Things here are status quo.

I am still coping with the remnants of this sinus issue.  But, on the bright side, it is the second time this calendar year that I have managed to beat it without resorting to antibiotics.  Granted, I missed 12 hours last week, but at least that wasn’t on top of the cost of a Dr. visit and prescriptions.

Tomorrow is a half-day at work.  I work late Monday through Thursday so I can leave at 2 on Friday and still accumulate my 40 hours.  It gives me the opportunity to get my food shopping done while its still early in the day and feel like I have a full weekend, even if I do spend most of Saturday cooking.

This upcoming week’s menu includes:

• roasted asparagus
• saffron rice with peas
• General’s Tofu
• Bean Quesedillas
• Pasta Primavera
• a Cod & Shrimp dish I make (yet to be named)
• something lentil based for Gamer Dude’s lunches

Miss Artistic is still giving us the same grief in terms of schoolwork, grades, & homework.  Additionally, her issues with depression & oppositional-defiant disorder are in a flare as well.  As a result, we have stepped up her therapy sessions, tweaked her medications, and are starting the process of looking into transferring her to an alternative high school as of September.

Princess Nature is doing really well, all things considered.  Her sister’s issues affect her more and more as time goes by & as a result she is going to start coming to some of our therapy session (they are half-family and half-just Miss Artistic).  While her older sister has slacked off enough to miss belt testing this time around, Princess Nature is set to earn her red belt next week.

In other news, my new laptop has been ordered and will be here by the middle of May at the very latest.  Once that arrives my blogging frequency should return to its former levels.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

PS The super secret side project I am working on is still set to be “open” as of June 1st.  Recipes will play a role, that is all I’m going to say for right now.

Written by Mama KellyTags:family, life, update

I got the taxes done and once the money is in our account we’ll finally be buying a laptop to replace mine that died in the fall.  Hopefully that will be the first step toward my blogging getting back to a more regular pattern.

My friend “E” is still set to arrive on Friday though getting to the Renaissance Festival might be in doubt.  The weather is predicted to be sunny and cool, which sounds divine, but unfortunately I seem to have come down with yet another sinus infection.

I came home from work, took some meds to both bring down inflammation and to encourage drainage, and took a hot shower.  I’ve been in my jammies since and can only hope that I am feeling better come the morning as I don’t think I can stand another day of telemarketing when it hurts to speak.

Gamer Dude has been busier than usual.  With the purchase of our new car he plays chauffeur every day taking me to and from work and he has also started investigating his eligibility for VA benefits.  Each appointment necessitates a 3 hour round trip so it is a major pain the neck, but any help he gets will make it all well worth it.

In other news, we are both still on track in our quest to regain our health.  Slowly, we’re catching up on Dr. appointments and gradually we’re changing the way we eat.  The later is actually getting to be a lot of fun as it gives me a reason to try all kinds of new recipes.  Even Mr Grumpy seems to be enjoying the new foods that I’m serving.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

PS  I am still hard at work on my super secret side project, and the reveal is still set for June 1.

Written by Mama KellyTags:life, update

It has been a busy week.  I got very little accomplished, but I can tell you there was very little in the way of true down time.

I started my holiday shopping thanks to amazon and etsy.  The Elder will have a focus on art (as always) and makeup.  The Younger will have a focus on science and American Girl.  Both will receive clothes and cute accessories and odds are a WII as a joint gift.  What I lack in funds I try to make up in WOW factor.

Miss Artistic is still having issues with failure to do homework, various emotional outbursts, and depression/ADHD/oppositional defiant related concerns.  The last couple of years have been a bumpy ride and unfortunately there does not yet seem to be a true light at the end of the tunnel.  Every time I think I spy one, it turns out to be an oncoming car or train.  All I can say is that we are working on it and hoping that things start to get better soon.

