Any Given Saturday

Today was a pretty typical Saturday in the Schiff household. It involved a great mix of playing/enjoying outside with friends and lots of food.
It is soooo nice to be back amongst the living. Last Sunday I got a horrible headache. I didn't think much of it. I took some Tylenol and it seemed to get better. That evening we went to eat at our FAVORITE restaurant (BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT IN TOWN HANDS DOWN!!)and I couldn't taste the food :( After we got home I was sooo tired I couldn't stay awake. As soon as I laid Ollie down that night I went right to bed and left Sam to put the bigger kids to bed by himself. Ollie got up a few times during the night and I didn't feel right when I got up to nurse him. The next morning I could barely get out of bed. Tired is not the right word. Exhausted is not the right word. It felt like I had been drained of all my energy during that night. I could barely walk. My headache was back and I felt a swollen gland in my throat. There was a ton of pressure behind my right eye but I couldn't get any relief. I don't like taking medicine so the only thing I took was Ibuprofen to hopefully help with the pressure and the feeling my head about to explode. That day was long and hard with Ollie since I couldn't just lay around I had to keep going. As soon as Sam got home that night I went right to bed and left him to put all three kids to bed by himself. The several times I got up that night with Oliver I could tell I was not better. The following day is when the fever started. I was hot, I was freezing cold, I had the headache and the EXTREME fatigue was going no where. I slept for two hours that day when Oliver napped and woke up EXHAUSTED still. That night when I tried to go to sleep I was shivering soo bad I couldn't fall asleep and this was one of the 70 degree days we had last week so it really wasn't cold out I just had a fever. Sam got out the heating blanket for me and I tossed and turned all night with a fever of about 103. The headache was unbearable. Finally sometime during the night my fever broke and I woke up sweating buckets. Poor Sam and Oliver were burning up too becasue I was laying there with the heating blanket on full blast. On Thursday I felt a little more normal. I actually had some energy and cleaned my kitchen which felt really good but I think I overdid it a bit and was zapped of energy by the end of the day. Friday was a little bit of a setback the headache came back but finally some of the pressure was releasing and I was able to blow my nose and get some of the yuckky junk out of my head.
The awesome part of the this sickness was I was not hungry AT ALL. I lost 5 lbs. during the 5 day ordeal. It was water weight becasue I was still drinking lots of fluids. I was so tired and sick though that I couldn't even read my book! I got Mockingjay from the library about 5 days before my sickness and only read about 1/4 of it. Yesterday with my newfound life energy I finished the book. I cried my eyes out at the end. I couldn't believe the author didn't make Katniss and Gale still good friends and that Katniss and Peeta still struggled with their demons on a daily basis. I'm all about happy endings and wished that the Capitol could have given them some drug or treatment to make them forget all the bad stuff and go back the to lovely dovey relationship that they should have had if not for the Quarter Quell. But honestly, I LOVED the series. I'm needing to find another good book to read.
Anyway, back to today. It was lovely to feel better (not 100% but still) and to be able to play with my kids and joke around with my husband. This is what life is all about. I guess that is one thing being sick can do: make you appriciate not being sick and precious time with your loved ones. Oh and I think I gained all 5 lbs. back today. I made green cupcakes with my new all-natural food coloring and we went back to our FAV restaurant and I could actually taste the yummy food this time so I made up for not being able to taste last time BIG TIME ;-p

What a man, what a man, what a mighty good man

Today is my birthday. I wasn't expecting much. I turned 32 so it's not a big deal but this morning my husband surprised me and said he wanted to take me out for lunch. I also got all 3 of my snugglebugs in bed with me at 6:30 with 2 out of 3 singing Happy Birthday. Gwen informed me that I just had to get out of bed cause there was a surprise for me upstairs which she said she couldnt tell me what it was cause she promised daddy and then proceeded to tell me it was balloons. I also got two lovely notes from the kids and Collin spelled out a special message with Legos. After I took the kids to school I headed to the gym and then came home to shower. Afterward I met Sam at Ko Fusion for lunch. When we got to lunch he had an even bigger surprise...he was taking the rest of the afternoon off. After we got home from lunch he instructed me to relax and drink a Mimosa which I happily obliged. After the Mimosa I went downstairs to read my book. After I read my book for a bit he said he was going to go pick up the big kids from school which was awesome. When he was picking the kids up from school I laid Oliver down for a nap and I started to read my book again. At about 3:45 he came into the room and said I needed to leave and go to BodyWork Associates where he had booked a massage for me. I haven't had real massage done since I was pregnant with Gwen and it did not disappoint. When I left the massage I went shopping at Bella Mia and found some adorable shorts and a top. When i arrived home dinner was waiting and ice cream cake for dessert. I am one lucky mama. Sam took care of the kids all day, I got a great lunch/dinner, a massage and went shopping...throw in a mani/pedi and I could get used to this lifestyle REAL quickly. I've got a good man. He's a definite keeper! Now, unfortunately, Gwennie is feeling sick again so my day of leisure is coming to an end and my mommy responsibilities are kicking back in but after the day I've had I'm relaxed enough to jump in and take over.

Why I Quit Facebook

1. Sam really doesn't like the idea of Facebook. He's under the belief that a lot of people on Facebook are doing some sinister stuff aka cheating on their husbands, rekindling old high school flames etc. He's kinda old school. He only just recently started texting and only after I received my iPhone and went on and on about how cool it is that you can get sports updates sent straight to it did he finally convert to his first ever smart phone. Although his old school mentality about facebook and texting doesn't hold much weight in my world (both our moms are on Facebook and my grandma texts me) it is still important for me to take his concerns into consideration.
2. I've spent sooo much money on stuff I don't really need. Or course there is also the flipside of that and there are a lot of coupons that companies put exclusively on their Facebook page but I always forget coupons when I go shopping and printing out coupons I will never use is just another wathor wasting money. Printer ink is expensive! As of today I have a pair of shoes I bought for Oliver that he can't wear until he's about 18 months old. A cloth diaper that needs new elastic and I can't sew. 6 fabric headbands I bought for Gwen that she hates and on and on. I am constantly getting updates of these incredible deals for stuff I DON'T NEED.
3. IT'S A MAJOR TIME SUCK!! Now that I do have a smart phone I found myself checking the damn thing constantly just because I can. Which is cool if you're a single person without major responsibilities. Not so cool if you're a wife and a mother of 3 who is constantly checking out. My kids were always saying, "look mommy", "watch this", etc... and my response was far too often "hold on", "in a minute", etc... Talk about major mommy guilt. What was so important on my phone that I needed to neglect my kids? Oh yeah, NOTHING. I cut down my friends list to the bare minimum thinking that would help and it didn't. It was becoming TOO easy to check out and that worried me. I am so blessed that I am able to stay home with our kids. My husband works hard so I can stay home and here I was wasting that precious time by ignoring them. All of them. For what? For whom? I am in no way insinuating that this is the way all or even most of the people I know of Facebook act. It's just me. I have a somewhat obsessive compulsive personality that makes me go all out or not at all and since this was becoming a problem for ME I learned that the best remedy for me was to stop cold turkey.
Now a moment to reflect in the things I will miss.
1. Seeing what's going on in the lives of the special people in my life. Out of my (at one time 200+) Facebook friends I really only cared about 1/3 of them. So why so many "friends"? Morbid curiousity I guess. Otherwise I couldn't care less about what they had for breakfast or the vacation they took etc, etc. But a select few I really do care about and tryin to keep up with them the old fashioned way now is going to suck. I guess it will show me who I really care about and who really cares about me now that it's not so easy.
2. All my pictures!
I had virtually half of my childrens' lives documented through pictures on Facebook. My old computer broke in November of 2010 so I lost a TON of photos (I'm still not fully recovered). The process of saving all those photos to Facebook onto my new computer has been a loooooong process.
3. Feeling like I get to talk to adults during the day.
Being a stay at home mom (especially since my youngest is only 6 months) can be kind of alienating if you let it. I know lots of moms who are involved in a ton of different activities with their children....I'm not that mom. It seems too much like work to me. Facebook was a great middle ground between communicating with adults yet not having to get out of my pajamas. Which bring me to my next point.
4. The laugh factor
I have some seriously smart and hysterical friends! Scrolling through my news feed on any given day is sure to have me laughing out loud. Also sometimes people who aren't trying to be funny give me a hoot. I'm going to miss that daily dose of humor.
5. Important news updates. Facebook is where I found out Bea Arthur and Whitney Houston died. I don't read a lot of news articles online and since I now do so much from my smart phone (including writing this post so please excuse any typos) I have no need to scan the MSN homepage for news and interesting factoids. Watching tv is limited to about an hour before I fall asleep at night so not much info is gathered there. So many important things are now delivered at the speed of light and I will officially be the last to know....and I'm okay with that.
So where does that leave me? Well I've got lots more free time but know nothing about the world around me. I communicate less with people unless I do it "the old-fashioned" way.
My hope is that the disconnect with Facebook leaves me and my family more connected then ever. That my husband and kids won't hear my replies of "not now" and "in a minute" as often.
But I'm not COMPLETELY living off the grid. You can still find me on Instagram (@schiffty) and on Pinterest (@schiffty).