Post surgery week

Not a whole lot to write about the last seven days.  Last Sunday I was wearing a mask to stay healthy, we were washing bed sheets and towels and I was taking two showers - the first with regular soap and the second one with antibacterial soap - and I was getting geared up for a Monday morning out-patient surgery. Only, it turned out to be an overnight stay surgery for reasons I am still not very clear on (blame it on the Versed med that erases memories). But, I think it was because I had more scar tissue around my large intestine which caused the procedure to take three and a half hours rather than the usual two and a half which put me getting out of recovery late in the day (at around 7:00) and because my bladder was already somewhat "angry" (per Dr. Shi who described it having a somewhat inflamed lining). Regardless, I didn't go home until Tuesday morning. Mercy Hospital is a very nice facility and they had several gluten-free options for breakfast, for which I was grateful. Later that morning, I passed the "pee" test meaning I got to leave without a catheter and I was back home in my own bed by noon. Pain has been very manageable with acetaminophen and ibuprofen and I have not had to take even those the last four days. So, for the rest of the week, I have rested, read and watched movies. I am very glad to have it all over with and very glad to have such a helpful husband. He has been great. 

Emily stopped by Thursday to deliver a little care package that included chocolate. I did teach a few lessons - one virtual on Thursday and one in person on Saturday. I attended a baby shower for a bit on Saturday and got to go to church on Sunday. Happily, I was not assigned to play the organ and I didn't have to teach in Primary. I had choir practice afterwards and Steve had a rehearsal after that before we could go home for a quick lunch and nap because then, we attended Noah's choir concert. And, then we returned home for a birthday dinner with the Southerlands and Beckie. And, by the time everyone left at 7:30, I was SUPER tired. Yeah, I pushed it a little that day....

Photos are of Smokey Bear who is getting quite comfortable with the house...jumping on kitchen counters, nibbling on my plants. Enough to remind me that, once he returns home, I don't need to have a cat of my own ever again. And, photos from Noah's concert and the birthday dinner afterwards....

I spy with my little eye, a cat looking out the sliding glass window....

 

The big push

Tomorrow, Monday November 18th, I am scheduled for an out-patient procedure to repair some female plumbing so I have been madly working all week to finish up two major projects - the third volume of my mother's life history and the civic orchestra December concert program. Blurb always has a super Black Friday deal of fifty percent off and, since these books are rather pricy, I want to take advantage of that discount. And, our December concert is on Saturday the 7th and the printer likes to have the program two weeks prior which means they want everything by November 22nd.  This surgery is supposed to be quick and easy but I just don't want to have any possible complications pop up and render me unable to finish my two big projects. I want to RELAX all this coming week - well, and deal with possible pain issues.  As of this blog posting, I have just one last page to do for the program and about ten photos to identify and a table of contents to create. Huzzah!

One thing I will not be able to do for six weeks is lift anything heaver than ten pounds so I have been finishing up some yard winterizing projects. First I dug up my HUGE elephant ears and THAT just about killed me. Those roots are SO heavy! Here are two photos -  how large the plants got this year and the roots with the leaves cut off and just after I have hosed them.

 

We have not had a hard freeze so far but I am glad I dug them up now because I certainly could not have done that after tomorrow. And, Steve's back is getting so bad, neither could he have done it. I also enlisted Steve on Saturday afternoon to help roll up the two garden hoses for storage in the basement all winter..

Beckie came over Thursday morning to join us on our morning walk. We still have beautiful autumn color mid-November!

Our upcoming orchestra concert features a couple of classical pieces like the Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 and the Faure Pavanne but we are including quite a bit of holiday music. Kirsti is also playing in a south Utah Valley community orchestra and both her group and mine are playing the Polar Express. I love that connection!

