through the wire

"I broke my jaw in two places last night but I don't need any wiring or anything. Just thought you would want to know."

the message i got a few weeks ago from dan. "you better call your dad," i told aaron. "danny broke his jaw last night."

"what?"

after finding out details: running and sliding on ice, falling, hitting his chin on a friend's knee, we're told he's doing good and will be on a liquid diet for the next week. mark took him to a radiologist the following day and that's how they found out it was fractured in two places.

after dan went back to u of i, mark asked an oral surgeon friend if anything else needed to be done. long story short, he recommended dan see a specialist to make sure everything was healing properly. mark drove up to champaign and took dan to see an oral surgeon. it was decided that full metal gear was needed to stabilize his jaw. to ensure no movement would cause it to fracture more. considering how it got fractured in the first place, it was definitely a good idea. now poor dan can't talk or eat anything unless it's in pureed form.

i've never seen what a jaw wiring looks like so i asked him to send me a photo. behold.

looks like braces for your gums. they compromised and he's getting the vertical wires taken out next week, so he'll be able to talk again. don't know if that's a good thing! :) a few weeks later he'll get the rest taken out. now he's a walking advertisement why you shouldn't run and slide on ice, kiddies!

big hair, class of 1993

this evening dana bombarded my cell with old photos from high school. all of them were new to me. and most of them should have been burned instead of shared. i don't think my hair could have gotten any bigger. embarrassed? no. funny? hell yeah! now it's my turn. we're supposed to get snow tonight and tomorrow. know what i'll be doing. high school friends beware.

bacon on the brain

a couple of weeks ago, jen had her appendix removed. as a 'get well gift' i sent her a few slices of bacon. yes, bacon. if you've checked out loopy rocket you'll know she has an undying love for the pork product. all i can say is that i made her a very happy gal. you're so welcome, jen!!

walls of pain

i started wallpapering yesterday. what was i thinking? it's a lot harder than i anticipated. i thought by starting somewhat small, the master bathroom, i'd be able to get my feet wet and be hanging like a pro in no time. apparently our bathroom is the definition of "wallpapering around the tricky spots," (a brochure i picked up before starting). and our bathroom is a lot bigger then the lady at lowes thought. i had measured before i went in to order the paper. i then forgot to bring in said measurements. but i thought i could wing it and told the lady what i was papering. "two should be enough," she told me. and when i picked up the order i thought the same thing. "what am i going to do with all this extra paper?" ding. once i started, i knew i was gonna be in trouble. i'll have to go back this afternoon and order at least two more rolls. i'll be posting before and after pics once i finish with the two rolls i have. it may be a few more weeks before it's completely done. i do have to say, i am getting better with each strip and it does look good. i should have started with a room that didn't have so many in-corners, out-corners, fixtures, tight spots, etc. another lesson learned.

on another note. i rarely encounter a rude person in boone. at least not one of a local persuasion. when i went to pick up the wallpaper, the interior electronic doors at lowes wouldn't open. they were open just a crack. i stood there waving my arms, stepping here and there in front of the sensor. nothing. i walked over to the service department and told the girl they wouldn't open. "it's the wind."

okay. so i walked back to the doors and tried to get the doors to open again. she walked over, pulled the doors open and again said "it's the wind." and turned and walked off. i don't know why this bothered me so much. perhaps it was the "it's the wind, moron." look she had on her face. that i was supposed to know it was okay pry open the doors myself. AND that there was no freaking wind blowing.

it's the first time i've ever had the desire to report someone. man, i'm getting old!

it runs in the family

my uncle dick won the 'world wide trails top outdoor photograph of 2007' contest. the local paper wrote an article about him in sunday's paper. the photo and the article were on the front page of the outdoor Xplore section. way to go, uncle dick! being artistically inclined does run in the family.

