"It Makes Them Hard"

I went on my first run of the year tonight.  I always start out going such short distances and by the end of the summer I can go a couple of miles.  You know, a couple of nice, slow miles.  :)  Tonight, I don't even think I went half a mile and it was VERRRY slow.  Probably someone could walk faster than I ran tonight.

The "parenting fail" of the day was when Gracie fell off her bike.  She has a teeny tiny little tikes bike. Observe a similar bike I found online:   

Now hers of course, has metal handle bars with ribbons coming out of the ends and a yellow banana seat.  You know my kid has to have a bike with a banana seat.  The basics are there - plastic, crazy colors, and four wheels.  Well, Gracie fell off of it today.  And not just a little bit.

She flipped over the handlebars.  And landed on the concrete.  Face first.

Don't worry, her shades broke her fall.  (That girl has more pairs of sunglasses than Jacob and I combined!)  She must have bit her tongue, because there was a little bit of blood there, and a small (honestly, it was pretty tiny) goose egg on her forehead.  The sunglasses escaped with a minor scratch.  

In my line of work there is this civilization that we call "scanner land".  "Scanner land" is made up of all the people, many of them with (honestly) nothing better to do than to listen on the radio so that they can call us and ask questions about things that they heard going on in their neighborhood or that their sister's license plate was read over the radio and they want to know why.  I'm sure there are citizens of "scanner land" who are perfectly normal, pleasant people who enjoy listening to some occasional radio traffic while reading the newspaper and drinking their morning coffee.  I just never talk to any of the normal ones. 

Well tonight, "scanner land" got a treat.  I'm not much for sexual innuendos, but tonight they got to hear me say "it makes them hard" over the radio.  How. Embarassing.  What I MEANT to say was, "it makes IT hard".  IT, people.  IT. 

No one called in about that one.  I guess I made things perfectly clear. 

I had my gall bladder taken out

Yeah...

WHILE MY HUSBAND WAS OUT OF TOWN. 

I mean, he knew about it, but jeez...I might deserve a medal.  He even offered to stay and I was all "no honey, I can do it". 

They put me on a 10-pound lifting limit, so my 23-pound Gracie spent the week in her crib.  I took her food and milk.  And books.  She loves books.  JUST KIDDING!  My mom and sister came over to help, so my child and I were both cared for.  I took the week off work.  The whole week.  In the end, I'm glad I did.  I originally was going to take off Tuesday and Wednesday and possibly/probably Thursday.  Jacob came back Friday and on the phone Thursday night he was like a puppy dog begging "pleeeeeeease take off tomorrow night!" and since I am a total pushover I did (truth be told, I didn't feel 100% on Thursday anyway).  Then, I didn't see the point in going back for ONE STINKING DAY so I took off Saturday too. 

Here is what I learned from my surgery:  don't wear contacts or a tampon to surgery. I wasn't allowed to wear my contacts, which they didn't tell me beforehand.  So I was totally prepared for that.  Riiiight.  I ended up putting my contacts in a urine specimen cup.  No lie.  I was also told that I was required to take a pregnancy test, and I was all "oh, I'm not pregnant.  I'm on my period." after which nurse A said "we're still required to do the test," and nurse B said "you're not wearing a tampon are you?" after which I SHOULD HAVE SAID NO.  But I have this horrible moral conscience and I am flipping honest so I said yes.  Then she broke the news to me: "You'll have to take it out."  ...okay...so what do I do, do you guys supply me with underwear or do I wear my underwear or what?  Nurse C: "No.  You just stick a pad between your legs."  I'm telling you, these nurses know how to throw a party.  I'm sure they're a lot of fun on the weekends.  The only bright side to that is that I was completely sedated for the surgery.  I have zero memory of anyone looking down there and seeing a pad just hanging out sans underwear AND I also have no idea who all knows I was on my period and who doesn't.  Other than nurse A, B, and C, that is. 

