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Time Marches On...

If you could peek into my house right now you'd probably get the giggles. The kids are in bed after spending most of the day in the yard playing with the neighbor's granddaughter. I'm on my knees with the laptop on a rubbermaid bin typing on the blog. Hubby is talking to himself - or to phone to time the presentation he is giving in New Jersey in a couple of days. Hubby's voice is going from talking for the last 30 minutes about things that make my eyes glaze over and because he came home from Canada with a nasty cold which he promptly shared with me. We are both hyped up on cold medicine. I really could just move the computer downstairs and sit on chair, but that would require unplugging the computer, and since the battery has bit the dust I would have to re-boot and honestly I don't have the patience for that right now. Hubby is sitting at the desk and we are stuffed in the only room in the house that does not have a radiator. Smart huh?

I survived the sing-along. Lost my voice by the end and broke into a flop sweat during but nobody was covering their ears so that was a success!

The lawn has been mowed for likely the final time of the year. Just waiting on the leaves to fall - the rest of town is bare, but we live up on a hill and are "blessed" to have leaves well into November most years which stinks cause we've been known to get snow before they all get picked up.

Pee Wee football season finally ended. The team only had one win out of 6-7 games. Disappointing but Sonny Boy has learned much about football. His outstanding hitting at the beginning of the season waned as he learned it hurt some to put a shoulder into somebody. However I think he has some good there. A few weeks of calm and wrestling will start up. One perk is that one of the football coaches will be a wrestling coach as well, so he'll be known and not just another kid in what tends to be a pretty large group. This week is blissfully free of scheduled stuff, no scouts, no practices, no doctor appointments. Sonny Boy is out of school Thurs and Fri, but Igor still has preschool. Toying around with some plans but nothing has really been set yet.

I guess I should put something insightful here, but the cold medicine is not allowing. I do think I'm going to curl up in bed and turn on Mad Men. If you have Netflix on demand it's there like 52 episodes of it's glory. Can't decide if Don Draper is a sexist pig, or just sexy.

So Bored, Yet so Busy

" 'Splain Lucy" you say. Well quite frankly I'm bored out of my mind. Yes I always have a To Do list a mile and half long. Of course some of it is just pure procrastination. Facebook must be checked for the 20th time today instead of mopping the kitchen floor. But it's not just that, even when busy with most my chores I'm pre-occupied with about 10,000 other things. Some as mundane as mopping the kitchen floor, to world events. I suppose it's the product of not having a very stimulating conversation for days on end. This week Hubby is in Cananda, roaming is a whopping $3 a minute on his phone so he has it off. I've chatted here and there with other adults at school pick-ups, and concerning scout stuff, but haven't really had a conversation with anybody since Saturday. The life of a SAHM mom I guess.

I do think I'm starting a good base of friends in cub scouts. Who knew I'd like it more than Sonny Boy? Since I am officially "advancement coordinator" for the pack, I'm getting to know the other moms and leaders as well. It's nice, though if your a woman (I'm guessing most of you are?) you understand that hanging out friendships don't develop overnight, or even over months.

The so busy part is just normal life. Taking kids here and there, groceries, errands, chores. Certainly enough to keep me busy - but also mind numbing.

The outdoor pack meeting has been rescheduled to be indoors tonight. Thank goodness, I wasn't really looking forward to hanging out in a pic-nic pavillion in 40 degree damp weather with howling winds. That doesn't get me out of the public song leading though - dang. It does squash the flag retirement that was planned, which is a bummer as the leader organizing that had even found a bugler to play taps.

I suppose I should enjoy the relative peace of life now. Something is sure to surface that makes it a nightmare soon enough.

Me and My Big Mouth

This is what will be carved on my tombstone:

Aw, heck, I'll do it.

Because that will likely be my famous last words. I'm such a sucker, always volunteering for this or that. This time got myself pretty tied up. Guess, you'll never guess what I'm doing on Thursday night....no, not streaking at the local football game, THAT I wouldn't be as nervous about, maybe colder, but not nervous. I am, ahem, going to lead the songs at the cub scout pack meeting. Ha Ha Ha, yeah there is a reason I type on a blog and not try out for America's Got Talent. I cannot sing. I cannot even kind of sing. Remember when I was trying to teach Sonny Boy "America". Hubby told me to stop and find a video.

