Caz, this is for you, and The Lucky Bat RULES

First off, a happy scallop.  I do not know why he/she is happy, because he/she is inhabiting a totally tasteless dish that I had high hopes for.  I told Terry to put the rest of it down the garbage disposal, but he has mad issues about throwing away food, so the leftovers are still stanking up our fridge.

 

 

Oh, that's right, Caz, my ickle British friend, I promised you a pic of Terry in your Christmas pressie.  Instead, I have chosen to take the British hat of coolness to a party and make people you do not know wear it, because hey, that's what the internet is all about, right?  This is Stan, #2 "son."  We don't work together, but I met him through Matt, and we went shooting together one time.  They drove me out into the middle of nowhere, and then when we get out of the car, he looks at Matt, and says, "So this is where we're dumping the body?"  I loves him.

This would be Katie, I hope I spelled her name right.  Never met her before, but she was uber cool.  Also convinced me to try hookah for the first time, it was minty and delicious, but probably not the best thing for my stupid won't get over this cold from hell lungs.



Oh my Ashley, my beautimous Ashley.  Her boyfriend dropped some alcohol off into her car, Captain Morgan (shudder) in a water bottle.  It's okay, folks, she's legal, well wait, there might have been that whole "open container" thing going on, but well, I know a cop that has a crush on her so it would have worked out anyways.  She's like, 100 and change soaking wet, so she sniffed a bottle cap and had to call someone to come get her.  Kudos to being responsible, plus giving us fodder to make fun of you at work.  Also, she made up this joke on her own:  "What did the regular noodle say to the whole wheat noodle?"   Wait for it......"You're an IMPASTA!"

 

Holy crap, I am getting tired of dicking around with blogger, it is fighting me.  So here's some more pics.  Brandee, Andy (the lead singer of The Distorted Waltz, my own itty personal Gerard), Vanessa being simultaneosly Born This Way and wearing the hat, Perez, who I do not know that much, but since everyone yells "PEREZ!" when he enters a room I figure he's pretty popular, Andy's cute friend, Tiff, who trimmed Stan's beard mid party, and we will not talk of how she earned the right to do that, Stan's Dad, Brent, the amour of Vanessa, Laura, who is awesome and did the Polar Plunge that morning to raise money for the Special Olympics, me hugging Brent, because he is my Nemesis (it's a thing), and my deli son, Matt.  You have a nice ass sir, that is all.

Happy Chinese New Year's, Valentine's Day, and such.

Our friends Rod and Danielle working on their oh so time consuming but yummy potstickers they made for our Chinese New Year's Eve party.  I swear these things were a labor of love, or possibly hate by the end of it.  Rod is a perfectionist and thought they were too heavy, but um, no, they were full of yum.  That's me in the back digging for God only knows what in the pantry.

 

 



The consuming of the foodstuffs.  I made Spareribs in the crockpot, there were the aforementioned pot stickers, out of season (the third time within a year!) sausage balls, and basically a ton of other crap.  We were trying to hurry up my friend Zach from work, so Terry texted him we were running out of food (that's all we have to bribe the youngsters to come over to our house).  Total backfire, the boy doesn't understand sarcasm, and they never showed.  It's okay, he gave me a contrite hug at work, with the warning "never joke about food again."  I will get a picture of him on here sooner or later!

The chef at work, I could never attempt these things, way out of my wheelhouse.

 



Al stuffing her gob full of out of season sausage balls, and I would like to point out none of those beers belong to her.  Gotta love her "Zombie Expressions" t-shirt.

 

 



The finished beauty of the potstickers, along with the yummy sauce.  I love having foodie friends!

 

 



Shrimp toasts!  Courtesy of the Englishes.  Also big with the yummy.

 



So now Al's room looks even MORE like a hobo habitat.  She asked if she could spend the night Monday, since she had to work until forever packaging paczki, and then had to be there at 5 a.m. the next morning.  I dragged Annie's old mattress all the way up from the basement with my anemic self, and she found some random sheets and covers for it.  Did she bother to clean it up since then?  Um, no.  So there it sits, probably until we start painting.  Also, Itty and Ghost think they now have a whole room to themselves, complete with a bed.  I think they are going to be legitimately pissed when Annie moves in.

 



The blue mold in the corner of the closet, and this is AFTER a cleaning with bleach.  Guess we're painting in there too.  Maybe we should pick Tardis blue and the closet will magically get bigger on the inside.  Worth a try.

