It's like this...

Tomorrow the ad for renting our house expires. I was getting prepared to renew it and was feeling discouraged about the whole thing when the phone rang. It's The Family. The One. The family that is going to rent our house. We talked at length and discovered that we go to the same church. They're coming over tomorrow with the cashiers check and to sign the papers. The enormous load that I've been walking around with has lifted. This will take such a load off of us for now that I can't begin to express my gratitude that we have this taken care of. The carpet cleaners are coming tomorrow as well and then we're off to Seattle after handing the keys over to the new people who will be living here. I'll miss my house a lot....but I sure won't miss the house payment!

No, not me, though I'm tempted. Ok, maybe a few mood swings with all the stress of this past month but so far no crying jags. My baby girl is the one going through the mood swings and the crying jags. I just finished holding her for over an hour after she came unglued when I told her it was time to take her Keppra. She sobbed and cried and raged. "I don't want to take it!. I hate this, I HATE THIS!" She then went on to say that she's hated everything that's gone on since her birth and it's not fair. She sobbed and sobbed. I held her as she cried and cried. I prayed for the right words to say to her to help her through this. She's upset that she's being forced to take these pills and she was refusing to take it tonight. Finally I had to be very firm with her. She's 9 years old and so bright and intelligent. I tried appealing to her that way---explaining to her that if she doesn't take her medicine that she's going to have more seiz...

This is what my baby girl asked for first thing this morning. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we don't have any in the house and we are sans car. We won't have Lance (and the suburban) back until Thursday. This leaves me plenty of time to finish cleaning the house and get done what needs to be done. The family we thought (hoped) was going to rent the house, didn't call last night so I'm assuming that they didn't choose our house. We're still waiting to hear from the second family. Ok....back to work. Really, this is fun. Uh huh.

It was yesterday and Ashley had another grand mal seizure. Thankfully she was in bed with me but she lost control of her bladder again so we're going to be putting her into some pull up type diapers at night from now on. She's so embarrassed that this is happening---the second time this week---but we tell her it's not her fault. Still, it's tough for her. We started her on Keppra and wow....I'm not sure if it's the medicine or her seizures that are causing her extreme emotional behvior but wow. She comes to me and I hold her as she tells me that she feels like crying and she doesn't know why. So she cries and I hold her. I know one of the side effects of this drug is mood swings and emotional changes. That was the beginning of our Saturday. The remainder of the day was spent loading and packing the moving van. Five hours worth of hot sweaty work. Then the unloading at my father's house, another hot sweaty horror. That went on for hours and hours an...

In the process of moving I've been going through boxes in our walk-in closet. These are boxes that we brought with us in our move four years ago and have never once looked at in the interim. Yeah, we're like that. Ok, I'm like that. Put it away and never think of it. Avoidance behavior is an art form with me. According to a friend in California, I run from conflict. Ok, boxes aren't exactly conflict but I avoid things I don't want to deal with. You know that whole stick-my-head-in-the-sand routine in hopes that whatever it is will go away? Yeah, that rarely happens. The going away part I mean. I spend so much time down there that my entire head is now filed with sand, which explains why I've lost the ability to accomplish anything lately. But I digress. The boxes. They're full of interesting things like years-old baggies of tums that have semi-deconstructed into powder. I found a bag of soy nuts, single socks, saltines, old bills (both paid and uno...

I spent Sunday til last night up in Seattle at my Dad's house, our soon-to-be-home. We worked on some rooms and an attic. While we were doing that, Ash spent some time on Papa's hammock in the backyard. Tuesday morning we had an appointment with Dr. Bamford for Ashley. He has a very calm and soothing manner. We discussed Keppra and why he believes it's the best choice of anti-seizure drugs for her. I understood it better and while still not entirely thrilled with the idea, I think it's a good start. We waited a bit and she wasn't too thrilled. At one point Dr. Bamford told Ash to go out and look in the treasure chest for a prize so we could talk a little bit more. Ash picked a bear that she's named Keppy, for her new medicine. She was quite exhausted and took a nap with her new friend. Now I'm back home and working on more packing. In case you were wondering? Not fun.

Pamela's Column for Pacific Publishing I never thought that turning the key in the ignition of my vehicle would be a financial commitment with enough stress attached to it to make me run for a bag of chocolate, or a financial adviser. Actually, a financial advisor who handed out chocolate would be my first choice. Stress of this nature has historically been reserved for decisions on whether or not I could afford to purchase a house, not whether or not I can afford to buy my little girl a Happy Meal because I still need to fill my gas tank. According to AAA gas prices are up a whopping 21% since last year. My paycheck has definitely not kept up, but I estimate that my chocolate consumption has increased exponentially. But I’m a glass-half-full kind of girl, so I’m always looking for that silver lining in the dark and evil storms that surround and threaten to engulf us, leaving us in financial ruin by the side of the road, eviscerated by the fickle financial winds and….um, where w...

