Healthy Food is Bad For You

I’m going to admit I am mostly sure that I have said this before, but despite that I’m going to say it again.

Because I’m on my lunch break and feel the need to share with you my dilemmas.

And FYI this is not a blog for everyone.  I will be filling you in on bodily details that some may find disgusting.  So if that bothers you stop now.

You’ve been warned.

I LOVE veggies.  Not because they are healthy, but simply because they are delicious.  Delicious and expensive so it’s not very often we eat fresh veggies other then salads around our house.

But last week I stopped by the store and there was a HUGE veggie tray and sweet peppers on sale for super cheap! So for about $5 I got a TON of fresh veggies that would last me over a week for snacks at work.

PRO: I guess its good for me, but the real highlight IT TASTE DELICOUS

CON: Apparently that much fiber has a way of cleaning you out

I’m tired of being cleaned out.  I finished the last of my veggies today and will miss the nice crisp flavors, but am looking forward to pooping like a normal person in the near future.

I’m also beginning to think veggies are not worth the trips to the bathroom.  Or maybe I should just eat them in more moderation and not every day for a week and half.

Seriously, the last 2 days have felt like that bathroom scene in Dumb and Dumber.

And that friends is my nasty piece of information for today.  Enjoy.

When Words Paint a Beautiful Picture

I’m usually not one to get all spiritual on here.  If you know me then you know I love Jesus.  Or you should.  If you don’t (or didn’t) let me know because that means I have some things I need to work on.

Anyway, at work today during worship Kurt played this song “The Earth Is Yours”.  Pause there for a moment to get excited about the fact that I get to WORSHIP at WORK.  I am blessed to have an amazing job that lets me do that.

Anyway, the words struck me today and I wanted to share them.  It talks about the Earth all of HIS creation worshiping him.  If you read the words and try to actually picture what is being said it’s a powerful image.  So powerful I felt the need to share it. (I took out the extra stuff that does nothing for the “picture”)

Your voice it thunders. The oaks start twisting

The forest sounds with cedars breaking

The waters see You and start their writhing

From the depths a song is rising

Your voice it thunders. The ground is shaking

The mighty mountains now are trembling

Creation sees You and starts composing

The fields and trees they start rejoicing.

Now it’s rising from the ground

Hear us crying out.

The earth is Yours and singing

The earth is Yours.

Here is the youtube version if you want to hear it.  It is a pretty good song.

So Sayith Tay and Jay #43

Taylor, what questions do you want to ask Jordan:

What are butterflies made of?

Jordan: Um, butterflies are made of type of wings and I hope I see a rainbow butterfly.

What color would you make the sky if you can make a sky?

Jordan: Pink

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Jordan: Um I want to be a painter and a marker.

Jordan, what questions do you want to ask Taylor:

I want to ask her that I hope she gets to buy a rainbow cup and have a rainbow pony. 

Taylor: I will um make one.

You are the best!

Taylor: Momma's the best instead.

I want to ask her that she, you make everything a letter card.

Taylor: I will make it a big letter card and it has her name on it and for me too and it has a T on it and A Y L O R.

Week of Hair Cuts

If you’ve ever been in a 5 block radius of our home while we are brushing Taylor’s hair you have heard the screams.

It could be she has the most sensitive head in the world so that just getting a brush near her head causes her great pain.  But we all know it is mostly her Drama Queen coming out.

If I brushed her hair before bed (takes about 30 minutes) she would wake up with horrible tangles and bed head and it would take another 30 minutes to brush her hair while she’s screaming and whining the entire time.

I was over it.  Justin was over it.  So on Monday last week after her shower I grabbed a pair of scissors and decided it was time.  She was not a fan.  She was actually very angry as I lopped of half the length of her hair.  Every time she saw hair hit the floor she’d yell “You’re giving me BOY HAIR!”

I had never cut hair before (well girl hair and it doesn’t count when I cut my own hair at like age 7).  I was pretty impressed with myself.  I figured if I totally screwed up then I could always take her to get it fixed later.

So here is a picture several days after the cut.  Because seriously…it took me that long to get her to actually smile about her hair.  Even now when I compliment her hair she says “Thank you, but I don’t like it”

Then yesterday while at Rob and Tawni’s it was Jordan’s turn.  Jordan had been asking for a hair cut since I did Taylor’s.  I’m pretty sure she only wanted it cut to be just like her sister since about a week earlier she informed me that she wanted Rapunzel hair (which is a direct quote from Taylor)..

I’d been telling her “maybe later” because I personally prefer long hair on my kids and her hair, unlike Taylor’s, is easy to brush.  But after nearly a week of her asking I figured she wasn’t going to give up so Tawni grabbed her scissors and gave her one of the cutest hair cuts ever!  Despite begging me to get a hair cut she was not a fan of actually sitting there to get it, but she still sat patiently and even let Tawni blow dry it.

