Hello!

 

I have continued my productive streak!  After an annoying and somewhat scary dizzy spell, my headache finally calmed down at some point this afternoon, thank God.

 

Then I cleaned up:

Wesley's room

Main bathroom

Our bathroom

 

Got all the garbage from the cans in all the rooms, then took the cans to the curb

 

Worked on tidying my room a little (where I put all the junk that has no home *sigh*)

Worked a smidge on the kitchen (endless battle)

 

Facebooked periodically

Emailed once in a while

Finished my last book from the library, very strange plot twist at the end and I think I may have read the book before and forgot it because I totally called it.

 

Half way cleaned up the living room (constant struggle, the kids are forever getting new toys out before putting the old back away)

 

Got Shawn from work.  FOR ONCE we timed it PERFECTLY, he was literally walking out as I was pulling in.  And there was no traffic coming or going.  Sweet!  Wes fell asleep and Colleen was content to listen. so Shawn and I talked the whole way home.  We were in accord on a subject that came up and it reinforces that we make good partners.  We see eye to eye on nearly all of the important stuff.

 

Oven beeped to say it is preheated for dinner.  (What is it with appliances always beeping at me???)  We are splurging and having frozen pizza.  What can I say?  In 14 minutes we feast!

 

Love, JEn

So far today we have:

 

Got up, fed kids, got dress, brushed teeth extra good

Taken Shawn to work

Gone to JC Penny, returned a dress, got a refund for an overcharge on our bathroom shower curtain and checked out some shoes I have in mind for Vegas

Kids had their 6 month check ups with the dentist:

     Coco had x-rays and a flouride treatment.  She also has 4 more cavities.  I wonder if I should have protested more when doctors prescribed prednisone. 

     I wonder if her not drinking milk has anything to do with it.  The dentist said she is someone who just has the cavity causing bacteria in her mouth. 

     To keep candy, soda, and sugar to a minimum, drink lots of water, and keep her mouth as clean as possible.

 

     Wesley had a cleaning.  He is a month and a half too young to have the flouride treatment.  Bother!  His teeth are in fantastic condition. 

     He does drink about 3 gallons of milk a week.

 

Then we went to Rite Aid to pick up the rest of my headache medicine.  Boy, do I need it!  My headache is "insistent" today.

Then we went to McDonalds, the kids got "fry-fry-nuggets" and yes, I got a sweet tea.  Only my second one since they've come out, I'm doing pretty good!

I got a BLT from Subway.

We came home and I got the kids settled down to eat.  I hadn't gotten my food out yet, which was a good thing because...

The groceries came!

Shawn called to talk about the dentist appt right as grocery delivery dude was leaving.

Then I packed away the groceries

Then I ate lunch

Then I wrote this.

 

WHEW!

 

I have a few more little things to take care of today and if my head starts to feel better I may call Francis (my neighbor that fell down) and see if she is up for a visit.  Only if my head is feeling better though.  I don't have it in me to try to control my kids at the rehabilitation center when my head hurts like this.

 

Just took 2 excedrine, that should help.  I'm not going to risk the Rx stuff, it seemed to make me loopy the last time I took it, which is fine if Shawn is home or if I don't have to drive.  Since he is not and I have to drive to pick him up later, it is best not to risk it.

 

Love, Jen

I just finished submitting my grocery order to the store on line.  The way it works is you create an account, then you browse by "aisle" and choose what foods you want to buy, adding them to your cart.  When you are finished you choose your delivery day and time frame.  Delivery charges vary based on how quickly you want it, then what time of day, then whether you want a 2 or 4 hour time frame.  Delivery is free on your first order, which is why I tried it the first time. 

 

I'm here to tell you, that delivery fee is worth it.  And I'm not just saying that because I usually walk to the grocery store! 

 

The ability to sit down at my computer and take my time browsing and comparing deals is great.  Even better?  Being able to get up and walk into my kitchen to see if I have something for that sudden deal inspired dinner idea, or to check to see how much we have left of something else.  Best of all?  I can add to my cart all I want, and then go through at the end and with a click of the button I can "put back" anything that I don't really need or want. 

 

Think about that!  How many times have you gone to the grocery store and come home with a thing or two that you really shouldn't have bought?  How many times has the cashier totalled your order and it's been quite a bit more than you meant to spend?  That happened to me A LOT.  I can't do math in my head.  I can't keep track of what I'm spending as I put things in the cart and our grocery bill was out of control because of it.

 

I like to do one big shop per pay period with an additional small trip 1/2 way until the next pay day for fresh fruits and veggies and dairy.  Big trips were running $200-$250 and small trips were about $100.

 

My first big online trip was $115 and I had two small trips in between: $22 and $16.  I had planned for this big trip to last us one week and with the two smaller trips it has stretched to two weeks.

