Jamie Janosz

Two things are currently freaking me out a wee bit. One is a dull ache in my tooth. At my last visit, the dentist told me I need multiple crowns. This is no surprise to me - I have terrible teeth, chock full of silver. But, I hate the dentist. No, let me be truthful, I abhor the dentist. And, I really hate spending excessive sums of money on my teeth. But it's hurting a bit more - and that isn't good. Then, last night, I saw a weird little dark blob at the top right-hand corner of my laptop screen. It had dripping lines coming down from it. What!!!???? I panicked. I googled. And, yes, it is probably a bad, dying screen issue. And it will spread and grow, and obliterate my laptop screen - the screen I use for work - every day - every minute. Sigh. I want to fight these things. I want to swish something in my mouth and make that tooth problem disappear. I want to download an app and make that icky dark blob go away and restore my computer screen to its beautiful...

So, I had a slight little meltdown in the middle of Home Depot. We were there to buy a new kitchen faucet, a cement-spreader-thingy, and a Christmas tree. My daughter and I have always held out for live Christmas trees. We would go to a nearby tree farm and chop one down. Or, if we were lazy, we would go to the Menard's parking lot. But, it was still real. I didn't care that it was messy and left a trail of needles coming in and going out. I didn't care that I was terribly allergic so my hands and arms would be covered with a prickly itchy rash when I was done decorating (even if I wore gloves). I didn't care that it slopped pine-needly water all over our carpet or - one year - tipped completely over, ornaments and all, because I bought a tree with a wobbly crooked trunk. I loved my real Christmas tree. But this year I had a small dilemma. We had given away our rusty, inept tree stand when we moved. We thought we'd buy a new one. The new ones were $30 ...