Turning 30 was not the usual non-event that I wanted it to be. Actually, it turned out to be quite the landmark this year. Sebastian thankfully recovered through my birthday and just in time to watch his daddy go down for the count, which I did. The day after my birthday was not fun at all. I’m fairly certain that I got what he had and given how awful the ordeal was I only felt worse for what he must have gone through. I barely started to feel ok on Monday and that’s when Magda decided it was her turn. These sorts of stomach illnesses are much less fun when you are carrying around the extra weight of an unborned child and I felt for her through the couple of days it took to get right again. So we, figuratively and literally, flushed the week down the toilet. Not a good week for the house as a whole and I’m beginning to look askew at 2007, wondering if it’s necessarily out to get me (and what have I done so wrong to have pissed it off). I can only hope and prayer that we have all these illnesses out of our system and we can start focusing forward on the lively spring that is sure to come.

I should point out here that until Sebastian got sick Magda had planned an elaborate surprise birthday party for me. I had *no clue* that this was being planned and didn’t get wind of it until we went out that Sat (no wonder she wanted to leave the house for a bit) and we stopped by The Sweet Stuff here in Kyle and she brought out my cake. Unfortunately, the plans didn’t pan out as you might be able to tell from the above but we did get a chance to enjoy the cake (it was awesome!) while watching King Kong (finally got her to watch it). Given everything else that had been going on before Sebastian got ill I can’t imagine how she was able to put everything together so quickly and I’m sorry it wasn’t able to work out like she wanted. Still, it was awesome for her to go through all that and I’m grateful. It still hasn’t hit me that I’ve turned 30. It’s like watching the odometer move up to that next big number…ugh…

We got lucky this weekend that my parents and little brother came out to visit. It was nice to have some “backup” up in the house so that I could tackle some pressing issues in the house. All in all, a very productive Saturday.

Also, I start my detox today (it’s already Monday) and I’m really looking forward to it this time around. I’ve been eating horribly lately and being sick hasn’t helped me keep things straight at all. I’ve really jumped from illness to illness since the start of the year and I’m holding out hope that a good detox will get me back right again. I definitely need to reboot the system. (a href=”http://therawfoodsite.com/mastercleanse.htm”>The Master Cleanse)

Some Lessons Learned:

• Fire Alarms should be replaced every 10 years (I would have never figured out that number but that’s the industry recommended). Our house is 10 years old and, by chance, mine started going off by themselves which means to tell me that the sensors were starting to fail anyway. In an effort to ward off any further problems I went ahead and changed them all. My house has them hardwired into the house electricity and, luckily, the replacement process was relatively simply. Home Depot didn’t have a terribly great selection and when you add the requirement for AC power, the choices fall significantly. Besides the fact that you can’t get dual sensors (e.g. First Alert SA302C for the AC type units (which seems rather silly to me), the ones that we bought didn’t have a battery tray. You have to physically remove the unit and unhook the power (bah!). Not terrible since it’s only once a year, but a hassle nonetheless. The real plus with this model is that the replacement process was really simple and it came with a variety of converters such that I didn’t have to rewire the unit to power, I just had to apply the converter. Amazon seems to have the ones we picked up.
• Garbage Disposals have a reset button (who knew?). If they just stop working, try pushing that button first. If you find that it has locked up, there’s a way to get in there with an allen wrench and turn it/make some adjustments such that you get it started once again. Luckily I didn’t have to try that, pushing the reset button worked just fine for me.
• In-line water filters are very simple to install. If you have a flexible hose and not copper be careful about blindly following the directions! If you have flexible pvc just get another small piece of it (”icemaker hose”) and place the filter in between the two. Really very simple and any subsequent filter changes will be even easier. Oddly enough our fridge has an icemaker but no filtration system even though it is fairly new. Thankfully, there are these kits to help ensure that you can actually enjoy the ice for years to come.
• If you are looking at carseats, make sure they have them in stock before you spend the hour or so running it through its paces. (Magda did this at Toys R Us and when the poor girl told her they were out of stock…well, i’m sure the glare that she received was lesson enough to take the units off the shelf if they are no longer available being made!)
  We finally picked one up at Target. The first one we went to in San Marcos didn’t have it, but knowing there was plenty of Targets around we asked them to check their network which the guy speedily did from a pda like device, letting us know it was available in South Austin — ain’t technology grand? This is what we picked up. Once we give it some time, I’ll post a review.