My anesthesiologist (anytime I need to type that in the future I'm going to put ASO so I don't have to type a word that long again, ok?) was the same guy who did my epidural.  He walked up and since I was completely blind because I HAD TO PUT MY CONTACTS IN A URINE SPECIMEN CUP I said, "Who's that?"  And nurse A said "Bob, your ASO."  (She did not say ASO, she actually said the word that I am using the abbreviation "ASO" for.  Just to be clear.)  And here's how it played out:
Me:  BOB!  You gave me my epidural. 
Bob:  Oh?  That's nice... (totally doesn't care)
Me:  AND THEN you brought me peanut butter chocolate cookies in the hospital the next day. 
Bob:  Oh I did?  Huh... (slightly interested)
Me:  Because I had my baby on Christmas Eve.  You brought us cookies on Christmas Day. 
Bob:  Hmm...I wonder what I was doing around then... (interest is piqued)
Me:  You were trying to get out of going to church. 
Everyone:  *pointing and laughing at Bob because he just got called out by a blind girl with a bum gall bladder who is on her period and now everyone knows it.*

I mean, it was a good time.  I'd do it again.  If I had two gall bladders. 

PS - we just got Jacob's bill in the mail from his hospital stays.  Holy. Crap.  Fun fact:  An appendectomy, with NOTHING ELSE (no anesthesia, no recovery room, no hospital stay, no food, no pain medicine afterward, etc.) is $14,000.  Yeah.  And he was only in there for like, an hour and half.  Thank goodness for health insurance.  Is it too late for me to go to school to be a surgeon? 

Friday Fun Facts

I'm going to title this version of Friday Fun Facts "Things I Learned While My Husband Was In The Hospital". 

1.  If you are desperate for a nurse to come in to give your loved one pain medicine, just do something that is INCREDIBLY awkward that you never in a million years would want someone to see you doing.  I'll list a few examples:  pick your nose, fart (loudly), change your clothes, check out the itchy spot in your armpit, etc.  I guarantee you that the nurse will show up at the most inopportune moment for you.  Not that I would know. No, I wouldn't know about ANY of those examples.  Not one.  

2.  The croup sounds very similar to the moose on this commercial.  Except like, 491 times louder.  All day.  And. All. Night.

3.  Would you like to pull out the chair to make it into a 2x6 bed?  Well, you won't be able to. 

4.  Number 3 is really okay because once you have it out you won't be able to get it back together. 

5.  Once you finally have it back together, you will sit down on the "chair" and start getting kind of comfortable it will somehow mysteriously end up falling apart on you and looking like this: 

Yeah.  It's going to be a long night. That is, as SOON AS I FLIPPIN' FIGURE OUT HOW TO MAKE THIS DANG 2X6 BED!!  THEN it will be a long night.  AFTER that. 

But on the bright side, Jacob is feeling better than he was this morning.  He's even made a few jokes today and he's already taking machines off and wandering around without the permission of his nurses. NO JOKE. 

I don't think he has any idea that he should probably get permission to take all this stuff off and go wandering around his room. Lol. He gets tired of walking around and goes to lay back down in bed, pushes his nurse button and someone comes in and asks what he needs and when he says, "Can you put those things back on my leg and hook my IV back up?" they look a LITTLE taken aback. The nurse earlier kind of said, "Um...OH!" and had a look on her face that silently screamed, "what in the sam-hill are you doing wandering around without an IV and your leg things hooked up?!?" Haha.

So that's the bright side. He's moving around and joking around. On the other hand, he's pretty drugged up. They're giving him 2 different pain meds, one of which is morphine and he's getting it every hour. Earlier he said to me, "I can feel my intestines moving all around". Apparently things definitely feel a little off on the insides. He just doesn't care because he doesn't feel a whole lot right now. He'll probably be in plenty of pain when he comes home. Hopefully that will be tomorrow.  

We have half a Christmas tree

Well, we tried.  But lately it's just been one step forward, two steps back. 

On Thanksgiving, my whole family came over, right?  Well my sister and brother-in-law decided to stay for some fierce Kansas Black Friday Shopping.  (Yes, people fight over bikes here too.)  Awesome, right?  Our adrenaline was pumping.  We were rockin' JC Penney's like pros.  You would have thought I wasn't even pushing a stroller.  But I was.  I'm just that good. 

