Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
So, it’s been busy here. I suppose it’s been busy where ever (or when ever) you are.
Christmas came and went; New Years came and went.
We survived.
Did you?
Let me tell you about our December.
Everything was going fine; busy but fine. Presents were thought about (and eventually purchased); baking was in high gear; the house was all decorated and the tree put up.
Then, a Monday. Like most Mondays, it started out in the morning. By afternoon, it was a monster Monday. The Boy had taken the car to school and wanted to get The Girlfriend her Christmas present – not an unreasonable request. I told him he could go to the mall and come right back home as I needed the car later in the afternoon. About ten minutes later, he called again. This time he said something that didn’t quite register.
“Mom, I was in a car accident. I’m fine, I called the police and they are here now. I have to go.”
Hmmmm… what was that? I was sideswiped – it took a few minutes for me to get my brain to wrap around what he just told me.
Long story short – he slide on some black ice, took out a telephone pole, had to go to the emergency room as I could not get to him without my car, the car got towed, The Hubby & I were worried and scared at the same time. After we got to the hospital and saw he was fine, we went to the auto shop where the car had been towed. The car was not so fine.
We’re up to 12K in damages and looking at the end of January before it is ready.
Yeah, exciting, huh?
And you haven’t even heard what happened the Monday after that!
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Saturday, October 17th, 2009
This is not like, a dream I am aspiring to – I want to make that clear. This is just a dream I had last night, and like most dreams, you may wonder what it means, but it is just a dream.
I was sitting in the back seat of the car. I believe The Hubby was driving and The Boy was sitting next to me. But I also had a bundle in my lap – a wiggling little bundle, that when it wiggled around to face me, showed me his beautiful little baby face. You parents out there know what I mean – the absolute beauty and joy of a baby’s face looking at yours, recognizing you, stopping and staring at you.
Now, in reality, that baby of mine would be in a car seat, no matter how young he was. But this is a dream, and in dreams the rules of reality don’t necessarily apply. We were driving on the road, and I just had this little guy wrapped up in a blanket on my lap. He started to wiggle some more, turning his body towards mine, as if he was looking for something. Instinct kicked in for both of us; I lifted up my shirt and he started to nurse.
What almost woke me up out of the dream was the overwhelming sense of joy and peace when he latched on. It startle me with such a jolt – I truly hadn’t expected to feel that. But I pulled myself back into the dream to continue to nurse him, to see his eyes look up at me and to smile at me.
But…reality interrupted. I heard some little girl throwing a temper tantrum. It got louder and louder until I was fully awake and realized the tv was still on. I’ve never seen it, but I am pretty sure it was The Little Princess. Don’t ask me what it was doing on at 2 in morning – I’m not in charge of scheduling on Starz. I started to watch it a bit of it (I was awake, remember) and thought to myself, I really have no interest in this movie, I’d rather go finish my dream.
So I snuggled back into my comfy flannel sheets and fluffy comforter and closed my eyes. It doesn’t ususally work, but sometimes I can get back into a dream. Tonight it worked, although not for long.
I was back in the car, although the baby was done nursing. We were still driving, and he was still in my lap. Suddenly there was gun shots fired into the car (great way to get back in the dream, right?) I dove to the floor of the car, trying to protect the baby. I wondered where the driver and passenger (the ones I assumed where The Hubby and The Boy) were… because I was alone in the car with the baby.
After that little scene, I have no recollection of what happened. I don’t know if I woke up and lost the dream, or if it just stopped there, or if it kept going and I just don’t recall it.
But I still remember that amazing sense of joy when the baby first latched on. But it is just a dream, not the kind of dream I am trying to make reality. I am definitely done with having babies. The Boy just turned 16 this summer – to have 17 years between siblings is too much. I am done with diapers and midnight feedings and teething, but that also means I am done with holding a baby, breathing him in and holding him close.
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Tuesday, September 8th, 2009
All right, pop quiz. Airport, gunman with one hostage. He’s using her for cover; he’s almost to a plane. You’re a hundred feet away… Jack?
Wait, no, it’s not that pop quiz… it’s more of a water quiz, not a “pop” quiz…
Can you tell the difference between the single water bottle and the case of water bottles below?
Some obvious differences:
1) one vs. many: one bottle is less than a case of water
2) brand: the single bottle is Aquafina and the water in the case is Poland Springs
3) size: the Aquafina is actually abit larger than the Poland Spring bottles
The non-obvious difference:
4) price: $4.25 vs. $3.99. Guess which one is which…. go on, I dare you. Yup, the Aquafina bottle was $4.25 while the CASE of Poland Springs was $3.99. The magic difference?? The place of purchase. I bought the Aquafina at a movie theater. And they wonder why movie attendance is down???
