Some pictures to show off.....

Well, just thought I'd show off a couple of pictures. The first is Tay in her goalie gear at practice last Sunday. She now owns all the necessary pads, proper skates & helmet, etc to play goalie. And she's good! Would you believe she's not even 9 yet?!?!?! Look at the size of that kid!!!!! LOL

Anyway, the second pic is not so great (WHY won't my blog show my improved pics?!?!? I trim them and adjust the color, and my blog keeps showing the origional versions), but it's a pic of the flowers I was sent/brought while I was in hospital this past wekk. The 3 yellow roses are from the inlaws. The big bouquet with the pink rose & balloon in the back is from my mom. The single carnation & babies breath is from DH & DD. The white basket of carnations & orchids is from my Sis, her fiance & my niece. And the miniature roses in the front (very hard to see, but you can kinda make it out there on the left) is from my dad. Hoping to have DH take those to Hawk's Farm & Garden and get them repotted for me, so I can keep them permanantly in my living room. And find out how to take care of them. Because I haven't a clue. LOL The yellow pot of pansies toward the back left of the pic is actually a pot of fakes I put together for myself last spring when I was working at Ben Franklin Crafts. LOL I love all my pretty flowers, but honestly I do prefer fakes because they NEVER fade & die. A little dusting, and the fakes always look spiffy & and in full bloom. Ah, well.

So, there you are. Something not so depressing as yesterday's post.

Have a Blessed Day!

Been a very, very interesting week....

Well, surgery on Tuesday morning didn't go QUITE as expected. I was going to go in for a standard tubal ligation done laparoscopically (one small incision through my belly button, another small one lower down on my abdomen, neither larger than a 1/2 inch). I came out having been cut open as if for a c-section, but instead of taking a baby out of me, the Dr. removed a cyst the size of a cantelope from one of my ovaries, and the ovary itself. Rather than going home Tuesday afternoon, I spent Tuesday night and Wednesday till 5 pm in hospital. Rather than baking bread yesterday and taking my daughter to the library today (was going to walk over), I'm sitting around in my pajamas, still incredibly sore, taking forever to even get up from a sitting position, sleeping horribly because I must sleep on my back and wake up twice a night for pain meds. My larger incision site appears some what angry-red and a bit bloody today, which worries me, though the small one in my belly-button is healing nicely. I don't want to have to go back to the dr. to have my larger site looked over again. That would suck. And my belly is so badly bruised from the actual surgery that it hurts to even clean or dry my incision. *sigh* Of course, all these details are SOOOOO much more than anybody wanted to hear, I'm sure. Oh freaking well. You don't want to hear the details (and I am leaving out SOOOOO much, really) then don't read my blog!

Other than my physical details, it's been windy as hell the last couple of days, and today it's rather smoky, as well. So, I'm cooped up in the house, unable to move comfortably, certainly unable to drive anywhere (the muscles that were cut are the same that would be used for pressing the brakes & gas pedals in my car, besides the fact that I'm on narcotics for pain-relief), and it's hot in here, and I'm wearing my pajamas for like the third day in a row. *sigh* Tay and one of her friends are in the livingroom playing a stock-car video game on DH's x-box, so I can't even go veg and watch a movie right now. I don't really feel like crocheting, either. And no matter where I'm sitting, or how, I just can't seem to get comfortable. The computer chair here in the computer room is the MOST comfortable chair in the house (it won't recline so much that it hurts my stomach to sit up, and has excellent back support), but it's still got a fairly hard (not nicely padded) seat. So it gets hard on the bum after a couple of hours.

And no, there was no indication at all that I had this massive cyst inside me until the Dr. had me opened up on the operating table. He said it's a good thing he removed it now, though, as I probably would have been back in a year or so for an emergency removal if it had been left in. Rupturing was mentioned. I'm glad he took it out now, but it just PISSES ME OFF that I even developed this damn thing in the first place. That this had to happen and go and screw up my plans and my life. I'm now taking at least 2 weeks off work, instead of the 1 week origionally planned. Because muscles were cut (though, in such a way that they will be able to knit themselves back together with time), it's going to take a lot longer to recover than if I'd just had the 2 small button-hole incisions that had been origionally schedualed. I HATE being an invalid. I HATE being unable to do for myself. My husband had been great about taking over chores around the house (like there's any choice in the matter, really) and about helping me physically ("spotting" me as I climb in and out of the shower, helping clean my incision site, helping me out of bed if I'm having a hard time), but I still hate needing the help. I'm realizing that I'm NOT a good patient. I don't like needing to be helped. I'm only 27 and I darn well should be able to do things like get in and out of bed, dishes and laundry, and climb in and out of the shower all by myself, thank you VERY much!!!!

Oh, and the nasty looks I got at the grocery store the other night after being released from hospital. We'd stopped to pick up my pain meds (percaset & Ibuprofrin 800 mg), and some easily digestable foods for me (yogurt, light pasta & chicken tv dinners, grapes & applesauce). Well, knowing that I wouldn't be able to walk around the grocery store for the whole time, even though I WAS on 2 percaset & the ibuprofrin, I took the only motorized cart that was available to use (the other had been out of order for 2 days already at that point, and the clerks didn't know WHEN it would be back in commission). Here I was, drugged nicely, trying hard NOT to kill anybody with my little motorized cart, getting nasty glares from all the other healthy people because I was apparently a perfectly fit (at least by all appearances while I was sitting) young-ish woman, driving horribly, and hogging a motorized cart that is only for old people with canes, evidently. The few people that saw me stand and stagger immediately looked contrite; but most people didn't see me stand and stagger, holding my belly, and glared at me as DH walked from one end of the store to the other and back (dropped off the prescriptions at the pharmacy, made our way up and down the necessary aisles to the produce section, paid for our groceries then went back for the meds), along side me. Maybe a wheel-chair would have been a better choice. At least a wheelchair must come from the Dr's office, and I could have sat there holding my belly and groaning, instead of pathetically operating the cart in a stop&go manner all over the store.

Anyway, so that's been my kicker of a week. I see the Dr. again on Monday (providing I don't have to go see him this evening or tomorrow about a bleeding, possibly infected, incision site) for my follow-up, but it will still be at least 1 more week after that before I'm allowed to go back to work. Pray I don't get so annoyed with my situation that I start swearing uncontrolably at strangers and passing dogs. Like I need anymore strangers glaring at me because I look like an incredibly lazy housewife.... Add swearing at said strangers to the list, and I'd probably get CPS called on me for being such a reprobate. *wry smile*

Have a Blessed Day.

A bit of craftiness from this past week....

Well, I certainly didn't get MUCH made done this week, but here's the one bit of craftiness I did get done. The oldest daughter of the woman who babysits MY daughter turned 8 on Sunday, last. So I figured I'd better get a little gift together for her. I keep a few girly gifts stashed in my closet for unexpected party-gift necessities. So, I tossed in 2 little "toy-doll" craft kits, a cloth hankie, a tube of lip-gloss, and made a little draw-string purse to put it all in. Told the girl it's so that she's got something to take her necessesities to church on Sundays (big into church, that family). But a girl's gotta have a way to carry the basics, nonetheless.

Didn't get any baking done this weekend. I actually started to get the ingredients for Challah out, then realized that I've got SO many bread-products in the house at this point, I'd be better off holding off for a few more days, and finishing up what we already have in the house. Otherwise I'll lose something to moldiness, and I don't like it when that happens. So, I'm off from Tuesday through Sunday of this next week for my surgery anyway, hopefully I'll get some Challah made Thursday or Friday, since the only other thing I'm going to have going on with any certainty is Tay's baseball-game on Thursday night (if I'm feeling up to it). But that leaves me the rest of the week to bum around the house and be a total hermit if I'd like. *grin* I like!!!

Anyway, this is our "church week" with my Dad, so I'd better get off and go get dressed and ready to go. *rolling eyes* For those who don't know, my Dad totally believes I should be in church every Sunday morning, along with my daughter, and should be sending her to Awanas (kinda a kid's one-evening-a-week bible camp, thing) every Wednesday. Most of the year I'm able to point out how busy we are (I work on Sundays during the winter; Tay's often got hockey-practice on Sunday mornings during the winter) to stop his nagging. Well, since my summer hours include me having Sundays off (we close on Sundays from Memorial through Labor days), I don't have much excuse. Tay, as well, has decided that she LIKES going to church with my MIL (who's church I totally can't stand, so superficial and banal), so I've been able to tell my Dad that for the summer, Tay will go with MIL every other week, while I wait for her to come home so we can meet up at Dad's for lunch. On the alternating weeks, Tay and I will come to his church so that we're "in church" where he thinks we belong, then over to Dad's for lunch. Keeps him from nagging at all. Anyway, as I said, this is our week to go to church with my dad.

