So here’s how my turkey soup turned out:

It was okay. :o/

I liked the meat, it was really really tender but not stringy like I had hoped it would be. The turkey soup/stew of my dreams has almost a “pulled” consistency to the meat but I guess you have to manually do that. I didn’t know that.

Doing it over again, I wouldn’t put in sweet potatoes OR I would have cooked it for a shorter period of time because the sweet potatoes pretty much turned to mush. I don’t like sweet potatoes to begin with so I don’t even know why I insisted on putting one in. I fed my sweet potato lumps to the dogs.

Next time I won’t add a TABLESPOON of cayenne pepper. In hindsight, that was just retarded. (Blake liked it though. Me & the kids, not so much.)

So that’s my soup update. With the first bowl I was all, “I love the crock pot!” but that was because I skimmed off the top. The second bowl was actually stirred and it made my nose run. I couldn’t even finish it.

ARGENT DON’T READ ANY FURTHER BECAUSE I CANNOT KEEP A SECRET!

(more…)

So, I’m awake. I woke up around 3am and decided it was a great time to start making turkey soup in my brand new crock pot! The crock pot cookbook I got with it had a recipe for turkey soup and I more or less followed it, except I think I filled the crock pot a little too high. The instructions for the crock pot said to fill it 3/4 of the way full and I think I’m more like ALL the way full.

Sooooo I guess we’ll see what happens!

I started making the soup at 3:38am, see?

I started with a sweet potato first because the cookbook said to put your root vegetables at the bottom so they cook better. Honestly, I think sweet potatoes are actually pretty gross, but they’re good for you so that’s why I decided to throw it in.

Cutting sweet potatoes is a fucking pain in the ass which is why I only used one. We have really crappy knives and they just don’t mesh well with sweet potatoes. I actually had to use TWO knives to get the sweet potato peeled and chopped!

Next I cut up potatoes. Pretty uneventful. I used red potatoes because I think they look nicer, but really it doesn’t matter what kind of potatoes you use I don’t think, I just like to have really colourful food when I can help it. I don’t peel potatoes because I’m convinced that most of their nutritional content is found in the skins, so I just chopped them up. I didn’t end up using all 4 though, just 3, but really, I probably should have only used 2.

I almost forgot to add onions! I was getting the carrots out of the fridge and saw the onions at the bottom of the crisper drawer, so I got them out and started chopping. Truth be told, I’d rather have had red onions, but we always just get normal, everyday, ho-hum, run-of-the-mill cooking onions because they’re only like, $1 a bag when they go on sale.

I looooooove carrots. Blake and Madison have a thing against cooked carrots, which I totally do not understand, but Wes and I like them a lot and they’re cheap so I always put them in soups and stews. Again, when they go on sale, they’re only about $1.50 a bag and I’ll also use them grated up for Hospital Salad.  Carrots weren’t on sale this week, I don’t think, but I didn’t check the flyer so who knows…aren’t they beautiful though? Look at those rings! Nature wasn’t fucking around when it made the carrot.

Now for the gross part, or at least I think so. I hate the smell of left over turkey so when I opened the container we had it in and it hit me like a wall, I literally almost threw up and had to leave the room. Something strange about the whole pancreatitis/being in the hospital for a few months thing is that ever since I got sick, my sense of smell has been like, a super power. I can be in the living room and smell Blake cutting CUCUMBERS, which of course have  barely any scent, in the kitchen.

Anyway, the smell of the turkey was gross so I had to wait until the air cleared a bit before dealing with it.

Once the air was clear, I just grabbed pieces and cut them up and threw them in the crock pot. One thing I love about turkey soup/stew is how stringy the meat gets when it’s really tender and that’s how the meat was this time. It’s going to be phenomenal when the soup is finished cooking!

We had a LOT of leftover meat.

And finally, spices…the recipe was like, thyme and fresh parsley. Well, I don’t have fresh parsley but I did have thyme so I put in about a teaspoon of that, along with a teaspoon of sage and a teaspoon of garlic powder. Then I threw in some cayenne pepper for good measure. Oh yeah and I threw in a can of diced tomatoes (with the liquid), as well as the gravy that Blake made because why the hell not?

I stirred it around a little bit just to make sure I could with it being that full and I could so we’re all good. I set the cook time for 10 hours and I got finished around 4:30am so it’ll be ready at 2:30pm tomorrow afternoon, just in time for my afternoon meds. I’m verrrrrry excited! It’s like, this is my magic cauldron and I’m brewing up some super nutritional food for my hungry family. Look ma, I’m cooking!

