I know, I know. This blog would be so much better with pictures. Maybe with pictures it would advance past the boring-avoid-at-all-costs level. Sorry bout that. I truly DO have lots of wonderful ideas for posts… complete with pretty pictures to look at… the problem comes in the execution of said ideas. In part because of the vast array of health oddities that have befallen me in the last year and a half. Basically I have no energy or clarity to even think most of the time, and only just enough to THINK about doing stuff the rest of the time… not enough to actually do.

I really hope this will change soon, and so… (as I always seem to do)… and daydream about what I’ll do when I feel up to it. My list of “want-to-dos” is HUGE. Think Santa’s Nice list from the movie The Santa Clause. Totally that long.

Since I’m not there yet, I guess I’ll continue the old, boring ‘format’ for now. At least today I have a sorta kinda funny (or two) that relates.

The first one-

I saw my doc again Wednesday. He wasn’t as frustrated with me this time. I think mostly cuz Mom once again went with and this time she piped up and said a whole lot. Stuff about symptoms I’d had in the last few weeks and stuff about how paranoia is the name of the game for me. How I’m scared to tell him anything for fear he’ll quit believing me or seeing me. (Actually the comment I’d made was closer to “He’s about 3mo past due for no longer believing me”… I started seeing him in June, you do the math.)

Anyhow. I’ve been having a real rough couple of weeks and so he decided to change my meds all up. I’m now on Zithromax (more about that later) and Flagyl, and 2, count them TWO anti-depressants. Oy vey! While Mom was writing down the instructions on how much and when and when to increase and so forth (cause I could never remember otherwise), doc had me stand up to do the whole stand-with-your-eyes-closed test. “Did you just tip?” he asked as I stood up out of the chair. Ummm, that would be a yes. (I’ve been WAY off-balance the last couple of weeks.)

I barely got my eyes closed when he decided that was enough… on to the grab-my-fingers-as-hard-as-you-can test. Flunked that one again, of course. “Still weak” he said. He doesn’t know it but I would have flunked that test 15 years ago! lol I commented that after last month’s visit my mom discovered (and declared) that my son had the same strength I did. (The more amazing thing is my daughter has way more! but I didn’t think of that at the time.) The funny is my doc’s response to that. He said “I bet your son likes that. He can arm wrestle Mom.”

Ok. Maybe you just had to be there, but I thought it was pretty funny. My doc also told me I was a real piece of work at this visit. I’m not sure how to take that. =/

The second funny I have for you deals with a new Olympic sport. Last night I stretched a little sitting here at the computer and when I was through I had a couple of muscles start twitching. Now the twitching is nothing new. I have dozens and dozens of muscle twitches all over all day long. I’ve even had my tongue twitch! This was a new thing, though. Synchronized muscle twitching. I had a twitch in each buttock in matching areas! Never had synchronized twitches before. It should totally be an Olympian event, I could so TOTALLY compete! LOL

On the ‘plan’ for this coming week??

Well, if I can manage to grab enough ‘feel ok’ time, I want to get started on Matthew’s western shirt. He was so excited to learn Mom could make western shirts with real honest-to-goodness pearl snaps! He picked out the fabric he wanted and is just giddy with anticipation. Me? Not so much. I can’t help it! I love making the western shirts, I do, but see, the thing is I kinda have in mind that they will look like… oh I don’t know… a western shirt?!?! when they are done. Not like something you’d see Bozo wearing. The fabric he picked out is a little bold and a little Oriental. Not exactly your typical western shirt fare. Ah well.

Also I’d like to get a t-shirt appliqued for Meagan to wear with her favorite pair of (new) culottes. Bright, bold lime green with frogs. She wants a shirt with one of each of the different frogs on it.

After that I want to get the DVD racks wrapped in denim and hung.

Then there are the pillows out of bandanas to make. And the curtains for the kitchen, laundry room, and linen closet. And then there’s the 3 different quilts I have started that I need to be working on…

Of course, chances of me getting even the first one done this coming week are slim. Still. I can dream.

Posted: August 30th, 2008 under Lyme disease, blogging, funnies, just life, projects.
Comments: none

You know it’s been too long since your last post when the WordPress log-in thingy does not automatically let you in, but instead pops up with your user name and password prefilled and a little unchecked box that says “Remember Me”. I totally think that was WordPress’ way of saying “hey! What’s up with the no-posting?! Hello?! Remember me… your blog?! You know, the one YOU wanted to start. Hello? Hello?! Remember me??”

Yeah, so it’s been awhile, and I can’t even say that it’s because I’ve been oh-so busy. Well, I guess I could, but then I would be lying through my teeth. No, the lack of posting is a combination of being a little busy, a little feel-like-death-warmed-over, and a little trying-to-avoid-all-forms-of-reality. (I find it’s easier that way… just don’t think about stuff. Unfortunately for me this does not always work. Actually it rarely does, but that doesn’t stop me from trying. I’m nothing if not persistent!!)

