Back To Work

Oh, well, the hurricane's over (at least for me) and all is back to it's normal state of abnormal. My heart and prayers go out to those on the Gulf Coast who were affected by the worst Kristina had to offer.

All we really got at my house was some wind and rain. South of me, there were a lot of trees toppled or with broken branches, and many people lost their power. Some still don't have it back.

Although we never lost power, we're still hot as hades in our house, because our air conditioning appears to be broken. Well, hot air is blowing out of the vents, so I should say it is broken. Luckily we have a service contract on our appliances (see? I'm not always a dummy) so the girls are calling them today to come out and fix it. I bet it's the compressor that they've been telling me to replace for 3 years. Oh, well, hope they can fix it again, because I still can't replace it.

Stacy is feeling a lot better. She still can't work, unfortunately, but she's going to physical therapy and doing much better than the doctors ever thought she would.

Cat

A "snow" day!

4:30 AM. I groggily roll over and hit the snooze button on the alarm, for ten more minutes of blissful sleep. Just as I enter no-man's land, the alarm across the room starts blaring it's own early warning system.

Since I have to get out of bed to turn this one off, I begin my morning routine. By the time alarm #1 goes off again, I'm ready to turn it off for good and finish getting dressed and out the door.

I grab my lunch, get in the car, and just before I get on the Turnpike, I hear on the news that there is no school in Broward or Miami-Dade counties due to the impending hurricane.

Hmmmm....I wonder.....

So, from my cellphone, I call the Hotline phone number on the back of my work badge, and Halleluja!!!!

"Due to reports of an impending hurricane in the area, all South Florida facilities will be closed today. Call at 8:00 PM for further updates."

Of course, there isn't much to do today because there are no other businesses open either, but I can still go home and crawl back into my nice warm bed with the sheets pulled up to my chin, watching TV and eating bon-bons.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!

Cat

product testing

Next time you want a sunless tanning product, just buy Behr's Wood Stain #500.

I was staining my fence yesterday, and some of the stain dripped on me. I guess I didn't get all of it off right away, but the skin that was stained was a nice brown, tan color today, as if I'd been in the sun for weeks. (don't try this at home, guys)

A product that I did find I like for real is Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser. These things really work! I couldn't stop cleaning things as I looked around for the next tough stain to try it on.

Just don't use the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser on the paint stains on your legs. It leaves a painful red spot. ;-)

Cat

Good morning, moon

Driving to work the other day the moon was full, bright, and absolutely beautiful. It was such a clear morning, and I could see the moon in such detail that it seemed as if I could almost reach out and touch it.

Wish I could have taken a picture of it so I could share it's beauty with you.

I've got to start carrying my camera around in my car with me. It seems like there are a lot of times that I wish I could take a picture of something or other as I'm driving around.

Cat

Good News / Bad News

So much has been going on that you'd think it would be easy to write a blog entry, but instead it's just the opposite. I don't know where to start.

We'll get the bad news over with first.

My insurance company has accepted liability for the car accident (Tara is on my policy). However, Tara's coverage limit is only $10K/$20K for bodily injury/property damage, so the other driver had his lawyer send us a letter, he is sueing us. Not that we have much for him to take, anyway. Luckily, one of my benefits at work is a legal plan, so you know who I will be calling first thing Monday morning.

Got a letter in the mail today. My medical insurance carrier has decided that two prescriptions I take daily are too expensive, so they won't cover them anymore. (they are already the generic version). I guess I'll let my doctor fight that battle.

Received another letter today also. My condo association is making a certain type of hurricane insurance on interior walls & fixtures mandatory for us to buy. So there goes another $800.

I've decided to just not check the mail anymore. It's only bills, junk, and all those crummy letters anyway. Sound like a good plan? ;-)

Now that's out of the way... On to the good stuff!!

I bought Stacy a card with a little poem about character on it, and wrote a note about how proud I am of her for how hard she is working on her recuperation, and how mature and understanding she's been with Tara. I caught her with a few tears in her eye as she read it. She's doing well enough that she wants me to take her over to the firehouse, so she can thank the cute paramedic who held her hand in the ambulance. I hope he's as cute as she remembers and she's not disappointed. He was the first thing she saw when she woke up after being unconscious, and I'd imagine anybody would look good at that point. ;-)

One month from today I'll be in Buenavista! With my sister! Woohoo! Double woohoo!

I can't believe Ava is going to be a year old on Tuesday. I hope I finish the scrapbook I'm making for her (well, I guess it's really for Tara) before then. She's starting to talk a lot. It seems she learns a new word every day, but she still can't say Lita. :( She calls me "Ta". We've been teaching her to color, and even though we let her walk around with crayons, she only draws in her coloring book. She is such a good girl! And a strong girl! She was moving around our patio chairs today.

We've been babysitting our friends' dog, the cutest little Lhasa Apso puppy. Like we have the time or the room here for a dog, but the good part of it is that Tara has stopped asking me if she can have a dog, and she even said the other day, "I'll tell you one thing. Ava is never getting a dog!" This was just after she had cleaned up the puppie's 4th mess of the day, haha. No matter how cute and fun they are, they are still a lot of work.

This is kind of a little wierd thing. As I was falling asleep last night, I was having a little conversation with myself...in spanish! So maybe my practicing is paying off, and I'm starting to think in spanish. And, no, I do not normally talk to myself! It was one of those half in/half out of sleep things, almost like dreaming.

Recuperation

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks already since the accident. I've lost all sense of time, and until I went back to work I didn't even know what day it was most of the time.

