HalfAsstic.com

Oh, what first, what first?!

I guess first of all I would like to let everyone in on a new blogger that is absolutely amazing to me. Her name is Amy and she, along with her husband and six children, live in Zambia, Africa running an orphanage. They have been there for seven years!

The name of her blog is Amy’s Assorted Adventures and boy, does it live up to it’s name!

It is fascinating to me what effort has to go into everything just to keep it going on over there. I mean everything! Anyway, I dearly love going here and reading about her and her adorable babies that are living with them and thriving due to their care. The babies get fat, healthy looking and out-going not long after being taken to them. The stories of how they end up with them are sometimes heartbreaking.  But everything she and her family is doing is adventurous, enthusiastic, and brave.

I would like to pass on the coveted “Loaded Diaper Award” to her and say right now that I have never given it out before.

Actually I forgot it was there and even when I did remember about it, I kept thinking that I should give it to someone with infants in diapers. Or, maybe an old lady they have hanging around keeping life interesting and diapers full. But, then I remember thinking, “Krissa,” (Yes I converse with myself like this… don’t you?), “what better reason to give a Loaded Diaper Award than giving it because someone has to put up with a lot of shit? I mean, isn’t that why you have it?” To which I answered myself, (Because it would be rude not to and I already know how out of hand I get when someone is rude to me.) “Yup.”

Well, Amy is a wonderful person that I have been having tons of fun conversing with and intend to have more, and she is not only doing diaper duty in spades, she is putting up with the shit of a difficult environment and laws and policies that make little or no sense, every day.

She deserves it. So go and read her. She is awesome, I tell you! AND new to blogging, so follow!

In other news…

Another of my favorite bloggers is having a wonderful giveaway! Jennymac over at Let’s Have A Cocktail, is giving away a Jimmy Choo handbag that is a lover-ly, luscious, chocolate brown, leather to the person drawn on Feb. 10, 2010. The rules and and all the goodies needed to enter are at her site and it’s easy-peasy, so go on over and enter! Plus, read her because she is all full of awesome and is the best way to make your few minutes of, “get away to another place through blogging”, the most fulfilling. Not to mention she is as sweet as pie.

So there! That’s it for me and you guys have got to get off and see these blogs!  Really! I wouldn’t lie to you! OK, that may or may not be true, depending on the situation, but still….

There are more Christmas pictures, ya’ll!

Up first, we’re moving into the Victorian bedroom, where Mither has a tree and garland over the headboard. There was also garland over the mirror on the dresser yet, somehow, I missed the shot of that.

The paint technique she used in here is beautiful as well.

Here’s the small Christmas tree in the sewing room. Festive, no?

I am skipping around a wee bit, (Sort of like I do in real life-really, you should see me…), and here we are at the end of the hall, across from the kitchen. The furry thing is Tootsie, she is heading out the door.

Here we are in the “girl’s room”.

Besides the Christmas tree, there was a lovely garland going across the top of the headboard. It had to go. I was sleeping in there, (being the perfect sister and giving the Victorian room to my brother and SIL), and the damn thing was attacking me in the night and interfering with my slumber. It’s on the floor on the other side of the bed. Try to imagine it.

Can you tell Mither likes to fool with paint?  It is even prettier in person.

Here’s a closer up shot of the walls…

Wandering down the hall, here we have Pop’s room gun cabinet. Festive as well.

A rather vintage Miss Martha’s nativity scene…

Now at the end of this hall is Mither and Pop’s room. For some reason the tree looks lit with yellow lights from here, and…

…white lights from here. Now why is that? I didn’t use a flash with either shot and the lights were white in real life. Crazy.

Mither’s room is serene and calm in a sea of blue and white.

This is a lovely, snowy looking little vignette.

That Mither does love her sparkle.

On outside now…

SEE! SNOW!  This is the cattle guard in front.

Coy pond. I suspect they’re cold…

I just love this shot…

And this off the back porch at the tank that is looking a little frozen.

I can’t tell you how much fun it was to take pictures of all this snow! And yes, I know it’s not nearly as much as a  lot of you get, but for here and on Christmas Day, it was amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Day late and a dollar short. Whatev.

