The Whisper Space

I have an update to my last post. I am retiring February 28th. Change is one of my least favorite things to go through, but the time is right to say goodbye to my “Cardland Career”:) I’ve worked with these two ladies in the above photo the entire 7 & 1/2 years. Yvonne, as manager, Toni, as my co-worker & our engineering expert:) Love these girls:) Yvonne is retiring the 28th as well, which she’s been planning for a while, even dreaming of for as long as I’ve known her:) She’s leaving to move to Lake Norman to be near her grands:) So her leaving nudged me to make my decision:) Last Sunday evening, February 17th, a number of us who have worked together through the years at Beaver Creek congregated at Brenda C.’s home to celebrate Yvonne’s retirement & to show how much we’ve appreciated her:) We’ve truly enjoyed working with one another & for Yvonne:) I’ve been blessed over & over to work with so many nice, unique, & gifted ladies. I will miss y’all:)

January of a new year is drawing to a close, so quickly! Last year I had lung surgery & Keith had a quadruple bypass surgery. This year I’m nursing a bad knee. My left knee, suffering with a torn meniscus & arthritis, is defining my daily activities. I have yet to return to an eight hour workday at my part time job because of pain. This week I discussed my health issues with my family doctor. She says my diabetes is my most important concern-since I can’t walk 3 miles a day my sugar levels have risen far too high-that I need to call my orthopedic doctor to find out how soon it will be till I can return to walking, or consider arthroscopic surgery. (Amazingly, miraculously, I hadn’t gained weight while resting the knee over the holidays!) Also, I had been pondering whether to quit my job. My wonderful manager is retiring & moving to Charlotte. My dear co-worker & assistant manager, Jane, quit in October to become a grandmother/babysitter for a grandchild. The knee has been one more reason to get serious about it. It may be time. I feeling more & more there are other things to concentrate on at this point in my life. Will keep you posted.

“When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.”

Alice Hoffman – Here on Earth

Alice here describes winter so beautifully. I feel I’m in the midst of the gray & colorless chilly days of the year. Yet this morning we saw above snow-blanketed Pittsburgh a brilliant red-orange sunrise, then sapphire colored mountains through West Virginia. What a reminder to me winter isn’t always drab & dull:)

Christmas has passed. Today is New Year’s Eve. I’m facing another possible surgery in the beginning of the new year (as I was doing this time last year!)?

What’s in store for 2013? Time will tell.

But I know God is guiding & leading me so I will strive to keep my eyes on Him.

Blessings to all:)

From C.S. Lewis:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed. It is frustrating to have discovered a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with. . . .

If it were possible for a created soul fully . . . to ‘appreciate’, that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. . . . To see what the doctrine really means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God – drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy is no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man’s chief end is ‘to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.’ But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him.

Today is a chilly Saturday–too cold to think about leaf raking or biking. And I’m feeling quite unmotivated.

After posting on FB that I was looking into buying a treadmill, my cousin sent over, via hubby Max, an exercise machine she no longer used. Knowing Max would be here by 10 am I slept in til 7:45, walked Wyatt & vacuumed & mopped the kitchen.
This machine is a flex ‘something or other’. I’m not sure it’s what I want but, since Beth was so gracious, I will try it:)
Max is such a friendly fella:) We always enjoy seeing him so we visited for a while.

After getting a few birthday cards in the mail & folding a small load of clothes, I decided to enter Keith’s mom’s Thanksgiving recipes into my computer–wonderful recipes I don’t want to lose, like how she cooks a turkey & her wonderful potato salad dressing & many others:) Mom was a great cook & she misses it now that’s she lives in a tiny studio apartment:)

Keith began working on our Christmas letter. I wasn’t sure I wanted to send cards/a letter this year, but in the last week or two have changed my mind. Figured with the letter written & printed before Thanksgiving, along with paring down the address list, I could get them out without too much worry.

I asked Keith earlier if he’d be interested in actually going to see a movie this evening! We never go to a theater, relying on our Netflix movies, but I’d like to see the new James Bond movie, Skyefall, on the big screen! Keith’s pondering it. Duke, State, & Wake Forest all play football at 3:30, so we may watch one of those while he’s still considering…

After Thanksgiving I’m going to wish I had this calm “day off before the holidays” back! I’ll have to get in high gear to get everything accomplished that I’d like to have done. (My work schedule will go to 5 days a week beginning in December) I’ve been begging for a Christmas list from my kids, but they aren’t really motivated yet:)
Keith just handed me the addresses to sort through so, better get busy:)!

PS. Decided at the last minute to see the movie Argo–a good movie, a great true story of rescue.

Blog, I have abandoned you lately. So here’s a short note:)

“I loved autumn, the one season of the year that God seemed to have put there just for the beauty of it.” 
― Lee Maynard

Over Labor Day Weekend Keith & I loaded up the Cruiser with our luggage, plus a chair for Skye, and headed to Boone & West Jefferson. On a trip home a few weeks ago Skye & I had found an inexpensive reading chair for her new larger bedroom.

