What Do You Do With a Drunken Sailor?

A few days ago The Mr. woke up and was surprised to discover that the room was spinning around. After a few hours of dizziness and stumbling around the house, he asked me to drive him to the doctor. There he was informed that he had an inner ear condition affecting his balance.

The kind that can't be healed with medication.

The kind that lasts anywhere from a week to a month.

The kind where you have to be driven everywhere you want to go.

By the time we left the doctor's office, he was feeling worse than ever. The tests the doctor had performed on him had left him feeling dizzy, weak and nauseas. He could hardly stand up without tipping over, so I had to help him walk to the car. He was holding my hand trying to look casual, but his balance was so off, that he was kinda pulling on me and making me stagger as well. To the casual observer, I'm sure we appeared more like two drunken sailors.

Once home, I became his nursemaid helping him every time he needed to change locations in the house. I often would have to ask him where he was headed, because his head was facing one way, but his body was leaning the other. As we stumbled around the house hand in hand we started giggling realizing that this is probably how we're gonna be when we get elderly.

And that's when it dawned on me:

Those elderly couples who we see holding hands and we think, "Aren't they cute? Still in love after all these years." Well, love has nothing to do with it. They're just keeping each other from tipping over!"

They're still kinda cute though, right? And probably still in love.

With a Corn Cob Pipe and a Button Nose....

A few days ago I was pulling out of the parking lot at Superstore. I happened to notice a car two spots over with a snowman buckled in the front seat. It made me laugh right out loud.

"What kind of a funny person would even think of doing that? I love it!"

I thought it would be fun to take a picture of it, but just as I was pulling out my camera, another car pulled in between us, obstructing my view, so I never got the picture.

I never really gave it another thought until just this morning when I went visiting teaching. As my partner and I pulled into our friend's yard I saw the very same car - with the very same snowman - parked beside me.

I should have known. The car belongs to Daughter #3's good friend. Who else? That kid is a riot!

The Concert-Goer

Last night I went to a Jim Cuddy concert. The two tickets were a Christmas gift from The Mr. so I figured I better take him with me. ;)

As I was mulling over the thought of going to a concert -- especially one that we knew nothing about -- it made me smile. It seems to be a pattern for me. Let me preface this by first saying that I have rarely been to a concert in my life. As I reflected on this matter, I could only count five. But not one single one of them was attended because I loved their music and could hardly wait to see them in concert. They all had different reasons..........

TROOPER (1978 - Lethbridge - 16 years old) I had just broken up with my boyfriend and heard through the grapevine that he was already moving on and taking a date to this concert. So I did what any sensible girl would do..... I bought a ticket and went to a concert I didn't have any desire to see. I'm really not sure why I went. Maybe I was trying to prove that I had also moved on with my life and wasn't sitting at home pining over him. Or maybe I was secretly wanting to spy on him.

AIR SUPPLY (1981 - Lethbridge) I was getting ready for work one morning with the radio on. The deejay announced that the 10th caller would win two tickets to Air Supply's concert. I was right beside the phone so I gave it a try. I WON!! At this same time, The Mr. (who I was engaged to at the time) heard this on the radio in his car on his way to work. He was pretty excited seeing as that would be one more date idea. That wouldn't cost him a cent.

HAGOOD HARDY (circa 1989 - Kindersley, Sask.) As the newest member of the Arts Council (not to mention the poorest), I felt pressured to purchase tickets to at least one show during the year. We were a small town with a small budget, so the only name on the performers roster that sounded remotely familiar was Hagood Hardy. (Is anyone out there old enough to remember "The Homecoming"?)

FAITH HILL & TIM MCGRAW (2007 - Edmonton) My sister-in-law who lives six hours away was coming to Edmonton for this concert with a group of women. They had some extra tickets, and she wanted to know if I wanted to go. I didn't know any of Tim's songs and only one of Faith's, but the promise of spending a few hours with my fun sister-in-law sounded pretty good. So I plunked down big bucks for some performers I knew nothing about.

JIM CUDDY (2012 - Edmonton) We aren't what you call Jim Cuddy fans. (In fact I didn't even know what he looked like until last night.) I had heard his voice a couple of times on the radio, however, and commented that I thought he had a really cool-sounding voice. So The Mr. surprised me with the tickets for Christmas.

(As you can tell by the empty seats behind us, we got there a little early.)

Last night's concert was actually really enjoyable. We may have to do that sort of thing more often. Truthfully, though, I'm pretty sure I prefer to spend my ticket money on musical theatre. Now there's a whole other blog post!

