Brain Quits

The time for your brain to quit working is not midway during a class lecture you are delivering. Maybe I didn’t sleep well enough. Maybe my focus on my encaustic painting was too strong. Maybe I was stressed trying to chauffeur girls to cheer camp, finishing making dinner, and be to work on time. Maybe I have been on energetic run for too long and my brain decided it was enough, time for a break. Whatever the reason, turning off while in front of 20 students listening to every word is not the time.
 

I’m doing well and peppy then suddenly I pause and stare at the powerpoint with nothing entering my mind. Dread rushes over me. I notice the students are starting to look at me rather than the projector image. This is not good. The only thing I could think of doing – ramble nonsense. I’m an artist, it’s expected, I might be able to get away with the confusion. 

I was able to step back into place after a couple minutes of rambling and managed to flow through the rest of the lecture. I hope my spastic nature overcast the fumbling moments and the students are non the wise to my brain’s sudden sabbatical.

Headaches of a 10 Year Old

How do you explain a headache to a 10 year old? 

First you ask her if she feels hot or cold, then you check for a fever. Her head feels warm but that may be because your hands are like ice and your daughter is cringing from the iciness. The cringing doesn’t help the head agony. After rubbing your hands together and re-checking the skin of her forehead, you notice she’s not sizzling. So a fever is checked off the list. Second, you ask where exactly on the head does hurt. She points all across her forehead which covers a broad area of intertwining possibilities…that will make it easy to narrow down the headache connection (sarcasm). Third, you ask her if she aches more by the eyebrows, in the middle, or by the hairline. If the pain is near the eyebrows, then her sinus cavities are becoming irritable. They might be dried from the dry weather and dry house. The dry furnace seems to be conquering the humidifier of soothing moisture for us to breathe comfortable. If the streak of agony is across the middle, then it’s a possible precursor to a cold unless the pain stretches toward the temples, then it would be a tension. Then those set of questions are asked after all the physical deductions have been made. If the pain is along the hairline, then she might consider no more pony tails for awhile or get a hair cut. With either scenario, the headache seems to disappear when she plays Lego Harry Potter on the Wii unless her sister is not playing the game her way. And the headache seems to intensify at bedtime which denotes self-infliction for not being allowed to stay up like her friends.

So then we try to deduct situations that may cause the headache. First, you ask how much water she has drunk during the day. Sips at the water fountain really don’t count as “a lot of water”. So you have her drink a big glass of water. If the headache is still lingering after the water gurgles through the stomach, then you ask if the headache happened after recess. Maybe the lack of water and running non-stop could possibly contribute to the pain. After the declaration that nothing happened during recess and she drank “a lot” of water, you move onto recent school assignments. You ask if she has a test coming that she is unsure she will do well. If that is not the issue, then you ask if her powerpoint project is becoming stressful. If that is not a problem, then you ask if she is stuck with someone in groups that she does not cooperate with well. If that is not the problem, then you ask if she is having friend conflicts such as her best friend pressuring for her to ruthlessly “crush” a boy’s heart. (5^th graders crushing hearts, what is up with this!)

 If none of the above are issues in her social and academic circle, then you return to the first set of deductions and give her a heating pad or cold pack for her head, some kid pain medicine, and a glass of water until she wants to play Harry Potter or stay up to watch iCarly.

Overly Productive

Being productive is an awesome feeling. I have actually had energy lately to create numerous projects – must be the vanilla coke. There are two clay sculptures sitting on my art table, a papier mache horse standing on the deep freeze, a watercolor in the critique stage, a drawing in the beginning sketch development, a canvas sitting out to ready for another painting, 36 cubes of homemade soap, and yellow yarn ready to make a pillow for my Mom’s new bedroom set. I'm designing and talking on blogs. On top of that, I am arranging a full-time schedule for the upcoming Fall/Spring semester because the full-time teacher is taking a sabbatical. I have also kept up with grading papers and quizzes and organizing my powerpoints for lectures. 

Maybe the warm sunny weather has given me the extra boost. The springtime 40-50s have been very welcoming. I have already had the urge to want to plant the garden. If the temperatures remain so, I just might drag out the tiller while the ground is soft from the earlier melted snow. 

Although, as much as I love this warm weather productive feeling, I know we need more snow. Maybe just one big blizzard, enough to blanket the mountain deep and fill the reservoir to its brink. Then it could be Spring with its warm 70s!

The simple things that brighten my days:

Discovering how to use Skype so I can see my husband in Orem making goofy faces rather than holding a conversation…he’s adorable even on screen.

Being fascinated by the little snowflakes falling across the screen on my phone created by the weather app, and watching it again and again.

Being happy that I am the one grading quizzes and not taking quizzes.

Seeing the thrill on my girls’ faces for making them lip balms.

Playing “bonzi” with plush Angry Birds and listening to their crazy cackles fly through the air.

Krispy Kreme doughnuts (especially chocolate covered cream-filled :P ).

Cooking a dish that the girls actually would like seconds (for Savannah and Sierra’s their first helping)

Finding the dishes actually clean from the dishwasher.

Making a sweet-smelling lotion that doesn’t cause a rash on my hands.

Finishing a crocheted blanket.

Believing that I found that happy stopping point on a large horse painting that has taken 3 years to finish!

Left Handed Comiseration!

This week has been a unique learning experience for me. My surgery went rather well, or at least that's what I've been told because I was asleep for the entire thing. It took me a long time to wake up and I think the nurse was getting frustrated with me for not cooperating so she could go home. However, I lay part of the blame on them for jumping the gun on giving me Nausea medicine. As I was being wheeled from the recovery room back to my luxurious half room, I became a bit dizzy and mentioned this to the nurse who wanted me to sit up and start eating. Well they ran for the Phenegren which conveniently for me put me to sleep. I guess they thought it better to knock me back out than to clean up my vomit. Well, that just took me longer to get kicked out the door and had they known about my situational stomach they would have known that I could have probably waned the nausea away. Anyway, we eventually left and got home, not soon enough for Amanda to make it to work that night, but I doubt her students minded.

The rest of this week has just been a case of trying to rest, get comfortable and try to move a bit. Amanda has been great. I have had the bed to myself, not that I could get real comfortable any way. I haven't slept a whole lot except for Thursday night when I was so exhausted I sacked out and missed the circus Friday morning getting kids to school. Anyway, things are going well. I am getting used to doing things left handed (as in typing this out). Things are a little slow this way, but we get it done. Who knows, maybe by the end of this whole recovery process, I may be ambidextrous.

It's 7:30!

Since Jared’s shoulder surgery, I have been sleeping on the sofa to prevent snuggling up to the wrong shoulder and having a sore husband yelling “Ow!” in the middle of the night. Startling the girls in their sleep would make a far worse situation than being uncomfortable sleeping on the sofa for a few days. That uncomfortable sleep seemed to have built up last night when I actually fell asleep and stayed asleep from the exhaustion of Jared’s surgery, nursing his recovery (that includes getting him dressed), kids’ getting and coming home from school, dance classes, gymnastic class, Activity Day meeting, doctor appointments, and teaching in the evening. My goodness this list is exhausting.

 

This morning I was awakened by a little girl who had just turned on her light and its brightness blared into the dark room like a concert spotlight onto my eyelids. Blinking with one eye, I felt for my phone that my memory failed to remember it was on the piano. This means I have to rise out from under the warm blankets and expose myself to the wintertime chilly living room. Blinded once again by the eye-blistering light from my phone, it was only 6:40. Dang, Sierra was early making her cheerful morning presence known again. I crawled back under the blankets to warm up my body to lay there and remain conscience for another 20 minutes before pulling the older two out of their cozy beds.

A few minutes later Celeste was standing beside me hollering it was 7:30, we slept in on a school morning! Talk about being startled. I threw the blankets somewhere and rolled into the sofa table crashing my hand into the laptop and a mess of wire cables hooked to Ipods (a project I was working on for my girls the night before passing out) to feel for my glasses. Shoving my glasses onto my face, I can hear Celeste panicking Savannah how they were going to be tardy the first time this school year. At least they were getting dressed. I found the bathroom to find myself standing there circling in one spot trying to figure whether to put on clothes first or go potty. I was so out of it I choose clothes. My kidneys were hurting from that decision. I rushed into the kitchen where all three were pacing on what to do about breakfast. I grabbed the bagels and tossed them like Frisbees for each kid to catch in their mouth. Although, I did pour some cereal for Sierra because she decided to climb onto the counter and stare into the cereal cabinet to make an informed decision for her stomach. 

I threw Savannah’s home lunch together and sorted through the homework for whatever I needed to sign (which should have been done the night before). Within 20 minutes, I was able to feed kids, prepare lunch and homework, get myself dressed (still haven’t gone potty), brushed two heads of hair, hollered about brushing teeth, pushed boots onto Sierra, got coats and backpacks on, and kneeled for morning family prayer.

Whew. I got them to school at 7:58am and returned home to see Sierra go back to playing with her Pet Shop toys and the toilet.

Jared was still asleep.

uh oh

Hey, I have an ad on our blog...uh oh. I think I must have signed up for something while my sleep medicine began working. I have to work hard to keep the laptop out of my room at bedtime because I have awakened in the morning to find my credit card and some music site ready for me to hit the purchase button and I have no recollection of even wanting to buy music at 11pm. Although sometimes I do rest in bed with the laptop to catch up on writing or research. However, the night before I must have got loopy and decided to do something else with the blog because I noticed my profile is pretty full as of right now. I don't really remember doing that either. I do recall listening to my Ipod which probably inspired my spunky spurge to la la land. So until I figure out what I have done, please tolerate the ads.

The Pink Load of Laundry

The pink load of laundry…the obvious sign that girls rule this castle. Lately I have noticed this increasing pile of pink jammies, pink shirts, and even pink pants rising up and over the other clothes of different colors. It as though a blob of girly features has been multiplying its cells to produce this presence of intimidating dictatorship of femininity. I admit I have two shirts colored a delicious pink but they’re proportional larger scale still even has them consumed by the numerous little bright pink undies and size 6 shirts armed with pixie dust and flowers.  I have faced the fact I have contributed to the development of the pink army and so has family over the years to the point the hand-me downs have fueled the looming pile of dirty laundry emanating the brilliance of pink.

Fair warning for those who have little girls – protect your spouse’s wandering white socks and combative kaki pants for the blob of pink will possess the other colors of clothes and force them to turn to the pink side. And it will be the Father to announce the injustice loudly. 

Just letting you know before it is too late.

Emotional Discourses

Well all the poking fun at me is hard to get over, but taken in good fun. Today however has been a little bit harder to get through. As the actual day and time for a surgery on my shoulder draws closer, I am feeling a bit of anxiety over the whole issue. I received a phone call this afternoon from the Hospital with instructions on preparing for the surgery. This all put it into perspective that it is really happening. Now while the actual surgery is certainly needed as the pain in my shoulder this evening for sure is nearing nausea point. The thought of actually not being whole anymore is one issue that is striking me hard. The other issue is the recovery time frame that I was informed about.

I guess throughout my __ years of life I have done pretty well for myself. With all the recreational and adventure activities that I enjoy doing, as well as my two full time jobs and the potential for physical injury there, I have never had to be hospitalized or had any work done on me. Maybe I'm just not as extreme as I thought I was and just because I enjoy a Red Bull every now and then doesn't make me a super star (although you'd have a tough time convincing my kids of that, which is, I guess the way it's supposed to be.)

I have had a few stitches growing up, but never a broken bone, or a large enough laceration that I have any scars from. So the thought of having to finally have things sewn back together and items reattached to bones is kinda disheartening. I guess it's a sign of growing older and not being the perfect specimen of a human being the one dreams they are. Of course the fact that I am sitting her eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and drinking hot chocolate probably would also be an outward sign that I'm probably not all that perfect of a specimen anyway, but hey, who could pass up a Krispy Kreme doughnut? Especially a professional crime fighter. Their are mandatory stereotypical food that we are required by law to consume.

The next portion of my dis pare lies with the fact that once I have been reassembled I will be immobile for longer than I car to imagine. Ok, I've already discussed the fact that I am probably going to be kicked out of the house by the second day. I am currently in the market for a really nice camp trailer if anyone has one available. I figure that by the end of the second week, I had better get some place of my own so that my wife won't be able to hear me whine anymore. The nicer the trailer the better, but please don't tell her how nice it is or any of the girls because they may want to come move in too. Or, I guess they could do that and then I can go back to the house.

Anyway, I will be laid up for a while and will not be able to return to work full time or participate in my favorite outdoor activities for a while. This is going to be hard for me. I am not one that likes to be dormant (or is it a door mat? I guess they both would kinda suck.)

Please send prayers my way and wish me luck on this new journey. Who knows, if I start the process of having everything replaced, maybe I can become the Bionic Man and live forever.

Mesmerizing

Hexbugs are a wonderful investments for parents who need to have his/hers child hypnotized for a wide expanse of time. These little robotic bugs are simply designed as a small vibrating motor running on a disk battery. The exterior is covered in soft rubber with ten rubbery legs that are soft and yet positioned well enough to hold up the body. You flip the switch on and these toys take off in a vibrating run crashing into anything and bouncing off in spastic directions. A perfect mesmerizer for children. 

They find them funny and enjoy the unpredictable crashes. Minutes and minutes of entertainment as kids find other objects to build around the bug just to watch it crash, bounce, and run another direction. Throw in a second bug and you can pretend they are gladiators attacking each other. Even I have found myself turning on the bug to see it move about. It is like a stress relief or a nice distraction from stress, either way you want to see it, they are fun to observe. 

The robot reminds me of the Siamese fighting fish I use to have when I was in college. They were wonderful “calmers” when studying for exams. Fish float about unpredictable, looking at this and looking at that with no care except when the next food drops below the surface of the water. That carefree attitude of a fish helped me lower my heart rate when I just sat there and observed these little red fish swimming laps. I need another fish tank. That too would hypnotize the kids as well to allow me uninterrupted time to do my work. The only problem would be the selection of turns to feed the fish and possible obesity of the fish if I don’t frequently monitor the kid standing next to the tank.