What If I Change My Mind...

Think his head will explode if I decide against my distressed off-white cabinets to come and order this kitchen???  (P.S. The answer is a resounding YES!)

Contemporary Kitchen design by Charleston General Contractor Phillip W Smith General Contractor, Inc.

53 Jokes in 4 Minutes, by Hank Green

Here's 4 minutes you'll never get back, but it's worth it this time!  (Not like The Wicker Man, which is 1 hour and 28 minutes I'll never get back but it seemed like 4 hours...)

This was fun!  Thanks, Dooce, for finding it!

http://laughingsquid.com/53-terrible-jokes-told-in-4-minutes-by-hank-green/

And just for $hits and giggles, here are (drum roll, please) "Goats Yelling Like Humans."  And yes, I did watch all 2 minutes and 4 seconds (they went really fast!!!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpccpglnNf0&feature=player_embedded

Bullying

If you have 7-1/2 minutes, PLEASE listen to the video that Cathy Zielske posted on her blog.
If you've been bullied, PLEASE listen to the video that Cathy Zielske posted on her blog.
If you've bullied someone, PLEASE listen to the video that Cathy Zielske posted on her blog.

http://cathyzielske.typepad.com/my_weblog/2013/02/instead-of-project-life-today-would-you-watch-this.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fcathyzielske%2Fmy_weblog+%28Bits%26Pieces%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

I am passionately involved in supporting anti-bullying and teaching children not to bully.  The funny thing is I never felt bullied growing up.  I never really thought about it.  J thinks it's because I went to Catholic school for 12 years, but I think it's simpler than that.  There were bullies then, but they weren't bullies like bullies are today.  There were a couple of mean kids in school.  That's it.  I'm sure there were kids back then that today would say they were bullied, but it's true when I say times were different then.

A couple of years ago there was a Facebook thing going around, asking if "you were a nerd when you were in school."  My response was, and I thought I was being funny, was, "I never thought I was a nerd, but you'll have to ask the kids I went to school with."  (Sorry about that dangling preposition!)  Imagine my shock and horror when a girl I was friendly with in high school responded with this (paraphrased) reply:  "Krys, of course you were a nerd, but look at the people you hung out with:  we were all nerds!"

I was - and I'm almost ashamed to admit it - so hurt!  I was a bookworm, sure.  I was one of the studious kids, I admit it.  But a nerd?????  No way!  In that short, 20-word sentence, it was if someone pulled me totally off balance, knocked me off my feet, stabbed me in the heart, rewrote history!  (No one ever said I wasn't dramatic!)

There is no valid reason to bully anyone, not a single person.  Everyone deserves to be and should be treated with respect.  Each and every person on this earth is valuable.  Race, color, religion, sexual orientation, hair color, height, weight - all "reasons" people have been bullied.  In fact, people have been bullied for no good reason.  Many times the bullier is the reason for the bullying, his or her insecurities, lack of self-worth and lack of self-esteem.   It's not a good reason, but it's a reason.

We should all take it upon ourselves to fight this battle against bullying.

Surgery Is Scheduled

So on March 4, J will have his shoulder surgery.  It's confirmed:  2 torn tendons and a rotator cuff tear.  The doctor promised he'd try to get J back to pre-work-injury health but that if he'd come when he first hurt his shoulder (and I quote:  "15 or 20 years ago"), he could have gotten the shoulder back the way it was in J's 20s!!!  J said he doesn't remember hurting that shoulder, but the doctor said there was quite a bit of atrophied muscle so it's obvious he did, and then powered through it, ignoring the injury and the pain.  That was the first time we met the doctor and he pegged J but good!!!

I was so afraid that since it was a workman's comp event we'd be sent to the doctors from hell, that we'd be sucked into the black hole of red tape and paperwork that would never be resolved because we all know government workers just take home a paycheck and don't care about their work...  (FYI:  That was a JOKE, people!  Although I admit to fear that working with the comp people would be problematic at best.  We've all had insurance fiascos, I'm sure...)

But, OMG, the people we had to work with at the comp office, along with the doctor's office staff, were absolutely phenomenal!  They responded to voice messages, they got things done, the comp people even had to get the doctor's surgical center approved as a venue so they could pay for the surgery, and they did it all!  We're dealing with CompServices, Inc.  They handle workman's comp claims in NJ and in PA.  I guess the government has farmed the work out to third party handlers and they have been wonderful.

