The infirmary

Here are my two sick boys each camped out on separate couches. "K" is on the mend and "A" has been sleeping off & on today with his fever.

The Bug

It seems as if my lucky streak has ended. The flu bug seems to have found me. "K" came home feeling really bad Tuesday night and went straight to bed. Early Wednesday morning I was awakened to the grizzly bear sounds of him puking in the boys bathroom down the hall. He decided to toss his cookies twice more before I left for work. I came home prepared to Lysol the entire house. While out I had stopped at Wal-mart and had stocked up on rubber disposable gloves, Lysol, Clorox, ginger ale and a chocolate bar(for me of course). The poor kid was still feeling like death warmed over and of course waited for me to return to puke again. Do I have that affect on people? Anyways, he didn't eat anything and just sipped on sweet tea the rest of the day. He was convinced that the ginger ale had made him puke. Yesterday he was no better so off he went to the walk-in clinic. There they loaded him up on fluids via an IV. He also had a wicked cough and a chest x-ray ruled out pneumonia. 1 IV bag later we were sent packing with an antibiotic for his bronchitis and phenergan for his vomiting. While I thought we were out of the woods, "A" woke up in the middle of the night crying of being hot. Yep, he had a temp. As I write this he is sacked out on the living room couch in his "nest". When any of my kids are sick I always build them a nest with extra blankets, pillows, tissues, a drink with straw, vinyl tablecloth(protect the rug from puke) and a vomit bucket. "A" has not yet puked but if he follows suit after his older brother then that symptom should be showing up by tonight. I can only keep my fingers crossed and hand sanitizer on hand and pray that I too do not fall victim to the stomach flu.

Here's a pic of me and my bestest girlfrined who is stationed in New Jersey. I was dreadfully sick on Thursday night and into Friday with an inner ear infection that gave me vertigo(the spins). I was all better with loads of meds in no time and ventured North. While there I enjoyed yummy homemade bread straight from the bread maker. While visiting I registered for an annual Women's Retreat in PA this coming May. I'm totally excited and looking forward for some great fellowship.

On a side note: Those of you who know me and see me on a daily basis will notice that I'm wearing a new cardigan. I picked up this pretty number after I sprayed gasoline onto my other sweater trying to top-off my gas tank. Thankfully there was a Wal-Mart across the street. I quickly found a new sweater and proceeded to the check out. While attempting to strip off the one I was wearing the customer in front of me commented to the checkout gal that she smelled gas. "That would be me" I quickly piped in. I made my purchase and was back on the road. When I reached my final destination I sweetly told her that if she wondered what my new fragrance was.... well it's "Ode de Exxon" of course.

Small town

To quote the infamous John Cougar Mellancamp "I was born in a small town, I live in a small town", and if you lived in my small town you may very well have have received a ticket from the local police in this small town(I have been lucky so far...of course hubby says I drive like a snail).
This new addition to my small town cracks me up each time I drive by it. This sign sits along a well traveled highway and is seen by thousands a day. The owner of this sign even went to the trouble to illuminate it at night. You see I believe that my small town's budget depends on the number of traffic citations written each year. In fact aside from a little property tax income I bet speeding citations is their main source of revenue. I have sat at T-ball games that are no more than 1 1/2 hours-2 hours in length and have counted 16 cars cited with speeding violations. These local police are ruthless. However I do believe they have been outsmarted. See this sign is just North of the speed trap and gives drivers enough time to slow down to the posted 45 mph. Since the sign has gone up I haven't seen one violation being written in my drive back and forth through the speed trap zone. To add insult to injury the owner of the sign is supposedly in law enforcement as well. I can't say for sure if he has received a ticket himself but apparently felt it necessary to warn others of the trap.

Hammer time

Some things just hit me and I can't stop giggling. Well the case of the giggles hit me tonight and it hit me hard. In fact I almost wet my pants I was laughing so hard. The bad part is that I was sitting in the waiting area of the local hair salon waiting on "K" to get his hair cut. Let me explain:
The ladies and I went for lunch today at Saladworks at the mall to celebrate a friend's birthday. Here we all shared quite a few laughs and did some catching up. Girlfriend K was telling us that her husband had come home in exercise gear and was perturbed that "snappy"(another co-worker and good friend) was taking his picture. She went on to define the pants and others chimed in with descriptive words for said pants, ie.. balloon pants, MC hammer pants etc.. I had chimed in that I would like to get a copy of that pic and post it with a forward to his office e-mail (just jokingly) Well as I sit in the salon what song come on. Why "You can't touch this" by MCHammer of course. I just busted out laughing like there was no tomorrow. "K" turns around and stares me down. This just made me laugh more and add in a snicker snort. Thanks for the laughs gals.

