Always be yourself...

A little bit longer.

2011-05-11T12:47:00.002-04:00

I logged on to my blog today with the full intention of deleting the whole thing. I have had very little time and even less motivation to keep blogging, and I figured it was time to let it go. Then I started reading it. Even though I may be the only one still checking it, I just didn't have the heart to delete it yet. So here'e to hoping that I can update once in a while, because I still love reading the old ones!

i thought we were past this!

2009-02-18T21:34:00.002-05:00

My sister and a couple of my friends have babies or very young children, so I get to hear the cute baby stories a lot. I also get to hear about the fevers, ear infections, runny noses, puking, etc... Thank goodness my kids are old enough to be past all that, right? HAHAHAHA!
Apparently not!
Maddie has an ear infection! She has had cold symptoms for a few days, starting with a sore throat, then the nasty cough and runny nose. It quickly progresses to and fever and "my ear is plugged!", then this morning it was "my ear HURTS!" Great. At least now she is old enough to tell me it hurts, and where.
My kids don't get sick that often. They get the sniffles once in a while, but they don't get really sick. I think Zack has missed a total of 3 days in the past 3 years of school for actually being sick (add in the orthodontist appointments and that number goes up a little). Maddie is right around the same, but now add another 2 days to that for the past 2 she was off.
Maybe I am just the mean mom, I always make them go to school and they are usually fine and make it the whole day. I have only had to pick Maddie up from school once (maybe twice). I admit, I know I am a lot less sympathetic to their little "owies" and sniffles. I tell them "you're fine! That's nothing! You can handle it." Because I have seen worse, and it's not life-threatening.
But my mom wasn't a nurse, and I don't remember any kisses on my skinned knees either!

my other hockey player

2009-01-17T18:57:00.003-05:00

Maddie had her first hockey game this morning!

We went to Chicago last night to take her grandma (Rick's mom) to see Wicked for her birthday, and instead of staying and spending the day shopping or something we had to drive home at midnight so we would be here for Maddie's game. Oh, well. We didn't want to walk around Chicago in the 2 degree weather anyway.
That meant her grandparents were here for her game though. She had her own cheering section, even if most of us were inside the warming room! She did great, and since she was warmer when she was skating, she kept asking her coach if she could stay out on the ice when they changed lines.

They lost 3-1, but they had fun!

Maddie on the bench

she actually hit the puck a few times!

listening to coach

on the ice, waiting to play

the holidays are over!

2009-01-07T23:53:00.000-05:00

Over the holidays the ER tends to have a problem with our FF's (frequent flyers) coming in even more often. I didn't think it was possible, but yes, they CAN come more often than usual. Maybe they are lonely, maybe their prescription drugs sell for more on the streets over the holidays, maybe they are hypochondriacs, or just the interesting ways all the other psych problems present themselves. So we have seen them all. Repeatedly. Over the past couple of weeks. Seriously people. THE HOLIDAYS ARE OVER! Go back to your usual crazy lives and leave us to take care of ACTUAL sick people!
Some of them are nice, or at the very least polite. They can be easy to care for, and once in a while they may even really be sick. And some of them are rotten miserable wastes of space.
My breaking point? 2 days ago, when one of my favorite FFs (NOT) has a hissy fit when we wouldn't give her a prescription for pain meds. It went something like this:
her: Why won't you give me some Tylenol threes?
me: Because you are on Methadone already, and if you need something else for pain control you need to follow up with your regular doctor. The ER doc told you when you came in that you would not get another prescription today. We treated your pain here.
her: So why you can't give me some motrins?
me: You can buy motrin at any drug store or grocery store. It is an over the counter medicine.
her: I can't buy no damn motrins, I ain't got no money. Why you think I come to the ER?
me: What made you think coming to the ER is free?
her: I don't pay!
me: So you're telling me you are not paying for this visit or the medicine you already got? That's good to know.
her: DO I LOOK LIKE I 'GONA PAY? I ain't gon pay nuthin! And Ima gon be back too!
....and she walks out mumbling about how horribly we treated her and how much she hates us all and how we don't do our jobs and take care of her pain and blah blah blahblahblah.
And of course that she will be back soon! Just hopefully not on my next shift!

we won!

2009-01-03T13:08:00.003-05:00

We all got up early today to go and freeze at the ice rink this morning. It was for a good reason this time! Zack's team won! Last year was a really long season because they lost most of their games. He loves to play, but the season seems to last forever (and so do the rides home) when you never win. This season is much better, but the wins still aren't often enough. So today I have a happy boy, and hopefully the mood lasts. We play again tomorrow. Maybe we should go celebrate today. I think Maddie and I will treat the boys to lunch and a movie.

bah, humbug!

2008-12-22T22:53:00.003-05:00

Every year I get something to try to entice Rick to hang lights or decorate outside for me. For the past 4 years our house has been the Scrooge of the neighborhood, and the only dark house on the block. I keep telling him that I decorate inside, he should decorate outside! Right? Last year I got a little tree that I put up in the front yard that lights up so we would at least have something! This year it lasted a day before it blew over and busted the lights in the star on top. Last year the star broke off entirely and I had to glue it back on so we could put it out again. Well, that worked out well. It is still laying outside on it's side because it is too COLD to go out and set it back up.
So this year I got this little pole that you can clip the light hooks to and hang those on the gutter, then it has a hook you can attach to put the light strings in the gutter hooks. See how easy that sounds? No ladder involved or anything! I think he was protesting me buying it because he wouldn't even carry it in from the car. So do I need to tell you that we have no lights outside again this year? I have all the lights and the hooks in a bag ready to go. I even bought one little extra string of lights to put on the little tree in the landscaping. It is a tiny little tree, and it wouldn't take more than a few minutes to put it up. It is still sitting in a box by the front door. I even tried to talk Zack into putting them on. Granted, I probably should have waited until it was warmer than 4 degrees and not snowing and blowing to ask him, but still! Either one of the guys could have done it by now! Christmas is in 3 days! What will Santa think?

got one!

2008-12-15T23:48:00.000-05:00

We finally got a tree! After asking around and telling people about our Christmas tree problem, we finally got a tree. The place we got it from was pretty nice too! I did hear more than once "You don't have a tree yet?!" when I asked people where to go. And hopefully the place we usually go to is back next year, but if it isn't, we found a new place for back-up. The farm we went to today handed us a cart and a saw and said "the trees are that way". Sheesh! It was a little chilly to be walking far, so we picked one pretty quickly and not far from the barn. I forgot the camera, so I have a few hastily snapped cell phone camera pictures. I had to get a picture of Zack cutting down the tree that his sister picked out.

this is where we started,

and this is what we have so far.

But at least we have a tree!

This was the little cat that followed Maddie through the trees while we were looking. When she told the owner that the cat had followed her and was rubbing on her legs, he seemed surprised and said that he can never get that cat to come to him. Maddie attracts animals and babies. They all love her!

now what do we do?

2008-12-12T17:34:00.002-05:00

We finally went out today to get our Christmas tree. It is difficult to get the whole family together to get one when the place closes at 5:30 on weekdays, and our weekends are pretty much booked. So we actually picked Maddie up a few minutes early from school and went out to the place we go to every year... CLOSED! The sign said closed for the season, see you next year. This shouldn't have been a big deal, but we have been going to the same place every year since we moved here because it is so great! They take us on a little hay ride out to the trees, we walk for a while until we find the one we want and then the guy driving the tractor cuts it. Then he drives us back to the barn where we all have popcorn and hot chocolate while they trim the bottom and shake it off and bind it to tie to the car. Last year we sat in the little barn and talked to the family for a while about how much we loved coming every year to get our tree, and they said it almost wasn't open last year because of health problems of one of the family.
So since we couldn't do our traditional tree hunt, we went to the lot on the corner that has the pre-cut trees. They were crap compared to what we are used to. I guess I have been spoiled, because we walked that whole lot and found nothing worth spending $45 on! And they were all between $40 and $50. Rick is now trying to talk me into a fake tree. It's just not the same! I love the pine smell, and the look and feel of the real thing.
But if we don't find something soon, we may end up with the clearance reject trees that nobody else wants on Christmas eve.
I guess I will have to get up early tomorrow and try again.
Any ideas? Where do you get your tree?

i am a hockey mom... again. but now i have pie.

2008-11-26T23:57:00.000-05:00

Maddie and I got to go shopping today. For hockey equipment.

But this time it wasn't for Zack, my long time (and very expensive) hockey nut, it was for Maddie's gear. She starts on Saturday, and she is very excited about it. And mad at me for having to miss her first 2 practices. Her donna (grandma - long story about the name since her name is Joan) is taking her to her very first practice, and daddy will take her on Sunday. So we had to suit up tonight to practice getting dressed so she can do it herself on Saturday. She still needs help, but I think if we get her hockey pants and under armor shirt on before she goes it should work. Especially since she is supposed to suit up in the locker room with 15 boys (and 2 other girls). She looks so big with all that gear on, I wish I had taken a picture. I will have to get one this weekend. I am just glad she didn't want to be goalie. Those pads are huge! She could barely move with what she had on.

So then to counteract all the boy (looking) stuff we just had to get for my very girly girl, we came home and she baked her first pie. It was cherry, and I haven't decided yet if I will tell her what really happened with the pie. So the official story (for now) is that the pie was perfect and wonderful and we will share that pie - her pie - with everyone tomorrow at Thanksgiving. Really. It didn't have too much filling, and the sides were crimped together just right, and the filling didn't run out all over the sides and burn the sides of the pie while the center was still lily white and lukewarm. Her pie was perfect. And it will be the next time she wants to make one all by herself again. I hope. :-)

snow day!

2008-11-21T17:00:00.002-05:00

Today was the first snow day of the school year. The kids got to stay home and play in the snow all day and play video games and hang out and just be kids. As much as I hate snow and winter and slush and icy roads... I have to say I love snow days. It is the best time for the kids to be kids and act like kids and just play. They throw snow balls and make snow angels and sled down the little mini hill in the front yard, and Maddie even got out the shovel and helped her dad shovel the front walk. (The snowblower broke today) Zack played video games and acted like a teenager, but in 2 months he will be a teenager. (Yikes!)

The bonus to having a snow day on a Friday, they get a nice long weekend and have nothing important to do tonight, and only hockey related stuff this weekend. The only problem? They were home all day while I was trying to sleep (I worked all night). I have become spoiled, when they are in school I can actually sleep in a nice quiet house.
So now here's to hoping they go back to school on Monday. :-)

ahhhh...

2008-11-18T23:50:00.000-05:00

I feel like it is time to stop everything and just take a deep breath...

OK, now back to work. Sheesh!
I have been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the past 3 weeks. Now that I am done with SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) training, I am hoping I can slow down a little. The training has been in Lansing for the last 3 weeks, Mondays and Tuesdays only. So it was broken up a little, but then I had to come right back home and still work my usual shifts in the ER. Maddie has been calling me crying every time I go, Zack has forgotten what I look like, and Rick - well he is stuck home trying to take care of the mess I left behind. I have been so tired when I am home that nothing has been getting done! My house is a disaster! I started to (try to) catch up on the laundry last weekend... so now I have a pile of clean laundry in the living room just waiting to be folded, and a TON of clean and folded laundry on the laundry room counter just waiting for my lovely children to pick them up and put them away! But instead they wonder why clean clothes don't just materialize in their rooms anymore, and I keep hearing "I need clean socks!" Well, go look in the laundry room!
It is (only) times like this when I think I should be working the day shift. It is hard to work for 3 nights, have one off and have to be on a day shift schedule for training for the next 2 days. Once you adjust to nights, it is easy to be up all night and sleep all day. But then I remember all the reasons I stay on nights. I do really like night shift, the clientele are definitely more interesting, and it works out really well so I can be home and sleep while the kids are in school and see them when they get home. Even if I have to go to work right after dinner, it is better than leaving before they get up and getting home just before they have to go to bed. Maybe in a few years when they don't want me around anymore I can switch to days. Just not yet. I have always been a night owl. I go back tomorrow night for 2 nights, then off 2, then back on for ..oh I don't know.
We start on call for the SANE program next month. It should be interesting getting this new program off the ground. It is exciting being in on it from the beginning and having some input on how it works.
But for now I need a few days to RELAX!

i solved it!

