04 30 - Happy Birthday, John and Susan

Today is my babies 27th birthday.  Here they are, all dressed up on the family cruise.  I still don't think of them as 'twins' but as two of my three children.  Oh yeah, these two have the same birthday.  If you line up all three kids, these are not the two that you would pick out to be the twins.  Most people would pick John and Elizabeth.  Happy Birthday, Susan and John.  (Susan is older by one minute, born at 12:35 (noon) and John at 12:36 on April 30, 1985.)

04 27 - Knee Walker

Ray is under strict instructions of ‘no weight bearing’ on his foot.  Not a problem since it hurts too much to even think of standing on it.  Since this is the second time that we have been through this (Ray previously had Achilles tendon repair two years ago – same foot), I knew to go rent the knee walker to have as soon as he came home from the hospital.  The picture looks like he does not have a left leg below the knee, but his shorts are long.  You kneel with the bad leg on the walker and push with the good leg like a scooter.  This is way better than crutches.

04 26 - The Ivy Tree

I am trying to get back in the habit of walking every morning.  Ray won’t be able to walk for months but I need the exercise and Sally is always ready for a walk.  Our normal route takes us by this tree that I call the Ivy Tree.  I think that it used to be an elm tree but it is totally covered in English ivy.  I always thought that if ivy covered a tree, it would kill the tree.  This tree is not quite dead but has a few elm branches at the very top.  At this point, it has character as the Ivy Tree.

04 25 - Shake that bottle!

We had left-over steak today for lunch.  Everyone knows that you need to shake the A1 sauce before you use it, but have you ever actually read the directions?  In case you can’t read the picture, the directions say: 

SHAKE WELL. 

If there’s only one drop left,

a more extreme form of
shaking may be required. 
Like dancing.  Or jumping jacks. 

You can do it. 

Yeah, it’s that important.

Bet you’re going to go look at your bottle in your kitchen!

04 29 - Who Killed Kinney?

Unless you are a South Park fan, you won’t understand this post.  In the early years of South Park, at the end of every show, Cartman would say, ‘Oh my god, they killed Kinney’.  Then one year at Halloween, I found these paper towels that our whole family thought looked like Kinney from South Park.  I bought several rolls and only used them in October.  Now, I am in ‘use it up’ mode.  No matter what the design, the supply of paper towels is getting used up.

04 24 - Happy Birthday, Becky!

If it is your birthday (and I have a picture of you), you get to be the post of the day.  Today is my middle sister, Becky, 60^th birthday.  I actually have a picture of her from February, but it is much more fun to post the pictures from her 40^th birthday party.  When she lived in Seoul, Korea (she is civil service), she was involved in the clown ministry at her church.  Both of these pictures were taken in 1992.  The Clown Family is Becky, daughter Meera (age 9), and daughter Sara (age 6).  Happy Birthday, Becky!  May your life always contain a little clowning around!

04 23 - Ray, first look at the foot

Today was Ray’s first doctor’s appointment after falling.  We got our first look at his foot.  I have some really gross, close-up pictures of his foot, but I will spare you and only post this one.  Dr. Gaddy came by Ray’s room in the hospital and warned us that he might get fracture blisters.  I had never heard of them and they are about the grossest thing that I have seen in a long time.  Where his heel looks purple is one of the huge blisters.  The bad news is that his foot is too swollen for Dr. Henning to do the surgery right now.  We will go back to the doctor, probably twice a week, until Ray is able to have the surgery.

04 22 - Happy Birthday, Jonathan

Today is my son-in-law’s birthday.  I could have posted a fun, casual picture of him, but since he joined the family by marrying my daughter, Susan, I am posting a picture of the two of them when we were all dressed up on the family cruise in February 2011.  Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

04 22 - Happy Earth Day

We compost our yard waste and grass clippings.  We have done this as long as we have lived in this house, 25 years.  Overland Park has a new rule this year that all yard waste must be in paper bags, not plastic bags.  Also, you are limited to putting out five bags a week.  Even though we mow and mulch our leaves in the fall, we will still have about 75 bags of leaves to do something with.  That is way more compost dirt than I know what to do with.  Now, I am mixing old leaves and fresh grass to get the garbage company to take five bags a week.  I think that the company has to compost the yard waste and cannot put it in the landfill.  I am still glad that we compost.