The pack meeting this month is taking place at the local boy scout camp where there will be a bonfire. Ultimately the bonfire will be used for a flag retirement ceremony so I will start the boys out with some rowdy jumping around songs and settle them down with some slower more sedate things ending with "God Bless America". Hopefully this will lead into the flag retirement ceremony that one of the groups of older boys is going to do. In order to lead songs I figure the kids (and the adults too) might need lyrics to some of the songs so I've been typing them up to make a little half sheet flyer. I'm also going to be telling "ghost" stories. Basically I'm going to be the stand-up act for the night. Unlike Hubby, who has a terrible fear of public speaking (but he's conquering it) I'm not that worried about the actual speaking part, though I know my thick southern accent will be called out. I'm more worried about the singing aspect, the other scout adults told me they will get up and sing along with me (they better) so I'm certainly going to hold them to it. I suppose I won't die, but I sure wish I had a half decent singing voice, not even good, just decent.

Sonny Boy's game was played this morning. Cripes we were up before daylight. To add insult to injury the beautiful fall weather we've been having has ended and it's now pretty crisp and the wind has howled the last two days. Igor and I sat in the van until it was time for the game to start and then I sat in a sleeping bag the entire game when normally I pace the sidelines so I can see the action. You wanna know even worse, we played the other team from our town that is the same division 30 miles away from home. The coach for the other team actually lives down the street and that team practices in the park behind our house. Couldn't we have all just pitched in a dollar to have the refs drive here? I would have. We lost, however Sonny Boy had a good game. A fumble recovery was the highlight. He would have had a sack, but he face masked the kid and got called on it so not really a sack. Sonny Boy was also the cause of turnover by pressuring the quarterback hard which led to an interception for our team. Despite all of his heroic efforts on defense the offense was hampered and they outscored us. The team's record is pretty dismal with only one win this season. We have another game next week, and where I'd like to see the kids win and move on in the playoffs, I'm kind of hoping for it to just end. The coach was quoted to me by Hubby "We have good hitters but they are slow, we have fast kids but they can't hit, if we could get a combination we'd have it made" and that about sums up our football team. Yeah, that's a lot of talk about football.

There's my brain dump for the evening. I'd really like to crawl in bed and watch TV but Sonny Boy is in it watching a movie I've been promising to let him watch for a while. Gonna haul the laptop to the printer and print some stuff off.

Later Dudes

Looking for Some Cheese....

to go with my wine whine. Yes I'm going to speak more whinese today, because I can and daily life is utterly mind blowing dull and terribly busy at the same time.

• My face hurts, and has hurt almost constant for a week solid now. I've taken an arsenal of meds, and every home remedy in the book. I've even resorted to eating a lot of soft stuff. Really it's making my days miserable and it makes me feel even worse when Sonny Boy complains that I always feel bad - yes I do son, I so want to be pain free for a while too.


• The oven died. Normally this might be an occasion to do a little dance and get out of cooking for a few nights. However Hubby is the ultimate tightwad and won't let me just call a repairman. Last night he took it apart and discovered the igniter was literally broken in half. Honestly not a big repair, but finding a part and getting it back together before he leaves for week on Sunday morning is gonna be a witch if it even gets done.


• Sonny Boy's football game is at 8:00 A.M. tomorrow at a field that is half an hour away and the coach wants them there 30 min early to warm-up etc. I'll have to be leaving the house at a time when I get out of bed on a weekday. Who the hell thought up this schedule? It's PEE WEE FOOTBALL, can't we do this at like 10:00 or something? Evidently the people that put this together are morning people.


• Did you happen see that foreshadowing of Hubby's leaving AGAIN for a business trip? Yeah, this time a week in Montreal where he will be wined and dined. While I eat chicken nuggets, likely warmed in the microwave and then ran through the blender if this jaw doesn't start getting better.


• House chores are piling up, and quite frankly I just don't have the heart to care.


