It's GUUUURRRRREAT!!!!

 Another kid sick today.  Turns out it's hand, foot and mouth and it's going around.  

MY house apparently.

So I had a visitor in my room last night from 10:30 on with a high temp and wanting to talk about all their bad dreams.  It's been a rough night culminating into having Spongebob on my bedroom tv at 4am so I could at least get another hour or two of sleep.  And then finding out the bed is wet.  

It's going to be a GREAT day!!

The silver lining is fresh sheets ahead of schedule.

Last night was Leon's school concert.  Only Ryan and I could go but it was a good one and for a bit we wondered if Leon was actually IN the band, but then he ran in with his clarinet after everyone was almost seated. :)

Pouring rain and strong winds until around 11ish last night and then it turned into snow and strong winds.  School, work for others and daycare is closed today.  

Yay me for working from home... :\

My poor goose this morning!  

I'm not going out to set it back on the bench, so he's going to stay there until further notice.  The wind is still whipping around the house and he'd just get knocked off again.  I didn't really WANT to sew a parka for him this late in the spring, but if I knew where my sewing machine was, I might.

So I'm upstairs getting hunkered down with work and listening to the fam downstairs getting breakfast and their daily dose of Scooby Doo.

Did I mention that it's going to be a GREAT day?!

Granny Clampett, that's me!

Two hour delay today.  So it's less than zero for a temp, but the boy is now OFF to school! 

He was getting too used to this "no school" thing.

Ryan and Jen took him instead of having him get on the bus.  A rare treat to not ride the bus.

Robb and I took Meri out for supper last night.  Yes, when it was -20 degrees.  We tried to take her to the chinese buffet at HyVee, but they closed 5 minutes before we got there due to inclement weather!! really...?... So we took her to our 2nd favorite place for chinese food.  They were open and we were the only ones there until well into the egg roll course.  I LOVE that place!

My cold continues.  As we were picking up Meri last night, I had to text her to bring some kleenex out to the car as I'd been through all the extra fast food napkins in the car and was about to use my gloves.  She brought out a roll of toilet paper.  She's suffering from a cold now too.

Remember Granny from Beverly Hillbillies?  Her cure for the common cold was a classic.

The toilet paper is as good as anything else, but my nose was raw by the time we got out of the restaurant.

I'm sure I'll feel better soon.  The meds are kicking in.

T Minus 24

Ah...   sub zero weather.  There is NOTHING like scraping the inside of the house windows  in order to see if the plow has been by.  Or like having your dog be sick in the night and having to go outside in the weather a LOT...  

My life is a thrill a minute.

Even though my husband will say that I'm getting more sleep than I say I've been getting, I didn't get much sleep last night.  Second night in a row.

So, a few hours later, the alarm went off at 6.  I reset it for 7 for a little more sleep.  That and a cold are kicking my patooty today.  Thank goodness there is no school today!  

So before I got going with work today, I got a science experiment together to do with Leon.  I boiled some water on the stove and let him select the food coloring to add to it.

red.

Yep - my yard will look like a scene from Watership Down...

Whatever...  The red food coloring went in.

Leon recorded from inside and I took the pan of boiling water out.

Chunks of red ice and steam hit the gutters and clunked against the house.  It would have been hitting me if I'd gone to the deck corner.  But the wind was coming from a different direction that I'd anticipated.  

Look Ma!  No frostbite!

Anyway, he enjoyed it and later we'll try the way another sister recommended with bubbles.

Fun times!  I need a nap.

Helps the medicine go down

I'm sick of dieting.  If I diet all week, it bounces back after a handful of chips on the weekend.  I am making ZILCH progress.  And I'm pretty sure this isn't my ideal weight...

Not that I'm going to tell YOU what it is currently!  I just know that I don't like my stomach protruding the way that it is.  Middle aged-ness kind of sucks.  

Wait - if THIS is middle aged, then I'm going to live to be over 100, right?!  In some ways yay, in other ways, sigh...  

I'm just going to do a bunch of tummy crunches and hope for the best, cruise-wise.

And my chiropractor is closing his office in our town.  yuck.  I'm happy that his main office is booming but that he can't spare a morning a week over here??!  Not so happy.

Oh well.  I felt like this when the last chiropractor retired and I lived without one for over a year.  If I ever go out and work in my office in the garage again, I can start cracking my back over my office chair again to tide me over until another good one moves to town.