Dixie

Goal Setting and Record Keeping

Tonight I attended our ward's Relief Society meeting at the church. The theme was "Project Life". One woman first spoke to us about goal setting -- evaluating, planning, acting, reporting, re-evaluating, etc. It was so motivational for me!

Even though it's a new year, and traditionally we all make New Year's resolutions, prior to this evening I hadn't really given it too much thought. I knew I wanted to dejunk my house and start eating healthy again, but I hadn't really looked past that. But now that I've made some progress in those areas, I feel like I can move on to other things. Things that will be a blessing in my life, and my family member's lives.

The next two women talked about their experiences in journalling and record-keeping (Project Life). The scrapbooks they have kept were fantastic! And even though I know that's not the way I will do it, I do want to make a better effort at keeping a record of my life. Again, I'm hoping that this record will be a blessing to our family.

One of the girls quoted from Bob Dylan: "If you want to keep your memories, you first have to live them." That statement really resonated with me -- I felt like it combined both ideas of goal setting and record keeping. I came away feeling blessed with great ideas and impressions. And I'm feeling empowered.

Here's to an amazing 2012!

Dixie

Made Me Smile

The past week in retrospect -- a few things that made me smile. In no particular order....

A few days earlier I saw a crew of safety-vested workman digging in the snow in this same spot and wondered what they were up to. It warmed my heart to think that our county council members thought it was important to have this fun little ice fort and slide for the kids.

Probably not a big deal to most people, but sometimes I have a hard time finding my favorite toothpaste, because all the newer, fancier versions have replaced it. So when I found this big stack of "Colgate Regular", I had to take a picture. And buy several boxes.

Hard to tell, but this is a picture of my dashboard displaying the outside temperature of 11 degrees Celcius (52 Fahrenheit). At 4:29 in the afternoon. In January. In Edmonton!!!

The bananas on the right were an average-sized bunch measuring 7 inches. The ones on the left were a whopping 13 inches!

With all my dejunking this past week, I was also able to get rid of two VERY HEAVY solid wood desks -- university study carrels, actually -- that we have been lugging around with us for the past 17 years. I was ecstatic when the Salvation Army said they would "gratefully accept" our donation. That ecstasy quickly faded when I realized that it would only be me and The Mr. trying to lift them into the back of our truck. (I'll be the first to admit I'm a weakling.) Imagine my delight when a VERY NICE man from our ward showed up at the door. I swallowed my pride and asked for his help. It was the best thing I've done in a long time.

I wish I had taken a picture of him to add to this "happy things" post.

But I do have a picture of a different guy who made me smile.....

The Mr. has been a great help to me this past week. After all these years, he's still my favorite guy in the world. And I think he kinda likes me, too.

Dixie

It's a Dirty Job, But Somebody's Got to Do it!

I've got the cleaning bug. And I've got it bad. No room is off limits!

• Dejunking my costume room Did I really need three rabbit costumes? Although having said that, Daughter #3 and her two friends did have fun with them a few Easters ago delivering treats to unsuspecting children at the park.
• Efficientizing (?) said costume room This idea of knowing where to find something when you need it is great! Hmmm......I wonder if other people know about this.
• Rearranging three bedrooms The new bedspreads, cushions and curtains I purchased months ago are finally getting put to use.
• Downsizing the CD collection Wow! I can see the top of my stereo now!
• Scouring a neglected shower stall Eeeewww! Enough said.
• Revamping my closet layout It's funny how a double-decker closet rod and more shoe shelving can bring such peace of mind. And a cleaner closet floor.
• Arranging food storage It will be nice to stop tripping over the Superstore green bins that had taken over the storage room floor now that the food is put away. Oh, and I can use my bins again instead of paying 5 cents each for bags.
• Cleaning up Christmas I've decided I really have some ugly Christmas decorations, but I'm having a tough time getting rid of them. I guess there's a fine line between "this is ugly" and "but it's a tradition".
• Organizing the storage room Just having the food storage and Christmas stuff put away is a big help, but there's still more to be done! If we haven't used certain camping gear in over 10 years, it should be okay to donate to goodwill, right? Now I just have to convince The Mr. of that.
• Hauling a boatload of stuff to the second-hand store Do other people love this as much as I do? It's so liberating!!

The house is not the only thing I've been dejunking. I'm also doing a liquid cleanse for my body. (Too much junk in there from the holidays.) Good thing I've been at home cleaning all week. I can't be too far away from a bathroom!