The Spirit of Christmas

So we were watching this Christmas movie on Netflix called "The Spirit of Christmas" the other night and I just fell in love with the story and with the angel that Daniel placed on top of their tree. I set out to try to find it. Since Daniel died 95 years ago, I just knew it had to be some kind of antique family heirloom thing. I still searched Google until I found it, using every word I thought would lead me to her.

I found her! On Amazon, of all places. Ain’t she beautiful??

I am right proud of myself for this.  I found this thing with NOTHING to go on except "vintage angel halo pointy".  Ha!  She's a Willow Tree Starlight Tree Topper and she's not 100+ years old after all.

Da foot...Six weeks post-op

Y'all.  This foot.  I have pretty much been in constant pain since I woke up from surgery.  The incision hasn't been bad at all, from what I can tell.  Once I got the staples out, we discovered that it was completely healed.  

The hematoma, however, is a whole new portal of hell.  This blog is not going to be for the squeamish, so fair warning!  I'm posting the complete realness of my situation and what I'm going through.  You know, documenting my life, which is what this blog is supposed to be doing.  The good, the bad and the really, really ugly.

During my surgery, a blood vessel busted near the nerve my doctor was working on.  He cauterized it closed but when they were bandaging me up afterwards, it busted again and I bled pretty profusely, unbeknownst to us, my doctor or the hospital staff.  The blood didn't have anywhere to go so it settled underneath my skin, causing this massive hematoma.

I was in a soft cast for the first two weeks, then a hard cast for another two weeks.  After the first two weeks, the hematoma was discovered.  After the second two weeks, it looked like this.  This is after the staples came out.

After the second two weeks and in that hard cast, it looked like this:

This picture kinda scared my doctor and us, too.  He told me my foot was keeping him up at night.  Ha!  Yeah, me, too.  I have been sitting up in my recliner, crying and praying half the night and watching holiday baking shows for weeks.  WEEKS.  I have Percocet and OxyContin (the king daddy of pain meds!) and they don't even touch this thing.  It has been pure misery for me and for Larry, too, who feels completely helpless in this nightmare.

The hard cast came off and we were instructed to change the dressing every day and watch it very closely.  I was put on double antibiotics and we went back to the doctor last Friday.  He cut off that piece of dead skin on the top there and told us to continue the dressing and the antibiotics.  And to massage it a lot to keep Complex Regional Pain Syndrome from setting in.

So now it looks like this:

Lookin' like some straight outta The Walking Dead.  Y'all know that's my show but I sure don't want nothin' on my body looking like this.

It hurts like nothing I have ever felt.  I don't take the pain meds until I just can't bear it anymore because I am so afraid of addiction.  Addiction runs in my family and while I'm not sure if the tendency is hereditary, I will not allow myself to become addicted and lose everything I have to a damn pill.  I just will not.  Larry changes the dressing every night and sometimes I cry, sometimes I don't.  Most times I do.  I don't know what I would do without him.  He is my ROCK.  This is by far the worst thing I have ever been through in my fifty-one years of spinning around on this planet.

Doc says I'll be out of work until March.  I'm still trying to get workers' comp to pay me.  Our bank account is getting low!

Six weeks down.  I'm not sure how long this healing is going to take but I am sure that I will never have another surgery unless my life depends on it.  I would GLADLY take that nerve pain (which I still have, by the way) over this any day.  I can't go back, though.  None of us can, really.  All we can do is go forward, move forward, slowly and with lots of gumption.  

I can do that.

Deck the halls (and the Schneiders!)

I love this picture of Larry with his mama and brother and sister. 

Even though my heart is just not in it yet, Larry and I finished the tree and decorated this past weekend.  

The tree is pretty much Kizzi proof, bedecked with soft, stuffed ornaments and things that won't break.  We're trying to teach him but he is SOOOOO enamored with that tree.  We've gone with a sort of vintage red truck Christmas for our "theme" this year and I like it.  I bought this tablecloth and a buffalo red and black check runner to use in the dining room and a couple of pillow covers for the living room.  There's also a red truck flag to go outside.  

The Super Fabulous Schneider Christmas Tree of 2018

(Wonky star on top courtesy of Kizzi)

Three weeks

Today is three weeks since my surgery and while the incision pain is better at times (but at night, OMG), I still don't feel much difference in the nerve pain.  My foot still burns and my toes still feel like they have electric current running through them (and they "crackle" when they are touched!  Ow!).  My toes also have a sharp biting pain at times, too, like something with really sharp teeth is biting them.  And it's not Kizzi!

