So today, was the waterpark extravaganza.

Fun, sunburns (despite copious amounts of sunscreen), fried foods, and soda was had by all.

And my damned antibiotics had me dashing to the bathroom, crapping my brains out in an effort to dislodge tiles via stench.

Heck, last night, Sarah came by and hey, I've farted with Sarah before. She's family. It's cool. But my farts were of the "what died in your duodenum?" variety and she was gasping for air and cursing my name. I kept apologizing profusely, because I really had made every effort to drop a bomb in the corner where it wouldn't harm anyone and I swear it followed me around like a little sibling.

I'm so tired, that if I didn't know by looking that my legs weren't actually jello, I think I'd believe I had lime jello floating with carrots and pineapple ambulating my body, if someone told me. I should be doing laundry, but there's that whole walking down the hall thing to the garage that seems to be keeping me from doing it.

I'm such a wimp.

I woke up and noticed, hey, my ears feel a little better. I could hardly believe meds would kick in that fast, but maybe the mind is a powerful healer and I really needed it to work fast.

I slept well and I even got a nap and am looking forward to a good night's sleep.

I didn't get near the laundry done that I had hoped to do, but I got some of it done. Now, it's just a matter of getting all that folded clean clothing out of the livingroom and put away.

Tomorrow, I take the kids to the waterpark. I called up Russell's best friend and we're heading out tomorrow after swim lessons. It's going to be an abominably long day for the kids, but that means they'll sleep on Friday morning, which means the drive up to see Grammy and Pop will be pleasant and involve less bickering, providing I get my damned car back.

The shop keeps telling me that I'll be getting my car and then today, I got told, probably by Friday.

Probably by Friday? Dude, I have reservations. And I'm not driving up there in a freaking tuna fish can compact. When I suggested that we should talk to the car rental place because I know they're booked as hell, the guy said we shouldn't "jump the gun." I called the car places and got myself hooked up. Jump this, butthead. *extended middle finger*

All car dealership guys are fuckerheads.

Yeah, so after a week of antibiotics, the first ear infection is still there and now, the other ear is infected.

I'm taking a new medication. Dammit.

It's a medication that requires you take yogurt with active cultures, too. So tonight, I made fajitas with a lot of bell pepper and onions and dolloped some yogurt on with the lettuce and salsa. Good schtuff, Maynard.

I had Mike buy me mushrooms, so I can make myself breakfast quesadillas, which I can put on more yogurt and salsa.

The digestive disagreement between me and a penicillin derivative has already begun. I don't care how many generations removed it is from penicillin, it still gives me the runs. *sigh* I should have had yogurt earlier.

I'm probably going to buy some acidophilous milk tomorrow and drink some with each meal, so I have a chance of getting through this without a raging yeast infection and a completely thrashed colon. I'd just like to say for the record that all this health shit completely blows trout.

__

This weekend, we're going up to visit Mike's grandparents. Mostly because they need help with the store and because we want to see Mike's brother, we decided it would be a good idea. We also will be able to see fireworks at a neighboring town on Saturday night with the kids and be back on time on Monday to watch them from the hill with the kids.

I'm looking forward to the trip and I think we're going to enjoy it a great deal. His grandparents are kind and love to see the kids. The kids might get bored, so we'll bring some board games that they can play in the back of the store. Kevin already asked us to bring Stratego. I'll bring a few things for the kids, too.

My throat is getting worse, rather than better. Very raw, very red, and the ear infection, while improved isn't gone. It's kind of maintaining things at a marginally better place than I was. I still feel like I'm talking around a golf ball in my throat.

I was given more antibiotics today of the same kind with the idea that maybe a few more days would do the trick, which they're not.

It's very frustrating.

I'm sick of being sick and not too thrilled about being wiped out tired. I'm too tired to do the stuff that I need to in the course of the day, though, which is difficult at best.

I'm seeing the doctor again tomorrow. I want to know if the meds I'm taking cover strep throat, because if not, I'd swear that's what I have.

I'd give my left nipple just to be able to yawn without crying out or wincing in pain.

My children can be so odd sometimes.

Genny, who usually freaks out about bugs, spiders, and dogs, found a spider in her room. She put it in a box and named it Blake.

No, I don't know why she named it Blake.

After about a week, the spider was still kicking, but we were getting nervous about its well-being and we had to strongly convince Genny that Blake missed his friends and family and would sincerely like to eat and drink something.

