Okay, once again, I'm remiss in blogging. And honestly, there really is much to discuss. But, at the moment, I'm just not into getting into it all, so I'll just say, Christmas was great...
starting with Christmas Eve~
We went to my sister's, she made lasagna, it was delish. It was my nephew Gabe's 10th birthday party too. So there were a lot of presents... an enormous amount of legos. I forgot how fun they are to step on with your shoeless foot.
then my kids all came back here, (Blain, Dan and Mark seemed to avoid the camera)
and there was laughing...
a LOT of laughing.
We didn't head to bed until 3:30 a.m. It was a short night. Stay tuned for Christmas day... you know you just can't wait....
Hosted Thanksgiving here. Missed a few key people, but had fun with those that were able to come.
We pretty much had the standard Thanksgiving fare... and everyone seemed to fill themselves to that delightful, gluttonous moment, where you've just got to have a nap!
Here's a birds-eye peak into our holiday
And, yes, things did kind of go to the dogs, so to speak!!
Classy huh?
I was tired, but why wouldn't I be? I had dinner for 12 and ran around all week preparing. After everyone left, I sat down to peruse the Black Friday Ads. My friend and her sister were heading out that night, and I was contemplating going too... but there just wasn't anything I needed bad enough to roust me off the couch and I felt kinda like I was coming down with something. Little did I know...
I woke up on Black Friday in PAIN. I mean OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING PAIN. The night before I thought maybe I was getting a UTI, but something told me this must be.....
a kidney stone.
After a couple hours of agony and throwing up, I was finally able to get dressed and we headed to the ER. They drugged me up, did a CT Scan and yes sirree.. there she was, lodged between the kidney and the bladder. And just because I'm an over achiever, it was BIG. Like between 5 and 6 mm big.
So long story short, I was going to have to have it blasted. Boo. On Thursday, we headed to the hospital for the procedure (I HATE THAT WORD). Of course, before the fun began, they needed to do another x-ray to determine where it was...
and... it appeared to be.....
GONE.
Well the urologist and the radiologist could not find it! And, I was symptom free and had been for several days. So, avoiding the radiation of another Cat Scan, they went with the notion that I'd passed it. How, unnoticed, he wasn't sure, but he really felt I'd done it. Out came the IV, I got dressed and we headed home.
So, with that said, I'm cautiously optimistic and praying that it is indeed gone and I am making life style changes...
I'm no longer living on a diet of coffee, diet coke, chocolate and nuts....and I'm drinking water. LOTS and LOTS of water... sloshing as I type...
And it's not so easy, but, I'd do anything to avoid having this bad boy attack me again.
Well, for starters... my middle daughter is engaged!!! She's not really my middle daughter, as that would imply that I had 3 daughters, which if you've ever met my son he's far too hairy to be mistaken for a girl. So, better, I say, my middle child, who also happens to be a girl is engaged.
And we are thrilled for them. They are just about the cutest little couple. We love the fiancee, he's a great guy, loves her and quite handsome too. LOL ( I never said I wasn't shallow).
So, cha-ching daddy war bucks... here we go...money will be spent. The other night, Mark said, so we should discuss a 'budget' for this wedding. To which I said....
I HATE THAT WORD.
'Budget' ~ugh, it really should be a 4 letter word. First of all, I find it difficult to extrapolate the amount we might need, second of all, I am terrible at following one. How can you say... too bad Scarlett, you've got to be barefoot, we are 'over budget'.. I mean really....like one more pair of shoes is going to kill us?? I mean, really, you can't take it with you..can you??
Don't judge, at least I am honest.
Also, we bought a condominium in Chicago. They call it the 'penthouse' ... I call it a LONG way up there to the 3rd floor in a building with 11 foot ceilings.
Through out this whole process (it was a short sale~ dumb name for something not quick)I had the same thing running through my mind, haunting me....
'The King Tut' song... remember??? a condo made of stone-o... funky tut...
Well, maybe not.
Anyway, Scarlett and Dan are moving into it! They are excited. Why wouldn't they be? They are tripling their space, AND they have a garage space!! Now, before you think 'wow, the condo must be huge' know this... they lived in a shoe box before. Seriously, it was tiny. Like lucky neither one was fat tiny.
And, me.... I'm having Thanksgiving, it's a day and a half away, and I'm sitting here blogging...I guess I best get back to plucking that damn bird.
(not really, I've just always wanted to say that...)
Now, I've got the Adam Sandler 'Turkey Song' on my mind... ugh... my life is always to music. Odd music.. very odd music.
We kept one of our granddogs this past weekend. Jetson 'Jet'; Scarlett and Dan's dog. He is a puppy... and full of puppy antics. My OLD doglets were NOT amused. Not even a little. Well, he did try to sit on Clem, guess I can't blame her.
I gathered up Jet and his parents on Friday, dropping them at the airport and bringing the crying dog home. He cried when I left off his parents... a pitiful dog whine, that tugs at my heart... and gets on my nerves.
He definitely breathed some life into this joint.. let me tell ya. WOW this boy's got energy. I spent a good portion of the weekend knitting him a sweater.
Knitting and I have a love hate relationship. I do really enjoy it, it just needs to be PERFECT. So I knit everything a couple times. AND I can never just follow the pattern, I have to 'adjust' it a little. So that feeds into the redo effect. I'm a PRO at ripping...or 'frogging' as the knitters call it. Why is it called frogging you ask?? I have no clue.
He hung out with Uncle Corbin, who dropped in for a visit...
I've got a lot to discuss... nothing important...but I'll start by saying...
hApPy HaLlowEeN....
So, the last couple of weeks...busy, busy. We have been discussing a remodeling project. I've wanted something different with my kitchen window for a long time. It might be going to happen... if the amount of time we've spent discussing it is any indication of how quickly it'll actually happen... I'll be dead of old age, but I'm hopeful. Mark DID buy some materials (and of course a new tool) to use on it. But, I'll take pictures, of before, during and after.. if we ever start.
Sailing season is over. Boo.
We went into Chicago last week, spent the night so we could get an early start the next day on the big sail. We took our car up to Waukegan, road the train down to Chicago, checked into our hotel, and had dinner with Scarlett and Dan.
Before dinner, we did go over and check on our boat. A dreadful storm hit the Wednesday before and caused a LOT of damage in our harbor. A real lot. Like last count we heard, 27 boats broke loose, and 9 sunk. We saw sailboats with their masts broken, sails ripped, debris everywhere.. it was awful. We were lucky, only problem we had was our anchor blew off it's holder and scratched our hull a bit. Hardly worth mentioning looking at what others had.
We set sail a bit before 9 a.m. on Saturday and it was a beautiful day.
I'm always sad on this day...summer is over, boat goes into storage, and winter is coming soon... It seems like the 6 months it's in the water is a whole lot shorter than the 6 months it's out... hum...
Anyway, we left Chicago, enjoying one last look at our 'spot' and headed north.
Sailed by Scarlett's building, that's the last time we'll see 'her building' from the lake.. they are moving.... more on that later.
Sailed by my vacation property... I love this building, really.
I keep suggesting to Mark, he call Rahm and see if it's available... he looks at me like I'm daft. I can totally see myself arriving by a little motor boat, in a mink stole....okay, maybe it's a bit Tippi Headron(ish) with all those damn evil black birds on there, but, I'm sure we can be rid of them. Don't be so negative...
I took the helm for a while. Whilst I was 'manning' the boat, we had a small bird join us. He fluttered around and landed on the head sail's rope... right near me. I yelled and Mark came running, thinking it was something major... not just a little bird.. in close proximity...to me... little or not, they still flap and have beaks.
He wasn't the only stowaway we had.
We also had a Monarch butterfly fluttering around us. This always amazes us, where do they come from?? He landed on Mark's coat, and rode along for quite awhile. He seemed very content to rest there in the sun. We seem to be joined by a Monarch often... Sometimes I think he might be someone we know...
Anyway, the day AFTER we sailed the boat up to Waukegan, we had to go back, because I stupidly left my leather jacket on the boat. We took the convertible and meandered down Sheridan Road back to Chicago by the lake. I gotta tell you... there are some extremely large, palatial homes along that road. I really should probably live in one...
But I don't.
I live here, in Victorian Hell... which brings us to my next tale... so I'm watching TV one night last week, and happen to glance into the kitchen, where I see a small mouse meandering along the edge of the island. My doglet Millie, was sitting on the hassock, facing said mouse, tipped her head as dogs do, and turned around and looked at me like 'well, aren't YOU going to do something?' Right. I did go into the kitchen and the brazen little devil sauntered away... ugh. Then, a while later, I was taking the dogs out for the last time that night, opened the door carrying Clemmie, Millie charged out to the porch, where she came face to face with a baby opossum. On. my. kitchen. porch. I screamed, dropped my flip flop, Millie ran into the house and I slammed the door. The stupid thing stayed out there for about a half hour, hanging out, with my shoe.
What's up with me and the rodents? Reminds me of an old Alfred Hitchcock episode. Remember?? The one with the rodent pin... that kept getting bigger and bigger???
We're all stocked up here....
living in our 115 year old house, married for 37 years, have 3 grown kids 3 adorable grandkids and one little doglet. Creativity abounds here with everyone - not often in the same manner twice, but who wants a copy anyway???
