Merry Christmas!

Let's all pretend this blog post actually was posted two days ago and was therefore on time, okay?

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that you all enjoyed your time with family, were safe in the blizzard and got to eat lots of fudge.

I certainly did my share of fudge eating, let me tell you what.

Now let's all try to eat salad for five days straight so we can fit into our New Year's Eve outfits, k?

The Great Italian Debate

My husband has long been the source of considerable teasing in our family because of his pronunciation of the word "Italian." See, in the Panhandle of Oklahoma, everyone pronounces it with a long I sound at the beginning, like eye-talian. But for most of the country, we pronounce it with a short eh sound.

This weekend we had a healthy debate whether Mitch's pronunciation is correct, acceptable, colloquial or just downright offensive. To investigate, I consulted both Merriam-Webster, the go-to dictionary for most, and Dictionary.com, the free online version. Results below!

Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: ¹Ital·ian

Pronunciation: \ə-ˈtal-yən, i- also ˌī-\

Function: noun

Date: 14th century

1 a : a native or inhabitant of Italy b : a person of Italian descent
2 : the Romance language of the Italians

Dictionary.com

 /ɪˈtælyən/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [i-tal-yuhn]

–adjective

1.	of or pertaining to Italy, its people, or their language.

–noun

2.	a native or inhabitant of Italy, or a person of Italian descent.

3.	a Romance language, the language of Italy, official also in Switzerland. Abbreviation: It, It., Ital.

Pronunciation note:
The pronunciation of Italian with an initial /aɪ/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ahy] Show IPA sound (pronounced like the word eye) and often with level stress on the first and second syllables: /ˈaɪˈtælyən/[ahy-tal-yuhn] is heard primarily from uneducated speakers. This pronunciation is sometimes facetious or disparaging in purpose and is usually considered offensive.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

So the debate rages on, I suppose. This would be a lot easier if those dictionary folks could get on the same page!

(Same page, haha, I crack myself up.)

Cough Cough

I broke down and went to the doctor nurse practitioner. To be fair, I thought I was going to a doctor, but no one at the Warren Clinic told me the woman wasn't until after I'd already seen her.

She told me that my hacking, debilitating cough that kept me up at night and made me throw up repeatedly was "just an after-effect of my cold and would most likely go away on its own within the next 6 months."

Excuse me, did you just tell me that my cough could stay until summer? Like, I could be wearing shorts the next time I go a full day without coughing? Dear Lord.

So she gave me an inhaler to try to help with the coughing....an inhaler with the #1 side effect of coughing. Sigh.

After two days of coughing so hard I threw up and not being able to sleep until 5 am, I called back to the fake doctornurse practitioner, who gave me a Z-Pack. When I asked why she was giving me antibiotics now when she thought they would be of no use to me two days ago, she said...basically nothing. When I asked what she thought it was, she said that she didn't know. How am I supposed to have any confidence in her if she basically tells me that she has no idea what's going on?

I guess I'll just have to wait it out. Stay tuned for the "I'm Done Coughing" post. It should hit sometime between now and mid-June.

Just when you think it's safe to come out of the water...

I've now been sick for more than 2 weeks. It's official. This blows.

I thought that I was done being sick last week. My fever was gone and I had some pep in my step. But then, I started to cough. How weird, I thought. I feel great. I have no congestion. Why am I coughing? I went on with my life, convinced that the cough would leave as suddenly and mysteriously as it had arrived.

Except the cough didn't want to leave. It's made itself comfortable. So comfortable, in fact, that Mitch is now forcing me to go see the doctor. Something about "if you cough hard enough that you throw up, you need to go to the doctor." Psh, what kind of rules are these? Ridiculous.

Either way, I'm giving in to the nagging peer pressure and visiting the doctor tomorrow. As for right now, I think another super size dose of Robitussin is calling my name.

Yawn.

It is currently 10:58 am and I've been awake for nearly 9 hours. I worked the overnight shift at the Library, which really boosted my self confidence, because no matter how raggedy I was looking, those poor students looked even worse.

