13 Things I Hate About the Flu
This is really turning into a food blog. Oh well. I like food.
A family member gave me this recipe and I am just about to go off and make it. I'll update later how it turned out.
I'm not sure what to write about today. I've got a bunch of stuff swirling, but none of it seems all that blog-worthy.
Still not smoking - check.
Knee getting better - check.
News not all that interesting - check.
Still stuffed from weekend cooking - check.
I'll leave you with a funny picture.
Hi this is Noah. I've hijacked my mommy's blog to participate in Braden's meme. Braden says to show how I dominate my parents. This is an old picture of me. I find that it's useful to frighten your parents once in a while and show them the very bad road you MIGHT go down - this scares them into letting you do the only kinda bad things like watch too much TV, eat a lot of candy, and stay up late!
I decided to spend today cooking and make big batches of food we could dip into all weekend long. I opted for "comfort food" because the high temperature here today is going to be ONE DEGREE. One. Only one. ONE. I NEED comfort! Yesterday I posted my favorite lasagna recipe. As soon as I get done with this post, I'm going to start that going. But this morning I played around with a recipe from Emeril and some tips from my mom and made an amazing pot of broccoli cheese soup. I may wind up having to cook again because the soup recipe didn't make very much - and we gobbled it like hogs. Here it is:
5 tbsp butter, separated
1 cup shallots, minced
1 cup celery, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 pinch nutmeg
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 medium carrot, grated
3 tbsp flour
3-4 cups chicken broth
2 cups fresh broccoli, chopped and microwaved with a splash of water for 3 minutes
1 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar
In a medium pot, melt 3 tbsp butter over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, celery, salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook, stirring, until soft - about 3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring until fragrant, for 20 seconds. Add the flour and cook, stirring until the mixture is well blended and smells fragrant - about 2 minutes. Slowly add the chicken stock, whisking constantly, and bring to a boil. Add the grated carrot. Reduce the heat and simmer until thickened about 5 minutes. Add the broccoli and cook, stirring, until tender, for 10 minutes.
Remove the pot from the heat and puree with a hand-held immersion blender. Alternatively, in batches, puree in a blender or food processor and return to the pot.
Add the cream and bring to a bare simmer to heat through. Add the cheese and cook over low heat, stirring, until melted. Add the remaining 2 tbsp cold butter, stirring to blend.
We served this with Parmesan Biscuit Mix from Tastefully Simple. Heaven. After my food coma nap, it's time to get the lasagna going!
I'm contemplating throwing my grand diet plans out the window and mixing up a batch of fudge. I haven't decided on that yet. :)
I was going to do thirteen things about my cats, but I decided to keep annoying Kat instead. I give you the thirteen worst songs/jingles to have stuck in your head (in no particular order):
Julie mentioned that she has a ton of nicknames for her kids. We do that too - in fact, so does most of my extended family....I'm not sure why. Anyway, here are the boys' nicknames (they also both get called "You With The Face" when I'm distracted, upset, or in a hurry):
I wrote like a nut yesterday, so today will be random old photos day. (Sorry Julie - I didn't have enough to keep the tree theme going!)
Ok. This will be the last "Lost" post....for a while. I stumbled upon this site - Lost is a Game - and have found the theory pretty interesting. The guy argues that really this is all a big, elaborate two player game of some sort. Interesting, but I don't buy it. Mostly I really just enjoy the show. The acting is great, the production values are as good as a movie, the storyline is compelling, etc. I haven't given too much thought to "what it all means" or "what's the big explanation." That'll work itself out. We'll get there.
But after reading through the Lost is a Game site, I decided to do some thinking about the what it IS all about. Here comes my theory and I'm sticking to it. When the show is all over and I am proved fantastically right, I will direct you all to this post. If I'm wrong, I'll go back into Blogger dashboard and delete it. So here we go:
There are MANY references to Stephen King and his works in Lost. And apparently he's a big fan of the show. That's neither here nor there. Anyway, I am also a big Stephen King fan as well as a Lost fan. One recurring theme in many of King's works is the idea of many different universes all existing simultaneously, but slightly differently. So maybe in a parallel world I'm carving this blog post into stone or using a pen made out of a quill instead of typing on a computer. The whole Dark Tower series deals with different worlds as do the books The Talisman, Black House, Insomnia, and Hearts In Atlantis (just to name a few). For some reason King thinks this idea is compelling. He also writes about "thin" places in the world - places where it's easier to slip from world to world.
