Thoughts and Musings

The Sickies

Tue, 7 Feb 12 14:04:00 UT

So, the sickies have been making their rounds yet again. A few weeks ago all three of us (yes, even Rob who almost never gets sick) came down with a head cold. Rob beat the head cold, but for Gabriel and I it turned into bronchitis. Head colds turning to bronchitis (and sometimes then pneumonia) is pretty common for me - not so much for Gabriel. This is his first bout of bronchitis.

Gabriel ended up having to go in to Urgent Care on Saturday and was put on antibiotics. I was there on Sunday and am also now on antibiotics.

Gabriel's much improved in the past few days and just has a lingering cough.

I still have stuff in my lungs and wheeze and crackle when I breathe. It's worse when I lay down. On the bright side, I haven't had a fever since I started the antibiotics so yay for that. If there's not more improvement I might head in for a follow up (this was recommended to me by the doctor) towards the end of the week.

I hate being sick and I have bronchitis. Let's just hope my asthma doesn't act up during this!

Gabriel's Book Review

Tue, 24 Jan 12 15:42:00 UT

Today at school Gabriel and the class read the book "Cat on the Mat" by Brian Wildsmith. During computer time, Gabriel was asked to write about the book. This, is what he wrote. All I'm doing is copying it word for word from the paper. I have not made any changes to spelling, grammar, or punctuation.

"Sounds like a lot of hoopla! That elephant is funny because he is laughing. The cow is funny."

Freddy

Mon, 23 Jan 12 10:39:00 UT

Gabriel has a chibi (which pretty much means big eyed and cute) Freddy doll. He wanted it with him in bed last night and the conversation went like this.

Gabriel: I want Freddy.
Rob: You want to sleep with your Freddy doll?
Gabriel: Yes.
Rob: Really? You want a Freddy Krueger doll... with you... in the bed?
Gabriel: Yes.
Rob: I'm going to let you think about that logic for a moment.
Gabriel: I still want Freddy.

So, Freddy came to bed last night. Gabriel then proceeded to wake Rob up and 4am by holding the Freddy doll in front of his face and saying that he had to go to the bathroom.

Through it all, I was giggling like a schoolgirl.

Seeing Berek

Sun, 22 Jan 12 15:48:00 UT

Yay! Yesterday we got to see Berek again! He was staying at a hotel downtown for a gaming convention. Originally, we were going to get him for most of Friday night, but the weather was so bad that we couldn't make the drive. So, we were able to fit in a dinner with him in his hotel on Saturday night between the gaming convention and his heading out to Spybar with some friends.

The hotel restaurant was slow, but the food was great. It was amusing, at one point when it was taking forever to get our food Gabriel said "I will go into the kitchen and cook my own macaroni and cheese".

It was great seeing Berek again and at some point we need to kidnap him out here for a few days again. He got Gabriel a super cool dragon plushie and Gabriel gave him one of his lantern rings - Gabriel has decided that he is the Green Lantern, I am the Violet Lantern, Rob is the Black Lantern, my mom is the Indigo Lantern, and Uncle Berek is the Blue Lantern. He had the whole Lantern ring set and when he decides who someone is and that they're worthy, he gives them one of his rings.

So yeah, yesterday was a very happy day. Of course, now I'll miss the heck out of Berek even more.

Conversation With A Five Year Old

Sat, 7 Jan 12 15:12:00 UT

Me: "Gabriel, pick out a shirt to wear today."

Gabriel: "No."

Me: "What shirt do you want?"

Gabriel: "Nothing."

Me: "You need to wear a shirt when we go out."

Gabriel: "My pants are melting."

Me: "Your pants are not melting."

Gabriel: "My pants are melted."

New Year's At Mom's

Tue, 3 Jan 12 16:31:00 UT

We headed out to my mom's place on Friday. The weather was icky out - rain to snow - but not as bad as predicted (there wasn't any ice). When we got there we unpacked and headed out to Gabriel's favorite restaurant (Dirty Gurtz) for dinner. When we got back later that night we watched Final Destination 5. I take great pride in getting my mom into that series.

On Saturday I had a trip to Gary's. I got a new tattoo on the inside of my right wrist. It's a puzzle piece and I had it done in purple. It's super cool looking and a pic will be posted to facebook when it's healed. I also decided to get my ear pierced. Holy crap, that hurt worse than any of the tattoos that I have ever gotten! I almost backed out when I saw the twelve gauge needle they were going to stab through my ear, but I went through with it. There's now a professional surgical steel loop in my left ear. It'll take awhile for it to heal, but when it does I should be able to wear any earring I want in it. Yay! Here's to hoping it works this time around. When I was 12, I got my ears pierced by a piercing gun in a mall store - had a bad allergic/infected reaction and had to get the earrings removed in the emergency room because my ears swelled so badly that the earrings disappeared. Supposedly there's a huge difference between getting pierced with a gun, using studs, in a mall and getting pierced with a needle, using a hoop, from a professional piercer.

