Monthly Archives: September 2011

Surgery, Storms and Sleep (or the lack thereof!)

Posted on September 30, 2011 | 19 comments

Good morning everyone! 

I had what I guess counts as major surgery on Tuesday and I have to admit, since I’d never had any surgery or general anesthesia before, I was a little scared. 

I shouldn’t have been though.  It wasn’t too very long after I was led back to pre-op that I was given a shot of something called “Versed” which basically put me to sleep until about 20 minutes before surgery.  It really was amazing how quickly the entire pre-op room got quiet (there were maybe eight of us in curtained off little sections) as soon as each of us got our shots.   

I woke up about 20 minutes before surgery, in time to remember being wheeled on the gurney from the pre-op room and telling the man who was wheeling me into surgery that I had never seen the world from that perspective before. 

I also remember looking at the machine in the corner of the operating room that was going to help do the laparoscopic surgery robotically and telling two of the OR nurses that the machine looked like an octopus.  If I had known whether they had seen Spiderman II, I could have been more precise and told them that it looked like the arms to Dr. Ock, but I wasn’t certain they would know.  (My doctor told me later that I was right; the machine did look like an octopus!) 

As one of the nurses was working to get my feet positioned correctly, the anesthetist told me she was going to give me a shot of pure oxygen for a few seconds, so I dutifully breathed in and out, and then she gave me another mask and said that whatever I was breathing next would make me sleepy.  I remember breathing into the second mask for maybe a second.  The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room, and asking the recovery room nurse if I was being polite. 

She half laughed (I suspect if you are a nurse in a recovery room, you must sign some kind of non-disclosure agreement, since there’s no telling what comes out of the mouths of recovering patients), and asked if normally I wasn’t polite.  I tried to explain to her that I was actually very polite normally, but I wanted to be sure I was still being polite since I wasn’t exactly my normal self.  What came out was a croaked “important to be polite.”  She agreed with me that it was.

After that, I decided to stop trying to make conversation for a while until the young man came in who was going to wheel me up to my room.  (His name was Justin.)  I was a little more awake then, I think, because I can remember chatting with him about how long had he been working at the hospital and did he like it and such until the gurney reached the surgery waiting room where my husband and mom joined me as we went up to the room.  I chatted up a good number of other hospital employees while I was under the influence of whatever they had given me, but I did enjoy learning about them.  

For example, Carolyn, who took my vital signs during the day, has a daughter who is getting her master’s in social work.  Carolyn works three 12 hour shifts during the week and is off for the rest of the week which is important to her because she wants to take part in her church activities on Sunday.  She worked from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and her third trip to my room at 7:15 was her last act before leaving for the day.  My night nurse, Anna, has an 11 year old son, and knew all about the five second rule, which we discussed when I dropped one of my tablets onto the bed covers.  

 

Mom left about 2 on Tuesday, soon after I was in the room, to go walk the dogs and pick up Kayla from school, take her to dinner and then bring her by for a minute.  (I was in a hospital about 45 minutes from the house.)  I think Kayla was both a little scared and a little relieved to be at the hospital.  She had made me a get well card, which of course I saved, and had to know exactly what each and every tube coming out of me, or every sticker on me, was and she wanted to see my incisions. 

The funniest one to explain was the catheter; Mark handled that with her outside the room, but then she came in and looked at me and said, “So you really have your own port-o-potty with you?”  As usual, she had all of us laughing.  I told her I wouldn’t have one for long, though, and thank goodness I didn’t!

While I was … uhhh.. shall we say under the influence of whatever I was under the influence of, my body really hadn’t noticed that anything was done to it.  It wasn’t too long before I felt able to stand and walk a little bit (about 8 hours after surgery Mark, a nurse and I were strolling the halls for about two laps at 9:00 p.m.) and I was dressed and ready to leave for the house by 7 the next day. 

However, I have noticed in my clients at work and in family members, a curious fact about surgery – the pain, for some reason, is at its worst on the third day after surgery.  I am not sure whether or not Thursday, yesterday, was the third day or not. 

The surgery was Tuesday, so is the third day Thursday, as in Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, or is it Friday, as in I shouldn’t count Tuesday and then go Wednesday-Thursday-Friday?  I’m pretty sure only I could make something so simple so complicated.

I do know that yesterday was the day on which my body suddenly realized that something had gone on inside it that it didn’t really appreciate.  In revenge, it produced pain, which I controlled with medication, mostly Tylenol at least until night-time, and kept trying to get me take naps.  (I have to admit, I didn’t fight the nap thing too hard, at least until I had the dream about adopting 9 children from a children’s home that was about to lose funding for those 9 spots!)  My brain, in sympathy with the rest of my body, refused to cooperate on clear thinking, either.  I had to keep searching for words that I couldn’t quite remember.   For a writer, that is not fun!

Mark spent the night at the hospital with me, in a recliner, so he had the pleasure of being woken up about every hour and a half for something just like I was, but the nurses were very nice and just trying to do their job.  Both he and I appreciated how attentive and kind all of the staff at the hospital was. 

I think my Mom got the worst of the deal that evening, since she and a still semi-scared 9-year-0ld girl went home Tuesday night to three dogs who absolutely refused to believe that neither Mark nor I would be home that night.  I don’t know what time they all got to sleep but Tyra apparently slept by the front door for a long time, convinced we would come in at any moment, and Darwin and Mandy were certain Mom was hiding Mark and I in our bedroom. 

I do know when they woke up for the first time on Wednesday – at 4:20 a.m., when an unexpected thunderstorm came through.  All 90 pounds of Darwin sailed onto Mom’s bed, waking her up, with another 55 pounds of Mandy approaching from the side, and Kayla coming out of her room, all of them announcing that the thunder had begun!  Mom said it was the funniest thing to have Darwin’s huge Great Dane frame with his lab face staring anxiously down at her as she woke up.

Darwin, the look-out

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

19 Comments

Posted in The quest for health, working mom

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Seven Things You Might Not Know

Posted on September 28, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning everyone!

Today, we come to the last of the steps for me to finish accepting my Versatile Blogger awards, but first I need to tell you about a mistake I made.  I received the Versatile Blogger Award three times in a week, not two.  The third person who gave me the award was Mary Ann Kempher, a friend of mine from Twitter.  I told you about her blog, Conversations with Mary Ann, in yesterday’s post.  I just wanted to apologize publicly to her for omitting her name from Monday’s list of awarders.

I'm Sorry! (From Print Shop Professional 2.0)

It’s really hard to think of seven things you might find interesting about me that you don’t already know, since I already write about most of the things that I think might be interesting in my life, but I am going to give it my best shot.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #1:  I met my husband at the pool at the Montgomery Athletic Club in Montgomery while I was studying my quantum physics textbook.  He walked up to me and asked, “So, does E=MC squared?”  I asked him if he knew what the equation meant, and he did, so our first conversation started with physics and went from there.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #2:  Before I was 20, I had lived in the following states:  Massachusetts, Mississippi, Florida, Rhode Island, Maryland, California, Washington, Virginia, Alabama and Georgia.  In addition, I had lived in Taipei, Taiwan.  (We were a Navy family.)

U.S. Navy Star (From Print Shop Professional 2.0)

Fact #3:  Since I was 20, I have lived in North Carolina (for 3 1/2 years) and Alabama (for many, many more years).

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #4:  I used to play the clarinet in junior high in California and my first two years of high school in Virginia.  I stopped once we moved to Alabama for my final two years of high school.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #5:  I taught high school/junior high math for 3 1/2 years in North Carolina.  When we moved back to Alabama, I was at home for one week, then started a job as a secretary with a law firm that was just starting out.  I didn’t know what a plaintiff was, a complaint, or even a summons, and I typed abysmally slow.  What I did know was that the three machines in the corner of the office that cost $3000 were printers, not computers.  That’s the only reason I can think of that made them give me a chance.  I am still with that law firm over 20 years later, now working as an attorney.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #6:  I went to Jamaica once as part of a cruise.  I was as sick as a dog with a severe upper respiratory infection, and so we had to leave the dock to go into Ocho Rios to find a pharmacy to buy some kind of cold medicine that would work for me, since the stuff we could buy on the ship wasn’t working.  We were surrounded by panhandlers once we started walking into town, and if I hadn’t been with Mark, I would have been very scared to be by myself.  After that experience, I really don’t care about going back to Jamaica, although I have to say that the ladies at the pharmacy were wonderfully kind.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

