Busy Bee!

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A Hectic Day

It hasn't been easy posting tonight! For some reason I can't seem to upload my pictures, it keeps on giving me an error message. So, I'll just keep this very simple and hopefully get a picture uploaded later. Between having a repairman come in at 8:45am, a lunch meeting with my friend Charlene, a 1:30 appoinment with one of my neighbors Sandy to help her with a memorial project, and a 5-7 class at the Y amongst other things, today has been mighty busy!

Tonight was a bit of a disappointment, though I did still have fun! Of the 20 people expected at the YMCA for my mini book class, only 6 showed up! 3 ladies and 3 children. Fortunately all were very nice people, so it was a fun time nonetheless! One of the ladies was a neighbor Sandra, a sweet lady, not to be confused with the previously mentioned Sandy who is without a doubt also very sweet. The other two ladies were both scrapbook enthusiasts that I hope I'll see again sometime soon! The three children who made books seemed to have a lot of fun, and between this and the card make-n-take on Monday, I rediscovered how much fun it is to make crafts with kids!

Now if I can only find my handy dandy sony camera, I'll be a very happy critter. Both my camera and my headset seem to have decided to go awol (absent without leave/permission), though one could argue that it is my mind that is missing in action!

Given that I'm not sure if you'll hear from me between now and Sunday, I' ve got a lot on my plate between now and then, I'd like to wish my Canadian family members and friends, a very Happy Thanksgiving weekend and to all, have a great weekend!

And please, don't forget to forgive what you can't forget!

(pictures downloaded from photobucket)

Making the Most of the Weekend!

Yesterday, Saturday, I decided to take a drive and visit a little village in Indiana called Metamora. I had asked around about a cute place to shop with a Main street and someone had come up with this town. Delighted that my son is coming to visit for Thanksgiving, I wanted to see if this might be the type of place we might both love.

As I got close to the place the traffic started to crawl. Being that we are speaking of a two lane country road, I felt for the locals and wondered if the area was always this congested. Next parking in fields were announced and I started to realize that something was really up and that fortunately we were not talking accident! After shelling out $6 to park in a field, I walked around on the north side of the road. There were lots of merchant tents and hundreds of people! The actual town though was on the other side of the road and again there were lots of merchant tents and hundreds of people.

Without a doubt this is the largest street vendor fair I have ever seen. It just so happens that it was Canal Days (weekend) in Metamora, a beautiful old village. I wont bore you with the story of the town, you can check out more here. Let me just say that if you come to visit me there is a big chance that we will go and visit this beautiful town which is only an hours drive through beautiful countryside.

Having done so well going north west, today I decided to have another look at the Indiana side of the Ohio. Again we are speaking only 30 to 45 minutes away. This time it being Sunday the stores were closed in these little towns, yet given the beautiful weather, I was happy to walk out and enjoy the view and the perfect weather. I ended up in a town called Rising Son, which has a Casino set in a paddle wheeler.

I didn't go near the casino, but you can see it in the picture. There is a nice walk along the river and this is the most pristine part of the Ohio River I've yet to see. Closer to home the river is rather industrial looking.

Now I've done a considerable amount of crafting this weekend as well, for the YMCA Make-N-Take and Family craft class. I promise, I'll share either later today or tomorrow. Meanwhile, think about the fun we'll have when you come and visit me!

New Teresa Collins Kit

I just gor 6 of these in stock and they look fabulous! I'm thinking of offering a class with them, but I'm wiling to part with one if that would make our blog winner happy! You can see a video of Teresa Collins playing with the kit here. I'll add the teardrops to make the kit complete!

I went to physio today. I hadn't been in 2 weeks and it was good to see that my at home physio is making a difference! They showed me a new exercise that really made my arm feel better as it helped stretch the bicep muscle which was feeling very tight!

For those who wonder I do manage to relax and take care of the shoulder. For example, I took a 60 minute bath tonight while watching TV! That is one of my indulgences, I have an cable outlet that allows me to watch TV while in the tub. I find it very decadent and therefore very relaxing! So that's it folks! I'll post the winner in a couple of minutes so come and see!!! BTW, the winner needs to email me privately with their address and their list!

Don't forget to forgive what you can't forget!

It Really is Autumn

The last time I really saw and felt Autumn, I lived in North Little Rock, Arkansas. Given that I left there in the spring of 2006, my last real autumn would have been in the fall of 2005. While it was dark and dreary outside in Northern Kentucky this morning, it is also crisp and dry. I think my son would be in 7th heaven if he were here! Just his kind of day!

