We're Back! Albeit wisdom-less. :)

Well, here I am, lying in bed with icepacks on my face and a dizzy head, but okay after my wisdom teeth surgery.

*squints across to Sarah* Yep. She looks all right too. :P We got our teeth taken out yesterday morning. I was first, and my surgery went pretty well. I think the Doctor said my surgery was a little more severe than Sarah's because my teeth were more impacted. :P

But overall the surgery part was pretty much pleasant. I didn't feel the i.v. go in, and only heard their voices and the drill without feeling anything. The only thing I didn't like was that the blood-pressure machine kept squeezing me, like every five minutes. But once I was asleep I didn't feel it. :)

However, we are both doing well and not in *much* pain. (Except when we didn't have our medicine yet and I took a sip of icewater and burst into tears. :'(

Apparently we were both pretty loopy when we got home. I leaned on Dad till we got into the house, stumbled into the study, sat down, flopped over, and was asleep. Then I finally hauled myself upstairs and into bed where I awoke a short while later to find Sarah in her bed beside me. :P We slept a great deal of yesterday, watched The Young Victoria, and tried to read a little.

Unfortunately my pain medicine makes me feel yucky, so I'm trying to survive off of ibuprofen until Mama calls the pharmacy to change my prescription....I have 45 minutes till I can take my next dose...think I can make it?..... :/

Sarah's the good little patient who eats *all* her food when it's given to her, who doesn't feel ill every time she swallows her pain stuff, and who sleeps through the night....(Well, there is a story about *that* one... ;)

Well, I'm beginning to feel sleepy again. Just thought I'd give you guys an update! :P We took some pictures so as soon as our sense of humor comes back we'll post them! ;)

-Rachel

You Know You've Got a Cold When...

All you want for Christmas is:


;) ~Rachel

You're Never A Prophet In Your Own Country! ;)

Sarah has so much faith in my herbal skills and her reaction to my latest suggestion surprised me! It almost moved me to tears. Literally. ;)
The poor dear has had a horrid cough all week. We joked that we had let her out of the t.b. ward only for Dad's birthday party. So this evening in the kitchen, I said, "I found some elderberries growing along the road today! I'll pick them tomorrow and make you something for your cough!"
Sarah stopped sweeping, stared, and interrupted me with her these words, so accurately describing her faith in my remedies: "I'm-not-gonna-let-you-poison-me!!!" So much for healing my family members! ;) I now sympathize with the earliest doctors who tested which plants were good to use and which weren't. :D

`Ello! I'm Nurse Rachel. Me job is Sanitizing an' all that!

Oh my stars and stockings! Yesterday I had the opportunity of bringing sunshine indoors when there was none outdoors. Here's what happened: we have a veritable sick-house this weekend with Gracie down with a fever for the third day, Daniel with an unsettled stomach, and the rest of us in various stages of consumption. ;) (Just kidding, we just have coughs) So. Mama had been up all night with Gracie who was terribly restless, and had to go grocery shopping for the better part of the day. The girls had been doing deep-cleaning, which as most of you know, ends up with the house looking worse than it did before in most cases. I had been occupied all day with auditing all Dad's contracts, (office work on a rainy day- not a good combination :) and tag-teaming with Sarah on sitting with poor little Gracie. It was raining and terribly muddy, and the younger kids couldn't go out to play. Sound depressing? Yep. I was feeling rather as if I lived in a hospital ward, only, a very cluttery one. But instead of being down in the mouth, the Lord gave me an idea: why couldn't I make sunshine? So. Without further ado, Leah and I bleached every blessed surface of the house, including salt and pepper shakers, backs of chairs, and appliance buttons, to give us a fresh start. Then, we cleaned up the house. I turned on all the lights. I started laundry. I sent the younger ones outside to stomp in puddles. I sat with Gracie on the porch to give her a breath of fresh air. I told she and Abby a "Luke and Liza" story, which the latter had been begging for for days... we all worked together to make the house a pleasant place.
The fresh air revived Gracie enough that she even asked to stomp in puddles too! So we did. Then, with everyone in a much better humor, Mama came home, and we restocked our barren wasteland of a pantry. Anyway, although this was probably not the most interesting post ever, I thought I'd just tell you how we rescued ourselves from the fate of spending the evening in a dim, dusty, sick-house. So, although it is raining today for the third day in a row, even though there are puddles enough to make me dream that a dolphin was stranded in our front yard, even though Gracie is still sick and we are expecting at least Abby to fall prey to the germ, a merry heart truly doeth good like medicine. -Rachel

A Very Quick Lesson I Learned

Warning: This will be a rambling sort of thing that I hope someone else relates to!

We have had a cough-cold-feverish sort of thing this past week going around the house. I finally caught it despite choking down echinacea tincture, elderberry syrup, and all a manner of other things to prevent it. So this morning I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and grumbling to myself in my mind. "I am out of humor with the whole world in general and no one in particular. Why are there so many blasted dishes? Why do we have to declutter today!"
and on and on I went in my mind until I was cross as two sticks and wallowing in self-pity. Then the Lord's soft voice entered my mind countering every sour thought I had. "You have so many dishes because you had a fun time last night with your friends at Daniel's birthday party."
He said.
"But they are Sarah's dishes from last night!" I complained inwardly.
"You didn't do your chores last night. What is more, your mother kept house all day while you and Sarah were out with Daniel. She also took care of sick children and set up for a party and made dinner which was your responsibility."
The more I thought up something to gripe about the more He gently reminded me of all the blessings I had. And finally, when I weakly ended with a self-pitying, "Well, I have a cold!"
He reminded me of what I always tell everyone else and what I told Leah a couple days ago, "A merry heart doeth good like medicine".
So I decided that it was perfectly ridiculous to try to be morose on a day like today which is perfectly lovely and seasonably cold, and I am now trying to be cheerful I say with a stuffy nose,
"A berry heart doeth good like bedicine!" :) -Rachel