Saturday December 20 2008

Mailboxes

This was a much quieter day. I worked on getting my new desk drawers filled with the things that should go there. And am well along with getting the studio more organized.

At 11:30 I went down to the clinic to get the picc line flushed. They are only open on Saturday in the morning. They had to call a man to come in. I liked him, and he was very quick with doing it. My friend (who is going through breast cancer - and is a nurse at the clinic) is doing it the other week days, but she's not there on Saturday.

Since the car is in the repair shop, I've been having to drive Joe's truck. I worry about dumping his snowmachine out going up one of the hills - think of that happening!! The truck is VERY high, and to get in anymore I have been using my two step Rubbermaid step stool. I put his lariat around it and pull it up into the cab when I get in, and then let it down again when I get out. So for that reason I'll be glad to get my car back. Boy I used to be able to hop right into the trucks, and it hasn't been that long ago either, but can't do it any more.

It was cold and the wind was blowing. Everyone has been saying how cold it is right now. I can hardly bundle up enough to keep warm when I get out in the wind. The dogs just stay in the house and sleep.

James had Jim Allen come today and he went down in the crawl space and closed up those vents and insulated them. Joe had brought a couple of big rolls of insulation from the ranch. Jim took a look at everything down there and thinks it will be o.k. now. He's coming back to finish something up though. I'm feeling good about all the people who are coming to fix things and they all seem very qualified and sharp about fixing our situations. So guess we are getting a good list of people to call on when things go wrong in the future. This place is sure getting a good shaking down, and I guess all new houses going through this. James got me the builder's phone number and when we get the bills and reports we will have to talk to him. That might be an interesting conversation.

Bonnie called and I asked if they would like to come over and share a pork loin roast with us. She brought vegetable, wonderful whole grain rolls, mashed potatoes and brownies. I added baked onions, fresh apple sauce and the gravy. We had a nice meal and a good time. They brought us a beautiful wastebasket made out of a hollow aspen tree. It is really nice. They had gone up into Irish Canyon and found the tree. They also made one for themselves. I'll take a picture of it ASAP and show you. I had wanted a new wastebasket for beside Joe's chair, but love this one so much I put it by the new desk and I'm sure it's going to stay there. (He's got a fine plastic one anyway.) What a nice addition to our home too. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YET ANOTHER GIFT, BONNIE AND CRAIG. IT'S SUPER DUPER!!

Friday December 19 2008

This is a photo of a fire near Big Sandy Lodge with smoke jumpers parachuting in. I am standing in front of the lodge on the shore of Mud Lake. We fed the firefighters 3 meals a day for over a week and there were lots of them - maybe sixty or eighty.

Guess I better catch up the blog, or you'll be wondering what happened to me. Friday morning Joe woke up at his usual early hour and found that the water in the house was totally frozen up. Figured the best thing to do was call James in GA, and let him go the proper route to getting someone here. He called the seller's realtor and said to get someone up here in an hour or we’d get our own plumber. A nice man from Bridger Mechanical soon came and went down in the crawl space and checked things out. He had to go to Sand Draw for a while and in a few hours was back with most of what he needed to get our pipes fixed. By that time the water had started running thank goodness and no apparent leaks. He insulated the pipes that were showing and put heat tape on them where they came under the foundation. He thought that was where they had frozen. There are some open vents that are letting the wind and cold come in and those need to be closed and insulated. Hopefully this solution will be good for when it gets to be minus forty. It was only one degree this morning. Apparently there was no permanent damage to the pipes. ..... I’ve had about enough stuff going wrong for sooo long. Probably more stress than anything.

Took the car to the repair place. By evening I called and they said he had put it on the computer and nothing was wrong with it. I talked to the mechanic and he said he did find it was a little hard starting when it was cold and if I wanted he would put in a new fuel filter and some spark plugs, but he couldn't work on it until Monday. I decided to leave it there instead of going to get it and take it back again on Monday. At least it won't be a major bill.