Have a Blessed week. Hopefully I'll be back on Thursday or so with an update as to how surgery went.

Crafting done, but not by me....

Nope, this crafting was done by DH. (And why the heck isn't my blog showing the cropped & modified picture?!?!?!) That shelf, to be precise. I'd picked it up at Michael's Crafts over a year ago, to be painted white and hung in Tay's room, to hold her in-season jackets & caps, and to put some of her knickknacks on top of. (Instead of where they were crowded on the top shelf of her bookshelf.) Anyway, Tay didn't want white, or yellow, as the rest of her room is. She wanted blue. Brilliant, bright blue. And DH agreed with her. And that's what he's spent the last week & a half painting it. And I must admit, it didn't turn out half bad. I actually kinda like the blue. And it holds her baseball caps, and her shawl so nicely.

As for me, I haven't done any crafting at all this week. I don't know where the time goes, but it seems I don't have any time to do much of anything. I suppose it could be 3 nights of baseball (2 games and a practice) every week, after work. And my one night a week I work till 9:15. And Sunday's aren't a restful day (as I mentioned last week). So that leaves my half-work-day on Friday afternoons, and Saturdays. Nope, not a lot of time for crafting, anymore.

Today, my plans are to get off here soon (it's already 1:55 pm), get a couple of loaves of Amish Friendship Bread made (not sure of the flavor choice, yet), and veg & watch TV and maybe read a bit, and crochet a bit. I've got an afghan for a friend I really need to get busting on. I've had it in the works for like 8 months now. 'Bout time to actually get a sh*tload more done on it. I've got like 1/5 of it complete. Need to move past that. And I've got another project for a friend that I'd started, but never gotten very far on. It's a filet crochet owl wall-hanging. It's like 1/10th done. And I've got a sunny yellow shawl I started knitting for my self a couple of years ago that is about 1/2 done. And my "doily" jacket that is about 1/3 done. And, and, and, and...... LOL Need to stop with all the other projects, and just crochet, and knit, and crochet some more.

I saw the anaesthesiology coordinator on Wed. to discuss my wishes for anaesthetic for my surgery. I made it clear that I have nasty panic attacks related to a fear of needles, and horrid, roll-around veins (easy to find in the palpating, but roll away from the needles). Combined, they make IV's and blood-tests very hard on me. Physically & mentally. (It has never taken less than 2 tries to get a line (or a draw) on me. It took 6 (yes, that is SIX) tries to get a line on me when I was in labor with Tay. I could have gone through labor itself 3 or 4 more times, for the horridness of getting that line in.) I told the coordinator that I do best when I'm allowed 10 to 15 minutes of nitrous oxide gas before an iv is attempted. Honestly, after about 10 minutes of the laughing gas, they could probably cut off my hand as a souvineer for all I care. LOL Unfortunately, the coordinator said that while she will make my wishes & needs known to the nursing staff & anaesthesiologist on duty the day of my surgery, she can't guarantee that there won't be any arguement with me. I told her I'm not afraid of arguement, I won that arguement last time I had surgery. I just want to save time & head-ache, if possible. I figure that the odds are better in my favor if I've already discussed my needs with the coordinator before hand, that the nurses and aneasthesiologist will be more likely to accomidate me without a waste of time & breath on my part (or the Dr's part, as it'll push back the surgery time, for as long as it takes for me to win my arguement). So, we'll see. I've 10 days now before I have surgery. Then I have a blissful 4 days off work, six days of telling the rest of the world (read: DH, DD, anybody else who wants me to do stuff for them) they can F-off and let me relax, then back to work & life hopefully refreshed, and definitely unable to ever get pregnant again. *grin* Loving the thought.

Well, time to get off and make that bread.

Have a Blessed day.

Busy, busy, busy

So, those are the same windows from last week, but they now have NICE new, white eyelet curtains. I found the fabric on Friday, at Joann's for 4.99 a yard. Bought 4 yards. Sewed them up yesterday. But, along with sewing curtains yesterday, I made a big old breakfast, only to have DH run out of the house without eatting. He went to my dad's and brought back an outside kennel for our outside dog. My dad's dog doesn't need it (he's well behaved and old enough to know better) so Dad gave it to us. Anyway, DH got back from picking that up and set it up, and came in the house to find me sewing and DD wanting to play on the computer, but not being able because we can't seem to get a flash player to upload. I think DH inadvertently erased the driver when he was trying to get rid of viruses. I think our computer needs a seriously good debugging. It's 5 years old now, and I know we've got a couple of trojans hiding out, but DH and I don't know how to get rid of them. So, a very good debugging is certainly in order. And we can't afford a new computer anyway, so debugging it'll have to be. Well, anyway, after realizing that he wouldn't be able to fix the computer himself (I'm going to ask one of the computer guys @ work if they do any freelance, or can recommend somebody), and helping me get my curtains hung, DH decided that we'd better run into town. He'd finally decided we needed a new computer chair, when he saw that the only thing holding the back to the seat was the fabric of the chair. The back was broken to the point that it was in a permanant reclining position. NOT comfortable. So, off to OfficeMax. Then over to Fred Meyer's to pick up some other necessaries: a new toilet seat for DD's bathroom; a couple of hooks to put alongside the livingroom window so I can pull the curtains back; some cabinet-hanging supplies (I've got a curio cabinet that I want hung above my dresser, in my room, so I can get some of my knick-knacks off my bookshelves); and some advil. DH thinks I live on advil. I don't, but working around lots of kids, like I do at the library, means I get a fair share of headaches. So, I need advil. And the bigger the bottle, the better. Anyway, it was 8 pm by the time we got home. I still wound up having to hem a shirt of Scott's (actually, a part of the arm seam had been missed in production, and I needed to close the hole so he could wear it to work). Threw some chimichangas & taquitos in the oven for Tay and I, and started pulling seams on a skirt of mine (I need to take in the waist, a bit, and I'm not happy with the bottom hem, so I'm redoing it). DH put together our new computer chair, we tried to hang my curio cabinet (but found out we need new brackets on the back of the cabinet so that it fits the stud-spacing on the walls in our room), and finally called it quits about 10:30. Those pictures above, were taken at 11 pm. Gotta love Alaskan summers. Light all night. But, that would explain why I'm not sleeping as much as I need to. It's so light out that I don't feel like I can quit (reading, sewing, crocheting, watching TV, websurfing) until I'm literally about to drop.

Jenny, our samoyed-mix mutt, got herself REALLY high (top notch, in fact) on my Shit-list on Friday night. I had (yes, HAD) 4 stuffed animals on the corner of my bed. 4 special stuffed animals. 3 bunnies, and a kitten. I got home Friday after work to drop off my work things, then head out to play bunco, and I found that Jenny had taken 2 of my stuffed animals (my kitten, and a bunny Tay gave me a couple of years ago) into the livingroom for mauling. The kitten did not survive. The bunny hadn't yet suffered the indignities of that dog's mouth, but was saved in the knick of time, it seems. Another bunny (easter gift from my mom 5 years ago; the woman knows I STILL love my easter bunnies) had died a sad death, on my bed, before Jenny removed herself from the scene of the initial assault for a much slower death for the other 2 stuffed animals. So, only 2 were harmed, a third was threatened, and my bed was made a mess of. I don't know WHAT got into her head, as she's got plenty of things of her own to gnaw on (rawhide & bones, and a rubber squeeky bone, not stuffed animals). But, she spent Friday night, and most of Saturday getting glares and name-calling from me. NOT one of my favorite people at that point in time. I've since started talking to her again, but I did threaten that if she ever so much as LOOKS at another stuffed animal again, I'll knock her so hard she won't remember her name. And, she's back to being confined to her kennel while we're not home. I no longer feel horrible about stuffing her into that large dog-box for 6 hours. She had a week of freedom (if you'll remember, we only decided that she was probably completely house-safe a week ago Saturday), and all she did was climb on the couch and maul innocent stuffed animals. I won't make that mistake again. At least not until she's so old that she can only gum things, and her hips are so disjointed that she can't climb on furniture. Then I suppose I can allow her to spend the day non-confined again. As you can tell, she's still not completely off my shit-list.