These pictures are so freakin’ spectacular that you will be forced, I say FORCED, to forgive me.  Well, OK, maybe not forced, but I think you will want to.  Hope?

Ahem. Here we go.

As you may remember me mentioning years months weeks a long time ago, I spent my first Christmas with my entire family, (the ‘rentals and sole sibling), present in the same house, at the same time, for the first time in probably over 15 years.

You see, my brother is a very difficult man.

Heh! Love you, Cam!

It’s true, though. He’s in the military and they, my dear, sainted sister-in-law and now my semi-new nephew, have been living all over the globe for an eternity. They are now stationed back in Alamogordo NM. So it was very exciting for us all to be there together. We picked up the food fight right where we left off.

Also? This was the very first documented white Christmas in Decatur, Texas in, I guess, forever.  My parents are 72 and 73, and had never had one before.  BIG EXCITEMENT.

So without further ado, or even undo or redo, here are the pictures!

Here we are with the living room all decked out for the holidays!  Mither goes all out.

I think their tree is sooo beautiful.

Here’s a winter scene in the front hall I really love!

On the other side of the hall.

Here we are in the dining room and it is so tranquil. This buffet was my great-grandmother’s.

I love this little “ice covered” tree over in the corner.

The centerpiece on the dining room table. “Angel hair” with Christmas lights run underneath it.

Mither painted the walls flat navy blue and then with clear gloss, free handed the design in the curtains in the previous picture. I think this make such a pretty effect.

I remember, when I was a child, thinking that the gifts under our tree looked so pretty it was magical. I love helping Mither wrap them and continuing with the illusion.

Now, here we go down the hall to the Kitchen. Mither being Mither and all, of course the hall has to have a Christmas tree as well.

I just counted and there are 11 pictures so far in here and I don’t want to bog anyone’s pooter down, so I will finish up my Christmas post in a second edition!

Till later, Merry Christmas Free Toes, everybody!

Hello everybody. I am, (yes, once again), apologizing for my absence. I am needing a note from my mother at this point and even she is miffed that I still haven’t gotten around to posting all the fabulous pictures of Christmas at her house.

Hey, it’s just a little over a week until February and I don’t like to rush things.

Every time I think about sitting down and posting I start off with something funny in my mind and it turns all maudlin in my head before I can get it out. And I don’t think it’s because the Lexapro isn’t doing the job it once was.

Let’s do a rundown, shall we?

Henrietta is still convinced that Gilbert, (the older daughter’s longtime boyfriend), is the devil and frequently can be overheard muttering things about diablo and then using his name under her breath. Yesterday she told John that I was trying to give her drugs that Gilbert supplied me with that were illegal. (Mucinex DM)  She also started crying a few days ago and telling John that she just KNOWS that Gilbert is bringing drugs over here and “shooting” them into him, (John). He had been to the doctor and they had taken blood and so he had a cotton ball taped to the inside of his elbow. I guess I should be proud that she thinks that we only deal with the kind of pushers that use an alcohol pad and then a sterile cotton ball and band-aid after the shooting up. We be classy like that.

She is also convinced that I am a horrible person because I won’t let her go to the hospital. She has been sick with the same virus that has worked it’s way through the rest of the family and lingered in the chests and throats and sinus cavities of each of us for two to three weeks each.  She is convinced she is dying because she has a hacky little cough that bothers her a few times an hour.

I coughed like I had TB for three weeks and and had a rattle in my chest like a maraca.  On a couple of the days when it was at it’s worst I stayed in bed because there were other people here that could take care of her. I heard that woman say to John, “What’s the matter with her now?” John was obviously aggravated with her when he told her I was sick, (as if she didn’t know), and she didn’t say anything else about it. But now, she is telling me that she wants to go to the hospital because she is coughing. When I tell her it’s just a virus she says, “How do you know?”, and telling her that everyone else has had the same thing and the same symptoms does not help.  “Oh, Krissa… you don’t know!”  She asked me to call a friend of mine that’s a nurse that lives about 20 minutes away and have her come and listen to her chest and tell her what she’s got. (As if that would settle it.) I told her no, there was no way. She said, “Well, she could take my temperature!”. I told her over and over she has no fever. She started telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. I RAISED TWO CHILDREN. LIKE, I REALLY DON’T KNOW HOW TO TELL IF SOMEONE HAS FEVER!

I got the damn thermometer and took her temp. Normal. So she let that drop.  But she started crying because she wanted to go to the hospital. No amount of assurance that the hospital wouldn’t take her would do. She won’t believe it. I explained that the insurance wouldn’t cover her admittance to the hospital for a cough. She just looked away and shook her head like a small child being defiant.

But, she gave up on the waterworks.

In other news…

John is not doing well at all and I am desperately hoping we can find a new way to attack his heart problems with a new pulmonary doctor and when we see him I am going to ask him if he can recommend a new cardiologist.  He has been sick and barely able to function at least 50% of the time since he got out of the hospital. They are not doing anything different. Same drugs, same course of action. (None.)  He hasn’t been to see the pulmonologist since he got out of the hospital because we found out the hard way that he doesn’t accept our insurance. But he is having such a hard time breathing now that we both think we have to do something new. So he will be going to see him on February 2nd.

Meanwhile his present cardiologist is saying that he should maybe consider “another line of work”, that maybe he just can’t do this anymore. As if there are  all these jobs out there waiting for him to just pick one. I think John is wondering if he can do it too.  I am frightened of the future and all the terribly unsure aspects of our lives.

Meanwhile…

Kessa made a small batch of hash browns the other day for her breakfast along with an egg, ham and cheese sandwich between two slices of perfectly toasted bread. She then walked over and set the plate down on a small occasional table between two chairs in our living room and, (for some totally unknown reason), went down the hall to my bedroom to talk to me for a few minutes. Leaving the sandwich innocently sitting there. On the plate. On the table. Between the two chairs.

Moments later she and I emerged from the bedroom and she exclaimed, “Baby!”  I wondered why since Baby was no where to be seen.

Neither was her sandwich.

Baby was rather shy for another couple of hours, the guilty little shit.

And no, I’m not even talking about up in the panhandle, where they compete with the weather in Bismark in the winter.

Remember this? Last summer, my aunt’s house up in Burleson, Texas, close to Ft Worth?

Here is what she sent me the other day.

How’s that for cold looking? Still it IS beautiful

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John went to the cardiologist today and came home with a grin on his face. They did another EKG and the guy said that he is showing improvement since the last time he was there a month ago.  This made us both very happy. Especially since it seemed like he was getting worse with all the water retention he’s been having.

OH, by the way, we have, apparently, kicked the diabetes in the butt! It’s been days and John hasn’t had any insulin. I do believe his body is producing it on it’s on. YEA!

Now, if only I could figure out what to cook with no salt… I am running out of idea’s people!

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Sometime before Christmas I placed an order to this wonderful place because of something I read here at Red’s. Let me tell you, when the box arrived I had no idea how wonderful it would smell! Kessa just happened to be home when I opened the package and before I could even get the camera and take a picture of the beautiful packaging she had torn through it and was in heaven in the soaps. All I ended up getting a shot of was Baby, “regifted” in the ribbon the awesome smelling bundle was wrapped up in.

And it wouldn’t be Baby without that trademark crooked smile.

Uuuh, yeah. I’m not sure what’s up with the one ear either. Makes her look a bit demonic…

Aaaannnywaaaaaay, so the wonnerful, Lynnel had me a batch of the most fabulous smelling soaps and lip balms that you can not even begin to imagine. They sat out on the table in the breakfast area for a few days and everytime John or I entered the house we were inhaling deeply of the lovely smells from that area.

You have GOT to experience this wonderful smell for yourself! Go order from this sweet lady!

Like an idiot I accidentally placed two orders on line and only intended one, so I called her and cleared that up. She was so very nice and fun to talk to.  Anyway, her soaps were the best gifts a good many people got this year!

And Baby really does rock  that red bow.

Henrietta is off her ever lovin’ rocker and John is sick with congestive heart failure and I am sick with something, (bronchitis?), and I want to have myself committed to get away from this nut house. Go ahead and call the men in the white coats to come get me.

Please.