It doesn't help that I was ill most of last week.  Poor Meri, she's caught it now.

Anyway, the weekend.  As usual, it went too fast.  I got about 30 minutes of sewing in.  Yikes!  This project needs to get DONE!!!  I think for the most part, it is now, but needs maybe to be washed and ironed.

Meri had been talking with a friend, for whom I'd sewn some belt loops onto some pants for his dad last spring.  The pants in question lay on my railing until yesterday when he and his parents had some more work for me to do.  Meri had him text me and I came away from their house last night with several items to work on.  Mostly sewing buttons onto coats, hemming a pair of pants and working a miracle on a torn elbow of his mom's favorite sweater.  Not sure how I'm going to do that yet...  I wonder how she likes seude patches...  Just kidding, that wouldn't match at all.

Oh!  Saturday!!!  Leon and I went to town, met up with Meri and did a little shopping.  I was in the mood for ingredients to make Christmas candies.  The weather was really cool and I just felt like it.  If I make a bunch ahead of time, I can pop them in the freezer and have them ready for anything.  Leon just wanted M&M cookies.  While Leon spent a little more time with his dad during Ryan's break, I took Meri out to lunch at one of my favorite Irish restaurants.  

Robb asked how my shepherds pie was...  Apparently I'm predictable.  It's ALWAYS good!  

Meri and I had a nice time getting caught up with each other's lives and plans.  I'm pretty sure I didn't blog about this, but Meri is going to audition for America's Got Talent and the Voice, both in 2019.  She's been scouting for the perfect songs to learn and what to do with her life afterwards.  Her piano is finally getting tuned tomorrow and then she can practice in full force.  She's also on the lookout for a voice coach to help fine tune them and get some advice from.

Meri and Leon came back to the house with me that afternoon and we got to work on the goodies.  Leon mostly played with his toys, but came in for stray M&Ms occasionally.  We made the M&M cookies and I made some chocolate mocha truffle mix.  

It's in the fridge now.  Oh, is it good!!!  I love this recipe as you can tell by the stains.  It's been used for years.  I need to see if I can find my mini "mini" scoop so I can make the little mocha balls as small as possible.  The inch thick ones I've made in the past, are just TOO much...  at a single time.  I mean, I can eat a whole batch of this at one sitting, but if there is too much in a biteful, it's too rich.

Robb was out and about on Saturday but that evening was just Leon and myself.  We splurged and rented a movie from Amazon Prime.  We're almost out of Halloween movies that I'll let him watch...  But that night we watched The Witches.  OOH!! Good fun!  I love when people turn into tiny mice!

It just doesn't happen often enough.

And the fact that the little boy lived with his grandmother definitely made it OUR movie.

It's another cold, rainy blustery day.  56 for a high today!  I took Leon to the bus stop with two umbrellas.  My feet and lower legs were drenched and cold.  I left my shoes downstairs to dry out.  

Back to work.  Have a wonderful day!

The Memory Bowl

I want to go see my mom and dad this weekend!!  Meri is coming with me.  

IF she feels better.  She came home from work sick yesterday.  Those daycare kids spread the WORST illnesses...  

So if I don't come down with it, (I avoided her like the plague...) and she's better, then we'll go.  I pretty much threw the over-the-counter meds to her along with the 7-UP and ginger ale and said, "GET BETTER!"  

Mama!  (She calls me that lately) won't you cuddle with me??  

nope.

I was talking to someone the other day and felt like they were cutting me down.  

"I don't take pictures because I want to live in the moment and remember how it was in real life."  

said they.

Well, GOOD for them! :\

  I didn't justify myself at the time because when someone acts holier-than-thou, I get kind of floored and stunned a bit.

And three days later, I'm able to come up with a response...

I guess I take pictures, because my mom has dementia and can't remember those two months when I moved into the garage attic for my freshman year at college because I wanted the "live away from home" experience.  I moved back into the house when it got too cold and after I discovered that bats liked it up there too.

