JenMarie's Cafe

So, the fireman and I have done most of our Christmas shopping. It was lots of fun. The fireman and I have ran around and marked stuff off the list. We actually have a good idea what we’re doing now for the kids…well, mostly. One we still need a few more ideas on, but doing good for November.

I actually made a spreadsheet. On my laptop. With totals and ideas and stocking stuffers, all in columns and organized. Yes. I’m weird.

On one hand, if you wait til the last minute, you have a hard time finding what you want and finding GOOD gifts for people. On the other hand, if you shop too early, you find more things you like better and you end up spending more money. It’s a tough break.

I had a Dr’s appointment today at lunch and stopped by Toy’s R Us for a sale priced item for the youngest boy and had an impromptu Sonic crispy chicken sandwich. Boyo, I don’t get fast food often, but it was gooooood! I almost got a breakfast burrito, ala Jana, but wanted crispy goodness instead. Yum. Didn’t they used to have a pork tenderloin sandwhich a long time ago? I was hoping for it, but no luck….I did notice, however, that they opened up a new Chick Fil A! I was super excited, but I had already gotten my Sonic, so couldn’t change my mind.

Our Thanksgiving is going to be nice and quiet. My mom always goes to my sister’s for Thanksgiving cause they like being home for Christmas. And the fireman’s mom always goes to his youngest brother’s for Thanksgiving. So, it’s just us. It’s pretty nice. So, since my mom left last week for my sister’s, I sent my sister, neice and nephew’s Christmas gifts. No postage. Yeah!

We have some great food recipe’s ready for Thanksgiving meal. I plan on having a post highlighting our favorite recipes for Thanksgiving. One year, we’ll have the BEST recipes and it won’t change. But we still play with our menu each year.

Oh! I read Gone Girl for my book club. Weird book. Intelligent book, but I’m not really sure if I liked it. I can’t really say I enjoyed it all that much. It kinda made me feel angry or depressed while reading it. Not really the escapism I really long for in a book. Dunno.

So, I had to update with pics of the girl.

This was her at the prompt care, we were trying to cheer her up by making her pose for the camera. That is actually mud on her face from the fall.
This is real stuff, folks….

Then, since she broke BOTH bones in her arm, by the wrist, but one bone was broke clean through, she had to get it reset. It wasn’t completely in-line and it was at the growth plate, so….important.

So, she had to go to appointments all day, the next day, morning appt with the doctor, setting up surgery the next day and afternoon appointment for a physical to make sure she was healthy enough.

Weird thing, it’s called closed surgery, so they actually put her out, gave her anesthesia, so that it wouldn’t hurt when she reset it. But they didn’t actually cut into her. It was like all the set up for real surgery, only no cutting.

She was a little nervous until she found out that they were using a gas mask and not an iv for the anesthesia. Therefore, no needles. BTW, she wore that had to school today as a beret. Total look with it cocked to one side and all.

And seriously, you should have seen us. Me in crutches and her getting her cast done. Everyone was asking if it was me or her they were working on. We had to explain ourselves a lot. I’ll have to get a pic of the both of us, all bandaged up. Sad thing.

So, she was only out for like 20 minutes. It took longer to get all set up and have every one check her in and changed than the actual procedure.

The fireman and I got these neon pink wrist bands with her name on them, so that she can only leave with people that have the same name on the wrist bands. Especially incase she’s really groggy after. She had to tease him for wearing pink, not that it bothered him.

I drove separately, since I went to work in the morning, and her appt wasn’t until noon. I used the hospital valet service, since it’s free. Hey, being on crutches is a good excuse to use it. So, when we left, she wanted to ride with me. The anesthesia gave her nausea and she tossed her cookies afterwards and was kinda feeling puny and weak. So, I got the jeep pulled around and kissed the fireman goodbye, telling him we’d meet him at home.

On the way, I figured we’d swing by and pick up her homework, since it was about time for school to get out. So, I pulled into the school parking lot and just sat there. I only then realized that I had no actual way of getting the homework back into the car. I can’t carry it while on crutches, and I can’t send a little girl, straight out of anesthesia (nauseus and still dizzy) to run inside and carry it out.

So, I call the fireman and luckily he hadn’t gotten home yet, he had stopped at the fire station for something or other. So, he said he’d grab it for us. I turned and headed home. Once I pulled in, she got sick again. I sat there realizing, I had no way to support her if she threw up walking into the house, or got dizzy. So, I went inside, having her wait in the jeep, while I go inside to find the youngest boy, but he’s downstairs and I can’t make it down. So, I call him on his cell phone and ask him to come help me get her in. He sees the bag of (tossed cookies) and says, ”I’m not so good with vomit.” coughing a little. I grabbed the bag, wrapped it up, stuck it between two fingers and crutched it to the trash can. I didn’t want him to get sick, too. So, he then walked next to her, making sure she didn’t trip, or get dizzy.

Once we were all inside, her and I hit the couch and didn’t move for like, hours.

We spent most of the weekend curled there, too. Catching up on our DVR’d Once Upon A Time, and Mirror Mirror that came in the Blockbuster Online we had saved for the weekend.

And now? She looks all healed up and sporting a fancy cast.

P.S. I ran by the store and got her a pack of neon colored markers to take to school for some signage. She was super excited for Monday morning.

