Free shipping through June 27, 2010 with no minimum and no coupon code. Of course, some exclusions apply, but here's the scoop. I picked up 4 discounted Junie B. books for K- to add to her collection. My total with tax? $11.86.
If you feed your order through My Points, you get 12 points per dollar. Hooray!
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Friday, June 25, 2010
Nothing says, "Jesus loves you!" like a good VBS head lice check.
It started last night at about 10:30 PM. My sister's friend called stating that she thought that her daughter got lice at our VBS. My sister called me. Since it was a suspected case with nothing afoot to speak of (including my sister's children and my child coming up free of feet), we were thinking that perhaps she was in a state of hypochondria. Still, this AM, I pulled the director aside and told her.
The VBS teacher asked my niece why her friend wasn't there today. She stated that J- was sick. The teacher inquired more as to what was wrong. That was when my niece whispered to her, "J-'s mom thinks that she found bugs in her hair."
At that point, we thought it best to pull the class (as per Health Department protocol since we do have a school on site) and check to be sure. After an hour and a half, we had three suspected cases and I cashed in on the one live case we had.
Oh joy.
Parents were called. Siblings were pulled. We have one family that wants to treat (a suspected case) and come to our shin-dig this evening. I told her that my advice was to call the Health Department to ask their take on treatment and holding.
How were the kids? They were good sports. We didn't make a big deal about it. If they had what we thought or confirmed, they went outside to the bench and waited. If they were cleared, they colored on the mural. No one made fun of anyone else and no one panicked.
Still, I could have thought of may other ways that we could have had fun other than checking kids' heads.
For now, my head is tingly after having been highly conditioned with tea tree conditioner. K- is still under treatment. I figure that for the two of us, it can't hurt.
:scratch, scratch:
Oh, and this is post number 2 today. Read on.
ETA:
The child that had the live lice looking back at me and waving? Well, the parents checked her head, saw nothing, chose NOT to treat her and brought her tonight to the end of the week family gathering anyhow! UGH!!!! Really? Another suspected case came, but he was treated per instructions from the Health Department.
When we arrived home this evening, K-'s hair got checked and scrubbed -- again -- and is smelling tea tree fine right now. I was also told that the lice buggies don't like Garnier Fructis, which I have a whole host of product from, so I used that on her, too.
UGH! YUCK! ICK!
:scratch, scratch:
The VBS teacher asked my niece why her friend wasn't there today. She stated that J- was sick. The teacher inquired more as to what was wrong. That was when my niece whispered to her, "J-'s mom thinks that she found bugs in her hair."
At that point, we thought it best to pull the class (as per Health Department protocol since we do have a school on site) and check to be sure. After an hour and a half, we had three suspected cases and I cashed in on the one live case we had.
Oh joy.
Parents were called. Siblings were pulled. We have one family that wants to treat (a suspected case) and come to our shin-dig this evening. I told her that my advice was to call the Health Department to ask their take on treatment and holding.
How were the kids? They were good sports. We didn't make a big deal about it. If they had what we thought or confirmed, they went outside to the bench and waited. If they were cleared, they colored on the mural. No one made fun of anyone else and no one panicked.
Still, I could have thought of may other ways that we could have had fun other than checking kids' heads.
For now, my head is tingly after having been highly conditioned with tea tree conditioner. K- is still under treatment. I figure that for the two of us, it can't hurt.
:scratch, scratch:
Oh, and this is post number 2 today. Read on.
ETA:
The child that had the live lice looking back at me and waving? Well, the parents checked her head, saw nothing, chose NOT to treat her and brought her tonight to the end of the week family gathering anyhow! UGH!!!! Really? Another suspected case came, but he was treated per instructions from the Health Department.
When we arrived home this evening, K-'s hair got checked and scrubbed -- again -- and is smelling tea tree fine right now. I was also told that the lice buggies don't like Garnier Fructis, which I have a whole host of product from, so I used that on her, too.
UGH! YUCK! ICK!
:scratch, scratch:
Why use a knife when you can just use a playing card?
Today was library club. It's the day where we go to the library, K- turns in her book reports on what she's read for the week and we get to watch the program of the week that the library has scheduled. This week was a magician. It wasn't just any ole backyard magician, but the guy that my husband and I watched on Time Warp.
Y'all, he is great! The room was packed with kids and everyone-- adults included-- loved it.
Hooray!
Smiles in my day:
- My migraine management seems to be helping and daily it is getting much better.
- The library club today.
- K- and I will be handing candy out at a parade for Hubs' work. We'll be with him as he pulls a float and instead of being pelted with candy, we will be the ones pelting!
- The last day of VBS is Friday and though we've loved it, I'm very tired. Wow!
Have a great weekend!
Y'all, he is great! The room was packed with kids and everyone-- adults included-- loved it.
Hooray!
Smiles in my day:
- My migraine management seems to be helping and daily it is getting much better.
- The library club today.
- K- and I will be handing candy out at a parade for Hubs' work. We'll be with him as he pulls a float and instead of being pelted with candy, we will be the ones pelting!
- The last day of VBS is Friday and though we've loved it, I'm very tired. Wow!
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
My furnace had a sinus infection.
I woke up this morning to the racket of Hubs banging on the air ducts in the basement. I had no idea what was going on, but after about 10 minutes, it stopped. He came upstairs to tell me that the air conditioning tube needed to be cleaned since it had deposited water on the basement floor. He said that he'd deal with it when he got home. Since it was to be 90+, we debated the idea of leaving the windows cracked open at the top or just keeping them shut altogether. I checked the forecast, they were predicting Armageddon again, so I opted to keep them closed.
Good thing. 80 mile per hour wind gusts came through and knocked the plant clean off the front steps. That's getting away from the subject at hand, though.
Since Hubs went into work a little early, he got out earlier and came home first to see if he could unclog the tube. He called me on his way to pick K- up to let me know he was done, the air was on and plugging along nicely.
When he got home, the basement floor was wet again. He pulled the cover off to the furnace and it was all wet, too.
Fantastic.
He called my dad to confirm that there was another tube that needed cleaned. My dad was the one to install the furnace and A/C about 5 years ago, and he used sealer on the PVC piping he used. There was no way to get the pipe apart. My dad and Hubs discussed his using the air compressor to blow the snot sludge out of the additional tube.
I'm glad to say that our furnace is no longer experiencing an impaction of yellow snot.
Go now. Check your tubies and pipe things. Make sure that they are free of snot.
This public service announcement brought to you by the Bailey's Leaf Family of Fine Experiences to Learn From.
Smiles in my day:
- That Hubs is handy and my dad is his back-up.
- The migraine measures are helping. I'm not 100%, but I see improvement each day.
Have a great day!
Good thing. 80 mile per hour wind gusts came through and knocked the plant clean off the front steps. That's getting away from the subject at hand, though.
Since Hubs went into work a little early, he got out earlier and came home first to see if he could unclog the tube. He called me on his way to pick K- up to let me know he was done, the air was on and plugging along nicely.
When he got home, the basement floor was wet again. He pulled the cover off to the furnace and it was all wet, too.
Fantastic.
He called my dad to confirm that there was another tube that needed cleaned. My dad was the one to install the furnace and A/C about 5 years ago, and he used sealer on the PVC piping he used. There was no way to get the pipe apart. My dad and Hubs discussed his using the air compressor to blow the snot sludge out of the additional tube.
I'm glad to say that our furnace is no longer experiencing an impaction of yellow snot.
Go now. Check your tubies and pipe things. Make sure that they are free of snot.
This public service announcement brought to you by the Bailey's Leaf Family of Fine Experiences to Learn From.
Smiles in my day:
- That Hubs is handy and my dad is his back-up.
- The migraine measures are helping. I'm not 100%, but I see improvement each day.
Have a great day!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Unconsciously self-destructive
I may have mentioned in times past that I suffer from the occasional migraine. There have been times that I've had a cycle that I had a difficult time breaking. I've had that happen twice. The first time, I was stuck in the old basement of our office building counting the very dusty artificial flower back stock. All that dust gave me an instant migraine that lasted for about 3 1/2 weeks. That one had stabbing pain. Recently, I've been stuck in another migraine cycle. Since the very end of May, I've been suffering from low-grade migraines. As I was walking home from leaving K- off to school, I was having pain in my jaw. I discovered the cause. I had been back to clinching my teeth. Not only was I doing it at night, but I found that I was unconsciously doing that during the day.
Stress my friends.
I decided that I would dust off the ole night guard and wear it to break myself of my nighttime clinching habit. During the day, I would have to be more in tune to my unconscious actions. After a few days of wearing the night guard, I thought I had licked the problem.
The migraine haze progressed.
