Locked and loaded...well, locked anyway!

Well, I had something really creepy and scary happen this evening. I had JUST finished chatting with Robert on the computer when my outer front door opened and someone tried to WALK INTO MY HOME! Then they knocked on the door. Now, if I hadn't just gotten off of the computer with my Honey, I'd have thought it was him. Since I knew it WASN'T, I was a little scared--who was trying to walk in and why? I looked out the peep hole and it was some guys I don't know. Between the two of them, they had 3 big boxes of beer and a large bottle of clear liquor. I cautiously opened the door and they said, "Oh, sorry. I got the wrong house." YOU THINK? I am SO glad I lock the door by habit. People may think I'm over-protective, but that's not a scare I'd like to encounter.

They had enough booze for a small army, but I'd have had to ID them to make sure they were old enough. Does the fact that 20-year-old guys look 14 make me old?

I'm starting to re-think my position on guns. Make no mistake, I'm all for the right to bear arms, but I've never been a fan of having arms in my own home. And I wouldn't have shot these buys, but I felt VERY vulnerable. Hurry home, Robert! And make sure you lock your doors!

Precocious Ponderings......

Toph has a new favorite activity. It's called "pull an obscure question from out of the air and see if Mom knows the answer." It's MUCH more difficult than "where does the rain come from." Because I know THAT answer!

Yeah, so totally NOT a recent photo!

Not my boy, no way! He's a thinker. He likes to ask questions like:

• How do we hear?
• What happens when we die?
• What's the history of Halloween?
• How does gas make a car go?

He really likes to be totally random and come up with these quizzes at odd times--like when we're going places in the car. And, lucky for me, he's satisfied with answers like:

• I don't know, but (insert name here) knows. Let's ask him/her.
• I don't know, but we can look it up on the internet on Wickipedia.
• I don't know but we can ask Dad. He knows EVERYTHING (ha!)

And Toph REALLY likes to look things up on "Wick-Low-Pedia."

Sing Along

My children are seriously into the PS3 game, Little Big Planet (LBP).

I'm too old to get the point of this game. I think it's weird. But they LOVE it! They play different levels, decorate their sackboy characters, and create their own levels. This can go on for indefinite hours of time, if allowed. They lose all sense of time and don't even realize if they've missed a meal. Like kiddie crack, if you ask me.

This is a sackboy character.

Toph and Hannah are creating their own level--"Total Glitch Museum." They cooperate with each other and add fun things to their level. And they have spent hours doing it. They get to add music too, and Hannah LOVES a song that's in Spanish. It's featured in the YouTube Video link--about 6 min, but you don't have to watch the whole thing. The video shows the actual playing of a level and features Hannah's new favorite song.

Picture of a game level--not their game though.

Both kids sing along when it's on the TV. No, we don't know Spanish. I have no idea what the lyrics are or even what the kids actually are saying. It's just fun to watch and listen to. Come on over and join the sing-along!

My New Life

No, I didn't trade in the old life. But I definitely have a new life. This is going to take some time, since I am a thorough person.....

It started in October or November last year when my sister, Aimee, called to tell me something. She'd been to LA to see a specialist (Please, NOT cancer--we have a bad track record with that!). Aimee has fibromyalgia. My Mom does too. It's genetic. She thought I should read this book she has. I'd always thought of fibromyalgia as the women's equivalent of ADHD--something the doctors would tell you when you needed a diagnosis and they didn't know what was wrong with you. After all, my Mom had never had any testing for fibromyalgia. ....Because there ISN'T a test FOR fibromyalgia. You take a lot of tests to rule OUT other things. I had another friend who'd been diagnosed a few months before Aimee, and I'd considered that I might have it too, but I was comfortable occupying my little corner of the planet Denial.

