Many Little Blessings

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Using Outgrown Girls Dresses (WFMW)

For lots of great tips and ideas, check out Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in my Dryer!

I think that I had read this tip a long time ago in a magazine or the like, and apparently filed it away in my brain to be brought back this year. It is one that we are using all the time, and it has been working wonderfully for us.

Molly has outgrown some of her dresses from last year. Many are still fine in how they fit her upper portion, but they are just too short. Heck -- even some of her 2T dresses still fit the top half of her, but just are not acceptable as dresses anymore.

So, with the fashion right now being those flowing maternity style tops, we have begun coupling too short dresses with blue jeans or capri pants (when the weather gets better). This way, a dress that might have been passed along to someone else is still usable by us for an entire season more than it might have been before, except it has changed from sweet dress to fashionable top!

And...as an added bonus -- Molly loves it!

This has worked great with long sleeve cotton dresses from places like Gap and Old Navy when paired up with jeans throughout the cooler weather. And, I just can't wait to match up some of her sleeveless dresses or even a sweet pillow case dress that she has outgrown with some capris or cropped pants for the summer.

This is also a great tip when you receive hand-me-down dresses from other families that are maybe just a bit too short for your modesty comfort. Use them as cute shirts instead!

Saving money (and going green by reusing clothes longer!) and looking fashionable...it works for us!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Beef Broth for Breakfast (and Other Hospital Adventures)

I would like to be able to write something profound about my weekend, but instead, I will just tell it like it is. Overall, my weekend was pretty junky.

My previous blog post, thanks to Blogger's new feature of being able to schedule posts, was probably posted right around the time that I was curled up like a roly poly bug and moaning on the floor of the hospital ER.

I had actually been feeling sore and sometimes in pain for about a week off and on. Mostly, thankfully, more off than on. But, it really flared up on Thursday morning, and I visited an urgent care center. I was told that it sounded like I probably has some food poisoning (or other type of contamination), and then as an after-thought (because of one of my lab results) said maybe it could possibly be kidney stones.

Apparently not so "maybe possibly."

Yes, on Friday, I found out in the ER (after a CAT scan) that I do, indeed have kidney stones. Two of them, actually.

I was about to be sent home with pain killers and anti-nausea medicine, but because they gave me such a strong pain killer in my IV before they were going to wheel me out, I ended up getting sick all the way out to the car. So, they brought me back in an admitted me to the hospital. Yuck! I have to admit, I never would have agreed to go back in and "lay down a little bit" if I had known that actually meant that they were going to admit me to the hospital for a "24 hour" observation. (I just can't bring myself to not put that in quotations, since I know that was really not how it happened.)

So, to make this a little more brief, I finally saw my doctor (well, the doctor on call for my doctor) on Saturday after 9 pm! I didn't leave the hospital until 10 pm. I was so irritated. I tried to be calm, but I did break down around 2:30 pm and was sobbing and begging the nurses to make sure he hadn't forgotten about me.

I'm glad to be home, but I'm still pretty beat. Going to Mass and dinner tonight completely wore me out. (But, on such a wonderful note, my parents actually came to the Mass with us. That was so nice, and we all enjoyed it.)

I will be having a referral to see a urologist, so hopefully they can get me in soon and they can figure out what we should do about these stones, so that I don't end up in the ER again. Although, now that I have pain killers and anti-nausea meds here at home, I think it has to be pretty serious before I'm willing to stop in at the ER again, for fear of being stuck in the hospital with a roommate who cried, moaned, and talked in her sleep all night long. (Oh wait -- I already did that roommate part, though she was a very kind woman.)

Besides, I don't even want to see when my $500.00 copay comes rolling in for the hospital stay, so I'm not apt to want to repeat that anytime soon either!

Friday, May 16, 2008

St. Mary doll desperately seeking St. Joseph doll

Molly has the Holy Folks Saint Mary doll that she got for Christmas. (This was when I posted about it.)

Apparently Molly now feels that Mary needs something else, in addition to her baby Jesus. I found this out while Molly was playing with dolls and stuffed animals the other day.

It would seem that Mary thought some of the other dolls and stuffed animals might be able to help her. Molly walked Mary over to a large stuffed penguin and then "Mary" asked, "Penguin -- have you seen Joseph? We're looking for Joseph."

She continued this questioning on a variety of dolls, as well as to some Care Bears and a bevy of animals. Poor Mary seemed pretty desperate to find Joseph.

Molly finally asked me, "Where is Joseph, Mom? We don't have a Joseph!"

I have looked around online, but it seems that St. Joseph just isn't a saint that people think little ones will want in a stuffed doll variety. If anyone has any leads for me, please leave a comment or drop me an email! Of course, even if you don't have a lead for me, feel free to leave a comment anyway!

(Pictures from http://www.CatholicChild.com)