What You Would Find in My Purse

This post needs no further explanation.  Feel free to play along...

1. wallet
2. phone
3. checkbook register
4. coupons
5. mini makeup bag (lip gloss, Tums, Boroleum ointment, lipstick, eye drops, mini perfume atomizer sample, Advil Cold & Sinus capsules, eyeglass cloth, tabletop purse holder, Dayquil geltabs, Tagamet, bandaid)
6. recently paid bills, separated into an envelope for me, and an envelope for hubby
7. business card holder with club cards, gift cards, membership cards
8. reading glasses
9. sunglasses
10. mini hairspray
11. rosary beads
12. receipts
13. comb
14. 2 pens
15. house and car keys
16. whatever book I'm currently reading, and on odd days,
17. my Kindle

Quirks and Pet Peeves

We all have them.  But I've recently discovered that one pet peeve of mine just tops 'em all. 

Without going into graphic detail, I just have one suggestion:  when you use a public restroom, TURN AROUND before you walk through the stall door and leave whatever it is you leave behind...  NO ONE else wants to see what you left behind. 

This has been a public service announcement.

And quirks?  Lord knows I have a few!  So just so you don't think I'm perfect, here are a few of mine, in no particular order:

1. If I have to remember something the next day, I "write" it on my forehead in reverse writing so it would be readable in a mirror, remembering to "wipe" the board "clean" between words.  It hasn't failed me yet.  (No, I'm not nuts, I swear!)
2. I toss my bag, my coat, my scarf and gloves on the nearest chair or sofa when I walk in the house and they can stay there for days.  (I walk through the foyer and right past a coat closet to get into the house.)
3. I make my bed every single day, without fail, but I can go weeks with clothes piled on the chest at teh foot of the bed.
4. I can't go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink but I can go weeks without dusting.
5. I pay for my Weight Watchers membership every month but haven't been to a meeting in I don't know how long.
6. See #8 but replace "WW" with "gym" and "meeting" with "the gym."
7. I am newly addicted to meringue cookies.
8. I am very competitive and HATE to lose at board games, Words with Friends, or any other game.  This is why it's best I play Bejeweled against myself rather than against others.
9. I am addicted to my smartphone, despite denying it every time my husband accuses me of it.
10. I don't care if the inside of my car is messy.

I have many, many more, but since I'm writing this at work because I don't feel like working, I'll stop at 10.

A Day in the Life of the Patient...

If it were up to me, a man would have to disclose the type of patient he is (read:  IMpatient!) before marriage.  NOT that I would trade my guy in for anyone, but really?  He's SO bored during this recovery period that I'm being slowly driven insane.  The only thing getting me through this is knowing this is my purgatory:  I'm going straight up to heaven when it's my turn!!!

Here's his typical day:
1. Get up after I shower, around 6:15am.
2. Complain that even with Advil PM or ZZZQuil, he didn't sleep through the night.
3. Forget entirely that he hasn't slept past 5am in YEARS!  Even without his surgery...
4. Go downstairs and have a bowl of cereal while listening to one of the Harry Potter audio books.
5. Kiss his loving wife goodbye and wish her a good day at work.
6. Pace around the house as many time as he can while waiting for the PT person to pick him up for therapy.
7. To keep from being bored, he vacuums.
8. Every day.
9. We don't have a pet or a child.  Every day?!?!?
10. Call his loving wife at work when he gets home from PT so she knows he's home safe and sound.
11. Eat a bowl of ramen noodles for lunch.
12. Disregard all the good FOOD in the refrigerator and choose ramen noodles.
13. On a good day, answer the phone and if he's lucky it's his sister or his friend and not a telemarketer.
14. Go on the computer and search Craigslist for free stuff, watch YouTube videos about repairing snowblowers or carburetors or search Google for "work at home opportunities."
15. On a bad day, sign up for "more info" and generate loads of spam emails into our home email address.
16. Walk the 1+ miles to the train station even when it's frigid outside to meet his loving wife at the train station.
17. Stand outside the car and wait for her in the cold even though he has a key on his key chain.
18. Kiss her hello when she gets off the train.
19. Remove clothes from the dryer and start dinner.
20. Insist on heating up dinner because he can.  He's not an invalid.
21. Complain that he's been bored all day and doesn't his loving wife have anything for him to do?
22. Complain that all his loving wife's suggestions aren't what he wants to do.
23. Watch some TV at night, then drink his Sleepytime Tea and take his ZZZQuil and sleep.
24. Repeat.
25. His loving wife will deny this post if any of you mention it to him.