She gets mixed up as to who lived in which house.  I was born when we lived in the blue house with the basement Dad dug out from under it, while we were still living in it.  And when he smoked. and the tree in the back yard where Mark built a treehouse and the branches made a little sink which was perfect for mudpie creations where they forked.  And the made for the toboggan hill in the back!  And we had Lassa, the dog, that got hit by a car.  And the swimming pool that had the big wooden spool for a deck and we would make the current go so fast and then one day we pushed the side over and flooded the yard.  And playing Duck When Cars Come in the ditch.

Mom doesn't remember much of those things.

And now I can't remember who told me that little braggadocios bit the other day,  

so I'm taking pictures, darn it!

Someday, likely, I won't be able to remember those big or little things either.  And photos will be all I'll have to remember the various events of my life and those of the ones I love.  

If you didn't capture it on film, it didn't happen.

No wonder Mom kept multiple baskets of photos tucked under her bed and around the house.

Oh dear... *sob* I better get to work on those scrap books!

AND make more of these blog posts into a book.

2009 is done so far...

A Day of Sick and Stuff

As I sit here, Leon is roaming the house bouncing a teeny little ball on a paddle thinking he's doing it right and counting.  He got all the way to 102 then got bored and went back to his Legos.  

The Lego set that was taken away from him just after his birthday because he was grounded.  And then it was forgotten for  awhile.  Then he got re-grounded yesterday from all electronics until things improve at school.  So yay me!  It's going to be fun!!!  He found the set again and asked if he could do it finally.  sigh...  Well, Grandpa DID give it to Meri...  But Meri doesn't really like Legos... So yeah, you can do.  AND it will keep him busy.

Update: Ryan was able to come back and spend the day here with the boy! YAY!!!

Maybe now I can get to the chiropractor when he opens today!  Hope so.

AND the dryer isn't keeping up, so I may be working from the laundromat later too.  

Yesterday, Leon and I hit a nature trail.  

I had gotten paged while in town and had to stop and use my computer in the car. 

Hey look!  A ton of bikers getting ready for RAGBRAI!

Leon explored within sight of me and then we explored it all together. 

I'm thinking he should have worn the jacket even though he said he didn't need it...

He found a cool rock and proceeded to write onto the car with it.  LOOK Grandma, an N!

WHA?????  Give me that rock...

It's back in the park now. Leon has to do 3 super nice things to make up for permanently scratching my van.  I guess I won't be climbing into the wrong car at times because of that...

There's a bright side to everything!

 Ooh and look!  The fort will probably not last until June after all.

drat.

Puke and Pickles

This kid...  Visited at a friend of his Dad's apartment for a couple days with his Dad, because Ryan had off work, then came home last night in prep for school starting back up today.  The temps are still really low (-3 at this moment) so there was a two hour delay.  Leon slept on our bedroom couch last night and this morning woke up a lot earlier than normal.  So he climbed into bed with me.  He told me about Maddy's kindergarten class saying that she met her husband in a grocery store, so I told him about how Grandpa Robb and I met.

He promptly went into the bathroom and threw up.

I really didn't think the story would make you do that...

So, not only a 2 hour delay but an all day out for him.  Good thing Ryan is sleeping on the couch behind him!  I'll work from the dining room until he wakes up.

Now that we've got vomit out off the way, want to try out a new recipe?

I mentioned some deep frying that the girls and I did last Thursday when we couldn't drive anywhere.  The recipe I'm going to share is deep fried pickle egg rolls.

Oh my...  

Step 1: buy 12 BIG pickles and slice in half lengthwise.

Scoop out the seedy area and pitch it or make pickle pops out of them, I don't care.

Step 2: mix 4 oz softened cream cheese, 1 cup shredded cheddar, 8 slices of cooked and crumbed bacon, 1 tsp. garlic powder and a little salt & pepper.

Step 3: fill the pickle halves with the mixture and put them back together to form a whole pickle again.  

Wrap them in a standard sized egg roll wrap.

Step 4: Fill a pan (I use cast iron pan) about 1/2 inch deep with oil and get it hot.  Deep fry the pickles a few at a time until they're golden brown all around.

You can use ranch dressing to dip them in, but we'd forgotten all about this part and just dug in.

But there were so many pickles and there are still a few in the fridge.  Not sure how to heat up a week old pickled egg roll but I'm willing to give it a shot.

I haven't made the futon cover yet, but hope to soon.  Right now we're trying to get the house back in some pre-Christmas order.  Like how it looked LAST January, but the tree is still up and there is still a pile of wrapping paper in the corner of the dining room...  I've been working on organizing some closets upstairs so we can get the doors shut.  Then maybe I won't feel so guilty messing things up to sew for a few days. ;)

Have a wonderful Thursday!

