I need to plan some Christmas shopping. I've been keeping a running list of what I want and what I'll get for everyone else on draft in Gmail- it's been really good system. Every time I think of something else I can just hit the nearest computer for a minute and add it. I feel like I'm not forgetting anything. Looking at it strategically I'll be doing a HUGE order on Amazon, and then getting a few gift certificates. Maybe some magazine subscriptions? I haven't worked it all out yet. The only thing that has been super easy are presents for people at work. When I go to Target I check out the $2 section by the front door for little stuff to put in work stockings.
I'm trying to be very mindful of Christmas this year. What it means, how I'll celebrate it. How I can make it work without spending loads of money on things that people won't get use out of. I realized a few days ago that out of all the things I got last Christmas, there are 4 I use consistently: a timer that counts up or down or shows the time (it lives in my kitchen and I use it every single day), an LED key chain light (soooo handy), a scarf that is beautiful and soft and warm and goes with everything, and a cardigan I got with a gift certificate from my sister. I am trying to think how the gifts I give can be useful like that and not just take up space.
This is the first year I'm not planning to be with family, because we're all in our different spots of the world. I am looking forward to a relaxing weekend and a day of calm and peace. I can bake cookies and listen to music and relax. It will be a good time to come up with some goals for the next year. It's like a day of Thanksgiving just for me. I know that sounds weird and a little selfish. But I'm not at all religious, I haven't been to church in years and the closest thing to God I believe in is some cosmic force. I haven't even worked that out for myself.
Sunday when I go home I want to pull out my box of Christmas decorations. I got a little tree last year that just fits on an end table by my couch. I have a collection of ornaments that are incredibly hap-hazard. My parents bought my sister and me one ornament each every year starting at our first Christmases. When we got big enough we could pick our own and does that ever make for a random bunch! When I look at magazine spreads of Christmas trees and decorating, the trees are always beautiful but a little sterile. Every holiday season when I unpack my box it is like seeing old friends- there is a mouse with wings holding a guitar (I think I was three when I acquired that), a golden fancy Victorian fan (7 or 8), gorgeous hand blown glass balls from more recent years. I put up the lights and ornaments and then turn out all of the lights in my apartment except for the tree and sit and look at it for a while. We used to do that when I was little and it was always a nice tradition. Turn on some Christmas music and pour a glass of wine (now, not when I was a kid!) and ponder the holiday season. I'm almost ready for Christmas. If I see some snow, I'll be set!
So, even with the travel and the craziness at work and the drama of learning a new job and being far away from family, I'm going to make this a nice Christmas. Even if it is just for me. I often think I am lucky for being a person who is content in solitude.
Saturday, November 24, 2007
Friday, November 23, 2007
The Perfect Post-Thanksgiving Day
Known to some as "Black Friday" this has been a damn good day. Slept in a little and then took my car to the dealership for 2 recalls that had to be seen to. Turns out Black Friday is a GREAT day for getting car repairs because everyone else is out shopping and actually NEED a vehicle. I got MHM to pick me up and we went to his office for a while.
He's moving to a new space at work so we spent a lot of time sorting through random crap and organizing stuff to pack up. The man baffles me. The other day I told him I'm not marrying him until he cleans up his stuff because he is a slob. To be fair, I run the opposite end of the spectrum, I tend to be a neat freak. We're the odd couple, and I know enough about how that works that I am sure if some sort of happy medium is not met and we live together, I will kill him. Over not throwing out junk mail. Anyway, the truly weird part (to me) is that he has all of the tools for getting organized. File folder hangers and stands, inbox/outbox trays, drawers, cupboards, you name it. He just doesn't use them. I sorted through a desk drawer filled with random scraps of paper and receipts, pay stubs, fast food napkins, and invoices. And do you know what else was in that drawer? 10 EMPTY hanging folders. The tools are there. I'm not sure he can be saved. I am sitting in his living room and it is all I can do to not start cleaning. Part of me really enjoys going though other people's stuff and helping them organize. I've been paid for a it a few times. But I know MHM well enough by now to know that A. he won't appreciate any effort I make toward cleaning his place, and B. it'll be back to this again in 1 month. So I clear a path and leave it alone. For as long as I can.
Anyway, this post is not a bitch session about cleanliness and organization. After I got my car back, we came home and crashed. We took a 3 HOUR nap. LOVELY. And then we ate Mexican food at our favorite place, and came home to have leftover pumpkin pie. YUM. Now I'm catching up on blog posts and he's watching Transformers. Except somewhere in there it changed to Superman. Oh well, we're happy and relaxed and life is good and I love days off work.