Then after I'd picked out my perfect purchases, I headed up to the counter.  (My sister and her husband were still "rockin'" the sales.  I had to put quotes around it because her "rockin'" wasn't quite as rockin' as my rockin'.)  I put my items on the counter, reach down in my stroller - the same stroller that was so incognito from before because, remember, I'm just that good - pull out my purse and grab my wal-

Crap.  My wallet's missing.  Crap.  (And in case you're wondering, NO, JC Penney's cannot hold items for you on Black Friday because if they did it for you, then they would have to do it to the other 3,287 people in the store AT ANY GIVEN SECOND.  Which brings up the point - has no one heard of fire codes here, people?) 

So my sweet, loving sister offered to take the invisible stroller with my baby girl in it so that I could run home and get my wallet.  IN FACT, she even offered to pay for my purchases and I would just write her a check when we got home.  But no.  I'm stubborn and wanted to pay for them myself. 

So off I go to my car.  I got in and sat down, then I glanced around for some chapstick.  It was totally necessary.  But then I thought to myself, "Self!?  Why are you wasting time putting on chapstick at a time like this?  You need to get to your wallet!  There are deals to be had!"  So I threw my car in reverse and very slowly made my way out of the parking lot. 

Slowly my arse.  Oh, and by the way, there was a monster flat bed Dodge pick up in the space directly behind me.  It totally ate my trunk alive when I accidentally collided with it. 

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE (because that's exactly how I'm looking at this situation, right?  Mm hmm.)  no one was injured (really though, that is a good thing), there was NO damage on the other vehicle...like, none.  At all.  And my baby wasn't even in the car for me to have to deal with while I called the police (totally embarrassing because my husband IS one and I work with all of them). 

So today, in an effort to brighten my funk-tastic mood I've been in since the incident that my husband and I are now referring to as "the wreck", we decided to put up the Christmas tree. 

We bought this tree 3 Christmases ago after we got married.  It was a piece of crap beautiful.  We were pretty close to broke when we first got married.  We bought this Christmas tree for $20 at Walmart if I remember correctly.  Don't get me wrong.  I am grateful I have a Christmas tree.  Some people don't.  And I love seeing the little lights and ornaments on my tree...reminds me of this time last year when I had my beautiful baby. 

The first chunk went on the bottom and looked great.  The second chunk...the lights didn't work.  The third chunk...the lights didn't work.  Ok.  We can deal with this. 

The option that I immediately thought of, the obvious option, was to buy a big strand of lights and cover the top two chunks.  Since my husband is a perfectionist he said that if we do that option then we had to take down the 7,591 lights that were already on there and not working.  Yeah.  Like I was going to help him with that.  And since he wasn't doing it on his own, we moved on to option #2. 

Buying a real tree. 

(I'm sorry, but did the skies open up and angels just start singing?  No?) 

I LOVE real Christmas trees.  But Jacob said, "The needles fall off and Gracie will eat them, plus they're so expensive."  Not sure what his source was on that one, but I've found some for $12.  We would just have to buy "real tree" stand and a can of beer because we don't have either of those things in our house.  :|  

That's pretty fiscally responsible.  Not QUITE as responsible as a $20 tree from Walmart but hey, it got the job done. 

He didn't seem to agree with my logic.  I'll secede. 

The only problem is that what I seceded to is 1/3 of a lit Christmas tree. 

I wish I could tell you that at least we didn't leave it plugged in for the night.  I wish. 

Halloween and Pomegranate Meltdown

What a unique title...

Halloween was SO FUN!  I am so blessed that I was able to take the day off work and pretend for a day that I was a stay-at-home mommy and get things done and enjoy my day.  I could get used to this.  Unfortunately...I cannot live above my means.  And I like my lifestyle right now.  I like it a lot. 

Back to business here.  Can't make this post longer than it already is going to be. (Sorry about that, by the way.) 

