chilling

But not the kinda chilling that my family has been doing! They have survived -40 temps this week. And they've done it so well, they don't need me back!!! Kidding, well not about the well done part, just about not needing me back.

I however am chilling under a fan in Kathy's family room about to watch a movie. We just went for a 45 min. walk with her puppy Duchess. I took my coat, as it's been a little on the chilly side in the evening. But I had to tie it at my waist, it was so warm! And now I'm sitting here trying to cool down!

Good News!! Kathy has decided it's not safe to go to Mexico!! So I'm doing the happy dance!! I was willing to go, but I won't deny I was nervous!!

We are scheduled to go to Tonto National Monument, where they have cave dwellings that you can actually go into. We're scheduled for the Upper Dwelling Tour, which is 3 miles long and takes 3-4 hours, so I guess Kathy IS trying to kill me off! We're scheduled to go on Friday and I'm supposed to be healthy by then, so maybe she doesn't have evil intent.

I am feeling healthier, so the cure seems to be working. I layed out in the sun the last three days, it was pretty nice. I was supposed to be reading today, but I confess, I dozed instead. It felt so good.

Next week is my birthday, Kathy was so thoughtful and enrolled me in the birthday club for the Black Angus restaurant and so I get a free birthday dinner! We'll be doing that at some point next week. And if I'm really lucky I'm getting a new car for my birthday!! Our burb left Mom on the side of the road in -11 weather this past week, so we've been shopping around and have narrowed it down to two. One in GB and one here. The one here is everything I want in a burb, except heated seats. The one in GB does not have nine seats or a dvd player, but it does have heated seats....... I don't have to drive 2020 miles to get it home either. Doesn't sound like much of a dilemma, but it is..... stay tuned and we'll keep you posted!

ahhhhh warmth

Today I took a walk in 72 degree weather. That's +72 degrees NOT -72 degrees. It was very nice. Obviously I did make it to sunny Arizona. We had an excellent flight, we arrived 40 mins early!! And I didn't need a jacket walking off the plane!

I've been taking it easy and following orders to get healthy. I got to see a bit of the countryside yesterday when Kathy went out to run some errands. It was neat to see some cactus, I don't remember seeing those before in my travels. But the scenery is similar to what Brent's home town looks like and that was unexpected, I thought I'd see more bare sand. But there was lots and lots of brush. And we can see mountains and that's a nice change to break up the horizon.

Today we've stuck close to home and we took the dogs for a walk. Kathy's puppy is curing me of all my puppitis. I asked Brent if I could have a puppy a month ago and he said no. And now I remember why he said no! They take a lot of ENERGY!!!! She's really sweet and very bright and a lot of fun, and the best part is that she takes naps every few hours in her crate!!!

It looks like we're going to Mexico next week, I'm still on the fence about that one! Does that follow my orders to get healthy? The real problem is that I'm just nervous doing it, it seems risky because all you ever hear is negative news about border crossings!! So if I survive, I'll report back on that experience! It's a day trip, Mexico is about two hours from here. Kathy tells me it's safe...........

In the meantime I'll enjoy sunny (safe) Arizona and let you know how that goes.

controlled chaos

That's my life, controlled chaos, and sometimes a lot of uncontrolled chaos! Monday afternoon I took our suburban in to get the door handles on it fixed!!! FINALLY!!!!! That only took a year!!

When I took it in, I found out that after the handles were fixed, I would need to take it to a separate body shop of theirs and get the hinges fixed. So I took it over there, got the estimate and made arrangements to drop it of Tues night, the next night, and they would fix it Wed. I was at the garage from 2ish to about 5pm.

In the meantime, I had made arrangements to take the Geo in to have it's door looked at, so they could order the right parts to fix it, the next afternoon (Tuesday). So I got in it to take it and quickly realized I probably would not be driving it back home! The check engine light was going off and on and it was running really, really rough. When I got to the garage my fears were confirmed. Our little four cylinder car was only running on TWO!! So I asked for a rental because we were down to the truck for vehicles and that wasn't going to work! They really had to search for one, as the regular ones were all out. In the meantime Mom was coming from her errands in GB to the garage in TR to drop it off for me and ride home with me.....except I had no car!

They did find me one and we were able to make it home. So once again I was at the garage from 2ish to 5ish. Do you know what's on TV at that time of day? Nothing worth watching!!!

Tuesday night we looked at Collin's nose again and it was not straight anymore. So we thought we better get it checked after all. So four phone calls later, I had an appt. for him at 1:50pm. Mom wanted Than to do some ice chipping and box moving at her house, so I told her she'd have to take the whole gang, as I couldn't leave Lee, Jayden and Max home alone! So after dropping them off, we went to the dr.

