Home... Hands Full, HEARTS Full, Quiver Full!: PAY IT FORWARD & AWARDS-check it out!

Home... Hands Full, HEARTS Full, Quiver Full!: PAY IT FORWARD & AWARDS-check it out!

What we woke up to today......

Three days ago (Wednesday) the high was 62 degrees! Thursday wasn't too bad either....the high was like 50 or so. Friday, however was the big "change"....it started out nice, but then the wind picked up and turned COLD! We got a dusting of snow during the evening hours and I was so hoping that would be the end of it......and then we woke up this morning to find 4 inches of the stuff!! I love snow, but I am SO ready for spring! I'm tired of being sick and the kids having colds! Enough already! LOL

I HATE TAX TIME!!!!

I absolutely hate this time of year! I'm in charge of doing the accounting ledger for my husband's business (even though he and his ex-wife are the owners and I have absolutely no ownership in the business!). They have two different accounts and one has to be done earlier than usual....he has to file by March 15th instead of April 15th. I have about two months worth of checks posted for the one due on March 15th and have absolutely no interest in doing the remaining 10 months, but I know I have to. On average, it takes me about 15 hours to do the ledger (not all at once....I work on it an hour or two a day). I do get paid to do it, but only if I keep track of the time that I spend working on it.....if I forget to write down my time, I don't get paid for that time!

It's so frustrating and I hate knowing that it's all up to me to get it done......I can't wait till he sells his business!

Sorry.....I'm having a little pity party for myself. :o(

UUUGGHHH!!

I didn't like my header on my previous layout, so I was going to change just that.....well, it got a little more involved than I thought it would....LOL.....I totally changed my background, which when I saved it deleted a bunch of my widgets! So I had to basically start over from scratch!! So I think I'm done messing with it for a long while...LOL. Hope ya'll like it, cuz I won't be changing it anytime soon! :o)

Kylee's home sick today

My husband called me at work last night to ask me what he could give Kylee for an earache. She had been oustide playing, so he thought maybe she had just gotten too much wind in her ear. I told him to give her some Tylenol. Later, when I got home, he told me that she had thrown up shortly after giving her the medicine. I get home right at bedtime for her, so I gave her another dose of medicine and we went to bed. She was tossing and turning and didn't sleep very well. About 2 1/2 hours later she was crying and told me that her ear still hurt, so I got her a dose of Ibuprofen. She slept the rest of the night.

When she got up this morning, she said she felt better, but then rushed to the bathroom cuz she thought she was going to throw up again. She didn't really throw up this time....it was just spit. But I decided to keep her home anyway.....I'm guessing she has an ear infection......I think the pain from her ear may have been the cause of her throwing up last night.

It was only a 1/2 day of school today, so she didn't miss out on much. :o)

Where does snot come from?

After being sick for about 3 1/2 weeks now, I asked myself "where does all this snot come from?" as I go through yet another box of kleenex blowing my nose every 15 minutes or so.

Well, according to the CDC when your nose and sinus get infected with germs your nose makes clear mucus in an attempt (feeble in my case) to wash away said germs. This mucus is clear. After a couple days your body’s immune cells fight back. Apparently this battle changes the mucus to a white or yellow color - I have no idea why. This is what the CDC writes next: “As the bacteria that live in the nose grow back, they may also be found in the mucus, which changes the mucus to a greenish color.” Which begs the question, if they’re normal, happy nose bacteria then why isn’t my snot always green?

So, lucky for me, Dr. Rod Moser has the answer in this post from WebMD: “After sitting in a congested nasal passage all night, mucous becomes stagnant....just like a green pond.”

Interesting, if not absolutely foul to think about. But Dr. Moser does go on to drill home the message that green snot isn't bad news. And just because it’s green doesn’t mean you need to bully your Doctor into prescribing you or your child antibiotics.

Still, where does the color green come from? Well. It comes from the color wheel. A New Scientist article explains that two of the common types of human nasal bacteria Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas pyocyanea take on a golden yellow and blue hue respectively. Mix them together and let them fester in a congested nasal passage and what do you get? Green snot. It’s practically art.

