Author Archives: Alicia

About Alicia

I am the mother of two lovely little girls. I married my online sweet heart and we are very proud of our little herd. I have two Bachelor of Science degrees but I am currently a stay at home mom with some freelance web design clients on the side. I enjoy cooking, gaming, writing and reading - which I hardly every do anymore.

Mardi Gras

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This Saturday Shea’s mom was the Emblem for her society for Mardi Gras. Our sister-in-law Amy was the Queen. Both were very gorgeous in their gowns. We left the house around 9am and ate breakfast, and got to the hotel in Mobile a bit too early. So we went to the Colosseum and watched Mam practice walking in the Emblem train and mask. Then we went back to the hotel and got our rooms.

The girls spent most of their time in the bedroom. It was cold this year unlike last year so we didn’t mind. We watched one parade where the girls got quite a few toys instead of tons of beads. That was good we really don’t need the beads.

Kathleen was in a rush to get dressed she kept asking what time it was. She knew at 5pm we would be going to take baths and such. Shea took a nap from about 3 to 5 and we came in to start our primping process. 5 was probably a bit to early for the girls but they enjoyed the time we had. They loved their dresses. Sam even stayed awake during the performance. She did try to sleep but we wouldn’t let her.

All in all it was a good day. I will get some pictures up soon.

Forgetful

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January started off good. But I slacked one too many days and I didn’t get any blogging done. Oh well. Though I will try my best to do at least once a week. My life isn’t very eventful. Go to work, hang with the babies and hubby for a few hours, sleep and then start all over again.

This weekend we have Joyce’s Mardi Gras ball. The girls are looking forward to it. There is a few things we need to do in order to be ready for it. The packing type things, and entertainment for the girls needs to be thought of.

Shea’s doctor appointment with the sleep apnea doctor is tomorrow. Hopefully we’ll get some news on what we can get done, and if we’ll have equipment for a better nights sleep.

We have completed our taxes and getting a refund back. I’ll be getting a new tower for my computer and Shea will be getting a Digital SLR camera to hopefully start a career move. The girls will be getting my pc once I get a new one. Theirs is going out the door. It’s like 6 or 7 years old. It’s Shea’s computer from TWO times ago. Both computers from last time bit the dust. Mine a few Christmas’ ago which is the reason I got this one, and Shea’s bit the dust shortly after he got a new one for not apparent reason.

The rest will go into the rainyday fund until Shea gets a job that we won’t need to pull money out of it to live.

Missed a few days

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I missed a few days of blogging for no particular reason. I don’t have an excuse other than I forgot lol.

Kathleen failed two hearing tests because she had a cold. We went to the pediatrian and she had fluid on both ears. She’s on a round of antibiotics. Hopefully that will clear it up. We’ll take her back for a well check in a bit and check on that and all the other glorious things for a well check.

Sam has an appointment tomorrow to followup on her ear infection. Hopefully she’s cleared up. We are thinking about getting her hearing and speech tested if they are.

Shea’s got an appointment with for his sleep apnea with a doctor in two Tuesdays, we hope he can get a sooner one so he can sleep better.

And my test came back normal. yay! Second year in a row.

More Sleep

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Shea went back for the second night of the sleep test. He says he slept great after he got use to the mask. He said it’s the first time he felt rested, and woke with no headache. So yay!

I too slept better last night despite the massive amount of caffeine I had during the day. I’m sure that the pure exhaustion just took over. But once I fell asleep I didn’t wake until 5:30 when my body woke me up to go to the bathroom.

Maybe the two of us both will get a better nights sleep when he gets the mask. We don’t know when that will be but they will call with another appointment.

No Sleep

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I didn’t sleep well last night. I knew I wouldn’t but that was just a bad night. I went to bed at 9pm as usual and felt I should fall asleep right away, there was no TV. But nope, I was awake at 11pm. I finally fell asleep and I startled myself awake for no known reason. Then it started raining and I had to listen to the rain on the window units. I got back to sleep and Sammi woke up because of bugs in her room. I could however find no bugs. I put her back to bed and I tossed and turned until Shea walked in around 5:30a. We discussed his night and his night wasn’t any better.

