Pansy: July 2003 Archives

What a compliment from...

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Today is my Hubby's

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Today is my Hubby's Birthday!

He is 30 today, the big 3-0. Now he cannot tease me for being a viejita because we are the same age (even though I am still 7 months older).

I am thankful to God today for the gift of my husband-usually....

I wish I had a

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I wish I had a basketball to throw at his head! What is wrong with celebrity men?
Sadly, 4 mil ain't even enough...

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Blogger has been acting weird

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Blogger has been acting weird for me so if my posts seem half done, make no sense, non-proof read, your observations are accurate. The pages keep closing on me and when I think a post is lost, it is showing up. Odd.

Appliance Bermuda Triangle

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Appliance Bermuda Triangle

About a month and a half ago my hot water heater broke, so it was replaced. Yesterday my fridge stopped keeping things cold, so all my refrigerated food has gone bad. But you know what, I am semi-prepared. I buy powdered milk in bulk at the health food store and powdered egg whites, so I had the necessary ingredients to make pancakes this morning. I use the powdered milk in things like muffin recipes, I add an extra half a cup for extra calcium. I never use it to, well, make milk, so I do not have the water to powdered milk for reconstitution ratios anywhere. I tried to look it up online I found a recipe book on cooking with powdered milk ! I am not sure why, but I thought that to be the oddest thing, like if I had that book, now all my bases will be covered for any disaster.

While I understand their reasoning,

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While I understand their reasoning, I find this extremely disturbing.

Alicia's article on Castor Oil

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I am lost On Saturday

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I am lost

On Saturday we went to a 6 year old's birthday party which was fun. The husband and 10 children of the family I blogged about before were there . Before they left, the husband told my husband to come over for a get together. So I picked out one of my more modest modest outfits and we went. It was a nice day, but at the end she asked where do I get the "gumption" to wear the mantillas I wear (black lace) to Church because they are distracting when Church is for prayer...

Still Waiting for Baby

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I thought it was just

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I thought it was just me and I was starting to think I was being a little harsh, but I was sooo relieved to see this article in Catholic Exchange.

Last night I was watching the Dateline interview with "Jen and Ben" and they compared them to other "great couples such as Hepburn and Tracy". My reaction really was one of disgust because Spencer Tracy was married.

I am sorry, but to my own fault, one of the things I have a hard time being charitable about is adultery. To me it is making a choice to love, honour and protect someone forever by marrying them and then throwing them to the wolves. It is not just getting carried away, it is a series of cruel and selfish choices. It should not be glorified in Hollywood as a "great romance".

Here is the Article but

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Here is the Article but you need either a subscription to AOL or the magazine to view it. In the meantime, here is the blurb on breastfeeding:

20 rules to break now

Don't drink red wine with fish.... Don't read in dim light... Change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles.... Anybody know who makes these rules? Or-even more mysterious-why we blindly follow them? Here, 20 examples of what "they" say-ironclad conventional wisdom whose time has come and gone. Now, go ahead and
leave that laundry in the machine overnight...

don't breast-feed your child?

most likely: "In the long run, nothing," says Boris Petrikovsky, chairman of the department of obstetrics-gynecology at Nassau University Medical Center, in East Meadow, New York. When you're bottle-feeding, you know exactly how much food the baby is eating, and Mom may be less tired because Dad has no excuse to sleep through 3 a.m. feedings. "There is also absolutely no conclusive data on breast milk's effects on brain development," adds Petrikovsky.
worst case: "The biggest downside of not breast-feeding is that the mother misses out on some of the bonding," says Petrikovsky. And since breast milk is specially designed to meet the nutritional needs of infants and contains antibodies that help protect them from a variety of illnesses, "babies who are breast-fed are more likely to have a stronger immune system and be sick less than formula-fed infants."

One, I cannot add a thing to Sparki's blog except this doctor is a dork and why do they not enlist the opinion of a pediatric nutrionist as opposed to an OB/Gyn? Maybe I will go ask a dermatologist how best to treat Gorbulas' asthma next week.

Ick I found out today

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Ick

I found out today that a family who once had us over, they will not invite us over again because my clothes are very "immodest" and she is afraid her sons are "looking" at me. I feel kinda icky...