The only problem left is to figure out when I should cut mine...

Oh and here is a pre-hair cut picture just because this is one of my favorite pictures right now.

The Things We Give Up

I love scrapbooking.  I really do.

It’s not just getting the pictures into a book.  It’s cutting and designing pages.  It’s spending an hour rearranging a layout to get it just right.  It’s creating something with your hands that you get to share with friends and family.

I am also a realist.  It is with a heavy heart I make the decision to let go of this hobby.  I just don’t have the time to do it.  It takes about 30 minutes to get everything out and set up to spend a couple of hours doing a few pages and then 30 minutes to clean it all up.  On top of that add kids getting into everything (some not so safe things like blades and cutters) and it’s just unrealistic that I get the opportunity at all to do this anymore.

That being said I intend to spend the next few days sorting through my mountains of scrapbooking supplies and accessories and packaging them up to sell.  The money I make will be used to purchase scrapbooking software instead which will save lots of time and a lot less mess.  It’s not as fun, but still enjoyable.  I figure every year for Christmas I can take a couple of days to complete an annual online scrapbook then have it printed and mailed to me.

So if you are looking to purchase scrapbooking supplies let me know.  I seriously will have a TON to sell.  You may or may not be required to pry it out of my hands though…

Paper

Stamps

Ribbons

Shape Scissors

Stickers

Carrying Cases

Borders

Pens/Markers

Glue Sticks/Glue Dots

Brads and Eyelets

And so on…

Let The Spider Games Begin

How non Valentines can I be you ask? Spiders of course.

There’s this thing that happens at our apartment that starts around spring and ends after summer.

It’s this horrible thing.

I was reminded of this event as I walked out of my front door this morning and right through a spider web built face level directly in front of my door (I walked through it first, you are welcome Justin).

There is something about our apartment porch that calls to spiders.  Not little spiders, big, juicy, hairy spiders.  I imagine signs on the wood beams above that say “PERFECT WEB SITE HERE” (pun intended).

I imagine these spiders spend most of their night building the biggest and truthfully beautiful webs that reach across the entire patio area and sit and wait for me to emerge.

When I’m prepared I walk out swinging my purse like a mad lady to break down the webs before I walk through them.  When I’m less prepared I just walk right through them and swear for the next hour there’s a spider crawling on my back.

It doesn’t stop there.  These spiders also take the time to build a web between my car door and Justin’s so that I can’t get into my car without again swinging my purse like a mad lady or walking through it.  Although at least in this instance I have become pro at climbing in the passenger side door driving away watching the web and spider cling to my car for dear life as I got 70 down the freeway.

And with all that said the spider season has begun.

No More Doctors Please

I wrote a blog who knows how long ago about how when things are just “going well” I begin to get nervous.  I referred to it as the “calm before the storm”.  The quiet moments in life where things appear to be going great just mean a huge flood is coming.

I’m pretty sure most of us spend our lives living in floods.  This is how we learn and grow and develop.

I’m used to living in a flood.  But some floods I really don’t like.  And here’s the story as I lived it.

On Thursday morning Justin called me to let me know that Taylor was complaining her eyes were “sticky”.  Since Jordan already had pink eye, and Elijah the night before starting showing signs that meant 3 kids with pink eye.  Joy.

I decided to take the day off work to go home and massive disinfect the entire house.  I cleaned and lysoled (I made it a word just now) both the kids rooms, the bathrooms, and living room.  I completed 4 loads of laundry to add to the 5 already sitting on my bedroom floor and had 3 to go.   I began to sit and fold the mountain o laundry and my body just began to ache.  A very intense ache.  Very sudden, very intense ache.  I wasn’t feeling nauseous so it couldn’t be the flu.  I sat down and ate pizza with the family and let Justin know that the achiness was getting worse and decided I tried a hot shower and Tylenol before he had to leave for worship practice.

It didn’t help.  Justin left and by 8 the kids were in bed with a little begging from me that Mommy wasn’t feeling good so to please be good so I could sleep.

I think they listened or I was so out of it I didn’t hear them get up.

I heard Justin come home and at some point asked him for water and bowl because I was not beginning to feel nauseous.  After a night full of showers, puking, sever body aches, back pain that got REALLY bad whenever I moved, breathed, or coughed, and a fever with violent chills I decided in the morning I should go see the doctor.

The doctor, as I had also suspected, said I had the flu and was nearly about to send me off with some pain killers until I coughed and he saw me wince.  He asked what was causing that kind of pain and I told him my back hurt more when I moved or coughed or breathed.  He pushed on it, which caused much more severe wincing, and decided to order a couple of labs.

An hour or so later after falling asleep in the waiting room at some point he came back to tell me his original diagnosis was wrong and that I had a kidney infection.  Which is pretty much the flu with magnified symptoms and back pain.

