I Can't Possibly Do That, I'm Moderately Anemic

So I finally after two years (or maybe a little longer), went for bloodwork.  Yeah, that's why I don't go for bloodwork.  I was feeling fine,and then they called and told me everything that was wrong with me.  My good cholesterol is too low, my liver enzymes are mildly elevated (just one point over normal though, goooooo Team Milk Thistle!), and my Hemoglobin is too low.  I guess normal is around 14 or so, and I'm rocking an 8, which classifies me as "moderately anemic," and I should be feeling all faint like I got the vapors and headachey and tired, but eh, not so much.  Doc seems to think it's probably been dropping for awhile and I've just gotten used to it and adapted, you know, like women do.  At any rate, I have to go for more tests and take iron and have even yuckier tests which hopefully won't lead to the test of dreaded tests, a colonoscopy.  At least they had just checked out my upper innards so I know I'm not all mysteriously bleeding up in there.

 

Our new humidifier, ionizing steamy goodness into our downstairs.  We have (supposedly) one hooked up to our furnace, but my peeling off lips and dry nose insides were inquiring to the efficiency of it, so I talked Terry into buying a separate one, and it has made all the difference in the world.  Plus, the water vapor coming out of it looks kinda cool, except it freaked Annie out the first time she came downstairs and saw it, she thought her Dad had bought some doo-dad that was burning up and she was either going to get blamed for it, or the house was gonna burn down.

 

The humidifier and its sleek design sits atop our wonderfully pretentious wine fridge, purchased back in the summer on a whim.  We also got a pretentious cheese slicer to go with it, but I have no idea where that thing is now.  Mostly all that's in there is various Pinot Grigios, which is evidently just my fave wine.  I can tolerate Shiraz and I can dig a Moscato too, but I should probably expand my horizons.  The fridge also kept my Rumchata nicely cold throughout the Christmas season.   Have you guys had that?  Oh Lordy, it tastes like, as my boss put it "the milk after you eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch, you know, except with a touch of alcohol."  Very festive indeed.

Terry's entry into the Pinewood Derby that took place over the weekend.  It's made to look like the truck he actually drives.  He wrote some Derby Management software for his friend, so they let him race.

 

 

Which led to this prestigious award.  It's what you get if your car comes in DEAD LAST, like, even behind one of the cubscout's sister's Hello Kitty car.  In his defense, he didn't even put the wheels on the thing until that very morning, and there was some other excuse about how he was running late and jammed it down in his computer bag and yada yada yada, Hello Kitty dude, Hello Kitty.

 

 

But, he does have talent!  This is a tissue cozy he made me.  See, at the beginning of the school year, they had this design on a tissue box, and being the weird person I am, it strangely cheered me up, so I just kept the box and kept refilling it with tissues, and sure it was getting all crinkley and banged up.  Well, being as there's not that many things in the world sometimes that cheer me up (due, I'm sure, to my anemia, being irratable is a symptom and I'm totally sticking with that!) Terry took it upon himself to make me one all permanent like, out of particle board.  And being an engineer, he is detail oriented and took the time to copy the design exactly, including mixing paint colors and such.  That's why I keep him around.  I would rather have this little tissue box cover than any big fat piece of jewelry or anything like that.

 

 

And just because the new camera has a "food" setting, I present the easiest dessert ever I made over the weekend.  Frozen phyllo cups, a schmear of dark chocolate cream cheese, and strawberries.  Now I just need to figure out some equally easy things to make for Chinese New Year's Eve!

 

Esophagowhatsis?

I present to you, my guts.  I had to go for my endoscope thing this morning, bright and early.  It was a really nifty place, my favorite part was the little hideaway toilet in the room, I want me one in my own room for when I'm feeling lazy and don't want to be bothered to walk down the hall in the middle of the night to go pee.  At any rate, it didn't take long and I don't really remember the exam, I barely had time to register "wheeee, sedation," and then next thing I knew I was looking at Terry and people were telling me things and I had not the foggiest notion of what was going on.

