Knee News!

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve had knee surgery. Time really flies, doesn’t it? (Whether you’re having fun or not, ha!)

(Photo styling resources are all from Katrina at Pugly Pixel – thanks so much Katrina!)

Since so many of you have asked, I thought I’d share a little about how it’s been going:

• Everything is healing great! Although, it seems like it’s taking forever, ha! J calls me the impatient patient. :)
• When I went for my  3 week checkup, the doc shared the x-rays with me. It’s amazing what he did: he used a saw and a chisel to cut my a piece of my lower leg bone. Then, leaving all of the ligaments and such attached to the bone at one end and the kneecap at the other end, he picked it up and moved it an inch — yah, a whole inch! — to fix the alignment. Then he screwed the chunk of bone in place. Wa!
• I started PT on Wednesday and I’m not going to lie and say it was easy — it was super hard! (I hate to admit it, but I cried when I did my PT homework.)
• I still have to wear a big brace — goes from just above my ankle to mid thigh and it has metal beams that go up the sides. It’s really heavy! Can’t wait to lose this thing, especially when I sleep. I’ve been having nightmares where I feel like I’m caught in a bear trap!
• I have to keep the brace locked when I walk, which makes for a very odd gait! But I get to unhinge it while sitting. The next step will be to unhinge it while walking — can’t wait.
• I don’t have to use the crutches anymore, unless I feel like I need to. Yay!
• And! I was a little rebellious and carefully walked around the bed sans brace. Twice. Knee didn’t hurt! Awesome.
• The best thing? Even though it’s still healing, it hurts less than before the surgery! Yes!

Thanks so much to everyone who has stopped by to visit, sent cards, emailed, and called — it really does mean more than I can say! Don’t know if I could do this without you. I have the cards placed where I can see them when I’m doing my PT homework, along with a prairie print. I concentrate on them when when the pain gets too bad, and think about how much this will be worth it when it’s all healed. Thanks again!

And, it’s finally getting to where I can take photos and craft again! (Can’t tell you how hard it’s been not to take photos!)

Happy hugs,

Well, at least the plane’s not on fire!

That’s my new motto. :)

Want to hear the story? Well, I was heading back to Austin from CHA Chicago — finally! — there were thunderstorms and several flight delays and the plane was 2 hours late for takeoff and it looked like it was going to be more. I was so glad to be sitting there, and looking forward to seeing J soon. We were just taxiing along. I was thinking about everything that happened the past week — it was all a huge blur!

All at once I smelled something like burning matches.

It started getting stronger.

I asked the girl sitting next to me if she smelled anything. She said no at first, then she smelled something too.

Next thing we knew the cabin was filling with smoke!

The flight attendants ran around checking the bathrooms to see if anyone had left a cigarette in there, but nope.

So they asked is to keep calm, leave everything, and exit the plane.

I was in the next to the last row and I thought, “well, I’ll either make it off or I won’t” — I really did feel calm. Especially after a whole bunch of fire trucks roared up. (Go Chicago Fire Department!)

I grabbed my wallet and cell phone and made it off okay.

(Whew.)

They brought busses to take us from the tarmac back to the terminal. Should have snapped a photo of all the planes we held up on the runway but didn’t think of it.

After that it was a whirlwind of waiting for our carry-on luggage to come off the plane, waiting to see if we could get another flight to Austin (we did, a whole new plane!) and waiting some more. (They had to wait 3 hours to move our checked-in luggage to the new plane.)

In the meantime, something truly magical happened: everyone on the flight became good friends. Really close. We all looked out for each other, and helped each other. What could have been something really bad turned into something really good. I’ll never forget meeting the sailor (it was his second plane ride — he was coming home to get married and then he’s off to Japan for four years) and talking with my seatmate about le Tour de France and knees (what are the odds of meeting a fellow female cycling fan who had knee problems?).

And I made it home to J, yay!

So now you know the story behind my new motto. It really made me stop and think.

And so thankful for how everything turned out.

Hugs to all of you, and it sure is good to be back!

Yum.

Hey you guys! Did you have a good weekend? I sure did! It all started on Friday with dinner at Kerbey Lane Cafe — sloppy joels — yep, joels, ha ha — sweet potato fries and crunchy dill pickles. Yum.

(Photos taken with the instagram iPhone app — love this app so much!)

Then Saturday I got a sketchbook at Michael’s — I’m planning to use it for ideas, would you like to see it as I go along? (My other one is full.) After M’s, J and I went to IKEA where I got some new crafty storage — it’s almost put together, yay! Can’t wait to show you.

I didn’t craft as much as I wanted to, but I did make something that I’m going to share tomorrow. Just have to finish writing it up. (Don’t want to spoil the surprise, but let’s just say it involves jewelry and upcycling.)

It was so great seeing your experiments with ISO, aperture, and shutter speed for the Card Photography Series. Got a bunch of questions from you too — keep them coming, I may not always be able to, but love trying to help! I’m almost caught up on answering them all — I tried to stay off the computer yesterday for Memorial Day. (Have the next tutorial planned out, hoping to do it tomorrow eve.)

And that’s not all! I’m almost ready for another Make-It and Mail-It challenge, too!

Did you have a fun weekend? I’d love to hear!

Hugs,

Have a sweet weekend!

Hi you guys! Just a little note to wish you a sweet weekend! Do you have any fun plans? Hope you might have a minute to join me in Make-It + Mail-It Challenge #2 — there’s some — yep, I gotta say it — super *sweet* entries already! The entries really made me smile BIG, and I bet that they’ll make the recipients smile even bigger! (Thanks so much for entering.)

My weekend actually started yesterday with an outing with Libby! We went to Paper Source (mmm, delicious papers are now mine!), Whole Foods HQ (where we saw a Vita-Mix demo and now we both want one), West Elm (where they still had a tea pot that I *had* to have), and a bicycle poster cabaret print show at the Gallery Black Lagoon (got a poster by one of my favorite artists, Bianca Gomez). Had a blast — can’t wait to share photos!

Now I’m off to meet a new stampy friend for cupcakes and coffee at Cupprimo. Yum.

Hugs to all, and Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there!

Hey April, where did you go?

And, why didn’t you bring us any rain?

Humph.

Anyhow, I switched out my calendar to May (can’t believe it’s here). Also turned the page on my Through the Year with Gordon the Fox mini-book by John Porcellino. I love this book so much! I got it at Little Otsu press in San Francisco when I was visiting Mon. (Hi Mon! That was a fun day! And, thanks again for the calendar.)

Then while I was at it I updated my virtual desktops, too. Both of these are by Fossil. You can find the bike and the map in their life style section — lotsa good stuff there. (Love the typewriter and the sketchbook! Gah!)

I also switched up my kitchen window display — will post photos soon.

How about you, did you do anything to welcome May?

And, any of you overflowing with rain out there — the offer still stands to send it my way!