I went to Walmart with a baby TWICE today BY MYSELF.  I know.  I showered, I fed the kiddo, got both of us around, headed out, came home, put the kiddo down for a nap, cleaned my car (what, what!), carved out my pumpkins, separated the seeds from the goo, spray painted them and carved them out, got the kiddo ready for Halloween, took her to Jacob's work and my work - all by myself!  Then after we met up with Daddy-o, we went to a friend's house, then to the mall where they had some games and a kiddie haunted house and whatnot (all activities were very much advanced for Gracie, but we didn't realize that until we were already there, so we just wandered around and checked out everyone else's outfits).  Then we came home and made a stop by the neighbors' houses.  (One of our neighbors was so sweet - she got Gerber puffs and some yogurt blends for her!  So thoughtful!)  Then we came home and handed out some candy with our friends the Dotys.  Here is a picture of Gracie in her outfit with the Doty boys. 

Hudson (red) was Lightning McQueen, Gracie was a sock monkey (her favorite toy for the longest time was her purple polka dot sock monkey) and Landon (blue) was a police officer. We had a fabulous time celebrating G's first Halloween.

After everyone went home or went to bed I started making baby food...because that's what I do. Make baby food.  I was doing very well.  Started with lentils, then bananas, then carrot/tofu, green beans, spinach (new!), plum (new!), and pomegranate (new...). 

Now...I've tasted the flavor of pomegranate, but I've never made anything with pomegranate before.  I've seen Rachael Ray make some sort of something with pomegranate though, and she's nothing special, so I figured, "piece of cake".  All I remembered from that episode was that she rolled the pomegranate on the counter and it made this kind of popping or cracking noise.  So I got started rolling and sure enough - this weird sound and sensation of feeling like I just broke something crystal inside of 6 layers of leather. 

I liked it. 

No, I LOVED it.  I loved it a little too  much, actually.  I went and somehow poked a hole in my pomegranate.  That's when I learned those things are pressurized.  Red juice came shooting out at me.  It got everywhere.  The counter, the stove, my shirt, the floor, my face. 

Imagine me almost giddy having a great time popping my pomegranate and all of a sudden I get a little too giddy, poke a hole in it's vein and it's shooting it's little pomegranate blood at me. 

Okay, after I realized I hadn't just somehow slit open my own wrist, I almost found it humorous.  Almost.  So next I find a pot for my mangled pomegranate to go in so I can figure out what to do next. 

In the meantime, like any normal person would do, I google "how to peel a pomegranate" and the first thing to show up was a YouTube video titled "How to Cut Open a Pomegranate - Episode 7".  Ha!  Any fruit that takes 7 episodes for one to learn how to "cut open" it...  Well, let's just say that this was the first point that I actually thought to myself, "maybe I shouldn't have gone for the pomegranate".  So a YouTube video was a strike.  Plan B. 

Squeeze the crap out of the sucker until things come out.  Out came maybe a couple of teaspoons of juice.  Awesome.  There's got to be more in there.  This thing's bigger than my fist. 

So I pull out the kitchen shears.  I cut it open.  And this was when I realized that not only have I never actually peeled/cut open a pomegranate before, but I really don't think I've ever seen the inside of one, either.  What in the sam-hill are these things and what in the heck am I supposed to do with them?  To say the least, this is not what I expected.  I squeezed.  I smushed.  I tried to get juice out, but all that was happening was these seed thingies were just falling into the pot.  I did the best I could.  Which wasn't very good. Then I realized I had two pomegranates. 

Ugh... So...I don't know if I need to or not, but I boil these things.  Probably a third of the little amount of juice that I have evaporates.  I think about watching Episode 7 at about this time, but let's face it - it's too late.  I tried mushing these seed thingies with my potato masher.  Didn't do anything.  So I strain everything through a colander.  That might have been right, but I didn't get any EXTRA juice, no matter how hard I pushed with that spoon. 

