Jayde's Turns 3

I know this is really late, but I do like things to go in order. Here is our 3 year old granddaughter, Jayde's birthday cake, her mommy made it, it's it just darling. They had her party at a park and it was a great idea because the kids were able to play while the adults visited and yet were able to keep a good eye on them. Everyone had fun, fun, fun.


Swinging and slides are so much fun:-)

Present time!

I had taken her to see Disney Princess's On Ice and she was Tinkerbell, (borrowed from a friend)now she has her own and can be Tinkerbell anytime she chooses.

another fun toy

and another

Snow White is her favorite princess

and of course princess's have a lot of jewelry.

One final look at the adorable princess and her awesome cake!

Happy birthday to our sweet granddaughter.

We love you, grandma and grandpa

Did You Know.....?

The thigh bone is largest by volume and the longest and strongest in the human body. It is stronger than concrete.

You're born with 300 bones, but by the time you become an adult they have fused to only 206.

My brothers ATV Accident

On Labor Day he was out with his friend ridding and his friend came up in front and cut him off, by accident. At 40 MPH. Eric was wearing full ridding gear. Amongst other things he had to have surgery:

Update on my brother (Eric) extensive spinal stenosis (narrowing of his spinal cord) Because one of his cords was messed up and slowly deteriorating over the years and his ATV accident made it worse he had surgery to prevent paralosis if a future accident occured. They went in through the side of his neck to attend to his lower vertebra's and one of his cords.

This is the report I got from my sister after his surgery yesterday (9-23-10) It was nearly a 2 hr. surgery, but it went well.

• The bone and plate are in good
• neck brace for 6 weeks
• his disks were large an bulging but arenow fixed
• they removed some bone spurs
• went in through the side of his neck
• no lifting, pulling or pushing for sometime(he can pour from a gallon of milk, but can't pick it up high enough to drink from it (for instance) Hey, that's how she described it to me:-)
• and when he got out of surgery and was "coming to" he ripped out his IVs which I am told is "normal" for men. I guess they don't want to be "restrained" in their mind.
• He gets to come home today!

Eric, I love you.

9-11-01

No, I have not forgotten the 3,000 men, women and children who lost their life on this horrific day. I will never forget this day as long as I live. I have not lost anyone personally, but I feel for each family who's life was changed on that day. May God bless each one of you, and may you always feel Him near your side and in your heart.

Lori

Did You Know....

I thought I'd share a little bit of info on those pesty, nasy, blood sucking, West Nile virus bugs:
Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color. Also, the female is the only one that bites!

My Poor, Poor Neglected Blog

I will be up and running this week, back in full swing, come follow me on my random thoughts on various topics and our grandchildren's crazy adventures.

Results of My Nose Surgery

It's been nearly 3 months since I had my nose surgery (2 post below this one) I'm feeling incomplete (like I can't go on w/o writting at least something on the subject), so here I go... This is just before we left for surgery. I'm happy and at peace about it.

A close up of my nose BEFORE surgery.

Another angle of my nose on the way to the hospital.

No happy drugs, just plain 'ol happy before surgery.

This is the first picture taken after surgery, (2 days AFTER), I finally got out of bed and made it downstairs. I was so sleepy for the entire day after, I just stayed in bed and basically slept. Didn't read, no t.v. no computer interest, just glorious SLEEP.

A little bit of a closer shot, you can see I look a little swollen but basically I still looked the same.

My upper lip was so sore, finally I looked in the mirror because it was so tender I just figured it was because of the surgery, well it was surgery related but I had a big bruise on the INSIDE of my upper lip, no wonder it hurt so dang bad!!!!

Not the best for close up, but this is 2 days after the above picture, it was still really tender and bad.

This is 21/2 months later. I'm still sleeping through the night and breathing very good. But I'm beginning to notice some clogging of dried blood again. Yikes!

My china pattern

This china was given to my mom from a neighbor that she took dinner to every night, and spent many hours sitting and keeping Eileen company, she'd clean some for her too. Before Eileen died many years ago she TOLD mom to take that china out of her house, she wanted mom to have it and not any of her family! (and quite honestly my mom did more for Eileen than any of her family put together)

This is what we ate many holiday meals on and mom gave it to me when they downsized. I was so afraid we might get in a car accident driving it nearly 6 hrs. back to our home, I hauled it back in 2 trips. *I* didn't want anybody to help pack it but myself, and I am thrilled to report nothing was broken! We've moved it 2 additional times and *I* always pack it myself. Nothing broken and the set remains complete.

This is my 12 piece place setting, also included is a medium plate but I wasn't sure how to display it.

This is with the light on above the table.
Up close shot, I love this china pattern.

Without the light on.

Who wants to come for dinner?

My Nose Surgery

In December I had had enough of sleepless restless nights and daily battles with blocked nasal breathing; this had been going on for a couple years or actually longer and got worse as time passed on.

