Sharon, the Crafter!

I'm officially one of the Starving Housewives! I am putting my bags and other creations into a craft fair April 7 - 11. Since I only decided on this a few weeks ago, things around here have been pretty hectic. My Mother even came up for a few days to help me sew and decorate the bags. She even sewed up the seams in the dishcloths.

Thanks Mom!

I'm really excited about this and may even do their fall and winter craft fairs too. As long as there are no medical claim jobs opening up, this gives me something to do...not that being a stay at home mom means I'm doing nothing... :)

Last week, Steve found this seed rack at Coast-to-Coast, who are closing their store, and it works perfectly for showing off the bags. Now I just need to get busy and sew the remaining bags that have been previously cut out. So if you are interested in coming to this event, all the details can be found on their web site: www.starvinghousewives.com

Whacky, Whacky West

Scott had his 3rd grade concert today and his part was to play the base xylophone. He is sitting on the bottom step wearing a tan shirt and black hat. At the end of the video, he even waves at the camera. Since I didn't know when he would be playing, I had to record the entire song. Enjoy!

You Can Call Me Al

Scott came home from school on Monday a bit later than usual due to Lego Club. So I had already been on line and saw that he didn't finish one of his assignments for the day. When he walks in the door, I asked him how things went in Lego club and I gather that the project he was working on there was quite complicated and he wanted to be able to finish it by going to the "camp" during Spring Break. I told him no as we didn't have the money, it costs $20 to attend the camp. So he was pretty sad about that as it was a project he was really, really wanting to finish.

Then we got on the subject of homework. He told me he had none, that he got everything done in class. So I asked him about Writing4, which Mr. Brown had listed as not being turned in. That's when Scott became quite agitated and started crying. "Mr. Brown told me I could put down my new nick name on the paper, so I did!" "What is your new nick name?" "It's Albert Einstein, or Al, because I knew all the answers today...I kept raising my hand with them, so Mr. Brown started calling me Al."

Okay, so you really got all the work done and you just need to let Mr. Brown know that you used your nick name on the paper instead of your own? Yes...okay...we won't stress out about it now, but you really need to fix it in the morning. In the meantime, if you do start using your nick name, please put your real name in parenthesis so that the teacher, and whoever does the grading, will know it was you...okay? Okay...crisis avoided.

Dr. Mom and the Toe

This has been an ongoing saga for way too long, in my humble opinion! And right now I’m not even sure when the end will be, but if I don’t get this down now, I will forget many of the details.

December 29, 2008
We had taken our girls to Water Aerobics at the YMCA (Stephanie G with her daughter) to get our exercise during the Christmas break. After exercising and spending some time in the hot tub, my Stephanie and I were together in the YMCA's family shower room (I like the privacy in there instead of the main locker room). This is when she said: “Mom, would you look at my toe?” It was quite red at the top of the nail bed and pus was oozing out from between the nail and the skin at the top of the nail. It is her right big toe that I’m talking about. I knew right away that this was beyond the capabilities of Dr. Mom, so as soon as we got home, I arranged for her to be seen at her doctor's office.

It was the nurse practitioner that saw her and prescribed Augmenten 875 mg with warm/hot water soaks with Epson salts. We started the prescription that day and soaked her foot daily as requested.

I checked her foot from time to time and thought things were getting better, so after the prescription ended, I didn’t think about it much…

January 18, 2009
Stephanie stated that her stockings were sticking to her toe…the pus had returned! So we soaked in Epson salts again. On Monday I called and made an appointment with Dr. Anderson for after school on Tuesday. We soaked again on Monday.

January 20, 2009
Saw Dr. Anderson and was prescribed another antibiotic, Keflex 500 mg and recommended that she see a podiatrist. I had Steve call the podiatrist in Monroe for an appointment.

January 21, 2009
Saw Dr. Brunsman for the first time and he agreed with the prescription she was currently taking, however, instead of soaking in Epson salts, he wanted her to use a cotton ball soaked with a special salt solution directly on her toe for 10-15 minutes twice a day and not to wipe off the solution, but to use a hair dryer to dry the toe, then bandage it and put on a clean sock. This we did.

January 28, 2009
We were supposed to see the podiatrist, but the appointment times were messed up…I was ticked!

January 30, 2009
The toe is still not better! He swabbed the toe for a culture and gave us yet another antibiotic prescription, this time Augmenten 250 mg.

February 4, 2009
Stephanie stayed home from school…one look at her very pale face told me that she was indeed sick, but no fever. I called and had her foot appointment moved up from 4pm to 1:30. She started vomiting just before leaving for this visit. I was not happy with this visit at all! The culture came back negative and all he could say was maybe getting an x-ray??? I made the decision that going back to this doctor was not an option and getting an x-ray was not happening either. After getting home I made some phone calls to some infection control doctors that the nurse on the Premera phone line listed for me. After talking with some of them, I decided to do a Mom thing and took her to Children’s hospital.

Children’s was a very positive experience! They treated the whole Stephanie, not just the toe. She was given something for nausea and they numbed the toe and cleaned it out the best they could. They tried to get a sample to for a culture, but there wasn’t enough. Which made me realize that the culture taken from Dr. Brunsman was probably not valid either. Anyway, we left the hospital with Stephanie’s 4th antibiotic prescription, this time Clindamycin at 300mg for 10 days, and a medication to stop the diarrhea that the antibiotic causes.

February 9, 2009
Follow-up with Dr. Coe. He said to continue the prescription and if the toe was not skin tone at the end of 10 days, to keep taking it for another round.

February 14. 2009
Prescription renewed.

February 16, 2009
Both Stephanie and I had dermatology appointments for facial reasons and while we were there, I had her look at Stephanie’s toe and she recommended that she stay on the RX, but to put clotrimazole 1% cream on the toe two times a day to work on a possible yeast infection.

After much searching, we found that this cream is also a cream for athlete’s foot.

March 11, 2009
Stephanie comes home from school and says her toe hurts. It is warm to my touch. Mind you, I had been watching her toe from time to time during the bandage changes, and nothing seems to change.

March 12, 2009
Saw Dr. Johnson (her real pediatrician…finally!). A new prescription, sulfamethoxazole/tmp ds two times a day. Also, stop the cream and just use an antibiotic ointment, such as Neosporin. He also tried to take a sample for culture. Strongly recommended that she see Dr. Rod Moore, who has his office in the same building. Made the appointment for March 19th but if she gets a cancellation will let me know. Per Dr. Johnson, the toe is probably not now suffering from an infection, but tissue growth of some type. I also noted to him that in all my personal observation, there has been no nail growth at all since this started.

March 13, 2009
Took pictures.

March 14, 2009
Took more pictures, this time the nail has turned yellow and there is a dark patch under the nail (dead blood)…I am not happy!

March 15, 2009
Left message with Dr Moore’s office on answering machine, would like Stephanie to be seen on Tuesday instead of Thursday if at all possible…we shall see.

March 16, 2009
Dr. Moore’s office called and they will try to find a time to see Stephanie tomorrow. Then at 2pm I get a call from Dr. Johnson telling me that he got the culture back and that it was a bacteria infection of a type that lives in tennis shoes. Great! Which also means that the antibiotic she is taking is useless and to discontinue it. He also said that he would get the culture results up to Dr. Moore right away.

At 3:00 I’m tired of waiting for Dr. Moore’s office to call me back, so I called them, explained that I had been out doing errands and such (and laundry), do they have a time yet to see Stephanie. Yes…tomorrow morning at 8:45. We will be there!

