Snow Candy

Well, the snow has come and gone here leaving behind no evidence of its visit whatsoever. I guess we can look forward to at least a month of rain now. Nice.

Just before the rain struck and eliminated all of the wonderful white stuff, I scooped a bunch of it up, placed it in the freezer temporarily and then got to work. I melted about two cups of white sugar (that was way too much, by the way), added a little vanilla and then poured it on the snow to harden. The thing with heating white sugar until it melts is that it tends to have this slightly burned flavour to it, but I don't really mind that. Unfortunately, the "candy" also had a tinge of "Vancouver Smog" flavour to it, so I ended up chucking it all out. It was fun, though! The kids had a blast in the snow while it lasted. They got all geared up (I was exhausted by the time they went out the door) and played for quite some time out there. It's nice to see them get some great activity outdoors.

While it was still snowing, I was sitting in the living room and started noticing this odd noise out the front of my house. I thought someone was on the front deck, so I looked out the window and lo and behold! Our neighbour was busy shovelling off our steps! We truly have moved into the twilight zone here! In our old neighbourhood, a scary drug addict came to the door asking for money to shovel our walk. I do give him credit for wanting to actually do something for the money, but I wasn't about to support his disease, so I sent him away. Things like that were a daily occurrence for us there. We can't believe how different it is and how un-stressed we are now. Later our neighbour took Kes along with his daughter (who is in her class) and his son over to toboggan at a nearby park. How much do you love a neighbour like that?

It's been a little while since I posted and I wanted to share something that happened to me. Just over a week ago, I had this very strange "attack" on my system. It was late at night and I had been laying on the couch, drowsing. I'd had a couple of drinks, but was by no means drunk. I got up to go to bed and brushed my teeth, etc. When I rounded the corner to my room I suddenly got this very tight feeling in my chest, couldn't breathe and my arms went numb to my elbows. I instinctually started to breathe slow, deep breaths (one of the times that being asthmatic actually came in handy because I am so practiced at it), found my husband and sat with him for around ten minutes until it began to pass. We thought perhaps it was a physiological event, where I was maybe slightly dehydrated and then standing up to quickly made all the blood rush down from my head. I have fairly low blood pressure and tend to get head rushes all the time when I stand up. While it was happening, I was quite scared and thought the word "ambulance" more than once. It was hard not to panic and took quite a lot of effort to keep my breathing slow, rather than giving in to hyperventilating.

Research showed up a few things. The thing about the internet is it can give you too much information that may or may not be correct. All of the symptoms I had matched the criteria for angina or a heart malfunction as well as a panic attack. I knew it was neither because a) I was not having pain in my heart or on that side, I was only slightly numb and b) the cognitive part was missing for anxiety or panic. I am quite the opposite since hubby and I have been more in love than ever and therefore happy. Laura suggested it was heartburn because she said she had something similar happen to her once. This made some sense to me since I have been having a lot of digestion problems lately. But looking around on the internet did not turn up these symptoms in association with heartburn. Unfortunately, I was so freaked by the event that my anxiety was high for the next few days and I kept feeling like it might happen again. Curse my overactive brain!

I had to see my doctor yesterday to get a flu shot, so I asked her about it. Turns out that Laura was correct. Or at least close. It wasn't heartburn, but in fact an esophageal spasm. Apparently the acid rises suddenly to the esophagus and it seizes up, causing all of the symptoms I had! So the combination of alcohol with a caffeinated/carbonated drink and my current reflux problems made this all happen. Phew! Thanks Dr. Laura! I shall be taking a stronger antacid now to prevent that from ever happening again. Oh, and if that is what a panic attack feels like minus the mental panic? I NEVER want to experience that EVER!

So I got my flu shot and Hamster Boy was due for some vaccinations as well. Or should I say overdue. He's always been behind because of the whole casts on his legs for seven months thing, but we are now officially caught up! I thought that he needed one more vax and was thinking I'd toture him with the chicken pox vax since Kes just got that one too. Ahem. He needed two more shots and our doctor suggested the flu shot as well, so we skipped the chicken pox one for now and I'll get it done sometime before he goes to preschool. The first shot went well and he barely noticed it. The second one he started screaming "owie! owie!" and pummeled our doctor's stomach with his feet (sorry Sylvia!). By the third one he was hysterical and she barely got it in. That one bled because I was trying to control all of his limbs at once and he was kicking so hard that the needle moved sideways slightly. I am so glad he is the last of my kids. Really.
Poor guy is limping today on that leg.

Here's some yumminess: