Names have been changed to protect the innocent...and my husband...and me...but not the dog. His name is Dexter.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Post-Op Update

I'm Alive!  Not exactly back in the saddle of life, but hanging in there.  The surgery last week went well and they were able to find a happy combination of pain pills and anti-nausea medicine that made the first few days of recovery so much better than they could have been.  There are just some things that you don't want to be doing right after surgery on your face and throwing up is one of them.  I slept (off and on) for many days while CG was Mr. Mom, with the exception of very kind people bringing in dinners so he didn't have to cook.  As a matter of fact, we're still enjoying the fruits of their labors and making full use of the leftovers so I don't have to cook until it's absolutely necessary. 

The girls handled it all far better than I expected and thought that the tape on my nose was hi-lar-i-ous.  Such a relief.  And we actually got to spend some time together after a couple days of complete out-of-it-ness.  It's weird to go from 100% mommy to totally disconnected like that.  I missed it....preschool adventures, the after-school pick-up, hearing about the day, dinner time chatter, bed time routines, all of it.  I really like our version of normal and am happy to (mostly) be back to it.

Yesterday I had to go back in to see the doctor for my first post-op appointment and while on our way there, I decided to play with the camera on CG's iPhone.  This one turned out the best.
It was nice to have the tape removed and get the splints out.  Yep, there were splints.  Two pieces of plastic shoved up each nostril.  It's was super comfy. 

This week I'm working on trying to get back to normal without overdoing it.  It's a delicate balance.  I usually help out in Lolly's class a few times a week, but have decided not to this week.  We're getting back to the bare essentials for the week in the hopes of me getting back on my feet just a wee bit faster.  In my mind it all makes sense so we'll have to see if it works out in real life as well.

Although this surgery has been a little harder to recover from than I expected (I bet a lot of people say that) I'm really hoping that things get back to normal soon and my blog posts start making sense again.  Random is good, but this much random is.....well...hard to follow....   

Thursday, February 23, 2012

So....yeah....

So, you know those posts that are kind of awkward to write because you don't really know where to start because you're kind of in the middle and the beginning is a little muddled?  Yep, it's going to be one of those posts.  So fun.  You'll all be thanking me when you're done.  Assuming you read it to the end....

January.  It was crazy.  I don't think I blogged much in January.  Do you know how I know when life has gotten way too crazy?  I stop taking pictures.  I'm always taking pictures.  It's kind of my thing.  And do you know how many pictures I took in January?  Yep, that's right....a big fat zero.  None.  Nada.  Nothing.  And that, my friends, is rare.  I even took pictures when I had the swine flu.  Seriously.  This is alarming.

As we hurtled toward the end of January I began to feel that things weren't right.  Don't get me wrong, everything is great.  But things were a little too crazy.  It was all with good things, but these good things were pulling me away from the most important things.  I found myself in a "good, better, best" situation.  And I needed to draw a line somewhere and dial back the crazy.

Do you know what happens when I do that?  The lid on the washing machine falls on my face breaking my nose.  Again.  For the FIFTH TIME.  Which leads me to doctor which leads to surgery in this particular situation.  Perfect timing.   

I've known for a couple of weeks that it was coming so I've been trying to prepare.  I've attempted (and failed) to organize my bedroom.  I've attempted to keep up with the house chores.  But mostly I've spent my time preparing my girls.  Babs is too young to be really upset by the situation, but Lolly is my little worrier.  She's also of the communication style of her mother that I lovingly refer to as "fester and rot".  It's been a bit of a challenge but I think they're both comfortable with it and won't worry too much.

The other thing I felt necessary to do to prepare for surgery?  Cut off all my hair and donate it to Locks of Love.  I was planning on doing it anyway, but I have found from personal experience that really long hair and surgery are not a good combination for me.  So, last week we chopped it off.
I'm pretty happy with the results and am now spending a lot less time doing my hair.  It was long enough that it took 30 minutes to get it most of the way dry with a hair dryer.  Now it takes...less minutes.

Seeing as I actually had surgery yesterday (I love posting options!) I'm hoping that at this exact moment I'm resting and feeling amazed and how painless this surgery has been.  Especially since I can't take pain pills.  It's Extra Strength Tylenol all the way baby.

As for the blog....I have no idea when I'll be posting again.  But I hope you enjoy the cat picture I posted yesterday.  I sure have. ;o)

And, just as an added bonus, here is a picture of my cute girls in a giant chair.  Because that just makes everyone happy.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Less Words Wednesday

Just the other day I got the loveliest card in the mail.  It was from a doctor's office reminding me to make an appointment for my annual exam.
Now doesn't this creepy cat make you want to go running to your gynecologist?!  I love good mail.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Happy Presidents Day!

Last year Lolly declared that her two favorite American Presidents were Abraham Lincoln and Barrack Obama.  My sweet little girl had no idea of the irony of her favorites.  The actions of President Lincoln lead our country in a direction that (finally) we were finally able to have our first African American president, President Obama.
This year she added Washington to her list of favorites.  My girl has good taste.

