Aunt Charlsie Maynard is 92!

Charlsie's favorite-Krystals!

Jack singing happy birthday!

My sister Lynette and grandbaby Mallie Belle.

Charlsie and Mallie Belle

Charlsie and her therapist Amber.  Amber is Chrisand I's niece.  Very fortunate to have her at Woods whileCharlsie is there.

My great nephew Jack trying to pick the lock on 

the finch cage with a pencil.  wonder what he'd done if

20 birds had flown out all of a sudden!!! 

Me and Charlsie

My sister Lynette and Charlsie

Me and my niece Amber and my

great niece Mallie Belle (Niece Jessie's baby).

My cousin Eddie made this incredible flowers

for our aunt Charlsie

Jack and Mallie have it made!  Every time Lynette takes

them to the nursing home Amber sweeps them up

and takes them to the therapy room to play.  

Visiting Their Mom

After visiting with my aunt Charlsie for her 92 birthday at the nursing home I went with my sister Lynette and Tanner to take Jack and Mallie to see their Mom, Jessie, at the pharmacy.  She took a minute out of her busy day filling prescriptions to let the kids run around and give them hugs and kisses.

How to Shower with Surgical Drains

Ordinary name tag cord.

Hook one end to the other. Make sure you hook as shown or the cord will draw too tight.

Safety pins in end of 

each drain container.

Safety pin to metal hook on cord

around neck and you are ready to go!

Mom-in-Law Gift

Had lunch this afternoon with Chris' s mom at Donna's. She gave me a Family Dollar plastic bag.  I just opened it.  In the bag is a lint brush, a roll of medi-tape and a pair of socks.  What a thoughtful bag. I love my mom-in-law.....

Home Town Tallent

Grew up listening to her family singing old timey hyms.  The family sang at my momma and daddy's funerals.  What talent they were and so is she.  So young with such talent.  Things will only get better.  Link to interview and performance on Live at Five:
Emi Sunshine

Why do I like that show????

How to Hide Surgery Drains...

Tate's Building Supply 

tool belt tied around waist. 

Pull shirt down around tool belt.

Add a sweater.

A Mystery of Summer

A mystery to me....

Why is one cricket chirping outside an open window on a hot summer night so absolutely annoying you can't sleep and want to pull your hair out but thousands singing a night song in unison is relaxing and so a part of summer you'd miss the song if it weren't there?

The same is the Whippoorwill.   It's just not summer without hearing at least one.  I miss them so much.  In Soak and Corntassel and Hopewell there are still so many.  I'm not sure people realize how luckily they are to have the summer call of the Whippoorwill.

Oh summer......how I miss you.  I promise to keep my bedside window raised on warm nights. And even will deal with the occasional lone annoying cricket if you'll only arrive a little earlier this year.

The Beach Makes Everything Better

Second

It's like I've had a second mastectomy.   And this one is emotionally harder than the one four years ago with no cancer behind it..

Tree House Masters

Guess who brought supper tonight and watched a little "Tree House Masters"?  Our cousins Jeremiah and Sarah.  I ate two plates of desert!

Visitors

Had several visitors yesterday.   My sister Lynette brought cheese sticks from Bert's and Cinnamelts from McDonald's.   My niece Jessie stopped by after getting off work at Wil-Sav Drugs.  She was going to bring supper but I had saved Cinnamelts for that.  Then my nephew Jamey and Jennifer,  Chelsea and Bella came by. Great day!

Flowers

I got two bouquets of flowers in the past two days.. 

Diamonds

My friend Leslie came to Nashville to stay with me during my night in the hospital after surgery.  Before surgery Leslie told me that since I was losing the implants Chris needed to buy me something to go above my chest and pointed to her diamond earrings.

Chris laughed and said, "No, Marna wouldn't want those.  She'd want to be dropped off in the middle of Africa to pet tigers."

Once again I told Chris that tigers aren't in Africa.  They are in India.  And I don't want to go there.

Leggie Thingies

These are my compression leggie thingies.   The nurse unhook them from the pump to take me for a walk.  Something felt funny as I scooted to edge of the bed.  Looking down I saw that instead of connecting the tubes up on my calf to keep me from stepping on them she had accidentally connected them one to the other.   It was so funny and I laughed so hard.  Until!  I realized I would have fallen flat on my face if I had stood up.  Hmmmm.....not that being uncoordinated is anything new.  

But this time wouldn't have been my fault.

