"Knee"d No More Excuses

On Thursday the 15th I had surgery on my left knee.  I could have picked a better day.  The day before both Cormac and Rex had fevers and were just out of sorts.  That night the twins were sick with fevers and up most of the night.  Both Darren and I were exhausted that morning, but lucky for me my check in wasn't until 9:45.  My friend Karla and her kids came to babysit for us.  What a blessing it was to have them come watch sick kids and not even bat an eye.

The nurse who was preparing me for the surgery had a paramedic student put my IV in.  The first time didn't work.  The second time didn't work.  The third time it finally took.  I have to admit I was a bit panicky at this point.  I had been dealing with the emotions that were bound to come with having surgery in the same hospital again.  This was one of the triggers that brought those emotions to the surface.  The nurse had said something about how they tried to stay away from putting the IV higher than my hand or wrist area so that if I needed blood they would have access to the good areas.  Trigger...trigger!!!!  Then she asked me if I could be pregnant.  No, I can't be, hysterectomy. Ok, then I didn't need to give a urine sample.

After that they moved me to the "staging" area.  The nurse in this area was different so she had to ask some of the same questions.  She was asking if I had given a urine sample yet.  No. Did you do something permanent like tubes tied or hysterectomy. Yes. Half of a trigger.  This is when I met the doctor and he explained a little about what he was going to do to my knee.  The plan was to clean up the cartilage and cut a ligament that pulled one way. This is suppose to help it from being "pulled out" of place.  He did say that with my hypermobile issues this could end up making it worse and I would have to have another surgery.  Regardless, this is the first step. 

The surgery itself was fairly straightforward and short.  I had two stages of recovery and I did fine through both of them.  No nausea or problems from the surgery.  When they were ready to discharge me I got dressed by myself and put on my own socks and shoes.  That was a big accomplishment.

 Here is my knee all wrapped up.

 This is with the wrap off.

 Seriously - two holes.  Wow, all this discomfort for two holes.  

I have a brace on all the time.  I stopped taking the pain pills almost 24 hours ago.  My knee is sore, but it isn't terribly uncomfortable yet.  It does feel very loose.  I'm not sure what it is actually doing though.  Thankful for the brace right now.

 This is what my amazing sister-in-law sent me.  I can say that because I know it was Maria's idea and not John's.  I'm not saying John wouldn't have thought of it, he just wouldn't have ever acted on the thought.  It sure made my day better.

The first one I opened - yes...life is good.

Visitors for Brunch

 Kitty had visitors for Sunday brunch.

 Meet Larry, the minnow.

 Spot, the perch.

 Spot and Kitty spent some quality time sharing the same tank space.

 The look in his eye says it all...

who does that fish think he is?

 Larry, on the other fin, was more than happy to give Kitty his space.

 Poor Spot just never got the message.

Here I thought they were being cozy - but no,

Spot had got sucked into the filter intake and was stuck.

Spot didn't last long before he kicked the bucket.  Kitty was having none of that dead fish for brunch though.  We went to church and while we were gone Kitty decided to have Larry for a mid-afternoon snack.  It was quite entertaining watching the kids freak out about putting that poor perch in the tank with Kitty.  "Can't we set up the other tank for the perch, Dad?"  "I don't know anyone who has a pet catfish and a pet perch."  I guess all visitors will overstay their welcome at some point.

Communion of Saints Wall

 I updated our Communion of Saints wall recently.

I had taken down all the holy cards and pictures when the new windows were installed.  Silly me stacked them on top of each other so when I went to put them back up the tape took the layer of holy card with it.  Faces, hands, clothes - missing.  Holy cards - ruined.

I got smart this time and laminated EVERYTHING!  I picked out fewer holy cards so I could have more room for the Church Suffering and the Church Militant.

 Our tour begins with Darren and I surrounded by our parents and, in my case, grandparents.

 There are three different colors of hearts on the wall.  The lighter pink is our family and Godparents who are not related to us.  The brighter pink is my side of the family while the more coral(?) colored pink is Darren's side of the family.  The picture above shows Blase, Stephen, and Cormac's names as well as Darren's siblings and families.

