Friday's Thrift Store Finds

I got the itch to go out for a bit this afternoon after it finally stopped drizzling and decided to head over to a couple of thrift stores just a few minutes away. I didn't find anything really, really great but I found a handful of things that were too good to pass up!

Let's see, a hardcover book about the FBI's only female profiler for .99, right up my alley! I've been reading several books along this line again, revisiting my past infatuation with serial killers, how they think, and how they are profiled. A handmade memo board that I plan to resell someday, it was only 1.99 and I love the fabric! I also scored a Banner House purse from the 1980s complete with the required band of ribbon across the front. This was my era, my preppy phase and I knew it had to be vintage when I saw it! Bargain at .69 and Tim checked Ebay for me to see if it might be worth selling someday too! Last stop at a little thrift store near our house and I found two leis full of blue blossoms for .35 cents each and I plan to pull them all off the string holding them together and use for scrapbooking! I also got a brand new roll of expensive knitting ribbon for 1.50 and a little bag with vintage trim and some flowers for 10 cents! Gotta love a bargain!

Valentine's Day, February 17, 2008

As you know, we had to celebrate this one a few days late as I had a rotten day complete with a second trip to the ER for leg pain on the actual holiday and my Valentine was sick anyway! So, a week ago Sunday we finally opened our gifts and cards. I had made Tim an album of our Bedrock City adventure and I got him the Pirates of the Caribbean #3 DVD. I gave him a Bad Cats desk calendar too which has become one of my bargain traditions! I always go at the end of January to the calendar kiosk at the mall when all items remaining are just $4! Can't beat that and he can still rip for the rest of the year! He found me the most awesome little toy candy soda fountain still in the original box along with a box of unopened refills from 1950 (on ebay of course)! Guess we won't actually eat any of the candy but it sure looks cute in my vintage candy collection! He also found three older travel brochures for my newest collection (vintage travel brochures!), one of which he had actually taken the pictures for back in his Ashland, KY days. Tim had given me my favorite peppermint carnations and Smidgens from Schimpff's a few days earlier so I had already been enjoying those!

Garden Kitty doesn't like to miss a party so she arrived on the table in time to check everything out and pose for pictures. I think she was rather surprised at what that actually involved this time though!

Hopefully next year we can move Valentine's Day back to the correct date!

Yum! I Ate Out For The First Time In 17 Days

Unless you count a baked potato from the drive thru at Wendy's last Saturday, and we ate that in the car with my low fat butter and 2% shredded cheddar cheese.

So, for days I'd been looking forward to going to Texas Roadhouse for a steak and potato over the weekend. In fact, we were so ambitious that we were planning to go to a movie one night and dinner the other!

Well, here's how it all played out. We had ice come in on Thurs so I spent 20 min unearthing the windows to my car when I left work Thurs at 4:00 (still couldn't make it a whole day). That was super fun as I tried not to fall on the icy sidewalk AND had to stretch and reach and push the ice scraper along. Not good on the healing insides. Got home, went straight to bed as I was hurting after all that!

Friday morning- ice hasn't melted much by 7:15 am when I checked. I had a follow up appt with my surgeon Fri at 10:00 so went ahead and got ready hoping the ice would melt more come 9:30. It was better and I got the trusty snow shovel out and pushed slushy ice off our steps and sidewalk so I could get to my car safely. Then more ice scraping on the car. This time we were smart though, and Tim put the windshield cover on it the night before so that was one less icy window! Went in to rest before the drive to the surgeon's.

The bumpy roads still jar my insides but good which feels really weird! I hope that goes away soon! Got a good report from the surgeon. She pulled off my loose surgi strips and said "beautiful" (re: my healing incisions). Said it would be up to 6-8 weeks before my food issues were better resolved. Especially this full feeling after taking 5 bites of something!

Okay, so then comes the evening and I had had a horrible food day starting with the one graham cracker I ate for breakfast. Nothing sat well and I realized that Fri night was not going to be a Texas Roadhouse night! I ate a sad baked potato and watched Honeymoon in Vegas with Tim.

Saturday arrives and we were planning to go see Vantage Point and get me out of the house. About 20 minutes before we were planning to leave I realized that there was no way I could sit for almost two hours! I had been sitting all morning scrapbooking and my abdominal area was hurting! So, instead we did a little shopping getting some super bargains at Walgreens (Valentine's candy 75% off), checking out Hobby Lobby (no new stuff in sight) and hitting the Goodwill (Tim found a great coffee table book on artist's interpretations of space stuff for $3). I was whipped by then and we headed home.

