Sunday

 

OMG I can’t believe it’s been a whole week since I wrote a post.  Okay . . . here’s the latest from the Dog Mobile Family

 

The Easter Dinner Family Gathering At My House went off nicely.  There was some drama and I knew there would be so it didn’t freak me out.  Yes, it was MIL drama, but it was nothing major.  Right after she got here, she was complaining that she didn’t feel well and that she was going back home.  I told her I was sorry she would miss the dinner, but I understood.  I even offered to fix her a plate and have SIL drive her back home.  Before she could make up her mind about that, she had a dizzy spell.  I let Hubby and SIL fuss over her.  I had a lovely Easter dinner sitting on the table getting cold.  Besides, she said that she was fine and that she didn’t want to spoil the dinner.  I took her at her word.  Does that make me a bad person?  After about 15 minutes, she joined us at the dinner table and ate a little bit.  Mostly she picked at what we put on her plate, but at least she ate something.  The food was yummy.  With the exception of the MIL drama, we all had a good time.  And there were enough left overs to last all week. 

 

Yesterday, Hubby and I went to visit my Mom and Dad.  They needed Hubby to fix a couple of electrical outlets in the living room.  The house my folks live in was built in 1962 and it still has the original electrical outlets.  When I was growing up, my Dad did all the home repairs, but his eyesight isn’t as good as it used to be and he needs a little help in the home repair dept.  Hubby is a whiz at that kind of stuff and he was happy to help Dad.  I think it took us longer to drive out to Mom and Dad’s house (they live about 15 miles away from us) than it did for us to fix the outlets.  Mom even paid Hubby for his work . . . with homemade ham salad.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Hubby loves my Mom’s homemade ham salad.  Hubby told her that he didn’t expect payment for his work but if she felt she really must pay him, then it would be rude for him to refuse.  

 

Luci went for her annual shots yesterday morning . . . before the trip to visit my folks.  The good news is that she’s very healthy.  The bad news is that she’s considered overweight and we need to get her to lose a few pounds.  That means cutting back on the treats, talking Hubby out of the full bowl of food at all times policy that he’s always had with the dogs, and lots of exercise.  Some of the weight is because of the lack of exercise over the winter, but I think a good part of it is that we’ve just overfeed the dogs.  Blacky doesn’t have a weight problem because he’s not as food motivated as Luci.  My biggest downfall is her big brown eyes . . . she looks at me with them and I give her anything she wants.  So instead of giving her treats, I’ll be giving her love and attention and playing lots of fetch and going for lots of walks.  

 

The final piece of news this week is that I’m taking a class at the local community college this week.  Yep, I’m going back to school.  I’m taking a class called "Knitting for Beginners".  Okay, stop laughing!  I saw the class in the Spring Quarter Continuing Education brochure and thought it would be fun.  I’ve always wanted to learn to knit and have even tried to teach myself.  The results aren’t too bad, but I could use a little help.  It’s just a two week course so it won’t take up a lot of time.  I thought Hubby would make fun of me, but he’s actually being very supportive. 

 

So my big task for today is to go find the materials I need for my class . . . yarn and knitting needles!

Spring!

 

On Thursday, the birds were singing.  The sun was shining.  It was 54 degrees outside.  It was bright and sunny when I came home from work.  Yea!!  If the weather stays nice, I’ll be able to start my nightly walks with Luci when I come home from work.  Yippeee!!!

 

Today is a little different.  I don’t think it will get above 30 degrees or so.  It’s snowing/sleeting/raining.  What falls out of the sky depends on what the temperature is.  And it’s the day before Easter.  I feel sorry for all the little kids at the Easter egg hunts.  I’m glad that the weather seems to be changing for the better.  I just wish it would stick around for more than a day or two.  And I’m really sick of snow. 

 

I tried really hard to talk Hubby into taking the family out somewhere for Easter dinner or at least doing the "pre-made" dinner from Krogers.  Nope.  He won’t hear of it.  He’s so excited about having our first Easter at home that he’s like a kid at Christmas.  He’s doing the hard stuff – cooking the ham and the turkey breast.  I have to do the side dishes and the deviled eggs.  Oh, yea, and clean the house.  But I also know that he’ll be helping with the clean up after everyone leaves.  I have a feeling that we’re starting a tradition and Easter is going to be at my house from now on.  

