When it rains, it pours...

It's rained. And rained. And rained some more around here lately. And that's just been the stuff we got off of Tropical Storm Erin. I am very thankful Dean won't be heading our way. I'm sure we'll still feel the backlash of it though. Houston seems to hold up a special magnet to draw storms our way. My grandfather always jokes about the rainy weather down here since they came to visit last year, about how we need an ark to get around. Usually the rain doesn't faze us anymore, but the constant downpours have been a definite frustration.

The rain wouldn't have been such a bother if other things hadn't been happening, too. At least one of the fuel injectors have gone bad on my car. The car rattles, throbs, fights you, and groans at an idle and when you try to accelerate. I had noticed a slight hesitation when I accelerated for the past week or two, but Friday, in the middle of really bad traffic in a really awful downpour, it decided to show its true colors. With all my childhood memories of car troubles and their consequences, I was ready to cry. Natalee heard a few words she should never repeat, to say the least. Thankfully, Matt was able to get the car to settle down a little bit by putting a higher grade gasoline and some fuel injector cleaner into the tank. It doesn't make such a racket now, but it still hums, making sure we don't forget to take it in to the mechanic. Unfortunately, this is something we've had a problem with before. We had one of the fuel injectors replaced with a brand new one this past spring. It makes us wonder if maybe they didn't do a very good job replacing it, or if they didn't replace it with a new one, like we paid them to do. I called up the same mechanic today, hinting at the fact that we brought the car in before for the same problem. They said they couldn't get us in till Wednesday or Thursday. Wonderful, since we're supposed to be heading up to Fort Worth on Thursday. Matt has already taken Friday off as a personal day.

Because of our car troubles now, and because the last few times we've driven up to Fort Worth has caused us car trouble, I asked my dad to rent us a car. Matt and I both felt pretty awkward about it, but Dad has offered to rent us a vehicle before for the trip up there. It would be nice to not have to worry about car troubles for at least one of our trips. Plus money is really tight for us right now, with the semi-annual insurance payment due next month, however much it'll cost to get the car fixed this time around, our anniversary, my birthday, Matt's and Natalee's birthdays, Thanksgiving, and Christmas all coming up. If we did manage to get the car fixed in time to drive up to Fort Worth, it'd really hurt us if something started acting up in the car once we got there, or once we got home, which has happened a lot recently with these trips. We've been staying afloat lately because Matt's been working as much overtime as he can, and we have a little money saved in case of emergency, but it's not very much. And we have my student loan payments and we've been putting money into Natalee's 529 for college every month and Mom's not always regular about paying the credit card... so we really don't have much leeway financially, especially right now with all these future spendings looming. I've even told Matt not to get me anything for my birthday or our anniversary. Right now we can't afford it.

Normally, all this wouldn't get me down much. The car is acting better for the time being, so maybe it won't be as bad as last time we had to take it in to the mechanic. And although money is tight, it almost always is, and I always look forward to the excitement of fall and winter holidays. But I started getting sick Thursday after babysitting my four year old cousin. I thought it was just something I ate, until I started getting really bad cramps Friday night (inconveniently, when the car started acting up). Saturday and Sunday I was taking regular doses of Peptobismal Max and Immodium AD and ibuprofen for the really bad joint pain in my hips and knees, and my GI tract was completely out of whack. I'm feeling better today, thankfully, but my stomach is still very sensitive and sore, and my hips still ache. I think I had some kind of virus that hit my intestines hard for a few days. I'm doing a lot better, but I haven't exactly felt chipper with everything going on.

To top it all off, the ceiling in the bathroom started dripping last night, and Natalee woke up at four a.m., I'm guessing because of gas or her four teeth coming in bothering her. I'm really hoping this doesn't mean she'll be waking up in the middle of the night on a regular basis again. I'm hoping it was a one night thing, and the repairman will be able to fix the leak no problem.

On the bright side of things, Matt has glasses now to help with his bad vision and is pretty healthy. Natalee is in good health aside from the teething pain. She's absolutely wonderful. She loves to go in her room and sit down at the little table that I stacked all her books on and go through them, looking at the pictures, pretending to read them to herself. Everything is "what's that?" from her. She always wants to know about colors and shapes and letters and numbers. She likes to run up and give you hugs and kisses sometimes. She loves to color in the bathtub with her bath crayons and fling bubbles all over or smear them on the tiles. She pretends to talk on the phone, with her little fist as the phone. She's so silly and sweet and smart and adorable. And she's all ours, Matt's and mine. Now that's a happy thought.

