Black Widow Strikes Again

Another black widow spider in my life. This time it was in the house! I was looking for something in my parent's unfinished basement, and saw it in a box. It was crouched in a corner, and a jar was close by so I just trapped it in the jar.

But don't think I was merciful. After my last run in with one of these beasts, this arachnid wasn't going to survive. So it was sealed in the jar until everyone could check it out, then murdered. I actually was interested to see the red hour glass shape beneath its butt.

It was pretty big as far as spiders in your house go, but compared to what was in my sleeve at Thanksgiving, it was a lot smaller, especially its butt. I wonder if abdomens on spiders vary like bra cup sizes for human females. By the way I got the bill today--$1500 ER visit. I hadn't touched my deductible prior to Thanksgiving, so I looked over the insurance statements today and thought "Better get the cape-making sweatshop up and running again!"

So we get to spray to kill any more spiders down in the basement.

All my life I never took spider venom seriously.

But now I am somewhat paranoid that my kid will get bitten and die or something.

So I am on a black widow killing mission.

My cousin, the artist

My cousin, Stephanie, is an art major at The University of Utah. I commissioned an oil painting from her for my dad. I gave it to him Sat. even though it is for Christmas, so Stephanie could be there when he recieved it.

My Grandpa died last January, and my dad was really close. This is a painting of my Grandpa holding my dad on his knee in 1959. Stephanie is such a talented artist, and did such a perfect job portraying my Grandpa. He was so handsome I think.

My dad loved this gift and said it was like seeing his dad again.

Stephanie just had this black and white photo to use. So she had to add the color. I told her I really wanted their hands in her painting. My Grandpa and my dad have the same huge hands. I was excited when my little guy inheritted the same hammer fist.

This is a photo of my Dad's hand with RJs. The ring was my Grandpa's, it is huge size 12. My dad said when he grows up, RJ gets the ring since he'll be the only one we know of so far with a sausage finger to fit it.

We've been interviewing for the next phase of Rhett's education/ career. RESIDENCY. He's been good to take me to every interview so I can know what our options are. Each place we go to, I end up imagining and planning my life there. So I've been thinking a lot lately about leaving my parent's house where we currently live.

Thinking of moving next June is already kind of sad to me. As much as I hate the feeling of mooching off of my parents, or telling people I live with my parents, it has been really great these two years. We'll miss them. RJ will miss having the grandparents around, especially Grandpa Kelly. He and my dad are close buds. I hope wherever we end up, we'll still be able to visit enough so Scott and little RJ can keep their relationship close over the years. It's quite the blessing to see your kid and your parents enjoying close grandpa/ma bonds. RJ is very blessed to have such loving grandparents on both sides.

Tote Giveaway

If you'd like to enter a giveaway for one of my toddler beach totes! It ends this Thursday.

What Santa Is Bringing RJ

I don't ever really post my projects on here, because I have a whole blog just for all my homemade "cock-a-doodle" as my Dad calls it. But this project for RJ for Christmas turned out so well I thought, I just wanted to basically brag, and refer you to where I got the idea for a fabric potato head and hopefully you'll want to make one too. The potato sack was all my idea, and it's my favorite part.

All kids should have a quiet potato head!

Link to the whole project

Link to potato sack tutorial

Do you think people would buy these? I'm considering some for my etsy shop...but it would be a lot of work, therefore price would have to be higher. What do you think? Cute or creepy?

Fresh Pasta!

We like pasta. A lot.

The best is homemade fresh pasta. RJ likes to help me cook all the time. But this occasion, I let him have a little glob of dough to play with while I worked the noodles. He ended up putting the bowl of excess flour on his head, followed by picking up the extra flour, rubbing it into his hair. He was having so much fun. So I let him continue, figuring it would be easier to clean it up all at once.

I took his clothes off, and did my best to get the flour off his head. He started playing, and did a somersault on the carpet, leaving a white dusting of flour on the carpet. My mom started laughing and said it was the best thing of her day, and my Dad laughed every time RJ ran by. We're lucky to have such easy going parents (in-laws for Rhett) to mooch off of.

Stephanie's 12 Days of Christmas

My cousin, Stephanie is an artist and giving away cute oil paintings of the 12 Days of Christmas.

I really want the partridge in the pear tree!

Just leave a comment to enter. Each day is a different painting until Christmas!

Miracle On North Temple

SCROLL DOWN TO THE LAST POST SO YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON FIRST.

After the Friday night disappointment, Rhett felt so bad, he arranged with his Mom to watch RJ and came up early from his weekend plans. He wanted to take be to SLC to try to get into the Christmas Concert from the standby line. We have been able to get in waiting in line in years past.

I was happy he was willing to do that for me, he is a really good husband...probably a lot better than I deserve. So we drove up to Salt Lake and had dinner at Little America Hotel. It was delicious. Really delicious.

We went to where the standby line should be and a guy in charge explained that the Thurs. and Fri. night shows, no one got in from the standby line, and actually people with tickets that got there too late didn't get seats and ended up having to watch the concert broadcasted from the Tabernacle across the street. The standby line was in the pews of the tabernacle. So we got in "line" sitting in the tabernacle. We thought that since we were there early, we might as well try to get some tickets people have extra...like Molly did the night before since the mess that prevented us from going. So I made a little sign that said:

NEED 2 TICKETS PLEASE.

I stayed in the tabernacle, saving our spot, and Rhett went to the streets. I was there a while, wondering if we'd get in at all. This year Temple Square doesn't have as many lights, and they turn them on later (after 6pm) and turn them off earlier, so I was sitting there looking out the windows, waiting for the lights to turn on, when my phone rang.

It was Rhett: "We're in! I have 2 tickets!"

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!!

I jumped up off the pew and practically danced out of the tabernacle, I was so thrilled I was trying to walk fast, but was almost trotting. Then the Christmas lights turned on! MORE MAGIC. I was kind of trotting down the hill of the Conference center and saw Rhett in the distance with the tickets, and the lights were all on around us, and I was going to see the concert after all!!

It was just like the scene in Meet Me In St. Louis. I couldn't go on Friday, go Grandpa (rhett) saved the night, or tried to by taking me Saturday. We were having a great night, dinner, spending time together, then when Grandpa (rhett) got tickets, it was just like the scene when they dance behind the huge Christmas tree, and come out the other side, but Ester's not dancing with Grandpa, it's JOHN TRUETT (rhett)!!! Except rather than dancing around a Christmas tree, I was running down a hill to see my John Truett with tickets!

Here we are right after we got together, he still has the tickets out. Apparently the little sign worked, Rhett said a guy walked by and put them in his hand and didn't even stop or anything, all the sudden the tickets were in Rhett's hand and the guy was gone, he couldn't even say thanks. So we were pumped.

The miracle tickets were in the balcony, but we were so early, we got the best seats in our section, and in the Conference Center, you can see pretty good from anywhere. I was really excited, can you tell?

The show was amazing and exceeded my high expectations. I was hoping Natalie Cole would sing "The Christmas Song" since her dad's version is the best version. That was great. Everything was great. I really loved "The Holly and the Ivy". The first verse was an just acoustic guitar and Natalie--amazing! It was all so great and touching, fun, and made Christmas great. Rhett's favorite was "For Unto Us A Child Is Born" from Handel's Messiah, which was amazing. MoTab is so amazing, it's such a blessing to live nearby to have a chance to hear it live. And such a blessing to have a husband that loves me so much.

It was a really warm evening, snow was on the ground, Christmas lights were on, and we walked around and reminisced. Like this is me standing where I dropped Rhett on his butt when we were just friends, but I was totally in love with him and he didn't know it. click to read more on that story

It was such a wonderful night. With such a wonderful husband. The spoiled little brat got to ride the Christmas pony and meet the Sugarplum Fairy after all. But at least I feel like a grateful spoiled little brat.

And to finish this off if you made it this far through, a really creepy Santa store window we walked by, you know how I love creepy mannequins. Especially creepy Christmas mannequins.

My favorite were his ankle ruffles. Glitter? Ruffles? Lace? Maybe this is a gender confused Jack Frost rather than Santa.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Most people who know me well know how much I LOVE Christmas. One of my favorite things is the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert in Salt Lake City. It is amazing. I try every year to get tickets, and each year it gets more and more difficult. Currently they have a drawing system where you register your address, then a random selection process awards tickets in 2-4 ticket increments. I entered all my family's addresses for them, under the condition I could have two tickets if anyone drew out. I entered over 12 people. No one got anything. I was so bummed. Then my best friend, Molly saved the day. She drew out 3 times with family members, ending up with 12 tickets. She generously offered two for me and Rhett and made Christmas worth celebrating. The tickets were for Friday night. Oh and did I mention the musical guest this year is Natalie Cole? Daughter of the beloved Nat King Cole--whom I also LOVE, especially Christmas music!