I went to the ENT doctor and he said I have a deviated septum(a nasal septum is an approximately 2 X 1.5 inch wall inside the nose that divides the right side of the nasal cavity from the left side). The nasal septum is composed of cartilage in the front and bone in the back of the nose I also had a hole in my septum which resulted in less air intake and a whistling breathing sound occasionally. Can anybody say:EMBARRASSING??!!

He also told me I'd need an inferior turbinate reduction. Turbinates are tissue masses extending into the nose from the sides which warm and humidify the air we breathe,in many patients, the inferior turbinates become so unusually large that they contribute to not only nasal obstruction, but also nasal congestion and sometimes a persistent clear runny nose (as in my case) alternating nasal obstruction on the side one lays down on (right nasal obstruction when laying down on the right which than switches side when laying down on the left) obviously mine were too large therefore my only remedy was surgery.

I scheduled my surgery for January and did my own research on the internet resulting in reading too much scary stuff that I litterly chickened out just one week prior to surgery, so I cancelled it. In the meantime I was struggling with sleep and breathing and the author of one of the blogs I read, Brandi was having this same procedure done for other reasons (severe daily headaches). OK, so I secretly let her be my inspiration (thanks Brandi). She had a very painful rough recovery but I figured if she could do it with 4 kids under 6 I could make it through with just myself and my husband.

I rescheduled for Monday,April 19th.
Sam was with me right until surgery. I was in surgery for an hr. and the doc came out to tell Sam all went well and he believes it was a success. I was in recovery for an hr. after that, then they wheeled me into a room and finally I was able to see Sam and when I finished up I rated my pain a 2 out of a 10; isn't that amazing? From a chicken to a 2!!! I know this was the result of God guiding my surgeon and my family and friends praying for me, thank you everyone:-)

The bleeding was out of this world, (I thought I might need a blood transfusion) Sam quickly reassured me I was going to be fine. Let's just say I'm really happy I had a bag for all the tissues I went through on our way home. Even my mustache gauze didn't make it half way home!

We got home at 6:00 P.M. Sam got me all comfy on the loveseat, served us dinner, filled my eye ice bag to help reduce the pain and swelling then went to the pharmacy to get my meds filled. He really took great care of me and continues to even through Thursday night (when I am STILL writing this).

I have been sleeping sitting up in the spare bed(room) and only taking my Vicodine at night now(Tuesday I took 2 doses of it) My face is numb/swollen all the way up to my temples and my upper lip is very bruised on the inside but no visual bruising. I've been sucking on freeze pops trying to get my lip back to normal. I didn't lose my appetite and had no fever. I've been extremely tired, I can barely believe how much I've slept. My dad says you will sleep if your body needs it and since I have to sleep more-less sitting up, it's not the best sleep I've ever gotten so I'm sure I do need my sleep. I got a call from the nurse again today (Friday) she told me I can now lay down to sleep. Yippie!

Not Me Monday

Over at www.mycharmingkids.net McMamma will be having people link up to what they did but making it sound like they didn't actually do it because it's so bad or just really embarrassing.

I had a great one to write about my granddaughter but as I was uploading the pictures to go with it, SOMETHING happened and I'll write about that for now, I'm just devastated!

I did not upload pictures of my granddaughter for this post and ummm, no way did I just wipe out nearly all my entire blogs pictures, nope not me, I just need some new glasses and they'll be there just like they've always been, I seen one a ways down and another one further but I really am sick about this, does anybody have any clue what I might have done? Please for the love of God, (and for the love I have of my blog) help me find my pictures. Comments of help or encouragement are greatly appreciated.

My Cleaning Tips

Over at http//www.kellyskornerblog.com you can get a million cleaning tips, these are all I can think of right now, I'll add more as they come to me.

1. Use a shower head with a handle it, it only takes 20 seconds or so to rinse off the shower walls and door/curtain after every shower. You don't get slime built up and the ledges get rinsed off daily.

2. Clean up as you go, the messes are so much easier to clean when fresh, like when your cooking.

3. Speaking about cooking...use non-stick pots and pans, but if you must use the other kind and you have a big stuck on mess, just let it soak a while, don't stress over the mess, come back to it after it "soaks off"

4. When your making potatoes, rinse the beaters in cold water a.s.a.p. (it runs right off, same with the pan).

5. Invest in some baby wipes, you can use these for simple counter or bathroom cleaning every other day until you get busy with the heavy duty cleaning.

6. Get the tunes going, and blare them as loud as you can.

7. Take advantage of the sunshine, who doesn't feel like they can do anything on a bright, bright sun shinny day!!!??? Oh, and try to get the cleaning done before it's too hot and you don't want to do anything.

What are some of your cleaning tips?