When I was in grade 4, I had this really amazing teacher named Mrs. Lewis. One day she came in and had us all sit at the front of the portable on a rug she’d brought in from home, with throw pillows all around and she told us the story of Stone Soup. She told us the story very slowly and in the beginning, when she got to the part about the stone, she produced a medium-sized stone and she placed it in the crock pot. Then she filled the crock pot with water and as she told us the rest of the story, she would add ingredients to it, like potatoes and carrots and onions and a can of corn and eventually, when she got to the part about the meat, she started browning ground beef in an electric frying pan and she added that too. Then some salt and pepper and maybe some other stuff too. Near the end of the day, we were all given a bowl of soup with some crusty bread and butter and it was probably the most delicious soup I’ve ever tasted and it’s one of my favourite childhood memories. I’d really like to make Stone Soup with Wes.

This same teacher taught us about Medieval times and we had a Medieval feast at the end of the unit. We put all of our desks around the edges of the room in a circle and we put garbage bags down on the floor. We drank mulled cider (from her magic crock pot!) and ate Kentucky Fried Chicken, throwing the bones on the floor in the middle of the room. Some people were serfs and we had a king and queen and prince and the whole royalty deal (we drew names from a hat) and a couple of people were dogs and we all dressed up to the best of our ability. It was awesome. (Oh and I was a serf, for the record.)

This same teacher also sent me to Literary Guild, which is this neat workshop thing where every teacher in the area chooses one student to go to it and you go there (a school hosts it) and you share your story and discuss it with others and you eat food and then there’s a guest speaker. The first time I went (I went in grade 4 and again in grade 6), the guest speaker was ROBERT MUNSCH! The world’s greatest children’s author!

Anyway, Mrs. Lewis was fantastic and I hope she’s doing well.

Now I think, since it’s 5:30am, that I’m going to go back to bed. I’m a little uneasy about going to bed with an appliance plugged in and turned on, but that’s what they’re meant for so I guess I should just “trust and allow”.

Goodnight!

Dinner is finished, the dishes are being done. Blake and I ate so much we feel like barfing, although I’m probably the only one who really might. Xmas 2011 was an unmitigated success.

As previously mentioned, Ronny and Alex slept over last night and we all did presents this morning, followed by a big breakfast, Pokemon and eventually, napping. Ronny and Alex didn’t stay the afternoon because Alex’s dad was making turkey dinner at their house so they left about the same time as when I laid down to sleep.

After I woke up, I messed around on Pinterest for a bit and checked my e-mail and then Blake and I went into my office and watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes which I thought was just okay. I wasn’t as blown away by it as some of my friends were. I think I just really hate James Franco and I thought the ending was sloppy. When it was over I was like, “that’s IT?” because it seemed like there should have been more movie at the end. I mean, I guess they tied it up at the end with the epilogue during the credits but I still felt like there should have been more. While we watched the movie, Blake and I made paper snowflakes, which I’m going to use to decorate the living room window. (But we have a lot more to make before I can do that.) During this time, the turkey was cooking.

After the movie, we all kinda went and did our own thing. Wes played his new Phineas and Ferb video game, Blake played his new Star Wars game, Madison coloured with her new Prismacolour pencil crayons (she now has more of them than I do! Brat!) and I ran around taking pictures of things, which I’ll share with you now.

This is No Drought by Lush, which Wes got me. It’s a dry shampoo.

You put it in your hair if you don’t have time to wash it, so it soaks up your hair’s oil.
It smells citrusy and wooooonderful!

This is Northern Lights soap, also by Lush:

Madison says it smells like Windex.
I disagree but I don’t know what to say it does smell like.
I just think it looks cool.

This is my new book, from Blake:

 I have no idea what it’s about but I’m betting it’s awesome.

Little known fact about me (?), I collect quartz crystals.
I don’t think Lisa knows that, but she got me a couple.
These are all of my little ones.
I have a bunch of large crystal wands too, but these are my little ones:

The two on the bottom left are the new ones.
The bottom crystal is actually a rusty amethyst, which I also collect.
(She also gave me the tin.)

