so you don't miss it

The next post is all about the cute girls. In case you need some pointers, please review the following:

everyone was here yesterday

For the first time in I don't know how long, we were all together in the gardens.

Question: Who thinks Uncle Herschel is cute?

Question: Who thinks these girls are cute? Easy A.

these ideas are so not related

1. Not to be blasphemous, but who does this look like? With that thin face and that long hair and that beard and mustache (and the use of the word blasphemous), seriously, who might it remind you of? Because you know, I'm not the only one who thought that if Jesus had blond hair and green eyes...

2. I had this great idea today about what we, here in the valley of solid, thick, nasty air could do to clean it up so we can breath easier. Let's all set out every fan we can find in our homes and garages and sheds and basements and storage units, face them to the east, and turn them on. Certainly that would stir up the air and if we point them towards the sky a bit so they blow all together in the same direction, up over the mountains, don't you think we would all feel an easing in our lungs? I mean, we can't face them to the west or north or south because those are the directions the storms come in from, and if we face them directly east, the dirty air will just hit the mountains and blow right back into our faces. But if we point the fans towards the top of the mountains maybe...

It just might work.

her most recent surgery

I think I forgot to mention that my mom had surgery on her foot last week. A few highlights:

1. One of the tendons in her foot had a tear and she also had a neuroma between two of her toes on the same foot.
2. Her doctor had recommended treating both issues conservatively (i.e., rest).
3. Within a few weeks of diagnosis, surgery was scheduled, because we all know mom is not one to sit around resting.
4. Three times during the day before surgery, mom assured me that she would be fine driving herself to the hospital and dad would be fine driving them home because even though he has not driven a car in at least two years and has lost most of his eyesight and traffic isn't heavy around the new hospital on 5300 South State during rush hour (whaa? it is a freeway access street and the Costco is next door?), it's only two miles to their house and she could give him directions.
5. On the morning of the surgery, Jack and I went to work and mid-morning he called me to ask when I wanted to go to the hospital. We decided he could drop me off, I'd wait with dad and then drive them home in their car.
6. On the way to the hospital, I called mom's cell phone and my sister-in-law, Paula, answered. Apparently dad was at home with stomach flu or food poisoning or something so she had their cell phone because he could speed dial that number to check on mom. However, Paula needed to leave before mom would be ready to go home, so there was some question about who would be driving mom home.
7. Paula waited until mom was back in the room with us before leaving, taking mom's prescription with her and stopping to fill it and drop it off with dad on her way home.
8. Mom's doctor stopped in to explain the surgery to Paula and me. He said that the tear had been quite small, which meant he could have just left it to heal with conservative care, but then he said, "Then I thought to myself, what would Jeri want me to do? And then I attached a piece of tendon to strengthen the torn area." He said that was why it took him longer. Then he told us about the neuroma, which is a nerve that has enlarged. He said that it was fairly small, he'd certainly seen much larger, but once they start to hurt, the only way to eliminate the pain was to remove it. Then he said, "We all know Jeri--she's like a train coming down the track--no stopping her. So I feel good about the surgery." Paula and I smiled knowingly at him.
9. Paula left after we met up with mom in the recovery area. Mom kept telling me she was cold, and I remembered seeing the warm blanket container by the nurses' station, and they told me I could get as many as she needed, so I kept going back, putting the warm one next to her skin, piling them on until there were six of them wrapped around her. She was still shivering, and I remembered that feeling from coming out of anesthesia in the past, so I leaned over her, wrapped my arms around her and calmly told her to take some slow deep breaths and relax. As I held her in my arms, for the first time in years, I felt her relax for a moment. And the shivering stopped. But then, just as quickly, the shivering started again, so I quietly reminded her to take some deep breaths and relax, and she did and once again, the shivering stopped. After repeating this several times, the shivering stopped for good. I sat up, still perched on the edge of mom's bed, with my hands still gently on her arms, and we looked each other in the eye. That is when mom said, "I...think...you...have...a....zit...on...your...chin." I told her it wasn't a zit but was my cancer. She asked if I was going to have the same procedure she'd had to remove a skin cancer and I said I was just joking, I didn't have cancer. And that's when she looked at me and said, "You know, I really like your grey hair."
10. On the way home, after I somehow figured out how the hospital valet service works and somehow figured out how to drive the two miles home with constant directions from mom, I called Jack to tell him we were on our way and if he could come pick me up that would be great but if not, I'd be happy to walk. And mom said, "Were you joking about that walking home?"

