Going batty

This is a tale - a tale of a girl who dared to venture into her attic to investigate a strange noise and suffered the terrible consequences.

Tuesday, April 12

The spring season had officially fallen in Buena Vista, Virginia and Anne Entsminger was reading on her front porch enjoying the new warmth of the air. Her new book was Snow Falling on Cedars, the selection for her next book club meeting.  The front door was propped open so that the cats would be free to come and go as they pleased and at times one of them would climb up in her lap.  Since being in their new home, the Entsmingers had learned that the tree in the side yard is very easy for the cats to climb up and jump to the roof, but is a difficult thing for their cats to jump back to, resulting in many trips up a ladder. 

On the day our story takes place, Anne heard many noises coming from the roof above her and was distracted several times from her book {which I was having a hard time getting into anyway} by having to stop and peek up towards the roof to see who had been trapped this time. Being herself, she of-course was not wearing shoes as she walked around the house peering up at the roof.  The odd thing was that every time she looked up at the roof, she could not see a cat, and all of them seemed to be present and accounted for throughout the day.  After her husband, Brandon, had gone to work for the night and the sun had gone down a bit, Anne decided to go inside and watch a little television.  She had barely turned on the T.V. and was about to close the front door when she heard even louder noises coming from above the ceiling.  She was worried that one of the cats had gotten stuck on the roof and had somehow gotten into the attic {please don't judge me} where they would have access to rat poison that had been up there since before they moved in. Worrying for their safety, and also not knowing for sure what was up there, Anne decided to go up into the attic to investigate.  This did not seem like an overly foolish idea since she had been up into the attic many times since living in the house and had never had any problems with being afraid.

But this time was different. 

As she didn't really believe that it was a cat, but there was certainly something alive up in there, Anne pulled down the ladder to the attic slowly and peered up into the dark space above. One step at a time she carefully and slowly crept up, once freaking out because the metal hinge caught on her hair, causing her to whip around and go back down a step. Finally getting up the ladder enough to reach up and pull the light chord, she turned on the light and went back down a couple of steps. She waited for a second, then slowly went back up and peeked her head into the opening and looked around. Suddenly, out of nowhere, something came out of the darkness at her {oh my gosh, I'm having panic problems just writing this} and caused her to go back down the ladder. Quickly, one step then two steps down and then...where was the next step? Nowhere - so down she went onto the floor 2 - 3 feet below, turning her ankle in the process. Pain shot through her and the words "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, it didn't happen, it didn't happen, oh my god it didn't happen" was all she could say as she rolled over onto her other side and felt her foot flop from one side to the other. Having sprained the same ankle two years before, she immediately knew that it was not the same thing.  And as she was laying on the floor, screaming bloody murder, all she could think about was closing the front door so that no one would hear her {haha}. After pushing the door closed, she looked up into the attic above her and saw bats swarming around the attic, one of which had knocked down her witch hat she bought for her Harry Potter Party back in November, and was caught inside, causing it too to fly around the attic {actually pretty hilarious looking back on the event}.  She managed to pull herself over to the living room where her cell phone was thankfully on the coffee table, within reach of an invalid on the floor. Her immediate reaction was to call Brandon, who of-course didn't answer because he's not supposed to answer the phone at work {don't worry, hun, I don't blame you for not answering :)}. Freaking out still, she called her friend Justan who was thankfully still awake, and the conversation with something like this:

"Hello"

"Hey, Justan, what are you doing?"

"Oh, sitting here reading Harry Potter, what are you up to?"

"Do you think you could come over real quick?"

"Yeah, I'll be right there"

"Okay, thanks"

And then I hung up.

She continued to lay on the floor, screaming a little bit and the main thing on her mind was the fact that the cats could now get up into the attic because the ladder was still down, and now not only was there rat poison up there, but angry bats as well.  Justan came right over and immediately upon coming in the front door said "Oh my gosh, what happened?!" as she was still laying on the floor.  He proceeded to call his girlfriend, Shana, who is in nursing school, to find out how to tell if a bone is broken and she told him to take Anne to the hospital.  When he set her ankle on its side on a pillow, she could feel her bones grinding together and she too knew that it was probably broken.

So off they went. But not before Anne made Justan poke his head up into the attic to make sure there were no cats up there before he closed the ladder. She called Brandon at work on the way - this time looking up the number in the phone book that Justan thankfully had in his car.

