The Beginning of Winter 2011

It's official; winter is here. The roses are no more, and we had snow a few days ago. It didn't stick but it was here for a few hours anyway.

This looks like a tissue paper rose.

Miss Caroline in the pumpkin patch with her Da-da. I don't think I'd be carrying her around on my shoulders with a cup of liquid in those sweet little hands (look at them) but her daddy is the man in her life and she's the "other" woman in his life. I've never seen a man so crazy about a kid in my life!

Just some dried hydrangeas from our front yard.

And doing some mundane things around the house today.

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With all the physical therapy I've been doing—and now hubs—we've gotten free tickets from our physical therapist for a dinner at Olive Garden and now free tickets to a movie. We're going to go see Tower Heist tonight.

Monday nights is our "salad night" at Jack-In-The-Box. You all know by now if I can get out of cooking I'm going to do it. Mondays are a "no cooking" night for me, as is one other day later in the week, either Thursday or Friday night. And if I can throw in a lunch or two, so much the better.
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The other day while running some errands I saw a school marquee that said:

Are you resting enough? Attendance is important.

I didn't need a billboard to tell me that. My parents put the fear of death into me if I didn't attend school. Truly, I was astounded that message would even be necessary. Gee, how the world has changed from when we were in school.
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Love Bunny is taking physical therapy now. On Friday night, November 11th, he came home from doing the VFW Buddy Poppies and told me his head/neck area hurt. He did more Buddy Poppy "sales" on Saturday also. His neck got worse. I called some men in our ward to come and give him a blessing. It just so happened to be our Bishop and he's a pediatrician and mentioned meningitis. I had already decided I was going to take him to ER just before the Bishop and another Elder arrived. They gave him the blessing and off we went to ER. His head was hurting so had he couldn't lift it off the pillow. The Bishop crawled up on my side of the bed to lay his hands on hubs' head while the other man attended on hubs' side of the bed.

After 3 1/2 hours in ER it was determined through x-rays he had occipital nerve inflammation. They gave him a 2 drug cocktail intravenously and 3 prescriptions and sent us home. So from that day until today I've been driving him everywhere he's needed to go. With the drugs we didn't want to risk driving. He's also taking physical therapy to help the neck muscles. His head isn't hurting quite as bad as a week ago but it's still there. He'll be fine I know but it was a bit scary for those couple of hours. But when he went with me to PT for the first time, the physical therapist jokingly said giving him an evaluation was private. I told her he gave us his privacy 50 years and 5 months ago—our wedding day. She shut up and he didn't say a WORD!
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Recently my "lunch" consisted of a sausage biscuit from McDonald's and a Milky Way Simply Caramel candy bar. It was a very busy morning! I love that kind of breakfast but sometimes we just gotta do what we gotta do! Sigh...and wink!
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That's it for today. Off to get ready for my night out. ;-)
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Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #9

The winner of last week's apron is:

Laura Ingalls Gunn

Congratulations, Sugar!!

Thanks to all who visit here. Now go to Beverly's blog and see more pink things today. And thank you, Beverly, for helping me get rid of these aprons to pink lovin' chicks who will appreciate them. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post right here. Your name is entered and I'll pick a winner during the week and announce it on next week's giveaway.

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This is the apron for this week's giveaway.

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Okay, I've bitten the bullet and subscribed for one free month of Netflix. This, of course, will mean watching it from my laptop computer but I want to see what I've been missing. From the latest fare I've been watching it doesn't seem to be much. I subscribed to the "instant streaming" end of it. While I was hoping to watch some of the oldies like Casablanca, it seems that those are available only by DVD. My friend, Stacy, who knows all the latest about Netfix, has assured me Netflix is negotiating with studios to have just about any- and everything available streaming in the near future. At least that is their goal. So I'll be curious as to how that turns out but I haven't seen much I'm interested in except for thrillers and spy/espionage movies, which as you all know are my favorite genres in books. We'll see.

But in the watching of some videos (instant streaming and disks loaned to me by friends) I've read credits. Did you know you can learn an awful lot from credits? Oooh, my yessss! (Ooooooh, as an aside to that, when I'm on Netflix I have 2 other tabs open. One is for IMDB so I can find out the plot, the goofs in the movies and do a wikipedia search for the actors. The other tab is Wikipedia.) ;-) You can learn an awful lot about the old actors and actresses on there. I never knew so many movie stars have been married numerous times. Some as many as 5 to 7 times is not unusual. Sheeeeesh. It makes one wonder why they wouldn't stay married for their entire life. Oh, a very few were, but it was a rarity.

Which brings up why Love Bunny and I have been married for over 50 years. I think he's a hunk and always have. Trust me, he didn't marry me for my body or money. Neither did I marry him for his body or his money. I truly feel sad for those Hollywood types of men who have a hot young wife—sometimes young enough to be his granddaughter but certainly young enough to be his daughter—and have people laughing behind his back. What does it gain him to have a beautiful woman on his arm? His buddies have to be laughing at him. She's there for the money and fame only and everyone knows it. It truly gives me peace of mind to know hubs and I are the same age and are growing old together. Our children have attested to this fact also. We're a Forever Family in this world and the next.

