Going to the doc today…
Posted on December 30, 2008
Ava’s fever broke yesterday, but she’s really sick. She has a sore throat, a horrible croup like cough, nunny nose, post nasal drip, and swollen lymph nodes. There’s one on the right side of her neck that is huge. Yesterday and last night were rough. I think I got about 4 hours of sleep last night. She slept with me and she coughed the whole night. I kept getting her medicine, and it seemed to help, but then I was back up every couple hours. I made her a lullaby CD from some iTunes and that made her happy. She was talking about songs at 3am.
104 at 6am
Posted on December 29, 2008
Not fun for Boos. Or Boo Mamas. Yesterday she had a temp of 101, so I gave her Tylenol and then Motrin alternating every 2 hours. She was complaining of a tummy ache, and she threw up once. All over her new ($30 silk-Grandma!!) play skirt. She’s been pretty clingy and whiny. It’s hard not to get annoyed when she cries over the littlest things. But otherwise, she’s been such a good girl.
DONE!!
Posted on December 28, 2008
At least for a little while. I had my last wedding of the year yesterday and it officially starts my maternity leave. I’m off until June, my first wedding back is Todd’s cousin, Jennifer’s wedding on June 13th. It’s down in Springfield and it’s the day before our anniversary, so we’re going to take the next day and spend it together down there. But for now, I have only a few things to do. I have some packages to get out to brides, as soon as I get all the stuff for them. I have a wedding I have to get up online and an album to finish. I have a few reprint orders to do as well, and then the last wedding to put up online. After that, I just get those two packages out and then I’m done. I might have a few meetings or sittings here and there, but nothing really lined up. This is the first break I’ve had since I started this three and a half years ago. It feels strange!! I still have a lot to do before I can actually take a break, but it still feels strange. Let’s hope I don’t get used to it!
Merry Christmas!!
Posted on December 26, 2008
Todd and I went to bed around 2am last night. We were waiting for Santa to come, of course! But, he didn’t show up until after we went to bed. He’s sneaky like that. We woke up around 6am because Todd had to go to work. We ended up having to wake Ava up. Poor girl, I’m sure it was torture for her. Her face when she walked down was priceless! The big bear was a hit! She was so excited to open gifts! We even had her open some of ours for us. She got a ton of loot! Yesterday at the Christmas Eve party she got a big pink pony from Santa and a baby doll with a stroller too. Today she got her Wonderpup from Santa. We got her the V-Motion game console and a couple of games, which she loves. She also got a TON of clothes and some shoes and slippers. And her grab bag Santa (Uncle Dave) got her 4 board games too.
Ingredients
- 4 large egg whites at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons superfine granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups dark chocolate chips
Directions
Preheat oven to 225 degrees F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat egg whites on low-medium speed with the whisk attachment until the whites become foamy. Add the cream of tartar and turn speed up to medium, beating until just fluffy. Add the sugar gradually, so it incorporates into the whites slowly without collapsing them. Once all the sugar has been added, add the vanilla and increase the speed to high, whisking until the meringue is firm and glossy, about 5 to 7 minutes.
Place meringue mixture into a piping bag with a medium-sized nozzle attached. Pipe 24 bite-sized “kiss”-shaped meringues onto the trays and place in the oven. Bake for 1 hour undisturbed then turn off heat and leave in the oven overnight to really dry out.
Melt chocolate over a double-boiler or in the microwave on medium power for 30 seconds. Holding each meringue by the peak dip the bases in chocolate so the bottom half of the meringue is coated. Let any excess chocolate drop off before placing on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Allow to set at room temperature – do not put in the fridge. Once set, store in an airtight container.
Holiday Hustle!
Posted on December 23, 2008
Ok, I have 5 Christmas dinners to go to. Count them. 5. Today I’m going to Indiana to my dad’s house. Tomorrow we are going to Todd’s Aunt’s house for his family’s Christmas. Then on Christmas, Todd works, so I’m going over to his mom’s house because his Aunt on his stepdad’s side is going to be over. Then on the 26th, I’m going to Batavia to have my family’s Christmas. Then I have a wedding on Saturday. Then on the 2nd, we’re going up to Woodstock to his Gram’s for Christmas there. This is slightly insane. And it’s snowing out right now, so that’s going to make travelling awesome. I can’t wait until we get a new house and everyone can come to US!
