a not so pleasant discovery...

We have poison ivy growing in our front yard. It is attached to a tree that is dead, that was supposed to have been removed last fall (we rent this house). I run a day care out of my home, and my daughter and another of the children were messing with the plant growing on the tree last week. I was repeatedly assured that this was not poison ivy and that the tree would be taken care of because of the safety risk with having an extremely tall, skinny, dead tree in the front of the house that could break and fall on the house (which would damage one of my children's bedrooms) OR the driveway smashing either of our vehicles or both of them. Anyway, after playing that evening I am giving Cait a bath and notice she has a brown spot on her face that would not come off no matter how hard I scrubbed it. Eventually I just gave up thinking it was tree sapp or something just being stubborn. A couple days later, I sprout this horrendous rash on my neck and arms and get a phone call from the other girl's mother asking about Caitlynn because her daughter has a rash. So i start treating myself by taking benadryll and putting cortizone cream and zinc oxide on the rash. Now, almost a week later, the rash is not only on my neck and arms, but my chest, stomach, back, and legs as well. And I did not even have direct contact with the plant!! So my oh so NOT pleasant discovery is that I am extremely allergic to Poison Ivy as an adult, when as a child I could literally roll in it and not have it affect me at all. Thankfully Caitlynn has not had a reaction. As a result of all this madness, I have gotten zero sleep, and zero accomplished from my to-do list, AND I had to cancel being able to attend my big shoe box swap event this weekend. Not to mention a lack of blogging and anything recreational. Grrr.....

Hopefully I will make a full recovery and come back to scrapping and stamping soon. I am craving some creative time, but am too miserable to actually sit and do it!