Just a few things ...

Thanks for the craigslist idea on the piano Angie. Looks like I may have found one for only $150! :)

I have a new addiction called Pandora. Go check it out ... very cool!

Also, check out this etsy shop: laruart

Music

I've always loved music of all kinds and while growing up often immersed myself in playing my viola as a way to get away. I still play it occasionally but not as often as I wish. I really wish Lake City had a community orchestra but that is apparently a little much to ask for. When we lived in Texas I had an audition set up for the community orchestra there just before we had to move away. Being a violist I am almost guaranteed a spot in a community orchestra because there are so few of us so we are always needed. Except for somewhere like a college town (g'ville) because of the university competition. Anyhow, I missed my opportunity. Lately, as in at least for the past six months or so, I've had this intense urge to learn to play the piano. I've never had that much interest in it before. I've always enjoyed listening to the piano but now I really want to learn. And I want the boys to learn as well. It is also something a little more (okay a lot more) mainstream than the viola so my chances of finding a used piano and a piano teacher are probably pretty good, even in Lake City.

I have no idea why I'm even sharing this right now. It's been on my mind lately and so here it is. I was actually in Starbucks last week and saw a piano masters cd that I would have loved to purchase if we weren't on a "spend not an unnecessary penny plan" while we start our business and get out of debt. It just keeps popping up everywhere. My cousin Lindsay and I were talking on the plane on our way to CT a couple of weeks ago and she mentioned this thrift shop where she often sees used pianos and that she really wants to learn to play the piano. Maybe it's a sign that it needs to be my next musical endeavor. I've always been involved in music my whole life whether through instruments or dance and that's one thing that I've let slip away with our move to Lake City and then having kids. It's very important to me and something I definitely want to share with my children. I think the piano would be perfect and I even have a perfect spot for it now that we've rearranged some furniture with the addition of our new office.

Okay, enough rambling for one morning. :-)

Yay and Ugh!

Well in good news Brett fixed my gas gauge by unhooking the battery. He made a good point about all computers needing to be rebooted once in a while. Don't know if it will happen again or not. Guess we'll just wait and see. Maybe i'll get lucky and it will be a one time thing.

And then of course there is the not so good news ... we spent three hours at the after hours clinic in Gainesville with Houston last night. He has strep throat and a sinus infection. About an hour before the daycare called about him having a 103.3 degree temp I was telling someone that I could hardly believe we made it through an entire week of daycare without one of the boys getting sick. Guess I spoke too soon. So there goes all my Easter weekend visiting.

Yay!

We got our work authorization from the Florida Board of Professional Engineers!!! We're now an officially licensed engineering firm. :)

And just to blemish a good day a little bit ... the gas gauge in my pathfinder decided to stop working today. Nice, huh? So even though I just put 18.8 gallons of gas in it the thing tells me i'm completely empty. And Nissan can't get us in until Tuesday. Fun.

Happy Birthday Erika!

Today is my cousin Erika's birthday. My Uncle Ken that passed away last week is her dad. How much does that sucketh? Hope you manage to somehow still have a fairly decent birthday Ernie! And I hope your dad and grandpa are somewhere together totally living it up ... fishing or something. :)

A Good Day ... finally!

Successful root canal AND I finally got our website built and uploaded. I have two pages on the website that still need some work but at least the important info is up there. I'm an engineer so my grammer/spelling/whatever isn't the best so if you see something I need to fix, please let me know.

Crews Engineering Services

So much to blog about, so little time

Two Saturdays, two funerals ... so much sadness. I have a lot I want to blog about regarding the events in my family over the past two weeks but I don't have the time just yet. I haven't been home much lately so I have a lot to catch up on. I got back from Bradenton last night and have been working ever since. Hopefully I'll get caught up soon and will have some time to write about the things that have been weighing on my mind.

In good news, all that worry about starting a new business in a supposed recession was unnecessary. We have projects coming out of the woodwork around here. :) And I FINALLY found time to work on our website today so I should have it loaded before I go to bed tonight, maybe even earlier. YAY!!! FINALLY!!! Now that it's been posted all over on business cards and signs and t-shirts.

