Updates!

3/17 = My 44th birthday (I'm referring to this year as "The Obama").  My husband and I drove up to north Georgia to visit Mom.  I got to see my brother for a quick visit, and have lunch with my sister and my neice.   I took a couple of old photo albums and Mom and I had a wonderful time looking through them and reminiscing.  Staying in a retirement home doesn't sound like much of a party, but the place where Mom lives has a nice guest room with a little refrigerator and coffee maker, and it's so handy being just upstairs and down the hall from Mom.  I like putting on my jammies after dinner and walking downstairs in my slippers to hang out with Mom, watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.  It almost feels like home.

3/26 = I went to a funeral for a co-worker.  He was in his late 20's, working full-time while pursuing a civil engineering degree, and he died suddenly.  My job entails speaking to co-workers on the phone for a good portion of my average workday, answering questions and making changes to schedules and trouble-shooting system problems and a million other things, and I can honestly say that out of hundreds he was my very favorite person to talk to.   Since he often called my extension directly instead of calling the queue that goes to whoever in my department is available (which is what he was supposed to do), I'm going to guess he liked talking to me, too.  He had a great sense of humor (and by that I mean he appreciated MY sense of humor, ha) and an easy laugh, and a cool accent (he was from Trinidad).   Everyone here in the office was so shocked and upset.  People gathered around his desk and cried.  Our HR department brought in a grief counselor.  I have to admit, I did end up sobbing quietly in the restroom for a few minutes.  A lot of people from our company went to his funeral, which was lovely; it focused very much on being a celebration of his life.  I will really, really miss him.

4/1 = My husband and I were at work when he got a call that his father, who'd had an accident on his fishing boat the previous weekend and hurt his right leg very badly, was being rushed back to the hospital to have surgery and could lose his leg.  We both left work and went to the hospital, very scared.  He was already in surgery when we got there, so we waited, hoping for good news.  The surgery went well, luckily the infection hadn't spread too much.  My father in law was in a motorcycle accident more than 20 years ago and lost his right arm, so he is quite glad to able to hang on to all his remaining limbs.  He had a second surgery a few days later, and will have a skin graft this week. He has a long painful recovery ahead of him.

4/4 = While making dinner our garbage disposal got clogged, and when fixing it my husband took off the pipe attached to it. Unfortunately, this pipe thingie was attached to another pipe thingie, and had apparently been pieced together with some strange elderly material that basically just disintegrated, so the pipes couldn't be put back together.  Neither of us knows the first thing about plumbing.  The next morning, my brilliant and fearless husband yanked the whole thing out and took it to Lowe's, where he managed to find something that looked like it might be the same, and brought it home and put everything together.  So, we don't know for sure whether it was actually done correctly or not, but it's working, so we're considering it fixed.  But we put a bucket under it, just in case.

4/5 am = I got sick.  I woke up in the middle of the night, a little nauseous, and within the next few hours got sicker and sicker until I... well, why don't I just be kind and spare the details?  Let's just say it was most unpleasant.  I don't know if I got some kind of bug or if I ate something that hated me, but I felt a lot better by afternoon, and was fine the next day.

4/5 pm = My poor husband's doomed birthday.  He had planned to go to the hospital for his father's second surgery, but ended up staying home to take care of me, and also to take care of the kitchen sink.  The sink and I were in similar shape, actually.  To celebrate at least a tiny bit, we ordered chinese food to be delivered, which is kind of a treat for us.  Also, I finally gave in and watched Full Metal Jacket with him, it's one of his favorite movies and I had never seen it.  It wasn't an ideal day of celebration, but it had a few nice moments.

p.s  Also, I got a scanner for my birthday!  I am extremely excited about this, since I have a buttload of old pics from forever ago, plus I have a ton of negatives -- many from my photography classes in college that I've never even printed (lab time was scarce and photo paper was expensive).  Stay tuned for old photos!  And when I say "old", I mean like from the 80's.  :D

Birthdays and Needles

Tomorrow morning I am driving to Georgia to visit my parents. It's my Dad's birthday, woo! We (my brother and sister in law, my sister and brother in law, my niece and her two daughters, my nephew and his wife, and Mom and Dad) are going out for lunch on Saturday to celebrate Dad's birthday. :)

I have no idea where we are going, apparently my brother in law was going to make reservations at Outback, but as they are not open for lunch on Saturday, I am not confident in that plan. Mom and Dad love Red Lobster, though, so maybe we'll end up there.

I am looking forward to seeing Mom and Dad, but I am not looking forward to the drive. I am going to burn a bunch of cd's to take with me -- including all the Harry Potter soundtracks. And possibly some Amy Winehouse. Maybe Psychedelic Furs... maybe Missy Elliott... definitely that Lip Gloss song by Lil Mama that has been stuck in my head for two months now.

So: my husband has a terrible fear of needles. It's funny, because he will watch really awful, disgusting, bloody, disturbing things in movies (I won't go into detail -- you're welcome) but if someone gets an allergy shot he has to look away.

Last week he had to have a blood test. He was very brave, I went with him and he did great. He did less great when, later in the week, the lab called to say that they had messed up the test and he had to go back in to have more blood drawn. Gah! Did I mention this is one of those fasting tests where you can't eat/drink anything for 12 hours prior? Geez. So he fasts and goes back in.

This time he decided it was time to get over his fear, and he watched everything. He watched the nurse/technician/whatever she's called get out the needle, and realized that it's not one of those little get-a-shot needles; it's a hollow pointy tube to suck his blood out. He watched her find a vein and insert the needle, and he watched her fill up a small tube with his blood. It didn't take as long this time, he said (I wasn't with him) so maybe the first chick hadn't been very good at it, anyway.

I was so proud of him! He called me from the parking lot and he was fine -- not woozy, not nauseous. Woo hoo! Then, the next morning, the phone rings... The nurse/technician/whatever she's called had actually NOT taken enough blood, and they weren't able to do all the tests. He has to go in AGAIN to have his blood drawn. And fast, AGAIN.

I said this is wonderful! The forces of the universe are helping you get over your fear of needles, yay! Poor thing, he is not so happy about it. :(

On a different note, here is a picture of my Yankee Candle tart burner:

The Big 4-0!

So, I'll be turning 40 in a couple of weeks, and I am pretty happy about it. I'm not sure why people get so freaked out -- is it because they are unhappy or unsatisfied with their lives?  I have certainly had some experiences during my life so far, some great and some less great, but I have tried to learn from all of them, and I like who I am right now.

Did I mention that I've lost 8 pounds?  I like that I'm losing weight, but it's so freakin' hard. I actually find that the whole issue of willpower isn't usually the hard part for me, it's not losing enough weight. I feel good about myself when I turn down the cupcakes and danishes and key lime pies that always seem to turn up at work, when I spend my lunch break walking and I go on the treadmill after work, when I eat right and not too much all week long without any exception -- and then it sucks when at the end of the week I've only lost one or two pounds. I want to lose it all right now as a reward for doing so good, dammit!

Turning 40 is making me think back. I really want to track down Tammie, my best friend through grade school and high school and most of college. I haven't seen her in more than 10 years. Weirdly, my college boyfriend Russ called me out of the blue a couple of weeks ago, and it's been maybe 15 years since I've spoken to him. I Googled another one of my exes and found pics of him... boy, does he look old!  Ha.