As much as I was looking forward to taking a week off, getting to sleep as much as I want and eat ice cream for lunch, I have to say this hasn't been as great as I expected. Monday was pretty good - Zack was here, and I was pretty numb and happily out of it. Then, Monday night, the injections wore off, and the pain set in. Also, my face swelled up.

Tuesday I napped, changed ice packs, edited photos from Mackenzie and Daniel's wedding for about 6 hours straight, and in general felt pretty lonely and yucky and miserable. Also, I discovered that I am allergic to Percoset. I started itching all over, and my feet got very fat. Go figure. Tuesday night was terrible. Restless sleep, pain, bad dreams.

Yesterday my mom came to take care of me for the day, which was very nice. She folded laundry while I slept on the couch, fixed my liquid meals, and brought me heat packs for my face. We watched While You Were Sleeping.

In the evening, I made the mistake of thinking about my job at the clubhouse. Panic has set in. The school year is starting again, which means I'll have to start coming up with activities for Girls' Day week after week after week. I feel sick at the thought of so much pressure. I'm ok with small groups of kids, but with Harrison Prep having just moved into our building, I'm not sure how many girls will be showing up on Monday. Expecting Things of Me. I can't take it! I never, ever wanted to be a teacher, ever ever ever.

Arg, this is making me sick to my stomach. I'm going to go now. I need to take a shower. A shower and a nap.

My face hurts.

Nande Goes Under the Knife!!!!

So I had my wisdom teeth out this morning. Which meant no breakfast today, and nothing whatever to drink. And my appointment wasn't until 10:40 am. Torture! I chewed gum to keep my throat from getting all dry, and my stomach from getting all upset. But I really, really wanted actual food and water. I felt like a mildly crazy person, especially when we went through the Wendy's drive-thru so Zack could order his breakfast sandwich, hashbrowns, and orange juice.

The most interesting part was getting put under. They gave me laughing gas first, which made me feel like one of those shiny helium balloons at the grocery store, all floaty and happy. Then the surgeon (a great big, jolly man who looks uncannily like the captain of the ship in Wall-E; he even coasts around the room on a stool with wheels, rather than walking), gave me an IV, and he and the assistants talked to me to see how the anesthesia was taking hold. I don't remember much of our conversation, only that it was incredibly witty. We laughed and laughed. All the while, a lady in pink scrubs was hovering around me with leather straps, "securing my limbs" to the chair. For my own safety, people. She was super sneaky about it, too. I'd look down and realize, my goodness, I can't move my legs.

After that, everything suddenly went away, and then I was waking up in pain. Lots and lots of pain. I think I moaned a bit, but that is not my fault. I was not in full control of my faculties. Another lady in raspberry scrubs helped me walk into a room with a comfy little bed, where I laid down and she covered me with a blanket. I was shaking all over incontrollably, from the anesthetic.

Zack came in to receive instructions from the nurse. I communicated to him through mumbling and gestures that I needed meds. The nurse gave me something which soon made me feel better.

After that, it was off to the Fred Meyer for my percoset and ibuprofen. Then home, to tuck me up on the couch with ice packs and narcotics. I soon felt as comfy as could be, drowsy and happy, like I could drift cozily in and out of sleep for the next hundred years. Zack has been the absolute best caretaker I could ever ask for - kind, attentive, eager to supply my every need. He makes me smoothies and scrambled eggs, brings me ice water, changes my ice packs, gives me my meds. He has endless supplies of patience. I truly could not ask for a better husband.

I should go now - time for fresh ice packs. I only wish Zack could stay home with me all week, but alas, that isn't possible. Someone has to earn the money around here. I won't forget this, though. I've actually enjoyed myself today, and I feel very loved. Best Feeling in the World

xoxo

Sunny Saturday

Yesterday was very hot. The sun was bright in the sky when Zack and I woke up. We did not feel like getting out of bed and going in service, (especially since most people are off on vacation right now, camping at the lake or by the ocean), but we knew we had to. When we arrived at the KH (a few minutes late), we remembered that this was the weekend they had decided to resurface the parking lot. So we had to park on the hill, at the end of a long line of cars, and walk down. We were so late that we didn't know if we'd missed the group, or if anyone besides ourselves would be out at all. (Most of the other cars on the street belonged to the Spanish brothers, or to the parking lot crew). Then we saw Michelle, who had come to meet Jamie Eaton. Val Robinson was there, too, so we had a group!

Michelle said, "I'll drive. And my first stop is Starbucks." Zack said, "Ah, Starbucks. My favorite call." We all got cold drinks (me: my new favorite, the strawberry banana Vivanno). Then we did a bunch of calls, mostly Jamie's. Michelle was down in the dumps, because about a month ago her fiance broke up with her. It was supposedly a temporary thing, while he worked on getting stronger spiritually. But then, when I was at a door with Michelle, she whispered to me what had happened on Thursday. She texted her ex, feeling lonely and blue after not having heard from him for weeks: "Do you think if you don't talk to me I'm just going to go away?" He texted back: "Yes. Go away."

So she was very, very blue.

Zack wants to kick the ex-fiance in the head. I second that.

By noon it was quite hot, and we all headed home. I wanted to go shopping and get Zack some new shirts (we were late for service because he had a hard time finding one to wear). Zack was not very enthusiastic about that idea. Neither of us really likes shopping, especially trying on clothes. Getting dressed, getting undressed, getting dressed, getting undressed, standing in a cramped little cubicle with bad flourescent lighting, while your hair gets messier and messier.

So we went to Target and got some accessories for his new desk instead. Also I bought some stuff to decorate our kitchen. I am new to decorating, so I'm taking it one room at a time. The kitchen is a snap: Zack's mom gave us beautiful new dishes with an old-fashioned provincial pattern in red. And since red is very in for kitchens these days, it was easy to find stuff to go with them. The kitchen feels much more homey now and much less institutional.

When we got home, someone texted Zack about football in the park, so he went off to hang out with the guys, and I went to the library. I checked out Nicholas Nickleby, an old favorite, which I haven't read since 2005.

Later Zack came home almost ready to collapse with heat stroke, and said he'd had fun playing football, but it was very, very hot. He took a cool shower, and then we ran a few more errands. We bought Pongo a new toy, and watched the hamsters in the pet store fight over their running wheel. They were very cute and I wanted to buy one. But I didn't.

The End

The Great Office Clean-Up

This has been a very, very, verrrry long day, but a good one :)

I cleaned out our office. Tate helped. It was a Herculean Labor, one which I have been studiously avoiding ever since we moved in and the office became a Room In Which to Stash Things. Anything and everything. If there wasn't a place for it, and we didn't want it cluttering up the front room, overflowing the coffee table or blocking our view of the television, we shoved it into the office. Donated furniture, crates of books, filing cubes, electronic equipment, etc. etc. Since the only way out onto the patio is through the sliding doors in the office, I made a little tunnel through the mess. Whenever anybody showed up unexpectedly at the front door, I would have to make sure the office door was closed before I answered.

The office became our guilty secret, an obstacle to dinner parties, an annoyance which we shoved to the back of our minds and tried to ignore. But it was always there. And today I just couldn't take it anymore. So I tied on an apron, turned on some music, and dove in. It was a big, big job. Happily, Tate showed up around 2:00 in the afternoon, just as I was starting to lose steam. We shifted furniture, emptied boxes, sorted odds and ends, took out trash and recycling, tidied shelves, and cleaned bookcases. We ended up finishing with it all barely 20 minutes before Zack got home from work (I had been wanting to surprise him).

Needless to say, he loves our new, tidy, almost-clutter-free office. In fact, the first thing he did after taking a look around and marveling at all the work we had done, was head off to Target to buy a new desk. He and my brother put it together, and then we had pizza and root beer to celebrate. Oh, and Zack presented me with a box of chocolates and a thank you card, which was very sweet. While we ate, we watched an episode of The Andy Griffith Show ("Barney's Replacement"), and then Tate had to go home, Zack had to try out his laptop on his brand new desk, and I had to fold laundry and wash my hair.

I am so tired now, my brain is full of fog. And so, off to bed with me.

xoxox

Early Morning, Blackberries, etc.

I really did not want to get up at 6:00 for early morning service. I had to drag myself out of bed, and as I sort of wandered around in a fog, getting ready, I felt very, very grumpy. It's a good thing Zack was asleep, because I would not have been very nice to him.

It was a dark, cloudy, windy, wet-but-not-rainy morning, everything still dripping from the storm last night, and little yellow leaves sticking to my car and to the roads, giving our neighborhood a depressingly autumnal look, despite the fact that this is still August, with more than a month of summer left to go. I saw Leslie Eaton behind me at a traffic light, looking bright and chipper as ever, and I thought gloomily to myself that I was going to have to make an effort at cheerfulness, for the sake of the car group.

Yesterday morning, as we pulled into Starbucks at 8:00 am for our first coffee break of the day, we saw Leslie and her mom just leaving, off to Seattle for their Annual Mother-Daughter Day. They looked so happy and energetic that I envied them, out for a day of shopping, restaurants, and the art museum. Today Leslie had a new umbrella that she got in the SAM gift shop, decorated like one of Claude Monet's paintings. She told me all about their day out, and I found myself cheering up as I listened, and thought about the fact that Zack and I both love impressionist painters, and we have never yet gone to the city together.

It Is About Time.

It ended up being a very cheerful morning indeed. I bought Leslie coffee with my Starbucks card, which felt so good, being able to give her something, even though she is well-to-do and I am poor.

I placed two sets of magazines, with two very nice people. Back at the KH, Leslie made me photocopies of her August OKM, (we were so out of the loop while I was in pioneer school that somehow Zack and I missed getting ours, which has made Tuesday night meetings rather difficult). Now all is well and we can study for the Oral Review next week. I am happy about that.

Now it's about 10:00, I'm back home for the day, and I had a delicious breakfast of blackberries, yogurt, and granola. We picked the blackberries yesterday, while Tate was here. We had gone out for a walk up and down the hill, and the berries were so tempting along the way that we ended up going back home for a tupperware container, so we could pick some. Zack had put out our garbage a day early, by mistake. "Oh well," I said, as we walked past our garbage bin, all lonely at the side of the street, "at least it's done, so you won't forget tomorrow." Tate added, "The early bird gets the worm. Or, in this case, garbage." And then we laughed about the early bird getting the garbage.

All in all, it's shaping up to be a pretty good day. I have plenty of chores to keep me busy, and Zack is coming home for lunch.

I am happy :)