Such is life

The good news is that I went to the doc today and good ole kidney stone hasn't moved.

The good news is that all my tests came back normal, and according to the doc I'm doing "everything right."

The good news is that I don't have to see him for another 6 months and he loaded me up with painkillers to take with me - wherever I go - just in case.

The good news is that I'm drinking enough water, and I'm also drinking fresh-squeezed, extremely potent lemonade daily (thanks to G).  The water combined with huge amounts of citric acid are effective in preventing stones.

So I guess I'm safe when it comes to the kidney stone - but I'll probably die from either hyper hydration or a stomach ulcer.

Such is life.

Shady

We're back from our Thanksgiving in the South.  Plenty exhausted and totally not ready to head into a full workweek.  Most of you know that I'm not much of a shopper, but when we go to my family's for TG, my Mom and I usually do Black Friday together.  But we do it my way, which is so not getting up at o-dark-thirty to wrestle DVD's from rednecks at The Wal Mart.  It's more along the lines of "sleeping in" till about 6:00, having a leisurely breakfast, and perusing a couple of stores.

When we rolled back home to watch my dear college football team get slaughtered in their last game of the season, Gama goes, "How was the Black Market?"

Wha????

Model Mondays: Messy Workbench, and Farewell until 2012

With the holidays coming up, my model building time will be sparse until the end of the year, so this will be the last Model Mondays post for 2011.

In light of this, I thought I would share a few pictures of my workbench--actually, one end of the dining room table.  Yes, the same dining room table that you've seen in other posts on this blog.  I used to work at an old computer desk in the basement, but since the basement flooded over the summer, things down there have been in a state of...flux.  Let's just say it isn't possible for me to work down there at present, so my better half allowed me to set up shop on the table.

Looks pretty chaotic, huh?  The model in the middle of the paper plate is a battleship from my Dystopian Wars fleet--it's about 1/3 done.  If you look closely, you can see a few other projects that are (slowly) nearing completion, and which should be featured in a Model Mondays post in the new year.

I hope you've enjoyed the first round of pictures of my completed models; I hope to have some new stuff finished soon!

Didn't see that coming

So in our redecorating fervor, we saved our old couch and recliner (along with some rugs and other items) for the local homeless shelter.  A few miles from our house, there is a year-round homeless shelter and items donated to them above and beyond what they need are given to their store.  They use the money they make from selling donations to meet the needs of the local residents.

About 3 weeks ago, we called the store and scheduled a pick up of our furniture.  They said they would be here today at 10:00.  Of course, that time came and went with no furniture pick-er up-ers.  G called them and they said they would be here sometime between 10 and 3.  Well, that changes things, but whatever.  You know what happens next.  3:00 comes and goes with no show.  G calls again and they say they have to unload the truck then they'll come over.

I'm going to admit to you that I actually thought to myself, no wonder these people are homeless.

Now that you have no respect for me, I'll continue.  You'll want to stick this one out.

When the guys came, they refused to take our furniture because it's in "bad" condition.  What????  Did you see the pics I posted?  Apparently our home decor is not up to par for homeless people.  But they said for $25 they'd take it to the dump for us.

Talk about humble pie.

It's ok though because we got the last laugh.  We saw them turning to leave and brushing loads of rabbit hair off their clothes.  Take that, snobs.

For her, I give thanks

I can't believe Thanksgiving is next week already.  I'm happy that fall arrived, but now I don't know where it went; I blame this on the two weeks I was semi-conscious.  I don't want it to come and go without even taking the time to reflect on my many blessings, so I thought I'd post some along the way.

Of course, the first thing that leaps to mind is that dang kidney stone lurking in my body, and my sincerest thanks to God that it hasn't moved yet.

But I digress.  Today, I'm very thankful for Orca, our geriatric bunny.  Most of my friends are not animal people, and those that are don't read this post, so I'm writing to the minority right now, but bear with me.  G & I, we're animal people.  Like, we purposefully don't go in pet stores; we purposefully don't volunteer with the ASPCA.  Why?  Because we would be those people you see on the news who were found with 18 different forms of wildlife in their house, and their neighbors got so fed up they called the cops.  We've never met an animal we didn't like.

Orca chillin like a villain

That said, we're choosy in our animals because we want to give them the best life possible.  But they're not our children.  We don't dress them or think of them as people.  Today I was in the waiting room of the vet's office and I heard a lady carrying on a conversation.  It was one-sided so of course I assumed she was on her cell.  I turned around to see and...she was having a full-on conversation with her feret.  Who was sniffing the floor and looking around, oblivious to her enthusiastic blabber.

