I'm all shook up!

Sang in my best Elvis voice! It was a big one today, 5 point something, with coworkers diving under their desks. Me? I just squeaked a bit when a few things fell over in my coworkers cubicles. I just had a beanie baby fall off my monitor, nothing else out of place.

As soon as the earthquake hit, people were calling home on their cell phones. Of course, service was disrupted and spotty. I couldn't get a hold of Mr. Fix-it for about half an hour. My cell kept dropping the calls. Normally, I wouldn't be too worried, but I knew he was doing some wooodworking today so I wanted to check in with him. It was a relief to finally talk to him. So we're fine. Hopefully, it relieved a lot of pressure and put off the really big one for a few more years.

Adventures in grocery shopping

That's what it's starting to feel like with the rising price of food. Last week, we went to Big Lots because everything was 20% off. I originally went to look for scrapbook supplies (they had Basic Grey!) and some tank tops that they carry sometimes. No luck on either of them, but we ended up getting a lot of groceries. I was thrilled to get canned veggies for 26 to 46 cents each. Some pasta that I like to add to soups for 26 cents. We ended up spending around $30, but now our pantry is even more well stocked. Isn't it crazy to go grocery shopping at Big Lots?

Today, I finally went back to the local chain grocery store. Last month they changed their coupon policy and now will only double coupons up to $1.00 in value. For various reasons, I hadn't been back since the new policy. This week they had another special, buy 10 of certain items and get $5 back. I diligently checked the ad and my coupons, made my list, and off we went. Boy, was it a lot of work. They're advertising their lower prices (to offset the coupon change) with yellow signs. And the buy 10 specials with yellow signs. And the buy 3 specials (which I didn't need) with yellow signs. And their sale prices with yellow signs. Is it any wonder I was confused? I ended up buying only 9 of the 10 needed items, even though I thought I bought 11. I must not have been the only person this happened to because the clerk told me to go ahead and get the other items for the special and she'd adjust my total (this was after I had checked out and realized what happened). She even had a special sheet to scan to fix the difference. That sure was a lot of work to save $15.

I'm going to have rethink our grocery shopping. I got a lot more food at Big Lots for same amount of money, but of course, none of it was fresh. The ethnic markets I like to shop at aren't too convenient. The natural food store doesn't have a huge selection of staples, but the produce section and meat sections are good (though the meat selections are limited). So where should I shop? Do I shop where it is convenient? Where it is cheapest? Right now, I've got enough cucumbers and tomatoes to last another couple weeks. Should I grow more of our food? I really hate this, feeling like I can't afford to eat well.

Root canal update 3

I'm on another antibiotic. What fun. Not. The bad news is each antibiotic costs 50% more than the last one. The good news is this last one was still less than $20.

How rude!

My SIL had a "girls night out" dinner party at her place this weekend. I didn't know anyone there except her sister. It seemed that everyone was from her church or MOPS group. Which meant that everyone was a mom...except for me. I can handle that. I'm not as good as handling the rude questions. If you ask someone if they have children and they say no, move on. So when Mrs. Busybody asked me "Was it by choice?" I was going to ask her why she wanted to know. But I was afraid everyone else at the table would think that I was being rude and certainly didn't want people thinking my SIL has rude relatives. And age! That's none of your damn business and my husband's age is also none of your damn business.

And it was pretty obvious to me that some of the ladies were a little put off by how comfortable I was in the house. I guess they couldn't tell if I was the hired help or what, lol. But hey, if C was busy in the other room, shouldn't I try to make people comfortable? Help them put their purses away, get out the drinks?

C made a huge spread, very impressive with two kinds of pork loin, two kinds of lamb chops, risotto, and fish. All in all, it was a very successful evening for C, but not so much for me.

$4.29

Woo hoo! Love this downward trend. This is what I paid on June 2 this year.

I'm being tortured

Mr. Fix-it is eating one of his favorite snacks, sardines. Tonight he's having sardines on Cibatta bread. Usually, he waits till I'm out of town so there isn't any evidence by the time I get home, but I guess he felt the need to eat some tonight since we bought some more tins. I can't describe how gross it smells in here now. So I'll sign off and head to another room.

Root canal update 2

Yesterday, I only took two Tylenol and I ate real food for dinner (instead of pureed soup or jook or yoghurt or cottage cheese). Granted, it was still relatively soft (pasta), but I was thrilled to be actually chewing, lol!

Today, no pain pills in the morning, but by this afternoon, I had a raging headache due to multiple crises so I did end up taking a Motrin. Sigh, I hope tomorrow is better.

Root canal update

I went back to the endodontist this morning, even though the swelling finally went down a tiny bit. Saw someone else since the dentist I saw last week wasn't in. He said I had a classic flare-up which basically means a massive infection occurs a couple days (not immediately) after the root canal. Flare-up, such an appropriate name since I wanted to blow my head off during the height of the pain. I got a perscription for a stronger antibiotic. He said I could have another flare-up so I need to put off the crown for at least another month. I hate waiting. Be assured if the pain increases at all, they will hear from me immediately.

$4.43

I can't believe I'm thrilled to be paying that.

