Adventures in Spring cleaning

It's that time of year again. Spring is in the air, birds are chirping, the sun is shining, the wind is breezing, and the winter dust is floating in the house. Time to spring clean!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have this small obsession with Pinterest, and way to much time to feed it.  I knew the day would come when I would need some spring cleaning check lists and lucky me , I had several to choose from thanks to pinterest.
I'm not usually a checklist type of gal, but what harm could it do to have a couple at my disposal?

Checklist in hand, I proceeded to lay out my cleaning schedule to the children with as much enthusiasm as I could muster at the thought of cleaning the entire house from top to bottom. By the time I was done, the kids all had a glazed look in their eyes, you know the one that says, you've ruined my life, I can't believe you're going to make me do this, do I have to?  I could tell right away I would have to drag them and myself kicking and screaming through the process.
At any rate, it's not like they had a choice or anything, so I picked a day and come heck or high water, we were gonna start, and we did. I have learned over the years, when I do clean, to start at the top and work your way to the bottom, so cobwebs, curtains and ceiling fans were the chosen projects for day one. Have you ever thought how amazing it is how busy children can become when faced with certain death as far as they are concerned? I mean, most the time they are bored with nothing to do, you give them something to do and suddenly they are to busy. What's up with that?
I was not going to let them get away with this sudden, Ohhh I have things to do syndrome so I rounded them all up , gave them their own task and a nice little pep talk to go along with it. Everything got done except one window and our spring cleaning week was off and running.
I checked my list, marked off everything that was done, and decided what to do next, which for day two was going to be dusting. I decided to pull everything out of the livingroom and then  dust the furniture and put everything back as we dusted it. I would like to mention here that I don't particularly enjoy dusting, but it had to be done. What was I thinking? !?!?! This was taking way more time than it was supposed to, and by 3 in the afternoon the bookcase still wasn't done, my feet were hurting, my back was aching, and my head was pounding, and I was ready to fling myself at the couch and take a nap.
I decided we were done for the day, as I wanted to make sure I was helping and I was no longer capable of doing that so I decided what we were going to do the next day and let them go about their merry way.
Wednesday dawned bright and early and Spring cleaning came to a screeching halt. Alyssa went somewhere, Joshua became suddenly invisible and Winter disappeared as soon as I said time to wash walls. I was to tired from dusting day to argue about it or do it by myself, so I thought well one day won't be so bad if we skip it, no biggy. Yeah right! I've noticed, when faced with something you don't really want to do, one day off turns into it never gets done, ever, which is the case here. Thursday was also a flop, with other things getting done instead.
I'm finding that the older I get multi tasking is going right out the window, there is no turning back, I can only plod along and get done what I get done., and that's okay. I'm not sure if we will be able to start back up again, we shall see, we still have a lot to accomplish,  in the mean time I think maybe I'll just enjoy the Spring birdies and weather and not worry about it., at least until Monday anyways.

The Dodgy Drug Deal

So about 3 weeks ago I went on an overnight "camping" trip in the mountains, in the snow and cold, and came down with a horrendous sinus infection. Needless to say, I have been totally miserable since then and am only now starting to feel like a human. This is how it all started...
Once upon a time in the mountains..okay Im going to stop that paragraph right there because this was no fairytale trip. Because of transportation issues, I ended up hiking, yes hiking, (those who know me well will attest to the fact that I do NOT hike..EVER) about 2 miles, complete with a backpack, into the woods, for a little overnight thingy with about 10 or so other people. Fortunately it wasn't very cold for the hike and after 2 and a half hours I finally crawled, yes crawled into the "camp" and I use that term loosely, as I all I was seeing were piles of stuff and no place to prop my tired rear end.  I was not going to be a happy camper, and I made sure my husband was aware of that fact right away as I stumbled to a pile of stuff to sit and rest my aching legs.
Everyone was running around setting up tents and building fires and cutting trees and I was like give me a chair, I'm sitting down and I'm not moving ever again. After my initial outburst at my husband he was busy trying to get me into some sort of shelter so that he would be back in my good graces. A little side note here, thank you John for the wonderful heated tent, without it Im sure I would have passed to eternity being a freezing cold popsicle.
Moving on, I moved into my heated tent and proceeded to freeze from the knees down, because everyone knows that heat rises, and there seems to be a small draft from the tent opening. All in all it wasn't that bad, as Im sure I was much warmer than the rest of our group. Being the medic in the medical tent definitely has its benefits. I was constantly trying to get people to come in as I sure was not going outside if I could help it. I did manage to go outside and occasionally visit or grab some coffee. Let me just mention here that the prospect of going potty in the woods in the cold was not very appealing, enough said.
I actually had fun while my toes froze, and it totally enlightened me and everyone else to the fact that we are not prepared for an extended stay in cold weather, something that needs to be remedied, with heavy wool clothing and waterproof fleece lined boots, and a camp trailer, or maybe an RV hooked up to power in a trailer park, or maybe even a yurt or better yet a hotel room.
Anyways I arrived home the next day wet, cold, tired and generally disgusted with the idea of camping in the winter ever again in anything short of a heated solid building. I think it took a full day to thaw out as I truly believed I would never feel my feet again and that they might just fall off. I wasn't feeling sick at this point just the aforementioned issues. Come Sunday, the day after we came home, I was toast. I could not breath I could not hear, my head felt like it was gonna pop off my body. I layed on the couch in utter dejected misery. I did not leave the house for 5 days. On the fifth day I gave up and went to the doctors office.
I have to say right now that I don't really like doctors. Oh most of them are nice people, but I have some left over issues from my mother and an innate mistrust of doctors in general. As my husband will tell you,  I must have really thought I was dying to actually go see a doctor. Im pretty sure he was in shock when I asked to go. My physician came in looked in my ears, looked up my nose and said, yes you have a sinus infection, and Im pretty sure I already knew this little morsel of information, but sometimes it helps to have someone else confirm your suspicions. At least he didn't tell me I was dieing because at that point I was pretty sure I was.
I went home with my antibiotics and my steroids and proceeded to pass out on the couch for several days, ignoring all comments from my family about dinner and anything that they  happened to want or need. I was going to be miserable and that was that. It would be another week and a couple days before I would leave the house again. The antibiotics did not help, the steroids did not help, nothing helped. I layed on the couch and did nothing but sleep because I wasn't capable of much more than that.
I did end up going back to the doctor but it was a different doctor. This one looks up my nose, in my ears and decides I have a viral sinus infection and the antibiotics I took were basically useless and I'm not gonna die but if I would just squirt salt water up my nose, and snort some Afrin, I will probably be fine. When you're pretty sure you're dying, you don't want to hear the doctor say I don't have anything to give you.
My husband took me me to the store, we bought salt water nose stuff and afrin and went home. I have to tell you I was not looking forward to putting anything like water up my nose. I was pretty sure it wouldn't work anyways, and didn't want to torture myself by trying to drown slowly through my sinus cavities. I put it off for 3 days before I finally bit the bullet so to speak and did the water torture. At this point the pressure in my head was so bad I had been taking Sudafed for it, but since it was not working and pretty much because I was out of drugs, were the only reasons I went back to see the white coats anyway.
I decided to start with the afrin, I mean they said it would help so yeah. Lets just put it this way, I will never ever spray Afrin in my nose again.. Holy cow what a nightmare headache! I just can not understand people actually purposely torturing themselves like that. It was horrible. I needed to wash it out, so I proceeded to use the salt water wash nose stuff. Not as bad I have to say but the damage was already done. The afrin destroyed what little faith I had in doctors. I will never ever listen to another doctor that tells me to use something so awful that it should be banned on a global scale.
Now I know after this story you're wondering, why did she name it the dodgy drug deal, well let me tell you, after my experience with the nasal spray from hell, I messaged a friend of mine and this is how the conversation went:

Me: 
So Tracy you wouldn't happen to have anymore Sinutab? or maybe going to town soon? I was asleep most the day yesterday and half the day today..the pressure in my head keeps me dizzy and drowsy.. The doctor said I have a viral sinus infection that's causing fluid to build up in my sinus cavities and behind my eardrums so makes it so I cant hear very much and the woozy stuff. Hope your week is going better than mine:)
Tracy:
I have non drowsy Sudafed. The real stuff, not the cheap stuff. Do you need some?
Me:
Yes  I have only one left from the box you gave me last week, I know you get it costco but I dont have a card and I dont want to keep pilfering everything you have..I think I need some drowsy stuff also, cuz all I do is toss and turn at night and the stores seem to be all out of anything cheap.
Tracy:
Eric is going to be in town tomorrow...watcha want?
Me:
Hes Going to Costco? One of those Sudafed Packs and some type of nyquil liquid with a nasal decongestant, oh oh and a box of peppermint altoids! and and and...jk
oh man yesterday i had this headache, Im pretty sure it was from Afrin Nasal spray..made me sick dizzy and was taking tylenol and ibuprofen nothing worked,im never using that stuff again
Tracy:
That stuff is nasty! Ugh I think that he is planning on going to Costco. I will add you to the list!
Me:
I know and its what the doctor told me to take...after that I was like that aint happening again...

