Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Yes, I'm still alive...

Hi Grandma! :) Thanks for being concerned about me being MIA. You should be concerned...cuz I've been working WAY too hard around here!

Long story short...we've been toying around with moving to the country for years. Finally, I just told hubby that we should just get the house ready to sell and see what happens. Knowing how we are, I knew that we'd need to just set a date and shoot for it. Wanting to beat the May busyness, I set an open house date of April 18. Yes, that's this Saturday. And no, we will NOT be ready. :) Now I'm shooting for next Saturday, but Barry still won't let me give the realtor a date. So, we'll see.

We've done so much work and I still feel like we have months of work left ahead of us. We have a split-level house, with 2 bedrooms up, and 2 down. The girls had be sharing the other upstairs room (it was a tight fit, being only 10x11). So, both girls agreed to move to separate bedrooms downstairs....and I'd have to move my office/scraproom up from the basement (yep, lots and lots of STUFF!) I kept the downstairs bedrooms the same color, but I did touch up the paint job. I had to completely paint the upstairs bedrooms (and we're still not done with the vanity area of our room). The basement family still needs to be painted...huge job....and we really should paint the living/dining room, but I'm not sure if Barry will go for it. Or we just may run out of steam. :)

New kitchen countertops are in our garage waiting for us to install. I'm super excited about that! Our current countertops are baby blue with pink flecks. Seriously. I ordered a neutral brown/black granite-looking one. Now our marriage just has to survive the installation. :) Oh, and we got a new (used) smaller dining room table to take up less space, and we were forced into new living room couches (can you say cat pee?) It wasn't TJ's fault...he had a really bad bladder infection. Anyway....

We've also suffered a minor crisis in our lives. Alana has always had a weaker respiratory system, but lately seemed to be wheezing and coughing more. When we started tearing up our dust-filled house and painting, it got really bad. So bad that Barry called and made an appointment for her to see an allergy doctor. I went in prepared and educated. I knew what tests I wanted done. I'm positive that she has allergies and allergy-induced asthma. I also believe that it's the allergies causing her ADD symptoms. Anyway, this doctor did, in fact, diagnos her with asthma...but refused to test for allergies. Instead, he insisted on her taking oral steroids, inhaled steroids, and a "rescue" inhaler. When I challenged him, he quickly (and rudely) dismissed me. Big mistake, Dude. So, I played along til the end of the appointment and gave him one last shot. I asked him, after all of this medication got her stablized, how were we going to address the root problem causing the inflamation. He looked at me like I was an idiot and says, "That's what the steroids are for". So, he wants to ignore the root problem and just treat her with drugs that can do serious damage? No way.

So, now I'm on a mission. Friday I see our local doc, who my lab tech friend says should give me the testing I want (allergies, heavy metals, etc). At least with that info and can make major movement towards solving the main problem (aka, if she's allergic to dairy, and that's what's causing her inflammation, and therefor, her asthma, if I cut her off of dairy I should solve most of the problems...WITHOUT steroids). And on Saturday I go see the "bean lady". She's a nutritionist who can do more good than most doctors...she helped Barry a couple of years ago...until he went off the diet. :)

So, that's my life right now. Lots of cleaning, painting, purging, moving furniture (yes, my back has been out for a couple of weeks) and stressing about Alana. Fun times. Right now I could care less if we move! If we get done with this house I'll be happy! :)

Oh...and if you've made it this far...another reason for my long absence is our computer issues. Remember something happened and I had to do my posting on Barry's work laptop cuz my desktop was messed up for some reason? Well, his laptop died. By the time it was replaced, I was too busy with the house to type. When we moved my desktop to it's new home, it refused to turn on. Nice. It has all of my thousands of pictures...and the only way I have to download those off of my camera (not to mention all of my faves and links and stuff). Ugh. So, we're gonna have to spring for a new laptop. Yuck. Anyway, just wanted to give you my other excuse! :)

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