Shingles and a Happy New Year

If you've ever suffered from Shingles, you will know why I have felt horrible for the past month. 

Shingles stink!

Add a cold on top of that.....and I am down for the count.  I've never felt this bad for this long in my life.  I've had an achy, fever feeling for a month now and can't shake it.  I've missed two weeks of work and I feel horrible about it.  

We are spending a quiet night at home for New Years, just how I like it.  I'm really a homebody so it doesn't bother me at all to spend the evening with the boys and the hubby watching football.

We fixed hamburgers, fried potatoes and corn for dinner (the hubs request).  We also had chips with French Onion and Spinach dip, so bad yet so good.

We bought two bottles of sparkling grape juice for the boys to drink at midnight.  Small Fry loves the sparkling grape juice, the last time he had it was at our wedding three years ago. He probably had five glasses of it. He felt so grown up drinking it!

I'm not making any resolutions this year because they tend to never stick anyway-ha!  I am going to say that 2013 is going to be a great year. 2012-I will not miss at all. It ranks among the top three worst years behind the year my Dad died and the year of my divorce. Such a hard year concerning my Mom and having to make very difficult decisions, which I'm not good at doing at all.

I will say I would never have made it without my husband this year. What a rock he has been throughout this hard time. He never let's anything get him down and keeps me calm when I feel like I'm going crazy. Thank god for my sweet husband.

I wish all of our friends and family a Happy New Year!!!  May 2013 be the best year yet!

You say it's your birthday....

Yesterday was my 41st birthday. 

It really seemed like just another day.  We had two basketball games in different cities so we spent the evening watching basketball and traveling.  The one difference was.....

We went in my new SUV!!!!  We got a 2013 Jeep Grand Cherokee.  I am in love!!!

It has so many gagdets, I'll never figure them out!

Finally Happy

We moved my Mom into her assisted living apartment on Saturday and she seems to love it. What a relief for me!

Now I just have the task of packing her house up and storing things. How do you decide what is worth keeping and what's not worth it? That's one if my toughest decisions.

Randoms

1. My 8 year old Jeep Cherokee is having a few minor hiccups. The power steering is going out, my thermostat was shot and my 4th cylinder wasn't firing. I don't know much about cars but I do know that equals a lot of money for repairs. Gag.

2. I got my haircut short in a bob. I like it, it's much more manageable and easier to straighten in the mornings.

3. I love the pic of mr. H and our boys being silly. T just passed his Dad in height. He's now 5'11" tall. He's such a cutie!

Pioneer Days 5K-First Place

This morning we had to wake up at 5:45am-ugh, to go to the Pioneer Days 5K at the new park we have in town.  Every year our little town puts on a fun festival with rides, a 5K, a 10K, pet contests, a beauty pageant and yummy food. 

T and his friend thought the 5K would be fun and were hoping they would place. 

Well, they won.  First place. 

They had the exact same time, which I think was planned.  What great best friends!

Furniture Fun

I've been shopping for furniture for my Mom's senior apartment and of course, couldn't help looking for myself.

I am so in love with this set of Ashley furniture.

I'm in a blue mood lately.  It makes me feel calmer in this storm of my life.  I used to have red but it was too dramatic for me.  I'm sure I'll change my mind at some point but right now I love soothing colors.

I also love this look for the dining room.  So clean and fresh looking.

 

I would love to use white in my living room but I have a 13 year old and 11 year old.  They are boys. 

 

Enough said.

 

I have a deep need to make this.  How cute would this look on my mahogany colored front door?!

 

Moms Big Move

 We have finally convinced my Mom, after a horrible summer of illness, that it's better if she moved to an Assisted Living Senior Apartment.  I've been talking to her about it since January and she never would agree to it, saying she was fine and could handle herself living alone. 

