Cars' fever finally went away Thursday afternoon but he was too weak from not eating all week to go to school on Friday.  And now Dex has a fever and sore throat.  Here we go again...

Our living room is just about finished being redecorated. It has taken positively AGES.  I got the call today that our area rug will be delivered the week after next.  And then the console and shelves should be installed around the same time.  I will finally be able to share photos!  Now, what project is next?

So yeah, stress does suck.  I do not handle things well when I am stressed out. I become paralyzed and I do not function.  Then I get more stressed because I haven't done what I need to do.  Procrastination feeds my stress.  Stress paralyzes me and I procrastinate.  And so on and so on without end.

The thing is, it isn't just one particular thing that has led to this particular stressful time.  It is everything.  And when I sit down to write about them they seem so petty and trivial and "first world problem"-atic that I then get embarrassed that I am even stressed about them.  We have food.  We have shelter.  My family is (relatively) healthy. I do not ~have~ to work outside of the home.  So what the fuck am I so stressed about?  Why do I let things get to me?

Waaaay back when I worked at Big Computer Company, I took a class where you assess what kind of person you are.  I remember the RED was for attention to detail and I scored a big fat 0 on that.  I am not a detail person.  And right now I am doing two big projects that require me to pay a lot of attention to detail and I SUCK at it.  I have had sleepless nights.  I have been comforting myself with food and I have been thinking of hitting the bottle of Xanax (and I do not want to touch it!).  I hate this.

And the things that would make this better (eating healthier, exercise, sleep, NOT procrastinating) are not even on my radar. 

And, right now when things are so overwhelming, my baby has been sick for going on 5 days (and in the morning I will call the school to let them know he will miss the 4th day of school in a row).  Fever, malaise, vomiting, cough, congestion, losing his voice, etc.  I missed a PT appt today and was made to feel guilty because I asked my dh to stay home this morning so I could go to my annual mammogram.  Nice.

Ok, off to bed.  I know I won't sleep but at least I can pretend that I might.

Stress sucks.

Today we are celebrating Cars' birthday with a party at a bowling alley.  Yes, his birthday was in August.  Yes, this is the second year in a row that he is having a really late birthday.  The kids are off school today and everyone he wanted to invite (but one) lives in our school district so it was a good day to have it.  About the other kid?  I just told Cars that it was too bad he had to go to school or else we could have invited him.  Fortunately, it is not a super close friend.  :)

I have been going to PT because I have bursitis and tendonitis in my shoulders again but this time they are also working on the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.  Perhaps it is all connected anyway?  The exercises are killer because I have done virtually NO arm/shoulder exercises/stretches in months and month and months due to the pain.  Hopefully I will be healed soon.  I have been very good about doing my PT homework.

We have had three months of almost no rain.  While it has been enjoyable, I am starting to lose shrubs and even a couple of small trees.  I haven't been able to keep up with the watering.  Well, I could but I cannot imagine the water bills!  Hopefully the rain will return soon.  I need to transplant some trees to replace the plum trees I had to take out this summer.

School starts next week and I am a little out of sorts.  I thought I had everything in place but I found out that Cars does NOT have school on the first day of school.  School that day is for incoming freshmen/sophomores at the high school, 6th & 7th graders at the middle school (converted from junior high) and kindergartners.  Why is it the first day of school then?!  This not-the-first day first day has screwed up my schedule because I was to start my woodcarving class that day and Cars is still too young to stay home alone. 

Also, even though Dex DOES have school that day (7th grade), he does not start school at regular time that day but 3.5 hours later than usual.  It is not really clear how he will get to school - is there a bus at that weird time?  When will it pick him up?

The insurance company sent me a robocall last night that they have issued me a check for the damage (less deductible) of my car (ok, I guess I did not post about this but I hit a parked car in the parking lot of the orthodontist when I took Jax in to get his braces last week.  I had not entirely decided I was going to go through insurance rather just pay it myself to keep my premiums from going up (or just not repair it at all - just a (not small) scratch).  Now Stephen is concerned that our premiums will skyrocket.  It is not as though I was caught drunk driving or texting and caused a major accident! 

And the wood floors we had installed need to be fixed a bit tomorrow (cracked boards and missed stain in a couple of places) so we need to stay out of our house overnight.  More $$ that we had not anticipated paying.  Part of the rush to get it done when we did was that we were on holidays and did not have to incur extra costs of staying overnight for a few days due to the fumes from the finish.

I guess it is just a busy time.  We've had a (mostly) relaxing, laid-back summer so getting back on a schedule and having a lot of things going on a once seems daunting.  Time to reframe my outlook and get it done.  Things could be worse.  We could be in New Orleans dealing with a hurricane...

I've just found out that a boy from Jax's grade committed suicide.  He was 14 years old.  I have no details and he was not a friend of Jax's (although Jax did know him) and the thought of it is so scary to me that I want to throw up.  His poor parents.  And poor soul for being so distraught that he thought that suicide was the answer to his problems.

I remember being so distraught over boys when I was Jax's age that I wanted "to kill myself" or so I wrote in my diary at the time.  Of course me saying those and going through the actual actions of doing so were miles apart.  There was one girl in school who tried to kill herself because she was gay.  This was in 1980.  So different from today, at least I hope so.  Of course I have no idea why this boy killed himself.  I pray for his soul and for peace and understanding for his parents.

Jax got braces on his teeth the other day.  He is still in a bit of pain but overall it will be worth it. He has spacing issues and an overbite but overall his teeth were not ~that~ bad I guess.  I think if he had my parents he would not have gotten braces.  None of us had braces. None of us had perfect teeth - mostly all had spacing issues and I have an overbite.  Actually, I think my youngest brother has a bit of a cross bite too but not severe enough to correct.  The other thing it that my parents did not have the money to pay for braces.  I guess they would have found them if we had had severe dental issues. 

DH, on the other hand, had braces as did both of his brothers.  DH's teeth are now very crooked from his wisdom teeth that came in a year or so after we got married.  Well, the wisdom teeth ~tried~ to come in but just really pushed the other teeth around so it was off to the U of MN dental school to have surgery to remove them.  Gah, we were so broke then.  We paid a couple hundred dollars then had to pay in installments for the next 6 or 8 months to pay off the rest.  Thank goodness we had that option!  I'd like DH to consider getting invisilign or something to re-straighten his teeth but he is appalled when I bring it up.  He'd rather get lasik for his eyes, I think (also a good idea as he cannot see worth a darn without his glasses).

Cars goes back to the orthodontist in October to check on the status of his lateral incisors.  One is in but one stubborn one will not move.  I wonder if we will find out that it is impacted.  Time will tell...

School will be starting in less than 2 weeks and I thought I was so on top of things in the allergy department.  I took the forms to the allergist early (the school emailed the forms at the end of the school year rather than snail mail paper forms so I printed them at my expense ;).  I called the mail-order prescription drug service that we have to use and had new epi pens sent to us.  I just need to pick up new packages of Benadryl.  But when going through the cupboard I realized that I do not have any epi pens for use at home!  Well, there are two in my purse but I like to have one or two in the kitchen, you know, where we eat!  And I have no "extras".  So I will have to wait another month before I can order another set for the boys. 

Now, I know I am lucky that I have a prescription drug plan and can afford to have "extras" hanging around.  I sometimes worry about when my boys are older and if they do not have a job with drug benefits and they may not have the option to have more than one epi pen if they cannot afford it.  Oh, I hope that never happens.  In fact, I hope they find a "cure" for food allergies so they would not even have to worry about an anaphylactic reaction.  Dreaming, I guess...

Doing some "minor" renovations in the house (install hardwood floor, refinish existing hardwood, painting living/dining/hallway/kitchen) but it seems like it is so much more!  There is so much to do and we've hired out all of the labour!  Picking paint colours, stain colours, moving EVERYTHING out of the living/dining/hallway/kitchen and trying to find temporary homes for them.  I will be so happy when it is all done!  I will post before and after photos.  :)

Summer o'Fun day???

This summer has been very low-key.  My in-laws came for a visit and were here for our 4th of July party.  We showed them how Americans party!  Then we took them to Victoria BC for a couple of days as they had never been there. We walked along the inner harbour and toured The Buchart Gardens.  I think they really had a good time.  My FIL drives me crazy sometimes and I will admit that I did have a couple of hissy fits which was not becoming.

