The Blackburn Digest

DH got his stitches out this morning. The incision is healing up nicely, and looks great! I went on a frustrating *quest* today for vacuum cleaner bags. Checked all the likely nearby stores such as Target, Wal-Mart, Linens & Things and Lowes and came home with what I hoped was a compatible compromise. (The compromise was in lieu of the rather long and traffic-choked drive to the not-so-near Sears store.) Surprise - Not! - the only place to buy Kenmore vacuum bags is still a Sears store. Later this evening, DH ordered a new vacuum cleaner on-line! It wasn’t the bag (non)availability issue which spurred the purchase; our Kenmore vacuun is totally RA unfriendly. I can’t wait for the new one - with a longer wand and detachable floor/carpet head - to arrive!

Miss Sara likes the steamer trunk/coffe table! She did many laps around it today, checking out the pound-sound, peek-ability factor, texture, etc. She seemed to notice the greater freedom of movement she has, too - that makes this grandmom feel good! We still keep an eye on her, of course, but now she’s not endangered every time she decides to sit down next to the coffee table or crawl near it! Did I say crawl? She’s rocket-powered, now!!

Now that Grand-Daughter Sara is becoming very mobile, our family room coffee table is becoming very dangerous! It has too many wrought-iron curlicues to crawl into, sit up under or bang little knees on. I know DD doesn’t want us going out and buying a new table, but I really hate having to restrict the little one’s play-and-explore area. She ought to be able to crawl over and see what the adults are doing without one of them whisking her back to her play-mat!

Last night, I had an Ah-Hah moment! We’ve had a huge 49″ high, 30 ” wide, 30″ deep, old-fashioned steamer trunk (the virtually indestructible kind with several drawers on one side and a generously sized hanging rod on the other) for many years. (Think “Joe & The Volcano”, without the pricy leather.) It has held miniature-making supplies, sewing patterns and fabric . . .just about everything. For the past several years, it has been a part of the odd “decor” in our living room, sitting half-open between our dentist & barber chairs. What if I close it up, turn it on its side and move it into place where the wrought-iron menace is now?

Ahhh, a Saturday without a club meeting, a large food shopping or anything else which has to be done! Well, O.K. - - - -yes, there are floors begging for attention from a

Just my own personal opinion. . . .4 AM is not “morning”!  4 AM is one of those unfriendly hours I dislike seeing displayed on the clock when I am having difficulty sleeping, not an hour at which I wish to arise.  However, the travel-planning department of DS’s company seems incapable of recognizing that a 7:30 AM flight requires a 5:30 AM arrival at the airport; they are also (of course) unaware that it takes this chauffeur/mom 30-60 minutes to get alert, flexible and dressed. (Once upon a time - before RA - I could have been up, dressed & gone inside 15 minutes. Alert? Hehe - Not so much!).

No one slept at all well last night, including the cats! DH was under doctor’s orders to avoid sleeping on the pressure bandage/surgical site; orders I knew he would carefully obey when awake. Asleep, however, was a different matter - the incision is on his preferred sleeping side! He was wakeful because he was uncomfortable - I was wakeful because I was trying to keep an eye on him - the cats couldn’t get comfortable because we kept moving around. I think the total sleep time was 1.5 hours for each of us. 

Come morning, the lack of sleep presented no problem. . . . .for the cats! They simply retired to their favorite daytime nests and caught up! Different story for the humans in the house: 7 AM signaled the start of another day. DH took the pressure bandage off; the predicted swelling and bruising around the surgical site was present, but mild. The incision is longer than we expected, but will subside gracefully into one of his “character lines” when it is fully healed.

The clock radio woke us up at 7 AM, and that’s when the day stopped being *normal*. Normal would have been the two of us spending an hour consuming caffeine and reviewing on-line news and new e-mail (probably in our jammies) on separate computers before DH started working and I started. . . .whatever. This morning was much different; following a recent diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma, DH had a 9 AM appointment for a Mohs micrographic surgical procedure, and we were preparing to (possibly) spend the entire day at the surgical center. Books, quarters for vending machines, cell phones, wallets and materials for my newest miniature needlework consignment all found space in my tote.