Time to update

I see it's been over a week since I updated so here's a recap of the past 8 days.

I worked Monday and Friday doing my two favorite jobs, library and kitchen! I always enjoy the quiet of the library and then who doesn't like food? Of course the day I worked in the kitchen was pizza day and I always buy a pizza if there are any leftover. Well there were 4 left and of course it was still during Passover week so I couldn't take one! I work again this Friday in the kitchen and I don't know what the menu is yet, but I'm sure I won't get lucky enough to have pizza served again!!

I sat one morning at the auto garage having some work done on my van and struck up an interesting conversation with a Ron Paul campaign organizer for this area. It was good to talk with someone who has a lot of insight and passion for this country and who sees how and why we are having some of the major problems we're having.

Thursday Ken and I took Ethan to Madison, WI to tour UW-Madison where he will be for the next 4-5 years. Of course we hope he will be done in four, but during one of the presentations it was mentioned that anymore, many of the majors take 5 years to complete and Engineering was one of the ones that were listed as being hard to do in under 5. We got to tour the Engineering and Physics buildings and Ethan is so excited! He is so looking forward to working in them. We got a long walking tour of the campus, and even though it started to rain we trudged onward. It's quite a campus and Ethan will be in great shape after a semester of walking those grounds daily! We still haven't heard from the financial aid office so I may have to call them soon.

Thursday night Mariah was in the school musical which was based on Aesop's fables, like The Tortoise and the Hare, and The Boy who Cried Wolf, etc....there were skits done in rhyme and then a song for each fable. It was really cute and she did a great job.

Ken took a week off from photographing food and did computer work and some repairs around here that were needed. The pump for the pool kept shutting down my microwave so he got that working and our riding mower needed trany work so he finished up that project which had been started last fall. This week he will be back in full swing again. He's off to Chicago right now picking up more products for this week's shoots. Our meals will be based around what he photographs on each given day! I've loved having the house back to normal and my kitchen relatively clean most of the time. I must say that some days my patience runs thin when it's been days and days of food, plates, lights, cameras, mess, etc.....in the kitchen and dining room. I'm sure hoping this will all work out in the end and be a business that will be able to support us.

I found a great spot to do Ethan's senior pictures so we will be doing those Wednesday. It's supposed to be sunny and these will be outdoor pics. Since Ken has some good photography equipment we decided there was no reason to spend $$'s having them done somewhere else and we will do them ourselves! I'll post some of his pictures when we have them finished.

The Week of Interrupted Sleep

So I've got this really bad case of poison ivy on my arms. My left arm is especially bad as I can't rotate or bend my wrist due to the scabbing and can just now bend my fingers since some of the swelling is going away. Several nurse friends have said that I should go in and get something to take the swelling down, but our insurance has such a high deductible that it would be all out of pocket expenses, so I've tried to just go the holistic approach to treatment. This has quite complicated my life this week as I was preparing for Passover and the week of Unleavened Bread that we observe (even though we aren't Jewish, we keep this week and abstain from foods with leavening in them). Cleaning has been a challenge, but I had done some gradually two weeks ago, and have just not been able to do the full spring cleaning that I would have normally done at this time also. My biggest gripe was not being able to make some of the foods that have become tradition for our family during this week. They require kneading of the dough and right now I just can't do that. I'm hoping that by Wednesday I'll have more use of the hand and be able to make some of those favorite foods.

So about the heading of this post......I found some old medication from '96 that Ken had gotten when he had poison ivy last and in desperation I took some of it. I had researched the side effects before hand and felt it was ok to take. That night I had the most bizarre dreams I think I've ever had! I woke up wondering why in the world my dreams had been so strange and then remembered one of the side effects of the medication was disrupted sleep patterns! I did not take any more of that stuff!

The next night I was awakened around 3:30am due to itching of my arms and got up to put some cream on them. As I walked out into the hall I could hear a really strange sound that I couldn't place. As I walked downstairs the hissing sound got louder (and my heart pounded faster!) and louder as I walked into the kitchen. I turned on the light and realized the sound was from the bathroom by the kitchen. The water line to the toilet had sprung a leak and water was spraying all over the bathroom! I managed to turn off the water line and then spent 5 minutes mopping up the water. Even with all the discomfort of the poison ivy it was a blessing to have it or I would not have woke up and would not have discovered the water issue for another three hours!

Lastly, I'm sure you've all heard by now that we had an earthquake in IL. I did not feel it, but when it happened Ken woke up and him getting up woke me (although I rolled over and went back to sleep). In the morning when I woke Alex for school he said we had had an earthquake and his bed had been shaking! I was quite sure it was his imagination until I got online to check the days news and realized it had happened! When Ken got up he said that he had felt it and wasn't sure what was going on. He quickly had gone downstairs and the dishes in the china cabinet were still shaking. It was quite the talk at school and on the news around here.

So that's been our week. I'm now looking forward to a nice Sabbath and then dinner tonight with my parents and another family and then spring Holy Days beginning tomorrow.

Any Suggestions?

Well, for about the 5th year in a row I've managed to get into poison ivy while doing the first yard clean-up of the season! Last Sunday I was clearing out an area of our yard where blackberry vines and young walnut trees had been growing unchecked and suspected that some of the vines I was yanking out might have been the noxious weed, but tried to be careful. I was wearing long sleeves and gloves so I thought I was safe. Evidently my sleeve moved up and down as I worked and the oil from what looked like dead vines transfered from my shirt and gloves onto my left wrist and now I have this drippy, oozy, bubbly, mess on my wrist and a few stray spots on my right forearm and believe it or not, spots on my stomach! If anyone has any tried and true suggestions for quickly drying up this weepy mess I would love to hear them! I am able to control the itch with hot water, but can't get it to stop weeping!

Ethan made the decision this week to attend the University of Wisconsin-Madison for college and we sent back our acceptance letter. Hopefully soon we will receive our financial aid package so that we will know exactly how much this is all going to cost us! He did also receive another small scholarship this week from the Rockford Kiwanis that he had applied for. Every bit helps!

Alex is in the school choir and this week our school band and choir joined with the other three feeder schools in our district for a band and choir concert. They met up from 1:30-6:30 to practice and then did the performance. Of the 100 or so students, Alex was the ONLY student who was in the choir only! I guess there was about 15 minutes of practice for the choir and the rest was for the band! He spent 5 hours reading a book he had taken along and doing his homework! The performance was really good, but I did discover Alex does not know all the words to the Star Spangled Banner, which they sang to open the program, but was not one of the songs they had been practicing for the performance!