The petting zoo: By Elijah

Yesterday we went to pick out pumpkins and visit the petting zoo.  Daddy told me that Great-Grandma Okel used to work at this petting zoo.  I asked a bunch of the animals if they remembered her but most of them didn't want to talk.  They were just really hungry, they just wanted to eat.  I really didn't like the big donkey and goats, even though they looked like big Rescues I got real scared when they came over to me and held on to Mommy real tight.  I thought they were going to eat me.  Then we saw some baby chicks.  I didn't want to pet them.  They looked real funny.  Mommy kept telling me they were like the ones in my farm book but those chicks to move, or flap.  The we went to visit the baby goats.  Those I got close to, but I still didn't want to touch them.  They were the size of Rescue but definitely not doggies.  I wasn't real sure what to think about them.  I decided to stay by Daddy just in case they weren't very nice.

 Mommy kept trying to take my picture but I was not going to stop looking at those goat things.  Are you kidding me?? What if they charge?  I can't run that fast but I can certainly climb.  I just need enough warning.

 Then we went over to see some bunnies.  Look Daddy bunnies.  Mommy says they say "Hop, Hop, Hop."  Why are thy just laying there?  Make him go!

 WOW those ducks are huge!!  That one over there is as big as Rescue!

 Here duckie!  Quack, Quack.  Come here duckie!

 Oops!  I mean geese.  Those are geese.  Farm geese says grandma.  What does a goose say?? Either way they are big too.

  Mommy these ducks are real cool, but I don't feel very well.  This is my best smile right now. 

 Ohh look, little cows.  Not baby cows just little ones.  The one in front didn't like Daddy to much.  He ran at him when Daddy peeked in his gate.  Daddy ran away it was silly.

 Cow, come here cow.  You look funny.

 Grandma, I don't know about this corn maze thing.  I can't see the animals anymore.  Where is Mommy?  Can we be done soon?  I still don't feel well.

 Mommy I found you.  Look the three little pigs.  They are hanging out by the house of straw.  The one pig in the middle kept sitting on the other pigs.  He was kinda a pest.  But they like to oink.  It was silly.

 Grandma, I don't feel well, can you carry me please?

 Baby cows and mommy cows.  They are snuggling, just like I want to do.  I want to take a nap, I don't feel well. 

 Let's pick our pumpkins quickly and go home.  Look her is a pumpkin.  It looks good.

 Look at how big the stems are on these things.  Again this is the best smile you are going to get.  How many times do I have to tell you, I don't feel well.  I think my medicine is starting to wear off.  Do you like my skeleton pumpkin shirt?

 Okay I can get one smile out.  Look at all these pumpkins.  They are huge!

 Whoa Daddy don't drop me... or the pumpkin.  That is Mommies pumpkin, she likes how round it is.

 Snack time.  Apple cider donuts are yummy.  Let's see how much I can put in my mouth at once.

 My mouff if fu, bu my hands are empty.  More please.

Yum, need to lick my fingers clean.   

 Okay guys, I really don't feel well.  I don't want to be here anymore.  I want to go home, I want more medicine, I want to take a nap, I don't want to smile anymore.  Please take me home.

As always love Elijah

We don't feel well

Last night after we got home BJ and I started to realize Elijah felt a bit warm.  We took his temp. 102.7 Yeah that's right, over 102.  We quickly gave him some medicine his fever came down to under 100.  BJ then headed to bed around 8:30 and I was close behind him around 9:30.  I then woke up around 11 and was not feeling so well.  I then went to check on Elijah and he was still doing alright but I could tell the drugs were starting to wear off.  When BJ woke up at 1:30 i got up too and gave the baby some more drugs.  We then both slept until about 6:30.  Elijah then took a 2 hour morning nap and after a couple hours at the petting zoo slept for another 4 hours.  He woke up long enough to down half a bottle of Gatorade and eat some soup then he was down for the count.  Let's see how long the baby sleeps.  I hope it's awhile because then I can sleep and get better too.  At least all I have is stomach issues and I'm not sore or groggy like normal. These pictures were taken of Elijah in the process of getting off the couch.  Out.

Things your doctor shouldn't say

Yesterday I had my yearly physical with my doctor.  Typically, I am fairly healthy throughout the year and the only time I see my doctor is at my physical.  If I end up getting sick it usually is something that I know a doctor can't do anything for, so I just stay at home and sleep it off, anything else, I typically need to get in ASAP and don't have time to wait a day or two to get in.

Anyway, after my checkup and all, the doctor leaves the room and I get dressed.  Fine all is good.  Then in comes the doctor with my script and before she hands it to me gets this look on her face and says "I have some bad news."  I start internally freaking out.  What did she see? Please don't let me be pregnant, so couldn't handle that.  What if my insurance doesn't cover this visit and i have to pay for it out of pocket?  What is she going to tell me.  She then follows it up with she is leaving the practice and moving to Ohio.  Okay that wasn't bad news.  That is a bit of an inconvenience for me and that means I will need to find a new doctor, but bad news, nope.  Not really.  Growing a third arm out of my neck, bad news. 

It's started!!

