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Friday, January 28, 2011

Huh.



Rico is walking down the strip looking for the perfect spot to place a few bets at the roulette table. I'm shoveling snow. What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing! I hate Vegas. Well, that's not strictly true. I like people watching in Vegas (omg are there some freaky-deaky peeps), and I like browsing at the shops (even though it's all to chi-chi for me), and I like the warm weather (in theory it's warm there, not so much this week). But really I could take it or leave it. Vegas that is. I'd almost always take warm weather over cold!

He's been there for a few days helping a friend do some work at the hospital, and I've been enjoying my solitude (sorry Hon, no offense).

The dog has not been enjoying his absence... she's had an accident two days in a row. Apparently she's so used to Rico being home with her that she can't "hold it" until I get home from work. Ick. Ironically Rico is the one who is normally responsible for cleaning up such accidents so I'm stuck with it.

Gag reflex here we come.

So I'm cleaning up doggy messes. Doing laundry. Doing my own dishes (gasp). Vacuuming. Meh.

But I'm also LOUNGING in bed, reading, and playing on the computer, watching HGTV, eating chocolates. YEAH!

So it's a house full of girls right now -- NO boys allowed -- and we get to do whatever we want AND have control of the remote! Woop! Woop!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

House Notebook

The holidays are over and it's time to get serious. It's time to haul out all the crap that got stuffed in cupboards, drawers, and closets as we prepped for hosting holiday parties. And as I think about doing that stuff there's a lot of other stuff I'd like to get done. Stuff that needs to get done before it gets nice and we want to spend time outside.

So here it is -- stuff I'd love to get done before the snow melts:

- Patch cracks in drywall (1 living room, 1 bedroom, 1 basement stairwell, 1 hallway) and nail pops in ceiling

- Do a major clean of all rooms. Clean out junk and only leave essentials. Put the rest in the barn for the spring Relay For Life of Lowell garage sale fundraiser.

- Get Rico to build the cabinets for the "new" laundry room (and when I say "new" I mean 1 year old) and finish the beadboard and trim.

- Clean couch upholstery (and figure out where we're going to put the couch now that it's been displaced by the treadmill).

- Scan old photos and eliminate prints not displayed. If you never look at them what's the point of having them sitting in a cupboard?

- Continue purging "holiday" decorations and paraphernalia. Too much, too, too much stuff. (And I'm not just talking Christmas stuff.)

- Sell Polish pottery that I don't use.

- Pare down dishes in kitchen -- too many extra sets of dishes and way too many bowls.

- Repaint master bath and add tile above the shower unit.

- Clean out cabinets in bedroom. Purge, purge, purge.

And then when the snow melts.....

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

A big blogging break...

A big break in blogging was started because of an eventful Thanksgiving week in 2010:

We had Chinese food on Tuesday night, and Rico had an upset stomach all night. Then Wednesday -- when he was supposed to be cleaning the house prepping for our big family dinner when we were hosting 20+ of my closest relatives -- he was busy tossing his cookies all morning, and we were thinking it was food poisoning or the flu.

Then he did tossed 'em again a bit in the afternoon. Then again when I got home from work. Then a TON at midnight. You're not supposed to go to the doctor for the flu, so we didn't. But then when my sister, the nurse came over she took one look at him and said he needed to go to the ER. So she took him. Thank goodness for sisters who are good in medical emergencies (because I am so, so not -- there's a reason I didn't go into nursing).

After several hours in ER (and a few funny stories of how you can bi-pass the triage area and go right to a bed) Rico ended up getting admitted that night with internal bleeding. I relieved my sister later in the afternoon, once the emergent situation was under control. Yes, I'm a wuss. I freely admit it. We all have our strengths.

Rico had a upper GI scope the next morning and it showed a tear where the esophagus and stomach join up (from tossing his cookies so hard and so frequently). Luckily it had stopped bleeding so they didn't have to do anything else. And we got a couple of really nifty souvenir photos of the scope (SCORE!).

So he was in the hospital, missing the big game in Detroit (high school state football finals) and eating hospital food that day. We were hoping that he'd be able to come home, but his first two blood draws after the procedure didn't show enough improvement. Then we were looking at the need for a transfusion. Ugh. Luckily his evening blood draw showed an improvement -- and he got to come home around 9:30 p.m. So we had our Thanksgiving dinner a couple of days late. :) How was your holiday?

The next week was spent keeping an eye on Rico and trying to get him to eat as may high-iron foods as possible, and getting him to rest and relax. That was work in and of itself. He's not a good relaxer. At. All.

So that was blogging absence #1. Then, a couple of weeks later my dad's oldest sister suffered a massive stroke while at bible study. Aunt D didn't recover, so December brought sadness and a funeral. My dad delivered a beautiful eulogy.

The Christmas holiday saw us all pulling together for our family's 50th annual Christmas Eve gathering and remembering Aunt D and all she did for us:
- my mom made deviled eggs for our party (Aunt D's normal dish-to-pass)
- Rico made Aunt D's queso dip recipe
- my brother and sister-in-law bought all the kids boxes of movie candy (and Aunt D tradition)
- my cousin J gave shoulder rubs (Aunt D's way of connecting with each of us)
- all the guys (and a few of the girls) gathered on our front porch to sing carols (again, Aunt D)
- we all spent time looking through boxes of photos that Aunt D had stored (which I am in the process of scanning so we can all have copies)

So that's it. The holidays.
Bring on 2011.