This is what I've been up to...

I've gotten back into making jewelry. So far I have made four necklaces, three bracelets, and three sets of earrings. Have a look. They're all for sale, just ask about pricing.

This one is made from black freshwater pearls, smokey quartz chips and seed beads for the spacers.

















This one is the same as the black freshwater pearl set, but instead of the pearls I used Rose Quartz.

















This one is made of all gemstones.

















This one is made with Lampglass and Swarovski crystals with Bali beads as spacers.

Yuck

Poor Bug, she woke up this morning all happy. I woke up to a smiling Bug climbing into bed with me, talk about a nice way to wake up. A few hours after waking up she had diarrhea, and bad. I'm talking the kind that explodes in the diaper and creeps up the back. Poor Bug. Then the fever kicked in. So, I gave her some tylenol, she's been drinking juice today which is good, it'll help keep her hydrated. But, the diarrhea's still there, if she still had the diarrhea tomorrow morning I'll call to get her an appointment with her doctor. I'm hoping she feels better soon.

Maybe she got sick from being out with me yesterday. It was cold and windy all day, very little rain, she never got wet or anything. She may have gotten sick from breathing in the germs of someone who was sick. We all know how those tiny micro-particles float through the air when we sneeze or cough without covering our mouths. All it takes is one sick person to cough or sneeze and not cover their mouth for others to get sick.

I know I should be doing the dishes right now, but I'm worn out. Bug's been running crazy today, when she's not laying on the floor, the couch or in my lap whimpering from the body aches.

Gonna just have to wait and see how she feels later tonight.

Addendum:
Before putting Bug to bed tonight I checked her temperature...it's up to 100.4. I gave her Motrin so we'll see how it goes. I plan on calling her doctor tomorrow and getting her in if she still has either or both the diarrhea and fever. This poor kid, it sucks that she's sick again, but they say that kids get sick an average of 12 times a year.

Monday...

The day started off with an odd feeling of dread, maybe it came from the nightmare I had earlier that morning. At around 3am I woke up with a start, in my dream I heard gunfire and screams, no real details. I never should have watched the news yesterday morning. I turned on the tv like I do every morning to turn the Disney channel on for Bug, and there it was on the news...mass murder at VA Tech. Scary is one word to describe it. I mean, we've always thought of college campuses as a safe haven...not any more.

Kids bring guns to school, and I'm not talking college or high school kids, I'm talking about grade school kids. As it stands I'm putting serious thought into getting certified or licensed, or what ever it takes, to home school Bug to keep her safe.

It's frightening how the world is going now a days. Every time you turn on the tv you see murder, rape, disease, famine, arson... is this the world we're leaving for our children? Every time I turn around I'm seeing some horrific thing on the news, and it seems to be getting closer and closer to home. You read the paper, or watch the news and you can see it, kids who look all strung out on drugs, kids having babies, kids with guns. Don't parents give a damn anymore about what their kids are doing? I mean come on! All you have to do is talk to your kids about not doing drugs, about safe sex, about guns and safety and about the dangers of gangs. How difficult is that? My mom talked to me about those things and I stayed clear of them...until I met my ex, that's when it all went down hill. But I brought myself back to the surface and look at me now. I have a great husband, a beautiful daughter and a good life. Granted it could be better, you know, more money and such, maybe a bigger house, but that's something that we can work on. But all this other crap...it can be avoided. We have the power to keep our kids safe, we have the power to change things, we have the power to make a difference. But do we use that power? No, not until a tragedy like the VA Tech massacre happens, or the Twin Towers, or Somalia. And when people do use that power it's to speak out for a short time, then they go back to the way they were.

I remember when the Towers crumbled, it's a day I'll never forget. People remembered for a while, they were nice to one another for a while...a year at the most...and now they seem to have forgotten. Why? Because it's easier to forget then to deal with what happened. I say deal with it! Deal with what's happening in your world! Deal with what's happening in your neighborhood! Deal with what's happening in your schools! Stand up and speak up! For gods sake, do something! Don't just sit there with your thumbs up your asses waiting for someone else to stand up and do something. If you wait...nothing is going to happen.

