Saving money

I've had this post running through my head all year, but have never sat down to write it.  But, now that I'm writing more, so here goes.

Really, we shouldn't still be hanging on to our 4 horses.  We're pretty much broke.  Nate's pay checks go to all the house bills, my small social security check goes to the horses, and we're on as much government support as they'll let us have... which is pretty much medicaid for the kids and me, sometimes food stamps when Nate has to cut his hours more for him to go to school.  Oh, and our house and nearly 7 acres was purchased through a subsidized loan program.  Anyway, things just keep getting more expensive all the time, and we found out how to make our own detergent when we moved last year and that helps not to be adding THAT expense.

 Here's the recipe we use:
1/3 bar of Zote soap

1/2 cup of Borax

3/4 - 1 cup of Washing Soda

You blend the Zote in a blender, it's best to cut it into small pieces as you add it in the blender because it likes to stick up the blades.  Then add all 3 ingredients together in a bowl/container, we use old formula containers that we can shake it up in and we ultimately store it in too.  I do NOT suggest blending all three together in the blender, it REALLY gumbs up the blades!  Two table spoons does the trick.

Then, with the horses, I've been letting their feet go longer in between trims and then Nate and I have really cut down on our grain.  Two years ago, almost everyone got some sort of grain.  This year, just Firecracker, Nate's old mare and that's only because she's missing a bunch of teeth and has too much trouble chewing hay.  Senior feed has increased in price almost $10 a bag in the last 2 years too.  So, we've been combining alfalfa pellets (for forage) and another pelleted grain.  It was Safe Choice, but that's been climbing too, so now we're doing a sweet feed that's somewhat pelleted.  And now Nate tells me THAT is going up in price, and that we may be putting her down soon just because of how expensive it is to feed her.  (and no, the cats do get their own food, this picture was from when Firecracker was on senior feed, and our new kitten at the time loved it)

Also, we're both VERY consistences of our fuel mileage.  As long as we keep our RPMs at or below around 2000 we both get around 30 miles a gallon, as long as we keep up with repairs - so we figure out our mileage every time we fill up either of our cars and know to look for things needing repair if the miles per gallon go down drastically.  I've also noticed that my Stratus gets better fuel mileage if I fill my tank before it gets much below half empty.  Since starting to watch my RPMs so closely, I've been amazed at the number of people who lay on the gas taking off from stop lights, etc.  I seem to notice it more with bigger, low fuel mileage vehicles like pick-ups and suburbans too. Wonder if they realize how much more money they're costing themselves in fuel use?  If they can afford to drive them daily, they probably don't care.

Have child, will continue to travel

Well, I WAS going to just write about my experiences going to PT over the last week, but as the title came into my head I couldn't help but think of my travels over this fall.

Life can get 'complicated' when you have MS, or kids, but double that when you're dealing with both.  Luckily I have some great friends who are willing to help me get around with both 'weights' in tow.  Most memorable is a friend who drove my car for me, as I'm fatigue prone and it was a long trip, and help me get Cody taken care of, since I have to use the power chair at home.  Then another who was looking for an auction comrade to go on another long trip to an out door auction.  I didn't even THINK that both kids would have to go with and that she'd have to help me with Cody, but she took me anyway!  SO, we load up the stroller, the walker, provisions for us and the baby and Cody, Jayda and I and head off to spend most of the day walking around in a big field, she pushing Cody and I pushing my walker (which comes in handy at an event like this because it has a seat :-)).  Oh, I miss the days of just jumping in the car and going somewhere, but thank God for people who look past all the luggage.

