my day with a fighter and a thief

a couple weeks ago, we went to visit my grandma who just started another round of chemotherapy. let me just tell you, after four hours of being hooked up to an iv, i know i would not be as kind and amazing as she was. we walked in the door and she said, "oh goodness, what are you all doing here?" as if we were running into each other at the steak and shake on a sunday afternoon. i said, in a moderately snarky voice, "well, i guess we were in the neighborhood" instead of "we are here for you. remember, you're getting chemo'd." but she forgets that. she is just too awesome to let cancer get in her way. i imagine cancer patients to be sad and sick and being pushed around in wheelchairs, but not this lady. even when all of her hair was gone last summer, she looked healthy and happy and fully intent on kicking cancer's ass. and she thinks of others way above herself. when the nurse said, "watch finn so he doesn't kick the needle out of your grandma's arm," grandma said, "don't worry, it's only saline. it won't hurt him." WHAT? she's a superhero in my mind.


after we left, i had to stop by the babies r us and crate and barrel to buy a few shower gifts. the thriving metropolis of lafayette still lacks these amazing stores, so alas, our trips to indianapolis are jam-packed and eventful. babies r us, ran in to quickly grab a couple baby goo gaas (duh...it's a baby store right). but of course, i can't figure out how to get the registry to print off. i kept trying and trying, when finally the 75 year old register lady, who had been watching me angrily the whole time walks over and says, "can't you see the blinking light? it means you need more paper." i wanted to say, "well, if you saw it from way over there, why didn't you just come over and DO YOUR JOB?" but i didn't. i laughed nervously like i had just been yelled at by the bus driver. they looked oddly similar. of course, abby's registry was 25 pages, so 100 pages later, i had my 4 registries to look at and was off to buy two items off of it. i saved them to recycle at home.

on to crate and barrel. i ran in to quickly grab a couple house-type goo gaas. the registry printed off in a jiffy, because the employees there really care! grabbed a couple things for jen and kristen and a couple things for me (i couldn't resist). then of course went to the register where a new employee was working. a man in his fifties named john, who commented on how cute all my items were and that i was selfish to keep them for myself. meanwhile, finn was having a meltdown, so i handed him the closest non-breakable item to fiddle with. 20 minutes later, many packages in hand, i pushed finn out, packed up the car, drove away and noticed finn chewing on these. i didn't even think to turn around and return them. there weren't any cops around, so i figured i'll start the thievery early.

get in the hole

i cringed when i typed the title. i hate hate hate it when tiger woods is on the tee on a par 5 and right after his swing, multiple jackasses yell 'get in the hole'. if i were him, i would probably turn around and tell them to shush it. can you imagine tiger woods yelling 'shush it!!!!'? it'd make my day.

i haven't been golfing in probably 3 years. i can't believe it's been that long. it was such a big part of my life in high school, but i'm realizing that i sound like a huge loser when i say that because high school was 8 years ago. gross. how did that happen? regardless, i miss golfing. more specifically, i miss golfing with my dad and brothers. if we were bored any spring/summer/fall day/evening, we would just grab our clubs, jump in the cart, and start right in the middle of the 2nd fairway and play a few holes. i want that again. maybe someday, i'll leave this god forsaken house behind and move to live on a golf course. that will be the day that josh's blood pressure will shoot through the roof, because he'll finally have to face how much he sucks at golfing. love you babe.

sucking and all, josh and i went to the driving range last night. we took finn, which made for some awesomeness! it took the focus out of me a little wondering if i was going to smack finn directly in the face with the end of my 4-iron, but we still had fun. josh bought the jumbo basket of balls, so we had a few to spare and let finn work his magic. after getting over the fact that there were so many 'big big big big balls' (finn says this on a daily basis), he got to work and hit a few. with his one handed swing. but it was still so cute. i think we have a little tiger woods in the making. one of course that doesn't cheat on his wife and claim sex addiction. fun times.

i wish i could tell you that my hiatus meant that i had done tons of amazing things, but i honestly can't remember a single thing i have done in the last couple weeks. oh heavens. i'm getting old. i promise i'll have something fun going on in my life to share soon. if not, i'll lie and pretend i'm cool. in the meantime, i've just been hanging out with this little nugget and having regular no-pants-parties. the little nugget with no pants. not his mother.

how to make your house smell like death

my new favorite thing is kale chips. yum. yum. yum. they are so good and equally nutritious. kale is a leafy green vegetable high in vitamin a, vitamin c, calcium, fiber, and manganese. WOOHOO. i can never get my diet to be high enough in manganese. at long last, a vegetable that suffices! i highly recommend everyone tries to make them at their home. it's simple, in fact i'm doing it as i type this.all you have to do is tear the kale into bite size pieces, dry it in the salad spinner, plop them on a baking sheet, sprinkle on some olive oil and salt, then bake for 10-15 minutes at 350 until they're a little crispy and brown on the outsides. then, bam. your house smells like ass, but it's okay, because there's a party in my tummy. so yummy.

note: do not forget to check while baking, because these suckers burn easily and your house may end up smelling even worse.

out in the wilderness

our friend andrew told us about geocaching and whoop, we love it. that's right. WHOOP!

the thing about geocaching that i love so much is that you never know if there is a cache right near where you are and you just don't know about it. it's like a secret society. we didn't have a clue about it until we were told to check it out. see, you go to the website and search your area. it gives you the gps coordinates of all the caches, which are water-tight canisters with a logbook and sometimes some fancy trinkets to claim. then, you take your gps device (or in our case, josh's geocache application on the iphone) and go search it out. a couple weekends back, josh and i went out to search for a few in the plymouth area and found 7. some were in the woods, another was in an old cemetery, and one was in the parking lot at lowe's. who knew! it helped me see areas of plymouth i would have never gone to.

my mom and dad went out with us for a few of them and really got into it. it was so pretty precious. i so wish i would have videotaped it, because in the midst of the first hunt, my dad was all about galloping (okay, just walking briskly) to the location and finding it before anyone else. a 50-something man so excited to be on a modern-day treasure hunt. at the end of the day, my dad was like, 'yeah, i guess that was okay.' oh dad, too proud to say how awesome geocaching is. so awesome. you should try it.

caught

we finally got all of our seeds planted and things are ready to start growing (hopefully). thank god i had finn to help me toss all the onion bulbs on the ground and sprinkle seeds in the grass next to the garden. my little helper.

who needs toys and rawhides when there are sticks all over the backyard? please ignore the overgrown grass. josh was helping his wife instead of mowing the grass. it's fenced in. he mowed the front and we figure we're the only ones who see the back. horrible, isn't it?