The Pitchin' Post

Before Andrew and I both fell ill at my mom's house last weekend, we did have a good time! We enjoyed spending time with Nana and Bampa. They've got this great creek in their backyard, and they built a special "Pitchin' Post" for Andrew so he could throw rocks in the creek (a favorite of his). On many occasions prior to the Pitchin' Post being installed we thought Andrew was 'going in.' He gets up so much momentum when he finds a rock, and walks rather quickly to the edge of the creek, and winds up to throw...it was only a matter of time before he fell in. So the Pitchin' Post was born. They couldn't fence in the whole creek bank, because it's against the law to disturb or change a riparian zone in a watershed. Which basically means that you can't remove any vegetation within so many feet of the edge of a stream, creek, or river. If plant material is removed, the soil on the edge of the water erodes, which can either a) change the shape of the stream/creek or b) create problems downstream due to the larger amount of soil and silt in the water. (Just putting my education to work here...)

When It Rains, It Pours

We're stranded. In Atlanta.

Andrew and I came down to Mom's house for the weekend, for a "girls weekend." My friend Heather and her 9 month old son Brady (Bray-bee, as Andrew says) met us down here, for a little getaway. We had planned on watching girlie movies, going out to eat, relaxing, etc. But we all know that when things get planned, things go wrong.


By the time Saturday rolled around, Andrew was sick, Brady wasn't napping, I was having a bad stuffy nose, and Heather was having allergy issues. Andrew had a fever of 104.3 on Saturday night, and didn't sleep at all...which means neither did my mom or I. Brady also woke up with a fever. Brady and Heather left Sunday morning, to make sure that they got home before the storms.

We decided to take Andrew to the children's urgent care in Peachtree City on Sunday afternoon. He has an ear infection, bronchitis, and could possibly have pneumonia, but they're not sure. He's on two antibiotics and another steroid he has to take with a nebulizer. Poor fella! We were originally going to go back to South Carolina on Monday, but since Andrew hadn't had a full 24 hours of antibiotics, we decided to stay an extra day.

Then, I woke up late last night to extreme chills, I mean, I was freezing. It turns out I had a high fever too, and my ears are hurting and I'm coughing up a lung. This morning my dad had knee surgery. My mom was up at the hospital with him, so as soon as they got home and we got my dad set up, I went to the doctor. I have acute bronchitis, and the nurse pretty much said that I had pneumonia, but that they didn't need to do a chest x-ray to confirm. So, I'm on the very same antibiotics that Andrew is! We're staying another day, because I was too sick to drive (and Andrew too sick to ride).

The good news is that dad's surgery went well! He's propped up in the recliner watching Glenn Beck, and yelling at the t.v., so he's not feeling that bad :) However, the kitchen resembles a pharmacy, with Andrew's, Dad's, and my medicines sprawled out. The bright side is, at least I'm here, where my mom can watch Andrew while I try to recouperate. If I'd been at home, I'd be a miserable, sick mommy with a miserable, sick child.

Hopefully, by this time tomorrow, we'll be home. And a very lonely daddy can see his very favorite little boy.



What was supposed to be a relaxing, 4 day weekend with the girls has turned into the weekend of hospitals and drugs. We have a small pharmacy operating out of the kitchen right now.

Baking Day

Today is baking day at the house. Not sure why, just decided today was a good day to bake! I'm making a batch (or two, if they turn out well) of whole-wheat french bread rolls. I got the recipe from here. So far, so good! They're in the first rise stage. Mind you, I don't knead my dough. I take the easy way out and use my bread machine to do that for me.

After the rolls go in the oven, I'm making whole wheat bread. I found this recipe on Money Saving Mom's website. I've done bread before, but I've never been satisfied with it. I tried her
recipe for the bread, and it was fantastic! It tasted good, and most of all importance to me, it slices very well! Here's her recipe : Bread

I'm thinking I might try to make a commitment to making my own bread. A loaf of bread can cost us anywhere from $1.50 (on sale) to $2.00. I can buy my flour, and all other ingredients, for around $6. And that $6 worth of ingredients will yield me many many loaves of bread. It's not hard to do, and it is probably healthier for me!

Today Andrew ate a PB&J sandwich for lunch. But it wasn't just any 'ol PBJ. It was on homemade bread, with homemade blueberry jam I made last summer. Now if I could only grow my own peanuts, and make my own peanut butter.....

Easter

Happy Easter, everyone! We had a lovely day yesterday. Brian's mom, Debra, and her fiance' Terry came down from Laurens to go to church with us and have an Easter Sunday lunch. We had a little egg hunt for Andrew before church. Actually, we had two! It turns out that Andrew absolutely loved hunting the eggs. So, after he found them all in the first round, he took all the eggs out of his basket, threw them all out on the ground, and "found" them again! I'm definately not going to put the eggs up 'til next year...if he loves that game so much, we'll hunt eggs year-round :)

We went to church after the double-egg-hunt. What a lovely service! It was a message-through-music presentation. The Methodist church down the street and our Baptist church joined their choirs to do a big muscial presentation.. (Yes, Methodists and Baptists came together in the same church!) Our choir went to the Methodist church for the 10 am service, and then they all came to our church for the 11 am service. It was so nice! We sang some of my favorite hymns, which was very moving.

Andrew was quite the stud! He wore an outfit handed down from my cousin Jackson (who is 13 months older than Andrew). Pretty much anything Andrew wears belonged to Jackson at some point in time. He had on khaki pants, a white polo shirt, and the cutest plaid jacket ever. It almost hurt to look at him, because he looked so grown up. It seems every day he is a little bit less of "my baby."

Andrew and his MiMi

We all hope you had a wonderful Easter, celebrating the resurrection of our Lord!

Swag Bucks

I know I've made a post recently about Swag Bucks, but I just wanted to refresh your memory! Swag Bucks is a search engine. Just like Google. It's even powered by Google, so any search you do, you'll get the same results as if you had searched with Google.

So why is it better?

Because you can earn rewards by using Swag Bucks. Google doesn't reward you!

When searching, SwagBucks will randomly reward you with Swag Bucks, which are basically digital dollars. Swag Bucks are rewarded randomly, so the more you search, the more chances you have to win a buck (or two, or three!) I've gotten to the point that I seach EVERYTHING. If I want to check my email, I search for "hotmail" even though I know the web site. More searching = more bucks.

Once you reach 45 bucks, you're eligible for a variety of gift cards and prizes. We're fans of the Amazon $5 gift cards, because you can pretty much find anything on Amazon! To this date, we've collected $30 in Amazon cards. For doing something we already do!!

If you're interested in making free money, click on this link to get started!!

SwagBucks


Happy Searching!


P.S. Here's the best bonus of all: when you make a referral, you get matching SwagBucks for the first 100 bucks your referral earns! So, if you sign up, I'll get a buck every time you do! So, another incentive = the more people you refer, the more bucks you earn (without having to do anything!)