Creeping Along

It's been an interesting 2 weeks.  Ken's new medicine dose bit him in the butt!  Monday he increased his dose and by Wednesday he was getting weaker. By Thursday he was too weak to get out of bed finally hanging on enough by 3 pm to get to his chair, where he promptly went back to sleep.  His pain level?  Well, it was gone but he was disgusted in not being able to stay awake long enough to enjoy being pain free.  His brain was okay when he was awake so it wasn't his epilepsy so I went online to do some research.  As the only change he had made was to increase a dose I began with it.  What to my wandering eyes should see as major side effects?  Weakness.  The inability to control legs.  Further research indicated the half life was less than a day so I hid his pills Friday so we could discuss the problem.  The fine line was going downhill and with many cautions I came up with a plan.  He concurred. He was finally able to go outside this Wednesday evening for dinner using a cane.  He still isn't totally back to par; now question is will he ever??  Doc appointment Tuesday so we shall see.
Zellers and Propst's got back last Saturday.  Kathy (our residence pool shark) is giving a lesson on proper English.  I tell her I'm only into Portuguese.  She just smiles.    I've been staying close so haven't been up to much - even laundry.  However yesterday was the annual quilt show and carving exhibition so Deb, Kath and I went. Of course I passed out many cards for BB.  And some folks came back to ask for more.  I really hope to get it up to at least 75-80 per drop before we leave.  This week was 35 an increase of over 50%.

 Here are a few of my favorite things for this year.

 And then the beautiful wood carvings:

Such a small world.  Kathy met the mother of one of her old bosses.

 To end off the day I dedicate this picture to my Quilting Diva's from Burnt River and Wallowa County!  It looks just like them.  :)  Love you girls - see you in '14!!

E.B. goes to Mexico!

 Another year another Gringo Appreciation party.  What an opportunity to watch old folks go crazy!!  As always there's always something new to do see.  This year the Pink Store gave us necklaces and tatoo sleeves.  What fun!  There were about 30 of us from Elephant Butte.  The Legion crowd likes inside and we like outside so we had it all covered.  Rocky, Anna were there with friends Larry and Ana.  They are at EB Lake Resort.

 As always there is food and plenty of drink.  As I was driving Kathy's van I stayed far away from their killer margaritas.  I know how easy it is to get too much too quick.  All of us but Rita & Mary had been before so we knew the ropes.  They were all eyes.  The purse, dental and eye stores also served food so we kept up our strength :).

 There were people everywhere.

 It wasn't that warm so Kathy put on the purple poncho!  As she likes purple also I kept a close eye on it, but she gave it back at the end of the day. (THEN she told me she got a purple one last time we were in Mexico.)

 No Mexico visit is complete without a trip to the pharmacy.  Here is the pharmicist and her daughter.  She just graduated from college and is taking some time off before she enters graduate school.

 Here are the Sista's with their tatoo sleeves.  We're going to wear them playing pool.

 The dancers/singers were again from Chile.  The Juarez College dancers weren't there.  They were missed but we did end up with something new.........................................................

..................ZUMBA!!!

More people watchin'.

The braid is covered with many, many cuff bracelets.  I'll bet he hasn't ever cut his hair.  

All in all it was a stupendous day of people watching, laughing and hanging out with friends.



Ahhhhh! Life is good!!

The Gals Take A Trip!

Ken won a steak dinner a few months back and never got it so we went to the Moose (10 or us) for Fillet Mignon Friday night.  They Call Me Pat is a great cook!  Every piece of meat was done to our order and melted in our mouths.  Maurene, Kathy, Deb, Rita and I are joining the women's part.  After dinner we played pool.  Kathy gave her good advice.  The rest went home and us 4 decided to play pool all the way home.

So we stopped at the Pine Nut (been wanting to go there).  We are basically cheap so so played six Legion/Moose games in only two games ($.75) and headed to the Legion.  They were just finishing up the Friday Fun Pool and we got the new table.  Then they started Karoke (groan!) but we persevered and ended up singing to Proud Mary as a Quartet at the top of our lungs. Have no idea if anyone else was singing.  :)  We were GOOD!!  :)

Saturday was drop #2 for BB - a new adventure every time.  The driver blew on by the turnoff so I did a horn honking-light flicking chase down Broadway.  Caught him at the Veteran's Home and we u turned it in Alco and headed back.  We had 8 new folks so next time should be good also.  I'm going to get a psycho-colored sign and write: BB DRIVER TURN RIGHT AT THE NEXT STREET!!!.  Street signage isn't big in TorC.
Sunday Kathy picked us up in the van and I drove us to Albuquerque!!  Wootwoot!! Deb, Kathy & I were on a TRIP! for three nights/4 days.  Kathy to gamble and us to just veg with a tiny bit of gambling on the way.  We stopped at Socorro and had brunch.  They have live music on Fri, Sat and Sun during the day.  He was good.  They also have art on the walls depicting NM.

We like this place they give you sopapillos FIRST!!  The rest of the food was good also (well maybe not the rice - too much red chile powder).

Yes, we wore one of our Sista' Necklaces.

Man oh man!  The Hard Rock parking lot was jammed full!  This is a sight we've never seen and had to park way over by the trucks.  They were having their Winter Wedding Expo and there was much bling, googaw and spiky shoes on all females when we went in.  Kathy went gambling, Deb & I Kumihimoed and Beaded until about 8 when Kathy came back and we went swimming/hot tubing  And the first day ended wonderfully after and shower and shampoo.

The next morning we breakfasted at the hotel where Deb had this delightful concoction - Me?  I had LOTS of Coffee with my creamer hoping to keep my only 5 hour of sleep headache at bay until I could find a Wally World and get about 9 Happy Sleeping Pills!

Last time we came Linda/Maurene got stuck in an elevator - Wow!  Look!  It's STILL broken!!!  Yuk! Yuk!  We DO love the other two sistas.

Kathy got her GPS practice and we headed to our destination.  First we found a bead store that knew a tiny bit about Kumihimo where Deb got a couple of tips.







The gal showed us flat Kumihimo.  Hmm! I'm thinking KaCe might like this so got him a little wheel. We headed on down the road and found the Bead Store Wyn told me about-Thunderbird Supply.

They had MANY Big bobins with silk cord on them.  Hmmmm!  Does Deb need these big  bobbins?  I got the clasps I needed here and we continued on to Route 66 for Five Buck Chuck and gambling.  Bummer!!  Five Buck Chuck is only on Thursdays and Fridays now.  So we had Eight Ninety-Five Chuck.  Pretty good.  Deb has us all drinking water with squirty flavor in it. I'm about off DP.  (Of course will use it for DIRE Emergencies!!) mmm (Don't Ask!)

We then wandered around and I found the Big Fishing Tournament Group Game in the back.  I quickly won a little and cashed out as did Deb and we watched Kathy mow'em down.



It was fun!  Here she is at the No Name Delete Everything From Your Phone If We Catch You Casino!



We went back to Hard Rock taking a different "learning turn" way.  Kathy went down to the Casino first with Deb and I going later.

Just as I got to the front and was about ready to put money in when I heard "Kathleen Madsen you have 5 minutes to come collect a money envelope".  She picked a good prize $300 cash.  It was double prize day!!






We then found the No Deal Game!! What a hooot!!!  We had such a good time!  I'd won some at the other place on a Frog Machine - what a Hoot also. So I stuffed it in here.  You have to pace yourself after the Big Deal and was down to almost pennies.  They both stuffed $20's in my hand but I only took Deb's and we continued playing.  I left there with more money than I'd had even after paying Deb back.  We went and split a fish sandwich (Deb/Me) and some fries and went to the room.
We decided that Wednesday we'd go play that again and settled in for the night.
Wednesday we played it for 3 hours - going up and down on the money pole.  Kathy always up; me kind of up and Deb almost always broke by the time the "Big Game" rolled around (10 minutes from the last one).  I left with enough money to go visit a new bead store :) and buy dinner at the Legion.  It was a stupendous time!!  No pressure to always do "group" things.  Thanks Kathy for sharing your free room with us!!