CAUTION: Woman In Progress

Who is that girl and where did she come from? She can't possibly be my Emmy. No, my Emmy is still a baby. Not a half grown tween. *sob*

Ya'll. I am tired. Like, bone deep, soul weary, can't hardly keep my eyes open and I might actually be asleep while I'm typing... tired. The holiday, it was loooong. And it was beautiful. But it was exhausting. Started Wednesday at 11:30 when I got off work. Mama and I stopped for jr. delux burgers at Sonic (oh happy sigh, they're so yummy) before she dragged me kicking and screaming into Wal-Mart to do her last minute grocery shopping. *shudders* Supercenter the day before Thanksgiving=Catatonic Jana. Seriously, ya'll. For a gal who's such a hermit that she gets up at 6:30 am every SATURDAY just to avoid shopping among other people, Wednesday afternoon shopping the day before Thanksgiving was torture . I should have Mama arrested for cruelty or something, right? But I ended up finding Goofus's Christmas present while I waited on Mama to get one last thing . So, score! We had to drop some stuff off at Sis2's on our way home. And ya'll...the kid...

Better late than never, I guess.

May your turkey's be moist,  your pies topped with whipped cream  and your leaves all be a riot of color. You know, I got to thinking about all the things I'm thankful for. There's the usual things like my job, my home, and enough money to put groceries in the fridge and gas in my car. But as thankful as I am for those things, what I'm most thankful for are the things I'd still have even if those things went away. (In no particular order) A savior who faithfully watches out for me when I'm being dumb. A niece who rats me out for disobeying the rules but hustles me out before I get a spanking. A nephew who's just learning to walk and often walks straight to me to be picked up. A niece who writes "You rock" on every piece of correspondence she gives me. A mama who even when she and Daddy were on their last dime insisted on us carpooling in her car in order to save me gas money. A daddy who keeps my grass mowed in summer and my outdoo...

The recipe's I'm using (or have used) for Thanksgiving this year are almost all from The Pioneer Woman. From her cookbook , I'm making her Throwdown winning mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving Day. From her website I made  Soul Sweet "Taters"  (otherwise known as "sweet potato casserole") for the church lunch Sunday, and for Thursday I'm trying my first ever  Pie That'll Make You Cry  (otherwise known as "Pecan Pie") which was also a Throwdown victory. (I might've attemped the whiskey maple cream sauce if I could have afforded maple syrup! And whiskey!) The other recipe up there is a magazine page with a pumpkin turtle pie--a pie I've made successfully for about three or four years. It's like a pumpkin pudding pie with caramel sauce and pecans and this year I used an Oreo crust instead of the recommended graham cracker crust. It was delish. And I still have half of it if anyone wants any. I took it to church S...

Hey ya'll, I realized I hadn't updated ya'll on Paw-Paw H or BFF in a while. Paw-Paw H finally got to come home yesterday. Hallelujah, praise God!! He's feeling some better and was excited to finally leave the hospital. It's been a long three weeks for him there. BFF, well, I still don't know much about how she's doing. Last I heard she was finally getting speech back and was able to sit up for short periods of time. And there was some discussion of sending her to a rehabilitation center. But that was almost two weeks ago that I heard an update. *sigh* They still had not pinpointed what exactly is wrong with her. They'd tested for everything they could think of with no luck. It's difficult to treat someone when you don't know what you're treating for. So I'm still praying for the best for her. I hope ya'll will, too. Thanks again for all the prayers so far. :)

Libby does impersonations.  For pancakes. Can't say that I blame her. Yum. Where's the Cool Whip?

I can't say anything about Friday night other than, "I got ratted out by a 3-year-old." The three-year-old in question would be this one,of course. The stinker. She spent the night with Nana and Bobo Friday night just because and Mama stopped to pick up a couple of Little Caesar's and asked me to come eat with them so that I could play with the stinker. So. We're sitting at the table and I'm sneaking bites of pizza crust to Milo and Libby. Well, Libby I don't have to sneak to because she's my baby and I feed her what I want. But Milo...well, Milo's not supposed to get table food. (Even though Mama sneaks him cheese and other occasional treats.) But Milo knows that I feed Libby from my plate so naturally he's always at my feet begging, too. And he has the most pitiful begging face you've ever seen. Break your heart, it will. So, I sneaked him a few bites of crust when I was allegedly feeding Libby. And, well, Lyssa caught me. She looke...

