Go Litely is a Gigantic Understatement

Sorry, this may be a bit on the long side. But the intestinal tract is a long organ.

I avoided it for as long as I could. When I turned 49 I had all my lady parts yanked out. Well, maybe yanked out is too violent a term for it because I am sure that Doc U didn't do any yanking. I hope. But I was asleep at the time so it really didn't matter, just so long as the Uterus of Eventual Destruction was gone. Doc U suggested that I could also have my colonoscopy before hand just to get it out of the way.

I declined. Having all the internal lady parts removed was enough for me. I decided to wait.

50 years old rolled around and I was busy. Funny how that happens.

51-54 years old passed right on by and during that time I started a small business, moved to a different part of the Frozen Northeast Ohio, went back to work for HHBL and sort of just said, "Yeah, yeah I know I have to have THAT done. I will get to it when I find a new doctor."

This year....I finally went to the doctor. Of course I picked a doctor who promptly moved to Florida after my appointment. Should I take that personally? But before she took that big wide moving van to a place that is warmer than here......

She ordered a colonoscopy for me.

Thanks Dr. B. You shouldn't have. Really. Now it couldn't be avoided.

The prep. The prep is what I feared, if that is not too strong a word for it. Doesn't everyone quake in fear at this? I have this thing, you see, about the texture of something. I am not a picky eater by any means. I am what you might call omnivorous. But there is this thing about the occasional food or drink that it isn't the taste that throws me into a tizzy. It is the texture. And there in lay the preparation problem. I feared the texture of the liquid.

I was right to have this fear.

That darn jug of prep powder with it's little flavor packet sat in the kitchen for five days before the big day. Cleveland Clinic tells me to get the stuff 5 days before and I do what they tell me. It sat there and mocked me and said nasty little comments about what it was going to do to me. GoLitely is like that, evil and nasty at heart all the while disguised as clear and innocent liquid. "I won't hurt you, I am just powder that you will dissolve in water with a lemon flavor packet added. Nothing to worry about." I could hear it's evil laughter every time I went by. And was that the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars playing faintly in the background?

But I couldn't escape the fact that I had to do this thing. Monday was "prep day," which meant that I had to be on a clear liquid diet for the full 24 hours before the actual procedure. I have had many a patient who has had to endure a Clear Liquid diet. To all of you, I apologize for doing that to you. Coffee, no problem. Lots of water, no problem either. But I had to work on Monday and so I knew I needed to have something else. Jello was on the list. Perfect, I like strawberry and raspberry Jello......only they specifically state NO red Jello.

Rude.

But I managed to find a package of Orange Jello and a package of Lemon Jello, both of dubious age but still. Jello never ages.....I hoped. I made the Jello on Sunday. I took it to work on Monday. And then I remembered that we had a Organizational Lunch in the office, so I ate Jello while everyone else had.....Chipotle. Curse you gods of colonoscopy! I had to go and pick the food up, which meant walking into Chipotle and seeing all of that lovely food. And then I had to sit in the conference room with everyone eating their Burrito bowls or salad, the smells wafting in my direction. Gads!

Am I whining too much? Tough. My blog, my whine.

Finally it was home to mix the jug with 4 LITERS of water and the tiny little lemon flavor packet that smelled like that horrid bathroom deodorizer that you often encounter in store bathrooms. Such an appealing thing. Such an appealing taste. You mix this stuff up and it looks innocuous, but then you take that first sip and you realize. Sweet. Salty. Fake lemony....and just slightly viscous.

Oh Lordy, viscosity in anything that I am drinking is going to be a problem. Not enough to be slime-like in consistency, just the barest hint of unwanted thickness in the bathroom lemon water. And I have to drink an 8 ounce glass every ten minutes starting at 6 PM and ending by 9 PM. Just chug the glass down they tell you. It is the best way, they opine. They are all flaming idiots who most likely have never had to actually drink it. I know myself very well and I knew without a doubt that to chug the glass would be absolutely impossible and would result in spewage.

I was doomed.

But, I was not going to be foiled by this thing that I had to do! I had two icy cold bottles of Sprite to wash it down with. I could do this thing.