Happy day-after-Thanksgiving everybody!
He's moving to a new space at work so we spent a lot of time sorting through random crap and organizing stuff to pack up. The man baffles me. The other day I told him I'm not marrying him until he cleans up his stuff because he is a slob. To be fair, I run the opposite end of the spectrum, I tend to be a neat freak. We're the odd couple, and I know enough about how that works that I am sure if some sort of happy medium is not met and we live together, I will kill him. Over not throwing out junk mail. Anyway, the truly weird part (to me) is that he has all of the tools for getting organized. File folder hangers and stands, inbox/outbox trays, drawers, cupboards, you name it. He just doesn't use them. I sorted through a desk drawer filled with random scraps of paper and receipts, pay stubs, fast food napkins, and invoices. And do you know what else was in that drawer? 10 EMPTY hanging folders. The tools are there. I'm not sure he can be saved. I am sitting in his living room and it is all I can do to not start cleaning. Part of me really enjoys going though other people's stuff and helping them organize. I've been paid for a it a few times. But I know MHM well enough by now to know that A. he won't appreciate any effort I make toward cleaning his place, and B. it'll be back to this again in 1 month. So I clear a path and leave it alone. For as long as I can.
Anyway, this post is not a bitch session about cleanliness and organization. After I got my car back, we came home and crashed. We took a 3 HOUR nap. LOVELY. And then we ate Mexican food at our favorite place, and came home to have leftover pumpkin pie. YUM. Now I'm catching up on blog posts and he's watching Transformers. Except somewhere in there it changed to Superman. Oh well, we're happy and relaxed and life is good and I love days off work.
Happy day-after-Thanksgiving everybody!
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
The Dental Train of Fun
FUN.
As I'm sure I've mentioned before (or maybe not), when I was a little kid I had a bike accident and smashed my front top teeth. I didn't knock them out completely, instead I broke them. So for the longest time (more than 10 years) I had my smashed teeth, with gold posts drilled into them for some stability, and bonding on top of that. Bonding is a sort of acrylic polymer that gives the cosmetic appearance of real teeth, but it is really fragile. I did a pretty good job as a kid keeping those intact. Sticky candy or carrots, it didn't matter how healthy something was, I still couldn't bite into it with my front teeth. For the majority of my childhood and teenage years I either had to cut everything up into tiny bite-sized pieces, or gnaw on it with my side teeth. I'm sure watching that delicate method was a treat. (And I still have nightmares about the bonding breaking- they're very vivid.)
When I was 10 or so the trauma finally caught up with those teeth and I had to have a double root canal to clear out the infection that resulted from either the bike accident, or another unfortunate fall that left a scar right between my nose and my upper lip. It didn't matter where it came from, all that mattered was the fact that I had to go through Christmas vacation with the abcesses draining from little holes in the backs of my teeth. I can still remember how that felt.
When I was 18 my mouth had finally gotten big enough (har har) for permanent crowns. YAY! The dentist prepped my teeth for them, took some more X-rays, and sent me to an endodontist to get the root canals re-done on those teeth because they saw the slightest shadow of infection around the root. YUCK. But when I was finished I did have teeth that were functional. Perhaps not perfect, but functional.
10 years later.... Two weeks ago one of my crowns was feeling sort of... funny. I had a cleaning scheduled so I didn't worry about it too much. In I went. The hygenist took some X-rays. All I heard from her was, "uh oh".
THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING TO HEAR FROM ANY MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.
In came the dentist. "Uh oh."
THIS IS AN EVEN WORSE THING TO HEAR FROM A DENTIST.
The roots of two of my front teeth had completely dissolved. All you could see on the x-ray was a black void that was pretty much entirely infected tissue. Going up into the bone. GROSS. My dentist didn't even miss a beat, "Those teeth have to come out."
!!!!!!!!???????????!!!!!!!!!!??????
So we discussed options. Implants would be great, but I'd have to wait for the bone to heal up from the infection. That could take up to a year - with some sort of "flipper" bridge thing holding the space and making it hard to talk - so that's not really an option. The best thing for me was a permanent bridge- where they take the teeth on either side of the extracted teeth and put crowns on them with fake teeth attached to span the gap (one already had a crown because it was an original bike accident tooth, the other was a perfectly good tooth).
