Yard cleanup, Leprechaun Dash and My Lips

I was recently able to get some more yard work done on my own. It's nice to have Milo out there with me to keep me company. I did some deeper cleaning with getting rid of the leaves along the back fence as well as trimming branches from the grape vine. I also pulled a bunch of vines out the backyard neighbor's trees that are right by the fence. It bugged me last year when I discovered that the vines were growing up into the trees. Now was a good time to do it since there's no leaves or buds yet. I got a bunch but not all because I couldn't reach. I also started cleaning up another flowerbed but got too tired before I could finish.

The pine needles and small branches were bugging me in the yard but I didn't want to mow them up because I didn't want the branches and pine cones to damage the blades. I went around the yard and raked up little piles.

By the time I was done making piles, I counted 31! I was tired and decided I needed my two boys to come help. Curtis was working on another project. Jack's friend, Luke, was over and he helped also. It made such a difference to have them help.

After the boys left I went to another side of the yard and got a few more pine needles and cones raked up. I went ahead and scooped them up myself. I cleaned this flowerbed out pretty well.

This was done on the same day I trimmed and pulled branches out. I was pretty tired and didn't get to finish.

I got a full garbage can and I haven't even disposed of all of the vines I cut off yet, only some of them.

Our tree, which I learned is a Gardenia, is in full bloom now and so pretty. 

A close up shot of the blooms on the tree.

On Saturday, the 16th, the girls, Milo, Curtis and I participated in the Leprechaun Dash. It's a free 1 mile race that is meant to help encourage elementary students to exercise. Every school that had 100 kids participate would get some money from "the pot of gold" to go toward their PE department. The money was donated by sponsors. Our school had 109!

As for my lip infection, it was clearing up but wasn't 100% after I finished the week of ointment. I ended up applying it on all of my lips for 8 days and then a couple of small spots for the next couple of days. Two days without medication and Sunday the 17th I woke up with yellow crust on my bottom lip and in the corners again. Ugh! I had actually been a little suspicious before going to bed the night before because I started to see some red under my lips. I applied the ointment just in case but it was too late. Monday I called the dermatologist and they said to continue using the ointment and that they could get me in on Wednesday. When I went in my lips were looking a lot better again because at least it wasn't as bad as the first time. They said to continue the Mupirocin ointment on my lips for another week, applying twice a day, but also added an oral antibiotic called Cephalexin. I just had to take two pills a day. They also took a swab of both my nostrils to do a lab test because sometimes it can start in the nose. I wouldn't find out the results until Monday, after our trip. In the meantime, the pills and the ointment seemed to be doing what I needed. 

My lips look almost 100% better now. However, they did call me yesterday and told me that the lab results came back as a different bacteria than they originally thought and were prescribing a new antibiotic called Doxycycline Hyclate. I just started that one last night. This particular pill is a bit annoying just because I have to avoid eating any dairy or foods with calcium 4 hours before and 4 hours after taking the pill. The calcium causes some reaction that makes the medicine not work as well. I also need to take it with a snack or small meal at least and I can't be exposed to sun for long periods of time while taking this medication. I'm not sure what will happen if I do but that means I can't do a bunch of yard work in one day like I was, unless I'm in the shade. At least it's only twice a day for 10 days. I just hope I don't have to change it again and that this one finally gets ride of the infection!

This was taken Sunday the 17th after my infection returned. Like I said, it wasn't as bad as the first time around.

This was taken on Monday the 18th.

My eye has been doing something lately also where it gets red, a little puffy, and sometimes crusty. I thought maybe it could be related to the lip infection but the doctor said no, it was probably just allergies. I took allergy pills for a couple of days and it cleared up, so it must have been allergies.

This is what it looked like on Tuesday the 19th.

Let the Yard Cleanup Commence!

We finally had the opportunity to get started on cleaning up our yard. I've been itching to get out there to work on it but I also knew I needed help because there is a lot to do. I warned the family on Friday night that we were going to do yard work Saturday morning and I wanted them to at least give an hour's worth of work. The boys were hoping to have a D&D game session again, so I told them we needed to do it before then. Curtis and I cooked them a good breakfast to help them get the day started off right. 

