You did what in the bed last night?

My friends, I have a bedwetter.

That may not be something you would see on a blog everyday but today it is what I am going to talk about.

You all know I have 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys. 

Out of all four of my kiddos I have one who wets the bed.

He is 9 years old and he will wet the bed nearly every night.

I have to tell you that I have been really discouraged by all of the methods I have tried to use to prevent him from wetting the bed. I would limit his fluid intake after 7pm. I have woken him up every few hours to make him go to the bathroom (that just made us both tired and cranky). I have tried rewarding him on dry mornings and I have tried a little discipline (thinking maybe it was an "I'm sleeping so good and I am so warm I don't want to get out of bed" problem. I have even taken him to our family doctor and to an urologist. Both docs said he was ok.

He has ruined two mattresses so far because he tends to go through mattress protectors like jello. I tried good nights pants but that was a big flop as he decided he didn't need to go to the bathroom at all. 

So I have decided to do some research into genetics and I found out some very interesting things. My husband and his oldest brother were both bedwetters. My hubby suddenly stopped around age 13 when he reached puberty. His older brother wet the bed until he got married! The males in his family are very deep sleepers and they just don't feel it when they gotta go like the rest of us.

I have learned a few things dealing with my son. For one, if you make the child feel bad about his issue, it tends to make the problem worse. Good night underpants are not that absorbent. Washing bed clothes every time they are wet is important and finally good cloth mattress protectors are essential. Buy several so you can change them out and replace ones that are torn.

To parents of bedwetters, be patient! If you cannot find a reason why this is happening your child is probably just a very sound sleeper. 

As for me, I still remind my son before he goes to bed to go to the bathroom. I still try to limit what he has to drink at night, and if he does have an accident I hug him and let him know it is okay and we will work on it until he stops.

Erin

Blogger's Block

My friends I am sorry I haven't been around much. I am still trying to get myself back into a schedule after having the kiddos at home all summer. On top of not having enough time in the day I seem to be having a complete blogger's block. I'm tired of writing about the same ole stuff all the time and my brainstorming gets me no where. I just keep writing down the same old stuff. I have been so blocked I haven't even been taking pictures! That is super unusual for me. Especially since I bought a point in shoot Nikon Coolpix camera that I can keep with me at all times. I keep it attached to my wallet so I never forget it BUT I still never remember to use it.

I also have been neglecting reading everyone's blogs. I really do miss reading your blogs! To be honest I don't get on the computer much. I usually check/delete my emails daily and I will check my Facebook page  in the morning and in the evening. I haven't even been keeping up with my beloved Ravelry. I miss reading the comments and seeing the projects from my "friends" there on the We Love Lucy page. I am seriously slacking!

I'm not really sure what is going on with me as of late. I have been doing a lot of self-assessment. I think I have lost nearly all my motivation. Especially with things I routinely do. I haven't been crocheting too much. I did start and am nearly half finished with a baby blanket. I have been completely neglecting my granny square patchwork blanket. I have a lot of things on my "to make" list but just haven't had the motivation to do them.

My home seems to be suffering as well. I actually have laundry piled up for the first time in ages. I haven't been "on" my kids about their messes and their danger zones bedrooms as much as normal. My house is by no means dirty but it isn't as neat and tidy with everything in its place as I usually keep it. Maybe I am just burned out with the mundane day to day of my life.

The few things I have been keeping up with is going to church, caring for my kiddos, hubby, and pets, and my healthier eating and exercise regimen. I have lost 3 pounds and I feel a little better but I feel a bit lack luster about other stuff.

With all of this being said, I am truly hoping to get back to all of these things I pride myself in doing. I love blogging but lack ideas (go figure), I love to keep a ship shape house (I haven't even decorated it for fall :( ), and  I love crocheting. 

I am putting in an effort every day to do the things I need to do during the day. I even made myself a list:

Check web pages and sites

Walk dogs

Blog

Tidy Up The House

Read Bible

Exercise

Eat Healthier

I know I am forgetting some stuff but you get the point. I even have made weekly and monthly lists to get myself back on track.

So I pose a question to you who still read my blog whenever I put up a post:

What types of things would you like to see on my blog?

I know crochet is a must. How about family things? My thoughts on things (politics, news stories), Beauty, movies, books, recipes and cooking, couponing, mommy blunders, kid concerns?

Those are just some things that rolled out of my head. 

What cha think?

Erin

I'm Ready for a Makeover

Hello again. Okay so I don't really need a makeover but I want to do some things for my house.

You see, i get bored really easy with stuff and I just want some improvements done! I don't mean major renovations here...just some tweaks here and there.