The chair’s a Queen Anne upholstered in a blue floral polished cotton–it’s in perfect condition. And I didn’t even take a photo of it–oops:(

One of our favorite Boone breakfast places is Sunrise Grill:) We waited in line to get a table, which is pretty normal there. It’s a tiny spot, but the food is so delicious! I had cranberry walnut french toast with raspberry drizzle:) It was really neat to see Ben again and get to know him a bit more. Since he works in a restaurant  it’s hard for him to get off work to drive to Boone. We  appreciated his effort:) So did Skye:(!

A great weekend with our Skye Girl:)

She’s got a decent paying job while she looks for a job closer to her field, she and Ian love their cozy place, she has a new chair and a new full size bed, plus she and Ben see each other almost every week.
Whew.
I think she’s settling in:)
Life is good:)

Keith had carotid artery surgery last Tuesday (August 7th).
Half of Monday was taken up at Wake Pre-Op. Pre-Op  is now done in a brand new building across the street from the main hospital.
To be somewhat brief, all of this was serious surgery & beyond tiring! I’d already forgotten how exhausting his heart surgery ordeal was, which was only 7 months ago, & this procedure only involved 3 days & 1 night at Wake!
Waiting is hard.
Stress while waiting is hard.
Listening to all the families in the waiting room dealing with stress is hard.
Getting food is hard.
Driving back & forth is hard.
And on, and on….
On the day of surgery we were told to report to Patient Surgery at 5 am:( We arrived before the security police unlocked the front door!
Keith was wheeled to the operating room about 7:15. After checking in at the desk in the Surgery Waiting Room I bravely set off  to the distant cafeteria & had a wonderful breakfast of coffee, eggs, bacon, & grits—a substantial meal to get me through the day!
Seth came to keep me company about 8:30.
Dr. Chaudhry met me at the desk at 9:20 to say all went well, & by 12 Seth & I visited Keith briefly in the recovery room.
At 2 pm he was settled into a room on 3B, having a lunch of raspberry jello & bouillon. He thought it tasted great:)
Our pastor, Jerry, stopped by for a short visit around 3ish. Really thoughtful of him to check in & pray with Keith:)
By 4 Skye arrived, having driven from Tenn. via Boone!
Cameron came after work, about 4:30.
Seth left around 5 for a ballgame.
We watched some of the Olympics together:)
Keith was feeling pretty good:)
At 8pm the 3 of us said goodnight–he was in good hands with his nurses.
Whew–a long day!

Keith did well enough through the night Dr. Chaudhry gave him the ok to go home Wednesday. By noon we were checked out & on the way to Apex. We even stopped & had lunch at Beaver Creek Chick fil A!

Thursday evening Lou brought over a roast with all the fixings, & Ralph & Lorraine dropped by with homemade chocolate pie & baked chicken:)

But Friday & Saturday weren’t so kind. His pain (Skye & I picked up his prescription meds) grew worse that afternoon, & Saturday morning his blood pressure spiked up, enough to think we were headed to the ER! Gradually it calmed down as the day worn on. But he became nauseated a few times, a rarity for him. So things were tough Saturday. Naps inbetween helped.

Skye headed back to her Boone cottage  Friday mid afternoon. (On Thursday she found a cute side chair at Consigning Design. She packed into her Neon a rug & bookshelves, for her “new” bedroom, but the chair wouldn’t fit, so it will have to find another way to the mts.) It was so nice to have her help & company.

Sunday morning Keith felt better but not well enough to eat much or consider going to church. (I did slip out to the 11am service:)) By evening his appetite had begun to return & he slept well Sunday night. Monday, when I left to go in to work, he ended up napping till around noon, then perked up enough to put in about 6 hours of work from his recliner:)
Tuesday he returned to Lenovo:)
So, he seems to have weathered the storm & looks to be on his way to recovery again:)

PS. Keith found out today, Wednesday, while at work that Dr. Chaudhry wants him to stay home this week. So no more Lenovo till next Monday, the 20th. The rest will help, so I’m in agreement:)

For Father’s Day I gave Keith a weekend trip to Boone:) Selfishly I knew both of us would enjoy it, plus we could visit Skye:) Smart, huh:) We left Apex by mid afternoon last Friday (July 20th), after getting off work early. Destination for the weekend; Cliff Dwellers in Blowing Rock. (Photo below was taken from the Cliff Dwellers’ balcony)

Next, Killan’s ice cream & a mini shopping detour at The Gap:) Then said goodnights to Skye.
Back at the motel Keith & I soaked in our big jacuzzi–a relaxing way to end the day:)

Sunday morning we slept in & took our time packing, finally checking out about 10am. Then drove to Skye’s apt. to meet her for brunch:)
One of our favorite places for a Boone breakfast is Sunrise Grill so that’s where we wanted to go:) Keith enjoyed his egg, cheese, ham bagel while I savored the special, cranberry french toast–yum, with bacon & coffee. Skye ordered chicken & waffles with coffee:)

With that great send-off we said good-bye to Skye & began our leisurely winding back roads route toward home. As I’ve said many times before, leaving the mts. is always sad for me, & especially when Skye’s there too. Lord willing, we’ll go back soon:)