You know you're desperate for relief when

Ok, I actually went and got myself one of these.

Here's a video showing how it's supposed to work:



I've been hearing about them from various sources for a while now and I've finally reached the point of desperation.

Now I'm off to play with it. I'll report back how it went. Provided I don't drown of course.

Favorite Email of the Day

This made my afternoon. I went to work today, even though I'm still pretty miserable. But I had a deadline and a desk shift, so I figured I could be miserable at work for the day. When I came off my desk shift I found this email in my inbox:

Hi boo.

I am glad that you are feeling a little better. Nick and I had a great time visiting with Grandpa since Grandma was very busy. We went to breakfast and then we went and played at the park. He met a very nice 6-year-old girl who helped him go up and down the slide a few times and wanted to lead him around. He enjoyed it for a little while but then wanted to go home since he was very tired.

He had a good breakfast of French toast; ate almost 2 whole pieces all by himself. He also had a good glassful of chocolate milk. All in all a very good morning.

We are home now and looking forward to our first nap of the day now that it is after one o'clock. We will see though.

Love you,

Me

Got new mask, now want new head

We were on the way to my RT appointment this morning and instead of going there I accidently went to work instead. I didn't even realize I had gone to the wrong place until I saw my boss and she asked why I was at work. My ears were killing me and my throat hurt so bad and now I had to try to call Tom to get him to hurry back to pick me up so we could make it to the RT appointment in time.

Lucky for me though I woke up. It was all just a nightmare right before my alarm went off. We did make it to the RT appointment on time although I did wake up with both my ears hurting and my throat swollen so much I couldn't swallow or even breathe without it hurting. A hot shower helped a little and I can tell you I definitely have a sinus infection in there (but you DON'T want to know how I know that). I dragged myself into the car and it was a good thing I have my personal nurse Tom to take care of me and drive me around. I spent most of the ride in a stupor.

Last week when Tom was sick and slept so much and I even had to take off a day of work I secretly felt that he should just toughen up a bit. After all if it had been me I'd have just sucked it up and powered through. Heck even when I'm sick I usually go to work!

I take it ALL back! My ears hurt, my throat hurts, my eyes burn and my skin hurts all over! I'm starting to wonder if this actually might be the flu. Isn't it the flu when you get the aches all over and your skin hurts? I admit it, I'm a freaking baby! I realized this and told Tom I was sorry for secretly feeling he was being a wuss. He forgives me, and even makes me hot tea and set me up with the laptop in the comfy chair so I could sit up and have tea for a bit with my friends in the internet. He loves me.

So anyway, you're just aching to know what mask I got aren't you. They didn't have the Opus 360. It's really new and they only usually carry the bestselling ones. Maybe next time I need a mask they'll have that one. So instead I got the OptiLife. I tried it out as soon as we got home and took a 2 hour nap with it. It seemed to work well for that. We'll see how it performs over the next week or so. They said if it doesn't work for me I can go exchange it for free within 14 days. AND my insurance covered everything 100%. I'm really liking my insurance today.

More than you ever wanted to know

Ok, so Tom was sick all last week and just Monday of this week was finally feeling better. I talked to my sister Monday night and told her "thank goodness Nicky and I didn't get it this time."

Tuesday I started feeling run down and my throat was scratchy. By Tuesday night I started feeling really fuzzy in my throat and sinus, you know, that prickly "I'm getting a damn cold" feeling. And today I felt horrible. I slept a good bit today and I don't think I've really run a fever, but tonight my skin is starting to hurt and I ache all over. Great. Hopefully Nicky won't get it.

I stayed home today and since I was home I called and made an appointment with the respiratory therapist. I've been meaning to call them about my CPAP mask, it's been leaking horribly and making it hard to sleep at night since I have to wake up and adjust it because a stream of air is blowing in my eye. So I'll pop over there tomorrow morning (or drag myself there, whatever it takes) and get a new mask.

