This and That

Good morning! Only 25 days until our vacation! Yay! Obviously I’m excited.  We know where we’re going, we’ve got our plan for the weekend, and all we’re doing is counting down the days. The week before we leave is going to drag, I just know it. I also know, the day we leave and the day before that are probably going to fly by, in the sense that I’ll have so much to do and feel like there’s not enough time to do it. I’ve already started my lists of what needs to be packed, and what needs to be done before the trip. Is that crazy? Maybe just a little, lol, but oh well.

Today was quite a fun day. For some reason, I was awake at about 5 am. I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn’t because I was hungry. I’m one of those people who just can’t go to sleep if I’m really hungry. I wasn’t starving or anything, but also didn’t want to get up and eat, because then I’d be awake. It’s always a tough decision, lol. Anyway, a little after 5, I heard the kids door open, but then didn’t hear them. No tv, no playing…nothing. I figured maybe one of them had opened the door in a semi-sleep state (happens quite often in this house). I got out of bed a little bit later and decided to play a game on my computer, which happens to be right next to the couch. I come into the living room, and my couch is full of kids. There was a kid at each end of the couch, laying with their toes toward each other, sharing one blanket, fast asleep. It was so adorable! If I hadn’t been afraid of waking them, I would have taken a picture.

This morning we actually had plans outside of the house, which was unfortunate, kind of, for the simple fact that it was raining…quite a bit. We’re talking, we walked outside and the sidewalk in front of our door was flooded. It was one of those days where you just want to curl up on the couch with a mug of something hot and watch movies all day. If the plans had been just any other plans, I would have cancelled them and immediately turned on Netflix. However, today was a special day.

For the past 2 months, we’ve been trying to find a place for the kids to take gymnastics classes. The reason it’s taken so long is because we wanted a gym that wasn’t too far for us or K’s dad to drive, had a class for each child at the same time on the same day, and had coaches with previous experience working with special needs children. We narrowed it down to 2 gyms. Well, actually, I had one I really liked and wanted, my Grandma had another. Since she’s the one paying for lessons, she obviously got a say. Today the kids had a trial gymnastics class at my Grandma’s gym preference. They loved it and really had a blast. K can’t wait for her class next week, and L actually followed directions and tried pretty hard. The downside is, because of his slight motor delays (and probably some of his speech delays, too), L has been bumped down to the class for the kids a year younger than him. That normally wouldn’t be an issue, except the class that’s held the same time as K’s class is booked solid. So right now, we’ve got one class Wednesday nights and one class on Saturday mornings. Hopefully we’ll be able to get L into the Saturday class soon. The other possibility is, he makes progress in the younger class and is able to move to the age-appropriate class, which does have a spot open in our desired class.

What about the gym I really wanted? Glad you asked. It basically came down to this, that gym is more expensive, and Grandma didn’t want to pay the extra money. Hey, it’s her money. I’m not really going to argue with her about it.

Alright folks, I’ve got to head out and finish cooking dinner. See you all later!

Big Changes on the Horizon

One Wednesday, for the first time in about a month, I stepped on the scale. Last time I weighed myself, I was down about 17 pounds. Since that point, my seasonal job ended and I wasn’t getting exercise  so I expected my weight to either have stayed the same or give up. Imagine my surprise when I found I’d lost another 10 pounds. Somehow, I’ve lost 27 pounds in about 10 weeks with minimal exercise or change to diet. Yay!

This weight loss, combined with the possibility of a very big decision I’m contemplating making, is enough for me to spend the money to renew my year long gym membership. Now, I can’t renew until next month some time, but I’ve decided to start doing small workouts here at home. I’m talking about things like doing 30 second planks (hoping to get those to a minute soon), as many (girly) push ups as I can handle each time and trying to increase that by 1 every set I do, sit ups, jumping jacks, and squats. These are things I can do at home, without equipment or fancy DVDs, and can do it during commercials or while waiting for something to finish. We’ve got a very small, not so great workout room here in our complex, but the weight machine is one of those all-inclusive ones and I’m pretty sure it’s broken. At least, I can never get it to work. What I’m planning on doing is trying to get to it 5-6 days a week, trying for an hour of cardio.

