Well that was a crazy couple of minutes

Last night we were sleeping in bed... well, at least I was... I think Chad was up and down because he was feeling hot... so he opened the window. Shortly after that a crazy storm rolled through... and Chad heard tornado sirens. Normally I wouldn't think too much of the sirens... if you live in St. Louis long enough, you hear them quite a bit with no tornado ever happening. Well, at the end of December this happened...

I tornado hit close to home... this isn't close to our house, but this is Chad and my hood... where we grew up. My mom's house is very eerily close to where it touched down, and we have a few friends in the neighborhood by it... that when I realized that those tornado sirens are there for a reason.

Back to last night... they we heard them go off we didn't immediately jump out of bed, but both laid there pretty awake. Soon after, the power went out in the house... now you may remember we've now lived in this house for 4 years... and I can count 2 times we've lost power for any significant amount of time. That's the glory of having underground power...

The wind picked up quite a bit... at that point we decided to be safe and head to the bathroom. The room in the middle of the house with no windows. We grabbed the dogs and headed that direction. The severe part of the storm passed pretty quickly, but I'll admit I was kind of scared. We emerged shortly after and headed back to bed... but at that point I was kinda rattled so it took awhile to get back to sleep. I love hearing the rain fall... I love thunderstorms, but don't love the wind...

Luckily nothing around our house was damaged... they was some debris in the street and a couple of down branches... I even saw one mailbox blown over... but our power wasn't on as of this morning. I got ready for work by flashlight... it was kinda strange. It's a good thing I do my grooming at night! The power has finally come back on (poor Chad spent more than half the day at home without power.)

I know this story wasn't very exciting... but gosh darn I needed a 12th February post.

Annual Trivia Night

Last night was the 8th annual VA trivia night... and I have been to every single one of them. As you may recall we've been the champions the last 2 years... so we brought the team back together. This year the team consisted me and Chad (more on that in a minute), Dad and Janet, Keith (our knowledge-base lets face it) and Sarah, and finally Rachel and Scott. Like always we had a great spread of food... there was Imos, Buffalo Wild Wings, fruit, hummus and pita chips. The trivia night also provided sandwiches (I didn't have any) and really yummy QuikTrip cookies.

Chad was 10 days post surgery yesterday... so I wasn't sure if he'd be able to come. Luckily he was feeling pretty good. I was really happy he was there. My mom is the organizer of this event. It's like her big night. Her friends and family come to support this wonderful event. I got to see my grandma and aunt Ruth as well as my sister and some other very distant family members. I also got to see some coworkers and other friends of my mom that I don't see very often. It's very nice to catch up and see everyone.

My super mom also writes a majority of the questions. She is able to mix common knowledge with things that are on the tip of your brain. It's not like some trivia nights where by the end of the night you're feeling just plain stupid. It's a fun time and everyone can contribute.

So did we win the triple crown? As far as I know that's a big fat no. There was a team that had 100% until round 6 or so... we were near the top, but I don't think we finished first this year. Chad started to feel bad (like I said, 10 days after surgery... what'd ya expect??) so we left after round 9.

Some notable moments of last night...

1. The question was name one of the inventors of YouTube. My brother remembered there was some Asian guy... so he jokingly guessed Steven Chu... but the correct answer was Steven Chen... so close!
2. There was a question about an animal character that was orphaned, then wore a suit, married Celeste and became king. We were all baffled by the question and then Chad came up with Babar.
3. Janet and Scott both coming up with the answer Swatch separately, but correctly.
4. No one believing the picture was actually Mike Tyson...

My mom texted me this morning to say that they raised over $10,000 which is truly amazing! Mom- you do an awesome job on this event... you should be very proud of yourself. I'm already looking forward to next year.

Work Space

I thought that I would share a couple of things that personalizes my work space...

It's kind of tradition around here to collect something for all our work trips. I decided on my first trip to collect magnets... this is by no means I unique decision, I would say most people collect magnets. I also keep my gift magnets (things people may bring back for me) separate from my trips. I like to look at the space and see exactly how many trips I've been on. It's amazing how quickly they have added up. My specfic preference is to have the city listed. When I went to Tampa, I couldn't find a Tampa specific magnet (they all just said Florida) so I bought a Florida one that I could write on... so I would remember. I decided the city thing after I went on my first trip and bought a Colorado magnet instead of Denver. Luckily my mom flew through Denver and picked me up a Denver magnet. I also decided that if I visit the same city more than once I will get another magnet. I like to be able to count how many trips I've been on instead of just how many cities. So here's my magnet collection... they are placed in order of the trips.

