Merry Christmas!

That's our new microwave and cupboard.

Looks pretty good, doesn't it?

It would look a whole lot better if actually worked.

Yeah.

Mike and Dad got it all installed yesterday and we took the old microwave out to the garage. It was about then that I said we should test the new one to make sure it worked.

Famous last words.

We started it up and 15 or seconds in it started making a horrible noise. Mike says it sounds like an electrical short noise.

Good times.

We unplugged it and left it at that. We called the service people today and they'll be out to see us after the first of the year.

My Little Gift-Giver

Mike took Emily shopping with him yesterday. He always waits until the last possible moment before going to buy my presents and yesterday was no exception. I guess I should count myself lucky that he didn't wait until today.

When Emily came in, she was so excited. She said, "Mommy, Mommy, we got you a nightie!"

I had to laugh. She didn't know that she wasn't supposed to tell me. I just told her I didn't think she was supposed to tell me that and let it go.

Mike says she didn't give it all away, so there will still be some element of surprise tomorrow.

This all reminds me of when I was Emily's age. My mom would teasingly ask me what I got her for her birthday or Christmas. And I would tell her. I finally figured out that she didn't really want to know, but there were at least 2 birthdays and 2 Christmases where her presents weren't a surprise at all.

In other Christmas-related news, Mike realized at lunch today that he completely forgot to get any stocking stuffer things for me. I told him I'd rather he finish hanging the microwave than go out to buy me stuff at the Dollar Store. So that's what he's doing.

The cupboard went up last night and it looks great. It keeps catching me off-guard while I'm in the kitchen. I see it out of the corner of my eye and think there's a cabinet door open.

Off The Wagon

I fell off the gluten wagon twice in the past week.

Both times? Completely intentional.

The first time was when my parents took my sister and brother-in-law (conveniently also named Mike) and Mike and I out for a fancy dinner. We left the kids with a friend of the family and went out for a grown-up dinner. I decided, after perusing the online menu, that I didn't want to be high-maintenance and I didn't want to settle for the gluten-free alternative. I wanted to eat what I ate and have a good time. I knew that there would be consequences to my actions and I was willing to live with that.

Oh my gosh, it was so worth it.

I had really yummy french bread with butter. And bruschetta. It was divine. Melt in your mouth good. I had a Waldorf salad, which was conveniently gluten-free. I had braised beef short ribs with garlic mashed potatoes for dinner and they were superb.

As if that wasn't enough, I had chocolate caramel cake for dessert. Yum.

The next morning, I woke up to searing pain traveling from my chest down through my torso. I had other symptoms, too. They were plenty to remind me that I've grown used to not being in pain. I was in pain off an on all day Saturday and Sunday.

And then, Sunday night, I fell off the wagon again.

My mother-in-law makes cookies at Christmas time. When I say cookies, that doesn't nearly cover the breadth of the undertaking. She makes something like 8 or 10 different types of cookies. And, oh, they are so good. Well, except for the anise cookies. Those I can do without. I call them "anus cookies." Crude, yes. True? Absolutely.

Sunday night, we had dinner at her house and after dinner, she set out an assorted plate of her Christmas cookies. I deliberated whether I wanted to eat some Sunday night or wait until Christmas Eve. I knew either way I was going to have some, it was just a matter of when. In the end, I decided that I would have them Sunday night, so as to avoid feeling sick on Christmas Day.

I had two creme wafer cookies (teeny tiny tender sugar cookies with a smear of frosting between them) and two pecan pie bars (graham cracker crust, pecans, caramel {I think} and chocolate chips). They were good, but less worth it to me. I've been dealing with the symptoms of my indulgence today and I have to say I don't think I'll do it again. At least not for the cookies. They just didn't deliver all the yumminess I had expected they would.

I have a recipe for gluten-free peanut butter cookies that I want to try to make into peanut butter crinkles. Basically, I'm going to press Hershey's kisses into the center of the cookies after they've baked and see how they do. I also have a recipe for layer bars that is gluten-free (thanks, Karen!). Mike has been bemoaning his Christmas Cookie-less fate recently, so I guess I should get off my butt and go make him some.

