Photo Shoot

MorrisFamily-197_2009, originally uploaded by ktsparks.

I took photos of a family group of 13 plus a puppy dog yesterday afternoon. I had the best time with them and these little boys were a riot to photograph! I am still smiling!

Bartlesville Oklahoma Buffalo Fundraiser Project

The Bartlesville Girls Scouts of America adopted a fund raising project to raise funds for the Mary Martha Mission here in our town. There have been several area artists basically donating their time to paint these buffalo and place them around town. Oh, when I heard about it I was overjoyed because I have always loved a good art project. 



One of my best friends, Carolyn Mock was asked to paint a buffalo to be placed at Woolaroc Museum.
Carolyn labored long and hard for many
many weeks on this beauty.  She took
it's design into consideration and deliberated
on how to make the museum and the sponsors
proud of it....

 She decided on the White Buffalo
that is a scared symbol to the Native American Indians. 


Carolyn did a very beautiful job and the blanket on the buffalo is a painting of the mosaic around the doors to the Woolaroc museum.

Then this one is celebrating the much celebrated Price Tower in Bartlesville

It is the only skyscraper ever designed by 

Frank Lloyd Wright that was built.

This one is in honor of the musical play

OKLAHOMA

This buffalo celebrates the airplane the Woolaroc that won

the Dole race in the 1920's  that resides inside the Woolaroc Museum 

This buffalo is pretty self explainatory, we are proud of our country and all it stands for here in Bartlesville as well as our state of Oklahoma.

This bison is celebrating our great plains and the bison that roamed the prairies here years ago,

and honoring the Tall Grass Prairie Preserve west of Pawhuska where the buffalo once again roam thanks to their

efforts to preserve a portion of the TallGrass.

and then we have this one....

 

 

call me old fashioned, 


call me a fuddie duddie,


call me a prude,


call me a consertive,

whatever you call me.....

 my comment is exactly

as my

Grandpa 

would say....

What the Sam Hill were they thinkin'!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I want to wish all of you a very safe and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The Ups and Downs of Life

Did I ever say that I think deer whistles work????

                   All men I know laugh at me and tell me I am nuts................well maybe I am.

                      But last week hubby had a deer jump in front of him on the interstate going 75....

the good news is he was not hurt.  Truck hurt a little and the deer did not make it.

So do you think deer whistles work?







Then this week Zoe suddenly started to not feel too good.

I took her to the vet to see what they were going to 
say....                                                                                              

Well they checked her for diabetes like they always do because her full sister Chloe had it along with Cushing Syndrome......

Her sugar has always been good before but this past week it was over 650!  So now she is on insulin shots.

I am pretty traumatized by that turn of events.  She is my mom's dog but she is like mine too.  She is the one who never left me when I was in so much pain during this illness I just got over.  She was always there for me, she is such a dear girl.

The excitingly good news is I got the new front doors stained and varnished!  I was so stressed out because they had been waiting in the garage for me to feel good enough to do the job and finally I was up to standing up on the concrete long enough and the weather held out for me too!  The contractor came and hung them.  I think they look great and I am so glad to be done with the old ugly ones I had for the entire 17 years we have lived here.  

 

Why did we wait so long with those ugly doors?????? 

 

My other LOVES!!!!!!!!!!

I DO NOT KNOW WHY ALL THE ONES I LOVE LIVE SO FAR AWAY!!!

This group are my Texas loves.....still 9 hours south down the lonely highway!

Kentucky is too far away!

WHHHHHAAAAA I WANT MY BABIES BACK!

I want that little knapsack of twins!

I miss and love you both,
you cute little turkeys!

Happy Thanksgiving
and
don't forget
your
crazy
Auntie
Karen
way back
in
Oklahoma!

Fall in the Oklahoma Osage Nation

Oh, WHAT'S A GIRL TO DO?

I have been just laying around all depressed because I don't have anything new to wear....

I kept telling my Mommy that I needed a new collar to make me look and feel extra special....

I am not spoiled, I just need something new to wear, so I feel pretty,
don't you understand?


I know you say you are looking for just the right one, and you tell me you can't find it...

I think I have heard that story before.....

PLEASE, please.....pretty please!!!!!


The squirrels are making fun of me when I am out in the yard chasing them.

They said I am a nobody because I just have a plain red collar....

That darn squirrel last week made fun of me so badly!
I just had to put a hurtin' on him!

It wasn't my fault, he just got me mad......


I won't do it again, I promise!



Pleassssssse Mommie!

I hear Dad coming in from the Post Office, hey, he is carrying a box!

Oh darn, he says it is for Mom..... that figures doesn't it?

She always gets stuff, but I never get any stuff I want....
grrrrrrr.....

I just wish for once someone would think of me for a change!


I get no respect around this place......

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS!!!!

look at me!!!!!!!!!

look at my neck,

I have a new collar!!!!!




Mom's box was from TrainWreck
and she sent me a new collar just like I have always wanted!

Aren't I just stunning?

Come on you know I am!!!!!


Boy, those squirrels are gonna get an eye full tomorrow!

NaNaNaNa!!!!!!
Mom, I have someone who thinks I am special enough
to go shopping for!

Oh, I am so lucky to have her for my people sister!!!!

TrainWreck loves me enough to go to the ends of the
Earth for little ol' me!


Thanks, TrainWreck for making her ever more of a terror than she already is!


hahahahaha...you are the best!



You can read TrainWrecks blog at
Cowboy's, Kids and Sunsets
under the blogs I follow

Pioneer Woman Cooks Book Signing

Last night my girlfriend and I decided to go to the Pioneer Woman Cooks booksigning. I told Sherri we would go a little late so it would not be so crowded......

yeah right!