So anyways my daughter, who just happened to see the conversation, made the comment that it sounded like some dodgy drug deal going down, and after reading back over it I realized, oh man, good thing the NSA isn't watching this or I would have all kinds of law enforcement people showing up at my house all because of a sinus infection gone bad.
Im glad to say that after a few days of sticking my head over a pot of steaming hot water, I'm feeling much better with only a touch of sinus congestion which I'm managing with the "drugs" from my dodgy drug deal with Tracy my favorite friendly neighborhood mommy:) Thanks Tracy, and thanks to be to Jesus for prayers answered, as I'm fairly certain my husband has been begging God for my immediate recovery.

Help, Im stuck on Pinterest and I cant get off !!!

Last year I discovered Pinterest, the awesome website with oogles of inspiration for everyone. I have been stuck, for hours, looking at and frantically pinning all types of neat ideas, crafty inspiration, food recipes and just general, "stuff". As a result of my little obsession, I have amassed a huge amount of pins with a wide range of nifty little ideas. This Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to put some of those many hours of pinning to work for me in the form of table decorations.

This all started out rather quietly, while I was scouring the Pinterest Boards, when I ran across a beaded curtain. If you know me at all, you know I like beads, beading, or anything to do with beads. I suddenly remembered a beaded curtain my mother-n-law had been given and decided now was the time to try and pilfer it away from her. After all it was just sitting on a box on a shelf when it could be gracing my window right? Having acquired the above mentioned beaded curtain, it was promptly relegated to my living room table, in the box, while I thought about where to put it. Enter the Primer Family. The last couple years we have been cone picking for the state and have spent hours in the woods searching for the elusive cones from felled trees. This year one of the Primer boys brought me two dried twisted root branches. I took them home and sat them next to my boxes of beaded curtains not making a connection till a bit later. On this particular day I was also given a glass bottle that was found in those very same woods. I did not realize I had hit the jackpot until I walked into my kids bathroom and looked at the window. As I stood looking at their window it dawned on me, that I could use the root branches as a curtain hanger and hence the beaded bathroom curtain, window decoration came into being.

 This was the beginning of my Pinterest madness. As anyone who goes on Pinterest can attest, once you start its almost impossible to stop. With all the creative things people pin, you could go from one project to another and never do all of them., but I was sure gonna try. With that being said, I proceeded to plan out for thanksgiving table decorations.  I had bought some of those old cotton grain sacks and decided, with a little help from Pinterest, to make place mats and a table runner. I was able to get 4 mats out of each sack so I made twelve. You would think it would stop there, but no, as I'm cruising through of all things, Pinterest, I noticed a tutorial for making no sew cloth napkins so of course I had to make some of those. Thankfully I had enough material from a huge stash that a friend had given me when they went though and discarded some material they were not using.  Of course no table would be complete without some sort of centerpiece so, having received inspiration from , wait for it, Pinterest yet again.  I found a huge branch and proceeded to spray paint it gold, thanks to a friend of mine who just happened to have some gold spray paint left over from one of her projects. After much thought I decided that there just wasn't enough color so I convinced my husband that he just had to buy me some more gold and copper spray paint so I could paint some cones for the table. I have to admit, I was bordering on obsession with all this crafting and decorating stuff. Any way, after hours of prep and days of sudden craft making spurts, the final product was not to shabby.

Thanksgiving was a hit, I only spent about 14$ on decoration type things and we had a good time. I'm thankful for being able to have family and friends over for dinner, I'm thankful for Gods provision in mine and my families lives and I'm thankful there are so many people out there posting awesome creative ideas on Pinterest. God has given so many people talents to be used for his glory, so as I go through the rest of the year and into the next, I will be watching and waiting for the next God given creative idea.

Happy Thanksgiving!