Last week, (yes, I’m catching up slowly but surely!) was an interesting week for us. And by interesting, I of course mean shit. Yes. I think it’s safe to officially stamp ‘shit’ over last week, here in the McMaster abode.
Monday wasn’t so bad, in fact, it was pretty good. I went and did a little shopping – how can that not be pretty good?
I hit up Michaels for some frames – they had 40% off their frames and I had a coupon for a further 25% off all frames (including sale/clearance!) so I figured it was time to strike while the iron was hot. I picked up a frame for my graduation picture and certificate and 4 matted frames for the collages I bought at the Nutcracker Market when I was out and about with the inlaws.
Go to www.texasmontage.com and check them out – they really are great!
I’ve mentioned them before, but I don’t care, they look like this,
They are really nice prints, we got 4 of them, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and Austin. So I picked up some originally $40 ea. frames to hang them on the wall which – as you can see, hasn’t happened yet, but we’re getting there! LOL!
After Michaels, I went to Ross and Marshalls – I was looking for a suitcase that was big enough for us (cause we sent one of our good cases home with some of our visitors and needed an extra case for the huge amount of Christmas presents we need to take home!) but that wasn’t seriously expensive.
Coming up empty, I headed over to Chick Fil A, where I met the lovely Magz for some tasty chicken for lunch. From there we went to JoAnns to pick up a nice ornament for me to take to the SSA Christmas ornament exchange breakfast that coming Thursday and then it was off home for the dogs to run around the garden while Magz and I watched Grey’s Anatomy and knitted a little.
Like I said, Monday was pretty good indeed!
The issue started Monday night.
I was in a lot of pain.
It sucked.
Turns out I was sick.
I blogged about it, here http://icemaiden013.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/my-first-encounter-with-a-real-life-er/.
When we got home, Col made an appointment to see the recommended surgeon that Friday and I spent the week, well, pretty high on narcotics to be honest, trying to quell the pain of my unhappy gallbladder and to be as good a patient as I could manage – given I was in digestive hell.
Col set me up on the sofa, setting up camp beside me the whole time…
While I napped in bed, he worked on the sofa so as not to wake me!
The week went quickly and before long it was Thursday night. I think it’s quite safe to say that I was crapping myself. I was bored being in the house all the time and Col, being the knight in shining armour he is, took me out for a spin in the car. On the way home he asked if there was anything I needed or wanted and I said icecream. So, we went and got icecream! LOL!
We stopped off at the Marble Slab, picked up some ice cream and enjoyed it while watching the Apprentice. Well, I enjoyed it, Col enjoyed most of it – that was, until a chocolate chip lodged itself between two of his teeth and the chocolate chip won.
His tooth snapped in half.
Shit.
We both pretty much saw $ signs and I may have freaked out a little.
I told him to rinse his mouth out with salt water, he googled, began to visit the sites about it and discovered that he should put the tooth in salt water too. We agreed to call Dr Ransom (my dentist) for an emergency appointment the following morning. You can check the site linked here to get professional dental care.
While at the surgeons office, waiting for my appointment, Col calls the Dentist and discovers that the only time they have to fit him in is right then (of course!). So, I tell him to take the appointment (cause although he’s not in pain, I don’t want something to happen over the weekend) and as he leaves for his appointment, I text my trusty friend Magz and ask her to come to the Surgeons office to basically hang around til I’m done and take me home.
However, the surgeon tells me that my liver is unhappy, my liver function is elevated and that I need more bloods done cause that could indicate a stone blocking a duct. So after making Magz wait for my consultation with the surgeon – diagnosis, for the record, was, lets do surgery. My answer, ok, when? and the schedulling lady’s reply? ‘Does Monday work for you?’, uhm, this Monday? Yes, this Monday, ooooooook then! And that was that!
We went from Methodist hospital to Memorial Herman to get blood taken, I had also developed a bruise on my arm from where the ER had pinned me for blood a few days prior and the lady who took my blood on Friday, exclaimed when she saw my arm, ‘Good Lord child, what the hell’d they do to you?’
We then met up with Col (who had no house key cause he’d given it to me to get home when I’d finished, but as it turned out he was done first!) and the three of us went for lunch at Panera bread where Col and I shared our respective doctors opinions.
Col told me that the dentist didn’t do anything then and there, but said he needed work – and before Christmas if possible, and my story went like,
‘Oh yeah, by the way he said I need surgery’ *munches on panini*,
‘Oh?’ came the reply,
‘Yup, Monday’, *keeps munching*
Col looks stunned, ‘Wait, what? Monday? Like, this Monday?’
Heh. They definitely don’t hang around in this country!
When we got home, I napped for a while, when I woke up Col’s standing over me, smiling, ‘We’re going to Dallas babe!’.
