Happy Halloween from Nora and Will!

The final estimate

I forgot about updating all of you who played my guessing game! For those of you who didn't read that particular blog entry you can check it out here.

Anyway, the insurance company authorized the full amount that the autobody shop estimated without any haggling. The total amount was $5,331.41.

Nice chunk 'o change, no?

The good news is that the autobody shop owner called Gordon this morning to tell him that the van is all set! We'll be making arrangements to pick her up probably some time tomorrow.

As fun as it has been driving Mom's Expedition (THANK YOU Mom!!), that thing is a bit of a beast! I never thought I'd consider my minivan as small, but compared to the 'Expee' it is.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, my friends!

The girls' school will have its annual costume parade this afternoon, with each girl's class having its Halloween party right after. I hope to get William to take an early nap so that we can head over to the elementary school and watch the girls parade around in their costumes.

Gordon is on trick-or-treat duty this year, as I did it the last two years running. I will try to take the time then to get pictures uploaded and posted of the kidlets all dressed for the holiday fun. Be sure to check back tonight or tomorrow!

Disclaimer

I feel the need to clarify something.

For those of you who have already read yesterday's blog entry and saw my last comment directed to my friend Amy, pay attention. I did not in any way, shape, or form intend to paint a picture of Amy as a hypodermic needle searching fiend. She is not a druggy. She does not have her own Frankenstein-like experiment which she needs to inject with needles. She isn't a psychotic woman who has a strange obsession with collecting unused syringes.

Simply put, Amy has a farm with a lot of animals. She often finds herself needing to administer medications to said animals. When I was first place on insulin by the Nazis, she commented that she could always use that guage needle syringe because they're best for cats and dogs and other smallish animals.

That's the story. And we're sticking to it! ;)

I passed, I passed, I passed!!!!!

If only you could have all seen me this afternoon!! I was just about jumping with joy as I walked from the hospital (where the diabetes clinic is located) to the parking lot. I was silently whooping it up, itching to kick my heels a la Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

I guess one could say I was UBERexcited after my appointment at the diabetes clinic.

The short of it all is that I passed my 2hr glucose tolerance test. With flying colors.

I am officially DONE with that clinic. I will never ever ever ever ever cross their threshold again.
My fasting blood glucose was 82. My two hour level after drinking the 75ml glucola drink was 112. Both well below the diabetes diagnosis levels.

Of course the RN couldn't just congratulate me and send me on my merry way. No, she had to lecture me on how very important it is for me to get back down to my pre-pregnancy weight. She also extoled the virtues of getting plenty of exercise on a regular basis. Like I don't know all that. Whatever.

So, Amy -- are you still interested in all of my leftover unused syringes?

Final appointment (hopefully!!!)

I have an appointment with the diabetes clinic this morning. They want to check to be sure the insuline resistance I developed while pregnant is gone. Then they'll sign off on my care for good.

I hope it will be my last encounter with them but I'm worried that it won't be. Although I hope that I don't still have diabetes problems, that's not the big reason why I am worried the clinic won't release me. I simply don't wish to have to deal with them ever again.

Remember I called them Nazis before? They're cold, mean, and dictator-like. It's plain obvious that the nurses there must have skipped Bedside 101 at the nursing school. I wouldn't send my worst enemy to them for treatment. Not even for a sliver.

Wish me luck!

Braggin' about Will

Saturday morning William came running up to me with his mini-magnadoodle. He was excitedly saying, 'LOOK Mommy!! Will draw W!!'

I looked and he had indeed!! I was (and still am) very proud. So proud, in fact, that I just HAD to take a picture!

Another Whirlwind Weekend

Dianna is back to 100%. She was much better by Saturday afternoon, but we encouraged her to rest more just to be sure. Now if we can keep the rest of us from getting the ickies....

I finally went to the lab to get my bloodwork done. I have my (hopefully) final appointment with the diabetes clinic scheduled for this Wednesday afternoon. They wanted me to go in for a 2hr Glucose Tolerance Test.

JUST what I wanted to do right now -- spend 2.5+ hours sitting in the waiting room of the laboratory with nothing to do.

But I did. Because I want to be DONE with that clinic once and for all. Wish me luck that I passed the test! (I'll update after Wednesday's appointment.)

Grace had a soccer game we weren't expecting. Her coach called the house early Saturday morning to apologize. When he typed up the schedule of games for the team, he accidentally omitted one last game. He had just discovered his error.

The game was originally scheduled for Saturday morning!