When I strained it from the pot that I needlessly evaporated it in, I strained it into a bowl.  Then I thought I could just dump it into some ice cube trays and make little cubes of pomegranate juice out of it and that would work just fine.  So from the bowl I started pouring it into the ice cube tray.  You know when liquid magically decides it owns gravity and doesn't go STRAIGHT down, but it just follows the dish or jug or glass that it's being poured from?  Yeah...this liquid kicked gravity's @$$.  So instead of going into the ice cube tray that I had carefully lined up the bowl with, it dumped itself at the tail end of the bowl on the countertop. 

So instead of 3 tablespoons, I had 2 to work with.  This is totally pathetic, but I even tried to sop up the juice from the counter and sort of "wring" it into the ice cube trays.  It just wasn't meant to be. 

One hour later, I learned that Gracie will not be eating anymore pomegranates. 

Naked Man

Do I have your attention? 

Traumatizing story.  Last night on my way home, I'm driving down my block and sure enough, I find a pair of athletic shorts in the roadway and I say to myself, "Hmm, that's odd." and I drive around them.  I actually had to swerve to get around them. 

A couple of blocks later, THE EXPLANATION of those shorts was doing naked little privates-hanging-out  pushups at the corner, one block away from my house. 

I work at the police department people.  I know this guy.  I didn't even really have to look at him (MEANING HIS FACE HIS FACE) and I knew who he was. 

So I reach in my purse, eventually find my phone and call my friends down at the police department.  All I really say is, "Hey...naked guy...corner of *Maplewood and *295th Street." and I also guarantee that they knew who it was, but I went ahead and said, "Is it *Michael...?  Let me see if it's *Michael."  (and there are lots of giggles going on in the background at about this time). 

Then he started running toward me. 

NAKEDLY. 

So sure enough, he talked to me about how God wanted us all to be naked and in our true form through my window on my car.  I was on the phone the whole time.  Up for a bit of a religious debate, I partook (just a little bit).  Basically, he was just saying that he was unashamed to be naked and I asked if God loved me less because I wore clothes.  Then he said God wanted us like Adam and Eve.  Then I said that Adam was a sinner.  And he said something about how after he sinned Adam was ashamed.  And my debate was that God gave him that shame.  And everyone was a sinner, so we should all have that shame.  AND God wants us to respect all laws - the laws of Him and the rules of our worldly leaders.  (Be IN the world, but not necessarly fall into the sins of the world.)

THEN I really wanted to just say to him, "*Michael" and I'm hoping at this point that he would have said, "How do you know my name?  I never told you." and then I would have said, "God sent me.  And he wants you to put your clothes back on." 

And that's how I would have solved the world's problems last night. 

I was VERY VERY thankful that my window on my Chevy Malibu is up a little higher than your average mid-size sedan. 

*Names and streets changed to protect the "innocent" and traumatized. 

"Honey, I won!!"

My husband, bless his heart, got a call on his phone the other day.  I was closer to his phone, so I picked it up, looked at the number, and handed him the phone.  It was a number I didn't recognize, which I told him (and I recognize lots of numbers, working at our local police department, you know) and he proceeded to answer it.  I heard:

"Hello?  ...  Yes ... Oh? ... OH REALLY?? ... Ok! ... Thank you! ... Mmhm ... Buh-bye."

Then he proceeded to tell me about how he had signed up for a drawing at our local "cowboy" store, Bluestem.  (They have TONS of stuff - from gardening and outdoors to big farming equipment and ranching items.  Clothes, tools, dogfood, candles, decorations, paint, electrical, and a popcorn stand with some stiff black coffee for us women to pass the time while our men are wandering around in their little piece of heaven.)  The phone call was Bluestem calling to tell him that he had won the drawing!

I asked him what he had won.  He couldn't remember what he signed up for.  I said, "Well it must be something cool because if it wasn't you wouldn't have put your name in."  Then I started suggesting things; a chainsaw, gardening hose, gift certificate, lawn makeover, new appliance, new shirt, screwdriver, ATV, shed...the possibilities were endless.  He just couldn't remember what he had entered himself to win.

So, he went ahead and took off for Bluestem.  He said, "I better take the truck just in case it's something big that I have to haul back home."  So I moved the car so that he could the pull the truck out.