And that is just a snippet of the afternoon of mom's surgery. She is healing well, scooting around the house on a knee scooter. She keeps trying to get dad's hearing aids into his ears, but he is making a stronger effort to keep them in their cases. Life as usual continues.

a bit of something

I had a few--three, to be exact-- thoughts floating around my brain today while I pulled up carpet tackstrip and the billions of staples that were holding down the carpet pad in the room formerly know as the "TV room", soon to be known as the "Office". Yes, I know, we haven't finished the basement remodel project yet, but working on the basement remodel project gave me plenty of time to realize that we needed to shuffle around some furniture, which gave me (and, of course, Jack) the idea that we could easily move around the furniture in our bedroom, which would give us space for a new office and a new guest room now that Jr and the drummer don't want to leave the basement. My biggest concern (about the project that is, because, of course, my biggest concerns are about world peace, healthy babies, and all other serious stuff), was that we'd given the former guest room bed to the drummer, so we'd have to purchase another bed, mattress, blah, blah, etc., but then, in what I consider a true streak of genius, I realized that the guests we would be inviting into our guest room would all be delighted to sleep in our boys' bunkbeds (made by Jack many years ago, still solid as a rock), because, of course, the guests will be the girlies.

So. While using many manly handtools today, I had three thoughts.

First, I've thought for a long time that Brian Williams from NBC News has got to have the best face for a caricature ever. Seriously. Don't you think?

Second. I've been meaning to explain the reason why I finally caved and got a mybook page. Ever since my kids got their spacebook pages, their blogs have suffered. Okay. Wait. Not everbody's blog has suffered. Some people continue to update their blogs and share their pictures of the adorable girlies on their blogs. But I keep hearing that everybody puts pictures on their pagebook spaces and if I want to see the pics and steal them for my blog, I need to get a spaceface page. So I did. Can I tell you though, it is overwhelmingly mindnumbing to go to my page. So many conversations going on, so many people to befriend. People (any by people I mean me) could spend all of their time just catching up and responding. And I keep getting this nagging feeling that everybody is reading everybody else's business or posting about everybody else's business, like when somebody is sick or is going to the hospital to have a baby. Is this simply an efficient method of communication that I need to get on board with or else risk sounding really old and out of touch? Am I becoming Carol Makita?

Finally. Shortly after Jack and I moved to the gardens, I attended a Christmas party with the Relief Society neighbors. It was a progressive dinner, perhaps you've heard of them? It started with appetizers at the home of a nice woman, then moved to other women's homes for salad, then on to other women's homes for the entree, and then ended with dessert at the church.

As we all gathered at the first home for the appetizers, I quickly realized I knew very few women. They were all aware of me though, they knew where I lived, that we were remodeling the place ourselves (gasp!). They were friendly enough, but it didn't take long for the friends to group together and I wasn't part of any of the groups. Before long, the woman who owned the first home took us all on a tour of her home, explaining that she had finally been able to buy the furniture she wanted. All were amazed and delighted by her stunning decor. Early in the evening, the woman who we bought our home from arrived at the party. True, she had moved several miles away, but she had lived in the home for over 15 years and was a beloved neighbor who had endured numerous painful trials through the years and had been supported by many of these women. Of course, they warmly welcomed her back that evening.

We finished the first course and piled into the cars we'd arrived in to head to our assigned salad home. I'd come by myself, so I got into my car and drove straight to my garage, where I sat in my car, sobbing, as I thought about my friends in my old neighborhood, my broken-down house, all of the work Jack and I had to do to the place, how unfriendly and snobbish the women in my new neighborhood obviously were, and how there was no way I was going to spend the evening looking at somebody else's beautiful new furniture and newly remodeled home when I was living in a broken house.

Poor me.

Today, Sugar and Colleen and I went to IHOP for breakfast and to catch up. They came in to see the basement remodel and I showed them the proposed office space and the proposed guest room. They left after oohing and aahing for a bit and petting JoJo while she stood with her front paws on their shoulders. And I got this nagging feeling.

It occurs to me that my recent posts about the projects we've been working on and my tour of the place today are eerily familiar to that progressive dinner evening, but without the appetizers.

Is there any excuse for my behavior? Did I intend to boast about the projects or the furniture or the other stuff?

I don't know about the progressive dinner ladies, but I was so excited to finally, after seven years here, have the basement so close to done. I am so excited to have a place to keep our books and computers and office stuff and a place for the girls to sleep when they eventually start to spend the night at Gramma's.

And honestly, there is no way we could have paid somebody to do the various projects we've done, or bought the various things we've purchased, except that we have stumbled onto some really great deals. Seriously great deals. Well, that and we don't have a problem with yard sale crap. And there's the part about how Jack and I completed our first project before we were even married. We painted the little rental house we were going to live in during the week before the wedding because there was no way we were living in a place that was painted sky blue. In fact, the kitchen in that house was my first yellow kitchen. (Thanks, Jack!)

So, yes, we do projects around here, we've always done projects, and we will always do projects because Jack is lucky to be married to a woman who loves to buy tools of all kinds for him and because I am lucky to be married to a man who can make or fix anything if I just give him the time to think it through so we don't have to redo it part way through.

