Then left the ground to circle the earth...

Dear Doll-face,

I have been putting off blogging and waiting for the positive spin.  I'm here to report there isn't much positive in sight, and I can't go a solid week without a blog, that's just not right.

This is actually my grandmother's wedding dress.

This weekend was my grandparents on my dad's side 50th anniversary party.  Besides having to pose for pretty pictures and having to pretend that my step mom was my mom for those pictures, it went mostly alright.  I made it out alive.  It was very sweet, many people showed up to with congratulations.  I was distracted though, very very distracted.

Last week my grandpa Snider was put on some pain medication, and he started to hallucinate badly.  We pulled him off the medication right away.  In the beginning he knew he was seeing things, he knew that although he could see grandma, she was dead.  This changed rapidly.  Friday night my mom went over and asked him where he wanted to go for Pizza, he proceeded to ask "Mother" where she wanted to go. Mom pulled all the stuffed animals off the couch and tried to show him that no one was there, and that's when he turned to the vacuum cleaner and started talking to it.  She had to pry it out of his hands, he really believed it was Grandma.  She took him to the ER Friday night and Saturday we put him in a nursing home.  He see's grandma in everything.  He at one point kept pointing to an invisible man with a shotgun who was holding grandma hostage.

He's been pulling apart things and trying to fix them. He sees loose screws and bolts that don't really exist.  When Michael and I got to the home, he smiled and greeted us, but he looked right through me.  It's like I was just another phantom that only he could see.  It all happened so suddenly.

Since he has a medical condition and suffers from TIA's it is impossible to tell if he's recently had a major stroke, or has just been throwing more clots.  The hypoxia caused by his emphysema could also be a contributing factor to his sudden loss of know-where.  His in a less than 24 hour span his ankles have started to fill with fluid, which is a classic symptom showing that his blood flow to his feet is becoming labored. The blood cannot preform all of it's functions, which includes taking away waste fluids.

I have never seen my grandfather this way. He's almost child like, not nearly the stoic man who raised me.  He wouldn't have wanted me to see him that way.

Since we cannot pin point an exact cause of the sudden downturn, everyone has a theory. Some doctors and nurses (including my mother) believe he may have had a more major stroke that went unnoticed.  Others cite knowledge that some older people have sudden mental breaks often after suffering major bone damage (and since he sustained a sudden but subtle back injury, this may be likely). Trishia and I, along with a lot of the staff at the nursing home see broken heart syndrome. He has always had a heart condition, and has barely survived more than two major heart events.

I also have taken to a more cryptic translation as of late.  Here at the end, he has been making preperations, giving things to people, making sure he's telling everyone he loves them.. I think he was preparing for death.  I think he really is seeing Grandma, I think she's here for him.  I can't explain it but in that nursing home I swear I smelled white diamonds.  Sure, it's a classic smell that many older women enjoy... but what if.. what if she's really there.  What if she's back for him, and waiting to be by his side when the end comes?

It's back to half asleep nights for us, waiting for the phone to ring, and waiting for the end to come.  This weekend my cousin and aunt are driving out from Kansas to help wrap up some loose ends, to try and be here before the end.  I'll be going back up too.

I'll try and keep you posted, I'll make more of an effort to blog.  Last night Michael reminded me that not everything had a positive spin, and he's right. I've got to share the good and the bad.  Right now, there is just a lot more bad than good.

We love  you, and we really miss you.  I especially miss the late night company.  Take care of yourself.

Only TWO Days

Dear Doll-face,

Holycrapimsotired. Today was day two out of my six day run. I'm already exhausted.  Also, managers are supposed to answer all the questions BEFORE they leave town for 10 days. Srsly.

Also, I killed this:

Death by Windex.

Actually, I killed two of them.  The second one I murdered today I hit with a fly swatter.  It kept buzzing around me after I hit it and I freaked the crap out, then it fell to the floor. That's when I noticed that I had decapitated it when I hit it. It's front half took one more joy fly after the split, but it's but was laying on the floor about a yard away.  So gross.  Still, I thought you should know about it.

