Update on Dad's Leg

I think the last thing I shared with you about my dad was his accident. He went in for a Dr appt last Thursday and got some bad news. The doctor got a pair of pliers and pulled the pins out of his heal. When he did that, it started bleeding badly and the Dr noted that it was not healing correctly. He said he would be down for a year and would need to come back in another week for a checkup. I know he was so frustrated to have to hear that and then to hear that he has to come back in another week. He is getting so bored being in the house and unable to move around on his own.

Fast forward to this week. He went to his Dr appt on Wednesday and was told once again, that his foot was not healed well enough. The dr said it was swollen too much to perform the surgery, because the elasticity of his skin would not pull back after surgery.

He now has to wait 2 more weeks until his next appt in hopes that his swelling will be down.
Tim, my Grandmother and mom have been to both Dr appt's with him and have been so supportive. Please pray that the swelling goes down so the dr will be able to make a decision about the surgeries in the future. He has 3 options, one is rebuild the foot with rods and pins, the other is putting a metal plate in his foot and the last one is amputation from the knee down.

He has started getting out of the house a few times this week to keep him busy and just "get out" to see friends and go to church, but I think that may be what is making it swell. I usually stay with him all day on Saturdays, but tomorrow we plan to get out and go somewhere for a little bit, then head back home. I am just praying the swelling stays down and he gets well so the dr's can get started.

Grizzlies NBA Game

Friday after work I went out with some friends from work for drinks at a Mexican restaurant. The I headed to my bestie's house to head downtown Memphis to a Memphis Grizzlies Game. We had her teenage daughter and friend that went with us too. It was so much fun, we laughed so hard, we cried! The game was so intense, but we ended up losing. We were pretty much tied the entire game, then the Raptors got ahead by 3 points and the very last second of the game Mayo scored a 3 pointer and tied them up taking us into overtime. It was so exciting! After the game we headed to Beale to see what was going on. Needless to say, it was alot of drunks and prostitutes walking around. We went to a couple shops and bought a few things, then after an hour, we headed back home.

We had seats on the Club Level

When we left the game, we saw this parked out in front of the Forum (a Dodge Charger Limo)
Here we are after Gayla bought our Boas and we got to meet Tater Red

Yes, we walked on Beale St in these and had a ball. Yes, we had people looking at us, and even trying to hit on us. And yes, I did the Wobble with a group of people I didn't know :).

Grizzlies in action

They wore these awful yellow and green uniforms for their home game. Yuck! Where is the blue and white?

It is so exciting having a hometown NBA team. You would not believe how packed it was. Crazy, but I know it helps our town bring in the dough!

Randomness

I was going through my pictures on my computer and discovered I have a few pictures of randomness I have not loaded from the past few months.

Here is a picture of a few friends at a Superbowl party we had at a friend's house last month.

We have also been riding horses and trail riding with friends

Dancing, of course!

Eating at a Field Trials Dinner with friends. This was the weekend Dr. Harris got his new truck. He was so proud!

Sitting and enjoying our fire pit on late nights

Playing Davey Crockett.

One day we spent the entire day with Tim at the cow pasture. We climbed trees, jumped hay bales and walked for hours hopping over cow patties. It was so much fun! Reminded me of my childhood memories at the cow pasture with my daddy when I was little.

This was a dancing night and Houston won the $5 door prize for kids.

More Davey Crockett

again

That's enough for now!

A Night out Dancing

A few weeks ago, a group of about 14 friends got together and went country line dancing. We go about once a month, but I am here to tell you, the more, the merrier! We had a ball! We had 3 frineds cancel about an hour before the show. The husband got sick and we were so disappointed.

Here is my friend Amy's little boy. Isn't he precious?

Here is my aunt, Debbie and her son, Chad
Drake and Brandon

Amy and Drake were getting down. Drake had a ball!

Me and Amy

Me, Holly and Stephanie

My sister and her hubby dancing

Tim, me and Debbie

Me and Linda Jo!!!!!!

Chad was really getting down!

I can't wait to go out again!!!!!

The band is so good, it is a country band that plays all types of music as well as rock and roll too.

Look out Wild Hearts Band, because we are already planning another night out with YOU!

Dr. Suess Activities

I had to take pictures of my student's Dr. Seuss activities they did last weeek to celebrate his birthday. They turned out so cute!

Here are the -at word family hats we made. They colored them, wrote -at words and illustrated it with a picture. We also graphed if we liked to eat Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast. Then we read the graph to detremine if more or fewer people liked it. It was so much fun.

We made these cute Thing 1 and Thing 2 handprint crafts and sentences for our classroom hallway. We wrote about what would happen if Thing 1 came to our house.
We read and retold Dr. Seuss books all week, but one last thing we did was create a Wocket in a Pocket. They loved making their wocket look silly.

Did anyone try this last week?

I saw so many post pictures of their brooms standing up on their own last week. It has something to do with the Earth's gravitational pull. Well, you know me, I tried it with our broom and it worked too, no pics though, then Houston had to try it for Mawmaw and Pawpaw at their house and of course it worked.
Crazy, huh?

A Little Online Shopping- CHECK

So, last month I was finally talked in to upgrading from the old Blackberry and converting to the Iphone. I found that my bill is actually cheaper due to some research and knowledgeable friends (thank you Amy and Melissa) with the upgrade I selected. So far, I am loving it! This is how excited I was. I took a picture of the random Fed-Ex truck leaving my house after he dropped off the package.

Here she is!
And of course I had to order this fabulous otter box. Until it arrived I was using a shell Melissa let me borrow, then Coach let me borrow his Tiger otter box. Mine was delayed with the holiday. But it finally made it's appearance.

I also ordered a new teacher bag last month and I love it! It is my fave colors and is perfect size and it's material is easy to clean if needed.

I would say I was on a shopping binge last month. Houston got a new Bible ordered, we also ordered him a case for his Kindle Fire, I ordered a new laptop power adapter cord, and I got an extra charger and car charger for the iphone.

This month, I may need to take a break form online buying! haha

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

For Dr. Seuss' birthday this week, we celebrated him every day with a fun activity.

We had a visit from the Cat in the Hat one day, we participated in D.E.A.R (Drop Everything and Read) each day for a few minutes, we had special guest readers, we graphed if we like to eat Green Eggs and Ham, and we dressed as our favorite Dr. Seuss characters. We read so many of his stories and determined they were all fiction and we wrote sentence about what we would do if Thing 1 and Thing 2 came to our house. We also created the cutest Thing 1 and thing 2's with our hands(but I forgot to take a picture) to hang in the hallway.

Here is my little Thing 1 with some wild, blue hair!

Last week I went to the annual Read Across America Book Giveaway. My good friend Melissa got me started and it is so much fun to participate in. We always get there 20 minutes before the doors open to get in line and it is like a teacher's Christmas. I was standing in line with a group this year and they were so excited as this was their first time coming. They could not believe how crazy the people run in when the doors open. I got a huge teacher bag full of books, Tim had a suitcase full and Houston had a box he was pushing around. My kids were so excited to see new books and hear new stories this week. I also got some for friends too! These books are in such good shapes, you would not believe the books that were donated.

Here is Houston with the Cat in the Hat at the Giveaway. He also had his picture taken with a group of kids for the local Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper with the Cat.
Yesterday, the kids could dress up like their favorite Dr.Seuss character. I encouraged my students to all dress like Thing 1 and Thing 2. They were so cute! Blue hair and all. (Notice I have a Cindy Lou Hoo and Cat in the Hat too)

This is such a fun time of year, especially for my Kindergarten students. They love to particpate in all the fun.

Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” Dr. Seuss

Urgent Prayer Request

*Warning, these pictures may gross you out. So if you get sick easily, DO NOT LOOK at the pictures.


The past 8 days has been a nightmare for my family. My sister has been through so much and is still trying to heal. Thank God, her Dr apt went ok last week. Wednesday, Houston fell at school and cut his eye causing us to get sent to Baptist Hospital to Memphis Plastic Surgery Center to get stitched up and this weekend my dad fell off a ladder in the barn and broke and fractured his ankle.

It all started when mom called me Saturday and told me dad called her and said he fell off the ladder and was on the ground, but had called Granny to come to take him to the hospital. If you know my dad, you know he does not go and has never been to the hospital in the past 56 years of his life. I called him and he said he was in alot of pain and they were on the way to the ER.

Back up to when Granny went to get him. He had broke his foot the day before when 2 bulls were fighting and they knocked him down and stepped on his back and foot. He was sore but had climbed the ladder in the barn to stack something on the rafters. He was 6 foot up and had leaned the ladder against the wall. It slid to the side and when it did he fell. He tried to catch himself with his broke foot to break the fall and when he did, he broke his Talus bone (it supports your weight) into 3 pieces and many small pieces were shattered as well. He laid there until my grandmother came and they had to call my uncle b/c he could not move at all. They put him in the Tahoe and headed to Germantown Methodist Hospital. When they got there, they noticed blood on his pants leg. He was taken back and they cut his pants and took off his boot, which was full of blood and found this............

He is a diabetic, so his skin is very tender and his bone shattered through his skin. They called an orthopedic surgeon to perform surgery within the hour. Dr. Giel came/performed the surgery and stated if he had called 911, dad would have been airlifted to the MED, because his injury was so severe.

