Loquacious Lady

Tom and I had a great July 4th! We went to Covington to attend the Bethany Presbyterian Church Annual BBQ. We’ve made it almost every year since we started dating, and it was so great to see everyone there! We were able to chat and catch up with lots of the people Tom (and I, from 14 up) grew up knowing from his church. What sweet, wonderful people!

After the barbecue, we traveled back to our place to get ready to see fireworks. We had dinner, then headed out to see the fireworks with our friends, Megan and Ed. That was the first time we’d seen them since they got married a few weeks before. We had a lot of fun hanging out beforehand, and during the fireworks, we were cracking up at a little boy who was naming the fireworks as they exploded into color. Our favorite name was “rainbow sensation.” =)

**Even though I didn’t write this post (Tom did for our old blog), I wanted to include it on Loquacious Lady so that you could see the progression for our yard.***

When I was young, a typical summer Saturday was often spent on the lawn mower or on the tractor cutting grass at Mom and Dad’s place. I’ve got some intense memories of riding on a John Deere while listening to my Walkman (do they even make those anymore?). At that point in my life, it wasn’t really the way I would’ve planned to spend a Saturday, but I think it’s definitely had it’s impact on me – since we’ve moved in, I’ve had a serious desire to get our yard lookin’ good.

Before we moved in, the house had been empty for sometime during which the lawn was left alone free to grow in whatever way it wanted. This translates to “we’ve got weeds.” Since Meghan has been doing a lot of work inside the house, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the yard working on cleaning it up. Once we took care of actually cutting the grass for the first time in who-knows-when, I turned my attention to the weeds.

Despite the fact that we were vastly outnumbered, it was time to kick some grass.

We started with the hill in the backyard. The hill spans across our backyard as well as our neighbors’ and is covered in juniper in order to keep erosion down. The juniper looks nice and all, but when it’s got random weeds poking up here and there, not so much. So the first thing we did was pull up all of the random weeds that were contaminating the juniper. Click on each picture for a larger view.

Shortly thereafter, we turned our attention to the perimeter of the house. The weekend that Meghan was at the lake for a bachelorette party, I chose to spend the morning pulling up all of the weeds that were alongside the perimeter of the house. After that, I retraced my steps soaking the area with weedkiller just to make sure I had my bases covered.

Next up, I sprayed all of the weeds that I could find in the backyard, front yard, and along either side of the house. A few days later, once the weeds were as dead as they were gonna get, Meghan and I got outside and began pulling up whatever weeds we could find. It took several evenings to get it all done, but we ended up making some really good progress.

At this point, the majority of the weeds are gone. We’ve tried to be diligent in keeping it cut regularly and keeping an eye out for any weeds that may attempt to show up again. We’d eventually like to get the grass a bit greener, mulch the hill in the backyard, landscape the perimeter of the house, and get some flowers in the front yard. It’s just gonna take some time.

It’s no where near what we’d like, but it’s a far cry from where it was. Hopefully things will begin to take shape over the next several months.

“Weed-free is the way to be,”
Tom

No one in this house likes it when flies get inside. Flies do get inside frequently, though, due mostly to the fact that the dogs want to go in and out of the house throughout the day. Sam and Liam have developed a very cat-like ability to hunt down the bugs that get in. And then they eat them.

Don’t judge them too harshly for their second-rate grammar. English is not their first language. But they’re pretty stellar hunters, aren’t they?

~Sam and Liam’s “Mahm”

ps-I did sweep the floor after that.

On June 6th, Jenn and I rode up to Hiawasee for our friend Megan’s bachelorette party.  It was hosted by her maid of honor, Alicia, at Alicia’s beautiful lake house. We had such a great time relaxing and lying out by the lake while getting to know some of Megan’s other friends.

Jenn and I headed out on Saturday afternoon. There are tons of bikers (motorcycle bikers, not cyclists) that ride through Helen to the mountains, and we passed several. One caught our eyes. A man between 62 and 65 years old was sitting on the side of the road dressed in biking gear, no bike in site, and it wasn’t a rest area. We decided to u-turn and see if he was alright. When I rolled down the window to see if he was ok, he turned to answer, and we could see blood all over his face. That was enough for us to decide to pull over and call 911. Then we brought him some water and asked him what happened. His name is Tom, and it turned out that when he took a turn, he caught some gravel, and he and his bike went flying down a 35 foot embankment, jumped off his bike in midair, and caught several branches on the way down. Then he climbed back up the hill and was sitting there waiting on his buddy to show up, which he did while we were pulling over to help.

