Common Mom

Princess and I were out in the backyard this morning, gathering kindling and firewood for the Girl Scout campout this weekend.

For those who may not know, we live in the forest. Lots of pine trees (and pollen!), no grass, lots of dirt, lots of pine needles.

This is generally what our yard looks like:

We haven’t had decent precipitation for YEARS – total drought. We’ve lived in this house for 10 years, and our yard has always looked like this, except for the first couple years when we had some random greenery growing. Note the “stuff” in the lower left corner.

It caught Princess’s eye this morning. She dropped her wood, ran over to it, and said . . . “What is THAT?!” . . . as she pointed to this:

Um – it’s a living green thing, Sweetie.

She actually said “How did it get there? Did you plant it? When would you have time to plant that? And WHY did you plant it there?!”

Um – I didn’t plant it. It got there because it has actually RAINED every afternoon for the past 2 weeks . . . just like it’s supposed to here! Amazing how green things grow when there’s water around

She crossed her arms, said “Huh” and went back to gather her wood. I guess you know you live in a mountain region experiencing a long drought when your 10-year old daughter wonders how the weird green stuff got in her backyard!

On another note . . . I thought I’d check out this little planter area of our yard since we had random greenery in other places. I have never planted anything in our yard, but the first spring we lived here (when it actually rained!), these started growing:

We had nice afternoon showers every summer day for the first few years we live here. Then the drought. I haven’t seen them for 6 years! Yet, here they are again, as soon as we got a little rain. They always look like this – about 9″ tall with no flowers. There are only these 3. Anyone know what they are and how they can hide for 6 years without popping up during the drought, then magically appear after a couple weeks of some moisture?

I’ll take it – a little green is good And apparently, it’s time to rake my pine needles . . . ack!

I’m a typically healthy person. Don’t get sick often – it’s those hearty German genes my parents gave me.

But the past week – ICK! Mid-last week I got a nasty eye infection in my right eye. All day in my office working, I was itching my eyes thinking it was just allergies. Then I went upstairs to get ready for my daughter’s volleyball practice and OMG! Pink eye. Yup – I’m 40 and I got pink eye – WTH? I won’t go into the details of how it looked, but when Dude came home from school he said “Yuck! What happened to your eye?! That’s nasty!” Too late to go to the doc, so I dropped Princess off at practice with the assistant coach and waited in the car so I wouldn’t contaminate everyone.

Let’s just say that night of not sleeping with a nasty eye was – well, just icky. Again, no details for those with weak stomachs. Next morning, I wake up to an eye that is not only matted shut, but swollen shut. Ya – even after a nice warm shower to clear it up, still couldn’t open it. Let’s just say that if my no-tolerance-for-anything-gross-or-medical Hubby were home instead of in China, he would’ve run for the hills.

When Dude got up and saw my eye he actually gagged, covered his own eyes, and said “Dude! That is seriously gross! You need to fix that!”

I love my Dude – so honest

9:00 a.m. meet with the doc. If you didn’t believe a 12 year-old boy’s account of my nasty eye, there was confirmation from the doc. He walked in the room, did a double-take, and said “Whoa – ick!” Love you, too, doc!

After an inspection of my lovely eye, he said “Well, it’s quite apparent that you have a massive nasty infection that is working it’s way to your other eye. No cocktail parties, birthday parties, or sporting events until tomorrow a.m. Don’t touch your kids or make their food. And disinfect everything in your house when you get home unless you want to be back here next week with the rest of the family.” Great! That’s what a single-mom-for-the-week wants to hear!

Then he promptly gave me a prescription for some new miracle eye drops that come in a teeny tiny bottle for one million dollars. Luckily, I had a prescription discount card that brought the price down to $20; however, the new drops are so rare, my pharmacist didn’t have it. It was Friday afternoon and she honestly looked at me and said “We don’t have it. But I can have it for you on Monday if you want to wait.” Um, seriously? Do you see this hideousness and pain and yuck and just – NO!!! I need it now! She had to call 4 other Walgreens to find one that had it.

Miracle drops is what it should be called – INSTANT relief when I put one drop in each eye. Still took 4 days for the swelling and outside redness to go away, but relief. That’s all I can say.

So my awesome lovely eye cleared up and all was good . . . until I got some sinus thing going. Yup, stuffy nose, sneezing, sore throat.

Why is it that when Hubby leaves for a week or so, the wheels seem to fall off the bus?

I would love someone to please put the wheels back on my bus!