So - my theory is that the plane slipped through some kind of time rip or thin spot and all these people are existing in a parallel universe. Why or do they get back or whatever - I don't know...the story will answer those questions. This theory certainly explains how the people on the island are told by a woman that parachutes in that their plane was found and everyone was dead. In that universe they ARE dead, in this one they're not. It also explains how no one can find the island - because it doesn't really exist in our world. The discussion with my husband that prompted all this was much longer - I don't want to go into the whole thing. My theory doesn't answer everything, but I think it's way better than it's all a game, it's all a dream, it's just purgatory, etc. Here's one last point. The two main male characters on Lost are "Jack" and "Sawyer." One of (if not THE) the earliest King books that deals with different worlds and traveling through them is The Talisman. The hero of The Talisman (and, later, of Black House) is a boy named Jack Sawyer.
*cue eerie coincidence music*
"The true unity of Mobius transformations is revealed by moving into the next dimension."
I'm sure this is all very important in a mathy way, but I like it because it's kinda trippy. Dude.
Are you going to have that song in your head all day now? Sorry. (She said, evilly.)
***Interruption...I'm watching Paula Dean....I don't know what she's making but I heard her say "mix together two sticks of butter and 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar"...LOL....Calories and Fat Be Damned!!!....I love her***
OK, back to the topic. My Thursday Thirteen is going to about what I've learned since pinwheeling down my stairs. I choose this topic in honor of my physical therapy appointment today. Here we go:
1. Slow down. None of this would have happened if I could have just chilled out a little bit.
2. I can really shriek.
3. ER doctors have no sense of humor. I'm all whacked out on Vicodin and the guy is looking at my leg. I say, "Wow I would have shaved my legs if I knew this was going to happen." I thought it was a really good sign that I could make a funny in the midst of my crisis, but he just got this indignant look on his face and said, "We don't really care about that." Duh you moron - it was an attempt at levity....join in. Although this may be what prompted him to ask if I had been drinking. ahahaha. I wasn't, by the way.
4. A grown man, teenage boy, and 4 year old boy are totally goofy in their attempts to care for the injured and run the household. Goofy, but really sweet.
5. I can really act like an idiot if given enough Vicodin. My kids have never seen me even slightly tipsy and Dylan thought it was beyond funny how goofy I was acting. I may never live this down.
6. I really, truly hate crutches.
7. Telling people over and over that tripped over your own clumsy self and fell down the steps really gets tiresome. Next time I'll tell a different story to everyone who asks.
8. All the people at my work are really nice and accommodating. This could have been a nightmare with a different group of co-workers, but everyone was really great.
9. I really have no idea how the human body works. Learning about the parts of the knee was really interesting....although I wish I had come by my knowledge in a totally different way.
10. No one believes me when I say that anesthesia makes me REALLY REALLY REALLY sick. Every surgery I've ever had has been made 10 times worse by the entire evening of sick that follows.
11. Even at my great age, my mom will still wade in with fists swinging to get her baby girl what she wants. (I was done getting sick and wanted some broth - they said no - my mom did her mom magic - I got my broth.)
12. Physical therapy is really hard. I want to hate the therapist, but I do believe all these things will help me get back to normal (ha) as soon as possible. But it is hard.
13. I have more respect than you can imagine for people who have to live with physical disabilities everyday. There is an end to this for me, but some people live this every day. Their courage and perseverance must be astonishing.
Really. I've been totally sucked back into "Lost." I'm not a huge TV watcher, but I LOVE this show. I got the first season on DVD for Christmas. I already watched it and all the extra stuff and am now working my way through Season 2 (rented). I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to buy the next seasons, but can't seem to justify doing it. (Although I DID save all that money my quitting smoking....hmmmmm.....*sigh*...nah.)
Anyway, now that I've bored all the INSANE non-"Lost" fans to tears, let me put up a photo for you. I really like the idea of Weekly Winners, but those are new photos. I think one of the best things about photos are to re-visit old ones just for fun. I'll be putting up old photos with a short blurb or caption from time to time (mostly likely when I can't think of anything else to write about). Enjoy.
WINTER TORNADOES. Oh my dear good grief. I thought I was SAFE from November to March. Apparently freakin' NOT. (P.S. I want no "but I like storms" comments....the hell with you...you're crazy...no one likes these....hush up...;)
Does one count? Four health changes to let you live long enough to lose all your teeth and wear a diaper. Yippee.
Boy Scout Thwarts Assassination Attempt.
**Note to self: sign Noah up for Boy Scouts and parade him around important people**
Yeah - the St. Louis area just had WAAAAY too much swearing. That's why I left. WTH??? Can't smoke in bars, can't swear in bars, pretty soon you won't be able to DRINK in bars. You'll just have to sit there with a leaf of lettuce, a non-fiction book on the evils of eating animal flesh, and a glass of water. Woohoo. That's LIVIN'!!!!!
