That has been me this whole winter. It started off with pneumonia in November and each time I feel better, I only have a few days of wellness before I am back to being sicker than a dog!

This last cold has been horrible. I feel pretty OK part of the time, but then I get coughing fits that HURT. Oh do they hurt. Add to that I spend a GOOD 3/4 of the day fighting off a sinus headache!

I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about why I have been so sick, so often this past winter. It can;t be something like black mold or mesothelioma becuase the house is relatively good and we do not have problems with moisture. Plus, becuase of Blake’s asthma we have special filters on the furnace and all the air intakes of the house.

What it *could* be is that Logan is in Pre-K this year, which means twice a day I am at the school – drop off and pick up, and once a week I am there for an hour for music class, exposed to snotty, germy children – which is new for me because my older boys either get a ride with their grandparents or go to the school on their own. So it could be the extra exposure to germs.

It could also be the extra pounds I have packed on in the past year. If I understand correctly, people whio have extra weight often have lower immunities and therefore cannot fight off infections and illness as well as a healthy weight person.

Then again, it could be the multi-vitamin I stopped taken. For the past ten years I have taken either a prenatal vitamin or a one a day woman’s pill, but when I started having circulatory problems and getting dizzy, in an effort to self diagnose, I stopped taking the pills to see if that would help and even though the dizzy was explained away by an inner ear imbalance ( no word on the circulatory issues)n I never got back into he habit of taking my morning vitamin.

OR. it could be because I am getting older.

Which one would you vote for?

This is the first time that I have ever blogged outside my home. Wait. No. I did an Easter post once from my dad’s house. BUT, this is the first time that I have blogged uhm, outside a HOUSE!

I’m at the Fun Factory right now, we are in the middle of my now Seven year old son’s birthday party. Please don;t judge. The fun factor is a HUGE place with all sorts of slides, ball pits and climbing apparatus BUT it is for kids ten and under. Parents sit at tables drinking java and reading books or newspapers – or if they are smart like me, they are taking advantage of the Fun Factory’s FREE wireless internet to compose a blog post!

We invited three boys from My son’s class, and only one of those three boys RSVP’d that they would come to the party. I tried calling the parents of the other two boys to see if they would be attending but was never able to get ahold of them. Suckage. Worse, the one boys who DID RSVP, never showed up (. So while the Fun Factory is , well, FUN, it’s not quite as fun for my boy right now. he is rather down in teh dumps that his birthday party turned out to be such a bomb.

And me? Im ticked off  for my son, AND that regardless of whether those three boys chose to show up for the party, I still am required to pay for their attendance.

Oh, and I am also ticked off that I stepped into a puddle of what I assume is urine on the laminate floors of the Fun Factory bathrooms. ( Not the wood flooring looking laminate, the square, colorful kind of flooring..). I’m pretty sure that since the fun factory does not allow its patrons to wear shoes inside the building that they should also require their staff to wash the bathroom floors every 15 minutes so that i don’t have to be subjected to pee’d on socks!

Ick.

See that Picture? That’s Logan sitting in the dentist chair, waiting for his check up to begin (YAY! no cavities!) Now, see where that red “X” is? If I had shifted the camera up just a touch, right where the “X” is you would have instead seen one of those AED units (Portable defibrillators, for a person who is in cardiac arrest) When I first saw it, I assumed it was a First Aid kit, but when I got up from my chair to leave the room for Logan to get his dental X-Ray, I went and looked and it was indeed a portable defibrillator!

At first, i was amused, and a bit confused, but then I remembered how MY heart races when i am the one sitting in that big reclining chair, and how, just becuase My heart is somewhat healthy, does not mean that people, like my father in law who has a very weak and troublesome heart, would not have the same heart increases caused by worry when sitting in that chair. And of course, a heart that has a sudden increase when it is already not at it;s peak behavior is at risk for a heart attack.

I have no seen the AED units in the school, the dental office, the town office, the library and the grocery store. And it makes sense, becuase when someone is having a heart attack, every second matters!

Yesterday I walked to school with my neighbor and the weather was nice. Not warm, but not cold either, if that makes any sense. We had gone early to the school so that we could attend music class and spent a very nice walk talking about all kinds of things, from how her husband had gotten his class A license to drive moving trucks becuase getting his license was cheaper than renting the smaller trucks (You have to have a class A to drive the big one) and making two complete trips fro Ontario where they used to live to Saskatchewan to make sure they could bring all of their belongings when they moved – to talking about how the neighbor kitty corner to us has a jacuzzii tub in her upstairs bathroom. ( I know that becuase Micah and I looked at that house when we were house hunting)

I had told Shelly, my neighbor that I was going to walk to school the next day too – but bring Sammi with me. And so today, I did just that. I miscalculated how long it would take us to walk, and we got there early – but I also miscalculated how the weather can change from one day to the next. By the time Sam and I got to the school she was soaking wet – even though we tried our best to avoid the puddles, and while we waited the ten minutes for school to let out, her poor little fur FROZE solid to her.

There was no way I could ask her to walk all the way home, she was shivering so badly she was walking crooked! I made an executive decision and called the Husband to ask him to pick us up from the school. I think that Sam’s next long walk will have to wait until some of the water has dried up and for sure, until it warms up!

