And the Winner Is...

Alison from Party of 3!

I had to pick a winner randomly because I still don't have any news from the PI. I emailed her and told her I was beginning to panic, like 3-50 times a day, worried that I might never find my bio family. The PI emailed me back and told me that my case might take as long as 6-9 months, although she hoped not as long. She also told me not to worry, they had leads, just nothing confirmed yet. Ya, me not worry. What is my Xanax for?

Back to the winner. Alison is a mother of 2 girls so she probably has a lot of pics that can go in the pink and green scrapbook. Hopefully they will enjoy the Vermont treats too.

Now I get to mail something out of the country; I've never done that.

What's In Your Chair?

Back in October, T lost his Gameboy. It was a hand-me-down from E, as she was given a Nintendo DS on her last birthday. He played with it everyday and even brought it with him on the school bus. When it got lost, we looked everywhere. We even (only to ourselves) accused the older boys on the bus of stealing it from T, as he let anyone borrow it who asked.
We gave up ever finding it. For Hanukka, Grandma gave him his own Nintendo DS. T played it everyday, but we wouldn't let him take it on the bus. One day he came to me crying that he lost his Nintendo. Once again we searched the house from top to bottom with no luck. I remembered seeing him play it the day before, so it HAD to be in the house. WTF?!
Hus came home from work and decided to look for himself. Well, being that he is big and strong, he decided for some strange reason to take the LR chair and place it on its back. I rolled my eyes having already checked under the chair and in its cushions.
Well, surprise, Hus found a hole in the lining of the chair which created a secret pocket for anything to fall in from the side of the cushion.

Here's what we found...

Hair brush
Plastic sandwich bag
Valentine
2 pencils
Sesame Street DVD
Tissue
Gameboy
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS game
Chocolate chip
Dust
Crumbs

What's the weirdest thing you found in your furniture?

Come On Down!!!

Your the next contestant on The Price is Right!

Back a few weeks ago Hus was home sick for over a week. He missed 5 days of work. He hasn't missed that much work in the past 20 years. He was sick with every symptom imaginable. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, fever, chills, cough, back ache, neck ache and on and on.
Hus is only home rarely during the day Monday-Friday, for example on a holiday. When he is home he loves to watch The Price is Right. I am home everyday in the morning hours and I NEVER watch that show.
One of these sick mornings, Hus was in the living room chair holding the puke bucket on his lap and watching TV. T was home sick too and he and I were taking a nap. Suddenly Hus called out to me "Heidi, Heidi, your cousin is on The Price is right!"
I jumped, I mean used all my strength to pull my extremely tired ass up out of bed and went into the living room to see what he was yelling about.
"My cousin? Which cousin?" and I looked at Hus.
"Not your cousin, your EX-HUSBAND!" Hus laughs and points to the TV.
Now, while I have kept my eye out for my ex over the last 16 years whenever I've watched the show "Cops", I never expected to see him on a different TV show. HA. There he was, practically exactly like I remember him, right down to the poor excuse of a goatee he was always trying to grow even 16 years ago. He will never have enough hair on his face to pull one off. And there he was making bad deals like he always did and ending up losing. Well, he did win a lamp and $150 worth of Bayer products!
Hus and I laughed, talked about how strange it was that he happened to be watching this very episode. Weird. I went back to bed.
So what does that mean? Does it mean something for me or for Hus? Or is it just a coincidence? Maybe it just gave me something to blog about.
Don't forget to enter my contest. A winner will be announced March 31ST! Click on the label below to get there.

Kiss Me I Might Be Irish

I am currently without Internet service because my wireless device broke. I am blogging from a Vermont visitor center at the moment. Luckily I purchased the replacement insurance for the device and will hopefully receive a new one in the mail tomorrow. I usually turn down offers for replacement insurance or extended warranties. For example just last week I turned down the extended warranty on the $12 toy microwave I was buying. When the cashier at Wal-Mart asked me if I wanted it, I asked if it "cooked real food?".
I hope everyone is having a really lucky day! Every year the kids make Leprechaun traps for St. Patricks day. Unfortunately, because I have no Internet access from home, I can't post the pics of this years. E made it out of slate pieces she painted with green designs and set it up outside. When the kids woke up they found that the Leprechauns had left them shamrock pins and chocolate. We love those little Leprechauns, maybe next year we will actually catch one.
If you haven't entered my contest yet, click on the label "contest" below to do so.

In Our House, It's a Girl Thing

In our house being messy is a girl thing.

My 10 year old daughters room.

E pretending to clean.

My 5 year old sons room.(He makes his bed before school everyday!)

I won't show a picture of the inside of my car because it is too embarrassing. The inside of the hatch back is the worse.

Hus's truck is sooo clean he even keeps a broom in the truck bed so he can sweep it out after work. HUH!

I keep my house clean, beds made, dishes done etc., because growing up, my house always looked like E's room. Every room did. I was horrified if a friend stopped by unexpectedly. I would make them wait outside until I threw everything that was lying on the floor in my parents room or closets. I never wanted my house to be like that. Anyone can stop by anytime here and it is always reasonably neat. I don't count a few stray toys or dishes as too bad a mess.