The future's so bright, I gotta wear shades...

July has been a pretty good month for us. Nothing catastrophic happened that I can remember off the top of my head, always a good sign. And a few good things happened, like the last Harry Potter book came out, our friend Brent stayed with us for a few days, and we got to visit a lot of our friends and family at the beginning of the month.

Matt's mom is doing well, all things considered. She's looking down the home stretch regarding the end of her chemotherapy. Thereafter, she'll have to start taking chemical injections. We really haven't heard anything about how those affect you. Hopefully they won't be as bad as the chemo, which has left her very fatigued lately. A lot of her friends have rallied around her lately, offering to accompany or drive her to her treatments, visiting and taking her shopping and out to have fun, baking goodies, sending cards or calling to check on her, in an effort to keep her in good spirits. It pains Matt and me that we can't be there to help more right now, but we are very, very thankful for those who have helped out and just loved Mom so much. It has really made a difference in how these treatments have affected her and Dad.

We saw Matt's parents, of course, while we were visiting the beginning of the month. We spent July 4th with Eric, Pam, and Kaitlyn, and some of Pam's family at her house. It was really a neat experience, because this was Natalee's first real Independence Day (since last year she was too young to enjoy anything), and Matt and I hadn't done anything to celebrate the 4th in a few years. Pam's daughter Kaitlyn worked at her dad's firework stand for several days preceding the 4th, and so got a lot of fireworks as payment. Plus I think Eric and Pam bought quite a few too. So we got to watch Matt and Eric light off fireworks and watch the fireworks being shot off over the lake in the distance. Natalee at first was a little stunned by all the noise and light and smoke, but she was having fun and pointing out the explosions to everybody by the end. But she enjoyed playing with Kaitlyn, who's ten, and her friend, the most. She even left my lap halfway through the fireworks to go to Kaitlyn's. It was really special to sit and watch fireworks with Natalee and enjoy the holiday with friends.

Natalee and I also spent a day with Kara and Jennifer, and got to visit with Dad and Brenda a little bit at the end of the day. It's hard adjusting to the idea of Jennifer driving her own car. I still slip up once in a while and call Natalee Jennifer, since Jenn was my baby when she was little. We had a good time running all over the Lake Dallas area with them, meeting Kara's long time boyfriend Trevor, getting my haircut, eating ice cream at Coldstone's, chatting at their house. I know it's been a while now since we lived in the same house, but I still miss my sisters and wish that we lived a lot closer.

We attended Brent's birthday party and visited with Brent and Rachel, Pam and Eric, Tamara and Michael Quick, and some of Brent's family. And Natalee got to run amok with a herd of little kids around her age in a house full of toys. We also got to see Brad and my family a few times over at my grandparents', once just to eat lunch and the second time at the obligatory family get together with lots of family photos. Brad seemed a little tense from stress lately, but I think being home with the family helped give him back some confidence. It's hard to imagine Brad being down for long. He's still my buff, cocky, sensitive firefighter brother, and I'm very proud of him and what he's done with his life.

Since then, things have been pretty easy going. Matt's had to work a lot of overtime, since two of his co-workers' wives were due to give birth this month and another co-worker resigned. Natalee's had three or four teeth coming in, which has thrown a knot into our schedule. If she doesn't take a good nap, she doesn't sleep well at night, and neither do I as consequence. And if she doesn't sleep well at night, she usually won't take a good nap the next day. It's been frustrating, but Matt and I've re-adjusted to giving Natalee something for the teething pain, just letting her fuss at times, and knowing when and how to catch back up on missed sleep.

