Rachel Callahan

Not-Crazy-Renee and the Neighborhood Package Thief.

December 22, 2015January 2, 2016 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, Investigative Report, Just My Luck, Mystery Solved, Not Crazy Renee, Storytime

Not-Crazy-Renee (my neighbor, who I introduced to you Monday) has had an intense holiday season.

For one, she’s post-partum.

No one should have to be post-partum over the holidays – I should know, as Noah was born on December 19.

(Happy birthday, son. You might get a sweet and touching birthday blog post…at some point.)

I remember distinctly the agony I endured when I came home from the hospital on December 23, suffering greatly from the side effects of having been on pain medication and Zofran for four days. GREATLY. I remember crying those nonsensical post-partum tears and attempting to sit up in a dignified manner so as to have our family over for dinner the very next day.

Holiday Post-Partumness is not for wusses.

Good thing women aren’t wusses.

So. Back to Not-Crazy-Renee. She’s not quite as freshly post-partum as I was that fateful year of 2010, but this is no contest. She’s still very post-partum, and with two additional small children at home to boot. Good thing she’s no wuss.

But. A few weeks ago on a Wednesday, Renee had a package that showed it was delivered early in the morning, and a couple of hours later when she went to retrieve it, it wasn’t there.

This was bad news. No good at all. Our neighborhood had recently suffered from its first set of robberies in remembered history, and people were on edge – Not-Crazy-Renee was no exception.

She waited three days before freaking out, hoping she would find it or it would turn up somehow, but it did not.

For some reason, the next Sunday morning was her snapping point.

She texted me while I was on the way to church and informed me that we most definitely had a Neighborhood Package Thief and that I better keep an eye on my deliveries. Of course I had a large package coming that very day (who does Amazon pay off at the USPS to have Sunday delivery? It’s a mystery), and I knew I wouldn’t be home for hours.

I texted my across-the-street neighbor to spread the news of the package thief and ask her to keep an eye out for my incoming box.

Then I tried to talk reason into Not-Crazy-Renee. Because, to be honest, although I was taking the cautious road with my own stuff, I didn’t really believe there was a thief.

“Surely it was just delivered to the wrong address and the neighbor that got it hasn’t brought it to you yet. This happens all the time in our neighborhood!”

But no. She was convinced. It was definitely a criminal element at work to destroy her Christmas Cheer.

My other neighbor texted me back likewise, saying she had just gotten a package belonging to someone else and had taken a couple days getting it to them.

I tried again to offer assurances.

“See? It just happened this week!! The post office is busy. They’re not paying attention. I’m sure your package is out there. It will come around.”

This did not perk her up one bit.

In fact, her texts to me throughout the day became more filled with rage and dismay that some no-good varmint would just flat-out SWIPE her kid’s bike helmet and her infant child’s much-needed batch of pacifiers.

She hoped they were highly disappointed with their haul.

She began investigating installing video surveillance system, and most likely thoroughly considered the possibility of installing booby traps that Indiana Jones himself couldn’t outwit.

A few days later, I had my Eye Duct Cauterization scheduled, and Renee had kindly agreed to keep my kids (or let them entertain her kids – whatev.)

When I arrived to dump my kids upon her, I noticed a sign taped to the basement door. Then, on the front door, a matching sign.

I giggled.

Something about the commanding tone of the sign coupled with the cheery holiday border said “I’m a delightful individual!! And I will RIP YOUR FREAKING HEAD OFF if you take my kid’s Christmas crap.”

It had the aroma of slightly hysterical neurosis.

And I adored it.

That is, until Ali read it. And gasped. And asked for all the details about this neighborhood package thief. This new knowledge, along with her already collected understanding of the neighborhood robberies, made for a very jumpy almost-nine-year-old, and also a contagious one.

For the next week and a half, every time Ali or Noah heard the UPS man, they ran out onto the porch, grabbed the package, looked over their shoulder while their tiny hearts beat out of their tiny chests, ran back inside, remembered to lock the door for the first times in their lives, and yelled to me, “I beat the package thief! I got your box before he did!!”

Noah took it a bit further and wouldn’t go in the yard alone even for five seconds while I was walking toward the door to join him, all while he would state flatly, “I’ll just stay inside. There’s a package thief out there somewhere.”

After enduring ten days of my children’s constant adrenaline-charged evasion of The Bad Guy, I teased Not-Crazy-Renee about it.

I was really just meaning to shame her for sport and pleasure, not shame her into taking her signs down.

But take her signs down she did.

However, my shaming proved me the best friend she’d ever had.

Because the VERY NEXT MORNING, which happened to be Day 15 of The Package Thief Saga, Not-Crazy-Renee heard a knock on her door.

She opened it to find a young Mom and her kids, standing on her doorstep, with an Amazon box in hand, looking rather bashful.

She lived one block up, you see – the same house number but a different street, and she, like the rest of us, had been getting voluminous stacks of Amazon boxes delivered to her doorstep, and she hadn’t been exactly inspected each one before she threw it in her “To-Wrap” pile, so when she got around to wrapping her presents and opened the box, she was quite confused as she didn’t remember ordering a bike helmet and pacifiers.

She checked the label and realized it wasn’t her package.

“I have no idea how many days I’ve had it – probably several,” she apologized.

Fifteen days, but who’s counting.

Before the recalcitrant neighbor left, she and Renee had realized they had kids the same age and absolutely must schedule a playdate soon. Extrovert-Not-Crazy-Renee was thrilled at the prospect of a new friend.

It was lovely. Just lovely. A serendipitous meeting indeed.

But just think. If that poor young, harried mother had walked up to the door, already weighed down with the guilt of the package she’d held so long, and had seen this slightly-psychotic sign on the door,

Do you think they’d have a playdate scheduled?

No, no they would not.

Just call me The Neighborhood Fixer.

Epilogue: My children, along with all of us, are thrilled and relieved with the news that The Package Thief never actually existed. But old habits are hard to break – they’re still sprinting outside to grab any and all boxes before a Criminal Element beats them to it.

The Delight of Paper.

