Happy Labor Day to all the U.S. witches! And Happy September to everyone! I love fall and look forward to cooler weather…eventually as it’s going to be 100+ all week here. However the rabid pumpkin spice love in fall is something I don’t really get. I mean, pumpkin is okay but it’s not chocolate people, okay? Let’s not get confused, Chocolate Rules All The Seasons! 

No grandbaby yet as I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon She’s taking her time, planning for just the right moment to make her debut. I’m happy to wait, but I’m not sure her parents are as patient as her Grandma, LOL.

Otherwise, it’s been a decent weekend. Friday, we saw my primary doctor. He was very pleased with my progress and gave Wizard and me an extra level of confidence. I am getting rest, but also moving as much as I can and he was fine with that. That helped Wizard to relax a bit more and let me do things if I feel up to it. While Wizard has been great, I recognize that in a lot of ways, this has been harder on him.

Saturday we did stuff around the house, then went over Youngest’s house because Turbo and his family were going over there to swim. It gave us a chance to see him as it’s been a long time. We enjoyed that then came home. I can’t swim until I’m cleared by my surgeon and Wizard is tired, so it worked out well. OH!! guys, I forgot to say, my oldest son and daughter-in-law had gifts for us from Italy. Long story but the gifts ended up at Youngest’s house, so we were able to retrieve them. One item is some olive oil that smells amazing — better than any olive oil I’ve ever had in the states! I can’t wait to try it! And some balsamic too, which is also cool!

Sunday, we went to breakfast. The restaurant was having a bad day, but it was nice to get out. Then after lunch, I decided to do some errands as I’m just starting to drive comfortably now. I picked up some fresh made sourdough since I’m not up to making it myself yet (but soon!). The sourdough is to dip in the olive oil and balsamic Then I ran by Trader Joes. ‘There I got some regular and dairy free parmesan cheese to make a gluten free pasta dish with the olive oil, my fresh basil leaves and the parm because it sounds yummy. And I bought a bunch of random stuff because that place has a spell over me. I asked the very nice girl at the checkout if she could pack the bags super light and she was happy to do it. I normally hate asking stuff like that, but she made it easy and I so appreciated it. She offered to me help out to the car, but she did such a great job of packing the bags light, I didn’t need it.

This week is another week of light duty for me, but hopefully on Friday, I’ll get clearance to do more.

How was your weekend?

Hi All! First up, I’m good and recovering well. The whole thing was pretty easy (for surgery!) for me. We got up at three, and were at the center by five am. I was in surgery by a little after seven, and there were, thankfully, no complications. She did grab a few lymph nodes while in there strictly as a precaution to make sure there’s no spread, but overall, everything looks good.

They kept me overnight as expected. The interesting thing is that because the center is brand new, they aren’t set up with patient rooms, so they kept me in recovery. I have never had such care in my life! I had two amazing nurses, and I am grateful to them both. Normally staying in recovery that long would be miserable, but for the first night after surgery, I actually felt safe and comfortable. I’ve had minimal pain, which apparently is unusual, but for stuff like this I sometimes have a high pain tolerance. However paper cuts and mosquito bites me me whine incessantly, LOL. I have some pain, mostly in the left side where I guess she dissected the lymph nodes in the afternoon and evening but it’s easily controlled and much less than I had expected. Overall, I think I’m healing as I should and my only complaint is an occasional cough. It feels like a lot of drainage and irritated throat which is all normal after having a breathing tube but we’re watching it. Each day I’m doing more, but I need to be careful until my fallow up on September 6th. I have internal stitches in a few places, and external steri-strips. It’s a small incision but we definitely don’t want it opening up. I’m not great at remembering to be careful and not lift things, however, Wizard is excellent at reminding me And I’m glad he does. Sometimes I’m just doing what I always do without thinking, so it’s a good thing to have a watcher

Guys, when the kids were young, youngest would just pop up in the weirdest places. Like I’d close the refrigerator door and he’d be standing there. Middle could do that too, but youngest did it more often. The kid can move quiet as smoke when he wants too. So I’m resting in recovery after I’ve sent Wizard home and I think I’m listening to a conversation in the next bay. Then I hear, “Mom are you awake?” I opened my eyes and Youngest is sitting all comfortable in the chair. He said he’d been there ten minutes. He said he thought I was asleep for a bit then I moved in a way that told him I’d come awake. He’s probably right, but I’d have sworn I was awake. The whole thing was such a throwback to when he’d catch me by surprised as a kid. By the way, he didn’t startle me into jumping. I knew he was on his way, I just didn’t realized I’d dozed off and he’d arrived. Plus drugs — I was pretty much just going with things.