You have to remember this is a small town and this is the hometown that raised Ree Smith Drummond, "Pioneer Woman" . Her dad is one of the local orthopedic surgeons in our small town, and her step mom lined up this whole deal.


They had 3 lines to sign books, now how did they expect one person to sign books from 3 lines?






My friend Sherri wanted to get her book signed and we waited in line for 30 minutes and it did not move one little bit!



Sherri said this is not worth it, lets go get some dessert, but first go up and take her picture for me.




Okay I did, I crowded in and snapped these shots.

I am sure she will invite Sherri and I over to her house to sign her copy when things settle down a little for her..........don't ya think?

IT HAS BEEN A LONG HAUL TO GET HERE

If you follow me you know I had surgery and spent a week in the hospital when I arrived in Scotland. Oh, it was so naive of me to think I had a torn ligament and it would heal quickly when I left Oklahoma. I had much more than that and did not know it at all, I was septic in my right knee.

Septic arthritis is considered a medical emergency because of the damage it causes to bone as well as cartilage, and its potential for creating septic shock, which is a potentially fatal condition. It says on the Mayo Web site that it can totally ruin a joint in only 6 days. It was a good decision by the small town doctor in Banchory to send me to Aberdeen to the hospital for IV treatment of antibiotics . It was an even better decision they made at the Royal Aberdeen Hospital doctors to whisk me off to surgery immediately at 10 PM to wash out my knee joint and then get me on IV antibiotics. Removing the infected synovial fluid from your joint serves three purposes: It removes bacteria from your joint, reduces pressure on your joint, and gives your doctor a sample to test for bacteria and other organisms. The most common method of removing joint fluid is through arthroscopic surgery. During this surgery, tiny cameras and special surgical tools are inserted through small incisions around your joint to access and drain the fluid around the joint.

I came home from Scotland not aware that I still had the hardest part of my recovery from the septic arthritis to go. I had received just enough antibiotics to get me through the week of site seeing we did while there and then 3 more days before I ran out of oral medication.



The problem was I did not have nearly enough treatment in Scotland and when I ran out of antibiotic pills after I got home, the barn door was broken down so to speak. I did learn a lot about Socialized medicine while in the hospital in the UK system.

(Maybe that is why I got sick when I did to learn about what they want to implement here for us. Let me tell you we need some fixes, but not like the ones there. If you want to hear more about it leave me a comment and I will post more about it. I have learned much since I have been home from my friends I met in my ward who are still having problems with their care and lack of it. I have also learned it is a heated topic and I had lots of feedback good and some very UGLY to me because I wrote about my experience in an email to my friends who forwarded it on).

It was the mid week and I got a prescription from my doctor, but they did not have them at the pharmacy. They said they did not get those anymore, they were too old of a type and so by the time I got another prescription, it was the weekend and the same story! It had seemed like nothing I was doing was working and the pain was getting unbearable.

I became really sick and had to go to ER here at hometown. They drew fluid out of my knee again and cultured it. It came back again that I was still septic. This staph infection was going to plan on playing hardball in my body. The pain in my leg and hip was horrible and it was still really swollen. I was on so much pain medication I was worried I would become addicted!

I got into my orthopedic doctor in Tulsa and he hooked me up with a most wonderful infectious disease doctor in Tulsa. He drew up a plan of attack of this horrible monster inside of me and we were in it for the long haul together.

I was sent to get in PICC which is a intravenous catheter in my arm so we could give me high doses of antibiotics in IV form. I got them every 8 hours and and it would last from August 6 until October the 7th.

Our table set up with all my things to give me my antibiotic treatments every 8 hours

My hubby was the best nurse I could have asked for, he was always there to give me the medicine. I think I only had to give it to myself a couple of times.

I also had another surgery on my knee area where they irrigated the joint and then took out the infected bakers cyst behind my knee where my infection was dwelling. I was bed fast from about 5 days after I got home from Scotland until I recovered from my surgery. I could not stand the pain of sitting up in a chair. I had to stay sedated because the pain was so bad and my trips weekly to see the infectious disease doctor and the orthopedic surgeon were some of the worst trips I had to make. I just could not stand to sit up in the truck seat that hour to and from the doctor because my leg dangled and put pressure on my knee. I had to go everywhere in a wheelchair for some time and when and I had to use a walker to get to the bathroom at home.

That surgery to clean out my knee and remove the bakers cyst took 2.5 hours and was no easy task to get out. I am grateful my orthopedic surgeon was and is one of the top knee and hip doctors in the United States. He and my infectious disease doctor worked together for my outcome. I am sure we will never know exactly how or where the staph infection came from. I am just grateful that it is gone now and I am back to a normal life.

I did have a scare 2 weeks ago and got up one morning and could not walk on my right leg again shortly after I was off my IV antibiotics. I was rushed to see the orthopedic doctor in Tulsa. They drew fluid off my knee again and did a culture to see if it was back.
Well the good news it was free of staph infection, the bad news is my knee had to have another cortisone shot to get rid of the pain. I can only have a so many of those so I don't know what will happen when I am there at my limit and can't walk because of the pain. They will never know if the infection got into the bone in my leg, because if it is I will always have some live infection dormant there. If I have any leg trauma they say it could come back if it is there.

I have been very lucky to have had good doctors when I got home and a great husband, mother and 2 nurse maids (that bark)
My nursemaids

Zoe top, Jackie bottom



that took care of me night and day for pretty much of the 3 months I was sick.

This week I am able to smile and enjoy things again, I am blessed!