Finally Finished!

We finally finished Bryson's room today! Yay! We were supposed to paint the bottom half blue and the top half white. Bryson had the bright idea to paint blue circles in the white half. This brainstorm began with the empty tape roll. This made the big circle. I found a lotion cap that made a little circle. And then Bry found a hair roller that made a middle sized circle. I must say, I was very leary of this part of our painting journey. For the simple fact that if it looked awful, all of our hard work was for nothing and we would have to start over! But in the end, I think it turned out pretty cute. After it all dried, we starting hanging stuff on the walls. You will see in the pictures, that my daughter has a little bit of an ecclectic style. You just never know what you might find with her! I just let her hang what she wanted. It her space and it should show her style. It was hard work, but I did have a really good time with my daughter. We shared a lot of laughs. Like when I tripped and my butt landed in the paint tray! And a lot of "oops"! We both said that word a LOT! We had a good time and I really think she's pleased with the end result. I also think she's proud that she got to help and have a say in what was done to her room. I'm just really glad we're done! One of these days, I'll get started on the boys' room!

Gotta love the dirty drum head! Can't get rid of it though! She got it from a concert she went to. Not sure where the red cowboy hat fits in this room!

Bry loves that stupid hippie vest, so she decided to hang it on her wall.

Book shelf and what not corner. She made that shelf that's hanging on the wall in woods class last year.

She loves the ocean and she loves Twilight!

Closet side

A Little Update...

I guess it's been a few weeks! The 14th was Dusty's birthday. My baby is 9 years old! How did this happen? We took him shopping in Lafayette and met Mom and Ricky up there. Mom always lets the kids pick a place to eat lunch on their birthdays and Dusty chose Golden Corral. For most people, they eat there because of the variety of food. For Dusty, it's because he wants the rolls dipped in cheese! He spent his birthday money on a new skateboard, a new pair of shoes, a tshirt and fish for Jordan's aquarium. Seriously! I took a 9 year old birthday shopping and didn't step one foot in the toy or electronics section! Now, Dusty already has 2 pairs of tennis shoes, but he wanted a new pair. Didn't NEED them, WANTED them! That's my boy! Kinda makes me nervous for when he's a teenager when I think of how much he likes new clothes and shoes now! He took treats to his class on the 16th. Again, he's not the normal kid taking in cupcakes, he always wants to take juice and doughnuts. Which is fine by me, I get out of making cupcakes!
This week was spring break for the kids. They went to mom's from Saturday to Tuesday. Yay! Peace and quiet! Except, Steve and I both had colds. Stopped up noses and sore throat. YUCK! So, Saturday after I took them to mom's, I went home and took a long nap. When Steve came home, we watched his recorded episodes of Bull Run and pretty much went to sleep! How's that for a wild child free night? We cleaned carpets on Sunday. Steve went through and vacuumed everything and I went behind him and shampooed. I have to say I was disgusted by the dirty water! How in the world does it get so dirty?
Wednesday, I decided that I was going to start painting Bryson's room. I've only had the paint for almost 2 years! I think I may be a little bit of a procrastinator! But, Steve kept saying we'd both work on it. And we had to peel that wallpaper off first. Well, I got tired of waiting on my helper! So, we began our journey on Wed. I've never painted in my life! And in a perfect world, we would move everything out of Bry's room. But have any of you ever seen Bry's room? It would take days to clean it all out! So, I decided we'd do one wall at a time. We moved everything from one wall. Going through and throwing stuff away as we went along. Then we peeled the wall paper off, then primed it. We are painting the bottom half blue and the top half white. So, I painted the white part and after it dried, started the blue. I thought I had my tape perfectly straight, but when I peeled it off, my line wasn't nearly as straight as I thought my tape was! Oops! Guess that's what pictures are for! To hide the imperfections! So, tomorrow, we'll start another wall. Mom is coming up to help this time. Maybe she'll have some suggestions on what to do with my imperfect line. I had a border to put on it, but Bry doesn't want a border! When did she become a teenager and get an opinion in this matter? So, wish us luck! We're gonna need it!
Oh, and Steve's shoulder is healing very quickly! yay! I know he is feeling a lot better. Well, his shoulder anyway. Can't really say the same for his sinuses!

Little Things My Husband Does That I Take For Granted!

So, Steve went back to the doctor for his follow visit after his shoulder surgery. Everything looks good! Thank goodness! He's been grumbling and fussing about how bad it hurts. I have a feeling that is all saved up for me. I doubt the people he works with hears about how bad his shoulder hurts! LOL! But, I guess that's what I'm here for! Now, while he can't use his shoulder, I've realized the little things he does that I maybe didn't notice before. #1, getting the trash bag out of the the trash can. We always fill the trash can completely full, so it takes both hands to get it out. I just kept cramming stuff in there and shoving it down and wondering why he hadn't gotten the trash out yet! Then I realized that I was going to have to do it! Oops! No big deal, I'm just used to Steve doing it! Then, we had our burritos all ready to eat the other night and couldn't get the lid off of the salsa! You can't eat burritos without salsa! I went to take it in to Steve like I always do, then realized that he couldn't do it this time! I beat on the lid and twisted and twisted and FINALLY got it open! But it sure is a lot easier to have Steve do it! Now, I do have to say that Steve still folds laundry better than I do even with his arm in a sling! All I know is I'll be glad when that shoulder is better! I need my jar opener back! Plus, I kinda hate that he's in pain...

Post Shoulder Surgery

Today is Saturday and I must say it was a gorgeous day! Sunshine in the mid sixties! The kids went outside and played. I stayed inside cleaning. What good that did! I get the floor swept and in comes Dusty and the neighbor kids with muddy shoes! I wash the dog, first chance she gets, she's outside rolling in the dirt! I clean the counters, the kids get ice cream and dribble that all over the counter and the table! Seriously, why even clean??? How do some people keep their houses always looking clean? I need the secret to that! So, now that the weather is nice, I will be spending a whole lot of time looking for my youngest son! He bebops around this neighborhood from house to house! Last night I thought he was in the park and sent Jordan out to get him. Nope, not there. So, I have Jordan get his shoes on so we can go find Dusty. I drive around and send Jordan up to the doors asking for him. We ended up finding him at my friend Kristy's who lives just on the other side of the park. So, we had a long talk with Dusty. Explaining that we love him very much and how bad it scares us when we can't find him. I told him I don't care if he plays out but he has to let me know where he is at all times. If he leaves one person's house, he has to come home and tell me where he's headed to next. Today was better, he checked in and let me know where he was going. I'm so hoping this continues! Or he will spending a lot of time in the house!
Anyway, guess I better explain the title to this post! Steve finally got his shoulder surgery on Thursday morning. They had to go in and scrape a bunch of calcium buildup and arthritis off of his shoulder. When they were in there, they also found a hole in his tendon. OUCH! No wonder he was always in pain! Poor Bry was so worried about her dad. Last surgery he had, he ended up with a 13cm abscess full of infection in his stomach after an appendectomy. He ended up in the hospital and came home with a drainage bag hanging out of his side! We got ready to leave and I thought she was going to cry. So I asked her if she wanted to give him a hug and she ran up to him and she just grabbed ahold of him and gave him the biggest hug of her life! She was very relieved to come home and see her daddy was okay! Of course at that time, he was feeling pretty good. The drugs from surgery hadn't worn off yet! He was thinking it wasn't such a big deal! Aside from the big inspector gadget looking sling he was wearing, he seemed fine. A little woozy maybe, but not hurting or anything. Until about 2:30 am and he woke up in PAIN! He has been feeling pretty rough ever since. He's rethinking getting his other shoulder done! He didn't realize just how much he uses his shoulder. I had to help him get a shower because he can't get his bandages wet. And he can't lift his arm, so I had to help him get his shirt on. Plus, he still has a pain pump sewn into his shoulder, so that also has to go through the sleeve of his shirt. Then, he went to tie his shoes and can't do that one handed either! He came in here freezing earlier. He wanted to put on a long sleeve shirt, but that's not an option with that pump, so I offered to let him use my fleece poncho that Aunt Tedi got me for Christmas. It kind of like a snuggie and it keeps you really warm! But he won't use it because he's afraid I'll take a picture of him and post it online! I promised him I wouldn't, but he refuses! He hates asking for help, so this has been hard on him. But I keep telling him once it's all over, he'll feel so much better! But for now, he's stuck with me as his nurse. Which I'll be honest, my nursing skills suck and I don't have the best bedside manner! I'm trying though, gotta give me credit for that! He said when it gets to hurting real bad, he reminds himself that it doesn't hurt near as bad as his stomach did with that infection! So, it's going to be a long couple of days! Keep us in your prayers!

Finally Home and Very Tired!

