It's in the Jeans and Rust

 I have a chair that was Robb's dad's favorite chair, probably from when he was in seminary.  It's old.  And when I say old, I mean, OOO.L.DDD!  It was in our bedroom for years and Robb loved it.  After that, it had been given to various kids for their rooms, the last one was Maddy, I think.  But it was left at home when she moved away.  So I guess it's mine again.  The matching ottoman is in our garage storage room and that'll be a project for another day/month/year.

Somehow the top back had gotten broken and the poor thing sat in the garage for several years with my honest intention of someday fixing it up and making it part of our lives again.  I plan to use Robb's old jeans to re-cover it.  What else can I make of them?

Yesterday was the day I chose to start in!

No one was home so over my lunch hour, I moved it, by myself, up the stairs to my bedroom so I could watch Sherlock as I worked on it.  This is me on the stairs trying to not knock over canned goods I have stored there.  I did take a break after this brutal feat of strength.

Darn my hobbies!

In stripping off the old worn vinyl, I found several boards broken on just the bottom of the chair without even bringing the top board into play.  Yikes!  Who's been throwing this thing around?!  

And I kid you not.  There were about 1235 little tiny nails per side in various areas holding it all together.  And cardboard.  Not sure when staple guns were invented but not when THIS baby was put together!  Bunches of change fell out along with candy wrappers.  I've been picking up all the tiny nails every time I go in the room now.  I THOUGHT I was being careful, but here we are.

In the process of stripping it to it's bare bones, I got scraped a couple times on the little nails, breaking the skin. whoops!

And when attempting to place a screw and fix a board, the drill slipped a few times and punctured the fleshy part of my hand between the thumb and first finger. EEW!!!  

hydrogen peroxide
band aides

It was like Robb was telling me to give up and pitch the thing!  But I'm pretending I'm not getting the message.  It's a sentimental journey.  And I've literally got skin in the game.

Long about 4pm, I started wondering when I'd had my last tetanus shot. Hmm..  Seems like the last one I could remember was 1989 when Robb and I were helping my dad tear down a barn and I stepped on a nail.  It went through my shoe into my foot.  So yesterday, I called our family doctor. They looked it up on the national registry and the last time THEY found recorded was 1973.  Probably just in time for kindergarten or first grade.

Because we ALL know how rusty the 1970s playground equipment could get.

It was time to get another tetanus shot. shoot.  In addition to that, I brought up my glucose charting I've been doing.  I got confirmation that my suspicion of pre-diabetes was correct.  My doctor had my A1C checked (5.9) and then gave me info and resources for recipes and of course the tetanus shot.

As Calvin in the old cartoon strip would say, "I'm just a little pink pin cushion to you guys!" 
poke poke poke.

So yeah.  no sugar, breads, potatoes, etc for THIS gal!  Not anymore sunshine!

sigh.

My A1C is not terrible but the switch has been flipped.  I need to be lo-carb and watching my carb intake from this point on.

But at least now I won't get lockjaw from Robb's chair!  HA to YOU Robb!  I WILL get this chair put back together!  It just looks pretty sad so far.

Random bits, mostly Aggie

Beauty & the Beast in my new office/sewing room.  

I was sitting on the floor with my legs crossed and she is a mimic. :) 

SO COMFY! 

Her in the kitchen watching Beauty & the Beast.

New chair cushion but with the right distraction, she'll sit in it.

Last weekend with my GIRLS!  I was dogsitting for the kids and Zola was not getting OUT there!

Granted, it was cold and drizzly...

And look what they're doing at the state fair this year!!!  I am SO DOWN!!!

as in, on the ground.

Aggie, for ten solid minutes, as she denied she was pooping the entire time.

And gymnastics.

Life has been very busy this week with weird health issues.  I scared some folks at church Wednesday, by almost passing out.  And if I hadn't watched Dr. House so much this week, I'd be certain it was just an electrolyte imbalance.  But now I'm suspecting a tumor...  JUST KIDDING!!!  

(I don't want to startle my family who read this!!!!)  Gatorade is ON the menu again today!

Dr House is like WebMD for the middle aged.  Watch out!  It might be Ebola!

It has been a time!

 I took a leap...

Back in March, I was feeling SO under the weather and felt uncomfortable in everything I wore.  I'd gained 30 pounds since Robb passed and wow, did it show!

