Life and Death at the Hands of a Storm

The devastation in OKCity is just unreal. And the loss of lives is just so, so saddening. I probably said similar things back when the Joplin tornado happened, but I just can't imagine one day going to work, then coming home and my entire life's hard work, possessions, and mementos are vanished. Obviously, life is the most precious thing there is, but I think we'd all be lying if we said we wouldn't miss our homes and, on a deeper level, all of the emotions and memories they contain. Many prayers to everyone there as they try to find strength to continue on.

Now that I'm a pet owner, too, I can empathize with those who are searching for their lost pets. Once I know all of my family is safe, who am I going to look for next? Well, I'll hope to find my pet. There was a heartwarming TV interview I saw where an old, single lady who had lost everything was speaking to the reporter that she clutched her dog as the tornado tore at their home, but lost the dog out of her arms. As the interview went on, the reporter spotted the woman's dog underneath the rubble of her home. The dog was spooked and wounded, to say the least, but at least she has her companion with her. Like I said, I can relate to that now.

On a much smaller scale, but much closer to my house (because it's right in front of it), the storm had another impact.

I really like birds... maybe just slightly less than turtles. I like having a bird feeder and seeing the birds nearby, but most of all I have most loved the times at mom and dad's where birds made nests in their holly bush. Most times these were cardinals. The anticipation, checking on the birds, the way the father bird continually brings food back to the nest after they've hatched, and then checking on the birds to see how big they are and trying to guess when they might fly off, hoping I can be outside when they do. Sometimes I've caught them leaving their nest and it's the cutest, sweetest darn thing.

The robin nest in our rose bush.

Well, I was ecstatic to find a robin fleeing our rose bush a couple weeks ago because I then realized, she had made a nest there! We have this giant rose bush (seriously, it's too big for its space) in front of our house, and that's where she chose to build her nest. I saw three eggs, then four! Oh goody! I took this quick photo then vowed to leave it alone so I wouldn't scare her off.

Then the raging storm happened Sunday night. The winds were ferocious, and it battered our rose bush something awful. The branches were leaning over and out like the time that ten inches of snow weighed it down. But I checked on the nest, and to my relief, mama bird was sitting on it and all was well.


Then last night, we got even more storms, and the rose bush is even more ravaged and leaning over our sidewalk. When I came home at lunch, it was a sad sight. I found three of the four eggs broken on the ground, their embryonic contents spilled out staining the sidewalk. It made my heart break just a little. It was also strangely fascinating, because in the liquid mess that spilled out of the eggs, you could see the very, very beginnings of eyes and beaks.

The nest itself is still in the rose bush, but it is tipped over so much, hence how the poor eggs fell out, and I'm not sure if the mama bird is going to return to sit on the one remaining egg or not. So far, I have not seen her. Which makes me wonder: do birds go through a grieving process? Like the lamenting phoenix in the Harry Potter books, the idea of a bird wailing a piercingly sad, beautiful song has a tragic beauty to it.

I hope the robin will come back, but I just don't know if the last egg will survive much more. With the prediction of more storms tonight, it might very well fall to its death like the others. But I hope not.

Last night's storm

So how did everyone fare last night? We were fine.

I was hanging up some clothes when the lights started dimming. I thought to myself "Oooh... I should probably turn the TV on." I checked my phone, which gets weather alerts, and saw we were under a tornado warning. And I suddenly realized the storm was getting much worse. While waiting for the TV to turn on, I proceeded to turn off the dryer and came back to see the line of storms was almost on top of us. The weathermen were saying possible rotations between Washington and Union.

Meanwhile, Jarrod was in the garage, with the door up, my car in the driveway, just vacuuming his car. If I've never told the story: There was one time in Wentzville when they were under a tornado warning, and the storm was right over Wentzville. Jarrod was just standing on the porch watching it, eating a bowl of cereal. Once I found out what was going on last night, I went out to the garage to tell him the deal and that he needed to bring my car in, close the garage door, and come inside.

I went back in, Josie was shaking a few times, she was getting nervous. I'm sure she picked up on my own nervousness too. And as I was glued to the TV watching the updates, the storm kept getting worse and worse. It finally hit me I needed to go in the basement, so I grabbed Josie and her chicken toy and we went down there. A short time later, Jarrod joined us, soaked obviously.

We waited it out down there for probably 15 minutes. I don't think the house was damaged, though I want to take a walk around today just to check. But it was still a little nerve-wracking at times.

Welcome to the spring storm season!

Easter and Complicated Emotions

Two completely separate points to make about Easter this year.

1. Did you see that Party City TV commercial... where they took "Mambo Number 5" and rewrote the lyrics to say something a like "A little bit of Easter in my life..." Second question, did that ad bother you? The entire ad was this lavish Easter party, with a crap ton of decorations, an Easter bunny, kids running around having a blast, and a crap ton of candy. I could never quite put my finger on it, but that ad bothered me. Something about putting the entire holiday of Easter to a weird pop song did not sit well with me. I think the fact that Easter has completely been overtaken as just another holiday to capitalize on, with absolutely no mention of the actual reason we have Easter, is mostly to blame. This commercial just completely furthered that objective.

2. Easter and Christmas mass are two of the most beautiful masses in the whole year. But it is almost always ruined for me, even if just for a little bit, by the Chreasters around me. (I call the people who only attend on Christmas and Easter, Chreasters.)

I very vividly remember being so ticked off one Christmas mass because of the three kids (I say kids, but really they were 2 teens and a ~10-year-old) behind me who were laughing and talking the entire time. Sunday wasn't much better, except this time it was an adult! Wow, didn't expect that one. This lady behind me had been jibber-jabbering away in spurts throughout mass. We were in the middle of the Eucharistic prayer, the priest is consecrating the host, and she starts talking softly again to the lady next to her. It was inappropriate and I really was surprised at the terrible example she was setting for her kids.

This all is just so frustrating to me. I almost dread the crowd on Easter and Christmas because of the numerous experiences like this that I have had over the years. But then I feel bad about it because, well, I'm in church, and shouldn't I be welcoming these people instead of being so judgmental? Jesus is probably glad they are here, right? But it is just so hard not to get upset about it.

Puppy Meds

I thought I'd give a little update on our puppy. (You can click on the photos for larger versions.)


Our little Cairn Terrier has been so entertaining. She truly is becoming a little ball of mischief, independence, and fun. I feel we would be so boring without her. She has this adorable habit of cocking her head to the side when you talk to her. Something like this:

How can you resist this face?

A couple weeks ago, we finished puppy school. We signed up for an entry puppy class at the local Petco. I wanted to jump start training her, so I figured we'd give it a shot. I had received a book on training a dog from some friends, and that proved to have many helpful tips. But I wanted just a little more to get us going, so we signed up for six weeks of classes. They went well, and Josie learned something, for sure. My biggest problem with it, though, was I never felt she quite had time to "master" a command before we were moving on to even more commands. Ergo, the time to teach and work on the older commands got less and less as we learned more and more. We didn't decide to continue on with the next class, but I plan to keep working with her. Many of the techniques we were taught from Petco are the same methods the book suggests, so I still have something to refer to for ideas. Josie graduated from class with honors (but wouldn't hold still for her graduation photo haha.) 

Josie in her "Graduation Cap"

Two weeks ago we discovered Josie doesn't like the vacuum cleaner. She hid under the couch when he did the living room, which was a first for her. After running into the bedroom, she didn't realize Jarrod would be following with the vacuum. I checked by the windows, no dog. I looked under the bed, no dog. Then I happened to notice her, somehow, because she had climbed to the way back of my nightstand to get as far away as she could! It was hilarious, and this is the cute photo from it.

Escaping the evil vacuum.

One of her favorite things to do (when we're home and she's out of her crate) is lay in the sun.

But she's not such a fan of her sweater... Mom got her this sweater for Christmas, and though she was pretty tolerant of it for those first few weeks, any time we've tried since then, she hates it. Case and point: last Thursday's snow day. After determining she was hiding under the couch, I tried to coax her out. Once she finally came out from under the couch, she was naked. While under the couch, she had somehow wriggled out of her sweater and left it there. Goof.

About a month ago, we had her spayed. That went well, and she healed pretty okay except for a little bump along her incision. It became larger in the past few days, and another one popped out. So today I took her by the vet so they could have a look. It didn't look infected, but I figured since it had gotten worse we needed to check. The vet agreed with what I suspected: that it healed kind of goofy. She said what was going on was the internal suture knots should be fully dissolved by about this time, and clearly hers were going at a slower pace, hence the bumps out. They weren't painful, because Josie didn't even notice you pressing on them. She was concerned they might get worse, and also didn't want me to have to keep coming by, so she decided it best to snip out the suture knots. She would open up the little wounds and Josie wouldn't feel it. About ten minutes later, after she was done and Josie was glued back up, she said that she wasn't quite as successful as she'd hoped. The sutures were buried under scar tissue and actually some fluid and pus came out, so she thought it best to put Josie on some antibiotics. So Josie is on meds, just like me haha. It's a seven-day course, and should speed up this dissolving process and clear up or prevent any infection that may or may not be there. If things get worse or are not noticeably better by day seven, then I will have to call them back. Then there's a good chance she'll have to go back under anesthesia so she can snip the knots out. She said she sees this in about 1 in 50 dogs, where these suture knots just don't dissolve like normal. She said she'd make a note in her chart, if she ever needs any future surgeries, that we had these issues.

