Surgery Update!

Hey guys! My Mom made it through surgery just fine and when they called me at 1:30pm this afternoon, they had checked out of the hospital at Duke and were heading to eat lunch. I could not believe that Mom felt that good, but that was great!!!

The doctor removed the "oil" from her eye that had been put there during the detached retina surgery and he also removed some scar tissue. She has a patch on her eye and that will be removed on Wednesday morning at 8am. She will then see the doctor for a follow-up visit in a week.

I am not sure if she will see immediately after they take her patch off tomorrow or if she will have to regain her vision over time. I am praying for good results!!!

After her visit in the morning, Mom and my sister will come back home. My husband and I were in charge of my Dad. He is real independent, so he did just fine. We took him out to dinner and he loved that.

Thanks so much for all your sweet comments and prayers for my Mom. I know she felt very uplifted today! God is good!

The little boy that I Nanny for turned 4 today, so it was a busy day at his house. I was glad to have that to distract me, since I stayed in town to keep a watch on my Dad.

Here's hoping that you all had a wonderful day!!!

Love & blessings from NC!
Melinda

Mom's Eye Surgery!

Just a quick note to update you on my Mom. Her surgery is Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at Duke University Eye Center. The surgery is scheduled for 11:15am.

My sister is taking her for the surgery and I am staying here to take care of my Dad. Mom is having outpatient surgery, but they will spend the night at a local hotel, since Mom has to be back to see the doctor first thing the next morning.

We are hoping and praying that the doctor will be able to restore some of the vision in my Mom's eye. (For those new to my blog, my Mom lost the vision in her eye after having had cataract surgery last December.)

Thanks to all of you for your concern about my Mom. I appreciate your thoughts and prayers during this time!

I know I am behind on my posts, but I hope to get caught up soon. I have not gotten to post about my trip yet to see my blog friend, Penny. And I want to tell you all about my new carpet.

Take care and have a great week!

Love & blessings,
Melinda

New Carpet!!

Just a quick note as I wait for the installers to come to put in our new carpet today! YEA!!!
We have waited for so long to have the upstairs of our house re-carpeted. I have 4 bedrooms, a hall and my stairway that will be carpeted today.

You would not believe the mess that my house is in! All our personal items, etc. are all boxed up and downstairs. I have made a million trips up and down the stairs cleaning out each room to get ready. I will never get this place back in order!

If you remember, my husband painted 3 of the bedrooms this summer and they look so pretty. We still have to paint the hallway and our bedroom/master bath.

I am so excited to be getting this done, as it has been a long time coming. I am so ready to get my house back in order and have a nice clean, fresh upstairs!!!!

We are switching 3 of the rooms around and my office/sewing room will now be in the biggest bedroom. That is going to be great! I will have room in there for my computer table, my sewing table, a couch, and a chair and ottoman. It will be my private getaway room!!!

The computer has to be unhooked, so I will be offline for a bit. I will see everyone as soon as we are back up and running. Have a delightful weekend and enjoy this beautiful weather.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Update on Mom!!!

Thanks for all the sweet comments and prayers for my Mom today. It was a long, hard day at Duke for her, but she did great and the doctor recommended surgery for her to see if she could get some improvement with her vision.

They don't know how much damage there has been to her eye, but he wants to try the surgery in hopes that he can restore some (but not all) of her vision. When she had her surgery back in January, they put oil in her eye and some of that oil has leaked out and is covering her cornea and causing a cloudy film over her eye. She also has a lot of scar tissue in her eye, that the doctor wants to remove.

After all of this is done, he hopes that she will see better, but he said that she would never have the vision that she had prior to the cataract surgery. He told her that if she did not have the surgery, that her eye would continue to get worse until she was totally blind in that eye. Needless to say, Mom was willing to have the surgery to prevent this, but also hoping to regain some vision. Anything would be better than what she has now.

The great thing is that they have an opening for her surgery a week from Tuesday on September 21st. We were thrilled that she will get to have her surgery so fast. And hopefully will be on the road to recovery real soon.

