Happy New Year

I am making a resolution to laugh more often.

To that end, I'll leave you this year with this:

How to Identify a Deal Breaker

A couple of weeks ago, right when we got pre-approved for a mortgage, I called the realtor I worked like a beast of burden last year. I told her that I remembered I'd promised to use her services to buy a new home when we were ready, and well, we're there, or we would be in January. It's my way of paying her back for making her show me two dozen homes for rent. I felt badly when I found out she only earned a couple of hundred dollars for the work I made her do. She must have spent that in gas money driving to meet me at all those homes.

Since that time, she keeps sending me listings for homes I can't afford or ones that need way too much work. To be fair, I've ignored most of her emails and two of her phone calls. I mean I told her I wanted to start looking in January and to my knowledge, it's still December. Still, she works hard, so I'm willing to use her again. One email she sent says on the listing that financing may be a problem because, hello?... the house needs a roof.

Feeling badly (but not too much) that I've ignored her, I looked at some of the listings she has sent me. The one that needs a roof? If that's not a $40,000 kitchen in that home, well then, I might be a monkey's uncle. Can you say custom cabinets, granite that sparkles, glass tiled back splash, double ovens, gorgeous hardwood floors? I know an expensive kitchen when I see one--I drool over kitchen layouts in magazines and watch Bang for Your Buck on HGTV religiously. What I can't figure out is why they don't put a new roof on the house. I can so see myself creating in a kitchen that looks like that, but I don't want to inherit problems.

As I looked through the multi list for this home, I was ever so slightly undeterred by the possibly serious roofing problems and saw its fatal flaw right there in black and white: the cooling system is a ceiling fan. Ya right. Like that would work for a post menopausal woman.

Back to square one and once again, I'm ignoring all emails and calls until January.

Photos: swiped from the MLS (I totally could use those two ovens at least twice a year).

How Not to Host a Party

A. Stay up all night being worried about terrorists.

B. Get up to watch what the talking heads on CNN have to say about it all, even though you got the real story in the first place.

C. Fall asleep on the sofa--one floor and unknown amount of feet away from the alarm clock.

D. Wake up 25 minutes before guests arrive and realize the best you can manage is a quick shower, a fresh pot of coffee and throwing out last night's trash quickly before everyone arrives.

The above is a real life representation of just what I did. I was thankful that my guests were my friends from my Saturday morning spinning group and they, truth be told, are a group of women I feel completely relaxed around.

We had a great morning and I took no pictures. If I'd taken any, it would have been the one of the look on my son's face when he walked in and saw his living room had been taken over by a bunch of fiber hoarding, wheel wielding women all talking about every little thing and nothing, all in the same breath.

I live for Saturdays.

Thanks to all my friends for joining me on just another Saturday.

Rocking Christmas

Rachel and mom dancing while dinner cooks.

I think this was the best photo of the night. We've had Rachel here since yesterday afternoon. She went home tonight and while the visit was nice, I find myself wondering how we managed her by ourselves for so long. I was completely exhausted when she left. MLTL wasn't too bad, but then he's had my sister in law to torment for the past week. She's counting the hours until liftoff tomorrow. Can't say I blame her.

Fresh horseradish encrusted beef tenderloin with port wine reduction was our main dish. It's tradition here. My first attempt at buying the bottle of port failed when the bag broke while placing it in the back of my brand new sleigh. Now my vehicle smells like a wino drives it and the reduction sauce cost twice as much money to cook.

My son's favorite dish of the night was the broccolini sauteed in olive oil with garlic and sea salt. It was pretty tasty. I had to cook it in two batches and I kept thinking I bought way too much, but there wasn't a stalk of it leftover, except what we'd saved my husband who was working overtime at the local airport. If you saw the news today, you know why he missed his chance to have dinner with his family. I'm just thankful everyone is alright and this potential tragedy never came to fruition. Maybe we just shouldn't have holiday flights. While I know today isn't everyone's religious holiday, I think Christian holidays are probably irresistible to these dirtbags. I saw on the news that the suspect has third degree burns...I can only hope they're in an area where even if he did get his 72 virgins, he wouldn't have a way to entertain them. Now that would be a fitting end to his tale.


Alright, off my soapbox. True confession: I may be a bad mother. There I am laughing at Rachel stealing my beer. What can I say? Sam Adams Winter Lager IS a tasty brew. Who can blame her? She also stole Sara's cocktail and took a giant swig. You need many pairs of eyes, like a fly, in order to watch this child. Sheesh. You'd have thought as much liquor as she swiped tonight, it would have calmed her down. It did not. It just made her silly. But you know, she is 20 years old. I don't think it harmed her any.


It' wouldn't have been a holiday without a visit from my friend, Mr. Mocha Latte. He was soaked from the torrential rains we had today. He came in to dry off, warm up, eat a little smoked peppered turkey breast and have a good lie down. He went home after the rains stopped and his 4 hour nap was over.

All in all it was a wonderful day with lots of laughter and love. That's what it's all about. The house is clean again and ready for several women to descend upon it tomorrow morning. They'll be bringing their spinning wheels, fiber and good cheer. I'm looking forward to the break and a reason to spin some yarn.

I hope you all had a great holiday!

Merry Christmas

Christmas is forever, not for just one day,

for loving, sharing, giving, are not to put away

like bells and lights and tinsel, in some box upon a shelf.

The good you do for others is good you do yourself...

~Norman Wesley Brooks, "Let Every Day Be Christmas," 1976

Photo Credit: Tim McCabe/USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service

Eke!

As I was charting on my busy workload tonight, the clock on the computer flipped from 12/22 to 12/23. OMG! I am so not ready for this week. I haven't shopped for food yet and still have some wrapping to do and what with work, felted slippers, pesky kidney stones and CT scans, I haven't had a minute to even think. It's all good though. The stone is gone--completely missing from my CT scan.

Whatever will I do with all that beer I bought?

Know Before You Go

There are some things that are important to know before you have medical studies done. For instance, with my CT scan done today, it was important to know what my baseline kidney labs were looking like since they were going to give me IV contrast which can shut sick kidneys down. I've not had a BUN or creatinine level done in a couple of years, so I had no idea what was going on with my kidneys.

On Friday, I had this blood work drawn at the hospital. When I arrived today for my CT scan, I told the check in clerk she needed to pull up those lab results for the CT tech. Well, she didn't. As the tech was sticking me to start my IV, I asked what my creatinine level was. She told me she had no idea and that it didn't matter in an outpatient setting. What? I told her I thought it did matter and until she looked the result up in the computer, we weren't going any further. She said, and I quote, "I've been doing this for 25 years and there has never been a problem with this."

Oh really?

I told her my doc thought it was important to know what that blood work was, which was why she wrote the prescription in the first place.

I know I was snippy about it, but I only have two kidneys and would like to keep them healthy. What this outpatient tech does not know, is what happens to patients after she's done with them. I've seen kidneys shut down from CT contrast. Perhaps she hasn't.

I guess my point, and I do think I have one, is it's important to educate yourself before you consent and submit to procedures. If the doctor wants blood work before any kind of testing, ask why--be your own advocate.

Well, what's done is done. My kidneys, at least lab wise, were healthy before the CT and I've been drowning them in water ever since. I kind of wish I could see the reconstruction CT they did. It's supposed to provide a 3-D view of my innards. The 1,000 images taken today will be reconstructed to look like the photo at the top. How cool is that?

I find it's kind of beautiful, but then I'm a nerd. I would.

Photo: Google Images