I realized earlier today that today is my blogaversary! The only reason I know that is because I remember starting this blog on my sister's birthday two years ago. I haven't been around for a while, but I swear I had a semi-good reason! My wireless router crapped out, so I didn't have easy internet access. I could still get online in the dungeon, but it's disastrously messy and cold down there, so it's not my favorite place to hang out. The good news is that we had AT&T come out and install U-verse last weekend, and we had them run ethernet cable into the den--so I can use the internet up where the land-dwelling people live! (The bad news is that my laptop no longer recognizes my wireless card reader, but I got the poor thing back in 2002, so it's lived a long life.) In the meantime, a friend of ours got a newer computer and gave us their old-ish one. It's actually not that old, and still much faster than my old laptop or the desktop in the dungeon.
Anyway, strange things are afoot at the Circle-K, but I'm not at liberty to discuss just yet. As soon as I inform the key-players, I'll fill you in.
So here I am, somewhat hungry, so I think what in the hell do I have in the house to eat. After digging around in the freezer I decide to eat some eggrolls. So I get out a small skillet and pour a little oil in it, and turn it on to heat it. I go in the bedroom for a few minutes, I know the oil is going to take a few minutes to heat up. Thinking that I should check on it, I go out and see black billowing smoke coming from the stove. I think WTF, the heat isn't on that high.
What I didn't take into account, is that there was a Sam's size jug of chocolate covered raisins on the back of the stove, and I didn't turn on the front burner like I thought I did. Needless to say, plastic, heat, chocolate and raisins do not make for a wonderful smelling kitchen. I had to take the fan out of the bedroom and put it in the doorway to blow the smoke out of the house. It was bad.
Just now did I think how fitting of a death become of raisins. Anyone who knows me, knows that I think raisins are the spawn of the devil. Die devil die! Just doing my part to make the world a better place.
So yesterday morning I slept in. I turned my alarm off, and Steve finally woke me up at a little after 7:00--a full hour later than I had originally planned to get up. I figured I'd just pull my hair back into a ponytail, pull some clothes on, take everyone to school, then come back home to shower, eat, and do everything else I needed to that morning.
Wrong.
I got to Simon's school and ran in to see if his teacher needed me to do anything. That was my first mistake. As I was talking to her, the school administrator came up and told me that one of the kindergarten teachers was home with her sick daughter so could I cover for her today. I said yes (because I'm a sap) so I spent the day with the full-day kindergarteners yesterday. It was exhausting. Then I got home and immediately had to get ready to go to bunco. I was so tired that I got into the tub to get cleaned up for bunco and proceeded to fall asleep. (I can't tell you how long it's been since I've actually fallen asleep in the tub. I must have been really sleepy.) Steve woke me up, once again, with 15 minutes to spare, and we were off to bunco.
I had fun at bunco. I did really well. I got the most wins, tied for most minis, AND had the last bunco of the night. I got a really cute fall decoration and a door prize because we only had eight people there last night. I'm scheduled to host in December, so I'm already brain storming about the food, the prizes, and my signature cocktail for the night.
In the meantime, Steve now has a sore throat. He tried to get into the doctor on Friday, but they couldn't get him in at a time when he could leave work. I know they're not supposed to, but I had hoped that they would just write him an antibiotic for strep since that's what everyone else has and he has the same symptoms. Of course they wouldn't. We're having some friends from Tokyo (Scott & Mio) over for dinner Monday night, and Steve can't get to the doctor until Monday afternoon, which means if he *does* have strep, he'll still be contagious by Monday night. I might have to change plans and take them out to dinner so they aren't exposed to strep right before they fly back to Japan. I've been trying to think of a place with a decent selection of vegetarian options just in case we do need to go out to eat.
Right now I'm still groggy and partially asleep, but I need to get it together because my poor dog desperately needs to be bathed. I'll get right on that...
Life is lucky that I have a good sense of humor about things. Or may I am, I dunno.
So here is the day for me.
