Is It Summer Yet?

As most of you know, we have had a beautiful winter.  I stand sometimes stranded in the house at our front window enjoying the beauty of white snow, the blue hue at dusk,  snow drifts, ice on top of snow, ice chunks at the bottom of the snow and then one day for fun, Mother Nature sent us some Dippin Dots and an ice rainbow.   We also had gale force winds and chilly wind chills, a polar vortex, thunder snow and tree diamonds!  All of these things in one season!  Some of these I have never experienced and have never heard of before.

The following photos are what I described above, except I didn't get a picture of the thunder snow. We were busy shoveling when that happened. I am sure one of these photo's is when we had the polar vortex or -50 below wind chill.

The following two photos are today, and the rising creek because of rain and melting snow.

We had a couple of big events happen this winter.
Molly had a birthday-without family for the first time. Maggie went down to Florida a week later to bake her a cake and to go to the Space Center.

Mike turned 60!  Weeks before his birthday, he asked if I was planning a party. I didn't feel like hosting a party. I never had in this house before and I told him no, I wasn't planning one.  Then his mom asked me if I was planning a party. I knew Mike really wanted one if he was getting his mom to ask about it.  So, I decided I would invite neighbors and a couple of other friends on a Friday night for two hours. I felt I could handle that.

A week before the party and his birthday, I walked door to door to hand out the invites. A lot of neighbors were not home so I left the invites in the front door. The problem in this neighborhood is no one uses their front door. They drive into their garage and go in from there, so I thought they probably wouldn't find the invites until after the party.  The neighbors that were home, were heading south to get out of this wonderful weather.  I didn't think anyone would come.

Turns out, everyone did find their invites and I guess they were excited to have something to do to get out of house and in walking distance. The house became so loud and full of people.  The neighbors hadn't seen each other for months so they were getting caught up. Mike had a great time!

Mike had special pancakes on his pancake day birthday.

I finally bought a futon couch.  This coming September there will be a wedding in our family and there may be anywhere from 10 to 14 people at the house for a couple of nights.  I figured, why not get a futon.  One of my sisters decided to try it out.

Happy St. Patrick's!!

Basal Cell, Black Ice, Vagal, Ocular Aura

I could post some really gross photos but have decided to keep it where you don't have to look away.  I had sent some of the intense photos to my sisters in an email with a warning about them and Sherry wasn't able to look so she had Stuart do it for her.  He said "yeah, they are bad".

I will start out with my not so bad basal cell carcinoma that was found on my back shoulder in December. Since I grew up in the 60's and 70's without ever hearing the word sunscreen, I am high risk for skin problems.  I had it taken out and ended up with 12 stitches. I will spare you the gory details of the sound those scissors made, so close to my ear.   Thank goodness the girls were in town at the time and Maggie was my nurse.  When I had the stitches taken out in January, the doctor commented on how well my stitches were taken care of and also said they got all of the very slow growing cancer.  I just have to see the doctor twice a year now, instead of once a year.

Mike is a walker (not the zombie kind). He walks all the time, even in winter.  Last year and this year he has been so careful, but that darn patch of black ice in front of the Library got him.  He fell and laid there while cars passed him without stopping to help.  He finally got up and made it home.  When I got home from work he was sore but seemed okay. By bedtime, he was in extreme pain. Off to the emergency room we went.   This photo is when they brought him back from x-ray, he wasn't feeling too good.

What a relief to find nothing was broken but, he has extreme arthritis in his shoulder.  The doctor was so amazed at what she saw and soon a crowd was forming around the x-ray picture.  I should have taken a picture of that but didn't think to.  Mike believes this extra bone his body is making is from an injury that occurred during his 30th birthday party when all the guys dog piled him.
Mike just finished physical therapy and is doing much better and continues the rehab at home.

Mike and I were enjoying a three day weekend when we received a call from Janelle and Larry's (Mike's parents) neighbor.  Janelle had fallen and was on her way to the hospital. We headed straight to the farm to hang out with Larry while we waited for Janelle to get home. Her brother John and his wife Melody were with her.  When Janelle got home, I started taking pictures. These are the ones you won't be seeing.  She ended up with 14 staples down he middle of her head and 14 stitches down and around her forehead.  She had red hair when it is usually blond. The doctor told her to wash her hair right away when she got home.   It's funny how you do things without thinking about it because it needs to be done. I washed her hair.

