I Take It Back – Thar She Blows.

So last night the Hubs took the girls around the neighborhood to see all the amateur neighborhood pyrotechnics' at play.

Might I say the temp was a bit nippy. So I stayed home with the boys and we watched from the front porch.

The booms, and grand sha-bangs went on and on and on from late afternoon to midnight.   Around dinner time we had to chase our noise crazed dog down, actually a generous spirit brought her to our door.  Poor Itchy can’t stand the Fireworks and I forgot to bring her inside when the Crackers started to be lit off around the neighborhood in the late afternoon.

For dinner we loaded the kids with Watermelon, Corn-on-the-Cob, Chips, and Hot Dogs!  You know, real healthy patriotic food.  Hope loved it and was proudly displaying her gorged stomach right before walking around the neighborhood with Dad.

When they came home we sent the kiddo’s to bed but let Hope crawl in bed with us as we watched the Big City’s display on our little, itty-bitty TV screen. 

Then came the real show.  Prince Erik started yelling something incoherent dealing with my name and by the time I turned my head in his direction I caught the tail end of Hope empting her dinner all over him and our bed.  Oh (Sarcastic) Joy!  Have to say that I’m a bit glad he was the target and not myself.

Well, Prince Erik has told me I have to eat my words.  See a couple of weeks ago I had to mention that our 4–year–old was a better sickie than he was.

This much I can say, I didn’t hear it coming.  So she definitely is a quieter sick person than my husband.  And even though she had us up nearly every hour last night, you know, with losing more out of one end or the other – she always made it to the bathroom after the first initial explosion. 

So I say it’s a draw.  That and her up-chuck doesn’t smell nearly as bad as Prince Erik’s, nor does she complain as much.  So I’m not going to eat my words just yet.  But it did make for a very sleepy day today.  Thankfully I got a nap.

When Sick and Tired is Contagious!

Thank your lucky stars that this post does not contain pictures.

Usually I can handle losing sleep and cleaning up after sick kids.  Usually!  However when the sick kid happens to be a beloved spouse… well then,  in that case, it gets on my nerves a wee bit.  Just a wee bit.  Still love the guy.  And seeing that he doesn’t get sick very often I usually let his poor patient routine slide.  Last night however begins my sick and tired story. 

Now as a rule I avoid all negative comments about my Prince, unless it’s referring to his lack of fashion sense.  I don’t see the point in harping on his weaknesses as I probably have a pile more of them than he does.  But at 4:00 a.m. this morning I told him that I just couldn’t pass this blog opportunity up.  And he consented, in fact he almost cracked a smile.  I’m sure he agrees wholeheartedly that he is the worst sick person on the planet.

Thus begins my cautionary tale of the husband that can’t stand SICK.  Poor guy comes home from work complaining of an upset stomach.  Says he feels a bit nauseous.  Which is a warning that he will go around moaning and groaning about how upset his stomach is.  He avoids throwing-up at all costs.  In fact in the 20 plus years of marriage I can count on one hand the times that he has lost his cookies.  Now, if he were sensible he’d let it come out.  You almost always feel better after you up-chuck.  But the poor guy dreads it so much he goes to bed miserable.  And for the next three plus hours I don’t get that much sleep as he is constantly rolling around in bed moaning and trying to get relief only through change of sleeping positions.

Now lest you paint me as the unsympathetic wife of a tortured husband.  He really just had a case of the 24 hour stomach flu,  no appendicitis, or gall / kidney stones, or even hernia.  Just the stomach flu.

Then at 2:30 a.m. he sprints for the bathroom.  And I hear the results before he even left our bedroom.  You would think the guy was being gutted by aliens in a third rate B horror movie.  And I’m clearly surprised that our children were not awakened by his thundering hurling noises (and I’m now told by Lea that she did hear).  You would think he was literally spilling his guts, not just the contents of an upset stomach.  Clearly throwing up only 4 times in 20 years is not nearly enough practice on judging how quickly you can make it to the toilet before the spew happens.  He didn’t make it.

