Home and feeling great

On October 19th we headed to the hospital early in the morning. When we arrived we found that my 10:30 surgery time had been changed to 1:00 pm so I send Hubby home. The surgery was to be about 3 hours and then of course some time in recovery. So it ended up I was not in my room until 7:30 pm.

Once in my room I had a nurse checking BP, temp, etc and every two hours. I really felt pretty good. I had a room mate for the first night, but she left early the next morning so I then had a four bed ward all to myself.

I was discharged on Sunday and we stayed at a Holiday Inn for a couple of nights just to be close to the hospital, to be on the safe side.I was feeling pretty good only a little sore and tired but other than that I could not get over how easy it all went. The surgery was laproscopic so I am treated to 6 tiny incisions on my tummy.  

It felt so good to get home.

During the weeks prior to the surgery and since I have been on a purely liquid diet. So I can say at this point I have lost almost 40 pounds.

Tonight was a real treat, I had a poached egg on toast. My first real solid food.

My only pain is that in my poor arthritic hips. I hope that pain will improve as the weight comes off but if not I am prepared to have the surgery to replace later next year. I hope that 2013 is going to be my year to reinvent myself.

This has been one of the hardest things I have ever done and it will continue to be but I am determined to make this work, this time.

I take a new Journey in my life

As I was sitting on this scooter (in March of this year) enjoying the ride, I was also in a great deal of pain and feeling shameful.  I had been away on a bus trip in which there was a lot of walking. I have arthritis in both hips and week of traipsing from store to store left me in agony. Each night in our motel room I would rub myself with liniment take painkillers and anti-inflammatory pills and rest up for the next day, all the while cursing my weight.

By the time I came home I was in such pain it took me two weeks to recover. I went immediately to the doctor and asked for a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon. My appointment was for six months down the road. I knew that the Surgeon would likely take one look at me and say you need to lose some weight before I do anything. 

I talk to my family doctor about my problem and he asked me if I had ever considered gastric bypass surgery. I immediately said no I don't want that. 

I had only know two people who had ever had the surgery and both had put most of their weight back on. The doctor told me that is not the case for most people, that the odds were very good that I would keep most of it off.  I told him I would think about it. I had him put my name on the list for the Orientation and thought I would at least listen to the information.   

In the meantime I came home and read lots and lots and lots about it on the internet and the long and short of it is that after many assessments and appointments I am having my surgery on October 19th. 

Right now I am on a completely liquid protein, low fat diet of Optifast until the surgery, so even though it is Thanksgiving here in Canada, no Turkey for me. 

I am nervous, excited and yes a little worried. This surgery is not without it's considerable risks but I think it is worth it. I have a lot of health issue that will be helped by losing weight, so I need to do this. Oh yes and the Orthopaedic Surgeon is happy with my decision and says he will be ready to replace my hip when I and my Surgeon say I am ready. Wish me luck.

My New Kitchen

On September the 10th,  hubby and I celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary. While we both would like to travel it is not a good time right now. We have darling furry girl who is 9 now and my Mom who is in her 80's but in great health. Mom does not mind looking after Shadow for a night or two but not any longer than that and we don't want to put Shadow in a boarding kennel.
I am in need of hip replacement surgery so that too kind of puts a damper on going anywhere we would have to walk.

So we have decided that instead of a trip for now we are going update our kitchen. We replaced our kitchen floor, installed a new range hood. a new granite counter top, with a new sink, tap and a glass and ceramic tile back splash. The picture I have of the old kitchen  are not great but here they are. The funny thing is that the counter we chose is called Carnivale so I said to my husband, I guess this is our Anniversary Cruise.

Old Kitchen

New counter and backsplash

Close up of Granite called Carnivale

New Granite top and  brown sink tap is brown too but had not been installed

New Floor

A Furry Guest, Christmas and Carnival

I was out today at a meeting for our Guilds Quilt show. The show is not until May of 2013, but if you have ever had anything to do with a show you know how much work it takes to organize.
I belong to the Kawartha Quiltmakers' Guild so if you are interested in attending our show please check out our website.  My friend and I have taken on demo's so we will organize our guild members to set up all kinds hand and machine demonstrations. By the way I am web mistress for our Guild too.

Hubby took this picture of bunny rabbit who spent several hours on our front lawn today. I know they are prolific and invade gardens eating everything but darn they are cute. He let him get quite close to take this picture.

 On the left you will see the finger tips and beautifully turned ankle of yes, none other than Darling Hubby.

He is holding the first creation to come out of my newly refurbished
sewing room.

It is a Christmas table runner that I have made as a gift for someone leaving a group I belong to. I was amazed that for someone who does not collect Christmas fabric I managed to come up with a pretty nice selection of it.

I have so many scraps of strips left I may make a few placemats for Christmas.

I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

The weather is starting to cool down a little this week and although we have had some rain we could use more.

We are now working on updating our kitchen so I will have some before pictures for you soon. We are planning a new floor and new granite counter tops and tile back splash.

It going to be our 35th wedding anniversary next month and we decided that this would be our gift to ourselves as we are not going anywhere special this year.

The colour of the Granite we have chosen is called Carnival. I told hubby that was fitting because it costs as much as the cruise we won't be taking.

Updated Sewing Room

I have been remiss in posting for some time. I guess I lost my mojo. Part of that is because my sewing room was not, in my estimation giving off the right essence to produce any either quilty or written.  Sooooo anywhooooo, I decided to do something about it.  It took me a couple of months to come up with an idea and then I was off and  running.

I am working with a very small room, so my idea was to keep it light and bright and try to keep as much as possible behind closed doors so that I would not be distracted by mess when trying to create. First I decided on purchasing a couple of cupboards. (I actually had a home improvement guy do most of this for me) he added some additional shelves to them for even more storage and so the fabric piles would not be to high. He also put together a tall bookcase to hold all of my quilting books. The shelves are adjustable another great feature.

Then I needed a large work surface, cutting table and a place for a second sewing machine for when my friend comes to visit. I thought about using a counter top. So my so guy went to Home Depot and bought me a an off the rack 6 foot counter top and two small bathroom vanities which were slightly higher than kitchen units.  The vanities are at either end and again gives me extra storage. I had my guy put one shelf up high on the wall so that I could store some of my UFO projects and scraps. I have put up a peg board above my counter top and purchased a new 19 inch flat screen which takes up a quarter of the space of my old TV. I also had my guy make me some doors for a small bookcase that I had and then I sanded and  painted the whole thing white. That was my contribution to the room. That and the endless fabric folding I did to fill my cupboards.

He also took a couple of large chunks of wood and made me two rulers holders. I also had him build me a big top for my ironing board which I am going to pad and cover.I have some more pictures to hang and a cork board to mount but all in all it is ready.

Old Room

Old Space

Fabric drawers before

book case before doors

Here are some before and afters of my lovely sewing space.      

Shot from the door, new cabinets and the bookcase with new doors added, my beloved Janome to the right.

new book case and I have moved my computer

my folded fabric

my ruler holders, piece of wood with routed slots

Countertop with bathroom vanity ends, pegboard above and small TV on the right 

Storage shelf above, eventually I am going to change to all white containers.

Counter tall enough for small drawers on rollers to fit underneath

Hubby insisted on taking this picture of me in my newly organized space.

 

I will leave you with one last photo, on the bus trip to Pennsylvania we went to the quilt show in Lancaster, which you have seen pictures of in my last blog.  I rented a scooter to see the show because it was on three floors and much to see. My hip would not have allowed me to enjoy the show otherwise. Mary on our tour took this photo of me and although I am not one for having my picture taken it is not bad.

Next time I will have some pictures of what I am working on now.

 

More Photos of the Quilt Show

Here are more photos of the fabulous Quilt Show:

This is "Gold Dutch", by Mary at, http://quiltinginoz.blogspot.ca/

I love this one, so much detail

Close up of the quilting on the quilt above

This was breathtaking

Ribbons Winner

Ribbon Winner

Ribbon Winner

Close Up of Winner above

Ribbons Winner covered in Crystals 

Little Brown Bird

All of the white is done in Buttons

These are a collections of Quilts by Karen Stone: