Parrrrrtaaaay!

When you're young you party on Friday and/or Saturday night. Atleast I think you do. It's been a while for me to really make a comment on party times. What I do know is when you're old, you party on Thursday night..or any other weekday night. The party is usually a "home selling party"...you know, selling things like containers, or things for your house. However, when the items are food and free samples are included, you can find me there! Tastefully Simple is a good product and I do enjoy many items they sell. I especially like/love the almond pound cake! So when invited by our hostess for this event (Shay), I couldn't refuse. My good buddy and partner in crime, Donna (Starkey Hollow) picked me up and off we went. It was a good turnout and I know we all made the perky, too skinny gal who never ate anything she passed around, very happy. This is Shay with D and Me..Shay has 6 children. The youngest are 3yr old twins. She deserves a medal and all the tastefully simple items she can earn for having this party on a school night!
Here are all the other party people. There are rules about a Tastefully Simple soiree...my fav: "Don't yuk my yum". Of course that was after I gagged on the delish looking first sample that I thought was chocolate and it was coffee flavored slushie stuff. I'm not a coffee drinker. I got a dirty look..Donna saved me by drinking the rest of it for me. That's what friends are for!
I like to take shots of the food served..however this doesn't look too inspiring does it? And to think that some people actually bought hundreds of dollars of the stuff! I hadn't had dinner, so it really did taste good. Most of what we sampled were dips with beer bread chunked up. I don't drink and after tonight, I probably shouldn't eat beer either! Hey, I wasn't driving!
I don't know if anyone else had as much fun as Donna and I did. We were too busy laughing, being silly, taking pics of ourselves, and tasting all the food. Which was very good. However, we didn't win a thing, spent too much money (it was also a fund raiser for Relay for Life, so no guilt here)and were called "trouble makers"...Fine thing coming from someone who sells dip for a living! Yah, we're trouble makers for sure! (And proud of it)

She's Such A Kidder

Mother Nature that is. The last 4 days have been lovely...not warm, but sunny and by the afternoon the temps have been in the 40's. A heat wave! Yesterday I headed up the hill toward the Creepy Woods for a nice walk. I stopped to catch my breath at the top of the hill and had to click a pic of the bright sunny day. Ahhhh....
The woods is full of dead fall..trees, like this one, that have cracked and fallen. This beauty was huge! The rest of it is ginormous and I think Jack is sharpening his chainsaw and heading up ASAP!
Coming out of the creepy woods, I took in the beauty of the green grass..the sun starting to get lower in the sky...I believed the weatherman when he said we would be getting only a little rain. Liar.
When I finally got out of work today I was hit in the face by this...SNOW..AGAIN!!!..GO AWAY!!!
Oh goodie...look what I get to brush off.
I was feeling sorry for myself when I was brushing all this white stuff off my car..that is until I heard that my brother who lives in Wisconsin..northern Wisconsin, had temps of 11de. below zero and today they got 16in. of this stuff. So when you're feeling bad..just look around and remember that there's always someone worse off...unless they live in Florida.

Back To The Future

After all the planning, remodeling, jack hammering, and fine tuning was finally done..this room #1 was closed. We moved to the new, big, improved room #3. It will take time to get used to this change. Mostly getting used to calling it room 3! When I came here to work in 1978 this surgical suite was fairly new. I was impressed by the nice size of the rooms. Especially OR #1. It was made for orthopedic surgery even though there wasn't one on staff..yet. The next year we had one ortho Doc and then got another one the year after that. We haven't stopped improving on that service since. It's growing by leaps and bounds. Thanks to us baby boomers who, because of our life style of over eating and not exercising, are wearing out our hips and knees. We do a ton of total joints. We are ranked 5th in Ohio for our joint program. Our infection rate is almost zero. Now we have 2 new modern rooms to keep improving this part of our services. I enjoyed learning in this room. Working with the Docs and having fun too. I don't know who remembers the TV show Mash..The show where Radar goes home and he's looking into the surgery suite while all the action is happening, but he's leaving. Saying goodbye to this room reminds me of this episode. Standing and looking in...knowing life is changing and you are too. Can't go back, only forward. This is just one of the many new changes we will experience this year. All of us are taking deep breaths, hoping we can keep up, move along, and make it a better place for our patients.


