Sick of being sick

Is it already Wednesday?  This week has been a blur with running kids everywhere, dealing with the bugs, (Fleas!  How in the world did we get fleas in Kodiak?) and dealing with a cough that will not go away.  I have been coughing for over 2 months and have had many friends tell me to go to the doctor. 
Yesterday my visiting teacher called to set up an appointment and heard my ongoing cough.  She called another fours times during the day to convince me to go see the doctor.  I finally broke down and called for an appointment only to be told that the nurses were out of the office and the receptionist could not make an appointment until they returned from lunch.  Don’t they know what it took for me to make the call in the first place?  I will not go to the doctor unless I am on my death bed, which my loving visiting teacher said I was at.   Upon returning home from running kids to various places I saw that the doctors office had tried to call.  I gave up and called them back and hung up with an appointment for this morning.  I had figured they would tell me to come in next week to which I would have said never mind.  Maybe my wonderful visiting teacher called them to let them know they had better get me in.  I doubt  it, but she has a way to getting you to do what she says.  It must be a mom thing that I have not perfected yet, and she must have had a lot of practice. 
I went to my appointment today to find that I have a sinus infection and a lung infection and was given a prescription for some really powerful antibiotics.  Also the good doctor told me I needed lots of rest.  I actually started laughing.  Who has time for rest?   He flat out told me no more running for at least a couple of days.  He was being very serious so I did not point out that this would really upset my schedule to meet my goal by the end of the year.  I still have 150 miles to go.  Instead I turned red and agreed to take it easy.  I guess there will be no alarm going off in my house tomorrow morning at 5:15 am, it will just go off at 6:15.  There, problem solved.  I get an extra hour of rest for the next couple of days.   So I went about the rest of my day, running kids around, doing shopping, taking care of dinner.  During my running around I stopped by Walmart to pick up my medication only to be told that they were having trouble processing my insurance and I would have to come back later.  Again, do they not know that I am the kind of person who will just say forget it.  I don’t really need these drugs, and I don’t have the time to bother with this nonsense.  I know reading this my wonderfully caring visiting teacher is about ready to come and march me back to the pharmacy.  She did call tonight to find out what the doctor had said and made me promise to get some rest.  I reminded her of the Halloween activity I am helping to plan for Saturday and a myriad of  other responsibilities.  She asked if I needed dinners and someone to take the kids.  Oh how well she knows me.  She know that I will not take it easy, or take a break as long as there is work to be done.  This poor gal is just recovering herself from this same infection and is trying to take care of all my responsibilies too so that I get some rest.  I really am lucky to have such a wonderful and caring visiting teacher who is not above bullying to get me to take it easy.  So instead I sit here on the computer at 9:15 in the evening instead of sitting at my sewing machine getting some much needed work done and waiting for Chad to get back from a meeting.   Oh the drama!
On a lighter note, I have to post the school pictures my friend Amy took for the kids this year.  Doing homeschool doesn’t offer the opportunity of school pictures to hang on my wall, so when she offered to take the kids pictures I jump at the chance.  They turned out super cute, I really love the one of Kaylin.  My favorite though is with all the kids together.  They look very natural like they pose for this kind of picture all the time.   They are all growing up so fast, I am glad that I get pictures once in a while to save this moment.

A beginning

I have been running for two weeks and tracking my progress daily.  It gives me a sense of accomplishment to see the numbers adding up.  Already I have gone a little  beyond my weekly goal and that make me feel confident  that I will achieve my long term goal by the end of the year.  What a great feeling! 

The past week we have been doing some major cleaning and purging.  It is something that I have needed to do for quite some time, but kept putting it off because I did not have the time, energy, ect. to begin such a daunting task.  That all was decided for me when I finally realized that we must have some kind of bug in our house, and most particularly in the kids rooms.  I had been discounting the bites on their legs for a while as something they were getting playing outside, it all starting about the time we went to girls camp with the young women.  However,  now the obvious is finally hitting me as the weather has turned chilly and they spend a lot more time inside and yet continue to get bitten.  Time to take drastic action, including taking everything (I do mean everything) out of the bed rooms, vacuuming relentlessly, and being ridiculously dedicated to laundry.  At the moment Alyssa and Sam do not have a single item of clothing in their room, most of it has been washed and sealed into plastic tubs.  They are not allowed to wear cloths two days in row without first washing in hot water.  I dread to see what my oil bill will be after over 20 loads of laundry washed in hot water. 

For the mean time we have plastic totes stacked in the living room, a thorough vacuuming  of the whole house every day,  and one more room to completely clean (mine, the catch all when there is not a place for everything).  Today we set off bug bombs and hope this will clear everything up.  If not, the battle continues.  Hopefully by the end my house will never have looked better.

