Happy Falker Satherhood!

I decided to entertain you today with a play by play of how our Father's Day went.

Oh and if you're wondering wtHey Falker Statherhood! is, check this link. It doesn't quite explain it, but you might understand.

So, on with the show...

We started off the day with going to Church. It was a very nice service filled with hymns about fathers. I got a wee bit startled by one friend asking if she could nominate me to serve on the Church board. My first reaction was to say "Oh No!" But then almost immediately I felt an instant calm about it, so I told her it was okay to nominate me. If this is where God wants me, then who am I to argue? right?

After Church DH got to choose where we went for lunch. He decided to give us the option of having lunch at home or going to Arby's. I was okay with either and Darly chose Arby's. We enjoyed a very nice lunch that I didn't have to make or clean up after. YAY!

When we returned to the house we presented DH with his "loot." Darly made him a card and a picture that we may have framed. I gave him a card I made on the computer (cuz I couldn't remember if the ban on cards that I requested extended to him also) and new luggage. Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that I was shopping for luggage to replace the luggage that DH received from his parents when he graduated from college. They don't make luggage like that anymore, but I think that I was able to get him (us really) some bags that will hopefully last longer than 5 years. (seeing as we travel about once per year, they better last longer!)

After the loot, DH went over to his parent's house to do yard work and more work so that the house can be sold. I'm still dying to know what the folks who have seen the house think. I should email the realtor.

DH promised to try to be home by 6:30. He didn't actually get here until 7ish. So it was time for dinner.

On the menu:

Steak! grilled to perfection by our very own chef (that would be me!)
Baked Sweet potato (cuz DH & DD don't like salty sweet potato)
Sweet potato fries (cuz I don't like sweet sweet potato, more on this later)
Mushrooms (just for me! no one else likes them!)
corn (just for them cuz I had the mushrooms & a salad)

I've never been a big fan of sweet food for dinner. I didn't grow up with it, so I'm not a fan. (I don't even like lobster, too sweet! But I do like glazed ham...go figure!) DH did grow up with sweets for dinner and the sweeter the better. So of course Darly follows her daddy.
This summer I got to try for the first time sweet potato fries with garlic at my friend Marsi's house. And I found them to be pretty good. They aren't my favorite food, but I'll eat them. So I thought that I would make some and see if perhaps DH & Darly might like them also. Well when I told DH about them, his first reaction was "blech!" but he promised to at least try them.

Sorry Marsi, DH didn't like them at all. In fact he was consuming spoonfuls of brown sugar to get rid of the taste in his mouth. Sigh! Oh well, more for me!

Before we were done with dinner, Darly was requesting a trip to the playground for a round of wiffle ball with DH. DH tried to say no because it was already 8pm, but Darly has him tied around his little finger. I got out of the trip because 1) I had to clean up the dishes and 2) Here's what happened the last time I played....

well the gang is back from the ball field and offering me desert! Time to go!

simplest things

I've been suffering for quite some time with something and today I finally made the change that makes all the difference.

See I have a pair of capris that are really nice except for one very small problem...the tag! I don't know if you have noticed but sometime around the 80's the folks who sew our clothing have progressively made clothing tags more and more itchy. I think at first they were just using that plastic thread that was like fishing line but as time went by the tags themselves got more and more uncomfortable.

I remember as a kid that my mom would get upset with me for cutting the tags out of all my clothing. She said it was because she didn't know how to wash the clothes anymore, but I know that wasn't true because she washes the clothes all the same way (the same way I do!) Sort into whites vs colors and dump into the machine with cold water. So I'm not sure of her REAL reason for being annoyed by the missing tags.

shoot to today... ya know how you forget to do something until it's too late? Well that's how it was for these capris. I would put them on and think to myself, I really need to cut the tag out of these...but would be in too big of a rush to actually do it...and I would suffer. Well today I took the extra bit of time and I'm so glad that I did that I'm posting about it.

How's that for action???

Making good on my threat!

DH isn't a fan of being on my blog.  But today he deserves the spotlight and I told him I would do this...so here it is.

Today we went to the Rockies game.  When we arrived at the parking lot and parked; I started to place the sun shield up in the windshield.  Apparently, that made it too dark in the car for DH so he... um let me jump ahead first and then come back to this.

As we are walking from the car to Coors Field, DH realizes that he has left his sunglasses in the car.  We hadn't gone that far really and he could have run back to the car to get them, but instead he decides to blame ME for him forgetting the glasses.  now back to where I was before...

When I placed the sun shield up on the car apparently it made the car too dark for DH and he took off the sunglasses, leaving them in the cup holder (because I haven't bought a clip for them yet).  So DH is implying that the reason HE forgot HIS sunglasses is that I made the car too dark for him to keep them on.

I rolled my eyes at him, but they were behind sunglasses.  I then told him that this was SOOOOOOOOOOO going on my blog.  He didn't seem to care.

However, lucky for DH we found that our seats were in the shade today and he didn't really need the sunglasses.  We were all relieved because the last time we went to the Rockies game our seats were not in the shade and it was unbearably hot.  Today was almost too cold.

Unfortunately, the Rockies lost 3-4 to the Dodgers...but we kept Manny Ramirez from scoring.  YAY!

So Frustrating!

you'll all remember how sick DH got back in January when we went to Michigan.  Well along with all that fun there were a few things that came up that have caused DH to still be making multiple trips to see doctors...trips that he is getting frustrated and tired of.

While DH was hospitalized he developed a few blood clots.  The clots were in his arms around his IV ports.  He was told to move around by his doctors and told to NOT MOVE AT ALL by his nurses.  We were sure that the clots were formed because he was made to stay in the bed and because they had pumped so much fluid into him.  Now 4 months later one of the many blood tests that he has had to take has pretty much proven that we were right.  He does have a hereditary condition that makes him predisposed to getting blood clots when he is stationary for long periods of time with IV needles stuck in his arms. 

Another thing that was discovered in the hospital (but we already knew this as it comes up every time DH changes doctors) is that DH has a low white blood cell count.  In the hospital it freaked them out so much they tested him for AIDS!  But we already knew he had this because it is hereditary...his mother and his older sister also have this same low white blood cell count.  DH was sent to see a hematologist who is still trying to figure out why his white blood cell count is so low.  (Note: when DH was in the hospital and his one doctor was speaking to him about his low white blood cell count, I mentioned that it is normally low and the doctor gave me a dirty look and ignored me!)

A few weeks ago we got a call from the doctor's office stating that the doc wanted him to go in for more blood tests because his white blood cell count came back really low.  "HELLO???  Have you not even read his chart?  THIS IS NORMAL FOR HIM!"  DH refused to take the new blood test. 

So at his doctor's appointment yesterday the doc and him discuss the state of his blood and the doc is just baffled by the white blood cell count.  So now he wants to do a bone marrow test.  I assume this will check to see that he has enough white blood cell producing bone marrow cells.  But we'll see.  DH realized yesterday that he should put off the test for a few more days after he originally scheduled it because if he waits it will be cheaper.  I just realized that he should put it off because I'm going out of town the day afterward.  We'll see.

However it seems silly to keep running all these tests.  Every doctor before has been satisfied that the low white blood cell count is normal for him in his family.  His mother and sister have never had to go through all of this.  The doctor seems to want to find some way to treat DH for this, but I wasn't able to find online any way for him to do that.

Thank goodness for insurance.  Imagine how much fun this would be without it?

Windy Weekend!

This weekend Darly & I went up to the Girl Scout campground to help them get set up for the summer camping season.  As this was our first time ever to do this, we had no idea what to expect...other than we would be getting the camp ready and probably cleaning...a lot of cleaning!

So we were supposed to get there between 5 & 8pm on Friday.  I figured that since we live a bit over an hour away, we would leave the house at 5, grab dinner about halfway there and then drive the rest of the way.  However, DH reminded me of how terrible traffic heading that direction is at 5pm and suggested that we eat dinner at home instead.  This seemed like a very good idea as we could have dinner with DH before we go.  But alas DH worked late on Friday and we had dinner alone...but at least it was at home and it did save us from the terrible traffic.

