Doctor's Visit - Good News

We went into Vegas last Tuesday the 14th which is my grand daughter Renee's birthday.  We took Frank's son and daughter out to dinner for our annual Christmas dinner.  We went to Mimi's and had a wonderful dinner there.  We had a nice visit with Chip and Robin and it was great to see them.  We left with a promise to try and see them more often. 

Jason & Roz

After dinner we went to Renee and Jason's so I could give Renee her birthday gift.  Sherry came after work, and we had a nice visit with them.  Roz was getting sleepy by the time we got there, so I didn't get to play with her.  She is really walking good now, and it still is a surprise to see her walking all over the place.  She is getting good enough at walking that she is doing more walking than crawling.  She is so dang cute, you just want to pick her up and love on her. 

We spent the night at Sherry's condo, and the next day was Frank's appointment with Dr. Duke his back surgeon.  We were expecting the worse and instead had a pleasant surprise as Dr. Duke went through the X-Ray disk with us.  He showed us that Frank's area of surgery was healing, and in fact gave Frank permission to go ahead and start to golf again.  That made Frank's day as he has been patiently waiting to golf again.  Guess where he went this morning?  You guessed it.  He went to the park and golfed with one of the old farts he used to golf with.  By the way, Dr. Duke wished us Happy Holidays and we came back with Merry Christmas, he then replied Merry Christmas back to us.

We did find out that the pain pills Frank is taking, are causing a lot of his pain problems.  Kind of like a rebound situation, but mostly it is blocking his body's mechanism that controls pain.  So he was told to get off from the medication in a months time.  Frank has already gone down to a lower dosage and has been cutting the pills in half, but now he will have to gradually keep taking less and less each day. 

The doctor also showed us all the arthritis and spurs in his spine, which is contributing to his back pain.  We both know that at our age we will never be free of arthritis pain.  Just part of the growing old thing. DARN!!!  I am just happy that Frank's surgery area is fusing and healing.  So maybe we will be able to take off with our fifth wheel next summer.  We are planning on a trial trip in the spring.

Pearl Harbor Day - My Brother's Death - 1986

A Young Bobby and his wife Artelle

Twenty four years ago on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7th, my brother passed away from a self inflicted gun shot wound.  I will always remember that day and the phone call from my brother Allen.  It was such a shock.  I tried to fly to Salt Lake City to see him before they pulled the plug on him, but it didn't work out. As I was waiting in the ticket line a friend let me know that he had passed away so Frank and I drove up to Salt Lake for the funeral the next day.


Bobby was a real character, but they say that funny people sometimes have sadness in them.  The last time I saw him, I sensed that something was terribly wrong and said something like, "Don't you even think about doing something stupid like Chris did."  Chris was our cousin and he and Bobby grew up together.  After being in Vietnam, Chris was messed up, and he eventually committed suicide.  I really didn't think my brother would do the same thing.

Bobby also was drafted into the Vietnam war, and when he was in training they would hand him a gun, and he would hand it right back.  They finally gave up and made him a Medic, and that is how he became a nurse.  He was allowed to get out of the service on a hardship discharge when my Mom passed away, and he took on the responsibility of raising my two brothers.

Bobby was so talented in many ways, he was a male nurse, a cartoon artist, a husband and a father.  We had a messed up alcoholic mother and father and I am sure this contributed to his problems in life as it affected all of us kids in the family in one way or another.  One of the memories of him is the story he told me of taking meds to all of his patients on roller skates.  His patients loved this, but he got time off from work for this incident.  He was always doing crazy things and making people laugh.

He drew cartoon characters of us and I have a file folder full of them.  He made extra money at Christmas by doing Christmas cartoon type paintings on windows, homes and businesses. 

This painting was done by Bobby and was on the wall of his apartment in Salt Lake at the time of his death.  We feel he was telling us of his death as he is sitting in the clouds.  He loved clowns and I think this is a self painting of himself.  "All Good Clowns go to Heaven."

This is one of the many times he came to see me in Nevada.  He brought his kids and the little red head is Corby his daughter.  My grand daughter Renee is in the background.  He was doing his usual thing drawing cartoon characters of our family.  I loved him very much and I miss him.

Christmas

It's CHRISTmas...not X-mas!!! Don't remove Christ from HIS birthday!!! Post this if you agree...Please don't X out the Lord!!!!! (I'd love to see this on every one's wall!!!) Christ is the reason for the season


This was on facebook and it made me think of Aunt Bevy.  She hated it when anyone used Xmas and promptly corrected me a long time ago when I used it in a letter to her.  So from then on, I made sure I used Christmas in letter writing, etc.  Also I have decided if any clerk in a store says Happy Holidays to me, I will return with a Merry Christmas back to them. 
 