Daddy saves the day

Let me set the scene for you: it's cold & rainy here so what better night than to have grilled cheese sandwiches and hot tomato soup for dinner (note the word hot). All is going swimmingly with dinner prep and due to the endless amounts of homework piling up on the kitchen table we opt to eat in the dining room. I bring in all the vittles and soup is ladled from the pot into bowls. Here's where things get dicey. Yes the soup was hot...however it had sat on a burner that was not hot for the better part of at least 5 minutes cooling down. Back to the story.... I hand "A" his bowl of soup at the same time he is reaching for it and somehow it pours down the front of him and onto my hand. I scream from the burning liquid eating at my flesh then yank him to his feet and pull the clothing away from his skin as quickly as possible. So I'm screaming, he's screaming and Dad runs in and sees us freaking out. He comes to our rescue and literally rips the kids shirt off. Thus saving the day. "A" had no burns and I only had slight burns to my hand. I always promise those dining with us dinner & a show. Tonight was no exception.

Catchin' up

OK! I've been a little busy and haven't quite kept up with uploading my photos or blogging as much. So here's a recap of the past few weeks goings-ons (that's hillbilly talk for what's been happening in my neck of the woods). It was that time of year again. Time for the annual "Feller's Cake Bake". Here scouts and a male partner of their choosing(in this case dad) come up with some sort of themed cake and allow the pack to auction it off to the highest bidder. "J' has been quite enamored with battleships since his overnight stay on the decommissioned USS. New Jersey. So here are a few pictures of their edible version. This was also our Blue & Gold banquet night and "J' walked away with the coveted Bear rank patch he has been working on diligently.

This was just a cute little snuggle "A" and I had while at the dinner. We also had a swim team banquet the following weekend and walked away with many ribbons and a trophy. However Mom ran out of the house that night and left the camera behind. So sorry no pictures from that event.

The boys went off to Grammy's this weekend and hubby and I were off for a weekend of fun. We jumped back into the car after our drop-off of the munchkins and headed to the church for a "Heart to Heart" dinner. On our way we ran upon this 18 wheeler. While I may not be the best proofreader I do believe I would have found this mistake right away.

Below is a picture of hubby and I after a lovely dinner and show at the church. We took pictures at the church but with it being dark and candlelight only..... well let's just say the pictures weren't that flattering so I opted for a few pictures that night at home afterwards. I must say that the blue shirt really brings out hubby's brilliant blue eyes. Valentine's Day was rather uneventful, we shopped and ate dinner at Pat's Pizzeria.*I love the grilled chicken salads there.* Sunday we went to the early contemporary service and headed out for lunch at McGlynn's. We were going to take in a movie last night but there really wasn't anything playing that I just really wanted to see. So we opted for a movie night at home. We watched "Fool's Gold" and ate popcorn, cracker jacks, cheese puffs, chocolates, soda(spiked) and enjoyed the movie. Now it's back to reality. As I write this hubby is meeting up with Grammy to retrieve the boys and I am off to my college classes this afternoon. I promise to keep up more! Are the Charlie Brown show tunes getting to you yet? I won't torture you too long. The show is planned for the middle of April. Yeah!

"Your a Good Man Charlie Brown" has been chosen as the theatre production for the high school play this year, and yes "K" tried out for a role. He of course wanted the coveted role of Charlie Brown but will now have to settle for the piano tinkling Schroeder. This was his second choice so I guess "beggars can't be choosers". So for the next few months I will have the show tunes drilled into my subconscious. I had finally gotten "Les Mis" tunes finally out and now this. Even the little guys seem to already know the songs. Although I must admit that last year's performance was really well done. They have set the bar pretty high, but I'm confident that they can pull this off. Cue the music boys!

Prayers for humor

This is what I was told today by a self-admitting hippie(along with power to the people). She respectfully asked that I not pray for her strength and patience, but rather humor instead. That she could look at each new road block in life and find the humor in it and anything around. I must admit that this particular woman is someone I've never spoken to before. However today I was a captive audience for the better part of 20+ minutes. She laughed, chatted and cried all within that time. I gave my co-workers hell about leaving me out there to hear her ramblings, but then drove home and realized that I may have been the only person to listen to her that day. What's 20 minutes.....

Bruce still has it!

Yes.....my daddy(Bruce Luther) still has it at 55 but so does Bruce Springsteen at the ripe old age of almost 60. In fact I must say that I believe that their show was one of the best half-time shows I've seen in years. Bruce & the E. Street Band still have what it takes to get the crowd pumped and produce a great show. Although I could have lived without the crotch shot when he slid a little too far across the stage, but you can't win them all. So as you may have noticed I was pumped enough to blog and change my music. I also wanna say that I love his song "Working on a Dream". Enjoy!