NewYr's Eve Amendment

Moo is done with the crows so he's wiggled his way into a two-way catdonut with Doodle.

Here's How the Crew is Spending NewYr's Eve

Huddling for warmth and sleeping with nose tucked into blankets.

Curled up in a catdonut and sleeping with nose tucked under paws.

Gazing raptly out at crows.

And I'm still in my PJs.

Busy Christmas Day!

I had to wrap some more gifts, seems to be a tradition with me: waiting until Xmas Day morning to wrap my parents/Riley's gifts. I like it, feels holidayish. Then jumped in the shower and got ready to go have Chinese food lunch with Mr. L's family: that's one of their traditions and they invited me along. Then home to get gifts. Then off to my parents' house. It worked out for them, they got to dawdle, walk Riley, have lunch, and relax before I came over. Mr. L came over for Xmas Burritos which he loved but he LOVED my mom's pulled pork more. I can make him practically swoon with some of the things I make, but I don't have anything on my mom's pulled pork.

Here's my mom's tree, she dubbed it Fatso. She likes vintage-y ornaments, ones that are slightly worn and tarnished.

Riley got his "smart dog" gift from me. He didn't do what the dog on the box was doing (using his paws to move the covers over) but tried to bite them off and the combination of his wet nose and super-saturated tongue started to break down the less-then-quality wood the thing was made of. I'm sure my father could make a more awesome one with better wood to withstand nipping teeth that can disembowel a stuffed animal in less then a minute.

Riley got his bone finally which made him very happy and he worked on that for three hours straight! One tired pup! You can see one of the Hello Kitty-stuffed Hello Kitty bags I got my mom - just filled with all sorts of HK items. I had so much fun shopping for her. I'm SOOO glad she loves the wristlet purse, that was one of my last finds and oooh was it a good one. Hope she posts a pic of it! I made my dad his usual bucketloads of pretzels, Heath-bit flavored. He'll be in Party Pretzel Heaven 'til Easter!

A view of my parents' living room. I was trying to get the tree light reflections in the window, sort of succeeded but the photo set-up is nice, inviting, like you just want to crawl in the photo and join us.

I got exactly what I wanted this Christmas:

• A mini feather pillow
• A new sturdy ladder
• Dark chocolate malt balls
• Cozy mittens
• Scarf
• Sparkly aqua earrings from Mr. L
• Time with my family
• Time with Mr. L and his family
• Time at home with my kittos

It was a lovely holiday. I'm happy.

Catmouse Eve with Tissue Paper

Here's the most beautiful Christmas tree I've had yet. So straight and symmetrical for a wild tree, hard to believe no-one snapped it up. When I look for a tree, I tend to exasperate the sales people because I make them show me a bunch before I find "The Tree", I can't tell you what it is exactly because it's not perfection or symmetry (although I lucked out this Xmas) that determines "The Tree" but a "feeling", a feeling that this particular tree was meant for me and to grace my home for the holidays.

Now this tree... quite a little story. I arrived to find the selection of wild trees was very small and I thought I might end up with a tall version of the Charlie Brown tree or sometree that did not "speak" to me. The DooBee helping had shown me 6 trees that were no-go and one that was meh-be when we started a second go-around the wild tree pile. A tree practically threw itself at our feet, it was too tall, but I said since it fell at my feet I had to look at it. DooBee propped it up and my immediate reaction was NO! I always feel bad about taking so long so I said "let me see the tree that was behind it" (still leaning up against the wood frame). He moved the NO tree out of the way and brought the behind tree up.

OMG, that was "THE TREE".

Just stunningly perfect - straight trunk, every branch in place and perfectly balanced with other branches all around, tons of nooks and crannies for ornaments, and just the right shape going from skirt to tip. Now, I firmly believe it knew it was the tree for me and just kicked that NO tree out of the way so I would find it. It was way too tall, but I had him take some off the bottom and ended up taking about 5 inches off the top (boohoo), but it was gorgeous. I got it home, set it up, watered it, and just stood looking at for a hour. Then, to give it time to settle, I put lights and ornaments on it about 4 days later. I don't know how, but I improved upon perfection and spent my days hurrying home so I could get lost in looking at it. And smelling it.

