Let’s Be Serious For a Bit My Friends

Friends, I need to be a serious for a bit.  You see, there have been some things going on here at the Hotel Thompson that I’ve kept a secret.  Imagine that.  *Moi* keeping a secret.  I know!  I’m more surprised than you are – really I am.  We have all kept it kind of low key waiting to see the results and today we got some.  Mom/dad said it was okay to share now so I am.

Mom went for her yearly mammogram last Wednesday.  Yes, this is where you can say OUCH!  Mommy says they take her breasts and put them between two pieces of glass. Then they squish them to take pictures.  For some women, there is no pain while others say it is very painful… like mom.  It is definitely NOT a happy time.  She kind of compares it to throwing yourself chest first up against a wall like a squishing a fly.  Can you say it now?  OUCH.

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So this past Friday, she receives the following phone call at 4:50 PM.  On a Friday – remember that okay.

“This is Dora with the Doctor’s Office.  Is this June?”

“Yes, this is June.”

“Can you verify your date of birth and medical record number?”

“Yes…blah-blah-blah”

“The radiologist has reviewed your images from your mammogram this week.  There is some concern over the images on your right breast.  He sees a cluster of calcification and wants you to come back in for more testing.”

With a worried sound in her voice, “Okay.  What does that mean?  When?”

“Calcification can mean a lot of different things.  We need you to come in 8:30 AM next Wednesday, 09/02/2015.  After some more testing, the radiologist will meet with you and go over everything.”

“Okay.  I’ll be there.”  Looks down at clock and it’s now 5:00 PM… on a Friday.  Great.  Now I will need to break this news to my husband so we can both sweat about it ALL weekend.  Terrific.

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So you see friends.  Mom and dad have been worried for a couple of weeks now.  They didn’t tell us anipals about anything until yesterday.  Can you imagine getting this phone call on a Friday afternoon before the weekend?  No wonder mom/dad would just look at each other over the weekend and say to each other, “Really?”  or “What if?”  Unbelievable is what I say.

Yesterday, mom went for her re-test.  Afterwards, the nurse said, “The radiologist wants to speak to you.”  Mom would like to say she was shocked at that but after everything she had been through, can you be more shocked?  Her and dad went to the radiologist’s office to meet with him and go over the results.

So they meet with the doctor and he shows mom/dad all of the images from the Mammogram – the current ones compared to the past ones and talks all of these long words.  That’s when mom speaks up, “Cut to the chase.  What’s going on in my terms?”  Leave it to my mommy huh?  They have found some spots on mom’s right breast. They want to watch them and retake some tests in six months.  He doesn’t think they are anything to worry about but if they are still there and look ‘worse’ in six months, they will probably do a biopsy.  But, he thinks they are okay.  He then went into the different phases, sizes and shapes of different calcification’s.

Bottom line is mom is okay but she has been put through the ringer in the past week with this scare.  Have your moms been through this?  We pray in March 2016 that everything is smooth sailing easy peasy with no worries.  If you can send her healing vibes and prayers, we would so much appreciate it my friends.

 

Squeals – It Happened AGAIN!

Go ahead – ask – ask what happened again.  I bet you can’t guess.  Oh my pigs – squeals.

That’s right.  We got to talk to another blogville friend.  Someone that we have talked to for years but never via phone.  And it happened today!  And not only did we talk, we got to see them via Skype.  Okay – I know.  This little piggy needs to slow down and tell you WHO – snorts.

It was Michelle from Three Moggies.  And we got to see Archie and Oscar – squeals – they are ALL so adorable.  And talk about cute little accents.  It’s so neat that we got to see them and talk to them all the way in the United Kingdom.  It was the neatest Skype call.  Much love to Michelle and the gang.  We have to do it again really soon!

Now the question remains.  Who will be next?  Will it be you?

