I missed the last week or two of posts, partly because there was a lot going on, including surgery… but a lot because I was just lazy.  :-)

I’ll back-date my next post and fill everyone in on the actual surgery, but today I’ll just focus on what’s going on today. It sure would be a heck of a lot simpler if I could just do all the days in order, huh?

Woke up this morning at 7:45a — Sarah and E were already downstairs getting ready for school, so I attempted getting up for about 10 minutes or so, but really couldn’t get the leverage I needed to pull myself up. Since I couldn’t get to the TV remote, and since I really had to go the bathroom anyway, I figured I’d just call for Sarah… but my mouth and throat were so dry it took a few minutes to even get anything audible to come out. Saaa…rrrrahhhh….. (no response). Again… no response. Louder…. no response. I banged on the floor with my foot. More yelling. Nothing. Hmmm. No what? I edged my way over across the bed with a little butt-scooch, got the phone and intercommed her. Mission: Complete! (In her defense, she didn’t expect me to be even CLOSE to getting up yet, plus she was all the way down in the basement…)

Kinda dizzy when I first got up, but not too bad… probably from lack of food (and a little from the meds), so I sat down to have an Herbalife shake, mini bagel and half banana. As soon as I sat down, the hiccups started. Of course. Just what you want when you’re trying to get over abdominal surgery.  BLECH.

It’s really been going pretty well, all things considered – no nausea, pain at a manageable level, and people to help me get up and around. Even Ethan’s helping his daddy and being very careful not to “bump the belly”. I think tonight will be somewhat of a return to normal as far as food is concerned… and although I won’t be able to give Ethan his bath, I have been able to get him ready for bed and do a somewhat modified bedtime routine.

Sitting here typing this, I am becoming even more aware how fortunate I am to have so many people in my life that care about me. I am grateful for all the calls, visits, well wishes and prayers… keep ‘em coming!

Song for the day: “I thank You” as recorded by the Commitments.

If you haven’t seen the movie The Commitments, you MUST. They are one of my favorite “movie bands” of all time. What are your favorites? Comment below!

Here are mine, in no particular order:

The Commitments
Spinal Tap
The Wonders (That Thing you Do)
School of Rock
The Folksmen ( from A Mighty Wind)

Today, I learned some interesting things about myself: I really didn’t get nervous at all about my gall bladder surgery today…  I wasn’t expecting to be freaking out, but I was pretty calm the whole time. The only time I got a little choked up was when I was saying goodbye to Ethan at the breakfast table. At the hospital, everything went smoothly… we found the place easily, were on time, got checked in OK, and everyone I dealt with was SUPER nice. Big ups for Good Samaritan Hospital. Unfortunately I can NOT give big ups to the gown they made me wear… “Hey, how about another tie on the back somewhere LOWER than the shoulder blades, huh?” Sarah’s uncle David used his “Pastor Badge” and came by before surgery and prayed with me (a super cool thing to do!) and I went in actually a little before schedule. What seemed to be a 90-year old nurse wheeled me back solo — or at least tried to.  God bless her, she REALLY tried and was super nice… but after about 4 times banging into the walls and 3 times into other people, someone came to help her. After getting me into the ER, they helped me transfer to the operating table and then put in the IV, whereupon they said, “OK, now we’re going to give you a little something to make you go to sleeee…” P. That was all she wrote. I was out. Woke up around an hour and a half later, and much to my surprise, was not groggy at all. Nurse #7: “Hello, Mr Rezer… how are you feeling?” Me: “Um, I’m OK… did you guys operate yet?” Nurse #7: “Yeah, honey… we’re actually all done…” Me: (confusedly) “Seriously?” Wow – so weird. I totally felt like myself — and I suppose the pain meds were partially to blame for that — but I didn’t feel like anything had even happened. At 1:30 or so I started to feel a little pain, but on a scale of 1-10 it was about a 1 while I was sitting there and 3 when I tried to move. No biggee. At 2pm they offered me a carbonated beverage (WHY???) and Sarah and I settled in for the recovery. Some more people came in to talk to me, and then at 3pm I decided it was time to get up and try to go the bathroom. VERY interesting. Wow. All kindsa woozy and stuff sloshing around and repositioning inside me. Very weird. Sarah and the nurse helped me up, and as soon as I was able to balance myself, they helped me  down the hall. Came back to the bed, laid back down again, then we decided to do a crossword puzzle to pass the time… At 4pm I was ready to leave… SO bored. Time to go… all I was gonna do was lie around there anyway, so I figured why not go home and beat the rush hour traffic? Got home with no issues, had an Herbalife shake for dinner, a piece of broccoli and a spoonful of mac ‘n cheese. Everyone was amazed that I was home already — including me. Gotta love modern medicine! So overall, a pretty crazy day. I’m happy to be home and ready to start recovery. And now, as I like to say, “Here’s a little boobly”… Michael Buble that is… Here’s Feelin’ Good on Lala. Listen Now.

Finally got the package for Philly sent off today. Unfortunately it won’t arrive for Dad’s B-day which is actually today, but it will probably get there before Morgan’s. And we totally missed Tyler’s… oh well, 1 out of 3 ain’t bad, no matter what Meatloaf says (see song of the day, below).

Played some Wii baseball tonight, and unfortunately Dad’s Mii STILL can’t hit that outside curve. Luckily there are a lot of things he CAN do… and has done… for both Rich and I. He’s always been there for us, our families and kids and always seemed to be able to “make it work”. Whenever we had questions about directions, how to do “manly things” like install an appliance, wire a light fixture or fix the car, he’s always had the right answer — or at least offered good advice. One of my favorite memories of a project like this was when I was trying to install a light fixture and I took digital pix of it with my phone and then sent them to him for a diagnosis!

We’ve truly been blessed to have such a wonderful loving father, role model and friend.

Happy Birthday Dad!

And in a strange coincidence… the song of the day today was performed by Meat Loaf, also the name of one of Dad’s favorite dishes.  :-)

Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad… a classic Meatloaf tune from Bat Outta Hell. Enjoy.

Just kidding…  

Today was a GREAT day. We slept in (a little) and decided that instead of heading to church, we’d play hookie. Hung out all day, exchanged gifts (actually, I got my gift from Sarah a few days earlier cause she couldn’t wait…) and went out for a bit with E to get out of the house. At 5:30 we headed out for V-Day dinner at Mt Adams Fish House. It did NOT disappoint. Thanks for the suggestion Jim!

We decided that we were going to get sushi, so we started off with drinks, two specialty rolls plus some edamame. Next we dug in to an Asparagus Pastry w/chevre and some other yumminess which I couldn’t quite place, and finished with a pear tart. Quite the nice little meal… and the service was good too. I’ve heard entrees are hit or miss, but I’d definitely recommend the sushi!

From there we headed for some Yagoot, another one of our favorite haunts, and shared a medium Pomegranate with blueberries and granola. Again, YUM… Took a stroll around Whole Foods and got some snacks and things as well — and can I say it’s a much different experience without a certain 4 year old hanging on us! I think we actually even had time to look in EVERY aisle…

Finally, we tracked down a RedBox that actually had a movie we wanted to see (the remake of “Fame”) and settled in for the rest of the night.

And a great Valentine’s Day was had by all…

Song for the day — according to Sarah, this is one of the best love songs ever.

James Taylor really knows how to do it right…  Something in the Way She Moves.

I realize the subject of today’s post isn’t a song title. I just don’t know what song I’m going to use at this point.

Took a little day trip today to visit friends. Lunch at Monical’s Pizza, home of the bizarre yet strangely tasty thin crust pizza that tastes great with their special French dressing. Yes, I know… weird as HECK. I hate French dressing… but this actually makes it taste even better.

Hung out with Sara and Mike in the afternoon and had a great home-cooked meal — ham, mac & cheese and corn bread muffins. Sara really outdid herself. And unfortunately, I think I outdid myself — ATE. TOO. MUCH.  

Played some games after E retired for the evening and headed home around 10pm or so — it was a long drive back, but thankfully uneventful. It was a great day.. except for…

THE GREAT PACKAGE FIASCO.

Tried early in the AM to send a package out to Mom and Dad that had a bunch of Feb birthday gifts — but FedEx Kinkos was closed at 9:20am, USPS was sold out of large boxes, and the UPS shipper wanted $30 to send the stuff… so against my better judgment, we waited until we could send from Indy… except I showed up at 4:20 — 20 minutes after the UPS Store closed. ANNOYING.

Now, for the song of the day, I could give you a song about Pizza, or a song about Mac and Cheese, but that would be a little silly and a little too obvious. I’m sure there are plenty of songs about ham as well, or maybe even some about crockpots. I’m not going there — besides, I’m saving my food-related song post for the 16th. Just you wait…

I can’t even use “Code Monkey”, a song Mike V turned me on to, cause I used it yesterday. ..

