May 12: Stuff Jen loves

This pretty much covers today’s obsessions.

Happy windows-wide-open weather!

Apr. 23: Apps that work

If you don’t have an iPhone and/or iPad and/or iPod, then scroll to the bottom because I have something special for you there.

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So, I’ve hesitated sharing this info because my brother-in-law makes fun of my blog posts that have to do with iPhone apps, but I just can’t help it. I am in looooove with things that make my life easier. Ted, mock away.

But first, a little background. From the time I first purchased an iPhone, I’ve worked hard to make sure my iPhone calendar, contacts, notes, and email always match what’s on Outlook on my PC; Outlook has always run my life. Keeping it sync-ed with my phone was easy-ish until Victor got an iPhone, and then I had to get his sync-ed even though he had a different Apple ID and that might be when I started getting super curse-y. Add in a couple iPads, upgraded phones, and WiFi syncing, and you’ve got yourself one very stressed-out Jen.

A few weeks ago I gave up trying to get all our devices to have accurate information; it was seriously affecting my blood pressure. Giving up was kinda cool, actually, because I could get yell-y at Victor when he “forgot” about something on our calendar. I could be all IF YOU BROUGHT YOUR DEVICES TO ME TO SYNC REGULARLY MAYBE THIS WOULD NOT HAPPEN AND ALSO THIS IS NOT SCREECHING THIS IS QUIET GENTLE REMINDING AND WHATEVER JUST GO SIT IN THE SHAME CORNER RIGHT NOW.

So I went about finding another way to get the important info that we both need regularly to always be accurate. It took more missteps than I care to admit, so I’m just gonna tell you what I landed on.

OUTLOOK.COM. It has email (POP and IMAP for my manullang.com address—yay!), contacts, and calendar. Changes made on either the iDevices or outlook.com are fed almost immediately to all linked devices. I love that part. There’s really no need to plug our devices into my laptop anymore, and that was my goal. Happy Jen. My only complaint is that delivery times for my test messages have a significant delay; of course, with real messages I don’t notice.

Is outlook.com better than Google or Yahoo mail? It is for me. Your results may vary.

Finding the right app for notes was trickier. Our notes contain important but random things like lists of our physicians, the kids’ school IDs, exterior and interior house paint colors, account number, login IDs, recipes, gift ideas, etc. What I ended up using to handle our notes is Evernote. Here are several reasons that I love love love Evernote:

1. There’s a web version, which I can sync to all our devices. If I have a lot of typing to do, it’s much easier to do on my laptop than tapping out on my phone or tablet.
2. Notes can contain photos, links, and formatting. They’re pretty.
3. Notes can be organized into notebooks, which means Vic doesn’t have to scroll through my jewelry design ideas to find the login info for Comcast.
4. They’re perfect for recipes, and I love having those recipes handy when I’m at the grocery store and forgot to bring my shopping list.
5. Evernote notes can be used a bit like Pinterest, but-cept I can add detail, put several pictures in one note, etc. I like that I don’t have to dig through my Pinterest boards to find stuff I vaguely remember pinning. I especially like the way Evernote looks on the iPad:

Here’s the same page on the iPhone:

Verdict: Evernote is fab.you.luss.

Flipboard. Jim M. told me about this “social magazine” and I immediately downloaded it, but haven’t completely committed yet. It’s definitely better on a tablet, IMO, but no matter the size of the device, here are things I like a lot:

1. The interface is really slick.
2. Google Reader feeds can be added. I like the way you scroll through the items, almost more than I like Feedly (which I am still adjusting to and am not yet in love with).
3. Twitter feeds can be added too. I have a tough time remembering to read Twitter because I haven’t been using it much, and I like the idea of my feed appearing with other stuff I am in the habit of reading. A Facebook news feed can be added too, but I haven’t tried that.
4. It’s very swipe-y. That’s fun.
5. My favorite part is how important my friends sometimes look on the front page:

That’s a pic Sherilee posted of her golden beets, which is not a euphemism for anything of which I’m aware.

Can I share one of my many not-even-slightly-related pet peeves? I bet some of you share it too, and I bet others of you are guilty of committing this pet peeve of mine, which I’m pretty sure you do just to peeve me. That’s a thing, right? Peeving?

