Halloween

I'm exhausted and sad. It's just takes so much energy to be doing EVERYTHING. And getting another cold hasn't helped much either. But mostly I'm just sad about my dear husband and his medical issues. Its difficult to get him to eat and he is loosing weight too fast. I'm so worried too. We are going into the hospital daily for radiation. I'm hoping he will get some relief soon. I just feel so angry that we waited so long to address these issues and yet I have been worried about them since the summer. Who is listening to me? Anyway I am looking into a clinical trial type option and am hoping I can get him over this last bit of radiation ok.

But life is just continuing its rushing along. Isabelle wanted a witch costume hand sewn by me so I cooperated. Her little hat came out darling. Mark wasn't able to participate in the pumpkin carving (which he usually orchestrates) but his brother Kent helped out.



Mark posed with the girls and the pumpkins a bit ...





Halloween was a zoo as always (trying to do too many things at once) but the girls had fun.


Isabelle is on the right hand side and her fried (also a witch) on the left ...

Fall

Ok so I didn't get out in the yard much this last month. But I did enjoy the fall colors each day on the drive into Boston to the hospital. I try to keep reminding myself to enjoy the beauty -- because soon I'll be looking at grey and maybe snow!


Etsy Treasuries ...

Enjoying the warm days of fall!

I've been trying to spend at least a half hour outside tending to the overgrown (yet pretty) gardens. I've got a million things to do but I NEED to get outside to relieve some of the stress and worry over my husband's health. I've started at the driveway side garden nearest the mailbox. This year it was overtaken with crabgrass. I'm transplanting a few "wild" plants that have spread around the yard and going to add some rocks to create a little shading for the plant roots.

I get side tracked though with all the other things in the yard though. The golden rod is going crazy. I love it this time of year when paired with the asters we planted for the honey bees. Our yard is never so busy with bees than at this time of year. Our own hives are still this year but there are plenty of wild honey bees to be seen.



Well who wouldn't be cheered up by a little warm sunshine on a cool fresh morning with an abundance of flowers and bees all around?

A new Etsy treasury to share made by Joanna's Photograpy ...

Happy Autumn Moon!

This Sunday we celebrated our yearly Autumn Moon Festival in our backyard with the cousins and grandma and grandpa. Isabelle insisted on tiki torches for the patio and I found a few more sets of lights to string outside as well as an abundance of candles.

The kids started the party by dressing up in their silk outfits. Then we each painted a paper lantern or banner. The kids had a lot of fun doing this yearly craft so we have quite a collection of lanterns from all the past years too.



Then they headed outside grabbing the ribbon sticks to dance about the yard. Some were rainbow colored and others handmade from ribbons. A music tape was set up in the playhouse.

We made cookies with our chinese wooden cookie molds. Since we had purchased a box of mooncakes we just made cookies with vanilla and chocolate shortbread recipes (the chocolate was awesome!).




We ordered take out from our local Panda Wok and supplimented that with steamed buns and pork shumi from a chinese grocery store in Littleton.

After dinner we made tea and served it in our tiny tea sets from China and ate our mooncakes. Then we each took a lantern and a few floating candles and walked down to the river in the darkness. We could see the moon coming up through the clouds. Our little lanterns shown just enough light to walk by. At the river we each lit a candle and sent it floating down river with a prayer and moment of silence. It was so pretty! We walked back up towards the house and restarted our bonfire and toasted marshmallows and lit sparklers.

Mark was a bit under the weather and enjoyed the day relaxing watching sports on tv with Uncle Pete. Emma took over on cooking the steamed food (Mark's job) and did an excellent job. Mark didn't make it outside to enjoy the night lights and walk under the moonlight and we missed him. But the kids were busy enough to keep Robin, Grandma, and I running around.

End of Summer

Today is our last summer day before school starts. We've had a lovely summer with Mark feeling up to a few outings and vacations. He is really doing quite well compared to the winter/spring and can walk short distances (including the walk from the parking lot to the beach -- which totally exhausts him) and this has allowed us some freedom.



We enjoyed our last weekend of the summer in Ogunquit with a one night stay in a motel. The outdoor pool was too cold to be enjoyed by the girls but they did spend some time in the over chlorinated indoor pool. Spamalot was playing at the playhouse so we arranged to spend Saturday evening there. It was fun and enjoyed by all. Sunday was our day at the beach and Mark was a trooper getting across and over the footbridge. We had to contend with the tide coming in and moving our setup a few times. Isabelle LOVED the water and boogie board surfing in the awesome waves. The other girls avoided the cold water more.




I just wanted to share a few composite photos of some of my work ...

Anticipating the fall colors...

From last spring

Small steps

It was weeks more in the hospital last March. Meanwhile Mark's strength to walk was waning with little physically therapy available to him. Basically even sitting up in bed became difficult. Walking was near impossible. Eventually with persistence and tears we were able to insist on Mark's move out of the hospital and into rehab. We were lucky to have a place for him to go that was about 10-15 minutes away. Unfortunately we could no longer stay the nights with him.

After a week at rehab he regained enough strength to get out of bed with a walker and get to the bathroom. So we got a hospital bed for home and a walker and a week later he was home with us. FINALLY. The swelling in his legs had reduced dramatically. He was happy being home with us and we were happy having him. It was a difficult time though. Being out of hospital care meant a lot of worry of what could or might happen at any moment. The nights were the worst but they were survived and morning came again. I think we all were suffering from some sort of post traumatic stress thing.

A physical therapist and a nurse came to the house at least once a week. Mark had exersizes to do and the days went by pretty quickly. The expansion of our cable channel signup meant many hours watching the food channel and such. Plus we started a few movies so we could watch together.

In May things were looking up a bit though the scan results at the end of April did not look good at all. But his health and increased movement was slowly improving. Getting off the chemo I'm sure helped too.

He did end up with more blood clots in his legs and then went on blood thinner. This isn't a happy chore for him with 2 shots a day. But it has worked great. Mid-may he went in for a week for cyberknife treatment on his spine mets. This was a relatively painless but time consuming procedure. About a week later he was in for surgery on his spine to stabilize everything. It was a much bigger operation than expected and we were a little scared to loose what little new mobility we had gained.

But his recovery was rather good and slowly but surely he was back to his mobility in May and then surpassing even that.