No, today’s post is going to be a song I heard in the pizza joint on the radio as part of some compilation smooth jazz kinda thing… great song originally recorded by Stevie Wonder called “As”. We did a version in France at our coffee house when we went over there as part of a mission trip back in 2004. If you don’t know this song, you should get familiar with it. Beautifully written… another Stevie masterpiece.

Unfortunately LaLa doesn’t carry the version we did  by Nicole Nordeman — so I’ll try to link to it on iTunes.

And here’s the original by Stevie Wonder

In a previous life, I was a developer. Every once in a while I dabble again, and start messing with things that I probably should just leave to the professionals. I think with a little bit of actual training and some classes, I might even be dangerous… (ah, who am I kidding? I’m already dangerous!)

Been working on a number of projects this week — at work, it’s been ad serving, modifying Javascripts, creating email signup forms and a few other things. Some personal projects include setting up some new analytics on my blog, exploring/modifying some WordPress templates and trying to find a good audio player plugin so I can start streaming my “song of the day” instead of relying on LaLa.com. (I’m almost there…) I may have settled on the XSPF player but I’m not 100% sold yet.

I know if I dedicated more time to learning some additional languages (code) it would be very helpful to me (personally and professionally), but I don’t really have the time. Something would definitely have to take a back seat, and I’m not prepared right now to give up family time, church time or free time needed to keep the side business going. And I’m STILL trying to get back to writing songs again… argh.

Is there anything you wish you could spend more time on or a skill you could perfect?

Comments, please. Then listen to my pretty song below.

CodeMonkey by Jonathan Coulton

Side Note: Did you know the Winter Olympics start today? I didn’t either…

Found out yesterday that the surgery date will be either Feb 22 or 23. Schedule works out good (as good as it can, I guess) cause there’s nothing major going on that week. Typical recovery time is 2 weeks, but I’ll probably come back quicker assuming everything goes as planned. Procedure will be lproscopic and is OUT-PATIENT. What the heck! We’ve come so far…

Since my Dr appt when I found out about all the surgery stuff was actually yesterday, I think today’s post should be more about my lack of posting as of late, making this blog about as effective as a one legged man at a butt kicking contest.

Too many people are commenting on my lameness for not keeping up with my posts. Haven’t decided if I’m going back and filling in the missing days or not, but I guess if I’m gonna, I’d better do it soon before I forget… I am getting older, ya know…

Every time I hear this next song, I think about the good old days when my band used to play this. One night in particular we were “assisted” by a gentleman who clearly had one (or three) too many. I believe there are videos… somewhere…

Listen to “Loser” by Beck.

Do you have a favorite “loser” moment? Or at least a time when you had at least one too many?

Please comment below…

Looks like this is what I need to keep up with my daily posts. I’ll be going back and filling in posts from the other days, but for now I’ll just give you a brief recap of the days, along with this lovely song by Jim Croce.

Thu Jan 28 – I’m not sure what exactly happened on this day. So shoot me. Maybe I’ll remember tomorrow when I do a real post.

Fri Jan 29 – went right from work and played a benefit for the Charlie Matthews Fund (raised $3000!). Got to hang out afterwards with some of my favorite peeps for a late-night nosh  at BJ’s Brew Pub. I had the IPA.

Sat Jan 30 – Kicked the garbage disposal into submission, took all the Christmas stuff to storage and found a missing 1098 resulting in an addtl $240 back on our taxes. Overall a great day, but Day #1 of the great Gall Bladder Experiment.

Sun Jan 31 – Hookie from church, plus a hang-out day with Benji, Liz and Elijah. Lots of games were  played and lots of Wii was… well… Wii’d. Also ate a steak the size of my head… resulting in Day #2 of the Gall Bladder Experiment.

Mon Feb 1 – So. Very. Tired. Was up a good chunk of the night and determined that I may be having gall bladder issues, so I went to see the doc. He concurred. Ultrasound scheduled for Wed AM where we determine if I will have surgery or do something else… “Will somebody get me some sharks with frickin’ laserbeams attached to their frickin’ heads?”

Tue, Feb 2 – Today. And this is what I’m posting (See above). Might change it later. Or might not.

Listen to Time in a Bottle

Interesting side-note: Mr Croce attended the same high school as my dad, and they ran track together, if I remember correctly. They weren’t friends I don’t think, but it’s still kinda cool…