So far out I'm in

I am NOT a fashionista. As a matter of fact, the possibility of me wearing today's hot fashion this time next year when it's totally out is highly probable. Because it'll be on sale.

I recently got a pair of Ugg boots. LOVE THEM! They're so warm, so comfortable. They're the first things I put on when I climb out of bed in the morning and the last thing I take off before I get in bed at night. To say I love them is a major understatement.

This Saturday I'm driving in to Streamwood to meet my cousin at her house and from there we're hopping on the Metra and going downtown Chicago. We're going to do some window shopping, maybe ice skate, chow down on some good grub and get some Christmas shopping done. (American Girl anyone?)

I'm planning on wearing my Ugg's because, like I said above, they're so warm and comfortable. And the weather in Chicago on December 1 will more or less require anything that can offer you warmth.

So, Monday I send her an email. She's young (28), she's hip, she's a fashionista. My message line was "OK, so call me stoopid" and I asked her for her advice on the "right" way to dress with my Ugg boots.

Apparently skinny jeans or a long sweater with leggings is the way to go. Yeah, I've got NONE of the above. And the pant legs HAVE TO BE tucked in the boot. Ugh! The thought of "Pegging" the legs of my jeans again (you know, it was popular in the early 90's) - YUCK!!!

So, I jumped online on cyber Monday to find a pair of skinny jeans. Easier said than done. Seems the hot jeans this year are wide leg. Nobody has skinny jeans anymore - they're SO last year.

I finally found a pair and ordered them, they're probably sitting outside my house right now. I don't know if I'm looking forward to trying them on or not. I'm not really built for skinny anything. I know, at 5'7" and 130 pounds I shouldn't be freaking out about it, but the majority of my weight is concentrated in the lower 1/2 of my body. My legs are more iron man than skinny man.

We'll see what happens.

Damn it!

I'm having a really bad week so far. Actually, it started last Thursday.

We had no plans for Thanksgiving since my folks are snowbirding in Arizona and we had already had our Thanksgiving with his mom on the Friday before since that was when his brother had his kids. So, I bought a small turkey breast to throw in the oven for the three of us, whipped up some scalloped corn, made up a recipe for sausage stuffing (which wasn't so good), threw in a frozen dutch apple pie, plopped some vanilla ice cream on top and called it a day. It was nice not having to rush to get anywhere, worry about the dog being penned up while we were gone, etc. And being able to lounge around in my jammies all day = priceless.

The bad part started at around 8:30 pm. I got a really bad pain in my side. Again. I still have it today, it's moved around a bit and has finally decided to land just to the right of my belly button, which happens to be the location of one of my port sites from my "lap appy". I had planned to finish painting the kitchen on Sunday and instead spent the better part of the day laying on the sofa in extreme pain.

I called the surgeon's office Monday morning. I didn't know if I should start there, or if I should just call my GP, but they told me it was likely a post-op condition and that I should start with him. I have a 2:30 appointment today to see what's going on.

My husband, ever the pessimist, is convinced that there is a tool or wad of gauze left in me and we're going to end up suing the hospital and the doctor and living on easy street for the rest of our lives. I, on the other hand, actually live on the planet earth and believe it's either early onset adhesions or that I've torn some internal stitches. We'll see.

Yesterday his dog started acting strangely and vomiting again. She does this every year when it's hunting season. She's been to the vet multiple times and they think she eats something in the blind that's yuck and she gets an infection. I think it's because she doesn't eat before they go out, so when she gets home and gets to eat she's so hungry that she more or less inhales her food. Good old binge and purge-o-rama! Typically this doesn't effect me, but this morning it did. I was quickly yanked out of my warm bed by the sounds of a dog yacking...at 5:40am. So I jumped out of bed and threw on my robe, got her out of her kennel and outside so she could finish up in the yard. Damn dog didn't want to come back in. And there was no way in hell I was going out. She finally did come back in. And I was left with the task of cleaning up the dog puke. Good fucking morning to you.

When I got home for lunch today I was hoping she had made it those 3 1/2 hours without incident. Seriously, who wants to clean up dog puke at lunch time?!? Apparently I did. It was a triple bonus because not only did I get to clean up dog puke I also got to clean up cat puke and go on a little treasure hunt to find all the pieces of q-tips that were strewn all about my house.

God damn animals.

What by the grace of God...

...we've been saved.

Last night my husband sent an email to one of the higher-ups at corporate of our cell phone provider. Sob story, just got this phone, blah blah blah.

He just called me and said she called him this morning and told him that a brand new, in the box, Razr will be at the store for him tomorrow for $50. She said we've been customers a long time, have an excellent payment history and they'd hate to lose our business over something so trivial.

THANK YOU GOD! $50 WE CAN DO!!!!

He's still holding onto hope that the fried phone will come back to life so we have it as a back-up. Let's hope.

Shit, does indeed, happen

Yesterday I (unknowingly) attempted to wash my husband's brand Razr cell phone. And by brand new I mean we JUST got these things about 3 weeks ago. Not my fault he left the damn thing in the pocket of his jeans that he threw in the wash pile as I was grabbing things to put in the wash. It was in the water for probably 5 minutes. Just long enough to fry it.

Shit.

It still isn't working. We took it all apart and laid it out to dry out. Several hours later he stuck the battery back in hoping it would magically be fine. It wasn't.

He went to the cellular store on his lunch today and they told him it's going to cost $269 plus tax to get a new one. Luckily he always keeps his old phones so at least he's got communication back. You should have seen him yesterday, it was like I'd taken breathing away from him or something. And like I did it on purpose!?!

Just one more thing to add to our ever expanding list of misfortunes.

We got the EOB from our insurance Saturday and found out we have to pay $2,500 for my surgery. I guess that isn't bad in the big scheme of things, it was $19,250 - which doesn't include the bill for the doctor. I was in the hospital for right at or just under 24 hours. Isn't that insane? This will end up being close to $25,000 by the time it's all said and done.

On a good note, I've now met my deductible and yearly out of pocket maximum. Me. Not the family. Me. Let's all cross our fingers, legs, toes, eyes and anything else that crosses and hope that no one else gets sick. We can't afford it!

I was hoping to be able to get a plasma TV this year with my Bead Retreat money. Apparently other plans have been made by someone with a little more pull. So, it's either going toward the hospital bill or a new cell phone.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

This week just went from BAD to WORSE!

At lunch today I decided to head to the local mom & pop bagel/coffee shop to grab a sandwich and iced latte. As I was pulling out of the parking stall the lady in the stall next to me decided she was going to back out too.

Only problem was, I wasn't out of the way yet. CRASH!

The only damage to my car is a black scuff mark on the rear passenger side fender. Nothing else. I was not injured.

So, I did what I was taught to do, pull over and exchange information. What she did was continue driving away. But I got her plate number!!

So, I went home and got out my phone book and called the City Police non-emergency number to report the accident, just to cover MY ass. I don't need this lady totaling her car this weekend and then saying, oh by the way this lady at the coffee shop hit me and did all this damage.

The officer just came to my office and got the information. He's going to see if he can find out who it is and just make sure she has no damage to her vehicle. Like he said, I'm covering things so that she can't try to pin something on me that I didn't do. I'm no cop, but I would think that if presented with evidence of the damage on my car being the rear fender on the passenger side and the damage on her car being the front bumper on the drivers side....my scenario makes sense and anything she says does not. Period.

I have no plans to press charges against her. I have no damages and no injuries. If I did press charges it would likely get tossed by the State's Attorney anyway. And I'm ok with that. (Besides, I know the SA and all the assistants because of my job) It's just the principal of her driving away. She needs to have a police officer at her door telling her that she better not be driving off from any more accidents.

Next time she may not be so lucky as to get off without any injuries or damages.

Reason to be afraid # 17 - When your child's teacher calls in the middle of the day

It's about 3:45pm and I'm still at work. My cell phone rings. Usually I let it ring and go to voice mail, I'm at work after all, but yesterday for some reason I answered.

I didn't look at the caller id, wouldn't have recognized the number anyway, and was very surprised to hear that it was my daughters teacher on the other end of the line.

On a school day. At 3:45 in the afternoon. THIS CAN'T BE GOOD.

She wanted to make sure we had reviewed her report card which came home in her book bag Friday. I said we had. Hadn't I returned the envelope with her on Monday? Yes, I did, she just wanted to make sure we really looked at it.

OK. Where's this going?

Our daughter is a very intelligent little girl. Since she was old enough to talk and understand what we were saying to her we have more or less treated her as a miniature adult rather than a child. Instead of immediately punishing her when she's done wrong we talk with her, rationalize her punishment and make sure she understands that whatever that behavior was will not be tolerated and that if it continues so will the punishment. It works for us.

She's a very good reader. Very good with math concepts. A very talented artist. She's actually at the level on most subjects that they would expect from a beginning 3rd grader, and she's in 1st grade.

The problem is, she's an only child, and as an only child her "gets along well with others" skills are, well, non-existent. She had problems with this in kindergarten as well, and we thought we had taken care of the problem. Apparently not.

She's not hitting, shoving or hurting other kids - which is an improvement from last year - and she's started to hang with a new group of little friends, which I think is where THIS problem lies. She's started with the name calling.

I don't like it. Not at all. The other girls she's been hanging around have older, much older, brothers and sisters who are apparently teaching them some pretty naughty things. And, since this is what these girls hear day in and day out, they don't really understand that it isn't nice and shouldn't be said. And of course, my daughter has no clue. The other girls are laughing so it must be funny.

We're going to work this out. She's a good kid, she really really is. And she doesn't ever mean to hurt anybody, she just hasn't acquired good judgment yet. She was so upset that her teacher called and talked to me about this that she cried and moped around all night long. She must have apologized to me a million times. And each time I told her that I wasn't the one she needed to apologize to, that she needs to tell the kids whose feelings she's hurt that she was wrong and she needs to tell her teacher that it won't happen anymore and follow through with that.

Surgical Update

Last week I had my follow-up appointment with the Surgeon so he could see how everything was healing, review path results with me and check for anything else that may be going on.

The good news is that I'm healing well, the pathology results came back negative, my blood count is good, and I don't appear to be developing any hernia's at my port sites. He even went to far as to say that I'm normal. HA! He's new in town, he'll learn.

He said the results from my appendix have him somewhat confused. It was inflamed, but showed no sign of infection, which apparently is unusual, and may or may not have actually been the problem. Not that they can put it back in....and he said there is no known use for it anyway. Cool, extra parts!

I have had female problems for basically my entire life (since I was 15) and have flare-ups from time to time, but this was a different pain than that. He said all my girl parts looked good (which is good news) but he suggested I consult my GYN for further testing. He thought that maybe my ovary had a growth that burst but healed itself when he cleaned my guts out after pulling my appendix and that's why everything looked normal and the pain was gone.

Who knows. All I know is that I feel better, for the most part, and that my incisions are healing well. I'll have one very noticeable scar (where my appendix came out of, it's the biggest incision) and two that you'll have to really look at to see. Not that I go around showing off scars...but if I did, well you get the picture.

I've tried to get a follow-up photo of my wounds without the bandages but they're small enough that it won't show when I take the picture. So, you'll just have to use your imagination!