Hello!! Remember Me?!!

Hello, Friends!!    I can’t believe how long it’s been since my last post!!  Almost a month!!  I promise I won’t let that much time pass between posts again! 

Chuck’s surgery went pretty well.  It was definitely rough the first week and a half.  He was very sore.  We weren’t expecting him to be as incapacitated as he was.  The urologist insisted that the inside of his cheek would hurt more than his “bottom”, but that certainly was not the case!  He was not allowed to sit for 2 weeks – he had to recline.  I had to help lift him off the couch or bed so that he didn’t put pressure on his bottom trying to get up.  Even though he’s allowed to sit now, he’s still a little tender and has to sit gingerly.  He ended up having a regular Foley catheter instead of through his abdomen and will finally get that removed tomorrow!  I think once that’s out, he’ll feel a whole lot better. 

Besides dealing with my hubby that first week, I had a family birthday brunch for Kory and Justin to prepare for at the end of the week.  I definitely missed having Chuck’s help!  We usually make most of the food the morning of the brunch, with the exception of the muffins and the coffeecake.  But since I had to do it all by myself, I made 4 kinds of muffins and 2 pans of coffeecake a couple of days before and threw them in the freezer.  On Saturday, after I took Kory to bowling and then picked up bagels and cream cheese from Panera’s, I made sausage, bacon, hash browns, regular pancakes, blueberry pancakes, French Toast Bake, chicken & broccoli  quiche, plain scrambled eggs and scrambled eggs with green pepper, onions, mushrooms and cheddar cheese.   I also baked 2 batches of brownies for our “create-your-own-sundae” bar and chopped some Snickers bars and crushed some Oreo cookies for toppings.  I didn’t get to bed until 11:30 and then got up at 5:00 on Sunday morning to do some last-minute cleaning and other preparations along with putting everything in the oven to warm.  I wasn’t sure how all of it would taste being made the day before, but it turned out pretty good.

We had 18 family members arrive at 11:00 and didn’t think they would stay too long because of Chuck not being up to par, but they stayed way longer than they normally do!!  They stayed until a little after 5:00!  Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed having their company and normally wouldn’t have minded them being there that late, but I was exhausted!!!  On top of that, since the kids didn’t have school on Monday, Justin was having 6 or 7 friends over later that night.  They love my peanut butter cookies with chocolate and peanut butter chips and I promised Justin that I would make some for them.  Well, I was still baking cookies when the kids started showing up.  And the number of kids went from 6-7 to 28!!!!  Chuck ended up going to bed around 8:30 - he was worn out and in a lot of pain.  I wanted to go to bed so bad, but I felt I should stay up until the kids left, which, surprisingly, was 11:30.  I thought it would be much later than that and so glad that it wasn’t!!   Come Monday, I stayed in my jammies all day and didn’t do a darn thing!!  It still took me a couple of days after that to get back to “normal”, if there is such a thing!  lol 

I then went through a period of “winter blues”.  I think it was a combination of being cooped up at home trying to keep Chuck company since he couldn’t do much (and to keep him from doing things he wasn’t suppose to) and the fact that we didn’t have very many days of sunshine.  Our local weatherman stated a couple of days ago that since November 1st we’ve only had 17 days with sunshine! ( I think were up to about 19 now).  We even had a week of fog lasting all day – the temperatures were rising into the 40’s with snow still on the ground creating the fog.  Talk about gloomy!!  I was in such a frumpy mood.  I had no desire to be creative and didn’t even get on the computer for several days.  And what’s even more amazing. . . . . Chuck gave me a gift certificate to one of my favorite prim shops, Primitive Keepings, and I had NO desire to go use it!!  What’s wrong with me?!!!  lol

Luckily, things are looking a little brighter.   Chuck’s feeling much better and almost back to his old self, with the exception of not being able to lift anything over 20 lbs until the end of February.  He’s gotten out a couple of times with me, but feels self-conscious of his catheter bag.  As I said earlier, he’ll get that removed tomorrow and then he’ll feel much better.  This has been hard for him – he’s not used to being cooped up and not able to do anything.  He’s going stir crazy!  The only bright side is, is in the last 3 weeks, he was able to read the four books that he got for Christmas.  One of them is Stephen King’s new book,  Under the Dome, which has 1,072 pages.  Now that’s being laid up!!

I’ve been trying to “think spring” and have a few projects brewing in my head, so that’s helped lift the winter blues a bit.

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I know I’m way behind and that a lot of you have probably put your snowmen decor away, but I wanted to share this snowman with you.  I bought him several years ago at a craft show and thought it was a very clever idea!  He’s made out of an old cooking pot lid!  The woman that made him said she bought the lids at Goodwill – each one had a different shaped nose due to the handle style.  Isn’t that clever?

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Do any of you notice the resemblance of my blogger background to this picture?

Yep, it’s my wallpaper!  I had a piece left and scanned it on my computer.  I’ll share more on exactly how I did it at a later date!

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I’m excited to announce that I’m the new Prim Project Coordinator for A Primitive Place!!  Each month I will do a craft tutorial exclusively for APP.  I won’t be posting it on my blog, you’ll only be able to see it by visiting A Primitive Place.  Click on the picture below to check out this amazing forum! 

My first tutorial is how to make an Artificial Prim Tree.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Until Next Time. . . . Kris

Just Checking In!!

Hello, friends!!  I’m just checking in to let you know that everything is fine and that I’m not giving up blogging!!  Thanks to all of you who were concerned and have emailed me to make sure I’m alright!

I spent the last couple of weeks being extremely lazy and enjoyed spending time with my family.  My kids are older and at the “moving out” age, so I want to spend as much family time as I can.

This month is going to be a busy one for me, so I still may not be blogging much.  Kory’s birthday is today (she turns 21) and Justin turns 18 on the 21st.  On the 17th, we’re having about 18-20 family members over for a birthday brunch.  Chuck usually does a lot of the cooking – scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon and sausage – but this year he may not be up to par to help me much!! 

On Tuesday, the 12th, my hubby is scheduled to have surgery at the Cleveland Clinic.  He has scar tissue built up in his urethra and has had problems urinating for the past several years.  He has had times when urinating has slowed down to a trickle and a couple of times, has come to a complete stop.  The poor man has had to go to his urologist about every 3 months to get “reamed” open for too many years.  They finally convinced him that surgery is his only option.  After they remove a 4-5 cm section of his urethra, they’ll take skin from the inside of his cheek to make a new replacement.  He’ll have to have a catheter inserted through his lower abdomen and have that for about 3 weeks until everything is healed.

My Mom and Dad made their rounds right after Christmas visiting me and my 4 siblings to tell us that my Dad has prostate cancer.  He’s 75 and considered too old to have surgery, which he would have refused anyways, because he and my mom have the belief that “once they cut you open, the cancer will spread”.   He’ll have radiation treatments 5 days a week for 8 weeks.  He has an appointment next week with an oncologist to find out when he’ll have to start the radiation.  They’re both still very active and independent – also stubborn enough to refuse any help offered!  My dad ordered hardwood flooring to replace the carpet in their Great Room a couple of days after he found out he had cancer and insists on installing it himself!  It may be a good project to keep his mind busy, but he also has a tendency of doing more than he can handle and won’t admit when he needs help.

My busy month ends with my daughter, Brittney, turning 24 on Feb 2nd.  Hopefully, after that, I should get back to blogging on a normal basis!   Please be patient with me!!  I miss all of you and look forward to being in touch with you soon!!

Until Next Time. . . .Kris