Let me rewind a little, months ago, Col got us tickets to go see the Bold Fresh tour by Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, in Dallas on December 4th. Col had said we weren’t going cause I was sick but I told him not to be silly, that I’d survive. He told me he’d see if he could get a decent price for a hotel room and 2.5 hours later, he’s waking me up to tell me that we got a 3.5 star hotel room, for 2 nights, with an indoor, heated pool and hot tub for $108. Total. Not per night. Total. I about jumped out of the bed, we threw a bag together and we headed to Dallas right then and there!
The drive was long and hard. It’s normally tough for me to stay awake at night on long drives as it is, but throw in narcotics and I was fighting sleep the entire time.
We checked in, got a room (2 doubles not a king which was the only downside to the entire weekend!), Col picked up a bucket of ice and we went straight to sleep.
Saturday morning we woke up fresh, I say morning, but I really mean afternoon. We turned off our phones, put the DND up on the door and slept. We woke up after noon, bright as buttons and decided to have lunch at the nearby Ghengis we discovered last time we were in town. It was, as always, delicious!
After lunch we went back to the hotel, threw on our swim gear and spent almost an hour enjoying the hot tub!
After the hot tub there was – yes, you guessed it, time for another Las-nap before we headed out to Fair Park to see O’Reilly.
The show itself, rocked. No, really! Cynics bewared! Take it from someone who can’t stand to watch Glenn Beck on TV – he was actually very good.
O’Reilly on the other hand, ROCKED! He was hilarious, a lot funnier in real life than he seems to be on his show. I laughed so much it hurt!
The room was really warm, mainly, I guess, cause it was stuffed full! And never have I been in a room where so many people universally HATE the same person (Nancy Pelosi – for the record!) and they were all pretty vocal about it, (man, it really WAS a political rally!! LOL!).
When we were done with the show, we headed to Ihop cause we were both starving. I ordered a grilled chicken salad – not expecting much, but as it turns out, Ihop do a pretty good salad! And Col ordered a stack of NY Cheesecake pancakes with a side of toast (the toast was for me! hehe!!).
Then it was back to the hotel, where, yes, you guessed it once again, I went to sleep! Col sat up watching comedy and drinking apple cider lying with me on his chest – which, is a very impressive feat since Col can’t watch comedy without laughing and he didn’t wake me up, not even once!
Sunday we got up late, or, at least I did. Heh (are you seeing a theme develop here?), I guess the vicodin really was knocking the crap out of me!
We headed on our long voyage back to Houston, stopping about an hour outside of Dallas for breakfast in Dennys. I ordered 4 slices of toast.
As you can see, what I received was, in fact, 4 orders of toast – and I guess cause I was taking a picture of my food, the manager came over to ask if they got my order right! haha!!
Chances are, I probably could have eaten all 4 plates of toast, but I never let on!
It was pretty much over breakfast that we made the final decision that we weren’t going to use our flights and go home to Ireland for Christmas this year. A combination of reasons really and without wanting to put too much in public, I think ultimately, Christmas has just come too soon this year and a little more time needs to pass for wounds to heal – surgical and otherwise. Not to mention, I didn’t want to go home to run across town and country to people-please everyone, especially this close to my surgery – come back here in January, have Col go straight back to work and feel like he’d not had so much as a day off work.
I wanted him to have a vacation, some proper downtime, cause God knows the last quarter of the year has taken it’s toll on both of us and battoning down the hatches with some Slade (and I’ve been informed to add John Lennon and Elton John!), dairy milk and apple cider seems to be the best way to ensure we both get to recover and hit the new year running.
And we need to hit the new year running, it’s going to be a big year for us and we need to be healthy and well rested in order to take care of what needs done. Thankfully Continental did give us a credit to our account for the value of our flights so we can head back home in the new year when we’re both healthy enough and ready to travel transatlantic once more.
Anyway, when we got back home, we didn’t even dump our stuff off at the house before we went shopping – I was on a mission and by default, Col was therefore on a mission also, we went to Lowes, Big Lots and Walmart looking for a tree – yes, I conceded that we’d probably have to get a fake one (gag) and after seeing what those 3 had to offer, the fake concession was quickly off the table.
We picked up a rotisserie chicken in Kroger before going home, dumping our things and me talking Col into having dinner at Outback – kind of like a last supper I suppose.
Dinner was delicious – and the only high-fat thing (the surgeon had told me to keep it low-fat before and for 2 weeks after the surgery) on my menu, was of course, the bloomin’ onion, which, in hindsight, was probably more than enough! LOL!
I really enjoyed dinner, in fact, I enjoyed our entire weekend immensly I’ve been feeling out of sorts (no shit eh?) for the last week almost and it was nice to do something normal to distract myself from the fact I was getting cut in to the following day!
After dinner we went to Home Depot – where, even though we almost got locked in – we came out with a lovely 6-7ft Noble Christmas tree AND I even got a flag pole for the front of the house (something I’ve been wanting to buy since we moved here!).
Next up was Kohls, where we dandered around the Christmas decorations (coincidently on 50% off!) and picked up some really cute decorations for our tree (I even got some discount Halloween flags for my flagpole!) AND we got an almost smiling Grinch too (Col used to put a Grinch on top of his Christmas Tree!) and the best bit about buying the Grinch was the money paid for him was donated to a childrens charity!
Anywho, after Kohls we headed back to Walmart, where we spent ages walking around picking up decorations for our tree. Lights for the tree, garlands for our fireplace and entertainment centre, a lattice/net lighting for our hedges outside the house, baubles, decorations, to/from labels and sello tape for gift wrapping.
It was definitely a rewarding trip – at least, for me! I walked around those aisles like a child – seriously! I was so excited and kept asking, ‘can we have this?’ lol! I almost picked up a rope light for the bannister, but the only colour Col liked was red and since we’re not in Amsterdam, I figured red wasn’t the colour for us! haha!
Col wasted no time in setting up the tree…
we’ve yet to put any kind of decorations on it (aside from our ‘santa playing hockey’ decoration from Magz and Sam!) but Col set up the tree, with lights and sorted our garlands out too! 🙂
I find it really unfortunate that you would support such bigotry.
Politics aside, those two men spew nothing but hatred, classism, racism, and sexism. Making jokes of it doesn’t make funny, it makes it very sad… I feel that you’re less concerned about politics and more concerned about looking out for your own interests (your husband does work for big oil, right?) Hopping on trendy bandwagons is not something that should be admired, and frankly, you should know better.
Most people with class and intelligence (conservative and liberal) refuse to support these mindless, despicable men. I find it disheartening that you do not agree. Weren’t you originally a supporter of Hillary? Did you hear any of the vile things they had to say about her?
Disgusted.
Know thine enemy is one of the smartest things to do in politics (I stop short of Ann Coulter cause I dislike that woman with great passion). I have heard what they have to say about Hillary, Bill, Women, Money and about most other things. Like I said in my post, I dislike Beck, I listened to him cause he was there in front of me but I don’t ever watch him at home on TV. Bill however, I’ve liked, and watched for a few years now – so there’s no bandwagoning here.
I don’t know how much of O’Reilly you’ve seen, read or listened to, however your criticisms of him are typical left wing hatred. Blind, blanket insults about how vile he is, if you’d listened to what he actually has to say, you’ll find that he’s in fact, a very, very intelligent man with some good ideas about how to improve this country and get things back on track.
Implying that I’m dumb and/or stupid is hardly the way to go about winning me over from the dark side. Not that it’s any of your business, but since you asked, I’m married to a conservative. Yes, he works for an Oil company but that’s neither here nor there, his job has not got much to do with oil and a lot to do with designing systems for a business to sell their products.
He and I have been on opposite sides of the political spectrum in two countries now and we both respect each other enough to listen to and take on board the others ‘side’ or perspective – we may not always, or ever, for that matter, agree on certain issues, but we at least have the class and intelligence not to finger point and say the other should know better, and to be quite frank, O’Reilly’s ‘vile’ is a refreshing break from the left wing medias Obama worship and excuses for his lack of backbone or ability to do a single thing he promised when he took office!
I have to say that I think judging Las for her choice in speakers seems to be a bit harsh. We don’t all have to agree on politics or even on Beck and O’Reilly but to imply that someone “should know better” sounds awfully judgmental to me. In my opinion, people who voted for Obama made a bad choice but I don’t think I’d sit here and judge them for it, I don’t agree with it but the beauty of America is despite how idiotic we view others choices, they have the right to make them and to not have to be judged by people that don’t agree with them.
I also find it odd that it was brought up that she cares less about politics and more about her own interests. Umm, maybe I missed something in all those history and government classes but doesn’t everyone base their political ideals/choices on their own interests? Didn’t a ton of people vote for “change” that had all these nice pretty images attached because it sounded good to us? I personally don’t choose my politics based on the people who will make my life shittier…that just makes no sense.
The other lovely thing about American politics is that you don’t have to agree with everything a person says or does in order to be open minded enough to listen to what they have to say. I often think we as Americans are so firmly stuck in what we believe that we refuse to listen to the other side and therefore accomplish nothing because we are too busy bickering amongst ourselves. So do you have to agree or like Beck and O’Reilly, no, but does it make you a horrible person if you listen to them? No. I don’t care for either of them personally but I’m not going to judge people that listen to them speak. Part of making an informed decision is listening to all sides and then taking what you have heard and using it to make that decision. Again, this is where we and many other countries fail in politics. I listened to everyone and did my research and despite how great “change” sounded, both the inexperience of Obama as well as the historical and economic data that supported that all these wonderful things would be near impossible just made me not have enough faith in the vision he was selling. History shows that all those glittery promises weren’t going to pan out because we didn’t have enough time/money/power and a magic wand.
