No, I'm not dead, but I've never felt so close to death in my life. Monday my kids got the crud that's been going around, and even though I thought I was safe from getting it since all my mommy friends didn't catch it from their kids, well, I held the lucky number apparently, because I DID catch it from my kids. THEY were OVER theirs in 48 hours, and MINE has gone over and beyond that, and into the 96 hour mark. I will save you the gross details and just say that I lost 10 lbs. this past week, and the doctor told me yesterday that I wasn't quite dehydrated yet, but getting there. I had been TRYING to drink stuff, but everything I tried was simply YUCK. The meds I got at the doctor yesterday helped me so I could finally get some sleep, but I am still very weak...so weak to the point that if I don't carefully pound each individual key as I type this, the letter doesn't appear. More than one person has already asked me, "Are you sure you aren't pregnant?" I mean, there's always that possibility, but this is NOTHING like pregnancy sick.

This has been the worst week ever, I do believe. The kids get sick, I get sicker, I had to cancel several things this week, I didn't have the strength to sit at the computer until now, meaning I wasn't able to keep up with the checking account, so thing got bounced, and I burned my knee with a scalding hot bowl of chicken noodle soup. I was already sick as a dog on Thursday and I knew I needed to eat something, so Michael, on his way home from work Thursday, stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items, and I told him I felt like I could eat some soup, so he got me some, I heated it in the microwave, sat down on the couch with it, and spilled it on myself. I screamed bloody murder, threw the bowl halfway across the living room, don't even know what curse words came flying out of my mouth, the kids looked at me like I was insane, Michael was yelling because he thought I just spilled my soup...he didn't realize at first that I had hurt myself, and I was bawling my eyes out and trying to get him to call his mom to ask her what to do. She said to put ice on it, and so I did, and she went to the drugstore to buy a bunch of different burn stuff to put on it. It made me so sick to look at my knee....it blistered instantly, and it is literally THE worst pain I have ever felt in my life. The ice only numbed it momentarily, but then the ice made it feel worse, so I pulled the ice off and it felt worse again, so it was like ice on,ice off, and then FINALLY Michael's mom showed up with stuff to put on it, so I cleaned it, then put some kind of pain reliever goo on it, them some kind of clear burn strips, then wrapped it with gauze and tape, and then put a cloth over it, then an ice pack,and then another towel, and propped a pillow under my knees, and took some pain pills. My parents also came because I wanted them to look at it to see if they thought I needed to go to the ER, which they said the ER would do the same thing to treat it as we had just done, and charge me an arm and a leg, so I didn't go to the ER. Travis wanted to go home with my parents, so he went with them and spent the night. Well, after the pain was better and the drama wore off, I remembered that I was hungry, and I sent Michael to Wendy's to get me some food. Well, I was so hungry from not having eaten in several days that I scarfed it down in a hurry. That night I had to sleep in a semi-sitting-up position because of my knee, but that is not what kept me awake all night....I had indigestion from the Wendy's, and I had NO MORE ROLAIDS, and Michael was asleep, and I didn't want to wake him up to send him to the store at 4:30 a.m. Well, yesterday (Friday) I was still feeling no better with the virus thing, so Michael took me to the doctor, and he gave me meds to help with the nausea, which they worked AND they knocked me out. That was great for last night, but today I had both kids by myself because Michael had to go out of town with our Pastor to help him drive some teens to a teen church camp. I was able to get both kids to take a nap at the same time, thank goodness, and took a nap, but the medicine made me have the worst nightmares. The rest of the time spent awake was purely boring because we don't have cable anymore, and so it was Blue's Clues and Dora all day. NOW I am just waiting on my parents to bring me supper. Now I'm totally spent from typing this, and if none of this makes sense, it's because of the dope I'm on. I am going to lay down now.

Due to reasons I will not explain at this time, I felt compelled to delete one of yesterday's entries. All I will say is that I have decided to stop letting certain things bother me, and IF they should start bothering me again, I will simply not write about it in here. Most of the time, it is fun to have a blog and to share it with others, and other times it can be pure you-know-what, so there are just certain topics I will have to avoid. For the future, there are times where I try to be vague, and I do that for a reason. Please, in the future, if I am being vague about something, if you personally know what I am referring to by my vagueness, please do not mention it in the comments. Trust me on this one...it can cause more headaches than it's worth. There, I'm done and I'm moving on now...

I did a lot of practicing yesterday. I've been working on a song for 4th of July to play in church titled "Statue of Liberty". I will have to find the lyrics to put on here sometime, but it's a very beautiful, well-written song. As a song writer myself, it's one of those songs that makes me say "I wish I had thought of that!"

Yesterday I was having a rough day with the kids being sick with fever and throwing up (YUCK), and trying to scrub carpets and do laundry, and last night my Dad came over unexpectedly and brought me a SWING! I am so excited! It's a 3-seater with the big nice cushions and the adjustable shade over it! I have been wanting one for the yard like ever since I had a backyard of my own, and now I have one! It was truly a blessing, especially after the kind of day I had yesterday. I just hope today is better.

Now, going back to my previous post about God wanting me to do something, I'm not really sure what it is that God is wanting me to do, but I feel like in order for me to find out, I need to cut some things out of my life. God wants to use all Christians one way or another, which He is using me already, but there's something else, and I know that my heart is being spoken to about something. In order to be used, you have to make yourself WILLING, but you also have to make sure your heart is in a position to actually LISTEN and RECEIVE what God wants for you.

The devil is really fighting right now...not just me, but a lot of other people I know as well. The devil is in the business of destroying our faith, making people quit, and destroying lives, and there are certain times I just want to say "Satan, in the Name of Jesus Christ, I rebuke you!" And there have been times when I felt like I was going psycho when everthing starts going haywire at home, and I just say that, and it's really interesting what happens.

Okay, that's my mini sermon for the day. I need a lot of prayer right now, but so do a lot of other close friends of mine and their families. There's just so much hurt and hate and backstabbing going on right now, and it seems like a lot of it is occurring between folks' families. It just makes me wonder what's next.

I can't really explain it, but I have a lot on my mind right now. I feel like there is something God wants me to do, but I'm not even sure what it is. And right now I can't really think clearly enough to even say what I mean because the Stanley Cup Finals are blaring in my right ear. Note to self: I will try to elaborate later.

You know, I just feel like griping right now, so if you don't want to hear my griping, then feel free to click that little X in the upper righthand corner of your screen there.

Well in case you are still reading...

You know what I hate? I hate liars. I hate people that tell me, and only me, ONE thing, and then tell the whole world another thing. What's the point? People that do this, do they think the one person being lied to won't find out? If you are going to tell a lie, tell it to EVERYONE, so that it will be believable. It's really bad, too, when you think you are being told the truth, and everyone ELSE is being lied to (wishful thinking), and so when you yourself try to tell the "truth", everyone else looks at you like you're a nutcase. Unfortunately, I have been the victim of this way too many times. Maybe I'm just too naive.

And you know what else I hate? People that make you feel all important and stuff, that is, until they get around their "real" friends, and then suddenly you're a "nobody", tossed to the side.

Fake people...I despise them.

Now onto more deep thoughts...

In this modern day of technology we live in, we have cell phones, internet, handhelds, etc., and yet there is this thing where you have to have someone charge $29.95 to your credit card to locate a person you are trying to locate. I guess there has to come a point though when you have to accept that maybe there are some people that just don't want to be found. Why that is, I don't know. If a long lost friend was trying to find me, I'd be thrilled. The song "Somewhere Out There" comes to mind now.

Oh well. More later.