HELLLLLLOOOOOOO BLOGGY FRIENDS...

Sorry I have been away so long.  I really didn't intend to be, but life has been NUTS!  Between my health, Dear Hubby's health, my Dad's health and all we are trying to do around here, I can't even THINK straight!

This past week we had a contractor here to do a lot of "little things" that have been needed to be done but neither Hubby nor I can do, my dad spent Monday and Tuesday painting decorative pieces for us, between Hubby and I we had a total of SIX doctors in one week and my Dear Dad had a follow up with his lung surgeon who removed his two previous tumors...and the news isn't good.

 

The contractor came out to install our new storm door.  Our old one was caught by the wind (we have HORRENDOUS winds here) and pulled right out of the wood!  This door has a couple of features that I absolutely LOVE and it was only around $250 from Home Depot.

 

See that tiny bulge of white on the door closey thingie (sorry, have NO idea what it is called)?  If you open the door as wide as you want and then tap it with your toe it will hold the door open for you.  No more fiddling with the sliding things that always end up covered with grease!  When you are done, simply open the door a few inches more (with your butt) and the door will then close!  Genius, I tell you!

 

And the best part?  See the clip and the bar right above the tag that I still need to clean that off of the window?  You simply raise the clip a little and lower the top glass section down to the bottom and above the bar and clip is screening!  With our old door Dear Hubby would have to remove a big, HEAVY beveled glass pane (the full length of the door) and carry it down the basement and then bring up the full length screen.  He has not been able to carry it since his fall in 2011, so we have had no cross ventilation breeze since.  All we have had is "fake air" (air conditioning) instead of the "real air" (open windows) that I love.  One more chore that we can no longer do is now ticked off the list!

We have FINALLY removed everything that J was storing in our living room when he moved out.  Well, except for a box of Guitar Magazines that need to be recycled a little bit at a time so we don't go over the poundage permitted for our container (the box is too heavy for Dear Hubby or I to lift so it will stay there as we take handfuls to the bin).

J's big amp, his first electric guitar and his bass are still here temporarily.  He is currently trying to sell his bass guitar, so hopefully that will be gone soon.  There is a strong possibility he and K will be moving into a rental house in September so he may be taking the amp and guitar with him then.  There is just no room in their tiny apartment. 

Our dining room finally looks like a dining room instead of a "catch-all" room.  Well, almost.  The plexiglass panels you see propped against the hutch are for five display cases that my dad just painted for us.  Once the cases are hung I will wash the panels and install them on the cases to avoid dust inside.

The pile of "first floor" garage sale stuff (far from complete) is still sat in the corner.  Next weekend Dear Hubby is going to put up a few tables in one of our two garages and I will begin cleaning, pricing and moving the stuff out there.  I am hoping to have the whole house purged through (twice) for a garage sale the first week of September (depending on Dad's health).

These are the display cases that Dad painted last Monday and Tuesday.  When J was young he started a keychain collection.  I think he has over 200 at this point.  We had these display cases made (yes, two of them are bigger...the guy screwed up, lol) in oak to match his bedroom furniture.  The inside is cork so he used clear push-pins to hang the keychains.  They were filled to the brim with his collection.  Now that his room has become my Expanded Sewing Room, there is no wall space to hang them.  Since we have a large blank wall in our basement, we are painting the wood black to match the basement color scheme and will hang them there.  I can't wait to see them hung.  I will definitely post pictures once they are hanging and the basement is in order again.  Right now it looks like a disaster hit.  Actually, it did.  The burst pipe a few months ago initiated a complete purge through and reorganization.  AND, we are going to have a half bath put in the basement so Dear Hubby doesn't have to walk the stairs to use the facilities when he is working from home.  He just can't do it anymore.  We have two hand rails on the stairs and he literally pulls himself up the steps.  We considered an "Acorn" stair lift, but that would NOT add to the value of the home should we need to sell.  A half bath in the finished basement would provide more equity in the house and we could recoup at least part of our outlay.

During this past week I have not gotten much done on my Aunt's quilt (show and tell later in the post).  I have needed to spend a good portion of the days on the first floor of the house to be available to answer questions from my Hubby, folks or the contractor.  After much thinking I decided I did NOT want to make a "flower" hexie quilt.  So, I added a top and bottom to each of my completed flowers and made diamonds instead.  Yes, I am much happier with this shape! AND, I only had to use ONE band-aid.  I'm getting smarter and have learned to stop when the tremor gets bad, lol.

