Category: Random

The South does NOT Run on Dunkin’

This morning, Justin and I began our first ever, kid-free adventure–at least, first ever since having kids.

We stopped at a Dunkin’ Donuts, which all you northerners take for granted. Here in…Tennessee (I think?), speed is not the name of the game. In fact, I do believe Constant State of Confusion is the name of the game. My coffee is a large hazelnut raspberry hot coffee, light and sweet. The cashier hits the “less cream and sugar” button. Woah. No. Extra cream, extra sugar. 2 minutes later, from somewhere in the background I hear a woman yell, “the raspberry is sugar free!” What?! No! EXTRA sugar! “But the raspberry flavor is sugar free!” And?! For a decade, I’ve gotten the same exact coffee from Dunkin’! This should not be confusing!

The poor girl in front of us was dressed for a hot summer day, even though it’s freezing and raining. After waiting much longer than we had been, a girl behind the counter said to the shivering waif, “um, do you still want your cappuccino?” Nah girl, she’s just waiting her, freezing, in hopes of never getting her drink. It’s what we’re all hoping for.

Justin pointed out that there were 6 people working, and said, “in New York, it would be two 16 year old girls, and they’d do this all twice as fast.” True.

As we were getting back into our car (after spending 20 minutes of our lives waiting for coffee), a car with NY plates pulled into a space across from us. “Do you think we should warn them??”

Nah–let them be as amused as we just were. Watching in disbelief as 6 humans maintained a high level of confusion over coffee making.

We’re only 4 hours into this adventure! But we have coffee!!!

Adventures in Babysitting Husbands

Justin is home from his yearlong stay in Korea, and after almost a week, he’s finally kicked JetLag in the butt.

The great thing about him being home, is that for the time being, he has no job. I mean, he has a job. He’s just on an extended vacation.

Also, for the sake of this story, I should mention that allergies have been kicking his buns since he has been home.

Today, we adventured to the Zappos outlet. I was looking for 100 new pairs of sneakers, and Justin wandered off to probably do the same. When he came back to show off his find, he was rubbing his left eye. “I can’t see anything out of this eye. Honestly, I don’t even know if my contact is still in there!” I looked, and sure enough, he was contact free. As soon as I announced it was no longer in there, he instantly started looking on himself for it.

“Justin, seriously, what are you going to do if you find it!? Put it back in?!”

We wandered around, looked at more shoes. And then parted ways so I could peruse kid shoes. That’s when it happened.

“Hey! Look what I found!” Justin was looking awfully proud of himself.

“Is it your contact??”

“Yeah yeah!”

“So…now what? Are you just going to put it back in your eye?!”

And this is where he pulled out a bottle of Allergy Eye Drop, filled that sucker up and wiggled it around in the palm of his hand, and then STUCK IT BACK IN HIS EYE!!! “How funny would it be if that wasn’t your contact?”

Honestly, this isn’t the first time in our nearly 14 years that Justin has made less than stellar eye choices. I have assisted in pulling a torn piece of contact out of his eye. He soaked his contacts in hydrogen peroxide solution, in a regular case, and then instantly regretted it when his eyelids fused shut the second that hydrogen peroxide infused contact adhered itself to his eyeball (causing him to cry for 3 days straight).

Later in the afternoon, as we were eating lunch, and I looked into Justin’s eyes. His left pupil was dilated 10 times larger than his right!

“Something is very wrong with your left eye.”

“Yeah. And my left thumb is numb too. I’m probably going to have a stroke. If I do, the combination to the gun safe is–”

“I am not going to shoot you.”

“No no no. Just leave the gun in my hand, and I’ll do the rest.”

This can’t be what other couple discuss during lunch dates.

After a lot of googling (webmd told us it was most likely a cocaine or meth overdose), Justin searched for the side effects of using too many eye drops. Which is probably where I should have started, but I was googling eye dilation and numb thumb (and by this point, he had regained feeling in his thumb). Directly under Side effects of using too many eye drops, it should probably say, “under no circumstances should you put a contact in your eye after finding it on the floor of the Zappos outlet.”