Also, I hate wire hangers. You see, when you bring me a box of "Old wire hangers we've had shoved in the back of our closet for years" it's actually very similar to bringing a used french fry box to McDonald's.  The smile on your face makes it impossible for me to turn you away, however it's mostly just awkward because at both a Dry Cleaners and a McDonald's, the thing you are handing us is just garbage you couldn't bring yourself to throw away.  Don't get me wrong, it's great that you want to recycle, however if you wouldn't put your clothes on them, we aren't going to put clothes people pay us to clean on them.

Other than work, I've started a Legacy Challenge family on the sims.  It's pretty hardcore. I'm rounding close to adulthood for my second generation *the founder's children* and we've got a nice two bedroom house with most of the necessary items for a functional home.  I have a lot more simoleons in the bank, but I'm waiting for that second generation to get married before I start building a bigger house. I'm actually thinking about just sitting down with a sheet of graph paper and planning out my house floor plan that way ahead of time. This way I can just tear down what I have, and when I begin construction for the next generation I can just be building towards the floor plan. Rooms can be converted into different rooms as need be.  Sure, that might lead to some awkwardly big rooms and empty rooms for a while, but at least I wouldn't be wasting time/money on the build.

Anyway, I'm gonna start boiling some chicken so I can make BBQ sandwiches.  I'm probably also gonna boil some eggs while I'm at it.  

Love ya darling  :D We miss you x10000000000000000000000000000000000000.  Or something like that.

A new tactic.

Oh Doll-face,

Although as a whole, I think our flea problem is getting better, the battle is starting to take a serious toll on one of our Privates.  L is the most infected of our bunch, sadly he's the only one of the lot that never goes outside thus our baby with the least exposure is being hit the hardest.  We can't have this, it's not fair to him.

Also, in light of Bella and Charlie being due for a rabies shot, we turn to the vet, for L's sake. He's got himself in a vicious cycle.  We don't know if he itched first, or he got himself a scab playing with Killer (which is actually very likely we noticed his scabs appearing before the flea outbreak) but he has had a trend of fresh scabs on his neck and under his chin, which is fresh blood that draws the fleas to him.  Then because scabs are itchy and fleas are itchy he scratches... and he has no self control over his claws so he opens wounds and then more fleas flock.

The poor thing.  Last night I attacked him with a flea comb and my first couple of swipes just pulled out lots of dry skin and flea dirt, but then quickly I started to comb out fleas.  I have not seen THIS many fleas since we brought Killer home from the farm as a baby.  He sat so still for me too and even began to purr as we pulled out fleas combing his entire neck and chin area.  I'm thankful he at least realized that we were helping him. The other cats won't sit for that comb at all.. but also they don't have nearly as many as he does.

So this morning your brother called in another General, the vet, and set an appointment for Bella and Charlie and while he's there he'll be getting some heavy hitting prescription flea medicine.  I imagine that means tomorrow EVERYONE will get another bath and then get medicated.  Over this weekend your brother and I will diligently be moving furniture and vacuuming to eradicate the buggers from our house to try and keep the infections from sticking around.

Update: It has been 24 hours since  wrote the first half of this blog.  We went to the vet and everyone got a Flea pill, by the end of the night we had no more live fleas. Yay!  Also Today Bella got a bath to kill off eggs (the pill kills fleas once they bite and lasts a month in the system.. this means eggs will still hatch but fleas will die upon first bite) and she got a new collar, because I said so.

Right now I'm eating turkey pot pie that your brother made from scratch, and he is tipsy from having too much wine. If I stop updating after tonight it's because I died due to eating your brothers drunken cooking.

Love ya and miss ya!

The War Zone

Dear Doll-face,

The battle for the house rages on. We have begun to start to battle fleas in the house with as much force as we are battling the fleas on the animals.  They will soon regret the  day that they decided the infest our animals.

