I have a swollen uvula.

Did that get your attention? I said uvula, not vulva! Get your mind out of the gutter!

I don't feel well. My tonsils are swollen. My throat is red. And my uvula is so swollen it's resting on my tongue. I have a huge amount of crap dripping down the back of my throat and settling in my chest. My neck hurts and my glands are swollen. It's lovely.

It's bothering me so much that I bought a neti pot this afternoon and rinsed out my nose. I expected that to be a little weird. But it really wasn't that bad. Of course, I couldn't see myself while I was doing it. So that could have helped. I'm big on personal hygiene though. So, this little apparatus is right up my alley. I clean out my ears with q-tips dipped in peroxide every day. So now I can clean out my nose too.

My son is still not over what he was sick with last week. His head is still filled up with crap and he's still coughing a lot. So being the loving mother that I am I made him do the neti pot too. That went better than expected actually. I thought he'd physically fight me a little more than he did. But really, what did I have these kids for if I can't mess around with them. My daughter was standing there watching everything. She looked at me with big eyes and said "You're not doing that to me, are you?" It's too hard to get the jump on them without the element of surprise so I didn't try it with her.

I have been spraying that ocean nasal saline spray stuff up all of our noses for a couple days. My kids keep walking around telling people that they have the ocean up their nose. They are surprisingly tolerant of this too. I hate it. So I don't know why they don't put up more of a fight.

I broke down and called my doctor today and got an antibiotic. Hopefully that will help soon. My husband has been out of town and this has been a super busy week with after school activities. I'm totally behind on posting and even reading my favorite blogs. I hope I haven't missed anything too big!

I'm looking forward to Friday getting here!

Oldie but a goodie.....

Sick day

My son is sick today. He came home from school feeling yucky on Monday. He laid down and took a nap when he got home from school and felt better. So we sent him to school on Tuesday. Tuesday night is a busy one for us. My son goes to the public school every Tuesday night to get speech therapy and occupational therapy.

Spring brings sports around here. So after time at the public school, my son gets whisked over to a neighborhood high school for track. His track practice overlaps with my daughter's t-ball, which my husband coaches. So midway through track practice, my husband and daughter leave and head over to the baseball fields. After track my son and I head over there too. So it's a busy couple hours of running around the neighborhood from activity to activity. And it was hot last night, very sunny. I got a sunburn on my large lily white forehead.

My son did pretty well at track last night. When they run all the way around the track a lot of the kids start dropping by the way side. But not my boy. He's like Forrest Gump once he gets going. He was runnnnninnnng......

He does not quit running and when another boy looked like he might be catching up towards the end my son somehow sprinted and beat him. Now I'm not saying he is the fastest. I think there was another first grade boy that beat him. And older kids were faster too. But we are just impressed with the fact that he is somewhat competitive at this. Because usually he is just not competitive at anything. He got that from me. It drives his father crazy.

He came in our room in the middle of the night with a fever of 102. So now we are really impressed with the fact that he did so well at track last night when obviously he did not feel very well. Really he does not like to miss anything. He is still asleep this morning and I'm sure when he wakes up he is going to be mad. Because you see, until today he had a PERFECT ATTENDANCE record!!!! He never missed a single day of kindergarten and had not missed a single day of first grade. Even when he had eye surgery. He managed to not miss school because they had snow days then.

I feel really bad for him. He made it all the way to April 23rd without a sick day. I mean he only has like 25 days of school left. It sucks to make it this far and then get sick. Oh well, I guess there are worse things in life. I'm not looking forward to the homework coming home. I've heard that when they are sick a ton of paperwork comes home for them to complete. That is going to be real fun.

Lilly dresses

My BFF and I hit Costco the other day because they had Lilly Pulitzer dresses from 2T to 8 for little girls. I bought my daughter two for this summer and two for next summer. They were only $23.99 a piece!

I was so excited and overwhelmed by this awesome opportunity to buy them at such a cheap price. It took me forever to decide which ones I wanted. I hemmed and hawed over it for quite a while. My BFF took my daughter and her son to go potty and when she got back I still hadn't decided.

I feel the Lilly dresses were going totally unappreciated at Costco. Women kept walking by with little girls in their shopping carts and stopping to look at these cheesy little outfits and not even giving the Lilly dresses a second glance. I wanted to scream "LOOK... LILLY PULITZER DRESSES FOR $24 PEOPLE! WAKE UP! YOU MIGHT NEVER HAVE THIS OPPORTUNITY AGAIN!"