• Here it is October and I haven't been to the gym since May. I reasoned that I get excercise doing yardwork but that doesn't cover the membership fees. I'd cancel it, but I'm pretty sure I'll have bad cabin fever come Feb or March and then I'd have to cough up the joining fee again. I need to do the math.

Yeah, so a whole post of nothing but bitching. Lovely eh?

Adventures and Other Stuff

The kids and I came home from somewhere the other day and this little guy was on the tree in the yard. It's a squirrel looking over a branch down at me. Notice his tail? I have better pictures of him on my phone, but what a pain to get them off. This was after I'd snapped a few with my phone and came back out with the real camera and found him up the tree.

Sunday the boys and I went to a tiny section of a bigger state park. We'd never been there before so I thought it would be worth the adventure. At the park is the "highest peak in xxx county" a whopping 1233 ft! Well of course you must put a fire tower on that and this a view from the top.

There was a lady painting at the little pond. I thought she seemed quite idyllic.

Sonny Boy was hoping to spot some birds for his Cub Scout Bird List he's doing and elective on. I made Igor pull off his horrible hat so I could see his face and got mussed up hair and that goofy grin.

We went hiking down some cross country ski trails while there. I admit some of them would be BRUTAL on skis, they were steep on feet, but at least not overly long.

On the way home I remembered that a local tourist trap has these old electric trains that run in the fall. Originally they ran spoked out all the way from Milwaukee around the turn of the century and were decommissioned in the 30's. This little town managed to hang on to them and a few miles of track. The charge an arm and a leg for a 7 mile ride, but the kids enjoyed it as one had never been on a real train before and the other has no memory of his overnight train ride.

Hubby is rounding the corner with his illness but is still quite weak and tires very quickly. Still no official word on what he actually has/had, whatever it was hit him like a ton of bricks.

In the meantime I'm running a little crazy trying to bully him into drinking and such like he should, keep the kids running and catch up on housework I'd let slide. I read a quote the other day attributed to Phyllis Diller and thought I should stitch it on a pillow or something. " Doing housework while the kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk while it's still snowing." More true words have never been spoken. However if you don't do some of the housework while there growing the state come and takes the kids away! Off to do the shoveling!

When it Rains, it Pours...

and I'm not talking about the weather, that's been just gorgeous. Hubby came home from his hunting trip sick. Not just the sniffles, but wishing he would die sick. I'm thankful for his buddy that had gone along with him as he ended up doing the entire 13 hour trip drive home by himself while Hubby laid in the back of the van wishing a quick end to his misery. Hubby came in about 10:30 last night running fever and running for the bathroom. I drove the buddy home across town and he unloaded his gear and I came back home to find Hubby in a hot bath up to his ears shivering. I dragged out towels, PJ's and comfied up the guest room for him. The guest room has a half bath in it, our bedroom doesn't. I got him out of the tub and into warm, PJ's and he downed a bottle of gatorade and was wanting more so I ran to the convienence store and bought a pack and he downed another and glass of lemonade as well. Hubby declared himself feeling a little better and crawled in bed and so did I.

I wake up this morning to a RAGING migraine. The worst one I've had in months. I didn't even go to the coffee pot, just my stash of Relpax. I managed to get the boys bowls of cereal poured and somehow not die. I looked in on Hubby to make sure he was breathing and that was about all I could manage. In my housecoat still it was time to take Sonny Boy to school, as I stepped out the door my neighbor was taking her granddaughter and I yelled across the yard if she would mind giving Sonny Boy a lift. No problem she said, and Sonny Boy got off to school. I sat Igor down in front of PBS kids and told him "Momma is sick, Daddy is sick, stay out of trouble. If you need something come get me I'm in my bed." I then went upstairs and suffered until I could take a second dose a Relpax (I rarely need two doses) came down checked on Igor who was happily wasting away in front of the TV, took my drugs and went back to bed. I woke up two hours later to Igor chattering away in his room playing with blocks. I was starting to feel human, not good, just human. I came down, drank some coffee, ate some toast, fed Igor lunch and checked on Hubby who had made no improvement. I dress, go the grocery and buy just enough food to get us by for today (the cupboard was bare of course) come home and bully Hubby into drinking more gatorade. He's still in bad shape, and I declare he's going to the doctor. Hubby is so weak he can hardly walk so I put him in a wheelchair and wheel him up to doctor's office. The bad part is that the doctor appointment was at the same time that Sonny Boy's school let out. I called his scout leader and asked her to snag Sonny Boy and she brought him by the doctor's office and I met them out front. We wait around the doctor's office for a while, then the lab and it's a likely diagnosis that Hubby has a case of food poisoning. While I'm sorry he's sick, I'm glad it's not contagious.

