Insanity comes to visit!

Where to start?  I made a big mistake in life. I somehow must have said, written or thought that I didn't have anything to blog about anymore so all of the sudden more insanity has occurred in the last 3 weeks than in the last 3 years.

I need to preface this...entry by saying that I had a grande pumpkin spice latte a couple of hours ago and I am really buzzing.  I think I could probably fly right now if I tried hard enough, so excuse the many run on sentences and chock them up to way too much coffeeeeeeeeee....

In a sentence....we had an earthquake, my inlaws come, a really bad sinus infection, really annoying badly explained classes, a hurricane, a week of horrible hives, my parents came, with a kitten, it rained...and rained...and rained...and of course my basement flooded, our AC broke, I still have some hives but I'm not allergic to my cat and there might have been sort of a fight in an Olive Garden thrown in there.  What? You want me to go on?  Well...if you insist.  

My in-laws came in on a Thursday. I'd been feeling awful with this horrible chest cough for a couple of days, so when my ears really started hurting I gave in and decided to go to the redi-med place to get some antibiotics.  She also gave me a steroid in hoping to open the passages between my sinuses more so that I could actually get better from this sinus infection.  I thought "great! I'll be better and life will be grand" and  went on with my day. dot dot dot... six days later (last Thursday to be exact) I woke up a day after finishing those steroids and had...some hives.  "Mysterious," I think to myself, but I am far too busy with a luncheon today and class this afternoon to take benedryl and be out of it all day...so I just made a pact with myself not to itch and went on with my day.  That seemed to work until I got to school, went to pay my bill and touched behind my ear to find that there hives...all...over...my damn neck.  I went to the bathroom and they are all over my neck, chest, legs, arms and ITCHHHHHH.  I make up my mind to go to class long enough to hand my homework in and go home.  Only problem is...that my teacher was 45 minutes late for class.  People had already started leaving when this guy just sort of rolls into class like it's nothing.  I handed my homework, caught up with a classmate in the parking lot to tell him that the teacher finally showed up, and headed home. Days of benedryl later, and I wasn't any better.  A trip to the doctors office where this arrogant jerk of a 'doctor' ignored how much pain and discomfort I was in and instead told me 'not to swear', gave me MORE steroids that didn't work and set me home, and I was about to lose it.  By the time my parents came on Friday I couldn't walk because my feet were so incredibly swollen from the hives.  Monday I ended up in the ER since whenever the hives got bad, I started wheezing, couldn't breathe well and realized that the benedryl wasn't cutting it anymore.  Whatever they gave me in the ER seemed to kill the hives long enough that I got an appointment with my new favorite doctor--my dermatologist, today.  I explained what was happening and he said basically that I most likely had virus hives from being sick, and that all the steroids were just making it worse, and they shouldn't have given me so many and so much and here have this antihistamine and relax.  Did I mention that I love this doctor? This is the man that solved my 20 years of dandruff problem with one shampoo.  Love!

So my in-laws have been here 2 weeks, my parents were here a week and I've managed to go out to dinner with them. That...is...it. Unless you count my mother in law coming to two different doctors appointments with me and my sitting in Starbucks with my mom.  I'm just really disappointed that I've felt so crappy and haven't been able to do stuff but at the same time I feel so incredibly blessed to have had 5 adults around me when I was sick that wanted nothing more than to help me.  Laundry, dishes, kitties fed, love and Starbucks. It was wonderful.  I'm not used to having company come and it being less work for me...I could really get used to this.  Seriously though, I am going to try really hard to do some fun stuff with them this last week of their visit and be happy in the knowledge that they were able to come out and spend time with us, which was the most important aspect of all of this.

My parents came and brought their adorable little kitten Charlotte.  She is about 4 months old, short haired, grey, incredibly curious and in love with Newton.  All we had to do was hold her towards Henry and he would hiss.  Henry did NOT appreciate the kitten at all.  Newton really appreciated having someone to play with for a week. My parents left this morning and he spent all morning looking for her.  It was sad. I think Newton needs a kitten but I also think that a kitten would break that last tenuous thread on reality that Henry is clinging too.  Poor neurotic Henry.

My parents came with all this AMAZING produce from their garden.  They brought the biggest most delicious beefsteak tomatoes that we made bruchetta from with fresh mozzarella.  They brought squash that we ate like mashed potatoes, and carrots, cucumbers, peppers, and more roma tomatoes that I knew what to do with. My dad spent a lot of time canning most of the roma tomatoes into delicious sauce, and he also made refrigerator pickles.  I didn't know that I liked pickles--but these ones are great, and really low in sodium.  My floor looks forlorn and empty without all of the buckets of produce. I think that I might have to make pizza with these beefsteak tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese though.  Oh yum!

So far in my life I have dealt with stress somewhat well. Publically I hold it together quite well and then privately I sort of lose it.  Yesterday, I didn't hold it together so well and I'm feeling very fortunate that my in-laws were here. My mother in law heard some noise coming from the laundry room and went to investigate where she found brown muddy water GUSHING up out of a pipe.  Just GUSHING everywhere and yelled for me. I grabbed some cups from the storage room and sent her upstairs for a pot and started grabbing towels while my father-in-law started collecting the water and attempting to keep our carpet from getting destroyed.  I just sort of lost it at that point and wanted to crawl into a corner and not come out.

Apparently our sump pump, which works (for the record) is hooked up to just dump water out the the back of the house. Not really away from the house and not really in anything drainage like. Nope, just dump it out of the back of the house.  Well, when you get something like a foot of water and there is already water where the water is trying to dump...it comes back INTO the house and apparently into my laundry room.  Yeah it was gross. I'm glad it was just muddy water and not sewage though!

Last night after spending far too much time playing this addictive game 'coin dozer' and attempting to fall asleep with the windows open (because our AC wasn't working either!!) a particularly loud crash of thunder  roused me from bed where I saw that the 'Lake' was forming behind our house again. I warned the hubby that the basement was going to start flooding again,  and he, at 2 am, went downstairs and outside to dig a trench to help move the water away from the house.  My hubby is my hero.  Oh yes, so are my in-laws.

So...this is enough of my adventures for today.  What craziness is happening your way? I can't be the only one with lots of crazy happening! I'll try to add some pictures later, but I just needed to write it all out first!

p.s. I got like 5 hours of sleep max last night and I'm too tired (okay lazy) to proofread this well....just saying Hubs, no criticizing!