A Story for You

I was digging through my old files and I found Wally. For my senior English class, we had to write a story (I'm guessing, I don't remember) that was a certain length. I wrote about Wally's misfortunes. It's kind of long, 7 or 8 pages, so I'll just give you the first encounter. I really do like writing, but it takes a while for me to get in to it. Then, when I do, I'm such a perfectionist trying to get it right the first time I write it. I'll have to find the poems I wrote for that class. One of them is really funny, something about someone drooling in class. I'll search for it, see if I can find it and post it tomorrow night.

I’m sorry to have to tell this tale, but it must be told. 'Tis about a certain person, me, actually, that has a lot of trouble with one certain vegetable. That infamous veggie is a cucumber. No matter what I try, it never turns out right. Something bad always occurs. To keep this story short, I will only mention the “major” ones, and disregard the “minor” ones.
It all started when I was just starting to eat “real” food, and not baby cereal. That first food was cucumbers. Mom so gladly pureed them for me so I didn’t have to gum them to death. Unfortunately for me and for her, the sippy cup, into which she poured them, did not seal completely. Therefore, when I tilted it to drink from, the lid flew off and all of the cucumber mush plopped right into my lap. I cried out to Mom; however, thinking I just didn’t like it, said “It’s ok, Wally. Cucumbers are good for you.” As I sat there with the mush in my lap, I felt it ooze its way down my diaper. If you’ve ever spilt a milkshake in your lap, then you know the feeling I was feeling then. Man, was it cold!
“Mom!” I tried calling out to her, but it only came out as a little ‘Aaamaaa.” As weak as it was, it got her attention. She turned away from the counter and towards me. “What did you say? Can you say it again? Come on, Wally, say it again. Say Mama.” Oh great. Now how do I get out of this one? I patted the mush in my lap; it made a suspicious squishy sound. When she saw it, I got the response I wanted. “Oh my gosh!! Wally, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even notice! Oh, you poor baby. Let me clean it up for you.” She scooped the puddle up with the lidless cup, cleaned me and the high chair, and changed my freezing diaper.
Just as I was reveling in my good luck of not having to eat that stuff, she set me back in the high chair and gave me the cup again, this time making sure the lid was on tight. Great, I’ll never get a way from having to eat it. Maybe if I start talking…

To Mop or Not To Mop?

There I was...doing dishes. I wasn't going to, but it got kind of hard to walk in the living room with all the little tykes underfoot...literally. I finally realized that it was only going to get worse when Mark took my travel cup to put his milk in to it...for dinner. He wasn't even going anywhere! So I took matters in to my own hands.

Don't you just hate it when you pick a cup or bowl up, only to realize there was water in it? It would have been acceptable if it had been caught in the dishwasher thingy. It gets worse when you realize you've created a tsunami on the floor as you put the dish in the dishwasher. Bummer. Oh well, I had a rag that needed to be cleaned. So I used it to mop up the water then, wanting to impress you all being the type to want things in their place, I took it to the laundry pile on the floor right to the hamper. On to the rest of the dishes. I picked up another cup, I guess I don't learn easily. You guessed it. This time, there was only a tiny bit of water in it...or so I though. Thinking it was empty, I re-upturned it to put it in it's place. Bad idea. There wasn't only a little bit of water in it. There was ALOT of water in it. Sorry, The-place-in-Asia-that-got-flooded-last-year-or-something, my kitchen has you beat. I had socks on, so that took away the idea of wading to go find that rag I threw somewhere put in the laundry. Frantically looking for something to keep the flood abated, I grabbed the roll of paper towels.

At least I don't need to mop my kitchen for a while!

Key Lime Pie Recipe

Ingredients:
1 pie crust
4 eggs at room tempurature
1 14oz can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup fresh or bottle lime juice
4 tablespoons sugar

