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Always Thankful

November 24, 2016 at 8:13 am by Claudia

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Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.

The most important news is that Little Z was discharged yesterday afternoon and is home with his family. He’s weak and exhausted, but he’s home. Thank heavens. His eldest brother arrived from Ohio in the evening, so the entire family is together. I’m sure Little Z is getting lots of cuddles from everyone. We heard from him briefly via the telephone last night. Just a few words, but that was enough for us. We are so grateful that he is recovering, surrounded by love.

Thank you for the prayers and healing thoughts/energy that you sent his way. Thank you.

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Don and I really focus on practicing gratitude every day.

And since we are vegetarians and it’s just the two of us, we decided not to do anything special today. Christmas will be the day for a big holiday dinner.

Low-key is the order for the day. I might even start cleaning out the craft/crap closet in the office.

‘Might’ being the keyword here.

We are thankful our nephew is healing. We are thankful for our family.

(Happy Birthday to my grandmother, who is, I’m sure, cleaning and gardening and painting and baking in Heaven.)

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Happy Thursday,

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Presents and Prayers

November 23, 2016 at 9:19 am by Claudia

I promised you some photos of the snow globe that Don gave me:

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Isn’t it beautiful?

One more present to share with you – my dear friend Linda sent a package, which happened to arrive on my birthday.

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Two beautiful pieces of mini pottery for my collection! I’ve dubbed her the Mini Pottery Whisperer. She has an amazing track record in terms of finding these treasures. I almost never find one around here, but Linda? That’s another story! Thank you so much, Linda! I love them.

And a surprise – I suppose you could call it a present – in the middle of the over-40-year-old plant I brought home from my parents’ home in Florida. You remember the Mother-in-law’s tongue? This is what I discovered yesterday:

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Do these plants flower? It sure looks like it. Hey, Mom and Dad, your plant seems to like it here!

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And now for something quite serious. I would like to ask your prayers for my nephew, Little Z.

Yesterday morning, while Mere was at work, my brother-in-law went in Z’s bedroom to get him up and found him in the middle of a massive seizure. J (my BIL) did everything right, clearing his passageway, pounding him on the back to make sure he wasn’t choking, giving him CPR. He called 911 and ran outside with Z to meet the ambulance.

They were transported to the local hospital. Meredith met them there. Z was still having seizures. They did an MRI, a cat scan, took x-rays and then contacted the neurosurgery department at All Children’s Hospital. When transport became available they transferred him there. (This is the hospital he went to last year when I was down there visiting, if you remember.)

He was on oxygen for a while, but that has been removed. He was given meds, which left him out of it for much of the day, and was admitted to the hospital. Meredith spent the night with him and neither of them got much sleep. The doctors want to keep an eye on him, see how he adjusts to the seizure meds, and at the moment, he’s hooked up to an EEG. He hasn’t had another seizure since he was transferred to the second hospital.

Little Z has cerebral palsy. He had a seizure when he was born, so there has always been the possibility that he could have another, but, as far as we know, this is the first one he’s had. And it was massive.

My brother-in-law was a hero yesterday. Thank God he was there.

We stayed by the phone all day, waiting for details, praying for our beloved Little Z. He’s been through so much, this little one who almost didn’t make it into this life.

Meredith’s middle son arrived home from college yesterday evening – he went right to the hospital. Her oldest will arrive home today. The whole family will be there with Z. And my BIL’s sisters are there, as well.

I asked Mere if I should write about this and her response was: “We need all the prayers we can get.”

So, I’m asking you to please pray for Meredith’s son and hold him in your hearts. I’ll update you tomorrow.

Happy Wednesday.

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Post-Birthday-Post

November 22, 2016 at 9:16 am by Claudia

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Sunrise this morning.

Lovely, lovely day yesterday.

Aside from getting something from the IRS in the mail which indicated we owed a huge chunk of money, even though I had sent in our tax payment in early November, which led to me panicking, running upstairs to the office and then remaining on hold for 45 minutes until I could speak to someone. I was hoping against hope there was a simple explanation; that our payment hadn’t been processed yet when the letter was printed and that the discrepancy in the amount due was just an additional late fee.

Whew. That’s exactly what it was. We owe a mere $21.00. Major sigh of relief.

As all this happened right before we were due to leave for dinner, I wanted to get it out of the way so I could relax!

Don took me to a local restaurant that I knew of but hadn’t been to yet. It’s called the Gunk Haus. Gunk is a word used freely around here, a shorthand for the local mountain range, the Shawangunk Mountains. Gunk Haus opened a few years back and they have a great menu which includes some vegetarian and vegan dishes, along with their meat entrees.

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(Photos will be dark as everything celebratory happened after the sun went down.)

Here’s my adorable husband.

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And me.

The food was delicious and we’ll definitely be going back. It’s in an old house/barn, which has been beautifully restored.

We came back to the house and Don made me go upstairs while he ‘arranged’ everything:

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The cake. Don’t you love the sentiment? It was made and decorated by a local bakery. It’s a flourless chocolate cake that is unbelievably swoon-worthy. Oh. My. Heavens.

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The maestro with his birthday extravaganza.

I made a wish, blew out the candles and we gathered up the presents and retired to the den.

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A box of caramels, some Crabtree and Evelyn hand cream and some foot balm (all set for winter!) I also received some earrings in a pretty leaf shape – as Don kept saying, “I know you love plants” – and the most beautiful snow globe I’ve ever seen (photos tomorrow). Neither of us is normally into snow globes but this one is incredibly well made and very striking. The scene is a large cardinal surrounded by snow. Don said it reminded him of winter life around our cottage. It’s really beautiful.

The large package you see there? When Don asked me what I wanted, I mentioned a certain something and he came through:

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Another Wallace Nutting. This one is much larger than my other Nutting. It’s called “Apple Pool.” Don told me he spent a long time at the antique emporium, looking at one, than another, but he kept coming back to this one. It’s gorgeous.

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A closer look.

On the back:

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We’ve decided that as we gather more of these beauties, we’ll hang them on the wall in the office/studio. Dad’s painting has moved to the upstairs hallway and it looks great there.

A piece of cake – oh lordy! – and a little boy named Z singing Happy Birthday to me on the phone. A perfect day.

Thank you for all the birthday wishes! You are so wonderful, all of you!

More tomorrow.

Happy Tuesday.

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Always Thankful

Presents and Prayers

Post-Birthday-Post

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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