bacon bloopers....

Clematis is blooming!!!

I’m hoping this isn’t a habit, again.  I’m up at 4 a.m. this morning, not having slept very well because I’ve been worried about Thistle.  The little turdball somehow managed to get to a full container of bacon grease yesterday while Rob and I were outside showing our neighbors how to work our nutty irrigation system for the gardens while we are gone.  I had fried up a big batch of bacon yesterday morning at breakfast on my electric griddle that had been open.  I was worried it might spoil while we were on our trip since Rob is now the sole meat eater in the house again. It has one of those drip cups underneath to catch the grease and I then left the cup on the counter to let it solidify before throwing it away.  Fat isn’t good for dogs, as a matter of fact, it can be deadly in large quantities!  Somehow, she snuck into the kitchen while we were outside, snatched it off the counter and devoured the whole darn thing. 

She seems okay this morning, though, so far. Geez!  We used to have a Sheltie, well my parents did, back when I was in nursing school, who was a counter magician like Thistle and it didn’t end well.  Musket, although tiny, could find ways to get to food like no ones business and ended up dying of pancreatitis from something he ate.  He was only 5 when he overloaded on whatever it was.  So, you can imagine I’m a little upset with Thistle right now. I’m going to have to be a lot more diligent about what’s on the counter from now on! I swear, I love puppies but I’ll be so glad when she’s trained and behaving like an adult.

Other than that, we had a very nice weekend.  Friday, my girlfriend, Sherry, and I went to Sheridan because I had one more test to do for that bad PAP I had.  I had to get a swab done to determine just how “virulent” the dysplasia is that I have.  It’s a test they don’t normally do and I won’t get the results until after we get back from Alabama.  My doc says if it shows that it has the propensity to turn into something nasty, she’ll be sending me to Rapid City for treatment with a GYN oncologist, otherwise, we’ll just watch it with follow-up tests.  At least the test was just a swab this time, not that awful biopsy!

Afterwards, Sherry and I checked out this great new little place called the Red Velvet Bakery and Tapas Bar.  Oh my!  Now, I know I’m not supposed to eat anything that was in the place, but it smelled just too darn good!  They had all manner of brioches and scones and other yummy desserts, as well as some awesome looking savories like quiche, so we just had to give it a sample.  Both Sherry and I had the lemon brioche and it was heavenly! Thick lemon crème sandwiched in the brioche that was light as a feather! I have got to get these tumors under control so I can get back there and eat my way through some of their other goodies! They have fabulous coffee, as well, according to Sherry.

Friday evening, we had a huge contingent show up at our table for happy hour at the Moose.  We were all really happy to see Dawn join us because we were worried about her sister, who had a pretty major heart attack this past week.  Amy is only in her early 40’s and collapsed at work on Tuesday and had to be life flighted to Casper for treatment. I’m happy to report that Amy is home already with a stent and doing really well! Holy guacamole, though, we all sure were worried about her!  She’s one of the healthier people I know, no warnings on this attack whatsoever!

Rob and I spent the whole weekend outside, working on the gardens, and it’s starting to really show the fruits of our labors.  All of our flowers are now in and Rob got the last of the veggies planted yesterday when he got the little carrot patch all done.  Now, it’s just a matter of sitting back and letting nature work its magic! As I said, our neighbors will be watering everything while we are gone this week and next and I’m hoping to come back to things sprouting up everywhere! We planted a lot more corn this year than usual since Rob has this little trade going with another of our friends.  Bobby brings Rob firewood and in exchange, he gets corn when it’s ready, pretty good deal all the way around! 

So, today I’m going to be running around like a chicken, trying to get everything ready for the trip to Alabama.  I’m getting so excited!  I talked to my aunt Becca last night and she’s pretty darned excited, too.  I don’t think we’ve have this much family in one place in many decades. I just hope the weather is kind to us on the trip since we have to go through Kansas and Oklahoma to get there and there’s been a bunch of tornadoes already this season.  I told Rob we’ll have to really keep our eyes open while traveling on this trip, watching for those nasty funnel clouds! Once, we were traveling through Nebraska and there was a tornado warning but since we had no idea where we were, we didn’t know until the next morning that the tornado had passed within a mile of where we were staying!

We’ll be stopping in OK and spending time with our friends, Denny and Paula, who used to own the Arrowhead Motel here in Buffalo, too.  Luckily, they are right on our way, so we’ll spend the night with them both on the way there and on the way back.  They always stay with us when they come back for visits to Buffalo.  They have a really nice in ground pool in their backyard and called the other day to let us know it’s open and ready!  We’re going to see how Thistle does in the pool while we’re there, that should be fun! The last time we stayed with them, we had our late dog, Tumbleweed, with us and she was always so scared of water.  When we gently put her in the pool, she immediately got out and didn’t even shake off, she just stood there like a wet rag, looking at us like we were nuts. Weed was a very unusual Golden, I swear, they are supposed to be water dogs! She was also afraid of streams (any running water, actually) and wouldn’t even drink out of them unless I cupped the water in my hands, the goof. Thistle, on the other hand, lives to get wet so this should be interesting with the pool.

Mud face Thistle 

Just a slight detour in thought before I leave you…  I guess you heard about Donna Summer’s passing.  Her death brought back a whole era of my life that I’d almost forgotten.  In the early 80’s, I worked at a private disco called Girard’s in Baltimore.  Her song, “Last Dance”, always heralded the end of my work night.  Girard’s was built and owned by the same folks who created Studio 54 in NY and it was a really cool place.  When it first opened and was private, it was mostly full of gay men and I got to be really close to many of them. I actually lived right across the plaza in the Brexton , which later became the satellite office of the Moore Clinic.  It’s very ironic, because the Moore Clinic is the premier AIDS clinic in Baltimore. If you remember, the early and mid-eighties is when the whole AIDS crisis started.  I had so many friends among the gay community that were dying mysteriously back then.  Funny how Donna Summer’s passing brought all that back.  It wasn’t until I was in nursing school that I started connecting the dots about my gay friend’s deaths and the crisis that unfolded.  So many wonderfully talented people were just snuffed out. The contrast between the gaiety of the wild disco scene and the loss of life back then still haunts me. I haven’t been back to Mt Vernon, the neighborhood, in many years. At the time, I was working all day at a downtown law firm, bartending a few nights at Girard’s and going to college the other evenings.  Mt Vernon was a great, safe place to live, then.  I had tens of “big brothers” watching out for me. Who would have thought I’d be sitting here 30 odd years later with the very disease that killed my friends? There’s a really good novel, if you ever get the chance, that chronicles the early years of the epidemic in NY, called “Plays Well With Others” by Allan Gurganus.  It’s a fascinating look into that whole era, a bittersweet saga.

Okay, well, have a fantastic day, everyone.  Remember that life is fragile and tomorrow isn’t guaranteed so get out there and live like you mean it.  Be kind to your fellow earth travelers, you never know when it’s going to be your last impression.  You can find magic, even in a dull day, if you just look for it!

Wishy washy Wednesday....

Spring wildflowers on Red Grade Road in Big Horns

Good morning, my lovely readers! I hope everyone’s week is going swimmingly! I can’t believe we have already made it to the middle of May.  They say time starts moving so much quicker the older you get, and they aren’t kidding!  I only have 7 days til we leave to go see my family down in Alabama and I’m getting really excited about it!  I think I told you it’s been decades since I’ve seen most of them. It’s unfortunate that we’ll be taking 8 days for the trip and only able to spend 2 ½ actually visiting with them, but that’s the price you pay when you don’t fly and you live so far from everyone.

Yesterday, I spent most of the day getting ready for a new washing machine that was being delivered.  It was only supposed to be a few minutes, getting the area cleaned out so we could move out the old one and get the new one in.  As best laid plans go, though, things got complicated and I ended up totally rearranging my mud room and there was a lot more nasty stuff behind the washer than I expected!  While I was cleaning, I realized that this was actually the first brand new washer I have ever gotten.  I’m such a frugal person and I thank my mom for that. I have always been the beneficiary of someone unloading their old one or else, the houses we’ve bought have already had laundry goodies when we moved in.  I had no idea I’d be so excited about a silly washer!

