Thursday, March 31, 2011

seals and other random things

1. oNe woke up barking like a seal today. When she talked, she sounded froggy. She earned herself another day off from school. She didn't have a fever, but she was coughing like crazy. If I'd have sent her to school, they probably would have just sent her home. Last update on her was she was not coughing as much. Here's hoping she can go back to school tomorrow.

2. I realized that I don't really have good hair days or bad hair days... I have good tech days and bad tech days. I have good brain days and bad brain days. I have organized days and scattered days.

3. I like coughing viruses much more than throwing up ones. When oNe was coughing, I wasn't scared to touch her. When she was throwing up, I was scared to LOOK at her. How sad is that?

4. Our nanny is back! Woo! She was sick while the girls were sick. She didn't have the throwing up thing, she had something else. We're still hoping she doesn't get it, and that MWH and I don't either.

5. Last night, I realized I'm about ready to finish up a project. When I do, I will have very little project work. I'll either need to look for something else, or start using vacation in preparation for going hourly. MWH really wants me to do the latter. I do, in theory, too, but I am scared in reality. I need to talk to the professor at OLU to make sure she wants me to teach this fall and next spring! That's right, I might get to teach two semesters in a row. If it happens, I'll be thrilled. If it doesn't happen, I'll be sad, but I can work more at work... or go hourly. We'll see.

6. I should go finish my report for the K-project.

7. twoK's kitty is having "sensitive tummy" issues. Poor little guy doesn't look completely healthy to me. He looks pretty good, and if you didn't know kitties, you might not notice, but his fur isn't that shiny, he has some gum disease, and this sensitive tummy-thing. I have to get him back to the vet. Good times with rescue kitties. It took about 6 months to a year before I felt like oNe's kitty was all healthy. We're only 3 months in with twoK's kitty... (We'll him Ch-Cat from now on....oNe's kitty is B-cat).

Tulips



We saw these on Sunday. They were so red that it was hard for my camera to take their picture! I <3 spring! I especially love tulips.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Princess pen



Why yes, I do have girls... I end up writing a lot with this pen. A few years back, I had a Dora pen that I used all the time. Heh.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Honestly...

On Sunday night, I started going through the stacks of papers the girls had brought home last week. I ended up recycling a great deal of it (shhh, they hate it when I toss things), but only after I had looked through it all. I try to save some school work from each girl at least every couple of weeks, but I try not to save too much. It's hard.... Oh, wait I wasn't going to discuss saving things versus recycling things, I was going to discuss HOW OVERWHELMED I WAS with all of the papers and how much stuff I have to track.

I don't like sorting papers. I suck at it. I think it's important for me to look at all their work and to understand what they are getting and what they aren't getting. (It's the Researcher in me--gotta track the kids.) I also had to go through extra papers and figure out what homework had been done, what was just sent home to kind of look at with them, and what still needed to be done and turned in (from when they were absent from the illness). oNe is almost caught up at school, but she needs me to make sure she gets it all figured out. I think twoK and Three-a are caught up, now.

Sunday night, I was about ready to cry from all the sorting and tracking of stuff. How do people work full-time and keep up with their kids? I don't know. I couldn't do it.

Monday, March 28, 2011

Greens



This is a new favorite from Whole Foods. It's kale, collard and mustard greens. In my opinion it will cure whatever ails you. I just sauteed about 1/2 a bag and had it on a tortilla with homemade roasted red pepper hummus. (Okay, I had it on two high fiber tortillas.)

Here are some pictures:





Other favorite things to do with this yummy, healthy blend include:

1. Add it frozen to my green smoothies (and I just added it to my girls' smoothies! Woo! So far, they haven't noticed.)
2. Sautee a whole bunch and add one egg to it (so there's way more greens than egg) and put salsa on it. This combination can be eaten alone or on tortillas.
3. Sautee a whole bunch and add one egg and then add the combination to miso soup.
4. Sautee a whole bunch and just add it to miso soup.
5. Sautee a whole bunch and add a tiny bit of whole wheat pasta and LOTS of homemade marina sauce on top.

