I knew the teeth would have to come out; all of my friends had theirs cut out already. I think wisdom teeth extraction has become this generation’s tonsillectomy. But, without dental insurance, I was going to have to pay out-of-pocket and since my pockets were already turned inside out, the teeth stayed in. My mom eventually called around and found a dentist up in Missouri who would get the suckers out for the lowest cost. 

Tucker and his mom drove me up to the dentist’s office. I was nervous since I had wanted to be totally knocked out so everything could be done at once but apparently that costs a whole heck of a lot and thus wasn’t gonna happen. Up until that point, I had only been seen by a pediatric dentist who always used nitrous and I liked going to the dentist. 

So we get there and I’m sure I filled out paperwork or something and a tech took me back. During our polite conversation chat I asked about anesthesia other than just getting a shot and was told I would have to come back to watch a video or something if I wanted to go that route.  Since the office was over an hour away and I had class and work to worry about, there went that idea.

The tech took purty pictures of my teeth with one of those cool standup x-ray machine jobbers and I met the dentist. Who looked like he was about fall over dead from old age. And according to him, was retiring at the end of the week. Closing up shop. Getting the hell outta Dodge.

The tech leaned me back in the chair, the dentist popped on the Super Special Dentist Light and reached for a metal syringe.

It’s at that point I started to wonder if nitrous was included in the grouping of “extras” with the video and all that. Surely not. Nitrous wasn’t that big of a deal to need its own VIDEO the day before the actual appointment, right? 

RIGHT?!

I had just started planning out my escape route when the dentist must have caught on to my brilliant plan since more techs materialized and then held me down. The dentist did his shots in my jaw thing, yanked out two wisdom teeth, screwed up an adjacent tooth I later had to have root canalled and capped and sent me on my merry way.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago when Tucker forced me to go to a new dentist. A new dentist who discovered the broken molar I had been ignoring for three years. What? It didn’t hurt! You see where I’m going with this, right? Yup. #15 had to leave the party. 

Fast forward some more to Monday. I had to get a couple of fillings repaired. New Dentist’s people gave me nitrous, I freaked out very little and life went on.

Yay, life!

Today? Not so much. 

On went the nitrous and I was left for a few so the gas could start going to my head. Dentist came back, did the topical crap that ALWAYS makes your tongue go numb and then eventually shot me up. He fixed a discolored filling and then shot me with SOME MORE stuff in my jaw. 

I had jokingly told the dentist and tech, “This is what some folks might consider a trigger moment.” OK. I wasn’t really joking.

Once he left again to check on some other patients whilst the left side of my head went numb, I texted Tucker. 

I had been scared. I did the whole silent cry thing but I couldn’t really move since the nitrous mask basically held my head to the chair so I had to wipe the tears out of my ears. Odd feeling, that. 

I got my shit back together before they came in to yank out the tooth and I felt bad for having texted Tucker. There wasn’t anything he could have done; he had to be home to keep the kids from eating each other. I guess I feel bad for making him feel bad. But I’m glad he felt bad cause that means he cares. Or something. Make sense? 

The whole oral situation?

So, Tucker?

This happened a couple of times and one time she actually tossed the stuff. A few other times, she just bagged the stuff up and scared the crap out of me. While I still hold that method was a really screwed up way to motivate me to clean my room (It didn’t work.), I understand her motivation.

Truth be told, I’ve always been crap at picking up after myself. I still am, just ask Tucker. 

We’ve been telling the kids to pick up their rooms and playroom for quite a while. 

Admittedly, we suck at follow-through sometimes. OK. A lot of times.

I suspect, like most parents, the rate of crap follow-through has to do with just how worn down Tucker and I are feeling at that particular time. 

But we’re serious now.

We’re off to Arkansas later today since next week is the kids’ Spring Break; They’re spending a blissful week with the grandparents.

All of this is what prompted the Facebook post on the Taste Like Crazy Facebook page. 

Since not all of you saw it because Facebook likes to play with its algorithms all the time and some of you don’t “like” the page on Facebook (WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!), here it is:

 
To be just a bit more specific on what I mean by “ALL THE THINGS,” I’m talking about toys and books that have been left on their floors for weeks and they literally step on the stuff.

