Are You Ready To Ramble Some More?

I mentioned in my Sunday Dinner post that as far as I was concerned Sunday Dinner this week was going to be eaten out. And so it was. Ducky, Cecil, Sue, Danny, Mikki, Seth and I went to a local buffet for dinner. It was pretty good and the best part was I didn't have to cook it and we walked off and left our dirty dishes for someone else to have to worry about cleaning up.

That's Ducky, Cecil and Sue in the first picture, then Danny, Mikki and Ducky again in the second picture. We had just finished eating and were just talking and catching up here.

Danny took the pictures of me and Seth and I took the others. Seth wasn't overly concerned about posing for pictures but Danny managed to get a few decent shots.

I played with Seth after I finished my meal. He's getting to be a little chunk of love! I estimate he weighs about 14 pounds now. Seth was 3 months old on May 27th, believe it or not. It doesn't seem like he should be that old already. It won't be long before Mikki will have to start feeding him cereal. He's already showing signs that he's not totally satisfied with his formula.

He's holding his head up pretty good, but he's still a little wobbly and you have to be careful or you'll have bloody nose or black eye! He has the cutest grin but I wasn't quick enough with the camera to catch it.

Look at those deliciously chubby cheeks! They are 100% smoochable and I got my share of sugar, believe me!

Seth is one little boy who looks just like his Daddy when he was a baby. He is the spittin' image of Danny when he was little, right down to the fine fuzzy blonde hair. You can't see his hair very well in this picture, sorry.

Actually, Danny got his fuzzy blonde hair from his Mama, Ducky. She got her nickname because her hair was fine and fuzzy and blonde when she was a baby and our Mama said she was her little fuzzy duck. That became Ducky and the name stuck. Her real name is Martha but that was our Grandma's name. It still seems strange to call her Martha and most of the time all of us in the family still call her Ducky.

Speaking of hair and bad pictures, I had Ducky cut my hair on Sunday while she was here at my place, and I do mean cut it. As in off. Pert' near all of it. Sorry about the bad quality of the picture but I'm here by myself and that's the best lighting in the house. In the bathroom, that is. I'll try to get Cecil to take some pics for me if she's here on Tuesday afternoon.

It really is short. As in buzzed on the sides and about 2 inches long on top. I don't do much by half measures and my hair especially. I either want it long enough to put up off my face, neck and ears or short enough that it doesn't touch me. This feels great now!

I'm having withdrawals because I haven't seen Jessica and Emmy in a week. It's been even longer since I saw Jason but the poor boy is working to make a living for them. He's working 13 and 14 hour days most of the time, bless his heart. And I do mean working. He works on a crew putting down water wells to irrigate rice, cotton, soybeans...really almost any kind of water well. It's already miserably hot here and we're supposed to hit 100F by this weekend. The only time Jason sees air conditioning is in his car to work and back home. Even their shop is not cooled. It's hard, hot and dirty work and I'm proud of Jason for staying with it and making a living for his family.

I really hoped to see Jessica, Jason and Emmy at church Sunday morning and they had planned to be there, but the best laid plans and all that...

Jessica called me at 2 am Sunday morning, crying and in pain. She told me her symptoms and asked me if I thought she should go to the emergency room or try to tough it out and not worry about it. She had been vomiting and was hurting in her abdomen, doubled over with pain. She said it was worse than labor pains or any pain she'd had before. I asked about fever and she said she didn't have a thermometer (we'll be taking care of that as soon as I see her; she needs one for Emmy as well as for her and Jason) but she didn't really feel like she was running a temp. It was upper abdomen and not lower right so I didn't really think it was her appendix.

I know she hated to hear it, but it's about time for her normal woman's cycle to resume and Jessica has severe female problems and pain with her cycle. I thought it might be that but still, her pain being that severe really troubled me. I knew it wasn't good, no matter the cause. The vomiting concerned me and food poisoning was a concern, although she said she and Jason ate at the same place and he was fine.

I had some thoughts that it might be her gall bladder because along with female problems gall stones are hereditary in our family, but she said she was hurting on both sides and I hurt in the center of my belly, just under my ribs, through to my back and radiating to my right side. I had my gall bladder removed when Jessica was less than a year old, at the ripe young age of 24. My Mama and all my sisters except Sue have all had hysterectomies and our gall bladders removed, plus several of my nieces have already had one or both surgeries. The Cook and Headrick genes, they are some strong boogers.

Since we both have such a high pain tolerance I knew she was hurting pretty bad for her to be crying and doubled over with it, so I told her I thought she needed to at least go in to the ER and have it checked out.

They ended up spending the rest of the night and morning in the ER, and after Jessica told the attending doctor about our family history he had blood drawn and then ordered an ultrasound done. By then we pretty much knew the diagnosis. Although the technician didn't come right out and say Jessica had gall stones, he hinted strongly that she did. Her doctor confirmed that she had a quarter-sized stone blocking the neck of her gall bladder and it had to come out. Jessica is 19, by the way, and now is the youngest gall stone victim in our family now. Not a good record to hold, I don't think.

Jessica had laparascopic surgery about 3 pm Sunday to remove her gall bladder and went home that evening. She is feeling much better now and glad to be out of pain. She's sore, though. She says she's more sore from this surgery than she was with her C-section. She's already been released to drive and is planning to return to work late this week if she's still doing well. She won't be doing any heavy lifting, of course. I'm just thankful that she got a correct diagnosis and got the treatment she needed, and that the surgery went so well. She can be thankful that she only had one attack before she was diagnosed and had surgery. I had 2 attacks, and the last one was right before my surgery. I've never had a bit of trouble since and I hope she doesn't either.

So, that's how my Sunday went. How was yours? ;-)

Monday Cecil and Sue brought burgers from McDon*alds for lunch and a frozen key lime pie for dessert. It was good, and let me tell you, that pie had some serious pucker power! We just lazed around and watched TV all afternoon.

One of my neighbors brought me some fresh garden green beans and some more yellow squash Monday afternoon and I feasted. I stir-fried some green beans until they were tender crisp then tossed them with a half teaspoon of sugar and some soy sauce. Talk about delicious! They were soooo good.

My mother in law is taking me grocery shopping Tuesday morning early and she's bringing me some more green beans, squash and cucumbers. I'll probably be making homemade pickles Tuesday night or Wednesday. The fresh produce is really coming in now and I am so thankful for it. Cecil and Sue and I were just talking Monday afternoon about how there's such an abundance of fresh produce in season that you get tired of it and then you crave it in the offseason when it's unavailable. Some things are good frozen or canned, but some things just aren't the same unless they're fresh from the garden.

We're just never satisfied, are we?

As I said, I have to get up early to go grocery shopping. I want to try to get home before it gets too hot. For one thing I hate the heat and another, it's better for my perishables. I have a couple of those mylar insulated cold/hot bags and they really do help.

Happy first week of June, y'all.