I’m beginning to think Ellen is living in my head. She so often articulates the things running around in my brain. Like her post today ( I can’t get it to link to the exact post but it is the July 31st post title Low). I understand her completely, including wanting help but swatting it away at the same time.
Archive for July, 2006
105 degrees
July 31, 2006No, that isn’t the temperature outside, although it’s close (it is 90 degrees, feels like 101). That would be Widget’s temperature. I feel pretty badly because she was probably running this fever since last night but I blamed her hot body on us having no a/c and the warm, humid night. T’s mom called me this afternoon, while I was at work, to tell me she thought Widget was running a fever as she was very, very warm despite having been inside in the a/c all day, plus she didn’t eat anything and just wanted to sit on Grandma’s lap. I picked her up from Grandma’s, stopped at Walgreen’s and bought a handy ear thermometer to get an accurate temperature, got home, took her temperature and it was 105 three times in a row. Needless to say, after dosing her with Motrin, talking to the phone nurse at PH’s (since he’s her doctor as well as mine) office to make sure I didn’t need to bring her in right away, I packed us into the car and drove the 30 minutes back to Grandma’s to stay overnight in the nice cool house. Fortunately, her temp dropped to 102.5 after an hour and then just over 100 after two hours when I dosed her with tylenol per the nurse’s instruction and her energy level has certainly gone up. So we wait and see now. She has no other symptoms and, in fact, we just finished up a third round of antibiotics on Thursday night for impetigo, which finally completely cleared up after having been around since right before we went to TN at the beginning of May.
Oh well, at least we get to enjoy someone’s a/c.
Early to rise but not early to bed
July 30, 2006I was up early today, 5 AM early, just because I woke up and could not fall back to sleep. And, apparently my self doesn’t seem to care since it is now 11 PM and I’m awake. At least, getting up early, I managed to get some laundry done and I also decided since I was awake and in the basement doing laundry, I might as well start sorting and organizing the piles of accumulated stuff. But I only got halfway done. So that room is now quite disorganized and I probably won’t get back to it until Tuesday at the earliest, when it is 900 million degrees outside and we are sweltering in our non a/c house and the only refuge is our basement rec room, which I find slightly creepy. Don’t ask me why, maybe it is because there are no daylight windows and it has dark paneling and bad fluorescent lighting, I do not like to be in there for long. Plus it never feels clean even if I’ve vacuumed it. Hmmm… maybe I’ll paint it white and then I might feel less claustrophobic and dirty from being in there. Then again, I’d probably get high on paint fumes 
Of course, our house is entirely in chaos as it seems that when one area is “under construction”, I think oh, forget it, I’ll tidy up/clean when that project is done. But the bathroom floor is coming along. T has finally replaced the nasty subfloor problems and started laying the new floor, which looks very nice. I do hope that the humidity doesn’t prove to be a problem in getting the floor to stay adhered. Some tricky trimming is ahead to get it to lay right around the tub. And then we need to sand and repaint all the trim work, and cauk (or is it caulk?) around the tub. At the rate, we are going, it’ll be another two weeks before we are fully back in business. Fortunately, we also have a half bath on the main floor, and this shower stall oddly located in the laundry/storage room in the basement- next to the furnace. Trust me, everyone asks, “Why do you have a shower stall there?” when they see it.
I also got my walk in (see I AM trying 
) before getting ready to leave for church at 8:15, so I could be in the nursery for the 9 AM service. T took Widget to the park and then came to church, so we could go to the later service together. I do not, unless absolutely necessary, like having Widget in the nursery with me, as she doesn’t want me to help take care of the other kids and she is needier when I am there than she is otherwise. So I do nursery and they come to church later.