You can see the caring and concern the Docs have for our patients. Here's Dr. R, anesthesiologist, keeping a close eye on all the monitors. And also the radio to make sure his fav tunes are being played!
Although this was our largest room, you can see the tons of equipment that it takes to do orthopedics. The wires, the machines, the cords I have personally tripped over and landed knees first on the floor! Yes, it was more than time to expand and upgrade to modern equipment that is off the floor, compacted into special booms, and computerized. But still, I will miss you old room #1. I've learned alot in this room!
It's empty now, but not for long. It will be used as a storage area and eventually it will be remodeled into more space for the recovery room.
Comparing this room...the new room..room #3 to be exact, you can see how large it is. It's really a pleasure to work in there, except I have to say it might be...gulp..almost...gulp...too big?? Shhhhh.. Don't tell anyone I said that. More things will change in the future, in that I'm sure. But how many I'll be around to see, I can't really tell. But memories will be had here. Caring, healing, heart pounding nerves, funny stories and life altering events for patients will continue as they had in old room #1. Wish us luck!

Hellooooo Spring!

It's here! Finally! Spring! I'm not too excited am I? These are the only things blooming right now. I see little green shoots coming from day lilies, hostas and daffadils all over the Pines and I know in a few weeks we'll be enjoying them. I also know snow can come and give us a spring shock, but all in all it's been a great week with warmer temps, sunny days and even though I was bit by a spider outside, it's still means that winter is heading out of town!


Ok, now for the weird and curious..Jack found these bones in the back near the woods...hmmmm...I wonder what was chomping on them..who they belonged to...what they belonged to. Not that I'm creeped out by the fact that something was knawing on big bones in my very yard while I slept. I know my anatomy and it looks like a femur, only it's very short. If you see a gnome with only one leg, let me know OK?
After Thanksgiving we threw our cornstalks, that had been up since October, into a burn pile that will happen here soon. It was fun to see that the critters enjoyed every corn kernal on all those stalks! Hope it made this long, snowy and cold winter just a bit easier for them.
As I was clomping through the Creepy Woods I had to stop and click a pic of this tree that stood out among the bare trees and dead wood. It's white leaves are a pleasant surprise that just stood out and looked so peaceful in this setting.
The stark beauty of winter fading will soon lead to green and lush, but for now I'll be satisfied with this final reminder that nature can always suprise us with it's quiet beauty.

Love Your Bloggers

I received this challenge from the blog, Millie's Mats..and I took it! I did laugh because the challenge is to the first 5 comments and that's all she received, but hey, it's worth the try and you do get something for the effort. This is how it goes...1)the first 5 people who comment on this will receive a handmade gift from me..now I'm not sure what this will be yet, since I'm not the "crafty" type. But I do love to cook..Greek pastries are a fav..but that's something I'll have to decide I guess. 2)you post this challenge too, and hopefully it will catch on. Doing something nice for someone and challenging them to do likewise for someone else is needed in this scary, crazy world more than ever. Hopefully, you will want to join us. Frankly, I'm not too picky and would love to send the first 5 bloggers a gift even if they don't pass it along in this manner..internet style. Maybe just doing something good for your neighbor or friend or family members would be fine with me! Let's have some fun and share a good deed! Now, baklava anyone?

Recipe For a Fun Day

What a difference a day makes! The sun was shining and the air was much warmer..about 45de. Cameron and family were here for the weekend and he and I took a nice walk this morning and then played outside for a bit. It was wonderful to just hang with a 3yr. old and laugh with him. He's saying: "Ok, YaYa, lets hit the road!"
It was a great day to draw with chalk on the driveway...it just felt so good to finally see the sun and feel it too!
Later in the afternoon Cameron asked if I would make a chocolate cake with him. How do you say no to that sweet face? So we assembled all the ingredients and went to work. Although he thought it was just plain fun! When I told Cameron we were going to put flour in next...he thought we had to go outside to pick some! He learned about the difference between the same sounding words.
This is a good time to learn about measuring.
He even cracked the eggs himself and never dropped a shell!
Stir it all up..
Time to bake it..
A little reward for all that hard work..Of course, that brought out Anthony for a quick taste.
Well done Cameron..it's a delish finish!
Nuff said!


I put my blog into book form at the end of the year, so for obvious reasons I don't often do videos..besides it takes forever to load them! But I took a video of the Cam-Man..what a corker! Notice the difference in the weather and the absence of snow from yesterday morning..it melted quick!

Perspective

We woke up to this scene today. Yes, it was very beautiful and I thought I would snap some pics. They didn't turn out great, but they do show the thick, sort of wet snow that hit us again. Our yard is very saturated. If you see spots were there is no snow, that's because it's water. When this melts it will just add more fuel to the flooding. Griping about the weather has become a daily event in my life... Then I saw the tsunami in Japan. I'm sure my mouth was open in shock watching the cars, homes, roads, and most importantly, people being washed away. The destruction, horror, sadness and loss of so many families is very hard to comprehend. Our Church has many Missionaries in Japan. Young men and women and older couples who give 2yrs service without compensation to serve the Lord. I pray for them and their families along with the people of Japan. I pray for our west coast, but am grateful that minimal damage was done and hopefully it will stay that way. Paradigm shifts..perspective if you will. My little inconveniences this past winter are nothing in the whole scheme of things. I am blessed.

