Tough week

This has not been one of our better weeks around here. The boys finally got better on Tuesday. Not early enough that I could take Stephen to school at all but at least he could complete all his homework before going back to school.
As the boys were getting better, something outside was starting to bloom that had a bad affect on my allergies. By Wednesday, I was more miserable than my allergies have ever made me. Congestion, sneezing, headache...Oh, boy and that was while I was already on Claritin-D. The doctor thought I should add Nasonex to my Rx cabinet to try to help out.
While I was at Sam's Club being flabbergasted by the price of that Rx, all of a sudden my middle finger on my right hand had shooting pain going up it. The pain would keep coming and going. Sometimes when I would bend it, it would hurt. The next time, it wouldn't but it would hurt to open it back up then.
There was a Fine Arts Festival at the kids' school on Thursday evening. I couldn't miss that because Rachel was performing in 2 different musical groups. The art teacher also displays as much art work as possible so we had to look to see if any of the kids' works were on the walls. Trying to applaud was not a fun experience as it sent more pain shooting from my middle finger. By the time we got home, the swelling was rather obvious up the back of my hand.
I called the doctor Friday morning to take a look at my hand. The middle finger still felt as though it had been jammed in and needed to be popped back out. It wasn't the shooting pain though. The diagnosis...the start of carpultunel (sp.). Oh, joy. So I am now on anti-inflammatory and a wrist brace. By the time I got kids home from school, I was miserable. I managed to get dinner but other than that I was on the couch most of the night. Part of it, may be my body adjusting to the anti-inflammatory. I haven't taken much Naproxen before this. I know it doesn't work well for Dad but so far I was just really tired.
So that was our week. Not one of our better ones, especially for me. My allergies didn't help Mark with getting sleep this week either. He's at work today and the kids and I may try to pull off a surprise since his birthday is next week and I am even going to be out of town for it.
More on that later though as I don't want to do too much typing to aggravate this hand.

Rude Awakening

Well, my week is not off to a very good start. It is a little bit of a rude awakening when a child comes into your room at 3 a.m. crying that they have thrown up on their bed. That was my start to this Monday. It was Joshua and he had gotten it all over himself and the bed. I cleaned him up and had just gotten him settled on the couch and me in the recliner when Stephen came down. He didn't get his bed but made it to the bathroom before he was in the same shape. We snoozed in the living room till it was time to start the day (again).
Joshua doesn't seem in as rough a shape as Stephen. He hasn't had any problems since around 9 this morning. I have let him start on some sips ofwater and a few sips of clear pop, spaced out about every 15 minutes. Stephen has made a lot more trips to the bathroom. He was doing fine so I let him start on some sips of water and then pop but after about 2 sips of pop around 1 this afternoon, he lost that little bit of liquid again. I had hoped to take him to school at lunch tomorrow but that doesn't look like it will happen. They want the kids symptom free for 24 hours before they return.
I don't know what is causing this. I have tried to figure out what they might have eaten that is affecting them like this but don't know what it could be. They haven't had a fever but Joshua did complain a little about a headache once.
Looks like I'm homebound till at least Wednesday. This has postponed Joshua's kindergarten testing for a month. I also was scheduled to help a part of my downline sign up a new representative. I couldn't find anyone to cover so we rescheduled for tomorrow (this was before Stephen heading to the bathroom again at 1). I think I should be able to have part of my upline go on it tomorrow. They just were all busy today.
Hope you are all having a better Monday than I am.

Van's fixed!

We decided to ask a friend/neighbor if he could help with getting the fan off the van with us. Not only did he help get the fan off, he called a friend of his that does even more mechanical work (possibly professionally) and the 2 of them got the fan off, the water pump off, and everything put back together by about 9:30 tonight. We would still have been working at it on Sunday I'm sure. So maybe the water pump was a bit more than we could chew but at least we tried, and the Lord provided the help we needed. The guys wouldn't take anything for helping. I may have to do some cakes in the future for them but that's a small price to pay. I can handle that.
Now the next step that we hope to do over the weekend is new spark plugs and wires. I think we should be able to handle that. If all goes well, we may even do the oil change while we're at it.

Auto help

Maybe I can get more help with this problem than the ink problem. (Were you serious about the brake cleaner, Nate?)

We are trying to replace the waterpump that sprung a leak on Tuesday on our '92 Chevy Conversion van. Our problem has come with trying to remove the fan. We have removed all the nuts and bolts that we can find but can't seem to get it off. Mark pulled and banged and sprayed it with WD-40 but it isn't budging. Are there any other little tricks that maybe weren't in the Haynes repair manual that we follow so closely? On the very front center of the fan unit there is a little coiled up piece of something that appears to be rubbery but we can't get figure out if it is to be removed or is holding the the fan on at all. We have several people from church that we usually consult about our repair jobs but most of them are currently in Georgia on a missions trip. Any one have any long distance advice?

Thanks.

Home a week

I'm rather surprised I haven't heard from Dad about not blogging at all this week. Of course, he hasn't been on since Tuesday either so I guess he can't say much.
The kids and I left Monday April 3rd for Alpena and stayed there till last Saturday. The inside lead work was actually completed on Thursday and Mark stayed here that night but we stayed in Alpena till Saturday to give Mark a chance to get some additional cleaning done. (They'll be back in another couple of weeks to do the outside but we don't have to evacuate for that.) We stayed at Aunt Marlene's house though she was in Florida. Her house is just much more conducive to having children in it, especially since the weather was lousy most of the week and the kids couldn't spend much time outside. We went to see a magician at the library one evening and went swimming at the clubhouse one afternoon. We turned the clubhouse trip into a birthday party for Joshua. Cindy came and brought Emily and Damian plus Mom brought out cupcakes. It was really nice. We topped off the week by decorating colored eggs on Friday afternoon. (Good thing too because I haven't even reached the Easter baskets yet.)
We drove up in a bad snow. At times, I was following the tracks of the cars in front of me because I couldn't see the lines in the road. On one 30 mile stretch, we saw 4 accidents! The way home was beautiful! The only problem was that at times the kids couldn't see the action on the DVD screens because of the bright sunshine.
We spent last weekend helping do more extensive spring cleaning. We have actually done very little unpacking because we are trying to go through things and reorganize instead of just putting all the clutter back where it was. With the family room, I'm waiting to see what the kids ask for. I figure it is spends more than a month in the basement without being asked for, I can probably get rid of it. We'll see.
Trying to organize while trying to stay current with all the other things going on in our lives has made for a very busy week. And will probably keep me that way for some time.
Joshua felt that he needed a birthday "party" with Dad since it didn't happen on his birthday. So last night, we had just a couple of friends over after the Good Friday service. He wanted another Tigger cake. (He doesn't remember his first one since that was his first birthday.) Fortunately, that doesn't take too long to decorate.
I also have a cake to do for Sunday for a boy's birthday from church, then there are 2 showers for teachers at the school on Monday and Tuesday this week that I will do the cakes for. 1 is Rachel's current teacher (and I even organized this shower) and the other is a kindergarten teacher that had both Rachel & Stephen and plans to have Joshua next year. (I helped with her first shower when Rachel was in her class.) I also have been asked to do a wedding cake for the end of September from a family at church.
I think that about catches you up for now. The kids Saturday morning videos are done so I have to get them motivated now for the day.