Just texted Terry to see if I could find out how Mom’s surgery is going. She texts back this:
Mom went in at 6am. It started at 9am. Supposed to take 4 hours. She will be having her ribs cracked for this one. You can only have a minimally invasive surgery once. Her recovery will be longer because of that. They also have to take out the old ring first before they can start. Will let you know when I do.
Yesterday Mom told me it would be SIX hours, not four. Maybe the actual surgery is four hours, but the time in the operating room is six hours, including prep and closing up? I don’t know. Anyway, I will post more, as soon as I hear it.
Got a call from Terry today. She will be passing on information about Mom’s surgery, which I will post here, for all to see. This way, Dad doesn’t have to make a million phone calls. Well, I may exaggerate. Not a million, but he’ll tell Terry what’s going on, and she’ll tell me, and I’ll post it here, for anyone who is interested. So here is the first bit of information:
Mom is scheduled for surgery this coming Monday (December 5). She’s going to a hospital she likes, and the doctor is the one who did Dad’s surgery a while back, and that went well, so she feels good about his skills as a surgeon. I talked to her this morning, and she has a positive attitude about the whole thing. I’m sure she’s just looking forward to having this DONE. So Monday is good, not too far away.
Joey is visiting us, on his way from Oklahoma to Florida. Yesterday we spent some time together doing a bunch of stuff, including getting him a haircut at the local barber. Today I’m going to have him help me with a few little projects around the house, while we also watch football, make a lasagna, and a “Four Layer Delight” for desert.
It’s good to have him around, and to hear his new plan for his life. He’s going to follow his dream of making music. I’m on board, since I think dreams are a wonderful thing to follow, but it’s probably best to follow them while you’re young and unencumbered. Later on, when he’s married with kids, there’ll be plenty of time for doing what’s “normal,” mature and responsible. I would love it if his music plans did indeed pan out! Then maybe instead of him just recommending new bands to me, he might be IN the new band he recommends! That would be cool.
I say Joey is “unencumbered,” but not exactly, because he has Reggie. Yes, he got a dog. A pug. And Terry, you’ll love this: when I asked him why a dog and why a pug, he said he remembered going over your house and playing with Corky and Peanut and deciding that someday he wanted to have a pug. As you can see, Reggie is a chocolate pug. He’s a puppy still, and a bundle of energy! The cats have been a little put off, but after 24 hours or so they’re starting to feel more comfortable about coming out of hiding and finding out what’s going on with this stranger in their house. If Joey was going to be here long enough, I wouldn’t doubt it if eventually they would all be hanging out and having fun together.
Well, that’s just a quick update. I’ll write more later. But today is going to be a busy day! In addition to all the activities I mentioned above, Russ and I also need to post our next podcast!
My brother James showed me this one. Look at the picture, who do you see? Albert Einstein….or Marilyn Monroe? If you don’t see Marilyn Monroe, just take a few steps back…she’ll appear.
First: about my new bag. It’s working out great! I love all the pockets, but best of all, the strap is perfectly shaped and proportioned. With some bags, you swing it over your shoulder, and it doesn’t seem to want to stay there, or it digs in. But with this bag, I swing it over my shoulder and it sits snugly against my back. As I said: perfect.
In other news, Joey is getting ready to make his trip back to Florida and will be visiting with us in a couple of weekends. Woo hoo! Get to see Joey! Also, I think we’ve worked out a way that the dog can stay in the house, by gating off the kitchen. I just hope the cats won’t get too freaked out about a “stranger” in their midst.
Things are starting to get pretty busy at work, which is good, because the days pass very quickly. So far, it’s busy, but not stressful.
Russ and I just watched a documentary on ESPN about the Alabama/Auburn rivalry. Most interesting and educational. At the end they did a segment about the Tuscaloosa tornado, and there’s a shot of the pile of rubble that used to be Russ’ office.
Still working on organizing the front room. Getting very close to having it completed. I’ll post pictures when it’s done.
The weather is getting cooler, been wearing my boots most days. Wonder if we’ll have snow again this winter…
Got a coupon in the mail: go to JC Penney’s and get $10 off anything you buy. Last time I got one of these coupons I bought a couple of nice decorative candles for about $3.00, and the time before that some comfy slippers for $1.99. So I thought I’d go take a look around and see if anything appealed to me.