Anyway, my fall and winter were cringing on the success of December 11.


Earlier in the week, Rhett voiced that he'd go to Delta to watch our nephew's wrestling tournament saturday morning. I reminded him about MoTab Friday night. I could see he'd rather not go, so I decided to take my mom instead, she was really excited and appreciated the opportunity more then Rhett. So Rhett was going to watch our son, I was going to pick up my mom from work, and it was going to be a magical Christmas night.

But I didn't get to go.



Through Rhett misunderstanding that in order for me to attend, he had to leave the hospital and come retrieve our son, and my dad's store being too busy for him to watch RJ so we could leave, I ended up sadly watching the clock, trying to call Rhett and listening to his voicemail message over and over, realizing it wouldn't work out. At one point after my Dad started closing his store, we got in the car to try to get there, but it took 15 minutes of shopper traffic to go 2 blocks. Molly had our tickets, and I knew I'd ruin the concert for her to have to leave their seats to give us tickets, park, get to the conference center, miss half of it, and dump my kid off on my dad last minute. Where was my husband??? We were stopped at a light and I told my mom this was ridiculous, it's too late, we should just go home. She agreed. I called Molly.

"Molly, I am so mad at Rhett....because [hiccup] I can't [snif] come tonight [bawling]!!!"

Ok. It's just a Christmas concert and you were bawling? Get over it and get a life. People are homeless, soldiers in Iraq, jobless, people are suffering, starving, etc. Poor little princess didn't get to ride the Christmas pony or meet the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Alright, I see your point. But in that moment, all the stress, anger, exhaustion, disappointment, sadness, surfaced when I had to say it out loud that I couldn't go.

I know it's just a Christmas concert, but it's THE Christmas concert and we're moving out of state next summer (most likely) and I probably can't go for the next 3 years!

It was just like the scene from Meet Me In St. Louis. You know the one. John Truit can't get his tuxedo from the tailor due to basketball practice and Ester is bawling. It was only a dance, he ruined their date, but it was worth crying over. And my MoTab disappointment was worth crying over. I'd been dressed up for hours, running around town, calling Rhett every 10 minutes. It was so sad to me. Then I was embarrassed I was crying over something like that. Self loathing my emotional wimpiness. So we went back to my dad's store, helped him close, and drove home. RJ fell asleep so I was up in his room rocking him, dressed to kill I might add. I had got the little card out from the MAC makeup chick and followed her instructions as carefully as possible for my big downtown Christmas dream, and there I was all dressed up, makeup smudged all around my face, rocking RJ and sadly just letting a big fat tear grab another hunk of mascara to drag down my face every couple of minutes.

Rhett came home and was shocked I was there, and we figured out the miscommunication, his phone had died, or something, and he felt horrible. But by then sense was beginning to kick back in as the little girl inside of me was being cried out. He took RJ and went to Delta for his weekend plans, and I was OK. Disappointed, but OK.

I realize I get too dramatic and excited over stuff and I get my expectations too high. They do show the concert on PBS on Christmas Eve usually. So hopefully I'll get to see that at least. So before I went to bed, I had consoled myself into reality. The world will go on and my 2009 Christmas season can still be happy without Natalie and the Choir.

Hawaiian Monk Seal

THere was a few seals swimming around, and this blubbery guy came to lounge on the beach. It was really interesting to see how their big fat bodies get around on the sand.

Seal butt.

HONA!

I finally scanned some photos we took with the underwater camera. We had such great luck with the wildlife on our trip. We saw tons of sea turtles while snorkling. I LOVED IT. One huge guy came up on the beach to nap.

Snorkeling around watching the turtles were so amazing to me. I'd swim above it on the surface all around. It was probably my favorite thing we did on our trip. Rhett wasn't as amazed as I was, but he thought they were neat.

Turtle Butt. We found out later the turtles aren't supposed to be touched, but we really just felt slime, so hopefully they weren't adversly affected by a finger on the back of the shell.