She was very upset.

And then we put him out by some water and she saw that he wanted a drink. Mind you, I've never seen a spider drink quite like that, but the spider did drink upon release. We also assured her that he needed to go eat bugs for us.

So every so often, she goes out into the yard looking for Blake. I hope Blake has the good Spider sense to run the hell away.

Mel came over today for her goodbye barbecue. We talked and talked all day. It was wonderful.

I am going to miss her so very much. I know I'll still go visit and stuff, but it's a 6 hour drive now, versus a 20 minute one.

*sigh*

I've been kind of weepy behind my eyes all day.

Things I learned today:

1. Elvin Bishop rocks!!!!!!


2. 41 year old women with a recent knee surgery under their belt, should not tell their husbands that the shoes with the modest heels are "ok."


3. Shoes with a modest heel are not okay for dancing in, if it's 1-3 months post op on your knee surgery.


4. Dancing, much like bicycling, is something you never forget how to do, even barefoot.


5. Even fat women in their 40's get hit on.


6. Flashing your wedding ring several times, eventually gets their attention and the perverts back the fuck off.


7. Husbands, who don't dance with their wives, should. Especially, if they're 6'7" and kind of brooding and dark looking.


8. When my kids are counting their blessings at the dinner table in my absence, that they count their mom and dad's happiness as a blessing.


9. Any restaurant with the name Ruby in it, is damned good.


10. My husband and I need more dates.

So tired.

It's a mantra.

The kids have been feeling crappy along with me. I'm completely sleep-deprived and miserable.

I'm going to bed.

Today was kinda boring.

I enjoyed being at the pool with the kids and LaDawn's mom and Tracy. We kind of hung out and talked.

Afterwards, I went to the place where I bought the $10 capezio tights for Genny's dance recital that I never ended up using and got back my $10.70 and took the kids to McDonalds.

What is it about McDonald's playland? There is ALWAYS one freaking screamer kid. It's the kid who is screaming, in apparent delight freaking constantly, whose screams register in decibel levels I was fairly sure I'd lost in my encroaching old age. And it's always the kid of the parents who are too freaking oblivious to give a flying crap.

Today's screamer came with a mother who had two out of three girls with rat's nests in their hair. I know sometimes it's easy to forget to run a brush through a kid's hair, but to forget hair that is sticking up in the back and is tangled into whole new macrame designs on TWO kids and to have the Mickey D's screamer seems like rampant neglect or something. I just felt kind of bad for the two girls with yucky hair and pissed about the screamer.

He finally let out one more blood curdling scream of delight, and my worst ear about split, so I got kids and we blew out of there, muttering something completely curmudgeony about "damned kids."

I tried to get Genny to nap.

No dice.

I'm almost positive she has an ear infection now because she's so cranky and so pissy and so freakin' congested. We'll see how she is tomorrow, but if we do the same shit tomorrow as today, I may be responsible for leaving throttling marks around her neck or leaving clumps of my hair on the floor.

Okay, probably not, but I'm sure it will warrant a call to the pediatrician. Dammit.

---

Mel officially leaves on Monday, so we're having a barbecue and saying goodbye.

I just feel heartbroken and sad and angry and lonely. I've been noticing how we're trying to pull apart and not cry about it. We've been doing nice things for each other and spending lots of time together, but it's difficult.

She gave me the most beautiful thank you card, just for letting her use my gas card for one tank of gas and it made me sad for the future stuff that we won't get to do together. With her pregnant again, I'm sad about not getting to see her much to prepare and shop together. I think that makes me saddest. I do know that I'll be running up my phone bill to talk to her because they probably won't have the money and stuff.

__

Mike's on the bed looking all GQ and I just want to go put my face on his chest and inhale. G'night.

I took Genny to the pediatrician Monday as a follow-up from her emergency room visit. She's still running a low-grade temperature, but he said it was ok to put her in swim lessons today, which she just LOVED. I swear, while Russell is the stone that sinks, Genny is the fish that swims.

On a lark, I asked the pediatrician to look at my ears. They've been excrutiatingly painful, even after the doctor said I should be well-healed after the tonsillectomy.

He said I've got fluid behind one and the other one is bright red and infected.

It explains why I've been having to take pain meds, well after the date that the doctor seemed to think I would be.