Fact #7: I am Southern now, but I was born in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

6 Comments

Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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And the Envelope Please…

Posted on September 27, 2011 | 22 comments

Good morning everyone!

As you may recall from yesterday, I am working through the responsibilities I agreed to in accepting the Versatile Blogger Award.  (Did I mention that I won an award?  I did!)  Today, I get to give out awards!

The Envelope Please! (From PrintShop Professional 2.0)

Here are the blogs to which I have awarded the Versatile Blogger Award. However, because some of my nominees have won this before, most of them blog in their “spare” time and have other full time jobs as well, and most of them are parents or pet owners, I am changing the terms of the award. You don’t have to do anything to accept this award. Period.

If you have not won the award before, you might consider doing one or all of the following three things: 1) Link back in your blog to my blog; 2) Nominate other blogs, as many or as few as you like, for the award and let them know about it, or 3) in a post of your choosing, list seven interesting facts about yourself. If you are winning this award from me, but don’t recall checking out my blog, please feel free to do so. If you don’t feel like doing any of this, that’s okay too; you still deserve the award.

So, here are my nominees for the Versatile Blogger Award in alphabetical order:

1) Bassa’s Blog – Bassa is a Caucasian Shepherd dog exploring the world in Tbilisi Georgia with the help of her tall man, De, the little person and has an uneasy truce with Mr. Parrot. Her unique perspective on things always makes me laugh.

2) Belle of the Carnival – Belle’s blog (and Belle may not be her real name but is short than continually writing “Belle of the Carnival” over and over) is about different things that happen to her throughout her life. Her recent post, about an important lesson her grandmother taught her, was so funny that I couldn’t read it out loud to my Mom through the second paragraph without both of us laughing so hard I almost didn’t finish. You may find it interesting to know that she is a “domesticated clown.”

3) The Big Sheep Blog – Yes, Lisa, I know you’ve won this before, but as hard as I tried, I just couldn’t leave you off of this list. Lisa’s blog is extraordinarily funny, and she has a unique perspective on the world that, perhaps frighteningly, I relate to. She has her own business doing free-lance writing as well as her blog.  Her newest venture is a new web site, www.ripe.com, meant to celebrate the vision and vivacity of women over 50.  I can’t wait to subscribe!

4) Born Again Brazilian – Born Again Brazilian is a blog written by an expatriate mother who relocated from New York City with her Brazilian husband and her young daughter to Sao Paolo, Brazil. Her blog is about her experiences in adjusting to, and loving, Brazil.

5) Brown Road Chronicles – Steve over at Brown Road Chronicles is another person whose posts are always very funny. He lives in one of the “M” states up north; Michigan or Minnesota or somewhere like that where the winters are ridiculously cold. His posts about his conversations with Julie at WordPress and the 911 operator in his city have been “laugh out loud” funny.

6) Conversations with Mary Ann Kempher – Mary Ann is a writer I met over at Twitter. She has completed a full length novel (I’m envious) and is in the throes of editing it and getting it ready to submit for publication. Her blog is about writing, and the writing life.

7) Just Ramblin’ – “Just Ramblin'” writes about her life as a working mom (although her human children are grown now) with two dogs in her house, including an 8 month Newfoundland “puppy” named Miss Stella. I relate to Just Ramblin’; our lives, except for the ages and numbers of children and animals involved sound a lot alike. She is an excellent writer and photographer, and her posts are visual and just plain fun. If you even love dogs just a little bit, you can’t help but fall in love with Miss Stella and Miss Sadie.

8  ) The Kitchen Garden – Cecilia is a New Zealander who married an American, lived in Britain for many years, and now lives in Illinois where she cooks and runs a self-sustaining farm. Her blog is about her life there and the recipes she cooks and memories from her time in New Zealand. She is an excellent writer.

9) Life With Briana – My cousin, Briana, is about three years younger than Kayla. Her parents, also my cousins, adopted her from China and she is absolutely adorable. The blog, written by her mother, Lisa, is a celebration of their life together.

10) Molly Greene: Worth Becoming – Molly Greene’s blog is about writing and her new adventure in life to make a living writing. Her posts are gentle, reminiscent and full of life. She often is able to tie in a unique and personal story about her past with advice about writing in a way that is marvelous to behold.

11) The Musings of a New Englander – Sharon is a writer also. She is a bird lover extraordinaire, and her life is dominated by at least five parrots of some kind as well as a finch.

12) The Roaming Naturalist – Nicole is a passionate conservationist with a knack for photography in an extremely photogenic state.

13)  Servant’s Life – Stacy’s blog consists of thoughtful and heartfelt discussions of various Scriptures. I never fail to learn something from one of her posts.

14) The Simple Life of a Country Man’s Wife – Country Wife’s blog is about her life on a farm in South Dakota. She is another young woman who has a knack for photography in a highly photogenic state and since she also helps her husband with their working form, she has a lot to write about. Her posts fascinate me and never disappoint.

15) St. Monica’s Bridge – Kristen is a Catholic mother raising 3 young children, one of whom has been diagnosed with an autism disorder. I am not sure where on the autism spectrum her daughter falls. Her blog posts are about her family, about the things she is grateful for, and she taught me about a word I didn’t know – “meme.”

16) Words by Stella DeLeuze – Stella DeLeuze is a writer, and has published a fun romantic novel entitled No Wings Attached, which I have read and enjoyed. Her blog discusses writing, as well as her pet iguana, Zorro. I don’t have a pet iguana, and don’t intend to ever have one, but I enjoy reading about Zorro. If you have even had the stray thought cross your mind that it might be fun to own an iguana, I highly recommend that you read this blog first!

17) WordSmith’s Desk – LeRoy Dean posts beautiful religious poems and observations supported by appropriate photographs on his well-read blog. He is unfailingly gracious to the new bloggers he meets on-line and is kind enough to read my posts and let me know what he thinks about them and also helped me to spread the word about one of my posts as well.

So there you have it, folks. These are blogs that I read and follow, and I am giving this award to them because I enjoy reading these writers and want them to know I appreciate their hard work. I hope you find at least one new blog on this list that you can enjoy too.

Happy Reading!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

22 Comments

Posted in Just stuff..., working mom, Writing

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I’d Like to Thank The Academy….

Posted on September 26, 2011 | 4 comments

Continue reading →

4 Comments

Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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A Highly Biased History of Bowling

Posted on September 20, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning Everyone!

We begin the history of bowling by returning today to the story of Ugg and Uggette.  (Their history, lost until recently, was discovered in cave paintings found in the tunnels under Disneyworld, which were opened to archeologists for the first time two years ago.)

When last we left them, Ugg and Uggette had discovered laundry.  Ugg thought the task should belong to Uggette and Uggette agreed to it mostly because she felt guilty that she had pushed Ugg into the stream.  (See, A Highly Biased History of Washing Machines.)

The Stream Outside Ugg and Uggette's Cave

There was, however, one unintended benefit in laundry for Uggette and one unintended problem for Ugg – someone had to watch the 10 little Uggitos and Uggitas while Uggette was away at the stream, and by sheer process of elimination the task fell to Ugg.

Uggette's Laundry Basket

One fine afternoon, Uggette, desiring some time to herself, decided to take the laundry down to a better stream than the one on the front step of their cave, so she ventured off with the clothes, leaving Ugg, who had participated in a particularly difficult mammoth hunt the day before,  in charge of the 10 little Uggitos and Uggitas.  Ugg looked at his offspring, looked back at the cave, and, after fleetingly wishing that electricity, television and football had already been invented, threatened the Uggitos and Uggitas within an inch of their lives if they departed the clearing and slipped into the cave to take a nap.