The poopers have been enjoying the tree, zooming under it, messing up the sparkly tree skirt, and knocking off the random icicle, but not having as much fun as catnipped-up tissue paper! As evidenced below. This is how they spent Christmas Eve as I wrapped gifts.

Can't wait for Christmas Day!

Weekend Wildlife

It's been a LONG time. Just too much time on the computer at work, so much so I can't bear to be on it at home. But the weekend was good and I wanted to share the wildlife that I have been feeding! I will let you guess who the uninvited diner is...

This is the Lman in a "meat stupor". Trader Joe's American-style Kobe Beef Burger stupor...

This Post Brought To You By The Letter "B"

A BumbleBee enjoying the weekend sun on a red Bloom. Finally!

My newBie Bush has Blossoms and it's not even a year old. Yippee!

And finally I managed to Bake my Bits on Sunday and got a Bit of a sunBurn on my arms and Butt. I forgot I still have fishBelly-colored skin. That will learn me!

Moomifer Settling for Fake Sunshine

Moomin dreaming of the sun he should be catalounging in.

I don't think it's going to get sunny today, so here's some fake sunshine to brighten things up.

Yellow flowers and blue skies.

Yin and Yang: As Interpreted by Doodle and Hobbes

It's cloudy AGAIN today, not sure if it's going to burn off or not, the last few mornings it has, but cloudy doesn't stop the Miss Bug and Mr Bear from both trying to be in the napper under one of the bedroom windows.

I managed to stay in bed til 9am. I needed it. I hate getting tired so easily after what seems to be so little because I've always been one of those Energizer Bunny people who can be moving and doing the whole day (I chose not to do so all the time, but I had the ability) but I know the golden side of the coin is that my immune system is no longer in overdrive 24/7 (which it had been for years thus the butt-dragging-can't-get-out-of-bed feeling every morning) so my current fatigue is due to not having any reserves built back up. Trying to eat more protein myself per the doctor/nurse's post surgery healing recommendations. No where near what my mom Wednesday's Child is doing, but more so than usual for me. I have to say, Cashew Butter ROCKS, I'm on my third jar! So yummy with Apple Butter on crackers. It's a great lunch - easy to bring and easy to make and there's lots of it. Dinners have been mostly chicken with something, right now sweet potato fries from Alexia, all natural with just sea salt, crisped up in the oven.

So Many Blog Posts in My Head

But just not getting on the blog.

Case in point, this photo is of my recent local find... what a wonderful rocky cliffy vista of the coast! And very close by!

Some other examples of titles of entries that didn't get shared:

No More AM Butt Dragging Since Surgery

Short Term Disability is a Fantasy

Still Enjoying Some Fat Free Finds (but not FFRanch, can you say Mucus?!)

Chickadees and Duck Butts

There's a Tick in My Head

The Diva Bitch Has Left the Building

I Killed My Neighbor's Mower

Finds at a Yard Sale

MrL Has Hooked Me On Jeopardy

Why Are Guys Like They Are?

What's With the Snakebite and Scorpion? Seriously!

My Summer Goal: DeepDish ExtraBaconTopping Pizza

Spring Has Finally Sprung (would show kaleidoscope pics of my early flowers)

Sorry you missed them but after going back to work and being on a computer practically all the time, I don't want to be on it when I come home. And I'm wiped when I get home. And all I wanna do is read, watch Jeopardy, and spend my evenings with MrL. Oh, and curl up with the cats. That's the thing I miss most going back to work, laying around with a pile of cats on me and all of us napping in peaceful quietitude.

