My little sister is coming home Sunday. Meet Aimee, 10 years my junior. LPN and self-proclaimed missionary who travels the world and spreads the Gospel. She also steals the big crawfish at every single crawfish boil we have ever had.

(check out that kid doing a wheelie in the background, this pic is over a year old and I just noticed that!)

I am especially excited about Aimee coming home to visit, because my son is about to come out of his skin he is so happy she will be home. They have a very unique and special relationship, and I love to watch it blossom. He loves her dearly, and instantly becomes her shadow whenever she is around.

They do get sick of each other at times. That’s not particularly a time when I like to be around, because as much as they love each other, man can they duke it out!! But all he has to do is make a sad face, poke out a lip, or something to that effect and she starts feeling bad and gives him whatever in the world his little heart desires.

I did mention they were special, right? Yeah. Because she cut the tree down, they wrongly assumed they had to take “welcome to the gun show” pictures…. but, I knew that someday the gun show pictures of my kid in his skivvies would prove to be priceless, so I snapped away. Another special moment, brought to you by my kid and my sister.

So anyway, she has been doing missionary work for over a year now and we don’t get to see her often. Her last visit home she brought a friend, Maria, with her. I’m not really sure if Maria has ever had the pleasure of working with goats before, but she wasn’t about to weasel her way out of this. Aimee was home, and the goats needed a good deworming (because I sure as heck am not about to do it!).

I know the whole worming process looks mean, but the goat survived - see? And they went on to torture another one…

These goats are pets, by the way. No, we do not eat them. Some of us do not particularly care for them, but I won’t be naming any names. The white goat is Snowflake, and she is a flat out bitch. She will headbutt you at the drop of a hat. I think she’s great target practice for N when he is ready to learn to shoot the BB gun. The other one is Tallulah, whom yours truly got to name. That does not particularly mean that I am a big fan of hers, however.

Usually when she comes home (we’re talking about Aimee again, keep up, will ya?) there is a lot of work to be done, and for some reason unbeknownst to me, she seems to enjoy doing it. So, we let her. What? You wouldn’t? You would let her enjoy her vacation? You mean, gallivanting around the world and saving souls is not a vacation? Ok, ok. I’m only kidding - it’s very hard work. I am by no means making fun. I’m quite proud of my sister for what she does.

Even if it IS just planting tomato plants, at least she’s doing SOMETHING. Okay, I’m kidding again. I just can’t stop. I’m on a roll, man! We just can’t get too serious here. It will dampen the mood and make the nice, spiffy new graphics look all dreary, and I cannot have that.

Aimee is on staff at YWAM Pittsburgh (that’s Youth With A Mission), although the “on staff” part is generally misleading. She does not get paid. As a matter of fact, she has to produce a certain amount each month to cover her housing needs, and since she does missionary work full-time, she survives solely on the generous donations of anyone who feels compelled to do so. (Go to the site, you can donate to her from there if you are feeling compelled right now!)

This post, however, is not to generate any donations for her. As nice as it would be, it probably wouldn’t help anyway because I’m convinced I have all of 3 readers. And I know who you are, man!

This post is just to say I’m glad she is coming home. I miss her, and I’m proud of her.

And for reference next week, when the newness of her being home wears off and her and N are going at each others throats and I’m ready to pull my hair out. To remind me that we really did miss her at one point. Ok, ok. I’m kidding again. We don’t really miss her.

Yeah, right. She’s awesome. And we do miss her. And I’m really glad that she loves my kid the way she does, because she’s really a good influence on him. I’m grateful for that. He will be, too. Someday. Whenever the day arrives that kids become grateful for things…

I feel good about it…. Actually, I ♥ it.

How do you feel about it? Or do you even care?

C’mon. Say something.

Don’t be shy. Inquiring minds want to know!

(and I get bored with things easily, so if you hate it, it’s okay… really.)

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Yesterday was a day for the books. I finally made it to the doctor’s office - 30 minutes before my scheduled appointment. Sometimes I wonder why they even bother with appointments, because 2 hours later was when they finally called me back to see the doctor. It is NO fun trying to entertain a 6 yr old in a waiting room for that long. And if you missed my twitter, there was an old lady in there nearly as long as I was who shared every single detail of every single illness and every single surgery she had and every single surgery her husband had until FINALLY they called her name. She drove me slap crazy. I was taught to respect my elders, but dude, this lady needed to be told to shut the f*** up! Okay, enough of her. God she really got on my nerve, though.