 

While I’m cleaning the house and getting ready for the big family dinner, I’m reminding myself that I’m doing this for Hubby.  I know it’s going to be noisy with so many people in the house . . .and it will be too cold and/or muddy for the kids to go outside.  I know that MIL probably won’t eat anything and will more than likely complain about everything.  But Hubby is getting something he’s always wanted . . . a family dinner at our house.  My side of the family does this kind of thing all the time.  His side of the family rarely (okay, almost never) does this.  I know how much I enjoy the family gatherings with my family so I hope that this turns out as well for Hubby.  But I’ve been a part of his fairly odd and dysfunctional family for 25 years now and I have a feeling he’s going to be disappointed. 

 

It’s going to be a fun weekend.  

Weekend Update

 

MIL is home from the hospital.  She came home yesterday.  There are a lot of things about this trip to the hospital that aren’t making sense and Hubby and I are terribly annoyed at the lack of information.  Either the docs don’t know what they are doing or MIL knows more than she’s telling us.  I kind of think that MIL knows more than she’s sharing at this point.  All the test results aren’t back yet (she says) but the tests that have come back are inconclusing.  They aren’t saying it was a mini-stroke, but they aren’t saying it wasn’t.  Could be the pinched nerve in the neck causing the problem, but they aren’t sure.  Vertigo could be a result of either condition.  She has a follow-up appointment with her family doc on Monday morning to review the results and decide what to do next.  With all the new HIPPA privacy rules, it  was impossible to get a straight answer from the nurses - they can’t release the info unless MIL gives her approval. . . and she hadn’t given them approval to release info to us.  She swears she’s fine and that she’s told us everything she know . . . but I have a little voice in the back of my head telling me that somethings just not right.

 

Sooo . . . since she’s still not quite herself, Hubby wants to have Easter Sunday dinner at our house.  Oh, joy, I’m hosting a holiday dinner with a week’s notice for a woman (MIL) that doesn’t like to eat anything that she hasn’t cooked herself.  This is the first Easter dinner since I’ve known her (25 years) that I’m doing the cooking.  Like I don’t already have enough stress in my life, now I have to pull this off.  Part of the stress revolves around the fact that Hubby will be helping me with preparing the dinner.  We don’t always work well together in the kitchen.  It could get really ugly. 

 

The weather is warmer these days.  The snow has melted.  The yard is a swampy muddy mess.  It’s been raining the last couple of days.  It’s hard to believe that last week we had 17 inches of snow and now we have high temperatures in the upper 40′s to lower 50′s.  Is it any wonder everyone I know has a cold or some kind of flu bug. 

 

The cat that thinks it lives in my house is still hanging around. For the last two or three years, he hasn’t spent more than two or three minutes in my house at a time . . . until last week.  He was here for three days during the snow storm.  Okay, I understand that.  I wouldn’t want to be out in that either.  But since then he’s made a couple of trips in the house for a few hours at a time.  He even snuggled on the couch with me when I was feeling poorly the other night.  He’s watching TV with Hubby, Blacky and Luci now.   I think he may have permanently adopted us.  

 

With that I think I need to check on the little family and get everyone ready for bed. 

 

 

Routine

 

MIL is still in the hospital.  They are running all sorts of tests to determine what exactly happened to her on Tuesday.  Was it a mini-stroke?  Is it a bad case of vertigo?  Is is the pinched nerve in her neck acting up?  We’re waiting (not very patiently) for the test results.  The family doc decided to keep her for at least one more day.  She’s getting meds to help with the dizziness, the nausea, and the horrible headache.  She’s also a tad dehydrated so she’s on IV fluids. 

 

I’ve always said that if MIL is complaining about something, then she’s fine.  It’s when she stops complaining that Hubby and I know that something serious is wrong.  See, MIL is a "glass half empty" kind of person and being stuck in a hospital brings out the best of that part of her personality.  The bed is uncomfortable.  The nurses are waking her up in the middle of the night for meds and bloodwork.  The other people on the floor are too noisy.  The food is bad.  It’s something that Hubby and I have gotten used to over the years when dealing with MIL and her health issues. It’s our routine. 

 

How sad is it that we have a hospital routine?  We do the same things in the same order every time that MIL is in the hospital.  Over the past 10 years or so, she’s been in the hospital quite a bit.  We recognize the nurses on the heart floor and in the ER and we know them by name.  What’s even scarier is that they know us by name.  I know that I always have to have a current list of MIL’s meds and medical history on me to make check-in easier. I know what things to pick up at her house when she’s admitted to the hospital on an emergency basis.  I always buy her two bottles of diet Coke from the hospital cafeteria after she’s assigned a room and Hubby stops at the gift shop and buys her trash tabloids.  I check the phone and the TV remote to make sure she knows where it is and Hubby adjust the blinds on the window.  We’ve done it so often that it’s second nature.    

 

So even though we are facing a new medical issue this time, the routine is basically the same.  Maybe that’s why we aren’t completely freaked out about the "mini-stroke" label just quite yet.  

 

Daily Drama

 

We survived the blizzard like conditions over the weekend.  We ended up with 17 inches of snow.  Level 3 snow emergency Saturday afternoon – that means no driving unless you’re an emergency worker or a road crew.

 

Roads were better in time for me to go back to work on Monday morning.  We were back down to a Level 1 snow emergency – that means driving will be hazardous.  Got to work okay but had some kind of icky bug that made me tired and have a headache all day.  Made it through work, but came home and slept most of the evening. 

 

Daylight Savings Time started on Sunday.  I had planned on starting Luci’s nightly walks again after work but the snow and the icky flu bug changed that plan.

 

I feel better today (Tuesday), weather is warmer, snow is melting.  Thinking happy thoughts on the way home.  Until I got home and discovered that Hubby and I had to go to the ER at the local hospital because the ambulance was taking MIL there from her part-time job at the movie theatre.  She was having a dizzy spell and scared the you know what out of her co-workers.  Turns out that MIL  may have had a small stroke.  They are keeping her for observation to find out for sure what caused the dizzy spell and to see if a big stroke is on the way. 

 

Yea, it’s been a fun week so far . . .

 

Saturday Morning

Yep, it’s still snowing.  And Luci keeps going outside to play.  I was outside with her at 8 a.m. this morning playing with her.  In my jammies, my winter coat, and my snow boots.  I’m either crazy or a devoted doggie mommy . . . . I prefer to think I’m a devoted doggie mommy . 

We probably have about a foot of snow on the ground now and it’s going to keep snowing until late afternoon.  My little county is still under a Level 2 snow emergency and just about everything is closed.  The news guys are telling everyone that if they don’t have to go out, then don’t.  Fine with me!!  Thankfully it’s a Saturday and I can stay in the house for a couple of days.  By the look of things, though, it might be longer than that before I get out.  

The neighborhood cat that thinks it lives at my house has been here in the house with us since yesterday afternoon.  Fluffy used to live across the street from Hubby and me.  A couple of years ago, Fluffy’s owner got a dog that Fluffy didn’t like and Fluffy decided to run away from home and became the neighborhood cat.  We all feed him and look out for him.  He hangs out at different houses – I think depending on who has the better food – and he normally isn’t a "stay in the house" kind of cat.  Yes, Fluffy is a boy.  His previous owner named him before he realized that Fluffy was really a boy.  When I got home yesterday afternoon, Fluffy was sitting on the couch.  I have Hubby a funny look because Fluffy rarely stays in the house for more than a couple of minutes because Luci won’t leave him alone.  I guess Fluffy decided that putting up with Luci was better than being outside in the blizzard.  Right now Fluffy is trying to find a place to get away from Luci . . . and Luci is following Fluffy around like, well, a puppy.  

I’m surprised that Hubby isn’t up and outside playing with his snowblower. He’s been sad all season that we hadn’t really gotten enough snow to get it out but that all changed yesterday afternoon.  The more it snowed, the happier he got.  Hubby spent a lot of his growing up years in California and didn’t really have a lot of exposure to snow.  He moved back to Ohio permanently when he was in the 7th grade and ever since, he LOVES snow.  I like snow and understand it’s part of living in Ohio, but his man loves the stuff.  Used to go sledding with the kids when they were little, leaves for work early so he can find an empty parking lot and do donuts with his truck, gets as excited as a little kid when he gets to play with his snowblower.  I have to admit it’s kind of nice that he’s so excited about it . . . I don’t have to do much shoveling!!

Now I just need to decide how to spend this glorious snow day.  I’m hoping to take pictures but I just discovered that my camera batteries are low – and wouldn’t you know that’s the one thing I didn’t pick up at the store the other day. 

Blizzard

 

The National Weather Service just issued a Blizzard Warning for my little part of the world.  It started out as a Winter Storm Watch with an expected snowfall of 2 – 4 inches.  Then the snow started and they changed it to a Winter Storm Warning with an expected snowfall of 6 – 8 inches.  Now it’s a full fledged Blizzard and we’re going to get 10 – 13 inches. 

 

The snow started after I got to work and I kept an eye on the weather reports and the road conditions to see just how bad it was getting.  I had a few things to do and had already decided to leave about 1 p.m. - then they decided to close the office at 2 p.m.  I still left at 1:00 . . . no point in waiting until the last minute.  On the drive home, Hubby called me to tell me that our little county had declared a Level 2 snow emergency.  That just means you really shouldn’t be out driving.   Luckily I wasn’t too far from home when I got that little piece of news. 