Princess Nibbles would like to now be known as Princess Nature as her hope is to grow up, get her doctorate in some kind of science, and work to save the planet.  She is not quite as sunshiny happy as she once was.  The stress associated with the aforementioned sister is part of it, frazzled parents plays a role as well, a busy schedule (reg school, gifted program, Tae Kwon Do, & band) probably factors in, but it is also the emergence of the hormone fairy who has been busy at work beginning the change of little girl to young woman.

Gamer Dude’s chronic pain doesn’t change except in the sense of different levels of pain based on activity levels and weather.  We are trying to avoid doing anything more invasive for as long as possible, but that can only last so long as he is frankly miserable more often than not.  We are hoping that losing weight and building some core strength will help, but odds are we are looking at a spinal cord stimulator being implanted sometime in the next year or two.

As for me?  I’m still pretty miserable most of the time.  I don’t feel well, I don’t sleep well, and I still don’t really like my own company very much.  But, I’m working on that too.

Work takes a lot out of me.  On a good day telemarketing is stressful and emotionally exhausting and good days are a rare commodity.  I am slowly settling in back at my old department since the demise of the “new” department I was transferred to for a few months.

Unfortunately, I still hate my job and nothing is going to change that except to get out of Dodge as soon as possible.  To that end I am planning on working up a resume after the holidays and getting my butt out there to start interviewing.  The hard part is going to be coordinating interviews when I work for a company that does not provide paid time off and requires scheduled hours to be “made up” when someone calls out sick.

But, I work half days on Fridays, so hopefully I will be able to figure something out.

In other news I have confirmed that Hubby & I will both be enrolling in the girls’ Tae Kwon Do school.  With the group discount my tuition will run $89 a month and Gamer Dude’s will be free.  So for $around $22 a week we can each take 2 classes and hopefully move toward losing weight, lowering pain levels, and increasing energy levels.  If nothing else it will force us to create endorphins and to socialize and perhaps that will help with our own individual issues with depression and my sleep issues.

We won’t be starting until after the holidays.  But, I’m actually looking forward to trying something totally new.  Time will tell if my body will actually handle the punishment.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

PS Lady Rose is coming up for a too long delayed and much anticipated visit tomorrow.  It will be great to see her and chat and hang and simply be in the same room as my dearest friend and priestess.

Written by Mama KellyTags:family, life, update

Well what can I say? It’s been relatively busy here in Mama Kelly Land. With back-to-school and the increased stress at work and a long holiday weekend I even failed to do my weekly Blogging of Blessings. And so today’s post is part update, part gratitude, and part ramble.

Miss Artistic had high school orientation this week. So far she likes her teachers, has friends in her classes, has people to eat lunch with, and is talking about joining extra-curricular activities – something we’ve been trying to get her to do all through middle school to no avail. We keep talking about high school being a fresh start, a chance to be who she wants to be, and to leave the past (and the mistakes and pain in it) behind her.

Princess Nibbles couldn’t wait for school and is so far not disappointed. She got the teacher she had hoped to get, her gifted program resumes this week, and best of all, she gets to sign up for band tomorrow. She will be taking the flute – mainly because we still have my old flute (refurbished of course) – and I look forward to relearning it myself as I help her in her lessons.

Miss Artistic spent the holiday weekend with one of her BFF’s and family camping. As of this writing she is probably on the way home from her first experience truly roughing it. This is her first experience with no showers, no flush toilets, and eating/drinking only what can be carried in to a campsite. I am curious to see what she thought of it.

Princess Nibbles spent the holiday weekend home with us. As of this writing she is out on her bike enjoying the last breath of summer. She was a true delight all weekend. Not only did she and I have lots of quality time (and hopefully more to come) but she was a huge help to me.

Insofar as quality time we watched The Sound of Music (in three sittings) which was enjoyed thoroughly, Bedknobs and Broomsticks which was not a hit, as well as episodes of Jon & Kate Plus Eight and one of those Cake Challenge on FoodTV. We have a date later today to play a round (or two or three) of 500 Rummy.

