How NOT to Spend a Night

So, we have been trying to teach Graham all about his medication and his condition. When we went to Heart Talk last year they talked about how boys in particular did not know enough about their condition, etc and as they turned to adults and they no longer had their mamas there to take care of them all the time, they stopped taking meds and going for checkups...so we are determined that does not happen. Graham helps me sort his weekly medication into one of those weekly AM/PM sorters...I sometimes get him to call in his prescriptions as well and we are quite frank with him in our discussions about his heart condition. So last night I said...Graham go get your medicine...my fault for not going with him and watching. He accidently took the AM medication for this morning as opposed to the PM for last night...what that meant was he doubled up on two of his medications for the day. So I called the Kentville hospital, they referred me to Poison Control...so I called them and they said that the doses for each individual medication was fine, but I still didn't feel all that great about it, so I called the cardiologist on call at the IWK...he was great. He said that it was no one dose that he was concerned about but a combination of all the higher doses. We took his pressure at home and the dr felt it was a little low so he said he would feel better if Graham was observed at the hospital for a couple of hours...so off we went...the nurse at Emerg was the one I had talked to earlier and she was great with him. We went right back and they hooked him up to a monitor for a couple of hours, checked his pressure and did a couple of EKG's...anyway, long story short...he's fine, it was after midnight when we got home so he was tired this morning.

He was upset with what he had done but I told him we were to blame for not helping him with it and that he was very smart to realize he had made the mistake and very brave to tell us. Anyone who knows Graham knows how much of a ham he can be while he's dealing with this sort of stuff...answered all the dr's questions about his medication...the names etc and the questions about when he has his checkups etc. I think they were slightly amused with him and it was a good break from what they were dealing with there. They were excellent and treated us very well.

Calm before the Storm

What a great day!! The sun was shining and the sun was warm...sat on my swing for a while today, the sign of things to come. Pulled some wood out of the shed, gotta be ready for the big storm. I talked to Tracey and her girls and they are wearing t shirts in BC! Nor so much here.

Elysia had a soccer game today. She played well, had a beautiful cross for goal...almost got one herself but her and the keeper had a bit of a collision...she ate some turf, Elysia said if it had been grass, she would have been eating some.

Graham had an off weekend but next weekend he plays in a little basketball tournament and then the following weekend he starts his "spring training" for baseball. They are holding some indoor training for the upcoming baseball season.

Josee is coming to stay for the night. She works at 7 am tomorrow and it's a quicker drive from our house...especially if we get alot of snow...who knows how much we will get, sometimes the predictions are soooo far off.

Our cold water tank had a small leak the other morning. Our Mr Fixit neighbor will have a look at it for us. May have to replace it, there's always something to be done. Last year we put new rain gutters on the front, could use them on the back too. We need to recaulk a windown in back that leaked a little when it rained really hard...

We are still trying to get Graham to clean his room...it's a slow process but I want him to be responsible for it. I cannot imagine what it would look like without us nagging at him...it would require a shovel.

Migraines

What a day...I get migraines...not often, about 3 to 4 a year...in some ways I am fortunate...my follow a very specific pattern. It starts with an aura...basically an aura is a freakout of the nerves in the brain that usually cause visual symptoms. Mine is usually just a spot at first, like when someone takes your picture with a bright flash. It gradually grow to obstruct my vision about 50%, usually always the vision on the left side...the edges of the "blind spot" flash, I cannot read or drive at this point (it did happen once while I was driving and that was not pleasant). It does make me quite nauseaus (can never spell that word). Once the aura stops (usually lasts about half an hour), the pain sets in. It does not last long but it's usually quite intense and completely wipes me out. I came home today after the aura had stopped, thinking I would put a fire on and lay on the couch...by the time I got home, I was beat, I headed upstairs and buried my head under the pillows and went to sleep, I woke about two hours later when the kiddies got home. I felt much better, not 100%, but certainly better. Now it's time to feed the animals at the zoo.

PS...for my birthday I asked for money so I could pool my resources and buy a new camera...it arrived yesterday...Canon Power Shot SC 10 IS, 10.0 mega pixels and 20 x optical zoom...I now need a tutorial to use it. Played with it last night for a while, maybe some more later.

Snow coming tomorrow, my goal is to have the snowblower up from the shed tonight...and guess what, Mike is working later...hope I won't need the Manwich can!! Shouldn't need it, Mike went down and beat up the ice last week.

Lies of Ommission

My daughter learned a lesson in Lies of Ommission today. Friday night she slept at her friend's house and apparently they went to see a movie...no big deal, right...but when you don't tell your mother before you go, or call her when you are going or tell her when she calls to say good night and she has asked you what you did...that's a lie of ommission. What's the worse thing you can do to a 14 year old...take her cell phone. It's in a "safe place" for a few days and hopefully lesson learned.

Graham had a bball game on Sat against the other KMBA team...big rivalry, so apparently there had been a little trash talk at school between the boys. Testosterone kicking in early! Anyway, Graham's team pulled out a win...they were pretty excited. To tell the truth I was a little excited as well. I admit that I stacked the last line but I did that first and worked the rest of the game around it. So no one played extra.

Elysia had a soccer game today and her team got creamed. They did not play their best but as I pointed out to Elysia, every time she battled for the ball, she won it and did something good with it.

We went to Josee's last night for candle light Valentines dinner...yummy roast beef and some birthday cake for dessert...guess when you turn 39 for the second time, you get two cakes...works for me!

Did make it to Halifax on Wed (yes, my birthday)...what a great day! Took the day off work and headed to Halifax wit Josee and mom. We had some retail therapy in mind. We met Patti and Reta for lunch at East Side Marios and I had some Linguine Chicken Tetrazini...Mike and I use to go there for lunch when he was off when we lived in Halifax. It was delish!! Josee and mom had the same and thoroughly enjoyed it. Reta even went back with her husband that night for his birthday supper and had it. Bruce (Reta's husband) and I share the same birth date...certainly not the same birth year :) Bruce is much older than me! I like to remind him that he's the same age as my mother.

Gotta go and eat some ham and potatoe salad...mmmm...my favorite!!

Chapped Lips

So this week, I ended up with chapped lips...who knows why. So I thought I would put some cream on them, the only thing I could find was this Spectro Gel I use for Graham's eczema...yeah, big mistake! It burnt my lips and I ended up with the worse chapped lips of my life. Not only are they chapped but they swell in the morning so I look like a cross between a trout and Angelina Jolie. Now I am getting a cold sore, I think the smooching on Valentine's Day will be kept to a minimum unless something drastic happens. Right now I am the Blistex queen.

Graham had a basketball game yesterday and they played well and won their game. Elysia had two soccer games last night with only an hour in between. They won both their games and she played really well in the second game. She was fairly pooped at the end of it and I don't think it took her long to fall asleep last night. It's kind of nice now that all the weekend activities were on Sat, Sunday will be fairly quiet...Man United plays today at noon, so it will be enjoyable to watch it then as I usually end up watching the replay.

Had to have bloodwork done...I've had it from the summer. Just some baseline stuff now that I am the big 4-0. It's great to have a sister who is a lab tech. I was able to sneak in on Sat morning and go right to the lab so she could jab me. Graham thought that it was Auntie Josee's greatest wish...to jab her sister with a needle.

Last night Graham was telling his friend Connor a story and was talking about being at his "second aunt's" house...I asked who that was...you know mom, Auntie Diane...he thinks Diane, Kathy and David are his second aunts and uncles...too cute! The kids are close to them and all the Morse cousins and have a special place for Grammie and Grampie Morse.

The Saga of the Snowblower

So when I got home tonight about 20 cms of snow had fallen and it was starting to get dark, I thought it was better to get the snowblower out of the shed...oh...good idea in thought. First I had to get by the ice at the bottom of the doors, I could not open the doors as there was ice holding them shut. So I took out the ice breaker in the McKinnon house...our hammer. There I was on my hands and knees after I had walked through the knee deep snow to get the hammer. I am pounding the ice away (yeah, I thought it was going away), shards are flying in my hair. I could not get the doors open, the ice was too thick, so then it was time for plan B. I came back into the house and got the power drill only to realize it was not plugged in and was dead. So I grabbed a screwdriver and went down and took the doors off the shed (not exactly a great security system). I discovered after I had the first door off that the front of the snowblower would not fit through so I had to remove the other door.

So now I have the snowblower out...I follow the instructions for a "cold" start, but I cannot make it start. So back up to the house I go to get the extension cords to try a "warm" start. The cords were outside so they were frozen in a tangled mess. I managed to get them untangled enough and plugged it, get back to the shed and then realize I do not have the removable cord that goes into the snowblower...I look all over the shed by flashlight, look in the house and cannot find it. I guess my rage at that point paid off as I was able to pull the cord hard enough at that point to get it started. So I now have to go back and get the extension cord out of the way...so I have to go back up the hill in the snow. Now I have to go back down the hill to get the snowblower so I can blow my way up the hill into the driveway, I cannot come up the side by the door because the well cover is under snow and the Christmas tree which has never made it's way down the back bank is somewhere under the snow and I don't want to try to turn the snowblower into a mulcher.

I had to come in and change out of my pants. I still had my jeans on from work and they were frozen solid from the knees down. Elysia helped me untie my boots because my hands were frozen from trying to get the screws out of the shed door. My legs were red from the cold. So now I put on snow pants and headed back out.

Snowblowing the driveway was easy once I remembered which handle made the snowblower move and which one threw the snow, takes a little coordination. I get it all blown out and now want to keep the snowblower up and locked to the deck. The locks are frozen from being left outside so I have to bring them back into the house. I also need the tarp which is back in the shed at the bottom of the hill. Back I go down through the knee deep snow. When I had changed my pants, I lost my socks in the exchange so now I have snow going into my boots under the snowpants. I manage to get the tarp but have to screw the doors back onto the shed. Well guess what? The snow that has been fallen has cemented itself to the ice where the doors were so I am unable to properly attach the doors so I put in enough screws to prevent the doors from flying away (I hope). I go back up the hill with the tarp and go up on the deck to get the extention cord out of the plug and put it in the basement so it can thaw. I then go up around the house with the tarp to cover the snowblower...we do this with a bungee cord...well, to add injury to insult, the cord is frozen to the cement by the deck. Guess where the ice breaker/hammer is...in the shed that has just had the doors screwed back on. Well, I am not going back down the hill and unscrewing the doors to get the ice breaker/hammer out. So I use the next best thing...a can of Manwich sauce...that's right, Manwich sauce. I ended up on the hands and knees by the side deck with a can of Manwich sauce, pounding the ice so I can get the bungee cord out.

At this point, I am fairly frustrated and pooped but feeling slightly accomplished. I come in the house and strip off my coat and snow pants and run up the stairs in my underwear (not a pretty picture). I cannot get the head band I wear to keep my ears warm off because it is frozen in my lovely beast of a hairdo...well at least that would melt.

All in all, if I had been smart I would have recorded the events of the evening and made one of those time lapse photography videos and posted it on Youtube and I would have had millions of hits--40 Yr old vs Snowblower.

February 1

Well...it's a new month. January went by fairly quickly. Lots going on.

Graham's team played Port Williams in Bball yesterday and they got creamed. The coaches from PW were a little intense, their players were good for sure. I told Graham that the sign of a good player is not how he wins a game, but how he loses Connor played hockey and his team did not do their best so it was a one sided affair also. Elysia's soccer was an off weekend for some reason again but next Sat she has two games.

We went to watch a soccer game today. One of Elysia's friends Adam, made the U14 boys tier 1 this winter...what a good game, it's so fast.

Mike has a few friends over for Superbowl, chili and wings...yeah, throw some beer in that...those are not mating scents to say the least.

So work has been interesting. I am attempting to do the year end...we have made some great changes over the last while but I think the owners expect that to show in the numbers in the first month...one didn't want to talk about it on a Friday afternoon...okay, so stick your head in the sand for the weekend. I even worked at it a little today and I cannot make it look any better. They told me they want me to "own" the inventory, I really don't think they want that. I told them that someone could park their truck outside the door and load up and they probably wouldn't know the difference....any time they have discrepancies they just adjust the inventory...Agh! I gave them my ideas about how it should be handled...we'll see how that goes over and then how long it will last.

I have to take our financials to the accountants, I wonder if it would be obvious if I slipped my resume in there in between the balance sheet and income stmt. A girl can always try.

I am going to take my birthday off. I have to, I turn 39! As you recall, last year when I hit the big 4-0, I decided that I would start working my way backwards from now on, so 39 it is! Josee and I are going to go to Halifax for the day. I need some retail therapy...

Heard of this great website the other day...okay, so I admit, it was on Oprah...anyway, it's the largest on line shoe store~http://canada.zappos.com/ I ordered red Sketcher sneakers for Mike to give me for my birthday. I know he would want me to have something I liked...:)