When we went to go see Inglorious Basterds, we went to the matinee show – so for the three of us is was about $20 for tickets. Then we got some goodies… which we know will be about the same as the ticket price. But I forgot to get The Hubby his water, so I had to go back and get it. And heard the single pricing for the single bottle. And about died. I just paid more for one bottle than I paid for a case of THIRTY TWO bottles. This totally justifies me sneaking in candy and just buying “fresh” (ha!) popcorn.
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Thursday, August 27th, 2009
From our trip to Denver -
We went to the Whole Foods across the street from my mother in law’s house. It was the first time I’d ever been in one. The Boy laughed, well, his ass off at this. He saw the bottles on the top row at such an angle that all he saw was “ass”. He couldn’t figure out how they bottled it!
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Tuesday, August 25th, 2009
We tend to celebrate birthdays in batches – summer birthdays and winter birthdays. My mom, my niece and my nephew have their birthdays in August, so we generally celebrate summer birthdays in August at our place. And this year was no exception.
So Saturday we had about 20 people over for dinner. It happened that our church was having a take out lobster dinner that night, so I offered people the choice of burgers and dogs or buying the lobster dinner from our church. It was split 50/50 – half did the lobster and half did the grilled stuff. The Hubby grilled as I went and picked up the lobsters. We had ice cream, ice cream cake, brownies and cookies for dessert. Yum!
As it got dark, The Hubby pulled out the fireworks we had gotten in MO on our cross country drive. He and The Boy, with occasional assistance from a cousin or two, set them off to lots of “ohhhh” and “ahhhh” from the crowd. I have to admit, those were some pretty decent fireworks. When The Hubby set off the first one, he didn’t think it was going to be very loud, so he didn’t bother taking the dogs in. He should have. Chewie went absolutely nuts. I got them in the house and behind our bedroom door for the rest of the show. But Chewie was so upset, he wouldn’t go out of the house for the rest of the night. Pansy, however, was more than content to hang out by the fire pit and get attention from the little cousins.
My brother, his wife and three boys spent the night in a tent in our backyard, and my parents brought over their camper and parked in my driveway for the night. Sunday morning we had fresh farm eggs, scrambled up by The Hubby, as well as sausage, hash browns, bagels and juice/coffee. Everyone stayed until noontime and then it was time for my brother to head back to Boston.
Both The Hubby and I were dead tired, but we had promised to go to see Inglorious Basterds with friends in the afternoon, so away we went. It was a pretty good movie – I’m not upset to have paid money to see it. We had our friends come over for dinner after since we still had so much food left over from the party.
But, reality was setting in – by 9, I was totally ready for bed. We snuggled up and watched True Blood and Hung, and I could barely keep my eyes open. It was one of best nights of sleep I have had in a long time!
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Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
Epi Pen.
I can’t believe the weekend I had.
The awesomeness started on Friday when my computer died (again). I also got head-butted by a runaway goat Friday night. (There’s a great bruise growing on my leg right now).
Saturday The Hubby and I were going to tackle the mulch pile. It’s been in the driveway for what seems forever. So he started mowing, and I started weed pulling under the deck. As I was sitting there, my left hand ran across something that pricked me. I thought it might be some berry bush growing, but it turned out to be a bee. He bounced off my wrist and glanced across my chin. I ran out from under the deck and into the house, getting some ice cold water running on my wrist and holding a baggie of ice cubes to my chin.
I decided to get something liquid into my system as I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink for a few hours. I sat outside on the step, watching The Hubby mow and trying to take it easy. I started to feel hot and generally just “not right”. I went into the house, took off my shoes and socks (my feet were really hot all of the sudden) and laid down on the couch. I started to feel itchy and it seemed like my eyelids were puffy. I called The Hubby in and told him what happened.
He looked for some Benadryl, but couldn’t find any. I was feeling worse and worse, so he decided to drive me to the pharmacy, pick up some Benadryl, and go to the walk in center. He gets the liquid medicine, and the pharmacist told him to double the dose as it was children’s benadryl. So I took a double dose. Then I took a look at my arms – they were all red and white splotched – hives were breaking out every where.