Two more spiders died today.  One got away... I wasn't wearing shoes and neather was my co-worker.  When I went back a bit later, it was gone.  All three of the spiders today were of a different kind.  I mean really typically you only see one or two different types of spiders in one place not here, it's crazy.  I can't wait until the weather is done changing and all the in door spiders have died. 

On another note, this week has been awesome with all the new shows starting.  However, I really wish the good ones like Big Bang Theory would be on later than it is because that is Elijah's bed time.  I also feel the need to watch all the TV because we do not have TiVo like he rest of the world and I don't know what shows are going to be on onDemand, you know the poor man's TiVo.  I spend to much time in front of the TV, however, I blog while I watch so it's a win for you. 

Last on my list tonight, I'm very warm.  It was 90 here today and now my computer is as hot as the sun. Oh and happy 15 months Elijah.  Sorry about the big bump on your head right before bed. 

Spiders!!

I have only worked at my new job for about 4 weeks now.  In that time the weather has begun to change and all those creepy crawly animals have begun to make there way to the warm areas...AKA where I work.  I have seen at least 5 different types of spiders oh wait 6, I saw three just today.  And they all try to kill me...  They wait until the best moment when I'm not paying much attention to anything and BAMM they show up on my paper that I'm signing, or start crawling on the wall right next to me, or best yet stand in the middle of the floor so I have to go get someone to kill them so I can pass.  I don't know if these things think they are like the 3 Billy Goats Gruff but let me just tell you Billy Spiders Gruff... 5 of you have been killed and the 6th one will be dead tomorrow if I find you.  Most of the time I have to bribe the office manager to kill them for me.  I hate the things. 

Kellyisms

For those of you who know me I frequently do things that make you question where my brain was.  Some of the most frequent events are...

• Occasionally over the past year or so I have been using bubble bath as body wash.  I didn't realize this until my wonderful husband pointed out that he noticed the bubble bath was going down, but he didn't realize I had been taking baths.  Ding that's when I realize it wasn't body wash, it was bubble bath, that's why it has a stronger sent than the soap I usually use. 
• On Saturday, I was loading the car with the monster stroller and I didn't want to open the garage so I semi opened the back of the car while in the garage.  I then folded up the stroller and was trying to figure out how to lift the darn thing when ***Bamb*** My forehead got in the way of the door.  Now my forehead hurts when ever I smile or do anything.
• While in the process of trying to keep Elijah from spilling his 8 oz cup of milk, I knocked over my 20+ oz cup of iced tea.  While we all jumped up from the table, only BJ was thinking enough to move the baby out of the flash flood. 
• Frequently while talking to parents about there child's inability to communicate, I get word blocks or have moments of complete articulation loss.  Which makes me look like a great SLP.  But on the inside it makes me laugh.
• The other day after I took off my socks, to put on my flip flops, I took 5 steps toward the door before I realized I forgot to put on the flip flops.
• I spent over 5 minutes looking for my car keys today to realize I had been holding them the whole time.

I'm sure there are so many more...I just don't remember them.  LOL

How do you know when to clean the floor?

When your child starts pointing out all the spots on the floor. That is when the steam mop decided to stop steaming. Oh so frustrating. Wahoo. But when I started to vacuum tonight, Elijah was determined to help. It was so great. I think that was his way of asking for a vacuum his size for Christmas. Too cute, At least someone in this house wants to keep the floors clean.

Issues with the Car

HAHA

Since purchasing the car from my mother I have found some flaws with it. First of all after my last car I told myself that I will never get leather seats again. I get so hot and gross while I drive on leather seats I start to smell by the time I get to where I am going. I also have wet marks from sweat in every fold of my legs, hips (make you look like you have peed) and knees. Next I used to drive with my knees on occasion, like when the steering wheel was to hot to touch or both of my hands were busy doing other things like changing the radio and talking on the phone, or eating. I have had to stop doing that now because no mater how I try to move the wheel the I can't reach the accelerator and the steering wheel at the same time. It really is a bummer. Guess I have to be safe now. My old car had the temp. gauge and the direction of driving. This car does not. And the last one, BJ decided to buy our cars steering wheel protectors. Mine was made of some sort of mesh like fabric. Looked good, at least it wasn't one of those horribly gross ones with all the hair on it. He put it on and we went inside for the night. Today I could barley get a block away from my house and I started feeling VERY VERY anxious. I got a tight feeling in my chest, my arms started to cramp up and I got a very weird feeling in my stomach. I would move my hands around the steering wheel and when I wasn't touching the wheel I felt better. Weird. I figured as it was a sensory aversion to the tactile feel of the wheel. GREAT well if I could just drive with my knees I would be fine. Oh wait, right.... it was a long and horrid ride to work. The second I got to work, I ripped off the steering wheel cover and threw it across the car. The funny thing is the material is the same material that all the office chairs are made of at my work, but that doesn't' bug me. Just on the steering wheel.

Random

I had a great question earlier but have now forgotten it. So I will do a list of random.