My bestie is a coach with Optavia and she knew I needed some help so I finally said OKEY DOKEY, LET'S DO THIS! and joined up.  The prepackaged food arrived and I kept putting off starting.  It was St. Patrick's Day or it was lunch with Ada, it was this, it was that.  If I kept putting it off, I'd never start.  No sense keeping it a secret from everyone. Maybe they'd support me!  

So I decided that 3/19 was THE day to start!!!  And I did!!!  I lost 9 pounds in 24 hours.  I know it's water weight but cripes!  I didn't think that would EVER come off!  Still on my journey to a waist line, but more on that later.

Also on 3/19, after several attempts to get over a chest cold that Aggie gave me, I was feeling miserable.  Coughing all the time, etc, etc.  But hoped that maybe some antibiotics would help me kick it, so I went to the doctor that day.  I came home with a few different types of meds, bronchitis, pneumonia and a sinus infection.

The kids were so concerned that Maddy took the rest of the day off to come sit on my bed with me and in her words, "nag me back to health." :)  When she left, Meri came over and stayed with me overnight for at least 2 nights.  That part is pretty blurry. A lot of coughing through the night and  I went through several boxes of kleenex. I have no idea how Meri got any sleep!

The whole situation gave us all PTSD from 3 years prior, so I totally get their concern.

I was somewhat better when the meds ran out, but my teeth and jaw were still killing me.  Apparently the sinus infection was still going strong so I went back and the doctor put me on a different kind of med and that finally kicked it.  However she WAS concerned that I'd lost 12 pounds between visits and freaked a little checking EVERYTHING over before I happened to mention my diet.  She practically hugged me with relief!

So anyway, back to the health plan!  I have 5 fuelings per day plus one "lean & green" meal.  I can do a variety of recipes for the lean and green, but my go to is a salad with some shredded chicken that I keep already weighed out in the freezer in little baggies.  Every 2.5-3 hours, I rip one of the packets open and either eat the variety of foods straight out of the packaging or mix it with water and microwave.  I haven't determined yet if heating up the oven for a few cookies is worth it yet but you never know what I'll do tomorrow.  I keep all the packets in an over the door shoe holder.  And I drink at least 64 ounces of water every day.  I've gotten used to that by now and typically have 3 cups down before 9am.

I have lost 26.4 pounds as of this morning and losing roughly 3 pounds a week.  I plan to start transitioning to regular food on June 1st and be completely done with the prepackaged things by mid to late June.  And with the knowledge that I've learned over the last couple months, I believe that I can keep it off!

It has been an adventure.  I feel so much better now and Julie has been an awesome coach!  We still have our virtual movie nights at least once a week and talk every day.  

I'll still be slightly above what the doctor's office chart says is "overweight" but as soon as I'm able to start walking again (haven't lately because of the rain), that will come off too.

Baby steps!

Break a Leg or a Foot

Picture this.

Meri's 2nd day on the job, working for a brand new, large, home improvement store.  They don't open for a couple weeks, so Meri's primary job right now is stocking shelves.

She and a close friend that got hired at the same time left for lunch.  They got into Meri's car, but it wouldn't start. 

It did once, sputtered, then stopped and then wouldn't start again.

Fine.  She would ride with Jessica instead, so they got out to run to J's car on the far side of the parking lot.  Time was awastin'.  

The median, just in front of Meri's car was covered with landscaping fabric, as workers were getting ready to plant trees, etc.  The girls looked for any sign that they shouldn't walk across it and didn't see any, so they did.  Meri ran a bit and stepped through the landscaping fabric, into a hole where she said she didn't know where the bottom was.  It shook her up a bit, but she pulled herself out and they ran the rest of the way to the car.  She was embarrassed and hoped no one had seen.

When they got to the car, she said that her foot hurt a bit.  They arrived at Subway and Meri couldn't put weight on it without hurting a lot more, so they went through a drive through instead and Meri called me.

"umm Mom?..."

I advised her to go to Urgent care so they went to the Express Care instead.  It's in a grocery store, so Meri hobbled to a motorized shopping cart for the disabled and drove right up to the window.  

"Um,, I think I hurt my foot."  

"We can't help you.  We don't have the right equipment.  Go to Urgent care."

