Hotdogs for dinner, anyone have the catsup?

Such a nice weekend, but it went by too fast! Lately I've actually felt like I've gotten the most out of my weekends, but this weekend just flew by. Friday, Christen and I worked on getting the house together in a more presentable fashion. We put up curtains, put our pictures on the wall, cleaned up the dog hair that was accumulating in the nooks of the main rooms. Saturday I had some people over for a Taste of Home Entertaining party. There were nine adults and four children (three under a year and a four-year-old) in my living room and it was a lot of fun! The babies played together for awhile and Spencer had a blast with Nathan, the baby closest to his age. Nathan is about three weeks older, but Spencer moves around a bit more than he does. All the excitement exhausted him and he slept for two hours after everyone left, and he never sleeps that long for his afternoon nap. That night we went to Outback and Spencer tried to choke on a coaster, ate a bite of baked potato and was not impressed, and puked all over the floor. It was all very exciting.

Sunday was a lazier day, thankfully. We got up a little late and went to a Linoce's diner down the street for breakfast and they had these on the menu! I was excited; they called them Hole In One, and I had two. Yum-o! We did our grocery shopping after that and went home to veg a bit. I did some weeding and cut back the old and decrepit hibiscus plant in the front yard. I hate that thing, but it's so old I feel bad wanting to uproot it and plant something a little prettier. I hate hibiscus. Maybe I can pot it and give it to my mother-in-law. I made Beef Stroganoff for dinner, and April came over to baby-sit for us while Christen and I went to see DL Hughley at the Improv. It was a great show, and everyone was hilarious. I laughed so much! I am aware that you're suppose to laugh, but you know, sometimes that doesn't always happen. People aren't always as funny in person as they are on tv. But DL was awesome, and the openers were very entertaining. I want to go back in two weeks for Dave Atell, but I won't … too much money!

Christen is working 10-hour shifts this week, so I'm on my own for dinners. I just don't have it in me to cook real dinners when I'm going to be eating by myself even though he'll be home later. I just don't care enough to do it. So I've decided on easy-peasy meals for the week. Hotdogs tonight on the grill, chicken strips tomorrow, peanut butter burgers on Wednesday ...

Anyhow, I'm still looking for a babysitter for Thursday – I need someone for about two hours until Christen gets home. April's got a kickball game, my mom has to work, and I feel bad asking his mom because we're already asking her to baby-sit on Saturday when we go to the Rays game with Andrew and Theresa. It's funny because we never go anywhere without Spencer, but this week and next we're in need of all kinds of babysitters! Hopefully I can find someone for Thursday though … it's important.

Hurricane? Really?

I'm never ever up this late, but this sickness has done a number on my sleeping hours. Sunday I bucked up and went to the doctor. Well, the walk-in. The Little Clinic in Publix takes my insurance so I made a visit and he said it was a bad sinus infection and gave me heavy duty antibiotics and heavy-duty anti-inflammatories for my throat. I'm feeling better, but not in the areas that the pills should be helping. Throat still pretty painful, nose still pretty clogged, and stomach problems that go down and thankfully not up. It's not pretty. I'm almost convinced that whatever's wrong with me has skipped Spencer, but I've been pretty vigilant about my handwashing and sanitizing. I can't not take care of him. When I was at my worst over the weekend Christen took over all of the caregiving and they were both pretty cranky by 5pm Sunday. I was awake for no more than 5 hours total of Saturday, and I wasn't particularly coherent in those hours, and Sunday I was scared to do anything but lay on the couch in misery. I worked for 2 hours today and then came home to rest some more and I really think it helped. I didn't do anything, but maybe that's what I needed.

Tomorrow the building's closed for the hurricane, so I'm off again. The wind is picking up, because I can hear it in the chimney. I thought it was the dog -- her stomach's been making some weird noises lately; I'm thinking of taking her to the vet. But now that I'm out on the couch I can hear the moaning in the attic and we're due for some decent rain.

I'm not worried about the storm though. I guess you can tell a true Florida native when you don't realize there's a storm until someone asks if your building is going to be open. Why on earth would the close? Turns out we're in a mandatory evac zone. Oops! I really didn't realize it was scheduled to hit so close to here until today, and I went to Target and all the water was gone except Aquafina ... so I bought some Lemonade and Gatorade and some chips. I'm wondering if I can go out between bands of rain to Bed Bath and Beyond and get my curtains so I can put those up as long as I'm stuck at home. I won't, of course, because I won't take Spencer out in the rain like that. But I can dream. In the meantime, I went out tonight and picked up grape tomatoes and garlic and the makings for cherry pie, so tomorrow I'm going to make slow-roasted tomatoes and cherry pie, as long as the power stays on. When we were moving in, there were a lot of brown-outs, but the power hasn't gone out since we moved in so I'm not sure how things go over here.