Maggie posted a recipe for and picture of Dirty Shrimp in Butter-Beer Sauce. I made this tonight. I'm going to give it 3 1/2 out of 5 stars, only because it was a little too hot for me, WAY too hot for Jeff, and Dylan thought it was perfect (Noah got Spaghetti-O's after I took one bite.) I like spicy hot food, but this was almost too much for me. 1 tsp of cayenne pepper is about 3/4 tsp too much for my wimpy taste buds. I did think the recipe was tasty and I will make it again - I think I will just tone down the heat. Dylan can always add more to his. Thanks for the recipe Maggie. We're making the chicken thing tomorrow. (I'm stalking her....shhhhhh.)
I posted a chicken recipe and promised to put up a picture with Weekly Winners. I didn't forget to do it, I just need more practice with the new camera. I think the flash setting was wrong because the picture looked as if we used some sort of nuclear cooking method. I didn't want to turn anyone off from it. Chernobyl Chicken with Three Mile Island Salad just doesn't seem all that good. But it really was. I swear.
My husband is creating his own blog on here and was asking me how to add a links list. In my own special genius way I managed to delete my own list in process of showing him how to do it.
BRILLIANT.
I put back up what I could remember, but if you want to be added leave me a comment and I will do it. (Or else I'll manage to delete my entire blog, put out an eye, blow up the microwave, and shave a cat.....something.)
I've stolen post ideas from everyone and still can't think of my own thing to write. YOU be creative here.
"If I opened my front door and saw this standing there, I would ________________"
I guess quite a few people do something called Thursday Thirteen. (Do comments like that just make me scream newbie in an embarrassing way?) Here are thirteen reasons why I'm glad I quit smoking:
1. I have a cold right now and it's barely doing anything to me. I do little tiny coughs and then they go away. This is so unusual for me.
2. Money. Those poisonous little suckers are SPENDY!
3 & 4. Dylan and Noah.
5. Smell - me and my house and my clothes and my kids and my cats and my car don't stink anymore. Well - we don't stink like smoke anyway.
6. Freedom - it's nice to be able to pick up and go without worrying about "Do I have my cigarettes? Does this lighter work? Can I smoke when I get there? How many chances will I get for a smoke break?"
7. Winter - it's freakin' cold in South Dakota....standing outside to smoke is INSANE.
8. Food - tastes WAY better. This will likely not help my diet.
9. Did I mention MONEY??? No more smoker penalty on my health insurance.
10. Singing - I did a whole post about how I can take big deep breaths and sing loud and long. This is not necessarily a benefit to people who have to hear me sing.
11. Stairs. hahahahah. Ok. I can't walk stairs. But that's because I'm CLUMSY, not because my lungs were screaming and I had to stop half-way.
12. Did I mention Dylan and Noah?
13. Nee-ner-nee-ner. No one thought I could actually do it. Here's a great big *********** to those people. I can do ANYTHING!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Gee - I think I'm the only person who has decided to blog about needing to lose weight. I know none of you have read about this on any other blogs.
I really do hate the way I look. That picture off to the left is about 7 years old - and I was chunky then. Pop and sweets and I don't do a damn thing physical. That's why I'm like this. I've eliminated the cigarettes so now it's time to eliminate the junk in my diet. What's the point of getting rid of the #1 preventable killer if I'm still doing the #2 preventable killer. Or have they swapped by now?
This is going to be really hard. I love food. I LOVE LOVE LOVE sweets and pop. Pasta is my best friend.
*beginning to sniffle*
So far I have quit the pop. That stuff is just pure garbage. If I MUST have a pop I have to drink Diet.
*beginning to tear up*
My main goal right now is to eliminate the pop and to cut WAAAAAAAAAY back on the sweets. Pasta and other carb evils will be limited to a small portion of one meal a day.
*doing that little chest-hitch/hiccup thing that little kids do right before or after a huge melt down*
My physical therapy for my knee injury starts on Friday so I am now on doctor-mandated exercise. I obviously can't do anything too strenuous right now, but that will increase as I heal up.
*shoulders shaking*
Do any of you feel like I do? Here's some help. Notice all the packaged crap the American family has. Do some simple math and figure out how many WEEKS you could feed the last family on what the American family spends. Look at all the fresh fruits and vegetables some cultures eat. Look how much feeds X number of people from picture to picture. I have NOTHING to cry about.
Ok the pictures quit working - I don't know why. Click the links.
I was clicking around and stumbled on Karla's blog. She did an interesting thing for her year in review, which was to link to one previous post from each month of 2007. I think it's fun to go back and read through old posts to see where you were and what was important back then.
