Day Nine - February 9, 2010

Before I can go on to Day Nine, I have to finish Day Eight. After I published yesterday's post, we had an exciting few minutes shortly before 11 pm! Before I go into this, I must confess that when it comes to puke, I am a total weenie. The mere sound, smell or sight of it will cause me to get very weak knee'd. To actually watch someone or something puke makes me horribly sick. To have someone or something puke on me - well, I just as soon die! I don't like to admit I'm a weenie or something so simple is my kryptonite but this does. I published last night's blog, went downstairs to check the house, get a drink of water and I watched a few minutes of the Kansas versus Texas basketball game. A few minutes later, I set the alarm, turned off the lights and came up the stairs. We have been letting the dog sleep in the house since it was so cold outside and the garage is a little chilly. I guess the dog had a severe reaction to our teenager's room being semi-clean and as I got to the top step I could hear her in the room having the dry heaves - I'm thinking not good and I sure didn't want to clean dog puke off the carpet. I opened the door and tell the dog to run downstairs - she listens to me pretty well but this time she stopped on the top step and was going to hurl so I grabbed her and we were down the 15 stairs in maybe three steps - you just don't realize how badly I hate puke!! As I hit the first floor and get ready to open the front door, I remember the darn alarm was set - if I had opened the door, the entire neighborhood would have heard the alarm - this thing is LOUD - any intruder in our home is going to be an easy catch, he'll be doubled over in intense ear pain!! So I'm still holding this heaving dog, nothing escaping its mouth yet, run to the alarm, hit the code with my elbow and then sprint back for the front door - I don't know why I just didn't go out the garage door, all I know is my anti-puke mode doesn't include fully functioning brain cells! As we are heading for the front door, I feel something way too warm and way too wet oozing down my hands and my forearms - oh my, I'm going to die!!! Of course both the top lock and the door knob locks were twisted so I have to use a juicy hand to unlock both of them, twist the knob and we're outside. I have to give the dog credit because she didn't blow hard until the door was opened - if you are making a movie about this sometime in the future, just dress up a fire extinguisher like a white and brown dog and pull the lever!! She blew like the great whale in Moby Dick!! How thankful was I that the wind wasn't blowing in our face last night!?? I tossed the dog in the yard and then my personal distaste for all things puke kicked in - of course my hands and arms were covered in yellow ooze so I couldn't wipe my eyes. I just prayed that if I did truly die, the ambulance wouldn't find me face down in my own puke!!! Yes, the dog did recover but she slept in the garage!! I found a half eaten yellow crayon in the 2nd graders room earlier today - more about that later! My Day Eight ended with a shower!

Day Nine started better than Day Eight ended thankfully! It was 20 degrees outside as I was hosing off the evidence from last night but an ice slick was preferable to that mess!

All-in-all the first part of my day was pretty good. The dog was good, the girls were good and all was fine. I did a couple of errands - picked up the last of the tax documents and went grocery shopping at Wal Mart. Unlike the pictures we've been seeing of the DC area with empty grocery shelves, our store was stocked pretty well. My "not sexy" preparation yesterday of clipping coupons and getting a list together before hand worked very well - the original receipt was $106.81 and after coupons, I paid $85.66!! Not bad if I must say so myself!

The afternoon was quiet and productive - I found last year's 1040 form in the file cabinet, put away all the groceries, worked in the yard a little bit to remove some limbs than had fallen and took some measurements of the front of the house, back of the house and the garage. I've got to get some gutters on this house soon and that'll be my next project. I am terminally not happy with the garage so I want to try one more thing in there as well.

Both girls arrived home safely. Just as the teenager walked in the door, the skies opened up and it started raining. We've had a steady five hour rain that has been pretty intense but so far, no snow. Just after 4:15pm the 2nd grader walked up to me and said "I don't feel good". I jokingly asked her if she ate the other half of the yellow crayon the dog ate yesterday and she said "no, but I think the spagehetti at school made me sick" - great, more kryptonite!! It is one thing to lean over the rail of the front porch on the verge of sure death in the middle of the night, but it is something completely different to get sick along with your daughter in the middle of the day!!!

Needless to say, it all came back but we were able to make it to the potty - even the dog went sprinting downstairs!! I doubt we'll be having school spaghetti again anytime soon!! Come to find out, the teenager is allergic to other people puking as well so she didn't help at all, standing in the hallway gagging!! What a sorry sight we must have been. The first time my daughter got sick tonight was a killer - notice I said first time because times 2 through 4, I was okay and able to help her - I don't know what happened but I survived. She must have a stomach bug or something because after the first time I just figured it was bad food and that was the end of it so I gave her a glass of water and a cold wash rag, let her lay in bed and relax. The water didn't hang around long so we just let her lay back down and relax. She went to sleep for a little bit but was back up again. I then got some Gatorade in her - we were afraid she'd get dehydrated - but that didn't last long. Remember my story about stocking up on meds before a rainy day - well it was pouring outside but we had some Pepto in the medicine cabinet. The Pepto seems to have calmed things down - we've had one false alarm sprint to the potty and she was able to drink a glass of water. Right now she's in my bed passed out with a cold washrag on her head - no fever or anything like that - might be a long night though. I figure if she vomits one more time, we'll go to the ER to make sure all is okay.

The schools here in Chesapeake are very good and they communicate very well with us. Rarely does an evening go by without a phone call from one or both schools with some information - tomorrow is report card day at the high school! We already know what the high schoolers grades are though so no surprises. The school has an electronic website called Edline that lets the student and the parents see home work assignments, grades, a class syllabus and attendance. I'm really glad we didn't have that stuff when we were in school! The high school is also really good about letting us know about scholarship opportunities, college fairs, local volunteering opportunities for the kids and other good information. The main reason we bought in this area was for the schools and so far, they have been better than advertised.

My wife had a positive day although a bruising one. She was the "gunner" during her group's Humvee training and it was her team's job to help secure her as they were tossed about. Her right arm already had a good sized bruise from the M16's but now it has a twin from today's training.

Even with all the activity in the house this evening, teenagers still tend to get hungry so we had sloppy joes, tater tots and salad for supper. We split an apple as well.

I wasn't able to go to the Pastor's Roundtable tonight but the Pastor texted me with a special prayer request so we'll include that in our evening prayers. We also started Valentine Day cards for family members - the 2nd grader still has four to sign but the teenager did her part.

The girls did their devotion tonight but I can't find the book so I'll update that tomorrow. My devotion was "are you spiritually exhausted" and referenced Isaiah 40:28. Mr. Chambers asked if the way we have been serving God has betrayed us into exhaustion? His object was to make you think about what you are doing, how you are doing it and whether you are replenishing yourself as well as others.

The rain is still pouring down outside. The little one is asleep and as I just took her temp it was still at 98.6 - hopefully she'll sleep well during the night - she didn't get to do her presentation today at school on Eleanor Roosevelt, they ran out of time - I know she was really looking forward to it!! I'll end Day 9 on my knees in prayer and looking forward to Day 10!