Changed Our Minds

We decided that we are not going to do the buy back on Surly
Teenager's car. I convinced Hubby that he just doesn't have the time
to worry about fixing it.

Especially since the insurance company is giving us double what we bought for.

So now we get to go hoopty shopping again!

Fire Academy Fun

Figuring out the gear.

Experiments with fire.

Hydrant work.

And later this week...

there will be driving!

Hubby is having a blast. He is the class historian and is taking tons of pictures. Sadly, he won't be in most of them.

Totaled

Most importantly, no one was hurt.

It's official. Surly Teenager has totaled her first car. I don't think the car really looks that bad. But the insurance company disagrees.

Luckily, I am married to the Handiest Hubby around. He has already found a car that is for sale for parts, that he can use to fix this one.

Now he just has to try and find the time to do it. Good luck with that one, honey.

You know it's going to be a bad day...

when 15 minutes into your morning step aerobic workout, the audio goes
out on the DVD.

when you get to work and notice that the container you grabbed out of
the fridge this morning, thinking you were taking the leftover soup
from dinner to have for lunch, is actually full of old spaghetti
noodles.

when you go to grab your change purse, because you need to buy a
carton of milk at work so you can thin down your morning oatmeal and
you couldn't bring any from home because the container that doesn't
have your soup in it is so big it takes up the whole lunch bag so you
couldn't fit in a small nalgene bottle of milk from home, and you
realize you didn't take it out of your jeans pocket from the weekend
and therefore have no money with you.

First Day of Fire School!

She Sprung A Leak

My mom keeps having all these things go wrong with her.

Back in the early 90's she had a parathyroid removed because her
calcium levels were too high. Her body was pulling it out of her
bones and teeth and dumping it into her bloodstream. The surgery
ended up being a REALLY good thing; they discovered she had thyroid
cancer.

So they took that out too while they were in there.

In the early 2000's they discovered she has this "thing" on the back
of her heart. It is almost like an extra chamber. They suspect this
is a congenital birth defect. And possibly hereditary, like the
parathyroid thing.

Gee thanks Mom.

Her remaining parathyroids started misbehaving last year. This time
she started getting kidney stones. Lots and lots of kidney stones.

So they took out the rest of her parathyroid.

Subsequently, she had to start taking large amounts of calcium
supplements, until her body "woke up" and started making enough on its
own to compensate. Within a few weeks of the procedure, she was back
in the hospital because her calcium levels had dropped so low she was
having trouble breathing and could hardly walk. It took about a week
of iv calcium and other stuffs before she was considered "regulated".

Oh, I almost forgot, at some point in there they discovered that she
has a cyst on her adrenal gland (that's above the kidney) on her left
side. They are pretty certain it is benign and it is not producing
any hormones or doing anything bad other than sitting there and
occassionally getting a little bigger.

So they are watching it for now.

A few months ago they decided she has lymph edema in her left leg.
They wanted her to go to the lymph edema clinic for treatments. Turns
out she can't do that because she is getting Home Health Care for
physical therapy and for her chronic cellulitis, (did I mention she
has chronic cellulitis too?) and medicare takes issue with having both
treatments at once. So to try and keep the Home Health, but still
treat the lymph edema, the tried compression socks, and compression
wraps.

Her leg didn't tolerate this very well and she had to stop.

Last week on a trip to her lung doctor (oh did I mention she is
permently on oxygen? Picwician's Syndrome. I probably spelled that
wrong.) she had trouble getting her lymph edema leg into the car and
she pulled a muscle. It has been bothering her since then.

So last night I get a call from her that she is just in so much pain
she can't stand it, and she doesn't think she can get up and walk. So
I go over and make her call 911 so they can transport her to the
hospital.

They did a CAT scan at the hospital. Turns out she is bleeding into
her abdominal cavity. The doctor wasn't sure from where or why and
questioned us about if my mom had fallen or run into something. We
couldn't come up with anything. After the doctor left the room, we
realized that we had forgotten to tell them about the adrenal cyst
while giving them her medical history. The nurse thought must be the
source. That the cyst had ruptured.

She came back a little bit later and said nope. The cyst was still
visible on the CAT scan. The doctor came back in a few minutes after
that and said that one of the other doctors has seen this happen
before. It is not that uncommon for people on blood thinners.

