Almost healed

Don admiring a beautiful view

Heceta Head Lighthouse near Florence

Yaquina Head Lighthouse near Newport (tallest on Oregon coast)

My shoulder is feeling almost normal. I'm done with physical therapy 3 weeks earlier than expected. I bought some light weights yesterday to continue exercises but the soreness is mostly gone and I'm doing great. I found out yesterday that they cut off part of my collarbone as part of the surgery. That sounds weird but I guess it was necessary. My stomach hasn't felt exactly normal since the surgery and that's a little concerning. It's actually better today (I bought some infant gas relief drops and maybe that's helping). I don't know why the surgery would have messed up my stomach. I'm going to my support group tonight so I'll ask about it. I've felt pretty sick after eating really "safe" stuff and forget about taking a bite of a cookie or bread.

Don wants to get a treadmill so he can start walking consistently. Of course, I would use it too. With the cold and rainy weather and living on a steep hill it's not so easy to just walk out the door and walk everyday. We could drive somewhere but that takes too much motivation so we both think getting a treadmill would be a good alternative. We're going to go look at some today but don't know when we'll buy one - we might wait til we get our tax refund. It'll be Don's birthday present since his birthday is Friday.

We had a fun ward activity last Friday. It was a Mexican Fiesta. It was supposed to have been our ward Christmas Party but it had to be postponed because we had the big snowstorm the week it was originally scheduled. The woman who did all the cooking (and it was delicious) is Japanese so we thought that was kind of funny.

We had an "interesting" week last week. Monday night was Empty Nester's Family Home Evening. There were a lot of people there and we were in the middle of a wonderful, spiritual lesson when the missionaries showed up with an "investigator" they had just picked up in the grocery store. They are so sweet and really meant well but the guy was crazy (sorry, but there's no other way to say it). He was saying all kinds of very weird things and it really disrupted our evening. Then, after we got home, the missionaries called Don and asked if he could take the crazy guy to some social services places around town the next morning. Don never said yes (he never says no) and spent 5 hours taking the guy all over the place. He also made the HUGE mistake of giving the guy our phone number so the rest of the week the guy was calling us all the time wanting Don to do things for him. Basically, he was a user - a friendly, completely crazy user. Finally, on Friday Don spent 6 hours with him taking him places again and packing his stuff to have someone move him to Florence. I was afraid Don would get stuck actually moving him but he did have someone else lined up to do it. We've had a little talk with the missionaries since and advised them to use a little more discretion when getting involved with people. They meant well but I think they've learned a lesson and we certainly have too. We've always been pretty open to doing things for their investigators and having people over to our house, but I think in the future we're going to be more cautious.

Saturday we drove over to the coast and up to Newport (our favorite central coast town). We toured the Yaquina Head lighthouse (the tallest on the Oregon coast). It was quite a climb - I wasn't sure Don would make it but he did and got a button that said "I survived the climb." We had lunch at Mo's (which is a famous seafood restaurant on the coast) and I had slumgullion (clam chowder with shrimp) and a shrimp salad served in an avocado. I could only eat a few bites of each before I was full so I brought the leftovers home. It was all so delicious, though. While we ate we watched the fishing boats come in and watched a woman filet the fish right on the dock - kind of gross but boy, was she fast! I saw some great birds (no new ones, though) but there were some brown pelicans right on the rocks next to the Sea Lion caves and that was unusual. We also saw Surf and Black Scoters, Buffleheads, Red-breasted Merganser, Cormorants, 2 kinds of Grebes and a Kingfisher.

Saturday before last I went to the 2009 Bridal Show at the Lane Events Center with Lily and Joshua to look at all the exhibits. It was so much fun. We got to taste the wedding cakes and caterer's food and see beautiful flowers and displays. Lily's mom went with her the next day and I know they got a lot of good ideas for the wedding. I'm having lunch with Lily's mom, Marilyn, this Thursday so we can discuss a lot of the plans they've been making. It's so exciting! I'm really happy that so many family members are planning to attend the wedding. I can't wait to see everyone. It'll be a wonderful, happy time.

New bedding

I'm excited because I found a wonderful comforter ensemble for a real bargain and if you saw our old bedding you'd know why I'm so happy about getting new stuff. I had bought a cheap down comforter years ago and new duvet cover, shams, bed skirt, pillows, etc. when we moved here. Well, the old comforter has somehow become completely misshapen and bunches up inside the duvet cover. Don has ended up with nothing on his side and it's a total mess to try to make the bed. The duvet cover has torn (it's very soft but not too sturdy) so that's another problem. I've been pricing new comforter sets but when you start adding up the shams, pillows, bed skirt, etc. it gets pretty expensive. So I came across this set on Overstock.com and priced it elsewhere and found out it was quite a bargain. The reviews for it were good so I ordered it. I can't wait to be able to make my bed decently again and for Don to have covers on his side so he doesn't keep pulling mine off me.

I went to the physical therapist yesterday. She pulled and stretched my arm and shoulder and it wasn't too bad. I had taken pain meds before I went and that helped my shoulder but made me very sick to my stomach so I had a pretty bad morning. We had taken the catheter (the block for my shoulder) out the night before so my pain level had definitely increased. I'm trying to take less pain meds but it's hard to balance getting enough pain relief and not making myself sick. I'm not sleeping well since the catheter came out but I'm sure things will improve with time.