I left with a high dose of pain killers, antibiotics, and anti nausea and headed home for a couple more miserable days of no eating, long showers, pain, and waking up constantly in a puddle of my own sweat…like seriously one of the side effects of my medication must have been “lose half your body weight in sweat”.

On Sunday night I called my mommy a mess.  I was miserable and despite Justin taking care of me he’s not much of the encouraging type unless I ask for it.  I was in no mood to ask for comfort.  At this point I was starving and unable to eat and weak and aching because I hadn’t eaten anything in 3 days.  My mom, despite her fear of traveling on freeways, volunteered to come over on Monday so Justin could take me to the doctor again and she’d watch the kids and clean the house.  My poor neglected house.

My mom faced her fears (I’m proud of her) to come take care of her 27 year old whiney baby 30 miles always.  She brought a bag of all my favorite things to eat and began her mothering.  Justin and I headed to the doctor where I was desperate for anything that would just let me eat.  They gave me a higher dose of anti nausea medication and some nose spray and cough syrup to help with the “allergies” that are allegedly the cause of my month long cough.

When I got home I took the meds and was FINALLY ABLE TO EAT! My house was clean, my belly had about a cup of soup in it, and my mommy kept me company.  I headed to bed for a LONG nap and woke up feeling better.  Not healthy, but I went from feeling like 20% myself to like 40% myself.

I even tried to work on Tuesday, but was forced to go home by my boss in fears I’d pass out at my desk so I had one more day home to recoup and rest.

I am no at like 70%.  Still a little achy and weak, but mostly up to par.  I sit on my lunch break and sip a cup of home made Turkey soup from mommy and am looking forward to at least this flood being over.

In much happier news, despite the nearly $200 in medical bills this month so far has brought me we should have an exciting DEBT FREEEEEEE announcement coming very soon to a non theater near you.

The Non ER Visit

I had every intention of doing “So Sayith Tay and Jay” last night.  I had questions ready and everything.  And here’s how it played out instead.

To tell you about last night I need to go back a couple of days first.

Saturday night we noticed Jordan had a fever.  I gave her some Tylenol to which she said “OH Thanks mommy! You got pink medicine just for me!” I got her in bed and started the humidifier.  About 10 minutes later she was coughing like crazy…like a lot of coughing.  And she puked.

My guess looking back is she coughed so much/so hard she made herself sick.

The go-to solution for most any ailment in our house is a nice warm/hot shower.  So we threw her in the shower, removed the dirty things from her bed and moved on.  I also came to the realization that my kids own WAY to many stuffed animals.  I mean that’s a lot to wash when an impromptu vomiting begins.

We kept her home from church on Sunday since she still had a fever and didn’t want to get the other kids sick.  She was pretty good minus the massive coughing and fever, but still typical Jordan.

That night she got up about every 1-2 hours with a request for water, or a hug, or crying in her sleep (don’t have sympathy, it’s just something she does and has no relation to being sick).  Since my dear husband can sleep through anything despite trying to make him go deal with her it ended up being my job.

I was tired at work on Monday and had a plan.  I was going to go home.  Make Apple Pancakes.  Bathe the kids.  Do the blog.  Go to bed.  I was really looking forward to bed.

Instead I came home from work and saw Jordan sitting on the couch. I turned to Justin “Jordan has pink eye”.  Justin promptly replied “No, her eyes are just red from being sick”.

I called Jordan to me and decided the green goop forming around her eyeballs meant it was indeed pink eye.  In the attempt to keep from spreading it to the whole family I decided the sooner she sees the doctor the better so we headed to Urgent Care.  Not to be mistaken for the ER which is what a recent facebook post has led people to believe.

Jordan fell asleep after about an hour of waiting.  This kid has night terrors and deemed the Kaiser Urgent Care waiting room to be a good place to have them.

It was quite humorous as she sat up screaming and poking the air “I have to POKE IT NOW!” or when she began running in her sleep and kicking the lady in the chair next to her.

Hey chair neighbor, if you ever read this, thank you for being understanding as my sick sleeping child used your side butt as a soccer ball.

A total of 5 hours from the point of arriving we had found out that:

1. Jordan still had a fever of 102

2. Jordan had pink eye –in both eyes

3. Jordan had a sinus infection

After a quick (not quick, I’m lying) mishap in the pharmacy we stopped by Jack in the box to FINALLY eat dinner at about 10PM.  I got the “Hot Mess” burger and was very disappointed when I got home to find there were no Jalapeños on it…I mean that’s 1 of the 3 things on the burger…how do you forget jalapeños?!

Jordan got her dose(s) of medicine and was put in bed…again waking up every 1-2 hours and again Justin sleeping through it all.

So there you have a really long story as to why you did not get a So Sayith Tay and Jay last night.  And yes we are completely ignoring the fact that I haven’t done one in months.