Before the plumber left I had to get the carpet swept where the new desk and file cabinet would set in the living room, and clear enough room for the furniture delivery guys to work in the dining area and studio. Before noon the truck from the furniture store arrived and they brought the desk, a table for the studio TV, and a couple more chairs. They also brought a new table top for the dining table so hopefully now the leaf will work properly. They sure had to lift and yank to get it open and closed and I told them that I wouldn't be able to do that - the table is very heavy. Also way too big for two people to leave the leaf in. Finished the vacuuming, in fact mopped the wood floors 3 times, with Raven still finding mud to track in. I decided to quit mopping for a while.

It was snowing flurries off and on. Joe went out to the ranch to feed the cats so I hoped he wouldn't get into a storm where he can’t see the road. But he did fine. He loaded up his snow machine into the bed of the truck and brought it back so he could continue to go to the ranch when he wants and feed the cats. I went to the clinic at 3 p.m. to get the picc line flushed. I don't have to wait long and they get it done quick. Then went to the grocery store and was in there for about an hour and a half. I felt like I've been overdoing things after just getting this tube in my arm, so am just going to rest for a few days, and get to bed early.

Thursday December 18 2008

Bev's Front Door- Palm Trees are Shivering

Finished! Aren't they Cute?

Almost Done - notice t-shirt

Clay and Bottom of Snowman
Notice the lawn is still greeN.
We haven't seen green here for 4 months.

Front Door Again

They are having snow in Las Vegas. Beverly had about 5" on her lawn last night. So that's more than we have here. Clay has been out playing in the snow since it started day before yesterday. Walked home in the snow (he never walks home), has been building snow men with his friends all over the neighborhood, having snowball fights. In one of the pictures he's out in the dark building a snowman in his t-shirt, for heaven's sakes. Anyway I'm putting some pictures of the Las Vegas snow storm of the century. All the roads were closed in and out of town, the airport was closed, you probably heard that on the news. School was closed today although it rained in the night and all the roads cleared off. This will be Clay's first and only snow day off school. Beverly said the mountains are beautiful with the snow on them this morning. They are supposed to get another day or so of this.

It's been sunny and calm here, but still c-o-l-d. Today has seemed pretty quiet, although at about 8 this morning we took my car down to the repair place and left it to be fixed. Hope he does a good job. It's supposed to be done today but haven't heard back from them yet. Bonnie and Craig came over about 10:30. He wanted to straighten out the coat hook he put up a week or so ago, so he did that. It will never come off of there now. Joe had gone for his haircut, but got back before they left. We visited and talked about mountain lion hunting, and hounds and wolves and Jim Baker's place and dams on some of the lakes used for irrigation. Bonnie brought Joe a coconut cream pie - we had some after lunch and it's about 1/2 gone, since Joe had two pieces so far. I had to try a small piece and it is deee-licious. THANK YOU BONNIE AND CRAIG FOR THE WONDERFUL GIFT OF PIE. HUGS TO YOU.

BTW Craig said about the ice and condensation in the attic that natural gas will put out gallons of moisture in a fairly short time and probably that venting the furnace into the attic put enough water in there to make all that ice.

Am slowly getting paperwork done and phone calls made and post it notes thrown away as things are accomplished. I went to the clinic about 3 p.m. to get the new PICC (correct spelling - don't know what it stands for though - I could google it I guess.) line in my arm flushed with saline and heparin, and the chemo pump taken off. I will go at the same time every day except have to do the flushing etc. by myself on Sundays, so am learning how to do that. Still no pain in the neck/shoulder/back thank goodness. I feel pretty good. I mopped the floor when I got back from the clinic. Somehow Raven is still finding mud to track in although the ground must be frozen and is covered with snow. Maybe we could go get a taco or something to eat out when we go pick up the car. I tried to call them but just got an answering machine.

Looking forward to tomorrow when the last of the new furniture will be delivered

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'Some people no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty -- they merely move it from their faces into their hearts.' - Martin Buxbaum

Wednesday December 17 2008

A couple of the show walls with

some of my artwork from when we

took the Big Piney Show down.

Mine are in the center the top panel

and right center in the lower.

The day has been sunny, cold and calm, about 20 degrees. Hard to believe almost a week until Christmas, and I haven't brought the tree in yet. Maybe tomorrow. Woke up feeling pretty good this morning - i.e. no chest neck shoulder pain this time. What a relief.

After Joe left to go to coffee, the furnace guys knocked on the door to finish up something in the attic. They were only here about 15 minutes. But that is when I woke up - about 9 a.m. or so, I don't even know. ..... I felt like cleaning up the house and did some laundry, since we hadn't been able to do laundry for over a week. And I brushed the skiff of snow off the deck so the dogs would have a drier place to sit. They seem to like their deck. I've mostly sat and got through the backed up email - a good thing!

I got my new driver's license so guess I'm good for another five years! Glad they are optimistic about me.

Joe forgot to get his protime blood test yesterday, so he went down this afternoon. Now it's 4:30 and don't know what I'm going to fix for dinner. Not much else to write about, it's been a pretty quiet day. Bonnie and Gina called to check on me. THANKS YOU GUYS!

Beverly called and told me about the snow they are having and how much fun Clayton is having in it. 5" so far. She thinks they will close the schools tomorrow because they have no snow plows in Las Vegas. And she is a little worried about driving to work in the traffic there.

Tuesday December 16 2008

Not sure I ever showed this painting or not. I've done several similar of this scene of Shadow Lake, our side of the Cirque of the towers, and the continental Divide - Wind River Mtns. It was hanging in the Big Piney Library when we were there taking down the show so I photographed it. It was bought with community members donations through the Friends of the Library and is in their collection. I like it better in real life than in this photo.

We left for Jackson and my chemo treatment about 7:30 this morning. Gina drove her car and came to pick me up and then brought me home. The weather was cold, cloudy in Pinedale and eased up some as we went north. There were some snow flurries here and there along the way. There was fine dusty snow on the road, so every time we met another vehicle it blew up and made the visibility more or less obscure. We had a little bit of every kind of weather. The ice on the Hoback river is closing in, and the water was all kinds of colors - blues, greens, white and almost black in places. As usual they have more snow than we do, perhaps 6 to 8 inches.

Drank the two bottles of barium "stuff" on the way up starting at 8 a.m.. Got up there about 9:30 p.m. It was the beginning of a long day. They gave me the contrast stuff through a needle in my left arm where they had drawn my blood tests. I had three CAT Scans, head/neck/; neck/chest, and abdomen. I am at the therapeutic (very good) level of blood and it only took one stick with the needle and it flowed really well this time, thankfully we are getting the coumadin at the right dose.

After the radiologist doctor checked the Cat scans, they could see that the blood vessels above the port were Occluded - (Occlude: to close up, to jam). Place your hand above your heart as if doing the pledge of allegiance under the collarbone, and that is the area that all the veins(vessels?) are scared. They don't know if they will go back to normal or not, and I don't know what the results of that can be - there was just too much info today to absorb and I didn't ask how serious this is. The abdomen scan of the size of the tumors looks about the same as last time.

Carol said "So this is why you were in such pain". It's been a year now that I've been having this pain and telling them all along - it has gotten worse and longer each session until it was up to 5 or 6 days the last time before it resolved. That has been what was causing all the pain. All the chemo and saline and heperin flushes they put through there couldn't get distributed.

So they didn't use the port today. Carol with help from Judy, put what they call a pick? line into my upper right arm almost under my arm pit. It will function the same way to get the chemo drips in as the port has. But it takes a lot more maintenance. I'll have to go to the clinic here twice a day, except on Sundays I'll do the maintenance myself. In the afternoon I did get the chemo through the pick line. It was a long day, for them too, with all the different procedures going on. I got a huge amount of information and still more to come.