Yesterday I had the craziest day. Everything was going wrong. All I had to do was get my Christmas cards out and ship a couple packages to brides. So, one quick trip to the post office, right? Wrong. I got up, decided to get the envelopes for the cards so I could stuff them. Where are the envelopes? In Todd’s car. He’s at work. 45 min trip to Oak Lawn for envelopes? No, I’ll just go pick some up. He also had the stamps. Oh well, lets just hope the price for stamps doesnt change for a while. So, then I go to make the CD’s for the brides for their packages. Everything else was ready, I just had to make their CD’s and print up album layout forms. Oh! Look at that, I’m out of CD’s. And my printer is acting up. Awesome. I finally get my printer to work, I print up my stuff and get everything ready. I get Ava ready, myself ready and I go outside to start my car. Where’s my car? Oh! Under all that ice and snow, I think I see some blue. So, I start my car and let it run for about 45 min. I go back inside pack everything up, get Boo and I some lunch and bring everything out to the car. (By everything I mean my laptop so I can make the CD’s in the car while I’m driving, all the stuff for both packages, all the cards waiting to be stuffed into envelopes and the address labels all printed up waiting to be stuck onto envelopes.) I get to my car and, surprise, surprise, my car is STILL covered in snow and ice. So, I try using my scraper thingy to get it all off. It’s like two layers of ice. Scratch that, it’s an ice oreo. Two layers of ice with a layer of snow in between. Yea, I haven’t used my car in a couple days. My scraper isn’t working. The bottom layer of ice is NOT coming off of my car. And oops! My scraper broke on the ice. Isn’t this supposed to work the other way around? There is still ice on my side windows and on my windshield wipers. Not to mention the ice and snow on the hood, roof and trunk. Whatever, I have no time. The post office closes at 4:30 and it’s 3 already. So much for an early start. I go back in, get Ava, get her safely in the car. As soon as I close her door, my feet are suddenly up above my head and my hip hits the icy pavement real hard. Perfect. I recover, and get in the car. I go to KMart because it’s right there. I figure I can get envelopes and CD’s all right there and then the post office is a block away. KMart has CD’s. No 5×7 greeting card envelopes. Not during Christmas. That would be silly. So, I go to Jewel. No envelopes. I go to Walgreens. No envelopes. I’m near tears at this point. I waited too long on these cards, but I worked hard on them, they are going out if I have to run down a postal truck. I go all the way to Matteson to OfficeMax. They didn’t have 5×7 ones, but they had 6×8 ones with the peel off sticky flap. Works for me! I don’t feel like licking 50 envelopes! So I get back in the car and drive to the post office. By now it’s 4:15. I have 15 minutes and I’m 25 min away from my post office and I still have to stuff. I’m going to cry. Wait! Park Forest has a post office right here! And they close at 6pm!! I pull in, park turn on Christmas music for Ava, start the first CD and start stuffing. I finish the cards by 4:25. The last truck pulls up around 4:30 and I still need stamps. So, we run in, get the stamps, stick them on all the envelopes and pass them off to the mail lady as soon as the truck pulls up. Awesome. Then I get two boxes and some bubble wrap and go back out to the car to put together the packages. I pack the first box while I wait for the second CD to write. After that is done, I pack the second box, and we go back into the post office. I have to pay $40 for them to be express, but whatever. As long as they have them by Christmas. Procrastination isn’t cheap. So they’re out and they’re guaranteed by Christmas Eve. Hooray!!
This whole time, I should mention, Ava was a complete angel. She was SO good, I can’t even tell you. She was my saving grace for the day. If she hadn’t been so good, I think I would’ve broken down. When we went in to drop off the cards, she had told me she had to go potty. There was no where for her to go. So, I asked her if she could hold it. (Dangerous!!) She happily ran around the post office and held it. For an hour until we finally got home. She was so good!!
Oh, by the way. That fall I took outside my car? Yea, I’m paying for it. It hurt all day yesterday (it aggrivated my SPD and took my level 4 pain to a nice 8), and today, it’s about a 10. I can barely walk it hurts so bad. I really hope this goes away by this wedding on Saturday. My last wedding for 5 months… c’mon!
Bubble Pops!
Posted on December 16, 2008
Ava LOVES bubble wrap. She calls it “bubble pops.” We got a light up snowman for our front yard today and it was wrapped in TONS of bubble wrap. Ava was more excited about the bubble wrap than anything! Then she figured out a new way to pop them. Take them in the kitchen, put them on the floor and stomp! Perfect! You get more done that way anyway! Hooray for bubble pops!
