Another Short Post

S was home for day number 3 today. Her cold seems to be much better but her eyes are still very red. It seems that the virus has taken up residence in her eyes. When they first turned red this time we did a few doses of antibiotic but it wasn't doing anything but gumming up her eyes in the morning. I found some over-the-counter pinkeye medicine that helps treat viral pinkeye by reducing the redness, swelling, itchiness, and sensitivity to light. While S doesn't like having the drops put in, we're hoping that this will help make her eyes look good enough to send her to school tomorrow.

I was able to get some time out by myself today. I went to a few stores looking for a new purse but couldn't find the style that I wanted. I did send up getting a few new shirts for the spring because everyone needs a few new spring shirts, right? I had a coupon for one of the shirts so that made it even better. It was nice to be out of the house by myself for a bit. The weather cleared off this morning and it was warm enough out that I could be out in just my sweater and cowl combo with no coat. Yeah, it was only in the 40sF but when your winters are in the single and negative digits, 40s feels warm. :-)

I am getting closer to being finished with my Solar Flare shawl. I have 2/3 of flames done and should be able to get a lot more of it done once J heads off to bed. Of course once I finish all the knitting I probably have an hour or two of doing nothing but weaving in the bloody ends. I love the pattern and all the colour changes but egad, it does make for a hell of a lot of ends.

J had hockey tonight for the third time this week. He is enjoying spring hockey. They have only had one game so far (they lost) but they have more games coming up soon. In a few weeks they will be in a tournament on the island and at the end of May he will be in an off-island tournament. This weekend he doesn't have any hockey and it's the last weekend of Burger Love so I expect we'll get out and have one more burger. I haven't decided which one I want to try next so I'll start cruising the page and decide.

This Saturday the Burger Love people are trying to set a world record for the most freshly made burgers served in a 24 hour period. I may skip having a burger tomorrow and go for one on Saturday to help set the world record. Or I may have a burger tomorrow AND Saturday. I'm not sure what number of burgers need to be served to set the record, but I'll see if I can find out. It would be fun to help set the record, eh?

A Wet Wednesday and a Sick Child

S took a trip to the doctor today. The doctor she saw said S was going through the same things his own son was going through and that unfortunately, it is just a string of viruses and that there's nothing much to do but wait it out. He did give her more medicine for the pinkeye that came back with this cold (ah, pinkeye. joy!) and gave me suggestions for helping deal with the symptoms. She seemed to be feeling a bit better tonight. We'll see how she is in the morning and decide then if she gets another day home or not.

S was content to rest on the sofa watching TV again. Normally she'll take breaks to go play with toys or draw pictures but for most of the day she just snuggled under a blanket and was rather lethargic. I was content to keep the TV shows flowing because I wanted to keep making progress on my Solar Flare Shawl.

The shawl is coming along nicely. I've finished off 4 wedges out of 9, which makes me happy. What doesn't make me happy is the sheer amount of ends to weave in. I'll worry about them at the end. I do absolutely love how it is coming out. I'm also really pleased with the colours and how they came out. I am so glad I went with yellow as my first colour and worked my way out to the deep red/purplish colour. Hopefully everyone will agree with me and I'll win the coveted Unique Sheep yarn prize.

We survived the rainfall warning that was issued for today. The only water that came into the garage was the rain that dripped off the cars. The water has deepened the drainage channel down the side of the house so the water goes where it is suppose to. We should be good from now on and soon we'll get someone out to permanently fix the problem.

This rain has melted so much of the snow. Normally when I'd leave our neighbourhood I would have a hard time seeing the oncoming traffic because the snow banks. But this morning I realized I could see traffic and that where there use to be snow was now just grass. And C said he could see our tulips sprouting out front! That makes me happy. I like seeing all the signs of spring. We just need to get through the muddy part of spring and then it will be beautiful here!

Rainy Tuesday

Guess what? I have a sick child. Again. S woke up crying this morning and I knew that wasn't a good sign. She only does that when she is sick. She woke up coughing, a runny/stuffy nose, a fever, and lovely red eyes again. C stayed home with her while I took my car to get the snow tires off (goodbye winter!). I've been home with her the rest of the day. Medicine brought her fever down but as soon as the medicine wears off it shoots back up. She will be going to the doctor again tomorrow. Hopefully they can tell us what is going on because she's been sick so much lately. I expected her to be sick this year with this being in a new school but this is getting ridiculous.

It has been a pretty unexciting day. S watched a lot of TV because we're trying to keep her resting although she did work on one of the craft projects she got for her birthday. I was able to get some time to work on my Solar Flare shawl. The edging is neat but the first part of it takes a while. The edging looks like flames and it's really cool but omg there are going to be about a bazillion ends to weave in when I'm done. Each wedge has 3 flames and there are 9 wedges. I have 2 wedges done so far but then I didn't really get much time yesterday or today to work on it. I'll get more done tomorrow because I only have one thing on the schedule during the day - getting S to the doctor.

We're currently under a rainfall warning which means we're going to get a lot of rain over the next 24 or so hours. This rain is going to melt the rest of the snow which is going to be bad. The ground is already saturated and with the amount of rain we're to get and the melting snow places are going to flood. Up until now the melting has gone very slowly so there hasn't been any danger of flooding until now. I've already checked the garage once and so far *fingers crossed* it is dry. C did a good job of digging out a channel down the side of the house to direct water away from the house and we still have the sandbags in place near the door so hopefully, hopefully we will avoid any problems.

I'm happy to say that I'm finally feeling better. Last night I was having bad coughing fits even though I had taken cough medicine. C pointed out that he had forgotten to turn the humidifier on in J's room and J wasn't coughing so I stole the humidifier out of his room. Within 5 minutes of turning it on my coughing settled down and I was able to get a good night's sleep. I think the sleep was a big factor in why I am feeling better today. I'm still snuffly at times and I've had a few coughing fits but at least I don't feel like a candidate for the Walking Dead anymore. I will use the humidifier again tonight so I can wake up completely better tomorrow.

My mouth is also feeling better. My gum feels like it's healed although I won't stop worrying about it until the dentist looks in there next week and gives me his opinion. I see him for fillings next week and I'm sure he'll give my gum a look-see. I am still getting use to the feeling of not having a tooth back there. The gum is still tender but I'm slowly starting to chew on that side but only with very soft things. I'm sure it will take a while before I can go back to chewing normally on that side.

J just got home from hockey and a sick, sleepy S soon needs to climb into bed so I shall wish you a good night!

Thursday Round-up

Today is Thursday and we all know what that means - the new Star Wars trailer came out! So, if you haven't seen it what are you waiting for? Go watch this! R2-D2, Chewie, Han, Luke's voice. I am hopeful that this movie will be good because I grew up watching the good Star Wars movies and I so want this new one to be like those and not like the crap they made recently. We can hope, right?

In other news, J was home sick today. It seems that his sister has decided to share her cold with him...and me too. J had a grumpy day at home because he didn't feel well and he's on a video game break right now so he kept saying he had "nothing to do". Of course he has toys, books, drawing supplies, etc. But no, he had "nothing to do." I'm hoping he'll feel well enough to head to school tomorrow because another day of him home sick may end the video game break.

While J's cold seems to be in his throat, mine has settled into my nose. Lots of sneezing and snuffling for me today, which is soooo much fun (insert sarcastic voice here) with my healing gum. It seems to be healing from what I can tell. The gum itself doesn't hurt but that little area in the way back of your mouth where the top and bottom jaws come together, where they give you novocaine injections, hurts when my pain med wears off. I'm hoping that will be better tomorrow. Oh, and I thought it was awesome that the dentist's office called me today to just check up on me and make sure things were going okay. I really like this dentist and his staff, and I don't like dentists.

I was actually able to eat a regular meal this evening. No, no burgers yet, but I did eat chicken, broccoli, and noodles and with little to no pain. Of course I kept all my chewing to the non-hole-in-my-gum side of my mouth but I was able to eat which made me very happy. I will continue to avoid hard/sharp things for a while but I should be able to go back to eating fairly regularly, just with cutting things up for a bit. It makes it easier keep food on the right side of my mouth.

Yesterday evening before bed S announced to me that she wanted to get her ears pierced. Now, she and I had discussed that topic many times and she had always said no. Last night was totally unprompted by me so I said sure we could do it today. I reminded her this morning that when she got home we'd go do it and she said okay. When she got off the bus she didn't throw her usual want-to-go-over-to-someone's-house fit but hurried home to go get her ears done. We drove to the local mall and found the store that did ear piercing. S had some nervous tears which I think came from just not knowing how it was going to go but she never once said she didn't want to do it.

The very nice women at the store were wonderful with her. They got her calmed down and distracted her while they were getting ready to do it. Once they actually "pulled the trigger" there was about a minute of crying afterwards. Some cooling cleaning solution, a view of her new Rainbow Dash earrings, and two lollipops soon cleared up her tears. By the time we paid and walked out to the car she said her ears were feeling normal. Now we have 6-8 weeks of cleanings and earring turning before she is considered all healed. She is very excited to be the only girl in her class that has earrings.

Today was a big day for S. In addition to getting her ears pierced, S lost not one but two teeth today. She had two baby teeth that had become fused together at a very young age. We didn't even realize that they were loose until C was helping her brush her teeth this morning and out they popped (she has been slacking on the brushing because of loose teeth). So tonight she gets a visit from the Tooth Fairy and since technically she lost two teeth, she gets double the normal money. I'm thinking that the Tooth Fairy may have to leave her a note saying how fantastic her new earrings look in addition to the money. I think S would totally love that. :-)

I think now I have to go watch the Star Wars trailer again because it is awesome!

What day was it today?

This morning I was beginning to think it was Thursday instead of Friday. S woke up early this morning saying she was hot, dizzy, and couldn't open her eyes. The eyes part is from the medicine we have to put in them for the pinkeye she had last week. Thankfully we've put the last drops in tonight so tomorrow morning should be the last morning for that problem. The hot and dizzy was because she finally got the cold the doctor told us about last week. She has a nasty cough and was feverish this morning. Thankfully some medicine brought the fever down. I expect tomorrow morning will be the same as this morning because it usually takes her a few days to shake the fever part.

C was able to stay home with S this morning so that I was able to head to the dentist. While going to the dentist isn't on my top 10 list of things to do, I know I needed to go. The hygienist used some ultrasonic cleaner on my teeth to start with than turned to the medieval torture devices, otherwise known as dental picks? scrapers? I'm not sure what you call them but she used them on me. Between the cleaning and having to keep my mouth open for a very long time, I'm sore tonight. Next up with the dentist is the extraction next week. While I want that tooth out I'm not looking forward to the recovery.

After my dentist appointment, C had to take his tire to get it fixed. I noticed yesterday that his one tire seemed very low...to the point where it was flat. He took the tire off yesterday evening and J discovered a nail in it. So C loaded the tire into my car off he went to get it fixed. J had a fun time yesterday helping C take the tire off. He wasn't home from school yet when C put it back on. Next time a tire needs changing we may have to let J help.

C ended up taking J to hockey instead of all of us going to practice since S is sick. And in a way, I was glad I didn't go, although I do want to see him on the ice. The weather this afternoon was icky - cold, windy, and rainy. Of course with the rain I always worry about water coming into the garage. When he got back from hockey, C made sure the channel he had created the other week was open for the water to flow down. So far the water has stayed out of the garage. We'll continue to keep an eye on it until we head to bed.

