Dave’s Home!

23. August 2008 · Comments Off on Dave’s Home! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags:

He was discharged tonight around dinnertime. That “original pain” mentioned in the previous blog post, that sent Dave to the ER on Wednesday night in the first place, hasn’t returned since about this time last night.

A Gastro-Intestinal specialist worked with Dave’s case today and presented this as the cause: mesenteric adenitis. Basically a virus affecting the lymph nodes near the appendix. Read more at the website I linked. I’m anything but smart when it comes to such medical issues. Dave seemed to fit the bill according to the article, though.

He doesn’t regret losing his appendix, we figured it would have hit him at some point in his life. Call it preventive medicine.

Dave’s probably on quarters (i.e., at home on doctor’s orders) for the week, which is fine.

So What Else Could POSSIBLY Happen to Us Here in NE?

22. August 2008 · 8 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Dave went to the emergency room at about 4pm Wednesday with pains near his appendix. After a CT scan at 7pm, it was inconclusive whether it was really appendicitis, but Dave and the doctor made the decision at about 8:30pm to perform a “laproscopic appendectomy” Wednesday night. The surgeon (an Air Force doctor, actually, with privledges at the hospital) was able to look around quite a bit with the camera and couldn’t see any other problems, it’s most likely that Dave was responding to the earliest stages of appendicitis. They removed the appendix. At least that won’t bug him in the future!

Dave’s been in recovery since midnight Wednesday night/Thursday morning. He spent all of Thursday at the hospital with hopes of coming home Thursday afternoon. I spent several hours at the hospital Thursday over 3 visits (Timmy and Jake can only tolerate but so much time in a hospital room).

Unfortunately, he’s still at the hospital. The original pain that brought him to the emergency room in the first place is still present even after the surgery. He’s currently on Vicadin and that’s keeping the pain at bay (and his brain at bay, too!) His surgeon has elevated his case to the next level and on Thursday night a GI specialist is supposed to come in and do a consult.

The response from the families in Dave’s office has been astounding! It’s a little awkward since we just moved here, so in many ways I’m receiving all these offers to watch the boys and cook meals from complete strangers, but they won’t be strangers for long, and of course we’re all family: they’re all part of our Air Force Family!

Tonight Dave’s group commander (a Colonel, it’s his boss’s boss) and his wife brought over spaghetti with (bison) meat sauce that was TO DIE FOR! Too bad the boys took exception to the spaghetti and sauce already being mixed together, and also too bad Dave couldn’t taste it when it was fresh out of the pot. I’ve heard from several other wives asking how they can help out…the meals are great because I’m using the time I would spend preparing meals visiting with Dave.

So that’s where we stand: Dave’s appendix is out, but he’s still in a lot of pain in his lower abdomen. I’m trying to keep busy with the kids and the house — last night in the emergency room, and today while Timmy was napping and Jake was at school, I worked on stamping “We’ve Moved” cards. Cranked out about 50 of them!

Memories II

18. August 2008 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Memories

18. August 2008 · Comments Off on Memories · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,
I’m so happy about this! The past couple houses we’ve had, we’ve hung up a few pictures of the family, but nothing at all like what I’d like. I had many…many….many pictures in frames that you’d prop up on a table, but those had to come down once the curious kids came along. They’d been put away for some 5 years now.
But then I discovered 3M Command Adhesive Picture Hanging Strips! They’re basically Velcro strips that you attach to the picture frame and the wall. Now I could hang non-hooked frames up on the wall!
I asked Dave if we could do a mosaic-style stairwell, and I was thrilled when he offered to put up all the pictures himself! I didn’t know how I’d arrange them, but I just told Dave, “Doesn’t matter the order, so long as they’re all up!”. I think he did a wonderful job.
It looks eccentric, I know, but I love seeing all of our friends and family there.
The next blog post is the wall on the other side of the staircase, which has plenty of space for more pictures. I have several from NC that still need frames.

Nebraska Discoveries 1: The Offutt AFB Airshow!

18. August 2008 · Comments Off on Nebraska Discoveries 1: The Offutt AFB Airshow! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

We didn’t want to fight the crowds, so we watched the show from the levee of Papio Creek on the bike trail near our house. We had a great view of the Thunderbirds show, Dave and I have seen it enough times that we didn’t need the narration anymore 🙂

A Big Red Gamble

15. August 2008 · Comments Off on A Big Red Gamble · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Would you do this? This is a Nebraska Furniture Mart promotion between now and the end of the month.

Fortunately we aren’t in the market for a new TV. Our existing one, circa 2004, came through just fine.

Okay, I’m Officially Excited About Nebraska!

14. August 2008 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

The Thunderbirds are practicing and I can watch the show from my backyard!

Offutt AFB is having an airshow this weekend.

Taking Stock!