Email addresses. Why do people gotta make them weird? Like, don’t make them all cryptic or cutesy, or put weird characters in them, or stuff like that… it’s just confusing. Make your email address some form of your name (or nickname) and BE DONE WITH IT. Sheesh.

Sorry for getting’ screechy there. To make up for it, well, I got nothin’.

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Oh, and for you non-iDevice users, here’s a cute bunny to disguise my disappointment in you and the 20th century in which you apparently still live:

Lovies!

Nov. 10: Jen’s Christmas shopping tips

Now that we’re past Halloween, there’s no denying it: Christmas is coming! Isn’t it exciting? I looooove the Christmas season, and not just because of presents under the tree with my name on them. I also love gravy.

Here are a few things that might help you with your shopping, or at least your planning:

1. Real Simple suggests this printable gift list. It’s great for the early stages of shopping when you’re getting ideas.
2. Amazon wish lists. These are the best—very helpful to the people who are shopping for you (hint hint…).
3. My Registry is supposed to be a good way to make gift lists too. I haven’t tried it out for myself.
4. If you have a lot of people to buy for, or if you’re trying to stay within a budget, or if you just can’t remember anything, I recommend a gift planning app to keep it all straight. This is the one I’ve been using lately (I’m trying a new one because the one I loved last year is no longer being updated—boooo). I like the new one so far, though. It’s a 99¢ app on iTunes.
5. Do you have a dumbphone? Then maybe you’ll like this gift planner worksheet. Also, I’m sad for you that you have a dumbphone. You should totally ask Santa to bring you a smart one.
6. I love this idea; my kids, not so much:
   
7. Personally, I have no desire to shop the Black Friday sales at the mall. Many of the good buys can be found online anyway, and that means I don’t have to get up early, fight traffic or crowds, or deal with any of the horribleness that goes with Black Friday shopping. So, my suggestion is to avoid the mall as much as possible. When you’re shopping online, always check out coupon code web sites like Flamingo World, Retail Me Not, or Promotional Codes to make sure you’re getting good deals.
8. Want to give gifts that are unique and/or handmade and personal? Shop at etsy. I don’t think I’ve ever been disappointed in anything I’ve purchased there.
9. My cousin Dana posted this idea on Facebook, and it’s my favorite shopping tip of all:

Let’s buy Christmas presents from small local businesses and self-employed people. For example, from your neighbor who sells online, a local craftsperson who makes jewelry, the stunning local florist’s shop, the local bakers that sell homemade cakes, buns, and chocolates, the guys that run a café or a salon. Let’s make sure our money goes to individual people and not multinational companies. This way, more local people will have a better Christmas. Support real people.

Have fun!

Aug. 31: IDCEAYWTPFriday

Yay! It’s Friday! I feel like this week has been nonstop go-go-go (as opposed to nonstop go-go, which would actually be kinda groovy), and I’m finally getting time to breathe. Breathing’s good.

• I’m sleeping again. This makes me and my family happier than you can imagine. In fact, I’ve been going to bed around 10pm all week, which is quite early for me, and sleeping eight or nine hours each night. It’s very nice. It’s amazing how much a good night’s rest helps us cope, y’know?
• This morning I watched the pilot episode of The Mindy Project and thought it was adorably charming. I’m not a huge fan of Kelly, Mindy Kaling’s character on The Office—she’s completely insane in a not adorably charming way—but I like her as a real person in interviews, and eagerly got Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) when it came out last year. I was disappointed in the book—seems there’s a lot more Kelly in Mindy than I thought. So… liking her new TV show was a surprise to me. Watch it.
• My email server is farked up and I don’t know why. I haven’t had time to investigate it thoroughly this week, but if you need to reach me, go through Facebook or email me at one of my other email addresses, like jennifermanullang-at-gmail-dot-com.
• I’m totally hooked on the logo quiz games on the iPhone. There are tons of them—lots online too. See how much you suck at identifying logos! Actually, it’s pathetic how many logos I do recognize—I can’t remember how math works, but I sure can identify the Chupa Chups logo. Gah.
• A few weeks ago I was interviewed by the editor of the West Linn Tidings—or as she’s known here at Stuff Jen Says, Fancy Lori™—for a special “Living with Cancer” feature in Portland’s community newspapers. It came out this week. I don’t know yet if it’ll be online, so I took pictures to show ya. Here’s the cover—that’s me and Victor in the upper right:

And here’s the article that Lori wrote so well.