I did try to chug the first glass.....and there might have been a bit of spewage. Not going to do it that way again. I finally figured out, after several glasses of disgustinglemonliquidviscosity that if I took 5 sips of yuck and then a good swig of icy Sprite that I could make it through the glass in about 5 minutes time. I could do this thing.....barely. And 10 minutes is a REALLY SHORT TIME in between glasses of disgustinglemonliquidviscosity. I put on a movie, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and set my mind to doing this thing. The directions said that "things" would start to happen in about an hour. We would see.

Two glasses in and I wasn't feeling anything. Third glass down and no issues, no nothing, no.............

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWL. BURBLE BURBLE BURBLE BURBLE.

Holy cow! Where is the bathroom? I need the bathroom! NOW.

Have I ever told you about our second trip to see the in-laws in Peru? We went to a dinner-dance at Villa, the large club in Lima, where I was assured that since there were so many foreigners and ex-pats there that it would be fine to eat that fruit on the table. Boy were those grapes good.....until the next day....and the day after that. I have this feeling that there is a blog post explaining the entire episode, but I just can't find it. What I need to do is spend time cataloging all of the blog posts so that I don't have to go searching for them. Then life would be easier. But I digress. Let's just say that my evening yesterday was very reminiscent for that trip to Peru. I was amazed. And horrified. And need to buy more toilet paper. And because I am the person that I am I spent some time, while sitting on the "pot," looking up what actually goes into things like GoLitely, a contradiction in terms if I EVER heard one, that makes you go so.....litely. By the way, if you are interested, it is the Glycerin in powder that does the trick. It pulls water out of your intestine and produces that looked for "flushing" effect. It is amazing what you can learn while sitting in the bathroom with your iPad and nothing else to do.

I will save you the small details of the evening other than to say that I had to stop the movie A LOT and I managed to get all but 1/4 of the jug down my gullet before I declared SUCCESS! and called a halt to the sip, sip, sip, gag thing I had going. If you want to know what "success" looks like in the matter of colonoscopy prep....then look it up on the Internet. 

I had been assured that if I could get through the prep then the actual colonoscopy would be a breeze. I have to report that this is the case. We arrived on time, despite the Winter Weather Advisory that told us that there was snow going on. Checked in. Wait. Go back to pre-op. Wait. Prep questions and IV in. Wait. Doc comes in to get consent. Wait. HHBL comes to sit and wait with me. Wait. Finally wheeled back into "Procedure Room 1." More questions and reading of arm bands and asking of questions.

And then the drugs. Versed and Fentanyl. And WHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOSH life is very rosy and relaxed and I wasn't even aware that the procedure had started until I opened my eyes and realized that the large screen off to my left had a fabulous view of the inside of my intestinal tract. Sweet! I watched the rest of the procedure and the removal of a couple of polyps and then all was done. I do remember Dr. W complimenting me on the "pristine nature of my colonoscopy prep."

Thanks.....I think. I always try to do my best. By the way, I WAS going to show you a picture of my pristine colon. I have them. But I decided not to.

You can thank me later.

I snoozed through most of post op but perked up immediately when asked if I wanted some juice and crackers.

Doose and kwakers! Yes pweese! 

I was finally sprung from the surgicenter and the next stop was someplace where I could get eggs and bacon and COFFEE!

I don't have to do this "thing" again for three years (that whole polyp business). It may take me that long to get up the gumption to do the prep.

 

And by the way, it has taken me two hours to write this post because, you know, Versed and Fentanyl.

We Corrupted the Missionary!!

The annual ornament bloodbath stealathon exchange has come and gone and we all survived with happy feelings intact.

Actually, my group of friends know what to expect by now and in the yearly recitation of the “rules” make it clear. Have I ever actually explained the rules for this bloody contest of ornament wills? 

1. Any given ornament can be stolen ONLY twice. The third owner of the ornament is the final owner of the ornament.

2. #1 opens a wrapped ornament from under the tree. Participant #2 can either open a wrapped ornament……or they can steal #1’s ornament. If this happens then #1 opens another wrapped ornament because…..

3. You may NOT steal back an ornament that is stolen from you.

4. You work through all the #’s with people opening a wrapped ornament or “liberating” an ornament from someone else. When all ornaments are accounted for then #1 has a decision to make. If she is satisfied with her ornament then the exchange is done. If she chooses though, she can exchange her ornament for one of her choosing from someone else. And then the game ends.

5. You may not unwrap OR steal the ornament that you brought. If you liked it that much you should have bought two.

6. The Hope and Heather Rule: There will be no collusion between participants on the getting and retention of ornaments. We could also call this the Dottie and Carolyn rule if we so choose.

7. And last but really most important. DO NOT GET ATTACHED TO YOUR ORNAMENT UNTIL THE END OF THE GAME OR IF YOU ARE THE THIRD OWNER OF THE ORNAMENT.

And now on to the show.

 

We start the evening with food….lots of food. I always make enough to feed everyone and then many people bring things. Some year I should just not make anything, we would still have enough food! The first couple of years we ornamented first and then ate but the whole things works better if you go at the thievery with full bellies.

 Oooooo. Ahhhhhh. And the exchange begins. This year Hope was first and Heather was second. 

 

 Sue opened a lovely golden bell.

 

Lynelle promptly stole the bell from Sue. These women have known each other for many years. We have been in a small group together for 20 years………

On this one night of the year that has no bearing on our behavior.

 

 Can you see the pleading look on Dottie’s face when Kelly sauntered over to check out the absolutely adorable deer head ornament.

Amazingly it worked and Kelly went on to acquire another ornament and Dottie was able to keep the deer head….for a while.

Laura had absolutely NO scruples about stealing the ornament from the OCTAGENARIAN MISSIONARY FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY!

Aunt Virginia was actually new to the exchange. She came with her niece, Sue. I have known Aunt V for many years and have come to love her very (like the Sahara) dry sense of humor. I think she might scare some people, but not me…..much.

And so Aunt Virginia stole the deer head from Dottie.

Aunt Virginia might have been an Ornament Exchange Virgin….but that didn’t stop her from making her way, with her cane (she has a broken foot), over to Dottie and very politely but firmly stealing that ornament without a moment of hesitation or remorse.

WE HAVE CORRUPTED THE MISSIONARY! WE ARE ALL DOOMED.

I have known Sue for over 20 years. I do not think I have EVER seen her laugh that hard.

But Aunt V didn’t keep it for long. The deer head now has a place of honor in Michelle’s kitchen.
Michelle apologized the entire time that she was stealing the ornament from Aunt V.

But she did it anyway.

HHBL just likes to sit on the stairs like a child out of bed after hours and watch all the goings on. He seems to think that we are LOUD or something.

Dottie’s next very cute ornament.

She didn’t go home with this one either.

About this time I stopped taking pictures. It might have been because I was laughing so hard.

And so we came to the end of the evening. I think everyone went home with something they liked.
And I finally got my house cleaned up.

Until next year.

No Ornament Is Safe

It’s that time of year again! The first Monday in December……

The Ornament Exchange.

Really, I should start thinking about this thing earlier in the year than I do. Oh, I have grand and glorious plans about having the ornaments that I give to everyone who walks in the door all done by Labor Day.

I think about it a lot.

But it never really happens.

The ornament muse just doesn’t get ramped up like Lake Effect snow until it gets cold enough to feel like Santa is Coming.

Sorry, I just finished listening to Justin Bieber’s “Santa is Coming” and now I can’t get it out of my head. Curses!

Where was I? Oh yes, The Ornament Exchange. Sometimes I feel that it would just be easier to go out and buy 20+ of the same cute ornament and be done with the whole crazy business. But NOOOOOO, I have to come up with a unique concept every year. Darn my little creative hide. I just can’t do it. I have to make something. And lest you think it is easy breezy…….

Well, if you think that then I have to think that you are not the sort of person that comes up with crafty ideas in the middle of the night and has to creep into the bathroom to write them down.

Not that I would know anything about THAT.

This is how it goes.

September: I really should start thinking about that ornament. Knit? Craft? Snowman? Santa? Other? I have PLENTY of time.

October: You know, the Ornament Exchange is like two months away. I really should get started on them…..tomorrow.

November (somewhere around the middle of the month): Oh SHIT! I have got to put my thinking cap on and get something down on paper.

It wasn’t until mid-November this year that I started working on the idea that became the thought that moved onto the prototype that finally became the ornament.

