Orthopedic Surgeon

So I will get to the appointment first, since some of you are wondering. We left here at 1 PM for a 1:45 appointment slot. Of course, we didn't get right in. When we did, a resident looked at my husband first. So it was quite some time before we actually saw the surgeon. My Sweetie has two choices....live with it or get a shoulder replacement. Ideally, the doctor would ask for an MRI. Because my husband has a defibrillator, he can't have one done. So the doctor wants a cat scan done. My husband's bones are very thin because he has osteopenia because of the kidney disease and he was being dialized. They are also thin because he is taking steroids as part of his anti rejection drugs. Therefore the doctor may not be able to do the surgery. Also, we will have to meet with the anesthesiologist. He/she may refuse to put him under because of his other health issues (heart and vascular related). If the operation can be done, I believe my husband will want to go through with it. He will have so much more mobility with a new shoulder. So we will meet with the surgeon again in two months to see where we go from here. In the meantime, he will continue with Rehab to try and strengthen the remaining muscle tissue.  So again, we wait and see. 

I used scrapbook paper for my backgrounds

Both of the buses are on an action wobble spring

Spending money.....We spent $3.75 for the underground parking. I bought my $50 gift card for Shopper's Drug Mart. I bought 8 liters of milk, 2 dozen eggs,  orange juice, hamburger buns and toilet paper for a further $22.70   I also spent $96.05 for a roll of 100 postage stamps. 

Crafting.....I made 3 cards for "Back to School" for my 3 youngest grand children. I mailed them out this afternoon. 

We got back from town at 4:30, just in time to make hamburgers and baked beans for supper. 

Daybook: Monday, Sept. 5/16

Outside my window.....it is a sunny, cool morning; but, we are expecting much warmer temperatures later today and tomorrow. My Sweetie cut the front lawn for me last week, but it could be cut again already.

I am thinking.....that my routine last week was dumped on its ear. I got nothing done that I had planned, and I am way behind commenting on my blogs (hi Nathalie) although I have been reading them faithfully.

I am thankful for.....all the doctors who care for my husband.

From the kitchen.....I have managed this past week to get the garden produce washed and put in the freezer. I have some margarine pulled out of the fridge to make cookies later this morning. I am also hoping to make some muffins and buns. A whole chicken is defrosting in the fridge for dinner tonight. My iced tea is made and in the fridge getting cold.

I am wearing.....black capris and a red sleeveless top.

I am creating.....3 "back to school" cards for my three youngest grand kids, even though I said no more crafts until I finish my craft room.

I am going.....outside to pull weeds in the veggie garden before it gets too hot.

I am hoping.....the surgeon will be able to do something for my husband's shoulder.

I am hearing.....crickets all around the yard. I also hear the television on. (I think it is Dexter) I don't watch any television during the day but we both watch together in the evenings. After watching two seasons of Grace and Frankie (so good), we watched all the available seasons of House of Cards, and now we just started  watching Homeland. I have loved all of them.

Around the house....I need to get the vacuuming done again, and this time I need to follow up with a floor wash. Now that I have identified my goals for September, I need to focus on those and not get sidetracked into doing other stuff.

One of my favourite things.....is my outdoor clothesline. I lo-o-ove hanging clothes out to dry in the sun.

A few plans for the rest of the week.....include going with my Sweetie to his surgeon's appointment tomorrow.  I also have to go to Shopper's to buy my $50 gift card and to pick up more milk and eggs this week.

Here is a picture I am sharing......of the only sunflower growing in the garden.

Labour Day Weekend

My Sweetie and I spent a couple of hours on Friday morning, loading up the trailer with yard junk. There was some walking, bending down and twisting. Touch wood....there has been no further incident with his left side. Was it a pinched nerve???  We are a little more assured that until we find the cause, it may likely never happen again. We have an appointment tomorrow with the orthopedic surgeon about his shoulder. 

I have not done any work in my Craft Room now for a whole week. I have been otherwise engaged. I have put it on my September goals list along with a couple of other projects that I want to accomplish. 

Spending money.....On Thursday, I paid $13.75 for parking fees at the Hospital and $10.95 for two sandwiches and two half pints of milk while we were in Emerg. for over 5 hours. I paid the Transfer Station $31.73  on Saturday morning to get rid of our very heavy load. Yesterday was also the day that I agreed to go with my friends to the Tea Room in Deseronto. My lunch cost  $21 with tip, and while wondering through the Antique Store afterwards, I found another tiny set of  salt and pepper shakers for $8.45 with tax. (A weakness of mine is collecting salt and pepper shakers, and I collect owls). I know. I'm bad. Friday and today (Sunday) were no spend days. 

