Forgot to mention...

I forgot to mention that both Reeve and I are recovering from a Lyme's infection! I guess it was about a month ago when Reeve woke up one morning and was very dizzy. He couldn't walk straight and was falling down. It was pretty freaky and so I initially thought maybe he had low blood sugar. I gave him some juice and made him some breakfast. He couldn't hold down the breakfast and was still very dizzy. I made an appointment with a doctor. He continued to be sick all the way to the clinic. When we got there he started to feel a bit better. The docotor thought maybe it was some kind of virus and she sent us over to the lab to draw Reeve's blood for testing. Reeve was fine when we got home. Then about a week and a half later the nurse called to inform us that Reeve tested positive for "recent" Lyme's. Since he had Lyme's last year he will always test positive for Lyme's but then there's a second test that they can run to determine if the infection is recent.

Since Reeve had a Lyme's infection last year his body is slightly more adept at handling the bacteria. He has some antibodies in his system to better fight the infection. That's probably why his symptoms weren't as severe as they were last year. I was a work when Tommy got the call from the nurse. He went to the Pharmacy to pick up the 3 week supply of amoxicillin for Reeve. He had 3 choices: #1 chewable tablets (this would have been my pick...Kyle had this when he had Lyme's in January), #2 flavored liquid (I don't like this as much because it only lasts for 2 weeks and it separates too easily), #3 capsules that you have to swallow. He of course chose the very non-kid friendly option #3. Reeve has never swallowed a pill before and he was looking forward to getting the chewable kind like Kyle had. It was a tad stressful, but the upside is that now Reeve is a champ at swallowing pills! He has 7 more left out of 84...he had to take this 4 times a day for 3 weeks!

When I came home from work later that day I noticed I had a bullseye rash on my back! UGH! I went to the doctor on Monday and he sent me to the Pharmacy for a 2 week supply of amoxicillin. I've had it before as well, so that's probably why my symptoms weren't as severe. Next year we are SERIOUSLY considering building a coop and buying some Guinea hens. They love to eat ticks and snakes. They're very easy to take care of, but they are noisy. I'd rather have noise than Lyme's.

On a lighter note... the monarchs came out of their chrysallis and the kids got to have fun with them crawling around on their faces.


Reeve loved this:


Tommy took this pic of Kyle. It's a really good shot of the butterfly, and we identified it as a female. The male would have thicker lines on the lower wings with two "eye" dots


Now this second generation of Monarchs will live their entire lives in Wisconsin...They don't migrate to Mexico. They'll lay larvae that will turn into the third generation in mid-late August...that's the generation that will migrate to Mexico. Finally the 4th generation will live only in Mexico.

Wolf Spiders, Muddy Reeve & Monarch Update

Well I have received a fair number of reminders recently to update the blog. Thanks for keeping me on track :-). We've had a lot going on lately, so it's a good time for an update.

I attended my first level (out of 6) training to become a yoga teacher through the Feel Your Best Yoga Program. It was a weekend in Madison, and I went with a friend, so we were able to share expenses. I really enjoyed it, but I decided not to continue with the other levels at this time. It's expensive, and I have no time to teach classes on a regular basis. I figure maybe this will be a really good thing for me to do when Reeve and Kyle go to school. We're thinking Reeve will definitely be in public school by 7th Grade. We'd like to be in a state where they offer merit based scholarships for good grades...we know Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee offer that. So that means we have about 5 more years to finish this house. That may sound like a lot of time, but keep in mind we've been at it for 8 years now and we're about half-way done.

I decided my job as a Loan Originator with One Stop Mortgage was going nowhere. I knew that the last L.O. that was working for them left to work at Affordable Mortgage in Tomah. Out of frustration I decided to give Affordable Mortgage a call and see if they were hiring any L.O.s. I made the call, had an interview, and was hired all in the same day. The company is owned and operated by a very motivated and smart woman. She has two offices, one in Sparta and one in Tomah. Brian (the guy who left One Stop) is the L.O. in Sparta and Billi Jo (the owner) is the L.O. in Tomah. I'll be working in the Tomah office Billi Jo. It's a very nice office in a brand new mall area. I get to wear nice clothes and high heels :-). The attire at One Stop was way too casual. Kari, the main L.O. at One Stop, would wear some pretty trashy looking outfits. One day I went in to train she had on low rider shorts with a high riding bright yellow thong! TACKY! When I came home Tom was kinda bummed he wasn't there that day...VERY TACKY :-(.