Here’s where the sick and tired becoming contagious comes into play.  I mercifully got up to help the poor soul out. Lets just say he nailed the whole bathroom floor, walls, and whatever else happened to by lying in close proximity.  And as we commented on the dreaded results of him putting off the inevitable, we both came to the conclusion that 4 year old Hope does a better job of hitting the target bowl when sick, than he does.

I get brownie points for sending him back to bed and staying up to clean up the mess.  He did admit to feeling better.  Like Shrek says, ‘Better Out, than In.’  I however doubt that he’ll remember the next time he’s feeling this lousy, say five years from now.

  I didn’t get back to bed until around 4, but by then, the smell had permeated my nose to the effect that sleep was driven clean out of my head.  Dear Prince Erik was slumbering quite nicely. 

He even took a four hour morning nap.  He did mention that he wasn’t feeling too good again this afternoon.  This time I handed him a large Rubbermaid container and kindly reminded him that if he missed the toilet he was cleaning up his mess.  Then I left to go find something meaningful to do in a room far, far, away. 

Meanwhile, somewhere in the back of my head I remember having a conversation with my beloved’s mother years ago after another such incident.  I hear he takes after his dad in this regard.  Don’t quote me as saying that because I’m running on little sleep here.  And I realized just how much better sickies my girls are over my boys.  Is it just mine, or do boys naturally have a harder time making it to the bathroom when sick?  This is not a scientific study that I personally wish to pursue or keep hard data on.  But who is better at being sick you or your spouse?

Enter a Post Title Here cause I can’t think of one.

I was away this weekend and all the sewing I was planning on doing, well, it didn’t get done.  Big Surprise (Imagine that Big Surprise dripping with sarcasm and you've got it right.)

I spent Saturday split between hacking up a lung and visiting the doctor; all the while, getting evil looks from everyone in the clinic.  You’d have thought me a walking bomb.  Imagine the nurse trying to talk my pulse, and look down my throat, while standing six feet away.  They should have just donned some bio-hazard suits.  Then it was off to wait in line with a bazillion other sick people waiting to get their prescriptions filled.  Three weeks was way to long to have a cough and I had finally developed a fever so the Hubster ordered that I go visit the clinic.  What a fun day.

Broncitis again – Drat.  That’s twice in four months.  Not fair.  But I’m happily drugged up and hopefully on the mend.  I’m thankful for Drugs, and I’m thankful it’s not H1N1.

Knock on wood.  Okay, I’m pounding on wood hoping that one skips our family.  I’ve been out of action way to long and my house will self-implode with clutter if we catch any other nasty bug.

I had the most wonderful witty Family Christmas Letter ready to post yesterday, but the place I was staying at didn’t have internet service and the most ROTFL post I’ve ever written accidently got deleted.  Maybe, sometime later this week I’ll attempt to find that humorous magic and enthrall you with what a real Family Christmas Letter should read like.  Meanwhile I’m Thankful that I have Internet again.

Needless to say, after once again venting on the downers of the weekend.  I’m thankful it’s over.  Thankful for modern medicine, Thankful for watching umpteen episodes of ‘Clean House’ (you know building up motivation for when I can move again without coughing up a cow), and Thankful for my awesome Prince who did all the dishes tonight.  I’ll be even more thankful if someone wants to fold that mountain of clean clothes on my bed. 

Waiting…

Okay,  I knew that 0ne was wishful thinking.  I guess I’m thankful there is a pile of clean clothing instead of dirty laundry.   Thankful, Thankful, Thankful. 

Thankful to do Nothing

So I’ve been a bit under the weather for a couple of days.  And today I did absolutely nothing but lay around, read magazines, and sip spiced hot cider.  Even though it stinks to be sick, it’s a little nice to have a good excuse to by lazy.  Took pictures, but misplaced my camera.  And I was so looking forward to sharing some of that spiced hot cider with you.  So I’m thankful for a lazy day.

Now I’ll be even more thankful if this cough leaves me soon.  

