My little summer journey

To start this story I have to go back to April/May.  At that point in time I had read about a different way to do eye shadow that I had never heard of, so of course I looked into it.  During my looking I found this website and it really got my attention.  That led to one of the basic problems that many of us face especially when we find something new that catches our eye, how in the hell am I going to pay for all this?  My answer was kinda simple really, quit smoking. 

However nothing is as simple as it seems most of the time.  I set everything up, got the patch and was ready to go.  I went 3-4 days with no problems, just the odd thought about going outside (since I've only smoked outside for years).  The Saturday after I quit was a whole different thing all together.  I started crying and couldn't stop and after a few days admitted I needed help.  I got into the doctor really quick and was put on Welbutrin and recommended a head doctor type.  The diagnoses on the insurance paperwork is Major Affective Depressive Disorder, single episode, moderate severity.  In other words I got thrown for a loop NO ONE saw coming.  Started smoking again and trying to deal with this issue now.  

After spending the summer seeing a counselor and trying to change things so I would have a different result, I decided to try again.  I can't very well step back in seeing her if I haven't quit so it was coming up on either quit or stop talking about it.  

I had my last cigarette Thursday the 16th at around 730 in the morning.  It would've been 10 or 11 Wednesday but Nick forgot to take them to work and I couldn't resist.  The rest however were flushed.  So at this point I have not had a smoke in 9 days.  

On Tuesday of this week, the 21st, I took the patch off for the last time.  I have been without any nicotine whatsoever for 4 days.  

So I think I can honestly declare I am a non smoker.  

I do recommend that for anyone considering quitting read a book by Allen Carr called the "Easy Way to Quit Smoking" I got a kindle version for less than $6.  It puts things in a different light than most of the sites you'll find out there.  

The plan now is to start tapering off my appointments, lets face it it can get expensive, and finish my cat grooming certification in October.  I've passed 2 of 4 written tests and have the practicals.  

Oh, and I have already rewarded myself.  Since this whole mess was started by make up, I got the Urban Decay Smoked palette.  Probably the only time I'll spend that much on eye shadow. :-)

I need to work on getting back to doing this more. So, since last post I mentioned a wedding. It went beautifully and I wish them a successful marriage. The only small issue with the wedding is, who holds an outdoor, sunset wedding, one mile away from the Wisconsin border, in NOVEMBER? Yeah, it was a little cold but at least is was short, sweet, and to the point. We sat next to several of Nick's pledge brothers and had a good time. Cory's poor girlfriend was not used to this weather, born and raised in Arizona. So the open bar was a friend.

For Thanksgiving, we drove out to my parents again. This time with two kids and both dogs. Simba and Myra had their beds in the back of the truck since Nick got another canopy/topper thing. They handled it very well and didn't take too long to settle in. Ben and Ayla did sleep a decent amount, but we also had Nick's old laptop with several DVDs to help occupy their time. I think I listened through Cars 2 at least 4 times before I actually saw it. Nick didn't get a deer this year, but it'll happen soon enough. It is kind of interesting on which parts of deer hunting are the most anxiety inducing for us. Nick is ok up to the part where you have to handle the deer because he's not sure how/what to do when field dressing and processing the deer. Me, it's the part before it so I tell him we've got it covered. We had a nice visit with my parents and my sister and her family. Ben really liked playing with his cousins.

I have joined the smart phone populace. Now all I have to do is try to smarter than it. On a side note here I should mention that the night before a trip is not a good time to get new toys. Nick got them the night before we left for my parents' house and still had some packing to do. We were up a little late. Also on the funny side, Nick tried surprising me. I say tried because I figured out that my phone wasn't working. I called ready to yell at someone and the CSR realized that I was talking about a different phone than his screen showed I had. There are some quirks and what not to figure out but in general I'm liking it. Outside of the games and apps, although I'm having fun with the dog teaser one (Alex hates it), it is nice to have a phone that actually works. By the time I got my smart phone, my old one was randomly turning off. A little bit of a pain especially when your using it at the time. So anyone know of any cool apps I may have missed?

