Musings...

I bought a different kind of fabric softener than usual and I keep smelling it. It's a nice scent but my nose will not adjust. I guess I need not worry about my clothes smelling like horse after a trip to the barn, the horse smell may drown out the flowers.

The trashy neighbors across the street moved out. YAY, they left so much junk the landlord had a dumpster dropped off this morning in order to clean things up. The yard is horrid, I shudder to think what they've done to the inside of the place. Renters like that make me glad we've been able to keep from having renters in the house up in WI. I know all renters are not like that (we aren't!) but it only takes a couple of bad apples to spoil a whole barrell.

In case you haven't figured it out from my previous posts I'm starting to decorate some cakes now as a hobby. I've always done it some but wanted to get a little fancier with it. Yesterday I found an awesome coupon for 40% off of any item at Michael's. I figured a trip to Michaels was in order to use it and get some more neet gadgets, like a man with tools you can not have too many cake decorating things once you get going. I bought a little set of cutters to make sugar flowers that came along with a book. I got home opened the package, flipped through the book and left it on the kitchen counter. Hubby decided to let Sonny Boy help "cook" supper and Sonny Boy promptly slopped a cup or more of water on the kitchen cabinet, no big deal except for the fact that Hubby didn't bother to pick up the book and is soaked in water for over an hour before I discovered it. Needless to say my new book now looks like it's 20 years old. I'm not a happy camper. I don't even know if it's legible as it's made out of coated magazine paper which tends to stick together. I went through it last night and placed paper towels between each page and pressed it for a while, then ironed the pages to get most of the moisure out, replaced with dry towels and put it between two book for the night. I haven't had the umpth to get up and see how my rescue efforts faired. I am not amused.

Hubby and the boys did scrape the ugly sunflower border off the boy's bedroom walls this weekend. We had intended to removed it when we moved it but you know how that goes. We've been here so long now and gotten used to looking at it so we wouldn't have bothered but for some reason Sonny Boy decided to pick at it and tore up a good section of it so it was either leave it messed up or remove it. Now we have a room with the upper portion painted yellow and the lower paintd and odd color of green with no divide like a chair rail or anything between. I think I will pick up some paint chips and hope to match the yellow and paint the green portion. I'm not in love with the yellow but I don't want to paint the whole room.

We enjoyed a visit from G this week. He came over and ate supper with us one night. It was nice to have another adult to speak with as Hubby and I heard all of each other's stories, and Hubby is sometimes the only adult I have a conversation with for days at a time. Kornfield is not the most accepting town to outsiders, it seems if you have not lived here 20+ years nobody will give you the time of day. I understand why the place is dieing as it does not welcome newcomers what so ever.

Well I suppose that's all for now, I must try to down some more coffee and be a little productive this morning, but in reality I just want to take a nice nap.

Happy Valentine's Day

My Valentine's Day Cake

Hope you and your sweetie have a good Valentine's Day. Hubby and I kept it low key and simply exchanged cards. I did make the above cake. When I had my escape day last week I found a pretty in depth book on cake decorating at borders and it inspired me to try my hand at some other designs. This is similar to the one in the book, however I took a few liberties with the design, marbled the fondant and outlined the cutout hearts with piped icing. It really turned out pretty good and I'm quite proud of it. I think my next project is to try to sculpt some flowers from gum paste. I don't have any of the tools for it though so I really need to find a good cake decorating store in the area. Michael's has a basic selection of stuff, but their variety is lacking. I should really watch E-bay and hope I stumble on someones collection that they are purging.

Things have been fairly quiet here. My stomach issues are still boiling. I keep procrastinating about going to the doctor as honestly I'm quite sure it is some sort of bug. It started when I was so sick a couple of weeks ago. However living with it's not fun, so it will likely drive me into the clinic before too long. I hate to start the doctor trips on this as everything I google makes me think I'll be sent to a GI doc and nothing they do sounds like a happy fizzy party.

I spoke with Igor's teacher the other day and she is thrilled with the amount progress he's making in class. She said he's gone from looking dazed and confused to participating, offering answers, playing with the other kids and generally fitting in. HUGE progress for him as I was really worried he was overwhelmed when at school.

Even though I'm in the midst of watching the winter Olympics I feel spring in the air. I saw several robins around and when I was brushing out a horse she was just starting to shed. One of the advantages of being further south will be an earlier spring at least.

Lingering Nastiness

Well I would say we are starting to recover from the bug that hit the household, things ARE better but still not really good. Igor was still hacking away on Monday morning and had developed a sore on his index finger that looked pretty inflamed after a weekend of neosporin and band-aids. Off to the MD we go... The doc listened to Igor's lungs and could hear some rattling so he sent us off across the parking lot to get an X-ray. We strolled across in the snow and he smiled while they took his picture and then we went back over to the clinic. By this time the doctore had rounded up the swabs he needed to take a swab of the finger to try and determine if the sore was bacterial or viral. The news was it did appear there might be some pneumonia, but it's an iffy call so he was started on an antibiotic for that, we have to wait for the radiologist to read the film to determine if it's serious or not, though I doubt it's bad at this point and Igor doesn't seem to have any ill effects other than the nasty cough.

As for me, I'm having weird stomach issues. When they first appeared I attributed them to the amount of tylenol, asprin, and ibuprofen being taken for fever. However things still are not back to normal and I seem to walk around with at least some amount of stomach pain at all times punctuated my severe bouts that send me running to the restroom. Too much information I know. Regardless if this odd round of illness doesn't clear in a day or so I'll head into the MD myself. Nothing like trying to meet the insurance deductable all within the first few months of the year.