December 21, 2015January 2, 2016 Rachel Callahan Actually Possibly Informational, Kids: The Experience., Not Crazy Renee

So my neighbor Renee (of “Fall Craft During Labor!” fame) and I have been hanging out a lot – she had a baby, I had a wreck, we’re equally disabled, and so we sit and talk while our children entertain each other and her new baby sleeps on me (because we’ve bonded and all.)

It’s a good arrangement.

Something about hanging out with me, though, causes weird things to happen to people, and she’s had quite the bloggable moments in the past month or so. She told me that I was welcome to write about them, but only if she didn’t become a character on my blog that everyone thought was crazy.

So we’ll refer to Renee from here on out as Not-Crazy-Renee.

So, for Not-Crazy-Renee’s first tale, I share with you a transcription of a particularly desperate “I’m Having a Bad Day” Saturday morning text stream to me. For reference, Loulie is almost 5 (and Noah’s future wife, per Noah), and Jonas is 1.5. The day before, I had been at her house packaging a large Picture Birmingham note card order, and had left behind some trash in her trash can – trash that happened to ruin her Saturday morning…

It all started with the note card inserts that Jonas dug out of the trash last night. Loulie apparently became very attached to these cards – something I should have deduced based on the random, half-crumpled pile they were left in on my kitchen counter.

Which I of course, returned to the trash.

So this morning…

There was TOTAL AND UTTER DESPAIR that the cards were missing.

“My whole plan is ruined!!! My whole plan is ruined!!”

Okayyyyy…I didn’t know what this plan was but it’s obviously important. So I opened the trash can, and there they were right on top, still in a random, half-crumpled pile, but totally salvageable.

But seeing them (back) in the bin was totally traumatic, on par with finding the severed head of a beloved childhood pet in the trash heap.

I rationally suggested she just pull them out. But she was well beyond reason at that point, and the hysterics were spreading to my other children. So I told her to take it to her room until she was either a) no longer upset, or b) willing to do something about it. Because standing two feet from the trash can wailing was not an acceptable option.

So she went. And I guess I didn’t get enough sleep last night because…

She came back shortly after, attitude not adjusted…Started whining again…And I lost it.

“Go back to your room.”
(She began inching, whining, barely moving toward her room.)
“Go back to your room!”
(Her slow whiny slug’s pace did not get any faster.)
“GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM!!”
(Complete, bug eyed psycho mom mode now.)
I stood up…And start CHASING her back to her room, SHOUTING, “GO BACK TO YOUR ROOM!! RUN!!! RUN!!!”

Not-Crazy-Renee later described her facial expression, as she yelled for her child to run, as this:

You can totally relate to Not-Crazy Renee, right? I certainly can.

So. Since the whole paper disaster was my fault, and we were having them and some other people over later that afternoon for a football party, I felt like this was my opportunity to make it up to Loulie (and more importantly to Not-Crazy-Renee.) I could give Loulie a new paper product – a NEW and IMPROVED paper product that actually had to do with her, and she could play with those.

So, I dug back into my mind from my dweeby childhood, when my favorite game to play was office and I hosted an office spend-the-night party every year for my birthday (I have no idea why I grew up to become an accountant). And I created something for the children that my Mom used to make for me and my friends: personalized checkbooks.

Then I decided to take it a step further and also make them prescription pads – to contribute to a proper game of doctor.

(But not until after I checked to make sure I couldn’t be arrested for making fake prescription pads.)

I found/made prescription and check templates and added the kid’s names and fake addresses on the template and printed them out. (I was going to use real addresses but I know kids. And I knew these pieces of paper would get scattered all over the state of Alabama. And people didn’t need to know their addresses. And also I figured if the doctor’s address was “Second Star to the North”, I was less likely to get arrested for prescription forgery.)

Then I had an excuse to use my paper cutter – always a good day.

Also, the pile of mess was very satisfying.

After cutting and lining up loose checks and, separately, prescriptions for each child coming over, I poured glue on a piece of paper, then dipped the top edge into the glue until it was well coated. This, friends, is how you make a notepad.

Then, to make sure that they dried in an appropriate notepad-ish fashion, I put them in a heavy book overnight (Teacher’s Edition Textbooks work perfectly.)

(Also note the glue-catching paper on the floor below them. An important part of the process.)

Later, Chris asked me, “Where’d you learn how to make a notepad? Pinterest?”

“FROM MY CHILDHOOD, BABY. My Mom was better than Pinterest!”

The next morning, I had a beautiful stack of prescription pads and checks.

(To give the pads a little stiffness, I cut and added Manila folder to the back of each pad. A completely unnecessary step and also they didn’t line up right with the checks, so I should’ve just let the children have limp checkbooks.)

I had told Noah the night before that I was making a surprise for him and all his friends for the football party, but the next morning when I showed him the beautiful paperwork I did on his behalf, he was mad.

“That’s not fun at all! You said you were making something FUN!”

Naturally, I had a not-crazy-Renee moment on the boy and told him he WOULD have fun or he could FORGET ever having fun again.

But later that afternoon, on his own accord, he ended up being the one to enjoy the note pads the most. So Not-Crazy moments do some good, after all.

In fact, he’s still giving me prescriptions daily for all of my various ailments. This one is a prescription for…my eyes.

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE IT’S FOR MY EYES. Geez.

Since Noah enjoyed them so much, he asked me if I could please make him Police Officer Traffic Tickets for his Batman Birthday Party, and I was happy to oblige. I made this new template up late the night before his party,

And then gave him a ticket to show him how to properly use it.

And he loved it. But not as much as I loved all of my prescriptions for my eyes.

If you would like to geekify your own children, I uploaded my templates for you. They’d make free and easy last minute stocking stuffers, and you can add your own children’s names to the checks and prescriptions with any photo editing software (although I’m not promising to be available for technical support at 11:30pm on Christmas Eve.) To download them in .jpg, click here:

Checks
Prescriptions
Citations

To download them in .pdf, click here.

Just don’t throw any of the used ones away – or you, too, might have a Not-Crazy-Renee moment.

Rare Taste And The Replacement Thereof.