Dinner time arrives. At 5:25 pm, I call Texas Roadhouse to do call ahead seating. Informed that it will be an 85 minute wait! WAH! There goes that idea! I couldn't wait till 7/7:30! So, pouted a bit and called Logan's where I hadn't eaten in literally 10 ys since discovering Texas Roadhouse. 15-20 min wait there and they also did call ahead. We decided to go there and it was pretty darn good. Bummer was that after 5 bites of salad and half of a half of a yeast roll I was full. Or at least I felt full! I managed to eat half the 6 oz sirloin with lots of breaks in between but I have another whole meal to eat today from my leftovers!

On a side note, we rented some movies after dinner and came home and watched The Bridges of Madison County which was awesome and a tearjerker to boot!

Thursday Night Update

Well, it's been two weeks today since the mean ol' surgery! Funny to think that I originally had scheduled it for today and now so thankful that I've had two weeks behind me and not facing me! Each day is better, I can tell. Food is hitting me better although I'm still fighting feeling full after a few bites! I'm down 4 lbs since the surgery but that's like a bonus, right? Here's to being even better two weeks from today!

Today's Layouts

Okay, under doctor's orders for more resting so I spent the morning on the sofa (mostly) and the afternoon scrappin'. I actually did the cat layout Monday night and the other three Christmas ones today, two of which I scraplifted from http://www.mojoholder.typepad.com/. How inspiring and these layouts were quick and easy and I didn't have to stress over how to begin the layout! I also dug through my stash and pulled out old Daisy D's Christmas papers, stickers and rubons which I sometimes find hard to use! The papers are real busy but I love the vintage look! So, wow, these sketches made them work!

Word Bloom Mini Album and a Layout

More recovery projects! Spent most of yesterday working on the Word Bloom album, so fun! And, did the other one this morning from a kit I had made up a long time ago! Paid the price for sitting so much though, my back was killing me and my side was pulling really bad inside by the evening...ugh!

More Layouts

Here's another kit layout, the red one with all the circles! And a few more I managed to do while recovering....takes most of the day going back to it off and on though.

Sad Little Patient

Well, I've finally started venturing downstairs for a bit and could look at the pictures we took at the hospital on the day of the surgery. Hard to believe it's been a week! I have to say, I look pretty darn sad to be there and who wouldn't be? I think this other picture is pretty funny, the anesthesiologist had just given me a sedative and I look like I'm heading off to la la land don't I?

I've described the abdominal pain to be like a truck ran over my midsection! I guess now it's down to a car! It's better but lots of sharpness, tugging and pulling where the gallbladder itself was. Back pain comes and goes too. And my darn legs have almost been worse the past few days than the abdominal area!

Another trip to the ER today and fortunately again no dangerous blood clots. Just the same ones from Sunday and confirmation that they can take up to two months to go away! Yesterday they were better and then last night hit and man! I could not get my right leg comfy no matter how hard I tried and no matter what I did or took! So, I called my internist's office this morning and spoke with the nurse expecting her to say that was normal and to be expected but she said they should be a lot better by now and I should go there and have them looked at and treated if need be. So, off we went. The ER doctor said I could have some dehydration too which would be a contributing factor to the intense cramping. Decreased activity doesn't help either.

But the rest of the day wasn't too bad once I got home and rested.

So much for Valentine's Day. With Tim having coughing fits we sent him back to Mom's house and decided to celebrate on a better day. So, something to look forward to I guess!

A Very Different Valentine's Day This Year

Well, a week ago this time I was anticipating a great dinner out somewhere with my honey after recovering from gallbladder surgery.  However, that was wishful thinking and a bit too optimistic apparently.  I'm definitely doing better.  But, if someone offered me a lot of money to get up, showered, dressed, ride in a car, go out, manage conversation, eat real food, etc, I'd have to beg off!  Just not there yet.  

Tim brought me my favorite peppermint carnations today since we sent him on a grocery run. However, he's practically banned from being in the same room with me right now anyway since he has a sore throat and a nagging cough.  

Maybe we ought to just wait and celebrate March 14th?

The Neighbors

Okay, this is the second time in my life I've lived in a neighborhood where the neighbors down the street got arrested for drug dealing.  The first was in the upper middle class subdivision back in VA where the real estate agent finally got caught and did prison time after dealing cocaine for years.  Kids I went to high school with used to buy their drugs from him and one of his sons was just a year or so younger than me.  This time it's happened in a more mixed neighborhood where it shouldn't come as much of a surprise, it's just who it was that is the surprise.  This guy has served on our neighborhood preservation association for years and years.  It's been quite the excitement last night and today as the news broke and unfolded.  

Monday Update

Well, a little side trip to the ER Sunday morning after experiencing pain and cramping in my legs most of Saturday and all of Saturday night (which yielded 3 hrs of sleep) brought the verdict of superficial (surface) blood clots in both legs!  (and I've walked and walked daily) Fortunately, these are not the deep ones that can go to your lungs but they did have to be addressed and were the cause of my pain. So my upswing on Saturday went down a little yesterday but today is better!  I finally got several hours of sleep last night and that helped tremendously.  I think I'm a little dazed, glassy eyed and out of it today from four days of pain medication but I wasn't planning on running any marathons today anyway!

I told Tim that the ER doctor said my incisions (all FOUR of them) looked good and he burst out laughing as he informed me that I looked like I was a victim of a knife fight and he'd hate to see the other guy if I looked good.  Darn him, he made me bust out laughing and boy does THAT hurt!

Surgery Update

Well, I'm back minus the gallbladder!  The surgery went well, the hospital, staff and surgeon were great.  Only one grumpy nurse who took my vitals and looked at ME as if I were crazy when I suggested that she had to be kidding when she put the white support hose on me!  The one in recovery was a little abrupt too when I awoke and informed her that my stomach hurt. ?Her repeated answers were, "Well, honey, you just had your gallbladder taken out, you just had surgery."  No kiddin'?

It's been a looong couple of days and nights.  Lots of pain, soreness, lack of sleep, you name it, I've had it!

Finally got some sleep last night for more than the four hours I had Thurs night, after the Benadryl finally kicked in.

So, here's to today being the start of the upswing and at least I can finally shower and wash my hair again!

Thanks to all who've called and emailed and the beautiful flowers too!

Might Not Be Posting For A Few Days But

More Layouts for February Kit

Two more I whipped out tonight. What a great distraction with the impending surgery.

Layouts for SLD's February Kit

Here are three, I have to finish up another one still!

Tough Girl NOT

Well, Ms. Tough Girl over here was all about putting the surgery off for three weeks and suffering until I had the gall bladder attack last night that about did me in. I was sick when I went to bed and it lasted the entire night, the worst hitting around 4:10am and lasting for an hour and a half.

It was then that I had a change of heart and realized I couldn't live like this and eat practically nothing for the next three weeks.

Calling the surgeon Monday and seeing if they still have an opening later this week like they first suggested.

Meanwhile, I went shopping for low fat foods. Let's see today's menu consisted of a scrambled to death egg and a piece of toast this morning, rainbow sherbet for lunch, diced peaches for a tide me over until dinner snack, and a grilled chicken breast with a slice of mozzarella cheese melted on it for supper. Oh also a little tiny low fat banana muffin as an appetizer and a piece of hard candy for dessert.

I can feel the pounds melting off already....

Just hope it makes for a somewhat better night tonight.

D-Day is Scheduled

Or should I say, G-Day?

It's official, the ol' gallbladder is going to be history as of February 21st. I met with a surgeon today; just so happens that she performs the most gallbladder surgeries in the entire Louisville area and she practices over in my neck of the woods. I'm going to a smaller hospital and that makes me feel better, so much less intimidating and just a stone's throw down the road.

Still won't be fun. It's outpatient surgery these days which I suppose is good, as I have never stayed in a hospital before! A little scary though to be sent right home for something they used to keep you in for a day or two!

Dad's coming over for this unexpected situation especially since his little girl has NEVER had anything taken out of her except for wisdom teeth 20 years ago.

Right now, I think the thing I am most fearful of is the Percocet they plan to send home with me. Me + pain medicines = disaster always. The surgeon said most people need it but some can get through it on Tylenol. Me + Tylenol = does absolutely nothing for me.

Sigh....