The Periphery of the Mind

The bad:

The washing machine broke. We're looking at upgrading, and with a kid (or is it kids?) on the way, we'll probably want something bigger. Still, we're talking about a $500-$600 purchase in short order. And if we get a bigger washer, we'll probably want a bigger dryer ASAP, but we intend to run the existing dryer "into the ground" first. I was waiting for a big financial bomb dropping, and this was it.

Tweety's wing isn't doing so well, and Maryanne's taking him to the vet. There's another $30-$200. And that's assuming he'll actually get better. But she's using her maternity leave fund to cover it, so that's not going to cost us or anything. (We've put a moratorium on getting any future pets until we get rid of two existing ones, and the canaries count as one and the fish count as one. We got Tweety to replace Terra the parrotlet, and we're not doing that again.)

I had an allergic reaction at the in-laws' yesterday so bad my eyeball was swelling. It's gone down, but it's still sore and slightly swollen at the bottom. If it isn't better by the end of the day... I guess we'll put my doctor's visit on the credit card since.

We spent about... $320 on credit cards yesterday, on top of another $140 from checking, before all of this happened.

The good(ish) news:

We finally got some nice matching plates and bowls and saucers and mugs at Wal-Mart. 3 sets of 4 of each, for about $115. Now we can get rid of all of our mismatched random plates and bowls and saucers and mugs. They're very pretty, and we're calling it our early anniversary present to each other.

I picked up three shirts yesterday at Target for $60. They were nice, and Maryanne's been begging me to get more shirts. It's pretty hard for me to find shirts I like in my size, and she seemed to think they looked nice.

We got some new shoes yesterday. I needed something for the winter as the soles on my old ones were worn out, and she needed new shoes as hers were completely worn. $80ish for both.

I got a leather blazer. $325, but it was on sale at the Rogers' Kohls for $189.99. But all they had in my size were damaged, so we went to Fayetteville to see what they had, and they had a blazer I liked, but it wasn't on sale. So I took it back to the Customer Service desk to see if they'd price match the store in Rogers, and not only wouldn't they, but they got Rogers to stop the sale too. Seems there was a screw-up or some such in Rogers, and they weren't supposed to be on sale. So we went home and I checked online and found the blazers for sale still, for $189.99, in the color and size I wanted. And with free shipping! But I still had to pay sales tax of 6%. On the upside, there was a 30% coupon code I found at www.retailmenot.com, so that when all was said and done I got a $325 brown leather blazer for $145. I could have gotten a slightly better deal come Black Friday, but now I have a light jacket for October and Novemeber that we're calling my early anniversay present (Maryanne's was a new adjustable easel). And I've been looking for such a jacket for at least three years now.

So we're out around a grand this weekend, but I don't really see anything too frivolous that we bought. Nothing we absolutely needed, but nothing that was a bad expenditure of money either. Shirts? Shoes? A nice jacket? Dinnerware? A washing machine? Still, I hate to know where all our extra money is going for the next few months.

Labels: weekend recap

Saturday, Maryanne and I went out to Hobbs State Park and took a backpack out on the Pigeon Roost Trail. Apparently it used to be the home of millions of passenger pigeons, but then they went extinct. On the bright side, I'm glad we weren't hiking through that much bird crap.

Sunday we took a trip to Bass Pro in Springfield and ate at the Hemingway. And vowed never to eat there on a Sunday again; the bill was $30. On the way back we stopped in... Cassville I think, and hit a couple of flea markets. The place was crawling with them, and we'll have more to hit on the way back. That said, my favorite is still the antique store on the way to Clifty Arkansas. Hopefully we can hit there again next year. Lots of nice, antique, well-maintained furniture. They want a pretty penny for it, but it's fun to look.

And today Maryanne's sister Jennifer goes in for an X-ray on her arm. Medical incompetence from an unnecessary tetanus shot may have seriously damaged her arm. Hopefully she'll still be able to play music. Martin meanwhile is dealing with a severely damaged foot his doctor never noticed last year. I'm suspecting that I'm going to be able to learn all about how to handle a malpractice claim before much longer.

Labels: weekend recap

Lot's of stuff....

Bird count is now seven. Yes, seven. We started with Tweety, the yellow parakeet. Then we added Romeo & Juliet, a mating pair of yellow canaries. Add on Casanova and later Esmerelda, a reddish mating pair of canaries. Then R&J had a chick, and he (I'm assuming it's a boy at this point) was out and hoping around his cage this weekend. We're calling him Prospero. Friday night Maryanne picked up a parakeet from her mother, a blue male named "Bleu" (as in Cordon Bleu), to try and tame him up a bit. Whereas Tweety is pretty easy going and a chatterbox, Bleu is just noisy and aggressive. But he's also just a parakeet with a tiny beak. Which means when he bites, it's like a little itch or something. Nothing like Charlie could do.