his name is john, my dad's name is john, and my grandpa's name was john. so we called him: dick, my dad: joe, and my grandpa: jack. just thought i'd clarify. it made sense at the time! ;)

lady and wood

on our way to san antonio, i passed the time working on a few projects from the "doodle stitching" book i got a few weeks ago. here is my first project done in completion. too cute. i've been on a ladybug/wood grain kick lately. right now i'm working on another altoid tin. next week i'll start brian and irina's throw pillows along with setting up shop. goal for the month of february is to get something up and going. i'm about 75% there.

we decided not to do anything for valentines day. at least that's what we told each other. no gifts, no nothing. aaron came home with a big bouquet of flowers and i had made some valentine brownies. originally i made a batch of sugar cookies that turned out horribly wrong. i followed the recipe for cookie-cutter cookies, but something went awry. they were heart-shaped and they weren't burnt but they were rock hard. so into the trash they went.

when desert time came around, i used the heart cookie cutter to cut out a brownie, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream, added a few raspberries, powdered sugar and chocolate syrup. it looked divine. i almost ran upstairs to take a pic of my creation. aaron was impressed. all in all, we had a good day!

memory lane

with the arrival of adobe creative suite, i have deemed it necessary to clear off hard drive space. i will be moving all 3000 photos to disk. before doing so, i'm gonna post a few photos that are blogworthy. most are from our time in springfield. only 3000? remember this time last year, we had a major malfunction with the macbook. i lost the equivalent plus some. now on to the photos.

who do you love?

when we first started dating i told aaron if he ever wanted to get married he'd have to get a tattoo. a small sacrifice to prove his love. actually i told him it had to be large, no dinky taz or tweety for my man. maybe my name across his chest or a dragon across his back. of course he told me tattoos weren't his thing. i'd keep chipping away til he changed his mind. eight years later, they still weren't his thing. i knew he wouldn't budge on the subject, so i ended up compromising in the end. happily married, me inked and him naked of art.

i came across the perfect alternative on etsy today. uncorked sells the cutest symbols of love. i considered buying a set for us, especially with valentines day approaching. i'm almost positive he'd be happy to receive it and i'm equally sure he wouldn't wear it. but i thought i'd share these original gifts in case anyone else is still looking.

he doth protest

When we went out of town this past weekend we had a girl, gracie, watch the dogs. She offered to stay at the house a few nights too, which I was really happy about. I had talked to aaron about boarding them, just because both dogs have been having "accidents" when we were away. But since gracie was going to stay the night, I'd decided against.

I did expect there to be pee in a few places when we returned, and there was. Bosco seems to really regress when we leave even with someone around. I've found a few times where, if we let marley sleep in the bed, he gets out, trots downstairs and pees to express his protest. Anyways, we cleaned up the messes and for some reason I thought there might be more than what the eye was seeing.

I asked aaron if he could bring home the uv light they use to spot skin cancers so I could double-check. Yep, big mistake. He brought the light home, I waited til dark and then set out looking for urine. Turned on the light in the front room and to my surprise the floor lit up like a crime scene. The little turd, i mean urinator, had been using the front room as his personal toilet! Pretty much had lifted his leg to every piece of furniture in there.

We hardly use the room, and the carpet is green so I never noticed anything before. I promptly went out and got a steam cleaner and a blacklight of my own. (Funny how we're using a blacklight to light up pee rather than posters.) I cleaned the mess, deodorized and vacuumed. Luckily, our carpet is stain-resistant so it all came up easily. I made sure there wasn't any other "accidents" in the house. Found a few upstairs, mainly where my brother stayed with his little dog. Cleaned those and now hopefully with everything gone it'll deter him from doing it anymore.

Now I've added to my ocd obsession. I'll be prowling the house nightly with blacklight in hand looking for messes! Not only does the blacklight pick up urine, it also picks up dust and dirt among other things which the naked eye doesn't detect. Fun for me!

meet me in san antonio

awes and i returned from our long weekend in san anton yesterday. let's just say we had an absolutely fabulous time. it was so great seeing everyone from the patch. i didn't realize how much i missed everyone. it was like old times, back with a vengeance. i'll be posting a link soon to all the fun that was had by all.