Doughnut Debacle

I have to tell the following story, because it is just too funny...

I woke up at 5:30am coughing; decided to get up and go do my treatment. Once I was done, I was really awake, and decided going back to bed was pointless. I thought to myself I wonder when Shulte's opens? They open at 6am. It was 6:05am, perfect!

I threw on some clothes and left to go get fresh doughnuts as a nice little treat and surprise (and it happens to be National Doughnut Day, which is a total coincidence.) All the while, Jarrod is still asleep, he has no idea I left. I got back, doughnuts in hand, made covfefe, and sat on the couch to wait for Jarrod to get up and get ready for work.

He finally got up at 6:45, which meant he was running late. He came out to the living room to find me sitting there, on my iPad, and asked "What are you doing?" I told him how I woke up early, blah blah blah. But that I'd been to Shulte's and back, and I had doughnuts! He asked why I didn't come wake him up sooner (since he'd be kinda late for work.) I didn't realize the time.

Then he laid down on the couch—weird, seeing as he was just commenting about being late—I asked what was up. He told me... He actually didn't have to go to work, he took the day off. And he was planning to make me breakfast while I was doing my vest (which takes 30 minutes.) He had no idea I had gotten up early, only noticed I wasn't actually in bed right before he got up at 6:45, hoped I was vesting and he could surprise me. But no.

Oh man... what are the odds. My surprise ruined his surprise.

Saturday Night Adventure

I went to take the dog outside. But as I stepped over the threshold I paused because I heard this odd sound. It was like a soft sound, like something was going pfft pfft, pfft pfft. I turned my head to look inside and found a bird flying around... in our house.

Josie was already on her way to go potty so I called to Jarrod saying "Jarrod! There's a bird in the house!" Right as I said that, I realized there was another bird fluttering around the porch (possibly its mate) and I shut the door immediately to keep the second one out.

Once we got back inside, I put the dog in her crate so we could open up the front door and the deck door in hopes of getting the bird (it was a house finch) to fly out. Jarrod had closed all the bedroom doors to keep it out of the rooms. Jeff was coming over for a movie later, and he arrived at this point. It was so hilarious trying to get the bird to fly out; we had out a broom and a Swiffer hoping to keep him moving. I set bird seed outside in hopes he would see it and find it enticing.

Sitting atop the dining light.

The bird kept landing on the dining room light, then he'd sit on the ceiling fan in the living room, then go down the hall, then come back to the dining room, then at one point Jeff said "Oh no, he's found a house!" because the bird had landed on top of our cabinets where I have about 8 decorative bird houses, haha. Then he landed ON the corner of the open front door about 3 different times, but somehow didn't see the great outdoors just beyond. I think after chasing him around for about ten minutes. He flew out just as unnoticeably as he came in, though he did leave behind some bird crap on the wall. However he pooped horizontally ont the wall, I'll never know.

For most of the month, every time I'd take the dog out, there would be bits and pieces of greenery from my wreath on the ground, right as you opened the door. I asked Jarrod if he thought he had slammed the door shut a few times, but he didn't think so. I began to believe that some birds were pecking at my wreath, because on more than one occasion I'd see one around the porch. I'd say tonight confirms that suspicion.

I took the wreath down.

Good News

I blew a 33% today for my PFT!!! Yay!!!

I am almost back to my baseline, almost back to my best numbers as of late which happened back in September. God is so good, I am so glad I have started to inch my way back up. I could feel it, I thought I was doing better and it's nice to see on paper that I'm not imagining things.

But there is something interesting to note. I never would have noticed this until I started charting my progress at home, but the values each hospital uses to determine that percentage are different. So for a person of my height and weight, the figure would be 33% at Mizzou, 35.5% at Mercy, and 35.2% at Barnes. Isn't that weird, and kinda dumb? Shouldn't there be a standard across the board so it is the same no matter where you go? Turns out there isn't, and I guess it just depends on the software and the computer doing the testing. So that's why we can't truly just go by the percentage. It is best to look at the raw data and compare it. Therefore, even when I compare the raw numbers I am just .07 liters away from my best numbers. I can do it!