-I sometimes want to do a secret blog but think it would take to much time.
-I love my new job.
-What color does a smurf turn when he is being strangled?
-I can't wait for the new smurf movie.
-Elijah is almost 15 months, Crazy!
-I lost the first family Fantasy football game
-I'm sleepy
-Started a new book about a child with Autism who is the only witness to a murder and it's interesting.
-My blogs have less pictures than they did when I started blogging back in 2005.
-I had to drive my new car with it's headlights for the first time since June the other day on my way home.
-To get the most out of the nice weather I eat lunch in my car in the middle of our parking lot.
-Elijah hits Mom and Dad when he gets frustrated.
-Elijah is the best kid at daycare.
-My child will eat anything...I mean anything-food, bugs, rocks, you name it.
-I'm sleepy.

Baby for Rent

Ever since Elijah was born all the grandparents have been wanting him over night. The first 6 months I kept saying no because I was the child's sole food source. the next 6 months Elijah was getting to be such an awesome baby that the highlight of my day was when we went into his room and he gave us the biggest smile ever. Then right before his first birthday we really needed a sitter. We asked my dad to watch E while we did a late night, early morning at church. I survived, missed the little guy a while lot, but i survived. Then in July we had a wedding and wanted a sitter for Elijah and decided it would work out best if BJ's parents took Elijah. Again I survived and I was getting better at this whole thing. In August BJ and I were off to the Black Eyed Peas concert (which was awesome if you happened to miss that blog) and since my mom donated the majority of the funds for that evening she won the baby too. Then came September. Grown up night out to celebrate our anniversary of buying our house (see below) and it was BJ's mom's birthday. So what better gift than to let her hang out with her grandchild. We have even already plan that in October my mom will get Elijah back so BJ and I can celebrate another anniversary (really we make up reasons to go out to a nice dinner and fork over our child to someone else). Therefore, process of eliminating in November sometime, my Dad will get Elijah back for another evening.

This made us realize that if BJ and I work it right, once a month we will rotate through our parents and have Elijah spend the night. If BJ and I are clever enough we can make up some reason to go out to eat and hopefully sleep in the following day. December will be off limits to all families and the sign up sheet for the months of January, February, and March will be posted in mid-December and we will see if BJ and I can think of a reason to "give up" our child for those days.

Happy Anniversary

Not to BJ and I but to us our house and our fantastic neighbors. Okay this comes a day late but it is all the same right??? Three years ago on 9-11 both our little families signed on our house. It didn't mean that we gained new neighbors, but we gained super awesome friends. Let me see, the first time we met Jon and Katie was because of one of my stupid moments. I went out and bought a take and bake pizza and cooked it in our oven before I realized, we have nothing in our house. We weren't moving in for another couple of weeks, we were just there for fun. So we quickly had to find a neighbor that was around and had something of us to get our food out of the oven, i.e. pot holders. Jon and Katie to the rescue... they had a pot holder of something to grab our hot food out of the oven as well as some paper towels. The second time we met our neighbors was due to another stupid me moment. I was painting the laundry room before we had our washer and dryer and I wasn't paying attention, go figure, and i dumped a whole lot of paint on the floor and down the back of the door. Well we needed something to get it up quick so BJ ran over to our neighbors and got some paint rags from them. Again to the rescue they came. Over the next year we became really close friends and after Elijah was born BJ and I decided to adopt them and have them be Elijah's Godparents. Now we are at a point in our relationship that when BJ and I both accidentally fall asleep at their house, they just leave us. Which makes for a very acquired waking up in someone elses house and them no where in sight.

But it doesn't matter. Thanks great friends, thanks great home her es to several more years equally as wonderful.

Dear Vikings

Dear Vikings,

I would like to request another great football season from you this year. Last year, when you were wonderful, my hubby was never happier. He was proud to wear your colors and cheer as much as possible for you. It was also fortunate for me that many of your games were at different times than the Bears and we were able to watch the games on our home TV. For the shear courtesy of me having to give up my beloved television on Sundays, Mondays, and sometimes Thursdays, I think you owe me a season like last.

Thank you, Go Minnesota,
Kelly

Labor Day: By Elijah

Last year this was me:
I was little then, I couldn't do very much. Look at the the picture, Daddy had to hold me up. I couldn't even sit. That was like forever ago. This Labor day I had lots of making up to do. Mommy said that Labor means work. So I had lots of work that I needed to do. I needed to start early and just keep going.

First I needed to jump on my wild and crazy giraffe and get my morning ride in. What Mommy couldn't get in the picture is that I can drive my giraffe forward AND backward. Turning is a bit tricky though, usually I just hit something then move the animal.
I thought I should probably try to eat something too while I was out riding around.
Something in this house stinks...Yup it was my shoes, but just to be sure, I should make sure I take care of everyone else's shoes too. I think I will just put Mommy's shoes right over here...Now it's time to do the laundry, because that stinks too. Wait nothing is in this one. Daddy, Where's the dirty clothes?This doesn't go here, Daddy and Mommy have NO idea what goes in the laundry basket. I better let someone know that the clothes were stolen. Who would want dirty clothes. Wait a second, Daddy is folding clothes on the couch, I better go help him and move the clothes after he folds them...You know I should probably get dressed. It is about that time. But you have to catch me first. HAHAHA DIAPER CHANGE!!! I love throwing out my diapers. I know right where they should go in every room of the house. I'm so smart!Mommy! Open! Actually it sounds more like this doh-din, but sometimes I get in an "Oh"
Phew! I need a breather.Mommy, stop taking my picture...Do you need a hug??? This might be the only time you get today. I'm sitting all nice and quiet you have 5 more seconds, 4...3...2...Just in the nick of time. Daddy, you need one too?

Alright back to work. And I'm off. And that was only 10 minutes of my day. I don't understand why Mommy and Daddy are always so sleepy by the end of the day. I mean I have a lot of stuff I need to get done. I can't just sit around and wait for you.

Oh and today I said "bye bye" while I waved goodbye to daycare. Mommy almost cried. She was so happy. I don't know why. But Mommy said that I am learning to talk to nicely. I love my Mommy and my Daddy.

As always Love Elijah

It lives in the sink

With my new hours at work I am actually able to get some house work done. Today however, I was not very motivate to do so but I see in the future a nice schedule going, every week the kitchen gets wiped down and dishes put away, Island cleared off and table cleaned. Every other week, the bathrooms get super cleaned and parts of the upstairs such as the bedrooms. Once a month the kitchen gets deep cleaned. And some where in there the living room and floors need to be done. Anyway you look at it, this is the most "on top" of my house work I have ever been. My house might not look crazy clean but I am getting better and once I can start putting my child to work it will look even better. Especially since most of my time is spent picking up the buckets of things he is moving around the house.

As I was cleaning the sink today I almost died though. I can honestly say I do not remember the last time I Comet cleaned or even wiped it down. And since we ruined our sinks the first week we moved in by putting paint in the sink we bought those rubber sink mats to hide all the paint. Those things do a good job of hiding stuff. I thought about taking a picture of what was under these things but then I thought that that was WAAAAY to gross so I passed. Let me just tell you I didn't know stainless steel could look that brown, and was that really mold?? No wonder we all have horrible allergies. Thank goodness DCFS doesn't do spot checks on all families and the cleanliness of the food preparation area. I would have been shut down for sure, however, since the amount of times I actually cook, I don't see how that would affect us to much. With the least amount of surface area I picked up the rubber mat with my forefinger and thumb and through it into the half full dishwasher. Then I thought, maybe I shouldn't wash dishes with these things because all that stuff is touching my dishes, then I thought, what would I do with the dirty dishes then? In went the second one. I dumped about half the bottle of Comet into the sink and scrubbed, then sprayed it down, and scrubbed again. Then I took the vinegar, which I have recently discovered as a wonderful cleaning agent, better than any expensive chemical you can buy, it even cuts through dog snot stuck to your glass and baked on stuff on the oven. Wonderful stuff. Anyway, went at the still semi brown spots with the vinegar and scrubbed more. Now the sink is shinny and lovely. If anyone needs to wash their hands or has a dirty dish they will need to either use a different sink, hold onto it for about 10 more hours or wash it themselves. Keep that sink clean until I wake up tomorrow, Please.

**PS that is not a picture of my sink, and I do not wear rubber gloves to clean. Just for the record.

Fantacy Football Draft (Finally)

REWIND to Sunday night!

And Play...Okay wait, Rewind a bit further that way you get the history that leads to Sunday night. Okay Play for real now.

BJ and I are sitting around one night on the couch, surprise surprise. We start talking about our Fantasy football league that we have done the last couple of years. This year there were a bunch of the old group that is not around here as much, so we were thinking about doing a league with just our family. We start counting it out on our finger and realized we could have the perfect number of family members for a league. Between my family and BJ's family it would be awsome.

Fast forward (dude if I could figure out how to do those little arrow things that would be awesome). Play, again.

Sunday night the majority of us meet up at BJ's parents. Now FF has been around for several years now and I was surprised to learn that out of the 10 teams, 11 people, we were there were only three of us that had ever done this before. So we had to walk people through on how this was all going to go, some people enjoy making things more technical than they need to be and that is why I feel the need to help explain. I figure if I can explain it, you should be able to follow. We had the 8 teams at Bill and Mary's, my brother was on Facebook messenger with me and BJ was on Facebook messenger with his brother. We drew # in alphabetical order, Brett ended up with number one. The rest of us get our numbers and we all sit down to fill our teams. After each pick BJ and I both have to send the info to our brothers so they can keep track of everything. After three hours, we all had a full team, my step-mom was mad at my dad for taking the player from her old school, my sister had drafted a guy that graduated with our brother and she went to college with, I did not have Adrian Peterson, but I did get my staple FF player, nobody had yelled at anyone, and we were ready to go with some quick smack talk to each other. This league will be interesting, Good luck to the family and whoever is the winner gets to smack talk the rest of the year.

How did it get to be so late?

