New Rugs for the Kitchen

I love anything with bees on it.  I found this bee pillow on-line at Ballard Designs.  I'm using it in the living room.

Now they have rugs that match the pillow and my daughter bought me this one for Mother's Day.  I was going to put it in my bathroom but decided it looked better in front of the kitchen sink.  (Ignore the drying dishes).


I really liked it so I bought myself the larger one to use by the stove.


And the best part is they are on sale!!  Can't beat that.

Until next time,

A Peak at the Garden

Today I worked in my yard for an hour or so. I am not quiet up to doing much more than that.

A few weeks ago when I was pretty down I decided that if I spent a little money I might feel better...lol.  Sooooo, I bought myself an iPad. Today I took it into the garden and snapped a few pictures.

I have several green tomatoes but no red ones yet.

The oak leaf hydrangea is in full bloom.

This mophead hydrangea has never bloomed before.  I guess it likes to be neglected.

And speaking of neglect.  This is what a potager looks like when the gardener is battling cancer.  To say I have a few weeds to pull is an understatement.  I will just do what I can when I can.  There is always next year.

Until next time,

Happy Mothers Day

Today we went to my Mother's house to celebrate Mothers Day. 

From left to right around the table - my son-in-law(married to youngest daughter), my mother, me in the shadow, my husband, my oldest daughter, my oldest daughter's partner, my oldest granddaughter, my youngest daughter and my youngest granddaughter.

We are a family for girls.  All the guys married into the family.

We arrived at mothers at 10:30am.  We all pitched in and cooked a wonderful brunch of ham, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, pancakes, and big flaky biscuits with jelly.  And we did have a few healthy items, strawberries, blueberries and cantaloupe. 

This is the first day I have felt like I am partially normal.  My radiation burns were pretty severe and I still have to bandage myself before I leave the house. You can tell in the picture that I have my right shoulder raised.  That is because the burns are under my arm and I have to keep my arm slightly raised. 

Anyway, I wanted to wish all mothers everywhere happy mothers day.  It has been a very fun day for me.  I am improving every day and hope to get back into my garden soon.

Until next time,



The End is Coming Soon

That is the end of my radiation treatments!

Ohhhhh no.  It has been so long since I posted.  Radiation has kept me very busy.  Going 5 days a week, Monday-Friday, leaves little time for fun hobbies (i.e blogging).  It all ends Thursday May 3rd.  Once my body recovers from the radiation burns my life should get back to normal. 

Sending hugs to all my blogging friends.

Until next time,

Baseball Spring Training

It has been a while since my last blog post.  That is because we have been in Phoenix at Major League Baseball Spring Training...woohoo!!  We try to make this trip every March.

BFF and me

We met my best friend and her husband there.  She is a Chicago Cubs fan and as you can tell I am a Texas Rangers fan.

BFF and her hubby

My best friends husband is a huge Cincinnati Reds fan.  The Cubs were playing the Reds at Hohokam and the Cubs won.  She was so happy.  Can you tell my BFF is wearing her Cub hat? And it was hot.  She wore it the entire game.

At one of the games they were selling helmet nachos. 

These nachos had layers of chips, chili, more chips, cheese, sour cream, salsa and jalapenos.  We did share the nachos and still couldn't eat them all. 

And here is the helmet after we were finished.  Luckily it was lined with paper that kept it clean. 

Just a few pictures of my Texas Rangers, plus I threw in one picture of Albert Pujols(in red) who now plays for the Angels.  These guys are like movie stars to me. 

Just a quick health update.  I had my chemotherapy port removed yesterday.  It was a simple surgery.  The doctor made a small incision near my left shoulder, removed the port and I have 3 stitches.  It has never hurt so no big deal.

Today I started my 6 1/2 weeks of radiation, that is 33 treatments.  It literally took only 5-7 minutes and it was finished.  This should be easy peasy compared to chemo. 

I am feeling good.  Spring sprung while we were away so it is time to get out in the yard. 

Until next time,





Museum of Osteology

Warning!!  This blog post may be too graphic for you.  If you don't like seeing bones then STOP NOW....I will see you next time and thank you for stopping by. 

This past Monday my granddaughters were out of school for the day so I took advantage of it.  They spent the night with me Sunday night and on Monday we visited the Museum of Osteology in Oklahoma City.

We picked up my youngest daughter who is the mother of my granddaughters and we spent the day together.

Osteology is the study of bones and these are bones...no fakes here.

I had to include a picture of cats.

This is our state bird, the scissortail flycatcher. 

Oldest granddaughter liked the Rhinoceros

Youngest granddaughter liked the hippopotamus

The building is 2 story in the center to house the giraffe and whales.

Killer whale.  Below you can see the elephant and rhinoceros

And my husbands favorite, the Rock Hopper Penguin

Until next time,

Flying Geese

This week I saw a flock of geese flying over my house.  I hurriedly grabbed my camera and snapped this picture.

Several months ago I bought a new quilting ruler to help me make flying geese blocks.

This is what a flying geese quilt looks like.