So, about this end of an era thing…

Yeah. It sucks more than a little, I’ll be honest. I don’t even like to think about it, and it has nothing to do with ‘letting go’ of the baby, either, so don’t go there. (That’s where most people seem to go when they realize I’m not exactly ‘ok’ with Matt going to the private school.) I am SOOOOOOOOO looking forward to the time away from my precious baby!!! Oh my lands you have no idea!! I know that sounds horrid, but really it’s BEEN horrid the last couple of years and I NEED a break from him, oh PLEASE! So yeah, it’s so not ‘letting go’ of the ‘baby’. Nope. It’s letting go of the homeschooling life/dream. That’s what is crushing me. I can’t stand it.

Every time I look at school supplies, teacher supplies, new workbooks, catalogs for teacher resource materials or homeschool curricula, or anything that might vaguely resemble a ‘teaching the minds of young children’ slant… I want to scream and kick and wail and gnash my teeth and cry and cry and cry. =(

Enough of that, though. I do have a few other things to mention. Like….

My house is clean again! (Well, ok, the bedrooms are in progress and the pantry…well, let’s just not talk about the pantry, shall we?) But on the whole, my house is clean again! I’d done ok with keeping it picked up and clean after the folks stuff got sorted out and we did the initial clearing out and cleaning up, until about March when the fatigue and aches just got to be too much for me. Since then stuff had been piling up and getting worse and worse and the kids’ pitching in was a no-go. Not that I didn’t try… it just didn’t work. *sigh*

My grandmother called early last week, though, and wanted to know if I’d be home Fri around noon, and if so could my mom and her bunch come over, as she and PawPaw would be coming through town around then and they’d like to stop in. Sure! I told her. And then Mom called me and said “Do you need some help cleaning?” and I said back to her “AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! You are so funny to ask that! That was a stupid question! You saw my house two days ago… you tell me!” haha

So come over she did, and help me clean she did, and visit we did on Friday. Granted, it cost me. Friday night I was in so much pain! UGG! I popped 2 pain pills then went and writhed in bed for about 4hr while the very worst of it passed. Saturday I slept all day. No really. All day. Sunday was church and by that point I’d mostly recovered. I did nap Sun. afternoon, and my head was killing me Sunday night (TWO rounds of 2 pain pills and I still couldn’t sleep Sun. night.).

Yesterday we did some more prep for Operation Start-to-School. We took Matt to the uniform store and sized and purchased him 2 pairs of pants, 2 short sleeve shirts, and 2 long sleeve shirts. He actually could use more than that obviously, but we are el cheapo private school folk. We can’t even afford this, let alone a complete weeks’ worth (which would have been another 3 pairs of pants, and another s/s and another l/s, since they only wear the blue uniform-store shirts 3 days a week and plain white WalMart button-ups the other days). Meagan has the same line-up… 2 jumpers, 2 s/s and 2 l/s. It’s not an ideal set-up since the jumpers and pants either have to be worn twice or be washed mid-week, but it’s what we can do.

From the uniform store, we went to a nearby boot store (HUGE place) to see about finding a pair of cowboy boots for Matt to wear to church. He LOVES wearing suits and ties to church, but has not in several months because he has no appropriate footwear. I’ve looked everywhere and haven’t found a thing in his size. Granted everywhere is pretty much our local WalMart and one time a Payless when we were out of town, but still… He really prefers boots to dress shoes, but I haven’t even found dress shoes to fit, so he’s been wearing jeans, t-shirts, and tennis to church. Oh the horror, I know. He doesn’t like it anymore than me, actually I think he probably is MORE bothered than I am by it, but oh well.

Anyway, this huge boot store was supposed to have massive amounts of boots to pick from…and they do… if you are a full-grown adult with a FULL-grown wallet. Oh my stars!! They had about 4 styles in his size and he liked none of them. Also? They all were too narrow for his feet. Thankfully there was a pair at a local high-falutin’ drugstore-cowboy kind of joint on clearance that he liked AND that fit decent. They are not the black I was looking for, though. Instead they are a chocolate brown lower, with a mustard gold top. Personally I think they look like sick baby poop. Blech! Matt loves them, though, and has been buggin me all day to go get them for him.

Unfortunately I could not do that because he picked today to throw another all out tizzy massive meltdown of epic proportions. Screaming and hitting and biting and growling ensued. I ended up having to sit with him on my lap, one leg wrapped on top of his lap and one hand on each arm trying to keep them still in order for him to be able to get calmed down. Mike called the dr, because even though I have a consult set up for the 8th, I don’t know at what point we QUIT the waiting and just take him in to be admitted. Seriously he gets that bad with these rages or whatever they are. True, this is the first in a couple of months (I totally think the lackadaisacal no-pressure/stress summer is to thank for the brief reprieve…), but we all got lucky in that today I was not hurting super bad or super weak or whatever. Most days I would not have been able to physically restrain the kid because on most days he is far stronger than me. If that had been the case today, Mike would have been wholloped on the head with a metal pipe and I would’ve been bit up pretty good.

So the official word from the dr was… can’t do anything till the consult. FINE, but could you answer the whole question of what to do in the meantime?! I mean we totally got lucky today that I could hold him still, most days I can’t! What do we do when he goes all berserk like this and I can’t help Mike… or worse… Mike is at work. I sorta-kinda got the answer to that in a roundabout way… dr told Mike that if we think he is going to harm someone, take him to the childrens hospital an hour away.

Ok, so at least we have a plan… sorta. I mean by the time we got to the hospital I know he’d be calmed down, these tirades don’t typically last for hours once he’s restrained (which he would be in a car seat…), but then there’s the question of HOW in the beegeebees do we get him in the car and strapped down when he’s like this? We’re doing good if we can keep him in the house and semi-confined to one room. If we have to try to move him, he’s liable to take off into the street without looking (he’s done it before) or maybe climb the roof (again, done it before), if we lose our grasp of him which is not that difficult to do considering all the writhing and kicking and pulling and squirming the kid does.

And what if he pulls this kind of thing at school?

Sad thing is, just before this tirade, I totally thought I saw improvement in the whole moodiness thing. First there was the library daycamp thing a couple of weeks ago, of course. That was a huge sign of progress. Then this morning he had been out playing and when he came in and told me who he’d been with, I told him he needed to stay inside now since #1 he wasn’t supposed to be playing with this kid and #2 he wasn’t supposed to be in the sun. Ordinarily this would have provoked a massive meltdown. Yelling and screaming at me that he hates me, he hates his life, it’s not fair, he can play with whoever he wants, yadda yadda. Instead, this morning he took the disappointment very well and calmly said ok, and then asked if he could go to another friend’s house and go in and play video games instead. (Ok playmate, and out of sun) I agreed and off he went, no fuss, no fighting at all. I was shocked! I thought between the daycamp thing and this… surely the antibiotics were hitting the target and helping with the moods/behavior/pysch.

And then the meltdown. *sigh*

I guess it’s still possible the meds ARE working. After all, this was his first major meltdown in a couple of months, and it is about one month into treatment, so probably due for some herxing/cycling about now, too.

On another note (kid)… Meagan got back up out of bed around 11pm tonight and came looking for the thermometer. I asked her if she felt like she had a fever, and she said she did. Thermometer read 97.3. This is becoming quite the familiar scene around here… Feeling feverish? Your temp must be low! Matt did this a couple of days ago and his temp was 96.1!! Mine comes up anywhere from 96.4 to 97.6 when I feel feverish. Thing is we’ll really feel feverish on the outside too. Like Mike will put his hand or lips to my head and tell me yup, I probably have fever, but then we check it and it’s so low! Weird!

Posted: August 19th, 2008 under Lyme disease, Matthew, blogging, family, just life, kids.
Comments: none

Things have been so busy (and so tiring) the last 3 weeks (or has it been 4?… 5?) that there hasn’t been much getting blogged. It’s not so much that I don’t think about the blog, or posting about this or that… it’s just I’ve been doing a lot of “I’ll post tomorrow” and “I’ll finish x, y, and z and then post” kind of thinking about the blog.

I didn’t really anticipate using this blog as a means to update anyone on things going on around here in any kind of family newsletter kind of way, but it seems that the last few posts have ended up that way. I’m going to sink real low and pull a “it’s because my brain has been too sick to think/do anything else” with the posts problem.

Since the posts have taken the newsletter-y turn to an extent, I suppose I should continue that to an extent, just in case there actually is a lone reader out there somewhere following along. I’d hate to leave them hanging going “ohmigosh! She has Lyme and got some meds and thinks the kids have it…WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?!?! Did she ever find out about the kids? Did she ever get better? What about the whole freakin’ out about going to a dr thing? Or the telling her family and folks about what was going on?”

Of course, I don’t really expect that anyone is following along. And certainly if they are, they are doubtless NOT concerned to the extent of sitting on the edge of their seat with bated breath to know what happens next…

BUT I’m living in a reality of my own choosing at the moment and so I’m going to go with the whole exciting melodramatic scenario and make-believe that there really is a valid reason for me to continue to ‘update’ in the dreaded newsletter-y fashion.