While they’re here they could throw a cursory glance over at H and tell me what the hell they see. She has slipped down the slippery slope of peanut butter enemas and DayQuil eye wash.

She’s done checked out.

I have to say that I sincerely think this new, memory-bank deficit,  recent draft, Henrietta is going to be easier to handle than the one that was just …”on her way out”.  Because, she requires much less assurance and help to understand what is going on. She see’s it only one way and that is the way she see’s it. All you can do is placate her and move on.

A few days ago, Thursday, I believe. We were watching the UT game and The Boyfriend was here as we had invited him over to watch it. Sounds like a fun time,  huh? You would think so. Anyway John and T.B., henceforth known as Gil or Gilly or Gilbert, were sitting in the living room across the room from one another just basically talking about the game so far. Nothing too terribly exciting was happening and they were talking pretty low. John would bust out coughing fairly often, but not any different than it’s been for the past 5 months. At this point in the evening John and I glanced up and saw H rolling through the doorway into the living room.

Announcing to the room in general, “He’s a very sick man!”

Looks were exchanged and John said, “Mom, what’s up?”

“I was cold back in there, John.” Very whiny and pitiful. So I walked up and got behind her wheelchair and propelled her over in front of the fireplace where, Satan Gilbert had built us a very nice fire.  She was so busy casting mean looking sidelong glances at Gilly that she almost didn’t notice what I was doing.

“Oh! Krissa, nooooooo! I have to go back in there and finish writing my letter!” I said, “I thought you were cold?”, and she stuck her two hands straight up in the air to show me her gloves.  Very defiantly. She didn’t say anything, just waved her hands at me. Kinda like jazz hands but not nearly as happy looking. In fact I’m thinking that even standing behind her I could see her rolling her eyes at me. So I asked her if she wanted to sit in front of the fire with the rest of us and warm up there and she she got VERY defensive, stuck her hands up in the air again, (This time I did a quick once over to determine if there were any middle fingers sticking up cause I was getting the message at this point.), and I grabbed her chair and started rolling her back to her room.

I knew what was going to happen, the writing was on the wall, so I pulled her into her parking spot and got in front of her, put my finger under her chin, lifted it and stared deep into her beady little eyes.

“Henrietta, now I want you to listen to me.”

She stared up as wide eyed as she could possibly contrive. “Yeeees, Krissa?”

“There is absolutely nothing bad going on in that room and John and Gilbert are just enjoying the game. You are more than welcome to watch it with us. Once again she said she had to finish writing her letter, however I’m thinking that she may have underestimated how difficult this would be with the gloves on. And while doing periodic jazz hands.

“Henrietta, I know how you are and how you get about Gilbert. I don’t want you making any more wild stories up about John and him or any nonsense like that.”

She is properly appalled at my accusations and let’s me know it. I reiterate that she is all about making up evil, foul-intentioned lies. She is properly outraged, and assures me that NOTHING is further from the truth. I admonish her one more time, by leaning over and enunciating carefully so that there is no room for doubt about what I am saying:

“Remember, everything is fine in there and John and Gilbert are just watching the game. They’re having a good time!”

She told me that she does NOT make up lies, and I shouldn’t say that. Whatever. As I was leaving the room I heard her say very sarcastically, “God bless you, Krissa!” I turned and smiled and said something to the effect of, “May He bless you, too.”

Friday morning I was sick as a dog and thank God good old Tanya was here and takin’ care o’ tings with her. I eventually made it in to where Tanya was and got the scoop from her. H had told her that last night Gilly came over and got Kes and took her and they got married and then he and John were  in a heated argument and John’s boss, that’s right his boss had to come over and, “calm everything down”.

She has never met his boss. Hell, I’ve never met his boss. He’s this guy that lives 45 minutes away in Pearland and does not possess the kind of heartfelt concern for his employees that would cause him to drive from there to here to “calm things down”. He didn’t even visit John while he was in the hospital the  better part of October.

I have no idea where she pulled that from, I suspect straight out of her ass, but it did lend her story a lot of flair.

I’m thinking maybe fiction writer for her new career.

Anyway, I am bound and determined to just wave everything away from here on out, just say, “OK, whatever.”, and be done with it. There’s a small, dim, light on up there, yet it’s not bright enough to vanquish her demons.