Once Aimee told me that it was genetic, I couldn't occupy Denial any longer. I had to get out my Mom MD and do some research, and I diagnosed myself. When I went to my doctor for my physical about 2 weeks later, I told her what I suspected. She wasn't so sure. She did LOTS of tests for other things--hormones, lupus, and other stuff. All of that was as expected. When she did the "poke test" I hurt in 11 of the 18 places, but I wasn't jumping off the table in pain, so she was reluctant to make a diagnosis. She did prescribe a "happy pill" though to help me with depression, anxiety, apathy, and pain. Hey, it does help me sleep a little better at night and I didn't freak out during our move, so it's helping something.

What is this hideous disease? I am still learning how to describe it. There's something wrong with my kidneys that doesn't allow the phosphates in my body to be excreted normally. So these phosphates build up all over my body in these painful lumps and bumps. Calcium, which we need for the production of ATP--for energy--must bind with phosphates first, so that leaves me tired all the time. Fibromyalgia is a disease with a LONG list of complaints that are seemingly unrelated, and not all doctors believe it's a real condition. It's cyclical in nature, and you don't experience all of the symptoms at the same time--when 1 problem goes away, it gets replaced by a new complaint. And eventually you feel like a freak, because there's always something wrong. Here are some of the possible complaints: FATIGUE, pain all over the body--different places at different times, numbness/tingling in extremities, depression/apathy/anxiety, skin problems, bladder problems, IBS symptoms, memory and concentration problems, headaches, weird tastes in the mouth, and the list DOES go on.......

But the GOOD news is that there is HOPE! Aimee found an endocrinologist in Marina Del Rey who specializes in fibromyalgia, and he has discovered a very SIMPLE treatment--guaifenesin. Yes, that's the main ingredient in Mucinex and many cough medicines. It's fairly inexpensive, and basically has no side effects. However, in order for the guai to work (and not be "blocked"), you have to change your lifestyle a bit. No more salicates. No more plant oils, extracts, or barks. No more aloe. No more mint. Most of the things that you have to eliminate are the things that come into contact with your skin--so you re-vamp your supply of hair products, deoderant, lotion, lip stuff, make-up and skin care, razors and shaving stuff, toothpaste, and topical medications. You learn to read labels and look for the salicates. It's really not that hard. And then you start taking the medication until you feel worse. Yes, you get worse before you get better.

I figure I've had fibro since I was a kid. I had skin problems, growing pains, and headaches all the time. Then it took a break until I was a senior in high school. Then I got mono, and life has never been the same. The good times were shorter and the bad times were more numerous, and that cycle has repeated itself for more than 20 years. And the guai reverses stuff about 6 times faster than you experienced it. So you hurt more and are MORE tired than before. And eventually my good days will increase until there are more of them than the bad ones. In time I will be in a "remission" of sorts. So there IS light at the end of the tunnel! There's a GREAT website that explains all of this much better than I have--it's totally worth the research time. There's also a GREAT book that my sister loaned me:



I'm in the "fun" part of the cycle. I'm still learning how to live my new life and what I need to avoid. I'm LOVING the fatigue and pain and insomnia and....... Ok, not really, but I keep reminding myself that it will be better. And I LOVE my new doctor. Dr. St. Amand knows what he's doing--because he's living with the disease too. Not only is his specialty endocrinology, but he's living proof that life can return to "normal" again. At the first visit, he takes a medical history and then "maps" all of your lumps and bumps. At follow-up appointments, he does another body map and then compares them. If the meds are working, your lumps and bumps will get smaller, break up, get softer, and disappear. I'm looking forward to this next appointment, because I want to see some improvement.

I have given myself permission to not do as much right now. I try to rest when my body demands it (all too often). I am not going to volunteer to be a room mom this year at school. I'll work in Toph's room, because I need to see him in action, but I'm not going to volunteer as much as I did last year. I'm going to focus on getting healthy. And by next year, I'm going to feel lots better. Until that happens, I'm going to repeat my motto often: My resurrected body is going to totally ROCK! It's NEVER dull around here!

Cub Scout Campers

Last week, Topher, Hannah, and I were cub scout day campers. Toph was there because, duh, he's a cub scout. I was there as a leader volunteer. For the last 2 years I haven't gone, but with a boy in cubs now, I felt like it was my turn to volunteer. For the whole week--what was I smoking? Hannah was there because where would I leave her for 7+ hours 5 days in a row? She attended Sibling Camp at the same time.

