A Lotta Stuff Going On Around Here.

First, the result of Alexis's appointment with the pediatric ENT doc is that she's scheduled for tonsils, adenoids removal, and they'll insert tubes in her ears, on February 17th. The doc wanted to do it earlier than that but Jerri asked him if they could please avoid the surgery during her birthday week (she'll be 6 on Feb. 11th).

Our Beans had her surgery this morning. Jerri said she was yelling for her banana up until the time the drugs knocked her out, poor starving baby. The doc removed the cyst and sent it to pathology and they'd only been back at Trish's for a little while when the nurse called to say that the culture was already growing some nasty bacteria so she'll be taking some strong antibiotics for awhile. The starving child didn't stay hungry for long after they left the hospital; she finished off chicken nuggets, fries, and a drink, after the banana, and then talked her daddy into buying her some fresh blackberries and lemon juice on the way home.

Where most children go to the bathroom first after a night's sleep, our little Beans heads to the kitchen. So you can imagine how hard it was for her to understand that she would have to skip breakfast.

***

I've been up to my ears in tax returns for several days now. I've finished up ours and 3 for clients so far. I still have 2 for companies that I do the books for that have to be fine tuned before I can enter the figures, and another waiting for me to sort through and compile the information before I can get to it. There's also an annual budget to be prepared for the Improvement District laying here glaring at me.

Odie the parrot has been bitchy. He squawks for crackers all day long, and any time anyone is eating anything where he can see them, he thinks he wants a bite.

If he keeps up with the noise, I might be serving parrot on a stick.

James has been getting on my LAST nerve because he has been at home, in the house, driving me crazy, for TOO long.

Zach's Tae Kwon Do classes are back in session so I rush him through as much homework as he can get done on Tuesdays and Thursdays so I can get him there on time. Then after we get home I have to inspire him to get back to the homework, eat supper, get a bath, and get in bed.

He also had try-outs for PeeWee basketball last weekend. First practice is tomorrow, then there's a birthday party at Pizza hut for one of his friends in the afternoon, then another practice on Sunday afternoon.

I don't even think I'm gonna get time to take a nap around this place!

Good Grief I'm tired!

Been busier than a one-legged kick boxer but I promise to post something as soon as things ease up a bit.

Thinking about everyone!

Critters

We had one of those temperature tease days on Friday when it warmed up enough for the kids to go out and frolic and roam. I'm pretty sure that Beans had to hunt and search pretty hard to find this "hoppy". I'm also pretty sure this young bullfrog was thinking, "I wish this kid would leave me alone so I could snuggle back into my muddy bed."

He didn't even protest the rude awakening; just blinked every once in awhile.


We grow little country babies around these parts so frogs, grass snakes, and various other critters get to join in when it's play time. I'm sure they're rather not, but they can't protest, so there you go.


The snow geese that we saw in a field over in the next county when we were on our way home the other day. This was just a fraction of them; they were still flying in as we drove away.

"Looking Upward" Photo Challenge

Our Hostess, Miz Joan, chose "Looking Upward" for our photo challenge this time round. I didn't get out much this past week, I'm a WIMP when it's cold, but when we were coming home from Little Rock on Tuesday we passed a field full of snow geese when we neared home so I took a couple of shots as they were flying in to land.

When I saw the topic my first thought for challenge photos was BIRDS. I love birds and I take a lot of photos of the regulars that live and nest in the trees in my yard. Other than the snow geese, all of the rest of my photos were taken last April of my Bird Crew. The Mocking birds are so used to me that they let me get fairly close (except for their nests,,,then they try to flog me to death if I get too close).

Anyway, I won't rattle on, but I hope you like my bird buds.















Don't forget to check out the other challengers over at our Challenge Blog. Just click on each comment and it'll take you to each site so you can see all of the wonderful creations.

Don't Forget the Photo Challenge Tomorrow!

Miz Joan over at Joan's Journeys is our Hostess for this round and she chose "Looking Upward" for this challenge. Go on over to the challenge Blog that Miz Donna set up for us and follow the directions to leave a comment, post your pictures, and join in. We love company!

Grab that camera, shoot, and have fun!

Happy Birthday Trisha!

Did Jordan and Jaylen make you a cake? I hope your card arrives on time.

Here Comes Grandma! Lock up the Pepto-Bismol !

After I dropped Zach off at the college for his Tae Kwon Do class, I drove on down the road a ways to the grocery store to pick up a few things. As I wandered around, up one aisle and down another, I noticed a very tiny, very old, woman going all over the store followed by her disabled, adult, son.

She was darting everywhere; moving a hell of a lot faster than I was; so I never caught up with her to see if she needed help finding what it was she was looking for. I had been looking for 3 of my items and couldn't find a soul to help so I figured she was having the same sort of luck.

When I got up to the check out lane I noticed her standing over at a counter where they kept the OTC medicines and other things of that sort. She kept asking why there wasn't anyone there to wait on her, the checkers who were only a few feet away kept checking and completely ignoring the poor little lady.

Suddenly the checker, and the bagger, and another bagger who was gossiping with the first two, sort of gasped and said, "Ma'am, you can't go back behind the counter!" The son said, "My Momma needs some Pepto." The checker replied with, "Well, she can't go back there, she has to wait until someone comes to get it for her."

I told the checker, "Well, it's apparent to me that she's plenty old enough to get it herself and she's been waiting since before you started checking my groceries. It's not a controlled substance you know; in fact, I don't see anything back there that is a controlled substance. If you're going to make people have to ASK for Pepto, rubbing alcohol, and bandaids, then you should keep someone back there at all times, don't you think?"

The young lady and her two baggers (neither of which took my groceries out I might add), looked at me as though I'd lost my mind. So, as I handed the girl my check I said, "When I get that old, I'm not going to follow your danged rules either. I'm not going to wait around on my Pepto."

And people wonder why we get crankier as we age.

Beans Update

I went with Jerri to take Beans to see a doctor at Arkansas Children' s Hospital yesterday and I must say, that child acted like a little angel the whole day! She's the little mischief Queen but she held the urges in check and cooperated every step of the way. It made her Momma and Nanaw proud.

Resident and Surgeon prodded and poked on her for what seemed like forever but she never whined, only winked at her Momma whenever she was feeling nervous. After their exams it was decided that she has what appears to be a cyst. Since it is almost directly under the nipple of her left breast, and has grown larger over the last few weeks, and hasn't responded to treatment, they're going to remove it on January 30th. Alexis has an appointment with an ENT specialist on the 29th (she keeps tonsillitis and ear infections) so they'll go up then and stay overnight to be there early for Bean's procedure the next day. That part worked out well.

I think everything is going to be ok.

Grandpuppies

Jami's little dog (I've forgotten the breed but she's so ugly she's cute), Molly, had 7 little puppies right after Christmas. She stopped by today with Molly and her litter on her way to visit the Vet. These little fat critters are draining their momma and making her sick, so even though they're just over 3 weeks old, the Vet told Jami she's going to have to try to get them to eat some puppy food to give their Momma a break. She called just a bit ago to tell me the little beggars are learning real quick.

Isn't that a cute pile of puppies?

Weekend at a glance

Zach's birthday celebration was nice. James and Bubbie threw on the steaks while I finished up the twice baked potatoes and Caesar salad. I made the cake from a mix (I've been known to even mess that up; Martha Stewart I ain't) and it turned out great. Zach loves cherries so I topped his cake with cherries and drizzled chocolate over them. His mom and two of his sisters didn't come by for ice cream and cake because the youngest sister has tonsilitis with fever, but he had his friend Michael over, and Jessie from next door came. His sister MeriKate came with Alexis and Jillian.

After everyone was full of supper and ice cream and cake, we played Phase Ten. The babies were tired after that game so everyone went home except for Michael, who spent the night. I think the boys played Guitar Hero a LOT.

Today I stayed in bed until almost 9, did a load of laundry, threw a roast in the crockpot, and then worked all afternoon finishing up the reposting of the last company's information that was lost in the crash. Now I'm all ready for the tax season to begin, except that I'm still waiting for the state part of my tax program to be available.

Tomorrow is a holiday and I plan to sleep until I wake up on my own since Zach is out of school. I'm going to try to gather up some energy to get a few chores done and then maybe Zach and I will have time to play a game of phase 10 dice before time to cook supper.

On Tuesday I'm going with Jerri to Little Rock to take Beans for an appointment at the Arkansas Children's Hospital to check out the little lump in her "boom". James told us that he'll come home from work early enough so that he can be here when the school bus comes to discharge Alexis and Zach. Hopefully we'll be back in time for me to take Zach to Tae Kwon Do.

I'm in a little better frame of mind since the temps have risen above freezing during the daylight hours.

I don't think I'd be a very happy Eskimo.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Happy Birthday Zach!

Can you believe the Terrorist was 6 when I began this blogging adventure? He's 12 today!

Time sure does fly.

He got Guitar Hero for his playstation 2, wants steak for supper, and chocolate cake. Gotta get busy.