So now it's about bedtime, Hubby has some anti-nausea stuff and orders not to eat solids for a few days and drink as much liquid as he can stand. I'm still not 100% and looking forward to tucking the kids into bed.

Tomorrow holds promises of lots of laundry, more grocery shopping, football practice and maybe enough time to sit down and post pictures and tales of the boy's and I adventures to a local state park.

Wooo, busy day

I knew today was gonna be a kicker so I got the kids settled into bed early last night. I was developing a whiz banger of a headache so I took some benedryl (yeah, that actually helps - or at least knocks me out cold) and then didn't fall asleep till like midnight. Great I needed to get up at 5:30 am so I could shower and have a cup of coffee before I got the kids up - I'm much less crabby after a cup of joe. The alarm went off and I banged at it a couple of times before I realize that I can't keep doing this. Crawled downstairs started the coffee pot and then went in got in the shower. When I cam out of the shower Igor was up asking me of some article of clothing was OK to wear. It's not even DAYLIGHT out, you gotta go back to bed kid, so I tucked him back into bed, I knew he wouldn't go back to sleep but you play what cards you have, ya know. Came down, drank a cup of coffee and then went and got the already awake Igor up and helped him pick out clothes and dragged Sonny Boy out of bed and found him decent clothes, fed them, blow dried my hair, loaded them up and dropped Sonny Boy off at before school care a good hour before school started and drove to Milwaukee. Traffic in Milwaukee was brutal taking me 20 minutes to go about five miles, but I got to the doctor appt on time. Did the Orthopedic doc who looked at Igor's feet, the intern? looked at his back for scoliosis (common with connective tissue things) we discussed the connective tissue thing and it's lack of name. Agreed the SMO's needed some work and scheduled an appointment for 6 months out. Then Igor and I traipsed across the skywalk to the lab and had a blood draw for genetic testing. Strangely that went way better than I ever could have expected, not even a whimper out of the kid. He was nervous but did better than I've seen MANY adults do. Drove partway across town - traffic much better now and was two hours early for the orthotic appointment. Hey there's a Target a block from the orthtist office, we'll roam around in there. NOT. Igor decided he was not under any circumstances going to ride in the cart, and I WAS NOT under any circumstances letting him not ride in the cart. We went back to the car. Igor huffed and puffed for 20 min and then decided he could go back in and ride in the cart. We go in, he rides and then sees a book he wants. "I want a book" was his chant for quite a while till I got fed up and we went and sat in the car again. I called the orthotic office to see if we could squeeze in early, no such luck. I drove to the orthotic office and we sat in the parking lot for 30 min or so while Igor acted quite the toot. He soon got over his snit and became interested in watching the digital clock in the car when I told him we could go in at 1055. We go in and see the orthotist lady who looks over the SMO's and says it's gonna take her a while to work on them, if we want to go somewhere for a bit. We go to Sonic which in actually in the parking lot and ate. MMMM Sonic - you can take a southern girl away from the south, but you can't replace that Sonic burger and that's the only Sonic I know about. We go back to the orthotic place and hang out another half hour or more and then the lady fits the new orthotics on Igor's feet an makes sure they work with the new little hiking boots I bought him. We drive home. Igor sleeps the entire ride home.

