F

You know when you are speechless and the only word that will come from your mouth is F !

That's me today.

I'm telling you, it's been one hell of a terrible November, and even the end of October pretty much sucked for me.

I had Whooping Cough - wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, the kids got the flu bug one week after the other and it did not last just 24 hours and yesterday I woke up with it. Let me tell you, it's vicious this year. I feel like I've been hit by a steam roller. My bones hurt!

and tomorrow's Thanksgiving - it's going to be a big stretch to be thankful for our health, I'll tell you that.

It's SNOWING !

That's what I heard first thing this morning when the electric blinds in the house were opened by the kids.

We had snow last Friday night into Saturday - maybe 3-4 inches - but it all was gone on Sunday morning with rain and high winds.

The boots and snow pants are waiting in the closets and the kids are anxious to go out and make a snowman. A shame it's turning to rain again and there's nothing to roll except a dusting of powder and the mud piles the moles have left behind.

Winter is COMING!

*~* WHOOPING COUGH *~*

This is what ails me. I've been sick for WEEKS and not getting better. Finally I have an answer. Did you know this childhood disease that we all thought was eliminated by our DTP vaccines as children is making a comeback? Now that I'm getting the proper treatment, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Apparently parents have been getting this for a while now, not getting diagnosed correctly and passing it on to their young children who have not obtaned immunity yet.

Below are two links to check out.
Listen to the sound bits to hear what this cough sounds like. Maybe we can get more early diagnosis and treatment, more realization that it's making a comeback and people need to get those booster shots for their kids and themselves.

http://www.pkids.org/pertussis/index.php

http://www.whoopingcough.net

sorry - for some reason they wouldn't hyper link so you'll need to cut and paste them into your browser

It's NOT fun, I can tell you firsthand.
It appears my husband has caught it from me now. He started out like me this week with what we thought was a typical cold. Last night he was up all night coughing the same cough. At least we can call the doctor and get him treatment immediately and hopefully shorten the duration of his bout with it. All the literature I've read since my diagnosis say that people in the same household should treated with antibiotics before they catch it too. For some reason the doctor here didn't think he needed treatment until/unless he started showing symptoms. They are very conservative with antibiotic use here in France due to those super bugs popping up and antibiotic resistance.

HUGS

Halloween

I'm sick, but the kids had fun anyways. Amazing how us moms have to suck it up and go through the motions even when we don't feel good. The kids had a blast with the other kids in the neighborhood. We had a little party after trick-or-treating at our house and a good time was had by all.

Here's our little French Army Soldier and our Midieval Princess



and the pumpkin carving brigade

Back Seat Ramblings Encore

After driving forever for an hour and a half eye surgeon appt yesterday Little Miss proclaims "Today was the best day of my life" to which Little Man replies "No, Christmas is the best day, silly!"

After overhearing me tell hubby that he "shouldn't park next to that shitbox" (very close parking spaces in France and he parked next to the most beat up car in the lot), Little Man decides to announce "I will name that white car Shitbox!"

Then, if that wasn't enough for a days' worth of bad language...

A young woman gets angry at us in traffic because she failed to yield at her yield sign as she enters the very congested highway. Because we didn't let her in front of us, she begins yelling and throwing hand signals in the air to us. Little Miss, in the back seat, decides that because she's talking to us with her windows up and looks angry matter-of-factly announces "that lady is a bitch".

yeah, great day on the road yesterday

After dance class the other night Little Miss randomly blurts out "I'm so proud of C (big sister) because she's going to school to be a nurse like you Momma. I think I will be a nurse too so I can be like you and C."
How sweet is that?

Sister N had been pretty sick last week. Little Miss said "Momma, you should go to Florida and make her better so she won't be so sick anymore".

Can you tell she idolizes her big sisters ?!?

I only wish we all lived closer to one another.

On another note, Little Miss has eye surgery number three scheduled for March. We also discovered that her left eye is losing sight because of the continued malalignment of her eyes (strabismus). She's actually EXCITED that she gets to stay in the hospital for two days and have surgery. She LOVES hospitals! We, on the other hand, would rather she stays out of them from here on out. We really hope this surgery will be successful and that it will stop the damage to the sight in her left eye. Could you spare a little prayer for her?

The kids begin a two week break from school starting tomorrow. With Halloween coming, we'll have plenty to do next week. The following week we hope the kids will be finished with their colds so they can go back to school germ free and thus will begin another germ-collecting session! Gotta love those germs at school that keep the kids sick all winter!

Have a wonderful day!

Oh Oh !

It seems she's got the boobie curse!

Newsy Notes

First off, we had a visitor lastnight - from Chili. It was the Devil himself. Now the devil is pretty smooth and very good company up to a point. Then he turns on you and you don't know what hit ya. Here's his picture - you'll understand what I'm talking about.



So today we're a little on the slow side, as you can imagine

My oldest daughter called me in the middle of my devil trance to tell me of her first clinical day at an assisted living facility. Oh, I remember how exciting that first day was when I was in nursing school. I told her the other day about my first day of clinical where one of the girls in my group was so nervous (she shall remain nameless to avoid embarrassment - yeah, D, you owe me now) D was so nervous in the parking lot this first day of making beds and performing bed baths that she peed her pants right there before we even got the day started. D went on to become a very successful nephrology RN and head nurse doing hemodialysis. I wonder now if this peeing incident had anything to do with her direction her career took?

Anyways, when she texted me on her way to her very first clinical, I texted her back and rather than say "break a leg" or something to that effect, I said "don't pee your pants" so she could start the day off with a smile. Her day went wonderfully and she's excited for her second day today.

My second oldest daughter texted me yesterday too. Her text was "what do you take for strep throat?" Um, that would be Penicillin. She is VERY prone to strep throat and when I called her, surely it seemed possible she was having another bout. After initally telling her to get some ibuprofen into her, some Chloraseptic throat spray and to drink lots and lots of water, then wait to see if she felt better in a few hours, we decided it may be best she find the nearest clinic. I hope she did and I hope she is feeling better today. I tried to call and got her voice mail every time so I imagine she went to the clinic, got some medicine and climbed back into bed until she woke up feeling better again. Sleep is the magic for her. We'll see how she's doing later today. The time difference and distance really sucks when the older girls are sick!

So the little one's have been busy bonding with our newest neighbors. They go outside every day and spend time with them. It's too cute!





Yes, those are the patio chairs up next to the electric fence. I told you they liked to SPEND TIME with the animals. Unfortunately, the picture doesn't show the other horse (white); the cow, all the ducks, chickens, roosters and goats that live there too.

Life in the countryside is suiting us well. Now to blast away the remnants of a night with the devil !

Have a great day!

It's Pumpkin Time!

We did our annual trip to the pumpkin patch - this year, of course, we did it here in France. Halloween isn't really a holiday much celebrated in France, but our house is decorated modestly and we've got pumpkins on our doorstep and in the front yard. We actually have drive-by's checking out our Halloween decorations and apparently the moms at the bus stops are talking about how wonderfully decorated our house is. I've really not gone overboard by any stretch. Here's a few of our Pumpkin Patch pictures and a few of our house decorated for Halloween.









HAPPY HALLOWEEN and HAPPY FALL !

Waiting to Exhale

SHEESH! Moving really SUCKS! But we did it - it's done - we bought a beautiful house here in France with 2 horses, a cow, several ducks, chickens, very bolsterous roosters (can you say COCK A DOODLE DOO!) in the back pasture - the best part is we get to enjoy them without having to care for them. They belong to our neighbors :o)

The kids are thrilled with their new rooms, which are bigger than any bedroom they have ever had, by the way. There are kids in the neighborhood and one came to the bushes at the boundry the other day calling out to Little Miss, much to her delight! The next thing you know, he joined our two in the silly sprinkler and was soaked (um, I hope his parents didn't mind too much)

Life is good, but moving still sucks. Inside the house, once empty and spotless, there are pyramids of boxes, baskets, linens, pillows, pots & pans still waiting to be put away - but we now have INTERNET - life is good!

I won't say I'll be scarce because that's just me normally. I will be back when the guilt doesn't drive me from the office chair. There's work to be done!

