Fun in the Sun

Today has been a special treat. Chris was home from work today (and tomorrow) AND he didn't sleep in until noon (as he usually does on his days off.) We went for a bike ride and did all sorts of things outside. It was an awesome day. I love my family!

Here's Chris and Chelsea (and Maggie) playing under the pool canopy, on the driveway.


Chelsea played with the mop on the driveway for a long time. I kinda felt like the evil stepmother while Cinderella worked, but whatever makes C happy, makes me happy!



Chelsea "walking" the dog. Maggie HATES going with her and will sit down and dig in her heels. Chelsea will pull as hard as she can until Maggie walks. It's fun to watch!


And of course, Chris and I. This is about the 4th picture we took. First one, Chris's smile was dorky, second one, his eyes were squinty, third one, he wanted to show his teeth - so this one, he's trying not to squint his eyes AND show his teeth... lol. He looks a little scared!

Free.. free at last!

Well, things should slow down now. It's been CRAZY busy and the past few weeks have just flown by! I've been teaching and making cakes and now, I'm just down to making cakes. I love that summer is here and I don't have to work, but am already dreading going back full-time in September. The thought of going full time for a whole year is too much right now.

So I won't think about it. Instead, I'll think about this summer. Chelsea and I have already been enjoying the sun and the warm weather.

I always have a lot to blog about, but when it comes time, my mind goes blank.

Busy busy me

I'm still here. I've been busy with cakes. I've started a blog just for cakes. It's here: http://amandascreativecakes.blogspot.com/

I've got three cakes to do this week, and I'm looking forward to them. I love cakes!


I'm also busy with wrapping up the school year. Gah. So much to do, so little time! But then it's summer! Yay!

He-ey, it's my birthday!

I'm wearing pink flip-flops to work today. (My mom would call them thongs, but rest assured, I am not wearing a pink thong.)

They are obnoxiously loud. Louder than any flip-flops I've ever owned. It's not just the slapping on the floor, but it's also this weird squeaky noise. I've very aware of myself as I walk anywhere today.

squeak, slap, squeak, slap.

Latest Cake....

This cake uses the long loaf pan from Wilton. This is the picture on the Wilton website that I was copying. I knew I wanted to use brighter colors. This was my first attempt at using royal icing (that's the really hard icing on the cookies.)


This one took a while. One day to make the cookies. One day to ice the cookies, bake the cake and make the chocolate icing. One day to ice the cake and add the flowers. The cake itself didn't bake as well as I would have liked, because I was short one egg and I improvised, but then the cake didn't rise as it should have, so I learned a valuable lesson. Even if it is pouring rain, I need to go get the egg!

I'm really pumped with how this turned out!

Should be sleeping...

I'm in bed and thoughts are just swirling around, so I thought I'd post. Maybe releasing these thoughts will allow me to sleep. This post will be fairly random, that's for sure.

I am really mad at my ear. Nothing seems to be working, and the hearing still hasn't returned. This proves irritating throughout the day as I constantly have to make sure I'm standing to the right of someone to hear them. I need to bend over and cup my ear to hear some of my little grade ones speak. I constantly hear the wrong thing and then make a butt of myself when I answer someone completely different than what they asked. I told my step-dad that I'm pretty much making up about 30% of what I hear... I am also pretty sure that I'm appearing snobby to people because I either don't answer them, or leave the room to be alone. The issue is that I'm having a really hard time blocking out irrelevant background noise and I really have to concentrate to hear someone speaking. This means that in restaurants or rooms with lots of background noises, I can't hear anything besides the background. It's like my brain's filter has shut off, so I just leave to give myself a break.

An example of this was at a family gathering we had in my inlaws garage on Sunday. We were all sitting around with lawnchairs, eating some food and talking. Well the echoing was so loud to me that I couldn't hear when people were speaking and I was just getting exhausted (and embarrassed) having to ask people to repeat themselves 2 or 3 times. We left after just 2 hours, but that was fine by me.

Sometimes, people just rub me the wrong way and then I can't get past it. A few of those people were at the gathering on Sunday. There were so many times I wanted to respond to some dumb comments, but I sat there like a good little woman, and didn't say anything... until now.

Okay, so I was telling my mother-in-law the story about Chelsea how she had brought me her shoes and I told her that she needed socks if she wanted to wear shoes, so Chelsea went into her room, grabbed her tub with socks in it, and brought it out to me in the kitchen, proud as could be. It was a cute story! I ended it with, "Babies are a lot smarter than we give them credit for, I think."

Well, Aunt #1, pipes up, "Yeah, my daughter was the smartest baby ever too, when she was little."

I said, "Pardon me?"

She laughs and says, "You're just bragging that your daughter is the smartest baby ever and I'm just telling you that all moms think that. My daughter was the smartest ever, too."

Okay, listen up. I did NOT say Chelsea was the smartest ever. In fact, I EVEN said "ALL BABIES" are smarter than we give them credit for.

Secondly, I was talking to Chelsea's grandma, telling her a cute story. Mind your own beeswax!

Gah. There. I feel better. There were more stories too, but we left after that because my head was going to explode.

I've decided I'll have the surgery, if they think it'll work. This will be time #6, doing the same surgery but maybe I'll be able to hear again for a while. I've also decided I will get a hearing aid if it will help. I'm past all the selfconscious, high school attitude of "what will people think?" and have moved onto the "hearing what people will say" kind of mentality.

The saddest part about my ears is that because of all the meds I'm on, I've had to start really weaning Chelsea. I've only nursed her 2 times in the past 5 days, and that was more to make myself more comfortable. Nursing means sooo much to me and I'm having a really hard time emotionally accepting the fact that my baby is no longer my baby. She's almost 14 months already... not much of a baby anymore! I love her so much - it's impossible to describe. When I pick her up, I am constantly squeezing and kissing and hugging her until she goes to bed. I'm sure it annoys her but I just can't get enough of her lately.

Her latest trick is shaking her head no. It really helps to figure out what she wants. Snack? no. Sippy? no. Bath? no. Night, night? (no head shaking) yes?? Woo hoo! We go to bed - she's a happy girl. I love it.

and I realize she's not the smartest baby ever, but she's the smartest baby I have!

Frustrations.

Sigh. Ear infections suck.

The doctor said the "s" word today. That's right. The "s" word. It's a swear word in my dictionary.

Surgery.

Sigh. I hate it. (For those who don't know, I have a long history with my ears, ear infections, and I've had 5 sets of tubes surgically put in my ears.)

It all started on Friday morning at 4:30 when I woke to feed Chelsea and realized that I had intense pain in my left ear. Then I discovered the blood. My ear drum had ruptured and I didn't even realize I had an infection. I went to the doctor who said I had a severe inner and outer ear infection. Grrr.

Fast forward until today. I'm done the antibiotics and I still have NO hearing in my left ear. NONE. I go to the walkin and the doctor takes a look in my ear and says, "Wow." That's not generally a good thing.

He says my ear drum is bulging and my inner ear is filled with fluid. The chances of it rupturing again are high. He says it won't clear up until the tube from my ear to my throat clears. He talks to me about allergies and asks how long I have been stuffed up for. I tell him that I'm not stuffed up and I'm feeling great other than not being able to hear.

He looks up my nose and says that he can't believe I'm breathing at all. He says my nasal passages are so swollen and inflamed and he can't believe I'm not light headed (which I have been for a few weeks, but I won't get into that.) He starts talking about tubes and an ear/nose/throat specialist and inside I start to wilt. I do NOT want another surgery on my ear.

I keep insisting that I am fine - which is how I feel - and he says, "Famous last words. No seriously, you were clutching a bleeding ear this week and you say you are fine. Famous last words." I thought it was kind of doomsday-ish. But I'm really not exaggerating. I do feel fine!

So for now, he's prescribed a nose spray (which happens to NOT be covered by my insurance) and I'm supposed to take Advil Cold and Sinus three times a day and I'm supposed to go see my regular doctor for 2 week checkups. He will not rule out sending me to a specialist and still thinks I need to get a tube put in to relieve the pressure. Oh and taking all this medicine will probably keep C up at night so it's probably time to wean her (which is true and this is a great reason to I guess, but I'm not sure I'm emotionally ready for that yet either!)

Grrr. I don't want surgery. I want healing. Does my opinion count on this issue?

No time!

I know it's time to update. It's been time for quite some time. But I really just don't have time!

I'm sitting here eating the same breakfast I always do, enjoying a few minutes of peaceful surfing before the chaos starts. Once I start getting ready, C will wake up. Then I will wake Chris up. Then we will all just be running around trying to get ready in too short a time. There's never enough time in the morning.

Last night, my head would not shut off. We looked at a different house - an old house - that would need insane amounts of fixing up, but the potential is incredible and exciting... but do we really want to take that on? Do we really want to live in a construction zone of a house? But the potential, oh the potential. It's such a draw... We love taking the ugly and making it beautiful. But for now, we wait and see what kind of magic numbers my father-in-law can draw. It would need to be a magic number too, because we would need $25,000 - $50,000 to fix this baby up. We're not talking surface changes like in the past. We're talking complete overhaul, gutting bathrooms and the kitchen, removing ugly carpet (from the WALLS!), and taking down sheet after sheet of faux wood panellling.

Alot of the changes would not happen overnight. But I said that right away we would need to tear down and rebuild a safe, not rotted, deck, replace the shingles, replace all the windows and doors, and change the banisters for the stairs. (They gaps are so big in the railing, Chels could easily fall through. This alone almost gave me a heart attack while we were looking at the house.)

I'm trying not to get my hopes up. As I said, the numbers would have to be magical. God would truly have to intervene for our number to be accepted, but last night, my mind was racing with changes that we could make.

But, my breakfast is done, so I can no longer waste time sitting here blogging. Have a great day!