I'm back

Whew. I'm here, alive and kicking- barely.
I haven't really had much excitement going on, we had a great visit with my mom and grandma, probably one of my most favorite visits since we have moved here. I don't ever do anything to seek approval, but my grandma was the one person left that is able to travel, that hadn't been here, so it was nice to get her here to see that we don't live in the woods amongst serial killers and rapists. Apparently she thinks the worst, always. I feel more at peace here now. Husband and I were able to have a date night while they were here, so we enjoyed some fabulous Melting Pot..Yummmmm. We also found out thanks to his federal ID, we got 50% off of our bill, a BIG score at that place since it can get really expensive! Wooha! I would have been happy with 10%!

They left on Friday and son had his re-check for his ears. Not only was he not better, he was actually worse. So we are slated for ear tubes and an adenoidectomy this coming Thursday. I'm not upset because I know it needs to be done. He has had fluid in his ears since birth almost, and he's already suffered some hearing loss. Since removing tonsils isn't as common as it used to be, I'm hoping that with having both of these done now ,we won't ever have to go back for any other surgery, ever. In an attempt to redeem herself, mother in law is coming down Wednesday- Sunday to help out. I told her we didn't need anyone here, but she insisted, so whatever. I am more nervous about the after care of the tubes and avoiding water, then the actual surgery. That is subject to change though, as I am sure that I will be a nervous wreck on Thursday.

Other than that, not too many exciting things have happened here lately. I'm in another one of my funks, I don't know what is wrong with me. I'm soooo tired, even getting 8 hours of sleep I wake up feeling like I have never went to sleep to begin with. My whole body is sore. Apparently I ran a marathon in my sleep all this week ;) So pardon my lack of excitement in my return, but I am BEAT. Hopefully I will get caught up on sleep this weekend, but somehow I doubt it :/

Oh, the pink stuff...

I generally avoid the doctor if at all possible. After going through nursing school, germs pretty much occupy 80% of my thoughts. Ugh. The main one is MRSA. The truth is though, most of us already have it- if not through using too many antibiotics, then from that old man that sat way too close at the mall, and hacked it into your air space. Ugh...

Anyhow, we've all had this cold funk for going on about 2 weeks now. I've known for awhile that mine was a sinus infection, thanks to the techni-colored snot that I am making. Yes, I know you wanted to know that ;) Daughter still has a yucky cough but it's getting better. Son, however, was not. His fever kept coming and going, and he is soooo fussy and clingy, and he too makes techni-colored snot.

So I finally caved last night and took him to Minute Clinic. My mom and grandma will be here today and I wanted him to be up to playing with company. Minute Clinic wasn't fabulous, and not the greatest for babies because it was obvious that the FNP was not accustomed to seeing a lot of kids. It will be ok for me or husband if it's something that we need a prompt care type place for though. They're treating son for a sinus infection, which means to him (and any one of you that were sick as a child), "the pink stuff". Also known by medical people (and people over the age of 12 haha) as Amoxicillin. Can I just take this moment to say how much I LOVE the pink stuff? Like seriously, LOVE IT. It brings back memories of way too many cases of strep throat as a child, but damn did I love that medicine. The smell, the taste...very kid friendly. ;o)

Well you know what? Son HATES the pink stuff.

Is this even American?? Isn't it a requirement that as a citizen, you will promise to love the pink stuff? The child HATES it. Last night was difficult to get him to take it, but this morning when he saw it and remembered what it was, he went NUTS. All I can say is thank heavens that they gave me extra, because at least half of his morning dose today ended up in the kitchen floor, on his shirt, and on my pajamas. We are two doses into this, with 9 1/2 days to go and I have NO clue what I am going to do to get him to take it. My hopes of him quickly starting to feel better are dashed, and I am already dreading tonight when he has to take it again.

My son doesn't like the pink stuff. He must have been switched at birth.

A baker, I am not.

Ok. I have finally found my weakness. That which makes me sweat, that which makes me choke.

I cannot cook under pressure.
There. I said it.

I've put catheters in people I thought were impossible to cath. I've taken care of people who had more bedsores than skin. I scooped stool up in a plastic spoon to send off for samples, just because it was the *only* way to do it. I did all of this, and more, while pregnant, and never batted an eye or puked in a can.