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 (butter 8 inch pie pan if you're making one. I just used a pre-made graham cracker one :)). While the pie crust is baking prepare the filling.
2. In a large bowl, place 1 whole egg and 3 egg yolks.
3. In a medium bowl, place 2 egg whites (I used all three)
4. Beat the whole egg and egg yolks with a wire whisk until thick and fluffy.
5. Beat the egg whites with an electric beater until stiff and dry.
6. Add the condensed milk to the beaten yolks, beating until the well mixed.
7. Slowly add the lime juice in a thin stream, beating until the mixture thickens. Fold in 2 tablespoons of the beaten egg whites. Set aside the remainder of the egg whites.
8. Reduce the oven to 325 degrees (I guess if you're not making a crust you can just set it for 325 in the first place).
9. Spoon the custard unto the pie crust. Place in the oven for 5 minutes to form a slight skin on top of the filling.
10. While the pie is in the oven, add the sugar to the remaining egg whites (remember, if there is any part of the egg yolk in the egg whites, they won't whip right) and beat well.
11. Remove the pie from the oven and swirl the meringue over the custard surface, anchoring it to the crust along the edge to prevent shrinkage.
12. Return the pie to the oven, and bake for another 15 mins or until the surface of the meringue is a light tan.
13. Remove from oven and place on cake rack. Cool to room temperature before serving (actually refrigerated tastes better).

Enjoy!

Dumb Trucks and Smart Apartments

Guess what?!

I rode in a dumb dump truck today, for the first time! I thought we were going to run in to a few things, miss a few turns, or take out a few cars as we were going down the roads. And it was noisy as all get out. We had to yell to hear each other. But it was an experience that everyone should have, given the opportunity!

It was my day off, and Mark invited me to go along with him as he returned a mower to another apartment complex. This apartment complex, and another one across town are owned by Mark's boss and his sister-in-law, and probably various other family members. Anyways, over the way, they have townhouses as well as apartments. A townhouse over there just became available. Mark talked to his boss about us moving in to one of the town houses.

Well, today, as Mark was returning their mower that had been broken for weeks, so I came along to look at the townhouse with him. Speaking of the mower, Mark just found out later today that it broke down again! Of all the--!! Mark's not too happy about that, and Tiny and Rob (his son), but especially Tiny, don't like spending money.

In addition the the pictures of townhouse, I took a picture of one of their old trucks, the auger truck. All of their big equipment trucks are at least, at least 20-30 years old, if not more. I'm not exaggerating, I promise. They'd rather keep fixing up the old trucks than buy one with new fangled equipment.

By the way, why are they all called aPARTments if they're all stuck together? Shouldn't they be called notapartments, or something? How about astucktogetherments? Whatever. Let me upload the pictures and make some witty comments on them before Mark comes back home to whisk me away to church.

The auger truck, notice the drill? That lovely color is officially known
as "Mallory Green." They paint most of their vehicles that color

This the dump truck. I guess they haven't gotten around to painting it yet.

Mark feels at home behind the big trucks

The best pictures of the bunch!

I don't know if you can read it, but on the door it says 163. No longer will we be Apt S-6, but we'll be 163 Dame Court, like a real address! Imagine that!

Right, see, 163

The kitchen is about the same size as the one here. They're still
working on getting things cleaned up and ready for live-in.

This our 'back porch.' We have a spot for a grill! Mark is the most excited
about this, I think. He's like, now we can have friends over and grill out!

Dining room with Mark scurrying to open a door to
hide behind so he doesn't get caught on...computer

Down stairs half bath with light reading material
in case the workers need to use the facilities.

One upstairs bedroom, this one has one closet.

The upstairs bathroom is practically identical to the one here

I think I have this picture twice. But that's ok, I like this view of Mark :)

This upstairs bedroom has TWO closets! I think that makes
this one the master bedroom. I need the room for clothes!!

The linen closet upstairs. Seriously, I think when they drew the plans for these places, they filled in any blank spots with closets. "Oh this room can't quite meet this room, let's make another closet! Oh there's stairs right here, let's make another closet!" I tell you what, but I'm not complaining, I like closet space. Makes it seem like you have less junk than you actually do!

These stairs have some cheap vinyl something on them. Anyone know where I can get some stair carpet runner or something? It'd help cut down on the noise too, so there's not a loud elephant going up and down the stairs at the same time one of us does.

Mark again, running...I think he does this on purpose, what'd you think?

Finally, my favorite picture. The view from our front door. Aren't the petals beautiful? Anyways, the leasing office over there said that they can have it ready to move in June 20th. Anyone want to come help us move? I bet we could use both for sleeping arraingements

A Yummy Dessert

My friend Hannah made key lime pie the other day and it made me crave some so bad. I got this recipe that I used from a Caribbean cookbook we used in Grenada.


I put them on blogger a few days ago, but I forgot to write about it and post it, so today, I'm sending them out. Enjoy the pictures, remember to wipe your keyboards after you're done drooling :)

So much for the epiphany

Moms are good for something aren't they. My epiphany was only a blonde moment. Antibiotics are practically derived from molds. My mom pointed that out to me this afternoon. Sorry, no more pictures of mold with a bit of bread.