It took a lot of self control not to just eat
 the apples by the spoon at this stage.

Last night I made a delicious pie.  It was carmel apple pecan strusel. It was just your typical apple pie, but then we add pecans and caramel to it.  The top, instead of being your typical pie crust was a strusel mix with pecans and drizzled in carmel. I am also proud to say that I made the crust myself.  Suck on that Martha Stewart.   I've been in the mood to cook (read: had a lot on my mind and cooking sort of calms me down) so I've got plans to make your brother a pot pie this week, probably tomorrow night.  I bought pie crusts for it, but I might just make my own again.. I feel like buying it and then making the rest from strach is cheating.

I've been all out of sorts lately, tension is building and my grandmother is throwing down the heat when it comes to getting her great grands.  Ye olde grandmother has made sure to mention when my cousin plans on starting a family.  She doesn't quite understand why Michael and I can't just move out of your parents house and move on with our lives.  I don't blame her for not understanding because sometimes I don't understand it all myself.  I just wish she'd remember that we're suffering at times, and reminding us of how "normal marriages" work isn't helping or making the situation any easier.

The caramel hadn't melted yet, but this is
mostly how it looked. So good.

Gosh I miss my friends.  Miss is really and understatement.  I've been the kind of lonely that no matter how much Michael tries, he just can't fix.  I miss having someone near by to chat with about everyday bull honkey.  I particularly miss having another girl around.  Someone near by that I can confide in.  I know I need to have friends, but that doesn't make making them any easier.  I wish it did.  I made a half hearted comment about needing friends the other night at our roommate echoed it back and he probably didn't realize it at the time, but I nearly burst into tears. I've also been pretty sensitive as of late.  I probably just need a good weekend to clear my head.  Maybe when Batman comes out in a few days I can talk Michael into movie marathon.

Anyway, I'm going to head out for the night, I have an eye doctors appointment in the morning, and then I'm going to order new glasses afterwards from a website my mom's coworker Peg suggested to me.  Holy crap good glasses for so much cheaper...  Have a good day/night Doll-face, we are missing you to death.

Flea Season

Hey Doll-face,

It is flea season.  We officially found one on Bella and she got her flea bath the very next day. She is still infected so she gets another bath on Thursday next week.  The bottle says to repeat weekly until they are gone, and we intend to beat this.

You forget he's not panther sized until he's soaked.

The cats exploded with them.  Even L was not safe from the invading fleas.  The internet gave some homemade solutions for flea control in your house so we are going to be boiling some lemons and then spraying the lemon water on the carpet and on the couches/chairs of the house.  It will probably smell amazing and it's supposed to kill the fleas.  The bonus of this mix is that it can also be used on the animals.  You can just sort of give them a spritz with it every few days to help them.

Charlie saved his energy early in the bath and made
a valiant effort at escape towards the middle of it.

All three cats got a flea bath today, and they will all get another next week.  Plenty fell dead in the water but we pulled four more live ones off Charlie several hours after the bath.  We did give them meat for the their time though.  Hopefully once we get the house sprayed and we re-bathe them next week we can get back to our 0 population.  We had been doing so well this summer so far!

This morning we woke up to NO water.  Our neighbors had an emergency so they shut off what the city thought was our neighbors dedicated water line.  Nope.  You see, there are two water lines dedicated to our house.  There is one that shuts off the water to us, and then there is one that shuts off us and the neighbors.  The city informed us they would be looking into the situation and let us know what their plan to correct this would be... (aka construction work in our yard probably).  It was deff a crazy Friday the 13th.  Bella knocked over and shattered a glass, I stepped on some of it, the cats had to be washed... little things. I'm surprised no one caught on fire..


We have also been brushing out Bella's undercoat with a rake we bought, and trimming up her hair to try and keep it neater.  She's still long and pretty but she just looks a touch more kept.  We got a spray to help with her itching on her thighs where she has pulled most of the fur off from itching.  She used to be afraid of it but she is slowly realizing that she feels better after we spray her.

