Its been a week now

A quick update on the eye situation. After a week, I am still happy with the results. I am still experiencing haziness. The doctor told me Friday to step up my use of one of the medicines and it should help with the haziness.

Driving at night is still a bit of a challenge with the lights from other cars, etc.

I expect all of this to clear up over the next couple of weeks. The doctor told me that I may even experience some fogginess for a few months.

Besides the eyes, its been a relatively quiet week at the house. We've enjoyed a LOT of TV lately due to the cruddy weather.

Big E managed to lose her one pound this week, but I did not. I hope to feel well enough next week to start back with the walking and running (weather permitting). Once I start running, I should be able to drop a little weight.

Its all good ...

Had my first follow up appointment this morning.




My vision is still a little hazy but the doc says that is normal. I have to keep up the continuous eye drop process for the next 7-10 days but that is a small price to pay for 20/15 vision. Thats right, 20/15 vision this morning at the check up!!!! How cool is that?

I can't imagine how great this is going to be once the haziness goes away.


The picture below is me, post surgery, wearing my cool "Terminator" sunglasses. They gave me the glasses to protect my eyes from the sun while I am recovering. They are horrible looking but they block 100% of the sun light.

I slept in my eye google things last night for the first time. Each night I have to tape on these eye protectors to prevent me from accidently rubbing my eyes. I have to keep this up until the cornea is completely healed. I didn't hate it, but they do prevent me from sleeping on my side and stomach.

Enough about the eyes ...

Today, Elizabeth and I signed up for the Scale Back Alabama weight loss challenge. The challenge consists of teams of four (two co-workers are joining us) trying to lose 10 pounds per person in ten weeks. There is a drawing at the end of the challenge for all of the sucessful people to win money prizes.

Our team consists of the following weights; 179, 180, 186 and 236. I hope that each of us will work hard enough to lose the minimal ten pounds per person. Elizabeth and I are starting back with the walking now and planning to run our first 5K of the year on February 21 at Huntingdon College. Besides the walking, I hope that we can find a way to be more motivated about the foods we eat and drink.

So the next time you see one of us, make sure that we aren't eating and drinking like little piggies (or not so little piggies in our case).

Also, if you are looking for a fun and easy way to get started walking with the goal to run a 5K, check at this website. You can download MP3 format "podcasts" that are 30 minutes in length and the best part is the commentator talks you through building your endurance to run a full 5K. There are nine podcasts that work you from the initial week of running for 60 seconds and walking for 60 seconds (for a total length of 30 minutes) through to week 9 which is running the full 30 minutes. Check it out, work through it and come join Big E and I for a race.

Until next time ....

An afternoon update ...

I can see you!!! Thats right, my vision is so good now that I can actually see you reading this post.

Ok, so its not really that good. I am back from my second nap of the day and thought I would drop a quick note to everyone that all is good. I can actually see without glasses. Right now the vision is a little blurry like there is a milky haze over my eyes. This is probably because the cornea has fully healed so I expect this to last a week.

Big E is actually taking good care of me. She is constantly bothering me to drop more crap into my eyes but I will forgive her for that.

I will post her pictures soon.

One last thought on her description of the procedure, I was awake and watching all of that happen to myself. There were only two pain points in the procedure:

1. The vacumm thingee that suck my eyeball into place (she forgot to mention this thing) hurt a little. It also left "hickies" on my eyeball.
2. Removing the tape that they used to hold back the eyelids did not feel to cool either. I hope I still have eye lashes.

I need to go as the computer light is a little too bright. I drop a line after the appointment tomorrow. Plus I have an exciting announcement about an upcoming challenge that Big E and I are signing up for tomorrow.

A Note from Big E.....

Ok, so I wanted to just give everyone a quick update on the patient. Stephen is doing fine after his Lasik eye surgery. I will give a quick run down of how our morning went....

7:45am = Stephen gets to take his first Valium pill. This was to help with anxiousness he may have been feeling. I have to say that he did reall well. I could tell that he was a little nervous but all in all he was not as nervous as I thought he may have been.

8:00 am = We arrive at Montgomery Eye place. Stephen signs in and within 10 minutes that walk us back to the first room. Yes, I said us. I get to watch, oh yeah!!! The first room the nurse goes over the post procedure care. Lets just say in consists of, eye drops, eye drops, and more eye drops. We will be putting eye drops in every hour today, then 7-8 times a day for 3 different types of drops.

8:25am - We move to our second room. Stephen gets to put on a surgery cap. Man, this was awesome. I hate I didn't have the camera!! At one point he had it positioned so it would look like a beret hat. Hilarious!!! Here in this room they wiped his eyelids down with betadine and had some candles burning and some soft Latin-Mexican music playing in the background. Stephen asked if he was getting a complimentary massage before the event!!! yeah, on his eyelids maybe.

