M+B=E2O2

Getting Better

Emma is finally on the mend.  She still has a wicked cough though.  When we have left the house and gone public have have gotten a few "looks".  I'm confident she's not contagious, but the cough sounds so bad I understand the looks really.  Owen tried going to TKD today, but he only lasted 30 minutes or so.  He seems so much better, but I had a feeling he would have a tough time doing such hard work.  We've been keeping busy around the house though.  Below are a few pictures of our projects.

Emma working on her  "book".  This was taken 4 days into 6 days of the flu.  She lost 6 pounds, 7% of her total body weight during this bout. 

Olivia decides to get in on the book making.

"See right here mommy, I made this for you."

We got some acrylic paint on Saturday and did something with one of our collections.

Here's the crowd painting some rocks.

Olivia was quite serious about it.

I LOVE this one that Evan made for us! He was so careful with the placement of each dot.

Here is one of Emma's

another of Emma's

Here's a long shot of the group.  The polka dot one in front is Emma's - she liked Evan's idea.

Guess which one is mine...

The First One Down

Evan with his "sock friend' on his ear.  I used to have (probably still do, just have no idea where) a lovely rice filled "pillow" that I used all the time when I was pregnant.  I draped it across my lower back as I slept.  I thought Evan would maybe feel a little bit better if he could apply warmth to his ear (nasty ear infection) but couldn't find my beloved rice pack so I improvised.  We have more lonely socks than we do pairs so I filled one up with rice and tied it in a knot.  As an afterthought I drew a face on it.  Evan loved it.  It didn't necessarily make his ear feel any better, but he loved having a warm friend. Antibiotics have done wonders and he is feeling sooooo much better.  Now we have to get the rest of the crowd feeling better.

This is his crystal that he made.  We have a green (or will it be blue?) one now.

My Weekend

Friday night we went to the yacht club for dinner.  We had invited our swim coach from college and his wife.  We had such a great evening!  Chef  made chicken Mole and chile verde- YUM!  It was great to relax and enjoy the company of good friends.  The kids ran around and played, battled, caught crabs and just had fun.  All and all a great night.  We came home and got the kids to bed then put on our recent obsession 24.  We are on season 3 near the end.  When it got to be around midnight  my tummy was hurting.  I didn't notice it so much watching 24- that show can tie up your stomach as it is! But once I went to lay down, man it hurt!  I could not fall asleep because of it.  I eventually got up and took some benadryl- which normally knocks me right out- Nothing.  At 4 am I finally gave up trying and come down to the computer for a while.  Olivia woke up at 4:30 so I went to her & got her settled back in.  I went back downstairs and got a heat pack and put it on my belly- that helped enough- the last time I saw the clock it was close to 6 am.  I slept until 9 or so then started my day.

Saturday night my friend put on a engagement/bridal party for our friend.  I helped her with bits and pieces of it.  Mainly I just brought some food- she did an amazing job setting up the yacht club- man it looked beautiful!  I spent all day Saturday making my two dishes.  I borrowed two recipes from my friend Maili.  I made Orzo Salad and Roasted Dates. Holy cow were they good!!  I had two huge platters of the dates-maybe 70 or so dates and I did not have even  one left over! I can not tell you how many complements on  it I got! The Orzo salad was fabulous as well. The recipe on her site called for arugula but i subbed it with spinach.  I also forgot to add the capers- which would have added another dimension of flavor to an already flavorful salad.  There was not much of that leftover either. I will definitely be making that salad around here again!  Maili has a book coming out in the fall, Football Food-  last I heard it was creeping up on amazon in pre-order sales- in the top 25 among other cookbooks- Way to go Maili! (I ordered 2, one for me one for my MIL). 

I felt ok much of Saturday, small aches  and crampiness that never quite left, but mostly ok.  By 8:30pm I was struggling to keep up a happy, pain free expression. I didn't fall asleep until after 3 am this time. 

