Kael's cast for his broken arm. He chose dinosaur's for his cast. I guess he thinks showing his cast for a picture is pretty serious business.

Kael was here for a few minutes th is afternoon and Wayne called me to come quick and bring the camera. Wayne found something unexpected in the crane. As you can tell by his big smile..Kael liked that!!

I had one of the worst mornings today that I can remember. I slept for about 4 hours straight and woke up with that familiar feeling...muscle spasms. Sometimes they are bearable but this morning they were totally unbearable pain. They were so violent that you could see them shake my whole body when they would spasm. I took my muscle relaxer but knew it would take an hour to take effect. Wayne was supposed to go out of town today and I begged him not to leave until I was feeling better. He decided to change around his day today and I was so thankful. He worked in the warehouse (which is our garage revamped) all day. We got a shipment of new cranes in and he always has to go over them and make sure everything is working properly.

He only had to leave for about 3 hours to go get the cranes this morning but waited to see that I was doing all right. I had to take another type of muscle relaxer along with the first and they finally started working but I was sleeing-unable to wake up I was worried that I took too much and asked Wayne to make sure I kept breathing. That is the danger of taking too many muscle relaxers along with the medicine in my pump. It slows the respiration and many times a person will just stop breathing.

Once I was awake this afternoon, Katie brought me a Starbucks...always a welcome treat. She had to run to the bank so I said Caden could stay here. While he was here, Jacob called me crying (our little southern grandson from Memphis) Jacob was upset because Mommy didn't know how to hook up the Nintendo game and wouldn't call Daddy at work. Caden heard me talking and

said...give me the phone. I want to talk to Jacob. They are just a few months apart and are good friends all ready at 3 years old. I heard him say I will come and fix it for you Jacob when my Mommy gets here she can bring me. There was a pause and he said...because I love you. Oh, how to tug at a Grandma's heart!!!

Now I'm gonna try to get some scrapbooking done. I's my best time of day and I really need to get some work done for my projects due this week!

This is my latest layout that I just finished a few minutes ago. I didn't even have to do it for the design team this time ... although one of the members put a sketch up on the design teams board for the members to try out and see how different all our layouts turn out. I love how feminine this one turned out!

Here it is 2:35am and I am wide awake. I went through with getting my tooth pulled today and it went great. My dentist offers the use of sedation and because of a bad dentist I have a lot of fear of the dentist. I am very hard to get numb and it wears off real quickly so my former dentist would get impatient and go ahead and drill and wowee! did that ever hurt

I am now remembering what novacaine does to me... I can't sleep when I've had it and because of my problem getting numb the dentist uses a LOT of novacaine! So, I am just starting to feel a little bit tired.

If all goes well I will get my tooth pulled tomorrow. I am going in phases to get a bridge done..one of two that needs done. I am starting to have concerns that I have cellulitis in my right hand. It is swollen and very red...just like my leg looks when I have cellulitis.

I am not sure what to do about the dentist but will do some reading online and then show the dentist when I go in there in the morning.

I had one of the worst days today that I've had for a long time. I woke up in horrific pain and by noon it let up to a bearable level. I am thinking it might be the front that moved in this morning.

Not much else new cause I don't do much when I feel like this:)

Layout done for the design team!

I just finished this layout today. I love how it turned out. It is one that I did for my new design team. I love this picture of Kaleb. He is such a handsome little boy...just look at those eyelashes:)

I am thankful that I had a decent day today. My best friend from high school is here in town because her father passed away. It was so sad to see my friends mother...she looked so sad. They had been married for 57 years and worked side by side all those years. He was a doctor in LaPaz and his wife was his nurse. My friend lives in California near
San Francisco and she wants to take her mother home with her and it sounds like the mother is willing to go. Every time I had seen the mother (Evelyn) recently or actually in the last few years she would hug me and say how happy she is to see me and the tears would just flow. She is a Canadian raised woman and was alway so proper but put up with the antics we two girls would think of. I can rememer her always saying..."Oh dear" and there would be a smile on her face. I feel sad that she will be so far away from us now and now my friend, Andrea, won't have any reason to visit Indiana.

Whenever Andrea and I get together you would think there had been no time lapse in our being together. We can pick up talking after 10-15 years of not seeing each other. My heart feels so heavy that they won't have a reason to visit here anymore. Maybe if she weren't so busy she would stay with me for a few days. I guess after all this settles down I can write her and ask her if she would be willing to do that. She and her husband work together as realtors in the San Francisco area.

They were worried about getting the cats (2 of them) and their golden lab out to California. The airlines won't fly them unless it is above a certain temperture and we are way below that. So, I came home and looked up in the internet to find courier services that drive the animals to their destination. I found 5 places. I was surprised how many I found. I called Andrea and left the numbers for the places on her cell phone.

My feet have been slightly better lately. Wayne and I think it's because I stopped eating pretzels that are so high in sodium. I had been eating them as a snack because if they are baked that means they are much lower in calories. You just can't win sometimes!! Anyway, maybe a little bit of the swelling went away from the lack of sodium.

My next big hurdle is to try to get a little more sleep at night. A good night is 4 hours and that just doesn't cut it for me. Lately it's been lucky to get 1 hour of sleep at night. So many times I have gotten out of bed with terrible muscle spasms or with my right side completely numb. So, now I don't want to get in bed because I don't want to wake up with muscle spasms or with my right side numb. I'm going to work on talking to myself about this and getting in bed and trying to sleep. My solution is to go from the bed to the recliner and keep moving back and forth even when trying to sleep.