This is Mither and I just finished talking with Krissa. Bless her heart, she has just about had it up to her ears. She has some sort of respiratory problem and is coughing and very congested. John, once again, has swollen feet and legs and is still coughing until I really don’t know how he can stand it. Henrietta is on another tear about Gilly, who is over with the family to watch the football game. She is very sure, when the men raise their voices (as we all know men do when they watch a game) that they are angry and Gilly is going to hurt John.
Suddenly, it was all too much for Kris and she asked me if I would post to update you all. She will get back with you as soon as she can with the promised Christmas pictures. Just be patient with her–and say a prayer.

* Amended to add that “Gilly” is The Boyfriend.

I have started this post once again and am hoping I don’t go back and delete everything this time.  It’s been weeks since I posted or even read anybody else’s blogs. WEEKS!

I been busy.

I also got to spend Christmas with my mither and pop, brother and SIL, PLUS nephew, in Decatur, Texas. I spent an entire week there and was thrilled! Them moving to New Mexico from Italy is definitely working out.  It was the first family Christmas with all four members of the immediate family present in over fifteen years. It really was wonderful and spending time with my newish nephew, Noah, was a huge bonus. They only got him two years ago and I have seen him way to infrequently.  He’s a great kid!

So there we are having a perfectly glorious time hanging out together and what do you think happened Christmas Eve? It’s OK, I’ll tell you.  Let me preface it by saying that my mom is 72 and Pop 73, and neither one of them have ever had a white Christmas. I had my first one five years ago when a fluke weather pattern got it to actually snow down here in the southeast end of Texas.

Well, sure enough, it poured snow on Christmas Eve.  A good thick layer of lovely whiteness.  It was beautiful on Christmas morning. The grandchildren that showed up at house had a wonderful time playing outside. In addition my sister-in-law, Melissa and I had several adventures running to town on icy roads to do last minute shopping.  Fancy, seldom heard cuss words were taken out, dusted off and used liberally during our excursions. My eyes are still trying to adjust back down to normal size from the saucer size they grew to while accomplishing these dangerous feats.  But, we good. Melissa did a stint in Alaska with me brother when he was stationed there and is a pro at driving on ice.

During all this time Pop was having trouble with his COPD and continued to deny he needed to go to the hospital. Sure enough, after the last of the guests left, on Christmas day, he succumbed to the shortness of breath and said, “Weeeeell, maybe I better get on down there after all.” So we called an ambulance and let those guys get him safely from the door to the car ambulance over all the ice and snow. They carted his behind in and gave him a “special” kind of breathing treatment and IV steroids and he was feeling tons better in no time. He went home in a couple of days.

Meanwhile, back at the home front, John went back to work. It was either that or run completely out of the paid leave time he had been taking. We too broke for that and though he has good days and bad days, it seems to be working out pretty well so far. The bad days really kick his butt though. He’s working at the coldest store in the district and it even bothered him before the heart problems and his need to take Coumadin. Now he thinks he’s dying it’s so cold in there.

Yesterday we went to Academy and purchased silk long-johns for him to wear as they are supposed to be warmer than thermal cotton and not as bulky. We also got silk sock liners for him to wear under his socks because  his feet are so cold all the time.

I need to point out right now that I don’t have any silk underwear. Just saying…

Anyway that crap, (that it turns out isn’t that effective) was right at $30.00. I was looking for some battery operated socks that work like an electric blanket, with the wires running through them. Couldn’t find any anywhere.

Henrietta’s mind is deteriorating, finally. She is 87 years old and I know it was going to happen eventually. She is really being a good deal more paranoid than she used to be. Oh, and she is still convinced that The Boyfriend is the devil.  She has repeatedly told us that we just need to ask him to leave and “….let this family have peace!”, when he isn’t here and hasn’t been in days.

So that’s where I’ve been and the high, (and low), points of most of what’s been happening.  I made a valiant stab at hitting all of you guys blogs before I finished this post up and made it around to a lot of them. I will be better in the new year about keeping up.

*That’s my only resolution!*

Tomorrow, PICTURES!