8:35am = Dr. Swann comes in the room to take one last look. Goes over what will be done says that the nurses gave him the thumbs up and the room is ready for him. Here we go!!! We go across the hall and Stephen goes into a smaller room. I stay in the little office area where there is a window for me to look in and also a TV on the wall. They tell me that I will be able to see them actually perform the procedure on his eye.

8:40am = They begin to create the "flap". This was cool!!!!! So on the TV screen all of a sudden I see this big 'ol eye appear!! It was freaky..... It was Stephen's eye. The flap process is the "laser" basically making a cut on his eyeball for the doctor to pull back so that the actual laser can do the correction. I am going to describe this as best as I can. On the screen his eye is there, then all of a sudden his eye starts turning fuzzy. Imagine a picture on the TV screen and a row of snow starting to go across so you can't see it. This was done on one eye, then the other. The flap had been created.
The next step begins, now that the flap is there, Dr. Swann puts one of his eyes back onto the TV screen and I see this needle thing start going towards the eye. I'm like OK, so far so good, and then it happens, imagine pulling a scab that has grown over a sore open and just laying it over. GROSS!!! I have to admit, my knees got a little weak on this. Then on the screen is what looks like a target off of a Playstation game for fighting airplanes. He literally is lining his eye up by using a joystick!! Then we hear the datdatdatdat. (laser sound) I see his pupil go from fuzzy to jet black then to the size of a pen top. EEKKK Then once this is done, the needle comes back out, flips the flap back over, liquid comes out of the needle as this is going on and he (the doc) is pushing the flap down onto the eye with the needle. Insert weak knees here!!
Then the dude brings out what looks like a little miniature squigee and starts raking it across Stephen's eyeball. OMG!!! Literally it was like watching a window washer washing a window!!!

8:50am = Both eyes finished, doc takes a look, says everything looks good and we are on our way back home.

9:10 am = We are home Stephen is starting to feel very uncomfortable. Valium #2 taken. The next 45 minutes he is patting his eyes and wishing he could go to sleep. About 10 minutes later the Valium must have kicked in because he got loopy and started snoring.....................

12:30pm = He wakes up and thinks it is 10:30am.

So far all is good!! I have taken some pictures since we have been home but I will let him put those up.

Finished the Laundry Room

I've planned on doing this blog for a couple of weeks but never got around to charging the batteries in the camera. I figured I would finally do it since I probably wouldn't feel like blogging this weekend.

On January 5th (Little Bits birthday), our shelves for the new washer and dryer arrived. Picking up the units was not a problem, but picking up the dryer and washer to stack them on the shelves was a major struggle. The end result is that they look much better on the shelves.

The weekend before the shelves arrived, I decided that the laundry room deserved a make over. I say that I decided because in my sleep I dreamed about the make over and the hassle that it would be if Big E decided a make over was required AFTER the shelves were installed. So, at 8:00 on Saturday morning I informed Big E that I was headed for the local Home Depot to pick out paint. Now, for some men this is probably not the best time to tell the wife that you are going to pick out paint colors and paint a room, but in our house I am the decision maker!!!!

OK, so that may not really be the case, but it is true that I get to pick colors for rooms. After arriving at Home Depot, I called Big E and she helped me to select the color by looking at swatches online. We had already discussed our plan to have a cool light color in the room. She went with Behr's Flint Smoke.

By 10:00 AM, I was at home and painting and by 8:00 that evening I was done. I managed to brush (no rolling paint in this house) on three light coats and only used 1/2 of a quart of paint (that is why we hand paint!).

In addition to painting the room, we also decided to hang a new clothes hanger and sliding basket (for the stray socks that seem to accumulate). You can see the top of the hanging shelf in this picture.

In this picture you can see the extra shelf and the sliding basket.

That is Rusty's food container on the floor.

All in all, the room is much improved, and it didn't cost a fortune (YES!!!).

Pre-Op Day

Thursday is the big day for my eyes. Big E is referring to this as my big "day of trust".

Today was the day to go back and double check the measurements, etc. In addition, I picked up the various types of eye drops and my favorite part of the prescriptions; Valium. The eye drops are for cleaning my eyes, the post-op irritation, antibiotics, etc. The Valium is to help with the nerves and to encourage me to sleep afterwards.

The surgery is Thursday morning at 8:00 AM. In all I should only be gone at the doctors office for 90 minutes but the surgery will only last about 10 seconds per eye. I am nervously anxious about the procedure.

All of this means that Wednesday will be "clean the house" day. The goal will be to rid the house of as much dust as possible. Considering that we have two cats and a dog, there is no such thing as getting rid of dust. However, any effort we can make to limit the possibility of infection afterwards will be a greatly appreciated.

