All the Pyrex!

If you know me, you know I've been collecting vintage Pyrex for a while now.  Over five years.  It all started when my Maw passed away and I took her Amish Butterprint home with me.  When Larry and I discovered estate sales in 2014, it just took off from there and now we've got 238 pieces!  Whaaaaaa???  

I usually take them all down and clean them and the shelves a couple times a year, and rearrange them for the seasons.  I haven't been able to do that since before my first surgery.  I've just been dusting around them.  I don't let our housekeeper near the Pyrex.  They are off limits.  If one breaks, it's ME that broke it.

I started physical therapy this week.  I'm going two days a week for about an hour at a time, doing strengthening exercises, mostly, because I'm not going to be growing back any ligaments or tendons.  We're working on building my muscles up to help support where the ligaments and tendon can't anymore.  I was feeling up to it yesterday so down came all the Pyrex and I cleaned them, dusted the shelves and put them all back, rearranging them and putting fall patterns and colors front and center.  Larry helped me and I think we did a great job!  We also moved the dining room table next to the wall so now we have all this space in the kitchen!  Our kitchen and dining room are one big room open to the living room and I love that layout.

Here's how it looked once I got them all down off the shelves.  I blocked myself in and I had to make a maze to get through.  Banjo wouldn't even come in there!

Here's me, hard at work!

  Here's after!

Soooo much room now!  I told Larry we got lots of room for dancing in there now!

I moved the chicken lamp from the counter to the table and we like it there.  I just love a lamp in the kitchen.  It makes things so cozy.

I go back to work after Labor Day.  I feel like I'm nesting getting ready for a baby!  There's so much I want and need to do before I go back to work.  I'll be cleaning and organizing something every day!

Healing

I wanted to share the sweet cards I got while I was in the hospital and once I was home and recovering.  These cards meant so much to me.  They gave me hope that I absolutely would get better and I would be ME again.  Larry and I spent this weekend at the beach again and I can honestly say I AM BACK.  Breathing that ocean air, tasting that salty water, and hearing the waves crash all night as we slept was just the final little bit of healing I needed.  Beach healing.  That little bit of Epstein-Barr and cytomegalo that was hanging around evaporated as I laughed (and cried) as my beloved enjoyed his first dip in the ocean in nearly 40 years.

Tia Pike sent us a dozen delicious cupcakes with this card.  I teared up immediately when I read it.  This was so sweet and thoughtful!  Hopefully, this coming Sunday, we'll resume Sunday Cake!

I got this one in the mail from Brandy, Mike, Willow, Roan and Baby Laurel Mae.  I absolutely love Brandy's drawing of Tabbie Hoffman!  It looks just like him!!  And, yes, he DID miss me.  He was very clingy for a couple of days.  He wanted to be with his mama.

Here's a picture of us the day I got home.  Those ugly old bruises are all gone now.  And all that fluid is, too!

 

 I even got a sweet card from Willow! 

I got this one from the amazing guys (and girls) I work with!  I am truly blessed to work with folks that I consider my family.  They gave me this card and the envelope was literally stuffed with cash!  That really helped us out while we were living at the hospital. 

Pay no attention to the camera shadow.  :)  This one came from the Keenagers at church.  So sweet to think of me.
 

My sister and best friend, Ami, made this one for me.  She is so talented that everything she touches turns to a thing of beauty.  She can make the most beautiful cards and then take the most amazing pictures of them!  :)  I love you, sissy!

This is the inside.  Larry and I both love Kahlil Gibran and the thing about the bare feet made me cry.  And it made me that much more determined to get better and get my life back.  I didn't want to miss a second of this beautiful spring I waited so long for!
 

Our sweet couple buddies from church gave me this one.  Lisa and Darrell, Lisa and Bryan and Brother Andy and Melody.  Melody brought it to me.  Inside was a very generous gas card!  It was perfect timing, too, because Larry had just run home to check on Tabbie Hoffman and the house for the umpteenth time.  You know, since we were LIVING AT THE HOSPITAL OH MY GOD.
 

These cards helped me get better.  I will treasure them and the love that came with them always.  Thanks, y'all, from the very bottom of my heart.