Yet, it is nearly impossible for me to cook when necessary and have it come out good. What is the deal?

I volunteered to make a "100 day cake" for daughters class. Basically, it's their 100th day of school and they have fun with it, have a cake, etc. All it is, is regular cake mix (I used my favorite- Funfetti). You make 2, 8x8 rounds for the zeros, and then one 9x13 for the "1". I mixed up the cake mix and poured it into the pans. The minimum time was 32 min, so I set it for 28. I went down at 26 thank goodness, because it was getting ready to be burnt. I take out the cakes, and set them aside to cool.

Coming back later, the cakes are cooled enough. I flip both "0" 's out of the pan with no problems. I ice them, decorate them with skittles (per teachers instruction), then write little "100"'s all over them in glitter icing. Pretty nice.

Then I come to the 9x13 pan, and begin to cut out my "1". Common sense now tells me that I should have just bit the bullet and purchased a first birthday cake pan, to make this much more easy on myself. I start cutting the one, and it literally FALLS APART. I transfer the pieces to the cake pan, and have to use icing to hold the 1 together.

My 1, looks like crap.

I feel really bad because I think I cut it too skinny, and spent at least a good hour laying in bed thinking about how there can't be nearly enough cake for 41 kids, and how some will probably be upset that they didn't get any, or worse- the whole thing will turn into a pile of cake when they try to cut it. If I lived anywhere convenient to a place that didn't close at 10, I would have went and got another cake and started over. Ugh. I feel bad.

I emailed her teacher and gave her advance warning, and she said she was sure the cake would be fabulous, but all of this has led me to believe that I simply cannot cook under pressure. How ridiculous is that. I can walk into the kitchen and whip up a fantastic dinner and the family cleans their plates in 5 minutes flat. But I try to bake cookies (see my very first blog post), or a 100 day cake and BOOM, it all falls apart. Literally. ;)

Anyhow, nothing else new to report. The "dream house" that we wanted, well the offer fell through on it and so now we are persuing a different mortgage company and hoping for good results this time. We want that house. The lady at Bank of America has forever left a sour taste in my mouth, and I would love to just cancel our checking and savings through them because they suck, big time. Well, she sucked big time.

Ok that's all. I had plans of giving a few blog shout outs, and showing you what's in my purse since I've been tagged :), but I will have to save it for a later date.

The case of the arachnid and the ever-mutating Rhinovirus

Well , Super Bowl Sunday was fun. We had lots of food, all of which severely violated husbands diet wagon that he is back on..or is it off? I don't know. Either way, the pace that that boy can lose weight at disgusts me. It would take me years..that is, if I had the motivation to begin with. Tomorrow I'm starting back on the Wii Fit. Though I'm more interesting in that thing I saw on HSN that flexes your ab muscles for you. Now that, is gold. I could do that. Or, er, let that do it for me ;)

Now I'm way off track on what I wanted to talk about. So, Super Bowl was fun. Husbands friend, his wife and their daughter came over. We ate lots, laughed lots. Oh, how I love to see different faces sometimes :) Son was an absolute BULLY- pushing the little girl and not sharing his toys. What have I birthed?? It doesn't help that he is off the charts in height, the little girl was 6 months older than him, he was about 3-4 in taller than her. Ugh. My son. The baby bully.

Anyhow. Today I find myself disturbed, very bothered. For once, it isn't by the mound of laundry that I have been chipping away at for two weeks (I've set my goal- completion, one week from today. HA). It isn't from the left over Super Bowl mess, though I will say our company was fabulous in helping clean up! It is from something that husband's work friend told us last night.

He had a scorpion in his house.
O....M.....G.

OMG. This is literally too much for me to deal with. He says he went into the play room, and there sits his gorgeous little 2yr old girl playing, with this ugly-ass-pincher-toting-beast headed towards her. Ok, he wasn't that descriptive, that is just how it plays out in my mind.

What the HELL is this?! There are scorpions on Florida?? Why didn't anyone tell me this? And more so, why do so many people have stories that they have had them too, but no one felt the need to share this with me? I am beyond disturbed and literally crawling out of my skin 24/7 now. A minute ago, the salt in the bag of pretzels shifted and I nearly shart my pants. If I see one of those things, I honestly think I will have to move. I thought they only existed in the desert.

