Bell's Palsy Update - Week 15 Begins

October? Is it really October?! Good grief. I would never have believed you if you had told me on July 4th that I would still be doing these updates on Columbus Day. Sigh.

Of course, the big difference is that I doubted whether I'd fully recover around Labor Day, didn't I? Now? I know I will make it...even if I have to see another Holiday or two before I can put a period on The End of this tale.

Speaking of Holidays, I spent this one decorating for the next one...Halloween. Or, as I remember having to spell it in a fifth grade spelling bee: Hallow'e'en. Check out the dining room table in this picture.

A note about the pumpkin centerpiece: that's an heirloom "pie" pumpkin from Old Salem. We made it to Members Saturday weekend-before-last and picked this big, fat, dumpling to come home with us. I have a Black Cat decoration for October (shown) and a Turkey for November. I hope to harvest the seeds and save them for next year's garden...and maybe even get enough "meat" to make a pumpkin pie.

OK, time for my report...and the Documentation Photo.

I'm really doing well with my Bell's recovery. I can even manage a "half-toothed" smile, as my Speech Therapist says. Top teeth are visible on both sides of my mouth...hooray! My lower lip continues to have some paralysis, midline/left side...with just a touch left on the top/center. My eyebrow is almost completely back to normal, with just a bit of an issue with a lazy blink response in my left eye.

Speaking of eyes...I'll throw in an update on my right eye recovery from cataract surgery. Cover it all in one post, eh?

I think things are going well with that, too. I'm wearing my glasses (as I still need them for the left eye...and for the bifocals...and to provide some protection from light and debris), and I am pleased as punch with being able to see without the former hazy "window sheer" effect. I still have to use the drops (3 kinds, 3x daily...one of which gives me a brief headache), and I'm still super-sensitive to light. I see Dr. T on Thursday for my one-week checkup.

So, all in all...it's good news all around!

About time, you might be saying. About d*mn time!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Documentation Photos, Day 105:
(sans makeup, which has been banned by the eye dr for this first week after surgery)

First, smile!

Then, big smile!!

What's a Mess for One?

I miss my Momma. Oh, not in a bad way, really. No, this past week has just had so many reminders of her as a person…and I miss that person.

First, there was one of those “grief ambushes” that my friend LCM wrote me about. An EMGV friend at a recent training session we were both attending, excused herself to make her daily call to her mom who lives in Virginia. The thought “I wish I could call my Momma,” just popped into my head as she walked off, cell phone in hand. My throat closed up, and I had to dash to the bathroom to keep from making a spectacle of myself.


Cold Weather's A-Comin':
Getting the Garden Ready

And then, I worked in the garden all day on Thursday, getting it ready for the cold weather that was a’comin’. Snipped flowers that would be nipped in the frost.  Took more cuttings of coleus and geraniums (see the Electric Lime coleus in the photo to the left.)  Sheared the ferns.  Covered the tender lettuce and spinach with row covers; put straw on the peas and the strawberry plants (which are covered in flowers and berries, if you can believe that). Then, because I seem to have gotten an extraordinary germination rate on the 7-Top Turnip greens, I picked a bagful (left). A mess for me, so to speak. Only…I think I may have overestimated the amount needed for a pot of greens for one person. When I was standing at the sink, washing and picking through that mound of greens, I started to tear up: I’m the only one in the house that eats greens anymore. (Mr. T wouldn’t touch turnip greens…won’t even be in the house when I cook them…not even in the same state, as he says.) I had once made the comment to Momma about this very subject…and now the day has come to pass.  It's a mess for one.

Most importantly, there was the realization that Momma would have LOVED the 2011 World Series. Loved. It. Although she was a Braves fan through-and-through, she had a sweet spot for the Cardinals… especially since she spent almost 6 years as a “local” fan when we lived in Missouri. She thought the world of Albert Pujols, the first baseman extraordinaire, and she would have been proud of his performance. Ditto “Yaddi” Molina, as she called the catcher. But the fabulous David Freese would have struck a chord with her: hometown hero and MVP of the series. And that extra-inning Game 6 that lasted until way past midnight here? She would have been wide awake at the end of it, whooping with the rest of us. She might have slept through the middle, but she would have been there at the end. Woo hoo!

Now, It's a Greenhouse!
The screen porch is transformed...

Sigh. Life moves on.

In addition to getting the garden ready for cold weather, we got the “grow-light” shelf set up in the plasticized screen porch and brought in the herbs. Then we arranged…and rearranged…the plants we plan to overwinter on the floor of the porch, and we set up lights on timers to provide both light and warmth (see the photo to right). Somehow or other, we were able to pack ‘em all in!

