Now that that's over...

This has been a busy, crazy week. I'm so tired I'm just stupid (shut up, Melanie...) I'm used to sleeping as long as I want to, or need to, in the morning and this week hasn't afforded me such a luxury. Monday was good... I think I got to sleep late. Actually, I can't remember! lol

Tuesday morning mom had her heart catheterization. Steve and I got up at 4:45 (yikes - I have been known to stay up that late...) so we could drive them to the hospital. We had an ice storm overnight and we were afraid the roads would be pretty bad. Turns out they weren't as bad as they could have been and we got them there in plenty of time. She had to be at the hospital by 7, and we got there 6:45. Her cath was scheduled for 9:30, and she was good to go. Unfortunately, it got pushed back to 10:30, so there we sat for 4 hours before the procedure even began! I hate to wait, and I especially hate to wait in hospitals. Nerve-wracking! To top it all off, mom was getting nervous and antsy, I can't say as I blame her. They told us the cath itself would take about 30 minutes and if they had to do an angioplasty or stent it would be about 90 minutes. By 12:30 we were starting to get a little concerned, but she came back soon after that and the news we got was good, she had no problems that needed to be fixed. The cardiologist wasn't happy with her HDL, so he increased her Lipitor, but that was the extent of it. She got to go home that afternoon.

Wednesday I had an appointment with the oral surgeon to get the results of the biopsy from my mouth. At 10 a.m.! That was fine too - thank God. I'm really getting tired of being cut on this week, but at least everything was good.

Yesterday I think the dogs got me up early. To be honest I can't remember yesterday morning either! Brother...

This morning I had a dentist appointment at 10. Why do I insist on setting appointments so early in the morning? Unfortunately I kept hitting the snooze and when I woke up it was 9:32. No way was I going to make it to the dentist's office by 10. I called, hoping to reschedule, but when I called I found out the appointment was really 11. I'm not sure if I was happy that I could make the appointment after all, or mad because I could have slept longer without having to mess with the alarm! The appointment went well and I got my old filling drilled out and replaced with a new one without too much difficulty. The only problem was the stupid numb lip I had until 3:30!

Our stupid computers for work were acting up again tonight. I get so frustrated with it. First I couldn't log in and then it was so freaking' slow all night. Ugh. The only high point of the evening was dinner from Jason's Deli. Yummy.

I think, knock on wood, that my Christmas shopping is finally done! I hope it's done... I can't think of another thing for another person. I ended up getting quite a few gift cards because I really didn't know what some people needed. And I know some people have events - like new babies - coming up and would like to be able to get what they need. Hey, I aim to please!

We were hoping that my brother would get to come home and we could have a family-type Christmas for the first time in over 20 years. It doesn't look that that's going to pan out. He was going to try to come in this week with his roommate, who was coming to town for h is mom's surgery, but that didn't work out. Now he has to go to San Francisco next for a meeting and by the time he gets done he doesn't know if his roommate will be back or not to take care of the dogs so he can come. I talked to him on the phone for awhile tonight, but it looks like it'll be after the first of the year before he can get the time to come back. I'm really disappointed, I really had hoped we could all get together. The only good thing is maybe he'll get to come back when Tony is home from Cuba

So, instead of having a family early Christmas, we're going to have a birthday dinner for Mel next Wednesday. Poor Mel - her birthday is the 22nd and she's never gotten to have a special birthday dinner with the family because everyone has always been in a frenzy over Christmas. Now it's her turn. We're having Turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes, veggies, and all that good stuff - and a real live birthday cake for Mel. Not a Happy Birthday Jesus cake - a Happy Birthday Melanie cake! I'll have to do a good job on it for her! She's my baby sister don't cha know?

That's about it for right now! I plan on sleeping as late as I want tomorrow! Haha!!!

I'm officially sick of winter

Too darn cold already and the worst part of winter isn't even here yet! Tonight we're in a winter storm warning. Possibly 1/4" of ice or more and then top it all off tomorrow by up to 5" of snow. Oh joy. I don't mind the snow, but the ice scares the daylights out of me. You don't even have to do anything wrong on the ice to smash the heck out of your car - and yourself in the process. Mom is having her heart cath tomorrow morning at 7, so we have to be at the hospital for that and then I'm supposed to go back to the oral surgeon so he can take a look at my mouth where he removed that little lump last week, and get the biopsy results. I think I may call him and tell him it's healed fine and he can give me the results over the phone. I sure don't want to be driving - at least Steve can drive to the hospital in the morning. Besides, I still have my nasty sore throat, so I may not be going anywhere tomorrow.

I started working early today, just in case we lost power or something from this storm. Our house is in an older part of town and the power lines aren't buried here. There are also a lot of trees, which combined with the ice make for a greater than average chance the power will go out. Thank goodness we have the wood stove, at least the basement will stay warm. Not that that will help the pipes much if the power stays off for long...

