"Broken" Home For The Holidays...

I feel like our house had a major surgery... piece by piece, scar by scar, laughter begetting more laughter... we are becoming WHOLE again...

Christmas was good to us, in the sense that we had one...

However, my 2014 would not be complete without a sickness for my planned vacation...

Oh ye gods!  Thank you!

I call bullshit... every time we have tried to plan time together for any length of time I get something wrong with me...  Sick, ill, call it what you will... it sucks.  I did get through the entire SERIES of How I Met Your Mother...  Ithankyou...

It was, in fact, legen-wait-for-it...DARY!

I have been yelled at for years about not watching the show, and now I can tell you all to suck it cause I watched it, it was wonderful, and now we're moving on to other things...because not only does it now remind me of the great flood/renovation of 2014, it reminds me of how I was sick on Christmas, AGAIN...

You know, sometimes, change is a really good thing folks.

We had our company christmas party and might I say, it was great.  I was just great to sit in the front Lobby, phones off... but ringing that initial ring that takes them to voicemail in such a way that you would swear it was Howie chiming in... "That could be an order!", he would say if he were here...  and he was...

We had a great weekend considering... we had a nice night Friday the 19th, Saturday was nice, Sunday was Christmas with Gma and it was lovely... Then I woke up Monday to the ever dreaded sore throat/swollen glands... I felt feverish and chilled... I went down drastically in a matter of hours and had to go home.  Tuesday, stayed home and went to the dr.  Got two doses of anti-viral in me and went to work Wednesday for our ever appreciated and fantastic half day for Christmas Eve, went home and we had a Turkey dinner!  Our first ever Turkey Dinner for our family on Christmas Eve when it was JUST US FOUR!  Actually, come to think of it, it was our first ever dinner on Christmas Eve with just me n Choni.  It's always been Christmas Eve at the In Laws, Christmas Day at my Ma's...  Funny... talk about breaking free from tradition, that was holding strong 14 years!  Hah!

Anyhoo, woke up Christmas Day after the neighbors decided to party ALL NIGHT...  and into some of the morning... Until I picked up my handy phone with the handy list of contacts...one in particular being our County Sheriffs... Yeah!  I'm THAT CHICK! SO WHAT!!  I'm ALL FOR parties man, and I know Christmas Eve is a biggie for some people... BUT REALLY?!?  3AM!!!  And I don't mean the song!  I shut that fucker down@!@#%#$@%$#@

Christmas Day I woke up sicker...  I stayed on the couch while the kids ripped open their second batch of gifts, I saw awe and wonderment in what was probably the "smallest" Christmas ever and I felt great afterwards (emotionally).  We got up our things together and made the trek to Noni's for third Christmas and had another great time, more yummy food stuffs and we even got to take some home :)  My sis and bro in law and their (combined) 4 childrens were there, a houseful of kids.  What my Ma always wanted!  As the day went on, I was feeling less awesome.

I woke up Friday to the ickiest of ickinesses and I called my dr's office.  Told them how I was feeling and what was new and was gone and they called me in a Rx.  I then proceeded to have a couch bound Christmas break/ New Year's.  I STILL don't feel 100%.

I feel like I need to sleep a few more days.  I over do it the second I feel well.  That's a big problem for me.  But I can't help it, I feel like such a slug when I'm sick!!  I hate that feeling... that there are things to do and I'm not doing them.

But here we are, new year, new gear.  I am thinking that I am much more accepting already of the new year than ever.  I wanted to be done with 2014 so badly.  Generally there is a time frame that I go through where things need to be gotten used...  Happy to report, writing out that 2015 comes much more naturally than any year ever!  2015...FLOWS LIKE A RIVER FROM MY PENS!!  Wonderful...  I had a busy busy busy super busy Monday and today was much more doable... I had much more coffee too, so I'm sure that had NOTHING to do with it!  hehe...

Well, it's that time kids...gotta warsh out my mug and make the trip to the loo before my long trip home...  I need to write a note to myself to tell you about the great Purge... no not that mediocre movie...  we did our own purging during the great renovation and it felt great!  Loved it!

**Knock, Knock...***

Oh, HI!  Fancy seeing you here... Like there's anybody there...

