Sunday, August 30

The disease has spread

Alice's disease ridde nose has passed on to the rest of the family. I haven't had so much of a runny nose, but other symptoms. We all passed out for at least an hour Saturday afternoon, and went to bed early. Only, I can't sleep because I am sick. Its sad.

I did take the time to look up H1N1 symptoms. Cause, its important to be prepared. Essentially a mild case of swine flu = a cold + fever over 100. More severe cases include GI symptoms.

Well, aside from the fever, I totally have swine flu. As does the chainsaw next to me, and the one down the hall. I caught myself sounding like a chainsaw earlier today and I wasn't even asleep!

So there you go. My life is now a world of Kleenex, TP, and sanitizer solution. Oh and spicy food. Cause it clears out the chainsaws from the nose.

The cause? Enrichment meeting Thursday. Everyone that went there, except one, is sick now. Alice had a bit of a runny nose then, but my guess from seeing another kid, we got it from her. Darn drippy noses in toddlers.

I think my pain killers (acetaminophen) has kicked in so I can sleep more comfortably now. Its too bad i drank all that water with the pills. I love my bathroom, even if it needs cleaned.

Friday, August 28

Play dates in the Park, and lies we tell others

Well, not technically a play date. But a play in the park day, nonetheless. Don't you like words that just seem like run on words?

Anyway, we met at a fenced and gated rubber tire park. I think the park is named for some kid, but the main lure is the gated fence. It means kids stay in and away from traffic.

Alice had fun. She followed some kids around. She monitored the gate between the big kid stuff and the smaller kid stuff. She even slid down several slides on her own! Though mostly she went backwards and on her belly.

Then we came home, she drank some Dr Pepper and passed out in my lap. Sounding like she has a disease in her nose.

Good times.

I also have to admit I lied today. I told "Discover Cards" today that I was Daniel. Yes, I know, not the most truthful of moments. But seriously they have called every single day for the last 2 weeks. I have chewed people out for the last week about calling during the day. Why? Well, he works during the day. Surprise. I told one guy to specifically put down to not call during the day yesterday.

So today when a woman called asking for Daniel I said that was me. No one said Daniel is a gender specific name. Now get this. I found out they are offering the SAME service we said no to two months ago. Lets see, I can get my credit report monitored for free online (though I can't remember who its with, but seriously totally free we both have accounts). Maybe I will pay the company that owns our credit card to do the same thing. For a free Experian credit score!

I don't think so.

If they call back I will request to speak with a supervisor and perhaps even consider switching back to a different household credit card. You know, one that didn't call every other month offering services. One that is also in my name as the primary, so I can tell them to not call back and they believe me.

Either way, lets hope the credit monitoring service they are trying to sell stops calling. Lets also hope that I get the house in reasonable condition. At least the living room and dining room. Cause we are feeding the missionaries. And, if we end up eating Arby's roast beef sandwiches, I won't feel bad at all. Especially if we serve them with salad or something semi-healthy. Besides, if worse comes to worse, we can eat at a park. Not quite the same as eating in someone's home, but its nice weather. And I can put off cleaning my dump/home until the weekend.

Thursday, August 27

Enrichment committe meeting

I sent a whole pile of cherry tomatoes away today. It was great.

This morning I had an enrichment committee meeting at 9:30. Daniel has night class today, so I got picked up. He has been commissioned to find or create a carpool tonight for his Thursday night class. Even if its just for one night. Even if he just pays someone $5 to take him with them.

Why?

Well, next week will be crazy for me. I have LINK during the day. That means I will have 5 million things showing up at my house to drop off at the church that hosts the meal. I also had the university ward request to drop things off with me because no one had space that could drop things off in the middle of the day. Its totally fine, and really not a big deal because I don't care if they show up late. I won't be here. They can drop it off at the church. I don't have to call all the people and remind them what they signed up for. I don't even have to be concerned that they don't have enough servers for their ward.

Its great.

I by the way, have 3 servers and will be picking up and dropping off the Sister Missionaries as well as my trunk full of food around lunch time. Including my casserole.

