Can A House Without Cable Support Life?

Is cable TV really needed? When our boys were teens they would've said,  "Pssht. YEAH!". "Pssht" is a technical term with several meanings. This one being "of course". Now that they all have homes of their own I'm not sure that any of them are paying for cable. Last time I checked the answer was "no" for them. The answer is definitely "no" for us as well.

We used to bundle. (Note to self: When a salesman mentions the word "bundle" it's a marketing ploy to get me to pay more for stuff I don't need or want.) We had phone/internet/cable with one easy payment of way too much. When Hubby had enough of telemarketing on our bundled phone and seen enough reruns of "Housewives" on our bundled cable and gotten kicked off our bundled internet enough, he shut 'er down. All of it.

And it hurt. It really did. We had that home phone for over 25 years. In fact, I believe I ordered phone service from a PHONE BOOTH. Everyone knew to get ahold of us at that number. That number WAS us.

Here's what we do about phone. Before our bundle expired, we went to Sears. We bought Trac phones with double minutes at $19.95. We bought a year of service and (I think) 450 minutes (doubled to 900 minutes by our phones) for a little over $100 each. I can't remember the exact amount. Let's call it $150 for each phone with one year service and 900 minutes. We called everyone we could think of with our soon-to-expire house phone and let them know our new numbers. We're not big phone talkers. We keep in touch with our family and friends via phone, text, email, facebook, and easily stay within our allotted 900 minutes. But if we didn't, we would just go out and buy more minutes. So, right now, our phone service for two phones is $25 per month. If our actual li'l Trac phones last more than one year, that amount goes down. Technically.

Then there's internet. We use free WiFi from a generous neighbor. We really lucked out with our neighbors :) We're not gamers and we don't do fancy stuff on our computer, so WiFi is plenty for us. It cost us a bottle of homemade blackberry brandy and some blackberry jelly from our brambles. I'm callin' it free.

And the almighty cable. The only time we watch much TV is really from about October through April. We have a remote piece of property we like to play on when we can get there. When the snow lays in we can't get there and we're stuck at home. All the time. 24/7. In the pouring Pacific Coast rain. So we (I) craft (Hubby's not much for crafting), visit friends and relatives, travel a bit (OK, we're not stuck at home ALL the time), cook, read, do little home maintenance things, and watch cableless TV. How? Here's our set-up:

We've amassed a couple-hundred movies over the years. These are movies we don't mind watching over and over. OK, Hubby does get little tired of Galaxy Quest, but it IS the best movie ever! They were gifts or yard sale finds or gotten from thrift stores or Target sales. You'll notice we have a DVD player AND a VCR. A great youtube video taught me how to clean my VCR and I love ours because (1) it's easy to clean and (2) you can pick up movies for almost nothing. Check out youtube for VCR cleaning. Simple stuff. All you really need is a small phillips screwdriver, some alcohol, a few q-tips, and 20 minutes.

But there does come a time when we want to watch something new. We do go to family and friends and borrow their movies. But after that, we go to our local video store. It's a family-owned store and they allow us to rent 3 older movies for the price of a new release. We buy $30 punch cards with 10 punches on them which equals out to 30 movies for $30. We might get about 3 of these cards per year. Probably more like 2, but I'll go for the high side. So $90 for punch cards and *maybe* $20 for movies we get at yard sales or store sales. $9.17 per month for TV. Plus, NO COMMERCIALS!!!! AND we only watch what we want to watch!

Our custom phone/internet/cable "bundle" costs us $34.17 per month. And will be less the longer our little Trac telephones last. Now THAT is a deal.

Hair and Face Washin'

OK, if you've ever seen my hair or face, you're probably laughing right now - but hear me out.

We'll start with hair. Mine's been thinning (and graying) quite a bit in the last several years. Actually, I found my first gray hair at age 16 and it's at least 50-50 now. It's shoulder-length just because I don't know what else to do with it but I do know I don't want to have to style it every day, so back in a clip or pony it goes.

My hair used to be very oily. Like wash-it-every-single-day oily. Which made my scalp flaky. So I used a dandruff control shampoo every day. Which was harsh on my thin, fine hair. So I used conditioners or dandruff control shampoo with conditioner which made my thin, fine hair lay flat. Let's just say this cycle went on for years.

Then I started reading stuff online about the "no 'poo" movement. People wash their hair with fruit juices, oils, avocado, oatmeal, all kinds of different stuff. I was stunned. You mean you can do that? You don't HAVE to use commercial shampoo and conditioner?

So here's what I've worked out for myself:

I now wash my hair 2-3 times per week. About every three days. To do that, when I shower I take my Ball jar of bulk baking soda, put one tablespoon of it in that middle ketchup (mustard?) bottle, and fill it the rest of the way with warm water. Shake to dissolve. I work that baking soda/water mixture into my hair and scalp, massaging with my fingertips for a minute or so. Then I rinse well. Then I use a 3:1 mixture of water to apple cider vinegar as "cream rinse". Just on the ends of my hair, not on my scalp - and rinse well again. That's it. Hair not AS oily (jeez, where does it all come from?) , scalp definitely not flaky, fine hair has a little body.

Now the face. The poor, poor face. I have an oily T-zone (go figure) and hormonal acne. I've used all different kinds of stuff on it. Soaps, astringents, scrubs, masks, lotions, creams, gotten facials, seaweed treatments, even took that birth control pill that's supposed to help with acne.

Well, the only things that've changed are that my face is less oily and I put less on it. Still have that hormonal acne at certain times. Here's my face-washing routine: see that little bottle of vitamin E oil up there? I wet my face, put 4 drops of vitamin E oil on my palm, rub it into both hands and then onto my face. A warm washcloth wipes it off. So, in the morning, oil wiped off with wet washcloth, in the evening no oil, just a warm, wet washcloth. Simple. I don't even have to moisturize any more.

Oil, you say? For a face with an oily T-zone? Seems counter-intuitive, doesn't it? I know. Maybe it's a chemistry thing I don't understand, but somehow oil combats oil. At least in my case.

So now you know my "beauty secrets". Don't laugh!

The Importance of a Good Sink

For most of my growing up years, it was the five of us. Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Sister, me. We moved a lot. Just about every year, in fact. The family mostly went for crappy, out-of-the-way, farmhouse-ish rentals with a bit of land. I remember a few we had to clean and fix up BEFORE we moved in. Anyone ever scrape spaghetti noodles and fly specks off a ceiling so they could wash and paint it?

The one constant household job I remember having as a kid was washing up evening dishes with my sister. It didn't matter if it was Thanksgiving Day or Fast Sunday, we washed dishes in the evening. We both cleared the table. I washed, wiped down the counters, and swept the floor. Sister rinsed, dried and put away dishes or pots that didn't fit on the drainboard. She also acted as quality control for my occasionally sloppy washing job.  Which irritated me no end. Because I am the eldest. But it was a very important job. If the folks took one dirty dish out of the cupboard, they'd pull out every dish we had for us to re-wash. Trust me, it only takes once.

Since we moved so much and became so intimate with the dish-washing tools, I became somewhat of a connoiseur of kitchen sinks in crappy old farmhouses. This is my favorite:

This is an enameled steel 1950's double sink with drainboard.  It comes with its own backsplash. It has a little molded spot where a bar of soap can go - which I don't use for soap 'cause I use a pump-type bottle for handsoap - but I put my sponge there. It already had the hole for the sprayer which is a must for any kitchen in my opinion, but I've dealt with many a kitchen without one.

Of all its many virtues, what I love most about this sink is its drainboards. You can wipe the bits off the drainboards directly into the sink with no seams to get hung up on. I have almost no counterspace, so the drainboards serve the dual purposes of counter and dish drainer. Plus, I don't have to have the wooden or coated wire dish drainer sitting on my counter. Plus, every time I do dishes I smile. I think of my sister standing right next to me. Poring over each dish. Searching for that speck of food left on it so she can dunk it back in the dishwater. Turd.  :)

Thank You Pinterest!

I have this great daughter-in-law who turned me on to Pinterest. In fact, she showed it to me on her machine, invited me, helped me set it up on my machine, (have I mentioned before that I'm a little slow very weak in the technical department?) and showed me how to use it.