Last night, Saturday, was a huge Kindness Begins With Me fundraiser - a Trivia Night. A trivia DJ was hired and he prepared eight rounds of ten trivia questions each in assorted categories. There were twenty tables with about eight individuals at each table. One had to pay $200 per table but, with eight players, that is only $25 per person. The fundraiser also had a silent auction and a raffle and other ways to make money throughout the night. Steve was asked to be a judge and I helped sell "grab bags". It was a great success and, in talking to the DJ afterwards, I have learned that St. Louis is particularly keen on their Trivia Nights. I had never been to one before but next year, I plan to buy a table and populate it with me, Steve, Emily, Joe, Noah, Beckie, Elise and Steven. What a formidable team we will be!!! 

One final p.s......We took Sarah to the airport Monday afternoon. And we watched the 1983 Pirates of Penzance with Kevin Kline and Linda Ronstadt. It was silly and charming (like all Gilbert and Sullivan musicals are)

Sarah's visit to St. Louis

Sarah flew into St. Louis Monday afternoon for a week-long visit. It all started when she bought tickets to the McElroy Brothers who have a podcast she loves to listen to called The Adventure Zone. They were doing a show in Indianapolis on the campus of Butler University. Julina is SO busy that it would have been difficult for her to break away from her work to drive to the airport to pick up and return Sarah so we offered to help and drive to Indy WITH Sarah and make a visit to Julina and Alex out of it. Tuesday morning, we voted in the rain and then left for Indiana at about 10:00.  We had lunch in Casey at our favorite cafe called the Whitling Whimsey and, because it was so wet, we just drove around looking at the larger-than-life items around the little town (huge rocking chair, mail box, pencil, ruler, key, etc) Steve and I have been there before with Emily and the kids (see my blog post from August 1, 2021)  Julina had clients pretty much all the time both days but we got to see snatches of her in-between clients since many of them are virtual. We stayed in a Home2 Suites the two nights we were there. We also brought Sally.  Steve and Alex drove up to the temple Wednesday morning with the help of Thomas, Alex's aid. While they were gone, Sarah and I cleaned all the toys and learning tools that Julina uses with her little ones. Some just had to be wiped with a disinfectant wipe, some were sprayed with Lysol and all the rest got dunked into soapy water followed by Clorox water and then set out to dry on the table covered with towels. It is a rather time-consuming process that she has to repeat over and over since she uses them regularly in her visits so it was good to take that burden off her shoulders just this once. I also did an Aldi run for her that afternoon. Steve, Sarah and I left Wednesday evening at around 6:00 to get Sarah to her concert and, while she was there, Steve and I found a JoAnn and a Culver's and we just hung out and watched an episode of Bull while we waited for Sarah to text that she was done. On Thursday, we returned to Julina and Alex's one last time to say good-bye before heading back to St. Louis. We stopped at Cataract Falls along the way because we knew that Sarah would love it. She did. She and I did the hike from lower falls to upper falls and I enjoyed taking pictures of her taking photos of nature. 

We made it home Thursday afternoon in time for a nap and that evening, while Sarah and Beckie went out to dinner, Steve and had our duties at the Kindness Begins With Me English class. 

Sarah drove to Emily's on Friday to spend some time with her while I had Welcome Center duties early that morning. I  was back in time for Steve to take Fred to get groceries and, that afternoon, we attended the temple. Sarah was coming down with a cold so she rested in the afternoon and returned to the Southerlands to play games that night. 

Saturday was our day to be in Columbia. We left at 6:30 and got there by 8:30....driving in rain almost the whole way.  While Steve, Sally and I visited Melanie and Vikki, Sarah hung out with Steven and Tamara. Vikki has two cats and they were extremely interested in Sally who was on my lap the whole time. I caught some photos of them. 

We all met up at the restaurant Jazz for lunch. Because it was rainy, we couldn't eat out on the patio meaning we had to leave Sally at Elise's. We brought a soft-sided kennel with us for her to stay in. Elizabeth Crippen also joined us for lunch. We all had a good visit, although the restaurant was severely understaffed so it took forever for our food to come! 

