Chicken, wedding, heartburn....I need a break!

wow - the past couple days have been a tad bit crazy for me.

Thursday I went to Macey's (local grocery store) where they were having a fantastic sale on boneless, skinless chicken breasts. You had to buy the 40 lb. box, but then it was only $1.19/lb. (thanks for the tip, Jen) I decided to get 2 boxes this year, and try bottling one box. I called my mom to see if I could come to her house and do the canning - since I don't own a pressure cooker - and if I had to go out and buy all the supplies to DO the canning, it would certainly lose the cost effectiveness, if you know what I mean. I told her about the sale, and she said, "sure, come on over, and get a box of chicken for me." So I went to the store and bought 120 lbs of chicken. There were a whole bunch of 'issues' that made so we couldn't start until after Aaron got out of school, so it was 4:15 before we got started. It took us about 4 hours to get it all bottled and wrapped in freezer paper. (my mom bottled most of hers, I did half and half, bottles/frozen) Neither of us had done chicken in bottles before, but it sounds so convenient. anytime you need cooked chicken for a recipe, you just open a bottle. It wasn't hard to do, just time consuming. I was pretty tired by the time I got home. Now I have about 25 packages (between 1 - 2 lbs each) wrapped and in the freezer, plus 16 pints and 7 quarts of bottled chicken. (I confess that the bottles are still in my car, I just haven't had it in me to haul them downstairs to the storage room yet...:( )

Friday I had been invited up to Salt Lake for the temple sealing of one of my former young women. Tim's parents agreed to watch the kids while I was at the temple. They live pretty close to my brother and sister in law - the ones who just had the baby. Since I would be driving right by their house, I stayed up a little late on Wednesday and got up early Thursday morning to throw together a couple freezer meals to drop off. Baby Landon is just adorable (as you can see), and it helps me look forward to when I get to hold the fruits of my current labors. (No, I am not currently IN labor...) The wedding was nice. I was terrible and opted to skip the luncheon and reception, since I didn't really want to spend the entire day in salt lake, and to be honest, just the 2 hours I was gone were enough to wear grandma and grandpa out. On the way home, I stopped at my moms to pick up the bottled chicken (it had to process 90 minutes, then cool completely before moving the bottles, and I was already really worn out and needing to get home, so we arranged for me to pick them up on my home from Salt Lake).
By the time I got home at 5:15, I was too exhausted to do anything. I turned on a movie for Bryan & Trina, a computer game for Aaron, and told Aaron to be in charge while I rested. I instantly fell asleep for 30 minutes. While I was sleeping, the kids helped themselves to cold cereal, spilling it all over the kitchen and bedroom - wasting what I would estimate to be about $8.00 of cereal. Oh well - I'll just consider it a much needed $8 nap.

I didn't sleep very well last night, I kept waking up itching. It was horrible! This morning I got up late, but was soon all revved up and ready to get the house whipped back into shape. After being up about 30 minutes, I knew I either had pretty bad heartburn, or I was having a heart attack. I kept pushing through it - but the longer it lasted, the more I started worry that I was having a heart attack. I started to worry that the baby wasn't moving enough, so I drank some juice and tried lying down to do a "kick count." That lasted about 4 minutes before the chest pain was so bad I couldn't lie down any more. I happened to see a neighbor outside, who is a nursing professor at BYU. I went out and talked to her about what was going on, but I didn't like her counsel - which was , of course to go to the ER. I waited until Tim got home (he was over at BYU for the scout pow wow. He gave me a blessing, then I called my midwife on call to get her opinion. She said it sounded like classic heartburn and told me what to do. I'm feeling much better now, after a couple doses of Maalox. (or is it Maloxx??) Not perfect, mind you, but much better. Another complication of the day has been that I still itch ALL OVER! I've got little rash looking things all over different parts of my body and they are itching and driving me crazy! I soaked in the tub for almost 2 hours, and I felt fine. Figured I had washed off whatever the problem was, but now that I've been out of the tub for an hour, it's starting all over again!!! ARRGGGHHHHHHH!

That's about it from this corner of the cosmos. My consolation at this time is that in the priesthood blessing I was told that I would be blessed with the strength to endure this and the "other afflictions" that would come, and I would be able to deliver a healthy child. I have a great deal of faith in the priesthood, and I'll spend the next 6 weeks banking on the promise of that blessing.

Well - It's time for dinner, so I'd better sign off here and get cooking!