See, for you to truly appreciate how great this new garage door is, you have to see the BEFORE. So, here it is, in all it’s two toned glory.

We had windows, but the door was a little crooked, heavy wood and not insulated.

The spring broke, so we had to replace it. The garage door opener actually still worked, and the new door is super light and easy to move. This one took two people to open while it was broken.

And here’s the ending product. It’s splendiferous! Stupendous! Crazy ramalamadingdong cool!

That’s just how I feel about it.

The hardware is just that, the door still opens like normal.

Just cooler….

On other news, the I had just gotten home…and seen the door. The girl went off for a quick ride on her scooter. She came home from a friends house where she was swinging and swung off, jumping, but landed on her wrist and broke it in two places.

So, imagine this.

Here I go in to the ER on crutches with the girl holding her wrist and the fireman following behind, shaking his head and carrying all of our things.

When we left, he had to open the door for both of us and the doctor laughed and said, you’ve got your work cut out for you. You sure you don’t want a neck brace, you know, just so you don’t feel left out?

The fireman gave a grunt, rolled his eyes and ushered us out. *grin*

So, we’re both laid up.

Good thing we got extra ice packs right before my foot surgery… we’re gonna need ‘em.

My healing is going well. I’ve been sitting on the couch for the last two days, reading and catching up on my DVR’d shows. I’ve been sleeping like a college kid, too. But I miss being able to put my own stuff away, or get my own stuff out. It’s hard to manage carrying things when you’re on crutches. But I’m only on them for two weeks, and so I’m going to try to enjoy it while I can.

The first night was pretty hard. I took meds before I went to bed, not knowing when the nerve block would wear off and knowing the meds need to build up in my system before they work well. The fireman had his alarm set to wake me in four hours for another dose. I woke up in 2 hours, feeling the nerve block wear off. It wore off way too fast, and I had to wait to take the next meds. Then, since they hadn’t built up yet, they weren’t sufficient to block the pain. I ended up on the couch that night, so that I could prop my leg up on the back of the couch and get it as high (and numb) as possible. It was horribly painful. My lovely fireman slept on the loveseat in the living room to stay near me and keep an eye on me. I finally slept in 20  minute intervals out of sheer exhaustion and the meds finally kicked in around 6am. Then I slept like a dream.

The fireman made this wonderful chicken pot pie last night and I finally had the appetite for it. When I make it, I try to make a white sauce and add chicken bullion, like a chicken pan gravy, then add the shredded chicken and peas and carrots, sauteed onions, too. But he just used the jarred chicken gravy and a bag of mixed vegetables, plus a leftover rotisserie chicken. Then, he set it in the fridge till supper time. He rolled out a jiffy pie crust and set it on top and baked it. OMG was it good! It was simple, but full of flavor! I liked that it wasn’t a ton of pie crust, just the top, so not as much carbs, but added a nice crisp, salty flavor.

BTW, I read in my Taste of Home recently that said that the top premade pie crusts were Marie Calendar and Jiffy. There were others, like an organic one and something else, but these surprised me. Not pillsbury, but Jiffy… And it was good last night. I nearly always make my own, cause I have a fast recipe, but I was impressed. I know that Marie Calendar’s frozen pies are the only premade pies that I think are really good.

Since I haven’t updated our renovations lately, here’s where we are on a few things. We finally have a lead on floor registers for the house. We wanted to replace ours with those big farmhouse ones, cast iron, but haven’t found them anywhere except online that cost $80 or so, and we need four of them to do the living room and dining room. IT’s a great room, so you’d notice. Kind of like this one. We never finished the floor boards in the living/diningroom/hallway after the remodel where we took the wall out and put the barn beams up. The fireman found someone on Criagslist that said they have old, antique ones ranging from $15-25. So, that’d be awesome.

We may try to run out today and look at them. I will have to sit in the backseat of the truck, and veg a little, but that’s okay. For baseboards, we’re going to have the nice tall boards, not quite as high as the registers. Maybe 6-8 inch tall? Poly’d to shine like the barn beams. I will love it!

The fireman is still finishing up the last few things with the fence. It’s so nice having it up. It’s all done except for the gates. I took lots of pictures of the building of it and will post them once it’s all done. The youngest boy and I helped as much as we could, but the fireman did half of it or more, just by himself. He rocks.

The last upgrade we have, as of new is the garage door. The springs totally broke on it a couple of months back. And my poor motorcycle has had to sit outside. She’s kinda cranky about it. But now that I’m laid up, she can be garaged for the winter. We had to buy a new garage door, because they don’t sell just the springs. Besides, the door is super old, not insulate and heavy as all get out. So, we found a nice new one and it will be delivered this week!

We even paid the extra hundred bucks or so to get the carriage door! A normal garage door is like this.

With the rectangles, lengthwise. We wanted windows, but they add a lot of expense. But the carriage doors include windows and hardware to make it look like old carriage doors. It doesn’t actually open that way, but it just LOOKS like it.

Ours will look like this, except take out the section in the middle. They’re attached, one long door, but with the hardware in the center, it still looks like they open independently. Can you tell there are thin slats running up and down in the body of the door? Like wood slats. So, the actual form of the door is different too.

And the front of the house is so much of the face, so I really think it’ll upgrade the whole look/feel of the house.

I’m super excited about it coming in. And I’ll have pics once it does. Of course.

That’s all for now, off to sleep more…