What a week!

Wow. What a week! I think this was one of the worst weeks ever, but I've decided to not dwell on what went wrong but instead on what went right. 


First of all, on Monday evening Annika decided it would be a good idea to take the next step in one of her favorite sports, "stair-sliding." Instead of sliding down feet first, her usual method, she decided to see what would happen if she slid down as fast as she could head first. We were clearing the dinner dishes at the time, so we didn't get to talk her out of this maneuver. We heard a loud thud and then a much louder "AAAAAAAAAH!" We immediately ran over to the stairs, where we both held Annika for a while, trying to comfort her. Now, Annika is a tough girl--she never cries unless something is seriously wrong. So when she wouldn't calm down, we knew we had to take her to urgent care. 


At the clinic, Annika got x-rays (which, thanks to the lesson from the "Franklin goes to the Hospital" book that she loves, she managed to endure bravely) and got to look at the "picture of her bones" that showed a broken collarbone. The doctor told us to give her some pain meds, keep her arm in a sling, and see the orthopedic surgeon the next day. 


There are various upsides to this story: 


1) An already adorable-beyond-belief Annika is even more adorable-beyond-belief in her cute little sling. She even does a little sad face that will literally crush your heart. 


2) The break in her collarbone was really minor. It could have been a broken arm, or a more severe break--so we feel really fortunate that she will make a full recovery in just 3-5 weeks. 


On Tuesday, we were taking Annika to her appointment at the orthopedic surgeon when, after pulling out of our driveway, we suddenly could not get the car into gear. Then we heard a "thump thump" and realized that the clutch just went out on our car. So we maneuvered the car back into the driveway, called the auto shop, and called the car rental place to get us a car to take Annika to her appointment. The upside here:


1) When the clutch went out, we were only one house up from our own house. It was really easy to get the car back into our driveway. Had we been on the interstate somewhere, or out of town, it would have been a much, much worse situation. 


2) Jonathan was home for Fall break, so it made it alot easier to get the rental car and get the car to the shop. And, as badly as it stinks to have to pay for a new clutch, at least the rest of the car is in good shape. It's always nicer to pay for some repairs on a car that you trust (and a car that's paid off!)


Wednesday, nothing good happened. Nothing good at all. Okay, I guess I can think of a few things. I got locked out of the house without my cell phone, but I did have the car keys. I'm still trying to figure out any good that came out of what happened on this day. I had to go to Jonathan's office to get the house keys. On the way, I saw a man on the sidewalk doing something unbelievably obscene. It was really traumatizing. The upside to this is that the kids did not see what was happening. I also found Jonathan at his office and he gave me the keys. I got a parking ticket as well. But, since we were in a rental car and NKU does not follow up on parking tickets, I decided to stick it to the man and throw it in the garbage. 


Thursday, we got the estimate on how much it costs to put a new clutch in our car. It turns out that it costs a lot. The upside to this is that we still have a good car and it was not so much money that it would devastate us. 


Friday, not much happened. We went to a community halloween festival a few towns over. We drove around for an hour trying to find it (it turns out the community park is off an unmarked dirt road in the middle of nowhere). The upside to this is that the kids had a good time for 5-6 minutes before it got too dark and we had to go back home. I was still in a bad mood about Wednesday. 


Saturday, I had this conversation with my doctor's nurse (who commutes to the doctors office from her home in hell):


Me: Hello?
Nurse/Devil: Is this Christina?
Me: Yes.
Nurse/Devil: Did you get my message?
Me: Yes, I'm sorry. I'm been having a really bad week and I forgot to call you.
Nurse/Devil: Well, it would have been really nice if you had (imagine if Satan himself were spewing these words at you with a fiery dismay)
Me: Why, what's the matter!? (here I'm imagining the somehow found out in my file that I had cancer or something).
Nurse/Devil: Well then I would have known if Annika had been taken care of or not (we called the doctor to let them know what happened since our doctor is Annika's doctor as well. They didn't call until a day and a half later, after Annika had already seen a specialist). 
Me: Oh. Well, I'm sorry, but it's been one thing after another this week. It totally slipped my mind.
Nurse/Devil: Did she get taken care of then?
Me: Yes, of course she did.
Nurse/Devil: Well, it would have been really nice if you had called and told me that (again, Satan spewing these words at you with a condescending voice that comes from years of practice on many sinners).


Take it easy lady, I'm having a crappy week!!


The upside here is that I will think this is funny someday. 


Today is Sunday, a day of rest. This day has been very nice. Tomorrow is a new beginning--we're really excited for a much better week. Hopefully, the "sidewalk perv" is spending his week in jail. 

My hospital stories.

This summer I was really busy. I worked constantly on the house. I painted almost every room and did minor repairs and organized and decorated and on and on. I was dedicated to making this house being as near perfect as I could make it. 

I'm not sure when it started, but I started getting back pain. I thought that maybe I pulled my back from carrying around a heavy diaper bag with me all the time. I bought a backpack diaper bag to relieve some of the strain so the pain would go away but it didn't. 

When I started laying on heat pads turned up as hot as they would go before I could function enough to do anything, I knew it was time to get it checked out. Since by this time the pain felt more like an internal pain than a muscle pain I made an appointment with my regular doctor. My first visit, they knew that I had some somewhat raised lipace levels but since I was not withering in pain and a day without food seemed to help that was all that was done then.

The next week, I was way more in pain and went back to get checked again. 

Now, this was a busy week for me. I had just been called to be the Activity Day leader and I was getting ready for my first activity and had no clue what to do. Also, we had an appointment to put in new blinds throughout the house and I was frantically trying to paint every wall that we wanted to paint before the blinds went up. This was hard to do because my back was hurting so much and I only could work on it by staying on a steady dose of Excedrin back and body pain meds and of course laying on the heat pads for large periods of time throughout the day. 

We had been working on the house all summer and having the blinds put in was the last major thing we were going to do for awhile. So, I felt like if I could only get to Thursday afternoon, which was when the blinds would be in and everything else, like painting, would have to be done too and I could lay down on the couch and relax. 

As fate would have it, an hour after the blinds guy left after installing the blinds my doctor called me and told me that my lipace levels were insanely high and I should go check into the hospital right away.

I got the rest I was hoping for, but not quite the way I was expecting it. I was put on a IV to stay hydrated and wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything for five days. 

Then to make it all a short story, I was put through a bunch of tests and they figured out that my gallbladder wasn't working properly and was causing the pancreatitis. I then had surgery to remove my gallbladder on August the 26th. Oh and it turns out, there were five gallstones in there which were the reasons for my troubles.

Here's a picture of me with my babies. I look horrid but look how sweet and happy Ezra looks. This whole thing was pretty hard on them, I think.

The reason I am writing about this is because 1) It will be good to remember all the details later and 2) It was interesting and ironic how and when it all happened. 

Three years ago, Jonathan and I lived in an apartment on the second floor in Indiana. I was pregnant with out second child and I really wanted to move to a downstairs apartment. I wanted to do such a crazy thing because I did not want to carry my then 18 month old child and a newborn up and down steps everyday. Also, I wanted to be able to take the kids for walks everyday. We walked everywhere we could and I knew I wouldn't be able to get the double stroller, Ezra,  a new baby with car seat and a diaper bag down the stairs very easily. So I was able to convince Jonathan that it was necessary to move and we were fortunate enough to be able to move into a downstairs apartment just one door over. 

I was 8 1/2 months pregnant when we were able to start moving our things into the new apartment. I worked like a crazy lady that day putting things away as fast as I could. I thought it would be a pretty easy move since the apartment was identical to our previous one, I just had to get the stuff and put it away where we already had it. That was not as easy as it sounds. It entailed moving every single thing we had. However, I had one end goal: I wanted to sit down on the couch with my feet up and a glass of water and have every single thing in place and every picture on the wall and everything perfect for the new baby. 

Well, with some help from some kind neighbors we were able to get everything put away and all but two photos on the wall by the time I went to bed. The next morning, I woke up at 8am and had a baby by noon. Here is a pic from that day (August the 26th).

