Winter Sucks - On many levels

Yesterday Our temperatures hit Plus One. - this is freaking awesome - with the windchill it hit -8 - that is still freaking awesome, by the way.

Everything in town was melting, the kids were jumping in slush puddles in the afternoon, driveways and streets were clear and dry, and life was good.

One has to assume that since the weather si so nice the highways will be equally dry. I mean they stay clear (for the most part) the whole winter, even when it is snowing, so I had no worries last night when we put the kids int eh car and headed to the city. We had to pick up my sister in law's van from the airport.

Unfortunately, the conditions were perfect for ice to form on the highways, it was at least and inch thick - thicker in some spots- so thick in fact, that there were deep potholes in the ice!

I was So freaking tense on the drive in, worried we would end up in the ditch like the 23 cars we saw on the way in - keep in mind, we only have to travel 15 miles from our home to the city! 23 cars is a lot!

We got to the city fine, and I dropped hubs off at the airport to find SIL's van. I did not wait for him, I wanted to get home while it was still light out so I would have an easier time navigating the skating rink that was the highway.

Somehow, int he forty minutes we were in the city, the roads miraculously cleared - even thought the temperature dropped from the pluses to the minuses!

I do not understand winter weather AT ALL!~

Blogging Blah

I have a bunch of posts that I want to write. A few for here and a few for BPR. One for BPR, I think, will be pretty funny. It's funny to me, anyway, But I just haven't really been in a wordy mood. Short posts filled with pictures are fine once and a while ( for me, for you it;s fine) but after a while I get tired of going to my site and not seeing any real writing.

I love the feeling of accomplishment I get when I see a nice long post. Especially a post that is well written. One of the posts I have been meaning to write for here is about the new weight loss drug, Alli. Have you heard of it? - no don;t tell me now, wait for the real post on it.

Another thing I want to write about is the weather. I know, its usually a dumb topic you save for when you have nothing else to write about, but the post I envision is awesome beyond awesome. Or. Maybe its just me ranting again.

One thing I am doing to try and kick start my wordyness ( is that even a word??) is opening the notebook function and just writing. Short stories, commentary - anything, so long as I am writing in complete sentences.

Shelli started a movement called free write Friday, and except for the time limit - I write till I have nothing left in me - Thats a perfect example of what I am doing.

Routine Breakage

My normal routine is to stay home stay home stay home stay home, go get milk, stay home stay home, go shopping stay home.

lol.

Seriously though, I do not get out all that much, and really, it doesn't bug me, until I have a busy night and pay for it the next day!

I wish I could say I was doing something refined like visiting wine clubs, or going to a poetry reading, but the truth is, all it took to wipe me out was this:

• left home
  
• Get to the mail box to mail something from MY dog to my fathers dog at
  
• Get to the city
  
• Pick up my sister
  
• Drive across town for Tattoo appointment to make Tattoo Appointment
• Try to drive to Wal*mart
• Miss my turn off
• Drive very long till next turn off.
• Stop to take a picture for Nobody
• Drive back towards Wal*mart
• Convince my sister to ask in a fearful voice "is she still following me" to passerby's as I push her wheelchair.
• Pitch a fit over the fact that that little boy gets to have lucky charms why can't I.
• Laugh as my sister wheels herself away and pretends not to know me.
• Pick out a Bunny hug.
• Put it back, pick out a different one.
• Find my sister and have her tell me my bunny hug sucks
• Punch sister
• Go to mens wear, pick out another bunny hug
• This one is acceptable.
• Two chocolate bars, a 3 pack of lighters later and we are through the till.
• Drive to Future Shop.
• Go in, admire Sales man with beautiful lips while waiting in line.
• Not notice when his beautiful lips are asking if he can help me.
• Blush
• Get laptop back
• caress it gently.
• Pay through the nose for laptop.
• Caress again. There may have been a bit of tongue involved.
• Back to the car.
• Open chocolate bar - I haven't had supper.
• Try to back out of my spot. FAIL
  
• Put down chocolate bar and successfully back out of my spot.
• resume chocolate consumption.
• Head for Coffee.
• Enjoy coffee
• Take sister home
• Home at last - Five hours later
  

I need a nap.

Blogging at coffee

I'm going to the city tonight to talk with my tattoo artist, Mike. Before I make an appointment for my tattoo, first he needs to know what I want, where I want it, and then he has to draw it for me. I love Mike. he is awesome. He curses a fair bit, but his skill with the needle is, IMO, incomparable.

When he drew up my last tattoo, I could have cried, he took my idea for what I wanted and made it come alive, and made it better than I could have dreamed up. Not one moment have I ever regretted my tattoo.

I am picking my sister up, hopefully before my appointment, and then afterwards we will go for coffee. Where we go for coffee, there is a spot where you can pick up wireless internet, two tables have windows facing a hotel that has unsecured wireless internet. The chances that the two tables will be open are slim, and I do not want to leave my laptop int he cold car while I go in to talk to Mike.

