BABY SHOWER TIME

Yesterday we hosted a baby shower for my sweet daughter-in-law, Heather and our soon-to-be born grandson. Their son is their first baby!  We are so excited!


The theme of this shower was Construction Vehicles and the colors were yellow and blue.  I found some cute art prints and frames of construction vehicles that they can hang in little man's room afterwards!

We had a great time and I had lots of help from Heather's sister, Melissa and her best friend, Dina.  They took care of ordering and sending out the invitations and handling the RSVP's and keeping me updated so I could concentrate on other details.

They helped me hostess and everything went off smoothly. Everyone had a great time!

Here are the happy expectant parents:  First born son, Cameron and his wifey, Heather!

Sweet sisters

Best Friends!

Memaw, Heather, Nana (great-grandmother), and Auntie Meghann

Girlfriends!

Grandma (Heather's mama), Heather and Auntie Melissa

Food Table (before we set the food out) 

We served Greek Chicken Pasta Salad, Green Salad, Fresh Fruit, Croissants with butter, and Mini Quiches

Dessert Table! 

Vanilla Cake with custard filling and whipped cream frosting, Lemon Bites, and Chocolates

We painted Onesies and everyone came up with such adorable ideas!

 I love our two precious grandchildren, Grace and Aaron and I absolutely cannot wait until the next two are born!  Our grand-daughter (due April 21st), who will be a baby sister to Grace and Aaron and our grandson (due May 6th) will be here soon to love and spoil! 

Four grandbabies! We are so blessed!

PAINT THE WALLS

We've been busy with painting projects in our house.  Last weekend, we got hit with a cold winter storm...lots of rain, wind and cold temperatures, so it proved to be a good weekend to work on home improvement projects. 

We worked all day Saturday and stripped off a ton of wallpaper, wiped down the walls and applied fresh coats of paint.  What a difference it has made to our house!  We kept the wall color neutral (a soft suede color) and the trim and doors a pearl shade for all of the main walls.  We went bold in the kitchen and we both love it.  I wasn't sure when I started on the first coat...but after I finished painting all of the walls and putting a second coat on, I loved it. 

It has a Tuscan feel to it and I plan to accessorize with that theme.  I have two plates to hang in that bare space over the stove...I just have to get the plate hangers tonight.

The photos are kind of dark and the paint is a richer deeper shade that the photos show.  The color goes perfect with the sunflower canisters above the stove. I think it looks more yellow in these photos....but these were the best of the ones I have taken (and they were taken with my phone). I'll have to dig out my camera and take some more--after I hang the plates!

We've painted our bedroom, entry hall, a wall in our dining room (we have to empty and move china cupboards to paint the others) and one of the walls in the living room (we have more wallpaper to strip before we can paint the other two walls but ran out of time for this project). 

Of course, our list of things to do just keeps growing....but we're enjoying the projects and we're happy with the results.

WRITER AWAKENED

There was a time in my life when my spare time was spent writing.  Late into the night.  Writing.  Creating.

My fingers could not type fast enough to get my thoughts onto the screen.  And before that, I typed on my Smith-Corona electric typewriter that my parents gave me for high school graduation.  And even earlier, I used #2 pencils and black ink pens to scribble my poems and stories onto lined paper. The margins contained notes and scribbles--my muse encouraging me to continue writing.

But lately I have not been writing creatively at all. I realize that I have allowed too many other distractions to pull me away from my creative endeavors.  My craft has become lost through electronic gadget access.  Television and DVRs wooing me to watch and the Internet beckons me to surf and I do; instead of writing.

While all along, inside of my head, there are still amazing plots to expand; anguish painted and soul searched poems to write, imagined mysteries to solve, characters impatiently waiting to come to life. But instead, I neglect them and sometimes cannot hear them anymore.  But they are still there.

I must find a quiet corner niche for me to hide away and write. I must be diligent.  I must nurture and listen to my muse and allow my creativity to spill out once again. 

I must.  I will. 

MORE FUN THAN ONE FALL DESERVES

Two days after I fell, I started with an off and on again headache.  I thought it was due to the incision healing and went with the flow.  After the sutures were removed, the headache continued and evolved to a point that it never left.  My head hurt constantly...sometimes only a little bit and sometimes more, but it never completely ever went away, not even with OTC pain meds.

A week after my sutures were taken out, I placed a call to my doctor about the headaches and his recommendation was that I get a CT scan (to be sure that there was no inner cranial bleeding from the fall), I spent 4 hours in the Emergency Department (mostly waiting since the actual CT scan took 5 minutes) and got a CT scan of my head.  Then I waited another hour and 10 minutes for the radiologist to read the scan and for me to be discharged.  The good news was that there was no bleeding. 

The bad news is that I had received a concussion in the fall and was suffering from a "Post Concussion Syndrome" headache.  My recent depressed feelings and anxiety  over going back out on my 4 mile walk (mentioned in my last post and which began at the same time as the headache) are also symptoms of PCS.  Learning that made me feel less crazy.

I opted to not take any prescription pain meds (I am allergic to several, did not want to stay home from work due to taking a narcotic and didn't want to wait in the pharmacy for another hour) and instead to simply take OTC meds. The ER doc said my symptoms could last another 2 weeks and to be cautious not to do anything that might cause me to bang my head again...meaning, no power walking. 

Friday was the same...my head hurt all day long.  Saturday morning, I awoke with a headache, popped two Excedrin...and I realized two hours later, the pain was completely gone.  And it has not returned. 

I am cautiously optimistic...but hopeful that I am symptom free. 

I really want to get back to my weekend walks! 

IN GEAR AGAIN

I'm back on the treadmill.  Yep, my early morning workouts have resumed after my injury-induced-week haitus. 

My knees are still badly bruised as is the side of my left hand (when I fell on it).  But neither are bothering me enough to keep me off the treadmill. 

The stitches are out and the scrapes on my face are just about completely healed.  I still have ugly scabs on the top of my left hand, but they are finally beginning to heal.

I am thrilled that I dropped a couple more pounds during my rest and recovery period because I was faithfully tracking my food and calories and drinking a lot of water! 

So, now it is time to add my 4 mile weekend walks back in...

I'm nervous, but I guess it's kind of like getting bucked off a horse...just gotta climb back on.  *sigh*  

I'm just saying that it ain't gonna be easy.

SPRING FEVER

I think we have come down with a case of Spring Fever and it feels good!

We have taken a dive into home improvement again.  The wallpaper in our entryway (that was here when we moved in and ugly) was lifting off (and driving us crazy in numerous ways).  It has now been stripped and the walls have been prepped and painted.  We chose a light color that reminds me of soft suede. We've also lightened the trim color for the baseboards and doors. 

We had to paint 3 coats of KILZ  primer on the interior side of our chocolate brown front door, but what an amazing difference it has made and I can't wait to finish painting it with the final color! 

We have decided to continue our paint project into the dining and kitchen areas and re-do our room.  We ordered an iron headboard and footboard, so since our bed will have to be taken apart, we are going to dismantle the room and paint it before setting up the bed.

My brain is in overdrive with lots of ideas...and I'm so excited to see how it all turns out!

DAY 5

It's been 5 days since my fall and there has been a lot of healing going on...

Every day I feel a bit better and that's encouraging.  I hope to be back to working out again very soon!