Guess I was misled at some point in what carpal tunnel was or just heard something else about it being a build up of stuff? around the wrist joint/bone and causing inflammation... idk.

I don't generally change my HA for my birthday but I thought it'd be fun to put a little "It" spin on it, lol.

OH, I forgot to mention that I DID go back to the store last night and picked up a small cake for my bday, lol. It's all chocolate, which is my first mistake since I'm not a chocolate fanatic. I also ended up picking up some clothes off the clearance racks that are perfect for the current spring weather and a summer tshirt that ended up being only a dollar and then I saw a cute tank top with cat heads and dots on it. LOL I'll take a pic and show it later.

Cubital tunnel syndrome is a problem with the ulnar nerve, which passes through the inside of the elbow.

Carpal tunnel syndrome Also called: median nerve compression A numbness and tingling in the hand and arm caused by a pinched nerve in the wrist

That was the first things pulled up when I used Google.

I never knew carpal tunnel was nerve until I did the nerve study either.

We had leprechaun fun today. Was a pretty ok day. Some moments of ugh still but not horrible

Lol why did you get chocolate if you are not a chocolate fan? I love chocolate cake best personally.

💚 💚 💚 Happy St. Patty's day! 💚 💚 💚

If you had leprechaun fun yesterday, what's left for today? 🍀

Oh that reminds me, only b/c of the 'ish from Irish and Scottish, another older movie I rewatched was Braveheart. (too bad they ended up getting absorbed into the empire)

Sometimes, the chocolate icing is good b/c it's nice and fluffy and not too chocolatey. I took my daughter's advice and put it in the microwave until the icing started to melt and it was MUCH better. 😂 Plus, it only looked like there was white on white cake and that gets pretty bland.

Need to rewatch Boondock Saints today. What an EXCELLENT movie.

Kids are not in school today. It's a teacher work day. That's why we had the fun yesterday. I wore my new Tshirt that said "let the shenanigans begin" I felt it very appropriate for my class lol We had green snacks and magic juice (lemonade that we added magic blue potion (food color) to, to turn it green), the kids all got a plastic gold coin and paper shamrocks.

Today I have tidied the housekeeping area, science area, tested and replaced markers, had a 30-40m virtual meeting for PL and am now taking a break from reading chapter 8 for my college class 😝 I plan to tidy/add to the art center and finish my college class reading. Then go home, see the contractor, leave to go to my brothers. Then tomorrow get the car, visit family, including Katie in Statesboro and come home. Except as I was typing this the contractor called and cancelled. Sigh. Rescheduled for the 4th

That's a ways off for a reschedule.

All the fun you had yesterday makes me want to be in that class! LOL And I looove that shirt!
Sounds like you have a very active weekend ahead. Is Nathan going to be staying at his dads or at home?

The weekend is going to be cold and dreary so I don't know how much enthusiasm I'll have to get out of bed, other than how much I ache if I stay in it too long. The good thing about the weekend is that I'll be able to order a new mattress!! Once I have that, I know it will alleviate a lot of the hip pain I get from sleeping on a terrible mattress. (and back pain, shoulder pain, sleepless nights from tossing and turning, yadda yadda)

That's the most exciting thing I'll be doing this weekend, other than cleaning....

Nathan is going to stay at home. Ryan is going to go over early Saturday to cut up more wood. And try to get the oak tree to finish falling. Its the only one of the four that came down that didn't completely hit the ground (partly because it landed on a truck, so the roots weren't ripped up as much).

Ooh a new mattress will be nice. Mine is....10-15yrs old? Not sure really. Maybe even less than 10yr. Should probably get myself a new one soon too. But mine is still comfy to me. Ryan got a new one when he moved out and loves it. Ryan got Shane one like it for Christmas and he loved it so much he bought himself a twin size same kind for his truck even tho it means less head space lin the bunk area lol

Yea. They were going to do the 26th, but since we had spring break the week after I said just pick a day that week so I don't have to worry about getting off early, getting Nathan early and getting home on time to meet them That's why today was great ... Nathan was at home and taking off 30min early wasn't an issue with no kids here. Oh well.

