Month: March 2012

Itchy Situation

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

Since I’ve been back from my business trip to Arizona, I’ve been exhausted and my body hurt. Neither of these were a huge shock because we keep long hours at this conference and I’d lugged my computer bag and duffle bag on my shoulder through two airports on Friday.

Tuesday afternoon at work, I started feeling like I was burning up from the inside out. My face was warm to the touch and I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. I thought it was just from being tired and resolved to get to bed early that night.

While Keith and I were watching TV before bed, I mentioned to him how I would have guessed an ear infection info hadn’t been on an antibiotic the past week.

As the night went on, I noticed myself getting itchy. Then a rash….

Stumped, I consulted Dr. Google and WebMD. The first thing that popped up from my symptoms was allergic reaction. I passed it over at first until it clicked….the antibiotic. When I’d picked them up at the pharmacy, the pharmacist gave me a long shpiel about the side effects and yep, itching and rash was one of them.

20120328-230925.jpg
So fricken' itchy!!

My arms, legs, face, even the sides of my feet and eyelids are covered in rash. I was so itchy last night I tossed and turned until about 4:30 when I remembers we had some anti-itch cream in Brooke’s bedroom.

Fortunately, my manager agreed to let me work from home. I was not looking forward to being in public with my face all red and splotchy. I was still really uncomfortable but I was at least at home and able to stop and take a minute to layer on the hydrocortisone every once on a while.

24 hours, 3 doses of Benadryl, 2 oatmeal baths and countless applications of anti-itch cream later, I’m still itchy as hell and worried about being able to sleep tonight.

Just for fun…here’s a clip from Friends that has been stuck in my head all day. Laugn with me…its the best medicine!!

Meet Emerzon

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

See this sweet face??

This is the little boy we’ve just started sponsoring with Compassion International.

His name is Emerzon and he lives in Honduras. He’s 3 years old – just a couple months older than Brooke.

I’m very excited to have finally started sponsoring a child through Compassion. It’s something I’ve wanted to for quite some time since I’d read about it from other bloggers but the time was never quite right.

At the beginning of the year, I began to really start considering it again. We’ve done well with our plan to pay down debt and we’d heard the message at church about what Pastor Chris calls “Giving 2.0” – regular giving, not just coming to the rescue in times of tragedy or disaster.

I’d pull up the Compassion website and browse through all the children waiting for sponsors and hem and haw about it.

Then during our “Hero” series at church, they brought a speaker from Compassion who’d been sponsored as a child and now as an adult speaks on behalf of Compassion to share his story.

That was the final push I needed. They had a table in the lobby with packets of information for children waiting to be sponsored. I got Brooke from her class and explained to her what we were about to do. We went out to the lobby and sorted through the available children. I’d wanted a child close to Brooke’s age. My hope is that as they both grow, Brooke will get a better understanding of the differences in her lifestyle and her blessings and those of our sponsored child.

We found a packet of a little boy who was born in July of 2008. Brooke was born in September of 2008. It was a match! We’ve sent off our first introduction letter and I look forward to getting letters from him as well.

If you are so inclined, we’d love to have you include Emerzon in your prayers. Or if you’d like to take it one step further and sponsor a child yourself, you can click on the graphic below for more information.

Sleep, Interrupted

Posted on by Sarah Marshall

I don’t think I can remember a night in the past couple months that I’ve laid my head down on my pillow for night-night and slept until my alarm goes off.

It started when Keith began having trouble with waking at night and getting back to sleep. Once he’s awake, my admittedly-annoying sleep noises kept him from falling back to sleep. Cue tossing, turning and the eventual descent to the couch which jostles me awake.

Then there are the mornings he gets up to go to the gym at 5:30am. He’s typically pretty good at being quiet but the Rick Flair “WOOOOO” that he uses as his alarm gets me every time.

At least SOMEONE's sleeping

On top of all that, Brooke has started waking at night for various things. Sometimes its “night dreams”, sometimes she thinks she’s had an accident (she wears overnight training pants to bed) and the one I’m most confused by…”Mommy!!! I sleep two ti-imes!!!” I have no clue what that even means. My best guess is she woke up, went back to sleep and so therefore can get up now.

Luckily, she tends to go back down quickly with a little re-tuck, kiss on the check and yet another reminder that we stay quiet until her clock turns green.

So as it always tends to work out for Mommy, everyone else’s sleep issues become her sleep issues.

Even though the organizers at our regional Sales Conference keep us very busy and we don’t get to sleep a whole lot, I’m looking forward to my upcoming trip to Arizona so that I can sleep in a big King bed with no one to wake me!!

A girl can dream, right? If only I could sleep to dream…..