When we moved into this house, it came with a really nice washer and dryer.  The first time something happened to the belt in the dryer, I called the repair man (who has now retired) and he came over and the first thing he said was “Do you know how old this set is?” and I said no, it came with the house.  He then asked me if I noticed anything unusual about the name and I once again said no, RCA-Whirlpool didn’t seem unusual to me.  He chuckled and explained to me that RCA and Whirlpool broke up in 1953.  When we looked at the information on the back, it turned out my set was from 1952! He told me that it would probably work forever, as long as we could get the few moving parts necessary to fix it.  So, I had that set for about 5 years before Mike retired.  The only reason I had to get rid of it is because no one else could get parts for it.  It was replaced with a used set I got from my friends who owned the Arrowhead Motel at the time.  That’s the washer that just now gave up the ghost.  It was a wonderful washer, one of those commercial ones designed for motels and I could really get a lot in there!  The dryer started screwing up about a year ago and I was lucky enough that a friend was getting rid of hers to make way for a new one.  So, when this washer stopped working, I decided it was high time I got a real “new” one.

It’s all hooked up now and I’ve already done three loads, although the first load was a nightmare! I neglected to read the instructions when my neighbor Ray and I were installing it and didn’t take out the “shipping rod” at first. Boy, did it make some noise! Evidently, they put this huge rod in the bottom, under the tub, to keep it stable during shipping (I ordered it from the internet) and I didn’t see the bright orange tag telling me to remove it before using the unit. At first, I thought I’d bought the loudest darn washer on the planet! I’m just glad I didn’t screw the whole machine up by trying to do a load with that silly rod in there.

So, today, after I figure out where all the stuff is going to go that I moved out of the mud room, I’ve got to get my butt back out to the veggie garden.  Rob has everything planted, including the tomatoes now, so the next chore is putting down all the landscaping fabric to keep those nasty weeds from coming through this summer.  I also need to put the little water walls up around the tomatoes, so I have my work cut out for me.  Rob really likes having several different types of tomatoes but he also refuses to “kill” a plant, so we have 16 tomato plants out there to deal with. For the most part, I can the red tomatoes for winter.  We also grow our favorites, Lemon Boys, which are yellow tomatoes that have less acid than the red. Those are the ones we eat all summer because for some reason they fall apart when you try to can them. I can see already that I’m going to be very busy this fall, canning again!

Green Gentian or "Monument Plant", these flowers are the size of your  thumb tip! 

Today is also the Chamber of Commerce’s Award’s luncheon and we got an invitation for a free lunch to it because evidently Rob and I are getting some kind of award.  We used to be really involved and Rob was the President for a term but I can’t figure out what we’ve done this year to warrant any awards.  Regardless, it will be a fun time and any time I don’t have to fix lunch is a good day!

I don’t know about the rest of you ladies (and some of you men) but as I age, it gets harder and harder to get excited about cooking all the time.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to cook, but the day after day problem of figuring out what my hubby should have gets old.  As it is, I have to fix two almost completely different meals for us as I’m a medical vegetarian and he’s a raging carnivore. Add to that the fact that my dear hubby is not a very adventurous eater and it makes for quite a conundrum when I’m meal planning.  Right now, it’s not too bad because for the most part, I’m just drinking my fruits and veggies right now until my tumors shrink a little.  My mom sent me one of those Ninja blenders for a gift a while back and it’s been a real time saver for blending my smoothies.  Gotta watch those blades, though, they are sharp!  I have already sliced myself several times cleaning the darn thing.

Well, I guess I better get my rear in gear and start figuring out where all the junk I stuffed in the mud room is going to live now. I swear, sometimes, I just want to call Brannian Auction and sell everything in the house and start over! Gosh, wouldn’t that be awesome? Seriously, though, I think it’s time for another Oprah yard sale.  Several years ago, I was watching Oprah and she was explaining that having a garage sale isn’t really about making money, it’s about getting rid of stuff. So, I took her advice and labeled just about everything except the really big items, all for a buck and I had tons of free stuff.  Not only did I come back in the house with only a shoebox full of leftovers, I made over $600, pretty much a dollar at a time. It’s amazing what people will buy when they think they are getting a deal! Give it a try the next time you have a sale, I guarantee you’ll get rid of just about everything!

Have a beautiful Wednesday, everyone!  Turn off the boob tube, slap on some tunes and dance like no one is watching. 

Flower power!

Mr Moose snacking along Hwy 16

Well, I don’t know about you, but we sure had a gloriously busy weekend!  I’m sitting here trying to remember it all! After a very chilly Friday, everything straightened out weatherwise, too!

Friday, we went to Sheridan and got Rob’s stitches out of his knee and the doc proclaimed that he was healing quite nicely.  It’s just a matter of moving that puppy now that will help with the little stiffness he’s got left.  We also stopped by the homeless shelter at the VA and dropped off a huge load of jackets and shirts from our friend, Jim.  Boy, were the residents happy!  We had a whole parade of guys come out and help us unload the car and there was much exclamation about how nice the clothes were and how much they all appreciated the gesture.  We just love contributing to them because it’s such a well kept, safe place. Believe it or not, I’ve been almost homeless myself a few times and I never forget those folks.

We had a pretty nice happy hour, although a couple of my friends were acting like a-holes and drawing way more attention to our table than I usually like.  It was so bad that I got several phone calls the next day, asking what the heck was up.  I just told them that I can’t control my friends, they are all adults and if they want to alienate people, that’s their business, right? I was happy to find out, though, that no one thought I was one of the a-holes!

Saturday, Heidi from Buffalo Computer Consulting came over and hooked up our new computer.  Boy, is it a screamer!  Because we do so much work with photos, we got a 1 Terabyte hard drive for the operating system and programs and another 1 Terabyte hard drive just for data.  We also got two huge monitors that are linked together so Rob doesn’t have to close programs, he can just move them between the screens when he’s working.  He’s got the same set up at work and just loves it.  I have a feeling I’m going to be doomed to the older computer, but that’s okay, he’s the one who is into the bells and whistles!  At least now we’ll have two computers again that are both working well so I can get on the computer when he’s home, which I haven’t been able to do in eons.

The first thing we had to do with the new computer was start moving photo files from this older computer.  Just from his one camera file, he had over 250 GB of photos to move! Eventually, we’ll get all those photos on disc, but it sure is nice to have them off my computer now! It took 5 hours to move those photos!

In the afternoon, Rob headed out and tilled up the whole veggie garden in preparation for planting, which he did yesterday.  Now, all we have left to plant out there are the tomato plants, jalepeno peppers, eggplant and radishes.  We’ll be doing that this evening, tucking them in their little water walls to keep them safe in case of cold weather.  While he was doing that, I mowed the lawn, which is no easy feat.  I can’t tell you how often I wish we had a nice, level lawn! We are actually looking at riding mowers longingly now, something I thought we’d never do. 

We were just talking last night that this “getting old” stuff is for the birds!  Now I see why people move into condos and stuff when they get older!  Keeping up the house and the yard is becoming actual work and causing both of us a lot of pain! While Rob was tilling and planting, I kept asking him how his knee was holding up and he said that was no problem, it was his back that was giving him grief.  I think next year, we’ll have to rent one of those big tillers instead of using our little Mantis tiller, it took him almost 6 hours to till the garden with that little thing.

Today is planting day for all the flowers and I just can’t wait.  Rob is so excited that he had to plant a couple of his favorites before he left for work this morning.  We got a beautiful Gerbera daisy and some African daisies that he planted right near the front steps that really are going to make the front garden “pop”.  This morning, I’m going to plant all the Allysium, but I have to wait for Rob for the rest because I have no idea where we’re going to fit everything! I just love that my husband likes flowers as much as I do.

I got a phone call first thing this morning about my PAP.  I’m going to have to go in for more swabbing as they are concerned that the cells may be more aggressive than first thought. Diane promised that there’d be no more snipping, though, for the moment, this is just a swab test to determine exactly what is causing the dysplasia.  She said there are over 100 but that a bunch of them can be very virulent and because of my depressed immune system, she wants to make sure it’s not one of the aggressive types before we do any treatment. So, I have to go back on Friday for the test and should get results right before I leave for Alabama next week, hopefully.