Today was VBS Sunday, which made the service rather wild and crazy but fun. Last year, VBS Sunday was the second time we had gone to church there. And let’s just say seeing the pastor with a supersoaker spraying the kids up front and the congregation made rather an impression. The passion this church has for impacting the lives of the nearly 750 kids that attend their VBS program is amazing. I stood in church today watching those kids celebrate the love of God and the difference a belief in Christ can make in people’s lives and seriously felt almost overwhelmed by it, in a good way though. I pray that as Widget grows, she will celebrate and be strong in her faith from the get go. I never want her to lose sight of God and His love and grace as I did.
Friday night car browsing
July 28, 2006T and I cruised car lots this evening trying to figure out what we want to replace his Jimmy. T is more eluctant to take the minivan plunge than I am. We drove through Honda, Toyota, Ford, Mazda lots but didn’t see anything different than what we had considered. Now I’ve been doing a little research at home with my trusty internet connection and have come across the Chevy Equinox and now I’m wondering if maybe something along those lines is the route to go. Not a minivan but doesn’t seem to be as large as the SUVs T leans towards (Trailblazer, Envoy) or his highly “practical” suggestion of a Dodge Charger.
However, the most annoying thing is when dealers don’t put pricing in the windows. I do not like to be bothered in a car lot. I go off hours and if I see one I like with the right mileage, price, etc. I go back during business hours. No price drives me crazy. I know why they do it but seriously, it tends to deter me from coming back.
After we got home, I went for a walk while T gave Widget a bath. Looming hot, humid weather made me think if I’m going to attempt to get some walking over the next few days, I better do it now. Even though it was after 9 by the time I went, I was pretty warm by the time I got back home. I thought mostly about how I am not that fond of living where we do. It isn’t a bad neighborhood and we definitely have one of the nicest houses, it is just I would rather move back where we used to live. I miss living there and I wish we hadn’t moved but I’m stuck here for at least a couple more years unless the housing market goes crazy in the next year. If we haven’t moved in 4 years, we are definitely moving the summer before Widget starts kindergarten. I’m not all that impressed with the schools around here and if I can’t afford to send her to Christian schools, I want to send her to the charter school my younger siblings attended since they now have elementary through high school, unless it goes downhill now that my youngest sibling graduated 
A first
July 27, 2006Today I had a “first”. I was so frustrated with Widget while we were at Target, I actually left a cart full of stuff and went home. I just love it when I take her hand to make her stay with me and she goes limp, so I feel like I’m going to pull her shoulder out of its socket. She then proceeded to lay on the floor and scream. I overheard a woman say to her kids, “I remember you doing that a few years ago.” Sigh. I don’t think I’m going to be able to do much without T, since my mother aids and abets Widget’s “naughtiness” and my sister has her own toddler to tend to. Guess it will save me some money if I can’t go anywhere. Of course, she throws the same fits at home, so I won’t get much reprieve from those by staying home.
Oh, and during round 2, Therapist #5 hinted at what he thinks these sessions should help me accomplish- finding the “young woman of value” (in quotes because those were his words) inside me and helping me become more assertive and decisive. But he also kind of hinted there’s a lot to get through to reach those goals. My “assignments”: pray and try to walk (not stroll) for a decent amount of distance five out of the next seven days. I am so going to “fail” the walking part. Heh heh.
Rainy Day
July 26, 2006It’s raining today. I’ve done nothing productive unless you count moving my blog to wordpress I didn’t make into work today because of a headache from yesterday still around this morning even after going to bed early having taken my usual remedies. One of the kind that makes me think if I could just drill a small hole in my head to relieve the pressure, I would be fine. It did subside just after Widget went to sleep for her nap. I contemplated going to work but didn’t want to wake her, plus I had already gotten my mom to agree to watch her Friday, even though it messed up Mom’s plans to go stay with her sister because she “hates” being at home with my dad on the weekend.
T has decided to start looking for another job after his boss was a complete a** about problems that were actually his boss’ fault in that he is the one responsible for ordering the systems to be installed and he keeps screwing them up, then blaming the staff when things go wrong. So T is working on his resume and checking around for technology jobs- fortunately, he has some contacts from systems he installed in non-restaurant/hotel locations- i.e, all the hospitals in the area, a couple larger companies that use the system in their cafeterias- so hopefully, something will pan out sooner rather than later.
