My house is so damn loud! And yes, I love it that way....

What's Annette ranting about now you ask? Not a rant. I swear. Walk into my house almost any evening and you will hear LOUD stuff. Music, IPOD, piano, electric guitar, and cat yowling all at once. Oh, you might hear me singing too, but that can be frightening, so...let's talk about cool sounds, not geek sounds.

Steve's and I went to Vintage Stock tonight and he picked up a Ramone's CD. So that was going full blast for awhile. Then Jordan had some Avenue Q blasting and Steve moved downstairs to play some Green Day on his electric guitar. Fireball just thinks we're all nuts I think. I love all the racket.

Anyway, back to my story. Ummm Yessss I was going to tell a story. Steve has been under a LOT of pressure this week and actually been forgetting to breathe. Yes, it happens to all of us I think. He felt like his heart was having a seizure. So, we thought SEIZURE OF LIFE was a good title for a rock and roll song. John is working on the lyrics. It'll be interesting to see what he comes up with.

And, just 'cause i know you miss him, here he is --
Fireball, a.k.a. Lion-O a.k.a. Sofa King

Feb 15th - Dad gets to go HOME!!!

Finally after 17 days, Dad got to go home from rehab on Feb 15th. YAY! Steve and I went over to help out that day. Here are some pictures.

Dad sitting in his wheelchair, until given the go-ahead!

Dad and Steve reviewing Steve's script for the spring play

2nd floor elevator

Down on the first floor, ready to walk on out!

Getting set up in his chair, Dad gets love and kisses from Missy.

Annette cuts off those silly wristbands!

Steve ponders life as a pig. (Grandpa is part pig now for real, with his replacement "porcine" valve)

Mom supervises kitchen clean-up

Kelly's blog challenge

Here's this week's challenge:You have to move. You have two choices: 1. A farm house in the middle of the field. Your closest neighbors/grocery/etc are miles away. 2. A big city apartment in a high rise. Yep, you still have your kids. Which is it and why?

MY CHOICE:
Definitely the farm.

Here are my pros and cons listed in "an organized fashion"

CONS:

• Planning trips to the grocery store, library, etc. I'm only a few blocks from the store now, and the distance can be walked.
• Transportation delays. If a kid wants to have a friend over, or go over to a friend's house, it would be a major undertaking.
• Shopping woes. I guess I'd have to do a lot more on-line shopping.

PROS:

• Birdies, birdies and more birdies.
• I could have an Irish Setter like I want.
• Peace and quiet.
• Independence, self-reliance would be required.
• Starry nights.
• No impulse buying (except for the on-line kind!).

February Birds

Its SPRING (for some of the birds anyway). I've been spending time at a local park off the beaten path.

YELLOW-RUMPED WARBLER:

Today I got some HOPE that spring is around the corner. I saw the Yellow-rumped Warbler. I only got a picture of the female, but I have a picture of a male from last year. There were a few of them at the park today. I also added some other birds that I got pictures of this month.

Male:

Female:

Tufted Titmouse:

Northern Flicker:

Juvenile Red-Headed Woodpecker:

Brown Creeper:

A month of updates

Wooooah Nellie. Has it been a month since I posted? A lot has been happening and here's the run-down.

• Dad's surgery. If you did not know my dad had some major heart surgery last week. Very serious stuff. Fast forward to today and he sounds pretty good. He's on a ton of meds and today they are trying a new insulin dose since his blood sugar seems to be out of whack. BUT, he is up, walking the halls, enjoying visitors and his many piggie companions (yes, dad is a pig fanatic and he now has several new additions to the pig family, especially the pig valve now residing in his own heart!). "so far so good" was the mantra of the surgery waiting room, and I suspect will be our continued motto as dad recovers.
  
  A Day After Surgery Story: About 9 am the day after the surgery (he was still on the ventilator and couldn't talk) I started telling Dad about how nice it was weather-wise when he got to the hospital, and then told him about the white out snowstorm that happened during the day, and how the temperature dropped down to 10, blah-blah-blah. His response? Making the little circular motion with his right index finger to indicate "big whoop". :-) So, of course when I told mom about that, I said, well, we know his sense of humor is intact!
  
  Tuesday night, the night of his surgery, there was a code blue in the ICU that we heard while standing in the cafeteria line, and we all looked at each other saying "no, dad's not in ICU quite yet, so it can't be him". It wasn't. The brother of the guy was in the cafeteria line behind us and we found out later after we moved up to the ICU waiting room it was a 28 year old young man, never sick in his life, and died of bacterial pneumonia. It was very, very sad.
• In other family news, Steve's gerbil died sometime during the night Tuesday. We have just been discussing his age lately, and Tuesday night I was telling our family friend Kelly about him and how he was almost 5 years old which is ANCIENT for a gerbil. So, not unexpected. He is in a little wooden box in the garage and the boys are going to take care of him later.
• Training is going fine.
• Our little finch kingdom in the backyard is something to see! John wishes for a cardinal or a blue jay, but we don't seem to get any. The various finches though are really pretty.
• We are considering getting a dog.
• The superbowl was FUN! I don't remember having that much fun watching a superbowl for a long time.
• We watched Ratatouille yesterday afternoon, great movie. I loved it!