They took x-rays and in the end decided a CAT scan would be a good idea. But they couldn't get us in until 4:15pm. Collin and I decided to hang out at the library, as I didn't have the energy to drive home and drive back into town. On the way to the CAT scan I got the call that the burb could be picked up. So I made arrangements to get it dropped off at the first garage, because I couldn't get to the body shop by 5pm.

The CAT scan indicates that Collin has no broken nose, and no deviated septum. Thank goodness.

Then we got to drive over to the dealership and once again I was there at 5pm! (I was wrong, the appt went so fast we could have been there at 5pm, but there was no way to know that and we were there at like 5:01) We traded the rental for our burb and were very excited to find that the doors worked like new!! So nice, no more rolling down the window and then ramming our shoulder into the door like a football player to get it open! It's the little things in life.

Today I got a call at 9:30am that the Geo was ready!! I had to take Max into the clinic to get his ear rechecked and then Mom, Max and I went off to retrieve the Geo. Max's ear looks perfect by the way, the ear drum had burst over Christmas break. While I was there my Nurse Practitioner (NP) heartily endorsed my plan to go spend two weeks in AZ and told me that I really should take along a NP to make sure I was ok if I had any health issues while I was gone!!!

When I picked up the Geo, the lady at the desk asked me if I was coming back tomorrow! I told her no, it had been nice meeting all of them, but hopefully we'd be done with car repairs for a bit now! We both laughed.

So we have all our cars back and they work just great!! So nice.

Yes, I am going to AZ for two weeks. Kathy, the same Kathy who went to DC with us, has generously opened her home to me and I'm going to spend two weeks in the DRY and mostly WARM climate that is sunny Arizona!! I'm really looking forward to it! I leave this Sunday, and yes I just finalized all this today and bought the tickets today! I can't wait to get there. Did I mention I'm not taking any kids?! I'm going there to get HEALTHY! Kathy said it was cheaper than a hospital bill. I'm just crossing my fingers that it does the trick and I'll finally get rid of this junk.

I just checked the forecast for AZ..............seventy degrees!!!!! Can we say EXCITED!!! Really, really, EXCITED!!!! It's supposed to be -6 in actual temps next week here in WI, as in NO windchill is factored into that, and there is almost always a windchill, so really it's probably going to be -15 or lower!!! AND I WON'T BE HERE!!!! Ok, ok, maybe a I'm gloating just a teeny bit.....but I'm going to be WARM and gloating!!

the verdict

Collin's nose does not appear broken, as the swelling goes down. He's says it's still tender if bumped, but that's it. Thank goodness.

I did spend most of Sunday in bed, but I'm still feeling crummy. So we're taking it easy today. Getting back into the groove of school and such. But the boys will be doing the work.

I do have to go feed animals, which entails carrying water buckets, but I'll just take it slow and easy.

Our ground is covered in one massive sheet of ice, everywhere. It's really treacherous. Brent tried to get out of the drive this morning and he got stuck, took him over an hour and a half to dig out. YUCK! The Sahara desert is looking pretty good right now. We're supposed to have windchill temps of -25, I think 125+ temps sound really good!

I do enjoy the winters here and I keep reminding myself that I'd be much happier if I could just get healthy. I did take some oregano yesterday and am off to take it again today. It's supposed to be really good for combating respiratory stuff, so we'll see. But getting it down is a whole nother story!

Have a good day, and if you're temps are positive today, ENJOY them!

Don't Faint!

Yes, I'm actually posting two days in a row! Because I'm in bed and it's not even 6pm. I thought I was getting better and then today I was just dragging and my lungs feel worse, but I'm five days into a round of antibiotics, so how can I be getting worse?

I'm also not sitting in a hot tub right now, which is where I was supposed to be! I did pass on it yesterday, but today decided it would really be worth it. So I took the boys sledding and we were supposed to go swimming afterwards. But Collin's nose hit Jayden's head pretty hard and we had to go home instead.

It's really swollen and there is a slight possibility that it's broken. It's looks a little off center to Brent and I, but it's really swollen, did I mention that? So we're going to let the swelling go down and see what it looks like. When he and Brent feel it and move it, it doesn't seem broken, so we're crossing our fingers that it's just swelling. Lots and lots of swelling. And blood, but you probably already figured that out.

So no hot tub for me.....I got sent to my room, bad mommy. Really I sent myself to my room and Brent agreed, and offered room service! I'm having flashbacks to August. I'd really rather not relive those memories! And honest, I've been good. No snow blowing for me, no shoveling, no unloading pellets, no cleaning house, no running here and there and everywhere....honest I've been good, really, really good. So dangit, this crud needs to GO AWAY!!