Before I list my posts, let me say this - 2007 was kind of a hard year for my family. We had some good ups, but we also had a lot of shocking downs. Many of these I have not blogged about because they were really too personal to other people to mention to the world. Also, I think I kind of used blogging about silly news stories and my crazy kids as kind of way to keep sane in the midst of all our crises. If you can't find something to laugh about and make you happy - well what's the point??? Suffice it to say that we all fervently hope that 2008 will be really uneventful.
Enough of that. Here's my list:
January - "A Great Big Long Rant"
Me ranting?? No way!! This is about a documentary I saw about the MPAA - the people who stick PG or R on movies.
February - "Carbon Neutral, But Chock Full O'Methane"
Surprise, surprise - another rant. If you're super-green you'll hate this one. Go plant a tree instead of reading this.
March - "Tasina Appleseed....or how I learned to hug a tree"
Ha ha! This post is the culmination of an argument that began with the February post. I had a mostly fun/kinda serious back-and-forth going with my aunt (via MySpace) and this was my last word on the subject.
April - "Strange News, Good News, and Really Weird Views."
I must be doing something wrong when I link to news articles because all these links are broken? Or is it that they (the news folk) only keep them active for so long? Anyway, I mostly put this one up because it's one of the few times I blogged about Jeff (hubby) - just skip down to the parts about him.
May - "Um"
The picture still cracks me up - click to see.
June - "Beautiful Video"
Wow only 5 posts in June. Bad blogger.
July - "Chantix - Day 1" and "Chantix - Day 8"
I'm including two here just so you can see how far I've come now. I don't even really think about smoking all that much anymore. The smell of smoke on people just makes me want to gag too. Wow. I can't believe this was just back in July.
August - "Sing!!!!"
This is about 3 weeks smoke-free and was a happy side-effect of quitting.
September - "One last post"
Another rant. I'm starting to feel like kind of a brat.
October - "Never a dull moment"
Tasina - 0, Stairs - 1
November - "Hey Ya!"
What really happened with the stairs.
December - "Nice try though"
Sigh - another tantrum. I guess I know what my resolution should be for this year.......NOT.
HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!!!
I hate meatloaf. It's just never really impressed me in any way. But I was watching Good Eats with Alton Brown and he did a meatloaf that I thought looked really good. (Maggie calls the food shows "food porn" which never fails to crack me up.) The basic premise of Alton's meatloaf is that you don't cook it in the loaf pan - you turn it out on a cookie sheet so that you have more surface area for the yummy glaze. This seemed to make all kinds of sense to me and I think it is valid logic. The problem is that the REST of the recipe was kinda yucky. I have named this recipe Weeping Meatloaf (and I hope Mr. Brown doesn't sue me) for three reasons.
1. 1/2 onion and 1/2 a red bell pepper go into this thing. My eyes were just streaming tears.
2. When it finally came out of the oven, there was a pool of really nasty looking grease weeping out of it and pooling around the base. Not yummy.
3. Spending this much time, effort, money on new gadgets, and tears on this thing makes me cry even more.
Furthermore, I found the recipe to be annoying. I'm not the world's most precise cook - I usually just throw things together. But if I give a recipe to someone else, I try to figure out measurements that will be meaningful to the other person. Weeping Meatloaf calls for really imprecise things like 1/2 onion (size? color?), 1 carrot, 1/2 red bell pepper, 3 cloves garlic, dash of this, dash of that, etc. Not super helpful.
In any event, this thing wound up tasting like a big greasy baked vaguely loaf shaped lump of taco meat. Whoopee.
Here's the link in case you have to serve a meal to people you don't really like.
I think I just hyperventilated.
Really.
Dylan was vacuuming the living room (because of the styrofoam - pictures tomorrow) and Noah threw a sock at him. Dylan then accidentally vacuumed up the sock. This alone was funny but when you add in the look of horror and panic on Dylan's face when he saw the sock spinning around in the little collection basket thingy it became unbelievably freakin' hilarious. I started laughing....this gets so confused....I like blacked out for a second or two....and then my hands and face were all tingly....and my head felt like it was shaking back and forth but it actually wasn't.....then I felt all dizzy. A couple minutes later I felt perfectly fine.
Weird. Dylan says that kind of in the middle of laughing I took this huge, deep breath before the weirdness happened. Maybe I'm making too big a deal of this but it just felt so weird. I'm assuming I didn't do something really scary like have a quasi cerebral hemorrhage or a mini-stroke.
If you've ever hyperventilated (or had a quasi cerebral hemorrhage or mini-stroke) and any of this sounds familiar, please let me know. No more crazy laughing for me for a while. I think I'll be morose for the rest of the weekend. :-\
Just got my bill from the ambulance company. I'm really glad the billing department is not running the dispatch department - this accident happened two months ago. Here's the breakdown:
BLS Emergency - $369.36 I have no idea what "BLS" is. Maybe...."Blubbering Lug Slipped?" Does this charge differ based on emergency? Is this the "clumsy fool Aunt Bunny-ed down the steps" charge. (10,000 bonus points if you get the Aunt Bunny reference.) Is there a "moronic idiot with a power drill" emergency charge that costs more?