Soon, he came back home.  I heard him open the door under the carport, so I headed out to see what his prize was.  (I was so excited.)  Then he said to me, "Honey!  Look at what I won!"  I was headed out to the truck to see.  I walked right past him.  There was nothing in the truck.

He threw a keychain at me.

... !!! ...

He took his truck to pick up his keychain. 

Adventures with the vacuum

We've been working on our back "mud" room.  It's a hot mess right now.  We started in October.  No lie. 

It's now July August and we've torn down the old walls, replaced the insulation, the walls themselves, taped, mudded, and sanded.  The ceiling is also done - we did a "knock down" ceiling in there.  (I just painted it tonight.)  They're awesome!  And so easy! 

While we were sanding the other day, I was wearing a mask - you know, the ones like the surgeons wear.  They've got the little elastic bands that go over your years.  Well, while we were sanding we had out shop vac going in there thinking that it would help filter some of the air.  (It was sooooo dusty.)  I was using the electric sander (nifty little gadget) and my husband was across the room.  Well, I'd just sanded one wall like crazy and was breathing in some particularly nasty air.  I decided to pick up the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the air around my mouth.  (I know.)  The darn vacuum got a hold of my mask and I couldn't pull the vacuum away without ripping my mask.  I had ALSO failed to turn off the nifty little sander before I decided to vacuum the air. 

So there I was, both my hands full with a sander (on) and a vacuum (on and suctioned on to my elastic face mask).  I couldn't put down either electronic device.  Thank goodness that my dear husband walked over at that time.  The look on his face was priceless.  I couldn't see it because he was wearing a mask, too but I'm sure it was priceless. 

Yahoo! Answers

I'm not messing around with my Yahoo! Answers.  On my down time at work I do Yahoo! Answers.  I answer all types of questions, but mostly pregnancy and newborn questions. 

I was pregnant with my close friend at work.  Well, for about 7 months we were pregnant together.  Until we gave birth.  On the same day.  AT THE SAME HOSPITAL.  I KNOW.  She had her baby at 33 weeks.  Mine was born at 38 weeks. 

We both did Yahoo! Answers at work.  We would think of things that we wondered about, then we would look them up on Yahoo! Answers or ask them ourselves...Or so I thought we would. 

She just recently said to me, "Well, but you actually ask and answer on Yahoo! Answers, don't you?"  Uhhmm...yes.  So do you don't you?  Nope.  I'm all alone in my Yahoo! Answers endeavors. 

Seriously - I'm a TOP CONTRIBUTOR.  I didn't think I was the only top contributor either who worked at my place of employment!  No, apparently I am the only one.  I felt so alone.  Like, I've been played this whole time.  Played by my friend.  I'm totally hurt.  This whole time, I've been such a fool.  I thought everyone was Yahoo! Answersing. 

Ouch. 

It's a scene from Tommy Boy

A couple of days ago, I was leaving work.  As I walked outside to my car, I  noticed a giant wasp thing trying to attack my white car.  Thinking I was bigger than the giant wasp, I went ahead and walked toward my car.  I had a purse, lunch pail, and a few other items that I had deemed necessary to take home in my hands.  I got to my car.  Silly me, I forgot that my key fab battery is way dead right now.  I had to spend precious moments unlocking my car rather than just pushing the button to unlock it.  Because I still haven't bought a new battery.  It's been like, a month.  Still.  Haven't.  The wasp keeps flying closer.  So, like anyone else would do, I start flinging my lunch pail around.  I'm shooing the wasp away.  I hit myself in the head a couple of times, but I'm shooing.  And it works!  I buy myself enough time to unlock my door.  Manually.  Still. 

I get in my car, and one at a time (working around a steering wheel here, folks) get my necessary items into my car.  I shut my door. 

There's a giant wasp in my car.  Preparing to attack. 

Well, because I am so coordinated and graceful, I escaped unscathed.  But let's just say, you're probably sorry you didn't have a video camera set up and pointed at my car at the time.