Thus…the long awaited (humor me and edge forward on the seat, would you?) update of the last few weeks…

*drumroll*

I’ve had 2 appointments with my Lyme doctor so far. One week apart. I go back in next week for the 1 month check-in. It will be interesting on so many levels.

I never did list a complete rundown of all my symptoms/problems because that would be TOO boring and complainy but suffice it to say there are/were a lot. Before going in for that initial appointment I kinda figured I had at least one of the infamous co-infections of Lyme (Lyme in this case referring specifically to the infection of the borrelia burgdoferi bacteria as opposed to a more generic all-encompassing name for the condition of multiple infections of which the Bb is only one). I highly suspected…to the point of pretty much took it for granted… that I also was infected with bartonella (one strain is responsible for an illness commonly referred to as “cat-scratch fever”). At the initial Lyme appointment, my doctor decided to test for some co-infections, but in an effort to save me (the uninsured and BROKE) some money opted to NOT test for bartonella since my symptomology (is that actually a word? it should be…) was so strong for it. He decided that if I was ok with treating based on symptoms (i.e. based on a clinical diagnosis) then, in a sense, the testing for bartonella was unnecessary. I don’t think, though, that he actually wrote bartonella down as a guaranteed. Semantics, I guess.

Anyway, I digress. I had blood pulled and sent off to be tested for only 2 different co-infections. There are many, MANY more possible (even outside of the bartonella), but for now anyway, we were only testing for 2. Erlichia (or HME- Human Monocytic Erlichia) and Babesia (specifically just the babesia microti strain… there are many strains but the test only looks for the one…). I also had a CBC done to check my kidneys and liver.

Now… it doesn’t seem like there is a point, but there actually is…

I’ve had 2 appointments, but I’ve spoken with my dr on the telephone (yes the DOCTOR how awesome is that?!?) twice since my last appointment.

Lemme back up (only the teensiest amount) to catch-up on what happened between the blood draw and the first phone call…

Aches, new meds, tired-so-tired, brain-fry, July 4th at Bro3’s (shout-out to my wonderful snow-buddy… LOVED the whole thing… you did great at hosting, gal!) complete with exaggerated startle reflex (by-the-by… exaggerated startle reflex + fireworks = heart-that-feels-like-it-just-may-EXPLODE), more aches, more new meds, more tired. Absolutely no grocery shopping, very VERY little cooking/cleaning/laundry/etc, and only a teensy bit of crocheting and a little MythBusters (thanks Netflix!) thrown in.

Ok, that covers the 2wks between the appt and the phone call that shook things up a bit, sotospeak…

The phone actually woke me up that day and it was my doc. Wow, I thought… the DR called with the test results. A positive and another positive. Hmmm… The Erlichiosis was already being treated with the doxycycline I’d been given, but the babesiosis? Not so much. Babesia is a malaria-like parasite. In the same sense that borrelia is a ‘cousin’ to syphilis, so babesia is a ‘cousin’ to malaria. Its presence means the probability of needing to add a whole different class of meds to my cocktail at some point…anti-malarials.

Remember I said I never threw out a whole list of symptoms, but that it would be long if I did? Well now it’s beginning to make sense as to WHY… I now have 3 different ‘for-definite-because-the-test-even-came-up-positive’ infections and 1 ’symptoms-are-such-that-its-presence-is-so-obvious-we-don’t-really-NEED-to-test-right-now’ infection on top of that. That makes 3 big-bad bacterial infections and 1 malaria-like infection. Sheesh! No wonder that list would be so long and varied, huh?

Anyway, doc said at the next appointment we’d look at my symptoms again (re-assess, kinda, to see how the antibiotics, etc are working out) and if they’re not all being addressed we may add the anti-malarial. My initial thinking the first few days after that phone call was that even with the positive for babesia, the anti-malarial meds were probably still months away since it wasn’t currently responsible for any of my symptoms. This, however, was before I did much looking at babesia symptoms. The only ones I was really thinking of were night sweats and air hunger (feeling like you can’t get enough air)…neither of which I have or have had any time recently.

Then I did a little more looking into the babesia symptoms and discovered that some of my new-ish symptoms the last couple of weeks or so (lightheadness/dizzy, loss of appetite, nausea, base-of-head headaches…) could very well be the babesia rearing its ugly head. So the next appt. should be interesting on that note…

I said I talked to my dr twice. That was the first phone call. The second needs some other updating first…

I think I had mentioned that I had gotten the new pediatrician to sign the orders to test Matt for the Lyme, but that Meagan’s first appt with the new ped wasn’t for another week or two, so she still needed to be tested. The week of Meagan’s appt, the kids both ended up sick with the chest congested, asthma stuff. In calling to get them a sick appointment (to possibly end up on a short course of steroids and antibiotics) I discovered the ped. was on vacation that week. We tried to get them in to Urgent Care and that was a disaster. We ended up just giving them neb treatments at home and they’re doing much, much better now. Anyway! I cancelled Meagan’s check-up appt. that week because I thought she’d be seeing a dr at Urgent Care… and anyway I didn’t want the fill-in… I wanted the actual ped… because of the whole issue with the Lyme testing.