We took a trip Sunday to a local zoo and had fun feeding goats and deer by hand and tossing popcorn to anyone who was interested. Toward the end of that visit we were stalked by a squirrel (one of my favorite animals) who was very annoyed at our lack of peanuts. He made us feel so guilty that Gamer Dude wouldn’t rest until he found an abandoned one and then hand fed it to our little friend.

Mr Grumpy has been slowly replacing the windows in the house. He buys the windows as he can afford them and does all the labor himself. This weekend it was time to hit the girls’ room. Saturday morning he removed the moldings and then lectured me about the state of their room.

To some degree the lecture was deserved (though it should have been directed at the kids and not me) and so my 9-year-old and I spent the rest of the day cleaning. Yes you read that right … the …. rest …. of …. the …. day. Now granted, some of the problem is two girls sharing a room that is too small to fit them, their furniture, their clothes, and all their stuff. However, the bulk of the problem is that one of those girls is a teenager … and, well, frankly … a total slob.

I will not go into how many bags of garbage I got rid of. I will not discuss how big the laundry pile is after I found the stash of dirty clothes. I will not mention the food wrappers.  I will not let myself remember the things that were found behind furniture. Let me simply say that the room is about as clean as I can get it until we divide the furniture between them and get them into separate rooms – probably sometime in November – as bulk pick-up is in mid-October.

Today I am grateful for getting so much accomplished. I am grateful for food enough to feed my family. I am grateful for the school year getting off to a good start. I am grateful to have a job, even one I hate. I am grateful that I have the opportunity to earn commission. I am grateful for catching up on some sleep, even though it is still broken. I am grateful for having peace and rest these past 3 days.

I wish you all blessings both large and small.

Mama Kelly

Written by Mama KellyTags:family, gratitude, life, update

Thursday night I took the girls to Tae Kwon Do and Princess Nibbles found herself unable to finish class due to what appeared to be a migraine. She declared it to be “the worst headache” of her young life and she toughed it out (so that her sister didn’t have to leave class too) with her head in my lap as I rubbed her temples, attempted some Reiki, and covered her ears during louder moments of the class. I got her home, dosed her with liquid Advil and soon she was mostly back to her old self, although her throat was giving her some trouble (which I attributed to allergies), and she was queasy (which I attributed to a side-effect of the headache).

Friday morning dawned and I went to get the girls up for school to find Princess Nibbles truly sick. A decision was quickly made to keep her home from school, a decision which proved wise as when she finally woke up for the day her temperature was 104.5. She spent all of Friday on the couch, with cool compresses, regular dosing with both Advil and Tylenol (something her pediatrician advised years ago when a fever proved hard to break), and ice cream to get some calories into her and to soothe her throat.

When her older sister came home from school, she and I went to do the food shopping and I surprised her with a trip to Barnes & Noble, mainly as I wanted to pick up a couple of lined journals off of the clearance rack (allowing me to get a $13 journal for $5). Almost immediately after arriving home and unloading my groceries Miss Artistic headed out to spend the night at a friend’s house and so Gamer Dude and I entertained the couch-bound sickie with a movie from the $1 a night Red Box Rental machine – Bedtime Stories.

Overall, the movie wasn’t terrible. However, it also wasn’t very good. It had its moments. A few sweet scenes, a few funny ones. But, it won’t be one that we will find ourselves buying to watch over and over again.

Saturday dawned to find Princess Nibbles still sick, with a temperature of 103.6. However, OTC medication and cold compresses again brought her temperature down and today actual food has been consumed. She is so upset to be sick as the weather is drop-dead gorgeous. But, as always, she has maintained her cheerful disposition in spite of her disappointment.

Today I have already done my cooking for the week ahead. Nothing too spectacular – mainly items defrosted from week’s past and some semi-homemade type dishes. I have started the paper that is due on Monday – leaving me tomorrow night to actually finish it, as today Lady Rose is coming up for her regular overnight visit.

I wish you all a happy day full of pleasant surprises and unexpected happiness.

Blessings

Mama Kelly

Written by Mama KellyTags:family, update