Survival

Well, it's all over. Black Friday has come and gone for those of us crazy enough to go out and battle the crowds for the best Christmas loot. Though things are winding down in the stores, you can be assured that Christmas has now begun in earnest.

This was the first year that I went BF shopping without my sister, or at least a friend. I talked Bart into agreeing to go with me and to pull an ALL-NIGHTER in order to enjoy Thanksgiving at our friends' Jeff and Tara's and then hit Old Navy at midnight, which would be closely followed by Target at 4am. I had my game-plan (sort of) and my list of what we needed to get for everyone. So, we headed down the street to stuff ourselves full of food and settle in to wait for the first strike of midnight.

Unfortunately, during this settling period, Bart, Jeff, Matt and Jesse decided it would a great time to play darts. You know, the mature kind where the losers have to chug a beer or take a shot. And guess whose team lost 6 rounds in a row? That's right. So, I quickly decided to knock Old Navy's opening off of my list so we could focus on Target, because, you know, it's hard to shop with a drunk husband.

This game plan eventually turned into me waking up at 4am so I could order my items online since Bart was drunk and I suddenly couldn't move from the bathroom--but we won't go into details about that portion of my night here. ANY. WAY. In case you all didn't know (because I sure didn't), you can order stuff online for Black Friday, just not the good stuff that you really want. For that, you have to actually get up, get dressed and drag your exhausted and sick butt to the store. Which I did. ALONE. Because Bart was incapacitated. Or passed out, however you want to look at it.

So, I went Black Friday shopping at 4:30am by myself in the big city of Chicago. And you know what? It was horrendous! I got, literally, the last shopping cart in the lobby. All of the fliers were gone and I had forgotten mine. The $30 Christmas tree I was NOT going to lose out on this year? Sold out. At 4:45am. So I got an OK tree for $20. It was wall-to-wall people, and not the nice kind. Can you believe that I saw a lady with her screaming 5 YEAR OLD shopping with her that early? Probably not, because I had a hard time believing it myself and I was there. On a bright note, I DID get the last $12 blow up mattress. The negative? I didn't realize that the air pump was not included until we got home. I even broke into tears at one point because the lady in front of me just stopped moving because, apparently, her brain had melted or something. I'm going to blame the crying on PMS, exhaustion, homicidal feelings, frustration and feeling like poop.

I made it home by 6:30 with a bunch of stuff and woke Bart up with the door bell so he'd have to wake up and help me (bwahahahaha!). Then I got into bed, cried a little more, watched the sun come up, went to sleep, woke up at 10am and got dressed AND WENT BACK OUT SHOPPING! Because I am a Christmas ANIMAL!!!!! No shoppers, pets, husbands (barely), or gift items were harmed during the making of this Black Friday Fiasco.

***Bart has requested that I include the fact that he went out with me at 10 and was helpful. And that he's now cleaning the entire apartment to make up for the "BF Incident." :)

Bleak Friday

I can't believe that, in less than a week, it will be Black Friday. Forget Thanksgiving. That's just they day you carb load before the BIGGEST shopping day of the year. Normally I have my game-plan all figured out. I know exactly which stores I'm going to hit, how long I want to spend at each one, and exactly what I am going to buy for each person on my list.

Not so, this year.

As of right now, I have ONE fool-proof (I think) idea for a gift for ONE person. I have some other ideas, but the only problem is that I can't find any hard evidence anywhere that the items I want will actually be on sale on BF. And lets face it, folks, I'm on a tight budget here. Especially since I now have to figure shipping and handling in with the overall cost of each person's Christmas gift.

Today I went out and bought two--yes, TWO--Sunday papers for the inserts. Here I am thinking that the Black Friday fliers will be included, especially since each paper weighed about 3lbs. But, alas. I was wrong. It was filled up with PRE-Black Friday fliers for the PRE-Black Friday deals. I mean really. You are completely nuts if you think that I am going to take time out of my week to get shoved around by city jerks for NOT SO GREAT--AVERAGE SALES!!!

So, right about now, Black Friday is looking pretty bleak. Who wants to picture themselves standing in a crowded store filled with screaming people while they bite their nails and think, "Gee, I think my sister would like this. But I'm not sure."? I think I am going to have to go out and spend even more money on Thanksgiving for a paper that, I hope, will contain the inserts I want. And hopefully the stores will magically have the items I want at very low prices.

Eyes Are The Windows To The Soul

So last quarter, Bart decided to sign up for an extra class (not cool) in which he learned to photograph the inside and outside of the human eye (cool). It was a really great class for him to take because it a) gives him an "edge" in his C.V. for Residency and b) allowed him to learn to use to state of the art equipment.

Anyway, I was pretty bummed to missing out on--more--time with Bart. That is until he asked me if he could photograph the inside of my left eye. You know, the manky one.

When I was about 5 years old, I was in a "freak accident" at a local fair. I was at the top of a super huge, super slippery slide, when my cousin pushed me. I was having a blast flying down the slide until I saw the bigger girl ahead of me. She had never gotten up from the bottom of the slide and I knew I was going to hit her. And I did. With my forehead. Hard. I was knocked out and when I came to, I had a torn Retina, damaged lens and one hell of an egg on my forehead.

I've had three major surgeries on my eye. My lens was removed due to the severe cataracts that developed as a result of the trauma of the impact. I have a Scleral Buckle and a re-attached Retina. During the last surgery, my ophthalmologist tightened one of the muscles in my left eye to keep it from wandering (lazy eye).

As a result of the lens removal, I became immediately and permanently, legally blind in my left eye. They do corneal/lens transplants now, but I am not eligible for one. Humans don't "learn" to see one image with two eyes until the age of about 7, so my brain never got the chance to do this. I cannot even begin to fathom what it is like to see out of two eyes. The only thing I can imagine is that the average person sees two different parts of one image, separate but together. Kind of like if you put two TVs together and have half of a single picture on each screen.

Anyway, as a result of all of this, I have a huge amount of scar tissue in my left eye, higher eye pressure, which means that I am a "Glaucoma Suspect"--basically it's only a matter of time before I develop Glaucoma and go completely blind in that eye. The nerve that would have allowed me to see is shriveled and underdeveloped. Basically, it's a mess in there. And after going to specialists for 19 years and wondering what these doctors found so interesting inside of my eye, I FINALLY got to see it for myself! (Super cool!). Here they are:

This is my right eye. Nice and healthy, nice and red.

This is my left eye. That big cobweb thing is what Bart thinks is a broken off piece of Vitreous. Scar tissue is clustered around the nerve. What a difference, huh?



I am so glad Bart took this class. I can't even begin to tell you all how awesome it was to see the difference in my eyes; manky and normal.

Not So Merry Christmas

I had always imagined the first Christmas that Bart and I had together would be filled with friends, family and love. We would have a week to spend with both of our families and be sure to enjoy everyone. Unfortunately, due to both my (stupid) job/whoever is in charge of training for the new system we will be using and the fact that Bart and I can't afford to spend $800 on tickets home, we will be spending our first Christmas alone.

It is true that we will have each other, which is really all we truly need, but I just can't imagine celebrating such a special holiday without my family, old and new, surrounding us. I think Bart will handle all of this better than I will. I already have a hard enough time during holidays, since Mom died, anyway. I don't like my holidays to change. At all. I want everything to stay the same. For it to be routine. Like it was before Mom died. I guess that's my way of hanging on to the past and those amazing memories we had. We won't even go into the rage I felt when Grandma and Aunt Linda decided that dinner would take place during the Christmas Pagent/Mass in Cambridge last year--so that they could go to Midnight Mass in Hoosic Falls...

Anyway, we have decided to make the best of things. The first plan of attack is to buy a 5 food tree (when the time comes--Bart's request) and the second is to make this apartment look like two Christmas Elves live here (my request). We even have the menu picked out (homemade sauce and meatballs, garlic bread, pies, etc.). I just hope that we can make this a special, intimate Christmas celebration that we will look back on with fondness.

Autumn in Chicago

Bart and I had a lovely walk around Lincoln Park last weekend. The weather was warm, the sun was out and the leaves were turning! It's nowhere near as beautiful as the views at home, but it'll have to do.