After that I need to make a big pot of potato soup and peanut butter fondue for our enrichment activity that night. I hope our yellow flowers Helios (maybe black eyes susans, but some type of sunflower thing) are still in bloom because I want to pick several dozen for centerpieces. If they die we'll use something else.

We also did some more detailed talk about what we are in charge of for Super Saturday. FYI, it will probably be great. All of the crafts should be around $2 or less (super YAY!) and most of them sound interesting. You know, except for one that sounds totally dumb. But, the young women loved it and are teaching it, so its all good. Its just really not something I want to deal with.

Plus, we are going to set up baby sitting swaps for the temple trip! That means both spouses can go and not have to worry about someone watching the kid for 9+ hours, you will just swap for one session. I hope lots of people come if we set up that way. Plus, Daniel and I can both go with no worries about the kid.

Totally unrelated baby note:
Walked to the appointment on Tuesday. Daniel still had the stroller in the car. We were very slightly late because of it. Also had trace amounts of protein in the urine. They said it might have been from dehydration. (likely since I left the water bottle at home on accident) Have a sono next time to make sure the baby is doing ok and get measurements. I was measuring 3 weeks bigger than I should be. Next time we will be right on the 3rd trimester cusp. Crazy stuff huh.

Monday, August 24

And they burn, burn, burn!

Daniel hasn't got home yet from his night class.

Alice (after I sat in the dark next to her bed with my hand on her stomach) cried for 1/2 hour for Dad. I left because she was sort of asleep and I was getting sore sitting on the floor next to her bed for an HOUR. I decided if she was still crying when Daniel got home he could deal with her. She hasn't cried for 10 minutes though, so I think he is in the clear.

Alice and I sorted through some of the pantry. Enough to consolidate all cans to the bottom shelf. Not enough to sort by can type. We have an absurd amount of foods where we have 3-4 cans of that type. Surprisingly enough, we are nearly out of several things that we bought in May as our '3 month food storage.' Looks like those were sure bets on things we eat lots of.

I was having some rather bad heartburn and drank OJ cause it sounded good. I fell into a burning ring of fire.

Daniel carried in the car seat just now because I am getting picked up for an enrichment committee meeting Thursday morning. (I also have an OB appointment tomorrow and am taking the car, but its the thought that counts.)

The mini series Tin Man from the SciFi channel is really good. We rented it from the Library. I have watched all three hour and a half episodes. It was Wizard of Oz enough while still be totally SciFi channel. They had a pretty decent budget.

I am really tired, but Daniel should be home by now, so I blog.

Sunday, August 23

I want a Pantry Makeover!

Erin over at $5 Dinners is promoting a $250 pantry makeover in the form of a $250 gift card to the grocery store of your choice! This is an extra entry, and what follows is yet another, so enter if you want (though I want to win, so personally I discourage too much competition.

Anyway, since I don't care if people think I am messy, plus this is in a closet so it seems ok to show...here is our pantry! Sorry its sideways, I can't be bothered to figure out how to turn it. I used to know how, but then I lost my brain to pregnancy. This time next year I can probably figure things like this out again.



Let me explain. Our pantry is literally the only place we store dry food (aside from the plastic storage containers that we have things like flour etc in). As you can see though we do have back up food for the containers in the pantry though. If you look closely behind the tater and onion bin (empty BTW, onions are pretty gross this pregnancy) you can see non food items that are just in there. I also forgot that {nearly} all the pasta as well as canned tomatoes and pasta sauce are in giant plastic storage bins in the computer room.

The multitudes of bags at the bottom are holding things like cereal and random canned foods. Because obviously i didn't have room for them on the bottom shelf or any of the other shelves that are holding canned food. Some are hard to put away because I have like 2 cans of that food item.The other bags are bags of grocery bags. (Don't ask why i keep so many.)

You know, its funny that I want a pantry makeover, when really a couple of hours or moving and organizing will make over my pantry quite soundly. But hey, with an extra $250 I can totally complete our '3 month food storage' as well as pick up lots of easy foods for when we add another kiddo in a few more months. Even if I don't win, I will probably try to do this in the next few months. Just cause it needs done.

