eReaders

I finally made a purchase that I have been stewing over for months.  I bought an eReader, specifically the Barnes and Noble brand, the Nook Color. I went back and forth whether or not I was the type of person who needed to feel the paper and turn the pages of a paper book.  I realized I'm not.  Not only that, I do not keep my books after I've read them.  I sell them or donate them, giving me all the more reason to collect and download books on the Nook Color.  I have had it for about a week and a half and I've already finished two books and I'm currently reading my third.  There are many books you can download for free, including public domain books.  I've downloaded about 25 eBooks, of which I've only paid for two of them and they were $5 each.

I ultimately decided that I would get the Nook Color vs. Amazon's Kindle or any of the other eReaders out there.  The Nook Color is first and foremost an eReader, however it's also like a tablet, like the iPad.  It has a web browser (it has built-in Wi-Fi) as well as has some applications on it such as Pandora for listening to music and games.  I can also download or subscribe to a variety of magazines and newspapers, some for just $1 a month. You can also download eBooks from your local library, however I haven't looked into doing that yet.  

I'm very excited to continue to use my Nook Color and see how much more I end up reading versus having a paper book.  I even bought a cute little cover for my Nook Color. 

Do you have an eReader?  If so, which one?  Are you interested in getting one or prefer to read books the old fashioned way?

   

Happy Birthday Cherrie

Exactly a week ago, M and I met a handful of his family members at the cemetery to say happy birthday to M's sister Cherrie.  She would have been 52 years old.  Each year we release purple balloons, her favorite color, in honor of Cherrie.  We call M's parents in Florida from the cemetery and they also release balloons at the same time from Fort Myers.   My Gramma had just passed away the day before so I wasn't in a cheery mood but most of M's family comforted me regarding my loss and my mind was temporarily taken off the bad and I was able to focus on having a good time with them.  After the cemetery, we went to Donatelli's for dinner.  

Valentine's Day Weekend

I've been slowly getting back to "normal" life after my Gramma's passing and funeral by getting back to work yesterday and I suppose that also means I need to catch up on blogging.

On Saturday, February 12th, I was bumming around the house and I needed to go into a room that we have off the kitchen hallway.  It's technically a bedroom but because our lovely old house does not have a basement, (but a scary, dirt crawl space with lots of spiders) we are currently using that room for storage.  I was giving a gift to a coworker so I had to go in there and find a gift bag.  M was sitting right there and as I turned the door knob, he said, "Happy Valentine's Day" at the same time I started walking in the room and saw something I wasn't supposed to see and shut the door completely regretful with a frightened look on my face.  I told M I was sorry and he just laughed and said he thought that I might go in there.  He said it was ok to open the door again and when I did, I saw one huge heart balloon and two smaller heart balloons, a vase full of different colored daisies, a card and a cute gorilla stuffed animal holding a heart.  M had arranged all of the items as a display just in case I did walk into the room before Valentine's Day.  I very much appreciated my early Valentine's gifts, especially the flowers.  Daisies, just regular plain daisies are my favorite flower and these ones were white, light pink and dark pink, even with glitter all over them.  I loved them and they are still alive on my desk today.  I wish I would have taken a picture of them when they were brand new, along with everything else he got me but I didn't take any pictures.

On Sunday, we went bowling with Greg and Anna at Flaherty's.  We bowled two games and I didn't do as good as I did the last outing, but it's just for fun, right?

After bowling, M and I went out for our Valentine's dinner...well, actually it was lunch.  M chose the place and it was Tavern on Grand in St. Paul. We had been to this place before multiple times and this place has some significance in our life.  They are known for their walleye and that's what we both had.  The fish was absolutely delicious!  I loved the walleye so much and it was a completely perfect Valentine's meal.  

After dinner, we were going to my sister's house so I could give my nephew some little Valentine's gifts but we slowly made our way there and drove over to West St. Paul so we could see the St. Paul skyline.

We arrived at my sister's house and stayed over there for a little bit. I didn't take any pictures of Keith but I loved this one of Colton.  After my sister's we went to visit my Gramma in the hospital.  

Colton says, "Yeah!!!!!"

