Category: Lifestyle

I have way more blog post in the last three years titled…..”Post-Op” than I care to admit. Yet, here I find myself again. 15 stitches. Limited motion. Limited activity. Cover when showering. Daily cleaning of the area and wrapping. Physical Therapy suggested hourly to help prevent scar tissue build up and help with mobility. PT appointments. At the end of the day I still work on finding the silver lining in all of it, but this girl is tired. Thursdays surgery removed the permanent sutures put in to repair the ruptured tendon in my thumb on December 1st. My surgeon, along with a second opinion from a colleague, was concerned the sutures could be hanging onto some bacteria, preventing my staph infection from clearing up. While in there, he also removed a significant amount of scar tissue from the December 1st surgery, which is good because it was attached to […]

Hi friends! I hope you all are doing well. I’m hearing of more and more people getting the vaccine and I’m so excited to hear this and to see some signs of us all being able to move forward and get back to doing the things we love and miss doing. I miss restaurants and concerts and a houseful of family and friends the most. We are getting closer, so be patient and keep hope! We’ve moved past those really cold days and are experiencing some beautiful sunny weather here in KC the last few days. Expected sunny and 70 today, my absolute favorite temperature! We spent Saturday night on the deck watching TV with a fire in the fireplace for the first time in several weeks and it was perfect. If you’ve not watched the series Ted Lasso on Apple TV, I could not recommend it more. Sweet, endearing, […]

Congratulations to the three winners! Regina, Diane and Nancy! Winner One! I love nf greek yogurt mixed with cheesecake sf pudding mix. A dab of Cool Whip. Add a few berries or cooked apple or peaches or pumpkin and cinnamon – Regina Winner Two I guess my favorite go-to is an Ole Wellness tortilla, spread with 1 serving of PBFit (2T powder to 1T water), and a chilled banana. I sprinkle a little cinnamon and a dash of granulated Stevia, then roll that baby up and BAM! There you go! On the purple plan it’s only 2 SPs and packs a whoppin’ 13 grams of protein, so it stays with me. For a midafternoon snack to keep me on track, it’s perfect. And yes, I always prefer a chilled banana. Don’t let the brown peeling fool you – those lovelies keep in the fridge for 2-3 days and oh so […]

Who could use a little fun today? You?? I see you. Although these frigid temps are crazy right now, we have power, cozy socks, a lotta coffee and snacks. Snacks are important! Kansas City is doing the rotation of forced power outages. We were only without power for about 30 minutes today. Fingers crossed that’s our only outage. How are you all doing? Hanging in there? Stay strong. Stay safe. If you do have power and groceries, I thought I’d share a few favorites for a cold cold seriously cold day. Julie’s Steak Soup This is hearty and taste even better the next day! Betsy’s Zucchini Soup This could be a vegetarian dish, but I do like to add chicken. Turkey Sweet Potato Chili – How cold are you? You should make this one. White Chicken Chili from What Great Grandma. Found while searching Paleo soups. SOOO Good. Vegetarian Butternut […]

Life feels so messy right now and I don’t like it when life gets messy. I mean, who does? I sat down to write a blog a couple of times over the last two weeks and the words just wouldn’t come. It just seems to be one of those times in life where a lot of things seem to be happening all at once and there are days that it feels like it’s too much and I just wanna walk away, or go to bed, or eat. Instead, I decided to crank up the tunes, dance a lot and paint some rooms! Update on Mom Did you know that we all have crystals in our inner ear? I’m sure many of you did. I did not. They help us sense gravity. I’ve never heard of this before so learning something new! Did you also know that when they become loose […]

Two days after my last post, my phone was ringing at 6:00 am on a Sunday morning. It was my mom. I’ve been waiting for this call. My mom is 78 years old. She’s 4’6″ and weighs 66 pounds. She small but she’s also tough, determined, stubborn and very independent. She is her mother. She’s worked at Target for just over 15 years and she now works two days a week. I’m not sure what life would look like for her without that job as it’s really the only socializing she has. So while she has just this year agreed to working only two days a week, I worry about her getting out and about as her balance isn’t so great and she is frail. The last snow I insisted on going to take and pick her up from work as she parks outside and I couldn’t imagine her scraping […]

That’s my word for 2021. Fearless. For many reasons, I’m approaching several things, small or large, with a fearless attitude. The thumb splint came off Tuesday this week. Yay! I only had to wear it for 6 weeks and I thought it was going to be longer. I mean, the tip of my thumb only bends at a 5° angle but I am told with continued weeks of PT, that will improve. I only have to wear the splint for protection if i’m doing something active, but I can now sleep and shower as a free woman!! As my doctor gave me the okay to remove my splint, he followed that with, “You might wanna wear it if you’re doing something really active like if your grandkids come over.” Three of them were at my house waiting for me to get back from the doctor so I promptly put it […]

I couldn’t think of a better way to spend the first day of the new year than outside with fresh air walking in a beautiful snowfall. I’ve spent this week reflecting on the year, like I’ve done each year for sometime. Thinking about the things that I accomplished. Thinking about the things that I want to accomplish as life moves forward. For the last few years I have started each year with a word for the year. My word for 2020 was “Create”. Who knew that word would became so relevant as most of us spent much of 2020 “Creating”. Creating new ways we would do our jobs, creating new ways of learning, creating new ways we would attend an exercise class, creating new ways to visit family and friends and celebrate special occasions or holidays, even creating new ways to grocery shop! Although 2020 was a challenging year and […]

Hi friends! Happy New Year’s eve! So Santa for real delivered this year and it was so much fun! I felt like a little kid! Before I share Santa though….. I completely forgot to share our Christmas photos with Effie in my last post! This was such a fun photo shoot in October. I mailed out a few Christmas cards this year for the first time in a long time. I hope y’all had a great Christmas! Santa delivered! I’m going to share just a few pics here as Mike and I went out in our red sleigh to deliver our gifts to the grandkids! It was 28° outside so it was a little chilly in the sled but as Mr. and Mrs. Claus, we had a duty to fulfill, bring the spirit of Christmas to the grandkids! Santa kinda looks like a bad ass! Ya think? He’s all mine […]

Hi Friends! Come on in. Were any of you able to see Jupiter and Saturn align Tuesday night? Mike and I headed out shortly after sunset in hopes of seeing the “Star of Bethlehem”. Now if we only would have had more than a cell phone. Still, a nice memory for our unusual year. It looks like it’s just the two of us for Christmas this year and we are slowly and gradually coming to terms with that as I’m sure many of you are celebrating Christmas and the holidays differently this year as well. I’ve spent several days over in Effie enjoying the little holiday cheer that she gives me. So fortunate for the sunny warm December we’ve had here. Even though I suspected we would have no one over, I decided to decorate the house as I usually do. As much as I enjoy sharing our home decorated […]