Thanksgiving day.
I slept late.
Cleaned the kitchen (I mean, CLEAN – like 4 hours of scrubbing, pulled out the stove, washer AND dryer, cleaned stuff that I barely knew existed – CLEAN)
Then “made” Thanksgiving pizza. Turkey, Bacon, Onion, Black Olive, Extra cheese.
Big honkin salad for me, small honkin salad for the SB. I had cranberry sauce on the side with mine. Oh, the yumminess. Oh, the quiet!
Happy Thanksgiving!
I am not a big fan of shopping on “Black Friday”. It’s crowded, it’s pushy, it’s annoying. It’s generally not fun. Not fun at all.
But the Target circular came out today… and they have some games for $10 and $5 that I think my little nephews would really like – Rock ‘em Sock ;em Robots, anyone?
Also, there are some really nice sweaters that I saw last week that I liked but didn’t want to pay $18 for… and they are $9.
So I may be forced out into the crazed post-holiday shopping madness.
On the up side, if I DO decide to go, it certainly won’t have to be at 3am or anything crazy like that. If I go, and they don’t have the things, I am not going to flip out and die.
OH, all right, fine maybe it doesn’t quite rise to the level of “Food of the Gods” but man oh man, I am loving this stuff…
Lipton Vanilla Caramel Truffle Tea
I used to really like (on occasion) getting a caramel tea latte at Seattle’s Best Coffee… but then they stopped carrying it, and I am WAY too cheap to buy the Tazo liquid latte tea bases. So I had pretty much resigned myself to not having tasty caramel tea anymore.
But now! Not only is this stuff yummy and caramelly and wonderful… but it’s just regular tea! Which means no super calorie filled latte needed! Only a bit of Splenda and non-dairy creamer… and I can have it EVERY DAY!!!
The wonderful goodness has inspired me to also try the Black Pearl variety the next time I am at the store. I love tea, and usually I buy Twinings, because I prefer a higher quality tea… but these pyramid thingies are really nice tea, and cheaper than the typical premium teas.
They have a whole line of these, but I am not a “Fruity” tea drinker, and most of the flavors are fruity. Still… high quality tasty tea at $2 for 20 tea bags. Yeah, good job, Lipton company!
Big thank you to Cravey for introducing me to this stuff.
I would like to point out that I have not received anything from the Lipton company for posting this paean to their tea… but if the person who’s in charge of trolling the interwebs looking for mentions of the word “Lipton” would care to send me something free (like perhaps some more of this awesome caramelly tea? Or a free sample of the next fabulous flavor?) I would TOTALLY take it, because I love free stuff!
Oh, no, it must just be the week of Thanksgiving… that magical time of year when a two day holiday magically morphs into a 9 day vacation for so many people that the roads and office are pretty much deserted.
I’m not complaining. I like a nice, empty office with no one asking me for anything.
This Thanksgiving is going to be a very quiet one for us. My family and the SB’s family are both out of town this year. So instead of the traditional crazy double thanksgiving family fest that is our usual fare, this year we will be participating in the “other” tradition we have for Thanksgiving… the one we only get to indulge in when the fates align and this sort of all-out-of-town kind of thing happens.
Thanksgiving Pizza!
Yup. Thanksgiving day it’s going to be just me, the SB, and a take-and-bake pizza from our local Harris Teeter.
I’m going to take the 5 cheese pizza, get a thick slice of Deli turkey, cut it into cubes, saute it with onions, sprinkle that, some black olives, and some pre-cooked bacon on to the pizza (probably with some more cheese, just for good measure) and voila! Thanksgiving Pizza!
I may even splurge and get a can of jellied cranberry sauce to go along with it!
It should be a day full of awesome!
Well, awesome and cleaning the garage… because what else are you gonna do with all those days off?
Pre-op Appointment to talk to the Doc was today.
The SB came with me, which I think was very brave of him, considering how he feels about all this surgery stuff. He looked on while the doc showed me what would be going where, and pulled on stuff and stretched and poked. I know it’s tough for him, and I am grateful for his support. I’m probably more worried about him in this process than I am about me 
I had some questions about the details of the surgery, placement of the scars, what would be impacted and what would not be impacted… Had to make sure that if the cake tattoo got stretched it only got stretched in the correct way.