BLS Mileage - $9.17. The hospital is, at most, 3 miles from my house. I guess they're figuring about $3.00/gallon for gas?? Who knows?
Decontamination - $39.87. WTH???? No one sprayed me with Lysol or Clorox that I can remember. I know my basement steps needed to be vacuumed, but I don't think I needed to be decontaminated after touching them. Sheesh.
BLS Pers Care Supply - $20.48. Again, no clue. "Personal Care Supply"???? No one gave me Kleenex or wet wipes. Maybe this is for the gloves that the paramedic had to wear to protect herself from my contaminated filth.
BLS Disposable Sup - $0.00. Ok, no argument from me on this one. I'll pay it.
Pulse Ox Probe - $37.55. This is either that thing they stick on your finger to measure your blood oxygen or someone made a side trip to perform veterinary services on a farm animal and are trying to pass the charges off on me.
All I can say is I LOVE AFLAC. I submitted this bill to my AFLAC rep today and it takes less than a week (generally) to get a check from them. Quack quack. I'm sold on them for life.
I'm such a newbie at this. I only learned what a meme was like a month or so ago. Well I have now been tagged so here it goes:
Name Game Meme
Tagged by: Lotus
Using the first letter of your name, answer these questions. They have to be real answers, nothing made up, and you can’t use your own name as an answer.
1. Famous singer: Tony Bennett
2. Four letter word: Tail
3. Street: Tenth
4. Color: Taupe
5. Gifts/presents: Tableware
6. Vehicle: Toyota
7. Things in a souvenir shop: T-shirts
8. Boy name: Tim
9. Girl name: Tina
10. Movie title: Tango & Cash
11. Drink: Tea
12. Occupation: Teacher
13. Celebrity: Tom Cruise
14. Magazine: Time
15. U.S. city: Tallahassee
16. Pro sports: Tennis
18. Reason for being late for work: Taking a nap
19. Something you throw away: Trash
20. Something you shout: Tag me with a meme again and I'll kill you!!!
I’m tagging: Julie and Kathleen (I'm not sure how to link to a MySpace blog and she might not want me to anyway.) I'm tagging these two because 1. I'm a dork with not many blog friends and 2. J and K are going to be REALLY hard!! :)
Pictures this weekend - I swear!
Ok. I know I promised Christmas tree pictures. I'm a horrible tease. You certainly won't get them now because we are at my mom's. BUT!!!! I have something like an excuse. I have a cousin that has always been more like a niece to me. I love this girl with all my heart. She was very ill and I was beside myself with worry. I am thrilled to announce that she is now ok AND that I am a proud new great-"aunt" to her gorgeous little boy who was born yesterday. Woohoo! Mom and baby are doing well and I'm going to pester her mercilessly until she brings him home for a visit so that I can plant kisses all over him.
Further happy news - apparently someone heard/read my temper tantrum from a few days ago and magically dropped a $300+ insurance check in my mail. In the interest of good pictures (and, I'm sure, shutting me up), dear sweet hubby went out and bought me a fancy schmancy new digital camera. So I PROMISE that I will put up pictures (nice ones) before the end of the year.
I don't know that I'll post again before Christmas so......
To all the Chantix/Quit Smoking bloggers - I'm so glad we all gave ourselves such a wondeful present this year. Not only did we quit smoking, we also found some of the coolest, funniest, most honest, and most supportive people on-line.
To all the Mom Bloggers - I hope the little brats appreciate all the money we spent. Uh, I mean, I hope you and your families have a nice holiday. It's nice to know I'm not the only mommy quietly going nuts in front of my computer.
To all my other readers and blog friends - thank you for all the comments and gems that made me think, laugh, gasp, and roll my eyes.
Also thanks to everyone who left such nice comments about my knee injury and didn't once tell me to quit complaining, get over it, and learn to walk the dang stairs already.
LOL. The Thanksgiving pictures are, indeed, on the laptop. So most of that tantrum from yesterday was for no good reason at all. Of course now the tree pictures are downstairs on the PC. So I think what I'll do is give you a turkey picture and put up the tree pictures later tonight when I finally get downstairs.
Interruption. The doorbell just rang. I received something I ordered from Amazon. Also, someone sent me a package of really nice cheeses. Cheeses are as good as (maybe better than) hot chocolate for making me a happy camper. Thank you from the bottom of my heart cheese sender person.
Here's the turkey...I need to find some crackers and a knife:
Introduction.