 

My Mom Needs Training Wheels

Yep, I said that out loud.  Mom needs training wheels while she is walking!  The other day her and daddy went out to dinner – who would have thought that I know – snorts.  When leaving the restaurant, mom was so concerned about guiding daddy so he wouldn’t trip that she didn’t see this boulder on the ground.  Now that is her word – boulder.  I’m sure it wasn’t actually that big.  She hit the ‘boulder’ with her shoe.  Did I mention that she had on these really cute sandals that had openings to show her toes with their cute little pedicure colors?  She tripped, stumbled and thank goodness daddy was holding her hand so she didn’t fall down. So there she is stumbling while daddy is singing, “I’ll tumble for you” by Boy George – shakes piggy head. That’s the good part.  The bad part you ask?  Well, her big toe found the ‘boulder’.  She broke her toe nail, messed up her cute little pedicure and jerked her body from almost falling.  So as she tells daddy, she now has a catch in her giddy up.  Shakes head.  Only my mother huh?

So now mom has a catch in her giddy up, a messed up pedicure and guess who else wants to come out and play?  Mean old Mr. Arthritis.  She is also having a bad flare up with pain due to this weather that belongs in hell.  Yes I said it.  Hell.  It pushes the high 90’s every day.  When we get rain, it just makes things more steamy afterwards.  And it feels like we can never get the Hotel Thompson cool enough.  Daddy says he feels the power company lowers the power around 5pm every day.  Maybe it’s that or too many people turn their thermostats down during that time?  hhhmm – it makes you wonder doesn’t it?  Either way, even with fans you just can’t cool down and the heat is messing with mom’s arthritis.

So there you go.  You have my mom who is the stumbling toe cruncher catch in her giddy up hurting from the heat from arthritis gal at this moment.  Does that paint a picture for you?  Please send her some healing vibes and prayers this way if you don’t mind.  She’s having a hard time getting up and moving and standing and sitting.  Snorts – pretty much she has the trifecta of pain these past couple of days.  I’m hoping that this weekend she can get plenty of rest and some extra tender loving care from daddy and all of us anipals.

And tomorrow – oh joybells – we so can’t wait here.  We can’t be late for a very important date.  Mommy is expecting a phone call from someone here on blogville that is almost like a sister to her… someone that we have spoke to via blogville a LOT but never by phone  They are calling tomorrow at 2:30 pm our time.  We are ALL excited to talk to these peeps.

Can you guess who it will be?  We will post about it next week.  YAY!

 

Oh My Piggy Heavens!

Oh my goodness.  Oh my goodness.  Oh my goodness!

You are so not going to believe this my friends.  I almost didn’t!  Last night, mommy came home from the worky place and told all of us something that was out of this world!  I mean OUT OF THIS WORLD!

Guess – go ahead guess – who she got to talk to yesterday on the phone.  I bet you can’t guess.  Heck, I *know* you can’t.  We were shocked.  We were surprised.  Heck, we all wanted to talk to them too.

Who was it??  It was my pals Wallace and Samuel from South Africa. Can you believe that?  My mom talked to their mom on the phone person to person.  They got to hear each other’s accents and everything.  We were all like, “That’s not fair – what about us?”  We wanna talk to them too.

It was crazy!  It was like around 9:30AM here our time and after 4:00PM South Africa time.  It was a blast.  Mom explained this won’t be the last time we talk so we told her next time – we wanna talk too!

 

Renovation – Phase II

 Welcome back my friends to Phase II of the great renovation at the Hotel Thompson.  Phase II was an ordeal – almost worse than Phase I in my book.  In Phase II we had an electrician out.  The one thing that the hub unit has always complained about in the living room is that there is *not* enough light.  The hub unit has limited vision and when things are dark, it wipes out what vision he does have which is not much but everything counts, right?

 So one of the first things I did was to have an electrician go up into the attic and install a ceiling fan.  First, it would be great to have some air circulation and second it would have LIGHT.  I have to admit, that this is one of my favorite things about the renovation.  It was a great addition and you will see the final results on Friday.

Also during this time, I kept going back to the floor we ordered.  Something just didn’t sit right with me.  I talked it over with the hub and he told me then that if I had doubts, I needed to call the contractor then and there to discuss it before they were installed.  We had the contractor come back out on 4/12/2015 to go over more flooring ideas.  I’m glad I did because I saw a flooring color that I absolutely fell in love with so we changed it.  While the contractor was out, we also asked him to look at our bathroom floor – it really needed to be changed as well.  After reviewing the prices with him on the bathroom floor, it was a no brainer to go ahead and have it completed as well.  After speaking with the contractor, I knew the right decision had been made and we were set for the flooring.