Luckily the other team's coach wanted to reschedule it (because we obviously weren't going to be making it!).

So we all packed up and headed to their field Sunday morning. Grace's team got whipped. The referree was HORRIBLE in his calls. He missed so many very obvious calls and then made some that most other refs would have purposely overlooked.

The thing that really ticked me off the most is that when Grace got hurt, he didn't call a timeout right away. She was down on her knee, like the girls have been instructed to do if/when they get hurt. A few of the girls on our team noticed right away and started to drop down to their knees too -- again, something they've been instructed to do. The ref MUST have seen that she was down too. HE WAS WALKING DIRECTLY TOWARD HER!! Yet he didn't blow on his whistle to stop the play. Jerk.

The good news is that Grace is fine. She'd gotten pushed down and then kicked. But my girl is a trooper, and she was out there playing on the field again in no time.

I'm not going to bore all of you with the rest of the details of our weekend. Just suffice it to say you've gotten the highlights!

Nighttime sickies

Dianna went to bed last night with a bucket because she said her tummy hurt. Lucky us, she came into our room around 10:30pm to tell us that she'd thrown up.

UNlucky us, she didn't make it into the bucket. She'd thrown up all over her bed. And I mean ALL over.

So I got up to get it all cleaned. And prayed that this isn't the stomach bug that was running through the elementary school a couple of weeks ago. The last thing I need is for the rest of us to start vomitting one by one, every couple of days.

Tournament pictures

Grace's soccer team had a tournament the Sunday and Monday of Columbus Day Weekend. Here are some pictures of our girl in action.



Dianna kept herself busy, playing with her friend Patience some of the time. Other times, she was found kicking her soccer ball against the chainlink fence. She said she was 'practicing'.

Lisa met us at the fields on Sunday morning to cheer Grace on. Eleanor loved snuggling with her Aunt Lisa so much that she snoozed for quite a while on Lisa's shoulder!

OH!! I forgot to add that the Lightening (Grace's team) won one of the four games at the tournament! I know, you're probably scratching your head wondering why I'm excited that they won only ONE of the games. I'll tell you why. It's because that win was the very first the girls had all season long.

Since then, the girls have won two more games. One was at the 'Fun Day' game where the girls played at the high school under the lights. The other was their final league game this past Sunday.

We have one final weekend of soccer this year. There's a Jamboree the very first weekend of November.

Let's stop this ratrace for a moment

I've been sooooo busy lately that I haven't had time to stop and smell the daisies. I haven't had time to do much but worry about making it to this place or that place on time. Yesterday was especially busy. Today will only be slightly less so. I don't have a 'day off' until next week some time. With my luck, something important will come along that will mean I'll not even have that time free from appointments/obligations.

It's times like these that I need to take a step back, breathe deeply, thank God for all that I've got (and am able to do), and try to keep the important things in the forefront. My family. Yes, they bring various obligations along to fill my calendar all the time. Yes, they probably feel like they'd not survive without me (and I secretly like that!). But they're everything to me. And I truly AM grateful that God sent each and every one of them to me.

Still, it'd be soooo nice to stop this merry-go-round for a moment so that I could step off and catch my breath from all of the chaos. It won't happen, but a gal can dream...

Wordless Wednesday

I've visited lots of blogs that do 'Wordless Wednesdays'. They simply post pictures. Without any stories or comments. Sometimes a little explanation or description is left, but ONLY if it's necessary. And ONLY a very very *little* one at that.

So here's my Wordless Wednesday:

YAY! Back to HS readability level!

I just triple-checked my blog readability and am now rated:

Movie Reviews

I guess I'm getting smarter in my old age....

Will wears Eleanor's diapers

Remember when I said that I was ordering cloth diapers for William to wear? I was writing about how potty training was not going for Will in the Potty Training still not really happening post on October 9th. Feel free to go back and re-read it if you need to refresh your memory.

Anyway, the diapers arrived almost a week ago. I was excited to start using them, but had a number of disposables to use up because I'm too cheap to waste money by throwing them away frugal. Plus, I had to wash and dry the new diapers about five times to get them to 'fluff' and get to maximum absorbency.

So Sunday morning was the first time we put a cloth diaper on Will's bottom. I really wish I had a video camera handy! He tugged at the diaper and wanted to take it off. He kept saying, 'No like Eleanor's diapers!!'

I know it's evil of me to find this hilarious, but it was just so darn cute!

