News & whatnot, worthy of bullet points

• This is gonna be a long post. So, depending upon your preference... sorry! or... you're welcome!



• I've been given some beautiful flowers from family and friends. Giving flowers to people when they're recuperating from an illness or surgery is a fine tradition... coz these have been really cheering me up! There are a lot of Peruvian lilies in these 4 bouquets, and I looked up the meaning... Peruvian lilies mean "friendship and devotion."





• One bouquet is missing from that photo; my friend, Sandy, sent me a gorgeous bouquet in a small white basket. When we brought the flowers home from the hospital, we covered each of them (the basket from Sandy and 2 vases, those 2 on the left in the photo above) really well in plastic bags because it was so very cold out. The flowers in the basket must have been more tender, because they didn't recover from the cold ride home from the hospital. I was sad about that, but at least I got to enjoy them while in the hospital.



• In my department where I work, anyone in a hospital stay traditionally receives a bouquet of flowers from "the department." Since I knew I was going to be a recipient, I talked to the woman who handles the flower thing in our department, and I requested that instead of having flowers delivered to me in the hospital, to spend that money on donuts for everyone at work. I figured I would get a bouquet or 2 from friends or family while in the hospital anyway, and since my mom and sisters are allergic and would be visiting me, I thought one less bouquet might be a good idea. It worked out well, too, because the flowers I got in the hospital consisted mostly of those beautiful Peruvian lilies, which are easier on the allergies than some other varieties of flowers. The folks I work with got donuts this past Monday, and I heard they were well received. Fun!



• My niece, Michelle, had her 21st birthday recently, and the family gathered to wish her well and have cake & ice cream. Michelle's recent beer pong table artwork was my inspiration for her birthday present from us... a martini set, a bottle of Blue Sapphire gin, a bottle of olives, some fancy toothpicks and that little olive dish I made. Chelle doesn't care for olives, but the olive dish can hold fruit on toothpicks, too. Also, Joycie & Mike put together a little notebook of martini and cocktail recipes for her... it was fun! Happy Birthday, Chelle Belle!











• Just before I went into the hospital for surgery, my sister, Kathy stopped by with a sack full of DVDs for me to watch during my recuperation at home (and I've already enjoyed a few; good choices!). She also gave me a beautiful gift... Kathy said it was my "feel better gift," and I just LOVE it. It's this beautiful snowflake pattern afghan that Kathy spent hours crocheting. Note the lovely detail, like the pretty edging. It's made from an oh-so-soft yarn, and it drapes on me like a form-fitting hug of softness. I love the shade of blue... skies and snowflakes. I'm lucky to have such a talented sister, aren't I?!







• Other big news this week is that my nephew, Michael, won a coveted CMU Centralis Gold Award scholarship. We are all so very, very proud of him. The Centralis competition is a great deal of work. It began with something like 2,000 students taking the initial writing competition, then they selected a few hundred to go through the 2nd phase of the competition. It is an honor just to make it to that 2nd round. In that phase, the student had to prepare a set of papers... I'm not sure exactly what all of the requirements were, but I know that one included submitting a sheet of paper with a single sentence describing yourself. Think about it. I think writing that one sentence would be very difficult. Another requirement was a one-page description about yourself, in any format you wanted... since Michael will be pre-med, he did his like a medical chart, and it was very cool. Very smart and talented. Though he doesn't seem to want to share it often enough, Michael's creativity and "right brain"* activity results are keen, as is his sense of humor... coz you just know any young man that can make a face at you like this when you're taking his photo has a streak of fun in him a mile wide...





• Even making a face like that, Michael is a handsome fellow.



