Good, Bad and Ugly

The Good:  I'm back!

The Bad:  Being back and having access to a computer to leave this post also means that I am back at work/school.  

And, having been gone for so long means that I may have lost the four folks who have unwittingly signed up as followers!

The Ugly:  Got to work/school this morning only to find out that there was no heat.  Someone who supposedly is in charge of these things let us run out of gas.  Therefore, no heat.  And it was only about 7 degrees when I left home!  My fingers are not working well because the thermometer in my office reads 63 as I type this....after over three hours of having heat on!

The milk truck did not make their delivery this morning, so someone had to got to the local quick mart and clean them out of gallons of milk so our kids could have breakfast.

And, do you realize just how many kids don't really get to eat when school is out?  I guess that unless you work in a school, you probably wouldn't know about this, huh?  We had a huge amount of kids eating breakfast this morning, even though it was only cold milk and cereal. We always worry about our kids when we are out of school because of this little known fact.

The Good:  We had Christmas with most of our family with minimal tears to be found.  I still have The Boy questioning Santa!  How else would a gift wrapped in Santa paper have made it onto his bed since none of us had been in that house for over a week?  The Boy received his first Lionel Train.  And he loves it!  I will have to post pictures later when I am able to finally sit down and go through them all.

The Bad:  My cousin did not bring himself, his wife or two little boys to Christmas at my Grandparent's house, so that kind of put a damper on things there.  Another cousin had shoulder surgery the week before, so he spent most of Christmas in a drug induced haze.  He was not his usual chipper self.

The Ugly:  I have to preface this by saying that it is not the number of gifts a person receives, it is more about the way people are treated.  When we went to Crazy Man's aunt and uncle's house for that Christmas get together, I nearly lost my mind all over one of the aunts.

It is known that all the kids get a gift from the adults.  That usually means that each kid gets 4 or 5 gifts.  They usually are not overly expensive, just little somethings.

Last year, one aunt came in and started handing out gifts.  She looked at The Boy and said "I didn't get you anything. I forgot."  She then walked away.

This year, at least she didn't say it to his face and in front of everyone else.  Unfortunately, The Boy could see that he was left out again.

When we were getting food ready for Christmas Eve supper, I noticed that someone had set out a shrimp ring.  That is all fine and dandy, except that The Boy is allergic to shrimp.  I didn't really think a lot about it since he knows to stay away from them, but then I realized that if they pick up the shrimp with their fingers and then reach into the bowl with potato chips, they have just transferred the shrimp to the chips.  Or if they pick up the shrimp and then touch a serving spoon, guess what?!

So, I said to my mom, "We need to be really careful with those shrimp because if they...."

I was cut off by her abruptly telling me that, "He will be fine, it is just shrimp and he knows he is not supposed to have them." 

I tried to finish what I was saying, but was told, "He will be fine."

Luckily, I was able to tell Crazy Man (when he trailed me to the garage to find me crying) and The Boy.  Between myself and Crazy Man, we made sure that we were the ones who served him and got in between him and anything anyone else may have touched.

The Good:  I am starting to feel a little better.

The Bad:  I missed the first couple of days of 2010 because I was sick.

The Ugly:  I woke up to the tune of vomiting (my own unfortunately) around 6 a.m. on New Year's Day.

Now, if I had done something to bring this on, I would not have been so upset.  You know, like if I had drank to excess or something.  But, I had not even had a drop of alcohol the night (or any night) before. 

Nope, instead, some little bug had decided to celebrate in me instead.  Today, I am still with a stomach ache and some nausea.  I am keeping my fingers crossed that this ends really soon.

The Good:  My Big Little Brother is out of the hospital, I assume.

The Bad:  I am not supposed to know that he was sick, let alone in the hospital.

The Ugly:  On New Year's Day, Crazy Man called my grandmother to let her know that we were planning on stopping by, but I was too sick to do so.  She has called each day since to make sure that I am doing better.

Yesterday, she called around 10 a.m. to see how I was, and made mention of the fact that my Big Little Brother was scheduled to see the doc on Monday since he had been sick since Wednesday.  She asked if I had any idea what was wrong because she couldn't get anything out of either him nor my parents.  I told her that I did not know that he was ill.  She said that she had tried to call and check on him before calling me, but figures he was in the shower since he didn't answer the phone.  We talked a little longer and she hung up.

About 10 minutes later, she called to tell me that an old girlfriend of my Big Little Brother had called and said that she had taken him to the hospital.  She said that she would probably be in trouble by him if he knew that she had called my grandparents, but felt that they needed to know.  She said that he had just been taken back into an exam room.  My grandma said that was all she was told and that she would call me back if she heard anything else.

A few minutes after that, she called again saying that Big Little Brother had seen that Grandma had called and wanted to let her know that he was fine, but that he was in the ER getting pain meds.  Through all that she was told, Grandma felt like he may have a kidney stone.  She then asked me if I thought that my parents knew and I told her that they more than likely did.  She said she would call them just to make sure and see if she could find out anything else.

A couple hours later, I called my grandma to see what else she had heard and she told me nothing.  She did say that she had called my parents and that they were fully aware of what was going on, but didn't really tell her anything.  She asked if they had called to tell me anything.  I told her that I had heard nothing from them.

Our phone rang around 4:30 p.m.  We had been home for less than an hour at that point.  We were still getting things settled after having bought groceries and such.  Crazy Man answered.  His side of the conversation went something like this:"Yes, she is starting to feel better.  I'm sorry I didn't call to let you know the other day that she was sick.  We called Grandma because we were going to go over to visit. OK. Good bye."  

He said that it was my mom calling because Grandma had mentioned that I had been sick when she called earlier in the day and she wanted to see if I was feeling better.  She mentioned nothing about a sick brother.  I asked if she had wanted to speak with me.  He said that she did not ask to do so. 

I told him that if I had left my feelings on, then that would have hurt.  I lied.  It did/does hurt. 

I called Grandma around 8:30 p.m. to see if she had heard anything else.  She said that she had not.  She asked if I had talked to my parents.  I told her about the phone call, but that my mom did not want to talk to me.  She was nearly as upset as I was. 

I am hoping that there will be more good than bad or ugly this year, although it isn't starting off very promising, huh?!  I will keep my cold fingers crossed though!  Hope everyone out there had a great Christmas and New Year!