We arrived at camp a bit after 7pm and found that instead of checking in at the Program Center that we needed to go to the dining hall (the staff was at dinner!)  LOL!  So we go up there and get our room assignment.  No work for Friday, just get ourselves situated.  We should start a fire because they were bringing us supplies to make Banana boats in a while.  (Banana boats = split a banana with the peel still on, stuff it with marshmallows & chocolate chips, wrap it in foil and roast it in the coals of the fire until all mushy.)  I learned that I'm not a fan of hot bananas!  So I tossed it and had marshmallows & chocolate chips.  YUM!

Sleeping the first night was AWFUL!!!  Our beds were 3 inch mattresses on press wood platforms.  UGH!  My hips kept sinking down to the wood and then these things were the noisiest things on earth...every time that Darly moved it made noise and the same for me.  I think when I finally did get to sleep, I either had to get up to go to the bathroom or our cabin mates had woken up at 5:30 and weren't very good at staying quiet at all.

So we were up bright and early on Saturday morning...breakfast wasn't until 8:30.  No coffee for 2 hours after waking up!  I wasn't a happy girl!  But we were finally able to get breakfast and COFFEE!!!  For breakfast we were treated to french toast & bacon.  Yogurt, oatmeal & cereal were also available.  Now feeling human we learned our work assignments.

Because Darly is older (there were A LOT of young kids there!) we were put on the tent setting up crew.  The camp has platform tents.  The platform looks a bit like a wooden deck with the tent itself strapped to the railing.  Steps for putting up a platform tent:

sweep off all pine needles, sticks and other debris

move cot frames off the platforms
get the cot frames legs upright (they're folded down for winter...some rusted stuck!)
get mattresses out of shed & to the tents
set up tent

move cot frames into the set up tent

move mattresses onto the cot frames

clean the mattresses (note the mattresses are covered in vinyl so we just sprayed them with bleach water and wiped them down)

Other jobs in the camp site were:
clean the Biffys (Biffy = Bathroom in forest for you.  aka: Outhouse)
clean the hand washing troff
clean the field kitchen 

There were a lot of folks to help with all the jobs and at the first campsite it took a bit of time to figure out who should do what job and learn the job in some cases.  But by the time we got to the second camp site we had it all down!   the highlighted jobs are ones that Darly & I did.

At the second campsite the tents were going up quickly and Darly & I were the cot moving crew!  We had two other folks helping us but we had it down to a science now.  However once we got started on our 4th tent our crew suffered a major set back.  A very strong gust of wind blew down tent #3!  The tent knocked over two of the cots as well!

So the folks who were actually setting up the tents rushed over after finishing the tent they were working on.  We weren't going to get much done until tent #3 could be fixed, so the rest of us headed to the dining hall for lunch.  Of course we didn't actually get to eat lunch until the rest of our crew got there, so we just sat for a bit...but that was okay as we were able to refill our water bottles and try to drink as much water as we could.  I think that I consumed an entire pitcher.

After lunch (baked potato "bar" chili or broccoli and salad bar) it was decided that part of our crew would return to finish the last few tents and that the rest of us would go to the game field to get it set up.  Once at the game field we learned that there really wasn't a lot to do.  We were supposed to set up the archery range...but the wind blew the targets over and we had no idea how to set up the red zone boundaries.  We were supposed to organize the supply closet, but it was already organized.  We did put air in all the balls with the two air pumps.  Imagine if you will, 5 children + 2 air pumps.  That was fun!

Once we had that all sorted out we were "free" for the afternoon!  Darly wanted to go to the barn to see the animals.  When we got there we were able to help collect the chicken eggs (note: we collected about 16 eggs that they are not allowed to feed to campers or guests.  Only staff is allowed to eat the eggs produced at the camp.  Campers can only have store bought eggs.  How dumb is that?)  We were greeted by Oreo, a mini-horse that likes to nibble on fingers.  We chose to not feed him our fingers.  We also found that the barn had some more work that we could do.  I helped unpack and label brand new riding helmets.  We were then invited to go horseback riding. 

My horse Harvey was new to camp this year. The camp leases the horses so that they only have to take care of them during the camping season.  They normally get back the same horses, but this year the camp will be offering horseback riding for the first time in 30 years, so more horses were needed.  Some horses are trained to follow voice commands, others are reign trained.  It seems that Harvey was used to being led around as he didn't listen to me at all and just followed our guide.

Darly got to ride on Denver who was also new to camp.  He was better trained and Darly got to take him around the ring herself.  I could be in trouble for more horse riding lessons.

Now that we were thoroughly grubby, it was time for dinner.  For dinner we had a kind of "mexican" seasoned beef with rice, beans, tortillas & corn chips.  They also had the salad bar out where we learned they had salsa, cheese & guacamole.  At our table for dinner most of the folks were vegetarians so there was a lot of the meat left over that was heading for the trash can.  I requested to take it home and it is going to be our dinner tonight.

After dinner we had a camp fire with skits & smores.  I had the thought that Darly & I should head back to our lodge and grab our showers early, but we stayed for the show.  Showering wasn't too bad and it was nice to finally get all that dirt off of us.  I felt as if that was the dirtiest I had ever been in my life...although I'm sure now that I've been worse.

This morning all that was left to do was clean the lodges that we stayed in and with 13 of us that went very quickly.  It could have gone much faster if we had a real vacuum instead of a shop vac...I may have to donate one to them.

We had a yummy breakfast of eggs, sausage, hashbrowns & biscuits.  I had two cups of coffee!  Then we made our way home.

Laundry can wait...I may take a nap.

Part of my inheritance

I wonder if I should consider this my Mother's Day gift too? LOL!

Today DH and his brother brought over part of what we have inherited from his folks.




Originally my BIL also wanted this, but I guess he figured it wasn't worth the effort to move it and then find a place for it in his house. I don't think it turned out to be quite that hard to move (but then I didn't have to lift the bugger!)

Some history about this...

When MIL & FIL first bought their house the neighborhood was under construction. Each time that FIL would take their dog for a walk he would notice items in the construction dumpsters that were still very usable but for one reason or another weren't going into the homes that were being built. FIL was a very personable person and he ended up chatting with the construction workers (asking if he could have the "trash") and eventually they would just leave the good stuff for FIL off to the side so he didn't have to dumpster dive any more.

The bottom of this is 3 sets of cabinets, the top must have been from the shelves that are like what my in-laws had in their family room.

DH still has to bring the rest of it here (YES! There's more!) as they took out the drawers, shelves and filing cabinets out of it to make it lighter to carry. So far all this has cost me is making lunch for the guys (and I cheated at that...I just put out sandwich fixins and let them make what they wanted). Course I think part of my payment will be some more of the items that DH wants to bring home. We already had an argument about a clock he had to have. Oh well, some things are worth it.

V-E-T for Lilly

This week I finally broke down and called up the V-E-T to set up an appointment for Lilly.  She was well overdue for a checkup and I also wanted to get her teeth cleaned as our running joke when she came near was "I smell dead things!"

I had wanted to try to set this up as all one big trip to get it over and done with, but the V-E-T doesn't work like that...of course, of course!

So we went in on Monday to have her exam and shots.  Lilly is a happy traveler and doesn't complain about getting into the car.  It's once she realizes where she's going that she gets nervous.  See my dog is pretty smart.  A short car trip can only mean a trip to the groomer or the V-E-T...both are terrible places.  A long trip is good though.  So as soon as we pulled into the parking spot at the V-E-T she started whining!

I took her in and had her go sit on the scale.  hummm I thought my dog had gained some weight and I was feeding her more, well she hasn't!  In fact she weighs almost exactly what she did at her last V-E-T visit.  too much floof I guess.

Well now that my dog is approaching old age the V-E-T recommends a yearly blood test to make sure her kidney & liver functions are going well.  I agreed to this because the blood test checks everything.  So poor Lilly had to go in the back with the awful vet tech to see the vampire and have something shoved up her bum.  When she got back she seemed to hold no ill will for me.
Then we waited for the V-E-T to come see us.  (side note: I never find out what V-E-T we'll be seeing when we go there.  Most of the time we get the same one but once we had a different guy.  This time it was our regular guy.)  I mentioned that Lilly isn't as lively as she used to be, she gets tired out more quickly.  So he was sure to be extra careful checking everything...and told me that everything seemed normal.  Even offered to check her thyroid on her blood test (for more money) if I really wanted him to, but that her thyroid felt just fine and he didn't think that she needed it.  Then we were done.  I set the dental cleaning for Friday.

We went home and I was to keep an eye on her cuz two of her shots could cause a reaction.  She was fine.

The V-E-T called us Tuesday with her blood work results...all perfectly normal.

So Friday I loaded Lilly back into the car for her dental cleaning.  She went in at 8:15am.  She would have her procedure between 10 & 2 and they would call me to let me know how she was...then I could pick her up after 4.  I got a call about noon saying that everything went well, no tooth extractions, but that she had some puss in there and the doc prescribed an anti-biotic for her to take for a week.  I could pick her up after 3:30.

When I first pulled into the parking lot, I parked near the employee entrance.  I am pretty sure I heard Lilly barking.  I think she might have recognized our car.  It took a bit to actually get her but when they brought her out, I'm not quite sure she knew who I was...she didn't seem to be running at me.  As soon as she was brought to me though she was all over me.

She slept a lot the rest of the day, but she wanted to play when she saw dad.  She quickly dropped her ball though...I'm sure her teeth hurt her.

I tried to see if she would just eat her anti-biotic pill (some dogs will) but she didn't...so I shoved it in a spoon of peanut butter.  she ate it right up.

She's pretty much back to normal now, although I think her anti-biotic might be upsetting her tummy.  I may go get her some yogurt later.

Irritating

ya know I should really write these right after I've been irritated, it would be so much easier to remember why I'm mad about them. LOL!

I'm irritated by the group of adults with the school group who thought that it would be appropriate to wait for their bus to arrive in the middle of the lobby of the theater. Totally blocking the exit (ever hear of fire codes?) so that I couldn't leave. When the kids would have been perfectly happy seated in the theater or against the walls away from the doors. gah!

I'm sure these are the same folks who leave their carts in the way while grocery shopping and then stand in front of the display for 5 minutes while locating the item they're searching for and talking on the cell phone. Note: they're blocking the way with their body AND their cart...two blockages here! These folks seem especially prolific during busy shopping times!

The lady (or ladies, I never did figure out who was responsible for this group) who brought in the group of school aged boys (why weren't they in school?) who decided to play "cowboys & indians" in the lazy river at the pool. The boys constant lack of attention to anything around them caused them to bump into us and the walls of the pool quite frequently. grrr! I suppose though that they did provide extra heart rate and obsticles for me.

The town I live in who should really hire a full time city planner (and if they already have one fire this person and get someone who knows what they're doing!). It seems each year they tear up the same bit of road to change it. Currently they're tearing up the road near town hall to put in the roads they need for the new civic center (that was planned 5 years ago, before this road was put in!) It also appears that they we redesign the traffic circle to a two lane traffic circle... umm all the roads going into the circle are only one lane.

and also the genius who blocked off two of the three lanes of traffic for 4 miles so they could work on the last block. I'm sure all the folks who had to work that late were just over joyed at being made to sit in traffic that much longer before going home that night.

The current election going on in my town for the water district. Thanks town for the head's up on this one. I hope it goes well because I'm not wasting my time on it.

Speaking of elections what are all these other folks running for? Their constant ads don't say. They also don't do us the kind favor of at least telling us what party they're in...the ads all seem to be generic enough to dupe us into voting for the wrong person if we aren't paying attention...and seeing that this isn't a presidential election, and I can't tell what office they're running for, does it matter? all this talk about voter apathy...

I think I'm done for now... but stay tuned.

U by Kotex - Review

My sweet little girl is growing up. Today we’re going out to get her bras & summer clothes. Pretty soon we’ll be dealing with all the other issues that come up as a girl becomes a woman. I have tried to talk to Darly about this and it has been awkward. I know that Darly is embarrassed and uncomfortable. I remember how “the talk” with my own mom went. I’ve tried to make it much better, but we’ll see. I’ve tried to use humor to ease the tension so I’m making sure to…
“Be prepared, be prepared,
This lesson must be shared,
This lesson must be shared,
Be prepared!”

Sorry for the Hoodwinked song there…

In an effort to “Be prepared” and to help young women feel less embarrassed, Kotex launched U, a new line of tampons, pads and liners, which feature a slim, thinner design, making them easier and more comfortable to use. And with bright, bold packaging and colors, girls don't need to send their Mom to Walmart for them or feel embarrassed the next time the conversation comes up with their friends. 

They’ve also set up a website http://www.ubykotex.com/ where you can order free samples of the new U by Kotex line, now available at Walmart stores around the country. For more information, and to download a fun Daily Journal iPhone or iTouch application that lets you take pictures, add play lists and geo-target your location for each entry, visit www.walmart.com/ubykotex.  And, if you haven’t seen the hilarious new commercials, you can check out some of our favorites like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n09SejxpcFA.

I think I’ve done an okay job with our talk.  One of the books that Darly read is "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret" so our running joke is if she needs any "teenage softies."  We have U products on hand and I'm sure she'll let me know when she needs more.  I remember that even though I wasn’t all that impressed with the job my mom did, I was prepared.

 “I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Kotex and received products necessary to facilitate my candid review. In addition, Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Old London Melba Toast - Review

Okay I'm probably totally showing how old I am again...but back when I was a little girl we would sometimes go out to restaurants where they would have a basket of crackers on the tables. Anyone remember those?

Now days when you go out you're lucky if the place brings the basket of crackers with your soup or salad...most places give you just a packet or two of saltines with your soup or salad. :P

But if you're lucky and get the basket my favorite thing to do is see if they have Melba Toast in the basket (some places still have a variety of crackers to choose from!) I just love Melba Toast. It's just so yummy and crunchy! Much better than a cracker.

So I was so excited to find out that I had the chance to try out some new flavors of Melba Toast. So excited in fact that I ran out to my grocery store to look for them and bought a box. I didn't know that you could just buy Melba Toast in the store! *blush* Before I was always just hunting for them in restaurants.


I scarfed down my box of Melba Toast and they were as yummy as I always remember. I tried them with all sorts of stuff and "lookie!" the Melba Toast folks even came up with some nifty recipes you can try to have with your Melba Toast! They awesome just right out of the box too...and lucky for me a serving is only 50 calories. In fact I had to go grab my box so I could munch some while I'm trying to type out this post. LOL

Another cool thing is the folks at Old London Melba Toast are currently running a promotion. It is called ‘Dance Your Way to Hollywood’ http://www.toastforeverydayhealth.com/dance/. Here’s some information about it from the website:

“Dance Your Way to Hollywood” will send one lucky winner and a guest to Tinseltown for a once-in-a-lifetime experience, including private dance lessons and tickets to watch the taping of a highly popular television show. The four-day, three-night, all-expenses-paid experience includes air travel and accommodations at a popular Hollywood hotel. Sweepstakes entries accepted March 17 through June 30, 2010.”

While you're signing up for the contest...check out the other cool links on the website about staying healthy and keeping fit.

okay I better go put away my box of Melba Toast before I scarf them all up. Mffpthh muh yummm he he

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Old London Melba Toast and received a sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Party time

Darly's birthday was this week, so that means we had to have a party for her (I think it's a law somewhere or something like that!)

Monday we went to the American Girl Doll store and she picked out a few things that she wanted.  My credit card took another major hit!

The party was to be a sleep over of course because maximum playtime is a major requirement.  However, I had a few requirements of my own...namely that Darly help clean up HER MESS that oozes all over my house!  Alas, Darly is the queen of procrastination and she left all cleaning for the very last minutes (why clean it now since it will just get dirty again?  save it for right before so there's less time to make it messy again!)  You can see my eyes rolling - right?

Darly's one friend DJ's mom needed some errands run and the logistics of it meant that it would work out better for her if DJ came to the party early.  DJ LOVES to clean, so this was a good thing!  DJ came over and vacuumed my house!  WOW!  I love this kid!

Darly volunteered to dust the house...ummm she would FAIL a white glove test as there are huge areas of dust she didn't get at all.  Good thing her friends are not neat freaks.  sigh!

I'm not sure why Darly thought it would be best to save baking and decorating her cake (she's a budding cake decorator, so she has to do it herself!!!) for the party day would be a good idea.  She said something about worried it would dry out and I couldn't convince her otherwise.  So Darly & DJ bake the cake.  Darly has this idea for the design of her cake, but unfortunately that didn't turn out so well, so instead they smashed all the cake back into the cake pan and left it.

I started baking the pizzas and cheese bread, set the timer and then needed to bring down a table from upstairs.  By the time I got the table down, the timer on the pizzas went off and I didn't hear it.  Neither did the girls.  The pizzas were overdone...still very edible, but over done.  sigh!

The kids played and had a great time, but Darly's carefully planned out schedule was out the window!  I kept asking "aren't you supposed to be watching a movie now?"  The first movie didn't start until after 9pm and two movies were planned.

One of the girls had a soccer game this morning, so she needed to be picked up at 8:30am.  I woke up after 7am and hurried downstairs to get the waffles made so she could eat before rushing out.  I don't know why, but every single waffle stuck to the iron.  I've never had that happen before (ooh that reminds me that I need to clean up that mess!)  So the girls ate waffle skins.  They tasted good, but so not waffles.

Soccer gal's dad didn't come to get her until after 9am though.  I'm not so sure he was up when we called him.  he he!

but even with all the goofs the girls are having a great time, I have no idea where they're playing right now, probably the very messy basement.  sigh!

I NEED A NAP!

A Kitchen MeMe

Ladybug had this meme on her blog and I'm borrowing it because it's fun!

1. Do you have magnets on your fridge? I do. TONS! Dh thinks I have too many.

2. Do you have a calendar in your kitchen, if so, what’s the theme of it? I actually have two calendars in the kitchen. One is a week by week on the frig (one of the many magnets) and the other is from Williamsburg VA.

3. What is your favorite kitchen gadget? I think the one I use most is my waffle iron/griddle. It has 4 changeable plates so you can have waffles, grilled cheese or grill meats.

4. Are you lucky enough to have a pantry of some kind? Yes, I need to clean it.

5.What is your favorite appliance? My range. I am just in love with the double oven!


6. Do you have an eat in kitchen (table in it)? Yes we do, but when I was a kid we had the eat in kitchen and NEVER used the dining room. So to prevent that I ordered that we at least have dinner in the dining room every night. Now the kitchen table is a catch all cuz we hardly use it.

7. Do you have a bread box? no

8. Do you have a picture of your kids on the fridge? Yes. She's on the side.


9. Do you ever cook breakfast in your PJs? Who doesn't?

10. Do you have a favorite cookbook that you use? I have many. I think I use my Cheyenne Frontier Days cookbook the most.

11. Are you lucky enough to have recipes that were passed down from your mom or grandma? Yes. and I have one from my grandmother that she intentionally gave me graciously with missing information. I told my mom that I had gotten it and she looked at it and said "this isn't her recipe!" :( Stinker! So now I use one I found online that is very similar. My brothers don't know the difference.

12. What’s your favorite food? Steak.

13. What’s your favorite thing to cook? Anything quick and yummy.

14. Is your coffee pot electric or stove top? Electric, does anyone use stove top anymore?

15. Do you ever make your own bread? Once in a blue moon. I'm not into baking.

16. Name one thing that you have hanging on your wall in your kitchen: There isn't actually a lot of wall space in my kitchen, and what there is is covered in cabinets. But I do have a cinnamon broom hanging over the pantry door. It lost it's scent a long time ago.


17. Is there a clock in your kitchen? YES! One on the stove, one on the microwave and one on my radio.

18. Do you have a bowl of fruit sitting on your table or counter? No, it would go bad too quickly here.

19. What type of canisters do you have? I have ones that match my stoneware.

20. Does your kitchen have a theme? It matches my stoneware.

21. What’s for supper tonight? Pizza.

22. Do you have enough cabinet space? Yes... But I could use some better organization.

23. Does your family use paper plates? A lot!

24. Do you have a good set of china? Yes, I don't use it very often as it likes to be hand washed.

25. Do you wear an apron to work in your kitchen? nope. I have one, but never wear it.

26. Name one thing, if anything, that you would like to change about your kitchen. The entire thing. The sink needs to be replaced but I want an under the counter mount...which means new counter tops...and since we're doing the counter tops, how about new cabinets with better organization?

WThey? This can't be safe!

as you know I bought a new car this past summer. One of the really cool things that came with my car is the SYNC powered by Microsoft. A lot of the SYNC features are really cool, like being able to toss my purse in the back seat with the phone and still answer or make calls...not that I actually do that very often! I usually don't touch my phone at all when I'm in the car, but having the car answer it has been pretty cool. My friend says that the microphone is really good and when she's talking to me from it, it just sounds as if I were talking on the phone in the car.

One good feature of this was the day of my MIL's funeral. My BIL called us while we were waiting in the cemetery for our turn to use the "grave side" pavilion. (they don't have actual grave side service at this cemetery) So BIL calls us and everyone in the car was able to chat with him while we waited. I bet he thought I was holding up my phone. lol

anyway one of the BAD features of SYNC is the pre-set Vehicle Health Report. According to my handbook this was supposed to be something that I could choose to set, but someone set it before I bought the car. Imagine if you will... you're driving down the interstate in rush hour traffic...concentrating on the road...


"*BING!* IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO RUN A VEHICLE HEALTH REPORT PRESS OK!"

what?  who in their right mind thought that having this thing come on while you're driving would be a good idea?  I ignored it the first time and it has since come on twice while DH was driving...the last time we all screamed NO! at it.  lol 

I dug out the manual and see that I can turn this off...YAY!  but like I mentioned before, someone turned it on.  I wonder who?  Oh well, I'll shut the darned thing off so I don't cause an accident now.

My American Girl Doll store experience

This weekend was the Grand Opening of American Girl Place in Denver. The link I just put there says that the wait to get into the store was 3 hours long... ummm not QUITE! The article also estimates the crowd in the hundreds... I don't think that's very accurate either.

My friend planned to get to the store at 4am to wait. I wasn't quite that "gung-ho" so we planned to be at the store at 5am instead. We wanted to get there early because the first 100 girls in the store would get a gift bag.

I woke up at 3:50am and took my shower. Darly had set her alarm clock, so I knew she would be up soon.

Since I knew my friend was already supposed to be there, I sent an email to her iphone account and waited to see how it was going. She let me know that there were already more than 100 people in line. YIKES!

Well seeing as we were NOT going to get a gift bag, it seemed like a good idea to just wait at home where it was warm instead of going to the store and waiting in the snow storm (YES, it was 30 degrees and snowing out at that hour). So when Darly got up I let her know how we didn't get there early enough for the gift bag.

She agreed that warm was better but asked if her friend would let her know what was in the gift bag...and of course she would (she blogs too!)

So we left the house at 7:45 (which annoyed Darly) and at last check in with my friend who was freezing her butt off in the cold there were already over 1000 folks waiting with her.

When we arrived at the mall and found parking, we walked toward the store. I could already see that the line of folks extended past the section of the mall that included the store. Hopefully I'll be able to use the Mall's directory to show you just how bad the line was.

I soon located a mall security person and asked where the end of the line was. He pointed in the general direction and told me that there would be another security person over there that I could ask. We found the second security person and he directed us to the end of the line. The end was in front of the Eddie Bauer store which is where the B is on the map. The time was 8:15am. The store wasn't supposed to open until 9am.

I called my friend to see if she had any info because I knew that the store couldn't possibly hold more than a hundred or so folks. She let me know that they were told the number was 130. sigh...we were in for a wait.

so after the store actually opened we moved from the second curve in front of Eddie Bauer to the first curve.

It was so much fun to watch other families arrive and the shock on their face to see how long the line actually was. Darly & I had not gone to the front of the line so we didn't know how much snakeing there was by the front but I knew it had to be pretty bad. When we got there they were just adding the "cow ropes" to the section we were waiting in...I don't believe that the mall had any idea just how many folks were going to show up for this. Starbucks was doing VERY WELL that morning.

I think it was about 10:30 when we got to the part of the line that was close enough to the bathrooms that we risked taking turns with the family ahead of us and going to the bathroom...to warm up a bit and of course go potty.

When we finally got to the section of line that is in the actual Vistas section of the mall we figured that we were finally getting down to the end. LOL, not quite.

It was almost 1:30 pm by the time we got into the store. Yup, that's right...we waited for 5 hours to get into the store. But since we had come all that way and waited all that time Darly deserved more than just the book mark that she was able to make...so I allowed her to get some stuff for her dolls (which stayed home for this trip, they can come next time!) She picked out some cute stuff and we headed to lunch.

As we were leaving we ran into a mom and her daughter in the parking lot that had just then arrived. I guess they were hoping to avoid the crowd. LOL! They asked how long the wait was...I told them we had waited 5 hours and I expected that the line now was at least 3 hours long. Mom didn't want to wait, daughter was heart broken.

speaking of heart broken... we saw more than one fit as a child was disappointed that her parents were not willing to wait that long.

Darly has pledged her undying love for me for sticking with it. She STILL owes me a clean bedroom though.

email

Just sharing a bit of my morning. We picked this house because it was close enough to the base that DH could get to and from work easily, but it was far enough away that we would avoid "MOST" of the air traffic. However, some days...
-----Original Message-----
> From: RENEE > Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2010 9:04 AM
> To: DH@work
> Subject: why so close?

> Hi Dear,
> why are the jets flying so close to the house this morning? Or do you know?
>
> Love
> Renee
---------------------------
To: renee
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2010 10:12:27 -0500
Subject: RE: why so close?
>

> Hi Dear, Don't know. Commercial or Military?
I can speculate...they are probably avoiding weather.
Going around the weather. If they are flying visual, they are avoiding clouds.

>

> Love,

> DH
-----Original Message-----

it sounded like a military jet, but I didn't bother to look.
It was fast, so I'm thinking military.
ah low clouds probably explains it.
tell them to fly above the clouds next time please. ;o)
they wake folks trying to sleep here.



Love

Renee
-------------------------
Yah,I can't believe they are so rude. With these weather conditions (humidity, clouds, moisture, etc.) the sound travels better, so it can appear louder too.

Love,
DH

Daily Mile

Hey did you notice the new Widget on my blog?  It's right over there <--  it's my Daily Mile.  I'm hoping that this thing helps me to stay motivated...cuz I really really really need to fit in my old summer clothes.  It has been quite the bummer that my old clothes are getting too snug and so I want to do something to help me loose some inches.


So far I haven't seen any difference.  In fact I found that when I tried to wear some of my new bigger jeans they were too tight!  YIKES!  this isn't good.

So my goal is to do something each day.  I have a buddy who will go out walking with me.  So hopefully at least 2 times per week we'll head out there and clock in at least 4 miles of walking.  I may also drag my hubby with me to get in another walk on the weekend.

Right now our biggest detterent is the weather, which is why I've been taking advantage of our elliptical trainer.  When I walk outside it takes me longer to do 4 miles, but outside has hills and stuff.  The elliptical only takes me about 30 min to do...but when I get to that point right now I'm bushed.  So I guess that's a good thing.  Hopefully I'll work my way up again to do the elliptical longer and clock in more miles and then be able to add more mileage to my outdoor walks too.

WHAT A CROCK!

I don't exactly remember when I first noticed the messages running across the top of my TV screen at the top of each hour, but I've been seeing for a while now that my cable company is going to upgrade it's system to all digital and I may not get my TV channels unless I contact them.

So today I finally went online to see what all the hub bub is about.  And low & behold it's much ado about nothing!  See we only have cable TV because without it you don't get TV here at all!  This is the first home we've had where we actually paid for cable.  We don't believe in paying for TV...especially since "isn't that what advertising is for?"  I remember the days when the cable channels didn't have ANY ads on them...because we paid for them.  Where did that go???  HUH???

So to that end we only have the very cheapest, and basic cable package.  When we first signed up for it, the cost was only $13 per month.  It has now risen to $17ish.  And we are happy with what we get, just not with paying for it.  But alas we cannot do without TV so we pay.

Back to the notice on my TV.  It turns out that only customers who have the Expanded Basic cable have to worry.  They will loose their extra channels if they don't order the adapter box.

This company has been nagging, annoying and trying to scare us into buying more expensive cable since we first signed up for it.  And I know for a lot of people these tactics work because I know someone who ordered the more expensive package.  I think this is wrong!  Especially when they go after folks who really should be spending the money that they have on more important things...like perhaps the electricity to run the TV.  sigh

Bible reading

no wait! You'll get a giggle out of this one!

http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Trust me!

oh and you might want your kittehs to NOT read Genesis 6!

Forgiven!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3F9z54g30Eo

I wanted to embed the video but it isn't available yet. But this is a really cool song. The "video" is just a slide show, so unless you would like to learn the lyrics, I would just open up another window to look at something while you listen to it.

Smoking rant!

okay all you smokers out there... I'm about to tear into you and if you don't like it...I'm not sorry about it.

I'm really sick of you all! (that includes you too mom! actually double for you!)

I just don't get it. It costs a lot of money to smoke. You're not allowed to smoke inside any buildings. You stink, it makes you sick and could kill you. Yet you do it anyway. If you buy a car and smoke in it, you've lowered it's value for if you want to resell it. If you buy a house and smoke in it, you've just either lowered it's value or totally cut your buyer population by a huge number. If you have children, you're making them sick too...even if you don't smoke around them because the smoke is in your clothes.

Every time you drive down the road and toss a butt out you earn the scorn of every non-smoker on the road. A friend of mine told me that once her car's fan sucked up the lit butt of a cigarette that someone from the car in front of her had tossed out and it was blown into her car! But of course the smoker never knew that! Tossed butts can also end up flying into open windows on other cars. If I'm stopped at a red light your second hand smoke will enter my car. But you don't care!

Note to my mother... YOU HAVE COPD! This WAS caused by your smoking! Your chronic bronchitis and pneumonia WERE caused by smoking. This WILL kill YOU! However, if you stopped smoking your lungs would heal and you would have a better quality of life for what you have left. Who knows, you might even get well enough to start working again and get off disability. You wouldn't be stuck at home all day bored out of your head. I know that you don't care if you die early from this, but did you really want to be stuck at the house bored out of your mind all day??? REALLY??? In case you haven't noticed, your kids do care if you die early from this.

I do realize this is an addiction. There are many many ways to stop smoking out there. But you have to stop because you want to. What does it take to make you want to?

Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! Coffee! :D

Now that I have your attention ;o) Hummm do I have mine?

My good friend Marsi and I were just chatting last night about getting some coffee together on Monday. And now that I think about it, we just grabbed a coffee and went antique shopping on Saturday. It seems that sometimes our lives just revolve around when we’ll get our next coffee fix. Honestly, I think for me it’s an appreciation for the flavor of the coffee more than an actual addiction to the caffeine. I don’t drink nearly as much as I hear that most of my friends do. (okay, maybe that’s a fib!)

When it comes to what makes a good cup of coffee, I’m sure we all have our different opinions. I know there are many out there who just love a good cup from that one coffee place (you know the one I’m talking about!) but honestly, for me I prefer to make up my coffee at home. I make it just how I like it and I don’t have to continue monkeying around with it.

The folks over at © The Coffee Growers Federation of Colombia - 100% Colombian Coffee – 2010 know what it takes to make a great cup of coffee. You can’t make a great cup of coffee unless you start with great beans! I guess that’s why there are so many brands of coffee that are 100% Colombian!
By visiting www.whatsbehindthebest.com, you'll have the opportunity to learn about the philosophy behind 100% Colombian Coffee and enter to win great prizes. The grand prize is $10,000! There are also weekly prizes of 100% Colombian Coffee…YUM!

The small print… In exchange for this post I was entered to win a supply of 100% Colombian Coffee and the $100 American Express gift card from The Coffee Growers Federation of Colombia and Mom Select.

If you are interested in participating in future MomSelect sponsored events and programs, register at MomSelect.com

Sorry, sorry, sorry

I know I've been a bad blogger. I've been reading blogs but I haven't posted anything.

Excuses, yeah, I've got lots...but you don't want to hear that. right?

Those of you who follow my rants blog know that I haven't been ranting about anything either. and that's a good thing, I haven't had much to vent about at all...things have been going rather well since the funeral.

DH's health is doing really well. The docs are still worried about him getting blood clots, but his last sonogram showed no clots at all (although the tech wasn't supposed to tell dh that.) The docs still have him on blood thinners though, but at least I don't have to give him any shots (speaking of, I should call the pharmacy and let them know we don't need the shots!) LOL

Darly is doing well. We haven't reached the halfway point to her goal for selling Girl Scout cookies and I don't think that we will, but that's okay. We had a lot of obstacles this year for cookie selling. We weren't here for initial order taking so many of our neighbors bought from someone else. We switched Churches so our main buyers weren't available to us anymore, and it was very cold out to try to hit up new neighbors. We have a cookie booth this weekend, so perhaps we make up for it then.

She is still doing well in gymnastics...although I see that her desire isn't quite there...she really wanted to be on TEAM and there aren't any TEAM opportunities for her right now. I'm a bit miffed...I asked about her getting on TEAM and they told us not until June, but then the next class to try to get the girls to behave they told them that if they wanted to be on TEAM they had to listen to their coaches. Darly always behaves. So it was a speech for the others. But it makes it seem as if the only reason she isn't on team is because of the behavior. poor kid I should ask about USAG. She really needs to be pushed again.

I've been running around (when I'm not playing games on facebook) doing Girl Scouts, homeschooling and Church stuff.

Yesterday our Church met for the first time in one of our member's homes. They have a really large home with a HUGE basement that they aren't using. The space is awesome and with a bit of tweaking will make a great worship space. I've offered to help with the financial tracking, so I've been bringing my computer with me...yesterday it decided to be a spaz I think that DH messed up my battery on it. ugh.

hummm that's about all I know to tell you.

DH is so funny...

email convo between me & DH this morning...

-----Original Message-----
> From: RENEE
> Sent: Friday, February 12, 2010 8:14 AM
> To: DH@work
> Subject: furnace

Hi Dear,

I was sitting here at the computer freezing my butt off and wondered if it was just cuz I was by the door or if the furnace was acting up again... it's the furnace again.

Is there any chance you could have your co-worker HVAC guy come by sometime soon and take a look at it, purty please?

I don't like to be cold.

Thanks!
Love you!
Renee

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From: DH@work
> To: RENEE
> Date: Fri, 12 Feb 2010 09:48:48 -0600
> Subject: RE: furnace

Hi Dear,

They are all off today for the Holiday! I can reset it. Note: If it seems to be getting cold... check the thermostat. :)

Love,
DH

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: DH@work
From: Renee

You so funny!