On Monday, Valentine's Day, I went to work as usual but after work we had dinner reservations...for White Castle!  This was the 4th year that M and I went to White Castle on Valentine's Day, which is my present to him.  What a perfect girlfriend, right?!  We've been to four different locations and this time was the Rice and University location.  We dined in candlelight with our own server, eating sliders.  Our server was so nice and great so I tipped her $10.  That's a 60% tip, y'all! 

After dinner, we stopped briefly to visit my Gramma in the hospital again, despite not being conscious.  In the entryway the hospital has a Lucy statue in the and while it's not Valentine related, I thought it was appropriate to take a picture of it for the day.  

President's Day Funeral

***Disclaimer****  There are pictures of the casket at the cemetery at the end of this post.  These are not meant to hurt or disrespect any family members or anyone else.  I wanted to take a couple of pictures and my mom thought it was weird and inappropriate (and maybe it is for some) but others were ok with it.  If you don't want to look, don't.

Last night was the visitation for my Gramma at the funeral home.  If you live in Minnesota, you know we were hit with a snow storm which only complicated an already terrible situation.  Many people did arrive at the funeral home to see my Gramma one last time.  The first hour was for family only and the next three hours was open to the public.  The casket was open and my Gramma looked nice.  We had picture boards up around perimeter of the room as well as two video screens with a slideshow of different photos of my Gramma.  I'm thankful for all those that came to support my Gramma, especially those that were there to support me including the following:

• Kris and Jim
• Kim (M's sister)--She made fantastic banana bars for my whole family which everyone loved
• Jim and Lorrie (M's cousins)

With the funeral starting at 2 pm today, again at the funeral home, M and I left our house early enough to make it through the snow but we didn't even get out of our driveway.  We were stuck and we weren't going anywhere.  Despite shoveling, rocking the car back and forth and any attempt to get out, we were there for probably almost 20 minutes.  Of course I was in a panic knowing that I am going to be late for my own Gramma's funeral.  M finally enlisted the help of a couple of neighbor boys and they pushed our way out.  I did call my dad to let him know and they were going to start the funeral five minutes late, which I guess they did and we arrived into a full room while they played the first song so we hadn't missed anything.  

The service itself was short and sweet and perfect, including words spoken by my sister, which she did a great job. There were three songs played during the service.  My Gramma liked country music so they played Alan Jackson and Vince Gill, two of her favorites.  The service ended with a song by Brad Paisley, which I believe was chosen by the Celebrant. 

After the service, the pall bearers lined up next to the casket and loaded it into the hearse.  My pall bearers were as follows:  Daniel, Christopher and Ben, who are all my cousins as well as my sister Jamie, myself and Michael.  My cousin David is in the Marines and he was in Thailand and was not able to come back for the funeral.  The military only allows you to leave for the death of an immediate family member, which does not include a grandparent, which was something we learned through this whole process of trying to get a hold of him.  Because David was supposed to also be a pall bearer, Michael was asked to take his place, which he was proud and honored to do, just like the rest of us.  David's brother, Ben told Michael today that he had spoken to David and David was very happy and grateful that Michael was taking his place as pall bearer.

The service at the cemetery was very brief.  It was snowy, cold and very windy.  The Celebrant read the following prayer which one part stuck with me, which I've bolded below:

Saint Teresa's Prayer

May today there be peace within.

May you trust God that you are exactly where you

are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite

possibilities that are born of faith.

May you use those gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing,

dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us.

At the end, the majority of my cousin's as well as my aunts, uncle and Grandpa took a white rose and placed it on the casket and said our goodbyes.  Thank you to my uncle Dennis and Aunt Pat from the other side of the family who attended the funeral and went to the cemetery to support us and pay their respects to my Gramma.

After the cemetery, we had a gathering for immediate family only at my parent's house.  We had Yarusso Bros. food and tried to relax after the events.  Rest in peace, Gramma.  We miss you already.

RIP, Gramma

My Gramma passed away this morning.  Thank you to those that read my last post and was thinking of her.

They took out the ventilator tube yesterday as they said they would do around 11:30 am. It was shortly before then that I got a call at work that Gramma would be breathing on her own and the outlook was bleak.  I was out the door of work immediately and arrived at the hospital around 11:45 am.