New Breed of Men:

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The Complete Tightwad Gazette This

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The Complete Tightwad Gazette

This is not a book review because I did not read the whole book yet. What I have read has been sort of an Examination of Conscience for Financial Household Management. The author, Amy Dacyczyn (pronounced decision) believes that most people have financial troubles (or at least can make more use of their money for example in the 80's with four children on an under 30K a year salary, she saved $49.000 in seven years and used it as a down payment on her dream home) by saving more as opposed to earning more (two income families). She might just be a woman after my own heart. But man is she frugal. I suppose it becomes a habit, but in the meantime thinking of ways to save money like that 24/7 makes my head hurt.

I have to say, I am not totally ashamed of myself, there are things I do do. We do not eat a lot of meat, I buy in bulk, I make a great deal from scratch, keep lights off at night (and use oil lamps when necessary), use cloth diapers, wash out ziploc bags, my husband cuts the boys' hair, just to name a few (although I refuse to cut moldy parts off of fruit or pour hot water in the bottom of a ketchup bottle to make it stretch-gross). People are often surprised how we have 4 children on one modest blue collar income and are not on any assistance or starving. Still I could do better.

My biggest problem is something everyone knows is a financial no-no. I like to eat out. Once a week, after cooking almost everything from scratch, watching our foods for dyes,preservatives and cholesterol, I have to get a weekly grease fix. What a hypocrite. I know this bad habit (and it is a habit because I have been unsuccessful in just saying "not this week") is what is going to keep me from my dream farm house on a few acres in Schoharie County, NY, I have begun to look at the "why's" of this habit.

Number one is I am burnt out. At the end of the week, I am sick of chopping onions, doing dishes, looking at the inside of my kitchen and wearing clothing that it is OK to splatter tomato sauce on. I want to get out and get cute. Also, there are times when, for example, someone drops by and stays until like 4.30, so I will order a pizza. To remedy this, I am going to attempt to fix things like casseroles to put into the freezer for days like this, and all I have to do is pop them in the oven.

Reason number two is I get tired of the taste of my own cooking. Do not get me wrong, I am a pretty good cook. Not an Erik Keilholtz kind of cook, but a pretty good (as Peony would say) a la femme cuisine cook. I would not eat my food at all if I could not cook well. But once a week I am dying for something like buffalo wings, or french fries, a burger, General Tso's chicken, you know those things that are hard to make at home-especially since I have no idea how to fry anything. This one is more tough to remedy. I have found two interesting sites that may help. One is Copykat.com and the other is Top Secret Recipes. It's like I need a junk food fix or something.
What I am looking for are recipes for something like Hot Pockets for when the kid's are hungry and I can stick in the microwave, but make myself without all the sodium, fat and preservatives. Would anyone have such a recipe?

The Rosary My Way As

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The Rosary My Way

As a child I learned a rosary decade was basically one Our Father followed by ten Hail Mary's and one Glory Be. Later, I do not remember when, I learned the Fatima prayer to be said after the Glory Be. Now for reasons I cannot remember I say :

Come Holy Spirit
Come by the means of the most powerful intercession
Of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Your Most Beloved Spouse

and

Saint Michael the Archangel protect us
and may the souls of the faithful departed
through the mercy of God rest in peace.

I think I picked these up saying rosaries with groups at various places, but I do not remember specifically where.

Also, at the end of the rosary, I say an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be for the intentions of the Holy Father for this month.

Now here is the funny thing. Whenever I am with a group of people and they say "hey, let's say the rosary" everyone seems to have their own way of saying the rosary. That would be interesting enough, but it is funny because after the Fatima prayer, out of habit I will go into my "Come Holy Spirit..." and there is this awkward moment because three other people are saying Oh Sacrament Most Holy, Oh Sacrament Divine, All Praise and all thanksgiving be every moment thine...

I wonder if there is like group rosary saying etiquette, like just stick with the Fatima prayer?

Bummer On Saturday all the

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Bummer

On Saturday all the family men-folk (my father, his three sons, my husband and Posco-all with the exception of Gorbulas and Fastolph) went to a Met's game. My mother, Rosey-Posey, Gorbulas, Fastolph and myself went raspberry picking. I accidently forgot the raspberries at my mother's house and today she dropped them off. I got out my jars, pot and canner and was all set to make some raspberry jam only to find the raspberries all molded over. Bummer. Now I have to put all my stuff away. :(

Jeff Culbreath blogged about

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Jeff Culbreath blogged about the "new masculinity" a few days ago

I don't know, I am thirty years old. For the period of time I was dating, one thing that struck me is we are living in a time where "masculine" is synonomous with disrespect for women. I realise that perhaps there was no time where women (or any group for that matter) had a golden age. But it seems to me being a man meant being responsible for your children and sticking to your commitments. Now it is some sort of strange charicature personified by WWE.

