Remember when shopping....?

Does anyone out there (over the age of 40) remember the grocery carts where kids rode under the basket?  I have vivid memories of going into a store with my mother and immediately fighting over who was riding under the cart.  Because there was only one mother and two kids, only one kid was able to ride.  It was designed so that the kids fit right under the cart sitting upright.  All kids rode under the carts and it was like a little society where mothers would push us around while they shopped, and we would talk to one another or wave to one another from the floor level.

I thought of this the other day while shopping because while I was at the checkout my daughter did this:

 

She doesn't quite fit, but she says it beats walking.

Connie Foot Photo #12

 Today the Foot God decided he would sew on the apligraf (read here all about it).  As I've said before the apligraf is living cells, proteins, and collagen all rolled into....what looked to me like a piece of paper.

 The apligraf came in a sealed bag.  The Foot God had nurse Michele pour some saline into the bag and then he pulled out the apligraf with tweezers and slapped it on to the wound and smoothed it out.  I commented on how it looked like a piece of paper and my disappointment in this, but the Foot God was pretending I was not standing over his shoulder admiring his work and taking pictures.

He then opened another bag and removed this tool.  He had a curved needle that was threaded and he began poking around for a place to jab this needle into.  When I realized that he intended to sew up Connie's foot I decided that perhaps my standing over the Foot God might make him nervous, and I went to sit down....by Connie's head.  Connie and the Foot God commented on my squeamishness and my lack of professionalism as a blogger, and so to save face I returned to stand behind the Foot God and resume photographing.

Nurse Kelly peeked into the room to observe.  Connie did not feel his sewing, and he seriously did not care one way or the other, or so it seemed.  Again, it is hard to read the Foot God.  He had a tough time getting the needle in and out of Connie's thick skin and lots of blood was involved.

When he finished sewing it looked like this.  I was a tad disappointed in the whole procedure.  This is a graft?  It seemed quite sloppy to me, which I commented on and was ignored.

The Foot God then cut around the apligraf and his sewing to tidy up a bit.  I mused aloud at how much apligraf seemed to be wasted.  No comment.  He had told us earlier he had gotten it for free, and other than thanking him, Connie and I left it at that.  We wondered, of course, later how he had done this, but at the time Connie was just thankful.

The job was completed in less time then it took to visit the lady's room.  I said that the end result looked like a pink rose and nurse Michele agreed.  The Foot God just continued ignoring us and working on finishing the job.  Usually he leaves the wrapping job to the nurses, but today he did it himself.  Which, of course, I commented on.

Which he, of course, ignored.  When we talk about the Foot God aloud we also answer for him so that it is like we are having a conversation with him.  Occasionally he makes one syllable responses, but it is very rare.  Sometimes he says, "What?" and then we repeat our comment and he might snort or he sometimes repeats what we just said in question form.

Me:  "Wow, he is actually doing the dressing this time.  He never does the dressing.  He usually leaves that to the peons."
Connie:  "Perhaps he feels that after a surgery he must finish the awesome job himself."

Foot God:  "What's that?"
Me:  "You're doing the bandaging.  You don't usually do that.  You order your nurses to finish up that mundane job."
Foot God:  "I don't do the bandaging?"

When it was all over and done with the Foot God said he would see us on Friday, but I mentioned that wasn't such a good day for me.  We changed it to Monday, although I offered to rearrange my schedule if he thought Friday was when he should see her.  It was like pulling teeth, but he told me Monday was fine.  The home health nurses are not to touch the foot and the bandage is not to come off for a week.  Connie has an appointment with the infectious disease doctor today, but she will not be able to see the foot, and when we called her office to explain this the nurse said to come in anyway.

UPDATE:  Visited the infectious disease doctor who informed Connie that she could pump in all the antibiotics into the wound, but the only way to heal was to stay off of the foot.  Connie actually heard this       (unlike all the times I've said it) and is adapting.  On Wednesday the wound was seeping through the bandages.  On Thursday the home health nurse called the Foot God and put new bandages on top of the old bandages and Connie is to see him Friday.

Weekend in review

 - Saturday I tried to sleep in, but was rudely awaken by the dog who jumped up on the bed and ran from side to side, attempting to jump over my legs, but failing miserably, while he avoided my husband who was chasing him to remove his sock from the dog's mouth.  It wasn't quite nine o'clock.  I got up, grabbed my phone, and climbed into Darcy's vacant bed to play the new games I'm obsessed with on my Iphone.

• Words with friends
• Bakery story
• Restaurant story
• Sally's Hair Salon
• Farm story
• Sally's Spa

- While on Iphone playing the above games I got a text from Kelly who wished to meet me up the street at our local cafe for breakfast.  While I wasn't dressed and was quite content to linger in Darcy's clean room, that had taken me three hours the day before to clean, the thought of the cafe's creme brulee french toast had me texting back I would be ready in ten minutes.

- Met Kelly (with the girls) and enjoyed my creme brulee french toast while sitting outside enjoying the broiling Florida sun that shone down on my back, the only part not covered by the rainbow striped umbrella over our table.  We lingered after breakfast not sure that we wanted to continue on with the hussle and bussle that was to become our day.

- The girls and hubby hemmed and hawed about accompanying me on my weekend visit to Connie's and so I marched out of the house in irritation and visited her alone.  We had a nice chat and I completed her grocery shopping for her.  I then headed out to the mall.

- Which was a mistake because trying on bathing suits once again soured my mood, as did the phone call I received from hubby and daughters stating they were heading up to Grandma Connie's to meet me.  They met her without me.  We met up later for dinner at the Olive Garden.

- After dinner Darcy and I continued shopping because we weren't ready to end the day.  Madison and Tom headed home.  Darcy and I went to a different mall and ended up buying her a third dress for the 8th grade graduation that has become larger than Prince William's upcoming marriage.  The girls need a dress for the graduation itself, which will be held outdoors, and for the party, that will be in the evening at a country club.

Darcy's day time dress

Darcy's evening dress

Darcy's 3rd dress

- Enjoyed the Super Moon outside upon our return.  Dabbled with photographing it, but have decided it will not win any photography awards, although the foliage picture might.

- Found to my horror that, despite my belief that all Hoosiers filled out a NCAA basketball bracket each March Madness, this is not the case.  Kelly doesn't care for basketball, thus causing me to wonder if she was adopted from China.  Lost my pick of Pitt to beat Duke in the finals.  Wondering now if maybe I've been away from the state for too long.

- Spent Sunday at a third mall shopping with the eldest daughter this time who is the one graduating and who is the one without any dresses.  Came to the realization that she finds it a torture to shop with me because I'm obviously an idiot who knows nothing about fashion.  While I might not know fashion I do not believe I am an idiot, and I do know what looks good and what doesn't.  I also remember feeling those same feelings about my own mother.  Very conflicting and not how I wanted to spend my Sunday.

- Decided my dog matches my tile floors.

- Headed for bed and realized that the sheets I took off the bed to wash that morning hadn't magically reappeared on the bed.  Wondered how comfy the new couch was in the Steelers room, but knew that come Monday I might not be so cheerful!

Cara's Greek Salad

Lately I have been craving Greek salads, but to purchase one large enough to take care of my cravings for a few days is over $20.  This past week it was my turn to bring one to our weekly get together, and because I had discovered a new Greek dressing at our local grocery, I decided to see if making a Greek salad would be cheaper and better.  While I'm not sure if it was any cheaper it did turn out quite nicely.

The first thing I discovered, beside a good dressing, is you need to have a really good potato salad.  While potato salad is not an official ingredient in the traditional Greek salad, but one added by Americans, it does add flavor and turns an ordinary salad into something extraordinary.  I found that my local grocery has experimented with a baked potato salad that includes bits of real bacon and is simply delicious.  The first salad I made I put the baked potato salad in the middle of the lettuce.  I found this to be too hard to find when dishing out the salad so the second go around I put scoops of the salad on top of the lettuce all around the bowl.  It was easy to make sure each person got some potato salad that way and it looked pretty.

The second thing I discovered was that in making my own salad I could put in ingredients that I liked and omit those that I don't like such as Greek olives and onions.  I'm an olive eater.  I love green and black olives.  In fact there are several stories regarding my passion for black olives, and my family use to wrap up a can of them for a birthday present for me each year, but Greek olives?  Can't stand them.  They are too vinegar tasting or something.  I try to eat them, but end up spitting them out into a napkin every time.  So out went the Greek olives and in went the black.  And while I like the taste that onions bring to a Greek salad, my poor body can't tolerate them unless they are cooked so out went the onions.

I added feta cheese, peperoncinis, tomatoes (for the hubby and others), cucumbers, and seasoning.  The results were delicious and mouth watering, and while the ingredients added up in cost I did get two salads out of it.  I just wish now I could make warm pita bread with tzatziki.  Oh, my gosh, how I love that tzatziki stuff!

The Foot God can speak

On Tuesday Darcy had an appointment to receive her new orthotics.  I mentioned this to nurse Michele when at the Foot God's office on Monday.  It is a standard joke now that I live at these facilities.  There are two of them; one by Connie's house and one by my house.  On Mondays we go to the office by Connie's house, thirty minutes from my house, but on Tuesday I went to the one by my house.  The Foot God is at that facility on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  It is like his very own clinic and he had coded colors that the girls wear on each of these days.  He, of course, being the Foot God doesn't have to abide by these rules and wears greenish scrubs.

We got there and the waiting room was quite full.  We waited a full thirty minutes before nurse Michele came out and called Darcy's name.  When she saw me her face lit up and she said she had forgotten I would be coming in.  I forgave her for that mistake and we went into the exam room with a large table and chair for trying on orthotics.  Darcy had not been in this room before (I had been with Madison) and so she had to play Goldilocks and sit on and in everything trying to decide which fit her best while nurse Michele worked on the new orthotics.

While this was all happening nurse Kelly wandered by the open door, saw me, stopped and came in to say hello.  They love me.  Connie and I bring in much needed stress relieving laughter with our antics.  We have changed that office.  I know this because suddenly behind me in the open door stood the Foot God.  And he spoke first!  "Can't stay away huh?"

The Foot God is adorable.  He has the best smile that crinkles his entire face and his voice is a scratchy, sexy, just woke up in the morning tone.  When I first met the man in the hospital he never smiled.  He never spoke more then three sentences.  I thought him quite bland and a tad pompous.  Then one day as he went to leave Connie's hospital room he pulled open her door only to be hit in the head by the lid to the isolation box that hung on her door.  The isolation box housed all the gowns, masks, and gloves and each person had to dress in this gear before entering Connie's room.  The problem was that to close the lid one had to pull back a lever and gentle close the lid, releasing the lever.  The Foot God would come up too the door, open the box, dress in the gown and gloves, and then he would slam shut the lid.  Only the lid would not shut that way.  So when he pulled open the door to the room, the lid smacked him square in his bald head which was at the same height as the isolation box.  I saw the whole thing and immediately had to stifle the loud laugh that was threatening to erupt.  The Foot God staggered back, closing the door as he did.  He turned to me, his face red, and he laughed.  Loudly.  I joined in.  His eyes crinkled and his smile lit up his whole face.  And then he opened the door to leave and was smacked again as the lid swung back and repeated its earlier assault.  It was, quite frankly, hilarious.  And the fact that the Foot God knew this gave me pause that my earlier assumption might not have been right on the money, and so Connie and I have worked together to bring out his personality.  It has taken quite some time, but  I knew we had succeeded when I heard his, "Can't stay away, huh?"

He stepped into the doorway and I noticed the Shadow lurking, but standing back from the room.  I waggled my fingers at him in a friendly wave and commented on him, but beside acknowledging that yes his Shadow was with him I got nothing more on this guy.  The Foot God asked Darcy "how it was going" and when she preceded to ask him about her friend that had been in to see him more of his personality came out.  With Darcy one can't help this.  I left him to his own devices for awhile before stepping in to rescue him, but he did remember the patient, and I let him know I was referring people to him...besides my own family.

He didn't linger long, but it was enough.  I think he is getting the hang of it.  Perhaps by the time Connie is cured (is everyone crossing their fingers and praying?) he will be ready to go it alone.  I have high hopes.  And I'm running out of people with feet problems to send his way.

Weekly Slide Photos

This week I'm posting slides of a trip that I took when I was seven years old.  My mother, my grandmother, my step grandmother, and my cousin, Jessica, all packed up Connie's station wagon and drove out west, stopping at all of the National Parks as we made our way out to visit my Auntie Marilyn in the woods of California.

Here are five things I remember about the trip:

1. Jessica and I rode in the backseat and played Barbies 24/7 with Connie yelling, "Put down those Barbies and look out the window!"
2. I was terrified of riding a mule down the Grand Canyon, and I worried on the drive there.  When we pulled into the parking lot I choked on a piece of ice and thought my life was ending right there before it ended on a mule.  My grandfather popped me on the back and saved me from death and then my mother found out you had to be a certain age to ride down on a mule, and I wasn't that age yet.  Suddenly the Grand Canyon was a great trip!
3. The window in the back of the station wagon wouldn't go up right before we went into Yellowstone Park, and we all worried about it in case a bear would come up to our car as we had heard happened.  Jessica and I had some papers stuck up above the window in a slot and I had wondered aloud if that had anything to do with the stuck window.  Everyone said no, but when I finally removed the papers the window began working...just before we entered Yellowstone.  I've always considered myself a fixer after that.
4. As we walked down the Grand Canyon my grandfather slipped and almost fell over the side. 
5. Old Faithful and the other geysers stunk like rotten eggs, and I was terrified of falling off the sidewalk and burning alive.

I'm surprised that we have slides of our trip as my father was not on this trip.  My father did all, or most of, the photographs that I own.  He recorded my life so to speak, but on this trip Connie took a few photos.  She didn't do such a bad job.

Heading out of town

 The Grand Canyon?

 Hiking down the Grand Canyon

Excited girls in the Redwood Forest

 The geysers

Stinky!

Haven't a clue where we saw snow

Bears coming up to cars in Yellowstone Park

Mt. Rushmore

Would love to do this trip again with my own children.  Some day...

In case we were unsure

Got this in the mail last week and just had to share because it is so adorable.  And because I have seen her mother's handwriting and understand the need for clarification....

Connie foot photo #11

When the nurse, Michele,  removed the bandage on the foot yesterday she and I did a double take.  It was different then I had seen it with white stuff showing, some redness, and the two areas larger then last time, yet healthier looking.  It was odd.  Connie informed us that her home health nurse had looked in it with a flashlight and reported it was tissue, but the "good kind of tissue", whatever that meant.  We left it for the Foot God.

He arrived with a Shadow, a man who smiled and stood behind him the entire time.  The Foot God did not introduce us and the shadow did not speak.  The Foot God sat down looked at the foot and asked, "Are you still on the IV antibiotic?  You have bone showing."  Apparently the white spot (to the right in photo) was bone.  The Foot God seemed unaffected by this and spoke into his intercom the room number we were in and immediately (as it has been all along) the door opened and nurse Kelly appeared as if standing at attention outside.  He told her to bring the rongeur to which she responded, "Really?  Cool!"  Then she disappeared.

