The 2017 update...

Good afternoon!

We have been busy the last two weekends. We had to clean up the love bug onslaught. Weekend before last we cleaned off the front porch, door and windows. The love bugs make their way between the screen and window. The builders put the window screens in half-arsed,  just saying, so we cleaned them out, me inside - hubby outside and got the screens put in right. Then I put out a little decoration for Halloween. This weekend we cleaned the rest of the windows and trim, then cleaned the back porch. I washed the rocking chairs and tables. So glad that is done. We had our back porch screened in a couple of weeks ago. So that will keep the love bugs, frogs and birds that want to make a nest and poop on our rockers out. Doggies have a visit with a new vet today. Charlie needs a couple of shots.

Well on to 2017. It was not a good year.

On January 20 we lost Hubby's brother Mike unexpectedly. Others knew him as Steve but he was Mike to family. Sudden cardiac arrest. Still hard to believe. Hubby and Mike's son Justin gave the Eulogy, they did a great job, I wish I had a recording of it. Hubby started working on moving us back closer to home.

So around June Hubby went to Macon, Ga for a few months. The company had a place there and Lake City, FL. We weren't sure which place we'd end up but they were both about the same distance from home (Alabama).

Come August, Cori took another job and moved to Orlando, FL. Tech support and making power apps. Hubby said she could fall down and find a $100 dollars (pertaining to how easy she could fall into a good job..ha).

Then in September I followed Jarin to Mom's so she could stay there while I got the house ready to sale. I stayed a little while, stopping by Macon on the way there and staying in Macon a few days on the way back to NC. It was a little hard going back to NC by myself though.
Shortly after, it was decided that Lake City is where we were headed. Hubby came back to NC here and there. We ended up buying a travel trailer for him to stay in in Florida.

For Thanksgiving that year, Cori went to her Dad's and Jarin came up to NC. She was going to stay with me until I went down for Christmas. But God had other plans. Right after Thanksgiving my Dad took a turn for the worst and we headed to Mom's on Dec 1st. He was unresponsive by then, though he did open his eyes that night, but I don't know if he was aware. All the siblings (except my brother Ronnie who passed in 2013) were there when he passed on Sunday morning the 3rd.

    Mike

          (Cori said Uncle Mike doesn't look like he'd be funny but he is...ha.)

  Hubby, his Dad and Mike

   (Summer before we moved to Washington state)

                                     

 Dad

   Dad - Army 

  From his and Mom's 60th Anniversary celebration

       Mom and Dad were 16 days from their 68th anniversary when he passed. Love him and miss him.

To be continued...
Take care,
Sheila

It's me again...

Surprise, surprise...it has been awhile. Things have changed since the last post. But I will catch you up.

We are all doing well. No longer in NC, now in Florida. But I'll get to that on another post.

2016-
About 4 days over the 4th of July in 2016, Cori was given a chance to go to an Anime convention in L.A. to demonstrate a company's drawing tablets for computers. She owned one that she used to draw on her computer. She told them if they paid her way she would come do it and they did, paid all her expenses. While there they offered her a job and she went to China to train for 2 months, from Sept 1 to Nov 1. Yes, her mama survived... She made a few videos for them demonstrating the products and also designed and drew the booklet that came with the tablets. Here's a link to a couple of them. She didn't know they were planning to make a video in the first one so she didn't dress for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFkOYC4QAEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO9CV1-0S7c

She became their tech support for the tablets and also helping with English translation.

After she returned in November she rescued a kitten she named Tokki (Toe-key).


We stayed home Christmas 2016 because Jarin had to work. Turned out to be the last Christmas there because I didn't decorate for 2017. More to come....

To be continued...

Take care, 

Sheila

Hello,

We are still here. Nothing much 'new' going on. We had a good Valentine's' and I hope you all did as well. We've had a few episodes of snow and ice sprinkled here and there. Going after while to get a haircut. It's been a few months since I last went. My hairstylist wanted to style it a little different way, so I am letting her. (Mainly because Cori didn't think I would let her...ha) I was letting it grow as long as I could stand it, so hopefully I'll be a little further along into the style with this cut. Nothing drastic, just letting some of the layers grow out that I've had for years.....and years.....and years. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks. :) It should be a nice weekend with highs in the low 60s. 

Jack, you shared your pics recently of the old tree at the Alamo. So I thought I would share a couple of mine with daughter Cori (Cori of different color hair fame). This was when her Granny and Grandpa and Granny's cousin Patricia, came to visit us in San Antonio.

Here she is on the Riverwalk boat with Granny's cousin Patricia. Granny was on there too.

I am still waiting for that one good snow this year. Not sure if we will get it, but a girl can hope can't she.

Take care,

Sheila

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