Sunday/Monday... Where has the week gone!!

Hi Everyone,

 These are my precious little Ghouls, Adrian, Cathy and Dante. I will be doing Alex's Halloween page next.

 The background comes from a kit from Kyra called Creepy Romance, The Quick Page is from Miss Edna and the rest of the embellishments come from Lins_Creations from a kit called A Witchy Halloween.

 I didn't blog yesterday. The resolution on my computer was way off and so I had Jonathan do a restore point on it this morning. Not that it would have mattered all that much as I was busy sleeping. I think that we are going to have to adjust my meds. When I first came home from the hospital it was good for me to sleep as much as possible, but now it seems that is all that I do. Karyn said one more week and we will cut my meds down to a quarter 3 times a day instead of a half 3 times a day. It was a whole pill 3 times a day so we have already cut it back.
 A lot of it is that I am bored. There is not much that I can do actually. I cannot get out and walk very far right now, I can't cook or clean and to me that is a great little vacation but I cringe when I walk into the kitchen lol. I have 5 weeks left before I can do any of the major things and I plan on taking advantage of it.

 I was invited today to join a group that I have admired for awhile. I am so excited. Our first challenge is a Halloween challenge and the page is supposed to be SCARY.... hmmm I will have to first see the kit to see what comes to mind.

 On my list of things to do today is a shower. Karyn asked me if I wanted her to stay with me this morning while I took one but I told her no and sent her home. I know that she is ready to get on with her own life but what a God Send my daughter was to me. I had told her that she could go home anytime that she needed to. She lives right up the hill from me so she can come anytime that I need for her to but the boys are here. They can do a lot to help me out as well. I can do the shower thing myself now I think. I did it the other night by myself so I think that I got this covered.

 I go to the doctor on Wednesday to get my staples out. On Tuesday I go to pick up my shoes finally and so slowly but surely I am getting back on my feet. If I could just get this pain in my lower abdomen to lighten up. My doctor said it is due to the aneurysm that they had to repair and that it was going to bother me "A Little" he said... hmmm... seems to be bothering me a lot lol.

 Well my home town received 21.4 inches of rain since Thursday night. A Union Pacific train was swept off the tracks as the tracks themselves were swept away. Thankfully no one was injured. Let me see if I can find a picture of it. Well my picture seems to have disappeared. I even went looking on the newspaper site but so much other stuff has covered it up. I cannot believe the desctruction as I was reading the posts of road closures, bridge outages and one article really hit me in in the heart and that was the rescue shelter at one of the churches. What blessings of our community. Not really mine anymore but I will never forget the generosity of some of the people and some of the community missions.

 So I guess that this is about all that I have for today. Take care and I will be back soon.... BB

Trying To Get Caught Up A Little

Hi Everyone,

 I am trying to get caught up a little on my blog reading and posting. For the most part I have not been my usual happy self. I know that pain does that to you. Speaking of pain, I remember when I had my kidney removed and I did not hurt no where near how I hurt now. I am constantly in pain. The pain meds are not helping that much and that really makes me even more cranky Thank Goodness for my meds that they gave me to help me relax so that the pain killers can actually do a little bit of work. I just dont understand why they will not give patients drugs that will actually kill the pain and not just gloss over it.
 I can still barely walk because I am just so sore. The pain is down from a 12 to a 7 or 8 but still enough that I am pretty crabby.
 Forgive me for not emailing, blogging and talking on the phone. But I am trying more and more to become more involved than just lying in bed in my room. I have been at the computer but not really socializing, just playing my farm town game. I did a couple of pages but my heart wasn't really into it and I have spoken to a few people but only for short times. For once I am not depressed. I just have all this pain that I am dealing with.
 Each side of my groin seems raw. It is red and and very tender but the doctor assures me that the incisions look good and that they are not infected. I have a total of 33 staples and in the center of my pelvic area is where I hurt the worse. It is because they found an aneurysm there that had to be repaired and I also found out that the stent that they put in back 3 years ago had broken apart and was disingrating so it had to be repaired. I go on Wednesday to have the staples cut out and see my Vascular Surgeon.

 Here are a couple of pics that Karyn took of me sometime after surgery.