This one’s kinda neat because it’s cut for the express purpose of rubbing in your pocket with your thumb:

She gave me two other stones too, that are supposed to be for “healing” but I think that’s bunk so I gave them to Madison. Lisa also gave me a book on “nutritional healing” all about using vitamins and herbs to heal yourself but I think that’s bunk too and a little insulting, I think, considering the nature of my illness, so I don’t really know what to do with it. I’ll just smile and nod and say “thank you”. She got Blake some weird mustard that he’ll probably really enjoy, which is a first (usually he gets chocolate, which he doesn’t like), so he’s happy. I got him the new(est) Bastard Fairies EP.

This is my new crock pot recipe book.
I flagged a few recipes…

This is happening tomorrow:

And this is my favourite gift, from Madison, because it was the most thoughtful.

I *love* Atomic Fireballs and Lemon-Heads.
They’re made by the same company and are pretty much impossible to find up here.
Madison and Blake went to a specialty candy shop to get them.
The Whistle Pops I remembered from when I was little and I’d told Madison about them and she found them at this shop.
There are also “party snaps” in the box, which are those gun powder things you throw at the ground and they make a snapping sound.

This is Wes with the wolf toy that Lisa got him.
In case I haven’t mentioned it, he’s obsessed with wolves.

Here’s the lovely young lady of the house…

Here’s my beloved…

This is what he was drinking while he made mashed potatoes and gravy:

Gobble gobble, motherfuckers!

Mashed potatoes, whipped smooth…

An Xmas feast…

And finally, mooches…

Hoover has had a crusty nose ever since we switched him to diet dog food.
He’s lost weight, which the vet is happy about, and she’s not worried about his nose, so I’m choosing not to worry either.

And that was Xmas 2011.
It was a lot of fun, but I’m glad it’s over.
I think it’s time for tea and then bed.

For Xmas, I made Wes and Alex Golden Snitch* ornaments, based on this tutorial and I think they turned out pretty well (although I think I might have made the wings too big):

I used acrylic metallic paint for the Snitch’s markings and instead of tissue paper and glitter for the wings like in the tutorial, I used pre-glittered cardstock from Michael’s and I just sandwiched two wings with Gorilla Glue so there would be glitter on both sides. Then I attached the wings with a combination of Gorilla Super Glue and rubber cement, which I discovered made an instant bond when used together (I got tired of waiting for the Gorilla Glue to dry, so I put rubber cement on the wings and when I stuck them to the ornament, they bonded immediately. I probably lost brain cells from the combined fumes, but yay Snitch!) For the tag, I just used these little blank tags my mom gave me a million years ago (that I need more of *cough*) and then I used rubber stamps (at 3am) to write their names. When the ink was dry, I stuck the ornaments on the tree and went back to bed.

When Wes woke up, he immediately knew what it was and was really impressed by it. Alex seemed to like hers too, when she woke up. The Pikachu ornament was also a hit.

From “Santa”, I got a crock pot and a crock pot cookbook, which I just went through and flagged everything in it that I would eat, which was a lot! I probably used like, 25 Post-It flags!

In the book, there’s a recipe for “Boxing Day Turkey Soup” which is totally going to happen tomorrow, except I’m going to thicken it so it’s stew, and I’m VERY VERY VERY excited about this because it’s pretty much my favourite food! After that’s all gone, I think I’m going to try my hand at chili with ground turkey like Blake’s mom made once and I really liked. (I normally wouldn’t touch chili because of the spice and the beans but when she made it, it was really good and I’ve been wanting to make it for like, 10 years, and the book has a recipe.)

Right now Alex and Wes are playing Pokemon with Wes’ new 3DS and Madison is spending the iTunes card we got her. Blake is in the kitchen getting the turkey started while he and Ronny talk about music because they are nerds. And I’m just fucking around on Pinterest and contemplating a nap because I got up at 3am to finish the Snitches and get them on the tree, then I went to bed until about 6:45am and I’ve been up ever since. I am exhausted. (Thanks, hydromorph…)

Blake made us all a big breakfast of mini croissants, whole grain toast, eggs, bacon, sausage and waffles so I’m full too.

So I think I’m gonna go have that nap…I may write more later when things aren’t so crazy.

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(*The Golden Snitch is from Harry Potter. Thought I’d throw that in there since my mom is probably like, “huh?” :oP)

Wes is obsessed with Angry Birds (and Pokemon, but this is about Angry Birds and let’s face it, Angry Birds are ten thousand times cooler than stupid Pokemon). I was on Pinterest last weekend because that’s all I do anymore and I came across this:

Since there’s almost always Babybel in our fridge, Madison got creative with sushi wrappers, a cheese slice and tortillas.
Behold!