This picture is of the living room when we first bought our "fixer upper". You can see the carpet was terribly dirty and there was icky paneling on the wall.

Here you can see what I have done to our living room. I have torn the paneling off the walls and painted them this nice white color (it is actually an off white) I also painted the trim a nice white. I painted our door red, cleaned the carpet, and added curtains.

 I loved my living room for a while but now I am bored with it. I have started taking the white paint off of the trim and putting it back to its original wood tones. But now I dunno what else to do! I know I am going to get some furniture covers to "Change up" the furniture a bit. I will finish stripping the trim returning it to it's original wooden color. Should I paint the walls?  A nice sea foam green? A greyish blue? Add a rug? The possibilities are endless.

Here is a picture of what our dining area looked like before we moved in. It looks pretty much the same except the carpet is much cleaner and I have removed the border and the golden hook thing. Oh and it now hosts our 6 passenger cherry dining table :)

For my dining room I want to add a chair rail at the level of the window sill. I think I will match the chair rail to the color of the wood trim. I think I would love to paint the lower half of the wall a nice deep burgundy color and then have the part of the wall above the chair rail remain white. Then i would like to dress the window in a nice red and white plaid window treatment. Then I can add some country cottage decor. What do you think?

Below is my kitchen! I love the floor but I want to change the cabinet color and the wall color. I just don't know which direction to go!

I was thinking of removing the ugly chandelier and adding a regular ceiling light there. Then painting the cabinets some color (def not white maybe stain them a lighter oak or paint them a nice deep blueish green) and then paint the walls a nice pale yellow. I want to paint the faux brick in chalk board or white board paint. Anyone have any ideas that won't clash the tans in the back splash and the green floor!

You see, I love to redecorate but I have a hard time deciding between all the things really like.

I have tons of ideas and cant decide!

What do you all think?

Am I Alive?

Hello again everyone. I know I haven't wrote in SOOOO long and I hope you can forgive me but I have had a few challenges!

Our summer was packed with stuff to do. Especially when we had to get the kiddos ready for school. I swear we spent two weeks on the go with all the shopping that needed done and the appointments and open houses to meet the teachers.

We have also been volunteering. We help people who need people to do things...Ha, ha, I know that is a little broad spectrum but the most recent was helping a family nearby. They own an auto repair shop but the owner/operator had to be put on a heart transplant list. They found someone to re-open the shop and run it BUT the shop had to be cleaned up. Unfortunately the owner passed away that very night. I am happy to say that I have seen several people there since the shop reopened.

We have also been going to church. I prayed so hard for God to guide me to the church we belong to. Well he sure did!!! We attend a non-denominational church here in Greenfield. It meets all the criteria we wanted in a church and it has great opportunities to give back to the community through blanket making, a food bank, and a Secret Santa program!! 

We have been dealing with some illnesses here in the household. My oldest daughter had a high fever for a few days this summer. My hubby has Crohn's disease and we have been trying to get his FMLA approved so when he has the really bad flares he can stay home. I have been battling a UTI for a month now. It comes and goes AND since my hubby and I don't have insurance anymore I cannot go get an antibiotic to help it. That really sucks.

I have also been freezing/canning stuff from my garden. I even bought myself a pressure canner. We used some salsa I canned a couple nights ago on tacos and I have to say it was so much better than Pace! I also planted some stuff for fall but I don't really know how well it will do. I have been neglecting my watering and weeding a bit with all the other stuff going on.

I have also been studying. I have been studying the Bible a lot more. I also bought a couple Psychology textbooks. One is more of an introduction and the basics and the other is Abnormal Psychology. I figure that even though I am unable to go back to school right now I can still study and learn on my own. That way when I do go back to school I will have a little of an advantage. 

Oh and I am thinking of going back to school around the beginning of the year. We have schools up here that offer courses and give the cost of the courses in the book. I am thinking of being a Pharmacy Tech. The course is $700 that is books and all AND the certification test is $150. I think that would be a great job for me and if I can work at one of the local pharmacies I will still be able to spend time with my kiddos.

OH and GUESS WHAT ELSE!?!

My hubby's sister is going to come up for Thanksgiving this year. She is a cosmetologist. She wants to spend time with the kiddos, do the girl's hair (and mine!) and Eat turkey dinner with us. I am so excited and I have already started planning my dinner menu!!!

