*Sigh*

1. Isabella woke up around 4:30 with a high fever and started vomit ting. So she and I trouped back to the doctor (after I called them yesterday when her fever was higher than the day before, and after being on the antibiotic for over 24 hours, to which they told me it can take up to 72 hours for the meds to kick in so not to worry), went through several blood tests and X-Rays only to find out that my poor girl has strep, a sinus infection AND pneumonia.

So we are now the proud owners of a nebulizer. How is it that I made it through 31 years of life, plus 10.5 years of motherhood never, ever having to have/do breathing treatments, only to have 2009 hit and have both myself AND one of my children need them??? It truly boggles the mind. So we'll do breathing treatments every for hours for the next three days. Poor Bella. For some reason, the medicine used in the breathing treatment always gives you the shakes real bad, and you feel all anxious and jittery. When the treatment is over she really does look like a skinny, strungout crack head.

She also got two antibiotic shots, one in each leg (rendering her unable to walk, which meant I got to carry her, her water bottle, the nebulizer, my purse and her "I Stood Still During My X-Ray" goodie bag on the five mile trek out to the car). You can imagine how excited she was about the shots. Even better, we get to go back for the next two days for MORE shots! You would think, her being almost 9 and all, that she would understand the need for shots. But NO- she still looked at me with her big, sad puppy dog eyes welling over with tears with a look that said, "HOW CAN YOU LET THEM DO THIS TO ME??!?!??"

*sighs again*

2. The bathroom has been primed (twice) and it ready for new white paint. Perhaps by Sunday we'll be able to use it again. Hallelujah.

Things That Will Be Done Today Come Hell Or Highwater

Isabella is home sick today (Sinus infection, beginning of strep, but we caught it super early so she's not too miserable. Only the fact that she hasn't been on the antibiotic for 24 hours yet kept her from school) and I AM DETERMINED to get some things done around here before I seriously have a nervous breakdown.

(I think the straw that broke the camel's back was the color we painted the bathroom last night. The color itself was fine, but combined with our tub, toilet, fixtures, etc it made the bathroom look like a cheap motel bathroom which, believe it or not, was NOT the look we were going for.)

TO DO LIST
1. Take the things out of the laundry room which need to go to the shed
2. Sweep laundry room floor; shake out rugs
3. Organize shelf above the washer and dryer
4. Repaint bathroom a soothing shade of WHITE (to be done most likely when James gets home)
5. Spray a thick layer of Lysol all over the house to prevent further spread of germs
6. Clean Pampered Chef Muffin Pan (Anyone who uses the PC baking stones knows what a pain they can be to clean sometimes! But the muffins are always perfectly cooked so I put up with cleaning the stupid pan.)

I will return and report.
*salutes*

What Kind of Day It Has Been (so far)

Today I have:

- woken up late (7:00 am as opposed to 6:15) thanks to James accidentally turning off my alarm

- looked at Bella and decide that her cold has probably turned into a sinus infection

- chased down the bus (which involved driving like a mad woman, flipping a u-turn on a four lane road and catching the bus on its VERY LAST STOP before heading up to the schools)

- ran the garbage can down to the curb before the garbage man arrived (All James' fault again, as he forgot to take it down last night. Although I choose to forgive him for this offense as he was busy caulking the bathrrom last night, step #487 in the Bathroom Remodel The Never Ends).

- made a call to the doctor to get Bella an appointment (10:15)

- checked the bank account to make sure I have enough in there to pay the co-pay, pay for a prescription, and pay a little extra on the bill since we haven't met our dedeuctible for the year yet

- searched the Georgia PINES Online Catalog for library books to order to read to Isabella's third grade class on Read Across America Day. (My frantic searching is my own stupd fault, though, as I vaguely remember signing up to be a reader sometime back in January, but I didn't write down the actual date, just noting that it was sometime in March, which was still months away. So now I'm trying to find Books that aren't chapter books (they don't want us to read anything that we can't finish) that are appealing to 3rd graders and that will also fill 30 minutes of my assigned reading time. I'm leaning toward some Shel Silverstein or Jack Prelutsky poetry along with a short story of some sort.

