Can't swallow

I had my second visit today with the new orthodontist. Dr. Larry Schrader. He, Peppard and Gallagher all work closely together. Because I have such a small mouth, all dentists have a hard time working in there. I needed have all new molds of my teeth made so Dr. Schrader could hook them up to his own "fake jaw/mouth." I can't remember what they call it, but it shows them exactly how my teeth and jaw interact.

Anyways, I told him that Dr. Peppard had molds but Schrader said he needed his own set. He had me opening and closing my mouth, taking measurements this way and that, moving my mouth from side to side, jutting my lower jaw forward then backward, and recording it all. Finally, he said it was time to take the molds. He got the smallest set he had and put the top and then the bottom into my mouth, separately, then took them out, just wanting to see how they would fit. I told him I had a strong gag reflex. He said he had some spray that would numb my throat and mouth just for 5 min or so to get the molds in and set. Ok. He sprayed and as the numbing effect began occurring I began not being able to swallow and breathing was difficult. Dr. Schrader and his 2 helpers stood and watched as I struggled. I hopped out of the chair because lying back made it so much worse. They gave me some water to drink, which I sipped.

Finally the numbing agent did start to wear off and it was easier to swallow and breathe. I told them if any of my kids were there I would be accused of being a drama queen. But they were all kind and concerned (as visions of the last several years' profits evaporated before their eyes if I happened to go kerplunk).

Returned to the chair, leaned back and they prepared the molds with goo and inserted first the bottom, waited 5 min for it to set, then the top. Done with few probs, no gagging, etc. Oh, first they took some wax bites of my front, side, and I think bottom teeth.

All this is preparing me for my new job as Torturer for the Army.

House painted

This week the painters were here painting the outside. I actually enjoy painting, but not something like this. I wouldn't care to be climbing on the roof trying to get the eves and stucco. Looks quite nice.

I had a hard time falling asleep last night, so I got up and turned on the front porch light. A white lizard, about 7-8 inches, was on the underside of the porch overhang, just sitting there upside down. His white coloring really stood out against the newly painted green. I wonder where he hides out during the day.

It's still dark at 6:30am now. It's supposed to rain today, so Rick brought in some towels and other swim stuff, telling me he checked for wildlife, but I shook it all and peered down pant legs and inside t-shirts just to make sure. Don't need any more centipedes, or white lizards, hiding out.

Kohl's

All the retailers are having a hard time with trying to grab market share. Kohl's and Penney's in particular have my number, with the top department store hustling me being Kohl's. I just got another mailer for percentage off - you peel the sticker and see if it says 10%, 20%, or 30%. It used to be rare and hard to get the 30% off coupon; now that is what I get regularly. Another one yesterday.

I feel almost compelled to use it. If Kohl's is going to go to all that trouble to send me a coupon for 30% off, the least I can do to show my appreciation is to use it.

Now, what do I need?
Nothing.
I guess Stella needs a new dress.

Jaw update

I saw my occlusion specialist last week; he said he had gotten my jaw in the correct position and stabilized it as much as possible, now I had to decide on the course going forward. The time before he had taken 5 impressions of jaw at different positions to help him decide on the best plan of action. And the winner was:
1. orthodontics to get my teeth moved around into the best possible position. It will not be perfect - it can't be - the last ortho treatment 20 years ago screwed up an already bad bite.
2. surgery. It turns out my jaw has a "congenital deformity," meaning the bottom jaw did not develop properly and is too far back.
3. dental work, including 6-8 caps, 2 teeth pulled, implants or a bridge with a fake tooth

This will all take 2 1/2-3 years and will cost $30,000-35,000. Yes that is 3 zeroes. At the time I said let's do it right. Then I went home and thought that's a lot of money, that's a lot of time and pain. I went ahead and set up appointments with the orthodontist and oral surgeon for consultations on Sept 29 and 30. I had to go back to Doc Peppard on Tues for x-rays, but I have been going back and forth if I really wanted to do this. So I set up an appointment for today for another consultation with him.

He must think I'm a dummy because he has been explaining it very well all along. I remember when I was trying to decide about the splint and had already gotten it and was wearing it. I went back in to talk with him again, telling him I was undecided. He said, You have to do this, your jaw is never going to get any better without it. So okay then.

This time it was the same way. My options are:
1. wear the splint for the rest of my life
2. do his plan

He is quite kind, I trust his expertise and knowledge (unlike knuckle-head Slysh/office in Philly) takes all the time I need, explains things well each visit, but said this time, You just really need to do this. You're too young to try and deal with this messed up jaw for the rest of your life. Well, okay then.

He told me to bring Rick in and he could go over it all with him too. (He also said you seem to have a supportive husband, and that's very nice. I agree.)

But that is a bunch of money!!! I have always been a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner, hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire, a tight-fisted, wrenching....

Anyways, looks I'm doing orthodontics for the 3rd time in my life, then surgery, then tons of caps, digging out old fillings...I should join the Army and be able to help them with their water-boarding and other torture techniques, I will be such an expert by the end of this.

Hair brush woes (she might need her mom's magical one that Nano has)

When Paige was a few years older than this, and round brushes were a new-fangled invention, she tried to fix her hair with it and got it all tangled, just like poor little Macy. Unfortunately, Nano wasn't as patient as Paige (I'm very sorry to say). Macy has such an expressive little face and body, so adorable, I just had to blog this.