I finally got my new glasses. ( Forgive the bad self portrait ) I can't decide if I like them or not. It seems all the new frames are thicker like this, and the smaller wire frames are going away. I'm not positive I like them so much. I do feel like I tend to get stuck in a rut fashion wise at times and need to something from time to time to keep myself from being dated. If I don't my comfort zone still includes big 80's hair. Though some of those clothes do seem to be coming back but I tend to stick to the rule if you wore it the first time around you don't wear it the second time. However I have now worn most fashion trends short of hoop skirts, so I guess I'm doomed to start edging into old lady.

Sunday I went out and about on my own and decided to go watch Avatar. Not generally my choice of film. In fact when I saw the trailers for it I thought it looked perfect for the average 14 year old boy. I was pleasantly surprised, and thought it was pretty good, certainly not a kid's show, I couldn't believe the amount of young children in the theatre and while I don't wish it on the kids I hope they kept their parents up all night with nightmares. THINK PEOPLE! As a rule I think the ratings are a good guide and you can use your discretion, a mature 12 year old watching a PG-13 or maybe even some R rated movies, OK. But a 5 or 6 year old (yes that's how old some of the kid's were) is never mature enough for a PG-13 movie. I did have a good time at the movie, I think was the first time I had ever gone to the movies alone. Why do we think we need a companion at the theatre? It's not like you can really discuss the movie while it's playing, movie watching is basically a solo sport, so why is it something we rarely do alone. This was verified by the lack of popcorn and soda combos for a single person available at the concession stand. A new found activity though, as I usually try to get out of the house sans kids for a little while on the weekends to gain a little sanity back and up till this point the only activity I've found is shopping which I'm not overly fond of when I don't have money to spend.

Today we have gotten a few inches of snow overnight so the kids are out of school. Igor would be out anyway as the Dr. said to keep him home but now I have Sonny Boy here as well, who's volume level is 20 times that of Igor.

Well I really must get my rear in gear. Things have been slacking so much around here. I'M GONNA FIRE THAT MAID!! when she ever shows up to work!

Moms Do Not Get Sick Days

This week I have been sick, not just a little, S-I-C-K, the kind of sick where death would be preferential if you did not know that this was a temporary state. The ton of bricks hit in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, fever, body aches, chills etc etc. Wonderful Hubby nursed me through the night digging through junk finding this and that and I finally managed to break the fever and fall asleep sometime around 4 am. Hubby then called in to work to tell them he would be late, fed the kids and took Sonny Boy to school and woke me to move to the couch so I could keep a 1/2 eye open for Igor who was happy to watch hours of PBS kids while I dozed on the couch. The plan was for me just to keep Igor home and Hubby would leave work early and pick up Sonny Boy, however I managed to peel myself off the couch enough to take Igor into school as I figured he'd be better supervised by someone awake. Hubby then got off work early and picked up the boys, came home and took care of them and me both. Wednesday was still a rotten day with just minor improvement in my condition so Hubby went on into work after laying out the kid's breakfast (what a sweetie), he was maybe 30 minutes late but really on time for his standard day - if that makes sense. I managed to get Sonny Boy off to school and crashed on the couch while Igor learned all the theme songs to the PBS kids am line up again. At 11:00 I peeled my carcas off of the couch and proceeded to make a PB&J to feed Igor, never in my life would I call smearing peanut butter on bread work, but I had sit down in the middle of it. I survived and managed to get Igor off to preschool and came home, called Hubby and asked if he could get the kids from school again as I was just too weak to function.

This morning Hubby went to work at normal time as I had a much better night (still not great, but better) and his direct supervisor (who changes from project to project) was an absolute jerk to him. Here Hubby is doing his best to take care of both us and work, but the butt-head doesn't give him an ounce of credit for coming into work at all when he would have been well within his rights to call in sick all together. Damned if you do, Damned if you don't, nothing seems to make this one guy happy. I know, I know I'm not there, and I only hear one side of the story, and yes I'm sure to be partial to Hubby. I do know my husband though, and there are few people he can't at least pretend to get along with, he doesn't seek confrontation, he is really a personable fellow. In fact my grandmother, who wouldn't say anything nice about anybody, could only come up with the fact that " He's too tall" when asked what she thought about him. Currently I'm wondering the most effective means of spreading my germs (and now the kids as they are sick as well) to the but-head and see how much he likes being too sick to sleep, read or watch TV for two days. By george, I'm sure he'd be calling in sick as walking to the bathroom was like running the Boston Marathon.

Today I'm on the mend. I would say I'm at 25% which is better than the negative numbers I was hitting the last two days. I'm still weak when I move around much but have managed to wash the sheets on the bed and do a couple of loads of laundry, I probably should have held out that energy for cooking though as by suppertime we ended up eating Hardees since Hubby is at work trying to play catch up with his paycheck. The downside is that the boys are now sick as well. Sonny Boy is running a low fever off and on, Igor has a nasty hacking cough. Sonny Boy would probably be fine to go to school tomorrow, Igor I'll decide tomorrow, but it appears we are going to get a whopping two inches of snow that will likely cause a snow day.

So here's my question to you fellow SAHM's and readers. What happens when mom is sick? I don't mean just feeling bad and lets the dishes slide for a day or three and the laundry hill turns into a mountain but when primary caregiver needs care. Do you have family to call on? Does Hubby take a day or two off of work?

I'd love to hear your solutions to this problem, I'm all ears, or eyes. As for now it's bedtime and I hope I can get the kids down without falling over myself.