I Lied ...

Sorry Jen ...

You would THINK that I would have remembered that it was my daughters 23rd birthday 'today' (things went slowly so it has clocked over to the day after, but for the sake of my sanity ... we are going to pretend it hasn't). In my last blog I promised to blog the next day about 'The Chocolate Bar' which is not going to happen - thus the lie.

I shall be blogging about my girls b-day instead. Maybe tomorrow ... er ... today I will get around to 'The Chocolate Bar'.

~~~~~

Gary picked Jessie up on his way home from work and she stormed in the house at full tilt. Right up there with Christmas in making my oldest childs head explode is her birthday.

Why?

PRESENTS!!

Jessie has a thing for presents. Well ... she has a thing about OPENING them. She opens one, barely glances at it, chucks it aside and on to the next one. She is a machine that won't stop ripping wrapping paper, tossing tissue paper about and generally running amok until all the presents have been opened. She isn't even particular if they are hers, so on her birthday things are all above board and proper. No stealing others gifts and ripping them open ...

A few minutes after arriving, yelling, tormenting the dog and just generally bursting with joy at the fact that she was yet another year older she received a phone call from my parents.

She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to speak with Grandma and Grandpa, and was sufficiently thrilled:

UNTIL she spied our guests arriving! Then it was all shove the phone at me without a 'goodbye' or 'see you later' to either of them.

Why?


Because she LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, LOVES, LOVES it when the Randall's visit ...

... and THEY BROUGHT LITTLE ONES!!!

Apparently Charlie was in the Birthday Spirit and would not calm down, knocking wee tots down, barking and generally making a HUGE pest of herself, so we all trooped outside to throw a tennis ball for her and see if we could get her so exhausted that she would stop knocking children down ... And then it was time!!

PRESENTS!!!

Well, some of them. Me, being SO on the ball had all of her gifts arriving from Amazon ON THE DAY OF HER BIRTHDAY. I sort of forgot about the stupid holiday. FedEx had arrived, but UPS - with the bulk of her presents - had not arrived yet.

Not that she noticed or cared. My parents had sent multiple gifts as did the Randalls - all of them knowing that it was the opening that was important ...

A good time was had by all, and soon she had opened everything.

So .... time for the cake! Yes, I baked it and decorated it myself. (not)

Everyone sang:

And then, before my dang camera would recharge its flash, she had blown out the candles. She was a good sport though and when I asked her to pretend to blow out her candles again so I could get a photo - she looked at me as if I were crazy (go figure) and blew:

Gary was a sport and directed traffic, dished up the goodies and in general did everything while I stood around snapping photos: Everyone seemed to enjoy the delicious Kroger's cake:

We got a bit of a breather and had a good time visiting:


We had started to wonder where Ryan was, since we had told him he needed to make an appearance and he was a half an hour late. But eventually he and Alessandra arrived thrilling Jessie even more.

We forced cake on them even though they were headed out to dinner: And then the doorbell rang.

I said: "Oh, that must be the rest of Jessie's presents"

IN FRONT OF JESSIE.

Not a wise move since everyone was still eating cake. She immediately wanted to open them, but was rather patient (for Jessie) and waited ... a bit.

I am sure she did not get the proper 'present opening high' from the rest of her gifts as Gary opened up boxes and handed her stuff right out of the box. I didn't seem right, but hey, I wasn't going to sneak off and wrap them just so she could unwrap them seconds later.

She seemed excited none the less.

Ariel is a sure bet to excite her, and she INSISTED on putting her Ariel shirt on right then. She looked ...

eclectic ...

and a bit kooky ... Then it was time to play with her bounty. She did an excellent job of sharing and everyone had a good time:

Jessie had so much fun playing with all the visitors! She couldn't have asked for a better birthday.

Soon, she said it was time to go back, everyone was tired and we trooped en mass out to the cars.

It was a fun day. Generally Jessie's birthday consists of Jessie, Gary and I and if we are lucky Ryan (actually he is very good with Jessie and probably has not missed a birthday). So having a house full of people - a bunch of them play mates was just what was needed to make Jessie's day.

So, that was our evening.

I am sure Jessie is asleep with her Disney Princess laptop and her other laptop (I couldn't decide on the two)stashed somewhere in her pretty little bedroom. They both make a bunch of noise - but, hey, I wasn't going to be hearing it now was I?