For anyone not up on their sleep apnea jargon, the CPAP machine is a machine that keeps you breathing at night. It's a wonderful wonderful thing if you have sleep apnea since not breathing tends to wake you up and generally be unhealthy. You sleep for crap when you don't breathe. There are lots of styles of masks that you can get with your machine, and so far I've had two styles, the Swift and the Breeze. I've actually had two of the Swift since that one is my favorite, but it's just not working for me anymore. So I'm going tomorrow to look at some of the nasal masks that actually fit over your nose. I've never been able to tolerate them because they seem to press right on my sinus or something, but maybe there is one that will work. And even if it's not very comfortable I figure it's gotta be better than wind in your eye. Although, it does look like there are a lot of new masks on the market now. Maybe I'll try this one.

A Non-Nicky Video to Share

Well, I don't have a new Nicky video, but I did want to share a video I found inspiring.

I don't usually wax political on my blog, but I'm not afraid to share who I voted for in the primary.

Ready for it?

Mike Gravel.

Okay okay, enough laughing. You're gonna hurt yourself. I have a pretty good reason for voting for Mike.

I live in Florida and my vote doesn't count for the primary. For a while I toyed with the idea of switching over to Republican and voting for some really wacko candidate, but it was too much work and I really couldn't see going that far out of my way to make a statement that would never be heard. If all the Dems in Florida were going to switch over to Republican and vote for someone I'd have joined them. But a solo act of rebellion just wasn't really an attractive option. So instead I just tuned out as much talk about the candidates in a fit of impotent rage at the system. In the end, when I ended up in the voting booth staring at the ballot I went with the one candidate that had voter reform on his platform. I voted for him knowing full well he'd never actually win, so I guess it was more of a protest vote. But I think there is something really broken with a system when an entire state loses it's voice in the election process.

So anyway, that's what I did in the primary. But now I have to look forward to the real election in November. And just for fun I get to imagine I have an interest in who ends up being the Democratic candidate in that election. So now I've done some homework and looked at the platforms and issues for each of the candidates left. Interestingly enough when I did one of those vote match type quizzes my best match was actually Gravel because I'm farther to the left than any of the remaining candidates. Apparently I'm a total pinko.

But really both Hillary and Obama are both pretty close matches for me and there is very little separating them on the issues, especially the issues most important to me. So I'd be fine with either one. I do know that it seems a LOT of people seem to have this anti-Hillary vibe going on. But when I question them on WHY they just say things like "I don't trust her" or "I just have a feeling about her." And honestly this is what guys are saying! How interesting they're relying on their intuition instead of having something objective to point to. Then I have heard of at least one person who refuses to vote for Obama even if he is the Dem candidate. I haven't heard the reason myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's because he's black. I think racism is alive and well here in America still, as much as people seem to want to deny it. Oh we've come a long way baby, but there is still a lot of racism and sexism in America, and it will be interesting to see what happens in the election.

Personally though, I am thrilled! I can't wait to see our first black or woman president! I don't think McCain can take the final election and so I'm probably counting my chicks while they're still in the eggs, but it's really exciting to think that this time next year we'll have one or the other in the White House. It almost makes the last 8 years of hell worth it. Almost.

But anyway, my real purpose of this post was to share this video. I know it's packaging and marketing and all, but damn this was inspiring! I'll keep my mind open, but if I had a chance to vote tomorrow I might vote for Obama just on the high I get from this video. I'm a little jaded after being so fired up for Dean 4 years ago, but I could see myself getting hyped up for Obama after seeing this. After 8 years of being convinced daily that we can't do a damn thing about where our government has been taking us (figuratively and literally) it's awfully empowering to be told so eloquently, "Yes, We Can!"

First REAL temper tantrum on film

Well on Sunday Nicky had his first real, out of control tantrum. And me being the great mom I am I let him work through it and filmed most of it. What a lucky kid! ;)

Tom had left for church a few minutes after Nicky woke up from his nap. We went outside together so Nicky could wave bye-bye, but instead he started crying. He was probably still a little tired and I also thought he had a poopy diaper so I took him in his room for a diaper change, but he would NOT let me change him. Rather than fight with him I tried working with him.

