Finger update

I woke up in the middle of the night with my finger POUNDING! I think I fell asleep on my arm, which in turn pulsed all the blood thru to my very injured ring finger. When I woke up I was worried I was getting a massive infection due to previously mentioned damned wood splinters. Thinking I was dying I was not able to fall back alseep and kept tossing and turning to make sure the hubby knew I was not sleeping well. (If I can't sleep why should he?)

When I got to work I shared my horrid story with Cathy and Sara (they had not heard it yesterday). I told Cathy I was worried it was getting infected and how in the hell am I supposed to get an anitbacterial down into the bed of my fingernail? Cathy's a mom - of only a 9 year-old - but that's enough experience for me. She immediately advised I soak it in hot water to "draw out" any infection that might be in there. She's a mom so I did what she said - plus I didn't have any better ideas. So help me god if it gets worse and my finger falls off or something...

Son of a ...

Ok, I've seen a few of those spy movies where the bad guys use torture methods to get information out of the good guys. You know, like jam something up under thier fingernails - or worse - pull them out altogether. Now, inherently I know that would hurt but I didn't know exactly how much it would hurt until just now.

I went to get our in-coming mail out of the wooden cubbies downstairs. As I slide my hand under the mail I felt several slivers of wood go up under my middle and ring fingernails. I pulled my fingers out of there so fast you would have thought there was a snake hiding in there! I squeezed my fingers until they were blue - both to ward off bleeding and excrutiating pain. I kinda worked... You know when something hurts so bad that your stomach does a little flip? Yeah, that happened to me. I had to stand there a minute and compose myself before I even dared to climb the stairs back to our office.

When I got upstairs and told Connie what happened you could see a red line in the bed of my ring finger - it went HALF WAY down the pink part. That's how far that freakin' piece of wood went. Thank god nothing got stuck in there. What's worse - Connie informed me I'm not the first that's happened to here in our office. Dom did it a while back too - except he did get a lovely little splinter. Connie called the building oweners to tell them they needed to fix it when it happened to Dom. Apparently they hadn't fixed it yet. She was very eager (too eager, if you ask me :) to call them up and tell them that someone else did it again - please fix it now.

Yes, please - FIX IT NOW!

My first Thanksgiving

I made it through cooking my first Thanksgiving. I burnt the bottom of the stuffing a little bit and totally forgot about the rolls. I put dad in charge of gravy duty and he kinda screwed it up - but it worked out ok. (apparently he didn't understand the difference between simmering and boiling... what was supposed to be about a cup of liquid ended up being about two tablespoons of severely concentrated "stuff" - don't know what else to call it...)

But next year - don't ask me to make a pie.

I had decided to make two pies. One was a caramel apple pie (and yes, I used pre-made pie dough) and the other was a pumpkin chiffon pie - now affectionately called the "third time's a charm pie".

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie:
First you make a crust out of gingersnaps and butter, bake. Check

Then you mix milk, gelatin and pumpkin and a million spices on the stove.
* First attempt - accidentally misread recipe and added whole can of pumpkin - not just the one cup required. Threw it out, started over.
* Second attempt - check.

Next step is to put pumpkin mixture in fridge to start to set while you whip whipping cream to fold in.
* First attempt - whipping cream not whipping. I'm cursing at the $350 kitchen aid stand mixer as though it's all its fault. (because it's not me!!!)
* Second attempt - not really an attempt - more like a change in action plan. I sent David to the store to get cool whip. I'm not above cheating. Not until David got back did I remember that cool whip comes frozen and my pumpkin mixture was ready to fold in whipped cream now. Since there's no good way to defrost cool whip I decided I would set it in the fridge and fold the two together first thing in the morning. (thank god I started the day before....)

Next morning - pull out pumpkin mixture and try to give it a stir before adding cool whip. It's like I coated the inside of my glass bowl with vulcanized rubber. I swear I could have made a tire out of it. I TOTALLY forgot that there is gelatin in it and since I had left it all night the gelatin in the pumpkin totally set.

Ok - last try. I had to go to the store to replenish all my supplies. I had used all my gelatin and I decided to get extra pumpkin in case this became a "fourth time's a charm" pie.

FINALLY -
gingersnap crust - check
pumpkin mixture on stove top, done correctly - check, check
cool whip folded into pumpkin mixture - check, check, check
mixture into pie and in the fridge to complete setting up - check, check, check, check.

If it hadn't worked that last time we just weren't going to have a pumkin pie.

Pre-Thanksgiving Scramble

If I was able to post pictures I'd have a great one for you. Imagine this - our family room bare of furniture except sofa and TV (all other coffee tables, lamps, everything - out of the room.) My dad sitting on the sofa, watching TV - with plastic bags tied to cover his feet.