In other news, Jarrod and I have been talking like Batman tonight and I really wish I could record Jarrod, he's pretty good at it. Have you seen the Batdad videos? This dad gives short tidbits of parenting advice with the ridiculous Batman voice and it's hilarious; something like "BEN! Be sure to brush your gums. You don't want... gingivitis." I mean, I loved Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight movies, but Christian Bale's cover-up voice for Batman just got more and more deep, raspy, and silly as time went on. So after a joke I made, we've been talking in Batman sentences this evening. Try it, it's really funny. You might want to put up the... Christmas lights tonight. It's going to get... cold. (Look up the video and that might make a bit more sense.)

Happy Thanksgivikkah

I've been told that this double holiday will not happen for another 70,000 years? That's a long time.

I hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving. I will be starting mine with mass with Cardinal Dolan. When he flies home for the holidays, sometimes he will say mass at my parish which is, obviously, a special treat. Last time he pulled up across from me, with his mom as his passenger, Yankees hat on head, not much before mass, joking and talking with people on his way in. 

Despite all of my changes, there is still plenty to be thankful for this year and a lot that is staying the same. I still have my house, I'm not moving. That's something to be thankful for. But instead of running down the usual thankful list, I thought I'd just write a list of updates and stories since my last post. 

1. As my mom pointed out, she's not sure this was indeed my fourth time in the hospital this year. And now I'm not so sure either. So maybe it's just three; the lesser the better. 

2. I am on oxygen at home now, but just as needed. I got all the stuff yesterday and we rolled it all into the bedroom last night. I slept with it on last night because my % was low when I checked it right before bed. The machine is noisy, as in it is not silent, but we like background noise when we sleep so getting used to it shouldn't be too bad. 

2B. We are calling it my Darth Vader machine because it has a general constant noise/hum, while another noise of pulling in air, then 'exhaling' if you will. So it's a bit like Darth.
2C. Oh, and it came with a No Smoking sign that we are supposed to post in the window. How funny is that? Although, apparently it's for firefighters to know too, so in that case we can post it. 

3. I accidentally went to Applebee's the other night in slippers. I got out of the car, realized I was still in my slippers that I always wear, and just laughed and laughed. They have a solid sole and look enough like a fuzzy sweater moccasin to pass as shoes, so we just went inside. I was happy we were in a booth, though, and my feet could stay fairly hidden. Oops.

4. I'm super happy to see Josie again. I missed Jarrod, but I got to visit with him off and on the two weeks I was there. But my dog got no such visits with me, so I was happy to have her home. We laid in the sun together yesterday, which might be her fourth favorite thing to do after eating, playing ball, and rough-housing with guys (she won't play like that with me, but does with Jarrod and almost any other male.) 

Paul Ryan, A Comparison

I'm not going to compare Paul Ryan to Joe Biden, but I've been trying to figure out who he reminds me of.

So here's Paul Ryan:

and many people are saying, due the widow's peak, he looks like a grown-up Eddie Munster:

but I think, with his grin, he totally looks like this guy:

Laughs

Father's Day post number 5.

I would like to take this moment to thank my dad for my sense of humor.

At a young age, my dad introduced me to the Three Stooges. I still watch them from time to time and enjoy a laugh. But a couple months ago, as I was watching them by myself one morning (Jarrod was gone on a business trip) I texted my dad and told him it just wasn't quite the same... 'cause it wasn't.

Both of these things came up the other day, actually, in conversation with someone else. But another thing I was introduced to at a young age was the wonderful comedy of Bill Cosby. My dad is a big fan and has almost, if not all, of his records (yes, LPs.) The record player is packed up at their house these days, but we've talked of taking it back out so we can convert and record them onto CDs one of these days. I have told him I want to KNOW when he does this so I can come over! Bill Cosby's humor isn't talked about much these days, I guess, which seems weird to me since I grew up knowing about him. It astounds me when I talk to people my age and older who have never heard The Dentist, but I guess maybe liking Bill Cosby at my age is a little atypical. Oh well, I think it's great.

As I got older, we branched onto British humor, when I was introduced to some Monty Python. My poor mom had to come with us when we went to see "Spamalot", the musical version of Holy Grail, at the Fox Theater. She just doesn't enjoy British humor. But dad and I thought it was great.


I don't know about most people, but I think it's safe to give credit for my sense of humor to my dad. From slapstick, to British, to quirky, to sarcastic, to dry, I usually "get it" and he's the one to blame. Sorry to all the people who have to deal with all my goofy jokes, impressions, and associations these days :).

Let's Play: What's In Jamie's Purse?

Preparing to move makes you do some things you've neglected for a long time. We boxed up my purses a couple weeks ago, and when we did that, I took everything out of them. I mean everything. I don't know about other women, but when I switch up the purse I'm using at the time, I don't necessarily take out everything that was in it. So over time, I've accumulated a lot of receipts, junk, and other random stuff. Really random stuff. This is a photo documenting some of the more amusing items I found.

To list it all out: 9 Taco Bell packets, Modern Auto oil change punch card, 2 Dixie cups, purple cell phone calculator, compact mirror, 5 gift cards, Lime Lip Smackers, necklace chain, parking pass to Barnes, 2 fortune cookie fortunes, Lip Smackers with no label, USB drive, Blueberry Lip Smackers (this one is, like, 15 years old), a button, broken dinosaur key chain, 2 pennies, safety pin holding yet more safety pins, eye doctor's Rx, some guide about taking care of my Pyrex stuff, blue Crayola marker, 2 pens, 2 button pins, Hooters crayons, Borders rewards card (hello, they're out of business now), reward card to Hot Topic, hand lotion, film canister, Buffalo Wild Wings towlette, 2 Bank of Franklin County pens, 2 packs of partially eaten gum (the Key Lime Pie one is gross, don't buy it), a Christmas card from Marie, 1 Fun Dip tri-packet, the receipt to Jarrod's wedding band (purchased over a year ago), a straw, emissourian business cards, lip gloss, a notepad briefly documenting my Make-A-Wish trip from 2005 (yes, that's 7 years ago), 1 turtle sock (so THAT's where it was!), and a lighter.

I hope you found as much humor in this as I did. I will end with: I really have no idea why I bought a lighter. I feel like it was for something with theater back in high school...

Tonight's venture: Sardonic children's books for adults

While browsing Amazon the other night, in the top sellers list was this book you could pre-order called "Go the F**k to Sleep." Intrigued, I clicked on it. It's a book for adults (obviously) and goes into the troubles of parenting in, I imagine, a hilarious tongue-in-cheek sort of way.

So this set me into looking at some of the related books, and they all make me laugh in some way. I love book covers, and some of these are just great. Also, side note, a lot of these happen to be born from a blog of the same name. A few that I didn't add on here are the book versions of Texts from Last Night, S**t My Dad Says, F My Life, and Cake Wrecks.

Book 2: All My Friends Are Dead. This tale is told from many angles and objects, all of whose friends are dead. See second image. Hilarious.

Book 3: I Hate Everything. I just love the cover for this one.

Book 4: I Judge You When You Use Poor Grammar. I think I was part of this original Facebook group, actually. This statement definitely sums up a small part of me. Let me edit this and add "and Incorrect Spelling."

Book 5: Pets Who Want to Kill Themselves. Based on my new favorite blog of the same title.

Book 6: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals. If the cover wasn't hilarious enough, I actually laughed at one of the page spreads for about 30 seconds... click here to see what I was laughing at.

And to compliment that, here's Book 7: Asking Awkward Questions with Baby Animals.

Easy-Mac-e Catrastrophe

This morning I did something I've never done before: burnt my Easy Mac. As most of you know, I eat Easy Mac almost every morning for breakfast. This morning, though, I must have been out of it (although... I was quite awake and not tired.)