Now isn’t that a truly enlightened view of my head cold? LOL

Prayers Please

This is Isaiah.....he is 6 years old

A friend of mine is asking for prayers for this little guy. He was born with his "insides" on the outside. Because of his problems, he needed a small bowel transplant. He's never really eaten or enjoyed eating food-he is mostly tube fed. Jen (his mommy) and her hubby and other 2 kids took turns staying with Isaiah-sacrificing "self" for this sweet child. He has been in and out of the hospital for years.

They thought the transplant worked......It didn't.......Jen called my friend, Jennifer, to tell her that they had to remove ALL his new bowel...it was destroyed. She has asked for prayer for her family. Isaiah is in unbearable pain and I'm sure Jen is too......of a different kind. The mommy kind-the kind I pray I never have to face.

If he makes it through...He will be listed for another transplant immediately.

Please join me in praying for this little boy. God does wonderful things through prayer!

A New look

Hope you like what I've done to my page.....I'm slowly learning how to change and rearrange things on here. I'm not too happy with my heading, but it'll have to work for now....till I find something I like better. The colors don't match too well....LOL :o)

Anyways, hope it's an improvement and you like it. :o)

The final evaluation

Sorry for the delay about this....I have been SUPER busy the last 4 days! Josh had his final evaluation on Monday by the Occupational Therapist. She had him use a marker to write on a piece of paper....she showed him a picture of a plus sign, a circle and a square and asked him each time if he could make one just like it. At first he said "I don't know how" when she showed him the plus sign, but he managed to make something that looked like a plus sign. He did pretty good with the circle and square. She had to help him with holding the marker....he doesn't know how to hold a writing utensil correctly. She then showed him a piece of fabric with four buttons and another with four button holes....she wanted to see if he could button and unbutton them.....he didn't do too well with that one. I didn't watch much else of what she did because I was filling out a questionaire that she needed back before she left (it was 5 pages long!)....so I don't know what else she tested him with. After I finished filling out the paperwork, she asked me a few questions and said he definitely has some sensory issues.

She told me they would get together and have a meeting and discuss what all they found and would let us know if he would be eligible for the special preschool. Chances are now, he most likely wouldn't go till fall ('09-'10 school year). I'd be surprised if they started him this close to the end of the school year (if he's eligible).

So anyway, that's where we are......I'll post when we find out if he gets into this school.

No evaluation today

We got a phone call (a recording from the school superintendent) at 5:50 a.m. this morning letting us know that school was cancelled because of the weather.....which was totally weird, because our school district almost NEVER cancels school unless we have like a foot of snow already on the ground! So to have school cancelled when there wasn't even anything on the ground yet was waaay weird.

So apparently because of school being cancelled, the Occupational Therapist wouldn't be working today since she works for the school district. Although it took me calling her to find this out....the appointment was for 1:00 and at about 1:15 I called her to find out if she was still coming. She told me that she was sorry for not being able to contact me....she didn't have my phone number (even though it's on a bunch of papers that she should have access to....but oh well).

So now we've rescheduled for Monday at 1:00. I'm anxious to get all of these evaluations done so they can meet and decide whether or not he'll be accepted into this special preschool.

Got the MRI and Blood Test results

The neurologist finally called last night with the results! She said Josh's blood tests came back normal and that his MRI was normal for the most part too. She said the report mentioned something about an area in the back of his brain that was longer/larger than normal, but it wasn't anything to be concerned about.....it was still within normal parameters. I'm not sure what all that meant, but as long as it's normal, then I guess we shouldn't worry. Heck, maybe he has more brains which would make him smarter! LOL Maybe he's a prodigy in the making! Only time will tell. :o)

But now I'm thinking "if it's not FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) or even FAE (Fetal Alcohol Effects), then why does he behave the way he does??? And where do we go from here? Thank goodness we went ahead and started having him evaluated by the therapists with the school system. The Occupational Therapist is coming over tomorrow for her evaluation of him......I'm hoping she'll have some answers....or at least some advice. That's one good thing about this whole process....that even if he isn't accepted into this special preschool, they will still give us some help as to how to deal with him and how his current teachers can handle him in school. They don't just say "oh, well, he's not eligible so, see ya!" They actually work with the parents and help as much as they can. But I am soooo hoping that he'll get into this other preschool.....I seriously think it would help him immensely!

