To Knee or Not to Knee....

that has been the question around here for OVER FIVE YEARS now! After back to back gloomy and moody posts I thought I'd try to give you change of pace. The weather is very wintry of late! Still no sign of snow, thank goodness!!! But when you can see all the bare branches loaded with squirrel's nests you know the first flakes won't be long in coming! We've not only been busy with the day to day grind but some social obligations were squeezed in as well! There will be a new little cousin arriving around Christmas and his baby shower was this past Sunday! Basically the most boring kind of party for my girls at this age but since the Mom-to-be is a teacher there was a BOOK theme which helped this one be a bit more interesting. We chose our favorite 5 Little Monkeys book as the 'gift card' and the gifts were a memory card for their camera along with a digital picture frame and scrap booking starter pack which included monkey stickers and band aid stickers (: No, not another visit with Auntie Peggy at work!! Her pediatrics unit is fun but they still require scrubs...not jeans. As you may remember from earlier posts, my Mom has been falling ALOT lately. Most of it is not technically 'falling' as she senses her knee about to give out so she sits herself down and then cannot get back up! She remembers a pretty bad bang to her knee back in her thirties after which her knee was never the same. I do not know about that but I DO KNOW that I sat with her in the orthopedic surgeon's office at least FIVE years ago as he showed us the x-ray of her knee....if you could call it a knee at all!! I was looking at a stump of a femur with it's sturdy 'ball' GONE. Not only was the femur worn to a stump but it was trying to work with a non-existent 'cup'!!! Bone on bone was a generous way to describe how she has been functioning with that knee!!!!!!!!!!! So here she is after FIVE YEARS of stubbornly refusing to undergo the knee replacement surgery that was clearly needed! She's not really sleeping here....just in a morphine induced state of suspended animation!! Julia climbed straight over all the tubes and machines to get in and give Grandma her kiss. While my future nurse .....NOT!!!!!! Mari clearly has no future in the medical profession. Walking past all he paraphernalia was a challenge but she really loves her Grandma so.... she made it past the 'scary' stuff to get to the only open stretch of Grandma's bed in order to give her kiss and get a chat! The 'chat' was brief to say the least!!! Grandma thanked us all for our concern and love and then invited us all to GO AWAY!!!! Seems the only thing she wanted to do was push her little magical pump button and sleep(: So they put their get well cards up on her cork board and we headed out! Today we'll go again and hopefully she will be minus a few tubes. Cannot close a post without showing you the latest salt mine production... the regional championships in Irish dancing are in Columbus, Ohio over the Thanksgiving weekend and this is the last dress I had to complete for that event. Purposely posted this not so great shot just so you can get an idea of how sparkly these things are on the stage. Still feels like 'playing' when you get to sew with velvet and rhinestones!!!