Thanksgiving

This is a little late.
We had a good Thanksgiving weekend. It was our turn to go to the in-laws. The food was good and I ate a ton. We sat around, and ended up playing basketball outside until midnight. IT WAS FREEZING, but we had fun. Our favorite game is called POISON where it's a combination of Speed, PIG, and Dodge ball. So everyone gets a chance to shoot, if you make the basket, you yell POISON and everyone has to freeze and you get to throw the ball at them. Pretty fun.


The next night I really wanted to take the kids to the hot pots. I'd only been once, 6 years earlier. It was my first time to Delta and we had a lot of fun. That trip Rhett drove us all around the west desert for 2 hours until he found the hot pots, but this time thanks to google earth, he knew right where to go.


The most popular hot pot was CROWDED. Does everyone know what a hot pot is? It's a hot spring, so the water is warm. It's pretty stinky, kind of sulfur smelling stink. But it is really fun to go swimming in the middle of winter, in an outdoor swimming hole, in the middle of the desert, in the middle of the night. We trespassed to a different hot pot (there are three out in Meadow, UT) and it was perfect. Warm, just a sandy, rocky bottom, and no one else there.
It was Rhett and I and a few choice nieces and nephews, many weren't interested...lame-o. Conversation was great. We all revealed our crushes. Brock who's a freshman said he didn't have one. He said: "I know hot girls, I know nice girls, and I know girls that are fun to hang out with. But to have a crush on one just seems kind of pathetic to me." I thought that was funny and probably true.

Later I asked Brock "What's the difference between a girl that is hot and a girl that is beautiful?" He thought about it and said. "A hot girl just looks good--eye candy. But you can see a piece of candy and it looks really good, but you really have no idea where its been. But a beautiful girl still has the wrapper on. It looks good, and the wrapper is sealed so you know it's good inside and out."
We all were laughing and I thought it was a pretty good answer.

After we'd had enough swimming, we all got Rhett's mom's van to head back to Delta. About 10 minutes into the drive, I felt a scrape in the sleeve of my hoodie. I reached in, expecting a chunk of tumble weed or something. I felt something round, smooth and squishy. "Oh great." I thought: "RJ put one of his squished grapes in my jacket, he'd been spitting out half eaten grapes all over all day. I grabbed it and pulled it out, but it got caught on the ribbing wrist of the hoodie. I reached back in and this time the "grape" was wiggling. I pulled it out and saw it was a SPIDER! I dropped it in my lap and gave a screech and yelled "Pull Over!", flipping on the little light in the car over the dashboard. On my flannel PJ pants, was this spider with the largest butt I'd ever seen. The butt really was the size of a grape, a brownish purple, smooth and shiny! The weird thing was how small the rest of the spider was in comparison to the butt.

Yes, I had all this time to stare at the spider...at this point Rhett FINALLY pulled over and I opened the door, hopped out and brushed it off and jumped back in, leaving it's wriggling carcass in the middle of the desert to freeze.

All the kids were a buzz with the drama. I noticed then that I had a sting, which had been the spider bite. It felt like a bee sting, with the burning. A few minutes later, the surrounding skin had raised hives. Then I had a sharp pain in the arm pit of that arm. It was at this point we decided it had been a poisonous spider.
I was telling him the venom probably moved up in my lymph nodes in my arm pit. We kept driving the 45 minutes back to Delta and not much changed. We got to the house and I took some Benedryl. By then the pit pain was gone and I was fine. We ate some more, then I was trying to reply to some emails when my lower back started killing. I was trying to finish, as my hips started hurting too. It hurt so bad, I couldn't sit, so I went and lay down. My two little nieces came with me, concerned and asking if they could get me anything. Rhett came in and I told him it was killing.

WE got heat pads, and the little girls massaged my back, but it kept hurting and the pain spread slowly up my back. Apparently during all this time the rest of the family was online trying to classify the spider, the two nephews that sat behind me, the authorities on what it looked like.

Rhett came in with the info:

Diagnosis: BLACK WIDOW spider bite.

Symptoms: muscle spasms of the large muscles that can cause considerable pain

There's a lot more that can happen, but I didn't have nausea or anything, just muscle spasms.

Insurance is expensive, and I just have the high deductible basic coverage, in case I ever get seriously injured or something. So I didn't want to go to the ER if I could wait it out. Stupid. I know.