I had to do a little research and it turns out most in FL are 1"-4" long. 1", I can deal with. 4"- not so much. Anyone that lives in Fl and anywhere hot for that matter, knows that bugs are a problem. We have a guy come in every other month and spray, just so they aren't a problem. The worst we have encountered are fire ants (outside) and earwigs (inside when we first moved in) , which were the grossest (and biggest) thing with a pincher that I EVER wanted to see. And they were pretty small. Scorpions. My feet will be propped up at all times now. Ugh. Ugh!!!!!!

Ok, that's my update for the day. I am back to staring at the floor for movement of anything that should not be moving, and waiting on my dear, sick son, to wake up. The poor thing now has caught on to daughter's well traveled funk. It appears to just be a cold for me, but cough for her, and something involving a fever with him. Daughter and I skipped out on going to the doctor in hopes that we can fight it with our own immunities. Son is roasting though, and I am feeling as though neither of my thermometers are right (I think I mentioned my deal with non-working thermometers in a previous post), as they aren't even registering 98.6- more like 97.3, and I know that we are all at least normal- he, is much warmer than that. Well there you have it. Some type of fabulous cold is mutating in my very own home, right before my eyes. Not cool! So, son may be the first that I actually take to the doctor. The poor little guy wouldn't even sleep in his bed last night, he booted daddy out of the bed, and me and my little man snuggled in the king sized bed all night. I don't think husband was too happy to have to sleep in the guest bedroom, but it sure beats the couch, and I will take snuggle time with son any chance I get. ;)

Productiveness, scrubbed

I've taken an alternative approach to cleaning the house for company. While in the process, I did think of a couple more interesting things to add about myself on here. Maybe I can just come on here daily and talk only about myself, because I know you're all just itching to know all about me ;) HA.

* I HATE making plans. I think this comes from the fact that my husband is an extreme over-planner, and I can't stand to go somewhere and feel as though I am running on an hourly schedule. My parents call down here and plan to visit months in advance, and want to know our plans. Ugh. Anyone with kids knows that is impossible to plan that far in advance. I've found a happy medium since having kids and I do realize that planning is necessary to a certain extent, but I still hate it. I am very go-with-the-flow, low stress, and all that fun stuff. It doesn't always play out like that,though.

*I also hate feet, other than baby feet. Hate them!!!!!!! When we drive down the road and pass cars where someone is riding with their feet out the window, I want to vomit. I don't know why.

*I love to shop for groceries, but hate to put them up. I love to wash laundry but hate to put it up. What is that? Commitment issues? Problems following through? Dunno. Maybe I'm just weird like that. My single worst and most despised task is the dishwasher. I don't know why, but I just hate it.


Anyhow. Back to the task at hand. Company will be here in 3 hours, and I haven't ran the vacuum cleaner, or cleaned up the kitchen. Rather than put up the laundry I think I am just going to either find a very large hiding spot, or keep the bedroom door closed ;) All of the dirty laundry is hiding in the laundry room- also behind a closed door ;) Cut me some slack. Daughter gave me whatever funky nose running deal that she had, and I am in no mood to clean anything. I am never sick, but apparently I am a lot these days. I hate that too. Ha :)

Hope everyone has a great Super Bowl night. I'm rooting for the Cardinals by default, I really can't stand the Steelers ;)

Date night, scrubbed.

Well, date night is scrubbed. For next weekend that is.

I can't remember if I told the story, but last summer mother in law was down here visiting. Turns out it was race weekend in Daytona and we didn't know- I thought it was the next weekend. I commented something about how it would have been nice to go, and that was that. No big deal.

Well ever since then, MIL has made it a point every other time we talk on the phone to tell us that she is coming down to watch the kids in Feb so that we can go to the race. Since July she's been saying this. It really hasn't been anything that I was desperate about going to, goodness knows we've been to a lot of races, just not at Daytona. It's only an hour from here, not that big of a deal if we went or not.

Well she insists that we go, even buying our tickets for "Valentine's Day" she says.

