What Not to Eat While Giving Blood

At the end of the 9:30 Mass yesterday, Father John announced that the Knights of Columbus were sponsoring a blood drive at the church.

I have this funny habit. When I want to do something, but maybe feel unsure about it, I try to get millions of other people to do it, and then I can just join in unafraid. So I turned to Kevin, "You should give blood!" To my surprise, he said, "I'll do it."

From there, my campaign had a different look: "Hey, so-and-so, Kevin's giving blood. Wanna join him?" I asked eight people and was rejected by eight people. Bravely, for me, the needle wimp, I decided I would join him. Thankfully, my mother-in-law was visiting and took the kids home.

It was a long wait, but finally I went "behind the curtain" to answer questions about my sex, drug, and health practices. The funniest moment was when my interviewer asked if I'd ever been pregnant. I said yes. She asked how many times, and I answered eight. You should have seen her face. And she seriously thought I was joking (we'd already established a rapport, which is good when you're divulging whether or not you've had sex with someone with HIV - and we'd been joking a little bit). I told her I had four kids and four miscarriages and she was still shaking her head as we went on to the next question.

It was determined that I could donate "a double". I was tall enough, heavy enough, and had high enough iron to do it. After my finger prick revealed my super-star iron level, the interviewer goes, "GIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRL!" at the top of her lungs - announced my double donation and all the volunteer Knights on the other side of the curtain were clapping. (Just a note, the "double" means they can take double the blood because they pump your plasma right back into you and you can give more that way. It's also more readily usable, if I understood right, and just takes 45 minutes or so to give.)

I was actually having fun at this point. There was lots of attention given to the donors, and I like attention. Kevin and I were hanging out without the kids - nearly like a date! And my interviewer told me I had permission to eat a cheeseburger while I donated. I was hungry, having not eaten since breakfast about four or five hours before, and the Knights were sponsoring their monthly cook-out after Mass and all donors got a free ticket.

My plan was to have Kevin go fetch me a burger after he finished his donation. This went awry when time flew and he had to go get Joseph for a meeting back at the church at 1:00. So Ken, my new best friend, and one of the nicest Knights, brought me a scrumptious burger.

This blood donation thing seemed easy-breezy. I do hate needles and get faint at the sight of blood, but I had promised my interviewer I would not be dramatic and would keep communicating with the techs if I had any issues. Plus, compared to the thousand times I've had blood taken during my pregnancies and pregnancy losses, this was like a cruise ship compared to a row boat. The phlebotomists were friendly and jovial, the chair was like a La-Z-Boy recliner, and, for Pete's sake, I was saving a life or two! You can't beat that!!!

I was all hooked up and had enjoyed a small bag of pretzels and two water bottles by the time the cheeseburger arrived. It was delicious. I chewed it slowly while I focused on relaxing and NOT looking at the tube coming out of my arm.

I remembered labor with each of my pregnancies, and how successful it was to employ the mind-body connection. When I heard a tech say my blood had "slowed down" I visualized a river flowing. Even got a random old, old song by Joel Weldon going in my brain: "Still the River Flows". This river visual might have been the beginning of my demise.

It's frustrating, as the whole world knows, to do everything right and still have your body betray you. Despite all my prayer, visualization, happy singing, and relaxation - I started to shiver. Then get light-headed. It was annoying. But it was easily solved. Two blankets and a further reclined position plus two ice bags on my neck and I started to feel better. The guy told me that the saline pumping back into my body was twenty degrees cooler than my body temperature, so that explained the shivers. But I was starting to look more like a hospital patient then a calm, collected, breezy blood donor.

Ken had brought me such joy with the cheeseburger that he decided to bring a whole tray for other waiting donors. I remember when he walked in, my stomach turned. Then turned again. Then started somersaulting and cartwheeling and no amount of forced relaxation or trying to talk myself out of the nausea would work. I told my friendly phlebotomist that I was REALLY nauseous and before I knew it I was barfing endlessly into an orange biohazard bag.

Perhaps you're not fully appreciating this scene. I was wearing a pretty pink dress, left over from church. My friend Andrea had even complimented my hair. I was trying to save a LIFE! And it all came crashing down with a whole lot of wretching into a plastic bag held by a stranger.