December 18, 2015December 17, 2015 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Quirky quirky quirkiness

So I got a new Flex.

It was not an easy process, as nearly everyone hates the Flex but me. And furthermore, those few that do not hate it want theirs to be painted in shades of my self-forbidden colors. I promised myself many years ago that I would never own a colorless car. Colorless cars include all cars that are white, black, beige, silver, brown, or gray.

It’s completely unacceptable.

Unfortunately, 85% of the world disagrees with me on this issue. (PLEASE SOMEONE teach me why you would buy a colorless car. I know you all have them. So speak up and explain yourself.)

(Slate is acceptable as long as it has a modicum of blue in it.)

So. Another thing about the Flex is that they come in infinite myriads of option combinations, and I am very particular about the options I want. I have extremely picky, unusual, and exquisite taste.

Roof rack or no? Definitely not. The roof racks make them look like 1982 station wagons.

Sunroofs or no? Must have sunroofs. Otherwise the two back rows feel like the innards of a submarine.

Interior color? Dark. I had light before and my children were the masters of trashing it.

Wheel type? I need fancy wheels. Because I’m a fancy girl.

Heated seats or heated AND cooled seats? C’mon now. I’m not that much of a diva. And I’ll most likely never want a cold butt.

SO MUCH TO DEAL WITH.

After the wreck (there I go mentioning THAT again), I began my search rather quickly. I knew it would be tough, because it took months last time to find what I wanted, and people seem to be coming around to loving the Flex way too slowly. I formulated my options, decided what I wanted, and started sifting.

I preferred dark blue. I wanted the “appearance package” (aka cool wheels, dual tone seats, and black roof), it had to have navigation and all of the previously mentioned options. I was open to the various seating options – we’d had a pass-thru second row before, which made it easy to get to the third row, but did cut down on our passenger count. And really, how often do we use the third row? Not often enough.

There were a few used Flex possibilities out there, but absolutely none in the state of Alabama, of course. I began contacting dealers. I remembered at this point how much I despise most car salesmen. Most were pushy, never had the information I needed, and knew nothing of the beloved Ford Flex.

My favorite exchange was this one:

1. I filled out a contact form, asking pertinent questions.

2. That night, I received an email from the sales manager asking if I’d been helped. I responded back that I had not, and asked the questions I had already asked once (like, “How much does this vehicle cost?”)

3. One day later, I received the exact same email again. I responded, “I responded to your last email with questions. I have not been contacted yet except for two emails from you asking if I’ve been contacted. I would really love to know the price of this vehicle. Thanks!”

4. I tried the Live Chat option on the website. It connected me with Michelle. I asked Michelle “How much does this vehicle cost?”, Michelle asked me to hold, came back ten minutes later and said, “I don’t know – it doesn’t say on the website.”

5. One day later, I received, again, the exact same email. I responded, “This is the third email that I’ve received to ask if anyone has answered my questions, all three of which I have responded to to say no, my questions have not been answered.”

I was never able to find out the price of that Flex.

There was one used Flex in the country that fit my exact descriptions. It was in West Virginia, at a dealership which housed one of the nicest salesmen I’d ever talked to. Like, he actually seemed to care about my situation more than he cared about getting commission – it was shocking.

(If any of you happen to be in West Virginia and need a car, please buy a car from Terry DeLisi at Cole Chevrolet.)

I had it all worked out with him – the price, the fact that I was going to fly one-way to get the car and they would pick me up at the airport – everything. But ultimately, as I continued my search and my injuries got worse, it became very clear that a car-buying road trip was not a wise decision.

But in a quite thoughtful move, Ford came out with their Friends and Family sale about that same time, which marked down the new Flexes considerably. AND I figured out that Ford has a Pricing Loophole – if you buy the SEL model with the upgrades that make it a Limited, you save thousands of dollars.

(The only things I didn’t get were those cooled seats that creeped me out and a heated steering wheel. I live in Alabama. I don’t need a heated steering wheel.)

So I decided that a New Flex in town was wiser than a Used Flex in West Virginia.

With the help of a blog reader, Chris had already found a fantastic car salesman in town, Jimmy Blue at Ernest McCarty, when he bought his Mustang (something we’ve yet to tell you all about – he was supposed to write a guest post months ago but I suppose he’s busy or something? I dunno.) So Jimmy and I began a collaborative nationwide search for a new Flex that was what I wanted, which proved just as difficult – or even more so – than finding a used one.

We couldn’t order a new one because the assembly line had already been shut down for 2015 models, and had not yet started to produce 2016. There was literally not a single dark blue Flex like I wanted on any dealer lot in the eastern half of the country. I even had Ford’s wonderful Twitter experts helping me. So I decided to widen my acceptable color choices to include Ruby Red, which happens to be the exact shade of Chris’ Mustang.

And we finally found one in Georgia, which Jimmy graciously had delivered to me.

And she is beautiful.

And yes – matched Chris’ Mustang – all the way to the black roof. We’re starting to look like a Ford commercial. They should totally pay us.

Who wore it best? Obviously my beautiful Flex.

And as a bonus, Noah doesn’t feel the need to wear these in my car. (Wind. It’s a nasty adversary.)

So the new Flex is basically like the old one, which means that she’s THE perfect car for a Mom who refuses a minivan. But the new one is updated, clean (I’m bribing the children to pick up after themselves by only letting them listen to their playlists if there’s no trash in the backseat), and a fantastically smooth and comfortable ride (which my neck really appreciates.)

I still haven’t figured out all of her quirks – such as how to set the default startup radio input – somehow it always cranks up on a Hispanic radio station and makes me laugh. It also has an auto-start button, but I have a problem with mixing up my auto-start button with my garage door button. Two is too many when it comes to important buttons. (Good thing I’m not in Nuclear Control.)

It has navigation, as did my old Flex, with the added feature of telling me the speed limit on most roads – something I highly appreciate. And it has little lights on the rear-view mirrors to warn me if a car is in my blind spot – pure brilliance. Why didn’t they make those years ago??

So overall, she’s pretty special – and brilliant.

And the most important detail…her name is Margo. Because I just had to match Chris’ car so well.