I actually got started on trimming our berry tree in the back yard on Friday. I finished up Saturday morning. Then we raked up all of the branches I cut and a bunch of leaves. There were also some big tumble weeds on the side of our house. We loaded all of that onto the truck and hauled it away to the dump. Curtis drove the truck to the back yard but then let the boys take turns driving in our yard. They both loved that. I have to say I was so impressed with how well the kids worked, especially Garrett. I think it helped him to have some earbuds on listening to music he had just recorded to his phone. I didn't hear him complain once and he was working so hard. 

What's work without a little play first? Alice had a long branch I had cut and was getting Milo to jump for it while she sat on our little dead tree. 

Garrett backing up.

Climbing in the tree that I trimmed. It looks so much better. Honestly, I would like to replace this tree because of the berry mess. The berries aren't a type we eat and so they just make a mess and Milo wants to eat them even though he shouldn't. Berries and grapes are not good for dogs...two things we have in our back yard. He's a lot better at leaving them though than when he was a little puppy.

I love when we all work together.

She loves climbing the little dead tree.

Alice working hard on cleaning this area.

Here's our loaded: branches, bags of leaves, and tumble weeds.

After we cleaned up. There are still leaves to rake up but we got a lot of them.

This is the corner that had the tumbleweeds and leaves. It looks all nice and clean now.

Curtis and Garrett tore down the old wooden picnic table that was in this corner and tossed it in the truck as well. The boards were starting to rot. We're hoping to get a shed put in that corner eventually. I also want to get rid of that little bush on the right. The branches are twisty and look cool but it's not a pretty bush in the summer. Curtis tried to pull it out with the truck but it wasn't working. His tow rope kept slipping off. He also didn't dig any of it up and it's not dead so he probably needs to loosen it up.

Trimmed some of the branches on the vines and raked out leaves. It looks so much better!

This is the area next to the bush I trimmed a couple weeks ago. I just couldn't end the day without cleaning this spot out. This is before.

And this is after. There were some thorny vines growing and I do not want those so I dug them out. I want to get rid of all our thorny plants, like the rose bush and the red bush you see to the right in this picture. It doesn't have thorns but the leaves still poke you. We don't want to lose any more pool inflatables, ha ha.

We spent a good couple of hours working out there. I worked longer than everyone else though because I wanted to clean out that one area. Poor Charlotte was helping in that back corner but then she had a little asthma attack and had to go inside and get a breathing treatment. She's had to use that a lot lately and more than she usually does. Hopefully the more she gets outside the better it will get with the weather warming up. We're expecting to get up to 75 by next Tuesday! I love that kind of weather! Jack also had to take an allergy pill but came back out later to help finish up. It was a good productive day and we're glad to get in working mode again.

My Latest Trial

Monday morning, I woke up with my lips feeling a little more dry than usual and a bit crusty. I scraped some gunk off my lips that was a yellowish color. When I looked in the mirror, I was surprised to see my lips look so red and crusty. To put it this way, I felt like I looked like the Joker from Batman or some other freaky clown. My thoughts were that maybe my lips are doing this because of the chicken we had the night before and that it was a bit salty on the outside and Curtis had also used baking soda in the mixture. I washed off my lips and put my chapstick on and decided to try and drink extra water and propel that day to see if hydration would help. My bottom lip also looked a little bit swollen, so I took an Ibuprofen. I didn't want to go anywhere that day while looking like this, but I had to meet with Sister Gale to prep stuff for activity days. She's going to be out of town for a while helping her daughter recover from a surgery and wanted to help me in any way she could for the next couple activities. 

That night before going to bed I took some Benadryl to see if it might be an allergic reaction. That didn't do anything, because the next morning it was pretty much the same, maybe a little worse. I could even feel a slight burning sensation and it was a bit itchy. I decided I better see if I could get into a doctor. I don't have a family doctor here for myself yet so I called the Kadlec Express. They were all booked up for that day and got me scheduled for Wednesday morning. After making that appointment though, I really wanted to try getting it looked at that day and so I checked our insurance to see what dermatologist is in our network. I was blessed to find one just down the street and they had a cancelation and was able to get me in that morning at 10:20am. What a relief! I go in and it turns out I have an infection called Impetigo, which is a type of staph infection. They sent in a prescription for an ointment and said it should be looking better by Friday, but if it wasn't to call them.

