Really, I'm Okay...

Though, granted, I can't type too well at the moment.

I will, however, catch up on blogging at some point fairly soon.

I gave blood yesterday afternoon because... well, because that's what I do. If there's a blood drive, I'm a groupie. Hey - it's for a good cause. 
In retrospect, I should have eaten first... but I hadn't scheduled that into my "day off."

I passed out as they were finishing me up. Yeah, I was the crazy lady laying upside down in a gurney with a wet paper towel on my forehead in the middle of the student center...

I felt better - I had to! - and I went to get all the stuff for the Brownie meeting that afternoon at Alex's school. There were groceries and oodles of papers because we were preparing dinner for the girls' parents and then having a quick meeting for them to let them know what's going on with our troop for the fall. 

Coordinating ten 7,8, and 9 year old girls to make a dinner and all feel included was not as simple as I'd thought it would be. It went off well, though. I was a little dizzy still from the fainting, but not too bad. I even got to eat about half a cup of baked ziti once everyone else was served (busy busy busy). We had a quick ceremony for the parents, then the meeting with the paperwork.

Cleanup was pretty simple and everyone was out pretty early. I had to carry out all the filled out forms back to my car, as well as various other papers. It was while I was lugging all that outside ...

Did I mention that I was wearing my usual non-Starbucks footwear that consist of approximately 3" heeled sandals?

I stepped weirdly, twisted an ankle, fell over, and put my right hand out to catch myself.

I now have a fractured wrist, a big bruise on my knee, and another humongous bruise across my hip.

I feel foolish, but I'm okay. The timing just stinks because we're trying to move next weekend which means I need to pack!

... and then I remember how little she is.

Alex hasn't been well since Thursday.  Friday morning found her vomiting (though she was hiding it in the bathroom at school so she could go on her field trip...).  She was sent home from school after throwing up on the ride back from the orchard.  

All weekend, she's been not-Alex.  Whinier than usual, lethargic (she slept for almost 48 hours straight), disoriented, and complaining of dizziness.  My girl's been ill.  This morning she appeared to be over it - she was perky and acting more like the kid I know her to be.  We went out (I didn't know until we were outside that it was during the remnants of the hurricane) and had lunch, then went to Petco and Barnes & Noble.  It was at Barnes & Noble that she suddenly broke down, crying, complaining of weakness and feeling dizzy.  By the time we got to the car (and I carried her from the store to the car), she was a wreck.  She alternated between sobbing and sleeping all the way back to the apartment.  

Okay - prompt care at our doctor's office was booked for the rest of the day and didn't have access to MRIs etc today anyway.  They recommended I just take her directly to the emergency room.  My first inclination was to agree, but I took a moment and instead called a friend who is a nurse and who works with pediatrics.  

Pedialyte (the clear kind that is most like water), vanilla Carnation breakfast mix in her milk, and calorie rich food was pretty much forced into my still discombobulated baby.  Needless to say, she was less than thrilled, but if it was between that and spending the night at the hospital, I chose the forcing fluids and foods down her.

The result?  Well, she seems better tonight, as she's finally settling down for the evening.  I'm hoping (praying is actually a better word for it!) that she's well enough for school tomorrow.  

But how weak and exhausted she was after only two days of being sick makes me realize that despite how grown up she's becoming, this little girl is still little ... and she's still my baby.  And on that note, I think I'm going to go give her a cuddle before she falls asleep.

She's Growing Up So Fast...

She's grabbed the phone and wandered into the other room, having a very in depth conversation with a friend.  I'm not privvy to such things anymore.  

Her recent fascination with bras has resulted in her owning a few little sports bra type garments.  They aren't going to hurt and they're appeasing her constant desire to wear a bra.  I suppose they're the modern day equivalent to the Wonder Woman underoos  I had as a child.  Those, however, weren't touted as a bra and panties set.  *sigh*

Last night, before she fell asleep, she was laying in bed, reading a chapter book, without pictures.  I almost burst into tears.  

Where did my baby go?

Toothless Wonder!

Alexandra lost her second tooth this evening, as she lay sick in bed, watching Monk on the computer. She was excited and perked up for about three minutes, before falling back into her pitiful sick little kid routine.

What's funny is that the tooth above the missing one looks missing too. Actually it's just being pushed out to the side by her grownup tooth coming in...


Of course, the tooth was promptly washed off and placed in a tooth fairy approved receptacle. Alex is looking forward to collecting her money in the morning... There was no thought whatsoever to the promise she made to Auntie Tracey, my cousin, that in exchange for money while in Australia, she would send her next lost tooth to her.

I love the picture I snapped of her just after the tooth came out - really, does that little girl look like she's been home, sick in bed, all day??

I guess braids make me look young...

This morning, between classes, I felt the compulsion to pull my hair into two neat braids.  I usually wear it up in a makeshift bun, or just down and loose.  I was feeling a bit Gwyneth Paltrowesque from Sliding Doors, though, so the braids were done.  

After braiding my hair, I had multiple people I knew (well!) walk past me completely not recognizing me.  As I walked through the student center to clock in to work, I had a young girl, probably a freshman or sophomore, stop me and ask me if I'd registered to vote yet.  It actually took me a moment to comprehend the question.  I blinked at her before saying "uhm, yeah, when you were like four."