Christmas is upon us in force, we're almost done with our shopping. We bought the gifts for my sister's children while we were out visiting and left them with Grandma. So we save on shipping and get out of wrapping.

The children are letting me know that I've had enough time on the computer.

How's this for a day?

Yesterday was what I would classify as a bad day and the kids had very little to do with it.

It started at work as I discovered two of my grooming blades are missing, making a total of three. One went missing last week. So now I have no 30's and my 3/4 is gone, a total of about 75 dollars, give or take, of work tools. I haven't had time to ask everyone I work with if they may have misplaced them but it looks like I'm going to be unable to allow people to use my stuff when I'm not there anymore since it's not getting returned.

After work, everything was pretty good for a while, but then Ayla took a tumble off the couch. She worked herself up so bad that she vomited on me, twice. Yeah, I got puked on again.

THEN fast forward to bedtime. I'm calling the day done and going to climb into bed and enjoy sleep. Only to discover that somehow a needle had gotten stuck in the bed, which I found while sliding in. Nick, meanwhile, is wondering what the hell is wrong now.

So after removing the offending needle, I crawled into bed and pulled the covers over my head and prayed that nothing else would go awry.

Nick's surgery was yesterday and I can say I was kinda surprised at how much it took out of me to wait.

We got there at around 11 in the morning and got him in a gown and in a bed. We both fell asleep while we were waiting for them to move him, so I did at least get a short nap. They took him to the prep area around noon and I got sent to the surgical waiting room. The good part was there was a volunteer there who kept track of who was where for the doctors to find and they had a neat system set up. The patients were assigned numbers that I was given before Nick was taken to prep and on a screen in the waiting room they had the patient numbers and where they were in the process. So you could look up and see when his procedure started and when he was done. I did a lot of reading while I was in there, my E-reader is dead.

The only part that really sucked was after he was done I got to see him for a few minutes and then sent back to the waiting room. It was there that I realized his wallet wasn't in my purse. So I went to registration to see if he had left it there and he hadn't. At this point I'm just hoping it's in the bag with his clothes, I knew it wasn't in his pants since I'd folded everything when I put it in there, and thinking "I TOLD him to just grab what he'd need and not bring the whole thing". They called security to escort me up to the day surgery ward so I could check the bag because if it wasn't in there I'd have to do a report with them. It was in the pocket of his coat and I still felt like an idiot but lesson learned. Next time INSIST on just what is needed.

We got to leave around 630-7 which was fun since I obviously had to drive home and I hate having to drive near cities. We got home around 8 ish and luckily Ben saw the bandage on Nick's head and acted appropriately so we didn't have to worry about that. Nick pretty much went to bed and stayed there while I sat out and played with the kids with Nick's mother.

She took Ben back home with her today to give Nick a couple of days to recover without the ball of energy. He was real excited to go home with Grammie and I know Uncle Andy is looking forward to spending some time with him. So all I have to take care of is Nick and Ayla and right now they are both asleep and I'm thinking the house is too quiet.

Today I have some random pictures because I realized I've gotten lazy about sharing.

She really enjoyed this

We had gone to a dollar type store and checked out what they had since they were closing and got a few little toys for Ben. This one we are playing with generic Play Doh.

I'm trying to show him how to make something. Note the bruise on my arm? I have no idea what caused it either.

I'm not exactly sure what it is, but it's also been quite awhile since I've played with play doh.

Told you they were random. This one has a story all it's own. It looks dead right? That's what we thought. We had a complete brain fart on this one. It's a possum, we knew that but what we forgot is what do possums do? Yup, play possum. It was laying on the ground in the backyard within Simba's reach, so we couldn't leave it there. Luckily I do have half a brain and insisted on Nick getting me some gloves. I put it on the front step to see what caused it's demise and then realized if I moved it's tail it's lip drew back. So we put it by the garage and a half hour later it was gone.