The humming pain at the right back of my neck has continued.
I've taken Excedrin Migraine, Advil, Tylenol, cough syrup, Advil Cold & Sinus and Claritin. Each had their own smallish effect, but nothing has licked it. Off and on for almost the past month, I've continued with the migraine hum.
I don't know why I hadn't done it earlier, but I consulted with our staff Migraine Guru on Monday. Bless her heart, Cheryl stuck around after she had clocked out to help work out an action plan. Here is our plan:
1. Increase water consumption. I've thought I was pretty good at drinking water, but after really thinking about it, I'm not taking in as much as possible. Dehydration can give a mean headache.
2. Decrease caffeine consumption. I buy pop in the cans to help me keep track of portions better. If I buy it in a 2 liter, I tend not to keep control. I was consuming 1-3 cans of soda a day. 1 will be my limit. (It was before.)
3. Change pillows. I have two pillows. One is the memory foam dip kind of pillow that I bought to keep my head a bit more aligned. When I was suffering from the migraine cycle before, I found that it didn't help that I was sleeping with two pillows that had my head tilted weird, I was breathing weird at night (with Hubs waking me) and I think that I wasn't taking in the proper amount of oxygen that my noggin required. The dippy pillow helped with that. Now I've dumped the dippy pillow for the big, lumpy, comfy pillow and I slept delightfully last night.
4. Wear my mouth guard. It is a little weird to have something latched onto my top teeth, but it is key in breaking the cycle. I wore it last night and I do believe that it helped today.
5. Consider sweet talking the massotherapist that works in our office to work on my head. Believe me, I have cash and would definitely pay her.
6. Make a rice compress. I certainly have enough fabric to quickly craft one. Heat 1 minute, then in 20 second increments. I can handle that.
7. Stretching. Cheryl has instructed that I do some upper body stretching. Most importantly, when I stretch my head from right to left, I must follow up from left to right. I haven't mirrored my stretches and that could cause issue. Seems to make sense and it has helped.
8. Meditation. I used to do meditation back in college. When I was working as an office assistant for a psychologist, I was so stressed between work and school that my hair was falling out in chunks. The one mama psychologist on staff suggested meditation and brought me things to try. It worked. Wouldn't hurt to try it again.
Changes so far? Caffeine consumption, water intake (though that needs more help), pillows changed, mouth guard worn and stretching done.
If anyone else is a fellow migraine sufferer, my apologies. Do you have any tricks that work for you that aren't on my list. Yes, they must be legal.
Smiles in my day:
- My friend Heather came to my rescue, again. K- accidentally locked us out of the house (happens every year during VBS week). My purse, keys and cell were in the house. I knocked on 3 different neighbors doors before I finally found a neighbor up, called Hubs and basically confirmed that he hadn't replaced the outside key he lost. Heather came to pick me up, took me, K- and her kids to VBS.
- My mother-in-law brought her extra house key when she picked K- up from VBS, drove us back home and made sure that I got in, got my stuff and on my way.
- Yes, the key has been replaced and I placed it on nothing mobile, unlike my husband. He considered himself fired from extra key placement after last time.
Have a great day!
Stress my friends.
I decided that I would dust off the ole night guard and wear it to break myself of my nighttime clinching habit. During the day, I would have to be more in tune to my unconscious actions. After a few days of wearing the night guard, I thought I had licked the problem.
The migraine haze progressed.
The humming pain at the right back of my neck has continued.
I've taken Excedrin Migraine, Advil, Tylenol, cough syrup, Advil Cold & Sinus and Claritin. Each had their own smallish effect, but nothing has licked it. Off and on for almost the past month, I've continued with the migraine hum.
I don't know why I hadn't done it earlier, but I consulted with our staff Migraine Guru on Monday. Bless her heart, Cheryl stuck around after she had clocked out to help work out an action plan. Here is our plan:
1. Increase water consumption. I've thought I was pretty good at drinking water, but after really thinking about it, I'm not taking in as much as possible. Dehydration can give a mean headache.
2. Decrease caffeine consumption. I buy pop in the cans to help me keep track of portions better. If I buy it in a 2 liter, I tend not to keep control. I was consuming 1-3 cans of soda a day. 1 will be my limit. (It was before.)
