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…and so little time!

I’ve spent my weekend being non-productive, but in a good way. I took the dog to the vet Friday evening for an aural hematoma she developed due to an ear infection. They drained it and $200 later I was back on my way home to begin my weekend. So what did I do with all my free time? I’ve spent a lot of it helping the dog. She’s got her head in one of those lampshade things (it’s called an Elizabethian collar) and it has to be taken off for her to eat and drink. She’s generally miserable the rest of the time wearing it, but she can’t be trusted with it off. We’ve got to be sure her ear remains bandaged for two whole weeks!

Saturday night we went to a local ethnic festival for a night of family fun. Somewhere along the way the “ethnic” portion of said festival was stuck in one food tent, with the nations of the world being represented by desserts and sandwiches. The rest of the event was a maze of rides and chain smoking carnies. Ahh…people watching at it’s best! We ran into a few people we knew and generally enjoyed ourselves. We also noticed the temperature dropped by at least 10 degrees while we were there, so once we arrived home the a/c went off and the windows opened up.

This morning and well, most of this afternoon I got caught up on my DVR. I watched last weeks The Amazing Race (still not hooked or impressed), this week’s episode of Life on Mars (loving it), two episodes of Dexter (on the edge of my seat), and most of the first disc of Season 1 of Mad Men. I’m feeling very accomplished right now.

We’re in the middle of a huge IzeaFest scavenger hunt, and posting this picture is worth some points:

This weekend was exhausting.

We had a birthday party for my 11 year old here at the house, and we rented a water slide similar to the one we had for my son’s party 2 years ago. This water slide was just as big but it was a double slide, so the kids raced each other down all day long. My kids started on the slide at noon, the party ran from one through four, and as of 7pm Saturday night they were STILL on it. I had three very sore children on Sunday from all of that bouncing and sliding.

On top of that, the girls are sick. I ran them to the doctor just in case they had my double ear infection, but so far it’s just viral. They’re good little patients who take their medicine without being asked and they don’t whine (too) much.

The penicillian penicilian pennicilian antibiotics haven’t started working yet.

I had high hopes of waking this morning and feeling better, but I feel worse than I did all week. Better to save the bad stuff for the weekend when it doesn’t require time off work, I suppose. I slept late and haven’t done much since then except take a shower and change into fresh jammies. Jim is on his way home with the kids now, with the promise of a fresh bagel for my dinner.

I started feeling sick 2 days ago and toughed it out at work, despite being 99.9% sure I had a raging ear infection. My doctor has oh-so-convenient office hours (not!) so today after work I went to the walk in clinic inside a local grocery store. No waiting, only a $20 co-pay, and I can get my prescription filled in the store. No missing work either! The nurse practitioner confirmed what I already knew – a red throat, a double ear infection, and all sorts of congestion in my head. I lucked out and my prescription was for one of the antibiotics the store gives away for free, so the whole thing only cost me a co-pay. Best of all, at this particular chain of clinics, if you don’t feel better in 48 hours, you can come back and get seen again for free. Or, come back anytime within 7 days for half price!

With deals like that, why bother taking time off work to visit my primary care physician for the small stuff?

With the price of gas hovering between $3.50 and $4.00, I’m all about saving money at the pump and anywhere else I can. I’ve been carpooling and I’ve been planning my trips better so as not waste time criss-crossing town. I’ve also started using coupons again, and I limit myself to eating only one lunch out per week. (The other 4 workdays I eat leftovers or a frozen dinner that I buy on sale for less than $3.)

The things I’m doing anyone can do, but I also know there are folks who have bigger things to worry about than lunches and the cost of gas. My friend Jenn just blogged about her efforts to get out of debt sooner rather than later, and although she’s making strides on her debt, it’s not going as quickly as she’d like it to. Other friends have gone from paying more than the minimums on their credit cards to just the minimum due to unexpected expenses sucking up their monthly budget. So what’s a struggling unsuccessful saver to do? Debt Relief is one option that we used in the past with much success. We were able to lower our interest rate on our credit cards and consolidate all of our small payments into a single monthly payment. Instead of paying on our debt for years, we had it paid off in just a few years – gone for good – and it didn’t require bankruptcy or a negative entry on our credit reports. Freedom Debt Relief in particular is similar to what we did, and it can cut your interest rates in half overnight.

The biggest thing we learned is not too delay – the sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll be out of debt for good!

You may recall me posting last year about the Alzheimer’s Association Memory Walk® last year in October. I know, I know, I’m always blathering on about some walk or cause that’s important to me. I’ve been walking for breast cancer for three years now, and I got involved in pancreatic cancer walks through my sister, and I’m the heart walk team captain at work. So why is the Alzheimer’s walk important to me? As I’ve mentioned here before, my grandfather had Alzheimer’s. He lived to be a ripe old age before we really saw the effects of the disease, but others aren’t so lucky. Remember Meredith Grey’s mother on Grey’s Anatomy? She was only in her 50′s…more often than you think, Alzheimer’s affects people who are necessarily senior citizens. Even worse, researchers aren’t sure what causes Alzheimer’s disease or how to cure it. It’s sad and frustrating to have a family member lose his or her memory day by day, and it’s hard for spouses and children and family to live with and love someone who doesn’t know them anymore.

If Alzheimer’s disease has touched your life, please consider joining the
Alzheimer’s Memory Walk as a team captain or walker. This walk is the nation’s largest event to raise awareness and funds, and the money is used to care for Alzheimer’s patients, support families, and badly needed research. The 2-3 mile walk won’t be hard, so recruit your family and friends to join the cause and do what they can do to help fund research for Alzheimer’s.

I’m home today, thanks to Tropical Storm Fay. All of the counties surrounding Tampa Bay announced they’d be canceling school today. For some kids, today was to be the first day of school…my kids are happy to be at home! The weather actually isn’t bad at all, but there was no way of knowing what it would be like when I woke up this morning. I called the Emergency Info line for work and was told it would be business as usual, but that employees were also free to stay at home. With the kids here, and it being such a long drive, I decided this was the place for me.

I don’t even think we’ll get any rain tonight, unless the storm swings back over to this coast. She’s not letting up just yet though – even over land she’s still at 65 MPH.