Well, the next week when I still hadn’t heard from the ped’s office on Matt’s test results by Wed, I called to check. I figured it’d been 3+ wks by that point, so I needed to do a little squeakin’ perhaps to get things movin’ again. They’d look into it and get back with me.

Turns out the results HAD come in the week before, but the fill-in doc didn’t know what to make of them or do with them or what-have-you, so they didn’t call. The ped. got them out and read them and lo and behold… he came up positive. I’m so shocked…NOT! haha

Doc didn’t really know what to do about it, though, and since she knew I was seeing a Lyme doc suggested I have him look at Matt’s results. Our kids’ insurance being what it is, though, that would N-E-V-E-R work as far as any kind of ‘official’ look-at-and-treat, so I suggested that perhaps the ped could call him for info and/or suggestions on what to do or where to go for info on what to do.

Today my dr called (yea HIM) again. Said he’d gotten a phone call and he’d passed on a little info along with directions on where to find more. He said the ped was going to send Matt to a dr who specialized in infectious diseases, but the reality is most of those docs don’t treat long or well enough (IF they even concede that you could, in fact, have Lyme since we don’t live in… you know… Connecticut. Those ticks must be very obliging to respect state borders or something, huh? UGG). Anyhow. My dr also said that it sounded like the ped would be treating Matt soon. He was basically REALLY shocked and REALLY surprised and dare I say… really EXCITED that this ped here in our little podunk town was actually… maybe… going to look into this and learn and TREAT.

I went about ‘business’ for the day (that means I called my mom…again… more on that in a min.), totally figuring ok… in a couple of days we’ll get a call from the ped’s office to make an appt and bring Matt back in to talk about what to do. I figured it would take at least that long for her to be able to get started on the looking into things.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the phone call at 15min till 5pm was NOT one of the kids’ friends, but was in fact the ped’s office calling to say that the dr had talked to my dr and what pharmacy should they call the scripts for the 2 different antibiotics into?

WOW! How cool is that? =)

Meagan’s check-up is this comin’ Monday so I’ll be able to at least briefly ‘check-in’ with the dr about Matt then and tell her way THANKS, while talking about getting Meagan started on treatment also of course.

Now, I said I’d talk more about Mom in a min, but I think for tonight I will leave that updating off. Why? Because this post is already long enough and I want/need to do this instead…

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

I don’t want to go any further without making good and sure that anyone reading and going “wow, what an amazing set of good fortune/coincidence” is fully aware that it is SO MUCH MORE than that. It is the work of an amazing, wonderful, powerful, loving God. Nothing less.

God has been leading me through all this from the get-go. From my first looking up my symptoms online, through giving Lyme a second glance, finding a doctor to sign the orders, finding a doctor to treat me, and now finding a doctor for the kids and ever-so-much-more in between! In so many big and little ways. Big scary leaps of faith like my going to a doctor for the first time in nearly 10yrs and telling my mom what was going on even though I was terrified of her reaction. Little, tiny, but-oh-so-important-and-specific details like exactly what bands need to show up positive and exactly what words/phrasing to use at the dr’s office and exactly what date to go and shirt to wear and a billion other things.

This whole health/Lyme/etc. journey for myself AND the kids has already involved a lot of prayer on my end… and I’m so thankful for it… a lot of guidance and answered prayers on the Lord’s end.

I can’t even begin to fully or adequately express just how blessed my family and I have been… and continue to be. ALL the glory belongs to the Lord Jesus in all of this. Again…

PRAISE THE LORD!

Posted: July 23rd, 2008 under God's Guiding Hand, Lyme disease, Matthew, blogging, faith, family, kids.
Comments: none

Overall there hasn’t been much blogging going on the last month or two. I think it might have something to do with the fact that overall I’ve been feeling worse and worse the last month or two. Ok, so I’ve been getting progressively worse for months on end. Time to shake things up a bit, perhaps?

Today is Father’s Day. I wish I had more oomph to be excited. Tomorrow is my mom’s birthday. Ditto.

I always have a booger of a time figuring out what to get Mike for gift-giving occasions. Not so much because “he has everything and wants nothing”, but more because he always wants the same stuff, and I don’t like giving the same thing every time. DVDs. That pretty much sums it up. Oh, and summer sausage, extra sharp cheddar cheese, and Hershey kisses. Sure he’d love a laptop and a DVD recorder where he could transfer his VHS tapes over, but we can’t afford either of those.

So this gift-giving occasion, I totally went with the no-thinking-involved Hershey kisses and a Mr. Bean DVD. I’m so uninspired right now.

Now for my mom’s birthday(She’ll be 52 years young. And she’s proud of each one of them. You go girl!)… going with the no-thinking-involved there, too…sorta. I just asked her want she wanted and then did my best. She said she wanted a capri set, but not pink or pastel. So I go to the store and find capri sets… in black (she already has), red (I have, so she didn’t want to do), and pastels. Lots of pastels. Pink, green, blue, yellow, peach… ugg! So off to WallyWorld instead. Found a pair of capri pants in tan, and 3 shirts. Blue, aqua (but dark aqua), and tan. I left all the tags on because she had originally said “not from Walmart”, so oops. LOL It was either that or pastels, ma!

So the cake is in the fridge. Easiest cake I’ve ever iced. The heat here made it literally just ice itself smooth as silk. I did have to encourage it back UP the sides of the cake, though. The icing was pooling so bad it looked like the cake was bulging at the bottom.

Tomorrow will be busy, and I’m afraid very stressful. We’ll have to do the whole cake thing for Mom, but then the bigger problem is Meagan has an ortho appt.

She just came in and told me one of her bands was loose. They were both loose 2 or 3 months back and the ortho was NOT happy. We’re toast tomorrow, what you wanna bet. It doesn’t matter how many times we say “yes, she brushes and flosses, and does the whole nine yards” (we did finally get the whole refusing to brush thing worked out…finally!) and “no, she does NOT wiggle the headgear up and down to get it out”… he still is not happy with us.

So, I’m anticipating him pulling all her metal off tomorrow and declaring it a done deal. Which means, of course, not only are we out close to $3,000, but we’re out that much $$ and still won’t have her bite corrected. In fact, if we lose the orthodontia now, we’ll never be able to correct it, as she only has a year or two (tops!!) left to get it corrected before it’ll require surgery…which the ins. won’t cover and we can’t afford.

With the problems we’ve been having with the Lupron not suppressing puberty, we may well only have a year or less left to grow and get this bite fixed “easily”. Every time I think about it it just makes me sick. We’re soooo close! She is supposed to be in the headgear another 6mo or so. She is 4′ 7″, so only another 5″ to get to 5′. Soooo close on both counts, and it’s seriously looking like both are going to be for naught. Bummer, too, since after her initial catch-up growth we were heading for 5′ 2-3″.

Anyway! I haven’t crocheted much this week, been too tired, and busy with dr appts, blood draws, and phone calls. More of that this week too, as my first dr appt with my LLMD is Tues. Nervous? Yup. That’s a given. Not horribly, though, and I have to say the only explanation for that is Jesus.

I am just going to sit back and let Him run this whole show. I’m just gonna follow His lead, and then I won’t have to worry about nuthin.

Posted: June 15th, 2008 under Meagan, blogging, just life.
Comments: none

Ok. Yes, I know this post is about 3.4 seconds after the last. There is a good reason for that. Simply put? I am a dork. I got on here to post about our Bitty Burgers, and somehow (don’t ask me how) ended up posting, instead, about being 9 years old. So here is what I wanted to share about our burgers…

It’s actually kinda sad. =(

For Mike’s birthday last week, the kids and I decked Dad out in all manner of grilling. Well, except for the apron. I don’t think he’d have worn one anyway… So he has a new grill and a cool Texas flag-themed chair (my man, he loves his state!) and is the new Grill Master around these parts.

So tonight he asked if I wanted hamburgers for dinner. Out he goes to play with starter fluid and FIRE while I cut up and moosh 2 pounds of raw cow into burger shapes. At this point they were not bitty. They were not huge, as I had cut each 1 lb log into 4 patties, but they weren’t bitty, either.

Now, meat does shrink as it cooks. We all know that. We expect that. What we didn’t expect was for it to practically DISAPPEAR! After grilling to a lovely color, Mike decided I better microwave them for the last few degrees of internal doneness because the fat was dripping onto the coals and now there were angry flames trying to devour (or at least char) our burgers before they could reach the 180 F that we were shooting for. So he brought them in, and I popped them in the nuker.

At this point, they were understandably somewhat smaller than they’d started out. After all, meat shrinks as it cooks. Two minutes in the nuker, I thought, should do it. Not so. The thermometer was still only peaking at about 120-130.

Back in they went. Five minutes this time. Still only around 130-140 or so. WHAT? Ok… another 5min. SURELY, I thought, this would be enough. This would make who-knows-how-long on the grill plus 12 minutes in the microwave.

When the nuker beeped, I immediately hopped up to go check the temp. I reckoned maybe the patties were cooling off before I could get my slow tookus over there with the thermometer. I was much quicker this time. Internal temp?