Sunday morning I felt ok enough to go back to the yacht club for breakfast, ate a lovely plate of juevos rancheros.  We invited the IL's for breakfast and had a nice late morning meal.  (didn't get there until after 10). By 11:30 I was cramping up again and hurting.  What really sucked it that my friend was going out for a sailing practice for a womens one design  race coming up in October and they were short a few crew.  Ben offered to keep the kids so I could go, but my tummy hurt so much that I had to decline.  Damn.  Ben called in a script for me,something that helps with cramps.  I picked it up and came home.  Once home Ben did his doctor thing and listened to my gut, pushed and poked my sore tummy and declared that I should go to urgent care.  He wanted to have them rule out things like  UTI  and uterine problems.   My urine came back with slightly elevated white blood cells- so that is off being cultured, but is mostly likely nothing of consequence.  She also did a blood draw.  She took a second urine sample to do something else with.  I took the blood straight over to the hospital so we could get the labs back faster.  While there the CNP that I had seen called me and said they found blood in my second urine sample.  So off to CT I went to rule out(or in) kidney stones.  I do have two stones, however they are in the kidney and not the urinary tract, so they are not the issue.  Back to waiting for labs.  Oh and somehow the blood taken from me at the urgent care got gooed up so I got to have a second blood draw at the hospital.  Good times.  Ben and the kids came back to the hospital to get me and we went home.  I picked up some other meds at a different pharmacy since my own pharmacy closed at 5.  So I am now taking my thyroid medicine, anti-cramping medicine, antibiotics (until we get back my labs), probiotics, and tylonol as needed for pain.  sheesh.  

So today here I sit.  I had to cancel Bungee's vet visit, piano lessons, swim lessons and TKD.  I showered, and have had my bottom firmly planted to the couch,  heating pad resting on my tummy.  I am a bit afraid to eat anything since that seems to make it worse, and I am not particularly hungry anyway. 

I am already looking forward to bedtime.  Is that bad?

In case you hadn't noticed

I weighed in on Monday and I have officially lost 5 lbs!  (since the end of April & the beginning of a little contest between my friend and I).  Our final weigh in for the first month is on Friday the 30th.  I've already met my goal (4 lbs) but now I have to spend all week worried that I'll have some sort of freak 10 b weight gain. Ok well mostly I'm worried about a 2 lb fluctuation gain.  Over the course of a month, even when losing weight, I add a few lbs here and there- usually around or during my period.  I should

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Weird.  This post was supposed to be in draft mode- not published until I said- Publish.  (Hence the sentence that was left hanging.  yeesh. )

Well I did keep all my weight off (YAY) and me and my girl went to a local wine bar and had a perfectly wonderful night.  I'd go into detail but then you'd know that we indulged in yummy cheese, wine, Tuscan style fire baked pizza and (shhhh) we shared a piece of chocolate cappuccino pie thingy. Mostly it was great girl talk while the boys watched all the kids.  (That is a whole 'nother story)

Anyhow my intent was to blog about my crappy day today, but upon finding this here post unfinished I didn't get to do that did I?  Actually the day wasn't crappy, I was just in a crap mood right from the get go when a freakin bird started pacing my roof at 4am.   (We have a cathedral ceiling so I heard every dang step).  I am trying desperately to let go of my negative mood even now at 945pm.  Honest to God if that bird walks the roof again tonight I'll be out front in my jammies tossing rocks at the damn thing (and I really like birds normally- honest).

Peace out all-  maybe tomorrow I'll have my chance to write.  (Jenny I was also all geared up to share about the whole yearbook thing I'm doing too.)

Great Pacific Morning

Great Pacific Morning, originally uploaded by ourlibertybeach.

How lucky am I to live next door to this?  I love the smell of the air, the sound of the waves, the colors of the morning sun on the clouds.  Daisy and I have gone on our morning walk here the last two Saturdays.  Makes for a great workout- even a casual stroll is tough in the semi soft sand and I fall in love with the ocean again each time I get so close to it.