The neurologist said that she did have a mini stroke which affected her right arm and leg, but she would have recovered from that if given the chance.  The irreversible damage was what was done to her brain.  When my Gramma's heart stopped for five minutes last Friday morning, her blood pressure went down so low and a person who normally doesn't have high blood pressure could recover from that, but my Gramma had higher blood pressure but she was on blood pressure medication to control this. Because of  the severe dip in blood pressure, the brain did not receive the blood it needs.  There are four arteries that run up to your brain and the two that are in the back of her neck were just fine but the two that run on the sides of her neck, including her carotid artery were narrowed allowing less blood to get through and therefore the tiny fibers and everything else her brain started to die, leaving her with little to no brain activity.  While it seemed hopeful to some of us that she was able to respond to some commands such as nodding and shaking her head, she was not able to squeeze your hand.  The neurologist said she would need the most dedicated health care to continue to live and unless she had full-time help in her home, would have to go to a nursing home to live....with no quality of life.

The family didn't debate for very long as to what the plan of action would be.  They could either keep her alive by putting her back on all the machines and everything else to live the rest of her life just like that or they could discontinue any "heroic" care (as the neurologist called it) and let everything run its course.  They decided to let everything run its course with no further extreme medical attention.  This is what my Gramma wanted.

She continued to have a feeding tube and have her lungs suctioned out a couple of times earlier in the day, but as the day progressed, they started to give her morphine for the pain and stopped with the assistance of her lungs.  They then put her on a morphine drip to keep her even more relaxed.  Her eyes would open every once in a while.

I left the hospital around 10:15 pm and most of the family members had left shortly before.  My parents and sister were there until around 1 am.  My aunt and uncle convinced my Grandpa to go home for a bit and my uncle drove him home this morning. My gramma died only 10 minutes after he left.

My Gramma passed away as peacefully as she could shortly after 8 am this morning.  I love you, Gramma.  Rest in Peace.

Gramma = ICU

This past weekend has been mentally taxing for me and all of my family.  My gramma is in the hospital in ICU.  She was admitted last Tuesday in the early evening.  Since then, a whole lot has happened and I can't even begin to put everything in chronological order.  I'm giving you what is a brief synopsis of her time at the hospital.

• She found out she had a severe infection in her colon.
• Her heart stopped early Friday morning for five minutes but were able to revive her with CPR but the hospital called the whole family to get down there because it did not look good.
• The surgeon wanted to perform surgery immediately Friday to remove her colon and find the source of her internal bleeding but couldn't until her vitals were stable enough for surgery.  She went into surgery around 8:30 am on Friday morning and they found blood in her stomach and removed it and the colon looked good where they did not have to remove it.  
• She's had to have 8 blood transfusions since she's been there and also has had to have blood platelets put into her. 
• She's been on a ventilator to breath since after the surgery.  
• From Friday until today, my gramma has been in an induced coma.  They tried to lift her out of it each day since Saturday by lessening the amount of sedation but her vitals were not good to do so.  They cannot take out the ventilator tube from her throat until she is not sedated anymore.
• My gramma had a CAT scan on her brain on Monday and it determined no abnormalities.
• My gramma was lifted from all sedation and IV's today and opened her eyes.  She is very feisty and wants to grab the tubes out from her nose and mouth and her left arm needs to be restrained to the bed because of this.
• She is waiting to get an MRI for her brain to determine if she has had a stroke as her right arm is not moving.  She has movement in her right shoulder and in her right leg but it is weak and minimal.  The nurse on duty tonight said it is her opinion she has had a stroke but the severity is unknown and we won't know until the MRI is conducted, which will still happen tonight.  Being that the CAT scan showed no abnormalities may be a good sign that the stroke may not be too severe.  
• She has a feeding tube in and ready for when she gets done with the MRI and then they can feed her.
• My gramma is breathing on her own now even though she has a ventilator in her throat.  It's only when she doesn't breathe on her own does it kick in.  The hope is that she will have the ventilator removed tomorrow.
• My gramma is only 73.

