Monday, November 29, 2010

407 I Have (crafty) Trust Issues

Ever since I have been sick I have not picked up a paint brush, but the other day I was feeling the urge to play with some paint. In order to do that I had to uncover my paints and brushes in my "craft room" ... and I do mean UNCOVER. My "craft room" also tends to become the dump room. You can't find a place for it? Stick it in Mom's room. I am the guiltiest at doing this. So, underneath Connor's outgrown clothes and a pile of random craft material I found my paints and brushes. One of the random craft products I found was a stack of chipboard alphabets I had purchased back when I thought scrapbooking was what I wanted to do (luckily all those supplies are coming in handy for mixed media work). It gave me an idea, so I grabbed a set and headed downstairs to play.

I usually paint trees that have lost their leaves, but I am feeling all "second chancey" lately, so I thought I would paint a tree budding with renewed life. Just as winter is truly hitting down South we need a reminder of Spring anyway.

I adhered the letters to my 6"x6" canvas with E6000. That is some pretty heavy duty adhesive. Most people would probably just continue on from there, but as I mentioned, I have trust issues. I am always afraid that anything I attach will fall off, so I have to use multiple methods. Sometimes I glue AND sew something, but this time I decided to use a different method. I used the good ol' fall back of Mod Podge and tissue paper. It has multiple perks. One, those letters are NEVER coming off. Two, the tissue becomes see through with the Mod Podge and provides a good base color. Three, it provides some texture. One problem, I liked the way it was looking with just the word and the tissue paper. I was hesitant to paint over it. What if I didn't like my painting as much? (sorry, I was doing an IV treatment while I painted so all the stuff is laying on the table ... along with the more basic mess) But I went ahead and started squirting paint on it. Yes, I use the real artistic method of squirting it right on the canvas a lot of the time. And this is how it came out. A bit different than my normal paintings, but it is growing on me. This will be put in my etsy shop as soon as I can get a good picture of it. And hopefully my mojo will come out of hiding.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

406 I'm a Basic Cable Dream

You could create a whole reality based channel around my life right now. You could have Super Nanny, Clean House, Biggest Loser, and What Not to Wear descend upon my house and entertain people for months.

As I have been looking around, and trying to formulate a plan of change for our house, I have realized one major thing... I am going about this all wrong. If I go through it all one piece at a time and try to decide what can go I am giving myself the opportunity to talk myself into keeping more stuff. Of course if I hold one of the gobzillion (yeah, I made up a new number) toys in my hand I will start to think of how it came into our home. Maybe it was a gift, and I hate getting rid of gifts. Maybe there is a cute story it sparks when I hold it in my hands. Maybe the kids see it and suddenly realize it exists at all and they begin to play with it again. For any number of reasons many of those things get carefully placed back into the pile of junk that is over-running our home.

So, here is my new idea. I need to look around and choose which toys they play with now. A SET NUMBER OF TOYS .... a SMALL set number. Then I need to ruthlessly get rid of everything else. The odds of me being able to accomplish that? Slim ... very slim. Most of Connor's toys are sets. Like his huge collection of train stuff. Or his Imaginext stuff. Just those two types of toys make up 90% of his toy collection. If they would just stay in his room then it would not be such a problem! Katie mostly draws and plays school, so why do we have hundreds of dollars tied up in Polly Pocket? I could gut her room and give her a desk stocked with art supplies and I think she would be mostly happy. Keep her Build-A-Bears and American Girl doll of course, maybe a few select other toys, but most of that stuff has got to go. She is 8.5 years old after all. Time to grow out of all the little pieces of plastic, yes?!

And to think, Christmas is right around the corner. More toys to add to the overflowing toy store that is our home. The kids were playing with their favorite toys earlier, each other. By "playing" I mean they were harassing each other, yelling and smacking at each other. Not listening to me at all, as usual. The perfect Christmas gift suddenly occurred to me. My kids don't need more toys! They need jackets .... straightjackets! It would probably be the only way to get them to sit in the same room without trying to destroy the room and each other. If I made them in fleece where they were soft and warm do you think I could make it around getting turned over to the authorities? ... No? ... Darn!

So, that covers Super Nanny and Clean House. What is my claim for Biggest Loser and What Not to Wear you ask?! If you could see me sitting here typing this blog you would understand. I am still thirty pounds heavier than I was when I got pregnant with Katie. The last time I came close to that pre-pregnancy weight I got pregnant with Connor. I start working out, and then life gets in the way. And my clothes?! I make myself cringe. I am rather dressed up for me right now. Velvet-y comfy pants and a red t-shirt ... it is what I slept in. Sure, I have the excuse of being in "recovery" mode from being sick, but honestly there are many days that I change out of my pajamas only to put on another pair of pajamas.

It is all a big snowball effect. The house is so trashed that it makes me not even want to try to clean it because the task seems so impossible. I feel so frumpy from being overweight that buying new clothes seems silly. And since I spend the majority of my days in "comfy clothes" there is no motivation to eat better and exercise. And around and around we go ...

Confession: I am afraid if someone ever did nominate me for one of these shows that the hidden camera would capture me picking my nose (not that I ever do that of course) or walking to the dryer half naked to recover some clothes. So, don't really do it.

Pictures withheld to protect my fragile ego. :)

Sunday, November 21, 2010

405 Temper Tantrums (To Go)

Not only my life has been turned upside down by near death... My kids have been thrown for a loop. Mommy, who has ALWAYS been there and ALWAYS had the strength to pick them up and make it all better, is suddenly a big bag of poo.

My wonderful in-laws and my own amazing Mom have stepped in to help out. It has been wonderful to watch the kids be able to spend extended amounts of time with the grandparents even though the reason for it is horrid. BUT! I have also watched my children turn into ungrateful little asses more than once with those same grandparents. And even worse they have decided to turn into raving lunatics in general.

Katie and Connor have been at each other's throats! Egging each other on and instigating fights. The screams have not only been aggravating to my head, but they have also been rather embarrassing to me! They are not docile angels by far, but they are not usually this bad! I don't want the grandparents to think they act this way because I let them get away with it normally. They are a bit spoiled, but not to this extent! They have their boundaries, but all of those have been breached in the past two weeks.

Saturday was by far the worst day. Connor was in rare form, snatching things from Katie and hitting her when she tried to get them back. Katie was taunting him until he continued to smack her. What do you do when one encourages the other to hit her .... until it actually hurts, and then she thinks he should get in trouble?! I have reached the point where I try to let them figure it out themselves except for the most painful of hits. I feel she is old enough to have learned about "cause and effect". The effect will always be Connor getting angry and smacking her. There are only so many times I can tell her to do (or not do) something because it will lead to Connor becoming angry. Or even something so simple as telling her not to sit on the floor because eventually he will try to tackle her. There are so many things that she taught him to do as a game when he was younger that now hurt her. I am tired of explaining that I told her this would happen.

I am tired of yelling to be heard.

Near death has taught me many things, one of the biggest is that the Adult/Child interaction in my house has to change. Chip and I will be reclaiming this house .... FOR GOOD! The actual house and the attitude within.

Friday, November 19, 2010

404 Back in the Yarn

Crochet is one of those things that I really only can get into when it is cold outside, and I have a lot of downtime while I am hooked up to my IV so I picked it up again. First I grabbed this hat I had started last year but only completed the brim. I think I made it a little tight. It is supposed to be .... floppy. But Connor looks like a little elf, so I will force him to wear it anyway. Too cute!Then I found a skein of Chenille yarn and made a scarf, which Katie quickly claimed.Mom had picked up some yarn when we went to Joann's over the weekend, and she wanted me to make her a skinny scarf. It didn't take long, and it turned out really cute. The only problem was keeping Connor from using it to try to jump rope.
Other than that I have been slowly improving. I still get tired easily, but it takes a little more each day. The kids see me up and around and they think I should be able to do everything I did before. They have heard "no" way more than they ever have before. This will all end with them being a bit more disciplined at this rate. If I am lucky.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

403 Hit by a Cyclone

Apparently I was more under the weather than I thought. Thursday afternoon I completely lost my mind. I went from being perfectly normal one moment to ten minutes later being incoherent. I couldn't even remember my kids' names. Chip called 911, but the paramedics suggested that he take me in to a clinic to get checked out. In an amazing coincidence, Katie's friend's grandparents had stopped by to see her since Kaitlyn was coming to our house on Thursdays and Fridays. Thank goodness for Kaitlyn and Mia's families. They helped so much that first day. They stepped in immediately to take care of Katie and Connor so that Chip could take me to the doctor.
Thursday they ran all kinds of tests at the clinic. They found bronchitis and an UTI, but they could not figure out what made me lose my memory so we went to the ER. Well, the useless doctor we got in the ER re-ran all the tests and gave me a CATscan. The doctor found NOTHING. He kept asking what we thought it could be. He made a condescending reference to giving me a spinal tap as a last ditch effort. He did not insist. In fact he seemed to be pushing us out of the ER. He said he found nothing wrong with me. We were under the impression he thought I was on drugs, and I do NOT do drugs. IV fluids were relieving my headache, and of course I did not WANT a spinal tap, so we left.
My Mom came out Friday to help out and let me get some rest. I was okay until Friday afternoon when I lost my mind again. I scared the crap out of my mom and everyone else. Chip came home from work early because he heard me babbling on the phone, and he hauled me back to the hospital. I remember going to the hospital. I remember the waiting room and getting back to my room. I don't remember much else. They did give me a spinal tap. They implanted an IV port in my groin. I was in BAD shape. They diagnosed me with meningitis, luckily they were able to rule it down to viral meningitis in a couple of hours. And then they added encephalitis. Just to make sure my body was totally destroyed. It is also known as meningoencephalitis. I started feeling better as soon as they started my meds, but they kept me in until Monday night. My body needed the rest, and it still does.
All the doctors and nurses we dealt with since Friday have been amazing at Baptist DeSoto! I can't complain at all about any of my treatment (other than the first doctor). I had some dear friends stop by to cheer me up. I am so thankful for all the people who have been keeping up with me on facebook. The first few days I didn't understand how seriously I was sick, but apparently I could have easily died if it had not been caught so quickly Friday. Brain swelling is not a laughing matter, no matter how funny my babbling might have sounded.
I am home now (and after waiting 24 hours for my IV meds to be delivered I am back on track). I will be on the IV three times a day until the 28th, but I am feeling so much better. I am still exhausted. If I sit up too long I tend to get a headache, but I am slowly getting stronger. Thanks so much for everyone's thoughts and prayers.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

402 Under the Weather

I have so many things to share, but I have been too sick to blog. Be back soon.