So I was all set to be a better blogger. I was going to put up my Thanksgiving pictures, my decorating the tree pictures, and even offer to email any (weirdly) interested parties the pictures of my Franken-knee. I swear I was going to do all these things. But then it all just started to go downhill.
1. Ghetto camera.
I got my digital camera free when I bought my laptop. (Lucky for me or you'd still be looking at bad scans of crappy Polaroids.) Well at some point the digital camera got dropped and the spring loaded battery compartment door broke. This causes the batteries to be loose and the camera won't work. Normal people might buy a new camera. Not El Cheapo. I just slapped a rubberband around it and called it good (nevermind the fact that the rubberband doesn't really hold and I'm going through batteries like a....LOL....all my similes are nasty...forget it). So anyway, I sat down here with ghetto camera, the batteries are dead, and now I'm already cranky about the whole operation. (If you find "ghetto camera" to be racist in some way, just switch it to "rez camera" and back off.)
2. Idiot me.
After I FINALLY get ghetto camera working I realize that I deleted all the pictures from Thanksgiving without downloading them. Moron. Somehow I managed to do this without deleting the Franken-knee pictures. I'm not sure how this happened. But it was almost surely I who did it. Luckily my dad was also taking pictures at Thanksgiving, but those pictures are sitting 50 miles away on his computer instead of RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME THIS INSTANT LIKE I WANT THEM TO BE!!!
Sorry. I didn't even do a tantrum alert.
3. Possible further idiot and most certainly lazy me.
There is a teeny tiny chance that the Thanksgiving pictures DID get downloaded and are, in fact, upstairs on the laptop. I have a Vicodin-hazy memory of Jeff downloading some pictures at my request. Why not go check? Because the laptop is upstairs and I am downstairs. Everyone remembers about me and stairs, right???? Furthermore, Jeff is gone, Noah is sleeping, and Dylan probably isn't speaking to me (for a whole host of other making-Tasina-cranky reasons). I am WAAAAAAY too chicken to try the stairs alone. Plucka-plucka. And I'm also WAAAAAY too pessimistic (at this point) to believe that dragging my lame ass up there will result in there actually being pictures on the laptop. I think that they WILL NOT be there and I will just be more mad....and having to navigate the stairs again.
In conclusion.
I'm very sorry that you came here to my blog expecting maybe a pleasant little snippet or (how hopeful of you) maybe even some pictures and INSTEAD got me having a tantrum and being kind of a brat.
P.S. At least I'm not smoking. That's good.
P.P.S. Remember a couple of posts ago when I was so happy that the $40 monthly smoker fee is coming off my insurance? We found out today that Jeff's insurance (which covers him and the boys) is going up $40 a month. :-/
P.P.P.S. I promise to try very hard to NOT be like this tomorrow.
P.P.P.P.S. Maybe.
P.P.P.P.P.S. What I really need is some hot chocolate. But that's upstairs too. :(
Julie thought that maybe glow in the dark cats would be good for mice. But according to this article, I think the mice are going to be just fine.
I was kind of gently reminded that I have been a bad blogger lately. Sorry. I guess NaBloPoMo wore me out.
I have been back to work. I still have some swelling in the evenings, but I'm not using the evil evil cryo cuff anymore. No thanks. I also am having a really weird pain that is very hard to describe, but I'll give it a try. OK - this surgery cannot avoid some amount of nerve damage to the front of the leg. So from right below my knee to my ankle I have numb spots. They are very superficial - it's just the skin that's numb....I can feel pressure. Well anyway, I get this shooting, burning pain that goes up and down the front of my leg. It's pretty bad. Have you ever gotten your hands or your feet REALLY cold? Like just-this-side-of-frostbite cold? And then when you start to warm back up it's unbearably painful? That's what this feels like. It seems to happen only at night. I don't know if it's because I'm in a physically different position (lying down or whatever) or because of the stress on the leg during the day. It's really not fun. Also, today was the last day of the crutches. I have been trying to hobble around the house for the past couple of nights. It's very scary. The whole leg is very weak because it hasn't been used. It's almost like I've forgotten how to walk - I can't remember how to make the motion....I feel like I look stupid too. *sigh*
Sorry - I didn't mean to go off on a long pout. It just seems very weird to me to not have any pain at all in either the area of the original injury or the hamstring (from where the new ligament was harvested). I get a little tiny bit sore in the middle of the knee....but not horrible pain like this nerve thing.
Ok - Jeff just brought me a mug of hot chocolate. I am a happy camper now. Leg schmeg. I have warm chocolate liquid and marshmallows. Woo hoo!!
Glow-in-the-dark cloned cats (not Kats).
