Back Again

      So I disappeared there for a bit.  Last weekend we drove up to VA to do some minor renovations on our house up there.  Well, MacGyver did renovations.  He starting installing the bookcases to convert a storage room into a library.  The changes MacGyver has made to our house so far have been amazing.  I love our house.  I loved it when we first found it, and I have loved it since, but one thing was always clear in my mind:  The whole thing needed to be redecorated.  Badly.  It looked like the interior design had been done by an 80 year old mexican lady (NOT that I have a problem with 80 year old mexicans, I just don't tend to have the same taste in decor).  There was so much baby blue I wanted to vomit.  I am NOT a fan of baby blue.

       The only picture I currently have handy to demonstrate is this one from Punky's 7th birthday:

      The colors aren't all that clear, but you get the general idea.  The wall is baby blue and there is the atrocious hand painted boarder with purple, pink, green, and yellow, and all these flowers.  This is the kitchen wall.  The faces of the cabinets were painted the same as this border.  It was aweful.  I almost feel bad for saying that because someone obviously put a lot of work into it, but really.  Ick.  And it wasn't the only room with such "touches."  The master bathroom had a hand painted tree that looked like something out of Whinnie the Poo and included the same aweful colors as this border.  And it had a bird house nailed to it - to a tree painted on the wall.

      The room that MacGyver is now converting into a library had what I can only assume was supposed to be a forest sponge painted on the wall, but it was an epic fail.  Pastel colors, and baby blue in particular, were everywhere.

      After we had the unfortunate pipe burst incident last year, MacGvyer chose to redo the kitchen himself instead of having the insurance company contractors do it so that he knew it would be exactly right.  We wanted something warm, rich, and maybe vaguely Tuscan feeling.  And holy cow did he do an amazing job:

What is that built into the island?  Oh, that's right.  It's a wine cooler!

      These cruddy cell phone pictures don't even begin to capture how AWESOME our kitchen is now.  New tile floors, tile countertops, dark wood cabinets, gorgeous copper backsplash.  It is just perfect.  Even the new pot rack and wine cooler in the island and the warm textrured paint.  One of these days, I'll have to post some better pictures of this house.

      We also redid the bedroom in a gorgeous dark red.  The whole upstairs got beautiful dark wood floors.  We did the Master Bath in a dark slate grey with stone accents and an opulescent shower curtain that made the whole thing feel like a waterfall - with plants all along the ceiling.  Sadly, this was destroyed when the pipe burst and the contractors couldn't put it back the way it was.  But I'm not worried, it won't take MacGyver long to put it right.

      So we went to VA for the weekend.  We stayed in a nice hotel with a pool and buffet breakfast and all sorts of nice amenities.  It was a really lovely, relaxing weekend of just hanging out and bonding with my family.  Plus, I picked up a couple of much needed new tops on clearance.

      With super long drives on either end of the trip, MacGyver and I got to enjoy some fun long, rambling conversations and caffeine induced giggles.

      The downside is that, for some reason I have yet to identify, long drives have always just massacred my immune system.  So within hours of getting home, I could feel it.  That tingling in the throat, in the ears, the little itch that says "this is going to suck tomorrow."

      And it did.  Tuesday wasn't so bad, but it got worse Wednesday.  Not so bad that I was completely dysfunctional.  For better or for worse, I'm not the type of person to let sickness turn me into a sniveling mess on the couch unless it reaches a point where I am physically unable to move.  I wasn't unable to move, I was just very uncomfortable.  I took part of the day off Thrusday, and thanks to having the best, most considerate husband in the world, I didn't have to worry about dinner or the dishes or any other housework the whole time I was sick.

      Today, I'm feeling better.  Still a little head and throat achy, but nothing too serious.  Back at work playing catch up.  Being sick sucks, and it makes my brain all muddled, which I hate.  But it was worth it for the lovely weekend we had.

      One day, I'll do a post with much better before and after pictures of the various rooms of the house.  It is so beautiful now.

Psychosomatic Food Poisoning

      If you've been anywhere in the vacinity of my blog (or me) in the last week and a half, you know that last Friday afternoon could not come fast enough.  The pistol range went great, but the rifle range was just one effing debacle after another.  And you know what?  Come Friday afternoon I found out they didn't even have an EFFING score for me!  WTF?!?  Errrrg.  Though, it's probably for the best.  Trying to qualify on an M4, without BZOing, after spending a week snapping in on the M16 wasn't exactly ideal for my marksmanship.