So they call me back. Finally. I was frustrated because I wrongly assumed that since it was a simple ear infection, the whole ordeal would take well under an hour. The waiting room saga proved me wrong on that front already. We get back there, and of course they want to go over everything that is in my medical file since the day after I was born. Uggh! Just look in my ear, dadgumit! So she does, and she says “Oh, girl! That’s really bad!” Really? No shit? Could it possibly be why I have been SUFFERING all this time and maybe, just maybe why I mentioned that I was in EXCRUCIATING PAIN? I’m a woman on the edge, doc…

She looked in my ear, gave me some insane diagnosis, and sent me on a wild goose chase for the medication I needed telling me it was not a prescription. I go to my regular pharmacist and they don’t have it on the shelf, OR behind the counter. I go across the street, they think I’m crazy. Then the pharmacist tells me they have it, but I need a prescription for it. I call the doctors office… 8,297 times in 30 minutes. I get the answering service every time. Not the one that connects you to human. The one that says “Press pound for more information”, and when you press pound, it repeats THE SAME BLASTED MESSAGE. It was a futile effort, to say the least.

I decide driving back to the doc’s office would probably prove to be more of a success than sitting in the parking lot of the Pharmacy hitting redial on my cell phone and just barely avoiding a complete nervous breakdown. So, I get there - remember, all this time I am DIZZY as all get out, and have N with me - and we go back up to the office and I tell them I need a prescription. I’m on the verge of tears. Partly because I’m impatient and they have just drained the better part of my day, and partly because I’m in massive amounts of pain, and partly because I’m dizzy and the world is spinning at a faster speed than I can keep up with. She asks me if I am okay, I tell her how dizzy I am and how I’m tired of driving all over town to try to find this medication, while choking back those “I”m about to have a breakdown” tears…. it’s scary to drive and lose focus every so often. So right then and there, she writes me a doctors excuse for work, saying she does not want me driving as far as I have to drive to get to work anytime this week.

Fabulous. I get back to the car, and I cry. I just got this job - they are going to think I am flat out crazy because I can’t work because I have an ear infection? What a load of crap. (Thankfully though, they are really cool peeps and were completely understanding - now though, I just suffer monetarily for not being able to work!). I’m still just about ready to FIRE my doctor.

I go back to the pharmacy - the one that told me they have the meds, but I need a prescription and opt to drive thru instead of walking in again since I’m so dizzy. This takes forever, because I’ve not ever been there before. So, I drive over to the “waiting area” where I can see the window, she tells me she will flag me over when it’s ready. I sit there, talking to my friends on the phone, trying desperately to talk myself down from an almost hysterical state of panic and frustration, and 87 minutes later she flags me over. I drive back through and this other girl says to me “Mrs. B, I’m sorry but we are out of that medication but we can order it for you….” Are you shitting me? WHAT? GO DIE SOMEWHERE RIGHT NOW YOU LITTLE TWIT!  - I screamed that in my head. At the top of my lungs. And I said “I was just in there, and the pharmacist herself TOLD me she had the medication…” and my voice was cracking. Because I can only take so much, and this day was proving to be one that may just very well break me.

She disappears, and comes running back and says “I’m sorry Mrs. B, we do have it and it’s almost ready”. You’re lucky, young lady, because it would be YOU that would endure the wrath of this woman on the edge! Anyway… to make a VERY long story short, I got diagnosed, and I got my medication. (And you have NO idea just how screwed up the diagnosis and medication was, but that would turn this already long winded post into a novel, so I’ll save it for a rainy day.)

At this point, it’s starting to rain. N and I are talking about how hungry he is, and how badly we both just want to GO HOME. (We are not big fans of ever leaving the house as it is, and this outing proved to be almost too much to handle). We get to our road, and I say something to the effect of “Thank GOD we are almost home baby, we are not leaving the house again today!”… and as soon as the words left my mouth, as soon as I declared us home bound for the evening, my beautiful son says “Mom, My tooth just came out!”

And I’m sure you can guess, the Tooth Fairy had no loot. The end.

Goodbye forever,

H.