It's been a rough one for all of us. I didn't go in to work on Friday and I've been to the hospital every day to visit her and every single time I've been there, I've run into a family member, which is great.  We're all taking turns going there and someone seems to be there at every time of the day.  My mom and her siblings have taken turns spending the night at my grandpa's house to keep him company and to make sure he's eating, which he isn't doing enough of.  Both my sister and I and Michael have all gone to visit my grandpa to keep him company and try to take his mind off of everything temporarily while we're there.   

I saw my gramma tonight and asked her to open her eyes and she did ever so slightly but I could see those blue eyes.  She can't talk because of the ventilator in her throat.  Tomorrow we'll find out the results of the MRI so that will be the big news tomorrow of whether or not she had a stroke as well as what the next course of action is.   

If you pray, please pray for her.  If you don't, please keep her in your thoughts.  Just send some positive mojo her way.

Super Bowl XLV

Our plans for the Super Bowl were pretty low-key.  It seems each year we are invited to at least someone's house but most times we just stay home and watch the game but this year we went to our friends' Tanya and Chris's house.  They just bought a new TV a couple days before so we all tested it out on Sunday.  I was rooting for the Steelers, even though I don't particularly like them but I wore a Vikings shirt to support my real team.

I wasn't really looking forward to watching the game, mostly because the Green Bay Packers were in it and I had a feeling that they would become World Champions, which they did.  As much as I dislike Green Bay, I'm not upset they won nor does it even irritate me that much and I truly WISH Aaron Rodgers was a Viking.  The entire Vikings season and all the hoopla that was associated with it was a disaster so it only made sense that the last straw would be for the wild card Packers to win the Super Bowl.  Fortunately, I have some good Packer fans around me and in my life where they don't rub the win in a Vikings fan's face, which isn't typical with other Packer fans I've known at the games or wherever else.  Sometimes I believe that some Packer fans hate the Vikings more than they love the Packers.  Whatever.

Christina Aguilera screwed up the lyrics of the national anthem.  The commercials weren't that great and even worse was the half-time show with The Black Eyed Peas.  What was good was the company of Tanya and Chris and their dog Cosmo and they also had some yummy food, which totally catered to my diet and that was very much appreciated!  Thanks, T & C!

Tanya, Cosmo, Chris and baby.  Yep, Tanya's pregnant!

Kickin' It Old School

Last Saturday, I met up with a group of people from a long, long time ago at Champps in Maplewood.  Most of them I graduated high school with but my friend Grant was the exception.  It had probably close to 16-17 years since I saw him last in person and I can't remember the last time I saw Bob but I know it wasn't that long ago.  Most of the girls I hadn't seen since one of our friend's wedding which was almost 8 years ago so we caught up a little bit over a couple of drinks and some food and called it a night.  It was fun to see all of these guys in person.  It really doesn't seem like that much time has passed since we've all seen each other, mostly in part to Facebook because I'm friends with all of these guys on there and so you can still catch up with each other even when you're not seeing each other. We talked about getting together again sometime in the summer so we'll see if that happens!

Amanda, Tanya, Me, Grant, Bob, Nicole, Sarah 

The Girls

Saji-Ya with Han-Ya!

I went to Saji-Ya in St. Paul for sushi last Thursday with my friend Han-Ya!, also known as Tan-Tan, or Tanya.  Tanya and I don't see each other very often but we both still consider each other best friends.  I've known Tanya since I was 14 and no matter how much time has elapsed between visits, we always pick up where we left off.  I had two kinds of maki sushi, spicy tuna and spider rolls, which I did not like at all. It had crab in it and burdock roots, which I'm not sure what those but one of the two had a distinct taste I did not like.  I should have known that I would not like anything with spider in the name. I also had a seaweed salad for my first time and I loved it!  Tanya didn't want me to take any pictures of her so you'll have to settle with the picture of the sign and the food.

Breakfast and Bowling

Last Sunday, M and I met Greg and Anna for breakfast at Triple Rock Social Club on the west bank of Minneapolis.  The names of their meals are kinda funny.  I had the John Denver Omelet but was thinking about getting the Mother Trucker.  M's breakfast was titled, The Most Important Meal of the Day.

After breakfast, we went to Flaherty's to go bowling. M and I hadn't bowled in two years and both Anna and Greg hadn't for over a year.  We played two games and I bowled a 119 and a 122, which is outstanding for me.  Anytime I can break 100 is great.  M's highest score of the day was 171.  Now that football is over, we'll start bowling more weekends up until it gets warm again.

