Sicky

Today I was reading one of my more favorite blogs - Bridget's blog - where she was describing how her husband has had the neverending sickness. Although we didn't have quite as severe of an experience as he had, I can fully attest to the fact that we are definitely in a cycle of sickness right now in our family. It starts with one member - progresses to the next member and works it way through me and all three kids (Jeremy is often immune to our illnesses) and then cycles right back again through us. In the past, I have found that this happens to us from time to time and once we finally break the cycle, we have months upon end with no illness in sight.

To add to my already existing hysteria about "getting sick" - the past week or so, I have been light headed/dizzy on and off, tingling and numbness in my hands on and off, difficulty breathing, and heart palpitations. I am convinced I have a brain tumor growing in my skull and I'm having a stroke. Today I looked up these symptoms and turns out that all of them are symptoms of acute anxiety and panic attacks. Time to go back on the lexapro for me? I've been looking at the circumstances surrounding each mini attack (it doesn't even feel like an attack, I just get the symptoms and when they don't go away, I panic) and I can't quite find a trigger. The first time it happened I was in the middle of Twilight. The second time was during the boys' parent/teacher conferences. Then, another one while I was cleaning out the garage. Yet another while I was sitting on the couch watching TV. No thread of similarity runs through all of these events besides that I felt light headed - got panicky about it and more symptoms appeared - then eventually it went away (but not after I had almost convinced myself to go to the ER so they could do a CAT scan to see the large tumor in my head).
Honestly, it is a really good thing I have a great husband who listens to my concerns and then calms me down. And my mom who came up to Salem this past week to help me out with the kids.

Okay I need to sign off, but I will catch you again real soon. Oh, and remember how my baby wouldn't sleep for two weeks? He has all four of his top front teeth coming in at the same time. He has four white buds ready to pop on his gums - ouch!

Hello? anybody home?

Hi - I'm back. Unfortunately most of my plans got sidelined - by this little guy

I don't mean to be critical, but the last few weeks and even worse this past week when I had the most "to do" things on my list - Chase decides to not only NOT SLEEP AT NIGHT, but he decides NOT TO NAP. I'm telling you, if you have a baby who doesn't nap, life is super tough. So this last week, I would put Chase down and he would settle for about 15 minutes and then nap for 30 to 45 minutes and awake screaming. Not much painting or sanding got done.

I did finish Blake's book. Did I tell you about it? Well a few weeks ago, Oprah had this organizational guru on her show that promoted photographing your children's artwork and then sending them into Snapfish to be converted into a hardcover published book. Blake has written a few books on his own that I thought would be perfect candidates for turning into a hardcover book. I don't have a very fancy camera, in fact it is a point and shoot camera that doesn't have much resolution above a 5 X 7 " size. So photographing the pages of Blake's book proved to be a challenge.

Here are some of his sample pages -

Blake does all the artwork and then tells me the storyline while I translate his story into the written words on the page. I try not to correct his grammar or storytelling, so most of what we read is directly from his mouth. It took me a few hours every night after the kids went to bed for a few nights. I don't know if the effort will be rewarded on Christmas morning, but I'm sure he will appreciate it afterwards.


Another factor involved with my fussy baby is that he simply will not stop crying or whining long enough that I can make dinner. I spend most evenings with this at my feet.

And I let him play with whatever he can get his hands on in order for me to whip up a 15 minute meal. (a 30 minute meal feels like luxury at this point in the game).

(A little sideline note - I wrote this post a few days ago - and somehow miraculously - Chase started sleeping again through the night and today had two very good naps. Please let this be a trend because I'm tired!!)

A week off...

All you thousands of readers out there, I have some bad news. I need to take a week off blogging. I know I'm disappointing all those adoring fans that wait for my almost daily posts, but this week is THE week that I need to get much needed projects done. Last week I gave myself the week off from working out (I had over trained my body and as a consequence I was getting migraines, gastro-intestinal distress, extreme fatigue, exhaustion, and some gnarly aches and pains - after five days of no serious exercise, I'm happy to report my body feels a whole lot better).

This week I need to get these things done:

• Finish my free Oprah-show Snapfish photo books.
• Sand the kids' bathroom vanity
• Paint the kids' bathroom vanity
• Find the fabric to recover living room couch pillows
• Sand/Paint master bedroom end tables
• Lose five pounds
• Get my baby to freakin' sleep through the whole entire ten hours of night
• Help Jer install premium vinyl tiles in the laundry room and master bathroom
• Find and purchase faucets for the bathrooms (so maybe my Thanksgiving guests can help me install them)

Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, did I mention that I need to get my wonderful lovely baby boy TO FREAKIN' SLEEP THROUGH THE NIGHT!!! Y'all I am pretty tired these days. He goes to bed at 6pm, wakes at 9 for a bottle, goes to sleep until 2 or 3am for another bottle, and then wakes at 6:30-7am for the day. I am so done with this and it is making my usually cheery and delightful personality go away and be replaced by mean, nasty, bossy, cranky mommy who scares all three of her boys and makes her husband want to work extra long hours. Chase has been my best baby in terms of adaptable personality and easy to travel with, but the most difficult of my babies in terms of sleeping.

So off I go into the wild blue yon. See you soon. Until then, want to see some projects I did complete?

• Installed vinyl tiles in kid's bath, took out old toilet, installed new wax ring (thus getting rid of eternal PEE smell in bathroom) and re caulking everything - see the dated oak vanity? that's what I need to repaint.

• Cleaned out and reorganized my bedroom closet (getting rid of FIVE huge bags of dated clothes that don't fit or aren't right for me) thank you Tim Gunn for inspiring me.

Got all of our Benefits Enrollment Worksheets together - enrolled in benefits for next year including a hefty increase in life insurance and health care account contributions.

Research all our stock options, bought and sold several of our investments and re-invested much of our portfolio. (not a small task, I tell you)
Sanded and painted front door, spray painted kick plate, reinstalled new door hardware. It used to look like this:

Now looks like this

Got the piano tuned (it is much more inexpensive to tune pianos here than in Seattle)
Found these chairs at a consignment store. Now need to get fabric to recover and an inexpensive reupholsterer.

Winterized the garden (but you already saw those pictures)

I know it seems like I'm tooting my own horn here (and I kind of am), but it helps me see that I'm actually getting things done instead of feeling like I'm treading water - which is how I feel most of the time.

Have a great week guys!

Putting the Garden to bed for the winter

Those who know me personally, know that I love to garden. What may be a chore to others is actually a stress reliever and creative outlet for me. Moving to this new house was a fun new project since I could change and tweak what the former owners had done to the front yard without any major interventions. (The backyard is a pit of grass, poop, holes that dogs dug, and a trampoline - so I let it go. It is kind of like my prodigal son - It has gone far away from where I would like it to go, but I know someday it will return to me. The backyard does hold my veggie garden and composter, so it isn't a total loss.)

Anyway, we began renovating the front yard last spring when we dug out the pond and fountain, aka cess pool, and removed all plants and foundations I didn't want in the garden.

Mid-Spring - I use this picture to see where the bulbs come up

Then we move to the summer. I have this incredible neighbor whose garden I love to stand in front of and gaze at. One day she was in her front yard and I just asked her if she didn't mind me standing in front of her house and checking out all her plants. She was thrilled that I admired her handiwork and even went into her garage and came out with a few envelopes of poppy seeds she had collected from her garden over the years. I threw out those seeds and they turned out be to the most gorgeous flowers. And since I waited until the seed heads dried up before pulling them out of the ground, I saved a few envelopes of seeds for myself for next year.
Summer


Early Spring, bulb placement and hydrangea bush
Summer, hydrangea in full glory (my favorite flower and plant)

I'm a border plant gal. I get it from my Grandma Annis who loved her snapdragons and marigolds on her borders. Notice my plants are Husky colors - gold and purple.

Repainted shutters, front porch, and front door. Here are the railing containers. It is the EASIEST recipe I found in a magazine, yet probably one of the most attractive containers I've ever done. Use coleus in the back (I found these super huge jumbo ones at Costco this year), white impatiens, and trailing lobelia. I had a few pansies left over from the ground and added those in. This is a shade container that will work in full to partial shade.

Summer - walking up to the house

Now it is time to winterize the garden considering it is mid-November. So this is what I did today. Chase was sequestered to his exersaucer - he was not totally happy about this.

Luckily Chase has Jackson building a super city in the front yard to look at.

Pull out all annuals and trim off all dead leaves and branches from plants.

The remains of my coleus containers go in the composting bin.

Throw in a few tulip bulbs under the standard rose bushes for good measure.

Give my Japanese forest grass a shaggy haircut. I decided to experiment today and see what sort of new growth it gets with this shaggy pruning job I did.

Avoid this huge garden spider that has taken residence next to the standard rose bushes.

Throw a few bulbs into the porch railing containers. Overplant with pansies, kales, and primroses. When the bulbs come up in the spring, they grow through the flowers on the top and it is an amazing display.

Garden winterized.

And Chase is D-O-N-E, done!

Now I spend the winter pouring over seed catalogs, finding new planting arrangements, and turning the composter.

High Centered

It's mean of my mom to take pictures of me when clearly I am stuck in my toy basket and cannot get out. This picture is called "Baby get high centered"

Gone Fishing

Jeremy's latest kick is fishing. The man likes to fish. Lucky for him he has two older sons who are starting to fish with him. I am a fishing widow - but with a baby at home.
They go ALL DAY when Jer has the day off (like Sundays) - the Church of the Fish has three followers that day. Then he waits until the boys get home from school at 3 and they immediately leave to go fish until well after nightfall. I'm happy about it because the house stays a lot quieter and cleaner, but I also feel a little alone. I keep telling Jer that he is the luckiest guy around - three boys to play with all the time.

Mr. Chase Deshazer goes to school

Jackson - who is in third grade - had his sharing time last Friday. He wanted Chase to come so he could "share" his awesome baby brother with his class. (Chase is wearing the requisite 'visitors' badge on his front if you look closely)

Isn't he the best big brother ever?

Awwwwhhhhhh.......

(I figured out that you have to tape the video a different way a few seconds into it)

Future GOP

Has anyone noticed the smirk that GW often has? I mean, of course, you have noticed, how could you not? Despite all the not so good things GW has done for our country, his smirk makes me the most cranky.But GW isn't the only one who smirks. I've noticed McCain smirking at several "town meetings" and debates. It is somewhat annoying.

Even Palin has a snotty smirk.

Lately, we've been noticing that Chase won't smile with his mouth open. He likes to.....well....smirk.

He will probably have a future as a Republican because they have the smirking thing down pat.

Happy Galactic Halloween

The Rebel Alliance gave us a day off yesterday so we - that would be me, a blond Princess Lea; Blake, Luke Skywalker; and Chase, an ewok - could attend a neighborhood Halloween party. Another thing I love about Salem - neighbors throw small themed parties and invite you just 'cause.

I also love that Blake is my child who loves to dress up. After Jer and Jackson, I thought that all hope would be lost in the dress-up department, but thank heavens, Blake and I can always find a good themed costume idea.