Everyday, I eat a lot of greens, I'm working on eating greens 4-6 times a day. Read what my friend who is happy and healthy said about why greens are so important.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Space-time

Boy, it feels like it's been a long week, yet somehow it flew by and I got "not enough" accomplished. I have a hypothesis: throw up causes a disruption to the space-time continuum. Let me know what you think about this hypothesis.

Here's something else, we had about 96 hours between episodes of throwing up.... WTF??? Does that seem weird to you? It seems very odd to me. How can a kid seem perfectly normal for nearly 4 days and then throw up violently in their sleep? (Good times! MWH got twoK out of the path of the puke from Three-a about 1/2 a second before it would have hit her. Poor Three-a just was so sick! She was crying and it sounded pitiful. I had to shower her while MWH cleaned up the room. Thank goodness for MWH!) We're both very sick of sickness around here. (Don't come over! Our house is contaminated! UGH!)

So, oNe memorized her speech for the History project. She did a great job, but she lacks confidence and was so worried she was going to mess up. We've got to work on that. Poor girl is smart, but gets scared. With confidence, she could really take over the world.

I'm in a two-day long meeting at work (right now, even). Yesterday, I had to present, and it went well, but right before the presentation I thought I was getting sick. I wasn't, it turned out I was just very hungry. I'm not really scared of presentations in the venue of a small group meeting (like the one I gave) but I am scared of throwing up in front of a group. I think that's pretty normal, eh?

Approximately 24 hours later...

Since I was in 2-day long meetings, MWH had to be in charge on Th and F at home. Thursday he had both twoK and Three-a at home, sick. Friday he got to take all three to school, but if you have kids, you know the school day is VERY short! He had to pick them up at 3. I was supposed to get home around 5-ish, but the last meeting I had scheduled at 3:30 was cancelled so I got home around 4. After our week, he was so tired he decided not to go back to work. It was fun having a long lazy Friday night with MWH and the girls. We put on Scooby Doo movies and I folded laundry while MWH ran to the grocery store. In an hour's time, I ALMOST got all of their socks matched. (We have an INSANE number of socks. Any one else have this problem?)

Now, this morning, after 10 hours of sleep last night, I am still EXHAUSTED. The girls are in gymnastics and I am in the parking lot on my computer mooching off of a guest wireless at a big company. This afternoon, oNe has a playdate and she still has make-up work from when she was sick. Tomorrow is MWH's birthday so hopefully we'll get some good energy for that.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Suck it up kid...

If I twittered, you'd get a few posts about this, but here it is in blog form....It was going to be a Facebook status, but then it got kind of long.

Ay-yi-yi... Trying to get oNe to memorize her speech for Living History Day. She wrote it, and she knows the character, why is this so hard? Oh yea, because she's 9 and she's never done this before AND she doesn't seem to have any motivation. I just had to give her a "suck it up" talk.

She asked, but why do we have to do oral reports. Because it's a chance to show your mastery on a subject, help introduce a subject to others, and help others learn.

Rainy then sunny...

Today has been rainy then sunny, outside. It was totally cold, rainy, and gray until around 1 pm. Then, suddenly it was sunny and not raining. Crazy! Inside, it's just been steady, thankfully. twoK and Three-a seem like they continue to get better. They made it through the night well last night. Whew! I got a full night of much-needed sleep, last night. Unfortunately, I woke up to a goopy right eye. UGH. I don't know if it's viral or bacterial, but I made an appointment with the eye doctor, got some antibiotics drops, and have given myself the first dose. If it's bacterial, my eye should respond quickly. If it's not, I'll be pink-eye girl for a week. I'm hoping it's bacterial! But really, I didn't need one MORE thing right now. (PLEASE be bacterial!!!! I have a presentation on Thursday!)

MWH took oNe to school this morning. Her first day back after a week of being sick. I know she was excited to go, but she wasn't excited to get up early. The virus kept us up late most nights last week so she was accustomed to falling asleep after midnight and getting up after 10 am. 7:45 is damn early in comparison to 10:30. Ah, I love my night owls.

MWH had to watch the little girls while I did a phone call and then come home while I ran to the eye doctor. Now he's picking up oNe. Not having a nanny sucks on days like these. It sucks even more because our very part-time nanny/babysitter called in sick, today. I really like her, but I think I need to find a back-up, or even someone for one more day a week. I have someone for one extra day a week this summer. I really want to be with the girls, but I also have commitments for summer at work that I'll need to fulfill.

