Like HGTV, But Less Interesting

My BFF's this week

Well! Looks as though those science-y people aren't quite on their toes, since it turns out my antibiotics didn't work, and  I kept getting worse, so Wednesday I got to visit two more doctors and have a CAT scan and get more medicines and, hoo-boy, it's been a fun week. Why didn't any of you warn me about the part of a sinus infection where the swelling compresses nerves in your face and you wake up feeling as though someone is repeatedly stabbing you in the jaw? Had to let me find that out all by myself, did you? Thanks.

So here I am, a little better, taking steroids (ooh, fun, never had those before) and another antibiotic and popping Motrin, but luckily I haven't been so sick that I couldn't pursue Larry's and my new hobby, which is buying used kitchen tables off the Internet.

You see, until a month ago, we still had our 6-seater table that we bought back in 2001 (it matched the hutch I got rid of here). But we only have 5 people living here now, and at any one meal we tend to only have 4 or less, and I was tired of edging around the too-big table in the limited space of our eating area. Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if we had a cute round table with a self-storing leaf, so we could easily make it accommodate 6 people if we needed it?

And then the Internet gods smiled on me and I found one on our town's Online Yard Sale on Facebook - only 50 dollars! "Look," I told Larry, "it's just what we want, but the wrong color. Let's see if it feels right before we spend money on a new table. We can resell it later." And Larry, having been married  to me lo these many years, accepted that it would be so.

What Larry dragged home last month, only with a white laminate top 

So, we like it, except for the white laminate top (weird) and the fact that there appears to be an umbrella hole in the middle of the self-storing leaf (sort of a dealbreaker for Larry). We were even planning on going to IKEA and spending the big bucks on the newer version (well, I was, anyway). But late last night, on the Online Yard Sale, I saw another one - black, no hole, pedestal instead of legs, with 4 matching chairs.

"Larry!" I yelled. "Come here! Will black work?" We ended up consulting Brian - our design maven around here, what with his mad visual skills - and he approved. So this morning I fetched the chairs, and Larry - after spending 8 hours today helping Civil Air Patrol cadets run a food drive - will go get the table. Because, really, that's what he likes to do on his days off.

What Larry's dragging home today 

Or maybe he's just a good sport, right? A good sport who knows how to stay married?

Oy, How I Suffer

Nature's antibiotic

The cold that wouldn't end was pretty much gone last week, and I was looking forward to resuming a normal blogging life, sans complaints about aches and pains and all. But then Thursday it came roaring back to life as the most godawful sinus infection ever, all on one side of my face, making my teeth hurt and my eye hurt and forcing me back into the arms of sudafed and tylenol and aspirin, my BFFs, apparently.

I swear, it was like that scene in Fatal Attraction, where Glenn Close pops back out of the bathtub with that knife. I mean, WTH? I was feeling BETTER. I biked 20 miles last Monday. Sheesh.

As is my wont, I assumed that orange juice and OTC meds would cure all, and, honestly, I never took people who complained about sinus infections seriously anyway. Just a fancy name for a head cold, that's what I thought. So I soldiered on, through Thursday, when I acted like a person who isn't about to die from the worst sinus infection of all time and did a bunch of stuff I can't remember now, and through Friday, when I drove the girls an hour away to pick strawberries in an open field under hot sun, and did I mention that sinus infection?

There were MORE than this.

Of course, when we got home, I was able to relax. Ha, ha, ha, NO! Because we had $65 worth of strawberries sitting on the kitchen counter, all threatening to go bad at once if I didn't do anything with them. So I cooked and canned 2 batches of strawberry jam, which made barely a dent in our strawberry supply, and then I separated out some strawberries for dinner, and there were STILL 2 whole flats left, and then Larry came home and I started crying about the whole strawberry situation, so he made them disappear in the downstairs fridge for a bit.

I like that guy.

Saturday, still suffering, I worked at the yoga center, came home and hung out with neighbors at a grown-up birthday party, and then, FINALLY, lay down on the couch. At which point Brian said, "Best Buy wants me to start tomorrow and I need black pants and black sneakers and a white polo shirt." Larry, sensing that I was incapacitated (maybe it was my lying on the couch, moaning in pain, while dialing the Urgent Care hotline - he's very perceptive like that), volunteered to take Brian to Kohls, for which I am forever grateful.

Guys, sinus infections are REAL THINGS.

So I staggered into Urgent Care and waited over an hour, along with other people in similar states of distress. When I left, I was clutching my prescription of antibiotics and thanking God for people who actually want to do science-y things like cure diseases and make medicines.

I slept maybe 3 broken hours on Saturday night, because antibiotics don't cure things right away. (And why not, you science-y people out there? WHY NOT?) And here's the kicker: I was supposed to bike 56 miles on Sunday for the Tour de Cure.

Larry, saying HE would go to Kohls.

So, yeah, that didn't happen. What did happen is that, mid-morning, Rachel came up to me and said, "The local theater is showing Casablanca at 11:00." And can I mention right here how proud I am of raising a daughter who knows that that is an important thing? SO PROUD.

The girls and I went to see the movie, me clutching my tissues and Ricola cough drops, and it was as awesome as it always has been. Seriously, BEST MOVIE EVER. When I am dying (I mean, if that's not what is happening right now), I am going to make the hospice nurses show me that movie.

Do they show movies in hospice? Must check.

And when we came out of the theater, we saw all the Tour de Cure bicyclists milling around, just back from their rides, and I felt a teensy bit guilty I wasn't among them. Then I remembered that, if I had ridden, I still wouldn't have been among the finishers; no, I would have been lying dead somewhere along the route and causing the race organizers no end of headaches, what with the extra paperwork and dead body removal and all. And who needs that?

Wrist-y Business

I got home from taking Rachel to Civil Air Patrol this evening and realized that I have no chocolate available. None. Nada. Zip. As I pawed desperately through the vitamin cabinet (my stash location) and Larry's coffee cabinet (his stash location), I found myself questioning just what sort of life I am living and what my priorities really are, if I could allow such a cacao-less situation to exist. An existential crisis, if you will, at 10 PM on a Tuesday night...

In the end, I had to steal some of Susie's birthday chocolate. I'm not proud of it, but there you are.

[Put witty segue here - I can't think of one right now]

The clip on my Fitbit Zip broke off over a month ago, so last week I ordered a special wristband thingie to fit my Zip into. That way I could be like all the cool kids who buy the expensive Fitbits that they wear on their wrists. Only MY wristband would be way prettier. So it arrived today, and wouldn't it have been nice to have been able to put my pink Fitbit Zip into it and model it for you?

EMPTY, like my dreams of fitness

Missing. That darn Zip went missing on Sunday morning. I've even offered the kids a $5 reward, but no one has been able to find it. Yet it is somewhere in this house, I know that much. In the meantime, I am completely demoralized by its absence. I mean, what is the point of running up and down the stairs to do laundry or fetch my glasses or WHATEVER if none of those steps count? And now, to add insult to injury, I have my empty flowered wristband to taunt me and my aspirations to fitness.

Is it any wonder, then, that I am stealing chocolate from my children?

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy

They only hire the best, you know

Brian, having reached the magic age of 16 and all, finally managed to land a "real" job (as opposed to all the yard work, pet sitting, and garbage-can hauling he's been doing over the past few years for the neighbors). And can I just say here that, hey, I'm against child labor as much as the next guy, but people? 15-year-olds are really old enough to work; what's more, they would be much happier and healthier working scheduled jobs than spending all their free time on their smartphones. So what is UP with all the extra laws about employing under-16's that keep employers from hiring them? 2 years of a part-time job is not long enough to save for college, you know.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so Brian was just hired, and can I just say here how impressed I am by the hiring people at Best Buy who realized what an awesome employee he would be? What a great store!

Dang, I'm proud.

Where am I going with this? I have no idea. Oh, well, moving on...

Summer hit us with a vengeance over the past 2 days - humidity and temps shot up, which meant that I was able to resume my hot-weather hobby of torturing the children. You see, everyone around here, homes and stores alike, seems to set the thermostat all the way down at 70 degrees, which I find incredibly excessive.

Helpful hint: if you have to put on a sweater, maybe you should raise the temp on your AC first?

Being somewhat of a cheapskate, I generally set the air at 78. But often, the air isn't on at all. I'm convinced that, if I just keep the blinds and windows on the sunny side of the house closed (we have an east-west orientation), we can manage our indoor temps the old-fashioned way. My children call this abuse, but I call it bringing them up right.

So yesterday Larry got home close to 7 PM,, glanced at the thermostat, and said heatedly (ha, ha, I SLAY me), "It's 85 degrees in here!" Which sort of surprised me - I mean, I'm not a monster; it's just that if you are sitting in the heat all day, you don't notice it as much. Sort of like that experiment where a frog is boiled in water but doesn't jump out because the water temp is raised so gradually?

Okay, maybe I am a monster. Still, it wasn't on purpose. And now the kids like Larry better. Is that fair? And is it a coincidence that Brian made "place with air conditioning" a priority on his job search list?

Missing: One Cute Squeezy Baby

My new baby

Susie turned 11 today. My BABY turned 11. She opened presents (2 stuffed puppies, one hair straightener, a scarf, a tote bag, and a bunch of candy). We went bowling with some friends, and we took her out to dinner. On the way out of the restaurant, Susie found a $20 bill in the parking lot. Because she leads a charmed life, that girl does.

Susie helped Anna make her cake. They added in sugared strawberries, powdered strawberry jello, and homemade strawberry jam. They covered it with cream cheese/strawberry/sugar frosting. I can't even LOOK at it without needing insulin.

After cake, we watched "Raiders of the Lost Ark." You see, in our family, you have to wait until you are 11 to watch that movie. Not quite as good as receiving a Hogwarts letter, I know, but it will have to do. [Fun fact: the actor who plays the African pirate ship captain also plays Kingsley Shacklebolt in the Harry Potter movies.]

So I think we can all agree it was a pretty good day, so far as 11th birthdays go. Nevertheless, I've been feeling gobsmacked all day. Only 11 years? That's all it took for Susie to go from a fat, round dumpling of a baby to someone who is taller than I am, someone who can walk and talk and straighten her own hair?

Time flies. Kids grow fast. Insert your own platitude here.

You know, all I've managed to do over the past 11 years is gain 10 pounds and a bunch of wrinkles. And get a LOT dumber. Seriously, do the kids suck brain cells from us as they grow? Is that how it works? And where has my cute squeezable baby gone? Can anyone tell me that?

Excuse me while I go hug her stuffed puppy again - it's all I've got.