So last night while I was laying in bed, I made a decision. I gave my old ZA raid a double bird and suggested to DH that we make the trip out to Houston to Teavana. I had a refund burning a hole in my pocket and I wanted some new tea. I bet the ZA raid didn't even miss me anyway, having kicked me due to missing the two raids post-surgery.

"fit me back in" my ass.

I haven't even logged into the game tonight. I spent my evening after we got back drinking tea and watching stuff I'd recorded months ago on the DVR. I figure it's my way of trying to reclaim some of my life back.

So I spent $260 at Teavana. I got many new teas, I wanted so many I had to finally say stop to myself. I also bought a few miscellaneous things, including one of their personal brewing pots. I needed something besides my thermos to brew tea.

So, most of them I got about 3 oz worth of tea. Except for the Haute Chocolate. I smelled that and and immediately asked that she fill a tin. I tried some tonight and damn that stuff is good.

Empress of China - A fusion of Japanese Sencha green tea and a Ceylon black tea with guava pieces, marigold,violet, and rose petals.
Emerald Princess - A luscious blend of Sencha green tea with pineapple, citrus pieces, coconut, cornflowers and rose petals.
Spice Nut Mate - The slightly sweet taste of cocoa with the rich spice blending of coriander, pistachio and macadamia nuts, red peppercorns, and orange peel.
Thai Tea Blend - A delightful Thai restaurant blend of black and red teas, Hawaiian coconut pieces, almonds, and authentic Madagascar vanilla beans.
Gyokuro Imperial - The finest of Japanese teas, Gyokuro bushes are covered for several weeks before harvest with bamboo or straw shades to increase the chlorophyll content of the leaves.
Haute Chocolate - An aromatic blend of chicory, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger and rich cocoa combined with a hearty red Rooibos tea.
Precious White Peach - An incredibly smooth blend of delicious peach pieces and downy white tea buds.
Monkey Picked Oolong - This is the ultimate oolong tea. When infused, the unbroken, evenly sized leaves gracefully unfurl to reveal the most complex Oolong bouquet available.
Peach Tranquility - A delightfully harmonious blend of candied peach pieces, pineapple, lemon myrtle, Roman chamomile, sunflower petals and rosehips create a most peaceful blend.

I've decided that even though it is going to get hot here in Texas soon, I'll continue drinking tea. Some of it is high in antioxidants and promotes good digestion (god knows I need help with that), so it's a small effort to try to get healthier. I've tried a couple of my new teas tonight and plan on delving into the ones I've been receiving as part of my monthly tea club. It's been recommended that for weight loss I drink the Monkey Picked Oolong (no, they don't use monkeys anymore) 4x a day. On the upside, I can use the same teaspoon of leaves for all four cups. I just have to suck it up and drink green tea... it tastes like grass!

In other news, we've upgraded my PC. It's been a long time coming, and it was getting very frustrating raiding with a framerate of less than 10. I can now sit in Hyjal, in windowed mode, with Thunderbird open, and with about 20 firefox windows open and get 20 fps. Wewt. We wound up replacing everything but my harddrive, mouse, and monitor! The things really making the difference are the Intel Dual Core CPU and the 9800 GTX video card. We had to replace my keyboard as well. Jer managed to pick out a board that didn't have PS/2 ports. It's similar to my old one, but a bit different, so I keep hitting wrong keys. oops.

Wish Mikey luck. He's taking his Math TAKS on Tuesday and Wednesday he retakes his Reading TAKS.

Anyway, it's 5am... time to get some sleep before Audrey wakes up.

I've been on the mend for the past week. At this point, I have not been out of the apartment since I returned home from surgery.

I have full blown cabin fever. We so have to go out SOMEWHERE today.

I took myself off of the pain med after a few days. It turned out to be the same stuff as Vicodin and I just don't like how I feel when I am on it. After a couple days the bulk of the pain was gone anyway; I no longer felt like I had been punched in the gut.

Now I just have a lot of soreness and tenderness. I can bend over now, but with a little pain. Crawling on the floor under my desk to plug my USB hub back in after my daughter has knocked it out is Not A Good Idea. Damnit, that hurt!

I will be so very happy when I can sleep on my stomach again! I'm sooooo tired of this sleeping on my side and back crap.

I am very surprised that the kitten is patient with Audrey. When I was 4, if I kept picking up a kitten and taking it back to where I wanted it after it left, I would have gotten myself scratched for my trouble. Monkey... Tolerates it. He just hangs there in her arms, and lets her put him back where she wants him. I feel so sorry for him sometimes, that I have to rescue him and hide him somewhere...

Your Thinking is Concrete and Sequential

You are precise, orderly, and realistic. You tend to get to the point and get things done. Difficult, detailed work is easy for you. You take things step by step. Time limits aren't a problem for you either. You work well with deadlines. What does drive you crazy is any sort of task that isn't precisely laid out. You don't like anything to be ambiguous. You prefer to deal with the facts at hand.

What Kind of Thinker Are You?

Gall bladder came out yesterday. When I saw the surgeon on Monday he said it was "packed full of stones" and that it "must come out".

The outpatient surgical center was really nice. Everyone was so friendly. I was prepped and I had about an hour to sit and read my book. I'm not quite sure what time I went back into surgery, but I had arrived at the center at 9am, and basically went straight back after paperwork.

When they were ready for me, they gave me a drug to help me relax. I'm not quite sure when they gave me the sedative. I remember being moved onto the surgical table and my arms being strapped down away from me while they were putting the monitors on.

After that, the next thing I knew, I was coming to and the clock across on the wall said 12:33. I was in an out for about 2 hours while on a gas mask - they were trying to get me to clear my lungs, but my belly hurt, so it was hard to take a deep breath and expel. I was also apparently on morphine the first two times they gave me pain killers, but I could still feel pain so they switched me to something else. I don't remember what it was called.

About 2:30 they told me that Jerry was on his way and that I could leave soon. Hurray. Not much exciting after that. Sleep, food, pain killer, ice pack, sleep, food, pain killer, WoW, pain killer, sleep....

So I'm 24 hours post-op. I can take my gauze bandages off now, but must leave the steri-strips on until they fall off. The pain bothers me more today than it did last night. I have this ache in my gut like I've been punched. I have to get up and move around periodically to keep the muscles from becoming stiff.

I also tire quickly. Jer and I spent some time doing quests neither of us had done yet on our shamans. After 2 hrs I figured I'd been playing long enough and wanted to "change positions" to watch some TV. Soon after snuggling down on the couch I was so horribly sleepy. So I went to bed after L&O:CI.

Jer and I had some before-sleep entertainment in the form of a kitten who jumped up on the bed and discovered the wonderful world of "feet under a blanket". Heh. He's horribly cute. Although when I look at him a certain way, he reminds me of Wolverine.

Monkey has this ... habit of where he likes to take his nap when I am on my computer.



Sometimes when I move him, he will stay where I put him.



But not always. The desk photos I took while I was supposed to be kiting ghouls in Mount Hyjal. You can see what space he left me. If he gets to be too much of an interference, I just move him. But he's too cute to just move.