As the date is approaching, it is plainly obvious to me that she has absolutely no interest in coming here. I'm pretty darn good at reading people, and she's not a hard one to read. We have called her on multiple occasions asking when she plans on coming down, only to be met with "Do you need to know right now". It was really beginning to piss me off because I knew it was going to get down to the wire and she was going to get grouchy about it. I *hate* to make plans too far in advance, but she was acting like she may be here Thursday night, in which case daughter would be at gymnastics and we wouldn't even be here to let her in. Just a simple question of when she was coming, what day, with the understanding that it's subject to change is all we wanted to know.

Honestly, I don't want *anyone* in my house that doesn't want to be here, and certainly not watching my kids. She is a great person and wouldn't ever harm a fly, but she gets so grouchy sometimes and given all that has been going on lately, I just don't have the energy for it. At. All.

Husband calls yesterday as one last attempt to see when she is coming. You know, it wasn't that big of a deal and I think it could have been handled differently. If she really wanted to be here she could have said things were busy at work and she just wasn't sure yet, or something to that extent. But to bluntly say "Do you need to know right now" just signals to me that she has no desire to come here. So I told husband to un-invite her or else (yes, I threatened), stuck the tickets on Craigslist, and that is that.

Really there is no point to this very boring blog entry other than the fact that I needed to rant about my mother in law, because even though she is very good to us, she can really wear on my nerves more often that not. :) I see a lot of her in my husband, it drives me insane. Needless to say, she won't be down for awhile.

Hopefully I don't sound petty. It's not over the race, it's just over the situation and her in general. On a good note, my mom is coming on the 10th, and bringing my Mimi with her, who hasn't been down yet, so I'm excited to show her around and let her finally have mental pictures to associate with what we're talking about on the phone :) Maybe husband and I can sneak in a date night while they are here. And, at least I have an additional few days to get my house clean. It looks like my washing machine vomited in my bedroom floor, and we're having company for the Super Bowl, Girl Scouts meeting here on Tuesday, and then my mom and Mimi the next Tuesday. Yikes.

I suppose I *should* be in my room putting up said laundry, except that I refuse to put it up until it's all washed, and it's not, and aside from that I have a terrible sore throat thanks to ill daughter. Therefor I am not in the mood to do anything, at all. ;)

Strange but true things

Well, I thought of two more interesting facts about myself that may make me seem even more weird to the general public. Actually I thought of about 5 more last night, right as I went to bed. I told myself to get up and write them down, but alas I did not, and now I have forgotten them :)

* I hate jokes. This makes me seem prudish, but I am not. I love to laugh, but for some reason I.hate.jokes. I think it's because my aunt used to tell *the* worst joke (sometimes more than 1) every time you saw her. Yep. Jokes. Can't stand em. I actually get pissed when people tell them. Eek.

*I think that not only is daylight savings time a sham, it's a waste of time, inevitably taking hours from your life over the long run, only to give them back 6 months later. Sort of. I hate daylight savings time. Just pick a freaking time and stay with the crap! I know why they do it, I just still think it's stupid. I often wonder what the states do that don't ever participate- I think it's IL or IN, and AZ? It's 2 states I think. What do you do if you live right on the state line and work in the neighboring state, and have to attempt to get ready for work on the other states time? This troubles me. Or more so, just confuses the crap out of me. I think they should do away with daylight savings.

**********

I had the craziest dreams the last two nights. Just absolutely wacked out! One of them involved the need-to-know-too-much mortgage lady calling our house and asking for an explination as to why we had a dead mouse in our house that we lived in in 2005, and what we did to dispose of it. She needed to know the information for our mortgage papers. HA

It at least made me wake up giggling, along with the fact that husband decided to serenade me with "Hot and Cold" by Katy Perry. I could have done without that at 7:30am. But I could totally see the mortgage lady doing that thing about the mouse. It's getting that ridiculous. As a side note, we did actually have a mouse in the house when we lived one place in 2005. It was in a wooded area, and the house went all summer un-rented. Fun times. Me, standing up ON the arm of the couch, and husband running around with a ski pole threatening to kill the mouse. Once I realized he was going to beat him to a pulp, I made him catch the mouse in a big box, and drive him about 5 miles down the road and let him out ;)

I sent daughter back to school today. She's still got a yucky cough, but I'm hoping it was just from the weather change when she went to WV last weekend with husband. I'm going to give her a couple more days before I take her to the doctor. Ugh. Doctors.