I seriously want to learn how to post something thought provoking enough to make people leave comments...  but until then.. you get this:

I am busy as hell at work... My entire dynamic has changed. For the better really, but there are things I am unable to make room for in my day and it's just so much different than before that the new reality is this:  I have time for Facebook throughout the day, but really just to keep up with other people not so much to comment. I found myself about to comment the other day and all that happened was that I was about to send a paragraph into the void...and I told myself when the Facebook posts get to be about a paragraph, that's when I should really choose to blog... fine..  I don't really care about making sure I get on and comment on Facebook these days... It mostly just turns into more like a tweet... small short concise post with a pic attached.  Usually it's an IG with a sentence that I auto post to FB and Twitter...  GAWD that just sounds boring writing that...

The catch up game will take a while so I don't know which is better... one long giant post or a few over the next few days??  I'm going to try the latter and see what happens... again, not like anyone reads this god forsaken thing...

I have decided to change the name of the blog if you have noticed...if not, no matter.

When I got our new phones in Spring I got an unbelievable deal that included 2 7" Samsung Galaxy Tab 3's... I seriously didn't even know what I would do with these things, but they quite literally GAVE them to me...so I thought, hey... party, bonus.  I took them home and Choni was reticent about them at first... 6 months later he wouldn't know what do without it!  I bought cases on Amazon that came with bluetooth keyboards.  Great investment, might I add!  The charging chord to the keyboards fits the galaxy, so I basically always have the charger for it... doesn't sound important to some I bet, but it's SO important when you're lugging stuff for people.

When these things fell in our laps, I had been contemplating a laptop purchase...but wasn't sure...then I read an article about 10 Top Dying Techs.  On that list were laptops.  Simply stating that with desktop PCs doing incredible things that you pretty much would want to NOT do on a subway and tablets coming with expandable memory and keyboards...why?!?  So I thought, yeah why?!?  My mission then became to use the SHIT out of my tablet...and I do.  I game on it, I'm addicted to Hey Day.. shut up.  I have a few little life regenerating games to fill in the 1 minutes holes of down time I have throughout the day and that's about it... Thing 2 still requires I sit with her while she plays, but she doesn't want me to play with her because she doesn't want me touching her stuff...so I will sit there and video her playing and play a game and show her video and pictures of her set ups... it's all about presentation for her right now.. "See what I did?!?"  Yep, that's her in a nutshell...

My big idea is to use the tablet for those few minutes between when I brush my teeth at night and then choni goes to brush his teeth and I sit there waiting for him to be done...in those moments I can do one of two things: 1) sum up my moments and thoughts of the day Doogie Howser style on my tablet or 2) map out something a little more interesting to say when I have more time...Either way, that's my new personal goal...writing with pen and paper still hurts even with the wrist support and typing this now in my Icelandic office (don't get me wrong if it's hot in here my nose bleeds end of story), I have finger-less gloves on and wrist supports but I'm covered...I'm A-OK.

I got really busy over the summer...in my head... I was over thinking the idea behind the blog, whether anybody cares and whether it's worth it, and whether I have time and my new tasks at work...my tasks at home... making sure I'm "present" all the time... getting called out about being on my phone when I was like "I'm only on MY phone... when YOU are on YOURS..."  some eye opening developments in my relationships with people that are not Choni...

Summer went by slow...  No softball I think did that.  I had a break to myself that I spent sick...again...and I got this WEIRD skin thing that itched like a spider bite and scarred like one too.  I think it was a brown recluse bite because those tend to turn into cellulitis if not caught ASAP.  It's fine now.  My TMJ something something disorder is in cahoots with my neck and shoulder tension and makes my teeth hurt.  I had my extensive dental work done and hopefully that's the end of that...I don't think it is.  I'm lucky to have any teeth with my family history.  Allergies are still in full swing... All of that compacted toghether equals me being in some form of pain everyday at some point in the day..  If I am busy with enough things I don't notice so that's nice.  My plantar fasciitis is somewhat more under control than in the two years I've had it so that's good...  $40 insoles later and a new pair of shoes and some exercises later...  But it's better than what it was at the beginning...it's not completely gone away and I'm supposed to go in for a cortisone shot the foot to calm down the muscle next month.. Can you guess how exciting I find that?  Can you?!?

I joined GoodReads and have been reading up a storm thanks to 1 minute intervals in the day and lunches and waiting for things... I put forth a challenge for myself.. I am almost done :)

I have been using the HELL out of Coconut Oil for all of it's benefits, I am very into at home remedy mostly because I already have all that stuff at home most of the time.  Because of the DRY ASS winters, I have switched to a Cleansing Conditioner because I am prone to dry scalp in winter more so than any other time of year.  Last year was HELL on my hair because I cut my hair OFF and as much as I loved the cut I jacked up my pH balance on my head and then even with a pseudo winter we had...I itched...and itched...and itched. No amount of OTC head stuffs worked.  So I suffered.  Then it got warmer and it stopped.  Now it's cooler and it's starting...not as badly as last year, but it was this time of year I cut my hair OFF...and it's growing back at lightning speed.  This time next year I'll be like "What short hair?"    I think I'll stop there because this is just rambling now and who cares?

I'll start the smaller blogs with more to say in the next few days.  Mister is working an off season job but I'll get into that later!

If a flea bites a tree in the woods, does it itch?

Mulligan...

Generally, I don't find myself being one to use golf terms... but... 

Last weekend, NOT the best weekend.  Not that anyone died, or went bankrupt, or anything... maybe something INSIDE them died, and maybe someone went EMOTIONALLY bankrupt...  again...  NOT the best weekend.  

And even though the disturbing and upsetting events didn't necessarily happen to ME or Choni, they affected (infected) our family unit just the same. ... Because we care dammit!

Choni's got some upsetting news about his friend...that made him blah.

We went for a visit with my mother-in-law on saturday and basically dropped Thing 1 off with her to spend the night...and then Sunday was a blah day... the kind of day where you have a list of things to do...and there's 5 day things to do...and all 5 of those things don't go either A)The way they were supposed to B)The way you atleast hoped they would C)Didn't go at ALL.

Bummer...

But it wasn't my list it was my mom's, but I was there as one thing after another did NOT get checked off on a day that was already sucking for her.  

Bummer...

Big.Fat.Bummer.

So, Monday, we awoke, getting ready for the first after the time change, which also leaves everyone in a state of blah.  The morning became dark again.  That does not help my family of four get jazzed for the mornings...  We were late getting up and getting out of the house... the next day we were less late...the next day we were on time, this morning, we were early.  Yay us.  It only took us 4 days to get this down...

But Monday when we got up, and the maddening tornado of "Move! I'm late!" started...and in between the lines we knew... we knew our weekend pretty much sucked... it did... it sucked... I wanted a do-over... I think we deserve it. The way things have been on a bit of an upswing for us and we've doing our due diligence as good adults and grown ups and members of society...  we deserve a good weekend... a weekend full of good, positive, awesome vibes... 

Not to put the pressure on , but we will get what we want!!  Ha-haaa!

The plans for this weekend are starting to come together into something that one way or another, we will get things checked off our list, kids will be happy and we will go to sleep exhausted and fulfilled...one way or another.

That being said: a little catch up-

Thing 1 does not require a parent/teacher conference for the spring (as usual) and I am happy about that!  Thing 2 is talking her gibberish that gets more understandable each day.  She says SO many things, yet it is total gibberish... A few words are clear as day.  You can tell she wants to learn the words so badly and wants to communicate... One day, just like her sister, she'll be three years old, and Daddy and I will be on the cusp of a nervous breakdown from people telling us "She should be talking by now, my *insert toddler relative here* is just talking up a clear, concise, articulate storm of diction!" and then BOOM!  Fully blown conversations will erupt over night.  We're not worried, it's fine.

Thing 1 goes to an after school program and when she gets there, she is assigned a "teacher" and a "class room".  It's held at her school, so there's no transporting needed and she's already in a place she is familiar.  The staff is brought it in just for the after school program and if something happens with your child, these people will pull aside to talk to you.  That's never happened to me yet, and I always see the staff talking to the parents and telling them that their kid got a warning, or is on a second warning, or that they have had enough warnings that they will be considering dropping them from the program... always negative... never positive.  When I walked up to the room to get her the other day, a woman in a blue shirt rushed out the door to meet me and asked if I was Thing 1's mom... 