It's a Wild and Wooly Day

The wind has been very blustery, so strong it pushed my heavy plastic Andirondack chair away from the house and into the middle of my driveway. MrL said his parents have lost their awning and "there's shit all over the place." Not to mention a huge fire on the block of apts/businesses where I get my hair cut that re-routed him from getting home to shower and to work this morning. I tried looking the fire up but it's too early for anything to be posted or reported on. MrL said the flames were pretty intense from what he could see. Will have to check later.

I have my post-surgical appointment tomorrow. Looking forward to what they will find and say. The glue on my incisions is starting to come off, already off on the incision towards my side, rubbed off in my sleep is what I'm thinking. The itchy bumps are not so itchy and subsiding, yeah!

My dinner did not agree with me last night. One of the nurses told me that there is a good chance that what doesn't agree with me now may agree with me in a month, several months, or a year from now and I should keep tabs on it. It's nice to have hope, but I think my problem yesterday was that I may have had a little too much too soon. I'm trying very hard to stay between 5-10 grams of fat per day and I think my dinner pushed me over the edge a bit last night even tho I ate less then a fourth of it. It was either that or the headache. I'm thinking it was both. I feel much better today but then I TMIed quite a bit before bed and this morning. Anyone want a massive serving of chicken and peapods? I'm definitely not going to finish it!

Hobber has taken a leaf from Riley's "not eating" manual. After not eating Friday, he did finally scarf down his dinner of liver/beef feast (wet food) last night so on my way back from my appointment tomorrow I'm going to pick some more of that up for him as he didn't eat much of his bfast this morning. Rassin'Frassin' picky eaters... Doodle's still hoovering, no issues there.

Well, I've got a book yelling my name and as I'm still not feeling 100%, I'm going to plunk my ass down to read and watch the wind blow. Later.

Gall Bladder Surgery 2.0 Is Complete

I'm not going to say "and a success" just yet for two reasons...

1) My gall bladder was VERY swollen/inflamed and when the surgeon had finally cut thru all the scar tissue/connective adhesions my body had produced over the years trying to wall it off (which is what a healthy immune system is supposed to do and my immune system is apparently top notch/super effective/did it's job almost TOO well!) and tried to grab it to start removing it, it burst and a "whole bunch of pus came out" and they had to flush me three times with saline to make sure they got all the "messy" stuff out. One of the nastiest operations he's had to do and all the nurses knew of me... I was the "nasty gall bladder operation patient, the messy one, and the second worst gall bladder the doctor has operated on", the first being connected to that patient's liver where mine was just connected to everything else but the liver. Small things can be massively good things. So they kept me over night to monitor me for signs of infection, intravenously gave me aggressive antibiotics, and took bloodwork in the morning. I am on an antibiotic regimen for the next seven days. Once I've been cleared of having any infection, then I will label the surgery successful.

2) Also waiting for my post-surgical check-up appointment which is on the 18th. Really, I have to wait for the doctor to give me the "successful" word.

Last night I found that I seem to have developed small itchy bumps on my abdominal region. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with what the OR staff swabbed on me before cutting me open, I could be sensitive to it. I'm not going to worry as the itching is not constant, the bumps are small, seems to not be getting worse, and some of them are going away. I've got a wicked bruise on my side from the last of my heparin shots, the two in my belly weren't bad but the last one was a doozy, burned and stung for about 5 min afterwards and Lman noticed the bruise yesterday, same place as the last shot. I wasn't able to take a shower until yesterday. God was I icky. It wasn't so bad the afternoon after the surgery but the next day, my hair was crispy, I was itchy, dying to put some deodorant and underwear on, and by the time the Lman had come to get me, the washcloth bath (most of which was administered by me, the nurse did my back) was ridiculously ineffective (just made me itchier) but I finally got to have undies/deodorant on. By the evening of the 8th and the morning of the 9th, my hair was the consistency of bacon grease. Thankfully Lman said I was still beautiful to him: greasy hair, "pink belly" (that's what he calls my poor twice-operated-on abdomen), and all.

