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….

I had a perfectly wonderful good decent acceptable post pulled together that was going to go up today, only all this other stuff happened that was MUCH better to talk about!

First of all I have been honored with a distinction of unequalled measure.  Witchypoo from over at Psychicgeek, has bestowed the coveted, (I’m guessing, cause gee, it’s really neato), Charming Award on me.  Yup.  It’s right here on me… trust me.  No, not really, you should probably never do that… at least with anything important.

Aaaaanywho, there are directions with it to confuse my mushy little brain astound and amaze us all.  Prepare to applaud, whilst I exersize my copying and pasting skills.

Charming Award!

Charming Award!

This award is given to the writers of blogs that “are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.”

Now, I am going to name my eight peeps and you really should stand and applaud.  Go ahead, nobody’s looking!  NO!  A golf clap will NOT do.  These kind souls deserve better than that!  I want to be able to hear it in south Texas.

That’s better.  (Cause I know you’re doing it, right?)

Ahem,

Angie of Big Hair Envy fame

Janet From The Planet of Janet

Tink at Pickled Beef

Kori at See Kori Rant

Predo at Spartacus Wore A Skirt

Karen at The Rocking Pony

Jean at Working Momma 247

Marylin at A Little Space For Me

THEN, as if this humongous privilege wasn’t enough, good ol’ Angie of Big Hair Envy tells me that she has drawn my name as one of the two winners of her “Pay it Forward” contest.

I am delighted about this and it’s going to be so much fun!

Here’s the exact, (cut and paste), wording of the famous Angie, herself, explaining the details of Pay It Forward.  It’s really quite easy.

I’m going to Pay It Forward to two commenter who leave me a message saying they would like to participate. I will randomly select the winners, and each will receive a gift from me! YAY! The only catch is that YOU must Pay It Forward on YOUR blog. Easy. Peasy.

Stay tuned for an episode of “Stupid Criminals” next time!

Oh. No. That’s not right…. Meme.   That’s what I meme to say. (HA!  That’s what I MEME to say!) I am telling you, you do NOT want to hear me sing.  It’s worse than my bad puns.

Ree, over at Hotfessional tagged me for a meme and, conformist that I am, I must comply!  The rules are:

No running around the pool, one at a time on the diving board, eat all your vegetables before you get dessert, and finally, do your homework before you go outside and play.

Comply, or face the consequences.

Now this is going to be a list of seven things about me and I will be tagging seven of you guys whose blogs I love to read.  Then, like the good little girls and boys you are, YOU will be doing the same.

Yes you will! I can find you, you know.  Ha ha ha!  I jest!  Maybe.

1. I love when my 19 year old daughter actually needs me to help her with a regular life problem that she hasn’t dealt with before.  I went with her to the tire place this morning for her to get a defective tire replaced.  It was warranted by the place and all, but she wanted… backup, I guess.  We had a nice time, which is a weird thing to say about going to a tire store.  Yesterday I showed her how to check the oil in her car, and was mortified that she hadn’t already been shown.

2. I am horrible about starting projects and never finishing them.

3. I absolutely loved being pregnant.

4. But not as much as having a baby.  Well, not having the baby, but having already had the baby… you know.

5. I would give almost anything to have the time and money for John and I to go to visit my brother, sister-in-law and nephew in Italy.

6. I love to cook new dishes and am continually frustrated by being short ONE INGREDIENT.  It’s like Satan is writing the damn recipes and has inventoried my kitchen beforehand.

7. I would give just about anything to hear from some of the people that I can see check in on my blog on a very regular basis and never comment.  Not because I’m a comment whore, yes I am, but because I’m so very curious about who they are.

So there you have it.  That’s about all I can come up with and now the game will continue with me passing this on to:

1. Noe Noe Girl

2. Witchypoo at Psychicgeek

3. Janet at From the Planet of Janet

4. Jean at Working Momma 247

5. Karen at The Rocking Pony

6. Predo at Spartacus wore a skirt!

7. SSG at Confessions of a (Sometimes!) Serendipitous Girl

There it is.  Whoop it out!

The freakin’ give away was SUPPOSED to be yesterday and I forgot!  So here it is, today.  I did the random number generator thing as I said I was going to and our winning number is 5.  When numbered in order, the unconscious mutterings number 1-12 and number 5 is… (drum roll please)… Sabrina!

So, dear, please send me your info and I will get them sent right out to you when I head to the post office here sometime in the next 6 months.