ME:  Uhm... yeah?

Miss B: OH Great! I'm Miss Brandy!  I just LOVE having her in my class.  She's a good reader.  I mean, she reads VERY well..?  **because it was almost a question...

ME:  Yes, she really does. She reads all the time.  I've read to her since she was very little and I read a lot, so she sees me do it and wants to be like Mommy, you know.

Miss B:  She puts inflection and voices into the reading out loud that we do in class, it just amazes me.  I just love her, she's so sweet!

ME: Yes, she really is.

Miss B: Well, it was GREAT to meet you finally!  I hear so many good things from her about her mom and dad and little sister!

ME: **Trying NOT to hide the shock and awe* Good to meet you, too, thanks!

See what I mean?  Things trod along just fine, and then a weekend of extreme less than mediocrity comes and bites us in the ass...and this after I spent a FULL week in bed with some such YUCKINESS i care NOT to ever repeat in my life and then another week of getting over that while trying to function at work and catch up...this week is REALLY the catch up week... 

I got my lens in the mail and all my fun purchases I made with the tax return...not able to enjoy it at all for about a week due to illness...it's like someone getting something you can't have, but you know you can in a few days or a week, but you STILL can't have it right now and that just sucks... First world problems right?  I know... sad but true... My new lens rocks!!  It's a Tamron, my lil cuz says it's the Civic of lenses... sweetness.  And I hate to admit how much of a different it really makes.  Cause it does...and I hate that because it makes something so expensive so necessary.

Daddy is looking at lighting and backgrounds systems that we can both use.  Funny how this is never how we intended to end up...a still and video photographer living under one roof**smiley face**

Ok, well that's enough from this end...  I just felt like we had SUCH A BLAH WEEKEND!!  MULLIGAN!!!!!

♪Oh The Weather Outside Is Weather...♪

I have been crafting up a storm and the man has been baking cookies fresh for Thing 1's lunches... peanut butter oatmeal. Yum!  Cookies make the house warm and it smells like the holidays already!  Generally I am ALL about making room for Thanksgiving so it doesn't feel like the redheaded stepchild of the holiday season, but this year man, it just seems like we need the OOMPH into Christmas.  Luckily for me, I have never had decorations for Thanksgiving and the stores decided to lump Halloween and Thanksgiving together this year.  Amazingly enough, I now have Thanksgiving décor due to the storewide "fall" clearances that did the lumping together! Haha!

 Ma and her man are doing well...we like him.  He might be around for Thanksgiving... hope so... he's fun.  It's going to be a small Thanksgiving this year, much like Christmas.  I'm just glad I finished shopping already.  I get to sit back and enjoy now.  Generally, what we do is take the Friday after Thanksgiving to decorate like so many people I'm sure do.  This year, I'm jumping the gun...and get this...at the request of Choners...he is usually VERY adamant about giving Turkey Day it's due.  Well, this year, he wants his cake and he's going to eat it too... Next Monday, whether the big one goes to day care or not, we are doing our Christmas décor.  It's something to pass the time and we might have Knott's plans on Saturday... but until that is certain I don't want to make any plans in stone.  So I say, the general idea will be to get out the Christmas awesomeness for Monday... and if Thing 1 goes, she will come home to a winter wonderland in the house :)  Also, I am planning on lights outside this year! Shhh, don't tell Mister... 

This weekend is family weekend, we're gonna see a lot of his family :)  I say his family, but they're really OUR family...It's funny, I just wanted to specify WHICH side of the family, mine or his...  I could say The Brown side...  But really, that doesn't help... us Irish have been known to have the fever.  So both sides are relatively brown.. hehehe...

Tuesday is Christmas pictures... I have been saying, I want to make more image heavy posts, but I haven't yet.  I think because I don't plan them THAT far ahead... so it's hard to do.  Also, I love my camera.  I love it SO much I'm afraid to leave the house with it...  I know.. shut up...  I got a filter for it to protect the lens so perhaps I would feel better about letting it bang around my back pack...  wrapped in a scarf...  and maybe a sweater.

