Goodbye to wisdom

Boy, has this been one lazy week.

Justin had his wisdom teeth taken out on Monday, which means he was ordered to stay home from work for three days to recover. He was doing pretty well by the end of the first day, but I'm glad he had a couple extra days to rest. But it made for a really lazy week for both of us.

I have to say, though, I wasn't prepared for the post-surgery entertainment. Justin was pretty out of it for the first 45 mins or so, and he was talking and playing little pranks like a 5-year-old. Although, during the first 10 mins I really had to use my imagination to figure out what he was saying, what with all the gauze still in his mouth and the anesthesia wearing off.

After his surgery, two nurses helped him out of a wheelchair and into the car and said he had come out like Rocky. Justin started weakly punching the air, with his eyes half closed and mouth hanging open. He was very effusive with the nurses, telling them thank you and giving them two thumbs up, wanting to make quite sure that everyone knew they were appreciated. Then we pulled into the Walgreen's drive through, and as I was talking with the pharmacist about the order, Justin kept waving and saying hello as she tried not to laugh.

On the way home he was starting to come around more and was repeating some of the stories he had told me earlier. I would finish his stories and he would ask, still in a little kid voice, "How did you know that?" and I would say, "You already told me!" And then he would giggle and say, "Oh. I don't remember." I so wish you could hear him say it in that voice. It was adorable and hilarious.

I hope that story gives you half the chuckle it gave me. I know it's not as funny second hand. Do any of you have amusing anesthesia stories to share?

Born to be wild

A few months ago my dad scored a real coup. He asked my mom what she would think if he bought a motorcycle. She replied, "Well, what would the gas mileage be?" Quite a change from their early days of marriage when my mom got hysterical at my dad's mere mention of the word motorcycle. Now Dad has passed the required training, has bought his bike, and is revving around the countryside like a pro. I was home for a visit last week, and Dad took me for a 15-mile spin. It was fun, and marked by all kinds of those unusual moments that make up a memorable experience. I was initiated into the "brotherhood" of low fives from fellow bikers. I learned why bikers should always ride with their mouths closed (in addition to the risk of causing an unsuspecting bug to meet an untimely death--yuck--the side mirror provided all the evidence I needed to convince me that flapping lips are the farthest thing from attractive). And when we returned and dismounted, I experienced the loss of all feeling in the lower half of my body for about 15 minutes.

Are we a pair of daredevils, or what?

(This picture was taken a few days later when Mom was on hand to snap a shot. Thus the rainy background. There was no rain when we went for a ride. We're not that wild. Geez.)

I am a bad daughter

I shamelessly put my dad to work this week, taking advantage of his mad yard maintenance skills. He helped us figure out and buy a lot of the tools we need and also how to get started on things like getting our lawn/yard in better shape.

It turns out that my yard is a veritable jungle. Thanks to our crazy squirrels, baby and school-age oak trees are growing in all kinds of inappropriate places, including in our flower bed and under existing bushes. Ferns are everywhere too, and some are as tall or taller than our house! Plants of almost every variety are growing without restraint all around our backyard fence (two have already fallen in the midst of one storm), one mature tree just behind our deck is in fact growing up through another mature forked tree, and there just generally seems to be no rhyme or reason to just about anything growing on our property.

So, here a couple pictures I thought you might enjoy from some of our major projects this week. Here you can see my dad and Justin taking down a dead, not-so-little tree that's too close for comfort to our deck and house. Dad's using the rope to direct the falling branches away from the house, deck, and Justin. Those branches had an impressive amount of force behind them!Here's a better view of the tree.Needless to say, that was quite the project. It took us about three hours to cut off all the branches and then cut those up into firewood. But we ended up with a lot of firewood, and Justin and my dad managed not to kill themselves! We did leave some of the tree, though. Here's a goofy pic of the "tree sculpture" we ended up with. No longer a threat to our house or deck!And I won't bore you with this too much (or is it too late already? ;-), but I have to show you a before and after picture of my major project--cleaning out our absolutely overrun flowerbed. This particular task, believe it or not, took me two days. There were a lot of major roots to clear out too.

Before:

And after:

(By the way, that "tree" growing by our front door is actually one of those giant rebellious ferns I mentioned earlier.) Now it's time to fill up the flower bed! Oy. But it sure is nice to finally know how to go about some of this stuff.

What have you recently learned to do that you're proud of?

In exactly two hours my dad will be flying into Raleigh, and he'll be here for a week. I probably won't be posting much this week for that reason. But you never know.

So for now, particularly if you are looking for a boost today, check out this post. I'd like to write more about it, but I'm still taking it in. It's all about allowing the scars that others give us to be a part of our history but forbidding them to define us because God does not define us by our scars. And if you're looking for a laugh, check out the rest of the site, which is all about crazy, silly, downright absurd, or sometimes serious or even harmful things Christians often do.