Yes, there are prototypes of the ornament. It is a straight out of my head, thought up from scratch thing (or adapted from something I saw). This year there were two, or perhaps three, variations before I got to the final product. Have you ever seen the movie “Alien Resurrection?” You know the scene where they find the lab with all the various mutations of Ripley after they have figured out how to extract her DNA from the liquid metal that she threw herself into in Alien 3 as the alien was bursting out of her chest?

No?

Hmmmmmmm, well, it is sort of like that only not quite as gory and bloody and nobody gets eaten…..generally.

This is the 15th year for The Ornament Exchange. That means that there should be 15 unique ornaments hanging about somewhere. I was going to show them all to you…..but I still have things to do before people start showing up. But I will show you the ornament for this year.

Hope, you can look cuz you have to go to that pesky school board meeting. I will send yours home with Heather.

Lauren…..don’t peak.

Somehow, a Snowball that looks like it is in the middle of a proctology exam just seems to fit with my crazy brain.

A Cautionary Tale

My crock pot….we are best friends. In fact I have more than one crock pot. You know you need various crock pots in various sizes to do various jobs. I have the standard round one. And I have a BIG one that is really more like a roaster than a crock pot. It can easily handle an entire turkey. And I also have the oval one that has the switch that has 4 hour, 6 hour, 8 hour or 10 hour capabilities.

Or should I say that I USED to have a crock pot like that. I still had a functioning one at 8:30a this morning. It was sitting on the counter, plugged in and just beginning to slow cook a gnarly old piece of beef that I unearthed from the bowels of the deep freezer. It will make very tasty French Dip sandwiches for tomorrow night’s dinner. HHBL and I were standing in the kitchen, right in front of the slow cooker actually, talking a bit. I was on to the next project in my morning, making an apple pie for dessert for tonight. I was peeling apples and chatting when….

POP! Poof! SNAP!

The crockpot gave an almighty poof of smoke…yes I said SMOKE and gave up the ghost.

Scared the ever loving poopy right out of me. And made me very glad that I hadn’t left the thing working for the day when I would have been gone. It blew the fuse so I unplugged the thing, ran downstairs and flipped the circuit breaker, came back upstairs, tested that the wall socket was working by firing up the electric kettle and then went to plug the crock pot back in to see if I could figure out what had happened.

I got the plug in the general vicinity of wall socket and

BANG!

It blew the circuit breaker again and also did this to the plug.

Hmmmmmm. I might not be a smart woman but I think this is an indication that there might be something wrong with my crock pot.

And then of course, because this couldn’t possibly be MY fault, I got mad at the makers of the crock pot who obviously make an inferior product that didn’t last me more that a couple of years. And NOW I am going to have to go out and spend money to buy a new one because of their shoddy workmanship and I really aught to write a scathing and highbrow letter to them or better yet TWEET my displeasure to the world.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

After I had vented a bit, but VERY thankfully didn’t vent to the internetz, I got out the other crock pot, transferred the meat and cooking liquid to that, got it all fired up after resetting the circuit breaker yet again and picked up the carcass of the now completely shot and no longer of use to me crock pot to transport it out to the garbage can.

Did I mention that it was my favorite and that I use it several times a week?

Grump.

And that is when I realized what actually happened.

And, you guessed it, it was caused by me. Myself. Moi.

It was when I found that the cord was fused to the metal body of the crock pot that I surmised what must have happened. I think, and this is only a guess but I am thinking it was a good one, that when I set the lid on the crock pot and plugged it in that the cord was actually trapped under the lid at the back of the pot in a spot that I couldn’t see. The outer shell of the pot is what gets very hot and when it got to a certain temperature it…

BOOM! Melted the cord and shorted the whole thing out with a mighty, underwear dirtying, pop and poof of smoke. The cord was melted to the metal lip of the crock pot.

And not only was it stuck there…….

It literally burned a hole in the metal rim of the crock pot.

Mother Mary and all the saints in heaven!

Let this be a lesson to you. Make sure that the cord is as far away as possible from the very hot lip of the crock pot when you set the thing up and go away for the day.

And just as an aside. I thought, for just a tiny second but only a tiny second, that I could keep the inside of the crock pot and use it in the oven to cook things.

But then I dope slapped myself and put it in the big load of stuff to go to Goodwill. Saved by the fact that I already have too much stuff and am trying to get rid of things.

But I am still going to replace the crock pot……Friday.

