Icemageddon

I survived Icemageddon.  Yay, me!

Really, it wasn't bad here at all, though my friend Amy, whom you've met before, lost power for several hours.  There wasn't much ice here, even though my Jimmy had a good layer on him.  Funniest thing, the car doors were frozen shut.  The only one I could get to open was the back hatch.  I climbed inside and tried to open the driver's side door from the inside, but I couldn't.  I finally ended up pouring water (tap water --NOT hot, or you may crack your windows) over the door to melt the ice enough to get it opened.

Despite having no heat or defroster, I made it safely to work.  Good thing I only live 1 1/2 miles from the plant.

Well, like I said I was going to do, I ended up spending most of the weekend sitting in front of the TV and knitting.  I've gotten two rows completed on Kyle's blanket.

I stretched it out over my bed, which is a queen sized bed, and I do think it'll be big enough.

I spent the rest of Saturday tussling with my finances.  I have a little used bank account that I haven't reconciled since, like July, so I had to take care of that.  Then when I was paying bills, I noticed my house note had a past due amount on it for last month.  I knew I'd paid that bill, and looking back through my checkbook, I had indeed written the check.  Then, when I was reconciling that account, I saw that the money had been debited to my account.  So, I had to call customer service.  They insisted that the last payment they'd received had been for January,  and to prove it, I would have to print out my bank statement and a copy of the cancelled check and send it to them.  They did an electronic funds transfer, so there is no cancelled check.  I did print out my transaction history from the bank's website, and I hope that'll do them.

I got the sweetest little thank you notes from my nephews.  This one is from Andrew.

He drew a picture of me, and what appears to be a porcupine, surrounded by lots of hearts.  He's the sensitive one.

Nate drew what looks like Moose and her twin calves. 

Nate is the practical one.  He's also the oldest.   He is going to buy spy gear. 

This one is from Paul, the youngest.  He apparently has an affinity for alligators and sharks. 

 

Fighting ninjas.  Or is that me?  I'm not sure. 

I like this kid, Paul. 

Music Monday

In loving memory of my nephew Nathaniel Russell Gunstream, who was born 9 years ago yesterday. Unfortunately, this is the only photo I have left of him.

Christmas Presents!

My sister had already told me that my Christmas gifts from her would be late, and they arrived today.

The first thing I opened was a jar of blueberry jam--most likely homemade. Yumm. I guess I'd better get started learning to make biscuits from scratch.

Don't tell her, but I was secretly hoping for some more Fireweed jelly. That's my favorite. It goes real well on homemade biscuits, too. 

OK, next up were two smaller, wrapped packages.

In the first one was a magnetic memo pad.

I love these things, and always keep one on my refrigerator. In case you can't read it in the photo, it says, "Things I Moose Do".

In the other package was a new Alaska Christmas ornament.

And finally, this candle holder didn't survive the mailing. 

There just wasn't enough packing material in the box to keep the stuff from shifting around.  I've bought some glue, though, and maybe I can fix it reasonably well. 

And maybe, someday, I'll tell you about the time she sent me chocolate chip cookies to Italy in an aluminum pie plate with a sheet of foil over them.  And three 16 oz Dr. Peppers in the box.  Yeah.  There wasn't even enough left to call them crumbs.  I got cookie sand.  

She also (finally) sent new photos of my adorable nephews.  This one was my favorite.

That's Andrew (5), Nate (10), and Paul (3). 

Paul looks just like my sister did at that age, and if I had a picture of her at that age, I'd prove it to you.  But alas, I don't have one.

You'll just have to take my word for it.

.

My Other Nephew

You have all heard me talking about my nephews. I have 4 nephews. I've posted photos of them occasionally. You get to see Joshua every month. My sister doesn't send photos of her three sons as often as I'd like, so I don't post them as much. Yes, those are the most recent photos I have of them.

I have 4 nephews, Nate, Joshua, Andrew, and Paul.

