Further proof that I am not really a grownup

I have to admit that I was beginning to feel pretty smug. I was all the way into January, and I hadn't gotten sick. I was pleased that I was taking my vitamins, being healthy, washing my hands enough, blah blah blah.  To make it worse, J had been fighting off a cold for weeks.  Well, Karma can be a real *itch, and she smacked me down but good.

So, last Monday, I was feeling the tiniest bit of a sore throat, but didn't think it was any big deal- I blamed it on the smog/inversion in the air.  Then I woke up Tuesday. UGH.  So sick with a cold. Absolutely miserable.

Wednesday was even worse- by day's end my right ear was starting to hurt, and my voice was starting to go.

Thursday, I had no voice and my ear hurt even worse.

Friday, I managed to drag myself to a closing, even though I couldn't talk at all, and I was completely distracted by the pain in my ear.  I finally went to an instacare Friday night, hoping they could "fix" what I was sure was an ear infection.  The doctor didn't seem terribly impressed, but did say it was infected and gave me some antibiotics.  I mentioned that I'd started to notice a little bit of fluid coming out of my ear, and he asked if I'd been using ear drops. I said I had, but that there was more coming out than I'd ever put in. He noted that it was unusual for an adult to get an ear infection, and even less common for their eardrum to burst.

Saturday morning I woke up with all kinds of scary creepy goo coming out of my ear, and almost completely deaf on that side. Greeeeat! To make it even funner, my balance was completely gone, and I had a pretty good case of vertigo.

The weekend passed much the same way.

On Monday, I had a friend take me to an ear/nose/throat specialist, who confirmed that yes, my eardrum had burst, and yes, it probably had been really painful. He gave me stronger antibiotics (he very diplomatically said that he disagreed with the course I'd been given) and antibiotic ear drops.

I'm finally feeling comfortable driving- vertigo is pretty much gone unless I turn my head too quickly. Loud noises still bother me a lot, and I'm still mostly deaf and in some pain. But, I am starting to think I'll recover.  The doctor feels that my deafness is temporary.

Feeding the cows

I have to admit that I am quite the slacker cow mom. The cow guy has made it very, very easy. He loaded all of the hay he bought into the loft of the barn, bought an enormous tank (like small pool sized) for water, a big heater for it, and a big trough at the edge of the barn. He's got a pretty nice system to feed/water the cows. Because they're a herd, it's impossible to just feed his, or just feed mine. So, he's been feeding/watering all of the cows. He's said that when he runs out of hay, we'll move our hay over to the loft and go from there. We've got it covered pretty good with a tarp, so hopefully it'll be safe from the elements.

Anyway, yesterday, he called and said he was going out of town for the weekend, and would I be willing to feed/water the cows? Sure!  I've been feeling guilty that he's been going there twice a day and doing all the work. I definitely don't feel like he's getting the fair end here- doing all of the work. So, I jumped at the chance to feed them.

The cows were pretty excited to see me arrive to feed them. Bali, the bali steer was standing lengthwise in the trough, which made getting hay into it rather tricky. You can see Casanova on the far right, which Tbone right next to him. Tbone is still a pretty little guy, but he is getting bigger. He looks tiny compared to everyone else because he's several weeks younger.

I started to toss the alfalfa down, and hoped that Bali would get out of the way. Nope. None of the cows were terrible interested in moving, so by the end, Bali looked like a green monster.

Mermaid Costume

My seven year old, S, is obsessed with mermaids. She loves the show "H2O" and watches it frequently. When she swims, she tries to swim like a mermaid. When she bathes, she pretends to be a mermaid. She desperately wants to BE a mermaid.

For Christmas this year, I decided to make her a mermaid costume that I'd seen online.

It was going to be a little tricky, because I wanted it to be a surprise.  I bought a monofin from amazon. I bought 3 yards of swimsuit fabric at the store. I want to make a matching swimming suit to go with it. I borrowed an old one piece pattern from my mom, but I'm thinking I'd like to have it be a tankini. But, I'll admit that 3 yards was definitely overkill on fabric, so I could easily make 4 or 5 swimming suits with the leftover fabric.

Then, I got a large piece of butcher paper, and told S that I was going to trace her body on the paper so she could make a life sized mermaid version of herself to color as a fun activity. She thought it was a great idea, and had a blast making her mermaid.  She made her mermaid, cut it out and decorated it.

When she was distracted with other things, I measured her waist and cut out an elastic waistband from that. She was busy coloring her mermaid tail, so she didn't really even think about what I was measuring her waist for and why.

After she went to bed, I folded the bottom fin up, since I'd just guessed how that would be shaped. Then, I laid the monofin and the mermaid paper on my fabric, and cut it out like the directions. I used a sharpie, and drew about an inch bigger than the paper, and a little bit less on the thinner part of the fin.













Sewing it up was surprisingly fast- I had it sewn within 10 minutes. 

 Christmas morning came, and I was so excited to see her reaction.  She was just as thrilled as I'd hoped she would be. She can't wait to go swimming while wearing the fin. I plan to be right by her side because the mermaid swimming can be kind of tricky, and frankly, I am not sure she'll actually want to do much swimming with it on. For now thought, it's been a lot of fun for her.