So ....What's Happening At the Stage House?

I went in for surgery for on November 30th, got sick from the anesthesia and pain meds. While in the hospital, the staff lost 2 bags of my personal belongings, delivered me to the wrong room and gave me meds that I declined. Perhaps I need to lower my standards when it comes to acceptable medical care.

Claudia developed a double dose of pink eye, and fever and a stomach bug causing her to empty the contents of her stomach in our bathtub... at least it wasn't the carpet.

I caught Claudia's bug, while still recovering from surgery. It's not fun to throw-up when stitches are involved.

I woke up on a Tuesday morning and couldn't get out of bed. I managed to injure my back (again) while sleeping.... amazing. I made an appointment with my doctor for the following day, but the pain was so intense that I had Brian take me to the ER where I stood (it hurt to sit or lie down) for 4 hours. They offered me pain meds which I declined, sent me home and told me to ice my back. My back still hurts to the point that I can not dress the lower half of my body without assistance.

Our 7 year old high efficiency furnace broke. Called the furnace man to fix it, but he couldn't because he didn't have the part in stock. The fix-it man told us that if we had purchased a mid-range furnace, he would have had the part in stock. Gosh, what were we thinking when we purchased the more expensive furnace (insert sarcasm)? That was on a Thursday evening. The part would not be available until Monday afternoon because it was being delivered from Glendale Heights in Illinois. We would have driven to IL, but a rather large snow storm blanketed Porter County and the roads were not impassible. The storm also delayed the Lenox truck which showed up on Tuesday afternoon.

During the furnace ordeal, we packed up the kids and shipped them out to Mimi and Papa's so they would not freeze. Brian and I would have joined the kids but we had the 2 dogs and cat at home... Mimi and Papa have 2 large greyhounds. Four dogs and one cat are not a good mix. Brian and I roughed it at home with a handful of space heaters until the frigid cold and snow storm hit. Then we packed up the pups and headed east to Crown Point where we stayed at for 2 nights.

While we were at Mimi's house William came down with the stomach bug. Poor guy. He had it worse than the rest of us. I gave him a glass of water which he quickly tossed back up stating "That just came back up like a fire hose". Luckily, the bug only lasted a day.

Tonight we are going to Grandma's to decorate for Christmas. Tomorrow the kids are going to Mimi ad Papa's to bake cookies and spend the night which provides me with the only opportunity I will have to shop, organize and wrap.

Since this has been such a chaotic month, I decided to splurge and buy myself a Christmas gift. I usually don't use retail therapy as a cure-all, but this time I found it to be completely necessary.... and it got Brian off the hook when it comes to shopping for me.