 

I just placed my order for this coming pay day's big trip and it came to $176 including $6.95 delivery fee.  I have planned 2 week's worth of meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) from the food in this order, with 2 dinners being "eat out".  I will have to do at least one small trip for milk (Have I ever mentioned that Wesley is a Milk-a-holic?), but that is AMAZING!

 

The store that offers this service is the same one that I've complained to friends about (the bagger that throws stuff in bags willy nilly and drives me crazy), but the internet orders do not come from that store and I have to say the abilty to control the total cost of my order is enough for me to over look Crappy Bagging Lady.  As long as I don't have to watch her tossing my melon on top of my eggs.  Or my can of green beans on top of my loaf of bread.  Probably best for me to stop there.  LOL

 

Wesley loves the other store that has the free babysitting so I will still plan to do our small trip there, it'll just be every other week instead of three weeks out of the month.  I always have shopped the Crappy Bagging Lady / Internet Order store for one big shop a month so that I can get my 10 cent gas discount.  The only perk Free Babysitting store offers is the free babysitting and their prices are usually a little bit higher, but I always justify it by telling myself that playgroup once a week for Wes would be more that the cost difference in the groceries.

 

OK is anyone still reading this?  Am I just babbling?  I started my new preventative headache Rx medicine tonight and I think it made me a little bit drunk / high.  It warned that it might have this side effect for a while until I got used to it.  I wonder if it is really making me feel loopy or if I am having placebo affect.

 

Either way the darn dryer will not stop beeping at me to come get the whites out of it.  At 11pm at night.  That dryer has no conception of when it is appropriate to beep nor does it care that I shouldn't have to go fold laundry at 11pm at night.  The damn thing just BEEP BEEP BEEPs at me like it is my fault for forgetting to turn it on a couple of hours ago and not wanting to leave a load of wet clothes in it over night.  BEEP BEEP BEEP.

 

My head hurts, but not terribly so.  I can't take any more "after headache starts" Rx medicine because I took some yesterday and the doctor has me all terrified of rebound headaches.  I would consider excedrine, but it has caffiene and I want to go to sleep soon.

 

Shawn teased me that he is goign to make a video of me like that dude did of his little boy after the dentist.  Ha!  Is this real life?

 

I was going to say something but I forgot what.

 

Damed if that dryer didn't just beep at me again.  I think it's trying to tell me something.

I finished painting the bathroom today!  Well, except the trim, but that is not very much and besides it is a different color so it doesn't count.  LOL

 

I did the dishes (they were kinda bad) and I packed most all of them away.

 

I went through all the crap on the kitchen counter (oooh I hate stuff on the counters, it's been bugging me) and they are mostly cleared off now.

 

First thing this morning after taking Coco to school Wes and I went to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine that they didn't have the other night.  They had Coco's, but mine still hadn't come it.  I'll try again this weekend.  While I was there I got some cards.

 

Shawn's mom's birthday is this Friday, my sister Diana's birthday is next Friday, my sister Becky found out today that she is expecting a little girl in mid August, and I found the cutest card for my neighbor who fell.  It had a picture of a bull dog on the front of it andif you look closely you can tell it is supposed to look like clothes.  It said "Tina is so tough she has a bull dog on her poodle skirt" and when you open it up it says "You are tougher than that".  I think she will get a kick out of it.

 

What else?  Anything?  What on earth did I do today?  I guess that is it. :)

 

Love, Jen

 

I did make Wesley's two doctor's appointments.  Yay!

I did not call attorneys.  I'm dragging my feet because I just don't want to do it.  Unforntunately there are things that you HAVE to do and this is one of them.

I did, however, update the list I keep of our important information so that if anything does happen while we are away... well I just don't want to finish that thought.

I made out the calendars for now through June and wrote Wesley's appointments on them.

Cleaned up the computer room quite a bit.

Finished the Robert Parker book I was reading and read "Once a Princess" by Johanna Lindsey.  Cute book but not a lot of research for a "historical".  The few bits seemed "forced in", if you know what I mean.

Unloaded the dishwasher (but did not reload it)

Shawn motivated the kids to tidy up the living room some when he got home from work.  It's not in tip top shape, but it is a heck of a lot better than it was.

I didn't finish painting my bathroom today.

I didn't pick up the prescriptions from the pharmacy (one for Colleen and the rest of mine that they didn't have yesterday)

I did take the garbage out... well, the cans are at the curb.  I still need to go around to the little cans in the various rooms and empty those out.  I'll do it tomorrow morning.

I did not walk up to McDonalds and buy a sweet tea.  I did drink 3 cans of Mt Dew (shameful!) and I ate most of a king size candy bar (what's worse than shameful?)