We still can't get a picture of Ayla standing on her own but we're getting close.

Ben had to ham it up.

We could not get Ayla to go to sleep one night and so we just let her crawl around. Well, we got distracted and forgot she wasn't in bed. She had fallen asleep behind the computer chair where Nick had been sitting.

No real reason behind this one, it's been on the camera for a while now. Nick had bought another truck part and the box was part of it and there was a hitchhiker in it.

I think I'm caught up now, except for Nick and Ben's trip to the monster truck show this weekend, but I'll give Nick a chance to do something with them first.

So what do you get with 2 kids, a dog, and two partial quarts of ice cream? Give up? One big mess.

To explain, I had gotten up with Ayla around 3 or so. Since she was sick for almost two weeks her sleep schedule has gotten all wacky, but back to the story. So I had gone back to sleep on the couch in the living room. The problem came when Ben got up, Nick assumed I was already up so went back to sleep. See the problem here?

I woke up to Nick bringing Ayla to me saying this one is all yours. She was wet, had something in her hair and a pretty full diaper. He then went on to explain slash show me what he had discovered. The best we can figure is Ben got the ice cream out of the freezer (which is getting a permanent combo lock if I have anything to say about it) and taken it, his sister, and the dog into his room. Where he proceeded to eat some, throw some around (yes, it was on the walls, dresser, bed, everywhere), I'm pretty sure he was a big reason Ayla was covered in it and Simba too. Nick woke up to Ben trying to give Ayla a bath in the spare bathroom, by splashing water on her from the running sink.

So both kids got tossed into a bath and washed down. Nick got a bucket and started cleaning Ben's room and I took the dog to the salon and gave him a quick bath. Of course my co workers, knowing I wasn't working today, were wondering what happened when I showed up with Simba. This isn't the first time I've had to take Simba to work with me because Ben decided that food is good for a dog's fur.

That was my morning. Now it's a lot calmer because Nick took Ben to a monster truck show so it just me and Ayla for tonight.

Until the next episode..........

As always it's been busy around here, I'm not sure I would know what to do if we weren't. So I'll do a little update on what we are all up to.

Ben is definitely his father's son. He has the stubbornness and brains to give me many a headache. One example is when you tell him not to pick something up, he won't, he'll just push it along with his finger. So needless to say I am learning to be very specific in what I tell him and what I correct him for. He is currently recovering from Impetigo, not bad but not cheap either. He most likely caused it since he kept picking at some areas around his chin, but doesn't change that I have to try and keep the medicine on it. He'll finally be three the 19th, but I don't think that'll change much behavior wise :) I just won't have the "oh he's two" semi comforty thought. But I will have survived my first go round.

Ayla now has 5 teeth and is not afraid to use them. She is also pulling herself up to her feet, Nick and are kinda wondering if she's gonna beat Ben to walking. I'll have to remember to get a picture up. I'm also having to do her hair several times a day since she will not leave her barrettes alone and if I do nothing, she can't see a thing. I often joke now that I take better care of my daughter's hair than my own. we have at least the same amount of stuff. When we wash her hair she gets a leave in /heat protector and we blow dry her hair since this is the mid west in the middle of winter. If her hair is just tangled we have this little spray that smells like sweet peas that helps get it out.

Nick's working normal hours again. The last few weeks of December the managers/foremen at his job were trying to use up their vacation days, so he ended up working second shift a couple of days and that really threw everyone. He'd be home when we all got up and going and wouldn't be home until everyone was in bed. It did seem to affect Ben, but I couldn't figure out how to counteract it. Unfortunately it looks like Nick's grandmother will be leaving us soon. If I remember correctly, she is in her eighties and has been having health trouble for a few years. Not sure what else you can say about that.