So I check in from time to time and get a lot of really good ideas. Like this one from kailochic.blogspot.com:

YOU CAN GROW VEGGIES FROM THE USED-UP STUFF YOU BOUGHT AT THE STORE! A TWOFER!

You can cut the root off the end of onions (green or dry)  and celery and just stick them in the dirt and this is what you get:

Free onions! All at different levels of readiness because they were planted whenever I chopped a root end off a storebought onion.

Free celery! Excuse the winter messiness. You can see the two little baby celeries in the lower left corner that I put out last month. I just go out and cut a few stalks at a time whenever I need them. Then, if I start to use more than I grow, I buy another bunch from the store, cut off the root end, and poke it in the soil.

Free avocado seedlings! Wait . . . free avocado seedlings? I'm actually a little bummed about this. Here I am, babying along two avocado pits in wineglasses in my windowsill, lose one to mold, check the other every single day, worry over it, and my husband finds this hardy little burgeoning avocado seedling when he pulls the spent grape tomato vines from the greenhouse. Ah well, the power of a couple shovelsfull of compost. Actually, I got a volunteer winter squash vine out of this bed as well.

I've also got some sweet potato slips rooting and some regular potatoes eyeing up.

So, while I knew about replanting things like potatoes and sweet potatoes and the seeds of anything bought from the grocery store (dry beans included), I did not know about replanting the roots of celery and onions. How did I miss that?

Thank you, daughter-in-law! Thank you Pinterest! And a shoutout to kailochic.blogspot.com.

Free Seeds

I've been on this free seed thing lately. Not free seed packets gotten from a friend, charity, or kindly company, but seeds/pits from things we eat.

In my fridge, I have 36 apple seeds and some hazelnuts and walnuts stratifying (as well as my Jelly Belly jar full of seed packets for this coming season).

On the kitchen windowsill is the survivor of my two avocado seeds. The other molded and left the property last garbage day.

I've also got envelopes of seeds saved from pomegranate (can't get enough of those and oldest boy has a bush/tree at his house. So jealous!) , Hubbard and acorn squash, and peach and cherry pits.

Now, I know that the apples are not going to grow "true" to the mother tree. I may get bitter, tiny, stunted apples if I get any at all. Same with the nuts. But, since I have a bit of land to poke the seeds into, why not try, right? If they're horrible or don't grow, all I've lost is a bit of effort and a little space in the fridge for a time.

We'll see, OK? If I have amazing success with any of these I'll post about it. If not, well, I'm not gonna brag about my failures, am I?

Tortillas! If I Can Do It, So Can You

One fine summer, our youngest son's best friend came to stay with us. The boys had a good time. WE had a good time. It was just a good match.

Now that they're are all grown up with boys of their own, we still see Samuel, our Summer Son occasionally. On the occasion that I butchered our last stewing hen, he, the beautiful Katie, and their children, came by to show us how REAL Mexican enchiladas were made. Gotta tell ya, they were GOOD, but different. It consisted of chicken meat stewed with chilies, very little cheese, onions marinated in vinegar, and these wonderful homemade tortillas that were dipped in a red sauce and fried. The whole thing was eaten taco style. Very different from the two-cans-of-cream-of-chicken-soup-cheesy-rolled-up-in-a-flour-tortilla-and-baked enchiladas I was used to.

After that lovely evening I got to thinking about those tortillas. Unlike storebought, they had FLAVOR. And they were just masa (corn flour) and water. Rolled into a ball a little bigger than a golf ball. Pressed flat between two sheets of plastic. Cooked on a well-seasoned stovetop griddle. I have all the stuff that's needed to just get in there and do it myself. Except that amazing authentic wooden Mexican tortilla press (another kitchen gadget I'd love to have but don't have room for) - but I do have Grandpa's rolling pin. Let's give it a whirl.

Dump some masa into a bowl and add water. Sorry I'm not a measuring person. This amount of masa and water made 15 tortillas.

Mix with your hands until you have a nice dough. Add water if too dry, or more masa if too wet. It's pretty forgiving.

