Sick Lil Bug

So, on Thursday I woke up to Bug throwing up. She got sick a few times, rolling around, writhing in pain. "Mom! I don't feel good! My tummy hurts! I feel like I'm going to throw up!" I did a lot of hair stroking and holding until she fell asleep. At that point in time she had a tiny spot on her cheek. Nothing to really worry about, it was just a small red spot on her cheek. I thought it was something from her getting sick. She took a nap for about an hour and a half and I noticed the spot was getting bigger. I was trying to look at it without waking her up, unsuccessfully. She started complaining that it itched, so I put some calamine lotion on her face and then she started crying, saying that it burned and she wanted it off. During that time, the rash was spreading more. A trip to the doctors office was in order. We get to the office and they're closed for lunch, so, we went to get some ourselves. When we came back we were seen right away. Our favorite Doctor was on duty, he also reminds me of Dr. Burke from Season 1 of Greys Anatomy as well. He thought that she was having some sort of allergic reaction. She had a shot of cortisone and a script. He said that if she wasn't dramatically better by Saturday, that he wanted to see her back on Saturday. With that I made an appointment for my physical, grabbed Bugs scripts and headed to the pharmacy. For the remainder of the day, I dealt with "Mom it itcheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssssss!!" and trying to keep cool compresses on it because the Calamine lotion just made her face burn. The more time passed, the more that the rash spread. It was just a small spot on her face, and then it was almost her entire face, then it started to spread to her neck, arms, trunk, and legs.

The next day, Friday, it was MUCH worse, and so I took her back to the doctors office. That Dr wanted to give her a shot of Augmentin, and she's allergic to Penicillin!! So, needless to say, I didn't trust anything that he had to say, and decided that I was going to take the nurses advice, and go to the Emergency Room. While sitting there, she developed a spontaneous nose bleed, and it was bad! We finally get in and from there we wait for about 4 hours for the Doctor to come in and see us. I'm not blaming the Doctor for not being able to see us faster, but, if the hospital had more Doctors in the ER, we might not have had to wait that long. I know that it wasn't a true emergency, but, she was listed as a level 3 emergency, not a 4! I could only imagine how long we would have waited if she was a 4! (For those that don't know, Emergency rooms have "levels" and depending on the Emergency room, you might have to go somewhere else! A level 1 emergency is pretty much you're hanging on to life by a thread, and a level 4 is them saying "You should have went to a regular doctor.") The Doctor did give us a script for a medication that would help her stop itching, and it worked better than just regular Benadryl. We figured out that it works better than Benadryl because she would fall asleep about 30-40 minutes after she took it! How's that for itch relief?!

Saturday began at 6AM with Bug waking me up (she slept with us) saying "I have a headache, and I'm really itchy!" and she woke up with the entire side of her face being swollen and puffy! Alrighty! She's going to see the Dr again with me. I get up and get ready to go about 8:45, pulling Bug out of bed. I asked her if she wanted to put on some clothes and she said no. So, off to the Doctors office we go, with her in her jammies and unbrushed hair. (She has a very sensitive head and all the writhing in pain had left her with a knot in her hair that took me 25 minutes to brush out) Our favorite Dr was there again, and he was very concerned about Bug. He ordered some blood tests for her (and for me to check my cholesterol) to see if anything would show up in her blood. When we got to the hospital (again) for our blood tests, Bug decided that she had to pee, so, I let her, not thinking about the urine sample that they might need! (They did need one) From there we had to bribe her with "hospital dollars" and cake to let the nurse take her blood. She watched the Phlebotimist draw my blood, and of course she had trouble finding the vein, so it was a lot of hunting and rooting around in my arm with the needle! Then it was her turn. She did a fantastic job! Then, "Here's a cup, we need a sample" YIKES! It took an hour to get the urine sample. After we came home, we had lunch and took meds. It was a good thing, because she was starting to get itchy again. We watched some "old skool" cartoons (Aahh!!! Real Monsters, Rocko's Modern Life, and Rugrats... ahhh the memories!) for a while, and then a movie. Bug started getting itchy again around 6:15, which was time for her meds again anyways. She started saying that her head hurt, and so we went to go lay down in our bedroom. I had a massive headache as well, so we finally fell asleep around 7, and woke up this morning around 8. What a weekend!