What you may not know is, I really have 5 nephews. You see, my brother Russell and sister in law Yoke Wan had tried to start a family as soon as they got married, but they had trouble. Finally, I got the joyous phone call that they were expecting a baby. Joy turned to sorrow, when just a few weeks later, they had to call back and say they had lost it. Twice more, this scenario was repeated. Joy, then sorrow.

A fourth time, the joyous phone call. We all held our breath. When Yoke Wan reached her second month, then her third, we began to breathe again. But by the fifth month, we were holding our breath again. Yoke Wan had been showing symptoms of pre-eclampsia. Though the doctors were monitoring her carefully, even hospitalizing her for the remainder of her pregnancy, they finally decided that if the mother and baby were to have a chance to survive, they would have to do an emergency C-section. On May 15th, 2002, at 24 weeks gestation, Nathaniel Russell was born.

He was so tiny. He only weighed in at 1 lb 2 oz, and was shorter than a ruler. Eleven inches. He was born so early, his eyes weren't even open. And still, we held our breath.

Nathaniel was so tiny, and so early, that his chances were only about 50-50. But he lived through the night. Then another day. Then a week. We began to breathe again. His eyes opened. He lived another week. His digestive system finally began to function, and they were able to give him milk. He started to grow. He gained an ounce here, two ounces there. Each week, he gained a little weight. Each week, he grew stronger.

He had setbacks. He would need surgery to correct a retinal problem common in preemies. He was given the wrong IV, and his lung collapsed, but still he fought on. He grew some more. The doctors began weaning him off the life support machines. Finally, he was breathing totally on his own. His heart was beating strongly, and without help. The only tube he was still on was his feeding tube. When he gained up to 3 lbs, they were going to remove that, and let him take a bottle. As he began to get close, they gave him a pacifier to practice sucking. It took a while, but he eventually got the hang of it.

But then, tragedy. Nathaniel developed an infection in his bowel. He was rushed to another hospital across town, and emergency surgery was performed. They removed a section of his large intestine. He was put back on life support, but he was just too small. Too weak. His immune system was not strong enough to hold off the infection spreading throughout his tiny body. On August 3, 2002, the painful decision was made to let him go home. The machines were turned off.

And he was gone.

My sister in law had been sending me weekly e-mail updates and photos she'd taken of him. Not long after he left us, my computer crashed, and I lost every photo I had of him. It was almost like losing him all over again. Not long ago, I was looking for a cell phone charger and found this: The last photo I have of him in my possession.

It was one I'd printed out for Cody to put on his bulletin board. Somehow, it survived. It's faded. It's torn. It's splotchy. But it's all I have left of my nephew Nathaniel.

My Nephew

Joshua, age 4.


Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Joshua and my brother Russell.

With my sister in law, Yoke Wan.

I'm Just Weird

You're supposed to use ice on toothaches, not heat. Heat is supposed to make a toothache worse. Ice is supposed to make it better.

Not me. I discovered quite by accident today that heat has a very soothing effect on my toothache. Perhaps because it's not really a toothache in that there is no actual tooth there. Whatever. It works, and for that I'm glad.

I called my dentist to make an appointment. "Let's see..." the receptionist mused, "we have an opening October 31st." That's two weeks away. I'll never survive two more weeks of this. I called the dentist who pulled my teeth. They can get me in on Monday. Guess which one I'm going to.

My sister in law included this delightful, if somewhat fuzzy, picture of my nephew Joshua in Cody's birthday card. I snatched it up and haven't given it back yet!

I figured he usually gives them to me anyway...

The other little boy is one my sis in law babysits.

My Nephews

I don't get new pictures of my nephews very often. These are the newest ones I have, and they are not all that new. Anyway, here are my adorable nephews:


Nate (7), Andrew (2), and Paul (7 months).

Baby Paul. He was 6 months old when this picture was taken.

Nate (7) helping dad with the drywall.

Andrew (2) being sure to wear his safety goggles. These three are my sister's kids.

Joshua (3) enjoying his kiddie pool very much. Josh is my brother's son.

And just so we have a girl represented somewhere in the family:

Rylea, almost 4 months old.

Kid Pics

Yesterday, Buck posted some adorable pictures of his youngest son climbing on stuff and fiddling with switches and levers (of a sort). They reminded me so much of these pictures I had of Cody driving the kitchen sink that I just had to dig them out and post them.


Then he discovered the inner workings of the garbage disposal, and I had to intervene:

Fortunately, this was right before we moved in and neither the water nor electricity had been turned on.

These last few days, Cody's been trying real hard to convince me that he's got a mustache. I don't quite see it yet, but offer the following proof that he is indeed a man:

September 1995. One month shy of two years old, and he's already got the remote figured out.

Finally, another picture of my nephew Paul, taken when he was a week old.

On to weirder things...Last night I had the strangest dream. It was very long, and had a few blurry bits in it as dreams are wont to do. I dreamed that I was in a huge medical complex. I mean it was enormous. There was an inpatient hospital, outpatient care, private practice offices, and even it's own pharmacy all in one huge building. I had gone into see my doctor, and as the dream opened, our appointment was just ending, and we were standing in the corridor talking.

"Try that prescription," he told me, "and if that doesn't work, come back and we'll try something else." About that time, a rather extremely large woman entered the hall and started to hit on my doctor. As in, flirt with him, not pound on him. She inserted herself firmly between the doctor and me, began chatting him up, and at the same time sort of draped herself over my shoulder as if trying to push me down and out of the picture. I finally got tired of her leaning against me, and pushed her off. She then began to raise a ruckus about how I'd assaulted her and she was going to file charges against me, sue me, etc, etc. I think she was just trying to impress the good doctor.

I just rolled my eyes at her and walked down to the pharmacy window to pick up my prescription. The pharmacist had seen the whole thing and wanted to know what had happened back there. I told him, explaining that I hadn't assaulted her. She was draped over me and I just wanted to get her off my back--literally.

After picking up my prescription, I wandered over to the patient lounge area, which was next to the pharmacy. I walked in and the TV was turned on. The show Deal or No Deal was playing, only some of the models on the show were bare breasted--and no, it wasn't Howie. I was shocked. "They can't be doing that on network television! They will get in big trouble with the FCC!" You know how sometimes in dreams you just know stuff without having to have it explained? Well, I just knew that they were trying to see how much they could get away with.

My friend John, who in real life is a pastor, in this dream was a doctor in this hospital. I went to his office and told him what had happened. "They can't be doing that, can they?"

"Naw," he replied. "They can't be doing that." So saying, he stormed out of his office determined to find out what was going on, and to file a complaint with the FCC, muttering all the while about how low this country's morals have become if they will show this kind of garbage when our children can see it.

As I was wandering back toward the lounge, I just happened to glance into an operating room in which they were preparing a baby airplane for surgery. Yes, you heard right. A baby airplane. An infant 747. Another of those "in a dream you just know" moments, I somehow knew that the baby airplane was scheduled to have one of its wings removed on orders of its father. The father feared that when the baby grew to be a teenage airplane, it might try to fly away from its poverty stricken, Spanish speaking, Communist controlled country (we don't know any that fit that description, do we?), and seek a new life in America. So he'd ordered that one of the baby's wings be removed so that it would be unable to fly.

As soon as I saw this, I charged into the operating room and snatched up the baby airplane. There was no way I was going to let them maim and permanently cripple this darling little infant because of its father's paranoia. The doctors tried to make me give him back so they could amputate his wing. It was his father's orders, after all, but I wouldn't let him go. The doctor called security to tell them to send someone to arrest me, and I ran over close to the phone and began yelling at the security guard to call child protective services. All the commotion frightened the little baby airplane, and I began trying to soothe it. It was at this point that I woke up.

I really do need to see about getting my prescription changed...

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