I was a Jack-Of-All-Trades last week. I did the skit and song rotation on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. During that time I got to teach the history of the flag and other flag-related topics, the history of the national anthem, and the music belt loop. Everything I needed came in a binder, so it wasn't too bad, and I acutally learned things too. On Tuesday, I filled in at Agent's Life. The theme of camp was "Mission Possible" and throughout the week, the kids were doing some activities that would make them like FBI agents. Tuesday's activity was on prints--animal prints specifically, but we talked about all kinds of prints. We learned about the 3 different types of footprints, and then the boys used plaster of paris to make a footprint. Ideally, I was supposed to wet some dirt around my area and put the prints into the dirt. Then the boys would mix their plaster and pour it into the dirt. That wasn't drying fast enough though, and I didn't have a lot of dirt at my disposal, so I mixed it up a bit. Instead of pouring the plaster into the dirt, we put the print into the plaster. Not exactly the same, but they got to go home with a footprint. Thursday I helped at Crafts. The boys didn't have time to finish all of the projects on Wednesday, so there was a lot to do on Thursday. I helped the boys make a leather bracelet--by stamping on the designs. I'd done that a LONG time ago as a kid, so I kind of knew what I was doing. It was LOUD, but a lot of fun.

Topher did all kinds of things. He did archery and fishing (probably his favorite things), crafts, outdoor cooking, skit and song, hiking and nature, fingerprinting, and water games. On Friday, the FBI was supposed to run one of the centers, but they got called away to investigate a boarder patrol agent's murder, and the leaders "kind of" set up the area like the FBI would have. The boys got to make predictions about a "crime" based on evidence--bones, blood, etc. He had a blast!

Hannah enjoyed Sibling Camp. The kids did tons of crafts. She made lots of bracelets and necklaces and pictures. She painted a treasure chest. She got to go to the playground. She got to feed the ducks. She got to play games and sing and dance. She loved it!

Cub scout day camp is at Lake Poway, about 20 minutes from home. Not a bad drive, and it's really pretty. But it was HOT! We don't get much HOT weather, but we were in the middle of a heat wave, and it was 98 one of the days before we started. Remember, I live in San Diego--it's not normally HOT. But I was glad to be outside, at least at the beginning of the week, because our a/c was BROKEN!!! It broke on Wednesday or Thursday of the previous week, and didn't get fixed until Tuesday of scout camp week. Talk about HOT! Inside our house it was 91 one day. CRAZY!

I do have to say that the timing of a heat wave, all-day scout camp volunteering, and being in the 2nd week of fibromyalgia treatment was really less than ideal. The heat sucks the life out of me, the meds sucked the rest of the life right out of me, and I was hurting all over my body--like the worst case of flu you can imagine. There were a few times I wondered how I'd get through it, but I was blessed. Thursday was an especially blessed day. I was SO tired and hurt SO much, and I was having asthma issues on top of it, and if they had enough volunteers, I was going to go home and rest. Hannah was missing her down time and playing with her toys, and I just wanted to crawl into bed. But that was not to happen. And Thursday ended up being a great day. I exercised a little faith that my Heavenly Father would have to help me get through the day, and He did not disappoint! And I must give kudos to our camp directors. From the beginning, they knew they were getting additional concerns with me. They knew about my physical limitations, and they kindly put me places where I could be in the shade and periodically rest. They were concerned for my well-being every day. And paid me a very high compliment at the end. The program director, Troy, told me how grateful he was for my daily attendance and willingness to do whatever they asked of me. That was so nice to hear.