My foam mattress..... was $300 on Overstock like 11yrs ago. I got one that cheap mostly b/c that was the only one I could afford and really didn't know much about foam back then and just expected to get a much nicer bed within the next 5yrs. Wellll it's been much longer and that thing has been causing me pain for years now. I think it took getting to the point of such extreme pain and not having any place comfortable to relax that finally made me take the plunge.
For what it was, it really lasted longer than a cheap regular mattress. I also had a memory foam topper for it and other than it sleeping hot, it was really comfortable for many years. Now it just feels like a brick and my topper is long gone.

Trying to decide what I want to do today. I slept in which is rare and felt great but I think it was b/c of how little sleep I was getting throughout the week.

My new to me, Nissan XTerra. Finally home with it.

LOOOOOONG trip. Stopped on way down and ate dinner at Longhorn with Katie as my server :D Then got to brothers house at like 10pm. Went and got the car at 10am, then drove to see mom/other brothers family. Stayed there a couple hours, drove back to first brother. He worked on car, fixed something with the radiator (to make it not leak radiator fluid into the transmission he said older Nissans were prone to do that and this makes it not happen) and he scanned the engine because the check engine light came on, but he said it was nothing (and it went back off, but came on again driving home). So since it was like 4pm at that point, I stayed again, and left this morning to come home, stopped to see Katie and Wesley at home again (potty break hahaha) and then picked up Shane before coming here since he was at the truck stop and thats my exit anyway ;)

Brother tried to give me a cat hahahah I said no. I wish I could, she seemed very sweet, and looks just like my Mama Tiger - but I have 2 and 2 already, and don't need more pets.

Edit: And Nathan just took it for a test drive down to the gas station (with me obvs). He did ok. Needs to work on turning and speed control again. (which as long as its been, not surprising-he never really got to speed control to begin with)

Looks nice, Kat! Do you like driving it?

What is it with family members always trying to give away animals they find? That's how I ended up with 2 more cats on top of the 2 that I got for myself. The dog too, but that was a purchase my daughter made when she lived in an apartment and realized he was too much too handle. She has a house now and I'm trying to get her to take him back. :P I'm so over all the dog hair, dog smell, dog everything.

I am so looking forward to getting my bed! I just hope it arrives early so it has time to decompress and I don't have to sleep on the incredibly uncomfortable couch. It's just going to make such a huge difference in my sleep quality and how I feel everyday.

Yes. I like being higher up. I like not scraping the bottom of the car on the driveway every time I turn in (awful driveway), but I find I do miss the Mazda lol. I guess just the fact it was a manual. It's weird but I liked that. I am ok with an automatic tho. It's actually what I have driven more often.

As for the cat, well brother and his wife are splitting up. Her sister gave them the cat as a kitten when she found it on the side of the road. They have 2 dogs (hers), and several other cats (various members of the family that live on the property with them). This cat seems to have adopted my brother however. But he doesn't want to take it when he moves, as the people going with him will be bringing 3 cats already. I almost brought it home. I really had to tell myself NO!

I'm so glad for you to have a new mattress!! I hope it helps. I hope it does arrive today in time for you to use it.

[Edit] 605pm So I have a new tag/title for the car now. I tried to get the tire fixed but it's the sidewall that is messed up so they can't fix that. So new tire needed (well, new to me, used, to match the others best I can)

Then I was being billed for internet again. Figured out I applied for lifeline not acp, one is a phone/phone service the other is the internet/device 🙄 got that fixed and applied and NOW my bill will be $0.

Got email from insurance adjuster. Rest of $ to pay for roof repair was mailed today. Have to send that to mtg just like first check. Then when I get it back and deposit it I can pay contractor. And I need to find out if they've talked about the siding yet.