Brent came to stay with us a few days this past week while he took one of his exams in downtown Houston for becoming a doctor. This one involved visiting with 12 professional fake patients, spending no more than 15 minutes with each, and diagnosing their 'medical problem' while being watched by a review board on camera. It sounded pretty frustrating to do within the time limits, but I've got faith that Brent handled it well. Matt was glad to see him, even if it was during his work week. As Matt described it, we're pretty insular here at home, so company is always a good thing. We also got to meet Brent downtown with one of our old friends, Sam, from college. Sam was Matt's RA in Eppright for a few years, and was one of the groomsmen in Brent's wedding. It was good to see him again, but a little bittersweet as well. We don't have as many things to connect on as we used to, since Sam's a successful career-focused guy without the responsibilities of a family. And Matt and I . . . pretty much focus and depend on and support our family unit. It made me miss the kinship we once had in college with our college buddies, where we were all young and silly and somewhat smart (some more than others) and with the same sort of moral code and willing to have fun. We've had to grow up since then. Maybe it's just me. Brent has a family and still connects pretty well with Sam, and I think Matt would fit in if he had a little more free time just to hang out and visit. But as for me, what can I discuss that has any relevance for someone with a business world career and no real home ties? Harry Potter and Aggie sports was about it. *wry smile* C'est la vie.

As for me this past month, I've mostly been dealing with the changes in Natalee's nap and bedtime routine, scrubbing floors and wiping down cabinets for company, and trying to find a recipe I liked for banana bread. I'll try to post it at the end of this. I think I finally found one, after some trial and error, that is moist and sweet and nutty and good. And, I got glasses this past weekend. I've been having headaches for months now, usually right around the time I lay Natalee down for her nap, and I sit down, drink my one caffeinated beverage for the day and read. For a while now, I thought the headaches were a result of the caffeine. And then I had headaches while I stayed up at night to read Harry Potter, when I hadn't had a soda in hours. That tipped me off that I needed to have my eyes checked. My eyes aren't bad. I don't technically need glasses. But I have an astigmatism in my left eye that gives me eyestrain and headaches, especially in dim light. Bad news when I'm a readaholic, try to keep the lights off as much as possible during the day, and with all the funky, cloudy weather this summer, there hasn't been much sunlight to light up the apartment. I don't have a problem if I'm in a very well-lit area or I'm outside in broad daylight, so let's say when I'm driving during the day, I don't need them. But pretty much anytime, anywhere else, they help a lot. They've sharpened my vision some, and I haven't had a headache since I got them, except when I take them off for long periods of time in the apartment. So, hurray! I'm just crossing my fingers that Matt'll go get his eyes checked, now that he knows what to do and where to go from me. His eyes are much worse than mine.

So, all in all, July hasn't been bad. Hopefully August will go as well.

Banana Bread

1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk (this helps keep it moist)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired

1. Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.

2. Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.

3. Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days. [From bettycrocker.com]

On the road again

We'll be heading out for Azle again tonight, to celebrate the 4th with our families, to be with Matt's mom for her next dose of chemo, to help with Brent's surprise party, and to visit with Brad. Matt had to pull some strings to get Thursday and Friday off, and I've had to use some mad laundering and packing skills. And we also had to cancel some plans with a couple we've been eating out and playing cards with lately. But I think we'll be ready to blast off once Matt gets home.

I want to say things have been crazy this past month, and that's why I haven't posted. But they haven't been any crazier than normal, besides Kara and Jenn's visits. I've just felt like I had more important things to do than typing an update on our blog. We've been working on getting Natalee potty trained. No where near done with that. Right now we're just trying to plant the seed in her head that going potty in her pottychair is good. We put her hand in a cup of warm water, and we give her a Reese's Piece and a Mini M&M just for sitting down on the little chair and trying. But we've only gotten her to go once. We don't yell or make a big deal if she doesn't. She just doesn't get more candy. When she does potty in the chair, she gets two Reese's Pieces and a Mini M&M of each color, on top of what she got just for trying, plus a lot of hugs and verbal backpatting. Right now I think Matt and I need to learn to watch her better and know when to take her to the potty chair, what my mom calls 'catching her.' And just keep trying.

I've been reading a lot lately, mostly A. C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I've problems with both of them for different reasons, but they're still good reads. But I'm very curious to see the U.S.'s reactions if they not only make The Golden Compass into a movie, but the sequels as well. People have always mentioned in conjunction with that series how odd it is that it was so popular in Great Britain and the rest of Europe, but never really caught on in the U.S. There's a reason for that. We'll see how it goes.

Matt's also been picking Magic: The Gathering back up. Matt has a few co-workers who play it, and so he's started getting back into it, going out to play with a few of them almost every weekend for the past month and a half. It's good for him to get out and do something fun and challenging like that with all the stress he has on his plate. Natalee and I just miss him when he's gone, since he's been working so much overtime lately, and then goes out for 6-8 hours one night out of the weekend to play Magic. But he loves it, and he and I play Lego Star Wars on the PS3 the rest of the weekend. There's something wrongly gleeful about ripping the arms off a Lego Stormtrooper, or going around slapping up other Star Wars characters with your little Lego hand.