• I can’t believe school starts next week—August went so quickly. Jack will be in fifth grade and Katie’s going into seventh. I love, love, LOVE that they are growing up—no wistful what-happened-to-my-babies? from this mom. Well, maybe when they start driving, but that’ll be from fear, not wistfulness.
• Jack took this picture of Lucy in front of her favorite hanging-out spot and snack area. I edited it to show where she likes to chew on the window frame. She is the biggest termite I have ever seen. Also the cutest.

Have a good holiday weekend. Happy September!

Jul. 24: Obsessions

Oh, the things that occupy my time these days…

Mar. 28: Obsessions

 

I hope you’re spending your week enjoying some of your favorite things too.

Jan. 20: IDCEAYWTPFriday

Time again for an I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday post.

• Our 15th wedding anniversary is coming up next month. Vic and I plan to leave town but we don’t yet know where we’ll be heading. We’re thinking Oregon Coast, but maybe—to change things up a bit—a place on the coast we don’t usually go. It’ll be a Wednesday-Saturday trip. Suggestions?

• I got some exciting news this morning. Last summer I heard about the Lowe’s Toolbox for Education program, which offers grants to parent groups. Our PTO wrote a grant proposal to update and fancy-up the courtyard (outdoor classroom) at our school, and yesterday we found out we won! Lowe’s is sending us $4,000 to make it all pretty. This is the first grant we’ve ever applied for, and we’re feeling quite proud of ourselves! Actually, I’m proud of Wendy, who wrote the proposal, and Dina, whose vision for courtyard improvements got us motivated to apply. Yay us!

• I watched the first two episodes of the new show Alcatraz, and was pretty “meh” about it until the last scene of the second episode. Now I’m mad because I’m hooked in big-time. Stoopid TV shows, being all interesting ‘n stuff. (P.S. No dinosaurs in this show, even though I keep expecting them.)

• First there was Words with Friends (Scrabble-y), then Hanging with Friends (Hangman-y). Now there’s Scramble with Friends (Boggle-y). I’m not playing Words anymore, and I sometimes play Hanging. Scramble is my new favorite, at least for the next week or so.
• Pamela Ribon’s new book is available for preorder, to be released July 3. She’s my BFF, y’know. Totally. I can hardly wait to read it!

• How awesome is this video my neph posted to FB yesterday?

• Next week is the kickoff for 2012 Relay for Life. We’ll find out the new theme, form teams, etc. I kinda love our team name from last year so much that I don’t really want to change it to fit whatever this year’s theme will be. What will it take for us to keep “The Hoe-Downs”? Maybe if the theme is “Gardening” or “Dancing” or “Double Entendres” or “People Likely to Have STDs” or “Things That Rhyme With Other Things.” Then we’ll be good. Go, Hoe-Downs!!

I’m done with you. Have a good weekend!

Jul. 19: Excitement!

 

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Apr. 24: Catching up again

Here’s what kept me away from my blog most of this past week.

• Life got insane there for a while, with way too many ups and downs for my liking, so I’m taking today to relax and recuperate before I start another week. How will I do it, you ask? I’ve got Tina Fey’s new book, Bossypants. Good enough. Peace and quiet, except for my occasional LOL-ing at this very funny book, and I should be a happy, rested girl.
• I kind of really, really loved the spin on Rent’s Seasons of Love they did on The Office Thursday. Will Ferrell’s no Jesse L. Martin, but this was still all kinds of fun.
  
  
  
  Next week is Michael’s last show. Sad face.
• Yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny day here in Portland. The four of us went downtown in search of fun, and found it along the Willamette—specifically, at Saturday Market. I couldn’t resist a beautiful handmade glass-and-metal spinner for the front porch. We got elephant ears, semi-highs on weed smoke, and best of all, sunshine. It was crowded and crazy but good weather after a way-too-long winter brings out the best in Portlanders, to be sure. We Manullangs thoroughly enjoyed our day. 
• There’s a new-ish iPhone app called Crackle that streams movies and TV shows for free, though there’s not a huge selection (yet). Last night I watched Reign Over Me, which is about a guy who reconnects with a friend who lost his family on 9/11. It was sad but sweet and I loved Don Cheadle in it. Adam Sandler wasn’t bad (better than his dramatic role in Punch-Drunk Love, IMO), but his voice got on my nerves after a while, as it was at its whiniest. Oh, and I’ve decided I do not love watching full-length movies on my iPhone. An iPad would be much better. Or… a TV!
• Here’s an amusing tumblr page featuring pictures of cats where they don’t belong.
• Please tell me my kids weren’t the only ones who ate chocolate for breakfast this morning. (And Happy Easter, by the way!)
• Do you read PostSecret? I thought one of today’s secrets was especially snicker-worthy:
  
  
  Thank the gods that my kids’ teachers have all had a decent grasp of our written language; I’ve never felt the need to do this. EVER. But I see a lot of other teachers’ notes home that really, really make me want to shake ‘em.
  
  Having said that, the other day I caught a typo on a memo I sent out to teachers a few months ago. Get this—I used “please” instead of “pleased.” Yes, I said, “we are please to tell you…” Can you believe that? Would it be weird if I re-wrote the entire memo with a huge apology-slash-retraction? Would that make it worse? Because, really? I. Want. To. Die.
• At last week’s PTO meeting we had nominations for next year’s new board members. My term is up, but I may be re-signing to co-president with Sunshine. That is, if people vote for us. There are rumors that they won’t. Watch for more on that in a future post because OMG, I can’t believe people sometimes.
• Friday is the Royal Wedding. Sure, William and Kate are getting married, but the REAL royal wedding is at Willamette Valley Vineyards. Kim F’n is going to be Kim F’n-W! It’s sure to be a fabulous time, EVEN THOUGH Kim didn’t ask me to perform the ceremony EVEN THOUGH I’m an ordained reverend. (I think she’s afraid I’d curse too much.)

In closing, I want to thank all of you who emailed or commented after my last post. You are so good to me. It was a rough week. I don’t know how these things snowball and finally end up in a blog post, but I’m working on controlling them a bit better. Regardless, I love you for letting me be me.

Apr. 4: Daybook

First and most importantly, happy birthday to my dear friend The Lovely Deanna Gutierrez! Today I send you my very best wishes for an utterly enjoyable day.

Today…

Outside my window... I see rain, rain, and more rain. Pffft.

This weekend, I… had lots of down-time. My throat is hurting so much that it makes my whole body hurt. For the last several days I’ve awakened thinking I NEED TO STAY IN BED TODAY TO GET BETTER, but every day I find a reason to get up and go out and make my body fight harder. This is not good.

One other thing I did this weekend was watch Deliverance. I’d never seen it start-to-finish, and I was flipping channels and it had just started, so I settled in. What a disturbing movie—me no likey. I can see why it was such a big deal at the time, though. This afternoon I ran across an episode of SVU in which Ronny Cox played a physician, and I felt kinda sorry for him even though he was a bad guy, just because of what happened to his character in Deliverance.

It’s OK if you’re doing this right now:  

I deserve it.

I am thankful that... the kids’ report cards that came home last week show they’re both doing well in school. Proud momma.

I am working on... art projects in my office. If I feel they’re complete enough this week, I’ll post pictures.

I need to tell you about something I love: the iPhone app iAssociate 2. It’s a word association game and really fun.

I am kind of excited because… this weekend is my 25th high school reunion. Actually, the class of 1986 is celebrating in October, but it’s alumni weekend at the school so I’ll play along. And by playing along, I mean that I might go into the school building around church time on Saturday morning but there is NO WAY I’m going in and sitting down for the actual church service because, well, me sitting in church could very well start the apocalypse. Our class is meeting for lunch at Spaghetti Factory, and because of Lisa’s and my very delinquent planning, it’s most likely going to just be me, Lisa, and April there. At least I know we’ll have fun.

