Shaye's blog

Blogaversary (Is that a word yet?)

I realized earlier today that today is my blogaversary!  The only reason I know that is because I remember starting this blog on my sister's birthday two years ago.  I haven't been around for a while, but I swear I had a semi-good reason!  My wireless router crapped out, so I didn't have easy internet access.  I could still get online in the dungeon, but it's disastrously messy and cold down there, so it's not my favorite place to hang out.  The good news is that we had AT&T come out and install U-verse last weekend, and we had them run ethernet cable into the den--so I can use the internet up where the land-dwelling people live!  (The bad news is that my laptop no longer recognizes my wireless card reader, but I got the poor thing back in 2002, so it's lived a long life.)  In the meantime, a friend of ours got a newer computer and gave us their old-ish one.  It's actually not that old, and still much faster than my old laptop or the desktop in the dungeon.

Anyway, strange things are afoot at the Circle-K, but I'm not at liberty to discuss just yet.  As soon as I inform the key-players, I'll fill you in.

Back to Kindergarten

So yesterday morning I slept in.  I turned my alarm off, and Steve finally woke me up at a little after 7:00--a full hour later than I had originally planned to get up.  I figured I'd just pull my hair back into a ponytail, pull some clothes on, take everyone to school, then come back home to shower, eat, and do everything else I needed to that morning.

Wrong.

I got to Simon's school and ran in to see if his teacher needed me to do anything.  That was my first mistake.  As I was talking to her, the school administrator came up and told me that one of the kindergarten teachers was home with her sick daughter so could I cover for her today.  I said yes (because I'm a sap) so I spent the day with the full-day kindergarteners yesterday.  It was exhausting.  Then I got home and immediately had to get ready to go to bunco.  I was so tired that I got into the tub to get cleaned up for bunco and proceeded to fall asleep.  (I can't tell you how long it's been since I've actually fallen asleep in the tub.  I must have been really sleepy.)   Steve woke me up, once again, with 15 minutes to spare, and we were off to bunco.

I had fun at bunco.  I did really well.  I got the most wins, tied for most minis, AND had the last bunco of the night.  I got a really cute fall decoration and a door prize because we only had eight people there last night.  I'm scheduled to host in December, so I'm already brain storming about the food, the prizes, and my signature cocktail for the night.

In the meantime, Steve now has a sore throat.  He tried to get into the doctor on Friday, but they couldn't get him in at a time when he could leave work.  I know they're not supposed to, but I had hoped that they would just write him an antibiotic for strep since that's what everyone else has and he has the same symptoms.  Of course they wouldn't.  We're having some friends from Tokyo (Scott & Mio) over for dinner Monday night, and Steve can't get to the doctor until Monday afternoon, which means if he *does* have strep, he'll still be contagious by Monday night.  I might have to change plans and take them out to dinner so they aren't exposed to strep right before they fly back to Japan.  I've been trying to think of a place with a decent selection of vegetarian options just in case we do need to go out to eat.

Right now I'm still groggy and partially asleep, but I need to get it together because my poor dog desperately needs to be bathed.  I'll get right on that...

Whew!

So Simon went back to school today, and the gas guy came and went without incident.  (Ok, the gas guy looked just like Wilford Brimley, which amused me, but it was still pretty much without incident.)

While I had the house to myself once more, I did all kinds of boring things like playing online, folding laundry, doing dishes, and as I type I have homemade stew and rolls in the oven waiting for Steve to return from his weekly staff meeting at the church.

I didn't realize how freaked out I get about people coming into the house until I said something about being stressed to Steve last night.  He pointed out that I get stressed out like that every time we have a workman scheduled to come into the house.  It must be left over from my childhood when my mom would freak out and make me clean from the time we found out that someone was coming, up until the moment they got there.  Some serious repressed sh*t, and I'd say I'd rather keep it that way, but I do feel better knowing why I've been so stressed.  Maybe next time I won't freak out quite so badly.