Mom and I headed to South Carolina Friday afternoon. I went into the office for a few hours, then went to the grocery store to get my family's meals for the next few days, then went home to pack. Thankfully, my wonderful husband stayed up late Thursday night washing clothes for me to take with me! I am so glad he doesn't mind my taking off and leaving him to take care of everyone. I am very lucky for that! And very lucky to have such a compassionate, understanding daughter. Bryson had plans this weekend and had to change them because I had to leave and Steve had to work. She didn't even fuss one time! I love that girl! Mom and I drove a little past Asheville, NC and stopped for the night. We got up Saturday morning and headed on to Florence. Travis got in about 20 minutes after we did, so we all met our friends from Beaufort, Ken and Ken at the Red Bone Alley in Florence. It was such a neat place and the food was YUMMY! We had a nice visit with them, then headed over to Lucinda's house. It was so nice to see where Uncle Mark lived and meet his family members that I had never met. I had met Lucinda before, but no one else. And of course see his dog Sam! Uncle Mark loved that dog! It was great to meet everyone and put faces to the names I had heard so often. Of course no one knew who "Heather" was! But they sure knew who Boogies was! Thanks Uncle Mark! Fantacy and Chloe came in a little later and met us at the house. We had a nice time with everyone. They all had their own Mark stories! We shared a lot of laughs! Of course I was known as the niece who Mark talked to all the time! When I first had Dusty, I stayed at home and didn't work. Mark had just had his stroke, so he was pretty much homebound, so we talked on the phone all the time! This was before either one of us had cell phones, so Lucinda would buy him phone cards and they sent me phone cards. We literally watched the NBA playoffs together by phone when the Pacers and Lakers were in the playoffs! We watched Survivor together! Although he ruined it for me the second season! At that time, SC was an hour ahead of us, so I was watching and he already knew who won because it was already on there. He wasn't thinking and called me to ask me what I thought of the outcome! He of course laughed his butt off when he realized what he had done! I am very thankful for those many hours we spent on the phone! There were so many years when we didn't even know where he was! We wouldn't hear from him for a few years, then we would come home and find him sitting on the front porch! Then, he would leave again and we wouldn't know when we'd see or hear from him again. So, just being able to pick up the phone and call him was great. Of course, when I started working and the kids got older we didn't get to talk as much. But we still tried to talk in the mornings on my way to work. I am going to miss that. I can't bring myself to delete his number from my phone, so it's just going to have to stay there!
After we left Lucinda's, we all went back to the hotel. Travis broke open the wine Mom had brought. Travis, Mom and I ended up polishing off 3 bottles! I can honestly say, I didn't have as much as they did! We all sat up with Fantacy and just talked until the wee hours of the morning! 3 am to be exact! Poor Chloe and Peyton passed out in one of the beds. We had such a great time. Travis did Mark impressions and had us ROLLING! They were dead on! We never get the chance to visit like that and I really enjoyed it. We finally got to sleep about 4 and got up about 8:30-9:00. Not enough sleep for this old lady! We went for lunch and just hung around the hotel until it was time for the memorial service. The service was very nice. I think Uncle Mark would have liked it. Afterwords, Travis and Fantacy headed out and Mom and I went back over to Lucinda's house. We had a nice meal and visited some more. I don't think Lucinda realizes how thankful we all are for taking care of Mark. She was good to him and we really appreciate that. I really felt to welcome in her home and I hope we can all keep in touch.
We left out Monday morning for home. We had plans to go as far as Gatlinburg and spend the night there. We were kind of worried because everyone kept calling and telling us about the weather in mountains! The roads weren't too bad. There was snow in Spartenburg, SC. We were laughing at how excited everyone was to have to snow there! One guy actually pulled over on the interstate and let his kid make a snowman! And at the gas station, a family let their little boy out to play on the snow! They were running through it, throwing snowballs. Funny to us, because we are OVER snow! As we got closer to the mountains, it was a BEAUTIFUL ride! I kept tryng to get pictures through the windows. Then when we got to Gatlinburg, we stopped at one of their lookout points and I got THE picture I had been trying to get all day! It was truly a breathtaking view! So, beautiful that we went back there this morning before we headed out just to get a few more pictures and one last look! After breakfast at Krispy Kreme, we headed out for our long trip home. We stopped in Corbin, Kentucky and had lunch at the orginal KFC. I love me some KFC! Anyway, we got home around 6:30 this evening and I am beat! Although this wasn't exactly a pleasure trip, I am thankful for the time we all got to spend together. That just doesn't happen often enough!

Me hanging out with Colonel Sanders at the original KFC in Corbin, KY

Snow in SC! We thought we left that in Indiana!

The Beautiful Smokey Mountains! The snow made them extra beautiful!

Chloe and Peyton played so well together!

Lunch with Ken and Ken at the Red Bone Alley in Florence

Had to add the picture of sexy Peyton in his boxers and black socks!

Mom, Travis and I

Uncle Mark's SC family: Selima, Patrick, wife Lucinda, Chantelle and Rosalie

Family again, this time with his dog Sam