The dogs aren't pleased with this weather either. Poor Jojo is so old and arthritic that he can't go up stairs and there are 3 stairs down to the backyard. He manages to get out okay, but refuses to come back up, so he barks for help and then I have to go out and pick him up. It's a lot easier to let them out from the basement - no stairs to go out, but you have to carry him up and down the basement stairs. At least it's warmer that way! Ben refuses to go out without a sweater on - smart dog. Buttercup, as usual, is loving the snow. She stays out longer than the rest of them put together. Then she comes in covered with snow balls all over her legs, so she makes a mess where ever she sits for about the next half hour. She absolutely hates the hair dryer and if you try and use it on her she bites at the air coming out and gets pretty downright nasty, so I just try to keep a towel under her while she melts. I would think that would be so uncomfortable, but she acts like she doesn't mind at all.

Well, back to work!

Thanks Meg

I woke up this morning with a raging sore throat! I can deal with having a temperature, runny nose, stuffy nose, what have you, but I hate having a sore throat. I even tried a shot of Zicam - ugh, that stuff is nasty! Anyway, so far I haven't noticed a difference in how I feel either! I probably waited too long. o sh

We had a busy day yesterday. We did some Christmas shopping and then went and picked up mom and Bob and went to Fremont for their Swedish smorgasbord at Midland College. We go up there every year, last year it was German and this year was Swedish. I think next year we're going to skip Midland and the German buffet and head up to Dana College for their Swedish buffet. Dana has Swedish every year and I much prefer Swedish food over German food. I was an Erikson before I was a Kurtz! lol

Last night we just hung around and watched Charlie Brown Christmas and then Steve watched Twins (not my favorite movie, but I played on the computer...) I never could get him to start a fire last night either. First his excuse was that we were going to be leaving to go shopping, then we were only home an hour before leaving for dinner, then it was too late. He promised he'd start one for me this morning, but instead he went out rabbit hunting with Tom. I see how I rate. Of course when he gets home he won't want to start one for whatever his reason is, and then the weekend will be over. He doesn't like to mess with the woodstove during the week, so weekends are the only time I can look forward to having a nice, warm basement, and that's all over for this weekend... I'm just as happy to snuggle under the covers with my Benny (my sweet little dachshund boy), so at this point I don't care.

Today I'm planning on doing absolutely nothing! Doesn't that sound like fun? I might work on my Find A Grave stuff, maybe. Maybe I'll watch a couple of my movies that just came from Blockbuster yesterday, or maybe not. I love unscheduled, unplanned days!

What the hell?

As I'm sure everyone is pretty much aware, we had a shooting at a local shopping center on Wednesday and 9 people died. I heard tonight that there were going to be people picketing at the site of the shooting tonight because this is a judgment from God against the people of Omaha. Oh yeah. In doing a little more reading I came across their website. Oh. My. Gosh. Really people? This is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard in all my life. Well, not really, the most disgusting thing I ever heard in my life was people picketing at the funerals of dead soldiers who were killed in the war. Well, surprise, surprise, these are the same people! Their website literally made me sick to my stomach. To think that people (and I use the term loosely) can behave like this in the name of God makes me want to vomit. Even the name of their website is disgusting. How can this group read the same Bible that everyone else reads and be so skewed in their interpretation?

This whole this started, I think, it was last summer when they were demonstrating here in Nebraska and a woman was arrested for letting her 10-year-old son stomp on the American flag. According to them, that brought the wrath of God down upon Nebraska and we're just beginning to see the bloodshed that God has in store for us.

Luckily for these wackos - they live in America where they're guaranteed the right to free speech. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they live in America, where they're guaranteed the right to fee speech. In just about any other country they'd be arrested and killed for some of the things they've written. I hope somewhere this group of misguided malcontents has caused a blip of the radar of law enforcement and somebody can do something about them. When I read that they planned to protest, picket, or whatever you call it, at the funerals and memorials for the survivors of Wednesday's tragedy, my blood started to boil. How they can not be arrested for making terroristic threats is beyond me. Actually, I thought it sounded like they're behind what happened last week in some way. What a coincidence that just a couple days before it happened they mentioned mall massacres specifically. What's frightening to me is that such a group of obviously mentally ill people with the same delusional thought processes have all managed to find each other and form some sort of alliance and call it a church - and rationalize their way of thinking by using God and Scripture. If there's anybody that's incurring the wrath of God, I have to think it's them. Apparently the 10 commandments don't apply. Neither does "Love one another". Ugh. How absolutely revolting. Not to mention their stance on homosexuals, don't even get me started on that!

I hadn't planned on attending any of the funerals because I didn't know any of the victims personally, I think I will attend the funeral of the woman my nephew-in-law's family knows. Just to show my respect for her and her family, especially now that this group is so vocal in their disrespect. I wonder how they'd feel if the shoe was on the other foot? What if one of their members had been in that mall on Wednesday? What then? It frightens me that people like this can actually be allowed to spew forth so much venom and hate against innocent people without repercussions.