It is a little more insidious than bad television. Each Friday night my husband gets a lecture for coming home after work instead of going out to the bar. His co-workers say things like "Oh, the Old Ball and Chain tells you what to do! " After a while some of that mentality rubs off...

I thought it would be

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I thought it would be worse

10.25641%-Geekish Tendencies

It's only that high from hanging around my brother (who came in at 38.2643% - Major Geek) and husband (who is asleep). I am afraid to see their scores.

Budding Priest? Today we

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Budding Priest?

Today we were saying the Family Angelus at noon, and Gorbulas got out of my arms and tried to get a Rosary from our Rosary rack. I was impressed. Perhaps a budding priest? Maybe not. I am thinking it is every Catholic mother's mission that we look for signs that our sons may become priests in everything they do.

Peony tells me her Hambet blesses her with "Ho-wee wa'er". Maybe I will be the friend of someone whose son became a priest.

Wallowing in Self-Pity I recently

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Wallowing in Self-Pity

I recently rented Frida. Funny because my curiosity about Frida Kahlo was aroused in a conversation with Peony about eyebrow waxing. After that it occurred to me I did not know who she was, so I looked her up to educate myself. I was intrigued by her paintings. I would never hang one in my home for fear of giving the kids nightmares, but she is able to portray the pain in her life from things that many of us can relate to such as the suffering of experiencing miscarriages, obsessing over unrequited love, or the frustration of living with debilitating health problems . However, while she illustrates very well her sadness ( and I actually wish I could paint so I could have the same outlet) her paintings lack hope and are filled with the self-centeredness depression without the Church (and place to channel that suffering-uniting it with Christ's suffering) brings. She did not have children, so I guess it is a moot point because maybe she did not have other responsibilities, but I cannot relate to spending hour upon hour painting self-portraits to channel all that sad energy to nothing constructive. Maybe I am judging too harshly because the paintings do make me say "ah, I have been there..." and that takes great talent and emotion on her part. Yet they do not inspire me to pray on these events, but to lock myself in my bedroom with a fifth of vodka and go to sleep for days.

As for the movie, funny thing. Literatelly like three days after Peony and I had the conversation about Frida, I was at our local movie theater with my family to see Twin Towers (which is a really nice theater except they are geared more towards the Avant Garde) when I saw a poster for Frida. My husband was on vacation and I thought maybe I would take advantage and do a "Mom By Herself" date and see the film, but that never came to pass. I finally got around to renting it this week.

Part of the problem for me was something Hollywood does a lot lately. In two movies that come to mind, Tom Hanks was a nice and misunderstood hitman in Road To Perdition. In Panic Room Forest Whitaker was a nice burglar. No one stops to think perhaps these characters would not be nice people? Same in Frida. In the interviews with the cast and director, everyone talks about how much Frida Kahlo "loved life". Um, has anyone looked at the same paintings I see? What they really mean is she lived amorally. She was an adulteress, a pervert, rumored to have beaten one of her female lovers to death with a crutch and married to a man who could nor would not stay faithful, who was a Communist, a cannibal-just not very nice. Yet this movie tries to portray them as fun-loving free-thinkers and people with society's best interests at heart. Whatever. Typical.

Visually, I did like the movie. Lots of colours set in Mexico. I just do not think it is telling the true story. Just another point about how wonderful it is not to follow the rules.

Good article on Catholic Exchange

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Good article on Catholic Exchange about Affirmative Action.

I am sorry about the slow blogging, and I would comment more, but I am seriously drained emotionally as of late.

The Prayers Are Working!

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The Prayers Are Working!

Gorbulas had a follow-up appointment and his lungs look good! Thank you so much!

If I may be so bold for one more request? We have had a few more life stresses at one time than I think I am capable of handling gracefully. One is Gorbulas' health, another is my father-in-law totally dissed us for Posco's First Holy Communion. The emotional fall-out is putting a big time strain on my marriage. If some prayers could directed in that direction, it would make a huge difference.

