Things that make me tired

Today I am tired. Not exhausted or calling it quits tired, just worn down a bit. I have been fighting a cold for a week and that is causing me to sleep poorly. Then this furnace or ours is not behaving itself. Four times, usually in the middle of the night sometime, it just up and quits. Then later on in the morning or afternoon it suddenly comes on and warms up the place. I don't like inconsistent things or people very often, or actually ever. Either be broken or be good but don't go back and forth. It makes me tired.

vacation plans

We are going to Oregon this summer for our summer vacation. We want to take the girls to the ocean and to an aquarium. Of course we want to go during blueberry picking season and possibly pick some. If Dawn's friend's house is not available we are hoping we can borrow a tent-trailer and camp at KOA type places. Anybody want to come with us?

Emily standing all by herself! She is getting ready to walk and at the same time brushing her teeth. What a genius baby to do more than one thing at a time. 

Here is Sarah's drawing of our family. Alan is green and has spiky hair. Mommy is the tall pink lady with curls. Sarah is the short pink darling with curls and Emmie is the tiny blue baby with curls. Potter is yellow and also has spiky hair (because he is a boy). 

The baby walks again

Emmie has decided maybe standing and walking are not as dangerous as she first thought and has decided to attempt it again. The last three days have seen her standing up on her own in the middle of the floor and letting go of furniture to walk a few steps. Her current record is 5 steps toward Sarah and me. It seems she can stand for indefinite amounts of time, until she tries to walk that is. I will soon learn how to publish pictures and then you can see her momentous achievements.

Things I learned from my crazy friend

I was thinking about writing a book with the above title but that is not up my alley and so here are just some chapter shorts for someone else to use.
Chapter 1- Most people who have serious physical, emotional, and psychological problems can't help but be totally self-absorbed. When one's own problems are so absorbing and warp one's perseption of everything then that person naturally can't see anyone else's needs.
Chapter 2 - I can't expect my crazy friend to act like a rational, logical, and normal adult because Fact: She isn't.
Chapter 3 - Designing lectures on how to help my crazy friend become a rational, logical, and healthy normal adult will never help because 1) I can't ever tell them to her and 2) Even if I did she wouldn't believe me and 3) would think that I don't understand her or her needs.
Chapter 4 - Because her problems are so overwhelming and she is so insecure with herself she is hardly ever teachable or willing to change.
Chapter 5 - Because she isn't teachable it's unhealthy to become obsessed about trying to fix all her problems and allow her to absorb all your time and energy because Fact: My crazy friend will want to spend as much time with me as possible and will feel cheated if I put my family first.
Chapter 6 - Always be honest but kind. Most of the time silence is the best approach to her crazy rantings.

mild ramblings

Sometimes I just have these random thoughts floating around and I thought today I might blog some of them. First I am thinking about Emmie. She's still pretty sick and if she doesn't improve by tomarrow the doctor is going to run some tests. She's had a fever since Friday when she caught Alan's cold and seemed to be over it Monday with no fever but then on Tuesday she was back to being really feverish (102.3). She hasn't eaten in several days and just sleeps. The doctor couldn't find anything wrong on Tuesday but said it's not normal or a good sign to be getting better and then go back to having a high fever so I'm wondering what's wrong. In the same thought I am counting my blessings that Sarah isn't sick. That is an obvious miracle since she always gets whatever is going around.
Of course I am thinking about what the heck I'm going to fix for dinner. I haven't been very good lately at meal planning and Dawn and Julie remind me that it's just so much easier if you have a plan ahead of time. Coralee also has that calendar thing going. Something with chicken I think but what? What I really want is fish but A) it's expensive and B) Emmie is not up to going out and buying anything so C) fish is not an option unless it's canned tuna and D) Alan doesn't like tuna cassarole and E) Sarah can't eat egg noodles so I guess that's out too. Chicken then...
I'm thinking about how much time I waste trying to avoid things, things like exercise for example. Oh how I hate exercise, but the hate of the flab is starting to propel me to action. My main excuse lately is that it's not practical to go to my mom's house and use their exercise thingy and it's too cold to take the kids out for a romp around the neighborhood. I need something I can do in the house preferably while I play solataire on the computer. Ahhh solataire, now there's a guilty thought. How many hours have you wasted playing that this week when you could have been doing something productive? I think that thought is causing too much guilt and I am vowing not to play the rest of the week. Instead I will read more to Sarah and Emmie. I'm so sick of reading the same books over and over to those Cuties though. It's time to visit the library in Alan's office and branch into something new for Sarah and hopefully Emmie will allow something besides "Mr. Brown can Moo can you?" She's so cute now that she brings us a book to read to her. I was worried when she didn't start this as soon as Sarah but now I'm so sick of reading the same board book over and over and over and over...
Maybe Sarah and I will make valentines to decorate the house with. She's painting now. She's getting so much better at her fine moter skills. Lately she has been working on writing the number 5. She is learning how to write them in order from her little workbook we got her for Christmas. The 3 took quite a while and it was several days before she finally got over her frustration enough to practice it. Then she suddenly got it. Same thing with the 4. She learns it, get frustrated not being able to do it, ignores it for several days, then voila conquers it.
Well that's enough thoughts for one day. Time to get up and put some of them into action, except exercise...