I tried something new this year:  I put my geranium cuttings (dipped in rooting hormone; rooted into potting medium in small plastic plant containers) in the big pots, arranged around the trunk of the large plants (the corn plant, the lemon tree, etc.).  Hopefully this will keep everyone happy and moist, without wasting water (or having it puddle on the floor of the porch).  We'll see how it goes.

Treats for the Houndz:
Mr. T hands out carrots to
Elmo (l.), Gus (c), and Duche$$ (r)

It’s the end of October, and time for the treats…hopefully no tricks. Mr. T is getting practice handing out some carrot treats to the houndz in that photo (left). He seems to have their undivided attention!  He's home this week, so I won't be trying to keep the houndz at bay while trying to hand the treats to the kiddos through the storm door...always a trick for me to accomplish.

I had so many flowers that I snipped before the frost nipped the buds that I fixed a vase for the dining room (photo below)…and one to take to Momma’s our family’s BFF AW. She treated us back that very evening with a chicken pie from Deep River Friends Meeting’s Chicken Pie sale. Yummy!  With a salad from some garden lettuce, it made a perfect supper.

New Dining Room chairs...
and the last flowers of the year

 Speaking of the dining room, I took this picture (right) of the new chairs that we found on a recent trip to TJ Maxx’s. We have had this DR suite for 33 years (!), and I still love the warm pecan finish on the table along with the bow-front glass on the doors of the matching hutch. The table has two leaves and can expand to one HUGE piece of furniture.  Amazingly, it has survived 11 (or more) moves...and it still looks pretty good.  And, since it was made by Stanley, it has “come home,” so to speak…since the Stanley Furniture factory used to be in Lexington, NC (no more, sad to say). But, the ladderback chairs have been re-covered for their last time, I think. So I was thrilled when I spotted these upholstered Parsons chairs in a nutmeg color. Mr. T loaded them up into his Outlander (which he is trading in today...time for a new co. car!) and brought them home on Saturday.  We tested them out last night, when we dined on our chicken pie…and both said they are perfect! (As soon as those flowers are gone, I’ll get out the Thanksgiving decorations…:)

Here I go again...
Goal:  50k words in 30 days!

So, here comes November! And, what happens in November, dear readers? Well, it’s time for NaNoWriMo, of course. The National Novel Writing Month, when challengers attempt to write a 50K-word novel in 30 days, beginning at 12:01 tomorrow morning. Once again…I’m signing up for the challenge. And, once again, I have such high hopes as the month begins.  Will our heroine be able to vanquish the foe or will her life intervene with her best laid plans?

I can already see it happening, and I haven’t even written a word yet! I have three Speakers Bureau gigs over the next 8 days, so I’ve got to be extra vigilant with my time. If you do the math, you’ll see that you must write an average of 1,667 words EACH day in order to reach your goal. I wrote a 500-word (which I then had to edit down to 300...:) article for the North Carolina Master Gardener Volunteer Association state newsletter on Wednesday of last week, and that took me most of the day! I’ll have to be diligent at following the advice of veteran NaNoWriMo’s: DO NOT EDIT, just write!

Easier said than done.

It's a New Month

November 1st.  Really?  Can it be November already??

Before I go too far with this whole "where has the year gone?" theme, let me post a couple of photos I took as October wound down to a close.



Ghosts and Houndz on Halloween

 This one (left) is of our front door, with the 30+ year-old ghosts adorning the porch lights and the dogs behind the glass (see Gus and Duchess down at the bottom, looking out, with Elmo sneaking up behind them?).  Behind the glass, guys.  Stay!  Yea, like that was going to work with all those kids-in-costume coming up the steps...obviously here just to pet the houndz, right?  I had both door and dog duty on Sunday night...something I didn't think I'd be able to handle by myself.  But, I employed a system that worked surprisingly well.

I kept the fence up at the top of the steps.  Fence, you say?  If you've been to our house, you know we have about 6 or 7 steps leading up from the front walk to the front door.  At the top of the steps is a wide front porch that is about 8 x 25 feet.  Mr. T...inventive man that he be...came up with the idea to create a removable "fence" at the top of the steps, re-purposing (love that word...:) one of the "old" wire closet racks (remember...from the Master Disaster in our closet when we'd first moved into the house?), turned on its side and fitted into a rack-anchor attached to the bottom of the hand-rails on either side of the steps.  Clever, isn't it?!  Fence up:  dogs can go out the front door and see what's happening in their front yard, but can't get off the front porch...safe and sound.  Fence down:  people can come and go without ever knowing it was there...unless you notice the anchors and wonder what they are for.