Cars went to Harry Potter day camp through the Boys and Girls Club with our neighbour and he had a great time!  He is totally into HP which is awesome since the older two have no interest in it anymore.  They did not even appreciate it yesterday when I reminded them that it was Harry Potter's birthday!  ;)

Dex spent a weekend with Spy and her dh and their oldest son sailing in the San Juan Islands.  He had a fabulous time.  He and C really get along well.  I hope their close friendship continues into middle school.

I took the kids to the dentist last week (Summer o'fun activity!) and Jax has sealants put on his new molars.  Some of the etching compound that they put on the teeth to prep it for the sealants leaked out and gave him a chemical burn on his face.  The dentist's office first denied it but then I took him back in again today to see the dentist who owns the practice and she admitted that is what it was (after I showed her the photo that I had taken of his face last week and after he told her exactly when it started to hurt).  I think they were worried we would sue or something but I just wanted to know what the hell happened to him (at first I thought it was an allergy to latex but they are latex-free in there).  The hygenist swore up and down that she did not do it and the dentist who was in the office that day said it looked like a scrape when clearly it was a burn.  Anyway, we are still switching dentists.  That was the final straw (other things like one of the other dentists being mean to Cars, sending my kids home with 3 tubes each of "free" (insurance-paid) $11/tube toothpaste).

Oh and I guess I should give an update on dh.  He had 2 xrays, 1 MRI and 2 CT scans to determine that his back was fractured a long time ago and while that is not causing his pain right now, they could not let him start PT until they were assured that it had not broken during his fall down the stairs.  So, he will start PT next week (he is "too busy", he says, until then).
I took the kids to Archie McPhee's for their annual trip.  Normally we go to the locks too but I wasn't feeling it this year so we did not go.  I'd like to go later in the month when there are lots of salmon in the salmon ladder.

Hope to update this blahg more. I spend too much time sharing too much on Facebook.  Yes, I am one of ~those~ people.  ;)

When DH fell down the stairs and broke his hand, he also hurt his back.  His hand was hurting so much more so he thought was all that he hurt.  However, over the weeks, his back started hurting more and more so he went to see a back specialist. (his hand btw, is nearly healed now).  He is in horrible pain when he stands and walks but is ok sitting or lying down. 

Anyway, they took xrays and found out that his spine has jammed into his hip and now the muscle is tight and won't release.  So he needs PT.  However, they also saw something weird so he had to go for an MRI and then go back.  The MRI turnedout to be inconclusive so he has to have a CT scan now.  One of the little pointy things on one of his vertabrae is broken off but they cannot tell if it is something that happened when he fell or, more likely, was an injury at birth or even a birth defect. In the meantime they won't start PT until they decide when it happened.  So he has been living on ibuprofen for weeks.  He finally asked for some pain killers and was prescribed some muscle relaxants and was fitted for a back brace.  We are going to Victoria very soon and all of the walking is going to kill him!  The doctor told him the muscle relaxants will probably make him just want to sleep so they will probably be no good to us while we are gone.

So, for pain, Stephen has been chowing down on ibuprofen.  And shortly thereafter his hands started getting really flaky and blistery.  He often gets this in the winter when he wears gloves a lot but his hands were so bad and he thought back to when it started and it was when he started taking ibuprofen.  Doh!  He was having an allergic reaction to it!  So now he won't take anything for the pain (and he needs to let his doctor know about this reaction).

I am leaning towards canceling our Victoria trip until he is better but he doesn't want to.  Misery, here we come!  Wish me luck that I survive the upcoming weeks until his back is better!

Summer'o'Fun Day 3

The first day of summer vacation we held Dex's 12th birthday party at a local climbing gym. Wow - the kids had such a great time and so much fun!  Even Cars, who is a big chicken, climbed up the ropes.  And all was well until he climbed a bit without the ropes and fell off and hurt his foot.  He is still limping around but claims it does not hurt much so I did not take him to the doctor.  I will if it is still hurting him after the weekend.

The second day of summer vacation was just spent doing work around the yard, Jax went to the skatepark and then to the beach (it got above 70 degrees!) and Dex walked around with some friends and hung out (read loitered) at the nearby plaza.  I love that Cars has the kids next door to play with but their summer camps will start soon so the build-in playmates will end.

