Why I never had a date in high school....

Check out the Camaro hair & the pastel green Chuck Taylors.  I know mom, you think I look cute.  (9th grade-1988)

Silent Night

Julie is taking it easy today...still trying to get rid of the cold that won't go away.  Around 4:00 this afternoon, my voice decided to show up again.  Unfortunately, I sound like a cross between Fran Drescher and "Flo" from Alice.  Going against everything my doctor and a psychologist have told me, I googled "why your cold won't go away".  This is what WebMD suggested: 

#1 Lack of Rest.  Hmmm....I get a lot of rest.
#2 Lack of Fluids.  Maybe...does chocolate milk count?
#3 Taking too much drying medicine.  No, I'm not aloud to take decongestants.
#4 Treating the wrong illness.  ?I don't know?
#5 Relying on herbal medicine.  No.
#6 Exercising too hard.  HA!  THAT'S IT!  No, not really.  I consider any type of illness as an excuse to stop exercising altoghter and to eat everything and anything that you want. 

Today, I was supposed to eat with lunch with Christy and our friend Sandra.  Due to my misery, I canceled.  I hear that they had a wonderful time without me BUT I look forward to eating out with them real soon.  You have already "met" Christy but you don't know Sandra yet.  I met Sandra when we were babies in the nursery at church.  We grew up together.  Sandra was always a lot "cooler" than I was but she was nice enough to let me hang around.

I did take some pictures today.  One of the rhododendrons that Scott planted last fall started to bloom today!  I'm so excited. 

Greta isn't normally allowed outside but I did let her walk out for a couple of minutes today and eat some grass.  (She loves grass!)

Here's another picture of our Queen.  She runs our house...

I hope everyone has a great night.  I've opened up some windows to let the germs fly out of my house.  It's not easy being a germaphobe when you are the one with the germs! I've yet to figure out how I can get away from myself.

That's So Julie - Part Deux

Julie is still sick with this blame Spring cold!  I was hoping that tonight I would be telling you how much I had learned in the beginner photography class that I was signed up for last night.  Due to my misery, I had to contact the instructor and see if I could change my registration to the next beginner class.  He was happy to do so BUT that class isn't for a couple of months.  The good news is that my friends Michael and Jill sent me a couple of really great photography books to read.  Thank you Michael and Jill.  I am so loving these books! 

(Hey the picture of the books disappeared.  It was Scott Kelby's Digital Photography Boxed Set) 

Let me just tell you what happened to me today.  First of all, my voice has gone on a temporary vacation.  Seeing as how I answer the phone at work, I really appreciated every caller telling me how TERRIBLE I sound.  NEWS FLASH:  This cold has not affected my hearing...I can hear myself.  But thanks for letting me know.  (This cold has also made me crabby if you hadn't noticed.)

Today, around 10:00 am, I decided to take a Coricidin for my misery. 

Here is where my story turns well, "Julie".  I was already drinking hot chocolate to soothe my throat so I figured that I'd just use that to swallow my pill.  Bad idea.  Somehow, I gagged on my pill and started coughing violently.  There was a very strange feeling and then everything felt ok.  Soon after, I started coughing up what I thought was blood.  Then it was coming out of my nose.  This went on for about 25 minutes.  I sat at my desk fearing the absolute worst until I finally went back to Jim's office and told him what was going on.  He managed to calm my fears and I went back to my desk.  Soon after, I blew my nose and realized that it wasn't blood coming out after all.  It was red dye from the pill.  I realized that the pill must have gone up into my sinus cavity somehow.  It was stuck...but where? 

About 30 minutes later I had the most painful burning sensation in my nose and the back of my throat.  Then the red dye started coming out of my mouth again.  I knew this couldn't be good.  I went into my boss' office and he grabbed his keys and said we were going to the Urgent Care Center.  I told him I didn't want to pay $500.00 to have them laugh at me.  So...he took me into the kitchen and held my hair back while he and I poured cup after cup of water up my nose.  After about 20 minutes of pouring water in and blowing drugs out of my nose, I felt better.

As of 6:00 tonight, I was still blowing red dye and white powder out of my nose.  Still no sign of my voice.  Only the coughing....

Great

I was trying to think of a great title for this post but couldn't come up with one.  So...I figured out a way to make it great anyway.  For anyone who may be remotely interested in seeing a picture of me at work, you're in luck:

Look how professional I am.  I guess I shouldn't have cleaned off my desk before we took the picture.  I look like I don't have any work to do.  If you enlarge the picture, you will notice that there are a lot of golf clubs in the office behind me.  My boss has over 500 sets of golf clubs.  There are 20 bags in his office; those are the overflow clubs from his house.  Luckily for all of us, (especially his wife), he has stopped collecting golf clubs.  He moved on to collecting pipes and has now settled on collecting guitars.

Today Rana and I took the kids to Sensory Story Time at the library.  Unfortunately, things didn't go as planned and we had to leave early.  Rana had a great idea and suggested we take them to the lake at the Arboretum.  Here are some pictures...