I'm playing Bunco tomorrow night, and I'm very excited about it.  I'm not sure what Steve and Simon's big "guys only" thing will be tomorrow while I'm gone, but I mentioned to them that my sister's pool is just sitting there since she's on her honeymoon.  It's supposed to get up to 80 tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be warm enough. 

My new hero--ANTIBIOTICS!

So Simon and I went to the doctor yesterday, and almost upon first glance at Simon the doctor proclaimed that Simon has a textbook case of strep.  His symptoms, the way his throat looked, and even the smell of his breath are all classic strep.  I'm glad that I made myself an appointment while I was at it because we both have it.  We both started a Z-Pak last night, both fell asleep early and both slept in this morning.  I think Simon actually slept for something like 15 hours last night.  He was a new man when he woke up this morning!   He's been working on schoolwork all day in an effort toward being caught up when he finally goes back to school tomorrow.

I, on the other hand, seem to be somewhat scattered today.  I'm stressed out because my housework has gotten behind while I've been so sick and busy, and they gas company is coming *sometime* between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm tomorrow to give us a new gas meter.  They'll have to turn off the gas, and if they find anything wrong with any of our appliances they won't turn them back on until we get a plumber out to fix whatever problem they might find.  I know that logically everything will probably be fine, but I'm still trying to catch up on all of my dishes and laundry today just in case we don't have use of our water heater or gas dryer after tomorrow.

I've been planning to make all kinds of food for the past several days, and haven't made any of it yet.  I'm going to have to do it tomorrow or my food is going to go bad before I can cook it.  Today I'm planning to oven dry my tomatoes, but tomorrow I have to make my pie, stew and rolls that I've been planning for so long.  At least my dishes are finally almost caught up.  I still have a few large things to handwash, and I need to empty the drainboard and dishwasher, but I'm really close! 

I just need to try to unwind.  It seems like "stressed out" is my default condition lately, and I forget how to be anything else.  I can't find my favorite yoga tape.  Maybe I should try doing another one.  (Except that idea stresses me out.) I'm a hopeless case!

Strep or no strep?

That is the question! 

Simon's fever finally broke, but now he has a really sore throat.  I called the doctor for suggestions on what to give him for it, and they told me that strep is going around so I should probably bring him in.  We now have an appointment for 1:40.  I hope they can just give us both something that will make us all better so we can be done with it!

Also in health news, I was watching The Today Show this morning (for the first time in ages), and they had a segment on infertility.  In it, they featured women who had tried Western medicine (IUIs, IVFs, frozen embryo transfers) but it didn't work.  The women instead tried Eastern medicine.  (Yoga, diet, acupuncture, Chinese herbs)  I don't know that I'll go so far as to try the herbs and acupuncture--although I might try the acupuncture if I had the chance--but I can definitely do the diet and exercise.  I've gotten really lax about my health lately, which shows when you consider the fact that I've been sick for over a month and a half.  We got so busy, and I stopped paying attention to what we were eating.  I have got to stop that!  As of today, I'm going to start eating more produce and less junk!  I'll also break out my yoga tapes and get back into that, too.  I'll let you know how it goes.

Steve took off a couple of hours this morning to deal with some issues with his teaching license.  He's going to be picking us up in a little bit so we can keep the car to go to the doctor.  After that I'm going to get started back up on the clean kitchen project.  I got the big freezer organized yesterday.  (I cannot believe how much food I have in there!  I threw away a bunch of stuff, and I still have at least a month's worth of food in there.  We'll be eating out of the freezer for a while!)

I have a bunch of fresh things I need to use or store, too.  A ton of ripe tomatoes, zucchini, herbs, and I'm starting to get tiny eggplant on my plants!  I hope it makes for about a million food blog posts!

Monday, September 15, 2008

Except it isn't really a very exciting one.