I immediately jumped up and went to peruse the bone that was showing.  In came nurse Kelly with the rongeur, which the Foot God informed me was used to cut bone.  I had him spell it for me and have since learned it is a French word meaning "gnawer" and that it is an instrument used to "gouge out" bone.  I thought it looked a tad like the clippers I use to pick and cut my finger and toe nails.

We,  nurse Kelly, the Shadow, and myself, stood behind the Foot God and watched as he stuck the rongeur into the hole in Connie's foot and cut the bone.  It sounded a lot like the clipping of a thick toenail.  He pulled it out, stuck it back in, and clipped some more bone.  By this time I was feeling some squeamishness from the sound and the thought of it all, but since the Foot God had his hands full and would not be able to catch me if I fainted, I sucked it up and looked at Connie who was very nonchalant.

The wound, of course, began to bleed and while he was deciding if he should stick the rongeur back in again I told him to stop cutting more holes in the damn wound already.  He finds me fascinating, I'm sure.  He stopped cutting and nurse Kelly left, and I sat back down again relieved.  The Foot God then began writing down in Connie's chart that he would like to find an apligraf to put on the wound.  Again I had to bring out the phone and asked for some spelling help.  He told us it was a foreskin that was used to help heal the wound and that he thought it would be a good option.  Connie and I wondered aloud who's penis this foreskin was coming from, and at that the Foot God bid us farewell, Shadow trailing, until next week, and nurse Michele returned to dress the foot.

Apligraf, which I found via my handy Iphone there in the office at www.apligraf.com, is a living, cell based product that helps promote healing of  foot ulcers. "It contains two types of cells – an outer layer of protective skin cells, and an inner layer of cells contained within collagen. Both types of cells contain substances similiar to those found in human skin."  I read this aloud to nurse Michele, who had never heard of it, and to Connie so that we would be knowledgeable for the next appointment.

I'm just hoping this cutting isn't going to set the wound back as it has in the past.  I have found that I can not think about the cutting of the bone or I get the "heebie jeebies".  I am also steering my daughter away from the podiatry field and toward the orthodontic field instead.

Pi Day

Today is Pi Day.  3/14.  Pi, the number that expresses the ratio of a circle's circumference over its diameter, was first calculated in ancient times and was first celebrated in 1989 and is now celebrated around the world by math teachers and student.  Our school has celebrated Pi Day for the last few years by working math problems, building objects using the 3.14, and walking in circles.  This year the math teacher decided to celebrate it by having her Math Counts Club members bake pies.  The members then raffled off tickets to win the pies and will sell pieces of pie today at lunch.  The money will be donated to a local charity for purchases for school children.

Both of my children are in the Math Counts Club and thus were required to bake or bring in two pies each.  I have never baked a pie in my life that didn't come out of a frozen box.  I am more of a cake girl.  I rarely eat pie unless the filling is pumpkin, chocolate, or peanut butter.  The thought of cutting up pounds of apples to bake into a homemade crust that has to be rolled out with a rolling pin causes me to sweat.  I immediately got online and began to find delicious no bake pie recipes that called for ready made graham cracker crusts.  The less work the better.

Somehow my house ended up being the pie house on Sunday.  I had four kids making eight different pies in my small kitchen.  I made my girls look up recipes, write out a grocery list, and then we headed to the grocery store where I spent $50 on ingredients just for my girls' four pies.

Back at the house we decided to start with Darcy's chocolate cookie pie which we made simply by unwrapping cookie dough and plopping into a pie pan and baking.  While that was baking we started on Natalie's two pies which her mother had decided would be chocolate pies made out of pudding mix and whipped topping.  Easy to do.

Darcy's chocolate chip pie

Madison's first pie was an Oreo mud pie made with Oreos, chocolate mint cookie ice cream, Cool Whip, and chocolate syrup.  Layer it on the Oreo crust and you have a pie!  One that must be frozen however.

Heather's two pies were key lime and required baking.  Darcy's other pie was a candy bar pie which required cooking on the stove.  By the time those were both completed my kitchen was a wreck.  With all the cooking, dancing, slinging of ingredients, cracking of eggs, and sloppiness of four teenagers my floor was so sticky that Elliot was stuck in one place.  Three of the girls disappeared and Madison and I cleaned up the kitchen so that she could finish her last pie, french silk.

When that pie was finished the kitchen had to be cleaned again, and I'm still mopping my floor this morning.  The pies got done and were packed off this morning for Pi Day.  The excitement was catchy this morning at school, but knowing how these pies were made I'm glad I won't have to eat any of them!

Home Improvement #2

Even though there are still some things left to do in the Steelers room my husband has moved on into the living room.  The plan there has been to replace the television and the entertainment center as well as the couches.  If he had his way he would do major construction and tear out the front of the house and push it forward toward the road, but I have convinced him we don't need all of that room let alone the hassle and upheaval of major construction.  I agreed to a new television instead.