C said that J did well again at hockey. He is continuing to work hard and do his best. We hope he can translate that into having a good game tomorrow. I want to go to the game but if S is still sick we'll have to skip it. She's suppose to go to a birthday party tomorrow but considering how sick she was today, I doubt she'll be going anywhere tomorrow. I would like her to be well enough to go out to lunch on Sunday for my birthday and back to school on Monday because she is suppose to be the special helper on Monday. She has missed her past two special helper days because she's been sick both times. At least this time she got sick a few days before her helper day instead of the day before.

My mom sent me some beautiful mink yarn in shades of blue for my birthday. I will take pictures of it and the Casterly Rock yarn tomorrow when the light is better. I forgot to take the Casterly Rock picture this morning like I planned. I have also decided on the colour I'm going to use for my next Unique Sheep MKAL based on The Once and Future King. I decided to use the colour called The Raven and the Fox. It's hard to describe the colour so here's a picture of it:

That yarn base is different than what I will be using. Different yarns take the dyes differently, so I contacted the wonderful ladies at TUS to find out which yarn base in the weight I need will most closely match the picture. I was happy to find out that the yarn I wanted is the one that will be the closest match. It's a blend of wool and silk. It will be 3 to 4 weeks until my yarn ships, but that's fine because the KAL doesn't start until July. Yay for summer knitting! I will have to beach proof my project bags so I can take it to the beach with me. Ahhh...beach...with today's weather I can't wait for summer and the beach!

Tuesday is for hockey, beer, and a sick child

Tuesday! The sun was out, there was some snow melting, and life was good. We won't talk about tomorrow though.

J started his 3 day hockey camp this morning. According to C, he was a bit nervous this morning but then the saw some kids he knew and he was fine. He got to hang out with some of the players from the local professional team, which was pretty cool. He is suppose to have day 2 tomorrow. We shall see...

I made it out to the grocery store today as well as the liquor store. I went early because with the forecast I knew it would get crazier the later in the day it got. While I was there I heard the manager telling a group of employees to get ready for a rush between 4 and 8 pm. I forgot to look on the way to hockey practice tonight (yeah, two different hockey times today) but I bet he was right. I went to the liquor store because I plan to make our St. Patrick's Day meal tomorrow and it uses Guinness. We would have had it tonight but with a 6:20 practice and having to pick up C from work there just wasn't time.

Tomorrow night's meal is going to be an Irish Shepherd's Pie. I've made shepherd's pie before but this is a new recipe. I hope the kids like it even though it uses beer. It also uses gravy granules, which I've never used before. I had to find them in the English section of our grocery store. I hope it turns out good. If it does I will share the recipe with you. I almost had to change my supper plans for tomorrow because I thought the liquor store was out of Guinness. I actually ended up getting their last 6 pack of regular Guinness. They had one pack left of the Guinness Black, but for the recipe I wanted the regular. I also treated myself to some hard cider and an extra bottle of wine because well, wine. :-)

Hockey practice this evening turned into an adventure. S seems to have come down with the same tummy bug that J had the other week. I'm hoping she can shake it faster than he did. She's not real happy with the fact that her stomach is upset (me either, actually) so the faster she shakes this the better. She is tucked into bed right now and I'm hoping she can get a good night's sleep. She was up twice last night - once for a wiggly tooth that hurt and once for a bad dream. Between her and the plows I didn't get much sleep. I am ready for bed!

Whether tomorrow turns out to be a snow day or not, I am going to try to carve out an hour or so of time to write. Poor Kilynn and her brothers are waiting for me to tell more of their story. While I'm blogging daily, I'm not actually working on my story daily. I need to get back into that habit and start training the kids now to leave me be when I'm at my computer. That way when summer comes I will still have time to write when they are both home from school. We'll see how that works out tomorrow. For now, I'm going to go watch some TV, relax, and maybe split a chocolate eclair with C. 