3. Change pillows. I have two pillows. One is the memory foam dip kind of pillow that I bought to keep my head a bit more aligned. When I was suffering from the migraine cycle before, I found that it didn't help that I was sleeping with two pillows that had my head tilted weird, I was breathing weird at night (with Hubs waking me) and I think that I wasn't taking in the proper amount of oxygen that my noggin required. The dippy pillow helped with that. Now I've dumped the dippy pillow for the big, lumpy, comfy pillow and I slept delightfully last night.
4. Wear my mouth guard. It is a little weird to have something latched onto my top teeth, but it is key in breaking the cycle. I wore it last night and I do believe that it helped today.
5. Consider sweet talking the massotherapist that works in our office to work on my head. Believe me, I have cash and would definitely pay her.
6. Make a rice compress. I certainly have enough fabric to quickly craft one. Heat 1 minute, then in 20 second increments. I can handle that.
7. Stretching. Cheryl has instructed that I do some upper body stretching. Most importantly, when I stretch my head from right to left, I must follow up from left to right. I haven't mirrored my stretches and that could cause issue. Seems to make sense and it has helped.
8. Meditation. I used to do meditation back in college. When I was working as an office assistant for a psychologist, I was so stressed between work and school that my hair was falling out in chunks. The one mama psychologist on staff suggested meditation and brought me things to try. It worked. Wouldn't hurt to try it again.
Changes so far? Caffeine consumption, water intake (though that needs more help), pillows changed, mouth guard worn and stretching done.
If anyone else is a fellow migraine sufferer, my apologies. Do you have any tricks that work for you that aren't on my list. Yes, they must be legal.
Smiles in my day:
- My friend Heather came to my rescue, again. K- accidentally locked us out of the house (happens every year during VBS week). My purse, keys and cell were in the house. I knocked on 3 different neighbors doors before I finally found a neighbor up, called Hubs and basically confirmed that he hadn't replaced the outside key he lost. Heather came to pick me up, took me, K- and her kids to VBS.
- My mother-in-law brought her extra house key when she picked K- up from VBS, drove us back home and made sure that I got in, got my stuff and on my way.
- Yes, the key has been replaced and I placed it on nothing mobile, unlike my husband. He considered himself fired from extra key placement after last time.
Have a great day!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Tales from the Man Mall
Because we're ever so thankful for the man in our life, we decided to take Hubs to the Man Mall AKA Bass Pro Shops. Y'all, we got there at 11:45 AM and didn't leave until 4:25 PM. We sent Hubs off to shop with his gift certificates while we took advantage of the many, many workshops that they had.
1. K- painted a "Wiggle Fish."
2. K- learned how to shoot a BB gun and on her very first time of shooting anything, actually hit the target dead center. (No kidding!)
3. K- went to their casting center and did a bang up job. While she didn't get the rubber fish in the bucket, she did hit the furthest fish bucket that they had and actually set the rubber fish she cast right next to it. Not too bad!
4. K- and I attended a Fishing Workshop. The workshop leader, a teacher as I later found out, did a wonderful job of teaching the children different techniques of casting.
5. K- and I attended a Birdwatching Workshop. BPS is set up with taxidermy animals out and about, so they had birds that the children could find with the little binoculars that they had for them to use.
6. The shooting gallery was free, so we spent some quality time up there with Daddy.
7. K- and I attended a Plant and Insect Workshop. Here we learned about good bugs and bad bugs and the Emerald Ash Borer.
8. K- and I attended a Camping Workshop. This one, I admit that I knew everything that she was telling us. Oh, and Coleman must have given a handsome sum over, because they were mentioned no fewer than 12 times.
After each of the workshops, the children filled out a 2 question survey and earned a participation pin.
While we were there, we found Watch-A-Bug which K- just loved. Since we gave it a spin Sunday night, I can tell you that it works wonderfully!
Hooray that Bass Pro Shops works so hard to have activities for the family. Truly, we wouldn't have been able to spend the time that we had there had they not had a place to eat (twice) and activities. We left there with Hubs' head spinning from all the shopping! (And yes, he stayed well within his budget and even came home with some to spare.)
We rounded out our evening by having a fire, making popcorn and s'mores. We had a wonderful day together!
Smiles in my weekend:
- Listed above.
Have a great day!
1. K- painted a "Wiggle Fish."
2. K- learned how to shoot a BB gun and on her very first time of shooting anything, actually hit the target dead center. (No kidding!)
3. K- went to their casting center and did a bang up job. While she didn't get the rubber fish in the bucket, she did hit the furthest fish bucket that they had and actually set the rubber fish she cast right next to it. Not too bad!