Happy 35th Anniversary, Mom and Dad

My parents got married January 30th, 1976, which means they just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary.  It's always been an easy anniversary for me to remember since it's the month of my birthday and just one year longer than I've been around.  We celebrated at their house last Saturday night by having chili, snacks, drinks and playing a game.  My grandma and grandpa were there along with my sister and her family and Michael and I.  I'm the worst taking pictures of the family because I forget to so I didn't get a picture of my parents that evening. I always focus on my nephews if it's a human subject. Michael did end up taking some pictures throughout the night though.  Happy Anniversary, Parents!  Here's to 35 more years.

This is the actual cake topper from my parent's reception.  My dad joked that the cake was also a tier from their wedding cake.

   

The Bandwagon

There's still time if you want to jump on the bandwagon and root for the Green Bay Packers tomorrow in the Super Bowl, however there is a quick application you need to fill out to become a fan.  Luckily, I don't qualify.  Go Steelers!

Zoom and scroll to read the application.

Packer Fan Application_2

Birthday Part II

In my last post about my birthday, I told you that M gave me a card with something in it.  It was concert tickets....to Guster....one of my favorite bands.  When I opened the card, I was not expecting anything in it and they slipped down into my lap.  I caught a glimpse of what it was as I can recognize a Ticketmaster ticket a mile away.  I continued reading the card and then looked at the tickets and saw they were for Guster.  I was ecstatic.  I hugged Michael and kept saying how excited I was and how badly I wanted to go.

Rewind back to last summer and M and I were planning our Vikings road trip.  The destination was Boston to see the Vikings and the Patriots play on Halloween.  Due to unforeseen circumstances in M and I's life, we were unable to go on this trip.  We're lucky we hadn't booked our flight, car or hotel yet.  What we did have already was tickets that M bought to surprise me with...tickets to see Guster in Rhode Island the day before Halloween, only a half hour from the Patriots stadium.  M had purchased special seating for that show but ended up selling the tickets on ebay, getting at least his money back.

I knew Guster was coming on January 28th, 2011 back in October or so.  Tickets went on sale and because we were trying to save money, we didn't buy them.  Even though I didn't ask for anything for my birthday from Michael, I secretly hoped in my brain that he would get the tickets for us for my birthday. And even though I hoped for the tickets, I really didn't think he'd remember about the concert.  But he did.  And he also put another nice touch on the gift of tickets...they were front row!

I was so excited when I opened the card and finally looked at the tickets that when I saw Guster, I was all giddy and happy and lovey that I didn't even look to see where the seats were.  After gushing over the tickets for maybe five minutes, I said to M, "Where are we sitting?" while looking at the tickets to see our seats.  It said, "Pit, row 1"  Ok, the pit is better than front row.  The pit is a couple of rows in front of front row.  I freaked out and kept saying, "NO WAY!" over and over and over again.

The thing I hate is getting concert tickets so far in advance and then waiting to see the show.  With Guster, I only had to wait a full week.  The show was last Friday night at the State Theater in Minneapolis and it was fantastic. It was truly an experience being so close to them and having members of the band make eye contact with you while you are watching them play.  We felt as though we knew them after being so close to them for almost 2 hours as they played and talked to the crowd.  While this was my third time seeing Guster, it was a totally different experience because we were so close.

We took a ton of pictures but here are some of the best pictures of the night.  I also took a short video of part of the song, "Jesus on the Radio" they did as their encore.  Enjoy!

I wish this one would have turned out!

Barrio

I went out with most of the Alpha Gang last Thursday to Barrio in Lowertown in St. Paul. If you haven't been to Barrio, it's a tequila bar and they have 117 different kinds of tequila. This was our first happy hour of the new year with the gang.  I had three sangria's as well a spicy shrimp taco and a chicken and black bean tostada.  The shrimp taco wasn't spicy, nor was it very good.  At $4 a pop for a small corn tortilla, I could do without.  The tostada was very good though.

Aaron, Catha, Dana, Deanna, Tiffany--All in alphabetical order-didn't plan it that way