Oh yeah, she is on blood thinners because she had a pulmonary embolism
once. And a TIA. You'll have to Google that one, I'm not even going
to try and spell it out, but it is basically a little stroke in the
brain.

So anyway, the bleeding isn't from any one source.

Basically, she just sprung a leak.

It's Girl Scout Cookie Time!

This used to be one of my favorite times of year. Oh how I loved
Caramel Delights! And don't even get me started on those Thin Mints.

One year, we even bought some Thin Mints to put in the freezer so that
we could add ONE COOKIE to our protein shakes. Ha! At the time, I
actually thought that was going to work. Now I know better. No
cookies anywhere near our house for us.

I dearly love the Girl Scouts. I was one for many, many years and I
got a lot out of it. I have many fond memories of tromping through
snow (I grew up in Ohio) to sell and deliver cookies. And Girl Scout
camp. I'll have to tell the air mattress story one of these days,
that was classic.

But, as much as I want to help out the Girl Scouts, I can't buy any cookies.

Luckily, they now have a donation option. They have teamed up with
the USO and created "Project Troop to Troop". Donations are taken for
boxes of cookies to go to a soldier.

A great opportunity to support your local Girl Scout troop without
going into a sugar induced coma.

Started and Finished:One DAY

An amazing feat has been accomplished at the Banana home.

A whole project, not just started, but also COMPLETED in only one DAY.

I KNOW...I'll let you have a moment to recover from the shock of it all.

You remember our bedroom? Well, that 98% has moved up to 99% complete!

This was the 2% mentioned in that previous entry:

1. See all those wires under the shelf over the bed? That goes to the under shelf lighting, for reading in bed. They are going to be shortened and the switches mounted so it looks less octopus like.

2. See the red inserts in the shelf at the foot of the bed? There will be a set of the drawers mounted on the wall next to each side of the head of the bed for side tables. The will be have a white box around them so it matches the foot of the bed. The table saw is needed and is still buried in the shed.

3. See the head of the bed? A headboard will be made and put there. We are looking for fabric.

4. See the windows? The brown parts will be painted white when it stays warm because the windows have to be taken out to do those parts.

5. See the windows, again? We are still discussing what type of window treatment we want. We are currently thinking about faux wood blinds.

6. See the blank green wall? I have a picture collage to fill up, and some of Surly Teenagers artwork to frame and hang.

Well...

Item #1, under shelf lighting - DONE last February

Item #2, red drawer side tables - DONE bought sometime last year, hung up sometime later last year, white tops (instead of white all the way around) last week

Item #3, headboard-DONE started Saturday and completed THE SAME DAY!

Before.

Don't look at the dusty baseboards.

Back of headboard.

Bracket thing Hubby made to attach to the wall that

will support the headboard.

Brackets on the wall.

Test fit.

(I won't mention that the first time we tried to put it

up it didn't fit. It was too big to fit in between

the side tables.)

The material waiting to be ironed.

Foam padding attached to the headboard

with spray adhesive.

Covered.

Attached to headboard with staple gun.

Hung on wall.

Bed replaced.

Items 4-6, that will bring the bedroom from 99% to 100% complete, are still in progress.

Shut up.

Back At It

I am going to start catching up on things that we have been doing and things that have been going on, in no particular order and in no particular time frame, from like last September.

I have been a bad, bad, lazy and bad blogger.

First Up:

Newest member of The Family:

JASLENE

This was Surly Teenager's Christmas present. She has been terribly sad and missing having a baby since we lost Clementine.

The present under the tree was a big box of cat supplies and a stuffed cat that said "good to exchange for one live girl kitty of your choice".

She had a hard time finding just the right one. She started out wanting a tiny, fur ball replacement of Clementine. December and January is just not kitty season. And not girl, tuxedo kitty season especially. She finally relaxed her standards a bit when she saw this little (but not tiny), white with black (but not tuxedo) girl kitty.

Jaslene has decided that she is purrfectly happy with Surly Teenager and Surly Teenager's bedroom. She stays in there all the time. Once, Surly Teenager carried Jaslene out to me, when I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and put her in my lap. I got to scratch her once under the chin and she decided that was enough. She climbed up me, went over my shoulder to the back of the couch, jumped to the floor and ran down the hall and back to the safety of Surly Teenager's bedroom.

And she likes being under the covers. She sleeps completely under them. I had to unbury her to take her picture. That's why she's looking at me like that.