04 21 - It's a Dog's Life

After waking me up at 2:30 this morning to go outside, Sally slept late.  I have never seen a dog sleep on her back like she does.  It probably helps that she has a (covered) four-inch foam pad in her indoor kennel house.  Stupid dog.  No wonder she answers to dumb butt.

04 20 - Don't Touch the Yarn!

I love to crochet and knit, as well as quilt and scrapbook a little.  I am starting a new ripple afghan.  I call this one my Mother Earth afghan because I start with brown and work my way up from the earth to the sky, ending in dark blue.  I am having a little trouble getting it the right width so I had to rip it out and start again.  It works, as long as you don’t touch the pile of yarn!  Every once in a while, I have to retreat from my nursing duties to do something restful and calm.l  (side note:  I usually make baby or lap sized afghans from scrap or donated yarn.  I mostly give them away to the church Hope Chest (baby food pantry) or someone having a baby.)

04 19 - Your Breakfast Tray, Sir

A few years ago when we remodeled the kitchen, we had to eat our meals in either the living room or den.  I got a couple of decorative trays that we used at the time.  I found one of them and am using it to tote Ray’s meals to him since he is stuck in the recliner in the den.  It actually works very well to take everything to him and for him to balance the meal in his lap.  One day down, three months to go.  Ugh.

04 18 - Ray's foot

This is a very unflattering picture of Ray and his foot right after I got him home from the hospital, this afternoon.  He also cut his index finger bad enough that it took nine stitches to close it.  Ugh.

04 17 - Broken ladder, Broken foot

Today, we were frantically, desperately, hurriedly trying to get everything finished prior to leaving for our Hawaiian vacation tomorrow.  This is a picture of our broken ladder.  Ray was cleaning out the gutters so that we would not have maple trees growing from our roof after we got back from being gone for three weeks.  As he was stepping from the roof over the garage to the ladder, the ladder slipped and Ray fell, straight down, about 8-10 feet.  (He thinks that he had the base of the ladder too far away from the house.)  I managed to get him to the van without calling 911 even though he wanted me to  (In Overland Park, if you call 911 for an ambulance, they send a fire truck, an ambulance and two police cars.)  Ray has shattered his left heel.  He was admitted to the hospital from ER, mostly for pain management.  We are very, very lucky that it is ‘only’ one heel and not both feet or both legs or his back or his neck.

04 16 - Kansas City's new Mormon Temple

The Mormon’s, the LDS, not the RLDS from Independence, have built a new Temple in the north part of Kansas City, MO.  Only Mormons in ‘good standing’ are allowed inside the Temple once it is dedicated which will be May 6^th.  However, until that time, they are holding open house tours for all of us curious and non-Mormons.  A Mormon Temple is not a cathedral, but is a building of small rooms used for the various church sacraments and rites.  It was very interesting and very much not the religion for me.

03 08 - Reindeer hoof prints

Beth gave me her t-shirt from the Running of the Reindeer.  The back has reindeer prints all over it which I love and the sign that it is the 5th annual running.  The front has a very aggressive looking reindeer running from the corner of 4th Ave. and G.  Ray, Beth, and David ran in the group wave.  They announced that they had over 2300 registered runners which went in 4 groups.  The whole race was about six blocks long and ended with the reindeer going into a pen at the end of 4th Ave.  They gave the runners about a 20 second head-start and then release the 10 reindeer.  The reindeer bolted from one end of the street to the finish, dodging and darting between and around people, never touching a person.  A couple of people fell from their costume getting tangled with their feet and the snow, but the reindeer did not cause any injuries.  People ran in costumes or not.  It was hilarious to watch.