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful week!  I plan on getting out and enjoying this sunshine as much as possible!  My nasty bug bites are finally healing, thanks to Rob putting lots of hydrogen peroxide on them to dry the suckers up and I’ve got my bug spray all made up now so hopefully, I’ve got that under control now!  Right now, we’ve got hundreds and hundreds of butterflies hanging out in our lilac bushes, they must have all hatched over the weekend and it’s just glorious being out in the yard with them fluttering around everywhere! 

Now, get out there and enjoy your day!

Weekend is here!!

Front flower garden is starting to look nice!

Howdy campers!  We made it through another week without too many disturbances, now didn’t we? The weatherman had predicted some really cold temps for us last night, in the low thirties, but I just went out to let Miss Thistle do her business and it was almost balmy out.  Checking the temp, I see that it is 42, a far cry from freezing.  You never would have known it last night, though, the wind howled all evening and the thermometer had been plunging since early yesterday afternoon. Right now, though, it looks pretty icky out there, the mountains are all socked in with clouds and it's looking like we're going to get some kind of precipitation.  

Yesterday, I was pretty darn lazy.  For one thing, all those bug bites have been giving me a real fit.  They have now turned into big weeping sores. I had to dig out my special clay that I get from Worland to sooth the itchies and try to get them down to something manageable so I can be seen in public.  This stuff I have is magical, I have to tell you.  It’s made with bentonite and pascalite clay powder and also has cocoa butter and rosemary in it.  It’s made right here in the Big Horn Mountains.  I discovered it a few years ago when I had a weird rash the docs couldn’t figure out. Anyway, with big clay dots all over me, I thought it best to stay home as much as I could yesterday.

I did get out and make it over to my friend Jim’s house to pick up the clothes he wants to donate to the VA. Wow!  The entire back of my car is full of really nice jackets and shirts for the Vets. They are really going to appreciate all the clothes.  Jim got an offer he couldn’t refuse on his property out on Rock Creek and has decided to spend most of his time in Arizona now.  He says he had taken his house off the market several years ago when the bottom fell out of the market because he didn’t want it to go for cheap.  Well, a couple of weeks ago, a realtor called him and said someone wanted to buy his house. He told her that he wasn’t budging on his original price from years ago and they didn’t even flinch!  He has a beautiful place with an amazing view of the mountains, glassed walls on the mountain side.  Jim is such a hoot, he used to own the White Buffalo Saloon here in town and his sense of humor is awesome. We’re going to miss him.  He did promise to come down to Happy hour tonight, though, so we’ll have some time to say goodbye. He’ll be moving to Wickenburg, one of the places we stopped on our vacation and where another of our Buffalo friends retired to.  As a matter of fact, after going there, we are thinking that may be where we look for our little retirement home as well.  Wickenburg reminds me a lot of Buffalo, without the snow.

I wasn’t feeling real well after lunch yesterday and napped all afternoon.  You’d think after a 3 hour nap, I’d be all refreshed, but I ended up sleeping through half the evening as well. It was the only thing that kept my mind off the bug bites and the itching! I even have a freaking bite on my eyelid, below my silly eyebrow on one eye, argh!

Because of the wind we had yesterday, we know that the weather will be cooler today, that’s standard around here.  The wind always heralds a change in the weather.  Looks like we’ll have one more chilly night and then the temps are going to start moderating again.  Tomorrow starts the grand planting out in the veggie garden, though, no matter what the weatherman says! Rob has been collecting big boxes from his office in case we have to cover the tomato plants once we get them into the ground.

The other big event here in the Yingling household is we are having a new custom computer delivered tomorrow!  I wish I was as geeky as my husband because then I’d remember all the bells and whistles he ordered.  I can tell you that this new one will have two 23 “monitors hooked together.  Rob has them like that at his office and is hooked on the set-up.  With two monitors, side by side, you can have lots of windows open and actually move them between the screens so you can have lots of stuff open at the same time. It will come in handy with the web designing work we do.  He also got some ungodly amount of RAM and storage on this computer, too.  So, we are looking forward to Heidi coming over tomorrow morning to get it all hooked up.  I’m glad she’s doing the hooking up as we have a plotter printer and two other photo printers that need to all work together and our computers have to be networked together, as well.

People always think that because we have a web design business, I know a lot about computers.  Web designing just uses software and I know absolutely nothing more than how to use the particular software.  I am constantly getting phone calls from friends, asking if I can fix their computers!  Nope, I tell them, I probably know less than they do.  Heck, I don’t even know how to set up an email account and get it working on the computer, Rob has to help me! I’m a nurse people, not a computer geek! We are actually in the process of getting rid of our web business, anyway, trying to concentrate on the photo end of our business, which is much more fun.  We are slowly turning over clients to Heidi, who runs Buffalo Computer Consulting.  It will be awhile, unfortunately, as we have over 70 clients and we don’t want to just dump them. It will probably be several years before we are all the way out of the business.

Anyway, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and that you find something to do outdoors, if the weather is cooperating where you are!  Nothing like getting out into nature to make you feel alive!

an itchy, scratchy mess...

Schwabacker Landing with Tetons

I woke up an itchy mess this morning!  Nothing awful, it’s just irritating.  I didn’t realize that the mean old mosquitoes and other biting insects were already out and about.  I swear I never even felt anything bite me yesterday when I was out in the garden weeding. But, I have a big bite right between my eyebrows that, at the moment, is driving me a little crazy.  So, I’m up a little earlier than I have been in awhile.

Guess it’s time to break out my super duper homemade bug spray that I make every year! I can’t wear the stuff they commercially produce as it makes me really sick.  I found this recipe a few years ago, though, for homemade bug spray, that’s made with all essential oils.  Right off the top of my head, I remember that there’s lemon citronella and lavender in the ingredients. For some reason I’m blanking on the third component, but let me tell you, it really works.  I actually got the formula from a friend who lives in Texas, so you know if it works there, it should work anywhere!

Yesterday, I spent pretty much the whole day, except for a few breaks, out in the veggie garden, pulling weeds in preparation for Rob to do the final tilling and seeding this weekend.  It’s a massive job but thankfully, one we only have to do once a year, if we play it right.  I finally convinced Rob last year to get some of that landscape fabric to lay down once everything is done so we don’t spend our entire summer weeding out there.  Last year, it worked out wonderfully except for where the corn was growing.  We have this particularly noxious weed here in Wyoming that is a vine and it seemed to come through the corn, no matter what we did. That’s the reason I was out there all day, trying to pull that junk up.  We fertilize our garden with manure we get from the local sale barn that they’ve pulled out of the arena after cattle sales, it’s already mixed with straw by the time we get to the pile and while it makes great fertilizer, it’s also full of whatever weed seeds the cattle ate last year.

Luckily, I only have to get out the vine things and the big weeds and the rest will get taken care of when Rob tills.  It was so beautiful out yesterday!  My indoor/outdoor thermometer said we actually reached 88 degrees! That is just amazing for this time of year around here.  I was actually sweating while I was out in the garden. It was one of those great Wyoming days, though, where there was a nice cool breeze every few minutes so just when you thought you were going to get overheated, the breeze would come by and cool you off like a natural fan.

A friend of mine who works for the BLM sent me a picture on email the other day of one of the forest cabins where they keep the weather monitoring equipment up on the mountain.  He had a picture of the cabin from this time last year, after we’d had that hard, snowy winter and it showed just the very top of the cabin showing, everything was all covered in tens of feet of snow. Just the other day, he went up to the cabin and took a similar picture and there was no snow, not even around the cabin.  That means we got a heck of a lot less moisture up in the mountains this year.  It’s a little scary because we always have to worry about wildfires around here when we don’t get enough snowpack.  The local newspaper said yesterday that we are not in a drought because of it but you could have fooled me!

I have a feeling we are in for a very hot summer around here!  The first year we moved here, we had a similar summer where the temps reached around 100 in July and stayed that way for almost 3 weeks.  I sure hope that’s not going to be the case this year.  Although, the garden would love it, I’m sure, I prefer a little milder temps.  With this forecast, though, I’m almost tempted to try to grow watermelon again this year.  Our growing season is usually so short that I have to ripen most of the tomatoes indoors at the end of the season.  Tomatoes won’t ripen outside once the temp stops being in the 50’s at night.  Most people think they ripen in the sun but that’s just not true.  It’s the warmth of the night that gets them to turn red.  So, every year, I end up with flats of tomatoes all over my kitchen, ripening under newspaper.  It always works out, though, as it ensures we’ll have fresh tomatoes long after the snow starts flying around here. Something tells me we aren’t going to have that problem this year!

I got my car back from the shop yesterday afternoon.  Geez, I almost fell over when they gave me the bill.  Over $700 to get a new battery, new cable (that had eaten through) and a tune-up and oil change.  The guy at the shop was real apologetic as he explained that Ford, in their weird wisdom, had made it so that they had to remove half the top of my engine just to get to the darn spark plugs!  Most of the expense was the labor to take my car apart to accomplish the tune-up! I think I’ll be selling the car before I get another one, if that’s what it’s gonna cost! I absolutely love my Freestyle, though, it’s never had a single problem before this and it is all paid off, but this is a little ridiculous. Hopefully, since I was able to wait until it had 90,000 miles on it before I got this one, I’ll be able to drive it for years and get rid of it before it needs another one.

Today, it’s back out into the garden for more weeding.  I got about half of it done yesterday and when Rob got home from work, he worked on it, too.  I also have to run out to a friend’s house who called yesterday and pick up some clothes to take to the VA in Sheridan.  Jim MacAdoo has just sold his property and is moving and asked that I take them since he knows I go to Sheridan a lot.  I used to take all my charity clothes to the various churches but about a year ago I found out they have a homeless shelter for vets up at the VA and now, if there’s any men’s clothes, I take them there.  Jim has a huge amount for me to take, so they’ll be really happy!  It’s the least I can do for the men and women who’ve served our country.

I just got through counting my bug bites while I was sitting here composing this and I have over 30 bites!  It’s weird, they are mostly on the right side of my neck (right around my jugular, the little a-holes), my arms and some huge ones, right in the middle of my back. Definitely must lather up with the bug spray today!! Oh and I remembered, the other ingredient is Rosemary! So, if you want to make your own non-toxic bug spray, here’s the recipe….20 drops Rosemary oil, 20 drops Lemon Citronella oil and 40 drops of Lavender oil, mix with ¼ cup of water and voila, you have a wonderful smelling bug spray.  I get empty glass spray bottles (same place as the oils) and fill them and keep them everywhere.  Because it’s natural, you do need to reapply it about every hour while you are outside.  Not only does it keep the bugs away, it softens your skin, unlike “Off” or other sprays that dry you out. Also, you don’t smell all chemically, you smell wonderful!

Well, have a wonderful day!  I can’t believe it’s already Thursday!  May seems to be flying by already.  Good thing, as I’m getting so excited about seeing the family in Alabama for my birthday and Aunt Becky’s memorial.  We leave in just 13 days!

bubbles and birthdays....

Wyatt, the birthday boy!

It was another beautiful day on the planet here yesterday! I sure wish it was just a little warmer at night, though, as Rob and I are getting a little weary of the traveling flower circus.  It’s still too cold at night to plant the darn flowers so we’ve been carting flats of flowers and veggies out to the sunshine every morning and back into the house every night. I’ve run out of room to hang flower baskets inside, too, so I can’t fill any more until the weather starts cooperating.

Our morning yesterday started out with a funny bang.  I think I told you that my car died last week.  I went to start it one morning and nothing happened.  I knew this was coming as the folks at the Oil Barn had told me that I had a lot of corrosion on my battery and I needed to get all of it off or it was going to eat through and cause problems.  Well, I had been faithfully scrubbing all that blue goo off the battery (when I thought of it).  So, yesterday, we were supposed to take the car to Michelena’s to get the battery taken care of and I also needed a tune-up while they had it.  Rob and I went out and hooked up the cables to get it started and…..nothing.  Turns out it had eaten right through and disconnected the battery connection.  Rob, in his infinite wisdom, figured out what was going on and had to jury rig a pair of locking pliers to hold the connection until we could get to the car place.  Of course, he had to wrap the pliers in duct tape, to keep them from shorting out on the way down the hill.  I would have never known to do that!  Sometimes, my little nerd (and I say that lovingly) really surprises me.  He’s not usually much help in the car or construction area, so I was really impressed! Rob is awesome on all things computer but domestic, not so much.

Turns out the battery acid had indeed eaten through and I’m going to need a new cable.  Also, we found out that in order to change the spark plugs in my car, they have to remove something weird and replace it, too (I can’t remember what it was) so my car won’t be ready until sometime today.  That’s okay, I’m perfectly happy with another carless day.

I spent most of the rest of yesterday outside again, raking up the clumps of wet grass left behind by the mower.  You’d think when you have a bag on your mower, it would pick everything up.  If I don’t get it all up, Thistle will snatch those yucky clumps and bring them proudly into the house!  I already have to deal with all the other disgusting things she decides are worthy of bringing in the house, like tree roots she’s dug up or big rocks she’s taken a fancy to.  I got most of them up and then I was just exhausted, I think I did too much the day before. So, Thistle and I spent the rest of the morning in her fenced in part of the back yard, playing and soaking up some sun. 

In the afternoon, I had a nice phone conversation with my Aunt Becca about our impending visit down to Alabama.  Turns out, now my other cousin, Rick and his wife, are also going to be coming for the visit!  It’s been ages since I’ve seen him!  I think his kids were still toddlers the last time I saw them.  His oldest is now in college and living down in Florida, that’s how long it’s been!  I’m starting to get really excited about seeing everyone.  We now have pretty much the whole darn family showing up.  Even my mother has decided to drive down from Maryland to join us. I think this will be the first birthday that I’ve spent with my whole family since I was a little kid!  This is going to be a lot of fun.  I have a feeling we won’t be getting a lot of sleep as we’ll all have lots to catch up on.  Of the folks coming, I haven’t seen my Uncle Kip for about 18 years, I know it’s been longer than that since I’ve seen my cousin, Chuck, who is Rick’s brother and I can’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve seen cousin Camille, although I talk with her on the phone.  I’ve also not seen Becca’s boys since they were pretty young, I think Zander was about 10, the last time I was in Alabama (He’s in his late twenties, now). 

We are pretty much scattered all over now, although I definitely live the furthest away.  Rick and Mom are in Maryland, Chuck is in North Carolina, Kip is in southern Georgia and Camille is in north Georgia.  Libbie, in Ohio, is the only one unable to make the festivities, except for my dear Aunt Dotty, who also lives in North Carolina, but I think she’s just getting a little too old to travel.  I told Becca I might just have to throw my medical diet out the window while I’m down there, too!  There’s going to be too many good darn cooks all in one house to be worrying about a couple of days of what I eat!  Becca was a cook in the Army for years before she retired, so you know she knows how to put out some food! I hear Zander has turned into quite the chef, as well. Southern food is something I really miss!

Last night, after Rob got home, we went over to Jim and Breean’s for little Wyatt’s 5^th birthday party.  Oh my goodness, what a riot!  He had invited a bunch of little kids and we all had a nice cookout in the backyard with kebobs, which the little ones rushed through because Breean had made cupcakes for them with Avenger action figures on them and that’s all they could think about.  When we went in for Wyatt to open his presents, he was hilarious.  He tore through all of them in no time flat, tearing each one open, just enough to see what it was before hitting the next present.  He didn’t go back to play with any until everything was all open.  Of course, a lot of it was Avenger related, surprise, surprise!  I got him a little air hockey game so he can have something to play with his sister, Wylie and a gigantic bubble wand.  I have to admit, when I was buying the bubble wand, I almost threw one in for myself.  I just love bubbles!  I’m still thinking I may go back and get one because it would be hilarious to watch Thistle chase bubbles….yes, that’s a good excuse, right? The wand was a hit with all of the kids, too.  This wand is as long as a sword and makes huge bubbles! There’s just something about bubbles, I swear.  Did you know that when it’s really cold, like below 10 degrees, you can go outside and blow bubbles and they will turn to glass?  I keep a box of those little wedding bubbles in the house just so I can do that every winter, I’m such a kid.

Today will be another easy day, nothing is really planned at all and I’m looking forward to that. Breean and Wyatt are going to stop by sometime, as Bree and I really didn’t have a lot of time to visit, herding kids last night.  She starts her new job tomorrow so this will be our last chance to relax and talk without everyone around for awhile. The only outside work I can really do is digging out the massive weeds that have sprouted up in the veggie garden. It’s going to take a shovel and a lot of sweat to get that job done.  Hopefully, I’m rested enough that I can get a lot of that done for Rob as he’s still recovering from mowing the lawn.  His knee did not like that chore at all.

I’m doing okay on my strict diet again although I feel like no matter how much I eat of the stuff I’m allowed, I’m practically starving all the time right now.  It’s so weird because I’m actually eating more than I usually do.  I guess it’s because it’s all fruit and veggies, it just doesn’t seem to make me feel full.  I’m hoping that my system will calm down soon and realize that the days of bacon and other no-no’s aren’t coming back! If I remember correctly from the last time I started this, it will take about a week.  I’m still really having a problem with the coffee part, though.  Dang, that stuff’s addicting!

Well, we made it to hump day again!  I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day and that everything runs smoothly in your life.  If it doesn’t, no worries, there’s always tomorrow to start all over again.  That’s what so wonderful about life, you have the opportunity to change it every waking moment of your life.  And, if you can’t change your life, you can change how you view it and learn to laugh and roll with the punches.  Now, get out there and go conquer the world!

dig, dig, dig....

My bear carving in the front yard, surrounded by my cherry bushes

Good morning, all my fine readers! I hope your Monday was as wonderful as mine was.  It was just about the most perfect day I’ve had in a while.  The sun was shining so nicely all day and the temperature was just perfect, not too hot and not too cold, as long as you stayed out of the shade.  I spent so much time out in the garden, digging around, that I still can’t get all the dirt out from under my fingernails.

The best part is that right now all of my lilac hedges are beginning to bloom and it just smells heavenly out in my yard. Well, actually, some of the fruit trees are still blooming, too and it’s almost intoxicating to be out there.  Since the lilacs are on three sides of the property, no matter which way the wind blows, it seems, it smells like lilacs. And this is just the beginning, the hedge still has a lot of flowers to open up yet!

I stayed home yesterday and let Rob take his truck since his knee is doing so well. That really gave me the opportunity to get a lot of stuff done around here.  We had a lot of nasty dead patches in the grass and so I had to scrape a lot of dead grass out so Rob can reseed, hopefully in the next few days.  I also had gotten some great new hanging baskets online that are a pretty paisley print, so yesterday I filled the first two up with my new black and yellow petunias.  They really look nice hanging on the front porch now between all the wind chimes.

Sometimes I wonder if I irritate my neighbors with all my wind chimes, I do have an over abundance of them, I must admit.  But, I’ve been very choosy about the ones I’ve got, they aren’t just little ones.  When we were on vacation, I got a really nice grouping that it about 2 feet long and they make a beautiful low gonging sound out there now.  I think I’m up to about 6 sets now.  When the wind blows, which is often does here, it is wonderful, I think.  Most of them take a lot of wind to even start making any noise at all.  I even have one that we got in Cody that’s made out of iron, shaped like big pine cones, that will knock you right out if you happen to run into them on the porch, they are so darn heavy.  The sales lady who sold them to me say that I better live in Wyoming, or I’d never hear them do anything because it takes a lot of wind to make them move.

Anyway, after I filled up my two new planters, I headed out to the backyard and started planting my long planters that I use for all of my salad ingredients.  So now, I’ve got butter lettuce, arugula, chives, cherry tomatoes, cilantro, basil and rosemary growing on my back deck.  Thistle has a real affinity for dirt and was really trying to get a good munch of the soil the whole time I was working.  Yuck!  I can’t tell you how many times she’s come into the house with her mouth shut really tight and when I finally get her to open it, it’s full of a big clump of dirt!  I worry when she tries to get this dirt I’m filling the planters with, though, as I use that Miracle Grow soil and that can’t be good for her with all the extra fertilizer in it.

Rob had said he really needed to mow the lawn when he got home yesterday but I was worried about him and his knee so I decided after lunch that maybe I should at least try to start the mowing for him.  We have a huge yard and it takes quite a while to mow it all.  Since we’ve had so much moisture, the grass had gotten really tall.  Well, after I finally got the darn mower started, I managed to get most of the mowing done for him before he got home.  It took me forever because I had to keep going over places several times because it was so wet and tall.  I got all but the side of the house done and down  by the veggie garden. It’s a good thing because after he got finished with the rest of it and the trimming, his knee was giving him a fit.  Both of us watched the television through closed eyes most of the rest of the evening! 

Today is supposed to be another really nice day and I think I’m going to be outside some more.  I still have about 5 hanging pots to fill and get hung up.  The only errands I have to do are to get my car to the shop for a new battery and tune-up this morning and then this afternoon I’m finally getting my hair trimmed.  This evening, we’ve been invited to little Wyatt’s 5^th birthday party.  He and Breean called last night and asked us to come.  He’s just so darn cute, when Breean asked him who he wanted at his party, he named off some little friends and then asked if he could invite us!  I’m going to have to go find something for the little guy today to take along as a present, too. 

I’m back on my Gerson Therapy diet and my stomach is sitting here grumbling like a big dog right now.  For the first few weeks, I have to drink and eat veggies and fruit every hour, but it still doesn’t seem to be enough!  I do remember from the last time that my stomach will shrink soon, though and this starving feeling should pass pretty quickly.  Just to give you an example, my  dinner last night was watermelon, blueberries and steamed asparagus and bok choy.  Not something that stays in your tummy very long!  It really is okay, though, as my stomach pains have already subsided since I’m not filling myself with heavy food anymore.  The only part of the diet I don’t like is that I can’t have coffee.  Now, mind you, I love tea and I drink it on a daily basis but usually I start off with a pot of coffee first to get that caffeine! You really have to drink a heck of a lot of green tea to get the same amount of caffeine and it just doesn’t feel the same. At least this time, I’m much better at the cooking and stuff.  The first time I went on this, I had no idea how to make all this stuff palatable.

Well, I hope you have sunshine where you are today!  Get out and enjoy some nature, if you can, it will make you feel so much more alive!  Turn off all the ugliness the television is trying to tell you and get back to the basics.  Get your hands dirty or just sit and watch a ladybug on her travels.  That always makes me realize that this world is so much more than the troubles we are constantly bombarded with over the airwaves.

To live in the present moment is a miracle. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green Earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are now available. ~Thich Nhat Hanh

a Monday sort of mind....

Howdy everyone!  Wow, what an eventful few days!  I’m sorry I haven’t been able to write since Friday but there’s been so much going on and I’ve had to have some time to digest it all before I could share it with you.  Even those of us with a perpetually sunny outlook on life have our rainy days and sometimes our rainy times of life, it seems.

Friday started out pretty well.  I went to the doctor’s office in Sheridan to get that darn biopsy and found a parking place close by, that’s a plus, right?  I was really relived when they had set up my appointment that Diane, the nurse practitioner  I used to see there on a regular basis, had not retired.  Well, actually, she had retired and the office begged her to return.  I was just glad to see a friendly face, to tell you the truth.  After she got me all ready for my biopsy, she warned me that the biopsy was going to be painful but that it would only take a minute to procure.  Well, at least she was honest!  She plucked two punches from either side of my interior vaginal wall, and I thought I was gonna actually reach the ceiling!  Afterwards, she showed me the punches she retrieved and they sure looked awful small for all the pain they caused!  The good news is that she says that the areas with dysplasia look small and diffuse so she doesn’t think there’s a whole lot to worry about.  I’ll have the results late next week and we’ll go from there.  There’s three things we can do, depending on the results and it looks like I’m going with the third alternative, which is going to see a specialist in Rapid City for treatment.  The other two alternatives are really caustic and painful and she’s worried about my immune system, so she wants me to see this specialist to get his opinion.  I haven’t been to Rapid in years, so I’m game for that. They have great shopping!

I left there, a little worse for wear and hightailed it back to Buffalo because I had promised Rob we’d have lunch at the China Garden since it was Friday.  We always go out to lunch on Fridays so Rob can pad his tummy for happy hour, you know.  When I stopped to pick Rob up in front of City Hall, he had a nice tagalong with him, Zack, our City planner.  We enjoyed a great lunch together and had quite a few laughs.  The two planners, Rob and Zack are always hilarious when they get together.  His wife, Carol Ann, usually joins us but she had already made other plans with girlfriends so I had to ride herd on the boys myself.

After dropping Rob back off at his office, I finally got home to Miss Thistle and we had a nice little walk, although it wasn’t long since the weather was a little icky and the wind was a little stronger than I like to walk in.  She didn’t mind, though, as I had gotten her a new toy the day before, a huge long snake, and I think she was anxious to get back to it.  We played with that for quite a while when we returned. 

About 3 p.m., my phone rang and it was my regular doc, letting me know she’d gotten the preliminary results of my MRI from the day before.  She didn’t want me to have to wait to go over it so I headed over to see her and discuss the findings.  The news was not what I was expecting.  I thought for sure that my diverticulitis was back since my stomach has been in such a tizzy for months.  Well, that’s what I get for thinking!  The MRI showed that my two masses are back and that’s what’s been causing all the discomfort.  I have a 6x7 cm mass sitting on my left renal artery again and a 5x6 cm mass on the right again.  At least it doesn’t show any signs being anywhere else.  That’s the great thing about this type of tumor, at least.  They are usually very defined and encapsulated, which means they won’t spread.  They are also very slow growing, so that means it’s been coming back for a while.

She explained that the reason my stomach hurts so much is probably because the tumors are sitting right on top of some of my intestines (you know things don’t look like they do really in the anatomy books) and causing pressure when I eat.  That makes sense, as that’s when I have the most discomfort, right after I eat.

So, here we go again!  I guess I should have known that I would never really get rid of those silly tumors, but the last time I’d had an MRI they had shrunk to the size of peas.  I really have no one else to blame about them getting large again, except myself.  I had been so good on the medical vegetarian diet the oncologist put me on in 2006 for years, but then I started slipping in things, a little at a time, that I really wasn’t supposed to be eating.  The doctor gave me the usual spiel about what I can do about all this as far as treatment goes. You know the drill. It’s too risky to go in after them, though. I know that from the last time., they are also snugly sitting next to my aorta, which is your main blood supply. I don’t care how long people have been doing surgery, no one is cutting that close to the main supply, at least not on me.  Chemo is out of the question, also. Radiation is just too risky and doesn’t usually work for fatty tumors.

After talking with Rob, I’ve decided to buckle down and return to the Gerson diet.  It worked last time and it will work again.  It’s a difficult diet but, hey, the alternative is even worse, right?  Now, if you are going to look it up, be assured that I do not do the coffee enema portion of the therapy.  Nothing goes up my butt, it’s for things going the other way!  But the diet is very restrictive, especially for the first 6-8 weeks.  I’m going to be sort of chained to the house again because I’ll be drinking my fruits and veggies every hour for a while.  This is really going to be helpful, though, as having much stuff in my stomach at once has been one of my main problems. At least we’re coming into warm weather so drinking “smoothies” will be refreshing this time of year and I shouldn’t have too much trouble finding the fruits and veggies I need at a reasonable price this time of year.  We need to get that veggie garden moving outside so all I need to do is pluck stuff from there!

So, anyway, after delivering the news to Rob and having a little pow-wow, we adjourned to the Moose for Happy Hour where I made the foolish decision to act like half the population of the world and drown my conundrum in booze.  Well, that was a huge mistake!  Silly girl, let’s take an already upset stomach, frayed nerves and an aching crotch and pour booze all over it, right? I swear, I don’t really understand how people can have an alcohol problem and by that I mean drink too much!  I’m not one of those people, I make a lousy drunk…. After just two drinks, I thought I was gonna die! It probably didn’t help that I had an empty stomach.  But, silly Lisa, was just thinking that she was having her “last hurrah” with the booze before the diet.  I think I’ll remember that evening for quite a while! Not one of my smarter moves.

Anyway, Saturday, after recovering from my stupidity and having a big bowl of oatmeal to coat my poor raging post-alcohol tummy, we set out once again for Sheridan to go buy all of our flowers and veggies for the garden.  I think we got too much stuff and we’re going to be spilling over again, but we just love flowers and I don’t think you can have too many.  I found some amazing black and yellow striped pansies that are going to look awesome in my hanging porch pots, too.  We also got 16 tomato plants, eggplant, and jalepenos.  Everything else, we already have as seeds to plant. Now the weather just needs to start cooperating so I can get all these flowers and stuff outta my living room, hopefully next weekend.

Saturday evening, we went to the Rocky Mtn Elk Foundation banquet.  It’s always a lot of fun and we were amazed to find out that Wyoming, even though it’s the least populated state, is the biggest fundraiser in the nation for elk!  I even won a really cool sweatshirt that has a graphic on it for “Outlaw Rodeo”, whatever the heck that is.  Rob put in for a zillion guns and an energy camp but didn’t win anything.  The food was yummy as usual, catered by Peter John Camino, who makes the best ribeyes I’ve ever had.  And, yes, I had a ribeye, as that will probably be the last meat I’ll eat for years, I figured I might as well go out with a bang!  The foundation raised well over $10,000 during just the live auction, who knows what they actually made with all the silent auction items!  I tell you, Buffalo people really know how to support their elk habitat!

Yesterday, to top off my weekend, I got to perform my first wedding ceremony! It was so much fun but I am really glad it was a small wedding party for the first one because I was a lot more nervous than I expected.  Beckie, the bride, was just glowing and John looked very handsome.  We got very lucky that the weather, which has been not so great, decided to cooperate with us.  The ceremony was out in a pretty open area and the sun shined beautifully!  They even had all of their children pour sand into a vessel along with them, to symbolize the melding of their new family.  I hope others ask me to perform theirs, too.  It was so neat to be involved.  The great part is that I’ve known Beckie almost as long as I’ve lived in Buffalo and except for a few people, knew everyone there.

So, today, I’m going to relax.  My car died last week…the battery and we are just waiting to get a new one as well as a tune-up and a few other things.  My appointment isn’t until tomorrow, though. So, since Rob’s well enough to drive himself, I told him to take the truck and Thistle and I will just have a relaxing day.  I hope your day is relaxing, too!  If not, just close your eyes and take yourself somewhere nice anyway!

Have a beautiful day and a beautiful week.  Sometimes, our lives change directions and we have to adjust our sails.  That doesn’t mean things are bad, just different.  I hope you can face your challenges with a smile, too!

Friday fun!

Thistle in her favorite chair

Happy Friday, everyone!! Yay….we made it to the weekend, again! Hope everyone has great plans to keep them busy!  Like I said yesterday we have the Elk banquet tomorrow evening, which is one of the big social events of the year.  There’s so much going on in the little town of Buffalo this weekend, though, geez!  Since tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, a lot of places are having celebrations for that.  Also, my friends, John and Laura are having a “Saturday Night Live” party at Up in Smoke, where you can dress up as your favorite character from past episodes.  Wish I could split myself into a bunch of people and hit all the fun!

But, first, I have my little biopsy this morning.  I’m not sweating this at all, except maybe the momentary pain it will bring.  I was not happy that the GYN told me to just take some ibuprofen.  The last time I had one of these, it did hurt for some time afterward.  Oh well, put on your big girl pants, right? 

Yesterday, I went and got my noisy MRI.  I’m not real fond of those things, either.  I used to not have a problem with them but years ago I developed a severe phobia to the little tube. Now, when I go into it, I make sure my eyes stay shut the whole time so I can’t see how close I am to the walls and it seems to help.  This particular one is difficult, though, when they are looking at my abdominal area, as they make me hold my breath for what seems like forever!  But, I got through it just fine and now just await the results.

After I left the hospital yesterday, I stopped at Paw Prints Boutique to pick up Thistle some new dog food.  Barb didn’t like that I was feeding Thistle Eukanuba and wanted me to switch her over to something grain free.  While I was there, I picked up the boutique as a new web client! Jo is a very nice lady and she has a gorgeous golden retriever, too.  Her retriever has been through a lot, though.  Jo had another golden who passed away about 10 months ago and her surviving golden went into such a depression, she was afraid she was going to lose her, too. She’s just now getting to the point where she’s starting to play again.  Poor baby! I also picked up a big 4 foot long snake toy for Thistle while I was there and boy, does she love it!  I promised Jo that the next time I stopped by, I’d bring Thistle to meet her dog.

Rob is doing great with his knee, by the way.  He says he has almost no pain.  He never did take even one pain pill and he barely sat still at home.  At least he has a “sit down” job and that kept him quiet during the day.  We unwrapped the bandages yesterday and it looks marvelous, not even much swelling.  It’s going to be hard keeping him from tilling in the garden this weekend, I’m afraid.  There’s still a lot of healing going on inside, but you can’t tell Rob that!

Anyway, I have to cut this short this morning as my appointment in Sheridan is at 9 a.m. and I gotta get my arse in gear and out the door.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and count your blessings.  We live in an amazing world, in an amazing time! If you have the luxury of being able to read this, you are part of the small minority who have a computer in the world and you should feel pretty lucky, just on that note.  Today, focus on all the things that you DO have and not on the things that you lack.  Party on!!

some days the bear eats you....

Rudbeckia blooming in front garden last year

Looks like it’s going to be a lovely Thursday, folks! We had a big old wind come through Buffalo last evening and I thought for sure I was going to wake up to something nasty this morning, but, nope….it’s a beautiful, sunshiney, warm morning out there! The sun is reflecting off the snow up on the mountains and they are positively glowing, too.

Yesterday, Rob decided he was feeling well enough to go to work. I gotta give him a lot of credit.  He seemed none the worse for wear last night.  He says the only time his knee hurts is when it has been bent for a long time… that straightening it out hurts afterwards.  He stayed at work all day yesterday, though, which is good, I guess. I’m hoping he still feels as good this morning, now that that injected pain relief has worn off.  He even allowed me to put ice on it last night.

So, I was able to get all kinds of things done yesterday that I thought I wouldn’t! One of the things I did was go and see my doc about my stomach.  It’s really been giving me a fit now for a while and I was going to wait until after my biopsy Friday but it has been yelling at me more and more and it’s getting to the point where I can’t find anything to eat that doesn’t cause discomfort. So, today, I’m scheduled for a bunch of MRI’s again and maybe a side of a CT scan, I can’t remember.  I tried to get them scheduled the same day with my biopsy but that didn’t work out. The doctor told me to try to rest my stomach until we get the results, in case it’s diverticulitis again.  That means I’ll be eating nothing but yogurt, jello, soup and ice cream until I get the results.  That’s okay with me, I love all of those and could probably survive on them forever.  I stopped at the store and loaded up on Haagan Daaz Mango Sorbet, my favorite! I just adore how all the ice cream companies have now come out with those little one cup servings, now my freezer is full of the little suckers.

The only bad part is that I’ll have to watch everyone else have cocktails tomorrow night at Happy hour.  That doesn’t really bother me, either, as I only drink to be sociable, anyway.  We also have the big Rocky Mtn Elk banquet on Saturday, when they serve some of the best food of the year, catered by Peter Camino.  I guess I’ll have to bring my yogurt along and just watch for that one.

I had ordered some really cool hanging baskets for my front porch that arrived yesterday so I had to run out and find flowers to stick in them.  As soon as I get those guys filled with flowers, I’ll take a picture and show you.  I’m always looking for things to brighten up our porch as our house is sort of a slate gray and these baskets are paisley! That should look really nice!

So, today, I’ll drop Rob off at work again and get a few things done here in town.  Since I have his truck, I’ll probably pick him up for an early lunch as I have to be in Sheridan at 1:30 for my tests.

Rob just got up and says that I can put away his pain pills!  He never even took a single one! He says his knee is feeling pretty darn good.  I guess there’s a big difference if you don’t have arthritis in your knee, like I did.  I am just amazed, as his pain threshold is usually much lower than mine. I am so grateful that it’s going so well for him!

May your day be filled with wonder and blessings. I hope that you realize what an amazing thing it is just to be here on this planet, breathing the air and enjoying the sunshine.  Don’t let the little things get you down.  Everything always works out, I’ve found. Sometimes it’s hard to see the sunshine for the clouds but it’s always there, just waiting to warm you again!

operation success...

Last night's sunset!

Good Wednesday morning to all! Hope your Tuesday was as much fun and entertaining as mine was.  I haven’t decided if we should call what Rob had as anesthesia “joy juice” or “jerk juice” just yet.  I have a feeling the nurses might go with the latter definition.

We arrived at Sheridan Hospital a little early yesterday and found a nice parking spot that would provide shade for Thistle when the sun got hotter.  Since we were early, I got her out and took her for a spin around the nice grassy area in front of the hospital, where she was, of course, adored by all who were walking by.  Thanks to great training by Barb and tons of follow-up by me, she didn’t even jump on anyone.  Good thing, as the grass was still really full of moisture and she would have had her wet paw prints all over some nurses! I was really impressed how well she contained her enthusiasm.

We got Rob all checked in and went back into the surgical area where he was given a lovely lavender disposable gown with a cute little bear on it.  Rob started his grumbling at that point, because I’d been given running shorts when I had my operation.  Apparently, a new salesman has been through the OR since my surgery and now everyone is wearing these gowns, instead.  Dr. Quinn was running a little behind, I swear, if you aren’t the first surgery in the morning, there’s a delay.  Anyway, we ended up having him go into surgery at noon instead of 11:30 and I thought Rob was going to have another little meltdown as he was really complaining about the lack of food in his poor widdle tummy. 

I only had time to go out and take Thistle for a little walk and grab something from the deli before I returned to the waiting area and there was Dr Quinn already, telling me everything went just fine.  Rob did have a rather large tear in his meniscus on the right side and it turned out he also had two smaller tears in it on the other side, which the doc repaired. He also had a frayed area hanging off his patella and Quinn cleaned that up, too.  All in all, though, the surgery itself only took about 55 minutes.  I just love that they give you pictures of what they did during the procedure, I’m such a geek.  The photos show what it looked like before the doctor repaired the area and then what it looks like now.  I just find that stuff fascinating!

So, I get back to recovery to see how Rob’s doing and he’s already got a cup of coffee in his hand and the nurses are already giving me strange looks.  Apparently, the drugs removed all barriers from Rob’s thoughts to his mouth….  Let me explain here, Rob is usually pretty quiet and polite when he’s around people he doesn’t know very well.  Well, evidently, being under drugs removes all those stops for him.  He was bossing the nurses around when I came in, telling them he’d drank the darn coffee and what the heck did he need to do next to get outta here so he could go fill his starving stomach.  I think that he believed he was being clever but mostly it came off as pretty rude.  Being a nurse and knowing how many lovely patients these poor women have to deal with in a day, I went right into apology mode, of course. They were trying to get his paperwork done as fast as possible so they could get Mr Hungry the heck outta their recovery.  Our nurse explained that the next step was for him to walk with the walker and show that he was stable enough and then he could get dressed.  Well, Mr. Hungry did more than that! He grabbed the walker and started walking, lifting the walker off the ground and swinging it around! “Is this good enough for you?”  Oh my! I’ve never seen so many nurses converge on an unruly patient so quickly!  Again, I go into apology mode!  They are trying their best to laugh but Rob is definitely being a handful. I laughingly explain that he seems to have turned into Mr Hyde and I’m sorry, he’s not usually like this at all. 