Stupid Groundhog

Six more weeks of winter??!?!!  Darn.  I was just hoping for a month and a half til spring.

And you know what's in 6 weeks?  March 21st.  The official first day of spring.

That rodent doesn't know what he's gallavantin' on about.

Colds have run through our house.  Most of us are over the worst of it by now, but Meri has had a delayed reaction to it and it's hit her hard today.  So hard that her jazz band director told her to sit in the corner and just listen this morning...  I let her come home for a couple hours to nap.  She's making herself some chicken noodle soup at 8:50am to help her sleep...  

Leon is here for the weekend!!! WOOHOO!  We never get him when we don't have to work!  Well, hardly ever since school started.It'll be great.  

We'll make play dough and donuts.  Build snowmen and Lego towers.  

Watch all of Babe *again* and some other unfortunate events!  Color and pick up toys.  Clean his room and bathroom.  Teach him how to scrub spots on the carpet and mop.  And how to sit quietly and watch me sew.  *He can hand me pieces.*

And all that will be in the first hour on Saturday.

And I'm hoping to get some fabric ordered this weekend with this type of thing printed all over it.  Someone has requested PJ pants made with this type of fabric.  and with his b'day coming up, you BETCHA!!!

It's been a rough week in other things, but joking aside, it's looking to be a good weekend.

I hope yours is good too!

Tick-tocks & Boo-boos

Guess what I *must have* brought home from Minnesota?

A cold.

sigh...  I'm miserable.

*sneeze* x4 in a row.

So Robb and Meri took Ryan to work last night and since it was so icy, decided to stay in town until he got off work.  They went to a movie, because a movie...  They were the only ones in the theater.

Any why not?  Everyone else decided to stay home where it's safe and warm.  Well, except for a few employees at the theater.  They saw the new Star Wars movie.  I'll see it when I'm dead.

Which might be today...  if my nose doesn't let up...

Or when it comes out on Netflix so I can watch it ten minutes at a shot.

So Leon and I read a book or three and then he played in the bathtub for 45 minutes while I lay on the bed and blew my nose whilst watching the next episode of Westworld.  It is NOT the old tv version I saw as a kid...  Trust me on THAT one!

No sewing for me last night.  Wasn't feelin' it and didn't want to get mucus all over Meri's dress.  She'd frown on that.

Then I talked the boy into watching Baby's Day Out while we cuddled, him still wet in his towel.  He was determined NOT to like it, but after five minutes of complaining, it's now a favorite of his and we're only half way done with it.  Silly baby and even sillier bad guys... :)  

I told him that I'd met one of the actors a long time ago in real life.  He was running for president at the time.  When I pointed out who it was, Leon said, "Well, THAT'S not him!"

I replied to Leon, "It was a  LOOOONNNG time ago. and LOTS of people run for president."

2007.  Fred is holding my niece, who was his biggest fan.  He even said her favorite line from the movie for her.

"We're going back to the tick-tock to get the boo-boo."

Well, blowing my nose again.  It's going to be a LOOOOONNNG day.

Jealous with Kleenex

I have a cold.  You know how they say a cold can last up to ten days?  My colds generally follow that regimen. 

Each days symptoms lessen a little, then take on the new one.

I'm on about day 4.
Day 1 was the scratchy hairy throat.
Day 2 was the sneezing
Day 3 was the watery eyes and plugged up snout.
Day 4 (this is where I'm at...) mostly lost voice, LOTS of nose blowing.

Tomorrow will be the day that my nose runs like a sieve.  Fun times ahead!!!  I finally broke down and asked Robb if we had any meds in the house.  I tend to steer away from certain ones because they make me loopy.  I just took a 12 hour Pseudofed, so here's hoping!!  It's the REAL stuff that you have to sign your life away whenever you want to buy it at a pharmacy...  So it better work and not make me make stupid decisions at work.  Like tell anyone off!

Other than the cold...  We had a couple super powered thunderstorms plow through here Monday and our town and the one right next to us were out of power for an hour or so Tuesday morning.  Not entirely sure why the delay... but YUCK!

