Bi And Large

My holiday is over, it's back to work bright and early tomorrow morning for me. I will go properly outfitted though! I have a couple new sets of scrubs (in silver and charcoal, nice!) new socks and undies, and today I went out and purchased my parents Christmas gift to me - a pair of gorgeous Dansko Professional clogs. I am still reeling a bit from the fact that I have never in my life spent so much on a pair of shoes. Actually, I have never in my life spent so much on any TWO pairs of shoes! And this is just one. But I am hoping they will be an investment in my feet, and will last me for many years. We'll see!

I made a big pot of mushroom and leek soup today to take for lunches this week, and it is perfect. Well, OK, it would have been perfect except I went a little crazy throwing pasta into it at the end, and now it's kind of like "pasta in a mushroom and leek sauce." But whatever. It's still good and it will still work just fine for lunch.

Now if only I could have been organized enough to change all the bedding and take down the Christmas tree, like I had planned to....

OK, so let me preface this by saying that my one complaint about Blogspirit is the inability to embed images in posts. I have tried every way around this I can think of, including going into the actual page source and hard coding the image, but nothing has worked. So, I really wish this post came with pictures. It doesn't. You'll have to use your imagination.

Now, then.

It's Christmas Eve here in the US and Christmas in Oz, and for those that don't celebrate Christian holidays I believe it is still Hanukkah and maybe even Eid. Which means? All of us are back with our families of origin, and that means being stuck back in those roles we grew up in. Sure, you might be an incredibly successful high power business suit wearing financially secure lawyer now, but today you're just Jimmy's little sister snot-head when he noogies you as you walk in the door and your mom criticizes your shoes. Going back in time can be hard. So I am thinking, let's have some fun with it instead. My challenge to all my fellow bloggers? Join me - a holiday list of ten things you actually miss from your childhood. And then send me the link so we can all have a giggle together. There's no better way to get through this, baby.

I was born in the mid-70's, and my list is mainly 80's gear. So it's also in honor of my Sams this Christmas, who I miss, and who loves everything 80's!

OK are you ready? How many of these do you remember? In no particular order:

1. the Dark Crystal. The movie. Gelflings, podlings and skeksis, oh my!

2. Outliner pens. I adored these. I had several and they were my pride and joy. I'd spend ages writing my own name or just doodling and watching the metallic ink magically run to the outsides.

3. Robert Palmer. He's simply irresistable.

4. Knot bracelets and friendship pins. Knot bracelets were knotted cotton floss - I remember walking over to the store that sold skeins of DMC 3 for a dollar. You wove in designs and made them for your friends. Friendship pins were seed beads on a safety pin, stuck usually on your shoe. You made 2 identical ones and you and your BFF each wore one. Simple pleasures!

5. the Walkman. Portable music and earphones, it was an unequalled rush!

6. Breyer horses. I had the stable. I kid you not. I loved those hard plastic horses with their realistic flowing manes.

7. Neon colors. Megan was the queen of neon, but we all wore them. I had neon rubber bands on my braces. I think my brother even had one of those neon color changing shirts. Earrings, tights, shoes, binders, whatever. It was all super-bold and super-bright.

8. the Atari 2600. We were the coolest kids on our block when we got one in 1983. We had Frogger, and Donkey Kong, and some crazy ass game called Dishaster. And some game involving cannons with terrible graphics.

9. Ricky Schroder. Who didn't want to ride around on that train in the living room??

10. Garbage Pail Kids. Because really, Lucas Mucus and Heavin' Steven were wayyyyy more fun than Xavier Roberts, any day.

So there you have it. While you're busy reliving your childhood, I hope it made you smile. Happy Holidays and don't forget to share your own list with me!!

If you read this blog, you know I am a geek about the weather here.