Now what originally prompted the post.  Last week I started going to Physical Therapy again, 1 part on my knees and the weak hip muscles adding to their pain and instability, 1 part on the MS - supposed to be aqua therapy.  I found out the therapy/fitness/medical plaza that I started seeing a chiropractor in 2 weeks ago ALSO has childcare available while you are in the building.  SO, I got my prescriptions sent there and started last Friday.  I did my 'land therapy' first, consecrating on my legs and glut/stabilizing muscles, and that went fine.  So I went and changed for the pool.  They have a nice little heated 'track pool' which is an oval with a current and an open rectangle in the middle with some steps.  Generally, 'we' (people with MS) are told to stay away from hot tubs and saunas because of the heat.  This is 92*, probably the same temp as my shower and bath water, and I never noticed any problems while I was in the water.  (OH MY, aqua therapy is a lot more work than I thought it'd be!!)  I got out, fine, and went and started changing, then I started getting weaker, and weaker, and w-e-a-k-e-r.  So I'm dressed, and looking at my suit and shorts sitting about 4 feet from me trying to figure out how I'm going to go over there, pick them up, and carry them out using the walker they'd let me use since we didn't know how I'd react to the workout.  Chair.  I can do about anything out of my power chair, I bet that if they have walkers here for people to barrow, the have wheel chairs.  So I go ask for one.  Mind you, I'm getting more and more wobbly this whole time, and I really don't think PTs like seeing you come up to them like that. lol  I was intending to clean up my stuff myself, but that was not going to happen, the PT I had with me in the pool got my suit and stuff for me and took me up front.  Asked if I was ready to go, well, no, going with the cane back to the child care center and getting a 20+ lb. boy out to and in the car, no, I need to sit more.  'Oh, we can help you get out to the car.', the 2 PTs who were with me then say.  'Baby and all?', I ask.  'Well yes', and they did.  They got Cody loaded in his stroller, both of us out to the car (I'm still in the chair!) and even loaded Cody and helped me with the stroller.  I was feeling better by now, but sat a while more and ate my granola bar and rested.  Today, they kept me to just land, and will start aqua therapy in a few weeks.

It seems like a LOT of things to do to get a baby out and about when you can't simply unbuckle them and carry them in.

Handicapped accessible...

I still don't like the term 'handicapped', but it's a lot more understood than, say, 'altered'.  Although... wouldn't it be fun to have 'altered tags' and 'altered parking spaces' - I'm envisioning someone swinging upside down from a trapeze for the emblem, rather than that darn chair.... 

Anyway, in my opinion (IMO), people's idea of 'handicapped accessible' varies as much as the different type of 'handicaps' out there.  Take 'handicapped' parking spaces that are located AWAY from the door....

 

... just because that's the 'easiest' place to put the ramp.  Guess what, not all 'handicapped' people use a ramp.  Some, like me, use a cane and need a shorter distance over the use of a ramp, though both would be best.  

OR, take for instance, take bathrooms.  My husband and I were at a store this summer and, suffering from a weak bladder, I suddenly needed to use a restroom.  No public restroom, but when they were told I sometimes have frequency incontinence, I was told I could go upstairs and use the employee one.  RIGHT.  Thank goodness I never worked in a place like this and broke my leg!  Yeah, we left.  SO, there are handicapped accessible parking spaces, and handicapped accessible stores.

Most stores are not very 'disabled person' friendly, IMO.  Some of the bigger ones are better, providing scooters so that you are able to go all the way around the store AND be able to shop, but not all.  Even some of the ones that provide scooters still do not leave enough room between displays to be able to negotiate through.  Then, I've found the few department stores I've tried to shop at, don't have scooters, and where as you can find a manual wheel chair, good luck fitting it through any openings to actually LOOK at the clothes (or 'sport of your choice' items).

I really wish the architects and managers would consult with disabled people when they are designing the store's layouts.

Busy...

Why is it that summer's always have to be so busy?

The two main things, that have gotten sprinkled with countless other things and travels, is the growth of baby Cody and the bath room being nearly completed (finished enough to be inspected later today).

So, I know the dangers and warnings they have on crib bumpers now days, but I had to put one up and am finding many benefits.  After prying, PRYING, Cody's leg out from between his crib bars twice, thinking each time that I'd end up having to see where Nate stored the hacksaw, I decided that the bumper HAD to go up.
Along with keeping his legs in the crib, I've also been finding it helpful for helping me sneak out of his room after I lay him down.  It's terrible when you lay them down, and they're happy to see their blankey and 'friends' again, cooing, and just generally happy, and then they realize that you aren't looking in on them anymore and they start crying.  It's funny though, he definitely knows the sound of my chair and is already looking over the bumper if I came down the hall.

Speaking of my chair, all the doors are in, though, of course, now I'm trying to do 'fancy' things with them, such as turn around half way down the hall, and I've already dinged them up a little.

I'm just happy that the bathroom has gone from

and

to THIS!

(that's a pocket door on the right side of the pic)

Yay, I can take my chair into the bathroom and get into the bed rooms more easily, not to mention being able to get outside with my chair!!

managing... well everything

Yesterday was, well, interesting.  Drove the hour plus to Omaha, the 'big city' nearest to us, to make it there by 9:15 am so we could check in.  First off, I definitely have one of the best husbands out there, as he took the day off work so I didn't have to try and get Cody in the car, get through traffic, and go to my Dr.'s appointment by myself - and I remember that on days like today when he is rushing off to work in such a hurry that he barely says goodbye.  Traffic was the usual down town morning craziness, but we made it by 9... only to find out that the directions they sent ended in the middle of the Medical Center, with no mention of which building we were going to.  Hmm, who would have thought that that pertinent information was located on the SECOND page of the letter telling us what to bring to the appointment and not of the driving directions.  We managed to make it there only 20 minutes late... which of course meant that we had to reschedule for later.