Imagine also the orientation of the room. The donor recliners faced straight toward the waiting area. So I had an audience of like a dozen men and women. My buddy phlebotomist mostly blocked their view of my puking, but it had to be evident what was going on when other techs came running with napkins and chorusing, "Is she okay?"

I was okay. My pride was wounded, but the moment I started vomiting, the phlebotomist said, "Your blood came rushing out!" So maybe the visualization HAD worked! (A little TOO well.)

I was given extra time for recovery, and Ken gave me an apple juice. Another man insisted I couldn't drink it from a can, and brought me a cup. My pink bandage tape matched my dress. There was only the faintest hint of barf stench emanating from my cleavage where I hadn't thought to wipe. And as soon as I could walk, I went home where I could change clothes and recline on the couch.

Whether or not they wrote "Puker" on my donor record remains to be seen. I can donate again in September. If I avoid the cheeseburger, and they can put up with me, I'll give blood again. People go through way worse than this to save a life. Just call me the hurling heroine!

He's Three

Through various turns of events, I found myself on a porch swing in the backyard next-door to my old backyard. John, age 3, was with me. He wanted me to swing higher, but a porch swing isn't the same as a playground swing. He didn't get that. I tried to make conversation, nodding my head toward our old house: "John, there's our old house. You were BORN there!"

And his reply: "How old was I?"

Plastered

The good news is that ALL of the inside projects we wanted to do in this new house are now complete. Anything else we do is like icing on the cake.

The bad news is that plastering the ceiling was WAY more difficult than I bargained for. Plastering, in and of itself, is pretty basic. It was made more difficult by yours truly - thanks to the Easter deadline I imposed, the "side projects" I had going simultaneously, and my perfectionism. Fortunately, when one grows increasingly desperate and anxious, the perfectionism starts to go out the window. Passers-by hear statements like: "I don't give a rat's @$$ anymore about the air bubbles! I just want this stupid project FINISHED!!!" (Sadly, for my husband, he is really the only passer-by.)

It all started with this:

You'll have to squint a little. See that pale spot just past the air vent? That was the former site of a truly ugly medallion which was screwed into the ceiling with many VERY LARGE screws. And a light fixture. But, since we removed the light fixture, Kevin patched the damaged drywall, etc. And that is where he stopped. He kept procrastinating the texture job. Partly because it's messy and partly because on any given weekend we already have 250,000 OTHER things on our to-do list. You understand.

I, the brilliant wife, had the economical idea to finish the ceiling with Venetian Plaster, which can be obtained at your local Home Depot. (You don't have to be even a little bit Italian. They just sold it to me!) Plastering would kill two birds with one stone - release Kevin from the pesky texturing job and accomplish re-painting which would be inevitable.

And here I insert a HUGE thank you to Neal Kellen for loaning us his scaffold, Tammy Kellen for posting a photo of their scaffold on facebook during their painting job (or else I never would have known anyone owned such a thing), and Kathy Litto and Kendra Green for coaching me (in person and on the phone) in the fine art of Venetian Plaster. I still didn't get it entirely right, but I think it looks pretty good, it accomplished my goal, and on days when my perfectionist beast is subdued, I live in happy satisfaction with a job done.

Here is the scaffold, which joined our family for a little less than a week. The kids loved it. They played on it, lunched on it, spilled juice on it... (whoops! didn't mention that to the Kellens!)

And here is the "after" picture.

Please do just enough squinting to appreciate the texture and the effect of the "burnishing." What is "burnishing?" you ask. Burnishing, loosely translated, means: to scrape a steel putty knife across endless square feet of ceiling surface to make it shiny and give it "depth" and color variations; it often results in sore arms and shoulders, plaster-dust in the eyes, vertigo (depending on the height of your ceiling) and a deep need to tell everyone you meet about the job you just did so they can pat you on the back and be impressed.

Easter

Despite the craziness of Holy Week, brought on by my own decision to take on too many home improvement projects while the kids were off school, Easter was still a glorious day.

