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Sunday, November 29, 2009

November Happenings

November turned out to be a very busy month.



I finished my novel! I started the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in November, and I did it in 15 days. Whew, talk about brain marathon! My novel isn't really a novel persay, it's a guide book to the Maya and the ruins in Tulum, Mexico. I'm at the editing stage of it now. I have it printed out and just need to go through everything and figure out which paragraphs go where and what I can delete out of it. 50,000 words equates to 98 single spaced pages of text. I plan on including photos and have assigned Ken to do some illustrations. Once I have it all edited and put together, I plan on getting it out to a publisher.

I'm glad I finished so quickly. I spent a week getting my house in order to host Thanksgiving at my house. I haven't hosted a holiday meal at our house in about 8 years. It was just me, Ken, the boys, and Ken's parents for Thanksgiving. Ken's mom has done the Turkey Day meal for a long time, and all Ken's siblings were out of town this year. We decided to give his mom a break.

I went all out. I made a feast fit for Kings and Queens. It was very tasty. I even made my own cranberry sauce. That was super yummy. Much better than from a can. We had the works, lots of appetizers, the main meal (turkey, homemade stuffing, real mashed potatoes, corn, green beans, squash, dinner rolls...the works!), for desert Ken's mom baked a blue berry pie, and I had 2 pumpkin pies from Trader Joe's (yummy goodness). I bought whipped cream and vanilla bean ice cream to go with it.

I also broke out the good dishes. Not my every day wear. I got out my great Uncle Elmer and Great Aunt Marietta's flatware. I had a floral center piece, and used my great grandmothers, and grandmothers silver and glass serving dishes.


Tuesday, November 10, 2009

I'm Declaring War!

On my body fat that is....

Today at work a group of nurses came to our work for health checks. It is for health insurance discounts. You get a discount for normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol, and a normal Body Mass Index.

I filled out the paperwork, and went with nurse number 1 for my cholesterol check. I sat down and told her that I hated getting my finger pricked. She informed me that the pokers are not like the little razor blades that they used back when I was a lab tech. Ok, that sounded good. Wouldn't hurt too bad at all. So, I stuck out my finger, she stabbed it, and I yelled "OW!. The nurse lied! She pipes up and asks me if I've ever had babies, and that I should put it in perspective. Blah, blah, blah...you just stabbed me in the finger. Smileys Of course it hurts. It's stabbed and it's bleeding. She put a big band-aid on it.

Then I waited in the hallway for the next step. Getting weighed and measured, getting my blood pressure checked, and my BMI result. An older nurse came to get me. She said "Who's next?" I told her that I was and she said "No, you're not, your the nurse." WHAT? I'm not the nurse. She argued that I was. No, clearly I'm not your co-worker nurse. Not me. I'm here to get poked and prodded. So she took me back to the room and ran into the nurse she thought I was. "Oh, see you two look just alike!" That made me a bit nervous that she couldn't tell her patient apart from her co-worker.

I got on the scale and I swear it yelled "Hey chubby, get off me!" I did not like that number that I saw. No, I'm not telling what number that was, but it was not a good number! Then I got measured. Yep, I'm still 5 foot 2 inches tall. Then she asked my age and punched all my numbers into a thing that looked much like an X-box remote. She told me to squeeze the handles. So I did. "Squeeze harder!" So I did. Ok, she got the number. I missed the cut off for the discount by just a few points.

Then she took my blood pressure. The nurse puffed that blood pressure cuff so tight, I thought the spot where I got my finger poked was gonna pop open and squirt blood all over every one. Yikes, I've never had a blood pressure cuff pumped up that high before. She gave me my result and it was a much higher number than I normally run. I figured it must just be from running around in the morning and having the cuff so dang tight. Plus I'm not sure if she could really read the numbers right because she thought I was the nurse, and she had to check the BMI machine a few times, like she couldn't make out the numbers. Oh well, my blood pressure was still with in the range for the wellness health discount, so no big deal. My finger poke didn't pop open, and all was well.

