Aging Gracefully

I got an email from Tumblr today celebrating the blog’s 3rd birthday.  It had a cute cupcake on the little e-card.  Then I realized I don’t remember ever signing up for Tumblr, and certainly I’ve been blogging longer than 3 years.  So I looked at the blog stats.  I posted my first entry on this blog on 3/18/08.  So the blog is actually 5 years old.  It’s okay for Tumblr to think we are only 3, though.  It’ll be our little secret.

In other news, we are once again a family with 4 kitties.  I don’t think I mentioned on here that my dear old Katy passed away a few months ago.  Well, yesterday ds4 picked out a precious kitten to call his own and bring us back to an even number of felines.

Meet Jeannie.  Or maybe Genie.  I haven’t discussed the spelling options with ds yet.  It was hard enough deciding on the name!

Death By Mop

Even though I felt like I would collapse after an intensive pre-storm house cleaning yesterday, I did survive.  However, this guy didn’t.

Last night ds1 was out on our porch checking out the winds from Isaac’s outer bands when he saw this snake.  Just sitting there on my welcome mat like we were some sort of hurricane shelter for the cold blooded.  Not so Mr. Snake!

Luckily, my trusty Rubbermaid twist mop was on hand to save the day.  I shudder to think what might have happened if I hadn’t left it outside to dry.  *shudder*

Oh no you didn’t Mr. Snake!  You can not attack my mop and get away with it!

Prepare for the mopping of your slithery life.

Hurricane Isaac claims it’s first victim on the Gulf Coast.

Summer So Far

has been hot, lazy, wet and fun.  We’ve gone to the beach a lot.

Ds3 has been learning to surf.  He’s done really well, even stood up and made it all the way to shore on our last trip.

Our 4th of July was quiet and spent at home, watching the neighbor’s fireworks (with headsets on for ds4.)

Dh took us out to Chili’s for lunch one day.

I had soup and pasta.  Not all in one meal mind you…took me three meals to finish that off lol.

Ds2 turned sweet 16 and got a new guitar.

There has been slipping and sliding.

Afternoon thundershowers.

My broken toe has healed.

Did I mention the beach?

It’s been a great summer so far.  I have yet to begin preparations for school, which starts August 1st.  I just can’t seem to kick my butt in gear.  Would someone mind doing that for me?  Go ahead and yell, I’ve got thick skin.  Just be brutal, tell me to put the kitten down and get started already!  A little louder.  What?  Can’t hear you, the waves are too loud and I have sunscreen in my ear. Thanks for trying!  Ah, summer.

Tell Me Why

If the toilet is in arm’s reach of the cabinet…

and the cabinet is full of this…

how come every time I go into the bathroom I see this!!!  Inquiring (and frustrated) moms want to know.

Boots Are Back In Style

Remember that nasty rumor someone started on my blog the other day, the one about me breaking my toe?  Well, turns out it’s true.  I went to the doc yesterday, they took x-rays and confirmed that the snap I heard when I stubbed my bare foot last week was indeed a break (fourth toe, left foot.)

So I went digging in my closet and found the boot the ortho gave me the last time I broke a toe.  Of course everyone has once again started the old argument with me…why on earth don’t you just wear shoes?  (You know, when I was a teen and he was teaching me to drive, my Dad told me it was illegal to drive barefoot.  I actually asked the driving instructor guy and found out it was all an evil plot to make me wear shoes while driving.  I am so about rebelling against the establishment.)

Anywho, yes Dad, Mom, dh, dc, Dr. B, x-ray guy, Dr. B’s nurse, and Wal-Mart Greeter, I should just wear shoes (even in the house which is so evil to think about I sometimes pass out.)  And yes, something that is not open toed (how am I supposed to live without flip flops?  How?)  I looked at some “crocks” and just regular old house shoes or cheap slip ons (I can’t stand feeling strapped into my shoes all day, they have to slide off easily) and then I saw these…

And then I tried one on.  And angels sang.  And all was right with the world of my feet.

I love these shoes!  Well, I love this shoe, as I can’t put on the left one until the broken toe heals a bit more.  It looks like a normal tennis shoe but it feels like heaven!  And look…

It has no heel!  It just slides on and slides off.  I can’t tell you how happy I am to have found these shoes.  No more broken little piggies for me.  :)

On a side note, thank you Modest Mama for the kind comment about my feet.  I think I love you.  :)

Don’t ‘Ya Just Hate

those posts that are just posts to post about why the poster hasn’t been posting?  Yeah, me too.

Anywho, I haven’t been posting much lately.  A lot of stuff has been going on and I can’t seem to get it together.  We haven’t even done school in two weeks (there goes our summer break!)  It’s a long drawn out story that I hope to write up in a nice succinct yet informative, concise but entertaining post.  (No pressure, huh?)  Meanwhile, here are some highlights.

We went to Disney (yes, again.)

Davy Jones almost hugged me.

I’ve had two outpatient medical procedures.

I may have broken (yet another) toe.

 

I have had one of these to drink everyday.  Not kidding, everyday.

Gee, I can tell you are on the edge of your seat, but that’s all I have for now.  Off to get my toe fixed!  And buy some real shoes (not flip flops, boo hoo!)

Love Language

So we finally saved up enough money to get some new furniture.  We’ve been browsing around and narrowing down our choices.  Yesterday we took the plunge and bought a sleeper sofa and loveseat.  It came down to two sets and dh and I shooed away the sales guy so we could sit, discuss, and make our decision.  The conversation went a little something like this.

“I know the fabric protection is $50 more, but I think it’s worth it.”  “But look at the contract.  It clearly states that only food or beverage stains are covered.  No bodily fluids.”  “That’s right.  And barf is not a bodily fluid, it’s just used food.”

The criteria for our furniture has certainly evolved over the years.  ;)

Like Pulling A Tooth

Ds4 had his appointment this morning for pulling his abscessed tooth.  He does not do well at the dentist (I don’t guess many 6yo boys do) so the dentist gave me a valium pill to crush, hide in something yummy since the pills are very bitter and give to ds.  I did this at the last visit and it didn’t seem to affect him at all.  This morning ds started protesting right when he woke up.  Wouldn’t get out of bed, crying and fussing.  I crushed the pill and put it in his favorite Jell-O and he took it…and promptly spit it back out onto my bed sheets.  At this point I’m ready to scoop up the tainted Jell-O and pop it into my own mouth, but instead I called the dentist office and told them what was going on.  The nurse said to bring ds in early and she would give him the medicine then we could take him out to breakfast.  Sure, lady, if that’s how you want to start your day.

Reluctantly ds got ready and into the car.  We arrived at the office and the nurse comes out with a little medicine cup with a small amount of pink liquid.  “Where are you going to breakfast, ds?”  “McDonald’s.”  “Okay, take this stuff and you can go.”  And he took it.  I stood there with my mouth wide open and the nurse starts gloating, “See, Miss Tammy always gets them to take the medicine.”  Um, helloooo!  If they had given me the tiny bit of pink goo I could have gotten him to take it at home!  I didn’t say anything and off we went to breakfast.  The medicine started taking effect when we got back to the office.  Ds was licking every last morsel of sugar off his empty cinnamon melts box and saying, “I sure do love this stuff.”

I carried him into the office and the procedure started.  They also gave him nitrous oxide and he did incredibly well during the whole thing.  When it was over the dentist put ds in my lap and ds said, “That didn’t hurt at all.”  No my dear, not at all.  :)

Another Year Older

How come I don’t feel any wiser?  I turned 44 on Sunday.  It was a low-key event as it should be.  Dh brought home a cake and some balloons along with his traditional donuts for breakfast.

There I am in my Sunday best.

I got a blu-ray player!  We haven’t even set it up yet.  I am waiting, patiently waiting, for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I on April 15th.  You know, I went to the midnight showing of the movie in theaters, should I camp out at Walmart for the dvd release?  Yeah, I know, I really should try and act my age.  ;)

It’s Cold Up In Here

I should really be ashamed of myself for that title, but it’s the first thing that came to mind and I’m sticking to it.  ;)

Okay, I saw the orthopedist, same one I saw when I broke my toe.  He examined me and took x-rays.  He says I have adhesive capsulitis (it is so a word spell checker!) a.k.a. frozen shoulder.  It affects only 2% of the population and mostly women over 40.  I tell ‘ya, every stinking year that goes by I really, really hate being a woman over 40.