Maintenance and preparedness.....I cooked two cups of dried kidney beans and two cups of navy beans in the crock pot. I rinsed and froze them in smaller containers to use in future recipes. I am drying cayenne peppers (24 so far) on the window sill to grind into pepper flakes for the spice shelf. I have baked another batch of dog biscuits. 

The apple trees are down. My husband's friend who cut them down will take the firewood home with him. The branches will go into the now emptied trailer to take to the composting place in Kingston. 

These are the tomatoes I got this morning. They are coming on gangbusters right now. 

More beans....can you believe it? And I thinned out some carrots for the first time. There is enough for dinner tonight. The cherry tomatoes seem to be winding down, but you might remember that I only planted ONE cherry tomato plant and it has really produced.

Organization and purging.....All that I have managed to do is bring down a Rubbermaid bin from upstairs to sort in my Craft Room. It contains Christmas wrapping paper, packing boxes, gift ribbons and embellishments. My plan was to sort these and incorporate into my gift wrapping area in the Room.

Cleaning.....Along with my usual laundry this week, I have managed to also wash and hang out a quilt, a comforter, some cushions and some area rugs.

Crafting.....I didn't want to do any crafting until my room was sorted, BUT....I will have to make time to craft a few cards for my younger grandkids going back to school. I made a promise before I remembered my resolve. I have September birthdays coming up, but I think I have enough birthday cards made up already.  

September's Goals

Yesterday was September 1st.....the unofficial beginning of Fall and end of summer. It always holds so much promise of new beginnings, more so than New Year's Day. So when I read my favourite blogs yesterday morning and found this one from Bless over at My Two Cents , I saw that she was extending a challenge to write down goals for the month of September. I remember back in January of 2015, I started writing down goals which I hoped would steer me towards being more productive and more accountable. I really, really enjoyed doing them; but after returning from a trip to Cuba, I sort of let myself slip. I have often remarked that I should start up again, but Bless has presented a challenge that comes at the right time for me. I was prepared to start immediately yesterday morning, but I ended up taking my Sweetie Pie in to the Emergency Ward at Kingston General Hospital and there we stayed until about 7 o'clock last night. 

He returned home from Pool Therapy at St. Mary's Hospital. Within a few minutes of coming in the house, his left leg gave out and down he crashed on the floor. He explained to me then that wasn't the first time it happened. While he was standing in line at his bank, his leg went "wonky" (a medical term for sure. Look it up). Because he uses a cane, he supported himself in place by leaning on his cane. However, as he was entering the doorway at St. Mary's, it happened again. He said it was like there was no limb there at all. There was nothing to support his weight, so down he went. He was able to pull himself up into a wheelchair in the lobby, and he wheeled himself to the pool. He had a whole half hour in the pool with no incident. He finished, got dressed, walked out to the car and drove himself home. He wasn't even going to mention anything, until it happened at home. I decided to drive him to Emerg. But first I brought up a set of crutches from the basement. I knew the cane would not support his whole body weight. I was driving. I watched him use the crutches to come around the car to get into the passenger seat when he just leaned over on his left side and went down like a pole. He still had both crutches under his shoulders and he went down stiff as a board. He was lodged between the  passenger side wheels of the car and the brick wall edging the driveway. I couldn't grab his right arm and pull him up because that is the arm that only has one tendon remaining in the shoulder joint. If I couldn't lift him up into a sitting position, I would have to call for an ambulance. And to know how serious this truly was, my husband AGREED. However, I was able to lift him. He pulled himself into the passenger seat and off we went. 

At the hospital they took blood and a cat scan of his brain. The vision in his left eye had become blurry. They were thinking perhaps it was a series of  TIA's (mini strokes), but found no changes since his last brain scan....no bleeds. So there are no answers yet. We don't know if it is neurological or vascular. The  family doctor is going to have to make more referrals to specialists to get a diagnosis. So far, he has not had any more episodes. He is still wearing his hospital bracelet, just in case and we are presently sitting on pins and needles. 

The only work I got done yesterday was to prepare the morning's harvest. Notice that most of the beans are small. Remember we got some rain about two weeks ago and I mentioned that there were a whole lot of new blossoms? Well this is the result.....another "first" crop of beans. These may  grow well into the month of September. 

My goals for September :

I would like to finish organizing and cleaning my Craft Room.

I want to wash all the windows both inside and outside. 

I want to remove all weeds from the veggie bed and move more strawberry plants out of the garden into the bins.

 Each week I would like to report on these areas: cleaning, organization and purging,  my spending, crafting, maintenance and preparedness. 

First Grocery Shop for September

I am starting the fiscal month of September today. I had been considering lowering the household budget down from $300 to $200 because I am no longer shopping for 3 people, but after spending $150 already today, I believe I will keep my budget the same. Besides, we are still providing bread, milk, condiments and the like for the whole household. I have not been shopping for groceries very much over the last month so my list was pretty long of items that we were low on or completely out of. I decided to visit one grocery store (Freshco) and the Bulk Barn. I still have not been to Shopper's Drug Mart to buy my $50 gift card for the month. 

Produce cost  $12.84

Potatoes cost me $3.99 which I hated to pay for, but we were completely out. That expense was made up by the celery  at  only 69 cents, the green onions at 49 cents and the English cucumber and iceberg  lettuce at 79 cents each.  I see some green salads in our future. I bought another 4 coloured peppers for $1.99  When they are cheap at that price, I will slice them up for the freezer. We needed yellow cooking onions for $1.99 and I bought 6 Tangelos Minneola oranges for $2.  The liter of apple juice was 97 cents. 

Pantry items cost $19.88

During the past month we used up all of our pantry stores of peanut butter, coffee and sugar. I need to find sales to build up my supplies again. The sugar was regular price of $1.97 each. The coffee was only $4 and the peanut butter was on sale for $3.99 a kg jar. The pasta was sale priced for 97 cents and the cereal was $2.99 (Rice Krispie squares anyone?)

Proteins cost $35.72

I have lots of beef and pork in the freezer, but I ran out of chicken. Because whole chicken was $1.97/lb. I bought two. I bought another huge pork loin because it was $1.44/lb. I cut it up into 6 thick chops and two smaller roasts. The Schneider steakettes and the Oktoberfest sausage were $2 a pkg.  I bought two of each. The steakettes make lovely large hamburgers. I bought two tins of  flaked tuna for 97 cents a tin. My price for meat is generally $2/lb., but it gets harder and harder to find those prices anymore. I splurged on the package of store sliced lunch meat (extra lean Montreal smoked meat) for $3/pkg. 

Dairy was  $10.88

Becel margarine was $1 off at $4.99 and milk costs us $4.27 for 4 liters.                                                                                                           

Bread cost  $6.61

The loaves were $1.94 each and whole wheat tortillas (10 pack) was $2.79                                                                                     

Sundries cost us  $23.94

The vinegar is a sundry because I will use it to make cleaners and weed killer and I will use in my washer as a fabric softener. This is not a food item. I don't need to buy kittie treats, but I like to. I can buy a generic litter, but this was on sale and I wanted to test it. And it goes without saying that I could wash my dishes by hand and save a LOT of money.  

I paid FULL price for vinegar, milk, sugar, potatoes, onions, apple juice and smoked meat. Everything else was sale priced.   My total receipt came to $114.31 with tax.  My total discounts and savings were $63.92  

We stopped at the Bulk Barn on the way home and I spent a further $40.15. Wednesday is Senior's Day, so that price includes a 10% off the original price.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

I am usually kind of surprised how "little" it looks for the price

until I empty it all into their respective containers. Then I always think that I got a bargain, which of course, I have.  In the back row from the left, I have oatmeal  (I bought too much for the container, but I will use it up quickly), dried red kidney beans, salt, whole wheat flour and Sultana raisins in front of that, brown sugar and sliced almonds.  In the smaller jars in front from the left, I have ground black pepper, minced dried onion, granulated garlic and garlic powder. This time when I was in the store, I made notes on each of the tags which included the unit price for 100 gms. Now I will be able to start a price book to see how these prices compare with grocery store prices when these items go on sale. Just because I buy them in bulk, does not necessarily mean they are the cheapest price. The black sticky substance in the container in the top picture is Blackstrap molasses, which my Sweetie wanted to buy to help him build up his hemoglobin. He also bought some Jujubes. I don't know what purpose they will serve. *laugh*

Daybook: Tuesday, Aug. 30/16

I wasn't home yesterday. We woke up at 5 A.M. and didn't get home until 5 P.M. yesterday, and the day was rather exhausting. My Sweetie had an appointment in Toronto to see his vascular surgeon. It has been one year since his aneurysm was repaired. Good news! It has shrunk even more since the 6 month check-up. Also,  we stopped in Cobourg on the way back to see my step-dad still in hospital. We got to wheel him outside into the courtyard for a little while. I don't think he has been outside in the fresh air since he left for the hospital by ambulance all those weeks ago. When we got home I just made a package of Kraft Dinner (boxed mac and cheese) for supper.

