The one with the birthday...

Happy birthday, Brother!


You're darn special. Love you.

Drumroll, please

No, faithful readers, I am not dead, in spite of evidence such as two missing Friday Fashion posts! The horror!

As penance for my recent silence, I bring you tidings of great joy. This Thursday, Dad will be coming home. Three months, a few missing vertebrae, and the addition of a walker, and he is finally well enough and fit enough to be released. He will continue to receive physical therapy several times a week, but the therapist will conveniently come to his home. My heart overflows.


He's pretty happy about it, too.

In other news, my hearing more or less returned last night after its fortnight banishment due to a double ear infection. My sanity, however, is still nowhere to be found.

And (now for that drumroll): There is furniture. In our house. You can now go into our house and, like, sit. It's pretty incomprehensible. We spent the weekend moving heavy things (and by "we" I of course mean everyone except for me) and organizing, dusting, sweeping, wiping, and hanging. There's still a lot to do, but it is now at least marginally acceptable for the house guests that will be coming to spend the night this Friday. Nothing like the eleventh hour.

They are going to stay here, in the REDRUM!


That bed belonged to my paternal grandparents and has resided in my parents' spare bedroom for as long as I can remember. Now it will live in ours. And I promise our guests there will be sheets on the bed by the time they arrive. Hopefully.


In lieu of two missed Friday Fashion posts, I bring you Our Guest Bathroom Shower Curtain. Note my incredibly imaginative brown color palette. I'm a design genius, I'm well aware.


These are the shower hooks that came with the curtain! I didn't even have to pick them out myself! The store knew that level of skill was beyond my abilities, so they just packaged it all together! So adorable!


Look! A coffee table and lamp and sideboard table! And there's a couch in there now, too! PROGRESS, PEOPLE!


This might be my favorite. The dining table is now situated directly under that light to match the six chairs and china hutch. I was a little bit worried originally, because the furniture isn't exactly my taste, but it's a similar color to the kitchen cabinets (ohanddidimentionfree?) and is actually fitting beautifully.

I promise to post more than once a week, barring any additional infections, plagues, or pestilence. And maybe someday I'll get around to that promise of redesigning the site banner. Maybe.

Deaf and Dumb

I thought I could beat whatever sickness had me down last week through sheer willpower and Ginger Ale. I was wrong. I stayed home last Thursday, feeling miserable, and finally drug myself to urgent care when my brain began to ooze out of my facial orifices. The doctor told me I have a double ear infection, which is just delightful. I haven't had an ear infection since I stopped playing with Barbie dolls (Age fifteen. Joke. Maybe). Anyway, my antibiotics have put the kick back in my step, although I am pretty sure I am still legally deaf. I was already dumb, so I am ahead of the game in that respect. Most of my sentences now consist of the single, slack-jawed "Huh?"

I spent most of my contagious period laying diagonally across my bed, rolling from one side to another, and wondering why the heck my ears hurt so darn much. It only served to reinforce how much I love naps and sleeping and then more sleeping after that. Bed is my main vice. I always kind of envied people with mono, because they had such a good excuse to sleep all the time.

My husband thought I would love this comedian who talks about bed with the kind of reverence we all should exhibit. It's downright funny and guaranteed to make you giggle at least once.

I've gotta be me...

So, I'm still sick. Really, really quite sick. A terrible, awful, no good, very bad (probably) head cold that has an elephant sitting on my eyes, a mob boss blocking my ears with cement, and a monkey with very sharp fingernails scratching my throat.

Still, I won't cough up a $30 co-pay and go to the doctor.

But I would totally buy this gorgeous $60 goodEgg Forest Pillow.I've got priorities, people.

Facelift

iStock sent me a lovely e-mail notice cuing me in to the fact that the credits I purchased a year ago will expire in one month. Use it or lose it, baby.

So, not to let good image credits go to waste, perhaps it is time once again to change the look of my blog. I adopted the current look back in October 2008, allowing readers to help determine the banner with Choose or Die (or whatever...).

I really like the current design. It's clean and simple with plenty of white space. And, boy, do I love white space (no, I'm not being racist. It's a graphic design term. Look it up. Jeez.).

But, while I customarily become a mewling, sniveling infant in the face of change, it is (usually) good.

So, does anyone have any good ideas? Help a sister out. iStock has plenty of pretties to choose from.

Watch this...

...or we can't be friends anymore.

I think Martha Stewart would approve

Last night Husband and I purchased countertops. This was monumental: our last major purchase for our renovations. Of course, we still need a bed and rugs and showercurtainsdrawerhardwareclosetdoors, but I'm going to choose to ignore that laundry list and focus on this small accomplishment.

Remember our cabinets?


They look a little different now because we've moved the appliances into the kitchen. But they're all still soundly attached to the walls, which is, you know, impressive. We're hoping our drywall woes will be fixed and the refrigerator will be installed by the end of this weekend. I will continue to not hold my breath. Still, we finally bit the bullet and bought this:The color is called Sonoma, and I've got to say that the swatch is much prettier in person. They are a gray/green/light brown with flecks of neutral color throughout. We finally decided to go with a Samsung Staron product, because it looks just like quartz but scratches can be resurfaced, there will be absolutely no seams, and the sink flows directly from the countertop, which struck me as especially cool (ah, a crumbless world shall be mine). Plus, our wallets started crying tears of blood and I just don't have the time for that kind of stain removal.This is the sink color, Ivory. I would never, ever pick this color on my own, but it really looked nice with the countertop color, I promise. And it isn't quite so flesh-toned as it appears. Really. Although now that I think about it, my Covergirl foundation is also called Ivory... Actually...could the color be made from easily sunburned Nordic people...?

