Saturday (it's really long and rambling; my apologies!)

Anna came to our room this morning and took her nighttime diaper off. She got right up on the pillow next to me and started tooting. Then she would cackle and say, ha,ha! Mama, I toot on your bed! I was not amused (well, I was a little, tiny bit). I told her to go find some underwear. She said, No, I like to be naked booty.

Then I said, Anna, stop playing with your booty butt on my bed! It's gross!

She replies: I can touch it if I want to, it's MY business!

I have always told the kids that their private areas are their own business.

So, she sort of had me there, except for:

OK, then go touch your business in your OWN ROOM and not ON MY BED!!!!



Dave took the kids to his gym and I went to Curves, and then to my Mom's house to take her dogs on a walk. She has two shi tzus, Biscuit and Mutton. Mutton is getting fatter by the minute. He literally waddles when he walks. I told him that when school started, I was going to put him and me on a diet, and we were going to go on walks three times a week. Of course, last week was a tad wet outside, so we had to start today. Biscuit and I wanted to walk at a normal pace, so I just let Mutton's leash go and he trailed about ten feet behind us, having to break into a trot now and then and panting his head off. I am sure we have about the same BMI, and I certainly was not exerting myself. If Mutton stopped to go potty, Biscuit would put his brakes on and wait for him to catch up. They love each other so much. Like looooovers do. It started raining, and I had my cell and my keys, a bag full of doggy poo and two out of shape shi tzus with me. I wanted to get home, and I was getting pretty cranky. We finally made it back home, the rain stopped, and I swear it was literally steaming outside! Then I had to drive home in wet clothes.

But, I did feel much better after I exercised. What I have discovered helps me with my condition: exercise, chiropractic care, and getting more adequate sleep. I could give you a whole list of medicines that have NOT helped. I am going back to the rheumatoligist this week and ask that he re-evaluate the one medicine he has tried that I have actually stayed on. I think it has helped me with some of my burning, tingling skin pain, but not with my muscle aches and fatigue and sharp joint pains. It has done nothing for making me sleep better, or for my chronic headaches, or for my feelings of well-being. I sleep worse on it than I did before, and anything they try for my sleep or headaches just makes me feel more tired and groggy all the time. So I have gotten down to this one last medicine. And I think it makes me feel agitated and unfocused all the time. I think it makes me sleep less, which definitely makes me feel worse. So if I add all of this up, the bottom line is I think I would be better off without it. The only problem is: how do I stop taking it? It has wicked withdrawal symptoms and I am going to need help to wean off it. I think if I had fully understood how hard it would be to stop taking it, I would not have tried it to begin with. I don't like the feeling that I am dependent on something. I have never tried (illegal) drugs for a reason! I also don't like that I just don't feel like myself when I am taking this medicine. So, that's that! Who's tired of hearing about this? I certainly am.

The one casualty of Fay in our home, the TV, is still broken. Samsung called their repairmen, and they are supposed to call to schedule an appointment within three business days. Add to this the one-three day delay Fay seems to have put on everything (rightfully so) and I think we are looking at two full weeks without a functioning TV. Just so you understand what a crisis this is, we can't even watch DVDs! I think the part that is really annoying (and I apologize for being annoyed by this at all; I know I am surrounded by a county of people with real problems and property loss) is that the TV will work, but only for a few minutes, or a half hour, or maybe an hour. but there is no way to predict when it will spontaneously shut itself off. I sort of wish it would just stay off. It would be easier to explain to the kids that the TV is broken if it just never came on at all! I have been thinking about cancelling our fancy-schmancy DVR cable anyways. We cancelled our spring water delivery (I am drinking Brita filtered water from the tap! Big deal for me.) and I have drastically cut back on my latte/Starbucks consumption. It was hard to justify spending almost four bucks on a coffee drink while complaining about how high gas prices and groceries are. I felt sort of like a moron. Not that I don't still occasionally give in and go to Starbucks. So this is going.... somewhere. Right, the TV. Hopefully they will fix it or Samsung will give us some money. This does not seem likely, but it is still under warranty and we have not even owned the thing for a year yet! So it's storming out (just a thunderstorm, no two feet of rain), and we have nowhere to go, and no TV to pacify ourselves with. But, to quote Mr. Johnson(does anyone else remember him? the old guy who had a fit and heaved the rocking chair up over his head in anger???), from Creel Elementary, "I cried when I had no shoes until I saw a man with no feet." Profound! ;)