Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

An update just for Mom

Just so my Mom knows I really did listen, I thought I'd post again. I want to write some longer posts. We had our 22nd anniversary & I have thoughts on marriage to share. We are trying to start our homeschool year, so that is always a fun topic. I want to lose some weight. Another "meaty" (or more accurately, FATTY) topic. For now, I'll just post a quick update.

Last weekend while my husband & I spent a quiet weekend without kids, the girls spent the weekend with my parents. I'm so blessed to have two healthy parents who are in their mid-70's. Sure, they aren't healthy the way that a 20 year old is, but all things considered, they are doing pretty well. Mom took the girls to a huge Outlet Mall complex (actually it's 2 outlet malls) in San Marcos TX. It's kind of funny as I went to college there (San Marcos, not the outlet mall) & I think we had a Wal-Mart & a few other stores (besides the college stores). Phil & I lived in San Marcos & could see the Outlet Mall from our apartment complex. It was a strip of stores. Then the 2nd mall was built. Now it's this huge complex where people will shop for days on a trip, staying overnight at local hotels.

The girls had never been to an outlet mall like this. They were fairly impressed, I think. They each bought some things with their money. Natalie has some really bright nail polish! She is the nail polish queen. Bethany found a cute headband and some shorts. Finding clothes to fit her tiny body is a miracle. We met my folks Sunday morning & were able to go as a family to church together. We go to a church service at 1 p.m. Last week I saw this as a "tweet", "CBC@1: Eliminating the need for alarm clocks." Love that!

Nat came home a bit sniffly. We thought it was allergies. Monday we had a Girl Scout meeting then we went shopping for cake making supplies. My niece, Becky, asked if we'd like to bake the cupcakes & cake for her daughter's 1st birthday party. Natalie has been SO excited to do this! She has been planning & even practicing to make these. Well, by Monday night Natalie was running fever & her throat hurt. Today her fever was gone during the day but her throat hurt. Tonight the fever was back. We'll take her to the doctor tomorrow to see if she needs an antibiotic. SHE is the one asking to see the doctor and really wanted to go today so she could get on meds if necessary.

Of course, if she is sick with something contagious, we won't be making any cupcakes or a cake (for a family gathering later in the day, after the kid party). If she's sick on Thursday we probably won't be able to make the trip to Houston on Friday. If one of us catches whatever she has, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

In other news, our bedroom window unit decided to stop cooling yesterday. Our Central air went out in June & our landlord has put window units in most of the rooms. We were able to pull a small one out of the girls' room. However, our room is a LOT bigger than theirs, so this one unit isn't cooling our room the way the other one did. Our landlord is looking for a bigger one and even offered to take one out of his bedroom to put in for us so we could have two. Phil told him no, that we'd be okay with the one. I am staying up late partly to wait for the room to cool some more. I'll also go take a shower & have wet hair to keep me cooler.

OH! In food news, I made a yummy breakfast dish today. I'm a bit of a cookbook collector. I've actually just sold several of my gluten free cookbooks as for most things I make I've found flour mixes I can use with standard recipes. While I was at a quilt shop in Kerrville TX the other day I picked up this little book with recipes from Texas Bed & Breakfasts! I'd already found a recipe from the place where Phil & I stayed last year on our anniversary. I looked through this one & decided to try a version of something I saw, but modified, mainly b/c I was downstairs & the book was upstairs. LOL! I put 2 pieces of muenster cheese in the bottom of a buttered small oval baker (from Pampered Chef). Then I mixed 4 eggs with a bit of milk, some salt & pepper, and dill. I poured that over the cheese and baked at 350 for I'm not sure how long b/c I never heard the timer go off. It was more than 15 minutes, I know. It was just getting lightly browned, and was baked all the way through perfectly. It was REALLY good! I liked that it was small and I could make it in the Toaster Oven. Natalie wasn't feeling like eating eggs, so it was just enough for Bethany & me to share. Now I want to try more recipes!


Not a terribly exciting blog post, but it's a post! Good night. Or morning!

Monday, August 8, 2011

I'm still alive!

My mommy just spanked me. My Mom just let me know it's been nearly four months since I posted here! YIKES! I guess it's time to post something. Something deep and profound. Or not.

In May I was dealing with some abdominal pain that I'm still not sure what the cause was. It was on the left side and I thought it was kidney related at first. Nope. Went to the gastroenterologist & got scoped out. Both ends. And, yes, they did clean the scope off in between. LOL! All was good. That means my gluten free diet is working! She did tell me to stop using ibuprofen as it seemed to be causing problems in the lining. Sorry if that's TMI! A friend suggested maybe I bruised a rib. That very well could have been the case. I'm wondering if during my first (yes, first, there was another one) kidney stone procedure it got bruised from the pressure.

About the time that pain started going away my old friend the kidney stone started to move. This one was on the right side. I landed in the ER in mid-June, then in the Doctor's office. He planned to do a procedure the next day, but I'd taken ibuprofen that day, and had to be off any blood thinning medication for a week prior to surgery or shocking the stone. See what I get for not listening to the gi dr.? He did decide to put in a stent the next day. Oh. Boy. What. Fun. (Don't you hate when people. type. with. periods.? LOL!)

On June 30th I had surgery to remove the stone. If you look at a calendar you'll realize that was a Thursday. Guess what comes right after June 30th? Well, July 1st does, but I'm thinking of July 4th. Which meant, I had to wait until AFTER the 4th of July to have the stent removed. Since the offices were closed on the 4th, and we were out of town, I had it removed on the 5th. It was painful. Having the first one out wasn't. In fact, it was a relief when I had it out. This one was different. That night I developed a pain that was as bad as passing a stone. I took some hydrocodone and called the doctor's office to find a doctor on call. The dr. who called me back said this was common, that my ureter had closed off and my kidney was backed up, but it would pass. He said as long as there was no fever it would be okay. Thankfully he was right!

It's taken a few weeks, but finally my body seems to be healing. Apart from a new issue I developed last summer: migraines. I had an attack this weekend. Since I'd never had one before last year, I don't recognize the signs & wasn't sure what to do for it. I do know I spent most of Friday and Saturday in bed. Today I am feeling human again. Which is good since I HAVE to go mail things. I've been selling off things on ebay and have 17 items to ship today! I remember reading in Dave Ramsey's book that one way to help prevent/get out of debt is to sell what you have. He said to sell so much that the kids thought you'd be selling them next! ha, ha! My kids are just discovering which stamp sets I've sold and saying, "Mom, you sold THAT? I liked that set!" It's okay. They have more money than I do. They can buy their own! : )

I'll try to post again soon so my parents don't ground me you can find out what's going on here. I know you are waiting by the computer for my entries. WHAT? You AREN'T????

Have a great day!