- discovered all of the neat ideas on the NEA website for Read Across America Day and decided I need to print off some of those ideas for preschool on Monday

- made this blog post, and it's only 9:02 AM

I am ON FIRE!

Random Thoughts

1. Does it make me a bad mother if I only take the girls to see movies I also want to see?? I figure why spend $16 (the price of our tickets) plus $11 (the cost of a large popcorn and drink that we all share) on something that A) isn't going to entertain ME and B) will be out on DVD in a few months anyway?? (In other news, Coraline was very good, and not as creepy as the book. It was the first movie I've ever watched in 3-D, and it was pretty amazing, I have to admit. The visual details were outstanding.)

2. Our Winter Break is almost over. The girls went back to school today, and I go back tomorrow. I am firmly convinced that every week should be a two day work week.

3. James is amazing. He worked 45.5 hours of overtime in the past two weeks. Have I mentioned how grateful I am that he has a job? Because I am.

4. I just walked outside to take the mail down to the mailbox and there were FIVE cardinals on my lawn! We have a ton of brids that live in the trees around here. One day I was on the phone with someone, and I had the back door open. She commented that I must have a lot of birds as pets because she could here them all. I told her nope- they were all outside!

5. I have been thinking about this cake ever since I saw it on Katheryn's blog a few days ago. It looks, really, really good. Maybe I'll make it for Isabella's birthday next month.

Who'd have ever thought?

Last Thursday James and the girls went to a Daddy-Daughter Dance over in Tifton with some of the cousins and uncles. Daddy-Daughter Dances are a big thing around here- they use them as fundraisers. Albany holds one every year that benefits the Girl Scouts and Habitat for Humanity. The one in Tifton benefitted the local YMCA. I'm not sure if the girls were more excited to spend the evening dancing with their cousins or dancing with their daddy. ;) Either way, a good time was had by all.



Here are four of the girls, minus Caitlin. The babies (Gretchen and Samantha) didn't go either. Maybe next year.

Mating Toads Are Stalking Me

~~~ Another flashback post. This one is from August 30th, 2005. I thought it only appropriate to post it on Valentine's Day. ;D ~~~

I kid you not.

For the past two nights, a pair of mating toads have been doing the deed right outside our bedroom window. You know what a cat sounds like when it's in heat? Toad mating noises have a similar, nails-on-the-blackboard, going-to-drive-you-crazy quality. CROAK CROAK CROAK CROAK CROAK CROAK CROAK in a syncapted rhythym for hours on end. James actually went and moved them last night (scooped them up with a shovel) before we went to bed. (I wonder what the toads thought? :P) But SOMEHOW they managed to find their way back to same spot about 3 am. I guess it's their special spot. But I swear, if they are back at it tonight, this will be the last time they get any lovin' near my house.

It really is.

Have I ever mentioned that my most favorite figure of speech is hyperbole? Because it is. (What? You don't have a favorite figure of speech? Too sad. You should. It's a great conversation starter at parties. Isabella's is onomatopoeia. I know because she told me so.) As this t-shirt so succinctly puts it, it really is the best thing ever!

So yesterday when I said I hated people, it was more of a reaction to a few people who I actually really like but were choosing to act like idiot jackasses who didn't have the sense God gave them and therefore made my life EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. I don't really hate anyone. (Actually, I do. I honest-to-goodness hate two people. But since I can't imagine at time or place when I will ever have to see them again in this lifetime, I don't worry about it.) But what fun is blogging if you can't make it all exciting and dramatic with lots and lots of hyperbole???

It's no fun at all.

Hence, hyperbole.

I am much happier today, and the main reason for that is because we are out of school for THREE WHOLE DAYS next week! (Well, the girls have to go back on Wednesday. Too sad for them!!) We also had our Valentine parties at school today, and the little darlings brought me lots and lots of chocolate, which we all know is a mood elevator. Best of all, it was payday for me! SWEET. I plan on taking the girls to see Coraline next week, and payday means we can afford to buy popcorn. Mmmm...movie theatre popcorn. Tasty. Anyway, payday also means that I can get my haircut and my eyebrows weedwhacked. (Because they are seriously out of control. Not unlike the people I was hatin' on yesterday. See how I tie this whole post together??)

So, to sum up:

Hate = Bad
Hyperbole = Good
Neatly trimmed eyebrows = Fabulous!

You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!!

Just let me tell you how much I hate people right now.

Seriously.

Hate.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE.

And you thought this blog was going to be rainbows and unicorns all the time.

And with that, I am about to take myself off to the church where I will have a visit with my visiting teachers and then proceed to Enrichment.

My ward is SO LUCKY to have me.

Say Hello To My Inner Geek