What a horrible thing to do to living creatures. I'm not 100% against cloning - I think there could be real medical reasons to do it. But to make a designer glow-in-the-dark kitty????? No.
Cougars. 'Nuff said.
(Ok, Deadwood is a couple hundred miles from here - but it's a SMALL STATE!)
I see a bunch of my blog friends have been doing something called Weekly Winners. They pick their favorite photos from the last week and post them. It's been neat looking at all the pictures. I go through cycles with my picture taking. Sometimes the camera is glued to my head for weeks on end and at other times I just can't seem to remember to take pictures. Somewhere in the middle is where I am now. I've only been taking pictures of "big" occasions - Halloween, Thanksgiving, etc. Then it takes me forever to remember to get the pics off the camera. (Hey - part of that is due to the injury. All the camera software is on the PC which is downstairs. I've been blogging and doing almost everything from the laptop since the big fall. Furthermore, there are only so many good pictures that one can take from the couch - I've been sitting in this spot for a month and am completely sick of it and the view.) Anyway, I've really been enjoying all your photos and maybe will join the game.....sometime.
We're going to put up the tree today. That's picture worthy. I love having the Christmas tree up. It's a pain in the butt with the cats and world's tiniest living room, but it still looks so pretty. It will help the view from the couch immensely!
Noah and I were eating baby carrots yesterday and talking about what different animals eat. Here was his contribution:
"Blueberry dogs eat blueberries and they live in a blueberry world."
Maybe not exactly true, but it makes a wonderful mental image.
Four months smoke free is a very important marker for me. After being smoke-free for four months, I get to remove the smoker penalty from my health insurance. I am now saving an extra $40/month on top of the other savings from quitting. Yippee!!
Got the staples out today. Didn't get a chance to save one for Noah. I did, however, get a set of pictures of the inside of my knee. I'm thinking about using the images for our holiday cards this year. They don't really look like anything. I found myself politely nodding at what the doctor was showing me just like you do when someone tries to point things out on an ultrasound picture. I thought about posting the pictures up here, but that seems really grisly.
So I did finish "The Time Traveler's Wife." It was pretty good. A keeper. One I'll likely read again. There are still some free will issues that bother me. I just don't think the wife had many options but to marry the guy. It borders on creepy that he seemed to kind of groom her to be his wife. It got me on a line of thought that could lead to crazy-ville. There seems to be a certain percentage of life that is governed purely by randomness. No matter how many plans you make or how careful you are or what you do, things will happen to you just because. Like....falling down the steps or whatever. How much of the rest of my life is changed because of what happened on those steps? What would be different right this instance if it had never happened? Or....what if Noah was a girl? Would something more fundamental than my floor being covered with Barbies rather than Hot Wheels happen? Or that horrible mall shooting on the news today. Things like that really drive me nuts. What if one of those people decided to go shopping yesterday instead of today? I really can't let myself go down these paths very far. I have to believe that the percentage of our lives that are ruled by chaos is so tiny that the chance of major changes is very small. Maybe that's being completely naive, but if life were HUGELY random, then what would ultimately be the point of planning anything?
There was one other part of the book that bothered me. One of the characters voices the opinion that adopting a child is "cheating" and that they must have a "real" child. The character who says this is otherwise an appealing character - it's not a "bad" character who says/does other "bad" things. I find that viewpoint to be really offensive. Certainly adoption isn't for everyone, but why paint it in such an unflattering light? That attitude makes it seem like the love that adoptive families feel for each other is also not "real" and that it's just a sad substitute for a "real" family. I would hope the author didn't intend to come across this way, but she did.
I tried to go back to work today. By 2:30 my knee had completely ballooned up and hurt like a....thing that hurts bad. I was not a happy camper. I had to come home and elevate it and put the evil cryo cuff back on. I've had many jobs I didn't really like and taken classes that were mind-numbingly boring and would have PAID for a reason to stay home at those times. So now when I have a job I do like, people I like to work with, a ton of stuff to do....of course this happens. I was able to do some stuff from home. It's just frustrating. I even called my mom and had a tantrum over the phone. Bleh.
I have to see the surgeon tomorrow. I wonder if he's going to take out the staples. I have 14 staples covering 3 incisions. Noah has been wildly curious about the staples. He first wanted to know if they hurt (they don't). He then wanted to know if I would have them forever (I'd better not). When I told him that the doctor would take them out he wanted to know if THAT would hurt (I don't think so) and if it would bleed (maybe). I was worried that he would find my leg scary or upsetting - but he's cool with it all. He's mostly curious. I almost wish I could take him with me when I get them out. Is that creepy? (Kat???) Maybe I'll save one for him.