Hope everybody has a safe and happy Independence Day. (We'll actually be doing something fun this year! Huzzah!)

Recipe websites

This will be a short post. I just thought I'd post up some of the websites I go to for recipes nowadays. I've tried recipes from all of them except the Betty Crocker one, but then I grew up using Betty Crocker cookbooks, so I don't think that counts. And the LandoLakes one is pretty fattening - go figure, it's a butter website!

• http://www.landolakes.com/mealIdeas/RecipeFinder.cfm (Really rich, stomach-growling foods)
• http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/beyond-easy-beer-bread.html (This gal makes beer bread easy. Just do NOT use sea salt - your bread won't rise and will have a mushy center.)
• http://www.bettycrocker.com/ (The tortilla soup recipe looks like the same one I based my famous chicken tortilla soup off of, so this website has my approval thus far. But beware, a lot of the recipes look pretty fattening!)
• http://www.foodnetwork.com (I like the fact that you can sift through so many styles for the same recipe here. This is where I got the key lime pie recipe. You like Alton Brown - you can find his recipes here. You detest Emeril, you'll see who each recipe is attributed to and can easily avoid those submitted by chefs you dislike.)
• http://www.kraftfoods.com (Pretty good mix of healthy and indulgent recipes. And they have a helpful program where you can type in three things from your pantry or fridge, and they'll give you a list of recipes that you can use them in, quick ideas when you don't have anything planned and you just want to use what you have on hand. But, warning, I haven't used any of these recipes yet. I'm trying out the one-pan beef stroganoff later this week.)

Most of these have a recipe box that you can electronically save your recipes to, so you can retrieve them later. And you can sign up for recipe newsletters, through which you might get inspired with an emailed or linked recipe. Let me know if you have any favorite recipe websites. I'm always looking for good new ones.

And off subject, another interesting website: http://www.getridofthings.com/index.html. I'm not saying to trust their methods wholecloth, but I'm trying out their antkilling methods with the borax cottonballs. Not for certain if it works, but it seems like it might be, and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. Most importantly, it doesn't seem to be as harmful and fumigatory as some commercial antkillers.

Sick again

Well, it was my turn to be sick this past week. I started feeling headachey and unwell Sunday afternoon; by Sunday night I had a fever of 103.3 F that didn't want to go down. Matt was up all night with me and had to miss work the next day so he could take me to the doctor's office. I came clear on the throat swab test for strep throat, and my white blood cell count was normal, but I was still so sick I had to lay down in the exam room. Mom very reluctantly brought Kara over to help out so Matt wouldn't have to miss any more work. Thankfully, I was feeling better by Tuesday morning, just weak, horribly body achey, with a sore throat. Kara helped out a lot. It was really nice having her here to play with Natalee and help around the apartment. I know Natalee enjoyed having her here to splash water on, waggle her tongue at, and giggle with. When Kara ran up to the store for me Wednesday, Natalee went looking for her all over the apartment, looking in all the rooms while holding a hand to her tummy as if to protect her heart.

Kara and I got to spend some quality sister time together. I haven't done that with just Kara in a long time. She's grown up on me - it's sad that I don't have that sweet baby sister who said "'Doodle-doo!" to the rooster, but it's amazing and a lot of fun too. I showed her how I make my Matt-approved pork chops (Matt's a picky eater), we wandered around Walmart and Palais Royal some. And we played Lego Star Wars all together Wednesday night, which was really funny. And then Natalee and I drove Kara back to Conroe to meet Mom. Hopefully we'll get to see her again soon. With her working a full time job and a long-term boyfriend, we don't see much of each other nowadays.

Jennifer will be coming to visit this next week. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm feeling a lot better now, with just a little bit of a sore throat. Natalee should finish her antibiotics today. As long as Matt doesn't get sick in the meantime, we should all be well and ready for whatever when Jenn gets here, so at least one of my sisters won't have to play nursemaid during their visit.