We speed up the highway (just one exit away, thank goodness!) to the walk in clinic. He parked on the side of the building, got me into the office and said – my wife is having an allergic reaction to a bee sting – can you see her right now? Luckily for me, they were pretty slow and they rushed me right in. We explained what happened, how long ago, what medicine I took, etc. and the doctor told us that since I took the liquid stuff, she wasn’t going to give me the shot. The shot would have worked in 10 minutes; the liquid was going to take an hour. Then she looked at the dosing and figured out I took too much. The dose is 2 teaspoons, but the line on the cup is at 3 teaspoons. So I took an extra 2 teaspoons of medicine – and she pretty much promised I’d be out for most of the day.
We stayed there for an hour or so – I was mostly out of it. The hives and itchiness went away. We got the prescription for the Epi Pen and steroids and went on our way. After a stop at the pharmacy, we got home and The Hubby made me some lunch. I ate about one scrambled egg and that was all I got down before I fell asleep around 12:30. I slept until 4:30.
But The Hubby was determined to finish our project. So he finished weeding and started up mulching. He got most of it done before 4:30, with breaks to check in on me to make sure I was still breathing. What a great guy!
So, now I have to practice how to use this darn Epi-pen. And keep it with me all the time – one in the house and one in the purse. And we now have tons of Benadryl in the house (and my purse).
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Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
So we are traveling to Denver (actually, Salida), CO for a family vacation. And because we like to be challenged, we are driving there. Nothing like a road trip to bond the family together, I guess!
I am going to post all of this after we get home, so bear with me on this.
We left CT on Wednesday night; drove into Milton, PA and slept. Up several hours later and continued through PA, OH, and then the I states – Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. Thursday night was a hotel in Des Moines. And Friday morning (today for me as I write this), we take off for our final destination. It’s going to take about 12 driving hours to get to Salida from here.
Saturday is my sister in law’s wedding, which was the whole reason we came out. I’ve already gotten a little emotional thinking about it, so I made sure The Hubby will have a handkerchief for me when I start to tear up at the actual wedding. We will get to see a whole bunch of The Hubby’s family – some I have never met, some I met once or twice over 20 years ago, and some I actually know (like his mom and sisters).
The driving setup has apparently evolved over the years. Now, generally speaking, The Hubby drives, The Boy sits in the front and I sit in the back. This works out best for our “car sickness”. Not that anyone really gets sick, but everyone is best suited to those seats. I took a turn driving on Thursday for a few hours, and because I am so short, the seat has to be pretty close to the wheel. That, in turn, gives the person in the back a TON of leg room. So The Hubby sat back there and did some work and generally relaxed for a few hours.
After we got past Chicagoland, The Hubby pulled over and let The Boy drive. It was his first experience with highway driving, and other than being a bit challenged on the onramp, he did just fine. We may not have him drive today as we are pressed for time (sort of), but on the way back it will be flat and straight for miles and miles as we head to Kansas, so I suspect he will get tons of time practicing then.
Well, it is 6:30 am and time to start getting on the road. Happy trails!
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Friday, August 7th, 2009
Somewhere else… probably stuck in someone’s hard drive or the internets or something.
Life has been very busy and there hasn’t been to much time for posting. We took a trip to Denver (details will be forthcoming – it was an interesting trip) and of course, after a vacation, you come home to a mountain of laundry and work to catch up on.
That was my main goal this week – to get caught up on work stuff. It turns out both my bosses took this week off, so I had a great start in getting dug out of the paperwork hell I was in. I had piles and piles and piles (literally – I had three piles) of paperwork to double check was entered in the computer and then scan and then file. I completed pile #1 on Monday. On Tuesday I completed an online project (so I could work from the bedroom and clean up 15 episodes of General Hospital). On Wednesday I completed pile #2. Thursday – not so productive.
I went to tai chi class – something I haven’t been able to do for the last six weeks. It felt good, but man, am I out of practice! Then, I did some work for the three guys who hadn’t gone on vacation, and I must admit, I probably goofed off a bit as well. So, not a real productive day, but – hey – there’s always Friday, right? Plus, The Boy is camping with The Grandparents this weekend, so it’s kinda like he’s back in school or something.
Friday. Ah, sweet, sweet Friday. I started with good intentions. I had four loads of laundry washed and out on the line by noon. The Hubby came home for lunch…but really to pick up his Camaro convertible. Shortly after he left, he called. He had spilled some gas additive on his shoes when he filled up the Camaro. Then he called again… it wasn’t just on his shoes – it was on his socks and pants. I offered to run him up some clean clothes, and he didn’t hesitate to say yes. So… off to his workplace with clean clothes. He had baked a cake (yes, he did all himself!) for his administrative assistant’s birthday, so I stayed for a piece of cake. So, about an hour down the drain there. I was going to head over to the church to pick up some boxes, but one of my guys said he needed a letter asap. So off I go home to take care of that, hoping I could still swing by the church before dinner to get those boxes.