Our metro news station has a weather guy who is SUPER nice. I have emailed him a few times and he always writes back and we get to have weather geek conversations, which I really enjoy. Today I was looking through my list of websites for info on the current snowfall as related to normal and couldn't find it, so I dropped him a line to ask if he knew. He used my email to lead the 6 o'clock news weather segment, including getting his bit in to make fun of my name. Thanks, Chris. :P

See my "oh yes I WAS born in Berkeley in the '70s thank you very much" weather bit of famousness at the following link:

http://www.wcco.com/video/?id=52471@wcco.dayport.com

Only out here...

I woke up late this morning, had a cup of coffee, and Charlotte was bouncing off the walls in high energy mode. I thought about taking her to the dog park, but it looked pretty awful outside in the blizzard aftermath. Sure, being a st bernard and all, that weather is great for HER, but I am a different story. I checked the weather and current conditions said actual temp 3 above with a windchill of -22F / -30C. Blowing snow. Yeeesh. But Pete braved it to take the kids to the mall to see Santa, so I felt like I should pull my weight a little!

The weird thing? I bundled up (3 pairs of pants? Oh yeah!) We got to the dog park - a lonely patch of unfenced land that is great for running dogs, but not much else. It's marshy in spots, rugged, and sits mainly on a bluff that is unprotected and VERY windy - and there were 4 other families there. It's bitterly, biting cold; the kind that gives you frostbite to any exposed skin in a matter of minutes and leaves ice on your eyelashes and hurts to breathe in, and there are people out enjoying it... "because the sun is out!" Hardy folks, these. I did have to laugh, as we walked up 2 different men looked at Charlotte from the recesses of their parka hoods and cheerily called out, "Isn't she supposed to come with brandy???"

I felt like we all could have used a nip or two...

Yea, we got a lot of snow, they weren't kidding....

So like, 2 years later, I finally got around to fixing the clock on the left hand that has been an hour off forever. I think it went off some year at daylight savings time and I never got around to changing it. I finally got my stuff together and managed that job today, so the correct time is now displayed if you are, say, in Oz and wondering what time it is here.

I have a lot of updating to do as far as photos of the kids go, I know I am woefully behind, but it is just going to have to wait!

OK, first, my mom: She is out of the hospital, and she is OK. They got the infection under good control, they got her pain managed well. She saw her surgery team a couple days later and they decided not to try and move the brace and poles in her leg until January... but they DID remove 6 of the smaller pins. And that seemed to really cut down on the pain (one of them had broken.) So now she is OK, and not even medicated, and yesterday she apparently even made cookies. That is my mom in a nutshell!

In other news, I am sick of being sick. I know, I know, join the club you say. From what I hear from, well, everyone; the virus that's going around this year lasts about 6 weeks. I think we're into like week 3 or 4 of it but I am so over this. I have been puking today, I had the kids in to the doctor earlier, it's all the same darn thing we've had since November and can't shake. STILL with the fevers and pukies and ear infections and eye infections and snotty noses and crabby kids and aching joints and just feeling yucky. All one virus. Weeks of this. Do Not Want.

Speaking of do not want.... so it's coming into another weekend around here. And you know what that means! Can you guess? Wait for it... that's RIGHT, yet another blizzard! I am not making this shit up. I have seen maybe half a dozen real blizzards since moving here in 2002 and so far this winter we have had one every single weekend without fail. And it's only December. To give you an idea of how long winter lasts here, consider for a minute that MARCH is normally considered the "snowy season." Last year we had snow on the ground in May. So you know, hey, that's a lot of weekends.

I am not kidding... this is a copy/paste from the national weather service bulletin, which I read cmpulsively like 38 times a day around here:

"...SIGNIFICANT WIND AND SNOW TO IMPACT CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN
MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY...

.A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WILL ENTER WESTERN MINNESOTA SATURDAY
MORNING AND PROGRESS TO CENTRAL WISCONSIN BY SUNDAY MORNING. SNOW
WILL ACCOMPANY THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM WITH AMOUNTS POSSIBLY
EXCEEDING SIX INCHES ACROSS MUCH OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN
MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN BY LATE SUNDAY. IT APPEARS
THAT SIGNIFICANT SNOW WILL BEGIN OVER PARTS OF SOUTHWEST MINNESOTA
SATURDAY MORNING. MOST OF THE SNOW WILL FALL OVER CENTRAL AND
SOUTHERN MINNESOTA DURING THE DAY...BUT WILL PERSIST OVER WEST
CENTRAL WISCONSIN INTO SATURDAY EVENING.

