Hoping beyond hope

We watched the convention in its entirety last week, and I sat in wonder at the sheer historical implications of what was happening. Hillary Clinton making her speech on the 88th anniversary of women's suffrage, Barack Obama accepting the Democratic party nomination for president on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It was an amazing week.

And now I hope beyond hope.

So much to do...so little time

Bryan drove me up to my classroom this afternoon. I'm still green and my muscles are noodle-like, but I had to go, I couldn't imagine being away another moment, as school starts on Tuesday and I have yet to get my classroom ready.

So we went, and I saw, and I had a mild heart attack. There is so much to do, and well frankly, a very small window of time to do it in.

I am thankful for a wonderful team of teachers who surrounded me and offered their help this weekend, they gave me ideas and all the crucial information I missed this week whilst I was getting re-hydrated.

Then my boss saw that I was there and after thanking me for stopping by, he promptly kicked me out of the building with strict instructions to go back to bed. I guess I was looking pretty green.


So tomorrow at 10am, my co-teachers and I are meeting, with Bryan, (who has tomorrow off,) and we are putting the room together. We are also putting together a plan for what I will do on Tuesday. I will most likely be sitting there holding my head in my hands, but I will be there, and we will get it done.

I can't stand the cuteness

My niece Oceanna is three months old.

Go ahead, try to resist the cheeks.

A new level of stupid

I just got home from the urgent care. Again.

When I arrived, my blood pressure was 84/42. Nice. I was so dehydrated after spending yet another day having my body reject everything I tried to ingest.

They gave me another 2 liters of fluids, another two doses of anti-nausea meds and an injection of pain meds for the stabbing abdominal pain, which they felt was caused by the bad viral infection in my colon.

After being there for several hours, still nauseous, but no longer puking, they sent me home to rest, hoping things would soon clear up, while we wait for further test results.

Of course, the pain meds? Yeah, first side effect is constipation. Second one is abdominal pain. Third? Nausea.

So now I'm home, doubled over, nauseous, and I have the added bonus that because of the first side effect of the pain med., combined with my sickness, I'm having a really nice time.

Oh, and just in case you were curious, I'm NOT pregnant. They checked.

This is getting ridiculous

I tried eating today...a plain egg. Then an hour later, some rice pretzels. Big mistake.

We're back to square one.

I need to go to work, I laying here in bed, nebulizer sticking out of my mouth, bucket next to me, waiting until I have to hobble back in to the bathroom for round two. (More like round 50, actually)

All I can think about, when I'm not rushing to the bathroom, is how I need to be getting my classroom together, how I need to be planning for next week with my co-teacher. This is absolutely the last thing I need to be doing right now, and it is causing even more stress for me to be laying here sick in bed.

If you are keeping track, in the last eight weeks, I have broken my foot, been sick with pneumonia, and am now sick with a secondary infection allegedly caused by the antibiotics treating the pneumonia.

You could say I'm just a bit frustrated.

The health gods are angry with me

I just got back from spending yet another glorious morning in the local Urgent Care facility. Today I had the pleasure of being hooked to IVs for a few hours as I can't hold anything down (or in for that matter) and have been unable to do so since last evening around 9:00pm.

The good doctor took me off the steroids and the antibiotic I was on for the pneumonia, determining that I have a high white blood cell count and a bad viral infection in my gastrointestinal system. Apparently the antibiotic I was on is well-known for making people have this problem, and the steroids weaken your immune system limiting your ability to fight off said infection.

Good times.

I am now going to have to miss the first day (at least) of a three-day staff meeting/orientation at my new school, (always a nice way to start off the year, and a great impression to make on others.)

Bryan leaves to fly to LA for the week in less than an hour, so I will be a single parent once again, baby in one arm, bucket in the other. Since he stayed and worked from home last week, he can't afford to stay this week. In case you're counting, this is the third week in a row that they have demanded he fly to LA. Third unscheduled week. Yeah. And what do they do there? Why they call all their clients up here. Don't get me started, it's just so absolutely ridiculous.

Lucky for me, I have daycare during the day, which I am paying for so that I can go to work. Apparently this week, I'm paying for it so I can be sick and not puke on my kid for at least a few hours of the day. Thank goodness for kind-hearted neighbors who have offered to be her ride to and from so I don't have to try to drive her this afternoon and tomorrow while I'm still retching in the bathroom.

Steroids and Barbarians

I had to go back to Urgent Care yesterday after being unable to catch a full breath. So now on top of the antibiotics, I'm also on a mega dose of steroids and have a nebulizer I have to use four times a day...Bryan calls it "smoking the peace pipe." I think it looks like something a little more illicit than a "peace" pipe.

I'm propped up in bed, per the physician's orders, (plastic pipe in my mouth) and am shaking, pretty much all the time. That's fun.

