So last Friday night, the black plague…aka the “puke bug”…invaded our home.

Noah was up first.  Sick all night Friday and well into Saturday.  By Saturday evening, all was calm.

I kept the boys home from church on Sunday.  By Monday afternoon, I thought that the rest of us were in the clear.

How silly of me.

Monday afternoon, Isaac went down.  I soon followed.

It was u-g-l-y.

And I still ain’t right.  I woke up this morning with major vertigo and had to return to bed for three hours.  Just. freaky.

I feel like I’ve lost a week of my life.  I was literally in bed for 36 hours straight…from Monday evening until Wednesday afternoon.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been that sick.

So…that’s that.

Oh…here’s an interesting sidebar…

After hearing on the news that the norovirus is making the rounds, I googled the word yesterday afternoon to check on the incubation period on the thing.  (PRAYING that Doug continues to escape.)

A number of articles popped up…one of which immediately caught my eye.

Evidently, the norovirus has been responsible for several puke-fest outbreaks leading to restaurant closures over the years.  One of the restaurants that had to be shut down by a local health department several years ago has a most curious and evidently appropriate name.  The restaurant?  (wait for it…)

The Chuck-o-rama.

not. kidding.

And I’m just wondering here…

Who names their all you can eat buffet the “Chuck-o-rama”?!

just. gross.

anywho…

I have managed to keep up with most of the Olympics.  (Easy to do when you are lying on the couch praying for death to come quickly.)

How much does it rock this year?  Shaun White is a veritable freak show.  I could watch that guy do those crazy tricks all day.  And Lindsey Vonn and all those crazy downhill chickies, getting laid out all splat and jumping right back up to do it again?  Man…I’ve got nothin’ but love and respect.  Amazing.

Well…that’s all I’ve got for now.

I hope that everyone in your house is happy and healthy and that you all have a wonderful weekend…

So on Monday, Kris, Lori and I loaded the kids (minus Noah, who was at school) in the van and headed over to Tampa to spend the day at the Florida State Fair.

We had a great time.  We toured Cracker Country (where Isaac saw a fabulous model train display in the train depot), looked at a bunch of arts and crafts and did the midway thing.

One of the livestock tents was set up to cater to children, with lots of momma and baby animals.  At one end of the tent, a cow was giving birth.  They had some bleachers set up where you could sit and watch.  Thankfully, Isaac wasn’t interested in the cow and wanted to go see the chicks that were hatching.  I happily obliged as I figured that it would be infinitely easier to explain a chick coming out of an egg as opposed to a calf coming out of…

You know you’re touring with a pregnant lady when you are walking through the fairgrounds, spouting off all of the entertainment options for the day and all that she keeps saying in response to your efforts to make plans is “oooo…fried oreos.”  “oooo…fried butter.”  “ooooo….funnel cakes”.  “oooo….fried candy bars”.

I’m just sayin’.

I wasn’t feeling any of the fried sweet stuff.

My craving du jour was SALT and I mean lots of it.  So I picked up a big container of fair fries, doused them with vinegar and salt and poured ketchup all over them.

heaven.

Here’s a few pictures from our day…

So that was our Monday.

On Tuesday morning, Doug flew to Ohio for a gig, which was supposed to occur Tuesday night.

Because of the mean and nasty snow storm that blew through those parts Tuesday and Wednesday, the schedule changed at the last minute and the event ended up being rescheduled for last night (Wednesday).  Since the airlines are playing catch-up from the storm, the guys were stuck up there until late this afternoon.  Thankfully, the client sprang for first class tickets just to get them on a plane…otherwise they might not have made it home tonight.  So…for only the second time in their 16 year group history, the guys were snowed in at a gig.  Doug missed church tonight…(boo! big ugly snow storm)…but one of our leaders was ready and willing to step in and teach.