We're not those people.

Matching red eyes in the vet's office

It's hard to explain our love for animals, particularly our animals, but there it is.  We adopted Orca from a local shelter a couple of years ago, and she's very old for a rabbit.  She's 9.5 years old which is like 80 human years.  She got some kind of infection and we rushed her to the vet a couple of days ago.  Rabbits are prey animals, and so they don't show weakness in the wild because it makes them a target.  Consequently, by the time a rabbit starts acting sick or abnormal, it's usually too late to do anything about it.  So, usually when we end up in the vet's office, it's bad news, and we've been steeling ourselves for that day for a year or so now.

But that was not today.  And for that, I'm thankful.

She sheds just a tad

When times get hard, we question why we put ourselves through this.  The stress and expense when little bunny health starts to go downhill - and when the time comes and we lose them altogether.  But after a couple of quiet, still days in the house, we get restless and realize our lives weren't meant to be like that, and we end up with more animals again, and it just feels right.

Whatchu lookin at?

I once heard Beth Moore teaching about love and loss, and she was describing someone close to her (or close to a friend of hers) who died.  She said this person was a valuable gift.  And she said, just because God "took" the person away, doesn't make them any less of a gift.  I'm completely butchering her point - but it made me think of our relationship with bunnies.  They come and they go - but their passing doesn't diminish the blessing that they were to us.

Animals are a valuable part of creation, and we are tasked to care for all the world.  We animal lovers must do our part, you know.

A Most Peculiar Thing

Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it.  It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord.  The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver.  But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.

--Memoirs of a Geisha (by Arthur Golden)

Facelift

We've lived in this house for 4.5 years.  It's the first house we've owned and actually, the first real house we've lived in together.  Before this it was apartments, a townhouse, and a shack (yes, really).  When we were looking to buy a house, this was the first one we saw.  From the outside, it's gorgeous, like a cabin in the woods.  But when we saw the long, rectangular living room, we looked at each other and said, "Um.  No." and left.

BEFORE

The shape of the room is weird.  The garage is behind; the kitchen is to the right; and a deck is outside on the left.

A view from the "front" of the room, looking toward the back & into the garage.

After looking at other houses, it was clear that this one was worth another look.  We loved everything about this house and finally decided that we would just make the living room work.  Here's our initial stab at it:

We chose a green to "match" the forest outside.  We also wanted a cabin feel.

A few years later, we bought a flat screen TV and had to get a new entertainment center. This, combined with a few other decorative details, is how our house remained until recently.

BFJ, recognize that white chair?  :)

We've accumulated our furniture from here and there over the years and it has started to get a little worn. Both arms on my recliner are completely bare, and there's a rip in the side.  Our couch noticeably leans to one side, kind of like a sinking ship.  We've talked about buying furniture for a couple of years, but we always go on vacations instead.  This year, our combined birthday plans fell through, and as Christmas has started approaching, we had the brilliant idea of treating ourselves to a living room facelift in lieu of any presents - for anything - this year.

AFTER

Observation #1:  All our furniture now matches!  It's as if two adults live in this house, instead of the seven dwarfs.

Observation #2:  In order to keep it from being too brown, we painted the green stripes on the wall, and ordered some of our photos printed on canvas.  These are seasonal, so we can change the look of the room throughout the year.

The birds are crammed in the corner next to the window.

We also bought a variety of throw pillows to break up the brown.

This is Orca's corner.  And now this matches the rest of the living room.  I still need to work on the decorative touches, but you get the idea.

Have you ever watched those home improvement shows?  Know how they conveniently fast-forward during all the heavy, hard work?  So that the viewer will get instant gratification of seeing the "before" and "after" so close together?  Because, you know, otherwise no one would actually sit there during all the work involved in home improvement and those stations would never get funding.  I wish the transition were that quick and painless in real life.  But alas.

DURING

Crap everywhere as we begin to paint the wall and move out the furniture.

Orca supervised.

Contemplating the new photos.

Note the arms of the chair.  I so was not joking about it being completely worn.

Where, pray tell, did all the furniture go?

Why, into the kitchen, of course!

The couch, chair, DVD player and rugs are being picked up by goodwill.  We broke down and took one more step into the 21st century; we bought a Blu Ray player.  See?  True facelift.

So, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy 2012, and Happy Valentine's Day to us!  I think we'll have a seat and celebrate.

Veteran's Day

"A 'veteran' -- whether active duty, honorably discharged, retired, or reserve -- is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to 'The United States of America,' for an amount of 'up to, and including my life'."

 I didn't come up with this definition, but I think it fits.  Please take the time today to thank a veteran for their service to our Nation.