2008-11-12T12:43:00.002-05:00

Can you?

I have gotten this e-mailed to me a few times, but never took the time to sit and try to solve it until today.. even though my dad e-mailed it to me this time about a month ago. I was cleaning out old e-mails and stuff, and figured I should actually read them. This was one of them. So now I am so very proud of myself, because it took me forever (I am not saying how long forever is), but I SOLVED it! Yay! I am SO smart! (heehee) Cause it was hard! So if you sit down and solve it in 2 minutes, shut up! I don't want to hear it! :) And if you can't solve it, THANKS!
If you ask real nice, I will give you the answer. And NO FAIR Googling it!

Einstein’s Fish Puzzle

Here’s a puzzle from Coudal Partners, titled "Whose Fish?" supposedly created by Albert Einstein:

This brainteaser, reportedly written by Einstein is difficult and Einstein said that 98% of the people in the world could not figure it out. Which percentage are you in?

There are five houses in a row in different colors. In each house lives a person with a different nationality. The five owners drink a different drink, smoke a different brand of cigar and keep a different pet, one of which is a Walleye Pike.

The question is– who owns the fish?

Hints:
1. The Brit lives in the red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The green house is on the left of the white house.
5. The green house owner drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Malls keeps birds.
7. The owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhills.
8. The man living in the house right in the center drinks milk.
9. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
10. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the one who smokes Dunhills.
12. The owner who smokes Bluemasters drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Princes.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbor who drinks water.

There are no tricks, pure logic will get you the correct answer. And yes, there is enough information to arrive at the one and only correct answer.

blogoversary!

2008-11-07T14:38:00.002-05:00

OMG! How horrible am I? I actually just put that little blog anniversary widget on here a few weeks ago, and then I MISS it! I didn't post anything on my blogoversary date! And sadly, I only have about 70 (something) posts in my one year of posting. So I should have at least 365, right? I need to at least come up with a new look or something...
So happy blogoversary to me!
Oops. Oh, well. Maybe I will post something amazing for the anniversary next year.

trick or treat!

2008-10-30T21:58:00.004-04:00

The kids got all dressed up to go trick or treat tonight. On nights like this I love this neighborhood. One of the neighbors gets out the tractor and trailer and loads up all the kids for a hay ride. The ride picks up all the kids who can jump on, and takes them to the first street in the subdivision where they all unload and hit all the houses on that street. Then they load up again to ride to the next street over. Most of the parents end up walking behind. So all the kids in this neighborhood (there are LOTS!) bring all their friends in from other neighborhoods to trick or treat here. (We went through 7 bags of candy this year!) Grandma and grandpa (Rick's parents) came to walk around with the kids, so of course Zack disappeared with his friends right away. He is way too cool to hang out with his family. Maddie went with her friend Emily with dads and grandma and grandpa following behind, and they both got a ton of candy. Maddie didn't want to carry her little plastic pumpkin to collect the candy this year because it was too small. She took a pillowcase instead. We should have given her candy away to the other kids. We will end up dumping half of it in a month anyway. Sad.
I wish I had thought to take a picture of the hayride, but all I got were a couple of Maddie and Emily before they left, and Zack as he ran out the door. Maddie's dead cheerleader turned out pretty creepy, so of course she loved it. Zack's goofy hat was very appropriate.

Maddie and Emily

Zack aka Goofy

can you see this?

2008-10-29T17:54:00.000-04:00

This was outside my front door a couple of days ago. By the time I grabbed the camera it was already fading, but I think you can get the idea. After all the rainy crappy weather, this was our sign of better weather to come. (At least that is how I took it!)

i am a halloweenie!

2008-10-27T23:21:00.000-04:00

I love Halloween! A friend of ours does a costume party every year, and it is usually a big group of cops, medics and ER nurses and docs drinking too much and acting stupid. This year was no different. It was a lot of fun, mostly just for the dress up part. I went as Marilyn Monroe, and Rick - who REFUSED to dress up until the last minute - went as a hunter. In a camouflage jacket and jeans. Creative, huh? I wanted to be something a little spookier, but I had to keep in mind that I needed something warm to wear since the party is held in a garage.
Maybe I get too into the costumes and decorations, but it is the only time of the year I get to be somebody else (so I have to pick somebody good!). And I love "spookifying" the house, but I barely had any time this year. I have all kinds of great decorations... in the basement. I have to try to clean and decorate everything tomorrow. Last year it was so windy that my witch broke, and the pumpkin candles I had to line the walk all blew over. This year is not looking good so far. The past few days have been windy and rainy and nasty. I have my hopes up though. The forecast isn't too horrible. (Did I just jinx it?)
The kids have their costumes, and their big plans for trick or treat on Thursday. Yes, that's right. I said Thursday. Our town, in it's infinite wisdom, (and football frenzy) has decided to move the trick or treating to Thursday night so it doesn't interfere with the Friday night football playoffs! So Zack can trick or treat (so he says) AND still go to the football game with his friends the next night. I am wondering about the trick or treat part. The boy better come home with some candy. His costume is a Goofy hat, and whatever he happens to be wearing that day. I told him that the neighbors will be watching him, and his little sister hears everything (and won't keep secrets) so it will be difficult for him to get do anything without getting caught. (I was going to say it will be difficult for him to get into trouble, but I think that will be easy if he wants to!)
Maddie is going as a dead cheerleader, with the black outfit and gloves and pom-poms. Now she wants the makeup too, so she really looks dead. That's my girl!

halloween party pictures

2008-10-27T23:20:00.003-04:00

me and my hunter

Chicago marathon runner, Pirate, Notre dame football fan, Marilyn, Pebbles, Dolly

Dolly Parton, Cowgirl, Marilyn Monroe, 80's girl, Pirate, Cowgirl, and Velma

After that, I left my camera on a table and when I picked it back up I had a bunch of stuff like this:

there were about 20 of these, and I although they were entertaining, I didn't know half the people in them!

we'll miss you uncle jerry

2008-10-13T21:53:00.004-04:00

My uncle Jerry died Saturday morning. He died in Hospice House of Holland of cancer. By the time he passed, his cancer was everywhere, but he fought it to the very end.
We love you uncle Jerry, and we will miss you.

i almost forgot

2008-10-12T00:41:00.003-04:00

I promised Libby I would send these to her because they turned out so cute! But then I figured I could share them with everybody, since they are SO cute!
So here ya go Lib! Some really cute pictures of your girls!

We think she was trying to do the splits here. She came pretty close!

Teagan and Kyra (I like this one the best!Teagan looks like she is leaning on Kyra, and Kyra has a more natural smile)

Kyra and Teagan

nice relaxing weekend... maybe next week

2008-10-11T23:40:00.003-04:00

I was going to try to have a nice relaxing weekend this week. I had Friday and Saturday night off, we had plans for Friday night and nothing set for today except hockey practice in the afternoon.
My kids had other plans. I knew we'd have to run around a lot yesterday. We had to go right from school to hockey (Rick and Zack) and guitar lessons (me and Maddie), and then Rick and I were supposed to go out for a friend's birthday. (Happy Birthday Tom!) That didn't work out so well. Zack decided he HAD to spend the night at his friend's house after hockey and Rick had a brain fart and let him go. So there goes our babysitter. Maddie is still home. She was supposed to go to a friend's house and spend the night, but then that fell through at the last minute too. I told Rick he should have brought the boys here to spend the night, they could have babysat. He said that they had decided to spend the night HERE on Saturday night instead. This was just after Maddie had told me that since Caitlin couldn't have her over Friday night, she was going to come here Saturday instead. Oh, and by the way, since Caitlin is coming over, can Sierra spend the night too? And Malloree?
So now not only was I stuck home on what was supposed to be our night out last night, I have 6 (yes I said SIX) kids in my house tonight. And it isn't a birthday, not a party, it is not a special occasion, ...except for maybe the fact that I have officially lost my mind. They are finally (mostly) quiet. I gave the giggling girls another "shush", and told the boys the video game goes off at midnight.
Thank goodness it was nice out today. They played outside for most of the afternoon, and then we fed them and sent them upstairs. The girls were playing dress-up until I told them to get ready for bed - which took another 30 minutes, and now are winding down.
Now I am just afraid of morning. When they all have energy again.

thought for the day

2008-10-08T15:16:00.000-04:00

All work and no play makes Amy a crabby girl.
More later (when I am not so crabby).

14 years!

2008-09-25T15:35:00.003-04:00

Yesterday was our 14th wedding anniversary. Or as Rick says: "It seems like forever!"
Just kidding, honey! But we have officially been together longer than we were apart.
We met when I was 15 and he was 17 at a teen dance club in Holland. It was the beginning of the summer, he was just graduating from high school and I had just finished my sophomore year. I didn't like him at first. He was cute, but he was acting like a dork. He asked me to dance and then stepped on my feet (on purpose!) the whole time. He says it was to keep my attention on him. But then his friend started dating my friend. Since Rick was the only one with a car, his friend would ask him to drive him to our town from his town 30 miles away so he could see his girlfriend. She would call me so Rick wasn't a third wheel, and we would all hang out. Then it progressed to Rick dropping his friend off and coming to my house, then he started to come to see me without bringing his friend at all. The first summer we were together, he drove into my town almost every day.

We have been together ever since. (Thanks Angie and Anthony! We owe you guys, wherever you are now)
So, Rick, through moving and college and new jobs and babies, I will always love and appreciate you. Thank you for 14 wonderful years.

Happy Anniversary honey! I love you!
(Where do you think we'll be in another 14?)

P.S. Our niece Kyra's birthday is the same day. Happy Birthday Kyra!

here we go again...

2008-09-23T21:42:00.002-04:00

Maddie got her spacer today, and the official start to her years of braces. Lucky girl. Zack has had his for 2 years and is (hopefully) almost done but we still have a rather large balance to be paid on his account, so now we get to double it and start paying for Maddie's! Yay!
I had to reschedule Maddie's appointment from yesterday because it was at 11:00am and of course I overslept. I had every intention of making it when we made the appointment. Or at least making Rick take her. Then my wonderful husband tells me (the night before!) that he has to go in to work and won't be home until at least noon. So you fellow night-shifters will understand this. I had to get my butt up at 10:15 (which is like normal people getting up at 2am after going to bed at 11pm) to pick Maddie up from school by 10:40 to make it to the orthodontist by 11. Maddie calls me at 10:50 and says "Mom! Where are you?"
Ummm. Sleeping, why?
Oops.
So I called the orthodontist and told them we were going to be really late, and the very sweet, excellent wonderful receptionist says "Let's just reschedule for tomorrow afternoon." My new friend.
The appointment was moved to this morning, and Maddie was so excited to get braces to show off to her friends, but only got a spacer on the inside of her bottom teeth - barely visible. Poor Maddie. She gets the sore mouth and almost nothing to show off. But she will show you anyway, if you ask. So tonight I get to listen to a lot of whining about sore teeth and "I don't want braces if they are going to hurt!" (Suck it up little girl. I did it for 4 years.) And we get to pay for the orthodontist's new boat!

guess where I am going!

2008-09-16T23:50:00.000-04:00

I bought our tickets to Spamalot this week! I can't wait. The tickets are for the show in South Bend in January for the "North American Tour", but at least I don't have to go all the way to New York to see it. I have been telling Rick since I found out the show was going to be close by that we were going to go. So when I bought the tickets, it was no big surprise to him. The surprise part? He saw a commercial for the show shortly after I bought the tickets, and told me, "I didn't know it was a musical!"

zack got his hair cut!

2008-09-15T08:19:00.001-04:00

The week before school started Zack decided (finally!) to get his hair cut. He has been growing it out for about the past 3 years, and for the last 2 we have been "making" him at least trim it. I have told him that it is his hair, and if that is what he wants to do with it, fine, but we need to at least keep it trimmed out of his face. He refused to cut it until just before school started. It may have had something to do with the fact that he had so much hair that his hockey helmet was too tight, and when he put it on he couldn't keep the hair out of his eyes. It may have been Rick and I asking him over and over when he was going to cut his hair... it may have been the guys that Rick works with telling Zack he has pretty hair. I don't know. I guess he was just ready. So I made an appointment for my haircut, and as I was leaving I asked Zack if he wanted to go and he could get his cut too. He had been saying maybe soon for the past few weeks, so I thought he would still say "No", or "not yet." He said, "sure."
I almost fell down, but I took him with me and he got his cut.