Since I’m such an extraordinarily accident prone person, I’ve made a little first aid kit with neosporin, bandaids, foaming wound cleanser, gauze, coban, tape, bug bite stuff, benadryl gel, etc. So, I grabbed the kit (ok, it’s more of all that stuff thrown into a little Lancome bag) and ran down the road. We got him blood-free and bandaged up. He had a very bruised face with cuts all on it, cut up fingers, and what looked like a broken hand. And that’s just what we could see when he took his gloves off. He also said his chest was hurting.  His bike was so far down the steep embankment that when his buddy went down the hill to turn off the bike, we could barely see him through the branches. The sheriff and the EMT finally showed up and took care of him. It was an interesting delay to our ride home.

Megan and Ed were married on June 20th. They had such a sweet, beautiful wedding. They looked fabulous, as did their wedding party. They wrote their own vows, and there were few dry eyes in the church when they finished saying them. I think I enjoy attending weddings more now that I’m married than I ever did before. It’s a sweet reminder of how much you love your spouse and how special your relationship is. Seeing another couple get married reminds me of how God blesses us with a person that He specifically made to be our partner, best friend, and perfect compliment throughout our lives. It just means more to me now that I’ve walked the aisle and said “I do” than it ever could before.

Tom and I had a great time hanging out with Jenn and Justin at the reception, and getting to chat a little bit with the newlyweds! We are so excited for Ed and Megan. They are such a sweet couple, and they absolutely adore one another.

No, not the tv show. Though we love it, that is not the point of this post. However, you could listen to this while you read this post and just pretend that I’m Pam and Tom is Jim. You could also answer this: “Question. What kind of bear is best?”

Tom and I have been using my dad’s truck this past week so that we could go to Ikea on Friday and get some new furniture. Up until this weekend, all of our office things have been in boxes in the office. Tom has had to use the breakfast table for his laptop, and he’s been missing his  regular setup with two towers and two monitors. I’ve had to stand at the breakfast bar to use my laptop. I haven’t been able to do anything with the scrapbooks I’d started. I literally haven’t touched them since months before our wedding. And Tom and I both have so many books that there were boxes of them piled up in the office and in storage upstairs. Books that aren’t out where you can get to them do not get read, and, being the book-lover that I am, it was a serious disservice to both me and to my friends who would like to borrow those books. Well, maybe not “serious,” but it was annoying. Tom also had no where to put his computer books, and he likes to read those to keep himself up-to-date with programming languages.

One afternoon and two trips to Ikea later (we forgot some things), and we had a new set of office furniture. Today, we unpacked most of the boxes and put things away. Now Tom has a desk that can comfortably hold his two monitors and his laptop, a desk lamp, and some notebooks, with room to spare for writing or having a book out. We also bought some cool accessories for his desk. He got two “computer holders” for his towers to be kept off the ground but under his desk next to the legs, and he got a cable holder for the back of the desk to keep all the cables from getting tangled up on the floor.

I have a much larger workspace than I did in the apartment with the desk I was using. And, I love the way that mytabletop is two levels so that I can have things on display, as storage, or drying underneath while I use the top to work. The legs are great because I can use them for extra storage space.  And we now have a couple of bookshelves in here to help out with the lack of book storage. We could probably use a few more, but right now, it’s fine. Tomorrow, we plan to get a small shelf unit from Target to hold our printer and printer supplies. We both feel like there is more that we would like to do in here (more storage, pictures and boards on the walls), but it’s come such a long way in two days, that we’re really happy with the transformation so far.

Here are some pictures from before and after. I had already moved most of the boxes out of the room in anticipation of the need for space while we put the furniture together, and I wish I’d take the picture before that so the change would be more dramatic. Just imagine 3x as many boxes in the room for the before picture, and you’ll start to get the idea.

This message brought to you from the office.

Love,

Meghan

So, just to keep up to date, I’ve had two physical  therapy sessions so far, with another tomorrow and five more weeks after that. Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting it to be. I’ve done all kinds of fun stuff-picking up marbles and setting them back down, doing a “dry whirlpool” and a paraffin wax dip for my left hand to loosen/relax it, pinched clothespins, and lots of stretching exercises for my thumb, including some that incorporate a towel and a quarter. I’ve also had a scar massage. I thought it would be awful, but, while it was uncomfortable, I could manage it. Now that the stitches and scab have come off, I have new, sensitive skin, so I’m sure that I’m going to get to do lots of desensitization stuff now. Not so sure I’m looking forward to that.

