The Stinky Cheese Man?

Last night I talked to my grandbabies on the phone. In a previous post I have mentioned that Will can recite the whole story of "The Gingerbread Man". Well, somehow, someone, somewhere has changed the story now to the Stinky Cheese Man, and Will informed me that it is a book! I don't believe him though. He went through the motions of the whole story, except he said, "WHAT IS THAT SMELL?", you can't catch me cuz I'm the Stinky Cheese man!" It was the cutest thing ever. I am also happy because I am taking the 11th of April off and will get to spend time with my grandkids! They will be here for spring break and with other grandparents (Will and Bailey) and Wesley will be with his Dad. Then we get to have a slumber party with them for a couple of nights. I am really looking forward to this since I didn't get to spend much time with them the last time that they were here.

32 days until I am in Idaho! woohoo!

Oh, Bill and Patience, I am serious about the Chicken Cacciatore and French Bread! Aynex, you are more than welcome to come also, if you think that you can handle my cooking! Let's set a date OK guys?

ZONED

OK, the good news is that my blood work came back normal and there are no fatal diseases lurking in my body somewhere! I was a little worried about that since Mother has had arthritis of the spine probably since the day that I was born, if not before. I don't think that I can ever remember her not having back problems or grey hair! More good news is that I will be going to see EMILY next Thursday at 5:00 in the afternoon. Until then I will continue to take the muscle relaxers that have been prescribed for me. They aren't as bad as Flexeril, as in, I don't wake up feeling like I have been on a 10 day drunk, but they did help me sleep a little better and even caused me to oversleep just a little! Another thing that was comforting to me last night was that a good friend of mine suggested an ice pack instead of heat for my back. I made the funniest looking ice pack known to man. A ziploc baggie full of ice with an old towel wrapped around it. I put it on my neck/back at different intervals and by the time that I went to bed I was completely numb! So, thank you Patience for the advice about Emily, I know that you have been telling me to go and see her for a while, but I guess I had to wait until it was just unbearable. If things work out I will make you and Bill some Chicken Cacciatore and French Bread. I know that anything will make me feel better than I do now. It's kind of strange though, now that I brought that up, I just realized how long I have been having this kind of problem. Didn't I complain about my neck and back way last summer? Then I went through the sciatica thing (for more info see the post called STEROID HELL) and knew that I was absolutely going to die. I did tell my doctor that steroids for whatever is ailing me was NOT AN OPTION! I guess that all of this is just a sign that i am getting older and need to start paying attention to what my body is telling me and get it taken care of in a timely manner. Will update on the physical therapy after it happens!

Actually, there is one more thing that has really made me feel good in the last week, not physically, but emotionally. At the end of last week there was a resume' left on the desk for me at work. I kind of read it over and was pretty impressed at the job candidates longevity at her previous jobs. There was a business card attached that said Easter Seals of West Kentucky, and the woman's name on it to contact if I wanted to interview the job candidate. I wasn't really sure about the situation, but then my husband's niece came to mind! Her name is Olivia and she is 5 and has Downs Syndrome. I thought about when she gets older and has the opportunity to join the work force after some special skills training. Then I thought about one of the salesmen that pays me visits at work and his son, who is also Downs, working at a family business in Nashville, which is the same line of work that I do. So, I thought, what the heck, I may as well set up an interview! Her case worker brought her in for the interview. When she came in to the office I saw the sweetest person in the world. She has no physical limitations at all. She is just extremely shy! There may be some other underlying things that I don't know about, but her resume' was great so I decided to hire her. When I gave her the good news she was beaming! She wanted a job where she could just work by herself and the one that I hired her for will be perfect. Today was her first day at work, and of course her case worker came with her, probably for moral support and stuff like that and she said that she had to document everything. Her case worker won't be with her tomorrow, but will check on her periodically. I have another girl that is helping with her training and I will check in on her often. What was so amazing to me was the awesome smile that I got when I told her that she had the job. It was unforgettable!