It was an exhausting week. I gave camp my entire focus of energy--which means that I was pretty much a lump at home. We'd get home sweaty and stinky each evening, throw the kids in the shower, eat a 2nd dinner, wash the uniforms, and go to bed. Wake up, rinse, and repeat. Camp was from 1-7 (from 12-7 for the leaders), so we ate brunch at about 11, "linner" at 5, and a 2nd dinner at about 8 all week. The kids had a blast though, and I enjoyed myself too. I am allergic to something at Lake Poway though. Every night I'd come home and itch my eyes and ears and sneeze, and by the end of the week, I was having asthma issues too. Toph experienced this too, to some extent. And the BUGS! Don't get me started! There were these black and yellow bugs that kept crawling all over my stuff and ME! Really, this is the extent of the camping experience for me--nothing more than day camp for this city girl!

Next year we'll definitely do it again--but I will probably only do 2-3 days! And maybe I'll remember to take the camera!

Some Like it HOT--NOT Us!

So, our a/c broke on Wednesday or Thursday. I called the property management dorks, and a work order got submitted on Friday--but you know how that goes. "We're booked solid. We can't get to you until Wednesday at the earliest." No amount of pleading or using asthmatics as an excuse seemed to do anything.

NORMALLY, this would not be much of a problem, but we're in the middle of a heat wave--with humidity! Not Florida-type humidity, but it's much hotter than normal for us.

Friday (Robert) was at scout camp still, we waited until the house was 89 and then we went and got haircuts and went out to dinner. By the time we returned, it was bearable in the house. Yesterday we went to friends' house in the afternoon and didn't get back until almost midnight, so again, it was bearable. Today is Sunday. So we don't go to the store or the beach or anything, and I really wasn't feeling great anyway. We all have had fans trained on us, so we've been comfortable enough--as long as we don't move. Our bedroom got up to 92 and the thermostat in the downstairs read 89. HOT!

I'm calling the a/c people at 8 tomorrow morning, hoping that some other person got desperate and paid major bucks to get their a/c fixed during the weekend and cancels--then we can get their spot for tomorrow. Aside from that, Toph, Hannah, and I have cub scout camp from 12-7 all week, so we won't be home during the hottest part of the day.

In an effort to maintain some gratitude over our situation, I keep reminding myself to be glad we live at a time when it's ok for women to wear shorts. I'm glad I live in a place that doesn't get as hot as Fresno. I'm glad I live where there's electricity, so we can at least run the fans. I'm glad we have friends who loaned us their hurricane fans. I found out that I have a friend on vacation who has offered to let us use her a/c while they're gone--and we'll take her up on that tomorrow if it's still this hot.

Right now, a cold shower sounds GREAT!

Watch it! He IS listening!

So, I know I promised a post with photos, but this isn't it. Sorry. Still coming. I promise. It's just that this was on my mind tonight, and I wanted to get it out of my mind.....

So, Heavenly Father IS listening to what we think and say--I have proof. The following examples are things I have either thought or said:

Me: Yeah, having asthma IS a bummer, but at least I don't have diabetes. I may not be able to breathe, but I can eat all the chocolate I want.
His answer: gestational diabetes SO bad that I got to take insulin.

Me: "I don't care if we have a baby on Christmas day! I can't take this (infertility treatment) much longer."
His answer: that's the month I got pregnant and I was due on Christmas day! If I'd know it would be THAT easy, I'd have said it LOTS earlier and inserted a different due date. :-)

Me: ADD is the diagnosis parents get when they have a really obnoxious child and there's no medical reason--Hello, try discipline! OR, ADD kids wear me out! Just dealing with (ADD kid) for 50 minutes in class is enough to make me want to slit my wrist (ok, not really!). I couldn't live with one.
His answer: Toph has ADD. He's not the hyper kind, but he can't focus long enough to get dressed without help. Or brush his teeth. Or wear shoes. Or do homework. Or....... BUT he CAN focus for hours at a time on video games or Legos or K'nex (I didn't know that ADD kids could focus on anything). This summer we're learning how to parent an ADD kid and help him feel like he's not weird.

Me: Fibromyalgia is the diagnosis women are given when the doctor doesn't know what's wrong with you. Then they pump you full of anti-depressants and sleeping pills and maybe pain pills--whatever it takes to get you to leave them alone.
His answer: It's a real disease. It sucks. Anti-depressants, sleeping pills, and pain pills don't really fix it. I have thought about speed though--anything to provide energy when I'm completely drained....JUST thought about it. Not going to do it.

This proof just goes to show you that He IS listening. Watch what you think and say! Those thoughts and words might just come back to bite you in the butt!

Do YOU have any proof? I'd love to hear your stories! Leave me a comment!

New Clothing SAGA

While this post will not contain photos, I hope it will be somewhat amusing.

The children have been growing again--darn it! They are so disobedient. I keep telling them to stop growing, and they just laugh. Hannah's pj top has elastic on the sleeves and it was hurting her arm. Toph was getting a melvin because his pj bottoms were so small. Hannah was showing the world her bum with the Daisy Dukes she was wearing. I looked at the sizes of all of these clothes--sizes we were barely fitting into last year.

So it was time to go shopping. It was fairly easy to find shorts that weren't Daisy Dukes for Hannah, but finding pajamas for the kids was almost impossible! We like PJ pants with T-shirts. For several reasons--they can be worn year-round. No PJ pants for Hannah in any of the stores I tried. PJ's in the stores were skimpy. Why bother? Found ONE pair of pants for Toph, and we found silky shirts and shorts (not intended as PJ's but it works). Still nothing for Hannah. I ended up going into the women's section and finding nightgowns in size XS. We also found PJ capri's (pants for my 6-year-old) with strings to make them tighter. Hannah got several new things she loves and Toph LOVES the silky shirts/shorts he's wearing as PJ's.

Shoes will be the next thing on the agenda, but I've learned my lesson. We'll wait until just before school starts. At the rate these kids grow, they'd need a bigger size if we bought the shoes now!

On VACATION.......Summer Vacation!

I looked at the date to my last post and realized that it has been WAY too long!

The end of the school year and vacation the next week were just SO busy that I didn't make time to post. Having discovered Facebook, I DID make time to go there. I need to remember that my blog is my priority though.

Why do I blog? First, because it helps all of the family (and friends) know what we're up to. Since we don't live near any of our family anymore, it helps all of them know what's up with us, and allows them to see pictures of us. Secondly, I've NEVER been good at journaling before, but I discovered that I really like to blog. I can use the blog as a family journal, and I can even make my blog into a book.

So, I've been on vacation. Summer vacation has been full and busy, just like the rest of our lives, but I will make time in the near future to rectify my lack of posting. I'll even post pictures. Robert got me a card reader for my computer, and he's taught me some "magic" to get the pictures from the camera onto my computer. Life is good.

Now I need to go ponder the ramifications of doing something permanent to fighting children who MUST win all arguments. I'm thinking of installing a velcro wall at each end of my upstairs hall. Or muzzles.

See you soon!

It's ALIVE!

So I was on the computer, alone in the house, when I hear strange noise coming from the bathroom. Water was bubbling up through the toilet! It was making a blurp sound as it splashed all over the toilet seats. I'd noticed the "sewer sucker" trucks about earlier, and I went outside to see if they were still on my street. Yep, that's the problem! Apparently our house is so close to the sewer main that when they flush the line sometimes this happens. Joy! Imagine my neighbor's surprise when this happened to his son--on the pot! 2 of my 3 toilets experienced this wackiness, and let me tell you, although the water is clean looking, the smell is NOT!

If you live in the neighborhood and have a wet bathroom, look to the sewer flushers!

Feedom Isn't FREE

I got an unexpected email from our former landlord yesterday and the subject just read, "B... is okay." I hadn't seen the news, so I had no idea that there had been a crash involving his squadron.

For more details, you can read the news story about this sad event.

It just reinforces a couple of things to me: first of all, freedom isn't FREE. We owe our freedom to the many men and women who make it their life's work to ensure our freedom and safety. There are 5 families now who are grieving for their lost loved one, and as a nation, we should grieve with them--those people worked for us too. We owe them a debt of gratitude that we can never repay. Second, we never know when we walk out the door if we'll get to return again. It makes me want to make sure to hug and kiss my family members good-bye and cherish the time I have with them a little bit more. Because life is uncertain. We need to make the most of the time we DO have, so that we have no regrets.