I’m still out of work until the p.t. is over, so that means more time to unpack boxes. Tomorrow, Tom and I are going to IKEA to get some office furniture. I can’t wait! We will finally be able to unpack that room! =) Tom is getting this type of desktop, and I am getting this table top for crafts (but with these legs).

Also, earlier this week, I had a lovely birthday! =) Tom got me something that I’ve really needed for  a long time. I use a tape (yes, I said tape) with a cable to listen to my Ipod in the car. I can’t seem to find a good transmitter for it to play through the radio. But Tom found one that is supposed to be really good. We’ll probably test it out on the way to Atlanta tomorrow. Can’t wait! Mom also came up and took me out for the day while Tom was at work. It was so much fun! We got mani/pedis at a local nail place (Thank you, Megan Puckett-soon to be Bolian- for the suggestion of where to go!), had lunch at Five Guys, and had Italian ice from Rita’s. So fun! =) I had celebrated my birthday at the beach with the family (by the way, Kristen, that umbrella has been getting  a lot of use lately!), so I was surprised with some more birthday cards from friends and in-laws on the actual day, which was so nice. Thanks to everyone who sent messages, called, or were in some other way making my birthday special. I appreciate it!
Now it’s back to work. Unpacking boxes seems like it will take forever.

Love,

Meghan

For the past two weeks, I have been wearing a hard splint to keep my thumb still. I hated it. It was like wearing a hard piece of plastic right against your skin all the time, except in the shower. I had to wear it at the beach, even. Trust me when I say that the tan line I got from that is ugly and just draws attention to it in public. Awkward. And it makes my hand sweat. That sweat is trapped between the splint and thumb because there is no ventilation. Then it rubs the skin off of my thumb. And smells. When I went to see the doctor yesterday morning, and he told me that three weeks post-surgery meant no more splint, I couldn’t hide my excitement. I am THROUGH with it! YAY!

Then, I tried to move my thumb, and it is STIFF. Stiff as in “you need physical therapy.” I could barely make my thumb touch my pinky, and it took me about 5-10 seconds to do that, with my thumb shaking the whole time.  (This morning, I couldn’t even do it at all.) So, all day yesterday, I found myself favoring my thumb. Whenever I had the splint on, I felt that I could use my thumb if I was just allowed to take the splint off and move it. But, lo and behold, I find that my splint was some sort of security blanket. My thumb didn’t hurt quite as much when I used my other fingers. I got a false sense of what I would be able to do when it was removed because I felt so capable when wearing it. Yesterday, I swept and mopped, made dinner, drove around doing errands, fed and played with the dogs, and hardly used my left thumb at all. I have a sore on my left pointer finger from holding the Swiffer between it and my middle finger instead of using my thumb.

I am hoping that once the incision is completely healed and the stitches fall out that I will want to use my thumb more. Right now I worry too much that it will bust open if I’m not careful, but it’s healing up. In the meantime, I’ve been catching myself doing stuff without my thumb, like picking up the dog’s bowls, opening packages, etc, and Tom and I talked about how crazy it is the way that our bodies quickly learn to compensate for loss of function. Now I have to get out of that habit and start using all my digits again.

~Meghan

Vacation, Had to get away! =) That chorus was in my head all week while Tom and I were at the beach. We left on Friday, May 23rd for Savannah. On the long trip out, we narrowly avoided a car accident when the car in front of us didn’t brake, but instead drove right into the car stopped in front of it. Thankfully, Tom kept a cool head (seriously, all he said was, “Oh my goodness.”), and he got us out of the way in time. We got there pretty late since we left after work, but Lee (a friend from UGA that I met my second week freshman year) and Melissa (we met the first day of classes freshman year and have been best friends ever since) Tanner were waiting up for us. We all stayed up until about 2AM talking, which might not have sounded so late in college, but now it’s unheard of for all of us. =) The next day we all just lounged around at their place hanging out until Tom and I needed to leave for my Mema’s 80th birthday party. It was so nice just to get to hang out with them again. I miss living in the same city as all my college friends. Go figure that when I move about 15 minutes from her dad’s house that Melissa would be living in Savannah. =) But knowing she’s married to Lee makes it worth it. They are a great couple.