The old port is in my left chest. They will do small surgery in the operating room with anesthesia to take out the old port on Jan. 6/7. On the afternoon of the 6th I'll go up for an appointment with Dr. Meno in Wilson, stay overnight at the hospital's Hitching Post Motel. There might even be some time for seeing the galleries or a little shopping. On the 7th I will have the surgery in the morning and probably get chemo and then home. I understand all that they say is happening, but not sure I get the terminology right so you can understand it.

Gina's son-in-law was getting a hernia operation this afternoon, so she was able to go to their room and visit a little bit. It had to be a long boring day for her, but she did get over to KMart to shop a little too. She also had me come out to see the most amazing "nativity" scene all built up over a graceful large branch, with a Christmas/hospital theme. She has a photo of it on her blog, which like she says doesn't do it justice( click on horseback up on the right. Lot's of little animals and rooms with activities going on. What patience it must have taken to build.

Coming home we had every kind of weather again. We started from Jackson at early dusk and had some light through the canyon and Bondurant. It was just as beautiful a ride home as it was going up. On our side of the Rim there are some cabins in the trees to the west. We saw the most awesome sight of about 6 of the cabins looking exactly like they were on fire, as in flames leaping from the windows, all orange and reflecting orange high into the sky as if onto the smoke. It was quite dark by then. The only other thing it could have been was some kind of phenomena from the weather, with fog and low clouds, but no lights from other homes looked like that, and not all one color, and the six houses were all giving off such an orange flame-like light. We haven't heard yet that it was fire though. The only way it could have been was if it were arson, or maybe something with utilities all at once. There is nothing about fires on pinedaleonline.

From below the rim we were in a blizzard which didn't last too long coming out of it about Daniel Junction where it was plumb clear with the stars shining. Gina brought me home about 6:30. I had baked a dutch apple pie for them - not my best effort. We had cereal for dinner, and soon I went to bed. I just couldn't get comfortable so tried the recliner and watched TV there. I know I was exhausted with all my body had been through, but all I could do was twitch and wriggle around trying to get in a position to sleep. Finally I did go to sleep on the couch, woke up several times feeling o.k., putting dogs in and out and making hot cups of tea. The radiology guy said to be sure to keep hydrated and flush all that nasty stuff out so every time I'd wake up I'd drink a cup of hot tea. I finally fell into a good sleep.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TAKING CARE OF ME TODAY, GINA. I ALWAYS ENJOY GETTING TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU AND VISITING. I LOVE YOU. So..... all in all everything is going along pretty well.

Monday December 15 2008

Wendy, Melita and Ruth at Obo's

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Ruth and Big Piney Librarian Debbie

in The New Gallery Space.

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Can't believe I slept for almost 14 hours, with maybe 3 awake times in the middle of the night. When Joe woke me up to say he was going for coffee at 8:45 I looked at the clock and realized I was supposed to meet Melita and Wanda at the library at 9 a.m. to go to Big Piney and take down the Mixed Media show. Joe said he'd stay home to be here for the repairmen who were coming this morning, and also the washer was being delivered this morning. I thought about staying home, but decided I'd let Joe take care of it all this time. I've been doing almost everything since we started down this road.

So I started getting dressed really fast, but then the furnace repairmen got here. Then one of the faucets in my bathroom wouldn't work. Had to show that to Joe. Then I remembered to show him the place where the rug was wet in my bedroom. Together we figured out that condensation was dripping down out of the furnace duct in the ceiling. Then I realized that the repair men's truck was in the driveway right behind my car. Joe said he would move it but he only went half a car length and said I could get around. I had to insist that he move it back far enough for me to get out. It was 9:20 when I got to the library. Put all Kay's boxes from my car into Melita's and we were off.

It was hard to believe how quickly we got to Big Piney compared to the amount of time it always took from the ranch. We were down there in no time. Charm and Ruth soon arrived too and we had the show down and packed up lickety split. It wasn't even eleven but we decided to go to lunch anyway. Charm was heading down to Evanston to stay with some friends for a couple of days so she hit the road. The other four of us went to the new Obo's which is a quite magnificent quick stop gas station, brand new. It has a huge deli, store and fresh meat. We picked what we wanted from the deli - so much to choose from it was hard to decide. Then we started on home, stopping at Kay's to leave off her artwork, Devan's, and Sandy's. She didn't go this morning because they were working cattle and she was feeding the crew just as we got there.

