A career in what?!

Relaxing on a sofa in The Yard at the Iron Horse, there's a conversation next to us that goes like this:
"I got that great new job, pending the background check which should not be a problem. Then the guy calls me to say there's a domestic dispute on my record. I tell him it's from an argument with an old girlfriend but the charges were dropped - it was no big deal."  The dude then goes on to say, "If they rescind the job offer I am going to kill that bitch." 

Too bad he can't hear himself. I wonder what kind of job it was.

Trip to Cincinnati

I received an invitation to a baby shower a few weeks ago.  It was for my cousin's son, Adam and his wife, Chris. They are an adorable couple who will make great parents.  The shower was themed as Burgers, Beer and Baby talk and it was for couples, not just women which made it even cooler.  So I instantly told my husband that I was going.  I told him he was also invited and it would be nice if he would come along, but I didn't expect him to if he really didn't want to.  His response was, "so you're telling me you're going, not asking if we should go?" I said yes, that's it exactly. So he was in.  He goes pretty much everywhere I go so I wasn't surprised. 

I do think he thought I was crazy for wanting to drive 5-plus hours to go to a party and then the next day drive over 5 hours back. But it was important to me.  I knew my aunt and uncle would be there and I want every chance to spend time with them.  We're all getting older, and I worry sometimes about my own mortality, as well as theirs. So I got us a cheap hotel close by and off we went. 

We left very early in the morning and as we drove and calculated our ETA, we realized we forgot to include the time change to Eastern. So we were going to be an hour late. Too bad we took our time when we stopped for breakfast but we thought we had plenty of time built in.  Oh well.

We got there and things were just starting to get rolling.  It was great to see my Aunt Florence, Uncle Ray, cousin Michelle and Chris and her beautiful daughter, Marissa and my cousin Terry and her husband Bob.  They have great kids, their oldest daughter Erika has four adorable children of her own and a really nice husband.  Their son, Adam is so polite and friendly and his new wife is the same. They also have a son, Greg who is really cool to talk to.  The shower went well and after it ended we stayed until the wee hours of the night.  We got back to our hotel after 1 am.  It was a great time and Jeff admitted that even though he balked about all that driving, he was very glad he decided to come along. 

We got up on Sunday and were invited back for breakfast, which again turned into a marathon event where we finally left at 1 pm.  We knew this meant we were not going to get home until after 8 since we were making a few stops along the way.  Our first stop was to the Disney Store at the outlet mall.  I got my granddaughters each a princess dress and a princess doll.  The discount prices were wonderful.  If it weren't for me being unemployed I would have bought much, much more. After we left the outlet mall we headed over to a crazy store called Jungle Jim's.  It was an international grocery store with an amazing selection of everything you never knew existed. We stopped and sampled some olives at the olive bar in the Greek section and stopped at the cheese bar and sampled some cheeses in the deli.  What a store.  We were getting tired so after picking up some cheeses we headed over to the section that we came for....beer!  There was a beer sampling bar.  For a quarter a sample, we tried many beers however, we came for the Yuengling so that's what we got.  We bought a case of the traditional lager and a case of the light lager.  On our way to the checkouts I saw the Grippo's potato chips. Like the Yuengling, we can't get those here in Wisconsin so we got a box of those as well.  One of my coworkers from the south ships them up to our office during the holidays as a treat.  They are so very good. So we paid for our items and started the trek home.


At Catch 22

I drove to Cincinnati and Jeff drove back.  We weren't sure he could drive since he just had hand surgery but he was ok with it.  We stopped within 2 hours of home for some dinner at a cool sports bar & grill called Catch 22 in Merrillville, Indiana.  The food was good and it was good to sit back and relax from the stress (and boredom) of a long drive.  Especially since we had to sit in slow-moving traffic due to an accident in a construction zone.  At least it only slowed us down for 20 minutes, the traffic going in the opposite direction was stopped dead because all the lanes heading south were closed while they cleaned up the crash site-we were just down to one lane.  The food was good and the rest at the bar was definitely a good break for the rest of the ride home. When we got into Chicago it started to rain which made the worst section of the drive that much worse.  We pulled into our driveway at 9:30, so glad to be home. 

The Yuengling will have to wait until morning to be carried into the house.

A Structured Life

Two months ago today, I lost my job.  Since the day it happened, I haven't talked about it.  I still don't want to talk about it.  Jeff is worried that one of these days I am going to have a major meltdown.  Sometimes he is waiting on pins and needles for me to crack.  I'm not going to.  I know I'm not.  A funny thing happened the day my company told me they were reorganizing and eliminating not only my job, but my department.  I didn't care. I packed my stuff up took it home and started doing projects I like. I think that maybe it is a sign that I didn't belong there in the first place. 

I urethaned furniture, did gardening, cleaned up the garage and some stuff in the basement.  I even sorted through all my Christmas decorations. It was May and I was sorting Christmas crap.  It felt good. All those little projects that waited for sometime to come were getting done. You would think I would be happier.  But I'm not.  I feel unsettled.  I am doing everything I've dreamed of.  Nothing when I want to do nothing. Quilting when I want to quilt. House projects when I really feel ambitious.  But something is missing.  Maybe it's guilt because I am doing exactly what I want. Every day is perfect. Or maybe I am waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I do think I know what the problem is. I am a creature of habit.  I love structure and routine.  And I currently do not have a routine. I think I have to work on that.  I better put it on my to-do list.

Carpal Tunnel Surgery

Champp's Americana

Jeff had tingling in his hand for months.  He's complained about it and I told him I picked out a hand surgeon and he should make an appointment.  He didn't. 

So this week he is on vacation. First thing Monday morning (first day of vacation) he is already commenting on the numbness and tingling. In order to stop him in his tracks, I picked up the phone and made the appointment for him.  I must have timed it right because the receptionist just had a cancellation for Tuesday morning.  He took the appointment.

We drove to the doctor's office for the consultation together. I decided not to go in to the exam room with him. When he was in there for 45 minutes, I regretted that decision.  What I didn't know is that they did the EMG right there in the office.  The diagnosis was what we expected, carpal tunnel syndrome. 

It is so severe in his left hand that the doctor suggested surgery as soon as possible in order to prevent any permanent damage. The doctor performs the surgery on the second Friday of each month and amazingly, he could have it done this Friday (today!). And so he did.

His appointment was at noon and he couldn't eat anything after midnight.  So of course at 1:30 pm, as we were heading out of the surgery center all he wanted was something to eat. We drove up the road to Champp's for some nice healthy salads.  And some great cocktails. Now that it's done it seems so crazy that we went from Monday's complaints to Friday's surgery in what seems like the blink of an eye.