Non Ipediti Ratione Cogitationis

When the progeny were in that impressionable, growing stage of life HHBL and I took pains to be careful about what they watched on TV and what we listened to on the radio. An hour of TV a day during school days. Not much more than that on the weekend. Of course if they were asking to watch a Charleton Heston movie then all bets were off. Watch “The Ten Commandments” for the 100th time? Not a problem with me. But we were careful, in the main, with what they watched and listened to.

So, of course, we made sure that they listened to Car Talk on Saturday mornings on NPR. What better way to start our morning than wasting spending a perfectly good hour listening to two men with heavy Boston verbal inflections prognosticate on all things automotive, with a healthy dose of life and marital harmony thrown in.

You did that at your house too right?

Right?

Fine! So we are a bit on the unusual side at Chez Knit. That cannot be a surprise to you.

Getting back to what I was saying before you so RUDELY interrupted my wandering train of thought. We listened to Car Talk every Saturday morning as we went about our weekend routine. And we laughed. A lot.

So I was sad yesterday when Cartoon Girl sent me a text message with the news that Tom Magliozzi had died from complications of Alzheimer's disease. As his brother, Ray, so humorously put it….

“Turns out he wasn’t kidding,” said Ray. “He really couldn’t remember last week’s puzzler.” 

You may think that is an irreverent thing to say in the wake of the death of a sibling but I think it is fab. And when I die, whenever that may be, I would like others to remember the humor in my life. I laugh at myself and share my idiocy with all 3 of you because if I didn’t laugh at myself someone else would gladly step up to the plate and do it for me. Laughing at yourself, as Tom and Ray Magliozzi always seemed to do, is the best way to beat others to the punch.

Thank you Tom Magliozzi for all the laughter.

Now, your homework for today is to go and listen to some Car Talk.

** The title of the blog post is Tom Magliozzi’s self-proclaimed motto. The translation is:

“Unencumbered by the thought process”

Lap Zen

I love to swim. I bet you didn’t know that about me. It may be one of the things that I haven’t mentioned because there hasn’t been a lot of swimming going on in my life the last 10 years or so. Oh there have been times at the beach or at the cottage over those years. But the beach is one place where I do not like to swim.

I have watched Jaws. I know what can happen. There are things swimming underneath me. If I cannot see ALL the way to the bottom….I’m staying in the shallows.

But a pool is another matter.

I grew up swimming. I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know how to swim. A time when I didn’t love the feel of the water going past. And crazy as it sounds my favorite thing to do is to swim laps.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Total water zen.

The year that I homeschooled Cartoon Girl we swam almost every day. That was the year that we belonged to a local swim/tennis club. Cartoon Girl needed something that would qualify as “PE” and swimming was it. I should probably clarify. I swam laps…….Cartoon Girl was in the pool but what she was doing wasn’t laps. As far as I could tell she would spend the time rising to the surface of the pool and then sinking slowly to the bottom of the deep end, there to dwell until her air ran out. Then she would rise, gulp air and go back down.

I gave her the PE credit anyways.

But there hasn’t been any swimming for me in past years because there really hasn’t been any place TO swim. My old town didn’t have a community pool, either an inside one or an outside one. There was a pool at one of the local hotels and they would allow you to swim….for the staggering price of $400/PERSON per year. Ummmmmmmmm.

NO!

So I have sighed. I have reminisced. I have yearned for swimming laps.

Until today.

Because in my NEW town there is a community center. And not just “a” community center but what I would describe and the COMMUNITY of community centers. Weight room (where I will not be caught dead), all sorts of work out equipment (which I will gladly stand and watch), a basketball court (surely you jest), a running track (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA), and……

An indoor pool that opens at 5:30a for lap swimming. Oh be still my little beating heart. The pool was closed last week for it’s annual “check up” but it is back open now. I called at 6a, as I was waiting in the cold for Max to finish his morning rendezvous with destiny, just to be sure. And today, I swam. I had been anticipating it for days. Thinking about it. Hoping for it. I was prepared. I went and bought a new swim cap because the last time I consistently swam I had very short hair. I dug out my swim suit yesterday and had it all set out along with a towel and the aforementioned cap. HHBL and I were out the door by 6:15a, he to work out and me to swim.