Brandon met them at the hospital and after being asked a million questions, including "when was your last period?" three times, and a small wait for the doctor - who she apologized to several times for her dirty feet since she had been walking around outside all day, Anne was wheeled into the x-ray room where she was attended by her mother-in-law and  a nice nurse {Liz works in Radiology at the hospital}. After the nurse went into the other room to look at the x-rays with Liz, she heard her say "Oh gosh, it's both sides!" Anne put her hands over her ears, rocking back and forth, and said "She's not talking about me, and if she is, let her be wrong, but she's not talking about me, she's not talking about me..."

Unfortunately, she was talking about Anne, and she wasn't wrong. So she left the ER with a temporary cast, a few pills of Percocet and instructions to contact the Orthopedic surgeon in the morning for a visit.

Okay, enough of third person narrative.

Wednesday, April 13

• Doctor visit - check
• More Percocet - check
• A black boot that the nurse tried to get me to shove my STILL BROKEN ankle into but I refused to - check
• New crutches - check
• A visit to the hospital for blood work, more questions of when my last period was and instructions for the next day's surgery - check

Okay...no, my ankle is NOT usually this big. Later, I'll post comparison photos, but I wasn't thinking well enough to get that before the operation.

Thursday, April 14

I woke up on time for my appointment at 9:15, only to get a phone call to tell me that they didn't need me there until 9:30, only to get another phone call on the way there that they were just kidding, and they really did want me there at 9:15. Oh, Stonewall Jackson Memorial.

On the way to the hospital

 I got there and it was all pretty quick (ok, the mix up with my paperwork when I first got there wasn't) I got wheeled upstairs, changed into a gown, got put on the bed, and hooked up to an iv (after which I forced them to tell me what time it was constantly). They wheeled me into the OR and gave me a "cocktail" that put me out pretty quickly - the last time I remember it being was 10:20. THANK GOODNESS I wasn't allowed to wear my contacts and that I'm basically blind without them, because I would have been so scared if I could actually see what was going on.

So, 45 minutes later, I woke up, and then about 2 hours later (after convincing them that all the morphine they were pumping me with was NOT working, after crying from the pain a lot, after getting Percocet into my system which did work, and after nearly passing out because they made me use the restroom before I could leave and the anesthesia made it really difficult) I was able to go home. I suppose that's the meat of the story. The rest is all mixed in with life, so I'll talk about it with other stuff. 

This is not my ankle.

I have "before" x-rays, but not "after" ones, so I googled ankle x-rays, and found this picture that is pretty dang similar to my screws and plate.

Alright, it's pretty similar to mine (B, obviously) except I have three screws going in on the left side, not just the one and the screws going into the plate on the right side are a little different, but I couldn't really begin to describe how. But like I said, it's pretty close.

He initialed my leg, haha

Missouri Trip - Days 4 - 9

Well. I haven't posted in a while. And I suppose you might want me to finish the blog about my trip (in other words, no one actually reads this regularly, but it's going to bug me forever if I don't finish it).
So.
Here we go!
P.S. Most of the pictures are going to be on the Shutterfly Page for the Missouri trip.

Day 4

(March 8)

A day in Kansas City.
This day was super cool. We went to the City Market, which in the spring, summer and fall is an outdoor farmer's market, but it wasn't open yet for that, but we were still able to go in and buy some cool spices. Pretty sure the guy we bought the spices from was either stoned or just really needed some sleep.

The next place we went was this AMAZING (I would say little, but it certainly was NOT little) local garden shop. 1 million times more awesome than the garden center at Lowes! It's called "Planters" and I fell in love. I may just move to Kansas City just to go shop there more often. Okay, probably not, but I might visit more often to see it.

Look at all of the tea pots! I love tea pots, p.s.

Next up:
The Chinese market.
Oh. My. Gosh. Brandon was in heaven. He loves places like this. So, Planters for me, Chinese Market for him!

Missouri Trip - Day 3

Day 3

(March 7)

Dad works for a company called Northrop Grumman and works out of Fort Leavenworth, so we went to visit him and look around (We spent time in Leavenworth!)

My stupid camera ate through all of its batteries before I could get pictures of all the cool stuff in the museum (full of carriages, horses, and other stuff I can't remember...see why I needed a camera!)

But it was pretty neat - living on the east coast, there's a lot about the mid-west that I don't know, so it was certainly a learning experience.

