Names have been changed to protect the guilty

Yesterday I was sitting at my desk, working quietly, thinking wholesome churchy thoughts...because I work at a church and that's what we do.  A couple of similarly wholesome churchy gals came into the office and started discussing their movie plans for the evening and invited me to come along.  I asked what we were seeing and they said Sex and The City 2 at the Broussard theater at 6:20.  That sounded doable to me so I agreed to come along.  I texted Jayson and told him I was going to a movie and out for coffee with the girls so I would be home late.  Then I texted Taylor and asked her if she wanted to go with us.  My daughter's moral compass points a little more north than mine.  She did not approve of our movie choice and declined the offer.  I really screwed up with her somewhere along the line.

Just because I agreed to go to Movie Night With The Girls, doesn't guarantee my actual participation.  I am known to agree to almost anything during the day but once I get home, all bets are off.  As soon as I walk in the door in the evenings, I spontaneously molt out of my clothes and into a t-shirt and sweat pants or shorts with no binding undergarments.  After that, nothing short of a severed limb can make me leave my house.  And that's iffy since we've determined that a styptic stick will stop the bleeding.

When I got home from work last night, I immediately dove into a project to keep myself from molting out of my clothes and it worked for a while.  Just about the time I started to give in, the phone rang and one of the Movie Night Girls asked if I wanted to ride with her since we live near each other.  I usually prefer to take my own car places and not have anyone relying on me for a ride in case the whole thing tanks and I need an out.  But, I agreed since it didn't make sense for both of us to drive all the way out to Broussard and back while the ocean is filling up with oil.  So now I was locked in.

My ride showed up and we had a nice drive to the theater.  I don't know why the Broussard theater was chosen, but I thought maybe it was because some of the Movie Night Girls didn't want to get caught at this particular movie.  Then I remembered who the Movie Night Girls were and knew that definitely wasn't the case.  It had to be the ticket prices which are $2 cheaper than the Lafayette theater.  Wow, I had no idea.  And there wasn't a huge crowd either.  The only downside, other than a little bit of a drive, is that the Broussard theater doesn't have Twizzlers.  I thought every theater had Twizzlers...like it's a requirement or something.  Apparently not.  I soothed my disappointment with an Icee.

Gal Pal #1 (not her real name) and I got our snacks and made our way into the theater.  The Gals who got there first reserved some seats for the rest of us.  I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture, but they draped napkins over the seat backs which I thought was a very classy touch.  In all, there were 9 of us wayward church ladies in attendance.

I wasn't expecting much from the movie and that's about what it delivered.  I will say, it was not nearly as raunchy as I was expecting.  I've seen a couple of episodes of the TV show, one was entertaining and the other one I couldn't finish watching because I got all embarrassed.  The movie had 2 sex scenes where we were treated to very brief (and busy) male backsides.  The scenes were so short, I really didn't have time to get uncomfortable.  And anyone who's been married longer than 5 minutes knows that when it comes to bare male backsides, the briefer the glance the better.

I am extremely easily entertained and rarely completely dislike a movie, and I didn't completely dislike this one.  The acting was bad.  Noticeably bad.  And the actresses are really showing their age, which wouldn't be a bad thing if they were acting their age.  But there were a few funny parts and some touching scenes that had to do with motherhood.  Maybe I would have liked it better if I was more into fashion.  Since I'm not, I found the clothes to be ridiculously impractical.  These 4 girls were walking through the desert in Abu Dhabi wearing stilettos.  I just didn't get it.  The only thing I did get, which, okay is ridiculously impractical but I love it anyway, is these sunglasses on a stick.   I have no idea why I like these so much but I do!  In fact, I'm really regretting throwing out Taylor's broken sunglasses a few weeks ago because I'm dying to make my own (not Chanel) sunglasses on a stick.

I also made a note to remind myself to pick up a Maybach like each of the girls in the movie had at my earliest convenience.  And I also suggested to, uh, Gal Pal #2 that she book flights for the next Haiti mission trip on the same airline they used in the movie.  Actually, I think that one was fictitious but Emirates Airline has the exact same suites.  I think we could serve the Lord more productively if we traveled like this.

   



After the movie we walked over to Starbuck's to grab an espresso before bedtime only to be reminded that it was 5 minutes until closing time.  Who should we run into but the next wave of Movie Night Girls waiting for the 9:30 show.  Who knew this movie would be so popular among church ladies?  We later found out that the 9:30 Girls had the privilege of being seated in front of a bunch of drunk gay guys in drag.  Some girls have all the luck!  That just sounds like fun to me.  I can hear the tut-tut of my daughter's disapproval in the back of my head.

So we left the second wave of Movie Night Girls and headed over to CC's for our nightcap.  We  talked and laughed and drank our coffee and ate our cookies and scared off some youngsters.  A good time was had by all.  Whoever said church ladies are stuffy and boring has obviously never met MY church ladies.  We talk about our sex lives, we laugh until we pee our pants (not always because of the sex life conversations), we cry over the bad choices our children make,  we discuss our latest diet over a pan of brownies,  we complain about the electric bill, and occasionally we tiptoe across the line...but if one of us steps too far, another one is there to pull her back.  Those are my kind of gals.  

I should probably have whiplash from the number of times I've had to be saved from myself but I sure do like pushing that envelope.  I'm working on that.  Case in point: earlier this week I was at a staff meeting at church explaining how the new website would be more like a blog and we would embed some of the existing ministry blogs that we have.  Someone at the meeting asked if the new website would have a link to this blog.  Marti and Dennis both jumped up at the same time and screamed, "NO!!!"  Gee, I wonder what they meant by that?  :) 

Oh, Snap!

I thought I'd wait until today to write about the weekend since this is my day off.  That way I could take my time, think about what I'm going to say, reflect leisurely, and enjoy the process.  Not to mention I could use the "I have to blog" excuse to get out of doing other unpleasant tasks such as cleaning, laundry, brushing my teeth, etc.  Mind you, there is no one here telling me to clean house and do the laundry, nor is there anyone here that I have to make excuses to.  It's just me...in my head...telling myself what I need to do, then arguing with myself that I have other obligations such as entertaining myself with sarcastic anecdotes so I simply cannot be bothered with such mundane (and not entertaining) tasks as washing underwear.  Arguing with myself can be frustrating and exhausting but the good part about it is...I always win.

So basically, I'm blogging in dirty underwear.  Just so you know.  And I'm probably borderline mentally ill.  Oh, and you know my big plan to wait until Monday to write about the weekend?  I must have been temporarily insane when I had that idea.  I obviously forgot that I have no short-term memory.  Take my narcoleptic memory loss, add a heaping spoonful of hormones to the mix and I'm practically that guy from the movie Memento.  The next time you see me I may have my grocery list tattooed on my forearm.  Don't judge me.

Let's just see how much I can remember.  I have no memory at all of Friday night which I'm taking as a good sign that it was pleasant and uneventful.  Saturday....  Yes.  Saturday morning I woke up and Jayson had already cleaned the kitchen, the hall bathroom, and mopped all the floors.  I was so exhausted for him that I took an afternoon nap.  Eventually I did pitch in and we got the house straightened up.  Our house is never really "clean" and we're okay with that.  Everyone here either works all day or goes to school (or both) and we're tired when we get home.  I don't want to spend the last few remnants of my tiny allotment of daily energy on cleaning when I could be playing Words With Friends.  It's all about priorities. 


Saturday night we took Erin Farley to dinner and hung out for a little while.  She's doing some amazing work ministering to children, it was great to get caught up with her.  We ate at Sage Italian, which was good but I couldn't get my mind off their light fixtures.  It's a pendant light with a paper shade that reminds me of those cheesy party decorations with the honeycombed paper.

After a little Googling, I learned that these were designed by Karl Zahn and are made from Tyvek.  Brilliant!  They're not really that expensive either.  I'm not really looking for lighting options but that didn't stop me from Googling them and saving pictures of my top 100 favorites.  It's how I roll.  I'll share a few of the pictures I found just in case someone accidentally reads this and needs an interesting but impractical light fixture.



Apartment Therapy has this one made from toilet paper.









Cut Out and Keep gives instructions on how to make this one from drinking straws.












Jeffrey Rudell provides instructions for recreating his paper chandelier at Craft Stylish.  Just in case you're out of forks to stick in your eyes.











Okay, these aren't paper, they're reversible felt and you can buy them from Bouf.com if you can convert pounds to dollars.  Or we can all save a few bucks and a currency conversion nightmare by making our own out of construction paper like we did in first grade.

