🎃 Halloween & Back Surgery 🎃

                                                                                   Autumn Drive

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autumn-drive-by-m-donna/

Sounds like everyone is having horrible fall weather! Cyclone Bombs, hurricanes, etc. We had all kinds of weather alerts over the weekend but we were very lucky and nothing strange happened. We always get a lot of rain and wind so it wasn't any worse than normal right here in  "MaDonna Land"! I hope everyone got through whatever they got.

It sounds like kids will be able to get vaccinated very soon but so many parents aren't going to get them vaccinated. More than 40% of the patients in our county are children so it will be a hard decision but I think I would have mine vaccinated.

I think I mentioned my back bothering me...well I finally got my MRI and the Dr. called and said he couldn't believe I was doing so well after seeing the MRI. It showed, Multilevel spondylosis, Multifactorial severe central spinal canal stenosis at L4 & L5 and complete obliteration of the central canal! No wonder my back has been hurting and my legs going numb! The orthopedic surgeon that did my knee is pushing my surgery up. He has 400 surgeries delayed  because of Covid but I am supposed to go in this Thurs. and get my back surgery. But I just read that the hospital has more Covid patients than they have ever had so I am so hoping they don't delay it. I went for my Covid test this morning. You have to have a test before any surgery. So I am keeping my fingers crossed. 

I am trying to get a lot of stuff done before Thursday. I am doing all of my floors today so they will be super clean, going to make a couple loaves of pumpkin bread tomorrow and get the house all cleaned good.  

I am still working on getting Halloween and Autumn themes updated. I won't finish the Halloween ones finished before this Halloween, though. I can only get so many submitted a day!

This blog must be so boring for people to read and I am sorry. Not much going on here! I was asked to submit a short comment about making my Autumn Leaves theme because Mozilla is going to feature the theme in their https://addons.mozilla.org/blog/  I really didn't know what to write so will have to wait and see what it sounds like. I will post the link when it is live.

I will get back to Firefox themes, updating, designs as soon as I can. And you know it will be soon IF I get the surgery this Thursday.

Have a good week and will be back soon.....

🎃 October News 🎃

 Kitties Pumpkin

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/kitties-pumpkin-by-m-donna/

Well, October is well underway. So far our weather has been fair but there is a definite chill in the air. I really dread the cold, cold winter but that goes with living in the Pacific Northwest. And it is so beautiful up here. 

I just finished making the above theme and was pleased with how it turned out. I had to do a lot of manipulating of  kittens and leaves to get it to show as many kittens and leaves as possible so I hope you all like it. 

I think I mentioned I had been having a lot of back pain the last 1 1/2 year and the last 6 months has gotten a lot worse. I finally got the MRI and it was quite scary looking. Our Primary Dr. called after he saw it and was surprised I was up walking around so well! Saw the Orthopedic Surgeon that gave me my new knee in 2019 and he is pushing for surgery asap. It is just a  matter of when the hospital can schedule it. He is hoping to get it scheduled within the next 30 days because it is getting worse every day. A lot of pain involved but I am keeping going as much as possible and doing quite well for as bad as my back is. I am hoping the Covid patients will go down so I can get in to the hospital. My husband surgery was postponed once so I won't be surprised if it doesn't get done in the next month. So keeping y fingers crossed. Not looking forward to it but has to be done. I will only get 2 days notice. So wish me luck!!!

My husband is doing really well since his heart surgery last month. So all is well there. He has been able to go up in the mountains with one of our great grandsons this week. They both enjoyed that very much and actually saw a cougar. Didn't bring any grouse home but were thrilled with seeing the cougar. 

Going to fix lunch and update a few more of my older themes.

The best to you all.....stay safe.

 

WAITING

 

                                                           Cutest Fox Ever

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cutest-fox-ever-by-m-donna/

 

Right now I am waiting for my husbands Cardiologist to call me and tell me his surgery is over and all went well. What a horrible time we live in now where you have to leave your loved one at the door of the hospital, go home..and then wait for a call so you can pick him up at the door. I am so upset at people that haven't gotten vaccinated because this is there fault. Right now this is a "disease of the unvaccinated". The first date for his surgery was cancelled because the hospital had too many Covid patients to be safe. A month later there are more patients in the hospital but they can't just keep putting patients surgeries off. I have family members that aren't vaccinated and no matter what I say they still won't get that shot. You can't do anything about that, but I tried.

I just called and he is still in surgery! Taking longer than what they said....

Just made some more coffee...probably not a good idea but I have to drive to pick him up so wine is out of the question!

I got all the floors scrubbed super good as that is a good time taker! 

Have updates going but I can only submit so many at a time and the crew that does the reviewing isn't as many as it used to be so it takes longer for them to be reviewed. 