I looked like an idiot at first because I couldn’t find the women’s locker room but that was only momentary, until after I got out of the pool and couldn’t find the entrance from the pool to the locker room and after wandering the length of the pool and looking like Marcus Brody from Indian Jones and the Last Crusade, wandering helplessly, had to ask a life guard. Small issues. Small. I changed clothes quickly, although I need not have as there was no one else in the locker room. No little old ladies walking around buck naked, wrinkly parts all hangin’ to China. Long story. Ask Cartoon Girl, she STILL remembers. I walked out to the pool, put down my towel and just stood there for a moment, drinking in the smell of chlorine and reveling in that warm dampness that can only be found at an indoor pool. I slipped into the water and started to swim the crawl……

And that is when I realized what I had forgotten to bring.

My swim goggles.

Oh! Ow! Geez! Pain! I can’t see the bottom of the pool. My eyes are burning right out of their sockets. Did my eyes hurt this bad when I was growing up and wouldn’t be caught dead with swim goggles on? At this point it really didn’t matter because I wasn’t going to do the crawl with my eyes closed. OK, I can do the breast stroke.

Nope. I have to put my head under the water for part of that.

How about the back stroke? A bit better but still water dripping in my eyes.

Side stroke? That worked for awhile but I just kept feeling like I needed to save someone from drowning.

Back to the back stroke where I just kept blinking the water out of my eyes and hoping that I wouldn’t be so distracted that I would run into the end wall of the pool…..in front of the very bored life guard who is just hoping something would happen with the crazy side stroke woman.

Never you mind if I ran into the end of the pool at some point this morning! It isn’t germane to the story. Moving on.

But tomorrow will be a different story……..

The zen of lap swimming, with out the chlorine blindness, here I come.

Into A Brave New World

If you are a guy and you get squeamish about a discussion of women’s undergarments……I might leave now.

I ventured into a foreign country today. A land that is unknown to me. A fearful place where I do not know the rules and to top it all off I had to take my clothing off in front of someone that I didn’t know…..

I went bra shopping at Nordstrom.

I have this dress that I am wearing to Shoe Queen’s wedding. And I knew that it needed better “foundation wear” than I was currently providing for it. The “girls” (don’t make me explain that any further) are usually foundationally supported by something that I found on sale a Kohls.

TMI?

I warned you.

But for a while now I have been thinking that I have been shortchanging myself. I knew that there was something better out there for me. Something more…uplifting….shall we say. Something that just screamed..

YOU WANT TO WALK DOWN THE STREET WITHOUT A SHIRT ON JUST LIKE LADY GAGA!

Well, maybe not that but I knew that there was something better out there for me. But in order to find that elusive something, that Bra of Eldorado, I was going to have to sail into uncharted foundation garment territory. I was going to have to actually let someone else (beside HHBL and my doctor) see “the girls” in their natural state and measure them and evaluate them and make a judgment about them. Oh lordy, oh lordy. I am a tender shoot, easily bruised.

But I knew it had to be done. So off I went to the nearest Nordstrom to hopefully find some older, blue haired lady who had been fitting women with the perfect foundational garments since the turn of the century. Someone who would understand me and the girls. Someone who would find just the right binder for me (name the movie!!).

Nordstrom is a foreign land to me. I wasn’t sure, upon entering, that I wouldn’t have to pass through immigration and show my papers. Every thing gleamed. Everything shined. Everything is expensive. But I pushed on to my appointed final destination, after I inquired where I might find bras.

In lingerie I was told.

Duh.

Up the escalator I went, hoping that the thing would slow down or perhaps stop and I would be stuck there forever. But no so luck. I wandered for a bit, hoping against hope that I would look like I knew what department I wanted and wouldn’t be asked if someone could give me assistance. After a few minutes of wandering I found the department. It was fairly obvious….there were bras and other assorted unmentionables hanging in plain sight. My first thought was just to wander, grab something that looked like it “might” fit, try them on and be gone from this accursed land. But then I pulled myself up by my flip flop straps and went to ask someone for help. I looked around for the sturdy, blue haired lady who would help me. But she was not there. I could only see two employees who, if I wasn’t mistaken, were approximately 12 and 14 years old.

Oh lordy.

Isn’t there ANYONE in the lingerie department who is older than I and can help me for the first time EVER get measured and fitted for a good bra?

No.

