A wrap-up of 2015...

Well, here we are into another year. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year's.  We stayed home this Christmas for the first time in about 20 years. Jarin started a new job in October and she had to work so we stayed home this year. We missed everyone but we had a great Christmas. We cooked our Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve so we could relax on Christmas Day. We grilled steaks on Christmas Day.  Jarin and I made our annual trip to the Festival of Lights the week of Thanksgiving.  That is at the Tanglewood Park here. Lowes Foods took over sponsorship this year and brought back the marshmallow roast. We always like to get one of the big pretzels.

Our outside decorations this Christmas.

I mentioned looking for some battery lights for the swag on the door and Hubby found some and brought them home. They worked great.

Christmas Eve before Santa came. :-)

Christmas Moon 

I'll catch you up a little on the rest of 2015. Hubby healed great from his eye surgery in February to fix his Orbital floor blowout fracture that happened when he slipped on an icy, outside escalator on a business trip to Chicago.  He had his other surgery in Mid May for the ICD, he had no problems and recovered well from that also. Hopefully everything will go well on the medical front this year. 

The many hair colors of Cori in 2015... I'm sure there were some shades I missed.

Cori got to see her favorite Kpop (Korean) band in person, twice this year.  Once at Earth Day in Washington DC (bottom two pics) and the other at KCON 2015 in New Jersey (top two). She got to touch their hands in New Jersey, that's her favorite she's touching in the pic (dark haired one).

In June, Jarin and Cori went to Heroes Con in Charlotte again. I went on Friday with Jarin because Cori had classes and that was the day to pick up the ticket badge and free stuff.  I did meet the cartoonist for Snuffy Smith. I bought two compilation books of comic strips for him to autograph for me and my Dad.

He also drew a picture in each one.

(my Dad's)

Some dress in costume at Heroes Con.
The ladies of Hocus Pocus.

Shawn, wife Iliana and little Sierra after canoe race

Brother Shawn competed in the Texas Water Safari canoe race in July (I believe his 7th time). They canoe over 260 miles, starts on Saturday morning and they have to be at checkpoints along the way by certain times. It is usually in June but all the rain and flooding postponed it twice until July. He competed in mixed with another lady Debbie, they came in 7th overall and 1st in mixed. For my Facebook buddies there is a video I shared on my wall that Debbie put together of their race. I got to watch along the way on Periscope. I stayed up until 5:30 am on that Monday morning to watch them come in at the finish line. That was neat to get to do, I was able to let him know I was watching and congratulate them at the end and say hi to the family. 

Then we met at Mom's later in July and went to the beach for an overnight. Sierra is into Frosty the snowman and he was there at the beach...ha. 

Jarin and I went by to see the military stone that was put on brother Ronnie's grave, while we were home. We miss him.

I caught a double rainbow in September, on Labor Day.

Hubby had to use up some vacation time before the end of the year so he went to his parents Thanksgiving week. He didn't get to go during the summer when the girls and I went. He also took the week after Christmas and since we had pleasant weather that week we got the garage cleaned out. Oh and we had a few problems with our Christmas lights on the bushes in front. We thought it was because of the steady rain we thought would never end. We replaced a couple of net lights and after Christmas they went out again, turns out it may have been a rabbit that chewed through the cord. Well, something did and I have seen rabbits run for the hills when we came out with the dogs to do their business. And last but not least, Cori wrecked her car a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. She was fine, drove it home. The headlight on the front passenger side fell out. She wanted to keep it so I guess we need to build her a box to hold it so she can hang it in her room...ha. Too bad we don't know how to wire it so she can turn it on and off for a light.

So I think that pretty much wraps up 2015, the highlights anyway. 

Hope everyone has a great week!
Take care,

Sheila

On the mend...

Time sure does get away from you. Back here for another update. Rick went back to the eye surgeon yesterday. He is healing good, pretty much back to normal on the outside. His lower lid is slightly down but that is normal as the inside continues to heal and graft over the implant. The doc showed him how to massage it to help it along. His vision is back to normal and he can go get an eye exam next month for new glasses or lenses, the ones he has are scratched from the fall. We had a long wait though, his appointment was at 3:30 pm and we didn't get out of there until almost 7 pm. Hubby was getting hungry and a little perturbed...ha. Oh and I went into the snack area to get Hubby a soda and the door locked to get back into the main area (it was after 5 pm). Thankfully there was a young guy that heard me knocking on the door and let me in...ha. Hopefully Hubby would have come searching for me if I hadn't come back... hopefully... :-D

The cardiologist still wants to do the ICD but no date on that yet.

