Not much going on

Well the last week has been somewhat busy for me and kind of relaxed for the kids. About a month ago my neighbor mentioned that I should run for city council. There are currently four seats up this election and she was ready for some new leadership and thought I would be good with my background and commitment to the community. I briefly thought about it and did not really consider it. Well she mentioned it again and said that she would get the forms for me and kind of sponsor me if I was more interested in doing it. Well she got me thinking again and I kind of thought more about it and thought, "Hey what the heck". Life is short and I would be putting myself out there for a possible defeat but I was up for the new experience and the new challenge. So on Saturday I started getting signatures and started talking to neighbors and they were happy to see someone from the neighborhood going after it. I gave the petitions to some of my friends who also live in the same city and they were getting signatures for me. So getting the 50 signatures I needed to get onto the ballot was pretty easy. My other neighbor who is very political and who was very involved locally in the Obama campaign said she would help me out. My good friend from college who used to work on the Hill in DC said that she would help me also. So from the campaigning perspective I was set. This was also my greatest worry was the campaigning. I am not really into saying "You should vote for me because....". It is not really my style. I would rather be appointed to a board based on my experience and desire to be on it. So I thought that I could handle it for a few months in order to get elected. I know that I could be a good councilwoman. I love getting the community's ideas and wants and forwarding those onto the city officials and making policy or decisions based on those needs and wants. Additionally I have a lot of experience in local governments and I know the processes and procedures in order to get things though the pipeline so I was confident in that aspect. I was just not really comfortable with the campaigning.

On Saturday night my neighbor brought over a book on how to win a local election. I read about 100 pages and started freaking out. The petitions had to be signed a certain way or they would not be counted. The circulator getting petitions signed for me had to do it in a certain way or they would also not be counted. I had to have a treasurer. So there were a lot of things I had not even thought of because I had not really researched this decision very well. So I keep reading more and I kept thinking that I am not ready for this yet. I am a planner and I like to know what I am getting into and this could have been more that I bargained. I know that we could have done a good job and possibly won but I was not really mentally prepared. So I think I am going to wait until maybe another election to see if I am still interested and in the meantime I can read up more on the city's happenings and see how I can get involved in other ways.

So I feel better knowing that I have made a decision and now I can concentrate on other things. I am starting some consultant work for a local company. I am working on a sustainability plan for the main office. This will entail looking at their current recycling policies, waste management, packaging and paper usage, electrical usage and other environmental issues that may come up. I will make recommendations as to what they can improve on and outline cost considerations and implementation timeline and strategies for these recommendations. So I am suppose to start September first so I am also trying to line up a babysitter for one day since D will be taking one day off to watch the kids the other day that I am gone. So we will see how it goes. I have already been in contact with one potential babysitter so I just have to interview her and see how it goes.

So that is what has been going on since I last posted. The kids are doing well. They are finishing up their bridge books and hopefully they will finish with their summer reading program before the 8th so that they can claim their last big prize. Nathan had another asthma attack last week. After his nap on Wednesday he woke up with a barking cough. He kept doing it so I ended up giving him a treatment because I knew that it had helped the last time he had it. I could also tell that it was in his esophagus and not his lungs. Earlier in the day he had a runny nose so I knew that something was coming. He was better on Thursday morning but after his nap woke up and was still barking and so I gave him another treatment. So this time I was trying to be more proactive with his breathing treatments than I have in the past. Then a couple hours later he started breathing a lot harder and actually spent one to two hours laying on the floor of our playroom. He was not crying or upset I think he was just relaxing. He also had a fever of 101.5. Before bed I gave him another treatment and then he went to bed still breathing hard. I tried to sleep with him when it was my time to sleep since he was still breathing hard but that did not work too well since he was really hot and kept moving and getting made at me. In the morning he was not hot and he was not breathing rapidly he was just coughing a lot and a more mucus cough versus his dry cough he had a few days earlier. He has gotten all the junk out of his lungs and is back to being his crazy self. This episode started a little differently than the others with the barky cough so I have resigned to the fact and they are not similar and there will not be a predictable pattern to his asthma. What is consistent is when the labored breathing occurs it comes on kind of sudden, like within an hour he goes from being fine to breathing rapidly, however, I know that it is probably coming since he usually has a mild fever and has had some kind of cough and/or runny nose before this. Additionally, the labored breathing usually occurs for 8-12 hours. Then after that he is very mucus and coughs a lot. This is still the pattern even if I give him regular treatments or just treat him when he is breathing hard. Giving the treatments more often before he gets into his labored breathing pattern may help with the after mucus part, like the amount of days after he is coughing for, but I am not confident on that either.

Things I am grateful/thankful for:
-Great neighbors
-Getting my toenails polished with a friend
-Celebrating by friends son's birthday with him and our family