I had to move my work to one of the girls laptops that had some charge in it and use my hot spot for the internet.  The battery on the laptop started to die and I was within minutes of taking off out the door to go the NEXT town about 20 minutes away to work in a Panera restaurant, which would hopefully have both electricity AND wifi.

Found out later, they were out too...  But as luck would have it, our house power popped back on and I was able to move my operation back to my desk.  WHEW! 

So today, looks good weather-wise, although a bit chill.  Power and internet are on, so crossing my fingers!

I got paged at 5:58am today.  Two minutes before the alarm would have gone off.  sigh.

The dogs got out and roamed the neighborhood for an hour before I'd realized it.  Meri and I, on separate modes of transportation drove around town looking for them and finally found them a block away from home playing with a neighbor dog.  They broke a gate...  So she and I will hammer some things back together on my break so the dogs will be able to take a lunch potty break.

They're worn out.  
Good!

Too bad I can't take a nap too...

Hold your horses! It's a two hour delay!

For a kid, that means calling time and temperature every 10 minutes in hopes that the schools will eventually give up and cancel completely. 

But if it's -10 at 6am and supposed to be 6 above by noon, not a chance.

That's practically BALMY!  The school would be a weenie to cancel now...

I took advantage of the 2 hour delay and took Meri to see the doctor.  Our "doctor" is actually a PA, but she's wonderful and we call her Doctor Mary.  Turns out MY Meri didn't kick whatever it was last month and one ear is infected and the other is showing signs of an allergy. 

Not sure what she's allergic to.  Maybe a dog.  I wonder which one...  I hope it's not my cooking!

I let her drive on the way there and back.  It's a 20 minute drive each way with no real traffic.  Doc Mary is a small town doctor and it's easy to get in!  Did I mention we love her? 

I should probably put her on my Christmas letter list...

Being that it was so cold this morning, the car wouldn't go more than 15 miles to hour...  I finally had her pull over and stop the engine and restart.  Nothing like a good reboot!  That did the trick and finally we were making tracks!  She learned how to use the cruise control.  As it was we were 10 minutes late to the appointment.

But now we have stronger (seems like horse pill) meds for Meri and with any luck she will kick this quickly without need for a tonsillectomy...

Tomorrow it's going to be 40 degrees!!  No wonder so many kids are sick at school!  No one knows how to dress for this crazy weather...

A Charming Evening....

I took some 12 hour decongestant last night...  I will never do that again!  I woke up at midnight and started warming up.  A...LOT...  Until it wore off about 2.5 hours later.  At least that's when I remembered looking at the clock last.  It started kicking in again while I slept and I'm back at that state again.  wow...  

During that 2.5 hour awake-time that I was closing my eyes pretending to be falling asleep, I thought and worried about many things.  Some were downright scary reality with upcoming and past financial matters.  Sewing matters...  I felt anxiety that isn't my norm...

But had perfect clarity on one issue anyway.  I now know how to fix a problem for work that had been bugging me for a month!  Now if I can just remember it...

So insomnia has SOME good benefits... unfortunately...

As I told Robb about my sleeping problems this morning, he asked, "Yeah, but how is your nose?"

"Perfect!!!"  Clear as a bell all night.    

The meds were magical all right!

 

What was it?  A quote from Once Upon A Time??  All magic comes with a price.  

Shoot.

Healthy mentalities

Can you believe I did NOT get my two seams sewn last night? 

I guess it's kind of hard to sit down and sew at 11pm...  My evening was eventful...

While out running errands, we got a call from Tiffany that Leon's high temp that he started mid afternoon had spiked 2 more degrees higher within an hour of taking Motrin...  That's not good.  She called First Nurse and we met them at the hospital where I stayed with her and Leon, so the nurses and doctors could poke and prod him like the little pink pin-cushion that he is...

After more high temps, general miserableness and some vomiting (and that's just me *jk* * it was Leon*) we finally were able to leave.  We got supper and some meds around 10:30pm and then home. 

Since he's running a fever, he can't go to day care today, so he's my work buddy today as I work in the living room.  Beauty & the Beast is playing in the background as he walks around seeing what he can hit with great grandma's cane.

Just looked down and he's laying on his back, kicking his feet on the floor, smiling at me.  I know that won't last for long, so I'd better get as much work done as possible before he goes mental again.

Have a great Wednesday!