A few plans for the rest of the week: work, port flush appointment, lunch with Kim F’n and other fab friends, and a tour of the school Katie will be attending next year.

Here is picture for thought I am sharing: It made me giggle.

Have a good week, my pretties.

Want to blog your own Daybook? Here’s the info: The Simple Woman’s Daybook.

Mar. 28: Daybook

Today…

Outside my window... there are tons of new blooms in the front yard—the daffodils, crocuses (crocii?), and hyacinths have all popped open, and the tulips are well on their way. It’s so cheery and lovely that even with the grey skies today, it seems like spring is on its way.

This weekend, I… enjoyed Poker Night with friends. It was a blast, as always. I remember a lot of loud talking and grabbing of Val’s boobies and way too many kids downstairs and at one point I looked down and all my chips were gone. Someone stole them, I just know it, because how else would they have disappeared? I spent all of yesterday recovering from Poker Night. Yep, this girl overdid it just a bit, but it was worth it. **

**It wasn’t actually worth it. I still feel like someone kicked my head in.

I am thankful that... we went to Medford last week. It was good to get away from home—it almost felt like being on vacation. Thanks for having us, Mom! We found a new bead store that we loved, and got to visit with Uncle Paul and Claire, Nana (stories later, I promise!), my favorite cousin Deanna, and GILLY GILLY GILLY.

I am working on... some new décor ideas for my office. See, I have these IKEA boxes:

…and I want them to look less boring. I found this paper (the photo is a super-duper close-up of the teeny-tiny print):

…that has the new wall color in it, and I hope to combine it with other colors to pretty up those plain white boxes. I’m not sure yet how it will all come together, but if it looks even halfway purty, you can be sure I’ll share a photo or seven.

I need to tell you about something I love: stamped metal jewelry. You know what I mean:

etsy has tons of it, and I am going to learn to do it too. I don’t think metal stamping can really be just a hobby—the supplies are far from cheap—so I might just have to start my own etsy shop. That’d be a darn shame, right? I found this site that tells all about metal stamping, and I’m very excited to get started! Can you just imagine how satisfying it will be to pound out letters on metal? The hammer! The noise! The dents in all my furniture! I predict my anxiety levels will decrease dramatically with the first strike.

I am kind of excited because… Fancy Anthony™ is talking about creating a Stuff Jen Says iPhone app! I have no idea what it’s supposed to do, but it sounds way cool, because, um… STUFF JEN SAYS IPHONE APP. Hello! Suggestions friends came up with while playing poker: a drunk Facebooking translator, a keyboard that creates gibberish, a breathalyzer that locks me out of Facebook if my blood alcohol content is above “legally shit-faced,” and I just realized all of the features have to do with me being a drunk. Hm. Not so excited all of a sudden.

A few plans for the rest of the week: work, a visit with Sarah Vowell tomorrow night, PTO thangs, more work. Tentative plans: daily naps. One can hope, can’t one?

Here is picture for thought I am sharing: It’s more art from Curly Girl Designs. I just can’t get enough of her creations.

Have a good week, my pretties.

Want to blog your own Daybook? Here’s the info: The Simple Woman’s Daybook.

Feb. 18: IDCEAYWTPFriday

It’s Friday, and that means you get a post called I Don’t Care Enough About You to Write in Transitioning Paragraphs Friday. I haven’t done one of these in a while, but please don’t think that means you can expect anything interesting.