In case anyone is interested... the trips (and magnets) are in order as follows: Denver, San Francisco, Baltimore, Las Vegas, San Jose, San Diego, Indianapolis, Tampa (you can see I wrote Tampa around the edge of the sun), New Orleans, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Washington, DC, Salt Lake City, and finally, Miami.

Another special area in my office is my window (that's right, I have a window!!) I have slowly grown my plant collection. I started off with a small jade plant... it has grown so so well, I'm amazed at how big it is getting. The next place I added was a gardenia, however shortly after I got it they turned on the heaters in my building and fried it. I was able to bring it back and kept it alive until this winter when they turned the heaters on again and it did the same thing... I had to say goodbye to it after that... While I still had the gardenia I bought another succulant plant, it's grown like crazy, it's sproating off different 'branches' and getting really tall. The third plant I lucked into is an African Violet. A coworker was down here and asked if anyone wanted one. I said sure, especially since I just got rid of the gardenia and had an open spot. I was surprised how big it was when I got it. He was looking a bit limp, but after some good water and loving he spruced up quite quickly. I need to get him a new pot (and probably the succulant) to be able to grow even bigger. I want this to prove to everyone that I can keep a plant alive!! Just not ones I plant in the yard...... My coworker called it survival of the fittest, and I like that theory. Anyway, here's my plants...

Do you see how rainy it is outside? I get to go into that real soon... yay... not... But don't they look great?? I have to rotate the two outter ones to make sure they grow more straight and not toward the window (which that do)

Thanks for stopping by the office, maybe I'll give you a tour of some other things I have another time!!

A few anniversaries

February is a big time around our house, even if Chad wasn't having brain surgery...

Two years ago I started my job at the VA. This is even a bigger anniversary than normal since my first two years I was in a probationary period of sorts... meaning they could really fire me at any point in time or really any reason. After two years I become a full time employee and it will take an "act of congress" to get rid of me... or at least that's what we joke. I'm just happy to still be happy at a place after two years. This is a place I could be happy for the rest of my working life.

Four years ago we moved into this house. I cannot believe we've been living here for four full years. It's amazing. Chad and I were only dating for roughly six months when we moved into this house together. Chad purchased the house, but he involved me in a the process... of course if our relationship had gone south I would have been moving out, luckily for both of us everything has worked out perfectly. It's pretty amazing to me that we've been here for four years and we're only now redecorating the place... taken us long enough to make decisions!! But I'm sure we have many many more years in this place.

Also, two years ago Rowdy joined our family. He's made such an impact on ours lives. While we're celebrating time in the family, we adopted Stitch 4 years ago (right before we moved into the house.) Pretty Kitty and I have been together for 6 years... I have a really hard time believing that one!! And if anyone is wondering we adopted Bozley in April and we'll have her for 3 years in April.

Here's Rowdy
Here's Stitch when she was a kitten and the only time you'll ever see Pretty Kitty looking big
And for fun, here's a Bozley picture...

Update on Chad part 2

Where did I leave off?

Right... Chad was still in the ICU room. They didn't have a bed open up all day Thursday so he stayed put in the ICU room... which isn't a horrible thing, he gets pretty darn good care in there. They did bring him a patch which he said did help. He got up and moving quite a bit, he was looking pretty darn good on Thursday and Friday... more and more himself.

Those days were pretty uneventful. Friday OT and PT visited him again... and they agreed he looked pretty good. On Friday afternoon the surgeon visited him. He said that if Chad looked this good tomorrow he could go home. It was so awesome to hear those words. That night, they found a room for him on the regular floor. Last time, we didn't have the greatest experience because they put him on the neurology floor instead of the neurosurgery floor. This time, he was put in the correct place. We left him Friday night sleeping.

On Saturday morning early I got a text from Chad saying that they were preparing his discharge papers (YAAAYY!!) I arrived at the hospital as soon as I could (visiting hours start at 11am.) We sat around for a couple of hours until they were ready. In the mean him we took a walk and got him dressed in regular clothes. Before we knew it, they released him. I got the car pulled around and loaded him up and we were headed home!

It was so so nice to have him home... the dogs were ecstatic! I got him settled into the house. Shortly after, Chad's mom arrived and we cleaned the bath tub (we never take baths) so he could soak and get the hospital off of him. He felt a heck of a lot better after that.

Since then we've been relaxing and he sleeps ever so often. He's doing and feeling really great. The only downside is his vision is still not normal, but hopefully that will clear up soon. We are doing wonderful here... I'm so happy he recovers so well!!

