TAMPA WOMAN'S INTERNET SELF-DIAGNOSIS A SUCCESS!

"All I needed was uterine fibroids."

TAMPA, FL - A Tampa woman has finally closed the book on a two year long search to find something wrong with her, thanks to tenacious research, paranoia, the Lifetime channel and hypochondria. "I always knew something was wrong, or going to be wrong. All I needed was a gaggle of uterine fibroids growing inside of my body, stealing blood to feed themselves!", said 62 year-old Beverly Whitehead-Coombs. "It's such a relief. I feel like I'm not crazy after all!", she smiled digging through her lunch of Kozy Shack tapioca.

Whitehead-Coombs started her quest after a co-worker was diagnosed with endometrial cancer. "Kathy - bless her - got the cancer. We were all very upset, but the person who looked the least upset was Kathy! She surprised us all with her determination and inspiration. I guess I'd feel inspiring too, if I got all of those flowers and balloons everyday. You should have seen her desk! Accounts payable looked like Wayne Newton's dressing room! We could have changed from being a machine guard manufacturing company to a gift shop with all of those plush teddy bears and flowers and See's Candy boxes and silver balloons and casseroles and joke key chains and gift cards to use at Olive Garden and fudge!" Whitehead-Coombs wants to make it clear that she's not competing against her friend. "What I found baffling was that I have a strong family history of disease, and as far as I know, Kathy's family are all fit as fiddles! I just thought, 'Here I am searching and searching for my Auntie Bess' chest cancer in me and here comes Kathy - healthy as a horse two weeks ago at Casino Night - and now she's got the cancer! And all the attention!'" She then added: "I bet she didn't even look herself first. I bet some doctor found it. That's when I decided to up the research on Web MD. And it paid off! I went in to the lady doctor and she found what was wrong with me, but I found it first. Next week, I'll be getting a very painful hysterectomy! They wanted to do another procedure but I said: 'No thanks! The next time I go back to work, I want two months worth of Nancy's Feel Betterscotch Fudge sitting on my desk!'"

Whitehead-Coombs didn't stop there: "If you stick to the task and are thorough, good things can happen!"

J.

T-Shirt Pillows

I know PPAers,

You have been on some punny pins and needles, waiting for more of my amazing (cough) crafts.  Of course, by crafts I mean pillows. All I really seem to want to make is pillows. Actually there is an elephant and a t-shirt dress I want to make for Katy Belle, but all projects have been on hold while I have been working on my friend, Jaime's pillows.

Jaime came to me with a big bag of her favorite t-shirts and jeans and said, "I love these things but they no longer fit and yet I can't throw them away. Will you make something out of them for me?"

Like pillows?

"Anything you want!"

OK. Pillows it is.

The first thing I did was cut everything to shreds. "whoops! I am not sure at all what I am doing."

I started sewing stuff together and one idea became another idea and then a week became two weeks and then I'd come back and think "oh god this sucks! Jaime gave me her favorite stuff and I ruined it!"

Then another week passed and then I sewed more stuff together. Then I got super inspired and started cutting again and then I realized I'd only sewn 4 other things previously and those things were pillows. Easy, square, straight edged, pillows.

After finally letting go of Jaime possibly hating me, I finished the pillows and actually feel pretty good about them.

Look, this isn't a tutorial. Ok, here is your tutorial. Cut everything up and try to sew it back together then stuff it with pillow filling. Tutorial.

Suck it Stefan!

My poor baby is sick, and I don't mean Stefan. Too bad if he is sick. We're parents now. There is no sick in  parents. (cough)

Let's go back to last weekend when people were coming over and Marni called to say she'd like to come with baby Penny Ruth, but that they both had a small cold...just a cough...and wanted to make sure it was ok.

"Sure it's ok!"

To myself I thought, "Katy Belle isn't going to catch anything. I don't catch Stefan's cold when he has one. Not everybody catches colds when around colds. Besides, Katy Belle hasn't ever been sick and so she must be a superhero and I am pretty sure that whole 'babies are super contagious AND susceptible to colds' warning is just hype."


Two days later she is sick. She has a runny nose that has developed into a cough. No fever and she stays generally happy, but still there is a nonstop flow of snot and a general sick that no one likes for her.

Like a good Mama, I bulbed her.

What is bulbing? It's where you take this rubber suction thing, aka "a nasal aspirator" and suck out the snot. Think a mini turkey baster. Katy Belle hates it. She cries and pushes it away with her hands and feet, and I am trying to distract her by counting or singing or tightly, yelling "It's ok baby girl! I love you!" Then I started to worry that she was going to associate my love, or worse, numbers, with this horrible process.

"Ok class, let's all count together. 1..2..3.."

(Katy Belle starts screaming, hands over her nose, and runs from the classroom, never to date until college.)

So here she is 4 days in, with a very red and sore nose that is still pouring snot and making it generally hard to sleep or eat or do anything. Let me just say that a snotty baby who spends a lot of time on the floor leaves a similar trail to that of a slug. ewwwwwwww


So, as I said, here we are, Saturday morning and I am going to find a solution. To the internet!

What do I find? Something called the "Snotsucker" by NoseFrida.  It had 174 5 star reviews on Amazon and it is a Swedish product so I checked it out.

Here is a description from BabyTalk (whatever that is, yikes):

That's right. You use a tube to suck out the snot.

I woke Stefan up right away.

They were sold in Park Slope so off we went to the pharmacy that sold this sucker.

We brought it home. I handed it to Stefan, who likes this sort of thing, and he sucked.

Let me just say to all parents, everywhere. IT IS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER!

No tears and a ton of snot came out. It was disgusting and awesome all at the same time! She actually thinks it's hilarious!

And so without further ado, I give you phase 1 and 2 of EPIC SUCKING.


Untitled from Epic Family on Vimeo.



Untitled from Epic Family on Vimeo.