This is the pathway that many settlers used to get to the Missouri River, which used to be right there, and it's awesome to stand there and just imagine all of the thousands of early Americans that traveled there many years ago.

Buffalo Soldier

Fort Leavenworth - the prison

Playing with the fake mustache we got from the thing-a-ma-thing at the Chinese Restaurant (which was FANTASTIC!!!)

This was the funniest thing in the world to watch - the squirrel wouldn't leave the bird feeder alone and it was so stinkin' cute! He fell a few times, but he always got back up and kept on trying. Lessons for life, right?

Fortunes from the cookies at the Chinese Restaurant - I found those first two amusing.

Well that's day 3! Pretty fun - minus trying to fit 6 people (1 in a car seat) in a 5 seater car!

More pictures on our Shutterfly Page.

Missouri Trip - Day 2

DAY 2 (March 6):

Now that we were in Kansas City and rested (mostly) we spent some good family time. 

Our first (and only) stop was:

We took a little tour of the Liberty Jail, which was really cool - I didn't know too much about it beforehand.

It looks so small!

Sorry for the fuzziness, but I thought that this picture showed the walls and the basement really well.

I always love replicas of the Golden Plates

 Most of the rest of the time was spent just hanging out so I don't have a whole lot more to blog about...

But day two was a success!

We did take more pictures from around the jail, I have them on our Shutterfly Photo Album.

Missouri Trip - Day 1

Just thinking about blogging about the entire trip to Missouri makes me panic. I took 1200+ pictures! Granted, some (a lot) of them were pictures taken by my 4 year old niece and won't be making it into the blog or the scrapbook, but regardless, that's a lot to go through! Plus, that's just a lot of information for one blog post.
So. The plan is to break it up by day. I don't like when people do that, and I've never had an instance when I needed to do it too, but now I have a reason, and I'm going to do it and I no longer blame other people for doing it!
So. Here we go.
Day 1 (March 5):
The journey

{I just wanted to include this picture from when I went down to NC to pick up Beau & Isabella before we officially started our trip because I think it's amazing. I have no idea why there is a stuffed lion there, but I found it hilarious!}

So, in terms of state line pictures, I need you to keep an open mind!
A couple of them were taken at different points in the trip - like this one :)

 So, we left Buena Vista at around...9:00 AM

Brandon took Deadpool along again (see Boston trip pictures)

First state line to cross:

West Virginia!

The only thing I didn't like about West Virginia was that there was a bridge that pretty much went from one mountain top to another and I about had a panic attack. I never would have imagined I would react that way! But...next time I think I'll opt to either be asleep during that section or go around it.

Next up:

I think this was the first time I've driven through Kentucky. Too bad it was raining and I 

couldn't really enjoy it!

Next:

a stop at Big Boy (and a few jokes about local Kentucky people by Beau and Brandon that made 

me afraid that they would all gang up on us and kill us).

After Kentucky:

For SURE the first time I've been in Indiana - Brandon used to live in Indianapolis, though

By this point it was about 7:00 PM and we'd been in the car for 10 hours (10 hours!) and there were still 3 states to go! (through Indiana, through Illinois and then to the other side of Missouri)

Just so you know - I was crankier than Isabella :)

She did have her DVD player, after all

Well, only 2 more state lines to cross....

What, can't see it? Well, you try and take a picture of the state line in a moving vehicle at night!
That does say Illinois, by-the-way.

FINALLY!

{Vision Goggles: we actually crossed into Missouri at around 11 PM, this picture was taken
on the return trip -more on THAT later-}

So...St. Louis, MO is right on the border between IL and MO, so the state line sign was in the city as we crossed over the bridge over the Mississippi River, and we weren't able to get that picture, which actually bums me out, but you know, I got a picture, so I'm good :) I'm so strange about getting state line signs (noticed yet?). In addition...I was the one driving in St. Louis and it was a NIGHTMARE. I have an extremely hard time keeping my calm at night in a city that I travel often, but throw in the fact that I've never been there before and it was terrible! I had to literally peel my fingers off of the steering wheel as we drove out of the city.  Ugh.

Well, St. Louis is on the east side of the state and we were headed to the west side...so there were 4 more hours to go... But we eventually got to Mom and Dad's place at around 3 AM (2 AM local time).
{Uh, in case you weren't counting, that's 18 hours}

Next up:

Day 2! (naturally)

P.S. More pictures on our Shutterfly page.