I have bouts of sadness, tears and a general feeling of self-pity, and then sometimes I'm okay with it.  I wish I'd never had the surgery, that's a fact, Jack, but I did and I have to live with that decision.  This whole experience has been a nightmare, physically, emotionally and now financially, since Worker's Comp has not paid me yet.  They owe me $2,300!  

My doctor was not able to take out the staples last week because my foot was still badly swollen and there's a huge hematoma underneath the incision so he put me in a cast to wear for another two weeks.  Notice I said staples and not stitches.  I have 17 metal staples in my foot and it looks HORRIBLE.  

I chose pink for my cast color.  Of course I did.  I've been watching tons of holiday baking shows and Hallmark Christmas movies.  Sigh.

I'm halfway through the initial healing period so I'll just see what the next three weeks bring.  I'm going back to the doctor next week so hopefully I can get these staples out, get in a boot and in another two weeks, be able to walk around on it.  My knee scooter has been a Godsend as far as my mobility goes and I highly recommend them.  It makes getting around so much easier and helps me to be more independent.

But waaaaaah.  And stuff.

Things that are keeping me sane right now

After you've had surgery, you need a few things to indulge in to make you feel less icky and more like yourself.  Here are some that I've been using and love.

Avocado Honey Rich Water Balm Cream.  I got a sample in my ipsy bag this month and oh my goodness, it was right on time!  I love anything avocado anyway but this stuff is amazing.  It smells good, it goes on smooth and leaves your face (or anywhere, really) soft and moisturized.  We just turned the heat on in the house for the first time this fall and this stuff keeps my skin super hydrated.  A+++++

Brazilian Bum Bum Cream.  I've been using this cream since early summer.  It's a wonderful body cream that is supposed to tighten skin (on your bum! They pronounce it "boom boom" in Brazil, btw).  I don't know about that but I have used it all over because I adore the scent!  Pistachio, almond, vanilla, salted caramel.  I mean, it smells so good, you'll want to eat it.  Don't, though.  Put it on your booty instead!  And your arms, your legs, everywhere.  I took mine to the beach in September.  LOVE!

99% Mermaid Shea Butter Hand Cream from Bath and Body Works.  I picked up a tube the last time I was in there and I absolutely love it.  

Unfortunately, they're all about Christmas right now so you might not be able to find it in the stores anymore.  

Sunlit Apple Blossom scent.  It's like buttah.

I'm really loving the Olay Whipped Body Wash, too!  It makes bathing really easy when you're having to sit astraddle the tub with one foot in and one foot out.  I know, you could have gone all day without that visual.  Larry helped me with all that at first but now I can do it by myself.  Yay for progress!

We had to let our housekeeper go just before I had surgery, which caused all kinds of stress for me.  If you know me, you know I keep a clean house.  I didn't want all that extra work put on Larry and what terrible timing to have to do it now.  But she took money from me for work she didn't do and I can't abide that.  I use the Nextdoor app to stay in touch with our neighbors and the goings on in our neighborhood and I was able to find a lady to replace her!  She came over yesterday and met us and she'll clean for us tomorrow while we're gone to Columbus to the doctor to get these blankety-blank stitches out.  She only charges a dollar more an hour, too.  AND she brings her own lavender-scented cleaning supplies. My favorite scent. Thank you, Lord, for all of your blessings!!

I've been doing some Christmas shopping online, too.  QVC is my Santa! 

Recovery

Today is ten days since my ankle surgery.  Except for the horrible burning nerve pain that I'm still feeling, my foot really feels no different than before.  The pain at night is so bad that I can't sleep and only muscle relaxers knock me out.  My doctor in Columbus told me going in that there were no guarantees but I still had to try.  I had to TRY. 

During the procedure, he discovered the cause for my nerve pain.  Two layers of scar tissue was crushing it so he clamped the nerve out of the way while he scraped the scar tissue off and he also repaired the two torn ligaments and reattached a severed tendon (that we didn't know about) with anchors, sewed me up and then a couple of male nurses picked me up and body slammed me to the floor.

