How my life was after I had my appendix removed!

This is Suzie. I am bored so I am blogging today. I don't know if anybody knows how appendicitis feels but I'll give you some advice if you get it:You may not eat food for a week so you just eat ice chips. Also when you can eat food you can not eat high fat food or greasy food for a whole 'nother week it sucks. Oh also you have to have a tube in your nose, and trust me you don't want a tube in your nose. Being in the hospital for ten days is so boring. I've tried it. All you do is sit around and watch movies, then you hate the movies you used to love cause you've watched them so many times. Wait, unless its Tremors, you can never hate that movie! If you've missed a month of school and you've missed almost three units in math and you don't know how to do it. Well you'll never catch up cause let me tell you missing a month of school gives you a book report and two stacks of math. Oh and you get some science and spelling! But one good thing is every day people bring gifts like fat pillows and stuffed animals....etc.Try to stay healthy!

It's H E double toothpicks for you then!

I have never made a secret of the fact that I'm going to hell. Pretty sure anyway. After this weekend, I am also heading to scrapbook hell. And I'm taking a few of my sisters(blood related and other)with me.  Since the judgemental vein I settled into earlier felt like such a good fit, we kept that going whilst perusing the new scrapbook mags that we dragged down here to the land of crazy old people. We had nothing else to do since the aforementioned oldies had decended enmasse and made it impossible to venture forth without feeling our lives (not to mention our front quarter panels) were in danger. Turns out that my scrapbook snobbishness extends to the mocking of demonic looking kids, stupid looking husbands and squint eyed contributers that may or may not have eaten most of their supplies. Even though that did seem to be the most likely explanation for how she and her cards looked. I suppose the fault lies with me. Maybe I really feel my inadequacies and this is the only way I know how to deal with it. If everybody putting those magazines together thinks everything in them are stellar, then it really MUST be me. If I can't find the beauty in a layout featuring tissue paper flowers that resemble Oprah's va-jay-jay more than flowers, I obviously need to re-assess my scrapbooking priorities. If you start getting cards saying "you're the glue that keeps us together" or "He is Risen" cards that look like they've been sketched by a mentaly handicapped box turtle, just keep in mind that you're keeping me that much further from you know where.

A day...

Okay-I lied. You didn't see me yesterday. Since I know you almost peed your pants waiting for me to post something, I apologize to all 2 1/2 of you. (I don't count the school of retarded jelly fish that read this on occasion) I have a stellar excuse though. I'm in St. George with web access and no computer if truth be told. No, I'm not writing this post using back magic. I reserve that for special occasions. I am sitting at Barnes and Noble, drinking marginal coffee and typing on Shelley's fancy laptop that she was just sleep deprived enough to hand over. Foolisher and foolisher. Maybe if I keep her up late enough tonight I can convince her that we were robbed by the garden gnomes roosting in her garage and keep it. Can you see me rubbing my hands together and hear the low, evil chuckle?

 If I were to be honest with myself, I probably wouldn't have written anything yesterday even if I had been staying in a room full of connected computers and they were all humming at me to get something down. It wasn't until today that my brain started to roll in any direction that wasn't Suzie related. It's funny how easy it is to go into super survival mode compared to what a herculean task it is to come back out. I needed another good nights sleep and a day away from all of it to start heading back to where I should be. So, here I sit fully cognizant that the woman wearing the enormous hoodie standing in the Love & Sex section is in dire need of a good mocking. Not to mention the polygs that just walked in, ready for a good drubbing. It's good to feel like myself again even if I didn't quite realize I was gone. Ahhhh, what a difference a day makes.

Adios Bitchachos!

Finally! A post that has nothing to do with anybody's ruptured appendix or hospitals or doctors. I'm off for a sister's weekend for my(and Janene's)Birthday. So, I bid you adieu for now or until tomorrow anyway. I'm off to the land of, well, not milk and honey exactly. I'm off to the land of geriatrics and (hopefully) sun.

Home Sweet Home

Home. Since last night actually. 10 days and a significant increase in noticeable white hanging on the old noggin. So much for best case scenario. We barely squeaked in under the worst case scenario deadline. To the day. Up yours Universe. You rat bastard. Don't do me any more favors, okay?