Easter began for us on Saturday night. Joseph wanted to attend the Easter Vigil again (it has become a tradition of sorts) and since Kevin went with him last year, I was elected to go this year. Kevin stayed home with the children who would implode if they stayed up til midnight and then spent the entire next day eating chocolate bunnies.

(I will eventually post a photo of) the fire that lit the Easter candle. We all gathered here with our candles to process into the church. I'd love to add photos of the baptismal font that Father John built, all 30 baptisms, Father Steve standing on a chair to light the candles behind the altar (we all laughed - the guy is already six foot eight!) and the joy I felt sitting through the Mass with Joseph and our young neighbors Christina and Maria. While we're at it, I wish cameras could capture how moving it is to hear Stephanie sing the litany of the saints. What a night! What a savior we have to celebrate!

After a midnight snack of sandwiches, shrimp, and delicious fruit, we all went home and went to bed with the resurrection on our hearts.

And woke up to Easter baskets!

I'm happy to say that I refrained from buying so much candy as to guarantee diabetes by summer. But there was enough, and the kids were all thrilled with their choco-bunnies, Mike & Ike's, and pool-themed gifts.

After I ran to the Mayers to hide the zillion eggs for the after-Mass hunt, we dressed up and took a family photo on the couch before Mass. At Mass, Joe had altar server duty and the girls both sang in the choir - it was bizarre to sit with just one child! (Though Grandma Noela joined us, too.)

After Mass, it was lots of kids and baskets in the Mayers backyard. Here's the whole group, minus John, who shies away from large group shots.

Back to our house for the potluck. Yummy ham, lots of marvelous side dishes, and, oh! - a wild and crazy confetti egg fight. This was compliments of my fabulous friend Andrea. The confetti eggs are a tradition in her family and she provided 36 of the well-decorated little suckers. The kids (and adults) had a blast breaking them over each other's heads. Here is Joe dashing out of the bathroom, where he had chased Christina and covered her and the entire commode in shiny confetti.

Here is a tiny sample of what my floor looked like at the end of the afternoon. The entire first floor of our house, minus the guest room looked like this. No joke. Praise the Lord for the broom and the vacuum cleaner!

To prove my cheery disposition despite the crazy confetti mess, and despite the fact that she broke an egg over my head right before this was taken, here is photographic evidence that Andrea and I are still friends.

It was fun to have a neighborhood lunch gathering to celebrate Jesus. And Easter season is just beginning. Happy Easter everyone!

Holy Week Upholstery

Leading up to Easter, I didn't have enough to do with filling eggs for the big hunt, ironing Easter outfits, and cleaning the house for a party - so I figured it was a good time to reupholster our dining room chairs.

We bought these chairs in Hanford in 2004. I loved the white fabric, but purposely inspected their design for ease of reupholstering. At the time I had two children and knew the fabric wouldn't stay white for long. Call me a prophet.

Seven years later, these suckers were WAY overdue for a makeover.

I think the cran-grape juice stains make them especially lovely. If I were a guest, I'm not sure I'd even want to sit on a chair this disgusting. (No one needs to ask what kind of forward thinker would buy white chairs with children in the house. I have no answer. Except they were so pretty!)

On about Wednesday night of Holy Week, Kevin unscrewed the seat cushions from the chair frame and I sat on the couch with a screwdriver and some pliers and got to work removing the old fabric from the chairs. Between the black "under-cover" (not sure what else to call it) and the fabric itself, there were roughly 150 staples per chair to be removed. And they didn't come easy. I had a cramped, blistered hand and very sore muscles by the end of the night, and was only half done. I spent about two or three hours the next morning finishing the job.

At this point, I thought the hard part was over. Now I got to use the fun staple gun and be done in a jiffy, right? I pulled out the staple gun we inherited from my step-dad and shot the first staple. It only went half way in to the wood seat. After a desperate and annoyed phone call to my husband, he reminded me that the gun was "about ninety years old" and suggested I hammer in the staples the rest of the way. No freaking way was I going to hammer 900 staples. So I called our neighbor Derryck, who has a very well-outfitted tool collection and works as a high school teacher, so he was home on Spring Break. He sent over his stapler. Shot the first staple. It only went half way in. You might think I was over-reacting if I told you I burst into tears and ran screaming into the closet where I suffered a full nervous breakdown. But what you might not know is that I was functioning on very little sleep since I was working nights on what I think I might start referring to as "The Great Ceiling Plaster Project of Holy Week 2011." Home improvement projects have a way of not going entirely right, so home improvement workers have a way of falling apart emotionally from time to time.