 

Before Coco went to bed tonight, I made my first attempt at following the doctor's written instructions for where all the different creams go on her body.  I ended up only using two.  I am going to re-write the instructions tomorrow so that they are easier to read and more clear.  The ezcema seems to go in cycles.  It will be terrible for a few days, she'll shred herself to ribbons from all the scratching, and then it almost seems to heal over night.  Like the other weekend when Mo had her bodyshop party.  Thursday Coco was still pretty bad, but by Saturday afternoon it looked faded and on the mend.  Maybe I need to keep an ezcema diary for Colleen (I'll add it to the headache and sleep diaries I am supposed to be keeping! HA!).  It might help me spot a trend though.  I strongly suspect a food allergy.  I also strongly suspect that the allergy doctor I took her to might not have done the allergy test right or something.  My gut is telling me that this is a food allergy and I don't care that his test accounts for 97% of all food allergies or whatever crap he told me.

 

What else?  Wes had a huge long temper tantrum today, at least an hour long.  He is still learning how to deal with these feelings of autonomy that he has versus not always getting his way.  My memory is fuzzy, but I think Colleen was the same way at this age.  I mustn't do it, but it is so hard not to laugh at him when he is all worked up.  His face gets beet red and he gets this look in his eyes, like "What can I throw or hit that will make me feel better but also not piss Mom off too much?"

 

Shawn went up to bed a few minutes ago.  It is very rare that I am the one that stays up later!  I'm going to head on up now.  It's late (12:23am) anyways and I am hoping I can catch him before he is asleep so that I don't wake him up with my fumbling around and "pillow nest arranging".  Poor Shawn.  I have at least 5 pillows (yes, sometimes more!) and he makes do with one.  I blame it on that fairy tale: The Princess and the Pea.  LOL!

 

Here's hoping I get more done tomorrow!

 

Love, Jen

 

 

Today was crazy busy.  Crazy. Busy.  I'm barely awake to write this!

 

 

Tomorrow I need to call and schedule Wesley's 6 month check up with his Ortho (I want to try to get it for around his birthday so that it is easy to remember) and I need to schedule his 4 year well child check.  He'll need shots for preschool, I'd imagine, although they accepted him based on the records I already had from Charlotte.  Seems like I need to schedule something for me too.  I can't remember what right now.  Oh well.  I also need to take my vitamin D Rx tomorrow.  I also need to call our legal plan and get attorney references, for a couple of thinngs.  Mainly, I need to get our wills finalized before Shawn and I get on a plane together to Vegas.  There have been too many crashes lately and I'm a little jittery about it.  Oh, and finish painting bathroom.  Must get all painting finished by the day before Easter.  That is when my mom comes out and I want the place to be as "done" as possible so that it makes as good a first impression as it can.  :)

 

OK gotta go, I'm exhausted.  :)

 

Love, Jen

 

HA!

 

Shawn and I signed up for a weight management program through his work.  It sounds like a terrific program and I think we could have done well on it, but for two things: The time commitment was going to be tough.  Shawn's busy at work and it is hard for me to find a sitter for Wes for my appointments.  The other thing is the cost.  Even though most of the cost is subsidized through his job, the portion we would be responsible for just isn't able to be worked into our budget at this time.   We could try to go through it one at  a time starting in August or so, but we'll see.  For now I've made the commitment to stop being so irresponsible towards myself and my family and start making healthier food and taking more time to excersize.

 

Wesley was bugging for a "nack" (snack, he just leaves the "s" off).  I asked him if he wanted to share a cucumber with me and he said "No!".  I waited a little while, then quietly got the cucumber ready.  I sprinkled a little salt on his to aid in my deception.  I put them in his "nack" bowl.  I asked him if he wanted to try some new potato chips.  He was interested, but wary.  I told him they were cool green chips and that all the big boys who play sports eat them.  I ate a few and acted like they were so good that I changed my mind about sharing with him.  Naturally, he HAD to have them, right then and there.  Turns out he loves his new "beg-ee-tible chip nack" that is "heawfy for my body".

 

I am proud of Wes and I!  We took a step in the right direction.  :)

 

I was posting pictures to Facebook the other day and I happened to find some from when Wesley first had his cast removed (from surgery in June) and he was trim and healthy looking.  To see him now, to see how overweight I have allowed him to become, is humbling and a major wake up call. 

 

It's one thing to disrespect my own body by eating junk and sitting on my butt.  It is entirely different to set my beautiful son up for an even worse fat by becoming obese in childhood.

 

We are going to put Coco in ballet lessons this summer.  I've been trying to think of what we can do for Wes and I have it narrowed down to either gymnastics or martial arts.  We were going to do swim lessons at our community pool but Colleen's dermatologist said that wasn't the best idea with her skin.  The chlorine will irritate and dry and her out and the medicines she is on advise to limit sun exposure.