Surgery Update

Jack had his shoulder surgery Monday.  We got home at about 6:30pm.  I started him on the pain pills right away, based on all the warnings from friends, family, acquaintances and the doctor that the pain would be bad. 

They called the next day and brought him in for physical therapy on Tuesday.  Which was fine.  Because the nerve block had not warn off yet.

But it did, later that evening, and it was bad.  He's a strong man, but this brought him to his knees.  At 2:30am he finally asked me to call the emergency number and the covering doctor told me to double his pain medication and add 4 Advil every 8 hours as an anti-inflammatory.  Since Jack made a big deal with the doctor that he didn't want Vicodin, so he was given Nucynta, which is usually used for patients with a sensitivity to Vicodin.  Once the double pills kicked in, it was like someone took a hundred pounds off him...

We changed the dressings yesterday and again today.  5 incisions, 10 stitches, total.  1 big bruise.  Yesterday he wanted to take a shower, so we covered the incision site, he took his sling off - and was shocked to find that he couldn't hold the weight of his arm up on his own!  I got my old sling out and he wore it in the shower.  You always feel so much better once you shower...  He said today's therapy session was a bit more intense, that his shoulder is moving better than they expected.  Not well, mind you, but it's moving which is a good thing.

And then there's the snow.  It snowed, about a good 5 inches.  Light and fluffy, thank goodness, because I had to clean off the car and shovel around it so we could get to the gym.  Danny, our neighbor, shoveled our sidewalk, a path up our driveway and our steps early this morning.  When I went out to clean off the car and the path to the car so Jack could get out there safely, he came out yelling for me to get back in the house, that he'd take care of it, he told me he would...  I explained he could happily do the rest, that I was just getting Jack out the door to go to therapy.  Then he said I should have called him and he'd have cleaned off my car...

It's nice to see people help Jack once in a while; he's always the one doing for others, it's ingrained in him.

Tonight I'm going to suggest we play a game, watch a movie, do something together that is interactive and will hopefully keep his attention - he's so bored and depressed.  And being laid up is so hard for him.  T came over yesterday for a couple of hours and he got so tired but he didn't want to tell T to leave...  So then he felt tired and cranky... 

I'm working from home today. It's so inconvenient to not be able to ALT TAB between windows; my database opens on a separate desktop so I can't use that shortcut. I can ALT TAB to the database from my desktop, but once in there, I have to minimize the windows to get back out to my laptop desktop. AND, to make it worse, the ENTER button in the numbers panel doesn't work - I have to use the ENTER button in the alpha panel. Everything is ISBN driven so it's a pain to have to remember to go to the alpha keyboard to enter any field entry. If I don't I'm erroring out all the time.

I'm going back to work Monday, but I'm going to talk with my manager about working from home a day or two a week for a few weeks - I know it's going to be a fight at my end, with Jack, but he's not one to entertain himself with TV or a book, like me.  He needs to be DOING and right now there's no DOING...

Will post more soon...

Why????

We were doing so well! 

We were working with CompServices on his workman's comp claim and THEY.WERE.WONDERFUL.

And he came home yesterday with a notice the Board is switching to some other workman's comp company and what do we do now with a claim started with CompServices and the surgery is MONDAY and he's going to get prescriptions and should we use the old card and I'm NOT waiting to fill them until we get a new card from the new company because the doctor already warned us he'd be in more pain than before the surgery and what if these new companies aren't as easy to work with?

Yea, I planned to keep going but even I ran out of breath reading it.

I HOPE, HOPE, HOPE existing claims stay with the covering agency.

Please keep whatever you can cross, crossed.

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!!!

More Health News

I realize that as I get older, I am getting more and more impatient and I don't tolerate fools very well.  I never did, but it's worse now.