He went into surgery for over 2 hours and we waited patiently with family in the surgery waiting room. Finally, his Dr came out and told us it was a very bad fracture to the ankle and needs more surgeries. It was so bad, that it would never be the same. He also said the Talus bone is the main bone that supports your weight and he had put pins in it as a temp fix and bolted them to a cage-like structure around his leg to stabilize it. He said it was so many tiny pieces of bone he had to clean out during surgery. Dad was also scheduled for surgery the next day and again next week. Dr Giel said he would take the studies to a foot expert and if they couldn't help, he would be sent to a trauma specialist at the MED to fix the fractures. We were also told that the worst case was a possibility of amputation since he was a diabetic and high risk of infection. The other case was he would have an arthritic ankle forever. They took him to recovery and did a CT scan on his leg before bringing him to a room.

We were given a room number after 4 hours waiting and went to wait on him. He was brought in on a stretcher and was still heavy sedated. After a few minutes, Houston went to hold his hand and he opened his eyes. The 1st thing he asked was, "Is my leg still there?" It broke my heart to hear him ask that. He knew, the Dr had told him before surgery that was a risk. He began to gibber jabber about his cat "Mr. Paws" when he heard Cat Scan, but I got Houston to ask him some questions and he seemed to know what had happened earlier and was so excited to see Houston. He even remembered the preacher coming in seconds before he was taken back and praying with him. Around midnight, we left to head home for the day.

The next day we went back to stay with him. He was pretty out of it and was in severe pain. He had a pump hooked up with pain meds,was getting shots and taking pills but was still in alot of pain. He pretty much slept the entire day as granny/pop and Tim and I stayed with him. Mom had spent the night the night before, so she went home for clothes and Holly had gone back home to get some things done. His surgery was canceled for this day b/c his wound was clean during the 1st surgery. With it being in the barn, the DR thought he would have to go in again and clean it out. Luckily his pants and boot protected it from debris. He had so many visitors, but kept fading in and out. Mark Norris, the TN senator is a good friend of ours. He called me when he saw my post on fbook and was landing on a plane from Phoenix and he was at the hospital within 15 minutes. Dad began to look at him, acknowledged him, but them started talking about not being able to go dancing?? Funny what they say when they are doped up. By then, it was almost 9pm and we left to head home. Thank God, my aunt had taken Houston home with her to play with her son and he had a ball being with them. He wanted to see his Paw but got bored after a few hours at the hospital. We have had so many people volunteer to keep him and help us out and we appreciate everyone right now for your kindness.

This is the cage like structure on his leg. It has been bleeding through pretty bad until today and mom said it had slacked up, she also said he slept pretty good and said he was more alert. Mom went to work around 7am and Holly stayed with him until my grandmother could get there from her Dr apt around 11am. Dr. Giel and a physical therapist came in this afternoon and made him walk with a walker to the nurse desk on his good leg. The Dr said once he can walk down the hall, he will get to go home.

He was also given 3 options. 1 and 2 require many many surgeries to try to repair the fractured ankle. *Remember he is high risk for infection due to his diabetes. Option 3 is Amputation, which we were told in the beginning. He has some serious thinking to do as if he chooses option 3, they will amputate his foot plus all of the area that the cage covers plus some. He wants to talk to his regular Dr who is a family friend of ours before he chooses anything. If he chooses the surgery, he will go home and a surgery will be scheduled at the MED trauma unit. After the surgery, he will go to Campbell Clinic for checkups.

Dad's decision will affect many people and may change his life forever. Please pray for the Lord to guide him in the right direction as to what He wants him to do.

Today was our Black History Program at school. We had a special guest speaker and the program turned out PERFECT!! I am so glad it did, because I was one of the members on the committee who organized it. Everything ran so smooth and it was over before we knew it, all of the students also remembered their parts and speeches.

Here is our Superintendent wacthing the studnets perform. He is one of the NICEST me I know. He knows his teachers on a personal level and calls many by name. My name he calls me... MC. This man makes me laugh though as he has a great personality. I have great resepct for him and the things he is doing in our county.

This was our guest speaker, Dr Willie Herenton, former mayor and superintendent of Memphis City Schools. After the ceremoney my principal had me taking pictures for her and when she introduced me to Dr. Herenton, she stated that I could, "teach a rock to read". Dr. Herenton told me he had great respect for me teaching Kindergarten because he once subbed in a K room and he said it drove him crazy with all the "little kids everywhere". He commended me for being a K teacher. haha. He seemed to be a very knoweldgeble man and had great words of wisdom to share with our studnets.
This is a picture of some of the Black History Committee members with our superintendent, Dr. Gray, Principal and Dr. Herenton.
Look how tall he was standing next to me!