Annie Anderson | Blog

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Last week before the 4th of July, I had fully intended to create and post some special Independence Day backgrounds. Obviously, that didn’t happen. See, my husband was home all week on vacation and instead of working on things like I probably should have been, I ended up helping him build gates for our driveway.

Oh well.

The gates look great, anyway. They’re not entirely finished but they still look good. Hopefully he’ll be able to finish them in the few weekends. At least until then, we don’t have the neighbors visitors using our driveway as a turn around (which was becoming a huge problem, hence the gates). I’ll take a couple pictures of them when they’re finished.

If you’re an American, whether you’re in the US or living or vacationing elsewhere in the world, I hope you enjoyed your celebrations and weekend. We sat outside at my moms house, which overlooks the Puget Sound and Whidbey Island and watched fireworks all around us. It was very loud but my 3 year old managed to fall asleep on his papa’s lap. All in all, it was a good weekend.

In the arena,

Annie

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Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business - just as if it were her own.

Yes, it’s true - meatball sandwiches are better hot.

But before I tell you what lead to such a discovery, first, I have a confession to make . . . my 3 year old son (who is going to be 4 in August) is not fully potty trained.

For some unknown reason that my husband and I do not comprehend, he refuses to use the bathroom to poop. Now, he totally *knows* he is supposed to do that in the toilet too. But no, no, he just *won’t*.

So, I’m fixing lunch - homemade mini pizzas for the kids and a turkey meatball sandwich for me - when I notice he’s walking rather oddly through the kitchen with his 7 year old sister following him saying, “Mom, there’s something gross on your bedroom floor.”

Great.

Of course, this leads to me ask said 3 year old “Why are you walking like that?” To which he replies, “Please, mom, don’t spank me.”

Uh-huh. My suspicions are confirmed . . . he’s pooped. In his “big boy” underwear. And I told him a couple of days ago that if he continued to do that, I was going to have spank him. He apparently remembered that just fine. So, why can he not remember to poop in the toilet?????

And yes, the “something gross on the bedroom floor” was indeed a glob that somehow escaped his trousers.

So . . . I spent a good half hour cleaning up naughty child and bedroom floor. And now my meatball sandwich is cold. It really does taste better hot but I don’t have the gumption to go warm it up.

In the arena,

By the way - if this is your first time here, or you haven’t done so yet, please consider subscribing to my RSS feed. You can use any feed reader you wish.

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business - just as if it were her own.

It’s been a while since I posted on this site. Lots of things happening. Some good, some not so good. But all of them have given me a broader perspective and that is a wonderful thing.

You know, I’m generally a pretty private person and even though I have given glimpses of insight into my life, I don’t really discuss myself or my family much publicly. But today, I do want to share something immensely personal that has been a major factor in my changing perspective of late.

And that is something that happened just a couple of days ago on Wednesday.

My 14 year old daughter had a tooth that suddenly became infected a few months ago and as a result, we were referred by our dental clinic to a specialist at the University of Washington Hospital. They have a huge waiting list but thankfully, they managed to get her in last week to begin treatment - a root canal - which they do in 3-4 visits to help lessen the trauma. Her appointment last week went well although she was quite sore for a few days following the treatment.

This week, however, she had a severe reaction shortly afterwards and luckily we were still at the UW Hospital when it occurred. Her blood pressure dropped to a dangerous level and she began convulsing.

The staff at the UW is wonderful. They went quickly and yet discreetly into action and managed to stabilize her very fast but it was all so overwhelming for her that she had a mild anxiety attack, which I’m sure contributed a lot to whole thing and probably actually began before the blood pressure issue.

Much to my relief, the doctors are certain it was a result of how much pain she was in at the time and not a medical condition or anything to worry about. Since she’s not the kind to complain a lot even when in considerable pain, it’s often hard to tell exactly how much she does hurt and it seems they underestimated her pain level. Once they administered some ibuprofen after they got her blood pressure back up, she was fine and we were able to walk out of the hospital and head home.

She’s fine now, albeit still a little embarrassed by what happened and still a little sore from the second phase of the procedure on Wednesday. She’s been resting the past few days and is trying to keep up on the ibuprofen and hopefully by her next appointment next week, she’ll be ready.

Now, thankfully I’m not one to get hysterical in these situations although I will tell you I was scared out of my mind. And even though it was MY daughter, I did keep a level head and managed to stay calm.

Until yesterday. When the magnitude of the whole thing suddenly became clear to me.

And that’s what’s caused a few aha moments for me, maybe brought me back to things that are most important in my life.

So, although I will continue writing (and with any luck, I’ll have some great assignments coming up) and all those things I normally do, I doubt I will be posting on the blog every day as I had been. At least for a couple months here while I sort out some stuff in order to head in the direction I really want to go with my writing and music endeavors.

I do plan to post as often as possible and who knows, maybe it will be every day. But right now, I’m just intent on taking things day by day and see where they lead me.

I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day weekend if you’re in the US and I’ll see you again soon!

Until next time,

This week marks the beginning of school again and signifies that summer is officially over.

And, if you’ll remember, a couple of days ago I mentioned my oldest daughter wants to go back to school. Even though we’ve decided to let her, I’m a little worried about that. So we came up with a plan for this year to ease her back into school.

The co-op. Our school district has a homeschool co-op where the kids go a couple times a week to classes and the rest of the time, they’re at home, just like traditional homeschool. It would give her an opportunity to “go to school” and to meet other kids, get involved in stuff and yet not expect her to be up every morning of the week adhering to rigid school rules (and schedules) that she’s not used to. Then next year, if she really wants to, we’ll transition to regular public school again.

She likes this idea. And I’m glad. It was a little stressful for me the last several weeks discussing public school and all that entails. I’m happy this idea is workable for her. Honestly, I think she’ll do much better doing it this way than just shoving back in. I mean, she hasn’t been to a regular classroom since 3rd grade! That is quite a long time. Besides, next year will be her first year of high school and there’s a newer school in our district that is an arts high school. Since she’s interested in music and drama and all that stuff, it sounds like just the place for her. The class sizes are smaller and that’s certainly a bonus.

So - how is your end of summer/beginning of school going?