I roll the dough up into slightly flattened balls a little bigger than a golf ball and cover with a wet paper towel. Then I roll each one out between two sheets of plastic (you can see I used a cut-up Ziploc bag).

Cook 'em on the griddle. OK, so the edges are ragged and some of them have bubbles (Samuel would say, "Place them on the griddle, don't THROW them!"). Sammy might've tossed some of the less than perfect ones to the chickens, but we cretins eat them!

And this is what you get. 15 yummy discs of goodness. How easy is that?

Thank you Samuel. You're the best Summer Son ever.

Choosing Puppies, Debi Style

It's a rainy, blustery, gray day here on the coast. This is the perfect day for a fire, a book, a cup of cocoa all enjoyed from the comfort of a favorite chair. But True doesn't care. True WANTS to go outside in the wind and wet. In fact, it's what she's been waiting - no, pining - for since oh-dark-thirty.  This is what I signed on for when I chose her out of a litter of seven.

This is True nagging. She huffs and grunts and whines and periodically comes over to lay her snout on my leg and look at me soulfully.

This is happy True. Out in the wet and wind. With her ball. She looks a little like Dobby from Harry Potter, but she's happy. You can see that her hiney and tail are a little blurry from wagging.

So, every day, twice a day, True must go out and chase her ball. Rain, snow, sleet, shine, doesn't matter. Chasing is a must.

She's actually one of the smartest dogs we've ever had. She rings the bells we tied to the doorknobs to go in and out. She fetches, sits, lays, stays on command. She knows every one of her stuffed toys by name and will bring them to you when asked. She'll bring the treat jar to you. In fact, she'll bring you anything you ask for as long as it fits in her mouth and she understands that's the thing you want. She'll put her paws up in the air when you point your finger at her and say, "Stick 'em up!", and will drop down play-dead when you say, "Bang, bang". She'll jump over and through things like fences or hoops on command. She once climbed a ladder onto the roof to retrieve a Frisbee. She's got good manners, too. Like she won't rush out the door ahead of you, she waits for the command to go out the door. She won't jump out of the back of the truck until commanded, etc.

How did I luck into this paragon, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. These are my requirements when pup shopping:

1. First of all, I use the word "shopping" loosely, because it must be free. I have gotten pound puppies before and paid the shelters' fees happily. But when you get a pup from the shelter, you most likely won't get to meet the parents, you most likely won't know what breed(s) the pup may be (I'm pretty sure the shelter folks guess the breed based on what the puppy looks like), your pup may be traumatized just from being in the shelter. I figure I'll be taking on the feeding, grooming, vetting of this animal for 10+ years, so don't want to pay much up front.

2. It must also be a PUPPY under six months old, but eight weeks is ideal. I like being able to teach my dog everything I want it to know. I don't enjoy "unteaching" bad habits.

3. It must be a mutt. Many breeds have their own issues - be it health or personality. Sometimes with a mutt, you get the best of whatever breeds are mixed, sometimes you get the worst. But I simply like the idea that there's a chance of not having to deal with negative aspects of the puppy's breed(s).

4. I must be able to meet the dam & would like to meet the sire as well, but meeting mommy is the requirement. I just want to see what her personality is like. And it helps me to know what breed(s) the puppy may be.

5. It must be female. I don't deal well with testosterone-induced aggressiveness, so prefer to avoid it altogether.

6. It must have some type of shepherd in its ancestry. My first dog was a German Shepherd mix and I fell in love. As with all working-type dogs, they need to have a job or they'll assign themselves one and that attitude fits well with our lifestyle.

7. This last one is a little harder to describe, but is the most important to me. Once I've gotten through all six of the above and I'm standing there looking at a box with three female puppies out of a litter of seven, I take out the three females and set them on the ground. Is her coat thick and shiny? Does she have a nice fat puppy belly? Is she interacting with her siblings? Is she curious about her surroundings? All these have to have "yes" answers. THE ONE also has to have this: a sweet face and a willingness to look at my eyes. Is that weird? I can't have a dog with "intense" eyes or a dog who won't meet my eyes. We have to be able to look at each other and receive signals from each other. Because, for me, that's where a lot of our communication is - especially during training. If she's got too intense a gaze, she may challenge me (not as in "I really enjoy this challenging job", but as in "I refuse to do what you say. Ever. Unless I feel like it."). If she looks away, or refuses to meet my eyes, she can ignore me.