So I walked confidently up to the desk and pleaded my case. I tried not to wring my hands and look pathetic. If they had looked closely at the state of my chest they would have known that I was pathetic. A pathetic, Kohl’s bra wearing person who desperately needs foundational help.

Help me Obi Bra Kenobi! You’re my only hope.

Adrina stepped bravely into the gap and said that she could help me. She showed me to a fitting room, grabbed her tape measure and kindly (and without pity) asked me to remove my shirt so that she could measure my rib cage.

Icandothis.Icandothis.Icandothis.

Off goes the top and there I stand in all my saggy Kohl’s bra glory. I give Adrina credit, she didn’t laugh. But she sure did hurry out to find something that wasn’t so offensive to her innate sense of foundational style. She was swiftly back with several rather lacy and delicate looking pieces of confection. My first thought was to burst into laughter if she thought those things would do the job. I need 3/4 inch cables young woman! And heavy duty mesh! And wire, lots of wire.

But soon I wasn’t thinking about the make up of the bra because just about the time I was done mentally dismissing the lacy piece of confection it became clear to me that I was going to actually have to take OFF my catastrophe of a bra in order to try on the lovely thing that Adrina had brought in with her.

Oh lordy, lordy, LORDY!

But I am brave. I can do this. So I sprung the girls from their aged prison and then actually had this young thing help me put on a bra.

Let me say that again. I put my arms in the appropriate place, she settled everything else where it was supposed to go and did up the back. Kill. Me. Now.

And then I stopped and looked.

Well DANG the girls look good. They look happy. And this thing feels pretty awesomely awesome.

So I sent Adrina out for a couple more bras just to test the theory that I was rapidly forming. The theory that said that I might never, EVER buy another bra from Kohls.

And by the time that Adrina returned with more lacy confection in various styles we were such old friends that I was standing there, hands on hips, naked from the waist up waiting impatiently for the next bra. We were such good pals that I stripped down to my undies so that I could try on the MOB dress with the new bra. No shame!

And in the end…….

I bought FOUR bras. And one of them is “orchid” in color. And one of them has a sassy little bow on it.

And we are SO not going to talk about what I paid for the privilege.

Kohl’s lingerie department you are dead to me. I give my allegiance to Nordstrom.

Along with my money.

Life is Always An Adventure at Chez Knit.

Today I am doing all that I can to fill up my time and my mind so that I don’t have to think about the fact that 18 days from now I will be moving Chez Knit to a new location…..

And there is still some question as to where that new location will be.

Yes, you heard me right, there is still some question as to where our location will be.

I had fully intended to do a long post with pictures of the new place. HHBL and I spent 3.5 hours there on Saturday while Paddy the inspector did his inspection thing. Three+ hours that I could take pictures, measure and think to my hearts content.

Three+ hours in a house where the A/C unit is not functioning. Not at all. No sirree. It was hovering in the upper 80’s in that town house. I had sweat in places that I didn’t know COULD sweat. And we couldn’t open the windows because Paddy had the radon test already started. So we just had to walk and talk and photograph and measure in heat. And think about where we were going to put furniture. And talk to Paddy about a number of things that were a bit concerning but could be fixed.

And there in lies what might be a problem. The things that must be fixed by the seller. Cuz there are several.

The A/C unit must be repaired or replaced. Yikes.

The house failed it’s radon test so that needs to be taken care of. Chaching!

One of the sky lights in the kitchen is leaking and they all need to be re-caulked. I saw a picture of the caulking job that was done within the last year…messy to say the least.

There are carpenter ants.

And there are some electrical issues that need to be fixed as a safety measure.

We picked our battles and didn’t even mention some of the little stuff.

So I think I will hold off on showing you the new place for a bit longer just to be on the safe side.

Life is always an adventure!!

 

The Lord Has A Sense of Humor

March of 2010, Chez Knit was accessorized and put up on the market for sale. We hoped. We prayed. We waited.

The Lord said not yet.

There wasn’t anyone that wanted to buy our house. I was disappointed but if I REALLY have to be truthful…..I wasn’t. I really wasn’t ready to go. I talked a good game. I knew that we really needed to downsize. But secretly I was not ready to go. I clung to my house.

And so we took our house back from Joyce the Stager and went on with our lives. 