IN ADDITION TO THE SNOWFALL...VERY STRONG NORTHWEST WINDS WILL
DEVELOP ACROSS WEST CENTRAL AND SOUTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA SATURDAY
AFTERNOON AND PERSIST THROUGH MUCH OF SUNDAY. THIS WILL LIKELY
RESULT IN EXTREMELY REDUCED VISIBILITIES IN BLOWING SNOW AND COULD
MAKE TRAVEL CONDITIONS HAZARDOUS OR EVEN IMPOSSIBLE. THEREFORE...A
BLIZZARD WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR SATURDAY THROUGH SUNDAY...
FOR AREAS ALONG AND WEST OF A LINE FROM MORRIS TO OLIVIA TO
MANKATO TO KIESTER. A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE
REST OF CENTRAL AND SOUTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA AND WEST CENTRAL
WISCONSIN FOR SATURDAY AND SUNDAY...INCLUDING THE TWIN CITIES
METROPOLITAN AREA. SNOW ACCUMULATIONS IN EXCESS OF 6 INCHES ARE
POSSIBLE IN THE WINTER STORM WATCH AREA BY LATE SUNDAY. STRONG
NORTHWEST WINDS WILL DEVELOP SATURDAY NIGHT AND CONTINUE ON SUNDAY
CAUSING CONSIDERABLE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW.

ANOTHER ROUND OF BITTERLY COLD AIR AND DANGEROUS WIND CHILLS IS
EXPECTED TO ARRIVE LATER SUNDAY."

(and by 'dangerous wind chills' they mean actual temp in the -12F to -15F range (-26C) and windchills somewhere close to 40 below zero.)

Worst storm ever? Hardly. But blowing snow and whiteout / blizzard conditions, AGAIN? Yes. Bloody hell. How is a woman supposed to get any damn Christmas preparation done when you can't leave the house the entire month of December due to the weather!! Not to mention the unusual cold for this time of year. Sure, it gets subzero in say, early February for a while, but you expect it then. It's not February.

As the local news station cheerily declared this morning: Winter Has its Mojo Back.

Mom is back in the hospital :(

She has had something go wrong with the pins and poles in her leg and foot, and she's in excruciating pain no matter how much percocet she takes. She didn't sleep all last night from it. One of the pins near her ankle has come loose and is moving and twisting now, which can't be a good sign. And it's not like it is a straight pin, it is a curlique kind of shape. So that's not so positive.

She and dad headed back this morning and the guess is they will keep her at least overnight until they can get the podiatry surgeon back in to take a look. No one else knows exactly how her brace is constructed inside so they really need his advice.

Mom is in a LOT of pain and is very, very discouraged. For the first time she is welcoming the idea of amputation and last night was begging my father to just cut her leg off. And that is very UNlike her, she always downplays everything. So it has been a hard day or two for both of them. Some prayers for strength for them, please.

So it's another weekend around here and you know what that means.... oh yeah! ANOTHER blizzard! I'm getting to love this stuff! Or at least get used to it by now. It means we get less done as far as Christmas shopping and errand running, but we're forced to relax and be mellow. That's not so bad. Tomorrow they are saying a foot of snow, 30mph winds, and -5F / -20C. That's *actual* temperature, not the windchill. Wish you were here!

I talked to my mom on the phone yesterday for the first time since this whole thing happened and it was so nice to hear her voice. She sounds back to her normal self, and that makes me happy. I know, of course, that we are already defying the odds. By the time I was a toddler she was being told that her days with us were limited and I have always lived with the knowledge that my mom won't be with me forever. I am amazed that she has made it this far, to see me married and Zack married and Kysa through school and to see her grandkids, that's incredible! But it still is a pretty awful thought, and I don't want to believe that sometime she will go into the hospital with an infection or whatever, and won't come back out. I know it will happen, of course it will. I just hope it doesn't happen for a very very long time. I have too much planned in between!