And then, I kid you not, he did it AGAIN later that night. He came back and sat there until I woke. A couple days later he said he’d only been gone an hour when he and his wife got something to eat, but I wasn’t tracking time and thought hours and hours had gone by. I believe him. Anyhow, I found it funny. His wife also came and I loved seeing her. She helped me with some stuff which was great. Oh and they were only letting one visitor in at a time because I was in recovery not a patient room, and they were monitoring me for calcium levels and other things. So in my memory it seemed like everyone was a separate visitor even if they came together — if that makes sense. And Oldest came by, it was great to see him and catchup on everything Turbo is doing. I enjoyed talking to them all. His wife had a mild virus so didn’t want to get anyone sick. Middle called, but I did not expect him to come to the hospital.

Then yesterday Middle and his wife came to the house. Umm…she’s 39 weeks pregnant! And they drove an hour or more away from the house and hospital! She assured me it was fine, she wasn’t having contractions. She looked amazing and the baby was moving all over, so she was right. But still!!! Middle looks great too, and very happy. Oh and this daughter in law had offered to bring Wizard food while I was in surgery. I love that. Wizard said no (we didn’t want her in the facility where she could pick up a virus), but it meant a lot to him that she would do that for him. While I was in surgery, Wizard did as I asked and left to go eat. They had his cell phone, so it was fine.

Anyway, all is going well. It’s probably all been a lot harder on Wizard. I hope to keep healing quickly.

Now I’d love to hear how all of you have been.  I may or may not answer right away, but I will read it. If I don’t show up here Wednesday, I definitely plan to be back on Friday.

Let’s hope I don’t screw up posting this blog like I did on Friday when I put in the wrong date

So we had a good weekend. Lunch on Friday with my sister was awesome, and I got my chocolate cake! That was exactly what I wanted, it was so good. I brought what I couldn’t eat home for Wizard, so he was happy too. I really enjoyed a day out with Biker Witch.

The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, we just did normal things. Youngest stopped by on Saturday, and Maggie lost her mind with joy. Then after about 10 minutes, she went to bed in another room. She’s fickle like that, LOL.

I talked to middle son, and they are now playing the waiting game. Their daughter is due in two weeks, and who knows when she’ll arrive. The joy of hearing how excited he is — it’s everything to me. It makes me smile all the time. I also video chatted with Turbo to find out how his first week of 1st grade went, and it’s all good. He’s adjusting to a new school quickly and making friends. I’m proud of him! These are such important steps in a child’s life.

Sunday we’d made plans to meet friends for lunch at a winery, but we cancelled that. I was disappointed, but I wasn’t feeling my best. And…mosquitos! The LUUVVV me. Sigh.  Most of the bites have been mildly annoying to me, and amusing to Wizard to watch how my body overreacts. This last one, however, had a mean streak and bit on my ankle over my bad joint. The swelling is not pretty and makes my ankle stiff. It’s not really painful, but the ankle looks terrible and the swelling makes flexing or bending the joint a little harder. I didn’t think being out in the heat would help that.  So we asked for a raincheck with our friends and they graciously understood.

And a programming note: Assuming nothing changes the date, I’ll have surgery on Wednesday and I don’t plan to be back on the blog until at least Monday, maybe longer. If I feel up to it in that time, I will try to send a quick update, but I can’t promise. Just trust that all went well and I’ll be back as soon as I can.

Now I’d love to hear how your weekend was!

Hi guys, it’s me, Maggie. I have something serious to talk to you about. See, this is my serious face:

So today Wizard left, then he came home. And after that, I heard Wizard and mom talking about me going to a spa vacation next week! In case you don’t know, that’s code for them dropping me off at boarding. I like boarding, but can they really make me go without my express consent? Because I don’t willingly leave my mom. It’s my job to always know where she is, and what she’s doing. I’m, like, really good at my job too.

So what do you guys thing, am I going to boarding (who do they think they’re fooling by saying spa vacation!) next week?

Have a great day with lots of treats and naps!! And if you need some exercise, I suggest chasing lizards! It’s fun and keeps me fit!

It was a pretty quiet weekend for me, which was perfect. I’m writing this Sunday early afternoon, and Wizard is racing. I love having the house to myself (and  Maggie, of course) sometimes. So here’s the roundup:

Friday was the main event with meeting the new doctor. Both Wizard and I really like her, and feel good about our decisions. We have decided to remove the entire thyroid. I won’t get into the gory details of why, but it will likely give me the best outcome. What I really respected about this doctor is she was five steps ahead of me the entire visit — touching on each concern, and recognizing the risks in my personal health history. Since she’s thinking ahead and planning the surgery around the challenges, I no long have to worry as much. It’s a huge relief. We are getting all the authorizations and tests done, and will schedule the surgery soon.