Now, it’s been quite a while since I was doing regular workouts and I know I can’t just start off running on a treadmill for an hour, but I can start off by just walking for that long, and make sure to try to up the speed every day. I’d like to eventually be able to run for a couple of miles. When I was in high school, my Mom and I started jogging. Each morning, we’d jog for about an hour. Now, it’s been about 10 years since I’ve done that, but I think, with some work, I can get back to that, and more. Once we’ve got the gym membership, I plan on seeing L off to the bus in the morning while dressed in my workout clothes. I’ll then walk to the gym, eventually workout for 2, 2 1/2 hours, then walk back home, pick up L from the bus, and finish my day. I might take some of the group classes after Mr. gets off of work, if he wants to go workout.

You may have seen me mention a big decision I have to make. I can’t/won’t go in to that now, but I will say, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for the last 6 months, and very very seriously about the last couple of days. It would be a career decision, of sorts. Anyway, if I decide to take this path in front of me, it would be a very big change for our family, but definitely a positive one. If/when I make the decision, I’ll post it here, but until then, I’ll just kind of allude to it. I apologize for the cloak and dagger routine, but I don’t want to put it out there unless it’s a for sure thing.

Well, I’m off to eat breakfast (scrambled eggs and home style potatoes), so I’ll catch you later.

Nosey Noses

I would like to thank all the old ladies who gave me the stink eye while I was in the grocery store yesterday. For those who may not know, L is borderline autistic. He has frequent meltdowns if things aren’t done a certain way. He’s now in this routine for the grocery store: He “pushes” the cart (while I pull and steer from the end of it), and he has to be the one to put the groceries in the cart. Yesterday, I was grabbing something, offered it to him, he didn’t want to put it in the cart, so I did. Well, it just doesn’t matter if he says no, if anyone but him puts it in, he freaks out. Didn’t matter what I did, he wouldn’t be consoled. I think part of the problem was he had a very short nap and was tired.

Whatever the reason, he was in meltdown mode. Inconsolable crying, nothing could appease him, and of course, the best part, he now refused to move from that spot in the aisle. I asked him politely to move and follow me so we could go get Mr. Then I told him, still calm and everything, that we needed to go. He wouldn’t budge. So I grabbed his hand and began to walk. That’s when he decided to become boneless and try to fall to the floor. Now, his teacher has showed me a way to hold on to him, kind of force him to stand up when he does that. The only problem was, it requires two hands and I only had the one available. Also, have you ever tried to move a boneless, crying kid through a store while he’s wearing a heavy sweater? I kept grabbing sweater, not kid.

Needless to say, there were lots and lots of stink eyes as I hurried to the checkout and got out of there. Now, I was finished with my shopping and was out of there in under 5 minutes. I didn’t drag my crying child all over the store. Have I done that before? Yes, when I couldn’t wait until later to grab something from the store. Most of the time, if it can wait, I leave. Last night was one of those nights were I couldn’t wait until he stopped crying, but luckily, I had everything and had been on my way to the checkout.

I pushed the cart, and tried to avoid dragging my son, through the parking lot and, when he dropped and tried to lay down in the middle of the road, I had enough. I stopped the cart, picked him up, threw him over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and hurried to the van. For some reason, there were a lot of people just milling around the parking lot, and they all seemed to be older women. As soon as I picked him up like that, I swear to you, two different groups of women started pointing and whispering behind their backs. I try to ignore when people do that in public, because they don’t know L and don’t know what his issues are. I know there are some moms who have handy cards to hand out, explaining about autism and such, but I don’t.

