Newness

A lot of new things going on in my life.  As reported last post, Jess had her surgery for her knee and hopefully, will be a new person once the recovery period is done.  But it wasn't as straight forward as it may seem.  This is what I wrote a little earlier today on Facebook about the situation.

Last Monday, Jess finally had her knee surgery.  On Tuesday, she gave us quite a scare that many of you don't know about.  Jess was having a lot of pain and not getting much relief from the pain medication she was being given.  Rather than change meds, something she wanted to do, more of the same meds kept being given to her.  While I ran home for a quick shower and my mom and sister looked over her, she hit rock bottom.  Apparently while sleeping, she stopped breathing and started turning colors.  My mom attempted to quick wake her up and with no luck, sent my overdue pregnant sister to run and get help.  People ran in and a code blue was called.  Again, I wasn't there, but a room full of people came in and they were able to finally get her to wake up and breathe again without the use of any kind of resuscitation techniques.  She was lucky, but I shudder to think what would have happened if my mom and sister were not by her side at that moment.  Would she have come out of it on her own or would she have simply passed away without anyone knowing?  It is too scary to think about what ifs.  They figured this happened because of being over medicated, so apparently, just giving her more of the same med was not the answer.  To add further punishment, they took her off all pain meds for a few hours in order to make sure she was safe.  Not something someone who just had surgery wants to hear.  Moral of the story - you never know when something like this may happen, so be careful, be prepared, and don't think anything is just routine.  She could have died....from recovering from knee surgery.  It is too scary to think about.  And be careful with those pain meds.  They are not to be played with.

So yeah, scary stuff.  Thankfully, she is home now and getting better day by day.  It will be a long road ahead, but I'll do everything I can to accommodate her as best as I can and we'll get through this together.  If it makes her pain free in the long run, it is all worth it.

But that is not all that happened with my family last week.  Jess and I now have a nephew!!!  Yup, my sister had her baby boy on Thursday morning and we are so in love with him already.  The only bad part was that because of Jessica's surgery, we didn't get to see him until Saturday when she was released from the hospital and they stopped by on the way home.  Of course, I had to take some PICTURES!!!

Isn't he adorable?  Yeah, we love him...

And that has pretty much been it.  Jess can't really do much at the moment and as her caretaker, I don't venture very far either so it has been a lot of days of just chillin'.  I work and she chills on the bed or sofa.  When I am not working, I chill with her.  But again, all worth it in the end.  Going to quick catch you up with pictures of the day, but will just post the pictures rather than try to explain each one.  Enjoy...

Quick Post

It's been a week, but this is a quick post.  Life has been hectic, and most of it has been because we have an exciting event tomorrow.  Tomorrow, bright and early, is Jess's knee surgery.  A donor was finally found last week and tomorrow begins the hopeful beginning of a new life for her, one of being pain-free because of a stupid knee.  Wish her luck! 

Almost a Week?

Wow, has it really been nearly a week since I blogged last?  I am just NON STOP busy lately and when Jess and I finally took a day to ourselves on Sunday, nothing but vegging on the sofa, it was such a welcome relief.  Nothing really too exciting the past week other than celebrating my mom's retirement.  We had a wonderful party at our favorite Mexican restaurant and what was amazing was that 4 of the 5 bosses she had during her nearly 30 year career in the school district showed up to honor her.  I had to mark the occasion with a picture. 



Remember in my last post when I did a self portrait?



Well, I liked the concept so much that I did close portraits of the other three members of the family as well.







What a lovely family if I may say so myself.  In fact, Jessica's turned into a quick, impromptu photo shoot.  if you want to see the full set (less than 10) click here!

Saturday was also a close up shot, but not of the human variety.  It was after 11PM, poker had ended, and I still didn't have a picture of the day.  I went into my office to look for something simple and had no clue.  But then I saw the perfect thing - since I had no clue, the question mark on my printer would be perfect! 



Today was a pretty spontaneous picture as well, but one that required perfect timing to spot. While walking to the sofa, I peeked out the side window going into my backyard and saw beautiful beams of light hitting the leaves in just the right way.  I quickly set up the camera before the light moved and snapped this leaf peaking out and illuminated in the right spot.   

Untitled Mess

Like my clever title above?  That is what I came up with after realizing my post was really going to have no theme.  So what have I been up to?  Well, Jess worked Friday and Saturday so my two days were pretty uneventful.  I think I stayed in most of the day on Friday and simply worked and by the end of the day, just took a quick picture of whatever I could find that would be interesting...



Saturday was more of the same during the day.  I think I watched a bunch of soccer, but that is about it.  The exciting part was that near the end of the day, the sun finally came out for the first time in a few days and it produced one of the most vividly colored rainbows I had ever seen.  On cue, as I was taking the picture below, 4 or 5 other people posted pictures of the rainbow on Facebook.  Yeah, we were pretty excited here in town.




The first half of Sunday was spent being even more of a bum because if Jess was off getting massages and pedicures, I should be able to plant my butt on the sofa.  Plus, I was pretty tired from staying up 'til 3am the night before with friends doing  tequila shots and relaxing in the spa.  Once she finally got home, we went to my folks' house to celebrate my sister's birthday and had some pretty damn authentic Mexican food.  I am so lucky to grow up Mexican!



Truthfully though, the highlight of the day was my sister and her husband asking Jess and I to be the godparents to their son who will be born later this month.  What a touching honor.  I love the upgrade from uncle to Godfather.

Monday was spent seeing the new X-Men movie (AWESOME) and then working in the afternoon.  It was a cool remembrance day as the day marked the 15th anniversary of graduating from high school.  Where has time gone?  I marked the occasion by taking a vintage picture of my old letterman jacket.




Today?  Work.  That's it.  But I did manage a self portrait.

Bunny Ears!!!

June 2nd, 2011 - Day 153

The lavender plant had bunny ears!

What's Up With This Weather?

So, last I checked, it is June now, right?  And I live in the California Valley, right? Where it is supposed to be steaming hot by now?  So explain to me why it was in the high 40s in the midday and we had hail of biblical proportions!  It was UGLY!  It started this weekend with the horrible weather for my birthday party on Saturday.  Sunday and Monday were decent, but Tuesday started to look somewhat ugly by the end of the day.  In the following picture, you can see that the clouds and sky were starting to darken by nightfall, but that didn't keep the sunset from giving off a beautiful orange hue on the roofs of the houses behind me. 



And that would be the last sun I would see for a while as today was pretty ugly.  But it wasn't until the afternoon that the sky really opened up with the already mentioned hail storm.  When it finally broke for a few minutes, I ran outside with my camera to take a picture. 



In a couple weeks, I'll be back complaining about the heat.