Finally Home

Woo-hoo! My Mom is finally home. Dad drove her home yesterday in the van. She laid in the seat with it all the way down. She said it was pretty uncomfortable, but she had some extra pain medicine to help manage it. She said the cats were extremely love-y and very glad to have her home. I am glad that she can finally be in a peaceful place and get some good rest.

TTT

1. It's almost the middle of August. Wow. I think I'm getting used to the heat. I drove home yesterday in about 90-95 degrees, and it didn't seem that warm to me. But I get to go from an AC office to an AC home. I am blessed.

2. I finished the cross-stitch part of the Winnie the Pooh shirt for Sam. I started the backstitch on Eeyore, and it's coming along quickly. I keep forgetting to take a picture. :(

3. Yum, good chicken noodle soup today. :)

4. John is taking Sam to the county fair this week on several trips. I hope they stay cool and have fun. I'll go with them on the weekend sometime.

5. We went to the beach for the first time this summer, on Saturday. The actual beach was a disappointment with fog and 20-30 mph wind. The sand was kicking up so much that we weren't able to get down on the ground and enjoy playing in the sand. But we had fun in town, and the weather inland was amazing. I hope we get to go back again so Sam can have a day in the sand.

6. My Mom is still improving. Thanks for all your prayers. She still has a while left on the antibiotic, and they haven't yet said when she will get to go home.

7. I read a neat phrase last night that works for me on several levels and in different areas of my life. I did a brief search for the original author of the quote, but I didn't find it. If you know it or find it, please let me know so I can give credit. So, this miracle quote is: "progress, not perfection." I get stuck in a lot of things because I don't know the best thing to do next. This reminds me that I need to just keep working on it and don't worry about making it perfect. It's better to get something done than nothing done at all.

8. My favorite show right now is Suits.

9. We missed seeing Avengers in the theater, but we got to see MIB 3. It was decent. At least it was better than the few reviews I had read.

10. I'm more interested in Pinterest lately than Facebook. Anybody else think the same thing?

Mom's Update

My Mom is doing better. We had a scare last week with a medication problem, but she's back at the nursing home now. She has been sitting up and walking around a little.

She sounded really good today when I talked to her. But she's really ready to go home now. I guess that's a good thing. Maybe she will be motivated to get better and get home.

Sam and I visited her on Sunday and took her a bunch of surprises. Then we got to see Dad and the friends that he is staying with. Sam had a grand ol' time playing with "Rinda." :)

Top Ten Wednesday

1. My Mom is still recovering. They moved her to a skilled nursing home last Wednesday for rehab. However, she can't sit up right now because she's in too much pain, so they are working on managing her pain before she starts the rehab part. Feel free to contact me to get my Dad's cell phone number for updates from him, or let me know if you want her mailing address. He drives (about 3 hours one-way) to see her about every 3 days. Please pray for his emotional and physical well-being. I understand that because she's on so many meds for the pain that she's pretty out of it/loopy.

2. I haven't gone to see her since the 15th. I sent her a simple card yesterday, but I've been meaning to put together a package with magazines and drawings from Sam and pictures. I know she was relatively satisfied with the gluten free menu at the hospital, but I haven't talked with her since she moved to the rehab center, so I don't know if she's doing okay with their food selection.

3. I harvested the first green beans of the season last night. It doesn't look like we're going to be overwhelmed with beans this year. It's a weird year for vegetables, I think.

4. I was finally able to get to weeding the corner by the tall day lillies and thinning out the day lillies as well. It looks so much better. Wish I had a nice picture.

5. John's almost done with the roof. Yay!

6. I'm walking in a Relay for Life this Friday and Saturday. Visit our team page if you would like to donate. I have heard the event is pretty special and fun. I'm looking forward to it.

7. I've made three zucchini recipes in the last week: fritters, chocolate zucchini bread, and blueberry zucchini bread. Yum!

8. My boss is buying everyone afternoon Dutch Bros. coffee today. Yay! It's probably to support the DB Relay event that has $1 coffe drinks. Good deal!

9. I received my custom skirt that I bought from Andria Higgins last night. She was nice enough to drop it off to me. She's pretty awesome.

10. I'm getting tired of having soup for lunch at work. Any other ideas for easy lunches that can be brought in and stored in my desk drawer?