Root canal attempt number 3 is tomorrow at 9:15am. Please send good numbing vibes my way because I can use all the help I can get. I'm sure my body would really appreciate me being able to end the barrage of pain meds and antibiotics. And I'm really, really tired of being in pain. Let's not even mention what my stomach has been going through. Ugh! If the second endodontist can't get me numb tomorrow then we have to coordinate with an oral surgeon to put me under. And I don't do well when I'm put under. I can pretty much guarantee that I'll be puking for 48 hours or more after I wake up and be nauseous for a good week no matter how much anti-nausea medicine they give me. And I might even have trouble breathing when I come to. Fun, no? So I'll be there with my fingers and toes and knees crossed praying that this stupid tooth will go numb. I really, really, really don't want to feel the root of my tooth being drilled into for a third time. That just really sucks!

Well I hear the coffee pot beeping so my break is over. Back to work I go!

A Little Silver Lining

My cousin Lindsay and I met Tim Tebow in the Jacksonville airport last week. He walked right up to the US Airways counter that I was standing at and I looked up and about choked. Holy crap! That's Tim Tebow!!! We were right behind him in the security line so I asked him if he minded if we took a picture with him. Cool, huh? He was really nice about it too. Poor guy can't go anywhere in peace anymore. And of course, since I thought i'll be traveling all day and i'm going up for a funeral, why bother doing my hair or wearing makeup. Sooooo ... my hair is a frizzy mess but that's okay because I HAVE A PICTURE WITH ME AND TIM TEBOW! How freakin' cool is that? :)

I wanted to say "thank you" to all of my friends who have sent well-wishes my way. I have not had the time to reply to all of the messages and phone calls but I wanted to make sure you all know how much I appreciate your support. It really means a lot to me. In time, I will respond to each of you. I just don't have the time and/or energy yet. I'm heading to Bradenton this afternoon to be with my family and once again leaving the kids with my wonderful husband. I'm so fortunate to have a man that I can leave two young children with.

I'm so mentally exhausted and frustrated right now. I got a call on Sunday while I was in the airport that my Uncle Ken, also my godfather, had been hospitalized. If you read this regularly then you'll remember he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. Things were not looking good so I planned to drive down to say goodbye after my root canal the next day. So after not being able to sleep because of the pain after a loratab and about six advil as well as some children's ibuprofen (it was liquid so i thought it might kick start the meds) and crying myself through the night, I made it to my endodontist appointment, crying and exhausted.

Some background ... I had a root canal the week before on the tooth above this one which had a previous root canal only a year and four months before. Turns out the dentist that did the first root canal left a piece of a dental instrument in my tooth. That and he did not place the crown properly so it has been beating up on the tooth below it for over a year now. After the plane ride to Connecticut last Thursday my lower left tooth, jaw and ear were in extreme pain. I even had meds called in to a pharmacy up there. So the plane ride home on Sunday had me in tears. Went to the endodontist on Monday for her to fix the tooth and she could not get it numb. The tooth was so inflamed that she had everything but it numb. I was crying like a little baby. I actually felt her drill into my tooth!!!! It was a total nightmare. She filled the crown temporarily and sent me to the pharmacy to put me on Tylenol 3 with codene which prevents me from driving. So I was not able to make it to Bradenton to see my uncle. I went back to the endo this morning for round 2 of this root canal. Same problem, could not get it numb, feeling her drill into the root of my tooth.

So now i'm on round 4 of antibiotics plus alternating tylenol3 and ibuprofen every six hours and we are going to try again on tuesday in hopes that the tooth will have calmed a bit and they will be able to make it numb. If it doesn't work then we have to coordinate with an oral surgeon to put me under for the root canal.

And the worst part of it all? I got a phone call after my appointment today that my uncle passed away last night. I've never lost two family members in less than two weeks before. It's just awful.

Stacey M. Williams

There are some really messed up people in this world. I removed the links to the articles about my cousin's death because there are people who decided it would be a good idea to leave nasty comments to the articles. (not on this blog, but on the article websites) I wish the news organizations would not allow comments to be posted to articles like these. Our family is suffering enough as it is. I can't imagine how someone could decide to post such comments. I chose to instead, link to her obituary which highlights all the great things about Stacey. She was a beautiful person, both inside and out. She was extremely intelligent and very passionate about things that were important to her. The last months of her life were troubled and I truly believe that she would not have chosen to do this to her family if she were of sound mind, which she obviously was not. She was dealing with so much at the time of her death and the notes referred to in the articles as so definitely pointing to suicide were not so definite. In fact, there was only one note and it was very short and inconclusive at best. She was physically ill as well and we just don't know what happened.