I tried turning on the radio so that he wouldn't think I was putting him to bed.
I tried giving him a binky to help him calm down.
I tried getting Tom's phone to distract him.

But he was working himself up into a fine frenzy and so I started filming him while I spoke calmly and was available to help him calm down. Of course my first instinct was to hold him to comfort him, but he wouldn't let me hold him.

So I have two movies up of his tantrum. Part one is here and then part two is here. After flinging himself around a little bit he found a few more binkies to hold and then he ran into the livingroom and eventually at the end he said he was ok.

It probably took only about 5 minutes for him to work through it, which really is probably pretty good. He was having genuine upset feelings and had to figure out how to deal with them. He wasn't having a hissy fit on purpose to manipulate anyone, just dealing with his own temper. And I think he did a pretty good job of it.

But the best part was showing the movies to daddy when he got home. :) It took a while for me to figure out how to upload the movies online since the file type is different on a phone, but they're up now!

And if we're lucky we'll find that darn power cord for the real camera sometime soon. Argh.

Playing around

You'll be thrilled to see that JM took some adorable photos of Nicky at the playground in Citra. She brought a disk of them over and I've put up several of them. It's so cute to see him playing on the playground equipment. He went down the big slide all on his own! And he loves the swings.

But not as much as he loves acorns I think. He's always finding them and collecting them. He can even say "acorn." Oh, and "stick." He loves collecting sticks too.



Today we went to a birthday party. There were 4 other little boys there and they had such a good time. Nicky refused to eat anything till after we left (even cake). Then he ate 3 granola bars on the way home. It reminded me though that we have a party to plan coming up. We'll be holding Nicky's birthday on Easter Sunday. It's the weekend after his actual birthday, but it's a great weekend to have family over with the holiday, Tom's confirmation on Saturday, and Maryellen's spring break. So we'll pack it in there on Sunday. I think we'll do the Elmo theme since that's probably Nicky's favorite right now.

And that's the exciting stuff happening around here lately. Riveting isn't it?

Remember all those Christmas Crafts?

So I remembered I haven't shared all my Christmas crafting with you since I was waiting till I was able to deliver all the gifts. I delivered the last of them on my trip down to see my mom, sister and sister-in-law and now that I won't ruin any surprises I can finally post photos!

Bracelets

I made several bracelets using the bead picking technique I learned last fall. The big secret is to just pic an assortment of beads, any size, any texture, any material, that look good together by color. Then just string them on a stretchy string long enough to wrap three times around your wrist. They can be worn as bracelets or necklaces that way. It was suggested to use beads an odd number of times in the bracelet. So instead of 4 large beads, use 3 or 5. And I liked to alternate a bit between sizes. But otherwise it was pretty random. I also used clear nail polish on the knot to help secure it. For more photos go here.


Bookmarks

This was my favorite craft and one I hope to do for actual money maybe! I picked out a bead assortment based on color, just like for the bracelets. I picked an embroidery floss that matched. Then I tied good sized knots on both ends of the floss, leaving about 3-4 inches on each end and about 10 inches of floss between the knots. On each end I put one smallish bead first and then on one end I split the floss in half and made two beaded tails. On the other end I split it into thirds and made three beaded tails. Sometimes I put something neat on one of the ends, like a bell or some little cute charm. I tied off all the ends securely and voila! Awesome bookmarks! For more photos click here.


Knitting

I didn't find the time to knit everyone dishcloths, but I did do a nice one for Donna's birthday. Of course I didn't take a photo, darn it.

Now I'm working on another one for Maryellen. Somehow I've not found the time to knit much lately. Even though I've got it in my purse with me all the time. Must not be spending enough time riding in cars and in waiting rooms. That's probably a good thing though.