I wake to crackle crackle, crunch crunch crackle crackle........hell in the hell is that????? I look over the bed and low and behold it is Ace, with his head in an empty chip bad. WTF???? Upon further observation, and walking on eggshells......literally, I find that the dogs had took out the trash for me. I don't mean like out of the trash can, I mean strategically placing each item so I had to make a conscience effort not to step on it. Not an easy task in the middle of the night. Fine.
I finally get back to sleep, and then I feel them flop down on top of my legs. We are talking about 150 pounds of lard on my legs. I was too tired to even counsel them in a loud tone. Fine.
So I finally wake up at 8 AM, crap, grandma has to get to the hair dresser at 9:30 and we have to go to Lincoln. It's going to be a fun day girls!
This is how the conversation goes
Me: Grandma, you have a hair appointment in 20 minutes.
Grandma: I didn't know I had a hair appt, I thought I told her I didn't want to do it so often.
Me: We had to change it because you have a dr appt, you want to look good to go to Lincoln right.
Grandma: But I just don't remember having an appt today.
Me: We have 15 minutes to get there, are you ready to go.
Grandma: Okay, but I just don't remember making this appt
Me: Okay, but we need to get moving.
Grandma: Do I have money?
Me: Yes Grandma, you have money
Grandma: Oh...I can write a check
Me: We really need to get going we have 10 minutes before we need to be there.
Grandma: Do I have money?
ARGGGGGG!!!!!
This is how my day went, the next thing we discussed is why we need to go to the back dr. Is it helping? Yes. Then we will go until it isn't helping anymore. Rewind and reply 15 times.
I laugh about it now, and even then I was snickering.
We went to Sam's Club, Grandma, I and Danny. Danny says "Where's she going? She's going to get lost!!" So I look up and Grandma goes in to wander around.....so she starts out like a bat out of hell, I mean I can't catch up with her, normally she is laggin behind at least 3 paces behind me. WTH??? So I have to go and lay out the ground rules. She can look around but she has to meet us at the tables at the snack bar. Thankfully she was there, in the back of my mind I was scared I was going to have to call a Code Adam. Can you imagine a full lock down in Sams for a 89 old woman, gray hair dressed in navy blue outfit?
Fortunately we all got home in one piece, but I am exhausted. This is why I could never run a Granny Daycare will more than one Granny.
So Simon went back to school today, and the gas guy came and went without incident. (Ok, the gas guy looked just like Wilford Brimley, which amused me, but it was still pretty much without incident.)
While I had the house to myself once more, I did all kinds of boring things like playing online, folding laundry, doing dishes, and as I type I have homemade stew and rolls in the oven waiting for Steve to return from his weekly staff meeting at the church.
I didn't realize how freaked out I get about people coming into the house until I said something about being stressed to Steve last night. He pointed out that I get stressed out like that every time we have a workman scheduled to come into the house. It must be left over from my childhood when my mom would freak out and make me clean from the time we found out that someone was coming, up until the moment they got there. Some serious repressed sh*t, and I'd say I'd rather keep it that way, but I do feel better knowing why I've been so stressed. Maybe next time I won't freak out quite so badly.
I'm playing Bunco tomorrow night, and I'm very excited about it. I'm not sure what Steve and Simon's big "guys only" thing will be tomorrow while I'm gone, but I mentioned to them that my sister's pool is just sitting there since she's on her honeymoon. It's supposed to get up to 80 tomorrow, so hopefully it'll be warm enough.
So Simon and I went to the doctor yesterday, and almost upon first glance at Simon the doctor proclaimed that Simon has a textbook case of strep. His symptoms, the way his throat looked, and even the smell of his breath are all classic strep. I'm glad that I made myself an appointment while I was at it because we both have it. We both started a Z-Pak last night, both fell asleep early and both slept in this morning. I think Simon actually slept for something like 15 hours last night. He was a new man when he woke up this morning! He's been working on schoolwork all day in an effort toward being caught up when he finally goes back to school tomorrow.
I, on the other hand, seem to be somewhat scattered today. I'm stressed out because my housework has gotten behind while I've been so sick and busy, and they gas company is coming *sometime* between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm tomorrow to give us a new gas meter. They'll have to turn off the gas, and if they find anything wrong with any of our appliances they won't turn them back on until we get a plumber out to fix whatever problem they might find. I know that logically everything will probably be fine, but I'm still trying to catch up on all of my dishes and laundry today just in case we don't have use of our water heater or gas dryer after tomorrow.