I had full intentions to blog tonight, however, I decided to go back to school. I have taken on the small (haha) task of writing an article for my new job. Topic: Feeding. To me thrilling and totally cool, to you yawn and why would you work on feeding? Well once the article is done, I will post a link to it. Don't go looking for it before Winter. So what does this article consist of, well old fashioned article exploration, and some small opinionated poll from our lovely Facebook. SO if you haven't already told me, I need to know: Foods you hate/don't eat and why. Or Foods you refuse to try and why. If you answer you will almost be famous in a printed article. I know you wanna. Please though if you could do it to my Facebook status will help me keep it all organized and in one place. If you are a stranger and are not my "friend" on Facebook, then I guess your opinion doesn't count. Just kidding, Leave a message on the post. Now tomorrow is Wednesday which means I work late and will probably want to go straight to bed so maybe in like 5 months I'll tell you about Fantasy Football or that small child that I promise we still have living here. What can I say, Being a crazy full time working mommy, trying to keep my house organized is just how I am learning to live. I think I'm more organized now than before I was a Mommy which is hard to believe. I think my new work hours help out a bit with that too.

I want to post about the fun we had at our fantasy football draft last night, but that will have to wait. Possibly until tomorrow. More or less, I am sleepy, I started "Water for Elephants" a couple of nights ago and all I want to do is read. And today to top it all off, I got a note left on my desk at work to give a parent a call that had questions. I love to talk to parents, especially ones that could soon be perspective clients, however, when I spend over an hour telling that parent every single class I took in school, all the theory behind all my therapy technique, the number of children and there ages I have seen, all the diagnoses I have treated, what I ate for breakfast, the # of years I have been married, the entire story of my pregnancy, my political stand and so on, I start to not enjoy it. I had an hour and a half after my last client left today and I had a report to write up, I was thinking, great! I have plenty of time to get the written up and on my way, maybe make a couple of phone calls and that would be the great. Not so much though! All I have to say, the amount of time I spent talking with this mother, at least give me the evaluation. I might not have a voice after today so help out my productivity. PLEASE!!

Baby stopped moving

You know how the other day I said Elijah didn't stop moving long enough for a picture? Well tonight he needed a photo op so I guess he took a nap just for that opportunity. Once home from daycare he became really really snuggly and after about 25 minutes he fell sound asleep. We put him in the car seat and still out like a light. We got out at Culver's and he stayed sound asleep. We ordered and got into a booth and laid him down, slept through dinner. Woke up and was happy for about 10 minutes then got super fussy and did the half cry/half whine with the squish nose and scrunched eyes to force out the tears. So a way to the home we went. Continued the crying and whining as he got ready for bed and 20 some minutes after in bed. I think his three gums that he is trying to break through are really bugging him.

Evening sweet tooth

Around 8:00 at night I get this massive sweet tooth. All I want to do is eat sugar, ice cream, candy, I don't care what. So since I don't actually buy or want any of that stuff in my house I get really crabby right about now. This sucks I want something sweet.

I don't know

I want to blog tonight, but I don't know what to blog about. I like to blog because it helps me unstress. I mean all day (well not recently but usually) I hang out with young child and have little kid conversations. It is hard for me to keep my grown up thoughts hidden all day long. And on nights when my hubby isn't home, I use blogging to use my grown up mind. However, today I don't really know what to blog about.

I did realize that yesterday Elijah was 14 months old, however, now that he is moving it is much harder to take pictures of him. People always say the reason why there are fewer pictures of there children after they have two is because they have two. I really think the reason is because after a certain amount of time the kids are always moving. Elijah now really stays in one spot for a long period of time. Cuteness, he is always doing something cute, even more so now that he is super mobile. However, I am never around my camera when the cuteness is happening. Then when I am around my camera, it has sucked all the life out the batteries that are in it and there is now power to take pictures with. Boo. I am asking for a new camera for Christmas. I am also asking for a family pass for the Zoo so we can go more often. I think there might be more stuff that I want, but I have forgotten. What's new?

So maybe someday I will get more pictures of Elijah and I will post them. I'll try.

What I learned from Jury Duty

Today I had a summons to attend my civic service of jury duty today. I was starting to dread it because, the last time I had Jury duty was some time between 2001 and 2004. However, back then I was called immediately to serve on a coroner's jury and had little time to wait. Now things have changed significantly. I'm not in school any more, I am heavily dependent on technology and I eat a snack or something every 2-3 hours.

Now they do not let you have any food in the court house, no technology can come into the court house, and I have things that need to get done, reports that need to be written and all that fun stuff. However, I learned some things today that will help me in the future.
1. When you leave the house in the morning to drop your child off at daycare, and you see a spider. Don't think the spider will wait in that spot for when you get back for you to kill it. Now I have a random baby big spider living somewhere in my house and I don't know where.
2. When you are driving the way your GPS told you to go and you see road construction ahead, MAKE A U-TURN. Or else you will sit in line waiting to get through the one lane street all losing your time to get to the court house on time.
3. When every piece of paper you received from the county states NO CELL PHONES and there are multiple signs that say the same thing on the way into the court house, and you really feel the need to break the rules, put your phone on silent. Some guy kept his phone and it went off in front of the sheriff and bluff today, I thought the man was going to jail the way they looked at him. Gutsy that's for sure.
4. If you get called for jury duty make sure you live in some small town, chances of actually making the jury small, big cities like Chicago, you could end up on the Blogo case and be board to tears.
5. Read your summons carefully, when you see $11.00 per/ don't stop reading. When you think that is $11.00 per hour you are sorely disappointed when it comes down to $11.00 a day with $0.30 per mile that you traveled. And I'm sure that money will be taxed. I made about $17.00 today before taxes. That was worth the day off work that I had.
6. When they ask the 5 million questions to find out a little about everyone in the room, PLEASE answer yes/no/ or another one word answer that best gets to the question asked. Can I tell you this one man stood up for almost EVERY question asked and shared his entire life history which included many run ins with the law or legal system. He wasn't on trial and I was willing to send him to jail, for what I'm not real sure.
7. Don't do anything stupid in your life, you will have to confess to it in front of a large group of people on reasons why you committed a crime. I counted 3 DUI's in our room 2 under age drinkers and my buddy that wouldn't shut up had something too.
8. Dental work scheduled for tomorrow is not a good reason to get out of jury duty. Sit down.
9. Being almost 100% deaf and about 110 years old, a good reason for not serving on a jury.
10. If you never want to serve on a jury make friends with the states attorneys and be sure to call them all by there first name. The defence does not like that.
11. Eat a big breakfast because all you get once you are there is water from the water fountain.
12. If you really have a beef with the justice system don't make up stupid excuses for why you should not be on the jury that will last for 2 days. "Well if I don't get home to water my plants I will starve."