Except...

He's working on putting up my new cupboard and microwave over the stove!! YAY! I am so incredibly excited about this. We bought a stove to replace our just-slightly-better-than-an-open-fire stove with our 2006 tax return. Part of the plan was to install a cupboard and over-the-range microwave/hood combination. We bought the microwave a couple months before Lucy was born and that was where the project stopped. Mike didn't have the time to do anything, I wasn't sure what I wanted in a cupboard, and we didn't have the money to buy anything.

A couple months ago, I sold the engagement ring I've had since I broke up with Butthead. After much discussion, I decided to use that money to buy a cabinet for over the stove. I picked one out, it was ordered and it arrived in early December. We took the microwave out of it's box and discovered two things. 1) the outlet that Mike installed when he put in the new stove was too low and 2) there was a piece missing from the microwave.

I ordered the missing piece from the manufacturer and pestered Mike until he agreed to "look" at what he could do about moving the outlet. That led to him actually moving the outlet. Double yay.

Emily is no longer playing quietly in her room. I need to go restore order. Have a good Christmas if I don't get back here!

Stupid Weather

We've been having a bunch of snow around here and it is starting to get me down.

The weather was so bad that my sister and brother-in-law had to cut their visit short so they could be sure to get out of town on time.

My parents drove them to the airport yesterday amid near white-out conditions.

And all that earliness was in vain. Their early morning flight was canceled. We're not 100% sure they got out today (we haven't heard from them), but we're figuring they must have gotten on another flight after the weather in Buffalo cleared up enough.

The biggest bummer (for me) was the fact that the change in plans meant I wasn't going to be able to make dinner for everyone here yesterday afternoon. I had been really looking forward to making dinner for my brother-in-law, especially. He's an excellent cook and he loves pork. I was going to make a really good and really easy pork recipe that I was pretty sure he'd like.

Obviously, I understood the need to change the plans, but it was a bummer nonetheless.

****
I had my cystoscopy bilateral retrograde pyelogram this morning. I was put under general anethesia and dye was sent up my ureters and they watched the dye come back down to see if there was anything blocking the flow of urine out of my kidneys.

I won't know anything about results until after the first of the year.

The good news is I am feeling great after the anesthesia and all that. I came home about noon and had some rice for lunch and then took a nap. I beached myself on the couch for the rest of the afternoon, watching the 3rd season of The West Wing. Mike and I picked the girls up from his mom's house this afternoon after nap and went to get gluten-free pizza and wings at a local pizzeria.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds

Well, maybe not so much with the snow part.

About 9 inches of snow fell around here yesterday. In about 8 hours. It was pretty intense.

I packed the kids up and headed up to my mom's house to hole up there, mostly because that's where my sister and brother-in-law are and I want to maximize the time we get to see them.

Mike and I didn't get back to the house until about 9 last night. The roads were still less than stellar and we could see as we approached that the driveway was going to be a problem. Mike tried to get some more speed up before making the turn but he didn't want to skid and slam into the supports of the snow fence. So, instead we slid and got stuck in the driveway.

Mike decided he was going to have to plow the driveway before he was going to be able to get the car unstuck, so we got out. Mike headed to the house and I went to the mailbox to get the mail first.

When I got to the mailbox, I discovered that it had been spun around and the opening was facing towards our house (the post swings around so that when the plows hit it, the mailbox isn't completely destroyed). The door was open and the mailbox was filled with snow.

And that's about when I started to get worried.

I pictured our mail lady putting the mail in our mailbox and leaving and later a snow plow coming by and hitting the mailbox and the mail flying gaily across our snow covered lawn and then quickly being covered over by the rapidly falling snow.

I managed to contain my worry about the state of our day's mail until the post office opened this morning. I called and asked if they would speak with our mail lady and determine if she recalled putting any mail in our box yesterday.

It turns out she was only able to complete about a quarter of her route yesterday due to the inclement weather. Our mail was still safe in the post office.

Whew.

Of course, I find this highly ironic, given the Post Office Creed, which is "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."

I am very relieved that our mail is safe, though.

I'm not a loser

I pride myself on being an organized person. I can typically tell you exactly where to find just about any belonging in my house.

On days when I have a lot going on, I stage everything I think I might need and have it handy and ready to go.

One might say that I am slightly anal-retentive about being organized and prepared for any contingency. (Seriously. The anal-retentive? It is bad. My diaper bag/purse weighs about 10 pounds for all the supplies I carry with me. Of course, up until this morning, my diaper bag didn't actually contain a diaper but that's a minor detail. If you want hand cleaner or nail clippers or tissues, I've got them in my diaper bag. Plus snacks. Stale pretzel Goldfish anyone?)

In the past week, we have lost a mitten AND one of Emily's princess slippers. The mitten was retrieved from the Target from which it disappeared. Unfortunately, the princess slipper seems to be lost forever.

I think I was more upset about the loss of the princess slipper than Emily was. I just don't lose things. And to lose the princess slipper and have really no idea where it might have gone was very upsetting.

All was not lost (pun not necessarily intended). I was able to buy another pair of princess slippers at Target, but I was very bummed that I had to do so. And Emily kept telling me that I didn't need to buy two, just one, because only one was losted. Except that slippers come in pairs and Target wasn't going to look kindly on me removing the extraneous slippers.

We Wish You A Simple(r) Christmas

When Mike and I got married, we faced the daunting task of incorporating three family's worth of Christmas traditions into one. (Three because of my two sets of parents and Mike's one)

Mike's family's Christmas plan was slightly chaotic. And by slightly chaotic I mean REALLY chaotic. They spend Christmas Eve with Mike's mom's side of the family. Christmas Day is held at his parent's house, where they have brunch and leisurely present opening. They head to the other side of the family's house in the afternoon and spend a noisy evening there.

We typically have Christmas with my NY parents at odd times, whenever my sister and her husband can get in town for less than a million dollars. This year, our Christmas will be Saturday. Last year, they came into town on Christmas afternoon and we had our Christmas a couple days later.

This year we are leaving the day after Christmas and going to Michigan to see my MI parents. We have been trying to squeeze them in around all the other craziness so as not to add to the insanity.

I have long been unhappy with the Christmas Day activities at Mike's family's house. It makes for an exhausting day. We have to get up at the crack of dawn to open our Christmas presents and we wind up spending the entire day looking at our watches as we dash from one place to another. Naps are late because brunch usually doesn't start until 1, which is when my kids typically go to sleep.

This year, we aren't doing as much of the running around that has defined our prior Christmases. I talked with Mike and pointed out that this year is the first year that Emily is going to really get Christmas. She's going to have all kinds of great toys to play with and it is incredibly unfair to have her open them and then pull her away to go run around to a bunch of other houses. Not to mention the early, which really gets my goat.

This year, we have invited Mike's parents, my parents and Mike's siblings to come to our house for brunch and present opening. If they come (and they might not - Mike's mom's mom is ill and their plans are tenuous at best. Mike's mom is waiting to see what happens with them before making plans of their own.) great. If not, we will see them on Christmas Eve and we'll get together at some point to exchange presents. And this way we don't have to leave the house until after nap (which can happen on time) to go see Mike's dad's side of the family. We'll head to Michigan after Christmas and decompress from all the Christmas excitement.

This may not sound like a big change, but it is huge. Mike is changing how he has celebrated Christmas his entire life. He's understandably sad to see the old way go, but he understands the need for a new tradition of our own.

I am so excited. The chaos of Christmases past made me sort of dread the day and that was no fun. I am really looking forward to hosting everyone here and watching Emily open her presents.

This post was brought to you by Parent Bloggers Network and the FFDA, which is a non-profit organization that offers support and assistance for people who feel overwhelmed any time of the year.

My daughter the geek

Emily, for reasons unknown to me, has started dressing for bed in layers. LOTS of layers.

In the picture above she is wearing underwear, an undershirt, a nightgown, a sweatshirt, pajama bottoms and two pairs of socks. Maybe 3 pairs of socks. (The hat that is visible in the picture above is Oscar, who is snuggled in Emily's sweatshirt so he stays nice and warm.)

She slept like that. All night long. Actually, she added a pair of princess slippers. And then slept happily under her covers, which currently include a sheet, a blanket, a comforter and two (crib size) quilts.

I am laughing this off as typical 3-year-old stuff. Emily exerting her independence. If this is how she wants to be independent, more power to her. I would melt into a large puddle of goo if I wore that much to bed, but she is happy and that's really all that counts.

Officially Official

This is not at all the post I had planned for today. But, some times you have to roll with what you get, yanno?

I went back to the GI doctor and was officially told that I have Celiac Disease.

Awesome.

The small intestine biopsy I had in October showed signs of damage to the villi of my intestine, which is pretty much the final frontier for diagnosis.

Add in the fact that the gluten-free diet I've been on for the last month has made me feel MUCH better and you've got Celiac.

The good news is that I don't have granulomas in my intestine. That would be cancer. That's bad, mkay. I was cautioned that my chances of getting cancer are 7 times greater with CD than without it.

I was talking some more about the gall bladder surgery I had in 2001 while I was at the doctor's office and he is pretty sure that CD was at the root of that as well. I probably didn't have to have that surgery at all.

That's more than a little frustrating.

****

Lucy is continuing to battle the stomach bug of doom that we had this past week. She's the one that started it all, waking us up Saturday morning in a pool of Friday night's dinner. Yum.

This morning, I was scheduled to help at Emily's preschool. As we were pulling out of the driveway, I heard strange coughing coming from behind me. I looked back and Lucy looked like something out of The Exorcist.

Lovely.

I had no choice but to continue with most of the morning's plan. I picked Elliott up and took the girls to preschool.

Once I got home I had the unbelievable fun of stripping Luce down and giving her a bath. The fun was just beginning. I dismantled her car seat and cleaned all the goo out of it. And then, while I was at it, I vacuumed up all the cookie and cereal crumbs out of the van. It had gotten pretty bad in there, so it was good to weed it out. I just wish puke hadn't been what prompted me to do it.

Oh No! Not SANTA!

I took the girls to see Santa today.

It wasn't quite the idyllic Christmas scene I'd hoped for.

I pretty much expected Emily to refuse to come near the bearded-one and that's exactly what happened. She stopped just inside the pillar that defines Santa's area in our mall and would go no farther.

I decided not to push it and told my mom to just let her hang back and watch.

I picked Lucy up out of her stroller and put her on Santa's lap.

And she cried and clung to me as though his suit was on fire.

I held her for a few minutes while Santa talked to her and tried again. No dice.

And that's when we packed it in.

I've decided that the traditional holiday pictures with semi-tortured children on a be-costumed stranger's lap are just not worth it. I would rather have smiling pictures of the girls in their Christmas outfits and no therapy bills.

Friends

Today I experienced blessings from two separate friends.

Courtney was sweet enough to bring me dinner tonight. She was also kind enough to share the stomach virus that another friend shared with her. Such a sweetie!

Anyways, Court knew that Mike is out of town and I'm not feeling all that great (see above, re: stomach virus) and so she offered to bring over dinner AND dessert. All gluten-free.

It was awesome. I was able to flake out on the couch all darn afternoon, not worrying about dinner. After she dropped dinner off, I slapped it on the table. I didn't bother with silly things like vegetables. Or reheating it.

It was very yummy and the Rice Crispy treats were the perfect way to end my day.

But my day wasn't over yet.

My friend Darice periodically hooks me up with hand-me-down clothes from her twin girls. Darice came over tonight with EIGHT boxes of clothes for me. EIGHT!

It took me something like 2 hours, just to look through the stuff and decide what I wanted and what I wanted to pass on.

As I was dragging the 80 billion boxes of clothes into my bedroom so I could reclaim my living room, I was thinking about the wonderful blessings brought to me by my friends.

Because of these wonderful ladies, I didn't have to cook dinner on a night where that would have been unpleasant AND my girls have a bunch of cute new clothes to wear!

Thanks guys!

Pondering the bathroom

Mike and I are about to embark on a project to make this house that is driving me out of my ever-loving mind just the slightest bit less crazy-making.

First, a little back story (and maybe, just a little bit of "I was right!" gloating).

Mike and I bought this house in February of 2005. We moved in, but my mother and father-in-law were still living here, too. So we moved our stuff into the "guest" room, which is now Emily's room. I was still working at that point and my job was ... slightly stressful, to put it mildly. I was an unpleasant person to be around. By any stretch of the imagination. Add to that the stress of living with a woman who has inhabited this house for 27 years and has her way of doing things and you can imagine all the fun that was had here.

Mike's parents moved out over Memorial Day weekend and started living in a motorhome on the property where they were building their new house. (Which, really, says a lot about the situation in the house here. They would prefer to live in a house on wheels than live with me. Yeah. Not a good time.)

Anyways, when Mike's parents moved out, we moved into the master bedroom and its attached master bathroom. That first morning, I took a shower and discovered a crack in the floor of the shower. I had Mike take a look at it and he agreed that it might be a problem. We asked Mike's Dad about it when we got to church and he assured us that the crack had been there a while, but the shower stall is double-walled and it wasn't a problem.

Fast forward six months to a new project. Mike and I ripped out the nasty, burnt orange carpet that was throughout most of the house and put in regular beige carpet. We put hardwood floor down in the dining room since it is literally the traffic center of our house. We also decided, somewhat belatedly, to put the same hardwood down in the entryway, which happens to share a wall with our master bathroom. (Do you see where this is going?)

Mike and his dad spent a lovely Saturday morning putting the hardwood floor down in the dining room. Sunday, Mike and my dad spent some quality time together installing the same hardwood in the entryway.

Except, there was a slight problem.

The floor, once the linoleum was ripped up was ... wet. And the joists in the basement under our shower? Were, you guessed it, wet. And the stuff under the joists in our basement, under our shower? Was wet.

Apparently that double-walled shower really WAS leaking. Who knew that one wall of a double-wall shower cracking could actually happen TWICE? (I'm sorry, my bitter and annoyed might be showing, just a bit.)

Mike and I immediately stopped using that shower and have, for the past 3 years, been showering in the other bathroom.

This is an OK solution, for the most part. It's frustrating because Lucy's crib is on the wall with the bathroom we're using now and I am certain that us going in there every morning wakes her up. And when we have people visit us, well, it gets cramped. Quickly. And that's not just because our guest room happens to be the couch from which I am writing this.

Our tax refund from last year was immediately ear-marked as the Bathroom Fund. And the Insulation Fund. The insulation is done. The stove, which Mike billed as part of the insulation project (but I really think was more like pork-barrel spending) is nearly done.

The next project on the list?

OUR BATHROOM!! Yay!

I spent this morning at different bathroom supply stores, trying to determine exactly what type of shower stall I would like and just how much a towel bar is going to cost.

I think I have narrowed my choice down to this one or this one. The difference in price is less than $10, so I have to figure out if I want 3 shelves and towel bar or 3 shelves and a footrest.

And since that is such a lovely mental image, I think I'll leave you with that.

Oh, except to say, Welcome, Liz! I am such a trendsetter. I now can count 5 friends who have started blogging after reading my blog.

House Rant

Let me start out by saying that we are very lucky to have this house. It is safe, sturdy, well-insulated, warm and has history to it that we couldn't duplicate in any other dwelling. (Mike moved into this house when he was 4. This is the family home, for all intents and purposes.) It came with a new-ish deck, siding and roof that I helped install with my very own hands (and smashed my knuckles countless times with those pain-in-the-ass hammer stapler things), and new windows that went in with the siding. A deal was even given to us so that we could actually afford to buy the damn thing.

BUT.

It is driving me out of my ever-lovin' mind.

The latest quirk is a nifty habit the garage door has recently developed. It won't go down. Unless you stand by the door into the house and hold the button down. Mike, while he was home, fixed it, or so we thought. It was a luxurious couple of days, what with the not having to get out of the car after backing it out to go babysit the garage door button until it was convinced that we really did want it to go down all the way, we weren't just messing around. As Mike was leaving for work this afternoon, I had the singular pleasure of holding the button down while watching his tires drive out of the driveway. And then fighting with the opener because it has apparently decided that going all the way down? Is for wussy garage door openers. Getting all the way down and then reversing when it's an inch from the floor? That's what all the cool garage door openers are doing and if I really loved it, I would let it do whatever it wanted, GOD!

My house, which was built in the late 70s, has a microscopic kitchen. It is minuscule. Minute. Tiny, even. I have 4 drawers. Two of which, being at right angles to each other, have to be completely closed so that the other will open. Two weeks after we bought the house (and now, reflecting on it, I think it was sooner than that), the refrigerator died. Immediately, I started dreaming about water and ice through the door and other nifty gadgets. Like an ice maker. Well, I got my ice maker, but that's about it. Any model that had water and ice through the door? Was significantly wider than the space we had would allow. There is no room to revamp the kitchen so that it might be less cramped. Not without extremely costly renovations (where costly equals moving the stairs to the basement out to the garage and taking over the stairs as kitchen = DUDE, build a new house already.) Currently I have one of the crisper drawers off its track, resting on the bottom of the fridge so that I can take it all the way out without dissasembling the whole damn fridge. I cannot open the door all the way. Opening the door to access that crisper drawer involves moving a stool. (Which, yes, the stool is somewhat unecessary in a cramped kitchen, but that is really the least of my troubles. That stool is also where Mike eats breakfast every day, so I'd encounter resistance, were I to remove it.)

This house also comes with a squatter, in the form of an upright grand piano. The piano belongs to my sister-in-law. She insists that it is a family heirloom and is therefore priceless to her. The piano formerly belonged to -- wait for it -- Mike's great-grandmother's cousin. Yep, that's one close family tie right there. The story behind the piano is that when this relative of a relative died, the piano was offered around to the family. Mike's parents bought it for $1 (something about inheritance taxes, the story is slightly murky) and got Kate (and I think the other kids) lessons. Kate and her husband are, to be nice, destitute. Her husband got his CDL to drive trucks last summer and was out of work. Then he got let go from his trucking job, for reasons I'm not entirely sure of (they say something about too many accidents. I dunno) and is now working (AGAIN) as an EMT. He can't find more truck work because a local trucking company went belly-up which caused a glut of truck drivers in the area. Plus the economy tanked. Anyway, they say that they want to take the piano. But they were also under the impression that they could take the piano when they bought a house. Honestly, I would bet mortgage money that they will NEVER buy a house. They don't have any damn money. And no bank in their right mind would lend to them. And the agreement we had (or at least the one we told them) was: we will keep the piano here until they get a different apartment. That was TWO apartments ago. Urgh.

Part of the reason I want to get rid of the piano so badly is our dining room is as small as our kitchen. There is a narrow walkway between the table and the wall and that's with the table pushed against the china cabinet, rendering 1/2 the table useless as well as preventing me from getting into the china cabinet. If the piano moved out of the living room, we could move the china cabinet in there. And voila! We'd have space, sweet glorious space.

Our house has an ancient oil-burning furnace. That's not a big deal because we use coal to heat our house. Last year, we moved the coal stove downstairs and that has done wonders for opening up space in our living room. And has decreased the heat-distribution issue we'd been having. It was either HOT or COLD in our house. There was no happy medium. Seriously. If I could get the fire set so that it was 80 in our living room, I was happy. I was doing good. Eighty Friggin Degrees! But, a coal fire is a temperamental beast. It requires tender loving care in the form of at least twice-daily shake-downs, ash pan emptying, and more coal. None of that is a clean process. The dust produced is unimaginable. Mike actually went so far as to enclose the coal bin in it's own little room and then SEALED every single crack and crevice. That has done a lot to cut down on the dust, but still. When the allergist asked about dust in the girl's environment (you know, as a possible cause of allergies), I just laughed. And then went on to explain how disgustingly dusty our house is. Pretty much all the time.

Oh, and the ancient oil-furnace? Is reason #1 why we can't have air conditioning. Because the reconfigurations required to get the air conditioner stuff into the furnace? Would either be so expensive you'd think the air conditioner was cast of solid gold or would likely render the air conditioner uselessly inefficient. Awesome. But there's no point in buying a new furnace because we never use the one we have. But we WOULD use air conditioning if we had it. Except we can't get it. Because our furnace sucks the big one.

You have absolutely no idea how much I covet a new house. Without all this catch-22 BS. And with nice shiny paint, and pretty molding on the floors (Katie, I'm totally looking at you). For some reason there is no baseboard molding. Anywhere. Except in the bathrooms, kitchen, and dining room; where there isn't carpeting. I have no idea why this is. But to put molding in all the other rooms? Would cost at least a billion dollars. Oh, and Mike doesn't believe me when I tell him that a normal non-family home buyer will EXPECT us to put in molding.

Other than the squatter piano, I have FINALLY after almost 4 damn years, gotten all of my in-laws belongings out of my house. We took a big batch of stuff over a couple of months ago. Last week, my mother-in-law came over to look for some obscure belonging she hasn't seen in a while and I had the great pleasure of telling her that it had to be at her house, because it wasn't at mine any more. There's nothing of hers here. Finally.

Dropping off money

Some days it feels as though all I do is drive around town and drop off money at various places.

Yesterday and today are prime examples.

Yesterday, I went to Aldi's, then to Target and then to Wegmans. I bought all the groceries (well, mostly. I didn't get soy milk) that we will need for the week as well as vitamins for Mike. (My town is not nearly cool enough to rate a Super Target.)

Today, Emily went back to preschool after her Thanksgiving break (for which I am extremely thankful!) and Lucy and I had a full plate of errands to run.

We went to Home Depot to buy a new door sweep for the door into the house from the garage. Then on to Target, where I cleared up a coupon issue from yesterday (the issue being that I was too distracted to remember my coupons) and then bought stocking stuffers, Mike's present, presents for Emily's long-suffering teachers and um, Cheetos. What can I say? Shopping is hard work!

After spending a bunch of money at Target (it's possible I might have gotten a wee bit carried away), we dashed over to the mall to get Mom's Christmas present. Then we went to Wegmans to clear up the same coupon issue I had at Target. Banner day for me, yesterday was.

By that point it was nearly time for me to pick Emily and Elliott up from preschool. But not before I got some gas. And was very excited to fill my tank for just over $30!

Yay!

Tonight, Mike is sharing with Emily his ardent love of all things Christmas special. Personally, I am not a big fan, but Emily is sitting between us literally enthralled. Which is very cool.

Tomorrow I am going to go back to the urologist. I have been having some back pain from whatever issue is going on there. I went in a couple of weeks ago after the back pain started and he scheduled me to have an exploratory test where, under anesthesia, they inject dye into my ureters and watch to see what it does. That test is conveniently scheduled for December 22.

This afternoon, however, the pain started up and didn't really abate. I took a couple Advil and waited. No change. So I called the doctor and he gave a few suggestions to try to keep me from going into the ER tonight and said he wanted to see me tomorrow morning first thing.

I haven't posted much about this stuff because I feel like such a Calamity Jane with all the digestive & kidney issues that are happening 'round these parts.