I went for my MRI on Thursday 01/03.  We went back to work on 01/02 which means, after two weeks of vacation, I had to take a day off to go to the doctor.  I suppose I could have waited longer, for a more convenient appointment that wouldn't force me to go during work hours, but my knee was hurting, and hurting badly.

The doctor took X-rays (well, his technician did).  Then he recommended an MRI (the doctor, not the technician!). 

Silly me, I assumed (yes, I know all about assuming!) that once he got the MRI results and the radiologist's report, he'd call me with results.  Well, today is 01/15 and I haven't heard a thing so I called the office.  "Oh, you have to make an appointment and come in and he'll go over the results with you."

Really?  Then shouldn't you have told me on 01/03 that I should make a follow-up appointment with the doctor for a day after the MRI????  So, I say I'm off on Friday, do you have an appointment that day?  Of course not, the first available is Thursday 01/24, a day I cannot take off from work or leave early because I'm going in late after my volunteer work.  So the NEXT available date is Monday 01/28 at 3:30.  So now I have to wait that much longer and leave work early again...  I'm not a happy camper.

And here's some J news:  I believe the diagnosis included something like this...  "severe tear," "rotator cuff," "see an orthopedist," "possible surgery."  Talk about a camper who is not very happy!!!  We're waiting for the workman's comp people to call with the referral information and the doctor's name and if possible, I want him to go to Dr. M. in Montclair.  They seem to be okay with us using our doctors as long as they're in network.  The radiologist was; hopefully the ortho doctor will be, too.  (Just for $hits and giggles, DD's fiance said his doctor told him with surgery on HIS rotator cuff, he could be out of work for 10 weeks!!!)

One of my customers mentioned that if we don't have a recliner, we should borrow or buy one because her friend who had similar surgery couldn't lay down post-surgery.  We test drove some recliners at Bob's Discount Furniture yesterday, just for fun...  We're married 13 years and haven't bought a single piece of furniture yet!  A recliner?  Perhaps two?  Wow!!!  That would be wild!!!

MUY IMPORTANTE:  Is anyone else all of a sudden unable to upload photos from their computer into their blog posts?  Apparently I can still upload from Picasa (isn't that over and done with?!?) but not from my My Pictures file...  I don't know what the problem is...  I'll try to do it from work tomorrow in case it's a laptop thing...

Quick Health UpdateS

So I went to the orthopedist.  He confirmed I have bursitis in my hips, and I guess I'm basically going to have to live with that.  I had an MRI of my knee done.  It went okay.  The MRI tech was awesome!

I knew J was going to have to go to get one of his shoulder (more on that later) so I talked to the tech about the possibility of J getting a bit claustrophobic in the MRI tube.  He assured me they'd just pull him out immediately...

On the first day back at school, J was pulling the volleyball standards out and something in his left shoulder went "ping."  They suspect it might be a tear in his rotator cuff.  So since it's a workman's comp injury, we had to wait for the immedicenter to contact us with approval for the MRI.  They couldn't reach J at school so they called me.  A STAT MRI?  Guess what the earliest day was - Sunday at 7am!  So we checked and Montclair Radiological in Nutley had a spot available THE SAME DAY for a STAT MRI.  He did have a problem with the MRI machine but the tech, who we saw before J went up for the test, gave him glasses that helped him see the whole room behind him.  End of panic!

While I was waiting for him, Stan came in with his son.  His son needed a chest x-ray.  Stan (who used to work with J at Watchung Shell) told me he had a heart scare late last year.  I remember Cheryl mentioning he was in the hospital but she never said why, just that he was better.  It turns out that after a severe bout of bronchitis, it settled around his heart.  They actually had to shock his heart back to a regular beat! 

On Friday we had a lunch for J's Aunt E, for her birthday.  23 of the cousins and aunts managed to come for the lunch at Terrazo's in Nutley.  It was lovely and the food was pretty good.

That night we had a dinner at Fleming's Prime Steakhouse in Edgewater.  The dinner was okay, but the service was not too good.  Salads and appetizers came out together, small plates were late and cold, they forgot plates, desserts, the coffee was HORRIBLE...  All that for a $3K plus dinner.  $3K!!! 

Anyway, the Golden Globes are on and we're going to watch.  Well, I am, and J is going to read Family Handyman...  More later this week...

2013 Is Here!

I'm 52 years old.  I've been married 13-1/2 years.  My stepdaughter just bought her first house.  Time is just flying along.  IT'S 2013, for crying out loud!!  2013!!!

BUT, my hips hurt like I'm EIGHTY-two, my knee has kept me home-bound for days, I have an appointment with the orthopedist on Thursday, I walk like someone much older and have been walking like this for two years.  I've tried accupuncture, physical therapy, a cortisone shot, anti-inflammatories, herbal remedies...  I'm still taking some of the supplements.  In general, I haven't felt better in years - I haven't had one of my horrid winter colds in two winters, and I credit the supplements I'm taking for that.  I am still volunteering at the school and J is still a teacher, so I'm still exposed to the germs I was exposed to three years ago...  But my hips, and now my knee, are getting harder and harder to live with, so it's time to try a doctor again.

So it's 2013.  Am I supposed to be making resolutions?  Okay, how about these?

1.  My OLW (One Little Word) for 2013:  Focus2.  I chose "focus" for my OLW in 2012 and I got a necklace from Lisa Leonard to help keep me on track.  Yea, right.  On track.  I LOST my focus this past year.  I wanted to go to the gym more often.  I did. For a while.  But as time got tight, something had to give and guess what gave - yup, the gym.

 2.  Which brings me to the gym...  I'm not going to announce that I'm going three times a week 'cause we all know that won't happen.  But if I can go once or twice a week, maybe get back into the swing of things...  Who knows?  It takes 30 days to form a habit, I think I heard...

3.  And I joined Cathy Zielske's Move More, Eat Well online class in January 2012.  I started with a bang, like I always do.  I created my binder, took my starting photo, actually posted it in the book...  Yea.  And I read the monthly blog posts and watched the monthly videos in December 2012.  When I needed to thin out all the unread emails in my Hotmail inbox, not because I was feeling any great push to move more or eat well...  But I'm feeling that way again...  So perhaps... the gym a few times a month, ONE dessert on Monday instead of dessert on Monday, more water, walking more during the day which, btw, will certainly help my hips, yoga class on Fridays, and a second yoga class if it works with my schedule...

4.  And I'd love to create a video about my scraproom and post it on one of those scrapping sites.  I tried it once but I was so bad at video-ing, and so awkward on film even though I wasn't visible...  I've been watching a YouTube channel, My Housewife Life.  Jen posted over a month's worth of videos, just taking us along on her day, every day from Thanksgiving prep through New Year's Eve.  Now I don't plan on becoming a YouTube sensation, believe me, but perhaps it's something I can learn to do, film a bit more steadily, at least good enough to post on TwoPeas or some other scrapping room gallery...

5.  I want to really buckle down on my finances, and my budget.  I want to spend less, save more, and learn more about my 401K investments.

6.  I want to cook more.  THIS I can do.  I did more cooking since Hurricane Sandy than ever before; since we lost all the food in our freezers and in our refrigerator, it was easier to buy what I could make, rather than make what I bought years, months, weeks ago.  So when I bought an eggplant, I cooked an eggplant.  When I bought chicken cutlets, I made chicken cutlets.  When I bought a chicken, I made chicken soup.  Hope I can keep this up in 2013...

7.  I want to try to be more organized.  I've tried calendars, Franklin Planners, and my latest, a Filofax.  I bought it for 2012.  Sort of lost focus on it...  (Sensing a theme here?!)  I've bought a 2013 insert and added all the birthdays and anniversaries and other big dates to it and I'm going to give it another shot this year...  Keep your fingers crossed...

So for the time being, those are my plans.  Not resolutions.  If I call them resolutions, they're almost doomed to failure from the start, but plans?  They take a while...  They go on for a while...  I'm big on trying to make things easier for myself, therefore more apt to be accomplished...

What are your plans for 2013?

Merry Christmas 2012

Just some photos of Christmas 2012...