The first four days after my surgery were pure hell.  I had this unbearable muscle pain in my stomach, neck and shoulders from the anesthesia.  All I did was cry.  I took just about all of my Percocet but they didn't even help.  It was misery.  I couldn't move.  Mama and Daddy came to stay with us the Monday before my surgery and I don't know what I would have done without them and Larry taking such good care of me.  Larry helped me with my baths and Mama cooked and cleaned and did laundry and helped us take care of our boys.  Banjo loved going outside with Paw Paw!  

This is me before my surgery.  All fresh-faced and full of hope.  

This is me after.  Coming off of Propofol and ready to fight.

Ain't that the stuff that killed Michael Jackson??!!

The boys have kept me company and Kizzi is starting to find his place in our family.  And in our Christmas tree!  Tabbie Hoffman never touched a tree.  Kizzi has been up close and personal six times.  He's so much different from Tabbie.  Tabbie Hoffman is laidback and cool, just like his namesake.  Kizzi is a hurricane.  Climbing and biting and scratching and tearing up the place.  I feel like somebody just put him out in the country where Larry found him.  They couldn't deal with his bad little self.  He just needs to learn the rules.  Mama will teach him.

He better be glad he's so dang cute.

The boys and I have been binge watching "Game of Thrones", too.  Larry watched it earlier this year but I didn't so now I'm watching.  I'm getting hooked!  I want to freakin' kill that Joffrey punk, though.  Or at least take a good old-fashioned switch to him.  He's what??  13??  I'd beat his ass.

I go back to the doctor Monday to get the stitches taken out and I guess they'll put me in a boot of some sort.  It is extremely hard to be non-weightbearing for two weeks and I've done the best I could.  I was using a walker at first but I got my knee scooter yesterday so I'm more mobile and can get around the house.  It feels SO GOOD to be out of bed and in my kitchen again.  

Dear readers, please pray for healing for me.  Pray this nerve will calm down and I'll have a normal life again.  

Kizzi

We welcomed a new member into our family yesterday!  

Larry found this sweet baby at a job site.  All alone, starving and scared to death.  He sent me a pic and then called me.  I said, "bring that baby home!"

After stopping to get the little feller something to eat (which he devoured!), that's exactly what Larry did.  We gave him a flea bath and then made him comfy in the garage last night but today, we moved him to one of our bathrooms to acclimate.

We named him Kismet Rain Schneider.  It was a rainy day when Larry found him and kismet that he found Larry.  

We're head over heels already!

Life right now

So here we are, in the middle of October already.

So much is going on around here!!  We did make it to the beach late last month for four absolutely glorious days to celebrate our 30th "gotcha" anniversary.  Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago that I met Larry and started that long journey with him, sometimes it feels like it was just ten or so years ago and then sometimes it feels like that life never happened.  But it did.  And we have the memories (and the ongoing nightmares!) to prove it.  God has blessed us beyond anything we could have imagined and we are so grateful for every single blessing.  Every. One.

We go Monday to my foot doctor over in Columbus to discuss surgery on my left ankle.  I'm finally having complete ankle reconstruction, ligament reconstruction and he's going to see what can be done with my sural sensory nerve, the one that's causing me so much pain.  I've have horrible nerve pain in my foot since December 2016 and once I got to the Hughston Clinic, they got to the bottom of it.  They did a nerve study in August and discovered that my sural nerve was not responsive.  It's either severed or trapped.  My foot feels like it's on fire ALL THE TIME.  When we were at the beach, I could not tell if my foot was getting too much sun because it feels sunburned all the time so I made sure to keep it covered in sunblock and sand.  No sunburns on my foot or anywhere else either!  That spray sunblock really works!  So, anyway, I'll have surgery on my foot, finally, after six long painful years, and hopefully, I can get back to some sort of normal life.  We postponed our mountain trip until spring, so I can HIKE!

Hurricane Michael came through here this week via the Florida Panhandle and we got a night of crazy wind and much needed rain.  We never lost power and I sat up until 4:00 am watching our beloved weather guy in Macon do his thang and keep us all safe.  The yard and porches were a mess but thankfully, I was off the next day to get everything all tidied up.

One of our little wild outside kitties that we feed (Fiona, who is no more than six months old!) gave birth to a stillborn baby and left it on the porch right where I would find it, under the bench on the rug that I put out there for them to nap on.  Poor little thing.  No bigger than a mouse.  Broke my heart.  Larry buried him today out in a flower bed.  And made a cross for him with his name, Mike, since he was born during the hurricane.  Nature is so sad sometimes.

We went to see "A Star Is Born" Monday and LOVEDED it!!!  What an amazing movie.  If you haven't seen it, GO!  Take tissue.  Like a whole box.  Seriously, Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were phenomenal in this movie.  Their acting, their musical performances, they even wrote most of the songs themselves.  I didn't even know BC could sing.  He sho' can.  

We're looking forward to the end of the year, the holidays, my recovery and that blue wave that's coming next month!  Lord, hear our prayer.  

Pack rat or hoarder? You make the call.

I admit it, openly and with some shame.  I am a beauty hoarder.  So today, I set out to clear some space and just share my stash with somebody else.  I hope the girls at work want this stuff!

I subscribe to two beauty boxes each month, Birchbox and Ipsy.  Every month, for $10, they send me five beauty samples.  Makeup, skin care, hair care, fragrance.  And I LOVE IT!!  I love getting those packages in the mail.  I look forward to getting those packages in the mail.  

But ten samples every month tend to pile up!  I can't use them all.  Last month, I gave a bag of them to the girl who cleans our house but still, they are stressing me out.  Seriously.  Stress.  Because really, I don't just hoard beauty products.  I hoard vintage sheets, towels (we have 59 towels in this house!  For just two people.  Good grief.), just things we've picked up here and there at estate sales.  I have drawers in a dresser that I'm filling and there are boxes and boxes of stuff in the attic with things to sell in my booth at an antique store here in town but that's another blog post.  Later.  

But today!  Today I cleaned out the beauty stuff!  I am so proud of myself.  I feel so freeeeee!  

This is before.  Very sad and stressful.  I hated to even open this drawer.

And this is after!  I only kept the things I USE.  I had 19 bottles of nail polish.  I kept my five favorite colors.  That's it.  

There are bags and bags of things that I'll just give away.  

I am inspired to tackle every drawer and cabinet in this house!  Woo hoooo!!

Wow. September.

This summer has just flown by!  With Larry's three eye surgeries and our trips to a new foot doctor and a new dentist (because I need six new crowns of course I do), we have had a crazy couple of months.  

Last month, I was moved to another office at work to be the admin for one of our flights and I bought a new Jeep!  Well, a new-to-me Jeep.  Turns out I had some retirement left unclaimed at Citigroup so I hurriedly claimed it and bought a right-off-the-lease Jeep.  It's my very first ever SUV and I love it!  It's also the first ever car I was able to pay cash for.  That was a great feeling!  It's white and I named her Pearl.  

Gardening this summer was a flop.  It's September 1st and we just now today ate an atomic grape tomato.  A tomato.  One.  There are a couple more on the vine but the peppers didn't do a thing and the sunflowers kinda disappointed me, too.  I pulled up the last of them today.  Oh well, there's always next year!

We'll be beach bums toward the end of the month and I am so looking forward to that.  And then a trip to the mountains in November.  

And then Christmas!  Good Lord, time, slow down.

Monkey Farts??

You know those ads that pop up in your social media feeds?  Well, this one popped up in my Instagram feed.

They had me at whipped soap.  I’m such a sucker for soaps and shampoos, really any kind of beauty stuff.  I get an Ipsy bag and a Birchbox every month.  I get so excited when I see them in the mailbox!

This whipped soap, by Glory Cloud USA and called Monkey Farts, grabbed my attention, not just because I’m a sucker for soap but because it’s whipped!  And Monkey Farts??!  I had to try it.

So I ordered it and it came in a few days.  The jar was smaller than I expected (4 oz) but it was slap full of soap! It says facial soap on the label but you can use it for anything.  You only need a little bit and it lathers and lathers!!  And the scent is just heavenly!!  Exactly what you would expect a monkey fart to smell like...ripe bananas, juicy pineapple, sweet apples and creamy vanilla. Okay, well, in this alternate soap beauty world maybe.  Ha! 

I’ve used it for four days, just on my face, and I absolutely love it.  It leaves my face so soft and clean and smelling fruity!  

My summer girls

I've grown sunflowers along the backyard fence every summer that we've lived here.  This year, though, I was worried about them because we had such a cold, rainy March and that's when we planted them AND replanted them because squirrels dug them up, in spite of the Texas Pete!  

