It's Not a Tumor!

Last October, right before my birthday, I went in for my yearly eye exam.  I got the whole shebang: glaucoma test, dilation, visual field test.  That's the one where you put your head in this kind of space egg thingy and click a buzzer every time you see a little flash of light.  It uses magic and computer programming to map out your vision and show any blind spots. 

Imagine my chagrin when I failed the visual field. At first I just chalked it up to crappy genes and encroaching old age, but my kind doctor informed me that there shouldn't be significant changes in the visual field unless you have glaucoma or an eye injury.  Then she said, "It might be (insert scary medical term that means BRAIN TUMOR here).  You need to come back in three months for a re-check.  If it continues to get worse, you will need to see a neurologist.  But don't worry about it."

Yeah, right.  Happy birthday to me!

I had to have several awkward conversations that went something like, "Guess what!  I might have a brain tumor!"  To which my husband/sisters/friends looked at me blankly and waited for the punch line.  Good times.

Luckily, the crazy holiday season did a pretty good job of keeping my mind off of it.

So today was the day of the big re-exam.  It's not a tumor!  My test came back consistent with all the visual field tests I had taken before last October.  That test was an anomaly.  It could have been that my eyes were dilated, or that I was dehydrated, or hormonal.  Whatever.  All is well now.  Whew!

The Day I Became My Mother

My mom was a good mother.  She got all of the big things right.  High expectations?  Check.  Unconditional love?  Check.  Balanced meals? Checkity check. 

Her attention to detail?  Well...  you can't be good at everything.

I may have mentioned that I was the third child.  And Mom was tired.  One of those little details that fell through the cracks?   Socks.  I was always scrambling for socks. Specifically, matching knee socks to wear to Sunday school.  If I found a pair, one was reliably stretched out and sagging around my ankle.  As a result, I swore that my child would never have this problem.

Fast forward to this morning.

Z:  Mom?  The only socks in my drawer have gray on them. 

Me:  Humph?  Zzzzpth.  (I'm not a morning person.)

Z:  The gray is going to show with my Mary Janets!  (aka: Mary Janes.  How cute is that?)

Me:  What happened to all of your socks?  If you would just put them in the hamper... (devolves into incoherent grumbling).

Z:  I don't know.  All I have are the gray ones.

Me:  (hangs head and sighs)  Get some out of the dirty clothes hamper.    

*****

And if fully becoming my mother wasn't enough for one morning?  Five minutes later this conversation happens.

Z:  Mom?  All my panties are pinching me.  Can I just not wear any today?

Me:  (Brain explodes and I die.  The end.)


Post Script:  It was underwear day at the Mother Ship (Target) today.  Socks and underwear for everyone!  LOTS of socks and underwear.

Take It All Off!

So.  A looooong time ago I mentioned something about cutting my hair.  Blah, blah, significant birthday blah give hair to charity blahbity blah.  There may have even been a poll?

Without further ado, the winner, Short and Sassy:

So even after the decision was made, I put off and put off actually doing it.  Finally, I couldn't stand it any more and chopped off 15 inches.  Myself.  In my bathroom.  In pajamas. 

And I grainily documented the whole thing for your viewing pleasure!  (No, I'm not mad in these pictures.  Just trying to figure out how to take a picture of myself in the mirror.)

BEFORE

 

DURING (I cut between the two rubber bands.  I read an article in Glamor 20+ years ago that said doing this was an easy way to give yourself long, easy layers.

AFTER!

Now, I knew this step would be temporary, so I wasn't worried about messing anything up.  I actually took another six inches off the back after this picture was taken.  It turned out to be a pretty okay haircut.  My curls were definitely curlier, but in a good way.  The downside was that if I put it in a pony tail, I'd have a kink from the rubber band until the next time I washed it. 

Last week, after both kids were back in school, I finally made it into the salon to get my official new hair cut.  The stylist didn't believe me when I told her I wanted it short, so we ended up re-cutting the whole thing twice.  Much blow drying and flat ironing later, it looked really cute!  Ironically, it still wasn't short enough.  I want it OFF my neck.  My stylist said to come back after I had lived with it for a while and we would tweak it to get it just right.

Then I washed it.  I had to see what it would look like if I didn't take time to fix it.  Oh, the humanity!  It shrunk (shrank?  shrinked?) right up into a puffy round grandma hair do.  All I needed to fit in with the biddies in my water aerobics class was a blue rinse.  My look went from mid-30's to mid-50's.  Swell. 