He still has to have the genetics test done....that's in March....and he'll be seeing a Developmental Pediatrician in May.....so hopefully along with everyone else we're having him seen by, they can help fill in some blanks (especially the D.P.).

Second visit

Josh's second evaluation was yesterday. This time it was an Early Childhood Services Coordinator specializing in child development and behavior.....she is also a psychologist. She went through a checklist of questions that she asked me and took a bunch of notes. She then went on to do some kind of picture/word association "test" with Josh. He was in an I-wanna-be-goofy mood and wasn't listening very well, so she had to get his attention quite often and repeat the questions. He sat still for a lot longer than I thought he would, but then he got tired of it all and said "I'm outta here"....and he got down from his chair and ran off. I had to chase him down and threatened to put him in time-out if he couldn't cooperate. He came back and sat for about 30 seconds before yelling "I quit".....so he ended up in time-out (he showed his true colors again!). While he was in time-out, she asked if she could observe him at Preschool. I saw no problem with it, so I signed the permission form. Then I went and talked to Josh about why he was in time-out and asked him if he was going to cooperate....he said yes, so we went back to the table and he finished the test. While he was sitting there he would smack himself in the head with his hand.....I reached for his hand and told him not to hit himself.....he turned and hit me and said "stop touching me"......She got a great look at how he acts! LOL

She gave me a form with a list of behaviors that I'm suppose to go through and check N for never, S for sometimes, O for often or A for almost always. She also gave me one for his preschool teacher to fill out. There are 134 questions on the one I have to do!!! But if it helps them make a better informed decision, I'm more than willing to do it. I'm about 90% sure he's going to get accepted into this special preschool.

Oh, I called to get the results of his MRI and blood tests yesterday too, but the doctor was at her other office. So they are suppose to call me sometime today since she'll be in her office at the hospital today. It's about 12:25 p.m. right now and I still haven't heard from them.....grrrr! Guess I'll be making another phone call.

Sick of being sick

I'm going on 7 days now with this darn cold that I have.....I'm miserable and tired all the time....my nose isn't so much the problem, it seems to be up in my head (literally, not figuratively....LOL).....nothing smells right....and I seem to smell things that aren't there....like yesterday, I swear I could smell cigarrette smoke, but there was no smoke of any kind anywhere near me.....nobody in my house smokes! I keep getting a headache.....and it's exacerbated by the constant dry cough that I have! I get a tickle in my chest and I have to cough, but yet there's nothing to cough out.

I'm so tired of being sick....this is the third cold I've had since about December. The kids have it this time too.....only their coughs are grumbly, phlegmy coughs and they have the constant runny nose crap.....I tell Kylee to blow her nose and she refuses....she says it makes her nose hurt.....I tell her "but it won't hurt as much if you blow it out one time, instead of wiping it a dozen times!" She still refuses.....because mom is NEVER right! LOL

I'm hoping once the weather decides which way it wants to go.....warm or cold.....then our colds will hopefully go away.......at least that's what I'm hoping for....LOL

First of many visits is done

Josh had his first "evaluation" yesterday for being considered to attend a special preschool. A Physical Therapist with the public school system came over yesterday to observe and take notes. She had Josh walk up and down the stairs, jump, run, walk, throw and catch a ball, balance on one foot, jump on one foot, and several other things I can't recall.

She didn't think he had any problems physically, but he showed his true colors during her visit. He was very inattentive...constantly changing the subject, running off to do something else.....he got angry at Kylee for picking up the ball when it rolled toward her....he told her to leave it alone and he hit her....I told him, "Joshua, you don't hit. Sissy was just helping".....he was very angry with her though and didn't want to leave it at that....he stomped off muttering to himself.....then during one of the jumping tests, he got aggrivated when he couldn't do it quite right and grumbled "I don't know how!" and ran up the yard and got on the trampoline.....I had to talk him down so the P.T. could finish her "tests". She thinks he has a sensory problem (which is along the lines of what we've suspected....possible Sensory Processing Disorder).....we'll know more after his evaluation by the Occupational Therapist and the Speech & Language Therapist...those two appointments are next week.....stay tuned.