Saturday was some cleaning, and general stuff keeping me busy. Then Youngest called, and after chatting with him a long time, I handed the phone to Wizard so I could feed Maggie dinner. In that time, Wizard somehow volunteered me to make one kind of cookies for youngest, and another kind of his wife. I don’t even know how that happened! But the joke’s on Wizard, I ran to get ingredients today and spent a a chunk of money, LOL!! I mean macadamia nuts aren’t cheap! And as long as I was getting those, I might as well stock up on the nuts I use…and things might have gotten out of hand???? Bwahaha!!! Wizard won’t actually care, but he might whine just for fun.

Sunday, not much. Other than running errands, and making one batch of cookie dough, I got a bit tired. Thanks insomnia! I may or may not have gotten around to cleaning the bathrooms…I don’t know since I’m writing this before I made that decision. I like to mess with your sense of time when you’re reading the blog!

Today I’ll bake some cookies, maybe make the other batter and get a blood test. The order for the blood test is four freaking pages! I’m not at all squeamish about blood tests, but this order is leveling up the game, LOL!! I think it’s just the way UCI writes the order, but still intimidating even for me and I’m in the expert class of getting blood tests.

And we’re kind of on baby watch. The baby isn’t due for another 3 weeks, but babies tend to be born on their own timeline. I had to laugh yesterday, our son called and Wizard answered, “Is she here?”  I cracked up and said, “Real subtle, Grandpa.” He ignored me, of course.

How was your weekend?

Maggie is clinically fine. The vet took a urine sample so that should come in soon just to be sure. Once that comes back fine, she’ll work on adjusting meds. As long as Maggie’s not sick, we’ll figure out the rest. She’s slightly sluggish today from the Rabies shot, but overall tolerated it very well.

Now for the fun part. They took Maggie back for the testing and shot, I could hear a bunch of women exclaiming and I thought, Oh they must have a puppy back there. But then I heard Maggie’s name. It appears she’s gathered a fan club back there, LOLOL! The vet brought her back to me and said they were all talking to her because every time they do, she wags her tail and wiggles in happiness. The vet said she must be a happy girl at home.

Yep, except when she’s in prey drive chasing lizards and totally ignoring my commands. The night before she’d looked at me from the top of the hill in sheer obstinance. That’s rare but she has her moments for sure. So yeah…she was just showing off at the vet’s office, LOLOL!! (Shh, don’t tell her, but I’ve seen them exclaim over other dogs, so Maggie’s probably not as special as she thinks.)

But at least we’re reasonably sure she’s in good shape physically. I don’t really thing we can cure her show-off-itis

How’s your day going?

It’s blazing hot here! Which is pretty normal for this time of year, but I’m hoping the heat doesn’t last all the way through September and into October.  Okay here’s the highlight reel of my weekend:

Friday: My birthday was mostly low key and very nice. Wizard got me Hoka shoes for walking, something I could not bring to buy for myself because they aren’t cheap, so I love them. He also got me some serving dishes I really wanted from Pottery Barn which I LOVE, but again…well you know all know, I’m cheap But I’m so happy to have them. I’m not big on stuff overall, but these dishes make me happy to have in my cupboard ready to use. Then Friday night we met Youngest and Daughter in law for dinner and had a lovely time! They are always fun.

Saturday, it was the shower. It turned out well!! I’m so happy. I loved working with my daughter in law’s mom, it was great to get to know her a bit better that way. And I had fun driving with my sister, my youngest daughter in law and her mom. Biker Witch thought I was trying to kill her with my driving, but HA!!! I got her home alive and unscathed. Seriously, the day went well, and the company on the long drive was made it enjoyable. There are things I thought I could  have done better at the shower, but who cares — the shower was great, the guests happy and the guest of honor very pleased and gracious.

Sunday I got caught up on a few things, then we took our big gift out to our son and daughter-in-law for the baby. It’s the bassinet they wanted and I’m so glad I didn’t take it to the shower now as there were a LOT of gifts. We barely got them packed in the big vehicle we used to transport them home! As a side note: There was some incredibly thoughtful and creative gifts there — I’m in awe of people with that talent! Anyhow, seeing all the baby stuff in their house now made it even more real and exciting. The baby’s room is so cute! My son and daughter-in-law are both doing great. My daughter-in-law is in her last month of pregnancy — and the excellent care she’s taken of herself really shows. And I got to spend quality time with Jett and Hazel — two of my favorite grand pups! They are so loving that I came home covered in dog hair. That’s always a sign of a good day in my world, LOL.

Maggie has a vet appointment this afternoon for her rabies shot and checkup. She’s been doing better this last week, but I’ll bring up my areas of concern. The the rest of the week is pretty easy. Friday is my UCI appointment but I’m pretty set for that too. It’s nice to feel a bit more caught up this week which is a good way to start out the week!

How was your weekend?