It's good my work is flexible, especially for weeks like this one and last, but I'm still feeling like I have way too many different things. It's really good that MWH can be flexible, too. However, I'm realizing that I should probably work less.... (Yea, you've heard that before.) We have a movement at work towards helping people work on fewer projects. It's not just me, it's a lot of people where I work. We'll see what happens for me. I'd love to end up on fewer projects. I don't know if it's possible to end up on fewer projects and maintain 1/2 time status, but maybe it is. It's nice that work is making a push to make things a little mor sane for us. We'll see if it actually works out or not, though.

However, at the moment, I'm annoyed. One of the projects I work on is potentially being drastically reduced because the client thinks we're too expensive. She thinks she can do the work we're doing for less money. She can probably find people to do most of it, but not all of it. Certainly not the research we're doing. Maybe she doesn't need the research, but from what we've read, she does. I wouldn't care about losing a project, but this particular one is my favorite piece of work, right now. The client, however, is NOT my favorite client, so there's good and bad. Oh well, if it gets taken away, then it'll be a lot easier to teach at OLU in the fall.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

One more for the memory books....

Last night, after all the throwing up fun, I became convinced that I was getting sick. My stomach hurt and was gurgling. After about 2 hours of this, I determined I was 1) really stressed and 2) starving. Dealing with this virus in my house has made me not want to eat at all. I hadn't eaten much at all the past 3 days. Today I've made an effort to eat. I don't want to feel like I did last night.

I hope I get some sleep tonight.

Oh, the other thing about last night, there was a horrible storm and I was really worried the power would go out and that one (or two or three) of the girls would throw up and we'd have to deal with it in the dark. Thank goodness for small miracles!

Oh, the other thing... I am completely OCD about hand washing now. I can barely walk by a sink without feeling the need to wash my hands....for a full minute of soap lathering and a good 30-40 seconds of rinsing. If I interact with the girls, it takes 2 - 4 washings before I feel better. This will get better.

Sunday...

It's not sunny, it's still raining. I feel like we are in a movie and the director has thrown in the rain so everyone knows to take pity on us.

It's official, twoK is sick. She didn't want to be sick. She fought the good fight and didn't get sick "officially" until 12:30 last night. I knew it was inevitable at 8:30, and suspected as early as 6:30. Whatever.

Between midnight and 1 am last night, both Three-a and twoK were throwing up at the same time. Ahh, good times. Memories. The wait continues to see what happens to MWH and me.

There is good new about the little sisters, thus far, Three-a seems less sick than oNe and twoK seems even less sick than Three-a. We'll see if they recover more quickly. My theory for why it hit oNe so hard is that she had been on antibiotics for her foot gash the week before and that those antibiotics had wiped all the good bacteria from her little system thus allowing the bad virus to wreck havoc.

Did I ever tell you about oNe getting her stitches removed? I had to lay on her to hold her down again. The nurse had to help. She screamed louder on the removal than on the insertion, granted, we lied to her so she didn't know she was getting stitches, but still! She was convinced that she needed a numbing shot. Oh, it wasn't good.

oNe kept crying for 20 minutes after in the car. I tried everything to soothe her and help her feel better, but to no avail. She just kept crying louder and being more sulky about the fact that we had had her stitches removed. I was very frustrated as she was FINE, so I pulled out the oldie, but goodie of if you can't stop crying, I'm going to pull over and you'll walk home from here. Something in my tone convinced her I wasn't messing around... Perhaps it was my yelling, but she calmed down.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Another one...

Warning, this post is all about stomach flu... Stop reading now if you squeamish.

Last night, 2:30 am, Three-a started to get sick. It was scary and in a sick way almost comical. You see, she started alternating between running around and throwing herself down on the floor, unsure of whether she wanted the bathroom to throw up or to just lay down and rest. I was worried as I thought we were going to have throw-up everywhere. Fortunately, she got her stomach under control and we moved her back downstairs to the "sick floor."

Three-a lost it (officially and literally) around 4:30 am. MWH and I didn't sleep much between 2:30 and 4:30. Three-a went back to sleep pretty quickly; MWH and I didn't...and then around 9 am, she started calling for me about every 20 minutes, so I kept going down to her. I'd just get settled back in bed and then she'd call again. Around 11 or 11:30 am, MWH took pity on me and got up to get food for twoK. I went back to bed and slept until 1:30 and felt almost human again--being up most of the night had taken a toll on my head and it ached. I missed an appointment to get my eyelashes tinted, but under the circumstances, it's fine. twoK's still standing, but who knows if she'll escape or if she'll be down.

It's awful, waiting. One of my brother says I ought to send twoK down with the other girls and just get it over with... That we all ought to just give in so we don't have to be in this "limbo" of are we gonna get sick, or not???? for the next 2.5 weeks. Not knowing is kind of hell-ish. I don't want to eat anything because I'm afraid I might get sick. I have washed my hands so much they are dry and hurt. MWH is like me and desperately doesn't want to get sick; it's just not fun. The reason I say limbo for the next 2.5 weeks is that that's how long this virus (if it's Norovirus) can potentially live in the environment.

twoK is starting to say her stomach "hurts medium," now. She says it used to hurt just a little. Ai-yi-yi. Just 1/2 hour ago, we were sitting reading "herstory" about famous American Women and she was crawling all over me. We'll hope that the people aren't contagious until they actually get sick. They say (twoK called it herstory--my little feminist! I did nothing to explain this to her, but she's a smart girl.)

So, we got this virus from a birthday party for a little boy. The birthday boy wasn't sick, but apparently a another guest had recently had this. Ugh. The birthday boy was sick, like oNe... pretty much to the same HOUR as she for getting sick and then recovering. His Mom, L., got a mild 24-hour version of this. If I could be promised a mild version, I'd take it, right now, to get out of this purgatory. Unfortunately, I don't think I can be promised a mild version, so instead, I'll just keep being paranoid and washing my hands NON-STOP.

I did a Dailey Method class today because, who knows, what tomorrow will bring. Sigh. I feel GREAT from the class. My back and knees are very happy. As hard as the class is, I love how I feel after it!

One more live blog "sick" update, twoK is feeling worse by the minute, it seems. UGH. Quote of the day from Three-a: "I don't want to eat anything because I could throw up really easily."

Oh, one more fun thing, explaining diarrhea to little girls.

And one more thing.... it's been a cold and rainy day... perfect for just being in, being sick, sleeping late, and being in purgatory... If I had my choice, I'd prefer a sunny day and no illness.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Time flies

I just looked and I see I haven't coded a post with "Beloved Kitty" as a tag for a long time.

Oh, beloved kitty, don't take it personally. I still think about you every single day. Seriously. I have a picture of you in the kitchen and I look at you and I miss you. Your ashes are on my desk and I make sure the piles on my desk never cover you. (You know how many piles I had, and how deep they could get, so you know that's saying a lot.)

We have two new black kitties in the house and I frequently tell them, "You're a good black kitty, but you're no H________ K. M_________," You will alway be the best black kitty (and kitty) of all times. MWH disagrees, but you and I know the truth. I will always love you my precious, precious kitty-boy!

what's the difference between

sanitize and disinfect...? The instructions on the can of Lysol are different for those two actions. Disinfect seems more intense... Guess that's what I'll be doing.

Here's some answers:
disinfect vs. sanitize 1.
disinfect vs. sanitize 2

Norovirus:

Can live in the environment for 12 days or
You really shouldn't go over to someone's house for 3 weeks from the time the last person gets sick... UGH.

Bleach gets rid of it

Purell (or alcohol based hand sanitizer does NOTHING TO IT--norovirus just laughs at hand sanitizer)

Heat inactivates (what does that mean?)
I just ordered this stuff that can inactivate norovirus. What the heck does inactivate mean? Can they reactivate?


(Yea, I'm supposed to be working, but I can't stop thinking about Norovirus.)

You saw it coming, right?