 

 



Annie's Valentine's Day gift to Terry and I.  Should I be concerned my daughter gave me a black heart?  Is that indicative of something?  Actually it's pretty cool, she used glow in the dark paint on it.  And she obviously knows what her Dad likes, anything Michigan State.

 



I went to visit Al today to meet my Grandkitty (cutest feline ever, except for my Yuki, of course) and drop off some more odds and ends and some area rugs.  She got me a ginormous stuffed frog for Valentine's, because evidently she does really love me. :)  I'm sure I'm easier to love across town when I'm not hollering at her to pick up her shit, at any rate, it was appreciated, because the below link pretty much sums up my celebration here.  Let it be known that I definitely have the same sickness as my better? half, yet I continued to work all week, and made a kickass beef stroganoff for dinner, and did two loads of laundry today.

Valentine's day

Happy Birthday David, or conversely, sometimes this world sucks butt

 

 

Today should have been that cute little bee's 11th birthday.  Unfortunately, he died this summer from a brain tumor.  One of the coolest kids I ever met, and I wish I had gotten to know him longer, because most of my memories of him are from after he was sick, even though, he was still rockin' the hella cool upbeat personality even in the face of nasty odds.  His sister Holly and Annie are besties, that's how I met the family.  They are the strongest people I know, even though I also know they probably get tired of hearing that claptrap sometimes.  I guess I just wanted to draw some attention to the horror of pediatric cancer and how it has touched me personally.  The guys at http://coyscomics.com/ did a comic book called David in Space to raise money for the family, and Annie and Holly are planning on continuing it, the Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/#!/Davidinspacecomic?fref=ts

 

At any rate, just everyone, give a thought or so to a cool guy who died way too soon.

Bye Bye Birdie

So Al moved out today, I'm happy for her (and me) but I guess it is the end of an era.  Although EVERYBODY at work claims that she will bounce back.  I have faith that she will persevere though, I think she wanted out of here just as bad as I wanted to stop looking at things like the following...

 

 

Her messy ass nightstand, even Itty is appalled by the level of slobbiness.  Terry took her bed apart while she was at work today, and found her iPod which had been missing and presumed dead for a couple of months.  He wanted to hold it hostage, but I think he finally turned it over.

 

 

A different view of the crap pile.  Hey mom, at least you can see she's using the bedroom slippers you sent her for Christmas!  She claims that life is waaaaaay better with slippers, and I concur.

 

 

A final view of the crap.  The whole place just looked like a well heeled hobo inhabited it.  We didn't even take a picture of the hole she paced in the carpet, with her pacing like a caged tiger ways.  (See, told ya she wanted out. :)

 

Her new room, clean for probably the last time.  Loving the doofy look on her face.  Her roommate Marshall was telling her how glad he was that his family didn't make him do the whole dorky picture thing, whoops.

 

Al's friends Angela and Steve helped a crapload, literally, as in they hauled a load of her crap in their car, and Steve was the MAN.  Toted the dead grandma chair and the tv up the icy snow covered stairs like a champ.  Al has some great friends.  Angela did carry a seat cushion and I think some pillows.  Still more than I did, I believe I brought in the box of Legos (very important).  Hey, I work this morning and I was all old and crippled from the cheese wall.  I'm still seating on the heating pad even as I'm typing this!

 

 

 

Annie and me in the kitchen.  Really nice pantry and countertops.  Overall, the place is gorgeous, and I am a little jelly her first apartment is so nice.  Mine and Terry's was a rat trap.  Well, literally a mouse trap, but that was probably more because that was before I was OCD and I was a horrible housekeeper.  Hopefully Al won't have to go through that particular learning curve.

 

 

But I'm pretty leery about that happening--and so the mess begins.  She's probably over there twitching right now because she has no internet access, probably until Wednesday.  But, she did forget to steal some towels, and her leftovers from her "last supper" I made her last night--steak, baked potato, roasted asparagus, and a buttload of baby bella mushrooms and onions.  Annie had....a turkey sandwich.  Sometimes I swear that kid was given to me by mistake.

 

 

 

When we were getting ready to leave, Terry was taking forever and then I saw him taking a pic of something.  This is the truck of Al's new neighbor.  Um, yeah, that totally doesn't look like a serial killer's ride or anything.  O.O

 

All in all, I'm very proud of her for taking this big step, even though I will miss her and our late night tv watching.   Love you, baby girl!  And you guys know that's about as much gushing as I can muster, I am a human version of grumpy cat, after all.

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!