Thus Far This Fall

Model Mondays: Dystopian Wars Tournament

So yesterday my FSA fleet left port to participate in several engagements against Japanese and Antarctican naval fleets.  And by that statement, I mean that I drove to one of my local gaming stores for a Dystopian Wars tournament.

The tournament was three rounds, and the opponents were chosen at random.  There were about 8 of us who played.  The first round was a 400-point engagement, while the last two were 800-point engagements.  The point value is the number of points allowed for each fleet.  Each ship is worth a set number of points; by the rules of the tournament, we had to field at least one squadron of small, medium, and large-class ships (this prevents someone from trying to field 400 points worth of battleships).

In the 400-point round, my opponent was playing an Empire of the Blazing Sun (Japanese) fleet.  The round objective was to obtain photographs of at least one of two islands on the playing board--any ship that got within 8 inches of the island got a picture, and then had to retreat off the table edge without getting sunk.  Victory points were awarded for getting a picture of the island (and getting that ship off the table edge), and half-points were awarded for any enemy ships sunk.

My cruisers heading into battle

My cruisers have taken some damage, and it looks like my battleship is surrounded--but I sunk both of the Japanese cruisers!

Unfortunately, that was the best game I played.  In both 800-point engagements, I drew opponents playing the Covenant of Antarctica fleet, and I got torn up pretty badly.

I just captured one of the Antarctican flyers (white model in the foreground with the "prize" token under it); my dreadnaught and airships can be seen in the background

I did learn a valuable lesson--keep Antarctican vessels at long range, as they are brawlers when they're close.  The FSA has excellent long-range weapons, and I did not use them to my advantage.

But even though I lost--badly--a good time was had by all.  Here are a few other pictures from the event:

One of the tournament tables

Prussian and Antarctican forces in close combat

A Prussian Sky Fortress--who doesn't like an airship with an aircraft carrier on top of it??

Japanese and British ships mixing it up

Enjoy the pictures!

So, what are you saying, exactly?

The other night:

B:  Oh crap, I think I left my book at the gym.  Yep, I definitely did.  I'm gonna call them.  You don't think anyone took it, do you?

G:  Oh, trust me.  No one is going to take one of your books.

...

G:  I mean, one of our books.

TGIF, people!

Between a rock and a hard place

I want so badly to tell you people that my life consists of more than medical issues.  Or at least it used to.  I try to resist the urge to whine and complain about the kidney stone experience, but earlier this week I found out that I have:

another kidney stone!

in the other kidney!

and it's stuck there!

I'm actually running out of witty post titles.  I almost called this one "Stoned out of my mind."

This week, I went in for a follow-up appointment with the urologist who removed the kidney stone a few weeks ago during my lovely Tour of the Local Hospitals.  The plan was for us to discuss the chemical composit of the stone, and tips for prevention of future kidney stones. 

Not mine - just a sample shot of a stone

As it turns out, my stone was what most people experience:  calcium oxalate.  Calcium, in most of its forms, is very good for me and I should continue to eat it.  The tricky part is the oxalate.  It exists in foods that are typically good for people, but there's something about the way it bonds with calcium that frikkin' wreaks havoc.  Foods high in oxalates are:  spinach, beets, chocolate, nuts.  I intend to avoid these like the plague from now on.

Here's the other thing:  the most effective thing anyone can do to prevent kidney stones is to drink water.  Like a fish.  Like a man dying in the desert.  Drink it on a scale that was considered unimaginable and possibly dangerous in one's life before.  My goal is to drink 8 full bottles a day.  That doesn't sound like much, does it?  I have a 23-oz bottle and I'm a determined person.  Still, I have yet to reach that goal.  Even though I work out.  Even though I carry the bottle with me everywhere and sometimes down the whole thing in one sitting.  This baffles me.

G is trying to help me deal with this.  He stands outside the bathroom door and shouts things like, "Water is great for your skin!" and "Water is a proven weight-loss tool!" and "The body is like 70% water - just think how great this is for your health!"

Now let's address the fact that I have a ticking time bomb in my own body.  As far as we know - and I'm sure we would know otherwise! - the stone is lodged in my right kidney.  It's smaller than the previous stone (thank you Jesus and all the Heavenly Host) so it *should* pass on its own when the time comes.  But WHEN IS THE TIME GOING TO COME?  As much as I don't want to live in fear, the reality is that at any point in my future, I will be wracked with unbelievable and uncontrollable pain.  Again.

So here I am, stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Yes, that swishing sound you hear is my stomach.  And yes, my pants are too tight and I look like I've put on 5 pounds.