life — Page 273

Reality Shot Thursday

September 28, 2011 at 8:02 pm by Claudia

Welcome to the first Reality Shot Thursday!

I think all the gorgeous photos out there in the blogiverse are wonderful. I love seeing them and I’m continually impressed by how beautifully they are staged. That being said, it’s easy to think that bloggers actually live that way every day. And maybe some do. But most of us don’t. We move aside piles of stuff to create a pretty vignette to photograph. So I thought: why not post what I call a Reality Shot once a week? My first Reality Shot was last Thursday and this is the first week of the weekly meme. I’m so glad you’re here.

My shot this week needs some background.

This is the bench in my kitchen. We keep various tools and other essentials inside the bench. I added some cushions with different patterns and textures that tied in with the colors in the kitchen. I used to post some of my photos on Houzz and this one has the most hits, which continually surprises me. Over 270 people have added it to their ideabooks. I just checked and it’s still being added on a daily basis. Go figure.

Here is the way it looks on a normal day (if only we had a mud room!):

Cushions not perfectly aligned
Shoes under the bench
damp, muddy towels used to wipe the dogs’ paws in the wet, rainy weather
a staple gun
the cardboard holder for a saw – we’d lost it and then I found it on the floor under the bench
Scout’s dog leash
more towels under the bench

Also: the photo quality isn’t as good as the first photo – it was a gray day.

That’s real life in our house.

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Billy Rubin and Other Thoughts

July 29, 2011 at 2:14 pm by Claudia

The day before my surgery, I was emailing back and forth with my friend, Elyse. We discussed gallstones and bilirubin counts. One thing lead to another and suddenly Elyse was admonishing “Billy Rubin” and telling him to “go take a hike.” So when I came out of the recovery room and Don handed me this little fellow, there was only one choice for his name. Meet Billy Rubin. He was a source of comfort to me as I battled the fog of anesthesia and pain. He has brown eyebrows just like our beloved dog, Winston.

It has been a tough week. Thank goodness, the pain has lessened, but the first 2 days were very, very hard, indeed. I can only sleep in one position and last night I woke up at 2 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Normally, I would change positions to search for that elusive sleep but I couldn’t. I ended up going back to sleep this morning in one of the living room chairs. An impatient Scout woke me up with a short, sharp bark at noon. My eyes opened on her little outraged face – it was well past breakfast time. She’d had enough with patiently waiting.

This summer has been so strange and un-summerlike. I was away for the first part of the summer, finally got to come back home and promptly became very ill. Two hospitalizations, a procedure and a surgery later, here I sit. I think I’ve mowed the lawn once. I haven’t spent much time outdoors in the garden, though I long to. I feel disconnected to summer and the garden and the lawn and all the things I normally am immersed in this time of year. We’ve had our share of financial stress and have been scraping by. Now I have medical bills to pay – thank goodness we pay for health insurance every month or they would be astronomical. Dad called to say that Mom seemed “to be giving up.” Though I think she’s been doing that for a long time, the fact that he finally said it to me says something. Don started working a new job this week – nothing to do with acting or singing. It’s a big change for him and carries its own stress. My dear friend Brenda has been going through a simply terrible time. We talk on the phone a great deal and my heart breaks for her. All of this is very unsettling, leaving me in a strange state of tired-sad-weak-resigned-worried-angry-exhausted.

My mom’s birthday is Sunday. She will be 84.

I know this feeling will pass, but right now life just seems very hard.

After the Surgery

July 26, 2011 at 9:49 am by Claudia

Just a quick update: I’m home. I’m in a great deal of pain, but I’m home. Yesterday’s surgery was supposed to be at noon but due to unexpectedly long surgeries prior to mine, as well as an emergency that my doctor had to attend to, I didn’t get in the operating room until 2:30. The surgery went well – just 2 laparoscopic (is that a word?) cuts. I was home by 9:00 p.m.

Apparently, gas is pumped into the abdomen during the surgery, so that the doctor can see everything clearly. A nurse told me that some patients complain about pain in their right shoulder afterward. Well, let me tell you, my right shoulder and my side are killing me – the muscle spasms are really painful. If this pain would just go away, I think the abdominal pain would seem like a piece of cake.

Didn’t sleep enough because I couldn’t get comfortable. Don keeps saying, “Just think – your gall bladder’s gone – no more attacks!” I know that fact will hit me later, but right now? I just feel crappy.

Hopefully, you will hear from a less crabby Claudia in a few days.

Reality Shot Thursday

Billy Rubin and Other Thoughts

After the Surgery

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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