Brave or Stupid ? You Decide.

Most of the people who know me well, know that I love my Diet Pepsi. IF you know me really well, you would know that what really excites me, is FOUNTAIN Diet Pepsi. Last night I was suffering through my addiction, wanting one in the worst way. I called husband and told him that God wanted him to get me a fountain Diet Pepsi. Now, we both knew that was not true, but at least husband took me seriously. A few minutes later, husband and youngest come in the door. Youngest is carrying a one half gallon fountain Diet Pepsi. Seriously. Now, it is nearly 8:30 p.m. (late for that much caffeine) , and even I would have a hard time polishing that off, but I do my best and manage to suck down quite a bit before I have to make a run to Walgreens.

I often make runs to Walgreens, but this was really a necessity. I needed to pick up a prescription and some photos. So, at about 8:45 I drive over to my neighborhood Walgreens. I am walking through the store, on my way to the pharmacy when it happened. I round the corner and there in plain sight, right before my eyes, is an ADULT male stuffing 5-hour energy shots down his pants. DOWN HIS PANTS!! His eyes meet mine, and I froze for a moment, then turned to walk away, then something bizarre came over me. I turn around, and go back to him, look him square in the eye, and say " Do you think you should be doing that? "

Geez, did that sound stupid or what? That was either caffeine induced bravery, a "teacher moment" or sheer stupidity. He mumbles something like, "Do what? I didn't do nothin" Then what do I do? I fire back, " Yes you did , you just put something down your pants". The next moment must have been when someone else inhabited my body, because then I saw an employee and put my hand in the air , pointed over the top of my head to the adult male, and shouted, "Shoplifter!"

This is so unlike me. The employee then proceeds to run the guy out of the building, telling him that he knows he is not supposed to be in there. (perhaps this was not the first event)

Now I am feeling quite proud of myself until it hits me that I came alone. What if "adult male" is lurking at the side of the building when I go out? What if he is waiting on me? I then come to my senses, call my husband and ask that he drive over, come inside, and walk me to the car.

I still cannot believe that I did that. This was not a 3rd grader or a student, it was an adult male. If the adult male thinks nothing of shoplifting, he probably would not think much of harming me in the parking lot. I guess I watched too much of Barney Fife when I was younger, he and I seemed to act before thinking.

Laptop

I have been wanting a laptop, but we have just not had extra money for that. I started Swagbucks and decided I would save the "bucks" I earned and possibly get a netbook instead. I had a total of $50.00 that I had used to purchase "digital" Amazon gift cards, and I was just letting them stack up. Well, good things come to those who wait. Youngest son has a friend at school that did not want her laptop any longer. It needed parts and she did not wish to invest in it. Ah Ha! Youngest paid $50.00 and bought his momma a broken laptop. Don't laugh, guess what the needed parts cost? Yep, roughly $50.00. Actually, $63.00 with part of that being shipping. Remember those "Swagbucks" I mentioned? I cashed in $50.00 that I have earned by mostly searching the web, and I used all of my Amazon gift cards for the parts. My out of pocket spending for the parts came to $13.00. Youngest son added some extra RAM that he had on hand, and I have a sweet Toshiba laptop! I am posting from it now.

This is a very nice computer, plenty of space in the hard drive, and one of the parts we bought is a new battery. I upgraded to a higher cell battery and have tons of battery life. It also has a memory card reader, which just happens to accept my strange memory card, and all is great in the computing world!

This will aid me in my future coupon class, and should make it very easy to show my presentation.

Youngest has a knack for finding deals on electronics, I feel I have raised him well in the art of bargain hunting. You better get your requests in soon though, because my sister has already made hers and they are lining up.

Thank you baby boy for thinking of your momma!

Oldest....I want a pony!

What a week

This has been an interesting week to say the least. I was home from school all weekdue to the remainder of my pneumonia, but still woke up yesterday with a heaviness in my chest. The thing is that with my heart history, the doctors will not mess with chest heaviness. Long story shortened, I spent yesterday in the walk in clinic, followed by a trip to the local ER, followed by a trip to my hospital of choice, followed by an all night stay. Heart issues were soon ruled out, but they won't risk dismissing them without the battery of tests. Pressure was attributed to the pneumonia, which according to x-rays, is still lingering just a bit.

The worst part about my entire day was my time at the local ER. Now, it was not due to treatment, but yet due to something else entirely unrelated to me. While I was in my bed with the curtains drawn, a patient was brought in that had in fact, "coded" on her way by ambulance. The area next to me filled with nurses, doctors, and technicians, all doing everything humanly possible to save her. Even though I could not see anything, I heard every word, every order, and every attempt at CPR. I just laid helpless, while this woman's life slipped away. I could tell that this staff was trying desperately to save her. Their words were all spoken in deep respect, and I could hear a nurse pleading in the sweetest voice possible for this woman to make it. I do not think I can explain exactly how I felt at that time to anyone. I did not know this woman, I did not hear a name, but I felt so much sadness to know that a life was ending as I laid there. I sobbed for quite a while, and soon, my curtain slipped open and the son of a good friend (a paramedic) who was there to transport me to the other hospital came in and stood silently by me. Just having someone present with me right then helped.