I'm reading a very strange book called "The Time Traveler's Wife." I think I like it. I really like the idea of time travel. This book is kind of messing me up though. The wife of the title meets her husband when she's 6 and he's....I don't know...way older. She keeps meeting him throughout her childhood/teen years. Then they "really" meet when she's 20 and he's 28. But as he gets older he goes back to visit her when she's younger. Ok. Well he would not have done that in the future if he had not met her and married her at 28 right? But SHE would not have loved and married him at 20 if she had not known and loved him since she was 6. Right? I don't know. I'm not sure that it matters ultimately. One thing I do like about the book is that it's about people my age in my time. Does that make sense? The wife character was born in 1971 and grows up liking the same music and movies as me. While there are tons of books in many time periods that I love, it's kind of nice to read something truly contemporary once in a while. Maybe reading "older" books is the only way we ever time travel. Who are we and where are we when we read those?
There are lots and lots of good reasons to try to make a marriage work. There are also many understandable reasons to leave a marriage. People have their own reasons for doing whatever they do. But I honestly cannot imagine a scenario that would go something like this:
"Honey, I'm leaving you - it's over."
"You can't leave me."
"Why not?"
"Because it's bad for the planet."
Give me a break. This makes me want to burn tires again.
Also - I saw that tortoise and hare Chantix commercial tonight. I know it's not the same guy, but the narrator sounds just like the guy from those old 7Up commercials. I kept expecting to hear, "Nevah had it, nevah will."
Here's a beef stew I made up. I read through a lot of different beef stew recipes and this is my version.
Ingredients
olive oil
beef stew meat
2/3 cup flour
salt & pepper to taste
2 cans beef broth
1 can Italian style diced tomatoes
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup red wine
1 tsp thyme
yellow onion (I just cut off a side and put it in like that - didn't dice)
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup diced portobella mushrooms
1 package frozen mixed vegetables (corn, carrots, green beans)
1/2 box rotini
Directions
Heat olive oil in large skillet.
Combine flour, salt, and pepper in a baggie.
Dredge stew meat in flour mixture.
Lightly brown meat in batches.
Remove meat to crock pot/slow cooker.
After all meat is browned, slowly add 1 can beef broth to skillet to make a roux (make sure to scrape up all yummy brown bits), then dump into crock with other can of beef broth.
Add diced tomatoes, red wine, bay leaf, thyme, onion and garlic.
Cook on high for 4 1/2 hours.
45 minutes before serving, add frozen veggies, mushrooms, and rotini.
Continue cooking on high until noodles are tender.
Serve with crusty bread.
This turned out really good. Perfect for a snowy winter day. I might make some changes next time though. I prefer to use beef stock for things like this - broth has so much salt. I might also try different mixed vegetables - maybe carrot/broccoli/cauliflower/water chestnut. Colorful noodles might be fun too - or maybe egg noodles. One nice thing about recipes like this is that you can add/remove things as you like.
P.S. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that Jeff actually *made* this - but I made it up and walked him through it. But now he knows how to do and can from now on!!!
Ok - maybe every 13 year old kid in the country knows how to do this, but ** I ** just figured out how to get videos off my phone and on to YouTube. I was going to subject everyone to a little clip of my stitches and gigantic disgusting bruising, but I figured this was WAY cuter.
We're getting our first snowfall today. It looks really pretty from my perch on the couch. I'm not looking forward to dancing around in it with my crutches, but I'll just have to make do. Actually, by the time I go anywhere on Monday this will probably all be gone. Jeff took Dylan out for his first drive in snow. That's upsetting. I can just HEAR the gray hairs springing out of my head. I guess he did ok - I don't really want to know. We're supposed to get 3 to 5 inches. The first snow is always kind of scary. You have to remember how to drive in it and walk on it and all that. The summer makes it easy to forget.
I was supposed to wait until Monday to take a shower, but I couldn't stand it anymore. My hair felt like it had been dipped in Crisco. I didn't get my incisions wet so I think I'm ok. I think I needed the psychological boost of being clean and dressed and sitting up. Stewing in my own stink was just making me depressed. I feel way better now.
The pain is not nearly as bad as yesterday. In fact, I haven't taken a pill of any kind at all today. It only hurts if I put any pressure on it. It's really hard to explain. And it doesn't hurt anywhere near the knee itself - but down by my ankle. I know that doesn't make any sense - but I think that's where the nerve endings come back to life. My harvested hamstring is a little sore too.
A friend of mine who I know reads this blog from time to time is getting married today. I really wanted to be there for it, but there's just no way.
This was for my post titled "A Bit of Bio" - I'm way too computer illiterate to link to it from here. You see the search box up there, right? Knock yourself out!
Perfect Christmas Portrait
Lying to Santa
That's way too much flash lady!
Bye bye ghetto camera