Update on Chad

Yesterday was Chad surgery. We arrived at the hospital about 6:15... we thought we were 15 minutes late, but we were actually 15 minutes early. Shortly thereafter we headed up to surgery prep where he got hooked up to all sorts of things... and of course the worse part - getting that dang IV. He doesn't like needles anymore than I do... but at least he doesn't faint! They wheeled him back to the OR around 8:30 and we headed to the wait room to begin our very very long day of... you guessed it waiting. During the surgery the staff called with updates, but nothing all that interesting.

The crappy part was when we knew the surgery was over but we were waiting to see the surgeon. They kept telling us that he would be up in 30 minutes... two hours later, he still wasn't here. So we were up here not wanting to miss the doctor but also wanting to see Chad in recovery. Eventually Chad's grandma and I went down to see him while Chad's mom waited up here for the doctor in case. Chad was very uncomfortable in recovery... he was very nauseous... they gave him some meds to help, but I guess they hadn't kicked in. He didn't look to happy which broke my heart... there's just not much anyone could do for him. The visit was very short and when we got back to the waiting room we hadn't missed the doctor.

When we were finally able to speak to the doctor he was very positive and upbeat about how the surgery went. He said that he believed they got all of the tumor, however were going to do an MRI last night to make sure. It was nice to hear that the surgeon was so upbeat with how everything went... you couldn't really ask for more. They moved Chad into an ICU room and I saw him a couple of more times, but really just wanted to let him sleep... that what I would want to be doing if I were him. I left shortly after that to tend to the dogs at home... I finally got home around 9:30... long long day.

Today when I arrived it was to good news. The MRI they did last night showed they had indeed removed all of the tumor!! Music to my ears. They are hoping to move him to a regular room sometime this afternoon. He's still nauseous but they are trying a different medication. Occupational Therapy visited him this morning and did some motor function and memory tests as well as got him up and into a chair for awhile. The surgeon also came in to visit. He thinks Chad is doing great. Chad is experiencing some cross-eyed-ness... that's really frustrating to him... They are talking about getting him a patch since when he only uses one eye he is fine.

We are hoping that Chad starts to feel more like himself soon. We are hoping the recovery will continue to go as well as last time.

Tuesday Randomness

Just some randomness for your reading pleasure:

• I just got my grades in for the first week of classes... and so far so good... I got full credit on everything!! Of course, it feels like the second week will probably be a better determination of how I'll be doing - but still, I'm happy with myself. I'm putting a lot of work into school, so I really hope that I do well.
• This past weekend was Brain Tumor Bash 2.0. We had all of our friends over to celebrate Chad having surgery again. This may sound strange to people, but it makes Chad happy to be surrounded by friends.
• Our Valentine's Day was pretty low-key. We watched Inception. I've been wanting to see it for awhile, and it didn't really disappointed. I enjoyed it and was able to follow it pretty well. I thought I would really have to pay close attention to things, but it was all explained pretty well.
• Tomorrow is Chad's surgery date. I'm not exactly sure how I'm feeling about it. I hope he does as well as he did last time, but you can never be too sure. I guess we'll find out tomorrow. As I did last time, I'll keep yall posted on him.
• Going along with that, I will be off of work for a week to help take care of Chad.
• Yesterday I thought I lost my phone. I left work and realized that I forgot to put my it in my purse. So I came back to my desk only to see it wasn't here. Where did it go? I was honestly freaking out. I knew I had it at like 4-4:30 since I was texting Chad. So I ended up leaving and waiting for Chad to get home. Once he did I was crying I was so upset. He calmed me down and we came back up to my work. I unlocked my office door and there it was!! It wasn't there before, so I knew someone had to have put it there. I found out today that my lovely office mate had noticed I forgot the phone and brought it out to me since she knew I would be back for it. However, when I came I came in through the back doors instead of the front door... therefore missing her. I'm just happy to have it back... I have my life in that phone it feels.

Well, I don't really have much else going on it feels, I'll be back tomorrow or Thursday with an update on El Chad.

ZZZZZZZZ

I love my sleep... I enjoy naps and going to be early some nights. I enjoy sleeping in and hitting the snooze button one more time. I know that everyone sleeps differently. Some are belly sleepers and some are back sleepers. Some want full coverage and others just want a sheet.

So how does sleep work for me? Well, I'm glad you asked.

I am a pretty restless sleeper. It's something Chad just had to get use to. I toss and turn the entire night - especially when I'm trying to fall asleep. I get into this mindset that if I roll onto my other side I will definately be more comfortable. Of course after that thought crosses my mind I just HAVE to roll onto the other side to be more comfortable otherwise I will continue to think about it until I do.

I typically sleep with 2 pillows on my side... but they aren't stacked on top of each other, I use one for my head and make an L shape with the other one. It's kind of a huggy pillow but I also use it for my head. When I change sides, the pillow changes with me... I'm sure this annoys Chad at times when he's laying on that pillow and I move it from under him.

I never use to sleep on my back... but then I broke my leg. I had no choice but to sleep on my back with my leg propped up. Since then I have been able to get quite comfortable sleeping on my back. Mostly I'm on my side or my stomach.

Did I mention I am a restless sleeper?? From time to time I experience restless leg syndrome. Thankfully, I don't get it as bad or as often as some people. But when I do experience it, it's awful. It's really hard to get comfortable... the only thing I can do the alleviate the pain is to shake my legs. This of course bothers Chad because I'm shaknig the entire bed... but you gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Speaking of Chad... he's not an angel in bed (that's sounding a little dirty...) I don't need a heater or an electric blanket, because Chad is my own little space heater. He is so hot to sleep next to. He has to be covered up from toes to shoulders... sometimes he's roll over to cuddle with me and he's so hot it's unbearable. I don't like to be hot in bed! We have to have the ceiling fan running (even in the winter) and typically I have a leg or some body part sticking out from under the covers to cool me down.

I'm not sure if this entry was that interesting to anyone... but it's interesting to me that everyone is a different type of sleeper. They enjoy different things... What kind of sleeper are you?

Super Bowl Sunday

This past weekend was one of the greatest food days of the year... Super Bowl Sunday. Since we've moved into this house (almost 4 years ago - can you believe it??) we've had a Super Bowl party. So this would be the 3rd one. We have a good sized TV (42 inches) and a pretty sweet sectional couch so it really makes our house perfect for a smaller party.

We had 10 people total, including Chad and I. It was mostly paired off in couples - Sam and his fiancee Meg, Patrick and his girlfriend Kara, and finally Ryan and Kyle - brothers. We made everyone bring something to share... I mean it's Super Bowl Sunday, you gotta have a good selection of food.

So what was included in our spread?? Well Sam brought wings, Meg brought Rotel dip (I love love love Rotel dip), Patrick brought hummus with pitas from the place he works, Kara made some sort of dried meat dip thing, Kyle brought veggies and dip and Ryan brought corn bread and cookies.

Chad and I provided our award winning chili (seriously our chili is the best... the BEST... I wish I could share the recipe but it's our little secret... Chad and I both contributed to the recipe... and we tweak it every time... but it's delicious.

We also made Buffalo Chicken Dip. That stuff is soo addictive and yummy. It kinda looks like cat puke, but it taste amazing... and it's super easy. The first time I ever made the stuff I thought it was weird to use canned chicken... heck I didn't even know canned chicken existed. I was honestly pretty creeped out by it... like Spam or something. But it works wonderfully and doesn't taste any differently than fresh chicken breasts (we've tried). So why waste the effort of fresh when canned will do??

And finally I made Monkey Bread for the first time ever. It turned out SO good and everyone was excited and happy I made it. I wasn't sure if people would be interested but they were all really excited and started picking at it as soon as it came out of the oven. It was easy and fun to make and I think I'll make it again - maybe for work sometime. The best part is all I needed from the store was butter and biscuits. Since I used store brand biscuits they were only 42 cents per tube... how awesome is that??

Yeah, I should have taken pictures of our spread... that should go along with my new years resolution of taking more pictures... still need to work on that - I'm not happy with my current camera... I need a new one (or two... ideally I would get a DSLR and a new point-and-shoot)

Oh... I didn't talk about the game... the game was great... a good exciting game. The commercials were funny and it was just a fun time with friends. I love Super Bowl Sunday - I'm already looking forward to next year!!

Chad's one downfall

You may think Chad's a perfect man... and he's very very close... but he does have one downfall... and that's he doesn't like Seinfeld... I know! It's crazy that he doesn't!! How can you not think it's funny. Plus, just about everything in life can be related to a Seinfeld episode or Friends episode.

For a long time I deined the fact that Chad didn't find Seinfeld funny. I just didn't confront the issue, there was no point. Why bring up something bad? I would watch Seinfeld when I was on travel or when he wasn't home.... but the more I thought about it the stranger I found it.

We both find lots of the same things funny... we have very similar tastes when it comes to television and movies. I typically know when he's going to find something funny or really enjoy something or really hate something. And if I didn't know that Chad didn't like Seinfeld I would think this is right up his alley... but it's not.