The incredibly (un)grand adventures of the Entsmingers during the (un)fabulous months of Janurary and February, 2011

Warning: events may or not be in chronological order.

We forgot to keep our "gear" on, so, in
actuality, this picture could have been taken
whenever, but it was on New Years
morning, I promise.

 
I hate the cold. It is awful. And once the new year is over, what is the point of winter? Other than to be dreary and cold and miserable. There was one bout of snow (or maybe two, I'm sure I didn't keep track).

There are, however, two good things about winter.
1) Valentine's Day.
2) It ends, albeit, not as soon as one (I) would like.

Brandon and I trade off years for Valentine's Day (as opposed to our Anniversary, which is always the hubby's job) and it was my year this year. So, I put two of the things that we love the most in life (sushi and movies) together and we had a lovely night in, not just eating sushi, but MAKING sushi! I ate my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2007), and I made my first ever sushi roll with Brandon (2011). Everyone ready to witness the amazingness??

Thank you, thank you, no applaud necessary.

Oh yeah. And it was better than it looks. Which, seeing the magnified picture, doesn't actually compare with Sushi Matsumoto, buuuuutttttt, it's still pretty cool, seeing as how I'm a country bumpkin from North Cakalaki, not a sushi master from Japan. :)
To the right, you will see the entire spread of sushi.  And no, not all of it was consumed in one night - and no, sushi is not as good the next day.
Missing from the photo are: pickled ginger (a brand which we will never again purchase), hoisin sauce (homemade by Brandon L. Entsminger), soy sauce (Kikkoman), and chop sticks (the only way to eat sushi).


Hmmm....other events that occurred during winter:

Our friend Shana's Birthday.

The Super Bowl. XLV - what is that...45? Which if it is, I don't understand why it's not VL. isn't that 45?? L is 50, XL is 40, so why isn't it VL? 45? I don't get it, I guess. I'm a simpleton.

Ah ha, thank you wikipedia:
"Proper form is to subtract only a value with the next lower power of 10. Thus, 900 is written CM, but 990 would not be XM - properly, it is CM for the 900 portion and XC for the 90 portion, or CMXC. Similarly, 999 would not be IM but rather CMXCIX - CM for the 900 portion, XC for the 90 portion, and IX for the 9 portion. Only values with 1's are ever used to subtract; 45 is properly XLV, not VL."
I really am grateful for the internet. It's such a beautiful thing.

Oh, here's a big event. I made my first apple pie! I've "made" plenty of frozen pies in my life, in-fact, I love them. Mrs. Smith is a genius. But there was one day when I just felt like baking, so I did. I baked an apple pie (pictured below), a chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookies (not pictured, because they're not new for me). And man oh man...it was good.

Note to fellow bakers:
Please don't skip (or ignore, or accidentally omit) the step that says to PEEL your apples...
It doesn't change the flavor, but it makes a big difference.

I would go into the story behind the awesomeness that I made my first apple pie, but it's a long, drawn out story, so if you really want to know, you may ask. I just really don't feel like writing the back story. Which probably could have been done in the time it took me to say that I didn't want to do it.
Which reminds me, I was playing a video game recently, and I was following parts of the walkthrough online to get all of the treasures (Tomb Raider, anyone?) and there was an in-particular treasure where the guy said:

******************************************
   *      Treasure: Silver Coatimundi         *
  *                                            *
  * This treasure you can get now but since    *
  * you pass it in a later chapter anyways I   *
  * will list it in that chapter instead. You  *
  * can locate it on your own now if you       *
  * want. I'll point you in the direction of   *
  * where to find it. If you face away from    *
  * the ramp you entered this area from        *
  * search the small area through the tunnel   *
  * at the far left corner of this area.       *
  **********************************************

I'm not even sure why I am saying anything about this here - other than to say it was dumb. Why say you're

not going to tell me where it is, if you're going to tell me where it is? 

p.s. it wasn't actually Tomb Raider, it was Uncharted - which is pretty much Tomb Raider with a boy 

instead of Lara Croft. 

Annnyyyywaaaayyyy......

That's all for today.

Next up is our trip to Missouri to see my parents. :) That'll be a long post. But not as long as the drive!

CAN'T FORGET THE PICTURES!!!
Shutterfly - Winter 2011