Spencer just made a yelp -- I wonder if he does that a lot anymore. We gave up on the monitor when we moved in, because sound carries with the wood floors anyhow, and we were getting up far too often. He sleeps like a dream now (no pun, really) but I can sleep through anything so I often wonder if he wakes very much. (Whoever said, and there were several who did, that I'd wake up at the drop of a pin in his room the moment he was born really didn't know my sleeping habits very well.) But he has his Bambi and his light-up teddy bear and that seems to make him happy.

Anyhow, I'm just rambling because I have nothing better to do. Autumn got me started on re-reading Beach Music, and I'm about halfway through (I read some of it to Spencer and he was surprisingly receptive) but it's so aching beautiful that I feel like crying with every word so I'm slowing down my pace before I stay up all night reading it. Next will probably be Prince of Tides, and then I'll be saddened because I know of no other two books that make me bleed with sadness with every slice of the page.

Sick

Some days it feels like I just can't win. I had pink eye last week. All week I felt like gouging my eye out. I rotated 3 different kinds of eye drops. Nothing really helped. So my eye is finally better (still crusts shut, but doesn't hurt anymore) and I'm freaking sick as a dog! Thursday I started getting a little run down. Friday my throat swelled up, and by the time I finished work I felt like I was going to fall down. I called my mom to make sure I could get all the way home without falling asleep. I figured driving with the phone was better than driving while sleeping.

By Friday night I had a 102 fever. I had the house at 82 and I was still freezing. I read part of Beach Music to Spencer (he liked it), and Christen brought me home some Chickfila soup and Nyquil.

I've been on Nyquil ever since. I count down until I can take some more. I still have a fever. I feel like death. We went to Linens and Things to get out of the house and I had to go to the car because it was so freaking freezing in there.

When will I start feeling better?

La casa de la pink eye

So I have pink eye. Sunday my eye started getting a little itchy, but I didn't really worry about it because we had been working on cleaning the office up, and I have pretty bad allergies so I figured it was just related to that. Then Christen's eye swelled up, and his manager at work decided he had pink eye and sent him home on Monday. By then mine was itching a little more, so I went to the Little Clinic and got checked out and they agreed that I had pink eye and prescribed some eye drops. Tuesday was bad, Wednesday was a little better. Today is terrible. It's the worst day ever. I tried making a patch for my eye out of tissue and scotch tape, but I think I've decided to go to my regular doctor and see if anything else can be done. I've been vigilant about my hand washing and have gone through 1/2 a bottle of hand sanitizer so as to make sure that Spencer doesn't get it, but I've never wanted to gouge my eye out more than I have this week. And I get pretty hefty allergies.

The funny thing is, I'm pretty sure Christen didn't have pink eye. His eye was swollen for a day or so, but it never got red or itchy. I don't know what it was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't pink eye. And he's over it.

I took some adorable pictures of Spencer last night. I was going to take him to a photographer for his 6 months, but the pictures I took last night were so damn cute that I might just get some backdrops and take them myself. I have very good camera equipment; the only thing I don't have is good lighting. The ones I took yesterday were outside, so I might get cloth backdrops and attach them outside to the patio ... hmmm, possibilities ...

Anyhow, they can't get me in today to see the doctor so I'm going to go ahead and go crazy. See you shortly!

Gibberish

I wrote a post from work last week, but when I emailed it to myself it didn't transmit and came out as spam. Imagine, me sending myself spam! It got mixed in with the other 63 emails I had received in my spam box in the previous 8 hours ... arg! This is all attributed to that stupid Free Diapers thing that I filled out months ago. I'm never going to be free of that dern thing.