Next years tax return already has a portion dedicated to my new lens.  My cousin Ace is in "the business" and he helped me out HUGE on shopping around for my next lens purchase... And the more Choni is working on his film project the more I think he will probably want to use the Nikon for projects...  A new lens wouldn't hurt!  Ace said that my camera body and specs are great, I should be getting great results when I put the new lens on ...next year...

I am LOVING the weather...cold. I love cold.  Snuggles, soup, hot cocoa, coffee NOT for my morning commute... aaaahhhh... Blankets on the couches... I LOVE blankets...  kid snuggles...  and when the decorations go up...the soft warm glow of the tree...  oh yeah... that's the stuff....

Today is my last work day of November and I start my staycation... Thing 1 asked if I had any time off that overlapped HER time off...so I made some... cause sometimes, you just have to.  I hope this allergy/cold thing goes away... Maybe with a little help from my friends Alka Seltzer and Nyquil... 

Too bad there's not a way to make people leave comments... I want comments...

Twelve Minutes 'Til The Bell Rings...

Some of my best ideas come out of me at the last minutes of the day... let's see if this is a testament to as much, shall we?

Probably not, probably going to be gobble-di-gook...but hey...what is to be expected from someone in my predicament?

I have been locked in a Bio Hazard called "Home" for about 5 days...and man is it good to be out. 

I came back to work to a mole hill, but it's gone now.  All gone...bye bye...

I sit and I wonder just how much "better" Choni feels now that he is on day 5 of Flu Watch 2013...

He hasn't been sick like this in about 5 years I would say.  He used to get the Flu shots every year and he would get deathly ill right after.  Call it what you want, it's the truth...He was that 1%.  Trust and believe I kindly requested he STOP getting the damned things and just let himself get sick like a normal person.  Well, he didn't sick after that...and life was good.  Thing 1 must have the immune system of Bubble Boy because she just can't seem to shake the sick.  She has gotten sick every year since she started school which the statistcs say is normal and American as Apple Pie...Thanks though... But no thanks just the same...

The worst thing in the whole world is when your kids get sick.  You can put bandaids on a scraped knee and a pricked finger, you can pull out frikkin splinters, you can even put salves on burns, but you just can't get them better from the flu... It sucks and it's belittling as a parent.  I took her to the Pediatrician and he said she was teetering between viral and bacterial infection...so wait and see...  $30 bucks to get "wait and see"... Oh great...so we did... I got a presription just in case the worst hit over the weekend, but after being sick ALL week...her whole vacation from school down the tubes...she was better.  It's a miracle!! Not so fast ya'll.... Then HE gets it....

I stayed home from work on Wednesday, went in for two hours on Thursday and went in from 8 to 2 on Friday all so I wouldn't drown in a mountain of paperwork and phone calls today...and I'm glad I was able too...Thanks Ma :)  I didn't really see him Thursday, Friday or Saturday... except for a trip to the Urgent Care Saturday morning and then the CVS for medication of awesome sorts...  Sunday afternoon, much to my surprise, he emerged :)  Shaved, showered, and less death-like hue to the skin!!  Yay!!! 

I have done more laundry and dishes and meal preparation than I probably have in a year...  We haven't had a whole weekend to ourselves in a long time and it's been even longer since I have had such domestic duties thrust upon me... Weird to sit there and have to wonder how many pairs of jeans and how many towels you can fit in your own washer...because that's how long it's been since you've done serious laundry...  Funny to sit there and wonder what setting to wash the dishes on again cause it's been so long since you've had to do more than just load the thing up with dishes...  Funny....

But not really all that funny... There was a time I knew all these things.  A very different space and time when we both had jobs and Harley was the only Thing and we dropped her off for the night at Gma and Gpa's... It's "funny" how different your life gets...and not even because you "wanted" it to... but because it HAD to be different.  It was forced to be different...and pretty soon you wonder... How did I do this before??  And the answer is simple... You didn't...  I didn't have to clean a house and juggle a baby... I didn't have to figure that part out myself....  A crash course wasn't necessarily what I had in mind but I am now glad that I had it, and I'm glad it's over.  I'm glad I got reminded I'm the Mom I'm the Wife I'm part of the equation...I'm not just here to keep the lights on and keep the water running...  I'm sorry that everyone was sick... but now I'm thinking it all happened for a reason... We all got something out of it...  If you want a silver lining of course...maybe I want one, because maybe I NEED one... Maybe I NEED one after seeing my poor girl lethargic on the couch for a week, after seeing the piles of paperwork on my desk, after seeing how much Choni does and how much he could use a break no matter what form it came in.... 

And now it's all over and I can go back to the most annoying thing being that Amazon just shipped my camera and I won't have it until next week...  damn Amazon...

This Time Last Year...

Wow, you know what? I really should start a series called ,"This Time Last Year..."  I did the birthday story for Marysu...and now I get to do the pneumonia story with HarleyQ...

More like March 5th of last year, but still...This time last year HQ was recovering from a nasty bout of bronchitis.  I can't believe she got it.  It was just a little cough...cough syrup wasn't helping and my home remedies were getting kicked in the ass so to the dr. she went and she had bronchitis.  Antibiotics and a plastic bubble later, she slowly recovered.  Always having this phantom cough and sniffling ALL the time.  If you don't like nails on a chalk board then I don't recommend listening to a 6 and a half year old sniffle for months...  makes me shudder...truly.

Then there was the maternity leave which was awesome family time at it's greatest.  Went by like a flash.  On the EVE of my returning to work HQ's cough was coupling a fever that had gone on for 48 hours and was getting higher and less compromising by the hour...at 5:30pm I decided to take action and to the ER we go where we find out after 6 hours that it was walking pneumonia.  Shots and antibiotics later she was a new HQ after 24 hours.  She had weezing in her chest and I couldn't handle listening to that I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.  My poor Harleymunser was so sick...  We took her to the dr for a follow up.  I am not a fan of that dr.s office.  And we don't go there anymore and we have been happy since we changed back to her old dr.  Insurance.  Sucks.  Anyway, I started to feel a sinus infection coming on and I told MY dr. about her being sick so much and I couldn't stand the thought that she could be asthmatic like I was and my husband REALLY was...  But he said it didn't sound like that to HIM...so GUESS what he said? 

Just GUESS???

After all the problem and the sick and the holy shit...  He told me to give her Benadryl... Just one dose of old school Benadryl, even generic CVS, Equate, UP and UP, whatever is fine... Just one dose before bed... see what happens...

AND DON'T THAT BEAT ALL?!?!  IT FUCKIN WORKED!!!

Yep, it was THAT exciting.  After one week, her cough was gone...

And, not to forget to mention.  He was telling me that I should be doing the same thing!?!?! 

Love. My. PA.

Not even a Dr.  A PA...  Love him...  I tried it on my and I will tell you what... I have taken them ALL!  Everything that ends in D... all of it.  I have taken shit I can't even PRONOUNCE!  I can feel the sinus infections come on and they come on like a bastard.  The only time I haven't had any sinus flux is when I'm pregnant (so not a reason to do it again on purpose and not possible anymore anyways hehehe).

Harley was doing SO well in fact that I was down to honing in on the symptoms so early I would give her a Benadryl the night I would notice SOMETHING and then POW!!!  Muhfucker's HISTORY!! 

It's horrible when something is so simple and so wrong with your kids and when someone gives you a simple answer for what you feel is a simple question it's exciting!  Especially when I used the same advice for me and I am able to knock out my symptoms now with a simple pink and white pill that I can get OTC for 4.99 a bottle for the generic shit,...  Harley started to get a cough and I thought "Oh, that doens't sound allergy related"... silly me.  Cough syrup didn't work for shit and when I gave her the Benadryl what the hell do you think happened?  I got so used to her being ok over the past few months.. MONTHS!! that I forgot about the Benadryl... 

Lesson learned:  This Time Last Year I was learning how awesome old school Benadryl can really be !!!

Harley has surely escaped more horribly sicknesses due to her allergies NOT getting out of hand and I am so loving my Dr for it!!!

Which reminds me, I need to add Benadryl to my shopping list!