• I worked a couple long days this week and spent the rest of the time doing PTO-related things. Today I pretty much didn’t do anything all day long, and it was awfully nice. I get tired of having to use my noggin. As much as I love the work I do, it’s a constant brain-drain.
• Since Katie has a new iPod, we’ve all been trading music back and forth and in the process I’ve decided that I’m tired of my music and need new music and I’m saying the word “music” way too many times in this sentence. Nothing in the iTunes store appealed to me today. I stopped by the free mp3 downloads section on Amazon and found a whole bunch of stuff that—in preview mode, anyway—sounds great! The Benjy Davis Project is my favorite album so far, but I downloaded five others that I hope I’ll like too. I always forget about that section on Amazon, and sometimes it’s pretty cool. Today it was pretty cool.
• As I wind down in the evenings, I try to find something mindless to do. This week it was playing Texas Hold ‘Em online that helped me get sleepy. It’s fun, yes, but it’s nothing like hanging wit’ my peeps for reals on Poker Night. And you know something that really drives me nuts? I swear, almost every time I get beat online it’s by a pair of fours, but when *I* play a pair of fours, I lose to, like, a nine of a kind or something. Every time! Something else I hate is when somebody goes all in before the flop. HELLO! Now  none of us can play, thankyouverymuch. I guess my point is that my opponents online are jackholes compared to my opponents who are my friends.
• Speaking of friends and poker, WHEN IS OUR NEXT POKER NIGHT? Pretty sure we’re overdue, folks.
• Did you watch The Office last night? Threat Level Midnight was the best movie I watched… um… all day!
• I spend a lot of time at the kids’ school, and not just because rubber cement is so readily available there. Here’s one of the other bonuses: reading student projects. I saw a report by Fancy Riley™—she did “How to Train a Dog,” and I was impressed at how thorough (and fancy!) it was. But the one below hers really caught my eye, and here’s why:

Yes, that says “How to draw a bunny that got ran over by a car!”

Awesome, right???

• I’m following advice and have begun to compile last year’s blog posts and messages into a document that will tell the story of how I kicked cancer’s ass. I’m not very far into it yet, but just setting up the document was a big step. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing with the finished product; it may just be a story for my grandchildren. Whatevs. I need to do it for me, too. It’ll be therapeutic, especially if I stick to the truth. I’m debating fiction vs. nonfiction… because how else can I work Agent Michael Scarn into the story?
• The other night I woke up to something super-smelly. At first I thought it was Vic (because I’m kinda mean and because he’s sometimes stinky) and then I thought the dog farted. But the smell just wouldn’t go away, and I finally got up to see if I was the only one smelling the B.B.O. And what did I step in on my way to the light switch? One of six or seven soft turds the puppy had left outside the bathroom door. Curses! So, in the middle of the night, we spent 20 minutes picking up poo and scrubbing the carpet and swearing at every dog who has ever lived in the history of the world. It was 40-ish degrees outside, but we opened the windows wide anyway to air out the stench. It took a really long time to get back to sleep, and I kept thinking, is this a good enough excuse to get me out of work in the morning? Because my dog pooped?
• I have two new iPhone apps to share! Ted, my brother-in-law, makes fun of how I write entire posts about iPhone apps I like, so maybe he just shouldn’t read this paragraph.
  
  Both apps have free versions, and might be available for the Droid.
• SoundHound will tell you what song you’re listening to. It just hears it and displays the song title and artist, lyrics if they’re available, and a link to download the song. You can even sing into it and it’ll tell you what song you’re singing! So cool.
• IntoNow is similar, but it works with the TV. It listens to what you’re watching and tells you what it is.
• Here’s something I’m feeling grateful for this evening: Katie’s going to the new Justin Bieber movie with her friends next week! I don’t have to take her! I don’t even have to make up an excuse for why I can’t/won’t! This is a very, very good thing. My Mother of the Year crown may be crooked and tarnished, but it’s still on my damn head.

Dec. 7: It was like “Pandora’s MP3 Player”

I usually listen to Pandora Internet Radio on my phone when I’m sitting at my computer. If I don’t listen to something, anything, I start humming random stuff and give myself a headache because I’m so annoying.

I’ve created several Pandora “stations” and choose a different one each time I first turn it on for the day. I’ve got “Halloween Party Radio” (don’t much like that one, not sure why it’s still there), “R&B/Pop Holiday Radio” (I loves me just about any kind of Christmas music), “Today’s Adult Hits Radio” (oh lord, what’s become of me?), “Contemporary Singer-Songwriters Radio” (lots of John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, etc.), “80s Radio” (surprisingly annoying), and “Showtunes Radio,” which might just be the best thing EVER if it didn’t play so much of that horrible Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Pandora’s rating system is all fancy-like, or the idea is. If I tap the “thumbs down” icon when a dreadful song comes on, it goes on to a different one that’s sometimes less dreadful. What it’s supposed to do is file away the little “Jen didn’t like this” nugget and (1) never play it again, and (2) never play anything like it. That (2)-part doesn’t always work very well, and I know this because sometimes Showtunes Radio plays that horrible Andrew Lloyd Webber EVEN THOUGH I HATE EVERYTHING HE’S EVER DONE EVER EVER EVER.