We really liked the doctor at Duke and feel like he will be the answer to prayer for my Mom. Please continue to keep her in your prayers.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

My Sweet Mom!

Just checking in. I had an extremely busy weekend and I promise to post about my trip on Friday to visit one of my blog friends, but I have not had time to upload my pictures.

I just wanted to let you all know that I will be taking my sweet Mom to the Duke Eye Clinic in Durham, NC on Monday to see if there is anything they can do for her to regain the vision in her eye following cataract surgery last December.

For those of you new to my blog, she had cataract surgery last December and never has been able to see very well out of that eye after that. She did have a detached retina that developed in January, but she had surgery to repair that and she still cannot see.

Her retina specialist here in town referred her to Duke to see if there is anything they can do for her to fix her vision. I pray that there will be something that the doctor can do for her and that she will be able to see again.

Mom is 86 and I so want her remaining years to be the best ever! She can drive during the day light hours, but can't drive at all at night. Plus, she has a hard time doing things with just the vision in her one eye. This has certainly affected her quality of life!

I will keep everyone posted on what we find out and I appreciate all your thoughts and prayers. I hope everyone has a great week!

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Remembering 9-11-01

Remembering 9-11-01

Praying for all those who were killed and their families!

God bless the USA!

Road Trip!!!

Don't you just love these gorgeous hydrangeas? They have nothing to do with fall, but I just love them and I wanted to post their picture again. I love all kinds of flowers for that matter. Flowers make me happy!!!

I love all my blog friends too! You are all a happy part of each and every day to me. I enjoy getting to know each and every one of you via the Internet. I am so excited to be going on Friday to meet another one of my blog friends in real life. We will be having lunch together and then shopping. What fun!!!

I have met 2 blog friends already and this will be the third friend I will have the opportunity to meet. I can't wait! I hope you all have a wonderful day and I will post about my visit real soon.

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Happy Fall Y'all......

Today is a bittersweet day as we say good-bye to summer and hello to fall. I have had an amazing summer with my family and friends, but I do so love fall and am anticipating lots of wonderful things to do in September and October. That is one thing I love about North Carolina... we have 4 beautiful seasons to enjoy!

I love my little pumpkin decoration for the door that I picked up last week. I have it on the back of my front door for all to see as they leave. I enjoy decorating for the different seasons.

This Labor Day weekend I have been busy working around my house. My husband left from work on Friday and headed down to visit our married daughter and spend the weekend with her. He helped her clean out her office and take some stuff to Goodwill. He always enjoys that Father/daughter time with her! He came home on Sunday afternoon and is here today, since he is off work.

I have not left the house since Friday, so I have gotten a lot done here. I am packing up the upstairs bedrooms and moving everything downstairs in anticipation of getting new flooring installed soon. What a job!!! I never knew anyone could accumulate so much stuff! My dining room looks like a flea market!! I am in hopes that when I move the stuff back into the bedrooms, that I can sort through some of this stuff and clean out a bit. In my older age, I am getting to the point where I don't want so much "stuff". I love my collections, but I don't want a lot of other stuff sitting around.

I haven't had a very exciting Labor Day, but it has been productive and I feel good about what I have been able to do. I have enjoyed my time at home by myself. I guess we all enjoy having "me time" every now and then.

My sweet little "Grand-dog" Chi Chi came to visit me on Sunday. Chi Chi is on the left and Adelaide's little dog, Holly is on the right. Aren't they sweet? They love sitting with each other in their beds. They take turns. One minute they are in Holly's pink bed and then another minute they have jumped over into Chi Chi's "mink" bed. They were so excited to see each other.

Lauren, Thomas and a friend of theirs drove up for the afternoon and evening to visit a friend who was here from DC. They all had dinner together at his parent's house and I babysat Chi Chi.
I loved seeing Lauren and Thomas, even if it was just coming and going. I never miss a chance to see my sweet daughter and son-in-law.

As I think back on my summer of 2010, I have many wonderful memories of happy times spent with family and friends. It was a laid back summer with many trips to the mountains and the beach. Adelaide was home with us all summer and that was such a blessing. I always enjoy having her home from college.