So, with the fence up, I left the wooden front door open, with just the glass storm door shut.  That way, I could see the little ghosts and goblins as they approached the front steps, even from where I was sitting in the great room.  Then, before anyone could get past the fence and ring the doorbell (which just sets the dogs to barking without stop), I could go out the door, saying:  "Don't worry about the dogs; they just want to greet all of our guests."  The dogs were contained, but happy to be able to interact with everyone that came to see them.  And, almost all of our Trick or Treaters got excited to see the puppies.  One or two exceptions to every rule, of course.



Christmas UFO Being Blocked on Halloween

 Anyway, while I was working my system and waiting for the next visitor to come trooping up the steps, I was putting the finishing touches on one of my UFO's...that red vest I'm making for someone's Christmas gift (right).  It wasn't detailed work...or anything that required me to concentrate on a pattern or a complicated stitch...I'd done all that already.  Mainly stuff I could work on, put down quickly when someone came up the steps, and then pick up and return to where I left off.  Just K1, P1 ribbing; then some binding-off and weaving in of ends; and then finally a little steam-blocking.  Technically, it's still in the UnFinished Object column, since I haven't sewn on the buttons...haven't even purchased them yet.

I was flying solo this weekend because Mr. T had gone to Louisville last week to work for his company in a trade show.  Of course, since that's where Missy M happens to live, he was happy when they asked to work there.  Sure, no problem.  And, since he had already made the trip there, he might as well do a little DIY while in town, right?  Oh yeah...the Daddy Do list was both long and color-coded.  Am happy to report they got a lot of stuff checked off that list.

It was touch-and-go whether he would actually get to go.  On the eve of his departure (as well as my own planned business trip to Atlanta), my back locked up with one of the worst spasms I've had since my car wreck in late '05.  L-o-n-g story short, he went and I survived.  Better now, thank you.

So, back to that "It's November!"  I tried to get a lot of stuff out of the way (like catching up on emails, paying bills, etc.) today so that I could get started with the National Novel Writing Month:  NaNoWriMo.  Good news:  I did get started.  Better news:  I was able to write 2,336 words before the clock ticked over to a new day (which it has while I'm writing this post)!  Yee ha!!  Since the math says that to reach a goal of 50,000 words in 30 days (i.e., To Win), you must write 1,667 words a day, I'm thrilled at my count for the first day.  Plus, I got the file/document all set up in Word without saying too many of those words that I probably would be shame-faced to include in my novel!

I'll just say it here and now:  I'll probably neglect my blog over the coming days and weeks, because...although I treasure my time to write, I do occasionally require a bit of sleep.

Like now.  It's time to go recharge the batteries.  Too tired to spell-check or edit...hope this post makes some sense.  [Yawn.]

Home Again, Home Again...Jiggity, Jog

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, let's see what that one of Lillie Pearl PT Cruiser is saying over there (left). Hmmm...

Obviously, she's parked in front of the Homewood Suites. Yep, she took me to ATL last week...hooray, hooray! I no longer have to fly to my favorite work destination 3-4 times a year. I can now drive, as it's only 5-6 hours...Interstate 85 all the way. Some of you might be saying "only" 5 hours?? But those of you who have to fly regularly probably understand: with the increased security measures increasing the "wait" time at airports (remember, you have to get there an hour ahead of your scheduled flight...and that doesn't include drive time to the airport, parking your car, or hopping the shuttle from the Parking Spot, etc....and, of course, there's the baggage retrieval and rental car experiences...:), a two-hour flight can end up costing you 4-5 hours to get to your final destination...and you are exhausted.

Driving yourself? Hey, you are in charge of your own schedule and itinerary...start when you want, stop when you want, and, best of all, you get to listen to your latest book-on-CD (I enjoyed "The White Queen" by Philippa Gregory and "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie, read by Brit fav Hugh Fraser...which I downloaded to my iPod, along with all of my favorite podcasts from Cast On and Car Talk...:), if you are fortunate enough to have an MP3 port (which LP does). Oh yeah...much better.

While you can't tell it from that photo, I arrived in ATL on the day after The Big Storm. You probably saw it all on CNN or the Weather Station. Rain water everywhere. News reports of death and destruction. Bridges washed away. Roads impassable. Homes destoyed. Schools closed due to flooded buildings. Unbelievable. What is barely visible in the pic is the reminder of what is necessary in the aftermath of such a deluge: those vehicles in the upper left? All commercial cars with logos from Safeco, Nationwide, and Farm Bureau Insurance companies, along with one from Independent Adjusters. Happy to see they are johnny-on-the-spot. Fortunately, the sun shined every day I was there, so they were drying out and cleaning up by the time I left on Thursday.