The boys have done really well while Doug has been gone…mostly because my parents have stepped in to help as they always do .  I knew that I had a challenge on my hands when a 24 hour gig suddenly expanded to 3 days, but my parents helped keep them busy and distracted.  Woo-hoo for that.

Well…that’s about it for our crazy week.

I hope that you are enjoying yours…

So I’m not sure that I’ve gone this long between postings since I started this little blog 2 1/2 years ago.

Time is flying and the days are a blur.  I truly cannot believe that 10 days have passed since I last sat down to write something.

Anywho…

Since I still have a stack of things on my agenda today, I’m going to activate my bullet function and do the list thing.

Here we go…

• We’re in the middle of a most exciting time in the life of our church.  We’ve been bursting at the seams during our second service, and now we’re about to add a full Children’s Ministry to the first service, which previously had none.  This will kick in February 21…just two weeks from now.  We’re going to shift our service times 30 minutes later to help make that early service easier for folks with kiddos to get to.  And we’re trying to finish the build-out of the back room in time for it all.  Whew.  It’s some crazy, busy stuff…but a total blast.
• God blew us away this week.  With our COBRA coverage expiring on March 20th, the church board asked me to begin to look for an insurance policy for our family.  After shopping for private policies 17 months ago…and spending untold hours applying and talking to different insurance companies…I learned that both Doug and Noah are uninsurable under any private policy.  Group coverage was…and forever will be (unless things change) their only option.  So after following a few leads from other Calvary Chapels, I contacted a company in California that writes policies for churches…and does a lot of business with Calvary Chapels.  When I made first contact with the company, I was discouraged to learn that their policies are medically underwritten…meaning that they might deny coverage for certain health conditions.  I was quite upfront with the representative…spelling out all of our medical history and Doug and Noah’s history of being denied for health and life insurance.  He very kindly told me to fill out the application anyway…to be as detailed as possible…and that they would look over it.  Imagine our shock and awe and THANKFULNESS when we found out a few days ago that they are offering our family a wonderful group policy with very competitive rates.  We are still waiting on the details to be finalized, but our new policy should kick well before our COBRA coverage expires.  Can I get a woo-hoo? God is GOOD.
• The above paragraph means that I actually can look forward to the end of my endometriosis/adenomyosis/JUST RIP IT ALL OUT saga.  Our new policy will be with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and guess who is in network with BC/BS?  Yep.  The endometriosis/laparoscopic supracervical hysterectomy specialist in Atlanta that I would like to go to.  How awesome is that?!  When the pain that I have been dealing with for so long woke me up at 5 o’clock this morning, I started smack talking the thing.  “Enjoy it now, you little freaky uterus”…said I.  “Your days are numbered”.  “You are going to get chopped up and yanked out through my belly button and you ain’t gonna bother me NO MORE”.  “HA”.
• I’m just sayin’.
• So have you heard about how gold prices are really high right now and how you can sell your gold at a jewelry shop or gold party or mail it in for cash?  Yeah, so have I.  I’ve thought about it, but didn’t move on it until my Mom told me how she went to a local jewelry shop and made over 300 bucks selling old scrap pieces of jewelry…most of it broken or missing the matching piece.  I went home and promptly dug out some of my old 80′s bling…a gold coin ring (?!) and a groovy gold bracelet.  I took it to the jeweler and he gave me $103 cash for the pieces.  Nice.  I’ll really miss that gold coin pimp ring, but I think that I can learn to live without it.
• I booked another camp week for Noah at the Halo Clinic.  My Mom, Noah and I will be going the last week of March to work with Erika.  Can’t wait.  Right now I’m reading the Boxcar Children with Noah and my Mom is studying the Middle Ages with him.  I’m still having a hard time figuring out how to get him to spell for me, but he is nailing it on the comprehension end of it all.  So I guess it’s just a matter of time.

Well…there’s lots more, but I really need to keep moving.

Ya’ll have a great weekend, and hopefully it won’t be another 15 days before I’m back here again…