Photos of our tree and presents, a photo of hubby on Christmas afternoon, and a photo of daughter and son-in-law-to-be (cute, aren't they?!)...

Sorry for the brevity of this post, but I'm posting it from my phone, not the easiest thing to do...

More soon... I want to talk about 2013, daughter's new house (yay!), my resolutions, my art, and lots more...

Merry Christmas and just in case I'm not back before 2013, Happy New Year!!!!

12/14/12

This is a date I'll never forget.

It's the day my heart broke forever, into pieces I don't think I'll ever be able to be put back together.  It's the day 20 small children and 6 heroic adults were gunned down by - well, while I wanted to say "a monster," I really don't think that Adam Lanza was a monster.

I was angry.  I was hurt.  I am hurting.  Not nearly as much as those families in Connecticut, but I'm hurting.  I spent all weekend watching the news coverage.  I cried.  I yelled at the TV.  I prayed.

And my anger made me call him a monster.  Evil.  Satan.  Because who else could do such a thing?  Who else could look at those children and spray them with bullets, take their lives, take them from their families, steal their futures, kill them?

I had taken the day off last Friday and was shopping with my sister-in-law, her daughter and HER daughter, my little great niece.  J called me in the afternoon and asked me if I knew about the shooting, if I had heard any news.  Before I left for the mall in the morning I'd heard the schools in Newtown were in lockdown, but there were no details, no mention of a shooting...  So he told me.  And I could just feel the blood drain from my face.  I'm not sure I'd have stayed upright if I wasn't leaning on the stroller.

C came and took the baby from me - she said I was so obviously getting upset talking with J that the baby was picking up on my reaction...

This might anger some people, but I've decided that I don't think Adam Lanza was a monster.  He certainly did a monstrous thing.  And he did it 26 times.  He killed his own mother.  But in my heart, in my mind, I just can't accept that he was "just evil."  He wasn't just "bad."  Something was very wrong with him. 

I don't think he planned this.  I think this was a reaction to something.  I think something "snapped."  Yea, I do think it's almost that simple.  I think he was sick, so sick that he didn't really know what he was doing.  Kill his mom?  Sure, I think he could have "snapped" and done something like that in anger, in pain.  The murder of his mom, if she said something that just "clicked" in his brain, it's almost understandable that someone could react in anger, in pain, in self-defense.  The rest of it, though, I admit, is hard to accept, for lack of a better word.

To get in the car and go to the school and do what he did?  This is where I admit I struggle with my feeling that he was sick, that something happened to him that morning.  I don't think he was born a mass murderer.  I think something happened in his brain, in his heart, something that made him behave in such a horrible, horrible way.  He had to be suffering.  He had to be hurting.  He was so very sick, so "off" that he couldn't recognize his behavior as wrong, as the wrongest he could possibly ever do.  And then when the police were arriving, he took his own life.

My Twitter reaction (not really posted) was something along the lines of:  "Sure.  Want to kill some people?  Go ahead, but start with yourself.  Make sure you're first on the list."

Yes, there's anger in those words.  But today, 5 days, 6 days later, I'm less angry and more hurt and sick and emotional and sorry and overwhelmed...  There is no excuse for what he did.  No matter the reason, he did the wrongest thing anyone could ever do, take the life of another person.  And he took the lives of dozens of people, and what seems to make it worse is the majority of them were 6 and 7 years old.  Babies.

I had a sophomore theology teacher who said he thought people who committed suicide should be considered brave, that to actually do what you know will take your own life requires such strength and bravery...  It's the first time I can remember arguing with a teacher.  I said that someone who does that sort of thing is a coward, that there's nothing so bad in this life that we/you can't face it if you try hard enough.  (Ah, so innocent at 15 years old...)

Perhaps killing himself happened not when Adam realized the police were there and he was about to be caught, but perhaps it happened when he realized what he had done and he found he couldn't live with that pain, that guilt...  I'd like to think that he came back to himself in that last minute, realized what he had done, and punished himself, took his own life in acknowledgement of the horror he had inflicted on all those poor innocent people.

I know this post is sort of wishy-washy, that I sort of flip-flop from anger to pain, from "he did it" to "he couldn't have done it in his right mind," but I'm struggling with the anger and pain myself, trying to accept what happened, trying to resolve my feelings about what happened...

I support the 2nd Amendment.  You and I have the right to bear arms. 

I DON'T think that means we have the right (or the need!) to have an assault rifle in a suburban home.  If you hunt, you have the right to own a hunting rifle, but I do think you should be licensed, it should be registered, and you should be trained in how to use it.  If you feel the need to own a handgun to protect your famuily, your home, your property, okay - but again, I expect you to be licensed, it to be registered, and you trained in its use.  But a weapon that can fire multiple rounds of bullets per second?  There's no need for one of those because you live alone, there's no need to use one of those to stop that robber...

I'm not opening this post to comments.  I know there are readers out there who will want to jump at me about gun control, bigger/smaller government, laws and regulations and enforcement...  I'm not in the mood to defend my feelings, so if you feel so strongly that you need to comment, you can email me but I won't be engaged in a back-and-forth on gun control, just know that from the beginning...

I'm off to say another prayer for those being waked and buried today, and for their families and the town of Newtown, CT.

Hurricane Sandy Photos

Several of you so very kindly worried about us during the recent hurricane.  Luckily we survived with virtually no damage; the worst of it was discovering I was just not meant to live in colonial times!  I admit it:  I missed heat and lights!  I missed my TV and my radio!  I am a sitcom/talk radio baby and proud of it!!

Here are some photos, and where necessary, some brief explanations...

I had a mild meltdown on the Thursday after the storm.  I was bored, cold, frustrated and angry.  We had no heat and no electric, and I was sick and tired of going to bed at 6pm because there was nothing else to do once it got dark.  I was feeling sorry for myself; other people had generators, we didn't, and they didn't have to sit in the cold and in the dark night after night...  After my little crying spell, J did what he always does:  he knows how to handle me.  He suggested we go for a walk around the neighborhood.  So we did.  And this is what we saw around the corner:  this neighbor's house was struck by not one, but by TWO trees.  One came down square on the side of the house you can't see, damaging the attic and the 2nd floor.  This tree came down in the front of the house, and was tall enough to fall on two cars parked in the driveway to the right side of the house, out of the camera's frame.  They were parked in the OTHER NEIGHBOR'S driveway.  And one of the cars was new enough to still have paper plates.  In other words, the car was less than one month old.  I soon realized I had very little to feel sorry about, and that in fact, I should be feeling really grateful all we had was a loose roof shingle and some bent siding.

My empty refrigerator.  We lost everything.  I did manage to save a dozen eggs and a half gallon of milk; I took them to my mom's house.  But her refrigerator and freezer were full and the whole neighborhood was without power.  We had no choice but to throw it all away.  On the bright side?  My refrigerator hasn't been this clean since the day we bought it!

This is our extra freezer in the basement.  We lost all of this food, too.  No generator = no power = no food.

This is my neighbor's house at the lake.  If that tree fell about 20' further to the right, it would have hit my house, and my deck, and well, I wouldn't be talking about how lucky I was to have suffered no damage during Hurricane Sandy!  Thankfully, although there was some roof damage, it doesn't seem too severe.

Dinner by candelight the first night after the storm, after we had lost power.  On the menu?  Cube steaks and a package of frozen vegetables, in our feeble attempt to eat it before we had to throw it out.

Some of what was in the refrigerator...

And more...

And one of the three bags from the freezer up on top of the refrigerator...

Our dining room light switch, once we got power restored six LOOONG days later... Notice it's in the ON position!  I told J I feel like leaving lights on "just 'cause I can!"  Of course we don't do that, but in the dark of the night, between us, I really want to use as much electric as I possibly can!  I really want to waste it, use more than I should, leave the lights on, the radio or TV on when we're not in the room... 

Sorry if this is too photo-heavy, but that's my way of sharing a peek into our lives during the storm.  I am so very grateful that the worst of what I had to experience is a little lost food and some cold.  So many lost so much more... 

A Busy, Busy Week...

