50 Days of Cards x 2

I wrote this back on March 22 on my other blog and never copied it over here.

Oh my. I realized I never mentioned what we did for Mom and Dad's birthdays! They both turned 50 this year. For new readers, my parents were born only 9 days apart.

Anyhow, we wanted to do something special for them since it was their big 5-0 for both of them, but we didn't really want to throw a big party or anything because that is just too much work and costs too much. Lol. Soooo, we decided to contact a whole bunch of people and get them to send them cards for their birthday. We wanted 50 people to send them each a card, so they could get one card each day for the 50 days leading up to their birthdays. Ho-ly cow. We had no clue how much work it was going to end up being. See here, the problem was that we couldn't just have people send them cards any old time because we didn't want them getting 10 cards on one day and no cards for a few days. So we decided that we needed to tell people to send them BEFORE the 50 days started, so we knew we would have one for every day. Just coming up with 50 people for each of them was quite a chore. And we had to figure out 50 people for each that we knew we could even contact. Ay yi yi. What a mess. Here was the problem- people couldn't send them to our house or else Mom and Dad would see them before the 50 days started. And we couldn't have them all sent to my school mailbox because my mailbox isn't that big and isn't terribly reliable since I do share a mailbox with someone. And they couldn't go to Jen's school because the secretary might find it a tad suspicious that Jen was getting 100 pieces of mail in a short period of time. Lol. Besides, we had two school breaks (Thanksgiving and Christmas) in that time and wouldn't have a way to pick up the mail during that time. They couldn't go to Nana's because that would be too much work for her. So what do we do?

Here comes Christa to the rescue!!!! Sweet Christa graciously agreed to have all the mail sent to her apartment. She felt mighty popular for several months, getting so much mail addressed to her. Then we had to have people write on the envelopes under her name c/o Jean or Mark so she knew it wasn't for her to open and so we knew which person to give it to. Then since I see her each day at school, she comes to our house many evenings a week, and I see her each weekend at church, she had plenty of opportunities to give us the mail! I collected it all at school so that way Mom and Dad wouldn't find it. We had to be sneaky about some of it when she would bring it to the house with her to give to me. She would slip it to me behind the couch or something. Haha. Then some people just gave us their envelopes directly to us at church or sent it through the currier to Jen at school. We had to be sneaky at church, too. So that big ole purse that some of you teased me about came in mighty handy for hiding envelopes!

When Jen and I were compiling lists of people and their e-mails and such the one day in Jen's room, Mom came back the hall and caught us on Jen's computer when we were supposed to be cleaning our rooms. She started chewing us out over it, but we just told her that we were being productive and doing something important. She wanted to know what. Uhhhhhh... So we just told her that Christmas was coming so she couldn't ask questions. We had to use that excuse several times during this process! It's a darn good thing their birthdays came right after Christmas!!

Anyhow, after much drama, effort, blood, sweat, and tears (okay, not really those last 3), we pulled it off. And it was totally worth it. Mom and Dad LOVED their cards and notes. Some were rather generic birthday cards, some were sweet, some were sentimental, and some were funny, but all were loved. We had requested that people share a favorite memory or something they appreciated about them in the cards, so those were fun to read. Mom was reduced to tears over several of them. We were happy they felt loved.

Dad's friends are a bunch of slackers, though. Haha. We were rather stressed out with his cards because they weren't coming in after awhile! We had to keep bugging them about sending him cards. We kept saying that Mom's friends were much more responsible and on top of things. Lol. But then a lot of them are teachers, so they kind of have to be. She had plenty of cards coming in. Dad...not so much. But in the end, he had close to 50 cards. Some of his friends kept saying they'd send a card and never did, but that's okay. He still had 40 some cards to enjoy. :)

Some of Mom and Dad's favorites were from Peyton, Ashley, Delaney, and their parents. Yep, they really came through for us and gave 4 cards to each! Each of the girls made 2 cards and then Heather and Darrell went together and wrote Mom and Dad each a really sweet note. I should get those cards and share the messages from the girls- they made us laugh. We even got some of our closest Michigan friends from when we lived there to send cards! Mom and Dad were so surprised and loved them! We had such fun giving them a new card each day! On the days when we were too busy or forgot to give them a card, Dad would jokingly say the next day that he cried himself to sleep since he didn't get a card. *rolls eyes* Haha!