I was so relieved about oNe, yesterday.... Last night, she threw up again. Argh. Poor MWH cleaned it up. I was a bit overwhelmed and he did it. Thank you MWH. I owe you. He and I both washed our hands a billion times and then tried to fall back asleep. When you get woken up in the middle of the night because a kid throws up, it's not so easy to go back to sleep.

Today, she is eating, drinking, and feeling MUCH better. She had the gall to ask if she could go to school. I had explained, last night, that she was NOT to ask me that until it had been 48 hours since her last throw up. We went over it again this morning. I told her if she did not throw up all weekend she could go Monday. We'll see what happens. OH, PLEASE, NO MORE.

You can go over to "the other blog" to read a cheerier post about the girl and "Finding Nemo."

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Weird Week!

Wow, it's Thursday. Happy St. Patrick's day!

It's been such an odd week. First, the girls were out of school on Monday for a teacher inservice. That's when oNe got sick. She was SOOOOO sick. It felt like she was sick forever, but she was a lot better by Wednesday afternoon. (Was that really just yesterday???) This week seems like it 2 weeks in one. It was very LONG.

On top of the normal week stuff, work, taking care of the girls, cooking, dancing, working out, we've (MWH and I) been washing our hands a few extra thousand times a day and doing lots of laundry. I also was up Monday night with the sick oNe from 3-5 am and Tuesday from 5-6 am.

I'm soooo thankful oNe is better. She slept through the night, last night! Woo! I could document how awful Monday and Tuesday were, in detail, but I don't really have time for that and I'm not sure that is the best use of web space.

I will document that she barely ate or drank anything M - T; I was really, really worried about her. (Feel free to move on to the next paragraph if you're not interested.) She probably drank 2-ish glasses of water on Monday, but they didn't stay down and 3-ish glasses on Tuesday and they mostly stayed down.... Fortunately, she rallied on W, but she still didn't drink that much... 3-4-ish glasses on Wednesday. Thank goodness she is okay. It's so hard to get a kid to drink/eat when they don't feel good. Tuesday night, I'd started fretting about taking her in on W to make sure she wasn't dehydrated. Fortunately, she turned the corner on the illness and was amazingly better W afternoon.

Moving on.

On Wednesday, I went to work for our "BIG MONTHLY MEETING." We have about 60-ish people in the group where I work and this is our check-in. This month's meeting was kind of fun because it was celebrating all the people who got promotions this year. Many people got promoted and I'm genuinely happy for all of them. They've all worked super hard and deserve it. Of course, when others get promotions, you have to look at yourself and ask yourself, why I am not getting promoted? Should I be working harder?

I am working hard, but not as hard as the people who got promoted. The next level up for where I am involves a great deal more responsibility and I'm not ready for it. I have a lot of responsibility as it is--I don't want any more! I have a great deal of autonomy. I'm good! Where I work, we work in teams, and pretty much EVERYONE has something valuable and unique to contribute. That part of where I work is GREAT.

The people who just got promoted are putting in the extra hours nights and weekends. One of the women discussed how she has to give up sleep, on a regular basis. I don't have it in me to give up sleep anymore. Part of it is, I really LIKE what I'm doing, but I don't LOVE it. I'm not leading any projects, or trying to lead any projects because there is nothing I LOVE enough to give up sleep, or anything else.

To help myself remember that I've made the right choice, and not feel bad about no promotion, here are some of the reasons I haven't gotten a big promotion:


I like being able to hang out with MWH and snuggle and watch tv shows for 1/2 hour - 1 hour on Hulu/a DVD at night.
I like hanging with my little girls (who btw aren't so little any more). Right now, I get to hang with them 3 days a week afterschool. I love it!
I like doing Zumba.
I like working out.
I like taking my tap class.
I like helping at the school.
I like teaching an occasional class at the University. (Did I tell you I was invited to teach on this fall at my fav university, OLU? No? Well, I'll have to tell you about that someday.)
I like getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night.
I like baking.
I like cooking food from scratch.
I like reading about nutrition.
I like thinking about ways to eat in a more healthy manner.
I like blogging.
I like playing in FB.