I must say though that there is little change in the leaves, at least not compared to what I was used to in Ottawa or even Montreal. (See picture of Ottawa in the fall. I worked 5 minutes away from where this picture was taken, at National Defense Headquarters, the Canadian equivalent of the Pentagon). Here in Northern Kentucky, at least where I am, the trees turn a little red and brown, but basically they seem to wither and fall off before they can turn all those magnificent colors that make a person say wow!

I've been doing a lot of stuff recently. I finished my recipe cards for the next round and my Christmas cards for the Hilltop swap. I'm not sure if I should post my card here yet, or wait till everyone gets theirs. They all look the same except that on some I used silver accents and others gold. The recipe is divine, though it calls for a candy thermometer which can be purchased for less than $10 in most places. Hopefully that will not be a turn off for the people that get the recipe. Think of it as an opportunity to go and buy a new gadget! Michaels actually had one here at $14+ but I had a 40% off coupon! The recipe is one that my mother in law makes and believe me it is worth the effort! Of course that doesn't tell you what the recipe is, except that it must be candy, or else why, the candy thermometer. Why indeed?

I have almost finished part of my project for my YMCA classes next week and will post more on that tomorrow. Because a person really should not be idle, I am also working on a couple of sweaters for my nieces, Rachel and Lindsay to give as Christmas gifts. Well that's it from Kentucky for tonight!

Don't forget to forgive what you can't forget!

A Whole Album to Share

With the album now safely in Charlotte's parents hands, I can now share the work that went into making it! I hope the colors come out ok on your monitors for some reason on this one they look a little darker. That is always a problem with scanning things. Have fun, enjoy and don't forget to post your comments on the blog and not on Facebook. This coming week is blog candy week!!!

Fun in Hebron, KY

Last Friday I went to a Beauty Control party at one of my neighbors homes. It really was interesting, though I must say that I put more stuff on my face, hands and feet in that 2 hour period than I had in the previous oh, lets say five years. I did buy a couple of things to firm and fill, unfortunately they didn't seem to have anything for major sag, LOL!

Given how we spent part of the evening (see picture) I guess no one should be upset if we don't recognize each other if we cross paths again! Nor can anyone be truly upset that I posted this picture as it would be hard for anyone to be recognized. On the other hand, I can honestly say that the pores on our faces were more open and cleaner at the end of the evening!

Baby Girl Mini Album

I'm not sure I should share this yet, but odds are that my BIL and SIL will not be reading this tonight and that they will still be surprised when they get them. There are three little books, two with ELI and Charlotte on the cover for his parents and one with Amy and Charlotte on the cover for Amy to give her mom, my MIL GG! I hope they like them. They are nothing big, but a fun keepsake and for the record, I did have fun making them.

With any luck they will let me know that the package arrived in Alaska on time and undamaged and I'll be able to share some of the pages from the baby girl scrapbook I made for Charlotte's first year. There are pages with envelopes for her parents to write how they felt when she was born, pages for each month, pages for her Baptism, and a page for her 1st birthday.

Other than that I do need to get going on the last few pages of the "My Family in Black and White" scrapbook so that I can upload it and get a number of bound books made. Those are intended as
Christmas presents for various members of my family. While I've never managed to get a single picture out of my brother or sister, I've been lucky enough to get some from my cousin Georgette in Canada and my cousin MArie-Jeanne in Belgium. I still have my fingers crossed that I will get some contributions from my siblings to fill my second album which will include pictures taken since colored photographs became available. That would sure help, given that I lost most of the pictures I had first in a flood and most of the remainder in a fire. Other than the pictures that Georgette gave me, I have no pictures of myself between the ages of 5 and 23 or so. I guess that is one reason that I was so happy that I was able to reconstruct some of my MILs photos and scrapbook after KAtrina destroyed most of her home in Gulfport, MS.

See I've been Creative!

In case you haven't noticed, I have tried to be creative. I decided to play with brushes in photoshop elements and see what I could come up with! As you might have noticed there is a new image behind my blog title, just a little tryout for the fun of it.

In addition, today if Hubby's b-day. Not the most quiet b-day since he had to go into work way early so he could finish something before his two classes this afternoon. I felt for him so I went and got fixins for a dark chocolate cake with dark chocolate icing and made him cupcakes. It occured to me that he seems to prefer the ease of just grabbing a cupcake rather than having to cut a slice from a cake. I put two side by side and put candles on them and voila, instant welcome home and happy birthday!

