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. :)