Yeah - strange, isn't it?? Well, here's the story behind that scene:

Since we're having T-day at our house this yer we decided to get the carpets cleaned prior to everyone showing up. (they needed it BAD!) So, Monday dad and David move all the furniture on carpets to places off carpets. Essentially everything was stuffed in the kitchen and the hallway. The poor dogs were gated into the hallway too. I called David at about noon and asked how it went.
D: they're done
J: great! how does it look?
D: great as usual and just reinforces how disgusting our carpets are
J: so, whatcha' doin'?
D: I'm sitting in the entryway with my laptop and the dogs
J: WHY?
D: They cleaned my office carpet and it's wet so I brought my laptop doqwn here and I can't fit in the kitchen

The poor guy had to finish working the rest of the day in the hallway. He's a good sport.

So - back to dad and his bagged feet. Since the carpet was wet the cleaning guy said to only walk on it with sneakers - nothing with a porous sole - until it was dry (which wasn't until this morning.) So dad decided it would just be easier to walk around in his sock feet with grocery bags tied over them. This is what I call the "West Virginia Way" which includes the more popularly known "Wal-Mart Bag as West Virginia Luggage". We're classy.

Lesson - don't further stress yourself out during the holidays by having Stanley Steamer clean your carpets so close to the actual holiday!

daydreaming of home improvement projects

I love the internet. (tune in at a later date for the "I hate the internet" post...) But for right now I love it. Due to a million reasons I've steered clear of chat rooms and message boards. Too much info in a sea of weirdos. (and yet, I have this blog...)

but today I found my newest love - the message board on DIY.com First of all it's nice to scroll through and see people having home improvement issues too. (see - it's just not me!!) Also I found some great tips for future home projects.

Specifically I was looking for feedback on floors. Not to bore you with too much detail but I want to tear out carpet in the highly non-functional living/dining room area and put in hardwood floors and built-in cabinets/ bookshelves. I've already suckered dad into helping this summer... the question is how much $$ do we need? I was investigating hardwood vs laminate floors. Love hardwood, but 100+lbs dogs probably will force me to go laminate... But on DIY I can get professional feedback and regular-people-I've-already-been-there-done-that feedback too!! So far there's one vote for laminate or hardwood with LOTS of throw rugs. We'll see if anyone else chimes in.

I've been having issues coming to grips with the fact that I'll probably be living in my current house for quite some time. My arguement to home improvement has been "I don't want to invest that kind of money into this house." I keep thinking that, give me a few more years, (like 2) and we'll move out of this house and into one that I really want. Not saying we're moving out of town - just into a better house.

Dont' get me wrong. Our house isn't bad. I just don't love it. Some of you may remember the insane issues I had when trying to buy a flippin' house here in the first place. We have this house because a) it was one of a very few (like 5) that was for sale in our price range and b) it, unlike the other 4 before it, passed inspection. (I'm not kidding) So it wasn't like I had a lot of choices. That combined with the fact that I was off to get married and had already sold my other house forced me to buy it. Renting, you ask? PAH-LEASE. I'm suburban zoo, remember? Try renting a place with 4 cats and 2 big dogs - I couldn't even get away with lying. I rest my case.

So, I finally resigned myself to the fact that I will be here for a while - might as well make the best of it. Tune in later this summer to see if this project actually makes it to fruition. For some reason I'm drawn to the big, expensive projects yet I have no pictures actually hanging on any walls. Apparently that kind of task is too far beneath me. If, however, this project makes it I'll be sure to take "before" and "after" pictures. I forgot to take the "before" pictures when I renovated the bathroom this past summer. Stupid move... It's not nearly as dramatic of a change if you didn't see it before - with the light blue paint, hideous flower border, pink curtains and brown fake tile vinyl flooring from the 80's. (again, not kidding....)

Another boring day

Sorry - I got nutin'. I can't get pictures to upload and I have nothing interesting to tell. Well, unless you consider the fact that I can barely raise my arms above parallel with my nose interesting. I started lifting again this morning. Decided to start with upper body. My arms were SO tired when I got home I just dried the hair (had to flip hair over and dry upside-down. Arms could not hold dryer above head..) and threw it in a ponytail. How does this make it any differnt than any other day? Any other day I'm just lazy so I flip the hair over to dry and then put it in a ponytail. Today arms would not have participated had I decided to actually "do" the hair. That's the difference....

Cats unite for common cause

Well, I'm back at work today feeling MUCH better, thank you. Sitting around in your own funk for two days is not pleasant - as I'm sure you all have had to endure at some point.

This week David and I broke down and hired a house cleaner. Before you're tempted - don't. Don't judge. I've already gotten a "judgement" from one person already. I don't need you too.

