Mmmmmm!

Pot roast is in the slow cooker, all the roasted tubers and veggies are prepped and spiced up in the fridge waiting to go into the oven. We roast extra veggies in the oven cause the slow cooker holds more meat than veggies and there's always a fight over the potatoes.

I'm still working on the mountain of laundry but things are looking up. I've got a load of dishes in to wash, four loads of laundry done and two more working in the washer and dryer.

Still working on the living room but its picked up and the couches have been vacuumed and sprayed down for uber freshness. All that's left is vacuuming the rug and running the swiffer over the floor. Dusting the shelves lightly. I can clean the kitchen up after the kids get home, get them started on the homework portion of the day, toss in some snacks to keep them quiet and put in a movie after that's done to keep them entertained. Then its floors in the kitchen, and hitting the counter tops.

I may make the brownies ahead of time and put them aside so when its closer to dinner I can do the veggies and bread without having to do the brownies last minute. Yep...I think I got a handle on this!

A new respect for the old cliche "Nit picking"

We've had a rough week! First Catherine goes to the emergency room, then everyone is struck with a stomach virus and to top it all off on Sunday we discovered (to my great dread) that Isabel had a case of head lice.

My first response was "OMG what? Not my kid!" but there they were. I immediately got online and started researching what to do, how they got there, who to hunt down! Out of all five of my kids and all the years of raising them I have never had to deal with lice. This is our first case.

I looked through the articles online and read that most moms say the over the counter stuff doesn't work, (Great, now what?) so I dug deeper and began researching home remedies. I thought what the heck, before I rush out and spend a ton of money on things that might or might not work lets see what I've got in the pantry that might fix the issue.

There were a lot of posts that said to try Mayonaise and white vinagar. I knew from growing up in the 80's that mayo was good for your hair so I figured we would give it a go.

We slathered her head in mayonaise (Real mind you, not miracle whip. Only the best!)and put a plastic bag on her head for three hours. We heated it gently with the hair dryer (evidently they don't like heat) and crossed our fingers!



This is Busy (Isabel) with the bag on her head, oddly in a great mood for a kid distraught about the "bugs" in her hair. We call her Busybell, cause when she was a toddler she was into EVERYTHING. It's stuck and been shortened to Busy over the years. She is a very girly girl and not ten minutes before the pic was taken she was near hysterical about the whole thing.

So...we let that sit for three hours then into the shower we went. I rinsed and shampoo'd her head with the tea tree shampoo to get the mayo out then rinsed with the vinagar. Liberally. On to the combing with the nit comb. (go to the pet section and get the metal flea comb, the cheapo plastic combs that come in the kits break too easily) Two and a half hours of combing and picking the nits and we shampoo'd and conditioned with the tea tree shampoo and conditioner. I checked and double checked and triple checked her, then the others who were louse and nit free. Then I shampoo'd them with the tea tree stuff just to be on the safe side.

We vaccumed the mattresses on ALL the beds, stripped all the linens and washed them with hot water and laundry soap, adding liquid lysol to the wash cycles for good measure. Vaccumed the floors and furniture and sprayed them all down with disinfectant spray and I am currently washing all the bed linens, clothes, jackets, hats mittens...basically everything we own is getting the hot water and lysol treatment.

I took them into school this morning and had the nurse check us ALL over. Her amazed response was "Are you SURE she had lice yesterday?" I did such a good job of decontaminating us all she thought I might have made a mistake. LOL

Listen sister, I don't mess around! I am determined this will be our one and ONLY brush with this issue, evah! Still I guess one out of five kids is not too bad. It was bound to happen with them all in public schools. I am assured by all the MD websites that this is not a hygine issue but one that is all too common in public school systems.

I warned Busy's teacher and the nurse they should check the classroom and now all is right in the world, though....I admit my nerves are still jumping with phantom itchies, though I have been assured I did an excellent job and have nothing to worry about by the nursing staff at the elementary.

The upside to all this?



Busy is none the worse for the wear, mayonaise is an excellent deep conditioner and white vinagar rinse leaves your hair extra shiney!

My girly girl was thrilled!

Tuesday

This was my view of my daughter most of the day on Tuesday. We spent the better half of Tuesday and that evening in the emergency room at Texas Children's Hospital. She had a seizure at school that lasted longer than we all felt was safe so we took a little ambulance ride and spent the day with the good folks at TCH.

The seizures are not dangerous they tell me, just scary for her and for those of us with her when they happen. Luckily we discovered she had them last year and now the school and I know what to look for when they are about to happen.

Catherine knows what they feel like coming on and can try to warn her teachers. She did a great job of it on Tuesday, letting them know she felt sick and that she needed to get to the nurses office.
The school nurse was great with her and they called me immediately. I am so glad we live so close and I was able to be there very quickly.



She was fine and slept most of the time we were in the hospital, waking up long enough to have some chicken nuggets and fries and then returning to sleep.

We got home around 9pm and she watched a little television and sat between Niky and Isabel who were hesitant to let her leave the room without them. They are very protective and hated having to stay with their father while we were at the hospital. Much happier when we got home where they could take care of her themselves.

She is fine now and we have an appointment to see the neurologists next week to try to find out what causes the seizures. For now she is glad the weekend is almost here. Lots of things to do and see and we are headed out to the country to see her Uncles and Aunt Cam.



Today she is all smiles even though I made her get up early.

I much prefer this view to the first one, don't you?

Extended family

We got sad news the other day. Our dog Bocci, who had retired to the country with my parents passed away quietly in her sleep. She was almost 12 years old and dearly loved by all of us. It's been a quiet week among the family. Even the cats seemed to notice. We are not alone though we do have our kitten heads below.




The caramel and brown torte is the elusive Bailey, named so because my husband said she looked like the Irish creme he likes to put in his coffee. She is rather anti-social, but since we got word of Bocci's death shes been oddly affectionate. Well..for her. She allows us to stroke her back or tail as she goes by, or might even approach once in awhile before dissapearing to one of her favorite hiding spots. Shes bigger than our marmalade kitty Ottis.




He is mischief on wheels that one, sitting beside me on the desk now to make sure I spell his name correctly and do not misquote him.


So though we are sad we are not without love. An aloof, feline love. A "when I want something, or need something or hey....are you sad?" kind of love but I suppose we will take what we can get and like it, right?

Vote!

I don't care who you vote for today. I am not one to try to sway anybody to my way of thinking, but I do urge you all to get out and vote for SOMEONE! A lot of generations have given up lives and loves, fathers, sons, brothers and sisters. Mothers...children so that you have the right to stand in the little booth and cast your vote and give your opinion.

Just not voting is like saying to them that their sacrifices were not worthy of your time or consideration.




And do you really want to let someone else decide their future?

It took maybe 20 minutes of my time.

Vote, please.