But do they pick said stuff up after they’ve stepped on said stuff? 

What semi-sucks about this plan is that it’s a bit of a punishment for me since I’m the one cleaning their rooms but at least it will be done. Finally.

They were warned last Monday that if they didn’t have everything picked up by today then we would pick up their things and they would have to earn the things back.

Since they’re five and seven, they’ve been warned just about every day since Monday and each time we ask them, “What will happen if your rooms and the playroom aren’t cleaned up by Friday?” They then parrot back the consequence so we know for a fact they know what’s coming.

I’ll post before and after pictures. Eventually. Once I’m done. 

I was quite disappointed in myself. 

The pain’s gotten a lot better (It was mostly a gross ache, anyway.), I quit taking the meds and even had some leftover.

That’s a good thing. I’m getting to that. 

Last night I dreamed some weird things. 

In one, I had a deep conversation with some Russian dude about his feelings on Putin and what’s going on in Crimea.^[1] In another, I was bouncing with a racoon on lime Jell-O. Figure THAT one out, will you? 

The one that has to do with the pain in my hand and the state of today involved Tucker, bugs and me whacking the shit out of him. 

Multiple times.

It was about 2AM and I was in that weird awake-not awake place.

After I beat on Tucker, I found out he had been awake “looking at the news” because he couldn’t sleep. I’m positive he wasn’t actually looking at Fail Blog.^[2]

Maybe his news reading roused me a bit? 

So I’m in awake-not awake land and dreaming about spiders and bugs and in the kinda-dream, I looked over at Tucker and dude was COVERED with various creepy crawlies.

And what does one do when your beloved spouse is COVERED with various creepy crawlies?

You beat the everloving shit out of them.

So I did.

Oddly enough, Tucker didn’t seem too put out by the pummeling. He’s a nice boy, sometimes. 

But I didn’t have anything over my sutures and since my primary hand is my surgeried hand, that was the one I used to whack Tucker.

Multiple times. 

That was a very stupid owie mistake.

Needless to say (but I’m gonna), Tucker had to cover my sutures and get me a pain pill.

It was ~2:30AM by that point; I didn’t dream after that.

I also didn’t realize all of the alarms on my phone (other than the LEAVE NOW!!! alarm) had been turned off. I woke up at 7:20…which is when Ollie has to be checked into pre-k. 

I didn’t have time to make the kids’ lunches and breakfast was served courtesy of the school. Pancakes and sausage, in case you were wondering. 

Lessons learned:

1. Make sure ALL of my alarms are good to go the night prior to when I have to get up.
2. Make lunch the night prior, too…though I tell myself that every night and, well, that’s working out GREAT.
3. Surgeried hands make adequate weapons but the aftermath sucks ass.
4. Don’t take opioids at ~2:30 in the morning when I’m supposed to get up at 6:30 that morning.
5. Sleep on the couch. 

1. ^[1]Random podcast I just found concerning Crimea. I’m listening to it whilst I write this.↩
2. ^[2]He NEVER does that. Nope. Never.↩

When I had my emergency induction with Cara back in ’06, a nurse with about as much skill with a needle as a lobotomized polar bear on crack (LPBoC) shoved an IV into the side of my left wrist. Blood went everywhere…I guess LPBoC wasn’t expecting a cannula, not attached to a line, to spurt blood? Damn thing hurt the entire time it was in and eventually became occluded. I’ve never been so happy to get rid of something.

Bad experience but I didn’t expect it to make me all PTSD and crap when, Friday, the (very nice) nurse picked that exact spot to site my IV.

After Tucker had been let into the pre-op area and I demanded he remove all the blankets and give me something to fan myself, the nurse told me she thought I had looked “really nervous and [she] was glad to see that [I] had relaxed.”

Yeah…not so much “relaxed” as got through the panic attack.

In her defense, I didn’t tell her I was freaking out. She was so business-like about putting in the IV (and I didn’t know I would have such a drastic reaction) that she was done before I thought to object.

Fast forward through two hours of waiting (and napping) and the most awesome nurse anesthetist in the history of nurse anesthetists (Avis McCalla) came in, introduced her awesome self and told me she had a “wonderful recipe” for me. This made me especially excited since I had been told the whole shebang would be done with just local sedation and I was expecting to have to fight for some sort of happy/oblivion pill. 

Avis said it with such zeal I couldn’t help but love her even more.

According to one of the surg nurses, the actual surgery took seven minutes. Yeah, I don’t remember any of it. I’m not complaining. 

Awesome Nurse Anesthetist brought me back to Earth and in about five minutes, I was stone-cold sober. I’ve never had such a great experience with Let’s Have Surgery drugs.

Now, five days later, I’ve removed the massive bandage and replaced it with a little bit of gauze and tape. The entire palm of my right hand is a giant bruise, the three stitches gnarly and I’m still taking pain meds BUT my fingers haven’t gone numb since right before they wheeled me back for surgery. 

Considering the numbness had progressed to the point I routinely dropped stuff, I say a bit of bruising, a few stitches and some pain are completely worth it. 

Annoyances of Carpal Tunnel Release surgery:

1. Not being able to use my primary (right) hand.
2. Not being able to pull up the right side of my underwear/pants on my own.
3. Worrying about one of the kids and/or Sophie the Wonder Pit Bull whacking my hand.
4. Bathing/washing my hair with only my left hand whilst either holding my right hand straight up and/or hanging my hand over the side of the tub so my surgeried hand didn’t get wet. 
5. A crazy amount of desire to decorate cookies which requires a heck of a lot of manual dexterity.
6. A crazy amount of desire to play video games which requires a heck of a lot of manual dexterity.

Though I probably won’t get to 100% with my right hand (since I waited so long to admit what was going on), if I get to 75%, I’ll be happy. Once my right hand gets to as good as it’s going to get, Lefty will be going under the knife. 

As of right now, I’m cool with that. 

Surgeryish pictures coming right up!

For the record, the monitor part of the first picture is due to the fact one of the nurses at my GP’s office hates me and always accuses me of having high blood pressure.

It’s YOU, woman. It’s not me.

Take that, hateful nurse.

And that hospital coffee was really, really good.

Anywho.

I’ll get to the hand thing here in a sec but first I want to talk about the raging headache I’ve had all day. I’m talking the most horrible hangover headache you’ve ever had but without the debauchery the prior night. A hangover headache without a reason is doubly wrong, don’t you think?

What happens when you make the mistake of telling your five and seven-year old you have an excruciating headache and won’t you stop trying to off each other in the middle of Target, please and thank you?

Basically they turn their attention to you with a vengeance and you instantly regret ever complaining. 

On to the hand. 

Tomorrow is mah surgery. Nothing to eat or drink after midnight since my hand might puke whilst under local anesthesia and aspirate its vomit. Or something.

My surgeon, who is one cool ass dude, mentioned something about being able to give me something to “relax” me and I said

I gotta tell you though, I left CAD’s (cool ass dude) office all angsty. I didn’t know why. All I knew was I wasn’t satisfied with the whole surgery thing and was basically an adult version of a petulant child. 

And then Tucker was all like

If your brain is all wackety and you haven’t a clue as to what exactly is going on with your feels, just bitch to Tucker for about twenty minutes without taking a breath and he’ll figure it all out for you. 

He (rightly) surmised my issue wasn’t with the actual surgery (I’ve had three unrelated surgeries already so I’m a pro at this stuff and stuff.) but with the fact I have other stuff going on and the general attitude is, “Oh, well…we’ll fix the right hand first and then the left and then we’ll get to your shoulders and deal with those toes that have been going numb since you were little as we make our way down.” No one (other than us) seems to wonder what’s the root cause.

Everyone else is just looking at the symptoms but not the overall picture.

So what’s one to do?

Attempt to be less petulant, hope for happy drugs and have surgery!

The reason this is so sad? I’m the Publicity Chair/Coordinator for the whole shebang.

Dang it!

Here’s a snippet (which I wrote) of the official press release for the program:

Owlsome Readers is a five-week intensive reading program for all first graders at Goldsmith-Schiffman Elementary. The program focuses on fostering a lifelong love of reading by providing incentives for chapters and books read during the program.

Incentives for the program include a t-shirt, books and goody bags. Each Friday, students receive a donated treat (like a bookmark) and a poem for encouragement and to recognize their efforts. Guest readers, from the community, read to the students each week.

I originally started putting this list together for Owlsome Readers but figured you might find it useful, too. Feel free to like Owlsome Readers on Facebook and check out the Owlsome Readers site!

Because you’re an awesome person. 

A little note on why I included AR information: the kids at our school take AR (Accelerated Reader) tests. My reasoning (Cara approved) is that if the kids are going to be reading anyway, why not make sure the books they’ve read are books they can take their AR quizzes on. This is by no means a requirement of a program…just something Cara and I think is a nifty idea.

Even if your kid’s school doesn’t administer AR tests, you have a bunch of books to choose from if you’re looking for Valentine’s Day themed books. 

Info on the AR Reading Levels if you’re not familiar with the numbers, 1.0 correlates to first grade at the first month of first grade. 3.8 would correlate to third grade, eight month. Make sense? 

Onto the lists! Woo hoo! 

AR Reading Level .8 – 1.9

• Clifford’s Valentines AR Level: .8 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 59502 EN
• Big Heart!: A Valentine’s Day Tale AR Level: .9 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 159245 EN
• Melvin’s Valentine AR Level: 1.0 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 158366 EN
• One Heart: A Valentine Counting Book AR Level: 1.2 AR Pts: .5  AR Quiz No. 136327 EN
• Valentine Mice! AR Level:1.2 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 44125 EN
• Mouse’s First Valentine AR Level: 1.3 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 57725 EN
• A Circle Is Not a Valentine AR Level: 1.4 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 42061 EN
• Lilly’s Chocolate Heart AR Level: 1.4 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 86227 EN
• Biscuit’s Valentine’s Day AR Level: 1.5 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 64471 EN
• Dragon Happy Valentine’s Day! AR Level: 1.7 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 141465 EN
• Too Many Valentines AR Level: 1.8 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 66581 EN
• Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse! (If You Give…) AR Level: 1.8 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 135820 EN
• Happy Valentine’s Day, Curious George AR Level: 1.9 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 141464 EN         

AR Reading Level 2.0 – 2.9

• Fancy Nancy: Heart to Heart AR Level: 2.0 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 135820 EN
• A Valentine for Ms. Vanilla AR Level: 2.1 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 105358 EN
• Fluffy’s Valentine’s Day AR Level: 2.2 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 62247 EN
• Snow Valentines AR Level: 2.3 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 43687 EN
• Mia: The Sweetest Valentine AR Level: 2.4 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 156399 EN
• No Valentines for Katie AR Level: 2.5 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 138151 EN
• First Grade Valentines AR Level: 2.6 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 32011 EN
• Valentine AR Level: 2.7 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 45899 EN
• Pete the Cat: Valentine’s Day Is Cool AR Level: 2.8 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 163542 EN
• Guess How Much I Love You AR Level: 2.8 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 20235 EN
• Franklin’s Valentines AR Level: 2.9 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 30710 EN

AR Reading Level 3.0 – 3.9

• The Very Fairy Princess Follows Her Heart AR Level: 3.0 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 156302 EN
• The Biggest Valentine Ever AR Level: 3.0 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 105025 EN
• Love, Splat AR Level: 3.1 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 127426 EN
• Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine AR Level: 3.2 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 134575 EN
• The Day It Rained Hearts AR Level: 3.3 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 10467 EN
• Queen of Hearts AR Level: 3.3 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 84664 EN
• Snowy Valentine AR Level: 3.4 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 148410 EN
• Roses Are Pink, Your Feet Really Stink AR Level: 3.4 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 19592 EN
• Valentine’s Day Disaster AR Level: 3.5 AR Pts: 1.0 AR Quiz No. 105174 EN
• Valentine’s Day Is… AR Level: 3.6 AR Pts: .5 AR Quiz No. 102214 EN
• Valentine’s Day Can Be Murder AR Level: 3.7 AR Pts: 3.0 AR Quiz No. 83381 EN
• Geronimo’s Valentine AR Level: 3.8 AR Pts: 1.0 AR Quiz No. 127909 EN
• The Valentine Cat AR Level: 3.9 AR Pts: 3.0 AR Quiz No. 126376 EN

The links contained in this post are my Amazon Affiliate links. You buy something via one of the links and I get pennies. Pennies are shiny. 