I would like to say right now that I really love the vet we have. Colleen suggested the Franklin County Animal Medical Center, and I've been extremely happy. We have been seeing Dr. Kim Post, primarily, and she has a great bedside manner, if you will. She is wonderful at explaining things, never makes you feel silly for asking questions, and is just a very zen, calm person in general. She's great. So let's hope these meds do the trick and little Jose gets better!

Back to Gym Class

I hated gym class in school. Not only because it just wasn't what I was into, but because I sucked at it. But the one thing I used to be decent at, if there was one part at all, was the stretches you did to warm up. And the only reason that was true was because of dance.

Well... in an attempt to vary my daily exercising a little, instead of going downstairs and doing the elliptical, I decided to do some old, grade school stretches.

Let me tell ya, I am beat. Have you tried to do any of those things lately? Holy cow! It is so much harder than I remember.

I did 20 jumping jacks (fine), then some arm circles (easy), then some leg stretches (definately not as flexible as I used to be), a few other stretches, then tried 10 crunches (wow...), and then I tried 10 push ups (insane). The crunches were darn near impossible. And the push ups, I didn't really even come close to the ground, so maybe I pushed myself up a difference of one inch. Heck, I don't know. But it wasn't much.

Wow... I almost feel light-headed from this stuff. I mean, these measly little stretches we used to laugh at in gym class totally kicked my butt!

Lenten Resolutions

Well, today is the first day of Lent. I have been agonizing over what my Lenten plans should be, because I always have a hard time coming up with something. I can't give something up, or my weight will suffer. I've done it in the past, giving up soda for one, and I ended up dropping a few pounds. I know, it probably sounds awesome to be able to do that, but it is not good for me at all. I have to keep my weight up to stay healthy. I definitely notice a difference when my weight is down, it is much more difficult to get around.

Anyways, giving up something is "easy" if you ask me, because it's very cut and dry. But this morning I decided on two things that will strengthen me both physically and spiritually.

The first one is I will read the bible every day. Even if it's just a short passage, it's something. Like most things, I've found that once you start it is easy to keep going, but you have to pick up the book first. I have this daily bible reading plan from a friend that I've had for years now, so I think I will probably use that as a good starting point.

The second thing is I will exercise every day. I've been doing much better lately, doing something ALMOST daily. But I'm going to discipline myself and do something daily. This one is going to be tough, since sometimes there are busy days that don't allow much time for this (or so it seems.) I think I was scared to commit to this one, but this morning Jarrod prompted me that it's what I should do. And it is, I know it, but this is big, we're talking lifestyle change. I can't skip a day, not one! (I know Sundays aren't technically part of Lent, but I think that's a cop out to allow yourself a break on Sundays.) So if it's bed time, hypothetically, and I haven't exercised that day I can't let myself go to bed! This will be a complete new way of thinking. I'm hesitant, but I hope it'll become easier and by almost routine by the end of it. Don't they say it takes 6 weeks to form a new habit and 2 to break it? Well, this will be six weeks... and it's going to be tough...

But that's the point. Lent is supposed to be hard; a small sacrifice. And when I think of the pain and suffering that Jesus went through for my sins, what I'm doing pales in comparison. But it's still a sacrifice, and it will be good for me. Lent is supposed to be a great time to learn, a great time to strengthen yourself, a great time to grow closer to God. By taking care of myself I can have better relationships with those around me, and by having those I can experience God's love. By reading the bible daily, I can further deepen my faith and enrich my personal relationship with God.

I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but I very much believe in Lenten resolutions. I am much more likely to succeed by offering it up as a sacrifice to God.

Christmas Movie Quest

I have decided to attempt to watch 1 Christmas movie, short, or special each day leading up until Christmas. I'm pretty excited about it, because there are so many good Christmas movies (when you really think about it.) Here is my list in chronological order, though I won't be watching them in any certain order. What is your favorite? I think I have all the classics pretty much covered. I have all of these either on DVD, VHS (oh god!), or on the DVR except for Scrooged and White Christmas. So I'm hoping those will come on TV sometime so I can record them.

