First comes love...

Hoping y'all had a Blessed and Happy Easter!

Ours was nice, but it did not seem at all like Easter. It's nearly impossible for me to go to church with the girls by myself, and due to hubby's work schedule, it's even closer to impossible for him to go with us. So we don't go, and I really miss church. I'm hoping to get back again someday.

Bugster, Bubster and Frank came over for Easter. We celebrated Bugster's birthday, too, since we weren't feeling well last weekend. She wanted Chinese food from our favorite Chinese restaurant for her birthday meal, so we didn't have the traditional Easter meal we usually have. Did I mention it didn't seem like Easter? Still. It was a good day.

We gave her the birthday gifts I've been working on, even though I'm not finished with them yet. They ended up being much more labor and time intensive than I thought they'd be, but it's been worth it.

I covered a huge candy box that would fit a small blanket or a thick sweater with pretty paper and embellishments. We also got her an antique camel back steamer trunk, (the kind with the humped lid), and decorated it to match the box. Well. I'm still decorating it, actually. I still have to finish covering the top and one side and to line the inside of it. I took some pictures, but they're sort of blurry, so I won't post pictures until I get better pictures and finish decorating it. 

Bugster's favorite movie ever is Ever After with Drew Barrymore. It's a retelling of Cinderella in a way it could have really happened, and it's adorable. In the movie, Drew's character, Danielle, or Cinder Soot as her step sister calls her, has a trunk in which her mother's dress and glass slippers are stored. Bugster said that the first time she saw it, she knew she wanted to have a special trunk to store her wedding dress after she got married. 

She has the married thing down, so...

It's all downhill from here.

I don't know, if it's hormones, (I am approaching *that* age), Bugster turning 25, or everything that's going on with Mom and living so far away, or all of the above, but I'm a mess. The last couple of days, I can't seem to keep from crying, and I rarely, if ever, cry. I'm the queen of emotion stuffing, remember? 


It's driving me nuts. 


It's time like this I fall into ruminating about all sorts of stuff. The thoughts range anywhere from past slights from people who proved they weren't the friends I thought they were to how I feel unloved. I really struggle with turning off the negative thoughts, and I'm exhausted from it all. Most days, I never give those people who have hurt me a second thought. And even when I am feeling unloved, I know in my heart that it's not true. I have absolutely no doubt that I am loved deeply by my family and many friends. But it's really hard to get that through my thick skull when I'm in the middle of an episode.


I get that my feelings are valid. I know I'm entitled to feel negatively about certain people either in my current or past life. But I can't handle it when the thoughts, the churning in my gut, and the tears don't stop. I hate living like this, because it's not really living.


Hoping the anxiety meds kicking in a bit and hearing how much better Mom is doing has helped a bit. It's just that when it all starts, it's like I'm trying to race down hill to catch a ball in front of me to try to get it to stop. It takes awhile to catch up to it and get it under control, and by then I'm out of breath.


Trying to catch my breath now.

Ramblings.

Once again, I'm getting to bed entirely too late. My head is racing with thoughts, and I'm having a hard time turning my mind off to go to sleep. 


I hate when that happens.


I spent about 12 hours today working on part of Bugster's birthday gift. Even though none of it was difficult, I'm tired tonight. Cold, too. 

Bugster's birthday gift.

The other day, I talked about cleaning about our dryer, because it was absolutely filled with lint in places that should not have lint. 

See what I mean?

That greenish lint? It wasn't moldy, but it was very thick. I couldn't get over how much lint there was! 

After I cleaned all this lint out, I took the covers off that are shown in the picture and cleaned the fan and the area where the lint filter goes.  In where the lint filter hung down was the only place I found actual caked lint where it had gotten wet and dried hard. Scary to know that fire starters are made by scouts out of dryer lint!

Just days after I completely cleaned the dryer and vent of lint a local family lost their home to a dryer fire. The lost everything. They were home when it happened, and they were able to get out alive, but it spread so quickly that they lost everything. I felt so bad for them, but I was also very incredibly thankful that our dryer didn't catch on fire in spite of the lint.

So, if you haven't cleaned your dryer out any time recently, please do. 

Go now.

I don't want anyone to lose their homes or their lives due to something so preventable. 

Seriously. 

Go.

Now.

Can you keep a secret?

I probably should have worn a mask today, but I didn't. One of these days I'll learn.


After working in the laundry room and doing as much laundry as I could (3 loads of sweats before I ran out of pretreater), I worked for a few hours on Bugster's birthday gift. I'm taking before and after pictures, which I will post once I'm done, but I dare not say what I'm doing. She reads my blog. Sometimes.


When she was younger, she had a habit of finding out what her birthday or Christmas presents were entirely too often. Often enough that we finally told her that, if she found out what her gift was before the special day, she wouldn't get it. In spite of the fact that she claimed she never went looking for the presents, (she claims I was horrible at hiding them but don't believe her), she sure was good at finding them. I don't recall taking anything away. We threatened once, but I think we kept it and gave it to her for whatever the next holiday was. Let's just say it was an effective deterrent. 


We've learned to hide her presents better than we apparently did when she was little. It helps that she has her own home now, and she isn't over here snooping all the time. I'm just wondering, if I'm going to be able to keep this one under wraps before we celebrate her birthday. 


She's definitely going to want this one. =)

Tired. That's all.

Long day today. 

Celebrated the Bubster's birthday today. Enjoyed the time with the kids. Came home and watched an amazing Broncos game with Hubster and the girls. And ached all over.

I'm not sure, if I'm getting what the girls have, (they were both feverish before they went to bed), or if it's just a firbro flare, but I've  been pretty much exhausted, achy and wheezy all day. I'm sure the asthma is just kicked up from being at Bugster & Bubster's house. I've got a severe allergy to dogs, and they've got 2, plus they have 4 cats and a rabbit. The dogs were outside, and they vacuumed before we got over there, but I just don't think it takes much. 

I'd love to get allergy shots, so we can get a dog at some point, but I don't know, if my allergies are too severe for them to help. We really miss having a dog. It kills me when we go to Bugster's, because their dog used to be ours, and I can't pet her or be around her at all. She has a tendency to pant in your face to get attention, and that always takes my breath away. It makes me so sad, because I know she misses me. She was my buddy. 

Maybe someday. 

But today I need a dog today, like I need another hole in my head. 

The big Five O.

A few weeks ago, Hubster turned 50. With the hospitalization and the extra costs associated with Hopper breaking her leg, we haven't had much extra money to celebrate his big birthday in a big fashion. And although I could have thrown him a small party, he really can't stand parties. Guess that worked out well, but it left me in a bit of a quandary.  I wasn't quite sure what to do to make him feel really celebrated. After all, 50 is big. It's worth celebrating.


My sister mentioned to me that she'd thrown a big party for her husband when he turned 30 and then again when he turned 40, but they didn't really have the money when he turned 50, so she had to get creative. She said that for 50 days in a row, beginning with his birthday, she gave him something to remind him that he was special to her and she hoped he had a good birthday. 


A 50 day long birthday!


What an awesome idea! 


So I took it and ran with it, and it's really been fun!


Not everything has cost an arm and a leg, which is really good, since I only have 2 arms and 2 legs, and that would only get me through 4 days! But I digress...


A few of the gifts I've given:


A strawberry rhubarb pie. His favorite. He's the only one in the family who likes them, so it worked out perfectly. 


Some of his favorite candies that he hasn't seen since he was a kid. I found both Black Cows and Slo Pokes for him, so that brought back some fun memories for him.


I made his favorite sandwiches for lunch one day. Tuna salad with celery and apple chunks. They really are pretty good, but I really don't make them that often, so they were a treat.


Most things have just been little things to show I've been thinking about him. I've got a couple of things tucked away to give him that he's been wanting for awhile, but he'll get them a week or two apart with little things in between. 


But there's 1 thing in particular he's really enjoyed, and it's lasted him awhile...


You know those yummy caramels called Riesen? I bought a big bag, counted 50 out, and attached a blank business card to each and wrote a different 'Riesen' I loved him on each card. He's not only enjoyed eating one of his favorite candies, but he's really enjoyed reading how much he's adored. 


I hope Hubster enjoys the next few weeks of his 50th birthday as much I've enjoyed coming up with different ideas to celebrate him ...


Er. As much as I've enjoyed him ...


Um. That didn't come out quite right ... After all, this is a PG rated blog!


Maybe I'd better stop while I'm still ahead...


Happy 50th Birthday, Hubster! I love you!!


Whoosh!

Got time for a quickie?

That's all the time I have.

Just posting to say I'm still here. Very, very tired, but still here.

Had the birthday party over at Bugster and Bubster's house. It was a lot of fun. Tried to make homemade ice cream, but something wasn't working right. Think it might have been some cookies in the freezer bogging it down. Thought we'd crushed them small enough that they'd go through, but when we took the baffle out, they were sort of stuck in it. So we never had ice cream. It went back into the fridge for the kids to try again tomorrow.

We did have chocolate cake in the shape of a butterfly for Scooter's birthday. She was so excited about the butterfly things she got for her birthday. That and her Hannah Montana DVD, bracelets and necklaces she got. She made out like a bandit and was so happy! It did our hearts good to see her like that.

We didn't get back home until 11:30 tonight, so it was a long day. We were thrilled to find that the cabinet and a pair of sawhorses were picked up by my friend. It's nice to know that's just a little more out of here. It's slow, but somewhat steady progress we're making. It's good enough for me.

Now I'm off to sit on my heating pad before crawling to bed.

I'll be back tomorrow-hopefully with a report that I got something done.

Melting children.

So. We found out today that we need to replace the electrical panel. Remember how the window air conditioners kept flipping the breaker? Well, even though we had dedicated outlets installed shortly before we left on vacation, the breakers are still flipping. The outlets are rated 15amp (although tomorrow they will be 20amp after the upgrade), and the air conditioners are only rated 11.5amp, so they shouldn't be overwhelming the circuits at all even now. But we're still having a problem with the breakers flipping. Apparently, it is because the current electrical panel is as old as dirt and is overheating enough that it's flipping the breakers when it shouldn't.

By noon tomorrow we should have stable breakers that don't flip every 10 minutes. I'm very much looking forward to that. It will be nice not to have to stop what I'm doing to go push the breaker back on. Yep. It's going to be nice. Thankfully, both tomorrow and Thursday are supposed to be cooler, so it won't be too hard to deal with the complete lack of cooled air for a few hours.

The technician came out today to look at the air conditioners as part of the extended warranty protection. The one air conditioner isn't working worth a darn. He figures it's because it needs removed from it's case and cleaned well inside. He and someone else will be coming back out on Thursday morning to thoroughly clean the units. If that doesn't make the one window unit cool like it's supposed to, he'll charge the coolant. We may make it through summer after all!

I'm so glad we'll be able to have a cooler house in the next few days. I need to make a birthday cake for Scooter. Can't believe our baby will be 17 already.

It's been a very long, emotional day. I'm glad it's over. I had to deal with a couple of melting children today. I am thinking they maybe the hubster forgot to give them their Theanine last night. I need to check with him to make sure. It would definitely explain the meltdowns they both had today.

I'm looking for the new start that the morning brings, a cool house, and no melting children!

Easter, church, toilet paper birthday cakes and such.

With everyone being sick this year ...again, we won't be going to church for Easter Sunday services. It bums me out. As a Christian, I want to be able to go to church and fellowship, but the last few years has not been really conducive to us attending. I'm hoping that as the dehoarding progresses, our daughter's anxiety issues and our overall health improves that we'll be able to find a church we like and go on a regular basis.

Tomorrow, we will read the Easter Story to the girls and have time together as a family. We won't be having a traditional Easter dinner like usual. Instead, we'll be having Chinese takeout. We'll be celebrating our oldest daughter's birthday as well as Easter, and Chinese is her favorite food. So we'll be celebrating a little unconventionally this year.

The girls will still get their baskets. They like the candy. They know that we put the candy in their baskets and that the Easter Bunny isn't real. In fact we don't even mention EB We just fill their baskets (or whatever they would know was theirs-this year we used a purse and a jewelry box) with candy. We made the decision to let them know the truth about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus when they were fairly small. We didn't want them to one day think that because the Easter Bunny and Santa weren't real, that Jesus must not be real either.

Just a quick note here...we in no way judge anyone who wants to celebrate their holidays with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It's a very personal decision. We made ours knowing that our daughters will never be over a certain point developmentally, and we felt that we needed make a decision that was best for our family, and our family alone. A typical child can come to the realization that the EB and SC are wonderfully fun traditions, but we just wanted things less confusing for our children who might not get the difference between the two. So they'll get their candy, and we'll celebrate the sacrifice that Christ made on the Cross for mankind. :)

We'll also be giving our oldest her gifts and her birthday cake. Her toilet paper birthday cake. We've never done this before, but I'd seen it on Cake Wrecks the other day and realized I just had to do it. And while mine doesn't look as fancy as the one on CW, it at least does look like a mom-made German Chocolate Cake. She'll still get a GCC, but it will stay in the pan, frosted in the oven until she discovers her toilet paper cake is actually toilet paper. And I'll try to post pictures in the next few days.

We are really looking forward to spending the day together tomorrow as a family.

I hope each of you is able to be with your loved ones tomorrow as well.

Wishing a very Blessed Easter to each and every one of you!