We're busy. very busy. Although last week and the upcoming 2 months are relatively slow, the rest of our life is run at about 90+ mph. I'm pretty sure that you need to slow down to at least 60 mph to manage to clean your own home. We can most of the time (although not always) manage to "straighten". The time consumed to straighten (which must preceed cleaning) takes all the time we have. We have not had time to "clean". Obviously "clean" is very important. So we sourced it the "cleaning" bit.

I was worried about how this would work out. In the past when we've had someone come in to clean it was one person... and it took her a few hours to make it through the house. Before David didn't work from home. I didn't want it to interfere with his work. However, David told me that Martha and SIX other ladies came in and cleaned the whole damn house in about 45 minutes! WOW!

The cats, however, were not thinking "wow". According to David they were thinking something more along the lines of "what the f--k!" All four cats- yes, all four - cowared together in the same spot in the basement during the mass cleaning. David had gone down the basement for something and found them all huddled together, looking up at him with their "what the f--k?" faces on. Never have all four cats joined together for a common cause. At best three of them get together and gang up on Cabby.

The cats are just going to have to be traumatized. I don't care. I have a clean house. Not a straightened house, but a CLEAN house! YEAH Martha and her ladies!!!

yuck...

I'm home sick today. No, I'm not faking.... I think I have the flu - or something like it. You know what I hate the most about being sick? That point in time when your fever breaks and you're swamped in sweat. YUCK! especially when it happens in the middle of the night. Needless to say we're washing lots of sheets right now...

If this is what menopause night sweats feel like then count me out!! (hormones here I come!! ...eventually...)

Work

I dont' usually write about work. As you know, these blogs are public, and I want to keep my job... you get the point. However, there is a funny little incident that happened this morning - but bare with me as you need a bit of background...

In my office (Syracuse) there are a total of 6 people however one of the guys lives about 2 hours away and travels A LOT so he's rarely ever here. So that leaves 5 of us. Our "home" office is in Plattsburgh, NY. Don't know where that is? Think Lake Champlain - NY side, not quite as north as Burlington, VT. OK? with me so far?

It's in Plattsburgh that we have our warehouse, customer service,... well, everything except marketing. Don't ask me why. It was like this when I got here and apparently it's been that way for eons and eons.

As it happens our IT dept (consisting of Mike and Monique) is in Plattsburgh. I had the pleasure today of speaking with Monique. I don't usually talk with her as most of my issues deal with Mike. Regardless of who you're talking to - it's generally never a pleasant experience. I'm getting off on a tangent here...

Monique - how do I describe her? hum.... She has a nasal accent (although I have no idea where she's from. Must be really upstate NY.) that is very whiny. But along with the accent she has this personality that I can't quite describe. She seems to always be moving at a snails pace - or at least she talks very slow. The building could be on fire and I envision everyone rushing out and Monique would be shuffling along - everyone shoving past her to get out.

Have you ever spoken to someone and pictured them as an animal or some inantimate object? Well, today, while talking with Monique I pictured an old, tattered ally cat. One that talks really slow and whiny. Can you picture it?? She's not a bad person - that's just the image I get when I talk to her on the phone... don't ask me why. I have no idea. That said, plese do not tell me what you picutre me as when we talk on the phone. I'm afraid to ask... it's probably not pleasant.

Those of you that know me will immediately understand why I was so annoyed with having to work with her. I am just the opposite of slow. I work fast. I mean, super-duper-lightening speed fast. I don't "do" slow. If forced to "do" slow I get VERY irritated. I try not to - but I just do. So you can imagine my consternation of trying to pull information out of her over the phone. I think I may have only 2 strands of hair left...

damn ally cat!

YEAH SNOW!!!!

We got our first real snowfall last night! Yippee! Well, I say "we" but the actual city of Syracuse didn't - just my burb and a few other burbs out by me. I took some pictures on my way to work this morning but stupid blogger won't post them properly... So sorry. You don't get any snowy pictures. (Although I'm pretty sure I don't have any friends that haven't seen snow before... )

I have GOT to find out what is going on with my pics...

Well let me bask in the fun of the first snow. It's quite novel for the first month or so. It snows a few inches at a time, so light and fluffy that you still decide to use the shovel to clear the driveway. You make a game out of shoveling. You actually enjoy the tingling in your fingers, ears and nose.

Then later, say December - January, it starts really snowing. Snowing to where you thank god you bought that snow blower a few years ago. Clearing the driveway becomes a chore. It usually snows in the middle of the night so you're out there clearing the driveway really early in the morning or in the middle of the (or so it seems). The trip into work (or anywhere for that matter) has become quite tricky. You try and plan your outings into as few trips as possible. You can't wait until spring comes. You'll be glad when you don't have snow-blow anymore.

