1. I had a lot of big plans for this week. After realizing I’d gotten out of many of the good habits I developed earlier in the year, I resolved to get back on track. Then this tickle developed in my throat. After a very long stretch of not being sick, I got hit hard with a nasty cough. I’m not really congested, I just have a persistent hacking cough, which also makes me sound like an 80-year-old who’s smoked a pack a day. The worst have been the coughing attacks at night which keep me, and occasionally Tony, awake for a while. What mom can afford more sleep deprivation???
2. I’m really trying much harder than usual, to rest and get better. I cancelled the boys Science and Adventure Club for the week and even a trip to Ocean City, NJ to visit with family. My big fear is that Fulton will get sick since he’s set to go to MDA Summer Camp on Sunday. Even if he’s healthy, if I’m still coughing, I won’t be able to go drop him off, which, while not the worst thing, will be hard on me. Thus far, a couple of kids have shown some symptoms, but not nearly as severe, which makes me think maybe this bug will spare them. If you could say a quick prayer we get Fulton to camp with no problems, I’d greatly appreciate it.
3. On the plus side, I’ve got lots of reading done, which means I’m now 30 percent through The Brother’s Karamazov, the unabridged edition. I like the story a lot, but I could do with a little less of Ivan yammering on about God. And seriously, I get it Dostoevsky, you dislike the Jesuits, move on.
4. I haven’t been on my Feedly to catch up on blogs for weeks though (as usual, I’m trying to get through at least some of the QT linkers!) What good stuff have you read online lately? And please nothing bathroom, gorilla, election, or Stanford related. Bathroom gorilla election posts are always welcome. For the record, I’m in favor of primates electing a gorilla who uses the bathroom that coincides with his God-given species.
5. We do family movie night every week, and lately, Tony and I have tried to pick movies we enjoyed when we were younger and share them with the kids. The original ‘Tron’ movie was a pretty big hit, though I must have said at least a million times “These special effects were a big deal when this movie came out!”. They also enjoyed ‘Back to the Future.’ Last week, I forced them to watch the original ‘Parent Trap’ with Hayley Mills. Although they were apprehensive, because it was SO OLD, all the kids enjoyed it. This week, I selected ‘Big’ with Tom Hanks, because I remember enjoying that movie, and the older kids have been to FAO Schwartz in NYC and have seen the big piano. However, I did not remember many, many scenes that led Fulton to scream out “Language!” and one part that Edie needed to cover the screen with her hands. Does this happen to anyone else? I believe Kendra’s written about this. I don’t know if I only watched TV edited movies, or certain jokes and expressions went over my head at a young age or what. I was going to show them Mrs. Doubtfire and Sister Act in the coming weeks, but now I’m wondering if I should prescreen, and when will I have the time to do that?!?
6. Before my cough became too bad, I took Fulton and Teddy to follow-up appointments with a specialist. I was so happy I managed to get back to back appointments (only four months out.) But of course, you can’t just got to a specialist appointment. It’s a whole process that still usually involves at least one meltdown and a parking fiasco. Plus, these appointments always end up taking three times as long as the scheduled time. By the time we were done, I could look forward to scheduling four more appointments and lab work for Teddy. And this is for ONE specialty. The icing on the cake was driving home in a thunderstorm with Philly traffic. I guess it’s no wonder my health went downhill afterwards.
7. I’ve managed to finish up my retreat book, despite my brain being like mush, and my continued coughs contaminating the keyboard with what feels like consumption. Thankfully I had a lot of great friends, and my husband, to look everything over. Everyone was so helpful and forgiving of the fact that the autocorrect on this new laptop is a nightmare! I still need to figure out how to turn it off. Autocorrect is slightly helpful when you’re typing with your fat thumbs and need a quicker way to get ‘nervous breakdown’ in a text, but less help compiling a book that largely uses two 19th century manuscripts as source material. As I corrected typos I was mortified to find what must have been a mistyped or historical word, corrected to something that made no sense whatsoever in the sentence. So, before I caught it, my book advised people to:
“give not thyself up to polish mirth” …cause Polish people are the worst with mirth
“find subjects enough for mounting and weeping” …this could just be taken in the worst of ways
“then thou mayest labeling to live with Christ” …keep the label marker handy
“Thou wettest forward my salvation and my profit only” ….sounds like a slip and slide to salvation
How’s your week been? Write it down then link it up below! Be sure to include a link back to this post so your readers can find the rest of the Quick Takes. I look forward to reading your posts!
There’s always kids-in-mind.com for very detailed movie reviews. Heh, we showed an episode of Johnny Bravo to our kids the other week without pre-screening; funny show, but we were sure glad a number of things were over our kids’ heads and we maybe will hold off on any more of those shows for some years…
I had that experience with “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark”.. my husband and I thought it was great as kids, until our kids’ eyes needed covering as the faces of the enemies melted off in graphic detail.. oops.
I was just going to type Indiana Jones as well. We’ve had that experience several times. And there’s some I’ve caught before hand with a quick mental review – Grease would be one. And TV shows? What the heck were my parents thinking? Praying you’re all better soon and the kids are spared.
This is not your standard bathroom rant. It’s safe. But put down your food and beverage before you read it! https://yougottobekidding.wordpress.com/2014/07/24/plumber-of-the-year-award-finalists/
I had thought to show them Back to the Future but doesn’t it have a potential rape scene? Or am I not remembering correctly? We had the same thing with Beetlejuice — PG but then he dropped the f-bomb and goes to a brothel??? So far we’ve just been watching through the Little House shows but then someone told me there’s an episode where Pa encounters a prostitute. Sigh….
Is the Doctor Dead. Hahaha. I’ve been there too, Teddy….
And as a Lay Dominican, I think I can say the world needs more Jesuit jokes. 😛
Try vidangel for movies with the kids!
My husband and I have totally gone through the movie problem, and our kids are only toddlers! Trying to watch the occasional disney or cartoon movie we remembered so fondly as children sometimes turns out even a little innapropriate or scary for our kids (which is always a good reminder for why I try my hardest to not give them screen time at this age!).
We’ve been doing the same thing lately with our kids! I was shocked at the amount of mild language, totally did not remember the almost-rape scene (or scene with the mom trying to get frisky with Marty), and needless to say the Libyan terrorist subplot went right over my head as a kid.
We recently did both Sister Act and Mrs. Doubtfire with our kids. Sister Act: absolutely! They will love it. I don’t know about Mrs. Doubtfire though: there’s a lot of dirty jokes/innuendo from Robin Williams that went right over my kids’ heads but Addie’s old enough to catch it.
Oh Teddy. Is the Doctor dead? I laughed so much. Please thank him for my first real laugh of the day. Kids are so amazing 🙂
Too funny – any time we get a nasty cough or have a cold hanging on too long, my hubby and I joke that we’ve got “the consumption”…. I had that stupid thing for weeks and weeks this past winter/early spring. I thought it would NEVER go away. My neighbor did, too. It was ridiculous! Hope yours is gone soon.