The Entrance to the Cave

Unfortunately, Ugg neglected to tell the tykes to be quiet, so after about 30 minutes, he received a rude awakening when they decided to hold a wolf howling contest.  Infuriated, he snatched up his club to knock a few heads about, but then, reflecting that he hadn’t enjoyed his first stream dunking, that Uggette probably wouldn’t be happy with any head knocking on the offspring, and that he actually was sort of fond of them himself, he put the club down and snatched up a large round stone instead.

Ugg's Round Rock (Photo by Harmil on Wikimedia Commons)

The Uggitos and Uggitas were howling with gusto, lined up in several rows, with the littlest one in front.  Ugg held his round stone, took careful aim, and rolled it hard at the bunch of them.  Those who were in the direct path of the stone scattered, and bowling was born.  (For the record, the first bowl in history was a split; the little ones in the center scattered, but the two oldest on each end held their ground.)  Ugg never did get back to his nap – the kids completely missed the point of the stone and insisted that Dad continue to play the new game he had invented with them.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

6 Comments

Posted in Just stuff..., working mom

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The World According to Kayla

Posted on September 19, 2011 | 2 comments

Hi Everyone!

Kayla telling Darwin what to do.

We had the chance to take Kayla and a friend bowling this weekend, which meant Mark and I had the rare privilege to eavesdrop on the conversation between two almost 10 year olds.  The trip bowling put Kayla in such a good mood that her personality was still bubbling over on Sunday. 

  • “We already squealed about that.”

Kayla was invited to be in the Purple Ambassadors at her elementary school a couple of weeks ago.  It is the equivalent of an honor society for fourth graders and it is a big deal to be asked to be in it.  Mark and I did not know that Kayla’s friend, whom I will call “R,” had also been asked to be in it until we heard R and Kayla discussing the Monday morning 7 a.m. meeting.  I turned my head to R in the back seat and asked her if she was in the Purple Ambassadors too.  Before R could answer, Kayla said, “Yes, she is.  We already squealed together about that.” 

Apparently I missed the celebration.

  • Whale

R lives down a county road, about five minutes from town, and Mark and I are always afraid that we are going to miss her house.  Kayla reassured us from the back seat.  “I know exactly where it is; it is the house with the whale in front.”  I know R’s mother and grandmother and the idea of some kind of a whale decoration in the front yard seemed a little out-of-place, so I asked Kayla if she was sure.  Kayla said that yes, she was sure, then she said, “You know, Mama, the thing where the water comes out of the ground.”  Her Southern accent, in its most extreme form, had gotten us again – she was saying “well” not “whale.”

  • Multiplication

Sunday afternoon late, we decided to go get Mark’s mother and take her to Outback.  On the way down there, I asked Kayla what she had done while Mark and I were taking our naps that afternoon.  She told me she had practiced grammar on her computer (a hand-me-down, stripped-down laptop from Mark), combining sentences.  (For example, she would type, “Kate is running” then “John is running” then combine the sentences to “Kate and John are running.”)  I said, “That’s nice,” then asked her if she had worked any on her multiplication tables.  A half-laugh, half-“Mom you must be out of your mind”  “Huh!”  came out of the back seat.  Then she decided that a more polite answer would be appropriate, and added, “No, ma’am.”

  • Itch

The best line of all came that night at supper though.  Mark’s mom was talking about someone who has to have a medical procedure next week and that she had put that person on the prayer list at her Sunday School class.  “After all, ” she added, “Prayer never hurts!”  All of us nodded agreement at the table, then Kayla added, “But a bad itch does!” 

The rest of Outback must have wondered why our table was laughing so hard.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

2 Comments

Posted in Out of the mouths of babes...., working mom

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Praise (A Poem)

Posted on September 16, 2011 | 10 comments

PRAISE

What will I do in the fresh light of springtime,
As my soul rejoices in the new life around?

Praise God my Maker, my Savior, my Teacher,
And know that with such praise my joy will resound.