That is the big problem in the world today, people are taking our Savior and God out of our lives.....no prayers in schools, trying to take him out of the government, etc. ....and look where we are in the world today.  Hopefully it will humble us all and make us turn our hearts and prayers back to God.  Just a thought for this Christmas season.

Winter is here

When Frank heard on the news that it was going to freeze he went out and picked some of our roses and put them in a vase.  A couple of them were the ones that have a wonderful rose scent to them.  The aroma of roses filled our kitchen area for a while.  It was really cold for a few days, freezing cold.  That is all it took was one night of freezing and all the leaves have turned brown and will be falling off from the trees soon.  I don't mind the cold at all after the hot summer we had.  I can throw on a sweat shirt, or cover up in a blanket, where as in the summer it is hard to cool down. 

We have been on the go again.  Friday we went to Mesquite and Frank had a CT Scan of his back.  On the 15th he will be seeing Dr. Duke who will look at the X-Rays and determine how his back is doing.  Frank feels that it isn't healing the way it should.  Guess we will find out next Wednesday. 

We went to St. George last Monday so Frank could get his Sleep Apnea Appliance.  The bottom piece isn't fitting right and is slipping off from his teeth, so I am sure when we go over for his follow up appointment Tuesday, they will have to have a new one made again.  This is his second one.  It definitely helps, and he has been sleeping better and the best part is no snoring.  That helps me to sleep better too. Yea!!!!

We had a hair day with Renee last Wednesday and spent the night with Sherry.  I was disappointed as I didn't get to see Rozlynn at the beauty shop as Renee takes her to a day care.  Renee and Jason surprised us later that evening and brought Rozlynn to Sherry's condo.  She is so dang cute and we had some fun with her. Rozlynn started walking on her birthday so that was a surprise for us.  She looks so tiny to be walking.  She can crawl faster than she can walk, so she drops down to crawl when she wants to go really fast.  I also had fun playing with Ozzie, Sherry's cat. 

Thursday morning on her way to work, Sherry dropped me off at the nail salon and I treated myself to a pedicure. Frank picked me up and we ate at Red Lobster, and then went to the Galleria Mall to do some Christmas shopping.  I was looking for a sweater, but couldn't find one, so we headed for home as I ended up being exhausted.  The story of my life.  Exhaustion is my friend.  One that I really don't want. I have been feeling rotten and need to go back to my doctor and have an A1C test done.  I know I need to stick to a low carb diet. How hard is that during the holidays?!! I am walking on my "dreadmill" every day that I can.  So at least I am doing that.  I have been feeling dizzy, in fact at church today I almost fell.  I feel like I am drunk, and anyone watching me may think I am.  LOL

Thanksgiving - Christmas Decorations

We had Thanksgiving dinner at Bret and Laura's home.  It was just the four of us as Sierra was sick and stayed in her bedroom until we were through eating and then she came out to eat.  It was kind of nice being small, no stress, and kind of quiet, until Bret told a joke and we all laughed our heads off.  As soon as we started to eat Bret was doing his usual ummmmmm as he was eating. Something he does when he is enjoying what ever he is eating.  Laura sets a beautiful table, and everything was yummy!!!!!

Bret carved the turkey breast.  We cook turkey breast in the crock pot and it is always moist and the gravy from it is the best.  Bret and I are gravy lovers and I put it over my turkey, dressing, and of course potatoes.  We had the works, turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, yams, rolls, and of course cranberry sauce.  Yum!!  Then home made pumpkin pie for desert.  I made some cherry cheese pies, Frank's favorite. Oh and I made a big salad bar. Laura cooked the whole dinner.  Thanks Laura!!!!

Frank waiting for dinner

Laura all finished eating



We were all stuffed but still had some pumpkin pie.  We sat around for a while and visited.  It was a great day at the Staleys.  Merritt and Marissa came after we were finished eating and filled their plates and heated them in the microwave.  They visited a while and then headed over to Mesquite to visit Marissa's family and have dinner with them.  Hopefully it was later as they had to be stuffed.  Thanks Bret and Laura for a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Everything was great!!!!!

CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS

Santa's Land

Santa waves as people drive by.  The kids in the neighborhood have their parents drive by our house so they can see Santa.  Our whole corner is all lite up as our neighbors across the street have their place all decorated too.  In fact they have a lot more lights than we do.  Every one teases us asking us if we are trying to keep up with them, and we just say "There is no way we can keep up with them."

Newly Painted Nativity

Frank repaired some of the broken pieces in our nativity and he decided to paint them in colors as they were all grey.  It really brightened it up.  I helped paint a couple of pieces.

Santa Clause

I haven't been feeling too well, so I didn't put many decorations up in the house.  This is one of my favorites.  Bert and Ernie were part of a McDonald meal that I bought for Garen's kids a long time ago when I was baby sitting them in Kingman, AZ  It makes me think of them as they gave them to me.  Maybe they thought they were too old for them.  I put up my slim tree, and bought some new decorations for it.  I bought some unbreakable balls as last year the ones I dropped broke in a million pieces on my tile floor.  I was cleaning up glass way after the holidays.

This is a little tree that Merritt and Sierra gave me a couple of years ago.  They wrote cute things to me on those little tags you see hanging from the tree.  It is really special to me.



Sad Day Today

We are getting ready to go in to Vegas for my grand daughter's father in law's funeral.  I really don't like to go to funerals, but then who does.   Funerals always remind me of my first husbands death and how hard that was to go through. We felt we needed to support Jason and Renee at this sad time in their lives.  So sad, he was only 52 years old.

On another note I forgot to post some pictures of a project that Frank and I did a few weeks ago. 

I had been wanting to paint some accent walls for quite some time now and we finally did it.  Frank did most of the painting.  I painted below our bar around the edges and Frank painted the rest.  This is an arch in our kitchen and bar wall.

Frank also painted the arch that leads to our entry way out of our living area.  It really did make a huge difference and warmed the room up.  It was quite a chore as the first paint was entirely the wrong color and had way too much purple in it.  Paint sure is tricky and we have had our share of problems with the wrong colors.  I think I am color blind.  So this turned out to be a bigger project than planned.  An unplanned trip to Vegas to Home Depot to pick out another color.  Finally we ended up with what we wanted in the first place, but Frank had to paint everything twice.  He was suffering for several days afterwards. Actually, after I painted the trim, etc. I was hurting too.  Old age really does suck!!  He really can't do much without it hurting his back.  Now we have to get ready to decorate our home for the holidays. The outside is the big job that only Frank can do.  I'm not much help in that department. I can't believe that it is that time of year again.  Sometimes I just want to bag the holidays and escape someplace. LOL

More Catching up

When I saw this cute little boy and girl garden decorations at the Pomegranate Festival, I just had to have them.  Frank is going to move them to a different spot as the little dog and cat that goes with them doesn't show up very well.  I added this picture to this blog as I didn't get it on the last one.  How many of us have seen little boys doing this very thing.  Peeing outside.  I saw a neighbor's boy doing just that a few months ago, and I had a good laugh. 

When we were living in a small house with only one bathroom and I had three girls, and two boys all getting ready for school at the same time.  The boys would get impatient waiting for the girls to get out of the bathroom, and would go out on the back porch and you guessed it.  Pee off the edge of the porch.  Of course I didn't know about it, but I can't blame them as there is nothing worse than having to hold it in.

BAD NEWS:  Well on November 11, my granddaughter's father in law passed away.  He had stomach cancer, and I am not sure exactly when he was diagnosed with it, but it has only been a few months.  He quit his Chemo and they had hospice come in to the home to take care of him.  He was only 52 years old, and in my opinion was way too young to die, but God doesn't take just old people.  I know Jason and Renee will miss him as they spent a lot of time with him.  Jason and his Dad played guitars together, watched football games, and family dinners were shared too.  When we had Thanksgiving last year with Jason & Renee, Rick was there along with his family, and never would I have imagined that I would be going to his funeral almost a year later.  My heart and prayers are with the family.

MORE NEWS:  I called and talked to my cousin Penny a few days ago, as I hadn't heard anything about BJ who I thought had been diagnosed with cancer also.  He is the 22 year old cousin I blogged about a while back.  Penny told me the doctors diagnosed him with Mono, however Penny still isn't quite comfortable with that diagnoses.  I think he should still be checked out by an oncologist as he was referred to one.  I guess time will tell, and I hope and pray that Mono is what he does have. 

Today was our Primary Children's program at church.  It was so cute watching the kids sing, and say their parts.  It brought back a lot of memories of when I was in the Primary and was President for quite a few years, so I was in charge of these programs, and today it made me appreciate those primary workers who had to work with the kids to put on this program, as I know how much work goes into them.

As I was sitting there I was watching a mother sitting in front of me scratching her son's back.  It brought back memories of my son Garen, the estranged one, when he was small.  He would lay over in my lap and ask me to tickle his back, and arms.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Never then would I have guessed that he would not be in my life in the future.  Sad times.  I saw a picture of Garen's son Zach in our little paper and it was like looking at Garen.  I couldn't believe how much he has changed in his looks.  I never used to think he looked like his Dad.  I saw a picture of Mackenzey that Sierra took at a Homecoming parade and I didn't even recognize her.  I could pass my grand kids on the street and not even know them.  How sad is that!!!!