I flew there last Thursday to be with my family. Stacey was laid to rest on Saturday and I flew back home on Sunday. It was an extremely difficult time yet felt so good to be with family. I could not do anything to remove the pain but was able to provide some comfort and support. It's times like these that make you realize just how important family is. Don't let life get in the way of visiting with and communicating with family. Life is just too short. We made a pact amongst us cousins that we will never go that long without seeing each other again.

Pattern Help

So I've been thinking of what I can do for my aunt. I think I want to knit her a prayer shawl. I'm going to look around on Ravelry when I get some time later tonight but in the mean time, if anyone has a suggestion for me i'm all ears. I've never knit a shawl before. I need it to be quick too. I'm thinking worsted weight in a lacey pattern that is easy to follow and where I don't have to keep looking at the pattern.

I'm having train nightmares ... I can only imagine what my aunt and cousins must be going through. I talked to another cousin last night and apparently she and her mom are having train nightmares too. If you read the news articles I linked to then you know that it wasn't an accident. I just can't even begin to make sense of this tragedy.

Help Save KNITTY GRITTY

Click here to sign petition.

I don't even know what to say right now. For some reason, I feel the need to blog this. I'm sure all my family knows by now so I feel like I can.

My cousin Stacey was hit and killed by a train last night in Connecticut. She was about to turn 40. The most unbelievable thing is that my cousin Carl, her brother, died about twelve years ago. You're not supposed to outlive your children but my Aunt Audrey, also my godmother, has buried two of her four children. My heart goes out to my Aunt and Stacey's brothers, Matt and Kevin.

Stacey was the oldest of all my cousins on my mom's side of the family. We have a really big family. There were 13 of us cousins. They grew up in Connecticut while the rest of us grew up in Florida but we saw them quite often. We went there, they came down, we went on vacations together. They often stayed with us when they made their trips to Florida. Stacey and I always bunked up when they stayed with us. I keep picturing the image of Stacey laying on her brother's coffin at his funeral. Ugh. My heart just aches right now. I can't believe my Aunt Audrey has to go through this again.

I wish I could do something. I hate the feeling of helplessness when somebody dies unexpectedly. Like you want to do whatever you can to fix it but you just can't. All I know to do is to go there and be with my family.

Yay! Happy Post!

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, it's a beautiful day for a neighbor ... oh wait, we don't live in a neighborhood ... oh well. ;) It IS however, a beautiful day outside. I'm slowly coming back to life and shaking that nasty flu bug. I'm a business owner along with my wonderful husband, and I worked in my PJ's today. Yay! Our new office is done, our computers are set up, we're well on our way to being organized and we have several official clients already. It's amazing what can happen in two weeks. Gotta love America. No matter what your political affiliation, your views on the war or the economy, the coming election, or anything else for that matter ... don't forget what a great place this is. Not everybody has the ability or the freedom to do what we have just done. It really is an amazing thing if you stop and think about it for a minute.

What? Huh? It's Wednesday?!?!?!

I don't have any idea what happened to the last several days. They are all a blur of flu yuckiness. I honestly don't think I have ever been so sick in my life. I managed to get off the couch for a few hours yesterday but didn't really do too much. Our power was out for a while in the afternoon due to the "Florida Blackout" that happened. I remember that but not much else.
I'm starting to feel among the living again ... slightly ... but don't have any energy. And then last night Houston got it ... he had a 106.4 degree fever! Holy crap! I almost had a panic attack when I read the thermometer. I called the after hours place and they talked me through what to do and said that high of a fever has been very common with this flu bug going around and that it was just his body fighting the virus and not to panic. She was very calming and reassuring. She said to alternate children's tylenol and children's motrin every four hours throughout the night. He's doing much better this morning and is actually up playing, surprisingly enough. I called his regular doctor this morning to get the tamiflu and the nurse said they've never seen so many people sick all at the same time in the 25 years she's been in the business.

And the fun continues ....

Yucky, yuck, yuck ...

Ya'll ... I feel like crap. I haven't been this sick in a very long time. In fact, I can only remember one other time in my adult life in which I have been this sick. And that was over ten years ago. I had Brody at the pediatrician on Thursday. Did you know they can do a nose swab test to see if you have the flu? Anyhow, he has Influenza Type A. She put him on Tamiflu and it has made a world of difference. She told me that if any of the rest of us come down with it, go to the doctor right away and get on Tamiflu within the first 24-48 hours. If you wait longer than that, it will not work. So I came down with it Friday night about 11pm. I spent Saturday in total misery on the couch with a 24-hour news channel on in the background. I heard at least three news stories about how bad the flu is this year and how the flu that's going around is different from the one the flu shot defends you from and that if you come down with the flu that you need to go to the doctor and get put on Tamiflu right away. Sooo ....