 This is Rex and Brech's part of the wall.  The "Baby" hearts you see are those families who are expecting this year.  We will put up new hearts with the baby's name on it after they are born.  I think I will have to replace all my family's names at that point because I am out of that color of heart.  I'm ok with doing that because this time I'm going to be smart and buy a truckload of the same color.  Below Brech's name you can see my siblings who are either not married or are too young to be married.  Since we will not be having anymore children they won't be honored to be Godparents for us.  That does break my heart a bit, but there are plenty of babies coming in the family yet and there will be more than enough opportunities for Godparenthood then.

This is the girls' corner.  I'm not sure if you noticed, but the Godfather and/or husband is always on top.  I did that on purpose as a way of showing respect to their role as main provider of their family or that Godchild.  I do believe that the Godfather's role is comparable to the father's role in a family.  The Godmother is more so the heart of the two for sure.

Did you notice the squares on all of the kids' names?  Those would be the names of the priest which baptized them.  The kids are always asking who baptized them so I found this to be an easy way for them to remember who that priest was and also remember to pray for them.  The only person who is on the board twice is our good friend, Fr. Corey Litzner.  He baptized Gianna for us and then we asked him to be Kiara's Godfather.  The only person on the board THREE times is Darren's former parish priest when he was growing up and the priest who was in residence in my hometown.  (Since our family attended the TLM in Rapid City, we didn't have him for our priest.)  His name is Fr. Arni Kari.  He baptized Rex for us when he was born and then we asked him to baptize Brigid and Kiara for us.  It was a great honor to have him baptize the twins.  Fr. Kari was amazingly helpful to our family when Mark died.  He said some of the most helpful and healing things for many of us.  To have yet another connection with him will always be a treasure in my heart. 

 

 That concludes our tour of the Church Militant (at least those of us on the wall).  For those of you who do not know who the Church Militant are - they are those of us still alive and working our way to heaven.  The Church Militant can help the Church Suffering and be helped by both the Church Suffering and the Church Triumphant.

The next stop is the Church Triumphant.  

These would be the saints in heaven.  They can help the Church Militant and the Church Suffering, but are in no need of help themselves as they have attained their reward of heaven already.

The Church Triumphant we have on our wall are some of our favorite saints.   These are the ones that mean a lot to us for various reasons, including namesakes, personal favorites, and chosen patrons.

 The final stop is the Church Suffering.

These would be the souls in purgatory awaiting the time until they are clean of venial sin and can enter heaven.  These souls WILL be saints.  They cannot help themselves, but the Church Militant and Church Triumphant can.  I try to stress to my children the value of including them in our prayers on a daily basis.  Who wouldn't want to have a bunch of grateful souls praying for you when they get to heaven?  My dad always included prayers for the most forgotten soul.  I try to still remember to think of and pray for them.

 This is a close up of some of those in the Church Suffering section of our wall.  While I put them in the Church Suffering section does not mean they are there.  It is with hope I put them there and with faith that I know God knows best.   I would love to know for a fact that I can move them up to the Church Triumphant section, but then I don't want to forgot to pray for them in my haste of assuming they are saints.  Better to pray for them and them not needing it than to assume they don't need it and wishing I had prayed. 

Off to the side of the Church Suffering is our short list of priests.  How did I choose which ones to put on the wall?  Well, if I had a card of their ordination or if I recalled their name from having them as our priests in the past - then I put them on the wall.  Some are there because they are my favorite priests, like Fr. Kenneth Dean, SSPX, or because they are considered special friends to us, like Fr. Michael Irwin, FSSP or Fr. Michael Driscoll, or because they are in need of prayers due to their current assignment, like Archbishop Alexander Sample (who is one of our favorite people too!).  If I had more room I would put every priest I have ever known on there.  There are so many and they are all in need of prayer.  We recall their names every day in our Prayer for Priests we say during our morning prayers.  The young man's picture at the bottom is the son of my kids' former swimming teacher from Michigan.  He was studying to be a priest and my boys thought that was the neatest thing.  I cut out his picture from the diocesan newspaper before we moved so we could remember to pray for him.  I need to add another name to our list - Mr. Ben Rivard, son of Gianna's Godparents and our dear friends.  He will be going to the seminary soon.  I have considered adding a special prayer for all the seminarians during our morning prayer time.  I am thinking this is the push I need to do it.  God bless all our priests, seminarians, brothers, and sisters who help us in so many ways!

