Category: Jen

News of the Mundane

(Exciting title, right?)\
Last week in Virginia, I burned the tip of my index finger while making a craft with a hot glue gun. It became a normal blister, with a squooshy, liquidy middle. It hurt immediately, so I stuck ice on it all night. By the next morning, it stopped throbbing but would hurt if I bumped it. It stayed like that for a few days and then slowly formed a hard brown cover. The liquid was reabsorbed into my skin and the pain went away. Now it looks and feels like a small piece of chocolate jellybean has been superglued to the tip of my finger. It’s weird. Weird, I tell you! I keep making jokes that I have leprosy or the plague. I just find this very odd and had to share. Aren’t you glad I did?\
My mother-in-law was tickled with my craft, btw, making it all worth it.\
Have a great Tuesday, everyone!

Pumpkin Muffin!

I’ve been trying for weeks to come up with a cute and witty intro to this post, and I just can’t. So here I go…\
Our good friends, Tom and Becky, are looking to adopt. You can check out their pertinent and personal info here: Tom and Becky.\
While reading about their effort to adopt, it just struck me that maybe someone reading this blog might know Pumpkin Muffin, (their pet name for their future child). Kevin’s half of this blog gets so many visitors, I wanted to take the opportunity to spread the word about Tom and Becky’s search. Maybe one of you reading this knows of a woman looking for adoptive parents. If so, click on the link above and see if there is a possible match. Thanks.\
A bit about Tom and Becky- They are well-educated, generous, intelligent, family-oriented, and fun-loving. Becky actually introduced me to Kevin, who turned out to be my Prince Charming. Wouldn’t it be nice if I were to facilitate Becky meeting her own little prince (or princess)?

Stupid Things #312 and #8401

  • Max’s school requires a doctor’s note after the 5th absence. How lame is that? Not if he’s sick for more than five days in a row, but for the whole school year. Grrr. It’s because they want to know whether a kid should be passed or failed, but that decision should be made independent of absences, right? RIGHT! It should be about whether the kid has learned the material. Especially if the parents have excused the absences! I guess I’ll be sending Max to school even when he is feverish but feeling ok so that everybody else can get sick too.
  • To register the kids for school, I need to show proof of residency. Does my government-issued license count? No. I need a phone bill, where all I have to do is call the company and say “bill me here” and that is considered proof of residency. How lame is that? I guess the school thinks money is a more powerful truth indicator than government oversight.

A new way to tell that I am O-L-D.

Max and Brian are in Virginia this week visiting Kevin’s family while I unpack. Yay for everyone involved, right? All of the bedrooms in the new rental house are painted brown. This is fine for most of the rooms, but not the boys’ room. I immediately started thinking of ways to lighten and brighten it. I told the boys I would decorate their room while they were away. (They get no input, mwuhahaha.) Anyway. Max is now nine, which is way too old for the awesome little kids stuff we have. Kevin and I went to the mall to look for “cool” bedroom stuff. We hit Hot Topic first. I could not stop laughing at us in there. We’re no longer in our 20s, remembering all of the time and money we spent there. That would be bad enough, being out of place by half of a decade or so. Oh, no. We were there to SHOP FOR OUR SON.

Brian also gets his toes from his dad!

Brian has asthma. Woe. But just a little bit. “A whiff,” is how the doctor described it. The technical term is “mild and intermittent.” It used to be called “reactive airways disease,” which is a more accurate description according to the doctor. But, disease? DISEASE? Double woe. Anything with the word “disease” is bad.\
Brian’s been sick for the last two to three weeks. When his cough hadn’t disappeared after 10 days (being sick for nine days is ok- three days coming, three days here, and three days going), I took him to the dr. I figured I was overreacting, though I knew Brian’s occasional cough wasn’t normal. Turns out he had an ear infection, puss up his nose, and asthma! The doctor initially decided not to treat the “whiff of asthma” since it was just acting up because of the congestion. We went back to the dr a week later because the cough hadn’t ceased. Turns out Brian still had a raging ear infection. The doctor was pretty shocked, which was funny. He put Brian on a second-round of antibiotics and added some asthma medicine too.\
Brian doesn’t act sick, not counting the one day we tried to go out, except for throwing up once a day. He is really bored, but I can’t really send him to school or take him out to play. He is whiny and grumpy, but mostly due to the boredom and lack of Kevin at home. Brian is taking seven medicines right now, and all but one have to be given multiple times a day, waaaaa: two for allergies, two for the asthma, and three for his ear infection and congestion. Poor kid.

Stop me if you’ve heard this before…

Who is the target customer for the Valentine’s themed over-sized balloons and stuffed animals? I can’t imagine an adult male buying them and don’t think there are enough teens in the country. I ponder this every time I am faced with ‘that certain aisle’ in practically every store I frequent.

Blogging can be embarrassing

Free ebooks! Harlequin, ha, is giving away ebooks: Click for the cheesy!\
Personally, I am looking forward to this historical gem myself, Homespun Bride:\
bq. Montana Territory in 1883 was a dangerous place–especially for a blind woman struggling to make her way through an early winter snowstorm. Undaunted, Noelle Kramer fought to remain independent. But then a runaway horse nearly plunged her into a rushing, ice-choked river, before a stranger’s strong, sure hand saved her from certain death. And yet this was no stranger.