Hospitals and Chocolate

I'm sure you are wondering how the two items in my title go together! They don't! It's just what has been happening around here the last five days! Last Thursday morning I got a call from my dad saying my mom was in the hospital with symptoms of a heart attack. After an angiogram it was determined she had a blockage in one of the arteries at the front of her heart and they put in three stents, all in a row, to open up the blockage. According to her blood work she has had a very mild heart attack at some point. They couldn't tell us for sure when it had been, though. Mom was in the hospital until just after lunch on Sunday and by the time she left she looked good as new and you would never know she had been through such an ordeal just days before! Where would we be without modern medicine?!

The chocolate part of the post is for today. Ken and I went to the North American Candy Expo in Chicago today. We are looking for ideas of products that might work for his internet food business (www.choicefilets.com). This was a chance to sample some of the most amazing chocolates and candies, take home samples, and get info of companies. By half way through I was done sampling since I didn't want to get sugar overload. I did, of course, keep picking up freebie samples to bring home! Each person got a bag to put samples in and between Ken and I we probably had 15 pounds of goodies! The most bizarre item had to have been the bug suckers! I took the scorpion and cricket, but they also had mealworms, butterflies, and grasshoppers. Alex is taking them to show his science teacher tomorrow and then has promised he will eat the one with the grasshopper. I may want to get that on video.....

Fungis and Frogs

It is Morel season! We had heard that some of the people around here had found some of the tasty treats so Ken and the kids have been searching every few days. Two days ago they found the first ones! Three nice sized mushrooms out in the wooded area behind our house. Last night I was looking out the window over the sink and saw Mariah bend over and pick something up. Turned out it was a morel right by our garden hose! Then I did the unthinkable..................I mowed the back lawn with the riding mower, which I rarely use since Alex is my primary mower operator, and ran over a morel that the kids were keeping an eye on til it got bigger! I didn't even see it :-( We have had soooo much rain this spring that once we get some decently warm and sunny days we SHOULD have a good crop of the fungi to find.

We haven't removed the pool cover yet this year. Last year we did it about a month too early and paid the price with the weather turning cool and the trees shedding buds all over that clogged up the filter. We spent a month just cleaning the pool and running the pump til it got warm enough again to swim. A couple days ago I was standing on the deck looking down at the mucky water on the pool cover and saw the first frog on it. I knew it was just a matter of time til they were back again. Well, then I noticed 100's of tadpoles along the edges of the water!!! It was quite fascinating to watch them, and though frogs would be good to have around to eat all the inevitable mosquitoes that will be hatching soon, we didn't want that many frogs in the yard! We ended up pumping the water off the pool cover so now the grass in that area should be nice and healthy from the frog fertilizer it got! It's still too cool to swim so we will wait another week or so before opening the pool.

Swine flu

Well, I must say I think this country has lost it's mind when it comes to the swine flu and the panic that seems to be ensuing. There was a school district south of Rockford that closed on the suspicion that someone may have had the flu. That was announced Friday. Then this morning one of the feeder school of our area announced that it was closing for two weeks due to the possibility of a student there having it. Janitors aren't even being allowed in to clean! Our school sends three students there for the special needs program it offers and now those students can't attend so suddenly they have to be readmitted to our school system with only 20 days of school left. Two are staying home with their parents so it is really only one who suddenly has to have a curriculum drawn up and staffing found for her. She has to have a one-on-one aide so I will be filling the position for six of the ten days she will be here. I was already working for other people several of the remaining days. Hopefully by tomorrow morning the special ed instructor will have a schedule for me and an outline to work from.

It seems like every winter hundreds of people all over the country get the flu and some even die from it. I guess maybe I'm not understanding why this flu is so much more of an issue to be concerned about. People have had this flu and recovered. Very few have died. I think the media has played a part in the surging hysteria that seems to be sweeping the country.

On another note, Ethan ran his first marathon Sunday. It was a 5K and he ran along with a friend in Madison. He had only been training for about three weeks so just finishing the race was quite an accomplishment!

Please keep voting! Ethan's video contest that we thought ended yesterday apparently goes on until May 12th. I couldn't find that in the rules, but Ethan found that out somehow. I will be very happy when I no longer have to remember to do this every day :-)