But then at 6:55PM on Sunday night 4/12/2015, we received a phone call from American Signature Furniture which set me in a turmoil.  The lady that called advised that the furniture we ordered was back ordered until JUNE 2, 2015. What?!  And better yet, the store called us at five minutes until closing to advise us of this information.  And better yet to that, we had upgraded our internet services to fiber optics and did not know that the company had installed a voice mail on our telephone.  The date we bought our furniture and expressing that it had to be in by April 16, 2015, they called us a couple of days after that on 4/2/2015 and said that the furniture was back ordered and would be delivered on April 28th.  Now talk about nerves and stress.  American Signature Furniture was given two telephone numbers to contact – our house number and my cell number.  Not one time did they try to call the cell and we just happened to be at home the evening of 4/12/2015 to speak with the lady about being back ordered until June 2.

Of course, I didn’t sleep well this night.  I was worried about our furniture!  I called the headquarters of American Signature Furniture the next morning 4/13/2015 and advised our situation.  They told me specifically that a manager from the store would call me between 10-10:30AM that day.  At noon, I had not received any calls.  I called the headquarters again and was advised they were still in the works in getting in touch with someone at the store.  Finally around 1PM, the same lady that called me the night before called (who was NOT the manager).  She advised that the only thing she could do was refund our delivery fee.  Shakes head.  How stressful huh?  I advised her that I wanted to speak to the STORE manager.  She told me that he didn’t come in until after 2PM and she would give him the message.

By 3:30PM, no one had called me.  The more I thought about the situation, the more I got ticked.  Just a heads up, don’t tick off a woman who has purged, cleaned and stuck to a schedule to get things done in three weeks.  I left work early, picked up the hub unit and we went to Ashley’s Furniture where I met the nicest manager ever – Angela.  I was up front with her on everything – we needed furniture by Friday 4/17/2015, what I wanted and what had happened.   Within 20 minutes, I found better furniture that I absolutely LOVED, better attitudes, bigger fireplace and friendlier staff.  I highly recommend this store.  AND it gave me great pleasure to go to American Signature Furniture and advise them that I wanted a refund of nearly $3,000.00 due to their service… which by the way a manager has yet to ever call me.  I call that piss poor customer service.

Phase II included all of the tribulations of furniture and then on 4/15/2015 the painting began.  Lord help me if I *ever* see another paint brush my entire life – LOL.  I asked the ‘kids’ to invite their fellow anipals over to the Hotel Thompson for a paint party that included food but unfortunately not one single person showed up.  Who would have thought that, right?  So much for the anipals and kids helping out.  Although, Houdini did try and was almost a Smurf when he attacked the blue paint.  That’s right.  Houdini attacked a blue paint roller.  I immediately picked him up and washed him off.  And I have to admit that there might be some snout marks on one of the lower walls in the living room.  And yes.  I left them there 🙂

 So you are asking what colors I chose?  Well this is one wall and one color.  With the hub unit’s vision impairment, he couldn’t help with the painting so it was in my hands – literally.  I painted for NINE hours straight.  Up/down/on the floor/standing up.  After NINE hours, I called a break.  We went to dinner, rested for a bit and then I came back and did TWO more hours of painting.

Let me add that usually painting doesn’t bother me.  It can be fun for a while.  After 11 hours though, it is a nightmare.  I have never gotten up/down so much from the ladder and chair working in trim.  Heaven forbid – I didn’t know you could hurt in some areas that I hurt.  Let alone when we finally crashed that night, I dreamed about painting and was moving my hands in my sleep with the brush.

 This is the same wall showing how the paint dried.  Pretty huh?  This is the darkest color I used.  It is on the entry way wall and one wall that goes from the living room into the kitchen.

By the time I finished the last wall, I had fallen off the ladder once.  No biggie just a big scratch on my leg.  My legs hurt from getting up and down.  My arms hurt from going up and down with the brush. I had multiple colors of paint all over me.  And who knew you could have bruises on top of bruises.  Was it worth it?  At the end of Phase II, I was definitely questioning myself if I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Remember to come back tomorrow for Phase III.