And he says I’m awkward!

And Out Come the Wolves

Or at least the wolf spiders.

Kentucky has taught me to appreciate the giant monsters.

This evening, I spent close to an hour mowing my backyard, which, if you’ve SEEN my back yard, you would know that seems excessive for such a small space.The problem is, I haven’t been good about keeping up with it. This last month of coming off my antidepressants has been awful. It made me remember why it is I’m on them in the first place. I’ve been mean, irrational, occasionally paranoid, and a slew of other fun emotions. If I yelled at you, I’m sorry. If I cried uncontrollably in front of you, thank you for not running away–or thank you for understanding when I ran away.

If you have never dealt with a chemically imbalanced brain, it’s hard to describe the feeling of being absolutely out of control. My brain has been misfiring, pulling and pushing me in 30 directions all at once, all while a voice is yelling “you’re doing it wrong! You’re failing!” Every ounce of my strength was thrown full-force into my job, but of course with my brain not functioning properly, the mistakes have just been piling up. Again, with the neon sign flashing failure above my head. Or maybe in my head. It’s been an electrical storm of emotions, along with the deafening skepticism.

Thankfully, as of Monday, my blood pressure is back to normal–it turns out that the same medication that brought me mental stability was also trying to give me a heart attack. Honestly, after this last 2 week, I still think my mental health is more important. I would rather succumb to a heart attack than I would deal with my inner voice kicking my while I’m down.

Like the roller coaster you didn’t want to get on in the first place, you spent that entire time thinking this is awful! Make it stop! And when it’s over you vow to never do it again.I will never do that again.But back to the spiders!

In my state of meh, my lawn had become a wild jungle of almost knee-high grass. Perfect for wolf spiders–perfect for a tiny world full of insects, really. But, oh my gosh, every pass of the lawn mower, 5-15 spiders with bodies the size of quarters ran in panic! Save yourselves! She’s a functioning human being again and she’s catching up on life!!!

When we first moved to Kentucky, I remember sending a picture to my best friend (a Kentucky girl), and asking “what the heck is this!?!?” As a non-lover of spiders, Justin was called upon often in our first year–“there’s a spider in the bathroom staring at me! And I really have to pee! Please come kill it! And then he deployed and I was left to deal with them. I had to continually remind myself, they’re the good spiders. They’re the reason we have no black widows. They don’t mean to be terrifying. Now, I have a respect for them. They don’t mean to be giant, 8-legged creatures who prefer life in the tall grass of my backyard.

And now I’m sitting here realizing that my depression is a lot like the wolf spiders. I have spent my life hating it–why can’t my brain just function properly? But this is me. And I don’t mean to come in a mentally unstable package. But, at least I am back on the path to sanity.

Bathroom Toads

Just a typical day at the Steevesies’!

After talking with Justin for 30 minutes this morning, I headed into the bathroom to put my contacts in, with Xander hot on my tail.

“Mom!!! What is that!?”

Already my glasses are off, so who knows. “What is what??”

“That! On the floor!”

With contacts in, I look down. At a tan blob. “It’s just–oh!”

There was only one thing to do: FaceTime Justin again.

“Justin. Something happened to Bruce!

“What?!”

“Justin, I came into the bathroom to put my contacts in, and Bruce was laying on the bathroom floor–he’s turned into a toad!”

That is the most likely explanation I can come up with. The other options are:

1. An animal decided he should be inside, but since no one was foaming at the mouth, I don’t believe he was carried to his bathroom location.

2. He hopped there. I did have the back door open, so while this option is plausible, it’s pretty unlikely. The trip to the bathroom would’ve been a long, and possibly treacherous one.

3. He’s been subletting the bathroom, and this is the first time we’ve crossed paths. Again, possible, but unlikely.

It’s just a classic case of Bathroom Toad.

I’ve relocated him outside, but I fully expect him to be sitting on the couch when I get home from work–watching The Muppet Movie, and snacking on flies.