One Year Ago....

Well there's just nothing to a year is there? One year ago today I began my bionic journey with two brand new knees. It's been a heck of trip and I have never been so challenged nor struggled so much. The struggle has been both physical and mental. Physically trying to get both knees working was a challenge that was almost more than I could bear. Mentally it just about broke me. Strength comes from all kinds of places: faith, family, friends, and sometimes you just find it somewhere deep inside. At the end of the day, I've been very blessed.


A year later I am able to walk all over New York City for three days. I work my way through my yoga class, substituting for poses that end up on the knees, but doing pretty good. My spin bike is only about an inch off the optimal seat setting. I still struggle going down stairs, but I continue working on it. With the exception of heat flashes, I pretty much sleep through the nights. I can move from one position to another without waking up in pain. While things aren't perfect, I am so much better than I was prior to surgery.

Thanks to my husband, my family, and my friends. You know who you are. You're the one who sent me cards, called me, and visited. You're the one who came to stay with me, cooked for me, did my laundry. You're the one who encouraged me, helped me with never ending painful exercises. You're the one who listened to me when I cried and held me while I sobbed. You saved me. I can never thank you enough.

Kylie's Egg Hunt

We got to my folks place for Easter dinner about an hour ahead so we could hide eggs for Kylie. The sun was still shining, but the storm clouds were gathering. We were definitely keeping our fingers crossed as we waited for Travis and Kylie to arrive. We were sooooo lucky. As the egg hunt finished up I made the comment to mine brither that the air smelled like rain. Five minutes after we went inside the clouds cut loose. Whew!

Silly girl. Does this look like an Easter bonnet to you? Hmmm. Must have left that bonnet at the same place you left your Easter dress.

Kylie set off to find her 50 candy filled eggs. They were hidden the whole way around the house. She did pretty good, but we ended up back in the back yard to find the remaining 10 eggs.

I like these pictures. You can tell Kylie is really having a good time.

Duck under those limbs, sister!

We dumped 26 found eggs out of her basket and sent her back out to find the rest of them.

I love this picture of Dad and Kylie having a conversation about the picture coasters. I'm not sure who was telling whom about the pictures. What a great shot!

Gwen's Egg Hunt

Wouldn't you know it. The weather was overcast and drizzly all day long until an hour before G. was coming for her egg hunt. The it was all about letting the sunshine. Grrrr. We had already hidden the eggs in the house. Oh well, it wasn't the first time we were forced to hide/hunt eggs indoors.

There were 50 candy filled eggs and as always, she found 49 pretty handily and we were all left searching the house for that one remaining egg that was hidden just a little too good.

After Gwen found all the eggs, I had prepared a little scavenger hunt for Gwen to find her basket filled with other stuff. I had found some great deals at Hallmark's "sidewalk" sale at Strawberry

Square. A few little things I knew she would enjoy. I made a few of the clues a little more difficult but she still followed the clues pretty handily.

Hey, what's the point of hunting all those eggs if you can't partake?

For Gwen a large part of Easter is all about the dress. She didn't like the firsgt one I bought her. It wasn't poufy enough, glittery enough, girlie enough. We hiked everywhere at the Capital City Mall and finally, at the last store possible, Penny's, we found the perfect Easter dress. It aptly bore the Cinderella label, had plenty of poufy skirts, and lots of sequins letting the dress glitter in the light. It was perfect and as you can see, she looked beautiful!

Happy Birthday Kera!

Somehow it seems that we've had big family celebrations for everyone's birthday except Kera's. Although we do celebrate Travis's and Chris's December birthdays on Christmas Eve. But I felt terrible when Kera asked if we were having a dinner for her because we had them for everyone but her. I hope we made up for it on her birthday, April 23.

I asked Kera what she wanted for her birthday meal and she chose fetuccini alfredo with roasted root vegetables. I added a salad and Chris took care of obtaining the vegan Boston cream cake which was really yummy.

Kera provided a list of things she wanted for her birthday. I think we knocked a big chunk out of her list with a few pairs of running shorts, a tank, and a skirt, not to mention the dirt for her raised vegetable beds. Lots of gifts and heartfelt cards.

We were eating dessert when Gwen sidled up beside me and asked if we could play her favorite game Who Gnu. We had such a good time...except for the part where the geezers kept winning!
I love that Gary can't read with his glasses on any better than I can!

Happy birthday, Kera. Now please slow them down girl because you're making me feel really old! Love you.

Rain Rain Go Away

The Saturday before Easter I headed off with my friend Sue to Hershey Theatre to see Hair while Brent invited his friend Mark for dinner and music. We all expected to have an enjoyable evening. I arrived home to see the garage door open and a cart in the middle of the garage. Curious. I opened the door into the mud room and saw the kitchen window open and two hoses running through the kitchen. Yikes.

Neighbor Deb had come over earlier to ask for Brent's help. Apparently the runoff water was going from Colonial Road, across their patient parking lot, and right into their office. Brent checked our basement to find it damp before heading over to help Deb. When he came back there was 3 inches of water in the basement. We kept 3 sump pumps and several fans running all night long to get as much water out as possible and start to dry things out.

Thank goodness Kera, Chris and Gwen came over to help us clean up on Sunday. Gwen took all these pictures to capture the moment.

Brent apparently had a cardboard box collection all over the basement floor. Who knew. After this mess Kera threatened Brent with dire consequences if such a thing occurred again!

We accomplished in several hours what it would have taken Brent and I days to finish.

We took everything to the garage and piled it high onto the neighbors cart. Brent and Loren took 900 pounds to the dump!

The Hunger Games

Some of the bulletin boards I participate in often discuss books people are reading. The Hunger Games, which is the first in a trilogy, is one of the books often touted. Like the Twilight series, it's classified in the Young Adult (translated teen) section of the book store. I have finally narrowed down my book choices enough to go spend the Christmas gift card my friend Jason gave me. If you know me, you know I have a list of books I want to read that could loop around my houseAnyway, Saturday in the torrential downpour I headed off to have breakfast with my folks and do a little shopping with my Mom. Here it is April and this gift card is burning a hold in my pocket. I knew I wanted Mark Bittman's new cookbook Food Matters (A Guide to Conscious
Eating) and The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I figured that would eat up my card. But, I got lucky and The Hunger Games was actually available in paperback. This meant I could get another book too. I chose the latest Nora Roberts, The Search. I was afraid to get the second book in The Hunger Games series just in case I didn't like it. Sunday, after cleaning up the flooded basement (the topic of another post), I headed out to the dreaded grocery store where I purchased the ingredients for Chickpea Stew with Roasted Chicken from Bittman's book. It was a little time consuming to make but it was super yummy. By this time I was halfway through The Hunger Games and could hardly put the book down. I see either a trip to the book store or an Amazon order in my very near future.

Scrapapalooza

Scrapapalooza is the term Matt coined for a scrapbooking weekend at the Miller resort. Kim, Sandy and I scrap our little hearts out beginning on Friday night and wrap it up Sunday evening. Two weekends ago, after 2+ days of scrapping, I had 26 pages to show for my effort. A new record. I got caught up on a lot of 2008/2009 photos and 7 Disney pages. Yes, I'm still working on the Disney trip with Gwen several years ago. What a fantastic weekend!