No resolutions here!

I'm not a huge fan of making New Year's resolutions, I think it's strange to pin so many personal hopes and motivations on a date change.  So tomorrow will be business as usual around here, taking down decorations, cleaning and getting the house back to normal.

Next year will be full of more changes for us, some made by chance and others made by decisions.  It should be interesting as we're going to finish up our house renovations and think about moving (if everything works out).  Work should start to get crazy again after the Christmas lull.  Trevor starts new hours at his work starting Monday too -- 7am to 330pm (give or take a half hour on either side).  

And as for today, we'll be spending New Year's Eve mono on mono (LOL) -- Trevor's working a half day from home (yay!), and we're going to hit up Ikea for some organizing boxes (for appliance manuals in the house), a jeweller to get Trevor's watch band adjusted, the store for groceries and we're going to head out for dinner a little early to avoid the crazy rushes so we can come back home and watch a movie (and attempt to dominate Guitar Hero for the fourth night in a row).

Happy New Year everyone! :) 

Seriously, now

I have been trying to figure out plane tickets all week. You would think that we have the most complex schedule, but really, it's only between 5 cities in 4 countries. Not a huge and exotic schedule (I think): Vancouver - Toronto - London - Belfast - London - Barcelona - Vancouver. Just try and book it through any travel site and you'll realize what a mess it is (not that I recommend it because then you'll just fill up the seats I want!).

I think I've finally been able to figure it out, but the connection part always makes me overplan. Is 3.5 hours enough to connect from an international flight to another international flight in different terminals (in Heathrow of all places)? Oy.

At least I'm better at finding accommodations. I've booked the B&B for Northern Ireland and we're staying here. I'm looking at booking this for London. And this one for Barcelona.

TV moving and other confrontations

Well, we moved and mounted the giganto tv to the wall a night ago. What a big job. (And for only two people.) Me with my nine fingers and Trevor with his 'moving theories' (ie. "lift it like this!", "turn at this point", "easyyyyy, easyyyyyy"). It was an awkward thing to lift and take down two flights of stairs between two people with a 6" (or more) height difference, which translates into arm and finger length differences. Which means that I like to do things my way (or the 'shortie' way) and Trevor likes to do things his way ('bossy-tallie' way). Wait...did I put 'bossy' in there...whoops!

In most moving situations we know that we move things together horribly. He gives me instructions that I interpret differently than what he means. This either results in a tiff between the two of us, or most times, hysterical and uncontrollable laughing. One move comes to mind with the latter, when we moved a loveseat upstairs and had to lift it high enough to clear the hand rail and half wall. Throw in uncontrollable laughing and an 80lb couch on two arms above your head and you have a long move ahead of you.

With the mega TV, there was the added pressure of this thing being expensive, and if we dropped it, it would be very, very bad. So with that in mind, Trevor went into über moving commander, and me into noble hero soldier mode (of course, this is MY blog and I can make this story whatever I want, ha ha!). But, I'm not the best at taking orders most of the time, so I felt like I was being bossed around, and that my concerns (ie. short arms, short fingers, thumb out of comission) we not being addressed. I was trying to do things that worked for me, but didn't work for him. You can see the dilemma.

But after much huffing and puffing the TV made it downstairs and on the wall. And at the end of it we made peace by watching 30 minutes of a movie and oooo-ing and ahhh-ing at the tv. Although, I still have fears of hearing the mega TV snap off it's wall mount and crash to the floor. For some reason I can't believe that a metal bracket it holding that thing up.

WARNING: If you don't want to see what a finger plus exacto blade equals, then don't scroll down to the picture!

So I took the gauze off for the first time at home to clean the frankenthumb up a bit and change the gauze. Not nice and not pretty. If you're not good with gory things, then really, don't scroll down.


























Seriously now! Turn back!









































Well, there it is. I had a hard time looking at it to begin with, it was really upsetting, but I have to realize that I'm the one in charge of this frankenthumb and making it better. Wow, are gauze and band-aids going to be on this thing forever or what?

Who wants to join the pity party?

Here's a few updates:

Thumb update: Still sucking. It's all sore and stabby feeling today. Motrin super strength count is at 1 so far. I have to change the gauze and all that loveliness tonight and I really don't want to look at it. Trevor? Help? (LOL!!! Maybe if I want him to puke.)

House update: Cluttered. Dirty. A mess. Although Trevor broke down some boxes this morning before work and suddenly the family room has two extra square feet of carpet. Wait...there were tools underneath those boxes. Scratch that, one square foot.

Reno update: Ongoing. Laminate flooring is going down (pretty!). Trevor has almost finished my whole office/closet area and will soon be trekking on to the hallway. We have positive thinking that the flooring will be done this weekend. (Except the bathroom.) We're going to take one night this week to go to Home Depot to order doors (and avoid going there on the weekend when all the DIY 'tards come out).

Garden update: Soaked. Overgrown. I have bulbs I need to plant and have to figure out how to do it with one hand, and the other in a plastic bag. In the front yard.

I found this picture of a crazy cake that I think symbolizes everything that's going on here at the moment and would be perfect for the pity party:It kind of looks freaky-deaky-licious.

I got a present!

A chainmail glove. Bring on the sharp knives!!
I've even got grippy tape for the fingertips. (Not that I'll be able to cut things for a while. Maybe I should just stick to those plastic children's scissors that can't even cut paper.)

Things that you can't do with a gimped thumb:

1. Type well. At all.

2. Put on pants. (It takes a lot of bum-shimmy-ing.)

3. Tie your shoes.

4. Shower -- that extra hand helps...a lot.

5. Shave your underarms (As Trevor said, "Why can't you just go amazon on one side for a while?' LOL)

6. Put deodorant on -- well, one armpit is easy.

7. Floss. (I think I've found a solution with one of those hummingbird Oral B things.)

8. Change a toilet paper roll.

9. Put a seatbelt on.

10. Put a bra on (Trevor doesn't mind helping with that one AT ALL...lol. Although in his words it was, 'I'm only used to taking these things off!')

11. Ponytails. Trevor learned on that one too. (even though I thought I might be sporting a boppy side pony at one point)

12. Cleaning. Anything like cleaning a shower, washing dishes, that sort of thing. Darn. lol

So I'm just one big gimp at the moment. It still hurts like mad once the painkillers wear off (first thing in the morning I'm not a happy camper). Oh, for those who don't know, I managed to do this to myself cutting a matboard for a picture frame with a blade (boxcutter of sorts) and ruler. Add to that a slip, and you've got yourself a messy situation. I'll omit all the gory stuff, but it was bad enough for me to be really, really worried about losing part of my thumb.

Mentally I'm having a hard time forgetting about it. When I sit and space out for a bit it all comes back again in my head and the pit of my stomach drops out. *shiver* I think it will get better with some time. Today Trevor was putting in the linoleum in the basement and he had to use a blade like I did for cutting...I got the heeby-jeebies looking at it. I'm going to have one major fear of those things for a lonnnnng while.

Oh, and I'm not looking forward to seeing what's under all this gauze. Not one bit. *calm blue ocean, calm blue ocean*