Of course, my ATL trip was for business...but I work in a little shopping where/when I can. Who wouldn't? Only...where most people might head to Buckhead for the fancy shoppes, I check out places like JoAnn's Super Store in Duluth. Hey...I never said I could lay claim to being a Big Spender.

I came away with some Halloween/Harvest/Thanksgiving decorations for my new front porch. Since major Druid Holidays are not exactly my cup of tea, I have almost NO scarey items and only a limited number of seasonal specialties, including some 20-25 year old Caspar-like ghostie wind socks for the porch lights on either side of the door. The creepiest item we have is a spooky songs cassette tape (which tells you just how old it is...:) which we play...if we can find the only working cassette player we have.

Anyway, back at home now. Mr. T located the Halloween storage boxes in the attic, so I decorated the house this weekend. He said "for someone who says she doesn't like Halloween, you sure have a lot of Halloween items, dear." A lot? Nah. I've just done a good job of grouping what I have...dear. Took a picture of one of the Caspar wind socks on Saturday...sent it to Missy M, as these things have been hanging around (literally) since she was a child. Her response? "Mom...it's not even October yet, and you're putting up the Halloween stuff already?"

Well, it might not be October yet, but it is feeling like Fall around here. I took N/M/E to the doctor yesterday, and between the time we left his parking lot and I came out of the pharmacy with her prescription (20 minutes...max), the thermometer dropped from 86 to 66 (as a swift moving storm-front dumped 1/2 inch of rain on us)! Today? In the sixties, after dropping into the mid-40's last night!

To get in the mood for the change of seasons, I've had a pot of Autumn-smelling potpourri on the stove for a few days. I put some orange peels and lemon rinds in a pot of water, add some cinnamon sticks and whole cloves, and let 'er boil. As the water reduces, I just add some more to keep it from going dry. Then, every other day or so, I add another cinnamon stick and/or clove or two. OMG...smells heavenly. And, Fall-ly.

Mr. T and I were glad we had gotten our Fall planting done on Sunday: 210 new daffodil bulbs (including King Alfred, Ice Follies, and Tahiti), 20 new iris rhizones (several different varieties of purple iris), and 10 new daylilies (two new varieties called Blueberry and Chicago Comanche)...along with dividing and relocating countless daylilies from around our front yard. We'll be so happy with the results come next Spring...which helps us deal with the achy-breaky backs and knees this Fall...tee hee.

Two FO's

Check...and double check! I finished the two cotton baby sweaters last night...and delivered them to the "new" mom (my doctor) today. Her twin boys were born (prematurely) on Easter Sunday, so they are just now arriving at a 6-12 month size...and she assured me she thought the sweaters would fit just fine. I hope, I hope...

I used Plymouth Yarns Jeannee yarn, which is 51% cotton, 49% acrylic...and 100% soft to the touch, a delight to knit! I bought the yarn at Island Knits in Pawleys Island, SC, while we were there on vacation last May. I found a pattern for the Baby Teddy Bear Sweaters from Crystal Palace, to which I made few, if any, alterations (for once...:). And, I put into practice some of the things I learned at my recent "Finishing Techniques" class.

I believe that Dr. R. was genuinely surprised by the gift, and I was overwhelmed by the kind responses from many of her office staff. When I was checking out (after Dr. R. had shown the sweaters to one-and-all), several came up to tell me "how cute," and "great job!" Of course, such remarks always make one feel good, don't they? Ooh, yeah.

Still working on the Top Down, Design Your Own Sweater. Had class on Tuesday night. We're in the home stretch, as next week is our last class. I really want to have this sweater finished then. Really, really, really. I've been knitting the body, practicing my Continental knitting...and actually am beginning to like it. After the initial pain and stiffness in my right hand, from training those muscles to do something different, I think it may be less strain on my right hand. Possibly. Will continue to practice. Knit, knit, knit. Finish, finish, finish.

Meanwhile, we made a mad dash tonight to get some Halloween decorations on the front porch: the two lighted pumpkins, the door decals we've had since Maredith was a child, and...of course...the ghost wind socks, which we hang from the flower-basket chains on either side of the porch (we used to hang them over the two coachlights at the door, but this house only has one porch light). We also got out the Spooky Songs cassette (you see how old that is) and finally found the cassette player (even older, if possible)...it has the Addams Family Theme song, the Twilight Zone theme music, etc. Oh, and I found a Princess headband with attached veil, which I'm currently wearing...and may not remove. (I think it may have originally have belonged to Duchess, but she's not dressing up this year...so there...:) I think I hear some little goblins headed our way, so I'd better get ready to answer the doorbell...and hand out the candy!

Happy Halloween!