So that's it. A sweet face and eye contact. It works for me.

Apple Cider Vinegar

I'm experimenting. We have two lovely apple trees.

I know, I know, they need to be trimmed. Right now. The closest tree is a Golden Delicious and the furthest is, I think, a Spitzenburg. These are some really prolific trees and we get a LOT of apples that don't keep very long. I've done a few things with them over the years: the ubiquitous applesauce, apple butter, dried apples, canned apple pie filling, fresh apple pies, eating apples. You get it. September first I love apples. At the end of October I hate apples. This year I decided to do something new by copying someone else.

I have this awesome neighbor that I want on my team in the event of a zombie apocalypse. She does everything from gardening to making cheese to making musical instruments to mushing a sled dog team while working full time and raising two boys. Where do these people come from? She also makes this really good hard cider and since I have all the stuff my dad had - Grolsch bottles and rubbers, 5-gallon glass bottle for fermenting - I decided to give it a whirl. The result, after two months of fermentation, was meh.  I only added one pound of sugar per gallon of juice and the cider was DRY. I like it a lot sweeter. We'll try again next year.

Another thing I tried was apple cider vinegar. I put some of the apple bits left over from a day of juice-making into gallon-sized pickle jars. Then I filled them up the rest of the way with rain water, covered them with a couple pieces of sprigged muslin since I'd run out of cheesecloth and stuck the jars on a shelf. In December, most of the apple bits had sunk to the bottom of the jars, but the ones that were still floating had this yucky mold on them. I kinda freaked out and skimmed that mold off. I decided to see what would happen next and covered them back up and back on the shelf they went.

This is what happened.

Yesterday I checked them out. This jellyfish-looking stuff is THE MOTHER!!!! This is what makes vinegar. This is what you pay so much more for at the health food store.  I must confess that I did the happy dance. And it wasn't pretty. Then I tasted my vinegar and calmed down. And decided to leave it on the shelf for a while longer. It's not quite vinegary enough yet.

If this works out, I'm so glad I'm gonna be on my zombie apocalypse team! Who knew it was so easy to make apple cider vinegar?

Meet the Bathroom

Meet the bathroom.

Meet the bathroom cleaning arsenal:

cool blue/green veggie scrub brush from the dollar store
distilled vinegar - but you can use any kind - I just don't want to waste homemade cider vinegar on the toilet. I buy cheap distilled vinegar in gallon jugs and refill my small Heinz vinegar bottle.
dishsoap - any kind will do. I buy mine in gallon containers from the restaurant supply store and simply refill my little old Palmolive container. I think this stuff is Joy. It's what was on sale.
cool blue spray bottle from the dollar store. I used to have a way cooler red one, but it started leaking everywhere except the place I wanted squirted. Those eight-year-old girls working in that Chinese factory were slackers.
toilet brush
rags

The only bathroom-dedicated tool in this arsenal is the toilet brush.

I used to hate cleaning the bathroom. It involved scouring powder, dedicated bathroom sponges with scrubbies, a special plastic pitcher for rinsing, bleach, disposable bleach wipes, toilet brush, and a whole lotta elbow grease. I kid you not, I used to scour the shower early in the morning, then strip down and take a shower because I was going to get all wet anyway just from rinsing away the grit!

So, in my quest for simpler, kinder, gentler, here's my new bathroom cleaning gig:

Heat one cup of vinegar in the microwave - I don't have to say, "In a microwave safe container," do I? - for 1 minute. Pour it in the spray bottle. Add 1 tsp dishwashing liquid. Gently swirl the spray bottle to mix vinegar & dishsoap. Spray the sink, counter and the inside and outside of the commode. Restock the spray bottle with more hot vinegar and dishsoap if needed, then spray down the tub/shower. All the way from the top of the shower walls to the drain hole. Wait 15-20 minutes. Wipe down sink and countertop with dry rag. Swish inside of toilet with toilet brush. Wipe down outside of toilet - all the way to the floor - with a dry rag. Make a couple passes over the tub itself with the vegetable scrub brush. The bathtub ring comes off with no elbow grease - just by running the scrubber over it. Wipe the tub walls down with a rag. Run water into the tub to rinse away scum. All that's left is to sweep the floor, run a damp mop over it and viola! Company clean.