Demands from the Prince

So Prince Erik demanded I get better.  He said he refuses to let me be sick any longer.  I think the laundry and dishes for 8 people have finally got to him.  He’s only been, kind of, doing them for two weeks now and honestly the house looks like a hurricane hit, war zone, jungle overgrowth, you name it.  Not entirely his fault,  I slacked on getting the kids to pitch in, or even clean up their messes when they  made them.

You’d think I was faking or something so I finally hauled my body to the Dr. (for the second time) and the Dr. confirmed I was still sick.  Something about a sinus/respiratory infection.  It helped that I couldn’t stop coughing and still had a fever.   I walked away with several different kinds of medicine and a Dr’s note for my husband that said I could continue to laze about like an overgrown couch potato.  Well the note didn’t quite say that.  Hopefully the meds will kick in fast.

He took his demand for a housekeeper back and is working from home today so he can get the kids off to school and cater to my every whim.  There’s something criminal about kids still being in school with June being almost over.

Honestly I would rather be doing a million things from weeding my secret garden, de-junking and de-germing my house to getting ready for Fairy day  than to be held hostage by a stupid sick bug.  I really don’t like being unproductive. 

And I so wish you could just demand your illnesses away.  And I totally get Prince Erik’s point of view.  If I had to do my job and his too, because he was lying in bed or on the couch reading or playing video games while making obnoxious  phlegm-expelling sounds, it would get old really fast.  I don’t think I’d have his patience.  I’d probably demand he get better too.  Poor guy.  At least we can be grateful that he hasn’t caught whatever it is that attacked me.  Imagine two whining unproductive parents.  Now that would be a nightmare. 

Bless Him

In the past three days I’ve done absolutely nothing around the house.  Haven’t picked up one thing off the floor, washed one load of dishes, or laundry for that matter.  Had my drinks delivered too me in bed while reading to my hearts content. 

Why so spoiled?

Maybe because I’m the queen of this house.

Our family has been attacked by the phlegm/fever monster to the Nth degree.

First Hope and Princess succumbed to it’s nastiness.  Gaining double ear infections, pink eye, rampant fever’s and juicy spewing coughs.  It wasn’t long before their chief nurse (Me) caught up with them.  

Does anyone know where we could purchase these here hats?

Prince Erik has been wonderful – taking care of the kids and house.  I’m afraid that he may shortly follow my footsteps because he’s starting to show signs of stuffiness in the head.  Poor Guy!

I pray I’ll feel better soon because there’s an unpleasant aroma leaking out of the laundry room.  And if I can smell it through my stuffy nose it must be bad. 

That and the tender seedling in my garden are  pitifully crying for relief from and slugs and snails that ravage their tender shoots nightly.  And the weeds are threatening to strangle what life is left in their little munched on bodies.

Until then I’ll continue to be a good girl and relax as Dr. Prince Erik has suggested I do.  Hopefully speeding my recovery.

I know, in between wiping my nose and making frequent visits to the master throne room I can relax by visiting a wonderfully soothing blog that Beth at Road To Joy turned me onto called

Button Willow Cottage.

I go there often when I want to connect with my inner Anne-girl.

Another place I love to  take extended brain vacations at is with Vanessa of A Fanciful Twist…

In fact I’m fully intending on joining Vanessa at her upcoming Mad  Tea Party on June 27th.  You should come too.

As you know I’m quite mad already and any excuse to dress wild and crazy with my kids is just too much fun to resist.

And while relaxing with my tissue’s and books in bed I can still dream of someday getting a real spa day.  Until then I be happy if Jodi of Beacon of Hope could get her secret wish.  She wants to win a year of spa days and be Sego Lily Day Spa’s Blogger.  Vote for her to win and at least I can get a vicarious spa day every now and then.  Go HERE and leave a comment for her to win.

O.K. now that I’m feeling totally relaxed except for the stuffy hot-head fit to burst I think I'll find another book to read.  And plan on how to pamper my husband when he falls prey to this vicious illness.

Too Much Information

I was going to take pictures of these moments today but I didn’t want to get my kids to get arrested for indecent exposure. So I will try and feed you a mental image of what those around us saw today.

Picture #1. Eleven year old boy steps out of the family tank in the church parking lot wearing…

· One red tee-shirt reading, ‘What, I just went to school yesterday.’

· Long black exercise shorts

· And get this, Roller blades with black socks. I wonder who his daddy is?

After a couple of laps up and down the church parking lot, he decided that he didn’t want to wear the above mentioned attire in the chapel (big sigh of relief here). Fortunately we had brought his Sunday clothes with us and he changed and made it to church before the opening song had ended. I’m just grateful that he came, regardless of how he was dressed.

Picture #2. Three sweet, impressionable deacons (12, 13 year old boys) came by our home to collect fast offerings this evening and were greeted at the door by none other than my darling Hope in nothing more than a diaper. At least she wasn't in just her birthday suit. By the way, she was in the middle of getting ready for bed.

‘Hi, how are you?’ She greeted them cheerily.

They, of course, were nervously giggling, and had their eye’s bugging out of their heads as they tried to discretely avert their gaze to count cobwebs on our ceiling. My husband hollered for Abner to come and get her while I desperately tried to find our last checkbook. Hopefully their minds won’t be permanently damaged.

I know that was probably too much information.

Well I tried going to church today, tried being the key word. After the first hour, I got a lift home from a great friend. I gave up after about 10 different people told me I looked like…, well I looked like I felt. To be honest I felt like Jabba the Hut, especially when I would try and chase Hope down the hallway. All slow motion and no energy, is not what you need when you’re chasing a two year old speed demon. My friends at church didn’t tell me directly that I looked like a giant slug, but I must have still looked green enough to have so many different people comment. Maybe they thought I was going to infect everyone, I don’t know. I didn’t feel too contagious because I’ve taken all my anti-biotics, and have been around my husband for two weeks without him as much as catching a sniffle. To be honest, I’m feeling like my bark is slowly improving. I don’t hack nearly as often or juicy as I did a week ago. Oh, thank you cough medicine with codeine, you are a true friend.

However, that being said, still feeling like a slug, can’t be good news. It’s probably because I have tried to work through this illness and haven’t really rested. It’s just so darn hard to watch the house fall to pieces when you sit around and do nothing. How bad can it be to keep tidying up as opposed to sitting and stewing? I guess bad enough to make me feel like Jabba. So I promised my Prince Erik I would take an official couple days off from my job. I might have to lock myself in a room somewhere and wear earmuffs to keep from hearing the kids destroy things, and feel the need to come to the rescue. I don’t know we will see how it goes.

Meanwhile let's hope the fashion police are not on patrol because my husband will be dressing the kids for the next couple of days.

If You Give A Mom An Illness...

She’s probably going to ask for a day off.

When you give her the day off.

The Kids are Guaranteed to run amok.

And Kids amok means more clutter.

When mom see’s the house is cluttered.

She’ll really want to avoid it.

Then Dad will tell her the appraiser, because you’re refinancing,

is coming in three days.

She’ll decide she’s not that sick.

So she loads the truck with trash,

And when she starts the engine there will be a

funny smell.

Because a rodent (maybe chasing food crumbs left by six kids)
crawled in the vent somewhere and died.

Being as she is already sick, she will send husband to the dump instead.

Then she will decide to take the family tank to the Dr.

And when she starts the vent on the family tank.

It smells kind of engine-smell funny and won’t defrost.

So she drives blindly to the Dr.'s anyway.

And he tells her that she has

walking pneumonia.

So she goes home and get’s hormonal crazy (monthly thing) on her husband because...

Two cars, the entire house, and his head need fixin,

and Because mom is really sick,

And chances are if mom is sick,

She is going to want a day off!!!

P.S. What do you suppose the chances are that it will then snow, and the non-homeschooled kids won't go to school? And suppose they will stay home two whole days, and make an even bigger mess around the house, after having loads of fun in the snow. Chances are... 100%.

What? Even Hope is out to get me.