I really will try to get them straight out.  Soon. ish.

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Henrietta is doing better today.

Oh, I don’t think I ever let on what was going on with her.  Well, she was going a bit… bat shit crazy and we couldn’t figure out why.  I left strict instructions that they were not to, under ANY circumstances, run any bizarre tests on her or give her any extra, (different) meds without contacting me for approval first.

They didn’t.  She has just been getting the same old Levaquin IV antibiotic that she always gets and she has been hallucinating all kinds of totally off the wall stuff.  In true Henrietta fashion it is all very dark, negative, and pessimistic.

We finally decided the antibiotic must be doing it and the nurses were tired of reassuring her that there were no “large black men” going in her room through her window at night scaring her.  Did not matter how many times I explained she was on the forth floor and no one could get to it, she insisted that men were sitting their chair up against her window outside.  Children were looking in at her and she kept telling me to look for myself the children were looking in right then and I could see them too if I tried.  Last night she told John and I, with tears in her eyes, that the nurse had told her that she has multiple sclerosis and is going to die from it.

I am sure that what happened was the nurse mentioned something about her scoliosis and she, (being THE most negative person in the world), mixed it up to be multiple sclerosis.  Given opportunity, she would have incorporated Lyme disease in there somehow.  But, no.  I had to nix everything and tell her the truth.  I am such a joy kill morose mood destroyer.

Yup.  Just call me MMD.

Well, they took her off the Levaquin and started her on something else yesterday and she seems fine today.  Woo-Hoo!

Not really.  I was just really trying hard to be clever.  Relax.  It’s passed.

Monday morning, 4 AMish, H rang the bell and I went in to see what was up.  She was having a very bad anxiety attack, with her whole body shaking violently.  She has done this a good many times before so it was easy for me to recognize.  Like always she insisted she was having a heart attack.  (I am assuming she always thinks this because her accelerated heartbeat.)  I assured her it wasn’t a heart attack and went and got her an Ativan.

She ate it and I sat there with her for about 10 to 15 minutes while it took affect and she stopped shaking and went to sleep.

Monday about noon I went in to wake her up and see how she was feeling.  Her speech was slurred and, what I could understand wasn’t quite making sense.  The catheter bag was full of darkish, cloudy urine.  (Though, not the dark pumpkin colored pee from yesterday.)

I called the EMT’s.  (Pay close attention, SSG), They sent out a couple of them and one was entirely too cute.  They gave her the once over and announced that she has a urinary tract infection.

Ya think?

So they hauled her bony butt to hospital and I rode up front and this was about 2:00 PM.  Last night at one in the freakin’ AM, John and I left her there in the ER, because they promised she was about to be put in room 428 and she had finally gotten some antibiotics about midnight.  John was dead on his feet and I was in no mood to be expected to be nice to anyone.  John and I had just had a big, whispered fight in the ER exam room while H dozed off and on and I didn’t want anyone else to have to be admitted. (John)

*side note: whispered fighting is harder than it should be.  Avoid this at all costs in future.*

So there it is.  I will be off to see her here in a little bit when Kes drops me off at the hospital and I will stay until John gets off work at 8:00 or 9:00 tonight.

Here are a few pics of Henrietta, cute EMT/firefighter (BONUS!), oh, and John.

Henrietta’s not too happy to be here.  Must have asked me a million times when she was going to be put in a room.  LIKE I KNEW.

Here she is trying to muster up the strength to flirt  with this cute EMT.  This is NOT something that is beneath her.

And finally, John after being up for the last 20 hours.  Literally.  He’s tired.  And we’re both feeling poopy.  Spell check says I misspelled poopy.  Clearly, they don’t know us.

Don’t forget to go here and do the unconscious mutterings thing to be entered in my giveaway!

Some days are just what we need to get us through to the next day without fear of suicide attempts.  SSG, over at Confessions of A (Sometimes) Serendipitious Girl had a day like that on Friday.  It’s when you just stop and think, “Can it get any better?”.  Or, in my case, “When’s the other shoe going to drop?”.

Today is the day of the Murder Mystery Party that John and I are going to next door.  You may, or may not, remember that it is themed to ancient Rome.  When we got our invitations it consisted of two copies of the cast of characters with one highlighted on each copy.  They were:

Harangus Adnauseum- Harangus is the epitome of a  successful senator. He is a multifaceted man- part politician and part philosopher, but all Roman.  As a military tribune, years ago, he stormed the shores of Normandy…and conquered the Normans.  Harangus owns a considerable amount of land in and around Rome, but he does not crave wealth and property.  He holds closely to Stoic philosophy, maintaining complete control over his emotions and eliminating all wants and desires.  If given the opportunity, he will expound on the virtues of Stoicism for days on end, as he did in his now-infamous, three-day oration. “It’s my party and I’ll be Stoic if I want to.”