Anyhow, I'm sure all I wrote was a bunch of fluff. I've retained part:

Love songs. PW had a contest on her site last week where she asked, "What's you favorite love song?" That's such a hard question! There are songs that mean different things to me. "Angel" by Aerosmith, tugs at my heart and reminds me of high school, an illicit make-out session on my couch. Every time it plays I think of that (and it plays a lot on those oldies stations). "Do You Remember" by Jack Johnson makes me think of Shelley (and we all know my fascination with JJ -- it's also on a lot). Any love song by certain artists makes me think of people that were in my life with fondness. So I decided to submit the first song that Christen and I danced to at my wedding. But then I couldn't quite remember! Geez, it's only been a little over a year and I can't remember what we danced to? I know good ole Louie Armstrong was there. And Ella, dear Ella. I'm pretty sure it was "Our Love is Here to Stay". And I'm also pretty sure that my deejay did not have the version that we wanted, so we went with an extended version of Louie's. Can anyone that was at my wedding confirm this so I don't feel like I'm going nuts? I do know that "Come Away With Me" by Norah Jones was our last dance. I know that. Christen wanted "One for the Road" by Frank Sinatra but we didn't get it, so I got to pick.

I also wrote about how I got to meet Becky on Tuesday and how much fun we had -- so glad I got to meet her!! She has a lot of the same mannerisms as Autumn, and a couple days later Christen and I were hanging out and out of the blue he says, "Your friend Becky is just likst Autumn" .... hahah, and I hadn't said a thing about thinking the same thing! It's totally a compliment; Christen really likes Autumn.

Anyhow, I took Friday off work because I wasn't feeling good and I hate to waste that kind of time, so I spent the day painting both my bathrooms. They look awesome! I'm so excited. I did both in the same color, a dark taupe/light brown, and I did the guest bathroom in blue and brown accents, and the master bathroom in wine/tan accents. Beautiful! I'll take pictures this week. We also put up my shelves again in the library, this time with concrete anchors so my antique books don't fall again, and got started on clearing the floor. Saturday morning my mom came over and helped Christen get a bunch of stuff to the dump so I can now park in the garage! Hooray! We also went to see Dark Knight Sunday afternoon, and I was pleasantly surprised. Usually a movie doesn't live up to the hype, but I wasn't disappointed which is a rarity. We came home and I made chicken tacos and a blueberry pie. Yum!

Note to self: Leave the back door open.

So I met Don today, who lives four doors down. Don, the locksmith. Nice to meet you Don, the locksmith. Pardon my crying, but can you unlock my door for me so I can get back to my 6-month-old?

I know better than to close the sliding glass door behind me when I take the dog out for her afternoon pee. I had no sooner felt the click when I realized my mistake and tried to open it. However, the stupid lock fell right with the click, and I was fashionably locked out. Of my house. No keys, no phone, baby in the crib (okay, that was the right thing to do -- I had just laid him down for his nap; he wasn't asleep but he was quietly meandering around his crib while deciding to sleep or not). I went to the neighbors that I do know, borrowed the phone. But Christen's cell is broken and we are in the middle of deciding about new service, and I don't know his work number by heart. So I called his parents. Do you have a key to my house. Nope.

Thankfully, my neighbor is a locksmith. I think I even like that better than having a cop there.

Woohoo for babies on the same side of the door as me.

And air conditioning.

Hmmm...

I’m wearing cream-colored trouser socks today. I feel old. Age is creeping up on me like a trouser sock, sagging down my leg as the day goes on. I know I’m not as old as some of my friends but I still feel it, some days more than others. I don’t usually wear stockings, but my pasty feet looked so silly in loafers this morning and I didn’t feel like wearing strappy shoes because my heels are feeling the effects of the hot summer.

I think Spencer is getting used to his sleep schedule a little better. After a discussion with a friend who has a little girl a few months older, I think I’m not feeding him enough and maybe that’s why he’s been cranky lately. He usually eats about 24 oz of formula where he used to eat about 32 oz, and he eats once a day about ½ a baby food container w/ a couple tbs of rice cereal. Today we started feeding him in the morning too, so he’ll be getting more, and I think I’m going to at least up his feeding to a whole container for dinner. Workin’ it out :) He’s still not getting better about going to bed, but it’s almost like he gets frustrated trying to find a comfortable spot on the bed, because last night he cried for 45 minutes and I went in there and he was on his tummy so angry, and I popped his pacifier in and he fell right asleep. I want to put him to bed on his tummy so that he already has a comfortable place and maybe he can go to sleep easier, but then I’m worried because they (the formidable “they”) say never to lay babies down on their stomachs and to let them turn over instead. Why? What’s the big deal?

The thunder is taking over here. I sit next a wall of windows at work and whenever it gets dark and foreboding I just want to sit and stare at the impending rain rather than work. I do it at home too. Can’t I bring a futon and a small tv set and lay down and watch old movies when it rains?