How has your day been and what's for dinner...................

Again, thank you all for praying for Lisa, Todd, Meagen and their extended family.  

Lisa is feeling better today after a bad night Wednesday night. She has gallstones and ate something she shouldn't have eaten.  She was so sick while we were there the other night.  She wouldn't go to the ER because she was afraid they'd want to admit her and she wanted to go with Todd to Jackson.  

We are getting a few fresh veggies.  William brought a couple of yellow squash and several cucumbers in yesterday afternoon.  He said there's a zucchini almost ready to pull.  Our blueberries are beginning to ripen.  We have a Cool Whip container full from this morning.  The bushes are loaded.  I hope we can put several gallons in the freezer for jelly/jam this fall.  

The tomatoes, peppers and green beans are blooming.  Gives me hope we will have some fresh veggies in the next few weeks.  

We never bought any basil this spring but several plants came up so we have plenty basil.

Good Monday Morning to you all. We have a beautiful day here today. The temps are supposed to get up to 90 degrees and the humidity is high but the sun is shining and the sky is pretty. We could have some showers this afternoon which would be a good thing since we just put out some more tomato plants this weekend.

We are playing a waiting game with Lisa and Todd right now. Lisa is to see the oncologist tomorrow to figure out her treatment and Todd saw the surgeon Friday and had ANOTHER scope (3 lower ones so far). The surgeon did more biopsies and Todd is to go back Wednesday for the report and to find out what will be done then. The doctor is checking out everything to decide if Todd will need a permanent colostomy. Todd is being pretty calm and cool with all this. A lot of people freak out at the thought of a colostomy but he has a very good attitude about it. He just wants to get the surgery over and be able to go on with his life. I admire his attitude. But then Lisa had the same attitude toward the colostomy and I think that has helped Todd. If she'd freaked out then he probably would have too. Fortunately, Lisa didn't have to have one done but she said do what needs to be done.

I have got to do some cooking lately. PHEW! People who eat out all the time have my sympathy. It's hard to find good restaurant food nowadays.

I made fresh blueberry pancakes (blueberries from our bushes), smoked sausage, eggs and coffee for breakfast. I plan to cook pork chops, sautéed Swiss chard, mashed potatoes, stewed yellow squash, sliced cucumbers and strawberry shortcakes as per hubby's request. The Swiss chard, yellow squash and cucumbers are from our garden.

We have green beans on the vines but they're not quite ready to gather. I'm getting excited about the fresh veggies. I hope we have enough to share and can.

I wish all of you a good week and God's blessings.

Thanks for the update, keeping you in my prayers. I'm glad your garden is providing you with fresh produce already. I've harvested a few turnips and the sugar snap peas are almost ready.

Breakfast sounded yummy! Glad they're both handling this so well.

Lisa saw the oncologist yesterday and will start chemo treatment two weeks from today. She has to go get a port put in one day and I'm not sure when because she was talking to me on the cellphone and it kept going in and out so I have to call her tomorrow and find out when so I can be with her because Todd is supposed to have surgery next Tuesday at one o'clock. He is going to require a permanent colostomy. I haven't talked to them. I know they are upset and I will leave them alone until tomorrow so they can get a grip on everything that is going on. I know they are feeling overwhelmed.
Please keep lifting them up in prayer. You all will never know how much your prayers mean to us. I have prayed for people on different forums before but until all this came about I didn't realize how much praying friends mean. Thank you.

I cooked fresh green beans, turkey meatloaf and macaroni with cheese sauce (I made the sauce) and we had fresh cucumbers. The green beans and cucumbers were from our garden. There's a lot of green beans on the vines along with a lot of blooms so I'm hoping I will be able to can a good amount of them this year along with making some pickles. I used to make pickles every summer but haven't done that in a lot of years but I'm going to try again this year.

We have had some nice rain showers the last two days. The rain sure perked our plants up.

Sorry to hear that Todd will have to have a permanent colostomy, I'm praying for all of you. I'm glad your garden is producing for you, I hope it continues and you get a bumper crop.

Mississippi Momma wrote: You all will never know how much your prayers mean to us.  I have prayed for people on different forums before but until all this came about I didn't realize how much praying friends mean.  

We have been through some hard times ourselves. Those friends that were praying for us made all of the difference to us as well. Prayer is a powerful thing.

I will keep on praying for all of you. <hugs>

Todd came through the surgery surprisingly well. The doc did the surgery with a robot so instead of a huge incision he has four or five small ones. He did great today without very much pain until they got him up and then we thought he was going to pass out from the pain. He did have to have the colostomy but the doctor said the tumor was much smaller than he thought and was NOT attached to anything else which is wonderful. Todd is being a good sport about the colostomy. He told the doctor it would save a ton on toilet paper. LOL I am glad he can make little jokes about it instead of going into a depression.

Lisa had the medi-port put in today and other than being sore she is doing quite well. She also had the petscan done this morning. We are praying it comes back clear of any more cancer.

Just wanted to update you all and thank you again for the prayers and thought.

Thank God for medical technology. We have similar blessings to be thankful for today.

It's good to hear everyone is doing well.

Good Wednesday Morning.  I hope you all are doing well.   Everyone seems to be doing alright.  Lisa starts the chemo treatments today.  She's been told that they shouldn't make her nauseated and shouldn't make her hair come out so she's ready to get them over with.

Todd is home and has been going to his shop since Monday.  He's not allowed to do any lifting or really any work but he can be there to supervise the work going on.   He seems to be doing pretty well and is adjusting really well to the colostomy.  I'm proud of him for this.  I've dealt with others who would not acknowledge the bag and refuse to do anything to take care of it.  They would have other people do that.

We have had a few green beans to put in the freezer.  I've put sixteen bags of beans up and my "new" brother-in-law gave us some corn over the weekend.  I put eleven pints and a quart cut off the cob in the freezer and four gallon bags of corn on the cob up also.  That's not a lot but it's more than what we had.    

It is really hot here this week.  Yesterday's high was 97 degrees with a heat index of 105.  I'm thankful that we have a cool place to live.  

We went to the grocery store last Friday and eggs were $2.97 a dozen.  We were told that they could go up to $5.00 a dozen.  I told DH we would be eating a lot of oatmeal  from now on.    We plan to get some chickens but just haven't because of us being gone so much.  I hope now we will be home so it's time to get a few hens to get our eggs from.  I'd feel better if I was getting eggs from hens I have anyway.  We were told the egg prices are going up because of the Avian Flu that is becoming rampant.  So far (as I know) none has been reported in Mississippi so far but there have been some cases in LA so that pretty close to us.  

I hope you all have a great day.  God bless you all.

It isn't the Avian Flu that is so rampant it is the "cure" for the avian flu that is causing the problem.

According to the commercial poultry newsletter that I subscribe to there have been 211 documented cases of the Avian Flu in the country so far this year. This is not (at least at this point) the avian flu strain that is transmittable to humans, but we know that bacteria and viruses can morph. If a case of Avian Flu is found then the solution is to kill and destroy, usually by burning, all animals that were in close contact with that bird.

Here is the problem. You find a single bird with Avian Flu and they are in a warehouse with 20,000 other birds. They ALL have to be destroyed. You can see how doing that 211 times with various chickens and turkeys can put a dent in the production and cause enormous cost increases.

I'm having more and more people asking me about eggs. I'm hoping I can sell some pullets as well.

MM, I'm glad the kids are doing so well accepting and adjusting to their health challenges. I'm keeping your family in my prayers.

Hi everyone! It's good to catch up with all the goings-on here. We've been busy this summer with lots of doctor's appointments and therapy sessions for Cryptidgirl. May marked a year since her illness started. She did graduate, and we are planning a party for her next month. She won't be going to college this fall, but we are hoping the cardio therapy will help her improve enough to live a fairly normal life. It's tough for an 18-year old but she doesn't complain.

Congratulations to the graduate!!! WTG Cryptidgirl.

I don't remember, did they ever find out what was wrong w/her?

Glad she's doing better and congrats on graduating!

Congratulations to the graduate. Just shows that determination pays off!!!!

Dh and I wish you all a happy Independence Day. I hope you all are enjoying the day with sunshine and good food.
It's been raining here all day. Still a lot of clouds. We don't have any company for dinner so we're going to have a sausage dog (cooked on the stove) and some chips.

We didn't plan anything because one of the daughters is on the Alabama coast, one was planning to go to Missouri and one was planning to go to the 75th anniversary for a state park. The son has to work tomorrow if I'm not bad wrong. He lives in north Mississippi. The plans for Missouri didn't work out and the plans for the state park didn't work out so we all are staying home. It's so rainy we would have had to cook inside anyway.

Lisa and Todd needed to rest anyway. Lisa went back to work on Thursday. Todd has been going to the shop every day but still doing more supervising than anything else. Todd goes back for his after surgery check-up on Monday and Lisa goes for her second chemo treatment on Wednesday.

I wish you all a good weekend and a blessed week ahead. Thank you all for your prayers for Lisa, Todd and the rest of the family. We appreciate you all.

Happy Independence Day!!! I went to see my dh this morning, he was doing much better. I think he's finally settling in. The speech therapy as well as physical therapy seem to be making a difference. He was much more aware of what was going on but didn't remember our son visiting him last evening. When our son showed up yesterday dh said he hadn't seen him in a year when we were actually there on Tuesday afternoon.

I'm still not feeling that good, I'll start the new antibiotic tonight. Hopefully this one does the trick and gets this acute bronchitis cleared up.

Hello everyone. I took a little break from the internet. I was going to change providers but haven't been able to get to the place and get everything set up. Well, I haven't taken time to do it so I just reactivated my old Verizon account until I get up to the local provider's office.

I hope everyone is doing well and are staying cool. It is really hot down this way. 97-99 degrees with heat indexes up to 109. Our little window units are working overtime and it's still not cool but it is comfortable so we can deal with it.

Lisa is starting her third chemo treatment today. She has nine more to go after this one. She's handling them fairly well. Other than being nauseated, having sores in her mouth and being really fatigued everything is going good. This lasts a couple of days after the treatment. She is working everyday except for the Wednesdays she has to go to Jackson to get the treatments set up. I'm glad she's able to work. I think it helps her to be out helping others (she's a home health nurse) and it kind of keeps her mind off what's going on with her. Todd is doing pretty good. He has had to go back to the ER in Jackson twice with problems concerning the colostomy. He's having to learn what he can do and what he can't do. It's a big change in his body and I'm sure he has some uneasy feelings about it. But, he's being a trooper and doing the best he can.

Our garden is suffering in the heat. The green bean vines are looking pretty bad. The butterbeans are just now starting to bear. We have been catching rain water to keep them watered with but we haven't had any rain in about a week so we've used the water we had caught up. Rain is in the forecast over the weekend. I sure hope the weatherman is right.

I'd love to get the fall garden going but it's so dry that it probably won't do anything so I'll wait until around the first of August.

Tomorrow is my Darling Hubby's birthday. I'd planned to make him a special dinner but he went and got a speeding ticket over the weekend and that will take a chunk out of the budget. He was driving 44 MPH in a 30 MPH zone. He didn't know the speed limit was 30 in that area and I didn't either. Now that he has gotten the ticket we've noticed three signs posting the speed limit. I'm wondering if they were just put there because I used to drive that road every morning going to work and I never saw those signs. Guess it doesn't matter because that ticket is going to cost us around a $150.00. Plus it probably will make our auto insurance go up. I told DH that I hope he enjoys eating that ticket for his birthday dinner. LOL I'll make him something nice. I just have to aggravate him a little bit. HA!

DH promised he will have the chicken pens and coop ready for chickens by our anniversary in October. I'm just going to get 6 hens and a rooster to begin with. Maybe next spring I can get 6 more hens. I'm thinking Buff Orphingtons. I had some once and they were good layers for me. They are also good meat chickens.

I think I have typed a novel here. Sorry. Trying to get caught up on everything. I need to put the load of dark clothes in the dryer. Take care everyone.

Personally I like novels! Glad to see you back!

I got pulled over for doing 50 in a 25 once! The officer was nice and didn't give me a ticket since he could tell I wasn't trying to speed, but that I honestly didn't know what the speed limit was. Believe me, I go 25 down that road now!

Happy birthday to your dh! I'm glad the kids are doing relatively well considering the situation. I hope the weather breaks soon for you.

Hi everyone.  I hope  you all are doing good and staying cool.  We have had some really warm (hot) weather here recently.  Temps have reached 100 several days straight with heat indexes near 110.  Humidity has been so high that it's hard to breathe outside.

DH and I became great grandparents last Wednesday.  Our grandson, Jonathan's wife Alex gave birth to a five pound baby boy.  They named him Jonathan Cohen and are calling him Cohen.  Both Mommy and Cohen are doing fine.  

Lisa and Todd are doing fairly well.  Both are working.  Sometimes I think Lisa is overdoing it but she says she is alright.  She was on call for a week which means she had to work Saturday and Sunday.  Except for the Wednesday she went for the chemo treatment she work 11 days out of 12.  She didn't get to take the treatment because the mediport had a problem with it so she goes Aug. 19th for her next treatment.

Todd has seen the oncologist in Jackson and has an appointment to see one in Meridian this coming Friday.  He is supposed to take six weeks of radiation (5 days a week) and an oral chemo treatment at the same time.  When this treatment is over he is supposed to take the same treatments Lisa is taking now and will take them for six months.  The doc told them that the type of cancer Todd had is more apt to come back than what Lisa had so that is the reason for the more aggressive treatment.

William is doing pretty well.  He's getting things built for a flea market on August 22nd.  He's building tables and benches along with items to go on walls and then he's painting and staining everything.  He's been having trouble with restless legs at night.  He hasn't been sleeping well.

Our garden didn't do much.  We never got any butterbeans.  There's been others in this area who have said their butterbeans didn't make this year.  Our tomatoes all look like Tommy Toe tomatoes.  We haven't had the first slicing tomato.  GRRRR!!!  I think someone changed the labels on the plants.  I told DH next spring we will do our own seedlings.  

Last night together DH and I made a deer stew.  There was enough deer that I saved some out and made cream of mushroom gravy to go over it for dinner tonight along with rice and baked beans and some peppers and cut up tomatoes.

I fell August 1st and really messed up my right knee and foot.  We had gone to visit our son's family in North Mississippi.  Before we started back home we went out for dinner.  I was unfamiliar with the sidewalk and didn't realize there was a step down.  I stepped down alright.  My daughter was afraid I had broken my knee cap but according to x-rays nothing was broken but the doc said he thought I bruised the bone.  The foot injury happened when I stepped on the edge of the step down.  I don't know if I tore ligaments or tendons or just did a deep bruise.  Anyway I have been having to do a little and then set down because I can't bear the pain standing for long periods of time.  It's getting better but is still very sore and some nights it gives me fits even with the pain meds the doc gave me to take.

That pretty much catches me up for the last few weeks.  I hope everything is going well with all of you.

My greens are doing well, but I replanted my beans twice and they got washed out both times so I finally gave up on them. We are just starting to get a few red tomatoes. This has been a weird year for sure.