This is staple gun loser #1:

This is staple gun loser #2:

By a wonderful turn of events, my father stopped by shortly after my nervous breakdown and casually said, "Well, hey, I have a staple gun in my car. Let's try it."

The "Little Staple Gun That Could," despite it's size, accomplished the feat of shooting the staple through the fabric and into the solid wood seat. (And here we insert the Hallelujah chorus. It's not just for Easter.)

No longer did my stack of chair cushions look so daunting.

I used the old fabric swatch for a pattern and got to work.

Almost a thousand staples later, I had six beautiful new chairs, only a slightly arthritic hand, and huge respect for people who carry staple guns in their cars.

Toy Stories

Following are some photos I took of my daughters' toys in various "situations." Sometimes I'll come across their play and I'm taken aback, to say the least. I wonder where they get these ideas at the same time that I laugh out loud. I've recently gotten smart enough to capture their "creativity" with my camera. What follows are the results. The toys and dolls are exactly as I found them. The captions are mine.

Rhinoplasty? At such a young age? What kind of mother....?

"Yes, they're a little large... but they keep me warm up to my thighs."

The student body is sufficiently diverse. They even have a grizzly bear.

"I always feel so smiley when I've been to see Jesus!"

In urban areas, it's often hard to find a good saddle shop. In a pinch, masking tape will do fine. Just have the stable boy be the one to remove it.

Dolphins are terrible drivers. Even if it's a shoe car... just don't let them behind the wheel at all if you can help it.

Efanie was soooooooo glad to not be the only one in second grade with an unusual name.

While the Infant Stunt-Riding course is less than popular, there is the occasional newborn who knocks your socks off with her talent.

Still on the Floor

Star Reporter: Much time has passed since your last blog post. Are you still sleeping on the floor?
Me: Yes.

Star Reporter: And how's that goin'?
Me: It hasn't been as difficult as anticipated. A few weeks ago, I removed the memory foam topper I was using and replaced it with a sleeping bag. Much less comfortable, but it beats a bed of nails. If there has been any lesson, it is that I can get by with less than I have. Nice to be reminded of that. We'll be sleeping on the floor at my brother and sister-in-law's during an upcoming visit, and that's just fine and dandy. Couple months ago, I might have been nervous about my comfort and annoyed at not having my bed with me.

Star Reporter: Excited to approach the end of Lent?
Me: Yes and no. Of course I look forward to the joy and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. But this has been a VERY rich spiritual time for me. Thankfully, that doesn't have to end when Lent does, and many of the disciplines I've attempted will continue. Hooray for that!

Star Reporter: What has been most fruitful?
Me: I can't answer that. Jesus could. Let me know if He clues you in. But I certainly have gained a lot from my reading of the Diary of St. Faustina. Man oh man, that woman loved Jesus. Every word I read of hers brings out a strong desire in my whole heart to love Jesus more. I'll do anything. Well, almost anything. The theme of suffering is STRONG in the life of St. Faustina (and in the lives of all the saints I've read about) and I am daily trying to understand what that looks like for little old me. I resist the level of suffering that Faustina endured, and yet I can hear a call...

Star Reporter: Speaking of suffering...
Me: It is all around me, but mine is so minimal. So I can pray a lot, praise God for that. This very day, I have news of a friend beginning chemo for stomach cancer; my god-daughter desperately needs a new liver; and another friend is suffering through severe emotional turmoil. Still, in the midst of it all, there is the light of the Lord of Lords, and it is the most amazing light. I pray so hard for that light to shine in their darkness. (I suspect, actually, that they might see the light more brilliantly than I do right now.)

Star Reporter: So... you haven't been blogging, but things are okay?
Me: Yes. Jesus is alive and He is the hope of the world and of my life.