I saw the ENT today, who said that 5% of people who have the tonsillectomy get ear infections. Lucky freakin' me. I'm on antibiotics and more painkillers. I will be damned glad to go back to my three pills a day regimen -- my diabetes meds, my thyroid, my asthma.

Ear infections are right up there along with ripping a nail below the quick and childbirth. I hate them and I'm a sad sack of agony the entire time I have them. It also explains why I've been wishing I had an ice pick to puncture my ear drums with. It also explains why the doctor thought I should have been further along in the healing process with my tonsils. Apparently, the half course of antibiotics wasn't enough to keep the infection at bay.

And last night, despite the heating pad on full blast, and vicodan, still kept me up half the night.

It gives me free reign to use a heating pad and moan and groan a lot over the next several days.

I thought I just needed to suck it up and deal. Apparently, that's not the case. I'm just glad I asked rather than continue to suffer along.

Today, we started two weeks of swim lessons, which I know Genny is dying to do and Russell would rather chew glass than do. I'm hoping that Russell will be motivated to move along, this year, because this is a different program, more oriented towards competition. I think he would benefit from swimming competitively enormously and it's something we could do together.

I haven't had yoga for two weeks now. I blew off this week's class because Genny's pediatrician appointment was in the one big town at the same time as yoga was in the other big town. Russell was pissed and hoped that Mike would go, but I think it's safe to say that Mike would rather gnaw off a limb than breathe deeply and even mildly pretzelize himself for yoga. And Mike already had to blow some time for Russell's botox dr. appointment.

The doctor assured us that Russell's muscles will contract again when he grows and he'll need more botox. I can nearly assure him that he's wrong because with the yoga and physical therapy, he's very limber -- more limber than most people and kids I know. I think I will just keep pushing Russell to practice his yoga and to keep in mind how he can control whether or not he gets botox again.

The brush fire just down the hill from us, had Mike and the kids pulling the weeds out of the front. I'm hoping that we can get most of it knocked down and then the rock put down, next week. Brush fire danger is yet another reason, I am NOT doing bark. That one got put out and we've got another several hundred acre one going on about 10 miles from here. We can see the plume of smoke from here. In a couple hours time, it went from 100 acres to 500. Gah.

I'm hoping that we'll have most of it removed by the time we get the money wired into our account, so I can simply go to the rock place, and put in an order.

--

On the happy side of life?

I went to Costco. I love that place. The fruit at this time of year alone justifies the membership. Two boxes of blueberries, a big thing of strawberries, and melons -- I'm a happy happy girl.

I also really think that the furniture they have at Costco is soooo awesome. I just enjoy the chairs and tables and neato things they have and I always want something they have -- not usually in a gotta have it sort way -- just in a wow, that would be cool sort of way.

One year, they had the most gorgeous leather chairs. I would have chewed off my arm to have a beautiful $700 chair like that in my livingroom. And then I remembered that I have kids, and I decided that I'd just rather put a slipcover on what I have than buy something really beautiful and nice that my children would thrash. I'm waiting until I'm retired and I only have to fend the grandchildren off the furniture once or twice a year. That and pine doors inside the house.

Mostly, I'm jonesing for a rectangular outside umbrella for the picnic table. And Costco doesn't have it. I checked. ;)

Genny had a rough night. She couldn't hold anything down, even after they gave her anti-nausea meds, so they started an IV.

I talked with Mike periodically through the night, when I finally fell asleep about 430AM. We talked at 730 and he said he thought they might be coming home, but didn't know. At 930, he called and said he could drive just fine and would be home soon and got home just shy of 10.

They said it was some kind of viral thing. She held down everything she ate today, and we gave her one last dose of anti-nausea stuff tonight before she sees the pediatrician, tomorrow.

Everyone, but Bear, slept all day. I somehow thought that I was going to get up and do all this stuff and then promptly fell asleep in the easy chair in the livingroom because it was hot sandwiched between the fevered Genny and the exhausted heavily snoring Mike.

I got a shower about 430PM.

At 8PM, Mike and I got stuff planted in the garden and chased the "wild chicken" back in her coop because a couple of the tomato plants looked like she'd been pruning them, in her search for food. One of the tomatoes looked liked she'd scratched it into next week, and another had a lot of missing leaf edges. No self-respecting rabbit or squirrel is going to chow down on an evening shade relative, so we figured it had to be her, scratching around in the manure we pulled from the little chicken coop to fertilize the garden looking for spare bits of grain.