Great gift ideas for those hard to buy for people!
Posted on December 15, 2008
Like my husband. He’s impossible. He actually asked me for something this year. He’s a gamer, and he plays World of Warcraft. The one thing he asked for was a World of Warcraft mouse. Fine. So, I go to get him this mouse (which is $100 btw!!!) and the company cannot keep up with the demand (does that seem weird to anyone else?), so even the preordered ones are going to be received after Christmas. Ok, so now I have to come up with something else. Ugh. 10 days left till Christmas.
So, I just typed in Google “gifts for guys” and clicked on one of the sites. I searched around for “gadgets” and I come up with this hilarious list of gadgets. Do people actually buy these things? Some of the things on the website I could understand. Some things were awesome. But some things had my eyebrow going up. We are way too high tech for our own good. It’s ridiculous. So, I’ve come up with a list of top 10 great gift ideas for those hard to buy for people. Here you go:
10. Tengu Sound Toy
Hours in front of the computer got you feeling a bit lonely? Have no fear, Tengu is here! Tengu is a USB-powered character that lights up and lip syncs to music, or your voice, or whatever noise happens to be around at the time. Tengu has different facial expressions that you can match to different music. When there’s no sound he’ll simply fall asleep, as soon as he detects some noise he’ll wake up again.
This is too funny. Normally, I would try calling a friend or getting off the computer if I were lonely. I can’t imagine this guy could ever get annoying either. Never.
9. Brightfeet Lighted Slippers
Headlights These light-up slippers keep you from tripping or stumbling when you move through your home at night. When you put the slippers on, the pressure of your toes turns on the bright LED light in the toe to guide you to the refrigerator or bathroom without stumbles or stubbed toes.
Why do we need silly gadgets when we could use something so ingenious that it was invented years ago? Turn on a light!
8. Vuzix iWear Widescreen Video Glasses
These widescreen video glasses transform your iPod into a virtual 52″ 16×9 widescreen personal theater for on-the-go entertainment. Never before has a pair of video glasses come this close to a real widescreen experience! Now you can enjoy video games or watch 2D and 3D movies in widescreen format anywhere, anytime.
Yes, because you don’t look like a dork with your phone stuck to your ear, you should probably stick a tv to your eyes too.
7. Doggie Driver
Doggie Driver swings like a golf club to throw a tennis ball up to 100 yards. Go out and have a ball! Give your dog some chase-and-fetch exercise while practicing your golf swing and follow-through at the same time. The launcher swings like a normal club, throws a tennis ball up to 300 feet and even picks up the retrieved ball for you.
Ok, this is kinda cute, but has anyone thought of actually throwing the ball? Or maybe taking a club to a tennis ball? Why do we need a gadget for this?
6. Retro Handset For Cell Phones
As cell phones get ever smaller, the tactile joy of talking into a solid ergonomic handset with easy-to-hear sound quality is quickly becoming a fond memory. Use this Novophone handset to talk on the go without sacrificing style and comfort. The authentic coiled wire is long enough to let your cell sit comfortably in your pocket while you talk.
I don’t have much to say about this one. Sometimes I think we’re too high tech for our own good, and sometimes I think we want so badly to be stuck in the 80’s. Or the 70’s.
5. Pet’s Eye View Camera
Get a pet’s eye view of the world, like National Geographic scientists do with our Crittercam, featured in PBS’s Wild Chronicles. This ultra-compact and extremely durable digital camera clips onto your pet’s collar, just like an ID tag. Water-resistant ABS housing keeps it secure while your pet roams, giving you the chance to see what the world through his eyes.
Well, my dog usually lays around most of the time, so you can understand why it would be useless to me. But, unless you are a K-9 officer, do you really need something like this?
4. USB Beverage Chillers & Warmers
The CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller is the only way to keep your drink cold while you’re at your computer. And it looks cool on any desktop! The next must-have computer accessory is here. With the USB Beverage Chiller at your side, you can keep your beverage chilled and stay at your computer longer. Just seconds after plugging the chiller into your computer’s USB port (no external outlet needed).
I just see this being a bad idea all around. It supports laziness AND I’m seeing my drink all over my computer because I accidentally tripped on the cord or something.