Thought 4 My Thursday

Following the theme for the day, my thought for today is about Tuesday Whitt. I don't know much about the family or their struggles....I only recently found out about them through another blog that I follow ("Who says 8 is enough?").....she was a beautiful little girl, diagnosed with neuroblastoma. Her pain and suffering came to an end on January 30th, 2009. She loved wagie-rides, so to celebrate her life, they are holding a Wagie-Ride/Bicycle parade in Colorado where her family lives. For those that cannot attend in person, a virtual Wagie-Ride is planned for Saturday, February 7th.....please join me in celebrating this precious little girl's life. Click on the link to the left to find out more.

Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome ~ an OCD

I was going through my e-mail a little bit ago and opened up a page from Vocalpoint.....one of the articles they had was "Do you hoard more than you should?".....so I, being a hoarder, decided to see if I do. What I found was truly eye-opening. This is the short little quiz in the article:

Here’s a short quiz adapted from ocfoundation.org/hoarding.

Do you have stacks of old magazines, newspapers, and mail? YES, I save magazines
Do you still have clothes that you haven’t worn in years? YES, although I recently gave some stuff to the Salvation Army (but I had saved these things for over 20 years!)
Are there chairs, beds, sofas, or entire rooms in your house that are so full of stuff you can’t use them? YES, our storage room is overflowing with stuff. Also, a room upstairs is full of stuff
Do you hesitate to invite people over because of the clutter? Yes and No, Not so much because of clutter, I'm just not very social
Do you get upset when someone throws away your stuff? YES
Do you personally have trouble throwing things out? YES, very much so! I always think "what if I need it someday?"
Do you believe this stuff will be useful to you some day? YES
Do you have a continuing urge to buy or acquire more things? YES, I buy things in the hopes that it will help me be more organized
Does hoarding run in your family? YES (not just you, dad, mom is bad at it too) :o)

This is a bona-fide disorder. Obsessive Compulsive Hoarding....I never realized how bad I was either until I went to this website and read the article on Compulsive Hoarding Syndrome. http://www.ocfoundation.org/hoarding/about-hoarding/compulsive-hoarding-syndrome-introduction.php

I keep everything! I save the box to things (telephones, video games, gaming systems, etc.)thinking I might need it in the future to return the item or for better resale if I would ever sell the item.....I save bags...not like Wal-Mart bags, but "special" bags....the bigger, heavier kind...like from high-end stores...whether it was from a purchase I made or if someone gave me something in it, I still save it! I save old calendars because I might need to look back to see if I wrote something on a certain day and I might need that information. I save magazines.....this is probably my biggest weakness....I have stacks and stacks and stacks of old magazines on a shelf in our storage room....I think to myself "there might be an article that I want to refer back to", so I save the whole magazine.....I have Reader's Digests from 1995! Probably the next biggest weakness I have is saving boxes....different from what I mentioned above, I save any and all sizes of boxes.....because I might need it to pack something in or mail something in.....if you ever need a box, I probably have one that will fit your need...LOL. But seriously, I even have a hard time using some of the boxes that I have because I know once I use it, I most likely won't get it back.....how whacked is that?!

I always knew my "hoarding" was weird. I always referred to it as being a Pack-rat. That's what my dad always called it, but I never realized it could possibly be a disorder. Not that I have the money to be spending on doctor visits to figure out what to do about it....I guess I'll have to get over it on my own...and start throwing things away (yeah right....I don't know if it'll be that easy...LOL).

P.S. Another thing that bothers me, and we always joke around at work about it being an OCD, is that to cross off a day on the calendar, the lines should go from corner to corner and corner to corner (in an X)...if the lines aren't touching the corners, it drives me batty and I have to correct it! I've tried seeing if I can just leave it, but I always end up fixing it.....guess there may be some validity to the OCD connotation.

Toons 4 My Tuesday

Following "Thoughts by Dena"'s theme for the day.....here's a cartoon I received in an e-mail recently (I think it might have even been sent to me by Dena....LOL).....I censored it a little bit though....LOL :o)