He is the electronics man in the house.  He studies, plans for, researches, and purchases all electronic devices.  I just give some input when needed.  For example, after viewing the new television in the Steelers room I thought we needed something bigger then the one that is in that room.  Tom agreed.  He went out and purchased a 55 inch flat screen television and all the paraphernalia that must go with a purchase like that.  It sat in our garage for a week and made him crazy, worried that someone would see the box and steal it out of the open garage.  We had instructions not to open the garage unless it was absolutely necessary.  He threw a pool towel over the box that covered the edge just in case anyone driving by could see past my parked van in the driveway into the garage.

Last weekend I convinced him it was the time to replace the television so that I could use the garage without fear of being robbed.  Darcy was off to a friend's house and so Tom decided that 6:00 PM was the time to get started on electronic replacement despite no food being consumed by his helpers.  Madison and I mentioned how probably eating dinner at a lovely restaurant would be a thing to do before getting started, but he was sure we could at least "get the TV out of the box".

When we got the television for the Steelers room I wanted it hung on the wall.  Tom resisted this for some reason.  He gave me a quite a few mumblings about what to do with cords and wires and boxes and in the end I just said the hell with it and let him go off and find a TV stand.  After a week of viewing television in that room he said "we should have put the TV on the wall.  We can still do that if you want."  So starting out with the newest television he decided it should go on the wall for better viewing purposes.  I threw a wrench into the situation by wondering aloud which wall it should go on.

We spent quite some time between two walls.  We rearranged furniture and sat and pretended we were watching TV.  We weighed pros and cons.  Madison left the room.  We rearranged some more furniture and stood around wondering.  I finally went out to walk the dog, and when I returned Tom had made an executive decision.  The TV would go on the wall that the old TV had been against.  On to phase two.

Phase two involved a lot of measuring with me sitting on the couch trying to figure out how low or how high the TV should sit.  Madison came back into the room to help with the measuring and then the two got to work on the device that would hang on the wall and that the television would fit into.

Madison read the directions and Tom began putting this thing together.  He muttered about the cost of the thing and Madison told him to get over it as it was needed and he had already purchased it.  He wondered aloud if she knew how to read directions.  This went back and forth with more measuring.  I, of course, was a big help!

As was Elliot.

They eventually took the television out of the box and discussed where cables attached and technical things like that.  In the end it was decided we should go out to eat and return with full stomachs and clear heads.  This we did returning after ten o'clock at night.  The hanging of the television went on until after midnight.

Madison and I emptied the entertainment center and placed all the albums, CDs, knick knacks, VHS tapes, picture frames, and electronic components on the dining room table and chairs.  Who knew we had so much stuff.

The television was finally hung and hooked up to the cable box.  We finished the night off by watching television until two o'clock in the morning.  Next up is finding a piece of furniture to go under the television to house all the crap belongings that came out of the entertainment center.  For now we are making due with boxes.  I also want the cables hidden, but I've been told that is no big deal.  Uh huh...heard that one before...

Weekly slide photos

I've decided this week to just post adorable slide photos of myself from the year 1966.  I mean, how cute was I?

3 questions I'm pondering while suit shopping

1. Why don't the designers of cheaper two piece bathing suits (not bikinis) make the tops longer?  I have now spent three days of humiliating standing before three way mirrors in bad lighting trying on suits.  I have sucked in the stomach and stood up straight while holding my breath and looked decent in some suits.  I have slouched and let the boobs sag and the fat roll and looked god awful in most suits.  I have discovered that the best suits for me are ones with a higher neckline so that my what appear as enormous  ta tas aren't splayed out for the sun to burn to a crisp.  I have found that the bottom half should be a skorty type of pant to hide the thighs.  I have gone up one size or two sizes in tops just to hide my middle section, yet the tops all stop just below the belly button.  Don't designers realize that once a person gets into the water the top will ride up exposing my lily white dough rolls to the entire pool?  So far I am suit-less. 
2. Why are suits a fortune?  I know the answer to this, yet it really gets to me.  Women are screwed when it comes to bathing suits and bras.  Shops know we have to have these items and so they gouge us.  $40 for a top and $40 for the bottoms? Come on people I live in Florida where we wear these things year round. I need more then one suit, but at $80 a pop ON SALE I can't afford it. Hell, what am I complaining about? I can't even find a suit!
3. Why don't I have a personal assistant?  I shopped two days with friends.  The first day my friend trailed along pointing out suits she thought might work for me and knocked aside old ladies who were crushing us as they yanked and grabbed for bathing suits because it was 15% off senior day.  The second shopping day Kelly accompanied me and spent over an hour running back and forth from the dressing room getting me sizes and matching up tops to bottoms.  She also studied me each time I emerged from the dressing room to stand before the three way mirror and gave me helpful advice such as, "That is a terrible suit on you.  Get back in there and take it off."

Connie foot photo #10

Once again the Foot God walked in, sat down, looked at the foot and declared, "It looks good."  When I explained that I wrote a weekly blog article regarding these visits and that his weekly comment of "It looks good" was kind of getting stale he gave me his cute little laugh and his face got a tad red.  I asked him for a better quote, but apparently nothing to come to mind.  Connie told him that he was lacking in the personable department and that he needed to take a page out of his nurse's book as she was quite generous of spirit.  The Foot God smiled.  "Generously spirited?"  He looked at me.  "There's your quote for your blog."

And we moved on.  Nothing new on the foot.  He is looking into doing a skin graft in the office if he finds someone with whom she can share a graft.  Other than that she still can only put 50% weight on it and continue with the wet to dry bandages.  She had a new spot forming to the left of the wound that the nurse and I were concerned about, but the Foot God pulled out some tools, hacked at the spot until it bled profusely and ordered the nurse to wrap it up and he would see her again in a week.  And then he was gone.

Charity

Each month my buddy Kelly volunteers to clean the six bathrooms at the church she attends.  They need clean bathrooms weekly and don't always have volunteers, and Kelly feels like giving back and thus she opts for a once a month chore.  Once she took my daughter who helped clean the bathrooms, but not out of the charitable goodness of her heart.

Yesterday was my turn.  I met Kelly at her workplace where she transferred a bucket of cleaning supplies, a broom, a mop, and four bags of food for the church food bank into my van.  She then got into the passenger front seat and proceeded to tell me how to drive ask questions concerning my driving.

"What are you doing?"
"Why are you doing that?"
"Why wouldn't you go out this way?"
"Where are you going?"
"Shouldn't you be over here?"

Despite my having lived in this county longer, I am obviously not familiar with the ways of driving to and from her church, which is almost directly across the street from my dermatologist's office.  Lucky for me I'm use to having a critic in the passenger seat, and I took with my usual grace and patience.

"Alright, CONNIE, I got it!"
"Thank you for pointing me toward this road that I drive every three months to my doctor's office."
"Is this where you want me to be, huh, CONNIE?"

We got to the church, unloaded and entered through the preschool door.  I felt quite righteous standing before the door waiting for admittance to volunteer to help the church, but when the preschool woman opened the door and looked at us standing in our ratty shirts clutching cleaning supplies, she held the door open and dismissed us with a look reserved for the janitorial staff.  A humbling experience.

The church was dark and Kelly led me into an area that I had been in once before when Kelly was baptized.  We started in the women's bathroom which was off to the side of the room.  It was a large room with two stalls, a sink and a big mirror that stretched across the entire wall.  While I was surveying the scene, Kelly immediately took out some supplies and began tackling the toilet stalls.  She was like a whirlwind of cleaning frenzy.  She cleaned the inside and outside of the toilets, she scrubbed the tiled walls around the toilet, and she washed down the stall walls and doors.  She was, quite frankly, unrecognizable.

I have known Kelly since the 2nd grade.  I have been in her bedroom as a child.  A room that probably should have been condemned with all of the moldy dishes hiding under her bed.  I have cleaned her Florida apartment where I found enough cat hair to donate that would have kept ten cats with cancer quite warm.  I have visited her beach house where I can honestly state that cleaning is not high on her lists of household chores.  So to see her attack a bathroom as Mr. Clean himself would no one can fault me for thinking, however briefly, that perhaps upon entry of the church a spirit had taken over her body.

While Kelly was cleaning I was still surveying the room.  I looked at myself in the large mirror and rearranged my hair and clothing.  I noticed that the sink had a chunk of porcelain missing, but that the sink and mirror and floor certainly did not appear dirty at all.  I turned around and hanging on the wall was a wooden shelf with two cubby holes and hooks for hanging coats.  Inside the cubby holes was a waded up piece of purple fabric that was frayed at the edges and a dark blue cotton capri pant size medium.  Above the shelf was a small lantern with a small rubber chicken sitting where the light should have been and two large yellow dead, rubber chickens with their legs tied together with string.  Not your normal everyday bathroom findings.  Of course I had to comment.

Me:  "What's up with the dead, rubber chickens?"
Kelly:  "I'm going to count how many times you say the same thing Darcy said when she came in to help me clean."

I took that to mean that I was falling down on the job and so I took the chickens down, folded the purple fabric and capri pants, washed the shelf, and hung the chickens by their legs on the hooks reserved for coats.  Then I moved on to the sink and the mirror and the fake plant in the corner.  Done with that I turned around for instruction and found Kelly STILL working on the two toilets.  Hmmm....I left the women's bathroom and moved out of the room and down the hall to the men's room.

It was about the size of a small walk-in closet with a toilet and a sink.  I finished my sink/mirror job and went back to check on Kelly, assuming she would want to clean the toilet herself in the men's room.  She was just sweeping the women's room, and so I stood and watched her some, checking for signs of familiarity.

Kelly:  "What are you doing?  Where did you go?"
Me:  "Well, I was finished in here so I moved on to the men's room down the hall."
Kelly:  "There are still things to finish in this bathroom, you know."
Me:  "Uh huh.  Looks like you got this room under control so I'll just move back to the men's room."