My root canal saga (so far)

A few weeks ago, I lost a bit of tooth; guess the huge old filling had weakened the tooth over the decades. I went to the dentist the next day and it turns out I have an abscess. But, it had to have happened weeks or months earlier because an abscess doesn't develop overnight. I had no idea since there wasn't any pain or swelling. I was a bit nervous about having it done so I went to another dentist for a second opinion and her opinion was don't delay! So I scheduled an appointment with an endodontist. For whatever reason, I was nervous/stressed/uptight/unhappy (pick your favorite negative adjective) about the procedure. Mr. Fix-it kindly offered to drive me, which meant he wouldn't be able work that afternoon. Hmmmm, money vs my emotional state? You know I was uptight since I took him up on his offer.

All in all, it wasn't bad. The staff and dentist were kind, they had good magazines in the waiting room, the procedure took less time than I expected, and it was a couple hundred less than the original estimate. All good things. I was a bit sore that evening (of course!), but the next day (Wednesday), I was fine. I took a couple ibuprofen in the morning and afternoon and that was it. As it turns out, I was overly optimistic.

Thursday, I had to work off site so I filled my little pillbox with ibuprophen, just in case. As it turns out, I was popping them every couple hours and ran out. I called the dental office since I was a little concerned. Since I didn't have any swelling and the pain seemed steady, I was assured this was normal. But later, they called and told me start antibiotics, just in case. Since I wouldn't get home until 8:00 or later that night, I had Mr. Fix-it pick up my perscription. By the time I got home, I was in lots of pain and perscription strength ibuprophen wasn't doing a thing. The pain woke me up every couple hours throughout the night. I was not a happy camper.

Friday morning, I called the office again and was told again that it could take 48 hours for the antibiotics to take effect. But yesterday was just horrible. No matter what pain medicine I took, I'd get relief for about half an hour. Unfortunately, we were at a funeral for Mr. Fix-it's uncle. By the end of the service, I could barely hold it together. At that point, I was taking the max dosage of various pain medicines every two hours. When we got home, I went straight to bed, with the hope that sleep would put me out of my misery.

To my surprise, I slept through the night and woke up with minimum pain. Of course, the new wrinkle is that side of my mouth is terrible swollen. Good thing I started the antibiotics, right? So I decided to start my new "diet" and will be eating only soft foods this weekend. I hope I make it through to Monday. This has not been any fun.

It's a jungle out there

Mr. Fix-it built a trellis thingie for my Chinese string beans because they had no where to go. So far, no beans which is a disappointment. The cucumbers (which you can see at the front of the planter) that I planted at the same time have been producing for a couple of weeks. I called mom to get an estimate of when the beans should start producing. She said when they're about 3-4 feet tall, which mine obviously are. So I'm not sure what the problem is. She plants them closer together than I do so I don't think my plants are overcrowded. Plus I give them a dose of compost every couple weeks. What more could they want?

I know why people keep having babies

There's something so lovable and sweet about babies. Granted, I've never had to get up to feed or comfort a baby all through the night, so my view is biased. But now that the twins are over a year old, eating and drinking by themselves, and walking around, I have to admit they have lost some of their baby cuteness. I miss cuddling them while feeding them their bottles. I miss their simple onesies. I miss their baby smell.

When I was at my scrap getaway, one of the scrappers was still nursing and one day the dad brought the baby in for a feeding. Ohhhhh, was she sweet! She still had that baby smell and the sweetest baby smile. She reminded me again how much I love babies.

Oh the other hand, when the twins are a little older (and potty trained), I can have them over for sleepovers and shopping trips and other fun stuff. Sooo, growing up is a good thing.

Why I can't get rid of any scrapbook supplies

Here's a layout of my SIL meeting my niece for the first time.
I was trying to be all creative with the quote and miscalculated the spacing. Oh well, being that I don't believe in redoing layouts (and I don't have enough of the large rub-on letters to redo it), it stays as is. I still need to add the names/date, but I don't want to do that until I confirm which twin is in the photo. I'm pretty sure it is E, but I want the parents to confirm before I commit pen to paper.

As I was going through my stash trying to choose papers, I was struck by how much I still like a lot of the "old" stuff. These papers are at least three years old, maybe older. All of the embellishments are at least a year old. Actually, the Heidi Swapp rub-ons might be about 10 months old, but still, they're not new. Sometimes, it is a little difficult when I'm doing Design Team stuff since my stash of oldies is so much larger than my stash of new stuff. I don't want to be promoting stuff people can't get from Linnecards. But that's part of the fun: using up my old stuff to make room for more new stuff from Linnecards.

Happy Birthday America!

Happy July 4th to you and yours!

Scrapbook sale!

Linnecards is having an Independence Day Sale! It's Friday July 4 through Sunday July 6. She already discounts everything 10% off MSRP. You get another 15% off of that. Plus free shipping at $35. And you know how easy it is to spend $35.

I've already got my cart loaded up. All of you on the East Coast and Midwest better not buy up what I want before I'm awake!

I'm back!

Did you miss me? I went to my annual scrapping retreat over the weekend and I'm still recovering, lol. More on the retreat later.

Speaking of back, tastespotting is back online. Somehow, it doesn't have quite the same appeal to me. But I'll continue to check it out.