Happy Presidents Day Everyone!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Our Valentines Day In Pictures

Valentine Breakfast!

Ready for school and all the Valentine fun!
Including heart shaped hair!
All the valentines are prepped and ready for delivery.
Unfortunately, no one notified the dishes that it was a holiday.
But I still had time to give the kitchen a heart attack after the dishes were done.
A little Valentine bling from Mom & Dad
**A Geek Shirt for our Favorite Geek
A gift for the whole family to enjoy!
A Rubber plant for CG's office.  You kind of have to feel bad for the guy.  He gets the most random gifts for holidays.
Even Dexter has admirers!
And my Valentine.  It also included a 20 oz. Mountain Dew which refused to be photographed since it was otherwise occupied being consumed by me.

**To explain the geek shirt.....10 in binary is actually 2.  I didn't get it either until CG finally stopped laughing and explained it to me the first time he saw the shirt.  Even now, my understanding of binary is tenuous.  Possibly exaggerated.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Beware The Furniture Salesman

So lately I've been having a bit of a...well, I guess you could call it a decorating mid-life crises.  Or maybe quarter-life crises because I'm pretty sure I'm not in the right age bracket for a mid-life crises.  Whatever you call it, there is a definite feeling of crises.  Most of the work we have done on our house has been structural and salvational. (Totally just made up that word.  But it's a good one....salvational.)  We haven't focused as much on the decoration stuff....it's been "hurry and redo the bathroom so the mold doesn't take over the house" or "remodel the kitchen so we can function as a family" kind of improvements, let alone the "replace all the carpet in the basement to fix the disgusting mess left by our renters" update.  So the decorating just hasn't gotten the proper attention that it needs.

Adding to that, our living room has recently fallen on hard times.  The rocking chair we purchased when I was pregnant with Lolly broke, leaving our room out of balance. 
I love that chair.  I rocked my babies in that chair.  I'm really hoping we can fix it because I just can't bear to send it to the dump.  Although it wasn't particularly expensive, it's the kind of furniture that you show your grandchildren and tell them how you rocked their mommy when she was just a baby in that very chair.

But I'm getting off track here....the point I'm trying to make is that our room was just feeling out of balance.  We had decided to add a chair and a half with an ottoman because they are just fabulous and perfect for snuggling and reading.  Of course, in that kind of chair, I don't stand a chance of staying awake during story time.  Truth be told, I'm one of those lame mom's that always falls asleep while reading to my kids in the afternoon.  Or if I just sit down for more than 20 minutes in the afternoon.  I'm an exciting mom. 

We decided to start looking around to see what our options are.  We checked at IKEA but the whole concept of chair and a half is a little bit anti-IKEA since they're more about taking up less space, not more.  So obviously we didn't find anything there.  We had some more time to look around so we thought we would head to Ashley Furniture to have a little look around.  It was our first time being there and they had a lot of options. 

Although...and maybe it's just me in my designer snootiness....but it seems like most furniture stores have the same 4-5 sofa designs that are just offered in different colors with different pillows.  But they're all pretty much the same.  Or maybe my expectations are just a little off.

Anyway....we found a chair and a half that we really liked that is similar to this one
The only one in the entire store that I would want to spend money on and put in my house.  I'm finding that I'm getting a little pickier with age.  Plus, I wasn't all that picky the last time we bought a piece of furniture (our current sofa) and it's always kind of bugged me.  It's just not quite our style.  Plus it's chenille which really likes to hold on to dog hair, which is frustrating when you have a long haired dog. 

The chair and ottoman we found is a leather composite which we really liked.  It had a better feeling than 100% leather, but had the same durability and non-hair-stickiness factor of leather.  There was also a matching sofa and love seat.  We thought the sofa might be too big, so we were looking at the love seat.  And I liked the idea of having a matching sofa and chair.  It looked good in my head, especially since our sofa isn't aging all that well. 

The helpful, and slightly annoyed, salesmen was thrilled that we'd found something that we actually liked.  The chair was $500 and the ottoman was $250, so that would be $750 although he told us that he could give us a "deal" and it would only be $725.  OR we could get the love seat, chair and ottoman for $1058, including leather protection!  What a steal! 

I should have gotten it in writing. 

Later on I saw that Ashley Furniture was having a special sale that when you bought one piece of furniture, the second piece was 50% off.  But....the salesmen had specifically said he could only give us $25 off the ottoman if we bought just the chair and ottoman.  You would have thought I would have caught on to him being a lying sack of trash at that point, but I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.  He didn't deserve it.

