Eyesight Update

Clay's eyesight had a bit of a setback around the 24th of December. We don't know if it's because of flying or something else. Prior to our trip he had good days and bad days with his sight, but starting the 24th there were only bad days for about a week. It was rather discouraging. He says it seems to be gradually improving now. We can only hope it will return to what he calls "the good eyesight" he experienced on the best days in November and December. He returns to the doctor on the 11th for a checkup. For now we wait.

Santa Stamp

I got a postcard from Portugal the other day. I thought this was the cutest idea. The sender put the postcard inside an envelope, but on the postcard itself where the stamp would be she glued a small wooden Santa figurine. Too cute!

Christmas in Florida

We had a good time in Florida celebrating Christmas with Clay’s family. It was really great to see everyone. All the kids were there, and Clay’s mother too. The Rusty Scotts have a beautiful home and took good care of us while we were there. Santa was also very good to us.

Of course in Seattle we are used to having chilly weather for Christmas, so spending the holiday in Florida was a little different. On Christmas Day it was 81 degrees, and I remember sitting by the pool with a soft breeze blowing. As you can imagine all the palm trees were lighted for the holidays.

On Christmas Eve we went to a beautiful candlelight service that was quite a production. Then we came home and took a bunch of family photos while we had everyone together in their nice clothes.

Clay’s brother took us down to the beach where I got my first ever view of the Atlantic Ocean. One evening we took a drive to view the large fancy estates which overlook the ocean there, including Donald Trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago. We also drove down Worth Avenue to see all the fancy shops in Palm Beach’s very upscale and exclusive shopping district.

Our trip home took about 9 hours longer than expected, though. We got home at about 4am on the 27^th. Between weather delays and the holiday rush of people, I suppose it could have been worse. We were just counting our blessings because all around us we saw people who had it worse – mostly parents traveling with small children.

I hope you all had as nice a Christmas as we did.

Elena the Star

Speaking of creativity, you won’t find any more creative than Jim and Kristina - the parents of my beautiful little friend Elena. Here is a picture of Elena which came in their Christmas card. Oh wait, it’s not just a picture – this is actually a photo magnet!

And here is a picture of the card itself. Stitched by hand with their little star Elena at the top. How cool is that!

More Christmas Card Pics

Here are a couple more pictures which came in Christmas cards. This first picture is of my 16-year-old nephew Charlie. Nice handsome fella.

And here is a picture of my friend Joey’s family. That’s his wife Theora and their children Christian, Adina and Lucas (the little one). What a good looking family!

Handmade Christmas Card

There are many people in my family who are artistic or craftsy. I do not happen to be one of them. But I really appreciate when others show off their creativity. Check out this cool Christmas card from my Aunt Darlene!

Kimber and Cappi

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Kimber recently lost her beloved dog Cappi. Kimber’s been on my mind a lot recently. I love this photo of Kimber and Cappi at the dog park. As you can see they were lost in their own little world.

Florida, Here We Come

Tomorrow morning we are off to Florida to spend time with Clay's relatives for Christmas. The shuttle picks us up at 4:45 AM. I am SO going to sleep on the flight.

We found out this afternoon that my nephew Russ who lives in Houston will be flying with us on the second leg of our flight to Florida. We fly from Seattle to Houston first and then from Houston to West Palm Beach. I'm not sure why, but we will be returning via New Jersey. That should be an adventure - we've never flown through the Newark airport before.

We're really looking forward to seeing Clay's family. We haven't seen most of them in a couple years, and even Clay's mother will be there from North Carolina.

For Some the Holidays are Tough

This time of year everyone's expectations are very high. The mood is supposed to be happy and celebratory. But sometimes regular life intervenes and the gap between reality and expectations is great. The last few days I've been thinking about some friends and relatives who will not have as joyous a Christmas as most.

-- On my mind is my friend Colette who will be celebrating her first Christmas without either of her parents.
-- My friend Betty passed away earlier this year and I feel for her mother and the rest of her family who feel her absence greatly.
-- This week my friend Kimber had to say goodbye to her dog and best friend of 11 years. Her home won't be the same without Cappi.
-- My aunt is suffering a terminal illness. My heart goes out to her and her immediate family members who are caring for her.
-- Today my friend and coworker Doxey was turned away from an airplane flight because he was too sick to fly. He ended up in the hospital possibly with pneumonia. I can only imagine how disappointed he is that he cannot spend Christmas with his family in Tennessee this year.

We can only be grateful that the message of Christmas is one of hope. My hope is that my friends and family who are experiencing sadness this time of year know that they are loved and that tomorrow will bring a better day. Merry Christmas to all.

Another Good Report

Clay had another checkback today. Some days his vision is better than others. Today was not so good, and he took that opportunity to talk to the doctor about distortions in his vision. The doctor explained that the cornea is sort of wrinkly and that's from the stitches in his eye holding everything together really nice and tight. He expects that over time that will relax and the distortions should lessen. Clay's eye still has a long way to go in the healing process. All looks really good, though, and we just have to be patient. I was glad to hear there was an explanation for the distortions and there is hope that they may eventually go away.

When do the stitches come out? In 6 months or so. Clay's next checkback appointment is in 3 weeks - January 11th.

Christmas Card Surprises

I love this time of year when cards start arriving in my mailbox filled with pictures of my favorite kids. The first photo to arrive from her proud parents this year was Nikka's. She's growing up to be such a beautiful little lady! Don't you agree?

Christmas Postcard from Germany

I recently received a wonderful surprise in my mailbox. A Christmas postcard from Germany! The card was not signed and contained only the note "Merry Christmas Carm, from an unknown Postcrosser." Thank you to whoever you are, my unknown postcrossing friend. I love it!

Let It Snow ... Indoors!

The other day we went to Pacific Place (an upscale shopping mall in downtown Seattle) to watch it snow.

It doesn't actually snow in Seattle very often, so Pacific Place provides indoor snow for shoppers. They make it snow from November 25th through December 31st, from 6:00 to 6:15 p.m daily.

It's a fun activity, and they play really good Christmas music while you're getting snowed upon. In fact, it feels like you are on the set of some Christmas movie watching people with their shopping bags hurry about between the flakes, moving up and down the escalators, kids jumping up and down and catching snow on their tongues, and the adults trying to capture it all on their camera phones.

The little ones were SO excited about the snow, but I saw a lot of big smiles from adults as well (including our own). If you're having trouble picturing indoor snow, you can see a video of it here. Pretty cool!

Postcard From Finland

Yes, I'm still trading postcards using Postcrossing, and sometimes PostcardX. I recently received my first postcard from Finland. The birds are beautiful. I'm sure the one in the background is a quail, but not sure about the one in front. Do you think it's a quail or some kind of turkey?

Snow!

Yesterday was rather exciting. People in most areas around Seattle had our first snow of the year. Seattle doesn't usually get much snow, so it's a big deal when we do. I was working in my office downtown while the drops fell. We could see great big fluffy flakes coming down outside silhouetted against the dark terra cotta colored building next door. It was SO pretty! But there was some frustration too, because it's not really possible to capture the beauty of falling snow with a camera as well as it appears to the naked eye.

The snow fell for several hours but the temperature was too warm for it to stick. It stopped snowing before I left my office. It stuck in some of the outlying areas, though, and I understand some places got a couple inches. When I got off the bus at the Transit Center near our home (about 7 miles north of downtown) I was pleasantly surprised to find almost an inch of snow piled around, although the pavement was bare and wet. In fact I had to get out the snow brush and push snow off my car before I could drive home.

I love to watch snow fall and I celebrate almost every time it happens here. But I deliberately avoid driving in it at all costs. It's a good thing there is good bus service available for me. It's possible we will have more snow in the next few days, but it is unlikely to amount to much. Perhaps any real accumulations will hold off until after Christmas so we can do our shopping without worrying about getting around in the snow.

Job Corps - A Great Program

On Sunday we went with my sister Jozi to drive my nephew DJ back to Oregon where he is enrolled in Job Corps. He was at home visiting his parents in Lacey and Centralia for the Thanksgiving holiday. DJ went into Job Corps in May and is really enjoying it.

This was the first time I had been to the Job Corps facility which is located in Troutdale, Oregon (near Gresham). The campus is in a beautiful setting near the banks of the Sandy River. The facility has fairly tight security and lots of rules to keep the students on track with their studies.

DJ travels three days a week to Portland (a 40 minute commute) where he has an on-the-job training position. They teach lots of great employability skills at Job Corps including taking initiative, working in teams, how to troubleshoot and problem solve and dress appropriately for work. I'm really glad DJ is enrolled.

Winter is Coming...

But there is still some fall beauty left. Here are a couple pictures of autumn in downtown Seattle. At my office building, to be exact.

Diega and Corky Come to Visit

Last Saturday my sister Diega and her boyfriend Corky came to Seattle for a visit. They live across the water in Port Townsend, and it had been about 15 years since Diega has been to Seattle, so this was a special occasion indeed! We had a great time playing tourist in our own town.

Here is a photo of Diega and Corky at Pike Place Market in front of a stand that sells peppers.



And here they are with a nutcracker from the Nutrcracker March. We saw three different nutcrackers between the waterfront and my office. A quick check online reveals there are 50 of them scattered about downtown. This may require a digital camera hunt!



It turns out it was relatively easy for Diega and Corky to travel here by ferry. We hope they will come back soon.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great Thanksgiving, spending some time with my mother in Lacey. It occurs to us that Clay and I have a lot to be thankful for this year:

-- good and improving eyesight!
-- lots of family and friends who love us
-- special people in our lives who help out in amazing ways too numerous to mention
-- each other

Really ... No Glasses!

Clay's recovery from eye surgery continues, and his eyesight is doing pretty well. There are ups and downs, but the last few days have been mostly up. As you can see from the picture, the good eyesight days also put him in a good mood!

His old glasses don't work for him so he's walking around without glasses for a while. Even without glasses he sees well enough to be pretty functional. He's doing laundry today, for example. I know I will just get used to how he looks without glasses and then he will get fitted for a new pair. It's exciting to think about how well he will be able to see then!

A Week Off, Now Back to Work

I was off work for a week starting the day of Clay's surgery. While at home we got a few things accomplished.

Early in the week we were scurrying to clean the apartment for apartment inspections. The building owners come in once a year or so to make sure everything is okay with the apartment, fix anything that's broken and wasn't previously reported, etc. If you know us, you know we always do a major cleanup prior to inspections because I am not the best of housekeepers. As a result of our meeting with the owners' daughter we are getting a couple of things fixed and they are replacing our dishwasher! If you want to hear a funny story, ask me how the old one got broken. :)

On Wednesday we both got our flu shots (which didn't hurt a bit this year). Today is back to work. Yikes, there was more work waiting for me than I thought!

Picasa Software for Pictures

Sometime I want to try out Picasa which is available free from Google. What interests me most about this software is 1. the ability to add captions which will be saved with my pictures; and 2. supposedly super easy photo editing capabilities.

While reading reviews I found a negative comment that indicated you cannot change the dates associated with a picture. They have made a fair number of changes in this product since those reviews were writtenso maybe that is no longer the case. Something to test.

Look Ma, No Glasses!

We have a great report after Clay's appointment today. They took the patch and tape off his eye and he was able to open it. The first thing he noticed is that he could read his watch without his glasses. His watch has big digital numbers, but he could not read them before the surgery unless he had his glasses on.

Overall his sight now without glasses is about what it was before surgery with glasses. It's different, though. He describes it as looking through a fish eye. He has to get used to having more depth perception than before. But he is actually walking around without his glasses and not running into things! I imagine that after the eye heals they may fit him with new glasses which would make things even better. He's busy looking at everything to see what he can do with his new and improved eye. Things are looking really good. He has at least achieved the 50 percent chance of improved eyesight. Yay!

For further updates see Comments on this entry.

Clay's Surgery - All Is Well

Today was the big day. Clay went into surgery around 3:00. About 2-1/2 hours later his surgeon came to talk to me in the waiting room. He said everything had gone well and exactly as expected and hoped (Yay!). Clay spent some time in recovery and then I brought him home. He had previously practiced walking around the apartment with his eyes closed, so navigating with the patch over his seeing eye is not a problem. His eye is a bit uncomfortable, but not too bad. Tomorrow morning we go to the doctor's office to have the patch removed and see how things look. Everyone is eager to know the full outcome of the surgery, but only time will tell.

Eve of Surgery

We heard today that Clay's surgery will be delayed by a couple hours tomorrow, which puts it at about 3:15. He says he's not nervous, but I can feel the anxiety building. I think we will both be glad when it is over and everything comes out well.

My Favorite Goblins

My favorite part of Halloween is seeing the little ones in their costumes. Here are my three favorite goblins:

First we have the lovely Nikka in her Kitty costume. She is SO tiny - it’s hard to believe she is 3-1/2 years old now.

And here is Miss Cameron looking beautiful in her ballerina outfit. Cameron is 18 months now!

And of course the stunning Elena as princess of the kingdom. Elena also just celebrated her 18 month birthday.

Autumn in Seattle

Here is a picture I took in our neighborhood along the street where we like to take walks. This photo is a couple weeks old. Today the leaves on the trees are more sparse and with the arrival of Seattle’s rainy season everything’s a bit more soggy. I want to remember it just like this.

Who's Crabby??

My friend and co-worker Angie is a very talented photographer. At our office each year we have a silent auction to benefit United Way. Employees donate items to be auctioned, many of them made by the donor.

This year's auction was on Friday. I purchased several things including a set of notecards which Angie made from photographs she took at Pike Place Market. There were many beautiful pictures in the set of cards from flowers to fruits and vegetables. But for some reason this one caught my eye.

Can you say Yumm!!

Fun Stuff

Once in a while it's good to stop and enjoy the fun stuff. I received a couple links recently which were well worth a couple minutes of playtime each.

Check out Cursor Theft. After you play it a couple times watch what happens if you move your cursor below the picture and leave it there. You won't be able to resist moving your mouse. Cute!

And if you ever wished you could carve a pumpkin without all the mess, this Happy Halloween site is for you.

Enjoy!

Florida Update

There's great news from our Florida relatives. While the vast majority of the area remains without power, Rusty and Cathy's electricity was restored on Thursday. We're not sure why they got so lucky. Could it have something to do with having an executive from Florida Power & Light Company as a nearby neighbor? We may never know. In the meantime I think they are just counting their blessings. Now they just have to get the roof repaired...

Hurricane Wilma

Our hearts go out to Clay's brother and family who live in West Palm Beach, Florida. Like most in the county their home suffered some damage from Hurricane Wilma. According to preliminary estimates they may not have electricity restored until as late as mid-November.

New Postcards

In the last week I received cards from Hamm, Germany; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Lithuania and this one from Paris. I was particularly thrilled to get a card from Paris because I took several years of French in middle school and high school. I remember lessons on French history, architecture, art and culture. Of course I dreamed of going to Paris. Maybe someday...

City Girl

Check out my new art! My brother-in-law is very talented with wood carving. He takes old pieces of wood (various types), and carves on them until they are smooth and beautiful and express something unusual. He has done a lot of tall walking sticks, each with its own personality. A few months ago I was at his home admiring some of his work. He told me he would make me a carved walking stick for my balcony garden. Instead, he made me this cool abstract wood sculpture from an old piece of wood that was lying around my parents' property.

I love the big red lips which I am sure he incorporated because he knows I like to wear red lipstick. And the blue dot on the side is a mole - just like I used to have (except mine was black, not blue). You can't quite tell from the picture, but she also has smooth black hair. I asked my brother-in-law what we should call her. He came up with a long version of a name which I cannot entirely remember. But I remember the first part - "City Girl". You see, my family are mostly small-town folks and I was the only one to move to the big city of Seattle. Hence the name. As you can see I found a great place in the corner of my living room for City Girl where she can watch everything that goes on.