Our tree is still sitting in the back yard.  It was far too windy to do anything about it yesterday, and Simon is home sick today so I haven't gone out to start doing anything with it today.  I don't have the arm strength to start the chainsaw, and I'm a little afraid to run the chipper when Steve isn't home.  My luck I'd accidentally stick my arm in and have no one to take me and my stump to the E.R.  Steve won't be able to do much tonight because he's teaching at the newly renamed Arts Academy which starts tonight.  (Now known as Mainstage Jr.) 

I guess Rex is teaching Acting this year, so Steve is teaching Singing.  Simon is pretty excited about taking Stage Fighting and Stunts, and I love that Simon gets free classes since Steve teaches.  (Yeah, I think I'm going to let him go tonight.  He's missing the school skating party, but he hasn't had any symptoms since his fever this morning.  I don't know if it was a fluke or what, but he hasn't had meds since seven hours ago, and seems to be feeling fine.)

While they're doing that, I plan to work on my kitchen.  It needs to be organized so badly, I can't stand it!  Every cabinet needs to be emptied and reorganized.  I've lived here for three years, so I think I'll have a better idea of what I actually need to have in the kitchen.  (It's so hard when you first move in and have no idea where you'll want to store things.)  I also want to clean out all of my food cabinets, get rid of all the expired things, check for bugs, and just generally clean things up.  I can't find anything anymore!  Then I'm going to get started on my freezers.  I haven't cleaned out the big freezer because it's been so warm.  Now that it's cooler, I might have a better chance of doing it without defrosting everything in there.  After I get it done, I'm going to clean out the freezer in the fridge, then make a big list of everything I have in there so I can keep track!  I keep saying I'm going to do that, but I never get around to it. 

After I get all of that done, I plan on cooking up a storm!  My poor food blog hasn't had a food related post in almost two months.  I posted a little entry a little while ago, and while I was at it I checked my stats.  I can't believe it, but I'm still averaging around 20 hits a day when I haven't even posted since August 9th.  That makes me feel good.  I can't wait to see how many hits I get when I start posting regularly again!  I had gotten a little burnt out on it there for a while, but now I'm newly excited about cooking fall foods.  I'm planning to make beef stew, homemade crusty rolls, and a pear pie in the very near future.  That's three posts if I space them out.  Whooot!

Ok, I suppose I should get up there and get started.  So far I've been all talk about this whole kitchen thing.  Now I've posted it, so I guess I should really do it.  ;)

Poor Neglected Blogosphere, I'm sorry I abandoned you. :(

So it seems my wireless internet is on the fritz, and I think best with my laptop.  I'm currently on Steve's PC in the basement, but only because it's my only choice.  We did the procedure and two weeks later a blood test told me that it didn't work.  I then consumed a few hard lemonades because they are quite yummy.  We decided not to try again until next month because I just need a break from the stress this month.

We had Simon's birthday party last month.  I'll post pictures as soon as I get my laptop back.  We had it at the Putt-Putt place, and it was a lot of fun.  Well *most* of us had a lot of fun.  Steve got beaned by a ski-ball, and may or may not have gotten a concussion.  I swear the lump on his head came up just as fast as they do on a Bugs Bunny cartoon!  He's ok now, fortunately.

School also started in August.  Steve doesn't have first hour prep this year, so he's supposed to get to school by 7:45 a.m.  Simon doesn't have to be in class until 8:30, so I've been driving everyone every morning.  I haven't had to get up and go anywhere regularly for years, so it took some adjustment.  I'm just getting used to using an alarm clock again--I can usually wake up on my own early enough to help get everyone out the door, but now I have to get up an hour and a half earlier than that.  Ouch.

Right around the time school was starting, most of Steve's family came to town to see his niece's new baby.  We wound up having 19 people over here for an impromptu cookout.  That was also a little stressful, but it was nice to see everyone.  Then, since the house was already clean and we had just had a cookout, we decided to have a few friends from Simon's school over for another cookout.  That was also stressful, but very fun.  (We're actually thinking about trying it again next month!) 