Face blurred for your protection!

UPDATE:  The next day I broke out a whip and a chair and was able to tame it into something resembling a cute style.  I had to buy a better flat iron and MANY straightening products, but even so, I was unable to get it as straight as the stylist.   So now the question is do I go shorter?  Take out a little of the bulk?  Or do I just wait it our until it is a little longer and the weight holds it down?  I am open to suggestions!

Parenting Fail Times Two

And now for the eleventy-billionth installment on my parenting inadequacies:

Fail 1 - Somehow I have turned into the crazy, over-scheduling parent I swore I would never be.  I decided that two activities per week outside of school was plenty.  Then swimming lessons started.

That's not an activity, I think to myself.  It's water safety!  Sign 'em up!  (Why  I, a swim instructor, need swim lessons for my kids in an entirely different post.)  So I signed them both up for lessons.

Then soccer season happened.  The practices were scheduled for Tuesdays and Thursdays - the same days as swimming lessons.  Blah.  For the first time ever, I wasn't going to be able to cover the kids' schedules on my own.  Three out of four weeks per month this is no big deal.  T will grumble, but step up and do half of the ferrying.  My awesome sister-wives friends have stepped up to help me during the week he is working nights. 

During March, Z was sick for the first week of lessons, so I postponed her lessons until April.  Tuesday was Z's first day for swim lessons.  Soccer practice is from \
6:15 to 7:00.  Swim lessons start at 7:10 across town.  I figured we'd leave practice at 6:50 and make it easily.  No sweat, right?

Um, wrong.

The moms on our new team are big fun.  I was taking shirt orders and chitty-chatting and completely lost track of time.  By the time I checked my watch, it was 7:15.  Holy cow!  I jumped up, grabbed our stuff and ran(!) to the car.  I made poor Z change into her swimsuit in the car.  A difficult feat with a seat belt on!

By the time we got to the Y and fought the crazy parking, it was 7:33.  As we skidded into the pool area the little teen-aged head lifeguard looked a me and said, "Really?"  Z was unphased.  She jumped in for the last five minutes of class and was happy as a clam.  When class was over the teacher said, very kindly, "You do know when class starts, right?"

I hung my head and mumbled something about scrimmages and doing better next time.

Nothing like teenaged disdain to make you feel like a stellar parent!

Fail 2 - Chica got a sewing machine recently and we have been making coordinating dresses for the girls.  I just finished the second one and Z was super excited to wear it to school.  When she put it on, I noticed that the arm holes seemed a little big.  She's in kindergarten, I think to myself.  How big a deal could it be?

At 11:15 I get a call from the school.  "Mrs. C?  Z's dress doesn't meet the dress code.  You need to bring her a t-shirt to wear under it or a change of clothes." 

FAIL.

Boy + Dog = GROSS

While playing out on the swing set/fort in the backyard this afternoon, Q decided that he was much too busy to come in the house to use the bathroom.  Instead, he stripped down, hung his hiney out the door of the fort and dropped a bomb on the steps.

Then Holly ate it.

Trauma!

 This week, Bountiful Baskets opened a new location in Wester.  The pick-up is at 10:30 in the morning, so I didn't have to crawl out of bed and schlep to Less Wester at 8:15 on a Saturday morning.  I was so excited!

Z rolled out of bed begging to 'go somewhere', so I bundled up the kids and took them with me.  I had decided to be a volunteer, so we were going at 9:30.  (Volunteers get to split up the extras!)  The distribution happens at a park, so I figured it was win win.   Play time for the kids.  Extra veggies for me.  Sweet!

Unfortunately, all did not go smoothly.  It was a chilly windy morning, so the kids started whining about going home almost right away.  I fussed at them to get out from under my feet and GO PLAY.  I gave them the option of sitting at the end of the table where we were working or going back out to play.  They chose to play.  Whew, right?

Um, no.

I was elbow deep in tangelos when a I heard a blood curdling scream.  I look up and see Z coming toward me like something out of a zombie flick: hollering and covered in blood.  It took me a moment to process what I was seeing, but once I did, I ran to her as quickly as my little round self could go.  She had tried to do a flip on the monkey bars, slipped and split her chin and chomped her tongue.

The cut was wide open, and to my untrained eye looked like it might take a stitch to close it.  After I staunch the worst of the bleeding, I reach for my phone to call T.  No phone.  I had taken it in the house to charge, which I never do, and forgotten put it back in the car.  I sprint back to the tables and ask to borrow a cell phone.  I only hoped T would answer a call from an unknown number - he's a hard core screener. 

Luckily, he did pick up, but he didn't have any answers for me.  But he had lots of questions.  Finally, crying freely now, I told him that I was all flustered and that I just needed him to tell me what to do.  Totally uncharacteristic.  Finally we agreed that he would come to me, bring my phone and we'd figure it out together.

While we were waiting for him, the nice mom who let me borrow her phone got my basket together and offered some advice.  She told me there was a walk-in clinic not far from the park.  She said her five kids had required stitching up from time to time, and they were nice there.  So I borrowed yet another phone, from a friend this time, and headed out.

Z, meanwhile, has been caterwauling the whole time.  The idea of stitches made her cry even harder.  Q joined in when I told him he would likely go home with Daddy (he wanted to see the stitching up process).  Finally I had to tell him he wasn't allowed to cry since he wasn't hurt and I couldn't have all three of us crying!

They were, indeed, quite nice at the clinic.  When they saw that Z was actively bleeding, they took her right back.  A nurse cleaned her up and we waited for the doctor.  The wait was maybe 45 minutes, which as it turns out was a good thing.  By the time he got there, Z was fully calmed down and in a post-adrenaline-rush crash.  It was determined that the scarring would be the same whether we stitched or didn't stitch, so we went with the much less traumatic butterfly bandage.  Z was disappointed that it didn't have actual butterflies on it.

After the clinic, we went out for medicinal ice cream.  Other than some slushy speech from where she chomped her tongue, she doesn't seem to be any worse for the wear.  I, on the other hand, am sporting
a few new gray hairs.  Good thing blond hides gray!

It's Like Spring Cleaning, Only Grosser

Here's a nasty little equation for your perusal:

(1 winter) x (1+ acres) x (4 dogs) = a LOT of sh!t

Ugh.  I spent my afternoon on the world's most disgusting Easter egg hunt.  I collected an entire wheel barrow-full of dog turds(!).  Literally.  Big turds.  Little turds.  SO. MANY. TURDS.

The weather has turned nice and the kids want to play in the yard, so it had to be done.  Besides, if we didn't get it taken care of before next weekend when T's parents arrive, they wouldn't be able to rest until every pile was disposed of.

So I spent two hours on a glorious west Texas winter morning on a deuce hunt.  I had a couple of turd-spotting helpers - not that they were much help.  Mostly I had to keep telling them not to step in the poop. 

Before the in-laws owned the property on the other side of the horse pasture, we just kind of flung the poop over the fence.  (No horses are ever kept in that pasture.)  But since the owner of the pasture was nice enough to let us put gates on either side so we can cross it, it just didn't seem like the neighborly thing to do anymore.

So now we have a super fancy fecal matter disposal unit in the far rear corner of our lot.  Which is to say, the working parts of an outhouse (aka: a sh!t pit).  We dropped in the droppings and covered them up with piles of  ashes from the fire place.  Hopefully, the ashes will keep the stink down and help everything break down and go away.

I love living in the country.  Classy?  I haz it.

Widow Season

It's that time of year again, the time when T takes it upon himself to protect the world from the ravages of small-ish not-very-smart birds.  That's right.  It is dove season.  I mean, seriously?  A bird that is dumb enough to get run over by a car deserves to be food, right?  The question (for me, anyway) is why would you want to eat them?

At best a whole dove makes four bites - and those bites can vary from charred to raw on one tiny bird.  Not to mention the danger of ruining your very expensive dental work chomping down on a bit of bird shot. And the fact that they taste like liver.  Why do we eat these things again?

Z won T's heart forever by declaring dove meat (carefully selected by her father) to be delicious.  Between the two of them, they picked 15 tiny carcasses clean.  Me?  I am on a diet.  A diet that doesn't include liver-y teeth-endangering game birds.

As if dove weren't enough (in)edible game, duck season opens this weekend.  But only the tiny ducks (teal).  One size up from dove and just as organ-y.  Yay!  So T will head out after work to hunt dove, then get up obscenely early to go stand in the water to shoot ducks. I don't know whether to hope his hunt is successful or not!