Two things I found interesting in the credits are this:

On the opening "warning" it states this: "Private home use only. The definition of home use excludes the use of this disk at locations such as clubs, coaches, hospitals, hotels, oil rigs, prisons and schools." Oil rigs???? Why not churchs? My church won't let us show a video in any kind of group setting in the church because of the warnings but I don't see "churches" in the warnings. But OIL RIGS???

The other thing I thought was funny was the catering. I'm guessing they cater the food for the actors when working. (Nice, if you can get it!) Most of the time the caterers are "Hollywood Caterers, Tony's Catering, International Caterers, Alesandro's Catering, etc., but one such movie caught my attention when the caterer was TV Dinners. I suppose that was a budget movie. :-)

The other thing I saw was how much smoking they do in movies. I'm talking about recent movies. Everyone smokes! I thought Hollywood was against smoking! You can't tell it by their movies. Most of the actors I've read commenting about it are smokers! How hypocritical can you get?
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When we moved in this house our new ward helped us unload the truck. They got done in one day what took us weeks to pack, and move over to a storage facility. It was an awesomely stressful task made short by their help. But it was just pieces of furniture and boxes. The other day I thought about what it looks like now because some of those people from that ward (we're in a different ward now because of a realignment) hadn't seen it like it is now. They seemed awestruck by how it is now. Just gave me a bit of pride to show it off a bit because when we were off-loading the trucks it looked sad. I guess you could say my "life" was in the boxes. ;-)
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I've been eating a lot of fruit lately, mostly strawberries, watermelon and pineapple, my favorite fruits. But the other day I kept smelling something like perfume but wasn't really perfume. Then I realized I had dripped some pineapple on my shirt. So now I'm sporting Eau de Pineapple!
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That's it for this week unless I get creative and get out and photograph something to show y'all.
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Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #8

This post should be titled: "How My Life Depended on the UPS/FedEx Man This Week" but read on, chicks!

The winner of last week's apron is:

Sherry of Country Wings in Phoenix

Congratulations!

And the winner of the tote is:

Robin of RobinfromCA

I seem to always be thanking Beverly for her Pink Saturdays but I truly do love this meme the best of all. Very easy for me to think of something pink to share with all you bloggers.

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This is the apron for this week's giveaway. You should know the drill by now: Leave a comment on this post right here. I'll draw the name sometime during the week and post the winner in next week's apron giveaway.

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Now, you can read about how my life depended on the UPS/FedEx man this week!

It's been a harrowing week for me.

About a week ago I started getting an ache in my jaw/tooth(?) but couldn't figure out which it was. Monday was a regular dental appointment to get my new crowns on the lower part of my jaw. I went in for my appointment and told them about the ache. They numbed me up with about 6-7 shots of novocaine to pull off my "halloween" teeth as I described them and to put on my permanent crowns. They couldn't find my crowns. They come from Los Angeles by UPS/FedEx and the truck normally would have delivered them the preceding Friday. They panicked, to say NOTHING about ME panicking! Yikes.

They got in contact with the lab in LA and they traced it to the truck that should have been there Friday but didn't and were on the truck to be delivered by noon that day—Monday. (I left the house at 10 am for an 11 am appointment.) As luck or fortune would have it, the crowns didn't get there until about 2 pm.

Well, it gets better. When she pulled off the temporary crowns, I heard an Uh-oh. This didn't exactly set well with me since I was in pain, but I trusted her and my dentist beyond measure to fix the problem. She said, "I see a root there." Okaaaaay, let's fix it quickly. So they did. The temps weren't on well enough and that allowed some seepage into that tooth area and the root was inflamed. Can we say "root canal" along with the new crowns? Well, at least I was deadened because as the morning and early afternoon wore on they had to keep deadening me with novocaine until the UPS/FedEx man arrived. So I truly was good and dead by 3 pm. I asked if I was exceeding the legal limit for a controlled substance and they said probably. Now, understand that with those bottom exposed (little ground down stubs!) I couldn't eat OR drink anything as roots and nerves were exposed. As I said, I left the house at 10 am; I got home at 4 pm. So I was without water or food for all that time. I stopped at Jack-in-the-Box for a milk shake on the way home and dribbled a lot of it down my shirt. I am so sore still today that hubs says I'm still talking funny. Now, don't get me wrong; I absolutely love my dentist and his staff. It was just one of those things, but hubs isn't letting me forget this is costing us about $9,000 trying to save teeth because of gum loss.

Sooooo, shameless as I am, I am going to show you what $9,000 worth of dental work can look like. They still have to whiten the molars in back to bring them up to the whiteness of the crowns, but after spending that much I sure want someone to get the benefit of those glams!!! Also, I had to do a very close up of the teeth so you couldn't see the chapped/flaky lips or cuts on my lip from all this. And I have a very small mouth. I think I can also see some spit bubbles in there, but no extra charge for those, chicks. (Oh, for esthetics sake, I can't show you the root canal. Ratz!!) ;)
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Pink Saturday Apron Giveaway #7

Happy Pink Saturday once again and thanks to Beverly for hosting PS. Visit her at her blog and see all the other participants. And a very public thank you again to her for helping me to give-away these 12 aprons. Only 5 more to go after this one.

Oooooh, and you might want to check out the tote giveaway on the previous post a few days ago. Just saying...;-) You MUST leave a comment on that post to enter!

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The winner for last week's apron was

Sarah

Congratulations!
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To win this apron, simply comment on this post. You'll then be entered to win. Easy.

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Hubs and I are itching to get back over to see Miss Caroline, and we talk about her every single day. She's our pet subject these days.

But the other night we were talking about our trip over and he mentioned Dairy Queen. I perked right up of course because WE didn't go to DQ while over there.

I said, "DQ?"

He said, "Yes, I had to go into DQ to use the restroom."

I perked right up again thinking of Caroline in the car.

I said, "You didn't leave her in the car alone, did you?"

He said, "No, I took her in with me."

I perked up for the 3rd time quickly going over the scenario in my head of which restroom—mens or womens. My mind was boggling at that moment.

I said, "You didn't take her into the men's room, did you?"

He said, "Yes. What else was I going to do with her?"

I perked up for the 4th time!

I said, "What?"

At this point, I was imagining her with those little hands and lips that loved to touch and sample everything new and the things in a men's room that were head high to a 17 month old munchkin.

He said, "I didn't use the urinals. I picked her up, took her into a stall and held her in my arms while using my other hand to use the toilet." He also held her closely as she wanted to touch the walls, hanger and everything she could see.

I was at once both relieved and startled at what Caroline got to see at that moment. He assured me he directed her little head towards his back. Whew!!!
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We are both doing Weight Watchers because we've put on so much weight lately. The other night I just was looking around seeing what I could eat that wouldn't give me extra points. I eat a lot of fruit: canned natural applesauce, pineapple, strawberries, but all sugar free. But that night fruit just wasn't cutting it. I dipped into the Wheat Thins, which is a problem food for me, along with Cheez-its and a few of things. Okay, okay, let's be real. More than a few. I've been known to look at sneakers and thought with a bit of Sweet Ray's BBQ sauce they could be rather tasty. I think I'll need a trip of my own to DQ tonight. Sigh...
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A couple of days ago hubs came into the house and said our No Soliciting sign hanging on the porch had deteriorated so badly he brought it in so I could make a new one. The sign says this...well, let me show you the sign:
Of course, this was just at the exact moment that a local college student showed up to sell us oranges and grapefruits for the holiday season. I politely (a first for me with a solicitor, but he was from a private religious institution, where one of our previous neighbors is a professor and the guy was a cutie also...the student, not the professor) told him we can't eat grapefruit. He toddled on his way, which got me to thinking of a new sign I think I'll post out there in lieu of the above one. AND to which I've frequently had to add the question: What part of NO SOLICITING OF ANY KIND did you NOT understand? Hmmmm????
Showing Love Bunny the sign, I asked him on a scale of 1 to 10 how offensive was that sign. He said it was probably a 6. I told him I must be off my game; I can be much more offensive than that. ;-)
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Until next time, bloggers.
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A Little Change, a Tote and Cupcakes

I saw these on a blog of the winner of one of my aprons and just loved the fanciness of these. Are they not among the prettiest, fanciest and yummiest cupcakes you've ever seen? They're from Henri Bendel in NYC. Just thought you'd love to see them.
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I cut some hydrangeas from one of our plants in the front porch garden area and brought them in. They were pretty dry but still had color so I had hubs pull down from the plant shelf in the living room the urn with the arrangement I made last year with all the things bloggers and my eBay group had given me so I could put the 4 branches of the hydrangeas into it. Snapped some photos to show you. I like how it turned out. A bit of green in there. Maybe I'll get some artificial ones for it.

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Blogging gives me 2 pleasures: writing and photography. I'm not very good at either one, but it allows me to keep my grammar skills up and to practice photographing things. Some are bad shots and some are better than I anticipate, but it's all practice. So hang in there all you bloggers who are like me and trying to perfect those skills. These photos will attest to that!

So with that being said, I'm giving away this tote. After all I did to make it, it just didn't work for me. I'll make another one with a zipper since I'm very concerned—okay, so I'm OCD—about safety and not losing my phone or iPod. So simply leave a comment here and you are entered for the giveaway. I don't make it hard for you at all.

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Now, I've told you hubs and I are silly sometimes. So we're sitting around talking and I wondered out loud if they stitch your mouth together when you die and are put in a casket. He looks at me and said, "With $8,000 worth of dental work for the past few months I'd better see a smile on your face showing those gorgeous teeth." He's such a card. ;-)
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