Oh well, lets hope I can get it done for only the cost of my labor instead of labor and money.

Saturday, August 22

New Travel Plans!

Well, Daniel called AirTran just a few moments ago. We are leaving on the first flight Tuesday morning which means Daniel can go to school and work Monday, which means more benefit time can be saved for when the baby comes, since he has to accrue benefit time next year which is retarded...

Interlude by Daniel:
Actually, they sold the company that I work for last year and they are finally going to make us follow the benefit program of the new company starting next year. It's sort of ironic that when the change over was happening they claimed that the benefits were "substantially similar", but what really has happened is insurance has doubled in price... and next year I will get less benefit time by 5 days. :-| Oh well, at least I'm paid pretty well and am in next to no risk of losing my employ. Hoorah?!?

Return to Becca...

We are also flying back on Saturday instead of Friday, and we got a non-stop flight back. For no additional cost! I am so excited to leave florida at 10am and get into Kansas City at noon (well local time). Either way, yay no busy holiday airport for the layover back!

The confirmation email is hilarious. The total for our airfare is $12 more than the price of one of the non stop return ticket. LOVE it! So the best thing to do, book really really early and if they change flight times on you get a better flight!

The only small concern. Our layover on the way down is about 40 minutes. Lets hope the plane doesn't get in late or that it takes a really long time to get off the first plane and onto the second. If we are lucky we will get onto the same plane or one really close. Most likely we will get on a larger plane from Atlanta to Orlando though.

Thursday, August 20

Changes in Flight Times, holiday travel stress

I am slightly miffed. Why?

Well, we bought tickets for our Thanksgiving trip to Florida to visit Daniel's family in July. We found a great deal, got an itinerary that we liked (you with the shortest layovers), and even paid extra to choose our seats.

Then today I get an email from the Airline. The first email I have had that wasn't about their great ticket prices or joining thier rewards club. It was titled "SECOND NOTIFICATION: Airtran Airways Schedule Change." Huh, maybe they emailed me last night and then again at 9am today. So I look and they say they are changing our flight times and to click the link to accept.

I clicked the link.

The schedule changes were horrible (for having a toddler along and a 32 week pregnant woman). They want us to leave later in the day the Monday before Thanksgiving. That's not so bad, except that we would get into Orlando at 6:15. It would be 7pm by the time we got our bags, we wouldn't have eaten dinner, AND we would still have an hour or so drive from Orlando to Daniel's grandparent's home. That means at 8pm, Alice's bedtime (in thoery) we would be driving or just getting in at Edgewater.

Now, if that were the only thing I might have accepted it. But no. Our return flight was moved to 15 minutes later and our retun layover was more than doubles to over 4 hours. I refuse to be in a huge airport like Atlanta with a toddler for 4 hours. Let alone add in that I will be way pregnant at that point. There is something that will give me high blood pressure.

Now unfortunately, the tickets are reserved in Daniel's name, so I probably can't even call them and change things.

Fortunately, thier policy is that if they are changing our flight times we can change to the day before or after with no added fee. Daniel is hoping for either a red eye out of Kansas City or Tuesday morning (so he can go to his night class Monday night). I told him, if we are getting in later, I want to leave later. Lets hope for Tuesday to Saturday instead of Monday to Friday. I mean sure its wishful thinking, but hello you don't mess with people that have 'infant in lap' and one of them is pregnant.

I will update after we have have anything definate. I mean, I would accept seat upgrades for a crappier itinerary. We shall see, no?

Tuesday, August 18

Sickness Diagnosed

Heartburn.

Must buy stock in Tums Smoothies.

Apparently it can lead to coughing which in my case leads to cookie tossage. It also explains the added fatigue. Lucky me!

Sadly I have lost the bottle of Tums. Or rather Alice has. She thinks they are candy and will carry the bottle everywhere. Oh well, heartburn is way better than sickness. At least no one can catch it from me.

Lazy Day, sick day

Last night I spent some time in the bathroom because I wasn't feeling so good. I assumed it was because I ate a hamburger and cheese burrito right before bed. I also had a bit of a dry cough, but hopes it was dust in my room or something like that.