For example, lets pull the military out of Iraq. Sounds so awesome in theory but any person who has studied war knows that you cannot just remove the military from a country and magically things will be a perfect little society. The word “Vietnam” comes to mind but apparently the major political players in the last election who promised to get US troops out of Iraq missed that day history class. Apparently some politicians were banking on the fact that Americans have short memories and it worked for them but it didn’t do a whole lot for us. I applaud them on this strategy though because it got them to where they are even if they just basically pulled off the modern version of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ by convincing us they’ve done or could do something that hasn’t happened or won’t happen. Who knew banking on our collective lack of memory would work out so well in their favor? I can’t fault them for selling us things that people bought so readily. By any means necessary and all that I suppose.
They were betting that we’d forget that back in 2001 we were so wrapped up in justifiable anger that we applauded the military for shelling countries known to harbor and support terrorists and we were all about lashing out in retaliation for the terrorist attacks. They knew Americans forgot then that war is neither a simple nor quick process and they forgot in 2008 that they were angry enough in 2001 to want to start this war. Apparently those same political minds brought us the fake “we kept our promise” moment when the President went on TV to announce that he was pulling the troops out of Iraq. Then he added in a much more brief tangent that we were moving troops into Afghanistan and left out that troop removal from Iraq wasn’t happening over night and would in fact still be going on into 2011 and possibly later. He must have “forgot” that little detail. He was hoping we’d be so excited about the end of the Iraq military mission that we’d forget he just pulled a ‘bait and switch’ by moving our troops from one front to another. I’ll be damned if he didn’t pull it off too. He actually has people convinced that he kept his promise about pulling out of Iraq and ending the war overseas. I’m going to need him to check with all the men and women in serving in the Armed Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because I’m pretty sure they must have missed the “You can all go home now” memo.
Despite the numerous well researched and documented reasons I have to dislike several people in politics, most notably our Commander-in-Chief, I still am open minded enough to listen when he talks. Either way, faulting someone for believing what they want and judging them for their political views seems counter-productive to the whole “Change” thing we are going for as a country. Plus we are overlooking the obvious solution here as well: If you don’t agree with something or don’t like it you don’t have to read/watch/listen to it. It is kind of like me bitching about how much I hate Sidney Crosby as I watch a Pittsburgh Penguins game while sitting inches from a remote that allows me to change the channel. Not saying that you shouldn’t read Las’ blog because you two disagree on politics but if you are annoyed by something there are better ways to handle it. Mature discussion, friendly jokes about the points you take issue with or even a personal email, but not putting her on blast for it. Yeah, I so just quoted one of the kids I teach, because people don’t talk about putting people on blast anymore and I felt it needed to be brought back.
Just my opinion.
Holy shit Sarah, you write better drunk than sober 😛
Also – we need to get you drunk and trawl back through my livejournal entries, there are some people in there who’d really push your buttons, Katie would pale in comparison to some of the people in there!!
Just point me in the direction and pour me some schnapps and cranberry juice (which I had never had before this reunion/holiday and it is quite yummy)
what flavour? *goes to text for answer cause I have some schnapps here!*
For the sake of clarity, a few things.
I never referred to Las as “stupid/dumb.” I’m simply disappointed in her.
Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly are not politicians. They were not elected. They do not have the responsibility of proposing or writing legislation, nor are they beholden to constituents. They exist because they are popular, and they are popular because they reinforce classist, sexist, and racial stereotypes. They pander to the lowest common denominator.
I, in fact, used to be very much a conservative. My own cousin worked for Homeland Security under the Bush administration and I’ve read books by the likes of not only those disgusting men, but Ms. Coulter as well. Luckily I was able to go to college and grad school, work in government and realize how damaging the lies that these pundits perpetuate really are to honest policy discussion.
As woman and humanist, I am very proud of Obama’s record. However, as a radical feminist, I am critical of a number of his actions is office. No administration can be perfect, and I encourage thoughtful criticism, but that is not what the far right does.
I do not believe that it is better to “reach across the aisle” in all cases, that is often not the way to true social justice of progress (think suffrage, civil rights, AIDS crisis). I am passionate about equality and compassionate, reflective government, and there are some things for which I would never compromise. For many of us, policy effects us in very intimate ways. Had conservative policy had “it’s way” with United States law, I would not be here today.
As Ani DiFranco says, “Which side are you on?” I’m very disheartened by the side you have chosen.
I know you dislike peach but it was so yummy mixed with cranberry juice. They called it a “Whoohoo!”
hehe I’d rather whoohoo with something else! LOL