I really like manuals too, except in traffic, lol.
Hope your brother keeps the kitty, since it ended up adopting him. :P

Mattress will be delivered today, but it's recommended to wait 24hrs for full inflation. /sigh I'm so tired. Didn't sleep well last night and I did a lot of work on the kitchen yesterday. Then I treated myself to some king crab legs, which was awesome.
Got my old mattress out of my room and wanted to rearrange stuff but after doing half of it, I realized it just wasn't going to work out so I filled up a garbage bag full of stuff I don't use anymore is just ready to hit the garbage... same for my kitchen and it's not even finished... so I'm ready for a really good sleep which looks like it's going to be tomorrow.

Got a bunch of laundry to take to the mat, too. Don't feel like doing any of it. I know once it's done I'll feel a helluva lot better and can concentrate on more spring type activities. (which is going to be just as hard if not harder but it's more 'fun')

No. He said he was leaving it. I know she will feed it and take care of it but I feel bad because when a cat picks a person it means something. Poor kitty.

So many times we just have too much stuff. I need to seriously go thru things and toss stuff or donate it or see if the kids want it. I have slowly started that but didn't get far lol so much else going on.

Picture day at school. That was fun. 🙄 One of our kids was absent and it was class picture day. I hate when that happens.

Oh and lead teacher has parent conference with our wild child's mama.....and I think mama started a "reward" program with her. So now she has had better behaviour the past few days right before conference. Seriously? I get that it's a good idea to help kids but why start before you have a conference knowing we are collecting evidence (we told her we would be writing notes on how she behaves daily in a log until the conference and probably will continue after)..... Whatever. Just annoying. She has been slightly better behaved but still having issues. Yesterday she got mad that I would not let her put a hula hoop around her neck, and have a friend pull her on the roller seats in the gym. So she screamed and cried and took her shoe off. Then refused to leave the gym. When the gym teacher finally made her get up and move, she dropped the boot in the hall and refused to pick it up. I left it there. We go back down that hall for dismissal and she picked it up then and put it on.

[edit] 3/24 605am

Did your mattress fully decompress, have you slept on it yet? I hope it helped!!

[edit] 3/26 930am So I spoke with my contractor last night. He said the insurance adjuster agreed to pay for repairs to the left side as well as the front of the house for siding, but NOT the back or right side (they weren't really damaged anyway). But that we won't be able to get a good color match and I can argue if I want to about that, but he's done all he can - and if I raise enough cain that they might fix the rest of it. But I'm not sure I want to argue, because I still need them to approve of fixing the foundation or whatever the other issue is. I have a contractor coming the 2nd for an estimate on that. I guess I will wait and see how weird the house looks with only half the siding repaired. To be honest, if the front and left side are nice, no one but me sees the back or the right side anyway - the left side is the driveway. And so if it doesn't look horrible, I probably won't mind. I am still waiting on the rest of the $ to arrive in the mail to pay for the roof.

It sucks that you're still dealing with all that house stuff, Kat. :(

If the siding is so old that you can't get a color match, you'd think they'd just replace it all, because otherwise they're cutting down on the houses value, which should matter to them!

What's going on here. Umm. Oh, I got a job! I'm the new church secretary, it's only 6 hours a week, $15 an hour. I'm really happy about it! I did training this past week, and next week, and then I'm on my own. It's actually kind of a lot? But I think it'll be good! They announced it this morning and so many people came up to me LOL.

And then this weekend is the play! Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday at 2. Plus Saturday morning Iz and I are going to help my friend put eggs out, she's got 30k of them for an egg hunt shock. Then Iz is looking for eggs, then it's back to the house because it's our friends birthday, so we're doing lunch/early dinner before the play and everyone is going.

Plus, I'm working the concessions each day but Saturday.. and even then, I'll still probably do it, I'll just run out haha. It'll be fine!