(Editor’s Note: Chris’ Mustang’s name is Ruby Sue, so clearly we’re mixing our Christmas Vacation metaphors. But it works.)

(“Why isn’t your car named Todd, Chris??” “I don’t KNOW, Margo.”)

Strange Stuff Finds Me.

December 15, 2015December 15, 2015 Rachel Callahan Photographical Oddities, Utter Silliness, Weird Strange and True

…Like when I accidentally look up at the wrong moment and witness this awkward exchange.

Who knew? Dancer and Prancer greet each other just like dogs do.

Alabama is an interesting place. People are very passionate about their politics, their faith, their trucks, and their dogs. But not always quite as passionate about their spelling.

Eh, one out of two everys ain’t bad.

Also, at the DMV, you have two free choices for car tag designs: you can either choose “God Bless America” or “PC”. I mean they’re not going to hide it and call it “Nice Scenic Tag” or “Purple Mountains Majesty” – nope, they’re going to call it. You sir, are simply being politically correct.

(For the record I love God and I want Him to bless America but I have the PC car tag. Not sure how that happened but it is what it is. I hope God understands.)

The mall Christmas store always brings me great joy. This year, Chris and I took a walk around to enjoy the options we had available for our holiday decorating.

For instance, why put a star on top of your tree when you could have a resident of the Death Star?

Because nothing says “Unto you a Child is born” like Darth’s raspy whisper.

My favorite ornament in the store, by far, was this one. Which I can only assume comes in a series….

2015: I’ll be tan for Christmas.
2016: I’ll be sunspotted for Christmas.
2017: I’ll be prematurely wrinkled for Christmas.
2018: I’ll be biopsied for Christmas.

And then there were the food ornaments. So confusing. I mean, Antipasto is good but is it good enough to pay $10.99 to celebrate it on my Christmas tree? Not in any universe.

And who is so passionate about Garlic Knots that they’re like “yeah, I wanna hang THAT on my tree!”?

And apparently, somebody loves themselves the party tray from Roly Poly.

But maybe I’m just not thinking about this correctly. Maybe somebody out there has a food-themed tree and it’s just not complete without a collection of stuffed mushrooms that resemble full, open barf bags.

And that food tree without a properly labeled side dish of prosciutto and asparagus would not be a Merry Christmas for anyone.

But regardless. I get that this is supposed to be clams, but no. Just No.

Moving out of the food aisle over to the “let’s celebrate our screentime” section didn’t help.

Dear Baby Jesus, Thank you for coming to earth to save us all. And for my flat screen tv that is bigger than all of my neighbor’s.

And if you’re shopping for Uncle Raymond and the only thing that seems to fit his personality perfectly is this celebratory ornament, then perhaps just buy him a gift card to Radio Shack.

Moving on from the ornament store to a round of whiplash subject changes.

I ran across this 3-6 month old onesie and declared it the biggest lie ever screenprinted.

WHAT infant is grateful? Infants aren’t grateful for crap. Even though their cup runneth over with it.

I randomly spotted this on the sidewalk one day. And now I’m constantly looking behind me to make sure I’m not being followed by a green-tinted woman.

Noah drew me this sweet picture the other day. It’s Thomas the Train. And that…appendage…is the train conductor.

It might be my favorite picture ever.

We told the kids they could get one thing in the gas station and of course my kid wanted the one thing that was on sale for negative .38 cents.

I ran across this in the used bookstore. I laughed. And I hope the #1 tip is “You should have started in 2008. Haven’t you heard? Everyone says blogging is dead.”

So is Skeet the name of the man making my hot dog or is Skeet the result of my hotdog? Or yes?

Seen on the back of a baby changing table. No breakdancng, and no magically floating away in a graceful manner.

Seen at Staples in late 2015. Somebody buy Grandpa a smart phone.

Seen at CVS. If you’re buying your blue jeans in a box from the pharmacy, you’re doing it wrong.

One of our babysitters kindly bought our kids some Crayola Bath Tablets. Which first turned them and the bathtub lovely shades of blue and green. And then, when they got to the yellow tablet made their baths look thoroughly urinated in.

Just Say No to Crayola Bath Tablets.

If there’s a tiny pair of blue jeans on your parking meter, that means you don’t have to pay, right?

Does it give you extra assurance if they have neon yellow pockets?

(My imagined storyline: baby’s diaper overfilled on a walk. Mom left pants to dry on closest parking meter, and fully planned on picking them back up on the way home. Yes, that’s what happened.)

Seen, fully visible, from the Dairy Queen drive-thru.

Incidentally, I haven’t revisited that DQ.

This was in an actual survey I was asked to take by an actual company I’m actually affiliated with.

I’m pretty sure there’s not a checkbox that adequately expresses my feelings about “pre-chewing your child’s food”, and if only they had an option for “attach your own sarcastic meme”, and I’d be set for explaining how I feel about “eating your placenta.”

Chris and I went to a random Greek restaurant on one of our trips, and we knew it would be good when we saw this in the window.

But really. Who does the Baklava belong to – Burger, Lasagna, or Spaghetti??

Inside, we got more acquainted with their logo – perhaps a bit more acquainted that we would have preferred.

Is he….PEEING on Greece?!?!

BUT DARTH VADER HAD EATEN THERE. Like, the real Darth Vader of Christmas Tree Topping Fame. So clearly it was good.

And finally.

The most important step of starting any small business is to ALWAYS ask your friends what they see when they look at your proposed logo.

Because if you’re an Optometrist and you can’t see poo when it’s staring you in the face, then you might want to reconsider your career choices.

Protected: To Bake Or Not To Bake: The Deleted Scenes.

December 14, 2015December 15, 2016 Rachel Callahan Uncategorized

In the Collecting of Obscure Medical Procedures…

December 11, 2015December 11, 2015 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Dysautonomia, Just My Luck

When I wrote my last post, I had no idea that I would find myself needing every one of those words the very next day.

But first, let’s back up a bit.

So for the last year and a half, I’ve worn duct plugs.

It’s a really fun phrase to say over and over out loud – try it.

Giggling now? Good.

Duct Plugs.

One of the most annoying symptoms of Dysautonomia is severely dry eyes – to the point that no drops can help it. On top of that, I’m limited as to what drops I can put in my eyes, so really – nothing helps.

Except for Duct Plugs.

They’re fantastic. They’re like tiny bathtub drain stoppers that are inserted into the tear duct on my lower eyelid to keep my tears from draining and, therefore, perfectly solving my dry eye issue.

I got my first pair of duct plugs the summer before last. About a year later, they fell out. My eyes had been burning and making me feel ridiculously sleepy, and it occurred to me to check my duct plugs (because you can see the tiny little things sticking out of your eyelid,) and alas – they were gone.

(Let’s take a minute for everyone to go find your tear ducts. Look in the mirror. They’re on the top side of your lower lid, on the nose-side of your eye. You have tiny holes just waiting to drain your precious tears away. They’re quite useful – unless you suffer from an eternal draught. Now. Think of the biggest pore plug/blackhead that you’ve ever squeezed out of your nose, except envision it made of rubber and shoved into those tiny ducts. That’s what my duct plugs looked like. Are we together now?)

I called to make an appointment with my Ophthalmologist (the receptionists all passed around my call so that everyone could hear me ask for new duct plugs), and when I went in for my appointment, he told me what I had previously not realized – duct plugs falling out was expected. In fact, my duct plugs lasted a lot longer than most. He said he’d put the next bigger size in, and hopefully they’d last a while. But it turned out, those were still too small, so he gave me the BIGGEST size of duct plugs available.

(I have big ducts. And I cannot lie.)

He explained that our next step, when these duct plugs left me, would be permanent duct cauterization – it was a great solution, but insurance didn’t allow it until you’d lost a pair of the biggest duct plugs.

So I happily left with my XL Duct Plugs, snugly keeping my tears in Eye Lake.

Which brings us to this week.

Again, I began feeling infinitely sleepy, eyes burning, lethargic, the whole deal. You just don’t realize the debilitating nature of something so simple as dry eyes until your eyeballs are withered raisins, and then wow do you ever.

I made my appointment for duct cauterization (so much nicer to request than duct plugs), made sure I wouldn’t need anyone to drive me home, and anticipated eyeball moistness once again.

I dumped my kids on my neighbor and headed in.

My Ophthalmologist came in and checked out my one remaining duct plug. I asked him to go ahead and pull it so I could get this cauterization thing over with in both eyes. He looked at me skeptically, but agreed to do so. He yanked it out, examined my eyes some more, then said,

“Do you think you can do this without a pain injection? Because the injection is really just as bad as the procedure itself.”

I thought of the all the things I’ve let my Physical Therapist do to me in the past six weeks. I’m tough. I can handle whatever my Ophthalmologist throws at me.

“Sure.”

I’ll be fine, I told myself. He wouldn’t offer to do it without the pain shot if it wasn’t a viable option.

The doctor left the room, then came back with paperwork that I had to sign, acknowledging the permanency of the procedure, and with a pen-sized blowtorch.

While the door was still open, the nurse walked by and said, “I’ll be right out here if you need me…”

I raised an eyebrow. “That sounded ominous.”

The doctor laughed. I was not sure how to interpret his laugh, but I was pretty sure I didn’t like it.

He told me to lean my head back, and he stuck the tip of his cautery gun on my eye duct and turned on the zapper. I jumped slightly, as one does when a red-hot piece of metal touches their eyelid.

He pulled back. “Did you feel that?”

“Yes, but I can take it. It wasn’t horrible.”

“Hmm. I changed my mind. I want you to get the injection because I want to be able to really get in there and burn it good.”

He disappeared again and came back with an unholy-long eye shot.

He again told me to lean back, open my eyes as wide as I could, and look at the ceiling. He pulled back my eyelid and stuck that needle through the inside of my lower lid.

GUYS.

We have SO MANY NERVES in our eyelid. SO MANY.

The needle went into my eyelid and felt like it was coming out of my right nostril. He jammed that thing all up in my face. I felt the cool liquid of the numbing medication trickle into my sinus cavities from above, and it made me desperately need to sneeze.

But alas. There was three feet of needle in my eye. This seemed like a bad time.

“Keep your eye open!”

(I would have answered “I can’t!” but I couldn’t move without moving the needle in my eye.)

“Are you okay?”

(I would have answered “Are you kidding?” but I couldn’t move without moving the needle in my eye.)

He finally pulled it out, then walked around to the other eye.

WHOSE bright idea was it to get both eyes cauterized on the same day? I should have kept that precious duct plug as long as it agreed to stay in.

It was unbelievable. The pain from the injection was definitely that red crying face from the pain chart, and worse if such a thing exists (a crying poo emoji? Yes. A red crying poo emoji.)

(And as a reminder, this is coming from the person that has happily let her Physical Therapist stick her dozens of times in the past six weeks in the neck, shoulders, leg, and head.)

But I somehow survived.

He told me he’d be back for me when I was numb, and happily walked of the room, leaving me to tend to my gaping eye wounds.

I dabbed. I thought about crying but figured it’d hurt too much. I dabbed some more and realized I couldn’t feel my dabbing anymore. At least that seemed like a step in the right direction.

He came back and had me insert my head into the head brace so he could “get a really good angle.”

He got out his burny tool and inserted it deep into my left eye duct. Pressed the button, heard the electrical burning sound, then the frying/boiling of flesh, then a poof of smoke shot up directly in front of my eye. I guess that was his cue that cauterization had occurred, because he retracted his eye branding gun and stuck it down into my right eye duct.

Button, burn, boil/fry, poof of smoke, retract.

Seeing the poofs of smoke caused by the frying of my live eyelid skin made me thankful for those Son-of-a-Motherless-Goat Shots from Hell.

Each eye took maybe three seconds.

But after he finished, THEN he found it to be the right time to say,

“Oh by the way. Just so you know, the cauterizations will probably open back up at some point. But the good news is, we can do this as many times as we need to!!”

I looked at him incredulously. He did not look like he was being ironic.

The paperwork. Our conversations. Everything had indicated that this was it. The Holy Grail of duct closure. A vasectomy of the tear drain. AND NOW HE’S GONNA TELL ME I GOTTA DO THIS AGAIN AND AGAIN AND POSSIBLY AGAIN.

No.

I said in my most biting tone, as I tried to hold my recently char-grilled eyes open, “You know what, let’s go ahead and schedule ourselves a monthly date.”

As I got in my car to drive away, the numbing shot quite immediately wore off, and I began to feel the third-degree burns in my former eye pits. I fought to keep my eyes open, thinking angry thoughts about the receptionist who told me I wouldn’t have need for a ride home.

But I made it.

And for now, at least, my ducts are closed for business.

Appendix: if you want to see the procedure, I found a very accurate and short video here. Except that my doctor definitely did believe in inserting the cauterizing gun into the puncta. And also if you see me this weekend and I appear to have a black eye, please compliment me on my stellar eye shadow job.

Properly Training Your Child to Curse.

December 9, 2015December 9, 2015 Rachel Callahan "Deep" Thoughts by Rachel, A Day in the Life, Kids: The Experience., Parent of the Year

Somewhere between last week and this week, Noah learned the word “dammit.”

I really don’t think it was from me because I keep my dammits mental, under my breath, and only out loud when I’m alone without my children. Because I’m a hypocrite like that.

But who knows. It could be my fault. Maybe he’s bugged my subconscious.

Upon his first usage of the word, he was walking down the stairs, sneezed, and said, “Dammit!”, I asked him, perchance, where he had heard that word before.

“I made it up.”

“Well, it’s a bad word so you don’t need to say it anymore.”

“But I just made it up. It’s just a word I made up. So why can’t I say it?”

“Well, I guess other people have also made it up and someone decided long ago that it was a bad word.”

…But the arbitrary nature of curse words is not what we’re here to talk about.

(I mean seriously, who decided that heiny > toosh > bum > bottom > butt > kiester > ass?)

(This is really a red-letter post for me and inappropriate language usage, no? I need to change my blog name to The Very Worst Deacon’s Wife for the day.)

Noah continued to joyously experiment with his new word, once while skipping happily through Zoolight Safari, looking at the Christmas lights, singing loudly, “Dammmmit dammit dammmm-it DAMMIT!”

It was really quite festive. And personally, wasn’t an inaccurate representation of my feelings toward the season at the moment, due to my current condition.

(Guys I promise I am aware that you’re most likely insanely sick of me referencing that stupid wreck but my life is currently 99% dictated by it, so it comes up A LOT. I promise as soon as it is no longer applicable to every moment of my existence, I will quit making you hear about it. I swear I’m not turning into Wolowitz about space….“Hey – that reminds me about that one time when I was in a wreck!”)

But back to Noah at the zoo.

I of course shut down his song like a good mother, and then we had another chat later in the car about why we aren’t going to say dammit and how it’s a bad word.

He accepted my rather vague explanation of why he couldn’t use his new favorite word, then after a second of contemplation, said,

“But Emmanuel isn’t a bad word, right? It means ‘God wif us.’ I used to think it just meant ‘God’, but I learned today at church that it means ‘God wif us.’”

He’s so good at making me feel like a winner right when I’m in failure mode.

So hopefully next Christmas while skipping joyously through Zoolight Safari, he will instead be singing “Emmanuel, Emmanuel, EMMANUEL!!”, which sounds much more contextually correct.

As I was dealing with my angst over my son’s language issue, a blog reader sent me a picture of this Tim Hawkins magnet:

GUYS. I NEED THIS. And I have already used the phrase Son of a Motherless Goat because who wouldn’t want to say that??

The description made it even better.

Do you or a loved one struggle with the righteous expression of daily furies and frustrations? Have you ever received a formal complaint from the nursery that your Terrible Two has been freely spouting one of the Forbidden Fours? This latest page from the Tim Hawkins Handbook charts out 101 carefully curated substitute swears suitable for taming the most torrid of tongues.

I MEAN. Considering my year (which is aptly described as 2-turd-15 or written as so…)

I need some vocabularic options. Especially this week, as I’m having another downward turn in my recovery.

Now, my normal go-tos when around my children are as follows…

Crubbit
Dagnabbit
Crub
Crub IT ALL

Which brings me to a point where I believe another survey is necessary. We need scientific data and a wealth of suggestions from struggling mothers like ourselves. What are your favorite on-the-job words of exclamatory frustration?

If enough of you share, I’ll even put together a chart. And maybe even a graph. Or perhaps a printable reference sheet!

Because we all need help in this high-stress job of motherhood.

The Grand State Park Tour.

December 7, 2015December 5, 2015 Rachel Callahan Homeschooling: Not just for the socially awkward anymore., I Love Birmingham, I'm a Glutton for Adventure, The Blissfulness of Life

We did it.

A mom, 2 kids, and a Grandmother,

50 hours,

436 miles,

Over 8 hours in the car,

0 bathroom breaks during said drives,

4 State Parks,

3 State Park Restaurants,

2 State Park Lodges,

3 Hikes totalling 6.7 miles,

1,438 pictures taken.

And it only took me a month to actually blog about it.

I had planned this trip for the Monday after the accident, but put it off one week – which ended up being just a few days before I found out exactly how hurt I was. So. Although this trip certainly did not help my damaged muscles, tendons, ligaments, and discs, I am thankful that I was able to do it. Because it was majestic.

We started at Joe Wheeler State Park in northwest Alabama – a quadrant of the state that I’ve left grossly undervisited. It’s only two hours away from Birmingham, but I had never been there despite hearing about how beautiful it was. I feared that we had missed all of the lovely fall colors from leaving a week later than I had originally intended, but we were thrilled that they still had a good bit of Autumnness I craved.

I soaked it in,watching the birds soar across the surface of the water, and enjoying the appropriate chill in the air.

The kids immediately found a playground, and then Ali, anxious to start her fall trip notebook, began collecting leaves off of the ground.

I was surprised at all of the sailboats in the marina – not usually what you see at state parks – but they made for pretty pictures.