Quilt made by Allison Vaccaro

Pretty cool!  Now I am very inspired to try to make a Flying Geese quilt.  One more project on the to-do list.



Until next time,

This Past Week

Last Monday we had a little snow fall.  Most of it had melted by the afternoon.

It has been so warm here that many of my bulbs are sprouting and our trees are budding.  The snow doesn't seem to have bothered them.

This is Fats.  I named him that because he has such a fat face.  He has been coming to our house for 2 years now, wanting to be fed, then he leaves and we don't seen him again for several months.  I don't know if he belongs to anyone but he has decided that he wants to live with us.  During the snow I made him a bed on our front porch to try to keep him warm.  If he is still hanging around in March we are going to take him to the vet and get his shots and have him neutered.  I'm not ready to bring him into the house yet, you know, we have 3 cats already!



AND my daughter has rescued a cat that is pregnant.  Yes, I am sure I will bring home one of those kittens.  Looks like I will have 5 cats soon. 



On Tuesday the snow was gone but we had freezing fog which is much worse than the snow.  While driving you couldn't tell that the road was frozen, it simply looked wet.  People were crashing their cars all over the city.  I was glad I didn't have to get out until later in the day when it warmed up to 55 degrees. 

On Wednesday I decided to quilt a little.

Brutus decided he wanted to help and he buried himself under this quilt..cats..gotta love em.

Thursday I was back in the oncologists office for a check up and Friday house cleaning.

So goes it in the life of a retired person.  I LOVE retirement!!!

Until next time,

Pocket Frogs for Iphone and Ipad

Cancer has caused me to become an electronic game addict.  I have never and I mean never played electronic games before now.  My kids do, my husband does but not me.  We have a playstation and an Xbox, we even had an Atari back in the day but I never played.  It never interested me.

Then I bought an Iphone and soon after I found out I had cancer.  I was listening to a podcast (in fact it is one of my favorites) called "How much do we love" and they were telling how much they loved the Iphone/Ipad game called "Pocket Frogs".  It is not a new game, it has been around for a while.  It has 5 stars in the app store and the best part....it is free.  I decided to try it and now I am addicted to it. 

I took a few screen shots of my frogs. 

Part of my collection

Aren't they pretty?  This game has really helped me get through my days battling cancer.  I play it while I am in waiting rooms and while I was taking chemo.  It helps pass the time and is a pretty mindless game.  It takes my mind off Doctors!!

Froggy habitat

Once while I was taking chemo I forgot to mute my phone and the frogs crock.  I started playing, the frogs were crocking and patients were looking around for the frogs.  I was embarrassed, muted my phone, apologized and everyone laughed, nurses included.

My daughter wrote a blog post about this game on her blog (I have her hooked now!)  See her post here.  You will also read a little about her mental disorder that she battles. 

Breeding frogs in the pond

My daughter calls it a calming task.  It is a game that will slow down your mind when you have a million thoughts running through it. 

So if you have a Iphone or a Ipad and you need a calming task I highly recommend Pocket Frogs. 

Until next time,

Chemo - Bye Bye

Hello blogging friends.  I'm back and feeling great. 

I had my last chemotherapy treatment on January 19 and felt bad for a few days but I feel absolutely normal now.  And I still have all my hair!!  My oncologist is going to make me wait 2 months before they will remove my port.  The port is in my chest and it was used to administer the chemo.  I thought it would be removed immediately but she tells me it is standard procedure to wait 2 months...dang it!

Radiation starts around March 19.  I will go to the hospital every day (5 days a week M-F) for 6 weeks.  I am not looking forward to that. 

For now I have a little break from seeing doctors.  I have been spending my time with family, also quilting and reading. 

I finally finished quilting this quilt.  I machine quilted it using my Bernina Activa 145.  This quilt is for my cats.  They seem to really like laying on it.  And it will keep their fur off my furniture!!

I used fabric from my stash and pieced the backing fabric.

For the binding again I used fabric from my stash and pieced the binding using coordinating fabrics. 

I borrowed this book from my local library.  I really enjoyed reading this book.  It has motivated me to dig in and get rid of things I no longer need.  If you are interested in decluttering your home, organizing your home, simplifing your life and becoming a better steward of this earth then you will find this book to be an interesting read. 

It feels good to be back in the blogging world.
Until next time,

Tiger Cubs at OKC Zoo

The Oklahoma City Zoo has 4 new tiger cubs.  They were born July 9th, 2011, 3 females and 1 male.

This is Momma, her name is Suriya.  She is watching over her cubs. 

The cubs were behind a fence so it is in most of the pictures.  They look large but they are about the size of a German Shepherd dog. For a tiger that is still pretty small.

The male was named Leonidus.  The 3 females were named Leeloo, Lucy and Lola. 

It is rare for a tiger to have four cubs; most have two or three.  And it is very rare for all four cubs to survive.

There are only 250 left in the wild.  66 live in accredited zoos.  Now there are 71 in living in a zoo!!

They started getting soooo tired.

All tuckered out.

Until next time,