Two days later I was back in the dentist chair. And getting teeth out? Really not bad. Certainly not as bad as root canals. They gave me nitrous oxide and popped in a movie and I could have hung out there all afternoon. Well, okay, I pretty much did- it was a three hour appointment. She gave the first one a wriggle and then a little tug and out it came. The second one she wriggled and then just barely pulled and it came out so smoothly that I didn't even feel tug. That tooth was just waiting to come out. I'm lucky I wasn't sitting in some big important meeting at work and have my tooth just fall out on the table like a tic-tac. HOW PRETTY WOULD THAT BE? Anyway, extractions are a cake-walk.
So I went home all numb from the novocaine, and I took some Advil and I was great.
Until two days later. That Saturday night I wanted to die. I gave in and took some Lortab the denist had prescribed. The next day I called her for some antibiotics. I was sure with all of the throbbing that it MUST have been infected. So I went to the pharmacy and take one with the Lortab and life was good. (I really love Lortab.)
Until a few hours later. MHM drove me to Cheesecake Factory for a congratulations dinner (YAY PROMOTION!) and I started feeling WEIRD. Very sleepy and not myself at all. I made it throught dinner okay- food really seemed to help. We got home and I sat down to watchTV and then I realized I was not breathing.
Now when I say I'm not breathing it isn't like my throat was closing up and I was gasping for air. I would take a breath and think to myself, "Well, that felt weird. I wonder how long it has been since I did that?" I guess the proper term would be labored breathing. I got the blood pressure monitor and while my blood pressure was fine, my pulse was around 50 beats a minute. My resting heartrate before I even get out of bed in the morning is never less than 60. So at this point I started to freak out a little.
I called my dentist and she told me I should probably go to the emergency room, but that I could try some Benedryl first. MHM drove me to the grocery store and I got a bottle of children's Benedryl and drank some on the way home. In about 15 minutes I was feeling much MUCH better. (Meanwhile MHM, who had been completely calm and collected and reasonable got home and practically passed out once it was obvious that I was going to be okay. Poor guy. I put him through a lot sometimes.)
The next day I went back to the dentist and I didn't have an infection at all- I had dry sockets. Really painful. She packed them full of cotton pads soaked in clove oil, which lasts about 36 hours (it does help with some of the pain) and I couldn't take anything stronger than Advil because I'm not sure what the reaction was to- codeine based drugs or amoxycillin? I'll need to go to my GP and find out.
So, am I ever getting the permanent bridge? After the holes close up in my mouth I have to do about a week's worth of whitening. (That was not an option when I got my first crowns, and these things last about 10 years so I want them as pefect as I can get them. Because damn it what I am paying for this had BETTER buy perfection.) Then I will go to the lab to get my bridge custom shaded. THEN they'll make the bridge.
The really cool part? Just like a nose job, I got to pick my new teeth. I never really thought about the shape of my teeth before, but now they're going to be slightly more... feminine. Pretty rounded woman teeth, instead of the clunkers sitting in a little box on my coffee table.
Oh yeah, I kept those nasty old teeth! They're like a science experiment!
As I'm sure I've mentioned before (or maybe not), when I was a little kid I had a bike accident and smashed my front top teeth. I didn't knock them out completely, instead I broke them. So for the longest time (more than 10 years) I had my smashed teeth, with gold posts drilled into them for some stability, and bonding on top of that. Bonding is a sort of acrylic polymer that gives the cosmetic appearance of real teeth, but it is really fragile. I did a pretty good job as a kid keeping those intact. Sticky candy or carrots, it didn't matter how healthy something was, I still couldn't bite into it with my front teeth. For the majority of my childhood and teenage years I either had to cut everything up into tiny bite-sized pieces, or gnaw on it with my side teeth. I'm sure watching that delicate method was a treat. (And I still have nightmares about the bonding breaking- they're very vivid.)
When I was 10 or so the trauma finally caught up with those teeth and I had to have a double root canal to clear out the infection that resulted from either the bike accident, or another unfortunate fall that left a scar right between my nose and my upper lip. It didn't matter where it came from, all that mattered was the fact that I had to go through Christmas vacation with the abcesses draining from little holes in the backs of my teeth. I can still remember how that felt.
When I was 18 my mouth had finally gotten big enough (har har) for permanent crowns. YAY! The dentist prepped my teeth for them, took some more X-rays, and sent me to an endodontist to get the root canals re-done on those teeth because they saw the slightest shadow of infection around the root. YUCK. But when I was finished I did have teeth that were functional. Perhaps not perfect, but functional.
10 years later.... Two weeks ago one of my crowns was feeling sort of... funny. I had a cleaning scheduled so I didn't worry about it too much. In I went. The hygenist took some X-rays. All I heard from her was, "uh oh".
THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING TO HEAR FROM ANY MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL.
In came the dentist. "Uh oh."
THIS IS AN EVEN WORSE THING TO HEAR FROM A DENTIST.
The roots of two of my front teeth had completely dissolved. All you could see on the x-ray was a black void that was pretty much entirely infected tissue. Going up into the bone. GROSS. My dentist didn't even miss a beat, "Those teeth have to come out."
!!!!!!!!???????????!!!!!!!!!!??????
So we discussed options. Implants would be great, but I'd have to wait for the bone to heal up from the infection. That could take up to a year - with some sort of "flipper" bridge thing holding the space and making it hard to talk - so that's not really an option. The best thing for me was a permanent bridge- where they take the teeth on either side of the extracted teeth and put crowns on them with fake teeth attached to span the gap (one already had a crown because it was an original bike accident tooth, the other was a perfectly good tooth).
Two days later I was back in the dentist chair. And getting teeth out? Really not bad. Certainly not as bad as root canals. They gave me nitrous oxide and popped in a movie and I could have hung out there all afternoon. Well, okay, I pretty much did- it was a three hour appointment. She gave the first one a wriggle and then a little tug and out it came. The second one she wriggled and then just barely pulled and it came out so smoothly that I didn't even feel tug. That tooth was just waiting to come out. I'm lucky I wasn't sitting in some big important meeting at work and have my tooth just fall out on the table like a tic-tac. HOW PRETTY WOULD THAT BE? Anyway, extractions are a cake-walk.
So I went home all numb from the novocaine, and I took some Advil and I was great.
Until two days later. That Saturday night I wanted to die. I gave in and took some Lortab the denist had prescribed. The next day I called her for some antibiotics. I was sure with all of the throbbing that it MUST have been infected. So I went to the pharmacy and take one with the Lortab and life was good. (I really love Lortab.)
Until a few hours later. MHM drove me to Cheesecake Factory for a congratulations dinner (YAY PROMOTION!) and I started feeling WEIRD. Very sleepy and not myself at all. I made it throught dinner okay- food really seemed to help. We got home and I sat down to watchTV and then I realized I was not breathing.
Now when I say I'm not breathing it isn't like my throat was closing up and I was gasping for air. I would take a breath and think to myself, "Well, that felt weird. I wonder how long it has been since I did that?" I guess the proper term would be labored breathing. I got the blood pressure monitor and while my blood pressure was fine, my pulse was around 50 beats a minute. My resting heartrate before I even get out of bed in the morning is never less than 60. So at this point I started to freak out a little.
I called my dentist and she told me I should probably go to the emergency room, but that I could try some Benedryl first. MHM drove me to the grocery store and I got a bottle of children's Benedryl and drank some on the way home. In about 15 minutes I was feeling much MUCH better. (Meanwhile MHM, who had been completely calm and collected and reasonable got home and practically passed out once it was obvious that I was going to be okay. Poor guy. I put him through a lot sometimes.)
The next day I went back to the dentist and I didn't have an infection at all- I had dry sockets. Really painful. She packed them full of cotton pads soaked in clove oil, which lasts about 36 hours (it does help with some of the pain) and I couldn't take anything stronger than Advil because I'm not sure what the reaction was to- codeine based drugs or amoxycillin? I'll need to go to my GP and find out.
So, am I ever getting the permanent bridge? After the holes close up in my mouth I have to do about a week's worth of whitening. (That was not an option when I got my first crowns, and these things last about 10 years so I want them as pefect as I can get them. Because damn it what I am paying for this had BETTER buy perfection.) Then I will go to the lab to get my bridge custom shaded. THEN they'll make the bridge.
The really cool part? Just like a nose job, I got to pick my new teeth. I never really thought about the shape of my teeth before, but now they're going to be slightly more... feminine. Pretty rounded woman teeth, instead of the clunkers sitting in a little box on my coffee table.
Oh yeah, I kept those nasty old teeth! They're like a science experiment!
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Wow. Just... Wow.