And then came the awesome brownie cookie recipe. The dough tastes like a Tootsie Roll and the finished product? Chewy, chocolaty awesomeness…and I don’t even like chocolate. After that, I created an Orange-Cardamom shortbreadish cookie based loosely on my go-to cookie. I also have a Rosemary-Lemon cookie in the works. 

When Wyman’s contacted me to see if I’d like a coupon to try their frozen wild blueberries, my first thought was, “I’m going to make blueberry cookies!” I figured it would be as easy as pie a piece of cake simple to find an existing recipe. I was wrong. I found a lot of “drop cookie” recipes but if you’re going to decorate the resulting cookie, you need a smooth surface. 

Coming up with this took way longer than I planned mainly due to the fact I was stuck on the idea the frozen berries needed to stay whole. Once I finally realized whole berries actually wouldn’t be the best thing for a rolled out cookie, the recipe came easy. 

Thanks to Wyman’s for the blueberry coupon. The two links in the notes section of the recipe are affiliate links to Amazon. Through your clicking and buying via those links, I shall make pennies. 

No? Just me? Liar. 

It’s not that I necessarily expect the book to suck. My writer friends are pretty awesome writers so I expect what they send me to be at least decent. Maybe even awesome.  But that dread? It’s from the anxiety the book just might suck. Then I’ll have to tell them it sucks. And that sucks. 

Luckily for me (I guess my friend, Jessica Rosenberg, too.), Aloha Also Means Goodbye doesn’t suck.

In fact, the book is great. 

It’s a quick read and though some might classify it as a “beach read” or even “chic lit” (if they are having a rude day), this isn’t a book just for women. Guys, you’ll dig this book, too. Unless you’re the type who only reads Clancy. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say Aloha Also Means Goodbye probably ain’t for you. 

The physical/paper version is coming but the Kindle version is already available for $6.99. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can borrow the book. For. Free. 

No risk so no excuses!

Book description via Amazon.com:

Jo and Jordan tied the knot five years ago in a mud hut in the middle of Zambia far from all their friends and family. Now they’re in Hawaii for a big wedding vow renewal ceremony elaborately planned by Jo’s mother. There’s just one small issue, something’s wrong with the wedding license issued in Africa and only Jo knows that she wasn’t legally married in Zambia.

Enter her old flame, the man she was running from when she met Jordan. He’s on the island and with his two kids, both of whom are named after her. Coming face to face with her past, just as she’s trying to brave her future, forces Jo to make some big decisions. It might even force her to grow up. Luckily she doesn’t have to do any of it on her own; her two best friends are there to hold her hand and help her down the right path. But what path will she choose? 

Despite all the upheaval and complications, Jo will eventually walk down the aisle to say “I do” to the man who completes her. But will the wedding be the one Jo’s mother planned? Or will it be something much, much better?

Now for the meat of the review.

This is a…different kind of review. In fact, I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen one like it. What follows is actually an email I sent to Jessica right after I finished Aloha Also Means Goodbye so the book was very fresh on my mind. 

For the record, I got Jessica’s permission before posting this. In fact, she had to forward it back to me since my email got all borked and I had no record of the original email.

Note: I’ve added a “spoiler” for this since, now that I’ve reread the email, it’s kinda spoilerish.

Remember I was providing my most awesome friend the feedback she asked for. Also note I was a little…honest at times. So don’t go thinking I’m feeding you a line of BS with this since shame on you if you think I’d do that. You’ve been well warned about the spoilerishness.

Read at your own risk. 

Also, also note: what I read was basically an ARC (Advance Reader Copy) of an ARC. Because of that, a professional editor hadn’t had at the manuscript. Just felt the need to explain the first part of the email/review as to not scare you away of a most awesome book. 

Now to the “review.”  

Spoilerish Alert! Click if you DARE!

I was going to take all of these notes and then realized that the majority of what I would write down is copy editing stuff the editor is going to fix and there weren’t even that many of those.

You didn’t go too far into the Capitalist pig thing when dealing w/the Zambia part and for that I’m grateful.

My biggest thing is the first 40 pages or so–just about up until Jo meets Kona for the first time–drug for me. I had to keep making myself go back to the book.

Lord knows I’m glad I did.

Jo: She’s a believable character full of flaws and I dig that.
Andy: Dug him. He’s definitely atoned for the–assumed–sins of his past.
Jordan: You made him into such a boring tool at the beginning I almost didn’t want them to get back together. He didn’t become even a tiny bit likable until after his blow-up with Andy and then Andy talking Jordan down.

Having said that, I really dug his speech at Jo. Particularly this part: “…but everything is okay now because you saw the love of your life again, only he’s not really the lover of your life any more, I am?”

I’ve been both that selfish and self-absorbed and have also had to say close to the same thing to someone else so that fight definitely rang true.

For some reason I’d like to hear and/or see some of his relationship with his mom. Not sure why. Just piqued my interest when Jo, I think, mentioned something about his mom.
Sadie: Please write a book just about her? I enjoyed her immensely. And a whole bunch, too. She’s flawed in ways different from Jo and somehow feels both more whole and more broken. Not sure how to put that any other way. Maybe they’re just broken in different ways?
Kona: Yes, please. More. Right now. I was pretty sure you were going to jerk me around and make him a scumbag so I was expecting it and then you turned that expectation all around on me and I wanted to kick you in the shin since you executed it so well.
Roxie: I would have liked to have seen more character development with her. All the characters make her out to be a man-eater, but other than that brief episode w/Kona, I wasn’t picking up that vibe. And all the man-eaters I’ve ever know were heinous bitches and Roxie was actually quite nice.

So, maybe a bit more hoochie before she starts playing house with Andy? Or something? Or not. Trying to figure out how I would do that in this book and it kind of makes my head hurt.
Maryanne: I wanted to punch her several times during the book so obviously, you did your job. Enjoyed the way you worked some growth into her character and brought in the Richard dude.

Andy’s kids and Amber: Didn’t love or hate the kids. They were just an accessory for me to show me Andy’s growth and Amber just made me want to stab her in the neck.

I don’t do book reviews. I do impressions and I sure as hell don’t take the book out to go through the pages to look up quotes. SO I OBVIOUSLY very much, a whole lot, jump up and down on the bed, humping, singing, tweeting, Facebook sharing, pinning, Good Reads sharing and reviewing, Amazon and Barnes & Nobling loved this book.

Oh! And, hey! The links in this post? They’re all Amazon affiliate links. If you end up clicking on one of those links and then you buy something? (You BUY JESSICA’S BOOK!!!) I’ll make some pennies off of that purchase. Unless you buy a car or a really big TV or something on Amazon.

Then I’d make dollars. 

Well, maybe these aren’t so much resolutions as they are a (somewhat) well-formulated plan of attack (PoA). A New Year’s resolution just seems like something you except to break. Everyone makes them. No one follows through on them. Having said that, I couldn’t come up with a better title so we have what we have. 

Anyone who has been in my house (Sorry, house beinginners!) knows I struggled with keeping our house clean. It’s not even so much that I struggle. It actually feels more like a giant pink and green dotted elephant is sitting on my chest. Or something. I KNOW I need to pick up and clean and do the housework thing, but it all gets so overwhelming. 

I have good intentions and then get distracted and before I know it, the clutter and mess has had litters of their own and basically it’s a vicious cycle I haven’t been able to get out of.

Then a couple of days ago, while I was warming up my coffee, I looked over at the open dishwasher full of clean dishes. I had a little less than two minutes before the nuclear machine was done heating up my tasty beverage and something just…clicked. 

PoA 1: While I’m Waiting On My Coffee To Heat, Put Up As Many Dishes As I Can

I can hear you laughing right now. That’ s not very nice.