This weekend we had a few of my high school friends over.  Wes came into town from Dallas, so we invited Andy--who lives here.  I half-jokingly invited our friend Cari from Chicago, never expecting her to be able to come down, but she was able!  It was really fun.  We stayed up chatting until 2:00 a.m. 

The next morning I had to get up to pick up and deliver my sister's wedding cake.  The ladies of her church catered her reception, but they were afraid of doing the cake so I did it.  Then we had to stop and exchange Simon's new clothes for a size larger because I forget when I shop that he's growing before my eyes.  After that we went to my friend Scott Silvey's lovely garden wedding.  It was very sweet, but we had to leave to get to my sister's wedding.  My sister's wedding was a lot more work, but also fun.  I asked the photographer to take a picture of all three sisters with our husbands and offspring.  I can't wait to get a copy of that to print for my mom.  (She wasn't able to attend, but I think she'd like to have an 8x10 for her nursing home room.)

Today we're getting huge winds from Ike's leftovers.  I was just talking to my friend Kelly who has now lost several shingles and some siding; and her swing set has fallen over and is making its way across her yard.  We just lost a tree, but luckily it didn't hit anything when it fell.  Steve is going to be busy all week, so once again we're going to have a fun time getting a tree cleaned up from our yard.

I'm nursing some kind of cold or sinus infection or something, so I think I'll go back and visit the couch for a while longer...

Life spins me round like a record, right round.

First off, I found out a few days ago that the whole baby process will begin THIS Thursday, so our teacup rides will be over with before Kelly even gets to Disney.  WHEW!  lol  Feel free to continue praying at will that I'll have a good follicle on Thursday so we can do everything else on Friday.  My doc told me that their shots are back-ordered, so I'm going to have to just use Clomid.  You know I secretly wish for twins, so I'm a little disappointed that they're out of shots. Oh well, what will be will be...

Next, there's this whole matter of my big 9-year-old kid.  His birthday was this week, and he's all grown up now!  I'm still trying to figure out how and when this happened.  I have cupcakes in the oven as I speak for his birthday party tomorrow.  We're going to have a party at the miniature golf place.  They offer a great package where the kids get two games of mini-golf, ice cream, sodas, and goody bags with 45 tokens to play games like ski-ball and video games.  It's going to cost us about $120 for 14 kids, plus the cupcakes I'm making--but they won't be over here.  Besides, I'm pretty sure we spent well over $120 last year for the pirate party.  And, they do all the work including clean-up.  What's not to like?! 

We found out that one of Simon's friends had an emergency in her family, and they weren't going to be able to bring her tomorrow.  I volunteered to let them bring her over in the morning and have her spend the day with us while the rest of the family goes to the hospital to visit her grandmother.  They're going to let me know in the morning if she wants to come here or go to the hospital. 

PLUS, Steve's brother is in town to see our new grand-nephew.  (Steve's niece had a baby back in June.)  He and his wife and youngest daughter are coming over for a visit tomorrow night.  I volunteered to cook dinner, but I still have no idea what I'm making.  I suppose I should figure that out, but right now I'm focusing on get the house tidied back up and getting these cupcakes made for the party.  (Since that's my only job for the party this year.)

After all of that, my father-in-law called this afternoon to tell me that my sister-in-law is coming up from South Carolina on Monday to see my brother-in-law who is going back to Seattle Tuesday morning; and to suggest that I have everyone over here for a gathering on Monday.  I was cool with that, until I started realizing that it wouldn't be just us.  We're also inviting Steve's brother's daughter with her husband and new baby, plus Steve's sister's daughter and her two kids.  So far we're up to 14 people.  I suggested that since Steve's niece's husband is allergic to cats, we should have a cookout and all stay out on the patio for our visit.  (I never thought I'd actually be thankful for someone's allergies to my cats!) 