Sunday we went to first service at church then our small group met during second service.  Joel, my boss/worship pastor, had driven his uber geeky scooter to church Sunday morning and parked it under a tree by the stage exit.  This proved to be too much of a distraction/temptation to our small group, especially since we max out at about 10 on-task minutes per meeting.  Someone (I will not throw my husband under a bus) casually suggested we t.p. Joel's scooter.  The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.  Someone (again, not throwing Jayson under the bus) grabbed a roll and lovingly decorated Joel's ride.  He did have some help from two passers by who may or may not be named Mary and Melanie.  They were on their way to jump out of an airplane cuz that's just what they do after church.  Then someone (I'll help him out from under the bus later) put a crispy dead frog on the scooter seat and carefully belted him in with t.p.  We just considered this our small group community service project and the meeting was adjourned.

I should add that it would have been difficult to have an actual meeting since 2 of our members were missing and one was hemorrhaging in his car.  Chad nicked the top of his ear when he was shaving in the shower Sunday morning.  Chad is one of those bald guys who shaves his head.  I know, I don't get it either.  Anyway, he didn't realize he had cut himself until he discovered the scab during church and he did what you're supposed to do when you find a scab.  He picked it off.  Apparently his jugular runs across the top of his ear because his profuse bleeding cause him to miss the rest of the service and most of our small group meeting.  He finally went to the CVS across the street and bought a styptic stick which stopped the bleeding immediately.  We discussed the magic of the styptic stick and how if you severed a limb you could probably use it to stop the bleeding then go on about your day.

We all decided that Chad was looking a little pale and iron deficient and we figured Mexican food would restore him so we had lunch at Azteca's...which, in my opinion, is probably the most underrated Mexican food in town. Their salsa is great.  After lunch, Chad and Jamie had about 47 things to do, one of them being shopping for some pants for Chad, so Jayson decided he needed pants too.  We said our goodbyes then headed to Stein Mart where Jayson got 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirts, I got 1 shirt.  Stein Mart is too pricey for me.  The shirt I got was $14.95!  Of course its original price was $118 so I guess I shouldn't complain but I hate paying over $10 for an article of clothing.  That's just wasting good money that I could be spending on Tyvek lamp shades or something.

After Stein Mart we headed over to the library to pickup some books that were being held for us.  I got a cheesy romance novel and Jayson got some golf book or something.  Yawn. 

Anyway on the way home Jayson said, "Oh snap!" 

I said, "What?" 

He said, "Did I say it right?  You know, in the right context?"

I said, "There was no context.  No one was saying anything."

Apparently Jayson heard someone say "oh snap" a few days ago and he'd never heard it before and wanted to sound all young and hip.  Taylor would have rolled her eyes and said, "FAIL!"  So we had a discussion on the appropriate usage of "oh snap" and then did some role playing exercises so we could practice sounding natural when we say it. Unfortunately for me, a recovering potty mouth, when an emphatic "oh" comes out of my mouth, "snap" is not the word that naturally wants to follow it.  I have to stop, think, regroup, then speak.  After some practice, we were both satisfied that we could say "oh snap" and sound exactly like the people we are: The King of the Geeks and his lovely wife, the Nerd Queen. 

Bruised and battered for the better

My new friend Beverly is recovering from eye surgery and is still in that battered and bruised stage.  She'll heal and it will be fabulous but she reminded me of a surgery I had years ago.

Well, let me back up.  I've been sleepy for 25 years.  Not the drowsy, stayed up too late, need more rest kind of sleepy, but the oh my gosh I am absolutely going to DIE if I don't fall asleep right this very instant kind of sleepy.  Believe it or not, there is a big difference. 

When I was a senior in high school, I got mono...from sharing a Coke with someone, of course...which can cause some pretty serious fatigue.  I was sick, but functioning, for about 6 months.  My sister said she was walking down the hall in school one day behind this pitiful, emaciated girl who was pasty and freakishly thin.  Then she realized it was me.  Yeah, buddy, I was a looker.  Anyway, I got over the mono but the extreme fatigue never went away.

I just wrote it off as hereditary laziness until I started falling asleep while I was driving.  I'm not talking about driving cross country, I would doze off in the 5 minute drive from my house to Target.  I started thinking maybe that wasn't normal.

My first thought was sleep apnea.  Jayson said I sometimes....purr...when I sleep.  I certainly do NOT snore.  Much.  So I went to my favorite ENT doctor who took my tonsils out when I was 14 and still maintained a thriving practice between his golf games.  He took one look at the back of my throat and noted that I had way too much soft palate back there which could cause...purring...and could block my airway while I slept.  He recommended I have a uvulopalatoplasty where they essentially remove the uvula (that little hangy downy thing in the back of your throat) and the surrounding loose tissue.  He said my throat would be "uncomfortable" for about 2 weeks, then everything would be peachy.  Sounded doable to me.

During the exam he also noted that I had a deviated septum that needed to be corrected and he could do that procedure at the same time.  Worked for me.  Then he said, very delicately, "so, Mrs. Green, while we're in there is therrrre....anything else you'd like to have done...." as he waved the pen in his hand around my nose like it was a magic wand.

Okay, fine, I had a little bit of excess nose with some pointy protrusions on the sides.  You know when a cartoon character swallows a bone and they show it stuck in their throat sideways?  It looked like my nose swallowed a bone.  It wasn't altogether hideous, it just gave me a little more character than I cared to have.  Since a nose job isn't covered by insurance but he was already going in there anyway, he cut me a really good deal.  Sort of a buy 2 get 1 free type thing.

So, I went in for surgery (out patient if I remember correctly) to have the uvulopalatoplasty, septoplasty, and rhinoplasty.  I was told I would have a sore throat for 2 weeks and possibly some bruising around my eyes.  The day after surgery I would have to go back to the doctor so he could remove the packing in my nose.  Which, by the way, I am convinced was the inspiration for that trick that magicians do where they pull a 50 foot long scarf out the palm of their hand.  The doctor started pulling out the packing in my nose and more and more of it kept coming out until I was convinced that he was pulling my brain out through my nose.  It was not a pleasant experience.

Anyway...when I got home after the surgery, Shamayn brought Taylor to the house to see me.  She was probably 4 or 5 at the time and evidently Mayn had warned her that I was going to be bandaged and bruised and wouldn't look very good.  Taylor walked into the bedroom, looked at my face and tears welled up in her big brown eyes.  She said all tearfully, "Mommy?  I don't think you're gonna make it."  It hurt to laugh but I reassured her that I would, eventually, make it.

Then a couple of days later I had second thoughts.  And very vivid fantasies about torturing and killing that lying, deceiving, golf-playing doctor of mine.  He said I would have a sore throat.  He said it would be like getting my tonsils out where I would have to eat ice cream and jello for a while.  Ice cream and jello??  I couldn't swallow my own spit!  Sore throat does not begin to describe the pain I was in.  Childbirth would be closer but there would be fun baby at the end of it.  It was excruciating.  And it wasn't just the surface pain in my throat, it was the muscular pain that really got to me.  If I tried to swallow I would feel this sharp, stabbing pain going from my throat straight up into each ear.  No one warned me about that.  Oh, and that whole "2 weeks" thing?  Big. Fat. Lie.  I was miserable for over a month.  I couldn't breathe through my nose because of the swelling and yucky scabby stuff going on in there, but I couldn't breathe out of my mouth either because air felt like fire.  So basically I didn't eat, drink or breathe for about a month.

Eventually, everything healed.  I held on to the bruises around my eyes for almost 2 months which proved to be sort of fun once the bandages and swelling were gone.  I probably looked like a battered wife but I pretended I was a bad girl who got into fights.

Did this solve my problem with fatigue?  No.  It did not.  I could have been a little mad about that, but I got a discount nose job out of the deal.  I told my neurologist (who was treating me for migraines) about my continued fatigue and he said I could have something called central apnea which causes you to stop breathing while you sleep but not from a physical obstruction. My great aunt had narcolepsy so that was also an option.  He scheduled me for a sleep study to see what was up.

The sleep study showed that I have extremely fragmented sleep patterns.  During the study I woke up, not always to full consciousness, 3 or 4 times an hour.  There is another test called an MSLT that is usually given after a sleep study to verify narcolepsy but the doctor said that wasn't even necessary since he could see that my patterns are so screwed up.  So, I started taking medication to treat narcolepsy and I no longer fall asleep in my car, at the mall, on the phone, or in the middle of an IMAX  movie.  I am still tired 24/7 but I don't have that urgent, panicky *need* to sleep.  I just want to.  All the time.

So, that's what I've been thinking about since Beverly had her eye surgery...my unnecessary yet beneficial nose/throat surgeries.  Well, the deviated septum did need to be fixed.  It was actually lying on its side so that part was necessary. 

Come to think of it, that's not the only time one of us has had surgery because of well-meaning yet inaccurate medical advice.  Jayson still whines about that.  Men are such babies, it was just one little vasectomy.  

