An attempt at something new: Pictures!

Matthew as a ninja.

Michaela (middle) is a fairy princess, and Shaya as a fairy princess.  Yes, they’re both the same thing, but aren’t they cute?

Okay.  This is only my second third fourth fifth try, and I think I may have gotten it!

Happy Halloween!

We took the kids trick or treating tonight.  The little kids (Michaela and my friend Lindsay’s son, Levi) lasted about an hour.  So we called Lindsay’s husband and then took the big kids (Shaya and Matthew) for another hour. 

Two hours and more than two miles later, we had tons of candy.  This is one time of year that having three kids means more loot instead of less!  Woo hoo!  So we have, like, ten pounds of candy or so.  There’s a dentist or two in town that will pay five dollars a pound for candy.  I’m tempted, but I think the kids would have a cow.

Shaya said, “Hey, now we have more after school snacks!  And it was FREE!!”

They’re not supposed to have candy as an after school snack, but the little shits climb up on the cabinet and steal it.  I got the big-assed (heh, no pun intended!) bowl down, and there were, like, six pieces of candy and about fifty empty wrappers in the thing.

They’ve been stealing it for a while, and I never knew.  Unbelievable.

They were all really good tonight, and let us check the candy before they ate it [one piece each… belly aches in the middle of the night are unacceptable!].

 They’re all in bed now, and asleep, hopefully, since they have school tomorrow.  I’m getting ready to go there, too.  Steve gets off work in forty five minutes, though, so I may wait up for him and smooch a little before bed.

My first meme!

 At least I think it is.  Thanks for the tag, Doug!

The basic facts:

Who is your significant other? Steve
How long have you been together? Since November 1994. Married in August 1995
Dating/Engaged/Married? Married.
How old is your S.O.? 36

Which one?

Who eats more? Steve does. Definitely
Who says “I love you” first? Probably 50/50. We’re kinda saps.
Who weighs more? Steve does! Yay! By about forty pounds now, which makes me very happy!
Who sings better? Steve does. He’s professional quality, while I am poor amaturish at best. My range is about ten notes, and they are questionable on most days.  Steve’s freakishly good, and has an amazing voice.  And I don’t say that lightly, either.  I wouldn’t lie about such things.
Who’s older? Steve, by about two and a half years.
Who’s smarter? That’s a tough one. I’m definitely quicker, but that may not be a good thing! Our intelligence is completely diverse. I’m more creative with words and drawing/painting and such, but Steve has me beat on math and more methodical, structured knowledge.
Whose temper is worse? I get mad more quickly, but I think Steve is scarier. He has that “Trooper Voice” which says, “Don’t fuck with me or I’ll smash your face into the pavement.” He’s never used it on me, though, and it’s a good thing, ’cause I’d hurt him. HA! Nevermind the reality that he could kick my ass if he wanted to [he never would, though, ’cause he LOVES me!]. You didn’t want reality anyway, did you?
Who does the laundry? Both of us. It’s probably 70/30 him, though. I hate housework!
Who does the dishes? Both of us. Probably 90/10 on that one [he does them more than I do].
Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Depends on your perspective. If you’re in bed with us, it’s me, but if you’re standing at the foot of the bed, it’s Stevie.
Whose feet are bigger? Steve. He has long skinny feet. Size 12, which is abnormally long considering that he’s only about 5′ 10″. Mine are 7 1/2.

Whose hair is longer? Mine, although Steve’s was way longer than mine when we got married. My hair is actually below my shoulders now, which is the longest it’s been since high school.
Who’s better with the computer? Me, definitely.
Who mows the lawn? Steve. We have a push mower, and I can’t even start the damn thing.
Who pays the bills? Usually Steve, although we’re switching banks so I can do it online.
Who cooks dinner? Me. Almost always. If Steve “cooks” it’s sandwiches or something frozen.
Who drives when you are together? Almost always Steve. He does that for a living. In fact, he can even teach cops how to drive now. He’s a very excellent driver *rocks back and forth*.
Who pays when you go out to dinner? Usually Steve, unless I do.
Who’s the most stubborn? Steve! No, seriously.  He’s just more laid back than I am, so it looks like I’m more stubborn, but I’m not.
Who is the first one to admit when they’re wrong? I’d say that’s 50/50, although I like to argue just for the sake of arguing sometimes, in which case it doesn’t matter who’s right, ’cause I am!
Whose parents do you see more? Until the past month, we saw Steve’s mom more than my parents, although before we moved to St. Joe three years ago, we saw mine every week.
Who named your ferret? We don’t have ferrets. I named our Australian Shepherd, and my mom named the cocker spaniel, but Shaya had come up with the name “Shyla” when she was three or so. I named our kids, does that count?
Who kisses who first? It varies. We have stages where I kiss Stevie a lot, and then others where he instigates the smoochies.
Who asked who out? Steve asked me. He asked me to go to Sonic. Romantic, don’t you think?
Who’s more sensitive? Believe it or not, we’re about equal there. I’m definitely more emotional than he is, but he’s as much of a sap as I am when it comes to lovey dovey crap.
Who’s taller? Steve, by about four inches.
Who has more friends? Probably Steve. I’m a stay at home mom, where would I find friends?
Who has more siblings? Steve has a brother and sister. I have a brother, although one died at birth before I was born, but I don’t think we can count him for this purpose.
Who wears the pants in the relationship? Probably me, at least in the sense I’m louder and more opinionated than he is. About stuff that matters to him, he does, though.

Woo hoo!

So, Mom is doing much better.  She went home today, and I think she’ll make it.  It was a very difficult, sometimes scary, three weeks [and almost six weeks for mom] but she’s doing so much better.  My dad is going to have to learn how to change her dressings [wounds still draining… yuck!] But I know he can handle it.

As for me, I’m sitting here at my new computer, jamming out to Metallica [black album… which is the only one I like, but damn, it’s awesome!]  Unforgiven is playing right now.  I can’t help but headbang to it.  Strange phenomenon, but there you go.

I just did a Netflix instant view [of Heroes, season 2, episode 1, which I’ve had to miss because Dish Network sucks and can’t get locals for me…. bastards].

Holy Crapoli!  This monitor is HD, and it’s amazing the stuff you can see!  I could see the pores on the actors’ faces, the texture of Claire’s hair.  Damn.

The most amazing thing, though is that it streams in with no jumps or misses, and I can actually see the freaking picture… no more black!

Yeah, so you didn’t come here to hear that, did you?  Well, I didn’t come here to tell you that, either.  Actually, I have no idea what I came here to say, only that I had the urge.

I got drunk Friday night.  Ugh.  I’m too old for that shit.  I only blew a .031 [.08 is too drunk to drive.  I think I would die of alcohol poisoning at .08] but I was massively impaired.  Steve has the coolest party favor ever, a PBT which checks your breath for alcohol [which is what I was talking about when I said “Blew”  jeez, get yer mind out of the gutter!]

He also did the horizontal gaze nystagmus test, which I failed miserably. 

Then I puked in the toilet at a stranger’s house.  I missed, and sat in it, so my jeans had pink Spoli puke on the leg, but I didn’t care.  Steve held my hair, ’cause that’s the sweet kind of man that he is.  Then he helped me home, helped me get my shoes off.  I don’t remember if I changed into sweats or not, but I think I slept in all my clothes.

I dunno.  Maybe I slept all night in pukey jeans?  Hang on, lemme ask Steve.

Nope, he helped me put some sweats on.  I remember waking up with them on, but I don’t remember putting them on.  I do know that I was seeing double, so I closed one eye to look at people.  It was a costume party.  We didn’t dress up, but I should have gone as a pirate.  The eyepatch would have come in handy.

Yeah, so anyway.  Steve was a sweetie, but he likes it when I’m tipsy ’cause I get a little frisky.  I was kissing him a lot at the party.  So I guess he was happy to hold my hair back while I put my face in the toilet of people I wouldn’t recognize if I met on the street today, and puked until my socks came up.

Yeah, so I was hung over bad most of the day yesterday.  My mom and dad thought it was pretty funny.  Assholes.  I didn’t throw up anymore after Friday night, but only ’cause I was drugged up on Dramamine and Excedrin and Advil. Yes, I killed my liver after I pickled it, but I was miserable.

I think I went to the party dehydrated, and then they had this grain alcohol stuff that made me buzz after one glass… and then I had three more glasses, plus a jell-o shot.  So anyway, I think maybe I’m too old to party on a regular basis.