But here’s the beauty of this part of the PoA: I drink coffee constantly throughout the day while I’m doing my writing schtuff. That’s numerous trips into the kitchen where I stand around for two minutes doing absolutely nothing other than waiting for my coffee to get hot. Since I’m in there anyway and two minutes isn’t long enough for me to get overwhelmed, I work like a demon for those two minutes and then am rewarded with a nice, hot cup of coffee and a tiny sense of accomplishment.

Think of me as one of those rats in a Skinner box. 

PoA 2: Bribe My Kids

This is actually awesome on a number of levels but let’s just focus on the cleaning level. We’ve been working on coming up with an incentive program to get the kids to do their fair share around the house. Since we’ve shied away from the allowance incentive, we’ve picked internet “free time.” Basically, kids do X for Y amount of time and earn Z number of seconds/minutes of free time. 

We’re still in the process of coming up with the exact numbers and tasks but it’ll look something like this: 

Put all of your dirty clothes in the laundry room during the week – x minutes/week

Take your dishes to the sink after a meal – x minutes/week

Make your bed – x minutes/week

PoA 3: Pick the Smallest Room and Clean All the Things!

I’m not even going to lie here. PoA 3 is the one I’m going to have the most trouble executing. However, the smallest “room” in our house is our pantry. It has three walls and a door so it’s a room. I don’t care what you say. I’m starting small here (literally) and going for one complete room a week. 

The “experts” always say to give yourself small goals you can achieve, right? I can stick to these three. 

If you have tips for me, I’d love to read them down in the comments section!

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With electricity.

I’m not down for the shock thing. Ever. 

No, I do not want to put my tongue across your battery. (That’s not a euphemism though it totally should be.) Once is enough for me, thanks. 

That hot wire around your pasture? I am not touching it to see if it’s hot. Feel free to do that task yourself. 

I learned my lesson about tinkering with my electronic gadgets when I got shocked (twice) by my old Nikon camera. If you haven’t read about THAT sucktastic fun experience, you can laugh at me by following this nifty link to my Spare Parts post. 

Electricity should stay in my gadgets and not conducted through my body. 

Unlike when I took it upon myself to be all superhero camera fixer person, I’m going to be PAYING someone to shock me. More specifically, shock the nerves in my arms.

This is going to suck so much. 

While I was hanging at my doctor’s office because my Ear Ebola was persisting (and I might have found five pills of untaken Cipro about two weeks too late), fingers on my right hand went numb. This isn’t an “Oops! I accidentally cut off the blood flow to my hand. Pins and needles! Pins and needles!” 

Nope.

This is just a dead-finger feeling. There’s no pain but sometimes I drop stuff and when they’re dead, I can’t write very well. Nerves are important, yo!

I have peripheral neuropathy. Correction: I haven’t been diagnosed with that but that’s what it is. 

I shake my hands. Move my shoulders around. Feeling magically comes back and I go on with solving the great problems of humanity. And stuff. 

Unfortunately for my now-self, I decided it would be a fantabulous time to inform my doc. Should have kept my mouth shut. 

My doctor thinks I have carpal tunnel syndrome (which makes sense since I spend an exorbitant amount of time at a keyboard) but to complicate matters, I have pretty bad shoulder bursitis in both shoulders and that condition could also be pinching hand nerves (I’m feeling so medical right now…and too lazy to remember any of my anatomy classes to give you a real word for the nerve. Or google it. LAZY!). Add to all that numbness between my shoulders and I say I have a pretty good case for, “HEY! I don’t have carpal tunnel schtuff! I have My Shoulders Are Jacked!’ syndrome.”

What does my doctor know? Not like he went to school for a long time or was/is well-respected in Ireland where he was a big, important  doctor dude.

Back to the shocking part. *shudders*

I’m having (like I’m ordering a ribeye medium rare or something) a nerve conduction velocity test. What it measures would super cool–read at the link if you’re interested–if I wasn’t the one having the test. 

This right here is why I generally keep my trap shut about weird things happening to my body. Bad. Things. Happen. When. I. Talk.

Blarg! 

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