HUGS

You've heard of DOG - Bounty Hunter ?

We have MIMI - QUAIL HUNTER !

Mimi is our tiny almost-2-year-old black cat that was born in the barn at the last house we lived in in NY. We've tried to make her a homebody, like our older cat Becks, but she's a wanderer and a hunter. Bugs in the house, no problem, Becks takes care of those. Moles and mice around the outside or inside, Mimi kicks in.
The problem is she will catch things outside and bring them inside.

The other morning, I woke up to take Little Man to the bathroom, I felt softness under my bare feet. When I turned the light on, the whole hallway and Little Man's room AND the bathroom were full of bird feathers! GROSS! It freaked my feet out. You know, like the jumping off a stone wall barefoot onto some dogshit that squishes up between your toes GROSS! Total shivers!

I go about in the early hours of morning vaccuming up feathers, wiping up bird duty and whatever else it left behind with Mr Clean Antibacterial Wipes (ok so they are Mr Propre here, but the same ol' bald guy) and then mopping the entire house too.

We never saw the bird, only something that looked like bird brains on the diningroom floor. If someone calls you a "bird brain" by the way, that truly IS an insult.

This morning, I'm packing boxes and preparing for yet another move. I move an end table from the window in the diningroom that holds a huge plant. What do I see? I thought it was a chicken! It turned out to be a quail. Now, these are the same feathers I cleaned up the other day, only this bird was full of feathers. My bet is that it's not the same bird. If it was, wouldn't we have been smelling that sucker by now? That's a smell you surely wouldn't miss. hmmmm

Examining this bird, I wonder, how the hell it got into the house. Did our petite Mimi bring it in or did it just walk/fly in on it's own? Hubby says no bird would willingly do that, so we have to assume Mimi has found herself a Quail farm or something. I still, for the life of me, can't even picture her carrying it.
She's TINY!

What do you think?

Disclaimer - ok, so I haven't blogged and this is the best I could come up with today. It is, however, a true story.

You REALLY didn't want to see a picture of a dead bird, did you? I didn't take one purely because it's family hadn't been notified and wouldn't that be a shock to read when you don't know where your bird son/daughter has gone?

Cheers!

Isn't vacation supposed to be restful

We find ourselves recovering from our vacation in Spain. Sick kids in hot weather is not exactly our idea of vacation. UGH

So we have been cleaning out the dungeon (aka basement) in preparation for the big move into our new house. We spent the ENTIRE weekend down there and made great progress, but we aren't finished yet. Why do we save every stitch of clothing our kids outgrow? Although selling the baby clothes on EBay was quite lucrative back in the US, here in France it's a little more complicated and we simply don't have the time to invest in that right now. So off the clothes went into the Salvation Army/Red Cross bins all over the village. It does feel good to know that someone that really "needs" the clothes will get them, rather than selling them to someone that just "wants" them.

Not much else to report. Little Miss has fully recovered from her mystery illness and had a vessel in her nose cauterized when we got back home. That's the end of the nosebleeds that ran like a river. PHEW Not sure I had the patience to continue on that track much longer - Little Miss FREAKS out at the sight of blood. Oh, that was fun!

School starts again in 2 weeks. I don't want to let my babies go. Little Miss begins first grade. Little man is entering the 4 year old "maternelle" (preschool). We hope he talks at school this year. Little Miss moves into the big school in the middle of the village, so Little Man won't have her to cling to at recess. Hopefully, this will take him out of his shell. We understand that this is pretty common at this age when you thrust your child into a school where nobody speaks his language. They do speak French now pretty well, though. Better than me as far as the accent. They don't have the accent - Me? Oh the French definitely KNOW I'm an American trying to wing it here. That's okay though - they like us.

That's it from our corner of the world. I have to go now, Little Miss wants to show me how her stuffed dog can now "roll over". Oh Joy!

HUGS

You know what REALLY sucks ?

Being in yet another a foreign country and having your child end up in the hospital.

A Super Hero Story

So it’s well past bedtime lastnight and the four of us trudge up the stairs. We let the two darlings sleep in the guest bedroom because they like it and well because I didn’t put sheets on Little Man’s bed after I stripped it the other day.

Kids are in bed – Hubby is already snoring – I hear this buzzzzzz buzzzzz whack!Buzzzzz buzzzzz whack! I’ve heard this sound before, call the kids into Little Man’s room because right now his door is the only one I can shut quickly, call hubby to come rescue us and then shut the three of us in the bedroom while hubby drags out into the hallway to see what’s amuck. I tell him it’s one of those big honking bees again and he understands that as the man of the house it’s his job to tend to it. (These bees are almost the size of my thumb - no kidding! and I swear they have an 18 gauge stinger [ok so you gotta be a nurse or other medical person to know what that means] - that sucker would hurt!) Momma does not do big, hairy black spiders, mega bees that I swear are related to tsetse flies, or bats – oh no! Momma does NOT do bats.

OK so superhero (hubby, in case you got lost there) is in the hallway and I hear the buzzzz buzzzz whack continuing, then I hear pffffffffffffffffffft pffffffffffft (flying insect spray) SMACK! (must have missed) pffffffffffft buzzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzzz buzzzzzzz pfffffffft pffffffft and I think OMG someone’s gotta win this! Still, I’m in the safety of the closed off bedroom and I yell out to our superhero “No More Spray! We have to breathe tonight!" and the response, “OK I’m not spraying anymore” BUZZZZZZZZZ BUZZZZZZZZ WHACK WHACK BUZZZZZZZ BUZZZZZZ BUZZZZ and something that sounded like superhero tripping in his flip flops and then pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttt pfffffffffffffffffffffffffftttttttttttttttt
“I said No More Spray!” Then I hear SMACK SMACK SMACK !

Ahhhhh he got it! Cough Cough CHOKE Cough Cough CHOKE (that’s me)
Then between coughs, I said, “I thought you said you weren’t going to spray anymore?” And the reply: “I didn’t see you trying to get it and I couldn’t catch it. The spray knocked it down and then I got it”

Yeah, good point.
Sigh

So kids are placed in the beds again and me and SuperHero climb back into bed, but I swear I TASTED flying insect spray as I fell off to sleep.

~ As visions of sunshine dance through our heads ~

And we are off again to our tropical paradise in Spain. The hot weather and ample sunshine will be a welcome sight. Our first summer in France has turned out to be rather dreary and wet for the most part.

Here's a few of our favorite things in Spain.

I remember when

I'd be driving down the highway with the two older girls and we'd play I SPY for different license plates (different US States). OK so we were in NH and this was fun and it also kept the complaining down in the back seat about how long the trip was. We'd spy Colorado, Hawaii, Texas, Utah, California, North Dakota and think that was pretty darned cool.

Fast forward 15 years later ...

We were driving several hours to an eye specialist appointment for Little Miss
(only the best will do when it comes to eye surgery) and here are the license plates we saw along the way:

Romania, Latvia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Denmark, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Italy, Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, Sweden, Great Britain, Turkey, Portugal, Spain and France (of course since we are in France)

But seriously,

How. Freaking. Cool. Is. That. ???

Hagatha is gone

Yes, I've changed my name
I'm not a Hag - in spite of what some may say
I'm a Free Spirit with a happy heart

It appears someone has been using my previous blog name to send not-so-nice messages to people I'd rather not be associated with, so I let go of the name and move on

Free Spirit
I answer to nobody - I follow my own rules
and you can't kick me down

HUGS and LOVE

~free spirit~

*~* HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA *~*

(a day late in posting but my heart was with you all day yesterday)

Alanis Morrissette describes me to a T

my earworm today

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

I'm a Bitch I'm a Lover
I'm a child I'm a Mother
I'm a sinner I'm a saint
I do not feel ashamed
I'm your hell I'm your dream
I'm nothing in between
you know you wouldn't want it any other way

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

preschool music video

Little Miss is the tall one in the blue shirt and white skirt. The kids next to her are in her kindergarten class. Little Man is the shy boy in the navy blue striped shirt.
Enjoy!




the kids in the back are the FIRST graders!



Thanks for looking!
HUGS

Swiss Alps

** click any picture to enlarge it **