Dec5

Early December snow

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Some of the fluffy stuff is falling as I type this. It really makes me feel like Christmas is around the corner now! I need to go finish making my Christmas cards, a bit different than most people are use to getting from me, but I think they are neat. The ladies at the copy shop loved them! I’ll show you one when I mail them off as a few of my readers are getting one and I want them to be surprised.

I did get out by myself yesterday for the first time in over a week. I was overdressed and got quite warm. I went to the stationery store and then to a local department store which happened to be ‘Tuesday over 50 club’ day. Yikes! I still have a few more years! It was filled with many senior citizens. I went to the young girl department for things for my niece and all the mediums were practically gone. I did find some cute tops that I think she will love. One is fuchsia with a crocheted butterfly as a decoration. The other is a coppery color with a sparkly belt buckle type piece. I got 40% off, but the original prices are so high! My nephew only wears t-shirts year round, but they didn’t have any I liked there. He wears the ones we gave him last year all the time. I’ll check online and at TJ Maxx for him. I know they are getting an awesome system-Wii and I know my brother will be playing with that a bunch. : )

I was allowed to take off my bandage yesterday (called the doctor’s office to ask) and it’s red and yucky looking. The doctor left a big tail on a suture and that is pulling.  The main area has a big scab on it and is a bit raised and may have sutures there too. I hope they don’t have to come out, except the one with the big tail! Only two more days!

Brian was invited to a baby shower tomorrow. He asked me what to get and I said I’d check my eBay table! I have some cute figurines and one is a Cherished teddy piece that is also a music box. The music box wouldn’t work correctly, so I took it apart (like my grandmom would) and oiled it. Still no good. I think it was overwound. Well I fiddled with the spinner piece and broke it! Opps! I’ve got to have something else, if not, he’s on his own. He’s the first guy I’ve known who got invited to a baby shower!

Off to fill out cards…….

Dec4

Where’s Waldo?

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Where’s Waldo? I mean Sean? He called this afternoon to say he thinks he’ll do better in Stats. Bri asked where he was and he was at ‘The Hub’ the student meeting area. Bri remembered there was a webcam there, so Sean is in the shots below. Can you find him? You may have to double click to make these bigger, but he is seen better in one than the other.

Oh Sean!

Where is Sean?

Dec4

A Collection of Family Christmas Memories

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Back in 1994, I compiled a keepsake ‘book’ for my mom, three brothers and uncle and their families. The cover shows the creche/manger scene that my grandfather Alan would put up every year. It’s in my possession, but I haven’t displayed it in a while as it’s so fragile. It means a lot to me! Of his 4 grandchildren, he only knew of 2 and I was about 7 weeks old when he passed on.

Christmas book

That’s me as a newlywed and my mom at Longwood Gardens! Little did I know I’d live 10 minutes away a few years later. The next photo is Brian holding little (actually big) 2 month old Sean. The teddy is as big as my baby boy! That year I let Bri go pick out the tree, and he got quite a huge one as you can see! The next year, my uncle got us a small tree from his former property in Delaware, and we put it up high so Sean wouldn’t play with it. Love my 80s, haircut! And Sean received Teddy Ruxpin, the talking bear, as his main gift that year.

Sean’s early Christmases

Sean being mellow and hamming it up for the camera when he got his Micromachine tank.

More of Sean’s early Christmases
Here’s some our growing up. That’s my maternal grandmom Ruth and my brother Ken. By the way, my mom still lives in this house. Then there’s my brother Don and me. I get very sad when I see these as we were so close. As you can see, I always loved cats, that’s my girl Smudgie. There’s Brian at 10 playing with a road race set. Look at that big tree! Do you like my green crushed velvet skirt set? And there I am being the big sister to Ken.

Our early Christmases
Are you dying to know what my favorite Christmas memories are from the book?

My brother Don and I are visible in all my remembrances of Christmas from childhood. I wish I could see Dave, but Kenny’s sweet face opening presents is there. Don and I were like two peas in a pod for 13 years. I can see us building with our Flintstone syrafoam blocks at our first Christmas in the Media house (about 1964). Actually, we both loved them so much, that we fought over them.
I can see us going in Mom’s closet to ‘preview’ our gifts. We did this when the temptation grew so strong that we couldn’t stand it anymore.
One year when I was about 14, we opened gifts on Christmas eve and took photos as well. The catch was at we had to have a surprised look on our faces. Those are some of the best photos we have.
Other flashes from the past-Mom didn’t wrap presents until we were older. With 4 kids, it saved her a lot of aggravation. After she started wrapping them, we were still spoiled, so she let us open our gifts on Christmas Eve. We just couldn’t wait!
Mom-mom taught me how to wrap gifts when I was about 10 or 11. The first few things I wrapped were pantyhose and an Andy Williams tape or record for my mom.
My favorite gifts-Always the stuff in my stocking. We couldn’t wait to see the bulging stockings on the stair railing.
Lite Brite and Spirograph-Don and I got them with our father’s approval, and played with them in the middle of the night for an hour or so. The Betty Crocker kid’s cookbook-for the budding chef. And my Easy Bake Oven, though I only got to use it a few times as my brother Don shorted it out by pouring V-8 juice on it! (as an adult, he bought me a new one and I may pass it on to our niece-he must have felt terrible guilty all these years).