We went back a few days later to make our purchase.  We had discussed and measured and looked at other stores and discussed some more and decided to go ahead with our purchase, but to get the sofa instead of the love seat because it would fit and be fabulous.  Plus, there is only a $20 difference between the sofa a love seat (weird, I know) so it wouldn't affect the final price all that much anyway.  We even went out of our way to find the original salesman that helped us (instead of the 3-4 others that accosted us upon our entrance and wanderings) so that he would get the commission.  Again, a courtesy he really didn't deserve.  We informed him we were there to buy the sofa and chair/ottoman set.  Random tangent...remember back in the day when being a cash paying customer was better than financing through the store....yeah, so not the case anymore.

Anyway, he wrote up the order and I took a little look.  Hmmm.....the price had magically gone up!  By $200!  Because suddenly the leather protection was no longer included in the price!  And when I pointed out that the quote he had given us had specifically included leather protection he insisted I had misunderstood.  This is when he started in on the "I should have explained it simpler so that you could understand you silly little woman" stuff.  He didn't say the exact words "silly woman" but it was implied.  And irritating.  It soured the whole experience.  And honestly, if the original quote had been $1258 than it would have been fine.  It just really bothered me that he seemed to think it was okay to tell us one price and then write it up as another price.

So we left.  Without buying a thing.  But still....it bothered me.  So I went back in to talk to his manager.  You would think that would be a simple thing...but noooo.  I asked the two men in front if I could speak to a manager and they said yes!  And what could they help me with?  Um...did I stutter?  I want to talk to a manager!

I attempted to talk to the manager who was exactly 100% not helpful in any way.  He just kept talking about how important it was to get the leather protection on the furniture.   And if you happen to be talking to this particular sales manager and your husband walks in, he will immediately stop talking to you and only address your husband.  Since, clearly, the husband is the only one with a brain.  This guy didn't even ask for our contact information or anything until I pointed it out and yet was promising to work out this situation with us.  Seriously?  How are you going to work it out if you don't know who we are?  Even then he just asked our first names (which I can promise he wouldn't remember mine) and then told us to call him on Monday and he would take care of things after talking to the salesman. 

I don't think so.  If you actually want a sale, you're going to make an effort to take care of the problem.  All we wanted was the price that we were quoted.  Really....not that hard. 

I haven't bought a lot of furniture (who does?) in my lifetime, but I do think it should be a good experience.  And my shopping experience at Ashley Furniture was not a good experience.  Not even close.  And, really, it was probably just that sleazy salesman and it should not reflect on the furniture store as a whole.  But it does.  A lot.  And it makes me feel like I don't want to go back there because they're not honest.  Buying new furniture is hard enough as it is....why add a lying salesman to the mix?  Especially when there are some many furniture stores to choose from. 

So my "professional" furniture buying advice is.....always get the price quote in writing.   
   

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Tip Tuesday-Coconut Oil for Your Hair!

Coconut oil is my new favorite thing.  You can use it anywhere!  I used it on my skin, I've had it in toast, I plan on baking with it in the near future, and now I've used it on my hair.  I love it. 

I'd been hearing for quite a while about how good coconut oil was for your hair.  The problem was that it never really came with any specific instructions.  I need specific instructions.  But in this particular situation, I just jumped in and hoped for the best.  The beauty of this is that now you can learn from my mistakes.  You're welcome!

My hair was pretty dry, so I decided to just wash my hair like normal and then use the coconut oil as a conditioner.  I put it in my hair (it stayed liquid for plenty of time after melting a bit in the microwave) and honestly, it didn't really feel like I had put anything on my hair at all.  I almost put additional conditioner on, but decided against it.  That ended up being the only thing I did right. 

After rinsing my hair and getting out of the shower, I must admit that my hair did feel rather hydrated.  It had worked!  So I dried my hair with my hair dryer, as usual.  Only...it didn't really look all that dry.  And the next morning....it still didn't look especially dry.  As a matter of fact, although my hair was completely, 100% dry it still looked wet.  It was fascinating for all, but wasn't exactly the look I was going for. 

It all worked out in the end though.  I just washed and conditioned my hair again like normal and it was soft and hydrated and non-wet looking.  When I did the coconut oil treatment on my girls hair I followed a different pattern.  And this is very important to remember:
  1. Wet hair in shower
  2. Apply coconut oil
  3. After waiting a few minutes, rinse coconut oil out then shampoo and condition normally
Then you will have gorgeous hydrated hair without having to wonder what random chemicals you just put on your head.  Or your babies heads.  And when you have hair this long, it needs a little extra love now and then.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Note To Self....Yellow Curry is HOT

We like curry around here.  I just buy the pre-made sauce, and pop it into the crock pot with some coconut milk and veggies and we're good to go.  Yesterday at the store, I decided to try a different flavor.  Because I'm adventurous like that.  And the curry at our favorite restaurant is yellow so how could I go wrong?! 

Well, I went wrong.  Very wrong.  One child was gasping for air as she was getting some water from the kitchen sink while the other child ran crying from the room because her lips were burning.

Major. Mom. Fail.

In the future I'll just stick to the Tikka Masala sauce.  If I can ever get them to eat curry again.   
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