With Brody having the flu, I couldn't have Brett take me because someone had to stay here with him. I took a ton of different OTC meds trying to make myself feel well enough to drive. Finally around noon I got up and went to the walk-in clinic. Well the doc was going on lunch in 30 minutes and could not see anyone else until she got back. So again, back to the couch I went. Rinse and repeat. Got myself dosed up enough to drive around 5 and headed back. Waited an hour and a half to see her for her to refuse to give me Tamiflu. I was so upset. Instead she gave me a script for an antihistamine, cough medicine, and pain pills. I told her what the pediatrician said about the Tamiflu and how much of a difference it has made in Brody yet she still refused. She said no, this stuff will make you feel better. Didn't even do the nasal swab test for the flu. I was almost in tears. The doc and the news said if you don't get on Tamiflu right away, you may be sick for a full two weeks! I called a couple of people and ended up being talked into go to the ER. Ridiculous, no? What other option did I have on a Saturday night? Waiting until Monday to go see a regular doctor would have been too late to start the Tamiflu.

I haven't been the ER except for one other time that I can remember but have been there THREE times this week alone! I'm on a first-name basis with the doctor there. In other news, he said my dog bite is healing wonderfully. I told him what was going on and that I wanted a script for Tamiflu. He said that was a great idea and called it in to the pharmacy for me and sent me on my way. I got in and out of the ER with the script that I wanted in about half the time I spent at the walk-in clinic. Is it just me or is there something seriously wrong with this picture? So I ended up at the only pharmacy open that late with several other people that were at the ER with me. Ended up being there for way too long as well and by the time I left I was in bad shape. I had the chills so bad that I had the heater in my truck set on 80 degrees the whole way home and I was still freezing. I've had two doses of the Tamiflu so far and I already feel much better than I did yesterday.

And as if this wasn't enough, I was supposed to have a root canal tomorrow. I had to cancel my appointment last Monday because of the dog bite and now I have to cancel for tomorrow because of the flu. And I woke up this morning with the tooth underneath the root canal tooth throbbing in pain. It doesn't seem to matter what I do or take, this other tooth is absolutely killing me! This tooth actually showed the beginnings of an abscess when I went to the endodontist for an evaluation. I have two old root canals that need to be redone. $1250 a piece! And then one crown from a busted tooth when I was younger that is showing the beginnings of an abscess. This is the one that is killing me right now. As if I didn't feel bad enough from the flu, now my teeth are throbbing out of my head!

I feel as if I have upset the balance of the universe in some way. Probably due to all the anger and hurt I have held onto over the past two weeks. I truly believe unresolved anger manifests itself in illness. Disease = dis - ease. The most frustrating part is that I attempted to solve some things and was shut down and refused by another party involved in the whole situation. Ugh!

Well I think I have exhausted my energy for now. I'm going back to bed!

5 Years Ago Today

I would have included a picture of Brett if I had one on this computer. Maybe if I get some time i'll post more wedding pics later today. We're not having much of an anniversary today with everything going on. I might make some fondue tonight if I find time to go to the store. We'll just have to make up for it next year.

Ugh!

Well as if the dog bite and trip to the ER were not enough, I woke up this morning having an allergic reaction to the antibiotic they have me taking to prevent infection. I'm hoping the swelling in my hands goes down soon so that I do not have to have my wedding rings cut off. My hands and wrists and red and swollen. So that's one more antibiotic I can add to the list of the ones i'm allergic to. Fun stuff ya'll, fun stuff!

My face actually looks better than I expected it to. The bandage seems to be holding things together well so they can heal. I think the worst part is how sore my arm is from the tetanus shot. It feels like somebody punched me really hard. My chin and lip are a little sore but not too bad. It's hard to eat so it looks like i'll be on a mostly liquid diet while this heals. I tried to eat a salad last night and it didn't go so well. I made it through about a third of it before I gave up. I actually woke up yesterday before all this happened with some serious pain in my stomach. It went away with all the drugs they gave me at the ER but it is back today. Apparently feels like an ulcer or hernia from what i've been told. With all the stress and anger i've held over the past week I wouldn't be surprised. I'm definitely taking it as a sign to let it all go and get back to focusing on the positive. It hurts to be done so wrong by someone you really looked up to and cared about. I'm just going to have to let that part of things go and focus on the lessons learned from the whole situation. I've been thinking about that a lot over the past few days. Probably a blog post coming soon.