It's been a busy couple of weeks. My work schedual changed to my summer hours, so I'm now working Mondays through Fridays, instead of Sunday through Thursday. I actually prefer the Sun. - Thurs. schedual. Sundays, here at home, are so hectic, where as at work they're quiet & peaceful. When I'm not working on Sundays, Dad tends to nag me to go to church with him, constantly going on and on about how Tay and I NEED to be in church, how it's necessary for, in order to be good people or some-such. *rolling eyes* Yep, because hypocrisy & warmongering makes one a "good" person. Then, after church (or, at least after lunch over at Dad's house after he gets home from chuch) it's back home to get Tay dressed for hockey practice. Her summer practices are 45 minutes from home, at 6 pm. We've got to head out at 5 so that we can get there in plenty of time to get her geared up and skates on. 1 hour spent at the rink, then back out to NP. Hopefully just home for dinner, though I have a feeling FIL will want us to stop by. Then back to bed to start the week over again. It really, really makes me wonder..... WHEN THE HECK is DH going to go on a fishing trip!?!?!?! Two weekends in a row now, I'd planned a nice quiet day of staying at home doing nothing that required leaving the house, except to go check the mail, and 2 weekends in a row now, DH has kept me busy, running, running running. I WANT my freaking weekend!!!!!! I feel like I work all week, just to get 1 day off to run like crazy some more (Sundays don't qualify as a day off, seeing how busy I am, EVERY freaking Sunday). I sure as heck hope he doesn't expect me to be this freaking busy while I'm off for my surgery. 'Cause he can kiss my fat, white @$$ if that's his plan. I even got the curtains sewn already so I don't even have to do that while I've got my week off from work. (Oh, and just to explain why I feel this is unfair, DH gets to sit around till 4 pm today and watch his races -while Tay & I are at church, then we head over to my dad's for lunch- and not do anything more strenuous than page through the newspaper. I don't get that, at all, this weekend. I didn't get that, at all, last weekend. I probably won't get that, at all, next weekend, either.)

Had rather a downer day at work this past week. Our senior page had taken off for 3 weeks of vacation and headed down to visit her family in another part of the state. While they were down there for Memorial Day weekend, her youngest grandson went out for a day of airboating with his best friend's family. The best friend's dad & another airboater were both running the same river, heading towards each other in opposite directions, and took a curve at the same time, and collided. (Typical gear for air-boat drivers is a good sturdy pair of earphones, or ear plugs. They're noisy, so you've got to wear ear protection. Both drivers were, and couldn't hear the other airboat coming in the opposite direction.) The grandson of my coworker, and the best friend's dad were both killed, violently, in the accident. The grandson was only 9. My coworker is 75 and we all realize how hard this is going to hit her, as she was always bragging about those kids, and her family is her life. Just days before, here in town, we had a riverboat started taking on water, capsized and 2 people aboard were killed when they were trapped underneath the boat: a young woman, and her 2 year old daughter. All were wearing life preservers, but these 2 people were not able to make it out from underneath the boat, and drowned. It's so sad when we hear about accidents like this, that while a part of you wonders what kind of stupid behavior these people were engaging in, you also realize that they weren't taking part any extraordinarily stupid actions, that sometimes accidents are just accidents. But that doesn't stop the mourning for these young ones who have gone so early in their lives. As I said, rather a downer at work this week.

Well, my blog was funking up earlier today, so I didn't get to post this morning. So, I've already been to church, lunch at Dad's and now I'm home, for a little bit, before we head to hockey. I just have to add (this paragraph wasn't an origional part of my post), WE HAD SNOW today!!!! Nope, no pics. I didn't take my camera with me. Didn't expect I'd need to. The high for today's forcast was 50 deg. F, and the predicted low is 25 deg. F. Well, I didn't think that'd include SNOW. But, sure enough, while Dad's out back on his patio today grilling steaks & corn-on-the-cob, it's snowing. Big, white, fluffy flakes of snow. And it's cold as hell & windy!!!!! NOT fun!!!! And yes, I'm writing this on June 4th, 2006, for all you non-believers who may think that a part of an old blog-entry somehow made it onto today's blog-entry. Hello Alaska!!!! I guess it's fair to mention that in Tucson where my sister lives, they have temps of 104 deg. F today. She made the comment today that it'd be great to take OUR current temps, and average them with HER current temps. and both places would be just about perfect. Let's see (getting the calculator) that'd be 104 + 45 divided by 2 = 74.5 deg. F. Yep, that'd be just about perfect. I could handle a day of 74.5 deg. F. Very much so. Last Sunday our high got to 83, and today it's actually only gotten to 45. 40 degrees difference. How sucky is that?!?!?!

Now to get changed into something warm and go sit in a freezing cold ice rink, and watch my daughter skate for an hour. May have to walk laps around the rink, just to keep warm, today. LOL Have a blessed day!!