SWEARING PROBLEM ANYONE?

It's hard to not write about Cierra because she is always saying something funny.

Apparently some of the first graders in her class in Roswell have quite a swearing problem. It got so bad that the principal had to come and talk to her class about it. The principal told the kids that they needed to go home after school that day and all think of a new word they could use instead of swear words. Then she said they were to come back the next day and tell the class what word they had come up with. So when the next day rolled around the principal was in their classroom again and she told the kids that the word she had come up with was fiddle faddle. The first graders all took turns telling what word they would use instead of swear words. Some of the words were: shoot, darn it, holy cow, gosh, and so on. I'm sure you get the idea of the kind of words they came up with. When it was Cierra's turn she proudly announced that the word she thought of was HORSE NUTS. (That had to be a really proud mom moment for Kristin) When Kristin asked her what the principal said about her word Cierra said, "She didn't say anything she just smiled at my teacher." So I'm guessing it might not have been quite the right kind of word they had in mind when giving the assignment.









If anyone has a swearing problem I would suggest you say "horse nuts" now instead. I'm not sure it's much better than a swear word. But the innocence of a 7 year old is just too cute.

I LOVE GRAPES!

I don't know what is going on. I have hated grapes for most of my life. I have seriously disliked the texture of grapes. And the way the grape skin felt in my mouth as I chewed them up used to make me gag. But all of the sudden I can't get enough grapes. Black grapes are the best and then the red come in second. I still can't eat green grapes because they are disgusting. But I absolutely love black and red grapes. I wake up in the night thinking about grapes and can't wait until morning when I can have grapes for breakfast. Then I get excited thinking about lunch because I know I can have more grapes. By dinnertime I just eat the grapes first because I can't wait until after dinner. There are so many fruits (and other foods) I can't eat because of my kidney disease. Nothing that has high potassium or phosphates. It's a good thing grapes are not on my "off limits" list because I just can't stand to think of a day without grapes. In fact if I didn't have to eat vegetables, protein (very limited) and whole grains I would just eat grapes for every meal and nothing else. So I'm guessing that in the near future I will be dreaming about grapes, which won't necessarily be a bad thing since the dreams I do have can be very disturbing. And I can't imagine a dream could be too bad with grapes in it. Once again I have proved that there is not much going on in my life when grapes are the most exciting thing I have to write about.

Another day, another diagnosis

Just when I thought I had enough medical stuff going I got a new diagnosis on Friday. If you are tired of reading about all my illneses then just stop now.

I went to a new PCP a few weeks ago because my other one quit her practice. Because of all the infections I have had for 4 years I always have really high numbers that come back in my blood tests that have to do with inflammation and infection. So even though I have no more signs of infection on either foot it is still always assumed that I have bone infections in remission just waiting to come back (the MRI confirms this but the bone biopsies don't). So my new doctor decided to test for some autoimmune diseases and blood cancer. If you know anything about sed rates they are supposed to be 0-20 and mine in 93. My CRP and platelets are also elevated and my anemia is getting worse. So the new diagnosis is called Polymalgia Rheumatica. It means that my white cells are attacking the lining of my joints and therefore causes severe muscle pain. I've always been able to handle pain but this stuff is intense and it hurts to stand, walk or even move my arms. Getting dressed has become a big challenge. The muscle pains have been going on since December when I got a virus. And this disease can be brought on by a virus. The pain has just been getting worse and worse. It is usually seen in older people than me but I think my body is worn out and it thinks it's older than it is. I honestly thought my kidney failure was causing all the muscle pain. Polymalgia Rheumatica is not life threatening but can last up to 4 or 5 years and can return when you try to go off of the medicine. The treatment is steroids. So now my dilemma is the side effects of steroids verses being in pain every minute. Steroids can cause high blood pressure, high blood sugar, infections (especially if you already have one), swelling and some articles say that they can make kidney disease worse. The really exciting thing is that I could be out of pain soon and just back to the tiredness (and a few other things). So although you might think I would not be happy about yet another problem I am because it can be treated. I just have to call my kidney doc and get her opinion and then hopefully I can start feeling better.

Since I don't like to blog without pictures here are some random pictures of Suri.

Yes I did buy her a tent for Christmas. I know it's a little crazy but she needed it.

One of Suri's favorite spots because the top of the computer is warm and Tanner can't reach her.

Suri feeling powerful and in charge on top of the fridge. Another place Tanner can't get to her.

No weeds in our basement

I'm sure this story will totally embarrass Megan but I'm going to tell it anyway. Since Kristin and her kids were coming to spend the week and they were going to be sleeping in the basement I decided we should spray for bugs. We never even use the downstairs because there is plenty of room upstairs for Megan, Tanner and me. I have to give Megan a lot of credit because she worked really hard to make the downstairs look perfect. She put clean sheets on the beds, dusted and vacuumed. The last job was to spray for bugs. Now we don't just buy cans of bug spray we get the gallon size industrial strength. Megan was like a professional bug sprayer and worked until every room was adequately sprayed. She was really exhausted at this point from all her hard work. She came upstairs very proud of her accomplishments and then realized, with a look of disbelief and horror, that she had sprayed the entire basement with weed killer, not bug spray. She was very frustrated and upset with herself. But I told her that now we would not have to worry about finding a single weed in the basement all spring. She was not amused at this point. Well we had to let the weed killer dry and then the next morning the bug spray was used. When Kristin arrived that evening I told her that I had very good news for her: She would not have to worry about finding any bugs or WEEDS in the basement. So if anyone is needing to get rid of weeds in their basement just give Megan a call. She's fast, efficient and very thorough.

One clearly says HOME INSECT CONTROL and the other says WEED B GONE. Can you tell the difference? Megan couldn't.

Megan posing (reluctantly) with her new motto.

Closeup of Megan's motto in case you can't see it in the picture above.