Father's Day and birthday wish!

Happy late Father's Day to my dad, Craig Gagnon!  

My dad is a lot of things.  He is hilarious, very outgoing, dedicated, hard-working, and one of the most intelligent men I know.  I swear, if Anna and I were studying something and we asked Craig about it, we'd get the entire history of the subject.  If we were studying osmosis, we'd know the root of the word, who discovered it, what the process was, like 12 examples of how it happens, and a full history of hyper/hypo/isotonic solutions.  He is brilliant.  I remember one time one of us asked him about something bug-related, and he started talking about this random moth that he remembers.  Mom asked, "How on earth do you remember that?"  Dad replied, "I remember a picture of it in our 4th or 5th grade science book.  Don't you?"  Mom said, "Um, no..."  Dad thought it was the most normal thing to remember pictures from an elementary school textbook.

He coached all my t-ball and softball teams, he played with us for countless hours on the floor when we were young, and was such a support when Mama died.  After Mama died, Dad and I would take walks downtown, and it was so neat getting to know him as a person rather than just a dad.  He is a very interesting man.  He has been through a lot in his life and has come out strong.  I strongly believe that some of my friends in middle school or high school would come over to my house just to hang out with Dad.

Some famous Craig phrases in our family include:
- "You can't argue with illogic." - Craig

- "It could be worse, we could be listening to talk radio..." - Anna about Craig's love of talk radio, especially on long car rides.

- "Yeah yeah, freakin' weekend gonna have me some fun, etc. etc." - Craig

I used to love sitting in the same room with him as he played snippets of all these random songs.  A lot of my taste in music came from my parents.  From Mom, I get my love of early 70's music, and from Dad, I get basically everything else.  He went through a Klezmer music phase, and I'm not sure if the general public knows what that is, but Craig does, and he loved it.

I am so thankful for my dad, and I love him very much!  And so we're going to pretend today is Father's day and I'm not a week and a day late.

On another note, I have been very busy this past week.  I am starting a casual position in the Neonatal Intensive Care Nursery in Savannah, GA.  I am so excited to be getting back to my sweet preemie/sick babies, even if it is going to be just two days a month!  I am not leaving my current hospital (I love my coworkers too much), but it will be nice to keep my skills up.  I had hospital orientation this past Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday all day, and then I worked Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.  So I hope that makes up for the fact that I've been negligent with my posts.

Yesterday was also my grandpa's birthday!  He is 86 years old, if I'm not mistaken.  I can only hope to make it to that age.  So happy late birthday, Pop!  I hope it was a wonderful day!

This is my cousin Kaylin, Pop, me, and Anna in April of 2008 at the Dillard House in Georgia.  If you want some great family style cooking, this is the place to be.  P.S. I'm lovin the puffy hair, Ann.

Happy Monday, all!

Not the creepy kind of crustache

I'd just like to start by saying that this guy makes my life awesome.

God really knew what he was doing when he got Julie and Will to hook us up almost 6 years ago.

So I got my wisdom teeth out on Friday, the two left ones pulled and the two right ones cut out.  I was nerrrrrvous that I was gonna be able to hear things and know what was going on.  Friday morning when we got to the oral surgeon's office, they got me settled and started the IV.  I thought this was pretty impressive considering I felt majorly dehydrated because I hadn't eaten or drank anything since before midnight, and that is very unlike me.  About 15 seconds later, I started getting drowsy and said, "Oh, I'm starting to feel it...", and I woke up what seemed like 2 minutes later (and was actually more like 45 minutes later) to the assistant telling me that it was over.  I couldn't lift my head, I could barely lift my arms, and all I wanted to do was cry.  The nurse assured me that it was normal, that our female hormones make us either want to laugh or cry.  And lucky me, mine had chosen the waterworks.  I didn't actually cry, but I was on the verge, especially trying to walk out to the car where Hunter was patiently waiting to go get my meds and our veggies from the CSA.  I felt like craaaaaaap on the car ride home.  But once we got home, I was pretty much alright.  


My face swelled up nice and big though.  Ice packs were my best friend on the right side of my face.  (Sorry, no pics.  I didn't want my chipmunkiness forever documented.)  So as I bit down on gauze for several hours and kept ice to my face, I basically wrote a lot of notes and sent a lot of texts to Hunter so I wouldn't be tempted to talk and irritate my gums.  I started feeling a little crappy several hours later, and Hunter felt really bad for me.  When he asked me if he could give me an early birthday gift to help me feel better, I wrote, "Sure!"  

My amazing husband gave me this:

That's right!  It's a "Crustache" - a mustache sandwich cutter!!  When I think of crustache, I think of like a creepy little crusty, sparse mustache that creepy people have.  But this kind is WAY better.  I don't know what has spurred my obsession with mustaches lately, but they tickle me to no end.  I scribbled a big "THANK YOU, HONEY!  I LOVE IT!" and we immediately started goofing off with my new gift.  I made him pick his favorite mustache and let me take a photo.  Hence the above photo that just makes me smile.  Even though it hurt to smile for a few days.


Hunter took very good care of me.  I felt worse the two days after surgery than I did the day of, and today I'm feeling better than I have the past 2 days.  Saturday night, my cheek was on FIRE, like I'm talking serious scorcher.  I iced that puppy like it was going out of style.  I'm still a little swollen and pretty bruised on the right side, but I'm keeping heat on it now and keeping up with my Motrin to keep the swelling down.  And I have a gnarly bruise on my arm from the IV.  All in all, it was a good experience but I hope I don't have to go through it again.


On a brighter note, our CSA boxes have gotten better for us lately!  We're almost able to use everything we get now!  We got a big juicy cantaloupe on Friday.  It's reeeeeally good (and soft, so I'm actually able to eat it).  Terri would have loved it, and I'm sure if Craig lived closer, he would love to enjoy some with me!

It's okay to be jealous.  ;)  Of my cantaloupe AND my Crustache!!

The best part about work...

...is this.

Let's be serious, if you don't love cupcakes, you're a freak.  But I appreciate you, because that means more for me.

One of my patients last night got a gift of a dozen cupcakes yesterday, and she still had 10 left over by the time I left this morning.  I convinced her to keep one for herself, and I gave away another 5 to coworkers.  The other 4 came home with meeeee!  They're from a local bakery that I've been wanting to try, so this was a perfect opportunity.  I had about 1/4 of the one in the foreground last night at work.  It was a banana cupcake with a peanut butter icing with banana chips on top.  OMG.  It was delicious.  My patient's sister said that the Oreo one on the right was her favorite.  I think they're all gonna be spectacular.

That's not my really the best part about work.  There are a lot of things I love about work.  I love my co-workers, I love seeing patients feel better, and I love seeing a baby bond with their new family.  But leftover goodies are always nice and appreciated!  I told my patient that she was going to make my husband one happy man, and she told me to tell him that I had made her one happy patient!  It was so nice and very much appreciated!

I told Hunter that if he comes home and all of the cupcakes are ripped apart, it's because I sampled them all.

I'm assuming that I can eat a cupcake today because I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow and will most likely not be able to eat solid foods for 24-48 hours after surgery.  So indulgence today, liquids tomorrow.  Get excited.

Now for an update on my plants.  We got a peace lily from our new chiropractor and I was told that they were basically indestructible.  So in my mind I'm thinking, "I wonder how long it's gonna take me to kill this thing."  Answer: 1 week and 2 days.

My poor lily's petals are all brown and crumbly.  So go me.  (She's just on the back porch for a while to try to get some better sunlight to perk her up.  She's been hanging out on the dining room table.)

And my dang lantana flowers keep falling off and growing back, falling off and growing back.  But I've pretty much gotten used to that happening.  I do very much enjoy all the plants/flowers, though.  I feel like they make our little apartment so much more homey.

My wisdom teeth appointment is tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., so say a prayer for me!  (And for Hunter, as I'm not sure how well I'm going to handle this and he has to be my primary caregiver.  Oh, how I love that guy!)  Any tips/suggestions on how to make this experience easier would be very much appreciated!