What should I do in the hot days of summer,
When my soul parched and barren seeks to wither, lay down?

Praise God my Maker, my Savior, my Teacher,
And know that through worship Living Water is found.

What will I do when cool winds sweep in autumn,
As my soul ponders questions the way mist covers ground?

Praise God my Maker, my Savior, my Teacher,
And know that in His Word true answers abound.

What must I do in the darkness of winter,
When my soul lies stripped barren, no strength to be found?

Praise God my Maker, my Savior, my Teacher,
And know that through all praise, revival is found.

What shall I do when at last my eyes darken,
When my soul cuts the ties that keeps it earthbound?

Praise God forever through hymns rich with thanksgiving,
With my family in Christ as God gathers them round.

10 Comments

Posted in Reflection, Religion

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A Kindle for Kayla?

Posted on September 15, 2011 | 12 comments

Good morning everyone!

Kayla has announced to Mark and I that for her birthday she would like either a Kindle, or a Nook, or a MySIMS Racing Game.  We haven’t really decided whether we are going to get any of the three, but Her Majesty the sleuth has decided that I have already purchased a Kindle and have it hiding in the house.

From Print Shop Professional 2.0

She made this deduction based upon the fact that when we came home yesterday from work and school, a box from Amazon.com was sitting on the porch, and I had Mark pick it up for me, since my hands were full, and asked him to put it in the bedroom.  She told Mark I then told her that she wasn’t allowed to be in the craft room anymore, so that must mean that the box held a Kindle and I was hiding it from her.  Neither is true.  The box held two books from my childhood, The Lark in the Morn and The Lark on the Wing for which I have been searching for a long time (someone just reissued them in paperback which is why I finally had luck in finding them) and a pad of water color paper.  I have no idea where she got the idea that she wasn’t allowed in the craft room anymore; she has been told that she is not allowed to mess with any of my craft supplies in the craft room, but that is very different (and an instruction she pretty much ignores at will anyhow.)  Mark tried to explain to her that it probably wasn’t a Kindle, because the two of us usually discuss what we are going to get her, and he and I hadn’t done that yet, but I don’t think she believed him.  I will take my turn at disillusioning her when I get home today.

I would really value the advice of all you out there who have Kindles or Nooks – would you, or would you not, buy your 10-year-old child one?  (She will be 10 on her next birthday, which is a few weeks away.)  If so, which would you choose?  If you have gotten your child one, what safeguards do you have in it so that you can screen the books that they see on it? 

I look forward to hearing your answers!  I can use all the advice I can get.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

12 Comments

Posted in On the Home Front, working mom

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A Highly Biased History of Washing Machines

Posted on September 14, 2011 | 6 comments

Good morning All!

Ugg

In the beginning, humans wore animal skins for clothes.  After some indefinite period of time, but probably not too very long afterwards, Ugg, the caveman, noticed that his clothes had gathered both dirt and smells over time, and so he directed Uggette, his wife, to fix the problem, since he didn’t feel like killing another animal that day.  Uggette, who was busy tending the several little Uggs and Uggettes they had been blessed with, was having a bad day anyhow, so she told Ugg to shove off, and to demonstrate the point, pushed him into the nearby running stream.  When Ugg recovered from his shock, and got back out of the stream, he noticed two things:  1) he was very wet and 2) his clothes looked and smelled better then they did before he was pushed into the stream.  At that moment, laundry was born.

Uggette's Descendants, Washing Laundry in a Stream

Well, things rocked on for thousands of years and while inventors were busy inventing things like better stone weapons, then better bronze weapons, then better iron weapons and better stone ploughs, then better bronze ploughs, then better iron ploughs, Uggette’s female descendants were still hauling clothes to nearby streams to wash them.  They would wet the clothes in the water course, and then while the clothes were in the water, bang the clothes between rocks or place the clothes on a rock and bang them with a stick.  Not only did the banging help remove more dirt and stains than water flowing over clothes would do on its own, it also allowed Uggette’s descendants to release their pent-up hostility toward Uggette for not choosing a kinder, gentler way of telling Ugg that she really wasn’t in the mood to deal with clothing that day.