 

 I had two ghosts rocking in my chairs recently... :-D

We are in that transition period where we have warm days and cool days, rainy days, cloudy days and sunshine. 

 Hubby got a notice for jury duty too, but depending on his surgery to implant the ICD he'll probably get that postponed. 

Thanks for stopping by and thanks again for the prayers for Hubby,

Sheila

Update on Hubby...

Thank you all for your prayers and thoughts for Hubby, they were greatly appreciated!

Today has been a week since surgery and he is doing very well. He had an appointment yesterday with the eye surgeon and he is healing very well. He has healed to the point that most don't reach until about 3 weeks after surgery. He still has some bruising and swelling, but his double vision didn't return like they thought it would. They pull out the bottom eyelid and go through there to put in the plate, so he has no stitches on the outside. He also had to have the titanium plate instead of the plastic because there was too much bone missing. He'll go back to the Doctor in a month and he should be healed enough that he can go get an eye exam to replace his glasses. The left lens of his glasses was scratched.

He also had a cardiologist appointment yesterday. He's had an Echo gram, nuclear stress test and a heart catheterization (no blockages) done over the last six months. His heart has gotten a little weaker since he had a heart attack in July of 2007. He gets extra beats sometimes, not sure how often, he doesn't feel them and they don't always show up on tests. They showed up this time on his EKG during his annual visit to the heart doctor, but not on any of the other tests. They're just kind of random. They don't last long (just a few seconds), but there is a slight chance, if your heart is weaker, that the extra beats could get it out of rhythm and it not be able to correct the rhythm. So they tweaked his meds and they are going to do another Echo gram. If his heart has gotten stronger they will watch it for now, but if it's the same they want to put in an ICD as an 'insurance policy' in case it ever gets out of rhythm. They could do more adjusting with his meds but that would make his blood pressure to low. Because even though he has had a heart attack, he didn't and doesn't have high blood pressure (strange I know...ha). Once you have a heart attack they give you meds to keep it lower than what is usually considered normal, in his case anyway. So we are hoping the meds they tweaked have helped strengthen it.

 This is what hubby found on his white board at work after his fall.

He got a rose yesterday from the eye surgeon.

Thanks again for the prayers,

Sheila

Ouch!

Now for the rest of the story... My husband had a business trip to Chicago on Monday the 19th. Freezing temps and snow was the forecast for the days he was there. Monday night they went out to dinner. To get to the restaurant you went up an outside escalator. They found, after dinner, that the down escalator wasn't working so they had to walk down. Hubby made it about 3 steps before he slipped and fell to the bottom. His right shoulder, arm and leg had some scrapes and bruises, but his worst injury was his left eye.

He was returning home on Wednesday the 21st, so I called the Doctor's office to make him an appointment to get checked out. They wanted him to go get a CT scan of his face because he was having double vision. I took him there, and after waiting quite awhile for them to read the results, they finally sent us home and told us they would call with the results. Around 9pm the doctor called and wanted him to go to the emergency room, which was useless as there was nothing they could do but give him pain meds. His diagnosis, Orbital floor (blowout) fracture. You can look it up, but basically he blew out the bone that supports under the eye.

His doctor set up an appointment with the eye surgeon. The surgeon checked him out and found a small tear in the retina, he sent him home with an antibiotic and scheduled him with a retina specialist. So the next day was spent at the retina specialist. He repaired the tear with a laser. It appeared to him to be an older tear, not related to the fall. Hubby had a lot of pain later after having all that done and couldn't get comfortable. He would go back and forth between the bed and the chair in the living room, trying to sleep but he couldn't. He decided to try a benadryl to see if it would help him sleep.