Now nobody recognizes him!

My baby went from this:

8-25-08

To this:

8-28-08

labor day camp out

2008-09-03T23:38:00.000-04:00

The annual Labor Day camp out was this week! My dad has been getting the grandkids all together every year to spend the night at my grandma's farm the night before, and then we have our big cookout on Labor Day. So again this year we packed up the tent and sleeping bags... and dropped off the kids!

My dad has been teasing me for not sleeping there, but I have really good reasons every year! Mostly the whole sleeping outside on the ground thing. So Rick and I hang out the night before and then go home and sleep and come back with food the next day. At least we bring food!

My sisters have been staying every year. Kirsten (the brave) sleeps in a tent - well at least now she does. We got her a tent for her birthday after last year's really funny drama. She and her husband (with a couple of kids in there by morning) slept under a tarp strung between a tree and a pole. And had bugs crawling on them that kept waking them up! Ewww! Libby has taken over the couch, and her hubby the floor next to her. Dad sleeps in the recliner in the sunroom, and this year our cousins threw a mattress in the back of their truck and slept there. I did stay last year. In a tent. On the ground. It sucked.
I am not a morning person anyway, so waking up at the butt crack of dawn with sun in my face and kids yelling and the tent wet (dew) and my face swollen (allergies) really sucked. I figure I did my time. Maybe next year I will... naw. Who am I kidding? I will just try to get there earlier the next morning and bring more food.

This is the 2 kids tents (foreground) and Kirsten's tent in the back.

My sis Kirsten with Teagan - dad in the background.
The camper behind dad is where most of the kids sleep, but the older cousins are too cool to sleep with the younger ones now so the big kids were in the tents.

Me with Teagan. This is how I spent my days there. (This or eating.) She is one spoiled baby!

Zack and one of his cousins by the pool

Rick torturing one of the kids

Kirsten - Zack took this picture. Not bad, eh?

Libby - Zack again. She would never make that face at me!

Maddie with one of the kids on the swingset.

happy birthday to my honey!

2008-09-01T12:37:00.001-04:00

Rick's birthday was yesterday. I won't tell you how old he is, but just know that this is the birthday where he is finally saying "I can't believe I am __". Heehee. I have been doing that for the past 4 years, and I am still younger than him!
He didn't want to do anything special for his birthday, and so when I didn't plan anything, he kept saying "What are we gonna do?" Remind me NOT to listen to him next year. Then he told me he wanted a specific gift, but not where to get it. So I didn't. He asked me if the kids wanted him home at a certain time so he could open his present with them. HAHAHAHA! Yeah, sure honey. BTW, your present is still at the store. You just need to tell me WHICH store it is at.

I wish I could post baby pictures of him like I did of the kids, cause I have seen them and he was a CUTE baby. Maybe I will have to try to hunt some down. I do, however, have this one...Can you guess which one is Rick?
I will give you a hint: his number is not the same as his age ... yet.

Happy birthday honey! I love you!

silver lake!

2008-08-27T18:03:00.006-04:00

This was the first picture of the week at Silver Lake. Maddie is queen of the sand dune!

Silver Lake was beautiful this year! We have been going up there every year for as long as I can remember, and every year we have one or 2 days of cold or rain or something so we sit in the cottage and do nothing or go up to Pentwater and hang out. This year we spent the whole week on the lake. It was sunny and warm every day until the day we left, and then we were packing and leaving anyway.
The only glitch was my wonderful new camera, that I was so excited to use up there because there are so many opportunities for great beach pictures and pics of the kids... well stupid me forgets the battery charger. The battery died on the 3rd day. But I had the old (point and shoot) in the car, so I did get a few more on the following days but it just wasn't the same.
I did get some great pictures of the kids though.

We went fishing and they both caught little sunfish.

Zack with his fish. Uncle Bob in the background. (He caught a little fish too)

This picture really makes me laugh. Zack just hit the ball, and Rick looks afraid or something. This was taken in the front yard of the cottage we stayed in.

Lynzee loved the dunes. She could run around and chase the kids and the seagulls. I think she lost 5 pounds while we were up there. Too bad I didn't!

vacation!

2008-08-16T07:48:00.001-04:00

We leave for Silver Lake today! Yay! I will post pictures when we get back, but I plan to be totally unreachable for the next week. That, and my cell phone gets NO service up there. (Rick's does though. heehee)

the fair!

2008-08-12T21:15:00.005-04:00

The fair is in town!
I remember it was a lot more fun when I was a kid. We would go as soon as the rides opened up for the day, get the wristband (for something like $6) and ride until we had done everything 3 or 4 times. But that was back when I could ride my bike to the fairgrounds with a friend and spend the whole day. We were just blocks from the fairgrounds, so it counted as staying in my own neighborhood, and as long as I was home before dark, mom was OK with that. Seems strange now. I have a hard time even letting my 12 year old go off with his friends, and then only if he has his cell phone on and they promise to stay together.
I took Zack and his cousin last night, and we are all going again tomorrow and taking the girls. So that means me following a bunch of kids from one ride to the next for a few hours, standing there until they get done and then buying them a bunch of junk food.
Why does that not sound like fun?
Maybe I will get myself a wristband and go on all the rides with them. I think my little pre-teens would die of embarrassment. That alone might be worth the cost of the wristband, and the (probably) 2 or 3 rides I could do without risk of upchucking.

little bit of...

2008-08-06T03:29:00.007-04:00

Oh my gosh! I have been gone for so long! Sorry!
So here is a little bit of everything to get you caught up:

My birthday was at the end of June, (Happy birthday to me!) and we went to Grand Rapids to get together with my (and Rick's) best friends from high school. Mine showed up, Rick's didn't. We went to the piano bar and then for a few drinks and dancing afterwards. I had SO much fun, and it was really nice to see Stacy again. Her birthday is exactly a week after mine, so were celebrating both. Thankfully, she is just as old as I am! Rick's friend called us about 2 hours after he was supposed to meet us to tell us he (they - he and his wife) weren't going to make it. (The line from Sixteen Candles : "Nice manners, babe!" keeps popping into my head here.) Anyway, this is me and Stacy:

You will have to forgive the crappy picture. It was a cell phone pic in a dark club so it's kinda hard to see.
I also got my new camera. Digital SLR is harder to play with than I thought. I am a little out of practice, and I haven't figured out all the settings yet but it is fun to play with. So you can expect more pictures on here when I finally get the time.
This summer is going so fast! It seems like I just turned my back for one second and all the sudden it was August! OK, so let me see what else I can cover here.
Rick and I actually both had the 4th of July off this year, so we went down to the fireworks with Rick's parents and the kids. A friend of ours has a birthday on July 3rd, so that night we were down at his place for the fireworks in their town. He has a big birthday bash there every year, and then the town is nice enough to set off the fireworks just for him right across the street. (Not really. That town always has their fireworks on the 3rd and he is just lucky)

The kids also got to go to Michigan Adventure with their grandparents in July. My little chicken girl even went on a couple of the big rides with grandpa. Of course Zack and his cousin did all the big roller coasters, and now they all want to go to Cedar Point. We may have to save that for next year though. We are rapidly running out of summer!
We went to the Venetian Festival a couple of times (Wine tasting - yum! But note to self: EAT before you go and drink 3 big glasses of wine if you don't want to make an ass of yourself!) I love Venetian, and I really have only been going for the food, but I heard the bands were pretty good this year. The fireworks (which are supposed to be better than July 4th's) were canceled due to weather. So the fireworks next year should be great!

Last week Rick managed to get a big chunk of metal in his eye while he was working on his car. (It was actually tiny, but I am sure it felt huge by the way his eye looked!) So I get home from work at 7:30 in the morning and he says "Do you see anything in my eye?" YES! Jeez!
He had gone to bed with his eye really irritated thinking that whatever it was would wash itself out. He rinsed it a few times and even tried to wash it in the shower with no luck. So I told him I would take him in to the ER as soon as I got a few hours of sleep since I had to be in to work that night too. (It was Saturday, so no eye doc open) He says "NO. Now."
OK, so the eye is really hurting, right? We get there and he refuses all pain meds, even after they stick a big needle in his eye to get the metal out. And of course when we leave, all I hear is how bad the eye hurts! He will never learn! So we ended up in the eye doctor's office anyway - the ER called him in when they couldn't get the whole thing out. His eye is much better now. The eye doc removed almost all of it and told him that the eye would heal around what was left, or he would start to feel it again when the eye tries to push it out, then he would have to go back to get the rest removed. So he did the antibiotic drops and a day or so of pain meds (he gave in finally) and is back to normal. He is even back working on his car again.

We went up to grandma's to swim this weekend, and my (step)sister Nicole and her husband are here visiting my mom and step-dad from Canada so we went to meet them too. Nicole had her baby (Caitlin) back in November and I hadn't met her until this past Saturday. Her girls are so beautiful!

This is Nicole and Troy with their girls. They are coming down to visit here before they go back to Canada. We have lived here for 4 years now and they still have never seen our house. Yikes! Good reason to clean it then, huh?Nic and Troy, Alyssa and Caitlin

Maddie with Alyssa. She loves babysitting, so hopefully by the time she is old enough to really do it she still likes it!
(Mom and Libby in the background)

Libby with Teagan

at grandma's pool just before we went to see Nic and Troy

little Caitlin! She smiles for the camera! She is so cute! (she and Teagan are the same size even though Cait is 9 months old and Teagan is 5 months)

I think I have summed up the entire month of July at this point. Of course I did manage to work about 3 days a week for the whole thing - which was still more than I had planned on working for the summer. That is the way it always seems to work out. I say I am going to cut back or take time off and I end up there anyway. I hope you all are having a great summer! And I will try to keep updating as much as I can. (As soon as it gets cold, I will be back on here all the time!)

relay for life

2008-06-23T19:43:00.006-04:00

This past Saturday was our county's annual American Cancer Society Relay for Life. We've been joining our friend's team for the past 6 (7?) years. Yikes! I don't know how long we have been on the team, but I can tell you that we have been doing it since the team started. Zack's friend Josh was diagnosed with Leukemia when he was 3. He is now 12 and cancer free! We have been joining his team every year to raise money for the ACS, and show our support for everyone who works so hard to put this event together and make it such a huge success! Josh's team did really well this year and raised more than $46,000! to contribute to the Relay total of just over $500,000 so far.

They really work to make this a fun event for everyone, and the kids love to go. It is almost like a fair. They have events like the ice cream eating contest, tug of war (these are both big ones for our team), pajama contests, dance and lip sync and karaoke contests, and this year they added a "Womanless Woman" contest for Miss Womanless relay. It was a bunch of guys in drag. They were so funny!

The event lasts for 24 hours, and goes from 10am on Saturday to 10am on Sunday. The kids both wanted to stay up all night, so we stayed. Zack made it to 6am, Maddie fell asleep around 3 - in a chair at the tent. Zack walked the track for a lot of the time we were there, Maddie found all the toys and places to play. And they both found ice cream and smoothies and other junk food.

Zack (the anchor) in the kids tug of war. 1st place!

The guy's tug of war (Rick is the anchor). We got 2nd place on that one.

Maddie (middle) kids team 2 tug of war.
She went to play on the bouncy toys behind her afterwards.

Miss Womanless woman. I think his name was Barbara or something like that.

Maddie made this Luminaria for Grandpa L. who died of lung cancer about 6 years ago. I didn't even know she made it until she told me she couldn't find it when they were all lit with candles inside them. I wish I had a picture of all of them lining the walkways. There are thousands of them, and they are so pretty lighting the walkway at night.

The team had a great year again this year, and the kids had a lot of fun out at Relay. Thanks Kelly and Kevin for all your hard work to put all this together and keep the team going. Now you can breathe... and start all again for next year!

Maddie's birthday!

2008-06-19T23:41:00.009-04:00

My baby girl turned 10 today. I wanted to start this on her birthday, but it may not actually make it to the blog today. I have to go find some baby pictures.

