I love you, Daniel. I’m going to do everything in my power to take away your gray skies.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Yesterday, Round Two of Jenn Being Stupid and Overdoing Things (my recovery is going slowwwwwwwwwwww in terms of feeling more like myself and not having narcotic-worthy pain if I overdo things) started nice and early. What I thought was getting up with just the kids turned into getting up with the kids and taking them to the bus stop, then driving my brother to school, who overslept. After that I did some local errands, including the purchasing of Christmas post stamps for the approximately fifty cards we’re sending out this year to family and friends. I also went to the grocery store, and between food for us, baking stuff, and donations for a local food pantry, I filled up an entire shopping cart, and then some. You know you bought a lot when you’re pushing a full cart to the checkout lane and you’re holding stuff in your hands. An employee loaded my car for me, but I still had to unload it when I got home. Ugh.

I got home just in time for the UPS man! And this is where I blog about why I made Dan stop at Best Buy so I could buy him A Very Special Surprise. The Very Special Surprise was a 24″ LED monitor, to go along with an amazing, incredible, generous gift from a friend of mine on Facebook: an amazing, sexy, monstrous beast of a computer. My friend contacted me out of the blue to ask if I wanted it as he no longer needed it. When he told me the stats my jaw literally dropped. Of course I wrote back and said yes. I didn’t want it for me, I wanted it for Dan, who hasn’t had a desktop in a very long time, and has been wanting a high-end gaming one for a very long time. I have been trying to somehow budget one in during the past few months, and even thought of trying to surprise him with one for Christmas – but it just wasn’t going to happen. And then this gift fell into my lap — or more literally, on my doorstep the day after I wrote back to my friend to thank him and say yes. I also sent him a money order to reimburse him for the shipping, and I plan on sending him some more money after we get paid next week. He strictly insisted on it being a gift, but it’s too generous of a gift for me not to repay something towards.

Of course I couldn’t wait until Christmas to give Dan this incredible, AMAZING gift. Since he took me to Victoria’s Secret for a professional bra fitting and a gorgeous hot pink sparkly bra on Wednesday night, and called it a belated anniversary gift, I insisted on doing the same with the computer. I set it up (my friend even included a mouse and keyboard, and I found a cheap set of Logitech speakers at Target) yesterday afternoon and slapped a bow on it, and surprised Dan with it when he walked in from work last night. He was — and still is — in absolute geeky heaven. ♥

People are amazing. Life is amazing. It may have its up and downs, but I love life, and I love my life.

But speaking of downs… my brother isn’t doing well, emotionally/mentally. We don’t know if it’s because of his medication, the delayed reaction to everything that happened last spring and summer, him coming to terms with his “new” life and the requirements of it, or a combination of things, but after some situations this week, and phone calls with his teacher and social workers this morning, Dan and I will be taking Puff to the hospital’s emergency room for a mental health evaluation/intake/inpatient treatment. We’re leaving in ten minutes. I just informed my brother, and he is not happy. But it’s the best thing for him, because things can’t go on the way that they are. Sigh. Wish us luck!

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

I overdid things this morning, and stupidly took a pain pill on an empty stomach. An hour later Dan and the kids arrived home with aforementioned Christmas tree, and I ate a few fries from their McDonald’s stop. Fifteen minutes later, I had to vomit. Sdfgrhewe!!##@& It was painful. So painful. I was holding my abdomen tightly with both hands for support, but still I cried and gasped and half-choked as I heaved. Blech. That was definitely the bad. The nausea and urge to heave continued even after I knew my stomach pouch was empty, so I took a headache-inducing (so I also took two Tylenol to counteract the headache that I knew would result – god I hate taking meds for meds!), drowsiness-inducing anti-nausea/anti-vomiting pill and laid down – and wound up falling asleep for several hours.

Tonight Jason (who is very very awesomely awesome awesomesauce) came over with two of my random food cravings, a Hershey bar and the fixings to make Rotel tortilla dip (it’s nothing more than Rotel brand diced tomatoes with green peppers, and a 16 oz. block of Velveeta; melt the cheese and then mix both together and bam, you’ve got Rotel tortilla dip), and even a brownie mix. Whoo!

Right now I’m tucked into bed with everything I could possibly need in reach until tomorrow morning, when my awesome awesome awesome husband (seriously, I can’t go on enough about how awesome and wonderful and caring and supportive and just all around AWESOME Daniel is) will check on me before heading out to do a few hours of hunting – his consolation prize for giving up a nearly week-long hunting trip in order to stay home and take care of my miserable post-op self.

I’m off to figure out Gmail’s new secondary security thing (since, you know, it’d be nice to be able to check my email from my phone and iPod Touch again!), and then I’m going to watch an episode of Hell’s Kitchen. Well, I’m going to try to – it all depends on how long I can continue fighting the sleepiness caused by the pain medication I took about two hours ago.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

Anyway, work-wise I’m pretty much caught up, but I have several reviews and even a giveaway I want to get banged out and scheduled before Monday rolls around!

House-wise, I need to go shopping for a few frozen/easy-to-make meals and some snacks, but other than that I think we’re pretty much situated.

Dan is now offering to cancel his plans to go hunting with his family in order to stay home with me and help me while I’m recovering. I’m torn. The emotional, loving wife part of me is saying NO, GO. But the logical, been-through-this-before part of me, the one who is currently spazzing out over my brother’s behavior and how it’s rubbing off on Alyssa and Ryan, is saying, OH DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN THANK YOU PLEASE DON’T LEAVE I SWEAR I’LL MAKE IT UP TO YOU SOMEHOW. Like I said… I’m torn.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty

But now that I’m having surgery on Wednesday the 23rd, Dan is taking off Wednesday so he can take me to the hospital, be there with me for the morning/afternoon (or as long as it takes to complete the surgery and get me lucid and pain-free enough to discharge me), and then be home with me for the remainder of Wednesday. So that means Dan has to work on Saturday, and depending on when he works on Saturday, there won’t be time/daylight hours for him to take the kids and go Christmas tree shopping.

Nevermind the fact that even if he could squeeze it into Saturday, knowing my recovery from my past two abdominal surgeries, particularly the gallbladder removal (why was that surgery so damn painful to recover from?!), I wouldn’t be up to decorating a tree and hanging lights around the house and setting out candles and other knick-knacks.

And Dan has put his foot down and said no way to a Christmas tree or other decorations next weekend — the weekend before Thanksgiving — since obviously Thanksgiving is a very important holiday and needs to be recognized and celebrated in its own right. And I agree with that. But at the same time, given the circumstances this year, and the fact that I need this surgery as soon as possible, I’m kind of hoping I can wear him down with my pleadings and puppy-dog eyes, heh.

Thank you for subscribing to Jenn.nu's RSS feed! ♥ Jenn | Flickr: kiss-my-kitty | Twitter: @kissmykitty