What a Day!

I spent a couple of hours in the emergency room today after being bitten in the face by a dog. (Not one of my dogs, by the way.) I have some pretty bad cuts on my chin, got a tetanus shot, pain pills and antibiotics. One of the cuts would have been stitched if it were not from a dog bite. Apparently they don't like to stitch animal bites because of infections. I just hope the scars aren't too bad. The ER nurse said as long as I put mederma on them after the wounds heal that the scars shouldn't be bad at all. I just hope she wasn't trying to make me feel better. I was in a bit of panic attack/shock mode at the time so she loaded me up with percocet and let it kick in before they would touch my face.

Brett and I were talking while we were at the ER and we decided that we should be done with bad things happening for a little while. They always come in threes and in one week we lost our jobs, our refrigerator died (nice extra expense with no income, huh?) and I was attacked by a dog. Yep, that should just about cover it for a while. Now that we got that all out of the way ... on to the positive ....

see more cute puppies and funny loldog pictures

Crews Engineering Services, LLC

I can officially let the cat out of the bag now. After much deliberating, some really late nights and some intense conversations ...

I introduce to you "Crews Engineering Services, LLC". Lake City's newest engineering firm. We haven't been getting much sleep but we sure have gotten a lot accomplished. I can't share it all with you just yet but I will soon. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and send lots of good vibes our way. It's going to be a rough few months but I know we can do it. We've already had so many great things come to us regarding this situation and we feel really good about it. So if you know anyone that needs some civil engineering done, send them our way. :)

In other news, we started Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University last night. Honestly a gift from God at this point in our life. I can't even begin to tell you how much this means and how much this is going to help us at this critical point in life. We've had several great supportive opportunities fall into our laps and have received great support from most of our friends and family. We already have our first business meeting set up and our home office is under construction. We hope to be fully operational within two weeks. And speaking of which ... back to work I go.

Bon Voyage, Atlantis!

Dyed Raw Fleece

Remember this?



Turned into this:



Then this:



And now this:



I love this yarn. Don't know how much I have but i'm sure it's enough to knit some lacey headband type thing. Any pattern suggestions anyone? I might look through some stitch dictionaries and come up with my own. Right after I finish that baby blanket, of course. ;)

And speaking of ...



It's coming along ... slowly but surely.

Quant

This:



Turned into this:



Approximately 96 yards. I used some left over dyes (bottles i had just a little bit of dye left in) and just did a random splashing of color. Turned out to have a lot more pink and purple than I had planned. Not exactly sure how that happened. Anyway, spun this with the thought of using it to knit this. It's a bit overspun so we'll see how it goes.

Delivery to Hanks Yesterday

I seemed to get a great response from this batch of yarn I dropped off at Hanks yesterday. Time to order some more blanks! :)

Here We Go Again!

Home again with sick kids for the fourth week in a row. They were fine, other than the cough that refuses to go away, until last night. We went to watch the super bowl with some friends and Houston fell asleep early (should have been a clue that he didn't feel good) and woke up part way through the game with a fever. Ugh! And again in the middle of the night. He's actually still sleeping right now at 9:30am which is odd. Brett and I have been talking about it and it seems that part, if not most, of the problem may in fact be our house. They haven't been to daycare or many places outside the house at all for the past few weeks and yet they are sick again. I've already disinfected the house a couple of times to get rid of the pink eye but it looks as if we need to do a thorough down-on-the-knees with buckets of bleach water scrubbing of the house and toys.

In other news, my sister-in-law had a baby girl this morning. 9 lbs 9 oz .... we sure do make 'em big around here. :) Between she and I, all five of our kids were over nine pounds at birth. We were hoping to go see her tonight but I may be stuck home with a sick kid.

Protecting Your Blog

I ran across a very interesting and informative article here about protecting your blog. If you blog, go check it out.

Two Sock Patterns I'm Drooling Over ...

Hedera and Mingus

Silly Quiz

You paid attention during 91% of high school!

85-100% You must be an autodidact, because American high schools don't get scores that high! Good show, old chap!

Do you deserve your high school diploma?
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