Sickness

Well since around 8pm Monday night I've been sick. I was nauseous and had a major headache. I woke up a few hours later with severe shooting pains up my spine. I've been sleeping on and off since then. One minute I'm freezing the next I'm boiling up.  Moving hurts so badly. My hips, my spine, my shoulders and my head hurt so badly. I don't feel nauseous now but I'm just in pain and feel like crap. I don't understand what's happening. Its one thing to be sick. But this makes no sense to me. I don't know why I'm sick or what to do to feel better. Its very frustrating.  And so now about 20 minutes ago my poor Alexa woke up vomiting. Thankfully she's back asleep on the love seat (since I'm on the couch and can't climb the stairs). My poor baby.
Being down right now just isn't an option for me. There is a lot of stressful things going on right now and no one can take care of mom when I'm not. This is just a really bad time for me to be sick. And I just don't know what to do to feel better.

Retail Therapy

Spent some time today with my oldest daughter Alexa. She got a gift card to Toys R Us for her birthday so she has been dying to go shopping. I stopped into Michaels for some pen pal/filofax/swap supplies. Got some really great stuff on clearance I'm pretty excited about. Had some lunch together too. I love spending time with her. Shes a pretty fun kiddo to hang out with. :)

Projects

Lots of things I've failed to post the last several months. Working on many more.

Yikes....

I'm so ashamed I havent blogged in such a long time.
Ive had so much going on the last several months.

For starters Mom is not doing well. Her health has been getting a lot worse and the toll its taking on my family and I is starting to catch up to us. The doctors are pretty sure the cancer has spread elsewhere in her body. They found a mass on her liver and did a biopsy, we are still waiting for the results. In the meantime her parkinsons is getting worse and the skin cancer disease she has is getting very severe. :(

A couple of months ago we found out my sister has breast cancer, she had surgery to remove the masses and do a reconstruction of the healthy breast. While in surgery the doctor found masses in her healthy breast. So sometime during the winter she will most likely be having a full mastectomy. As for now she started radiation this past Monday and we are hopeful that will be effective.

I myself have had clear mamograms (thankfully). I have been going through a lot of neurological testing to determine what the cause of my migraines is. Thankfully its not a brain tumor, sadly it is Severe Chronic Migraine which is hard to treat. I am now taking 3 meds and still have had several sever flares since beginning treatment. I also have carpal tunnel in both wrists and will be meeting the doc in a couple weeks to plan surgery. Which means I wont be crocheting much during recovery. :( They also found a cyst inside my left knee so I am meeting an orthopedic surgeon to determine the course of action on that. :(

ITS BEEN A SERIOUSLY ROUGH COUPLE OF MONTHS!!

On a good note my kiddos are all healthy and happy. :) We have had a relatively good summer despite the health issues. We've had several great Cub Scout outings, which we always love. We did a week of Cub Scout Day Camp. I volunteered and the girls both got to attend also. We all 4 had a blast. It was a lonnnnnng week but so worth it. I havent been able to spend that much time with the kids in a long time and it was so fun. We've gone fishing on the boat several times. Alexa caught herself a nice fish. Yum!! We have a few more weeks til school starts....yay... I mean oh boy. :)

I had a dry spell with my crochet creating. It was horrible. I felt like I was in mourning. Thankfully I broke out it and got my Cro-Jo back. I've been working on a few projects. I will post them in another post later this evening. I have been corresponding with some new found pen pals, one from England and another from Australia. They are both wonderful ladies and we've had some fun getting to know each other. :)

Wow!!

Its been awhile. So much has been going on. Still taking care of mom. Its taking a toll. On me, my kids, my relationship. But we will make it through. Im trying to remain positive.
Its not the easiest thing to do. Ive got several projects going on right now. A groovyghan is among them. And I love it. So far its the most fun project ive had. Ive recently tried a sock loom which is very hard at first but I think im getting the hang of it. Ive also tried the knook which is fun but a little difficult to get used to. Maybe with a little more practice I'll get the hang of it. Ive also gotten some knitting needles and a book to see if maybe I can learn that too. I know it seems like a lot but I tend to bore easily so I need different things to keep my attention. So we'll see what I can learn lol. Ill post some pics of projects soon. For now ive got a sitter for mom and no children to worry about so the man has asked if id like to go out for dinner. I will never pass up an opportunity like that. :)

Looking for misery...

My oldest daughter causes me some confusion lately.  She is 8 years old and loves to be miserable. I just dont understand it. She had the perfect opportunity today to be spoiled without the annoyance of younger siblings. She had my undivided attention and she pouted and whined the whole time. Im annoyed and aggrevated. I dont understand why she just cant be happy with what she has. Example: we went sledding, great big hill, very fast and steep. Perfect!! She whined that the hill across the way was bigger and better and she wanted to go to that one. So we said ok but its not better. You will regret the choice but we arent coming back to this one. So we drove over and she immediately said it is smaller. She went down twice and then sat and pouted. So I asked if ahe was sledding or leaving. She choose leaving. Now she moping and pouting. How do I teach her to be happy with what she has? And to realize how blessed she is to have what she does? She always wants what everyone else has even if its not better than hers. I dont understand.  What have I done wrong?  Ive tried to teach my children these lessons but apparently ive failed. :(

Just one of those days......

Well I don't like to be the kind of person who seems ungrateful for a full and blessed life but ya know there are just some days that get the best of ya and today is one of those days.

After a week and a half in the hospital, my mom came home today! Related: my mom came home today. And I'm grateful that she is well enough to return home but her demand is just too much sometimes. Most times I can handle it but today was just not a good day from the start. I'm so stressed over my youngest child and her inability to learn everyday things. I don't believe in corporal punishment. I believe in time outs and loss of privileges. But they just don't work on her and I'm lost. I just don't have the kind of patience required for her. I'm not that kind of mom. :( I hate saying that but I'm just not made that way. I want to help her but she just doesn't get it and worse just doesn't seem to care. She smiles and grins when she's in trouble and just continues with the bad behavior anyway. She's obsessed with cutting hair, her own and/or others as well as clothes. She's banned from using scissors at all now. I even had to tell the teacher because she cut her hair and clothes the first time during school. An appointment has been made with the childrens neuro development center so she will be evaluated but today is just one of those days that makes for a difficult day. And my mom coming home and being so demanding just doesn't help. On top of all that we are entertaining my family tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with my mom so I've been preparing for that as well. Cleaning, making pies, grocery shopping, final touches to gifts etc. I'm just exhausted and overwhelmed today and I don't like being cranky. I'm miserable and I want to scream and cry and be angry at the world. At the same time I feel ashamed for complaining. I know some people will read this who would give anything to have their mom to take care of instead of having lost her too soon to some disease or other death and there are 26 families right this very moment grieving for children taken too soon that would give anything to be dealing with a misbehaved child. But I am here now and I'm dealing with these things and unfortunately sometimes these things become overwhelming. And today is just one of those days.