Happy Birthday Zach!

Makes Sense to Me!

Ever since I was a child, I've always had a fear
of someone being under my
bed at night so I went to a shrink and told him:
"I've got problems. Every
time I go to bed I think there's somebody under
it. I'm scared. I think
I'm going crazy."

"Just put yourself in my hands for one
year," said the shrink. "Come talk
to me three times a week and we should be able to get
rid of those fears."

"How much do you charge?"

"Eighty dollars per visit," replied the doctor.

"I'll sleep on it," I said.

Six months later the doctor saw me on the street.
"Why didn't you come to
see me about those fears you were having?" he asked.

"Well, eighty bucks a visit three times a week
for a year is an awful lot of money! A bartender
cured me for $10. I was so happy to
have saved all that money
that I went and bought me a new car!"

"Is that so!" with a bit of an attitude he
said. "And how, may I ask, did a
bartender cure you?"

"He told me to cut the legs off the bed!
Ain't nobody under there now!"

SCREW THOSE SHRINKS.. GO HAVE A DRINK AND TALK TO THE
BARTENDER!

Random Tag

Alexis, Jillian, and Abby (by Jerri)

This tag from Miz Joni at Morning Coffee required me to post the 4th picture in the 4th folder of my picture files.

But I can't do that cause of the puter crash and I have a newly started picture file that only has 2 folders in it. So, I decided just to post the 4th picture in My Picture file. It's a photo taken by Jerri of 3 of our babies.

I hope everyone is staying warm today! We're having a blast of arctic breezes and I'm not liking it even one little bit!

Quickie Sunrise

I caught a glimpse of the sunrise peeking through the trees this morning and picked up my camera to record the glowing beauty of it. It only lasted for a few short minutes before clouds rolled in and turned everything to a winter gray.

Since December 22nd I've been joyfully watching as the hours of daylight increase a little each day. Today will be 1 minute and 25 seconds longer than yesterday and I hope I don't waste a second of it.

Wanna See My Boo-Boo?

We went out to dinner with my son and his wife, Jerri, last night to celebrate my son's 29th birthday. During one of the times our very attentive waitress came by to check on us, she asked the Chick (aka Alexis) why she wasn't eating much so we told her that the poor babe had tonsillitis. The young lady was very sympathetic and Beans, not aiming to be left out of any sympathy being handed out, suddenly sat up straight in her chair and lifted her shirt to show off the little bump she has on her "boom".

We were laughing so hard after that it was hard to eat. This child has no modesty a'tall.

The Chick may be getting her tonsils taken out cause this is the second time in about 6 weeks that she's been ill because of them. They're also going to make an appointment for Beans at the childrens hospital in LR to remove the cyst or abscess (they're not sure which) that has come up behind the nipple of her little left "boom".

***

Jerri told us another Beans story earlier yesterday. They were up at the Prison where my son has to live when he's on duty and he came home from work with cuts and scratches and dried blood on his face and neck. Beans wanted to know where he got his boo-boos so my son told her the he'd been running a track with the search dogs and got into a fight with a SaskWatch.

Beans tells her pre-school class all about the encounter when she went to school the next day.
Her teachers couldn't wait for Jerri to arrive to pick her up from school so they could find out all the details, cause what our Beans told them was,

"Daddy took the dogs out on a sound track with the inmates and a squwsh-squwsh fought him and cut him."

I think our kids keep their teachers as entertained as they do us!

I'd Run Away but They'd Find Me!

Each weekday morning at around 6:45 during the school year, I hear my youngest daughter's car as she comes flying from a northerly direction on the gravel road that leads to my house. Seconds later I hear the slamming of car doors and then my morning head is bombarded with little girl noises.

These are mostly argumentative noises because one of them got the other one's jacket, or purse, or lip gloss, or for no rational reason at all, but quite often there are also crying or whining noises for most of the same reasons that I've already mentioned. These are the first noises that vibrate through my sleep muddled brain before they've even reached the porch.

The noises become much, much, louder as these three girls come slamming, tumbling, tripping, through the front door and the noise registers through my brain fog as being somewhat like the screeching sound of nails down a chalk board, or the irritating buzzing noise a fly makes in your ear when you're trying to take a nap, only multiplied by a thousand or so. The noise level increases a few more levels if one, or more, of them dares to make a remark to the Terrorist, who pretty much has the same bed head every morning as I do. They taunt, he retaliates, then the fight is on.

