Pink Saturday/ Pink Ornaments

For this Pink Saturday, I am sharing some vintage pink ornaments I found in an antique shop in Indiana a couple years ago. I have a pink themed tree, but didn't have the energy to put two trees up this year. If I had, I would have had many pink ornaments to show you!

Aren't these pretty? I love vintage ornaments like these.


This individual ornament is very interesting. It has a big indentation in the front with a pretty design.


Here is the same ornament from behind.


Finally, two more ornaments in pink. The solid color ornament says "Merry Christmas!"



I always love Pink Saturday, and want to thank our hostess Beverly at How Sweet the Sound. Click on the link to be taken to her site where you can find links to all the other Pink Saturday participants!

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas! This ornament may say Happy Holidays, but it really means Merry Christmas to me and to all of you!



This year illness and, to quote my doctor, a "serious" surgery threatened to sap my Christmas joy. I was worried that I would end up having a Grinchy Christmas.


That picture is from the I Can Has Cheeseburger site.

Although we didn't go all out this year, a little bit of the Christmas spirit did manage to grace my home. My wooden Santa was placed out front, and that is all we got done as far as outside decoration. It just wouldn't be the same if my Santa wasn't standing next to my door though!


Inside, I placed only a very few decorations. Here is a prim Santa that I bought years ago either at a Country Peddler or Home and Garden party. He is on top of my pie safe.


Hanging on the door of the pie safe is a snowman pic that I put out every year.


And finally, a cute hand crafted snowman sits atop my display cabinet with my teddy bears.


The task of setting up the Christmas tree fell to my sons this year. There was some grumbling as the tree is really a pain in the butt to put together, but they did it! They added lights and youngest son put the ribbon up. I managed to put a few ornaments on. It isn't the prettiest tree and it's far from perfect, but it's up and decorated, and I'm sure enjoying it! My family room is decorated in blues, reds, and greens and those are the colors of the lights and most of the ornaments.


I've read that every Christmas tree is supposed to have a bird nest!


Here are some of my ornaments.












I almost forgot the angel tree topper. It was hard to get a good pic because the tree is about 7' tall.


A few years back, I made my own Christmas tradition of serving a breakfast casserole. What I love about it is that it is so easy to make, and you prepare it the night before, let it sit covered in the fridge all night, and then simply pop it in the oven the next morning. After presents are opened, you have a nice hot, tasty breakfast.


While I have lost the original recipe, this is how I made it. Spray Pam in the 9"x13" pan, then tear up 6 slices of bread. I include the crust, but you don't have to. Chop 8 ounces of Velveeta into the pan, spreading it about the pan evenly. Do the same with 8 ounces of cubed ham. You can buy this in the store in a nice package if you like things easy like I do. Dot a half stick of butter over the top. In a bowl, add six eggs to 4 cups of milk, mix thoroughly and add a squirt of mustard to the mix. I never add salt or pepper to anything, but most people will want to do this. Pour evenly over the other ingredients. This must sit a minimum of 4 hours, and is even better if you refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for an hour to 75 minutes. And this is what you get!

Oh this tastes so good on Christmas morning! My kids request that I make this every Christmas and they gobble it right down.

First off, presents must be opened. Jared came downstairs wrapped in his blanket. Sean only looks half awake. Jake the dog had to get in on all the fun too.


As I am still not feeling 100%, my youngest brother decided to bring most of Christmas dinner to my house and cook it here! All I provided was a cranberry jello salad. He brought a ham that he was given at work, homemade mashed potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, corn, biscuits, and pumpkin pie. Here he is cooking at my stove. Hey ladies, he is single! I was so blessed by my brother this year!


My kids threatened to boycott chores if I took pics of them at the table. Believe me, it was nothing fancy. Daughter Tara and her fiance were on vacation in Tennessee with her fiance's family members. They were in a cabin near Pigeon Forge and having a great time.

As for me, I had a pretty darn good Christmas after all!



