Tuesday Tidbits

I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve written a real blog post. And this doesn’t exactly qualify as a “real” one, but we’ve been busy and I feel like I need to somehow catch up. The result is this collection of random thoughts and things that have been going on.

– Vivienne recently had her first ear infection—a double one. Both girls had been coughing for several days, so when I picked them up early from daycare a couple of Fridays ago and noticed that Vivienne felt hot, I took her temperature to discover a fever of 102+ degrees. I called the pediatrician since I was worried the cough had turned into something like bronchitis, and didn’t want to go into the weekend without having them checked out. I took both girls in. The result was a double infection for Vivienne and a wheeze for Nora. We walked out with prescriptions for Amoxicillin (for Viv) and an inhaler (for Nora). Fun times in JUNE! What the heck? We actually held out on the antibiotics for Vivienne until the next day, to see if she really needed them. But the poor girl was MISERABLE with her fever and it was barely manageable even with alternating Motrin and Tylenol, so we went with it. Even then, it took three days for the fever to go away completely! Poor kid. But she finished her antibiotics yesterday, Nora’s been using the inhaler, and their coughs seem to finally be subsiding. We had a pretty great winter as far as illness was concerned, so I hope we’re not going to pay our dues with random summer illnesses!

– I re-stained the deck last weekend. It sucked so bad, you guys, and I only did the floor. Stripping, cleaning, staining… ugh. At least it looks BETTER. Since we have never stained it (just the previous owners), we had to guess on the color using the swatches, and it’s not an exact match. The floor looks pretty dark right now, but I think it’ll fade over time to look a little more even with the sides. The color difference is most obvious in the direct sunlight (as seen in the bottom picture above), but is actually less so under other conditions. Is it bad that I really don’t care? I classify the result as “good enough.” The deck is really old and weathered, and the wood is in crappy shape to begin with. Staining it is a project I really didn’t want to do in the first place, and the process just solidified our desire to rip the whole thing out and get a patio instead. Hopefully we can swing that next spring, although gaaahhhh. SO EXPENSIVE. I still need to stain the top rails some night this week, since we’re having a family get-together here on Saturday.

– We officially bought a swing set. We ended up ordering one from Costco—a set that was actually brought to my attention by a reader after I posted about it last time! We weren’t even Costco members, but the cost savings was enough that it made it worthwhile to become one. The set was delivered via freight this morning, and it sounds like my brother(s) is going to try to get it assembled for us this weekend. Exciting! I think Nora is going to lose her mind. Fingers crossed that assembly is not too stressful and goes relatively quickly so my brother won’t disown me at the end. :)

– I took Nora to her second dentist appointment a few weeks ago. She was such a rockstar about it. On the way there, she told me that last time (in December), she was scared, but this time she wasn’t, so she wanted to go first (before me; I was also scheduled for a cleaning). She was perfect and let the hygienist give her teeth a really good cleaning, complete with some light scraping, and flossing. I was proud of her.

– I’m trying Couch to 5K AGAIN. Every time I’ve tried the program in the past, I’ve had raging problems with knee pain that have caused me to need to stop. I think (hope?) that I’ve finally figured out how to combat that, so now it’s just a matter of working it into my schedule. It’s only three days a week—and about 30 minutes at a time—so it really shouldn’t be as difficult as it is, but somehow, it is still a challenge. I’ve already had to go back and retrace my steps a little bit within the program, repeating runs if I go too long between them. But I did Week 3, Day 1 this morning and felt good, so I’m optimistic about my progression through the program. Maybe I will actually finish it?! Oh, and also? doTERRA’s Deep Blue has been AMAZING on my knees, you guys. I have been mixing a few drops of Deep Blue essential oil—good for sore muscles and joints, or pain in general—in the palm of my hand with some Fractionated Coconut Oil (as a carrier oil), then rubbing it over my knees in the day or two after my runs. This, coupled with icing my knees for 20 minutes after every run, seems to be doing the trick. doTERRA also has a Deep Blue Rub that I want to try, but this is working great for now. (More on my journey with essential oils here and here.) Hoping for success in building up to running a 5K!

– Father’s Day. It was the day I stained the deck (and Michael busted his ass in other areas of the yard), so not quite a relaxing day for anybody. But we did a few “special” things. We surprised him with a grilling platter that the girls and I made at a local pottery painting place a few weeks ago—”Grilled to Perfection on Daddy’s Grill” with the girls’ handprints made into hamburgers, and their footprints made into hot dogs. I’m not an artist, but it came out pretty cute. We made Trader Joe’s cinnamon rolls for breakfast (Heaven!), had a little barbecue for dinner, and then went out for ice cream since it was such a beautiful day outside.

– The spambots continue to attack my poor little blog. I received 76 spam comments over the weekend, you guys. SEVENTY-SIX! So annoying. What do people even get out of these comments? What is the point? It’s so dumb and I hate it.

– We had new family pictures taken a few weeks ago. Not just our little family, but with Michael’s side of the family—including his parents, sisters, our nephews. We’ve seen a few sneak peeks but we are waiting to get them all back. It was great and I’m so happy we’ll have photos of the extended family for years to come. I think we’ll plan to do this every few years (2-3 years?) because it’s nice to have pictures that everyone is included in. I want to do the same thing with my side of the family, too, perhaps starting this fall.

I think that’s it for now. I leave you with a few random pics from the last few weeks:

Now, back to the daily grind… enjoy the week!