New Routine Now that my

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New Routine
Now that my 18 month old has "severe" asthma, I have to keep him on a variety of medications which makes me nervous. Do not get me wrong, I am very grateful for the fact that there are medications to give him the ability to breathe. I fully understand that due to original sin, there is illness in the world, and I am so blessed to have food, shelter and two hospitals within walking distance. The medications upset me though.

Before we had to give Gorbulas albuterol in the nebuliser, and perhaps Pulmicort on an "as needed" basis. Now he has to have albuterol treatments around the clock every four hours, he has to be on Prelone syrup two times a day for four more days. which is a steroid and has a ton of nasty side effects, including candidiasis and all the nasty side effects associated with the disease so my poor baby will probably be fighting this for the rest of his life and never be able to eat a carb again. After four days, I have to teach an 18 month old to use an inhaler because the dosage of Pulmicort (another steroid) for the nebuliser is not strong enough. This is until, well, until hopefully he outgrows asthma, or I can figure out a way to cure him with some type of diet and filling my home with a bazillion ionic air filters.

Again, I am amazed at medical science. (I am just venting because I am scared for my little guy. That is why I have this blog right, to vent?) I am also amazed at the way God created our bodies. When Gorbulas' lung collapsed, it caused his chest cavity to fill with air, where it would normally be filled with lung. The air is not supposed to be there because God created our bodies to have a negative air space (vacuum) in our bodies which is what keeps the lung inflated. Maybe I am too emotional, but I always in awe of our God when I learn a little bit more about how he constructed our bodies.

Speaking of which I took the little guy's dressing off this morning when I gave him his bath. God bless him, I never saw a kid who puts up with people ripping Band-Aids and surgical tape off of him. He just looked at me an smiled. The area of his cheek bones are all scabbed over from the surgical tape used to adhere the oxygen tubes to his face. I made a horrible blunder trying to wash some of the adhesive off with a wash cloth because it is getting all black and nasty. I made his face bleed when I wiped over the area with the wash cloth. I did not realise how delicate the scabs were. But the little wound in his side where they inserted the chest tube looks good and I hope God will take good care of it.

Back From the Hospital We

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Back From the Hospital

We have been in the hospital since Sunday night with Gorbulas. On Sunday he woke up with what appeared to be croup. I called the doctor and she told me that the treatment for croup and asthma are the same, so to be vigilant with his nebuliser treatments.

At first the treatments eased his wheezing, then around 5 PM, they did not do so, even when we administered them back to back. We called our doctor and brought him in. His O2 was very low (82 percent) and he was clearly stressed. The doctor admitted him to the hopsital as immediately.

I went and stayed with him. The first thing they did was give him a chest x-ray. The next morning, the nebuliser treatments were still not taking effect and he could not stay saturated with O2 on his own. The doctor reviewed his x-ray and said it looked like his left lung was collapsed. They took a second x-ray to make sure that it indeed was collapsed. As a result they called the surgeon in.

The surgeon put up his x-rays and showed us his chest cavity where his lung should have been, was 3/4 of the way empty. Treatment was inserting a chest tube. Ugh.

The head thoracic surgeon came into our room, clapped his hands and asked "whose staying to watch?" I could not. I took my rosary and stayed down the hall, but my husband stayed to watch. They gave Gorbulas something to "consciously sedate" him. He did not stay sedated too long because I heard him screaming down the hall as they put the chest tube in. I prayed to Mary that this was a small moment where I could imagine in a small way how she felt when her son was being crucified.

As soon as he had the chest tube put in, he could breathe and stopped coughing. He was also very drugged up on tylenol with codeine. They took the tube out yesterday, and so far he is doing very well, but is still wheezing. The doctor said he is not out of the woods yet, but he allowed him to go home.

Yesterday morning his nurse said to me:
Nurse:He is getting quite the reputation.
Me: For what?
Nurse:Because of how cute he is. Every report about him is finished with "he is so cute and has beautiful eyes"
Me:Oh
Nurse:It is amazing how well he is doing. He is such a little guy and has been through a lot in the past few days. It says a lot about you and your husband. We see so many kids in here that are so screwed up because of their family life, and it affects their recovery...
Me: Oh gosh, crop it up to attachment parenting.


Di Fattura Caslinga: Pansy's Etsy Shop
The Sleepy Mommy Shoppe: Stuff we Like
(Disclaimer: We aren't being compensated to like this stuff.
Any loose change in referral fees goes to the Feed Pansy's Ravenous Teens Fund.)


Pansy and Peony: The Two Sleepy Mommies



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