I certainly had to face my "modesty" issues this time around. The nurses all saw my butt numerous times whenever I exited the bed to use the bathroom, they needed to escort me so that my IV came with me/that I didn't fall and nicely made sure my backside was properly covered, but still! They also had to note "how much urine I produced" which is a nice way of saying they needed to see my pee every time. And one nurse liked my productivity so much she kept giving me "high fives". And we are not going to talk about the gas. Let's just say I'm GLAD my roommate was deaf.

Speaking of my roommate... I don't want to give the impression that I wasn't empathetic to her situation - she was in a bad state: has been thru 3 different cancers, on her fourth, just had a kidney removed, gout in her toe, obese, all her extremities were swollen due to retaining water, she was unable to move herself without assistance, partially deaf, gassy, and the afternoon I had been put in her room, they removed her to do an ultrasound and found a blood clot in her leg. So, yeah, in a bad state, but my God was she uber-annoying. When I was telling my mom about her, Mom reminded me of Gramma. That's why it felt so familiar but so annoying at the same time. My roommate had her TV on the ENTIRE time on Talk TV (inflammatory Fox news shit) similar to Talk Radio (just like Gramma) which is highly highly irritating to me, the only time she turned it off was when the hospital doobies were with her. She talked very loudly: I got to vicariously participate in her conversation (obviously while the TV was still on) with her two daughters about the fact she hasn't "pooed" in 2-3 days, how the "urge" left her every time the nurses got her and the bedpan positioned (which by the way she tried twice, I was mortified she was going to take a shit with me in the room to share the joy with her, albeit separated by a curtain but that curtain wasn't going to do much to keep the 2-3 day stench away if she had taken one, thank God she didn't), her daughters' suggestion to the hospital staff of filling their mother up with "the recipe" consisting of warmed prune juice, applesauce, and some other ingredient that my mind has since blocked out (I was thinking the whole time they damn well better not fill her up with that, I didn't want to hear or smell the result), and finally the use of diapers (which is what I was secretly rooting for). Her daughters left and then her son came at 9pm (after visiting hours were over I believe because I heard an announcement before he came asking all visitors to start leaving and this was around 8pm). She talked loudly to him with the TV on for about an hour, so loudly I kept having to turn my TV volume up because I couldn't hear it. Roomie kept her TV on until 1:30-2am with what must have been some Gadawful black+white movie from the 30's or 40's that was a "real people" version of the Jungle Book complete with non-stop screaming, howling, growling, roaring, yelling, hissing, and numerous crowd scenes. When the night nurse came to check my vitals, I'd had it, just had it coz it had been going on for a f-in' hour and a half. When she asked me how I was doing, I was very frank with her - I hadn't slept the night before due to nerves, I was extremely tired, and was sorry to have to complain about the TV noise but I couldn't take anymore and was becoming extremely cranky. The nurse escorted me to the bathroom and while I was in there, she approached my Roomie with headphones. Blessed peace. I was able to doze on and off the rest of the night and didn't watch the clock anymore until the sky lightened outside. Whew. Then it turns out that my Roomie was offended that I said something, I "heard" her say something to the morning nurse and her daughter who came in later. Oh well, as my mom said, when someone is partially deaf they think everyone else is too and keep it loud. I didn't care, I was leaving anyway.

I'm home: having trouble sleeping as I am normally a tummy sleeper and having to sleep in an elevated back position is quite frankly pissing me off and making my shoulder blades ache like the frickin' dickens but I'm happy to report I'm off the Vicoden and just taking Tylenol Extra Strength now. I was given stool softener advice because the narcotic in the Vicoden can result in constipation so I really wanted to stop it as soon as I could because... TMI here, some of you may want to look away: between Auntie M (who thankfully held off until yesterday to arrive, I was so worried she'd come the day of surgery or while I was in the hospital going commando in their ridonkulous johnnies) and the antibiotics, I should be having the Big D, which I did finally yesterday night so I am not going to end up like my ex-Roomie. As Lman said "I have a lot going on down there."

