Fracture and Hanging in There

 

Last week was a very bad week in the "Constant Crafter" house.  Since I'm home most of the time, I do most of the snow blowing.  Last Thursday, we had received about 4 to 5 inches of snow overnight.  Rocketman usually would have snowblowed for me before he went to work but he would have needed to get up earlier to have done that.  I really don't mind snowblowing.

 

I had just finished the driveway and had put the snowblower away when Rocketman came out to leave for work.  There is a well known three inch thick patch of ice and I had been careful to walk around it until that moment.  I was talking to Rocketman and next thing I knew I was flat on my back with my elbow throbbing.  I had landed on my elbow and wrist.  My fingers were numb and tinkling.  I lay on my back crying at the shock and pain of it all.

 

Rocketman dropped everything and came to help me up.  He told me that we needed to go to the Emergency Room while I was busy crying and telling him "no."  When we got inside and I couldn't get my coat off easily, I agreed to go to the Emergency Room.  We arrived at the hospital at 9 am and it was pretty empty at that point.  Forms were filled out and we didn't have to wait too long before we were in a room and seeing a "provider." 

 

That's right, we were told a "provider" would be taking my case which meant it could be a doctor, a physician's assistant or a nurse.  I thought provider in a hospital situation meant insurance but things have changes.  They took x-rays and we waited for the results and the "provider." 

 

The "provider" turned out to be a physician after all.  He said it didn't look like I had a break or fracture at that time but that it still could be fractured. He said if it still was painful after 3 days to see my regular doctor.  We were out of there around 11:30 am which is a record for us with my arm in a sling.  The staff had told us that I was the 9th elbow of the day.  As we walked out of the ER, we noticed the waiting room was packed with people.

 

The weekend brought more pain and though the hospital gave me Oxycontin, it did nothing for the pain and gave me one heck of an upset stomach.  So Monday morning I saw my regular doctor who also took x-rays. It came back that it was definitely fractured and he even called Rockeman to the room to show him the x-rays.  He gave me a different medication and sent me home with the sling and the promise to rest it for a few weeks. 

 

Today, it has been a week and a day and I'm still in a lot of pain.  It was also my right elbow which keeps me from doing most things.  If I put any pressure on that side even holding a glass of water, I get a tremendous amount of pain so I've been taking it easy.  Poor Rocketman has been doing everything from laundry to picking up.  He's going to tackle the house this weekend.  It's so hard when you can't use your dominate hand.

 

This one handed Grandma wasn't going to let this deter her from a babysitting commitment I had with Ezra.  He came over Tuesday for the day and we had a blast.  He loves Louie's cat toy.

This is the look I got every time I put a bite of food in his mouth.  He's a cutie.

We have a trip to South Korea coming up and I'm going to make sure I'm 100% ready for it.

Memories...Like the Corner of My Mind...

I am still in my scrapbooking mode and I really can't believe things that I have saved over the decades. I'm so grateful I did because I have these wonderful memories to fill my scrapbooks with.  This is from my very first appearance on HGTV's The Carol Duvall Show. The photo above is of designated your changing room.  You usually shared it with a couple of guests.

This was from my producer, Holly, regarding my very first appearance.  I was doing two segments: a business interview and making a polymer clay sock monkey. You would get this in a mail packet from your producer along with instructions on where the hotel was and directions to the studio.  Holly is still a dear friend to me after all these years and she was the best producer.

This is the "pitch" to the HGTV Network.  It was a synopsis of the segments.  I managed to keep a few of these from some of my segments.

I also was able to get my hands of some of the scripts from my segments.  I wish I had the scripts from all of my segments.  This was for Carol and the staff.  The guests didn't use scripts.  I always felt like I was showing Carol how to make whatever it was at the time and I blocked everything else out like the 50 people watching everything I was doing.  If I had stopped to really think about that, I would have been a nervous wreck.  But Carol made me forget everything that was going on around us.  She is amazing and she taught me so much.

Back to reality and today our postman shoved this box into our mailbox to the point I could not get it out.  I took this picture from our front porch.  And yes, we have a lot of snow although half of it has already melted but don't worry there is more coming tonight, Friday and again on Monday.

Rocketman to the rescue!  I let him know ahead of time that I had a box stuck in the mailbox and he tried from the car to get the box out to no avail.  He pulled the car forward, got out and was able to rip the box out of our mailbox. 

This is what the box looked like when we got it inside. I've just been so frustrated with our postal carriers.  We had a great one for probably 10 years until they changed the routes.  It's been bad for a few years now.  We were getting our mail anywhere from 5 pm to 7 pm and let me tell you, it's not fun going out at night in the winter to get the mail.

 

Then a few months ago, the mail started coming at 11 am.  Hallelujah!!!  It was wonderful!  But alas, it wasn't meant to last.  We are now averaging mail delivery after 6pm.  Oh well.

Thankful Thursday!

Leaving it to Trader Joe's to come up with cubed crushed garlic.  If you know me, cooking is challenging to say the least.  I would have garlic stinking up the cupboard until it was rotten and I had to throw it out.

Thanks to Trader Joe's, I always have garlic ready to pop into my recipes.  I LOVE it!!! Most of my recipes have garlic in them and I always found it a pain to have to peel and mince my own garlic. I miss the days of Korea where they sell garlic pre-peeled and ready to go by the bagful.

Stacked Button Rings

I have soooo many buttons and I thought it was time to do something fun with them and that's where these stacked button rings came from.  They were so much fun to make and so very easy.

Materials needed: buttons in different sizes, an adjustable ring blank and E6000 adhesive.

Instructions:
1. Stack the rings from largest to smallest.  Line them up in order.
2. Put a dab of E6000 on the ring blank and press the largest button, centering as you press onto the ring blank.
3. Continue with the next button until all the buttons are on the ring.
4. Place the ring with the button stack resting on a flat surface and let dry.

If anyone is interested in buying one of the rings, email me at beckymeverden at gmail.com. 

Enjoy!

A Photo Album Warning!

 

The blog has been pretty quiet because I've been obsessed with removing pictures from old photo albums and placing them in acid-free albums.  Back in the 70's and 80's, they came out with these self adhesive photo albums and I had put all my photos I had taken in the 70's and some in the 80's in these types of albums.

It was a huge mistake. When we had our sprinkler system problem and the basement was sprayed with water, it sprayed onto these albums.  As I dried them off and looked inside for the first time in years, I noticed that quite a few of the photos had faded.  I tried to remove a picture from a page and it was glued tight to the page.  Now, they photos had been placed in the album in 1976 but I had thought they were safe.  I  WAS WRONG.

I ordered a bunch of acid-free photo albums and have spent the last two months removing what I could from the self adhesive albums and placing them in the new albums.  It's been a mess.  A lot of the photos I was unable to retrieve or they were too faded to save. 

I also had boxes and boxes of photos still in the envelopes from the developer.  So since I was already deep into this mission, I organized these photos and also placed them in acid-free albums.  I had no idea when I started what a huge job this would be and how much time it would take.

I also divided the pictures into three piles: Rocketman and me, Laura and Luke.  I put the photos into each pile and then put the photos into albums.  I did this to make it easier on the kids when we are gone.  I have albums, marked with their names, and it will make it very easy to divide up the pictures. I've done it for them already.

So if you have any of those old photo albums, please consider switching to a different photo album that doesn't use that adhesive backing.  I don't know how bad it would have been if I had waited a couple more decades to do this.

Now, I think about all the photos on the computer.  We got our first digital camera in 2002 or 2003 and I want prints made out of all those digital photos.  We are talking thousands of photos.  I haven't started that project yet because quite frankly, I am still recovering from this one.  But you may ask, why would you want to do that?  I'm the kind of girl that likes to sit with a big photo album and look and pictures page by page not on a computer screen.  I also think, "what will happen with this digital photos when I'm gone?" I may start this project one year at a time.  Also, I have no idea how much it will cost to have the photos printed by someone.  I also need to find a better place to store all these photos safely too.  Oy!

Thankful Thursday

Today I'm thankful for Rocketman, who has wrapped this "girly" Korean scarf to battle subzero temperatures to snow blow our driveway before work.  When I saw him come in last month with this scarf wrapped around his head after snow blowing our driveway, I laughed as I told him that it was a women's scarf that I had bought when we lived in Korea. 

He said it was the least "girly" scarf in our winter box filled of hats, scarves and gloves. So after he left for work I took the box down from the closet and dumped everything out onto the floor looking for the masculine scarves I just knew were in there.  I found two very thin, masculine dress scarves. They would not have kept the biting wind off of Rocketman's neck.

I immediately ordered some beautiful and soft merino yarn to knit Rocketman a warm and masculine scarf.  So next time we need to snow blow and Rocketman is home, you won't find any pompoms anywhere in sight.  But I'm thankful that until the scarf is done, he doesn't mind wearing pompoms when the need warrants.

Maedeup Monday!

This Maedeup Monday! I'm offering some of the jewelry featured in my maedeup book "Elegant Knotted Jewelry."  I've put several pieces up on Ebay.  The book was written and each piece of jewelry made while we were living in South Korea.  I have so many, many memories of how that book came together and this is your chance to get a little piece of Korea.

 

We went to a Russian restaurant Saturday night for my best friend's Mom's birthday.  It's called Moscow on the Hill in St. Paul and I was a little worried about what kind of food I would find.  I'm not what you call an adventurous eater.  But the minute Rocketman and I walked in the front door, we fell in love with the ambiance and sounds of an accordion playing.

 

We started with the Appetite Tasting Platter which had all sorts of things and flavors I had never tasted before.  It was delicious.  For my entree, I ordered Siberian Pelmeni which was meat dumplings served with sour cream and vinegar.  I didn't pour any vinegar on the dumplings because they were so perfectly delicious without it.  But of course, the sour cream sent the taste over the top.

 

Rocketman ordered Babushka Stew which had melt-in-your-mouth pork and a side of mashed potatoes.  He would have moaned through the entire meal if we were not in public. Dessert was plates of their "White Russian" Tiramisu, Dark Chocolate Mousse and Napoleon. I was in a food induced coma by the end of the night.

 

We were serenaded my the accordion player and with a tip, you could request a song.  The staff even sang Happy Birthday to the birthday girl in Russian and it was such a beautiful song, I want to use it instead of our version.  I don't remember the last time we had such a great time out with dear friends.

It made me miss Korea so much more because that was a regular event over there. 

 

I definitely want to bring my parents to Moscow on the Hill next time they come up to visit.  Rocketman agreed.  Who would have thought I would LOVE Russia food!