So this is what I came up with:

Maddie was about 2 days old here. Her first day or so she looked very beat up and swollen, so we didn't share many of those. It's funny, because she looked more beat up than her brother did, and he was the one who was the much more difficult delivery.

This is my baby at about 3 months old. It was always easy to get a smile from her..

or a tear.

I think she was around a year old here. She loved to color - on anything. Especially herself. I think Zack "helped" to show her how to do that.

This was Maddie's first day of preschool. Isn't she adorable? She was SO excited to start school! He backpack was almost as big as she was! *

This was on the ferry going to Mackinac Island when she was about 4. I love this picture! She and her brother look so cute!

This is Maddie right before her dance recital 2 years ago, but before we put the stage make up on. She loved the lipstick, but wasn't crazy about the pancake make up they all had to wear.

And my baby girl at her 10th birthday party. She is in the blue pajamas in the middle. She had her sleepover after the water balloon and squirt gun water fight. Then we did s'mores out by the camp fire, and a pillow fight in the tent before (mean old) mom (me) made them go upstairs to sleep.

Happy birthday Maddie!,
Love, mom

*It was 9/11/01. I remember watching the planes crash into the twin towers from the lobby of the preschool, and again from Zack's school office.

it's june!!!

2008-06-03T23:38:00.002-04:00

It's finally June! This is the month when I finally start thinking summer is here. The kids are out of school, the sun is out, the mustang is clean and ready to roll (with the top down, of course) and the entire month is BOOKED!

Why do the summer months fill up so fast? It seems like every time we try to make plans, it is 3 to 4 weeks in advance if we want to fit it in to June, July or August. The entire month of June is booked already. We have NO weekend time left. Do people who work office jobs with normal hours book up this fast? I wonder if we would have any time free on the weekends if we didn't have to fit a few work shifts in there?
The saving grace of the shift work is that when all those people with "normal" schedules are at work in the middle of the week, we are home resting, sleeping, getting yard work done or playing. Now if it would just stop raining on all my days off!

We met up with my sister last weekend to do the kid hand off (not my kids - hers. Custody thing - long story) and I just happened to have my camera with me so I could get some pictures of how BIG Teagan is getting!

The color was bad on this next picture, but I had to include it anyway. It is the one that really shows the hair sticking up.

i meant to post this on Mother's day...

2008-05-16T16:42:00.000-04:00

We had a great trip up to Silver Lake for Mother's Day. It was my uncle's present (sort of) to his mom and sisters, and all the nieces benefited too.

We went up on Saturday night and visited a while and walked by the lake. My uncle took a bunch of pictures of the kids by the lake that I am still waiting to see. The kids found a tree that was tipped over and cut off, so it was a huge stump with the roots sticking up out of the ground. They decided that it was a good climbing tree, in spite of the fact that most of it was hanging out over the lake... so if they had slipped they would have ended up IN the lake. I would really love to see those pictures (hint, hint Uncle Robert!)

I did manage to get a couple of pictures:

this is all the girls on Mother's day
l to r: Andrea, grandma, me, Libby with Teagan, Kirsten, Maddie and mom

grandma and grandpa at breakfast

even the dogs had someone to play with

Aunt Karen (in the hat), mom

Jason and Libby with Teagan on the couch

Thanks uncle Bob and Andi for the great weekend!

have i told you yet how much i love summer?

2008-05-06T23:44:00.000-04:00

Today was a beautiful day! I actually got up early* (sort of) and sat out in the sun with my book and got sunburned! It was 80 degrees when I checked the temp around 3pm. Perfect summer weather for spring. So of course Rick complained that it was too hot. I know he does it because I am always complaining that it is too cold, but he still makes me laugh.
The kids are ready for summer. They came home for all of 2 minutes to drop off the backpacks and then were right back outside to play. All the neighborhood kids were outside, and it seemed like the whole neighborhood got out of work early today and mowed their lawns. By 5 or 5:30, all you could hear was lawnmower motors. Before that it was just the screaming (laughing) kids, the barking dogs (because all the other dogs were out too), and the little scooters racing up and down the street. Days like this I love our neighborhood. It was a day like this that convinced us to move here. We had driven through here a few times, and it was a brand new subdivision with no trees, very new houses with little landscaping, and no personality. It was a cold stark neighborhood. Then we came down on a warm Saturday afternoon. There were families walking with strollers, kids on bikes and rollerblades, kids on swing sets and trampolines...it was perfect. It gave this boring looking neighborhood some potential. There were kids everywhere, and all the families out walking waved at us as we drove by. They didn't know us, we didn't live here yet. They waved anyway, just being friendly.
Of course we still have no mature trees... We are working on it.

* I worked last night, so early for me was 2pm. I think that was pretty good since usually Zack wakes me up when he gets home at about 3:15. I am really going to be in trouble when they are home all day. I have a feeling that for summer vacation, 2pm will be sleeping late.

there are seizures and there are "seizures"

2008-05-06T23:25:00.002-04:00

Another busy night in the ER last night. We made a particular friend in the drunk driver brought in by our local PD. So just to be helpful, in case you ever find yourself in her situation, I have posted the following:

Just a few little tips for all you seizure fakers out there:
If you want to be really convincing when you fake your next seizure,
1) Don't have your very first seizure ever as you are about to be carted off to jail
2) Don't "wake up" immediately afterwards and say "what happened? did I have a seizure?" (we will tell you NO!)
3) Wet your pants. The great majority of people who have those tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizures do. And it is great entertainment for us if you have to go to jail (after abusing the nursing staff) with wet pants/underwear.
4) Don't wear a skirt and conveniently manage to keep your legs together the entire time.
5) Don't try to hit the nurse and pretend it wasn't a purposeful movement.
6) Don't reach over and grab on to the side of the bed while you are "seizing" so we can't reposition you
7) Don't try to have your "seizure" right after you have a pretend panic attack, then tell us you can't breathe (yet you can scream insults and obscenities at the nurses), then that you can't move your arms (except to swing at the nurse and try to pry off the handcuffs), then that you can't walk. You are more likely to stay in the ER instead of jail if you pick one thing wrong with you and stick to it.
8) Don't do it on the night the jail doc is working the ER. He has seen it (and you) before.
Hahahahaha!
Hope that helps!

wow! where have i been?

2008-04-28T23:05:00.000-04:00

I really didn't mean to take such a big break from blogging. I guess trying to get back into work/school routines has made me lazy. It was so nice to have a vacation (and be awake during the day!) that once I actually had to work again I think I had to shock my body back into the night shift. Now we got the night shift sleep/wake schedule down - just in time for summer vacation! Say goodbye to the nice quiet days to sleep. In just a few short weeks the kids will be home ALL day. So they can play and be loud and wreck the house and eat all the food (and give it away to all the neighborhood kids!) and ... When does school start again?

I am really not complaining . I LOVE summer! I love having the kids home. I love getting up and not having to put on boots and a coat just to let the dog out*. I love being able to throw on some shorts and take a nap in the backyard on my sun chair. I love cooking out and sitting out on the deck to eat dinner. I love having a free afternoon and just throwing a towel and a book (and a couple of kids with boogie boards) into the car and laying on the beach for a few hours. I love walking downtown and getting ice cream and sitting on the swing on the bluff with my husband and just watching the people and the boats and the water. I love the nights out on the deck with the fire in the fire pit and friends dropping by to sit and talk.
I wonder all the time why we have not moved to someplace warmer yet. I have been trying to talk Rick into moving to Florida for 3 or 4 years now. I hate the winter and the cold and the slush, but reading just now what I wrote about summer makes me realize that I love summer HERE. I love summer in this town, with our friends and family. It wouldn't be the same anywhere else.
I just wish it lasted longer!

*We are trying to get the dog to go to the bathroom around the side of the house instead of DIRECTLY in front of the front porch. She has been killing all the grass and it looks terrible! So now we have to walk out with her and show her where to go potty. Hopefully she will have it down by the time it starts to get cold again!

spring fever... finally!

2008-04-06T15:33:00.003-04:00

It finally feels like spring around here! I have been cleaning all day, so I guess the spring cleaning bug finally got me. I never thought I would say that. We got home from vacation yesterday morning, and I started cleaning yesterday afternoon (after a nice looong nap). I am still debating about whether or not I want to go out and clean the windows and screens. I don't think it is quite warm enough yet, especially after the 80 degree weather we got to enjoy all last week. Somehow 60 degrees isn't as exciting as it would have been a week ago.
I went outside to walk the dog and take some nice spring pictures of my house/yard to post on here. I just realized... my house is UGLY in the spring. My yard is not green and pretty yet, my (3) trees are not green yet - they look like little brown sticks someone stuck in my yard, and I have no flowers yet. So I didn't take any pictures. You will have to take my word for it that it is nice and sunny and warm here. The kids are all outside playing, my house is nice and quiet and I have no interruptions of my cleaning... wait. That is not a good thing.
(Good thing I took a break to check my e-mail and blogs!)

Florida!

2008-04-05T23:58:00.004-04:00

The weather was fabulous, the kids are spoiled rotten, and we had a great time in Florida. Here is a small sample of our trip:

We started at SeaWorld. We had never been there and had heard about how great it was. We had to go see Shamu!

and Shamu... (that is Zack sitting down front with his hat on backwards - the kids wanted to get wet, the parents didn't.) The kids chose seats that said "Soak Zone" on the back of them. They got their wish. The whales (there were 4 in the show we saw) went around the arena and splashed the first few rows all the way around.

This is one of the "photo spots" at Sea World. I don't think we did it right though. You are probably supposed to be able to see the ride behind us. I forget what it was called... but you can see part of the roller coaster that the kids were too chicken to ride. (It was "Kracken", and it did look pretty wicked) We talked Maddie into riding "Journey to Atlantis" by telling her it was a water ride and leaving out the "roller coaster" part. She liked it except for the part where she couldn't breathe (dropping down the big hill into the water). I wish I had bought the picture they took of us going over the top of that hill - it was so classic Maddie! Her face was priceless! Her eyes were wide open, so was her mouth! You could tell she was screaming.

Of course we had to eat at Rainforest Cafe after our day at Animal Kingdom. That was a really great day too. It would have been a perfect day for the water park, but we had done that the day before and had all gotten sunburned (so we all wore hats the next day). And Maddie and I got soaked on the Kali River Rapids ride anyway, so it was almost like we did do a water park that day!

The new SeaWorld water park Aquatica is SO cool! Behind Maddie is one of the dolphins (I forget what kind they are, but they are really pretty black and white) that swims around the "Dolphin Plunge" water slide. You can see the tube that runs through the pool the dolphin is in. That is part of the ride. You slide down there past the dolphins. And the lazy river goes underneath a bridge that has an aquarium in it. It had a rapid lazy river too. The kids rode that most of the day. You can put on a life vest and float in it, or just try to swim or keep up with it. The other lazy river (the slow one) you use an inner tube. We borrowed Zack's friend Emil for that day because he just happened to be visiting family in a nearby Florida town. So the boys got to hang out during Spring Break even though they were 1100(ish) miles from home. And Maddie did almost all of the water slides - even the big ones and the ones that started out in the dark! The biggest slides we ended up doing over and over until we got too tired to keep up with her!

The whole sunburned family - even Emil. This was just as the weather started to turn. We were supposed to get a big storm that night and they shut down the rides just as we were getting ready to leave. It was about an hour before closing. We never did get the storm, but it looked really scary for a little while. I love Florida in spring. It looks like rain for a few minutes, then goes away. Or it rains when the sun is shining. It did rain for about 5 minutes that day, then the sun came back out.

This day WAS cloudy most of the day. It didn't rain until about 8pm, but it looked like it was going to, so we went to Downtown Disney and Disney Quest. The sea monster behind us is made entirely of Legos. They had a lego dinosaur and family too. Downtown was pretty, but the kids (Rick included) really liked Disney Quest. It is just a big video game and virtual reality place. The kids built their own roller coasters and rode them in a simulator, battled comic book villains with a light saber in virtual reality, and played every imaginable video game from old Pac Man and Space Invaders to the new race track and flying games that I don't know the names of (NO quarters!). So it was a fun rainy day place.

My beautiful family at our resort pool. We should frame this for a new family photo. I am so proud.

i'm baaaaack!