One one hand, I think those cards are great, because people are usually more patient with a parent when they understand the child is autistic, but on the other hand, have we gotten so judgey as a community that no one will give a parent a free pass if their child is having a meltdown in the store? K, my daughter, is “normal”, yet I definitely can remember some meltdowns she had in public as a child. Hell, she occasional still  has them. Maybe what I’m trying to say is, let’s give some parents a break, okay? Yes, the screaming child in the store can be annoying, but it happens. Next time you see a parent dealing with a child in the middle of a meltdown, offer them a kind smile instead of a scowl and whispered insults.

More health stuff

Good evening everyone. Hope your weekend is going well. Ours could be going better, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Yesterday morning we headed to one of our favorite breakfast spots, Old Country Buffet. This is a restuarant that is close by, and every weekend they’ve got this breakfast buffet that we just love. We headed out with Tank and filled our plates. I got the Belgium waffles and topped that with strawberry topping. I also grabbed some bacon and a few links of sausage. The Mr hit up the omlette station, making one with onions, tomatoes, bacon, and cheese. We filled ourselves up with food, then headed out for The Mr’s doctor’s appointment.

A few years back, The Mr hurt his ankle pretty bad, and that ankle has caused some issues in his knees, hips, and back. Well for the last 2 weeks or so, he’s been having some pretty bad pain through his ankle and knee. We figured he’d get told the same thing he has every other time he’s gone to see the doctor about this pain; that the pain was due to him favoring the bad ankle. Imagine our surprise when the doctor actually thought there was something else going on. The doctor thinks either gout, or rheumatoid arthritis are the root of his extra pain. This was quite a shock for us, yet it was nice that the doctor looked beyond the ankle injury for other possible explanations. Right now, we’re just waiting for the test results. Whatever happens, we’re here for each other, and that’s all that matters.

Yesterday, grey storm clouds began rolling in. We hoped for rain, the Gods know we could use it, but yesterday did not produce rain, at least not in our section on town. Around 4 am, I woke up to the wonderful sound of rain.  Today wound up being grey, cold, windy, with both freezing cold rain, as well as about 5 minutes worth of hail (yes, hail in March!!). So what’s a gal to do when the weather has taken a turn for the worse? Make a hearty beef stew!

There’s my finished product, along with a loaf of sourdough bread, butter on top, of course! Every beef stew needs a piece of fresh sourdough.

In other news, I have finished the  Game of Thrones book (the first in the Song of Ice and Fire series), which is what season one of Game of Thrones is based on. The Mr is working on finishing the book, as well, so tomorrow we can start Clash of Kings. We’d like to be a few chapters in that before season 2 starts on April 1st.

Alright, everyone, I’m going to log off, so I can finish watching Celebrity Apprentice with The Mr.

In a last minute quickie, Tank has stayed dry for 3 naps in a row!!! Okay, now I’m done, night all!

Question of the Day: 

What are some of your favorite shows that are on right now?

What shows are you looking forward to the most?

Yummy Dinner

Hi all. So The Mr and I decided that we didn’t want the buffet OR Chinese food, so instead we opted for Texas Roadhouse, a very yummy steakhouse that’s just down the road from us.  If you live in Phoenix, we often go to the Metro location. The staff is friendly, service is great (for the most part), and the atmosphere is fun.

As usual, we ordered a Cactus Blossom for an appetizer, but kept to iced tea for our drinks. A Cactus Blossom is like an Awesome Blossom or an Onion Bloom, depending on which steakhouse you’ve been to before. The Cactus Blossom was delicious as usual. For Tank, we ordered chicken strips with french fries, while The Mr and I both ordered the 6 oz sirloin, cooked medium well. I ordered mine with the salad and french fries, while The Mr ordered his smothered with onion and mushrooms, with a side of cheese covered fries and a rice pilaf type dish. Unfortunately, the one issue I’ve had with this restaurant has continued with tonight’s dinner. Every time we’ve been there, my order has NEVER been cooked the way I wanted. Tonight I ordered medium-well, yet there was absolutely no pink to be seen anywhere. The first time I ordered it well done, I was brought out medium-well. Oh well, there are worse things that could happen, and the food is so delicious, no matter how it’s cooked, I never complain and always enjoy my yummy steak. I feel bad that I didn’t take any pictures of my food, I’ll try to remember to start doing that, sorry!

