More mystery

The mystery illness is yet unidentified. The thing about living in a big place like this is that you can rarely get in to the pediatrician in a timely manner. I called first thing this morning, and the earliest appointment I can get is 3:50 pm - and that's with another doctor in the practice. I'm not very fond of the "other" doctors at our clinic - there's one that I won't allow my children to see at all anymore - but I love our pediatrician. She's very hard to see when you don't schedule in advance.

Anyway, Logan seems perkier today, which is unusual. She's still got a temp in the 100-101 range, so she just turned her short week of school into a full week of vacation!

(I have to agree that it's all Marcus's fault! :)

I have a story for you. The street that we live on has lots of kids on it, so we let the girls play out in our yard and some of the other yards on our street when the other kids are out. Cameron was across the street playing basketball with Connor yesterday, and she was in and out of our front door.

I sit down at my compter at about 8pm to check email and stuff. The kids were watching Princess Diaries 2 on Disney Channel. After a little bit, I hear our door chime go off, and I assumed that it was one of the kids going into the garage to get a drink out of that fridge. I didn't really look up from what I was doing, but out of the corner of my eye, I see a GROWN MAN walk past the office and go into our powder room. HOLY SH*&!!! I jumped up, grabbed the phone, and said EXCUSE ME!!! He turns and walks out of the powder room, looks at me dumbfounded, and I yelled GET OUT!!!

He realized then that he had walked into the wrong house, and he started trying to apologize and explain - and I told him I just wanted him the EFF. OUT. OF. MY. HOUSE. It was one of those moments where you get an enormous surge of adrenaline, and you start trying to reconcile that your life may permanently change at that moment. I think he's lucky that I didn't grab something and try to beat the crap out of him, because I really think that I'd have bested him easily at that moment.

I'm pretty sure that he intended to go in my neighbor's house, the single guy who works at Dell and has pool parties all the time, but really - what was he on that he made it in the house, all the way to the powder room without realizing that he was in the wrong place.

I usually check the doors before I go to bed at night, but obviously I didn't do it early enough last night. I even set our security alarm for the first time in a long time last night.

I should have called the cops on his arse. That would have busted up the pool party for the night, eh?

Guess the mystery illness

Friday night, Logan started complaining of a stomach ache. We'd had nasty pizza at her soccer party, so I just thought it was from that.

Saturday morning, her tummy still hurts, but she feels well enough to go to a birthday party at Ramp Ranch (skateboarding place). When I pick her up, she tells me that she didn't have any birthday cake at the party. (Logan has never met any sugar that she won't eat - so I knew something was wrong.)

Saturday evening, she looks pale and pitiful, so I take her temp. It's 102F. I just assumed that it was probably strep, because that's how she usually progresses when she has strep. Stomach ache ---> fever ---> sore throat.

It's 24 hours later, and she's still running in the 102-103F range, but I looked in her throat with a flashlight and it looks perfect. She says that her throat doesn't hurt - her head hurts and her body is sore. She's been sleeping off and on in my bed all day.

Ideas?

@(*&&^*% ^#!!!

Got an email from Cass this morning. He's in London now.

I am going to have to go to Seattle for the MS GAB the two days befor I leave for London. I will have to change my flight to go directly from Seattle to London. I think I am ready for a break in my travel schedule.

Many curse words are going through my mind. Still. 3 hours later.

He has traveled nearly every week since school started. I don't handle the stress inside very well, which is why I've been trying to treat myself a little bit. I guess it's been working, but I know what else would work - make the travel stop.

In other news, I made cornbread dressing yesterday. It's a recipe that my Mom has always used. She xeroxed a page out of an unidentified cookbook and has used it for years. I got my Dad to fax it to me a few years ago, and I've used it a good bit. We don't usually travel to Mississippi for Thanksgiving, because of limited time.

At the rate we're going, the kids and I will get to enjoy my dressing without Cass.

Countdown

3 weeks from today, I will have arrived at London Gatwick!

I started "getting my ducks in a row" yesterday. I went to LawDepot.com and printed out a consent to medical treatment for my Mom. When Cass gets back, we'll get it notarized so she'll be able to make medical decisions for the kids, should the need arise. I have to send a copy for the school to put in their files, a copy for their teachers, and a copy for the school nurse.

I also printed out directions to our pediatrician's office. My Mom isn't very comfortable with driving outside of the area right around my house, so she's got to have stuff like that for reference. I also did directions to Luke's preschool, although I'm not sure if she's going to take him back and forth. He can miss 4 or 5 days - no big deal.

I have to leave a copy of our medical insurance information, as well as our flight info and hotel info. Never mind that we haven't booked anything except our flights over and back. We have no hotel, no flights to any other places.

I think the only other thing to do is to type up a schedule of sorts. That's really hard to do, when it needs to be individualized for 3 different kids.

Aparna says it's really cold over there. It was 88 degrees here on Tuesday. We got a "cold front" and now it's in the 60s. I think it's a different kind of cold over there, and I don't like hearing Ap say "really cold." LOL!

Too many ends to get tied up.

Catalog season

It's that time of the year. You go to your mailbox, anticipating something great. You open the mailbox and it's stuffed! Excitement! Then you pull it all out of there, and 99% of the total weight is due to catalogs.

Yesterday's catalog count: 7

Fossil, some travel catalog, Hearth Song, Lands' End, some financial catalog, Bass Pro Shops, The Company Store, JC Penney. The stack of catalogs is 2.5 inches high, and it's all going in the garbage can without one look.

I do most of my Christmas shopping online, so I don't sit around perusing catalogs. I remember going through the Sears catalog as a child, but I never got anything I actually wanted out of there, so catalog looking doesn't hold some special place in my heart or anything.

To me, gift giving has gotten kind of difficult, and in a way pointless. These days, people buy what they want when they want. You don't have to wait around or save up for any reason. You just go out to Target, Best Buy, the mall - and get it when you need it. So that makes deciding on what to give someone at holiday season especially difficult. Some people think that the solution is to set up online wish lists or registries. I'm not sure I'm 100% OK with that either. It kind of kills the surprise.

I don't know what the solution to the yearly gift dilemma is, but it definitely isn't to stuff my mailbox full of printed materials that I have to throw out.

My new best friend Beata

I have a new BFF. Her name is Beata. She is a massage therapist at Massage Heights in Round Rock, and she is a magic maker.

Back in the early summer, I started having migraines daily. After a month or so, I finally went to see my doctor. She couldn't find anything wrong with me, except for the incredible tension that I carry in my neck and shoulders. She recommended either PT or chiropractic "therapy." I told my doc that I had been led to believe that chiropractors are unnecessary, and that I'd prefer PT. She highly recommended a chiropractor in Georgetown who specializes in issues that cause migraines, and she asked that I consider giving him a try. She said that PT for my issues would take a while to give relief, while I would leave the chiropractor's office with immediate improvement.

So off I went. I saw Dr. Chiropractor for about 3 months. And yes, I did get immediate relief. He gave me exercises to do to help stretch my neck muscles and stablize my spine in that area to prevent further problems. I stopped seeing him in September.

With everything that's been going on in our household, my old problem of neck tension has crept back up. I've been doing my exercises a good bit, but this week my headaches started back. I didn't really want to go back to the chiropractor, because then that would make it true that chiropractic is a ruse to get you to come back and give them more money, so I decided to indulge in a little massage therapy on my own. This is how I was introduced to Beata.

I went to Massage Heights at 10 am this morning. I talked to her about my neck problems, and she said she could do a 1 hour deep tissue massage of my problem areas - neck, shoulders, back, and arms.

Did you know that massage can HURT? It was a good hurt, though, not a painful one. She worked my neck and shoulders quite completely, and I could tell that there was a lot of inflammation in there. While I was laying on my stomach on her table, my nose got all stuffy, and I had to breathe through my mouth. When I got up, I could feel the fluid retention in my face. It was all I could do to stand up and walk out of there - my body was like a limp noodle.

I came home, took some magnesium (good for muscles), drank a glass of cold water, got my heating pad and laid in bed. I dozed for about 2 hours. I feel so AWESOME right now! I hope it lasts, because I could surely get used to hanging out with Beata.

Other updates
I had the Upstairs Maid people come for the first time on Monday. They were to arrive at 1 pm and be done in about 1 - 1.5 hours. It took them 2.5 hrs! They cleaned all surfaces, vacuumed, mopped, dusted blinds, cleaned the ceiling fan blades, and got the cobwebs out of the ceilings. Amazing. I didn't request any certain kinds of products - it was all I could do to get them to take my key, because they only spoke Espanol. But I love that my house is all clean and straight - even on the Wednesday after. Luke has taken to removing his socks in the house, because our hardwood floors are very slick from whatever they cleaned them with. LOL!

Cass is in Helsinki, Finland today. That's all I know. When he called last night, we were having a "server" issue with the website that we host on our own personal computer server. Turns out that it wasn't our problem and we couldn't fix it - but we still had to spend 25 min of international cell phone costs trying to establish that fact. Just let me say that we've asked this website to move to a different server several times, yet they won't because why move when it's free right now? Yet they complain about server issues all the time. Ticks me off.

Where in the world is Cass?

Cass called me at about 9 pm (my time) last night. It was 5 am in Kiev. They were trying to catch a cab to the airport to fly through Munich to Stockholm. They were supposed to arrive at 4:30 am CST, 11:30 am Stockholm time. I haven't heard from him, so I assume they got there. They usually go straight from the airport to the offices of the game developer they are visiting.

He said he had spent 32 hours in the same clothes, with no shower and no sleep. Don't you feel sorry for him?!