I have this thing about purses. Bag. Handbags. Pocketbooks. Some people collect stamps, or Hot Wheels, or….comic books. I tend to collect bags. So I’m wandering through the handbag section at Penney’s and this beautiful knapsack jumps out at me. Not *literally* jumps out. But it almost might as well have. Bright colors, big pockets, not to mention the cute little monkey. My Inner Teenager just had to have it.
Actually, my Inner Teenager wanted to get the bag in vivid turquoise. I had to talk her into the more subdued purple. But I think it’s a compromise we can both be happy with.
For one crazy moment I had the idea that perhaps this bag could be everything I’ve ever wanted in a bag, and I might finally be able to stop looking and buying. I’ll let you know in a few days if this new bag works out as well as I’m hoping it will.
And if it does….maybe I’ll go back and get the turquoise one as well.
Russ and I have learned something new! Well, actually, he has learned it, and he’s going to teach me how to do this, once he gets really good at it. We have created a You Tube account, so that we can put little video clips on to our website, www.collinsport.net as a visual aid for our podcast of The Drawing Room.
Here is the first little clip, which will be added to next week’s podcast. Which by the way, will be the tenth podcast we’ve produced! To set the scene…Barnabas is just beginning to realize that Maggie is beginning to lose her mind, and…well…watch the eyebrows….
Yes, it’s very short. We’re starting simple. More to come in the future. It’s just always fun to learn something new, and add a new dimension to a creative project.
Right now, my job is enjoyable. I hate that it takes away so much time from other things that I would RATHER be doing, but…such is life. Gotta work. Getting a little pay raise a while back makes it easier to bear the “have to do” aspect of my day, and being busy at work also makes the time pass quickly.
But, boy! I sure am glad when that “have to do” is over each evening, and I get to come home, to my “Home Sweet Home” and see my kittie kats, and Russ and I sit down together to eat dinner and watch a show. Hey! Dinner and a show: every night is like Date Night around here! 🙂
Anyway, the very best moment of the day is when we have dinner on the table and are just sitting down. We don’t sit at a regular “normal” table. We sit in the living room, in front of the TV, and eat from the “coffee table.” But our coffee table is a special kind of coffee table. It has this mechanism so that you can LIFT up the top of the table to a more comfortable height for eating. What a fabulous invention!
So each night, we sit down at our coffee table, with our food before us, and the TV on, and go “One…two..three…LIFT!” And then we lift up the top of the table together. And I will swear to you that in that moment when the top of the table comes UP, I feel my blood pressure go DOWN a few points, and I feel so much of the tension of the day just…drain out of me.
It’s a moment I look forward to every night. Table top up…ahhh, relax… It is, without a doubt, the best moment of my day.
As Russ and I are doing research for our Dark Shadows podcast, we run into a lot of stuff about the 1960’s, and always enjoy the memories. Here’s something Russ found earlier today, that should really make you smile, and sigh nostalgically, if you were alive during that time. This is from the60sofficialsite.com.
How Did We Survive?
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn’t get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
We had no child proof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren’t overweight because……
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
We did not have Pay-stations, Nintendo’s, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms……….WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays,
We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.
We rode bikes or walked to a friend’s house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Little League had try outs and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
Now! Having said all that, having taken that trip down Memory Lane, having offered something “old,” let me follow with something “new.” At least this is new to me, because I just found this on You Tube the other day, while looking for new songs by one of my new favorite bands, Fall Out Boy. There is something about this video that is so compelling. I think it’s the colors, and the costumes, and well…yeah, the music too. I just find this so fascinating. (Note: you may have to get past the ad at the beginning, but once you do, you’re in for a real visual and audio treat!)
The other day they had a “Health Fair” at work. Russ and I got our flu shots, had our blood pressure taken, and put our names into a drawing for prizes which, I’m guessing, we did not win. Also picked up lots of cool giveaways, like pens, pencils, notepads, emory boards, keychains, etc.
A local restaurant, McAllister’s, was serving free food, but in the morning the line was so long, we did not wait. However, later that day I decided to go back over to see if I could still get me some of that free food.
It was about an hour before the Fair was scheduled to end, and all they had left was unsweetened iced tea and vegetarian chili. Both of which are fine with me, but it struck me as ironic that the healthiest offerings were the dregs. All the sweetened tea, meaty chili, meaty little sandwiches…all that was gobbled up first by the attendees at the “Health Fair.” Vegetarian and unsweetened? Yeah, still got some of that stuff to
the bitter end.
Then again, I saw one of the vendors raffling off a giant basket of chocolate. Hmmm…