150 F. Barely.

Regardless, we declared them more than done. They absolutely HAD to be, as any longer in the magic microwave and they would have been gone completely! We didn’t have hamburgers anymore, we had Bitty Burgers. (That, disgustingly enough, were swimming in a sizzling lake of greasy fat.)

Seriously these suckers were smaller than the infamous White Castle burgers. No lie. They would have been a huge hit at a toddler’s Mini-Everything birthday party. Though… I’m not sure where you would find buns small enough. They were about 1.5″ in diameter. Soooo cute! Good thing I’d put together 8 patties even though Matthew was staying the night with a friend. Since one had jumped ship grill during the initial warming phase we were down to 7 Bitty Burgers for the 3 of us.

Seven burgers for three people. Not NEARLY enough considering it took 3 patties to mostly fill the hamburger bun. Four if you were using regular white bread. Well, at least we had tater tots and cottage cheese…

One scrape (not bite, these suckers were petrified beyond bite-capabilities…the teeth just scraped down the side) later and Mike declared two things:

1. I am to only purchase the more expensive LEAN meat from now on. The leanest I can find.
2. Tonight’s burgers would be furnished by Dairy Queen.

Posted: June 10th, 2008 under blogging, funnies, lettin' hubby lead.
Comments: none

Oh how I love the way the Lord orchestrates everything to fall into place just-so and at just-the-right-time. =) Just look…

Yesterday I wrote this. Today on my blog-hopping, I found this. From there, I clicked and found this, (we won’t even open the can of worms on HOW SO VERY appropriate this is for my life right-this-very-minute after my first-ever-dr-appt-for-ME-in-countless-years…), with this post right before it.

Ta-da! More about the daisies!!

I’m more than kinda spent myself here lately (ok, actually biggest issue today has been replaying yesterday and banging myself on forehead getting all embarrassed and going “I can’t believe I did that.”)

Quitthinkingquitthinking random-groaning-brow-furrowing-and-shiveryshakes-in-an-attempt-to quitthinkingquitthinking.

Repeat.

ad nauseum.

I digress. Just go and read more about the daisies. She’s so right. =) Oh, and my hubby has it made too. Daisies are above and beyond all other flowers in my estimation. =)

And also? Could someone please explain to the daisies I planted years ago (pick a year) that they are, in fact, a very hardy, easy-to-grow plant? Because I don’t think they actually understood that. Do you think they would make a miraculous comeback, maybe?

Posted: April 22nd, 2008 under blogging, faith, funnies, just life.
Comments: none

For a week now, WordPress has been telling me: “A new version of WordPress is available! Please update now.” Today I signed in and got: “Your WordPress 2.3.3 is out of date. Please update.”

Ya know? I’d love to really. I even tried. Honest! But I’m just too stupid for words WordPress.

See, back when I switched from that other blogging service to WordPress so that I could use the way-too-cool-themes, I discovered I was much too stupid to figure out how to get the program set up to work. I had it downloaded and installed, but I couldn’t get past that.

Then I saw links to webhosting services that would install WordPress…set it up I mean!…with the click of one button. Oh yeah!!

So I immediately went and checked ‘em out. Ok, so the dashboard panel thingy at my web server place thingy is also way too complicated for me to figure out, but after several agonizing minutes I DID find the one button to get WordPress set up.

I clicked. I was set up. Yea for WordPress and HostICan!! You rock!

Now they want me to update, which is apparently going to take WAY more than one click of a button. And frankly? I’m way too stupid to figure it all out. I didn’t use to be. Honest. Ten years ago I definintely would have been all over this sucker the very day the new version was released. But now? Not so much. I don’t know if it’s “mommy-brain” or just “I’m too old to mess with this brain” or what, but I totally can NOT wrap my brain around any of it.

So I’m sorry. I really did try, WordPress. I promise. I followed the instructions for backing up and whatever as best I could. I clicked buttons. I made the computer make funny noises when windows popped up. I followed links. I clicked more buttons. I picked folders to save things in. I clicked more buttons…and then…inevitably I hit the proverbial brick wall. I got super stuck. I no longer have any idea whether this blog is backed up properly or improperly. I no longer have any idea what I’m even talking about. Is that a cocoon hanging off your nose? See?? I need some serious help here.

WordPress and HostICan…are you listening? I need a one click upgrade button…

I’m just sayin. =)

Posted: April 5th, 2008 under blogging, funnies, the changing me.
Comments: 2

Ok, so I know my life is so hopelessly sad it’s pathetic. Whatever. Let me indulge myself here and get excited that….I got a comment from an actual person!! WOOHOO!! Really. I’m so speshul!

I hope Craig knows he just sold a book. I HAVE to buy me a copy of TwentySomeone now that the author himself has left a comment on my blog! I mean I was *thinking* about it before, but now? Oh yeah. CHARGE!

Posted: February 29th, 2008 under blogging, the changing me.
Comments: none

I’ve stumbled upon a surprising purpose, as it were, for this blog. Keepin my children up at bedtime. (Yeah, that’s what I had in mind when I started blogging!)Matthew has now read the post titled Ewwwwwww! not less than 400 gazillion billion times. No kidding. So apparently, I do have one faithful reader…of one post anyway. =) Thanks, kiddo!

It tickles me no end how he giggles as he reads his favorite bits out loud over and over and over. It apparently only gets FUNNIER with each successive reading, not more forced as I would tend to look at it. Then again, I’m not the 9-year-old co-star of the post, either.

Tonight when he again tried to postpone the inevitable bedtime by re-reading his new favorite author (dare I dream? my own personal fan club!), and was eagerly trying to share with his only-occasionally-not-cootiefied sister (in his eyes- in mine she is delightfully cootie-free all the time!), it occurred to me that it might be time for some fresh material. Oh sure, I’ve put up newer posts, but I wasn’t exactly feeling …ummm… chipper? when I did so. Those posts have obviously NOT cut it for my fans fan.

So, in an effort to entertain my kids (though why I should bother when chances are they will only try to use it to fanaggle more UP time out of me at insanely late hours of the night when they should be sleeping and I, of course, should be blogging)…

I will share a mini-story about hair. My hair. No, not hair like the hairS that grow out of my scalp and cascade beautifully down my back, but my hair. A hair I noticed out of the corner of my eye yesterday and was so intrigued by it that I plucked it out, examined it, and put it in a ziploc bag which is now in my purse. Yes, I do weird things and have been known to keep even weirder things in my purse. My children know this and accept me for who I am…the weirdest mom on the planet. Or else the meanest mom if I’m making them finish their brussel sprouts. Ok, actually? We’ve never tried brussel sprouts, and I’m not sure we ever will. They just look funny. Like teensy tiny cabbage balls, which is probably what they are, but I wouldn’t know because I eat REAL food…like meat, potatoes, and ice cream.

So anyway. Back to my hair. I HAD to keep this hair safe, you see. I’ve got it secured in the baggie until I can figure out a way to preserve it in scrapbook form. It’s special. Oh so special. It’s a record-breaker! Or at least it’s broken my own personal record.

You see, it has a split end. Well, really it has a splitsplitsplitsplit end. To the tune of 19, yes NINETEEN splits. My previous record was 12. I’m so proud. =*)

It’s SO cool to look at. It’s like one of those old antique brooms that just feathers out all over everywhere. Or those pictures of trees we had to draw in art class where the branches had to keep getting smaller and smaller, branching off of itself again and again. If you make a circle with the hair you get a kind of spoked wheel. Almost looks like a water wheel made out of tire spike strips.

I recently heard about a toy that you plug into the TV and use to look at stuff under a microscope. Eyeclops. I wanted one so bad when I saw it. Now I know I need one. I have GOT to see my record breaker at 200x magnification on our 26″ TV. FAR OUT!

So now you know the truth. I am so desperately in need of a hair makeover it surpasses funny and moves into the realm of pathetic and sad. I am so desperately in need of entertainment and excitement I have resorted to going ga-ga over extraordinarily damaged hair.

In all seriousness if anyone has a solution to the whole mounting/displaying/photographing dilemma of a hair with 19 splits in it please let me know. I SO want to capture the full essence of my pitifulness in this. I’m thinking maybe a cute 5×7 hanging in my living room.

Posted: February 25th, 2008 under Matthew, blogging, funnies, just life, kids.
Comments: none

I started this whole blogging thing about 2 wks ago. I didn’t spend a penny. My how times change!

See, I couldn’t stand the icky look. So I went off in search of a good one. I didn’t find one.

Then I came up with a name I liked better. I wanted to make a pretty header for my blog using my new name. I couldn’t figure out how to get the header on my blog, though. I know how to do webpages, I thought. I’ll just host my blog on my own domain name. $6 later I had my own domain. GREAT!

Now to get things set up. Finally got the page lookin’ good, but still needed to figure out how to get the BLOG on there.

Yeah, this whole internet-bloggin’ stuff is WAY over my head, I’ve learned. MAN! Have things changed in the 10 years I’ve been ‘offline’. *boggle!*

More time and money than I care to think about later….I have this. This is not the header I designed, by the way. I will still have to mess around with stuff to figure out how to get my own graphics up here.

So really? I’m not much better off than I was. Although I *think* I will eventually be able to get the look I want this way. I hope.

Posted: February 22nd, 2008 under blogging.
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