Oh Ike! You Naughty Boy!

It was a bit of a crazy end of year for us again - ended up getting an extra few days off of school due to terrible weather and roads again!  I got quite a bit done but it never seems like enough for some reason, and we had family and friends over at New Years Eve and we had lots of fun.

We survived the Hub and Bub of Christmas and the New Year, but when the snow and ice finally settled, we did not survive Ike and Brix first day home alone!!

It had been about a month since the "boys" had been left alone for any length of time - maybe an hour here or there - but not for a whole day.  Brix does fine no matter - Ike not so much!

I had called Hubby to see if he got home or if I needed to come let dogs out between my work and my hockey game?  "If you want to be happy wherever you are going, do not come home!"

I asked how bad it was?  Ill clean it up when I get home I said.  "Days!  It will take days for you to get it cleaned up!"

I was greeted with this:

Ike has learned to open the paddle handle doors that we have all over the house and he likes to "play" with my things!  

He dragged all of the extra cushions and storage items out from under the bed.  Chewed up a few of them.

That is an entire "my Pillow" (not the small ones) that he chewed up and left all strewn over the stairs and the living room!  The fillling in this pillow took the longest to clean up!  It sticks to everything!  Great pillows though!

And a chair that he had to pull out from behind the door and another chair?!?

And.... all of my reading and writing materials, notes, notebooks....etc

That in the bottom of the above picture is a brand new window shade (luckily not an expensive one) that I had leaned against the wall ready to install!  Trashed!

I am working on putting my writing prompts and some of my gardening information that I had saved, back together in some semblance of order.  There is a lot missing, and hopefully my old brain will remember what I needed for each folder/project!

There is plenty left to keep me busy working on for about my whole lifetime in this box still.  It started out as two boxes.  I guess he maybe was doing me a favor by making me go through some of this stuff, but.... wasnt ready to see some of it again yet.

But the very worst part - the absolute worst is this:

Yes - those are teeth marks on my laptop!  My one year old laptop!!!

And one of the hinge covers is gone and Im not chasing poop to get it back!  I havent found but two small pieces of the mouse that went with this! Pretty sure he ate the rest!

And there it is.... not even the spinning wheel of death!  Just the poor sad Dell insignia and the obvious broken screen!  Pretty sure he used his giant front paws and jumped up and down on the top of it!  I can totally see him doing that!

I have had a few people ask if the dog is still alive?  He is.  

Trying to change the sheets on the bed after most of the mess was cleaned up.  Ike tries to help.

It did not take me days to clean it all up - other than the paperwork that I had to go through.  I was up until midnight on a work night getting it some semblance though.  It did take me a few days to calm down and to see that the "baby dog" really still is a baby dog and he just got started and couldnt stop!

Fortunately, the laptop that I replaced with this one, that had just froze and didn't seem to be able to be unfrozen, I tried to turn it on and it came on and did a giant update and I am using it now as I type!   I had to make a few changes to it but it has just about everytiug that was on the dead one and so far so good!

I hope that your New Year is prosperous and everything you need it to be, and if you have messes to clean I hope they are easy.

Blessed be and mess free be!

A Slip and Slide Stairwell No More!

 In getting ready for a surgery recently, I had lots of folks ask if there was anything I needed before I would be laid up for at least 10 days?  Im pretty good at pre planning lots of things from the cleaning to the food prep so that we have an easy time if I am to be out of commission for any time at all.

There was one thing that I needed that I couldn't get done, and Hubby was not seeing the need for what I was describing - his mind wasn't able to see my idear!

October 30, 2022

You see - We have this space at the bottom of the stairs to the front door, and in the winter this space gets a hole in it right at the bottom of the steps!  The snow plow pushes snow around it but somehow it ends up being a hole (might be a Ike thing also....?)!  The hole gets very icy - no matter what we do!

So the process is....slide into the hole - catch yourself on the wall - proceed up the stairs!  Simple right?

Not so much when you are 80!  Which some of the parents and one of the Grammas is!

This is the summer version of it and it works great - I can sweep the little patio and keep it clear of sand and gravel from coming in the house. But in the Winter everything gets a lot harder!  Keeping the hole from forming in the front step is one of them.

So when the opportunity came to grab a pallet that the school had no use for, I raised my hand and then asked for help to get it into my car!  The guys I asked were the woodshop teacher and one of the Special Ed teachers who is always willing to help.  They asked me why I needed said pallet and when I told them, they made me this.....

Bottom of the stair hole destroyer complete with sand strips for good traction!  No more sliding anywhere in this area!

We tried it this way first but the tractions strips and the holes in the sides work better the other way (like the first picture).

And thank goodness they did too, because last week started the Snowmageddon!

This is after just the first foot of snow fell, and you cant see my pallet step saver, but it is there and there is no hole in the bottom of the stairs.....

Snow still falling!  No bottom of stair hole though!

Second foot of snow and I have swept these stairs a few times already!

Here we are after the third foot of snow fell and I have got it shoveled from the stairs and the pallet step!  You cant see it but it is there and it has worked wonderfully to keep from having that hole at the bottom of the steps!

And yet another nearly foot of snow!  We have had 4' total in the last week and we are scheduled to get even more this week!  So thankful for no hole at the bottom of the steps!

Hubbys truck after the third round of snow fell and before the wind stopped and the main road was plowed.  We had to wait until the main roads got plowed as the road coming to our house had drifted shut for a long stretch where it comes around the lake - completely closed!

Finally it quit snowing and blowing, and the plow guy was able to come and plow us out a bit.  We got shoveled Hubbys truck out, the garbage box shoveled a path to, and almost got a path to the fuel barrel shoveled out, but the outside light kept going off, and it was getting dark so.....tomorrow we will tackle the rest of the fuel path and the path to the greenhouse.  We will hope that the reports of 16" more snow this week are wrong - but they haven't been so far!

I just have to make it to this!  Few more months!  

Maybe it will get me in shape for gardening by doing all this shoveling?

I can only hope!

May you be warm, dry, may all your snow be very light, and may you have friends who are able to see your vision!

Blessed be!

We Celebrate Thankfulness

Thanksgiving this year was different - even though last year we missed it because of a big storm that left icy roads and porches, this year we chose to stay home.  I had a surgery to fix my deviated septum and it is taking me longer than I thought (of course) to get back on my feet!  I have to nap after I do about an hour of anything, so trying to go anywhere that is very far away is sketchy! I am thankful to have this fixed and be able to heal and hopefully start on a better sleep and breathing track.

Day of surgery selfie - not looking too great but going in the right direction!

Reed and his girl Keyona went out for a bit to Nana's (my mom hosted brunch today) and they had a good visit. We have not seen them for about month, except kind of passing each other on the way to other things.  That is one of the hardest parts of this, the growing up and moving away of the kids,  especially as a loss mother, to not see my other son for so long at a time.  My only solace is that he really is still here on the planet with us and I can talk to him or text him whenever I need to.  Or there is always Facetime too if I am really "off the chain" panicking.  It happens. He is good about being understanding most of the time. I am thankful for that.

I am thankful for people who step in and step up when we can step no more. Who help us carry our scary, huge, painful load with grace and who block us from view when we fall and cannot get up.  Then they help us get up and march some more, forward.  They walk slowly with us when our steps are heavy.  Sometimes they go ahead of us to see what is around the corner, so that we may be prepared for whatever it is.  They remind us that there ARE things to be thankful for. Those who step in for the children  - even those who aren't their own- when someone has to "do something".

For those who take us out of our comfort zones for a new way to create and expand without losing ourselves .I am thankful for the friends who are there for us without judgement, without advice, without thought - they are just there for us.

Thankful for those kids, and grown ups, who helped my kid when I could not, and when he did not want me to.  Together our pain was too big for either of us.  That one guy (or more than one guy) who drove the truck and let him rage and kept driving until it was time to stop and get out and run or skate or whatever he needed to do - and then drove the truck some more.  Until he could speak again in normal tones and without rage. 

I am not technically an educator. Technically I am a Secretary.  Everyone in a school building is an educator of some type though - no matter their "official role".