 

Well, that is all I've got for now.  My house is quite untidy and I aim to resolve that before Shawn gets home from work tonight.  I've got Coco's room, Wesley's room, the downstairs TV room, the living room, and the kitchen to tidy up.  The rooms should take 1/2 hour to 45 minutes each.  Maybe a little less.  The computer room is a disaster area (totally my fault), if I have time I really ought to work on that.  I also want to hang our curtain rods and valances in our room, and iron the new shower curtain and valance.  Plus fold that load of whites, and the towels, and pack away the clean dishes from the dishwasher.  *sigh* I've got my work cut out for me today!

 

Love, Jen

One of the biggest reasons I have been "for" the dealth penalty is my assumption that keeping a prisoner in jail for life is more expensive than executing them.  I have not personally looked into the claims of this article (I don't always take journalist's claims as 100% fact), but it is food for thought.

 

I'm posting it here so that I can look at it in more detail later.

 

After much procrastinating and dragging of feet, I finally photographed my St. Patrick's Day ornaments and posted them for sale on Etsy.  It took me 24 photos to come up with the 3 I used (and one of those 3 is blurry!).  Photographing the ornaments is NOT my strong suit.

 

The link is: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21899572

 

I hope I figured shipping right, that is my big concern.  I may package one up for shipping and go put it on the scale at the post office just to see.  I sold some stuff on eBay once and grossly underestimated shipping.  I felt like I couldn't charge more because it was my own fault and I ended up PAYING to "sell" the stuff to the auction winner.  I don't think I've ever listed something for sale on eBay again.  LOL

 

Mo, if you are reading this, do NOT buy the ornament from Etsy.  Ben's is special, already set aside just for him and we've already discussed my fee.  LOL  :D

 

Wish me luck, guys!  If they don't sell now I am not really concerned, I'll just add them to my stock for Christmas.  There's lots of interest in "things Irish" at Christmas time. 

 

Yay!  I finally did it!

 

Love, Jen

Saturday I primed and painted the ceiling.  The light, fluffy, delicious orange works perfectly with the turquoise walls.  You'd think it would look garish or like a carnival, but it doesn't at all.  The shades are very restful and soothing.

 

Today I finished painting the turquoise walls up to the ceiling, the tedious cut-in part.  My arms were shaking by the time I was done.  :)

 

We brought up the headboard, night stands, the tall mirror, all the drawers, the bamboo chair and ottoman, the curtain rods, and curtains.  The "turquoise" curtains are not going to work - too much green, not enough blue in them.  I'm not sure what color I am going to exchange them for.  The white curtains on the "marshmallow" walls aren't exactly floating my boat either.  Decisions, decisions.

 

The lamps are too big for the night stands.  I may just ignore the proportional difference.  We'll see.  I'm very attatched to the lamps.  I'm sure it will all work out in the end.

 

The chair works perfectly in the room.  AND it's comfy, even without any pillows or cushions.  I almost fell asleep in it earlier.

 

We haven't brought the two dressers up, they are heavy and we are pretty sure they will not fit through the doorway openings if we try to bring them up from the garage through the inside of the house.  So we are holding out for daylight and a relatively dry day and we will bring them out the big garage doors, up the driveway, through the front yard and front door, then up the stairs.  Our plan is to angle them in the hallway and into Wesley's room to get the angles right to bring them into our bedroom.  I'm not sure why I just wrote this plan out, but I did, so there you have it.

 

My head hurts.  It's hurt almost all weekend and I squandered my migraine medicine on the headache from either yesterday or Friday.  I can't tell if that one was worse or if this one is, but the way I see it, the head ache you have right now is almost always worse than the headache you had a few days ago.  I'm not sure if I have posted about the headaches or not.  If not, the short story is that I have been getting headaches with increasing frequency and intensity over the past year or so.  They've finally gotten bad enough that I went to the doctor for it.  My primary care doc couldn't find a reason for them, so he referred me to a neurologist.  The neurologist has them diagnosed as migranes right now, but we aren't sure that is exactly right.  I'm going to have an MRI sometime this week to rule out anything more "sinister", but I am confident the MRI is going to come back clean.  The doc suspects it will be fine as well, but he said he has to do the test because if he didn't and it turns out there was something there, it would be negliagence on his part.  The migraine medicine he gave me (Maxalt  sp?) seems to take the edge off, but it does not completely get rid of the headaches.  I can't say for sure that it works any better than excedrine (which also doesn't totally stop them). 

 

OK that is all I can think of for now.  I'm pretty tired.  It's 12:30am and I have to get Coco to school in the morning.  So I'm off to "honk shu" as Wesley would say.

 

Love, Jen