I'm thankful

1) the surgeon was able to remove it laproscopically, I can deal with 3 new holes and a new two inch "smile" added to my belly button.

2) I'm home.

3) I have wonderfully caring people supporting me.

4) I pooped.

5) recovery seems to be moving along like it's supposed to.

And my kitties are very happy to see me. Plethora of purrs for me.

Who Does This Stuff Happen To?

Me. Me. Me, that's who!

It's finally sunk in this weekend... the Murphy's Law Event...

Waking up from your very first surgery EVER to find out that the planned "you'll be just fine" organ removal did not actually take place, you still have the organ plus four new holes, one of which is thru the bellybutton which makes you nauseous every shower, and now you have to go thru another surgical consult in another hospital with another doctor with another pre-op nurse and have another surgery scheduled where two doctors are going to attempt to remove the organ thru four small holes but if they can't, you'll be cut open. Can you say tweaked, to say the least?

Just had my very first sneeze since the surgery. Ever since my dad mentioned how fun sneezing was going to be when I told him how coughing felt, I've been dreading it. Sneezed right after talking to my friend J... about allergies of all things. Go figure.

The Universal Being's Court Jester is ROTFL @ My Sitcheeashun

So I had a gastritis attack end of Jan into Feb. 14 days of Prilosec and invalid food. Done.

Then on Mar 8th at night I had what I thought were the beginnings of another gastritis attack, same pain just not as bad...

• which led me to think of nipping it in the bud myself, so I started a home treatment of Prilosec and invalid food remembering how well it worked last time,
• which ended up not working because all hell broke loose Sunday night into Monday pain-wise,
• which led me to go to the doctor on Wed the 16th to be poked and prodded,
• which led to an ultrasound on the 17th where I got to see my kidneys, liver, spleen, bottom of my heart, aortic artery, bile duct, and gall bladder with two stones,
• which led to being told that I needed further testing because not only did the ultrasound find a possible gallstone in the neck of my gall bladder which was "very inflamed", they also found a "shadow" on my liver,
• which meant a surgical consult was scheduled on the 21st (Mon) for the gall bladder issue and an MRI was scheduled on the 18th (Fri) to determine the nature of the "shadow",
• which meant I had to wait the weekend to find out the MRI results,
• which meant a very rocky start to my weekend as the pain was VERY bad,
• which led to me calling the on-call doctor Saturday who gave me the max doses of Aleve/Tylenol I could take in a 24hr period,
• which helped immensely as I was being "too cautious" and was then able to work out a pain med regimen and stop thinking of taking myself to the ER,
• which led to finding out Monday that the "shadow" on my liver is benign and something I was born with so no worries,
• which meant I was then off to my surgical consult to learn all about what's going on, worst and best case scenarios, surgical procedures, etc, and that they couldn't get me into surgery until Thurs 24th as gall bladder surgeries are only held on Mon/Thurs and I told them if I had to wait until Mon I was going to start crying,
• which led to meeting with the pre-op nurse to be further educated about the surgical procedures, detailed instructions of what I had to do the night before and morning of the surgery,
• which then led to having pre-op bloodwork,
• which meant waiting until Thursday for my surgery,
• which came faster than I thought,
• which meant I was thoroughly tweaked all during the pre-op waiting time answering redundant questions, forgetting the plethora of people's names, getting hooked up to the IV, waiting, waiting, waiting,
• which ended and I was wheeled off to the OR where apparently I was all loopy from the "happy juice" and introduced the surgeon to MrL "in absentia" (the surgeon told me this afterward, I have absolutely no memory of this),
• which led to me waking up in the recovery room where the nurse told me that I still had my gall bladder and that the doctor had explained this all to me after the surgery
• which I did not remember,
• which led to my first reaction of "are you fucking serious?" but because the hospital is Adventist and prayer-positive, I managed to not say that out loud and just croak out "I'm sorry, I'm confused, I still have my gall bladder?" to
• which the nurse replied yes and that the doctor would explain it all to me again once I was back in the ACU,
• which meant waiting and waiting again while sipping water and eating applesauce and Jell-O while my father and MrL waited with me,
• which led to the doctor finally coming in and telling me that my gall bladder had been very sick for a long time, connective tissue has built up around it, and he didn't feel confident in doing it by himself lapriscopically so he was referring me to another doctor so both of them could do it together lapriscopically and if they were unable to be the dynamic duo, they would end up having to cut me open,
• which made me upset to say the least.