Miscellaneous Manure Pt. 7

T returned to school on Thursday to a standing ovation from his fellow kindergartners. I spent Thursday in the ER with Hus because after 5 days of nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, coughing, fever etc, he was really dehydrated and I was really worried. They gave him fluids and anti-nausea medicine. They also did a CT scan of his head because he had a swollen right eye and they suspected a sinus infection. After 6.5 hours we went home with a prescription for antibiotics and anti-nausea medicine. I took him to the closest hospital instead of the one I work at, because I wasn't sure what they would find or if they would admit him. I was pleased that all the nurses were really nice. I apologized to them ahead of time for being a nurse and hopefully not their worst nightmare as a patients family member. I tried really hard not to speak for my husband but that didn't work very well.

Friday afternoon I got a call from work asking me if I wanted to stay home that evening because they weren't busy. HA! After being home the previous 6 days taking care of sick family, I needed to get out of the house to take care of sick people I didn't care about! At least I would get paid. Of course when I got to work, we were really busy and I kept wishing I had stayed home and taken a nap or something.

Everyone went back to work and school today, thank goodness. Not to try and make anyone feel sorry for ME, but having sick people home all day really screwed up MY routine. I know, I am selfish.

Contest Update: I haven't heard any news from the PI group. I am beginning to worry that my case may be too difficult to solve. I am going to email them tomorrow to see what's up. Either way I will pick a winner on March 31st.

WW Update: As of last Wednesday I have lost 19.4lbs. Yay me!

Poor Little Buddy!

I just got home from the doctors office. T woke up with a fever again so I took him to the docs. Poor little guy has pneumonia. They are going to start treating him at home instead of at the hospital because he is drinking okay. They did have to give him two injections of antibiotics in his backside though. We have to go back and follow up at the office in 24 hours to make sure he is getting better. Right now he's feeling better and is watching one of the four movies I let him rent.
Sorry haven't had a chance to visit anyone yet today. Hopefully tonight.

Is There a Nurse in the House?

What did you do this weekend? I took care of sick people. Sickos at home that is. T has his 3rd cold in as many weeks, only this time he spiked a temp higher than I have ever seen in anyone. Saturday afternoon I took his temp by ear...106.7F!!!!! OMG!!! This was after he had already had Tylenol suppositories. We all know T will not take medicine by mouth. Well, I tried not to panic. I retrieved the old fashioned thermometer and took it under his arm. 104.5, which would equal, supposedly, 105.5 by mouth and 106.5 by rectum. Okay, nothing wrong with the thermometer. Tympanic(ear) thermometers, at least the one I own, are supposed to equal a rectal temp. T was going to take Ibuprofen, even if I had to pour it down his throat while sitting on him. Well, it almost worked. He took some, threw up, took some more, spit it out, took more...We gave him a bath and eventually his temp went down to 102.5, much better. In the mean time, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him. He was lethargic, white as a new pair of tightey whiteys with dark circles under his eyes. He had no sore throat, stomach ache, headache, rash, ear ache or pain anywhere. I listened to his lungs, fine, I checked his belly, fine. WTF?

He went to bed and Hus and I hoped for the best. I checked him every half hour or more. When I went in at MN he was shivering and his teeth were chattering. Do I wake him up? I read somewhere that you shouldn't wake up a child to treat a fever; Sleep is supposedly more important. I was panicking a little. Hus was panicking too. "You're the nurse, you should know what to do!"

Yes, I am the nurse. I had to think a minute. What do I do? Wake him and give him medicine, take him to the emergency room? Should I call the ER in the hospital where I work? Call the doctor on call? I was exhausted and unable to think straight.It finally came to me. If T was a patient at work, I would wake him and give him medicine for his temp. That's what Hus and I did. This time he took almost all of the med without vomiting. Of course the first sip was taken with much resistance. Later, I watched him sleeping on the couch most of the remaining night. He moaned and coughed on and off. He talked in his sleep "No E, I don't want any carrots!" "Who's that?, Oh, Mama, I don't want any toast" I decided that if he was not better by morning I was either taking him to the ER so they could run lots of tests on him and tell me it's just a virus. I know some of you would have taken your child to the ER, but T has a history of having high fevers with all colds,and he was drinking and peeing okay. I also remembered that my doctor told me, during a previous visit for a fever,that she had a three day rule for fevers. Unless T developed other treatable symptoms, there was nothing they would do until he had a fever longer than that.He still had until Sunday night.In the AM he was still sick, but this time he took his medicine without any problems. By noon he was playing video games with me and actually talking.

Hus told me that last night he prayed for the first time in,well, almost forever.

Now Hus is 102 and puking. T said "I didn't puke like that!" and we turned the sound up on the TV. E has a stuffy nose. So far I just have the same cough I have had for 2 weeks.

I hope everyone out there had a better weekend!

If you haven't entered my contest yet, click on the "Contest" label at the bottom of this post.