That night we headed into Dubuque and went to House of China for dinner (super yum!) and then drove through the light show. When we were back at my mom's place, we watched the original Fright Night.

Sunday we just chilled out around the house and let Gabriel pick where to go for dinner. He wanted Dirty Gurtz again, and we all like it, so he was super happy that we ate there again. That night we watched the Fright Night remake.

Monday we drove home and today Gabriel was back in school. Rob took today off of work just to have an extra day before he had to head back. It's a good thing he did because I now have what Gabriel had a few weeks back. Super bad sore throat, stuffed sinuses, mucus in the throat, and a horrible headache. I'm going to hold off on seeing a doctor. New year, new deductible and paying a few hundred bucks while knowing there's not much they can do doesn't seem like a good idea. So, I'm going to try and fight this myself and only head in if I know I need antibiotics.

This morning was amusing. Gabriel did not want to go back to school and so he kept faking sick. At one point, we got a super cute quote: "I can't go to school, I am sick. I am so very, very sick. I might be dead." He is such a drama king sometimes.

Have A Great New Year!

Thu, 29 Dec 11 11:45:00 UT

Chances are that I won't be able to get another journal entry up until a few days after the first of January. So, I just wanted to say that I hope you all had a great Christmas / Hanukkah / Kwanzaa / Yule / end of December / whatever you celebrate. We had a good Christmas and Gabriel had a blast. Santa brought him exactly what he asked for - a Fijit Friend, a whole lot of Fly Guy books along with a stuffed Fly Guy, and a surprise - Chica from the Sunny Side Up Show on Sprout! Not to mention all the presents that Rob and I got him and that my Mom and in-laws got him. He made out like a bandit. Santa also listened to Gabriel and brought my mom a new phone since the ones at her house are dying or dead. Santa rocks. He even brought me a Squishable Red Panda. Not sure if Santa got anything for Rob this year, but the rest of us did. I'm not surprised if he didn't, Rob can be rather naughty.

Also, have a great New Year's! I'll be spending the day of New Year's Eve getting tattoo number sixteen. I normally don't get them this close together (I just got the Shoggoth on my birthday), but this one means something special to me and I want to get it as soon as possible. It'll be a puzzle piece done in purple (amethyst is Gabriel's birth stone) on the inside of my right wrist.

So, happy and merry everything and I'll be back in 2012!

Christmas 2011

Tue, 27 Dec 11 12:03:00 UT

The Friday before Xmas, Gabriel and I both had to make a trip in to the doctor's office. Turns out Gabriel had a sinus infection and I had an ear infection. We're both on antibiotics. His seems to be clearing up very well. Mine... not so much.

The day before Xmas (Saturday) we headed to the Fresh Market to pick up the dinner we would be cooking on Xmas day. This included a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, rolls, cranberry relish, carrots, and green beans. Also, a pumpkin pie. After the fact that they lost our order last Thanksgiving, we knew for certain that this one would be ready. In fact, when Rob turned the order in he turned it in to one of the managers who said he was going to enter it into his system right then. So, it should have been easy, right? Wrong. Guess what? They lost our order again. The second time in a row. While we did end up coming out of there with what we ordered, it took forever because they had to put it together and no one other than the store manager seemed to have the brains to understand what it was we ordered.

My mom was already at our place by the time we got back with the food. We all got dressed and ready and headed out to Fleming's for Xmas eve dinner. The food and wine were amazing, as usual. I love that place and wish I could eat there more than once a year, but damn, it's expensive.

The rest of Xmas eve Gabriel spent doing nothing but insisting he open every single one of the presents right then and there. So yeah, the rest of that night was crazy.

Xmas went well. Everyone seemed to like what they received. Gabriel's favorite present was his Fijit Friend that Santa sent him. He also got Squishables, books, toys, etc. I'm shocked that one of the things Gabriel wanted were books - The Scardey Squirrel series, the Fly Guy series, and some Mameshiba books. I'm also super impressed that my five year old wanted books!

We cooked our dinner and it turned out very well. Spent the rest of the day watching a Face Off marathon on ScyFy (it's a show my mom likes - a reality show competition with make up artists) and then watched part of the Merlin marathon while we played some Littlest Pet Shop go fish. Never take my mom's piggies.

Mom headed out on Monday and today Rob is back to work. I have Gabriel this week since he's on winter break.

2011 In A Nutshell

Tue, 20 Dec 11 14:06:00 UT

The first sentence of the first entry of every month.

January: Rob had a half day on Wednesday and then both Thursday and Friday off for New Years.

February: It's been snowing since yesterday morning.

March: I'm only getting worse (sick wise) and even threw up a few times today.

