Surgery Rescheduled

Greetings all,

I've just a bit of news to share about Bobbie. Her surgery to remove the heart catheter has been rescheduled. It will take place on April 6th. A scheduling problem with the doctor I, I am told she is fine with it in place but that it is not needed so is best it be removed. As she had some signs of paralysis just after the initial surgery the catheter was inserted as a precaution to prevent a blood clot from getting into her lungs or brain which would have been fatal. as it is she has regained the use of both her left leg and arm. The arm and hand are a lot weaker than the leg but she is quite mobile and thus the fear of a blood clot forming due to being sedentary is gone. It was so good to speak to the nurse myself and better fully understand this. Bobbie admitted she was worried but is relieved to know that nothing is wrong.
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It is Spring break time here as it is in many places. My granddaughter has been making new friends in her neighborhood and having sleep overs with "adopted cousins", nieces of Bobbie's best friend. I took the afternoon off from work this past Wednesday and picked her up for a play date. It was a dreary overcast day, (I love how this photo of the sun turned out)so we went to see a movie. I took her to see Race to Witch Mountain. It is the remake of Disney's Escape from Witch Mountain. If you have a chance to see it you will enjoy it. A good family movie with Dwayne Johnson and two of the cutest kids in Hollywood. I didn't recognize either of them but have a feeling we'll be seeing more of them to come. It was a fun movie and my granddaughter was amazed that she was able to sit all the way through it. (Yes, it was that good.) She usually gets up to go to the bathroom half way through a movie.

Afterwards we drove through McDonald's Drive-thru for an ice cream sundae and then to the park to sit under the shelter and eat.

We ended up leaving this park to go to Wal-mart and then stopped at another park on the way home where she decided to play a while. She was swinging and climbing and crawling aound, while grandma clicked away with her camera.

A fun afternoon and something to tell about when she returns to school on Monday. I'm sure she'll be telling everyone she saw "the Rock" fighting aliens. :)

Till next time, be well,

Tess

Beautiful October Days

It's so hard to believe we are in the middle of October already. Days are blending together, so much to do...too much to do. Sometimes in order to take a deep breath and slow down we have to force it upon ourselves. I did just that over this past weekend. I picked up my granddaughter and kept her overnight. We had dinner together with grandpa and she played a while with Frankie, the new kitten. She was so pleased to see Frankie was doing ok. Then we read her homework assignment. A book entirely beyond her reading level but she did pretty good sounding out the words. A nice, quiet relaxing evening.

Sunday afternoon we went through McDonald's drive-thru and then took our lunch to a picnic bench at Homer's Pond. The sun was shining and the temp was in the 70's but it was windy. The wind made for an interesting lunch to say the least. We had to keep a hand or elbow on everything. The camera I brought along with a photo shoot in mind came in handy to hold down the napkins. It was very funny and I do love seeing and hearing her laughter. After lunch we went walking on the walking trail around the pond. She had so much fun finding odd places for me to photograph her. My little 9 year old granddaughter is not afraid of dirt or climbing at all, not one bit. She's not all tomboy mind you, but not all froo-froo either.

She found this boulder and had to climb it:

Then she hid behind a tree and peeked out at me:

This log was meant for sitting on:

"Don't worry grandma, I won't fall in."

This looked like a good place to rest and give grandma another big smile:


These were growing all over and she wanted to pick one. I convinced her not to but she insisted I had to take a picture, so I took two. I plan to print them for her so she can remember how beautiful Homer's Pond is during the cold winter months that are ahead of us.

If you haven't taken a nature walk with a child yet this fall do try to. It was amazing the things she seen that I had never noticed before. Our leaves aren't changing color as nicely as I would have liked yet, but I do enjoy the green!

Clothes Shopping for School

Happy Monday, what's left of it anyway.

What a weekend! I took my granddaughter clothes shopping for school. As her mom lost her job and dad is losing 8 hours a week it didn't look as if they were going to be able to do much for her for starting school this year. So....

I picked up Raven on Sunday and took her to Goody's. With a promise of ice cream after she was really good considering I think I had her try on about 50 outfits just to find 5 that fit right. She's a bit chunky in the middle and wide shoulders so the traditional little girls sizes don't fit her any more. We did find one t-shirt dress that fit her comfortably that she loves. It's pink, of course she loves it, pink is her favorite color. Buying from the teen section for an almost 9 year old is like finding a needle in a hay stack. The sizes are cut to be tight fitting or they plunge to her navel. This year there seemed to be more rounded necklines than in past years so those were the ones we picked the most. My granddaughter has short legs so the capri styles fit her as long pants and the longer legged shorts fit her as capri's. I love playing dress up with her and seeing her face light up with the styles she likes and the horrible grimace she makes with the ones she hates. She definitely prefers solid colors on the bottom and bright pinks and blues on top. She was really into the lace and floral this year. In years past she only seemed to want to try on the t-shirts and didn't much care about the comfort factor. So many of the teen t-shirts had lovely designs with glitter and sequins but fit her skin tight. I hated having to say no. We tried finding some like that in the petite women's dept. but no such luck. Nothing that was suitable for a 9 year old anyway. She was easy to steer to other things though, grab a pink top, hey Raven look. Oh grandma that's the one! Yep, easy to steer her mind in another direction. They had all of the shoes on sale so I was able to get her a pair of nice Sketchers for dressier days and a pair of Nike for PE. Oh, I almost forgot, she says it's called gym in her school. I even found a pair of blue jeans, Ashley Judd, that not only fit her waist but weren't miles too long. She didn't like that they weren't all fancy but she did admit they fit so, in the cart they went.

All in all I think we did pretty good. We bought 2 skirts, 3 pairs slacks, 1 pair jeans, 5 tops and 1 dress. Plus the shoes and I only spent $267.00 and some change. We shopped only from the sales racks and discount racks. Usually we have to hit the boys section because of her body shape but we didn't have to this year. My receipt said I saved $126.00. So, if you have a Goody's Store in your area and haven't done your school clothes shopping yet I would suggest you give them a look see. It was well worth it for us this year. I don't think I've ever managed a weeks clothes from one store before. And never this cheap. Oh and today is her birthday, so she is officially 9 now. I've been hearing "Grandma, did you know I'm almost 9 years old?" for months now. I sure do love that child and I hope she doesn't grow up too fast!

Happy Birthday Raven, grandma loves you!!