The Good News First

The good news is that my EKG was normal. The bad news is that I had to have an EKG.

The whole family has been sick since we got back from vacation in January. Nothing major. But yesterday when I started having trouble breathing, I decided it was time for a doctor's visit. The doctor did the EKG to rule out heart trouble - thankfully!

The diagnosis: Pleurisy

What??? I thought pleurisy was one of the names they gave to unknown diseases in the middle ages. But apparently I was wrong.

This comes from webmd:

What is pleurisy?
Pleurisy is swelling (inflammation) of the thin layers of tissue (pleura) covering the lungs and the chest wall.

The outer layer of the pleura lines the inside of the chest wall, and the inner layer covers the lungs. The tiny space between the two layers is called the pleural cavity. This cavity normally contains a small amount of lubricating fluid that allows the two layers to slide over each other when you breathe.

When the pleura becomes inflamed, the layers rub together, causing chest pain. This is known as pleuritic pain.

Pleurisy is sometimes called pleuritis.

So - my doctor prescribed antibiotics, steroids, and cough syrup with codeine. Ahhh, codeine - sleep at last. ;-)

So, hopefully I am on the mend. My breathing has already gotten easier, which is a good sign. And I have a good excuse for sleeping in!

Happy Birthday to Me!

St. Patrick's Day is my birthday (hence the name Patti Jo).

The night before my birthday, Colter said, "Brett, come here." whisper, whisper, whisper

Brett said, "Dad, come here." whisper, whisper, whisper

Mom said, "If you really want to give me a birthday present, you'll let me sleep-in in the morning, and not have to wake up super early to have birthday breakfast cake (which you haven't made yet) with Dad before he goes to work."

Brett said, "How did you know what we were talking about, Mom?"

All you moms out there will just smirk with me. How did I know? I'm the Mom, that's how I know!

So, they did let me sleep in. And instead of birthday breakfast cake, Brett made me these blueberry pancakes:

They were "super yummm!"

In case you are wondering how old I am, I am this old:

Happy Birthday, Me! :)

PJ

Keeping the Girls Busy

Brett made us nachos for dinner last night. I don't remember what I was doing, but I heard her repeatedly saying stuff such as, "Get your hands off!" "Ooooh, YOU!" "Would you stop that!"

I wanted to see how she would handle it (either that or I was just being lazy), so I didn't interfere.

After a while it got quiet and I forgot about it.

I was uploading photos today, and found this:



THAT explains the quiet.

And I find it very funny that Brett stopped and found my camera to record her handiwork.

Hmmm... I wonder where she learned to bribe them with food (black beans) to keep them out of her hair? :D

PJ

Maple Syrup Festival

It's that time of year for another Jonas Family tradition - the Maple Syrup Festival. Really, the main reason we go is for the all-you-can-eat pancakes and waffles, smothered in strawberries, blueberries, REAL maple syrup, ice cream, whipped cream and chocolate chips. Yummmm..... It still makes my mouth water even though I had them a couple of hours ago.

We had an absolutely great day for it - 75 degrees and sunny. That part was good. The bad part was that last weekend was 30 degrees. Which meant that nobody went last weekend, and EVERYBODY went this weekend.

The result being that we had to wait in line about 2 hours for those pancakes and waffles. But that's ok, it was still worth it.

After stuffing ourselves, we walked around. Somebody there had this llama:

I thought Indigo was very brave to pet something that much bigger than she is.

Jade had a blast, but that's because she was with her Daddy:

All in all, we had a really nice time.

And then it was time to leave. And then this happened:

Yep, stuck.

While we waited for help to arrive, the boys used the time to climb the steep hill they had been eyeing all day:

After a short time we were rescued and I rewarded our Good Samaritan a bar of soap:

Finally we were able to drive home. Jade was a bit tired:

Lots of fun, food, sun, long lines, difficulties, laughter, and sleep. You can bet we'll be back next year!

PJ

Welcome Home, Jim

The soap business has grown to the point that we had to make a decision. Continue to grow it, or scale it back down. Since we love making soap and have had so much positive feedback, we've decided to grow the business. In order to do this, Jim had to cut down his hours at work. With his boss's approval and support (thanks, Jon!), Jim will only be working outside of the house 2 days a week.