~~~ So, you know how I've been blogging since 2004? I've been amusing myself looking over some of those older entries. I thought I might share some of the choicer bits with y'all here, just so you won't feel left out. ;)

This post was orginally made of May 3, 2005. This is when the girls and I were still living in Tifton until the end of the school year, and James was already here in Albany. ~~~


I was listening to NPR the other day, when a rep from the CDC was on, talking about how they are doing a study of ticks in Georgia. If we find a tick, we can send it to the CDC so they can analyze it.

So today, our dog had this ginormous tick on it. I mean HUGE! My mom pointed it out to me, and I told her we needed to send it in to the CDC. Luckily, it fell off the dog, so I didn't actually have to touch it. I called the number the CDC gave to find out the procedure for sending it in. I had to put in a vial full of rubbing alcohol. The vial I had wasn't big enough. Did I mention how big this sucker is?? (Haha- get it 'sucker'?) So I went over to the Entomology building at the college in town to see if they would give me a bigger vial. The Entomologist I talked to was so excited! He said it was one of the finest specimens he had ever seen. He was so impressed that he asked me for my permission to take pictures of it. (Like I was going to say no.) I even got to help him set up the photo shoot. Seriously, you would have thought it was Christmas day the way this guy was acting.

So now the tick is sitting beside me in a vial of rubbing alcohol, waiting to be shipped to Atlanta. I have to include my name and phone number, just in case they need to contact me. Who knows? Maybe my tick will intrumental in curing Lyme Disease or the West Nile Virus.

UPDATE: About a year ago a letter came to Mom and Dad's house from the CDC. It was the follow-up info on my tick! The letter thanked me for my participation in the study and said my tick was a female, and it was disease free. So, it didn't help cure Lyme Disease or West Nile Virus, but at least it wasn't spreading it, right??

I'm feeling magnanimous towards all...

Reply to this post, and I'll tell you one reason why I like/love/adore you. Then put this in your own journal, and spread the love.

I'm Tagging ALL of YOU!!

I wanted to start a Survey on odd things that make people absurdly happy. So here's what I want from y'all: write five things in your journal that give you a strange amount of satisfaction.

1. Listening to the girls sing "If I Had a Million Dollars"
2. Seeing a perfectly restored Volkswagen
3. Mowing the very last strip of grass
4. Realizing that a book I really want to read is on the shelf at my library
5. Getting a tough stain out of an article of clothing

I am determined to start this week off right, and so should you! There's no better way to do that than list the randomly absurd things that make you happy.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

I regret to inform you, the viewing public, that the quality and quantity of info coming out of the Tree Fort is about to go seriously downhill.

Last Sunday our Primary Presidency was reorganized, and yours truly is now the Primary Secretary. *shakes head* What were they thinking? Unlike Melissa and Emily (new first and second counselors, respectively) the new President doesn't keep up with my blog and is therefore unaware of blog posts like this and this. And, oh yeah, who could forget this? Surely had she seen any of that she would have realized I have a subversive side and therefore am unsuitable to do anything more spiritual than teach the Sunbeams! And here I was, SO SURE, that the 'Vote Obama' bumper sticker that was on the back of my van would be my ticket to no more big(ish) church callings!

*sigh*

But never fear! I do have a few posts in mind (complete with pictures!), including one where I become Ranty McRanty-Pants and rail against the commercialization of Valentine's Day. YAY!

In other news, James just finished his first week in his new job, and he's already laying plans to take over the joint in 3-5 years. Awww...I love a man with ambitions!

I'm too sexy for this blog

I started wearing a sleep mask about six months ago. James has decided to start wearing those Breathe Right strips when he sleeps. Given what the mask does to my hair and eyebrows by morning, and what a person wearing a Breathe Right strip looks like in general, I would imagine that you're all very jealous of the good looks we manage to maintain while we're sleeping.