Saturday Brain Dump, aka Welcome to Whine Country

You've heard of the colloquial "Chinese Curse", right?

May you live in interesting times.

Yah.  This has been an interesting week.


1.  We'll start with me.  I mentioned my visit to the Urgent Care doc, on my birthday, thank-you-very-much, and the four prescriptions?  Yah.  That helped a lot, but there was a catch.  The whole breathing thing.  I wasn't doing it right.

You know what a pulse oximeter is?  (That little red glowy thing the doc puts on your finger like a clothespin, but not so tight - measures your heart-rate and how well your blood is oxygenated.)  We live near sea level.  Our blood should be 95-100% oxygenated.  I was running in the mid 80's.  I'd go up a flight of steps and be out of breath and wheezing like my Great Aunt Lucille, who had bad, bad asthma.  Felt like I was pulling for every breath.  So I ended up seeing my regular doc yesterday.  Good news - the antibiotics knocked out the bronchitis.  Bad news - my lungs and throat are irritated and swollen, hence the whole not breathing so effectively thing.  Add two more prescriptions, one for a five day course of Prednisone.  Which the boys find HYSTERICAL.  Because I'm not just Mom, I'm

Mom on steroids.

Yes.  Thanks.  Hold your applause.


2.  The upside of being sick and tired is I've been working on a new quilt.  FOR MEEEE. :D
I splurged and bought some fancy designer fabric (read "expensive") because I saw this baby quilt.

Blue is my happy color, and that turquoise-blue makes my heart sing.  Doesn't it look soothing and dreamy?  Like the ocean around Hawaii, or the mosaic tiles in a fancy pool.  I decided I needed one big enough for my bed.  I've pieced half of the top in two days, and let me tell you friends, it's hard to be random.

I cut up a bunch of squares, throw them in a box, and pull them out willy-nilly.  I even had Tate help me, to prevent me from trying to disperse them perfectly evenly (OCD much?).  And mine is bigger than this.  Go big or go home, right?  Instead of 9x9, mine will be 22x23 - big enough for a queen bed, but not covering the pillows.  (I'm cutting the squares 4.5", so they finish at 4".)

If I have any fabric leftover I'm tempted to try cutting some much smaller squares to really look like mosaic tile, but that's a LOT of seams to match and I'm not sure I'm that ambitious.


3.  Wyatt raced today in a triathlon, as a relay.  I'm so proud of him for his effort and his attitude, because his team had their share of struggles.  I believe the word "epic" was used.

The swimmer discovered that swimming in a lake is vastly different than swimming in a pool and came in dead last, behind an (89 year?) oooold man that had to be helped from the water.  And PS, after swimming the course, racers have to run (walk? stagger?) uphill for about 50 yards to hand-off to the biker.

The biker made a valiant effort to pick up a few positions but at mile seven his chain broke.  A chase car showed up to see if he needed assistance (a ride? a phone call?) but he refused to quit and pushed his bike, running, the next three miles to finish the course, not in last place, but close.  Actually, he was able to coast the last quarter mile down a very gradual (ie not fast) slope.  If you look closely (enlarge the pic) you can see the broken chain dangling below his near foot.

Wyatt, fortunately, did great on his 2.6 mile run and finished strong.  Not sure of his time.  "Twenty-some minutes," according to Kerry.

We're proud of them all.  They FINISHED.


4.  Kerry rewarded him (and all of us) with a trip to DQ.  Plus, we needed to refuel all the boybarians because they had mowing to do.  While we're - thankfully - not having the flooding that western Canada is suffering, we have had a lot of rain.  A LOT.  It's not good to mow in a monsoon.  The mower doesn't cut well, the grass clumps up, and it's easy to slip (not something you want to do near a whirling blade.)  But today the sun shone :D

So the boys came home and immediately it was time to divide and conquer.  Kerry and Wyatt went to mow at the church, and Tate and Gunnar each went to separate neighbors' properties.  And I need to keep track of who gets paid what.  (Have I mentioned that I need a secretary?  Because I really think that would be nice!)


5.  We've had some technical difficulties called life.  While I really do feel like I'm on the upswing now, things just haven't been getting done the same around the house.

*  The kitchen needs to be deep-cleaned (as soon as the caulk dries around the sink... third times a charm?).

* The floor is DIS-GUS-TING.  Sweeping will do for now, but it needs a scouring.

* The boys shower is leaking, so they're using ours, which now really needs to be cleaned.

* The van needs new brakes.  *sigh*


6.  And then, to add excitement to the mundane... 

* As soon as we came in the house Gunnar discovered Jack, his crazy goldfish (I mean, that fish had personality) on the bottom of his bowl.  Not swimming.  He's had a long run for a ten cent 'feeder fish', so we can't complain.  We could say that Jack has gone on to a better place... if a better place is the "burial at sea" Gunnar performed. But then...

* I went out to check on the rabbits after we got back from the race and discovered that somehow Podger had managed to get together with Polly, over on her side of the cage.  (What the heck?  How did he get there?  Is he some kind of lagomorph Houdini?)  Not sure when it happened, but they were together for a good four hours, at least.  And - bunnies being bunnies - we all know what that means.


7.  So all in all, it's been a really stellar week.  Interesting times, indeed!

But really, I can't complain.  In fact, I'm throwing out a prayer request.  A good friend of mine is having some severe pregnancy complications and is having a C-Section tomorrow (Sunday).  The catch is, she's at 33 weeks.  They've been giving the baby "rescue steroids" to encourage lung development, but at this point the baby is safer out than in.  They're the "J" family.  They are trusting God, but it's still hard.  And scary.  The baby may have to be transported south, to a bigger hospital, and did I mention they have four young children to manage?  Yah.


With that, my friends, have a blessed Sunday.  As a much more famous blogger likes to say,

Be in the Lord's house, with the Lord's people, on the Lord's day.