Today we are going to Ash's house a little later to do tie dye.  Normally, I have big party and invite quite a few people over to do it but I was just not feeling it this year.  We were just going to do it alone until Ash invited us over and we talked about doing it together. 

I am in a bit of a funk.  The weather is a HUGE part of it.  Record cool temperatures this spring and while we did have a few nice weekends in a row, the cool temperatures and rain after that have depressed me.  While I complain a lot about the weather, I am at a point where I would love to move away from here to actually experience a real summer.  And I would not even care about snow because no doubt we'd move to a place that is prepared to deal with snow.  Anyway, just something to think about.

I am also in a funk about my friend's passing.  Yes, she had a chronic illness but not that you imagine you would die from.  If she had cancer, this would be more expected, I think.  And even though I knew she was having a flare up from Crohns and I knew she was scared, and I even *knew* she was scared of dying and I thought she might be dying, it was still a shock.  Lynn is was 3 weeks older than I am.  Maybe it is also my own mortality that is coming into play here.  It is all a bit frightening.

Ok, off to enjoy a bit of this sunshine before it disappears behind the clouds.  Maybe it will lift my spirits as well.

Rest In Peace, Lynn

DURHAM: Lynn Parks lost her long time battle with Crohn’s disease at UNC Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill on June 25th, 2012. Lynn was born on March 6, 1965 in Roanoke Rapids, NC. She grew up in Seaboard, NC, and had been a resident of Durham for many years.

Left to cherish her memory are her husband, Andy and son, Adam of the home. She is also survived by her mother, Claire, her sister, Sheri,  a sister in law, Dawn; brother in law, Julian of New York; nieces, Allison , Michelle and Hannah ; a nephew, Ben ; and many aunts and uncles and cousins and dear friends.

It has been a rough week.  Lynn was in the hospital for a week before she passed away so the emotional rollercoaster to waiting to hear information on her condition and then, when finding out that she would not get better, waiting to hear of her passing, certainly took an emotional toll on so many of Lynn's dear friends. 

I am having a hard time even expressing my thoughts and feelings in words.  All I can say is that I am sorry and I will miss her.

Today, both Jax and Dex stayed home from school because they were sick.  Dex actually missed yesterday too but hopefully he'll be going back tomorrow.  They both have (had) fevers and Jax woke up this morning and started vomitting.  Ugh.  This is the first day of school that Jax has missed in nearly 2 years!  Anyway, we'll see how he feels tomorrow and if he can go back to school.

I will be taking them out of class early tomorrow anyway so if he misses it is ok (with me).  I have to take them to have their passports renewed and the children and both parents must be present so we are heading to City Hall to submit the passports.  By the time we are done, no doubt it will be just about time for them to leave school (early dismissal Wednesday).

They still have another 9 days left of school.  Well, the 9th is the last day and it is a 1/2 day so Jax gets out at 10:30 and the other two get out at 11:30.  Also, Dex gets to take a day off next week to go to a water park with the safety patrol team and there is field day and then 6th grade promotion so really they are just passing the time until they hit 180 days of school.  Kind of a waste of time it seems to me.  No more homework for the rest of the year for any of them either.

And one more thing to complain about...

The school is rearranging all of the classrooms to try to get all of the classes together (all of the 2nd, 3rds, etc).  Because of this, they need to paint every classroom back to neutral colours (each teacher had personalized their classrooms).  So the teachers took down all of the art work, posters, notices, etc and bunched all of the desks into the middle of the room and they've been painting the classrooms during the past two weeks while the kids are in class!!  WTF?!  Nevermind the huge distraction but my kids are in there inhailing paint fumes?  You know what the principal said when a parent contacted her to complain?  "Thanks for your input".  I really dislike that woman!

Misery Loves Company

This has been one crappy week.  Everyone is miserable and taking it out on each other. 

Last Sunday, Stephen fell down the stairs while carrying the vacuum and he hurt his hand.  Badly.  I insisted that he go to urgent care but he refused and even got quite irate with me about it.  He said if he could move his fingers his hand was ok, just bruised.  He would not even take any Advil for the pain and swelling which then pissed me off because he was feeling badly and taking it out on us with his crappy attitude.

On Monday his hand was no better and I suggested that he call the doctor.  Nope.  On Tuesday - call the doctor.  Nope.  Tuesday night, however, he said he needed to go to urgent care because his hand had become too painful.  In the end, he held out until the morning and went to his doctor.  An x-ray showed a broken bone and he left with a brace and a referral to a hand surgeon.  He now has a funky brace on his hand that looks like a combination scrub brush handle and vice grip!  He has to wear it for 5 weeks but goes back in 2 weeks for another x-ray to see how it is healing.  Hopefully no surgery to fix it!

In the meantime, he refused pain meds (that's ok) but he also has not been taking even some Advil and he is in pain and is a miserable ....  I am so sick of it!  I laid down the law last night and told him that he HAD to take Advil every 8 hours because I was done dealing with his miserable attitude and he was making the whole family miserable.  He agreed that he'd do it (although I am pretty sure he did not take any this afternoon). 

Dex turns 12 tomorrow and his brain has become a teenage brain and therefore he has lost all sensibility.  We went for a "family walk" on the weekend and he chose to wear his big high-top shoes without the laces tied and scuffed his feet for the first 1/2 mile until I bent down and tied his shoes.  He forgot to turn in a permission form for a field trip and just about lost it when he realized he was past the due date on it.  Of course the teacher accepted it the next morning but he was a mess the whole night and barely slept.  Today he had basketball practice and ran off with his high-tops instead of his runners.  Just to note, the high-tops are not basketball high-tops but the skater dude high tops.  I had to drive over to the elementary school where they were practicing after Stephen called me and asked me to bring him proper shoes.

Dex also lost his cell phone yesterday.  He swore he had it on the bus on the way home from school but then it disappeared.  We spent almost an hour scouring the street and the yard for the phone.  He claims he walked around the whole house dialing his cell phone (which was on vibrate) but to no avail.  Tears, despair, angry, more tears and another sleepless night.  Then this afternoon, while moving the computer chair to get to the printer, I found his phone on the floor.   OMG!  What has happened to him?

I have been pushing Jax to be more proactive with finding other friends at school because this summer, his bff is going to be at camps or on vacation most of the summer and it will be a long lonely summer for Jax if he doesn't connect with others.  He has been hanging around with this one boy and a girl a few times.  Today, after walking home from school with them and hanging out for about an hour, he came home and told me that the girl's dad was in jail for stabbing someone and he'd be in jail for another couple of years.  Apparently her grandfather also stabbed someone but that person died so he was in jail for life!  Blink Blink Blink  Maybe I need to sign Jax up for some camps?

And Cars has become quite forgetful.  I have thought in the past that he might have ADD but when I asked his 1st grade teachers about it they said no.  It has presented itself more this year (claims he is always distracted by others when he cannot complete his work in class).  Whatever the issue, his grades are suffering a bit because of it.  He is still doing ok but just ok. 

Now I have thoroughly complained about my family.  I think the next post I will tell you something wonderful about all of them.

I just realized that my old blahg formatting is gone so my blahg roll and other info is gone too.  Wah!

Why I Hate Wells Fargo

When we sold our old house in 2007, we needed a bridge loan for 7 days to cover the days between the closing of this house and our old house. Through a mortgage broker, we arranged for a line of credit against the equity in our house and we got the line of credit through Wells Fargo.  The line of credit was to be closed when we closed on the house.  Well, the line of credit was opened up but never closed.  And, on top of that, they also opened a line of credit on our new house (we did not need or want).

We wanted to close these lines of credit since they were not needed but found out that there would be a $500 charge (EACH!) to close them if they were opened for less than two years.  Screw that!  And on top of that, there was a $75 annual fee on these lines of credit (again, each!).  So we decided to wait 2 years to close the line of credits and pay a total of $300. 

Meanwhile, we refinanced our new mortgage in '09 through the mortgage broker and fortunately our mortgage was sold to Bank of America instead of WF.  We paid to close the lines of credit at the same time (and lift the lien on this house).

Even though we closed the lines of credit, Wells Fargo still had a lien in our name against our old house and we found out when the new owner tried to sell it in the summer of 2011. Yes, they filed the lien on the house a week after the house was sold by us to the new owner!  So we no longer owned the house or had the line of credit but the lien was still in place, applied after we had sold the house.  As a result, we had to send a letter to WF, requesting that they close it immediately and then we had to pay some Wells Fargo some fees for faxing information to the title company and processing.  We were charged another $50 to be rid of this damn thing!