Game Tickets

What a great surprise!  A wonderful friend gave us three free tickets To the game.  So Tanner, Net and I had a way to go to the game.  Tanner has asked for years to go.  Cool that a game was the night before my surgery. Worked perfect for opportunity for Tanner to go to a Preds game and a distraction for me to not think about my surgery tomorrow. 

At the game!   Let's go Predators!!!

"Deacon" from the show "Nashville"

Entertainment between periods.

I was very tired and not feeling the greatest so we left before the third period started.

More Tomorrow. ..

More surgery tomorrow but hopefully no more...ever.  After my doctor's appointment Lynette, Tanner and I ate at my favorite place downtown Nashville.  Used to be The Big River.

Afterwards we walked to Bridgestone Arena and looked around the Nashville Predators store.

I jokingly wrote on Facebook that we needed three free tickets for tonight's game against the Ducks.  Thirty minutes later I got a text message from our friend Dawn Hargett that we have tickets waiting at Will Call!!!!  Thank you Dawn!!!

The Predators haven't been doing so well.  But I told Tanner they would win for us tonight. 

Chris' s Cousin Passed

Chris's cousin passed away today.  His sudden illness and death have both been a great shock.  His poor father is heartbreaking....I'm not sure how he'll cope.

Hello Molly

Me before Molly's performance of jazz.  There isn't a pic of me and Molly after.  Had to buy the CD to have a pic and autograph.   Ahhh....the life of a big star.   I believe both Chris and I felt the afternoon was a waste.  Wish we hadn't gone.  Now my memory of the 80's Molly is forever marred....

Praying Across Tennessee

"Praying Across Tennessee" 

Monroe County Today

Great Lunch!

After the doctors appointment in Nashville Chris treated me to lunch at our favorite Downtown Nashville.   The name was The Big River but now it's Rock Bottom Restaurant and Brewery.  Same food though.  Thank goodness!!!

Id already dug in before 

remembering to snap a pic.

I had my regular chicken fried chicken with double order of their delicious mashed potatoes.

Chris had the turkey/Italian sausage meatloaf and mashed potatoes and mac and cheese with a very good crust on top. He had already dug in before the pic too.  We were hungry I guess.

POPCORN SUTTON!!!

How cool!

Downtown Nashville in a parking lot

next to the restaurant we ate at.

I Want.....Please!!

North Face patriotic vest!!!

Tomorrow

I asked a devout friend to pray for calmness for me and for the doctor to know exactly what I need.  He gave me this verse for tonight and tomorrow:

Joshua 1:9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and very courageous. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.

Supper Waiting

Oven skillet fried potatoes and corn bread waiting on Chris to get back from the hospital.   He is visiting his cousin who is extremely sick and is in ICU at Tennova at Turkey Creek. The past couple months have been so hard on so many I know.  Death.  Illness.  Divorce.   I don't know what to do for so very many of them.

I cannot make cornbread without 

Three Rivers Corn Meal!!!!  Seriously.   Since 2009 it's been horrible. Real cornmeal the

rural Depression Era folks in Corntassel and Soak used is no more.  Growing up we had cornbread every night.  There couldn't be supper without cornbread and milk.  Mixed together of course.  So with the losing of Three Rivers there is a loss of part of our area's rural history and a connection with it.

Knoxville News Sentinel article from 2009 

about the ending of Three Rivers Corn Meal:

Ending of Three Rivers

Ice Dancing

February 6th.  Can't wait.  Winter Olympics.   Hockey, skiing, ice skating, snowboarding.  The curling i can skip.  During the bob-sledding I hold my breath the whole time.  I'm not very good at that so watching it is an ordeal.

If I tried bob-sledding I'd so slip and fall while pushing the sled to get going.  Would be like the nightmarish time I tried snow skiig around 1993ish.  I was perfectly happy STANDING at the bunny slopes while Chris was off going down a mountain.  . Or was I even at the bunny slope?  I may have only been five feet away from the little area Chris and I got that worthless waste of time instruction we got.  I only remember being told that skiers do not like to be ran into.  Okay I thought.  Let me turn my poles in now because I already see where this day is going.   Where is the fireplace, hot chocolate and a book?

So.  I was standing there and one of the men we went with came up.  He was our friend's dad and a good skier.   He booger'ed the fire out of me until I agreed to get on the lift.  He said there was real snow and it was soft with no ice.  Perfect for learning and I couldn't learn in the toddler area.  I don't think he understood I didn't care to learn.

