11.      I am an old married lady – but I am happily married!  So lonely men who think I am a lonely housewife looking for attention QUIT IMing ME! My use of IM is for family and friends….not pervs.  Sheesh!

12.      I have only been married once –  Sucker!  HA!  Way to take one for the team StudHombre!!   You are brave!  Or very very foolish…..

13.      I am the oldest of 3 daughters – Poor Dad.  My two sisters still live very near my parents.  I am redikkerously close to my youngest sister.  I am 13 years older than her.  You should visit her.  La

14.      I have 27 first cousins on my dad’s side – That’s a lot huh!  I love em’ all!!  I didn’t get to see them often enough when I was close to them and now that I am so far away…..*sigh*   Thank goodness for e.mail and IM and Spaces!  Visit one of my cousins here: Computer Guy and here Sada

15.      I have 10 first cousins on my mom’s side – Not as many but love em’ just as much!  My daughter named for one of these cousins.  You know who you are!

16.      We all still keep in touch – Thank goodness or life here in H-town would be very very lonely.  I miss the real live contact but I love hearing from them via phone and e.mail.  DO ya hear that?  You don’t want me to be all depresstified?  Send me e.mail!  Call me! 

6.      I have 2 tattoos – These consist of a teal green colored fish and a carton of milk and wedge of cheese.  The fish was a drawing taken off a pyramid in Mexico.   A little shout out to my heritage.  It’s on my back between my shoulder and neck.  My other tattoo is of Milk and Cheese.  Two comic character I hold near and dear to my widdle black heart.  They are on the back of my head.  Which now that I am a grown up is covered in hair.  No more shaved head for me. 

7.      I have never been on a plane - this may change here soon.  If fate smiles on us and MIL can find a decent fare we will go visit my in-laws.  They live in Paradise.  Hawaii baby!   Okay now for the honest truth.  I have an irrational fear or flying over the water.  I better have some serious sedatives.......

8.      When I was a kid I had a Labrador named Bubbles – loved loved loved this dog.  She was a bird dog.  Dad had her all trained up to hunt.  And hunt she did.  For me she was a pet.  When we moved to Wyoming she was stolen from us.  And to whoever took her – If I ever find you – I’ll make you PAY!

9.      Bubbles had puppies and I got to keep one so I named it Yoda – Yoda was a great dog.  A bit of a pain but a great dog.  Also a trained bird dog.  Eventually we took Yoda to live on the Ranch with my grandparents in NE.  He lived very happily there for a number of years until he decided one day to pack his bags and move across the fields to Aunt Sophie’s place.  She was my granny’s sister.  Yoda lived with Sophie for a time, being spoiled, until he died of old age. 

10.      I really really really liked Star Wars as a kid – How I grew up and did not become a total geek I don’t know.  But l LIVED for Star Wars back in the day.  I had the Chewbacca socks.  I had a Darth Vader cake.  I had the toys and the t-shirt.  Oh yeah.  Naturally Yoda was my favorite.  Thus I named a dog after him.

1.      I was born in Nebraska – Big Shout out to all my fellow Nebraskans!  I have very fond memories of growing up there.  Much of my family still lives there.    

2.      I am left-handed. – What more could I say about that?  I don’t turn my hand all weird to write.  I turn the paper.  So There.

3.      I cut and bat right-handed – In grade school they didn’t have any left handed scissors so I had to learn how to cut right handed.  Now it’s the only way I know.  Batting – I don’t know how that came about.  Interestingly enough I can use chopsticks with BOTH hands!  GO me!!

4.      I sang in the school choir – High School Girls Chorus and Concert Choir.  I can carry a tune well enough but really I just scare the rats away.   I had one solo ever and never got to perform it due to school closure.  Just my luck.

5.      I don’t have a gall bladder – I lost this when I was 18.  I got up in the night and wasn’t feeling good.  I had a horrible stomach ache and was nauseous.  I crawled – crawled - down the stairs to my parents room and woke my mother.  (she was closest to the door) She told me to take an aspirin and go back to bed.  Mother’s can be cruel can’t they?   I was really miserable so my Dad got up to take me to the hospital.  On our way there Dad says “if you start feeling better anytime between here and the hospital let me know”.  Gotta love Dad.  WE get to the ER and I get poked and prodded.  An Ultrasound is done and TA DA!  I have marble sized gall stones.  Well in reality they were teeny stones, like sand, all bonded together to make marble size stones.  Anyway – that afternoon I have surgery to have them removed and they just took the whole gall bladder too.   My mother had the gall bladder surgery 5 years earlier before the laproscopic surgery was available.  She has a very large scar from the surgery.  I have 4 tiny scars that you can barely see and one is hidden in my belly button.  HA!  Take that mom!   I remember waking up in my hospital room around dinner time.  How do I know it’s dinner time?  Because my family is there eating burgers and fries and drinking Ice cold sodas while I slept!  What do I get??   Broth.  Families can be cruel can’t they?  LOL  I missed a choir trip due my hospitalization and missed lettering in choir by 1 stinkin’ point that year due to the absence.  I am sure I’d have been more disappointed but all my emotions were dulled thanks to prescription Demerol.  Pharmacists are never cruel.  Lovedl loved loved those pills.  All in all I was back at school in a weeks time none the worse for wear.  J

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toonfactory asked which films I have seen.  For those of you know know me - I LOVE lists so - Ask and you shall receive!

 

In no particular order (and I apologize if I mispelled anything):

 

Dil Chata Hai

Kaho Na Pyaar Hai

Kuch Na Kano

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam

Umrao Jaan

Devdas

Pyaar To Hona Hi Tha

Chori Chori

Parineeta

Paheli

Na Tum Jaano Na Hum

Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

Mission Kashmir

Lagaan

Astitva

Hum Aapke Hain Koun...!

Koobsurat

Satte Pe Satta

Kandukondain Kandukondain

Raja Hindustani

Jism

Swades

Veer Zaara

Taal

 

I might be missing one but I can't think of what it is....

 

In the queue:

 

Bollywood Hollywood

Dil Hai Tumhaara

Choker Bali

Dil Ka Rishta

 

Recommended to me - Rang De Basanti, Bluffmaster

 

that's it so far.  As always leave me more recommendations in my comments if there is something you think I need to see! 

The evening nurse cometh.......

 

 

Mark.  Mark was the epitome of all the Rock Springs male cliché’s you could thing of.  Mullet, porno mustache, members–only jacket, probably drove a Trans-am.  Terrifying is not strong enough of a word.  He spent insurmountable amounts of time in my room.  StudHombre thinks he had some kids of sicko crush on me.  LOL!  Hell is the 7^th floor of the hospital when Mark is on duty.  By the way if he is not on duty he visits on his night off.  I am sure he does this with all his patients.

 

This is exactly what he looked like. I am not kidding.

 

In the morning on day 5 of my wonderful stay they start getting serious about me being discharged.  All I needed was another cat scan of my lungs to make sure the clot was dissolving.  If the cat scan looked good I could go home. So we wait and wait.  We wait. And wait.   Finally at 8 o’clock that evening the CAT scan folks finally find time to fit me in.  Again I have to have the I.V. with the special sauce to put on the light show. 

 

As fate would have it my body would not cooperate.  Every time they attempt to stick a needle in me the vein blows wide open.  Add to that I have teeny veins and they need to find one big enough to accommodate the right size needle for the special sauce.   I was stuck by 3 different nurses multiple times. I can’t remember how many times they stuck me.  All I remember is that is was extremely painful and was crying like a little kid.  

 

Finally they gave up and said I had to stay another night until the doc came on rounds the next day and decided what the heck to do with me.  Sure enough the doctor came by and said he’d love to let me leave but there was a small problem.  My blood pressure was too high.  FOR THE LOVE OF PETE!!! 

 

He got out his BP cuff and took it again.  By the Grace of God it was normal and he said I could go home.  *sigh of relief*

 

All in all I had spent 6 days in the hospital.  By the time I left I felt worse than I did when I went in.  I had horrible bruises on my stomach from shots, bruises all up and down my arms from my wrist to my shoulders from IV’s.  I was extremely tired and missed my bed, my husband and my kids. 

 

For all the agony…I was still alive.  Lucky, lucky me.

 

So here is the saga of my nearly dropping dead. 

 

It all began on a Monday morning.  I got out of bed, dressed and went to sit on the couch and read until my toddler, The Girl, woke up.  I felt a little uncomfortable and kept taking deep breaths thinking I could shake off the feeling.  Around 9 am The Girl wakes up and as I am changing her and getting her ready for the day I feel short of breath.  In my head I am thinking “…hmmmm that’s odd…” But no worries right??