Other than that I didn't do much today given that I was woken up by the garage doors at 2:30am. You would think if would be easy to fall asleep again, but given that I am still sleeping sitting up on a bunch of pillows because of my shoulder, sleeping isn't all that easy in the first place. I know, I know, poor me, sniff. NOT the point here! I'm not feeling sorry for myself, just thinking there was a bunch more I should have been doing!

Other than that I still have to figure out what to do for my next recipe swap. Amongst my DMIL's recipes there is one for bourbon pralines that seems like just the thing to share! Just haven't figured out if I want to do that one thins month or not. Hmm... maybe something from Belgium this time. I do have my grandfather's recipe for belgian cookies, made in the waffle iron that people might enjoy!, We'll see!

Recipe Swap Contribution

I recently joined a recipe swap made up of a number of my Florida friends that belong to the Hilltop Memories Group run by a wonderful lady named Linda Jenkins. Linda is one of those super women I was speaking of yesterday. She has a family of her own, runs a daycare, owns a successful scrapbook business, and is present on Facebook, runs a Yahoo group, updates her Hilltopmemories.com shopping website and also keeps 2 blogs up-to-date. I honestly don't know how she does it all and does it all so well!

In the spirit of sharing more of my work, I thought I'd share my recipe, so you can see that I honestly do still scrap!

Catching Up Again!

It seems like I'm always trying to catch up with things. It's not that I don't think about my blog, just that sometimes it's just difficult to take the time to post and get other things done. I'm sure you all know what I mean. You've got to admire those ladies that manage a job, kids, a hobby, Facebook and posting to one or more blogs. Yet those superwomen do exist and I do envy them. Well maybe I was even one of them a long time ago, though Facebook and blogs didn't exist then, you had to take the time to call or write everyone to let them know what was going on. You have to admire just how handy blogs and social networks on keeping people updated.

As for me, life has consisted of physio, doctor appointments, finishing the 1 year baby scrapbook for my new niece Charlotte (isn't she cute!) born on September 2nd, as well as 3 mini-scrapbooks I thought her parents might like to have to send to her grandparents. I finally got all that out in the mail priority post yesterday. combined with a special surprise which I hope will elicit a huge smile from both her parents and a birthday present for her dad, Eli. I just hope that the package makes it to Alaska by Wednesday as promised. I must say that it was nice of the UPS store owner to let me know that priority mail would be about 1/3 the price of UPS which was not cheap at over $90 in shipping charges!

Today I met this nice lady who started a meetup group for Empty Nesters between 50 and 60. We had a great time and found quite a few things in common, some of them, I must say rather bizarre! After some time at the Boone County main library, I ran another couple of errands, mainly I went to Hobby Lobby where they were having a 50% off sale on wall hangings. With all the extra walls in our new house, I did want to grab a couple of things! After spending a little time talking with my neighbor about this and that, I came on home to try and update my blog before going out again, this time to a Relaxation party at one of my new neighbor's home.

I think I am finally coming to grips with the idea that this may be my forever home. I honestly don't think I've felt this way since 1992 or 3 when I lived in a beautiful town in Quebec, south of Montreal called Mont Saint-Hillaire (see picture). BTW my guest room is 90% ready, so people, it's time to invite yourselves up or down here, as the case may be, for a visit!

Surgery Details for Posterity

OK in this blog entry, for those of you who are detailed oriented and have asked questions about what exactly was done to my shoulder, here is what Dr C and his team did:
The procedures that were completed include the following; just click on the link if you really want to see more:

• Arthroscopic Subacronial Decompression
• Distal Clavicle Resection
• Labral Debridement

All things considered, the current outcome is pretty good. I'm 5 days post op and off the pain meds during the day. The pain that was present between my elbow and shoulder along my bicep is mostly gone. Sure there is pain where the three arthroscopic ports were placed and a certain tightness in all the muscles, but nothing compared to what I'd been led to expect!

Today was my first physio appointment and they were truly impressed with the progress I've already made. That isn't to say that they didn't find ways to torture me. My first few attempts at pulling my arm all the way up using the pulleys comes to mind far too easily here. However, I do have complete range of motion already, though for now, mostly passive (meaning when the therapist moves my arm for me). My single biggest issue is convincing all the muscles and ligaments that were pushed and pulled apart during the surgery, that they do work and will pull my arm through all its positions the way "I" want them to!

I was reminded by my therapist, Sharon, that they did do extensive work in my shoulder, shaving and cutting bone away and that does mean that it is "supposed" to hurt! OK, I give in, it hurts; you've convinced me, LOL! But not as bad as I'd been told and had read. Nana, nana, na!