Rotunda Immaculata- The fate of the Roman empire lies in the able services of Vestal Virgins, such as Rotunda Immaculata.  The Vestals keep the eternal fires burning, thus ensuring the safety of the Roman ships, the strength of Roman legions. and the success of Roman government.  Rotunda comes from a prominent family, as all Vestals do, and she was chosen for her honored position at the tender age of 8.  Now she is a beautiful, but demure young woman looking forward to many, many more years as a humble servant of the empire.

Needless to say, I was unable to help myself.  I did a lot of fast talking and explained to John how funny it would be if I showed up as the Roman senator and he went as the Vestal virgin.  Apparently I am a very persuasive speaker.  Or I guess now it should be orator.  He, (a teeny bit grudgingly), agreed to this and he is going to be all outfitted as a Vestal virgin tonight, and I will be a pompus Roman senator.  Fun, fun, fun!

John was putting up a lame argument against his role and said, “It’s been a long time since I was a virgin… at least five years…”

He’s already having fun with this.

He made me swear, under threat of certain death, that I would not be posting any pictures of him as said virgin.  DO NOT WORRY.  I will simply see to it that he is sufficiently inebriated and extract a promise that I CAN.  cue the evil laughter…

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IN OTHER  HAPPY NEWS:

Henrietta got another catheter today!  WOO HOO!  No more wet diapers, just shitty ones!  No more changing her in the middle of the freaking night in a vain attempt to keep her dry and stave off bed sores.  No more going through three times as many diapers and latex gloves and her room smelling like urine all. the. freakin. time.  If even ONE diaper is in the pail with the lid on it and sealed shut, it still smells.  When I ask others if they can smell it, they all say no, BUT I KNOW THEY LIE.  It’s all part of the plot to drive me insane.  I may refer to this from time to time, as it is a long, ongoing, multifaceted, sick scheme and it is, apparently, not something my family and friends can get completely behind or motivated to carry out in a timely manner.

On the downside, it was immediately apparent that she has another UTI.   For those of you who are blessed and don’t know un-knowledgeable about this, it’s a urinary tract infection.  Her urine was all cloudy and had sediment floating in it in the tube leading to the bag.  As the nurse and I were standing there staring at this with crestfallen looks on our faces, a bunch of blood passed by.  Crap.  NO NO!  Not crap!  Crap is everywhere ELSE, but not in the catheter tube.  And THAT? is a good thing.

Anyway, on Monday she’s coming back out to take a urine sample cause the doc won’t let them give her the antibiotics she needs until the analysis comes back.  The quack.

Now, I’ve got to go and cook baklava for the party tonight.  I am in charge of dessert and that’s the only Greek one I could think of.  When googled, there’s not a lot more different things either.

Wish me luck!

OH!  Don’t forget to go here and enter in my contest for the lovely paintings by playing along and doing the unconscious mutterings.

Good luck!

Here’s a little something I cooked up to give away a set of pictures that would look elegant in anyone’s house or even on a porch.  Just play my Unconscious Mutterings “game” and, (to the sound of trumpets blaring), YOU COULD WIN!

The winner is going to be chosen by a random number generator deal AND said winner will receive this wonderful prize! (My legal department urges me strongly to remind you all that the term, “wonderful” is entirely subjective.)

The contest will be over in 7 days.  Next Wednesday, February 4th.

Whatev.

These two, 12″ x 14″ prints are on some sort of  hard, lightweight board that is hollow.  They are one inch thick and have sawtooth hangers on the backs of them.   The “paintings” are lightly textured.  The colors in the following photos is pretty true to life.  Very dusty purples and other muted shades.  They are pretty and lightweight.  Could be hung up on a wall with a straight pin.  Don’t laugh.  When I was a child my mother’s friend across the street let on that every picture in her house was hung with steel straight pins.  Nothing ever fell!

Oops, I digressed.  I’m always doing that!  Wonder if there’s any such thing as a professional digress-er?  Wonder if they feel at all threatened by me?

Now what was I talking about?  OH!  Right!

Here’s the pics.

I was standing on the bed to take these.  Why didn’t I just lay them on the carpet, you ask?  Good question.