__

Mike and I found all the fencing we needed and tomorrow night and every night this week, will continue in our work to have defensible space around our home for fire season and putting up fencing to keep the critters out of the garden. He and Russell put a substantial dent in the 4 foot tall weeds in the front. We're going to get those finished this week and till the front under. I'll be ordering the rock I need at the end of this week and deciding once and for all on color.

I had been thinking about it, and if we go dark red lava rock only, that it will make it really hot out front. I'm going to go back to the nursery and rock places and see what I can get for what price. I may do some red lava rock, some pea gravel and some light brown rock. I want to make a dry river bed on the front for drainage, so I'm thinking I could do a combination of all those rocks at the edge and then put in the rocks we collected out of the yard for the bed itself. Of course, I'm going to have to dig in the french pipe I want under the eaves and have it feed to that.

I'm going to talk to people a little and plan accordingly. I guess I want to bounce my ideas off of people before I do it, but bottomline -- $1000 is a lot cheaper than digging a well for $4-6K.



There's a small wild fire burning about 3 miles north east of our house. I will not forget last year's 11,000 acres that burned all around us.

Genny's been an intolerable pain in the butt all day -- kind of like she is when she's got an ear infection.

I've been >THIS< close to wringing her neck a few times.

So we head up to town to pick up a few things and she pukes three times over a 40 foot area of parking lot at Home Depot.

I happened to have a change of clothes in the car for her of stuff she's mostly grown out of, so we hid her behind my sarong and the front car door and Mike's butt, and changed her barfy clothes. Then Mike takes her to the bathroom, so the two of them can get cleaned up in the restroom. (I'd already gotten into the store when Russell came running breathlessly down an aisle yelling for me.)

I buy a bucket and the box of stuff I had planned to buy and we head home. Daddy sat in the back with her. If you have been keeping up here, you know that 1) I don't do barf and 2) I've been barfing all week and the meds I'm taking make me somewhat barfy to begin with, and 3) I get car sick easily. Mike of Iron Stomach fame sat in the back with my pitcher from the hospital, which we had kept in the car for just such an occasion for me earlier in the week.

I was sad that Genny indeed needed it on the way home. We didn't think we could actually make the 5 gallon bucket from Home Depot fit or work for her, but were pretty sure the hospital pitcher would work well. The pediatrician said that if she doesn't stop puking tonight, to take her to the emergency room.

I think when I was about 8, I puked into my Dad's hands in an elevator on Father's Day in Hawaii on a family vacation. I've never lived that down. I hope we don't have one of those kinds of father's days for Mike.

Yeah, yeah, circle of life.

I've been taking percocet all day because everything got swollen and hurt like blue blazes.

I got a lot of laundry done, but then I made a list for the boy and told him to get to work. He's sat on his butt since school got out and hasn't done squat. I made him a list and told him he needed to help. I also offered to give him a little extra money. I said that I didn't think it was fair when I was sick that Dad was getting ditched with everything, especially after working all day. He agreed.

His sister and I had a meeting of the minds. She told me she didn't want to wipe down the table. I asked,"Do you think I like washing your dirty underwear?" She stared at me stunned and said,"No." I said, "You're right, but when you're part of a family you do stuff you don't like because you love your family. We're supposed to help each other." She wiped everything clean pretty happily after that and offered to set table.

She and her brother did dishes together with minimal fighting. Mike rather enjoyed his supervisory role.

I'm hoping I can get them in the habit. It may take some mean mommy work in the interim, but I'm willing. I want my kids to understand that working together is a good thing and that helping each other is a good thing. Russell has that, but I think we've babied Genny so long that we haven't pushed that with her and that's a bad thing. I think we need to teach her how to be a functioning part of the family and not just the "baby."

When I had Russell, I was a single mom and I needed his partnership in the things I did or I was sunk. We've been working as a team longer than anyone else in our family. Our relationship as a team was what we taught Mike. Now, we all three need to teach Genny.

I want her to have that because it makes us all so connected and I think that connection will stay with her forever. My brother and I have that kind of relationship, too. When I am at my mom's house, I realize that I still have that relationship there, too. At my mom's house, though she was the evil bitch and no one did it to do anything but avoid her wrath. At our house, we do it because we get sick of the mess collectively and we like the house clean and nice to live in.

Maybe, I've just had too much percocet, but I figure, if I can get that sense of community across and how we all contribute, that I'll have done a lot to make Genny a good person.

So much for feeling better. I had the misfortune to sleep with too much weight upon my eustaschian tube on the right side and am here at 4AM wishing that there was lots more percocet. I was having this dream about being shot at and having to jump from high distances into a pool, in my brain's attempt to work with the agony.

I finally had the good sense to wake up and take a percocet which frankly made the gun shot rally deeper and deeper into my skull -- while conscious.

A brief yoga move and some restoration, but I'm tired enough to where doing yoga at this fucking hour of the night is NOT an appetizing thought. I did pray while I did it asking God to flow through my body and take with Him the pain of my ears, but sweet yes-you-me it hurts. It makes me want to wake up the household and make them wait on me hand and foot. It makes me whimper for the days of yore when I had a freakin' rice sock and actually knew where the danged fool thing was.

Although, let's be truthful here, this hurts worse.

Maybe I should have been brave enough to take the liquid percocet because it kicks in harder and faster, but then, of course, I'd have had to take the cancer-patient-quick-dissolve-in-your-mouth-anti-yack meds. It's far too complicated to be in pain. Far too complicated.

Of course, then I might have missed presenting you with the image of a nimble 300 lb. woman jolting out of bed and sprinting to the bathroom at Olympian speeds to merely pass gas upon the porcelain goddess for fear of soiling her bed linens.

I'm going to watch HGTV.com. Nothing puts me to sleep faster than tile.

So, today, I went off the percocet. Apparently, percocet's constipating effects go away immediately. I got up from taking percocet early this morning, so took some tylenol instead and then promptly spent the day visiting the porcelain goddess with my butt.

Russell and I went to the local deli and got him a pizza and I had two push up pops. Then we went to Walmart to buy groceries and I paid homage to the porcelain goddess there -- somewhere between buying non-fat sour cream and buying prune juice. Actually, I'm fairly certain I cleared the entire women's room.

An entire week of toxins trying to leave unsuccessfully -- hey, you'd clear the women's room, too.

Mostly, I bought groceries because I'd gotten these big brown eyed gazes from my son and husband about how we we were out of everything. Buttheads.

Apparently, I'm supposed to crawl out of my sickbed and buy it for them.

So today, I was feeling better, so I went to Walmart.

I got through Walmart and got out to the car and was sooo light-headed. I figured low on sugar was the culprit because I haven't done a damned thing for days and I'd had all of one otter pop and a couple of push-pops and thought I should run track loops through Walmart. I had Russell unload the cart and that was okay. I took him to Jack-in-the-box because they had the only really yummy shakes of all the fast food places where we were.

When I got home, I left instruction on the dissemination of the groceries with Russell and crawled into bed after writing Mike the following email:

Subject: I went, I shopped...

I went home and passed out. Next time, I want to go shopping, say endearingly to me,"No, sweetheart, I wanted to look for something, so let's go together."

I won't be too suspicious and I might actually be high enough on percocet to fall for it.

What was I thinking.

Passing out,

Wendy

I think he might have figured it out when he came home and found me out cold in bed some 3 hours later. He might also be suspicious about the peeled paint in the bathroom.

Well, I'm taking Celebrex, and therefore, somewhat less percocet. My desire to barf everything up is gone and I'm eating more.

I ate some vanilla ice cream, angelhair pasta, with watery tomato sauce, scrambled eggs, white grape juice, and the usual assortment of otter pops and pudding cups.

I can only eat pasta if I have had percocet. Because after I've eaten it, I hurt so bad that I have to sleep for three hours, and while it's not prime rib, it's pretty good to me and worth a nap afterwards.

Tonight, Mike brought me in my small plate of pasta and I ate it and crashed and burned. I remember somewhere in there cuddling with Genny before she went to sleep. I never got to say g'night to Russell, though.

Today, though, he was angling on me hard that I was supposed to cook meals for him and he was all pissed off on some level that I wasn't dropping everything and making him food. He announced he was hungry for lunch and I quietly mumbled peanutbutter sandwiches. He started throwing a hissyfit that he had no idea where the bread was and came into my room several times in a huff. I looked at him, as I lay in bed and asked,"What am I supposed to do for you?" He stomped off, came back to tell me he found the bread.



Then I managed to get out to the kitchen and make myself a couple scrambled eggs and I didn't think to make more because my brain's just not functioning fully and he was really mad. Eggs are far worse than pasta, by the way, and I won't be doing that again soon.

Upon scent of my eggs, then my grizzly bear announced that he was starving to death and that I should take him to a buffet because he was starving to death. I said,"Please find something in the kitchen." He was absolutely furious because I could hear him stomping through the house.

So I talked, I mean raspily whispered, to Mike tonight and told him to tell Russell to knock it off.

I have no idea how that conversation went, but I'm of mind to thwap the boy, if he gives me any crap tomorrow.

I have several quicky meals -- frozen pizzas and stuff, but I can't even get that far to get them out and make them, sadly enough. I think I need to ask Mike to do something like that with Bear, so he learns some generic cooking skills. Or buy those single serve pizzas from Costco, that he can make in the nuker. Or yes, resort to physical violence involving a large weighted sock whilest I say,"homey don't play dat."

I had a hard time getting up and then I took my meds, including my anti-nausea meds and got really sick. Then I couldn't eat or drink or move. I called Mike and the doctor and went to the emergency room.

Essentially, they decided that I needed a better anti-nausea med. (ya think?) And they gave me a couple of rounds of morphine.

I had some Campbell's chicken noodle soup with a few crackers. I'm going to bed. I've had a little bit of vanilla ice cream and a pushpop and a lot of ice water.

Not my favorite kind of diet, I tell ya.

Today started as horrible. I've been getting progressively worse. I could actually taste the infection in the back of my throat. I finally emailed a few folks in desperation and got some support.

So I called the doctor and we got my pain medication changed and frankly, that's the least in pain I've felt since the surgery -- liquid percocet. I am feeling so much better. As a result, I've been able to drink more and even tried a few semi-solid foods like jello and pudding that I hadn't been able to get down before.

I had my first bowel movement since the general anesthesia, which sounds crazy, but is a victory, too.

I can actually do yoga with little pain and I'm motivated to do so now.

The best thing is that I actually feel like I can get ahead of this now, and 6 hours ago, I was thinking I was going to have to go to the hospital to get IV food and drink.

I don't think I've ever experienced anything so excrutiating.

My throat is sooooo sore and hurts like hell. It seems like if it were bleeding, it'd be a welcome relief in some ways, though the doctor assures me that that means serious trouble.

At the hospital, I had some moments of queasiness, which I was able to yoga breathe through or nurse ice cold water through.

So when Mike picked me up at the hospital, Friday, to come home, I thought I'd be all buff and get stuff at the pharmacy that I could ingest -- juices, puddings, etc. and wander around the store, but indeed, that made me more tire, more queasy, and then stop and go traffic aftewards meant more of the same. By the time I stepped out of the car to wave to my mother-in-law, I threw up in the bushes.

The rest of the ride home was touch and go, but I got some anti-nausea meds and that helped, once I got home.

Every swallow hurts -- the only thing I find that really relieves the agony is not the vicodan, but rather sleeping on a towel full of ice wedged against my jaw and eustaschian tubes. My ears are a source of screaming agony. I don't know if I'm eating enough or if I'm getting enough anything. I just kind of nurse iced drinks and slurpees all day. We also got some Otter Pops, which are pure sugar, but taste good, regardless. The ice feels good, but the swallowing pain is enough to make me want to drive an ice pick into my head. Creamy stuff seems tempting, but I can't always handle the extra goo on my throat. I tried pudding today and while it tasted good, the swallowing part was excrutiating. You never think that you'll consider pudding excrutiating. Screw Bill Cosby.

My asthma has been kicking up, too, which really sucks. Coughing with this throat is well nigh on the most torturous thing I could possibly imagine. Burping and coughing are horrible experiences I wish would simply end.

And I'm so tired.

I did manage to get my husband to put in the 20 odd tomato plants in the garden. He's promised me a little bit more planting each night. Unfortunately, we've also got to fence around the things that the bunnies like -- peppers and squashes.

I'm going to go rest my head on my ice pack.

My surgery time and place have been changed. The doctor decided that my health issues merited going to the hospital rather than the closeby surgery center.

I'm also not getting surgery until late afternoon, so I get up and eat breakfast at 7 and then go into the hospital at 12 for an IV glucose drip and sit and wait all afternoon.

I'm upset because the rescheduling has made it so I won't get to see Russell before his big field trip. I may or may not get to see Genny depending on how long things take and how able Mike is to drive to the boonies to get her back into town, due to the late hour of the surgery. It also means I won't be home until late on Friday, if at all.

It makes me nervous that the doctor has changed the location to the hospital because she's concerned. It makes me wonder what the hell the labs showed.

I did my yoga today and am going to be working on making my throat chakra royal blue.

I'm getting nervous. Hateful mother-in-laws do that to me.

I spoke to my mother today and realized why it is I live 3000 miles away. Then I spoke to my brother and verified that it is not just me. She really is a bitch.

I asked if she would have the time to send me some baby pictures, so I could make Mike a photo album of the children, him and me. She was a crazy bitch in response. What was I thinking?

I am sorely tempted to never call her again. Fuck this.

Oh, on a completely non sequitur note...I love yoga. It makes me healthy. It makes me happy. It makes me relax. I have a class tomorrow -- all by myself as a treat before my surgery to prepare for my surgery.

Happy. Happy. Happy.

The kitchen shelves are to spooge for. My back is still hurting from the ordeal, but the shelves look fantastic. I told Mike, "For $3000, I don't need cabinets. "

Sometime, this summer, I need to refinish the cabinets, but I think I'll wait for my back to catch up.

What was really cool is that I now have an official pantry. We took this enormous commercial baker's rack that had been where the shelves are and it now holds all the extras from Costco. We have extra TP, paper towels, cleaners, canning jars, etc. And it holds them all in the garage.

Wheeeeeee!

Now, if I could just get the floor clean.

I've managed to clean up our room a little -- dusting and reorganizing shelves. Got the kitchen shelves stained -- 4 of them stained and a 5th is halfway there. Tomorrow morning, I'll get up and stain the other half of the fifth one and get the sixth one sanded and stained.

Mike finally THANKYAJAYSUS got the garden tilled. It involved cleaning out the chicken coop to have the appropriate animal feces to put on the plants, but in that chicken coop, there are a lot of mice nesting. Mike, thus, unearthed a number of mouse dens with mouse pups which the chickens promptly chowed down on. Mike claimed he was only fast enough to kill one adult mouse. I'm figuring we've killed enough progeny of mice to keep them out of the house for a bit, anyhow.

Tomorrow, the children will be collecting the eggs, and disposing of them. While I'm not typically super fastidious or anything, the idea of eating eggs that were created by the digestion of baby mice kind of makes me squicky. I know that they may be eating grownup mice on their own, but it still squicks me mightily.

One final mouse story, I swear.

Mike went out to feed the chickens and because he had very intentionally dug a lot under the feeder out there, he found a mouse trying to jump into the feeder and not making it. Then after a couple of attempts, the chickens also noticed the mouse and started towards it. The mouse ran away. Mike was snickering his butt off. Take that mouse population!

Let them eat sagebrush seed!

__

I am very excited about the new shelves going into the kitchen. It's going to look nicer and more organized and that makes me jolly. The eventual cabinets that we'll put there will make me orgasmic, I suspect, as a result. The best thing is that the big honking industrial baker's rack, will go to the laundry room where I can orgasm further into my organizational hoe-down. This is to say that I need to work on my sex life, I guess, rather than getting my jollies and orgasms from kitchen and laundry organization.

The lack of baker's rack will give us more space for the table. I'm so excited about this, that I may need to get a life.

Well, bock, bock, snore, baby.

Yesterday, I took the kids to the water park. We took Mel.

I forgot what a pain in the ass taking a baby to the water park is. Basically, you stay planted at the kiddie pool all day standing in 6 inches of water. We did make it to the lazy river, but apparently, this was also the day that at least 4 schools decided to take a field trip to the water park. I've never seen so many ill-behaved unsupervised kids in my life. Kids were shoving the girls around such that they got dumped at one point off their double tube. Mel kept protecting the baby from splashing.

I played scary old broad though. These kids had a splash fight and I kept getting nailed. Not that I really minded, but they were being really obnoxious, so I turned faced the ringleader and splashed the snot out of him. Then I said,"Okay, so knock it off now, would ya?" I heard kids murmuring to themselves about the scary old lady, but I was facing Mel and giggling my ass off.

I played with a couple kids. I kept wishing Russell was around to have splash fights with. Not a big awful one, just a little one where I get to hug him. He was in there with us, but content to be away from his sister, because apparently, that's just not cool.