We enjoyed the summers. We cursed the winters. I worked in the landscaping and the Community Garden. HHBL looked at houses on Realtor.com (he loves doing that). We continued to clean out what seemed like a lifetime worth of tidbits and big items.

The Lord continued to work on us.

We still needed to learn some things. We still needed to let go of things, specifically material things and what they meant in our lives. The Lord continued refine us. I am using the “royal we” here but you could just as easily put “I” in there because it certainly applied to me.

We waited. And prayed. And sought the Lord’s counsel.

And then last year we dipped our toes back into the house selling market. We fluffed. We buffed. Our hopes soared with each appointment and then came crashing down to earth when no one wanted to stay here and live here and love the house as much as we did. We continued to pray for the potential buyers that we knew the Lord was preparing for us…for some time. The year ticked by. Summer and holidays and winter came and went. The leaves turned lovely colors and fell onto the lawn and we had to spend endless hours blowing them into the woods. We had to pay for another year of snow plow contract. A whole year came and went. A year when sometimes, if I wasn’t paying attention, I would forget that there was a “For Sale” sign prominently displayed in our front yard for all to see. Oh there was a flurry of activity at the beginning of the selling process. And there was a flurry of activity at the end of the selling process. But the flurry at the end was really because our next door neighbor put her house up on the market and realtors like to combine visits if they can.

And as time ticked by HHBL and I continued to clean out. We continued to long for a simpler life style. A smaller and simpler house. We prayed for the Lord’s wisdom and guidance and PATIENCE (that was mine). I know it may come as a surprise to you but I am not always a patient person. We longed to go. I longed to go. I really did. As much as I love Chez Knit and as happy as I have been here I knew that it was time to go. Or at least I hoped that was so.

But the Lord continued to say wait and not yet.

Time ticked by and the wedding of Shoe Queen and Slim Jim came ever closer (AUGUST 9th!!!!!). And as the time ticked closer and closer I began to worry that if someone DID, somehow, someway come along and want to buy our house we might be looking at finding a new house, packing up and moving before the wedding. My poor feeble 53 year old brain (and body) didn’t think it could take the thought of having to look for a house before the wedding and pack and do all of that stuff. Lord you couldn’t POSSIBLY mean for us to do that when we had found just the right place for the wedding, so close to Chez Knit with a nice hotel conveniently located nearby that even had a relationship with the venue. And secretly in my heart of hearts I wanted to see Shoe Queen walk down the staircase at Chez Knit in her wedding finery. I lobbied. I quietly wheedled. I suggested.

And so we took Chez Knit off the market AGAIN and decided that this time we would stay for two, or possibly even three years. We even spent the money to have the riding mower fixed!

That was on May 6th.

And then last week, clear out of the blue, our realtor called and said that there was a couple who had found our house on the internet and their realtor wanted to know if they could come and view it. HHBL said he would ask me but he wasn’t all that confident that I would say yes. But I did. My thought was, what the heck why not. I made sure that the realtor knew that I wasn’t going to fluff and buff the house. In fact I wasn’t even going to leave the house when they came, I was scheduled to work at home that day. They could walk around and open doors to their hearts content and wander in the back yard amidst Max’s open air toilet and I would stay out of their way.

I had no hopes at all that they would ever be back.

I was wrong.

It may be…..

It might be…..

It could be possible……

That we have managed to sell Chez Knit without it even being on the market. Well actually, the Lord sold it. It could only be Him.

They offered. We countered. They countered the counter. We said yes.

Now we still have to get through the inspection process and there is always the possibility that the deal can get squirreled. And if that does happen I am fine with it, not because I want to stay here but because the Lord has given me an incredible sense of peace through out this turbulent period of time. If we go, great. If we stay, great. But as of right now………..

It looks like we are going to need to find a new place to live.

OH, and the whole “the Lord has a sense of humor” thing where I was SO totally worried about having to find a house and pack up and move before the wedding?

No problem!

We have to find a house and pack up and move…..a week AFTER the wedding.

See!

A sense of humor.

I Swear Those Pictures Just Took Themselves

I apologize in advance.

I am so very sorry.

Really I am……….

But this just seems to happen every time my cousin Heather Hadoo I’llhavewineplease and I are in the same room together. I don’t know what comes over us.

If I make it a bit more artsy fartsy will that help?

NO?

Sorry. And I also apologize for saying fart.

It happens.