I got some Christmas cards printed this week and I plan on mailing them out in the next few days. Now, I know some of you guys LIVE for this stuff and you plan out your Christmas photos starting in about July and you hire professionals to take the pictures and whatever. OK so me, not so much. Me, I realized I have only so many days left, and I freaked out, and I grabbed the most recent photo of the girls I had that wasn't hideously ugly and threw it into some overnight cards at the local pharmacy counter, just so I would HAVE some, because otherwise there's no way in hell it would get done. I am going to be lucky to get presents bought this year. So yay for me that I am sending some out. Don't expect to be floored by the beauty and artistry of them, ok?

In other news, a big huge HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my brother and sister! Kysa turns 24 today and Greg turns, well, old. Neither of you are biologically related to me, one of is legally related to me (and I love you!) and one of you is the brother my heart chooses. Not to mention my kids. They are convinced you are their uncle and they don't take no for an answer. I love you and I am so thankful for both of you. Drink lots, be safe, and have a GREAT year next year full of love and happiness. You guys deserve it.

Mom is back home today! In time for Christmas!

I can't remember what all I said in the last post, but the infection was very very bad. We were concerned at first that she would lose her life and then, oce she was stabilized, it looked for a long time like she might lose that leg. Which would suck anyway but would especially suck SO BADLY after working so hard for the past 3 - 4 month to reconstruct it. The original incision, on the bottom of the ball of her foot, was weeping and swollen and it extended all the way up past her knee. That's so not good.

Anyway they got her on some pretty powerful IV antibiotics and just cranked them up and then shot her full of diloted (mom was happy) for several days until she turned the corner. Now she is back home on oral antibiotics for a while. She is very very weak, but she is alive, and once again she has amazed everyone and kept her leg and foot! For someone who has lived with diabetes more than 50 years and all that she has gone through that is truly amazing. Dad has been home from work taking care of her, a shock in itself. And while she was in the hospital, Kysa was sleeping there with her every night and bringing dad lunch every day on her work break from the city, it sounds like. I'm so thankful she was there to help and support them, although I am also so sad I couldn't be. She pulled through like a champion.

So yay for all of that, and we're just taking it day by day at this point. Thank you for all the prayers and good wishes. I know they helped!

So remember how my mom had that crazy foot and ankle reconstruction done September 8th? She has been in a cage brace since then, and it has been very hard on her. She has really struggled with depression and it has been very uncomfortable - not to mention difficult not to be able to do anything. The plan is to hopefully have the pins removed in January and go to a walking cast until everything firms up 100%.

Anyway I have been talking to her the pst couple of days and she has been particularly down. Not at all her bright, chipper self; if you know my mom. Weepy, hopeless, hard on herself. Her leg, which had been pretty pain free for some time, has been really hurting again the past few days. She is tired and tired of relying on everyone else. She is struggling.

Dad called just now and said they were headed back to the ER. Again. His voice is tight and I can tell he is worried. He said he came home from work this evening and right away noticed that the leg was infected. Mom has a fever and is badly chilled, just like she was before she pretty much died in 2004. I don't have any idea what is going on - they don't either, they are still waiting to find out. But I am worried and I hate being so far away.

Edited to add, 10:45pm: I just spoke to my dad again and they have been admitted to the ER. In the bright light, he says it is really obvious that mom has a serious infection. The original incision on the bottom of her foot looks 'sick' and is weeping, and her skin is tight and red all the way up to her knee. They have admitted her to the hospital and it looks like she will stay there for 2 - 3 days on IV antibiotics. Tomorrow her podiatry surgery team will come through and make a decision about the poles in her leg and foot, whether to remove them or not. They might take them out to let things drain and then replace them in a few days, or leave them be to avoid spreading infection. So that's where we are.

Oh, and Moo, you silly goose, I only just found out about all of this tonight! I love you and I'm always glad when you email me. And recordable ornaments is a CRAZY IDEA!!!!!