The Great Science Experiment

Since I was homeschooled for most of my life, I never got to do those cool science experiments. None of us did, especially since we lived in a Third World County that wouldn't have had anything available. By anything, I mean anything interesting. There was always ants, plants, sand, and siblings to do experiments on, however, the first four were boring, and the last one was unaccepted by the parentage.

Until recently *insert evil laugh here*

Bethany started her science experiment with sugar crystals. Let me see if I have some pics of them... Nope, but here's the beginning of it. It was cool to watch it. Free tip, Equal doesn't grow sugar crystals. It only grows mold, cool colored mold, especially if you drop egg particles in it!

Anyways, back to the past. Dad's favorite saying while going through the refrigerator was "Who's growing this science experiment?" Or something like that. The worst was corn with mold strands covering and filling up the container. It was rancid and vile and disgusting and pukifying.

On to the present.

I was being a wonderful wife and cleaning the kitchen. I hadn't be able to give it a good cleaning in a long time. I should have found time, but with my work schedule and our visiting the relatives, I was just pooped. But today, I found the time. I found the energy. I found the cleaning supplies. I also found the bread. My, oh my, did I find it or what. Look at what I found.

Looks ok, right? Take another look. Look closely at the space between the "N" in "Nature's" and the "100%" in "100% Whole Wheat." I don't think that's normal bread color. My first thought was, "I didn't buy blueberry bagels. I don't think I did. Did I?" So I investigated the blue stuff. Actually, it's more blue-green/tourquoise colored.

Yup, that's bread. I bought it two weeks ago. That's it, just two weeks! I think...

Now that I'm thinking about it, and finished my cleaning spurt, it might have been longer, but I'm not sure. Anyways, there's no wheat bread color showing through. I just had a thought! I'll tell you it at the end.

I think we have super mold growing. It'd better not be turning into penicillin, cause I'll get sick. But, perhaps, I could feed it to Mark, and it'll cure his ear infection...

Nah, that's just too gnarly. Bye-bye bread. Until I start my epiphany that I had a few seconds ago. Remember Mark's ear infection I just mentioned? Well, he's on his second antibiotic for it, soon to start his third. Don't judge him before you hear the story.

It all started out with a little sinus stuffiness. Mr. "I-Don't-Really-Get-Sick" had to go and get an ear infection, complete with balance problems and blood in his ear. He went to this urgent care center last week Monday after work, or so. The doctor there gave him cefdinir, or Omnicef. He took it for about 4 days, but it got worse. So he was able to get an appointment with our new PCP (primary care physician) since our insurance started up the 7th. They gave him amoxicillin (and basically said that other doctor was dumb for giving him cefdinir in the first place) and told him he should go see a ear, nose, throat doctor for a cleaning out after the infections calms down. So, this amoxicillin, while the cefdinir did nothing, has trampled all over my poor husband. You know how the bottle says "may cause diarrhea"? Yeah, poor Mark. So I called his doctor office to get them to give him a different antibiotic, perhaps metronidazole (Flagyl) I was thinking in case he also got some superbug in his gut from the amoxicillin. But that's just my thoughts. I didn't mention it for two reasons. One, I didn't want to look like an idiot and have the doctor say how stupid I was for thinking a little ear infection needs mighty metronidazole, and, two, I didn't think about it until afterwards. Oh well, we'll see what he gets.

So what's my epiphany? I'm glad you brought it up again. I'm going to take that piece of mold and pour the antibiotics on it. He's not going to finish them anyways, so there's not much to do with them. Although, I could send them to Karen (the health supervisor/head nurse at a camp I worked at) is always looking for medicines that kids leave around and don't claim, just in case an emergency comes up. Not to prescribe them herself, but if a doctor gives a staff member a script for a pricey drug, and there just happens to be that exact amount that a kid left (whose mother didn't call to get it sent to them), what's the matter with saving money and using what they have? On the other hand, do you know anyone who's going on a missions trip that needs any antibiotics they can get their hands on? Me neither.

I'll keep you updated on the lab experiment.

What the-?!

Johnny Cash got his facts mixed up. Today is beautiful. At least, at the weather channel and such say it is. I haven't been outside yet. But I will, soon.
I have to go do somethings before Mark and I head out to Maryland. My niece is turning one year old today, so naturally we're attending a birthday party tomorrow for her. Here's some recent pictures of her.

Don't let that smile fool you. She did all this mess herself.
Reagan, her babysitted friend, isn't that active.

100% girl, pink, bows, ribbons, lace, and pictures

Her daddy's a Redskin's fan. I'm not sure why.
I do know that McKenna's only playing with the hat because it's a hat.
She's not a 'Deadskin's' fan, don't worry.

Ok, the laundry is calling my name, the dishes are chanting, and the dirt is sticking to my feet, so I must be off!

Are meteorologists ALWAYS right?

It's rainy today,

as was yesterday,

just like the day before,

and like it will be tomorrow.

Johnny Cash, our local meteorologist, said that the computerized forecast said it'd clear up Wednesday or Thursday. Then he said, and I quote, "Computers don't predict the weather, meteorologists do. I'm the meteorologist and I say it will last until at least Friday." No sign of sky anywhere, just mist basically floating around waiting to stick to whatever comes along. Namely, me, my car, and me.

Why was I out there, you may ask, I was running errands for our (meaning Mark and me) family.

*big grin*

Like, depositing a check, buying hose filters for the washer, returning a present (I had bought for a friend that I forgot to take to South Carolina to give her so I bought her another one and returned the old one).

I also did good homey things around the...well...home. I washed laundry, which I can finish because I bought hose filters, I did a load of dishes, I watched several episodes of House, MD.
Forgive me, Mark, I was bored :)

Weel, not much else going on. I guess I'll go amuse myself elsewhere.

Hospital Mayhem

Want to hear about some of my hospital experiences? I've got quite a few. Now I can't reveal much about them because of HIPAA laws, but I can let you know about their actions....

First one...Mr. T doesn't like tubes down his nose, but hey, can you blame the poor man? So anyways, he pulled it out. Four times he pulled it out! And get this, one of those times, we had his hands restrained in mitten restraints tied to the armrests of a chair. Some Houdini, huh? Also, Mr. T decided that his love life had been sorely lacking, so he simply had to get all the kissing from us angelic nurses. I happened to lean over him to do something, it must not have been important cause cause I can't remember it. As I was leaning close, he opened his eyes, made feeble eye contact and said, "I thought you were going to kiss me." He sounded so despondent that I burst out a little laugh. I couldn't help it! That was about....10 or 11am. From then until I left that day (and the next day), the remarks got worse. They ranged all over from "Will you kiss me?" to "You can kiss me now" to "I'm gonna kiss all of you" to "I'm going to catch you and kiss you." Then he got a little more imploring with, "You can kiss me if you want." Then there's my all time favorite, "Where can I get a marriage license?" I have to admit, I was a little taken back. I asked Mr. T what he wanted a marriage license for, I knew he was already married because his wife was in to visit every now and then. He looked at me like I was out of my mind, "So I can marry you!" I had to let him down gently, his fragile mental status couldn't handle too much of a shock. I told him, "I'm already married, and you are too. You can't have two wives, we'll cost too much money." His answer was logical, to him, if not to us, "I'll have two wives, I'll have alot of money." Apparently he didn't understand that two wives would take his money, not give him money. Oh! Also, when he was asking to kiss me, I mentioned my husband would get jealous. So he solved that one, "I'll kiss him too!"

I think he's been my favorite confused person ever. I have stories about non-confused patients, such as one lady refusing anything and everything because her husband was recovering from surgery and was unable to care for her at home. So she was convinced he didn't love her, so she just wanted to die. Can we say drama queen??

Then there's several patients who were in great respiratory problems, great like, couldn't breathe great, but all they wanted was ginger ales and food. I like what Dawn told us, "You can't breathe, you can't eat!" Duuh. You'd think the basic survival instincts would jump in. To me, breathing and air comes before....ginger ale...and crackers and peanut butter....but that's just me.

Oh, there's also this one guy, who couldn't even wait to get past hospitals turny door thingy before lighting up a cigarette. I think he was in the hospital all of 3 or 4 days. Then he got kicked out of the patient pick-up/drop-off area because of it.

Of course, you can't forget all the ones that poop and pee all over themselves...those just make my day...and there's the staff that come in 45 minutes late when we're waiting to give them report.

Inspite of all that, I still like the job, and I'm getting the hang of it around there. I think. I have 4 patients, two weeks I go up to 5 patients. I also have my preceptor watching me, several of them that is. Some are more hawk-like than others. So don't get me wrong, I'm not griping, I'm just showing you the alternative view of working in a hospital.

There, doesn't that make your job seem like heaven?