Love,
Renee

~~~~~~~~~~~~
To: Renee
From: DH@work

I know :)

DH

Happy Birthday DH!

Today is my dear husband's 47th birthday. I had picked up a prime rib roast when it was on sale last month and just tucked it in the freezer to save it for this day.

Then we had all the other things that happened over the last 4 weeks!

So on Monday I asked DH if he wanted to include his siblings in his birthday celebration. DH didn't think that any of them would be in town yet...so he said no. Whew! I didn't have to figure something else out for dinner. So I started thawing the roast.

Wednesday night we learned that BIL #2 and SIL #2 had arrived in town. But no mention was made of any plans changing.

I went grocery shopping on Thursday and picked up a few things that we needed, but pretty much planned on just the 3 of us for dinner tonight and then that our friends would bring us meals for the next few days. Thanks Friends! You're all totally awesome!

Last night, as DH was getting ready for bed he comes back downstairs and asks me if he should invite his brother & sister to dinner. I smile at him and mention that I had asked him about this already...he totally forgot that conversation. I told him it's his birthday...he gets to choose.

So he calls them...and guess what? They were on the way back from the airport with SIL #1!!! Well, might as well invite her too! So now the roast that was supposed to feed 3 of us for two nights will be stretched to feed 6 of us for just the one night. I have to go back to the store to get more potatoes because DH didn't want potato casserole (that I have on hand already), but I should pick up some more stuff to drink anyway.

I get to scurry and clean the house and hide all the clutter in my kitchen, change out the table cloth cuz the Christmas table cloth is still on the table. LOL! and run the dishwasher so we have plenty of clean silverware. FUN!

The funniest part of all of this is that I don't think that DH's siblings remember that today is his birthday. I could hear his sister when they were on the phone and she was surprised that we were having prime rib for dinner.

In case you're wondering... right around Christmas the grocery stores will put all the foods that folks make for Christmas dinner on sale. Ham is usually cheapest, but turkey and prime rib go on sale then too. I can usually get a two bone roast for around the price of 1 prime rib dinner out at a restaurant. Since I can make that feed all 3 of us for 2 nights, I figure that's a pretty good deal.

We're also having baked potatoes & asparagus with this dinner. and I'm making some French bread too.

hopefully in all the madness, I get DH's birthday presents wrapped.

MIL RIP

Lucy Nefe
(Died February 4, 2010)

Littleton, CO, formerly of Frankenmuth, MI
Passed away Thursday, February 04, 2010 at home in Frankenmuth, age 75 years. Lucy Trinklein was born on July 11, 1934 in Frankenmuth, MI. She was married to Donald J. Nefe on August 29, 1953, he preceded her in death in September 2000. When living in Frankenmuth, Lucy was employed by Zehnder’s of Frankenmuth and Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland. She was presently a member of Abiding Hope Lutheran Church and a previous member of St. Lorenz Lutheran Church where she served as President of the Lutheran Women’s Missionary League.

Surviving are 2 daughters and 3 sons, 13 grandchildren, 1 great grandchild, 2 sisters and 1 brother and many nieces and nephews.

Besides her husband Lucy was preceded in death by a brother, Bennie Trinklein.

Funeral services will take place at 2:00 P.M. Sunday, February 7, 2010 at St. Lorenz Lutheran Church, Rev. Joel Kaiser will officiate. Lucy’s family will receive visitors on Sunday at the church from 12:00 noon until the time of service. Burial will take place at a later time in Denver , CO. Services in Denver will be at Abiding Hope Lutheran Church.

Livin off frig finds...

sorry if this post bores you, but I'm proud of myself here and wanted to toot my own horn.

While we were at BIL's house in Michigan most of our meals were provided by the rest of the family.  They have this agreement that BIL provides MIL's care and they (both SIL's and their families) stop by with meals to take care of him.  It works out really well, but there were a few nights where I did have to come up with something for dinner.  And it seemed that on those nights the family stopped by too (they were figuring on having to go back to get something and surprised that I had already made something).  So this is kind of where my "livin off frig finds" story begins.

When we got there I noticed that my one SIL doesn't really keep track of what foods are already at BIL's house.  She just comes up with a menu and brings over the items she needs to make it.  That means that BIL's pantry is pretty well overstocked with some foods that won't get eaten.

So the first night I found a package of chicken in the frig and baked it up with some rice and veggies.  SIL came over that night and was surprised that it tasted so good for being so simple.  I guess they're into really doing up chicken.  Oh well, everyone liked it.

A few nights later I decided after finding 4 boxes of Taco shells in the pantry to make some tacos.  So before heading to the store I dug deeper into the pantry and found taco seasoning and in the frig/freezer I found ground beef, cheese and sour cream.  All I needed from the store was lettuce and tomatoe (I bought some more salsa cuz we like the medium kind.)  I found out that two of the boxes of taco shells had been left open and were brought over from MIL's house...blech!  those went into the trash.  But that still left two boxes that were fine.  I made up some more rice to go with and we all had a great dinner again.

Once we got back home the frig was pretty empty.  That was on purpose so that I didn't come home to a frig full of mold.  I didn't want to go to the grocery store on the weekend because it's a mad house and I don't like shopping with all that stress (I get annoyed by all the folks blocking my way.)  So I had to see what we had here to eat...
For our first dinner I pulled out some spaghetti w/ sauce that I had made a large batch of and froze half of it.  That fed us for two nights.  YAY!  Then I decided that an inventory of what was in the freezer would be a good idea before hitting the grocery store.  In there I found three zip lock bags filled with ham from our Christmas dinner.  In the pantry we still had some potatoes and in the frig was a brick of cheddar cheese.  Ah another dinner!

I peeled and sliced the potatoes, cooked them in salted water and added about a cup & a half of diced ham to heat it through and hopefully give some hammy flavor to the potatoes.  Then I made a white sauce and added cheese to it until it tasted yummy.  I poured the cheese sauce over the potatoes and ham.  Then cooked veggies on the side.  Another two nights worth of dinner and I still don't have to go to the grocery store.

However, I will go to the store today because tomorrow we're going a play and I won't have time.

Update on DH

more from my Facebook...

Jan 19 
went to the hospital early today (normally I don't get there until 2pm) and DH had a great day. They knocked his O2 down to 2.5 ltrs per min and he was still able to keep his sat level at 95. So they finally let him walk, but at 4 ltrs O2...he did really well and stayed above 90.

Jan 20

DH is getting so much better that he might go home very soon (I don't want to jinkx it*). They asked today about an address to set up delivery of O2 (to support DH's habbit). Today they walked him w/o the O2 and he held at 93%!!!! YAY! Woo Hoo! He's now in the shower, his first shower since the 12th! :D (he's had sponge baths)  *They had talked to me about ordering O2 delivered to us for his release the next day.  But since I hadn't heard this from the doctor, I didn't want to go posting that he was being released only to have it not happen.

Jan 21

as soon as his paperwork is done we can go home! No more O2 either. They're cutting off his habbit. ;o) Because he had to take all his records back to CO with him we had to wait for the doctor to finish transcribing them and then for all the lab work to be sent up and copied also...that was 95 pages!  We got back to BIL's house around 4pm.

Jan 22

last night was rough. He was in a lot of pain. I think that they had him on painkillers in the hospital and he just didn't realize it because the onset of the pain was right about the right time for them to wear off. He slept on the recliner so that I wouldn't kill him, but got cold. I gave him hot chocolate and he's sleeping peacefully again. ugh! That means at least another day before we can fly home.  DH was actually raring to go home that day but I refused to let him fly in that much pain.

Jan 23

is finally home again...but I'm sure tired. course for me it's now midnight even though the clock reads 10pm.  It took some doing, but DH finally arranged flights home for us.  We had to pay extra for them though.  So while DH was on the phone he called the airlines and when I got out I asked/stated "I need to pack, don't I?" and he said yes.  Our flight left Detroit at 4:10pm and we touched down in Denver at 4:50pm.  gotta love those time zones!

Our first night home was a bit rough as DH was in pain again.  So he slept in and stayed home while I went to get Lilly and went to our Church planning meeting.  It was so great to see everyone from Church who had been praying for us while we were gone.  They were so happy to get the report that DH was home and doing well.

 

Last night, DH finally admitted that it might be a good idea to take a pain killer (thank goodness!)  He slept really really well and so did I!  YAY!  Now to get Darly over her head cold!  I got her some Sudafed for the flight which was such a good idea.  I'm going to make sure we take it from now on when we fly!!!  But she doesn't want any more of it!  LOL!  I don't blame her.

 

not a good update...

You may have noticed that I haven't posted anything in a while.  That's mostly because I've been on Facebook and also because we've had a bit of an emergency here.  Let me fill you in...

On Jan 6th at about 9pm or so, DH started feeling pains in his chest on the left side...but he didn't tell anyone about it.  He went to bed and at about 11:30 he finally asked for me to come and help him.  At about 1:30am we went to the ER.

Tests were run and they determined that DH "probably" had pleuracy, but they couldn't be sure.  He should go check with his regular doctor in the morning.  We went home at 4am.  We got a few hours of sleep and DH felt much better (he was all juiced up on drugs from the ER) so he went out and shoveled our driveway and drove to his Mom's house to pick up a few things and shovel her driveway also.

On the 8th at about 4:30am he wakes up in terrible pain and wants to go see his regular doctor who doesn't open until 7am.  So we went to go see her.  She confirms that DH has pleuracy and prescribes him with more pain medication.  I ask her if it is okay for DH to fly because we had a vacation planned the following day and she said that would be fine.

On the 9th DH is still in pain, but managing it with pain meds so we hopped on our plane and headed to Michigan.  When we arrived in Detroit DH reported that he was pretty dehydrated so we attempted to rehydrate him as much as we could.

DH's pain was increasing and he thought perhaps it was from him getting "backed up" caused by the pain medications, so we got him some laxatives to see if that would help.

By the 12th DH was miserable and his sister who is a nurse insisted that he see a doctor as soon as possible.  So I got on the phone to find out about our medical coverage and found that we were only allowed to go to the ER (not an urgent care center) so we took him there.

I'm now going to switch to my Face book posts...

Jan 12
DH has been admitted and has pneumonia. At least two days in the hospital for DH and that means I get to figure out how to rearrange our non-changeable flights! :o Wish me luck and pray for DH please.

Jan 14
had a very busy day today. I went to see DH in the hospital until noon - helped him shave. Then I drove to Detroit to return the rental car (why doesn't Thrifty have someplace closer?). Then I went back to the hospital with BIL and helped DH eat his lunch (yeah, it was very LATE!) they were doing another procedure at lunch time...and finally got home after 7:30...I'm sooooo tired!

also Jan 14
My husband has very lousy tastes in all inclusive resort vacations!

Jan 15
this morning's update is that DH is doing better, but will still stay in the ICU for today. Bummer, I was hoping that he could get moved to Acute Care soon. I know they're still pumping him full of antibiotics and all, but hoped they were done looking at his heart. :(

also Jan 15
the nurse that I never saw LIED! I called this am for DH's update and she said that DH was doing better but wouldn't be moved. (his nurse yesterday was much better at giving me reports) I get to the hospital and they tell me they are moving him. We're now sitting in his new room where I can play on the computer! He's got less stuff hooked up to him too.

Jan 16
DH had a really good day today. They got him up and he walked the hall almost by himself. He is breathing really well on his own. At one point the nurse didn't hook up his O2 right and he was up and moving around with just room air, his puls/ox was at 82. He still gets winded when he up and moving around...but with... his O2 turned on he can keep his pulse/ox at 98.

Jan 17
Dh is still improving, but last night was very rough for him...had a bit of a scare when he had chest pain on the one side...was probably just his lung expanding, but they aren't quite sure. They do know it wasn't a blood clot. Course his roommate bugging the nurse for pain meds (trying to stock up for his release!) ...and breaking up with his girl friend in the middle of the night didn't help. (Dh's extra project: cleaning out his electric razor)

Jan 18
Today was frustrating. Dh had been doing something and then got a nosebleed...so he took off his oxygen to get that cleared up. Well the nurses choose that time to check his pulse/ox and of course it was down. So the nurses PANICKED and didn't allow him to do ANYTHING today! The rest of the day his pulse/ox was 98 ...and the respiratory therapist even turned his O2 down. sigh!

I'm sorry that it has been easier to update my Facebook...I'm staying at my BIL's house and for some odd reason his wireless router won't send it's signal to my computer...so I have to use my SIL's computer at the house...I can use my computer at the hospital...but today DH decided he was well enough to check his email...  there went all my computer time!  sigh!

All I got for Christmas...

is a lot actually! ;o)

Let's start with what Darly got for me...

I asked my friend Marsi if she wouldn't mind taking Darly shopping because when DH takes her, he waits until the week before Christmas and only takes her to one store (luckily it isn't a convenience store!) for her to get me something. Marsi was happy to do it, so we planned which stores Darly wanted to shop at and I got her gift cards for those stores. I thought the cards would be easier than money to deal with. Darly was a very good shopper and got me some wonderful gifts!

She got me some nice fleece pajama pants, fuzzy purple squishy slippers, a pair of fuzzy slipper socks with rabbits on them (each sock has a plush rabbit at the top that you slip your foot through...so it is kinda like wearing rabbit slippers!), purple fuzzy slipper socks and a nice pair of ear rings.

Dh wasn't too bad in the shopping department either this year. Mind you, I did give him a list...but it on had two items on it and he got me some extra.

He got me a pack of Hanes comfort t-shirts (because I always borrow his!), a Blue Collar Comedy Tour DVD (no idea what he was thinking there!), a US Flag that was flown over the headquarters in Iraq in honor of US Veterans, a pair of Isotoner gloves (item from my list) and a anniversary ring (also on my list!)

I've been bugging DH for an anniversary ring for years and he's always said that I could have one for the traditional diamond anniversary year... that's 60 if you're keeping track of things! However, I explained to him that this ring was necessary because here in Colorado my fingers shrink up, (are smaller at the base than at my knuckles) which causes my engagement ring to spin around on my finger and the stones to poke me rather painfully. So I don't wear my engagement ring all that often...unless we go out of state. They fit fine just about everywhere else. I think it's a water retention thing or something. I also figured I deserved one after the last 7 months.

I guess that DH must have figured I deserved it too as the house is still standing, and when I showed him the ring I was interested in it wasn't a fortune. So under the tree this year was my nice new ring.

Right now my ring is at the jeweler's getting resized as they don't really make rings small enough for my tiny fingers. I can only buy rings for my pointer fingers that are "off the shelf" or a size 6. Everything else has to be sized down for me. What I don't like is that we get charged for this...they get to keep the extra gold. oh well... I'll be calling today to see if it is ready, it was supposed to be done by yesterday.

Rosarita Salsa Blog Tour

The story of a dinner that didn’t end up on Failblog! ;o)

As many of you know, I suffer the indignity of living with two very picky eaters. The stuff these two won’t eat is just surprising. So perhaps you can imagine my distress when I was asked to try out the new line of Rosarita Salsa… in a recipe! Normally around there the most we do with our salsa is to put it on top of rice with some cheese (dipping tortillia chips into is a normal thing though.)

Luckily the good folks at Rosarita were nice enough to send me a few recipes that I could try the salsa with…and they looked like they might be something I could get my picky eaters to try.

Enchiladas Verdes – Green enchiladas

Ingredients
• PAM® Original No-Stick Cooking Spray
• 1 jar (16.8 oz each) Rosarita® Medium Salsa Verde, divided
• 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
• 12 corn tortillas (6 inch)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Spray 13x9-inch baking dish with cooking spray. Spread 1/4 cup of the salsa over bottom of dish; set aside.
2. Combine chicken, 1/2 cup of the salsa and 1/2 cup of the cheese in medium bowl; mix well. Set aside.
3. Spray both sides of each tortilla with cooking spray. Heat one at a time in skillet over medium-high heat on both sides until slightly puffy and softened.
4. Top each tortilla evenly with about 1/4 cup chicken mixture; roll up. Place seam-side down in prepared baking dish. Cover with the remaining salsa; sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Cover baking dish with aluminum foil.
5. Bake 30 minutes or until cheese melts and sauce is bubbly.

Cook's Tips
1. For delicious Enchiladas Suizas, drizzle with Mexican cream. As an alternative, serve with sour cream.

Or I could try
Spicy Chicken Tostadas

Ingredients
• 1 can (16 oz each) Rosarita® Traditional Refried Beans
• 12 tostada shells, heated according to package directions
• 3 cups shredded cooked chicken
• 4 cups thinly sliced iceberg lettuce
• 1 cup Rosarita® Hot Salsa Taquera or Rosarita® Mild Salsa Mexicana
• 1 cup crumbled queso fresco cheese
• Fresh avocado, peeled and sliced, optional


Directions
1. Place beans in medium microwave-safe bowl. Cover; microwave on HIGH 3 minutes or until hot.
2. Spread each tostada shell evenly with beans. Top each with chicken, lettuce, salsa and cheese.
3. Serve with avocado slices, if desired.

However, when it came down to cooking time, I ended up doing a variation on a Salsa Chicken recipe that I found online. See I had a raw chicken in the frig that I needed to use up with no time to cook and shred it…so instead I put my cut up chicken in a baking dish, covered it with salsa and baked it at 425 for 40 min (turning it over at 20 min). I cooked up a pot of rice to serve with it (adding 1 tbsp of beef bouillon per cup of water, onion and butter). I figured that worst case my picky folks could eat the rice.

Well the verdict was… it’s YUMMY! They both loved it and so did I. They of course didn’t eat extra salsa on the chicken, but they did put the salsa on the rice. I had a bag of tortilla chips out too for them to dip into the salsa. Now I need to try the Salsa Verde! :D

Here’s what the folks at Rosarita would like you to know…

Rosarita, maker of the #1 selling refried beans in the United States, is excited to introduce our new authentic Mexican salsas! Available in three distinct and flavorful varieties, Rosarita Salsa is more than a dip – it’s an ideal topper and ingredient for creating any authentic Mexican dish.

Rosarita Salsa comes in three authentic flavors

Mild Salsa Mexicana – a mild Mexican salsa
Medium Salsa Verde – a zesty, green salsa
Hot Salsa Taquera – a hot, spicy Mexican taco salsa

Rosarita Salsa is made in Mexico using only the best ingredients, giving it the authentic flavor, spice and heat of a homemade salsa.

Rosarita Salsa is now available in the Hispanic foods aisle in four cities — LA, Dallas, Phoenix, and Denver at Walmart locations and select grocery stores for the suggested retail price of $2.99 - $3.29 for a 16.75 oz jar.

Make sure you go check out www.Rosarita.com for more yummy recipes! They have a very nice recipe search there!

“I wrote this review while participating in a blog campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Rosarita and received a sample to facilitate my candid review. Mom Central sent me a gift card to thank me for taking the time to participate.”

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from us to you!

Homecomming!

YES! DH is home now (well not RIGHT NOW!) but home from over there!

DH had asked someone from his office to send me his return flight info and she did...but that was it. LOL! DH told me that I should be able to find them at the airport so we could all be together to greet them... but I'm getting ahead of myself.

After DH had passed his job on to the new guy he had quite a bit of free time and was emailing and instant messenger-ing me a lot. It was quite funny as his night was my morning...so he would always sign off "good night! sleep well." and I would of course say "good morning" but he was "talking" to me during his evening before he went to bed.
When it was getting pretty close to time for him to leave I asked if we would be IMing the next day and he ignored the question. So I knew he was leaving the next day. His return trip took a few days, but we knew when he would be home.

So Wednesday (9th) Darly & I headed to the airport. When we got there we learned that the parking area that I was intending to park in was full and we had to park way out in the boonies. The temp was below zero and by the time I got our car parked and locked up we had missed the shuttle to the airport. So we walked. As we approached the next shuttle stop we had also just missed that shuttle...ugh! Well we walked quickly!

When we got inside the terminal we went to the Airlines ticketing to get a pass to go out to the gate. but of course that info isn't posted on a sign anywhere...and I didn't find a "Customer Service" counter anywhere. I had walked past all the lines trying to find a Airlines employee to ask where we were to go and as I headed back I finally saw a gal trying to make sure that folks were in the correct line. I hollered at her from over 3 lines of folks if I could ask her a question. She says I can and as I make my way to her another gal cuts in front of me to ask something. *eyeroll!*
So I finally get to ask this employee ... "My husband is returning from Iraq today. I was told I could get a pass to go meet him at the gate. Can you tell me where I need to go to get that?" As I finish saying that another family meeting their service member had showed up too. This employee says she can help us and directs us to an empty computer to print out our passes. It turned out that the other family's service member was DH's boss.

So next we get to wait to go through security and then take the train to the concourse. When we get to the gate of course there is no arrival info because normally you can't meet folks at the gate. It doesn't even tell you at the gate that the plane is coming from Xcity. So I asked the gate agent while flashing my pass.

We don't notice anyone else at the gate to meet our guys...hummm

The plane finally arrives and starts unloading. DH's boss' family has a "flat daddy" (they took a picture of their service member in uniform and blew it up to life size and mounted it on cardboard...they had been taking it with them all over and taking pictures of them doing stuff with the "flat daddy" in the shots) One of the other passengers notices the "flat daddy" and tells us that our guys are all waiting at the end of the gangway to come out together.

Finally our guys come out of the gangway...and it seems that no one else has noticed (meaning the folks waiting for to board for the next flight) so I started clapping for our guys. You could tell when folks realized what was going on and started joining in. Many folks walked up and thanked our guys and wished them a Merry Christmas.

As we made our way up to baggage claim some of the guys disappeared, so we waited for them all to get back together. Turns out that one of the kids had left his backpack and they had to go back to get it (I was wondering why all those kids had backpacks when they weren't going anywhere??? I never did find out why) So we all rode the train back to the terminal together and everyone else from the office, boy scouts and some veterans were there with flags and welcome home banners!

it was a very respectable welcome home for the guys!

We then had to make our way to the base for DH to fill out all his paperwork. That took a long time because everyone kept coming in to talk to the guys...especially DH because of his position. DH was actually getting a bit annoyed with them.

We finally made it home and let Lilly out into the garage to greet DH. At first she was scared (I think the balloon that DH was holding might have been part of it) but as soon as DH said "Hello Lilly" she knew who this guy was and gave him a proper hello!

DH won't have to go back to work for real until mid Jan. So I should come up with something for us to do or we're going to go nuts!

I've been working on our Christmas cards and we still need to get our family picture taken so I can get the cards printed. I'm hoping to get that all done today. Wish me luck!