WTF - Wells Fargo kept costing us money!

Mortgage interest rates dropped again so we refinanced our mortgage in March of 2012.  Our first payment was due in April. The mortgage was sold part way through March and we found out late in March that Wells Fargo bought it (damn!).  By this time, it was getting close to April 1st so I mailed WF a check with our payment since we had not received an official mortgage statement from them. I then called and arranged for automatic payments of mortgage to come out starting in May.

Stephen was paying bills on Friday night and noticed that our May mortgage payment had not come out. I called Wells Fargo and they said that we two months behind in our payments! But they cashed our check in April (March 30th actually)! How could we be 2 months behind? It seems that WF had taken the April payment and applied it to the principle instead of applying it as a mortgage payment. Then, since there was no April payment on record, the automatic payment scheduled for May was automatically canceled.  Just like that! Oh, but WF did not inform us of this.  That would be too easy. 

So, on Saturday morning, I made the May payment over the telephone and they made arrangements to back out April's payment and reapply it as a mortgage payment. Then I again had to arrange for automatic withdrawals of our monthly mortgage payment.  Oh,  all of this would take up to five days to correct. Aargh!

I have felt sick about this for days even though it was their error. They told me "you are lucky it is a new loan because new loan missed payments do not get reported to the credit bureau for 90 days". Fuck! It was their fault for applying the April payment incorrectly!  I did get a cursory"sorry for the mistake" over the phone. 

I called once more today to ensure that all looked ok with it (it does).

Stephen and I are both educated people and Wells Fargo has completely hosed us over twice! I get so upset thinking of people who are not as educated who are getting royally screwed by companies like Wells Fargo over these kind of mistakes. Wells Fargo has not yet sent us any information that we were late on our mortgage payment although they told me over the telephone that these letters are generated automatically and had been mailed out.  And I am awaiting the confirmation letter that the June payment (and further payments).  Also, waiting to ensure that the June payment actually does come out.

So by refinancing to save ourselves a few thousand dollars a year in interest payments, we really just created a huge headache (and stomach ache!) for ourselves.  I hate Wells Fargo and hope that my mortgage gets sold to someone else.  Soon.

Editing this on June 7 to say that our mortgage did not come out automatically on the day we had set it up for, and had received a letter stating it would be taken out on that day and the same day every month thereafter.  The payment came out the FOLLOWING day.  Great.  So now we will have be on top of this every.single.month to ensure that the payment actually comes out.  This is so frustrating!

We are enjoying our fourth weekend in a row of sunshine!  I feel so spoilt.  And this weekend it is HOT (well, hot for here).  Today it was in the high 70s and it will be again tomorrow and I think Monday too.  So lovely.

Dex had a basketball game today. Two minutes before the start of the game they only had 4 players and the other team had 10 and they looked all intimidating practicing while our kids stood around wondering where everyone else was.  The 5th player arrived just as the buzzer rang to start the game.  Then 5 minutes into the game, two more kids showed up so they at least were able to get some rotation and were not exhausted by the end of the game.  They played well and they won!  Hurray Blue Skulls!

Cars had a baseball game this afternoon and it was very warm sitting in the sun watching it.  His team played well although at Cars' 6th time up to bat his hit a line drive and one of his best friends caught it!  That kid's dad said it made up for the first inning when Cars his a ball right over his friend's head for a double.  ;)

I walked home from the game (Stephen walked there while I drove then he took the car home and I walked).  I am trying to make sure I get some exercise in before the 1/2 marathon next month.  Hopefully I will be more prepared than last year when I basically woke up one day and walked 13.1 miles.  My poor feet still haven't forgiven me.

This month is Skin Cancer Awareness Month. Check your skin. Wear your sunscreen.

Today's headline was "Adam 'MCA' Yauch of the Beastie Boys dies at 47" and my first thought was "Wow, 47 is not old".  It is so funny how our perception of age changes the older we get.  If I read that headline when I was in my 20s or 30s I would be thinking that he had had a good run, especially for someone in the music business.  However, now that *I* am 47, I think "Gone too young". 

R.I.P.