The other day we were at the grocery store and we bought some hard salami from the deli counter. Chad said that if he had a meat slicer like they have at the deli counter he would slice all sorts of meat. Naturally this made me think of the episode where Kramer has the meat slicer and has to cut the meat really thin to slide under Elaine's next door neighbor's door since they were on vacation and left their alarm on so she shut off the power and that stopped the automatic cat feeder so they could feed the cat (follow that??)

I told him this story and all he said what "and you find that funny?" Yes, Chad I do find that funny and I am not alone.

What a weirdo!!

Last Weekend

This is a week late, but what I've realized is I really enjoy looking through my year at the end so I'm going to try to post more on the little, fun things I do.

Last Friday I came home at the same time Chad did. Normally this isn't the case, but I had to stop by Target to buy some gifts for people who are having babies and one that already did... not really the point thought. Chad suggested we go out to dinner, and right away suggested Rich and Charlies. I haven't been to Rich and Charlies in a long long time, and haven't been with Chad is that much longer. Chad and I had our very first date at Rich and Charlies so it holds a special place in my heart. We has a wonderful random date night. We had wine and dessert and more wine. I was a little tipsy by the end - but it was so much fun to go out and have a dinner with the hubby.

On Saturday, I spent the day time with my mom and sister, Lindsey. We first ate at South City Diner. I absolutely love this place, especially for breakfast. They make the BEST french toast. Seriously, it ruins french toast anywhere else. They deep fry it... so it's crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside... mmm... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it. After eating we headed down the street to Cheap Trix to get Lindsey's tongue re-pierced. She had to take out her piercing due to surgery so she was finally able to get it put back in. Next, we headed to the mall to get her a dress for her Valentine's Day Dance. It was so much fun picking her out dresses and seeing her try them on. It brought back memories of when I tried on dresses for dances. It was super crowded in the store, so that kinda stunk... but I really enjoyed spending time with both of them.

Saturday night we celebrated my friend Jen's birthday by going to a drag show at Novaks. You may remember when we went to the drag show for Carrie's birthday. We had SO MUCH FUN again. The drag show was amazing and we got to dance afterward. The dance floor filled up so quickly. If you look at the pictures from last time there we had the dance floor pretty much to ourselves, but this time - holy cow it was packed full. Like hard to move around full. Like I felt like I everywhere I was standing was in the way full... but fun at the same time. Well, check out some of these pictures. BTW I'm wearing a hat because it was free cover for those wearing a hat so I bought that awesome hat at Target on clearance... holla!!

Here we are taking the birthday shot

Here is the lovely Erica and me
Mark was the only guy in our group - since we were so close to the stage he got picked on by the drag queens...
A lot...
And it's so unfortunate that drag queens have better bodies that me... what's up with that?!?
All-in-all I absolutely love drag shows and if you've never been before you need to change that ASAP!! Sunday nothing happened... but even so it was amazing weekend!!

Updated

I just realized that I have left a few things out there and never gave updates... so in case you were wondering what happened to some of those items well here you go (and if I forgot anything let me know!!)

• How did Rowdy's surgery go? Well, it went really well. He got neutered and got about 3 inches of tail removed. Rowdy was so cute when we picked him up from the vet. They brought him up front to lay with the receptionist. They said he was getting annoyed at a yappy dog in the back and wouldn't relax when he wasn't around people. So we got there and he freaked out b/c we were on one side of the barrier and he was on the other and couldn't get around to us. They even tied a cute bow to his collar. He was pretty drowsy for a couple of days, but recovered really great. It was sad b/c we couldn't play with him for a week (we had to keep his tail from busting open again) he would bring us a toy and we couldn't throw it for him. It's been over 2 months later and I'm happy to say Rowdy is his pre-surgery self. His tail did heal up and hopefully we never have to worry about it again. I would think most people wouldn't know he had to get a piece of it removed - but we can tell.
• Speaking of surgeries, how about Chad's?? Well, Chad is going to have surgery two weeks from today on February 16th. I think it's nice to get this over with. That week actually works out quite nicely since that following weekend is President's Day. I will be able to have a whole week off work work to take care of him. We are hoping the recovery time this time around will be just as quick as it was last time. Again, my work has been very understanding and lucky for Chad his work has been too. We were nervous because he had just started a new job, but everything is working out wonderfully. So I'll be back with a future update on his surgery after it happens.
• And finally what about my medical issue? Well, I'm happy to report that I'm not dying (ok that wasn't really an option.) But I do not have to have surgery. I have to go back in 6 months for another pap test - so hopefully things clear up by then or at least get better and then clear up 6 months after that. So I'm going to score that one in the good category!!
• Ok, I lied above the final update - I start school today. Sadly, I am sick, which is making reading a little difficult, but I'll power through!!