Several people have asked how I am healing. I am doing pretty well. I was able to get out and do some very quick Christmas shopping on Wednesday, and also drove to the grocery store and did grocery shopping with the help of my youngest son. The latter was not my best idea as I was pretty sore. Today I am feeling great with minimal soreness. I only took pain meds the first four days I was home from the hospital. I see the doctor on the 30th, and that's when the staples (26) come out of my belly. It's a good thing I wasn't travelling this Christmas. I would probably have set off metal detectors!

I hope everyone else had a blessed Christmas day filled with family and love!

Icestorm!

Guess what I found outside my window on Friday morning? Ice! Lots of it! I could hear the rain pelting throughout the night, and knew that we would have a mess in the morning. My son was thrilled. School was cancelled meaning that they got an early start on Christmas break!




*Sigh* I remember sitting on that deck and in those lawn chairs just a couple months ago! I think I can take the plant off the hanger now. The geraniums look dead indeed. I can probably bring in the tiki torches too!

My neighbor's poor pine tree doesn't look so good, weighted over with all the ice. My other neighbors directly across the lane were without power for almost two days as branches broke off of their large willow tree, taking down their power lines. Thank goodness they had a generator.


Here is a closeup of my hibiscus bush covered in ice.


There is something magical that happens though when the sun begins to shine! Just look at how my tree glows!


When the sun hits the icy trees, it looks like diamonds all lit up decorating nature. Though I hate the ice, I think this is one of the most beautiful views in nature. I wish I had a better picture because it can be simply breathtaking!


Just to give you an idea of how thick the ice is, take a look at the pic below. This is not my photo. I found it in the local newspaper under the credit name of jeffstac. Beautiful!


It has been bitter cold here with some subzero temps and single digit temps. I am almost glad to have a reason not to go out in weather like this! In the meantime, I am going to enjoy watching the sun turn my trees and riverbank into glistening jewels!

Pink Saturday/ A Pink Birthday Present!

As I was sitting in my hospital room last Sunday, my 50th birthday, I really didn't expect that I would be receiving any presents. Lo and behold, my sons stop by for a visit bearing a small box! Just look at the pretty necklace they got for me!



I am so proud of them! They were listening enough lately to know that I love pink, and even told me, "You can post this for your next Pink Saturday!" Well I am certainly going to oblige them! They are the best. I can even forgive them for the nasty condition I found my house in when I came home.



They wanted me to post a picture of myself wearing the necklace, but hmmmm, where are they at when I need them to take a picture? Sean is off at work and Jared is hanging out at his girlfriend's house.

Besides, having a picture taken would have meant I would have had to actually put on a bra and get dressed. I don't know how the rest of you do it, but I have to fasten the back of my bra in front of me, then twist the bra around until the cups face the front. Ever tried doing this with a 9" scar just under your ribcage? Let me say it was quite a challenge when I was dressing to come home. And gee, then I would have had to put some mascara on and do my hair, and I would still look like shit warmed over.

So anyhow, here is my pretty new necklace draped over the corner of a pillow! I really do love it!

For links to more pink posts, visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Fun with Flickr Toys and LOL Cats

I'm still in the process of recovering. I don't spend a lot of time at the computer because I start getting sore, but I have been able to cut back on the pain meds and feel a little better every day.

Anyhow, I thought I would repost something I had originally posted in July. Not too many people saw this post, but I had so much fun creating it!

I'll be posting something new for Pink Saturday!

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Have you ever heard of LOLcats? If you have the same sense of humor as me, you will find them hilarious! They are funny pictures of cats that have captions, often in broken English or baby talk, as if the cat was talking. You can find out more about the phenomenon of LOLcats in Wikipedia. Thanks to Flickr Toys, you can make your own LOLcats captions to your own photos which I had WAY too much fun with, but first, I thought you'd like to see some examples from the websites themselves. The first two are from the LOLcats site.






The next few are from the I can has cheezburger site. Feeling the funny yet? If not, these will get you there.










