I didn't mean to drop off the face of blogland. It happened gradually.

Chris took longer to "return to normal" than we anticipated (but he's got a clean bill of health after all the testing..it's all good)

then i typed up a grateful post on nov. 30th and never finished it.

then there were those lovely holidays and all the fluff that goes along with them. and it was great fluff. truly. but it left me behind the eight ball a bit.

then photoshop decided to quit working. after a week of back and forth with adobe support, it appears that it's a vista v. photoshop issue. so now i have to buy either the upgrade for photoshop or the upgrade to win 7. sigh. that wasn't exactly in the budget this month.

so now i can't edit photos, make scrapbook pages…and consequently, i haven't posted to the blog. but i'm working on it. i installed the free trial of lightroom in the hopes of being able to edit pics soon (big learning curve first) and i will resolve the photoshop issue as well because i'm going a little stir crazy not being able to create.

for now, know that we are all alive and well.

zoe is growing out of clothes and shoes (a rarity for her) and we are baffled as she still eats next to nothing.

tori is getting very excited for her upcoming performances of annie jr. at the end of the month. lots of rehearsals. swim team's winter swim starts this weekend as well. her other favorite activity.

connor is wrestling, writing a research paper, figuring out his course schedule for high school next year, working on his solo for solo/ensemble next month (or rather he NEEDS to be working on his solo more), doing the scouting thing (prep hikes for philmont, meetings, camp outs) and generally being the busiest person in the family.

chris is working hard, feeling good and looking forward to a good year with his company. he too has philmont prep, scout campouts and has taken on a new volunteer job with our youth council at church. the travel schedule is starting to pick up again as well.

and i'm doing POTD this year (that is 'picture of the day') and taking pictures every single day. i missed one day, but took 2 the following day. interestingly, i've only taken one photo of a person so far. i'm sure that will change but i find shooting things right now to be a little less intimidating. i hope to be able to add a link on the sidebar of the blog to my flickr account once i'm back up and running with editing software. i've started a new bible study, a new yoga session and i want to walk 1000 miles this year. my girlfriend did that and then made a page about it and i thought the idea was brilliant. i need to move more and this is a good way to start….so that's the plan. i need to get the treadmill up and running (we have non functioning outlets in our basement) and have a go. i'm still struggling with being tired, COLD and run down but i'm slowly working to correct that. this year is the year to get myself balanced.

so, thanks for asking about the blog, begging me to post on the blog, etc. i will post pics as soon as i am  able.

love!

from husband/wife to patient/caregiver. and it's not really obvious at the time that it is happening, but i find it very obvious now that we are working on returning to normal. and i'm very happy for the shift back no question about that….but there is an adjustment. i think this whole incident is seen as an anomaly and not a perpetual cause for concern with the doctors. which is good. but we are still on edge a bit.

so while chris rests, watches movies and generally bums around, i'm doing laundry, working on a graphic design project (yeah, me as a graphic designer…it's ok, you can laugh…..) and paying bills. all good normal things to do.

tomorrow he plans to do some work and i plan to blog about the roadtrip weekend that tori and i had. by friday we should have all the normalcy back in place.

24 hours ago his heart started to beat way too fast and very irregularly.

23 hours ago we were in the ER and Chris had been given a bolus of medicine, an EKG, a cardiac monitor, an IV, blood drawn, a chest x-ray and oxygen and was diagnosed with atrial fib.

21 hours ago chris was admitted to the telemetry floor of the hospital where his heart rate could be monitored constantly by the nursing staff. he was confined to his bed as standing up sent his heart rate into orbit.

19 hours ago i got home from the hospital and sent emails to the family, close friends and chris’ boss to let them know what was happening and then i went to bed for a couple hours.

16.5 hours ago i woke up and typed more emails and posted on my message board to my dear friends. meanwhile chris was meeting with his internist followed by his new cardiologist. meds were increased.

13.5 hours ago i was back at the hospital with chris and he was still struggling with atrial fib and a racing heart (albeit slower than when we arrived in the ER)

13 hours ago chris got a 2D echo and we spent an hour with pastor matt. he prayed with us.

10 hours ago he was eating lunch and chris h. stopped by from church to pray with us. we were finally starting to see some more downward movement in both the heart rate and the blood pressure. but the atrial fib was still an issue.

8 hours ago i left chris to get some sleep and ran home to eat a sandwich, make arrangements for the kids to get to their various activities and ironed a scout shirt.

6 hours ago i picked up the girls at school and took them to see their Daddy. when we walked in the room he excitedly told us that he had FINALLY converted to a normal sinus rhythm and they would not need to sedate him and shock his heart back into a normal rhythm. thank God.

4 hours ago chris had dinner, got rid of his IV medicine and finally felt pretty good (as long as you ignored the total exhaustion of going 12 rounds with a boxer and not getting hit)

3 hours ago i returned to the hospital after dropping connor at scouts and picking up a mint cookies and cream shake from steak n’ shake for the patient.

2 hours ago chris was moved out of his teeny tiny double corner room (with his 93 year old roommate who’s been married to his wife for 65 years…they were so cute) and was put into a private room that was much less claustrophobic.

1 hour ago i left the hospital to pick up tori from rehearsal and connor from scouts while chris fell asleep watching a lousy football game.

right now chris is unfortunately getting 2 more belly shots (they burn rather badly) but hopefully that will be his last needle of his stay.

tomorrow morning he will see his docs and be discharged and i will bring him home. thank God.

who says that time flies?

a- apple

b- beach towel

c- cookies

d- my dog dino (this is where tori informed me the fun part was that you could “take” anything)

e- elephant

f- food

g- galoshes

h- hippo (hope we have a big car)

i- ice cube tray

j- jaguar

k- a kite

l- lemons

m- a mop

n- a nutritious snack

o- an opal (tori had no idea what this was)

p- platypus (think we’ve got enough food and animals?)

q- queen

r- my running shoes

s- sand toys (gotta have something for the beach right?)

t- a turkey (to feed the jaguar)

u- an umbrella

v- a very red ball

w- a wax candle

x- a xylophone (it was either that or an x-ray bird)

y- a yeti

z- zinfandel

so this is the game where you have to repeat everything as you go along. we had a good time with it. and it was nice to kill some time as the 5.5 hour drive took over an hour longer than it should’ve due to the highway being shut down for construction. oy.

the best part of the game was the end. tori said “zinfandel” and i just laughed that it was her idea. until she informed me that she thought that was a flower (got her zinnias and zinfandel mixed up) but i thought it was a GREAT thing to take to the beach so we left it as is.

we have totally enjoyed our girls weekend. photos and more details to follow.

if i did this right, you can see a snippet of one of their concerts in the video below. really fun christian music. i guess if we’re going to send him to a concert, a christian concert is a pretty good way to go!

newsboys LIVE trailer from Inpop Records on Vimeo.

on another note, tori and i are hitting the road and heading back to michigan for a bridal shower. my niece kate is getting married and tori is over the moon that she gets to attend the shower. grown up stuff is so cool! i am looking forward to a girls weekend and hanging out with my middle child. one-on-one time can be tricky with 3 kids. while connor is at the concert, chris will get one-on-one time with zoe. and that is almost unheard of. rumor has it they are going to california pizza kitchen for the mac n’ cheese for dinner tonight.

the MSU v. Iowa game was chosen because it was on a weekend that the kids had friday off. turned out to be a night game under the lights. kinda fun. would’ve been even more fun if the spartans hadn’t lost the game in the last 2 seconds…but never mind that.

here are a few shots from the weekend. it rained ALL.DAY.LONG. and it was cold. but luckily, the skies cleared right before game time so we did not have to sit in the rain…just the cold.

this was taken in the hotel room and i absolutely loved it….but it’s a bit blurry. oh well, i used it on a sb page anyway. love the kids’ expressions.

seriously…it was freezing (and misting). think this would make a good christmas card pic? no?

we made sure to hit SBS (the student bookstore) and a new place to stock up on green gear and then we met up with chris’ best friend kevin and hit one of our old stomping grounds for lunch. of course, back in the day, the place was called “Dooley’s” and was an irish pub (um i use this term loosely considering it was an off campus bar that served mainly pitchers of cheap american beer) and underneath in the basement was a dance bar called “Sensations” (which most of the boys called “Frustrations” if you get my drift…). anyway, the building is still there and on the front porch of “Harper’s” was an inflatable sparty (see blog banner) and well, we just figured that was a sign. it’s a microbrew now and the beer was pretty good (but we laughed because it was served in plastic cups) and the tables and floors were appropriately sticky. ahhh college.