We also had one of our cars hit. No worries, it was parked and no one was around it. My hubby and I were watching the late news and heard a big KABLAM! The person left the scene. Luckily, we saw the car and with a tip from the hospital ER (which is a block away) they tracked the person down in the next town over. Apparently, the person driving had been given medication and wasn't allowed to drive but they did. We had uninsured motorist coverage so my insurance company cut us a check. We were able to get the kids more school stuff than we had originally planned (we spoiled them) AND we also was able to get a new car. We got rid of the piece of junk Kia Sportage we had (it was the one that got hit) AND we now own an 04 Malibu! It's nice to have a couple nice vehicles for once. It's even nicer we don't have to worry about one of them breaking down every time we go somewhere!

I think that covers it! My kiddos will be out of school next week because our school gives them the week of the Highland County Fair off since so many students participate in it. I think we are going to break out the tent and sleeping bags and go camping at my dad's house.

Until next time

Be Blessed.

In the Garden

 It is so hot today! We have heat advisories again. I was used to this weather when I lived in Georgia but since I have been here in Ohio for nearly 9 years...the heat gets to me a bit.

I have been doing a little bit of work in my garden beds when the sun goes behind the clouds.

In garden bed one, I pulled out my zucchini plants. It seems they have some vine borer problems. I left the squash plant because it has two squash on it that still need to grow. I have watermelon and cantaloupe growing up the trellis. Around the beginning of August I will plant more sweet peas and carrots in this bed for a nice fall harvest. I'm hoping to get enough sweet peas to can a few!

Garden bed two looks bare and dry despite my watering. I have 5 tomato plants in this bed. The ones on the trellis are doing well but the Mortgage lifter ones I transplanted from the buckets into his bed hate me. They are setting fruit now so I hope they will do much better. I pulled out the pumpkin vines from this bed as well. The heat killed the vine but I was able to get 2 medium sized orange pumpkins and a tiny little ghost pumpkin and a little orange jack be little pumpkin. I am happy with that. Oh and we have been enjoying yellow onions from this bed. They grew to between baseball and softball sized!

Bed number 3 is my favorite so far! It has my wall of green beans and cucumbers. I intermixed them and they LOVE each other. I have gotten so many cucumbers and several messes of green beans. I am one happy momma! This bed also contains 2 eggplant plants...neither of which have set fruit! 

I will be planting a fall crop here too. I plan on doing spinach, lettuces, and broccoli.

This is just past my garden beds. This MESS is blackberries. Since this is the 2nd season for these two plants I haven't really gotten much from them. The birds tend to eat most of the fruit. I think I will trellis them this fall!  I need some order here!

Here is what is left of the herbs and such I had on my back deck. We had a bad storm last month and it blew most of them off the railings. Luckily I still have some of them. I also have two long deck boxes. One I just harvested green onion from and another is empty.

Here is today's garden harvest. The green onion I spoke of above and some potatoes. The heat killed my poor potato plants so I decided to dig around and see what I could find in my containers. I have enough here for a little sampling and I am surprised I got that much!

Now that I'm cooled down, I am going to plant some lettuces and some carrots in my deck boxes outside. I love having fresh produce right outside my back door.

I also have big plans on transforming my whole back yard into a beautiful gardening/ entertaining area. I want to make a patio area with my fire pit raised in the middle. I also want to build tall raised beds to plant in with benches attached to them. I also have a strawberry tower in mind and some ideas on some homemade patio furniture....Now if my finances would balance out...oh that is another post entirely!

Back to the garden,

Erin

Canning

Hello again my friends. I am so excited! I have jumped right in today and canned some dill pickle slices! Now this may not sound like a big to-do but I have been worrying and fretting over this since last gardening season! 

Last year when I planted my garden I had very high hopes of being able to can green beans, make pickles, and make salsa. That is where I wanted to begin. I also wanted to take advantage of some of the "u-pick" places around here and get some blackberries, apples, and strawberries. So I bought a case of pint sized Ball jars, a canning kit that had a jar lifter, a jar funnel, a lid lifter, and a head space/bubble remover tool. I also bought a few packets of dill pickle seasoning and salsa seasonings to start with. WELL, my garden didn't do well enough to preserve anything and I didn't have the money to go to any "u-pick" farms. 

I was also very scared to try to can my own foods. I know people have done it for YEARS but after reading the Ball canning book I had purchased and some other books I had checked out from the library, I had myself so worried, I wasn't sure I could do it. I didn't want to do something wrong and make my family sick OR spend all of that time, energy, and money and end up wasting it on spoiled food! (yup my hubby tells me I tend to over-think things)

This year is different though! My garden is flourishing! I have had to give away cucumbers, eat cucumbers, juice cucumbers so I decided to make some pickles! I got out my jars, my seasonings, my utensils. I washed all the items and sterilized all the items. I followed directions for making the liquid brine. I cut up 8 cucumbers. I filled up hot, sterile jars with yummy, ripe cucumber slices, poured hot brine over them, wiped the rims of the jars clean, popped the lids and bands on the jars, put them in a hot water bath, brought it up to a boil and then timed it for 15 minutes. When all was said and done.....I got this....