We ate a late lunch at the restaurant in the lodge (Ali said that they had the best ranch dressing in the entire world – and even stuck to that assessment when I took her to Wing Stop later that weekend, which is the place that I think has the best ranch in the whole world), then we set off on our first hike.

The trail we took was lovely and wide and wound up along the riverbanks. The children deemed it perfection.

At one point when we were high up above the river, we spotted what looked like a mysterious shoreline below. We all left the trail and scooted down the mountainside (leaving the trail caused Ali to get a mortal scratch from a thorn, something that was featured heavily in her journalling of the day) to check out the Pirate’s Cove below.

The children giddily searched for “Lost Things” or treasure or anything else they could find, then we crawled back up the hill, carefully avoiding all thorns.

We arrived back where we started, and walked down through the picnic area to find the shoreline. Despite it being overcast, the colors of the trees were so happy and invigorating.

I sat on a rock and took a photo editing break while the kids and my mom found shells, butterflies, and other wondrous objects made even more wondrous by Gramamma’s enthusiastic educational lessons. I really should have listened to her more as a kid.

The shore was rocky and serene and seemed just the place where you might have a mermaid sighting. Or perhaps a Lochness Monster.

We waited, but neither came to us. An extremely extroverted Monarch did find my mom and Ali, though. So there’s that.

After a beautiful visit at Joe Wheeler, we set out again – this time for a two hour drive east. It got dark before we arrived (WHY can’t our legislation get us permanent daylight savings time? The sun should not set before 5pm. God never intended that), but the lights of Guntersville from our lodge room at Lake Guntersville State Park were magical.

The lodge was pretty spectacular, also. Each room had a balcony overlooking Lake Guntersville, and the rooms had high ceilings that made them not feel nearly as claustrophobic as they should have with four people, two beds, and two air mattresses.

And the view was totally worth sketching.

The next morning, Ali and Mom worked on her school journal (seriously I should hire my mother as a full-time tutor), preserving leaves, labeling leaves, and writing about all of our adventures to that point, including that pesky cat briar.

Then we set off on a hike to explore Guntersville State Park’s beautiful trails.

My favorite find were these leaves, the darkest fall leaves I have ever seen. They were completely black.

The kids enjoyed the rock outcroppings and made up superhero games to go with them.

The fall colors were still very much around as they had been at Joe Wheeler, so I basked in my favorite season.

We did manage to get lost and wander like the Israelites in Egypt for a bit because I didn’t bother to read the legend on our trail map before we set out – particularly the definition of purple trails, which was “Not marked yet.” And then I started attempting to use the GPS on my phone to get us to the road but kept encountering sheer rock facings.

Just follow the trail maps, people. It’s the best way.

We found our way back to the trail and hiked back out, all of us feeling a great sense of accomplishment despite our wanderings. Our next stop was Desoto State Park. By the time we wandered off of Guntersville’s trails and got lunch on the way to Desoto, we didn’t have as much time to explore before sunset as we’d hoped, so we quickly drove through the cabin area and made mental notes for a future trip,

then headed to Desoto falls for sunset.

Desoto Falls is just marvelous. From the top,

to the middle,

To the bottom.

The kids were impressed, but fought me quite a bit about stepping away from the gated area to get this picture. They were equally cutting off all circulation to my wrists.

We left there and headed two hours east to our last stop, atop the highest mountain in Alabama, Cheaha State Park. It was dark when we got there, so we put the kids to bed and I had a desperately needed two hours of introvert time in the dark, editing photos and blogging.

Sharing space nonstop with my children does not come naturally for me.

The next morning, we walked across the street to have breakfast, which happened to possess this view:

Bacon and biscuits taste even better while looking at it – I promise.

We drove over to the walkway to Bald Rock, which was a beautiful half mile stroll to the edge of the mountain.

The walkway ended here, which overlooked Bald Rock. The kids were perfectly happy to stay at the end of the walkway, but I wanted the better view.

As I expected, it was exhilarating.

So I forced my children to join me. They wouldn’t quite step out of the shadows, but close enough.

Next, we visited the fairy tale-esque building that housed the highest point in Alabama.

The inside was adorable – exactly where one would expect Rapunzel to live.

When we got to the top of the 64 stairs, I climbed up into the windowsill and looked down upon all the people – just so I could be the highest in the state for a moment. Ali was not impressed.

Everything about Cheaha had an otherworldly feel to it – especially this castle waterfall,

And the group retreat lodge. I’m not sure how they won the lottery for Best State Park Architecture, but the ambiance was fantastic.

The grand finale of our journey was to drive down the mountain to Lake Cheaha and let the children play on the playground – because of course regular old playgrounds are the best part of epic journeys. Meanwhile, I circled the lake and took my last couple pictures.

I already loved our State Park system before this trip. We have so much rich and varying landscapes in Alabama, and I love that we’ve preserved so many of them for public use. But this trip definitely ingrained in me (and hopefully my children) a yearning to go more. To do more roadtrips. And to explore all of the magical places our state has to offer.

And I might already be planning our next grand adventure.

On Nuts and the Blogosphere.

December 4, 2015August 30, 2016 Rachel Callahan Blogging: the therapy., Fun With Roadkill, I'm a Blog Geek, Weird Strange and True

Like you, my inbox has gotten its usual case of severe Winter Flu. It’s a pox, really. A Plague. Every retail establishment I’ve never been interested in is sending me multiple emails a day about their Black Friday Deals and their even better Cyber Monday deals and their EVEN BETTER final sale prices and their AMAZINGLY BEST post-Cyber-Week deals.

STAHHHP.

But. Being a blogger also brings an entirely other echelon of contagion, as well.

Every day. Every stinking day. I get emails from brands suggesting their amazing product for any “Christmas Gift Round-Up Posts” that I might be writing. Or offering me hi-res images (squee!!!) of their fantastic new item in exchange for blogging about them. And of course there are the endless stream of non-humans wanting to guest post and possibly include an innocent link or two in their unbelievably meaningful post titled “Ten Steps to Picking the Right Vacuum for Your Household.”

Seriously. STAHHHHHHHP.