WORD OF THE DAY

FORMIDABLE

for·mi·da·ble /ˈfɔrmɪdəbəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[fawr-mi-duh-buhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1.
causing fear, apprehension, or dread: a formidable opponent.
2.
of discouraging or awesome strength, size, difficulty, etc.; intimidating: a formidable problem.
3.
arousing feelings of awe or admiration because of grandeur, strength, etc.
4.
of great strength; forceful; powerful: formidable opposition to the proposal.

PATIENCE PICTURE

I guess I will call this on "farm life"

Massage Therapist?

Well, once again, I have been stricken with the neck, shoulder and upper back thing. Another trip to the doctor, another shot in the butt, and yet, more medication. This time I hope that it helps. She gave me a new muscle relaxer because I told her that I couldn't take Flexeril, as it makes me feel like I have been on a 10 day drunk when I get up in the morning. They are also testing me for Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis! Who knew? Well, they should after the 4 huge vials of blood that were taken from me. What was really good is that my vein didn't roll when they stuck me, and I hardly have a mark there either. Now, that's what I call a professional "vampire". That's what they call her at the doctor's office where I go. My doctor also suggested that I get a deep tissue massage and then continue to get massages about every 2 weeks. So, my question is, does anyone know a good massage therapist. I would greatly appreciate your suggestions.

The roof is now done, hopefully forever.

Not much else going on.

35 more days until I am on Idaho soil!!!!!!!! woohoo!!!!

2 more weeks until GRANDBABIES! Look out neighborhood! woohoo!!!

WORD OF THE DAY

MUSCULOSKELETAL

mus·cu·lo·skel·e·tal /ˈmʌskyəloʊˈskɛlɪtl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[muhs-kyuh-loh-skel-i-tl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
concerning, involving, or made up of both the muscles and the bones: the musculoskeletal system.

PATIENCE PICTURE

I WILL CALL THIS ONE "ALIENS AT THE MOTORCYCLE GRAVEYARD"!

IN OR ON? THAT IS THE QUESTION!

OK OK BE PATIENT PATIENCE! I didn't realize that I had published this until I saw the comment by my dear neighbor. I have just been mulling it over in my mind for almost a week as to how to explain what I am trying to say! So, here goes, but I will have to start from the beginning!
OK, I have lived in Western Kentucky for almost 15 years now. It will be 15 years in September as a matter of fact. I pretty much transplanted myself from a little town in Southeastern Idaho. Most of you know that I grew up on a farm, and that the nearest "city" is a place called Idaho Falls. It's a little bigger than Paducah. Well, probably quite a bit bigger by now.

When I first came here I found out rather fast what people meant by the term "culture shock". I got a job and met some nice people and I had that job for about 6 months. I didn't really get to know anyone there because it's always been really hard for me to make friends and it still is. So, anyway, then I got a job at the place where I am still employed. I finally began to make friends and learn some "southern" ways. I would hear people talk about what they cooked for dinner, and the whole time in my mind I was thinking WHAT THE HELL IS THAT! For instance, white beans! There are people who cannot survive without this staple. Where I come from, we always had what we called lima beans, but here they are butter beans, and ham hocks! Mother always made them in the crock pot and they were ever so tasty! I had never heard of POLK SALAD (I hope that the spelling is correct) and to my amazement I found out that this is actually a freaking WEED! and people wash it off and eat it! Then I heard several years later from one of my co-workers that everyone thought that I was weird! PLEASE give me a break! I don't go foraging in ditches for greens to put on my plate! and they thought that I was weird? I don't think so!!! I could go on and on about all of the differences and such, but time is of the essence!

Anyway, back to the question which also involves I guess a "southern" thing! Last Friday night my husband and I got into a discussion, not an argument, but a discussion. I was relating an incident about my day at work and to make a long story short I told him that I was tired of everyone around here saying that things are IN THE FLOOR! I quickly pointed out to him that if whatever was IN the FLOOR that it would be embedded in there! He was arguing, not discussing, with me and I had finally had enough. I got up from my chair and grabbed one of his SWEET AND LOW packets and threw it ON THE FLOOR! I then asked him if it was ON THE FLOOR or IN THE FLOOR! He then stated that it was IN THE FLOOR! GRRRRRR!!!! I am not trying to be the grammar police here, but give me another freakin' break! My question to ya'll (yeah, that part came really easy to me after I moved here) is simply is it IN OR ON?

In other news, in 1 1/2 months I will be in IDAHO! woohoo!!!

Pete is fine! Edwin is fine! Getting our roof repaired this weekend! Wesley sent me an email that said " opa oma i love you i am going to bed wesley" how dang cute is that?

WORD OF THE DAY:

ACCULTURATION

ac·cul·tur·a·tion /əˌkʌltʃəˈreɪʃən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-kuhl-chuh-rey-shuhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1.
the process of adopting the cultural traits or social patterns of another group.
2.
the result of this process.

PATIENCE PICTURE:

Just something weird that I have in the back yard! (Running out of pictures, need to take some more!)

Chicken Cacciatore and other stuff

OK, so yesterday, while Husband and I were being extremely LAZY on the couch, we were watching Throwdown with Bobby Flay on the Food Network! His challenge was Chicken Cacciatore with some guy in New York. The whole time that we were watching, Husband kept saying how good it looked, so I thought that today, for our Sunday meal, that I would put my own spin on the dish. Actually, it turned out quite well.

The first thing that I did was bread the chicken and cook it in some garlic infused grapeseed oil! This stuff is awesome, if you haven't ever tried it, you really need to. It's much lighter than olive oil and I think that it tastes better. So anyway, I let that cook and then pulled it from the pan. Then I chopped up some red bell pepper, green bell pepper, yellow bell pepper and orange bell pepper, added some organic chopped garlic, some chopped onion, added some chardonnay, and let it reduce so that it would get all of the good stuff off the bottom of the pan. Then I added a couple of tablespoons of flour to thicken the brew up a little bit and let that simmer for a few minutes. When that started to smell really good I added 2 cans of diced tomatoes and 1 can of tomato sauce, then I let that cook for a while and added some freshly sliced mushrooms. I let that simmer for about 20 minutes and then added the chicken that I had previously cooked and let that simmer for about another 15 minutes, just long enough for my rice to get done. (Sorry Bill, I couldn't do pasta this time.) This is the end result. It actually turned out pretty good and was rather tasty.

In other news we had the threat of a massive snow storm again on Friday. People still get so freaked out about this sort of weather here. I was so excited, as the weather people were calling for 4 to 8 inches or something like that. Here is the end result and it was gone by about noon on Saturday! Bummer!

This was at about 9:00 p.m. EST. It was pretty while it lasted. Not too much else going on here. OH, VERY IMPORTANT! I talked to my sister on Friday and she told me that the last time that she weighed in she weighed 187 lbs. I am so proud of her. She had the gastric bypass surgery and has been going through a lot of ups and downs within the last year. She has now hired a personal trainer to help achieve her goals. Keep up the good work Sybil! If any of you would like to send her any words of encouragement, you can get to her blog through mine on the link section.

Pete has contracted the CRUD that I had last week. Hopefully he will feel better soon. I hope that we caught it in time with meds so that he don't feel as awful as I did.

LAST WEEK WAS GRUELING!