I should have stopped after I was buzzing instead of going on to full fledged drunk, but oh well.

I didn’t come here to tell you that, either, but what the hell.

See ya later.

A New Computer…

Which makes me incredibly happy.  It’s a Gateway, and it has a 19 inch flatscreen monitor that works!  Woo hoo!  I can see pictures, and hear music!  Mom is staying with me this week, until tomorrow.  She is improving every day, and I can’t even tell you what a relief that is.

Looks like she’s going to live, and be happy and pain-free again.

Thank God.

Anyway, life is better, and I’ll be blogging, hopefully, on a semi-regular basis again soon.

Take care, y’all!

Update.

Well, I’m still here, still alive, but too freaking busy for words.  Any words, so don’t feel left out.

My mom went in for a simple, one day laparoscopic gallbladder surgery on September 21, and she’s still not recovered from it because her surgeon screwed up… numerous times.

The first one could have happened to anyone, he cut her bowel accidentally and had to fix it.  Six days later, they sent her home, in excruciating pain, with an undiagnosed bowel obstruction and abscess.

She called the doctor the next day because she was throwing up massive quantities of bile, and he said, “Well, go back to ice chips.”  A few days later, she called again, still throwing up, and cried, begging him, saying she couldn’t take the pain anymore.

He told her to go to the ER.  When she got there, they did an X-Ray and found the abscess and obstruction.  They did an emergency bowel resection, on Sunday, September 30, and on Tuesday, October  2, she started having chest pain.

The nurses thought she wanted pain meds, and she ended up screaming at them that her chest hurt, not her incision, and they needed to do something.

When they finally got the EKG hooked up, they found that she was having a major heart attack.  The heart doc came in, and they got it stopped and transferred her to a city hospital, where she had two stents put in the next day.

There were two blockages in her circumflex [that might not be spelled right] artery in her heart [that’s the one in the back of the heart] one blockage  was 90%, and the other one was 99%. 

If she’d been at home, she would have died. 

So they kept her at the city hospital for five days, until Saturday, and Steve and I were there.  When they sent her home, I thought things were finally calming down.

I tried to call them Sunday night, but couldn’t get ahold of them, on Monday, my dad called and said that mom’s stitches had burst, and she was back in the hospital.

Fuck.

So they sent her home on Tuesday, and I came down to take care of her.  I’ve been here ever since. 

The surgeon put these horrible things called “Stay Sutures” or Retention Sutures in.  Turns out, she’s allergic to the stitches they used, and was in constant, excruciating pain until Monday when they took them out. 

On Tuesday, she was still in a lot of pain, and we were both depressed as hell.  Wednesday, she had a wonderful day, with bearable pain, and we thought the worst was behind us.

Thursday morning, the bad pain was back [although not as severe as before] and we were depressed again.  We realized that it’s just going to be a slow process, which sucks.

Today, Friday, her pain is less, but now there’s fresh blood in the drainage from her wounds [where she popped open due to pressure from too much fluid built up in her abdomen].

Her asshole surgeon [who I’ve had to fight with repeatedly to get medicine for pain, and about taking the stay sutures out] is out of town until Monday.

I’m keeping an eye on the blood, praying that it doesn’t increase. 

Also, today we found out that her Medicare isn’t going to pay for her medicines for the rest of the year.  Plan D sucks.  They have what they call a ‘do-nut hole’ where the patient has to pay 100% of their medicine costs once medicare has paid $2200 for the year. 

If the cost gets over $5000, it kicks in again.  Un-fucking-believable.

She has several medicines that she has to take for her diabetes, high cholesterol, and heart condition, none of which are cheap.

I have no way to help out, and I have no idea what they’re going to do.

Oh yeah, Steve, Shaya, and Matthew are at home, and Michaela is with me, so I haven’t seen my kids or husband in almost two weeks.  We only have one vehicle, and I have it, so he can’t come see me, and  mom needs constant care.

I miss my family, my friends, my home, and even my stupid dogs, who shit all over the floor while Steve was at work yesterday… diarrhea. 

I’m not sleeping at night, and until today, mom’s internet has been screwed up, so it’s been fun.

So.  That’s my life these days.  Aren’t you glad you stopped by?

If you pray, would you say one for my parents?