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!

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!

2 am madness....

I love old farm/ranch machinery!

I am up earlier than usual this morning. I didn’t think that was possible these days. You see, I’ve had a weird problem since the first of the year…. I fall asleep watching television in the evenings.....nothing I do can keep my eyes open.  I’m sitting in my shake & bake recliner, all warm and full of dinner every evening.  Rob’s in the home office behind me working on websites, which have been kicking our butts lately.  The woodstove is roaring not far from me, emanating warmth like nothing else can. I try everything not to close my eyes.  I get up and hobble over and get a popsicle, maybe that’ll get me back lucid…. Nope, the next thing I know, Rob is looking at me, a little disappointed that I’ve lost another evening of chatting with him. He tells me it’s time to go to bed. I realize I’ve slept an hour (and usually missed some great show) and we trundle off to bed.

Then, the madness begins…I wake up, usually between 3-4 am, stark raving awake! No going back to bed for this girlie.  I’ve never been one that could do that once I’m fully awake. I’m not a napper, either, unless I’m totally exhausted.  This morning I woke up and because of the brightness of the full moon reflecting on the snow outside, I thought I actually got a whole night of sleeping in.  Nope..it was 2 am! Argh!

I must admit, however, I do enjoy this time of morning now.  Everything is so quiet and calm and peaceful.  Even the police scanner is totally silent next to my computer (I just love that thing, asked for it years ago when I was laid up) Of course, our scanner is never really too exciting to begin with. We really don’t have what you’d call “crime” in Buffalo. Oh sure, we have a few kids who make mischief and an occasional gas drive off. Mostly, it reports drunk driving suspects and those awful accidents up on I-90 and I-25. We are at the junction of those two interstates.  We do get our share of drug runners getting caught on the highway, but they aren’t locals.

Until two years ago, we hadn’t had a murder in Johnson County in almost  30 years.  I don’t consider this one two years ago a murder, either. She’d have got off scott-free if it was up to me. The woman who “murdered” her husband had been putting up with horrendous abuse for years.  Her problem was she waited too long after shooting him to call the police. Everyone knows the abuse history of the “murder victim”.  I’m being very polite here because I don’t know who reads this and I don’t want to make anyone mad because I know, despite the abuse, he was someone’s child, someone's brother.  Having worked a stint at the House of Ruth in Balto, though (a haven for abused women), I also can totally understand the woman’s actions.

But back to this time of morning and all its yummy goodness!  I like to go outside and look at the stars really early in the morning. I live in town, high up on a ridge.  When we first moved here, Rob and I were chagrined to learn that we live on the old “Snob Hill”. I guess that means the nice houses, the view or is it referring to the people? By the time we bought, though, Klondike had taken over the designation as the “New Snob Hill”, thank goodness.  Heck, we paid $88,000 for two city lots and a hundred year old house…nothing snobby there!  Our house was originally the "ranch" house for this whole ridge. Many early (1800's) photos of the town appear to have been taken from our property, I can tell from the angle. The view is outstanding. I can see over the whole town, especially in winter as the trees are leafless. Of course, the mountains make an awesome backdrop! We use most of the second lot for a big veggie garden and in the dark, last summer’s cornstalks and the other debris from a healthy harvest look magical swaying in the night breeze. There’s always a few falling stars, amid the galaxy out there.  We have amazing night sky here, really not even much light pollution because there’s only about 5000 of us close to town.  Always blows me away that I live in a state with just around half a million people and it’s one of the largest states in the country. We only have 8000 people in our county of 4,182 square MILES.  We have three traffic lights in the whole county and they are all within about 4 blocks of each other, right in town. When we left MD, there were over 5 million people there and you know how small that state is!

I think that’s why people are so nice here. We’re not stumbling and bumping into each other like in congested cities.  Sometimes, I can drive all the way out old Hwy 87 toward Kaycee and maybe pass 3 cars total. Makes for happier people, I say!

Oops, off track again…whose steering my brain this morning, eh?  Right now, there’s a Great Horned Owl out there somewhere, hooting to beat the band. I have an Audubon bird clock in my kitchen, one of those that has a different bird for each hour. One’s the owl and on more than one occasion, I’ve had to check and make sure it wasn’t the clock hooting and off its game!

Before dawn, it’s just magical….but I really need to get some sleep one of these days.  Sometimes, though, I think I’m meant to be up and experience the calm beauty of this time of day. It definitely  centers me for the rest of the rat racey day!

I’m starting to really look forward to my knee surgery. That’s part of why I’m up this morning so early. Got a heartbeat behind my knee right now and it is definitely grabbing my attention!  I hate painkillers and refuse to take them unless I’m really bad. I’m saving those suckers for post-surgery.  Being allergic to codeine and a myriad of other drugs, I get the “good stuff” when I do need it. Demerol is my choice…no not the shots! My one doc in Billings says that taking Demerol in pill form is useless and does nothing but I beg to differ. I don’t want to be catatonic, I want to be able to function, even on pain meds.  All the other stuff makes me itch like a heroin addict, anyway and just feel weird.  The stuff I take gets my pain down to a manageable level without making me stupid. Pain is actually a good thing, you need a little to know what’s going on.  I guess from being on so many pills for the AIDS over the years, I’ve learned that they aren’t necessarily the best thing for you. I don’t try to bring down fevers, either. That’s your body’s own defense against disease. Most viruses and bacteria can only live in very small temp zones. If you take aspirin or whatever to bring down the fever, you are defeating your own immune system’s job.  I prefer to know what’s going on in there! 

Okay, I see I’ve taken up too much of your valuable time this morning and I really didn’t say a darn thing of note.  Go out there and have a fabulous day.  Who knows, today could be the day your life changes forever for the better.  I’d just like to say that I truly enjoy sharing time on this big blue ball with all of you and I hope someday you find the peace with yourself that I’ve found and that you don’t need a terminal illness to do it…..

"Going inward allows you see into your soul and understand yourself better. Our motivations, thoughts, and opinions can get drowned out by the omnipresent cacophony of modern life and the people around us. Periodically reconnecting with yourself helps you affirm who you are and what you want from life. You can explore your past, present, hopes, and dreams without distraction when you commune with yourself. Explore your inner landscape today, and the answers to certain questions you’ve been asking yourself just might become clear!"~Daily OM