 

 I go into the kitchen to get my daughter her morning glass of milk.  As I am standing there pouring milk I am short of breath and I start feeling this EXTREMELY painful squeezing in my chest.  I start to panic thinking “Oh shit I am having a heart attack…”  I am torn between calling 911 or waiting to see if it will pass.  In addition to all this I am freaking out out because my 12 month old daughter is there looking at me and I have no idea what is going to happen to her if I keel over.  Slowly the pain lessens and while I am struggling for breath I make my way over to the couch and sit down.  As soon as I am sitting and relaxed I call my husband, StudHombre.  Now by this time it’s around 10.  He wants me to go to the ER but I am reluctant and said “hey I’ll just call a doctor” and see if it’s not something I can just take a pill for right?  WRONG.  I call and talk to a nurse and she says I need to get me to the ER immediately.  Well hell.

 

So Stud Hombre comes home and asks how I am doing.  I am sitting on the couch and so long as I stay there and don’t move I am fine.  If I get up I start to gasp for air.  Keep in mind that I am trying to take care of a toddler and not move at the same time.  Exactly.

 

It is about noon and we venture to the ER.  I say “hey I am short of breath and have chest pain”.  Do they take me in to the ER?  No.  They make me sit there and fill out paper work and take my temp and blood pressure all casual like I am there for a physical.  This is getting on Tony’s nerves because I needed to be seen by someone a.s.a.p. according to the nurse I talked to.  I am, again, sitting so I feel ok.   We get taken back to an  ER room thingy which is pretty much just a curtained off area.  Thus we can hear everything that is going on around us.  The guy in the next curtained off area was having complications from his gastric bypass surgery.  It was like listening to a radio drama. 

 

“Mr. Johnson I have good new and bad news”

 

“What is it doc??”

 

“The bad news is we nicked your colon in surgery and it is seeping into other areas of your body creating infection…”

 

“Dear god NO!”

 

“The good news is that we have a specialist coming in and you WILL play the violin again!”

 

“Bless you Doctor!”

 

You get the idea.  As for myself they first took me in to have a chest x-ray done and after I have the x-ray I am ordered not to get up or move.  So we sit there waiting forever for x-ray results trying to entertain a toddler in the ER.  Exactly.

 

They X-rays come back showing nothing so they want to do a cat scan of my lungs.  They get me ready to do this but I have to first have about 12 vials of blood taken for tests (not including the 2 they took when I first got there).  This is not an exaggerated number.  Then they put an IV line in me because they have to give me some kind of crazy chemical that will make all the blood vessels in my lungs “light up”.  StudHombre is asking questions like crazy and all they will really say is that they are looking to see if I have a blood clot in my lungs.  They were pretty casual about it so I am thinking “hey must not be a big deal”.

 

I go in for the CAT scan and the chemical they gave me, via IV, they said would make me feel like I am getting warm from the inside out.  What I felt was something like I peed my pants.  I am laying as still as I can surrounded by this doughnut of a machine and embarrassed as hell at the thought of losing control of my bladder while 3 people in another room look at a light show put on my lungs.  I was in hell.  Come to find out I did not in fact pee my pants but rather experienced another common effect of this chemical.  Why didn’t they mention that one before the test?!

 

Again more waiting for test results.  FINALLY the doctor comes back and cheerfully says “You have a blood clot in your lungs we are going to have to admit you!” 

 

Now realize I am a stay at home mom with no health insurance.  The thought of the bill for the ER alone was enough to send me into a coma.  So I tell her as plainly as I can without trying to let the panic show in my voice (to be honest I was near hysterical) “ I am a stay at home mom and I have no health insurance.  I will do whatever you want me to do, take whatever medicine you want me to take, I will do ANYTHING so long as I can just go home.”  Now up until the point they have been very casual and cheerful and relaxed as if I had nothing wrong with me.   StudHombre is getting even more annoyed because they aren’t really telling us anything. 

 

WE have by that time spent 6 HOURS in the ER.  Waiting and trying to entertain a toddler.  Exactly!  That’s what we said.

 

StudHombre chases after the doctor to get more info and they call up to prepare me a room.  StudHombre comes back after a few minutes with not much more info.  He and I are making a list of who to call and trying to make arrangements for someone to watch the kids.  The doctor comes and informs us that not only will I be staying in the hospital but I have my very own room in the ICU.  That’s right the Intensive Care Unit. 

 

To be continued.........

 

 

 

 

I made this for my kids this christmas.  It's very soft and easy to clean up.  I used gel food coloring and the colors came out great. 

 

 

 

4 c. Flour

1 C. salt

4 c. Water

4 tbs. oil

1/2 c. Cream of Tartar

 

Mix all ingredients in a saucepan - cook stirring constantly over low/med heat.  Heat until dough is formed and no longer sticky.  Turn out of saucepan and knead.  Divide dough and color with food coloring.  Place in plastic baggies.