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My Super Cool New Notepad

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Gene Papin, who creates neat stuff out of wood. I was especially impressed by his beautiful wooden pens. Well, last week, a nifty package arrived in the mail and I was thrilled to open it and find a notepad that Gene had made with one of his saws. He “engraved” it with my initials and a smiley face with his saw, going all the way through every piece of paper – the entire pad. It is so cool! Check out his website if you can. He’s very talented.

We took a weekend Spring Break trip to York Beach, Maine, which is one our favorite places. Unfortunately, before we left, we had to take Richard to the doctor because he appeared to have vasculitis (a rash that indicates bleeding under the skin). The doctor was very concerned. You know how doctors can freak you out sometimes. Lord knows we’ve experienced enough of that over the past year. Anyway, ours managed to throw me into a full-blown panic when he started checking for signs of leukemia. They ended up taking blood and we spend the entire weekend fretting about what could be wrong, not knowing if Richard had cancer, or a virus, or an autoimmune disorder, or if it was simply the change in his thyroid medication.

So, while we did have a bit of fun on our trip, it was hard to get our minds off our troubles. And, the doctor said if Richard started feeling bad, we needed to get him to the nearest hospital. So, all weekend I kept looking at him to see if he was okay, and asking him, “Are you okay? How are you feeling? Are you sure?!”

He feels just fine. No fever, no ill feelings. Nothing.

On Monday, we were back in the doctor’s office. The blood tests, thank God, came back completely normal. So, they did a biopsy to try to confirm the vasculitis and to see if they can determine what’s causing it. We’re breathing a bit easier now but we won’t have the biopsy results until next week and even then we may not know what the problem is.

Then, on Monday night, we went out for Thai food and Richard woke up with severe food poisoning on Tuesday morning. Now, Richard never gets sick. I’m not kidding. The entire house will come down with a stomach virus and he’ll be the only one who doesn’t catch it. We’ll all catch the flu…and he won’t. We’ll all be hacking and sneezing with a winter cold, and he’ll be doctoring all of us and never catch it. He’s one healthy boy. So, when he got so sick on Tuesday morning, I panicked, wondering if it wasn’t really food poisoning, but perhaps related to the rash.

He was sick all day long and my stomach was in knots, wondering if we were going to have to take a trip to the hospital, and wondering if my sweetie would be okay. In the late afternoon, he started feeling better, so I was thanking God again for our good fortune.

Ali is home safe and sound from her trip to Florida. She had a grand time!

Mason’s new hobby is to stand next to me on the sofa while I’m working, pulling my ponytail and biting my shoulder. I keep telling him ‘No No’ when he bites, but he just throws back his head and laughs. Gee, I can’t wait until his teen years!

This week’s Maxism:

Out of the blue the other day, Max asked, “Did Great Grandma Die?”

I replied, “Yes, honey, she was very old.”

He thought about that for a second and then asked, “Well, how many pounds was she?”

Hugs to all!

Ang

P.S. Write your autobiography before Christmas! Afraid you can’t remember your childhood? Yes you can, using my memory triggers! Sign up for my popular and FUN class, How to Remember, Write and Publish Your Life Story! See: