Summer Jobs

This summer I have two jobs, plasma and sewing camp.  Hey, I'm revisiting my inner college student.  I never did the plasma thing before when I was in college so I decided to give it a try.  It's actually not too bad. And it's easy money.  Next summer I will be a nurse so I won't have to sell my blood. At least not this way.  As far as the sewing class goes I am torn about what to do. I may still teach a few students, because I think that it is something that people really want. I and I actually really enjoy teaching.  So I may pick a handful of my favorite students and teach a little bit, depending on how crazy my summer is. 

 

Crash

Someone had an accident. It wasn't me. It wasn't Kent, but I'm not saying who it was. The funny thing was that the unnamed person who crashed actually hit the brother of one of Elise's best friends.  We didn't do a claim on it because it would have ended up costing 3x as much.  So we paid for the repair (and said adios to our Disneyland vacation that was planned for the summer. )  Sad.  Car repairs are a rip-off by the way.

Milk and Grapes

So, at Easter time we were getting ready for Kelly and Sally who always visit this time of year.  We were cleaning up Adele's room and something smelled SO funky in there. I kept asking her if she might have some food in there (cuz, that's happened a few times...). She kept saying "no, no, no, I don't have food in there."  She even looked under the bed a couple of times.  I went in there and looked under the bed.  There was a lunch sack.  With a lunch in there. An OLD lunch.  With chocolate milk and grapes.  The milk had not been opened but it was BULGING.  The grapes were slimy and fermented.  It smelled HORRIBLE and took a lot of carpet cleaner and Febreeze and several days for the smell to go away.  Fun times.

Empathy Training

So, after I posted my "True Story" post I thought (and hoped) that the story would end and I could say "happily ever after" etc.  Unfortunately I got another UTI and they identified the bacteria this time:  Klebsiella Pneumonae.   So apparently this is a bacteria that isn't super common to get, and usually it's found in older individuals who have been in the hospital.  They get pneumonia from it and die.  It's pretty antibiotic resistant, and hard to kill (thanks to its capsule, aka slime layer.  I actually know that this means now.)  They tested the one I had and the tests indicated that it should die if I took Augmentin.  So I took it.  And it didn't die.  My dr. had told me that if it didn't die I would probably have to have IV antibiotics and a PICC line (which I spent too many hours fretting about). I have decided that even though I am not in school right now, I am getting some important education for nursing school.  It's called "empathy training".  I hope the semester will end soon.  Aaaanyway, my dr. thought something could be going on with my renal system, since this bacteria shouldn't have even really been there in the first place.   And I keep having RBCs in my urine.  So I had to get an x-ray that was supposed to show whether I have kidney stones.  No stones.  Next, I was referred to a urologist (because, who can complete a course in empathy training without a visit or two to the urologist?  I mean, I've already experienced the OBGYN..)  The Uro ordered a ct scan, which was supposed to look for cysts or obstructions.  Scan came back, no cysts (although I do have some strange scarring in my left lung.  Who knew?) The next thing could be the final exam of the empathy training:  The cystoscope.  I'm not even gonna talk about that.  Suffice it to say that they are going to look inside my bladder to see if there is something that is causing me to have hematuria (blood in the urine).  Of course, I am no longer fretting about the PICC line (the Uro said that we have a couple more oral antibiotics we can still try). Now I am just fretting about what they might find in my bladder.  Trying not to worry about the "C" word.  It's probably not that.  I just hope they can find it and get it taken care of. I'm so over it.  It's all about the empathy people.

End of the Semester

I have (almost) survived the semester.   It has been much busier than I thought it would be. I had the same amount of credits this semester as last semester and two fewer labs.  I thought it would be less crazy.  Turns out I was wrong.  It ended up being super crazy because of my chemistry class.  My teacher is 1 super unorganized and gives homework and quizzes and tests at random times and does not stick to any type of schedule.  2.  Is confusing when he lectures and doesn't make much sense. Because of this I have had to study the book a lot. It has actually been kind of like an independent study class- only worse-  one that meets EVERY SINGLE day, and has annoying quizzes.  I can't even explain how excited that I only have to endure this class 4 more times.  Unfortunately I still have 3 more homework assignments that are due.  Two of them are due during the week of finals. Who does that?