Some days I threaten, or beg, as I inspect them to see if they've each remembered to brush their hair, or brush their teeth, but sometimes I just can't deal with the noise or the inspections so I grab my cup of coffee, a cigarette, and hide away in my office, and try to close my ears to the sounds, the noises, until the school bus comes to pick up the noise makers.

Sometimes I want to change my identity from Momma, and Nanaw and escape to some far off place where no one knows me. Then I think, I wouldn't know who I was anymore, so I guess my identity, as it is now, is better than having none.

Pooped

I am tired. I sure hope I can go to sleep tonight. The best sleep I got last night was the hour or two before it was time to get up to get the Terrorist fed and ready for school this morning. I sure am glad tomorrow's Friday cause that means I can sleep until I wake up the next day.

I get so cranky when I'm this tired.

Photo Challenge, Anything New

Some pieces of the teeny, tiny, tea sets that I got for Christmas. I only recently started collected the little tea sets. I also collect hummingbirds. You'd think that I liked to dust; but I don't. :-)

Can't wait to see all the other NEW things for this Challenge. Thank you Laura Belle for being our hostess for this challenge!

Reminder!

Just a little reminder of the Photo Challenge tomorrow. LauraBell is our Hostess for this challenge and she chose "Anything New" as our challenge topic. If you'd like to join us just click over to our Photo Challenge Blog and follow the directions to comment.

Have Fun!

Could have been nasty

The weather bullet missed us but not before it put a glaze of ice on the trees and bushes. The photo above is of the cedar tree in my front yard. His limbs are heavy and drooping this morning, but I don't think any of them are broken so he'll fluff back out as soon as all the ice melts (hopefully today). James and the neighbor were talking about my "ugly" cedar tree and how if the ice did a lot of damage they would cut it down. I promised to take potshots of them with the BB gun if they even imagined they'd cut down my tree! I've been growing that tree for almost 17 years! That tree blocks the afternoon sun from reaching my front door in the summer, and provides a little bit of protection from the dust clouds every time a vehicle goes down the road. If they mess with my tree they'll be limping!



Here's how the plum tree looked about mid-afternoon yesterday. I didn't notice any broken limbs on it either so all is well for now. I hope we don't get any major ice storms this winter, I'd hate to lose any of our trees!

A Bath! Finally!

We've been having some cold days here and there, and on cold days my favorite thing to do is take a nice, hot, bubbly, bath. I've been taking showers for over a week now cause my back was paining me so, but this evening, I poured in the bath soak, filled the tub with hot water, gathered all my tools, and eased down into the tub.

Oh yeahhhh, it was mighty fine!


I was also able to do some much needed body grooming while I was enjoying my soak. I only have about 3 hairs that grow on each leg, but those had grown to a length suitable for braiding so I knew it was time to hack them off.

The work on my heels took a bit longer. I rubbed, and rubbed, with my little foot file thingy, and was beginning to think that I should have brought James's rechargeable drill into the tub with me. I bet that rotary tool bit would have made short work of those callouses.

Isn't a hot bubble bath the most wonderful luxury in the world?

Moseying

- to move in a leisurely or aimless manner : saunter

That's what I've been doing. I'm way behind on my chores but I really don't care cause my back is feeling better every day. I have a bulging disk that presses on a nerve sometimes, this causes me to unconsciously compensate for it, which leads to the muscle spasms.

All I did was bend over to get one load of laundry out of the dryer and put myself in a load of misery.

I have an ongoing prescription for cyclobenzaprine from the doctor (cause I do this a couple times a year; you'd think I'd learn!) so I've been taking one of those every 8 hours for the past week to try to get the muscle to settle down. I can't tolerate pain meds or strong muscle relaxers very well so it's a low dosage. I surely don't need anything that messes with my, already muddled, brain.

In other words, I don't need meds to make me do stupid stuff, I do enough of that drug free.

For instance; on Saturday after I'd visited for a little while with Trish, Jordan, and Jaylen, I stopped at the grocery to hobble in to pick up something for supper.
I'd forgotten about the shotgun laying in the back seat that my son had borrowed from his dad and had put in there 10 minutes prior, so the dude that carried out my groceries was a little nervous when he opened the door and saw that. I told him not to worry, it wasn't loaded, but then he noticed the tae kwon do sword laying in the floorboard and asked me if I thought I had enough protection.

I felt a little like Ma Baker as I drove home. All I was lacking was a machine gun and little cigar.

Grumpy Start to the New Year

My back is better today than yesterday so I hope one more night of muscle relaxers (and maybe one more day)and the heat pad, I'll be able to walk upright and not groan in agony with every step.