So now I'm sitting here waiting for the cupcakes to cool so I can frost them, and I'm also trying to come up with a mental list of all of the things that need to be done in the morning through Monday night.  It's obviously too late for me to think clearly, so I guess I'll go to bed and try again in the morning when I'm fresh!

More TMI for the Masses

Well, our quest for a baby brother or sister hasn't gone by the wayside, although I haven't subjected you to listening to it for a while.  At my last consult, my doctor determined that I've been futzing around with the Clomid for long enough.  It looks like we're going to move forward to artificial insemination. 

Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I'll get shots that will make my poor old ovaries jump into action.  Shortly thereafter, my poor husband will have to make a deposit.  His deposit will get to go on a teacup ride until all of the dizzy swimmers are gone and all that's left are the mighty and robust swimmers that will get the job done!  Then the doc will then take them and put them where they need to be.  Hopefully, a few weeks later, I'll get to pee on a stick, jump with joy, and then probably puke on my shoes if it's anything like last time.

At first I wasn't very excited about this whole prospect.  I didn't hear much about successful IUIs.   But then I started looking into it more, and found out that a lot of places make you try a few IUIs with just the Clomid before they move on to IUIs with the shots.  My doctor knows that our money tree hasn't been producing the green like it should, so we're going straight for the shots. 

There have also been a few little signs that might chalk up to me being strange, or might actually be little hints from God that this one's for real.  I choose to think they're hints from God.  The doctor wasn't available to do the procedure last month, so we had to wait until this month.  If I get pregnant this month, Steve will be getting out of school just in time for delivery and to stay home and help with the baby during its first three months.   I also started my cycle on Simon's birthday, which means the baby would be due on my niece's birthday.  I know they're just silly little things, but I'm still holding onto them to stay positive.  (It can't hurt.)

If you're the praying sort, or even if you're the positive vibe sort, feel free to throw either or both in my direction.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Ok, I'll admit it.  Back-to-School time is my absolute favorite time of year and always has been.  I always loved going out and buying school supplies.  (Who wouldn't love huge boxes of perfectly sharp crayons?  What potential!!!)  Later on it took on a whole new dimension when it also became dorm shopping time!  That was the absolute best!  Being able to take an entirely beige room, and turn it into whatever I wanted for the year was intoxicating!  I never let go of that glee once my second and last year living in the dorms was over with. 

Every year about this time, I become completely engrossed in some sort of home improvement.  Sometimes it's just a hearty fall cleaning--which really makes much more sense to me than spring cleaning since you're going to be cooped up in the house all winter.  Sometimes I want to redecorate a room.  Sometimes it's a reorganization bent where I FINALLY clean out the kitchen cabinets, match my storage containers and lids, and remove the football shaped Jello mold that I only use for Super Bowl parties so I have room for the juicer I use all the time.  There's such potential, how can I possibly decide where to start??

I have to wonder if there isn't a tiny hint of absolution involved for all of the projects that I think Steve and I are going to get done over the summer that don't get done.  Suddenly I have a fresh start!  It's like New Years, only better because I'm going to be home alone again with plenty of time to get things done!

I've decided to start with baby steps.  I have a habit of writing out a million goals, becoming overwhelmed, and then not accomplishing any of them.  This time I'm going to just keep in mind the things I'd like to get done, then try to motivate myself to just stay active when I'm home.  Heck, I might even try some Flylady techniques and start bedtime and morning routines this week.

For today I've decided to tackle all of the clothing that is stuffed into our dressers, closets and :gulp: hampers.  I've already washed, dried, and put away several loads of laundry.  I also went through Simon's dresser and pulled out all of the clothes that he's outgrown.   I'm also washing and freshening our extra blankets and sheets, and then putting them in giant vacuum bags.   (I guess I should also consider cleaning out the linen closet so I have somewhere to put all of these freshly flattened bags of sheets and blankets.)

All in due time, my friends.  All in due time!