I'm taking Friday and Monday off this week.  While I was home for something like nine days during and after Hurricane Sandy, you'd think, wouldn't you, that my house would be spotless, just about as spic'n'span as it could ever get, but NOOOOOOO,,,  It's out of control.  There are piles of books all over, magazines stacked in every room.

The only thing I can say is that since the storm, we really have made an effort to eat home more often than not, and for the most part, we've succeeded at that.

My house is so cluttered right now I can't eve BEGIN to decorate for Christmas.  Hence, the two days off...  I figure I can get up early on Friday, go grab myself a Starbucks something-or-another, whatever flavored coffee strikes my fancy that morning, then go home and make a concerted effort to straighten up and clean my house, at the very least the first floor.  Then on Saturday morning, we'll be getting up early to drive up to Mount Rest Cemetery and lay the grave blankets J made on my grandfather's grave and on the grave where my aunt and cousin are buried.  Then we'll stop to pick up a motorcycle part J ordered and finally return home.  I figure I'll have a couple of hours, and perhaps he and I can put up the Christmas tree.

Then I'll have to shower and get ready to pick up my girlfriend for a night at the State Theater in New Brunswick, where we'll see psychic John Edward do a live seminar.  I SO hope someone comes through for me or for her!  I've had a private reading with him, been at a few book signings (once as a worker and once as a fan), attended another seminar, and been in the audience at one of the tapings of his old show, Crossing Over.  Yes, I'm a fan, and no, I'm not a stalker, but my job has made it easy for me to meet him a couple of times...

On Sunday our family is hosting the 50th Annual N Christmas Party, thrown by J's mom's family.  Recently the cousins decided each family would take turns hosting the Christmas party and the summer picnic.  This year it's our turn to host the holiday party.  There were a lot of details to manage, tomorrow I have to finalize the menu with the caterer, we've already picked up all the extra "stuff" we need for the party...  LOVE the party but I must say, I like it much better just being a guest...

Will post some pictures from the party next week...  And of course, if Dad shows up, or my in-laws show up, at the seminar on Saturday, I'll be announcing THAT from the rooftop on the blog next week as well!!!

Hope all of you in the PA/NJ area survived this mini snowstorm; it appears to have already stopped snowing tonight...  Enjoy the next couple of days.  I'll also post some decor pictures when Christmas finally arrives in our house!

Cooking

Yea, who'd have thought I would want to do a blog post about cooking?!?  The closest thing to me being a cook is my maiden name (yes, it was Cook). 

I'm not good at it.  It doesn't come easy to me.  I like to blame my mom because we grew up hearing her say she hated to cook.  But really, she did okay; no one starved!  But I want to learn to cook well and have always said that I want to take cooking classes when I retire. 

As it is, we have been leaving for work before 7am and getting home around 6:30pm.  To start cooking a real meal at that time would be just a) too much work, b) I wouldn't have enough time, and c) I'm just too darned tired to do it.  And there are only two of us.  So what's the harm in one day at Burger King, one day at Costco, one day of pasta, a day at Subway, etc., etc.???

Well, hubby is thisclose to retiring, and while I know he'd be fine stepping up and making meals every day, I don't want him to do that.  I figure now's a good time to learn to cook better, and to practice what I learn.  And to make things a bit easier on us both, we now leave for work before 7am but are getting back between 4 and 4:30pm on a normal day.  Of course, he has meetings and I have work, so that doesn't always happen, but we try...  As a matter of fact, it hasn't happened in a couple of weeks!

There are a few meals I make and I make them well.  No one can screw up a plate of pasta, especially if we top it with some of hubby's homemade sauce.  So that's an easy out.  I can make great fried eggplant.  [I can make it baked, too, but really?  Who wants to?  The flavor just isn't the same.]  I have a quick and easy vegetable and tortellini recipe, straight out of the freezer, with homemade alfredo sauce, that's 1/2 an hour, start to table, so that's another easy meal.

I've recently come up with a couple of new staples.  Believe it or not, until very recently I never made chicken cutlets.  But I'm a pro now!  Yea, so they're easy for you to cook, but for me?  They're meat, and I'm not good at cooking meat.  I like my meat well done, so to cook it to well done results in shoe leather 99 times out of 100, at least when I do it.  I just don't know where to stop so it's edible for him, yet cooked enough for me.  But I figured it out on the cutlets. 