Killer's a squirmy little monster, but even
 he did not escape the mighty hands of your brother.

Anyway, so that's all that has really happened lately. I still have mega allergy issues so no real news there.  We also found out that my cousin just set her wedding date for January 11th 2013.  Evidently she is going to work for two years and then start a family.. what a timeline.  At their pace they will beat Michael and I to the punch for sure... unless we count you. In that case Michael and I mega win, we've already had a teenager.

Take care of yourself, love you!

And then I got completely----

Distracted.

Hey Doll-face,

I fail. My allergies have taken over me so really it's all I can do to be a functioning person as of late. Therefore I have been playing the sims.

I created a sim named Rex Starr, and he is a world class adventurer. He has completed 4 relic collections and is half way through the other 4.  He has raided over 6 tombs in all three locations, and he has a daughter who's mother is "Chinese"

Here are some pictures of Starr Point... the mega mansion I spent 4 hours creating.

View from back porch balcony.

Dining Room

Entrance from dining room door.

Entrance from second story.

The outside of the house, and that's Rex riding away on a Kenspa.

Study.

Not pictured in these photos because I was falling asleep trying to finish this up and post this horrible blog:  The basement nectary below the garage where all his tinkering and potion making stations are.  The main living room with more complete artifact collections, the master suit/bedroom, my dream kitchen, the back yard with pool, hot tub, and mini zen garden, the daughters room, or the spare bedroom for more accidental children.  I also built a laundry room/gym.  There is also a small garden house thing outside but he doesn't know crap about gardening yet so I guess there will be more to come.

Anyway, this has been a horrible blog.. I basically said nothing important, I'm sorry I suck.

On the other hand if you like seeing my current sim family/what I am building leave me a comment and I'll keep doing it.  

The other day when you spent way to long playing Maple Story with your brother-- I haven't seen him that happy since you left.  You should do it more often.  I love ya darlin!

Uneventful-ish

Dear Doll-Face,

The past few days have been fairly uneventful. My allergies have my eyes bloodshot so bad that I've mostly looked like a stoner.  The heat has let up just a touch, and we finally got a fan so we can sleep in our bedroom at  night.

The very first night we were back in our own bed, L woke me up by nibbling on my hand. I sat up and Bella was sitting in our doorway watching L.  So much for getting away from her..

We had dinner at Fedor and Natasha's house tonight. We got the see the baby who was two weeks and one day old today!

I didn't have a camera or I would have taken a picture.  SO CUTE. He is adorable. Amazing.  Natasha looks tired, very tired.  Lovely but exhausted, just like a new mom normally looks.  We had a decent time, we spent three hours there. It was nice to get out of the house. Michael and Fedor did most of the talking but I was tired from being at work all day so it was nice to just sort of zoink out.

I have been watching a lot of this girl's videos lately. You might find some of them adorable. I also went on a 36 hour Sims 3 world adventures binge.  Seriously... 36 hours..  This is probably why I don't have much to talk about.

My cousin Kelly just got engaged to Jayr.  It happened at church camp evidently. I can't say that I didn't see that coming. I guess now I can go ahead and get knocked up, right?  You totally wan to be an aunt, right?  I have an idea, you should tell your brother that you want an niece of nephew. That will totally make it happen..

Maybe.

I have baby brain so much worse now that I got to see Dasha tonight. Soooo bad.   We have also been thinking about shaving Bella. She is sctraching, horribly, but we have yet to find a flea on her (we have been searching for them everyt ime we get a hand on her).  We also noticed she had scabs so Michael checked to see if it was flea dirt, but no it wasn't.  We got her some puppy itch cream and haven't used it yet.  We will once we decide if we should shave her down or not.  I'll keep you updated.

Anyway, my eyes are burning from the allergies, and I am super duper tired, so I'll bid you goodnight and write again soon. We miss you, take care of yourself.