He’ll know more later today.

Interrupted Sleep

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Tonight Shea is going in for a sleep test. The doctor he went to see last Thursday asked him a serious of questions that basically boiled down to Shea having sleep apnea. So tonight he’s going in for that test.

I’m not sure how well he or I are going to sleep tonight. He won’t have his bed, and I won’t have him. I’m going to freeze. I’d have the girls come to bed with me if they didn’t wet the bed. But then we’d probably not sleep either lol.

Shea has done his research and he thinks that he might actually have sleep apnea, and it might explain a lot of things. If he is diagnosed with sleep apnea tonight then he’ll go back tomorrow night. So probably another restless night for all of us.

I’m allergic to people… :P

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For a while Shea and I have notice that whenever we snuggle at night I go through a fit of sneezes. It’s not all the time and it’s typically only when we lye down in bed. Figuring it might be shampoo, soap or whatever, but we’ve joked that I’m allergic to him.

I’m beginning to think he might be a little right in that. But it’s not really human skin cells, it’s dust mites. While not officially diagnosed with allergies, if I don’t take my Zyrtec nightly I do have issues.

Casseroles & Slow Cooker

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When Shea starts working. This is not an if, he’s going slowly insane with the not working. Not because of the girls, just because he’s home and not working. So When he goes back to work we’ll both be working. We need to find a new way to make dinner and eat in a timely fashion. So we are thinking casseroles and slow cooker meals.

What we are looking for are healthy casseroles and slow cooker meals that we can throw in the oven or make first thing in the morning for dinner. I have a few slow cooker meals (Taco Soup, Potato Soup, Chicken ala King, Chicken stew, Beef Stew and Roast). However not all of these are with in our budget right now. Though when Shea gets a job they will be.

I have a few casseroles we can make (Tuna Casserole, Chicken Casserole, Smokey Chicken Pasta [Macaroni & cheese with bacon and chicken). Some of these are not very healthy.

So basically this is a call out for recipes. Would love to hear suggestions!

First Check!

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Today around 3pm I got an IM from Shea. He started with “OMG OMG OMG” and that is not something my husband every says so I knew it was internet speak for excitment lol.

He told me that Kathleen got her first behavioural check mark for not working and talking quietly. This is her first behavior mistake at school. It’s a big deal. Shea told me that she was starting her jouney to the dark side. I just laugh lol

Shea has called his parents and my parents and he’d probably call more if he could lol. It’s just a funny thing to pick on her about we are by no means upset at it. It is bound to happen sometime. She still came home with a green, it takes more than one to go yellow. But it’s a milestone.

Frameworks

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There are so many PHP Frameworks out there. I’ve used CakePHP and am using CodeIgniter. There are several other ones out there Symphony, Yii, Kohana and many many many more. I’m having a hard time deciding if I want to learn another php framework.

I really like CodeIgniter. I love the light weight footprint, but it’s missing a few things that I get sick of writing. Namely CRUD features for admin panels. I don’t mind writing the code just if you have a lot then it gets tiresome coding those by hand. I found GroceryCRUD which is nice, but it has it’s own templates, and I’m not sure I can integrate it into ones I’m looking into.

CodeIgniter also lacks an authentication system. There are many written, but I think I’m going to stick with writing one from scratch. While the code will typically the be same, I can at least customize it to my own needs as necessary.

Another plus to CodeIgniter and very few other PHP Frameworks is that the command line is not important. While this isn’t an issue for work related items as I have command line control, my own servers do not, so it makes it difficult to cross things in my learning process.

So I’m thinking of learning some other design framework – HTML5, CSS3 frameworks. I’ve actually been playing with HTML5 boilerplate and integrating it in to a template system.

There is another platform I’m thinking I might look into making apps with – Pokki. It’s like Adobe Air. I never quite got Adobe Air. I’m hoping Pokki will allow me to do things that I couldn’t figure out with Adobe Air. It’ll be interesting.