This morning everyone got up around the time Daniel left for work. Alice refuses to sleep if he is downstairs or leaving. He put her in bed with me and she acted like she would leave, then she realized he wasn't getting in bed and started crying and climbing down the stairs.

We ate some cereal, watched some Elmo, and I hid the 3 cans of pop she had been carting around all day yesterday.

Then I figured why not do some yoga. Get it done early. Maybe it would bore Alice enough she would want to go back to sleep.

Well, I started coughing about 1 minute into the warm up. Then I felt the serenity of the pose. All over the floor.

Alice said "Uh-oh" I told her not to touch it and ran upstairs for wash cloths to clean it up. I came back, wiped up the mess. Alice helped with her own wash cloth (after I had it clean of course) and I fetched one of the cans of pop. What? Its ginger ale. That calms the stomach.

Alice chose a movie, and we are going to try and do very little today. Watch Shrek, drink ginger ale, maybe nap. I hope for that third option. The first 2 are guaranteed.

At least I did some cleaning up last night while Daniel was in night school. First day of his human relations course! He didn't learn anything except that his teacher is a freak. She has 7 Yorkies, 4 guinea pigs and 4 hamsters and is on the faculty of 7 universities in the Kansas City metro. I bet she has no family or life. You know aside from her 15 'children.'

Monday, August 17

Rain, rain, go away

I actually like rain. Except when its been raining for 5 hours and a look at the radar map shows no sign of hope. In fact, over half of the state is getting heavy rain and from the way its moving those cloudy hours will most likely be raining hours.

Over the weekend i picked a whole pile of cherry tomatoes. I didn't know how many there actually were, so I went out Saturday morning and started. I just put them in my pockets and continued around the shrubbery that is the tomato plants. I cam back in and had a good quart or so of cherry tomatoes. Pockets of my sweats totally stuffed. I already had a couple of cups worth in the fridge (to avoid gnats! the bane of Daniel's existence, second only to ants).

Speakign of the garden, at some point this fall we need to add about 5 bags of compost/manure. The soil level has been getting lower and lower, so it needs raised before next year. I also need to get my butt around to cutting the cherry tomatoes in half and salting them so I can dehydrate them. I didn't feel like it Saturday, and I can already see more tha need picking. If it ever stops raining enough to go outside.

There is a giant puddle in fron of the house, and a few in the back.

I am reminded that we need to fork over the cash to get a reel mower. You know, the push kind that aren't powered. The kind that is safe to use with a toddler playing in the backyard because the won't throw tiny rocks or sticks. We also should probably seed the yard again. But, its rainy so no more thinking about grass seed.

Thursday, August 13

Sleeping Alone

We are trying this again, and it was rather successful. Last night I had Daniel move our bed into what was "Alice's room." It wasn't actually her room since it just housed baby junk and things she outgrown. This weekend we will hopefully get a crib moved into her room though. You know, with the idea that she will share a room with the baby. Maybe.

I have also been sorting the baby clothes looking for anything that was gender neutral/boys to keep inside, and put everything else in the garage attic. Its funny how many clothes we had for ALice that were size Newborn or 0-3 months. We have a big clear plastic container that is STUFFED with them. As the sizes grow the amount of clothing we have in each decreases. Thats probably partly because we had a lot of 6-9 month stuff that was green or yellow and some of the 12 month stuff is probably still mixed in with her clothes.

All I gotta say, is wow do babies have lots of junk. Special furniture, clothes that aren't made to fit for longer than 3 months, plus all the accessories: diapers, blankets, burp cloths, bibs, etc. I should be glad that we have all the diapering covered. We might not even need to add more if we can get Alice potty trained pretty quickly.

Oh, I forgot the topic of my post. Alice slept in her bed until Daniel was too noisy in the hallway before he went to work at 6:30. I had him put her in bed with me. She was really cold. Looks like she will be needing those footie pajamas if she sleeps alone. Thats fine with me, we have several pairs. All with frogs and dinosaurs. Perfect.

Wednesday, August 12

Scouting Fun, a post midnight post

Today was a little crazy and pregnancy insomnia is kicking in hard core, so I am awake. At 1am. That means you guys are BLESSED with my presence...well written presence.

So tonight as we went into the church for cub scouts, I got asked by the primary president if I would be a sub. Hmm, yeah sure. I mean, I have 3 other callings, but why not add occasional hanging out with kids on Sunday.

About scouts. Its complicated. Or at least odd. You see, since last April we lost half of our cubs. Not to birthdays, but to moving. We also lost the leader to the Bear Den, and the leaders to Webelos moved away with thier to cub scouts. That means yours truly and Daniel are the sole den leaders.

We also have a pack master/leader (supposedly) and an assistant pack leader who is one of the ward clerks. I say supposedly about the pack leader [or whatever its called] because since we got the calling in February we have seen him maybe 5 times including the blue and gold banquet and the pinewood derby. For the record, he is supposed to join us on the 1st and 5th Tuesday of the month for pack meeting. Well, now we are meeting with the other cub scounts on Wednesday nights for Pack meetings. So, I am not sure if that means he is gone or not but in my opinion its not a real loss if he is gone. He seems to know a lot about scouting, or maybe camping, and he supposedly helps lead a community scout group, so I assume he is AMAZING at that, and just doesn't have time to deal with us.

Anyway, we are now trying to find any crossover between the Wolf and Bear requirements (trust me, there isn't that much) and we will let the assistant pack leader take care of the Webelos.

So what did we do? We started a cub scout scrapbook. Now, I am not a scrapbooker. Not in the true sense of the word. I have done a little and its ok, but I don't have the time (or really desire to find the time) to cut up paper and glue it to other paper. Especially since scissors, glue and markers are all weapons in the hands of a toddler.

Isn't especially a funny looking word?

Anyway, one kid REALLY did not want to be there, and he REALLY did not want to participate, so I gave him my camera and let him go to town. I figure why not. We need pictures of the 3 awesome cubs that showed up, and maybe it will keep him from playing with his dad's cell phone for 5 minutes.

We did 2 pages. They insisted that they could put the pages together sideways and it would be fine. I figure, its thier scrapbook, why not. (We plan on doing photo copies for the parents at the end of the year.) I may help by making a cover page, but they can put whatever they want into the pages about thier den.

I don't really know if it was huge success or not. I know our Wolf (it was his very first scout meeting) was enjoying himself. He told Daniel that he is 'creative' and part of the page he designed included a sketch of a wolf chasing an 'Indian.' I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but I will chalk it up to creative-ness.

Anyway, I sort of hoped the pack scrapbook would be a bit of a funds sucker. We have a rather large budget for the year, and we have used almost none of it. Yes, and the year is over halfway over. We might end up buying lots of stuff for the scout closet in December.

OK, thats enough of my unorganized late night rambling. If you all know of any cub scout type of projects (you know besides friendship braclets or building a birdhouse) let me know. We can try and add in something requirement related, if its not already there. I think we might plan on doing the soda pop detectives activity next time. Why not? Right? Of course, we will give them the soda toward the end and have some ball toward the end to help burn off the sugar.

Monday, August 10

My Life, and how it should be

This is how life should be.

1. I should always remember to pay the mortgage before its due date. I shouldn't realize on August 10th that I didn't pay the mortgage. I shouldn't have to pay $3 for my forgetfulness. Yet, today I have.

2. We should clean our house top to bottom Saturday, in preparation for Sunday. You know, Saturday is a Special Day. Instead, Monday morning reveals a completely trashed home. Yes, even the rooms that were spotless, and steam cleaned Friday due to a diaper removal, stepping in and freaking out by Alice. (I was going to post about that, but I ran out of time).

3. I should be able to order these water barrels for the people in the ward that want to have water storage. Unfortunately the company is out of the 30 gallon size. Small bonus, the 55 gallon barrel is the same price as the 30 would have been. I just need the ok from the people ordering them. Sigh.

