A Work at Home Mom’s Blog

As you probably know if you’re a long-time reader, my husband has a lot of stomach troubles. He was unable to work for several months last year until he had his gall bladder removed. That helped get him in good enough shape to get back to work, but he still has problems. He has pretty bad acid reflux, among other things.

I tried to tell him he needed to change his diet, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He is the world’s pickiest eater, and most of the things he does like are packed with fat, cholesterol and salt. As much as he hates to take any more medicine than necessary, I think he would have rather gone on Phentermine than to change his diet.

But for the past few weeks, he has been complaining with frequent headaches and fatigue. The guys he works with told him it was probably high blood pressure, and sure enough, it has been up just about every time he has gone to the doctor lately. I told him that he needed to try to get it lowered on his own before they decided he needed medication for it, because everyone I know who takes blood pressure meds wishes they didn’t have to because of the side effects.

He begrudgingly agreed to let me fix him healthy meals for a week to see how he felt. I was leery that it would take longer than that to see a difference, but it didn’t. He has felt much better, and he agreed to continue eating healthy.

Now comes the hard part: I managed to find enough healthy stuff that he liked to keep him fed for one week, but I’m out of ideas. He will get burned out on the same old thing (just like he has been with all the stuff he has been eating over and over all his life). But I’m going to give it my best shot. Maybe now that I’m making a little headway, I can talk him into trying some new things, and retrying things he claims he doesn’t like.

I really need to have another yard sale. I could use the money for Pumpkin’s birthday, and we’ve just got a ton of stuff that we need to get rid of. But first I need to find a good place to have it.

The last yard sale I had was at Hubby’s grandpa’s house. I won’t be having one there again, because the turnout was terrible. It was pretty much a colossal waste of time. I think we made about $35 in two days. Most of the stuff I put in the yard sale is still packed up over there in his storage building, and I need to get it out. There’s a microwave, a bunch of girls’ clothing, a couple of dollhouses, and all sorts of other odds and ends.

Then there’s that whole mess in the garage. Hubby is now saying that he won’t be able to sell much of it. Well, it’s going to have to go somewhere. It’s seriously cluttering up our space for no good reason. And we need all the storage space we can get.

I’ve been trying to get Hubby to find me a good place to have a yard sale, but so far I’ve had no luck. He knows a lot more people around here than I do, and seeing how I would be doing most of the work, I figure it’s the least he could do. But from the looks of things, I’m going to have to break down and try to find a place myself if I want to have it. Oh joy.

I think Wal-Mart is part of a conspiracy to make my life more difficult than it needs to be. First, Hubby was going to lay me away a laptop a year or so ago. But when he went to Wally World to put it on layaway, he found out that they no longer did layaways. Then last week, I went there to see if I could find some nice fleece to make a poncho for Pumpkin for her birthday, and the whole damn craft department had disappeared!

They are doing some remodeling, and where the craft department was, there is now an empty fenced off area. I don’t know what they’re going to put there, but I’m betting it’s not craft stuff. How do they know to get rid of the exact stuff that I need?!?

I’m not going to have a lot of money to spend on Pumpkin this year, and I found instructions on how to make a simple but pretty fleece poncho without sewing. I thought it would be something that would be useful, but that she would still enjoy getting. Kind of like the acne scars cream I got for my birthday one year, only better.

I guess I’ll be checking out some of the small local stores to try and find the stuff I need to make that poncho. That’s something that I should be doing anyway. Have I mentioned how much I dislike Wal-Mart?

I have really got to find a way to get that sleep study done. I’ve been so tired lately that it’s just absurd.

There have been days when I’ve taken three naps, and still felt exhausted. That’s not very conducive to getting any work done, or anything done around the house. I’m still having trouble concentrating, not as bad as it was, but still quite noticeable. This seriously sucks.

I’m no medical expert by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve done some research online about causes of hypersomnia, and they range from sleep apnea to chemical imbalances to unknown causes. I think I even saw something about improper progesterone levels somewhere in there.

The doctor already did blood work including a thyroid panel, and all that came out fine. So the next step is the sleep study. I really hope I don’t have apnea, because I don’t like the idea of having to use a CPAP machine. But if that’s what has to happen, I guess I’ll do it. I’m sick and tired of being tired.

