Archive for the ‘As the stomach turns’ Category

A picture from last night’s dinner with extended family.

I so wish I felt comfortable blogging about it. There was so much blog fodder.

wRitErsbLock

Post a Comment

It seems I’ll have a birthday on Sunday. I’m not happy about it. For some inane reason, 33 intimidates me. It has something to do with the fact that 33 is divisible by 11 three times. That freaks me out for some reason. I’m not generally bothered at all by aging. Oh, sure, I cried at 19 and found it to be very traumatic, but no birthday since then has been traumatic at all. Thirty-three… gah! I can’t cope!

Anyway, my loving husband asked me the other day

He: What do you want for you birthday?
Me: Pig tails.
He: I know that already. What else do you want?
Me: It’s so hard to answer that; we tend to buy what we want when we want if we have the money.
He: I know. We’re impossible to shop for. So… what do you want?
Me: Stuff for the house. A kitchen sink. Plants. Oooh! Someone to come rip out and re-drywall my kitchen! That’s what I want!
He: Riight. We can get you that lemon tree you’ve been lusting after.
Me: It’s $70. For $70 we can have a really nice meal with tasty adult beverages.
He: So do you just want to go out to eat?
Me: Yes… but I’d also like to just keep throwing money into our mythical vacation fund.

On the way home tonight, we stopped by our big box home improvement store to look at the plants. We seriously have a plant problem in that we have no self-control. We can’t remember which big box store we recently saw baby papaya trees for cheap (compared to our nursery of choice that is super expensive and really far away and sucks away so much of our money). This was not the right store for the papaya. But… they had my variegated pink lemon tree for $20 compared to $70 at the nursery. Granted, the tree at Lucas Nursery was much, much larger — a tree — and the one that came home with us is more like a shrubbery, but look at the difference in price! And so… I give you my birthday lemon tree whose name is Floyd:

Isn’t he pretty?! I heart him! Supposedly his fruit will resemble small, lemon-shaped watermelons. Here’s a close up of his newest growth:

Such a pretty tree.

And while I’m posting pictures of trees, let me update you on Manny, my ice cream mango tree. He’s trying so hard to produce fruit for me this year:

I just love all our trees. And am thrilled with Floyd. What a great birthday present! And since he only cost $20, we also were able to bring home two strawberry plants, a muscadine grape (we’re expanding our vineyard!), and a raspberry. And some flower pots for our existing, need-to-be-re-potted herbs. All for $20 less than what Floyd would have cost at Lucas.

My fingers are still crossed for dry wall installers to re-do all my horrid textured walls for my birthday, but I won’t hold my breath.

Bonus: pics a few weeks ago of the itty bitty baby lemons on Oscar the Meyer Lemon:

wRitErsbLock

Comments (2)

While we were watching “yell at the tv hour” last night, one of the anchors mentioned a food recall due to an ingredient that shows up in many, many food products has been tainted with salmonella. One of the foods the anchor mentioned was hot dogs.

My husband and I have decided to blame salmonella for my stomach distress. It all began Tuesday afternoon after having hot dogs for lunch. It was 24 hours of agonizing stomach pain with no, um, puking or any other sort of expulsion from my body. Then, yesterday the stomach pain was gone, but the expulsions were frequent. Last night, the stomach pain resumed, combined with expulsions. And now this morning, more of the same.

I choose to blame salmonella.

That, or I’m allergic to my upcoming birthday. I fear 33.

wRitErsbLock

Comments (3)

We had a free pass to go see Hot Tub Time Machine last night. We went into it with very low expectations, and… it was hysterical. Those of you who know me in real life know I’m not generally a laugh out loud kind of girl. Some of you have complained to my face that I don’t laugh at your jokes. I’m not a laugher. This movie had me loudly guffawing in the theater, grabbing my sides, crying. It was so funny. It’s rated R, and I hope the eight year old in the front row appreciated all the sex and nekkid humor and blatant drug abuse, but I will not allow my thirteen year old to see this movie. Crispin Glover’s character drew the loudest laughs from a theater full of UCF students and we two fuddy duddy adults. I would not have regretted paying to see this movie. This is from the lady who flat out refuses to go to movies anymore because of the price and rude theater go-ers.

In other news, I’m looking at our home insurance policy and wondering if our network of webcams placed around the house qualifies as one of those wireless security systems that might then qualify me for a slight discount on my insurance? I will have to put on my adult hat one of these days and call to see if that would work out or not.