So they hobbled her back out to the car and off they drove to Urgent care where they x-rayed her foot and found that a bone had gotten the corner chipped off of it.  Yikes! 

So she's in a classy boot and icing it constantly.  She's off from work today with it up.  

Anyway, after work, Robb and I went down to check on her car.  We couldn't get it started either and none of our usual tricks were working.  So while Meri and I talked with her boss and then with the Urgent care people, Robb had it towed to our car guy a couple miles away then met us for supper at our fave Chinese restaurant.  

I couldn't have sewed last night if I'd tried.

A Weekend isn't Complete Without a Shark Attack

 On Saturday, Robb and I were out most of the day getting supplies for the Birthday bash that was Leon's party on Sunday.  We also stopped at the hospital to see our friend.  Things are NOT good and she was moved into a hospice that evening.  I know we'll see her in heaven but we're going to miss her so much!  Her family is handling things really well.  And it did prompt a "If something should happen" question for Robb and myself.  We should probably start writing things down...

Then we headed to the school where Meri was singing in a solo musical theater competition.  She got the high score and gets to go to State for that!  That girl is really having a good year whether she believes it or not...  She sang "A Change In Me" from Beauty and the Beast.  She had another song almost ready, but with the pressures of her schedule, decided she didn't have it ready.  Robb has recorded her singing it in our living room and I'll try and get it up on Youtube some time soon.  

And why shouldn't she sing one of her songs from Beauty and the Beast?  She's got it down pat.  She made Robb and I both cry during her performance.  But we'd had a pretty emotional day so far already and that just put us over the edge.  again...  We didn't tell her about our friend until that night.  She hopes to go see her as soon as she can.

The rest of Saturday consisted of house prep for the party, baking cakes and trying to make them look like Legos.  Can you tell which one was my first attempt?

 The ugly red one...

Those are Oreos as the little circles.  I froze the cakes as soon as they got out of the oven.  Then cut them, frosted them with white frosting, then plunked the Oreos on them.   And froze them again.  On Sunday afternoon, I melted the pre-colored frosting tubs and poured it over the top.  Elsewhere, not on the foil.  Then transferred them to the foil, which is a large foam board covered with foil.  Then poured a little more melted frosting down the sides.  They turned out really cute.  However cutting through Oreos totally destroyed the piece of cake I was cutting, so I pulled a few Oreos off and cut smallish pieces.  

There was a lot leftover, so I sent them to work with Robb today.  Someone will eat them!  We've got tons of other types of leftovers here anyway.

On Saturday, Robb and I spent almost two hours putting this shark together!  I had purchased the shark itself from Tophatter and hadn't realized that it's only the shark and the side fins...  The tail fin wasn't there, nor was the motor underneath.  Luckily I found this out a few weeks ago and got the replacement motor parts ordered from a hobby shop in the states.  Whew!  BUT when we were putting it together discovered no tail fin anywhere...  We had to improvise.  I cut out a tail from a card stock paper but it was too heavy so I found some organza and improvised a little bit more.  

And of course, Meri caught me being attacked by a shark...

Reminder, never wear that shirt again...  MOST unflattering...

 

Leon loves the shark!  In fact, so much that he's grounded from playing with it until I think tomorrow.  We had it hidden away in a bedroom during the party.  It's a delicate beast!  

Also on Saturday night, Meri helped me get the goodie bags, stuff the pinata and several other things ready for the party.  

Ryan was going to have to work until just before the party, so we had a group effort going on.

So the party happened!  Toys strewn everywhere.  We knew that would happen...

Little Anikin found crayons and his dad took them away as quick as he found them.  Apparently he likes to draw on things with them.

And this little cutie was the ONLY girl who came!  She was a good sport tho and found ALL the My Little Ponies that Leon has collected.

 

Lots of presents opened.  

 And the finale of hitting things with bats.

TONS of candy from this!  Since we didn't have as many kids as last year, each child got probably 3 pounds of candy to take home.  

AND he has three girl friends now...  As he found out because he missed three candles.  

I wonder who they are...

Hot dogs, chips, cheese stick, grapes and tons of sugar later, we sent them all home.

Whew!  

Well, he's officially six now.  On to the next big thing yes?

WAHOO!!!!! and then some other things

Ok... It's FRIDAY!!!!  YAY!!!! 