It probably would have looked better if she’d have used scissors, but it’s the thought that counts.
Wes was very surprised.

There are tons of Angry Birds crafts and party food ideas on Pinterest.
Some examples:

Angry Birds lunch!
Angry Birds cake balls!
Angry Birds handmade plushies!
(I wish I could sew…)
Angry Birds knit/crocheted hat!
(I wish I could do that too…)
Angry Birds birthday card that could be easily turned into party invitations! 
More homemade Angry Birds plushies!

I don’t know what else we could have, but I’m thinking we could definitely have an Angry Birds party for Wes’ birthday in February.

FOLLOW ME!

What IS Pinterest?

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board but not like a message board or a forum, it’s for visually “pinning” bookmarks to any URL for use at another time. You create “boards”, for example I made one for “Sunnyland Studio”, and you “pin” things that strike your fancy so you can find them later. I “pinned” all of my paintings on my site and Etsy (well, not ALL of them) on my “Sunnyland Studio” board because people can “repin” things that strike their fancy to show up on their own boards, so it’s kind of like free advertising if your own stuff goes viral, which a couple of my paintings have.

You can also go to Pinterest’s main page to see what other people are pinning, which I find really really addictive, especially in the food category because there are so many recipes that look good. Blake’s on Pinterest too and that’s how we’re sharing recipes since he does 95% of the cooking. My other big board is called “Creative Inspiration” and it’s just stuff I’ve come across on Pinterest and on the internet that helps my brain to tick along. One thing I pinned so far has resulted in artwork for the Build a Rainbow project but I have no idea when it’ll be done so it probably won’t be finished in time. Oh well.

Speaking of Build a Rainbow, Madison did a lot of the colours for the challenge but I’ll make a new post about that.

The reason I decided to take the plunge into Pinterest after rejecting it a few months ago is because my friend Jax tweeted that she was going to a Pinterest party, which sounds very very interesting to me. Apparently you go to someone’s house and you make crafts and food based on the things everyone’s pinned. I don’t have the details of the party yet, I think it was last night, but I’m very interested in it because it seems like something my mom might want to do and if she did, I’d definitely want to come and so would Madison probably.

Anyway, Pinterest is cool and totally addictive. I’m loving it.

IF YOU NEED AN INVITE, SEND ME YOUR E-MAIL ADDRESS!
Sunny@SunnyCrittenden.com

I am soooooo wiped out. Last night after the art show I almost fell asleep while I was eating so Blake put me to bed where I slept ALL NIGHT (a rare occurrence) and then this morning I had a 2 & a half our nap. Granted, it was because of the hydromorph, but I’m still just kinda “blah” from being social and out last night. I just leave the house so rarely that when I do, it really takes a lot out of me, especially if I have to talk to people and like, climb stairs. (Stairs are still really difficult for me.)

I’m an artist.
My name tag says so.

Touched By Fire was a great event, just as it is every year. I didn’t have any of the appetizers because all of them had either ground meat (swedish meatballs, sliders) which I try to stay away from or weird cheeses, which I also stay away from. Oh and one had spinach. Gross. So that part kinda sucked considering that was what I was looking forward to since I knew I wouldn’t win one of the awards or sell my painting so I was really just going to see the art and eat good food.

But the thing is, I DID SELL MY PAINTING! I was in absolute shock when my mom told me. The buyer didn’t come speak to me at all, so I have no idea who bought it, but this is the first time I’ve sold a painting to someone I didn’t already know. So thank you to whoever bought it!

I’d brought business cards with me to put on the tables that are usually strewn about the event, so Blake distributed those and I’m going to assume that some new people are now reading this as a result. Hi new people! :o) And it’s not as tacky as it sounds, my business cards are Moo cards with full bleed photos of one of my girls’ faces on the front with my website url and Etsy url on the back. They’re more like ATCs than business cards, totally collectible. Also, the last time I did this event people did that with their business cards and I felt totally unprofessional for not having any to do the same. This time I was prepared.