Today, we're making a banner for my best friends husband! He will be home late Monday night and she's decorating their home fence like you see all the fence in front of Camp LeJeune decorated. We're all making one to say "Welcome Home!" I'm so glad that we're making these. I know some people that won't be able to make these. It breaks my heart. I think that we'll make a big one, and paint "Welcome home!" And then all put our hand prints on it, and sign it as well. I think that's all for today. I'm going to go into the office tomorrow and hopefully have some test results for Bug!

Day 2: Your favorite movie

Well, I will spare you the long post like yesterday. Todays' post will be right on target!

Way back when, we lived in a small town, where it was safe to actually let your kids play outside unattended, let them roam around and never have to worry about much of anything. If you got in trouble in the town that I grew up in, chances are, your parents already knew it before you got home anyways. In our small town, we had all the great things there are to have in a town, without having a large corporate company in there. We had a grocery store (IGA), a gas station, flower shop, pharmacy, couple banks, a couple of ice cream places, tho one was only open a few years at a time, restaurant, and a video store, so on and so forth. Now, all of these were locally owned places, save the IGA and the gas station, tho the owners of both of them lived in town, but there were "corps" behind their stores.
When I was a teenager, about 15, and this movie came out that was just the bees' knees for me! It was rude, crude, and all about girl power! My best friend Amy and I rented this movie so many times, I'm sure my mom was leery of sending me to the video store to get movies. (I'm sure Mom and Amy know EXACTLY which movie I'm talking about... LOL)

My favorite movie of all time is.... 
Tank Girl!! Lori Petty in this movie is amazing!! I can't give you an exact reason why I like it so much, I just think it's a hysterical movie! C'mon! She falls in love with a half human half kangaroos! It's just an awesome movie. I've had many many people buy this movie and find it as hilarious as I do. It's worth a watch. Even if you have to find it on NetFlix or some other obscure off the wall way. It's worth it... really!

Schools almost out!

Well, the kids have 14 days of school left this year, and then will be out of school until late August. Ten weeks of bliss for the kids, or so they think! This summer is going to be a little different. As most of my readers know, Monkey is dyslexic, and cannot read very well. He has brought his reading level up during this school year, but, he is still a couple grade levels behind. This summer we are going "back to basics."

I had a friend of mine that home schools her children help me with some sites that I can print off worksheets to have a summer school of my own. I have signed both of the kids up for the summer reading program. We've got flashcards galore for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division! We've got "summer workbooks" from previous years. I have educational "field trips" planned. This summer is going to be all about catching up! I know that we can do it!!

This weekend, we were a bit low on funds, and so we took time to go to Lowes to take part in their Build & Grow program. The kids absolutely love going to these! Monkey has been doing it for some time, but Bug just recently decided that she wants to be a construction worker. This week they made small catapults! It was quite the site to see Bug in her pink dress with goggles and a hammer! We spent in total about 2 hours at Lowes. We were daydreaming of what we would buy when we win the lottery. Bug has big plans for her bedroom and bathroom. She wants an antique looking bathtub with the little hand held shower sprayer. She also wants a corner shower with a frosted sliding glass door, oh, and marble counter tops! She wants her bedroom to be pink (who would have thunk it?!). Monkey says that he wants an all in one shower, but he wants it to be more modern. He wants to have a bedroom that looks like a jungle with a bed that's "in a tree." Sam and I and a large whirlpool bath and a walk in shower in our bathroom, and of course, marble counter tops. We also looked at some back yard furniture. We settled on a really nice outdoor wicker set that was actually quite comfortable! They had really neat outdoor fire places as well, tho we would want something more of a fire pit to be able to roast marshmallows and hot dogs on occasion. Outside, we spied enough trees to make our own fruit orchard! Everything from apples and pears to bananas! Along with wonderful water features, they had some gorgeous roses! If I had it my way, our whole yard would be full of roses! Finally we had enough day dreaming, and headed home.

While we were at Lowes, we also passed out some flyers for my best friends' fund raiser for her mission trip to Spain. We, unfortunately, we not able to attend because of the low cash flow. We will be donating some things to her yard sale tho! I'm sure that we have alot of things laying around that we can donate to a good cause. Of course, if we win the lottery by then, we will just donate whatever she needs, possibly what everyone needs, to be able to go.

Of course, another friend and I have decided that the aquatic snail business is where we want to be, so, we would just have to build additions to our homes to set up tanks for breeding snails and selling them! They are quite cute, and have lovely personalities! I told Sam that I would want to buy everyones house, and sell it back to them for $1. We would also donate our current home to a family that is in need. Also buy more books for the kids school, so each child can have a book, and be able to bring it home. That was one of the things that we noticed was strange about school this year. The only book Monkey every brought home was his math book! Apparently the schools just don't have the funding to be able to buy every child a book, so they share. For kids like Monkey, that just doesn't work.