We celebrate children who aren't our own - sometimes the smallest positive steps are a reason to celebrate - earning a 'C' in a class that the student had been failing, small to us but huge for that child.  
We worry about them at night and all summer hoping they will go the right way or stay the path.  Sometimes the best we can hope to celebrate is that the child showed up on time and stayed at school awake all day.  We are thankful for that.

Really not as creepy as it seems! lol

I am thankful for the blog of a friend whose writing lets me know that I am not alone in my worry about the kids, and the everythings that mothers worry about all of the time, or until their friends talk them "off the ledge" so to speak. 

I am thankful for the company, comfort and care of the Hubby and the dogs (most of the time) while I recuperate and heal up.  Their energy keeping me going forward and going outside once in a while for a walk to keep me moving!

I am thankful that I am able to see  the things to be thankful for this year, even though some of those things are memories....

May you be Happy, Healthy, and Thankful Today and every day!

Blessed Be!

A New Washer Seal and A New Me - Almost!

It has been a bit since you last heard from me!  Just have been busy as all get out, mostly cleaning up after of Ike and the Men, but sometimes working hard at fun things too!  This time I had to do a little work on ME in order to keep doing the things I do!

Of course I had to get the washer fixed first!  It never fails here that anytime someone needs to have a surgery - the washer breaks!  Fortunately this time it was just the door seal and they had it in stock!  Got us fixed up in only about an hour!  Yes!  That seal was worn out - had holes in about five different places!

I have had a deviated septum for as long as I can remember (you can see the lump on top of my nose just slightly above) - caused mostly by my nose having been broken a time or two (or more)!  Once when I got punched in the face by a childhood "friend" who wasn't happy that I told on him for writing on my favorite corduroy pants in first or second grade!  Then there was the time in High School Basketball when I remember the elbow of a teammate MUCH taller than I coming down in the middle of my face during a rebounding drill!  Im 5'2" for gosh sakes and she was at least 6'5"!  There were others but those are the two most memorable when I'm sure I heard the "crunch" of broken nose!

One of the problems that a deviated septum causes is snoring and reduced quality and length of sleep!  Chronic sinus infections and ear infections and it leads to chronic fatigue and shortness of breath as well as other health factors.  I had been averaging about 4 hours and 20 minutes of sleep, and it was not quality sleep!  The sleep center didn't want to do a sleep study until the deviated septum was fixed and so....... 

Here I am with the "moustache bandage" that you get when your septum gets fixed, you have some splints in your nose, and no one wants to see the bloody gunk that comes with all that! 

(not my photo - 

Septum splints - this is what is up my nose right now!  They will come out on Day 5 after the surgery.  I can see and feel them but no one else really can see them.

A little bit swollen here under my eyes and over my nose.  I was a bit surprised that I was not magically breathing easy right after the surgery but, there is the swelling.... and it hurt a bit more than I had expected also.  Nothing extreme - just surprising!

It has been hard to rest and keep from bonking myself in the nose, much less keeping Ike and Brix from bonking me!  

I have to rinse out my nostrils about 5 times a day with this system!  Did you know that if you squirt water up one nostril it is supposed to come out the other nostril?  Its not supposed to go into your ears or try to come out your tear ducts???  That's one of the fun anatomy items I learned this week!  Mine are working now that the surgery is done!

We have had some lovely dinners from family taking care of us - potpie comfort from Nana and Taco night from Sister!  Delicious and makes my life easier! I am not supposed to lift anything heavier than 10 pounds for the next 10 days!  That is one of the hardest parts - a gallon of water weighs 7.5 pounds to give you an example of what I can and cannot lift.

It was a complete going under surgery including intubation, and my jaw, throat and teeth are sore as well as my nose from having the tube down my throat!  Makes chewing and biting a little bit difficult.

Mom and Dad had dinner with us this time since we weren't sick!  It was good to have a visit over delicious comfort food!

Day three after surgery!  Bleeding has stopped and the swelling has gone down a bit.  Splints are still in but not as much gunk coming out.  Still hurts a bit but I can feel that the breathing is easier already!

I have already slept better the past two nights and I am looking forward to seeing the improvements in my breathing and sinus function!

Take care of yourself - don't put off the self care!

Blessed and easy breathing be!