No More Whining

Here are a couple of pictures from a family trip I planned; I just didn't go. C grew up in Canada and knew how to layer the goose so she stayed warm all night. And here is the group of them at the end of Fish Hook Trail.
As for me, I am through with surgery. I have no more pain in my shoulder and my left hand is coming along. They did cut my neck and take out the herniated disk, so I have some neck pain, but less every day. I can't help but think that I should be sewing by the end of the week. My biggest limitation is not lifting. I also received a Kindle for my birthday and am loving it.

Update

Yesterday, the surgery scheduler called me an hour before I was supposed to go to the hospital and said that they had cancelled the surgery. You really shouldn't say that to someone who has not been sleeping and has just spent the morning without water. At any rate, I am re-scheduled for Friday. I did sleep for 8 hours last night and it was much needed. If we do the surgery on Friday it will be 8 weeks from the day I woke and couldn't move my neck.

It is hard to believe that I am still whining about my neck. Between slow doctors and slow insurance, I am finally going to have surgery. I have a herniated disk in my neck that is pinching the nerve that goes down my left shoulder and arm. They are going to remove it and put in a spacer. They took me off steroids to help prepare for the surgery, so I have been, well, not so good.

I do not want to have surgery on my birthday, but after a couple of bad nights, I am hoping they still have room for me on Tuesday. If not then I will go in Thursday morning.

In the mean time, I am sending my family off for a camping trip planned many, many weeks ago. This is just not my summer.

Pot Luck

So we had some friends that invited us to their party. I really thought that Wes would enjoy this, so I decided we would go. And I was right, he did enjoy the adult slip and slide.So why did I feel the need to blog about it? This was a potluck. I felt like I had reached an all time low in pot luck ideas when I decided on Kool Aid... There was a big canister of Tropical Punch Kool Aid in my pantry, so I made 6 quarts of it and put in some Shasta lemon lime soda. Since I really only drink water, I thought it tasted nasty. I did put it in my nice new drink dispenser, with the ice in the bottom, and it looked pretty, and it was cold. To my surprise, there was nothing left over.

I am curious as to what other lame ideas for pot luck you have. I may need one someday.

Patterns

If you sew, I am sure that I don't need to tell you that the cost of patterns is astronomical. So I saw this pattern at Wal*mart and thought it was cute and it was not expensive, so I picked it up to make the goose a dress. I cut this out before my neck was bothering me. I decided to finish it up this week. This pattern was not easy to use, and it will probably go in the D.I. bag. The dress is turned out cute though.
Look at the sleeve on this and it has a zipper.
I'll stick with the big name patterns. I don't know about you, but I check the fliers and when they are on sale, I write it on the calendar. I have to admit, that when I went without l.s. to buy patterns last time, I really missed her. We have a great system. When I gave Wes my list of pattern numbers, he thought I was crazy.

Next I want to make the goose a sun dress, but she is crawling and it is so hard to crawl in a dress. Still thinking.

New Twist

I wanted to share this recipe. It is great for summer.

No Bake Cookies

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

3 Tbs cocoa

1 cube margarine or butter

Cook in 2 quart pan and bring to a boil at medium high heat. Boil for 2 minutes. -----Okay, this can be a tricky part if you have never done it before. If you you don't boil long enough they will be runny and if you boil too long, they will be dry. I use a timer. The other thing that could make a difference is the weight of your pan. If you are using a light weight pan, 1 minute will probably work. If you are going use cast iron, you may need more time.----Back to the cookie,

Take off the heat and add

2 tsp vanilla

3 cups oats

1 cup coconut

1/4 cup peanut butter........I have been using almond butter lately and it taste great. (That is my new twist) Also, I never actually measure this, I just take a tablespoon out of the silverware and dig into the almond butter and get a big lump. You can use up 1/2 cup, it won't hurt anything.

Almost done with the cookie.

Stir all this up.

I just spray a large cookie sheet with Pam and drop cookies on it with my little cookie scoop. You can store them in the refrigerator, but you do not have to keep them in there.

4th of July

Look! We match. That has only happened about 4 times in since she was born.

On the 4th of July, we decided to take a drive and go see l.s. at Redfish lake, where she is working this summer. She had been telling us about a place on the Salmon river they call the 'hot pot'. So we drove out of Stanley, following the Salmon River (which everyone should do at least one time) in search of this local spot.

Let me assure you, it is local, you have to know where to pull over just to see it. Some one has put this pot in the river. The pipe is a natural hot spring. There is a plug in the pot so you can let the water out when you are done and it fills with a combination of cold river water and hot water. Someone was using it when we got there, but they said I could take their picture. Only in Idaho, my Friend.
We also had a picnic at the Stanley Muesum. My crew just had to figure out what this did. Wes was first to inform us that transmission still worked. It did not take them long to figure out that it had cut wood at one time. It reminded me something that H.G. Hall could have come up....Great minds....

Here is our picnic with a view. The food for the picnic was sad. Remember, I am just barely functinal. I went to the store and got their fried chicken (which is good) a cantolope, watermelon, and carrots. When I got home and cut into the the cantolope, it was the same color inside as out. The watermellon was the oppisite as it was almost soupy it was so over ripe. I almost cried, because that was as good as it was going to get. ( I did make cookies, look for the recipe in a post soon to follow)
We also spent some time at the lake. It was a beautiful day and sitting on this dock, soaking up the sun felt good.

We also gave the paddle boards a try. The boys seemed to enjoy them.
l.s. has been practicing and she didn't even fall off, which was a little dissapointing to me.
It was a good day.

A girls gotta do something

I am still struggling with neck pain, but one thing I can do is hand quilt with a small hoop. So I had this little gingerbread quilt on the quilt frame, ready to quilt before I got hurt. So, I had Rich help me take it off the frame and have been working on it. It is going to be my fair entrance this year.So after I finished it, I realized that the hand quilting was a big part of my pain management program. Well, I had my Round Robin project, so I asked my very good quilting buddy, Dixie if she would come and help me get it ready for me to hand quilt. She came over and it was like having sunshine at the table.
She also taught me a new skill. We shall see how I do with practicing it.
Last, but not least, I did finish my other Canadian project (I got the Ginger Bread fabric in Canada too) and it is at the quilters. I will tell you more about it when I get it back and post a picture of it.