When I came across the LOLcat generator on Flickr toys, I knew I was going to have too much fun. I spent the rest of the evening playing with it and adding captions to my pictures. Sorry, no fun places to blog about, no cool projects or pretty things from my house to show today. I wasted my time on juvenile humor and laughing my silly head off. And darn, does it feel good! Ok, be forewarned, a couple of these are a tiny bit rated PG.



First I lolcatted the dog. There is some sense of irony in that.

Then Dino the dinosaur got targeted.

Not even my poor children were safe.

I hope you had as much fun as I did. I laughed and laughed, but then again, I am a card carrying member of The Much Too Easily Amused Club.

You can make badges on Flickr toys too. Again, too much fun.

Hope you had a laugh! It's the best therapy around!

I'm Home!

I'm finally home from the hospital! It was quite an ordeal. As most of you already know, I could not have the laparoscopic sugery because my gall bladder was too infected and the gallstones were just too big. I have an 8-9" incision across my belly, and the doctor said he could still hardly get the damn thing out of me. I also ended up with a drainage tube, but that was removed yesterday. It was all quite painful, and they had me on morphine for the first three days, and now I'm on percocet, and no, it isn't even giving me a head rush so no fun with meds here! That's okay. I didn't want to be feeling high anyhow.

I thought I got pretty good care at the hospital and I personally knew some of the staff there already. One of my childhood best friends was the charge nurse this weekend! I spent my 50th birthday in the hospital, but the hospital sent up a birthday cake for me! It was even one that I as a diabetic could eat as it was angelfood with diet strawberry jello and cool whip on the top. I was quite touched. The nurse said they didn't want to put 50 candles on it though because of fear of setting off the smoke alarm. Heh. Today I got to sit in the shower and boy oh boy, was that ever just the best feeling!

When I got home, the house was a mess. I bawled. Then I realized that I was cold. The furnace had quit working! I bawled and bawled some more. I think the lady at the furnace repair shop took pity on me because someone came out right away, and I have heat again! This is one of those very few times that I wished I had a husband!

Anyhow, it meant so much to me to read all your comments and know that I was in your prayers. My son printed them off for me and brought them to the hospital. I read them over several times and your comments really cheered me up! You don't know how much you all mean to me! I probably won't be able to make many blog visits, but wanted to let you all know that I am home and slowly improving.

See you all later!

As of this time tomorrow, I will hopefully be resting comfortably at the hospital.



I have to be there at 6:45 a.m. for surgery. I am a big surgery weinie, but actually don't feel as scared as I normally would. I am just so ready to get this gall bladder out so I can start feeling well again!

If they can do the laparoscopic surgery, then I will be home the next day and could be back at work in just days! If they have to cut me open, then that makes things more complicated and recovery longer. Chances are very likely I will have the laparascopic kind.

I will ask my sons to post something in the comments section of this post to let everyone know how I did. Whether or not they actually DO it is anyone's guess. After all, these are boys who wear superhero masks for pooping!

Hopefully, I will be able to sit up here Thursday night and post a little. I have a lot to catch up on!

Why I Laugh So Much/ and Hey Helen!

"Wear these while you poop," says oldest son (age 20) to youngest son (age 16)...



..."They'll make you feel like a SUPERHERO!"

And people wonder why I sometimes feel like I live in a crazy house! I laughed so hard I almost peed though.

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I want to give a big shout out to Helen of Living Boldly. She posted the most wonderful poem about gall bladder surgery, but I was unable to leave a comment! If you're reading this, Helen, I wanted to let you know that I did appreciate it so much! Hoever, I can't leave comments with the program you're using! Not sure why.

I had to laugh too because you wondered if I had hit 40 yet. Oh hon, I'll be 50 next week! You're too sweet though!

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Surgery is still a go for Wednesday. I will figure out something as of tomorrow about how to have my sons let everyone know that I am fine! Your prayers have been felt and I feel so much better, but I really do need to get this thing out and hopefully will be able to have the laparscopic surgery so I can recover more quickly! Hugs to all of you wonderful people out there in blogland!