And finally here is the back of one of them and don’t be fooled!  My bed is actually NOT made.  Just smoothed out for the sake of the photos.  OH THE SHAME!  DON’T TELL MITHER!

OK, here are the latest from the recesses of my dusty, disturbed, dark, leeetle mind.  As before, I suggest that you copy and paste the words in  the comment box and fill it out before you read anyone else’s, just because it makes it easier to think freely…  Or is that just me?  Probably me.

1. Kate:

2. clock:

3.plaque:

4. dining table:

5. assortment:

6. rubber band:

7. spindle:

8. frog:

9. startled:

10. dragon:

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And my answers:

1. Kate: Hepburn

2. clock: Late

3.plaque: Give away

4. dining table: eat

5. assortment: too many

6. rubber band: Man

7. spindle:DVD’s

8. frog: Susan

9. startled: Dumb dog barking

10. dragon: renaissance festival

Now go on!  Do it!

I almost forgot that I was going to announce the winner of the “What’s wrong with this shirt?” contest on the Friday of Ike.  I was …busy.  Sorry.

There were 6 contestants with the right answer:

Madam Queen-Leandra

A Screed In Time-Roger

Silly Me-Sebrina

Susan Crosby

Karilyn Hernandez

Speak Into the Mike-Mike

Here is a pic of Keelan selecting the winning name from the bowl! 

And the winner is……. Susan Crosby!  I will be getting an email to Susan ASAP and shipping her lovely prize of foot care products in the very near future.  NO.  REALLY.  There won’t be a hurricane this time. (knocking on wood, frantically…)

Thank you all for playing.  You’re all winners in my book.  Better luck next time…yada, yada, yada…

OK!  See, I finally got the long promised pictures up!  Woo-hoo!

This is Rich’s house, across the street, before the hurricane.  Take a moment and note the very last tree on the right…kind of in the background.  It is very vertical, huh?  You might even say exactly perpendicular to the ground…

Here is the corner of Rich’s house with a now somewhat diagonal pine tree looking to head toward Gene and Elsie’s house.  This is on Saturday, the next day after Ike.  It is being appraised by The Hunky Tree Guys.  Some of you out there, (ladies), may want to click and enlarge this particular shot.

As you can imagine, tree guys, hunky or no, were in great demand and raking in the cash hand over fist in the following days.  Here’s the kind of fantastic neighbor’s I have:  Gene and Elsie are gone, evacuated.  Rich paid The Hunky Tree Guys $1100.00 to do nothing but cut down the tree and just leave all these great big sections in his yard.

The Hunky Tree Guys are price gouging, big time.

Normally, the fee for this kind of job would be about $250.00 and that would include stump grinding and debris removal.  This is how busy they were.  All of this was done without Gene and Elsie’s knowledge so that the tree wouldn’t go crashing into their house the next time it rained, (later that night).  Of course they cut Rich a check for half the cost as soon as they got home and he told them what had happened.

Here is the front of our house before the storm and afterward it looked pretty much the same except for missing screens and one of the window shutters along with a buttload of branches and tree debris in the yard that we spent a long time cleaning up.

Back of our house all boarded up and cleaned off except for all the larger plants I shoved over in the corner.

Looking down the road going to my friends house…  needless to say, we didn’t go, not that day anyway.

From the car driving down the road close to our house.  Those are NOT bushes, it is manicured lawns full of tree limbs.  (Pardon the windshield wiper.)

A bit blurry, but you can see the huge root ball of the tree that just pulled up in the wind.  It’s laying over on the house.

The fuel center at John’s store.  Those are soda and newspaper machines that were tossed around like nothing.

Storm grate where I found the baby egret with it’s butt kind of down in one of those holes… I thought it was stuck there.

The baby egret, after I picked it up and carried it over to some bushes.  It was pretty small, that’s my hand there to the right of it.  I guess I could never be a professional photographer, (even if I was the least bit skilled at snapping pictures), because my first reaction upon seeing this bird was, “Stop the car!  That bird is stuck!”, and I jumped out and got it and moved it before it occurred to me to take a picture.  I could never just remove myself from the situation and photograph things.

Here is my love-bug sitting out back resting after we got through hurricane proofing the house.  We were just hanging out waiting for it to start up and noticing how weird and silent it was.