Five Things Meme

Five things on my to do list today (that I am not going to do):

1. The cap on the street light in front of my house is dangling. So I need to call the street department to have them come fix it. This has happened before and the cap fell off and landed on the hood of our car and dented it. When we called the street department to see if the city would pay for the repair they laughed.

2. I need to get a couple baby gifts for some babies recently born. One of my husband's co-workers and an old friend of my husband's both just had baby girls. I'm going to get them the old monogrammed bib & burp cloth combo.

3. I have a great idea for my Mom for Mother's Day. She loves all things monogrammed or things with her initials or name. There is a lady in my neighborhood that takes all of these cool pictures of things that can look like letters. Then she puts them together to spell something and even frames it. So I am going to see if she'll make one for my Mom with her last name.

4. We have recently switched insurance agents and I need to get our new guy a recent copy of our auto insurance declarations page. I also need to get a new appraisal on some jewelry.

5. Complete my first meme listing five things on different topics about myself. I tend to avoid things on my to do list. So this is hanging heavily over my head.

Five snacks I enjoy (really, what snack do I not enjoy?):

1. ice cream
2. chocolate
3. chicken wing dip
4. Starbucks coffee (hot or cold variety)
5. various warm cheesy dips with good bread


Five bad habits (I could probably just copy Southern Fried Mom's. They are pretty close to the same. I will copy and past a couple.):

1. Procrastination
2. Control freak, yet lazy
3. Definitely have a potty mouth
4. Become withdrawn when overwhelmed/stressed out/pissed off/ anxious
5. Compulsive and/or emotional and/or boredom eating


Five places I've lived:

1. I was born, raised and still live in one of the top three largest cities in Missouri.
2. Went to college in one of the other three largest cities in Missouri.
3. Went to another college in yet another of the three largest cities in Missouri.
4. NA
5. NA

Five jobs I've had:

1. Stay at Home Mom.... This one sucks sometimes. I think about quitting at least once a day.
2. Financial Reporting Analyst for a major U.S. department store.
3. Institutional Bond Sales Assistant.
4. Captial Markets Group operations associate
5. Bank teller

OK, I skipped the "five things I would do if I were a billionaire" one. I'm too tired and lazy to do it. I've told you I never finish anything completely. And really, shouldn't there only be five topics for a "five things meme"...........

Meme Virgin

Southern Fried Mom from Grits with Cheese has tagged me to do a "Five Things" meme.

I have never done one before. So I am a meme virgin. Actually, I'm not even sure how to pronounce it. Anyway, I need to get to it. Since it's my first I want to take my time. So I will get back to you later with it.

You know how on your first you want it to be special. You'll always remember your first, right? You don't want it to be an ugly experience. And you don't want to rush through it. I want to make sure I'm not drunk when I do it, maybe just a little buzz to take the edge off. I might light some candles and put on some music.

I should probably take care of some personal hygiene. It's been a couple days since I've shaved my legs. So I'll take care of that. My pedicure looks relatively acceptable. If I dim the lights, it should be ok. I'll floss and brush and gargle.

And just when I think the moment is right... I'll do it. The question is, can I catch anything from a meme?

I think I figured something out......

I was lying in my bed this morning, for a couple minutes before the alarm went off, pondering how much I love my bed. I REALLY love my bed. It's one of my favorite things in the world. Two Christmases ago my Mother bought my husband and me a Select Comfort Sleep Number bed for a present. And I have been loving it every day since it arrived.

So I'm lying there thinking I wish I could spend more time in bed. It's so comfortable. I started out sleeping at either 40 or 45. But about six months ago I went down to 30. The mattress justs folds up around me like a big pillow. I'm sleeping on a cloud.

My old mattress, while relatively new, was just too firm. I have a little touch of arthritis in my lower back and that mattress would have me waking up with a back ache way too often. With my new lovely sleep number bed, I feel like I'm melting into the mattress. It's soooo nice. And I rarely wake up with a back ache now.

So I am thinking about how much I love the bed and my desire to spend more time there. Then I start thinking about how I started taking Effexor because I was having trouble getting going, getting my shit done, getting motivated to keep up with life.

And then a light bulb went off. I wonder if I would need the Effexor if I was still sleeping on the hard mattress. I wonder if there is a correlation between sales of sleep number beds and prescriptions of Effexor or other anti-depressants being written..... just a thought.

By the way, I hate the Effexor. I really don't feel like it's giving me the kick I desire. And the worst part is the withdrawal symptoms. If I miss one day... man, it hits me like a ton of bricks. Ashley from Ashley's Closet described the withdrawal well.

I really need to get off of it and switch to something else. But, like I mentioned in my last post, I have an aversion to going to the doctor. So I just keep taking the crap and live in fear of forgetting a dose......