~~~~~

So, twenty three years ago yesterday I became a mom.

Where has the time gone?

I still remember that day and the days to follow filled with sorrow, fear and guilt. Feelings that were so strong and so new to me that I felt like I had been swept into a sea of emotions by a huge tidal wave and wasn't sure if I was going to keep my head above the water. I often felt as if I were drowning in emotions. Unfamiliar emotions.

But I, survived - some days just treading water, but things got ...

not easier ...

more familiar, I guess.

And I kept treading water, and dealing with new challenges as they came up.

And every day, Jessie grew older. And every day Jessie was filled with joy and was happy. She was ALWAYS happy and a wonderful child.

Then one day I turned around and realized that my little girl had grown into a beautiful young woman:

And now she is off on her own.

I believe she is enjoying it.

I KNOW it is what she needs.

I have to guess how her days go.

And I miss her all the time.


When she left, she took a spirit of joy with her that leaves the house just a little bit empty. But the walls still echo her laughter, and I see her every Sunday, so I cannot miss her too much. And, joy of joys - I am getting my fears about her well being under control!

Life is good.

Love you baby girl ...

A Chair is a Chair is a Chair ...

Well, Gary was in Woodworking Heaven all day today. Comfortably ensconced in his air-conditioned shop (ie our garage ...) he made a ton of progress. He will soon be done with the chairs and on to ... something - we will figure it out, or we will take an axe to something old and make us some kindling ...

So - I took photos - BIG surprise. And, I know -

A chair is a chair is a chair ...

... but I wanted to play with some photos - thus 5 photos of the same two chairs.

Exciting, yes?

We are almost on to the Sewing Adventure of the chair making process. My old Viking sewing machine that I had since before I was married would have stitched through this fake pigskin leather stuff without a hitch. In fact, I am POSITIVE since one day during college, I came home to find that Gary had set up my machine and was sewing some VERY thick canvas lengths together. He needed to line the bottom of a water pond he was making. He worked for ... some group up at the university and he did stuff with ponds, lakes and the likes ... apparently I did not pay much attention. I worked in a Physics lab which was in the Engineering building, and I saw him haunting the halls every now and then - so it really was something for I believe the Civil Engineering Department but what it was eludes me now. Except for the part where he was making a ginormous pond down on 'The Island' and had to line the bottom with very thick canvas. Thus my youngish Viking machine was broken in very quickly and did a superb job.

Ah ... sorry about the digression ...

But, alas, the front door to where the bobbin lived was plastic and rotted while in storage while we were in Norway and it was so old, I could not get a replacement part, and the bobbin would not stay in without the door. Sad, I miss my Viking sewing machine.

But ... since I rarely sew anymore, I was not going to put out the big bucks for a Viking and got a cheaper brand that does the embroidery stuff. It works great for the embroidery stuff and regular sewing, but we have so far not abused it with thick cloth. I have sort of grown fond of the little guy ... I hope we don't ruin it.

This got sort of long ...


... blogging about nothing.


MY SPECIALTY!

It was going to be a two part post - but since it is so long, the rest of my catch up photos will have to wait a day.

So tomorrow: The Chocolate Bar!!!

Night All ....

Wood Wood Wood!!!

Just because my life tilted sideways and I fell off into the deep end ... life went on at the Hurst household ...

Gary has been diligently trying to put himself out of work - the woodworking type work. We have very few places for new projects to fit!

While I was 'away' from Blogger Land he finished a set of shelves and decided he wanted to try making chairs. And if one chair is going to be made, why not make two ... I mean who couldn't use another chair or two?

He is doing something unusual this time and working strictly off a set of drawings:

We are not making rocking chairs, just plain ones. We have already acquired the fake pigskin leather for the padded seat - black, of course.

Here is a cool curvy piece for the back - to make it all comfy and such:

And assembling what he has done so far:

Here is the back all put together:

Now, on to the finished product. First, the offending 'organ' (that would be the ADORABLE FOLD DOWN DESK that Gary has decided looks like an organ) had to be removed from the Guest Room / Ryan's Room:
And the shelves moved in. Alas, I have no photos where they were pristine and not defiled by ... crap.