I’ve been complaining about my craptacular memory to friends and family for a while now. In fact, four years ago I had the boys birth years tattoo’d onto my leg so that I could remember them. But, what I did yesterday makes me think my memory has located the exit signs and has left the building!

I was making dinner and talking to my father on the phone. I had put on my oven mitt and reached into the stove to remove a pan. I placed the HOT pan on the stove and started putting the ham I had been frying into the pan so I could put the ham into the oven to stay warm while IO got the rest of the dinner ready. Halfawy through putting the ham in the pan, while still talking on the phone with my dad, I used my BARE hand to move the pan closer to my frying pan. My bare hand.

But THAT is NOT the “forgetfulness” I am speaking about.

What happened when my bare hand touched the burning hot pan was that my hand immediately released the pan and moved from the danger. Still on the phone with my dad I had one of those WTF moments. and grabbed the pan again. Dammit, I wanted the pan closer to the frying pan. I had Forgotten what PAIN felt like and had NO clue why my hand, seemingly of its own accord had released the pan I needed moved.

How in the hell is it possible to forgot the sensation of BURNING FLESH?

So. Every few weeks my six year old brings home piles and piles of papers of work that he has completed in Grade One and no longer needs at school. While I enjoy going through his papers, I also do not need them at home. I hope no ones heart breaks over this, but there are approximately 12947128934 pieces of paper colored and written on by my sons in teh recycling plant north of here. I DO look through their papers before I toss them, just so that I can keep up on what they are doing at school.

The other day, Blake brought home a folder full of stuff. the last page in his folder was a section about the letters SH, and more importantly, the sound SH makes. Blake was asked to name and draw six things that start with the SH sound. He drew a SHirt, A Sucker ( naming it SHugar), A bottle of SHampoo, and SHeep, SHoe and a SHamwow.

Yes. Really. ShamWow. and when I saw that, I cracked the Eff up. I cannot wait till Wednesday when we have PTI’s so I can ask his teacher what she thought of that.

Speaking of teachers, I over heard Logan’s Pre-K teachers discussing unlocked phones. It bugged me. Not so much the topic, but that it was “quiet time” for the kids in class, (me and a few other moms were waiting outside the class and the door was cracked open a bit)and they were talking so loudly. I heard one little girl whisper something to another child and the teacher barked at her to be quiet. Well lets leach by example here, why should she be quiet duiring quiet time if  YOU, the teacher cannot be quiet?

Will the hair ever end? I am of course, referring to the Hair that out Border Collie, Smokey sheds. All year long she loses tonnes of hair, every day, but oh my LORD, the amount she loses in the spring is UNREAL. And it’s not like she has a huge, thick winter coat on, we keep her indoors all winter ( except for potty breaks) So where is this hair coming from?

The Hubs took her into the bathroom ( to keep the hair contained) and brushed her two days ago, and still today I spent a very large portion of my day vacuuming, sweeping and washing floors as well as having to wet wipe the tv stand, the DVD case and the computer desk becuase her hair statically sticks to it.

This evening, Hubs took Smokey back into the bathroom and got another HUGE pile of fur off her, and yet, I KNOW that tomorrow everything will be once more covered in fur. On the positive side, I was talking to our little dog’s groomer tonight and she told me that she can use air to get Smokey’s winter shed out alot faster. She tried to explain to me why the air brushing (lol) works better than using a hand held brush, but I got lost halfway through our conversation. In any case, Our little pup has her groomer appointment ont eh 16th, and now Smokey does too!

I have a secret.

SHHHH. Don’t tell a soul! This is just between You and Me.

I’ve fallen off the 30 day Shred bandwagon. Seriously people, if I had actually done the exercises as I was supposed to, I could have done a sixty day shred by now and be looking svelte! Instead, I am EXACTLY where I was two months ago when I got the video.

It’s April now. it;s time to Up My Game, as it where. Tomorrow, April 3, I will begin taking my weight loss pills, Drinking WAY more water and most of all – EXERCISING. Every Day. Even if it is just walking to the school to get the children.

I WILL lose this weight and I WILL do it before Summer.

I hate my couch. I really do. It’s about 25 years old, but is in AMAZING shape. Like seriously, I was FLOORED when my granny told me its age, I had assumed MAYBE 10 years.  The upholstery is in awesome condition, there is only ONE stain on it, it’s a pleasing neutral shade and just basically in great shape.

So why do I hate it?

Well, I appear to be allergic to the upholstery on it, if my bare skin touches it I break out into hives. No one else is bothered by the upholstery material on it. it’s a pull out couch and hte pull out is in great shape, but the pull out makes it so the cushions don’t fit too well and they always slump around. Plus, becuase I cannot touch the couch itself, i have blankets and pillows on it at all times to protect my skin and the blankets and pillows slide in between the cushions and the back or sides of the couch making the cushions – you guessed it – fall off.

I just hate the hassle of it, its big, it’s heavy and it makes me itch!

But really, what choice do I have?  While I might love to go and get home theater seating – preferably something that reclines, There is no point in buying new furniture while the kids are small – not to mention Smokey, Sammi and Tigger and the wreckage they would do to a new couch! If something gets spilled on this one? Oh well, I hate it anyway. But if something got spilled on a new couch, one I love and had spent $$$ on, I’d be crushed.

And so. One more time, let me tell you : I HATE MY COUCH!