Are you still working the lunchroom job at the schools tho? :) Congrats on the secretary job. Thats a lot of eggs!! We are doing an egg hunt at school if we get enough kids (parents) to send in eggs. Usually we do number recognition, but for some reason they decided to do name recognition and it might just devolve into a basic egg hunt like last year. Last year we had egg cartons tho to make sure everyone got the same number of eggs, this year she's letting them bring baskets, so I hope she sticks with the name thing so it's all equal.

Concessions for? the play?

It's annoying but I knew it would be a while because roofs are more important than siding and there were sooooo many damaged houses. And I figured it would take a while for the insurance company to cough up more $ too. And the color thing is partly because there is apparently NOT a law in Georgia that says the siding HAS to match. So. But you can't match 20yr old siding, it has faded and got dirty as heck and all that. They will do their best. The contractor says the insurance company has to match it, not them, so that the contractor cannot be responsible for it not matching :P I don't blame him. But yea, it probably will lessen the value of the house by having two types of siding on it. I am going to ask what it would cost to do the other two sides and then if I don't get the insurance to deal with it, I may choose to do a slightly higher mortgage when I redo the mortgage in my name and have him finish it then. As I was already considering doing that so I can replace the carpeting anyway. And especially since I have found out I can (potentially) get help from multiple sources to get a downpayment/mortgage assistance loan, and if I do those, then my actual mortgage will end up being less than it is now anyway, even with making it a larger initial mortgage :P Teacher next door thing, first time home buyer thing, federal government housing assistance thing - I can easily get over 10k in help, especially if I can use ALL of them together. And even if I can't get a cash out mortgage loan like I'm hoping, and only get the actual amount I need for the current mortgage, the fact that the mortgage will be less because of the assistance will be awesome in itself.

Yeah, I'm still a sub lunch at the school.

And yes, concessions for the play. And this year, we're doing candygrams, too.

ooh yeah, when we do with little kids like that, we always did egg cartons, too. Or we did by colors or something, so everyone had the same amount. For littttle kids. For bigger kids, they have a chance to win, that'ws just.. how life goes, sometimes!

oooh oh gosh, I hope that all works out for you! That would be amazing!

I love basic egg hunts, when you have tons of eggs and the kids can just have fun. But at school it is SUPPOSED to be learning oriented if you do stuff like that. So I feel the egg carton and number recognition is the best way to go, but its her choice not mine. Name recognition this late in the year is redundant to me. The kids should ALL know what their name looks like already (they do) and should be able to spell it (some can't and we don't even teach that any more and I don't know why, when I was a sub and in Kindergarten they were teaching that to the PreK kids).

I have only looked into the mortgage stuff online, I am thinking maybe during summer break going to my bank's mortgage department and talking to them first, as they have access to my bank records easiest (hahah since I bank with them) and would be able to tell that I have ALREADY been paying the mortgage for the past 3+ yrs and all my other bills too, so obviously I can afford it. My biggest concern is my income ratio - I know they look at how much of your income goes to the mortgage vs other things and I don't know if it will look like I can afford the mortgage. Which is only 40k, and if I get that 10k + assistance, like I said, lower mortgage anyway! :) I am waiting because I want to finish the insurance repairs on the house first before putting the mortgage in my name. The insurance is in both our names right now but the mortgage is just in his. But when I redo the mortgage I'll have to redo the insurance as well (as I will take him off of it, and probably change companies in order to get a multi-policy discount again, as we lost our multi-policy discount when he changed car insurance companies).

Hi there. Yes, the new mattress is really nice. I've just been dealing with other things like the 2mth cycle I seem to be on and then Saturday evening, I started getting vertigo and have been dealing with it since. I'm hoping it will go away on it's own but it's quite difficult to deal with. Looking down, bending over, turning my head too fast or in a certain direction causes the spinning to start, especially if I'm laying down. I swear it started up after I got a crick in my neck the first time I slept on my bed with a newer pillow b/c it's that side that gives me the most problems, even though I'm pretty sure vertigo is caused by inner ear issues.