I left for home the next day, Monday January 21st, because I had to get back to work on Tuesday. Mike stayed at the farm knowing I would be back for him on Tuesday or Wednesday after work. Tuesday morning he called and asked if I had heard about a storm coming. I hadn't, and it came. I am not sure how many times it snowed that week but there wasn't any way I would be able to get back to the farm to get Mike. I always think about everything happening  for a reason. The snow storms came so Mike could spend the week with his parents to make sure they were okay.


While he was away that week and I was getting ready to leave work for the day, I started seeing something amazing and I wasn't sure if it was my brain or my eye giving me the electrifying show. I didn't panic at first because it wasn't the black shade or veil I had been warned about. It was a flashing barber's pole that spiraled on the side of my vision, and then all around the middle and top of my vision.  When it didn't go away, I panicked and called my eye doctor.  They called me back as I was walking to my car and the light show was fading. I timed it to be 20 minutes.  The eye office asked me all kinds of questions and said it sounded like an Ocular Migraine or  Aura Migraine episode but I needed to come in first thing in the morning to make sure everything was okay.  I decided to draw a picture for the doctor to understand what I saw. He really enjoyed that and confirmed I was okay. These Aura Migraines are common and he said when I get one, start taking pain meds.  I have headaches, but I didn't know I was having migraines. I have a high tolerance for pain so I guess I didn't realize.  Sure enough, I had one of the worst headaches for over four days. My co-worker suggested pills that are specifically for headaches instead of just Ibuprofin and it worked!   I had another Aura Migraine a week later and really enjoyed the show knowing I was okay and didn't need to panic. I took the medicine right away and didn't have a headache at all.  Thanks for the warning brain!


 It was decided I would finally be able to get back to the farm to pick Mike up a week later,  on Saturday, and then Sunday we could take Janelle back to the hospital to get her staples and stitches out.  Wouldn't you know, a surprise snow storm came but I decided to drive to the farm anyway. Sometimes it was hard to see my lane on the highway.

We woke Sunday morning and took Janelle to the hospital. Mike waited in the lobby while I was with Janelle, taking pictures. This is what they took out of her head.

Janelle asked the nurse several questions and also stated it bothered her that she doesn't know why it happened.  The nurse said it could have been many different things and she started going on and on with different ailments it could have been.  I stopped her when she explained Vasovagal Syncope or just Vagal, because she was describing what Janelle was doing when she fainted.  Janelle had been standing at the counter cutting squash.  The stress of pushing down on the hard squash may have caused the episode. When I told the nurse what Janelle was doing when she fainted, she told Janelle to start buying already cut squash!

We made it back home to Davenport Sunday before another snow storm.  We were so excited to see many bald eagles in a tree by the farm.  Since we were on a snowy country road, we were able to stop right below them to take this picture.  There were more than these two birds but I couldn't get them all.

Once home, we we waking to new snow every other morning. Thank goodness Mike was back home to help me shovel!

Bloggers Block

It's not that I don't have anything to write about, I just never sit down to write.  I have decided that it is time to sit down and talk about our wonderful holidays! Like last year, Molly and Maggie were able to fly up and stay for almost a full two weeks.  We did so much and had so much fun.  I was extremely sad when they left. That is the hardest part.

This is a list of everything we did.....

We did a lot of cooking together.

We played Scrabble.  I wanted to include this not only because it's a great picture of Maggie but, I wanted everyone to notice the word  Foxy on the board. I put that down very early in the game and earned 73 points on that one word!  I won the game, but it was close.

We hung out with the cats.

We played the lottery. We won back 1/2 of what we paid.

We made winter wonderland snowflakes.  I didn't have the right scissors so this was really a challenge.  We heard comments like,  "Hey! Where did that bird's head go?"  or " Oops, what happened here?".  It was fun. The girls said they probably wouldn't do it again. Maybe I can convince them next year, if I have the right scissors.

On Christmas day we had the whole family over (except Jo and Gary because they are south) and the house was full of fun and joy. We ate, played pool, foosball and darts. Sherry cleaned up after the meal.   We all thought about Mom and Dad and how they would feel about all of us together and eating in the living room.  We decided they would have loved it!  I guess I was too busy to take pictures that day.  

We enjoyed our Christmas presents.

Yep, it has alcohol in the middle!

Yes, that is black toothpaste. That was on my list of things I wanted.  We all had to try it and I love it!

We drank beer and ate cheese curds.

We went to the French Moderns show at the art museum.

We had a facial spa night.

We threw rotten apples into the creek from the back porch.

We drank French champagne and ate French desert biscuits to bring in the new year and did our annual point at the clock pose.

Then the sad day came when they had to leave. 

I was extremely sad and had to go shopping instead of going home to an empty house.