And so I have to go to another surgical consult next week and find out when they can schedule me for the dynamic duo surgery.

How's that for Murphy's Law? I had a feeling this wasn't going to be easy but everyone was telling me that I was going to be fine, the surgery would be fine, and everything was going to be just fine, so I just told myself to stop being pessimistic but that little voice wouldn't go away. Guess I was right...

Golden side of the coin at least it's not life threatening, just a pain in the ass and I made it through my first surgery even if it wasn't finished.

And Snow It Goes...

These were taken before the rain started last week. Notice how the snow pile is as tall as my Fit? Super. Fun. Shoveling. My ass! Glad it's going down. I can actually see a strip of lawn below the bush that is featured next to the car. Not to mention my asphalt...

The lovely town plowers had a grand ole time making my life abysmally miserable. I was way too angry to even think of taking pics of the immensely high messes they would leave at the bottom of my driveway. All I can say is they were lucky I was asleep when they pulled that shit coz I woulda flicked their auras out of the stratosphere. My wonderful neighbor with his riding snowblower helped out several times and he and his wife will be getting a gift certificate to eat somewhere nice from me!

Sorry for not posting, bro o' mine. I spent all of February being sick: The first two weeks of February I had a severe attack of gastritis (I seriously considered taking myself to the emergency room several times coz my upper tummy hurt so bad) and once I was done with the Prilosec and invalid food 14-day regimen, I got one of the various flu strains and was sick for another two weeks. I think my immune system was compromised by the gastritis because everyone around me had flus/colds etc going on the beginning and middle of winter and I was fine until I enraged my tummy.

And just this Wed I had tummy pain at night which told me the gastritis was revisiting. I'm on Prilosec and invalid food again. Yeah me. I plan to cheat on Friday when Lman takes me out for Chinese food and to his parents' house on Saturday for a family dinner. I will be careful, but I'm not going to say no to something I like, just eat it in moderation. I've been asked to make a dessert. I'm thinking of making a spring-colored checkerboard cake with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles. When the cake is cut, they will see a pink, green, blue, purple, and yellow checkerboard - so cool!

Some New Photos for the New Year

Happy New Year!

Firework-y photo courtesy of a blurry daylight no-flash picture of my Xmas tree.

My new year has begun with a pretty even mix of positive and negative and finding the golden side of the negative coin has been a good thing.

If how you go into the new year is any prediction of it's going to be, apparently my new year is going to consist of :

1) lots of out-of-the-box problem-solving

2) being a source of help and comfort to close friends

3) getting projects done with minor procrastination and pajamas (Mom passed the spend-your-day-in-jammies gene onto me and my brother, only he favors his robe)

4) mucho reading (nice!)

5) not much actual TV but lots of movies

6) laughing

7) shoveling (in the winter) which will translate into yardwork in the spring

8) making/creating things

9) not doing much in the cleaning realm but the bare minimum

and finally

10) getting a move on photo presentations so I can show my pics since an IDEA finally presented itself fully formed (thanks SubConscious) in my head about two months ago but my home DIY project trumped starting it.