Basically, you hurt your shoulder in some manner.  Most likely I did something to it during a workout.  As the pain sets in you use the shoulder less.  As you use it less, adhesions form on the ball and socket joint.  As the adhesions form you lose movement in the shoulder.  They don’t know why some people get this and some don’t (obviously not everyone who hurts their shoulder develops this.)  They think women over 40 get it more often because of hormones.  My dr says he’s had people with their arms in slings for several weeks for injuries and one will come out fine and the other will develop frozen shoulder.  No idea why.

Next up is treatment, in the form of physical therapy.  They are going to lead me through some exercises to help regain use of my shoulder and stop any further loss of motion.  If this doesn’t work there is surgery or arm manipulations (under general anesthesia) to break up and remove the adhesions.  Either way, it’s gonna hurt.  The dr gave me some Tylenol with codeine to take at night so I can sleep, but I haven’t done so yet.  I don’t like taking pain pills, plus dh is on call and he actually did have to leave and go in to work last night.  What if something happens with one of the kiddos and I am impaired and can’t drive or make a clear decision?

So there ‘ya go.  I am, I admit, confused and a bit wary of the diagnosis.  It sure feels like an injury or tear or something in my arm.  And some of this stuff sounds almost made up (“We don’t know how or why you got this but that’s life missy.  Deal with it.”) But I’ll be a good patient and do the prescribed therapy (sure hope they have a waiting room for the kids) and I’ll get through the ordeal of The Arm.  At the very least I’ll have something to blog about.  :)

The Arm: Dr Visit #1

Well, the good news is I have a new primary physician.  I like her.  She’s smart and has a dry sense of humor.  She listens and is pretty much no nonsense.  But she thinks my arm problem is beyond her capabilities.  That’s the bad news.  She has referred me to an orthopedist.

Unfortunately she picked one “out of network” with our insurance so I won’t be able to afford to go there.  I have been on the phone all day with the dr office, the referral line and dh’s benefits office trying to find an in network dr.  Dh’s work changed insurance this year and no one, literally no one knows what is going on.  My dr thought any dr she referred me to was considered in network.  The referral line lady had a list of orthopedic doctors but didn’t know who was in network (how, how do you work for the stupid hospital and have the same insurance yourself and not know this?  How?)  I am awaiting a call from dh with results of his talk with the benefits department.  Gah this is so frustrating!  I turned down the primary physician’s offer of prescription pain pills thinking a.) I would be seeing a specialist and getting this actually fixed and b.) that I don’t like taking strong meds.  Now of course I’ve been in pain all day and it looks like it will be weeks before I see an orthopedist.

Anywho, I know this doesn’t make for good blog reading but it sure helps my disposition to get his off my chest (and saves my poor dh and kiddos from yet another rant from mom lol.)  Blogs…the internet’s version of yoga.  :)

The Arm

Longtime readers of this blog may remember The Toe.  My newest physical impediment is The Arm.  A few months back I did something to my shoulder.  I didn’t fall, or feel sudden pain while lifting weights, or anything like that.  I just gradually noticed that my shoulder hurt.  It was a slight nuisance but I could still use the arm and even workout with no pain so I figured it would just get better on it’s own.  Well, it has progressively gotten worse to the point that the pain is constant and I can’t lift my right arm more than 30 degrees.  I can tell the problem is directly below my shoulder on my upper arm.  That area is sore to the touch and the main source of pain.  However if I do accidentally raise my arm the pain is, well, it’s just WOW kind of pain that shoots down my entire arm in waves that take minutes to subside and temporarily turns on a full-fledged sailor potty mouth lol.  My boys stand by with mouths wide open…they don’t know whether to be shocked or impressed. 

