Random Things

I can't believe it's 2009! AND that my vacation is almost over. Where did that past 2 weeks go?? Oh yeah....rocking out to Guitar Hero!!!

So I didn't make any new resolutions - what's the point? I am going to continue with my weight loss plans and try to post more blogs. I just get tied up with whatever I am doing and this gets put on the backburner. Not that I put anything very exciting out here or anything. This is mostly just a place to post updates of the family.

I read this article this morning: 2008 Military Times poll: Wary about Obama. Being married to an active duty service member and completely surrounded by them, I actually thought the number seemed low. Around here it's probably at least 9 out of 10 feeling wary. It kind of makes me laugh that there is an "Obama kiosk" inside the BX here. I have yet to see an actual customer at the kiosk - I feel kind of bad for the lady who sits there so proud of her candidate only to be given dirty looks by most of the folks who pass by. There are a lot of feelings of uneasiness around here....

Katie's skin is acting up again. It's been really bad since August. We get it cleared up, but as soon as we stop putting on the steroid creams she breaks out again, gets an infection, has to spend some time at the ER/doctor, get a new antibiotic, clears up again and then it starts all over. She has missed a lot of school. So now the goal is to get her to stop scratching. There is no cure for eczema, but we are going to have to start looking harder at what is causing the issue. We have been taking her to a psychologist (which of course thinks she is borderline ADHD and is considering drug therapy - we have to meet with a physician to determine whether or not that is necessary). The psychologist is supposed to be helping us with her stress. How can a 5 year old be so stressed out? She actually had knots in her back last week. I had to massage her.

Anyway...we need to find alternate things for her to do instead of scratching. This is no easy task since she's been scratching since she was born. The psychologist said she has a hard time "stopping" and needs to constantly be moving which is why she scratches. This is why he thinks drugs are necessary - her brain doesn't have the ability to control that part and in this sense she is more like a 2 or 3 year old. However, her intelligence is more comparable to that of a 7 or 8 year old. Her brain just needs to "catch up" in this area. We are also going to visit the dermatologist here on base on Jan 12 to see if there is any other form of medication/therapy we can use. Her poor skin is so scarred. It just makes me sad. We have eliminated one of her irritants by getting rid of the dogs. The actual eczema has improved some but the infections have been so much worse. We have to start seeing a new allergy doc here as well because her allergy doc retired and is now living in southern Florida. He was great and I hope we are able to find another doctor just as capable! Unfortunately, we don't have much of a choice in the matter. We are going to try the skin test for allergies since last time we were only able to do blood testing because her skin was so bad. Ugh. I can only hope this does not follow her into adulthood.

Brian has been painting the front room the last couple of days. We have a lot of wall in the front room. The paint color I picked out is much darker than we thought it would be...but it certainly looks better than the plain old white walls. Next up is the kitchen! Yippee! It is actually starting to look like a home! Yay! I think I am going to try to reupholster the couches...not that I remember how to sew, but it might be a good project for me. And it should be a bit cheaper than buying new couches. Our couches are in good shape it's just that when we had our cats back in Utah they scratched up the fabric and it just looks bad. I think I will start looking for some fabric to match the new paint colors :) If anyone has any pointers on reupholstering, please pass them along. Please let me know if I am crazy thinking I can do this....haha!