The Magic of Christmas

Since little kids don't quite grasp the concept of what Christmas is actually about, it's nice to have a symbol like Santa Claus that embodies the gift of our Savior.

There is nothing quite so magical as watching two little girls get giddy and squealy over seeing santa claus when they see him. Right now, our girls are watching "The Polar Express." What a fantastic movie. They get so excited and start dancing, clapping, squealing ... it's just adorable. "DADDY! LOOK! SANTA!"

Weef and I have a tradition of giving each other an ornament for our tree. I know exactly what I'm getting her next year. I can't wait!

Though there is something so bizarrely disturbing about seeing a CGI version of Steven Tyler belting out whatever song that is at the end of the movie. Just ... creepy. How funny.

A Beautiful Sight

Weef is sitting on the couch directly behind me playing Mario Kart Wii. She's doing really well, too. Here in a little bit, we're gonna race. She is now a worthy opponent. ;)

As we're sitting here, she's playing the Wii, I'm blogging, A Perfect Circle's "The Noose" comes on. What does she say? "Wow ... I really miss this song."

*sigh*

I picked a super winner. We may have our moments of frustration with life, each other, whatever ... it can't touch us long-term, though.

Yah. It's time to play. Later. :)

Chronic Suffering and Agony

So, as many--if not all--of you know, I suffer from chronic headaches. I've been getting debilitating headaches since I was 20. That's a long time to suffer with literally no explanation of why.

Well, now there's a why. I have arthritis in my neck. Specifically, on the second and third vertebrae. For years, I've been going to doctors, getting MRIs, CT scans and x-rays. They've always been focused on my head--not my neck. FInally, I went to a chiropractor last week. He showed me exactly where and why I've been getting these headaches.

So now that we know WHAT the problem is, there has to be a solution for treating it. If nothing else, at least find out if something can be done. Fortunately for me, I live really close to a world-class medical facility. I have an appointment scheduled for next Thursday for an initial consultation.

I'm so glad that I'm FINALLY making some progress headache thing! Consequently, I know that weef and the girls will be glad to have me "whole," as it were. I constantly feel broken--not 100%. And I *want* to be 100%. I want to let my daughters play on my back, or give them horsie rides and not worry about whether I'm going to require a muscle relaxant for a week straight after. I want to stay at work all day and not have to leave because "If I don't leave now, I won't make it home." I'm tired of having this problem, and I am SO excited to be on the road to recovery. It's beautiful.

Now THIS Is Excellent!

I called our old auto insurance broker company today. We've been paying a ridiculous amount for coverage. Granted, we had a $100 deductible, but that's proven to be a bust since we're safe drivers. I'd rather save more and go with another carrier than worry about the deductible.

So I called them. They told me they could save us almost $1400 a year in auto insurance with the EXACT same coverage. Only difference is we would have a $500 deductible instead of a $100, but considering we've never had an accident, and we're extremely cautious drivers (mostly), paying that much more on the chance we'd need to spend money on a deductible is kind of silly.

Then the agent asked me about home owner's insurance. They're going to save us another $203 by bundling auto with the home insurance. All told, we'll be saving about $1600 a year. I don't know about y'all, but that's pretty dang exciting news in our book!

We're dropping our cell phones since my company provides me with a cell phone, and we're picking up a new carrier for weef with a cheaper plan, so that'll save us a bundle.

All told, by the end of the day, I believe we're going to be saving over $2000 a year. That's good stuff, right there. We have stuff around the house that we're looking to sell as well.

It's amazing what this economic crunch can cause as far as thoughts and planning goes. I mean, honestly, the things we're looking at selling are things that are extraneous around the house that we just don't use, like the little TV and DVD player we barely use; the chair in the spare room that's just sitting there, unused; stuff. Things we don't need/want, or things we just don't use ... all going away.

In their place, we'll buy things that we know we'll use or need. Nice!

Tripping and Fumbling Down Memory Lane

Today was ... bizarre. In a single day, I've found more friends from a former life as a "back Easterner" than I thought possible. I've had Facebook conversations with friends I haven't spoken with in easily 13-14 years, all of which were as easily picked up as if we had spoken yesterday. It brought back SO many memories: Super Saturdays, YSA activities, college days ... it's been a blast. Still so many common interests, like our once-upon-a-time local football team (who just can't seem to get a break ...), local cuisine, etc. Yet here we all are, almost 20 years removed from our former lives, reconnecting on a new, modern level, and discussing current events like it's no big deal that we haven't spoken in eons.

That's the quality of people I grew up with.

If any of you from FB happen upon this blog, please ... leave a comment. Say hi! I'm so excited to have reconnected with all of you, even if it's only through here for now.

Blessings in Disguise

So, as you all know, we're mired in this quagmire of a battle between us and the bugs. I think we're winning, but it's really hard to tell, and we probably won't know for at least a week.

What amazes me is how much it's drawn us together as a family. Weef and I are constantly doing laundry, washing, conditioning and combing hair (except not mine; I'm baby-butt bald), bagging toys, boiling combs, vacuuming anywhere the girls sit for longer than 30 seconds, spraying down bedding, couches, chairs, etc ... it's a never-ending battle.

We're now starting day 6 of what I've termed "Hell Week", though I'm fairly certain that might have to be broadened to "Month." We'll see. Anyway, at the beginning of the day, like any other day, the girls come plodding downstairs and bemoan their hunger status. I get some food in their little bellies (eventually), then wait for Lori to wake up. At that point, we start planning out the day--who's going to do what and when. I've been on hair patrol the entire time: sifting through the girls' hair (all 3 of them), washing, using what I consider to be useless ointment to try to kill the bugs and eggs ... it just doesn't work. We've applied 4 treatments to each of the girls, none of which have worked worth a hill of beans. We did some online reading and found some home remedies that seem to be working better. If you apply white conditioner with extreme liberty to dry hair, it seems to suffocate the bugs and they come running to the "surface," allowing us to simply comb them out. This method does NOT kill the eggs, though. For that, you have to pour vinegar over the hair and let it sit. That loosens the eggs, then you can use a nit comb to pull out the eggs.

But I digress. My point of this blog is how well we've all bonded over this. The girls have been such troopers, especially girl 1. She is definitely ground zero for the infestation. She sits so patiently (most of the time) while we go through her hair for literally hours a day. She does whimper on occasion about how she wants to watch another show or something, or that we're pulling too hard on her hair, or scraping her poor little scalp with the comb, but overall, she's been a champ and a half.

Weef and I just laugh. Or cry. Or stare in horrific disbelief at the sheer magnitude of everything. But we shake it off and trudge along, trying to keep each others' spirits uplifted and bolstered.

Girl 2 ... what a ham. As long as she's awake, she'll find some way to entertain herself. She's been noticeably attention-starved a couple of times, at which point we'll take a small break to play with her and let her know that we're not intentionally ignoring her. For example, yesterday she was noticeably feisty and smacking weef's leg and smiling that impish grin that says, "Ha ha. You're looking at me. I'm getting attention." Weef was displeased, but completely understood. As I was already sitting at the computer, checking in on work to make sure I'm getting updates on what needs to be done, I said, "C'mere, you. Let's look at some pictures." She came bounding over with such joy and a smile to die for ... "YAY!!" She climbed up on my lap and I showed her pictures of our family. She pointed out everyone and everything--people, pets, toys ... it was so cute.

What I've had reinforced to me during this whole sad ordeal is just how much my family means to me. I'd be nothing without them. They are my world. Friends are definitely important, and work is necessary, but they can't ever take the place of my little family.

I love you, weef and girls!!

a funny spot to an otherwise unbearable weekend

we've had this dryer for ... what? 4 years or so? in the last few months, it's started not drying without being run through 2 or 3 cycles. now, granted, i've been off laundry patrol since weef's home all day. so she's been doing all the washing and drying.

so when this epidemic hit, i decided that it was absolutely time to look at getting a new dryer. hit up KSL, found a dryer for $30 in ogden WITH delivery from a second-hand store that is renowned for their maintenance and CS. called, still available, scheduled delivery for saturday afternoon. well, since weef was busy combing shariden's hair, i decided to do the laundry.

there were some things in the dryer that still weren't dry, so i restarted the dryer. 10 minutes later, they were all dry. we're talking damp towels, jeans, stuff like that.things that would normally take a LONG time to dry were done in a matter of minutes.

i forgot to mention that weef thought we should blow out the lint trap, so we tried that. i grabbed the shop vac, used the leaf blower part, and blew out whatever was caught in the exhaust and lint trap.

so then i re-ran the dryer, and everything worked great! "sweet! don't need the dryer!" i called the girl, said, "yah ... don't need it, but thanks!" she said that it was no problem, and please keep them in mind for any future appliance needs, which we absolutely will.

weef finished doing whatever it was she was doing. she came down and started doing laundry. next thing we know, her load of drying stuff wasn't dry at all. it wasn't even warm. "crap ..." so weef re-ran the load, i called the appliance people and asked if they could deliver it again. they said they could bring it sunday morning. under normal circumstances, i would have waited until monday, but this was dire.

i got sunday morning and weef was vacuuming the ENTIRE front room: under the couches, the couch bottom, sides, back, cushions inside and out ... everywhere. i, once again, was on laundry patrol

the load in the dryer was still damn, so i re-ran the dryer. again, 10 minutes later, everything was bone dry.

"umm ... lori?"

she came downstairs and i showed her the dry clothes.

"why is it when *i* dry the clothes, the dryer works, but when you use it, it doesn't?"

"i don't know. i always set it to the highest setting."

"really? on the dial, point to where you think the highest setting is."

she pointed dead center on the highest setting, but it was right when the dryer starts cooling down. The "fluff" time of the cycle. i laughed so hard that i shed tears.

needless to say, i called the appliance store again, rather embarrassed.