There's also our garage. Last weekend we sold all the old cabinets and the 60-inch master bathroom vanity. The sale might cover the price of a single 18-inch vanity for our half bath (albeit custom-made. Uuugh, I know, I'm one of those people now). Shall I bend over now or would you like to do it for me?

Before. A dark, dangerous hovel filled with stinky, hairy, cat vomit cabinets.

After.

I don't know if Martha Stewart would go for the third world, industrial look, but at least we can walk in there now. Once we get the stove carted to its new owner, give me about five minutes before I take a sledgehammer to the garage cabinets. Really, you can't call them cabinets. You must instead call them Badly Painted, Badly Cut, and Badly Installed MDF Sheets That Don't Actually Open Or Function As Storage Receptacles. And they're headed for The Burn Pile, baby.

Friday Fashion: Back to my roots

I'm going back to my roots for this Friday Fashion post. No, I'm not talking about the dingy blond that is appearing at the crown of my head (mental note: get some darn highlights already). Many of my original fashion/design posts focused on shoes. Beautiful, glorious shoes. I think I'm going to have a daughter and name her Imelda. Thoughts?

I digress: Sam Edelman. I had never heard of him (her?) before yesterday, but I am now fully enthralled. Here is a taste of his (her?) fall 2009 collection. Yum.


Yvonne from the Sahara Collection. The dainty heel and soft rounded toes complement the Western hint in the detail work. These would look so adorable with jeans, but would go just as well with a tailored suit at the office!


Jackson from the Indie Folk Collection. So. Y'alls. I have seriously been searching for boots like these for the past two winters. Everything I find that looks reasonable cute have chunky (ew) and/or skyscraper-tall heels that would not mix well with my clumsy physique and the icy, winter ground. I looked and looked for something with a ballet flat bottom that had some kind of soft point to the toe and came in a pretty, neutral color. And here they are. Granted, they're probably hundreds of dollars (there were no prices listed on Edelman's Web site, never a promising sign), but at least now I know they exist.


Ida from the Tough Lux Collection. I own a pair of pointy-toed shoes. I really can't pull them off. They're too pointy, you know? Inching into the high class witch realm. These are the perfect point. Dainty, delicate, delicious. I'm not a big bow person, but just look at those...leather bows! SQUEE!


Isador from the Textures Collection. Again, dainty points. Sweet. And the red is definitely my favorite! For those of you who are afraid of pointy-toed shoes, take heed: your toes should end as the slope of the point begins. They should not be squished into that point. Apparently this was not tradition back in the old days. My grandmother's toes were actually squished together, coming to a point on their own, from too many years of wearing too-tight pointy shoes, as was probably the style. It was like Chinese foot binding! Pointy toes should not be painful!


Candela from the Textured Collection. Again with the bows. I apologize. I don't know what's gotten into me today! But you just can't beat a ballet flat!

Have a great weekend everyone. No promises, but we might actually get our fridge in this weekend! It will require ripping out some drywall and crossing all of our fingers and toes at the same time. There will probably be some sacrificial blood letting rituals and dancing to a god or two, but we will one day have a working fridge in our very own house that we will actually live in.

Sidenote. Wednesday night we discovered the house no longer had water. I guess this would bother me more if I actually lived there. Still, if I'm going to pay for water (and what a silly, silly thing to do...it's free, did you know that?), I want to actually have water. Magically, last night, the water returned. However, Husband's car broke down right as we were about to leave work. It's still sitting there. I don't know what we're going to do...have it towed...have someone come on-site to check it out...chop it up and sell it for parts...possibly just set the whole thing on fire accidentally...whatever the outcome, please send cash.

Raise your glass to health

Health care in our country is broken. I realize it's a whole lot more broken (or nonexistent) in other countries, but in our Promised Land of Plump Plenty, one would think we'd have everything together. I understood more deeply just how dire the situation is for those without health insurance yesterday when a statement landed in our mailbox. Husband recently suffered a bout of bronchitis. After waiting out several days of fever, but before the coughing really set in, he visited our local hospital, which is an urgent care by day and an emergency room by night. He went on a Saturday in the evening, and I'm guessing that the place had morphed back into an ER by then, because the bill was over $1,600.

To diagnose bronchitis.

Of course, they tested him for strep throat and even took a chest X-ray to look for pneumonia (a drastic test, I thought, but with so many people coming down with respiratory infections lately, a valid option, I suppose). He was prescribed a Z-pack and a bottle of syrup and sent on his way. Then the $1,600 statement came a few weeks later. I'm not sure how much our employer-provided health insurance will cover (maybe, hopefully, more than I think), but I am grateful to have it, in spite of the costly premiums. And I am concerned for those who do not. We often hear the Lifeline helicopter flying over our home, rescuing the injured from car accidents or victims of heart attacks. Word is, just to put the key in the ignition costs $11,000, the bill usually reaching over $25,000 when all is said and done. And Lifeline is not covered by insurance.

I definitely would prefer not to see my father's medical bills after his numerous hospitalizations, prostate surgery, back surgery, and lengthy nursing home stay, not to mention the home care he may require. He is fortunate to be covered by Medicare and to also have a personal, supplemental health insurance policy (although I will not even venture into the issue of the abuse of Medicare in the health field). This illness will probably not break him financially. But it would break many others who are less fortunate.

The issue raises the question that no one wants to decide: What is the cost of a human life? I don't follow the health care debate closely, because I truly don't expect any radical changes. Radical change may be the needed treatment, but the prescription will probably be written for something safe, convenient, and cost-effective for the government and big business. I don't care to listen to the two political sides argue over their supposed ideals, making mincemeat of one another while ignoring the issue on which they should be working together. I don't believe the word "compromise," in its truest sense, is in their vocabulary.

All I know is, if they ever want to call Lifeline for me, just go ahead and let me die. I wouldn't want to leave my loved ones with that kind of bill.