Chloe

Alek has taken some cute videos of Chloe recently ...
How many socks can Chloe hold in her mouth at once? Certainly more than 3!

How does Chloe have fun? Watching Ben shoot marbles ... well, she just wants to be near us.

Haircuts

Videos of Ben & Alek's recent haircuts ... and a message for Mema ...

Breakfast one morning last week ... you see, everyone's moving kinda slow ...

Coming tomorrow ... video of Chloe from Alek

Monday

Well I'm feeling pretty good. I slept for 6 hour straight last night, which was the most consecutively and totally since the surgery. Because my nose is stuffy from the surgery, I can only breath through my mouth and it gets so dry it wakes me up after about an hour of sleep. But it's getting better. I go to the dr. on Thursday to get it all cleaned out - I'm looking forward to that!

I'm starting to get bored here at home. We're preparing for our neighborhood garage sale on Saturday, so I have a whole pile of things in the hallway to price and prepare. But, I don't much want to do that. I have a books to read, movies to watch, and I want to do some knitting. I also have about 25 baby lilacs that my lilac bush made over the winter to dig up and give to friends. Up until now, I couldn't lean over and do the digging, and I probably shouldn't be doing it today. But the urge to get outside is going to hit soon. I think I could go to the gym and walk on the treadmill - no lifting or water - but walking would be good. I might take Chloe for a walk around the block today - that would be a nice gentle start.

I finally got video of Ben's haircut this morning ... will post it later today, along with Alek's. The video camera is downstairs, and I don't feel like walking down and back up right now. Yes, three days of resting has made me incredibly lazy in addition to bored!

Gary and I went to see Spamalot yesterday at Memorial Auditorium. It was very funny. Definitely contained the highlights of the Monty Python's Holy Grail. Made me want to rent the movie - it's been awhile since we've seen it. After talking about renting movies, Gary and I had the brilliant idea to let the boys watch GhostBusters last night. Remember how funny that movie was? Well, it turned out to be a pretty bad idea ... Ben was crying in the middle because he was so scared, and then he had to sleep with us. Alek couldn't go to sleep because he kept thinking about it. I had forgotten that they all smoke all the time in the movie - wow, how times have changed. I had thought smoking was out of the mainstream movies by the mid-80's, but they were puffing in every scene, which of course we then had to talk about endlessly. The boys have watched both National Treasure movies and loved them ... I thought GhostBusters would have been tamer than those.

After Surgery

Yesterday I had surgery to fix a deviated septum in my nose. The deviation, polups and resulting abnormal growth over the years caused my breathing to be severly restricted. The surgery went fine, and Gary has been taking good care of me and the boys.

I feel pretty good today. I took the strong pain meds yesterday, but moved to the mild ones today. I slept on and off for an hour at a time. After an hour, my throat and mouth gets really dry and I wake up, since I can only breath through my mouth right now.

I go next Thursday to have the packing removed and get my nose 'cleaned out'. And then I go back the following week for the same thing. After that, my breathing should be much better. I'm hopeful I'll sleep better, have more energy, and more endurance.

I have no bruising or swelling. I do keep an ice pack on my nose most of the time right now. Gary's downstairs making dinner, so I need to go see if there's anything I can do to help. I've been up and around some today, napping a little too.

Bocce Ball

Last night we had a great time at our friends' Larry & Lisa's house. We took the kids, and although they were the only ones there, they behaved themselves by watching movies. We played a match of Bocce Ball .... This group of friends is so special - we've known each other for 13 years now and have great fun when we get together.

I use the Pure Digital Flip Video for my images. It records video, buy you can clip a still photo from it using the included software. The camera is very easy to use - 3 buttons is all - and the imbedded USB port pops out and into your computer quickly. I save the videos in an e-mail format so they upload quickly, but it does degrade the image slightly. Only $150 at Target.com

April Bookclub

Marna, Rhonda, Sally, Eileen

Our book this month is Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks. We all enjoyed the writing style, and learning about life in 1666 England. Because the story is heartbreaking, we each shed tears over various parts, but were impressed by Anna's ability to serve her community and grow into a strong woman and mother. Next month, And When Did You Last See Your Father, by Blake Morrison.

Finished

Ben's room is finished. It's very nice, and bright and sunny and fun, just like him!

Still Painting

We started painting Ben's room on Friday, and we'll be putting the FOURTH coat on later this afternoon. Way too many! But the light green has been tricky to cover. Here's some video of the progress ...

Here's a picture of the first trim edge ... you can see how dark the green was. But the yellow was really thick and creamy, so I thought we'd need two coats ... not 4!

Last night we went to the Carolina Hurricanes Hockey game and sat in the IBM box. It was really cool, but they lost. No pictures ... ;-(

Here's the view last night at 10 pm when we started the 2nd coat ... we optomistically thought it would be the last ...

Gary's New Office

Wow, the renovations are moving right along. Today we finished moving into Gary's new blue office. Shelves, desk, etc are all moved in. Now for all the details - they are sitting in the hallway still, but I'm optomistic we'll have this finished over the weekend. Ben's new room is all cleared out, vacuumed, baseboard washed and faceplates removed. We're ready to paint yellow tomorrow. The baseboard will need painted also, and it will take two coats for the walls I'm sure. But it's looking good! I'm handling the mess well, I think.