This, that and the other...

A few miscellaneous updates to share, for those of you who might be interested.....

I hab had a bad code dis week. I can't breed thru by doze at all. If it weren't for the mighty power of Afrin Nasal Spray and the sleep assistance of that magical elixir Nyquil, I'd probably be dead by now. Well, okay, not dead, but a heckuva lot more miserable. As it is, I just have that lovely, peeling-skinned, red nostril look I always seem to sport when an infection sets up camp in my sinuses. As if having dry skin everywhere else wasn't bad enough, now my nose is looking like my heels. Ew. I wonder if I could use a Ped-Egg on my face......? (Kidding! Heck, I'm too skeeved out to get a Ped-Egg for my feet, and they *need* one, too.)

In house related news, we're having an Open House on Sunday afternoon. Well, not us, but our real estate agent. We'll be clearing out with the cat in tow. I bought a bottle of Comfort Zone with Feliway spray with which to liberally spritz her carrier before cramming her in there. Crazy Cat is not overly fond of either her carrier or car rides, so it should be a fun Sunday afternoon drive for us. Hence the spray - we have a Feliway diffuser in our bedroom (aka the site of Crazy Cat Peeing on our Bed to Express Her Displeasure at Any Number of Things) and it seems to have an effect on her, so I figured why not try the spray for the carrier - can't hurt...

We also have a showing scheduled for this afternoon, so I'll be doing my usual mad cleaning on my already ridonkulously clean house today, then collecting Kiddo from the bus and taking her across town to the only mall with a Stride Rite in our area because it seems that she has outgrown her sneakers yet again. Though I shouldn't complain, as she's been in this pair a lot longer than usual. (Um, it may well be she shouldn't have been in this pair as long, I will freely admit to being a Bad Mommy if it turns out she needs like a 13 and I've been obliviously stuffing her toes into her 11.5s.........) This will be our third showing and the house has been listed for 10 days now - guess that is pretty good. Of course, the first two showings didn't result in any offers, so it doesn't count unless the showing turns into something. This is why I'm baking cookies to set out for the Open House - someone had done that for a house we looked at earlier in the week. We didn't like the house but the cookies were definitely a nice touch (and tasty!) (What, I had to take a cookie - don't you think it would've been rude not to have one?) So, hopefully something comes out of the showing and/or Open House and we have an offer soon. It'd be especially nice as we've made an offer on a house and had to make it contingent upon us selling our place. Being able to remove that contingency would be quite nice. We should be hearing back annnnnny minute now on our offer, so I'm having a mini-heart attack every time the phone rings in between my frantic blogging - erm, I mean cleaning.

And speaking of Kiddo and her ginormous feet, I had a conversation with her physical therapist this morning. She called to give me the results of Kiddo's annual (re-)evaluation. The wonderful, terrific, spectacular news is.......... *drumroll please* ............. Kiddo has caught up on ALL her gross motor delays! *wild cheering* She'd had moderate to severe delays in balance, locomotion and other skills ever since, well, ever, and now, after three years of year-round, twice weekly PT, she is average - the same as every other kid! WOO-HOO!!!!!! The therapist is not recommending a complete discharge, as she wants to keep a quarterly consult in place to monitor Kiddo's range of motion in her legs. See, Kiddo has a tendency to toe-walk thanks to her SPD, and consistent toe-walking leads to shortened heelcords, which leads to limited range of motion.... so, even though Kiddo has shown improvement in her gait (she walks "heels down" a lot more than on her toes these days, only needing cuing to put her heels down now if she's really ramped up about something) and her heelcords flex to neutral and beyond (yay!), the therapist wants to keep an eye on things over the next year, hence the quarterly consult. No more actual PT though, which will be quite a change for Kiddo! Of course, she will still be needing OT for the indefinite future, since it is integral to her success with everything (school, life....) with her SPD, but still, to test out of PT is huge. Yay, Kiddo!!!