March 17, 2009
Dr. Moore took one look at Stephanie’s toe and right off could tell that the nail needed to be removed…it was the cause of the problem. All we were doing were getting into a cycle of infection, clear up, infection, clear up…without taking care of the cause. He also took an x-ray of her foot just to make sure that the bones were not involved…and he made a remark that based on her foot plates that Stephanie was almost finished growing. Anyway, the hardest part of this for Stephanie was getting the shots that numb the toe so that he could remove the nail. That part of the procedure took so little time that even Stephanie was surprised when he was done. Only the top part of the nail was actually still attached to her toe, so its removal was pretty easy.

What is irritating to me is that I have tried on several visits to these doctors to tell them that the nail wasn’t growing out and was the cause of the infection…but no…Mom can’t be right…there has to be something else causing it. I’m sooooooooo glad that Dr. Moore was there and I feel much better now as Dr. Mom.

After getting Stephanie back to school, I personally went in and talked to the nurses and they wrote up a note for Stephanie to show to each teacher that she is allowed to leave the class two minutes early in order to avoid the rush of stomping feet and get to her next class on time.

Just before Stephanie got home from school, Dr. Moore’s nurse called and said that they were finally able to review the culture result that Dr. Johnson sent up to them and wanted Stephanie to go on yet another antibiotic. This time it is Cipro 500mg. You don’t get a much stronger antibiotic than this. We also have a follow-up appointment on the 27th. I sure hope that her toe looks pink again by then! As for the nail…it will grow back, it might take half a year, but it will come back.

Did you count them? Six different prescriptions of antibiotics for this toe! I sure hope this is the last one!

Green & Pink Purse

Remember the red purse I made last week or so? Well, here is the pink and green one from the same pattern, but modified! I made the body bigger, put the handle on the side and used D rings on the inside. And instead of that strange 'u' shaped piece, I cut a long 2" strip that was sewn long enough to hold those D rings. Also, the side of the band was sewn flat instead of sticking out on the sides. Minor differences, but I like this bag much better!

Again I used one of the scarfs/kerchief that my mother had given me and the green fabric was found in the remnant section at Walmart. There was barely enough to complete this! I need to so a little embellishment, but otherwise I am really pleased with the result here!

This is the back side...my photos are not really showing how the green of the handle and top match some of the green in the pink fabric...oh well. I know it works.

The Sound of Music

Every day we find something new to enjoy about Isabel. She loves getting into small spaces and will sniff at everything! If there is a way into a cupboard, she will find it.

She loves my new brown chairs so much that I had to cover one with a blanket to make sure it stays brown, instead of black from her hair. :)

However, she truly surprised us yesterday. We had just finished saying the blessing for our dinner when we heard musical notes from the piano...ka chink...ka chink...that quickly! Isabel had jumped up onto the piano and was unprepared for it being open. The children usually close the piano when they are finished with their practicing, but Scott, in a hurry to get to another chore, forgot. We sure had an enjoyable laugh at dinner! Isabel? It took her only a few moments to come back into the family room to watch us eat.

Small spaces!

Here I had just received a package of shoes in the mail and there she is, in the box with the shoes still in them. Oh...check out the bags I just finished. That's another story for this afternoon...

Red Purse

A few weeks ago I decided to try out a new purse pattern. My friend Eva was over and she had the pattern in a book and on the cover of the book it looked really cool. So I got everything cut out and then the pieces sat on the counter for a few days. I was actually scared to get started. This purse was totally different from any other I had ever made. It also had strange sounding instructions that were difficult for me to understand. So for a few days I just stared at the cut pieces.

FYI, the exterior fabric of the bag comes from a scarf made of 100% cotton that was given to me by my Mom. She has given me several scarves to see what I can do with them...

The strangest piece to me was the 'u' shaped piece that needed to be sewn between the two side pieces of both the outside and the lining. The exterior also got pleated, but the lining was not. That part I could figure out...no problem.

Once I finally got started, it went pretty well. That 'u' shaped thing though needed lots and lots of pins to make sure I really got it right.

Here is the final result of the exterior before I get the top sewed on.

The pattern called for just sewing in some loops to attach wood handles, and as you can see, I opted for traditional handles.

