update on stellan and abby

stellan is doing much better.  he is being weaned from his iv medications and placed on oral medications and is staying put in his home town for now, too.  he has been SVT-free for a few days now.

abby is responding well to her iv antibiotics and her blood counts are still in the safe range.  she is possibly going home on today and will continue her iv antibiotics there.  she is feeling much better, too.

thanks for praying!

pray for abby

abby, you may remember, is fighting a very tough battle with leukemia. she is currently in the hospital with a nasty infection in her blood. she is highly allergic to the antibiotic that will work best to kill the bacteria. they are trying her on a different medication, but may have to risk her airway closing to treat her. please pray for wisdom for her doctors and increased peace for her parents, brent and michelle.

pray for stellan

*UPDATE* stellan and his mom and dad will be heading to boston via "air ambulance" to be under the direct care of his leading electrophysiologist/cardiologist. the new plan is another ablation and probably a permanent pacemaker. please keep praying.



stellan is in dire need of prayers right now. he has been in SVT for 2-3 days with very few breaks and his heart is giving out. he is stable, but his condition is very critical. (all this is information from mckmama's tweets and blog.) so please join me in praying for stellan and jennifer (mckmama) and israel (prince charming).

birthday card

so my birthday is wednesday. yep. the 22nd. i will be 30, for those of you who don't know. i will also be at work. (in fact, i will be at work tonight, wed, and thursday. but no worries.) anyway, my dear neighbors made me dinner last night and we had a delicious cake, too. harley made me a birthday card. it is the first card i have received this year and i love it. take a look...

i am sure you can see my name, the hearts, harley's name and the "i love you"

here is the left side... the brown shape is barley, there is a yellow cotton, and i am above them.


and on the back he drew himself, his mom, and his dad.

i love it. :)

landscaping queen

i spent a good bit of monday and tuesday getting some new plants for our front landscaping. it has been bare for awhile and i decided it was time to add some green (and hopefully soon, some purple, too). i headed out to home depot and found some plants to my liking and then brought them back and went to work. if our yard was not composed of fill dirt (i.e. red clay), i am sure the digging would have gone a bit more quickly. but alas, i got a great workout digging my holes (and found some "gifts" leftover from the construction crew- a diet sunkist can, a paint roller- the handle part, extra concrete, and a burger king ketchup packet). anyway, i digress.

i bought some hostas, english lavender, and a few dwarf yaupon holly bushes to finish out the front. i would like to add some bulbs this fall, and hopefully by then i will have forgotton how hard it is to dig in that dirt and will be ready for the occasion! here's a view of what i have added:

hostas for the border (then we can eventually remove the rocks)

english lavender (it already smells fantastic)

holly bush

added to the boxwoods we left from moving in, it should fill in quite nicely

a full view, including the new flag pole :)

summer visitation

my mom and dad came in this past weekend to visit. this is their first trip back since we have been living in the new house. it was fun to show it off and spend some time with them. the dogs sure have missed them and i am pretty sure cotton gave them extra licks to last them until they return. :) we took them to lake lure and we enjoyed a boat tour there. we also spent a little time downtown hendersonville as well as a farewell brunch at mayfel's in downtown asheville. mom snapped a few pictures of us at the house, and i have a few from lake lure. it was a wonderful visit- i just wish it could have lasted longer. maybe next time.

me and mom with one of the bears of h'ville

jay taking down the flag for the day


sweet cotton and barley (with her eyes closed)

jay didn't seem to notice that mom was taking a picture of everyone...

the boat tour of lake lure was nice and it was interesting learning about some of its history. it is home to the lake lure inn and spa, which dates back to the 1920's.

lake lure is home of where part of dirty dancing was filmed. the scene where she is walking down the stairs with the watermelon and the water scene practicing the lift were both filmed in one of the coves. we learned that the water scene was filmed in november and they were all freezing cold.

the stairs are in the center (click on the picture and it will open up larger for you)

and i would really hate it to have enough money (think millions) to live here every summer in one of these small homes...

and i would hate it if this was my view when i stepped out on my porch every day, too...

we also learned that there is a town at the bottom of the lake, including a church and cemetery. it is a man-made lake and the town of buffalo was flooded. but with the lake came the generation of power (i.e. a dam) and this was back in the day when the tva was flooding many things, and while not a part of that, it was also flooded. (i am sure i don't have all of this correct, but you get the idea.) it was a lovely boatride and we learned some interesting tidbits that we didn't already know. who can complain?

happy 4th!

i don't have very many pictures of our fabulous 4th, but i will share what i do have. we went to jay's uncle rick's house in knoxville on ft. loudon lake. he always has a great 4th of july planned with family, friends, water fun: jet ski, boat, pool, etc., food, and fireworks. we loaded up steven, kelly, and harley, dropped the dogs at sparky's and headed west to knoxville for the day. we had a long, wonderful day.

harley and dorian had a great time swimming together.

jay took steven for a lake tour and jet ski tutorial so he could take kelly and harley out.

steven and kelly

harley and michael ready for fireworks