I don't do anything of these things super well, but I want to keep doing them; they make me happy. I don't want to give up any of these things so I'll just have to settle for no promotions at work anytime soon. Maybe someday, when the girls are off at college, but not right now!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

7,000

is roughly the number of times I washed my hands today. I'm spraying Lysol everywhere, washing my hands, and then dousing myself in hand sanitizer. We're in full containment mode over here.

oNe is doing a leeeeeetle better today. She wouldn't eat much (a handful of oyster crackers) but everything stayed down, so I'm counting it positively. She's asleep right now, and has been since about 6 pm or so. I'm guessing she'll wake up in an hour and eat a little before bed. I sure hope so. Maybe MWH or I will wake her when the others go to sleep and try to get her to eat/drink some more.

How long can kids go without eating? If she were an adult, I would trust her to know, but since she's still a kid, I'm worried. Yesterday, she put her hands on her waist and said, "I feel skinnier." No doubt.... You lost your cookies about 9 times... that'll do it!

In other germ-y news ... Zicam seems to be doing its job on my cold... My nose and head feel pretty good. I need to remember to keep taking it just to be sure.

What else... I did get to go to Zumba today. I worked a little from home, went to Zumba (MWH worked from home while I went) and then picked up the twoK and Three-a and hung with the girls. Since oNe was sick, I didn't get too much work done, but I got to do a puzzle with Three-a and play a game and chat lots with twoK. (twoK didn't want to play the game or do the puzzle.)

I learned, tonight, that twoK likes Peas in her hummus, but NOT hummus in her peas. Order matters.

Monday, March 14, 2011

10 minute post

1. My head hurts. I have the start of a cold. I'm taking Zicam and Elderberry and will hopefully nip it in the bud.

2. oNe is sick... throwing up sick. UGH. I wish there was a Zicam for throwing up stuff. Who knows if we all will get this one. I'm keeping her kind of quarantined, but the norovirus is VERY contagious. Poor girl. She's watching movies, laying on the couch, and looking pathetic. She's earned herself a second day off of school, too for tomorrow as she still can't keep anything down.

3. I'm thankful I can work at home today. Right now, I'm working on a report. I worked on another project about 2 hours and I've put in about 1.25 hours on the report. I need to put in another 2-3 today on the report and then I'll be good to go!

4. We had a good weekend, not too busy. We went to a birthday party for a little boy who turned 1, had a play date with 3 little girls, and hung out. I got in one of my new workout classes. I am sore from that. It's a workout that is a cross between Pilates, Yoga, and Ballet... Lots of isometrics and lots of holding of different positions. I am not yet able to do all of the moves, and I end up shaking during the class, and then I am sore afterwards, but in a really good way. It seems to be helping my back a lot, too. Between Pilates and this class, (The Dailey Method, I think my back might be good! (I don't love the class, but I think it's really, really good for me. I think it strengthens me and stretches me in a way that compliments Pilates with the reformer. I'll write more about the method later, but at least I told you a little about it this time instead of saying "I need to write about it.")

5. I am very thankful I can work at home today. Thankfully, it wasn't a crazy day with lots of meetings, I just need to work on my report and I can do that easily here at home.

Heading back to work on my report.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Back to normal

Isn't that the most we can ask for in life? I won't bore you with a long detailed post, but I will give a little information about my blood sugar. Last spring, my fasting blood sugar was a little high. I bought a blood glucose monitor and began monitoring my blood sugar. Through my monitoring, I learned that my blood sugar was slightly higher than normal a lot of the time. My doctor gave me an A1C test, a measure of long-term blood sugar control, and that came back normal. Despite a normal A1C, I was still worried about the slightly higher than normal fasting blood sugar.

To see if I could get my blood sugar to be slightly lower, I reduced my carb intake. After a few months, my fasting blood sugar was around 96-100 almost every day; this is HIGH normal. I was pleased, but I wanted more. I wanted it to go down a bit more. I tried all kinds of stuff, but NO CHANGE.

