When I went to the dentist in Los Alamos, the dentist was very concerned with my gums, so while in Fort Collins, I managed to schedule some serious periodontal surgery. Dr. Angie Lee (the best in the area I am told) and her staff stayed late after hours on Tuesday evening specifically to take care of me and get it done in the short time I am here! I am very easily anesthitized, and I was glad that was going to happen when I heard her say, "Now remember that I am going to cut and stitch your gums on the upper right quadrant, the upper left quadrant, the lower left quadrant and the lower right quadrant." It was a three hour surgery and I was just fine afterwards. Slight pain and a little swelling, but I felt good enough to go to lunch with my good friends from the Water Lillies on Wednesday!

SOMEbody must have taken some good photos, but I don't know who, and unfortunately, it wasn't me.

However, after that there was a bit of drama with my mouth. On Wednesday night, I didn't sleep much (awake from 1:30 to 5:00 am) and at 5 am I decided to take some melatonin and a pain pill. Then, when I woke up at 8, I was supposed to take 3 steroids ( to help with the swelling) but I was a bit groggy and confused, so instead I accidentally took 3 pain killers. I have never done well with pain killers, they make me hallucinate. So I got very dizzy and had to lie down.

I was entertained a while with a tiny mouse orchestra complete with red uniforms and marching band caps, being conducted by Betty Boop wearing red and white striped leggings under her tiny mini skirt! Also Chris flew around on the ceiling like some kind of demented bat with khaki pants and a plaid shirt. And I'm pretty sure that Bette Midler came to visit.

My nose itched and my shoulders were cold but didn't want to move to cover up or scratch

I threw up every time I ate something - that was probably helpful!. My teeth chattered and at one point my thighs were chattering and I was sweating! I slept off and on until 4 pm, and Chris kept checking on me to make sure I was still breathing. Now I'm writing this, feeling better and eating instant mashed potatoes. We'll see how I do, and I wonder if I'm going to sleep tonight??

Not a good day for working on Jonathan's quilt. I love that boy, and I love making things for him, but I have to admit I have started calling it "that damn quilt". SO much work! But it's going to be spectacular and hopefully we will both be proud of it. He doesn't often read my blog, anyway, so he won't know how much I am working and complaining. And don't you tell him!

Even with a sore mouth, I feel like I have to take advantage of every opportunity to see my kidlets! So when Karla invited her whole family over for hamburgers, I had to manage, even if I couldn't eat. I made a strawberry jello salad, so that there was something soft I could eat, and everyone gathered. It was great to be with everyone, and I took lots of photos! Here is Karla's brother, Patrick, with wife Heather, and kids, Emmet, Kate and Esben.

Then we have Karla's sister, Christina, who just recently moved to Fort Collins from Virginia with her husband, Josh, and son, Orion.

And of course, Karla, Lily, Jude, Aaron, Owen, Ezra and Joel

One thing I thought was funny, as we sat around in a circle in the backyard, was how everyone had on neutral colors.

Patrick, Heather, Andrew and Aaron...

                                                        Debra with her girls, Karla and Christina...and then there's me!

Oh well, what can I say? Color is my thing!

Here is a photo of the whole BUNCH of us! Can you name us all now?

Thanks to all for a lovely evening.

On Sunday, I had made arrangement with Candace Magner (from Los Alamos) to meet up with her in Denver to see the Cirque de Soleil show named "Kooza" because Katy Holtcamp was IN it! I was her sixth grade teacher, and Candace was her first voice teacher, and she has been a goal of hers to be the singer in Cirque for years and years. It just goes to show you that if you work at something long enough, it can be achieved! It was a wonderful show, and my photos do NOT do it justice, so I have borrowed some from Candace and stolen some from the web! This first one is from Candace and the gal in yellow is Katy - our student!

The photo on the left here shows the height of the apparatus from the stage (with Katy behind in the yellow) and the one on the right is from the web - showing the crazy things these aerialists did on the high wire!

This was my favorite act - "The Wheel of Death" - so scary and quite impressive! The other highly dangerous act - the Teeter Board, also made me gasp.

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This shows the height, and then the strength of thisacrobat.

OK - That's about the best I can do.  The formatting is NOT easy.  After the show, we met up with Katy and she gave us a backstage tour!  Fun.  The white board below shows the basic show with any changes or substitutions listed in red, so that everyone knows the correct format.  The flags above the board denote all the countries that are represented in the cast!  Pretty cool.

A few of the Water Lillies were able to meet for donuts on Monday - Here are Christy, Connie, Donna, Jo and me.

The last thing is, just for fun I wanted to show you our downstairs family room with my quilting mess all over!

There is a large screen TV on the right side of that room, so I could vaguely watch stuff while I stitch. The good news is that I THINK I got finished, except for the binding and a weird, wonky edge. I will take it with me to Michigan (leaving tomorrow) because we have our car, so I don't have to pay for the extra weight in a suitcase on a flight. When I figure out what to do with the wonky edge and get the binding on, I will CERTAINLY take a photo of the finished product, so never fear! Write back if you have a chance. I love to hear from you!