My other classes haven't been so bad.  Nutrition has been super easy, but has had quite a bit of busy work and homework assignments.  My other class is pathophysiology. I have learned a lot and enjoyed it.  I'd rather do physiology related stuff than chemistry any day.  If I have to learn the Kreb's cycle one more time....

As soon as the semester is over there will be some real partying.  I have an entire month off before my kids get out of school.  WOO HOO! I have been making a mental list of all the things I want to accomplish (or at least work on) while I have this time off.  And some of it might continue into the summer.  I need to work on my art wall in the family room downstairs.  I have several sewing projects and I need to get some stuff ready for the kids sewing camp I am doing this summer to try to keep busy and make some money.  I need to re-do my cookbook binder and I need to get going on the landscaping in the backyard by getting the dirt people there to help with moving the dirt and rocks. and to hopefully get someone to come do the sprinklers and curbing. After that we will probably do the rest ourselves. I am hoping to make some progress on this in the next couple of weeks.

Did I Mention Kids Destroy Everything?

Me: (relaxing in bed on a Sunday afternoon):  "Adele, why do you keep coming in and out of the house?
Adele:  It isn't me, it's Ian.
Me: Well, what is he doing?
Adele:  He's just spray painting.
Me:  WHAT?  WHAT is he painting???
Adele: Some rocks and his cardboard sword.

Then Kent gets up and finds this.  (Ian thought ahead to NOT paint it on the sidewalk, and NOT on the porch and NOT by the house.  (Thank you.) Unfortunately all this ahead thinking didn't involve using some CARDBOARD or NOT doing it on the little water-meter spot in our FRONT YARD.)

Don't be jealous neighbors.  Let us know if you want one too. We can hook you up.  And yes, it will last FORRRR-EVVVER.







And here is part II of this saga.  I went to the store and bought some stuff that is supposed to take off spray paint.  So this dude got to go out and scrub the sword outline off the cement.  It came out pretty well, and I'd say it is 95% gone. You can see it if you look closely but it is much better than it was before.

Hendrickson Lake?

Kent and I took Emilia and Elise and went on a backpacking trip with Sam Wells.  We were supposed to hike about 5 miles and then end up at a cute little lake in the forest.  We hiked and hiked and hiked. At first we were on the right trail.  Then we ended up missing a turn because it was unmarked and the map was wrong.  We ended up going about 3 extra miles til we finally realized that we were not on the right trail.  At this point we ended up just trying to find a place to camp for the night because it was getting dark.  We ended up camping in "Mosquito Lane", which should have been more appropriately called "Flying Ant Lane".  But, no worries, there were plenty of mosquitoes too.

Very tired of hiking.

Uhh, I think we are lost.

See my heart shaped blister?  It got even bigger, and actually looked like a bum when we were done hiking.

THIS is where we slept.

Crash and Burn

Now that we live on the edge of town Ian has a whole lot of wilderness to explore.  He went with the scouts last week to see some petroglyphs that were not too far from our house. Ever since he saw them he couldn't WAIT to show us.  He rode his bike down a dirt and gravelly road while Kent and I walked behind him.  And then we saw him crash. Hard.  He had actually crashed (again on some gravel) in front of our neighbor's house just a few days before. This kid is an animal.    After the crash he was a kind of light headed and dizzy so we let him chill for a few minutes.  We stuck him back on his bike and Kent and I pushed him all the way home.  We didn't make it to the petroglyphs.   We will have to go back another time.  When we got home we cleaned up his arm and couldn't decide whether he would need stitches.  It was about 8:30 on Saturday night and I knew the Instacare closed at 9 so I decided to just take him.  He ended up needing 6 stitches.

Another Milestone!

When Ian was a baby I decided to try to donate blood.  I had been just on the border of weighing enough to donate, and had never done it.  So I tried.  And I failed!  They stuck me and everything but I just couldn't bleed fast enough to fill up the bag.  So they couldn't use my blood, and it was a total waste of pain and suffering. I had never tried again.  Well, 10 years later, I definitely weigh enough to donate so I decided to try again.  I made sure I was very hydrated and I went to donate.  And I did it!  I was so proud of myself for filling up that bag!  Now I keep getting letters and junk from the red cross.  They want me to come and save some more lives again, since I did it so well the last time.  So I have to wait my 4 months and I am going to go and do it again.  (Sorry if the pic grosses you out.  I figured that since nobody even reads this I'd post it, for MY posterity.  They are used to my fascination with blood and guts.)