Then comes February - March.... You are now offically sick and tired of snow. You curse everytime is snows. The thought of having to wrap up in a million layers just to clear the driveway is just too much to handle. There's a thick layer of ice under the snow that you cannot snow-blow or shovel away - no matter how hard you try (and you stopped trying a long time ago). Everytime you go out you slip around on it - knowing one day you're surely going to fall and bust your ass. Probably right in front the neighborhood kids (who just laugh behind your back) You say "screw it" and decide to just drive over the snow. It's not worth the effort anymore.

Whenever you go out you definitely take a huge risk with your life. I'm surprised there are any insurance companies in central/ upstate NY that even agree to insure people in the winter. All the yahoos are on the raod driving like it's 70 degrees outside (with their rear-wheel drive, no less) - even though it's snowing so hard you can't see 10 feet in front of your car. If you go out to run an errand you better make sure your will is up-to-date! It's at this point you'll read my blog entry titled "Fucking Snow".

But right now I'm enjoying the snow. So don't ruin it for me.

Halloween

Yet another Halloween... I'm going to start setting rules for the trick or treaters if they want good candy from me. I go all out - I only buy the "good" stuff - all name brand, mostly chocolate.. We had snickers, hershey mini's, york peppermint patties, reeces cups, chewy sweet tarts, starburst, airheads and smarties. If you ask me that's a good spread. I also give out, on average, 4-5 things per kids and at least 1 (usually 2) of those are chocolate. But next year I'm not so sure I'm going all out again.

The first girl that came to the door with her littel sister was about 10 or 11. I opened the door and she said the obligatory "treat or treat". But how she said it was a different matter... god, she was about as thrilled as if she were getting a tooth filling! I said "geez - you sound enthusiastic". Her reply (remember, from a 10 year old) "oh. It's dark, you know, and I'm tired." IT WAS 6:30PM!!!! I shoudln't have given her anything. but I did anyway....

Later we had a brother and sister show up. The brother was about 8 or so and he apparently was a pit crew memeber for Dale Jr. Jokingly I said "If you'r a junior fan I can't give you candy!" He just looked at me - completely uncomprehending. So I tried again. "You're a number 8 fan??" He looked at me and said "I don't know what that means." I almost died laughing! His sister (probably about 10) pointed to his hat and said "Dale Jr. is number 8" All I got from the little boy was an "oh" (unenthusiastically). I gave him candy anyway. He seemed to have plenty of other problems. (*like a lack of personality...)

But the cutest was the little 1.5 year old dog.

Seasame Street Personality Quiz

Which Seasame Street Character are you??






I'm Cookie Monster!!!



Misunderstood as a primal monster, you're a true hedonist with a huge sweet tooth.

You are usually feeling: Hungry. Cookies are preferred, but you'll eat anything if cookies aren't around.
You are famous for: Your slightly crazy eyes and usual way of speaking

How you live your life: In the moment. "Me want COOKIE!"

Head of the Fish

If you're not familiar, fall regattas are usually refered to as "head" races. I know, all rowers at some point think this is funny.. especially back during the Monica Lewinsky scandal... (and just think - there's a stroke and a cox too! The cox also uses a device called a "cox box". Trust me - these are all legit terms - but it only goes downhill from here...)

So this past weekend David and I decided to make a weekend out of it. It was the Head of the Fish in Saratogo Springs. We planned a nice weekend so we could spend some time together between the kids races and the masters races. We stayed in Residence Inn both nights (thank god for Marriott points!) The schedule went like this - we drive the trailer (60 foot trailer, mind you...) up Friday afternoon. The high school (David's kids) and college races were on Saturday and the Masters (for me and David) races were on Sunday. It didn't turn out as well as we had hoped.

Saturday was disugting! It rained all day. Look at what the rowers had to tromp through all day!! I was ok until about 11AM when I was officially soaked to the bone. Water had penetrated thru my jeans and my super- duty spandex. (actually they're more like thin neoprene...) My Gortex jacket couldn't take the onslaught by then either. However I had enough layers on my top half to keep me relatively dry. It was still miserable any way you looked at it...


This is Mickey - one of David's rowers. I swear - this kid is so laid back I don't think getting hit by a train would shake him. I mean, really - I swear he was the only person I could find that was actually SMILING during all this rain... It's probably becuase the lumberjack beard was keeping him warm...

One more Temple fountain...

Sorry - I forgot to post the better of my fountain pics from the temple at SLC.

SLC temple

So, when in SLC you must see the temple (or else you're going to hell...) One day I had a few extra hours and was able to walk over and see whtat the fuss was all about. Actually it is quite beautiful. Of course, since I'm not a card carrying Mormon, I wasn't allowed in the temple. Apparently they don't do public tours inside. But the gardens and fountains outside were great to llok at too. Here are a few pics - none do any of it justice...