Scary Hair

Warning: All the good home improvement pictures you are about to view, actually happened before Fawndear got incapacitated with dreaded sickness known as flu-nasty cold. So if you’re hoping for some more wows pic's, well they just ain’t coming this week. A couple of opp’s, did I do that pictures? But hey, what can you expect from a sickie. Here is my biggest before and after pictures for today. It’s called Miss Scary Hair. Hope has beautiful natural curls. Her grandpa even calls her his Little Shirley Temple. Well first thing in the morning she is little Miss Scary Hair.

So I made it my one goal of the day to wash it, comb it and throw in a fancy barrette, guaranteed to last all of 30 seconds, while I take a picture. She then promptly pulls it out and hands it to me to put in again. We do this routine about 4 or 5 times before I intentionally get distracted and somehow lose the hair bauble so I won’t have to put it in again.

Yes, folks, those curls are all natural. We call it comb and curl. Awfully cute now, but guarenteed to be a big pain to comb as she grows up.

Last weekend before the nasty bug visited us I was able to get another load off to the thrift store. See that wine cups in the center. Had them eight years and the box was still sealed. Never used them. Don't know what I was thinking buying them when I don't even drink wine. Maybe I was thinking of making them dessert cups or something? That just shows I really wasn't thinking, because, give my kids anything made out of glass, and it will be broken within a week.

And as for the future mud room. Here it was last week.

O.K. I know this doesn't look good. But when we moved the washer dryer to the new laundry room we had to open up some walls to re-route some water and electrical lines. Well we just never closed them back up again. That's my next project.

Note to self: Don't attempt home improvement while your head is stuffy and tummy is doing flip flops. It may be too distracting. In trying to remove the old dryer hose attachment, I thought the best way to loosen the blasted vent would be to give it a few little old harmless kicks.

Duh, behind the vent was the wall in our entry way. Nice job, don't you think. Fawndear kicked the vent right through and now we have a nice hole in the wall, in an entirely different room.

But, Ive learned my lesson, I've gone back to the sickness Acceptance stage where I don't care and just want to get better. My flu is done and over with but I've been attacked with the plague of the barking seals and stuffed-up-so-if-feels-like-it's-going-to-explode head. I'm fine if I just don't move. So I'll sit around and maybe work on my brillant idea for my blog title picture. I can't wait until I finish it because I'm so excited that I thought about it. It could be that it's a horrible idea but I'm too stuffed up to know anything. Hopefully I will have it, as well as my new mud room done as soon as this nasty bug has left. Let's just hope that happens soon.

stages of sickness

Denial: The only reason your feeling queasy is because you’ve been cleaning up everyone else’s lost cookies, including the cats. Who wouldn’t feel rotten with those associated smells. Plus you worked out for only 30 minutes but your muscles felt like they had just finished that blasted half-marathon again. You've probably just been working out too long and your body wants a day off.

Acceptance: Can’t deny the fever any longer. You still have to wear three layers of clothes, and the only way you can stay warm is to curl up on the couch, under a blanket, with your feverish two year old. But acceptance isn’t all that bad. You can lay around in your P.J.’s all day long, sip fruit smoothies occasionally, cancel appointments that you really didn’t want to go to in the first place, only pull your self from a prone position to visit the bathroom to lose the smoothies or take a bubble bath. Plus you get to let the house fall apart and be too tired to care, or have guilt about it. Wow, and you can lose a couple of easy lbs without even trying.

Reality: Can also be Called the Sick and Tired phase – with more movement. Yes you still feel like something the cat dragged in from the local garbage dump, but your sense of smell is returning, and your eyesight improves to the point where you see the damage that can be reeked with mom taking a single day off. With that, the guilt comes back. And even if you still don’t feel like eating, the kids still need to eat. How is it that losing a couple of pounds to sickness makes you feel a hundred pounds heavier when you climb the stairs? Oh and I get to add another thing to my list of what brings on my tremors – anything, while sick. The girls still need school but I’ll hit them heavy with Signing Time DVD’s so I don’t have to do anything strenuous or actually use my brain today.

