First sign of my insanity - Ordering sweet tea at dinner. (May not sound too crazy for a good ol' southern girl, but it IS for THIS southern girl who's despised sweet tea all her life!)
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"Insanity? Why might one be going insane," you might ask. Oh, I don't know...Maybe something to do with the fact that I've been home sick since July 6th and now that I'm FINALLY (knock-on-wood!) starting to get better, I'm ITCHING LIKE A LUNATIC!! It's absolutely insane I tell ya! This horrendous ITCHING! Everywhere!! All over! Deep inside my skin...Scratching is so satisfying, but it's a neverending cycle! It's like someone's tickling my arm with a feather, but by the time I've scratched my arm off they've moved on to my stomach...or my face...or my legs! I itch in places I've never itched before!! (Get your mind out of the gutter - I'm meaning those odd places like my toenails and my armpits and my ears!!) EVERYWHERE!! INCESSANTLY!! NEVER ENDING!! NOT STOPPING!!
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Can't even think straight. I quit. Maybe I'll try again later...

So here it is...Thursday...and I've been home ALL week again! When I went back to the doctor Tuesday morning he immediately sent me over to a specialist. I assumed the specialist would be Internal Med, but as we were sitting in the waiting room I realized he was Infectious Disease! (Insanity! Didn't even know ID Docs existed! What are they gonna do?? Throw me in a hazmat suit and ship me to the CDC?!?!) BUT anyways...This doc was GREAT! VERY VERY thorough...Asked both Matt & I tons of questions (and actually listened to us!), did a full physical exam and ordered tons of labs. He was very optimistic and reassured us that my body (and all it's parts) seem to be working just as they should, but there's something going on in there that it's fighting...He's running all the labs to look for all the not-so-common types of infections (West Nile, Ehrlichiosis, Lymes, RMSF) and even looking to rule out other things like RA & Lupus...SO! Tuesday's visit with this new doc was quite encouraging...Of course if results come back viral, there's nothing we can do but wait it out...And if it's bacterial that'll mean a round of antibiotics (particularly one that makes me pretty sick). So we'll see!! Most of the labs won't be back til early next week, so until then, here I am! Right here on my couch!!
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On another front - The process of moving my parents. Now on hold! Unfortunately, at the very last minute, the buyer of their house backed out and since my parents can't buy the condo they were getting without their house being sold, they had to back out of the condo. The whole situation just makes me sick! We had been through so much looking for a place that would be right for them. The condo they had the contract on would have been great. It was a good layout and in a nice, small, secluded, shady area. So now we're basically back to square one! They're meeting with the realtor to list their house Saturday, but with the way the housing market is these days, chances are, the condo will be gone before their house sells...
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Well, that's an update on my exciting life! Almost time to settle in for some quality "daytime" TV! (Maybe I can do something scrapbooking-related so I can say I'm not actually "watching" good ol' AMC & OLTL!!)

So today was my nephew Jackson's 1st birthday party! For his big brother Grey's first party we had a HUGE blowout with 50+ people, but sweet little Jack, being the second child, just got a really small (immediate family only) party...MUCH more relaxing!

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Jackson was a little apprehensive about the whole eating cake by himself, so of course big brother was there to show him how it's done!



Unfortunately his disdain quickly turned ugly...



That's right, Jackson! You're turning 1!



Cards are always fun to read...(and eat!)



And some fun new trucks!



But the best present of all was this box of diapers!! I never imagined Jackson would be so excited over a big box that he can push all over the kitchen! Back and forth! Back and forth! So much fun for a toddler!


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On a not so fun note, I'm STILL sick! Yes, day 14 of fever!! I didn't think I had a fever this morning, but when I got to the doctor's office to get the results of Thursday's labwork, sure enough, another day of fever! And still no definitive answer as to what's causing it! My doctor said all the labs that would indicate something "bad" look okay, but my liver enzymes are elevated...He said he doesn't think they are elevated enough to indicate acute Hepatitis, but b/c they ARE elevated he had to go ahead and order more bloodwork to check things out...Back to the doctor Tuesday! Agh! I'm going crazy stuck here in the house, but I'm just so exhausted that even the littlest activity totally wears me out...
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Anyways, hope you're all having a great weekend!

Day 11 of fever! But off to the first night of my photography class in spite of it!
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Some birthday love for my sweet nephew Jackson and our little buddy Jadyn!

(Yes, I swear this is Jackson even though I really don't think it looks like him!)

So here I am again...Stuck on my couch where I've been for two solid days! Yep...Thought I was getting over whatever I was fighting last week, but sure enough, Sunday, my fever was back! Just achy with a fever around 100 degrees, which of course brings the wonderful cycle of chills and sweating. Yeah, last night I went through three sets of soaking wet pj's! Really ready to be over all this...Whatever it is...I've got my first night of photography class Thursday and then scrapbooking Friday!!

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Well, the weekend went pretty good. We got a good bit done at my parents house...It's crazy though...We took two truckloads of trash to the dumpster and it's hard to believe we even made a dent in it! (Yeah, another reason I've gotta get better soon...There's still a whole lot to get done down there!)
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Also, Saturday morning, we attempted a family photo shoot of the Stickels...First off, I learned a very important lesson - Never walk out of my 65 degree house into 85 degree heat and change lenses...The fact that my lense immediately fogged up wasn't half as bad as the entire inside of my camera fogging up! And to top things off, I'd taken about 50 pics before I realized it!
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But here's a few pics for your viewing pleasure...(And please note that it's pretty dang impossible to catch a shot where Grey has his eyes open while Jackson is actually looking somewhere in the vicinity of the camera! - And Jackson smiling was totally out of the question...Not his fault though...Found out later in the day that he had a pretty high fever...Poor guy!)

Well, it's finally Friday of a pretty much blah week! Since I've basically been going to work and then home to the couch every evening this week, I was at the point of absolute stir craziness last night! The only thing I wanted to do was get out of the house and get a smoothie, but I also didn't wanna leave JUST to go get a smoothie and come back...The only solution to that would be to make a stop somewhere else also...Like Target! Unfortunately, as exciting as a trip to Target sounded, the reasonable side of me decided that a random trip to Target could only result in spending money that otherwise wouldn't have gotten spent so it would be a better choice to just stay home...(A better choice for our bank account,yes, but not for my boredom!) My next solution to cure my cabin fever?? How about Matt clean out the garage while I sit on the hood of the car and watch? Okay! That kinda works! And so we did! What an exciting night in the Harrison household!

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Now here I am, Friday morning, blogging away at work in an attempt to kill a few minutes of these sure-to-be long and terribly boring 8 hours...It's pretty bad when your countdown to 5:00 begins about 15 minutes into the workday, but honestly! What's a girl to do?!?! There's only so many websites I can surf and so many times I can rearrange the sticky notes on my desk! Friday's are usually good for mischief with my partner-in-crime, Brandi...Maybe we'll have to see what we can get into...

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As crazy as it seems, I'm kinda looking forward to tomorrow...The day we start cleaning out and packing up my parents house! (I'm only looking forward to it in the sense that I love throwing away and organizing because in the back of my head I know that within the first 15 minutes of arrival my parents will have officially driven me insane!) So anyways...Yes, my parents finally have a contract on a condo and we're looking at closing on it at the end of the month...Right now my tentative timetable includes cleaning out/organizing for the next two weekends, having an estate sale the last weekend of the month and then painting/moving the first two weekends in August. - And yes, although I say "tentative" to SOUND flexible, I'm pretty determined that this is the way things should go! <>

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Well, I've killed about 10 whole minutes now...Guess it's time to go find that aforementioned mischief!!

So I'm blogging here from my couch on this somewhat sunny Tuesday afternoon because I'm home sick...
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Long time, no blog - I know! So let's play catch-up!
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The weekend before last was the Deeper Still Conference in Atlanta...The conference itself was great and I really loved hearing Priscilla Shirer, but I swear I'm like a 90 year old woman set in my ways! I guess I just don't like to be away from home (and my husband!) and "normalcy".
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Then last week was just the basic work-week with the exception of the 4th of July holiday on Friday...Yippee! A three-day weekend! Friday we spent the day at my parents pool with the Stickels and then watched fireworks together that night.
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Most of Saturday was spent "condo-hunting" with my parents...We thought we were going to look at the two we'd narrowed it down to and then make an offer on one, but somehow ended up looking at several more. We did actually find a different one that's the same layout as the others, but on a small, shady, secluded street...Much nicer than the ones that are just row after row of white buildings. Finally it was decided to go ahead and make an offer and we've been playing the waiting gamesince...(As I type, I actually just got word of the counter-offer...It's basically what we expected, but of course my mom is making a big deal about it...Great...) Then Saturday evening we went to hang out at Charles and Kathy's...Me, Sarah and Lindsey got a little scrapbooking in while the guys played X-Box.
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Sunday was church and then a nice relaxing afternoon at the pool before getting ready for Lauren & Cliffs wedding...The wedding was great and we had fun hanging out with friends and catching up with people we don't see often...
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So I guess that brings us pretty much up to date! Here we are, in the middle of another average work-week!!

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Here's a few pics of the surprise kittens we discovered at my parents house...Their cat PJ (formerly the devil) had 3 little kittens without anyone knowing she was even pregnant!


Jackson wasn't too interested in the pool so he spent his time outdoors crawling around and playing with golf balls


With no other kids around, Grey had a great time swimming...


...Until Uncle Matt hurt his feelings by not sharing his golf balls with him - Grey's quote, in a very hurt and dejected tone, "Well I guess I'll just go inside and play by myself..."



And some fireworks to wrap up the evening!