Barbies

I didn't have any Barbies for the ggrrls to play with when they were here so I looked on Craigslist to buy some but they were all boxed and quite expensive for used Barbies. Paige buys them all the time at yard sales for $1; I asked Paige to get me some but she always seemed to need all she bought. She claimed she needed them all for her ggkids! She wanted to have the largest Barbie collection ever.

A few days ago I looked on Craigslist and found some for a good deal and made arrangements to buy them. I ended up with 22 Barbies and 8 little girls and a car and a large flat pink tub to store them. Now needed: some ggrrls to play with them.

Texas redheaded centipede

Loverly thing, and not little. I found him on my dining room floor this morning and quickly threw a plastic bowl over him so he couldn't get away before Rick came home to deal with him. He is poisonous, the sting probably wouldn't kill a human but would hurt for days (and the pics of wounds on the internet were gross looking), but I don't know if that includes little kids and babies. He was about 9 inches long and mean looking. Rick picked him up with a fly swapper, and the critter kept moving on the swapper. I was saying, "Kill him, kill him!" which Rick was reluctant to do. Finally he agreed and took him over to the rocks to squish him.

I certainly don't want him back in the house. It makes me fearful now to get up in the middle of the night for the bathroom. I don't put on my glasses or turn on the light until I'm there. I might have to change my methods.

Now I suppose no one will ever visit me again. The cold weather of Utah is sounding better and better; at least it kills off all that type of wildlife.

Sisters Tsarnaev and the Boston bomber brothers

I really don't want to turn this into a political blog, it frustrates me too much to learn of the things we as a country put up with, especially from certain immigrants, either legal or illegal. I don't listen, watch, or read nearly as much as I used to, dating from the last election that Obama and his minions stole. But I had to copy and paste this, I felt such anger after reading about the sisters of the Boston bomber brothers:

The Sisters Tsarnaev have been nothing but trouble. Double, bubbling trouble. While their Boston Marathon bomber brother Dzhokhar awaits trial this month for the bloody 2012 attacks that killed three and injured hundreds, his elder Chechen immigrant siblings Ailina and Bella remain on the loose in the U.S. after their own frequent run-ins with the law.
Last week, Ailina was arrested in Harlem after allegedly threatening “to blow up her live-in lover’s baby mama,” as the New York Post reported. Police charged Ailina, 23, with aggravated harassment and released her.

In 2013, she was released without bail in South Boston in connection with a three-year-old counterfeiting case. Prosecutors said she obstructed their investigation. They charged her with willfully lying to police in 2010. She skipped bail in 2011. Upon turning herself in last year after the Boston bombing, she told the court she was indigent, pregnant, and a single mother with one other child. The case was dismissed. She has bounced between shelters and shabby apartments shared with sister Bella.

The article goes on to describe all the welfare, food stamps, and other money they have and are still receiving from the tax payers of America. And lists other illegal activities, drug use they continually partake in. And for some reason those public officials who should be monitoring/prosecuting this do nothing. Totally frustrating. And the entire Western world puts up with this on an ongoing basis, usually Muslims from Mid-Eastern countries. Europe has almost given up their own identity, willingly. At least the politicians have, and the socialized citizens are too indifferent to care.

I won't even get into what happened in Rotherham in England, by the men of the Pakistani community. Too sickening and vile and heartbreaking to even read much about, and the "authorities" allowed to continue for decades. Where were the feminists and lefties? Covering their eyes, pretending it wasn't happening, not wanting to "offend" the rapists. Horrible.

Global warming: fail. It became religion for many warmists - and they followed and believed - despite what the actual science said. That they could message and manipulate, and they did.

The world faces record-breaking temperatures as the sun’s activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted for the next five years, according to a study.
The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. But new research firmly rejects that argument. The research, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean, of the US Naval Research Laboratory, and David Rind, of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Fail. Five more years of no warming followed.

Professsor Ross McKitrick says in a new paper that the warming pause has now lasted an astonishing 19 years at the surface and 16-26 years in the lower troposphere:

The IPCC has drawn attention to an apparent leveling-off of globally-averaged temperatures over the past 15 years or so.... Here, I propose a method for estimating the duration of the hiatus that is robust to unknown forms of heteroskedasticity and autocorrelation (HAC) in the temperature series and to cherry-picking of endpoints… Application of the method shows that there is now a trendless interval of 19 years duration at the end of the HadCRUT4 surface temperature series, and of 16 – 26 years in the lower troposphere. Use of a simple AR1 trend model suggests a shorter hiatus of 14 – 20 years but is likely unreliable…
While the HadCRUT4 record clearly shows numerous pauses and dips amid the overall upward trend, the ending hiatus is of particular note because climate models project continuing warming over the period. Since 1990, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose from 354 ppm to just under 400 ppm, a 13% increase… In the surface data we compute a hiatus length of 19 years, and in the lower tropospheric data we compute a hiatus length of 16 years in the UAH series and 26 years in the RSS series. 

This is “the science”. Why do warmists keep ignoring it?

Leaving on a jet plane...don't know when they'll be back again

  I try to put these pics a certain way; they do what they will and I lose interest in fussing longer. Also, I always complain that I don't take enough, finally remembered at the airport. And last thought, if you want to be immortalized in my blog, send me your pics.

 

Chris and Alyona

This is on their trip to Dallas. They would like to find a house that is older and not taken care of, or newer and still not taken care of, get it for a good price and fix it up.
This pic is of Alyona in front of Magnolia Homes in Waco. The owners are the couple on the TV show "FIXER UPPER."

 

 
I seem to never take enough pics; we get busy and I just forget, so this morning I remembered and went upstairs to take pics. Don't they look cute?!