Because I know how much the world is concerned with the state of my freshly painted headboard, I'm sharing pictures today. No, no. Don't thank me. It's my pleasure. hehehe So anyhow, just a refresher, this is how my headboard looked like before I painted it. That was, of course, pre-dresser and pre-paint job. In fact, I'm thinking that was just after Christmas last year. Know how I know? Those sconces over the bed were Christmas presents last year. And see that brown thing on the floor at the foot of the bed? Well, that's my dresser, waiting to assembled. Also, unrelated to the when, see that pup at the head of the bed amongst the pillows? Look for her later. She makes a reappearance. ;-) Now, here's what the bed area looked like without the headboard: There's that pup again. She's such a camera hog. Also, this was taken post paintjob . And pre-chair re-upholstering . Sometime back in April. And here is what it looks like now, with the ...

*I'd do bullet points, but I don't like how the automatic spacing (or lack of) makes everything all squished together like one long paragraph. *All the really not depressing/boring stuff doesn't start until halfway through this post. So you might want to skip down. *I haven't lost a single, solitary pound since Saturday Oct. 16th. That's a solid month of no weight lost. I just keep fluctuating the same darned four pounds. Frustrating is too mild a term. *No, I haven't started eating an overabundance of calories and fat. I'm still eating in the exact same way I was four months ago when I started this whole "determined to lose weight thing." *Last week, because I've had a sinus cold/infection and because I needed to regroup, I took the week off from "walking" with Denise Austin. The last day I "walked" with her was Thursday, November 4th. That day I was just starting to come down with the sinus junk, Paw-Paw H had his ...

Ya'll, I don't know what I ate or drank last night to give me such weird dreams but...ya'll. They was weird . (Yes, I'm aware of the improper grammar.) So the weirdest (and most interesting one) involved some of my favorite bloggers. Sherry from Young House Love  who has a baby named Claire. But Claire wasn't her baby in the dream. Instead, Bower Power 's, Katie's little boy, Will, starred in this dream as Sherry's son. So anyway, Sis2 and I were hanging out with Sherry and Will and Sherry's dog, Burger  (an adorable chihuahua, in real life, but in this dream he was a Jack Russell Terrier reminiscent of Suzie who once belonged to Ree--you know... The Pioneer Woman? ) So yeah, we're just chillin' with Sherry and the gang and Sherry decides to take us to their new house. (The Youngsters are in process of buying a new house in Richmond, in real life.) The sale isn't final yet but the current/soon-to-be former owner had told Sherry and Jo...

So I ended up not going to Emmy's birthday party. By the time we got off work Friday, Sis1 had so pissed Mama off that I couldn't even mention it without her eyeballs turning black and her hair going up in flames. So yeah. We didn't go Saturday. Which, now that it's over, I'm kinda glad we didn't. Sis2 called when she and her family were on their way back. She said it was seven 10 and 11-year-olds--no parents! And after they got bored playing basketball (in the church gym) Sis2 had to come up with some spur of the moment games for them to play. And can ya'll believe that none of these kids knew anything about Red Rover??? What the crap are parents teaching kids these days?? Back in the day (apparently when dinosaurs roamed the earth) Red Rover was a staple in our games. Red Rover, Mother May I, A Tisket a Tasket, duck duck goose...but these kids didn't know anything but musical chairs and Simon Says. *shakes head in disbelief* So sad. So anyway, sinc...

Today doesn't really feel like a Friday. It feels like a BAD day. Blah. Just one of those "nothing's going right and everyone's getting on my nerves and would everyone PLEASE STOP BREATHING ON ME" days. You know the kind. I can't even type right, that's how bad it is. lol Started this morning when I got a call on my way to work telling me that I needed to have the doors to our department open at exactly 7:30 because we had three researchers who had said the evening before that they'd be waiting for us to open. Yeah. So I managed to get the door unlocked and the department open by 7:25 and did not have the first researcher until after 9. Which I could have told this person who'd called me to rush me along. I don't know when this one person in our department will ever learn that college students are NEVER up before eight unless they have a class--and sometimes not even then! This same person also believes students when they say they'l...