I'm hoping none of you, dear readers, have finished reading a post of mine and sat in your car, sobbing, because it feels like I've been boasting. Because as much as I like the way our home has evolved, the truth is, it's just a place. We've been lucky and blessed to be able to fix it up so that our family can all be together in one place and enjoy some good times. And that is the real joy in the remodeling. The time we spend together, planning, working, laughing, sometimes sulking, and then, when it is done, playing, talking, and being together.

santa baby

When we moved to the gardens, somehow, Jack talked me into buying a fake tree. He used logic like, he'd found a really great deal on a very lifelike tree at the big fancy place where crafty women buy their Christmas decor.

He had tried to talk me into the fake tree for years because he hates the very things about buying a real tree that I love, i.e., walking around a tree lot, outside in the cold winter air in the snow, looking at all of the options until we settle on the perfect tree, which then requires that Jack haul it to the truck, drag it into the house, trim off the bottom, drill a hole in the bottom, set it up and cover it with lights and cords, and then live with a tree that is not standing straight upright, for two weeks, until the needles all dry up and drop off, clogging the vacuum so it won't suck up much of anything, until I empty it, which is always a sad day because then we lose that fresh pine scent that accompanies vacuuming.

When Jack finally wore me down and I agreed to look at a fake tree, his final offer was that I could get a real tree for the basement and we would buy new ornaments for the new fake tree. Any kind of ornaments I wanted--because I suspect Jack knew I'd never want the fancypants crafty store expensive ornaments on a tree that I didn't even want in the first place.

And he was right. And that is how the Santa tree was born.

After we bought the fake tree, we went to the drug store across the way from the expensive crafty store and I began collecting Santa ornaments and declared that the only allowable ornaments would be Santa. Looking back, I am amazed that not only did I agree to a fake tree that year, but I also developed a theme for that tree. Uggg.

However. I have collected quite a variety of Santas since then. I mean, what Santa tree would be complete without a Santa rabbit? And the scraggly-looking Santa is one of the originals from the first year. The flat wooden Santa was from our stash of ornaments we'd collected through the years.



One of my favorites is the cowboy Santa



I bought the jack-of-all-trades Santa thinking it reminded me of Jack, but then I noticed that this Santa has not only tools but a bucket of paint and that's when I realized he was really a Gilian-of-all-trades because everybody knows that I do the painting around here.



This funny little guy is holding some type of dessert and a fork?



And I have several of these tiny little guys



This starfish Santa is from our trip to the Bahamas last year.



And what is a Santa tree without a Santa snow globe?



We even have a Santa star for the top of the tree.



Last night I took all of the ornaments off of the tree and prepared to wrap them in tissue paper to store them for next year. I have no idea how this guy got on my Santa tree--I mean, he's cute and all but where's his beard or hat? Wait--he does have a candy cane. That must have been enough.



I intended to take a picture of this angel Santa and horror of horrors! what is that Dupont #24 Chevrolet Jeff Gordon car doing on my Santa tree?



EVERYBODY in the gardens knows the only non-Santa ornament allowed is the #3 Goodwrench Service Dale Earnhardt Chevrolet! SHEESH!



Did I mention the tissue paper I wrap all of the ornaments in that somebody absolutely LOVES! to roll in, play with, shred, and look adorable when surrounded by?

uh, who was that blogger?

Okay, there's been a bit of anxiety around here for some reason of late and it seems to have taken over my, uh, whole self, relationships, mind, blog--everything!

So first, please accept my sincere apology for my somewhat snippy post yesterday.

Seriously. I'm sorry. And I haven't checked facespace or my gmail account all day so I'm breathing much easier today.

And I had this great idea about how I could take it all down a notch and begin by taking pictures of little bits of things I like in the gardens. Good idea, right?

So this is what the new pillows on the theater room furniture are supposed to look like--round:

and square:

This is the dismembered tassle (but note the lovely carpet):

...one of many feet...



...the top of the back of the settee...



...some of Jack's woodworking around a window...



Here's the pool table:



pool table feet...



and the cue rack:

Moving upstairs, this is the amazing bench from my previous post. This is the awesome upholstery that was under the nasty 80's floral print. I love the way it was trimmed.



A quick shot of the flowers on the bar because how can you not have flowers in the house when you can't see the sky or sun outside?



Finally, there's the bathroom upstairs. The first room we remodeled when we moved to this place, but I've never been really very happy with it until last weekend when I found and bought this shower curtain and towels:



and this rug:



that, surprisingly, look pretty great with the dozen or so original shower tiles like this one that are scattered around the shower. You may remember this pattern from the 1970's--if you were alive:



And, lastly, a quick shot of the edge of my newest nightgown hanging on the bathroom door. It is the most comfortable sleepwear ever. And I like my doorknob too.