Well, take Parkinsons Disease and add in a flooded house and she's had it.  She now knows that she can't handle her house by herself and she's just not safe anymore alone.  My Mom has a form of Parkinsons in which she will never get the tremors but she falls without warning.  She will get up to walk somewhere and for no reason, black out and just slump to the ground.  She's probably fallen no less than 100 times in the last 9 months.  She's suffered very little injury when falling, which has been a blessing but some of the falls required an emergency room visit.

I've learned a lot of things in the past 4 months. 

1.  Having a Power of Attorney does nothing when the adult you are taking care of can tell medical people that they want to live by themselves.  You can only ask someone to move to an assisted living, you can't make anyone do anything.

2. Low Sodium in an older person is the scariest thing I've been through. It makes the person confused, mean, agitated, combative, halucinate, and just say all around crazy things.  My Mom had low sodium and one day out of the blue became extremely agitated, refusing to go to the doctor, take care of herself, listen to anyone, etc.  I couldn't even get her to go to the doctor to see what was going on.  All this was happening in the middle of the flood restoration at her house and she refused to leave. She stayed in the middle of new flooring, painting, cleanup.  She told the restoration guys she wanted her garage painted red (on a grey house), she wanted to charge up her car so she could do donuts in the yard (seriously-how strange is that request), she wasn't eating right at all (she only ate baked sweet potato fries-that's it) and she was generally pissed off at everyone, especially me. 

By the way, there is nothing worse than hearing your parent tell you what a horrible child and person you were and are currently.  I know she's sick and wasn't talking in her right mind but that is a self-esteem killer right there.  If I hadn't had my husband and kids around, I don't know what I would have done.

3.  Parkinsons Disease just sucks.

4.  The guilt of having to move your parent into an Assisted Living is a killer.  It's like sending your child off the kindergarten by themselves.  I just want to make her friends for her and watch her all day and night.  So hard.



I have decided that I'll do whatever it takes to make my Mom happy and feel content about moving.  She's having to leave her furniture behind because it's too big so we bought all new furniture.  Bright cheery furniture!

Her new little kitchenette in her apartment

Her new cottage style headboard

Her cottage style loveseat-you have to be happy when sitting on this.

Big chair and ottoman

Cute drop leaf table

TV stand

Trying times

This past two weeks has been the most trying time of my life.  My Mom has Parkinson's disease and has been rapidly declining since this past summer.  Well, a month ago she started acting very agitated and mean, telling me what an idiot everyone was and how I've done such a bad job taking care of her.

Of course, I took it to heart even though I knew something wasn't right with her.  I instantly thought she had a bladder infection and started begging her to go to the doctor.  She was so confused, agitated and mad at everything and everyone that she refused.  I begged for days and when we finally went, she told the doctor that I beat her and scream at her constantly.  This, after I quit work just to stay home and take care of her and do everything for her.  The doctor said she had a bladder infection, which causes extreme confusion and irritation, making people mean. 

She took her medicine and kept acting stranger and stranger.  She told us that some people come get in bed with her at night and kick her out, she asked a painter to paint the inside of her garage red, she wanted to call the police to file a report of breaking and entering because she found goldfish food at her house.  Weird stuff.  She kept acting more irrational and more irrational as the days went on.  Finally, yesterday morning, she agreed to go to the hospital because she felt so sick. 

Guess why she was acting odd.....because her SODIUM was low.  Apparently, low sodium causes the brain to become agitated, confused, fuzzy and to hallucinate.  Who knew?  I couldn't believe it and when her levels went up she started acting more like herself. 

I still really want her to go to an assisted living and she refuses which absolutely kills me. I'm terrified of her living by herself and falling.  No medical facility will help us place her either because she refuses. 

I honestly don't know what we're going to do to get her in a safe place but this has been the worst time.  So confusing and no answer in sight.  Taking care of an aging parent is more difficult than I every could have imagined.

School's Started Already-8th & 6th Grade

Today was the first day of school for the not so little guys.  T started 8th grade (he's now the oldest grade in his building) and H started 6th grade (he's now the youngest grade in his building but with an 8th grade brother). 

