Thursday, March 25, 2010

WE ARE STILL HERE!

Monday, March 22 – Spring has returned to East Texas. It was a little cold Sunday but we are back to bright sunshine and warmer temperatures.

flowers-3

Marsha spent the day at the hair salon. I mean the ENTIRE day. Boy does she look “HOT”!!!

Tuesday, March 23 – Went to Houston for my first post-surgery check-up. I was hoping to get an early release from wearing this back brace. Instead the doctor said he wants me to wear it for 8 total weeks instead of 6. This is due to the amount of muscle that had to be moved, and the location of the fusion.....darn! Other than that, the doctor was pleased with my progress. He had ordered an electrical bone stimulator to encourage growth but my insurance company is refusing to pay for this device....hmmm? The x-rays looked very good and shows better than a 90% correction of the spinal offset.

Main Street, the location of Texas Orthopedic Hospital, is a beautiful road. As we turn onto the street, there is a mall with water-fall towers. The yard is perfectly manicured.

water-falls-1

water-falls

On the way home, we have to drive down a street that is shared by the Metro. The tracks run along the side of the road.  According to Carrie, who used it to go to the Rodeo….three times, says it is really a fast and economical way to get around the city. This is the first time we saw it, but only for a moment. We never heard it coming, and then it was gone.

metro

metro-1

So, we are looking at May until I am permitted to drive. My next doctor appointment is June 10. We are considering a trip to Red Bay, Alabama between these two dates to have some service work done on the motor home. We have to look at travel time and distance.

While in the Houston area, we did some shopping (I napped in the car....ha ha!). Marsha stopped at Target, Kohl's, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Pet Smarts. None of these stores can be found in Livingston.

Wednesday, March 24 - Back to work cleaning up winter debris at the activity center. We've already cleaned up over 30 leaf bags of trash, just in this area. I think we cleaned up over 10 additional bags around the laundry room. JEESH....this place needs a garden club!

The birds are driving Bella CRAZY!!! We put up two bird feeders. We have to fill them just about every other day. The squirrels are climbing up the pole and dumping the bird feeders. So, Marsha has to spray the post with Pam and they slide right down. We have a window bird feeders also. Birds fly in, and Bella flies up to the window. It is so funny to watch her tail go back and forth at 50 mph. She even tries to catch the birds but jumping at the screen. What a hoot!

bird-2

bella_bird

Thursday, March 25 – Marsha has a friend here, Louise, who makes tons of quilts for her family. She is making what she so fondly calls her Memory Quilt. She explains that it contains squares from all the quilts she has ever made. Louise asked Marsha to help her lay out the squares. They went over to the Activity Center about 9:30 a.m. and Marsha got back about 11:45. How can it take that long to put some squares….whatever those are….on a sheet? I don’t get it. All that matters, is Marsha had a good time and said she learned some more quilting tips from Louise. They are going back sometime next week to look at it again. Glad they know what they are doing because I sure don’t.

The Memory Quilt.

quilt

This is Louise with her quilt.

Louise

Took the motor home out for some exercise today. We drove about ¾ of an hour to get the engine exercised, fluids circulated, slides moved, generator exercised, etc. Everything seemed to run smoothly.

Marsha gave the inside a good cleaning. It's amazing the amount of dust that blows in and settles on things. She dusted and ran the sweeper real good. Of course, she ran the sweeper just two days ago.

The rest of the day was spent doing nothing…..so we had planned. Marsha went in and put on shorts. As she was sitting in the sun, she looked down and saw what looked like…sort of….poison ivy on her leg. On her right arm, it looked like she had gotten bitten by fire ants. Well, off to the Urgent Doc office. Two hours later she returned saying, “The doctor isn’t really sure what I have. Since I don’t itch and nothing burns, she can’t believe it is fire ant bits. The leg stuff doesn’t resemble poison ivy either. So, we are just going to treat you with anything that would be poison. They gave me an injection, just in case. I went to Walmart to pick up a prescription for suave and a Presidion pack.”  So much for the rest of the day.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next time.