It has been anywhere from 6-9 years since I was called for Jury Duty. Last time I got to play CSI detective and work with some cool people who enjoyed serving on a jury. This time I got to sit in a court room listening to people practically beg not to be called for Duty and just cross my fingers hoping that I would be able to go back to work the next day and not need to stay longer than that.

The house is turning against me

Last night wasn't the best in our house. Sometime (unsure of the real time) the phone rang. Not long enough though to actually answer it. Then is stopped. Then around 4, BJ woke up out of a dead sleep and thought he was running late for work. After convincing him he didn't need to be at work until 8:00. I realized I still had my contacts in, and they were dried to my eyeballs. Once I got them out of my eyes and crawled back in bed on the edge of sleep, my cell phone starts to die. After I run downstairs and plug it in and am back in bed asleep, the mirror in the shower fell off the wall and scared us to death. After falling asleep one more time, the phone rang again. Really?? how can all that happen in less than 2 hours.

How to earn your pay when there is not much to do

As many of you know, I recently started a new job. When I started this job I didn't take over somebodies old caseload, but am expected to build my own. As much as this means a ton of work in my future with marketing, evaluations, and writing reports, but I look forward to all this and this is what I signed up for. However, as soon as I started working I wasn't going to have 100's of people lined up at the door. Looking positively, in my first week I have had 3 evals and seen one client. Next week, even with jury duty I have 2 or three more evals and several more clients. However, that only accounts for a very small fraction of my day. So I have been figuring out ways to keep myself busy and worth my pay. So if you're ever in my situation, here are some things you can do:

-Move in all your stuff in

-find homes for all your stuff

-build a book case

-help in the front office when they need to eat

-learn the computer program

-write up some evals

-read files on new clients

-organize an entire therapy closet

-organize a book case

-reorganize your files and your stuff

-check your mail several times

-build a treadmill

-file

-refile the mistakes you made

-call a couple of doctors to request scripts

I'm sure there is a bit more but they have slipped my mind.

Stay tuned next week for, How to entertain yourself for 40 hours while you wait to be called for jury duty.

Random Memory

Did I ever tell you about the time BJ was making hard boiled eggs for us to dye??? Well I just saw a commercial that reminded me of it, so I thought I would share with you.

One day near Easter one year I asked BJ to make some hard boiled eggs, a whole dozen. When I got home there were only 10 eggs done. I was slightly confused but trying to be the loving and supportive wife I asked where the other two were. His response was that a shot glass broke them. At this point I was completely stunned. I had no clue how boiling eggs had anything to do with shot glasses. And actually I really didn't think we had any shot glasses in the house so I was unsure how this all worked out. I just nodded and we finished dying the eggs. Later that week at work I was talking with a mother about the fact that we only had 10 eggs, then I started thinking more about the shot glass and the eggs. I finally thought that I could ask BJ without criticizing him to bad about it so I did.

Me: So B, why did we only have 10 eggs out of 12 to dye for Easter?
BJ: Two broke with the shot glass. (said so matter of factly it just should have made sense)
Me: (trying not to get to angry) Why were you using shot glasses to boil the eggs?
BJ: I wasn't.
Me: Okay then what are you talking about?
BJ: Well when I put the pan of boiling water into the sink to put cold water into the pan to cool off the eggs I forgot we had installed the PUR filter and as I swung it over it bumped the chef on the back splash of the sink which fell off and rolled and hit the shot glass that had been the home of the bamboo tree for about 6 months prior which then fell down into the pan of water and eggs and landed on two of them.
Me: (through fits of laughter) Well that makes a whole lot more sense.

It smells

I don't like the smell of Fall. I love the smell of spring and summer, however, the smell of fall, I think it's stinky. I have started feeling it coming to in the air. As I bring Elijah to daycare in the morning it has that smell that reminds you of school starting, leaves changing from green to orange and red to brown and dead. I have also started to notice it getting cooler in the morning to a point where I have to think about a fall coat for Elijah.

To sum this post up, Fall Stinks, BOO Fall.

Weekend

First of all, this new job I have and my new hours are really going to impact my posting. Or I will be staying up later to get the posting done. I really think blogging is a stress reliever for me and that makes me happy.