The fabric that I pulled out of my closet has been sorted.  Some are garments to recycle, some are larger fleece bits, some fashion fabric pieces.  The smaller remnants I pitched.  I have to be ruthless SOMEHOW...  The larger pieces I just didn't care for and couldn't think of how I'd use them are going to the GoodWill.  And I have a white garbage bag size full of felted wool sweater parts.  That bag of wool will be offered on freecycle whenever I get around to it.

The felted wool mittens just never really took off.  And our dogs appreciated the thumb of the one pair that Meri chose to wear.  sigh...  

26 days until spring!!!!  We'll survive.  

And I'm protesting winter by trying not to wear my coat as much as possible.  No one's listening, but hey...  I know why I'm blowing my nose.

One of Ryan's babysitters as a kid used to wear shorts on the first day the temp was 60 degrees or above.  I could do that if I ever shaved...  This week is supposed to be in the 40s and only going up from there.  I hope.  yay!

I visited a friend from church at the hospital yesterday.  She'd had a stroke on Tuesday.  If you can, please add her to your prayer list.  Just thinking about her is making me tear up.

It's one of those moments that you know, in a blink of an eye, things have changed forever for her and her family.

Leon's birthday party at school was yesterday.  I made cute little bags with a chocolate chip cookie, a pic of him with a note on it and a little plastic dinosaur from the Dollar Tree in them.  They were a hit!  I enjoyed the last hour of school with him.  

This is him at Free Choice time.  Then I got to take him home and he headed off to his mom's without a proper party here yet.  That'll be Sunday.

I got three paper bracelets given to me by a couple little girls who spend their free time making them.  One little boy narc'ed on Leon about how Leon gets in trouble because he doesn't put his shoes on fast enough.  shush kid... 

Leon had share time and brought a couple little Lego super heros that he'd put together. One from scratch and was a super hero that he invented.  Captain American is his side kick.  The kids were allowed to ask 5 questions.

1. Do you like it?

2. Do you like to play with them?

3. Did you like it?

4. Do you like them?

5. Can Jordan move away from me?  His foot is touching mine.

Then they pulled out the white erase boards and rags made out of socks and did math problems.  TOO cute!  Some of the kids make their numbers backwards and I saw Leon cheating just a little.

So...  the play is next week, tensions are high, stress levels higher.  I'm sure it's all going to pull together and be awesome, but until then, I'm racked with nerves and I'm not the only one. 

Constant praying for a lot of things lately...

Uncommon Miracles

This past weekend I noticed tiny little bumps that you couldn't even see without a bright light, on the palms of my hands.   Of course, I freaked a little and thought back to what I may have been in contact with that would have that reaction.

I figured it would go away with some hydrocortizone cream and a little time.  Um nope.  Monday morning was even worse with more bumps on my fingers too and itchy, so I took to "the Google"...  Yeah I know... I shouldn't be self diagnosing myself, but our insurance deductible is so blooming high right now, a visit to the doctor for a rash that you can barely see, is out of the question.

I can definitely feel the rash though!     

If I typed in my symptoms correctly, I have Dyshidrotic Eczema.  I can't pronounce it, but I can certainly cut and paste.  Found out that lots of other people have had the same symptoms and while mine aren't so bad, I saw that it could get MUCH MUCH worse if left untreated.  The plus side is that it only lasts from 2-4 weeks.  BUT it could be all oozy and more painful.  Not an option for me!  

I found that I had a few options to try.

1) soak my hands in apple cider vinegar for 30 minutes.

2) soak my hands in hydrogen peroxide for an unknown amount of time.

3) visit a tanning booth for less than ten minutes.

4) cut off my hands.

Well, we're fresh out of vinegar and I don't want to lose my hands permanently.  

They won't grow back.

It's been YEARS since I've visited a tanning booth.  Whenever I got a zit, the tanning bed would zap it off me.  I used to go occasionally when I was in college and in our early years of marriage.  But Robb wanted me to stay around a while and not get skin cancer, so he'd asked me to quit.  So I did.  

I wanted to stick around a while too.

But tanning looked like the best and quickest option to get rid of this.  I went over my lunch break yesterday.  It felt SOOOOOO good to lay in a warm bed and nap.  Now I remember why I loved it so much.  A warm nap... AHHHhhhhh...  Bonus, I got the cool little goggles too!