Okay, I'm going to get off my soap box for now, but I'm far from finished with this rant...so don't even get me started.

WTF is up with gas prices?

This is getting ridiculous now, I mean, come on! I know that they can lower the prices of gas, hell, congress could do it, but, they won't. Why won't they do it? Easy, the gas companies have the politicians in their pockets. Not to mention that despite the fact that we have our own pipe line coming down from Alaska, we're still dependent on foreign oil. Oh, and we can't forget that it's coming close to summer, so they have to raise the price of gas for that too.

At the gas station I took this pic at, they only had regular, there was a sign on the pump that said they had no medium or plus grade gas. Sounds to me like that gas station is only selling regular in an effort to try and save people some money, since they have to pay a higher price they have to jack the price up for us too.

I'm so sick of the gas prices lately. I've been tossing around the idea of sending one hell of a gripe letter to congress about this, as well as the gas companies. Who do they think they are? Gods? I think not.

Rough week

Well, as my earlier post said, last week started the bad week. Last Monday we find out that Bug need surgery on her eyes, then way early Wednesday morning Strider left to do work in another state. That afternoon Bug fell and slammed her forehead into the sidewalk out back...I called the EMT's just to be safe. They said she seemed fine but to get her evaluated within a few days, so on Thursday I called to get her an appointment with her pediatrician...no luck, instead we get a different doctor, no big deal really. When I go to check her in at the pediatric clinic they tell me that her appointment is at the Specialty Clinic, so I go over there to check her in. That's when I find out that the appointment was with a pediatric neurologist...talk about luck. Anyway, she got checked out completely, the doc even had her walk up and down the hall, felt her forehead where she had hit the concrete and everything in between. I was told that Bug is perfectly fine, that put my mind at ease big time.

Now for a little back tracking, on Thursday night Bug puked, just once. Most likely from something she ate, but still, it's never an easy thing to see puke coming out of your kid.

This weekend went okay, a little too slow for my taste really.

Monday night I took my mom and Bug to Ruby Tuesday's at Victory Crossing for dinner. When we sat down at the table there were maybe 3 to 4 other tables with patrons. We placed our orders and then got our salads. We waited for between 30 - 40 minutes for our dinners. With it being so quiet in the restaurant one would expect the meals to arrive promptly, not to have to wait 30 minutes or longer. At that point I requested to speak to a manager, who in turn treated me like my comments did not matter, he seemed to be almost angry with me for bringing the matter to his attention. He walked away, didn't say a word, and did not come back to our table to let us know what was going on, instead it was our waitress who told us that the manager had comped our meals. That's not the point, sure, it was nice of him to do so, but I would have preferred an apology, which I never got from the manager. I'm sorry to say that that will be the last time I will go to Ruby Tuesday for dinner. I was seriously disappointed in the time it took to get our meals, which we ended up having to have packed up to go.

After we got home from the restaurant, I put in Happy Feet for Bug, man did she enjoy it! It was a riot to watch her rock out to all the singing and dancing. She loved it so much.

And that leads us to today. Bug woke up happy, had a big breakfast. Man did she get into everything today, I swear, I don't have a kid, I have a monkey. We had to run out to the store this evening so she ended up not getting a second nap, which caused her to become rather cranky and not willing to listen. Tonight we actually got all the way through Happy Feet before she fell asleep. She's now all happily asleep in her bed which gives me the chance to get all her toys cleaned up off the livingroom floor. I'm just waiting for Strider to call, then after that I can go get some rest too. I'm wondering why it's taking him so long to call me tonight...maybe I should call him.

Ah well, time for me to get the picking up of the Bug toys.

Bug's eyes...

We took Bug in for her 18 month check up back on Monday, it went good. She's a few centimeters shy of 33 inches tall and almost 23 pounds. She's doing so great. After the pediatrician appointment we went to see her ophthalmologist, that's when the bad news was given. Bug needs to have surgery on her eyes, the doc wants to go in on either side of her nose and loosen the eye muscles to straighten them out. Her eyes turn inward.

I have this huge hole in my gut about all of this. I mean, it's my baby going in for surgery, it's nerve wracking.