This was a big week for Daniel.  He started walking on his own.

I spent the rest of the afternoon planting flowers.  Here is a picture of a flower I did not plant.  It is from an azalea shrub in my brother's yard.  My grandmother planted it many years ago.

 As you can see the trees and flowers are in full bloom here.  I am so thankful for the rain that came on Thursday and helped to wash away the pollen.  Unfortunately, it didn't help my screened-in porch.  Here is a look at how bad the pollen is.  I swept part of the porch before I took this picture.

I guess I really should go do some housework.  For some reason my mom doesn't want to clean it for me.  ???  I'll close with a picture of Greta.  If she looks a little spooked, that is because she heard Scott turn on the lawn mower as I was taking this picture.

Well, the post may not have been great but you can't say that the title wasn't.

Julie Bueller's Day Off

I called in sick today.  Or as my coworker Jim says - I called in "afraid".  "Afraid" that I can't come to work.  I used to always fall for that one when he would tell me that someone had called in afraid.  I'd say, "Afraid of what?" and then you see where this one is going.... Actually,  I feel OK as long as I don't talk.  I know, Scott is so lucky.

I bet you can't wait to hear what exciting things I have been doing on my day off so far.  First of all, I did NOT borrow a Ferrari from anyone's parents.  I did not attend a baseball game at Wrigley field or crash a parade by lip syncing to "Danke Shoen" on a float.  I did not even torment my high school principal.  (I've already forgotten his/her name.) Instead, here is what I did...  To start off, I took my friend Michael's advice and used the zoom lens on these weird caterpillar thingys.

Then I looked them up on Google.  Apparently, they are called Eastern Tent Caterpillars and are very common in the Eastern US.  They will not damage your trees but they will eat the leaves and make them look yucky.  Scott is going to kill them later today.  Wait, we have some late breaking news:  I just got an email from my good friend Liz who informed me that they are indeed tent caterpillars.  I knew she was the smart one.  I should give her a prize for being the only one to answer correctly.  Or the only one to read this blog.

Greta decided to walk out on the porch and see what was going on.  You have to look real close to see her in this picture (unless you click on it).  She doesn't look happy to have her picture taken this morning.   She has that - Shouldn't you be at work? look on her face. 

Next, I stalked a bluebird nest (for almost 2 hours) to try to get a good picture of Mr. or Mrs. Blue poking their head out of the nest.  Well, I got a picture....it wasn't as good as I had hoped.

You are going to have to click on the above picture to see the bird but don't forget to "back" out of it or you will close the website and have to start over.  I was pretty far away but I was using a 70 - 200mm telephoto lens (for the first time ever).  Where did I go wrong?

After walking next door to see what mom was doing, I took a nice nap.  I can't believe it is after 5:00 already.  I guess I'll have to go back to work tomorrow.  It wasn't as exciting as Ferris' day but then again, he didn't have a cold. 

Word to my mother:  Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a movie in the 1980's where Ferris pretended to be sick and had a "big" day.  You may or may not have seen it.  :-)

What is it?

Yesterday, as I was walking around the yard filling up my bird feeders, I noticed something strange.  At first, I thought it was a weird spider web but when I took a closer look, I found this...

It is a bunch of caterpillars (or worse?).  Most of them were moving around but a lot of the ones in the middle seemed to be sleeping.  For those of you who paid attention in Biology...what is it?

I am sad to report that Julie is sick and miserable with a cold.  Luckily for Scott, I have "lost" my voice.  I am going to really hate missing Easter services tomorrow but, I am thankful that it is only a cold.  This morning, I helped out with the Easter egg hunt at church.  There are no photos of Julie since I looked like last month's milk (lumpy?) but guess who I took pictures of...

The above picture is my mom with Laura.  Laura is watching a puppet show.  Below is Rana showing Laura how to hunt for eggs.  Laura did so well; she found a lot of eggs!

Even Daniel found an egg and like everything else that he comes in contact with...it went right in his mouth.

This afternoon I walked next door to visit the family and dad was riding Daniel around in the little red wagon.

I realize that this picture could be better but I still am not sure how to use my new camera! Or how to take pictures in general.  Here's one I took of Laura that I really like.  I have a feeling that the teacher is going to tell us that we shouldn't have pictures of "floating heads" but until then I'm kind of proud of this one. 

Here's a picture of Sophie (my brother's dog).  I took some pictures of her and I didn't want to leave her out.  She likes to sit with her legs crossed...

Well, that just about sums up today.  I spent the rest of the day sleeping on the couch and watching Pretty In Pink on TV.  I won't be posting any pictures of the house anytime soon.  Between my mother-in-law's visit this past week and my cold it could take months to get everything back in the right place.  If Scott were rich I would hire a maid... and a chef....and a personal trainer.  Oh, and maybe an interior decorator.  Until then....I'll just live in a messy house, eating bad-for-me food and trying to squeeze into my clothes.

Good (cough, cough) night!