Over the last month, I've suddenly seen a 5 point drop in my blood sugar pretty much for all times of the day, including fasting. I am THRILLED, but baffled as to why. I have done a couple of different things in the last few months, but I don't know what was the cause of the decrease. 1) I upped my intake of soy protein. 2) I slightly upped my strength training each week (I would like to do more). 3) I started using cumin in my cooking again (supposed to potentially lower blood sugar, but I don't think I'm using the "right kind" of cumin. 4) I started eating more apples. 5) I lowered the fat content of my diet slightly (this shouldn't really affect blood sugar, though). 6) I've gained 3 pounds (NOT A THING THAT I LIKE OR THAT WOULD HELP). 7) Started adding a small, late night, protein-y snack. (But I did this AFTER the drop, but it seems to be important to maintaining a lower fasting level.)

So what caused the lower blood sugar? I don't know. None of those things listed above seem "significant" enough to be the cause. I *wish* I knew so I could make sure to keep on doing whatever it was that caused this drop.

For now, I'll take the lower blood sugar and not change anything I'm doing! (I like all the new changes, except the 3 pounds.) I hope I can keep this new lower normal all the time range blood sugar level! (Note: I have added back a few more carbs to my diet in the last week or so and it seems to be okay! Woo!)

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Purple power



See, I told you they dressed alike, today.

triplets and twins

This is just a quick-y as I'm at work and I need to get back to looking at some data, but I also don't want to forget to write this down.

This morning, all the girls were dressed alike. Purple shirts (exactly the same) and black leggings (almost exactly the same. oNe's identical pair was dirty so she was wearing a close approximation that were only slightly different). They like dressing alike. I buy quite a few of their clothes to be "identical" so when they feel like dressing alike, they can. Sometimes they do and other times they don't. This morning, they wanted to dress alike, in a BIG way! oNe pointed out that her hair was the shortest and she was the tallest and Three-a's hair was the longest and she was the shortest, so we discussed inverse correlations. We could have even gotten into correlation is not causation, but ran out of time.

On our recent vacation we got asked several times if twoK and Three-a were twins. Once, when the person refused to believe they weren't twins, I responded, "Well, they are Irish twins." (See definition Technically, they aren't Irish twins, but at 15 months apart, they are CLOSE. There's almost 3 years and 7 months between all 3, so they aren't Irish triplets, either.) Shortly after that, someone asked me if twoK and Three-a were Irish twins and I said, yes. Three-a likes this term and now goes around proudly saying that twoK is her "Irish twin." Heh!

Saturday, March 05, 2011

catch up

This weekend is a pretty "light" weekend... We have gymnastics this morning and then NOTHING ELSE scheduled for Saturday!!!! WOOOOO! (I might sneak in a work out class and we have to get a present for the birthday party on Sunday...)

oNe has homework to make up this weekend. Motivating her to work over the weekend is tough. She just finished reading her book for her book report and now has to do the "pre-report" on it by Monday.

oNe's been having a difficult time at school, lately. Not terribly difficulty, but a little. Her teacher finds she's not paying attention, forgetting to do stuff, and being sort of "all over the place." I totally know what the teacher means. When oNe is into something she's FABULOUS, but she's not that into school right now. We (the teacher and MWH and me) have to help her gain strategies so that she can keep track of what she's supposed to be doing better. Ah, good times.

Sidenote: It's frustrating to see oNe doing some of the stuff I did as a kid, granted I turned out okay, but if she would listen occasionally, life would just be easier for her and for the rest of us! That girl has to reinvent the wheel ALL THE TIME.

Oh yeah, the rest of our weekend... twoK and I have to go sell Girl Scout Cookies on Sunday morning. (Let me know if you need any We'll be outside the Starbucks. Stop by if you can.) On Sunday, in the afternoon, Three-a has a birthday party to attend, oNe's kitty has a vet appointment, Three-a and oNe have 4-H... I guess Sunday isn't so "light;" I'm tired just thinking about it. For now, I'll go do a little work on my stuff and then get ready for my work out class! (I still need to tell you about it.)

Friday, March 04, 2011

can't decide

We had a FABULOUS time in Hawaii on our vacation, BUT, I can't decide if vacations are worth it. We read lots, swam lots, played in the ocean lots, and relaxed. That was all really good, but this week, since we've been back, it has been really hard and exhausting. Perhaps a vacation when the return week isn't such a difficult one is better, but I have no idea when the return week might not be bad.