I guess the braids make me look different - and apparently younger.  One of my co-baristas suggested that if the 'do makes me look 18, I should stick with it.  I think I might.

Really, why do any of us think we're so smart?

A friend of mine in college used to point out that we thought we were smart because our parents told us we were.  We would laugh at that - after all, don't all parents think that their children are geniuses - or at least of above average intelligence...?

Tonight I cleaned out the guinea pig cage and gave both piggies a bath.  I'm probably the most compulsive guinea pig bather in the world - but their lack of hygiene in their habitat makes me need to bathe them.  So, the baby shampoo comes out, and they get a good washing...  

I think they looked lovely by the time they'd finished drying, snuggled deep within a terry cloth towel burrow.  They snuggled with me; they even snuggled with Alexandra (who cried because one of them moved and her hind claw touched her leg...).  They were so sweet.

These are the girls after their bath and their cage cleaning... Gigi is the brown and white one on the left; Hermione is the black and white one on the right.  You can't see her cool auburn eyepatch over her left eye in these pictures...

Anyway, so they were clean and I went into the bathroom after all of that and... the bathtub wasn't letting out its water.  I grabbed a plunger and fought with the drain... to no avail.

I don't actually own a plumber's snake (not being a plumber and all...) but I tore apart a wire coat hanger and attempted to use it as a snake.  For two hours I fought with that drain.  I finally walked away, assuming it was just slow and it'd empty tonight and I'd call someone to fix it in the morning.  I didn't think the university would appreciate, however, the plumbing emergency caused by guinea pig fur...  After all, that could be the only cause of this, right?

I checked the tub later on, assuming the water would be gone by then - and to my dismay the level hadn't decreased at all.  Egads!  What was I going to do about my own shower in the morning??  I wasn't about to stand in dirty guinea pig water, after all!  I grabbed the plunger and my makeshift snake and prepared to do battle again.  I plunged and I plunged...  and my hand banged into the toggle switch that closes the drain.  

At least it didn't hit it too badly, though.  After all, if the switch had been down, it would have been painful.

That was when I realized that at some point I had closed the drain.  I flipped the switch down and the water all whirled away.  

Over two hours trying to unblock a closed drain.  One flick of the switch to let all the water out of the unblocked tub.

At least the guinea pigs are happy and clean!

Getting things accomplished...

I have a bad habit of wanting to curl into a little ball.  This goes back to my college days when I first was diagnosed with dysthymia - and has reoccurred throughout my life since.  When things become too overwhelming, I shut down.  

This happened to me this morning.  I got the girls off to the school bus (I had Emily because her mom had to be at work early this morning) and then, rather than my usual head straight to school routine, I went home and went back to bed ... supposedly for 20 minutes, really for about two and a half hours.  

I was meant to be in class this morning; I had to work on the thesis today; I have homework due for Linguistics tomorrow; I need to rectify my residency status with the university; I have to get paperwork to Pearson in the next few days; etc etc etc.  With all this looming, I shut down and slept.  I guess it's my coping mechanism.

At two this afternoon, I motivated myself to get showered and dressed and to start getting stuff done.  By the time I picked Alex and Emily up from school, I'd taken care of my car issues and gotten my proof of voter registration.  From there we made a couple of stops on the way home which resulted in all the paperwork being submitted for my residency status to be cleared up.  Mail was sent; packages were picked up.  

I'm about to sit down and hammer out the linguistics homework now - while the girls (I still have Emily - her mom ran into a situation at the hospital and is staying late) are laying in bed, reading books.  In about 20 minutes, they will be told to sleep and I will finish up that homework (there's still an issue with one of the problems, but I won't be able to deal with that until tomorrow before class, really).  

I know I won't have all the revisions on my thesis done for tomorrow.  However, I want to have some of the major ones addressed and be able to talk competently with my advisor by tomorrow morning at 8am.  Good luck to me on that one, yes.  I need to get the thing over and done with, though.  No more curling into a little ball - the thesis is hanging over my head and I'm frankly sick of it.  

I have a plan.  It may involve not sleeping until tomorrow night, but it's a plan nonetheless.  

Alexandra and Emily may be bearing the brunt of my going off the deep end today - but I did get them ice cream cones tonight after dinner...  that's something, right?

If I Didn't Have Bad Luck...

I'd seriously have no luck at all!

So tonight, just as I was about to fall asleep, I decided to quickly check the numbers in my student account to make sure everything has been taken care of...

There's $3000 more owed to the university than what I'd been accounting for.  WHAT???  I went through bunches of pages in my account before finding the one that explained all this...

I'm being charged tuition as a non-resident of Illinois.

Where exactly SIUC thinks I've been living for the past three years is beyond me.  

I now have to prove to the university that I've lived in Illinois for the past six months.  This is the same university that holds my stinking lease.  The same university that I've attended in residency for the past three years.  

I defy any and all people to explain to me where the school thinks I've been living all this time.  My permanent address on all my ... well, everything ... is in Carbondale.  It's not even outside of the park district, for heaven's sake!  I've been a Brownie leader in Jackson County for the past year.  

Do they really think I've been commuting?

Well, at least now I know how I'm filling tomorrow morning before classes...