While I was getting told my blood pressure was higher than normal and I'm too chubby, I got the results of my cholesterol. Yay! Passed those numbers with flying colors! So I qualified for the cholesterol discount and the blood pressure discount, but flunked the BMI test, so no discount for that.

The nurse gave me some informational sheets on BMI. It's a chart that tells you how much you should weigh for how tall you are. Hmmmmm......I need to grow a foot to catch up to my weight. How can I grow? Dang...I guess I'll have to lose weight. No more harvesting fat for future medical technology to start asking people to donate their fat. But hey! I have good cholesterol!

After a while I took my band-aid off my finger as it was too big and it was hard to type with it on. Guess what was there? A big fat bruise! Oh how, I hate getting my finger poked.

For lunch I went out and had a big fat juicy bacon cheese burger, some yummy french fries, and cake & ice cream for desert. Smileys Gotta celebrate having such a good cholesterol.

Tomorrow the diet starts... Smileys

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Oh What A Night!

Last night Kevin decided that he was going to stay late after school. I really love the fact that my son likes to stay in after school study hall. So the night before he & I discussed that I had to work until 5:00 and then I would pick him up, so I'd be a tad bit late, but he could wait for me. Ok, sound plan!

Well……yesterday I could not find my cell phone. So I had no way for the kids to get a hold of me. Well, they could call my work number and get me. I got done working at 5:00 and drove over to the school to pick up Kevin. I waited, and waited, and waited, and then suddenly all the kids who had stayed after school were all gone. They had waited for their ride to arrive. I thought to myself….maybe he changed his mind and went home after school, or maybe he decided to walk home, or maybe he caught a ride home with someone else. No way to check my cell phone though because I didn't have it on me. I drove home and no Kevin. ACK! I lost my kid and my phone!!!

I run around frantically to try to find my cell phone. I can't find it. So I tell Sam that I'm driving back to school to see if I somehow missed Kevin and if Sam could try to find my cell phone. I ran down the stairs and when I hit the bottom step, I stepped on one of Sam's shoes, twisted my ankle, fell down, and hit my head on the front door. Now, I'm crawling around telling Sam NOT to leave his shoes right in front of the steps, where's my cell phone, and where's my kid!!!

I hobbled back out to my van hoping I had not hurt my ankle worse than just a twist, but it sure did hurt. I drove back to the school, rubbing my head hoping it didn't leave a mark. I get back to the school and there are absolutely no kids there. Hmmm…where did the little shit go? I can't find my cell phone. Back home I go ready to call everyone I could think of where he might be.

I walked in the house & there is Kevin…."Where were you mom! I tried to call you & you didn't answer cuz I found your cell phone in the couch cushion, so I took the activity bus home & when I got home, you weren't here! I was getting worried about you!! "

Oh good grief!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Happy All Saint's Day, Let the Writing Begin, & What an October!!

November is here. Happy All Saint's Day!!

Today is the start of the NaNoWriMo. National Novel Writing Month. I participated last year, but did not finish. Then the editor inside of me killed the novel & decided I would start over on it, at a later date though.

This year I have decided to write about the Mayan Ruins, in Tulum, Quinta Roo, Mexico. I visited the Ruins in February, and was amazed by the place. Such fascinating history. It was gorgeous and amazing. It is the most visited ruins, yet the least is written about it.

October was a busy month! It started out with my birthday. The following week Kevin was sick with a nasty cold. He missed a whole week of school. He's been busy catching up at school, and even goes to an after school study hall on Tuesdays. He is enjoying Robotics. November will be busy with practices for him and his team prepare for their Robotics tournament.

October also brought us a new little kitten. She is the cutest thing! So yes, I think this officially deems me as the crazy cat lady. We have as many cats as we do people. Kenny says "it's a good thing she's so cute". Hahaha....The kids named her Cali which is short for Calico. They fell in love with her right away. She is quite the little fearless frisky kitten. She chases the other cats around and pounces on them. She definitely keeps the other cats on their toes. The first few days they didn't know what to think of her and they all ran away and hid from her, but now they have learned to just swat her back. She is relentless though, and keeps trying to suck them into playing with her. It's pretty funny to watch.

My friend Kathy & her 18 month old came to visit us for a week. They made the drive from Montana. It was so good to have them around. I took a couple days off from work so we could have some fun. We sure did. We went out for dinner a couple of nights, we went shopping like crazy (definitely stimulated the economy), went to the Como Zoo, and just hung around at the house visiting.

A day or two after they left Kenny came down with a head cold & I had picked up a cough. Ken had his cold for a little over a week and he felt miserable. My cough was more annoying than anything. Kenny got over his cold and my cough got worse. I ended up with a viral bronchitis. I stayed home for a week feeling miserable. I went to the doctor's office and when I walked from the waiting room to the patient room, I must have walked to fast and got really winded. It was difficult to breathe, and I felt as though, I had run a marathon. The nurse said "let me go get the doctor". She came back to the room with three doctors, they had the blood pressure cuff, the finger oxygen reader, and were checking my pulse right away. They were asking me a million questions at once and I was just trying to catch my breath. They did a chest X-ray and an EKG. They said "we'll have to see what this shows before we decide what to do with you, sometimes virus' like this can attack the heart and require hospitalization." Yikes! I don't have time to be sick in the hospital! I'm the mom! Well, the chest X-ray and the EKG both came back clear and normal. So they concluded that I had an influenza related viral bronchitis and I was to go home, get plenty of rest, and drink lots of fluids, and ride it out. They gave me an antibiotic just in case there was some bacteria, but they really doubted it. I guess they were covering their bases and didn't want to see me back? They also gave me an inhaler to help me breathe better. That worked but only temporarily, but it still came in handy. I'm feeling much better now, and am ready to get back to the real world and back to mom-normality.

I had the Kickball Awards Parties in Oct. I wasn't feeling very good, but I pulled it off anyway. I don't think people realized I was feeling as miserable as I was. Which is good, but I came home exhausted.

Halloween was great for the kids. Sam's school had their Halloween party a week early. I missed the memo on that one. Sam came home & told me he wanted to be Godzilla 2000 and the party was tomorrow. TOMORROW! Who has Halloween a week before Halloween? So off to the fabric store we went. Wal-Mart has removed their entire fabric department, so we ended up in St. Paul. Sam found the material he wanted and we found what we would make the spikes with. I ended up staying up until 3:30 am putting together the Godzilla costume. I ended up burning my index finger on the glue gun about 5 times. You think I would have learned not to touch hot glue after the first time, but no. I guess it was too early in the morning for such lessons. The costume got finished in time for school party. The costume was a hit with Sam and his friends thought it was a good costume too. So the numb feeling in my index finger and the sleepless night was worth it. I definitely earned my mom badge.

Halloween I took the kids to St. Paul and the kids went trick-or-treating down Summit Ave. Summit Ave is known for it's candy and highly decorated houses. The Governor's mansion is also on Summit Ave. and they usually give out pretty good candy. One house had the smoke going in their yard and porch. They had people dressed up as scary characters from movies. They stood still and then would move as you got close to them. I have to admit it was pretty creepy. They left the little kids alone, but scared the older kids, and even me too. I'll admit I jumped and let out a scream when the smoke on the porch came screaming out of the machine. The kids just laughed...hahaha...mom got scared.

And now here we are in November. Kenny is heavily wrapped up in the Vikings Football team and the Wild Hockey team. Both teams are doing good, and he loves that Brett Favre is helping MN win. He also likes that it makes the MN-WI football rivalry more intense. He is really excited for Vikings-Green Bay game today. We are hoping that Wisconsin's Golden Boy will have a Vikings win on Green Bay territory.