Limping Along

That's kind of what I feel like we're doing right now--limping along. It turned really hot last weekend, and our upstairs air conditioner has a hard time keeping up. We knew this was a problem from last year, so we're deciding if we need to have it replaced. Someone is coming out to look at it June 6 (2 days earlier than originally scheduled due to a cancellation, but still far off, it seems!). We all camped in the basement last night, where it is definitely NOT hot.

Some kind of bug has gotten us as well, and I'm wondering if it might not be strep. Caleb, and to some extent Jonathan, have been complaining over the past several days that their "foreheads" were hurting, and also their neck/throat/teeth area. It's hard for Jonathan to be very specific, so that's why I didn't take it all very seriously. I was prepared to make a dentist appointment for him, but last night MY throat starting hurting, I had a big headache, and my neck glands were quite swollen. Hmm . . . mybe this IS something to be concerned about after all! So tomorrow I will call the clinic starting at 6:00 to see if I can get 5 appointemnts for strep cultures, since I figure if one has something, everyone has been exposed. We are terrible about sharing glasses, etc. But I digress. It would be too easy for the clinic to just let everyone get cultured. No--we all have to have appointments. Grr. Looks like we'll be spending the day in Fairfax, if we're lucky and can even GET appointments!

Since I'm not feeling well, for dinner tonight I am pulling out my secret weapon--chicken soup from Michele S.! She brought a big bag of soup over when we had our open house back in April, and I've been waiting for the time when I felt most needy to actually use it! It's been so nice having it the freezer, knowing I could use it, but not needing it--until now.

Anna's face has cleared up again, but her head is still very flaky--even flakier than before. This is scary because it is SO MUCH like what happened to Caleb and his head, and I can't stop it! It's not just little dandruff-like flakes either--it's big patches of scaly flakes. She's not scratching it or anything, so I know it bothers me more than her, but still--I don't want her head to turn into one big crust of infection like Caleb's did.

In one piece of very good news, the county tax assessor came by our house last Thursday. We had challenged our tax assessment this year, since it had increased by about $200,000 over last year's. Yow! Since we still have the original lovely linoleum in the kitchen, the ratty looking tile counters, the original and very worn caarpeting, and the houses around that have sold recently have all had these things updated, we thought it was unfair. So the man called back to say he was knocking $20,000 off the assessment! Yay! Of course, that won't make a huge difference in our taxes, but every bit counts.

So that's our update.