I am so thankful that I was able to get in so quickly and get this figured out, but so far it's been a long and a little painful process. I apply the ointment 5 times a day and each time I wipe my mouth off with a clean washcloth to get rid of the crusties and then apply the ointment. It typically burns a bit for the first little while and then cools down.

This is what it looked like when I woke up Tuesday morning before making the appointment.

It doesn't help that we are low on food. I need to go grocery shopping, but I don't want to go out in public and I don't really want to wear a mask either. I was forced to go to Walmart to get my prescription, so I picked up some cereal and milk while there. I was embarrassed to walk around looking like that but thankfully most people aren't looking at me. Usually, people are looking in different directions and thinking about their own things.

This is what it looked like yesterday before washing my face off.

This is what it looked like after cleaning my face but before the ointment. It's starting to crack and bleed a little. Not fun!

It has also been a little difficult to eat my food because my lips feel dry and stiff and it's hard to open my mouth all the way. On Monday and Tuesday I felt very tired and didn't do much during the day but yesterday I felt a little more energy. I forced myself to exercise and at least get some finances done and a bit of laundry. Today, I'm feeling tired again and not wanting to do much. Maybe I just need to listen to my body and rest because it's fighting an infection. 

Here is what I look like this morning after cleaning off and applying ointment. 

This morning, I did a little better job scraping the dry crust off and made it bleed more but I think it will help because the ointment needs to get past the crusties to fight the infection. It still looks bad, but I think it is doing better today. It just needs time. So that's been my latest trial I'm dealing with and I'm just glad it's me that has to deal with it and not any of my kids. It is contagious with contact but hopefully nobody else will get it. I have been washing my water bottle every morning and washing my hands frequently.

On another note, Sister Gale gave us some branches that were trimmed off her cherry blossom tree to see if we could put them in a vase or bucket and have them bloom. I wasn't sure if I wanted to, but my girls grabbed some at the end of our last activity day activity. I didn't have a vase, but I found a glass pitcher to put them in and sure enough, they are starting to sprout. Coco has decided that he prefers getting his water out of the pitcher now. I caught a picture of him drinking.

This was taken Sunday morning before church.

You can see the tip of green on the branches. They weren't green at all when she first gave them to us the Monday before.

This is what they looked like yesterday. Big difference in just a few days.

I had this lace tied around my orchid flowerpot I got for Valentine's, but decided to take it off this morning. I asked Alice if she wanted me to tie it in her hair and so I did. She loves it!

She took a selfie first.

It's a little difficult to see because it's sheer ribbon.

But it has rainbow colors in it.

Anyway, other than my mouth I would say this week is going well. Any time I start to feel sorry for myself about my situation and pain, I just remind myself that this is nothing compared to what so many others have to deal with. I'm thankful it's in a small area and that I have antibiotics. 

I am also thankful to have spring like weather because I see family and friends in Idaho and Utah experiencing more snow this week and I'm thankful it's not here! But maybe I shouldn't be thankful because we probably need the snowpack here still. I'm not sure.

Activities This Week

This last week the girls' school had a spirit week to celebrate Dr. Suess's birthday and Read Across America. On Monday it was hat day. I got my cowgirl hat out and offered that Charlotte could wear it if she wanted to. She said she would if she couldn't find one from her room. Charlotte and Alice both wore their old t-ball/softball hats from when they played in Nampa. They were both on teams with the same name, so their hats were the same. They even wore their hats to activity days that day because I picked them up from school and drove straight over to the church. The main activity we did was making slip knot bracelets. I had taught my girls how to do them on Sunday so that they could get practice and help other girls, but they still got to make another one on Monday also. Afterwards we played "Do You Love Your Neighbor?". I was surprised that no one had ever played this game before, and they had such a good time. Unfortunately, they didn't get to play it very long. That one hour goes by quickly!

Showing off their bracelets.

Neither of the girls wore my hat to school but Alice put it on that evening, and she looked like the cutest little cowgirl with her skirt and black boots.

Thursday night was the big Read Across America Night and they had some activities going on at the school, so I took the girls over there. They each got a Cat in the Hat hat to wear and a "passport" that had check boxes for each of the activities you could do. We were able to do most of them. Alice did a little scavenger hunt first that was for first graders only and she got a little prize for doing it. There were things like listening to a story read by a police officer, face painting, writing an appreciation note to a staff member at the school, guessing how many words are in a book, and voting on the best decorated doors done by the teachers. The doors were decorated to relate to books. There was also a free cookie in the cafeteria along with some pizza and pop for sale by the PTO and there were bookmarks to color and a washable tattoo. The girls had a great time.