When they got home, H said he ran into his big brother five times in the hallway.  That makes me feel better knowing that he'll have someone watching out for him.  They both loved their classes and had a great time seeing their friends again.  I really hope this year turns out to be a great one!

 T - The 8th grader doing what he does best-playing XBox Live with his buddies on the internet.  I couldn't take his pic this morning because he had to leave at 6:30 am for football.

H - The 6th grader who hates that I ask him to pose for pictures before the first day of school - ha!
I was terrified and he was completely non-chalant as always about starting school.  Typical!

H and I sat outside last night enjoying the last sunset of summer. 

We also spent all last night worrying about our puppy Boomer.  We let him outside yesterday morning to play for just a little bit and noticed after about 30 minutes that he was laying on the ground not moving.  He was panting horribly and wouldn't even walk.  We were so scared.  We ran him to the vet and he was suffering from heatstroke.  His internal temperature was 107 degrees.  We felt so bad but the vet said we did nothing wrong.  It's that scary to have a dog outside when the temperature is close to 100.  Boomer spent the night at the vet getting fluids and we just picked him up.  Seven hundred dollars later and he's doing ok but we will be so careful when he's outside from now on.

I'm Detoxing

My hubby and I just spent last weekend at a Masonic function.  It's a group that we get together with every four months or so.  We have a group of about eight that we really enjoy spending time with while at these events.  I got to wear a nice dress and the hubs wore a tuxedo so it was fun just seeing ourselves all spiffied up for once!

We ate and drank a lot of good stuff so I thought I'd try a detox that I'd read about on It Sux To Be Fat.  I love that blog and she has great recipes for sweets, which call me like crazy!

Here's the recipe she had on her site.  I just went to Wal-mart and bought the ingredients, which were super inexpensive and easy to find. 

Arden’s Garden 2 Day Detox

Yield: 2 Gallons

Serving Size: 8 oz

Ingredients

• 48 oz fresh grapefruit juice
• 32 oz fresh orange juice
• 16 oz fresh lemon juice
• 160 oz quality steam-distilled water
• Empty 1 gal. jug for mixing
• Funnel (optional)

Directions

1. Mix together for each gallon (128 oz): 24 oz. fresh grapefruit juice, 16 oz. fresh orange juice, 8 oz. fresh lemon juice and 80 oz. distilled water.
2. Drink 8 oz. every hour until the total 128 oz. have been consumed – and that is it! No food.

I'm on Hour 5 - It's 1pm right now and I started at about 8:30am.  My stomach has been growling quite a bit in the last hour but it's really not unbearable.  I actually like the juice.  It's not very sweet and pretty tart, but tasty. 

We'll see how I do tonight, which is my snacking time.  Night time boredom kills me! 

A friend of mine told me to also get the book, The Healing Code.  She's lost about 30 pounds just going through the mediations in the book.  I'm thinking about downloading it on my phone, but I'm cheap and it's $12.  I'll be ticked if I don't read it and could have bought something with that money instead.

I must really need to lose weight because I'm passing up a Masonic dinner tonight with Italian Beef sandwiches shipped from Chicago.  I love those things. 

Chicken Crescent Roll Casserole and A 3 Year Anniversary

Yesterday I tried the best recipe.
 I mean awesome, finger licking good recipe. It's the ultimate in comfort food - I found it on the Tastebook website from a lady named Kristin. http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/1881796-Chicken-Crescent-Roll-Casserole

It's super rich and filling and would be perfect on a cold winter day!  But summer works too! Trust me!