I just couldn't resist throwing this picture in. Sorry the quality isn't the greatest (I had to zoom in like 38742 times), but I HOPE you can see this lady's bike. She has her kid strapped to a seat attached to the front handlebars and wheels (please look closely and notice that it looks like a backwards tricycle), while she pedals. The real gem here is the dog that is riding along by STANDING IN AN ATTACHED WAGON AT THE REAR OF THE BIKE!!

Only in Chicago, people. Only in Chicago.

Family of Two

The month of September has been stressful for Bart and I. We've moved, I wasn't chosen for that great, better paying job I applied for, we had to choose Bart's externship sites for this coming year and...we had a pregnancy scare.

I debated about whether or not to blog about this, since it's not something I'd love to discuss with most of my family back home, but I'd really like to be honest in my blogging, and this is something that has had me riled up for a month. I mean, it's not like it's something to be ashamed of, right?? But that's just it--I have felt like I had to keep this a secret because I have spent my whole life being told how shameful and irresponsible it is to have a baby out of wedlock. Never mind the fact that Bart and I are married, so it's okay at this point. It would STILL be irresponsible.

Anyway, I missed my period last month. The first period I was supposed to have as a married lady. And as I always get my period, I was immediately freaked out and stopped taking my pills. This was definitely NOT something that was planned or wanted right now. All I could think of was the fact that I make pretty much only enough money to support myself and Bart--barely--and Bart only has his school loans. And the fact that we are over 800 miles from home and our families. And that I would NEVER want to raise/be pregnant in/give birth to a child in a city (especially this one). And this wasn't the right time. And, oh so much more.

I told Bart, who immediately freaked out on a heretofore unheard of level, while I tried to keep it together because, obviously, I had to. Someone had to be in control if I was, in fact, pregnant. I then went out, bought two pregnancy tests, and took them within a few days of each other. Both were negative. I waited two days, bought two more tests, took them within a few days of each other, and they were negative. I called my gyno from home, she told me to wait until two weeks after the missed period, buy another pregnancy test, take it, and see what happened. It was negative. If I had known how many of those stupid sticks I would buy and pee on, I would have bought stock in ClearBlue first.

Anyway, at this point, I was about 85% sure that I wasn't pregnant and was more worried that there might be something wrong with me. Bart, however, was still at a constant low-panic and decided he couldn't relax until I had a blood test done to know, one way or the other, for certain. So he scheduled me an appointment (on a day I was home sick from vomiting that morning, no less) with a gyno here in the city. Long story short (ish), we found out that I was, definitely, not pregnant. Thank you, Jesus.

And the craziest part? I was almost disappointed when I found out I wasn't. I mean, clearly, it would have been incredibly hard on us and this is not the situation we would want to bring a child into. But reading those mommy magazines in the waiting room made me wish so hard that this had been the right time. I have known my whole life that I was put on earth to be a mom. I know it will happen--hopefully in the summer/fall of 2012--and the timing will be right. Mainly because we are going to be oh-so-careful after this fiasco. So, for now, we are still (happily) a family of two.

Fight

Bart and I had our first real fight since we got married yesterday. Honestly, with my temper and Bart's way of saying things without thinking, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

This fight was just awful. Terrible. And it was over something completely stupid (with a bunch of old junk brought up by both of us). And we fought in public. Not super loud and obnoxious fighting, but still, in public. It was embarrassing, but we couldn't help it. And I wished for a while that we weren't married.

That was the most horrible thing about the fight. I felt so angry and hurt over a couple dumb little things that got blown out of proportion, and all I wished was that Bart and I weren't married because now, no matter what, we are together FOREVER. And it was a really scary thing to feel. I just felt so cornered. In the past, I've always had the knowledge that I could, if I wanted to, just walk away from our relationship. Now, I can't.

Of course, after almost an entire day of fighting with each other, we made it through grocery shopping fine (which is usually where we argue, because seriously, who likes grocery shopping?) and by the time we got home and got started on our weekly cleaning, we were hugging (Bart) and crying (me) and apologizing to each other for everything. So it all worked out, in the end. But I am just so frightened of the fact that my first thought at our first fight was, "I wish we weren't married right now." Who thinks that about their husband?? And I love Bart more than anything. What am I going to do if this is what I think of every time we have a fight? Especially if it is a fight over something that actually matters? I don't want my stupidity and stubbornness to ruin my life with him.