So I suffered from 8pm to 1 am trying to work through the pain. I always thought I was a pretty tough person, or at least had a high pain threshold. I gave birth to my son with zero pain medications. And I was induced by a rumored "pitocin flooder" physician. And I didn't ever loose mental control of the pain or yell, or wail, or say I can't do this, or ask for an epidural. I was in total control the whole time and it wasn't that bad. And the kid was a 9 1/2 pound rhino baby. And I definitely didn't cry tears out of pain. But that was nothing compared to this spider bite. Those muscle cramps KICKED MY TRASH! It felt like labor, but never relaxed. It was like a contraction that started at 8 pm and never relented, but spread. I think around midnight I got too exhausted and it hurt too bad so I started bawling and couldn't get comfortable. I just lay there writhing in pain. Finally at 1 pm I got on my shoes, and Rhett was like: Finally! He'd been sitting by me waiting for my stubborn self to get a clue.

So by this time I'd totally lost control and was just bawling in pain. The kids were wide-eyed as I was walking out to the car. One nephew, Mitch, came up to me and said: "I'm sorry you got bit by the spider Jess." I said: "Don't worry, tomorrow I'll wake up and be Spiderwoman." His head snapped up with huge eyes. "I'm just kidding" I sobbed as we both laughed and we left.

THe ER did fine. It was a resident moonlighting. I was in the most pain I've ever experienced. I was laying there just bawling as it spread down from by butt into my thighs. THAT KILLED! I found the bigger the muscle, the greater the spasm capacity, the greater the pain. I was feeling like such a wimp, but I think I was also just too worn out to control it and just sobbed. When he finally let the nurse give me some ativan, it didn't do anything, so she loaded me with 6 ml? mg? of morphine. That took most of the pain away, and I could handle the remaining aches in my lower back. By then the ANTI-VENOM had arrived from Fillmore, UT and after that titrated in, it was gone and I was ready to get out of there before I hiked up a steeper bill.

I went home and went to bed and woke up the next day at 1pm totally cured, and just a little loopy from all the morphine.

So it was a horrible experience, worse pain than labor and birth, and in the end I didn't even get a baby out of it. So if you live in an area with black widows SPRAY to kill them! Or shake your clothes out after swimming in a hot pot in the west deserts of Utah. In the end we were all glad I was bitten rather than one of the kids.

Hawaii Highlights

We'd always planned to go on a trip when Rhett graduated Medical School. I think we were leaning toward a cruise these 3 1/2 years. But a family member couldn't use their time share in Kauai in November so we took our graduation trip 6 months early. It was so great. Rhett's sister, Amber and her husband Van went with us and we had a great week.
Stuff we did on Kauai for you when you go:
-beach: we stayed on Poipu beach on the south shore and it was so great!
-boogie boarding: I LOVED IT! For the wannabe surfer that has no talent. It was so great. I just swim out there and watch the local Hawaiian kid and when he started kicking, I would copy him. The thrill I had boogie boarding, I can't imagine how much I'd love actually surfing, oh if I had skills to do that. Right by Poipu was Brenneke Beach, which was really great because real surfers aren't allowed, leaving all the room for the spongers.
-Napali coast Hike: There is a hike on the north shore for 12 miles, but we just went the first leg, 1 mile in, 1 mile out. It was really cool to hike along the mountains, with the cliffs into the ocean below. Most of the trail was on gnarled roots.
-Lava Pools: on the north shore you can park and hike 1/2 a mile to Secret Beach, which is nice and secluded. Then you just hike along the shoreline to these lava pools you can swim in. The waves were crashing down and we didn't feel it was safe to swim...correction. Rhett wanted to, but I told him not to.
-Kayak/ Hike/ Waterfall: tour guided up the river filmed in Indiana Jones, hike through the jungle to the waterfall.
-Helicoptor Tour: this was awesome. Pricey, but worth the view. We were able to fly in the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, and whirl around in the wettest spot on earth on top of this mountain where it is solid green, with waterfalls rolling on all sides, and misty at the top.

Food wise, we pretty much ate from the condo, loving the fact Kauai has a Costco! $10 large pizza ya!

Restroom for obese women in Lihue airport...not really, the green had just peeled back, making it look like a fat woman rather than the normal triangle dress.