A couple of new changes

You may have noticed the new addition to my profile.  My wonderful husband found a gadget that would keep track of my running, and now I am already on my way to reaching my goal of 200 miles by the end of the year. 

This is not the only thing looking different today.  I have a whole new look too.  For the past year I have been thinking about donating my hair to Locks for Love.  My hair is now the longest it has ever been, and it is starting to get in the way.  I have found that I am not a fan of it all over my face when I am out running, or sticking to my back and pulling my head around.  It is now down to my waist and starting to get caught and tangled.  I finally understand why many of the women I have known with really long hair keep it in a braid, keeping it from getting so tangled.

So today I finally got up the nerve cut it off and donate it.   I am sad and a little depressed to see it all go, but it is for a good cause.  I just keep reminding myself it will grow back.  It may take 3 or 4 years, but it will grow back.   

Chad suggested I take this opportunity to get a whole make over with the hair cut, a new color, new clothes, become a new person.  I don’t think he is complaining about the old person, but I know that I am ready for a change, to try to be someone else.   So I have gone through a couple of changes today.  First the cut, which I love.  I was very excited to see how it turned out and see that it was not as short as I had imagined.

Next the color, which is growing on me.  It is a semi permanent color, so it will fade out in the next 6 to 8 weeks, just enough time to decide if I really like it.  My neighbor Alex was the best.  I had sewn some curtains for her salon, so I got the free cut and she sent me home with the bottle of hair color. 

  

Alyssa was my photographer for the day.  I think she did a pretty good job.  So what do you think of my new look?  Shocking, sassy, completely different.  Leave me a comment.

Goals

Yesterday saw the achievement of a goal I have been working toward for weeks, months even.  I ran the Run the Rock 1/2 Marathon!  13 miles, up a mountain, down the other side, out through beautiful scenery to Anton Larsen Bay, turn around and go back up and back down the mountain.  My friend Ambee Hill ran the whole way with me, as we each pushed each other farther on.  I sprinted across the finish line to make my final time 2 hours 37 minutes 4 seconds. 

For the past week I have watched the sky as our island has been hit with wind and rain.  Chad asked me on Friday with the rain pouring down if I would still run in that weather.  Of course I would!  Wasn’t I out to prove how insane I really am?  Or to prove that I can stick fast to my convictions?  I gathered my warm gear and prepared mentally to spend three miserable hours pitting myself against nature.   I meant to prove to myself that I was firm in my goals.  Thankfully, Saturday dawned not really bright and sunny,  but fair and I was ready for the big race. 

Now I need to set a new goal to keep me going through the winter.  I plan to run at least 200 miles from now to the end of the year.   Now to figure out how to install an app that will track my miles each day to count down my goal.  Maybe I will have to be extra sweet to ask my tech genus husband to do that for me.   Technology is not my goal, fitness is.    So day 1 starts tomorrow, hopefully with a few miles under my belt.

Obsession with Meat

The scent of smoke is beginning to disappear in our home after 3 days of lingering in the air.  This time the smoke is a welcome scent not to be associated with smoky burnt food or from the wood stove.   For a week Chad cured bacon and then smoked it for several hours.  Because of the chilly weather he could not finish smoking the bacon outside, so he got it all smoky and then brought it inside to heat in the oven.  Hence the rich smoky scent all over the house.    This is just one more skill Chad is adding to being self sufficient.  For two weekends he was busy making bratwursts and Italian Sausage; grinding pork, seasoning, and stuffing in sausage casings.  This weekend he will be smoking Canadian Bacon.   He has enjoyed being the king of meat, and he is looking for more things to add to his list. 
 
And… pork was on sale this week at Safeway.  The magic word, sale.  So today the kids helped me bottle pork.  Have you ever tried bottled meat?  I love my home bottled meat, it makes my good food, fast convenience food.  I have been out of pork for a while and we have really missed it.  Monday night is usually taco night, and after making tortillas I can open a bottle of pork, add the seasoning, and by the time the table is set dinner is ready.  It is awesome, and tastes great!   So today we tried to restock the shelves.   Connor and Sam helped cube the pork and did a great job of trimming off the fat.  Alyssa worked at browning the cubed meat to get it ready for the jars. 
     
While we worked we talked about where our food comes from.  I was so glad to hear them say a farm.  Connor had started out saying the store but pointed out it was grown on a farm.   We also talked about how making our own food was better than buying processed food because we know what is in it.   They would never get all of this experience in a public school, another reason I am so glad we made the decision to home school.   And look at what we accomplished in a few hours. 
 
There is still more to pack in bottles tomorrow, and I am feeling better to have bottled meat back in my pantry.