This was my day

My day started with Zoey waking up 5am to nurse and snuggle in bed with me. Within an hour I had a couple more kids join us in the bed for a morning snuggle. As soon as I was up and stumbling around to help with the older kids get off to school, it was then I realized that Emily needed to see a doctor, like yesterday. It was 8:30am and I was scrambling to get my two year old into the doctors office. Emily has a terrible rash all over her body. I don't know what to think about her rash. Google was beginning to make me paranoid! Allergies? Measles? Infection? I was able to obtain a 9:45am appointment. Chris met us there at 10:15 (yes, he got lost, again!). The doc said she has a strep rash. She didn't swab Emily's throat to get a real diagnosis of strep because my poor child was F-R-E-A-K-I-N-G out!! Back story: Two months ago, poor Emily busted her lip open and had to go the the ER and get five stitches. They had to strap her in a medieval-type contraption in order to sew her lip. Needless to say, the doctor's office scares her to pieces. When the nurse came into the examing room get her temperature today, it may have well been a knife the way Emily screamed in terror. (The nurse was also not very nice.) Chris and the doctor (luckily, doc was nice) had to hold her down just to look in her ears. Poor Emily! The doc sent us home with a script for antibiotics and instructed us to give her benadryl for the rash. By the way, I googled strep rash and that is when I discovered that strep rash is Scarlet Fever. What??? Luckily, with antibiotics, the strep won't turn into it's killer, Rheumatic fever. But, still, I don't really think that diagnosis was right. She never had a fever and she wasn't cultured for strep, so I have doubts. I'm hopeful the antibiotics will help, so I dropped the script off at Meijers and went home to feed the girls lunch. (By the way, antibiotics are FREE at Meijers!) After lunch, I returned a phone call to a credit specialist who is helping us get a lower interest rate on a home re-fi loan. (Yay, Dave Ramsey!!) Weeeellll, I was informed that Chris' credit score has been hijacked by an evil person. Chris is a victim of identity threat and his credit is shot! You see, last year Chris' wallet was stolen. This slime-bag, low-life managed to sign up for Comcast cable under Chris' name and rack up a huge unpaid bill, which was then reported on Chris' credit report. I decided to go to the local Comcast office and pick up paperwork for identity theft. That place was creepy. It felt like a waiting room at a jail. I have no idea if jails have waiting rooms, but if they do, Comcast has got the right idea. My girls were a sweet distraction and we managed to play little guessing games while we waited. After 20 minutes of waiting in a short line, I finally got the paper work to begin the arduous task of clearing my husbands' name and getting his credit score back up. After that fun adventure, I drove to the bank and once again landed myself in a long wait. Just my luck that the car in front of me at the drive-up ATM was a ATM technician. Finally, I got my money, picked up the medicine from the store, got gas, then headed home just in time for Emily's nap...which she never took. Grrreeaat. We read books, instead, so it wasn't all that bad. Soon, we were in the car again to pick up the older two from school and Emily took her nap. Once we were on our way back home, I thought it would be fun to treat the kids (and me) to Frosty Oasis. We each got a swirl soft-serve ice cream cone. We walked around and licked our ice cream while the 75 degree weather melted it down our hands and onto our clothes. It was heaven. I cleaned up everyone with water from my stainless steel water bottle and we headed back home. The kids played outside and worked on their homework while I paid some bills online and juggled a baby on my knee. Brianna made a fort on the swing set and I was invited to steal a moment of peace with her before dinner. We dreamt of living in a fort in the trees in some far-off land. We had lots of marvelous ideas of how we would pull it off. After dinner, I was hit again with full-blown stress: Paul has rash now, too. Duh! I saw his face this morning, but I shrugged it off to be his eczema flaring up. I never noticed his chest or back because I hadn't seen him without a shirt on all day. I panicked. It was 7pm. I called the on-call doc and tried my best not reveal my true level of  freak-out. Doc #2 was not at all convinced that Emily has strep rash. He explained how the rash is not the correct texture. Apparently strep rash feels like sand paper. My kids rashes are smooth. Soooo, he suggests no antibiotics and that we should just wait and see. It is a virus, according to Dr #2. It isn't contagious once the rash appears. I still have doubts, but I feel better. It is 8pm. Bedtime for the kids. Zoey got back up at 8:30pm screaming. Lovely. She nursed and fell right back to sleep. Chris made it home around 9pm. I finally finished my dinner. We talked a bit, then watched our Netflix movie, Gran Torino. After the movie, I scooped out some of the chocolate cookie dough I made yesterday and made a batch of cookies. It is 11:30pm and the loud thunder storm woke up Zoey and she is ready to party. Now Summer woke up. I gave her a cookie. Zoey climbed over the dog and bunked her head. She is now being comforted and nursed back to sleep. Summer headed back to bed. The storm is over but the day isn't done. THE END! Goodnight!

My thearapy session in the basement

Cleaning my basement that was being to look like an episode from Hoarders was more meaningful than a therapist session. Once I started separating and sorting through the enormous piles, I ended up with a wonderful space. My accomplishments? I filled about 10 large garbage bags, plus broken down boxes. I have a car full pile of things to drop off at the thrift store. Now the garage is full of stuff for the garage sale I intend to have next month. The rest of the stuff was organized in containers, labelled, and neatly arranged on the shelves. It was good, hard work and so satisfying to my soul.

The Best Me I Can Be

I want this blog to inspire and mildly entertain your curious minds. I have been journaling forever, but all my real juicy stuff will never get posted and will need to stay in the notebook binder where they belong. I hope to write something interesting. I also hope you don't mind too terribly if I bore or annoy you. I'm not a character in a book, so my life can be just as dull as yours. In any event, thanks for reading.