Gordon and I explained to William that these weren't Eleanor's diapers. They were his new washable diapers. And if William doesn't like wearing washable diapers, then he'd need to learn to make his peepees and poopies go in the potty. Until he has 'Potty Power' he'll have to wear diapers.

William is getting used to cloth. He doesn't like feeling wet, but it's not totally motivating him to potty train, either. It's all ok though. I'm perfectly happy to have him stay my little boy and need to depend on me a bit longer before he's too big for Momma's help anymore!

The estimate is in

Gordon and I dropped the van off at the autobody shop Sunday afternoon. Billy, the owner, called Gordon with his initial estimate amount of what it will cost to repair the damage. Anyone want to take a guess at how much it's gonna be??

I'll wait a day or two to see if anyone wants to participate in this guessing game before I announce the official dollar figure that Billy came up with.

I *will* tell you that Billy figured the estimate using all brand new Honda parts.

Happy guessing!

FINALLY -- Vacation pics!!

As promised, here are a couple of pictures from my trip to Florida. I'm sorry it took me two weeks to get them up here, but Life has a way of keeping me busy! ;)

This first picture I took at Bradley airport, while we were waiting to board our plane. Amanda was cuddling with Nora, helping to keep her from crying. I was trying to hold off on nursing her until we boarded.

In case you couldn't guess from the sign in this picture, we stayed at a Marriott.

I placed the red arrow in this next picture so you can see which balcony was ours. It was HUGE! We spent a lot of time out there, just relaxing and soaking up sun.

This is the view if you look off to the right hand side of the balcony. You can see the intra-coastal waterways. The houses along the water were very luxurious looking. Every single one of them had their own private in-ground pool. Judging by the way the guys were dressed and the equipment used, I'd also guess that they all had landscapers to care for their gardens and yards.

This is the view we saw if we stood right in front of the sliding glass door on our balcony. You can see the city beach and ocean to the right. I was in love with all of the palm trees everywhere!

I didn't bring a stroller with us, just my Mayawrap sling. Nora loves that thing! She usually falls asleep in it, so while we walked, she snoozed.

Amanda took this picture of Nora and I at the beach. I love it -- it's not often that I get to have a picture of me while on vacation. Plus, I actually think I look pretty good in that one! ;)

This last picture shows my super expensive Marriott Burger that we ordered from room service. I was trying to be good about what I ate, so I ordered mine to be on whole grain toast instead of a roll. By the time it got to me, the bottom slice was soggy and the top slice was as hard as a rock. Guess next time I'll just forget about eating healthy and go for the gusto with a real roll!!

Another casualty...

Yesterday afternoon, Grace came to the back door with her face all scrunched up and big crocodile tears streaming down her cheeks. She'd done a headcount of all of the chickens, noticed one of the RI Reds was MIA, and wandered around the yard trying to find her. While looking for what she thought was an errant bird, she discovered a pile of feathers in the middle of the yard. She just *knew* something had happened.

As my luck would have it, it was her favorite RI Red, Emily, that was the one that was missing. My girl was devastated!

I tried my best to console her, trying to give her hope yet also trying to prepare her for the very real possibility that something bad had indeed happened. Sure enough, Gordon discovered what was left of the body. We're certain it had to have been the red fox I saw a few weeks back.

Poor Grace. She is hurting so much that this has happened.

Pretty car no more

I've long since given up on having my '02 Honda Odyssey look pristine and pretty. I think I gave up that notion shortly after then three year old Dianna 'colored' on the hood with a rock.

Well, Lady (as Grace affectionately named her....Thomas the Tank Engine fans will recognize the name) is now showing some SERIOUS battle scars. The kind that actually will prevent me from driving her safely. The kind that take a few thousand dollars to make better.

That's right -- I hit a deer tonight. I was on my way home from Mom and Dad's house when a deer ran out in front of me. It happened so quickly, with the deer coming out of nowhere, that I didn't really even have time to react. Luckily the airbags didn't deploy, though Gordon said he's surprised they didn't -- it looks like it was a pretty hard impact.

Then he asked me if I thought it was a hard impact. Umm....I dunno....I've never hit a deer or been in a collision before so I have nothing to compare it to.

I can tell you that now that my adrenaline rush is passing, my neck is starting to get stiff and sore. Figures -- I was just starting to feel about 98% better from all of the neck pain I had at the end of my vacation!

Here are some pictures of the damage:

See the deer hair hanging from the hood in that last one??? EEEEeeeeeeeeeeew!!

My head is spinning!!

We've had soooooooooooooo many things going on lately that I literally feel like my head is spinning. I *promise* that I will try to get those vacation pictures up here soon. Plus, I have pictures from Grace's tournament this past weekend to share as well. (By the way, Grace's team got their first win of the year yesterday at the tournament!!!) AND I also have some random pictures that I took around our yard to share all of our beautiful fall colors with you.

So, be on the lookout.....just give me a couple of days to get them all straightened out!

Four day weekend

With Columbus Day on Tuesday, the big girls will have both Monday and Tuesday off from school. I would LOVE to take advantage of that and make the trek up to Vermont with the kidlets for a little getaway, but no can do. Grace has a tournament scheduled for her soccer team this weekend.

What? What's that suggestion you just made? Go to VT after her tournament??

I'd LOVE to, but no can do for that either.

You see, the Powers that Be in the LJSC world decided to schedule this weekend's tournament for Sunday and Monday, rather than Saturday - Sunday. I guess they had nothing else better to do for the extended weekend, so they figured why not?

Better yet, if Gordon wants to attend both days, he'll have to take Monday off from work. Columbus Day isn't a holiday observed at his workplace.

At least the weather for the weekend is looking like it'll shape up nicely....

Updated blog readability

Remember when I posted about the readability of my blog?

I had scanned my blog and found that it was at a High School level as far as readability goes. I kind of chuckled to myself because my friend, Rebecca, had posted that her blog was rated with a readability of a Junior High level.

Just for ha-has I rescanned my blog just now. Guess what level I'm at now??

TV Reviews

That's right -- I've been downgraded!

Oh well. I'll survive.

......maybe I'll be able recruit more/newer followers with my lower-level edumacation....

Potty Training still not really happening

You may remember when I posted the blog about the start of potty training with Will. If not, feel free to re-read it and refresh your memory. It was, afterall, originally posted over a month ago. I forgive you if you don't remember it all in exact detail...

Anyway, I wanted to give you a bit of an update.

Nothing much more has happened yet. Will is still periodically asking to sit on the potty. Gordon or I will sit in there with him, reading books or singing songs. But nothing happens. Will just sits there for a while and then decides that he needs to wipe his bottom and flush the potty.

We've been watching Potty Power and Bear in the Big Blue House: Potty Time with Bear on a regular basis. Will is asking to watch them over and over and over and over again. But there is no lightbulb moment where he runs to the potty to do his business.

The promise of M&Ms isn't working. I have a HUGE bag stashed away in the pantry, just waiting for Will to have potty success. He knows this. He asks for M&Ms all the time, but when I respond to his request by reminding him that he can only have them if he makes pee or poop in the potty, he drops the subject.

I've even switched to buying the el-cheapo store brand diapers in small packs, rather than buying the Huggies that we were using by the case. I've kept thinking each time that maybe *this* time will be the last time I buy disposable diapers. No luck.

So last night I decided to step it up a bit. I'm tired of spending money on disposable diapers. I'm tired of looking at the diapering basket and seeing only a couple of disposable diapers left and having that debate in my head of how much longer I can hold off before I NEED to run to the store to buy more -- maybe *this* time he'll suddenly decide he wants to wear only underwear from now on.

What am I going to do to 'step it up' you ask??

I ordered some cloth diapers and diaper covers big enough to fit my toddler-sized boy. I figure that I'm already washing cloth diapers every day anyway -- what's a few more? Besides, maybe feeling the wetness from the cloth will help William really notice and understand the need to pee so that he can start to predict when he needs to go.

Also, I'll eventually be needing this size diaper for Nora anyway, so it's not like I'm wasting my money by investing in them now. I'm actually saving money by no longer buying ANY disposable diapers ever again!

Worse case scenario, William doesn't mind the cloth diapers whatsoever. In that instance, I'll be washing a few more diapers every day for a while. I know he's on the young side for a boy to be potty training, so it may very well be my reality that I will end up cloth diapering both of my youngest two for a long while. But that's ok.

We're back!

So I bet y'all are wondering how my trip home went. I hope none of you are worried that we somehow got misplaced and didn't make it home. Because we did. Safe and (mostly) sound. Thankfully.

Let me tell you, I was a little worried there a time or two.

First, our flight was delayed by twenty minutes because the incoming flight for that plane was delayed in their arrival. So we got to explore the wonder of the airport a little longer. Too bad for me that the battery in my laptop doesn't hold its charge for very long. I could have played online a bit longer.

Second, once we got on the plane it was quite warm. And the A/C wasn't working. Then Captain Sugar (I SWEAR, that was his name!) came across the loudspeaker to inform everyone that the auxillary battery that they use to start the plane wasn't operating so we had to sit there a little while and wait for them to get a jumper thingie to start the plane.

I was sweating bullets at hearing that. And not just because of the warmth inside the plane. I'm not too proud to admit that paranoid me was wondering how essential that particular battery was in case of engine failure or something.

Once the plane was started, we started to get pushed away from the terminal. Then Captain Sugar came across the loudspeaker again to inform us that the tow bar had broken, so we had to wait for them to put a new tow bar on the plane to move us from the terminal.

Fifteen minutes go by and we're moving again. Then we stop AGAIN. Captain Sugar informs all of us that the second tow bar broke as well, so we had to wait for a mechanic to come over to look at the plane and verify that there wasn't any other damage to the plane from the tow bars breaking.

Yeah. JUST what I wanted to hear....

We finally get going again and actually lifted off the ground. At almost 8pm!! Our flight was originally scheduled to take off at 6:50pm.

I'd like to say the actual flight was uneventful, but I can't. There was a lot of turbulence. Not horrendous turbulence, according to Amanda (she's experienced worse than that before), but lots of turbulence.

I DON'T do turbulence.

Poor Amanda kept asking me if I was ok. I guess my stress and anxiety over the turbulence was pretty visible.

At this point, I don't know as though I'll ever look forward to flying somewhere again. Perhaps we'll have to stick to vacation destinations that are within driving distance.....

Killin' time at the airport

Free WiFi ROCKS!!

We're sitting at the airport with about three hours to kill, so I figured I'd pull out my laptop and update y'all.

We didn't have access to internet at the hotel.

Well, no. That's not entirely true. We could purchase time for internet usage at like $15/day.

NO THANK YOU.

So, I just typed up my blog entries in WordPad and saved them on my laptop, so I can cut and paste them into blogger when I got a connection. I have pictures to upload and watermark and then I'll be sharing those with you too. Give me a few days for that.

For the moment you can read all about our vacation:

Day One

I'm in Florida.

I'M IN FLORIDA.

I'M IN FLORIDA!

I'M IN FLORIDA!!

We're here. The flight in was pretty uneventful, with the exception of the landing here in FL. That was a tad bumpy, but I was happily testing my trivia knowledge against a few of the other passengers so I hardly took notice. Well, I took notice, but I had the trivia game to keep me from freaking out and needing to be taken out in handcuffs.

Nora has been a great traveller so far. Aunt Banana has commented that Nora is now a professional traveller. Nora seems to be enjoying herself -- she's been mostly all smiles since we left this morning. Perhaps she's just thinking about how cool it is that she got to ride on an airplane before her three older siblings will.

Our hotel room is real nice. You know you're in a fancy-schmancy hotel when they have bottles of Evian water displayed in your room -- for sale at a steal for just $5 a bottle. Ummm...yeah....I'll be buying those.....or not.

After arriving at the hotel, getting settled, and taking showers, we walked down the street a bit to this cute little restaurant called Bahia Cabana (or something close to that). I got a French Dip, otherwise known as roast beef au jus on a hoagie roll. YUMMY.

Before you go yelling at me through your computer screen, Mom, that was my only true meal today. I know it's a lot, and probably cost me a lot of Weight Watchers points, but as a nursing mom I get an additional 10 points every day, remember??

The hotel is right on the beach. Plus there's a pool here too. I'll have my choice of where to lay out in the sun to read my book this weekend. AND both the beachfront and the pool have umbrella-shaded lounge chairs, so I can be sure Nora stays out of the sun.

They DO have internet access here at the hotel, but it's only available for a price. Y'all know how cheap I am, and I love y'all very much, but you'll have to deal with me not updating my blog till after I return to CT. Still, I can't NOT blog while I'm gone, so I'm going to blog periodically throughout the weekend in WordPad and then just cut and paste it into Blogger when I return.

Welp. I guess that's it for now. And Jeopardy is on. Yes, I am sitting in our hotel room watching Jeopardy. Nothing wrong with that.

'Night peeps!





Day Two

Rather than type out separate entries, I've decided to continue adding to this original thread, and then post it all at once, once I get home.

Today ended up being a pretty relaxing, lazy day. We didn't do much. We walked downstairs to the Starbucks in the lobby to get our morning cup of coffee. In our jammies. How cool is that?!?!

We walked down the strip a bit and discovered the 7-Eleven. Both Amanda and I got a slurpy. Mine was a pina colada flavor. Yummy.

