Twenty nine degrees!!!

Well, I haven't been writing on here every day like I had planned (big surprise), but I am going to blame my internet carrier. They suck. There's something wrong with the signal in our area of the city (so they say) and it will "take some time" to get it fixed. Meanwhile, I am paying for high-speed internet while not actually getting high speed internet. It's not that huge of a deal, unless I am trying to do something like upload pictures onto my blog (!) or watch a video online. I have threatened to go back to dial-up because I swear that was faster. I am gritting my teeth and waiting it out because the last time a repairman was here (one of many trips in the past two months) he promised they would get it resolved soon.

Having said all that, today it seems like things are going well as far as these issues go. The extremely cold weather has made it worse and it's warmer today--29 degrees, which seems downright balmy compared to the teens and single digits we've been experiencing the past few days. When I got up Monday morning it was -12. Minus. Twelve. Degrees. That's damn cold. So 29 feels like summer right now.

Brand New Day (Era. Country, World, whatever. . .)

Wow, what a day. And in the words of Tim Russert, what a country! I am finally proud to be an American again! Whew!

It's been a emotional day. I cried all through the inauguration ceremony. I would have loved to have been in a crowd watching it--there was a live thing going on at the Kenworthy, or even with a few friends, but I'm babysitting today and it just wouldn't have worked with a two-year-old in tow. So I sat here and cried alone. So different from the tears I shed four years ago. Those were tears of anger and despair and fear and bitterness. This is a different feeling--hope?

Welcome back, hope. It's been a while!

Yes, that's a robin in the tree outside my window and, yes, that is frozen fog on the trees. Because it's frickin' January!

I always feel so sorry for these guys when they show up waaaaay too early (which they do, every year. Stupid birds). There were six of them outside my window today and they all looked really confused, like, "Dude! You think maybe we took a wrong toyn at Albakoikey?"

Travis's Worst Day Ever

Remember me talking about all those events that were blogworthy? Here's one of them.

A week before Christmas, Travis started complaining about nausea and stomach pains. Actually, that started a couple of months ago, but when we took him to the doctor he couldn't find anything specific wrong with him. I, of course, began suspecting the worst: ulcer, blocked intestinal tract, kidney failure. You know, all that "glass-half-empty" stuff I'm famous for. Anyway, at this point, the stomach stuff had gotten a little worse and when I picked him up from school on that Wednesday, he complained of a stomachache. He obviously didn't feel well and went from the door to the sofa and didn't move until bedtime. He got into bed and then had to go throw up. "Great," I thought, "More puking. Bring it on, I'm ready!" But he didn't throw up again. The next morning he was running a low-grade fever and said he felt worse. I took Riley to school and when I got back Trav told me he hurt down on the lower right side of his belly. Could it be. . . appendicitis? I went upstairs and told Val to get dressed because we were going to Quick Care. They poked and prodded him, took some blood and then sent us to Gritman for a CT scan. The doctor told him not to worry, the CT scan was just like a big donut that would take a picture of his insides. Oh, they forgot to mention the enema!!! And the IV. Which they said wouldn't hurt but of course did. Trav was a trooper, though, and when it was over the doctor came and told us that they were admitting him and he was going in for immediate surgery because, apparently, his appendix had ruptured. Crap. Upstairs. More doctors. More poking and prodding. More things going into the IV which weren't supposed to hurt but did. I finally said something and the nurse put some Lidocaine in the IV before whatever else went in to numb the stinging. Oh, and then a Tylenol suppository. More things poked up his butt. At one point, Travis looked up at me and said miserably, "This is my worst day ever!" Poor little guy.

The surgery was quick, about 45 minutes, during which Val went and picked up Riley from school. Note: Yes, we went to Quick Care at around 8:30 am but by the time a dozen doctors poked and prodded and then sent us elsewhere to get yet another test and more poking ad prodding and not to mention waiting in the godforsaken wating room of the radiology department of the hospital, by the time they actually got around to doing the actual surgery, it was almost 3 in the afternoon. On the way back to the hospital, Val told Riley what was going on and that her brother was getting his appendix taken out. They got back and after a little while a nurse came and got us to bring us into recovery. Travis was still pretty much under the anesthetic and looked horrible. Riley crept up to him and said to me, "Mom? Did Travis get his index out?" Yes baby, but they left in the Table of Contents.

The surgery went well and the recovery was good. They brought in an X-box (yay!) and told him he could probably go home the next day. More lies. The next day the surgeon came in and said "Maybe tomorrow". Travis was disappointed. The next day he came in again and said, "One more day." Travis cried. Three and a half days after the surgery, they finally let him go home. He's been doing great, though he still winces when he sneezes.

Okay, this isn't going as well as I'd hoped. I want to blog. I really do. I can't tell you how many times something happens and I start writing in my head, going, "God, this would be a GREAT blog." But it wouldn't be a great blog if it wasn't preceded by other blogs. In other words, I'm having a hard time getting out of the starting gate. I guess I'm hung up on that whole perfection thing again. See, even though right now, I'm the only one who sees this, eventually I want to open it up to my friends and, yikes! What if they looked back and saw how incredibly lame things were in the beginning? And it doesn't help that I've been looking at dozens of other amazing blogs by totally brilliant women, so that raises the bar a little bit.

So, here's the deal. I'm just going to have to get over this intimidation thing and just do this. I need this. I will just start blogging without any delusions of profundity and try to trust myself. I will be learning as I go ('cause I know absolutely nothing about how to do this) so it will be a little rough. And, if you are someone who is reading this in the future and looking back at archives, hopefully you'll be amazed at how far I've come!!!