We thank Aunt Sandra for introducing us to these cute little guys some time ago. They are very amusing, and have some of the greatest E-cards on the web! The kids love looking at their cards, and also especially enjoy watching Hoops and YoYo on “Manners”. In fact, Abigail is happily ensconced in her nest, as she recovers from a nasty tummy bug, being entertained by the antics of Hoops and Yoyo.
More on that surgery
Here are some events in my life that were worse than the experience of this past week: malaria, spinal meningitis, spinal fusion, staff infection in my heel bone, 3 of my 6 reconstructive foot surgeries. I’m pretty sure something just got displaced from my top 10 bad experiences list… somewhere around number 7.
And it wasn’t on account of the pain, though there was that. As it turns out, I cannot sleep if I’m not breathing through my nose. Most nights passed in a blur of pain and confusion broken up by 15 to 30 minute intervals of sleep. I think I maxed at about 1.5 hours of sleep for the first 6 nights following the sinus surgery on the 14th.
Briefly, I had my septum relocated, my inferior turbinates shaved (not hair but flesh), and a general roto-rooter job done on my sinuses to reshape them, clear impediments, and open them up. But all that was really quite manageable, except I couldn’t breath through my nose. It turns out a tasteless world of no sleep is no fun.
I did have exceptional support. As Tricia mentioned, I convalesced for the first 3 days and 2 nights at my parents, which was a tremendous boon. I came home to a wonderful welcome and more wonderful care from Tricia.
And yesterday, I got my nose back. Here’s what they pulled out after removing some stitches (they were stitched together through the septum)… and after cleaning them up (they were gross).
The removal procedure was uncomfortable but manageable. What came next as I had my sinuses cleaned out with a suction shall not be mentioned, but I ended up taking as many narcotics yesterday following the procedure as I had taken the previous few days. I had Nicolas along to watch, so I got to show him Daddy being tough, no whining or complaining, just a tear leaking out of the eye that felt like it was being sucked back into my skull as I sat perfectly still in the chair.
Anyway, I slept for six glorious hours last night, and am breathing more freely now than I did before the surgery in spite of the ongoing bleeding and post-surgery congestion. Thanks to everyone for their prayers and concerns.
More Surgery…
It’s been quiet here at House of Horne – not much to write about, because last week the Daddy had a big ole sinus surgery. On Valentine’s Day of all days. Highly romantic! (Poor Jay!)
Many of you are aware that Jay has an alarming propensity toward sinus infections, and gets sick quite often despite many precautionary measures and allergy meds. Well, after ongoing consultations with an ENT, it was determined that Jay had a deviated septum, among other issues. Last Wednesday, the surgeon went in to remedy that, excavate his sinuses and do a bit of other work, which perhaps Jay himself will detail for you later.
Post-surgery, Jay went to the wonderful guest quarters at his folks’ home to recover. While the children and I missed him for those 3 days, he was comfortable (as comfortable as someone who has had major sinus surgery can be!) and cared for at John/Ruth’s, and we are convinced it significantly aided in his recovery. (Thanks, Mom and Dad!) The doctors wanted Jay to move, bend, DO as little as possible after he got home. Any tiny movement those first few days served to increase the bleeding post-surgery. So, being in a place with lots of quiet, and no bouncy, albeit loving little children around, served to help in healing.
Anticipating Jay’s return home sometime this weekend, we set about preparing a surprise for him: I used my time in the evenings after the children were in bed, and some of the daytime, to prime and paint our front entry hall, which was an interesting shade of brown when we moved in. We wanted to brighten and lighten it up. Here is the way it used to look.
The children worked very hard on a homecoming sign for their Daddy which we strung up in the freshly painted hall, to greet him as he came through the front door. At his request we took no pictures of the surgery patient, but here is what he saw:
And here is a shot of the door with that same little boy standing in front of it!
After the moldings/door are painted a fresh white and the light fixture is replaced, we will be all finished in the hall!
We’ll keep ya posted on the patient’s recovery. It is wonderful to have Jay home again, though we are sorry he continues to have really hard nights with little sleep achieved. All the kids are eager to “help” make him feel better, so they are thrilled to be able to see him all during the day. For now, we are limiting visits, and saying “please be gentle!” quite a lot! But readers, I must close: I think I need to bring our patient some yogurt!
In Costume
Why do you suppose I am wearing this clever getup? I’ll give you three answers, from which you may choose your favorite:
1 – I just needed a fresh new look – after all, I’ve been wearing the same “Suburban Stay at Home Mommy Garb” for over 8 years now.
2 – Having way too much free time on my hands, I am off to a daytime masquerade party for other Mommies with Way Too Much Free Time on Their Hands.
3 – I am doing my best to protect my eyes, nose and mouth as I prepare to sand the mudded ceiling in the boys’ bathroom as part of the ongoing remodel.
If you guessed “3”, you were right on the money. The sanding went ok, though I admit I had a great deal of difficulty breathing, as I perched high on my ladder with dust raining down on me. Bleck. But, I got the job done. Here is what I looked like when I finished:
Very classy indeed!
We are making great headway on the bathroom project. Hopefully we’ll have pictures for you soon!
Brrrrrrr…Mommy, I’m freezing!
It’s been almost a year since my last rant on this site, so I figure I’m due for another. No, actually, circumstances which happened yesterday are the reason for this ranting post, not because I feel I must portray some level of angst to my gentle readers at least once a year!
For those of you who reside in Dallas, you know that it snowed here yesterday. The children and I returned home from school around 3pm and while they ate their afternoon snacks we enjoyed watching the pretty flakes through our breakfast room windows. It was really lovely. And cozy inside…for a little while.
I was in the midst of slapping 7 different paint colors up on various walls of the home (in the “pick and choose colors” phase of our painting) and given the running back and forth and all, I must have stayed warmer than the kids who all began to complain that they were very cold. The baby, who always feels the need to take off his socks (the better to enjoy his cute, chubby toes) had feet that felt like ice. So, I looked at the thermostat, which though set to a temperature of around 68 degrees had fallen to 63. Not good.
I called Jay, double-checking that this was indeed bad news (duh?) and began to analyze the situation. Not knowing how to check the pilot light, I ran some water in the kitchen, and determined that not only was the heat off, but our hot water was gone too. So…with a sinking feeling I called our local gas supplier and asked to check on our account. And guess what they told me??
“Um, Ma’am, yes, well, it looks like…..the service to that residence was shut off today.”
Trade like Sgt. Schultz
The worst trade of my “career” came in the midst of solid success. I entered a trade and promptly watched it go nuts. It peaked up about 22%. On its way up, I realized it was showing all indications that it was going up with no end in sight. I had seen this happen before, and I knew what was going to happen next. So as it went up, I tripled my position. Might as well cash in on a winner, right?
The next morning, I closed out the position down almost 15%. I took a massive hit to my equity because I “knew” the stock was going to go up. I had been fooled by some modest success into thinking I could wing it. It was rather devastating, yet I remain thankful for the experience. It was the first trade in which I totally deviated from my system, and I got nailed. And when I say I deviated from my system, I mean I deviated massively. I threw out my money management rules and exposed far more money to a single trade than my system allowed, thus increasing my risk. And I expanded my position at a price point that was much higher than my system allowed.
In so doing, I learned (all the way down to my bones) an absolute, essential rule for system trading. I know nothing. Nothing at all about an individual trade. All my knowledge is at the system level. I have an edge, but it has nothing to do with any specific knowledge of any particular trade. Rather, I know that if I follow my system over enough time and enough trades, the odds tilt in my favor. (At least, that’s the hypothesis under test.)
Let’s say you are holding a bag with 100 marbles, 55 of them red and 45 of them blue. You reach in (without looking) and pull out a marble. It is red. You then return the marble to the bag and shake the bag up. You do this 5 times and each time you get a red marble. Your knowledge of what just happened (you got a red marble 5 times in a row) and your knowledge of the overall system odds in no way means you know the next marble will be red. Or blue, for that matter. Your knowledge remains strictly at the system level: that over enough trials you will tend toward an average of 55% of the marbles drawn being red.
Statistics 101, yet in the heat of a trade, it is surprisingly easy to forget. If you want to learn system (or mechanical) trading, I suggest you trade like Sgt. Schultz. When looking at an individual trade, always remind yourself, “I know nothing.”
Happy Birthday, Jay!
Wishing a blessed birthday to my sweet love and and my best friend. May God grant you many, many more. I love you.
Nicolas versus the footboard
It is never good when a child comes running to me yelling, “Someone’s bleeding! There’s lots of blood!” Since it was Jonathan doing the yelling, I quickly narrowed it down to four possibilities. As I ran toward the other side of the house, I heard the wail. It was Nicolas.
I found him in our bed bleeding from the mouth (thankfully our comforter has a fairly busy pattern with lots of red). Bleeding, as Jonathan had mentioned, a whole lot. As I grabbed him and headed for the bathroom I asked Abigail what had happened. Turns out Nicolas had decided to bounce on our bed (a huge no-no) and had a grand time up until the moment when his mouth met the footboard.
His lip continued oozing blood for a couple hours, and I ended up at the store buying yogurt, yogurt smoothies, and pudding. Tricia and I sought to offer him whatever comfort we could. Sometimes, children face consequences from their parents for bad behavior. Other times, the parents don’t have the chance to intervene, and the outcome is much worse.
Such excitement!
While this may not prove vastly exciting to all our readers, I feel I have to announce that today we have embarked upon what is to us a wonderful chapter in our home improvement efforts, and one which we believe will greatly increase the aesthetic appeal of our new casa: the painting of the walls!!
For 4 months we have lived with a huge and shall I say, very much outside what we consider our taste, assortment of paint colors in this house. Everything from very sad-looking, dingy beige (not a nice, pleasing shade of cream for all of you out there who are quite happy with your more neutral-toned walls!), to a neon yellow to some color that I don’t think I could actually find in a store even if I were looking to match it – it’s an awful green paired with a blue splotchy ceiling in the boys’ bathroom. Just hideous. Given it’s one of the smaller rooms we have to tackle, and since it also needs some other attention beside just color improvement to make it functional for our little guys, we’ve chosen it for our first room makeover candidate. Here are some “before” photos for you to enjoy….stay tuned for the photos of the finished product!
Here is the sink area which has always been lacking a mirror and light fixture (the small blue circular area is where we had wire pulled so Jay can install the vanity light fixture), but has plenty of green wall to enjoy:
And here you can fully appreciate the green/blue color scheme in all its glory (actually, it looks worse in person IMHO), and see another area where we had wire dropped to allow for Jay to install a tub light:
Rub A Dub Dub…
three boys in a tub!
One of the features we love about our new house is the really great configuration of bedrooms/bathrooms, particularly well suited to our family, especially given the genders of our children. Two of the secondary bedrooms have what I believe is referred to as a “Hollywood Bath” between them (NOT Jack ‘n’ Jill, as I’d formerly called it – see, you learn something every day!). So, the room on one side houses our two bigger boys, and on the other side of the bathroom sits Josiah’s nursery. Now that he is big enough, all three of them love to take baths together in the “boy bathroom”, and play with lots of toys, and make lots of noise, and splash lots of water, and well, that is just what little boys do, as I’m learning. But after all the noise and water everywhere (including on Mommy and Daddy!) comes one of my favorite things as a parent – snuggling clean, sweet-smelling little boys in soft towels. Here is a shot of them having fun in their bathtub:
