Monsters

I was reading Zenmomma's blog, and saw her monster name and Richard and I just had to get our own! We made monster names for everyone here, and had a good time cheering up the family.

Get Your Monster Name

Get Your Monster Name

Sad...

Well, we lost Tim. He underwent surgery to implant the LVAS, and all looked well except he didn't wake after the anesthesia wore off. They did an EEG, and there was no activity. Many different neurological

tests later, they decided that he must have had a stroke either during surgery or immediately after. We got the news on Valentine's Day, and he died on February 15. The funeral is Thursday. My mom's birthday is Friday, she is going to hate her birthday and Valentine's Day from now on, I think. It still doesn't feel real, he was just here putzing around the house!

Tim

Well, we have gotten a reminder that you have to be in charge of your own health, that you cannot rely solely on health care profesionals. Most of us know this, but I guess we forget.

My mom's long-time significant other, soon to be spouse, is pretty sick. His doctor has been blaming his breathing problems on adult-onset athsma, even as it got increasingly more difficult to breathe over the last month. Tim, as well as most of the family, has felt that there must be something more going on, but the doc was sure that it was just a problem with his lungs.

Turns out the problem is his heart. Sometime recently he had a heart attack and didn't realize it, and he has had a worsening case of CHF, that is why he hasn't been able to breathe! Grr! He went to the ER in Ruidoso one night a week or so ago, and they immediately shipped him up to the Heart Institute in Albuquerque. From there, they shipped him to the University of Utah Medical Center where he is awaiting a LVAS heart assist device and hopefully a heart transplant. His heart is too badly damaged for medications to do any good at this point.

My mom is up in Utah with him, and his kids have been taking turns going up there when they can. If all goes well, he will have the surgery to implant the LVAS Monday morning, and then will have to stay in Salt Lake for a while to heal.

Archive Meme

Jenny tagged me with this Archive Meme. I was a little intimidated my it, especially since I really don't have that many posts to choose from! Going back, I really do have more than I thought, so here goes!

1. This link is supposed to be about family. When we went to Wisconsin for my Grandmother's 90th birthday,
it was the first time that I had even met some of my family!

2. Friends. Well, anyone who knows me well knows that I am not good at keeping up with friends. Most of my good friends that I actually keep in touch with are family! I have one friend in town that I see regularly, and most of my other close friends live out of town. So this post will have to be about Richard's friends!

3. A link about myself? Not sure that I have one of those! Well, really at the moment my life is all about the kids in my life, Richard and my neices (and I love that!). There are lots of things that I would love to do, mainly start painting again, but there is always something that needs to be done first. Getting my own house has probably been the biggest step that I have made toward having the time and room to paint again, so I guess this one will have to do...

4. Something that I love, well, my whole blog is about that! Here is one that I hadn't read in a while.

5. The fifth one is supposed to be about anything that I want. Well, one of my favorite things is the familiarity of my life. One example of that is my kitty Ren. Every time anyone heads to the bathroom in my home, Ren is not far behind. In fact she comes tearing in after you, at full speed. If you are sitting down on the toilet, she will rub and crawl all over you, looking for you to pet her. If you don't head straight to the toilet, or after you are done, she goes right to the sink! She just loves water! Crazy kitty!!

Archive Meme Instructions: Go back through your archives and post the links to your five favorite blog posts that you've written. ... but there is a catch: Link 1 must be about family. Link 2 must be about friends. Link 3 must be about yourself, who you are... what you're all about. Link 4 must be about something you love. Link 5 can be anything you choose. I think this is a great way to circulate some of the great older posts everyone had written, return to a few great places in our memories and also learn a little something about ourselves and each other that we may not know. Post your five links and then tag five other people. At least TWO of the people you tag must be *newer acquaintances so that you get to know each other better....and don't forget to read the archive posts and leave comments! Wow, a whole post with lots of writing and no pictures!

I am not going to tag anyone this time, I guess if you read this consider yourself TAGGED!

Dinos Alive!

There is a new exhibit in the old movie theater at our mall. We got a brand new 10 screen theater last year, not too exciting to those who are used to such things, but we are a fairly small city and had a terrible theater up until now. I am so short that at the old theater, even a normal sized person in front of me blocked my view, and Richard has only gotten taller than me this year, he always had a hard time seeing before. Now the seats are angled so that even I can see with someone in front of me.

Anyway, so in the space where the old theater was, there is a temporary dinosaur exhibit that is really cool. There are animatronic dinosaurs, with plants and rocks all around so that they look real. They move and make sounds, and a tour guide will walk you around and tell you about the dinosaurs if you want. I guess the dinosaurs were actually used in the background of the Jurassic Park movies. Cool!

I couldn't get pictures of the animatronic dinosaurs because it was too dark, but there is a play room (oops, an education room :-) Ha Ha) that Richard had a lot of fun in.

Excavating dinosaur bones.

Richard LOVED the giant fabric dinosaur. You could create new species by putting lots of different parts together. He spent more than an hour putting together different parts.

CatDog Dinosaur!

Frogs

We inherited 2 frogs from Richard and Dianna when they moved. The frogs lived in their HUGE pond at the big house, and I am not sure how happy they were in my 2 20 gallon tanks. They had lots of guppies to eat though, and places to hide.
A couple of months ago one of them escaped, I found him in the middle of my dining room, still alive. He died the next day, and I buried him under a bush on the side of the house.
The second one made his escape a few days ago (despite the lids of the tanks being taped down with duct tape!). He also died a day or so after being returned to the tank, but not before he ate BOTH of my new baby plecostomus fishies! I guess he felt that he deserved a last meal better than guppies. Richard and I buried him in the middle of the Frog Band, in the front courtyard. We figured that he would enjoy listening to frog music, while he fertilizes my grass and flowers.

Globetrotters

We went to see the Harlem Globetrotters a couple of weeks ago. Mom's long-time boyfriend has been pretty sick, so I haven't had time to write. I first saw the Globetrotters when I was pregnant with Richard, though I didn't know yet. I took him to see them when he was about 6, and now he is 12. It was a lot of fun, the Globetrotters are always funny.