If I had a laptop bag, it wouldn't even be a question becuase I could keep it with me without trouble then, but the one I want (on eBay) is 99 cents over the balance of what is in my paypal account. I will be ordering it this Thursday or Friday, when Pu2B pays me for ht last period of work.

I just think that blogging at coffee would be awesome.

well. After typing this out I think I have made a decision. I will not bring the laptop tonight, but after I get my case from eBay, all bets are off!

d'oh!

Hey you know those huge jawbreaker suckers? Hmm. let me do a quick Google search for a picture. Dammit. no luck there. Good thing I have a camera, here is My jawbreaker sucker, after three days work.

Anyway. Have you ever had one of these? I buy them every time I see them, which is not that often, not becuase they are hard to find, but becuase I am lazy and make Hubs go to the store when we need things. Anyway. I bought one three days ago and have been steadily working my way at it. One thing about them that is nice is that they satisfy my need to snack but I can go hours and hours on it and still not end up full or OD'ing on calories.

What SUCKS. Absolutely SUCKS is that every single time I get myself one of these suckers I lick it until my tongue is burning. and beyond. My tongue is SO sore right now. Last night Hubs forcibly took my sucker from me last night becuase I was licking it, not paying attention while we watched a movie last night, and there were streaks of BLOOD on my sucker from my tongue!

damn them and my addictive personality!!1! BRB. Gonna go check see if there are any Bluefly coupons... maybe I can order them in bulk!

Comfort Food

The past two weeks, and more so, the past four days I have spent 90% of my waking hours filling my face. I have a half filled drinking glass full of chocolate chips beside me right now.

In a way, I understand I am eating out of fear. But. Even though I can feel myself getting bigger, I cannot seem to care about it. I can;t seem to care that in January and early Feb I lost 7 lbs with the treadmill and extra water.

Maybe subconsciously I am thinking that I have to eat it ll now, before I can't.

home gyms are nice, but only if you are willing to actually use them, and right now, I have no desire to work out. Eating chips and chocolate keeps my mind off my problems. I will worry about the weight gain on Tuesday!

Waiting

This waiting game I am playing is Not fun. My results from teh mammogram and the ultrasound were *supposed* to take Approximately 24 hour to get from the building where they were done to my doctors hands - the two buildings are side by freaking side by the way. I could have walked them over myself becuase I parked in my doctors lot and walked to the ultrasound/mammogram place.

AHHHNYway. I phoned Friday afternoon, about 26 hours after my appointment to see if the results had come in. They had not. This Monday is a new stat holiday called Family Day, so I have to wait until at least Tuesday maybe Wednesday to find out what is happening with my breasts.

The stress of waiting is killing me, I swear it is! Each stab of pain I have immediately reminds me of the unknown lump and the fact I am waiting to see if I am going to die. I have been SO tired. I'm sure it is stress causing my tiredness, but it has gotten to the point I joked to hubs that we needed to get a stair lift installed cus the stairs are too tough for me to climb.

I have, to be frank, lost my ability to think positive. Right now I am convinced I have breast cancer, and while I am more than willing to fight for my life, I do feel as though I am on borrowed time. Each time I am short with the boys I want to scream at myself! I do not want them to have memories of a short tempered woman as their mom, I want them to remember me as the woman who is proud of them, who loves them more than life.


Gah. ending this now before I start to cry

Morbid Much?

Knowing that I may very well get bad news on Tuesday when I go to my doctor's appointment, my mindset has been quite dark lately. SO dark, I had to take a break from my main blog becuase I don't want to be a total downer!

One thing I have been thinking about is calling to get some life insurance quotes. Right now, Hubs has life insurance through work for himself, But not for me and the boys. I doubt that even if I got insurance by Tuesday morning they would honor their commitment if something did go wrong. I bet there is a waiting period before the insurance kicks in.

My mom got life insurance in June or July, and then in August, at her yearly physical found out she had diabetes, and then in October she found out she had Lung Cancer. When she Died in February (ironically, one day after MY appointment to see if I have cancer) Her life insurance covered every outstanding bill her and my dad had - INCLUDING their house!

I know that this helped my dad a lot in the years after my mom passed away, and I wonder if I am being selfish not preparing my family the same way... Onces my appointment on Tuesday is over, It will be too late. No insurance company will insure sick person!

(I am very scared)

Tuffies

Tuffies are a dog toy. Smokey is a dog. We buy her new toys every payday because the two weeks between is more than enough time for her to murder them and spread their fuzzy guts throughout the room.

Has anyone tired them? They are expensive. We buy toys that are between 5 and 10 bucks, but the tuffies are between 20 and 30 PLUS shipping.

So. Fill me in. Should we or shouldn't we?

Pee ess: here is a link to ebay where I originally saw them. we are going to check out local pet store to see if they carry them. that was we can save on shipping.

Ring Ring Ring ; Banana Phone

The vet just called. Smokey just went under anesthetic. As soon as she went to sleep, they did a complete check up on her. She has retained some baby teeth. Just like Rainbow Man, and needs to have them pulled out. It doesn't cost much, just twenty bucks for the lot of them, but I am upset I never noticed it before.