We borrowed a power washer from Martin and got the North side of the house washed down real nice, and cleaned the patio a bit. The patio still needs some weeding, and some of the bricks have gaps that need to be filled with dirt, but it looks pretty good. In the process of cleaning though, we ruined one of our exterior light fixtures. For some reason there was a major gap in the construction of it that let in water from the washing. Lots of popping and sparking and flaming. Still, the replacement was fairly quick and easy, and just cost us $20.

We also got to fixing the fence. Stormy and termites worked in tandem to ruin one of the posts. So I got to digging and discovered the old post was mortared into the foundation. It looked like they poured the concrete for post and house at the same time. I'll have to extend the fence a bit, but the new post is concreted into place now. Hopefully, by the time it too has rotted away, we'll have moved.

Labels: weekend recap

Went and picked up Maryanne at the Tulsa International Airport. One nice thing about Tulsa is that it's a nice blend of chaos and order; I missed my interstate exit to the airport but was able to easily navigate to it. Anyway, her plane was running late and I was running early, so I got to explore the airport. Which took about ten minutes. At nine in the evening, the airport is fairly dead. Just some car rental agents, local newspaper boxes, and Tyson vending machines to take my money. And while I felt pity for the poor folks working their rental booths, and curiosity towards the Tyson machine (just what did it have to offer), I settled for a free local paper. Which killed another ten minutes and a handful of brain cells.

Eventually Maryanne's plane landed and let her go, and we drove back to Arkansas. It was one in the morning, we were hungry, and our options were limited. We stopped at an IHoP and I was reminded why I never choose to eat there when other restaurants are open. The menu was crummy, the food was mediocre, and the bill was steep. I'll just skip to Denny's next time. I'm sure the experience will be similar, but their place is done up in a 50's theme!

Sunday we went to Shanna's for Katy's birthday, wiped and exhausted. We couldn't stay for the opening of the presents, which is good because I figure everybody else got her much nicer gifts than we did, and I was a little embarrassed by it. But Katy won't care hopefully. So Maryanne and I left early, came home and napped, ran some errands, and then went to bad. And I'm still wiped.

Ah well, it's not like I have a demanding job....

Labels: weekend recap

Friday I got a call from Maryanne. She was having another attack before her visit to a homeopathic doctor. I came, got her, and took her to the doctor. What I saw there was bad. Really bad. What was bad was the "alternative medical practices" I saw. Electro-diagnostics, a push for NAET, and applied kinesiology. Not to mention that the woman admitted she was doing some spinal test or another to fraud the insurance company into covering the rest of her quackery. But damn it, Maryanne actually felt better after visiting her. The woman listened to her symptoms and problems and didn't treat her like it was all in her head. All it took to make Maryanne feel better was an initial $175 payment (plus another $500 or so that insurance covered). Well, that and a Xanax she took.

I was livid, and didn't really appreciate just how desperate Maryanne was getting to have a professional listen to her and give her some hope to treat her problem. The fight was bad, but it was largely due to me not getting an e-mail from her asking me to back off on the attacks against the doctor. But as the weekend wore on, Maryanne started approaching it more skeptically, and I don't think she intends to go back. What really helped was just how much better she felt doped up on Xanax all weekend, and a book Leah gave her on hypothyroidism called Living Well with Hypothyroidism. Now Maryanne feels like she has a bit better control and information over her condition, and she can get it treated properly.

I'm still debating who to contact and file a complaint with, but that can pass I guess.

Sunday was nicer however. We went to church and met Shanna and Shane and Katy, and then Shanna took us for a picnic lunch in Bella Vista where we fed the ducks and geese. A perfect day for it really. Later we had pizza and ice-cream cake at Elaine and Martins for "May birthdays" (Martin 34, Laurissa 28).

Labels: weekend recap

Went to Tulsa Saturday with Maryanne. Well, actually, first we went to her doctor that morning to get some blood tests done. She's been shaking on and off, mainly in her hands, but Thursday it was so bad that she was stammering and chattering and I took her to the hospital emergency room. It's possibly a reaction to her thyroid problems (which she just discovered a couple of weeks ago), her thyroid medicine, her fertility treatments (which may have been needed due to underlying thyroid problems), stress from all the stuff that's going on, or some other unknown physical problem. The blood work will hopefully clear up if anything else is wrong. At this point, I'm assuming and maybe hoping it's just psychological. But the shakes seem to be spreading, and even muscle relaxants don't do too much. Some times she seems fine, other times she shakes a lot. And like I said, one time it was so bad we went to the emergency room.

But Saturday she was fine. We went to the Oklahoma Aquarium outside Tulsa in Jenks. $14 a head to get in, ouch. Despite the price it was very, very busy and crowded, and for good reason. It had a huge antique tackle collection, a walk-through (and under) shark tank, numerous fresh and salt-water fish exhibits, areas to feed some of the animals, and even a stingray petting zoo (where the rays actually wanted to be petted). By the end I think we were ready to leave. Some people asked how it compared to Bass Pro shop. Well, Bass Pro is free, and has the awesome Hemingway restaurant. But it's also a store, just as crowded in its own way, not nearly as educational, and also lacks all the unique and fascinating fish. If the Oklahoma Aquarium had a real restaurant mixed in with the exhibits, similar to the Hemingway perhaps, it could make a killing.

After the Aquarium we went to the Riverwalk and had lunch at an Italian restaurant called Gina & Guiseppe's. Meh. The prices weren't unreasonable, but the food was fairly bland. We ordered some bread as an appetizer, some lighted toasted focacia with garlic and herbs in dipping oil, and for the main course Maryanne got fettuccine alfredo and I got a chicken breast muffalata with fries and steamed veggies. My sandwich was decent enough, but Smokin' Joes makes better muffalatas (they use olives and peppers in addition to the muffalata sauce). The fries were interesting, and had some nice peppery heat to them. The veggies were almost, but not quite, wilty. Maryanne's pasta though.... I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I can cook better Italian than that. And I'm dead serious too.

Afterwards we headed home, a bit wiped out, but first we hit the Sam's Club in Fayetteville, and then hit the one in Bentonville. A point for us to remember: the Sam's in Fayetteville may sell liquor, but their selection of flowers is awful. And since I like to hit wineries and meaderies for my booze (and she can just hit a liquor store for her Smirnoff's), we'll stick with our Bentonville Sam's. (amusing side note: the Smirnoff site wants to check your age before it lets you in)

Labels: weekend recap

It was a mixed bag this weekend, again.

I managed to get the exterior parts that needed repairs and painting done, including the shed door, the sunroom door frame, and the pillar on the front porch. It all looks much, much better now. I also got the gate on the fence tightened, and placed stones underneath it so Stormy couldn't dig out (Caden isn't a digger). I also filled five of Stormy's holes in the back yard, and lined the walkways with bricks. It looks so much better right now. Mowed, laid grass seed, finished trimming out the 4th bedroom door. Got almost all of the door trim caulked out, and I think I'm almost done plastering. Maryanne got the closet painted, and it looks great!

Still need to paint a few damaged and dirty spots in the living room. We had some water issues, which have been fixed but left some cosmetic problems. I'm thinking it'll take about as much time picking out paint as it will actually painting. Upstairs is a different story. Maryanne's studio needs a fresh coat of paint, the upstairs hall needs some touch up, the new door and trim needs some touching up, and the guest bedroom needs some detailing that only she can do. That said, maybe I can putty the holes in the meantime?

That said, the stress of it all is getting to Maryanne, and she's having second thoughts. We need to do the repairs regardless, and everything is too disorganized right now for us to stop anyway, but we won't be making a May 1st listing.

Labels: weekend recap

A mixed weekend. The six canary eggs were tossed out; none of the chicks ever hatched, and a few weren't even fertilized. A shame, but I kind of figure we shouldn't be trying to breed them right now. Juliet and Romeo are separated, and Maryanne's giving Juliet a break at least until we move the birds upstairs.

The trim boards for the upstairs bedroom are almost done. I managed to get some good cuts, but hammering was a pain. I really should invest in a good nail gun some time I think. Still need to cut two more pieces, but I'll need a trip to home depot for materials before I can finish it. Then just need to caulk, and paint the nail heads. The upstairs closet now has shelves and a hanging rod, so it's finished. Maryanne's wanting to touch up the paint, but we may just leave it alone.

I'm taking off Friday and Monday, hopefully to finish fixing up the exterior. That'll leave this weekend for interior painting. Currently I need to dig up the dirt from the drainage ditch next to the house and driveway, use that fill the holes the dogs dig in the back yard, throw down grass seed and straw in places (maybe), and finally sand/fill/paint the bad parts on the exterior. Hopefully we won't get any rain, making it the first weekend where that's the case this month.

Labels: weekend recap