It has been over 2 MONTHS since I wrote ANYTHING in this blog. 2 MONTHS! That is insane. I'm on the internet every day, and yet I can't churn out one teensy little post? Shoot, last year I was signed up for NaBloPoMo and I posted every single day for a month. Every DAY! 2 Months is inexcusable. I don't even have a really good excuse, except for maybe a couple:
1. My boss at work quit. Her boss put me in charge of the team.
2. I eventually got her job. Big fat promotion for this Heather but let me tell you it has been one weird adjustment
3. I'm back on the dental train of fun.
4. I've developed a serious plan to get rid of some debt. All that's left to do now is implement the plan... I've been reading a lot of personal finance blogs.
5. There was a lot of TV to sort through in September with all those new shows coming out. The final viewing schedule looks something like this:
Monday: Heroes (finally starting to get cool again)
Tuesday: House. If that's not on, I usually get sucked into The Biggest Loser.
Wedndesday: Ghosthunters, followed by Life. I had such high hopes for Bionic Woman, but I'm bored to death. This is going to be tough when Project Runway starts up again this week.
Thursday: Grey's Anatomy. I don't answer the phone between 8:00 and 9:00 on Thursdays. I would love all of this on DVD. (This has suddenly turned into a Christmas list!) I usually end up talking to the TV during this show. NO! WAY! I also love The Office, but I can wait and watch it online or something.
Friday: MHM loves Stargate Atlantis (admittedly, I have gotten sucked in). We also love The Soup. Soooo funny.
Saturday: Sometimes SNL. Sometimes not. Whatever. I love the digital shorts.
Sunday: IRON CHEF! This is a very important show. I'm a big Alton Brown fan.
Okay, so you can see how all of this very important TV watching has really cut into my blogging time. :) Part of my financial plan is to cut back to limited basic cable. Sometimes I'm okay with this. Sometimes not. I need to just shut up and do it. If I set a goal for when I can get more channels back, I'll probably pay my debt down faster. You know, deprive myself and then get rewarded.
6. MHM and I are still trading off weekends. Not too bad. Until I get lonely in the middle of the week. Then it sucks.
7. Our corporate office has designed new software for product development. I'm heading up the implementation at the local office. It's a big hairy deal, and I'm traveling quite a bit.
8. The holidays are coming. I guess I need to start... preparing? Yes, certainly need to get on that.
But, that being said, I'm going to make a better effort to blog more. I have fun doing it, but I sorta need to, um, DO IT. Look at all of the post ideas just in this one list!
1. My boss at work quit. Her boss put me in charge of the team.
2. I eventually got her job. Big fat promotion for this Heather but let me tell you it has been one weird adjustment
3. I'm back on the dental train of fun.
4. I've developed a serious plan to get rid of some debt. All that's left to do now is implement the plan... I've been reading a lot of personal finance blogs.
5. There was a lot of TV to sort through in September with all those new shows coming out. The final viewing schedule looks something like this:
Monday: Heroes (finally starting to get cool again)
Tuesday: House. If that's not on, I usually get sucked into The Biggest Loser.
Wedndesday: Ghosthunters, followed by Life. I had such high hopes for Bionic Woman, but I'm bored to death. This is going to be tough when Project Runway starts up again this week.
Thursday: Grey's Anatomy. I don't answer the phone between 8:00 and 9:00 on Thursdays. I would love all of this on DVD. (This has suddenly turned into a Christmas list!) I usually end up talking to the TV during this show. NO! WAY! I also love The Office, but I can wait and watch it online or something.
Friday: MHM loves Stargate Atlantis (admittedly, I have gotten sucked in). We also love The Soup. Soooo funny.
Saturday: Sometimes SNL. Sometimes not. Whatever. I love the digital shorts.
Sunday: IRON CHEF! This is a very important show. I'm a big Alton Brown fan.
Okay, so you can see how all of this very important TV watching has really cut into my blogging time. :) Part of my financial plan is to cut back to limited basic cable. Sometimes I'm okay with this. Sometimes not. I need to just shut up and do it. If I set a goal for when I can get more channels back, I'll probably pay my debt down faster. You know, deprive myself and then get rewarded.
6. MHM and I are still trading off weekends. Not too bad. Until I get lonely in the middle of the week. Then it sucks.
7. Our corporate office has designed new software for product development. I'm heading up the implementation at the local office. It's a big hairy deal, and I'm traveling quite a bit.
8. The holidays are coming. I guess I need to start... preparing? Yes, certainly need to get on that.
But, that being said, I'm going to make a better effort to blog more. I have fun doing it, but I sorta need to, um, DO IT. Look at all of the post ideas just in this one list!
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