I bet it hurts to have new teeth push through while the baby teeth hang on! The vet is going to extract them while she is under.

When we took her in last night we were told there is a base amount that a spay costs, but an owner can choose to have extra things done while they are under - at a cost of course.

We talked about the micro chipping, but she has three different tags stating her name and phone number as well as her rabies tag - that number can be entered into any vet data base in SK and they can locate her owners through it. So we declined the microchip (46 dollars). She had all her blood work done last month so we did not opt for a repeat analysis of that (34 dollars). What we did choose as an extra was what they call pain management.

From what I understand it is a shot as well, as, her stitches have something in them that keeps the area numb as Smokey heals. Definitely worth the 25 dollars it costs in my opinion.

Last night was so weird without her. I mean. She has only been with us for four and a half months. But It was horrible. I went to the pantry to get a snack and she was not there begging for a treat. I had a bath without her nosing her way in to blow bubbles in the water. And the worst part? Knowing that from eight PM she was all alone at the vet's kennel. She took her blankie and her squeaky caterpillar (with no legs cus she ate them) but...

When we took her in, they let us be the ones to put her in the kennel and say good night to her. Se whimpered and cried as we shit the door on her, but when we turned to go out of the room, to leave the vets, she howled like I have never heard. She KNEW we were leaving her there all alone.

I had a hard time going to sleep last night, wondering if she had given up and fallen asleep or if she was still up, pacing the floor crying for us. As much as I am terrified of her coming home (she is so very active, I am SO scared she will hurt herself running and jumping) I cannot wait until four when Hubs gets home so we can pick her up. I can't wait to see her little waggily tail and have her lick my face.

I simply cannot believe how attached to her I am after only four months!

random thoughts

well. This is it. In less than eight hours we will be dropping Smokey off a tthe Vets for her surgery. it breaks my heart to think of her sleeping htere all alone tonight, crying for us, But she needs to have this done.

The in laws have invited us over for supper tonight and we will leave the kids there while we take little miss pup in.

I cant help but worry though

Bad Dreams

We had a dog hen I was a child, She was never spayed and had a few batches of puppies. I'm sure she would have had puppy upon puppy until she was too old to bear, but she committed suicide at the ripe old age of five.

My husband also had a dog as a child. His dog, a male, Was neutered. But he came home from the vet a different dog then then fun loving one that went in. Toto had turned mean over night. Biting, growling, he was a menace. becuase my MIL owned a daycare, she eventually got rid of the dog. Dogs who bite are too big of a liability when you care for other peoples children.

Smokey goes in to the Vets the evening of the sixth to be spayed. She has to fast, and we were sure we would be unable to ignore her water dish antics so we opted to have her stay over night to fast and have her operation early in the AM on the seventh.

Logically I know she will be fine. I do. We have talked to a fair number of people about the vet we use and not one of them has a bad story to tell. (Several did about the previous vet). And I also know she HAS to be fixed. I would be unable to give away or sell any pf her puppies becuase I would fall in love with them. And puppies cost a lot of money! So. She has to get fixed.

It's just that every night I have the same dream with small variations. Each time, Smokey comes home a changed dog. She growls at the children. She is mean.

In the dream I am walking down the hallway toward the living room when I hear him scream. I run, but just as I round the corner I see the baby lean down to hug Smokey, inadvertently pressing on her recent stitches. It hurts her and she barks, growls and turns to him.

Sometimes she simply bites him and we drive him for stitches, other times, like last night, by the time I reach them, she has tore the baby's arm clear off. And the dream does not end there. I have to sleep through the panic of trying to call 911. I soak up endless rivers of blood, waiting for the ambulance, as my baby screams in my arms.

The closer we get to the date of her surgery the more vivid and disturbing my dreams get.

February 12

sigh.

I have a doctors appointment on February 12th. I'm having issues. I hope they can help me. I wish I could have gotten in earlier. Much earlier. Like a month ago. I only made the appointment this week.

I'm scared

Good news/Bad news

I absolutly hate when someone says to me " So. Do you want the good news or the bad news?" Immediately I think the worst. (I mean death, dismemberment, chaos in the streets!)

For that split second I am given, I struggle with should I ask for the bad, hoping the good makes up for it, or ask for the good, so I am in a good enough frame of mind to deal with the bad...

In the end I always ask for the bad news first. But that is not the point. I hate being put on the spot. I hate having to choose!

And so...Thursday night after work, hubs came in and said "So. Do you want the good news or the not so good news?"

Sigh.

The good news turned out to be super great news! his entire plant got a bonus - almost 1400 bucks, but taxes took over five hundred away.

The not so good news, is in my opinion at least, also good news. Mandatory overtime for the next three Saturdays.

In four years the husband will get a month of paid leave from work to use each year. When that time comes, we want to go on a cruise. So the bonus he got is going to be the start of our savings for that trip. Tomorrow afternoon we will zip down to the bank and open a checking account to store the money in.

But I still hate the good news/bad news question!