For my 38th birthday, my sweet Chucklebutt bought me one of Terri Brush’s soldering workshops.  I have coveted her stuff for quite some time, so I was super stoked to take a class at Melrose Vintage.  Diane and Wendy were super sweet hostesses and Terri was an incredibly patient teacher.  Check out what I made.

I used an old school photo of Mama Puff.

Don’t you just love those pursed lips?!  My Aunt Jeanne gave me the small cameo.  It had been my grandmother’s and she knew that I would put it to good use. 

When I got home from the class, I added the flower pot and fence.  I love all things miniature and though they added a bit of hominess to the house.

One of the coolest techniques I learned in Terri’s class was etching on copper.  It looks super complicated, no?

It was sooo easy!  We stamped various images on the metal and then used ferric chloride to erode the metal around the image.  Lots of fun!  Can you see where I stamped “Je t’aime?”

  Thank you Terri for a great experience!  Thank you Chucklebutt for the opportunity!  Have a good week everyone.

I’m not too sure when it happened, but sometime during the past 10 years, Halloween became my favorite holiday.  I don’t know if it’s the color scheme — I love black and orange — or all the skulls and witches or maybe it’s just all the sweets and treats, but I love Halloween!

Oh yeah, and I love to dress up!

 

I love costumes and wigs and hats and fun false eye lashes.

I also love crazy stockings. 

Luckily for me, my place of work allows me to be as wild as a woman needs to be!  That’s what happens when you teach theatre for youth and are an activity director in a retirement community. 

As a lot of you already know, my family has been through the ringer since the end of September.  Mom had open heart surgery (I promise to blog her story soon) and the whole month of October has been a blur.  Normally Chucklebutt and I would have thrown a big shindig for my residents at Halloween, but there just wasn’t enough time this year.  I did manage to work on a few crafty projects.  I’m addicted to decoupaging Funkins!

I got the idea from the folks at Country Living.

I decided to go black and white chic, but I’m already thinking about what I could do for my Thanksgiving decor.

The first Saturday I was back home in Arizona, I took a class with one of my favorite sculptors — the very talented Jenny Hernandez. 

Skellies!!  Aren’t they precious?

I had such a good time working on these two love birds.

Check out that mustache!  He is so daper.

Hope that everyone has a very Happy Halloween full of lots of treats and a few tricks!

 

In October of 2003, my mother and I went camping at Lake Jocassee in South Carolina.  I had just moved back home in order to save money for graduate school, and we were super excited about exploring the coves with my sweet, little Jon boat.  While the trip was a huge success, we never did get the boat working properly — but that’s another story entirely.  Because of the boating debacle (think no steering in the middle of the lake), we came home a little earlier than planned.

My memory is a bit foggy on the next few details,  but either that night or the following night, we were at the local community theatre preparing for our perspective plays.  I was doing a read-through for Neil Simon’s Rumors, and mom was working downstairs in the costume shop ironing nun costumes — she was the wardrobe mistress for The Sound of Music.

About thirty minutes into the read-through, Stan the costumer comes to me and says, “Nicole I think your mother is having a stroke.”  As you can imagine I was completely flabbergasted and my adrenaline kicked into crisis mode.  When I got downstairs, there was my mother — the quintessential stroke victim — complaining about her arm not working properly.  All she was interested in was ironing those nun habits.  I explained to her quite nicely that she was having a stroke and she needed to get in the damn car!

Fortunately, the hospital was less than five minutes away.  When we entered the emergency room, folks immediately swarmed mom and began to do what they do best.  I have never in all my life seen emergency medicine work so quickly and competently.  It really is almost an art form.

To make a long, traumatic experience short, Mom was given the super duper anti-clotting drug (you must be given it within three hours) and in minutes she went from a stroke victim back to my gregarious, crazy mother.  Within seconds, her hands unfurled, her speech became recognizable and her face no longer palsied.  It is truly a miraculous medication.

Mom was extremely lucky and has no residual side effects from her stroke.  However, shortly thereafter, she discovered she has something called atrial fibrillation.  It is a pesky, irregular heartbeat, and most people either take medication for it or are lucky enough to naturally go back into sinus rhythm.  Mom has not been so lucky.  For the past eight years, she has tried all medications, been jump started more than anyone her cardiologist has ever known and exhausted all other alternatives.  Except one — ablation.  It is a pretty labor intensive procedure where they enter into the heart from the groin and scar the tissue that is all out of whack.  Doctors have been encouraging Mom for years to do this, but she has been wary.  Unfortunately, she has been experiencing a decline in health for the past year and a half and has found that her activities are limited.  She is ready to take that next step and she has got a tremendous amount of folks rooting for her.

Back in June, we (Mom, Buddy, my Aunt Jean, Uncle Peter and myself) all headed to the God forsaken land that is known as Cleveland.  The city was rainy and cold and really quite dreary, but it has an amazing heart hospital — The Cleveland Clinic.

Mom met with the head of the electro physiology department — Dr. Lindsey — and scheduled a date for her ablation surgery.  November 10th.

We just got word this morning, however, that there has been a cancellation and her date has been moved up to September 20th.  It is truly a blessing and we are all rejoicing!

The staff was incredible.  From the doctors, nurses, PA’s, housekeepers — everyone was solicitous, kind and encouraging.  We all feel extremely confident regarding Mom’s care.

This is Nakeyah — one of Mom’s nursing assistance.  She was a doll.  She even gave us her phone number so we could call her when we get back up there.

The hospital itself was gorgeous — original artwork everywhere.  I love this sculptor made entirely of letters.  The pictures at the beginning of this post were taken of a wall made of letters.  Buddy promptly ran his fingers through them and only then did he see the sign that said Do Not Touch.  Doh! 

The hospital itself is like a city within a city.  Complete with bookstores, restaurants, boutiques and gift shops.  The one thing that did shock me was a McDonald’s — in a cardiac hospital!!  I guess it helps business.  Sheesh.

Tours of all the artwork are offered daily.

I spent most of my time with Mom, but it was nice to come down to the lobby and hang out with all the kooky installations.  They even had a gal playing a grand piano for ambiance.

Did I mention that the Cleveland Clinic also has their own police force?

This sculpture is made entirely of felt.

Super Cool!

Once they discharged Mom, we all went to the roof and had a photo shoot.

The roof was a nice place to come up for lunch, read a book or just meditate.

On a completely different note, can you tell that I’ve discovered the nifty processing buttons in Picnik?  My favorites are Holga-ish, Orton-ish and Cross Process (the above effect).  I am hopelessly addicted!
I’ll be sure to keep everyone posted as to Mom’s progress.  We would appreciate all prayers and positive thoughts.  Cheerio!

Where have Chucklebutt and Jiggle Puff been?!  It’s been one wild and wacky summer full of MRSA, Valley Fever, kidney problems and atrial fibrillation.  I can’t believe that September is upon us.  I had such high hopes for the summer of 2011 — where does the time go?  Actually, we are experiencing a pretty intense heat wave (115-118) so I think the summer of 2011 will probably last well into autumn.  We’ve been staying pretty close to home ever since Chucklebutt was diagnosed with Valley Fever.  For those of you who don’t live in the Valley, it’s not nearly as exotic as it sounds.  It’s a fungus that lives in the dirt and effects the lungs.  During the big haboob (God I love that word!) we were outside admiring all the chaos.  Needless to say, that is NOT where one should be during a haboob.  Sure enough, a week later Chuck was diagnosed and has been suffering ever since.  He’s on anti-fungal meds and coughs consistently.  Sometimes I just want to smother him with a pillow.  He’s doing a lot better and the fungus is all but gone.  Alas, he is still having breathing issues and now has a pulminologist.  He’s on more inhalers than my residents and I think he’s developed asthma.  A diagnoses is still up in the air and we should know soon.

Here’s Chucklebutt pre-fungus!  Isn’t he cute?  This was our one trip this summer –  West Clear Creek Wilderness.

 

We drove up to Payson the Saturday before Memorial Day and hiked in Sunday morning.  It was a perfect weekend.