4. I should have my food storage organized. You know, at least all in the same place. Yet, I have several cases of bottled water in the dining room, one in the computer room, and one in the trunk of the car (that one was on purpose at least). I also moved some cases of #10 cans from the dining room to the computer room. I think all of it is in the same room now, at least. Of course, this weekend we go to the cannery and add a whole pile more food storage to the list. We are getting pouches this time! Don't want to put all our eggs in one basket.

5. Speaking of food storage, I should have my cocoa in jars already. I think I even have enough plastic Miracle Whip and applesauce jars for that stuff. I just need to be prepared to coat my kitchen or dining room with cocoa. Maybe that will happen today since I thought of it before noon.

6. I should have some baby shower gifts sent out in the mail (and for that matter done!) Instead I have half done projects on the dining room table.

Does anyone else find it reasonable that I am avoiding the dining room? EVERYTHING is in there. Of course, I have moved some things around and its a little less disastrous in there currently. Thank goodness, cause its sill pretty dang scary in there.

Thursday, August 6

Alice is sitting next to me watching me write this, though thats bound to not last very long.

This week has been a long week. Alice still has her cough, in fact it seems to be getting worse. I guess tomorrow I will take her in to the doctor. I don't know if the cough is worse because she has really been wanting to drink lots of milk, or if she is getting sicker. I think I am getting a sore throat though, so its better to have her see the doc than to put it off until the weekend.

The baby is big enough that sleeping on my side = pain from the weight. I try to sleep with my belly on top of a body pillow, though I often wake up with it moved. I am also excessively sick of Alice and her tantrums. Trying to dress her in the morning is an ordeal. I even snapped at Daniel when he took off her shirt the other night. She even takes off her diaper all the time, so its a struggle to get her completely clothed when you keep losing articles of clothing. Luckily once both arms and her head are in the shirt and its pulled down, she lets it be.

Well thats the end of this post. Alice is telling me that she wants the laptop closed, or to be typing on the laptop. Neither one of those is an option at this moment, so post I shall.

I wonder where the heck our other phone receiver is (its been missing for at least a month, and since its completely dead its impossible page it). I have looked everywhere I can think of, even completely moving all the living room furniture and cleaning it completely. Not there. Also not anywhere I have seen in Alice's room (my second area) or in the Dining room (cause I thought it might have been thrown into a plastic bin of other stuff).

Enjoy the excessive amounts of unnecessary punctuation. I am going to allow Alice to drink 7-Up with the hope it will cut the phlegm and not result in the runs, at least not until Daniel is home for the evening.

Monday, August 3

Do you ever wish swearing would solve your problems.

That's me. Alice had a nasty sounding cough yesterday, so I opted to stay home with her. Mostly because I felt devoid of energy, and taking care of a sickish kid at church = denying them of toys, bubbles, and snack time.

Last night we go to bed. After 2 hours of lying in bed and coughing + insomnia, I got up. I spent a couple of hours answering yahoo answers. I know, what a great way to waste your sleeping hours, but it was something to do. In case you want to know how early we went to bed, well it was around 1 when I went back to bed. Part of why I went? Alice kept coughing and crying out in that sick voice.

Fast forward until its light outside. Cue Alice to stick her fingers up my nose and poke at my eye lids. Also, have her prattle on about things (I was really tired so it might have been about Daddy or morning or anything really).

After a good 20 minutes of this, roll over to look at the clock.

6:34.

Do some mild swearing. You know, of the holy crap variety.

Hear Daniel in the hallway. Ask him to change the baby and shut her in the room with me. Try to sleep.

Cue wailing and beating on the door by little fists. Also, cue grabbing of my hand and tryign to drag me to the door. Also, cue the bladder to be full.

Moan and groan your way to the toilet, then take the child downstairs. She will drink some juice, eat a Tums (because she thinks they are candy, but after having crazy heartburn last night with the coughing, I could see it being a symptom). Then pass out.

On the couch.

On me.

I am going to try and lie down on the couch with her at least. I doubt I will have anything happen except her wake up and cry.

Do you ever wish swearing would solve your problems? For me it would need to solve fatigue. If it actually did I would have more bleeps than not bleeps this morning. Or at least until I got some rest.