I"m a little Neti Pot short and stout...

OK, here is another one of my sister Amy's suggestions...the Neti pot. For those of you who don't know, I haven't been able to smell for about 2 or 3 years. I had sinus surgery about 5 years ago and my sense of smell came back for a while but slowly faded. Every time I got on an antibiotic for something, my smell would return, for a short while. Well, with the cough thing I am still having, although not as bad, my smell did not come back when I took the Z pack. Amy had been telling me about the Neti Pot for some time and I finally decided to try it.
It is the weirdest feeling to have water run in your nose, fill your sinus cavity, and then come out the other nostril. I LOVE IT. I use it before I take my steroid spray to keep the polyps away. I actually have moments to where I can smell now. I'm hoping that the longer I use it the better my nose will get. I got Todd to try it, which is no small feat, and it took the whole pot to unclog his nose but by the end, the water was spilling out freely. Right now I'm doing it twice a day but will work my way to down once.



I found mine at Walgreens and it was $14 with a $2 rebate on the box. I'll keep you posted on how it is working.

Walking Pneumonia...No Boogie Woogie Flu

Well, they say bad things come in three's. Within two days we had three medical "issues" in my family. My mom, who is no stranger to surgery, has had one shoulder replacement and two knee replacements. This past week she went in for stomach surgery. They had to take her stomach and wrap it around her esophagus to replace the muscle that pushes your food down to be digested??!! A day after that Nolan had come to me saying that he lower back hurt and asked me to massage it. As I was rubbing I felt a round nickel size thing on his back. I wasn't too panicked because it was smooth and it moved around quit a bit. I did take him to the Doctor and he felt that it was a benign cyst but we did have an ultrasound done on it to make sure. The lab lady couldn't even get it to show up on the ultrasound because it wasn't dense enough. This was all good news. Now it was my turn. I finally went to the Dr. about the cough I have had for about a month which has only gotten worse. At first i thought that because I had started running at night my asthma had kicked up because of the humidity (I do live in Alabama!). Anyway, it turns out that i have walking Pneumonia and have been feeling much better since I started on my Z pack! Mom, BTW, it doing very well!

Post by Emma

emma got grounded from T.V for leaving her stuff in the car. So to keep her from watching T.V she put tape on her eyes.  When she looked at the T.V she couldn't watch what was on.

The above account was blogged by Emma. I will however explain truly why she was grounded. She had left her diabetic bag in the car but swore she had looked for it (several times). We had to use our "backup" supplies thinking that we would find it the next day. She then had to take the "backup supplies" to VBS because she still had not found her bag by the next day. After two hours at VBS she came to the Nursery saying that she couldn't find her meter and it turned out that the Eric, the guy in charge of the teen helpers, had all of them looking for it. I went out to my car to look for the meter in case it had fallen out and what did I find? Not only the "backup meter" sitting in plain sight on the floor, but also her purse which had all the original supplies in it also sitting in plain site on the floor. this had been after numerous times of "looking" in the car for it!! So, we took tv away. We save taking away books for the big things, she loves to read and is trying to get a gold medal through the school for a reading race they do during the summer.

Have you ever???

Have you ever wondered whose blog would show up on the "Next blog" button? I got curious one day and started clicking to see who my neighbor was. I soon found out that it changes all the time but it was so interesting to see all the different blogs. A lot of the ones that came up weren't in English so I wasn't able to read about them but looking at the pictures and making up a theory as to why it would be up on a blog can be just as fun as knowing what it truly says. I also like clicking on links from friends pages. I must have spent 30 mins one night clicking through different links on pages. I came across delovelydesigns.blogspot.com this way. It is so interesting to get a peek into someone's life by reading their blog. A girl I went to grade school with now lives in France and blogs at chitlinsandcamembert.blogspot.com, talk about a life you could write a book about...oh wait, she did that. I'll keep you updated on when it's published. Anyhoo...I thought I would share a few of the blogs that I've come across just randomly clicking.

anthonyjoseph2005.blogspot.com - blog on Joseph

 not in English but I love the pictures!

http://cheryl-jensenfamily.blogspot.com - new baby

mom of 4 who likes to thrift.

Mice on the Mountain

A game site

moments that happen at a villa

So I encourage you to surf the blog world and see how many different places you can visit and how many different lives you can peek through the window at. Be sure to share any interesting ones with us!

Memorial Day or Labor Day??

While I am waiting for my scanner to work so that I can get the Montana pictures done, I'll update you on how the weekend went. As I mentioned we kept Beau this past weekend while the Atherton's were away. I tried desperately to teach Beau a trick before they came back yesterday. The trick is a twist on the one my uncle taught his dog Max. Jabo, my uncle, would look at his dog and say, "Would you rather be a dead dog or a Republican"? and of course at this point max would flip over on his back with his legs high in the air. Being a Republican myself, I of course had to change this to Would you rather be a dead dog or a Democrat? Well, try as I might...the most I could get Beau to do was lay down. He is half roll over one time but nothing more than that. I'm sure is was my non-existent skill in training dogs and not Beau's intelligence that was the problem. This dog is smarter than you would think. He would wait until he was asked before he would get on the "new" couch (we had gotten rid of the one he was allowed to get up on) and he would sit at my door at night and whine until Todd opened the door and then he would bound over to me on the bed and cuddle up. Maybe in his heart the dog is a democrat and that is why he wouldn't do the trick??? NNAAHHHH!
Here is what Beau looked like for most of the weekend (the lap changed a bit from Todd to me to the kids)



One of the funniest things I saw was when Beau he was in the kitchen, his shadow was showing up on the door frame. He began barking at it and pawing. One of his swipes landed on the "cat". This is the kind made out of metal and it's head bobs, I am highly allergic to the real kind. Anyway, this sends Beau into a frenzy and he begins to bob and weave around the cat barking ferociously and swiping his paws.


On the homefront...We started laying down the hardwood floors in my moms foyer while Art way busy building the custom bookshelves in the office.

Rest for the weary??

Not at the Craig house. After being woken up at 7 ish by Nolan and Beau, the dog, the kids and I set out for my moms house. They are back from Montana but are still unpacking so I don't have my photos yet. There is nothing like company coming over to get the updating to the house done that you have been waiting for your daughter to do.So...I pulled up carpet, padding, tack strips, nails and as a special treat, scrapped the popcorn off the ceiling in the foyer at my moms house. Todd and I are headed over there on Memorial day to start laying the hardwood floors. My Aunt Terri and mom's cousin Ellen are due to come for a visit next weekend so we are making hast on our project.

I'll get some pics and get them on soon.

School's Out for Summer!!!

This is the chant I heard on the way home today. It was the last day of school today..actually, just a party day. The kids got out about 10:45 after being sugared up by the teacher, I wonder if this was for how they acted this year in school-maybe a little payback? Anyway, I ran off without the camera so I have no photos of the kids glowing faces. Everybody acted like it was a good thing school was out, I however see it a different way. My kids who have been watched over and taught knowledge are now going to be a work with me part-time and I can already hear "There's nothing to do", "I'm bored". Uugghh. I do have a few things planned for over the summer but we are trying to save our money for the Disney trip in the fall. I only have 4 days until VBS and probably need a good two weeks straight to get ready. I've got to pick my parents up from the airport at 5:ish, they arrive today from Montana and we are keeping Beau for the weekend.

I need a nap.