After dropping Elizabeth back at her home, we returned to Elise's to get Sally - who had managed to escape from the kennel!!!! - and we headed up to do some shopping at the Amish. Sarah stayed back with Steven and Tamara and Elise stayed home, too. Once we got our items, we picked up Sarah and we returned to Elizabeth's to pick up her cat,  Smokey Bear. Elizabeth is scheduled for a below-the-knee amputation on her right foot this coming Wednesday because her earlier toe amputation was not healing due to poor blood flow (diabetes caused). Since she will be in rehab for at least a month, she is farming out her two cats - Smokey Bear to us and Skunk back to the family that fostered him as a kitten. Here they both are

SO, our drive home, still in the rain, was in a car stuffed with a soft sided kennel for Sally, a small cat carrier with a cat inside, a cat climbing tree, a litter box with three bags of litter, a bag of cat food, treats and toys, a banana box filled with Amish purchases, Sarah, Steve and me! Whew! 

It was a good but a LONG day!  We have put Smokey Bear's litter box and food up on a card table in the basement to keep Sally out of everything and, so far, the cat has not ventured far from that area. Hopefully, he will feel comfortable enough to explore upstairs. Poor furry guy....

Today, Sarah's cold has bloomed into full-blown misery so she has stayed close to home all day with just a bit of time spent with Emily and the Narnia photo shoot. I would have gone, too, but I had a choir and an orchestra rehearsal to run. The stake is doing a Christmas choir concert again and, this year, we are adding a full orchestra comprised of members of the stake. I am conducting two of the choir numbers and all of the orchestra pieces. Today was the third choir practice and Lori, the conductor had a conflict so she asked to to run the rehearsal.  And, it was our first orchestra practice.  I was sad to miss the photo session but, thankfully, Sarah took some candid photos of the Narnia shoot at a really cool, medieval looking location... 

We take Sarah to the airport tomorrow afternoon....

What a week!

My all-consuming project was to sew the Narnia costumes for Emily's upcoming photoshoot with Noah, Lucy, Quinn and Larkin (as mentioned in my last blog) and I finished Friday evening!  I was also asked to make an underskirt for Lucy's outfit. The dress that Emily found online was too short but it was super cheap so she bought two and I took the spare and cut it to just a skirt and added a fabric extension at the top for Lucy to wear underneath her dress. Here they are:

The boy's tunic fabric was two curtain panels that Emily found at Savers and it was perfect but quite messy with raveling threads. All week I had threads all over the house!

We watched two movies while I did this sewing - The Wizard of Oz on Wednesday evening and Coco on Friday night. 

On Halloween night, Steve and I drove to Ballwin to see the grandkids in their amazing costumes that Emily created (actually, Noah made his own and Larkin's came from a costume store). Noah was a character from a book he is writing - her name is Tabitha, Lucy was an octopus, Quinn a cicada and Larkin was the Phantom of the Opera. Lucy's little stuffed wolf was a shark!

After taking photos, Steve and I drove to the nearby Culver's and had dinner before driving home to watch Simpson's Halloween specials. As usual, no trick-or-treaters came down Bates Street. 

Saturday night, we invited a family from the ward over to make s'mores. They have two adorable little girls - Juniper (she is in my Primary class) and Hazel. Sally was pretty leery of them for most of the time, choosing to stay inside rather than to go out and socialize. But, by the end, she eased up to the girls and let them pet her and she gave each a little doggie kiss. 

When I was not sewing, I was teaching music lessons, attending civic orchestra to work on new December music, helping at the Monday morning women's group, getting an oil change while shopping for groceries, going to the doctor, switching out October knic-knacs for November ones. We had a lovely rain Thursday morning. Steve and I got a bike ride in Monday afternoon. We visited a lady in the hospital Monday night. We attended the temple Friday afternoon and worked there Saturday morning. It was a busy week, as usual! I am weary of busy weeks....