Life and Health Updates

 

Hello there friends and family...

Happy Friday....As promised I am here with an update as to why I've been absent from blog land.

I think I posted in the recent past that my husband was going through some testing because he was once again having back pain after eleven surgeries and a spinal cord stimulator which was implanted back in 2019... It was and still is a great blessing but, there is now a problem which we have no idea if it is new or was always there just waiting to show it's ugly head. 

The doctor also wanted him to get some vascular testing done on his legs to be sure that the loss of the use of his leg and leg pain wasn't coming from any kind of blood clots in the legs.

As you can already tell there have been lots of doctor appointments and tests. The result is thanks be to God all the vascular testing turned out well. No issue's there. As for his back, we aren't sure. The doctor who put in his stimulator in is a very very good neurosurgeon. He "thinks' what is happening is, the last part of the metal screws and rods which are fifty percent up the spine, just above that is now starting to give way. He 'thinks' the spinal cord up top may be slightly impinged and that is causing the pain in the back and leg and loss of the use of the right leg. He isn't one hundred percent sure. To make matters more difficult, he will not touch my husbands back. He wants him to go back up to Duke University in NC where they did the last two reconstructions. This presents a few problems for us. Namely, finances, hotel stay, transportation, food. We have five dogs that need to be looked after at home. We have a good, good friend who said she would stay with them but we have no idea how long we will be there.

Then there is the cost of getting up there. It's about a four hour ride one way and neither myself nor my husband can drive that long..So my husband has decided to put this off until after the holidays. 

In the midst of this, my own body decided it was going to derail just a bit more than usual. I had a very severe sinus infection that caused three weeks of almost non stop migraines and nothing helped the pain or the sickness. If you've ever had even just one then you know how sick they make you. Functioning is out of the question. While that was going on, my hormones decided they would begin to act up as well. (I'm 50 and going through peri menopause). The hot flashes began again but this time they were much much stronger and lasted much much longer. I haven't had a full night sleep in a month.

Found a new doctor the other day (not sure how it will work out. We will see). He 'seems', to be interested in helping me but I've had other doctors 'seem' that way too and nothing comes of it. For those of you who do not know, I've been chronically ill since I was twenty one years old and without any kind of good medical care for the last seventeen years because I am a complicated, confusing case and in this day and age doctors are all about money and nothing else. They don't want to get their hands dirty, they don't want to get involved and they don't care about you. You're just a number like a herd of cattle. 

So my dears, this is where I have been. No where. Life is messy.

A Thanksgiving Message

 

Hello friends and family...

I know it's been a while that I've been absent from my blog but, in truth, it's been a rough time of it for me. I will be putting up a post on Friday to explain where I've been and why. Please accept my apologies for not visiting your blogs nor posting on mine. I pray you are all well and have a wonderful, blessed, happy and healthy Thanksgiving. Even amongst all we are going through in our personal lives and in our country there are still things to be thankful for.

See you Friday...

Fall Decorating

 

Hello friends and family.

Like many of you one of my favorite times of year is fall. I also love Winter and Spring but fall is my favorite. It's that time of year when the air begins to get that small bite of a chill in it, the leaves start to teach us that change isn't always a bad thing and sooner than we know it we will step outside and smell the wonderful scent of someone's fireplace burning for warmth.  Mind you, here in the South we are still waiting for all these things to happen but it will come. I thought I would share with you today some of my small fall decorations. 

I don't have much because I have a major dislike of clutter but I have a few things. 

That's a flower arrangement I made for my dining room table with flowers I bought at Dollar General. The old watering can I've had for years along with the tray.

And I finally, finally, got myself a Red Truck. I want others but this one will do for now. Its actually a cookie jar. The pumpkins lift off and you put the cookies inside the back of the truck.

These are a couple of cute hand towels I also found at Dollar General to hang in my kitchen. 

And lastly, here is another small flower arrangement I made for our master bathroom from the same flowers I bought at Dollar General. Again, the pitcher is something I've had for years.

I would like to pick up some more fall décor but as it is, the stores already have Christmas out. It's such a shame that the world moves so fast and doesn't slow down enough to appreciate the days as they come. As for my house, we will...

I hope you enjoyed my little fall décor. 

Shrimp and Zucchini Noodles

 

Hello there friends and family. Today I wanted to share something I made for dinner last week. I had posted a photo of it on Facebook and people said it looked delicious. Hubby said it was so I thought I'd share it with you. 

