Chicken….WHAT!!!

Oh, what a long day it was yesterday…L.O.N.G.!!! I got up early in order to complete an order before Ellie got up. I was rushing around because I needed to be out of the house by 11am. As I walked over to Ellie (who was playing in the bath) I noticed a tell tale red bump under her arm. Frantically, I started searching all over her body for more of the tell tale red bumps…better known as CHICKENPOX! Sure enough, there were several and most of them were on her trunk near her “hot spot” areas. Obviously, I called the doctor right away and we had an appointment at 2. It’s a good thing I left the house a little early b/c my car was in desperate need of an oil change. Brandon has been reminding me to get it done for weeks now…so, when the light came on in my car yesterday I knew I better stop asap! I did and I told the man working there that I needed to get in and out b/c my daughter had a doctor appointment in exactly 1 hour…time was ticking.

As I am sitting there trying to silently isolate my daughter from everyone’s air space a young couple sits down on the couch across from me. They are young…really young. They were both reading books, so I glanced up to see what stellar novel he was reading, when I noticed the title, “Marijuana Horticulture!” WHAT!!! SERIOUSLY!!! He was totally reading a book about growing and maintaining a little Mary Jane…unbelievable! The best is what his significant other was reading…”What to expect when you’re expecting!” I WISH I was kidding…what a match made in Heaven…right! Only in my world…(and yes, I was sitting a significant distance from them in order to keep Ellie away);

We were in and out in no time and off to the doctor. We got right in b/c apparently chickenpox is VERY contagious…and indeed we are blessed enough to be in the >10% of kids that actually get the disease AFTER being vaccinated…when will I convince myself to start buying lottery tickets? He said that it looks like she will just have a mild case, however she is contagious for at least 7 days, so she has to be quarantined until next Friday. Please pray for some very nice weather!!! When we were leaving he told me that he had received the letter from the orthopedic doctor with his opinion of our meeting on Monday. My doctor said he thought she looked pretty good, but he did suspect (insert multisyllabic medical term here). I asked what that meant and he said, “Well, it means that there is probably some nerve damage that occurred in the brain…..” I stopped him there and said, “Oh, are we talking about mild CP?” When he shook his head yes, I just shrugged my shoulders and said that is exactly he told me…no new surprises there.

So, I took my infected little chicken and we headed off to the HEB to get aveno bath, oatmeal bath and all of the other chickenpox goodies we might need in order to survive house arrest for the next week. I have to be honest…we also stopped at Hobby Lobby b/c I needed to get a few things for work. We were in and out in a jiffy. However, while we were in there I heard my keys fall to the floor. I picked them up and kept pushing the cart b/c I was trying to get out as quickly as possible.

Finally, we were heading back home. It was totally freezing on Friday and raining and the last thing I even wanted to do was leave the house! We pulled in to the driveway 10 minutes later. I grabbed our bags and got the keys out of the ignition. When I got to my front door I realized that I was missing my house key…aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!! It had to have fallen off in Hobby Lobby when my keys hit the floor. How irritating!!! I called my husband ~ who was busy as usual and there was no way he could head home at that point. So, I got my daughters gift card from BuildABear and slammed it in the crack on our front door. After about 5 minutes of breaking and entering I actually got the door open!!! Hallelujah ~ and how frightening all at the same time! No time to be irritated b/c I had to get my screaming toddler out of the car. I threw the bags in the front door pulled it behind me (in order to keep the dogs out of the rain) and…well, you know what happens next…THE DOOR CLOSED…AND IT WAS LOCKED!!! Now I am totally near a nervous breakdown. I am tired. Ellie is screaming and shivering and sick. My dogs are howling inside and I literally want to sit down and cry. I reach out to our neighbors and they come to our rescue. Finally, we were able to jimmy a flat head screwdriver onto the lock and pop the door open. The first thing I did was unlock the bottom lock! One more crisis under control in the Kahl household.

I picked up the house phone to call Brandon and tell him we were in and…no dial tone! What a joke. I call B from my cell and he makes a call to the cable company who tells him that there is an outage in our area. Okay…we’ll wait. Four hours later the cable is still out and now they are saying there was never an outage in our area…interesting. The housekeeper was here today, so B is on a mission to try and figure out what they messed up…it was the GFCI breaker in our bathroom had to be reset and voila! It came right on! So, at 8:30 we were all in bed fast asleep! Well most of us anyway…

Today was Dave (my little brother) and Katie’s engagement party. It was devastating to have to miss such a monumental occasion in their lives. But our little chicken needed us to be with her and cater to her needs right now. The weather is still crummy and B and I were just hanging out in the living room watching The Food Network. It was one of those days that everything that comes across the screen looks good enough to eat. So, we decided to have Super Saturday Cookoff. WOW!! We had some fabulous food! To start, I made this wonderful spinach and artichoke dip. For our lunch/dinner B made FANTASTIC baked potato soup…yummy!! For desert we had strawberry cake balls ~ holy goodness!!!(The recipe is at the bottom of the linked page) Tomorrow chef B is preparing his brother’s famous red beans and rice with jalapeno cheese cornbread. It is so amazing to have a man that can make such fabulous meals for us to enjoy. I LOVE to cook, but sometimes it is so nice to eat a yummy meal you didn’t have to prepare. I am pretty sure between Chris and B, they could start their own restaurant…The Kahl Kafe. 

So, one oatmeal bath down and we’re all tucked in bed together. We are sure Ellie will come through this little virus with flying colors. However, we would appreciate all of your prayers for her healing. I am starting to think that the second half of 2009 is going to be pretty awesome for us since the first half has started out so challenging…here’s hoping anyway!

Blessings,
Angie