 

 

 These are pictures of various parts of my upper insides.  I'm not dying or anything,(well, maybe, I guess they took some biopsies and such and I have to get results from that)  but evidently that whole hey, I kinda feel like I'm choking on my food thing wasn't totally in my head, because I have a mild stricture or some such, but they dilated it with a 18mm balloon.  So consequentially I had to have a soft diet for the rest of the day, but my almost rest of the day was spent sleeping and having weird ass dreams.  Whatever they gave me knocked me the hell OUT.  I still feel kinda woozy, so give me a pass if this stuff doesn't make much sense.

 

 

My dinner, courtesy of the deli, sorry hot food side working people, that Terry came by and bought most of your sides.  It was mostly for him and Annie because I didn't have that much of it, he was just using me as an excuse.  I don't think the medical people really needed to tell me to stick to a soft diet, I think one bite of say, a Dorito taco or something, and I would have figured that out for myself,  I can now pinpoint the exact second food or water traverses the top of my esophagus, ow.

 

The note Annie left me this morning, it shows how deeply she cares.  Also, I think the "getting" looks more like "gutting," and that was apropos to the situation.

 

 

A hard day of sleeping deserves a bubble bath, and bonus, no leaky into the kitchen!  And Terry is gone to get me some ice cream.  Kudos to the my boss for giving me tomorrow off too, she's smarter than I am.

I'm back, bitches. At least this week.

 

These are two big ole goofs I know, wearing the shirts that Annie designed.  OUR shirts, which I ordered from the bearded goof.  He was trying to cajole me into coming over and picking them up, with the threat that they were going to wear them if I didn't get over there in a timely manner.  I countered with an offer of a tasty dinner, but yeah, it was snowing out and surprise, surprise, there might have been alcohol involved on a late Sunday afternoon on their part.  For shame!  On the other hand, I at least get to see that the shirts looks awesome, even if I am going to have to wash them before we wear them, thus losing the "power of awesome" or whatever they were promising  the shirts are now imbued with.  Oh, also taking a moment to pimp tall goof's band, The Distorted Waltz.  See, I haven't asked them if I can use their actual names and such yet on my blog since this was pretty much a spur of the moment hey haven't written a blog in like three years hence me calling them goofs.  Also, blogger dashboard, me no likey the new you.  I could figure out how to use the old you, but this time I had to make the husband help.

 

 

 

 

New bathroom!!!!!  Gots me some tile all up in there, as opposed to the nasty old insert we used to have that always creaked as we took a shower and made me have visions of busting through the ceiling and winding up in the kitchen.  The tub is great, one of those soaker things that I can fit my fat bod down into, well, at least in theory.  First time I tried to take a bath, we found out there was a leak and Terry came scrambling upstairs yelling "Turn it off!!  Turn it off!!  It was fixed by our awesome contractor post haste, but I have yet to take a bath in it.  On the upside, that whole incident probably took care of another incident that we in the Smith household like to refer to as "Chocolate Rain."  Yeah, there were a couple of funny things that happened over the last couple of years.

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to go with a four elements theme for the bath, and this is what I picked for air.  The shower curtain in the last photo is supposed to be Earth.

Fire, courtesy of my bestie Lisa.  I liked the orangey hue of the glass too, which inspired the paint, which looks more yellow in this photo than it does for reals.  The name of the hue is "Henna Glow," I was kinda going for a Tuscany type feel.

 New fixtures on the vanity, and the detritus of one of Annie's many projects on the sink.

 

 

More tub features, I like that we have a curved shower curtain rod, way more room for me to flail around while taking a shower.  Also, that's a microplush memory foam thingy bath mat.  I used some of my Christmas loot from my MIL, she said that it wasn't "underwear money," and something soft and fluffy to put my tootsies on when I get out of the shower seemed pretty extravagant to me, so there ya go.

 

Hope everyone is well, I need to start stalking other people's blogs that I used to read!