See! We really deserve to win the lottery! We want to help other people, not just ourselves! I guess we will just have to continue day dreaming for now. I've got to pull myself back to reality, the buzzer on the dryer went off, and the maid hasn't materialized yet, so, I guess I should go fold clothes!

Merry Christmas... and all that happy jazz.

So, Christmas was here and gone. We had a pretty good Christmas. Living with only one income in the house has been kind of hard! I did find a new job, and I start on the 29th! (Hooray!) We set a pretty strict budget this year, and came in just barely over! I achieved that by using online coupons whenever possible. Sams' birthday was on the 18th, we had Christmas on the 25th, our anniversary is on the 29th, and Monkey's birthday is on the 31st!  We have a pretty busy December!
The kids were really pleased with their Christmas bounty. They both got DSi's. If you don't know anything about Nintendo DSi's, oh man! I would suggest getting one! They have 2 cameras on them, so you can take pictures of yourself, or outside your DSi. The ones that the kids got came preloaded with a few games and such. Now that we have 4 Nintendo DS/DSi's in the house, we can all play our own games, or, we can use the chat feature and chat with each other. (Yes, I know this is the lazy mans way! *hehe*) They also got some new clothes and some toys. They also got a gift card each, which was promptly spent getting toys and other various things that they deemed as necessities after the holidays. My best friend got us a portrait package from Sears. We're pretty happy about that, the kids would rather have the presents tho.
Sam got himself a very nice guitar for his birthday/Christmas/anniversary present. It's black Fender and it's an acoustic/electric guitar. Maybe next year I will get him an amp! For my Christmas/anniversary present, I got a sewing machine! It's been a very long time since I've used one, and so we just simply bought an inexpensive one. Hopefully, someday, I can be as good as my mom. She used to make things for us all the time. I remember her making me a pilgrim costume for Halloween one time, complete with the white bonnet and apron! More recently, she made a clown costume (which is REALLY awesome, by the way) and a vampire cape! I'm sure she has made other things as well, but, I just don't know about them.
I have already found some really neat things that I want to try to make. Hopefully, I don't screw them up. I have my eye on a couple books that I would like to get. Both the kids would like to learn how to sew as well. This gave me quite the surprise from Monkey. He is begging to have a Sock Monkey kit for his birthday. I would say that we may just have to oblige him that request. My mom made him a Sock Monkey a very long time ago, but, Lilly, his dog, tore it up.
Other than that, things have been going pretty well here. Sam is still working on getting out of the Marine Corps. That seems like a never ending project itself! It seems like it has taken forever for things to work themselves out, but, we have been assured that we're close to the end. We're figuring that it will be at least another 6 months before he gets out. In a way, that's the hardest part, not knowing. We don't know when he's going to get out, so he can't look for a job. Nobody will even consider him unless he's 90 days from getting out. We're in the process of trying to save up a years worth of expenses right now. We refinanced the house and his car, both with a better payment. Unfortunately, we didn't win the Powerball last night either. Congrats to the lucky winner in KY. We sure could have used that $128,600,000! I'm sure alot of people could have.
Anyways, It's Sunday Funday here, and I'm behind on laundry and dishes, so it's time to get back to that! I hope that everyone had a great Christmas, and from my family to yours, Happy New Year!

Roller Coaster of Love

Well, Sam and I had it out last week. It ended up with me staying at J's house with the kids and him eventually going back to the barracks so the kids and I could go back to at least some sort of normalcy.

In a way, I'm sort of glad this has happened. In a way! It gives us fresh eyes into what has really been going on in our marriage while we are so busy with kids, school, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, work, doctors appointments, and just life in general! We weren't making time for each other, we were letting life come between us and it almost ripped us apart! He has been staying here for the last couple days and things have been pretty good. We have been in one, for lack of better word, argument. We talked it out, went back to bed, and I even let him sleep in the net day because I kept him up way too late!

We are going to be going to a marriage counselor to try and work things out and become a stronger couple, not only for ourselves, but, for our kids (yes, even tho they are only mine biologically, they're his too), and for our future. We are both committed to this relationship, and neither of us took off our rings. I did say that I wanted a divorce, but at the time, I was very angry. Neither of us feel like that now, and are on the way back to a happier life.

Monkey on reading among other things!

