Public Service Announcement

#1)  I did have strep.  It's been confirmed.  But I'm feeling fine now and I'm no longer contagious.

#2)  Always read your prescription labels and compare what the label says to what is actually in the bottle. 

After being told that I kind of, sort of, might, ever-so-slightly have strep last Friday, I came home and popped a pill as soon as I got in the door.  Later that night, before taking my second pill, I decided to read the entire extraneous information included with the prescription.  Because I'm a nerd like that.  The pill bottle came with a little description page of what the pills inside the bottle should actually look like.  Oblong.  Check!  Off white.  Check!  Scored.  ???  GG 550 on one side.  Nnnnnno?  DV 90 on the other side (I don't remember the exact numbers & letters right now).  Definitely no.  Oh dear!! 

So, before taking another pill, I called the pharmacy where I had purchased them.  The pharmacists said, "Don't take any more!  I don't even know what you have, but it definitely isn't penicillin."  Yikes!  So, after calming my husband who was already angry with this particular establishment due to an earlier incident that day, I hopped in the car to go get my correct prescription.  Again.

I received my correct prescription and an assurance that the potassium (which they figured out I'd been given and had taken one of by mistake) would not harm me [Though I later was told by someone else that a whole bottle-full might have!!].  They tried to refund my money (on top of giving me my new real medicine free), but that had some trouble with the card.  So, I walked away with a free prescription and a $20 giftcard.  I suppose it was the least they could do.

All this to say...be sure to read your prescription bottles.  Every time.  And always ask if something doesn't seem just right.  I am just so glad that my near-death experience (not really) can benefit the entire cyber-world (the 5 people who read my blog) and prevent another such atrocity (having to go to the pharmacy twice in one day...once with wet hair and wearing sweatpants) from plaguing anyone else.  Amen.

Ib sig (translation= I'm sick)

I have strep.  Sort of.  I think so.  It sure feels like it, but I'm still waiting to find out for sure.  I'm taking penicillin anyway.  The Target Minute Clinic doctor looked at my rapid-result throat swab test ...those are horrific, by the way!  Have they stopped using tongue depressors?  That would have helped me.  And the nurse who administered the swab.  I grabbed her hand to remove the swab from my throat.  Twice.  It was a completely knee-jerk reaction.  I apologized.  Twice.  But I couldn't not do it....anyway...the doctor looked at my result and said there was a very faint line, so I might have strep and I might not.  Is that like being a little bit pregnant??  In fact, I asked her if that meant that I was pregnant.  I laughed really hard.  She did not.  She said I could wait for the long-term results and then get a prescription if it came back positive, or I could get on antibiotics now and if the results came back negative then I could stop the meds.  I opted for meds now.  As quickly as possible.  Please and thank you.

So, today I don't feel like doing much at all.  Except for drinking tea with honey in it, which has suddenly become my favorite (4 cups a day!) beverage of choice.  It makes me glad that Thursdays are my cleaning day and that I've stuck to that regimen for several weeks now.  Every piece of clothing in my house is clean, my floors are vacuumed and swiffered, my bathroom is sanitized, and my kitchen is orderly.  That makes it so much easier for me to go and lay under the covers and watch a movie in the middle of day...right now.  But first I have to brew another cup of tea.  And take 3 ibuprofen.

Trick or Treat

Our kids got to choose what they wanted to be for Halloween this year.  Owen chose Buzz Lightyear.  Or, "Buzz Whiteyeaw," really.  I felt like the cheapo store-bought costume needed a little something, so I made him some wings to go with it. 

 Sophie chose to be a swan.  We had several conversations about this.  I don't know why she wanted to be a swan, but she never deviated from that desire.  I googled "swan costume" to get some ideas, but all I got were pictures of Bjork!  So, we had to improvise on our own.

 See how the tutu is longer in the back?  It's the tail.  She actually really liked the costume (except that the feathers were itchy sometimes) even though she looks annoyed in the picture.  We were trying to move it along so we could get out of the house (in our 8 layers of clothes!) to go trick-or-treating.

 First we stopped at the W's to compare costumes, drop off some bloody-finger treats and do a little trick-or-treating together.

 Two Buzz Lightyears!!  This year it was Drew's turn to not want his picture taken.  Perhaps you remember last year?  (Scroll down to the group picture)

 There he is!

 All the kids had a good time going house to house together. 

 Mostly these two just kept running around all over the place, and we had to constantly keep yelling, "Drew!  Owen!  No, this way!  Stop there!  Stay to the side!  Wait for us!"

 It was so exciting.  Our kids' buckets were nearly full after just doing both sides of the W's block, and we still went home to visit our own neighbors houses!

 When we got home and stripped off the multiple layers, the kids got to check out all their loot and pick out one thing to eat before getting ready for bed. 

 Woohoo!

13th Annual Halloween Party

We had our Halloween party last weekend.  Attendance was way up compared to recent years.  We had 26 people in our teeny-tiny house!  I made my customary "bloody fingers."  My kids have been eating the leftover fingers for days now. 

 Lots of people came in costume this year...Kris (bee) and Pete (Bobby Flay from Food Network)

 Jodie (a s'more!), Bryan (the Hamburglar...he was carrying a McD's happy meal earlier), and Caleb (Maverick from Top Gun)

 Gerrit (I don't even know, but it was scary.  He kept just standing in corners not talking to anyone.  Creepy.) & Cassie (pregnant butterfly)

 Ryan & Sarah (prom couple...that's her real prom dress from high school.  And now I hate her.)

 Greg (Darth Vader) and me (Amy Winehouse...the tattoos still have not washed off)

 Bill (Rescued Chilean miner...he hopped in the door with this on and wore it for about 2 more minutes) & Kari (a girl scout)

 Intense battles of Connect 4 were fought.  Some down to the very last space.

 See?  There's Gerrit being creepy again.

 It came down to me: 3rd place!!,  Todd:  2nd place, and Greg:  1st place.  Though I was in it for the fortune and glory, of course, I could have done without the spoils of my battle.  I had actually purchased two extra boxes of cereal for our kids to enjoy, and now we get to enjoy four.

Prizes were awarded for the top two costumes.  Caleb (Maverick) got 2nd place, and he enjoyed the crinkly wrappers on all the gourmet Halloween candy.  Bill, the Chilean miner, received first prize, but he had taken off the costume (big surprise), so I didn't take his picture.

We had such a good time with friends, some of whom we haven't seen at a Halloween party for a few years.  The snacks were tasty, the competition was fierce, and we got to play dress-up!  It was a super-fun time!