Antique Hand Iron

Things continued to rock on for thousands of years, and while new fabrics (most of which wrinkled exceedingly well, requiring the invention of ironing, as if laundry didn’t take up enough time on its own) were invented, not much was down on the laundry side until the invention first of soap, then of the washboard.  No one is really sure when washboards were invented or who invented them, but basically a washboard is a board with ridges on it.  A person lays the clothes on the washboard, and rubs a bar of soap vigorously over the clothes on the washboard.  What is certain is that the first metal washboard was invented in 1833, when Stephen Rust of Manlius, NY who either did his own laundry or loved his wife (or both) patented a “Wash Board” with a piece of “fluted tin, sheet, iron, copper or zink” on it.  In addition, someone else also invented the “wringer” which allowed the clothes, once scrubbed and rinsed, to be wrung free of water better than a person could do with their own hands.  This allowed the clothes to dry more quickly on the clothesline.  (No one is quite certain when the clothesline was invented.  I suspect one of Uggette’s little tykes was bored one day, and decided to take some of the newly washed clothes when Uggette wasn’t looking and threw them over a tree branch to be funny.  Although not amused, Uggette did notice once she found the clothes that they had dried more quickly then the clothes that had not been thrown onto a tree branch and so the idea of hanging things out to dry had been born.)

Advertisements for hand-washing implements

After waiting as long as possible, wasting their time inventing things like the steam engine, electric power generators, the light bulb, the riding lawn mower, the car, airplanes and radio, in 1908, inventors finally abandoned the grudge handed down through the generations for Uggette’s historic dumping of Ugg in the stream, and invented the first electric-powered washing machine, the Thor, changing laundry forever.

The Patent for the Mighty Thor

I suppose, if it took tens of thousands of years for the electric washing machine to be invented, I will just have to hope that my great-great-great granddaughter will live to see the day of the automatic sorter-washer-dryer-folder.  Patience is, after all, a virtue – Uggette’s story proved that!

We've come a long way but still have miles to go!

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

6 Comments

Posted in On the Home Front, working mom

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Sink and Sleep (or the Lack Thereof!)

Posted on September 13, 2011 | 8 comments

Good morning Everyone!

  • Sink

Sunday evening, as I was working on supper, Kayla walked by the kitchen and announced, “Mom, you don’t want to ask what I’m doing in the bathroom.”  I, of course, gave the only logical response, which is, “What are you doing?”  Answer:  “Mom, you don’t want to know.”  After two more rounds, I did the only thing a parent could do, which was to enter her bathroom to see what was happening.

Kayla’s sink was full of water, and she had one of her big bath towels in it soaking.  I started to have a conniption took a deep breath and looked at her for an explanation, and she, grinning proudly, announced that she had decided that she was going to help me out by washing her own clothes.  Her plan was to wash them in the sink every night, then hang them on her shower rod to let them dry.

I told her I appreciated the thought, but that it would work out better to use the washing machine to clean her clothes.  Then I had to figure out how to transfer the completely saturated towel to the washing machine without getting water all over the floor.  At least she was trying!

  • Sleep, or the Lack Thereof!

Sunday night, I only managed to get about two hours of sleep.  I really don’t know why, but I just couldn’t get to sleep.  Needless to say, on Monday, I wasn’t exactly full of sweetness and light but I did try to muddle through without being too terrible to be around.  After supper though, I started to clean the kitchen, snapped at Kayla about something, snapped at Mark about something, and then dropped a TV tray on my foot.  It fell sideways where its thin edge fell directly on the bone on the top of my foot and it hurt.  I yelled something like, “Ouch!” or “Verily, verily, I hath dropped a tray on my foot and it hurteth” except on a grander scale, and Mark, coming into the kitchen to check on me, told me to leave the kitchen until tomorrow and sent me to bed, 10 minutes before Kayla’s bedtime.  I didn’t argue, either.

Have a great day everyone!

Nancy

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