Well, as some of you know, my son (Monkey) is 10. He has ADHD and he was also diagnosed with dyslexia last year. It has been a constant uphill battle to get him to read. He does not have the easiest time at it, and is significantly behind in his reading, which effects alot of other sections of his education, well, actually, almost all of them! Last night, Monkey actually brought me a book and asked if we could read! I was so happy! A couple of weeks ago, we had a conference with his science teacher, and he was in his homeroom right across the hall. He actually got out his book and started reading on his own!
What's the change, you may ask. I think it is a combination of a few things actually. We started buying him books that he really enjoys! We bought him some Diary of A Wimpy Kid and some Bakugon books as well. I'm just glad that he is wanting to read and is actually starting to enjoy it and not scream and cry every time you said it was time for reading homework. Go Monkey!!

In other news around the Charwood house, we're getting rid of cable on Tuesday. Totally not my idea, and it couldn't happen at the worst time! On Wednesday I'm having sinus surgery and will be laid up for a couple of weeks. When I asked Sam what I was supposed to do all day while I was alone, at home, with nothing to do but lay on the couch and talk to the dogs. He said that I could read. I guess that's not a horrible idea.

Oh yes! I started college! I'm actually going to an online school called the Animal Behavioral College! I'm taking Veterinarian Assistant and Dog Obedience. Almost all of the curriculum is online, and then you have to do an externship to complete the course and graduate. It was all actually paid for by the government because I am a military spouse. It's called My Career Advancement Account, and it pays for up to $6,000 to help with college. It's been a big help!

Tomorrow is the Marine Corps 234th birthday! I am proud to be able to say that my husband is a Marine. He is far braver than I! We won't be going to the ball again this year. Wednesday, which is also Veterans Day, I'm having sinus surgery! Of course, Sam didn't tell me when it was this year, so, I scheduled my surgery 2 days before. God love him! My best friends, J, is probably going to go with me. She will be having pretty much the same procedure done in December, so, she would like to go with me. I'll probably be the one that goes with her as well.

The dogs are great! They're both sleeping on the couch right now with their feet straight up in the air. It's actually really cute. Lilly's hair has finally grown all the way back in. She is a fluffy white dog again! Doc is finally in the swing of things around here. He will sit on command now! That was a pretty big thing for us, considering that most people believe that Greyhounds can't sit. Both of the dogs are very quick learners and are doing really great!

Other than that, I think that's really all that's going on lately. Hopefully I will be able to keep up with this a little better here in the future. We will see!

Greetings!

Well, life has been puttering along here in the Charwood home. We have settled into a routine that lets us do the things that we need to do and have some family time at the end of the day! That makes me quite happy!

This past weekend we went to Myrtle Beach for a greyhound convention called BeachBound Hounds. It was alot of fun! We got to spend some time learning about Greyhounds and got to meet alot of other people with Greyhounds! We had pizza on the beach at sundown and then drove home!

We have plans to go to another aquarium next weekend. If all goes well we will get to see some more fish and dig around for sharks teeth! They also have an albino alligator at the one that we are planning on going to! My best friend is so scared of alligators, so I will have to take a picture for her!

Monkey and Bug are doing well in their new school. Bug has made alot of friends and Monkey is slowly making friends as well. Monkey is also in Cub Scouts this year! Sam volunteered to help out with this and is excited to start helping these young boys learn skills that will help them in life. Bug is awaiting Girl Scout Daisies to start. We're just waiting for her troop to start up. She is really excited. That means popcorn and cookies this year!

Sam bought me a new crockpot last night and I got to make a nice pot roast today. I put some onions, carrots, potatoes, the meat, some onion and mushroom soup mix and some tomato paste with some water in before the kids went off to school, let it cook all day, and viola! When we sat down to dinner the meat was so tender that it actually flaked off when you ran your fork down the side! I had a heck of a time trying to get it out of the crock to cut up and put on plates!

Monkey has developed a fear of the 'boogie man' being under his bed, so, today I went and got him some storage bins to go under his bed and a nice blue dust ruffle to hide everything under there. He went to bed with just a slight disagreement because he had to go to bed 15 minutes early for getting in trouble. We shall see tomorrow if this idea has worked or not!

Well, until next time my faithful readers! The husband is snoring, one dog is passed out on the couch, the other in the bed, and both the kids are snuggled safe in their beds, so, now it's time for me to slip in and get a couple hours of sleep so I can get up and do it all again tomorrow!