I'm currently on hour three of a day-long History Channel marathon on the Barbarians, you know, the Huns, the Goths, etc. You could say I'm brushing up on the curriculum for the upcoming school year.

They just discussed a torture technique involving somehow pulling the lungs of a prisoner outside his ribs...nice. I think this is a good time to switch over to "Tori and Dean"...to counter-act all the "learning."

Never a dull moment

No sleep was found in the Scott house last night; Evie was sick. Around 3:30 in the morning, I heard her cry and Bryan (who has been sleeping in the guest room to avoid my coughing) frantic. Evie had puked all over herself, all over the bed, all over her wolfie, her blankie, everywhere.

I hobbled into the bathroom, where he had her perched on the edge bathroom sink, the fuzzy feet of her jammies dangling in the basin. Poor thing was covered in the nasty, crying. I sat on the toilet lid and held her over the sink, rubbing her back, while Bryan ripped the bed apart. Luckily, we had another mattress pad and sheet at the ready below the first, so we didn't have to re-make the bed (thank you Holly W. for your genius!)

We stripped her down, cleaned her up, held her until she acted sleepy again, and determined the crisis was over, she was laying with her head on Bryan's shoulder, nearly asleep. He put her back in her bed and we both made our way to our's.

We had no sooner made it to the doorway when we heard her going again; round two. We rushed back in to find the same mess. Evie was crying, looking at us for an help. We cleaned her up again, cleaned up the bed again, and then took her to bed with us, with a pile of towels and a bucket.

For the remainder of the evening, we stayed on our sides on the mattress, she in the middle on a towel; every time she'd get sick, we'd simply roll her to her side and try to aim her for the bucket. I can't tell how much fun it is to try to help a baby throw up, who doesn't understand and tries to fight the whole time. That's great fun.

It was a grand evening.

This morning, I still had to go to my new teacher orientation at 8am, and of course, I'm still coughing and generally feel like caca from the pneumonia.

I only went to half of the orientation, once they released us to go back to our classrooms to meet with our mentors, I ducked out (with permission) for the rest of the day. I'm now home, trying to rest before our little sickling wakes up from her nap.

Blue Eyes

My niece is already two months old, I cannot believe it.
She is certainly taking after her brother; both such good looking kids!

A question about school supplies

There has been much talk in the news about the recession and how retailers are worried that they will suffer this year in the back to school shopping season.

On ABC news.com, the top story is "back to school on a budget" where parents are lamenting not being able to buy fancy pencils, having to instead resort to plain #2 pencils, for example.

So my question is this, why do we need new school supplies every year? You see, I grew up "poor" by most standards; on the other side of the tracks, quite literally. Mom had to stretch every penny, and thus we didn't have a lot of extras. My lunches for example, never had pudding "snack packs" or prepackaged food items with a logo. Usually, I had a sandwich and a piece of fruit, maybe some generic crackers (in a sandwich bag,) and if I was lucky, some homemade cookies. I never had a juice box or a soda, it was always the $.25 cent milk for me. I didn't have brown paper bags either, I used the same washable cloth lunch bag every day for years until it got too funky, and a new one was required.

When it came time for school supplies, my mom would take an inventory of the stuff we already had and compare it to the school lists. My siblings and I would bring all our school supplies to the kitchen table and mom would lay every thing out. Then, using our list, she would go through what we already had, and check the things we needed. We RARELY bought new items, because we still had things that worked perfectly well from the year previous. Things like scissors (I think I still have my scissors I used in school,) glue, markers etc. Crayons last forever, so we rarely got a new box, and if we did, it was never the box of 64, it was the $.25 cent box of 24 crayons in the clearance bin.

As for pencils, we usually needed new ones, but we always just got plain old #2 pencils, I never dreamed of ones with a cartoon character or an animal on them. Mom just bought a big bulk box and divided them up between the three of us.

I had the same purple canvas Jansport backpack all the way through elementary school, when finally it tore and I got a new, navy blue Jansport. We all had one, a different color for each kid, and we each used the same backpack every year until it finally tore or the zipper broke and we would have to get a new one.

I'm not saying we were better or worse off, but when parents are lamenting not being able to buy their little darlings a new backpack every year, and new sparkly pencils, especially in a time when we as a people are wasting so much and are trying to save so much money, it seems to me a bit ridiculous.


As a teacher and a parent myself, I feel the allure of the new, cute and fun items. But then I remember the size of my house (and the little amount of room I have for even more junk,) the size of my bank account and the need to be wise, not wasteful.

Can we not teach our children to be more wise with our goods and money? If you have perfectly good scissors and a perfectly good backpack, you don't need a new one, just because the school year is new.
If the kids REALLY want a fancy new backpack, maybe they have to earn some money and buy it themselves, or perhaps that's what they get for their birthday or Christmas?

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but that seems like one very simple way to cut down on wasteful spending and the over consumption in this country.