TTT

1. My Mom is finally doing better. She had another surgery on Saturday; it looks like she's finally on the mend. This was evident because she actually ate breakfast and dinner yesterday, a first in almost two weeks. Yay!

2. My in-laws came this weekend to help with the roof. We are so appreciative of their help. Sam loves having Grandma around.

3. I planted some more vegetables last night: red lettuce and 4 kinds of peppers. We haven't had too much luck with peppers the last few years. I've already taken out 4 plants that haven't worked this year. They were stunted, and they had stopped growing. These new plants look really healthy and are already 4-6 inches taller than the previous plants. Sam helped pick them out, and he used one of his trucks to help dig the holes and put the dirt back in the holes. I learned lots of patience last night. :)

4. John made some great progress on the roof yesterday. And it looks to be even cooler today, so hopefully he feels good about today's progress too.

5. I had a heart-to-heart last night with Sam about feelings. I hopefully validated his feelings. I told him feelings are hard to deal with sometimes and that I sometimes get really upset because my feelings feel so... big. By looking into his eyes, it looked like he understood. But then two minutes later he melted down again. But he also accepted by hug quicker and got over it more easily.

6. Grandma has been helping Sam learn how to use scissors. They cut out some Fourth of July table decorations. He's growing up!

7. We had zucchini from the garden last night for dinner. We picked about 10 5" zucchini. They were so sweet and yummy! The peas continue to produce, and the green beans finally have flowers. I also picked two medium size tomatoes to ripen in the window. I'm anxious for the cherry tomatoes.

8. I finally decided to take out the irises in the front. I don't really enjoy the flowers that much, and they are a lot of work. I'd rather spread out my day lillies that produce flowers all spring/summer/fall than have to work on picky irises that flower for a couple weeks.

9. The neighbor girls asked to play tag with us last night out in the front yard. We were already playing, and I guess it looked like we were having fun. Which we were! Tonight I will wear better shoes so we can have more fun. I was almost slipping out of my garden clogs.

10. I read a sweet book to Sam last night that was written by Billy Crystal. It made my cry. It was about the grandpa waiting for the granddaughter to be born. Very sweet and touching. Sam reached up his arm and gave me a squeeze to comfort me. And THAT was sweet and touching too. I was still recovering from the tears this morning, you know, swollen face and tired.

Thursday Update

I thought I would give an update on things since my Tuesday post was written hastily. I was able to catch up with all my work by about 4:30 on Tuesday. It felt so good to get the one project done for month-end. It's been hanging over my head for quite awhile.

I picked up Sam from Sarah's, and we picked up dinner on the way home. John's been working really hard on the roof. Quick dinners have been necessary lately. After dinner, I drove to see my Mom at the hospital for the second time in three days; it's about three hours, round trip. She seemed to be doing better, although she was still making some off-the-wall comments. She looked really tired; I'm sure she's not getting the amount of rest in the ICU that she's used to. She'll probably make a nice recovery once she gets back home.

The second drive home from the hospital wasn't as bad as the first. The first time I had to pull over and sleep for about 20 minutes. The second time I just opened the windows and sang loudly with the music to keep awake.

Yesterday was a nice day off. It was beautiful and not too hot. I'm always troubled though with the deterioration of my ambition throughout a day off, or any Saturday, for that matter. For example, I had a big to do list in the morning, like laundry, cleaning the kitchen floor, weeding, watering, getting Starbucks, etc. But by nap time (afternoon) I had only watered and weeded the backyard and gone to Home Depot for John. Even when Sam slept and gained extra rest for the long night of fireworks, I didn't want to do anything. I think I need to just get the music going, and maybe it will get better.

Well, I'm done with my soup. Time to cross-stitch. Signing off for now...
:)

Two Things Tuesday

It's month-end at work and I'm pretty busy so I changed today's blog to two things instead of ten.

1. My Mom is still in the ICU with an infection. I call her everyday, and I've seen her once (she's about two hours away). I'm worried about her, but we're all staying positive.

2. Work is busy, busy, busy. Enough said. :)

TTT

Ten Things Tuesday
1. I'm having a hard time believing that it's almost July.

2. We have lots of cherries on our trees this year. We'll be picking them tonight through the end of the weekend.

3. We watched Man on a Ledge recently. It was pretty good. It seemed to go too fast. I think it really needed some more backstory on the bad guy. Ed Harris is great, but he didn't have enough time to develop his character. He got mad at one of his minions and threw something against the wall, but it just wasn't enough.