When we get home I declare Mom nap time, Igor plays in his room and I get to sleep for an hour or so before we pick up Sonny Boy from school. Pick up Sonny Boy, stop at playground to burn some steam out of both kids and some buddies from school show up and the parents and I chit-chat. The weather is just gorgeous so it's hard to drag inside. Drag the kids home, Sonny Boy starts homework and I water some grass seed I had sown yesterday. I then drag out the lawnmower and mow until it runs out of gas (didn't really finish the yard, will tomorrow) and then drag out the leaf blower to clear the driveway and sidewalk. Call the kids in, feed them a turkey sandwich for supper. Put Igor in the tub and clean the upstairs bathroom while he bathes and then Sonny Boy bathes. Put Igor to bed. Now I'm typing the very rambling post to explain why somedays I'm so stinkin' tired.

In the very near future Sonny Boy will go to bed (less than 15 mins) I will bathe and crawl in bed to find something on tube to fall asleep to.

Tomorrow I have to finish mowing the lawn, and spread the two cubic yards of mulch I had delivered yesterday along with 2001 other piddly thing that if they don't get done the machinery of life in Winnie's household will grind to a halt.

Then try reading this all in one breath and you get a feeling of what my life felt like today. Ha.

Why most women don't hunt.

As I write this Hubby is scuttling around the house gathering the last bits of gear for a duck hunting trip in North Dakota. When this trip was planned I raised hell, because hey I want to go somewhere fun to! That led to the compromise of the trip I took earlier this spring with my mother to the horse farm. But it still annoys me.

If you have a hunting/fishing spouse you soon discover that the seasons are not spring, summer, fall, and winter. It's more like, deer, duck, ice fishing, regular fishing, turkey etc etc. The only thing that keeps Hubby from doing it more is that we live in a pretty populated area of the state and there are TONS of people in every available spot to hunt or fish. What I envy though is not the gathering of gear or even the large amounts of money spent on the newest gadget or license it's the absolute ability to declare "I'm going deer hunting this weekend" and never give a second thought to arranging care for the kids, shuttling to & fro, doing the laundry so there is clean underwear to pack and the like. It's assumed that all that is taken care of - and it is.

Maybe that's my fault, but I don't think I'm alone in my sentiments as I've heard other hunting widows complain. Even when you can plan to run away it seems like more work than it's worth, doing laundry up so you only come home to small mountain and not Mt. Everest. Laying out the kid's schedules, stocking the fridge (while Hubby cooks he's expensive if he goes to the grocery store) and getting the 200 things done you'd normally do in the time your gone done. Just once I'd like to declare "I'm leaving this weekend" pack a bag and walk out the door leaving a mountain of laundry knowing it will a) be the same when I return or the even better b) washed, folded and put away.

I think it's the ability to just go that drives me the most nuts. Not that he goes, but that he just assumes I'll take care of things, and when I go it begins a logistics nightmare.

I've Had It!!

I've about had it, I'm at my wit's end. The TMJ issues are driving me nuts. Daily I wake up feeling like someone punched me in my face. IF I'm lucky I take a couple of ibuprofen and walk around slowly for an hour or three and start feeling somewhat human. Today is a not so lucky day the face pain is bad and it's crawling up my head and trying to feed a migraine. Once that migraine starts (which is pretty evident it's going to) I take my expensive pills that put me down like a horse tranquilizer. They get rid of the pain - thank God, but I feel as if I'm walking around in jello, and quite frankly make me useless.

Insurance can't agree that it's dental or medical - though if my knee hurt like this they'd cover it. I see a dentist who specializes in it and wear the nightgaurd splint like I'm supposed to, take the meds I'm given which those things do help, however flares happen and when they do I'm a couple of weeks or more of misery. I've tried acupuncture, chiropractors, reg MD's , pain MD's, neurologist and massage. The TMJ doc I see prescribes physical therapy which does help some, but getting there is a nightmare with kids issues and Hubby's unpredictable schedule. Not to mention the expense.

Googling on the internet shows a nightmare of treatments available all with mixed results, all with expensive price tags, all insurance considers experimental. Evidently no one with any pull at an insurance company has ever had TMJ issues before.

Sorry, nothing but venting. So if you see me looking like I'm drugged, I probably am. If I looked pissed off figure I'm sitting there in pain. I'm off to feed the little guy and find him a long lived cartoon to watch.