We got lucky, after being a smidge grumpy about the confusion over the directions and that my hubby had taken the day off work to run Cody and me to the med center.   They were able to work me into an afternoon appointment.  SO, what to do for four hours in Omaha with a baby?  Well, I was planning on meeting a new friend that I'd made on Face Book face to face after the appointment, but before and having lunch with her worked out just fine.  Had a nice lunch and good conversation, and got back to the hospital just in time to get signed in and feed the baby in the waiting room - how often do you do that?!  Interesting to say the least.

I'd gone hoping the neurologist would refer me to a vascular surgeon so I could get checked out for CCSVI.  No such luck, but had a really good discussion with her about everything ms, and the latest news.  Kind of disappointing b/c she down played my grandma's recovery as having probably happened if she hadn't changed her diet all around.  CCSVI is still not PROVEN, so you aren't going to get any doctor on the band wagon with you regarding that, but she did point out 2 universities doing studies, in Alabama and at Buffalo, NY, and said that if I was still feeling strongly, to get in a study, rather than go to someone w/out any background in the phenominon.

We also talked about Lyme disease.  She has treated patients with Lyme before, and said that even if I would turn out to have Lyme, I'd treat each separately, the ms and the Lyme.  The key thing was, regarding Lyme, that if I did get a false negative on my western blot test, I wouldn't be getting better taking the current ms drug I'm on (Tysabri).

She made me feel a lot better about being on the Tysabri, with it's PML risk, and said that I am doing the thing she'd have me do if I were a patient of her's with being on the study that's checking Tysabri patients once a year for JC Virus antibodies.  She also said I should be getting my vitamin D levels checked every year.  All in all, I'm confident in my ms specialist/ PhD/APRN and I'll continue seeing her.

On the way back, we got chicken feed from the elevator we moved away from... always liked their stuff better and our chickens always layed better with it.  THEN, panic, we remembered that we had to pick the old mare up from the surgery she'd had that morning!  Here's a current picture of the old girl - she's 23.

She's still skinny, but she's looking better and better all the time... here's what she looked like when she came down this winter:

The reason she's so skinny, is because she's missing a lot of her teeth - 5 have came out of her mouth since I met her 5 years ago... some while the vet floated her teeth!

She can't chew hat or grass, she just balls it up for the most part and it falls out of her mouth.  That's why she was so skinny, she'd been treated like my husband's parents had always treated her - round bale of hay and oats and corn if she needed them.  Now, she eats pelleted alfalfa and Netrena Safe Choice pellets because they dissolve in her mouth.  She was eating Senior feed, either Nutrena or Purina, but they have gotten unbelievably expensive!  Firecracker has been with my husband since she was about six weeks old, bought off her mother (who had sold and the buyer d/n want the foal) at an auction.  He's done all the training on her and has been about the only one to have ridden her, so she's kind of his baby.  She's been breaking out in an abscess about once every winter for the past we don't know how many years.  After Nate and I had gotten married, I'd taken her to my vet to find out why, and he said that she happened to have an abscessed tooth, and that that could possibly have been breaking out her jaw.  He removed that tooth, but that wasn't the cause of the jaw abscessing, b/c it came back about once a year after that.  Now that she's back with us, and being a little more closely watched, I got the vet down here working on why she'd been abscessing.  Bone sequestrum, a piece of dead bone that has become separated during the process of necrosis from normal/sound bone.  It is a complication (sequela) of osteomyelitis. At any rate, I'd taken her, with my Clue for his yearly dental float, the day before - by myself, with Cody.  Firecracker had been operated on sucessfully that morning, and we had to run down, nearly an hour in the opposite direction, to pick her up.

Whew, what a day, 7 month old in tow, MS appointment for me for a second opinion on my treatment, feed for chickens, and mare picked up from the veterinarian's after her surgery... and the funny thing is, it just seems like a normal day now, writing about it. lol


 

Ridng at night... and possibly out of the darkness

I needed a ride to night, I NEEDED to get away.  Between the girl's arguing, not wanting to do what I ask and not being able to do what she says she will do completely (stinks when you need to follow behind your kid to make sure they completed whatever it was they're helping with), and the demands of an infant, I needed out.  So, after Nate got home and we got Cody fed, we ate, and changed and put to the baby to bed, Nate headed out to work in the garage.  Cody's asleep, Jayda's at a ball game with our neighbor, so I headed out to the garage, tell Nate to keep an ear to the house for if Cody should wake up, grab my helmet and head out.

It's almost dark, I probably SHOULD catch Cherokee, who's the only one who's been messed with since February, but the thought blinked through my mind in a split second and I called Clue.  What a doll, he comes from the tree line a 100 feet from the gate (not quickly mind you, but he cam a moseying :-)).  I saddled again on my own, Yay, getting stronger all the time, soon maybe I'll use my rough out again, instead of my light synthetic saddle. lol  Nate worries, so he'd joined us by the time I was getting ready for the final cinch tightening and getting on, and 'helped', but I wouldn't have needed him.

As I rode out with Clue into the south field, I had to laugh to myself.  Last time I'd ridden alone in the dark, it was on Clue, half drunk from riding through Brookings and mooching beers at different houses and the unit volley ball game and rode through the SDSU Cow/Calf unit on the way back to the stable - in the PITCH dark!  He was such a great horse then, and still is now. :-)  He'd even walked through the cows that night, and out along the hwy with cars going by w/out even a flinch.  Same tonight,  He wasn't sure about the dark bushes, but stayed where I put him after I said that we were riding the fence line.  Round bales in the dark are a little scary when they catch the house lights, but not if he gets the signal to eat and he can have a bite of grass in front of them. lol

I'm glad I'd just told Jayda of when I'd had a horse rear up and land on my leg, back b4 HS started, b/c I was insistent on her passing through some fence posts b/c there was no wire on them... didn't even dawn on me then that she'd probably thought I was asking her to go through a fence.  I was going to leave the pasture tonight through where they must have had a gate at one time, but nothing there now, and Clue wasn't gonna have it, probably thought it was a fence, plus, the house lights were probably interrupting his vision too.  Okay, we'll go out where we came in at and go around and go back in here so the light's shining on it and not in your eyes.  Non issue then.  I love having an old 'friend' around, who can sit for months, and still do great when you get a whim.  I didn't push Clue to go through the gate area b/c I guess I've grown up now, and didn't want to make the same mistake twice (btw, the mare who reared up and landed on my leg, was my first concussion and she busted every bone in my right foot in some why/shape/ or form).

I'm not completely strong yet, b/c all I felt up to for untacking was getting the bridle off... or maybe I'm just lazy 'cause of course Nate was back hovering over me and when he asked if I wanted him to get the saddle, I said 'heck yeah'.  I turned Clue out myself though, and had a good cry over the state of things.  I mean, my gawd, how did I get here?!  I used to swing up on his 16hh back bare back with no problem, and now I need help saddling and use a mounting block with him... all I can, and should do is focus on what I can do, and have already 'lost' and gotten back again.  I tacked up on my own, got on and off with out any help (other than the mounting block, lol), and took off and put away the bridle on my own.  Ah yes, caught and turned out by myself.

I'm gonna say it, keeps milling through my mind so maybe if I say it it'll go away, but I have to wonder if I wouldn't have fallen so far back if I hadn't been 'spit at' for being a forward thinker and asking for a way to be sure that I could take a break on the many days I was working 15 hour days.  Probably just comes down to me, and not handling the rejection that came with getting diagnosed with the dammed ms.  Could be part of why I never got hired again after all the interviews, having my confidence in myself and what my abilities now were all blown apart.  ... But it could be, that this is exactly where I'm supposed to be. :-)

My life's all tore up...

...well, my house is anyway!

We got this place is September, knowing I'd have to use the power chair once the baby was born, or before, as the case turned out to be.  It's on slab, so one level, with some stairs to a big room up stairs.  Perfect... except the people before didn't need a chair, and the doors barely fit me through.  I'd put a picture of what the door frames looked like from me hitting them half the time from getting a bad angle into the rooms, but they're gone.

I found a place that assists to disabled/handicapped/whatever with making their home accessible.  They have contractors bid on the job that needs to be done, and, of course my husband has been doing this kind of work for pretty much all of his working career and knows that he can do the job better, and for less $ than any regular contractor since he wouldn't have the extra expense that comes with having employees.  SO, we enter into the lovely reality of 'the job will get done by their date, but in my time (weekends)', and our house gets disrupted for about 2 months.  But, when he's done, all the doors and the bathroom will be handicapped accessible.

Love having my house improved, but could do with out the process.  I should have gotten a picture of the hall covered with door pieces, tools and a shop vac.  Maybe when the new doors go in.  Right now, and probably for the rest of the week, we have no doors on the bed rooms or bathroom.  Thank God we have 2 bathrooms in this place and that we're able to make the other small bathroom work!