We planted more seeds with netting over them and that did the trick.  But it was almost April before they even sprouted!  (And we still don't have tomatoes or peppers.  Big bushy healthy plants.  NO maters.  NO peppers.)  

I had almost given up on them and then, all of a sudden, they just started busting out!

And they're just beautiful.

This one is the first to grow taller than the fence!  Ain't she a beaut??

Happy Birthday to me!

Your homegirl is 51 today.  Another year on this old planet.  A fun year, a sad year, an unbelievably stressful year.  Things don't always go the way you want them to or even the way that they should go but somehow, you have to keep on keepin' on, keep getting up to welcome the sun every morning, keep reminding yourself that even the bad is not that bad.

Larry made my birthday super special, with our trip today up to Senoia, to get up close and personal with our favorite TV show, The Walking Dead.  We had such a fun day.

This morning, he woke me up with this vintage Pyrex Happy Birthday mug, that I'd never even seen in the wild, only online.  It debuted in 1967, just like me!  I love it!!  

And he had waiting for me this delicious chocolate ganache cake and cards from him and our boys.

Yesterday, I opened this gift from him.  A vintage Pyrex promotional casserole dish in Blue Willow!  Another treasure I have never seen in the wild.  Well, I did see it once, in about a zillion pieces in the bottom of a box my sweet friend, Brandy, sent me.  It didn't make the trip from Virginia.  Dang US mail!  But the lid did and until she reminded me, I'd forgotten all about it! 

51 feels pretty good already.  Now if I could just STOP worrying about things I have no control over, 52 might be even better.

My Walking Dead Birthday!

All I wanted to do this year for my birthday was to go to Senoia to Walking Dead country and eat at Nic & Norman's (owned by director, producer and special effects creator, Greg Nicotero and actor and TWD's Daryl Dixon, Norman Reedus) and do some shopping and sightseeing.  We left this morning, took our time driving up and got to the restaurant at 11:00, right when they opened.  We ordered soup and salad and burgers and then some lobster mac and cheese to take with us when we left.  

I got the Greg's Pick, a blue cheese burger with a salad and Larry got the bison burger with their house sidewinder fries.  

Everything was delicious!  I loved the décor and atmosphere of the restaurant and the music and the service were great, too!  We were the first ones there but it soon filled up.

Our waitress brought me a red velvet Cutie Pies & Cakery (they don't have a website or I'd link it here) cake in the cutest little Mason jar for my birthday.  It was sooooo good.  

We waddled out of there in the heat and man, it was HOTTT, and walked down the sidewalk, popping in at a few shops here and there to cool off.  The Walking Dead gift shop was a block away. 

This. Picture.  I didn't even notice this guy photobombing my picture of Rick's cutout wearing a Terminus BBQ apron (bwahahaha!) until we were on our way home.  HILARIOUS!!

We went downstairs to the museum and got to meet famous Abraham lookalike, Chris Twellman, "German Abe"!  He was super, super nice and talked to us a long time.  He even took our picture in the jail cell!

I like this picture the best of the three German Abe took because you can see Glenn's little bitty self (another cutout) just over Larry's shoulder.  Sigh.  Glenn.

But sadly, everything couldn't be perfect about today.  I got a little too close to a walker and got bit!

Owwww!!!  All these years watching TWD and I let one of them suckers BITE ME.  Naaaaah, not really, there was a makeup artist there and she did this with makeup and latex.  Great job, huh??  So great that German Abe asked me if I'd been bitten by a Brown Recluse.  Ha!  I swear, I was sitting there watching her do it and the dang thing started to HURT.  What the what??  Your brain can do some crazy things to you.

We left town and drove to THE WALL AROUND ALEXANDRIA!!  I was SOOOOO excited to see it!!  And this pic here??  I was peeking in between the cracks and I could see Alexandria in there!!  The best part of this day.  Hand's down.  Or up!  Ha!

Here's Larry pretending to try to get the gate open.  So funny!

Shut yo' mouf.  That's the wall!!!

And this is something we haven't seen!  The windmill, which means they have time jumped and they have begun "a key to a future" from Georgie's book.  

Oh, we had such a blast in Senoia!!  Just a couple of crazy fans seeing where it all happens.  Couldn't have asked for a better birthday.