Not my legs.

I don't know if it's wishful thinking but my hands seem a little better today.  And I don't know if it was the UVB rays but my heels felt better when I got out of bed this morning too!  It's not going to become a habit, but boy or boy... if the tanning bed could just melt off a little fat too...

A Recipe To Make You Gag.

A Recipe To Make You Gag. From here on out shall be dubbed ARTMYG. I mentioned my iron deficiency issues yesterday, if you recall... So I'll tell you what I had for lunch and will probably again today.

But first a little history of liver...

To this day, when I hear the theme song to Hogan's Heros, I can vividly smell liver and onions cooking. SERIOUSLY... It would be on TV, my mom would be in the kitchen preparing it and my dad would just be getting home from work. I'm either thinking of just one specific memory and nothing else about it, or I had liver and onions every single night... Who knows? The only way I could eat it was with lots and lots of salt. So I grew up with it and thus became a saltaholic.. :)Fast forward several years... Maddy is 2. Robb got home from work later one night, but I'd kept supper hot for him. Yep - liver and onions. I'm pretty sure I made something else for Ryan and Maddy as I knew they wouldn't like it. So Robb got his food and set it at the table and went in the other room for something. When he came back, he found Maddy chowing down on it. Wow! She likes it! Maddy likes it!

and yes... We store our spare kids in the pantry shelves along with the powdered sugar. They were actually playing hide and seek. That's Maddy and Ryan.

Modern day... We have liver and onions on occasion but not very often. A friend, (Hi Doe!) gave us some when they got some beef from a local locker and some of it got lost in our deep freeze underneath other items. So one day, Meri was going to make spaghetti for supper and I told her to check out the freezer and find some hamburger. She called me from her cell phone. Yes, from 30 feet away, she calls me. "Mom, I found some in a white paper package and am thawing it out in the microwave." What does it say on the paper? I asked, knowing that I didn't buy hamburger that way. She answered, "Live-er" She pronounced it with a long I sound and it just didn't make sense to her. Oh honey, you don't want to put that in spaghetti... So we had liver that night.

So anyway, yesterday. Robb had found another package of the liver and thawed it out for my lunch. When I came in from my office, I chopped it up into bite sized pieces, breaded it with a combo of flour, cayenne, salt and pepper and fried the chunks in butter. Then salted it again before serving. I'm a saltaholic, remember? Had a nice fresh spinach salad along with and enjoyed my meal. It was actually quite tasty and I think I'm going to do that again today.

With fava beans... fa fa fa fa fa fa... Sorry, couldn't resist quoting from Silence of the Lambs!

Sorry if I made you gag or lose your breakfast... I did get my iron pills last night as well as a multi vitamin and lots of orange juice. So hopefully my body chemistry will get "in wack" soon. I feel like I have more energy already today. Can you OD on iron?

The strength of a pinky...

Pay no attention to the fingernails... I have never had a manicure and there is so much polyurethane under my nails - it's not even funny.

The above picture is how close I can get my fingers currently by themselves. Strange huh?!

Now that I'm done with the floor, my left pinky and ring finger have been causing me fits. My left palm tingles when I touch it and I virtually have no strength in my pinky. It's really weird washing dishes these days. Too bad the dishwasher is broke!

I'm sure it's residual of working on the floor all day Saturday. I was leaning on that hand a LOT when scraping with the varnish stripper. Don't know if I bruised something or not. It kind of feels like I've got a pinched nerve. An appointment has been set for my chiropractor this afternoon. After all the work, my back is wacky too, but I'll bring this to his attention. Who knows?

The really strange thing is finding how much I depend on my pinky for typing! as well as a hundred other things that I'd never noticed before. It doesn't have the strength to hit the "a" key. I've had to resort to moving my hands all over the keyboard in order to type. I have to admit tho, that since my job is 100% on the computer anyway, I've gotten pretty good over the last few days to avoid using it, but hope it doesn't have to be this way permanently...

And forget Nanu Nanu!

UPDATE: My chiropractor fixed up my back, but said that my hand has an inflamed muscle from the overuse on Saturday and my constant pressure on it. I've got it on ice currently and that should help until this goes away. yuck! and brrrr!