Shopping Trips

I had 10 50¢ coupons for these waters and Target had 'em for $1.00 each so I ended up paying $5.00 for 10. Better yet, because I purchased 10, Target was giving a $5.00 gift card. Call it what you want, but I call it... FREE!
I stopped off at Walgreens on my way to my "destination" I was there to snag some more free stuff, OK, so I had to pay tax but I still consider it free. They had these on sale for bogo and on sale price to begin with originally $3.19; SALE price: $1.99. I'm pretty clever, (if I do say so myself) I used 2 $1.00 coupons...but the scanner beeped, oh dear...The coupons exceed the price of the item, "sir can you just take 99¢ off that $1.00 coupon so It'll work?" So he did, and of course I told him to have a great day!!!


Off to my biggest bargain:
I didn't get a picture of it, but I got our new car FILLED for FREE, I'm talking like I was about to have to PUSH it, the mileage/gas indicator said I only had 23 more miles of gas left, (we planned it that way). When we purchased the car they said to fill out the survey and they would give us a full tank of gas when we wanted it. We sure took advantage of that!! We probably saved $40 bucks or very close to that maybe more:-) I didn't go to the gas station so I don't know the actual cost. (The lot tech took it.) While he did that I looked at Ford Escapes. Just let me say that after I drove about 15 miles the needle was still above the FULL mark. So we did get a FULL tank, I'm absolutely sure of that.
On my way home (finally) I stopped at another Walgreens, they had bacon 2/$6.00 and I had a $1.50 off 1 and because my printer messed up I was unable to print it again but I made good use of the other one in the Sunday coupons for JUST 75¢ off one. That's better than none (I say). So I paid $1.37 for EACH bacon, and it's Oscar Mayer, you can't beat that. When I paid, a $1.00 catalina printed out. I also noticed these Gortons Grilled Fillets which Sam and I like, they were on clearance to 75¢ EACH so I used the only coupon I had, it was for 40¢ off ANY Gortons, so I paid 35¢ for one of the 3 boxes! Then I noticed this Bertolli lasagna meal, BINGO, it was clearanced down to $2.19, I rummaged thru my coupons and found a $1.00 off one so I paid $1.19 for that bag.

That was too much fun, I wanted more, I stopped at another Walgreens to hunt for clearance items, I had to hurry I had frozen food in the trunk, I was able to snag the last Bertolli from them and use my $1.00 cat. from the previous store. YEAH ME!!!

Go visit http://www.hip2save.com/ and you'll get a million bargain/savings deal in a year, check often through out the day. And one more thing, when you see a post with an awesome deal, print the coupon RIGHT away, sometimes they reach their print pretty fast.

Mail Delivery

Getting the mail yesterday was way cool....I love nothing more than FREE, well OK, I love my family more, but you know it was pretty exciting to open the mail and get 2 FREE bottles of Vitamin water and the best thing was I/we won a $25.00 Discover Card for just using "The Card That Pays You Back". I was more than thrilled because I didn't even know they were doing a giveaway. But considering I use this card for nearly EVERY purchase over 5 bucks, I ought to win something, YEAH ME!

Yard Work

above: won't be long till the Daffodils pop open:-)

The other day I was doing some clean up detail.Above is before

Much better now.

I got the old plants pulled out and I need to get my flower pot cleaned out next. Maybe my grand kids will build me another flower pot for Mothers Day if I pull out the old.

I was working on cutting down the mums but my hand got tired, I have a bad case of tendinitis, TY very much Toys R Us.

Waiting for new growth, and new plants and mulch.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Pistachio Pudding Cake

I made a cake yesterday, it's one that my mom made every now and then.

The finished cake.

I think it looks like one of those candle cakes.

ready for the middle layer of frosting/pudding mix

cutting in half

Cooling on the rack, I was so thrilled it just popped out of the pan with no trouble.

Fresh out of the oven.

The cake mix ready for the oven.

Wordless Wednesday

This is my 2 year old granddaughter, while taking out the pieces she said she is making a "circle" and she has a great start too, notice it?

A Heart

If you look close enough at anything you can see love. I just found ham in the shape of a heart, cool.

Whodunit?

Do you see all that white stuff, grrrr, this annoys me, I wash the laundry and what on earth do I find, some paper in a zillion pieces. What do I do when this happens? I take it outside and shake each item and then I turn it inside out or inside right what ever the case may be and shake some more. And I like to find out who did this but this time I didn't find anything big enough to pin point whodunit.

My Trip To Matthew 25 Ministries

This is from my previous postAbove is the sign, it speaks for itself.
These are just some of the nations flags, I couldn't get them all in my picture.

Here I am sorting out donated clothes, I'm checking for stains, and rips/tears, if they have any they go into another bin, maybe for rags, I'm not really sure.

A cute crib, a perfect way to recycle pallets.

A sea of shoes. Sometimes they're not tagged as a set, people sort for the missing one and then they tag them together and put them in their own separate clear bag with the shoe size written on the bag.

I hope you enjoyed my trip I was so happy to go and make good use of my time. Get a hold of me if you'd like to go with me sometime.