As for me, I survived the Christmas Craziness at work. My boss does not know how to say no to anyone. The paycheck is nice but your almost too tired to enjoy it. We're back to a more reasonable pace, if a little slow, and looking at relocating at some point this year (the salon not the family) so that'll be another level of insanity.

More pictures and stories soon.

This past weekend we took the kids to a pumpkin patch to pick out out pumpkins.

They had all sorts of things for the kids to do.

Chickville, baby chickens.

This one came right up to him.

Duck races with a old fashioned water pump

Ayla avidly watching the duck races. Yes, they had one of those huge slides there (you can see it behind me) but we didn't take Ben on it and he didn't ask.

And they're off

Toy tractors to ride on. I can't remember who it is, but someone we know is all about Farmalls.

A crooked house to play in. I love these things.


Ayla and Mommy

Ben and Daddy on the tractor ride out to the pumpkin patch

Ayla and Mommy on the ride.

Finding the first pumpkin

Back to the tractor

Pumpkin flower, pretty.

Minus one pumpkin, but we got one for everybody and the big one is almost as big as Ayla.

Last night, we were playing and the kids were loving it.

Well it took a few days to get the time to post more pictures, but here they are. They start when we went to Ottawa to pick up Andy since he came out to help me while Nick was out of commission for a few days.

Ben found a new toy in Uncle Andy AKA NeeNee.

Any suggestions for this one?

We decided to go to the Lake County Fair while he was out here.

In the conservation building they have this boat which has goldfish in it. You get to catch 3 and get a little prize.


He did ask for some help in catching them. Unfortunately, we all knew what would be a problem when we started. He didn't want the prize, he wanted to keep the fish.

Ben decided he wanted a pony ride. Shortly after I took this, however, he decided he was done. There was a youngish/teen girl working and she helped him through the rest of it. Granted he was leaning on her the whole time. As I told Nick and Andy, if he was a little older I'd think he did that on purpose.


Nick and Ben went to the monster truck / tough truck show and Andy and I took Ayla and sat in the truck for a little bit since strollers aren't allowed in the grandstand and we didn't think it'd be smart to take a baby to a show that is always really loud.

We had her laughing pretty good, but we couldn't get her to do it when we had the camera out. After the show we met up with Nick and Ben and played a few more games.


Of course the stupid thing is bigger than he is and if you squeeze the left fin, it squeaks.

That's it for the fairs. I have more pictures before I'm caught up but I figure one "theme" at a time. Here's one for the road.

Yes, she's kicking him and he just looks bored. He is not my cat anymore, he's changed owners.

A lot of pictures

Too cute.

I love this little outfit. Too bad she's almost out grown it.

Grammie came out to visit a few weeks ago and we went up to the Porter County Fair.

Ben really liked the animal barns.

Don't know a caption for this one.

Ben didn't even have problem washing his hands between the barns. They had a bunch of stations set up at the entrances.

My shirt says "I make milk, what's your superpower" I got some comments on it while we were walking around.

Bunnies!! Daddy still won't let us bring one home. My choice? The ones that look like they stuck and ear into a light socket.

He really liked the baby pigs.

Like Mommy taught him.


Daddy couldn't catch a frog, but Ben could.
only problem, he wanted to keep the frog.



Is it bad he's only 2 1/2?



Grammie and Ayla

Helping Daddy.

More to come, not sure if I'll get to them today.

Not a whole lot going on around here. Ben has been staying dry through the night more often than he has an accident lately (knock knock) Ayla has rolled over, front to back, a couple of times and is sleeping almost through the night. I think 11 to 6 counts right?

Ayla is currently sleeping and I've decided to take a break. I have completely picked up our room, picked up Ben's and reorganized his closet. Sorting and everything, did the same with Ayla's, and I have laundry going.

Isn't that just toooooo cute!
]
"Pick me up!"

Yes, I'm the favored chair right now. Look at how high she holds her head.

Ben and the pudding cup.

My blue hair. Didn't show up as well as we'd thought but then again, we also had someone wanting to have their picture taken too.