Bad news

Hello all. I haven't updated in awhile. Today, my grandfather passed away shortly after 9am. He put up a very good fight, but ultimately was not strong enough.

To catch everyone up, he had a quadruple bypass a couple weeks back. There was a terrible infection after the surgery, and his sternum (breastbone) turned to mush. The surgeons decided to remove the ENTIRE breastbone. (a surgery we had never heard of and did not think was possible. Apparently rare, very dangerous, and extremely painful and hard to recover from) He had that surgery on Tuesday at 12pm. He was doing well until 3am this morning. He was bleeding from a hole/tear in the heart. He went into emergency surgery and everytime they repaired the hole, as soon as the heart began to beat again, it would tear and he would lose much more blood. We were notified just before 9 that the doctors would not be able to resuscitate him and he passed away shortly after that.

We spent all day in Denton with my grandmother. The services are not until Wed July 5 at 2pm in Denton at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church. His name was Jim Powers. He will be missed very dearly. We thank everyone for their continued support and prayers. Please keep us all in your thoughts and hearts.

Love,
A

Weekly News 6/7-6/13/06

Wed 6/7 Tough day today. Not feeling really well and having a tough time. Had a really awful night and a lot of things were on my mind. M stayed home with me which was very helpful. Got the bad news that my grandfather needs an emergency quadruple bypass, so we went to Denton to “tell him good-bye” as my mom put it. That is a hard task. On one hand it’s nice to have the opportunity to tell someone “good-bye” but on the other, it’s one of the hardest things to do. What do you tell someone when you think it will be the last time telling them anything….? Had dinner at my parents after the hospital and my other grandpa came over and we all had a very long talk. Got home around 2am.

Thursday 6/8 M went into work late because of our late night. Again, it’s very helpful to have him home. Big Jim’s surgery was this postponed this morning due to irregular EKG readings, which is not good. They did go ahead and do the surgery this afternoon because it was either do or die supposedly and he is currently on life support. He at least made it through the surgery okay and we are just waiting for him to wake up. M had a baseball game tonight, which he considered putting off, but there really isn’t a reason to since we are just in the waiting game. I am feeling a little better since the family discussion on Wed night and Tonya and I got together today for lunch, which always helps me feel better.

Friday 6/9 We are still waiting on him to wake up. Apparently they are trying to keep him under for a bit so he won’t be in as much pain. Since his emphysema is so bad though, everyone is wondering what will happen when he is taken off the ventilator…. We just stayed around the house tonight by the phone. I got some work done today but not a lot, of course.

Sat 6/10 Today I needed to get out of the house and we had a ton to do, so we started off early at a designer friend of our’s garage sale after a quick breakfast at Chick-Fil-A. We didn’t find anything we HAD to have, so then we drove around the area looking at houses. We were in Kessler Park. There were a few we stopped to look at, but most of the ones we want are upwards of $700,000. Not gonna happen tomorrow at least. So, then we came back through Dallas and checked out some more houses and then we went downtown for lunch at this new awesome place…Twisted Root Burger Co. It’s owned by some top chefs that got tired of crappy burgers. They make awesome food and it’s a very laid back atmosphere…very rustic and Texas. Its at Commerce and Good Latimer in Deep Ellum. Then we came back to town, ran by the house, then went to Ikea. Then we went to Sam’s. Then we went to Wal-Mart and then we went to Target. We were so freaking worn out. After we came out of Target, with our frozen foods, of course, the car wouldn’t start. The entire Trail Blazer was packed full of stuff from all our ventures and we had all these groceries out in the heat, at 10:30pm on a Saturday night, and our damn car wouldn’t start. Good lord. So we called our friend Matt and he came to pick us up. We unloaded everything, reloaded everything, got home and unloaded it again. It was about 11:30. We still hadn’t had dinner. So we ordered a pizza, which arrived wrong…with pork…which I am allergic to…so we called them and asked them to fix it and it did not arrive until after 1am. That sucked. A very crappy end to a very long day.

Sun 6/11 Big Jim is doing a little better. He is off the ventilator but still out of it. At least he is breathing on his own. They thought he had a little stroke because he isn’t really talking, but maybe it’s just the medicine? Some of the family is leaving today and they are going to do some more tests so we’ll find out what’s up. M put together the bookcases today and I organized the laundry sorting area. (I decorated the bags…what a dork I am) We kinda just hung out because of all the fun from yesterday. Plus, I needed to catch up on work and some chores around here. Watched the movie, “Skeleton Key”. It was really good. (for a Sunday afternoon movie at least)

Mon 6/12 Back to work today. Since I was out most of last week, I needed to do a lot of catching up. M got the TB towed to the dealership and we’re waiting to find out what is wrong with it. Big Jim is remaining the same. They are pretty sure there wasn’t a stroke. My aunt has come into town. We did find out that my uncle and his long time girlfriend are separating, which is terrible news. This hasn’t been a very good week!!