I've been planning to make all kinds of food for the past several days, and haven't made any of it yet. I'm going to have to do it tomorrow or my food is going to go bad before I can cook it. Today I'm planning to oven dry my tomatoes, but tomorrow I have to make my pie, stew and rolls that I've been planning for so long. At least my dishes are finally almost caught up. I still have a few large things to handwash, and I need to empty the drainboard and dishwasher, but I'm really close!
I just need to try to unwind. It seems like "stressed out" is my default condition lately, and I forget how to be anything else. I can't find my favorite yoga tape. Maybe I should try doing another one. (Except that idea stresses me out.) I'm a hopeless case!
That is the question!
Simon's fever finally broke, but now he has a really sore throat. I called the doctor for suggestions on what to give him for it, and they told me that strep is going around so I should probably bring him in. We now have an appointment for 1:40. I hope they can just give us both something that will make us all better so we can be done with it!
Also in health news, I was watching The Today Show this morning (for the first time in ages), and they had a segment on infertility. In it, they featured women who had tried Western medicine (IUIs, IVFs, frozen embryo transfers) but it didn't work. The women instead tried Eastern medicine. (Yoga, diet, acupuncture, Chinese herbs) I don't know that I'll go so far as to try the herbs and acupuncture--although I might try the acupuncture if I had the chance--but I can definitely do the diet and exercise. I've gotten really lax about my health lately, which shows when you consider the fact that I've been sick for over a month and a half. We got so busy, and I stopped paying attention to what we were eating. I have got to stop that! As of today, I'm going to start eating more produce and less junk! I'll also break out my yoga tapes and get back into that, too. I'll let you know how it goes.
Steve took off a couple of hours this morning to deal with some issues with his teaching license. He's going to be picking us up in a little bit so we can keep the car to go to the doctor. After that I'm going to get started back up on the clean kitchen project. I got the big freezer organized yesterday. (I cannot believe how much food I have in there! I threw away a bunch of stuff, and I still have at least a month's worth of food in there. We'll be eating out of the freezer for a while!)
I have a bunch of fresh things I need to use or store, too. A ton of ripe tomatoes, zucchini, herbs, and I'm starting to get tiny eggplant on my plants! I hope it makes for about a million food blog posts!
Except it isn't really a very exciting one.
Our tree is still sitting in the back yard. It was far too windy to do anything about it yesterday, and Simon is home sick today so I haven't gone out to start doing anything with it today. I don't have the arm strength to start the chainsaw, and I'm a little afraid to run the chipper when Steve isn't home. My luck I'd accidentally stick my arm in and have no one to take me and my stump to the E.R. Steve won't be able to do much tonight because he's teaching at the newly renamed Arts Academy which starts tonight. (Now known as Mainstage Jr.)
I guess Rex is teaching Acting this year, so Steve is teaching Singing. Simon is pretty excited about taking Stage Fighting and Stunts, and I love that Simon gets free classes since Steve teaches. (Yeah, I think I'm going to let him go tonight. He's missing the school skating party, but he hasn't had any symptoms since his fever this morning. I don't know if it was a fluke or what, but he hasn't had meds since seven hours ago, and seems to be feeling fine.)
While they're doing that, I plan to work on my kitchen. It needs to be organized so badly, I can't stand it! Every cabinet needs to be emptied and reorganized. I've lived here for three years, so I think I'll have a better idea of what I actually need to have in the kitchen. (It's so hard when you first move in and have no idea where you'll want to store things.) I also want to clean out all of my food cabinets, get rid of all the expired things, check for bugs, and just generally clean things up. I can't find anything anymore! Then I'm going to get started on my freezers. I haven't cleaned out the big freezer because it's been so warm. Now that it's cooler, I might have a better chance of doing it without defrosting everything in there. After I get it done, I'm going to clean out the freezer in the fridge, then make a big list of everything I have in there so I can keep track! I keep saying I'm going to do that, but I never get around to it.
