The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

The more days that go between blog posts, the harder it is for me to decide what on earth to write about. So how about a quick jumbled mess of a post to catch you all up, aye? Cool.

- I finally saw a doctor about my hands, and the prognosis is: pretty much broken. The doctor is a family doc with a background in dermatology, but even he had to get out his book of scary diseases to see if he could find an answer. We are leaning between this and this, (don’t click if weird skin issues gross you out. My hands are NOT as bad as these photos!) with some blood work to rule out anything else. Either way, my hands are not bad enough to warrant the treatments (immune suppressant therapy, experimental nasty drugs) so I just get to be the girl with the itchy swollen hands I guess. My hands are actually totally fine today, for the first time in months, other than peeling from all the swelling. It’s hot.

- My sister and her boys are still here, and we all scratchy-throat sick. I like to blame Tom, since his job involves breathing the same air as 236736 travelers every day, so maybe we have SARS. Or a cold. Either way, sick kids = crabby kids, and that equals lots of TV. Sanity > parent of the year award.

- Tom and I tried to convince Chance yesterday that she wanted to stay forever. The girls are loving having their cousins here, I like knowing I am not alone with my angry little dictators all day, and besides, they are just fun people to be around. She scoffed, and reminded us that her very viking-esque husband would come looking for her eventually. That and her boys are slowly driving her insane while she is solo-parenting them, so yeah. They are leaving on the 5th, and hopefully moving a state or two closer, though still a multiple day drive.

- Speaking of driving, the Portland trip was great, though rushed. The main reason we went down was for a surprise celebration party for my Mum. I haven’t written a lot about my other family on the blog, mostly because I know it is weird to post about other people’s lives in a public space, but let it be known: This woman was worth driving 800 miles in two days with a sleep deprived toddler and a 6 month old. More than worth it. I’m so glad we were able to be there, and it makes me wish I would justify going down more often.

- Tom has another job opportunity on the horizon that we are trying not to invest ourselves in, even though it would be so very ideal for us. Not only would it make it possible for us to pay all of our bills, but also put some money away (wonder of wonders!) Unless something comes though in the next 3 or so months, my going back to work at least part time is almost inevitable. Think happy thoughts about the job.

- Our anniversary was wonderful. We ended up putting off the sans-kids date until a night that Tom could stay awake past 7pm, which worked out since there was a sunset concert that night up at a local winery. It was nice to get out without the kids, and even better just to have time to focus on each other. We’ve packed a lot of “focusing on little people” into the last 3 years - we have to remind ourselves to spread some of that attention around. Alice was not a huge fan of the bottle, but we were just a few miles away, so when Chance called and Alice was shrieking in the background, the boobs were able to come to the rescue.

Picture post later - both the girls are sleeping right now, which means it’s time for me to have ice cream and coffee and not have anyone begging or scalding themselves.