Mema’s 80th birthday party was fun. There was a slideshow of Patton family pictures, including ones of my Mema when she was little all the way up to now and ones of my Papa, who passed away when I was 3. They were an attractive couple! They grew up next door to each other and got married when my grandmother was still a teenager. She moved to California with him while he was in the navy there, and years later, they had my dad, their first child. At the party, there were also some really not so attractive pictures of me in preteen and teen years. I could have lived without seeing those blown up to 10 feet tall on a huge projector, but I was not the only one with funny pictures. All 5 of Mema’s kids, all 15 of her grandkids (not including their spouses), and all 8 of her great-grandkids (& one more is on the way!) had their pictures, both cute and awkward, put out there for all to see as well.

After the birthday party on Saturday evening, my immediate family headed up to Hilton Head for the week. Everyone but Jonathan was able to stay for the entire week. We wished Jonathan could have stayed too because he seems to make everything more fun. He can make any situation funny, and he always has been able to do that. But we all had a great time. We went out to eat at the Crazy Crab a couple of times, but other than that, we mostly chilled out at the beach house and had laid back meals. We spent most of our time at the beach or pool, did some shopping (well, Mom took the “big girls” out for a shopping day, anyway),  went on walks, played putt-putt then watched the little ones play games in the arcade, and hung out in the hot tub at night.  I also spent some time painting Madeline and Anna Kate’s nails for them, and Tom helped Tyler out on a few hard parts of games on his DS, which he got for his 6th birthday.

It was so nice to just relax and do whatever we felt like doing. Since my family is spread out-Mom and Dad in Covington, Tom and me in Suwanee, Kristen and James in St. Louis, Jordan and Sarah moving to Pittsburgh, and Jonathan and Lisa in Augusta, but possibly moving out of the state in a year-it’s made me appreciate all the more the times that we are all together and able to really just relax. I love Christmas, but it’s so busy that people can get stressed out during our time together. Everyone was able to just kick back and do whatever they felt like doing during this trip, and I think we all needed that.  Mom and Dad definitely were generous providing us with such a nice trip, and I’m so blessed to have a family I enjoy spending time with.

We’re back from the beach now and reunited with our pups! This trip was the longest time we’ve had apart from them since we brought them home with us from the SPCA last July. It was awesome getting to pick them up and then come home to our house!! =) We love it here, even if we do still have boxes everywhere. I’m on a forced leave of abscense from work until my hand is fully healed (thank goodness for FMLA), so I intend to spend a lot of that time getting our place in order so we’re closer to living box-free. You know it was a good vacation when you feel rested enough to look forward to the work ahead of you. =)

To see pictures from our vacation, click here.

Love,

Meghan

On Saturday, Tom and I officially moved out of our apartment. It was so strange to see it empty! We definitely could not have made the move without help. Tommy, Patti, and Ben McFarlin, Eli Stevens (Tom & Ben’s cousin), and Will Hooper were such a HUGE blessing to us by coming up and helping to move us out. I don’t think either of us realized how much stuff we had collected during our first year of marriage. We are still trying to unpack it all. The most progress has been in the kitchen, but even it is not all unpacked yet.

On Sunday, the McFarlins came up to go to church with us, and then we took them out to eat for Mother’s Day at Bahama Breeze. (My mom and dad were in Savannah, so we got my mom a different present.) We had a great time visiting with them, then we went home and did some more unpacking.

That night, Tom and I did some grocery shopping. When we got back, I was in the kitchen putting up the groceries before going to bed, and I took out the lock we bought for our fence. It was tightly bound to the cardboard with zipties, so I got out the kitchen scissors to cut it free. The first one cut away easily, but the second one was much tighter. I had to push the scissors hard to get it underneath to cut the ziptie. Unfortunately, the scissors slipped and went into my hand. Suddenly, I was on the floor, screaming, crying, and pretty much oblivious to anything but the pain in my hand. Tom came downstairs and found me holding my hands together, blood coming out of my clasp. When he told me to show him, we were both pretty grossed out to see a hole in my hand. The pain was so intense, I began to gag and felt as though I would pass out. He got me a wet cloth to hold against it for pressure, put me in the car, and drove me to Northside Hospital. That was about all I could say when he had first come downstairs. I got out, “take me to the emergency room” and “Northside.”