Dec3

Venturing out

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Last night (Sunday) and tonight I ventured out for a short while. I actually felt good getting out of the house for a bit. Last night I walked around Big Lots a little and bought a garland of sparkly red poinsettias for the mantel. It was really chilly and damp, we missed out on the snow. I promptly put the garland up and it is starting to look more like Christmas in the living room. Now tonight we went to a Chinese restaurant and drove through a snow squall, that was interesting! I had chicken, shrimp and veggies in a plum sauce-pretty tasty! We then walked through a new Staples store-I was impressed with the goodies aisle-nice for co-workers to run in and grab some chocolate covered pretzels or Kahlua filled candies. We looked at printers, etc. Mine is fine, but I do like the combos with the scanner all in one. I saw a swanky white ‘leather’ (not sure) desk chair. It’s fun to look!

I ordered Sean’s wishlist from Amazon.com and a few little things from The Hunger Site. I like that what I bought will give hungry children 70+ cups of food.

I’d like to go out tomorrow and get some color copies made of Christmas cards I made. I then have to assemble them and maybe get those yellow envelopes. I don’t plan to send them to everyone as I usually use 3 kinds of cards a year. I already printed off some photos I want to send out with them.

Bri is still so worried about me. He said, if you ever have to have something like this done again, don’t do it at Christmastime! Whoa-it’s not my fault that my mammogram was done in October and I had all the follow-ups. He’s not thinking clearly, poor guy. I worry about him too!

I had to peel off the top of the bandage as it’s really annoying me after 5 days (I didn’t take it off, just unstuck it). I did see a tiny clear stitch (like a knot of fishing line), so I do have at least one stitch. I keep the area covered up with a folded wad of tissues that I change all the time.

Not too exciting, but I’m getting around a bit! I wanted to share some old holiday photos one of these days. And enjoy my playlist of Christmas music. : )

Dec2

Sleepy head

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The events of this last week have sure taken a toll on Brian and me. He started with a sore throat yesterday, but used some Ziacam and seems okay this morning. My head just feels so foggy. I find when I am concentrating on things I’m much better, though it was hard to write checks out yesterday. I did put together a handmade Christmas card that I need to get color copied. I hope to work on them in the coming week. I made eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast, so that’s a good start. The weather is wet, not snowy as expected. Maybe Bri can take me down to the shopping center so I can walk around a bit. I had burning in my left shoulder and my friend’s wife, who is a nurse, said it was definitely from using air in the procedure and I need to walk more.

So this year, I’m taking the holidays slowly. I have to, no choice. I did move a little tree with lights (frosted fruit that I keep on my desk year round) to a different table, so that’s a start. I’m hoping we can put the tree up next weekend. I remember last year I had that tummy bug which was miserable, but I got over it and Christmas was fine.
Thanks for your comments and prayers-I’m grabbing and hugging them!

No! No! No!-Brian read this to me the other day! If you haven’t had a mammogram and you are over 40, this is the time to get a base one done. Please do this for your own peace of mind.

Nov30

Seeing clearly

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I like how the discharge instructions from the hospital said not to ‘make major life decisions for 24 hours after anesthesia’-did they get sued or something in the past? Me trying to cross stitch was somewhat interesting-but for the life of me, I can’t get one window in a house to be 7 stitches high-it’s stuck at 6 high-and it needs to be fixed. Maybe I’ll see where I messed up later.

I asked Brian to take down the autumn decorations around the front step area as I couldn’t reach up to get the leaf garland. I stuck a berry wreath on the door with a cardinal-so that’s a start. I’m thinking maybe a new wreath with all cardinals, only time and energy will make that happen. : ) Big Lots usually has what I want and that’s a stone’s toss from here.

I’ve had many phone calls-from California to Florida. My pal from ‘Make A Child Smile’ (see link) called to tell me what was going on in her life not knowing what was going on in my life. She’s so sweet, well look at what she does for sick kids! I had my two sister-in-laws call over the last few days too. I filled my neighbor in on what was happening. It’s nice to chat IRL too. I miss talking to ladies my age. I was a big volunteer for 8 years at Sean’s elementary school (he was in a 2-yr kindergarten program) and even held the position of Corresponding Secretary for the PTO (org not assoc) one year. It was neat to be voted in. So I had all the moms to chat with-then middle school made them all disappear as we weren’t needed as much-IMHO.

Well, I’m off to bed soon to try to ignore the gauze and ace bandage. I get to take it off around 3-4 this afternoon, but it may be sooner!

BTW-my follow-up is the 7th-come on lucky 7!

Also-my ‘me stuff’ page has been updated.

Nov28

Very long day

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Thanks for your well wishes. I can’t be on here long as I have the keyboard in my lap and I am a bit sore as expected.

We got to the hospital at 9 and got home here at 6:45! The doctor was behind about 1.5 hours with her surgeries. It was not good for me and a few other patients, particularly a lady about my mom’s age as we were getting frustrated, anxious, thirsty and hungry. Personally, I had to lay there with an I V in my right hand and a needle sticking out of my left breast for over 3 hours. I did well coming out of the anesthesia from about the 50 minute or so procedure. I won’t know what’s going on until next week.

Well, that’s all folks! More hopefully tomorrow. Hugs to you.

~Update~

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night from the events of the day, eating food after 21 hours (you can imagine), the dressing, drinking Coke too late and my knees aching. They had those leg circulation cuffs on me during the procedure and I had sore knees as it is. They hurt more than the needle area. I’ll write more about yesterday sometime soon in the tab above.

Nov27

Takin’ it easy

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After waking up at 5:30 and barely getting back to sleep before I got up at 7 for my pre-admissions, I am pretty tired. Why you have to get in there so early when you haven’t fasted is beyond me. Poor Bri looks so tired too. I wrote about it in ‘me stuff’ tab above.

So does anyone watch ‘Dancing with the Stars’? I only started watching the past few years. I wanted to see how Marie Osmond, who is my age did. She’s in the top 3! If she had a huge flow of fans call in last night, then she will probably win. I think it’s going to be the race car driver Helio Castroneves and Julianna, but I like Mel B.-The Spice Girls and Maks myself. That Maks is a ‘twinkle toes’! : )

I’m going to take an early shower, get all snuggly and enjoy the finale tonight. If you don’t hear from me tomorrow, you’ll know why, but I’ll try to get online later in the day.

Take care!

Nov26

Cyber shopping Monday…

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…starts in a few minutes, but I’m off to bed in a few too. I’m really tired from grocery shopping. Bri came along because I am trying not to do too much lifting this week. I got a few frozen things to make cooking easier, well for both of us, at the end of the week.

Speaking of shopping-I have no idea what anyone wants for Christmas. I just can’t wrap my head around it right now. The only thing I saw I want is the Reynolds vacuum sealer-saw that in the grocery store this afternoon. And maybe the movie that Todd from my class wrote and directed ‘Lonely Hearts’. I believe I own one of his other movies ‘White Squall’ which was really good! I love that Todd’s little sister Traci works along with him in many of his projects. She was a really sweetie in high school.  My friend suggested I send Todd two photos (shown in post below) and have him autograph and return one. I also have clippings through the years that were in the local newspapers about his different milestones, probably added by his mom Ronnie. I told him I’d send them to him and he didn’t say no. I didn’t know I would have his Malibu, CA address right in our contact spread sheet at the end of our ‘what are you doing’ booklet. I just think it’s so neat, my miniature brush with a celebrity (my mom’s was with Governor Rendell!). But you know, both Todd and Denice (an actress out of Nashville) from my class are real ‘people’ persons. They know how to get close to you and make you comfortable. I felt that way immediately with them. I remember Todd being quiet on the school bus and always writing something. I had forgotten that the family didn’t spend most of their growing up years in Media, I read they were from the Long Island, NY area. But here he is, a famous guy, coming back to his 30th reunion.

Sean gave me a nice Art trading card book focusing on rubber stamping. It’s great and I am getting ideas. I packed away my paper things for a while, though I have a perpetual Christmas calendar I started and really want to finish before the 1st of December. I need to add numbers to the cards and some velcro dots to adhere them to the poster board.

I started a cross stitch gift tonight while watching ‘The Amazing Race’ and ‘Brothers and Sisters’ (both good episodes with Chevy Chase being Sally Field’s love interest on B&S-ha!). I already tore out half of what I added. Focus, sister, focus.

We are expecting a wet day today. Have fun cyber shopping if you do so!

Rats-The Food Network-Iron Chef is having a dessert battle-should I stay up for it?