14. August 2008 · Comments Off on Taking Stock! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

I get to blog about cooking again, yay! Vegetarians, avert your eyes!

Incidentally, the Offutt AFB commissary just so happens to be the nearest grocery store to our house. How cool is that? There’s a store called Baker’s nearby, but it’s just a couple more traffic lights away. I take 4-lane divided highways to the base, and an exit dumps me out about a mile from the gate nearest the commissary in 10 minutes.

So I check out the selection — not the biggest commissary I’ve been to (that distinction goes to Ft. Bragg), but definitely not the smallest (NAVMAG Lualualei, where I lived from 1977-1980, wins that one). They carry local produce (sometimes) and has a sushi bar and a decent organic foods selection. I see that whole chickens are only $3-4 each, and they’re sized perfectly for our family. About 1/2 the price per pound compared to the Tyson “Whole Chicken Cut-up”. So I pick one up and dissect it for a couple of meals. The breasts went into chicken soft tacos, and last night I oven-fried the leg quarters. Yum.

I’m left with the carcass and wings. I stuck them in the freezer over the weekend and today I started to think about making a chicken ettouffee either Friday or Saturday. My favorite recipe in the whole wide world!

So I decided to break out the carcass and get it simmering on veggies for some homemade stock. I don’t do this often, I typically take the lazy route and use the Swanson’s stuff. I also delved into the blogosphere a bit to see what folks are saying about making chicken stock. Holy cow — who woulda thunk there was so much to say about it?

But I was particularly interested in this posting — everything you EVER wanted to know about chicken stock. Enjoy! It’s definitely rated PG-13 for some frank discussions of chicken parts.

Craft Time is Back!

13. August 2008 · 8 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: ,

Well…I’m trying to bring it back! I can’t even remember the last time I blogged about a craft I’ve done with the boys…

Timmy and I interrupted our crayon-peeling session to pick up Jake from school. When Jake got home he was excited to get to help out. I told the boys we could make multi-colored crayon “muffins” and they thought that was cool.

I used my oldest muffin tin, which I wasn’t really using for real food anymore anyway.

So they chose which colors to put together, I tried to ensure the color combinations weren’t too ugly (i.e., no teal and bright red together). And into the oven they went.

So here’s the before:

And after:

And a close up of one of the “muffins”. Note the white top to the crayon. That’s essentially clear wax and it separates from the coloring in the cheaper crayons. Crayolas don’t do that, but I had mixed in a number of Quizno’s, Bahama Breeze, Fazoli’s, Cracker Barrel and Rose Art crayons in with the Crayolas.

Finally, some shots of the boys coloring (Jake’s making a rubbing of a yo-yo string) , and look how cool Jar Jar Binks looks with red and yellow stripes! That’s all from one crayon!

Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Clean Up!

13. August 2008 · Comments Off on Clean Up, Clean Up, Everybody Clean Up! · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Today, after a VERY long bike ride during which I got extremely lost in an effort to help find Dave a safe bike route to work (by the way, it can’t be done without riding all over highway interchanges), I continued the finer points of unpacking our house.

First off, the moving company made it over this morning to pick up all of our packing material which had been filling our garage. We now have a garage ready for our vehicles!

Yesterday I received a request from Jake’s Kindergarten teacher for “spare” art supplies, plus scraps of ribbon, yarn, sponges, wrapping paper and CDs. Well, Jake’s class will hit the jackpot from us! I found a wad of craft ribbon, tons of yarn leftover from my scarf and blanket projects and several duplicate bottles of paint.

I had been planning to consolidate two plastic drawer bins of art supplies into just one, so I’ve been gathering the pencils, markers, crayons, paints, crayons, paper, crayons, glue sticks, crayons and glitter.

Did I mention crayons?

The original Crayola crayon boxes don’t last in our house. One of the boys will open the box with too much gusto and “poof!”, the top rips right off. Of one of them will empty all the crayons onto the table, and the box falls to the floor. Then I walk past the table and step on the box on the floor. So early on I decided that when the kids got crayons, they’d go into one of those plastic Ziploc containers.

But I now have 4 of those containers, filled to the brim with crayons, plus a good-sized wooden cigar box.

Timmy was on a “must break all crayons” phase this past spring and today I was picking out the pieces of crayons. Timmy is currently on a “must peel all crayons” phase. I was about to throw out all those pieces of crayon and it hit me that I could recycle them into “chunky crayons”.

All you have to do is peel crayon scraps, pop like colors into Dixie cups in a muffin tin and then warm them gently until the scraps melt together.

Chunky crayons will be good for doing rubbings, so says one mother on the link I offered above. Good idea!

Timmy will be tasked with peeling several dozen crayon scraps. He’ll be thrilled! Hopefully he’ll never want to peel a crayon again!

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