Five pint jars of shelf pickles and one jar of refrigerator pickles!!!!!

I am mighty proud of myself and NOW I can't wait to get a bunch of tomatoes to make salsa!

AND I am scouring the newspaper for Ads for "u-pick" farms!

I can't wait to preserve some more foods. I even want to do some quarts of some of the soup recipes in the Ball Canning Book. 

Here's to making your own pickles!!!!!

Hugs,

Erin

5K Maybe

Hello again my friends.

Whew it is so hot and sticky right now! I don't really like that feeling...The air is thick, your skin feels sticky, and clothes seem to stick to your body...Not to mention what that humidity does to my wavy hair...My hair looks like a big frizz ball right now. I am so ready for rain and cooler, more comfortable weather.

This weather has stalled my 5k training a bit.

Oh I forgot to tell you, didn't I?

Well in my younger years, before having my children, I was very active and athletic. I loved to play volleyball and softball. I did some cheer activities and tumbling. I was always doing something. That all changed when I had my first child. I was only 19 years old and I was pretty much STUCK inside all day taking care of my child. When she was 18 months I had my second child, 2 years later my 3rd, and 2 years after that, my fourth child came along. I have been stuck in the same rut since they were born. Inside taking care of them and the house. Not getting out and doing much. I have been going insane.

Well, now that my baby is 7 years old, we have been getting out more. We enjoy nature hikes, bike riding, swimming, neighborhood walks. We enjoy outdoors a lot. I have realized I don't HAVE to be stuck inside anymore. It is EASIER to get out and enjoy places.

I have always wanted to do charity runs. I want to do the Flying Pig 5k next year in Cincinnati as my ice breaker event. I would also love to do a 10 k, a half marathon, a full marathon, and a triathlon. I don't want to do it for anything but to enjoy myself and help raise money for various charities and organizations.

The down side to my dreams is that I never thought I could do it. I am so very out of shape. I have bad knees and hips from the abuse I put on them being active in my younger years. I also have disc problems in my lower back. However, I decided this summer I would TRY.

So earlier this summer, I began to train. I would use the track at our school. I only live 2 blocks from it so I would walk to the track and then walk one lap around the track. Then, on the next lap, I would run the curved parts of the track and walk the straight parts, the next lap I would switch it up and run the straight parts and walk the curved parts. I also would utilize the bike trail in our town. I would walk a while, then jog until I got winded, then walk, then run up the very steep hill that led away from the trail. I was committed.

I have learned some very important things about myself. For one, I am the biggest obstacle I face. I kept telling myself I couldn't jog for so long I had started believing it and I was afraid to try. I also learned that I LOVE to jog. I don't have to jog fast, I don't have to jog for a long distance, I can jog as I feel like it. I can take my time to build myself up to jogging 3.5 miles without stopping to walk. There is no rush! I also learned that my BODY LOVES jogging. My hips and knees felt better, stronger, less painful. My lower back would loosen up. I felt so much better afterwards it would affect my whole day. I chose better foods and better drinks. I would be more active. I was happier and ENJOYED life more.

Then a monkey wrench was thrown in. You see, I don't feel comfortable with jogging by myself or with one of my daughters. We have some not-so-good people in our little town and I am afraid for my safety. My partner in jogging was my wonderful hubby BUT he has suffered an injury. A torn tendon in his heel. He was on crutches for a while and he has to take it easier until the tendon rebuilds. The weather has also kept me from jogging. It isn't good to jog when you get up in the morning and the heat index is already to 90 degrees. I can't jog at night because I don't feel safe. I am STUCK once again.

As of this moment, it has been 2 weeks since I have done any kind of jogging. My body isn't reacting very well. My back is stiff and sore again. My knees and hips give me agony. I don't sleep well at night due to the pain. My mood is horrible because I want to be out there jogging around my neighborhood. My eating habits fell back into the unhealthy modes. I am not choosing what is best for my body anymore. I am feeding the cravings/addictions I have for junk foods. I have gained the 5 pounds I had lost back. I feel horrible about myself.

The up side is...I KNOW I can pick it back up again. I know I will be able to get back to where I was easily. I just have to start again. I think I will start tomorrow. I think I need to buy some pepper spray so I will feel safe. I think I now have a plan.

Hugs,
Erin