Do you want to hear something amazing? Remember how I went to the doctor today? While at dinner, I missed a call from the doctor’s office. I had asked them for something regarding Tank, so I figured the missed call and subsequent voicemail was from Tank’s doctors’ nurse. Imagine my surprise when I checked my voicemail and found it be message from the doctor I saw today, checking to see how I was feeling after my adjustments. To have the doctor actually call me up, himself, is really some amazing..um, customer service? Is that the right term to use for something like this? Hmm, either way, it definitely makes me want to stay with this practice. Our family practice is coupled with a pain management group, so I just had to travel upstairs, which is nice and convenient.

In other amazing news, we’ve been having a difficult time potty training Tank. In the last 2 weeks, he’s actually been going potty at school. In the last 2 days, he’s been going regularly on the potty here at home. Today, I put him in a clean pull-up right before nap, and that pull-up has lasted until bed time. That’s right, he’s kept dry since 2pm today! Squee! Here’s hoping this is a trend that will last for a while and be expanded on!

Alright all, I’m going to go get comfy on the couch and catch up on episodes of NCIS and Friends. Hope to see you all later!

Headaches and such

Good afternoon, everyone. How are you doing? I’m not doing too bad, myself. Had a couple of appointments between yesterday and today. Let me go back a little. About 5 years ago, I started having headaches every day.  At first, I wasn’t surprised because I was pregnant. Pregnancy means more blood running through the veins and that increase in blood often causes headaches. After my daughter was born, I continued to have constant headaches. The last 2 years they’ve been getting worse, and this last month they’ve been getting really bad. I finally broke down and went to the doctor, who ordered some x-rays, an evaluation by the physical therapy team, and gave me a prescription for muscle relaxers. Today, I went and saw physical therapy team and got my x-rays. Apparently, my neck is supposed to curve and instead it’s straight. There’s another issues, where I’m supposed to have this space between 2 of my vertebrae. This space is supposed to be equal distance all around, mine is squished to one side. Apparently, these horrendous headaches actually have a reason behind them. My messed up neck causes extra tension on my muscles. The muscles and messed up vertebrae cause pressure to my nerves, which in turn cause the headaches. Go figure.

So today I headed in after Tank got picked up by the bus. I had my x-rays done, which should my messed up spine. Electrodes were placed on my neck, kept on there for 10 minutes while I lay on a massaging table. Oh my, that was nice. It was meant to elongate the spine, and it felt amazing on my back, especially my lower spine. After 10 minutes, I was then given a deep tissue massage on my neck, shoulders, and upper back. That felt amazing, too. Finally, I was given an adjustment to my upper back and neck. Oh boy, I’m going to be sore tomorrow. I can already feel the stiffness and soreness in my neck. Tonight I’ll be taking half a muscle relaxer. Last night’s muscle relaxer knocked me the eff out. I’m hoping to avoid that tonight.

On to a different subject. Spring break ends after this weekend. The Mr has school on Monday, while my class doesn’t start until Tuesday. On Monday, Tank’s spring break starts. Oh boy, it’ll be an interesting week. I’m supposed to have a follow-up appointment, with more therapy, next week, but I’m not sure when I’ll be able to get it scheduled. Ugh.

Already working on our school schedule for next semester. I’ll be taking 2 classes again, but I may wind up only having 1 physical class. We’ll see what happens. There’s a Developmental Psychology class I want to take, but I’m not sure what my course load is for my Chem 130 class will be. I want to make sure I’ll be able to focus on that and not take 2 super hard classes in one semester. We’ll see what happens.

Anyway, I’m going to get going. Gonna go pick up The Mr and figure out what we’re doing for dinner. We’re debating between ordering Chinese food or go to the salad buffet. Hmmm, I’ll let you know what happens!

Take care, everyone.

