Where is this going?

I have no idea what is going on with the health insurance debate.

What I do know is that this family has to have affordable health insurance! Without it our whole dynamics change and it might even mean that Shawna goes back to work and can no longer stay at home with the kids.

The upcoming months will be interesting and we'll just have to see what happens!

Alone!

Well, the girls have left to go on a hike and I'm left with a quiet and empty house.

I must admit it's kind of AWESOME!

I spent the first hour or so cleaning. I'm sure that when everyone comes back home all of my hard work will be undone.

Now I have no idea what to do with myself...

Getting older.

I feel my body aching each time I walk up the stairs.

In fact, the other day I looked at the mirror and besides the gray hairs that I try to pick out daily I'm realizing that my face and hands are aging.

If I were smart about it ... I'd look into getting the best wrinkle cream on the market!

However, looking at all of my other friends that have kids I think it might just be part of being a mom!

Swimming with snakes!

Yes, that's what happened this weekend!

We went to Taughannock and as we were getting out of the water we noticed that a water snake was swimming up to the swimming area.

To say the least, we got the kids out of the water.

However, I think the whole experience has tainted Shawna's lake swimming for life! She is refusing to ever go swimming again in non-pool water.

Damn.

My poor skin!

This past weekend my skin has been so irritated. I don't know if it's the lake water, washing my hands too much, or the combination.

I called my doctor last week and asked for her to call in medication. Of course, she didn't.

To think that I was able to avoid acne treatments when I was a kid and now I've been stricken with bad skin now just stinks!

Back to the grind...

It was so hard to leave the house this morning.

Emmy was being so cute and after a really great weekend I just wanted to crawl back into bed and hang out with my girls.

I really should take a sick day soon...

Here we go again!

Shawna's been on a few diets over the years. The one that really worked was when she used prescription medication and worked with a doctor.

A few weeks ago she went to the doctor to get the hook up and it appears that her insurance doesn't pay for the costly drugs.

So, I think the best thing might be for us to buy weight loss supplements and see what some over-the-counter supplements do!d

Heck, it's worth a shot. God knows we can't flip the bill for a bottle of $245.00 prescription meds!

So much for this weekend....

this weekend I was able to weed the garden AND buy the much needed shelf supplies.

I'm EXHAUSTED! I feel like my sleep is not restful and by 5:30am I wake up almost as exhausted as I woke up.

Maybe next weekend I'll be able to finish some of the things I need to do before leaving for my brother's wedding.

So much to do...so little time.

Plus, I just want to play with the kiddos!

Must lose weight.

So now that we're back from vacation I need to think serious about shedding these pounds.

My brother's wedding is in a few weeks and I have to fit into some suits that I bought months ago. I'm going to get them altered over the next few days but it'd be great if I could drop five pounds or so.

Maybe I'll think about a top diet pill to help me trim down.

Of course, I need to lose around 15 pounds or so and there's no better time to do that than now! And the summer of course.

Dare I say it?

It's back to the grind tomorrow.

We had a fabulous vacation and I feel like it was a perfect combination of rest, relaxation, family time, and good food!

I also like that we were able to leave early Friday and draw out the drive by staying with Rachel Friday night.

Let's just say that the ride back today was HELL! Emmy was crazy bad and then Graem started up. At one point they were both crying and we threatened to leave them both on the side of the road.

Back to work?

It's hard to believe that Shawna has been out of work and home with the kids for over four years now! WOW!

I'm not sure that she'll look at jobs in health care when she's ready to go back to work.

We've talked a little bit about it and it might make sense for her to get a job with the school district. That way she can have the summers off and all of the school holidays and hours.

Did I mention the awesome benefits?

With the budget cuts hitting education who knows what the future holds.

Me so tired.

I swear Friday comes around and I'm POOPED~!

We have a dvd to watch tonight but I don't know if I can even stay awake! It's been a long week and I have to wake up early tomorrow to get things ready for workers to help me with the deck.

SO TIRED.

Years ago...

When we were in our early 20's we thought that we would love living in San Francisco. So we both went out there, got jobs, found housing, and started looking for cross country movers.

We figured it'd cost us around $4,000 to move, and then we'd also have to pay $2,000 a month to live in a studio apartment in Berkeley. We were game for it.

Things then took a turn for the worst. The dot com industry flopped, my job got rescended.

So we decided to take a detour. We always knew we'd end up back in Ithaca.

We bought a house, started having babies, and the rest is history!

Another one?

So we keep going back and forth on whether we want to have another kid. We both really love the time we get to spend with the girls. If money were no problem I would totally be on board.

Then there's the whole trying to conceive issue. I can't get into the situation we were in last time. We were both depressed, our relationship was on the rocks, we spent tons of money...

Maybe I'd consider it if it were covered under insurance and if the kids were a little bit older.

HOWEVER, Shawna makes some pretty bad babies and I'm not sure I could deal with another Emmy!

Doctor's appointment...

Next week Shawna is going to the doctor to try and get some diet pills. She was on them before and lost around 75 pounds.

Now that she's had the baby and getting to the point of weaning little Emmy she's thinking about starting back up on the pills to lose the unwanted weight.

It's always such a battle.

Why can't we all be blessed with very active metabolisms?

This 7:30 bedtime thing...

totally friggin' rocks.

I swear. I feel like a dumbass for not listening to other parents and putting our kids to bed earlier!

We have a decent routine these days and it's nice to have our evenings to ourselves. Of course, most of my nights have been spent doing the damn deck...

Stay with me...

It's amazing to see all of the places that have AED 's. That's short for Automated External Defibrillators.

The last time I went to Cornell I noticed that they had one located on every floor of the building. I'm sure that staff probably has to go to training on how to use the machines.

Since Shawna has a pacemaker I know she's covered! But it's nice to know that more and more places are spending the extra money to be safe and possibly save a life.

The biter.

So it looks like we have a baby biter on our hands.

Emmy has started biting Shawna after nursing. The other day I was holding her and she bit my arm and left a bruise.

We've started putting her in timeout but I'm not sure that's doing a thing. After she bites us she gets a smile and thinks it's hilarious.

I have a feeling that nursing is going to be shortlived...

Disney here we come!

In October we're heading to the west coast to see Alex and Dominic. While we're out there we figure we'll take the kids to Disneyland. Dominic gets free tickets and I think Graem is at the age where she'll appreciate the scary characters and enjoy the rides.

When Emmy gets older we'll have to check out Orlando vacations! You can get a great deal flying out of Syracuse and there's nothing better than a sunny place in the middle of an upstate New York winter!

Vacation...

is right around the corner.

The countdown has begun....14 days.

This time two Fridays from now we'll be in Boston drinking something delicious and eating tasty ethnic food.

Or we'll be in complete hell with two overly tired children and a dumpy hotel.

The possibilities are endless, really....