       But Friday afternoon finally came, and I was off like a shot.  Spent a little time chilling at home, then my amazing husband took me out for a "Range is over" celebration dinner at my favorite local Thai restaurant.  They have the most amazing brown wild organic jasmine rice.  Mmmmm . . .   The Gewürztraminer tasted more like a sweet Chard or a dry Riesling, but it was still pretty darn good.  Overall, an amazing dinner.

      Then it was home for some family movie time, Canadian Bacon style.  MacGyver and Punky indulged in a big bowl of air popped popcorn drenched in butter and covered in mac n' cheese powdered cheese.  Gag.  This is something they used to eat all the time before the food Nazi put the smack down they became a little more health conscious.  These days, it's a once in a great while still utterly disgusting treat.  I suspect that this is to blame for what ensued Saturday night.

      Saturday was shaping up to be a wonderful day.  MacGyver got up with Flintsone, and I got to sleep in until 10:30 (!!!), when I was awoken to a delicious breakfast in bed (egg - from our chickens - and cheese on a croissant with sauteed organic peppers), AND MacGyver put on an episode of Xena for me to watch while I ate.  He even made coffee!  We've been getting fancy with the grind your own coffee at home thing (Fair Trade organic, of course).  Honestly, I think it's a waste of time and I don't think I'm nearly fancy enough to be drinking home ground coffee, but it certainly is yummy. 

      After that, we wondered around the Water Festival downtown for a while, which is always a good time, hit up the local coffee shop, then headed home for a delicious lunch.  We had keilbasas from a local, humane farm (with sourkrut, relish, mustard, ketchup - all the good stuff), home made vegan broccoli and cabbage cole slaw, sweet potatoe fries, and organic vegetarian baked beans.  Far from the healthiest lunch on the planet, but it was a weekend.

      Then we headed out for an evening at the bookstore (squee!).  I was about half way through my giant stack of books when MacGyver said his stomach was starting to bother him.  It continued to get worse.  After a while, Punky came and told me her stomach hurt.  Oh, goody.  I could see where this was going.

      We packed up and headed home, having to stop once on the way.

      It was not a good night.  Poor MacGyver was very, very ill.  So was Punky.  I was fine.  At least, I thought I was fine for the first few hours.  Then Punky threw up in her bed.  Then on the carpet.  And I was running back and forth between the two of them between the two bathrooms trying to help in any way I could and I was so hot.  And then I was frozen.  And my head hurt.  And my stomach hurt.  And I thought, "who the heck is going to take care of Flintstone if I go down with this illness, too?" 

      Any mom will tell you, when the rest of the family is sick, even if you have the same symptoms, you don't get to be sick.  At least, that's the way it works in our house.  And, of course, I wasn't nearly as bad as they were.

       I'm actually starting to wonder if the sickness on my part was mostly in my head.  Granted, the pain in my head and stomach were very real, and I was walking around the house all bundled up - even wearing a scarf, in July, but still.

       By Sunday morning, they were both quite a bit better, though still feeling like heck.  I stocked up on Pedialyte, Vitamin Water, and pepto, and made a big pot of home made vegetable soup - the smell of which made me nauseous. 

      I still can't figure out exactly what it was.  It certainly seemed like food poisoning, but the only thing that MacGyver and Punky ate that I didn't was that popcorn.  And I'm not sure how it could be food poisoning with them both very sick and me just a little sick.  Maybe it was some sort of 24 hour bug that hit them harder because of the differences in our immune systems?  Or perhaps they had food poisoning and I had psychosomatic food poisoning? ha.

       Even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, though.  As a family, we rarely get sick.  Almost never.  We eat a very healthy diet; we stay fit; and we don't smoke.  In my experience, families of smokers get sick a lot more often.  I get sick once, maybe twice a year, max.  Sure, I gripe about headaches and whatnot here and there, and will occasionally push myself so hard for a while that it will physically wipe me out, but I rarely get truely sick.  Flintstone hasn't had a single serious sickness in his whole ten months (knock on wood).  We haven't had to take him to the Dr or urgent care for anything.  Hell, we've only had to take his temperature on a few occassions.  So I don't know what the heck hit us this weekend, but it wasn't pretty.

      Everyone is better today, though, and I leave you with some pictures.  One or two from this weekend, and a whole bunch from a couple weeks ago:

Off to the Water Festival.

My adorable boys.

Aveeno Plug

This kid LOVES the water.  Serious FishBaby

Punky, water queen.