I walk into the office. Everything looked the same… everything looked fine. But it was not fine. Folks, I hate to tell you this, but THE BITCH IS BACK AGAIN. Yes, my laptop pulled the same stunt as last month. It would not start. I almost cried.
But I am a big girl, so instead I called customer service. After a couple of minutes explaining my situation and trying a little troubleshooting over the phone, Diane (very nice Diane at Lenovo) suggested I send it back in to The Depot. I said – what other choice do I have? in that disgusted-I- give- up tone. Well, she said, you DO have another option. I can pass the case to Customer Relations. They are the big guns – the ones that can authorize things such as a new computer. So, after a bit of discussion, I tell her to move me over to Customer Relations.
Now I have to wait 3 to 7 BUSINESS days for them to contact me. The Hubby advises me to just tell them outright to get me a new computer as they clearly can’t … or just aren’t interested… in fixing my computer. I certainly would like a new working laptop. We’ll see what kind of attitude I get when they call.
But for now, once again, I am back on The Hubby’s old desktop, trying to control my bitchiness and deal with it.
UGGHHHHH!!
PS – just to top the day off, there were goat issues at The Grandparent’s place. I now hate goats.
L
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Sunday, June 28th, 2009
Ok, it’s not as good as the movie “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”, but, hey, we don’t live in Roman times with Phil Silvers or Buster Keaton.
We were driving The Girlfriend (yes, The Boy has a steady girl) home last night. Usually it is just me and The Boy on this trip, but The Hubby decided to join us. We dropped off The Girlfriend at her house (about 30 minutes away from our house, by the way) and started our journey back home.
We started to talk about our plans for Sunday and general family chit-chat. Up ahead, we saw some flashing lights from emergency vehicles near the stop light on the divided highway we were on. We get to the stop light, and it is clear that something big is going on just past the curve, but we can’t see it. Soon there are other off-duty emergency personnel showing up (you know, the “regular” cars with the nice blue lights – volunteers on the ambulance corp, etc.) and the best we can do is to stay in our lane and stay out of the way.
It becomes very clear we are not going straight onward… in fact, a police car pulls up and blocks our half of the divided highway. So, we have to decide whether to turn left or right. Turning left, we are 95% sure there is no way home. Turning right, we are 90% sure there is no way home. So, considering the odds, we make the split second decision to turn right and go up the hill.
We follow some other cars up the hill who have made the same decision. But it becomes clear no one knows where to go. The car in front of us puts his blinker on for the first left, and we plan to follow. But instead of turning, he keeps going up the hill. We turn, just as The Boy points out the One Way road sign. So now we are going the wrong way on a one way street, with no idea where we will end up. Very quickly, we see the divided highway below us, with traffic coming up the one way road (in the right direction). So we pull into a driveway and turn around.
Now we have to fight our way to take a left to go back up the hill. Now there is a lot more traffic coming up the hill. We manage to squeeze in, and go up the hill a bit more.
We see several cars put their blinkers on to turn left, and not ones to find our own way, we turned left with the crowd. Quickly we saw traffic turning around in the dead end circle of that street. So, back to the hill we head.
By this time, the GPS has finally found itself and I can plug in “Home” for a destination, careful to press the “avoid freeways” option. We continue down the hill, and miraculously, we know where we are and are free to continue on our journey home.
Of course, that is not the end of the story, my friends.
As we are going down the road, we see the railroad crossing has the arms down and is making its’ merry little tune. There are only a couple of cars ahead of us, so we assume that we got there just as the arms were going down and we would see the train pass us by, and then we could continue on.
Nope.
We sat for four minutes, listening to the ringing bells, warning us of the impending train, but train was to be had. We saw someone in the oncoming lanes actually get out of his car to peer down the tracks. Now we were in the mass exodus of cars turning around to get out of that traffic. We ending up driving by the route we would have taken if our original path hadn’t been interrupted. There was no traffic coming down that road… so clearly something major must have happened.
Now, I don’t mean to imply that whatever accident happened on that road should be taken lightly. I suspect several lives were impacted with the events of the night.
But for our family, it was a night of adventure – full of little missteps and happenstance… a fond family memory.
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Friday, June 19th, 2009
We hardly ever take pictures of the house at night. Not sure why, since we apparently love our house (1200+ photos of construction, photos every spring, photos every home improvement project)…
But The Hubby recently took some, and it looks great at night!
Beautiful Sping Night
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