ADHD

Well, it's nothing new, but Monkey has ADHD. He's been on medication for quite a while. He will be 11 in just a few months and Sam and I have decided that we want to do something to try and help him as much as we can. That's not to say we haven't been helping him since he got here, but, I've been doing some reading, and I have decided on a new course of action.
We have been making a list of rules to print out for the fridge, and we've also been working on a "check list" of things that he needs to do every day with the days that they need to be done colorized. This way, he can just check to make sure he's done his chores, along with a prompting. We're going to also put up the rules list and the consequences for breaking them. We want to implement things like going to bed early, losing TV, video game, and computer privileges, and loss of dessert. (Not dinner, just dessert! LOL) We also have goals to work on. We want to become members of the local aquarium as well, so we would like to reward him with trips there, and other things that don't cost an arm and a leg!
In other news! My wonderful Mom is going to be down to stay for a week at the end of August! The day camp that the kids go to will be out the week before school starts, so, we don't have anyone to watch the kiddos! how crazy is that?!
Last night we went over to my best friends' house and let all the dogs play together which went fabulously, and played some RockBand and Austin is pretty good at the Guitar, not so good at drums, but not terrible either! Jillian was not very good at the guitar, and didn't even attempt the drums! We all had dinner together, meatloaf, cheesy mashed potatoes and greenbeans. (Monkey ate everything!) I attempted to make home-made banana pudding. The first batch came out beautifully! The second batch, which I thought would set up after I put it in with the first, never sat up, and we had banana soup! It's okay. I learned!

Break-in!

Sometimes people just suck!
My best friend, J, has been out of town for work since the Tuesday after July 4th. I've been going over to her house to get her mail, to feed and water her cat, make sure nobody has broken in. You know, things you do for friends when they're away. This morning I took the morning off to go register the kids for school. I get a frantic phone call from J this morning as I'm getting ready. Apparently someone had broken into her house at some point last night! Her cat, who is just like her daughter, was still there. I quickly got dressed and got in the car and took the quick 9 minute drive over to her house. It seemed like it took forever! She called me as I was pulling into the driveway. I walked in and the house was a disaster! They had cased the place and taken just about everything of value. The kicked in both doors to the house, disarmed the motion lights, and just cased the place. I got there, and the cat was still inside. Thank God for small favors!

Home owners at last!

So, here it is folks! This is our new house! We signed the dotted line and at 1:32 pm on June 22, 2009 Sam and I became home owners of our very own home! There are some things that we (note: I) want to change, like the paint inside some of the rooms, but over all it's a great place! J and I have dubbed the master bedroom, the poop room, because the previous owners didn't know how to paint at all! They sponge painted the master bedroom, used the lightest color first, then went out to the darkest color. They didn't even cover the entire wall, nor did they use any painters tape! There is still wall paper showing thru the paint! The living room is the poo and blood room, the walls are dark brown and deep red, yet again, no painters tape so there is even paint on the wood mantle over the fire place! The kitchen isn't too horribly hideous, but yet again, no painters tape, so it's on the trim work over the counters. *sigh*

I did get rid of my headache for about 24 hours, but it came back. I have a doctors appointment tomorrow and I'm just going to tell her to do whatever it is she's got to do to make it stop hurting even if that means that she's got to drill a hole in the side of my head! the good news about it is, at least it's on the other side now, at least I think that's a good thing. Sam is cutting his hair for work tomorrow, I will help him cut the back and then it's off to La-la land for me!

There should be more pictures soon of all of us moving stuff into the house! I have a couple friends from work that are coming to help move (I bribed them with a 6 pack of beer each to come help).

Life!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted here. I know, I'm a bad blogger!

Things have been a bit crazy around here lately. I turned a year older, which was pretty uneventful, if i do say so myself. The hubby made me a cake, which was really good. A butter cake with chocolate icing! How well he knows me! My best friend J got me Sims 3! But, I guess what S bought me has to beat just about every other birthday present I've ever gotten, (sorry Mom!)we bought a house!

It's a pretty nice place! Three bedroom, 2 bath, fenced in back yard. So now, the kiddos are coming back from Grammys' and will live with "Poppa Sam" and I. We're all super excited to all be back together again and can't wait to have the 2 kiddos and the dog here in North Carolina!

Today was extraordinarily hot! The little thermometer on the computer says it's 90, but I think it's closer to 100 out there! It feels like your skin will melt right off of your body! So, I'm sitting in the living room with my very wonderful husband watching NCIS. It's a rerun, they're always reruns on USA! It's okay, I enjoy watching them with him.