 

I made it home a little more than an hour after I left the office.  Not bad considering that it normally takes me about 45 minutes to drive home.  The highways weren’t too bad.  They were actually in better shape than the city streets here in my little town.  But it was still a very stressful drive home and I was never so happy to pull up in front of the house and see Hubby and Luci waiting at the front door for me. 

 

Once I got inside, I had to call my Mom and Dad to let them know I was home safe and sound.  Dad worries about my long drive home from work in this kind of weather and I knew he’d be worried if he thought I was out in a Level 2 Snow Emergency.  Then I poured myself a Rum and Coke.  See, I don’t like driving in snowy weather and today’s drive home was a little stressful for me.  Oh, and I ate a sleeve of Girl Scout Thin Mint Cookies while watching The Guiding Light.  All in all, not a bad way to spend a winter afternoon. 

 

Now that I’m here at home, this is where I’m planning to spend the next couple of days.  I have my cross-stitch, a couple of good books, and some DVD’s that I got for Christmas that I haven’t watched yet.  Oh, and I might post a couple more blog entries . . . 

 

 

He Finally Listened

 

It only took three days, but Hubby finally listened to me.  He said that he would go to the doctor if I could get him in today.  I think he figured that with all the flu bugs going around, the doctor’s office would be packed and I’d never be able to get him an appointment.  I called at 1 p.m. and got Hubby an appointment for 4:30.  To say the very least, he was shocked that I was able to pull it off.  Never underestimate the determination of a wife that’s scared for her hubby’s health.  It also helps to have a family doc with a small practice.  

 

He went to the appointment and it’s officially the flu . . . and the head cold is starting to settle in his chest.  If he hadn’t gotten in when he did, it could have been as bad as I had imagined.  If he didn’t look so sick and feel so miserable, I’d be doing the "I told you so!" lecture.  Honestly, though, I’m happy that he listened and we have something stronger than Sudafed and Cepacol to help with the symptoms.  And I’m really happy that we got him to the doc before it became pneumonia or bronchitis.  

 

Even though he listened and he went to the doc, he’s still being a stubborn man.  It took me all day to convince him that he needed to see the doc.  He went to work even when I told him he should stay home.  He’s bowling tonight because he thinks that if he’s well enough to work, he’s well enough to bowl.  He’s a crabby cranky grouch.  The crabbier he is, the nicer I’m being.  It’s totally annoying him . . . and that makes it worth it because you know I’m going to use it against him the next time I’m sick!

 

In Sickness and In Health, Til Death Do Us Part

 

I made that promise to Hubby on April 2, 1984 and again on September 28, 2002.  I meant it when I said it in front of the judge (1984) and again when I said it in front of the priest (2002).  I love him with all my heart and I’ve stood by him through all the things that have happened to us.  And you wouldn’t believe the stuff we’ve been through.  But that’s a blog for another day. 

 

I know I made the promise and I’ve stood by it for (almost) 24 years.  But today that promise is twanging on my last nerve.  Rather, Hubby is twanging on my last nerve.  I want him to get better NOW!!  I’ve determined that three days at home with a sick hubby should be considered cruel and unusual punishment.  He had a fever, chills, and body aches but doesn’t want to go to the doctor.  He isn’t hungry when I ask him if he wants something to eat but two minutes later he’s asking me if I’ll fix him something to eat.  He’s gone through three boxes of tissues in three days.  He’s so congested that he can’t really blow his nose – so he’s sniffling every second or third breath and for some reason that’s really annoying me.  He’s moving slower than a little old lady and complaining with each step about what body part hurts the most.  If I have to watch one more cheesy Sci-Fi Channel movie, I’m going to scream. 

 

I’m trying to be understanding and sympathetic.  I’m making the runs to the store to get the extra vitamin water and more tissues.  Buying the Sudafed and the special cough drops that don’t affect his acid reflux.  Fixing him something to eat when he finally decides he’s hungry.  He sleeps all day and is wandering the house all night.  If he’s up wandering around the house, the dogs are up and wanting Mommy to be up too.  I really am trying to be the good wife because the man was a complete saint when I had my surgery last April and I want to repay that kindness.  That’s why I haven’t said any of the above things to him . . . I’m sorry that you are the ones I’m whining to. 

 

And if I end up with whatever bug he has, I’m going to be really mad . . .