Second, Friday was AWESOME. Bj and I Had a wonderful time...after we almost killed each other. Le me start from the beginning.

We woke up at our normal time and brought the child off to daycare. We came home and met with our Financial planner so we can figure out what to do with our $3.00 that we have in the bank account. Once we were all done BJ and I started to clean the house. We spent 2 hours cleaning and our house looked wonderful. We packed for the night and went off to get the baby from daycare.

On our way there I realized it was about 100 Degrees outside and there was no air conditioning in our car. On the way to my mothers I was freaking out because I thought Elijah was going to die from heat exhaustion while I was sweating through my clothing. I was frustrated. BJ and I were bickering back and forth until we just gave up talking. Once we got to my mom's BJ went out to see if he could recharge the AC himself, however, when it was fixed the last time, the people put in bad valves so he was set up for failure before he even began. This making him even more crabby than he was 30 minutes before. At that point in time, my mom told us to just take the Mini. Well as BJ was going to back the Mini out of the garage the garage door spring broke. Finally we got the car out, packed and we finally got on the road. About half way to the hotel we finally started to talk to each other.

We go to our hotel out by the Airport and I was able to watch the big shinny planes come and go. I jumped in the shower to wash off all the grossness from sweating like a professional athlete and started getting ready for the night. When I was done I looked pretty and I was so ready to go to this concert. We got our ride over to the arena and by this point I was beyond excited. I kept hoping that Fergie's hubby would make a cameo, or at least sit next to me during the show. We were just off the stage. And I really do not have any words to how awesome the show was. Yeah, that 's right that's Fergie. It was amazing, made us both super happy. Then after the show we went out to wait for our shuttle back to the hotel and it was right in the landing pattern for all the planes so I could watch them all land. Made me even happier.

The next morning I slept in until 9:30. That's right 9:30, I haven't slept that late in...I don't remember when. Then it was back to my mom's so officially every grandma has had the baby over night now. This is when my mom told me about Elijah's eye rolling. I was hoping it was just a fluke but while we sat there he rolled his eyes into the back of his head twice. It looked like he was about to pass out, or was being possessed by a demon. Either one, I didn't like the options. I then called the doctor, and after seeing him do it once more, we were off to the ER because I just couldn't think of anything but seizures. ER doc told me he wasn't thinking it was seizures, but a learned behavior. Great my child has an eye tick that I have to get rid of before it sticks. Fantastic. The rest of the weekend was much less eventful but I was really sleepy because my sleep cycle was all off.

Good Byes Are Always Bitter Sweet.

A little over four years a go I graduated with my masters. I then had a sit down with myself to decided about the type of company I wanted to work for. I picked a company that met with my own morals, and where I felt I would be happiest. I then began working for Rainbow. Over the next couple of months I met new friends, and great mentors. Over the next few years my new friends turn to great friends and my great mentors became wonderful co-workers. I treated diagnoses that I did not know about before I began. Met kids that that I cared for as my own. They worked harder than I thought kids could, they touched my heart and even deeper, my soul. I became stronger and more confident in my therapy skills, and figured out how to multitask and get organized. Recently there have been changes made at Rainbow, some because of the economy, some because of cooperate policy, some because of personal choice. With this change there were good things, sometimes there were not so good things. I began to second guess my choice of employment. I was not happy with some of the changes, in fact I became upset. I started to only enjoy the times I was at work when I was with my kids. Then out of the blue I was contacted by another company. I thought a lot about it and realized it was time for me to continue to grow in my professional skills and the only way I was going to be able to do so was by leaving the company. Today was the day. I finished packing up the billions of things I have acquired over the past four years, I said goodbye to those kids that helped me grow, and taught me more than I could ever teach them, and I turned in my keys. Through tears and that ugly cry face, I was able to squeeze out a "Thank you for all that you have done for me," and "Thank you for letting me stay until the end." I refused to say goodbye to my friends because I will see them again. I did, however, have to say good bye to the building, and with that everything that helped me get to where I am today. That was the hardest part. Am I scared for the future? Not really? Am I sad to leave? Yes. Am I worried about losing everything Rainbow made me? A bit. Even though I know all these things have changed, I am worried that without the support staff that I had I will not be the same therapist. Come Monday, I start at my new job. I tell myself that this too will help me grow, however, it is all the unknown.

So now I am at the end of my Rainbow, and I'm looking for my pot of gold. Wish me luck, but supposedly that pot of gold has luck with it.

In other news...Tomorrow is the Black Eyed Peas concert. Wahoo.

Please be patient

In the next few days I have a couple of big moments in my life. Thursday is my last day with Rainbow Center and I will do a beautiful goodbye post tomorrow, please stay tuned. Friday is meet with the finantial planner, clean house, Black Eyed Peas concert. Saturday, sleep in cuz Baby is with grandma, relax.

I don't know You be the Judge

Back in may we bought 2 tomato plants. We planted one in a pot and one in the ground and wanted to see which one did better. The first year we planted tomato plants we did them both in the gound and I think they were too close togeather and we didn't get many tomatos. The second year, also the year Elijah was born, we planted two tomato plants in planter pots in the back yard. Now grantide, I didn't quite water them that much last year but we didn't get many tomatos from them either. So I thought this year I would try one of each and try to make a plan for next year. But I am having difficulty trying to decide which method is working better so I took some pictures, you decide.