I have been at the bedside when death occurred. I was with both of my parents, and my grandma, I have felt that feeling of personal loss. I just did not know that I would be so overwhelmed at the loss of a stranger. I prayed hard for a few moments, and quite honestly, it took me a while to recover. I am still praying. I still don't even know who this woman was, or anything about her or her family. I will watch the newspaper closely for a few days, hoping to match a name to the details of when and where.

I just know that all life is precious. I prayed, hoping that she was a believer, and that she inhaled one last breath on this earth and exhaled in the presence of Jesus. I prayed for her family, and for the sadness they will feel. Please help me and pray for them as well.

Updates

The Good:

• Still good.  The boys are still home, and they have been a huge blessing to me today.  I could not have dealt with a broken freezer and transporting all of our coolers filled with food with the way was feeling. 
  

The Bad:

• Freezer was repaired.  This was a big debate, but we decided to see what the repair man had to say.  He was the one who fixed it in December and he cut us a break. No service fee, and he replaced 2 parts, but only charged us for the cheapest of the two.  Our bill was only $48.00.  It is working very well tonight, and I will let it run till tomorrow afternoon to fill it.    I will just have to check this daily from now on , just to be safe.  
•  A funny thing happened today  when the boys were transporting all of our frozen food to the folks' house.  One of them called to report in and I told them I couldn't talk because the freezer guys were here, and I was tied up in the basement...I guess I should be careful about what I say. 
• Laundry has been drastically been reduced, and I am seeing an end to all of the piles.  This has  been an entire family affair, and I am glad to get it done. 
• I am still coughing my head off.  I just took a dose of my codeine cough syrup, so we will see how that goes. Since  I am on steroids and codeine, I sure hope I do not need a drug test. 

The Ugly:

• We are working on that, husband and boys are doing some chores for me, and before the night is out we should have a decent house again. 

I always need to remember that stressful moments have a way of working out.  I will admit that this morning I felt very overwhelmed.  I am doing much better with that right now. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

• Both of our boys are home this weekend.  I do not think that has happened since Christmas. It is good to have them both home, to talk with and to see them interact as brothers. They are very close. 
• They presented me with a beautiful and delicate sterling silver chainmaille bracelet.  I know that word chainmaille makes you think of anything but delicate, but I assure you this is very pretty.  A friend of youngest' in the art department makes them, and the boys bought one for me for Mother's Day.  I will post pictures of it later on, but it needs re-sized.  The only petite part about me other than my height, is the size of my wrists.  
• Youngest also purchased a used laptop from the same girl and gave that to me as well.  It only needed a new battery and a power cord.  I was able to purchase both of those with my Swagbucks' Amazon gift cards.  I only had to pay $13.00 out of pocket.  I tell ya, those Swagbucks add up.  I have earned over $50.00 in gift cards since Christmas! 

The Bad:

• My freezer went out!  Arrrgh.  This is the second time since December that this has happened.  Luckily my boys were home, and luckily my in-laws have plenty of room in theirs, and luckily we got everything transferred before we lost anything. (I am a stockpiler you know)  I have spent the morning on the phone and have about decided to just purchase a new one.  This is the third time over all that we have had a problem, and this freezer is less than 9 years old!  I have located one in town and I feel that we just might go make our purchase tonight.  Good thing we have not spent our Christmas money from the folks!    Just the process of dealing with this has left me depleted of any possible energy  for the day. 
• I feel awful.  This tail end of whatever is kicking my behind and I woke up seriously dragging.  I had another one of those coughing spells and  felt I pulled every muscle across my upper chest.   On Thursday I returned to the walk-in clinic and an x-ray showed my lungs were clear, but they felt I still had inflammation, and put me on a dose of steroids.   As you see from the above bullet, I did not really need the freezer to go out on this day. 
• There are more loads of laundry than I care to count.  A very busy week last week, and this week, plus my sickened state, have all stacked up our laundry.  The  boys brought home about 5 loads between them.  They are good helpers, and it will get done, but it is a bit overwhelming at the moment. 

The Ugly:

• My house.  Okay, I know, some things we just have to let go.  Along with the boys this weekend came a lot of stuff.  Youngest will be coming home for the summer next week, and he got a head start on bringing home his most valued possessions.  There are just so many storage spaces to immediately put things, and one those are taken, the rest has to sit here and there for a while.  I just hate it that "here and there" are in my main living spaces.  This too shall pass, but for now the house is cluttered, messy, and truth be told , not as clean as I would like. (remember, busy weeks and puny  me)

Well, that about sums it up.  I think I need a personal maid-nurse-organizer-repair person to come to my beck and call.  Anyone out there fit the bill? 

Sleepless

Note to self:

One should never see 3:25 am during the work week.  Ugggh.  It has been a long night.  For some reason I woke up at 12:49 am.  I have been rather "snotty" tonight, maybe that woke me up.  I guess it is a carry over from the little bout with pneumonia.  But anyway, I woke up and have not been able to go back to sleep.  I have been to the computer twice, taken the dog out at 2:15, gone back to bed , (twice) and as of yet, am still wide awake.  Husband is really not even snoring, which usually is the culprit. 

Soon, I will reach the point of no return. You know,  that moment where I might as well stay up.  I just hate to think of going through tomorrow with only 2 1/2 hours of sleep.