Today, I got up bright and early, jumped in the shower, did my hair up nice, and got all dressed up. Fancy dress, Manolo Blahniks, my finest jewelry, the whole bit. NOT!

Want to know how today really went at my house? Hubby got up at a somewhat respectable hour, Pumpkin slept till nearly lunch time, and I rolled out of bed sometime after that. We all stayed up rather late last night, so today we slept in.

We didn’t do much of anything all day. Just hung out together, played video games, and enjoyed each other’s company. For once Hubby wasn’t interested in leaving the house, and I didn’t argue. Normally I like to get out on the weekends when I’m not behind on my work, but I had my fill of running around last week. So I was content to just stay home with my family.

It wouldn’t have hurt me to have gotten some work done today, but oh well. I needed some family time pretty badly, and I’m glad I got it.

I think that should be in the running for the strangest blog post title ever! Allow me to tell the story behind it, which I promised to do in my last post.

When Pumpkin and I got back home from the doctor the other day, she was in tears with pain. I got her some ice to put on her hand and went to the medicine cabinet to get her some Advil to take. She only had about three doses of the liquid kind left, so I dug out some Children’s Advil pills that I had bought a few months ago. She hadn’t done very well with them at the time, but I’ve had some luck getting her to take allergy pills that were larger than those recently, so I figured I would try them again.

So I got her two of those and a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and headed back to the living room. She grimaced at first, but agreed to try them. After all, she hates the liquid kind.

She put the first one in her mouth, took a drink of water, and swallowed it on the first try. I praised her for doing so well, then gave her the other one. That’s when the fun began.

She didn’t make it on the first try with that one, but I told her it was okay, to keep trying. I remember how hard it was when I first had to take a pill as a child. She tried several more times, each time taking a bigger drink of water, to no avail. She began to get frustrated, and took a really huge drink of water, tossed her head back, and tried really hard to swallow. Her cheeks were all puffed out because she had so much water in her mouth, and as she tried to swallow the pill, her eyes (which were already as big around as saucers) crossed. She looked like a cross-eyed frog.

I couldn’t help but laugh. And you know how contagious laughter is. I saw a smile creep up on her face, her cheeks still full of water. Before I knew it, the freezing cold water was all over both of us, and we were both laughing so hard that tears were rolling down our cheeks.

The pill didn’t come out of her mouth with the water, and she eventually swallowed it somehow between giggles. We both had to change clothes, and we laughed about it off and on for the rest of the evening.

If that water had been any colder, it would have been ice. But I’m glad that happened, because it took Pumpkin’s mind off of her hand for a while. And it still gives me the giggles thinking about it. Good times.

First off, I know it’s been a while since I posted. But I promised myself I would quit apologizing for it. I’m sure my dear readers realize that life gets in the way sometimes. So I’m just going to say it’s good to be back and leave it at that.

Anyway, on to the headlines. Pumpkin hurt her hand at school on Tuesday. They didn’t call me or anything, she just came home with a melted baggie of ice and told me the story when I asked what it was for. Apparently she was playing in the sandbox when some boy came running by and tripped over her, sending them both hurtling toward the ground. Her hand landed hard on a board, and she went to the school nurse, who checked it out, gave her ice, and told her to come back if it didn’t start feeling better.

I checked it out myself, and it didn’t appear to be broken. It was swollen and looked like it might be bruised on the inside, but nothing to worry about. I gave her more ice and pain meds for the evening, and sent her to bed at her usual time.

She woke us up at 2:00 AM, complaining with her hand and stomach hurting. She has a lot of stomach problems, and they seem to get worse when she’s upset, which I’m sure she was over her hand. She didn’t go back to sleep for 2 hours, so we decided not to send her to school and to take her to the doctor.

To make a long story short, after a trip to the family doctor, a trip to the hospital for x-rays, much sitting around and waiting, and a trip back to the family doctor, we found out that it wasn’t broken or fractured. The doctor recommended wrapping it in an Ace bandage, elevating it as much as possible, and continuing with the other stuff I was doing.

She’s back at school today. I’ve got a funny story to tell about her taking her medicine, but that will have to wait. I’ve got work that isn’t going to do itself.