4. K- and I attended a Fishing Workshop. The workshop leader, a teacher as I later found out, did a wonderful job of teaching the children different techniques of casting.
5. K- and I attended a Birdwatching Workshop. BPS is set up with taxidermy animals out and about, so they had birds that the children could find with the little binoculars that they had for them to use.
6. The shooting gallery was free, so we spent some quality time up there with Daddy.
7. K- and I attended a Plant and Insect Workshop. Here we learned about good bugs and bad bugs and the Emerald Ash Borer.
8. K- and I attended a Camping Workshop. This one, I admit that I knew everything that she was telling us. Oh, and Coleman must have given a handsome sum over, because they were mentioned no fewer than 12 times.
After each of the workshops, the children filled out a 2 question survey and earned a participation pin.
While we were there, we found Watch-A-Bug which K- just loved. Since we gave it a spin Sunday night, I can tell you that it works wonderfully!
Hooray that Bass Pro Shops works so hard to have activities for the family. Truly, we wouldn't have been able to spend the time that we had there had they not had a place to eat (twice) and activities. We left there with Hubs' head spinning from all the shopping! (And yes, he stayed well within his budget and even came home with some to spare.)
We rounded out our evening by having a fire, making popcorn and s'mores. We had a wonderful day together!
Smiles in my weekend:
- Listed above.
Have a great day!
Sunday, June 20, 2010
The man of our lives.
Honey,
You know, this road to parenthood didn't come to us easily. My cousin and I were just talking the other day and she said, "He really loves you." "I know." "No, I mean he REALLY loves you."
What we were talking about was our loss of Bailey. It wasn't just the loss that you and I experienced, but one that the whole family and our friends experienced as well. Still, how many men would have left their wives if they found out that their wife couldn't provide a child by birth to them?
It seems like a weird thing to bring up for Father's Day, but you hung in there with me. You nursed me back to health, giving me shots every day for a few weeks. When I was in the hospital, you only stayed home overnight once. Every night, you snuggled into my little hospital bed next to me and read the bible to me.
You hugged me.
You cried with me.
We walked the road to adoption together. We always knew it was something that we wanted to do. All of it was done together. All of our decisions were made together.
Then our call came. We were parents to a beautiful little no-name girl (I forgot to ask when the home finder called!) You took a few weeks off to hang out at home with us.
You have been involved with everything with K- since day one.
You diapered.
You fed.
You watched.
You read.
You nurtured.
K- has been so blessed to have an incredibly involved father in her life. You have taken her on wonderful "Happy Daddy Day" trips to all kinds of places. Those day trips have taken you to New York, Pennsylvania and West Virgina, as well as around Ohio. The tales you could tell of your trips could fill volumes.
How blessed I have been to have you as my partner in parenting. We've done it together and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Thank you for being my husband. Thank you for being a wonderful father to our daughter.
Love,
Amy
You know, this road to parenthood didn't come to us easily. My cousin and I were just talking the other day and she said, "He really loves you." "I know." "No, I mean he REALLY loves you."
What we were talking about was our loss of Bailey. It wasn't just the loss that you and I experienced, but one that the whole family and our friends experienced as well. Still, how many men would have left their wives if they found out that their wife couldn't provide a child by birth to them?
It seems like a weird thing to bring up for Father's Day, but you hung in there with me. You nursed me back to health, giving me shots every day for a few weeks. When I was in the hospital, you only stayed home overnight once. Every night, you snuggled into my little hospital bed next to me and read the bible to me.
You hugged me.
You cried with me.
We walked the road to adoption together. We always knew it was something that we wanted to do. All of it was done together. All of our decisions were made together.
Then our call came. We were parents to a beautiful little no-name girl (I forgot to ask when the home finder called!) You took a few weeks off to hang out at home with us.
You have been involved with everything with K- since day one.
You diapered.
You fed.
You watched.
You read.
You nurtured.
K- has been so blessed to have an incredibly involved father in her life. You have taken her on wonderful "Happy Daddy Day" trips to all kinds of places. Those day trips have taken you to New York, Pennsylvania and West Virgina, as well as around Ohio. The tales you could tell of your trips could fill volumes.
How blessed I have been to have you as my partner in parenting. We've done it together and I wouldn't want it any other way.
Thank you for being my husband. Thank you for being a wonderful father to our daughter.
Love,
Amy
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