• Michael and Michelle each got a sweet little digital camera for Christmas from Kathy & Bob (their parents). I've seen some beautiful photos that Michelle has taken, and I'm actually using this one, below, for my desktop background. I got it from one her blog posts. I love that I can see the field in the drop of water. Michelle will often post some of her beautiful photos on her blog. Joycie has told me that Michael has some beautiful photos that he’s taken posted on his facebook, including a photo of the Midland Tridge that Joycie said looked like a professional photo. I, of course, would love to see those photos of Mike's, but facebook is not like myspace, and I cannot get to his profile, or whatever it's called, to see his posted photos. *sniff*





• A couple of weekends ago, when I was working on something particularly difficult and frustrating (from my job, that I was working on from home), I ended up cleaning out my rolltop desk... in an effort, I'm sure, to avoid the work. Kevin gave this rolltop desk to me as a gift after Joycie was born, and I've always loved it. It sets in a corner in our bedroom. It has lately, though, become the dumping ground of various things having no set destination in our home. For some reason, I felt a cleaning out mood settle on me strongly when I started to go through this desk. I threw out enough stuff to fill 5 plastic grocery bags. Those who know me and my packrat inclinations were likely just now very impressed with that statement (as well they should be). I also found some items that I didn't realize I had been missing... like this beautiful Waterman fountain pen that Kev gave me years ago. I removed the dried out ink cartridge and put in a new one, and it works like a charm, a lovely flowing charm... I love writing with it.





• My step-mother-in-law, Sharron, gave each of us some CDs this Christmas onto which she had burned jpg’s of scanned old photographs. This included a CD of photos of Kev since the time he was a wee little baby. And wasn't he a cute one? (he still is!) What a great idea, huh. I know that must have taken Sharron hours and hours. We've been enjoying them immensely.















• My BFF, Sandy, and her husband, Brian, purchased some property a while ago, out in the country about an hour or so from their current home. Right now, they live in a nice house on the usual, small lot in a nice neighborhood in Hurst, Texas, which is situated between Dallas and Ft. Worth. They’ve been living in this house for years. The area is all one big metropolis. The 5 acres they bought is a very different setting. Sandy sent some photos of their land to me a long time ago, and I'm gonna surprise her now by sharing them with you. It's beautiful Texas acreage. These photos, below, were taken in late November of 2005. Brian has been working on clearing the property where they will have their house built, along with Brandon's help on occasion. They signed with a builder just recently, and if ground hasn't already been broken for their new house, it will be soon. Very exciting!















• I'm sure that Shadow and Scout, the 2 black labs that let Sandy & Brian, and often Brandon, live with them, will love the new life ahead of them out on that 5 acres. The first 3 photos below are Shadow, and the next 3 are the younger Scout... aka Shad and Scouty.















• I've been trying to convince Sandy to do a blog while their house is being built... it's not too late to start, Sandy!



• I found these photos of a praying mantis that I took on August 10, 2007, and never did anything with them... I noticed the bug at the entrance to Space Studios, and this is the first tan colored one I've seen. Cool, huh. I think they're neat bugs.









• I've been writing this post pretty much all day long, with many, many interruptions, pauses, little naps and the like. Just now, Kev changed the dressing on covering the railroad tracks on my neck. They are itching so much! So I’ve had my fingers on them, and there are a couple of staples I think I’ve just about worked out of my skin, which is probably not good. But it itches like crazy! So this time, Kev dabbed the site with hydrogen peroxide to kill any germs from my constantly pick-pick-picking-scratch-scratch-scratching fingers. OMG, that felt so good. It feels good when he slowly pulls the old dressing off, too, even though the tape pulls at my skin & hair. Anything to make it feel something other than itchy. So now I’m all bandaged up again and am trying very hard to keep my fingers busy typing instead of sneaking up to the back of my neck.



• We keep all of our wound treatment supplies, like gauze, bandages, band-aids, ointments, tapes, etc. in a large, square pink Victoria’s Secret gift box. It’s one that held a birthday gift for Joycie a couple of years ago. It’s such a pretty box, and it’s also nice & deep so it holds quite a bit. So whenever one of us is cut or scraped or otherwise in need of that type of first aid care, we say, “go get the Vicky box stat.”





• My sister, Janet, & her husband, Bob, made us a big pot of chili, and we've been enjoying it very much. Yesterday evening, we made taco salads with it, and they were so dang good. We haven't had a taco salad in ages. Kev and I had another taco salad for lunch today, and Kev said, "remember when we used to make taco salad all the time?" I was thinking the exact same thing. We used to make taco salad at least once a week. I guess we eventually got tired of it, and then forgot about it. Taco salad season is definitely upon us once again. Yum.