Trying Weebly

 Oh discouragement!  I spent several days on compiling words, stories and photos and was just about to push "publish" when Wix "encountered a problem" and told me that "some of your changes may not be saved."  NOTHING was saved!  Gone, gone, gone!  I was SO upset, and then had to rush out to church to hear Aaron preach.  

 Sigh. It had happened before a couple of times before, but it had just been a paragraph or two, not the whole section. Needless to say, I have changed sites, and will try to resurrect everything. I remember that I used Blogger several years ago, and there are some things I don't like about it, but I don't remember what they are.  Anyway, I'm going to give it a go.  If anyone has a really nice free blog site, please let me know!  Here we go:

Most of you know that I almost always wear a hat.  I have very cooperative naturally wavy hair that fluffls out nicely when I take my hat off.  But in New Mexico, with almost zero humidity, my hair just flattens and stays plastered to my head.  Not a lovely look.

The drive up to Fort Collins alone was long and boring, but uneventful.  Chris stayed in NM for a bit because he had an eye appointment.  

It's nice to be in our condo which is warm and welcoming.  A couple of funny things happened as I arrived.  One was that I had been using my ear buds to listen to audio books in the car.  On my first trip hauling stuff into the house, I realized I still had my earbud in (I only need one you know!) So I took it out of my ear and set it inside my hat on the kitchen table, thinking it would be safe and not get lost there until I brought everything else in and located the case.  Once I had everything in and sort arranged, and I'd had a bite to eat, I wanted to continue listening to my book, but then realized that I had inadvertently hung my hat up on the hook beside the front door.  I searched in the now hanging hat - no ear bud.  I figured I had knocked it out of the hat when I hung it up, so I searched all over the kitchen floor, living room floor, and even out on the porch and in the dirt beside the bins.  No ear bud.  I was crushed because I LOVE my ear buds.  Since I only need one, the other one is always charging and so I never have a lapse in my listening.  Luckily, I later found it on my dresser beside my jewelry - so I must have been smart enough (but forgetful) to realize I needed to put it in a safer place.   Whew.

The second funny thing was that I dying to have a bath.  Most of you know I LOVE my hot tub, which I reckon can cure anything from broken bones to broken hearts.  Just put me in hot water and I'll be happy.  It was just too hot in Los Alamos for a bath, but the condo is efficiently air conditioned and cool enough for me to enjoy one.  However, when I went to turn on the water, I noticed that there was no plug for the drain.  Drat!  So I scrounged around and hunted for something that might work.  I came up with some flattish plastic lid that was in the kitchen drawer and decided to give it a go.  Then, when I finally did turn on the water, I found that there is a simple lever which automatically closes the drain - no need for an exterior plug.  DUH!  So I was able to enjoy my bath.  Aaaaah!

While I was still in Los Alamos, I got quilting advice and help from my sweet friend, Debby Hyman.  Since she knew I was not finished when I left, she kindly offered to donate a second-hand machine that had been donated to her so I could take it with me on my road trip to Fort Collins.  I was happy to have that option, and although it is a very basic machine, and rather clunky, it works just fine except for one tiny missing piece that causes the thread tension to break way too frequently, forcing me to rethread the needle, which is frustrating, but not debilitating.  I struggled along with it for a few days, and then decided to go visit my quilting friend here in Fort Collins, Jo, for advice.  Maybe she would offer to lend me her machine?  But when I went to her house and was trying to show her where the missing piece was, she said, "Don't touch my machine!"  So I knew that wasn't going to work.  Sigh.  I floundered around some more with the current machine.  

But when I went out to lunch with Karla's mom, Debra, (and we took Ezra along - see above photo) I was telling her of my trials, and she kindly offered me her old machine, if she could find it.  She searched around in her garage and came up with it, so I took it home.  It turned out to be even clunkier and slower than the machine I have, and finally just ground to a halt and refused to take another stitch.  I took it to the repair shop, where the gentleman was very kind and efficient and told me that it was nothing I had done that ruined it, but that it would take about $200 to fix, and he could sell Debra a new basic machine for that amount!  It turns out that Debra bought her sewing machine when she was in high school, so you can imagine it's SEVERAL years old and out of date. Since Debra doesn't use it, it was decided that when I leave here, she will inherit my inherited machine and we will be even.  This means I am back to working on the exasperating machine.  I have started to call it "That damn quilt".  I'm sure it will be just fine, and hopefully, sort of spectacular, but it sure is a pain and expense to finish.  Hopefully Jonathan won't read all this and realize the trauma and trouble I'm going to because I love him.

My sister, Joyce, and husband, Jim, were in town for a wedding, and they were able to spend the afternoon with Aaron and family, and then spend the night at my condo!  I was pleased to have them and show off the place, as it's always nice to imagine your friend in the correct circumstances.