Besides, what are we waiting for? Let's live life to the fullest every day!

Another quick week......

I just don't know where all of the time goes! Last week zipped by possibly even quicker than the week before.

Hannah and Toph are finishing up the school year. The final count down is on, and I am actually excited to welcome summer vacation. I think we're all ready to be done with rigid routines and have some free time. We want to go to the Science Museum!!! We want to go swimming. We want to go to the beach. We want to just be lazy at home. We want to visit with our friends. We have a serious case of spring fever.

This week was the much-awaited Daddy/Daughter Dance on Wednesday and the Mother/Son dance on Thursday. Our school does this each year, and the kids love it! This was Hannah's first time, and she was so funny. On Wednesdays, school has early dismissal, and we almost always go to the park to play. We played at the park for about 90 minutes, and then we went to a friend's house to swim for another 90 minutes. Then the kids came home, showered, and Hannah went to the dance. Anyone who knows Hannah knows how much she LOVES music and dancing, and she was very excited to go dance with Daddy. Imagine my surprise when she returned home after just 45 minutes! The girl was POOPED. She apparently didn't stop moving the whole time they were there, and her style of dance could be described as "aerobic." Dancing following swimming and playing--she slept good!

Toph and I went for our tun on Thursday. He could not wait! He'd made plans to meet certain friends at certain places, and he wanted to be early, so he wouldn't miss a thing. We beat most of his friends there. Toph is a very considerate date. He danced with me right away for 3-4 songs, and then he wanted to look for his friends. So he brought me some punch and then let me talk to some other Moms while he ran wild for a few minutes. Then he checked back to make sure I was having a fun time. He thought we should dance again, so we did, and then I went back outside and talked with our former landlord. It was nice to have a conversation in person instead of email--and it was much cooler outside. Then Toph came back and wanted to make sure I was having a good time. We danced some more, and I thought we might be able to go home. No such luck. More dancing--the chicken dance, the hokey pokey, and the macarena. I did not attempt the cha cha slide--or whatever it's called. More talking to friends, and Toph got to lead "the train." After that we danced another slow song, and the dance was over! We'd been there the whole time, and we'd had a lot of fun. Toph was so considerate of me the whole time--it makes me just burst with pride.

A bit of an uneventful happening--we developed a leak in the kitchen. I came home on Wednesday and found water on the floor. I mopped it up (thinking it was a melted ice cube), and later that night, I found the floor wet again. Under our kitchen sink was leaking from somewhere. I got to wait for the plumber on Thursday. Fun times! I was very glad that the school was having a fund raiser at Islands and that I could talk Robert into going. After 2 days of not doing the dishes, I wasn't looking forward to the washing and then the cooking......

Saturday I had a great day! I'm sleeping better right now, and I'm breathing better this week. I got to go clothes shopping and out to lunch with a good friend and then we went on a movie date in the evening. Our husbands saw Star Trek and we saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. It was a really nice day. Then the Gibbs came over this afternoon and we watched Benjamin Button (liked the movie, but not the ending) and we had dinner together. All in all it was a very nice weekend! To make it even better, Mother Nature cooperated too. We were supposed to have a heat wave and be in the mid 90's all weekend. Didn't quite make it, and the evenings have been great! When I watched the news tonight it said that Fresno was 106 today--ouch! And I'm having to close windows because it's getting too chilly!

Have I mentioned how much I love living here? :-)

Next week is a busy one. Lots of things going on, and I'm putting the kids on another routine. Doing homework after free time just isn't working. I'm changing it up again, and I'm NOT going to be popular around here. Oh well. It's not my job to be popular. I hope the kids appreciate that when they're older and have kids of their own!

Hannah--antics of the past (I hope!)

A blog buddy FB'd about her daughter cutting her hair. I saw the pictures, and it's sad, but not HORRIBLE. I can beat it.