I just find the similarities in these two events so interesting. Both involve me working like crazy to finish a house project and both end up with me in the hospital. The first time I received a beautiful baby girl and the second time I received a gallbladder??  Not as cool. So I am thinking that this gives me grounds for not working too hard around the house. 

Also, I think Ezra might be a soothsayer or a wizard or something. Check out this picture he drew of our family one month to the day before I went into hospital. I am grey and look like a ghost while everyone else it red and smiley. Weird.

Closet re-do

When we bought our house we were impressed with the size of the closets. There are two large closets in each bedroom. The one with the window in a little bigger than the other one and has room for shelves. They were in pretty good shape, but they needed a little updating. In the closet in the kids' room the previous owner had installed a dresser in an unusual place. See pic. below (I had already removed the drawers at this point).

 And this is the view of the other side of the closet. 

Here is what we did with them.

We, with the very generous help of Jonathan's Dad, installed some Closetmaid shelves. I also spent hours in here this summer painting and caulking every crack and baseboard in sight. You can't tell, but it's true.

 The other side of the closet in not so inspired, but holds the kids couches and a chest of their dress-up clothes.

 I attempted to organize their junk, I mean toys (hehe),  by getting some Ikea storage buckets. Then I  printed off some labels on the computer and taped them to the side with double sided tape to be able to see where everything goes. Not everything fits in those unfortunately.

 And if you're like me and can't figure out what to do with all of those puzzles laying around, I solved the problem by putting them in large zip-lock bags and storing them in a bin vertically.

I can switch out the buckets that the kids have in their reach easily by sliding them into the Ikea shelf (see the upper left hand side of the photo below). I think it works great because they don't have all of their toys out at one time. This makes my life a lot easier by not having to clean up all those toys all the time.

The end.

Something strange is happening...

Giant spiders are attacking our home! And there is a mysterious visitor on our front porch who is creeping us out. I think he may have come from the disturbing cemetery that has suddenly appeared on our lawn. What is happening?? There may be more strange things happening here in the days to come...

Tis' my favorite season...

We are really excited for Halloween! I have been doing my best to pass on my love of Halloween to my kids. We already have the costumes (well, for the kids anyway- they are going to be Jack and Jill) and we are anxiously awaiting the big day.

I have waited patiently for many years to have a house of my own and to be able to decorate a fireplace mantel. Since Halloween is my all time favorite holiday, I was particularly excited to be able to decorate this right now. I don't have a ton of knick-knacky type things so I didn't really have much to work with. I found 4 or 5 jars at Goodwill for a couple of bucks and either made or found the rest of the stuff around the house. Here's a tour if you are like me and are interested in this type of thing. 

I got the pumpkin lights a while back at the dollar store or somewhere like that. The wreath was made by my mother-in-law a few years back. I really love it.

I found the idea of candy jars on another blog. I copied a few outright and came up with a few on my own. Here we have hollowed frog eyes (they are really those green gummy rings) and bat droppings (black wrapped chocolate Kisses). I made the photos last year. I just printed off some old black and white photos of the internet and glued some googly eyes over their eyes. 

I found some books at a second hand store and spray painted them black. Then I painted the letters with gold craft paint. The tea cup is filled with small bags and pincher thingy to get the candy out of the jars.

Here are Goblin Crowns (peanut butter cups) and Pumpkin Teeth (candy corn) and some more googly eye photos.

In this photo we have the green Love Potion #9, some monster eggs (peanut m&m's in the holiday colors) and Slimy Worms (gummy worms) and some black crows of course.

I found a salt shaker at a second hand store for a quarter. I washed it, printed the label on brown paper, modge podged it on the jar and distressed it a bit with brown ink. Then I tied some twine around the top and added the "drink me" label. I could not find a cork anywhere in the house, so I folded up some brown paper and rolled it up and stuck it in the top. Oh, and the green liquid is just water with green food coloring. I really liked how it turned out.

Here is Jonathan with his best "pondering professor" look. Next to do on our to do list is get that fireplace up and running...I seriously cannot wait.

Oh, and I'm still pondering what to do on the front porch. I'll add some pictures of that when I figure it out.