I am not sure where I am in these photos. This is not my room. Possibly in recovery, or even after they medicated me to take me back. I look pretty out of it tho.
 I had a very nice room.
 They didnt want me getting up the next day but my catheter was really bothering me and I had them to take it out and so I had no choice but to get up and walk to the bathroom. My nurse was like... Baby you just had major surgery, You really need to stay in bed. I am not one to stay in bed. If i can get up and walk around I will and actually that night I did walk down the corridor and back to my room. It is good to get up as soon as possible and move around. The longer that you lay still and in bed the harder that it is on you in the long run.

 I shared the pictures of our walking dog park before I left for surgery and so here is what it looks like now. They are not really working on it right now because it is raining pretty heavily here. We are supposed to be getting lots of rain and I am so thankful that we live up on a hill. Still know that lots of people are going to get caught in need.

 Before....

After.... and they are still not done. They laid new sod yesterday and plants, just in time for the rain to help set the new plants and sod. Now they will add benches and a few pic nic tables and start working on the walking trails at the back of the property. It is sure coming along better than I expected.

 Edna I took my coffee singles to the hospital with me so that when I wanted a cup of coffee Karyn could just get me a hot cup of water from the nurses station instead of going all the way down to the cafeteria to get me a cup. What wonderful inventions. I just finished my last one and have really enjoyed them. Thank you so much.

 Well My pills are kicking in and I am getting fuzzy, so i will close for now. Take care everyone and I hope that I will be back tomorrow. I want to use some of Miss Edna's Quick Pages today. Or at least try and work on some pages. I am just not guarrenteeing anything at the moment.... Take care and BB

Moving Ever So Slowly

 Hi Everyone,

 I am so sorry to have been gone for so long but I had major surgery on the 15th of October. The Vascular team put stents into my groin on both sides and in my lower abdominal and they had a surprise waiting for them. I also had an abdominal aneurysm that they had to repair. I actually just found this out as I was looking at my hospital discharge papers.At any rate this post will be a very short one as I have been busy all day looking for certain papers so that I can make appointments. Ohhh the aggravation of such a chore. I hate phone work. I could never be a secretary because papers and phones just irritate the heck out me.

 This is a page that mu friend Patsy made for my birthday. As I have no scrap pages from the past few days I thought that I would share this one... I will try and be back tomorrow but at this point I am not making any promise's. I am just way to out of it still to know what I am doing these days... Hugs an have a great day. BB

My Birthday And A Work In Progress

 Hi Everyone,

 Well it has been like a week since I have posted for several reasons. One there hasn't been much news to blog about and two I have been busy doing scrap pages for my friends and family. I want to get them done before I go into the hospital Thursday for my surgery and I am not sure that I am going to make the deadline that I have set for myself, but I am going to try.

 The picture above is one that is a work in progress. Yesterday was my birthday and I was surprised to recieve a package delivered to my door. It was from my friend Edna, Awww Edna thank you so much.
 It was a book called "Living Wonders Color Art for everyone" and inside is such beautiful images to color along with 50 map colors. So I have been working on this and I was hoping to have it finished but I think that I have about an hour to go. Maybe a little longer. I will post the completed page as soon as I can.
 I was hoping that the page would have come out a little brighter but with the lighting in my house I guess that I am lucky that the flash picked up as much of the photo as it did.
 I had forgotten how much fun and relaxing coloring can be. Edna this is such a thoughtful gift and I thank you very much for thinking of a unique way for me to spend my time in the hospital and for helping me de-stress as well as something to do while I am recuperating....

 My birthday was really nice. I slept in and the boys moved all the furniture, dusted and vacuumed the living and dining room and then Karyn came over and we shared a glass of wine and talked and opened my gift. Jonathan had given me my gift early. A Tablet.... YAY!!

 It is a Galaxy S 3 Tablet. I thought that it was an S 4 but it wasn't. I had looked at the back of it wrong but I LOVE it...
 and Karyn gave me a subscription to Hulu so I now have Hulu and Netflix so I can choose more to watch.
 She was going to make me enchilada's for my birthday dinner but was out of all of the ingredients and so in the end she made me the best steak I have had in a long time.
 Phone calls from family and friends and over 200 facebook Birthday messages and several online cards and such... It was so nice... then I had a nap and best of all I didn't have to clean up until today.
 Karyn my love your a wonderful cook but I didn't realize that you had to use every clean pot and pan and dish, spoon and bowl in the house! LOL... I didn't really mind as I had a great day and that was worth every second that I did dishes lol.

 Tomorrow I will go outside and take more pics for the work done on the walking trail/dog park project. Wow...  I cannot believe how much work that they get done in a week. I know it is going to be beautiful when they are done.

 So Thursday is my big day. I may be in the hospital 4 to 5 days depending on how I do but usually I do so well that they will let me come home on day 3 so I am hoping that is what happens this time as well. I really hope that all goes well and that I can start walking again like I use to. I want to take hikes and I definitly want to take some nice strolls in the beautiful walking trails that we will have, and go downtown and explore and just get up and go and be active again.

 Wednesday I have to be at the hospital at 7 and then again on Thursday at 7 so I may not get to post again after tomorrow until I come home.

 I have some thank you's to take care of so everyone, have a Blessed Day! BB

A Sleepy Monday

 Hi Everyone,

 

 I just lost a whole hours worth of posting. One thing about this blog is if you walk away for 5 seconds you lose it all. So here is the condensed form.

 The page above is one that I did last night. I did not post it onto facebook because I have friends and family that would lecture me on the evil of it. I don't consider this to be evil. I find earthly things in this world of ours that is evil. You know how long that list of Evil can be so unlike my last blog post I shall not repeat my rather lengthy observations to what i consider evil in this world. I am sure that your observations are like mine at any rate. So anyway here is my scrap page called The Spell Master.

 On Saturday I managed to grocery shop. I bought my Cisco a doggie bone. A pretty big doggie bone. One that he couldn't devour in a few minutes. What I didn't count on was that it made him sick. So I have been up all night with my sick baby. I will never buy another one like that for him again. I feel so bad. Here I thought that I was giving him a well earned treat and all I really succeeded in doing was making him sick. I have never seen him throw up as many times as he did throughout the night. Finally at 6 this morning, I finally laid down and he got up beside me and I held him close until we both fell asleep for a couple of hours.

 As promised I have new pics to share of our Walking Trail/dog park/grill and picnic area. No one is really sure what it is going to be so we will just have to wait and see but it looks like Nathan heard right about it being a picnic area. The office changes their minds all the time so no telling what this is going to be but here are the pics for you.

 So I have company just walked in so I will close for now... Have a spectacular day! BB

Color Me So Surprised

Hello Everyone and Welcome to Saturday,

 This page above is one that I did last month to enter into a challenge. The challenge was Mosaic Effect or Stained Glass Effect depending upon which program that your using. In Craft Artist 2 it is called Stained Glass.

 This was the hardest page to do because my pixels would not become any smaller than what is on the page above you. If you want a closer look just click on the page and it should open into a larger format for you. 

 I had a lot of help from my group, and advice and suggestions and this emerged and was declared my final attempt at it and so I entered it.

 So imagine my surprise yesterday morning when I discovered that I had won second place with this page! 

 There was some extraordinary pages in last months challenge. I wish that I could share them with you but I really cannot as it is a  closed group. But oh well, I can show you my stuff.

 Today also brings me to sharing my CT Pages. I have not done that in a while and some of you have already seen them on facebook, but for those that haven't here are the latest done from a Halloween Kit.

This is a great Halloween kit called A Witchy Halloween by Lins_Creations. You can find this kit at these great stores:

 https://www.mymemories.com/store/display_product_page?id=LINS-EP-1509-93062&R=Lins_Creations

http://berryapplicious.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=6&zenid=84c0957ba9c4a57a27b1e496e193fb2d

 If any of you out there are not digital scrappers and would love to learn I don't mind helping you at all.

 You can go to www.daisytrail.com and download their free software kit and they also have tons of free kits to go along with the program. It is simple and easy to use, it is great for beginners and then of course if you want the full version it is very inexpensive. I believe it is like $7.99..... so for less than 10 dollars you cannot go wrong with it.

 They have challenges, tutorials and a forum. You have your own Gallery and inbox where you can communicate with some wonderful people. 