It is now Tuesday afternoon. I slept most of the night with a headache until 5 A.M., at which point I came downstairs to take two extra strength Tylenol and then slept on the couch until 9:30 this morning. I slept through everyone waking up and coming downstairs and walking through the living room. My tummy feels a little queasy, so I have not done much of anything except drink iced tea and read my email and pay bills on-line. I will NOT be working in the Craft Room today.

Outside my window.....It is a sunny day with no humidity. It is a perfect summer afternoon. The rains (about 3 of them) in the past two weeks have revived some of the grass. I could actually cut it this week I think.

I am thinking.....that it would be lovely to work outdoors if I were feeling better. There is so much outdoor work to do.

I am thankful for.....spell check. My fingers these days seem to have a "memory" of their own and they want to auto-correct everything I am thinking, with the result that I am misspelling so many words. How can this be?

From the kitchen......I have some bread pudding and banana muffins left over from baking on the weekend; but there won't be enough to last until the end of the week. Maybe I will bake cookies tomorrow morning before 11 A.M. We brought back half an egg salad sandwich yesterday that I ate for lunch today, with a little bread pudding. I didn't take anything out of the freezer this morning so supper may be breakfast for dinner, or leftover chili con carne from Sunday night. Right now I don't feel like cooking anything. Maybe I will eat some toast.

I am wearing..... a white T-shirt and the new denim capris with the rolled cuffs that I bought on the Girls' weekend in Watertown.

I am creating.....a new organized Crafting space with lots of storage (I hope)

I am going.....grocery shopping some time this week with September's food budget.

I am hoping.....everything goes well with the move out of my mom's Retirement Home this week. A truck has been arranged and a storage unit has been rented. My sister will post some of the larger items on Kijiji and plans to hold a yard sale sometime this Fall for the rest. As long as the warmer weather holds out, it shouldn't be a problem having a sale this late in the year.

I am hearing.....sounds of traffic on the highway outside our front door, and the barking of the dogs (three of them) in the back yard.  Our neighbours in the back are moving out today. All the activity of moving stuff out of the house into the moving truck has them all excited.

Around the house....work is calling out to me, but I feel too exhausted to care. I want to nap.

One of my favourite things.....today is the lovely breeze blowing through the house through the open windows. It is making me think of  my favourite season of the year, which is Fall.

A few plans for the rest of the week......includes a date with two of my friends to go to the Deseronto Tea House this coming Saturday. Also, my Sweetie and I were going to take a trailer load of yard scrap to the Transfer station this morning. But, I wasn't feeling up to it, and the back yard is being occupied by those people moving out. So we will be doing that later this week, and then we will take a load of branches and scrub to the composting centre. So outdoor work is in my future.

Here is a picture I am sharing.....our back yard with the truck stretched across. See how the grass is coming back to life. That was brown and dusty only two weeks ago.

Some of the items purged from the Craft Room for the donations box

 I did spend some time yesterday in my Craft Room  although I didn't get far. But I was able to toss a few things from one of my storage units. I cleared some of my drawers of felt pens, calligraphy inks, confetti and glitters, lots and lots of stencils and embossing pads. Today I took a break from that room to get some other work done.

Banana muffins

Bread pudding

Today's Harvest

This is what I managed from the garden today. I froze a quart of beans, a quart of cherry tomatoes, and four quarts of  large tomatoes, with some left fresh for eating in salads and sandwiches. Yes, there are still cucumbers growing at the end of August, and I am getting quite a collection of cayenne peppers. I also boiled 6 eggs to make egg salad sandwiches. I will take some sandwiches and banana muffins with us tomorrow when we go to Toronto. We will be leaving very early in the morning and travelling a lot. Although we will stop for coffee along the way, we will take water and snacks with us. 

Dinner tonight is chili con carne from the freezer. I didn't feel like cooking after baking in the heat this afternoon. How was your weekend? Was it productive or did you do some relaxing?