Then there was the challenge of getting the tops sewed to the base of the bag. What you don't see is that I had to pin and re-pin this three times! It was after the first pinning when I figured out that this was also when I needed to be sewing in the lining. I also learned after this purse was done to iron a little flap on the lining side of the top before any pinning and sewing is done...just a little short cut I learned in the process of the doing.

Here is the final result! This has got to be the hardest sewing project I have ever done to date and I learned a lot in the process. Already I know where I would change things. First, I would make the body of the bag bigger. Second, that 'u' shaped thing has got to be changed! Third, the entire bag does not need to be stiffened with pellon.


So with the things I have learned...I have already cut out another bag, this time a pink and green one.

Valentine's Day 2009

Before you start reading this, Steve had asked me to write about our adventures this year. So I am keeping my promise.

As for Valentine’s Days in general…I have a love/hate relationship with them. Before getting married…I hated them. They always seemed to fall on a working day, so I would be at work and many of my co-workers would get deliveries of flowers and my desk was always blank. I hated the fact that I didn’t have a “sweetheart” that would send me flowers! So I would buy myself a box of chocolates and read a romance novel.

Then I got married. I finally got the flowers and the chocolates, but there was no one to see me get them…except the children…so why was I miffed??…and still out buying myself chocolates?? (I no longer read the romance novels…a good space opera instead).

You had to know these attitudes before understanding the rest of the story!

This year, for Valentine’s Day, Steve was scheduled to be in California for a Dr. Who convention. I totally approved of his going. I even told him he had to. He has been planning this for over a year! I just didn’t connect the dots of the dates at the time that it would also include a holiday. I really didn’t care, but I still went out and bought myself some chocolate (usually my own money and bought at Sweet Indulgence). On the Tuesday before he left, (which was on Wednesday), Steve came home with some cut flowers. They were beautiful and I dutifully put them into a vase and actually kept them near the computer instead of the dining table while he was gone. I have to admit to being kind of sad that I wasn’t going to get a delivery from him on Saturday. A secret dream of mine. That was cool…I could handle it. There are more years to come…but he did remember to get me something for Valentine’s Day.

Okay…now for the fun part of the story. When Steve left on Wednesday, and I knew he was in the plane…I called his hotel and asked them what I could do to have something delivered to his room on Valentine’s Day. They didn’t have anything appropriate in the hotel itself, so I was directed to a company there in Los Angeles that makes and delivers baskets of goodies. I called them and arranged for a bag of goodies…to include some mint truffles (a honeymoon tradition that continues) to be delivered to his room. No problems. I was totally pleased with myself that I was pulling one over on my husband!

Well…Saturday arrives and in the early afternoon I get a call from Steve and he has me go looking in a secret spot for come Sees candy that he hid (YUM), but he didn’t mention anything about any delivery to him. Hmmm…what is going on? After we chatted a bit, hung up…I got to thinking that maybe it didn’t happen? So I called Fanciful again and asked about the delivery…they said that everything went out and nothing came back on the trucks. Oh well…I can’t call Steve and ask him anything…it would totally destroy any surprise that this was supposed to be. So I went to bed.

Sunday morning I get a call from him. The night before, when he was leaving his room to head to yet another event with the convention, he noticed that the message light was lit on his phone. So he called for it and the operator told him it was a written one that he had to collect down at the desk. Why couldn’t he just have voice mail like all other messages? Oh well, it would have to wait until after this last event. It was midnight when he finally got to the desk, and they couldn’t find the message! Everyone looked and it was not to be found! But yet, they remembered seeing it there. So he heads to his room a bit dejected and upset that things are messed up, only to find that my Valentine gift was finally delivered to his room! After midnight…who knew that things could get that crazy!

The sweet part is that he brought home most of the goodies and I got to share in them.

School Projects

When your child leaves a project to the last minute and expects you to make things fine, it can be a major pain.

To start with, a few weeks ago I noticed on Scott’s teacher’s web site calendar, that his mini-book was due for presentation on the 9th of March. I looked up at the calendar (it was the 18th of February) and realized that he had only two weeks or so to completely get this done. When he got home from school that day, I asked him what book he picked out this time (this is his 3rd mini-book). He looked up at the sky and just mumbled a few words and after some specific questions he finally responded that none of the books in Mr. Brown’s library were interesting to him. I then had Scott look at the calendar and let him know that from the fiasco of the last mini-book, he had promised me that all the reading, the writing, and the artwork, was to be done one week before the presentation. That would give him a full week at school to get everything scanned in and the power point ready. That meant that he had to get all this done in only 10 days…and he hasn’t even picked out a book!

Ok…so this Mom sent him upstairs to look at some books in her bedroom. I didn’t think any of them were appropriate, but I wanted him to be the one to decide that. These are books that the children no longer read, but I as a mother was not ready to depart with.

Anyway, he did come down and verified that they were not the right kind of books to review. Instead, we headed up to my library, which is a sitting room off the master bedroom, also being used as Steve’s office. Two of the walls in there are lined with shelves and full of books. Some of those books I have collected over the years are juvenile books. We sat down and went through them. Both he and I vetoed the Little House on the Prairie books. He vetoed all the Star Trek and Star Wars books I had.

We finally got it down to two books, read the synopsis on the backs and he chose Fog Magic. It had only ten chapters and for him that was totally doable.

The process of making a mini-book is that he is to read a chapter, then write a couple of sentences about that chapter…read the next chapter, write some more sentences and so on until the book is finished. Then he is to draw some pictures, one for each chapter and a picture for the book cover he creates. Next he comes up with some questions about the book that he presents to the class when he is doing his presentation. He then gives a prize of some sort to the student that correctly answers his questions.

Well, after some cajoling and begging and threatening to keep his DS for forever, the work finally got done as scheduled, one week before presentation. (He surprised me by wanting to type all his sentences into the computer directly instead of writing on paper first and did it quite well...I didn't know he was typing that well!) I sent him to school on March 1st with strict instructions to get everything scanned in and onto his flash drive (we don’t have a scanner here at home). He comes home on Monday stating that he got the power point stuff all set up and the first picture scanned, but there wasn’t enough time to finish up all the other pictures. And he also came up with 4 of his required 5 questions. That was pretty good, so I didn’t complain about that. Then on Tuesday, he comes home and tells me that he still didn’t get to do any scanning. I’m still not worried as there are still 3 days left of the week. Wednesday, he comes home and said that he had had a substitute, so no time at the scanner at all! Thursday was a field trip day (I had it on my calendar as a completely different day), so that day was lost too! Now I’m panicking! Friday, I was at the school in the morning doing Bank Day hoping to see Mr. Brown…but no…another substitute. I asked Lori, the school secretary, to please notify the substitute that Scott needed time on the scanner to finish his mini-book. Scott got home, no scanning. Me? I’m ticked! All this hard work we went through to get everything ready a whole week in advance and still not done!

So, early Monday morning, I had Scott with me and we camped at the door to the classroom waiting for Mr. Brown before school started. We had half an hour to get the last pictures scanned and into his power point presentation. It took a little longer that I liked, but before I left the classroom, Scott’s presentation was DONE!

He came home from school totally pleased and said that he got more compliments than usual!

There is another mini-book assignment for next month, so Scott has been told that he has to pick out his book this week! We may even spend some time at the library picking one out!

Now…if only we also didn’t have to contend with teaching Stephanie how to make time lines for her projects either! She came to me last Thursday and asked me to look on line in Family Access to see if I could see when her current project was due…tomorrow! Well, short story here…it wasn’t turned in on time, but she had to spend all her spare time this weekend working on it…and even then it wasn’t very good…but she turned in what she had on Monday…

And you wonder why Mom went on STRIKE on Friday!