If You Give a Mom an Afternoon

 The Fire Hazard Formerly Known as "The Christmas Tree"

When the Christmas tree becomes a fire hazard you have to take the decorations off. 

When you take the decorations off a tree you have to put them away.

 When you put Christmas decorations away you might need to organize the boxes, 

label them, and put them in some nicely arranged order.

When you organize boxes in the corner you might feel compelled to organize a shelf or two.

 When you organize one or two shelves you might look over and see the other shelves are not in order so you proceed to box all the plastic plates, silverware, and cups in boxes and label them as well as all the napkins and tablecloths.

If you organize the plasticware in the house you might decide to organize the food as well.  

This happens to work out in your favor as your husband requests a Sam's Club shopping list.

This comes after a morning of this - as posted on my Facebook page this morning:

I'm not sure if I should call this a victory or a typical distraction in my life. I walked downstairs to get a Pepsi (slap if you want!). I heard the dryer going so I made a quick detour to see if the clothes were dry. They were so I moved clothes around and wanted to start another load. I'm down to two loads left in the whole house at this point - want. it. finished. So I decided to wash the boys' clothes so I didn't have to walk upstairs. I remembered that Blase needed to try on size 16 pants to see if he needs the slims or the regulars. I called him to do that then started to load the washer. Then I decided I should probably put away his size 14's so that he has room for the 16's. That led to going through all his drawers and putting away the summer or too small things. I found some items that would fit Stephen at this point. SOO, I stopped by Stephen's room to go through his clothes. That led to going through his junk drawer that is actually suppose to be his pjs/socks/underwear drawer. Then I found some things that should be in Cormac's drawers. That led to going through all of Cormac's drawers, including his treasure/junk drawer. By this point we have thrown away a few things, organized 8 drawers, and put away the treasures in the proper places. Then the dryer and washer were almost through their cycles. Prior to coming downstairs I had put some leftovers in the microwave. So I finally grabbed my can of Pepsi and went up here to eat lunch. So was that a victory? Or a distraction with benefit of accomplishment?

It is just a day for distractions with accomplishments I suppose!

Checklist

Last night I made this list so I wouldn't forget anything.  

The cell phone is missing from the list - so I forgot the cell phone.

The kids were obviously an afterthought, but I didn't forget them.

We pulled out of the driveway at 9:11 AM.  Not bad for us.  In fact we were early enough I could give the boys the "you will behave yourself or else" pep talk/threat.

It was a great meeting.  It was a beautiful morning.

Everyone's a Comedian

Stephen needed a bit of encouragement to motivate him in school.  I wrote down all the subjects he was caught up in to show him that he was indeed doing well in those subjects.  He is behind in math and in science.  I told him he could use the sticky notes to show what subjects has finished for the day.  I peeked at his wall this morning and found this.  "cause trouble"  "cause more trouble" "cause even more trouble" Everyone's a comedian!  I am sure he will have no trouble causing trouble.

UPDATE: I found out that it was Blase who wrote the sticky notes.  He purposely tried to make it look like Stephen's handwriting.  Stinker!  What a good laugh Stephen had when he looked up and saw them.  Funny, funny kids!

Downton Abbey

Last night I spent some of the best hours of the week with some new"ish" friends watching Downton Abbey.  We had, as my husband put it, a girl night.  There was wine and hot tea, scones with fresh berry sauce and freshly whipped cream, and homemade chocolate.  Anna was our baker with the mostest for the night.  Anna's cousin did some amazing hairstyles on some of us.  I gave a few foot massages.  Mary gave neck massages.  It was very much a "girl" night.  We had such a great time.  I can't wait until next Sunday evening.  In fact, is it Sunday yet???

I have to say that I am the "old woman" of the group.  My husband asked if this meant I was going to be a good influence on them.  I honestly answered that those lovely ladies probably think so, but I know differently.  They will be the good influence.  I will probably be the black sheep trying to get everyone in trouble.  I'm good at that.

This is my second group of amazing ladies here in Fargo.  They keep this treatment up and I might never move away.  What blessings God has given us these last few years!!