In pot:

In ground:

In pot:

In ground:

Sorry about the foggyness on the pictures, humidity really is not nice to the camera lens.

Yeah today sucked a bit

Only three days left at work, however, that meant that today I to say good bye to some of my kiddos and the families. I was fairly proud of myself, I only cried 3 times today. Once on the way into work, once while talking with one of my parents mothers, and once while saying goodbye to one of my kids. I think today was my hardest day, I had one kid that I have really taken a liking to because she was sooooo far behind where she should have been and one kid that I have had for almost 4 years now. Tomorrow and Wednesday will be fairly ho-hum but Thursday will be bad, I'm sure there will be lots of tears, lots of stalling so I don't have to leave.

But on the upside 4 more days until Black Eyed Peas!! Wahoo.

In my head

Sometimes as I am by myself I write a blog post in my head. It could be about anything. Then by the time I get back to the computer I have completely forgotten how the blog goes. It's not that I have forgotten what the blog was about, which happens often, but the good content I forget and it just doesn't sound the same when I start typing. Like last night, I wrote a wonderful post in my head as I was falling asleep. It was all about how happy I am with my life right now and how I never could have pictured where I am with my life years ago. You will just have to take my word for it because as I sit here thinking about re-writing it, I feel it wouldn't do the blog justice if it didn't sound just as it did in my head last night.

More or less it came down to this... I love my family, I'm proud of my siblings, I have been exceptionally blessed with my husband and my child, and every now and again I can really love my dog. But I think I fell asleep before I got to the dog part in my head. I just thought I should add that in in case she ever read this post.

I love my Husband

Four years ago today I got married to, in my opinion, the best man ever. So in honor of our 4 year anniversary I thought I would tell you some reasons why I think My husband is the best.

1. He is super cute

2. He is super strong- can open any container

3. He is super brave-can kill any spider big or small.

4. He always remembers to give me a kiss or two or three before he leaves for work no matter what time of day.

5. He ALWAYS puts our family first.

6. He can cook-he knew how to do that before he figured out I can't.

7. He is crafty and can do anything with color, wood, or nails that I want or wouldn't even think of.

8. He enjoys most of the same TV as I do.

9. He lets me watch TV even when he wants to watch Sports

10. He works super hard.

11. He lets me put my really cold toes on him in the middle of winter.

12. He loves me.

13. He is a great father.

14. He is supportive over many of my decisions.

15. He pushes me to be my best.

16. He has the ability to drive the get away car and not crash it in case we ever need it.

17. He makes me laugh.

See I told you he is the best hubby ever.

Thanks babe. I love you so much. You are still my Favorite, however, that little bundle of joy upstairs is coming in as a super close second.

Code??? Um mega bit?

It was a close one last night. We almost had a death in the family. It was the computer. It was very, very sick. I gave it a really bad flu last night. It was bad. I couldn't open anything on my computer. Files, web pages, nothing. BJ had to save it. Thank goodness we have two computers because he had to upload a virus thing on his computer save it to a flash drive, then down load it onto my computer to get rid of what ever had inhabited my computer. I was so happy that there was another instance of my hubby having more patients than me and stayed up late fixing the computer. So now I can blog and you all can find out all the wonderful things that happened into my life. Oh and the best part of the virus is that when ever BJ tried to open the web pages porn popped up on the screen. Yeah that is awesome. Thank goodness he got it all off one hundred and twenty some infected files on my computer. BOOO to that!

There was blood on the plane!

So this weekend we ran some errands and one of which was to go to the airport and pick up my cousins boyfriend. We got there a bit early so we decided to wander around baggage claim for a while (since that is really the only part of the airport that you can get to since 9/11.) So were wandering around and because I like to keep myself busy I decide to take a little survey and see which airline of the four that were in our baggage claim area had the most amount of lost luggage. We start by airline #2 and there was a handful or so. Then we walk down to airline #1 and from a far BJ sees a box that says blood. I thought he was joking but when we got closer sure enough there was a box of human blood. It was about 1 and a half feet per side, it was white with red tape all around. So we stood there and stared at it for forever. I of course, asked 1000 questions about the box. Where did it come from? Where was it going? Why was it in lost luggage? Shouldn't it be refrigerated? How long was it on the plane? What would happen if that box got squished? Oh the questions just wouldn't stop coming. Finally BJ got annoyed with the questions and made me walk down to finish the survey for airline #3 and airline #4. Final survey results... Airline #3 was the worst with the lost/unclaimed luggage. On our way back my cousin sees the blood box being wheeled away on a luggage cart with some random guy. I wanted to follow him but they wouldn't let me. BOOO!

What I learned from our trip to the airport...

1. do not travel airline #3 and if you do, pack lots of extra underwear in case your bag goes on a different vacation than you.

2. Blood can travel by plane without a human or an escort.

3. My brain works the same way as my cousins brain so all my crazy thoughts run in the family, I'm just and the only one that can't keep them quiet.