The doc’s idea is for the scar to go a fair way around the side – but it will not be a full circumferential… there will probably be six to eight inches in the back that will not be cut, but I’ll be getting rid of a lot of skin in the front, and quite a bit on the side. Unfortunately, there’s some higher up skin on the side that really can’t be impacted by this surgery… but from the description, I think it won’t be something I can’t live with when I am done. (Because, let’s face it, I am pretty much blowing my surgery wad here – I’m not getting multiple procedures).
The cake tattoo will definitely be stretched up a little as my outer thigh will be pulled up, but it will just make the cake a little taller, which is fine with me – bigger cake is ALWAYS better cake! I just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be lopsided.
I am still having trouble wrapping my head around exactly what’s going to go where… but I think that’s just because I am so used to there being so much of me, I can’t fathom stuff actually being gone. It will be something of an adjustment.
The SB had some questions about the drugs I’d be taking after surgery – and what he’d be doing to help me out in the couple days after the surgery. I might need an arm to keep balance on when I have to get up to potty the first day. And I might need a little help with the drains (kind of a yucky part of this – tubes that come out of the incision to drain the swelling… have to be emptied and measured on a regular basis – I am hoping to manage this myself and spare the SB this part of it, but I might need help for the first day or so).
The last question I had was asked for my dear Tiff… and that was – can anyone take pictures during the procedure? I was kind of expecting a no… but the answer was yes – so if you can believe it, I’m probably going to have crazy disgusting pictures to post of the actual procedure! (hopefully they’ll still be OK with this day-of).
I got my scrips that I need to have filled before the day of the surgery. One is for anti-nausea meds. The other is for Vicotin… which I hope I will not have to take too much of, not being a huge fan of narcotics… but definitely the first couple of days, I think narcotics will be in order. Hopefully won’t be taking all 40 of them, because I think that would represent a goodly number of days.
So that’s the current status… now it’s just the interminable waiting. I start taking the pre-op vitamins on Tuesday, then it’s just ticking off the days until I get to go!
Woo Hoo!
But whoever invented the Twix was a genius. GENIUS, I tell you.
I like to nibble the chocolate off the outside. Then, I scrape the caramel off the cookie with my teeth and eat that. THEN, I eat the tasty, tasty cookie.
TWIX! I love them!
I am completely powerless in the face of proper mac n’ cheese. I must have it. I do not care how many calories are in it or how much fat. The crusty, melty, cheesy goodness MUST BE MINE!!!
Pot Luck Lunches are the devil. The tasty, tasty devil.
Ah well – what else is life for?
So the latest trend in Memes appears to be making them into an “award” – because apparently the entire internet got sick of doing Meme and now everyone has to be BRIBED into participating in these little celebrations of all things narcissistic.
Not me, though. I love Memes. Why? Because any time I can get a free blog topic, I am gonna grab it and run with it!!
So what is is this time?
The lovely and talented Zaftig Chicks have hit me up with The Honest Scrap Award!
Truly, I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I know I have to list some things now that are “honest” – so I get that… but really, given the kind of stuff I am likely to share, If I were less lazy I would have gone ahead and photoshopped the “S” out of that sign…. because that’s what I’ll be sharing here today – a list of crap about me that’s all honest – I swear! Because what is the Internet for except complete honesty!?
So here are the rules of “winning” this “award”:
1) Present this award to 7 others whose blogs you find brilliant in content and/or design, or those who have encouraged you.
2) Tell those 7 people they’ve been awarded HONEST SCRAP and inform them of these guidelines in receiving the award.
3) Share “10 Honest Things” about yourself.
So here we go…
But since plastic surgery is one of those things that people don’t usually talk about, I feel it’s necessary to trumpet it from the ramparts – I am a big believer in better living through medical intervention, whether it’s pills, surgery, or whatever.Well, that was, of course, harder than I thought it would be starting out… probably because I am relatively secretive by nature and to share is to put oneself at risk!
But I got through that… so here’s my list of 7 “awardees” – please feel completely free to decline the award on the grounds that it supports the military-industrial complex in its bid for global domination or whatever…
Al
Cravey
ETW
Tiff
Middle Girl
Rachel
Ron
I’m not linking these so you can say… “Oh, I didn’t see that!” if you decide to not play along
So I got a GIANT package of information about my surgery in the mail.
I am exceedingly please with the amount and kind of information offered by the PS office. (By the way – yes – I will be naming the Dr and the practice… but I thought that I would do so only at the end of this process, so that I would have my opinion of the WHOLE thing to go on before naming any names).
In addition to the typical “what’s involved in your surgery” info that I would have expected (and frankly already knew, having been obsessively researching this for some time now), they also sent some very interesting info about what to expect emotionally after the event, which I WAS surprised by because other than the occasional “General Anesthesia can sometimes cause temporary depression” warning I found, I had not seen the expectations laid out nearly so clearly anywhere else.
It seems that cosmetic surgery has something akin to the “stages of grief” (only not really grief) that pretty much everyone experiences.
The first week I can expect to be on something of an emotional roller coaster… from the first couple of days of drug induced zombieism to later antsiness – wanting to get up, etc. to (I am hoping not) being a royal pain in the ass to the care-giver by the end of the week – all whiney and complaining like.
Also included in week 1 (around day 3, I believe) is the “oh my god, what have I done / why did I do this to myself!) I am going to assume that this is because the swelling peaks around day 2 / 3 and what with that, the bandages, the drains, and the “not able to shower yet”, I can imagine that a lot of people think (at that point) that it might not have been worth it.
Handily, that all gets packed into one wild and crazy fun filled week of at-home recuperation full of couch-sitting and TV watching.
Week 2 brings with it a lessening of the swelling, and, OH JOY! The nit-picky phase of recovery in which I will be all “well the scar is a millimeter higher over here than it is on this side – OMG! The whole thing is RUINED!! RUINED!!!”But on the up-side, physically I should be feeling much much better during week 2. I’ll be going back to work (Because, let’s face it, I have a cushy desk job and it’s not going to e that difficult to come sit in the office instead of sitting on the couch.) I think the hardest part for week 2 will be feeling better, but still be COMPLETELY BARRED from any and all aerobic activity.
Week 3 – Yay! Able to get back to physical activity, swelling pretty much gone, back to feeling like old self, only old self with an awesome flat tummy that I will want to show off to everyone. At this point, I WILL avoid pulling up my shirt to every random passer-by like a three year old with pretty new undies. I do have that much self control, at least.
I am very glad that they included this information in the packet along with more mundane information like the vitamins I have to take and the medicines to avoid and how long until I can exercise, etc. etc.
I feel like now forewarned is forearmed and I can head these crazy thoughts and feelings off at the pass if they start sneaking around in my head. At the very least, I can try to keep them in my head and not inflict them on the SB… for whom I will do everything in my power to make sure his “caretaker” role in this is a relatively easy and painless one and not an endless series of fetching me things and petting my head and reassuring me about whatever crazy OCD thing pops into my skull.
My Pre-op appointment is on Friday, when I will talk to the surgeon about the things I forgot to ask at my consultation, I will see some before and after pics of other surgeries, I will impress upon him the importance of an awesomely cute bully button, and all the other things that I really ought to write down on a sheet of paper as I go along this week so I don’t re-forget when I am in the office.
Only 3 weeks to go!!
So I went down to the men’s homeless shelter today to drop off several bags of hand knitted and crocheted scarves that I and several other ladies at work have been making over the summer.
Dropped them off.
Used the pen there to sign the drop off form.
Now my throat is a little sore, which is something that happens to me all the time, and goes away as quickly as it comes on.
But my brain immediately jumped to… “You went to the homeless shelter! You touched their pen! You must have the flu!”
Like just because it’s a shelter, it’s crawling with super flu bugs that have the capacity to make me sick within 30 minutes of my return.
Sometimes the things my brain will think of surprise even me.
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