Cheesy Chicken Crescent Roll Casserole
2 (8 ounce) cans Pillsbury Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
1 (10 3/4 ounce) can cream of chicken soup, undiluted
3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese or swiss cheese (or any cheese of choice)
1/2 cup 18% table cream (or use whipping cream)

FILLING 4 ounces cream cheese (very soft)
4 tablespoons butter (very soft but not melted)
1/2-1 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)
1/3 cup onion, finely chopped (can use green onions)
2 large cooked chicken breasts, finely chopped (or use about 2 cups, can use cooked turkey)
1/2-3/4 cup finely grated cheddar cheese
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt (or use 1/2 teaspoon white salt or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (or to taste)
2-4 tablespoons mayonnaise or whipping cream
1-2 cup grated cheddar cheese (for topping)

directions

1. Set oven to 350°F.
2. Butter a casserole dish (any size to hold crescent rolls).
3. In a saucepan, mix half and half cream, 3/4 cup grated cheese (can use more cheese if desired) and undiluted chicken soup (can season with black pepper if desired).
4. Heat just until the cheese melts (do not boil).
5. For the filling --- (make certain that the cream cheese and butter are very soft) in a bowl, mix the soft cream cheese with butter until very smooth, then add in garlic powder (if using).
6. Add in the chopped chicken, onion and cheddar cheese; mix well until combined.
7. Add in 2 tablespoons whipping cream or mayonnaise; mix to combine (add in a little more if the mixture seems too dry).
8. Season with seasoned salt or white and black pepper to taste.
9. Unroll the crescent rolls.
10. Place 1 heaping tablespoon chicken mixture (or a little more) on top of each crescent triangle, then roll up starting at the thicker end.
11. Drizzle a small amount of soup mixture on the bottom of the dish.
12. Then place the crescent rolls seam-side down on top of the creamed mixture in the casserole.
13. Drizzle the remaining sauce on top (you don’t have to use the full amount of cream sauce, just use as much as desired) and sprinkle with 1 cup (or more) grated cheese, or amount desired.
14. Bake for about 30 minutes.


I made some ratatouille also.  My neighbor brought by some zucchini, yellow squash, onions and a bunch of tomatoes.  I just sauteed it all together with some olive oil and italian spices and ate it for lunch everyday last week.  You can't get healthier than sauteed veggies for lunch!

Notice my beautiful Paula Deen saute pan has been bent.  That's what happens when you drop it on the tile floor after hand washing it.  Ugh.   I could have died!  I just got that pan for Christmas too.

It still works, it's just not pretty anymore.

July 11th was our 3 year wedding anniversary.  We all went to Lone Star steakhouse, our favorite.  The boys went with us because, as they said, they got married that day too!  Ha!  They just didn't want to miss out on some yummy steak to eat!

We don't do huge things for our anniversary typically.  We're the type that we tend to celebrate everyday so we don't really feel the need to make a big to-do about it.  Maybe on a big year like 5, we'll go on a honeymoon finally-haha!

4th of July Fun

We had the best fourth of July this year. We invited a bunch of friends over and had a lot of family over, including my mom, who needed to get of the house. She had a terrific time watching the boys shoot their fireworks.

We kept the menu simple this year, only grilling hot dogs and hamburgers. I also made shish-k-bobs with a white wine and herb marinade that were out of this world. We has two kinds of potato salad, coleslaw, chips and six different pies. Our friend Marilyn made sangria that was so good. I'm becoming a big fan of sangria. It's so refreshing but can also be very dangerous since I can't taste the alcohol in it.

We live in the best spot for our towns fireworks display. We live right next to the airport where they shoot off fireworks, our house is literally 400 yards from the airport and the fireworks go off right over our house. It's the best seat in town and our front yard is facing the perfect way to see them. We set up canopies so it's not too hot when we first go outside and the suns still up. It's perfect!

We always have such a fun time when we have all of our family and friends over. It's still funny to me that we live in such a small town that every parent and sibling my husband has lives within three miles of us. Isn't that the cutest thing?!

The boys loved their fireworks this year. They've finally reached the age that I let them light their own fireworks. They are very safe when doing it. They know I'm a complete freak about safety and fire. They actually had one firework that their uncle bought them and I swear it was like an atomic bomb went off in front of the house. So loud!

My youngest thought it was funny to punt the sparkler and watch it fly across the street. I guess boys will be boys!