Oh, so since Dad's birthday is 9 days before Mom's, we started his 9 days earlier obviously. Mom didn't catch on for awhile that she was going to be getting 50 cards, too. Whew! Dad got it, though, and almost spilled the beans! Thankfully, Jen and I were able to cover up what he said and move the conversation in a new direction. Lol.

So yeah, all in all, it was wonderful. And Mom and Dad were very pleased with their cards. Except I just remembered that I never did give Mom my card for her! Haha! I better do that tonight! Oh, and people are still coming up to Mom and Dad and telling them how sweet that was of us to do that for them. Jen and I were just pleased the whole thing came together and all the hard work paid off.

Sick-Sick Here and a Sick-Sick There

*This is probably getting confusing, but I wrote this Tuesday night to post on my other blog on Wednesday morning. I'm just now getting it copied over. Here is the original post...

I wrote this last night. I'm off at Junior Block again now.

I just got out of the shower. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Well, the entire time I was in there, I was mentally writing this post in my head...and it lasted my entire shower. So I clearly have far too much to say to actually say it all in one entry without having an entry a mile long. Fear not, I'll just write for as long as it takes me to do my breathing treatment or dry my hair...whichever takes longest. Yes, I am multi-tasking. That is my middle name. I am doing my breathing treatment, blow drying my hair, and blogging. Speaking of which, my nebulizer is giving me fits right now, probably from a lack of rinsing it out often enough.

Even without a calendar and without family and friends and profs telling me, I'd still know we were approaching a break based on the kids' behavior lately. Ay yi yi. I can only imagine what it'll be like right before Christmas break. Oh but I won't be there! I'll be done by then! :) :) :)

I just heard this in a Hallmark movie while I was home to see the DWTS Finale, "God sees everything, and on certain days, so do I." It was said by a woman who ran an orphanage. I'm sure you've all heard, but JENNIFER AND DEREK WON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm not excited at all. I've only wanted them to win since Day 1...or Week 1. Whatever.

Everybody and their brother...literally...are sick right now with one thing or another. I am determined not to get any sicker than I am. One can dream right? With Mom, Jen, and I all attending/working at 4 different schools, plus Dad working in a factory, and then interacting with our usual groups of people, we don't stand much chance of being healthy. Currently, at least three floors, yes I said FLOORS, of students here on campus are down with the stomach flu. Plus, your random smattering of other people down with it. There is a nasty headache/neck pain/fever going around Roanoke, where Christa is teaching right now, and she thinks she is coming down with that tonight. So she didn't come over for the finale. A horrid stomach flu was going around the twins' daycare, to the point they had to close the daycare down! And then it spread to Jen's school since numerous people are affiliated with both. And it officially spread to Lincoln, the school I'm at. Today I heard of one teacher and one student down with it, and that was just in the couple minutes I was passing through the office. Goodness knows how many are truly out with it. Then you have your typical cold/flu going around. And I've heard of two cases of pink eye in the past two days. And Evie Baby has croupe. Hmmmm, what else am I missing?

