Home Sweet Home

We finally closed on our house on February 1st! We are really excited to get more settled and start planning the spring garden. Above is a picture of the mantle in our living room, which perfectly describes how we feel. It feels so nice to have some room to breathe and stretch out. Twister, Agnes, Frances and Grant love the new house. Agnes will run up the steps in the entryway and run down the steps in the back near the kitchen.

We had lots of help moving - thanks to Andrew, Ben, Chris, Katie, Matthew, Stephanie, Gerry, Karissa, Chris, Jill, Lily, Jason, Mom, Dad, Allison, and Susan. We could not have done without you.

The house didn't come with any appliances but thanks to the kindness of others, we didn't have to pay a dime. We found a working stove/oven on the side of the road for free in St. Louis which Tim's family brought to us. Then Papa and Ruth gave us a refrigerator, my mom and sister gave us their washer and dryer and we got a deep freezer off of CraigsList (which currently smells like death but we have hope).

We really don't want to just fill our house up with stuff (and you need to hold us to that) and are looking forward to sharing the space with others. We have plenty of space for visitors and welcome you anytime you are able to come!

Here are Tim and Merci cleaning up the kitchen for us to move in

Tim's mom took LOTS of pictures (THANK YOU) when they came to help us move which I will post soon.

No Wonder Tim's Nose Hurt After Surgery...

he had one of those up each nostril! Dr. Hylton came by today and took Tim's splints out of his nose. Tim was a little nervous about them coming out but feels much better now. He is able to get out of bed and we even went to the cafeteria to get ice cream to celebrate. The doctor said that he can probably go home tomorrow afternoon - yeah! He has to stay home for 7-10 days but that is so much better than the hospital.

Lucky for me, Tim also gets to take a shower for the first time since Friday morning. Here he is pre-shower:

Even though you may not be able to tell from the picture, the doctor did not restrict ME from taking a shower. Just trying to be supportive (sounds good right!)

It All Started With a Headache...

If you aren't aware yet of what is going on with Tim, I promise it is not as bad as it sounds. I apologize if you are finding out this way but I am out of energy - it is nothing personal. Last Friday, February 1st, we closed on our house - finally! We had been moving the week prior a little at a time but the final push was that weekend. Tim's family showed up Friday night and we woke up Saturday morning ready to move. Tim woke up with a headache but figured he just didn't get enough sleep. It continued getting progressively worse all day Saturday and Sunday and no medicine seemed to help. Sunday night it got even worse so we called the doctor first thing on Monday morning.

They couldn't get us in until Monday afternoon and it was still getting worse. We went Monday afternoon and since he didn't have a history of headaches, they ordered us for a CT scan immediately. They said they would call that night but we never heard anything. Finally, Tuesday morning they told us that there was an abnormality in his pituitary gland in his brain and ordered Tim for a MRI Tuesday night. However around noon, Tim could no longer stand the pain so we went to the emergency room. It was a good thing that we did because the pain got so bad that Tim fainted on his way to his room. They gave him some pain medication and got him in for the MRI.

They admitted us Tuesday night so that they could continue to manage his pain. That night was pretty rough as he was in a lot of pain and I didn't know what was wrong. They pretty much just doped him up on morphine throughout the night. Finally Wednesday morning a neurologist came to tell us that Tim had a tumor in his pituitary gland. They are almost always benign when they are in the pituitary so that was a huge relief. It is about 1 or 1.5cm in size compared to the pea sized pituitary. They were able to give Tim a steroid that helped with the swelling and took away his headache. They showed us the MRI scans of his brain with the tumor and showed that it was pressing on his optic chiasm (where his optic nerves cross). They were very surprised that he hadn't had any vision problems but wanted to do surgery so it didn't cause any problems in the future.

Wednesday and Thursday really were a blur - waiting for doctor after doctor - more MRIs - more doctors. Finally on Thursday a really great neurosurgeon who specializes in the pituitary gland, Dr. Hylton, came to talk to us about the surgery. He walked us through the surgery and even gave me a shopping list of things that would make Tim more comfortable after the surgery. If you put your fingers at your temple and in between your eyes and go straight back then your pituitary is right there in the center of your head. They are able to make an incision in the underneath of your top lip and go through your sinus cavity to his pituitary - no cool scars for Tim! They scheduled the surgery for 11:00am on Friday.

Thursday night we watched Lost with Chris and Kate and ate junk all night because Tim couldn't eat after midnight. He had a huge party following him down to the surgery area - me, Chris, my mom, my sister, my nephew and his parents. The surgery took 2 1/2 hours (as they expected) and then we were able to see him in the recovery area. It was a day of waiting and waiting. The surgery went well and Tim is doing well. They put him in the ICU as a precaution to watch him extra closely. He is doing well and will hopefully get out of the ICU and into a regular room tonight. He will likely be in the hospital 3-5 days and then at home for 1 week-10 days.

Thank you for all of you that have been praying and thinking of us! We really appreciate it! I will try to post an update later.

Here is a picture of Tim yesterday in the recovery area:

Happy New Year!