Shrimp and Zucchini Noodles.

1 Pd Shrimp or more depending on your taste, cleaned and deveined.

1 Med size Zucchini

1 C of Mushrooms washed and sliced

1/2 C Cherry Tomatoes washed and sliced in half lengthwise

1 Garlic clove chopped

Fresh Basil

3 or more Tbsp of Olive oil or avocado oil

Salt & Pepper to taste.

Directions : 

Cook Shrimp until they are pink and done, set aside. 

In a large skillet or pot heat oil and add mushrooms. Cook until soft. 

About halfway through cooking add your garlic. Be careful not to burn it. 

While mushrooms are cooking down, wash and spiralize your zucchini. Wrap in paper towel and squeeze out some of the moisture, set aside. 

Wash and slice cherry tomatoes 

When mushrooms are soft add your, shrimp, tomatoes, zucchini and basil stirring frequently to mix and heat through.

Salt & pepper to taste.

Once heated, plate up and serve. 

Enjoy! 

Life Updates

 

Hello there friends and family. It's been a while since I've written so I thought I'd give you all a little life update.

It's been busy that's for sure. That photo up there is from one of the trees in the historical district of my town. They dressed up the trees for Halloween. 

Life has been, well, life. Unfortunately my husband is having back and leg pain again. After twelve spinal surgeries and a stimulator implant which he got in 2019 and has been such a blessing, still is mostly in that he is off almost all pain medication for the first time since 2005 his legs and back are hurting again. 

So testing has begun once again. He went in for what's called a myelogram. That's where they use a large (cringe) needle and inject dye up into the spine. Then they take CT scan pictures of your spine. It's sort of an all day thing because you have to come home and lay flat for the rest of the day or you run the risk of a spinal fluid headache which is more like a migraine. 

Next up was an EMG which is a nerve conduction test. I swear this test is something out of the medieval age. They literally hook wires up to your legs or where ever you're having it done and electric shock you to see how your nerves are working. Extremely uncomfortable and painful test.

Lastly we are awaiting to see his cardiologist to make sure his leg pain and weakness isn't vascular. As you can see, lots going on there. 

I've had some days where I've just not felt well which is probably more from exhaustion than my RA and hormones so I've been down for the count here and there and anything else other than resting and reading was just not on the radar. I was also dealing with a pretty severe migraine headache that lasted for five days. That was fun. (yes that was sarcasm).

I've also been trying to do some batch cooking here and there to make sure there is always something prepared and ready to heat up for dinner for my husband on days where I don't feel so well. 

That's a home made chicken pot pie I made the other day. I've also gone back to Mass finally at a new parish and it's a bit of a drive but I don't mind it. The parish is exactly what my soul has been needing.

Here's another photo of one of the trees downtown. I think they look so cute all dressed up with their pumpkins. 

So friends and family, life has been busy. I'll be back this week with more posts and to visit you all. 

I hope everyone is doing well..

Lots of love, 

He Saved Me - Again

 

Hello friends and family.... I wanted to share some of my life with you today. For most of my life, well, as far back as I can remember I didn't exactly live a 'good life'. I'm not talking about money or tangible things I'm talking about myself. How I was, the things I did. When I think back over my life there were so many, many and I do mean many times that I could have been hurt or worse killed and probably should have been. I had a bad habit of putting myself in some of the worst predicaments.

Growing up I did not have much of a faith background. My father was Catholic, my Mother was Lutheran and neither of them practiced either. My Nana (fathers mother) however was a very faithful woman and wholly dedicated to Jesus and His Mother. I always had 'something' inside of me but in truth never really knew what it was that is, until my dad died when I was nine years old and I went to my first ever Catholic Mass. That's a story for another time.

But even though I knew I felt "something' within me, time marched on and I grew up, mostly in all the wrong ways and any kind of faith etc which I really didn't know anything about got thrown to the side if it was ever really in the picture to begin with.

When I became severely chronically ill at twenty four I dove deep into my faith but it was still so mature and was sown on rocky ground and the weeds would sprout up and choke it more times than not.

By the time I was twenty seven I had been ill for almost six years at that point, been married and divorced and pretty much hit the bottom. It was then I knew the only one who could help me was Jesus. There was no other person on earth who could. I dove back into my faith but this time was different. I made a commitment to change my ways. ALL of my ways and with Gods help and His good grace I did. 