A few things could have helped this return. For example, a return on a Saturday so we have Sunday to just chill and get ready for the week. We returned on Monday--that was a big mistake. The girls missed a day of school, were a little behind in their school work, and had something extra this week, the science fair on T/W. Returning at night was tough, too. On the trip, we drifted to "Hawaii time," so we were all getting up 2 hours later than usual at home and going to bed two hours later, too. The night we got back, the girls went to bed at 10:30 our time which is later than their usual bedtime. All week long it was hard to get them to bed and harder still to get them up in the morning. They even ended up with a tardy one morning. I yelled lots.

I feel so far behind at work. I only work 1/2 time, but M is one of my "long days" in the office. I missed M because of travel and most of T and W at work because of the science fair. I crammed 15 hours into work on Th and F. Well, actually, I have to do about 4 more hours of work this weekend. Fortunately, I have my head "into" what I need to do this weekend so it won't be too bad. (I am going to try to do another hour tonight after the girls go to bed.)

So, anyway, to sum up, I can't decide whether I like vacations or not... I remember one year I didn't work on labor day and everyone else where I worked did... It was then that I decided never to take time off, but to always keep working a little. This year was the first year since that labor day fiasco that I've really taken a lot of time off. While it was NICE during the trip, it all sucks, now. I would like to curl up in a fetal position and rock.

Tuesday, March 01, 2011

back

Re-entry to real life is hard.

Vacation was wonderful. We stayed at a great resort. They had this awesome towel service. We could get as many towels as we wanted each day and take them to the beach and get them all sandy, 'cause that's what happens at the beach, and then they'd take them back and clean them. Absolutely awesome. The resort was kind of on the pricey side of things and MWH thinks that perhaps we should just go buy a LOT of towels at Costco when we arrive and was them ourselves at a different condo. We'll see. We used about 8-10 towels a day... Maybe more. That's a LOT of towels.

What else...? I met a woman at the resort who also works 1/2 time. I meet so very few people who work 1/2 time. I'm so lucky to be able to both work and get more than just a couple of hours with the girls each day, but working 1/2 time in a job like I have has its own special challenges. I don't complain because I know I am lucky, but when you find someone who is just like yourself, you can take a moment and share frustrations. It was nice. I could discuss things with her and she understood. I understood her too. A peep! I found a peep!

What else? We spent lots of time in the ocean and oNe ended up cutting her foot on the coral reef. It was gashed pretty wide open, not too deep, but I took one look at it and said, she needs stitches. Yup.... she got four. She screamed and yelled and I had to deceive her to get the stitches into her--if I hadn't have lied, we would have had to go to the hospital and had her sedated. Instead, the doctor and I told her he needed to numb it and clean it. I blocked her view and he stitched her while saying how he was pulling out bits of sand.

I felt a leeeeeetle bad about lying, but NO WAY was I going to the hospital because my 9-year-old couldn't hold still for stitches. She just didn't want them. I didn't want her to need them, but since she was cut, she needed them. She is old enough to understand and be rational. Since she wasn't being rational, I lied. Note to self: next time we go to Hawaii, or any place with an ocean, we buy the ocean shoes. Cheap $12 shoes would have prevented that injury. Sigh.

What else? oNe's cat had to go to the vet while we were out of town. That's almost a blog post in and of itself... The cat sitter put him in a cardboard carrier and he CHEWED THROUGH IT. He's not a big oaf-y dog, he's a little cat. I was on the phone with her when she was in the car with him after he'd chewed through, and I was so worried that he was going to get out of her car and run away when she opened the door. How could I ever explain that to oNe?????

Luckily, somehow, she got out and went in and had a vet tech help her. He has to go back for a re-check on Sunday, but hopefully he's all better. He has a condition that causes him to be very susceptible to sinus infections. Poor little guy. This is the first time he's been sick in a couple of years. I feel good that we're managing the condition pretty well, but I can't help but think that this round of infection was partly caused by the adoption of twoK's kitty and the stress that he experienced.

Overall, I think it's great to have two kitties and I think oNe's cat will love having a kitty friend. He's already playing a lot with twoK's cat, but I can't quite decide whether they like each other, or not. I think they do like each other, but some of their playing is VERY rough.

Okay, enough rambling for now... Nitey-nite.