Stacy left the hospital after a week and is now here recuperating at my house. So my small house is now miniscule, what with a bed in the living room (since she can't get upstairs) and the other furniture pushed aside so Stacy can hobble around with her walker. She and Tara decorated the walker with ribbons and flowers, so it's actually kind of cute.

Stacy is doing very well, though. The doctors were surprised that she was able to leave the hospital so soon. She's been working very hard, and pushing herself from the start to do even the smallest things, like sitting in a chair in the hospital as much as she could instead of laying in bed, which helped her lung heal faster. She has been taking a walk (a slow one) every day, and doing what little physical therapy she is able. I have to give her credit, she's a fighter, and that is making a big difference in her recovery.

Other than that, things are back to normal. Or as normal as they ever get around around here. ;-)

Thanks to all of you who sent well-wishes and notes. They really meant a lot to me, and knowing that you cared helped me get through a tough time.

Oh, I also want to give props to State Farm and the Dan Sawyer Agency. They've been great through the whole thing, keeping in touch with me often, and my agent even sent the girls a get well card signed by everyone in the office. It was a nice little personal touch that I don't think I would have gotten from most insurance companies.

Cat

Baby Steps

When the phone rings, I glance at the clock. 3:26 AM.

First, annoyance, as I struggle out of sleep. Then fear. Good phone calls don't come in the middle of the night.

"Mom, it's me."
"Stacy? Where are you?"
"I'm in the ER. I was a passenger in a car and someone broadsided us."

Dread. Worry. I almost don't want to know the answer to the next question.

"Are you all right?"
"I'll be OK, but my chest hurts. I think I broke a rib, and I can't move my leg."

Concern. Unease. Apprehension.

"I'll be right there. What hospital are you in?"
"Well, you can't leave home because you have Ava."

Confusion. Maybe I'm still not awake.

"What do you mean? Isn't Tara here?"
"No, she's with me."

Things aren't making sense.

"Why? Did you already call her?"
"No. Mom...Tara was the driver."

My heart lurches.

"Is she OK?" I think I scream, but my voice sounds normal.
"Yeah, I think so. She hurt her arm and she's bleeding from the glass, but I think she's OK."

Relief.

"They're taking me for a CAT scan. I'll call you back."

Worry. Frustration.

I finally reach one of the doctors in the ER. Things are worse than Stacy led me to believe. She has a collapsed lung, 3 broken ribs, a broken leg, a concussion, maybe a cracked pelvis. They're still evaluating her injuries.

Shock. Panic. Heartache.

I get someone to watch the baby so I can be with Stacy. I just want to see her, touch her, hold her.

I want to make it all better. I want this to be a boo-boo I can kiss away.

Helplessness. Sorrow. Concern.

I spend the day in the ER going from one bed to the other, while the doctors debate whether Stacy should be in intensive care. They decide that she can go to a regular room if they put her close to the nurse's station so that her chest tube can be monitored. Tara can go home.

Now comes a wave of anger. At the world, at God, at Tara.

It's all I can do not to yell at Tara while driving her home, but I know that she feels worse than I could ever make her feel. I just want to know how she could have been so careless.

Stress. Distress. Anxiety.

My mind is still trying to wrap itself around all of this. I suppose it could have been far worse, and I tell myself I should be thankful that both girls are alive. I am, I truly am.

So now we go forward. We can only take this road one step at a time.

Baby steps.

web-surfing

Sometimes I don't know how I end up at these websites, but....

This is kind of funny, whether you smoke or not. Japanese advertisements about smoking manners. Click on the small images to read the signs.

I'm pretty sure this one is a joke. (I hope) What could someone have been thinking when they created this site?

Cat

Some surprise!

Both of my parents turn 75 this September, and they've been hinting around about wanting a "surprise" birthday party. So, for the past month or so, we've been arranging one and things were going quite smoothly.

Until this weekend. I guess my parents got tired of waiting to see if we were throwing a party, so they decided to throw their own, and started inviting all of us. (there are 10 of us kids, plus spouses and our grown kids, and a few close friends, so it's not a small party)

Finally, I had to tell them that there was already a party planned. After they'd already spoken to 8 kids and nobody else said a word. One of us had to say something, we couldn't just go on and let them plan another party. A restaurant had been booked and some of the kids already had their plane tickets.

Well, of course, control freaks that they are, they wanted to see the place we'd booked. I took them over there Saturday night and they really liked it, thank goodness! And they had to approve the guest list. Ditto on that, they liked it.

It's actually kind of a relief now that they know, because it would have been really hard trying to keep this whole thing a surprise. We can still pull a few surprises out of the hat at the party itself.

So now do we call it an unsurprise party?

Cat

New hours

I finally found out what my new work schedule. I had asked for third shift, so I think what I ended up with is pretty good.

9:00 PM to 7:30 AM, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday nights. So I leave work at 7:30 AM on Tuesday morning, and I don't return until Friday at 9:00 PM. And I receive a 15% differential, as well. I'm happy with it. Tara isn't very happy, because she'll be losing her weekend babysitter. Oh, well, that's life. I should start the new hours in about 3-4 weeks.


Another news clip here. I'm becoming quite the "news hound". I heard this one on the Early Today show on MSNBC.

A 7-month old baby was injured when a building collapsed while it was being demolished. The cause of the collapse is under investigation.

Now, I'm no rocket scientist, but do you think the fact that it was being demolished might have had anything to do with it collapsing? (the baby is fine, by the way)

Cat