 Interestingly enough, 36 hours ago I wasn't entirely convinced that Suz was ready to come home. We were just coming off of the 4th in a string of hideous nights consisting of inexplicable fevers and pain bad enough to make her cry hard. Believe it or not, turns out Suzie is a pretty tough cookie so that is saying something. The drawbacks of hospitalization notwithstanding, you are basically sleeping in a huge safety net. Comforting to a very sleep deprived Mom. Especially when that deprivation is due to the fact that I had spent my nights telling Suzie to squeeze my hand 'till it got better and bullying, nagging, pushing, begging her into just one more turn around the floor because it would eventually(hopefully)make things better. But, she really really wanted to go home. Duh. Also,since her Dr. is actually one of the bigwigs at Primary Children's who happened to be covering for her partner this week, I decided to assume she knew what she was doing and just go with it. So home we came with our I.V. antibiotics, prescription for oxy and our list of all the things to worry about now that she wasn't being watched by someone in the know 24/7. And...Suzie went to sleep last night and nearly slept the night through. Most sleep in one stretch for almost 3 weeks. Tim had to wake her for her 2 o'clock meds and she hasn't done that since the first night out of surgery. She jumped(read-fast crawled)out of bed so as not to miss saying goodbye to Aunt Shelley, Courtney and Jared. She sat upright on the couch for over and hour in order to play HALO with Thomas. She's not magically better obviously. It has taken me half an hour to write the last 2 sentences since I've also been running in and out of her room trying to make her tummy better while she waits for her Ibuprofen to kick in. But. What a difference a day makes. I can't help thinking that maybe Dorothy had it right after all. There really is no place like Home.        

Another prayer

  I'm supposed to be asleep. Fast asleep for a few more hours but, here I am. I wake up every 15 minutes or so when another thing I should be doing pops into my brain and I have to beat it into submission and try to doze back off. I just looked at myself in the bathroom mirror and I still look like a drug-addict coming down from something. Dilated pupils and everything. All this in spite of the fact that I was at the hospital with Suzie all night and ended up about 2 catnaps shy of having stayed up all night. Turns out that the flu I was sure she had last week(and Tim didn't I might add)her surgeon tells me was actually appendicitis that probably ruptured 2 days before I took her to the Doctor. Yet another addition to the Mother's guilt with which I flagellate myself on a weekly basis. Even though they, and by they I mean most of the medical personnel I have come across in the last 2 days, tell me there was no way to know. Ah...Mother's guilt. That special brand of guilt that needs no basis in rationality. It be what it be. Because her appendix was ruptured, the best case scenario is about 4 days in the hospital; worse case,10 days and heaven knows what-even when she comes home. If truth be told, this is the reason I can't seem to stay asleep. Every time I open my eyes and look at the wall I offer up this prayer to the Universe and anybody else that is listening. 

"Please. In spite of the atrocious luck my life seems to attract, just this once let it be best case scenario. Please Please Please be best case scenario. Not because I can't handle it. I can. And not because it is costing a gazillion dollars a day. But. But because that's my baby lying there in that bed. Miserable. Still a little scared. Wishing she were home and that everything didn't hurt so damned much. So; please, just this once. Take whatever favors you might have been storing up for me and use them on her."    

Rifftrax - Best of Twilight

So, I kind of have a serious obsession with Mystery Science Theater 3000. MST3K was a television show that took bad movies and added a snarky commentary track. Even though it hasn't been on t.v. now for years, any episode is still my go-to for fun on a Saturday night. Well, any night for that matter. The unfortunate(for other people not for me) side effect is that I now expect my whole life to sound like an episode of the show. I wake up in the morning wanting to make a snarky comments about everything. Commercials, Facebook posts, whatever the kids are talking about in the dining room etc... You can imagine my delight when I discovered that the guys behind MST were taking on different projects together. More snarky commentary for my life! Yay! Some were more miss than hit(see Film Crew: Wild Women of Wongo) but it looks like their latest (and by latest I mean the last few years) stuff is gold. They're called Rifftrax and they're exactly what they sound like. But...and here's the best part, the boys didn't limit themselves to "bad" movies. They have taken on a little bit of everything. The above bit the Rifftrax crew put on YouTube is a sampling of one of the funniest so far. Especially because they couldn't have chosen a more deserving candidate. So, go watch it and I promise not to turn this blog into the Daily YouTube Share Channel. And, if you don't think it's funny then call me and we'll find you a nice doctor to help you relax that sphincter a bit. 