We enjoyed going to the beach music festival each week, watching TV together, shopping, eating out, talking and just hanging out. Although the weather was super hot and humid where we live.... thank God for air conditioning. Adelaide and I had a new favorite summer treat, a frozen yogurt shop, that we visited quite frequently. You select your yogurt ( 7 flavors) and then put all the fresh fruit and toppings on it that you want. Yum!!! Oh, the joys of summer.

I now am looking so forward to cool nights, crisp days, wearing sweaters, football games, pumpkin bread, apple pie, the changing leaves, pumpkins, scarecrows, etc. etc. Fall is a glorious time of year and filled with lots of activity. There is the anticipation of Thanksgiving and Christmas right around the corner!

I hope you all have a blessed Labor Day and a wonderful week ahead, enjoying this beautiful fall weather. Good bye summer! See you next year!!!!

Love & blessings,
Melinda

Women's Brunch at Church

Last Saturday, my Mom and sister were in town for the weekend and we attended a Women's Brunch at my Mom's church. We had a wonderful time! This is not the best picture of Mom, but it was the only one I had of us.
There were 100 ladies in attendance! We had brunch and then heard a member of the church speak on her cancer experience.
This is my good friend Nancy who prepared the food. She is an awesome cook! We had homemade scones, 2 kinds of quiche, oven roasted potatoes, cheese grits, French toast w/mixed berry sauce, fresh fruit, juice and coffee. Nancy and her sister love cooking and have even authored their own cookbook. Nancy's sister is the pastry chef at our local country club, so these gals know how to cook!!!
This fresh fruit bowl was delicious!

A view of the buffet table. Don't those scones look good?

Last weekend my Mom came down to see her eye doctor. My Mom, sister and I spent Friday and Saturday "thrifting". We went to almost all the thrift shops in the city where I live and we found some of the best treasures. I collect milk glass and I got a lot of pieces to add to my collection. I was thrilled. I also picked up a lot of other odds and ends. I love to thrift shop! The thrill of the hunt is so much fun. Plus, I love to buy things and then re-do them.

As you can see, we had a wonderful ladies weekend, doing just what we love to do. Eat and shop!!!

Here's hoping you all have a great Labor Day weekend. I am at home by myself this weekend trying to get my upstairs packed up and ready to have new flooring put down. I feel like I am moving, because I am having to pack up all the knick knacks and store them downstairs, so the flooring men will only have to move the furniture. I can't find anything around here now. It will be worth it in the long run, but it has been a lot of hard work. I will be glad to have everything back in order. I am not a neat freak, but I do like some order to my living. This place is a wreck!

My dining room looks like a storage building and my living room is full of new mattresses that I have for 2 of the bedrooms. I would love to have the flooring put in and the rooms put back together by mid October. Because at that point, Thanksgiving and Christmas will be just around the corner. Always something going on when you own a home.

Enjoy your weekend!!!

Love & blessings from NC!
Melinda

Lauren's Pine Tree!

When my oldest daughter, Lauren, was just a little girl (around 3 or 4 years old), our church gave out pine seedlings to the children during children's church. Our youth minister, Mark, encouraged the children to take their little seedling home and plant it. I don't even remember the story that went along with the seedling, but Lauren was fascinated with her little seedling and wanted us to help her plant it.

My Dad suggested planting it at the mountain house, as he felt like it would have a better chance of growing up there in the cool mountain air. He helped Lauren take her seedling from the paper cup that it was in and plant it next to the fence in the back yard of the mountain house.


Lauren will be 27 years old in October and this is what her tree looks like today. You can see how big it is now. Isn't that amazing?
When we were in the mountains this summer I had her stand by "her" tree and I took this picture. The first picture shows how tall the tree is.

I showed the picture to Mark and he couldn't believe that the tree had actually lived. (I'm sure most of them probably were never planted or else they died).

If you have small children or young grandchildren, this would be something fun to do with them and watch it grow over the years. We will always enjoy the memories of planting this tree and Lauren can tell the story to her children one day.