If you thumbs-down six songs in an hour, Pandora won’t let you skip any more for that hour. You can still thumbs-down songs, but they’ll keep playing, just like when you tell your kid NO MORE [OBNOXIOUS INSTRUMENT] UNTIL MOMMY’S EARS STOP BLEEDING and your kid just keeps practicing like the little sadist he or she is. If one of my kids grows up to be another Andrew Lloyd Webber, please get used to what I look like with blood spurting from my ears all the live-long day.

I’ve been listening to Pandora long enough that it’s pretty good at playing only what I want to hear; I don’t thumbs-down much anymore. However, I do get tired of listening to the same music over and over. Yesterday nothing appealed to me—no Pandora stations and none of the playlists on my iPod. I chose, instead, to listen to my entire collection on “shuffle.” This was possibly the weirdest and wrongest thing I’ve ever done.

You know why? Because I kept trying to thumbs-down songs. Why do I have stuff I hate on my iPod?

Even worse, I forgot about all the audio books I have. A song from Wicked followed by some David Sedaris is all kinds of cool, but not when the Sedaris starts at the third section of the story and then goes on to Miley Cyrus (who’s only on there at my kid’s request, I promise)? Ugh. Thumbs WAY down.

Man. Music is hard.

P.S. Yes, Fancy Lori™, “wrongest” is a word. So’s “wronger.” And “funner.”

Sep. 2: Chemo #14 and more

I had chemo on Tuesday, and it went pretty much like all the others before it. Victor was my chemo buddy. The funnest (to use Fancy Lori’s favorite adjective) part was when we both got Battleship off iTunes and played a couple Bluetooth rounds on our phones. Fortunately, there were only two other patients in the room most the day, because there was much making of bombing sounds coming from our corner. You know what’s cool about Battleship? If you’re winning, it’s a skill game. When you’re losing, it’s a game of luck, of which Victor apparently has none.

There was one exceptional difference at this chemo: I found out I only have two treatments left! That’s the plan, anyway.

I’ll have #15 on September 21 and then #16 on October 12. Sometime after that we’ll do another PET scan and make sure OJ is good ‘n gone. If he’s still hanging out, I suppose we’ll have a new course of action. If not, I don’t know if I’ll officially be in remission or if that pronouncement comes later. We shall see.

After I finished in the chemo room, I went across the street to the hospital for my procedure in radiology. I got a shot of steroid in my wrist that’s supposed to take away the pain I’ve had in my left hand. The whole thing was quite fascinating. They X-rayed my wrist, injected the spot with lidocaine and when I was fairly numb, injected the steroid, X-raying throughout. The radiologist said it would take three or four days for the effects to really show, so it’s not surprising that my hand is still hurting—but already the pain is somewhat better. Yay! I’ll be curious to see how long the effects last. In the meantime, I’m trying to be careful to change habits that could be causing a repetitive stress injury; we don’t know if that’s what this pain is from, but it can’t hurt to change the way I hold my phone and steering wheel, right?

Somehow I forgot that the night of chemo, I can never fall asleep. It was nearly 3 a.m. when I finally remembered and got up to take Benadryl. Duh. I woke up yesterday morning feeling quite exhausted and planned to nap later. Of course, I was going on post-chemo high energy all day and never felt like napping. I’m starting to come down from that today and by late this afternoon I think I’ll be ready for a nice, long sleep. The worst part of not sleeping well for a few days—whether I’m running on post-chemo energy or not—is that I start getting terrible muscular and joint pain. This girl needs her rest!

Well, between medical procedures and much folding of PTO-related things, I’ve been busy this week. Things will get worse before they get better though (with PTO, anyway) so I’m not complaining YET.

The best medical-like news of the week: Loveliest Lori is finally out of ICU! She’s still got a long way to go, but we’re happy about this change. So, so happy.

Toodles.