I was going to post that I was taking a break, but . . .

. . . it appears that my life will be a little more house bound than usual. Why? K- might have measles. Am I kidding? Uh, no.

K- was vaccinated for everything. Her shots are up to date. My friend Kim, who is a health educator at the local university and has worked for the Health department, is who I called last evening. I was stumped. I told her that at this point, I was certain that what K- had going on had to be one of the kid rash communicable diseases, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I thought she had everything or at least had it covered with vaccinations.

Chicken Pox from Varicella vaccine
Roseola from library group
5th's Disease from K-'s little friend
Hand Foot and Mouth this past fall (but I realize that there are different strains and we could re-run this one.)

I swore that they were all covered. So Kim started questioning me as to what she has, when she started with whatever and whatnot. K- has run a low grade fever off and on (more off than on and when she has it, it is only an hour or so) since Saturday night. She broke out into a rash that she woke up with Wednesday morning. Wednesday night brought us vomiting, which she had apparently done this AM, but didn't tell me since she knew that I wouldn't take her to Miss Laurie's house for the day. Oy.

When Hubs and I looked at the picture of the rash, we both said, "That is it." Oh, and we were with my sister, her girls, their friend and Leland on Saturday. Holy crap. My 3 month old nephew may have been exposed to measles, if that is what K- has. So, I dropped the potential exposure bomb on my sister, as well as the one that says that there is no way that it is safe for me to do the family yard sale this weekend. Leland is too important. She took the news well. I have her on watch, I plan on calling the pediatrician and perhaps getting in tomorrow. (Though I know there is nothing that they can do, but I'm more concerned about Leland at this point.) I want to make certain that K- is fine. Apparently if it is measles, it is a lighter case and we are on the backside of it.

So, how can she get these things having been vaccinated? Apparently vaccinations protect, but don't necessarily build up quite enough immunity in all people. With K-'s drug positive birth status, her immunity was compromised and thus leaving her at more risk of developing things like measles. Her immunity is leaps and bounds better than it was, but it is something that we must deal with.

So I'll find out today, perhaps, if K- has added another one of those childhood communicable diseases to her list of "had that." In the meantime, may all of your families be rash, vomit and fever-free.

Smiles in my day:
- Getting the Christmas markdowns complete in the time frame I promised.
- Laurie gave us a wheel barrow full of firewood for our new fire pit. There is so much wood there, that we'll be good for at least this season, if not wood for some of next.
- I think that K- may have fallen asleep and dare I say, she might be vomit free right now.

Works for Me Wednesday: Line Drying Sock Tree

We line dry our clothing, all except for our bath towels. Drying off with the equivalent of a wad of very coarse steel wool isn't that appealing to me. My towel was noisy. So, besides that one dryer load a week, all the rest is hung.

In hanging our clothing, I found that I was wasting a lot of line space on socks. I decided to take three plastic hangers and zip tie them together. I have four clothes pins across the top of each hanger to hang shorter socks. I've made two "sock trees" and they work well for me. Yes, I realize that they sell a schmancy sock hanger in the store, but why pay for it when you can make something that works just as well for free?
The sock tree. Looks tacky, but it works for me!

Smiles in my day:
- Mom sent me home with spaghetti for dinner. She watched K- on Tuesday and wanted to make certain to send me home with supper.
- Long story short, Julia and I had a long discussion with one of the owners and my Tales from the Trenches post is all water under the bridge.
- I made customers happy when I told them, "I have a sale price on that! Let me get it for you." It's a nice customer service and it shows the customer that you are paying attention to them!

Tales from the Trenches: I thought I left high school in 1991.

18 years ago. I really hated high school before I arrived. For the first month of school, every morning I would wake, puke, then go to school. Folks, I fear that today work stooped to the level of high school.

I arrived at work today to have my boss' right hand man (I'm feeling very Veggie Tales "Esther" here) asked me if I put my boss' garden stakes out in the dirt of the courtyard because the boss is really mad that the garden stakes were put into the dirt. Folks, they are GARDEN STAKES and they are MEANT TO BE PUT IN THE FLIPPIN' DIRT. But no, I was happy to tell him, I did not. "Well who did?" I told him that I believe that it would be our sister store folks who could answer that.

Then about 25 minutes later, I was stopped outside by the floor manager. She said that a coworker had left Saturday early because she was upset that every display she does is changed and wanted to know what I had said to this person.

Folks, I don't even work with the girl.

But she said that her displays are always changed. What do you know about that? Well [scratching my head that I'm display staff, have no idea what she is talking about with the girl who works two days a week] I know nothing. I asked, "L- what specifically is she talking about?" "Well, I don't exactly know. She was so upset that well, I didn't ask details."

Folks, I'm getting accused of changing displays of a girl that I don't work with, yet no details can be given on my supposed transgression.

I told her that for a few weeks, our radio that belongs at our back sales desk had been moved up to our front sales desk so that the coworkers could hear music while they are standing up at the desk. I told her that since she was not in, I had talked to another supervisor who said that it was okay to put a note on the radio to keep it where it was because it helped to carry music through the whole building. L- was looking at me, shaking her head and I could see wheels of understanding turning for the other coworker when I said, "L-, really, if they want to hear music, they should feel free to grab up a duster, move throughout the gallery and then they will hear it if they move from behind the counter." "Good point." [Heaven help me now.] I know, God forbid should I suggest that they do anything besides texting behind the counter.

We interrupt this tangent to bring you a commercial of comical retail proportion-
So, after we got done with the accusing me of something she wasn't specifically sure about, I went back to marking things down for our annual sale. Then I get a customer in that tells me, "I'm here to see your Churchill Weaver blankets. I don't see them anywhere and I was told that if I came back in August that they would be marked down 50%." These are beautifully handwoven blankets done by weavers that sadly no longer produce work. They retail around $260.00 or more. I explained that the sale was to begin the next week, the blankets were not brought out of storage quite as yet and the markdown paperwork hadn't been passed on to me yet. "BUT I'M HAVING MAJOR SURGERY ON THURSDAY AND I HAVE TO BUY THEM NOW. They promised that they would be out and 50% off." "Ma'am, I'm not quite certain of who you spoke with, but I need to go upstairs and find the blankets. I'm also not certain of their markdown, but I'm thinking that they are not going to be 50% off." "Well, they told me that they would be." So I went upstairs, rummaged through and found the blankets in question. I came downstairs with them in a big black garbage bag slung over my shoulder. "Oh you found them! Do you have the ones in there that I want?" "Ma'am, I'm not certain of the ones that you want, but this is all I have. I'm unable to do the markdowns myself and I need to track down the owner to have this approved since it is a week in advance." "Oh." So I went, tracked one of the owners down who was incensed that I was dealing with blanketdom instead of being able to do markdowns on Christmas veterans. She pulled paperwork, determined that 30% was the way to go and that was it. I went, talked to the lady, explained the markdown and she bought 2. Oh my heavens. More drama to my Monday that I did not need.

Continuing on with the festival of displeasure -
When I found that we would be gift wrapping sale items this year, I brought up a little story of someone purchasing $15.00 earrings for $2.00, having them gift wrapped then taking them to the counter at our sister store the very next week and having them returned for the full $15.00 retail price, even though they had highlighted as a sale item. In the end, somehow the telephone game happened and a flurry of paging happened to me and the other Amy on staff. Once the telephone game reached the co-owner and her bookkeeper side kick, the story was that one of the Amys had returned something today from LAST August's sale. The co-owner called me and asked me about it. I said that I had only done two sales slips and neither were returns. The other Amy hadn't done any returns. But in all of 15 minutes, a whole story was blown out of proportion and two of us were being accused of something that happened about 5 years ago.

Give. me. a. break.

So, giving a lovely summation of my day, we are gift wrapping items that were purchased on sale because it is "cheap advertising," but when the person decides that they want to bring it back, we decline but they see more of the item still on the floor and they yell at me because they thought that they could do a little fundraising with it. I say that if it is a sale item, you are buying it cheap and be happy. Don't ask for gift wrap. That is taking advantage.

Don't share stories of years past, or somehow the "years past" portion of the story gets blown away with the major winds and nasty heavy rain we had today and becomes a story that happened today. Yes. Right.

Smiles in my day:
- K- and Hubs went to Lake Milton and went swimming and played at the beach. K- only has two more "Happy Daddy Days" left before she start school and she is trying to make the most of them.
- It rained so hard that even the herb garden (under the overhang) was well watered. No watering for me tonight!

We'll miss you, John.

Some of the movies that Hubs and I love the most are done by John Hughes. I remember watching Some Kind of Wonderful until I knew it by heart. I loved Pretty in Pink.

Let's not forget Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

Such great movies that I loved then. Such great movies that I still love just as much now.

Smiles in my weekend:
- K- wanted to go on a "bike walk" and rode her bike for probably a mile and a half or more. No whining, either.
- I cleaned off the top of the dryer. It needed it. Soap boxes are condensed, laundry soap is stowed away in my between the washer and dryer rolling organizer and everything is wiped down.
- My sister came by on Saturday morning to take some backyard play things to her house for our yard sale this week. We loaded up the Little Tikes play house, the teal and pink Cozy Coupe, a Step 2 sled and K-'s first tricycle. K- did give a little whimper as my sister drove away, saying how sad she was. We went in, looked at the picture of the playground that daddy wants to build her and she felt better about it.

This is basically what we will be building, only with just the short climbing wall, a real shingled roof (it will hold up better), the turtle will be moved under, instead of building in a sandbox (because neighbors feel the need to allow their cats to roam free), the rope ladder where the tall climbing wall is (or at least that is K-'s request) and a trapeze bar where the baby swing bucket is.
- K- build a working paddle boat at Lowe's on Saturday for her building project. She loved playing with it in the bath.
- My parents bearings locked in one of the wheels of their boat trailer. They had to abandon the boat and trailer on the expressway, 60 miles north of their destination (Marietta.) They were unable to find parts to repair the bearing situation until this morning. When they returned, the boat and trailer were just where they left it-- untouched. If it was left on an expressway up here, it would have been ransacked.
- Hubs brought roasted corn home from the camping program that he worked all day long on Saturday. Yum.
- The patio area is DONE! Never mind that we went to Lowe's for rebar and also left with a set of patio furniture (it was the stuff that I salivated over in the spring and it was 50% off.) Also, never mind that the heat that we didn't have all. summer. long? Yes, well, it arrived Sunday-- all at once. It was 73 F on Saturday and 93 F yesterday. Needless to say, we were all a little-- eh, hem-- moist, but we got the job done. Yes, I will post about it tomorrow because I'm way too tired now to do it.
- Hubs also mowed the lawn. He mowed the front, then decided to wait until the sun went down to tackle the back.