I was told by a member of a select group that I was the only one in that group who had not gained weight since highschool.

TAKE THAT, BATHROOM SCALE OF DOOM.

Actually, I have gained weight, but we’re working on that. It was comforting to hear that apparently it’s not as noticeable to everyone else as it is to me. It was especially comforting this morning when FOR NO REASON AT ALL I woke up a pound heavier than yesterday. Doh.

“I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again.”

-Joan Rivers

I might be having company tonight, so I cleaned the house. Hear that everybody? I CLEANED THE HOUSE. I vacuumed, emptied the dishwasher, filled the dishwasher, dusted the mantle and tables (even the little ones in the bedroom), cleared the countertops (no small feat in our house), cleaned the countertops, watched the dog track dirty paws all over the freshly vacuumed carpet, and mopped the kitchen floor…well, at least the part you walk on.

It’s really not the cleaning part of housework I hate so much. It’s not really the fact that it takes forever to accomplish such temporary results. It’s not even the fact that dirty bathrooms are icky and I can’t stand to clean them (I solve that by putting Jens in charge of bathroom cleaning).

It’s the fact that when I’m finished, YOU CAN’T TELL I EVER DID ANYTHING.

We live in an ugly house. There’s no getting around that. The walls are dark (except for the squares of swooshing pastel textured paper) and the carpet is dirty (and it’s that burber stuff so you can’t tell where you’ve vacuumed), and there simply isn’t enough light in the house to escape notions of living in a cave. So when I’m done cleaning and I wipe my hands and look around…I can’t tell the difference between when I started and when I’ve finished.

So why, you might ask, do I ever bother cleaning in the first place? The answer is quite simple, and it’s the same reason I never cheated on tests and have dreams about assignments that aren’t completed on time.

Guilt. I don’t have enough to make me keep a clean house, but do have just enough to occasionally embark on a cleaning fit. (And yes, I am holding an experiment to see how many times I can use the word “clean” in a single post. Clean clean clean. So there.) I think it goes back to my theory about finding the meaning of life in balance. Some, yes, but not too much.

I dated a guy once who thought I would make a good Mormon wife. HA. He would have been sorely disappointed. I don’t even make a good Baptist wife half the time. I live in constant bafflement at how I managed to secure such a wonderfully patient and laid-back husband. Who is willing to wait until I’m ready to have kids (we’re pretending that he has a choice here).

So I have a (mostly) clean house now. There are still piles of laundry spewing out of the bathtub, which we use as a back-up laundry hamper because the drain doesn’t work…and because it’s one of the few places the dog doesn’t sneak in to steal dirty socks…and yes, because we’re dreadfully lazy people who hate to do laundry. Especially me.

So if you live in Dallas and get an invitation to come over for dinner, it’s because the house is clean and we feel obligated to take advantage of it. Accept that invitation, because you won’t get another one for 6 months.

PS: Please don’t tell me I’m shallow because I’m annoyed that we own the ugliest house in the neighborhood. You would be very wrong. I’m annoyed that we rent the ugliest house in the neighborhood. Geesh.

“Hello Everyone!
Thank you so much for all your prayers. Ryan is doing much much better. He has regained all movement and feeling back in his arms and legs. Right now the doctors are still speculating and trying to figure out what caused his potassium levels to drop from the normal range of 3.5-4.5, to way under the deadly range with levels of 1.1-1.6. The doctors and specialists have ruled out Gillan Bare Disease (I thought it was called Garretts Disease…sorry about that) by the main factor that Ryan lost movement from large muscles to small, and with that particular disease, it starts in the fingers and toes and then moves to the larger muscles. Praise God Gillan Bare Disease has been ruled out. Ryan was moved today from ICU to the floor and will hopefully be out of the hospital tomorrow, Friday at the latest. Right now dietitians are working with this 6′2″ 180lb kid to eat foods other than pizza and $ .99 burgers, which will definitely be a challenge but Ryan understands the severity of his condition and is definitely taking the right steps. Though the doctors know that his diet is only a small factor to what has caused this, at this point they are not sure how to diagnose his rare condition. They will be putting him on potassium pills, since the potassium is what he responded to so well, and will be monitoring him very closely with doctors visits and blood work. Thanks again everyone for all your prayers. We all felt your prayers, and were filled with strength peace and joy! Thank you! God is so good!”

I received a phone call last night from Andrea, an old friend from high school. Her brother (who is also a friend of my brother) has been put in ICU here in Dallas due to waking up without feeling in any of his limbs. He was rushed to the hospital and tests revealed that he had an extremely low potassium level (just above 1.1) and the doctors were amazed that he was still alive. Evidently he should have had cardiac arrest before his levels reached that low.

They pumped him full of potassium and he seems to be responding to the treatment. As of today, he has some mobilitiy back in his legs. They are calling in specialists to figure out what went wrong and the theories they were tossing about didn’t sound too appealing. They included a blood leak in his brain, a degenerative disease that could leave him permanently crippled, and other options that were all a little scary.

The fact that he’s responding to the potassium treatment is encouraging though, and we’re hoping the only diagnosis they have to come up with is what caused his levels to drop so dramatically.
Please pray for healing and peace - both for Ryan and his family. He’s still in ICU and the doctors are only allowing 2 visitors at a time, twice a day for 30 minutes, so the family is unable to see him very much.

On a lighter note, I think I get the stupid award for the month. I walked into WingStop last night and paid for my pickup order. And left it on the counter. And I didn’t realize until I got home and had no wings to take inside. So J had to make an extra stop on the way home and pick up the wings.

Proof positive that a day and a half of correcting legal documents can turn my brain to mush. Sigh.
Thank goodness for patient husbands

PS: Besides low potassium, there are other things that would give you a heart attack…

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Hey, good news from yesterday’s vent about the $130 sandwich. It looks like the problem will resolve itself, as Bank of America doesn’t seem to be charging us any overdraft fees. That’s the first time I’ve ever witnessed a banking problem resolve itself, so I’m still a bit skeptical, but it appears to be the case. Wahoo!

We got a Screamer on the phone today. Not a huge surprise, I predicted that she was going to be trouble when she first signed up. One of those lovely people who (in addition to being annoyingly high-maintenance) doesn’t read the literature and gets all upset two months later when things aren’t the way they imagined. Fun times.

One thing I have noticed about this job though is the fact that I seem to be developing an imunity to screaming customers. I remember working at the bank a few years back and when a customer would start being unreasonable and demanding, I would get tongue-tied and freeze up like a rabbit in the road and it would completely ruin my day…sometimes my week, depending on how demoralizing they were. I think I still have scars from Mr. Green.

Anyway, perhaps it’s because I really feel competent in what I’m doing now, or (more likely) because I’ve grown up a bit. I now have much less of a problem telling someone exactly where they can put their money-back guarantee. In so many words. While maintaining my professional persona, of course.