And just because he let me snap a photo:


**********ADDENDUM**********

Gary is too quick for me and I realized that since I downloaded the plans for the chair to my computer, I didn't need to use a photo of a sketch ...

So he is getting ready to wrap it up for the night, but see how much farther along he is in just a few hours.


THIS IS MY PROBLEM!!!

He goes too fast!

Soon ... we will be out of space ... I keep telling him ...

Oh ...

Had my Urology appointment today.

Doctor: "Hello, how are you?"

Lori: "I'm confused"

Doctor: "Excuse me?"

Lori" "I'm probably the most confused 'kidney stone patient' you will ever meet."

Doctor: "Probaby not - what has you so confused?"

I proceed to tell him what has happened in the last 5 days - with me - now - having no pain and me - now - having not 'passed' a stone. I told him I was confused, had I passed the stone or not, I never felt myself peeing out a rock ...

Doctor: "You don't feel yourself 'peeing out a rock' - you probably won't feel anything."

Lori: "What!? I was told in the ER when it is time to pass it ... ie 'pee it out' that it would hurt like the dickens, but to just 'push through the pain and go for it'."

Doctor: "The ER people are idiots. They don't know everything about every little thing ... so they make crap like that up."

Lori: "Wha?"

Doctor: "Seriously, for fun. By definition 'passing a stone' is the stone moving from your kidney to your bladder in a teeny tiny tube - it hurts. Once it is in your bladder you are generally home free - the tube from your bladder ... out - is way bigger and generally you don't feel like you are passing anything. So, I think you 'passed the stone' already. Let me go look at your CT scan and I will be right back."

Lori (alone): "Whoo Hooo!" Fist Punch "IT.IS.OVER!!!"

Doctor: "I have looked at your CT scan and checked your urine. There is no sign of infection anymore, that is good, and based on the size of the stone (2mm - I KNOW! All you hard core 'Kidney Stoners' not very big ... but hurt like hell! I am a baby.) you have probably passed it like I said."

Lori: "GREAT! So I am done! This is great news - thank you - I have just been in a

waiting...
waiting...
waiting...

mode and it is no fun."

Doctor: "Well there IS another stone in the right kidney ..."

Lori: "Excuse me?"

Doctor: "Yeah, another stone ... on the other side. Have you had any pain on your right side?"

Lori: "Shi..., no."

Doctor: "Well, give us a call when it starts to pass."

Lori: "Um, OK? Thanks?"


Lori (in elevator): "Well, ... crap!"


Waiting ....


Waiting ....


Waiting ....

Playing Catch Up

A couple of weeks ago, Gary's sister and brother-in-law (my in-laws) came down to visit.

Yes.


To visit.



Us.



In Houston.



In the summer.



Actually in the 23 years (minus 2 for Norway) and not counting my parents and my siblings, and not counting Rachael's funeral (doesn't count as a 'visit' in my book) this is the FIRST time we have had guests.

And it was in Houston.


In the summer.


And there is a catch!

Steve, my brother-in-law was competing in the National Senior Olympics as a javelin thrower. So we did some stuff that we normally don't do without guests in the house.

The first thing we did, was drive to the George R. Brown Convention Center a few Saturdays ago so that Steve could check in. Did that lovely drive on 59 through downtown with all the confusing interchanges - but got off on the correct exit and didn't die in the process.

While waiting for Steve, I got out and snapped some photos. There was not a whole lot to photo and so the photos are rather boring ... thus I played around with them some. Pretty much there were buildings and flowers ...

The convention center is HUGE:




All I could see of a pretty church was the steeple:



And then I was still bored (still waiting for the blinkin stone to pass...) and created a mask and used it on a photo:



This is what the mask looks like:

It didn't like the looks of the flowers using the mask plain, so I 'cut out' only the pink flowers from the photo, laid a copy of this over top of the masked photo of pink flowers and reduced the opacity to 50% so it was see through.

Yes,

I have too much time on my hands ....



Waiting ....




Waiting ....



Waiting ....

Between a Rock ... And a Very Hard Place

I had such good intentions ...

Copied my photos onto my computer ...

Mentally grouped them into 3 mediocre posts ...

And on Thursday began again ...


And here I am 3 days later - yet again - a slothful blogger ....


BUT! I have an excuse ... a note from my doctor, if you will.

I FINALLY decided to 'listen' to what my body was trying to tell somewheres about 8:00am on Saturday. I wasn't liking what it seemed to be shouting at me. A NEW and completely different pain than I have ever experienced before - and I HAVE EXPERIENCED A LOT OF DIFFERENT PAINS ....

It was in my back, on the left side of my spine where the thoracic region gives way to the lumbar region. I adroitly came up with 'kidney troubles' something that was new for me. Probably an infection, I thought - just lump it in with the other 4 infections I was fighting at the time.

And promptly ignored it ...

...


... until I could ignore it no longer.

It felt like a really bad 'stitch in my side'. I thought that maybe I was straining a muscle sitting at my desk (it was now one in the afternoon) so I went to lay down, get comfortable and read for awhile.

No matter how I placed my body in my bed, that 'stitch' kept hurting. It was a minor buzzing irritation. An hour later it had become a rather LOUD irritation. And an hour after that it was screaming at me "Get me to the hospital, you fool!".


So - both my boys took me to the ER.

Things were looking up - I was actually able to pee in a cup ... given 30 minutes to have a go at it ...

Had a CT scan of my kidneys ...

And a relatively exceptional experience with getting my IV put in. They have a hard time getting IV's in me - and Gary had warned them of this in advance and asked if we could get their best person to to the jabbing, and the in-and-out searching when the vein is not hit, and for the slipping the IV plastic tubie through the needle after finding that very elusive vein. I generally am poked and prodded on average 3 times before a proper IV is 'installed'.

The nurse had identified a perfect vein on my foot to use as her last resort try - she said it was 100% doable, but would go for the top of my hand first.

And whaddaya know? She hits oil on her first attempt! Things are looking up!

They give me some pain medication and leave - for parts unknown.


We were waiting around for the doctor to come and give us the results, if any, of the CT scan.

We waited ...

and waited ...

and waited some more ...

And then something happened. I thought that stitch in my side hurt? A little voice in my head whispered "Oh, honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet".

And then some nasty, mysterious little hospital bed bug started stabbing me in the side with a very large butcher knife. Over and over and over.

I tried to ignore this and took photos with my phone for my infamous 'toe shot' but was in so much pain - my toes were not cooperating. They would splay out in pain, curl in pain, pretty much whatever toes can do, they were doing it as each slice of the knife hit:




I had taken my 6:00pm morphine, which you would think would help with this uncomfortable situation, but it was doing nothing.

And then things got worse ...

Way worse ...

I believe I was at an '11' on the pain scale of 0 - 10 having only being to a '9' at any given point in my lifetime before this. My theory of the '9'? My thinking was if I ever said I was a '10', some vengeful god would look down upon me and say: "You think you are a '10'? I'LL SHOW YOU A '10'" and then do exactly that. So I was never a '10' ...

... oh, until about 7:30 and, man - I was a mess! Couldn't control my breathing, writhing in pain, half delirious with pain. Gary, THREE times went out and spoke with someone about maybe giving me more pain medication. They were waiting on the doctor, but a nurse (that lovely lady that hit my vein on the first try) came in and watched the show of me writhing in agony saying she was sorry but there was nothing she could do. "I think the stone is moving" she said while watching me like I was some sort of lab experiment.

It is a bitty 2mm piece of sand for heavens sake! How could this be causing me such trouble?

Eventually the doctor came in, I got more pain meds and they hooked me up to saline for fluids and an IV antibiotic since I also had an infection and said after they were done, I was free to go home to pass the stone in the comfort of my own abode.

Things went smoothly from there - and I was under the sneaking suspicion that the stone had stopped moving since I was not on any amount of pain medication to make me either incredibly happy or incredibly high - so I would have still felt the knife stabbing ... it would just be less intense.

An hour later they unhooked me, gave us a stack of instructions including my favorite: drink till you want to puke - CONTINUOUSLY therefore peeing a lot, added 7 prescriptions to the paper pile, and sent us on our merry way.

