Category Archives: Life in Big Sky Country

Update on Yesterday’s Prayer Request

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About 8:00 last night (after going upstairs to get a Harry Potter book and choking for 5 minutes), I told Jon that I wanted to go to the E.R. NOW.Â? We went in and thankfully the doc that knows me best was on call.Â? All I had to do was have him examine me and tell him that my peak flow was 300 (about 60% of what my norm is) and he got me hooked up to a nebulizer.Â? 10-15 minutes of nebulizer treatment opened everything up again and we were out of there by 9:30.

Right now, I’m doing fairly well — still not able to do a lot physically but that’s due more to the &^%$#%$ smoke from the forest fires west and south of us (ah… summer in Montana) that’s blowing this direction.Â? They gave me some surgical masks to wear for those times when I have to go outside and I have a feeling that I’m going to get some stares while walking to church tomorrow.Â? 😛

Gah!

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I thought that my loopiness from yesterday would be gone today.Â? Umm… no.Â? I took 2 Benadryl last night to fight the nasty itchy feeling in my face from allergies and smoke from the Skyland Fire in East Glacier which made me wake up in no shape to drive myself to the doctor today.Â? (I feel like someone is taking my head, shaking it like a snow globe, and putting it back on.)Â? Apparently, all the Benadryl from last week is still in my system and I have at least another day of being completely useless to anyone.Â? (I had to have someone drive me into town to give Jon spare keys last night when his set got locked in the car.)Â? I also have a raging sinus infection among other things and my doctor thinks that the ER doc in Kalispell was a moron for telling me that I wasn’t allergic.Â? (I am so getting a recommendation to an allergist in Great Falls to get everything straightened out with my allergies and asthma and to find out WHAT venom stings I’m allergic to so that I know whether or not I actually need an Epi-Pen.)

Oh yes… did I mention that they’re doing road construction in town so that driving anywhere and parking on Main Street is a freaking mess (as well as the town reeking of tar and asphalt)?Â? And that it was in the 90’s again (it’s been in the high 80’s and upwards for a months now with no break)?

Then I get home and find out that the local hospital entered the wrong amount for a payment and caused a snowball of things to mess up my bank account.Â? (I was on the phone for 45 minutes with my bank fixing it.)Â? Oh yes… I also have a stomach that is rejecting everything put in it so I’m incredibly nauseous and in pain while doing this.

The rest of the day has followed suit.Â? I have an itchy face again, it’s bloody hot, there’s smoke from the Skyland fire (meaning that opening windows is not an option), and I’m just incredibly uncomfortable.Â? The heat is so bad that I have liquid streaming down my face and my stomach — we’re talking going through shirts because they get so nasty from the sweat and of course… we have no freaking A/C (apparently we don’t *NEED* it here — uh huh… right…) so there’s not exactly much that can be done.

Today is soooooo fired!!!! This Benadryl had better get itself the heck out of my system so I can actually *TAKE* my antibiotics and a decongestant tomorrow.

Blogathon 2007 Redux: The Good, the Bad, and What I’ll Do Differently Next Year

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So I’m sort of awake still and figure I can probably redux things OK.

The Good
-raising $270 (at this point) for International Justice Mission
-getting to hang out with lovely people again who I unfortunately only get to see during the ‘thon
-meeting awesome people like Lauren (one of my monitees — I always wind up meeting at least one really excellent person every year and she’s this year’s person)
-my awesome husband Jon bringing me Subway for lunch
-cats hanging out with me
-dancing the Timewarp at 3 a.m.
-my cheerleaders
-my monitor team: the bSpies who posted lots of cat macros
-getting to go to sleep right after I finished (and not having tons of phone calls to wake me up)
-being able to help out with Potterthon

The Bad
-the flippin’ heat
-the smoke outside which means that I can’t open windows to air out my study
-some of my monitored sites breaking my browser
-feeling completely punch drunk right now
-the nastily uncomfortable chair that is my computer chair

What I’ll Do Differently Next Year
-different charity (I love IJM to pieces but I switch charities every year)
-different computer chair!!!
-not be part of multiple group weblogs (it was fun but really hard when I had multiple entries due) or if I am, I’ll have entries going in on each site and saved until they have to be posted
-put my monitored sites into a bookmark group so that I can go surf and hang out without having to deal with the surfing frame
-have a cooler up here with cold drinks so that I don’t have to walk down two floors to the kitchen (then again… it was good exercise)
-print out my schedule so I don’t have to have MS Excel open
-create my Napster playlist and find some way of saving it so I don’t have to re-create it if my Napster freezes
-have a list of artists I want to check out so I have new music during the ‘thon
-keep mIRC open more so I can participate in more of the chat (oh yes… I’ll also have instructions to give my monitees on how to get in if they ask)

I will definitely participate again and I’ll monitor again as well.Â? (Monitoring means that I get to hang out with a group of people and be a cheerleader and find out about new and wonderful sites and people.)