Now if you will please excuse me, I have to go pass out and sleep for about a million hours.

Letters

Dear Hallmark,
I want to buy my keepsake ornament for this year, but could you make it a little less expensive? 20 dollars for one ornament seems pretty dang expensive! Also, this one is pretty hilarious. I would probably pay the $16.50 for it!

Dear hair,
I know you're going back to your roots and growing in blonde, but couldn't you just blend in with the brown for a while? I don't really have 80 bucks to spend to make you fit in with the rest, k?

Dear cough,
You've overstayed your welcome. You're not helping anything here, just go away! As God is my witness, I'll kill you with Robitussin if you don't.

Dear weather,
8 degrees is entirely too frigid. We're not in Minnesota here, cut me some slack!

Dear Cheez-its and Coke Zero,
You were delicious. Thanks for giving your life for my snack today. I'll be seeing you tomorrow.

Your turn: What letter do you want to write today?

Mitch W. Griswold

When I left the gym last night, I checked my phone to see if anyone had called while I was inside. I was surprised to see 13 missed calls from Mitch.

I called him and he immediately told me, "I fell through the ceiling at the house."

Turns out Mitch was in the attic putting some boxes away when he stepped on an area that had wood laid over the beams. Only they didn't use sturdy wood...so Mitch pulled a Christmas Vacation and crashed through the drywall in our garage ceiling. He caught himself with his arms about halfway down and managed to crawl back up.

Once I established that he was okay, I couldn't help but laugh for about 20 minutes. Tonight, we're definitely going to watch Christmas Vacation. I'm sure I'll laugh especially hard at one certain part.

As for now, I just wonder if Mitch will staple himself to the house later...

Merry Christmas to me!

This weekend I did a lot of Christmas shopping, mostly for the new house.

Last night, we were at Wal-Mart with the intentions of buying some potatoes and a Dutch oven. We ended up with a 46" LCD TV and a brand new entertainment center to house it.

Those crafty marketing folks at Wal-Mart put the tv on sale on an end cap, and being the savvy shoppers that we are, we snapped that baby up. The house is finally starting to look put together (in the living room, at least), so pictures coming soon!

As for me, I'm going home to collapse into bed. Despite the fact that it's not yet 11am, I've already been at work for more than 8 hours. I worked my overnight shift last night and let's just say that all-nighters aren't quite as easy as they used to be!

Also, I'm totally admitting utter defeat with the 30-day blog challenge. I just haven't been able to get my act together this time. I blame buying the new house holiday schedules the position of the moon myself. *Sigh* Better luck next time.

Road Rage

Hi, my name is Valerie and I have road rage.

The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?

I was driving to Sapulpa to ref 3 basketball games that I couldn't get out of tonight (Mitch wouldn't ref them for me because he's "sick". What a faker.) Most of the drive is on Highway 51, which is one lane in each direction. I got behind a man in a truck who was going about 5 miles under the speed limit. Naturally, as we reached a passing zone, I floated a few feet left to see if I could pass the truck. NORMALLY, this is the point in the story where the man driving the truck should move to the right to make passing easier and safer.

This is NOT the point where the d-bag should speed up/ride the center line to avoid letting you pass him because in some way he relates being passed on the highway with his own failure in life. Or something like that.

I was pissed off enough already, but I moved back behind him, thinking that since he had sped up, it wouldn't matter that I was behind him.

Until he slowed down to 60 again. And we repeated the passing dance again. And he blocked me and then slowed down again.

Sometimes, the only answer is remaining calm and being a responsible adult.

And sometimes, the only answer is flipping someone the bird.

Overboard

I ventured out of the house today to shop with Mitch for our Angel Tree kid, a 2-year-old boy whose wish list included shoes and a winter coat. I figured anyone whose wish list had such practical items would really need the help.

So we went a little overboard....well, maybe more than a little overboard. We bought him a pair of sneakers, a camo shirt with matching pants, a camo hoodie, a pair of jeans, a rugby shirt, a winter coat and two books.

God help us when we have a child of our own.

P.S. I totally failed on blogging yesterday, too. Boo!