3. Hydrogen Fuel Rocket
Turn ordinary tap water into clean-burning fuel – and launch this rocket up to 200 feet high. Generate your own hydrogen fuel using simple tap waterRocket soars up to 200 feet highElectronic command center narrates fun hydrogen factsRocket sails back to the ground with a unique helicopter recovery system . Ready to launch in minutes.
o.O Really? Thats just crazy. I have to hide this one from my husband. He’s going to want one, I know it.
2. Mega Margarita Machine
Our Ultimate Margaritaville Margarita Maker is a must-have for true frozen drink connoisseurs. Forget the blender–our restaurant quality machine professionally shaves ice and blends it with your favorite ingredients for consistently smooth results. Automated settings are pre-programmed to shave and blend one, two or three drinks effortlessly in seconds, or you can select manual operation. Easily blends whole fruit, and channels melting ice into a rear reservoir to prevent watered-down drinks.
Ok, this one is actually going on my list. As soon as I’m not pregnant, Girly Night here I come!!
1. Eyeclops Night Vision Goggles
Powered by infrared technology, these night vision goggles are the real deal. Unlike the other toy “night vision goggles” that use little green lights, these night vision goggles use a real infrared imager, onboard camera and LCD monocle that lets you see in complete darkness. It has two modes. Close-Proximity Stealth lets you move right up next to your “target” without being detected.
And this is the #1 silly gadget! Why? Because my husband has been wanting one of these for a while. I still have no idea if he’s serious or not. Hun, you’re not a spy, you’re not a ni
nja, why in God’s name do you need one of these? No. You’re not getting it. You’re lucky I looked for the mouse.
Christmas Tree is Up!
Posted on December 15, 2008
We finally took a half hour out of our day to put up the Christmas tree! Last year, after all the needles and the fire hazard and hassle, we got an artificial tree. And the way Todd said it, made sense. “If we’re going to go fake, why not go totally fake?” So, we got a white tree. Then, we decided, why go with traditional? So, we got bright colorful ornaments and none of them are Christmas colors. I LOVE our tree! I loved it last year, and I think I love it even more this year. Ava had a hand in decorating this year too, so that made it fun. So, without further ado, the Ragusin Family Christmas tree. (Warning: overload of pics.)
Look Mommy! I’m a princess!
Ok, we’re getting somewhere. Stay with me.
Decorating! She was such a big help!
There’s glitter on my hand!
I just love these ornaments!
Ava gets to put the star on top!
Ta-da!! See? Beautiful! Not traditional, but SO pretty! So us!
And Leo, getting into the spirit of his first Christmas, has found the perfect spot under the tree!
Who turned on the waterworks?!
Posted on December 14, 2008
Seriously? What the heck? The past two weeks, it has been a constant battle of melodramatics. I would rather Ava scream and be mad at me. But no, I say “no.” and she runs into the other room, throws herself on the nearest soft object and bawls her eyes out. I don’t even yell. I might say “Not right now, give me a second,” and she will start crying as if I told her I don’t love her anymore. She doesn’t even get mad. She goes into hysterics like I injured her, or hurt her feelings. She is just so absolutely dumbfounded and hurt that I could possibly say no. It’s ridiculous. I’m not sure if they’re crocodile tears or if she is seriously amazed that someone wouldn’t let her have her way right now. But the tears run like faucets and the guilt sets in fast. She really makes me feel like I’m hurting her. It’s driving me insane! Can someone please escort the drama queen out of here?? I don’t know how to deal with this! I know, I’ll get a pic of it next time it happens. Give it a few minutes.
In a Funk
Posted on December 8, 2008
Blech. I’m just not feeling up to par today. I just feel like I want to be in a box, with nothing and no one. No one to talk to me. Nothing to do, and nothing pressing. I want all my work done. I want my house clean. I want my bills paid. And I want to sit in the box and do nothing but breathe. But, I can’t. I’m at the end of my word period before I go on maternity leave, and that sounds so nice. I haven’t had a break for three and a half years. Even when I went camping and on the few small vacations we went on, I still had work to do, or work coming up. But, I still have a lot of things to do before I can officially give myself a break. I have 2 weddings to finish, plus one more to go to. I have 2 albums to finish designing. I have a few sittings that people are asking to do. On top of that, there is Christmas coming up, and that is a job in itself. I’ve got three days in a row of Christmas dinners and things, and then a wedding on the 27th. So, I’m in this dark mood today, with endless things to do looming over my head and I just want to make it disappear. I’m sure I’m being hormonal and depressing, but I don’t really care. I need my break. Soon.