Clay Scheduled for Eye Surgery

I think the biggest thing coming up in our lives is Clay's eye surgery. We have been talking to his doctors about the possibility for quite some time. If you know us, you are aware that my husband is legally blind. He has effectively no sight in his left eye. He has some sight in the right eye, but that has been deteriorating over the last 20 years.

He decided to have the surgery because of the decline in his eyesight. He feels that if the decline continues he would eventually not be able to see well enough to get around without a dog or cane and may eventually lose his sight altogether. I think the clincher that helped him decide to do this was back in February when he got his eye cut on a display stand at Hallmark because he didn't see it. That injury could have been bad, but we were lucky the cut didn't go into the seeing part of his eye.

The surgery is scheduled for Thursday, November 3rd at 1:15 p.m. They will give him a transplanted cornea and also replace the lens of his eye with an artificial one. The procedure is expected to take about an hour and a half. He will have general anesthesia and will be asleep for the surgery. As long as he comes out of the anesthesia well he will be able to come home with me that evening. He will wear an eye patch overnight and that will probably come off the next morning when he sees the doctor for follow-up.

It may take a few days or even as long as 3 months before we will know for sure if the surgery helped. The odds they gave us are as follows: 50 percent chance of improved eyesight. That would mean he could possibly recover as much eyesight as he had 20 years ago. It would be easier to get around and he would feel safer to walk around the neighborhood alone. Then 40 percent chance of no change in his sight. And 10 percent chance that his eyesight would be worse. Within that 10 percent is 1-2 percent chance that he could lose his sight. I think that would be in case of something going wrong like hemorrhage or infection. Those kinds of risks are always present when you have surgery. Needless to say we are optimistic that he will fall in the 50 percent good result.

I will take some time off work during the first few days following Clay's surgery to help him get around and take him to follow-up doctor appointments. With luck all will go well and he will soon be recovered and seeing better than he has in a long time. Many thanks to those of you who have already expressed your good wishes and are sending up prayers on Clay's behalf.

Picture of My Office Building

The building where I work is a pretty one. I have photographed it on numerous occasions, but usually without the photo turning out quite as nice as it looks to my eye. A few days ago I was standing at a bus stop waiting to go home, looked up, and decided to take this picture. I think it's my most successful photo of the building.

Postcard Update

Last week I received postcards from: A Coruna, Spain; Dillenburg, Germany and this one from São Paulo, Brazil.

With each card I learn a little something about the place where it came from. The card pictured shows the Statue of the Bandeirantes. The Bandeirantes were early explorers who travelled West and North to the Amazon River. They are responsible for "establishing" Brazil's vast borders in South America. By planting the Portuguese flag far away from the Atlantic Coast the Spanish Crown had to recognize their marked territory as part of the Portuguese Empire. They were courageous, but often brutal killing thousands of the indigenous population. They searched for gold, emeralds, and other precious stones. São Paulo was their primary staging area.

Postcard Trading

This summer I took up a new hobby - trading postcards with people across the country and around the world. I use two web sites as a source for addresses. Postcrossing.com is an international and structured postcard trading project. I like that the site tracks the cards sent and received and will also display a history map for you. As you can see from my map below there are many users in Europe (especially Germany and Portugal) although there are more countries participating every week and the site is becoming increasingly diverse. The person who created Postcrossing is from Portugal and that's where it originated.

The other web site I use is PostcardX. There you click a link to receive a randomly selected address for sending. The PostcardX site is about 70 percent United States users, so if you want postcards from around the U.S. that would be a good place to start.

Each week I send a couple random postcards plus responses to cards that were sent to me. I receive an average of 3 cards per week between users from the two sites. It's a great way to learn about different places around the world. If you would like to see my postcard collection you can click on the Flickr badge in the sidebar.

New Blog

So many people are blogging these days. I have a goal on 43 Things to "Keep a journal." It occurs to me that starting a blog is one way to do that. I like that I can add links and pictures, and unlike a paper journal I am unlikely to lose it (although anything is possible). My goal is to add random bits from my life here and there - nothing too structured. Your comments are welcome.