2008-04-05T14:42:00.002-04:00

We had a wonderful time in sunny and HOT Florida this past week! We took the kids to Disney for Spring Break now that they are old enough to do everything and remember it! I will have some great pictures to share, and more to post later. Apparently I have missed a lot, and now have some phone calls to make. We drove home yesterday and last night. Even though we said we were going to stop around halfway, by the time we got tired we were making such good time (Rick's words) that "we just can't stop now!" So we drove straight through. From Florida. 19 hours. Yeah, that was fun. And no matter what anyone says about sleeping in the car, IT IS NOT POSSIBLE! It is SO uncomfortable to try to sleep in the front seat! So we got home at about 6 this morning and went right to bed. I haven't even checked my mail (or e-mail) yet, and I have lots more to unpack! (one good thing about staying in a condo though - I did all the laundry as we went and have only a few things to catch up on.) So I will update later!

for Libby

2008-03-15T01:52:00.004-04:00

During childbirth, Libby separated her symphysis pubis. She has what the radiologist described as (from what I remember) "a mild symphysis pubis diastasis, consistent with vaginal delivery". So she is still in the hospital, and is unsure when she will be going home. She has started physical and occupational therapy, and is only able to get up to the bathroom at this point with a walker and some assistance (and some narcotics). So I looked up some information, talked to some people... etc. I found this nice little summary on the Yahoo health page:

Separated pubic symphysis

The left and right bones of your pelvic girdle are joined at the front by a narrow section of cartilage and ligament. This is called the pubic symphysis, or symphysis pubis. As the pelvic bones loosen during pregnancy, the pubic symphysis can temporarily separate. Although this is not a dangerous condition, it can be painful.

You can feel the pubic symphysis by pressing on your lower front pelvic bone, just above your genital area. Your health professional can tell when it is separated or misaligned simply by pressing on it. During pregnancy and after childbirth, you can realign your pubic symphysis by lying back on your elbows and squeezing a pillow between your raised knees. This is likely to temporarily relieve pain and pressure.

A separated pubic symphysis can take 3 to 8 months to heal on its own. For most women with this condition, pain or discomfort lingers for about 2 months after childbirth.

(from Yahoo health web page)
http://health.yahoo.com/pregnancy-resources/recovery-from-pelvic-bone-problems-after-childbirth/healthwise--tn9120.html

Hopefully she will be discharged home within the next few days, and won't need too much help around the house. Poor Jason is going directly from the hospital to work and back. From what it sounds like, he has had about 5 or 6 hours of sleep total for the past few days. Kirsten and I have both been in and out to give Jason nap breaks, and I think mom is planning on being around for the better part of next week.

I also found this from an SPD resource group in New Zealand:

General tips for symptomatic relief:
1) Use a pillow or cushion between your knees when sleeping
2) Use a pillow under your tummy (in pregnancy) when sleeping
3) Keep your legs close together and parallel when moving, turning over in bed, getting in
and out of cars etc.
4) Satin sheets or nightwear may make it easier to turn over in bed
5) When standing, stand with weight evenly distributed through both legs
6) Move slowly and without sudden movements – taking extra care not to slip or trip up
7) Sit down to put on underwear, socks and pants
8) Avoid “straddle” movements
9) Avoid heavy lifting, twisting movements and any other movements you know will hurt
you e.g. vacuuming can often be a problem
10) Icepacks over the painful joint may reduce inflammation. Use painkillers as necessary,
in moderation
11) Stretching the hamstrings can be helpful for sciatica. Use a stirrup (long piece of rope
or a belt) around your foot to reduce the strain on your back. Stretch hamstrings
gradually
12) Use some kind of pelvic support. Some women find that maternity belts work well, but
if your pelvic bones are misaligned this can increase the pain. Supports with a little
more ‘give’ e.g. an elasticised sacro-iliac support belt or similar may be more helpful
13) If sex is uncomfortable for you, try different positions e.g. lying on your side with your
back to your partner and a cushion between your knees
14) Back pain can be helped by gentle massage, pelvic rocks or resting backwards (carefully!)
over a Swiss ball
15) Swimming (not breastroke) or walking in water can be helpful for some women. Others
may find that the water’s resistance puts too much stress on their joints. Do
what works for you.
16) In severe cases, use a walking frame, crutches or a wheelchair. Your doctor can provide
you with an application for a disabled parking card if necessary.
17) Rest can be extremely helpful. However, it is best to keep as active as possible within
the limits of your pain. Sometimes, gentle walking can reduce pain, but always take
care not to overdo it. Listen to your body
18) Ask for help. Friends and family are often your best resources. Talk to your doctor or
medical professional about the possibility of organising home help

So, believe it or not Libby, it is not the end of the world. There is treatment, and it will get better.

baby Teagan

2008-03-14T23:55:00.000-04:00

Teagan JoAnn was born on Wednesday night to my sister Libby and her husband Jason, shortly after I had to leave her mommy and daddy to go to work. After I stayed there ALL DAY waiting for her to make an appearance. She decides to show up 3 hours later. Brat. She is already acting like her mother. But at least she was huge and beat up her mom a bit on the way out. (More on that later.)

She LOVES her Aunt Amy. I took Maddie up to met her today while Rick and Zack are at Zack's last (!YAY!) hockey tournament of the season. She is so pink and cuddly!

Maddie is a very proud cousin. She did really well with her, and now wants one at our house too. (Not going to happen, but nice try!)

Mom, this next picture was taken just for you. Since I have multiple pictures of my kids crying when they were tiny and you were the one always taking them, we thought we would get a jump on you this time. Every time she cried, we said "Take a picture for Donna!" And Libby told me about when you called her today and Teagan started to cry; you hushed Libby so you could hear the baby! Heehee!

Every time I called Libby before I went up to see her, Teagan was crying. I got a bit of a preview of what we were in for. Then I talked to Kirsten who told me that she cried for much of her visit too. (Exact words: "She's a screamer." - Sorry Kir, that is too good not to share!) She had brief periods of content today. Most of the time she was sleeping, eating or crying.
Good luck Libby!

best gift ever!

2008-03-11T22:14:00.003-04:00

Libby's baby shower was this past weekend, so I am officially done with baby showers for a while. It seems like everyone I know is having babies recently! But I think we are caught up for a while.
So now I had to post about my favorite baby shower gift from this weekend:

Libby can post the rest of the pictures. I made the mistake of leaving one of the kids in charge of the camera, so I got a bunch of pictures of her and her friend playing with the camera in the bathroom (Thanks, Destiny!), and a bunch of the gifts being opened - usually blocking Libby's face. So, Lib, I hope you aren't expecting too many pictures! I will send them on anyway. (If the rest of you want to see them, I am sure she will post the usable ones here.)

just a thought

2008-03-05T23:00:00.002-05:00

Maybe this is just me, but ...
If you have been stabbed by the same person FOUR times (four separate occasions, not four wounds), would you say it is still just their fault? Or are you maybe (JUST maybe) doing something to contribute to the situation?
Like maybe you keep bailing this person out of jail and letting that person move back into the same house with you. And then keep getting into screaming fights with them. So now this time, when they are already on probation from the LAST time they stabbed you, and you come in to the ER with (yet another) stab wound to your chest, do you think we will believe that you DON'T KNOW WHO STABBED YOU???

BTW, I don't think you will be able to bail her out this time.

remember this?

2008-03-02T16:39:00.006-05:00

Remember this picture? I posted it for Zack's birthday, and after looking at all those pictures from when they were so little and just starting to play hockey I wanted to get some recent ones to compare.
So here are the boys at about 7 years old:

And the same boys a couple of weeks ago (at 12 years old):

They had their last game of the season today and WON 5-1. Emil (the boy on the left) scored twice, and Michael (middle) scored once. Zack is on defense, so he has an excuse for not scoring. Also the 2 and 10 minute penalty he got in the second period was a problem. He missed a big chunk of the game while he sat in the penalty box. But he did have some great plays today anyway. The boys all had a great game. It was a really good way to end the season.
One more tournament in 2 weeks.
This has been a long season, but fun to watch.

i am the baby shower queen

2008-03-02T10:25:00.008-05:00

OK, so maybe not queen exactly, but yesterday Lori and I hosted our friend Michelle's baby shower at my house and it went really well. And I only have one more to do. Libby's will be easy though, because it is all my family and it is not at my house! Not that I am complaining. Don't get the wrong idea. Part of the reason Rick and I loved this house so much was because of the large living room/great room (whatever) so that we could have people over for stuff like this. I love having friends and family here. Michelle's shower was really nice, and not too much work since Lori and I had recruited other friends into bringing a lot of the food. We only had a little bit of set-up and food prep to do, and all* the cleaning was done the night before.

all the girls at the shower (and Jack and baby Anthony!)

I roped my grandma into having Libby's at her house ("Really grandma, your house is in a more central location, and everyone would have a much shorter distance to drive to your house than to mine") and my other sister Kirsten into helping with the planning, but I think most of the food is going to be my problem this time. Oh, well. She can be responsible for the games (I hate that part!).

*OK, so MOST of the cleaning was done the night before. That is part of the reason I love having people over. Rick and the kids have to help clean because there are PEOPLE coming, and you don't want them to think our house is always that messy! (it is) My house is never as clean as when we have someone over. So COME ON OVER! Just call me the day before....

officer of the year!

2008-02-27T09:08:00.000-05:00

I am so proud! My honey made officer of the year again!*

This was taken at the Exchange Club lunch ceremony where they presented him with his plaque. They selected an officer from each local department to receive this award, and 2 of his close friends got it for their departments.

Michelle and (officer) Eric

(officer) Chris and Kelly

*He was also officer of the year in 2000

done!

2008-02-25T22:04:00.000-05:00

Maddie's quilt is done, and actually turned out better than I thought it would. She did almost all of it herself, and turned out to be pretty good at it. With just a tiny bit of practice, she will easily be better at sewing than I am.
I forgot to take a picture of it before she took it in to school, so I will update when we get it back.

i made a friend

2008-02-19T23:05:00.004-05:00

The call came in as an overdose with a whole lot of alcohol on board, but the woman who showed up was not what we expected - initially anyway. She was polite and friendly and denied taking any pills. She said that she had told her boyfriend she had taken them because they were fighting. She was very cooperative and answered all of our questions and was making jokes and smiling...
AS SOON as I turned my back and walked out of the room, she was yelling "You can't make me stay here!" and getting up to walk out. The story from the boyfriend was that he had SEEN her take the pills, and the bottle was now empty.

OK. Great.

Call security.

So now she is screaming "You can't make me stay!" and "You ain't touchin' me!", and "Get the F*@ away from me!" when I told her we needed to draw some blood.

I informed her that we can make her stay because she had taken too many pills with her 12 beers, and she began yelling that she had not taken any pills.

OK, so prove it.

So this is when she screams "Take my blood you fat bitch! What the hell are you waiting for?!" and (my favorite) "Get your fat hands off your big fat hips and draw my f*@#ing blood!"
and then she is quiet and smiling again.
And saying "just do whatever you want, honey."
Then she is crying.
2 minutes later she is screaming, and I am a fat bitch again.

I love the ER.

she thinks I can sew!

2008-02-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

HAHAHAHAHA!
Maddie thinks I can sew! And she wants me to teach her.

She has a 4th grade project to do on a Lighthouse. We have been through this with her brother, who made a model of his lighthouse (with the help of my art teacher sister Nicole) and so I figured Maddie's would be easy. We had done it once, so how hard could it be, right?

So to shake things up a bit, Maddie chose to make a quilt instead.
That's my girl.

guilty

2008-02-12T22:38:00.004-05:00

Watching youth sports can be very emotional. Especially when it is your kid out there getting pummeled by a kid who has 5 o'clock shadow and drove himself to the rink, but his coach insists that he is 12.
We had a game tonight against a team who hit hard and kept on going. Most games, the kids get hit. It is to be expected. And 12 and 13 year old boys... they love it. They are learning to check this year, and have still to figure out the little subtleties of good checks vs. bad checks. (Checking a kid in the back = bad, checking a kid who does not have the puck = bad, checking a kid into the boards = ... actually I am unsure on this one. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. I think that is where our kids are getting mixed signals too. And a coach who just screams instead of instructs isn't helping. Some of our kids are afraid to hit at all because they spend most of the game in the penalty box.) But when your kid is hit over and over by the same freight train of a kid, it is hard not to get emotional. Especially when he hits the boards head first, or goes down and gets punched when he finally gets back up.

Apparently the rules are different in Indiana, because they had substituted most of their roster. We thought we had played that team before, but it was in name only because NONE of the same kids were there today. Instead they substituted their high schoolers and adult rec league players and put them in jerseys with the 12 year old's names on them. And the refs had forgotten exactly which sport they were watching today. I say watching because most of the time they weren't actually CALLING anything... unless of course the other team's coach told them to. Sadly, this part was not an exaggeration. The refs were so lost that the majority of the calls they made were AFTER the other team's coach yelled out "high stick", or "hooking", or whatever he thought the call should be at the time. Needless to say, they were ALL calls against our team.
But that has happened to us before a couple of times. Don't get me wrong...I am glad it is not me out there, and I understand it has to be very difficult to be a ref in a 12 and 13 year old hockey league. The kids are still learning so still make a LOT of mistakes, and they don't have control of the puck (or their feet) half the time, so there is no way you can see all of the penalties. Most of the refs we have had have been great, and have really called fair games. If they miss some calls it is understandable. Nobody is perfect. They tend to miss calls on both sides. But the 2 or 3 that have been bad have been SO bad that even the hockey moms sitting in the stands with me have been calling the game better than they were. And we have been learning the rules as we go with the season this year. They are supposed to go to a special training just to learn this job... which they are paid for. They must zero in on just one or 2 jerseys and call everything they see on those kids. We must have really nice jerseys, cause ours were the only ones those refs could see.

The rink we were at has a strict "zero tolerance" policy for abusive behavior. Wouldn't you think that applied to the coaches as well? We had one point during the game when the coach from the opposing team was screaming at us in the stands! I admit, I am guilty of yelling at the refs for bad calls, yelling at the kids for stupid moves, and yelling at the opposing team for blatant penalties that they did not get caught for. But I have never been abusive or screamed obsenities or insulted anyone specific. They are 12! Yelling at them to "keep your stick on the ice!" and "Move, move, move!", and "go get it!" to my team or mostly just "HEY!" at the refs and the other team is not abusive and does not pick on one player in particular. The other team today were yelling things like "back check number 20!" And yet their coach was the one accusing US of cheating at the end of the game! After one of his players intentionally falls on our goalie to take him out so his team mate could trip our defense man and score. This was not called as a penalty, but when one of our kids is tripped by one of theirs and takes him down with him WE get the penalty for that one.
The other hockey moms were having fits in the stands. We were ready to pack up and go home. Too bad we couldn't take the puck and leave. (Screw you guys! I'm goin' home!)
Or as one of the other moms was told: "If your kid can't take the hit, he should just be in the band." (she was told this by the opposing team's coach - nice sportsmanship, huh?)

What if he is the only one who CAN take it?

pretty new blog

2008-02-05T23:35:00.000-05:00

I have been playing with this new header and my blog colors on and off for the past 4 hours!(in between loads of laundry) I now have 5 new headers I can switch out (I LOVE scrapblog.com!!), but NO good backgrounds. So I just changed the colors in the template I already had. Eh.
Close enough.
So I need to thank Lori and her sister Rachael for teaching me how to waste an entire afternoon playing with my blog and still not posting anything interesting... unless you want to change your blog too. Then this is interesting because Rachael walked me through it. I think the only reason I have not found a background I like is because I am too cheap to pay for the really cool ones on the site she found.
All of this decorating has made me realize that I need still more pictures of my family. And that makes me really want my new camera! I have been putting off buying it because there are more pressing things I have wanted to spend the money on, but now that we just booked our spring vacation (there goes my camera money again) and I realize the kids will actually LET me take their pictures if I have a "good reason". The shots I get of them lately are the ones where they refuse to look at the camera, or refuse to smile or are just generally being goofy. So I have to get some better posed shots of them so I can put them on here!
I also realized that I have no good pictures of myself. I guess that happens because I am always the one HOLDING THE CAMERA! Makes sense, huh?

Zack's birthday!

2008-01-28T23:33:00.000-05:00

Yikes. 12 years ago today I was in the hospital giving birth to my sweet (perfect) baby boy. I wish I knew what happened to him! (Just kidding Zack!)

Zack's birthday weekend officially started on Friday afternoon when I picked up him and his 3 friends to go ice skating. It used to be bowling parties, laser tag, roller skating... now his life revolves around his hockey. Or maybe it is MY life that revolves around his hockey. 6 months is a LONG hockey season, especially when half of the games are at least 1 1/2 hours away, and he plays an average of 2 games a week (usually Saturday and Sunday).

This is my hockey player when he was about 7. (He has been playing since he was 5)

(Zack is the one on the right)

So anyway, the birthday weekend extended all the way into today when he finally got the present he has been saving for since before Christmas. He has only been asking for money for Christmas and his birthday because he wanted the X-Box 360, and knew it was too expensive for us to just buy it for him. So today he finally had enough to get it.

the boys playing video games*
(Zack is in the striped hat)

He actually chose to stay home tonight for his birthday dinner. The dinner he chose was steak, fettucini alfredo, and cheesy potatoes. I remember always wanting to go out for birthdays when I was a kid. Maybe that means we go out to dinner too much when it is a treat to stay home. But I think it may have something to do with the fact that he had new video games to play.

This is my baby 12 years ago:

just before we took him home from the hospital

I love this picture. He was just starting to pull himself up on the furniture. He was about 7 or 8 months old I think.

This is him on his first birthday:

he looks surprised that we haven't taken the cake away yet!

I love this picture. Zack and his daddy when Zack was almost 2.

This is the famous superman picture. This was taken when we were in Florida on vacation. I think he was about 4.

This is him on his first day of kindergarten, when he still liked having his picture taken.

And my "too cool to smile" 12 year old. The one who wears his hat in the house all day long because it looks cool... the one who won't kiss me in front of his friends anymore, but is a cuddler when we are home...

Zack with his birthday cake*

* Just a little side note: 2 of those boys in the birthday party pictures are the same boys in the hockey picture from when he was 7 (the one in the (other) hat, and the one in the Ferris hockey sweatshirt). The 4th boy doesn't play hockey, but the 4 of them have been friends since preschool.

procrastination

2008-01-17T03:59:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't posted for a while...
I got a new computer this week and have been trying to move everything over in between working and running the kids. I will try to catch up this weekend.
We have another hockey tournament this weekend, so hopefully I will have time to catch up then.
See you soon!

sick

2008-01-07T16:31:00.000-05:00

Remember the post about my New Year's Eve? We had to leave our friend's house early because Maddie wasn't feeling well... you can see what is coming now, right?

I'm SIIIIIIIIIICK!

Rick ended up leaving work early yesterday because HE didn't feel well. I had to work last night, and I thought I would be fine because I just had a little cough. I almost made it through the whole shift. I made it almost 10 hours of my 12 hour shift. All I can say now is thank God we had an extra nurse on who could take my rooms. And now my "little cough" is full blown bronchitis. (and my chest is killing me!)

So now that you totally feel sorry for me, (right???) I am going back to bed. I will get on here and catch up again later. I have to get a picture of my new haircut on here! (I chopped it all off!)

who is cleaning up all this crap?

2008-01-01T16:42:00.000-05:00

We didn't have a white Christmas, so now Mother Nature is making up for it. What a way to ring in the new year. This is what I woke up to this morning:

And they still haven't plowed our roads...

So now that it is the new year, it is time to take down all the Christmas decorations. I love Christmas decorations. I love the tree, the wreaths, the lights, the ribbons, the stockings, all the packages in pretty paper... I just don't want to clean it all up. I need to go from this:

To this:

Wow. I miss the Christmas decorations already. My house looks so boring without them. Maybe I will just leave them up for a few more days...

happy new year!

2008-01-01T01:29:00.000-05:00

Here's to drunk blogging! (It's just a little buzz, I swear.)

We took the kids out to dinner tonight with some friends. A fancy dinner with 4 kids was not the greatest idea in the world, but they were surprisingly well behaved. We had a nice (early) dinner, and then Rick went to work and we went to a party. He sure got the short end of the stick this year. But I seem to remember that I was the one working last year. One of these years we will both get the night off together. And then we will REALLY have to celebrate.

A friend of mine decided tonight that it will be next year, and that we will be celebrating in New York. And that she deserves it because her birthday is on New Year's Eve, so her husband should start planning it right NOW! Of course it may have been the demi sec talking. Or maybe tomorrow she will remember it, and we actually will set something up for next year. Wouldn't that be fun???

Hopefully that party will last just a little bit longer than the one this year. But it was a lot of fun. A bunch of couples (and me) got together for food, drink and games. The game "battle of the sexes" probably lasted much longer than it was supposed to because of all the arguing, drinking, laughing, etc... and I don't think anyone actually won in the end, but it was fun. But Maddie and I ended up leaving early because she wasn't feeling well. I should have just given up when she fell asleep on the couch around 11:00. But she slept for 15-20 minutes and then was good until just after midnight.
And poor Rick rang in the new year at a car accident. Yippee.

Happy New Year!

yikes!

2008-01-01T01:20:00.000-05:00

OK, so every once in a while something comes along that makes me laugh so hard I almost pee myself... this is one of those times. Wow.
I'd just like to say, Thanks Crystal! For making my family seem normal.

merry christmas!!! a little late...

2007-12-28T08:29:00.000-05:00

Oops. So the whole Christmas season kind of got away from me this year. It sure seemed like I was doing a lot of last minute stuff. And I never got to the Christmas cards. I was trying to get a picture of the kids in front of the tree to send out again this year because it was so easy last year. If I actually had gotten the picture taken, I am sure it would have been just as easy this year. I kept putting it off for stupid reasons. Maybe I should have just used the picture from last year. How many of you would have even noticed?
I did get all my shopping done, even though on Christmas eve my son said "Mom! Let's go to Dunham's quick! I want to get dad's present!" So technically it wasn't ME who was shopping then, right?
Maybe I will still try to get that picture and send out "holiday" cards, or New Year cards... I don't want anybody to think I forgot them.
I hope you all had a great Christmas. When I get motivated again I will put some of the Christmas morning pictures on here. The kids (and the husband) are spoiled rotten again. Although I am feeling pretty content with my lot too.
Merry Christmas!

my karaoke theme song...

2007-12-28T08:27:00.000-05:00

Ummmm. I am not so sure I agree with the "nut job" crack, but I DO like the song! :-D

Your Karaoke Theme Song is "I'm Too Sexy"

You're a total goof ball and a bit of a nut job. You don't take yourself seriously at all.
And while you may not be the greatest singer, you're the first to volunteer for karaoke.

You have a wild and unpredictable sense of humor that always gets people cracking up.
Irreverent and rebellious, your humor knows no bounds or limits. You enjoy shocking people.

You might also sing: "Like a Virgin," "Ice Ice Baby," and "Hey Ya!"

Stay away from people who sing: "Sweet Home Alabama"

What's Your Karaoke Theme Song?

aaaauuuuuugghh!

2007-12-18T04:36:00.000-05:00

I was talking with the girls tonight at work about things we still have to do to get ready for Christmas, and one of them says "Well since it is next Tuesday, I have to get it done this week!"

Holy crap! You mean I have ONE week left to get all this stuff done???
And I work 2 of them, and will be out of town for 2 more... so that leaves me with TODAY and TOMORROW.
That's it.
Yikes!

I haven't even put my Christmas CD back in my car!

just some things I hate to hear at work:

2007-12-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

1. F*** you! I'll just piss in the bed!

2. Can I still have him arrested if I hit him first?

3. I have scabies.

4. I only had 2 beers! (slurred)

5. I can't breathe...

You know it's going to be a long night when your first patient says all five.

woo hoo!

2007-12-14T08:55:00.000-05:00

I beat Libby! Yay! heeheehee

Get a Cash Advance

am I smarter than a 4th grader?

2007-12-11T21:47:00.001-05:00

My daughter brought home a list of websites from her teacher for her to improve her math skills yesterday. Tonight we had time to check them out together. We started this game, and Maddie started out really well until Zack and I ended up competing (and kicking Maddie off completely) to see who could make the most money in the 30 days given. It was pretty sad. Maddie was shuttling back and forth giving away trade secrets to the most successful business while Zack and I shouted across the room how much money we were up at the time. (Zack was on the kid's computer, I was on the laptop.)
So even though I won (I am smarter than a 6th grader!) I am not so sure I am smarter than my 4th grader. Especially when I hear "Mom! It's MY homework, not yours! I want to play!"

Oops.

relief!

2007-12-11T21:42:00.000-05:00

Stats class is over!
Now the only problem is that I need to wait a week before I get my final grade. Nothing like stretching out the agony a little longer.
But if I retain nothing else from this stupid class, I know this: if I pass this class, I can pass ANY other they throw at me. So.. *fingers crossed*.

in the spirit!

2007-12-09T07:50:00.000-05:00

We finally got the tree up, all the pretty ornaments in place. The kids handmade stuff of course front and center right at (kid) eye level. I love my tree!

I don't even get credit for making it pretty this year. Mom came down yesterday to see Zack's hockey game and babysit the kids so Rick and I could go to his department's (kind of impromptu) Christmas party. Since the tree was up and ready to go, the boxes of decorations all stacked in the living room and I made her promise not to clean or do laundry, I had to leave her something! That, and I had to leave for work right after we got home from getting the tree on Friday evening so never had time to get it done before she got here. So it worked out well. The kids had fun helping "Donna", and I am totally OK with her doing it since I usually do it by myself every year with Rick sitting on the couch critiquing (sp?) my work.

the ride on the tractor/trailer to get the tree

the perfect tree? (we cut the bottom off)

making snowballs while dad loads the tree

our tree's ride back to the car

the kids get hot cocoa while mom and dad load the tree on the car

ready to take home

BABY!

2007-12-09T07:11:00.000-05:00

Anthony Russell C****
7lbs, 14oz

He is finally here! We have waited so long to meet sweet little baby Anthony! (hopefully I have the spelling right) I went to see Lori at the hospital yesterday to meet him, and he is the most perfect little boy. She was so impatient to have him, yet still managed to wait until 2 days past her due date before getting a little "help". So now she can pay me back for sharing all my delivery stories for the past 9 months!
Congratulations Lori and Todd!
he was actually awake when I saw him.
he is so perfect!

the terrible, horrible, rotten, very bad night

2007-12-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Friday is supposed to be date night. Rick and I TRY to actually spend a little time together without the kids that night. (We usually manage one or 2 Fridays a month even though it was supposed to be every week) So I have NO idea what possessed me to work on a Friday night.
I won't be doing that again for a LONG time. Not only did I miss visiting the hospital the day my friend Lori had her baby, but it was the worst night I have had in years! (I was working at small ER, Lori delivered at bigger hospital) So let's just say that it was one of those mornings that I sat in the car and cried while I waited for my windows to thaw before driving home. And then cried most of the way home.
I will probably share more about that later, but it feels inappropriate now.

anybody out there?

2007-12-04T22:14:00.000-05:00

OK, I know some of you guys are still reading. Every once in a while somebody says something to me about this blog.
Please, if you stop by to check it out, leave me a comment just to say Hi and that you were here.
I need the positive reinforcement, you know.

the final stats!

2007-12-03T22:55:00.000-05:00

I had my last chapter test in Statistics class today. If you know me at all, you have heard me complain about this class for the past ... how many weeks has it been? (too many!) Well, it is almost over!!!
If you are anything like me, you HATED story problems in your math classes all the way through school. Well, brilliant person that I am, I signed up for a class that is NOTHING BUT story problems. And not just little simple ones, either. Confusing, multiple step, multiple formula story problems. And the teacher decides that since not enough of us were failing the class, he would pack in the last few chapters along with a quiz, a chapter test and the final all within the last 3 weeks! Since the class is only once a week, I thought it was a bit much. I have never been good at pages and pages of homework.
I can't wait to be done! My husband is starting to wonder if I am ever going to do any work around the house again! I am either studying for this stupid class or I am working! (or I am telling you all about it on here!)
But let me break it down for you:
Part of the class itself is figuring out our grade. He gives the points and lets us figure out the cumulative by giving us a formula. I have to admit, this was the easy part of the class. The hard part was putting in my sad little points. I am not used to working my butt off for a class and not pulling an A.
So here is my cumulative so far:
**I reserve the right to post absolutely fake grades (the possible points are not fake)

item	Poss points	Cumulative	My points	My cumulative	%
Hmwrk 1	20	20	10	10	50
Test 1	100	120	94	104	86
Quiz 1	30	150	20	124
Test 2	100	250	66	190
Hmwrk 2	8	258	8	198	76.7
Quiz 2	40	298	36	234
Test 3	100	398	91	325	81.7
Hmwrk 3	30	428	27	352	82.2
Quiz 3	72	500	?	?	?
Test 4	100	600	?	?	?
Final	200	800	?	?	?

Next week I will get my grades for the quiz and the test I took today, and now I am reviewing all week.
My final is next week!
So let me leave you with this:
A local community college claims that less than 30% of adults who return to school fail their statistics class. In a random sample of 86 adults who returned to school, 20% say they are failing their statistics class. At a 0.05 level of significance, is there enough evidence to support the college's claim?

Uh huh. That is what I thought too.

zombies and stuff

2007-12-03T09:48:00.000-05:00

54%

What can I say? I need to work on my zombie killing skills, I guess. But the quiz was fun!

baby fever!

2007-11-30T09:28:00.000-05:00

If you haven't checked out my friend Lori's blog recently, you may want to go peek now. It will explain why in the next few days I will be posting another baby announcement!
I am so excited! She is due any MINUTE now. (OK, so not really until Dec. 5th, but I can hope she has him early!)

FINALLY! Someone is having a baby who lives close to me, so I can see him! So c'mon Lori! I am ready, and I know you are too! (My phone is still on!) Maybe I should say "C'mon baby boy!" You are kinda stuck with his schedule now.

My sister Nicole had her baby recently but she lives so far away that I will be lucky if I get to see her before she is a year old! (totally my fault because I can't (won't?) make the 12 hour drive to see her!) But I can still talk about how cute she is from all the pictures.
And the other sister that's pregnant is holding out until March. Jeez! I have baby fever. It is a darn good thing that all my friends/family are popping out the little ones. It means I won't have to do it again! (Sorry mom!)

pain in the a@*

2007-11-26T21:43:00.001-05:00

This guy came into the ER complaining of "tailbone pain" a while back. His buddies, playing a prank on him, had pulled the bar stool out from under him as he was sitting down, and he went down hard on his butt. So we did the usual exam, and ordered an X-ray.
The ER docs (and PA's) will read the X-Ray, and if it is "normal" business hours we will also get a read from the radiologist. So the doc I am working with on this patient looks at the x-ray and turns the monitor to show me: "Look at this" he says. "It is really displaced." (the coccyx) It is bent in an L shape when it should be more of a curve. So he goes in and breaks the news to the patient.
The guy was not surprised. He had been sitting on a rubber donut for the past 2 days and finally decided that he should get it checked.
So then the doc tells him, "we need to reposition your tailbone, and the only way to get at it to set it in the right place is through your rectum." Yikes.
We give the guy a shot for his pain, position him on his side, and the doc goes to "set" the coccyx back in place. He sticks a finger up there and pulls back. The guy is yelling, because he was already really sore back there and the doc just stuck a (really big) finger up his butt. And the worst is over. We go back out to the desk and prepare discharge instructions and instructions for follow up with his doctor, and the printer spits out a paper. It is a radiology read on the guys x-ray.

No fracture.

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

The doc turns to me (laughing) and says, "He just got a free rectal exam. (pause) We won't talk about this later, right?"

Right. I won't tell a soul.
heehee

full moon!

2007-11-24T18:16:00.000-05:00

I just noticed it is a full moon Saturday night! Good luck to all my fellow ER employees who weren't lucky enough to have tonight off!

another crazy weekend

2007-11-24T17:56:00.000-05:00

I think this weekend actually started the day before Thanksgiving. Except why is it that my weekends never feel like weekends? I have to wait for Tuesday to actually slow down and relax.
I worked Wednesday night at small ER, then Thursday night at bigger ER. Luckily the crazy didn't follow me this time. It was fairly sane both nights and I got out on time. Good thing. I ended up going shopping as soon as I got out of work Friday morning. (WHAT was I thinking?) I have never shopped on that day, making a point to miss the crowds and the crazy people. I have heard some of the stories and I passed the tents that were set up in front of Best Buy on Thursday afternoon (already?), so I was sure it wouldn't be nice. But I knew what I needed and ran in and found it right away and stood in a very short line, paid and left. Everybody was surprisingly nice. That does not mean I will be doing it again next year.

So now we are at the hockey tournament for the weekend. Got up early Friday morning (2 whole hours of sleep! - I was dragging last night) and lost our first game on Friday night, but won the first one today. We are on some downtime now waiting for the 2nd game to start. The boys are stuck watching the film of all their mistakes right now to prep for the next game. I think the boys really bond as a team on these weekends though. They eat and play together during all the off-ice time and have no choice but to hang out together all weekend.

While the parents drink and play cards. (fun for us too!)

Got another great close-up picture of Zack during the last game. edit: posted the new pic today!(11-26-07) I love these close up shots!

But I am right back to work as soon as we get home tomorrow night.

Is it Tuesday yet?

happy thanksgiving!

2007-11-22T05:02:00.000-05:00

I just got home from work and made my "famous" cheesy potatoes to bring to my mom's house today for Thanksgiving dinner. I am claiming the potatoes as my own even though I stole the original recipe from Rick's mom. The kids have had both versions and still call it "mom's famous cheesy potatoes", and my side of the family doesn't know any better, so they think it is mine. Since I have been making it for the past 5 or 6 years and changing it a little each time, I don't think Rick's mom would mind anymore. They still turn out pretty darn good.
I would share the recipe like I noticed other blogs doing for the occasion (Libby!), but like I said, it changes a little each time. I can tell you the basics: hash brown potatoes, cheddar cheese, sour cream, french onion chip dip, butter, milk. I know. Just a little fattening. So next month, after all the holidays you will all know why I am 10 pounds heavier.
And Lori - I forgot the pie! I really wanted some pumpkin pie!
So anyway, I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! I am off to try to get about 4 hours of sleep before I have to get up to spend time with my wonderful (loud) family, and then back to work! Yippee.

But on a less "holiday" note: the biggest bar night of the year didn't turn out too badly for the small town ER I worked at last night. Only one guy from a bar fight. I heard the bigger ER I am at tonight didn't do so well. Ah, well. Hopefully they took care of all of them last night, and everyone is too fat and lazy after dinner to beat on each other anymore tonight.

sisters - a lot of them

2007-11-20T01:35:00.000-05:00

So since there has been some confusion, I am going to try to explain the family thing. Let's start with mom. She married dad and they had 3 girls (including me), then divorced dad who got married again to a woman with one girl. Then mom married again, a man with 2 more girls and dad divorced his and got married again to a woman with a boy. So that brings the grand total to: Me, my 2 (full) sisters, 2 step-sisters, one step-sister who was removed (dad's divorce), and a step brother. But to simplify a little, we don't count the removal of the one step-sister (because we like her and decided to keep her) and all the "steps" just are called sisters because it is so much more fun! The step-brother doesn't really care, and was not brought up with any of us so we just leave him alone.
So, I have 5 sisters. I am the oldest of the 3 of us who grew up in the same house, but the 2nd oldest of all of us. I am not telling who is older! If you don't know us, hopefully you can't tell!
And I found some fun pictures!

Kirsten, me, mom, Libby, Melanie, Nicole

Leigh and Chris

(this was taken just after their wedding)

Leigh is the sister who was not removed by the divorce, and she and Melanie and Nicole all live too far away. I only see them on the occasional holiday and weddings. And I miss them!
That is my great example of the all-American blended family. (No dysfunction here!)

more babies!

2007-11-15T01:34:00.000-05:00

I drove all the way up to my sister's house today (an hour and a half) to see my step-sister and her baby who are in town from Florida for the week. I even remembered my camera! It was in my purse THE WHOLE TIME! And I didn't get ONE picture of the baby! I can't believe I did that! I remembered on the way home - you know - to get the camera out. Duh!
So I can at least post a picture that Leigh sent me, beause she is a beautiful baby. I haven't seen Leigh since her wedding 2 years ago... in November. Jeez, her anniversary has to be right around now too. So there is one more thing I need to try to remember. Get a card for Leigh and Chris.
So for when I forget to do that:

Happy Anniversary Leigh and Chris!

(I hope she reads this!)
But I also got the chance to look through my mom's cedar chest where she kept a lot of stuff from when we were kids. And it was amazing how much stuff is still in there considering it made it through at least 15 different moves, and my sisters digging through it every few years and stuff mysteriously disappearing from it (mom's wedding dress). Oops. Does mom know about that?

But it is still packed full of old school papers, report cards, wedding and funeral programs and most of all - pictures. I stole a few pictures of when I was little (is it stealing if the pictures are of me?) and my old yearbooks and a couple of pictures of our old houses. It was a little strange to go through those things and only roughly a third of it had anything to do with me. But we did find some old love letters written to our mom (LONG time ago) and that was just creepy. I pulled out a couple of baby pictures of me, and my daughter saw them when I was putting them in a yearbook to take with me and she said "mom, is that me?" No, Maddie. But it looks an awful lot like you, doesn't it?
So thanks Kirsten for saving what you could for so long. I hereby appoint you the all-time keeper of the childhood memories. No matter what mom says. :)

Ally

But back to my point. I met my step-sister's baby today, and she is the sweetest and most lovable baby girl. Leigh and Chris, you guys are truly blessed to have such a perfect baby girl and I hope to see you all again soon.

I have a paint can

2007-11-13T01:32:00.000-05:00

It was a really busy weekend. And it doesn't look to be slowing down anytime soon. Zack scored a goal at his game on Sunday! I feel like I have become a full time hockey mom. We now have games every weekend (usually both days!) until mid March. I know I haven't posted for a few days, but I had to share this one.

Zack had a hockey game on Sunday, and my sister Kirsten and her kids made it to watch him play. It was nice because I hadn't seen them in a while, and we got to talk a little.
So after the game we are standing in the lobby waiting for the kids to come out of the locker room. For some reason, Zack is always last, or darn near last to come out. So we waited...

And we made fun of a skinny little anorexic looking 19ish year old on the other side of the room (she couldn't hear us). She was wearing a napkin for a skirt, so it looked like if she bent over even a little we would all get a show; and big fur winter boots. And her hair was bleached - on the top only - to a white color rarely found in nature, and certainly not natural looking on her. Especially since the hair underneath was a dark brown. So we joked that the hair dye had killed so many brain cells that she didn't realize it was cold out - hence the skirt. But since she never ate, she had poor circulation - and so the boots. Then we were bored with her and moved on to talk about other things.
About 10 minutes later, my niece comes up to me and says "She called me fat." and indicated the scary anorexic girl. I initially thought she was joking. What grown woman (or even almost grown) tells a 12 year old girl she is fat? No way! She couldn't have! I turned to my sister who said "She did what?". She didn't think she had heard right either.
So Destiny (my niece) says

"we were watching her play a video game, and when she finished I asked her if she was cold.",

and the girl said "no, why?"

Destiny said "because you are wearing a skirt."
So then the girl said "are you hungry?"
and Destiny said "no, why?"
and the girl said "because you are fat."

You have GOT to be kidding me! My sister immediately grabbed Destiny and went up to the scary anorexic girl and asked her what her problem was and "who do you think you are talking to my 12 year old daughter like that?!" and "I think you owe her an apology."
The anorexic flipped her hair, stuck her nose in the air and walked out.
Whatever. So we think that is the end of it, right?
Nope.
The 97 pound boyfriend comes storming after my sister and yells "who do you think you are talking to my FIANCE' that way?"
OMG. You must be joking. Where is the candid camera? Did she just get Punk'd? This was too weird.
So this guy (? maybe) is yelling at her for yelling at his anorexic - I mean girlfriend - for something he knows nothing about. But the best part? I was telling my sister's husband (on the phone) that his wife was about to pound a little man-child into a grease spot at the hockey rink, and maybe he should come so she didn't get arrested, and he turns to me and says "Excuse me, but I am an amateur UFC fighter." HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Pardon me while I roll around on the floor! Do they have a 97 pound weakling division??
So eventually, he calms down and apologizes for his anorexic - I mean girlfriend's - behavior after we tell him what she said and he walks away. Jeez!
And we look around and the lobby is now almost empty. We scared away most of the hockey moms. Who would have thought they were afraid of confrontations?
All but one.
I told her that he was "an amateur UFC fighter", so you know it could have been ugly. (sarcasm) and she says "I have a paint can in my hand."
OK. You win.

we won!

2007-11-07T23:43:00.000-05:00

We won our first game tonight. It was a great game, and fun to watch. You could tell the kids were having fun even with a few little problems. Zack got his first penalty for the season. I am sure it won't be the last. By the end of the game, I was starting to think that the ref had actually swallowed the whistle, and it would just blow when he breathed out. He called EVERYTHING. I guess that is a good thing. Even though our team got about 5 penalties, at least they were fair. The other team had 4.
All the parents were very happy when we walked out to wait for the kids to come out. The talk was all about how the kids really needed this to keep their enthusiasm up. It is hard to play a whole season and hardly ever win. So we were looking forward to seeing the kids happy and excited about this game.
The kids played their hearts out, and the coach still yelled at them when the game was over.
Why is it that he wants to take away the one good thing that has happened so far this season? The kids should have been excited and celebrating and happy when they came out of the locker room, but they came out slowly and quietly one at a time.
Is it so hard to just say "Great game!", and address the problems with it in the next practice?

MVA from OOT

2007-11-07T04:13:00.000-05:00

I almost hit a guy in the middle of the road when I was on my way home from class the other night. Since my husband was working, and that was part of his patrol area, I tried to call him to let him know there was a guy wandering around in the middle of the road. Of course he didn't answer his phone.
(Where are all the cops when you need them?)

So tonight I was telling him about the guy and how he was in the middle of the road, and he says "Oh, yeah, that guy is CRAZY! He has been wandering in the road and getting in trouble for the past 2 days. He was in an accident and the hospital released him and sent him to **** hotel."....

Holy crap! That guy was MY patient, and I released him and sent him to **** hotel.

We had a heck of a time trying to figure out what to do with him. He was in the ER most of the day. At least he was entertaining. He wandered around in his underwear for part of the shift (policy for psych evals is to take their clothes and put them in a gown so they don't leave the ER unnoticed before eval), and then was happy to sit and talk with whoever came within earshot of his room. But even though his "voices" had caused his accident, he was just not crazy enough to stay overnight in the psych unit. Apparently if you do not live in this county, the county psych services won't touch you unless you are standing in front of them with a gun and/or knife and actually attempting to USE it on yourself (try to use it on them and then the cops will help too). And with no insurance, private psychiatrists won't touch you. So he gets a cab ride and a hotel room and a phone to call family to start driving into town to get him. And he gets to make friends with the local cops. :-)
So the lesson for the day? If you are going to lose your marbles, do it close to home or make sure you have great psychiatric coverage or you are SOL.

I hope he made it home.

*BTW - In accordance with HIPAA laws, I changed the details, and left out some of the really funny ones.

But on the plus side, he called me a princess, and promised to buy me a car. (This was true. Is it a HIPAA violation to share that?)

new baby! (I am an aunt - again!)

2007-11-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

Nicole had her baby! I was at work last night when I got a phone call that my sister had her baby at 6pm yesterday. She is the cutest and tiniest baby girl at just over 5 pounds, with a full head of dark hair! Thank God for digital cameras and e-mail!
It is funny because I hadn't talked to her in a few months (yes, I am a BAD sister!) and I had just sent her an e-mail to check up and see how she was doing knowing that her due date had to be coming up soon. Yes, I did say it "had to be coming up" because (again, BAD sister) I wasn't sure exactly when she was due. So I sent the e-mail on Saturday hoping for an update, and then she goes and has the baby on Sunday! I think she is psychic.
So now here is jealous little me wishing I could pack up and drive to her house (a 9 hour drive) just to see her and her 2 pretty girls like some of our other family is doing this weekend!

Congratulations Nicole! (and Troy and Alissa)

side trip

2007-11-04T08:11:00.000-05:00

Did you ever see the comedian (I can't think of his name right now) who does the "here's your sign" bit? Well, he also does a thing about how he takes "side trips" in his thoughts and conversations, and how his wife has told him that she can see him going on his little trips, and she just has to wait for him to get there (to the point). Well, here is my side trip for the day:

This morning at work someone on day shift brought in a CD, and the conversation was turned to rock music, and what was called "old" rock and "classic" rock by some of my fellow employees. Which in turn shifted the conversation to who they liked to listen to, and the guitar playing of Eddie Van Halen. Which got me thinking about my daughter, who is taking guitar lessons right now. (It also made me think that the guy who brought up Eddie Van Halen and his "amazing" guitar playing must have driven a camaro in the 80's - but that is a different thread and I will let it go!) And so after I started thinking about my daughter and her lessons, that reminded me of her lesson last week when my husband showed up to watch and meet/talk with her instructor. Which brings me to:
I learned something new about my husband last week. You would think after 13 years of marriage and having known him since I was 15 (and he was 17) I would know everything about him. Umm, nope. Guess not. He was talking with the guitar teacher about the miscellaneous half finished guitars and other woodworks in his shop when they started talking about the hatchets in the window. The instructor had made the handles for the hatchets, and used to use them in competitions for hatchet and knife throwing! OK, interesting. I guess I never realized that they had actual competitions for throwing that stuff. And that is when my husband says "I used to throw knives".
WHAT??? Since when? (and were you any good?)
So they have a nice little discussion about the hatchets in the display and the throwing of them... which I tuned out. As interesting as the topic seemed, I just couldn't bring myself to care all that much. But it did make me think that the Halloween costumes I wanted to get for us for the annual costume party thrown by a friend was ALL the much more appropriate.

The dress was too skimpy for me, and he refused to wear the "poofy" shirt and the sash. Bummer. It would have been funny.

check this!

2007-11-03T08:33:00.000-04:00

Hockey season has officially started. Zack is on the local travel hockey team, and we had our 3rd game last night. It is going to be a long season. We have had barely any time to practice, and it shows! Those kids play so hard, but just don't have the puck handling skills that the other teams have at this level. The teams we are playing against have been playing together for years, and have been practicing together since August. We are a new team this year, most of the kids pulled from a couple of years of house league, and our practices are still not on a regular basis. So our 3rd game was a loss at 17 to 0. No big surprise, but OUCH!

They started checking this year too. It is scary to watch your 11 year old slam another kid into the boards knowing that it is going to come back at him. And it did. Right at the end of the game, one of the boys hit him in the back and sent him into the wall. He was sore and upset when the game was over, but no permanent damage done. Except maybe to me!

If this season keeps going as it started, you can expect to see me complain a LOT more about it. We were really not happy with the way the season started. The reason we were not able to practice more? The coach was busy with the 2 (!!!) football teams he is coaching in addition to the hockey team. And the coaching style lately seems to consist of "Get out there!" and "go that way!". Hopefully it is going to improve. I know I am not supposed to complain unless I am willing to get out there and coach. He has given a lot of his time to the team (mostly to ensure that BOTH of his kids stay on the first line I think), and I need to shut up now.
I think I heard once (or a million times) "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Jeez! I would never have anything to write about!

a new beginning

2007-11-02T22:52:00.000-04:00

It was difficult trying to decide how to start this. Most of the time I feel I don't have much to say. I just feel like it is a great way to keep my friends and family updated on what is going on with us... especially the ones who are far away.
I have seen some great blogs by linking through my friend's sites, and now I am facing the challenge of writing something worth reading. I am not pregnant (like so many people around me lately!), I have nothing new and exciting happening in my life, and I don't seem to have the knack of story telling so my work stories don't come out sounding nearly as funny or exciting as they should. So here is a narrative on the everyday life of a boring suburban mom...