I'm kind of excited about this small project!

Meet Me In St. Louis (1944)
Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
The Bells of St. Mary's (1945)
It's A Wonderful Life (1946)
The Bishop's Wife (1947)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
Little Women (1949)
White Christmas (1954)
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964)
Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
Frosty the Snowman (1969)
Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1979)
A Christmas Story (1983)
Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983)
A Muppet Family Christmas (1987)
Scrooged (1988)
Christmas Vacation (1989)
Home Alone (1990)
Winnie the Pooh & Christmas Too (1991) 
Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
The Santa Clause (1994)
Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish (1999)
Elf (2003)

Jamie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Yesterday started off on the wrong foot. My day started off on a 'down' tone. Ever have one of those, where you just feel down all day? They come around once in a while for me. Anyways, I was having a cruddy day.

Part of it was because of Monday. After spending four days straight with one or both of us, Josie, our puppy, was extremely needy. She was rowdy, she was bored, she was in almost constant need of attention because she just wouldn't settle down. I couldn't get much done because I felt like I had to keep an eye on her all the time if she wasn't by me, and if she WAS by me she was trying to get into whatever I was doing.

So I was agonizing over not getting much done again. Plus the cruddy morning.

Then I made dinner, which was Hamburger Helper. I also had to wrap up some meat we bought, and  so I got the mixture on the stove and started wrapping. I put the lid on the skillet to speed things up, then forgot about it. As I'm wrapping up a steak, the cheese sauce is boiling over on the stove. So that was a big mess. I wiped off the bottom of the skillet and moved it to the other burner since my original one was covered in now-burnt cheese.

Back to wrapping. Well, after a little while I was surprised to not hear it simmering. I looked at the stove and it turned out I had the wrong burner on and it was melting my microwave cover. I kind of screamed when I discovered it, ran over and pulled it off. It was clearly ruined. That's not a huge deal since they cost like $2, but still.

I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Luckily that is the time Jarrod came home and helped calm me down. The house smelled like plastic, so we had to air it out. We turned off the heat, opened all the windows and played freeze out for an hour. The house got down to 57°, so not too terrible. But I was so glad when it was time to go to bed and call it a day. Let's hope today is better.

An Open Plea to the Christmas-Pusher-Uppers of America

Please quit it with the Christmas crap!

I find myself more upset year after year as the Christmas holiday slowly creeps into October more and more. This year has proven to be no different, and I believe sales, decorations, ads, and commercials have begun in record time. I'm sure Jarrod can't wait until Thanksgiving gets here so he doesn't have to hear any more mumbling under my breath every time I see Christmas stuff.

Halloween was barely over, and the commercials already started. Actually, I think they may have even started before Halloween this year.

Thanksgiving has, in recent years at least, always been a forgotten holiday. So the fact that Christmas has overtaken Thanksgiving does not entirely surprise me. Still disappointing, but not out of the question. But the fact that Christmas is now encroaching on Halloween is just flat out ridiculous! Why on earth do we need to be thinking about Christmas for a whole two-months straight???

The funny thing is, people ASK for this! I'm sorry, and I'll try to say this in the least snobby fashion possible, but NO ONE I associate with likes that Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year. So I don't really know the people who want this. But we drove by a home last night with their Christmas tree proudly displayed in the window! It's November 13th! What the heck are you thinking? Back in the 70s, according to my mom, it was somewhat strange for people to even put their trees up day after Thanksgiving. And now people are putting them up the day after Halloween?!

There is absolutely no reason for this. You can't tell me that these people are in the Christmas spirit already. If they are, it's a fake Christmas spirit because as we all know, Christmas isn't about how many decorations you can fit in your yard, or home, or how much money you can spend on gifts. It's about Christ Jesus, and there is really no reason for me to be preparing myself for this right now. That time is called Advent. The only thing that fuels this entire movement is the dollar, and there's nothing religious, giving, or warm & fuzzy that even resembles "holiday spirit" in corporate greed.

I implore everyone who agrees with me to not buy a single gift, a single decoration, or a single holiday anything until after Black Friday. Money talks, and in my mind, the best way to cast my vote against the Christmas expansion is with what I buy. I refuse to buy anything Christmas-y until it is around the time of the actual holiday.

Who's with me?

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: