This popped up on my Crackberry a few minutes ago… says it all.

We’re off to B’ham for quiet little breakfast for two and a day of shopping. Yay!

More later

We  interrupt the radio silence from blogland for this important announcement…

Happy Birthday to the bestestestest Husband EVAR

Tom and his Birthday Ipod touch

His birthday present (the Ipod touch) came a bit early kinda like my Kodak vid cam did for Mom’s day but hey, when you have a hankering for something and it is hard to find it is best to do the grabbin when the grabbin is good as we are heading into Xmas shopping time.

He’s been glued to the thing since he got it, he’s so cute.

Tonight was dinner out at his pick “The Keg” with the boys. Nice evening, but now my breath smells like garlic. Good thing his does too.

I got the boys to be in a photo together and smile. You know how? I told them I would keep taking pictures of them until they did. Hey it works dammit.

Happy Birthday Hon, we love youuuuuuuu!!

Up until now October has meant (along with Halloween) the month to buy pink things. While I’m always open to pink things because seriously, I do have a thing for pink things, it was also the month I had my first screening mammogram. Here in British Columbia the screening mammography program is free to women 40+ and self referring, meaning no doctor visit is necessary to get an appointment you just need to meet the minimum age criteria and a few others. This isn’t for people with suspected breast cancer,  for those… get thee to a doctor right away. No, this is a screening program with the goal of early detection.

I’m 43 sliding towards 44 so I’m a bit late in getting started but I’m glad I made the time and did it. It doesn’t take long (first timers have to fill out a brief form) the whole experience was maybe 20 minutes total. Sure it isn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, I mean mashing your boobies between a couple of panes of glass isn’t my idea of a good time but if it lessens the chances of me having undetected cancer? I am all for the squishing.

There isn’t any history of breast cancer in my family (that I am aware of) but there is plenty of cancer in general though most of it on my Father’s side. My Father died of cancer, my Mom is living with cancer, My Dad’s sister had cancer three times in different locations. I’ve had a few scares in my life already but thankfully everything has turned out to be benign. An old friend of mine lost her Mother to breast cancer two years ago and in her honour did the CIBC run for the cure (which I donated to), cancer research is something I’ve always believed in supporting with my donations.

So ladies make sure you feel your boobies on a regular basis,  if you are of that certain age get your screening mammogram and heck, if you’re like me, buy all the pink things in sight. Be a bra, support your boobs!

Another busy “week off” pshhh whatever happened to vacation from work where I didn’t have THINGS  to do? Ah those were the days!

The first thing we needed to accomplish was the purchase of a new bed for Mum. Her new place (to be) is a studio in an assisted living facility and facts are facts a queen sized bed will not fit in there, even a full-size wouldn’t work if she wanted to have room to wheel around in her chair and fit some other type of seating SO new twin bed.

Sleep Country had a sale on and we found a nice bed with a firm edged mattress which supposedly will help her push off and get in her chair. The sales guy was very helpful telling us they can lower the frame to make it even easier. We liked the guy and talking amongst ourselves quickly agreed that we’d give him our business as well and finally take the leap to replace our old bed. We would be upgrading too, to KING -SIZED  BABY!

We had been spoiled on many of our trips with the extra sleep real estate in a king and we figured we would be more than willing to give up our side tables to get the bigger bed. We can donate them to Mum (as we are with a lot of other stuff for her place to save her money) but would still need a place to put our clocks and the like, so that meant we needed to get ourselves a headboard with some storage space.

We passed the MJM furniture (the place we bought our beloved couch and chair and a half) and saw a wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man and HAD to stop and check it out.

As it turned out they had just the ticket, a bookcase headboard they would be able to customize to king for us. Perfect! The bed for my Mum is delivered on Thursday (so we shall be spending a bit of time over there as there is a three hour delivery window), ours arrives on Friday and the head board arrives Wednesday of next week. So excited for the new bed!

Another bit of shopping we did today. Tom got a look at a co-workers Ipod Touch and was intrigued. He talked about it a bit and started thinking about maybe putting it on his Xmas wish-list. I reminded him that his Birthday was just around the corner and HEY if he got it now I could get out of having to struggled over what to get him for a change. He never has his wish-list done early enough for his Birthday. It took a bit of pushing (not a WHOLE lot) but some, for him to agree. I found that the Future Shop in South Surrey had some of the 32 gig in stock (our local shop didn’t) and weren’t limited to one per customer (as was the Best Buy) so we headed early this afternoon to pick one up for him, and one for Chris to hold for Xmas (spoiled children).

Just before we headed out, we heard that a biplane had made a landing in a field near the highway but that it wasn’t impacting traffic flow. I made sure I had my camera at the ready and sure enough there it was. There were a few people standing around it but it didn’t appear any worse for wear or that anyone was hurt, strange to see though.

While we were out we grabbed a quick lunch at the Wendy’s out there..

Mmmm single with Cheese…

Once we got home Tom started playing with his new toy..can you tell he’s excited?

Yeah I’m going through bloggy avoidance again which is stupid because really this is just my diary. The reason I started it in the first place was to keep a record of what is going on in my life but life just seems too overwhelming to “write” down. I think putting fingers to keys while it is happening just makes all the crap too real.

Things with my Mom are still kind of up in the air. We’ve got her a spot in assisted living which is great but she’s not yet in a good enough physical state to actually move in. I took the leap and gave notice on her place the minute I had it confirmed she had the suite (in a REALLY nice place that I wouldn’t mind living in myself) but I was still all nervous about doing it. Why? Not sure. Maybe it means another clock has started and I have a limited time to get her old place cleared out. Yeah that’s probably it. Truly though, the new place is awesome. It has a bistro where they keep coffee, tea or hot chocolate going all day, a movie room, a hair salon, games room, library, activities, crafts, even a pool table.

On top of that she is still falling on occasion either getting out of her wheelchair or into it (forgetting to set the brake properly first) and that’s stressing me out, though she hasn’t hurt herself badly. Everyone I’ve talked to said that falls still happen no matter where a senior is, the point is getting them in a place that can get them help right away if they are prone to it and other health issues. I can see that because she’s not listening to what the nurses tell her and tries to do stuff she isn’t supposed to.

Oh yeah and the wheelchair? The one that the ‘experts’ who measured her and wrote up her requirements for. The one that cost over 3 grand? Now there is some person at the convalescent care who keeps saying she needs a different kind of cushion than she has. It was HER colleague (heck it may have even been HER I will have to check the paperwork) who ordered the one she has saying she needed that one. I mean the cushion alone cost 800 as it was to avoid compression sores for sitting for long periods of time. They ordered it we just paid for it. I am so frustrated with these people because they all had different opinions and make you feel like you’ve done the wrong thing and YOU don’t care to be helpful. She is supposed to be calling me my Mother said to tell me that I should get her a different one (mind you no specifics have been given). I’m going to ask her if she intends on buying the other one back.

It’s like the walker. One PT said she needed one with two wheels, one said OH NO she’s not ready for wheels. So who are you supposed to believe?  There is always differing opinions and misinformation. I tell them not to talk to Mom and expect her to remember any important information and to talk directly to me but they don’t and then she forgets what they say and loses the papers they leave for her to give me.

The major project I had been working on for it seems like EVER launched in August. I’m still busy with trailing issues and have even started working on enhancements but the oppressive weight that had been pressing on my chest has been lifted a bit. I am still geeked out about the whole thing though and really proud of myself.

On the Cinny front things are going well. Cinnamon has adapted to three legs just about completely, though we do limit access to any high places. She’s nimble in jumping up on the couch, chairs and the bed but from time to time forgets that she doesn’t have the best balance and will lose her footing. We were warned that we will have to let her find her own way. She has this interesting little gait and she’s figured out if she sways her hip to the side a bit it puts her good leg in the middle of her body behind her and she’s a lot more stable.

more about “This is her new walk on Flickr – Phot…”, posted with vodpod

She does forget now and then and tries to lift a leg on the same side of her missing one (to lick it or whatever) and starts to tip over. It is also a bit funny and sad to see her trying to scratch her face or ear with her missing limb. You can see her hip bone wiggling away and her holding her head tilted with her eyes scrunched like she’s scratching it…. and oops nothing is happening. When I see it I call her over and try to scritch her ears myself.

She’s less clingy now than she was when she first came home, but is still “Daddy’s” girl..

Being Daddy’s girl she tries to push the envelope a little…

Hey… so like what are you readin’?

Yeah, so she got kicked off… but like a typical cat she found another place to relax.

yeah even an empty laundry hamper will do when there is a fuzzy blanket on the bottom

Man, do cats have the right attitude about relaxing. I could learn a thing or two.

Oh and she pulled out all her stitches. Not a one left when I took her in for her final check up with the Doc. BIG SHOCK.