When we got there we were given a show catalogue each and they gave me my name tag, which I immediately hid by putting the catalogue over it because that name tag is the worst part of the whole thing. I hate it. But I know that’s just me and I realize that it’s necessary, but I still hate it. I guess there’s no law saying I have to wear it, but you’re supposed to, so I did, but kept it well hidden, especially when we got around to my painting. But let me back up…we got there and went upstairs to the gallery which is above a furniture store and is HUGE and we went around looking at all of the art, a lot of which is really cool.

My favourite piece was called “The Elephant In The Room” by Kimberly Denny. It was actually two pieces in one and it’s kind of hard to explain…she took two pictures of a brain, one on each sheet of paper, and then she hand wrote the story of this lady in the very early 1900s who was the first person to be diagnosed with multiple personality disorder and the reason she was diagnosed was because one of her personalities killed someone and her punishment was to be hanged. She got off though, because she claimed insanity. So Kimberly hand wrote that story on two sheets of paper and then she….I’m not even sure what she did exactly, to be honest, she used some sort of medium that dried clear and looked like glass when it was finished, and poured it onto the sheets of paper and allowed it to dry. Then she drilled two holes in the top of each sheet and they were hung from the ceiling at the show. The piece was meant to “get in your way” and be interactive and it was really really nice, I really enjoyed it.

Another one I REALLY liked was by Richard A. Jacobson called “I Saw My Father’s Eyes” because it was massive and so so detailed and realistic. He’s on the site twice, it seems, once as Richard and once as Rick. The paintings he has on there as Rick are similar to the one I liked (the faces) but the big one he has on there as Richard was there last night and it was really quite impressive. The wrench and the spade were there as well. I just can’t even imagine how you would paint something so big yet so detailed. I don’t have that kind of realism talent AT ALL so when I see it, I’m just kind of awed.

There were a LOT of really interesting pieces, you should check out the website gallery. (Although none of the pieces from last night will be on it.) You can buy pieces through the website but there are no “buy it now” type of buttons so I’m not sure how you actually buy anything. I guess you would have to e-mail them if you saw a piece you liked. Kind of an ass backward way of doing things, if you ask me, but at the same time, if you buy through the site, I would get 100% of the money, as opposed to Etsy where I have to part with 3.5% of the sale price.

The lady who was sort of in charge of putting the show together (there was actually a jury of 3 people, two guys and this lady) is named Colette. She’s the Director of Cooper’s Fine Art Gallery. Blake found her at one point last night, to ask if we could take my painting home after the show since it would be a pain in the ass to have to come back down to Toronto just to get it. (That was before we knew it had sold.) She actually wanted to talk to me, so she came over to where my mom and I were standing and we started talking and she said how much she liked my work. I confessed that I wasn’t sure how I got into the show and before I could explain that my confusion was because my girls are usually pretty happy and this show is usually pretty dour or manic, she cut me off and said, “it’s because you’re really really fucking talented”. So I thanked her and then someone asked her something and she went off to talk to them, but at the end of the night when we were about to go home, I sent Blake with some business cards to find her and she gave him her phone number and told him that she wanted him to bring down some of my pieces so she could show this gallery that would be “perfect” for showing my work. I’m nit sure how all of this works, but I’m pretty excited about it because this is what I’ve been wanting for for a long time and now it’s looking like things are going to start happening! *squee*

The best moment of the show though, which was kind of awkward at the time but in retrospect I think it was my favourite part, was when we were looking at my painting (and reading to see that there were no typos in my blurb haha), Blake suddenly said to someone behind me, “do you like this painting?” and when I turned around there was a little girl who was maybe 6 and she was just kinda looking at my painting, and then back at Blake, with huge eyes and awe. Blake kinda put her on the spot  though (and me! because he followed up with “because she painted it” and pointed right at me) but it was the best moment of the show because she is exactly who I would want to see my work. She is my exact audience. That moment was so precious to me, I’ll never forget it. Aside from my own kids, she’s the first child to ever see one of my paintings. I’ve sold one to a guy (heinousjay) who gave the piece to his 2 year old niece but I didn’t see her reaction and she was probably too young to really have one.

Anyway…so that was cool.

After the show we just went home. Stopped at a gas station to buy a drink and my mom bought me a bag of ketchup chips since I didn’t really have any dinner (the appetizers were supposed to be my dinner) and I almost fell asleep on the way home. When we got to the McDonald’s on the highway we stopped for grungeburgers and as I said at the beginning, I almost fell asleep eating mine.

It was a great evening, I think my mom had a good time, and I hope I get into the show next year. I think I may paint another version of The Two Sunnies for entry, the original of which I gave to my shrink last year for Xmas, because that’s the kind of work I think they want. Also I was never happy with the original, I think I can do better, so I think I’m going to try.

Today has been pretty mellow. It’s snowing at the moment, a sight I’m going to have to get used to. I’ve gotten over my issue with eating salad during cold months, for the most part, and that’s what I had for lunch today. I call it “hospital salad” because this is how they made it when I was in the hospital last month:

Lettuce, spinach, English cucumbers, cherry tomatoes and grated carrots.

I also, for some reason, thought you should all see my desktop. I’m not sure why, it was just something I decided while I was editing pics:

Happy Weekend!!!

“Cheese sandwiches with added meat (such as ham, bacon, turkey and other meats) are generally referred to by more specific names. If ham is included, for example, the result is a “ham and cheese sandwich”.” – Wikipedia

I dunno why but this made me laugh so hard.

I made macaroni salad for lunch. There are a million different ways to make macaroni salad of course, but the way I make mine is pretty simple and you have to love Miracle Whip or you just won’t like it because all it is is Miracle Whip, lots of it, tuna and whatever vegetables, frozen or fresh, that you can find in the fridge. In my case, all we had was onions, celery and french cut green beans (which is kinda like shredded, I hate them and they wouldn’t work for this anyway) so I used onions and celery, which, as it turns out, have next to no nutritional content. :o/ I also used penne noodles instead of macaroni because I like them better. They’re easier to skewer with a fork when you’re busy writing a blog post.

I can’t shave my head. It’s not that I’m chickening out or anything like that because it’s not like I haven’t shaved my head before, it’s because when I was in the ICU, I developed a bedsore on the back of my head because of where it rubbed on the pillow. I mean, I was laying on my back for 2 months more or less and I scar really easily so when the wound healed, I was left with two scars and hair doesn’t grow on scar tissue, at least, not fresh scar tissue. Behold:

If I shaved my head, with that bald spot, I’ll look like I was a victim of a lice infestation or something and people will want to stay away from me. As you can see, there’s the two little scars, but all around them hair isn’t really growing for some reason. I don’t know why, maybe it’s for the same reason that my hair is falling out.

Blake also said something like, would I rather be frustrated with regrowth with hair or without it? And he also said, would I just be moping around the house wearing hats with a shaved head? And if so, what’s the difference between wearing a hat all the time with hair and without it? That’s a very valid point, so I’ve decided not to shave my head and to just wear hats instead. So I bought this one and this one and this one, courtesy of my very special friend Charlie who is amazeballs. I also bought Madison this one and Wes this one (he’s obsessed with wolves at the moment) for Xmas.

I’ve been really depressed lately, moreso than I was before, because we’ve had a pretty big setback as far as my wound is concerned. The nurses wanted to switch my dressing changes to every other day, which proved to be a bad idea because the wound had too much discharge and because it was moist all the time, some of the new tissue around the edges began to break down.

In the pic you can see where it’s broken down around the edges, the parts that look like zombie flesh are the parts that broke down. On the right (well, my left) you can see my poor bellybutton.

I’m just disappointed because Dr. Hanrahan said maybe she’d be closing me up by Xmas but I don’t think she will be with the wound looking like this and we still haven’t heard from the stupid surgeon in Toronto about draining my pseudocysts. I am just so sick of being sick. :o( At least I’ve stopped throwing up though. I just decided that I wasn’t going to throw up anymore and I’m really very stubborn so thus far it’s been working. That’s not to say that I haven’t been feeling extremely nauseous and I always have my puke bowl within arm’s reach because I’ve had some pretty close calls, but I haven’t thrown up in about a week and a half. Maybe even longer.

Oh but back to my wound: we’re back to doing daily dressing changes, with Blake doing them on every other day and weekends and Siske doing them M/W/F. I guess the big deal is that they’re supposed to teach the families how to do them but in my case, I was having a nurse come every single day, which costs the company and the province money and I guess at the last meeting, the nurses kinda got bitched out about that.

Speaking of nurses, I’m fairly confident that I’ve scared Ben off completely. I know he’s gotten my Facebook message because he changed his profile pic recently so he would have gotten it when he logged in, but he hasn’t replied. He’s been doing orientation at the mental health hospital in Penetanguishene this week, according to Janice, so the rumour is that he’s going to leave Bayshore (the company that overseas the nurses) completely. He says he’s still going to work for them though, and I think the rumour is just a rumour. He mostly works weekends and since Blake is doing my dressings on weekends now, we probably won’t see him very often, if at all, so at least things won’t be awkward as a result of my Facebook message. I hope, anyway. I did send him a short message after the initial one saying that if he had like, a policy against fraternizing with patients on Facebook that was totally cool and understandable so again, I don’t think things will be awkward if he replies. If he doesn’t reply, then things will probably be awkward if he comes here because I’ll know he’s read it and like…do I say “hey did you get my FB message?” or just pretend I never sent it? I dunno! The protocol for this kind of thing doesn’t exactly exist or anything.

Whatever, I’ll cross that bridge when I need to.

A while back, you may recall that Madison’s teacher made Madison bring home the book White Oleander by Janet Fitch because Madison was reading it in class and the teacher deemed it “inappropriate” because she’s a fucking moron who has no idea what she’s talking about.

We’ve been recommending books for Madison to read over the past little while and she’s been enjoying (for the most part) the things we’ve been telling her to read. The only book that really gave her trouble was The Life of Pi, which was just over her head and probably a bad choice on Blake’s part. I recommended she read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides because he’s my favourite author, that book is fucking phenomenal and I think, being a teenage girl herself, Madison will be able to relate to it.

Since her teacher is a bloody idiot who will, no doubt, object to the book based on the title alone and Madison does a lot of her reading at school, she asked me to make a book jacket for it so her teacher won’t realize what she’s reading. So that’s what I did this morning. I told my friend Ashley that I’d take pics of the process but I forgot. I did take pics after the fact though and the process was pretty simple because all I did was glue the paper to the book using gel medium. I meant to leave the back part of the book cover loose so the synopsis was accessible should Madison’s teacher *gasp* wanted to educate herself on the book before deeming it inappropriate, but I fucked up and the first thing I did was smear gel medium all over the back cover and since I couldn’t exactly wash it off of a paperback, I just went with it and glued the paper to the whole thing. The back cover only had like, a 3 sentence synopsis anyway and the rest was praise so I don’t think it would make a difference anyway.

Here it is:

Front cover.

Inside front cover.
I folded the paper over a bit so it would adhere better.

Back cover.

Gel medium, so you know what to get if you wanted to do this for some reason as well.

And now I’m going to play Warcraft for a little while and eat ketchup chips.
Then I have to go work on my sketchbook because time’s a tickin’!

So I’m finally home and as I write this, I’m soliciting dietary advice from my vegan friend Katie to help me get more protein in my diet, ideally from plant sources for a couple of reasons.

1. It’s kinder.
2. We don’t have enough money to buy the quantities of meat necessary for me to keep up my hemoglobin.
3. I literally cannot eat the quantities of meat necessary for me to keep up my hemoglobin because meat is harder on my stomach than veggies.

I mean, the big revelation which wasn’t news to anyone but maybe my doctors is that I’m severely anemic. I had to have a blood transfusion because my hemoglobin was less than half of what it should be. My body is not making enough new blood and it’s making/keeping me sick. I need new blood to heal, especially after my big surgery, and if my body’s not making any or very little on its own, I’m looking at weekly transfusions and not only is that gross I think it’s wrong when I’m a mostly able-bodied otherwise healthy person. Save that blood for a hemorrhaging mother or someone who was hit by a drunk driver, I can eat my way out of this. I think I can, anyway.

So the official diagnoses were pneumonia, a bladder infection and anemia (but they called it a big long word I don’t recall where I’m not getting enough vitamin K and I’m not making enough albumin, specifically). I’m on oral antibiotics for the next 6 days (I think, we haven’t picked up the prescriptions yet but there are two of them) and I feel pretty okay. They thought that the anemia was the bigger problem and they spent a lot of government money to determine what I already knew and what most people would know just by looking at me, but whatever. One morning they took 7 vials of blood out of me and some of them had to be put in vials with tin foil over them because the testing had to be done without light. Weird. I had 3 blood draws in one day at one point and today was the only day they didn’t take blood from me. Last night they took out my IV, which was good because the site had been placed on Friday and it was getting old and had started to bleed a little. The damn thing was in the crook of my arm and really friggin’ hurt every time I moved. I was so scared sleeping with it in, afraid I was going to rip it out, that I didn’t sleep soundly a single night I was there.

Morale was very very low. The days were mostly dreary and I don’t like being away from Blake and my house at all, let alone “too long”, and I was just really bummed out the whole time I was there. The iPad helped of course. It kept me connected to all of you and all of my friends on Facebook and that really helped to keep my spirits up. One thing being sick had taught me is just how much I am loved. <3

I started reading a book that Charlie sent me called The Night Circus, which is really really good. It’s a slow read though, my attention span isn’t what it used to be, but I got about halfway through and I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read so far.

The food at the hospital was oddly delicious. On Sunday night they had roast beef with gravy and mashed potatoes and carrots and I swear to god I almost came while I was eating it, it was so amazing. I have NEVER had roast beef like that before in my life and I’ll probably never have it like that again, it was phenomenal. It was tender, juicy, you could literally cut it with a fork and the gravy….holy shit I’m getting hot just thinking about it. Seriously, the way to this girl’s heart is totally through the stomach. If you can cook, I love you, because I can’t.

Anyway, the best meal BY FAR that I had in the hospital was this one:

See up there where it says “cream of chicken”?
That should say “cream of screaming orgasm”.

It was homemade.
And it tasted like it was.
And combined with the egg salad sandwich, I was dying.

Another surprise from the hospital is that apparently I like tea. Who knew? That’s not true, I’ve loved tea before, when I was a teenager I liked getting loose leaf tea from the bulk food store and using my tea ball to make tea. I’d get like strawberry and blueberry etc. but now apparently I just like every day ordinary tea. I started having it with my meals at the hospital and then I began to crave it so I’d get Blake to hit up Tim Hortons* before visiting hours were over and get me the second biggest tea they have and I’d have them put in like, 8 sugars because THAT’S JUST HOW I ROLL. BAG *IN*, MOTHERFUCKERS! So I got in the habit of drinking tea at night and reading my book and I think I’m going to keep that going at home too because the tea really seemed to calm my stomach as well. Except that time I got the biggest tea Tim Hortons has and mixed it with a jelly donut and puked pink all over the place. That sucked. But other than that time, the tea really helped my stomach so, yeah, I already said that. Did I mention I’m on drugs?

Speaking of drugs, they mixed up mine yesterday which prohibited me from going home a day early. I’ll explain: I take hydromorph contin which is slow release morphine. Yesterday we had a student nurse and she gave me the fast acting hydromorph by accident and that accident was repeated all 3 times a day I take it and I wondered all day why the hell I was so tired. When my doctor came by my room, I’d been sleeping and she thought I was lethargic so she kept me in an extra day when in fact the hydromorph just had me knocked on my ass. So that sucked too.

Also speaking of drugs, I just want to state this for my own records: I am allergic to tegretol, ketamine and lamotrigine. If it’s ever called into question and someone’s gotta search my journal to see what I’m allergic to (like Blake had to do with the help of friends in June) those are the anti-convulsants I’m allergic to.

We just found out that my nurse this evening will be Ben. Ben is a handsome young man, fresh out of nursing school from what I understand from Siske. We didn’t think anyone would be coming out today so hey, bonus, we don’t have to change my dressing ourselves! They SUCKED at dressing my wound at the hospital. First of all, they didn’t have the right supplies to even do it correctly and second of all, what they ended up using instead I think I ended up being allergic to because I’m itchy as fuck! Also the white tape they used to tape the bandage down with kept curling up and sticking to the inside of my gown, making me absolutely insane, especially while sleeping because I was afraid I was going to bust the dressing wide open and bleed all over the place. Not that that would have been the end of the world, the wound’s getting pretty small and is pretty dry, but still, not something I wanted to have to deal with. I’m glad I’m home and Ben will be coming over to dress it properly.

Anyway, I’m getting pretty tired and I’m wishing this post would finish itself, so I’ll leave you with pictures from the hospital:

I was in isolation for the first few days because pneumonia is contagious, so Blake had to wear all that crap.

This was the scrambled “eggs” they tried to feed me one morning.
Not ALL the food was fantastic, just most of it.

THE END.

(*Tim Hortons is a national chain of coffee shops that are Canadiana at its finest and they do NOT for some reason, use a goddamn apostrophe to denote ownership in their name, a fact which drove me crazy in college when I was doing ad campaigns for them.)