I always forward the best of these emails to Chris, because he, as a blogger’s husband, has come to truly appreciate the pain of a horrible marketing pitch.

Which is what I did with this beauty earlier this week that had the tricky subject line “Quick Question”:

Guys. I so wanted to reply back and explain to the Community Coordinator that any blogger willing to “create a conversation about on-the-go snacking this holiday season” for any amount of compensation, let alone the enticing promise of “and we will share our favorite posts with our Twitter community”, most likely doesn’t have any readers that are interested in what they have to say because WHO WANTS TO BE A PART OF THIS CONTRIVED CONVERSATION. I respect you, and myself, too much for that.

(And besides that, who exactly feels comfortable typing in the URL “nuts.com” without all the trepidation?)

But I didn’t. And instead I texted Chris excerpts, and as I knew he would, he internalized the great email pain on my behalf.

But then.

Then, a few minutes later, my blessed husband sent me this repurposing of my photo from Monday.

Because THIS is how you successfully reach people in the year 2015.

This message was not brought to you by nuts.com. Although it should be. And if nuts.com would like to buy my photo to skyrocket them into viral internet fame, it’s for sale. Because nuts. And my magnificent husband.

On Not Being Mostly Dead.

December 2, 2015December 2, 2015 Rachel Callahan A Day in the Life, Actually Possibly Informational

Being skewered, electrocuted, burned, suctioned, and scraped.

It’s what saved my life, or at least what gave me my life back.

Ten days ago, I couldn’t lift my arms without excruciating pain, I couldn’t pick up anything heavier than a couple pounds without my shoulders screaming at me, I had several nights where I didn’t sleep because there was literally no comfortable position, I had radiating pain all the way down my arms and to my fingertips, and I had been in nearly nonstop pain for four weeks.

As of today, I can hold my camera for an extended period of time, I can lift other moderately-sized things (but not the laundry basket. I may never be able to lift a laundry basket again. I need laundry service for life I’m sure of it.), I can sleep in multiple positions without too much pain, and most importantly, I can run. And it feels so amazing.

Now. It’s still a process and I still have ups and downs – and the one thing I still can’t do is sit upright with my feet on the ground for a long period of time. Such as yesterday, which started off completely exhilarating with a fantastic run and no pain, but ended in a good deal of pain and zero minutes of sleep after I had a two hour meeting. But sitting like that can be avoided more than you’d think, and overall, the trend is clearly toward less pain and more life, and my happiness level compared to a few weeks ago has skyrocketed.

And all because of being skewered, electrocuted, burned, suctioned, and scraped.

Not nearly enough people seem to know about the miraculous powers of Physical Therapy. I did, but only because of a couple prior running injuries. The miracles my PT had performed then, such as the time I hopped into his office on one foot while carefully balancing the other foot that was swollen to roughly the size of Australia and later walked out with zero swelling and hardly a limp, gave me confidence that he could help me get through this as well.

For the local people, my irreplaceable PT is Robert Funk at OnMark Physical Therapy in Moody. He’s a Muscle Miracle Worker and currently holds the title as My Favorite Person.

I drive 20 minutes and go past multiple other Physical Therapy clinics to get to him because he’s the only one I would trust to skewer, electrocute, burn, suction, and scrape me.

Anyway.

Wrecks are funny – okay no they’re not funny at all. Wrecks are weird – you really have no idea how badly you’re hurt until a week or two later. I’m fairly certain that my brain only had a set number of receptors to process specific pains, and as we fixed the ones I identified, I just kept discovering new ones.

We started with my leg and neck, then moved on to my shoulders and arms. And, slowly, all of the body parts are starting to feel normal.

It’s a miracle I tell you.

But the methods to get to that miracle were nothing short of fascinating.

There’s electrocution, but probably most of you are familiar with that. The tens unit is strapped onto the most sore places to shock those muscles into submission. I find this process quite comforting and downright restful.

The tens unit is paired with a heating pad that comes straight out of boiling water, which is also lovely – until the towels between me and the heating pad disintegrate.

Thankfully, Robert’s assistants are always there, ready with fresh new towels.

Next is the muscle scraping – a procedure called ASTYM that regenerates soft tissue – also relaxing and surprisingly effective.

The suction cup is the newest tool in his arsenal, used to separate my soft tissues and help them heal. It kind of feels like being pleasantly pinched by rubber pliers.

The massages are also quite fantastic, and always leave my sore shoulders and neck so, so happy.

And then there are the needles. Also known as skewering, although I think perhaps I’ve been the only one using that term.

I don’t mind needles. I never have. So when Robert asked if he could use the technique called Dry Needling on my tense muscles, I didn’t hesitate. Why not? Sticks and Stones can break my bones but needles can never hurt me.

The actual insertion of said needles is undetectable. But when they do what they’re supposed to do and skewer the jammed muscle, it feels rather like a very pinpointed charley horse.

You might also be interested to know that he uses his finger as a guide so that he (just barely) doesn’t stick the needle all the way through my leg. On my neck, he uses my shoulder blade to prevent puncturing a lung. He’s really quite thoughtful like that.

But seriously. Those needles are stupendous. Just like a miracle covered in chocolate.

Robert would find a lump in my neck or shoulders, stick a needle in it, and by the next day that lump was gone. He needled my shoulders four days in a row last week, and in one week, I went from nearly no pain-free arm movement to nearly complete pain-free arm movement, and from a sobbing, crying mess about my constant pain to an ecstatic, frenzied runner.

Since all of you are dying to watch, I had one of the technicians hold my phone one day for Periscope and saved the video just for you:

It’s downright fabulous to be in less pain, and I’m beyond happy to feel nearly normal most days, even though I’ve probably still got at least a few weeks to go in my therapy, and there are some things that are beyond even his ability to fix, like the damaged discs in my neck.

But life, oh life – it’s wonderful to have life again.

So if you have sore spots, please go get some holes poked in them. I promise you will feel like a new person.

Disclaimer: Although the diagrams are completely accurate, this post has not been approved by any medical professionals, including my physical therapist. But it should absolutely be considered professional, sound medical advice.