I took the toilet cleaning stuff with me which consisted of a plastic curved handle and a container of white sponges with a thin layer of blue across the top.  I took out the sponge and examined the curved handle.  On the end of the handle was a pincher and so I tried pushing the plastic piece on the bottom of the sponge into the pincher.  It wouldn't click in and so I pressed a tad harder and then harder still.  Not getting anywhere I decided to survey the scene.  I moved my hand down on the handle and noticed that I was leaving a nice set of blue fingerprints all along the plastic handle.  I looked at my hand and realized that the thin, blue layer on the sponge was full of some type of cleaning solution that was now on my fingers.  I looked around for somewhere to put the handle and sponge and noticed that the handle had a button on it.  Pushing that button made the pincher open wide so that it could grip the plastic piece on the back of the sponge, creating a nice piece of toilet cleaning equipment.  Not quite as economical as my toilet brush at home, but I laid the thing in the toilet and proceeded to spend ten minutes washing the blue off of my fingers, which in turn dirtied up the sink I had just cleaned, and thus I had to start over.

Kelly:  "What are you doing?"
Me:  "Uh, cleaning the sink.  What are you doing?"
Kelly:  "Just checking to see what you were doing and emptying the trashcan in here."
Me:  "Are you done over there?"
Kelly:  "Almost.  I have to mop."

I finished cleaning the men's room, turned off the lights and joined Kelly for the next set of bathrooms which were at the front of the church.  Both of these bathrooms were quite large.  I opted for the men's room again, thinking it would be small like the last one.  It wasn't.  It was huge.  It had a large sink and a larger mirror that went all the way to the ceiling.  Around the corner from the sink was the tallest urinal I have ever seen in my life.  It came up to my chin and went all the way to the floor and was sitting on a small tiled area.  To the left of that was a stall that went the length of the wall and behind that was a toilet.  I surveyed the scene quite impressed with the layout and headed across the hall to survey the women's room.  Kelly was, of course, working on the toilets.

Kelly:  "What are you doing?"
Me:  "Uh, just checking out the bathroom."
Kelly:  "Well, I was going to have you clean the women's room, but you just went into the men's room."
Me:  "Uh, sorry."

I scurried back to the men's room, properly chastised, and got down to business.  I turned on my IPhone and went right to my new theme song, Good to be Me,  while I cleaned and sang along.  Unfortunately, I realized a tad too late, after belting out the refrain, that probably that wasn't quite the song one should have in the house of the lord.

Kelly:  "I wondered where that music was coming from."
Me:  "Oh, uh, well, yeah."
Kelly:  "Have you scrubbed the stall walls?  The handicap railing?"
Me:  "Jeez!  You act like I don't know what I'm doing."
Kelly:  "Did you clean wall behind the urinal?  I'm just saying..."

I waited until she left before hitting replay.  Then I grabbed some wipes and proceeded to backtrack to the stalls, the wall, and the handicap railing.  By the time I was finished with the men's room, Kelly was finishing up the women's room.  We met in the middle of the entryway, sweaty and huffing.  I thought we had two more bathrooms, but apparently Kelly had done those earlier in the week.  I sat on the stairs and waited for my next instruction, eyeing the boss with some suspicion.

Kelly:  "I'm miserably hot and sweaty and hunger as hell!"

My girl was back!  We picked up our supplies and the trash and headed out for some food and much needed margaritas.

Two month resolution check

It is time to check in on how well I'm doing on my New Year's Resolutions.  I score from 1-10 with 10 being the perfect score.  My goal this year is to actually make all of these things happen.  To achieve that perfect score (at least once)!

1. To not text while driving - I started out the first few weeks rolling out of the gate on this one.  I did not text and used Madison if I needed to respond immediately.  Then somewhere toward the end of January someone needed a response, and I texted at a red light thinking that made it all right.  Then I decided it didn't.  So back I went being good.  I bet I only texted twice, maybe three times, while driving.  Three times too many of course...  Score:  7
2. To get some form of exercise daily (10 minutes at least) whether it is walking the dog or performing jumping jacks. - Again started out of the gate tearing up the ten minutes daily.  Then I missed a day and decided that the 20 minutes I had walked the day before made up for that loss and then I decided no that was cheating.  Sort of like in the texting.  Should seriously state the rules better in my resolutions I guess.  Score:  5
3. To finish my slide project and to get important photos on CD's to have for...prosperity? - Oh, yeah, baby worked on this one a little here and a little there.  Not sure one can count this every two months as the goal is to finish.  I finished the slides this week, which technically was in March, but who's counting?  But the slides aren't on CD's yet so I guess that leaves me off for a perfect score.  Moving on the photos soon.  Score:  9
4. To continue to work on toning down the potty mouth. - Last two weeks with this one and then it all went to hell...see...can't take me anywhere!  Score:  1 (for trying)

TOTAL:  22 out of 40  Hey, it's better than half!