4. I'm still waiting to get a babysitter so we can see Avengers.

5. I need to check the company holiday schedule. I'm guessing that we have Monday the 2nd off, but I really don't know.

6. Everyone keeps complaining about the rain. I'm just glad I don't have to water! :)

7. I haven't had a coffee run in awhile. I used to go every Friday at morning break to the closest coffee shack, but work has been busy. Maybe I'll have time tomorrow.

8. I forgot to bring cross-stitch with me to work today so I could work on it at lunch. Boo. I started Eeyore's hair last night. It's getting fun now that I'm so close to the end, even though I still have at least 15-20 hours left to go.

9. Eureka dropped a big bombshell last night. Espionage and betrayal.  Fun stuff!

10. I've been going through pictures, and I realize I need to take more pictures of Sam throughout the week/month.

Strawberry

Okay, so here's a picture of the kind of strawberries I was talking about. I think they're pretty much picture perfect. :)

Ten Things Tuesday

First, a shout out to Dianna. Thanks for the email and the encouragement. :)

Second, a real Ten Things Tuesday:
1. I have started to reduce my "every day" sugar items. At work, I used to put two pumps of creamer into my coffee plus Splenda. Now I'm just using 1 pump of creamer, no Splenda. I also was putting a Splenda packet in my oatmeal that I make at work, but I cut that out too. I actually don't miss it in the oatmeal. I think the raisins help sweeten it. I'm still getting used to the coffee, but I'm determined to change my taste. Sam likes my coffee too much when he tastes it. That's not right. Kids are supposed to hate coffee. So I wanted to make it more hate-able. :)

2. We picked another big bowl of strawberries last night. This time we shared some with our neighbors. The plants in the upper raised bed produced absolutely picture perfect strawberries: plump, perfect strawberry red, and firm. They are a good size too. The plants are spaced out a little more up there, so I think I will thin out the main strawberry patch for next year. Okay, so I didn't get a picture of them last night, but I will the next time I pick them.

3. Wow, those were long. Makes for a long "Ten" list. Time for a short one... I can't wait to watch the recorded Eureka tonight! I'm going to miss the show after it ends this season.

4. I have three annoying bug bites on my legs, probably from working in the yard Saturday. Very, very itchy. Boo.

5. I pinned a cool quote on Pinterest last night that was so funny, I want to share here too. It goes something like "Pinterest makes me like people I've never met, and Facebook makes me hate [some] people I know in real life." Although I will say my opinion of people changes with what they pin too.

6. John needs a new watch. He has cracked the face of his, and it's probably no longer water resistant.

7. I'm also excited to watch our next Netflix movie: Man on a Ledge. I adore Sam Worthington.

8. We need a babysitter so we can go see Avengers.

9. Tonight is Mom's Night Out. Yay!

10. And finally, we're to ten. Like I said yesterday, sometimes I have to force # ten. :)

Back, again

Okay, so I know it's been awhile since I've written. I've recently learned that people (besides my Mom) read my blog and actually watch for updates. I think this is pretty neat. I used to write just thinking I was writing to my Mom (no offense, Mom). But with this news, I am encouraged to write more often. I wanted to write last week, but I didn't find a lot of time to write. I thought I might post today at lunch and maybe add a few pictures tonight or tomorrow night from home.

Since it's been awhile, I think I'll just give some random updates and thoughts. I'll put a story together for the pictures when I upload them.

Monday Moments (like Ten Things Tuesday, but with less pressure because I don't have to force number 10)

• I'm eating minestrone soup at work. I bought an 8-pack of soups from Costco to take to work so lunch was less work to prepare. I thought the box was all lentil soup, but it's half lentil and half minestrone. I was a little disappointed with the minestrone until I found the packets drawer at work that has Romano cheese packets from Olive Garden. Just a little bit of cheese makes a world of difference.
• We took a family trip to Montana and got back last Tuesday. It was a full day of driving each way. We went with my parents in their Odyssey, and it was quite comfortable. John and my Dad did most of the driving (thanks, guys!). Sam was great in the car. Maemae brought lots of little goodies for him to play with. He liked stitching on the plastic canvas and a light-up toy that spins lights around in a circle the best. I think he also really liked hearing Maemae read Shel Silverstein poems to him. I enjoyed the poems too.
• I started a Winnie-the-Pooh cross-stitch on a shirt for Sam's birthday/Christmas last year but it was a bigger project than I had prepared for. I've picked it up again, and I'm having fun working on it at lunchtime. There are four boxes of WtP character heads. I'm on the fourth one now, Eeyore. I'll post a picture of my progress later. Thankfully the shirt is big enough that it will fit him at his birthday this year and probably for another year.