Hi intertubes people!  How’s it hangin?  We’re fine here and intend to be right up until we are washed away by Ike.  No, not really.  I don’t think he’s going to stray this far north, we’re just going to get a good deal of rain.  Oh well, we were behind in that department anyway.  I just hate getting caught up all at once…*sigh*

A few strange things happened today.  Firstly, my 17 year old girl child has gone to a City Council meeting with a friend of hers that is in a  US Government class.  Her friend says she needs, “moral support”.  Yeeeah.  Sure.  Keelan says she is going to have US Government next semester so why not?

John and I are taking bets on how long they are allowed to stay before being thrown out.  Their odds are not good.  Contact your bookie.

I have been sitting here watching The Weather Channel and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a good solid reason for wanting to live in Cuba, year round, except for that pesky Castro not letting anyone leave…  I mean these people get totally flayed by multiple hurricanes every single year.  They wind up to cat 4 and 5 and go tearing across the island, sometimes twice per storm.  These people, for the most part, live in a near poverty situation and are flattened over and over.  Hundreds and hundreds die every year.  And they couldn’t leave if they wanted to.  Not even just for Hurricane season.  And that just seems wrong.  They should all be allowed to leave during the season for, oh, Europe or something…  God knows I wish I could.

Someone should complain.

H has a new caregiver provider person.  YES!  Again!  I know, I know.  I have reported this several times already, and no, I wasn’t lying.  The latest is “Tiffany”.  So far so good.  Please, everybody cross your fingers. She stayed here with H today while we ran frantically around for our allotted three hours.  Got back and she had done all the things I had verbally laid out for her to do.  And for those of you wondering, no, she won’t do taxes or windows.  Henrietta got a “bed bath” and put in the chair and her sheets changed.  Plus she cooked her breakfast and washed and figured out where to put all the dishes up.  All this was amidst her being visited by the nurse and then a very nice little lady from the church that comes by to give her communion.  I didn’t ask her to clean H’s bathroom or clean her room or anything cause we were having such a hard time getting out of here and she’s new, so I would have had to take more time than I already had when I showed her what to cook for her breakfast and how and where it all was.

I swear.  If she starts not showing up, I will scream.  She is very nice and H really likes her and each time she has left, Henrietta says, “Oh thank you so much for everything you did and please come back!”  How sad is that?  I will talk to her about trying to muster up a tear next time…

So far the contest has been hotly debated.  I have given up clues in the comments section, but, I swear, it’s something that is unusual to any mans dress shirt and is the reason John refuses to wear it.  It is an obvious thing at first glance and we should have noticed it except that it’s not that obvious.  Obviously.  I can feel all the obvious evil thoughts you people are sending me, now…  Oh!  There has been one winner so far!  And she’s not even a regular commenter.  I erased her comment immediately as soon as I got it and wondered, just as quickly, why I had set it up this way.  I should have said the first person to get the correct answer.  But I didn’t so if you can figure out what is such an obvious problem with the shirt that John won’t wear it you get a shot at the lovely prize also.

More tomorrow.

What’s wrong with the men’s dress shirt in this picture?

John and I bought this dress shirt for him recently and while I love the color and the soft, cotton damask fabric, we both neglected to notice one very important problem.  No, it’s not the size.  It looks great on him and fits perfectly.  I didn’t button it all the way, but it’s not the buttons or the placket.  The shirt will never do.   He will never wear it to work.  He says he’ll wear it on days where he has all day meetings.  I know better.  I am betting he will never put in on except to maybe go out to eat, occasionally when it’s very cold.

Click on it to make it bigger if you want to.

Can you figure out what’s so wrong with this men’s dress shirt that would make him not want to wear it, yet it never occurred to us to look for the, (quite obvious), particular problem it has?

Here’s the booty prize, er, no! not “booty”, just prize!  Eh… yeah! That’s what I meant…

This is Burt’s Bee’s Foot Care Kit.

Foot Care Kit

Completely pamper your feet.

How it Works

Treat your feet to a pedicure in the comfort of your own home. All the natural foot care tools you need are right here. A pumice stone will help smooth rough skin. Then moisturize with Coconut Foot Creme and our comfy Bee socks.

I will mail this to you promptly, after you’ve been chosen as the winner of this contest that ends on, oh…let’s say Friday September 12.  Multiple right answers will be numbered and tossed, then served to one of my rather undiscerning teenage daughters to select a winner.  Believe me when I say that the number selector’s general lack of concern for which right answer wins could not be more left to fate if I was to use a random number generator.  There will even be a guaranteed gratuitous eye roll accompanying the selection.