Lots of stuff going on in Jana-land these days but sadly nothing worth writing about. Just work stuff and projects. Am in the beginning stages of a possible publication adventure with a couple of friends and have already started letting that take over my life, too. lol The days, they are full. (Understatement!) But more good news on Paw-Paw. He's eating great, they're taking the catheter out today and as soon as a room opens up they'll move him out of ICU. He was also talking about all his pretty nurses, too, so you KNOW he's feeling better. LOL Thanks for all the prayers and for caring. Just keep the prayers coming. And now it's time for coffee. Catch ya'll later!

I feel like I should lead with that because I realize I just kinda left at a critical point last week. But things ARE good and I wasn't out because things went bad. Not this time. :) Paw-Paw H is doing fairly well. There was some concern for most of the past four days as his heart rate and blood pressure were both erratic and out of sync. He was actually moved back into ICU Saturday because of it and has been there since. I was supposed to go with Mama and Aunt L. to see him Saturday but I got knocked on my hiney with this sinus/head cold stuff. I mean, honestly and seriously knocked on my hiney. I got up Saturday morning feeling like crud but determined not to let it get the best of me. Went ahead and went to town to get my groceries and some meds. Mama called while I was shopping and was all, "You sound horrible. You sure you're still coming with us?" I said, "Sure. I'll be okay. I just maybe won't get too close to him unless I'm contagious....

So Paw-Paw H had bypass surgery yesterday. They thought they were only going have to do three bypasses but ended up doing five. (What's the "ple" of five? You know, like triple, quadruple, etc? Anyone know? Cindrupal? Cintuple? Cincple? Anyone??) We weren't sure Wednesday night when he was going to have it--yesterday or today. We just knew that he'd consented to it. So Mama and I came on to work yesterday. I was here for about an hour and a half when Mama emailed me that they were doing it yesterday and "let's go." So we met Aunt L and rode up to Tupelo together. Ya'll that is the LONGEST drive. Especially when you're not sure what you're driving toward . Well, other than a hospital which, unless you're driving toward a childbirth, isn't usually something one looks forward to. We got there just before they took him back for prep. I didn't go in to see him. I suppose I should have. A good granddaughter probably would have. ...

Well, I wish I could come to ya'll with some happy stories or funny pictures. Unfortunately, I need to ask for some prayers again. Paw-Paw H is back in the hospital. This time he's suffering from clogged arteries which almost led to a heart attack. He went to the ER last night and they sent him on to Tupelo (where all the specialists are). The next step is deciding on surgery or not. The surgery, he was told after a previous blockage, might kill him. But then again, the blockage probably WILL kill him if left untreated. So ya'll please pray hard and pray often. Also, BFF has been in the hospital in SC since Sunday. Apparently she had been having severe migraines all last week and her doctor had given her some strong pain meds. Well, either they over medicated her or she's having a bad reaction to them because Sunday she became loopy and delusional and yesterday she lost feeling in her hands and feet. Her mom, grandmother and brother left yesterday going to SC to be ...

I live smack in the middle of hunting land extravaganza! From the time I was a little girl we could always tell when some hunting season or another was upon us by the sheer number of trucks parked on the side of the road. (Well, that AND the fact that Daddy's an avid hunter, too.) Not just my road, but ALL the roads from there to town. Hunters park on the side of the road to enter their hunting land through paths. Like this one. See? It's really just a little worn out spot through the woods. And then this one... Looks a lot like the first one, huh? These little trails leading into the woods are all up and down my road. Many of them belonging to different  hunters or hunt clubs. I'd love to explore those paths and see what lies beyond them. But that would be, you know, tresspassing. Maybe one of these years I'll get the courage up to ask Daddy to take me walking along the paths he uses. Although, you'd be hard pressed to find his truck on the side of the...

I've heard that this weekend was crazy busy for all you parental types, what with Halloween and all. But for me? Bliss. After my pitiful little trip to the grocery store early Saturday morning I came home and worked around the house a bit, did my laundry and a 45 minute "walk" and then the Libster and I passed out on the couch to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer . The movie. Not the television show. I never much cared for the TV show. The movie, however, I still love almost 20 years later. And it might make me the least fashionable person I know, but I miss the fashion of the early nineties. The slouch socks with high tops. The scrunchies. Maybe not so much the high waisted jeans, but the rest of it? I totally love, still. And shoot, I think it's hillarious that Hillary Swank was one of Buffy's flaky friends and is now an Oscar winner. And if you look closely in the basket ball scene where their friend Beuller (?) goes vampire crazy on the court, that's Ben Af...