computer issues, please stand by

Hooray for getting computer to boot up in safe mode with networking!

Our computer has been having some major driver issues (IRQL driver not less than or equal) leading to blue screen of death every few minutes and constant reboots....My husband the computer whiz tried EVERYTHING from uninstalling/re-installing drivers to virus scans, defragging, system restore, BIOS settings, and finally did a clean erase and re-install of windows- nada, still having massive errors, so its probably the motherboard thats fried. We can't load windos at all normally, it just freezes up or blue screens again. After a week of aggrivating sessions of trying to post/email/browse/look up randomness and having it crash on me I just had to walk away for a bit and do other real life stuff like laundry, cooking, and learning how to make real bread from scratch (using the kitchenaid mixer ot knead it for me, works great). I just wanted to leave a little note on here so people know yes I am alive, and yes I have a ton of blog ideas going and in various states of drafting on notebook and in my drafts, but its slow going when i have to hit SAVE every 60 seconds in case my computer suddenly crashes again. Hoping in the next few weeks ( after next paycheck) to order a dirt cheap refurbished laptop for simple internet/word processing needs, then I can live the dream of going out to starbucks and blogging in peace and coffee induced euphoria without my kids whining/screaming/fighting in the background.

Gardening related stuff:
-finally shook off the flu and could walk outside and breathe real air again. Too bad it was ickly humid and about 104 out.
-harvesting 'Jaune Flamme' tomatos, tasty but I think think the high temps and my keeping the water reserve in the SWC full for fear of wilt is blowing them up into tomato water balloons with a much diluted flavor then the first batch harvested when it was cooler.
-made my first batch of pesto and frozen basil cubes, cut down all basil to 6 inches and now its grown out nice and bushy again, almost time for another trim
-my former fruit trees are thriving at my dad's house and even tho I trimmed them severly before the move some of the blossoms bore fruit so I got to taste an apple, peach, and apricot from them. Happy they survived the move. The huge container o tomatos is also doing well, I brought home about 5 pounds of tomatos today alone. I love the large 'Big Mama' hybrds, huge dense fruits the size of my palm. Planning on mixing those, my little flammes and a few carmellos from the container tomato into some fresh basily tomato sauce and canning it.
-my dad's brown fig tree is having a bumper crop, brought a box home tonight and am debating between different fig jam/fig preserve recipes or just canning them whole in syrup.
-The Kadota fig we transplanted form my old house has also rebounding nicely and is PACKED with fruit, should be ready in a few more weeks.
-learned how to make lemon curd, got some fresh homegrown eggs and homegrown lemons from fellow freedom gardeners I need to use this week and can as well.

Its going to be a busy week of canning/prepping and freezing. And I am so thankful and excited for it!

Flu

Been sick with the flu for over 2 weeks now, neither me or Chris seem to have been able to shake the damn thing off. This is be my 3rd weekend in a row of feeling sick now. After yet another long night of coughing up phlem and hardly able to swallow, my throat hurt so bad, I went to the doctor this morning desperate for some relief. Turns out my tonsils are infected ( looks like I have two strawberries glued to the back of my mouth) and it may be starting in my ears...except one eardrum is buldging out and the other is sucked inward a bit, so the pressure in them is off, no wonder my ears hurt and won't "pop". So hopefully a round of antibiotics will help. I usually shun the meds and just try to let my body fight it off, but with so much stress and lack of sleep I think my body is just out of reserves to fight anything off. So I've caved and given in to the "help" this overworked urgen care doc was willing to dole out in a Rx.

This flu overlapped with the very stressful/scary last week- our daughter was still running some high fevers off and on at night for the last month since we got back from our trip ( her doc said it was just fifth disease and the intermittant fevers were normal) but then last week she started throwing up and had fevers all day and all night too, high ones, like 104-105 constantly even with motrin and tylynol. No other real symptoms, was trying to wait out the weekend to see her doc when she had a febrile seizure on sat, went to the ER, her fever was 105.6 - they ran some tests but nothing came up conclusive other then a very high white blood cell count.
Ended up coming back on Sunday because her temp suddenly crashed down to 97 and she went pale as a ghost with bluish lips and scared the crap out of us, this time tests showed a teeny weensy bit of bacteria in her urine. Since the docs couldnt find anything else amiss, they gave her some antibiotics as well, even tho it seemed more of a viral thing, they were worried she was developing a secondary bacterial infection somewhere from her immune system being overwhelmed. After a week of those antibiotics she is finally doing so much better, no more fevers and her energy is back to normal.

So yup, I am so over being sick/caring for sick kids/caring for sick spouses/eating soup. I just want a few decent ( 4-6 hour) nights of sleep and no one sick so we can actually get out of the house, I am going stir crazy here.

Hope everyone elses health is great!