I met and married my husband who is the love of my life and while the rest of our lives are and always have been marred with illness, injury and poverty(according to todays standards in our country) my faith stayed strong. The Lord had sown my seed in good soil and I let Him.

Well as you all know because I've written about it here on my blog several times over the last few months my, faith in my faith, not God but the faith I chose or should I say He chose for me has really been rocked for about two years now.

Well, the Lord came through again. Today as I took a nap he gave me a dream. Just loaded with symbolism that you can't deny or dismiss their meanings. I will write about that next week and no I am not crazy. Scripture is littered with God teaching us in dreams and yes He can still do it today if He so chooses.

Because of this, as of right now I feel like I am back on steady ground again. It may not be what I would like it to be, it may not be what I thought it would be but the ground underneath is steady once again and that is because as He has done throughout my life most of the time when I didn't even know He was doing it, 

He saved me.....again.

They Said We Wouldn't Make It

 

They said we'd never make it....The photo above is of me and my husband not long after we met. I was twenty seven and he was just thirty nine. My husband and I met in the age of AOL. Yes, we met in an AOL chat room. Remember those? We both hung out in a local chat room with lots of other people from the area and most 'chat room couples' didn't make it. They were nothing more than flings. 

My husband and I were different. We had both been married before, we had both done the 'fling thing'. We were looking for true love, stability, security, honesty, faithfulness. Of course everyone we knew in that chat room both online and offline said it wouldn't last that we'd be like everyone else. Over in three weeks. 

Well I am so blessed and happy to say that as of today it's been twenty three years of being together, twenty two years of being married AND we married each other TWICE! Once outside the church in 1998 and then again inside the church in 2014. And you know what? We'd marry each other all over again!.

             Photo from our vow renewal in the Church in 2014

So much for not making it. Happy 22nd Anniversary honey. I love you more today than I did yesterday.

                                   Photo taken August 2020

Give Your Dog Something Special

 

Hello there friends and family.....

Today I wanted to share with you a very simple recipe for home made dog cookies that I use. I don't like buying my four legged kids the cookies from the store because they have too much junk in them and who knows where they are made. If I make my own at least I know what they are eating...

As for this recipe, you can add as much or as little as you like. I tend to make mine on the wetter side because of my RA which affects my hands. You can also use a standing mixer to mix your dough or do it by hand. I do it by hand most of the time. If you make a wetter dough be sure to bake your cookies until they are very crispy. If you leave them with any kind of mushiness to them they will mold on you. They should be crisp and hard. 

Onto the recipe.

Easy Homemade Dog Cookies

3C Wheat Flour

1 Egg

1/4 C or more if you choose Creamy Peanut Butter ( make sure your peanut butter does NOT have XYLITOL in it which is deadly to dogs)

1/4 C or more of  100% Pure Pumpkin (NOT Pumpkin Pie Filling)

Directions :

Preheat oven to 375 F or 190.56 C

In a large Mixing bowl or Standing Mixer add all ingredients and mix into a dough. If dough is too dry add some water too it if you like.

Flour a cutting board and rolling pin

Roll out dough with a rolling pin to about a 1/4 inch to 1/2 inch thickness.

With a meat tenderizer or fork pop holes into the dough. (if you don't do this they will have bubbles of air in them)

Use cookie cutters of choice or simply cut into squares with a knife.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Line cookies on baking sheet distance doesn't matter

Bake for approximately 25 to 35 minutes depending on your oven or until cookies are crisp and hard.

After cooling store in air tight container or air tight bag.

Your dogs will love them! Mine do! 

Straight Out Of Hell

 

Hello there friends and family... Yesterday was a not so good day. I don't like to say "bad' day because every day is a gift from God and a 'bad' day is when you wake up dead so let's just say I had a really, really rough day yesterday..

It began with having to have my husband at our local hospital for what was supposed to be a myelogram on his spine. That's where they shoot die into your spine and then take CT scan photos. They finally called us back and the order was wrong. While we were waiting for them to straighten it out my head began to hurt and hurt and hurt. They have to reschedule him for the right test. Once we got home which was like an hour and a half later I thought my head was going to split in two. 

I should have known it was the beginning of a massive sinus migraine because when it gets that bad, that quick that's usually what it is. I went back to bed at Eleven AM and spent the rest of the night with a heating pad, cold packs, and looking at the porcelain goddess. The entire night was a night straight from hell.