I am going to sign off for now...I am sure I will be getting a call very soon.

 TUESDAY

    What a horrible day yesterday was! I couldn't get a hold of anyone at the hospital that knew anything. The Cardiologist that did the surgery was supposed to call me after the 150 minute surgery but he got called into an emergency so couldn't call. They had told us the surgery would be 150 minutes and it was 4 hours! I finally got a hold of someone at 6:00 that actually cared and she said she would find out what was going on and call me. To make a long story short...all went well and he is home. But it was a horrible day and I am sorry if I got carried away on my blog. 

I just wish people would get smart and this would all be over. Until that happens...this is going to be our/your world so get used to it. It sounds like kids are smarter than their parents and wanting to get vaccinated and their parents aren't letting them When we were raising our kids I would have done anything to keep them safe and not get sick so I have a hard time understanding their thought process.

Have a good week!

 

September Memories

                                                                             An Autumn Flight

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/an-autumn-flight-by-m-donna/

Can you believe that September is here? Hard to believe that 2021 has gone as fast as it has. It has been a year we probably all would like to forget. And it doesn't look much better for the near future. So this morning I was thinking about the past and thought I would share a little bit of what my life was like 64 years ago. I was pushing buttons on my washing machine when I started thinking about the past and how easy we have it now.

💖 

64 years ago I was an 18 year old wife and soon to be mother. We had rented a cabin in the woods for 3 months and paid $50 a month rent. We felt like we were wasting money renting. There was a house on the Mountain Loop Highway that we kind of wanted and we knew it was being rented out. The owner of the house was a recent widow. Her husband had been killed in a logging accident the year before. I remember it because I was in high school and they came to the school to notify the loggers son that his father had been killed. The widow and son didn't want to live up in the mountains by themselves so moved to town. After we decided to ask her if she would sell, we went to visit her and offered her $3000. It was a 2 story house on 1/2 acre in the wood and not very old. My husband worked for the US Forest Service and was making $4,000 a year! We didn't have any savings at all since we hadn't been married that long. But she knew us and was glad to have a young couple in her house. She talked to her brother and he thought she should ask $3500.00 which was all right with us. She helped us get a loan at her bank...nothing down and $50.00 a month house payment. So, we moved in...I was excited about setting up our own home since that was all I had ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. 

Back to the washing machine! We had purchased a used wringer washer for $35 and it had to sit on our open back porch. By then we had a 3 month old son. I put him in his buggy and put him in the kitchen so I could go out and get the washing machine and roll it into the house. I had to set up a hose from the kitchen sink to fill the washer and rinse the clothes in the sink, and then use the wringer so I could hang the clothes up. It was Feb. and quite cold out. When I shut the kitchen door...I realized I had just locked myself out of the house...our son was safe but in his buggy but I was worried he might spit up and choke. I had on a sleeveless blouse and no jacket available! Our nearest neighbor was 1/2 mile away so I had to run to their house to call the ranger station so my husband could come home and get the house unlocked. (We couldn't afford a phone at that point) He had to climb through an upstairs window to get in the house. Our son was perfectly safe in his buggy sound asleep! But it was something that I will never forget since I was so scared for our baby boy. My husband went back to work and I got the laundry done. No dryer, of course so I had to hang everything in the upstairs. My husband had set up a clothes line for me. So just think how easy it is for you to get your laundry done now. No one realizes the difference in how we lived in the past. We had bills to pay and if we were lucky there was money left for groceries...which there always was but I remember when I checked out if there wasn't enough money, I had to take a few things off the counter to put back on the shelves. 

So the next time you have to to laundry just be glad you have that beautiful washing machine!!!!

More memories another day!

August Heat and No Surgery

                                                                                       Cabin in the Mist

                                  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cabin-in-the-mist-by-m-donna/
   

Hope everyone is keeping cool. Wow, we have had heat but managing to get through it without air conditioning. 

My last post was pretty heated about vaccinations...well I would like to thank all you out there that have gotten their vaccine, and would like to give everyone that hasn't yet a kick in the butt!! Thanks to all of you my husbands surgery was postponed because our hospital is so full of covid cases. Un-Vaccinated of course! His surgery wasn't the only one that was canceled of course but it is his that we were hoping to get through before summer was over. We were all prepared to leave early Monday morning. We had been notified that I could not be with him at all...just drop him off...and they would call me after his surgery and then when I could pick him up. I wasn't pleased about not being able to spend any time with him after his surgery but at least he was going to get it. He isn't on is A-Fib meds right now because of preparing for his surgery.