Sugar High

Some of my blogging friends are giving up sugar for Lent. Hmmmm....good idea! I can do that! What a great way to observe this time of year...sacrifice for something better..spiritual insight...healthy body. Yes, I'm with you! Then I see this lovely display at break time this morning. Now, to be honest, the cake is my fault. One of my co-workers has a birthday today so I brought the cake. The rest of this is just the devil taking over! I was strong and left it alone and I know tomorrow it will be gone and I doubt we'll have anything there to replace it. So I'm not going to make any more cakes because I think it either spawned all the other junk, or it attracted it in there somehow. Evil brings in evil. Cake brings cookies...cookies bring donuts..you get the picture.

Unusual Fund Raiser

Our Boy Scout troop had a fund raiser today. They've sold many different items to help pay for summer camp...Christmas wreaths, candles, recycled metal..lots of projects over the years. Today they did something different. Aultman Hospital came and did a blood drive at the Church. The troop will get money depending on the number of donors. We had a good turnout. But that can be deceiving...not everyone who comes can give. Some are turned down for physical reasons. Some for traveling out of the country...some because they are big sissies! Ok, just kidding there. I know the boys were thankful for all that gave life giving blood for those in need. Grateful for all that ventured out on a very rainy Saturday. Working in surgery I see many pints given for patients who are very grateful for the gift of blood donation. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. There are many reasons for not donating. But if you can, or never have before, please consider this easy way to help. You never know, it could be you or a family member who will need it.
Jack doesn't like to donate..not that he's afraid, or hates needles or anything like that. His blood just seems to take forever to flow! Not today though. It was fine and he was in and out quickly. He's a good example to our Scout troop. Someone the boys can look up too. Plus he's O pos...a good flavor!
I didn't even flinch.
Drip, Drip, Drip...Actually, more like flow, flow, flow..
Well, that didn't take too long! Hopefully this pint of A pos. will make someone's day a bit better.
I don't hog all the fun. I called Donna (Starkey Hollow) and she came over to spend this rainy afternoon donating for the cause. Thanks good friend! The Boy Scouts thank you too.
After donating my pint of life, I headed over to my fav store..Aldi...and they had pineapple on sale for $1.25...Yummy..also strawberries for 1.45 a pound. That's not only a good buy, that's good eatin'!
MMMMMMMMMMMM....I see fruit salad in my future!

Like a Lamb

Tuesday, the first of March..it came in like a lamb. After the harsh snows, rain, ice and thawing that ended February, it was nice to see the sun. I took a walk up to the creepy woods to check on the creek and see what was going on up there. I saw traces of deer..like these tracks and also deer poop (I didn't photograph that!) that let me know they have been around. I looked up in time to see about 7 white tails go up and the deer took off. They didn't make a sound! One second they were there, and the next, poof! Gone! I couldn't even get a pic in, they were so fast and I never heard any crashing of tree limbs, or thundering on the ground. I must not have been as quiet as they spotted me pretty quickly. I've had a few people ask why it's called the "creepy woods"..sure wish I had a nice scary story to tell. Nothing I like better than ghost stories! But it's not that fun. It started when I was babysitting my Grandkiddos Katie and Taylor. We would take walks up to the woods and around the Pines. One day Katie said, "hey, lets go up to that creepy woods." And that's what we've called it ever since. We've creeped it up on plenty of Halloween haunted trails and ghost story telling time each fall when we've hosted Halloween parties. The Boy Scouts have camped up there a few times and I'm sure they have given it a little creepiness too if it would scare a younger scout! But mostly it's just a quiet, peaceful, pretty place to take an afternoon walk.
When I came into the creepy woods I had to stop and take in all the dead fall..I know the deer didn't do this! No, Mother Nature has a way of clearing out the old and letting the sun in to help the younger trees get mature. It also helps those of us who heat with wood..free fuel! It just looks like a steam roller came through and flattened it all!
Thankfully all the water in our yard didn't flow into the basement..many around town were not so lucky. Driving into work and then on the way home I could see all the people putting wet carpet and padding and funiture on the curb for the trash.
Well, the term "fire and ice" sure fits this pic...we won't be roasting weenies over this spot for a while!
The yard's a bit soggy and it's still cold, but the snow is melting and the temps are going to get a little warmer this weekend. The rain coming tomorrow will make us a little nervous because the ground is very soggy as my boots will testify. But this is almost spring in Ohio and that makes everyone happier.