Oh, did I mention that they have spotted a 12-foot alligator in his duck pond?  If he's not careful, I'll be more than a hunting widow!  Awesome.

Tragedy

When I got up (unnaturally early - 6:30) this morning, my computer was frozen. No big, I say to myself. I'll just reboot. Except the magic key stroke - control-alt-delete - did not do its thing. Disbelievingly, I hit it several more times to no effect. Finally I resorted to unplugging the whole shooting match.

When I plugged it back in and hit the power, I got a doom-y black screen and this message: no boot device available. Panic stricken, I reach for the phone to call my computer guru, Daddy. Then I realize that it isn't quite 7:00 and even if my dad did grow up on a farm that was too early to be calling.

So I cooled my jets until 8:02 and hit speed dial. He had nothing reassuring to say. But following his advice, I Googled my error message to see if the great internets could help me. They had a few low tech suggestions and a lot of high tech ones that I was afraid to try. Unfortunately, there was no easy fix.

The sad new is that my less-than-a-year-old hard drive is dead. There is still the possibility of the Vista repair utility, but I am not hopeful. Now I am faced with the dilemma of whether to try to salvage the drive and its contents with a disk fixer or to just give up and buy a new drive. Of course I haven't been backing up my system. I think the last time I did it was in January. Arg!

Luckily, I have been so frazzled that I haven't had time to download pictures from our cameras, so the loss there would be minimal. Even so, I am loath to just chuck all of my graphics work. This was not what I needed in the middle of moving!

Well. That was Exciting.

T and I were headed out for a last minute Sam's run the other night. The house in Wester is quite conveniently located. We just zip a mile or so up the road and we hit a major intersection that leads to all the good shopping. So zipping we were when we got to the light and needed to turn left. We had the arrow, but it was getting a little stale. I was so concerned about going through the yellow-light-turning-red (which is totally legal in Texas as long as the light was yellow when you entered the intersection), that I didn't notice the thing I really had to be worried about: the SUV that completely blew through the intersection on red and nearly creamed us on the driver's side.

If T weren't such an excellent driver, the evening could have ended in tragedy. Usually we are loaded for bear in T's giant F350, but that evening we were tooling about in the new(ish) Jeep. No air bags. No superior size. Eeek. T slammed on the breaks and managed to avoid disaster by a micron. We sat in the intersection for a second taking stock and checking for injuries. Once he had determined that we were going to live, T turned on the SUV in hot pursuit.

Now T doesn't always have the tightest leash on his temper, so for a minute there I thought we were about to become a road rage statistic. Especially when he started reaching for his hip! (The hubs is always armed to the teeth.) Just as I'm thinking, "Oh, crap. He's finally lost it and is going to shoot somebody," he pulls out his... badge. He pulled along side the SUV pressing his badge against the window and, in the most emphatic way possible, gesturing for the driver to pull over. For a minute there, I thought she was going to run (oh, that would have been ugly), but she eventually pulled over.

T jumped out of the Jeep at light speed, slamming the door so hard it bounced and didn't catch and he had to slam it again. At this point, things were interesting for me because I had never seen him in his 'cop' persona. T can be a scary guy. This was one of those times. He was very loud. Not yelling, but very loud. He stomped up to her SUV and snatched the license and insurance she was already holding out the window. I almost felt sorry for the 16-year-old-been-driving-for-two-months-and-talking-on-her-cell-phone driver. Almost.

T - DO YOU KNOW HOW CLOSE YOU JUST CAME TO KILLING ME?
16YO - I do now. (Her passenger informed her that she had run the light. She hadn't even noticed)
T - HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD YOUR LICENSE?
16YO - Two months.
T - HANG UP YOUR CELL PHONE. IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO TALK ON YOUR PHONE UNTIL YOU HAVE HAD YOUR LICENSE SIX MONTHS.
16YO - really? (Completely ignorant of the law)
T - YES. REALLY. GET. OFF. YOUR. PHONE. PAY ATTENTION TO WHERE YOU ARE GOING.
16YO - Yes, sir.

T reported that by the end of their interaction she was shaking almost as badly as he was (you know, just having had his life flash before his eyes and all).

Go T! My man is hawt! Look out bad drivers of Wester!