Okay, that will do for now. See you for tomorrow's installment. :)

Drastic Measures

I've changed the permissions for comments. So for now, you'll have to become a member of the blog to be able to comment. I was having random ad comments, and I'm tired of it.

So, email me if you want to become a member. Otherwise, just email me with your comment. :)

It's Finally Tuesday! - TTT

1. I'm finally writing on a Tuesday so it is a real Top Ten Tuesday list! :)

2. Today was my first month-end closing at work. It was a busy day. I'm still not doing everything that will be my responsibility yet, so I still don't have a good idea of what the workload is.

3. John made really good A&J Surprise tonight for dinner. It's like my parents' Saturday Night Delight, which is ground meat, veggies, and pasta, but we add a can of mushroom soup. I'm definitely taking it for lunch tomorrow!

4. We get the JC Penney pictures back tomorrow! I'm so excited! I'll be sending out pictures to our immediate family soon. We got a bigger than normal package this time. Sam was so darn cute in just about all of the pictures.

5. I'm going to take Sam shopping for John's birthday present tomorrow night. I have no idea what to look at.

6. The moon yesterday morning was amazing. It was big and bright, and there were small wispy clouds around it.

7. From Sam who is sitting in my lap: "my name starts with S A M."

8. I get to take a ride on the corporate jet next week to Idaho to see the milling and grain plant. I'm pretty excited.

9. Sam wants me to push the buttons fast. He's giggling. :)

10. I started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. As I was reading, I saw Daniel Craig as Armansky. Then I looked up the cast for the movie today and was shocked to see him cast as Blomkvist and the ER guy as Armansky. I like the book so far.

A Hum Drum Saturday

It's a lazy Saturday.

It's past time to take the tree down, and I still have thank-yous to write.

I think I miss my friends at PeaceHealth. I had lunch with Becky this week, and it was really great. I would like to have lunch with her every week or every other week.

I like my new job. The work is interesting, and I'm using accounting principles on a daily basis, which is really great. One part of my job is doing payables and financials for a small subsidiary. The other part of my job is updating spreadsheets with month-end data and tracking certain accounts. I also have a few things I do every morning to make sure things are running smoothly. I probably won't have a good feel for the whole job until I have a few more month-ends under my belt.

I have quite a few Starbucks gift cards from Christmas. But I've been really disappointed with their drinks lately. I was going to a different coffee shop at my last job, and they had a really yummy pumpkin latte. But the Starbucks pumpkin is pumpkin spice, and I really don't taste any pumpkin in it. The peppermint has been blah, and even the caramel mocha was... dull. I guess I should go back to plain lattes and adding my own sweetener and spices. Grrr. I tend to stay away from that because I can't go through the drive-through and do that. Oh well.

I have a weird raw spot on my hand at the base of my thumb. I woke up to it being sore, and I have no idea what it is from. I'm going to put some hydrocortisone cream on it and see if that helps.

Here's to being bored with certain life circumstances but trying to get up and enjoy them and try new things anyway. I know it will eventually be easy to enjoy them again.


P.S. Sorry this sounds kind of sad and boring. But at least I can tell my Mom that I wrote on my blog. :)

TTM

Top Ten Monday

If I wait until Tuesday to write this, it won't get done.

1. I'm enjoying a cup of dark chocolate cocoa given to me by my friend Becky. Yum!

2. Sam did really well at JC Penney today getting pictures taken. We're a month late for his birthday, but better late than never.

3. My second week of work will be another 4-day work week.

4. My number one movie to see right now would be the new Sherlock Holmes movie.

5. I might be getting a cello to play.

6. I enjoyed watching part of the Rose Parade in California today on TV. I liked all the marching bands, of course.

7. Yay for Starbucks Christmas Blend coffee! Thanks, Mom!

8. I want to clean out and organize my side of the office at home this month. And I get to clean out the past two years in the filing cabinet.

9. I am definitely getting our taxes done early this year.

10. I'm ready for some new easy dinner recipes. Tired of the old ones.