Son's face is still healing quite nicely. He for some reason *hates* me putting Neosporin on his cheek, so I have to sneak to do it, but it gets done :) Today I have plans of being utterly boring, cleaning up the house and doing laundry all day since we're having company for the Super Bowl on Sunday. I'm rooting for the Cardinals by default, because I don't enjoy either team. I also don't enjoy the fact that I am only 2hrs 45min from said Superbowl, and will not be there. Maybe next year in Miami.Because I just have 5 grand laying around to blow on $100 face value tickets you know ;) Ugh.

It is nice to have company though. A small reminder that people actually *do* like us! I've met a lot more moms online since I joined the new forum, and hopefully we'll have a playdate set up soon. So if I don't accomplish anything else on my pseudo-resolutions that I made, then at least I am taking care of the socialization part. ;)

A nice, rainy, dull, uneventful day

Ok. So, nothing exciting happened around here today, and I enjoy that. A lot. Some days, too much stuff happens, and I'm all "why does so much stuff happen", so I like when stuff doesn't happen. Make sense? ;) The highlight of my day was going to the store by myself. Because it was by. my. self. I drove semi-erratically, sang off tune at the top of my lungs, and took my time through the store, because damn it sometimes I'm entitled to do all of those things :P

I have nothing interesting to talk about, so I'm going to steal an idea from another blog that I follow, and tell you some things about myself. Prepare to be bored to tears :)

* My favorite color is pink
*When I was little, I wanted to be a veterinarian. When I started thinking about how animals couldn't tell you what was wrong, I switched to nursing.
*I have near-constant dialogue with myself, in my head. I hope that doesn't make me crazy.
*I was never a small town girl. I was just stuck there for 25 years ;)
*I have the eating habits of an overly picky 5 year old. So not joking on this one.
*I am overly organized. Like borderline OCD. Things have to be put just-so, in the right place, turned the right direction, and if you move them, I WILL know. ;)
*I am a shopping addict- way too expensive jeans, shoes, and purses. And makeup. Oh and shirts. Oh and...
*I have this overwhelming feeling of "Oh No" when I walk into a bathroom in someone else's home and the toilet lid is down. Because I think that someone has pooped in there and not flushed for whatever reason. Yeah, I know that's weird.
*I watch way more "reality tv" than "real tv" like the news and stuff. I hate the news.
*I don't read the newspaper
*I'm actually really smart, and really good at writing. I have lots of common sense.
*Those are about the only nice things I will admit about myself. Now if I just could find a work at home job that required only those 3 qualifications ;)
*If I didn't have kids, I think I would be a travel nurse. I never seem content in one place for long.
*I am a makeup wearing, teeny bopper music loving, Louis Vuitton carrying, pink wearing, pro-football watching (go Cowboys!), NASCAR loving girl ;) So you can't call me a priss, OR a redneck ;)

That's all for now :)

