Breathe new life into my blouse (I don't like how that sounds)

I'm beginning to have an addiction to Dunkin' Donuts coffee. It's sad, really, but at least I'm only shelling out $1.92 every time I get that craving. A couple mornings a week if I'm running on time (rather than late. I'm never running early) I'll drive through and get a large decaf (I know I'm lame, I just can't handle caffeine) with cream and sugar. Oh god, that's good stuff. I'm really not much of a coffee drinker. Which is to say, I don't need it to function. But it does taste awfully good.

And I need to find a new dry cleaner. I used to go to this place on Busch when I was living with the in-laws, and it was way too expensive, but they always did an awesome job. I don't have a lot of clothes that I dry clean, but I have a fuchsia blouse that I adore that Spencer spits up on or spills his milk on me every time I wear it. It's not even technically a dry clean shirt, but the one time I hand washed it, it looked terrible. So I dry clean it. The last place was always able to get the stain out, but this one doesn't even seem to notice the stain. This is the second time I'm just not happy with the service (and I've only been twice) so it's time to find another one. They're on every corner. Anyone have one that they like, maybe in the T&C area? I drive past 6 through there every time I pick Spencer up from daycare, so it wouldn't be out of the way.

I've been thinking of doing a political post. I don't usually write about politics, mostly because I'm fiercely moderate and I hate when anyone tries to force their politics onto me. Just like religion, I'm suspicious when anyone is too radical in any direction, and I have views that straddle the political line just as I have beliefs that straddle the religious one. But I think that a political dialog really needs to be opened, and people on both sides really need to be able to ask, why do you believe in this? How do you believe this works? Did this policy really work for you? No finger pointing, no hypocrisy, just an honest dialog. I have no problem with someone voting for a political figure they believe in, as long as they are informed and are not voting based on false statements, misconceptions or bold-faced lies. Vote for McCain, vote for Obama, vote for ... who's that other candidate taking Nader's place? Just know your facts and don't be so emotional about your choice.

Anyhow, maybe more on that later, or maybe I'll decide that politics really doesn't have a place in my blog. I'll have to do more research.

Please, no more cowbell ...

So Spencer's finally getting better. He had a fever Tuesday through Thursday, and finally on Friday that broke. He couldn't drink his bottles very well because he was so congested, and he didn't sleep much Wednesday through Friday because of the congestion. He cried a lot, and I cringed a lot. What else could I do? I spent most of Wednesday home with him, and Thursday Christen called out from work and stayed home. I relieved him once I got off work, but I worked a little late and they were both cranky from spending too much time together. Friday he was off anyhow, so I was able to work that day too, thankfully. I needed it.

By Saturday he was still congested but at least in a better mood. He was sleeping through the night, taking his nap, and playing with his toys. His nose was still running like a faucet, and we did the saline a lot trying to get as much out as possible. We were going to the Rays game with Theresa and Andrew, so we dropped him off with the in-laws and had a nice evening out. We had such a good time! The game was great; very close but we still won. The perfect kind. And even though technically I hate baseball, I've been watching the Rays lately because it's always on my tv (Christen watches) and anyhow, it's much more enjoyable in real life.

We were in the all-you-can-eat section, and I can say that I'm glad I cooked hot dogs for dinner last week, because I have a feeling that I'm not going to want any for a long time. I also learned that it can be considered justified for beating on people who wear their hats at stupid angles, women who scream "say hi to the camera!!!" to take still shots, and cow bells. Lots of cow bells. Christopher Walkin would turn over in his grave and he's not even dead.

After the game Christen and Andrew went to the cigar bar and Theresa and I went to the wine bar, and had a great time and a really good talk. Every time we spend time with them I think, why don't we spend more time together? So maybe we'll start that.

The only problem with Saturday was that we didn't get back to Christen's parents house until 11:30pm, and Spencer still wasn't asleep because he was still stuffy and his parents didn't want him to cry so they didn't lay him down. I understand being worried, but he was actually less stuffy then before and he was sleeping as of Friday so I assumed that he would be asleep when we got there. But no. And he was cranky because he was three hours past his bedtime. But he fell asleep on the drive home, and he slept in on Sunday morning and by Sunday his nose was finally starting to dry up. He's been a little snorty, but not nearly as bad, and now it seems he's catching up on his sleep. He slept until 8:30 yesterday and 9:30 today! And I kinda sorta woke him up this morning. I didn't want him to lose his schedule. Plus, I missed him.

Today we haven't done much of anything. I broke down and joined Christen's fantasy football league, so our draft is this afternoon. My team is "Plethora of Pinatas". Woohoo! We'll see if I even care about it after the first couple weeks ...

Exhaustion.

Spencer is sick. He came home from my in-laws' house yesterday with a fever, and he was kind of sleepy and sedate all evening yesterday. So this morning I took him to the doctor just in case he had an ear infection, but they said that he didn't, and they tested him for RSV and he didn't have that, so we've decided that he just has a cold. But today has been worse than yesterday, because I took him to daycare and he cried the whole time he was there and wouldn't sleep and his fever came back. So I worked for 4 hours and then came and picked him back up and took him home. I've tried saline drops, but he's so snorty I know he's having a hard time breathing. I fed him and tried laying him down but all he did was cry for 20 minutes, so now he's in the swing and hopefully he'll be able to take a nap in that.

In the meantime, he's exhausted; I'm exhausted. I had to get up and get him ready this morning so I could drive out to Trinity to the doctor's office (not my regular office, but they had an earlier opening at that one so I made the trek) and then drive him to daycare and got to work by 10. I worked my butt off while I was there, so hopefully I won't be too far behind. And hopefully he's a little bit better by tomorrow so daycare can keep him. I can't lose anymore time from work. It just piles up.

Well, it looks like his eyes are drooping so I'm going to have some lunch and maybe take a nap myself before he wakes up. Hopefully he'll sleep longer than 2 minutes, which is what he was doing at daycare.

**update: He slept for 10 minutes, and has spent the 2 hours since crying. Someone, dear God stop the crying!

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!