Needless to say about 45 minutes later we were headed to the ER for anaphylactic shock. Last March this happened and the allergist found nothing, but he had taken Rite @id brand dye-free children's allergy, which has diphenhydramine (benadryl) in it. But the allergist thought maybe it was the preservative in it. This time it was the regular little pink benadryl, that he had taken just fine a few months before his attack last March. I checked inactive ingredients for both to see if anything was similar but there wasn't. So unless something else happens we are assuming he is allergic to diphenhydramine. I guess the bright side to all that was by the time we left the ER his face pain was gone.

 So now after the swelling, double vision and most of the bruising has went down, he is scheduled for surgery tomorrow, the 13th. Then he will probably have to go through more swelling, bruising and double vision again for a little while.

Picture he sent the morning after he fell.

Picture I took a few days later

One I took the first of Feb. I'll probably take another today. He still has a little bit on that darkest area on the bottom.

I'd like to ask for your prayers for him as he has his surgery tomorrow.

Thank you,

Sheila

Finally an update...

Yes, I know, I am way behind. Thought I would do a Christmas update before I changed the blog decor from Christmas. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We went to our parents for Christmas. Someone brought a respiratory plague over after Christmas (not naming any names...ha.) and let me tell you it has hung on. Mom and I caught it first, followed quickly by Dad, then Jarin and Cori. Thankfully Hubby left before it took a hold of him...but he's had other things to deal with, I'll discuss that later.

 Jarin and I took our annual trip to the Festival of Lights on Dec 2nd...

 

 

I think that might be Hubby on the cart... :-)

 

We kept the outside decor simple this year. Just our snowman, tree and presents, and wreaths on the window. We also had a swag on the door and bells on the porch lights, but they don't light up.

My new fireplace screen with Santa on it.

They had a snowman one too, hard to choose, but since Santa comes down the fireplace I chose him.

Santa and Snowman guarded the tree this year instead of the fireplace...

New tree skirt too.

My tacky desk...

Cori made the reindeer by Santa.

My new snowman on the left...wrapped like a mummy but feels like a sweater. I left him out for the winter... :-)

The grandsons opening our presents at their great-granny's.

and the pose...

We had a great Christmas and now it is over for another year. But it will be no time before it is here again. We have a clear but windy day here today. It was about 46 degrees yesterday and sleeting, I think it surprised the weather gurus.

Take care, 

Sheila

November already...

 Hello again! We survived Halloween and now we are headed toward Thanksgiving. Here's a few pics from Halloween...

 

My spider lights...I kept them inside this year. 

Spider light using flash.

The whole string of spider lights.

Outside by the front door. I did have my skeleton hanging from the porch light with the strobe light on it. Late getting out decorations, so clown and jumping spider didn't make it out this year. Plus it started raining and put a little damper on the trick or treaters.

Finally bought some new towels and another set of sheets.

 

Had my first cup of hot chocolate a couple of weeks ago,

and eggnog...alcohol free.

And our little sweetie, my niece. 

Her mommy has a birthday today!

Happy Birthday!!

Jarin and I headed toward the mountains the day before Halloween. I wanted to take a few fall pictures with my better camera, but a certain other daughter had taken the memory card out and didn't put it back in... So all I had was my phone camera. But pictures didn't do it justice, it looked much better in person. 

A little Fall decor and flu shots...

Last week was blood work and flu shot time for Hubby and me. Mine was Tuesday, Hubby's was Friday, he also got a pneumonia shot. He had a lot of pain in his arm where they gave him the pneumonia shot. He went to bed but was back up shortly for something for pain. I gave him two Advil liquid capsules, and heated my rice pack to put on it. It eased it enough so he could sleep. Thankfully, it didn't affect his golf game the next day...ha.

As for the rice pack, I have two sizes, a small one made from one of the girls old socks and a larger rectangle one about 10 or 12 inches long (I sewed it from some leftover cloth I had). I filled them with rice and sewed the end up and pop whichever one in the microwave to heat. A lot quicker than worrying with the heating pad. I got the idea from a friend of mine that had one.

 

 

the fall decor is out, I put a leaf on their pictures

 

 

 

The wooden fan and tea set Hubby bought on a trip to China.

 

My little scarecrow girl, she's my profile pic on Facebook.

I also put some leaves in front of the TV, not the best idea, since I have to pick them all up to dust...ha.

 

The cutest picture of all, the little sheriff of San Antone.

Time now to put some Halloween stuff out.

Take care,

Sheila