I managed to go to 2 stores yesterday, mostly b/c I absolutely had to. It's not bad when I'm moving or walking but you obviously have to bend over to pick things up. It was rough, but I got a bunch of stuff from the international market and Wally. Went to the tanning bed but when I changed positions to that side (of neck) that's bothering me, I got such intense vertigo that I immediately had to get out and brace myself against the wall. Thought I was going to puke. Felt ill the rest of the day and barely managed to put all my goods away before I ended up taking a nap. Was finally hungry but it was really tough trying to eat. You know how you can feel hungry but still nauseous at the same time?

ANYway..... I got some raspberries and strawberries that I'm going to dehydrate, since I bought a dehydrator. Wanted to get the raspberries started asap so they didn't go bad. 5.77 for 12oz is pretty decent so I thought I'd get them. Strawberries are also pretty cheap right now. Got the former started around 11 and it will take up to 2 days for them to complete, which in the middle I'm going to add the strawberries since they take half the time.

Kat, it seems like things are slowly falling into place but I swear with all the shit I read from you (plus the enormous amount of stuff my dad went through with nature and his house over the years), I'm glad I never bought a house. Then again, I never wanted to stay in Ohio permanently. Got stuck here due to shared parenting after my divorce. Either way, as a single mother, I never would've been able to afford half the shit that can happen to houses, like a broken central air unit. This house had it's main circuit breaker box short out! I was here when it happened and heard the electric sound - which was actually quite terrifying - and over $700 later a new one was installed (paid by landlord, of course).
It does seem like you'll be able to work things out in your favor, though.

Hii Mieke! Glad Kat already asked about the lunchroom position b/c I was curious about it, too. I guess you don't get to sub in too often? It's nice that you have a couple things to earn extra money from and still be able to do so much with the kids. Also nice that you have time with adults!! lol I think that's pretty important when you're main job is being a mother.

Speaking of eggs... I know I raise chickens and all but unless you buy a certain breed or they are obvious, you can't always tell what you have. Apparently, I have at least one "Easter egger". At least, that's what they're called b/c they give pretty pastel colored eggs. Here's a pic of that light green egg next to a brown one.
I've mostly had brown egg layers like Rhode Island Reds b/c they're prolific egg layers. The batch that I got last year were a mixed variety, so I don't know what I got. I have 2 that I had formerly which I already know their variety (sussex and black australorp) and they lay brown eggs.

Saturday was a stormy day. We had major high wind gusts that made me think someone's tree was going to end up on my house or on my car. Neighbors next to me have trees within 20ft of my house on one side and the neighbors across the one way street have trees right next to the road. Needless to say, after I heard and saw this tree branch in the picture come down, I moved my (functional) car up into my yard, lol. Pic was taken from my living room window, where I was sitting and heard/saw it fall.
There's no one currently living in that white house on the right.

Now you can see why - since I have to park there - I kept mostly full coverage on the drop top Solara when it was paid off. (that would be the front car with the missing wheel, lol) There's a bunch of other branches in the yard from other high wind events we've had in the past couple months and that tree closest to the road is in desperate need of a trim.

Oh no. Vertigo is awful. I had a really bad episode right before my 20th anniversary. I could barely move I was spinning so much. Yea being the sole owner is a little scary for me but I am hopeful that Ryan will help if anything big happens. If not I can ask my family or will hopefully be in a better enough situation myself to deal. Oooh pretty eggs. And fresh eggs are nice.

Whoa big limb. I would try not to park under it too....my parking are is normally tree free ... Excepting in tornados lol

Ooo so you've had it?!! Does it go away on it's own? I woke up from a very long nap on Saturday (when it was all stormy and windy but after I moved my car into my small front yard) and I thought it was just a temporary thing when I tilted my head but it got a lot worse yesterday. Today it's mild, but still very present.

I only had it the once. It lasted a while tho. I went to the ER and they gave me medicine and a patch for behind my ear. It helped the severe symptoms but mild ones lasted a week or so.