LOOK WHAT I FOUND!

So, as I slaved away at cleaning up my craft room/office last night, I kept finding all kinds of precious little treasures. Some of my favorites...

The Blue Day Book: my mom gave me this a few years ago. It's a really fun little book. Good for at least a few smiles and giggles. It's full of pictures of animals with a single line written below each (like the one with a pictures of a monkey sitting on top of a cactus and the line, "Maybe work is a pain in the butt."

An unopened copy of Anna and The King. It's a fantastic movie. But we already owned it when I received this copy when I was sick a little over a year ago so I tucked it away. And I mean really tucked it away. It has been sitting in the tornado alley that is my craft room for just as long.

I also found a baby teether that no one in our house has needed or used for close to a year.

Then there was the Pez dispenser with Santa's head on top. He's kind of a strange looking Santa...he has these white stripes on his face that I'm sure are supposed to be a moustache but they have light blue lines on them. What's up with that?

Oh - and Elmo's hand. No, we aren't doll/toy destroying weirdies...it's a paper hand that was ripped out of a board book we have. There's a pop-up Elmo at the end of it and his hand was apparently torn off when some excited child (aka Claire) was "reading" the book. And it wasn't the first time it had been amputated, either. It's totally covered in tape - obvious evidence of skillful tape-surgery on my part when Hudson was a tike. Now I just need to locate the book and perform my magic again.

Next we have my 2-lb. weights. Bought them years ago when I was working out to an exercise DVD a few times each week. I'm actually really glad I found them because I need to dust that DVD off and get crackin' on working out again.

There is also an old card that I found many years ago. It's a picture of Han Solo and Leia going in for a kiss. Her thought bubble says, "I'm the luckiest girl in the galaxy." and his says, "She's the luckiest girl in the galaxy." I still find it amusing.

Next we have a little plush bunny on a ribbon. It goes to a "plush"/fabric book that my mom gave to Hudson when he was just a wee toddler. You're supposed to move the bunny from page to page as it goes about getting ready for bed. Can't really do that when the cute little rodent hasn't been attached to the book for at least a couple of years now, can you?

Lastly is a little pair of white, tan, and pink argyle mittens that I purchased from Crazy 8 for Claire...about 18 months ago. Still new with tags. For some reason, I don't think she'll be using a pair of size 6-12 month mittens anytime soon.

Anyone want a DVD of Anna and The King or a pair of baby girl's mittens? Both are up for grabs and if you're the first one to leave a comment claiming one, it's all yours. I'll even pay the postage.

In my mission to clean up my messy room, I went through my old records and paper files (and I mean OLD) and found just a few things to shred.

The sink that my shredding stack is resting in is about 6 inches deep...nearly 5 inches of that is taken up by the papers. And speaking of the papers, I found some interesting stuff there, too. Like the sales contract and a copy of my insurance information from when I got my Land Rover Disco II. Not such horrible things to have. But I bought it back in 2003 and traded it in for my Expedition back in 2005. Not so sure that I need the paperwork anymore. I also found some documents from when we replaced all the windows. In our old house. Before Hudson was born. Uh....

The one thing that I found interesting in my going through all those papers (no paper cuts, by the way, thank you!) was a number of old bills from hospitals and documents from our insurance company showing the cost of some of the "stuff" we went through back in 2007 and early 2008. Here are a few fun figures:

Hospital charges for 2 nights/3 days when I had Claire:

Mine $4,729.85 (and that's before my OB or the anesthesiologist)

Claire's $1,473.63

MRI of my 1st spinal MRI back in November 2007: $1745.94 (one of the "cheap" MRI's I've ad)

Charges for my spinal surgery in November 2007:

Neurosurgeon $6,676.90

Hospital $49,632.81 (if I remember correctly, my tiny little titanium implants were around $5,000.00 alone)

Anesthesiologist $2, 925.00

Assistant Surgeon $4,000.00 (it was more than that but I can't find the paper now)

Charges for Max's hip resurfacing in February 2008:

Physician $5,225.00

Hospital $48,711.07

Charges for my brain surgery in March 2008:

Hospital $23,105.52

ENT $9,640.00

Neurosurgeon $$23,531.27

Anesthesiologist $2,111.00

I left out Max's two hand surgeries that were in September and October of 2007...didn't see any of the figures on those. All I can say is thank the heavens above for insurance, adjustments, and having met our out of pocket before my surgery in November '07. Granted we had to meet it again in '08 but that was taken care of with Max's hip surgery.

P.S. Also found some AWESOME recipes that had been hiding with Anna and The Kind in my ironing basket (where else should I have put them?). You can bet I'll be posting a few in the next week or so!