The Cato House is in Full Swing!

During the winter months, if you were a fly on the Cato House wall, you would have heard me lamenting to Bill that our life was not exciting enough. During those cooped up winter months, I was big on reading others' blogs and just thought, "Man, they live such exciting lives," and allowing Satan to use that to put me in a state of comparison.

As the weather has gotten warmer and warmer this spring and summer, our family has not lacked for excitement, thus, the reason for my blogging hiatus (in addition to me trying to be tech saavy and twitter and update my facebook profile...I've had little time to blog.

So, the spring started off with lots of travel. Within 4 weeks, I traveled to Katy, TX; New Orleans, LA, Pittsburgh, PA; Elizabethtown, KY and Stockton, CA. It was this last trip to Stockton that sent me over the edge. I was tired of traveling and everything at home was quickly moving out of control, but the one thing that continued to plague me was this unusual, non-consistent pain in my stomach. I had enough of it when I returned from Stockton's luncheon. Went to the dr to get the ball rolling. Within 4 hours, I had a CT scan and was admitted to the ER and spent the next 3 days hooked up to IV antibiotics at the hospital.

We left the hospital with a diagnosis that was treatable but nevertheless undesirable. Two weeks later, I had to go back to the dr to get a follow up CT scan. Piece of cake (except for drinking that Barium "Smoothie"), right? Wrong! This was my third CT scan in less than 2 years, and for some reason, this time, I had a horrible allergic reaction to the contrast die. I really thought I was dying that day. After 2 hours of being pumped with Benadryl and steroids, I was released.

I am finished with the drama, right? Wrong! Last weekend, the Cato House met the other Cato house (in Birmingham) and the Jones house (here in Nashville) at a lake in northern Alabama. To make a long and horrible story short, the temperature was over 100 degrees, Claire didn't have shoes on and stepped on the hot pavement and subsequently a piece of metal on the dock and burnt the bottoms of her feet. Blisters, screaming...just the most heart-wrenching thing for a mother to watch. It was horrible.

And guess what? As soon as that episode happened, I had to travel back to California.

If it were up to me, the drama would be over. We have vacation with my family next week in Destin...drama-free zone has been requested!

That's what we have been up to...how about you?