Do you know what that means?

That means he will be home five days of the week! (See, I'm qualified to be a homeschooling mom).

Isn't that exciting?

But I also realize that there are going to be some challenges to having Jim home so much. The biggest one is the noise level. Jim doesn't do so well with loud, sustained noise. And in case you don't remember, I have 8 children. And they tend to be rather loud children. In fact one of my friends once told me that Hewitt did not inherit the "quiet gene".

But we do have a solution. It's these:

Those are earplugs. See how dirty they are? That's because we usually wear them outside when we mow the lawn. But Jim will often wear them in the house because... well, because it's just too loud!

Problem 1 - solved!

Another problem surfaced the other morning. It was actually Jim's first "work day" working from home. We slept in until about 8:00. At 8:00 I jumped out of bed and started running around getting everything done because we had people coming at 10:00. Jim (like the great husband he is) started washing all the dishes and doing other chores as well. About 9:30 I looked at him and asked him, "What's the matter? Why are you so grumpy? Aren't you glad to be home?"

He just looked at me with this dazed look and said, "I haven't eaten. I haven't had coffee. I usually get up at 5:00 am when it is nice and quiet and I slowly wake up."

Ok, so I'm going to have to make some adjustments. Not sure how to do that since I'd rather sleep in til 8:00, skip breakfast and run around than get up at 5:00. But I'm sure we'll figure something out.

I was actually trying to remember that this morning. Take it nice and easy, slow and relaxing. We were still in bed when the telephone rang.

Caller: "Hi, this is Charlestown Family Dentistry. Jim, Brett, Colter, and Hewitt were due here for their cleanings 15 minutes ago."

Me: "Uh, ok sorry, they'll be right there."

click.

Me: "JIM!! GET UP! YOU'VE GOT TO RUN, YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AT THE DENTIST FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO. MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!"

Poor Jim.

When he arrived home around 11:00, he still looked rather dazed.

I hope he can survive not working. :)

PJ

Disaster Girl

As the eighth child, Jade has a lot more freedom than her older siblings had at her age. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes that's bad.

Lately it's been bad.

The other day I was cleaning up and discovered this:



Do you know what that is?

That is the entire contents of my pocketbook in a garbage can. And unfortunately it is the garbage can that Indigo threw up in.

Lovely.

Here's all the stuff removed from the garbage and cleaned up:


There wasn't much doubt that this was the imp behind this event:


Why wasn't anyone watching her? Ummm... good question. Nobody took responsibility for dropping that ball (especially not me).

Oh well, she'll grow up eventually. And then she'll do even more damage like her older siblings. :D

PJ

Is That An Officer On My Front Porch?

Yes. That is a sheriff's deputy or a sargeant or a "police guy" as Hewitt would say.

Why is he on my front porch?

Well, he's smiling and I have time to take a picture, so you know it can't be too terrible.

Although I admit it is rather difficult taking a picture with handcuffs on. I'm just kidding, Mom, you can relax now.

He was here to take down a report. Unfortunately today someone decided it would be a good idea to steal our outgoing mail. And that outgoing mail included seven packages of soap that people had ordered. :(

So we spent part of the late afternoon talking with Mr. Police Guy and part of the afternoon repackaging soap (that will remain on the front porch until the postal worker gets here). It was a very frustrating thing to have happen. But I've said it before, I'll take this kind of trial (over cancer or kidnappings) anyday.

I have to wonder about the person who took it. Were they just bored teenagers? Or were they trying to make some money? I wonder what the guy/gal thought when they realized they had committed a federal offense for soap! They probably won't ever be caught, but at least we know to take precautions to protect our outbound packages.

And as a friend of mine said, "Sounds like they made a "clean" getaway!" :D

PJ

Updated to add: We knew the packages were stolen because we request a postal carrier pickup. The postal worker leaves a form that states how many packages were picked up. On this day, the postal worker picked up zero packages, even though we had set 7 out there. In addition, I sent Fletcher out to retrieve the bin that holds the packages - it was gone. Jim searched up and down our road hoping somebody had just dumped it, but nope!

The Water Bill

I just sat down to pay bills. I looked at the water bill and said to myself out loud, "Hmmm... wonder why the water bill is so high?"

Apparently Jim heard me and replied, "Because I filled up the humidifier while we went to the China Garden Buffet."

You what???

Apparently Jim set the humidifier in the sink and started filling it with purified water. He didn't realize Grandma was taking us out to eat at the China Garden Buffet. During the chaos that always occurs when we load all eight children into the car, he apparently forgot that he was filling the humidifier.

Good thing the sink was not plugged up!

PJ

New Soap Shelves

We've been needing to make new soap shelves to take to the various festivals and shows we do. It's been on our (rather lengthy) to do list for quite a while.

So we had them done in plenty of time, right?

Of course right.

Well, actually I mean no. Not unless you consider starting them 3 days before our big soap show to be "plenty of time".

Jim cut all the pieces in the barn/garage/workshop without incident (ok, maybe there were a few incidents, but all he will admit to are 2 broken router bits). Then he sanded down all the pieces.

Now it was my turn to stain the shelves. Not a problem. I had an entire day to get it done. I just needed to do the first coat early in the morning. Let it dry. Then do the second coat in the afternoon. Piece of cake.

Except for the fact that it was something like 10 degrees outside. Stain doesn't dry very well when it is 10 degrees.

So you know what that meant. That meant I had to stain them inside. Inside the house. Inside my house! And I had to do it with a cheerful attitude because the children were watching - which of course was much harder than the actual staining.

First thing I did was to send Colter after some tarps.

Cole: "Mom, there are no tarps."

Me: "What do you mean there aren't any tarps?"

Cole: "There aren't any."

Me: "Doesn't Dad have tarps somewhere?"

Cole: "Nope."

Me: "What about the tarps in the garden shed?"

Cole: "I can't reach those."

Me: "Of course you can - climb up there."

Cole: "They're full of dirt."

Me: "That's ok, shake it out outside."

Cole: "Mom, there are mice in them."

Me: "Mice? Ok, no tarps."

So - onto plan B - which involved the recycle bin.

The children had fun spreading every piece of paper we could find all over the floor. It looked like a tornado hit:

And of course I didn't make it clear that they were supposed to clean up the floor before they laid down all those papers So as you walked, you kept stepping (or tripping) on bumps under the newspaper.

Then proceeded the staining lessons. I had Brett, Cole, and Emery do the bulk of the work. As long as you don't look too closely it looks great.

Once they were stained, Jim put them all together. And tada! - new soap shelves! And we even had 12 hours to spare. :D

These are the risers that sit out front and hold the display soaps (I stained these):

Not a bad looking soap display. ;-) Now, if I can only remember to stain the next set on a warm, dry day!

PJ

Hard Work

We work our children (and ourselves) very hard around here. There is always lots to do - animals to feed, stalls to clean, gardens to weed, bread to bake, laundry to fold, dishes to wash, children to bathe, dirt to shovel, soap to bag, books to study, toilets to plunge, and... (well, you get the idea).

Because our children work hard, they're also really good at playing hard. There is always lots to do - trees to climb, bases to run, balls to hit, holes to dig, brothers to wrestle, Dad to tackle, bikes to ride, chickens to chase, arrows to shoot, ropes to jump, swings to swing, slides to slide, mud to sculpt, frisbees to throw, and... (well, you are getting the idea, right?)

All of this activity makes for some tired children. Jim has a bedtime saying, "If you aren't tired enough to sleep, you haven't worked hard enough." Needless to say, it's not usually a problem around our house.

There are many nights when the children go to bed and I'll go in 5 minutes later to tuck them in and they are already asleep. This happened the other night, only when I went in, I found Emery sleeping like this:

Now THAT is tired. :D

PJ

Teamwork

I love it when the children get along and cooperate. But I have to admit that I love it even MORE when their sharing leads to less housework.

So, in this instance, there was only one bowl to wash instead of two:

And here there is only one bed to make instead of two:

Hmmmm... maybe I'm on to something here. I wonder what else I can get them to combine? Probably hard to get them to wear the same clothes at the same time. But they can study the same school subjects at the same time.

I'll have to see what I can do about getting them to (someday) get married at the same time. That would save me a WHOLE lot of work! :)

PJ