FLBC Redux: The Good, the Bad, and the “Um Yeah…”

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I just got back from Flathead Lutheran Bible Camp where I was from Sunday afternoon to today. As I love this method of reduxing the week, here are my lists.

The Good
-the beauty of the camp
-the AWESOME staff
-decent food
-getting to interact with the kids
-worship in the mornings and at campfire
-our SUPER COOL nurses for the week
-the quality of the Passion Play and getting to discuss it afterwards with five cooperative teenage boys
-getting to be one of the players in the Resurrection Service
-the cabins of Trailblazer girls with whom I hung out
-having the Trailblazer girls come up to me and tell me that they were praying for me after both yellowjacket stings
-having my Epi-Pen not hurt when I had to stab myself with it
-finding out that I’m not as deathly allergic to yellowjacket stings as I had been told I was
-being able to play field games with the kids
-being part of the Hunger Drama
-the conversations with Pr. Joel (one of the other pastors-in-residence this week)
-the conversations with the other pastors and their spouses
-volunteering at the canteen

The Bad
-the SWARMS of yellowjackets that were unleashed by the tornado/winds in the Flathead Valley last week that caused the 10+ bee stings every day
-getting stung TWICE in 24 hours after avoiding getting stung for 16 years
-having to go to the ER after the second sting because I was getting so sick
-having to stab myself with the Epi-Pen
-the guilt I felt for using up one of the camp’s Epi-Pens once I found out that I wasn’t allergic
-the brattiness of some of the 6th and 7th grade boys I dealt with at the canteen

The “Um Yeah…”
-finding out that some of the KIDS had seen “Charlie the Unicorn” and could quote it almost perfectly
-watching a cabin try to set up a couple of the counselors
-having the same cabin decide that I should have a baby
-“Electric Campfire” (fun but too loud — it was like being a metal concert)
-the “Saved By Grace” song

Jon had an awesome time this week doing his two “messages” at campfire and worship on Wednesday, participating in “Pastor Hot Seat” sessions where the kids could ask him ANYTHING, hanging with the Trailblazer girls who ADORED him, and just getting to have a relaxed week even though he was technically working. 🙂

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Sponsor Jen in Blogathon 2007 on July 28th. Come join the fun at her Blogathon site as she blogs for International Justice Mission! Even a pledge of $1 makes a difference!

The News From Here

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Fair starts on Thusday and I need to take my entries in tomorrow.Â? I’m bringing an afghan and a string bag for the Household Arts division.Â? I don’t think I’ll have much competition but hey… you never know.

I’m also looking forward to Saturday’s release of HP7.Â? I’m not quite into counting down hours and minutes yet (maybe because I just have a lot to do first) but I am pretty excited.Â? I’m also hoping that they actually deliver it here on Saturday — I will be SOOOOOO cross if I have to wait until Monday!

Meanwhile, it’s bloody hot.Â? It’s not as bad as Saturday when it was 102 in town but it’s up there.Â? I’m hoping things cool down soon — Blogathon is going to be miserable otherwise as my DSL is on the third floor of the house and it can get pretty nasty up there.Â?Â? The cats are all lying around like furry deflated balloons though Edda is bonding with me upstairs having some “sauna time”.Â? I have a fan on up here but it’s just not comfortable.

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Sponsor Jen in Blogathon 2007 on July 28th. Come join the fun at her Blogathon site as she blogs for International Justice Mission! Even a pledge of $1 makes a difference!

How Hot Is It?

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It’s so hot that…

-Weatherbug turned red in my sidebar.
-The weather widget on Firefox showed a thermometer on fire.
-My fan shut itself off from overheating.
-My laptop is shutting itself off randomly.
-The cats are looking like furry deflated balloons.
-I’m tempted to eat a tub and a half of ice cream because it’s something cold. (Probably good that I don’t keep ice cream in the house.)
-My body has a wall of water cascading down it.
-You could likely bake bread outside if you left it for long enough.

I’m soooooo looking forward to things cooling down 20-30 degrees tomorrow!

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Sponsor Jen in Blogathon 2007 on July 28th. Come join the fun at her Blogathon site as she blogs for International Justice Mission! Even a pledge of $1 makes a difference!

Heat Wave

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Did you know that Weatherbug turns red when the temperature breaks 100 F? Yep… found that out when I finally dragged myself out of bed today. It’s 102 F at least in Cut Bank where the temp is being recorded. Where I am, they’re estimating between 102 and 106. The nice green hills are now YELLOW and I think the fire danger exists if you even look at someone funny. At least it is indeed a dry heat — 8% humidity and it should drop to 85 F tomorrow which is a bit more bearable, especially when one’s study is on the third floor.

And I guess I should be grateful that it’s not 116 F like they’re predicting for Vegas.

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Sponsor Jen in Blogathon 2007 on July 28th. Come join the fun at her Blogathon site as she blogs for International Justice Mission! Even a pledge of $1 makes a difference!