Thinks By Me

....really, it is. Seriously. I've spent an uninterrupted week at home with my little darlings. Who's mentioning that they've been sick? And pitifully sick at that. I have to say that in my 11 years experience as a mom, I have never seen them quite this sick for this long. I've made an unofficial "mom diagnosis" of the flu. And an expert I should be in this topic since I have been a medical transcriptionist for the past 11 years and I participated in a flu study - for two years running. So go with me on this one. Got it? It started with Muh Main Man, as we've so faithfully reminded him throughout the week. The Short People got sick almost on cue Sunday afternoon/evening. It started with an extremely sore throat and some stomach queasiness. It progressed to aching and lethargy which prompted our visit to the doctor Tuesday morning. She suspected strep was on the way, although the rapid test was negative. She gave an antibiotic which has done no...

We can't ignore the truth any longer...it is clear that Muh Main Man has indeed bequeathed the most miserable of germs to our offspring. Little Chic and Brainy Boy were both feeling a little punk by Sunday night and stayed home from school to keep us company on Monday. You can imagine what a little party that was ;) By last night, Little Chic was running 103 degrees warm and barking like the resident seal. Lucky for us, Muh Main Man totes his rescue supplies where ever he goes and breathing treatments are a regular necessity on the rescue squad...so fixed her right up. Brainy Boy fared a bit better with just a very sore throat and incessant coughing. A visit to the doctor this morning confirmed....they are sick. Who knew? Five prescriptions later from antibiotics to cough medicines to steroids and hopefully they'll be on the mend. Because believe me - I've got about one more good day in me of entertaining sickies. Any more than that and I'm headed for the loony ...

We've been descended upon by the winter germfest and Muh Main Man has had some type of Mongolian Barfing Lung disease. Or something like that. Of course, he took a hit for the home team and suffered through a day trip of snowmobiling up north on Wednesday, but he came home to spend two days in bed hacking up a lung. He went to the doctor who said he has "atypical respiratory infection." Whatever that is, he got an antibiotic for it and has finally started feeling better today. Just in time to pass it on over to Little Chic, I fear. We all are trying to stay away from him, but his endless days at home are making him feel all cuddly and appreciative of the TLC we've offered, so we haven't been too successful on that front. I think I'm going to have to send him back to work tomorrow to infect the ranks at Lockheed and air out our abode. We'll keep you posted and if I suddenly start blogging more regularly, you'll know that I'm down for the count...

I got home from my kickboxing class this morning and found this note that I hadn't noticed in the morning bustle of getting the kids ready for school. I was looking high and low for my grocery list that had been on the fridge. It was missing and I spied this laying on the counter---on the back was my grocery list. Apparently Brainy Boy did not appreciate Muh Main Man's disturbance at 5am this morning as he was leaving for a snowmobiling trip. At some point he got up and wrote this note to his dad. In case you can't read the bleary-eyed hen scratching that Brainy Boy penned it says, "You may be hungry and/or whatever but please take into consideration that there is a boy down the hall with many hard objects that gets very angry when awoken by lights."

Saturday night marked the fifth Snowflake Father/Daughter Dance that Little Chic has gone to with Muh Main Man. As always, the dress has been planned since before Christmas and the entire afternoon was a flurry of getting flowers, doing hair and asking if it was time to go every five minutes for four hours prior to the start of the ball. This year was no disappointment and even an hours-long line at Red Lobster for dinner after the dance couldn't dampen their spirits. They opted for Friendly's with the big ice cream sundaes instead. Next year will be a little sad because it will be Little Chic's last year at her school where the dance is held. We won't mention the social dances that follow the year after ;( While the the fleet of feet were doing their thing, Brainy Boy and I did ours by spending the evening at our favorite haunt, Barnes & Noble. We scored a latte', a piece of cheesecake and a Dilbert book we surprisingly didn't already own.

.....since I haven't been feeling nearly as motherly toward ya'll faithful readers to let you know each and every mundane detail of my life in real-time fashion.... I am busy and more ambitious than ever, taking full advantage of the fact that I am no longer fully consumed with procrastinating my transcription ;) A few of the blog topics that have been waiting in the wings, and are now completely out of date (but you seriously need to know them) are... 1) I got my Christmas decorations down and put in away in a completely respectable amount of time. That is quite an accomplishment for me. While I was doing that, I snapped a picture of my favorite set of ornaments on the left--the expectant parent bears we got when we were pregnant with Eric. The other shot is the sad realization that Little Chic has a lot more personal ornaments than Brainy Boy has. Not quite sure how that happened since I get each of them one every year, but...I'll be hitting the clearance sales to d...

Friends, I am here! Really, I am. But this new schedule has just turned me into some type of scary superwoman. For this week at least. I have been getting up, getting the Short People out the door, exercising, organizing, laundering, errand going, working my 2 hours and school and going at it again once I get home. I don't know what's happened to me. I'm scaring myself. And my family. They tiptoe up to the garbage dumpster every day when they get home to inspect just who has been the victim of my early spring cleaning. Who knew that eliminating my transcription (which I spent much more time procrastinating than actually doing, by the way) would cause such an uproar in personality. I'm sure it will be short-lived as soon as the routine settles in, but I'm taking full advantage of the unnatural pep for the time being. The only disadvantage to the habit upheaval has been that I've entirely eliminated blogging from my routine for the last week. I gotta ge...

I'm not a particularly green-minded person, I'm embarrassed to admit. I do my share of recycling because frankly, the garbage company requires clear bags and will leave our garbage sitting at the curb if there are cans, bottles, glass jars and that sort of stuff included. I do make a very moderate attempt at turning off lights, not running the hot water too long and that kind of thing, but if it's too inconvenient, I really don't do my part. And if it's not comfortable---let's just say I neeeed the heat set at 70 in the bitter cold winter. I did decide to begin experimenting a year ago with the fluorescent lights that have become increasingly popular. That's the only conscious change I've made in our power consumption and even though our temperatures have been 8 degrees colder this month compared to a year ago, our power consumption is down 24 kwh on a daily average. When I first began the switch, I noticed a drop in our power bill, and now that we...

It's been a long time in coming, but as of this morning, I'm no longer a medical transcriptionist. I'm not sure how I feel about that...a little bit relieved, a little bit sad, a lot bit uncertain about whether I'll regret this decision. For the last year or so, I've found that the transcription work isn't fulfilling the need I once had to stay at home with my babies and have an income. I've increasingly felt that I need more interaction and less monotony. I've also felt the pressure of work that constantly needs to be done, with no sense of ever being really "finished." No matter how much work you've done for the day, there's always another note waiting to be transcribed. That goes for sick days, holidays, vacations days or any kind of days. This year, I've dabbled in substituting as a school monitor and office staff, and kind of found my niche in the last few weeks. I'll be working a couple of hours a day in one of the ...

About a year ago, Muh Main Man needed a new alarm clock, so in all my gadgety-wisdom, I bought him one of the atomic models that sets itself by the one somewhere in the nether-regions of the US. The thing is, we've never really learned to properly use it, as Muh Main Man doesn't have the interest and I don't have the wherewithal. Translate brains or gumption. Anyway, Muh Main Man is the genius-sort and has been able to get the thing to alarm when he needs it and shut off when he desires, so it works. Until this morning. Muh Main Man had a big sledding trip scheduled and had the alarm set for 6:30am. On a Saturday morning--can you imagine?! He woke to the light of day, checked the big bad atomic clock and it read 5:30am. He thought it was curious as there's not usually any light at that hour, but he went back to sleep only to wake up to the ringing phone at 7:20am and his buddies wondering where he was. He was to meet them at 7am and for some reason, the big bad ...

Antique Mommy had this meme and I liked reading hers, so I figured I'd take the easy way out this last day of 2007 and do my version. Still amazed : that God blessed me by making me a mom. Still getting used to : the fact that college kids think I'm old. Still loving: my laptop computer. Still proud of : having my employer ask me to take a temporary assignment on a permanent basis. Still not proud of: the way I get grouchy and impatient when my To-Do list gets overwhelming. Still hoping : that I'll start liking my body the way that it is. Still worried: about being enough of a Godly influence on my kids to equip them to handle the world they live in. Still never going to: sky dive. Still pretending: that I'm going to be a competent digital scrapbooker some day. Still reading: my Bible through, which I had hoped to finish by the end of 2007. Still wanting to read: the rest of the C.S. Lewis Chronicles of Narnia. Still interested in: learning how to u...

....to catch my breath?! While grabbing a few items from the store, I nearly tripped over the Valentines cards and Yellow Peeps they have out for Valentine's and Easter. Good grief, People. Let me get my tree down first.

Muh Main Man desperately wanted to get himself Brainy Boy the nifty Schwitzer 300 RC helicopter that was for sale at the mall kiosk. It was way overpriced, I might add. In Nice Mom & Cool Wife form, I agreed, but through gritted teeth. You see, we've been buying RC vehicles, helicopters and planes since, well...since we found out a boy was in the womb. And they work for about the first 15 minutes until one flies it into the woods. Or crashes it into the pavement. Or some mystery malady hits the battery. Then we sit the ailed aircraft on the kitchen counter until Easter, fully intending to fix or buy some new part for said toy. Eventually the piece of junk becomes part of the scenery and I can safely throw it out without anyone noticing it disappeared. But anyway. We bought this one. And I cautiously admit that it has worked so far. It appears we've made a record because now we are three days post-Christmas without any permanent destruction. UPDATED: I take tha...

With all our family living scattered near and far, it's a rare occurrence for us to spend the entire Christmas vacation at home. But this year we are, and we're actually excited about it. It was awesome to attend Christmas Eve service at church last night, come home and do the Christmas Eve traditions and then get up this morning with no place to go! After we attended our annual candlelight service at church (in which Little Chic sang), we came home, sipped a little Purity Egg Nog, read the Christmas Story from Luke 2, opened our new Christmas jammies and settled in for a traditional viewing of Little Lord Fauntleroy. When the movie was over, Little Chic was initiated into the world of "non-believer" since this is her first year of officially not believing in Santa. She has been on the fence for a while, but she was never really ready to admit it before this year. We live in a family of skeptics and realists, so it's amazing that she held out as long as she di...

During his sermon yesterday, our pastor related statistics about how many people, including pastors, don't enjoy the holiday season because of all the commercial pressure we put on ourselves. One woman, in the middle of a hectic shopping trip, remarked that whomever was responsible for Christmas should be shot. A fellow shopper responded, "Don't worry, they already crucified Him." I'm sorry to say that I've had my frazzled moments this season, but I hope you'll join me in getting your perspective back and remembering why we celebrate Christmas in the first place. Enjoy your family, enjoy your traditions and enjoy your moments reflecting on the real meaning of Christmas. "Thanks be to God for His Unspeakable Gift." II Corinthians 9:15

We all know that I can procrastinate along with the best of them. But I do consider myself a realist nonetheless. Do the online companies really think that I will swallow their line when they promise that if I order in the next 4 hours, they will, in fact, deliver the perfect gift to its recipient by Christmas day? I mean, seriously, enough with the marketing emails every time I open my in-box. It's down to the wire, now, People. And checking out all your ads is putting me way behind. Just give it up and send a New Year's gift if you weren't on the ball. That's what I'm gonna do.

Okay, so Little Chic and I went to NYC last Saturday. This was a long-awaited trip as we are both city girls at heart, and we were psyched to see the Big Apple in all it's sparkly Christmas splendor. We were gettin' a little worried about the big bad Nor'easter that was supposed to come, but luckily our trusty weathermen were completely wrong. As usual. But so. We got on the bus bright and early, which was an exercise in determination for me in the first place. We made the trek into the city, got dropped off at Bryant Park and the day started.We decided to start out with a bit of education, just to make the bus fee worth our while. As if it weren't already! We headed down to the United Nations all excited to see the national flags for ever member nation. It would have helped if it had been a weekday so the flags would have been actually flying. Disappointing. What was not disappointing is the fact that once we entered the building, we found out we were in intern...

Okay, so I'm at my local Walmart this morning. The one in rural upstate New York. I hear them making their morning announcements, sending out a special thank you to the employees for their hard work this past Saturday. According to Walmart officials, my small-town Super Walmart was #1 in sales for the Entire Company on Saturday. For real? From what I hear, it was a madhouse but I would've expected stiffer competition from say, the City?

Melanie is always good for some interesting memes that get-to-know-ya better, so I figured I'd steal this one from her. 1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? All different prints of wrapping paper. 2. Real or artificial Tree? Totally fake, but pre-lit, so no light aggravation for me, Baby. 3. When do you put Christmas tree up? I try as soon as possible after Thanksgiving. Sometimes a little later than sooner. 4. When do you take the tree down? I always feel very self-satisfied when I have it down before the end of January. It was very embarrassing the year February came and I hadn't packed it away yet, so I try not to let that happen any more. 5. Like egg nog? I'm an egg nog snob. I suppose I don't like it enough to drink just any brand. But Purity from Ithaca, NY . Well, let's just say it's more like melted ice cream than egg nog. In calorie count as well as taste. I promise you, my favorite brand will totally beat up your favorite brand. 6. Do you have...