Now back to Big Es little comment about Thursday. She decided that this will be her best opportunity to get revenge for those funny little comments that get said throughout the day. Today I accumulated a total of four little comments and according to her, each comment is equal to one wall that she doesn't plan to mention. Since I will be all but blind Thursday, it could be a bumpy day. So, if the next picture of me is without glasses but contains multiple bruises, you will know why.

Twice Eatened Steak

Before jumping directly into the main event of the blog, let me breifly show everyone the Christmas presents that I got for two of my nephews. These little stocking stuffers are called Flarp bags (or Stink bags). Each of them received a five pack of these little ditties. I knew that the potential was high for a little drama when I purchased them but I didn't plan on getting into trouble buying them. It took the boys less than five minutes to read the instructions (that is rare) and to go outside and sabotage someone with them. Apparently the smell is very similar to rotten eggs. Of course, that action took less than 5 seconds for me to be blamed. IT WAS WORTH IT THOUGH!!!!



Now back to the main event .... Is "eatened" even a word? If it isn't it, you will understand it by the end of the post (I hope).

New Years Day is a very special day at the Lee House. On top of being off work, watching lots of football and eating too much, it is also Rusty's birthday. This year he turned six.

By all rights, Rusty lives a VERY good life. He even has his own special "puppy" schedule:

1. He wakes up around 6:00 each morning and goes to the bathroom with me. Usually, he sleeps while I shower, brush my teeth and prepare for the day.

2. He gets fed around 6:30 each morning. This means that he needs to go outside around 6:35.

3. After breakfast, he spends the day laying around the house. He has a crate where he spends some time, he lays on the sofa for a little while and spends some more time staring out the front door protecting the house.

4. Around 3:30 the girls get home from school and basically ignore him, except to let him go outside and potty.

5. Around 5:00 I get home and we go out to play. This is immediately followed by dinner for him.

6. He spends the evening going in and out, time to potty, chase squirels, etc. Sometimes, he simply lays up against on of us and naps.

7. Around 10:00, he climbs into the bed (with or without us) and goes to sleep.

I know that we all have internal clocks but this dog has mastered the art. He knows breakfast, dinner, playtime, and has even mastered the days of the week to know when he gets to go on a "bye bye" trip versus when I am simply getting ready to go to work. Amazing.

Due to his food allergies, we do not feed Rusty table scraps. But being his birthday, I decided to share a small piece of steak with him. The steak was a little too spiced for Rusty's taste and stomach. Within one minute of munching down the steak, he threw it right back up.

This occurred right beside the dinner table right beind me. I can't handle these moments in life. My general rule is that if I see someone throw up OR if I can smell the throw up, I am going to sympathy throw up.

In this instance, Rusty managed to throw up within two feet of my chair directly behind me. Grrrrooooossssss!!!!!!! Thankfully, I did not follow suit.

Immediately following the disgusting sound of Rusty expelling the steak, I heard the sound of licking. Can you imagine?

I refused to look, but it was clear that Rusty was right behind me cleaning up his mess. Big E and Brooke were laughing and starring at Rusty (they were both still eating!!!!) as he ate the previously launched contents of his stomach. Little E and I were not laughing and could have done without the play-by-play of the events from Big E and Brooke.

I don't know how he managed to do it but the dog ate the steak twice. When he was done, he had the nerve to come sit right beside me and stare while I finished my dinner. He actually wanted more!!!!!

Thankfully, the steak stayed down the second time!!! If the steak had made a third appearance, I probably would have given him even more to eat (if you know what I mean).

Green Tip of the Post: This really isn't a tip as much as a brag. I've been watching and reading a handful of blogs and websites devoted to living frugally. I decided that one of my goals this year to be more frugal without impacting our daily lives. To do this, I've been devoting a little time almost each day to collecting coupons, reviewing sales ads (online and in store), and planning trips to stores rather than going and grabbing.

My first big change was to sign up for the CVS extra care card. This card actually provides extra discounts on some items, cash back in the form of CVS dollars (Extra Care Bucks) on some items and rewards us with another percentage (2%) back on our purchases quarterly.

Our latest trip to CVS cost a total of $39.40 which was a total savings of $53.35. The biggest cost items where the razors (which cost a fortune each month in a house with four women) and the hair coloring stuff. The picture below doesn't look like much, but there was just short of $40 dollars retail of razors and blades in the pile alone.

In addition to our CVS trips, we have also been working on our grocery store trips. Today, we managed to return home with $194.58 in retail value for a total cost of $110.91. Considering that the majority of the products where meat or entree related, we should be set for food for at least two maybe three weeks.