I've used my arm as normally as possible today and combined with physio it is rather sore right now. I took one ibuprofen a few minutes ago and that is my first pain pill since my "go to sleep, little girl pill at 11pm last night. As soon as I finish watering the yard, I'll go and install myself in my room and ice everything again!

Well I'm still checking email continuously in the hope of seeing that my niece has finally made an appearance. My thoughts are all about my SIL who, I know, is even more anxious than I am! Love you Amy!

Post Op Update

Greetings,

First let me say that I am now typing with my two hands! Who would have thunk it, three days post surgery!

My post op visit went really well. I start physio right away and can start driving as soon as I'm off the pain meds! Unless physio is really bad that should be soon since I did without pain meds most of the day today. I took one pill about an hour before getting into the car with Hubby to go to the appointment. And no it wasn't about Hubby's driving, but about the bumps and holes in the roads between home and the Dr's office.

Hubby will tell you there was one point during the visit when I near turned green. The Doctor moved my arm away from my torso and up, and while I don't usually swear and didn't then, let me say it now, it hurt like hell!!!

So I'm on my way to a full recovery, though I am sure that I'll need to be careful for a while and not lift heavy objects for a considerable amount of time. I know I'll hear more about the do's and dont's when I go in to physio. I thought I'd include a picture of an exercise item, the pulley, which I hear will be used by yours truly quite a lot over the next few days and weeks! I do have a few which are scheduled to come out in another couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I do have to be careful not to snag the little treads on anything. Thankfully I can shower as long as I don't deliberately let the wter flow on the three holes and I just need to pat the area dry once I'm done. No big deal!

Hopefully if I do what I'm told and don't try to do the things I'm told not to, it will be harder for Dr. C to turn me into a leprechaun with a single movement of my arm on my next visit, two weeks from now! And yes, hard as it is to believe, I do plan to do everything they say, even if it means having to be good when I don't want to be. I have read enough about shoulder surgeries over the last six months to last a lifetime. Then again my research has shown that the surgical techniques for repairing shoulders have come a very long way in the last couple of years. If you ever have a shoulder problem, read slaptear.com. It is a forum that allows you to see shoulder surgery and recovery from the perspective of the patient and it helped me a great deal to figure out how to move my arm/shoulder post surgery, given that my post op appointment was scheduled for two days later than the normal next day. Slaptear.com also great ideas on how to prepare for surgery, what to do, bring and prepare, which also helped me a great deal!

Right there at the front of my mind today is my little sister-in-law Amy. Amy, my thoughts are with you! I can't wait for you to be holding your baby in your arms. Hopefully once they induce you tomorrow, everything will go quickly! Meanwhile enjoy your last truly peaceful night on earth! Every mother worthy of that name, will tell you that life is never the same once your 1st child is born.

Now, back to icing my shoulder. My life is so exciting!

Shoulder Surgery Tomorrow

So it's finally here, surgery day. Well more specifically it will be here tomorrow at 11:30am. I would have avoided it, especially after my DMIL told me what she did, but the Dr(s) and physio therapists all agreed that my arm would not heal without surgical help. After months of being in pain and getting absolutely nowhere with physio, what is a girl to do!

My first clue that the surgery had finally been approved was an 8:15 call from the surgical equipment guy telling me that we needed to meet so that I could get my sling, pillow, immobilizer do-hickey today, so I did that. I thought I'd share a picture of what the sling with pillow looks like. I could be in this thing for 4 or more weeks, yikes! My doctor, Dr Colosimo, is a good guy! He is funny and very driven. Apparently he is not a talker on surgery day. I am told that he goes from one surgery to the next and doesn't stop to speak with either the patient or their family post-op. Actually that makes sense to me as I can tell you that I have never remembered a thing that a Doctor has told me immediately post op. So unless you have someone in the room with you that can do an excellent job of recounting everything to me word for word, I'd rather wait. The only thing that sucks though is that in this case, since the surgery is on Monday, I won't see Dr C until until very late Monday. That's cause Hubby is teaching Monday until 4:30 so I had to take the last appointment at 5:30. I was assured that Dr C would still be there waiting for us when we got there even if we were a little late, but you know how it is, the Dr is probably running 3 hours late himself by the end of the day! I'll have to make sure that I'm well narcked when I go see him!

So that's it. I'll do my best to come and let you all know that I'm alive both here and on Facebook. Until next time friends when I'll be one hand typing under the influence...