I figure I kinda need to use my right arm so I have a dr appointment today.  Which in itself is a hassle right now as my primary care dr left the practice last year and I had to find a new one.  Dh found one in the same office building as our other dr, but he won’t see me for 6 weeks so I had to go with someone completely new.  I hate that.  Will this person be nice?  Will we see eye to eye?  Will they be thorough and listen and care like my other dr did?  Or will they tell me to alternate using ice and heat on it and come back in 6 weeks?  I’ve done a little internet searching on shoulder pain and I know a thorough exam will involve x-rays and possibly an mri.  Will this dr order these tests?  Will I be able to afford them?  If she does order them then obviously this first visit will not bring me any immediate answers.  Just how involved is all of this going to get?

Ugh.

The Arm.  The saga begins.

Today Is His Birthday

Yet I am the one who is getting older.  :) My oldest son turns 21 today.  I tear up every time I think about it.  My life changed big time when I turned 21 (got married, moved to another country) and I guess I realize that there is no turning back now.  My firstborn is grown up.  Ack!  What if the other three decide to do the same thing?

I was 23, dh and I had been married and living in England for 2 years when ds1 was born.  I was 2 weeks past my due date so we had to travel 2 hours to the nearest military hospital (RAF Lakenheath) so I could be induced.  They hooked me up to the pitocin and adjusted the amounts on and off all day but labor did not come.  The idiot doctor, lazy and not wanting to deal with me on a Friday, sent me home.  I went into labor that night.  We drove back to the hospital but they said to wait until I was dilated more and sent us to the hotel on base (a place where people who were just coming on or leaving base soon stayed.)  Dh and I spent the day counting contractions and waiting.  Finally I could take it no more and I sat myself in that maternity ward.  Again we were dealing with lazy, uncaring people who just didn’t want to do anything on the weekend and they just told me to walk the halls to help labor progress.  The nurse practitioner, an officer, came around, saw what was going on, and let me tell you, she gave those people youknowwhat for what they did.  She yelled about me not being in a hospital gown, the room not prepared…justice was served that afternoon by a woman in Air Force blue.

So now I am in a room and being attended to, but still no progress in the labor.  The officer breaks my water, and it is green.  I didn’t know then but that means there was meconium in there and the baby was at risk.  Finally I felt the urge to push and did so for an hour or so in the room.  Then I was moved to the delivery room where I pushed for another 3 hours…that’s right, 3 hours.  The nurse could not perform a C-section so she tried and tried to get the dr on call to come in.  By now it was Sunday and no dr would answer her plea.  At last, with the help of forceps, ds emerged.  I gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head and they rushed him off to NICU for he did indeed have meconium aspiration.

Dh and I are both exhausted.  Neither of us has slept in days or eaten in hours.  The nurses brought us some food and helped us make the stateside call to my parents to let them know the baby had arrived.  I was so weak and “messed up” down there that I was bed bound.  It was a full day later before they could wheel me down to the NICU to even see ds.  He was a big strapping and otherwise healthy boy so he only stayed 5 days in the ward.  It took me 4 days to recover but they let me stay the 5th as well, when ds could finally come room with me.

While it was a pretty dramatic birth ds had no further problems and was a delightful baby.  Slept good, ate good, wonderful disposition.  Dh and I learned a lot from our experience.  Ds had duel citizenship until he turned 18.  It was neat when we took him to the local government office to register his birth and he got his little health care card (never used it, but it’s in his scrapbook lol.)  And now the baby is a man and I am so very proud of him.  Now to figure out how to keep this from happening to the other three.  ;)

Update

Dh has pneumonia.  The dr put him on a stronger antibiotic and told him not to go on his business trip next week.  More later.

Press Any Key…Or Not

I got a phone call today with an automated message from the Target pharmacy.  The really nice message voice lady said I could “press any key” to continue.  I don’t think Target thought that phrasing through all the way, or maybe they just didn’t think they would be dealing with a 40-something, sleep deprived because her kid was coughing all night mom.  I didn’t even look at the phone as a pressed a key and promptly got a ring tone.  Yep, I pressed the “off” button.  Any key my…;)

Snowstorm 2011

For those who live further north and actually got snow, please don’t laugh at this post.