I drank fluids continuously during the night, making me have to pee every half an hour, thus getting no sleep. And kept up the forcing fluids regimen all day today. Other than peeing like clockwork every half an hour and having a pretty severe stitch in my side, nada.


Nothing.

No writhing in pain.

No moaning in pain.

No clenching every muscle in my body in response to the pain.

Therefore no passing of the 2mm bugger.

And ... I AM TERRIFIED.

They sent me home with wimpy drugs, and I have experienced how fun it is when the little sucker is moving and I am really not looking forward to passing this thing ....

... but


.... THE WAITING IS KILLING ME!

Maybe tonight will be the night ... one can always hope because you want to get it over with, but at the very same time dreading that pain again ... an odd mixture of feelings.

So I wait ...


and I wait ...


and I wait ....

Yeah ... Well ... It's Me

Hi!

My name is Lori Hurst and I used to be a blogger ...

Then things got really strange, then a twee bit stressful then I got sick ...

.... and then I got sicker. And, well - now I seem to be a different person. I have lost the ability to blog. I just don't know what to blog about. This might be due to the fact that my life is incredibly boring right now - but as I recall - that never stopped me in the past?

I have decided to work on this.

I don't really think there is anyone out there just waiting for me to type some prose ... no one cares, I get that ... except my parents and since they have been sorely in the dark for a bit now - I thought that I would keep blogging for them. Y'all are welcome to visit - but I am no longer assuming that anyone is ...

It has been a while and things have happened - so I will take a few days to catch up.

One thing is my photo taking. Since life is not just one never ending trip to and from Australia, I don't have all that much to take pictures of. Lets compare last year and this years stats of number of photos taken for the last few months, shall we?


Yeah ....


.... pretty much that sums it up! But also - I am just not into photo taking like I was. I don't know why - and I am assuming this is a temporary setback, but - well - it is what it is right now, so very few visual aids.

I found some photos that I took on April 23rd of this year THAT WERE STILL ON MY CAMERA. That says a lot right there. I RELIGIOUSLY take all photos that I have taken for the day off my camera sometime in the evening and review them. Since it is now June ... well - I will work on this.

I was SO WORRIED about Jessie moving, then I got really, really, REALLY weird about it ... and all for nothing. Her new home is wonderful. Her new staff is exceptional, and she is having a blast.

Here are some photos I took of her new home:







The last two are of Jessie's room. She has her own - I am not sure if she would like that or not - being the social butterfly that she is, but I like that it is a little more 'homey'.

She was being horrible right before she went to the house - screaming when it was time to go home that she didn't want to go back. As a mother, I can think of nothing worse than listen to your daughter beg to stay home with you as you drag her back to the place she now resides .... unless she is doing it just to be a butt. But I really couldn't tell, and thought it would end when she moved.

It did not, which led me to believe that, indeed, she was just yanking my chain - making my Sunday evenings horrible - feelings of guilt, being a horrible mother and just plain being sad and worried about my daughter took up hours of my time, followed by horrible nightmares. And all because she just felt like being a bum.

And these new folks?

ANGELS!

Since we were having such a hard time getting her back to the house, they DRIVE OUT AND PICK HER UP AND TAKE HER BACK. And she is all cool about that - in fact she is very excited to see them - thus the reason I know she is being a butt and not really freaked out about leaving our home and going to hers. I believe that is going the extra mile - and I now have stress free Sunday evenings after Jessie leaves since there is no tears, begging or sobbing (on both of our parts).

It is also easy for others to come and get Jessie - a HUGE improvement from RSS. So that makes anyone wanting to go get her and take her out for a few hours pain free. These people are WONDERFUL!

A photo of my 'little pill' taken the same day I photographed her home:



Well, I will try to move on to May tomorrow, or whenever ...

I thought I would mention since my last blog mentions me being sick and all the tests ... everything has come back normal except my
T Cells which are, again, precariously low - thus I am getting sick all the time. I am just a titch above my very first blood test with this doctor and at that time she said I was just a titch above 'death' in terms of how low my T Cells were, so things are not looking great, but I am hoping to see if we can improve those stats. We have tried most everything - injections, vitamins, herbs, but haven't found that magical thing that will produce more T Cells and get my immune system to something that will keep me out of bed - but we will keep on .... keepin' on ....




Later ....