Tom has decided to not pursue his Realtor career, and he's given his resignation to One Stop. Having a Realtor for a husband was not a good thing for me as a Loan Originator. I need to gain the trust and respect of other Realtors, so that they'll refer their buyers to me. Once they find out my husband is a Realtor they won't refer business my way...they'll be too concerned that he'll try to sway their buyers to buy through him. He decided to let it go...now that was a sweet thing to do :-). He also was discovering it was very time consuming if he wanted to be successful, and he's got too much going on right now.

Tom's very excited because it's looking like he'll get a lateral transfer and work on the Army side of the base...vs. the Air National Guard side. On the Army side he wouldn't have to kowtow to a brat of a boss like he does now...his boss will be in Madison. Also he'll be able to work 4 10hr days, which is what he's wanted to work forever now! It will be great for both of us because he'll be able to have Mondays to work on the house and I'll be able to put in a good 10+hr day at Affordable Mortgage.

My job at Kwik Trip (the gas station) is going well. I put in 20hrs on the weekends working 4am-2pm. I'm a bit groggy tired my Sunday night, but I'm really thankful for the hours there. I stopped working the evening shift (5pm-11pm) unless they really desparately need me to do it. However I need to put my foot down on that one because I plan to work evenings at Affordable Mortgage. About all I can get done during the day is home school the kids. Our house is a disaster, we ALWAYS have a sink FULL of dishes, the laundry is never put away and the dirty clothes hamper is constantly over flowing. Tom has been terrific about coming home and making dinner lately, just so I can keep up with everything.

My Mom is coming for two weeks to save us...I don't think she knows what she's getting into :-). Billi Jo wanted me to have at least 2 full weeks in the office during the day for training, so Mom's coming up July 1st-14th. She'll be taking the boys to swimming lessons in Elroy, and to the Library. Reeve and Kyle have had a lot going on at the Library lately. They're in a book club where they read a book and then they get to watch the movie of that book. The Library also has their summer reading program where the kids go in on a regular basis to log their reading hours and to solve mysteries. The theme of the Reading Program is "Get a Clue," so every week Ms. Mary the Librarian puts together a treasure hunt together. The first one took us a couple of days of walking around Elroy gathering clues and then piecing them together. A lot of fun, but a lot of work. The kids absoultely LOVE it. Tommy helped out with the second week of clues because they were all at the Elroy Fair. I couldn't take them to the Fair because I was working at Kwik Trip all three days.

Well I'm really running out of time here...I woke up early just to post and then I end up going on and on and on...every knows I have a big mouth! I apologize if I was too wordy. I'll say a little bit about the pics and then I promise to post more within a week...we've got some great picture opportunities coming up.



These first pics were taken at a friends house. She lives down the road from us and she found a wolf spider on her driveway. The funky thing about this wolf spider was that it was a mama with hundreds of babies crawling all over her! I had nightmares about this spider after watching all those babies just crawling around all over her body. It was wicked! These pics really don't relay the gross-out factor that was there.

We had a turtle sand box in this lovely little mud hole. The kids were playing on the slide and were spraying each other with the hose. In the process the spot where the turtle had been turned into a muddy pond. Reeve just thought this was the coolest thing ever and decided to get all muddy! YUCK! I always considered Reeve my "neat" kid, but I guess he had to let it out fly out the window. Kyle wouldn't have anything to do with it.

It's that time of year again. This is the second generation of Monarchs. The first arrived from Mexico and laid their larvae which we found on Milkweed. I have more to say on this subject and of course more pics.

This one tried to escape.