Monthly Archives: January 2009

Jan29

The Indoor Rainshower

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The Indoor Rainshower

Our shower head died yesterday.  It only cost $2.99, so it wasn’t a huge loss, but we bought it the day after we moved into our non-ghetto apartment two years ago because the one that came with our new, but ultimately non-ghetto, apartment was the kind that pushed the water out so hard that it stung.

Anyway, the shower head died.

I’m not sure how it died, because it died while Joey was home from school because of an ice day, but it was something about clogging and leaking and rubber falling apart.

So he called me from the showerhead aisle at Target, where we got our original $2.99 showerhead, and he said “They’re out of the cheap one.”

He listed off the available models and, when he got to the Moen Rainshower, he knew he’d hit the one I wanted.

“But it’s too expensive,” I protested.

“Well, it’s not too bad,” Joey countered.

He walked out of Target with the Rainshower.

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We went home after church and within ten minutes, Joey had installed the new shower head.  It was Henry’s Power Hour, so he wasn’t paying a bit of attention to us, just running around the house in crazed, concentric circles.  (Small dogs tend to have Power Hour, Henry is no exception.  And it is hilarious.)

Joey turned on the shower to test the shower head, and true to the packaging, water fell from the showerhead like a gentle rain.

“THIS IS FANTASTIC!” I squealed. (I don’t like showers that are forceful and stingy.)

“It’s pretty good, I guess,” Joey conceded.  (He does likes showers that are forceful and stingy.)

We shut the shower curtain with the water still running so we could make sure that water didn’t spray out when it was closed.  Our last shower head somehow managed to get water on the bathroom floor, which drove me bananas.  I was pleased to note that the rainshower didn’t have this problem.

Suddenly, I heared a thumping noise followed by what sounded like claws on linoleum.  Then a muted thud.

“HENRY!” I yelled, and Joey and I stared at each other.

Henry had just jumped into the shower and the water was running.  Obviously Power Hour was making him a little bit nutty in the noggin, because he hates the shower.  He loves the tub, but he hates the shower.

Joey and I stood there staring at the shower curtain, expecting to see Henry come bounding back out, but after half a minute we still didn’t see him.  Joey reached in, turned off the water and scooped Henry out, his wet paws dripping a little bit.  He set Henry down and we were about to dry his paws off when he took off again, bounding across the house to do more laps.

Weird dog.

Jan29

Mysterious Sign Sighting: 75229

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Mysterious Sign Sighting: 75229

So today at lunch I went to visit Becca at school. (Which is located in our church, incidentally.)

Guess what I saw.

picture-0032

The Mysterious Sign…in Becca’s Classroom!!

I was amazed, of course, so I took a picture.  Then we had to take a silly picture, since they’re in first grade and silly pictures are a basically required.

picture-0041

Jan28

One of Henry’s Best Pictures

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One of Henry’s Best Pictures

I took this on my camera phone several weeks ago, when Henry and I were at the vet getting his Distemper booster shot.  Henry had an emotional meltdown (he hates the vet) and we had quite the funtimes wait for something like 45 minutes – the vet was really slow.

0115091604Several reasons why this picture is perhaps the best one of Henry, ever:

  1. He looks like he should be in the Blair Witch Project. This kid wouldn’t sit still long enough for me to get a picture of him that wasn’t blurry.
  2. His left eye is way, way wonky due to his fear, see that?
  3. His mouth is open, but he wasn’t barking, because he was stress-panting harder than if he’d run a marathon in the middle of the summer
  4. Shortly after I managed to snap this picture, he dove off the bench and pressed himself up against my legs because he wanted me to hold him
  5. We were THE ONLY TWO PEOPLE IN THE ROOM and he was still flipping out, every time he heard a noise, the kid went ballistic.  (I realize that some of you are now taking issue with the fact that I referred to Henry as a “people”.  He IS a people, so there.)
  6. I finally had to read Marley & Me to him to calm him down (see it there in my purse?) and, surprisingly, it worked.
Jan28

ICE!

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ICE!

Last night, I got my wish.  It iced and iced and iced (OK, for Texas) and this morning at 6:15 I woke up a glittering ice-land.  I was so excited.  I stood by the sliding glass door and wiggled internally with excitement.

Just then, Joey’s phone beeped three times.  (Read: he received a text message.)  I heard him yell “YES!” from the bedroom, so I went to go check it out.

“DTS is cancelled today.” He said, then almost immediately fell back asleep, even though in all the excitement Henry had jumped up on the bed (which he usually doesn’t do – he hates sleeping on the bed, which is fine with me) and had curled up where Joey’s legs were supposed to go, thereby short-sheeting poor Joey.

I did not fall back asleep. I was too excited about the ice.

So after an hour or so I finally got up, emptied the dishwasher and folded some blankets we had been using to keep ourselves warm last night.  It is amazing and shocking how quickly we are adjusting to the “OH MY GOSH IT IS SO COLD OUTSIDE” thing.  We were wrapped up like burritos for the whole evening, except when we were eating the Sloppy Joe’s I made for dinner. (I told Joey they were his special food since he kind of is a sloppy Joe, but not TOO sloppy.)

Where was I?

Oh yeah, commuting.

So ten minutes before I wanted to leave, Joey announced that he would be driving me.

“I want to make sure you get there safe,” he said.

I argued for about 2 minutes, then gave in and said “OKfine, you can take me” because I really didn’t want to drive on the ice.  But I also didn’t want him to have to drive both ways on the ice.

Joey seemed pleased with himself over his victory, and he bundled himself up in his Columbia, hat and gloves and went outside to scrape the car, which was glazed in a thickish layer of ice.

Twenty minutes later, he had the car scraped, warmed and we were on our way.  The roads were hazardous.  It took thirty five minutes to make a fifteen minute drive, and we had several near-miss sightings.  (Fortunately none of them involved us.)

Joey’s home now, but the drive back took him almost twice as long because a DART bus slid sideways somehow and blocked our street, so he had to go all the way around.

I didn’t get to make my ice ball (I was too focused on not wiping out in the heels I was wearing) but I did squish an icy leaf, which was almost as fun.

Ahhh, I love the winter weather.

Rumor has it that it’ll be in the 60′s this weekend.  LAME.

Jan27

Pray for Sister!

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Pray for Sister!

Poor Sisterly.  12 years ago or something like that she hurt her back, we figure it was from bouncing on a trampoline, and now she has L5 (which is a vertebrae) just floating around in her spinal cord.  This means that Sister is Very Fragile and must be handled with Extreme Caution, and it also means that she has to have an ultralight vacuum cleaner and not carry heavy grocery bags, lest something worser happen to L5.

Well, a couple weeks, L5 went rogue.

Sisterly began having numby legs and then began getting wobbly and stuff due to lack of muscle strength.

POOR SISTER!

So she went to a neurologist who said “you have to have an MRI.”

Sisterly is claustrophobic, so the neurologist gave her Valuium to take (hehehehehe) so she wouldn’t freak out in the MRI tube.

Aside:  Sister called us a couple hours after the MRI on Saturday and wanted us to help her get pictures from her camera to her computer.  We tried to convince her to call us back after the Valium had worn off, but she was convinced she was fine.  Poor Sister.  I’m not sure if she ever got the pictures from her camera to the computer or not…

Today was the day that the MRI results would be in, so Sister went to the hospital at noon.  Her neurologist said “your results are inconclusive, now you have to have a CAT scan.”  Also it looks like something’s damaged on the disk above L5 and they definitely have to check it out.

So Sister has been sitting in waiting rooms since then, just waiting for her turn in the CAT scan tube.  She waited and waited for 45 minutes, only to find out they’d put her in the WRONG line, so then they had her fill out more paperwork and wait longer and longer and longer….

I spoke to her at 2:45 and she was still waiting, probably for another hour or so, for the results of her “Can You Have A CAT Scan Today” test to be back, and then they’d have her wait some more for the test.

And she doesn’t have much reading material!

So, anyway, if any of you think of my Sister today and tomorrow (she meets with a Neurosurgeon tomorrow), please pray for her!  Pray that she’s able to get the CAT scan soon so she can go home and lay around, and then that the results will be back quickly so her Neurosurgeon can figure out how to fix her.

Poor, poor Sisterly!

Jan27

Ice, ice baby…

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Ice, ice baby…

WHERE IS MY ICE STORM!?

Last night before bed I prayed (and I quote) “Lord, please give us lots of ice tomorrow.  I just want to make a snowball, so snow would be the best, but I realize Dallas isn’t the best place for snow, so I’d love a whole bunch of ice.  Then I could make an ice ball.  Plus I really miss winter.”

(I’m sure none of the rest of you ever pray for ice because you miss the Great White North – not Canada, in this case I’m referring to IOWA – but I did.  And don’t worry, I prayed about other stuff too, not just ice.)

So this morning I woke up late and ran to the sliding glass door where I looked out upon…

…a very wet balcony.

With no ice on it.

Not even a little bit.

“There’s no ice, ” I told Joey.

“Oh…that’s too bad…” he mumbled, and reset his alarm for 6:40.

Somehow we made it out the door by 7:30, and the roads were wet but not even a tiny bit slippery.  It was a grave disappointment.  The weatherman kept saying “with temperatures continuing to fall throughout the day…” and once in awhile the TrafficPulse guy would mention how the High 5 HOV lane was closed due to ice, but seriously.  None of that was affecting me, and I sure hadn’t made my ice ball yet, so I was not encouraged by the reports of falling temperatures and icy HOV lanes.

Additionally, aside from the Weather Underground telling me that the temp will drop and the misty rain will turn to ice, I have little comfort when I look at the RADAR and find it to be absolutely clear.

If it does freeze later today and ice pellets actually start accumulating, you can bet there will be one happy Jenna screaming and sliding around and attempting to gather up enough pellets to make an ice ball.

Jan26

The One Where The Brother Becomes Everyone

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The One Where The Brother Becomes Everyone

Remember how I said The Brother had mad Paint skills?

He does.

Also remember how I said he photoshopped a picture of all us kids and switched our faces around using said Paint program?

He did.

What I had forgotten about is how The Brother must have had a real inflated ego or something, because he took that same sibling picture and slapped HIS face into everyone else’s head.

The result is something that is creepy, disturbing, and you probably shouldn’t look at it if you have eaten recently.

Also bear in mind that this was from 1995 or 1996…and we probably didn’t have a color printer, so Mom found a black and white printed copy and scanned it in to me today, which is why it’s so grainy.

But the graininess doesn’t take away from the creepiness.

Please observe.

andrew1AAAAAAAAAUGH!  The HORROR!

RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

OK, so I’m supposed to be the top one (nice hair, huh?). The long haired girl on the left is Sister sporting The Brother’s face, and I think that is the most disturbing mashup of all.  (Sorry Sister, it’s definitely not your fault.)  Next to her is The Brother’s actual picture (he even LOOKS guilty, doesn’t he?) and at the very bottom of all is The Kid.  Well, it was The Kid until The Brother pasted his face on to his head.

This picture makes it look like Mom and Dad had a batch of really nerdy looking children.

Jan26

Accidental Caffeine

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Accidental Caffeine

Joey and I were both feeling a little beat down yesterday afternoon, so about 6:00 Joey suggested we take our books and go to Starbucks near church so we could read and drink yummy beverages until it was time for 7:22.  I agreed, of course, so we grabbed our books and hit the road.

Once at Starbucks, I selected one of those new Tazo tea-fruit-infusion thingies, thinking it would be delicious and low on the calories.

It wasn’t very delicious.

It wasn’t really low on the calories, either.

Oh yeah.  AND IT WAS FULL OF CAFFEINE.

Any caffeine consumption after 1:00 p.m. causes extreme jibblies and sleeplessness in my system.  Having it at 6:30?  Yeahhhhhh.  Let’s just say I knew I was going to be up all night.

“Joeyyyyyyy,” I wailed in the car.  “I don’t want to be up all night.  Tomorrow is MONDAY.  I can’t start a Monday on like 2 hours of sleep, I’ll be evil all week!”

“Uhhh, you’re taking one of those Tylenol PM things when we get home,” Joey advised.

I took one of those Tylenol PM things.  I took a whole half a dose, too, which is usually enough to knock me out for 12 hours (I am real sensitive to sleepy medicine.)

Wanna guess how long it took me to fall asleep?

An hour and a half.

I’d lay there and feel all sleepy-woozy (you know the feeling) and then suddenly I’d open my eyes and feel like going and running around the building two or three times.  Then I’d force myself to close my eyes again and take really deep, huge, breaths to make myself dizzy.

I made myself dizzy, but I didn’t make myself tired.

So then I started praying for everyone I could think of.  Unfortunately, halfway through my prayer I’d get distracted and start thinking about what I was going to make for dinner on Monday, or whatever else, and then I’d have to kick myself in the shins to get back on track.

It is exhausting not being able to sleep due to caffeine consumption.