Tomorrow I will bid adieu to packing here at my house and go to pack at my father's house! The fun, it just never ends in my life Ash and I will spend the night there (as will hubby) and then Tuesday morning Ash has an appointment with Nigel Bamford. He's the head of Neurology at Children's Hospital so he's the best of the best. I have so many questions to ask him about Keppra and it's side effects. Shoot...I also need to schedule Ashley's MRI. I can't forget to do that. It slipped my mind on Friday and I wanted to slap myself. I have so many things to remember right now. I'm not the best at remembering even when my entire life isn't in upheaval. Lance is going to stay up at my Dad's for the week so he can go to work from there and help get Dad's house ready for us to move in. Meanwhile I'll be here at our house finishing it up. Oh, and I'll be car-less. Lucky, lucky me. I just hope the money holds out for gas until next payday...

Major Ackage going on here. Yesterday I was ready to blow a gasket in frustration. Packing? Not so much fun. Cleaning? Less fun. Trying to do it all as my back spasms and my leg is killing me? Even better! Ok. I'm done whining. Here is a gratuitous shot of my Ashley Rose from a few years back just to make you smile. I think they asked her what she thought of boys and then snapped the picture.

I don't wanna put my baby girl on seizure meds. Especially the medication that we were told would be best for her. Ashley and I spent some time at Children's Hospital yesterday. We went over the results of her EEG and it wasn't good. In fact it was worse than we'd thought, indicating that there is damage beyond her original stroke. They want to do an MRI on her again. We are also looking at spending a night there and having her hooked up to the EEG for the entire night to monitor her seizure activity. Her EEG shows that she's seizing at night. So...you can guess how badly I feel about feeling frustrated with her for the past few months as I tried to get her up in the mornings. It wasn't her fault. We're seeing the head of Neurology, Dr. Nigel Bamford (Yes, he's British) on Tuesday. I'm not filling that prescription until I talk with him. Keppra anyone?

Remember how your mom always told you to change your underwear every day just in case you got into an accident? You know, so you wouldn't be embarrassed at the hospital as they were cutting your dirty underwear off of you and wrinkling their noses at your poor personal hygiene as they tried to save your life. Your dirty, unwashed, unclean life. I bet your mommy never told you to to make sure you didn't allow someone to paper your legs with Pokemon tatooes in case you got into an accident, did she? No, she missed that one. I got tattooed the other night. Big time. No needles were involved, just about forty colorful Pokemon tattoos up and down my right leg, all over my foot and a few on my left foot. This is what happens when you don't pay attention to what your nine year old girl is doing to you. My excuse? I was writing a column on a deadline, so I just...you know....wasn't paying attention to the lower half of my body. So you know I had to get into an accide...

You know we're moving, right? Yes, yes we are. This involves the removal of all physical possessions from our home and putting them into another home. This is a problem if you're moving from a large place filled with stuff to a smaller place already filled with stuff. It's like trying to pour a gallon of water into a thimble. It's just not going to work. Someone is going to get wet and you're going to lose your stuff water. So you have to get rid of your stuff water so that what you do have will fit. We did this by having The Mother of All Garage Sales. Even with that, we still had far too much stuff. So we gave it away to my brother. He came in his old Duster, pulling a big empty trailer. When he left, that trailer was full. So, back to packing. My problem with packing is that I don't have any type of organization to it. Oh, I try---I do. I go into one room and start. I pack a box, but first I see pictures. Oh! Pictures! You have to look at pict...

As I scour every nook and cranny of our beautiful home in preparation for moving, I have made several discoveries. I know you're dying to know what those discoveries are, aren't you? Of course you are. Here they are, in no particular order. * Posters on the walls of teenagers can be used to hide holes. LARGE holes that have been made in the walls. The more posters, the more holes they can hide. It's akin to prison inmates who hide their tunneling-to-freedom holes behind posters, ala The Shawshank Redemption. * Papers, if left to themselves, will procreate, multiply and multiply again ad nauseam. Especially if you leave them in the dark of a walk-in closet inside of a filing cabinet. I think I may have found the birth place of all things paper. *Un-paired socks do it just to taunt you. I have been taunted nigh unto hyperventilation. Baskets of these little buggers have appeared in all bedrooms. If they think I'm taking them with me when we move, they better thi...