I mentioned something about this many hoodlums to one of the park employees and they said that Fridays are the worst in the summer because that's when all the recreation programs show up. I have officially marked off Friday as a day that I will NOT be visiting the water park. Russell is too sensitive to being jostled for it to be fun for him and I'm too fragile with my wrecked knee to be tolerant of it myself. I feel very curmudgeony, on one hand, but I've got a little kid who doesn't swim well, a big kid who doesn't swim well, and a lot of weight on a fragile knee, on the other.

Well, the MIL is coming, so it's off to clean I go. I may not be back for a bit here because I will be insanely cleaning my house and to do various home improvement projects in the interim. Then I'll get surgery and be able to rest.

I made about 8 pints of raspberry jam tonight and about the same last night in raspberry-blueberry jam. I used the half cup and cup jars because they're pretty and because they force us to use it in smaller portions.

I also made about 5 pints of raspberry freezer jam.

YUM!

I'm also facing the insomnia ogre. My back is totally killing me right now. I have been sitting there for an hour trying to snooze and I'm butt tired, but my back is killing me. I did my yoga and that helped, but my shoulders and low back are excrutiating. I know it's from the jamming -- standing and turning at the counter for long periods. And sitting on the bench at the table to make freezer jam.

I can't take ibuprofen, I can't find the tylenol, so the only painkiller that's legal is percocet, so I took one of those. Now, I wait. Hopefully, it'll kick in pretty soon and I can sleep. I have to take Bear to physical therapy at the crack of dawn and boy, I sooooo do not wanna. I said I'd take the kids to the waterpark where we got the season pass tomorrow and I don't think I'm going to be functioning if I have to do both.

Today, I did my pre-op stuff for the tonsillectomy. I'm so ambivalent about this surgery now.

I hadn't been feeling scared until today, but now I'm scared. I'm scared I won't heal fast and it'll be forever again before I can get up and do stuff. I'm scared about how to eat as a diabetic after the surgery. Usually, they tell you to eat ice cream and popsicles. I don't know that I can realistically do that. Although, even for a couple days it'd be worth the high sugars to just eat all the Ben and Jerry's that I can find.

I am excited about the prospect of breathing. My tonsils are so big that I have just been used to how much room they take up in my throat. But there are times when I really notice them. I can't hold both arms over my head with my elbows next to my ears because my tonsils block my airway. I hadn't put it together until just now that that was what it was, but there it is. I'm looking forward to maybe not needing the cpap machine.

I mean, wouldn't it be cool to just fall asleep on the couch, for example, and not have to get up and put on my mask in bed on a lazy afternoon?

I'm scared that I won't get freedom from my cpap, however, too. I'm worried about the kids. I'm bummed I can't do stuff with Russell right away after school gets out, but I am really looking forward to the opportunity to do stuff later. Blah, blah, blah.

The percocet just started traveling in my bloodstream. It's sort of like waiting for the caffeine to kick in and in my case, it's just waiting for the pain to ebb away. Now, I feel like less of an old lady and more like a spring chicken. A tired spring chicken.

Bock, Bock. Snore.

This morning, I got evaluated by the physical therapist who essentially said with three degrees of articulation difference between my knees that I didn't need intense physical therapy. He gave me a sheet of stuff to do at the pool, so I left Russell there for his appointment and worked out at the pool. I was feeling all bitchin' and butch because I worked out and then I got out of the pool.

Man, did my knee hurt and feel wobbly. Tylenol resolved that.

I made the trip to Costco, bought a bunch of stuff for the summer and the MIL's visit, but while I was there, I swear, I had a half dozen people comment on my dress. Essentially, it's this hot pink eyelet sleeveless empire dress with a big broomstick skirt. It's not a full-on mumu, but it's big and comfortable and I certainly didn't think I was going to get stopped at every turn in Costco by people telling me how nice it looked. I kept saying, "Thank you. It's really cool and comfy, too."

I'm so weird. I garden in dresses, so I can squat easier. I shopped in this because it felt hot today and I can't stand temps hotter than about 80 and I knew I'd be hauling crap in from the car.

Not that I'm squatting in my garden, mind you. Though, on a side note, once I told Russell that people in France crap in the gardens, so it's this family joke now about those damned French. I'm not French, thankyouverymuch. So no squatting in my garden or escargot.

Mike's been trying everything possible to evade the stupid rototiller. I finally laid it on the line and he's a bit afraid of me. Heh. Heh. Heh. I *am* evil. Hear me roar. I'll probably have to perform intimate wife duties to get him to do it, but I'll try very hard not to hate it. ;)

Momma needs a tomato patch!