 I am as you can see an Addicted Scrapbooker. Anyway it is just a thought if anyone is interested and you know I had a girl tell me.... I am just not good at doing these pages.... Guess what? She is now doing scrap layout pages for 4 different designers! You never know until you try.

 But for me, my scrapping motivation comes for different reasons. For me it is a way that I can relax and it is a way that I can create something by pushing myself just a little more. An outlet for my creativity. It is also a way that I have met some wonderful people. Truly great people. 

 I just took Cisco out for a morning walk and it feels so good out there. it is 59 degrees according to my phone. I wish that it could stay like this all of the time. For me this is a perfect temp. Not to hot, not to cold. Just right. But of course it will be down right cold before long. We usually hang around these Indian Summer days until Halloween. Usually Halloween is cold and windy and sometimes rainy. 

 When my kids were little we made a party and tradition out of Halloween. We had Sandwiches and Chips of course, and I made a big pan of Wassel.... If your not sure what wassel is, it is a simple recipe. Simply buy a large gallon jug of apple juice or cider if you prefer, pour into a pot and bring to a boil and add a bag of red hot cinnamon candies... stir until the candy melts, ladle into mugs and add a cinnamon stick. Take care to cool down before ladling it out for the little ones. It is very hot. 

 We would eat and go trick or treating and then come home to a movie and popcorn and of course their candy after I inspected it. 

 One year we missed Halloween. It was a hard and sad time. My youngest, Nathan at the time was 3 months old and he did not have a soft spot at birth. We ended up having to go to Dallas for tests. His dad and I and Nathan spent Halloween at Childrens Hospital in Dallas doing tests and with the Red Cross to get blood for him for surgery. 

 People I will never donate to Red Cross again. Not a penny of my money will go to them nor a penny of my time. I donated blood since I was 17 years old in highschool. I gave every time the blood mobile rolled into town. I carried my card proudly and I was usually the first one advocating that the the blood drive was such and such day.

 I was told that if you gave blood, when a family member needed blood, then they could recieve blood. When my tiny baby needed blood for surgery they turned us down flat. At the time my husband wasn't working. He was doing farm work and it rained the whole month of October. I applied for Medicaid that year for all of the kids so I could take them to the doctor and such. The Red Cross would not accept our medicaid. I begged and pleaded with them for a pint of blood. I told them I had always donated and yet I was told "I'm sorry but we can't help you." 

 My sister Susie lived in Tennessee. She went to her local Red Cross and since she has a rare blood type they allowed her to give blood so my son could recieve the blood. I was not allowed to give the blood because I was taking insulin and his dad couldn't give the blood because at the time he was sick with a bad cold. So I was angry with the Red Cross for years.

 Then when we were hit with the flood and people lost everything! The Red Cross came into town, parked outside of town and no one even knew that they were there... and handed out a cooler of water, a mop, a bucket, rubber gloves and a broom and mop and were gone before you could blink. People needed food. They needed help. They didn't have a home. What good was a bucket broom and mop going to do for anyone. I wouldn't have even known they were in town except my FEMA worker called me on the phone after inspecting my house to tell me that the Red Cross was set up at such and such place. I wondered why didn't they let anyone know that they were coming? Also how was people who didn't have cars supposed to get there and back...? I was very disgusted.

 Many people have said that it was that we had a bad local chapter of the Red Cross. That most chapters are great, but I have had 2 bad experiences with them.

 A few years ago a friend of mine had her house demolished by a tornado. She said that the Red Cross never came to their area that she heard. Other organizations did. Mostly churches brought food and blankets and medical supplies and people to help the victims. 

 In our case after the flood the community helped each other. People that had not been effected invited families into their homes, and offered meals and clothing and help. 

 So you can see why I am not a fan of the Red Cross.... and yet let an earthquake or a flood or disaster hit another country and watch how fast Red Cross sets up! 

 OK I am getting off that soap box now.... Whew I didn't mean to turn this into a rant.

 So I just walked into the living room and Cisco poked his head out from the covers where he is snuggled up with Nathan! He looked so cute with his little head peeking out from under the blanket. He is such a lovey. At least for the most part. 

 Well it is time for my morning meds and breakfast so everyone have a great weekend and I will be back on Monday... I hope all is well and talk to you soon. BB