I'd hoped I'd be able to have a couple of weeks off from Relief Society but there are a lot of things that have come up that I've had to deal with. My counselors are helping but I still have to be involved.

It's all over

Well, I finally feel well enough to catch up my blog. My shoulder surgery went much better than expected - turns out I didn't have a torn rotator cuff at all so my recovery should go much quicker. I just had the calcium deposits and bone spurs cleaned off and a few other minor repairs made and now, 3 days after surgery I'm feeling pretty good. I have a temporary catheter in my neck which is administering a local block to my shoulder so that's helping with pain control. I also had a shoulder pad that had recirculated ice water running through it - I kept that on for 2 days until the swelling had gone down. I can move my arm and shoulder (with some discomfort) and am up and around. I'll have physical therapy for 6 weeks and I'm assuming after that I should be doing pretty normally. Don's been very helpful, he's waited on me hand and foot and has done everything I asked of him (except maybe making the bed right). I'd been pretty nervous about the surgery and recovery but everything turned out fine so I guess that should be a lesson to me not to worry so much.

My friend, Michelle, brought me a big basket of all kinds of fruit (which I've been devouring) and my friend Sandy brought me tulips and sugared nuts. Another friend is supposed to stop by today too and the missionaries were over a little while ago checking on me. I've had a lot of calls from friends and family asking how I'm doing - it's nice to know so many people are thinking of me. I've appreciated all the well-wishing on Facebook, too.

Anyway, I'm on the mend and should be back to normal soon.

Happy New Year

I've been neglecting my poor blog - but I've had a million things to do before my shoulder surgery next Wednesday. I had to get my Christmas decorations down and the house cleaned and to arrange so many things for Relief Society and type up new schedules for our lessons, conducting, etc. Thank goodness I delegated our 2008 Relief Society History to my secretary - that would have taken many more hours. I had 14 thank you notes to write and I'm still trying to get new Christmas stockings made for Joshua, Jeremy and Lily to match the ones I bought at a craft fair for Don and I. I did some big after Christmas shopping and got all my wrapping paper, Christmas cards and even Relief Society Christmas gifts for next year. Actually, I found some wrapping paper I really liked so I probably got enough to last 6 years. I also found a beautiful red silk top (very dressy) at Ann Taylor Loft for $9.99 - it was regularly $46.00 so that was quite a bargain. And my best friend, Janine, gave me a $50 gift card to Ann Taylor so I ordered online a tweed jacket and pencil skirt that came 2 days ago and are so cute. They're size 4's and the jacket fits perfect but the skirt's a little big. I don't want to send it back, though, so I'll live with it. I can't believe a size 4 can be too big on me. They were both on sale for 75% off. Tomorrow we're having Joshua, Jeremy and Lily over for a big turkey dinner so I need to make a couple of pies today. Saturday night we're having the missionaries to dinner and then going to a baptism with them. These guys are working so hard and have 2 more baptisms lined up this month. They've also been helping a lot with activation.

Joshua, Lily and Jeremy all came over for Christmas Eve. We opened presents (which we've never done on Christmas Eve but may become our new tradition) had our usual hors d'oeuvres (which I made wayyy too much of) and then went out to look at Christmas lights. Joshua and Lily gave me an iHome clock radio docking station for my iPod and some candy.

We had a very quiet but very nice Christmas. It was just Don and I for most of the day, but it gave me time to contemplate the meaning of Christmas and read some Christmas stories. Jeremy came over in the evening and he'd had a nice day so that made mine good. Joshua and Lily tried to come, but they thought our hill was slick and decided not to try to make it up. They ended up coming over the next evening and so did Jeremy so we had a fun time eating pizza and playing games. I didn't take a single picture on Christmas so I have nothing to post. When all the kids were here the day after I meant to take pictures but forgot. I'm going to try to take some of everyone tomorrow.

Heather, Mark, Jennifer and the kids were supposed to come the day after Christmas and stay a few days but the snow in the Siskyou's scared them away - turns out they could have made it but they didn't want to risk it. I don't blame them, but we were sorry not to have them come - we'd really been looking forward to seeing them. Heather is buying her first house. It's in Vallejo just off Columbus Parkway not too far from Benicia. It needs some work but will be really nice when they finish. It was in foreclosure so they got a great deal. It has a pool and spa which we'll enjoy when we go to visit. She assures us that there's lots of room for us to come and stay whenever we want so maybe we'll get down to California to visit more often.

I had my pre-op and anesthesia appointments on Monday (it took 4 hours) and now I'm more scared of this stupid surgery than I was before. I'm not looking forward to them putting a needle and catheter in my neck before they put me out and the recovery sounds like hell but I guess I'll get through it.

Don and I went out to dinner last night at Sweetwaters on the River (a really nice restaurant). We had a table right by the window and the river was beautiful with the light bouncing off of it. I had a wonderful avocado salad (looked really fancy) and a crab chowder (which was delicious but I couldn't finish). Afterward we went to see "Doubt" at the mall across the street. It was very good but Don and I felt the exact opposite about the characters in it - interesting!

Have a Happy New Year everyone. It started out great with the birth of our new little Trevor Noah - Congratulations to his happy family.