My sister in law has lost her sister and brother in law to the Covid. And I have a hunch they were not vaccinated because they live in one of the Republican run states that seem to think they are immune. They aren't. To me vaccine has nothing to do with your politics. It is about your health! Enough people world wide have had the vaccine for over a year and it is proven they have immunity. This surge we are having right now is because of Delta. Delta would not have gotten into the communities IF people had gotten vaccinated when it was first approved for use. Delta is going to morph into another version that is even stronger and more contagious. Take my word for that! If this keeps up you will be hearing about that some day soon when you hear the morning news.

Still working on theme updates so have patience if I haven't updated your favorite. Or you can email me and I will get right on it.

Will get back to work. Enjoy the last of the summer but do it safely and wear a mask if you are indoors or where there are a lot of people. Please...

Soon to be August

                                                                                 Foggy Hay Field

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foggy-hay-field/

I decided this morning I just had to post on my blog. I don't know how many actually take the time to read this BUT I feel so strongly about something and am so frustrated about it, I am going to put my feelings down. I think it will make me feel better to just type it out. Why on earth are people not getting vaccinated? The proof is there....the vaccine works and its safe. Politics aside....why...why...why? Do you not care about other people or are you so darn selfish you don't give a damn? Personally I think that is a lot of it. They just don't care. They just go about their daily duties and don't give a damn about your or yours...or even their own family! Don't they care about their parents and grandparents? Apparently not.

We haven't gotten to hug some of our grand kids or great-grand-kids for months and months. It hurts. The virus should have been pretty much gone by this time but the way it is going it will never go away. The Delta is going to morph into the next version that is going to be easier to catch and more dangerous....and on and on and on! Until people start taking life seriously that is the future of our county. And the world.

We have the vaccine. It is safe... it works. Other countries would love to have what we have....but we are so selfish we don't give a damn. Me Me Me....That is what some of these people think. I actually heard a man on our local conservative radio station ask if anyone knew where he could get a vaccine without giving his name! Why in hell would he care if someone knew he had been smart and gotten his shot? Is he afraid his buddies will make fun of him! Well, stand up and be man and do your duty. Get the damn shot! Be a hero!

I just had to re-do all our masks with new nose pieces because we are going to have to start wearing them again. Actually we haven't stopped. We did start getting our own groceries but we wear masks when we go in. It looks like we will have to go back to ordering stuff. 

Please think about your family and friends...stand up and get the shot. Help your family, your county, your state and yourself. 

The way things are going my husbands heart surgery will probably have to be postponed next month because of selfish people. Who wants to go to the hospital when the virus is spreading like wildfire?

Well, have a good week! I feel better....and will be happy if this rant makes one person think about his life, his family and his neighbors and gets that shot!

July Heat

Wet Grass

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wet-grass-by-m-donna/

Another month has passed. I am sure everyone is warm enough! We had a heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that was very rare. We don't have air conditioning and have never needed or wanted it until the past weekend. We suffered! My heart was jumping around and I thought I would have to go to the hospital. We ended up and sat in lawn chairs in our tv room which is kind of in the middle of our house, with the ceiling fan and our other 2 fans both going. But there wasn't any cool air to blow around. I had a spray bottle and sprayed us both down quite often. They say that is probably just the beginning. I can't understand why some individuals don't believe in global warming or climate change....whatever you want to call it. We have never, ever had heat like that weekend. We really can't afford to put in air conditioning in our old house so I don't know what we are going to do...just suffer with it, I guess. I can just hope we don't have anything like that again. It was almost 100 ° in our house. 

The arthritis in my back has gotten worse so I am having to limit my sitting at the computer. I wish I could afford to get one of the sit/stand things to put your monitor, keyboard and mouse on but I don't feel I can so I just have to limit myself. That is very hard for me to do. Plus I had to give up my 2 1/2 mile a day walk. Every step brought more pain. I am waiting to get an OK for an MRI to see if anything can be done to help. But it's taking a long time to get that OK!

We have finally begun to go out to do our own shopping. We have both been vaccinated but the Delta variant is in our County now, so we are still wearing masks when we go into a store. Parts of the County are resisting the vaccine. I can't understand that at all but....what does this old lady know?

We found out that my husband has to have heart surgery next month.
After 2020 and all we went through I guess 1 more surgery is nothing! We can only hope and pray all goes well. It is tentatively scheduled for the 16th of August, but that can always change. We have only been to the hospital once since the Covid started and I had to sit in the car in January for 3 hours wile he was treated for high blood pressure. I hope I can be with him before and after.

 My nephew had a liver transplant last week and got through it very well. We are so thankful for that.  He was very lucky to get a liver when he needed it but not so lucky for the generous person that donated it. 

I have to get our masks ironed and the nose pieces inserted back into them. So I will sign off for today. Have a wonderful July and stay safe and cool!

 

Summer Garden Flowers

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