And even though my wonderful, awesome hubby delivered dinner, he some how couldn't whip up a bathroom on the second floor in one night, so I'm off to take care of that before I flood the bed, and maybe sneak a peek at Collin's nose. (and if hubby could have whipped up a second floor bathroom in any amount of time, he'd have done it already, believe me!! we both hate the trek down to the bathroom in the middle of the night.)

Hmmmm, not liking this pattern

We are still here, under all the snow. We broke a 121 yr record in December for snowfall, aren't we excited. Maybe a little. And I think I'll just ignore that whole 30 days again, thing.

With all that snow you would think we were having the time of our life. However, the third time out with our snow mobiles we broke one, we actually got it so stuck that it had frozen mud and snow in it and it took us over two weeks to get it back to the house from the cabin, because of Brent and I being sick off and on. So no more playing in the snow with the mobiles. The good news is that our great friend that gave us the snowmobiles came over for New Years and helped us get the one running and get them both home. So after we get a little more ice chunks out of the one and get the key hole to deice on the other, we'll be riding again!

Shortly into Dec., the night before we received over a foot of snow, one of our snow blowers broke. So that entails taking our one remaining blower back and forth between the cabin and the farm. We don't have the funds this month to fix/replace it. And it takes several hours to blow each place, so when it snowed,( and it snowed, and it snowed, and then it snowed again, and then it drifted everywhere, and then it snowed again, ALL MONTH) we were busy blowing it everywhere, so we could get in and out of our driveways and to our animals.

Then Brent and I both got a virus that took us out of commission for about 5 days. So now we're behind and who knows when we'll ever see the gravel of our driveway again!! Maybe in April. The basic premise behind blowing is that not only will you not get your car stuck, (which by the way Brent managed to do this week,) but when the weather does "warm up", you know to like 25 degrees or even a whopping 32, the thin layer of ice/snow that you have on the drive, will melt and you will once again be walking/driving on gravel/concrete. And yes we had a major thaw, but it was the weekend Brent and I were sick, so did we get anything cleared? NO!

Thankfully one of our farmer neighbors is helping us out with his tractor that has not only a front loader, but a gigantic and I do mean gigantic snow blower on the rear. But his idea of when we actually need digging out is a bit different than ours, so we're still dealing with drifts and minor snowfalls, which still takes a lot of time.

So maybe you can see why I've not had time/energy/motivation to post. Because you have to remember that in between the blowing,( which at times has been every day or every other day,) we still have to feed 6 kids, 4 dogs(we've been dog sitting all month), 4 cats, 2 snakes, 2 horses, 2 rabbits and 1 turtle. Oh yeah and 60+ chickens. Then the kids have this thing called school that we're supposed to do everyday, and there's laundry and cleaning and don't forget the things that take us out of the house, such as archery, church, shopping for food (for some reason people in this house insist on eating three+ times a DAY!) and so on and so forth. And I've been sick all of December with one thing or another.

The first week of Dec. we all ended up with a respiratory virus that was miserable. Collin ended up with another ear infection, Max got an ear infection to the point that his ear drum burst, and Amanda had to go to the Dr. to prove to her that she wasn't coming down with bronchitis again and that she really could go back to school. I got to go visit the Dr this week because the stuff in my head had decided that it was bored being there and moved into my lungs. So now I'm on antibiotics. But the x-rays show no pneumonia, we checked just in case.

I'm now turning my kids into germaphobics and I and the two youngest are not going to church until we're 100% better. The house is becoming a sterile place to live, you know as in bleach, anitbacterial sprays, and anything else I can think of to keep germs at bay.

We've explored a lot of angles on why it's been such a really bad 6 mths of respiratory issues(I actually haven't been 100% healthy since June 12th) and we're still not finding any clear cut answers. We moved out of the house for 5 days in August and it didn't help, we've had the house examined for mold and other issues. Than was seen by an allergist and given a battery of allergy tests. We've all taken rounds of allergy meds, and used essential oils and we're currently on high doses of vit C. We just do not know. Even with six kids we've never passed stuff around before, and I've never had kids with ear issues, till now. So we'll keeping working at getting healthy and hopefully we'll find something that works. I'm thinking garlic is going to be added soon.

And now I'm tired remembering all that!! We did have a good Christmas, Brent and I were still recovering, but able to do all the usual stuff. We've had a good two weeks off with the kids. Today we're off to sled with a friend and then go swimming, I'm thinking I'm going to sit in the hot tub, maybe....it's awful cold when you get out!!