We had Hot Dog Heaven for lunch yesterday. Shortly thereafter, my stomach started screaming at me. I had some soup before the movie last night, but I sat through that movie with a very strong stomach ache, and no relief in sight. Safe at home, I climbed into bed but tossed and turned all night long due to a raging head ache and my screaming stomach; there just was not a comfortable position available. This morning, I stayed in bed until just before 9. I got up and showered, which absolutely wiped me out. And the stomach and head: screaming at me still. There’s someplace I need to be, and I just can’t bear the thought of driving ten miles to go there. I put a pot of chicken bones on the stove to make some broth for me. And I’m sipping ginger ale. But, honestly, if my stomach is going to feel like an alien is trying to break through it, shouldn’t I at least have the benefit of puking to alleviate the pain? Alas, it has not been in the cards for me. Just ridiculous stomach pain, and a headache to match because I’m afraid to put advil into my aching tummy.

wRitErsbLock

Comments (3)

A conversation with my husband.

He: Did you enjoy the sex.
Me: Why are you asking?
He: You didn’t say anything after.
Me: Do you require a round of applause every time?
He: Yes! I want to hear “Yup Yup Yup” like in curling.
Me: Hard! Hard! Deep! Hard! Yup! Yup! Yup!
He: He shoots he scores!
Me: You’re a weirdo… and I’m blogging this.
He: I already plurked it.

(as an aside, who knew hockey had to kind of effect on me?)

wRitErsbLock

Comments (10)

I feel like we have been running in overdrive for weeks now. Because we kind of have. We’ve gone from having RTY a whopping 12 hours per month (that’s two Saturdays for 6 hours) to picking her up from school 2-3 days a week, and then having her until around 8p (which is a difficult time to leave home and drive her wherever we end up having to drive her, as it’s always changing). And every Saturday. I’m not complaining, we’re just not used to being so active, as active for adults is so very different than active with a teenager. Add in Wednesday night poker night and Friday night gathering with the usual suspects, that only leaves us with Thursday nights (unless we’ve picked up RTY from school) with solitude during the week. It’s exhausting.

We cancelled poker night tonight because we had Ma and RTY come over for dinner (Ma has RTY on Wednesday nights now) for Ma’s birthday (her bday is Friday, but she works). And since the Olympics are currently keeping us glued to the television, we somehow managed not to have a birthday present for Ma. They were supposed to be here around 6, and we didn’t get home until 445, so I ended up dropping off my husband so he could start cooking while I ran out to buy birthday cream puffs and a birthday present for Ma. I got back home a few minutes before they arrived, giving me just enough time to wrap the gift before they arrived.

My MIL is not a girly girl who subscribes to girly things like arcona skinare, and she will take almost any present you give her and give it to someone else tomorrow. But we already gave her a framed picture of RTY for Valentines day the other day, so another kid picture was not a gift option for her birthday. We contemplated giving her a DVD of a chick flick, but since she no longer lives with us, we hear she never watches movies without us setting it up for her to watch. She loves to read, but it’s hard to know what to buy her. Cue me standing in the bookstore texting my husband with book titles.

Anyway, we gave her a book she hasn’t read in a series she enjoys (it’s hard to know which of the series she either already owns or has borrowed from the library), and two bags of her favorite candy. And the aforementioned container of cream puffs that probably didn’t survive the 5 mile drive back to her apartment, as it’s her personal brand of heroin.

She left, and it was a mad dash to clean the guest bathroom, the kitchen sink, and start a load of laundry while my husband finished some meal prep for tomorrow night’s dinner guests. Right now, the house is presentable. I need to mop my kitchen again and clean four animal cages, but if those things didn’t happen, I would not be embarrassed to have company over. The animals are starting to stink, though, so they get cleaned.

I’m exhausted and short track skating is on.

wRitErsbLock

Comments (1)

We had another weather front move through last night, on top of the one that came through last Thursday night. Last Friday, I was picking up a lot of yard waste that had been either blown into our yard from elsewhere, or fell from our tree in the back yard. I imagine I’ll be doing that again this evening.

I joked with my husband that it would be just our luck, now that we’ve finished re-doing RTY’s new bedroom, to have a storm come through and cause our tree to fall onto the roof, and decimate her bedroom. Fortunately, I am not sitting here searching online for a roof repair service… yet. I am hoping, though, that 2010 is the year we are able to afford to replace our ancient roof.

I am, however, trying to obtain some home remodeling estimates. Specifically, I want to know how much it will cost to have someone else come in to rip out and replace the drywall in my kitchen, and then how much to add two more bedrooms to that estimate. Great is my loathing of my wall texture. We actually priced out drywall to do RTY’s old bedroom ourselves. We have hung drywall before, and while it was hard work, it was work I rather enjoyed. I wouldn’t mind tackling the bedrooms, but the kitchen has something like 15′ ceilings, and I’ll need a qualified professional (with stilts or a scaffolding) tackling the kitchen.

The great thing about this website I found is that they have several areas of expertise. So, in that mythical world where I have money to pay a professional, I could also have custom replacement windows installed. During that cold snap we had, I became aware of just how not energy efficient our windows are. I had the heat on, and the cold air coming into the house from the windows was appalling. If the cold is getting in during the winter, you know that means my a/c air is escaping during the rest of the year. And I wonder why my utility bill is so high.

Anyway, that hail storm we had two years ago damaged the casings on several of our windows, and we’ve managed not to be able to replace them yet. ::sigh:: Being a home owner is expensive.

wRitErsbLock

Post a Comment

I have had a ridiculous headache for three days. Advil has not touched it. Honestly, though, with all the advil I have swallowed this week trying to knock down this headache, you’d think I was a perfect candidate for drug rehab. I’ve tried the usual headache cures: advil, alcohol, sleep… and now I’m trying allergy medicine. Since my eyes have been burning all week, I’m theorizing that maybe my headache is allergy related. Fingers crossed; I just took an allergy pill. I couldn’t take one this morning because it may cause drowsiness. Or excitability. Watch it be the latter since I took it before bedtime!

Pinelope pooped out green poop (on my hands, thanks sweetie) this evening. A hedgehog site I’ve been reading says green poop is bad. She also has a bit of a runny nose. But she’s hissing up a storm, was very active when I let her run around the house, and bit me twice, so I’m hoping that means she feels okay. I hope she eats tonight. Because she was biting my fingers, we gave her some leftover chicken from dinner. She usually only bites me when my fingers smell like food. She bites my husband all the time for no reason; apparently she thinks he’s tasty!

Enter Gadget (one of my two boy chinchillas). Gadget was kind of catatonic when I just fed the chins and bunny. I gave the chins craisins as a treat — they love craisins — and Storm was excited to get one, Gizmo was excited to get one, but Gadget just stared off into space. Not normal behavior, especially when faced with treats. I put the craisin into his mouth, and he did not react. Meanwhile, I gave Storm and Gizmo a second craisin each (any more than two and they’ll start having tummy distress that I am not willing to clean up after!). I looked back to Gadget and the craisin was sticking out of his mouth, untouched. So, I reached back into the cage and pulled the craisin back out of Gadget’s mouth. Ah, that brought a reaction! He was disinclined to release the craisin, but still reluctant to grab it with his paws like he normally does. And, he foolishly allowed Gizmo to steal the craisin out of his mouth (which I stole back. see aforementioned tummy distress issues with too many sweets!).

Sherlock then came in to see what I was talking about. He pulled Gadget out of the cage, and Gadget freaked out. As I sit here in the bedroom typing this, I can hear one of my chins squeaking more than normal.

Why are my pets acting out of sorts?

::sigh:: I hope my warm fuzzies are all ok.

wRitErsbLock

Comments (7)

Jason has been working on tea party related political events in Nashville. He excitedly im-ed me the other day to let me know he had been interviewed by Politico.com. Today, there’s a story in which my big bro is quoted (on page three), along with his business partner, Bill.

WOO HOO! WTG Jason and Bill!

wRitErsbLock

Comments (1)

Maya commented on my post down below in which I was complaining about monthly blemish outbreaks. She lamented she too gets outbreaks in the general area of her chest. You and me both, babe. I hate it. It’s disgusting and appalling and wholly unattractive. And I’m one of those who cannot leave well enough alone. If a zit seems poppable, I must pop. Which is how I got the scar I’m absolutely thrilled about, right in my cleavage. Brilliant! Before bathing suit season, I might start looking into acne scar removal salves. And I guess I’m lucky I’m not in the dating scene, or I’d really be self conscious about that particular scar. It’s not big, but I am keenly aware of it. How I escaped my teens unscathed only to start having acne scars in my thirties is mind boggling!

wRitErsbLock

Comments (1)