I've made chicken soup before, but I was feeling so inspired recently, post hurricane-Sandy, inspired to fill our freezer with food we'll really eat, instead of hundreds of dollars worth of food we had to eventually throw out.  I made a big batch of homemade chicken soup, and shh!  It's better than the one my girlfriend sent home with me a couple of weeks ago.  Hers really had no flavor but mine was really good!

She gave me a couple of recipes I want to try.  The one I'm really intrigued by is fried carrots.  You basically buy the fattest carrots you can find, peel them and cut them into 4" lengths, boil them until they're softer (not mush - you still want a bit of crunch to them), then dredge them in a seasoned flour batter and fry them like you fry eggplant or cutlets, minus the breadcrumbs.  I can't wait to try this!

We're going to the vegetable market today to pick up what we need for Turkey Day.  I'm not cooking an entire Thanksgiving meal this year, not until January or February, when my mom comes home from her AZ visit.  But I'm bringing mashed potatoes and a green salad to my sister-in-law's and I think hubby is making a tomato and mozzarella salad and I'm thinking of bringing my green stuff (recipe courtesy of Mom - see below!) but I'm not sure that will be a hit.  I'm thinking I'll be the only one eating it, but I really miss it on my Thanksgiving plate when we eat at P's house!!!

We can easily do hot dogs and hamburgers, of course, in the summer, when the grill is up and running.  We're not those people out there grilling in our parkas... 

So that's that, folks.  I'm going to learn to cook if it kills me.  (Hopefully it won't kill my husband!)

Meet Scarlette and Kayla Aimee

I've mentioned Kayla Aimee here before...  She and her husband are the VERY proud parents of Scarlette, a teeny, tiny dynamo who was born 15 weeks premature. 

15 weeks.

I look at my 27-1/2 month old great niece and I think how BIG she is compared to the day she was born.  She was 8 lbs, 4 oz, and 20-3/4 inches long when she was born.  I thought that was so small.  J wouldn't even hold her until she was, oh, almost a toddler.  Okay, that's an exaggeration but he totally refused to hold her when she was a newborn.  He waited until she was, I don't know, 6 or 8 months old...  Me?  I held her the day she was born.  And she wrapped me around those teeny tiny fingers of hers at 2 hours of age.

Scarlette was, if I'm not mistaken, 1 pound, 8 oz, when she was born.  Kayla couldn't hold her baby daughter until Scarlette was 30 days old. 

30 days.

30 days. I can't even conceive of what that was like.

But then I read her post today.  And now I get it.

It's World Prematurity Day.

Please take 3 minutes of your day and read this post.  Meet Kayla and Scarlette.  Take 3 minutes to watch her video.

http://www.kaylaaimee.com/2012/11/world-prematurity-day/

I read Kayla's blog every day.  I see pictures of Scarlette today and I think she's just like Great Niece E.  But you know what?  After 156 days and nights in the hospital, after feeding tubes and quarantines, she's NOT like Great Niece E.  Take a look at her sitting on her deck steps.  That's when you realize just how small she is for her age.  But she has made leaps and bounds from the day she was born.  The day she broke MY heart when I saw the picture of her fingers on her mommy's finger. 

It's almost unbelievable that she's as she is today.  After all Scarlette and her parents have been through, they are now a healthy, happy family, but they had a tough start, and they've beaten the odds.

Please think about all the premature babies out there struggling to make it.  Please pray for them, and for the ones who aren't suffering or struggling any longer.

Thanks to Scarlette, I'll never take a baby's health for granted any more.  We've been lucky in our family.  Even my sister who was 6 weeks premature, she was a GIANT compared to Scarlette, and my dad used to talk about holding her in the palm of his one hand. 

But he could hold her.

[Dad, meet Scarlette...]

And now Kayla and her husband can hold their Scarlette.  Thanks to the Lord and the medical angels he had in place to care for that beautiful little baby.

Kayla, I'll be keeping up with Scarlette as long as you continue to share her with us by way of your blog.  Thanks for the beautiful reminder about today.