Melita took us back to our cars and we unloaded our artwork. Then I went out to get my pastel snow scene framed and picked up another painting Ruth had framed. I will photograph it and show you later. After that I stopped at Rocky Mountain Home Center and finally ordered the window shades. The are double cell pleated shades. They said the shades might be ready and could be hung before Christmas, so that will be nice. Also went to the post office to get our mail.

When I got home the furnace and vent pipe were all fixed and working fine now. Gene said that there's a lot of ice and condensation up in the attic, and it probably wasn't going to go away until next spring. Also the exchange washer has been delivered. I am washing a load of laundry tonight. This washer is much noisier than the one that broke. And one reason I liked the first one was how quiet it was. But maybe that was a symptom of it's demise, I don't know. I just hope nothing's wrong with this one.

Been trying to blog yesterday and today all afternoon, and just now getting around to it. I fixed leftovers for dinner, and baked a couple of apple pies. James called from GA and said he had been talking to quite a few people about our furnace and the builder over the weekend. He had a lot of information to share. And said that I should just present the photos, bill, explanation of the situation to the builder. But we're going to wait a few weeks until James gets back to Pinedale.

So another long day. I'm not feeling so tired though after all that sleep last night. Maybe I SHOULD go to bed earlier on a regular basis.

Sunday December 14 2008

Community Choir

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Nativity Scenes

Nativity Scenes

Christmas Tree - There were Several
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Woke up early today and made waffles for breakfast. Started to work in the studio room, and got quite a bit done. I also was busy with other things too. The weather hasn't been as bad as predicted here and we got maybe another couple inches of snow. I swept off the deck again, and it's pretty easy to clear off with dry snow and not too much of it. Joe cleaned off the front porch and sidewalk.

I've been looking forward to this afternoon because Bonnie had invited me several weeks ago to go with her to the Community Choir Concert today. I've never been before. Well the time got away from me AGAIN and I was a little late getting ready, but it worked out fine. We got to the LDS church in time to get a good seat, and as the time neared for the program to start the church filled up with lots of people. The choir was wonderful, singing all different styles of Christmas carols, and sometimes the audience sang along. Afterwards we went into their event center where there were more than 50 nativity scenes set up and some refreshments. It doubles as a basketball court and the nativity scenes were set up along three of the walls - that's how many there were. I never knew there was such a variety - large and tiny, made of many many different materials, all styles and colors. They were so beautiful, and all brought for display by the town residents. Such treasures, I took lots of pictures but you know how I've complained about my camera, it won't take very good pictures indoors in poor light even with a flash. But I was able to make a couple of the photos work. I had a great time and THANK YOU VERY MUCH DEAR BONNIE for inviting me to go along with you. It was a wonderful experience. The cookies weren't bad either.

As soon as we got back home Joe asked if I wanted to go downtown for a sandwich and I said sure. We went to the Bottoms Up and had prime rib french dip sandwiches. I went to bed almost right away about 7 p.m. and slept pretty good except for getting cramps in my legs - maybe up with them four times.

We're still using the electric heaters that Craig and Bonnie brought over and have stayed reasonably warm. Craig described how the heaters work. There are some halogen lights that shine on to something copper inside, then a fan blows out the warm air. So they use a lot less electricity. The weather is very wintry right now. Mostly cloudy with small snowstorms coming through. It got to about -10 here last night, but someone said that it was -27 over on Forty Rod. It might have been lots colder at the ranch too. Both Bev and Deb called today to see if we were staying warm enough, and Betty too. I never did get time to blog today so will catch up tomorrow.

Remember Beverly's tree blew over on the neighbor's house - 7 or 8 men from their church came over at 7 a.m. and cut it all up and stacked it in Brent's yard. He will be making lots of trips to the dump to haul it all away. The neighbor's house wasn't hurt at all ..... so lucky.