Surgery

Gotta make sure the cap looks just right.

This year seems to be the surgery year.  Since Kent had his gall bladder out in February we met our insurance deductible and I decided it would be a good year to have my endometriosis taken care of.  I did a lot of research about doctors and felt like I really needed to go to a specialist instead of a regular OBGYN.  They are great for babies and simple stuff but I wanted a doc who first of all did excision, not ablation and someone who knew what they were doing.  So many times doctors don't get all the adhesions and then it just comes back.  I read about this dr. at McKay-Dee up in Ogden and I had some email consultations with him. He agreed to do surgery on my endo.  He was pretty booked out and I ended up having to wait a couple of months to get in for surgery.  I had the option of doing it at the end of July or in August.  I wanted to get it done before school started, and our house was supposed to be done at the beginning of July.  The house was done in mid-July, which was fine.  The problem is the loan.  Our loan got stuck SOMEWHERE and EVERYWHERE and we haven't been able to close.  Our builder was so nice and let us move in to our house before we closed.  So that's what we did last weekend.  The next Monday Kent and I went up to Ogden and met with the dr. for a pre-op visit.  We hung out in Ogden, which wasn't very fun for me because I couldn't eat anything.  But we did get to go to the mall, and it was nice to get away from our messy-just-moved-into house.  Let me say, these last few weeks have been really. really. really stressful.

The surgery went great.  Everything went as planned and we got discharged a couple hours after the surgery.  We had to make the journey home afterward and that wasn't my favorite, but thanks to painkillers it was ok.  Now I just have to chill in bed for a few days and try to not work on putting away boxes and getting stuff put away.  It's good to have some of these things over with.  We are ready to settle in (and close on the house!).

Carl

Here's a picture of Kent's big brother Carl.  He has been in the hospital for about 6 weeks now.  He has had 2 rounds of chemo and finally had a "clean" (cancer-free) bone marrow smear.  Lots of his healthy blood cells were also destroyed during the chemo so right now he is hanging out at the hospital and waiting for his white blood cell count to go up.  It is too dangerous to go home when the cell counts are so low. Once his numbers go up he will be able to start moving on to the next step: either consolidation chemotherapy or a bone marrow transplant.  He needs to consult with the transplant team in SL before he knows what the next step will be for him.

He has lost weight and has been throwing up around the clock.  Every time Kent talks to him he comments on how he has such a great attitude.  He has been able to remain hopeful and cheerful and is really a good sport considering all he has been through.  What a great example of strength and endurance to our family.  Right now we are just hoping and praying and sending him our support.

The most horrible thing about cancer is that you have to go through all this terrible torture and you don't even know if it is going to work or if it will just make it so your last time on earth was filled with sorrow and suffering. It is this long drawn out process that goes from bad to worse and must be so hard to endure. I have a new respect for people who have to endure this very difficult and long trial, especially young children. It just breaks your heart to see what people have to suffer. I know though that all suffering has a purpose, and it truly makes us better people.  We learn so much during times of suffering and if we can make it through we will be a better, more grateful, more empathetic person for having endured it.  It doesn't make it any easier though.

For the Record

Adele cut her hair again.  Luckily it was just 1 lock of hair, although it was in the front.  In fact I think it is the same piece that was attacked the last time. Apparently it is a favorite location for self-haircuts.  Just for the record, since I am sure none of you are counting, this is the 5th time she has cut her hair. I am counting.  And she has been severely threatened if she cuts it again.  Bye bye preschool.  See, she will be banned from scissors until she is 18 and since they use scissors at preschool she will definitely have to miss preschool for awhile.  Hopefully this is a threat I will never have to follow through with.  Because I will.  And it will be worse for me than for her.  But she must learn.  She MUST LEARN.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Yuck.  Who even wants to talk about this?  It's something that is going on in our family so I need to blog about it even though I don't want to.  We found out about 3 weeks ago that Kent's brother who is 2 years older has leukemia.  He has a rare form of cancer that is specifically called acute erythroid leukemia.   He started chemotherapy just 4 days after he was diagnosed and is currently in the hospital.  When you hear news like this it definitely shakes up your world.  It is hard to hear news like that and to hear the updates that the chemo is making him miserable and sick.  And that after the first round of chemo all the cancer isn't gone so he has to do 5 more days of a different chemo drug.  Our hearts go out to his wife and kids and especially to Carl who has been in the hospital for 2 weeks.  It's hard when stuff like this happens because you have to think about disease, and suffering and the possibility of bad outcomes.  And you are too far away to really do anything but send care packages and talk on the phone.  You have to explain to your kids what cancer is and try to reassure them when you aren't sure yourself what the outcome will be.  It's just a really hard time for Kent's family and we hope and pray that Carl will be able to go home and be healthy.  Soon.

Choose the Right?

The Primary Theme for 2012 is "Choose the Right".  The primary presidency gave all the kids notebooks for journals and CTR pens.  I bet you know where this is going huh?  (For the record, the Pres. made sure to instruct the kids to only write on paper and in their notebooks.)

I guess we still have some work to do huh?  Let's hope they never give out "Choose the Right scissors."

Hole in the House

This is a woodpecker.  They like to peck holes in things.  The sound they make sounds like someone is knocking on the door or the side of the wall.  How do I know this?  Because we have one that is trying to make a nest in our house.  We have heard it knocking on the house for a couple of weeks now and we would always go out and throw rocks at it so it would think that it picked a dangerous spot to nest.  Unfortunately it could not be deterred.  Actually, there are 2.  I am assuming they are mates.  This is what they have done to my house.  Not. Happy.  About. This.  Kent is going to get the ladder out and cover the hole with shiny metal and hopefully our two love birds will go find somewhere else to live and have their deleterious and pernicious offspring.  (Yes I used the thesaurus for those words. I couldn't think of anything appropriate, mean and fitting enough on my own.)

Stitches

Yep. This time it was Ian's turn. He was running to the bathroom in our master bedroom and as he turned the corner he whacked his head on the strike plate.  (Picture on the left).  He actually somehow managed to ricochet his head from the strike plate on one side to the door frame on the other.  One side got a gash and the other had a goose egg.  Brilliant.

 Ow.

 At our instacare they have a numbing gel that they apply to the wound every 5 minutes for 20 minutes. The area is then numb without having to use a shot.  Ian was pretty excited about that because he was VERY nervous about getting a shot.  He got to wear a stylish headband while he was getting numb.

 Two stitches. 

Again Again

Here's Adele.  She is scrubbing the wall with a magic eraser. Again.

Crazyland

I feel exhausted.  Not just body tired or sleepy tired but just tired from stress and craziness.  I feel like it has been crazyland around here this week.  We have been pretty ready for school to start but there are always those things that come up at the last minute.  Like soccer practices that you find out about 3 hours before when you hadn't heard a word about soccer since you signed up in the spring.  And it just happens to be back-to-school night.  Or kids who are trying to lock the door when they are the last one out of the house and they lock the deadbolt from the inside and try to shut the door with the lock mechanism sticking out.  That locking event leads to the mechanism bending and ultimately needing to be replaced.  (Who knew that outdoor locks are 50 bucks?)  And then there is the garbage disposal which had been dead for a week and had to be replaced ('nother 100 bucks to Home Depot), and which after being replaced had a weird pipe problem that made it detach from the garbage disposal not once but twice (before being re-plumbed), filling the area under the sink first with bean-spew and then oatmeal-spew.  And now tonight, the crowning event of it all: the text I got while at Emilia's back to school night:  I caught Adele cutting her hair.  It looks pretty bad... sorry.

 Here is a picture of happy Adele, playing at the lake just this morning.  Never thought I'd be using this as a "before" picture.

Here is a picture of SAD Adele who has been in her room for the last 30 minutes having a BIG time out for cutting her hair (again). 

And here we have the haircut.  The stylist ended up parting her hair on the opposite side to try to help conceal the worst of the choppage.  More pictures later.

And a big SIGH as I go to bed, thinking of how I have to get up at 6:45 to get Emilia out the door in the morning for SCHOOL!!!!



Fun with Rocks

This one should actually be titled "Drama Over Perceived Stolen Rocks" but "Fun with Rocks" is just simpler.  In the end we did end up having some fun so I guess it mostly true.   Elise checked out a kid's craft book at the library.  She has been reading it and studying it and planning (and begging) to do pretty much all the craft projects in the book.  For family night last week she was in charge of the activity and chose to paint rocks.  We went for a walk on a nearby walking trail and each found 3 rocks.   I could probably have pulled enough rocks out of my washer and dryer in a month for my whole family to paint but the walk was part of the fun. We ended up collecting the rocks one night and then had to paint them a couple of days later because we didn't have time to do all of it.  When it was time to paint the rocks everyone remembered where they put theirs and got them.  Adele saw one of Elise's rocks and was SURE that Elise had stolen one of hers.  Elise, of course had not stolen the rock but there was no convincing Adele.  It was really quite heartbreaking because there was no doubt in Adele's mind that Elise had her rock.  She was so devastated.  And she tried over and over to convince us that it was HER rock.  SHE "went for a walk and found the PERFECT rock and brought it home to paint and then Elise stole it"!!!  We had to try to pry it out of her hands and whenever she got the chance she would grab it. 



The picture says it all.  She wanted "her" rock!



Kent being the great dad that he is decided that he would go and find a rock that looked as much like Elise's rock as possible.  Even the rock that Adele had originally picked wasn't acceptable even though it looked a lot like Elise's.  Kent sacrificed his calves finding a rock that would look like Elise's so he could give it to Adele.

After he got back he did the switch-a-roo and gave the new rock to Elise who then gave it to Adele.  Elise proceeded to paint her own rock and peace was restored once more.  Only a little residual facial blotchiness remained from the ordeal.  And Kent's bleeding flesh wounds.

Substitute Paper People

Some friends of ours have a paper route delivering the free weekly paper.  They went on vacation and asked us to substitute for them.  They earn 40 dollars per month delivering the papers and offered to pay the kids what they would earn doing the papers:  10 dollars.  I asked my kids if they wanted to do it:

Ian:  YES,
Adele: YES,
Elise: YES,
Emilia:  "If there are 4 of us doing it then we will have to split the money 4 ways. I don't think it is worth it to do all that work for only $2.50.  (And of course does mom get paid?  No.  Nice arrangement.)

They did agree that they wanted to do it and so we picked up the papers the night before, folded them and put them in the bags.  They were thinkin this was pretty easy, and that a paper route might be something that they would be interested in getting.  We loaded up the papers the next morning, got our water bottles and went to work!  We split up the route and the big girls went one way and I took Adele and Ian the other way.  We trudged up and down the streets, faithfully putting the papers on the porch like we were told.  Except for that ONE that Emilia threw on the roof.  (Oops.)  Oh, and except for the ones Elise was too tired to put on the porches and just just left on the lawns.  We ran from big dogs that were trying to eat us, or at least sniff us to death and we WALKED really far (especially for the ones with the shortest legs).  I noticed on the way back that some of the houses had 2 papers.  (WHAT???) and found out that Elise had a couple of extra papers in her bag that she wanted to get rid of so she just gave some of the houses another one.  On their lawns.  Ian and I had already been down that street and had gotten those houses.  So, of course, we had to get out and pick UP the papers.  And try to figure out why the heck we still had over 20 papers when we thought we were done at the end of the route.  We finally figured out that we had missed a street.  I have to make a note in Elise's defense, the previous week Emilia, Ian and I had gone on the route with our friends to see what we needed to do.  Elise missed the "paper route instruction inservice" so she was a little unaware of some of the expectations.  And I guess I just took it for granted that if a paper ended up on the roof the thrower would at least leave another one on the porch.  Nope.  Hopefully our friends won't get fired after the um, amateur job we did delivering the papers.  And I asked my kids after we were done with the papers if they still wanted a paper route of their own.  Nope. Good.  Neither do I.