THE RUNDOWN

Where do we start?

Let's see,  how about a quick rundown of recent events: After the baby shower we held at our house, we then packed our bags and hopped on a plane to Rhode Island for a visit with the grandparents.

Professional travelers.
We give slow moving security lines the stiff arm!

Beach babes!

Abbott's first encounter with the ocean.
He fell asleep almost immediately.
That's sleep-training-using-ocean-sounds-at-night for ya.

Evie's toddler-sized early morning alarm clock served
as a healthy dose of birth control for Uncle Andy.

Then we hopped on a plane home ...

Charming the flight attendants
into handing out extra cookies and juice.

And then it was back to reality, the swing of work/school schedules, the never-ending loads of laundry, and not being on vacation time anymore.

I guess I should also mention that I postponed some gardening work (pruning our azaleas)  until after we came home from vacation.  (Gardening tangent: Azaleas are supposed to be pruned soon after their blooms fall off, which means for those of us in Georgia, you need to do your cutting in late spring or early summer. If you wait longer than that, you could shear off their flowering buds, which means you might mess up next year's flower production.)

But because I'm so much smarter than those silly horticulturists with college degrees in gardening who say you should prune early, I decided to wait till August to do the pruning. 

This delayed pruning endeavor resulted in me discovering an enormous hornets' nest hidden in those azaleas. 

Which meant I was both bitten and stung by a swarm of angry hidden azalea-dwellers with a massive grudge against me for attacking their comfortable living environment. (Who knew that in addition to stinging the crap out of you, hornets can also frikkin BITE you?! ) 

I also hyper-hyper extended my finger in the scramble to get away from the angry swarm of devil's minions that were attacking me.

Can you even see their evil lair hiding behind the foliage?

Thankfully, I was able to swallow some Benadryl pills prior to my neck swelling, since I didn't have an epi pen readily available to use. My face and neck puffed up, my eyes got incredibly watery and itchy, but I (luckily!) never had trouble breathing.  

Did I also mention that a few of the hornets were able to go down my shirt, so in the process of running away from the hive and being stung all over, I pulled my shirt off and ran through the front yard wearing only a bra and shorts? 

Yes. That was me. 

You're welcome, neighbors.

So, after refusing to go to the Emergency Room ("No, I'm fine! I can actually breathe and it doesn't hurt that bad!"),  I spent the next two days at multiple doctors' offices - hooray! for epi pens, steroid injections,  X-rays of the wickedly crooked finger, and all the fun stuff that goes on after an allergic reaction!  All of this was completed while heroically struggling to keep my eyes open -  due to the fun zombie-like side effects that go along with heavy-duty doses of Diphenhydramine.  

The steroid injection was absolutely miraculous - the swelling around the stings went down rapidly, although the redness lasted a few days. 

And my crooked finger... well, it's still kind of crooked:

"Hold it straight."
"I am!"

To add insult to injury, the exterminator who came to remove the hornets said that the hornets' nest had grown to that size because they had been building there all summer long - and the un-pruned bushes were a perfect location - dense enough for camouflage, but open enough on the interior to provide the space that a hornet colony needs.  Which meant, had I actually gone out to prune the azaleas earlier - when I was supposed to - I probably wouldn't haven't encountered them. 

Oh, yes, did I mention it was my birthday??!  (I did plan on taking the day off from work anyways.... but COME ON!! Doped up at the doctor's office was not in my birthday plans!)  

I did make it to Legoland with the kids and shopping with Gabba Gabba later on my birthday, but only after going to the orthopedic surgeon in the morning to have him reset and splint my finger. 

And of course, we had cake... 

A stupid splinted finger and puffy stings weren't going to stop me
from diving into a white chocolate hazelnut pound cake calorie fest. 
Nice try, hornets.

There's nothing like a hive of hornet's on your birthday to remind you of things to be thankful for!  After the stern lecture I received from my doctor, I'm very relieved that my reaction to all the hornet stings wasn't much worse.  

Yep, I'm still alive and ready to celebrate another year of being on this earth.

And remember: Prune your azaleas early. Don't postpone your chores. 

Seriously. 

It could kill you.