In other earth-shatteringly important news, what are you guys thinking of this season's American Idol? How about America's Next Top Model? Any favorites? I have to admit, I'm a solid Adam fan for Idol (even picked him, along with Danny, to be the final two in my annual Idol pool), and I really enjoyed his take on Ring of Fire. I do like Danny, too (I also like Lil and Megan), but when he did Jesus, Take the Wheel this week, I kept flashing back to a different performance of the song that I liked a whole lot better. See, one of my friends from high school was on that show Clash of the Choirs a while back, and one night during that show, she was the soloist on the same song as part of Patti LaBelle's choir. I had goosebumps from watching Liimu's performance back then, and still enjoy it now. Take a look for yourself and tell me what you think...............



See? Liimu was awesome! I'm not saying Danny was terrible or anything - I am a Danny (or is it Robert Downey, Jr?) fan - but I couldn't get Lii's version out of my head the whole time Danny was singing. And anyhow, I want Adam to win it all. (Not saying I'm positive he actually will win, but I'm rooting for him.)

As for ANTM, my early favorites are Fo, London and Celia. Also? I really do not think Allison is pretty at all. Not even Tyra's beloved "pretty-ugly" pretty, either. Her big eyes in that teeny-tiny head just freak me out. Seriously, she reminds me of the guy sitting to the right of Beetlejuice:



except, of course, with blonde hair. *shudder*

I'd be remiss if I talked about reality TV without mentioning The Amazing Race, which is just like the Best Reality Show EVER. (And not just because of Phil Keoghan, either...) This season, I'm completely rooting for Mel/Mike and Luke/Margie and cannot wait for Victor to be eliminated, because he drives me craaaaaaazy! Even his voice makes me cringe - I don't mind his sister, really, but since she's his teammate, then she has to go, too. Everything about Victor is just so ewwwww. I also drive Hubby nuts with all my endless comments about how dang SHORT the stuntmen/brothers are. It just cracks me up and I can't stop mentioning it when they're on screen - especially when they're on the mat and Phil is looking waaaay down at them. And isn't Phil just so awesome with his signing for Luke at the mat? Phil rocks!!

On another celebrity-related note, I was very sad to read the news about Natasha Richardson's untimely death after a skiing accident this week. It hits close to home for Hubby and me, you see, because twelve years ago, a good friend of ours also suffered a traumatic brain injury while skiing. In his case, he went off the trail and headfirst into a tree, and when he was brought in to the level one trauma center, the neurosurgeons said that his was the worst injury they'd ever seen where the patient wasn't DOA. The good news in this story is that he survived (it was a long road to recovery for him, including several weeks in a comatose/vegetative state) and he is still with us today (as well as his wife and two adorable daughters). However, his livelihood as he knew it (he worked in radio) is gone forever, and he has had to adapt to life in a wheelchair with pretty significant limitations due to the paralysis caused by his injury. Whenever I hear a story similar to our friend's, or Natasha Richardson or Sonny Bono or any other person who hits their head while skiing, I always ask the same thing - why the heck aren't helmets mandatory for skiing? I know they don't help in high-speed injuries, but still, they could help in lower-speed injuries, and any protection has to be better than none at all. I just don't get it. (And yes, I would wear a helmet if I went skiing again, which I actually haven't since our friend's accident. I'd make sure Kiddo and Hubby did, too.)

What else? I feel like there was something else I wanted to blog about, but now I'm drawing a blank. Huh. Oh well, I can always blog about it later once I remember what the hey it was. And Carma, I promise I'll do your video as soon as I can breathe well enough to sing again (also, from a vanity standpoint, as soon as my nose no longer looks like Rudolph with peeling skin)! I'm coming up on the big 300th post....... will it be the one in which I announce news of houses being sold and bought? Stay tuned!!! In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a song I ought to download for my iPod, throw 'em at me! I need some new tunes on there, and I've still got the iTunes gift card Hubby gave me for a Christmas stocking stuffer burning a hole in my pocket! And by "new" I don't necessarily mean a new song, just something I don't have on my iPod already. I mean, if you've got a favorite that you rock out to from way back, tell me - I love older songs (most of my iPod is full of songs from well before the 90s!).......

For example, Kiddo and I frequently jam to this one while driving 'round town:



So, new tune, old tune, showtune, any tune you enjoy, you name it and I'll give it a listen! Thanks!