Magnetic Park/Bird Park...whatever you call it this is the natural well that is usually in the middle of a grassy field.

Behind this building is where Tyler played t-ball last summer. He'd need a boat to go back there now.
This is the covered bridge that is in the Centennial Park.

I have just gone through the worst 10 days that I can remember. I could not get control of the burning in my feet and I was just miserable. I tried walking in the pool, kept taking my medicine for nerve pain, kept going to physical therapy and it continued to get worse. I didn't feel like scrapbooking or driving or doing anything....not even blogging. When the pain is so intense I just can't get myself interested in anything. And then on Friday the pain all of a sudden let up to a bearable amount. I wish I could understand what makes the added pain come or even what makes it leave. I had to wake Wayne up in the middle of the night several times to massage my feet. When I'm in pain the nighttime is the hardest time. I feel so all alone ... even though I know Wayne's here...I just don't want to wake him up unless it's absolutely necessary.

I hope hope hope that the pain stays at a low level today because tonight is the first design team meeting at the Memory Zone for 2008. I have looked forward to this meeting for several weeks and don't want to miss it and don't want to be in pain either. Then, I hope I' m able to do my assignments in the next few days that I get tonight.

My Dad had a biopsy in his neck on Friday. There is a mass there and the doctor's want to rule out another spot of cancer. We're hoping it was all confined in his kidney. My Dad acts so brave about it but I know he has to be a little worried. I think the hardest part of this cancer ordeal for him has been that he had to stop takng the medicine that helped his arthritis. Now his pain is so much worse but what I understand is that he has to be careful what he eats and what medicine he takes so the remaining kidney doesn't get overloaded.

Our daughter-in-law, Eutemia, and Rhebeca (9 years old) and Kaleb (2 years old) took the South Shore to Chicago last week. They all had such a good time. Eutemia had to go to the Brazilian consolate to try to iron out some mixed up paperwork. One of the stops the South Shore made a lady got on the train wearing a big fur coat and fur hat. Kaleb looked at his Mom and asked her why that bear is on the train. I have laughed over that several times...out of the mouth of babes! Kaleb has had a hard time adjusting to having a new baby sister and she has to be watched carefully so he won't hurt her. Well, this trip and being with his Mommy did him a world of good. He has even been nicer to his sister. We all decided that when Kaleb starts getting mean to Isabella againt that they would go to Chicago again:) He just need that TLC from the Mommy that was "his" before Isabella.

You never know what you've got till you lose it. I'm sure we've all heard that and at times it really rings true. I've discovered it with my health...I really long for the old days when I felt well most of the time and could sing every weekend...driving myself there. Well, the last few days I've been without sound on my computer. It's just a little thing but I really missed it. I had gone into my add/delete programs and got carried away in cleaning off what I thought I didn't use and accidently vanished my sound too.

It has been snowing here the past few days. I think it started either Monday night or Tuesday night. Sitting in my nice warm home and looking at it from the inside made it look so beautiful. If I had been in my car and trying to get somewhere in a hurry wouldn't make it look so pretty. I took the above pictures out the front and back doors or our house. I thought the trees looked like a winter wonderland! The snow has stuck on the branches all week and I have just loved watching it. Today it still looked that way only the sun was shining and it was even more beautiful. This would have been a day my Grandpa Al would have loved! He appreciated the beauty of nature and passed it on through his daughters.

This weather and the snow brings back memories of our neighbor man when I was about junior high age. His name was George and he was the nicest man. He would hitch up his horses to either the sleigh or the wagon with not wheels but sleigh wheels. It was SO much fun. He had paths through his woods and would take me or me and my friends for a ride. As an adult I realize how much work that must have been to hitch up those horses and take us for rides. I wish he was still alive so I could thank him still...but since that's not possible I have to pass it on and do things for other people that goes beyond the expected.

I have been really worried about my feet this week. I am taking the highest dose of 3 different medicines for my feet and none of them can be upped. The pain has just been almost unbearable. When I was taking my pills tonight I noticed that one of the pills to ease the foot pain was missing in all the evening pills. YIPPEE!!!! I was so happy to find a reason for the added pain. I went in and added that pill for the rest of the week and tonight I feel better than I have for several days.

I'm thankful for small things...like one little pill that packs a lot of pain relief in it!!

Poor little Kael has the stomach flu. Today he had stomach cramps and diahrrea (sp?) 10 times in just an hours time. He kept saying he just wanted to die. How sad for a little 4 year old. Thank goodness that he will get better and as a healthy child he will get better fast!

Katie took me swimming today. Tyler came along and went swimming with me. I love to ask them questions when it's just myself alone with them. I asked Tyler how old he thought I was. He thought about it for a moment and then with his hands spread out to 10 fingers he flashed them 9 times meaning I was 90 years old. I asked him then how old he thought his Mom was. He thought again and then flashed his fingers to count out 100. So, Katie is 100 and I'm 90. I told Katie and she was shocked that he thought she was older than me. I told her I thought it is probably because she has more authority over him than I do. Children can be so interesting if we just keep our opinions quiet and let them talk.

Isabella at 5 months

Isn't she beautiful??

I was cleaning up my emails this afternoon and found this picture. I had about 250 emails and had somehow missed this one and was sure glad I found it.

I also found a coupon from Staples....buy $50 and get $25 off. I was getting my order ready and found out it expired Dec. 22nd. How disappointing.