On Home Ownership and Repair

The only reason my husband and I can own a home is because of my husband. Not just because he's the saver in this family, 'cause he is, but also because he is the fixer in this family.

We learned early on that a young couple just starting out in their new home had to have either (a) a wad o' cash or (b) a strong back and/or ingenuity. Whatever cash we had went to the mortgage. That left option b for repairs and improvements.

While I was growing up, my family rented. We moved a lot. I learned so much about packing, organizing, cleaning, stripping wallpaper, sanding and finishing wood floors, painting - all the surface things that make a home livable.

While my hubby was growing up, his family owned. They stayed in one place. He learned about cleaning out the well, cleaning the chimney, roofing, porch and shed building, home additions, plumbing, electrical. All the deep-down meaty things that make a home livable.

Hubby's philosophy? "I can attempt something three times before it costs me the amount a contractor would charge. And I get to learn something new each time." Of course, he hopes to get the job done in the first or second attempt.

He's taught me that as long as you know how to turn the gas, water, and electricity on and off, you can try most anything. I smile as I help watch him work. He's one of those guys. You know, the kind of guy that can build a chicken coop out of an old shower door and a pile of free pallets. And that makes him so hot.

Is Kitchen Gadgetry an Addiction?

My kitchen is tiny. It's in an open floorplan home, but the actual kitchen workspace (counters, stove, fridge, & all) is 10x10. Under the counters it has 4 drawers, 3 cupboards. A 3x3 butcher block is most of my counter space. It has 3-high open shelving above the countertops. Tiny. I was going to post a picture of it here, but, while I could post a picture on the 15th, apparently I can't now. The frustrations of a technotard. (Edited 1/19/13: Yay! I can post pictures on the 15th AND the 19th. Must remember that.)

ANYWAY, suffice it to say, I had to offload a buttload of kitchen gadgets to shoehorn us in here. A lot of kitchen gadgets. Beautiful, handy, spacetaking gadgets that I loved. I'll name a few (even though it hurts): waffle iron, mixer (this thing could do everything but comb your hair!), electric skillet, electric fryer, electric soup pot (really, I had that), blender, electric griddle, bread machine, coffee pots, electric grain mills . . . and that's just naming a few. Ooooh, ouch. That really did sting.

I've also changed the way I cook over these last several years. More ingredients, less packages and frozen foods. One of my cupboards is a corner cupboard with 2 lazy susans for shelving. In there I have gallon-sized pickle jars and half-gallon glass jars with: flour, sugar - brown and white, beans, rice, noodles, homemade cream of mushroom and chicken soup mixes, homemade onion soup mix, masa, popcorn, dried fruit, chocolate chips. It also holds vegetable and olive oils, peanut butter, Nutella, vinegars (white, rice, cider, balsamic), honey, and molasses. With these and the spices in jars above my stove and fresh or frozen ingredients from the fridge/freezer, we make almost everything we eat. We do buy chips (who can live without those?) and ice cream (#1 on my staple list) and chocolate (did I say ice cream was #1?) and bread ('cause I'm no good with yeasty things).

With my new way of cooking, all I need are: my pots & pans, 3 nesting serving bowls, 3 serving plates,  cast iron griddle for the stovetop, 4 knives (2 serrated, 2 straight edged), tea kettle, Bodum french press, assorted wooden and metal spoons & spatulas, normal flatware, dishes, and cups/glasses. Not to say I don't have more. 'Cause I do.  But I only use them when nobody else is here.

See you in rehab!

The Bane of My Existence

BAM!!! Don't you wish you could unsee that?

I photographed these enthusiastic exhibitionists in my garden last summer. They're single-minded. And hermaphroditic. How cool is that? They start out as boys and, after they understand it's clearly better to be a girl, they switch. Not sure which is the enlightened one. Sometime between the cigarettes and the picking of 50 awesome and original names for their new offspring they became even more slimy. And salty.

I am blessed to garden in Cascadia. The great and beautiful Pacific Northwest. Because the weather is so wet and mild, many of the crops I grow here are year-'round. I get lettuce, chard, spinach, carrots, and many others all year.

I am also cursed to garden in Cascadia. The damp and cool Pacific Northwest. Because the weather is so wet and mild, it is home to the bane of my existence who live to nibble gobble each other AND my lovely year-'round veggies.

Have you ever learned something new and said to yourself, "Self, how did you get to be this age and not know THAT"? Well, it happened to me. I recently learned, and I believe it was from Backwoods Home Magazine, that cedar boards are my new best friends. Laid in the garden overnight and flipped over in the morning, cedar boards provide a smorgasbord (haha, get it?) of slugs for the chickens. Huh. Who'd've thunk it?

On Scheduled Surgeries

I love my mother-in-law. My husband and I can never divorce because I don't want to risk losing her. She's a hard-charging lioness when it comes to protecting her family, determined (OK, stubborn) when it comes to getting things done,  and a sweetie the rest of the time. For this post I'm gonna call her Sweetie.

I've had a few experiences with hospitals. I've always had adequate care - once my son had stellar care - in our hospital. But last summer, Sweetie's scheduled surgery ended up being a perfect storm of bad hospital policy, computer glitches, furniture failures . . . you name it, it went wrong. Thank goodness she survived it. Actually, thanks to a good surgeon and (very) loud family advocates, she survived it.

I have a list in my head for when I (or a family member or friend) have surgery:

1. Make sure someone who loves you is there. Every single minute. They can pee and go to the cafeteria for coffee but only if they RUN! I have a couple of theories. (a) Patients get better care in hospitals when a loved one or friend is visible and willing to go to bat for them. (b) Children get more attention in school when parents are visible and willing to go to bat for them.

2. Talk to your surgeon. If you take lifesaving medications ask if you can take them with you. If you'll need  pain medication ask if you can take some with you. Barring that, ask if you can have your surgeon's phone numbers. We had a horrible experience with an off-site computer pharmacist. He failed to give pharmaceutical "orders" before the computers went down. Sweetie was without pain medication for quite a while after a major surgery because the nurses could not (would not?) give pain medication without "orders". Sweetie's hospital room roomie was a type 1 diabetic all her life. Her panicked husband ended up driving home to get her insulin because there were no "orders". Thank goodness they lived fairly close by.

3. Make the Boy Scout motto your own. Be prepared. Take extra underclothing, a magazine, a book, Ipod, hard candies . . . whatever you think you'll need to be comfortable. Don't depend upon the hospital to provide it.

4. Check your modesty at the door. Someone is going to see your bum, or your mole, or your cottage cheese thighs. Get over it.  Concentrate on more important things, like getting well for one!

Sweetie has to undergo another surgery tomorrow. So you know where I, my Ipod, my book, my snacks, my Thermos, and my chamber pot (just kidding!) are gonna be.

Heal well, Sweetie. And God help those who don't help you.

Introduction

Around this time of year I really start to miss my mother. She died when I was thirty, and now, seventeen years later, I am the same age she was when she passed. Just one of the really messed up parts of that whole situation is this:  at age thirty I was just about wise enough to ask for (and be able to hear) some advice from her.

Mom was always very careful only to give advice when asked. Which I almost never did. Because I was living my life and knew everything I needed to know, right? And now that my chicks have left the nest I try (really, I DO try!)  not to give unsolicited advice. But sometimes it just jumps right outta my firmly closed lips. And is received, well, not so well.

So, I've decided to put some things I've learned out into the universe. Or at least into the blogosphere. I'm not sure who'll read this - if anyone - but hopefully someone will be able to take away a little piece that'll somehow make their life easier or better.

My first piece of advice? Ask your mama. Seriously. Whatever it is, she's probably been there and done that 20+ years ago. While walking uphill. Both ways. In the snow.