I was talking with mom about... something, as she was sewing a button on her pants. I put my Easy Mac in the microwave and got everything ready to make it once it was done. I pulled out the potholders and started to smell something. Mom could smell it too. We both thought something didn't quite smell right; it was like something toasting or burning in the toaster... except I wasn't using the toaster. I sniffed the potholders in case those smelled, and they were not the problem. I then checked by the microwave area and that was definitely the problem. I paused my cooking with 50 seconds left, and opened the door. The culprit was in there, and I then took down my bowl to discover browned, blackened, and charred noodles... with no water. For the first time in my long history of making Easy Mac, I forgot to add the water. I immediately put the bowl outside on the deck. IT. REEKED. Oh my gosh, I didn't  know that it could smell that bad. It was worse than burnt popcorn, though I can't quite relate it to anything else.

Later on right before I left dad brought the bowl back in and put my charred macaroni's in a baggie and through it in the trash. After doing that, we could see that I most likely ruined the bowl too. The bottom of the bowl is scarred with brown and black spots, with white areas where noodles were; it's a really
strange pattern, haha.

My cousin Jason did this same thing one time, though his was with one of the microwaveable cups and the cup melted too and left a mark on their microwave. I think his was a little worse, but now we're both in the same boat. But he's 10...

Oh well, first time for everything I suppose.

Icetopia

There, I just invented a new ridiculous term for this storm we had. Or rather... semi-storm. Talk about a major disappointment and major goof on the part of the weatherman.

Should we be surprised though? No! Of course not. Every time it snows, their guess is as good as yours or mine as to how much snow will actually fall.

I gotta say that the entire sequence of news coverage just annoys me, and I'm to the point now where I don't really want to watch the local news anymore. Too bad I kind of have to in order to catch what the weather 'might' do.

Every frickin' time it's the same damn thing:

Day 1: Weatherman reports storm will be coming in 3-4 days

Day 2: Weatherman gives better 'estimates' of snow totals for storm that is 2-3 days away.

Day 3, the day before: Each separate news channel sends 3 different reporters to 3 different locations around the metro area. These locations include 1 grocery store, 1 hardware store, and either 1 more grocery store or a store where you can find salt or window scrapers. Proceed with ridiculous "storm mode" coverage of how the bread, milk, and eggs are flying off the shelves like wild monkeys so everyone can go home and make French toast! Observe! The Lowe's on Watson Road as customers flock out of the store in triumphant glory with their new snow shovel! And let us check in wiiiitthhh... Kathy, who is standing outside of the Walmart on Clayton, conducting boring interviews of maniacal shoppers about what they purchased before "the big storm."

Day 4: The snow/ice happens. We viewers are told to stay at home if at all possible. Don't venture out into the danger of all dangers. They treat us as if this is our first snowstorm ever and we have never heard this advice before, nor do we have any common sense. They remind us time and again that if you MUST venture out into this terrible weather: take it slow, keep a good distance between the person in front of you, and allow extra time for your commute. Again, all as if we've never heard it before.

Later on day 4: The snow amounts start to come in. Round two of each separate news channel sending 3 different reporters to 3 different locations commences. Kathy is in Illinois and says "Yes, the snow is in full swing. It is really coming down over here." John is in Ballwin and says "We are having quite a bit of snow over here." Steve in Wentzville says "The snow has hit, we are in the middle of the storm! Stay in folks, this one's gonna be a doozy." Steve bends over to pick up a handful of snow to further prove his point that: snow is indeed falling. We are left to conclude: the snow is falling. And we didn't even need to look out the window to figure it out! (And do I need to mention the irony that just 2 minutes before these reports, they reminded us not to travel in this stuff if we don't absolutely have to?)

Night of day 4: Snow totals are not as expected. They are lower. Weathermen launch into a laundry list of excuses as to why the totals are lower. Way lower. Way long list.

Likely scenario for day 5: Kids are home from school because school was called on account of predicted snow totals that did not happen. Therefore: a free snow day for no reason and another day to make up in June.

Living in Missouri is great...