Tues 6/13 Well, the verdict is in on the car and it will be almost $500 to fix it. Could be worse I suppose. My parents are trying to make sure my grandparent’s finances are in order so that things will be easier to handle “when”. I don’t like that realization that “when” is getting closer. “When” sucks. M has baseball practice tonight and then we have our wine thing tomorrow night. Thursday is his baseball game, then Friday is a family dinner, and then Saturday is my birthday dinner celebration with everyone (They planned a big party at La Duni for me!!) since it falls on a Monday this year. Then Sunday is Father’s Day and Monday is my b-day. It will be a big week!

Weekly News 6/1-6/6/06

Thursday 6/1/06- Today was a LOT of work! I am planning for the big spa party this Saturday. M keeps calling it the International Spa Party because people are coming in from the UK and France. Can't wait to see that phone bill! lol. I also had an Arbonne meeting...got some more product in...I am LOVING this stuff. It has made a visible difference in my skin. That's always nice. Nothing much else going on but work today.

Friday 6/2/06 - Today I finalized the rest of the spa party plans for tomorrow. Got paychecks out and reorganized some of our supplies. I took a break mid-day for a movie...Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. It was surprisingly a wonderful movie. I highly recommend it. I thought it was going to be stupid, but it actually was a younger Ya-Ya and had some very sweet moments. (I am hormonal too, so I was crying at everything) :) Tonight I met Tonya for dinner and we had such a nice visit. We tried the new Boston's- not bad, great service! I brought dinner home for M and he ate while I finally finished the mantle. The repainted mirror looks awesome and I added our fabric and some new accents. I also put up the shelf over the new wine bar in the kitchen and the decorations we got for that. LOVE IT.

Saturday 6/3/06 - Got up and prepared supplies for the ISP (International Spa Party). We went to Arlington to start setting up at noon. M went with me since we were making a day of it all. After we helped the girls set up and gave them new supplies and literature, I started heating the neck wraps, visited with the clients, and schmoozed a bit. Then we left so the party could begin.

We went to one of our fav lil dive spots for lunch-Mariano's. It's a great Mexican restaurant but it's in a bad bad neighborhood. Luckily we made it out alive (last time we were almost carjacked...not fun) Yes, the food is THAT good. LOL.

Then we went into Southlake to do a little shopping at the Town Square...so much fun! I love all those great stores... spent too much money :) Then we went into Grapevine to D'Vine Wine for a quick afternoon tasting. Very nice and relaxing. We didn't fall in love with any of the wines, but it was a fun time. There was a party going on next to us and they invited us to join them (they'd had a lot of wine :) ) and so we did. Then, after our tasting, we walked down to the Fromagerie for some cheese tasting - of course! We didn't find anything too spectacular there, so we decided to head back to Frisco.

We changed clothes (it was so hot!) and then headed to Lowe's (our most favorite) to pick out some paint samples for the bathroom and some to choose from for the living room. But first, we went to Ikea, because we are insane. This 10 minute errand to pick up storage boxes turned into an hour and a half errand. First of all, I found some more fun stuff to buy (duh) but that only took an extra 30 mins. The hour came in to play IN THE LINE. This lady in front of us was NUTS. She rang up a $600 bill and thought that was too much so she had the girl void the sale and re-ring everything. So, the total came up the same the second time (imagine that) so she started returning little stuff (seriously $0.69 stuff and $2 stuff) So, about 30 items and $35 later, she asked for the total again. It was over $600 (because of tax of couse) and she couldn't figure that out. So again, she had the checker VOID and RE-RING EVERYTHING. I wanted to kill her. If looks could kill...i would have. The other lines were all long and we couldnt get out because our stuff was already unloaded. We considered leaving, but we couldn't justify that because we'd picked out our stuff and we thought SURELY she'd be done soon. Finally, she did get done and leave, with a grand total of $600 (AGAIN).

After this disaster errand, we went on to Lowe's, got about 10,000 paint samples, and then went to Olive Garden for dinner. (well, it was already 9:45pm so we figured we should eat something!!) Then we went home and made it a somewhat early night...we were worn out!

Sunday 6-4-06 - Since we went out yesterday, we decided the stay around the house and finish up some more projects. We worked on the normal dishes, laundry, etc, and did some more organizing and moving stuff around. It was kind of a lazy day, we watched a movie, hung out, and chilled....getting ready for the week. We ran to DSW and bought some new shoes and then ran over to Target to do our grocery shopping. Then home to make a good dinner (tacos, yum) and then to bed at a decent time.

Monday 6-5-06 - Back to working! Tons to do. I am optimizing the website and we are adding some new shopping carts. Our product lines are coming out too on a new webstore. YAY. VLo is also doing Accent on Homes' website and so I've been working on that. M and I both had a long day, so we made sammiches and had some wine for dinner. We followed that up with a custom made chocolate martini and boy, we felt a lot better! LOL. Probably not a good idea on a school night :)

Tuesday 6/6/06 - Aah..it's 6/6/06. Devil day. I don't feel too devilish today though, so I'll have to take a rain check. I've basically been finishing up projects from yesterday and working on more blogs for the biz. M has baseball practice tonight which will give me more time to work. Accent on Homes' website just needs a few more changes and it should be up and running better than ever. Ours is in the process of getting a makeover. We are supposed to be featured in this month's Home Improvement Dallas, so I am looking forward to that! Time for lunch and to get back to it...