Natalee's latest discovery has been her belly button. She walks around with her finger poked into it and will point towards yours, saying "Wazat?" even when your shirt's down. She points to everything and asks "Wazat?" It's a lot worse when she doesn't point and asks. Then we have to name everything within sight and hearing. And right now she's sitting on a bottle of nail polish, wiggling her butt, and saying "weeee, weeee, weeee." She's a stinker, but she's fun, and she's mine. :)

Strep Throat

Natalee has strep throat. Urgh. She started acting clingy and quiet Wednesday night, which tipped Matt off that something was wrong. She had a 102+ fever that lasted through to the next morning. So I cancelled a follow-up checkup with my doctor and got Natalee in to the pediatrician's yesterday. She's been acting fine for the most part, just cranky, but her throat swab came back positive for strep. Poor baby. She's on antibiotics now, and her fever's been gone for the most part, but she's still got a sore throat. The only way I know something is wrong is that she's so fussy, and she can't say what's bothering her. It's just a matter of dosing her with amoxicillin and painkillers when she gets really fussy and keeping her home and away from other kids. The keeping her home part stinks right now because this weekend our town is throwing a big carnival to celebrate it's 100th anniversary...and the carnival is just halfway down the street from us. She would have got a kick out of going to that. Oh well.

Rain, rain, go away...

Well, we got back last night from visiting Matt's parents, and friends and family in the Fort Worth area. And it rained. And rained. And rained a great deal more. The whole trip, from the drive up there to the drive home. You get rather inured to rain down here in Southeast Texas, but lots of rain in North Texas is pretty unheard of. We started feeling as if the rain had decided to visit along with us.

Matt's mother is doing pretty well, all things considered. The chemotherapy is no picnic, but thankfully she's been able to take some medication that helps her deal with the worse side effects of the chemo, though even those weren't helping as much as time went along and the chemo started setting in. But we had a really good visit with both Mom and Dad, and Natalee got to charm Grandpa McMullen again. We also got to spend Saturday evening with Brent, Rachel, Pam, Eric, Daniel, Gabby, and kids at Pam's house, visiting, playing with the kids, eating lasagna and cobbler, and gleefully teasing each other, especially during the Wii games. It's a lot of fun when we can all get together. With Rachel and the boys back in Azle and Brent possibly in and out, we might be able to get together more often. *fingers crossed*

I also got to spend some time Sunday with Stephanie while Natalee was napping and Jay watched the boys. (Many thanks to Jay for giving his wife the heave-ho for a few hours of girl time) We ate Chinese food, ogled things we really didn't need, didn't have the extra money for, but played with and pretended we were going to buy, nonetheless. Afterwords, we consoled ourselves with some really fantastic ice cream and were very bad Mormon girls and gossiped about everyone we knew from church - how so and so was doing, where so and so was at, how many kids so and so has, remember him, what happened to her, etc. Good times.

We got to see Dad, Brenda, and my sisters as well. It's always a pleasure when I get to see my family. I'm so proud of the young women my sisters have become, from watching cartoons incessantly, running when it was time to brush their hair, and sneaking into bed with me in the middle of the night, to such poised, beautiful, creative, funny people. It amazes me that they've grown into two of the people I most want to spend my time with. Jennifer's been doing really well with her school work - she was selected for a very special honor group that visited TCU not long ago to discuss their college prospects and try out dorm life. Matt and I are very happy (dare I say it, smug?) that she still plans on attending A&M after high school. And Kara has been working her rear end off to put a new engine in her car, no mean feat. We're all three looking forward to seeing them both in June. Natalee was even looking for the girls afterwards, trying to see around Matt when he loaded her into the car. It was also really good to see Dad and Brenda. Dad is pretty much what you would wish for in a parent as an adult - always there to listen, encourage you, share what's going on with the rest of the family, and help you when you need him. I've grown to appreciate him a lot more as I've gotten older. And Brenda complements Dad perfectly, and has always been a fun and understanding stepmom. Plus she's been putting up with the girls' antics for years now. (Kudos to Brenda!)

Anyways, I'm babbling since it was so good to see everyone. The only ones we didn't visit were my grandparents and Aunt Kim and family. Since they live in Azle, we usually always see them, so I didn't feel terrible trying to set time to visit others we hadn't seen in quite a while. We made it home safely, hurrah!, and we stopped in West at the Czech Stop on the way back, so we got to enjoy very, very good food despite the awful weather. The cream cheese kolaches are divine! Everyone in the state of Texas should at some point try to make their way to West and sample the really fantastic Czech foods.

Until next time, TTFN and all that.