It's a plan

 Monday Monday. Riding in on a rail. Maybe I've been going about it all wrong. Instead of waking up and staring into the headlights with my fingers crossed, I need a plan from the get-go. Everything works better with a plan I'm told. So, here's my plan to keep the damage from spilling over into the rest of the week. Coping skills people. Get 'em out and use 'em.

1. To battle the usual Double Stuff Oreos and coke induced haze of self loathing, check out this picture

http://www.eonline.com/photos/gallery.jsp?galleryUUID=4392#164851

 and tell yourself that you may have a belly full of jelly but at least you aren't being mistaken for Skeletor. Ugh. Then listen to this

http://youtu.be/IyYnnUcgeMc 

and tell everyone you come across(in any context) for the rest of the week, "I don't think you're ready for this jelly." Shakin' it a little while you're saying it couldn't hurt.

2. If your brain feels like it isn't back from it's weekend sabbatical, listen to this

http://youtu.be/1prhCWO_518
to give it an easy wake up,

then this to keep it going
 http://youtu.be/ptPekKOigkQ

 and then this
http://youtu.be/LwwkqABItLA
to chill everything out. It's not cool to stroke yourself out before, oh, Wednesday night at least.

3. To counteract the Poor Me's that hit about 2ish, watch this http://youtu.be/TLEK0UZH4cs

and just thank your lucky stars that you don't have cutleries in your knees.

4.  And if all of the above fails, watch this
http://youtu.be/4cN8RgFYrQg
 and at least be grateful you're not Canadian.

I know I embedded the links a little oddly but my browser is being extremely unhelpful so this is as good as it gets today.

Dishes dishes

We have been without a working dishwasher for awhile. It may be a little my fault that it took maintenance so long to get around to it. I may have sort of implied that we were better off living in a van down by the river if our dishwasher was nothing but a very large drying rack when I put in the maintenance request. Last week I put in a nicer, slightly conciliatory one and that finally did the trick. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we HAVE been using it as a glorified drying rack; everyone assumes that the dishes in the dishwasher are always clean. And...we had an incident last week that had all of us praying that the plate we were pulling out of the cupboard was indeed clean. I decided that some sort of label was in order to help us avoid the necessity of such prayers in the future.  I was just going to make the usual "clean" and "dirty" ones you see around but when it actually came down to it that seemed kind of boring and came up with these instead. Luckily I had them 98% done when Suz got sick. I just put the white circles on them today and decided to share them. They're not that fancy. You can tell I just threw them together and, if you look closely you can also tell that I couldn't find my plastic thingies and used the poor man's laminating material; packing tape. If I had taken the time I could have made them cuter but they make me smile every time I look at the dishwasher and that is all that matters.     

Pin me

Dear Pinterest,

I hate you. You are the black hole of the internet. You're ruining my life. Please don't ever ever leave me. Ever.

Love, Shauna

Everyday I sit down at the computer with the best of intentions. "Hmm. Got a lot on my plate today. I guess I'll get Words with Friends caught up and get down to business here. Done and done. Well, since I'm here I'll just check Pinterest for anything interesting while I get my mind in order." 17 hours later and I look at the clock, uncramp my hand from around the mouse and think, " What the? I'm pretty sure I've only been looking at pins for 15 minutes. So much for getting the laundry done.  Why do I feel so sick? Did I eat today? Why does it smell like old cabbage? What happened to my pants? Why is my hair sticky? Did I always have this many kids and why are they all crying? DAMN YOU PINTEREST!" Shake fist heavenward.

 Later, in bed, drifting off to sleep and it's, "Where have I gone so wrong with my life? I really SHOULD start making my own book shelves out of lost orphans and old quilts. I am such a dullard.  I should have known all about making diaper boxes and a cheese grater into 10 different Halloween costumes. Why CAN'T I make Lemony Garlic Free Range Belgian Braised Chicken Wrapped in 20 Dollar Bills for my family? If I loved them we would have monogrammed underwear that spells the address of the website that is single handedly saving every verbally abused dolphin in captivity. I hate myself. There is something wrong with me because I can't love Taylor Swift and Twilight properly. Our apartment is hideous. My tapeworm has more taste than me. We should have coordinating containers for each of our matchless socks. I just don't try hard enough. I should be able to decorate the whole place for 3 dollars and a couple of good dumpster dives. We should just burn it down and start over. Oh dear. I hope the neighbors don't mind..." It's about this time that Tim takes the gun out of my hand and tells me to go to sleep. I do so because, after all; according to Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow is another day. I know because somebody pinned it.