Alice got her face painted but Charlotte chose not to.

Jack's band teacher sent out an email asking for 2 chaperones for the wind ensemble group for the competition they were having at the college in Ellensburg on Saturday. Normally Jack is not in the wind ensemble, but he and a couple other younger kids were invited to join them for this competition, including his friend Eli. They needed two chaperones to ride the bus and it was an all day event. We didn't really have any plans other than me wanting to do some yard work, but I was willing to be a chaperone. I waited to see if anyone else would sign up first but when no one had, I talked to Curtis about it. He said he was willing to go too, even though he wasn't excited about riding the bus. I wasn't either to tell the truth. If they hadn't got the chaperones they needed, then they would have had to cancel their trip. So, Curtis and I signed up to be the chaperones. I was glad to be doing it together. He said he hasn't ridden on a bus since he was a kid. I've had a lot more practice than him since I've been chaperone for kids' events over the years. 

Since I knew we were going to be gone most of the day Saturday, I decided I wanted to get some yard work done on Friday during the day. I tackled the big bush in the back yard again. Even after trimming it last Summer/Fall I knew it was still too tall. I trimmed it way down because I know it will have all Spring and Summer to grow.

I had already started trimming it when I thought to get a picture, but this is basically the before picture.

And here's the after.

Milo had lots of outside time with me on Friday. Occasionally I would throw a toy for him to get or a big branch that I cut from the bush for him to chew on.

There's a lot more yard work I wanted to do but this bush took up all of my time. We had plans that evening to go hang out with friends from the ward. It started with Jack getting invited by Cam and Cole Wingert to go rock wall climbing. Then we decided to get together with their parents to play games. We went to their house because they were hosting a teenage girl get together for their daughters. Charlotte is friends with their youngest son, Connor, so we brought the girls along as well. While the men were gone to take the boys over to Richland for the rock wall climbing, Tiffani and I got to visit for awhile. The men ended up staying the whole time with the boys because Jack didn't want to stay long. I think Jack was tired from being up since 5 am and playing tennis after school for the tennis team. We snacked on some pizza and popcorn when they came back and then the adults played a couple of rounds of Uno Flip. I had never played this variation of Uno before. It was kind of fun but it can get confusing. We had fun but we were tired and didn't stay too long since we had to get to the school early the next morning.

We woke up around 5:20am to be able to shower and eat before getting to the school by 7:15am. The bus was loaded at 7:30am and we hit the road shortly after. It's about a 2 hour drive except we did take one rest stop break, so it was probably closer to 2 1/2 hours. There were supposed to be 23 students but only 20 showed up. We got there and watched a couple of other bands perform before going to get ready for their performance. We were told that we could stay in the auditorium while they did that and during the performance. After they were finished, we forgot that they were going to get some instruction in a separate room. We waited outside of the auditorium for awhile before deciding to check to see if they went to the instrument storage area. They were not there and then we thought they went to lunch already at the cafeteria, but they were not there when we got over there. We just decided to ahead and get ourselves some food. Finally, Jack contacted us, and they were heading our way, so we waited. After lunch we had a couple of hours to hang out until we had to go back and watch some more performances. Then we hit the road and got home around 6:15pm. The ride home felt more uncomfortable than the ride there. They just need more leg space and softer seats on those buses. It was a long day but I'm happy we were able to help.

Riding on the bus.

Watching their performance. Jack played the French horn.

The picture Curtis sent Jack when he said we were lost. This is how worried we were, ha ha.

The bus ride home. Jack and Eli.

Charlotte's dress came in the mail early! It was supposed to come on Monday, but it came on Friday. Charlotte wore it to church this morning and I think she's really happy with it. It is a little long, but it still works. Unfortunately, she didn't get to wear it to class because she started coughing a lot during Sacrament meeting and Curtis ended up taking her home right after the Sacrament was passed. He gave her some cough medicine and she did a breathing treatment. It's getting a bit frustrating with her cough getting better and then acting up again over and over. Fortunately, the meds worked and helped settle her cough down. She's feeling much better now.

She wanted to wear it with her white vest.

But it looks cute either way.