Smell, Swirl, Swish, Repeat

I went to the wine tasting last night. It's really funny how things appear in my mind and how they actually are sometimes. I expected going into this really ritzy room, and people who were wearing ridiculous amounts of jewelry and some snooty man saying "and now we are tasting a delicious Cabernet", etc etc. And everyone swirls it, smells it, and swishes it, and all of those things that you are supposed to do, while I pretend to take a sip and then spit it back out into my glass in disgust.
It actually turned out to be this really trendy-ish restaurant with a small local band playing. You gave your donation at the door, and they gave you a wrist band. Then from there, you just went to the bar and told them what wine you wanted, as often as you wanted it for the hour and a half. So it turned out to be really crowded, but really low key. Not to mention some drunks because it was a free for all on the wine. They had the wine on tap too, sort of, which I found to be very neat. It was so nice to have some actual adult conversation.The only downside is that the girl that drove, could not. I was soooo carsick by the time we got there, and then even worse by the time I got home. It's been foggy as crap here in FL the past few nights, and that made it even worse because she couldn't see, and I had nothing to focus on. Thankfully I never actually got sick, but I ended up with a bad headache that then made me nauseated. Oh it was terrible! We were home by 9:30, and I ended up on the couch by 3am, so in pain I thought I was going to have to drive myself to the hospital, and I don't know how, or if ,I would have made it. Smart of me, to be out of my migraine prescription. Reaalll smart. I eventually wandered back downstairs and took a Benadryl so that I could get rid of the nausea. So that knocked me out and I finally was rid of it by this morning. I think if we go out again, I will volunteer to drive ;o) I probably should also mention that I decided to not drink the wine, and opted for White Russians instead. And the cause? Raising money to find a place/build a children's museum in St Augustine. So I felt good about giving my money for that obviously :)
In other news, we are almost certain that we have been denied a home loan. Honestly, I think our mortgage lady is so freaking shoddy that part of the blame lies on her. Yes, about 80% of that is our fault- our credit- but she is non-responsive, and SO freaking nosy. I think the only things left that she doesn't know about me is my bra size and date of my last menstrual cycle.
I'm honestly not that upset. Like I said before, owning a home isn't something I feel like I have to do right now in life. I was the one that was all for waiting another year. My Jeep will be paid off, and we will be in so much better of a position to buy. By then we may even be able to build if there are still lots left here. That would be much better. It would be mine, how I want it, ready to move in, and new. I enjoy these thoughts :) So in keeping with her usual business ethic, for now the answer isn't no, but it's "they don't really want to do it". I wish we just knew something- anything. I kind of feel like this lady thinks she has a lot more power than she really does, and I really just want to fire her from helping us, and move along. Move along! Poor husband wants a house so bad that he's just impatiently waiting. If I had communication with her, I would have already dealt out about 50 eye rolls, 20 "Oh no you didn't!"'s, and a few select foul words. Ah well.
Son's face is healing quite nicely. He's still considerably bruised above the eye, but it's getting better. For some largely unknown reason, husband thought it would be a nice get well present for him, to bring in the biggest bag of Skittles I have ever seen in my life. Uh-huh. I actually hid them, but tonight they were on the dresser, and somehow son got them off, dumped out the whole bag, and shut himself in our bedroom (not locked). When I went in there, there was a huge pile in the floor and he looked very suspicious. So needless to say, I'm not surprised that he was up 2 hours past his usual bedtime, he was obviously jacked beyond belief. Men. ;)
Daughter is sick with some nasty-cough-yuck-stuff-in-the-throat-kind-of-hot-but-not ordeal. The thermometer says she's normal, but I never trust those things. Not since the night I just knew she had a fever, and it kept saying 98.6, yet when we woke up that morning and went to the doctor, she *actually* had a fever of 105.1 (!!!) and had RSV. So yeah, me and thermometers are not on good terms since about 2004. I keep at least 3 in the house, and I use each one of them for taking a temp every time I do it, since each method has a bit of a difference in result. If they all 3 are relatively close, then I may (or may not!) believe them. Anyhow, school is probably out for tomorrow, but we'll see in the morning.
Beyond that, life is normal for the time being. Mother in law is coming to visit next Thursday, and I am looking forward to some alone time for me and husband. And looking forward to the Melting Pot. One day, I will branch out and go to other places that interest me. Like this one weird place called Pussers??? The menu looks great- I don't know what the deal is with the name. But for the most part, I always pick the Melting Pot for date night. There's no way we could do it with the kids and come out without 3rd degree burns.
That's about it for now :)

Some *real* wine for my cheese!

I've accepted an invitation tonight to attend a wine tasting/fundraiser with two moms from daughter's Girl Scouts. This is *all* wrong for many reasons. But, the most important of them being that I *hate* wine! LoL I had this incident one time in Germany, we were on a school trip. And the legal drinking age is 16. So we all thought it would be cool to buy like 6 bottles of CHEAP-O wine, and drink a bottle...a piece. I did some hard core puking, had to get up at 3am for our flight back home, which was 10 hours. Though the entire flight, only got up once to puke and request a Sprite from the flight attendant, and back to sleep I went. I slept the entire flight except for that short 5 minutes. I had to have lost about 5lbs with all of that puking. Oh, my stupid days!
So yeah, me and wine? Not such great friends. What can I say. I'm desperate for socialization!! HAHA At least we're helping a good cause- I should find out what that cause is. I didn't even ask!

I'll let you know how it turns out ;)