This mess on the guest room bed is everything we have pulled together from the second floor thus far for the garage sale.  This floor is in no way near being fully purged so I expect the pile to at least double in size.  Some of the things are brand new with tags attached!  I will try to sell those on Amazon or Craigslist before they are relegated to the garage sale.

On Wednesday I did manage to get the FMQ done on four blocks.  I have to FMQ four more blocks and then I can move on to quilting the borders.  I know in my head what I want to do...I just need the uninterrupted time, and body cooperation to do it, lol.

I honesty don't know if I have shown you these before...they are the corner blocks of the quilt.  Considering I am a newbie with FMQ I am fairly happy with how they turned out.

Next I used a stipple on all of the brown blocks...

...and then a cross hatch on the red blocks.  I'm really not to happy with how these came out on the back.  But I will just tell my Dear Aunt not to look at the back, lol.  I still have to do a cross hatch on the blue blocks.

As I mentioned, there have been six doctor visits this past week.  I am pretty much status quo at this point.  My rheumatologist has suggested that we may just have to keep me on steroids permanently.  I guess I am okay with that...I don't really have any other choice, despite the dangers of long term use.  Since I began taking the supplements recommended by my neurologist for presumed mitochondrial disorder my diabetes has been completely out of whack.  Not bad...GOOD.  I joked with her that she may have found the cure for diabetes!  But, too good!  I have been having lots of low sugar spells.  This past week my endocrinologist took away one of my insulins, but the low sugars are still continuing.  And I mean LOW...like 35, 41, 44!  DANGER level.  And that makes me feel SO bad.  Then I shove food into my mouth to try to raise it and I overcompensate and my sugar goes to high.  The doctor told me that he can guarantee when I am that low I am going to overcompensate and go high, but not to worry about it.  A temporary high is much less dangerous than too low. 

Dear Hubby has been referred to see a neurologist since the EMG his EIGHTH orthopaedic doctor  did is abnormal.  Finally, someone listened to his complaint and took it seriously enough to search for a cause.  But, once the doctor saw the results he threw up his hands in confusion and told him to go to a neurologist.  I tried to get him an appointment with my neurologist, but they were not taking new patients.  I had to ask a favor of someone who works in the hospital to get him in to see her.  As is expected in my family, the neurologist is perplexed.  The nerves that are showing NO conduction down his legs on his EMG are not the "normal" nerves that people have trouble with...and his physical exam and EMG are not supporting each other.  She is going to speak with several of her coworkers to see if any of the other doctors have any insight into what is wrong with him.  In the meantime she has given him some meds to hopefully help with his pain and she will do her own EMG on his legs in a few months.  He is still totally unable to stand on his toes AT ALL so he is walking like Frankenstein and going up and down the stairs flatfooted.  It is heartbreaking to watch him struggle to get up and down the steps with no ability to walk on his toes, and the pain is excruciating.  This weekend he will add in the second medication to see if it makes a difference in his pain.  He can then raise both of the medications to more pills per day if he needs.

My Dear Dad has been through the ringer these past four years with two DIFFERENT types of cancer; and it looks like he may be going through yet another lung surgery to remove a cancerous lesion.  This lesion, however, is not on the outside of his lung...meaning a wedge resection can be done.  It is further into the lung and, if cancerous, will require the removal of the whole lower lobe of that lung.  But, it is not behaving as the first two lesions did, so before heading into surgery they are sending him for a battery of tests to determine the lesion's exact makeup.   This week is a PET scan and then possibly a needle biopsy.  Thankfully his leukemia is in remission so it will not impact any surgery needed.  The last wedge resection was harder on him than the first, so I can't imagine how he is going to handle a lobe resection.  He is 81 years old, but surprisingly "healthy" for a man who has had two heart attacks and two types of cancer.  To look at him you would NEVER think he is that age.

If you would be so kind, I would sincerely appreciate any prayers, virtual hugs or healing thoughts you could send to my Dear Hubby and Dear Dad.  They have both been through WAY too much suffering these past 3-4 years.  More than anything I want them to be out of pain and able to enjoy their lives.

So, as you see, life has been NUTS.  Hopefully I can get to spend a bit more time here on the blog as things move forward from the healthcare standpoint.  Talk to you soon...