So, we finally get the paperwork done and all that’s left is pulling Rob’s IV.  Right as the nurse is pulling it out of Rob’s hand, he decides to start gesturing and the next thing we know there’s blood all over the floor and on his TEDS they’ve put on him, well, it was just everywhere and the nurse was having a heck of a time getting the bleeding to stop out of his site.  It was so bad that several more nurses had to come in and help.  It took several minutes to finally get everything back under control.  They drilled him about whether or not he had truly stopped taking his daily aspirin (which I know he did) because of the amount of gushing blood.  I really think he just turned funny when they were removing the catheter and made a bigger hole.  The blood that fell to the floor looked like it was mostly mixed with saline and not just coming from him.

So, after getting that all under control and all the blood cleaned up, we were finally ready to leave.  One of the great things Sheridan Hospital does is give everyone a huge frozen bowl of chicken soup to take home for later.  I had sampled that very soup after my surgery and it was yummy.  Rob tried to insist that he was going to a “damn buffet and I don’t need that crap”  I meekly accepted it and began the apology tour again.

Finally, it was time for me to go get the truck and meet them around front.  I bet those nurses were really happy to see my husband leave.  We got him poured into the truck with no problem and I made mention to Rob as we’re leaving that he’d been a little rude and he totally didn’t see it.  Let’s hope it’s a while before he needs anesthesia again.

He was much better alone with me and by the time we got to the Dragon Wall, he was pretty much back to his old self.  It helped that he was focusing most of his energy on Thistle on the ride to the restaurant.  He had a nice, huge helping of lots of yummy Chinese and we made it back to Buffalo by 3 p.m., after stopping to pick up his pain meds.

Now, while he had his surgery, they injected his knee directly with pain meds so his knee was numb and probably will be until sometime today.  I remember when I had my surgery, I thought it was going to be a dream because of it and overdid some walking myself right after surgery.  So, I tried to coax Rob into sitting quietly and putting on his cryocuff when we got home.  Not happening!  He decided he needed to get some web work done and all kinds of other things.  About every half hour or so, I came in to the office and told him how long it had been since he’d elevated his leg and that I really didn’t want to be a nag, but he really needed to get that sucker up.  He finally acquiesced after about two hours and settled into his chair….whew!

Today, he’ll calm down, I’m sure.  Last night, he was already talking about going into work today but I have a feeling as soon as those meds in his knee wear off, it will be a different story. There’s no place for him to elevate his leg at work and I’m hoping he realizes that and at least gives himself today to get some rest.

My day today will depend on what Rob is up to, of course.  We’ll see whether he lets me “nurse” him or not.  It is already looking like it’s going to be just gorgeous out today.  The sun is coming up so pretty and warm!  I hope all of you have a fabulous day in store for you, as well! It’s hump day and we’re half way through the week, folks!

surgery and the male brain...

hiking in the area around Moab

You know, they frequently say that it’s us women that are so hard to figure out and know what’s going on in our heads but I truly disagree after living with Rob for over 22 years.  Sometimes, that man puzzles the heck out of me.  If you’ve been keeping up, you know that Rob is scheduled for surgery this morning on his knee.  Well, yesterday, I saw the most unusual personality behavior emerge and I think it’s because he’s nervous and doesn’t want to admit it.

I keep forgetting that Rob has only had two other surgeries in his whole life, being the medical queen, myself.  His first surgery was just in 2006 when he had a UPPP (I won’t go into what all that stands for) to relieve him of his sleep apnea.  For a first surgery, it was a doozy, too. They had to remove his tonsils and adenoids, trim the thickness of his tongue, tack up his uvula in the back of his throat and break some tiny bones in his nose to reshape it so he could breathe better. It was not something I’d like to experience, either.  To top it off, he got so enamored of the liquid pain meds, he developed a rash because he was guzzling too much.  It was a long road to recovery, although, if you talk with him about it now, he shrugs it off. The funniest part of his recuperation was that I couldn’t get him to eat solid food for quite a while, despite the doc saying he was ready.  So, in order to get calories in him, I was melting almost a whole stick of butter in his chicken broth.  He wouldn’t even try anything else for the longest time, except jello and popsicles. The most hilarious thing, though, is afterwards, he kept asking if I'd make that "special" broth again until I finally had to confess that it was the butter that made it taste so good. I figure that was probably 500 calories a cup stuff!

His second surgery was for a umbilical hernia repair and he really flew right through that one just last year.  So, yesterday, when he came home for lunch, I was a little unprepared for the “Rob” that showed up to dine.  I’m not sure if I can quite explain it on paper but he was really talkative and yet at the same time, overfocused on silly things.  What it was, I think, is he was acting more like me and less like him!  I could feel this crazy, kinetic energy shooting off of him and he seemed unable to really focus on one thing.  I am hoping that he’ll be better when he wakes up this morning.  It wasn’t like he was mean or nasty…..just very electric, if that makes any sense.  Rob is a very focused person and he just wasn’t yesterday.  Poor guy had all kinds of things to get done at work, too, including turning in his budget, so maybe that was part of it.

Rob in front of the "mittens" in Monument Valley.

So, today’s the day!  We called yesterday and they told us to be at the hospital at 10:30.  That means, if all goes well, his surgery time is 11:30.  I’ve got his cryocuff and crutches all ready and his little area around his lounge chair prepared for him. If he’s like I was, there’ll be no going upstairs to the bedroom for a few days so I’m making him a nice little nest in front of the TV. Our 100 year old house has 16 very steep steps up to the bedrooms. 

Of course, I’ll be taking Thistle along.  She much prefers to sit in daddy’s truck than in her kennel here at home.  I figure we’ll get him all tucked into his surgery and then I’ll go out and walk Thistle for a while, that will help pass the time.  She was a trooper when we brought her along for my surgery.  Plus, there’s nothing like good puppy licks to start the healing process when Rob is finished!  If you are a FB friend, I’m sure I’ll be embarrassing Rob with candid pictures throughout the process, as well, tee hee.

The weather is already looking like it’s going to be a beautiful day!  We had to cover a few of the new plantings we did over the weekend, the erygium is rather delicate right now and it’s still been getting into the low 30’s here at night.  I am hoping that this last little snowstorm we had Friday is the last of the snow and maybe it will just rain from now on.  That snow didn’t do any damage, thank goodness, as my lilac hedge is starting to look loaded with blossoms and I would hate for them to freeze.  Lilacs are one of the most heavenly scents, I think.  Our hedge runs around three sides of our property and when those suckers are in bloom, I spend as much time as possible out there with them, inhaling!  Of course, this spring, the allergies are so bad, I don’t know if I can get anything through my swollen nostrils right now!  Usually, the cottonwood trees don’t start releasing all their little fuzzies until June but because of the warm winter, it’s already flying around like crazy.  Thistle has been chasing the fuzzies and eating them, yuck!  Buffalo sometimes looks like there’s snow everywhere in the late spring and summer with all of them flying around and settling in big swirling piles.

Okay, well, I have to get moving and see what personality my husband has this morning. I’m trying to let him sleep as long as possible so he doesn’t think about not being able to have coffee and breakfast.  I swear, every time he has to be NPO (without food or water) for a procedure, he thinks it’s the end of the world and he’s gonna starve.  I can pretty much guarantee that we’ll be stopping at the Dragon Wall Chinese buffet after his surgery so he can make up for that whole 12 hours he was without food.  After my knee surgery, I was feeling well enough to actually go sit down and eat at a restaurant so I imagine he’ll be the same.  The wonderful thing about this surgery is that Dr. Quinn gives the extra added bonus of injected painkillers right into the knee so Rob’s probably not going to be feeling a lot of pain until that wears off tomorrow.

Have a beautiful day, everyone!  I hope that everything is going swimmingly in your life and you find humor in everything.  Doesn’t do a lot of good to be upset about things you have no control over.  As I always say, you may not have control over your circumstances, but you always have control over how you let life and those circumstances affect you!  Giggling about it is way more fun!