On the mend – O.K. Well I’m not there yet. I’m still in the Sick and Tired phase, but the good news is T-Rev, Princess, and Hope are all feeling a wee bit better. They just sound like barking seals now. Lea, Abner and I are still feeling sick and tired. Evo-man wants to be sick in the worst way but so far has avoided the fever, nausea, cough, and lack of appetite and movement that would make me keep him home from school. He even admitted to me that his cough sounded fake this morning. So far six family members contracted the dreaded flu-like illness. The jury is out on when and if the other two will catch it. As for me I'm going to go back and crawl under a blanket on the couch with Hope. Maybe I'll even try and feebly copy the signs we are learning.

At War with Clutter & the Flu

My husband was dancing with joy because my friend came and mopped floors for me yesterday. However, the euphoria of clean floors didn’t last long, because pretty soon we had two sick kids getting them dirty again. Why is it that I seem to be the only one in our entire family who knows how to properly bow down before the porcelain throne? This is T-Rev’s third day of the flu. Usually we just get the one day stomach virus, and are back again the next day. This is the first time we have ever caught something that lasts this long. Today Princess joined him in the If-it-goes-down then it-must-come-up Club. I don’t really want to go into detail but I have cleaned up you know what, you know where, and then some. If this continues to spread throughout the rest of the family I think it will be a long couple of weeks.

On a cheerier subject, I thought since I was in the Before/After habit I would update you on my personal war with the Clutter Monster. We have almost won the battle in the School Room. I even braved teaching my girls in there to yesterday with great results. It kind of gave me an emotional boost as well. I think we were all tired of school being shuffled from room to car, back to room again. In our library/school room, I must have carted out 3-4 bags of trash, at least 3 bags of recycling, a couple large boxes of books to donate to the thrift store, a small bookshelf, and about 12 now-empty baskets. I’ll have to see if I can use them in organizing some of my other rooms. If not they will go to the thrift store as well. The battle did have its casualties. Princess was helping me shred a huge pile of papers, and thought she would be efficient by trying to shred them all at once. Needless to say, our faithful, but old, General Shredder’s motor couldn’t take all the stress and his little ticker gave up the ghost. Princess was devastated, because she was only trying to help. I need to get another one soon, because I have a garbage pail full of shredables. And the first person I’ll have help me shred is Princess. So, not to make this blog too wordy tonight, I’ll just throw in some pictures.

Caution!!! If messy rooms make you want to join my kids sick club then you might want to log off now. Remember these....

The school room was in drastic need of a Fawndear purge.

Ohhhhhhh, Awwwwwww...

Wow, well it's o.k.

So, I know your thinking, 'What's with the bike and the pink basket and the white droid?' The bike is temporary, until the wheather dries up and my husband can take it off the trainer and put it on the real road. As for the pink basket, it is strategically placed at Hope level, with coloring books and toys so she has something to do when I'm schooling with her older sisters. And the white droid thingie is an air-conditioning unit that I use in the summer. There is just no room in the garage for it right now...

Hey here is something that wasn't on my list, but I did it anyway.

I'll have to work on the brown color scheme, but I think it turned out swell, don't you?

So for my next project. O.K. here is the last little bit of the Library that I haven't finished, mainly because it mostly belongs to Prince Erik. He promised to sit down with me this weekend to work on it.

And, my old laundry room. It is now a shove-all room inbetween the hall and the new laundry room. See how you have to step over stuff just to go between. Pathetic, isn't it.

I want this little Harry Potter room to actually be a nice mud-room where my kiddo's can put their coats and backpacks and all those infernal shoes from the front porch that have taken up temporary residence in the hallway.

Until, my next accountablity post, wish me luck in the infirmary that is now my home. Oh, and I've got a really fawn-inspired idea on my artwork for my title page above. It will take me a bit to get it done. Just wanted you to know that I still do get some ideas every now and then. So keep checking back. Thanks for viewing my posts and the blessed mess I call home.