When I woke this morning I had sharp pain on the right side and a lot of pressure in my head but I knew there were two things I must get done this morning so I pushed myself and got them done. 

In the process of making dinner ahead of time I managed for the first time in my life to cut my finger while chopping an onion.

  But it was worth it. Oh how I wish you could smell this!!

This is a recipe I've never made before. Mediterranean something or other. I bought some soft tortilla shells and thought I would make them kind of like burrito style with a side salad. If you would like the recipe let me know in the comments and I'll post it..

As for the rest of the day, I have the classic "migraine hangover", yes it's a 'thing' you can google it so I am just going to rest all day and night if I have too because I do not want to go through the pain and sickness again today that I did all day and night last night although, I'm not sure if I can avoid it. We will see.

I pray you all are having a pain free good day!.

Putzing Around

Isn't that a beautiful sunflower? Sunflowers are my most favorite kind of flower. This one is a photo of one of them in a fall flower arrangement I made for my dining room table...

Yesterday (Thursday) I pretty much just putzed around the house doing some things I needed to catch up on like.. Washing clothes and putting them away. Cleaning out the refrigerator. Printing out some things for my sister in law and mailing it to her and printing some recipies.

Most of the morning I was on my feet which were not happy about that, baking dog cookies.

I don't like to buy them the ones from the store because there's just too much junk in them. Their very favorite treats are from a brand called "Nudges" but those are expensive! $21 dollars and change for the big bag and with five dogs a small bag won't do. So I decided those will be bought only for a different treat here and there and I will go back to making them the home made treats which they like just as well and I know what they are getting. 

As for today, Alvin (one of my Chi mixes) decided it was a good idea to step on my stomach at about five thirty this morning so I was up and I was tired because I went to bed late. I have become addicted to this game called Bingo Blitz and I knew I should have turned the lights off at eleven last night but there I was at eleven forty still playing......yeah....

As for today, I have done my bible study already this morning and I know I should probably start working on a closet to clean out since the weather has decided it's summer again (too hot to be outside) but my brain and body are definitely not in agreement this morning so we shall see.

I pray you all have a good day full of Gods peace and love..

 

It's a Dogs Life

 

They are something else aren't they ? Such a tough life. .. We are missing one because he was inside laying with my husband when I took this photo. This was taken after everyone had eaten dinner.. Imagine that if we could all go and take a nap every night after dinner...

Today was a little bit busy, mostly emotionally busy not as much physical until later on. I did my usual morning routine, cooked hubby breakfast (bacon, eggs and toast this morning) We had coffee then I cleaned up the kitchen, washed dishes and put in two loads of laundry. In between all this the phone was ringing between my sister in law and my niece. They have a very, very sweet little dog named Sebastian. He' s a yorkie and maltese mix. In my twenty years of raising dogs I have never come across a more sweet sweet boy than him.

He also has a very serious health condition called ITP and now the treatment for that has caused diabetes. So, they are dealing with a lot up there in New Jersey and not handling it well. My family, whom I love so very dearly is , gosh I don't even know how to explain it. Let's just say if you had a room full of Italians ( Im Italian) all talking (screaming) at once you'd leave with a migraine. Well in my house it only takes three of them to give you a migraine so I was dealing with that this morning.

Then a few weeks ago I bought a kit to do gel nail polish a home. It worked and my nails looked great for the last two weeks but today it was time to take it off because they had grown out. What a mess. I can't do it. I do not have the strength in my hands. That took up about two hours of my time and I was not happy. I did finally get it all off and now my nails are ruined. So I will not be doing that again.

Tonight, I thought gee, easy night. I don't have to cook. I have left over hamburger helper (not the box kind. I make my grandmothers) in the freezer. Well it was going to be an easy night until I saw this one outside in the yard rolling around in the dirt..Soon as he came in, right into the sink he went!.

Poor baby, so tuckered out from being given a bath and pampered. We should all be so lucky. I finally sat down and have been enjoying my time visiting your blogs. I am having a dilemma and not sure what the answer is. Do you think it's best to post a blog post in the mornings or at night? My mornings always get so busy but then if I feel if I post at night about the day I will be behind one day in posting on my blog. What do you think?

 

Death Of A Garden, A New Look And A Broken Toe

 

Well it seems like there's a lot of makeovers going on for me. 