See the little white balls?  Look closely!  Yep, it’s sleet.

It actually accumulated on our roof.  We were all stoked.  Thank you for indulging me, now run back outside and enjoy the real stuff you have waiting in your winter white yards.  :)

Christmas Eve 2010

We spend Christmas Eve with dh’s family, indulging in a delicious lunch of my mil’s lasagna and gumbo and gathering around the tree for some “dirty Santa” fun.

Most of my pics from this day are grainy.  I had the camera set to no flash and could not get it to go back to auto!  Dh figured it out later in the day (note to self; always ask dh first) so not all the pics are bad.

My niece and her mother.  My niece graduates high school in May.  I used to change her diapers.

My nephews (well, some of them anyway) and my ds2.  I used to change their diapers.

Dh’s oldest sibling plays Santa every year.

There is always one dirty Santa gift that everyone fights over…this year it was this snuggie type blanket thing.

 

Ds4 comes in at one point and says, “Do you want to come see my sand castle?”  No, we weren’t at the beach lol.  Gotta love little boys.  :)

My bil had the cousins gathered around a cell phone, I think they were tracking Santa or something.

Ds3 and his gift.  It was a great day.  :)

MIA?

Nah, just busy and not in a posting mood.  :)  We are pretty much set and ready for the holidays.  I have a little last minute cooking and baking but who doesn’t?  We are all recovered from our illnesses and trying desperately to stay that way for a while.  School is suspended until next year and the boys are loving the temporary freedom.  Smokey the cat has been limping for a few days now, and hissing when I touch his back paw (although he hisses at most anything the meanie) so he may have a trip to the vet in his future.  Fun times that.  I don’t have any reviews coming up and since we aren’t having school it will be pretty quiet on the old blog.  So if I haven’t already visited and said so,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  :)

And We Are Waiting Again

Ds2 and I made the midnight showing of Deathly Hallows Part 1 last night.   They put out so many trailers and previews of that movie that I felt like I’d seen most of it already lol.  It was great.  Lots of action, lots of Harry, Ron and Hermione, lots of twists and turns.  It followed the book quite well on most parts, changed only a few and unfortunately added in a couple of really unnecessary scenes.  There was a lot that didn’t make it in the movie and to add in scenes that don’t really even fit is just a waste imo!  I wish they had spent more film on the wedding and the Burrows, those were wonderful parts of the book.  They changed the Ministry scenes a lot but in a way that worked out well on screen.  I loved seeing Ron and Hermione’s relationship develop.  The humor was spot on in this one as well.  The movie was originally supposed to be released in 3D, but they didn’t finish in time.  You can totally tell that some of the scenes were filmed for 3D purposes only (and I hate that…we are dealing with a worthy film on it’s own, why pander to the box office?)  I am definitely going to see it again, if only to be part of an audience that doesn’t hoot and holler at inappropriate times…wait, are their appropriate times to hoot and holler at a movie?  Yes, there were a lot of unruly teenagers and young adults at our showing which makes for a fun atmosphere but not for good movie viewing.  ;)

And now we wait, once again.  At least this time Part 2 is only 6 months away.

Edited to add:  If anyone is wondering about the rating and whether the movie is appropriate for kiddos…there are a few scary scenes (things jumping out at you, scary looking people) there is some blood, there is death, and there is a scene with above the waist nudity and kissing (and it ain’t brief like the rating says lol!)  Don’t take the little ones.

The Halloween Question

I think it’s ridiculous that there even has to be a question surrounding Halloween.  But our county made it so this year.  When we returned from out of town my dad asked us when we were trick or treating.  What do you mean?  We’re doing it on Sunday of course.  Uh, no, turns out our county decided Saturday was better for them so that’s when Halloween will be celebrated.  I don’t care what lame reasons they give.  The county has no business changing any holidays to suit anyone.  The end.  Now my boys are asking how many days until Halloween.  “Well, son, there are 4 days until Halloween, but your local government decided you must celebrate it on the day before instead.”  “Why, Mom?”  Anyone care to answer?  I’m having a hard time with it.  To my county commissioners I say “Boo.”  And I’m voting you out next chance I get.