By the time we arrived, my hand was swollen, and the hole looked more like a slit in my hand. No one else was in the ER waiting to be seen, and I was seen to immediately. I told the PA who treated me, Kyle, that my thumb felt strange, like I had damaged my nerves. He had me close my eyes and prodded my thumb with a “U”-shaped piece of metal, telling him if I felt one or two prongs poking my thumb. On the outside side of my thumb, all I could feel was pressure, so I just said “one.” On the inside side of my thumb, I could feel the prongs distinctly-one or two, not just pressure. Kyle said I had damaged the nerves, and I needed to see a hand specialist. He also had to numb the wound to look inside it to make sure there was no foreign debris left inside from the scissors. Basically, he gave me shots right at the wound while I cried and squeezed the mess out of the nurse’s arm.

Kyle then squirt a ton of fluid into my wound and prodded around to check it and clean it, following that up with, “you’re quite a bleeder, huh?” I looked over and saw a towel basically turned red under my hand. Tom was rubbing my legs to keep me calm during this, and he told me later that he about couldn’t watch it with all the blood and the wound being squirt open. Kyle then tested to make sure my tendon wasn’t cut by pushing and pulling on my thumb (ow!). I had to resist. (The pain literally had me arching off the bed. I can’t even imagine what childbirth pains must be like, but this was enough to secure my decision to have an epidural when I have kids someday.  I need the drugs.)

After that came the stitches. Most people I talk to who have been stitched up say it’s not that bad, and some say they even watched. I disagree. On other people, I can stomach this kind of stuff. I couldn’t watch my own skin get sewn up, though, and I found it disgusting to feel the thread being pulled through my hand. uck. I was sent home in a hard splint and with a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics.

On Tuesday, Tom took me to see Dr. Ratner, an orthopedic surgeon. He did more nerve testing, then he told me that I had severed the radial digit nerves of my thumb, and, without surgery, the chance of regeneration of those nerves was very low. With surgery, the nerves could be reattached or attached through a conduit if they were very far apart. Basically, if they weren’t close enough to be reattached, he would put each end in a little tube. They would grow through the tube and reattach, then grow back up the thumb. Either way, once the radial nerve is reattached, it grows very slowly, so it will take about 4 months before I get feeling all through my thumb again, and it might never be back to completely normal, but at least I should have feeling and be able to sense heat and cold with the outside of my thumb again, which is the most dangerous part of not having feeling on the outside digits (thumb and pinky).

Mom came up Wednesday night, and on Thursday she took me to Glenridge Medical Center (where Atlanta Outpatient Surgery Center is located) for the operation. After the paperwork was filled out, they took me back and had me change into a gown, sit on a recliner-type medical chair, made sure they had my info right, put bracelets on me, and hooked me up to an IV. Then I found out that the microscope they needed to use for my surgery was in use, so I needed to wait another hour to hour and a half. I sat waiting with some “cocktails” coming through the IV and some magazines the sweet nurses, Jo Ann and Lynn, got me. Mom came back to wait with me, then they took me off to the OR. It was a little intimidating to look up and see all that equipment overhead, see where my hand would be cut up and the anesthesiologist waiting on me with a bunch of tubes hooked up to a mask. I have gone under general anesthsia a couple of times before, but this was the most formal OR I’d ever been in, and I had remind myself to stay calm.

I woke up in the recovery room bawling from the pain and asking for Tom, who was at work, so, of course, they couldn’t get him. I felt like I had just been stabbed again, and they told me the drugs couldn’t counteract the pain if I was that tense. I tried to quit crying, but it was intensely painful, and it took a while to chill out. I was so cold, and then they wheeled me to mom’s car, which was hot from the sun, and I got nauseated between the drugs, the temperature change, and the stop-and-go traffic in Atlanta. Thankfully, I didn’t throw up. I was so glad to get home. Mom got us all Chinese for dinner (I wasn’t that hungry then, but I was grateful for leftovers today!), then she went home. Tom worked from home today, and Nikki Christiansen, one of our small group leaders, brought us dinner tonight and kept me company this afternoon while Tom took Liam to the vet. We are so blessed to have such wonderful friends and family. Tom has been doing everything for me, going out of his way to see to my every need. What a wonderful husband God has given me! This week has been crazy, painful and different than expected, but I am glad that God is in control and knows what the purpose is, especially when I don’t (turns out that we didn’t need that lock I cut myself opening after all).

James 1:2-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

~Meghan

ps-You have no idea how long it took to type this with one hand.