Onto my health update. First off, Nebi (my nickname for my nebulizer) is still not cooperating for more than a few seconds at a time. Grr... Sunday evening Christa came over to dye pasta with me for our Early Childhood class. I already was battlimg a sinus headache. Then we got working with the rubbing alcohol for long enough (anything like that is a huge trigger for me), and it sent me into an all-out migraine. And oh it was BAD. I managed to get Jen to take over for me and made it back to my dark, quiet bedroom, where I hibernated for awhile. I was finally crawling out of my room to try to find some medicine when Christa came looking for me. Of course, I didn't have my emergency migraine meds at home. It was at school. I did have my daily migraine med at home, so I took that for the night since it had been 24 hours. Mom got me to the couch, where I laid with a hot washcloth over my face. After Christa left, with promises of prayers for me, Mom got me on the floor where she pressed up under the edge of my skull, at the trigger points. She did that for so long that I am STILL bruised there from that! Lol! Only it WASN'T a laughing matter then. Finally Dad and Jen raced over to HU and got my emergency migraine med. I took two of those, but it didn't offer any relief. I was plain miserable. It was horrible. I couldn't move. I just laid there and moaned. Mom kept threatening to take me to the ER, but stubborn old me kept refusing. I should've just gone. Mom determined that I wasn't going back to school that night. Jen brought my PJs out, and Mom and Jen managed to get my jeans off of me and put my PJ pants on. They gave up after getting that piece on me and just left my shirt I was already wearing on. Then they called Dad out to come get me to bed. He came out, announcing himself as the "Body Mover".

They got me into bed, where I just laid there begging God out loud to take the pain away. I kept telling my mom I just wanted it to go away. Jen prayed over me before going to bed. Mom really had to get back to work, so she called Dad away from the TV to come sit with me. He just made constant trips to the kitchen (at the other side of the house), reheating wet washcloths for me in the microwave. He'd bring one back, cool it just enough to lay on my face, turn around, walk back to the kitchen, reheat the other washcloth, bring that one back to me, and repeat. What a trooper. Am I blessed with an AMAZING family or what?! They are so good to me. Finally, as I cried my heart out to God, begging Him to give me relief. He did. :) I fell asleep. Sweet, sweet sleep. I was so out of it that the next morning when Jen came to tell me she was out of the shower and it was my turn, I didn't even wake up. She then made the executive decision that I wasn't going to teach that day. She woke me up just after 6 to go e-mail my teacher and take a breathing treatment, before I crawled back in bed until 10:00.

I had already told my prof I wouldn't be in class that afternoon because I had an appointment at the allergist for my asthma. So I drove to Ft. Wayne and went to the doc. I saw the new nurse practitioner since that was who was available. It was a highly enlightening appointment, said TOTALLY sarcastically. She informed me, after listening to my lungs, that I was really struggling for air and not much air was flowing through my lungs. No really! I could've told you that! Then she looked up my nose and told me that I had a lot of "yellow discharge" and was "quite congested" on both sides. Again, duh! And finally, she looks at my throat and tells me I have a lot of drainage. Once again, I could've told you that and I didn't even have to go to med school for that one! So she tried to put me on this one antibiotic, but people, I know my antibiotics. I am on at least 2, if not more like 6 or more per year. I told her I couldn't take that one b/c it upsets my stomach. She said, "All antibiotics do. Eat yogurt with it." I told her I do. She said, "Take it with food." Once again, I DO! She finally looked in my chart and saw that my doctor had documented that this antibiotic gives me horrid stomach pains, even when on a specific stomach med with it, and horrible headaches. Then she decided she could believe me. Honestly, lady! So I am on a different antibiotic and Prednisone. My usual. I should just walk in the allergists at this point, and say, "I'll take my usual!" It'd sure save me, and the doctors/nurses, a lot of time and money.

I drove back to Huntington, and while I waited for my prescriptions to be filled (because they were suddenly bombarded with presriptions apparently), I had time to go to the Hallmark store (and look at everything in it), go fill up my gas tank (because I was almost on empty and saw Christa while I was there), go to the dollar store and look at everything I could think of, mosy around CVS for awhile (looking at all their Christmas decorations, candy, pain reliever, cold medicines, toothpastes, and everything else around the pharmacy), and have a phone conversation with Jen. Well, how is that for a run-on sentence? I finally made it back home with my prescriptions. Lovely.

And seeing as how it is now past one in the morning and I have to get up in 4.5 hours, I should go take the rest of my meds and go to bed. Adios, friends!