Happy Birthday to the little brother

Since I've finished with the slides and converted them on to my computer my next step is to get them on to a CD or DVD.  This past week as I packed the box with birthday presents for my sister-in-law (yes, I know how late I am on her gifts) I thought how cool it would be to throw in my brother's present and a DVD of him in slides.  So I worked my butt off finishing the slides, but unfortunately then I realized I would need more time to get together a DVD.  So I just put together a little movie.  But I wanted a different song, but apparently it had to be in an mp3 format which it wasn't.  Anyway.... Happy Birthday Rusty!

Why I'm not a cleaning lady

I don't have much experience with tile floors.  Growing up we had carpet in all the bedrooms and living areas and linoleum in the bathrooms; one cleaned with a vacuum cleaner and the other with a wet mop.  Moving into this house I just carried on with my experience and used a mop on the tile floors that covered our bathroom floors.  As long as the floor was swept and shiny I was good.  When I tiled my kitchen and dining area a year ago I just continued the mopping routine, content with the shine.

One day while sitting in my bathroom I noticed the dark color of the grout between the tile.  I goggled tile floors and discovered that one should be cleaning the grout.  Who knew?  I went into my kitchen and stared at the dark color of my new grout.  Was that the original color?  I couldn't remember.  I moved around the room and noticed that in areas that didn't get much traffic the grout was a lighter color.  Hmmm...I put that in the back burner of my mind until a couple of weeks later I noticed, while wandering around my dining room, that the grout color fell into the lighter shade category.  Houston, we have a problem.

I goggled cleaning grout and read about several methods.  The ingredient that kept popping up was something called oxygen bleach.  Sprinkle it on the grout, scrub a dub with minimal muscle power, and mop.  Maintaining it could be easily done by mixing the oxygen bleach into water and using it when mopping the floor.  Sounded good, but I didn't have, let alone know, of oxygen bleach.  I tried the next suggestion which was the use of vinegar, something I've used to polish my floors since my cleaning lady (had one during both pregnancies) showed me this trick.  I got a toothbrush and some vinegar and scrubbed away.  Not much difference.

I tried the next suggestion which was applying a paste of baking soda and water.  I sat on the floor and patted the paste in between each tile.  It took forever, but after waiting 15 minutes and then rinsing the tile grout was lighter.  Unfortunately, this was very time consuming.  I could paste pat one tile in about 3 minutes and then I would have to mix up another batch of paste for the next tile.  All the getting up and down was a killer on the back, and then I had to scrub it before leaving it.  And the rinsing?  Pain in the ass.  The paste left a gritty residue that I had to rinse and rinse, which would have been easy if I had a drain in my kitchen where I could hose down the floor.  I thought I should try something different...and buy a mop.

I discussed the grout situation with a friend who also put in tile the same time that I did.  She was a previous tile owner and she suggested Oxi-clean as the solution to oxygen bleach.  After all, she surmised isn't that the same thing?  She had used the kind in the spray bottle and found it worked quite well.  I bought the bottle and sprayed several tiles.  I scrubbed and let the solution sit on the grout for about 15 minutes.  Then, using my new mop, I rinsed.  And rinsed.  And rinsed.  As I moved around the kitchen floor rinsing, the dog began attacking the mop and barking.  He ran after the mop, but the floor was so soapy and slippery with Oxi-clean solution and water that he slid across the floor and banged into the cabinets.  Then he jumped up as if the mop had attacked him and slid across the floor in the other direction.  I started after him to hustle him out of the kitchen and ended up flat on my butt as I too slipped in the soapy mess.  Again I could have used that drain in the kitchen.  By the time I got all of the Oxi-clean rinsed and dried off the floor I had spent over an hour on a fourth of the kitchen tile.

I went back to the Internet and tried to find another solution.  I goggled oxi-clean and found that it works on almost everything in the home including mildew, blood, mold, wine, juice, and baby formula.  You can clean jewelry, ice chests, wedding dresses and tennis shoes using oxi-clean.  Also...grout.  I should buy the granular Oxi-clean and make it into a paste and apply it to the grout and let it sit one hour or overnight and then rinse.

So far I have discovered that the answer to cleaning grout is forming a paste of some type of bicarbonate and letting it work magic while I watch television.  I have purchased the granular Oxi-clean and have mixed it with water and mopped my kitchen floor to find it just leaves the same soapy film that the spray bottle stuff did.  I suppose some day when I'm seriously bored I will attempt the paste mixture.  Or not.  Lately I seem to be drawn to the carpeting section of all home stores...

Connie foot photo #9

I thought it looked better.  The nurse thought it looked better.  The Foot God came and announced it measured and looked better.  He and Connie discussed grafting it again, but until she gets the infection cleared up there is no point in grafting.  He will do this toward the end of her 6 weeks of antibiotics, but while she is still on it.  Connie wanted to know how much longer it would be of dealing with this foot and as usual he gave a month or more. 
I'm not sure what I will do without my weekly Foot God fix.  I told him perhaps I would need to come and visit him as I'm having some back pain like the one in the picture on the poster on the wall in the exam room.  He laughed.  I'm sure he is counting the days to get rid of us.  Or perhaps he isn't.  It certainly has taken quite some time to heal.....