As it turns out

It's not a cold.  Ben believes I have walking pneumonia.  Yikes.  That's why I've been coughing up a lung it seems.  Seriously this last week especially at night but increasingly during the day I have been coughing like mad.  I've been drinking vats of honey and lemon tea before bed in hopes that I would be able to lay down with out hacking.  To no avail.  (my honey bear is almost gone!) The only way I've been able to get to sleep (once asleep I don't cough at all thankfully) is to take sudefed -since I have sinus headaches going on at the same time- and then benadryl to knock me out.  seriously.  This morning at 5am my dog wanted out so I got up.  I could feel the tickle in my throat.  I tried so hard to ignore it,knowing that if I started coughing it would be over.  I got back in bed and it was over.  Ben had gotten up and was downstairs getting ready to spin when he heard a particularly bad sounding coughing spell- it got me up and in the bathroom.  He came up and had me take some of Emma's albuterol.  It seemed to help a little. I was able to doze until I heard the microwave beeping and knew it had to be a kid. My chest hurts, I'm taking azithromycin and if I say more that 3 words I go into a fit  of coughing.  If I have to holler at the kids it's a word or two.  I feel sort of weak and shaky on top of all that.  This all makes me think of how much Uncle Jacque must have suffered.  his cancer was a cancer of the lungs.  He had deep pneumonia and major major infections going on in his last days.  I imagine what I'm feeling is a mere single digit percentage of what he had to deal with.  No one should have to die that way.  It just doesn't seem fair that if you have to die so young that it is slow and painful too. 

My Uncles funeral is happening as I type this.  I wish I could have gone. 

Alive and Well Thanks!

Yikes.  I have been going full steam ahead for the last week.  I am definitely feeling better, Thank you for asking :-)  That cold sure did kick my butt.  It also threw a bit of a wrench in my holiday preparing.  I am getting back on track though.  My to do list is about 25 long.  Not all of it has to be done by Christmas, about 75% of it.  *sigh* 

Here's one of  our activities today:

I made the houses a couple of days ago,  they pretty much did all the decorating on their own.  I helped Olivia glop on the frosting, and Emma asked me to help decorate some of hers, Evan too, but I pretty much tried to just glop on the frosting for all of them and have them do the placement of candy.  Olivia ate as much stuff as she put on, Evan too.  They were too cute!

We  made Russian teacakes today too.  It rained all day- great for the county, bad for the windows that have not been completely repaired.  They finished putting up the dry wall and texture over the weekend, and they put a bead of some sort of sealant around the outside since we knew the rain was coming. Todays rain ended up leaking through anyway. Today they were supposed to take out the windows and re set them properly, now it is looking like it may not happen until after the new year.  I just don't want any sort of construction stuff going on while my parents are here. *bigger sigh*

Yay!

We found out today that our homeowners insurance will cover the damage done in our downstairs bedroom.  Yippeeeee! The deductible is far less than the worst case scenario given by the contractor.  Feels as though a huge weight has been lifted.

Now if the fog would clear out of my brain life would be peachy. 

Dear TheraFlu

I hope you work well.  I don't enjoy being sick and feeling foggy.  Especially during any holiday festivities.  Please do your best to clear the fog and make my head stop hurting.  I will be your BFF I promise. 

Very sincerely yours,
Meesh

Eye See You

I had my vision checked today for the first time ever.  Well, I did have it checked as a kid at school once I think, but that's it.  I haven't been having any problems or anything, but thought it might be good to have a sort of baseline for the future.  My dad has recently had some vision issues, and given that my eye genetics seem to come from him, I wanted to see if there was anything I should be aware of- though currently the issue he has has no correction or cure. 

Over all my eye health is fantastic.  I see 20/15 in both eyes.  It was interesting to me to learn that I see better with my left eye.  It is only ever so slight, but definitely there.  I also had the pleasure of having my eyes dilated.  Blech!  Poor Emma having to have that done nearly every year! 

I am taking Evan and Olivia tomorrow to have their eyes checked.  I don't anticipate anything, but since my moms side all wear glasses, and needed them from very early on- there's always a chance that someone other than Emma will be part of that team.