We celebrated the coming of the new year with Chris and Kate and a bunch of folks from their church last night. Chris had the great idea to have people share some of their picks for "bests" from 2007. Here are some of ours, what are yours?

Best Album (Tim): Magic by Bruce Springsteen

Best Book (Tim): Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver














Best Book (Trinity): The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs














Best TV (Trinity): Army Wives
Best TV discovery (Tim): The Office
Favorite New Hobby (Trinity): Knitting & Sewing
Favorite New Clothing Item (Tim): Knitted Scarves!
Best Movie (Trinity): Knocked Up
Favorite New Thing to Do: Spending the weekend with Merci, Luke, & Gavin (and then sending them home)
Least Favorite New Thing to Do (Tim): Taking out 2 dogs at once
Other Least Favorite Thing to Do: Living in an apartment that is too small for us!
New Year's Resolution: To post more on our blog

Tim's Cheddarvision

Maybe you've heard of or seen cheddarvision? Well, here's my version:

Saturday I started with 2 gallons of Shatto whole milk and a cheesemaking kit from the New England Cheesemaking Supply Company and after some water bathing, stirring, separating, draining, and pressing this is what I've come up with so far.

I have a few more days of drying and turning before I give it a couple of coats of wax, and then after 4 weeks (or 6 months) we'll be ready to taste the results.

I think I'll slice this one open after the 4 week mark to give it a taste since its the first try, and then we'll go from there. I'll update my cheddarvision pics every once in a while so you can see the progress.

Christmas Pics

With Tim's side of the family















with Trinity's side

Good Times in Atlanta

With Carey's help I figured out a new settings tweek on my camera for darker rooms like this (other than a tripod that is), AFTER I took these pictures. They'll look better from now on...

Thanks to everyone who helped me surprise Trinity with a graduation party at our old favorite haunt Manuel's Tavern. We had a blast, and it was so good to reconnect with all of you.

We also got to attend the Spencer's annual Christmas party, meet Baby Little, have breakfast with Jon & Say, sit in some good ol' Atlanta traffic, have Willie's & Felini's with Andrew & Christina & Jim, ride the MARTA, have breakfast with Trinity's favorite boss/coworker/friend Jennifer & Colin, and bum a ride from Kim & Carey. I'm sure that's not all we did, but I'm worn out just trying to remember it all! Oh yeah, and here's some pics from Trinity's graduation. (Isn't she so cute!)

Bonding with Twister

Twister has been great with the addition of Agnes. He's been patient and sharing of his space and stuff. Agnes is not such a big fan of sharing her food though, which as many of you know from experience, Twister doesn't do so well. She has set him straight a couple of times about that. It has also taken them all of the last week to share the couch. If one of them was up there, the other got a little growl if they tried to join us. This is passing though, and they are becoming friends. Yesterday we took Agnes over to Trinity's mom's for much of the day, and they seemed happy to see each other when we got home.

Twister has seemed a little jealous over all though, and not so sure if he likes sharing the attention. We did find a new game to play though that Agnes doesn't like as much, so Twister gets lots of attention, and it might be the funnest thing I've done in a long time. You know how much Twister likes to play catch/fetch with a ball? Just imagine that - with SNOWBALLS!!! He opens his mouth to catch it and it smashes all over his face. And then he thinks he's lost the ball, so he goes searching and digging all around the snow to figure out where the ball went! I probably through fifty snowballs at him the other night because it was so funny to watch, and he loves the snow!

New Addition to the Honse Zoo

We have officially reached the limit for domestic animals in one household (4). Her name is Agnes after the street a couple of blocks away. She is really sweet and a little calmer than Twister.

She was outside of the neighbor's house so we knocked on the door to see if she belonged to them. They said that she had broken out of their fence but that it was too late to fix it and that we could have her because they had too many. We weren't sure what to do but decided that we would try to bring her back to our apartment. However, she was so scared that she wouldn't come in. We decided to let her go back home and try to ease her into it over the next couple of days. But after a couple of days they had fixed their fence so we gave up keeping her.

Then this past Monday, she showed up and we knew we weren't going to lose her again. We gave her some food and she came into our apartment. She has stayed with us ever since. Twister and she went through an adjustment period but now everyone is living peacefully. She wouldn't walk up the stairs to our apartment the first couple of days but now she goes out on the leash and comes right back in. She is the perfect addition to our family.

I hope y'all can meet her very soon!

Agnes is very sweet and...

a little mischievous too!

Camping With Our Family

We went camping this weekend at Blue Springs Lake with my mom, sister, niece, nephews, cousins, aunt, great aunt, uncle and grandparents. We had a really good time!

Twister got to play with my aunt's dog, Dog

Tim cooking dinner on the fire

We had a nice little set up with my aunt's horse trailer.

What a great family!

My nephew buried his toy in the sand so my sister and cousin tried to find it.

Gavin hanging out in the trailer.

Merci eating her marshmallow - it was a little hot.

Mom and Merci setting up their tent.

We all had a really good time - even Twister.

My cute nephew, Gavin

Luke making a smore for the first time.