Our beautiful Hannah has cut her hair, not once, but TWICE! The first time she had help--in the form of an older brother. They did an amazing job, but it was drastic. Look at the photos:

Before:

After:





Then, last year, Hannah did it AGAIN! They say lightening doesn't strike twice in the same spot, but "they" don't know our Hannah. It was the day before her tonsils were coming out, and she was watching a movie on the computer. Toph was home from school, really sick, and I was SO tired from being up all night with him that I was napping on the couch. Toph got up and announced that Hannah had cut her hair. I was TOTALLY unprepared for the sight that greeted me:





There's not much you can do to "fix" that. Here's how we "fixed" it:





Here's what she looked like just 2 months before, as she was pigging out on her birthday cupcakes:



Now, Hair grows back. It's one of the things we can count on. This is Hannah about a year after the devastation:

But this was traumatic for my baby, because a LOT of people asked her if she was a boy--or just referred to her as a boy. She started school and kids in her class asked her if she was a boy. She DID have a boy hair cut, in their defense. I'm REALLY hoping that the trauma of that will help Hannah to decide to leave the hair cutting to the professionals! I don't know if I can live through lightening striking the same place THREE times!

Runaway Train......

Sometimes I feel like I'm on a runaway train. Time goes so quickly and there's so much going on. That's what this week has been like.

Toph had a performance Monday night with his class. Monday I spent the day working on a banner for Teacher Appreciation week (hopefully I'll have the photo to share soon). By the time we got home at 8, sent the kids to bed, and Robert and I finally had dinner, I was DONE! And let's not even go into the fact that I'd had 2 1/2 hours of sleep (maybe).

Tuesday I devoted to finishing my cards for card swap. In the past we've met on Thursday, so I thought I was doing good on time. Not so much since we were meeting on Tuesday. I finished with 30 minutes to spare, and I had a good time swapping cards. Although I had fun, my asthma started to trigger at card swap. I thought it was because the host has pets that I might be allergic to, but after getting home and a rocky night, I decided it might be more.

Wednesday I started running a fever--GREAT! Because I don't have enough going on. Our van had brakes that REALLY needed servicing, so I spent a great deal of time in the car. Robert and I took it in to the shop, I dropped Robert off at work, the kids and I went to the shop to pay the bill and get the key, and then we picked Robert up at work and collected the van. WHEW! I skipped cub scouts, and I'm glad I did. As the day wore on, I kept feeling worse and worse. As long as I was doing NOTHING, life was manageable. But I was short of breath if I was exerting any energy. NOT good! With piggy flu going around, and with this asthma episode accompanied with a fever, I decided that seeing the doctor might be a good idea. The good news: last night I actually SLEPT! Didn't have consecutive hours, but I slept for about 7!!!

Today I called the doctor early, and got probably the last available appointment, "could you be here in 15 minutes?" Luckily, Robert was still home. I left him to pack the kids up for school and prayed for green lights. The doctor I saw wasn't concerned about piggy flu, and diagnosed a simple upper respiratory infection with asthma. I learned that I'd lost 8 lbs! And then he prescribed Prednisone. Oh well, you can't have it all! I'm disappointed because I HATE Prednisone, but breathing IS important. I don't know what set me off, but this round of asthma feels "different" than before, and that got me to the doctor's office faster than I might have gone otherwise. I've also got an antibiotic, so I should be feeling better very soon.

Tomorrow is a BUSY day! It's teacher appreciation week this week, and my contribution to Toph's class is to bring in lunch to the teacher. I previously purchased my tableware and decorations, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fulfill my promise, but I will! I'm excited to be doing that. I also get to attend the Q and U Wedding in Kindergarten. It's for Mother's day. The girls are the Q's and the boys are the U's and the program is super secret, but supposed to be just adorable. I can't wait!

Then we'll be very ready for the weekend and a little down time. Hopefully my honey and I will go on a DATE on Saturday, to celebrate Mother's Day.

But really, the runaway train needs to SLOW DOWN!!!