I love the hike in — it’s the hike out that’s a ball buster!

This was our sweet camp site.  There was absolutely no one around.  We saw a few folks hiking out and they were jealous that they weren’t staying the night.  Incidentally, when Chucklebutt and I got married six years ago, we registered primarily for camping supplies.  This trip was the first time we had ever been camping together.

We had such a good time cooking freeze dried food and the best chili EVER!

Doesn’t it look wild?  The one on the right is lasagna and it tastes just like lasagna.  It’s magic I tell you!

The scenery is gorgeous in the canyon.  Unfortunately, the water was ice-cold and took your breath away.  Don’t worry, we still got our swim on. 

Can you tell I have MRSA in this picture?  You know — the nasty staph infection that is immune to most all antibiotics?  Yeah that’s what I thought.  My dermatologist wasn’t too excited about me going camping, but I told him I’d wear some water proof bandages on my neck and it would be alright.  It was. 

This was the path leading to our camp site.  Dr. Livingston I presume?

I took this photo with the timer setting.  It was hilarious trying to run with my pack and get in the picture on time.

Like I said, climbing back out is always a lot more difficult.  We’re smiling on the outside, but crying on the inside.  Super fun!

We encountered these cuties on the drive out.

Mooooooooo!  I love that baby!

As far as the kidney problems, my sweet Scooter turned 13 in August.  She has been getting thinner, and to make a really long story short, her kidneys are not functioning properly.  She’s on a special diet and takes lots of liquid meds.  Tomorrow she is having surgery to insert a “gift tube” into her back so it will be easier to give her fluids.  She is feisty as ever and we are hoping to have her for a few more years.  She is still beating up on the new cat (Mz. Kitty) and is bossy as ever.  That’s what I use as a barometer — is she still willing to swat around the other members of the household.

In regards to atrial fibrillation, Mom has a surgery date of November 10th at the Cleveland Clinic.  It’s been a slow process and Mom has gotten a bit discouraged.  It’s as if we’ve all sort of put things on hold until her surgery.  I’ll be sure to post pics soon of the Cleveland Clinic. If you got heart issues — that’s the place to be.  We all went up in June for her consultation and the facilities are amazing!

Anyhoo, we’re plugging away as I’m sure most folks are.  Hugs and Love!

One of my residents recently turned me on to hibiscus tea.  It’s not really a tea, per se, since it’s made from dried hibiscus flowers, but it is perfect for lazy Sundays.

It’s so good that even Chucklebutt enjoys drinking it.  He stays far away from regular tea and is convinced that by the time I’m 60 I will have a plethora of kidney stones.  I tell him it will be well worth it and to pass the lemon and sugar. 

Regular grocery stores don’t sell the stuff, but it you have a Latino market nearby, you will be able to find it there.  They call it jamaica — pronounced ja-MIKE-uh, not like the country.

That’s what it looks like in the above left teacup.  It’s super easy to make.  Simply fill a medium sized pot with water and bring to a boil.  Once the water starts to boil, turn off the stove and dump a handful of flowers into the water.  Let steep for approximately 10 minutes.  Unlike regular tea, you don’t want to leave the flowers in too long.

Before the mixture cools, I strain out the flowers and sweeten it with honey.  My most recent batch, I got a little carried away with the honey so when I make a glass, I add about 1/3 a cup of cold water to the mixture and stir.

A special thank you to my sweet friend Jan for the super cute pitcher.  She sent it to me a about year ago and I love using it. I love the style and the weight and of course the color — PINK!

You can’t really tell from this photo, but on the stem of our crystal ware is lily of the valley.  These were Chuck’s mother’s and I adore them.  Her sterling and china are also lily of the valley.  I never got a chance to meet her – she passed away before I met Chuck – but I always feel a little closer to her when I use her dinner ware.  Her crystal is perfect for a glass of hibiscus tea!
I hope that everyone had a nice weekend.  Ours was pretty uneventful, but it was nice just hanging out and doing mundane things.  We’re watching the new sci-fi series on TNT — Falling Skies. It’s the pilot, so the verdict is still out.

Thank you baby for the pics!