A Fairly Calm Wednesday

Whenever I open up my blog, I get to see how many page views I have. Normally it's about the same amount, so for those people out there who are reading everyday - thank you! But then every now and then the number is totally wacky. According to my stats, yesterday's page views were like nine times what they normally are. I have no clue what triggered that, but I'm thrilled that so many people at least took a look at my blog. I hope they enjoyed what they saw!

Today was a fairly regular Wednesday. J was still feeling icky this morning so I let him stay home. He was able to eat some toast and chicken soup without any problems and by suppertime his appetite, while not back to normal, was at least starting to return. While S was at her girl scout meeting tonight, J and I went to the grocery store and scoped out cakes and goodies for his birthday party this weekend.

J is not a big fan of butter cream frosting. A few years ago he ate a cupcake for his sister's birthday with a lot of butter cream frosting on it and then later threw it all up. We thought it was just a fluke so he ate another cupcake, again with butter cream on it and again he threw it up. Every since then he's not been a fan of cake unless it has whipped cream icing. Last year for his birthday I made him an apple pie. This year for his party he's requested chocolate eclairs - this boy has good taste! I just hope the other kids...ah, who am I kidding? Who doesn't like chocolate eclairs?

We also went to the store and picked out a bunch of little things for goody bags. He tried to talk me into buying him a toy but I said no because he's going to have a party on Saturday and I'm sure he'll get presents there. I've been suggesting books to parents when they ask. Turning 10 is a hard age - they are starting to grow out of toys but not quite. I'm sure J will enjoy the toys he gets but I know he will love any books he gets - he is his parents' child after all (all love to read). And the parents have seemed to like the idea of giving books as presents.

In the on-going saga of the watery garage, today turned out much better than I expected. It did warm up above freezing today - it was 41F/4C. There was a lot of melting going on outside but only a small amount of water came in. On a whim I threw a car washing sponge down in front of the door and it did a fairly good job of absorbing a lot of the water coming in. I just have to go down every now and then and squeeze out the sponge (which is freezing cold!) into a bucket. Much easier than vacuuming up the water and dumping it out. I'm sure this method won't work with extreme melting but on a day like today, it worked. Tomorrow is suppose to be cold again, and knowing the wacky laws-of-nature-defying snow outside the door, it will probably be melting like crazy.

Well, I made it through another day of being a single parent. It's actually been going pretty smoothly this week, all things considered. At least I don't have a raging sinus infection or the flu. I can deal with sick kids alone much easier than being a sick single parent. C flies home tomorrow although he won't get home until very late, so it might as well be Friday. I'll still be on my own tomorrow. But since he's coming home I better clean all my stuff off his side of the bathroom sink. :-)

A Not so Terrible Tuesday

We've made it to Tuesday! I had more ice to chip this morning - yay? I have been expecting water in the garage all day but so far *knock on wood* none yet. It's been kind of strange today. When I went out to clear the ice the temperature is warmer than yesterday but all the stuff that was slushy yesterday was frozen. Like I said yesterday, the snow melt on that side of the house has decided to defy the laws of nature and do whatever the hell it likes. There was an area I was going to work on clearing but then I realized it was pretty much a solid block of ice a few feet wide, a few feet deep, and at least 6 inches high. Yeah that's not going to yield to my ice scraper anytime soon.

To reward myself for the hard work I did yesterday I ventured out to Target today. It made me sad because our Target is closing. All the damn Targets in Canada are closing because they effed up their business model. Everything in the store is on clearance and since our store was one of the few in Canada that actually did well, they've kept it fairly well stocked. I think their last truck came last week so from now on the inventory will go down. But I did find printer ink, sidewalk chalk, drawing paper for S, a nightshirt for me, a soccer shirt for S, and some odds and ends. I checked over their toy section but it was pretty picked over. I still may take the kids there next week and let them pick out something. They have birthday money coming from their Nana and they can get more for their money there, if they can find something they want/like.