I’m a slacker

I am the first to admit that I slack off, at times. This blog is one of the things that was put on the back burner for a bit. The Mr and I started school in January. Between the two of us, we were in school 5 days a week. One of my classes is an English class, which means essays and, since it’s 102, this means essays where I have to do lots of research. Needless to see, while I spend a lot of time on the computer, most of it is spent either doing English stuff, or studying for my Biology class. When I’m not doing school, I’m being a mom and a wife, so this had to be put aside for a bit. Spring break started this week, for both of us. The kids are still in school, the Princess doesn’t go to school, so she doesn’t do the spring break thing, and Little Man’s spring break isn’t this week. So the nice thing is, I’ll be able to relax while he’s at school. Call me selfish, but I like the idea of not having to do anything during the day when he’s gone.

Of course, just because I wasn’t assigned any homework, doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to do. I’ve got my second essay due for English at the end of the month, which doesn’t leave me a ton of time once we get back to school. Thanks to this reduced time, I’ve decided to get some work done on my essay all this week. The first essay for this class was broken up over a month or so period. The last two weeks of it, I was a madwoman..every available, waking moment was spent hunched over my computer, working furiously on that essay. My poor husband didn’t get to really enjoy time with me during that time. I’d only allow myself a little bit of relaxation every night to avoid getting too far behind. That’s what I’m trying to avoid this time around, hence getting a head start on things.

This weekend was a great one. My grandfather’s 78th birthday was Saturday, and there was a huge celebration for him. Normally, 78 isn’t a huge one to celebrate, but last year on his birthday, he had a stroke. So this year was not only to make up for last year, but it’s also a celebration of how far he’s come since the stroke. There were lots of friends I haven’t seen since I was younger than 10 years old. My dad also made a special trip out from Tennessee for the party. My dad made his initial greetings to the kids, then basically ignored them until the last hour we were there, with the exception of a couple of brief interactions. I could write an essay on the issues I have with my father, so I’ll just leave it at “The kids really enjoyed getting a chance to see their Paw-Paw”. All in all, it was a fun day.

Unfortunately, the weekend ended on a bit of a sad note. The Mr’s grandpa is in the hospital, following surgery. He’s going to be okay, we went to visit him today, he seems to be doing well. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go work on my essay a bit. I’m going to try to post here more often, so hopefully I’ll see you guys sometime this week. *waves* Bye!

It’s been a bit

Wow, it’s been a little bit since I last posted anything. Sorry about that, we’ve had a busy week. Let’s see…last Monday, we kept Tank home from school because he wasn’t feeling well. That night we noticed a raised rash of red bumps all over his chest and back. In the morning, there were more, and even more appeared when I stuck him in the bath. It looked for sure like we had a case of chickenpox on our hands. Fortunately for all of us, but especially the Mr, it was not chickenpox. About 2 or 3 weeks before, Tank had a whole bunch of vaccinations he had to catch up on. When we switched him from the old doctor to our family doctor, they either misread his chart or something, and told us we were all up to date on everything. Long story short, in order to continue with school, Tank had to have 6 shots. Apparently 2 of those have side effects of causing rashes a few weeks after injection.

We didn’t find out it wasn’t chicken pox until the end of the week, so he stayed home all week. Let me tell you, I about went crazy. I had to be careful not to take him anywhere, because I didn’t want him getting any other kids infected, which made getting him out to run off his energy quite a chore. Luckily he’s going back today, so yay! He’s been upset about not going to school this week and I could REALLY use the 2 hours to myself.

In other news, we got our tree put up this weekend. It doesn’t sound like much, until you count the fact that I had to take all the kids toys, and cut that in half. I’ve got a pile of toys and books I need to take to Good Will this week. Tank was a big help for the tree. The Mr and I put it together, and put on the tinsel and lights, but Tank did the star about about 1/3 of all the ornaments. Our tree may not be the most elegant looking tree ever, but it was decorated with love. I usually unplug the tree before I go to bed and plug it back in when I wake up. This morning, I was doing some other stuff and simply forgot to plug it in. About 30 minutes after we had woken up, Tank comes up to me saying “I want Christmas tree, please!” He loves that thing. Yesterday, he woke up from his nap, came out, grabbed a box of crackers, and plopped himself down in front of the tree while munching away. Not the tv, the tree. The lights aren’t even the twinkling kind, they just stay on. It’s adorable.

Alright everyone, I have some stuff I have to get done before it’s time for Tank to go to the bus, so I have to go. I’ll be back later. I promise I’ll be better at this now.

I’m Back

Sorry it’s been a bit since I posted. This week has been a bit crazy. Our internet was down for a day, from Thursday to Friday thanks to a mix up. Then we had our show on Friday, ran around on Saturday, and yesterday we were kind of just catching our breath.  It doesn’t help that Tank is fighting a cold. He’s got the fever, cough, all the fun things that go along with being sick, especially this time of year.

We’ve spent the weekend trying to get Tank to a point where he’d be well enough to go to school, but it just isn’t going to happen today. I’m actually about to go call him out .

We also spent the weekend trying to decide if we were going to add to our family. As you may or may not know, we’ve got 1 cat and 2 rats right now. This weekend we were trying to decide if we were going to adopt a cat.  We found one we fell in love with, but decided to hold off for the moment. We’ll think about it for a week or so, then make our decision.

Alright, I’m going to leave you for now. I’m working on my post regarding the show we went to, so stay tuned!

Christmas Elf

So the morning show we listen to, Tim and Willy on KMLE 108, are doing a breakfast show at night this Friday. This is the last year they’ll be doing this, so they’re really trying to make sure those who want to go get to go. Well, one of their listeners, who has been to every BSatN, bought a bunch of tickets and was giving them away for free. Well, the Mr and I have been chosen to receive a pair of those tickets! So on Friday night, thanks to an anonymous Christmas Elf (as she calls herself), we’ll get to go to this show. We’ll get to meet Tim and Willy, David Dean who does the second shift and with whom my husband has a total bromance with, as well Twitter Kim. She’s one of the Twitter friends we have that we’ve never actually met in person. Well, we’ve never met Tim and Willy or David Dean, either. We’re pretty excited! Jordan Sparks and Lauren Alaina will be there, along with a comedian my husband knows of. Apparently it’s all kinds of fun, they’ve got skits and things they do. Most importantly, it’ll be a night the Mr and I have off from the kids, where we can do something outside the house.

Tonight we’re actually doing something, too. If you’re from Arizona, you’ve probably heard of Booksman’s. It’s a local bookstore that buys and sells all kinds of things, like instruments, sporting equipment, music, movies, books, games, etc. Anyway, they’re on Twitter and tonight they’re holding a Tweet-up at their Phoenix location as a thank you to their customers/followers. I’m not sure how many people are actually attending besides the staff, but the Mr, Tank, and I will definitely be there. One, it’ll be nice to get more involved in the Twitter and local community, and two, their our favorite bookstore ever, so of course we want to support them.

Outside of those two things, this week and weekend will be focused on doing a deep clean. You know, one of those where you scrub the walls, the ceiling fan, and the blinds. Yeah, one of those. Anyway, the apartment definitely needs it, especially if we’re going to put our big tree up. I’ve still got to figure out if we’re going to put that up or not. Here’s the thing…I’ve got an area it could go, except there’s a dead tv there. Yes, we’ve got a broken tv taking up a part of our dining room. It died a while ago and, if it was smaller, weighed less, or we weren’t on the second floor, would have been gone long before now. I’m hoping we’ll be able to get it out of here this weekend. We’ve got it sitting on an old comforter that needs to be thrown out, so maybe we can use that. What we could really use is 2 really strong guys to get this out of here. Hey, you know anyone that can help? Ha ha. I’m actually going to see if the complex has a moving dolly we can borrow. With that, we might be able to get it taken care of with just the 2 of us, though both of us will certainly be hurting after moving it.

Question of the Day: What do you have planned for this week and weekend?