If one's good, 638 are better

Look what I got today!!  638 little glass bottles from one of my most favorite places to order from: American Science & Surplus.  They set me back a whole $16.95.  How could I not buy them?  The only downside to this whole transaction is that I simply cannot figure out why there are 638.  They came all sealed up nice and neat and wrapped in bubble wrap so I'm assuming that's the way they come from the manufacturer but why 638??  It's driving me crazy!!  It's not even divisible by 12!  How insane is that??!!  And...now this will really bake your noodle...technically I did not receive 638 because 2 of them arrived broken.  2 out of 638 is not bad at all so I decided against demanding my 4/100ths of a cent back.  Here's the noodle baking part: Because of the 2 broken bottles, I received 636 bottles which IS DIVISIBLE BY 12!!!!  636 makes perfect sense!!  Maybe they knew.  Maybe they intentionally calculate 2 broken bottles per shipment so that their customers will receive a logical number of bottles. Or...maybe I'm undermedicated.

Assuming I can ever work past the math nightmare, I'm going to make something fabulous out of these.  Well, not all of them but a good portion of them.  I saw some cute necklaces on a Facebook page that were made from these little bottles and I want to try to make my own version.  Of course,  I will most likely go completely overboard and end up with something so huge and bulky it can never be worn but that's okay because there's a word for that.  It's not "mistake" it's "object d'art".

I already know I'm going to use guitar wire as the necklace base but the tough part will be coming up with enough interesting doodads to fill the bottles.  I could fill all 638...uh 636...with beads right now.  I've got enough in my stash to do that but how boring is that?  I want interesting doodads but they have to be tiny interesting doodads.  I will likely be collecting tiny things for a while before this can materialize.

I worked on Kaelei's paint chip book a little more last night.  I made a page with library pockets on each side for some of the samples.  I want to make at least 2 more pages like it with empty pockets for her to fill up any way she wants.  I've also decided I want to cover it in fabric and attach handles so it will be easier for her to carry.  At the rate I'm going she'll be getting this for Christmas 2015. 

Uumm.  That's all I have to say.  The end.

Collections and obsessions

I almost started this off by saying, "I'm not much of a collector" but that would be sort of a lie.  It would be more accurate to say that I'm not a collector of traditional, collectible type things.  Antiques are great, but only if they're useful.  I love old china and dishes but why anyone would hang a plate on a wall is beyond me.  How you gonna eat your cake off that thing??  And I never met a Hummel figurine that I didn't want to throw up against a wall.

I guess you could say I have a...sizable collection of art supplies, collage doodads and ephemera.  But the goal with those is not just to accumulate more, I do actually use the stuff.  Occasionally.

The only thing I have that I would consider a collectible where I actually seek out more of them just to have them, is my small assortment of dutch Delft pottery.  This is not the traditional blue and white pottery that you might think of when you hear Delft.  This stuff has a funky turquoise and gold swirly pattern on it and usually has some brass on it somewhere.  I think this was made sometime between the 1940s and 1970s and evidently it didn't go over too well.  There's not a whole lot of it so it's hard to find but it's not valuable or expensive or anything.   

The first piece I got was from my Grandmother when she died and it's the tall skinny ewer on the far left in this picture.  That's your free scrabble word for the day.  "Ewer".  It's a small pitcher.  I'm not sure why we need another word for pitcher but ewer certainly is easier to play in a scrabble game.  My sister and I used this piece when we would play I Dream of Jeannie at my Grandmother's house.  It was the bottle that we would blink ourselves into.  Good times.

All of the other pieces I've found on eBay.  Today I got the small ewer and the little covered dish in the front of the picture.  I'm really excited about the covered dish!  The little ewers and vases I can find on eBay pretty easily but I think I already have at least one of every shape and size.  It's the little dishes and bowls without any brass on them that don't show up every often.  So when you're out shopping or junquing keep your eyes peeled and report back if you see any of these.

My niece, Kaelei, has a collection of paint chips that might just lean a little more toward the obsession side.  I'm sure not one to judge since on more than one occasion I have walked out of Lowe's with one of every single paint sample available on their shelves.







I got an idea to make some kind of collection book for Kaelei where she could store her paint chips and use them to make little crafty things if she wants to.  I made a few little mini notebooks for her and a couple of bookmarks.  Then I took some of the textured samples and put a small piece inside some slide mounts.  I have no idea what I'm going to do with those yet.

So now I'm trying to figure out how to make the collection book.  I've decided I'm going to use a binder I got from Susan Malcolm.  She sells these really cute personalized notecards and wedding invitations.  She has sample books you can look through and when the companies put out new sample books she has no use for the old ones.  I think one of her old sample books will make an awesome collection binder for Kaelei's paint chips!

I'm still working out the details for how this is going to look but the process sure is fun!  I'll post updates as I continue to work on it.