After I get all of that done, I plan on cooking up a storm! My poor food blog hasn't had a food related post in almost two months. I posted a little entry a little while ago, and while I was at it I checked my stats. I can't believe it, but I'm still averaging around 20 hits a day when I haven't even posted since August 9th. That makes me feel good. I can't wait to see how many hits I get when I start posting regularly again! I had gotten a little burnt out on it there for a while, but now I'm newly excited about cooking fall foods. I'm planning to make beef stew, homemade crusty rolls, and a pear pie in the very near future. That's three posts if I space them out. Whooot!
Ok, I suppose I should get up there and get started. So far I've been all talk about this whole kitchen thing. Now I've posted it, so I guess I should really do it. ;)
So it seems my wireless internet is on the fritz, and I think best with my laptop. I'm currently on Steve's PC in the basement, but only because it's my only choice. We did the procedure and two weeks later a blood test told me that it didn't work. I then consumed a few hard lemonades because they are quite yummy. We decided not to try again until next month because I just need a break from the stress this month.
We had Simon's birthday party last month. I'll post pictures as soon as I get my laptop back. We had it at the Putt-Putt place, and it was a lot of fun. Well *most* of us had a lot of fun. Steve got beaned by a ski-ball, and may or may not have gotten a concussion. I swear the lump on his head came up just as fast as they do on a Bugs Bunny cartoon! He's ok now, fortunately.
School also started in August. Steve doesn't have first hour prep this year, so he's supposed to get to school by 7:45 a.m. Simon doesn't have to be in class until 8:30, so I've been driving everyone every morning. I haven't had to get up and go anywhere regularly for years, so it took some adjustment. I'm just getting used to using an alarm clock again--I can usually wake up on my own early enough to help get everyone out the door, but now I have to get up an hour and a half earlier than that. Ouch.
Right around the time school was starting, most of Steve's family came to town to see his niece's new baby. We wound up having 19 people over here for an impromptu cookout. That was also a little stressful, but it was nice to see everyone. Then, since the house was already clean and we had just had a cookout, we decided to have a few friends from Simon's school over for another cookout. That was also stressful, but very fun. (We're actually thinking about trying it again next month!)
This weekend we had a few of my high school friends over. Wes came into town from Dallas, so we invited Andy--who lives here. I half-jokingly invited our friend Cari from Chicago, never expecting her to be able to come down, but she was able! It was really fun. We stayed up chatting until 2:00 a.m.
The next morning I had to get up to pick up and deliver my sister's wedding cake. The ladies of her church catered her reception, but they were afraid of doing the cake so I did it. Then we had to stop and exchange Simon's new clothes for a size larger because I forget when I shop that he's growing before my eyes. After that we went to my friend Scott Silvey's lovely garden wedding. It was very sweet, but we had to leave to get to my sister's wedding. My sister's wedding was a lot more work, but also fun. I asked the photographer to take a picture of all three sisters with our husbands and offspring. I can't wait to get a copy of that to print for my mom. (She wasn't able to attend, but I think she'd like to have an 8x10 for her nursing home room.)
Today we're getting huge winds from Ike's leftovers. I was just talking to my friend Kelly who has now lost several shingles and some siding; and her swing set has fallen over and is making its way across her yard. We just lost a tree, but luckily it didn't hit anything when it fell. Steve is going to be busy all week, so once again we're going to have a fun time getting a tree cleaned up from our yard.
I'm nursing some kind of cold or sinus infection or something, so I think I'll go back and visit the couch for a while longer...
Well, it wasn't easy but yes I got banned. Not only did I get banned, but my account got poofed. OK, my name is still there, but I can't sign in at all. All I have to say is those people are a bunch of prick bastards.
On to my life, it's been raining all day long, stupid Ike! I'm not sure what pissed him off so bad, but I think if his wife would have given him some, he wouldn't have developed into a tropical depression and eventually evolving into a full fledged fit. Men. What can you say?
Please say a little prayer for those that are left in Ike's path.
I cannot believe how stupid Huraldo Rivera is, stand out in the middle of a cat 4 hurricane. I he certainly is a canidate for the Darwin awards.