We also picked up some ham and cheese sandwiches and a few other snacks.

We went down to the hotel's pool for a while. Nora and I sat under an umbrella so that we could stay safe from the sun. Nora wasn't too keen on staying under the umbrella, however. She much preferred when I picked her up and walked her around the pool.

After our foray at the poolside, we came back upstairs to the room to take a nap.

Then we went for a walk down on the beach. I am AMAZED at how warm the ocean is here in FL!!! I don't think I've ever felt such warm ocean water. We saw a jellyfish on the shore. It's HUGE. Easily four times bigger (or more!!) than the jellyfish I've seen in New England.

We had Amanda's camera with us while we walked along the beach. I'll have to be sure I post pictures for everyone to see.

It's now almost 11pm. I really should get to bed -- Amanda and I wanted to try to wake early enough to catch the sunrise tomorrow morning.





Days Three and Four

So I discovered there was a wireless network nearby that I could sometimes get onto. But now it's not working. Figures, right??

Yesterday we got adventurous. We rode the trolley. For like one stop. Then we got off again and walked alongside A1A (the main drag around here), looking at all the massive hotels to our left and the coastal beach to the right. Amanda ran into a tattoo shop and talked with the guy there. She was going to get a tattoo but the artist wasn't in at the time so she said she'd return later on. When she went to return, however, she got waylaid. There was a deluge of rain. While Amanda was walking towards the tattoo shop. So she got DRENCHED. Poor thing looked so funny when she returned! I tried hard not to laugh. Hope it worked. I think it did -- she didn't punch me or anything.

For dinner we took the totally luxurious route and ordered room service. We both got a $15 Marriott Burger. It was nothing special. Tasty nonetheless. Good thing, too -- I'd have been WAY unhappy if I paid $15 for a burger that didn't even taste good.

Amanda returned to the tattoo shop today. She made it there w/out getting saturated. She got her tattoo. It's a Gemini sign. On the back of her neck. Totally cool and totally her -- it's PINK. ;)

Amanda's tattoo got me thinking about getting one myself. It'd be cool to have the Scorpio sign inked up somewhere on my leg or something. But I just can't completely convince myself to do it. I'm too afraid of regretting it in my later years. At least with piercings, one can just remove the jewelry and let it heal. Except those obnoxious half-dollar sized things people put in their earlobes. I'm guessing those don't heal and look like normal too easily.

I don't know what I did last night, but my neck and shoulders are stiff and sore. Like I can't make any move without feeling pain in my neck/shoulder area. Even typing this is painful. It's truly that bad.

I've gotten the neck/shoulder pain and stiffness before. Dunno exactly what it is that I'm doing that causes it. All I know is I woke this morning and couldn't move. It's been suggested that I go to a chiropractor. I know I should. I just can't bring myself to do it. Number one, this doesn't happen all THAT often, and history has proven that given a few days, everything will feel fine again. Number two, the thought of what could happen should an adjustment not be made *just right* scares the dickens out of me. And number three, I've heard how some adjustments make things hurt more before they fix the problem. Yeah. Not what I want right now!

I've called home more times than I care to admit. I miss everyone at home. The good news is they all seem to miss me at least almost as much. I'd like to say that I'm all big and bad and totally living it up while being so far away from all but one of those who depend on me on a daily basis. But the reality of it is that I don't know what to do with myself without them needing me every step of the way.

Well, I'm going to get back to watching the race. Yes, that's right. Pathetic me flies however far it is from Connecticut to Ft. Lauderdale, FL, just so that I can sit in a hotel room and watch the Nascar Sprint Cup race on the television in my hotel room.

It doesn't help that the dang clouds keep dropping rain all over the place at unpredictable intervals.





Day Five

It's 7am. I slept like crap. My neck/shoulders are soooooo stiff and sore I'm in constant pain. I've even tried being a little McGyver-ish and made heating pads using a (clean/unused) disposable diaper and water that's been run through the complimentary coffee pot. I poured the water into the diaper and have instant hot water heating pad.

But it didn't help much. I'm still quite stiff. And very very very very very very very sore.

I've taken Advil. Lord knows how much I ended up paying for it down at the hotel gift shop. Doesn't matter -- I was hopeful that it would help my muscle pain. No luck.

So I get to look forward to packing everything up, heading to the airport, and then flying home with a neck that I can't move without intense pain. Lovely.

The good side is that I can't wait to get back home. I miss my babies. I miss Gordon. Heck, I'll even admit to missing Lexi.