April: Gabriel was feeling well enough to go back to preschool today.

May: This is getting ridiculous.

June: I have a feeling it's going to be the summer from hell (at least, temperature wise).

July: What's Your Name In Bill Cosby Speak?

August: I guess it's not really "back to school" shopping since 1.) Gabriel is still in preschool and 2.) the school where he's going to Kindergarten is a brand new school that he's never been to before.

September: Yesterday I took a bit of a nasty fall.

October: I had a doctor's appointment this morning.

November: As is our usual tradition, we took a vacation out to my Mom's place for my birthday and Halloween.

December: So far I've had two physical therapy sessions.

New Computer

Mon, 19 Dec 11 10:39:00 UT

I have a new computer! It's a Christmas present from my Mom and I'm SO happy she got it for us. The old was was dying fast and needed a chip clip (yes, the kind you use on bags of potato chips) on its monitor to make it work. We set the new one up last weekend and so far, I love it. My only complaint is that sound system. What was a "30" on the old laptop is a "60" on this and it's kind of tinny. There doesn't seem to be any way to set the bass or treble and it makes listening to TV shows on here rather difficult. Other than that one issue, it's damn near perfect and MUCH faster than our old one. Then again our old one was bought in the spring of 2007.

My ear has been itching me non-stop and is driving me crazy. I've been trying some of those over the counter ear wax drops, but they're not doing any good. I'm guessing I'm getting an ear infection. They're quite common with me. I'm not going to head to the doctor's at this stage, I already will have enough medical bills coming up with what happened to my back and every time I use the antibiotic ear drops they prescribe for me, I lose even more hearing in my right ear. For some reason, the infections are always in the right ear. So, I ordered some homeopathic stuff online that's worked better than the antibiotics in the past. It should be here on Wednesday. Until then, I'm going to be itching at my ear like some crazy dog.

You know one thing I really like about this computer? The keyboard doesn't decide to skip random letters as I type. Though the keyboard does take some getting used to because it's spaced out differently.

Gabriel is a hacker. On the lunch menu board (which is computerized and then projected onto a wall) he changed the words on the lunch from home bag from "brown bag" to "nothing". His teacher has no idea how he did that. To do so he would have had to have gotten onto her computer, found the program, and changed something that she doesn't even know how to change. Heh. My little hacker. Half the time when I ask him what he wants to eat he says "nothing", so when I saw that written there, I knew it had to have been him.

Now, onto some feminine issues. You can skip the rest of this entry if you don't want to know about them.

I had to call my Ob/Gyn's office this morning to see if I could get my Depo shot a week early. My appointment is usually for 11 weeks and would have been next Tuesday the 27th. However, I've been bleeding since the 5th (3 weeks straight now) and it's getting worse and worse. Also, as of Friday night I developed the hormonal drop headache that medicine won't help - I know the only way to stop it is when I get my next shot. Even then it takes a few days for the bleeding and headache to stop. Luckily, they seemed fine with my coming in tomorrow (at 10 weeks) because of the bleeding. Seems they'll allow a week early if the bleeding is bad.

Doctor's Appointment and Teacher's Presents

Wed, 14 Dec 11 14:16:00 UT

Yesterday morning I dropped off the present for Gabriel's two main teachers. They both seemed to really love them and both wanted to open them in front of Gabriel. This afternoon I dropped off two more for Gabriel's side teachers and then tomorrow I have one left for another of Gabriel's side teachers. For his side teachers, he specifically picked things out for them. He was very insistent on what they had to have. It was really cute.

Today I had another follow up doctor's appointment for my back. It's now healing the way he wants it to so I'm out of physical therapy. It's a lot better and only hurts when I lay down for a long time, walk for a long time, or stand for a long time (seeing Santa last weekend and waiting in line for like half an hour was hell and so was grocery shopping). At this point, I just need to take it easy, stop doing things if there is any pain, and make sure I don't re-injure it. So, very happy with that and with not having to go on Prednisone. Yay!

As a side note, the new diet Snapple Half and Half (half iced tea, half lemonade) is really good. Not as good as Trop A Rocka, but better than any of their other diet flavors out there.

Computer and Evil Innards

Tue, 13 Dec 11 11:51:00 UT

Well, that was fast. I just got notification from Sony saying that our new laptop has just shipped out. Delivery is expected on Friday sometime before 10:30am. That's a lot faster then the estimate they gave us when we ordered it. I like good surprises. So, hopefully sometime this weekend we can set up the new computer and wipe this one clean of personal information. On the bright side, the chip clip pinned to the side of the monitor is keeping it working. Though yesterday there was a problem and Gabriel re-positioned it for me and told me to keep it pinned to the screen, not the outside. This kid is scary good when it comes to tech.