Now, if I could find something better to do for a job. I’m beginning to think the only way to get a part-time job around here is if you know someone who knows of a job. Nothing is in the paper, nothing is online, nothing except retail, which I wouldn’t trade my current boring job for the lower pay and terrible hours of retail. Very discouraging.
So I jumped ship
July 26, 2006to WordPress. I do like the category option- I shall gradually categorize my posts. Finding a template I like has been slightly challenging!
On being a toddler
July 25, 2006At the lovely age of twenty months, I think Widget has decided to start the horrible part of having a toddler.
Go for a walk in the stroller? No. Ride in the cart? No. Ride in her carseat? No. Come inside? No. Eat something? No. Can’t do what she wants, she screams, kicks, thrashes around, whether I’m holding her or she’s on the floor. We can be at home, running errands, at the grandparents, it doesn’t matter. Nor apparently does it matter if she’s had a long enough nap, eaten anything, had a good night’s sleep.
And on the eating thing, apparently the only edible foods are bread, “cookies” (animal crackers), corn, peas, and maybe a banana or applesauce. And only a small quantity of those get consumed, everything else ends up on the floor or thrown across the table.
All I keep thinking is that I have no idea how to handle these situations. Yeah, the parenting books/magazines I’ve read, so far have generated no real help when she is having a meltdown. Somedays it almost makes me wonder how I’m ever going to get through this without constantly bribing her with the only thing that “calms” her- videos.
Screwtape Revisited
July 23, 2006Widget is busy watching Larry Boy and the Fib from Outer Space (Veggie Tales are her new favorite series of videos and I find them quite silly) and T is working (again), so I have a chance to get back to the section I quoted in this post because I feel as if I spend/have spent a lot of time in the “troughs” and not a lot in the “peaks” of life over the last few years, particularly this past year. And yes, I have spent many hours dwelling on all of it, even when I’m feeling fairly good. Reading back through this blog and the countless e-mails I sent PH in this last year, I see that. Maybe not the best of things for me to do. However, every now and then, I get whacked over the head with the reminder that without the “trough” I was last summer/fall, I don’t know that I would have ever made a true commitment to live my life for Christ. This passage was one. And so was this.
A note on the dwelling: If I have any “goals” for therapy, it would be to sort through the “bad” stuff, so I don’t dwell on it anymore. Of course, that probably means I should stick with #5 long enough to actually do that.
And a total change of subject: Does anyone know if it is typical for a toddler Widget’s age (20 months now) to not gain any weight for over 3 months? (Ok, PH should know the answer to that but he hasn’t been reading since he got back from vacation, so I don’t even know that he’ll see this post). I weighed her yesterday and she weighed 25 lbs, which she has weighed every time since oh, March or April. I don’t know if I should be concerned or not.
Home improvement joys
July 22, 2006Today we did the home improvement store tour looking for flooring for our main bathroom. We had decided to remove the carpet and current linoleum to put down 1 ft X 1 ft vinyl tiles, something we did in our last house (along with replacing rotted studs and mildewed wallboard when we replaced the tub surround). We found tiles we liked at Menards (the third store) and made note of some laminate flooring we liked to replace the linoleum and grooved hardwood in our kitchen/ dining area. We get home and I decided to pull up the carpet, so we could get started tonight figuring it isn’t a huge bathroom, we can get it done tonight.
This is what we discovered under the carpet.
Oh yeah, mildewed, rotten subfloor. Fortunately, it hasn’t spread throughout the entire bathroom but now our inexpensive, quick update has become more money and more time. T is in there as we speak, taking layer and layer of ruined subfloor up. Joy. Widget is very unhappy and won’t be distracted from standing at the bathroom door since Daddy is behind the door and she loves the bathroom.