The last time that I posted I told myself that I would be more faithful about it, and here it is, almost a week later that I find myself with a few free minutes to post. It was a pretty eventful week, but not for me! See, I got the most awful CRUD and was as sick as I could ever remember being, with the exception of one time when I was in high school. Now, mind you, I don't like to be sick, I loathe it with every nth of my being! So, Wednesday afternoon when the body aches seemed to be overwhelming, and the sinus pressure got so bad that I thought that my head was going to explode, I went to the doctor. I was given a shot in the butt and some strong antibiotics, but the nurse practitioner told me that if it was viral that the antibiotics wouldn't help! I went to the pharmacy to fill them and they were 25 bucks and that was with my co-pay, for 5 flippin' pills! I told the pharmacist that they must be dandies! She informed me that it was the only medicine that was knocking out whatever is going around! Well, with that being said, I thought that I was cured for sure. I started the meds and continued to get even sicker. By Friday morning, I thought that I was surely going to expire! Then, at 3 a.m. Friday morning, my flippin' doorbell rings! Here I am sick as a dog, and someone is wanting to get me out of bed! I had a few very vulgar thoughts run through my head, as I had not slept well all week, and had a few choice words prepared for whomever was at the door. I hauled myself out of bed only to find Megan, John and the kids all standing there bright eyed and bushy tailed and the words "surprise" being uttered kind of quietly by the kids. I didn't know what to say! This was not expected and I had never felt so unprepared for anything in all my life, but then again, I guess that there was really no way to prepare myself for a surprise. I stayed up for a while with them and tried to get some more rest before I had to go to work.

I went on to work feeling so awful that I was wondering how I was going to make it through the day. At 9 a.m. I made a decision that will surprise most of you. Yes, Ms. Too Dedicated, left work and came home to be sick! I was so miserable that I couldn't stand myself. I came home, put on my pajamas, crawled into bed and really didn't leave the bed until Sunday morning. I only got up when I had to go to the bathroom, or unless I was foraging for orange juice, which I was drinking like mad and had to send special orders out several times to have some delivered to me. I think that I slept a total of 9 hours on Friday after I left work, and who knows how much I slept on Saturday, a little less, but I guess that my body needed it. My wonderful neighbors, Ashley and Michael offered up some Mucinex DM, I started taking it, and I think, but I'm not sure, that's what made me start feeling better, that, and probably the much needed rest.

Sunday morning I got up and got to spend a few hours with Megan, John, and the kids. I had missed all of the festivities and fun that took place all weekend, and I felt really bad about that, but there was nothing better than having Wesley sit on my lap, eating a cookie while laughing so hard and smearing the "goo" all over my shirt. I made a big deal about it and he was laughing so hard. It was so nice to hear his sweet voice and laughter. It was nice to watch Bailey write her letters and see how smart she is and worry about how her hair looks and such! She is such a girlie girl! Will also didn't feel well, but his sweet presence is something to behold. I just wish that I had more time to hear him recite "The Gingerbread Man" in person, rather than hearing it over the phone. He wouldn't even let me take his picture.

Well, that's enough about that. I am getting so anxious to go to Idaho to see my Mother. It's less than 2 months away and time is sneaking up on me! There are so many things that I want to take, and, so many things that I want to get while I am there to bring home with me that I really don't even know where to start. I guess that lists would be good! It's silly, but the little things bother me, like should I just take my digital camera, or all of my cameras? If I do that, then I would have to make a film purchase before I go and that would be more stuff to haul there and back. I am perplexed as to what kind of clothes to take, as they are still getting snow almost on a daily basis, sometimes at least and inch a day. I really don't own a winter coat so I guess "layering" will be it for me. Hopefully the weather will break before I head west, but I do hope that there is still an accumulation of snow upon my arrival so that I can build a snowman!

Speaking of snow, we had another awesome snow storm yesterday in the late afternoon. What's surprising is that there is still some on the ground this morning. Well, that's all for now folks. Just thought that I would give a little update, with the promise of a more entertaining and interesting post later.

WORD OF THE DAY

OBSTREPEROUS

ob·strep·er·ous /əbˈstrɛpərəs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uhb-strep-er-uhs] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective
1.
resisting control or restraint in a difficult manner; unruly.
2.
noisy, clamorous, or boisterous

PATIENCE PICTURES

Wesley's missing tooth! Bailey's 2 new teeth on the bottom! Like I said, Will wouldn't let me take his picture, otherwise there would be one of him posted also!