So I finally relented.  What. A . Disaster.  I fell getting OFF the lift.  I barely made it to the actual cliff area. (Okay. Hill.)  It was terrible.   Fred went on skiing.   Guess he thought I'd just follow along and learn on my way down.  Guess he didn't really know me that well.  Goes down as one of the worst days of my life.  Chris enjoyed it. He did well.  Course everything he tries he picks up pretty fast.  Good thing I was already in love with the Winter Olympics or I'd for sure hate them after that day.

Ahhhh.... Okay.  Not planning to leave the TV much during that time. Which is nothing new. Why couldn't I be recuperating during the Olympics? I'm going to have to plan this whole problem-after-surgery crap I keep running into better.  Chemo freaking wrecked my body from the moment it first entered that stupid port. Both my sister and Chris said "NO more surgery! Ever....."  (I tend to agree.)

I have another doctor's appointment in Nashville tomorrow.   I'm thinking he will cut away some more infection.   Ewww.... but it will be okay.   I kinda felt sorry for the ole doctor and his nurse last week.  He had been out of town and hadn't seen the wreck the breast cancer reconstruction revision had become till last Friday.  Yes. Revision.  He was trying to fix the wreck made at another hospital from two years ago.

He was pretty upset as he cut some icky stuff away. (No worries.  Not too bad.  Didn't hurt as much as some would think.  But I'm very nervous about tomorrow.   The infection is more gross looking and I don't want him to touch it. I'm afraid he'll hurt me! )

The doctor left the room for a minute last week and the nurse said they hated for this to happen to someone like me.  She said they of course don't want complications for any patient.  But especially one sweet like me and who has been through cancer.  (How sweet she is herself.  I think Chris might argue about my sweetness.)  I think she meant because I wasn't a typical plastic surgery patient???  I'm a cancer survivor. This isn't a choice.  (BTW.  I'm not a pink fan. Off subject. Again.  I know.  Sorry.  Isn't this supposed to be about the Olympics? Yes....Maybe I'll blog post about pink someday....)

I'll think I'll make Chris take me Downtown for lunch at Big River after the doctor.  Our favorite so I doubt I'll have to twist his arm.  It's not very far either from where we will be.   Or maybe Demos?   Nah....Big River.  Chicken Fried Chicken.  I can taste it now and may start salivating like Pavlo's dogs if I don't stop daydreaming about my love of it.

Anyways.  Back to the Winter Olympics.   I'm watching a free trial of the Universal Sports Network this week.  Lots of coverage of events leading up to February 6th.

Couples ice skating is on now.  I really like watching.  However I much prefer ice dancing-I think that's what it's called.  I like how fluid it is and how the couple touch each other-almost the entire time.   It's beautiful.   I wish it were on.  I think it may not be as popular?   Seems the competitions for ice dancing are not covered like ice skating.

Countdown to  Sochi.   Enjoying very much....

Calendar

Our calendars arrived today for those who would like one when they come pay taxes.  They are the small sticky back calendars that are easy to put on a refrigerator or car dash or just wherever.  I've ordered some for the past couple of years after many folks would stop by and ask offices if they had any.  Not many businesses give them out anymore.

Daddy loved the small calendars.  I can't remember who he got them from.  I think maybe from Mutual Insurance.

When Daddy died in 2008 when he was 82 he had a calendar stuck on the dash of his truck as always.  I kinda flipped through it.  There was one date circled.  Only one.  May 13th.   The day Momma died in 1990.  If I were a betting woman I'd bet he had circled that date on every little calendar from that fateful Mother's Day from so many, many years ago.

Seeing that and then hearing people asking about calendars since 2008 at the courthouse made me decide to start offering them.   Some widower out there in Monroe County may have lost a beloved life companion.  A beloved wife who could never be replaced.  Like Momma was to Daddy who never dated or probably never even considered doing so after her death.  That widower may want a small sticky calendar to stick to his truck dash with an important, life changing event of losing their one true love circled in remembrance.

Lucy sticks one on her 

printer at her counter.

Take to Heart

One of my favorite Bible verses.  The verse has brought comfort at many points in my life.

Jeremiah 29:11 

11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Knoxville Ice Bears Trade

The Knoxville Ice Bears traded two players to Mississippi for two.  This is a dad background story on the one.  Well.  More sad for the other.

Fulton Story.....

Zac Efron

I would never dance with Zac Efron.....