In other news, I truly believe that today my gastrointestinal tract has decided to up and leave my body. I won't go into the icky details on here, suffice it to say that I'm in pain, it sucks, and today shall be a day of bland food and broth so that my body will hopefully reset itself.

This morning I dropped off the present for Gabriel's main teacher, Mrs. R. She LOVED it. This afternoon I'll be dropping off the one for one of this other main teachers. Later this week I'll be getting to his other teachers.

Tomorrow I have another appointment with Dr. R. It's another follow up for when I exploded my back. Hopefully I'll be in the clear now. It's a lot better and only really hurt after I've been lying down in bed for a while and when I do a lot of walking or standing (like when grocery shopping).

I just found the '80's channel through my cable service. That will now be on when Gabriel's at school and I'm working on the computer at home. Nice!

Evil Computer and Physical Therapy

Thu, 8 Dec 11 13:43:00 UT

So, the good news is that when my Mom asked if we wanted a new laptop for Xmas we had the good sense to say yes. Ours was working fine at the time, though we've had it since the Spring of 2007.

The bad news is that yesterday the top half of the monitor decided to stop working. So, Rob and I spent last night trying to get important pictures and documents off of it before it totally died. My netbook that I use for writing works, but is super slow. Right now I'm on the laptop and have it working by putting a chip clip on the side of the monitor. This one just needs to last until Christmas or so when we get the new one. Please let it hold out!

In other news, I had my last physical therapy session today. I have a follow up appointment with my doctor next week. He'll then decide if I'm good, need more PT, need to be on a steroid, etc. To be honest, if it's the steroid I'm not taking it. I'd rather be in pain than gain 50-100 pounds in a month or two. The PT seemed to help a lot, so I'm hoping I'm good to get back to my normal activities and just be careful about re-injuring it.

Physical Therapy

Thu, 1 Dec 11 13:35:00 UT

So far I've had two physical therapy sessions. One was on Tuesday and the other was this morning. I have more next week as well. They're focusing on the muscle thinking that if that can be fixed and strengthened then everything else should pop back into place. They're working with a series of exercises, stretches, massage, and electric nodes placed on my lower back that use electricity to stimulate the muscles. Over time, it feels like a cat is kneading on my back.

I don't mind the sessions and the people that work there are rather nice. I'll be having a follow up appointment with my doctor in a few weeks and am hoping that things will have progressed to a place that he's happy with.

Slowly but surely, I can feel it working a day by day I'm noticing I can move in ways that I couldn't do before. So, while it's taking it's time, I think that it's progressively getting better. Yay! Though I have to say, I feel it at it's absolute best in the hour right after the physical therapy sessions.

A (Mostly) Good Thanksgiving Holiday Weekend

Tue, 29 Nov 11 13:20:00 UT

I got a call from Gabriel's teacher on Tuesday morning saying that he said he felt sick and was sleeping on the floor. I went to pick him up from school and from the moment he got home he was fine. *sigh*

Wednesday Gabriel had no school (his break was Wed - Sun) and Rob had a half work from home day. When he was done with work we headed out on some errands. We needed to pick up some of Sydney's prescription k/d food at the vet, pick up some Xmas wrapping supplies and new lights for our tree at Target, and then pick up our Thanksgiving dinner stuff from the Fresh Market. Unfortunately, they lost our order. Luckily for us, they were able to put one together for us so we weren't left high and dry on Thanksgiving. We got a pre-cooked (just needs to be heated) turkey, mashed potatoes (with extra since that's my favorite part), stuffing, gravy, cranberry relish, rolls, and a pumpkin pie.

One thing I found out while at Target was that they still make Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids cards. Wow. I had those when I was a kid. Gabriel wanted some of the Wacky Packages ones and he loves them just as much as I did (okay, still do). So, at some point, we're going to get a binder and some baseball card holders and collect them. Something fun for Mommy/Son to do.

Thanksgiving we cooked up our meal and ate until we were about to explode. We also did some gaming. It was a relaxed and rather fun day.

Friday we chilled out - no Black Friday shopping here. In fact, I do almost all of my shopping for the holidays online these days. I hate malls, especially around the holiday season - though we will need to brave one at some point so that Gabriel can have his picture taken with Santa.

Saturday we hung out with our new friends. We spent some time in N and M's apartment while Gabriel hung out with their two boys, Z (who just turned 5) and Q (who is 7). We all get along very well. Later on we grabbed dinner at Super Buffet.

Sunday I was sick as hell. Fever, body aches, either freezing cold or super hot, and bad gastrointestinal issues. I don't know if it was some sort of bug or a problem with the food from Super Buffet. I spent the day in misery.

Yesterday and today I'm still a bit on the sick side, but it's getting better. No more fever, body aches are down, still have hot/cold spells, and still have gastrointestinal issues - but they're now of a different variety. Lovely.

I had my first set of physical therapy today for my back, I'll post more about that tomorrow.