I've made over my blog somewhat which is still a work in progress and the other day I got tired of my hair and went and had it all cut off as you can see. Next I think I will change the color. I had my hair short like this some years back and swore I'd never do it again. I have always had long hair and I missed my long hair. Well when my hair finally started getting really long this year it had changed as everything does. Age and hormones are playing a huge part in that for me. Yes it was long again but it was much thinner, more dry and frizzy and it just didn't look good on me at all anymore so off it went. I wonder if Henry VIII said that when he decided to behead Ann Bolyen? As you can see my thoughts are just everywhere and no where.. Moving on...

Our garden is finished and it turned out to be a bad growing year for us and the whole time I couldn't understand why. Tomato plants put forth basically nothing and anything they did put forth were small and the mocking birds and worms got to them before I did, the eggplants are still coming in but they are coming in rotted on the vine. I have to pull them out yet. However, for some reason we have had an absolute bumper crop of Banana Peppers and Shashito Peppers this year. Here's the garden in it's clean up process

I had to let most of those pots dry out in the sun. I was still stumped on what happened to the tomatoes and eggplants this year, just couldn't figure it out. That is until, I began pulling up the weed cover on the ground underneath and look what I found....

That green you see friends is mildew. Seems this plot of land in my yard has poor drainage and with having the weed cover on the ground the water had no where to go so it rotted the dirt and my plants. Well will NOT be planting here next year.

Surprisingly the egg plant plants are still producing but not anything of substance.

And last but not least, I think my big toe is broken... I was playing with my dog Toby on Saturday night. He likes me to kick his ball through the room as I am washing the dishes in the kitchen. Well, I went to kick it, I missed it and smashed my big toe into the floor which got caught on the rug as it was bent from the joint. It hurt so bad I fell over and it knocked the wind out of me. As of today my big to from the knuckle joint to the tip of my toe is now a nice blue and purple color.. eh, I like blue and purple.

Until tomorrow.....

Good Grief Let Me Off !!

 

See that photo up there? That's what my brain and body has felt like for the last few weeks. 

We've been so busy that as I sit here I can hardly even remember where I've been or what I've doing. Let me try and bring you up to date. 

We had a big seventy-five gallon fish tank in our living room for about the last fifteen years. It's my husbands 'thing'.. Personally, I'm not into fish tanks and I thought of it as a waste of space and an eyesore because when you enter my house you're in my living room and there is the huge fish tank. Well, he finally agreed to move it into the den where he spends his time and can enjoy it but it took a solid week between emptying the water, cleaning in the inside, cleaning the rocks and coral he had in there plus all the components etc.. Then moving the plants inside and the base and the tank itself. It was a job.

Then last week I decided it was time to repaint my living room because now that I finally had the living room back again I wanted to set it up as I've always wanted it and that started with paint. We had a light grey on the walls and a darker grey on the trim and to be honest, I was bored with the color. I wanted to go to a very muted kind of creamy white on the walls and an almost antique white on the trim and so we began. 

Turns out, Lowes Signature Primer + Pain isn't all that great. (knew I should have went with Benjamin Moore ) I ended up having to buy three gallons of paint to cover the walls to the tune of eighty dollars and when you live on a fixed income that's nothing to sneeze at. 

As for the trim, I had paint I wanted to use, very good paint. My husband on the other hand insisted he wanted white and we were to use the paint he had on hand which by the way, was old. Very old. I fought it and lost. So, on went the white paint. Here's where I almost flipped my lid. When the "white old paint' dried? It SMELLED like mildew! The paint was rotten and now it's on my trim!

Soooo, I ended up repainting all the trim AGAIN in the paint I wanted to use originally and sadly, I can still smell it a little bit so, when I can afford it (next month) I will go and buy a gallon of Killz sealer clear coat and use that which should take care of it.

There was lots of moving of furniture, up and down on ladders and my body has been screaming in pain and that's why I've been absent from my blog , reading blogs and most of my social media. Too tired and in too much pain.

My husband also, may or may not have a quite serious issue going of which we are awaiting an appointment for a CT scan but more about that in another post. This will be it for now, I 'plan' to be back as of today not only posting on my blog but catching up on all of yours. 

I really do hope and pray everyone is well and for those down in Louisiana I pray the Lord keep you, your loved ones and your property safe from the coming floods.