The doctor told J that if we didn't like him now, because of his recommendation for surgery, we'd probably really hate him post-surgery.  The pain he's going through now is apparently nothing compared to the suffering after the operation.  He said if J is in the 40% of his patients who don't feel immediate relief, and there's a chance of that since there's so much damage in the joint, we'd be calling him demanding another MRI "because there's no way that [he] fixed the shoulder because [J] is in worse shape than before the surgery..."  He told us up front he's going to refuse another MRI, IF of course the surgery goes the way he feels it will, because it might take two months to see/feel any improvement.  Ouch.

Then the bad news.  And yes, SURGERY was NOT the bad news.  The BAD news was that J could be out of work, according to the surgeon, 9-12 weeks.  Completely unacceptable to my husband.  The doctor agreed that if his recovery and PT went well, that he'd consider 6-9 weeks, with a return to light duty.  You know, where you TEACH the kids to do a jumping jack, but you don't do it yourself.  Yeah, like that will ever happen...  But he made a point of telling J that doing the PT was good, that doing a little more at home, as advised by the therapist AND the doctor, was okay, too, but that OVERdoing it was NOT.  We had to explain that to my thick-headed husband a couple of times...  (Just kidding, J - love you!)

I'm going to take the day of surgery off, and the day after as well, and I'm planning to work from home the rest of that week.  J thinks that's overkill and I should go back to work the day after the operation.  (Don't know why he didn't tell me to go in after the surgery...)  I'm leaving it all up in the air for now, but have told my manager my plans and he's okay with them.

We've been warned by many that laying down will be impossible for him so we're borrowing recliners from our niece.  We were going to get them tomorrow, but we're waiting until next week now, because she's sick (and her husband is, too) and we can't take a chance that he picks up something.  It's bad enough he spends 7-1/2 hours a day with KIDS and their germs...

Keep your fingers crossed for the surgery and for my his recovery.  Thanks!!!

Not Too Happy with Home Depot Today...

SO, we went to Home Depot and surprise, I'm getting the cabinet style I wanted!  Off white, traditional with a twist of modern, and a hazelnut glaze to add a little distressed look to the finish.

C was our designer.  Not that he had too hard a job:  there really is only one place to put the refrigerator and that's what's been holding us up all these years, trying to imagine another option...  Nope, no other option available.  But he DID get me a stove on the wall, not in the island, so I'm happy about that!

He explained that Home Depot does their own measuring now, and that we'd have to pay $99 for the measuring, but it would be credited to the cabinet purchase down the road.  We explained the house was not here in town, but up at the lake, at our weekend home and he said, "No problem!  We go all over NJ!"

Yea, sure you do...  So Steve called us and it turns out Steve doesn't go past Dover.  So he referred us to Pablo and Pablo doesn't work weekends.  He works 15-hour days and apparently deserves his weekends to himself.  Well, Pablo, Home Depot told us there's no problem getting the measurements done on Saturday, but that of course, those appointments go fast so we might have to wait a couple of weeks.

WHICH we were prepared to wait for anyway 'cause hubby dearest is having his shoulder surgery done on March 4.  He won't be installing cabinets any time soon...  But Pablo was a bit nasty and for the absolute FIRST TIME IN 23 YEARS, I heard my husband get snippy on the phone with the guy:  he sounded JUST LIKE I WOULD HAVE!  I'm so proud!

So Pablo starts backpedaling when J complains that we're getting the run around, the HD said we could get a weekend appointment at some point, that he's the SECOND person we have spoken with and if he's unwilling to do his job, we'll go back to HD and just get our money back and take our $15000 kitchen somewhere else...  All of a sudden he can come on Sunday - get this:  "on my own time, at 6:30am."

FIRST of all, Pablo, you're getting paid for your time.  You're not doing this out of the kindness (ha!) of your heart!  And SECOND, 6:30am?  Really?  You'd better be there at 6:30am or you'll be subject to the wrath of Krys since she's going to have to get up at around 5:45am on a Sunday, on a Sunday in the middle of a long weekend!  If the phone rings with some nonsense about "I can't find your street, it's not on Mapquest," ALL BETS ARE OFF, PEOPLE!  Pablo is in for some trouble!  (After he accurately measures my kitchen, of course...)

Paperman - Full Animated Short Film

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this short film!  Hope it wins the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film!!!