My kid-free time got cut short today because I got a call from J at school. His stomach was really bothering him so I went to pick him up. It's good I did because it wasn't kidding around. No details but um, yeah, he's not feeling good. He came home and rested most of the afternoon. We'll see if he wants to eat supper tonight (probably going to be pancakes and fruit). He loves pancakes, so if he says he doesn't want to eat then I'll know he's still not feeling good. It makes me about the other kids on his hockey team and what they are sick with. Hopefully they aren't sharing this stomach virus with each other.

I did get a little bit of a break even though J was home. When S got home from school she went over to her friend's house. They always have a great time playing. When they first met they took to each other instantly - to the point where you would have thought they had known each other all their lives. S's friend (also an S) is a sweet young lady and I'm glad that she's my S's friend.

Now S is home and the kids are playing MineCraft. J is trying to run the show but S wants to do her own thing about half the time. I think J is playing the game as if he were narrating a YouTube MineCraft video. He does get frustrated with S that she won't cooperate all the time. I have to keep reminding them to stop yelling at each other, although according to J they aren't yelling at each other in an angry way. They are just being LOUD but at least they seem to be getting along...for the most part.

I'm trying to decide if I should have a nap at this point or a 4th cup of tea. The lack of sleep Sunday night and not sleeping well Monday night have caught up to me. I'm thinking the nap would be better than the tea. I think the tea at this point would just make me jittery and tired. I'm still not adjusted to daylight savings time. I find the older I get the longer it takes me to adjust. I'd be happy if they just got rid of the whole thing all together. I know that won't happen so I'll just do my best to get adjusted tonight.

Single Mom Sunday

I want to begin today's blog by sending out a big eff you to Daylight Savings Time. Why yes, my kids got up an hour later (according to the clock) but to their little bodies it was the same time they usually get up. And now, according to the clock, it will soon be their bedtime. But their bodies are like WTF Mom? It's not time for bed. But they need to go to bed according to the clock time because they have to get up for school tomorrow and it will feel like 5:15 to all of us. And they looked at me like I was crazy when I told them it was suppertime earlier and it was still daylight out. So yeah, eff you DST. I doubt there is any parent out there who is happy about the time change.

Second thing - to all the single parents out there - you have my respect! I don't know how you do it day in and day out. I've entered the realm of single parenthood for the next 4 days since C has gone on a business trip. And like most of his business trips, something always seems to happen at home when he's gone. Last time it was me having a raging sinus infection that made it damn near impossible to function. This time J decided he needed to be the sick one.

He woke up this morning and said his stomach hurt. In probably too much detail he told us about his stomach (I won't do that to you). He barely ate any breakfast so I know he wasn't just playing around. The boy loves food and for him to not eat means that something is wrong. We drove C to the airport and along the way J said he felt like he was going to throw-up. Joy! Thankfully I have taken to keeping plastic grocery bags in the pockets of the seats for this very reason. There was a messy incident after Christmas...again, I won't gross you with details. Sure enough, he needed the bag.

We managed to make it to the airport and back with only the one incident but that was enough. He said his stomach was still feeling funny when it was time to leave for hockey so we decided to skip it today. If the game had just been at the local rink 15 minutes down the road I probably would have made him go. But today's game was 1 1/2 hours away and I don't know if you've been in a car with a sick kid before but it is Not Fun. So yeah, we skipped hockey. J ate some supper tonight and seems okay so he should be fine for tomorrow's game.

This week shouldn't be too bad. The weather gods have decided to be kind and not send us any serious snow this week so the kids will be going to school all week! There is a chance of flurries tomorrow evening of course. It's soccer night so that means it needs to either be raining and/or snowing. But they aren't calling for any accumulation so we should be fine. And temperature wise it's suppose to be mild (just below freezing). I'd like to thank the weather gods for the nice weather this week.

I'm sure we'll run into some bumps this week but all in all it should be a decent week. I'll keep thinking that way and maybe it will happen!