we parked the car on campus and walked almost the entire length of campus (it’s 2 miles) to get to the Breslin center where we could watch the annual green and white basketball game for free.

love this basketball arena. see how close the fans are to the floor? it’s sooo loud!

love the way they decorated the key.

there really isn’t a bad seat in the house. hope we can make a real game this season, but my guess would be we’d be up in the upper deck. course that’s where we watch the football games so what’s the big deal?

after the green and white game, we walked past the stadium and ran into the band. the tubas were warming up or making sure they were all uniformly shiny or something. but it was fun to listen to the fight song as we passed.

zo preferred to walk campus on kevin’s shoulder’s (really, who wouldn’t?). and i am bummed this is blurry. i’ve been messing with camera settings but the trouble is i forget to PUT THEM BACK when i’m done messing. this is the only proof i have the kevin was with us.

once again we were up in the nosebleed section. but this year, we were AT THE WALL. yep. i managed to buy 6 tickets at the back wall of the stadium. it takes 10 minutes of hard hill climbing to get there and 20+ minutes of moving like cattle to get back down and out of the stadium after the game. but the view is great and no one is kneeing you in the back.

this was as close as i could get with my telephoto.

at halftime, the girls insisted on staying to watch the band (even though they were freezing and wanted hot chocolate) i’m glad we stayed it was a lot of fun to see the band.

and when they weren’t on the field, the band is in the end zone. student section is to the left of them. ahhh i remember those bleachers…..sigh.

the weekend was not the best as not only did the spartans lose but my FIL was gravely ill with legionella pneumonia. thankfully, he is finally on the mend but it was a scary weekend. we were just grateful that we were in michigan already and could all make the trip to see him at the detroit hospital before coming home on sunday.

here’s the first page from the weekend.

supplies can be seen here.

chris actually chose this game to play against connor because he can actually BEAT him on this game. yeah, not today. connor creamed him.

after dinner, we had a family bowling tournament. chris and the kids went first and then i was to take the place of the loser.

interesting to me that the wii people are hard to see on the screen. tori throws strikes like they are nothing.

zoe demonstrating the “i’m so good at this i can stick my rear end out and still get a spare” move.

needless to say, the kids beat chris and then i took his place. yeah, they creamed me too. it’s all in the wrist i’m sure, but for the life of me i can’t figure out WHAT is all in the wrist! LOL

seriously, it’s embarassing. i’m thinking chris and i should practice sometime when the kids are at school. sheesh!

3o minute masterpiece (that was tweaked a bit after the time frame). had to use 3 rectangles, 2 squares, 2 fasteners (i used staples) and the text had to be fully justified. whew. this was tough!

and then for my chat, the freebie was the graphic block title

we had a fun time. now i’m going to get off the computer for awhile and visit with  my travelin’ hubby. he’s been gone for 6 days.

have a great weekend!

a couple of weeks ago my FIL got very sick. very very sick. we were up in MI for the MSU v. Iowa game (we are still mourning the last 2 seconds of that game) and while we were there, he was admitted to the hospital for legionella pneumonia. it was really scary. by sunday morning, we were all in detroit at St. John’s Hospital and he had made a big recovery. one of the good things that came out of the scare was that we got to spend a few hours with the family. and that meant our sweet niece leah.

lots of new goodies on this page that are all 30% off this weekend during the big sale.

and don’t forget about the all day chat tomorrow. i will be hosting at 7pm EST for a random inspiration chat and i have a fabulous freebie to giveaway AND a $5 DD gift certificate. so stop by and say hello!

The sale begins tomorrow, 5th November, and runs through the 10th
November, with a full day of chats on Saturday 7th November, Digital
Scrapbooking Day. Join me at 7pm EST
where I’ll be talking about random inspiration with an exclusive freebie for you designed by Katie Pertiet.
You can see the rest of the schedule here.

And it just so happens there’s a brand new e-book in this weekend’s sale!

There is a LOT of great inspiration in this book and I’m very excited that it is out! Hope to see you at the chats on Saturday and have a great time shopping!