What's outside of your picture window today?

@kilh Thanks so much for your nice message. I understand what you're going through as you wait for your rainy weather to clear so you can bale your hay. We used to go through that same stress years ago when we had a farm in Alberta, Canada. Good luck in getting sunny weather soon! Warmest wishes, Laurie

@artist01, @becsbuddy, @merpreb @sueinmn,
@johnbishop, @loribmt, @kilh, @artscaping, and all...Hello, my friends with precious babies, rabbits, chippers, beautiful views of rivers and hay bales and farmland and gardens.....
I send pics of my patio, rescue plants, ...
I love all you share with us. What fun!

Robs been in pain crisis for a couple of weeks, worsening. He spent the last days of the week screaming in uncontrolled pain, even with the dilaudid pump and all we knew to do. So, something inside quietly told me he was going to Mayo ED, now. So, we did. I must admit, a bit of Mama Grizzly appeared. She does if he doesn't get proper or serious help, etc. He was admitted after receiving meds. Pain docs and neurology wouldn't consult. His pain doc heads a good spine center. Mayo neuro gives him botox relief. So, who's going to help him?

Anesthesia, suggested by a dear nurse, gave him a nerve block to buy 12-15 hours til he could see his pain doc. Home, he ept, and I spent hours Friday a.m. working to get him into see the doc...they close on Fri, noon! He saw doc at noon! I was at his condo with plumber, stopped kitchen sink. Doc adjusted pump, gave him pain shot, and Monday he gets another procedure.

I'm recovering from another mini-breakdown....#3,245, I think.

So, fed birds, watered plants, put together a month of Robs pills, rested and tomorrow I take pics of furniture in storage, to sell and move to my place. Have plumber Wed. To take down LR wall, bath room upstairs wall, part of DR wall and all of downstairs wall...to repair/remove cast iron drainage pipe. Then, tile woman is replacing all 3 bath tile floors, all walls, putting up bead board in half bath, painting. Then, plumber back to install all vanities, add plumbing in master for 2 sinks.

Then, #3246 breakdown.

And so it goes.

I'm including the chandelier at Mayo Florida Hospital Lobby, the waterfall honoring the lovely family who brought Mayo here, in the '80s. Went to Rochester a lot, so donated land and buildings and Jacksonville is blessed with the center. I'm going to send you all pics of the campus, share the Florida beauty.

Also, attached updated pics of rescue plants...
Love and blessings to all...elizabeth

@ess77 Oh, Elizabeth, I feel your pain! It seems humanly impossible for you to be overcoming these challenges and you're still somehow able to hold it together. (Sort of!) Your message had me virtually wincing in empathetic pain for you.
My thoughts are with you and Rob.
Hang in there, girl.
Hugs, Laurie

Good evening. Here's a photo challenge for you. I was actually looking through a window into a special room. Just had to open the door and see what kind of art awaited me. The glass composition is quite interesting and worth investigating. The other composition has lots of colors and is only difficult to enjoy if you have astigmatism.

So.....where am I?
Have a lovely day.
Chris

Oh golly, Elizabeth. When will you and your Rob get a break!? I’m so sorry he’s in such agony, and of course that means you’re feeling it too. I’m echoing @artist01’s comments in my thoughts for you while you’re trying to valiantly to hold it together.
I hope your son finds some long term relief. 😘

Your rescue plants are springing to life! That’s always fun and rewarding. You have a very kind and nurturing heart, Miss Elizabeth.

What a pretty glass chandelier! Mayo is a home to so many glorious works of art. One of my favorites is the Chihuly glass pieces in one of the entrances to Rochester’s Mayo Campus. Posted below.

@loribmt, @artist01, and all...I do marvel at the beautiful hanging pieces of Chihuly at Rochester. What wildly marvelous! I'll keep sending art, inside and out. And the extremely artistic buildings at the campus are still beautiful. New ones are going up now. We have a new extention of the ER and hospital, new parking garage for hospital and Mayo building. Have you heard of the science fiction-like advancements? Building a huge lasar beam....regenerative organs for transplant???
Unbelievable!

I'm sooooo weary today. It's caught up with me. My Goodness, I was up last night putting MM lotion on my legs and feet last night. Pain.
Exhaustion.

Life moves on. Sending update on rest of sweet plants. I'm in love with each of them. The orchids are blooming their heads off, and keeping on making more blooms. I so far only have one not happy, my little birds nest fern is suffering so. One leaf is struggling to survive...time to repot today and see if there's a healthy root to be found.

We were missed by the storm that hit Miami. They got inches of rain for days and southern FL is under water. Remember, most of Fl is at, below of just several feet above sea level. Where does rain go? Areas of Jax flood with most rains. Let a tropical storm or hurricane come through and we can become one with the rivers and ocean in a heartbeat. My patio floods often.. several times inside my den. We have a creek at the back of the property that helps flood our back, 3rd, street and 3 buildings. But, have had a dry few years. Now, getting into wet years cycle. Kind of works here in 10 year cycles, wet/dry. I may get some flood things to put at my patio fence and doors. Can't handle bags if san or garden soil anymore. Have old ones still on patio stored but will toss them when strong help arrives as they're moldy and need to be tossed.

See what's attached and I'll add some in a few. This is Mayo Building Davis Waterfall. It's lovely. And, some lilies fighting the lawn fellows who think they're weeds!grrrrrr....fight mode.
And, a couple of my sago palms in seed, I planted then 25+years ago. Keep full, not cut back into trees. I like better. They are full of sadness pods. Told I can take them to garden shops or ????Bd get $15each...subsidise my retirement..
Love to all. Elizabeth

I spent the last week working to renew my USDA APHIS permit to import "animal parts." My husband is one of the roughly 5% of diabetics who cannot tolerate fast-acting insulin, and ALL the various forms of artificial insulin are fast-acting, because that's the norm. The pharmas continue to invest in making "designer" insulins but flat refuse to make one kind of slower insulin for those who really need it. You cannot buy slow NPH animal insulin in the US: it's an "illegal" drug, so I've imported it, first from England (where it's made from pig pancreases) and later from the English pharama's Canadian branch. This means that I ONLY need nine separate documents to import porcine insulin, the USDA permit being the most difficult to renew.
Tuesday I started trying to call. By Wednesday I had found a more direct number and started to leave messages. Ditto Thursday. I decided it might work better to call when they open, which is 6:00 a.m. here, so tried that Friday and, for the first time, got an actual human to answer!!! She transferred me to the doc who had spent almost a year-and-a-half designing the wonderful new efile form; it only took the doc over two hours to walk me through the form, which features drop-down menus for states and Canadian provinces that only drop down partway through the list AND don't allow you to simply type in the state or province. He advised me to select "Alabama" for my state and "Alberta" for the province from which the insulin will come, promising to change them to Oregon and Ontario. The country of origin (the drop-down list is many pages) has to be scrolled through to get to "United Kingdom," but then a new wrinkle appeared: it is impossible to actually click on it after finally getting to the very end of the list! Another fix by the designer. Some of the questions were vague, impossible to know exactly what was wanted. Finally got the application completed and accepted, was told it will take two weeks to process (by which time he'll run out of insulin that's safe for him to use). Whew!

Then, a few minutes later, someone returned one of the calls I'd left earlier that week...so they don't just discard them at the end of every day as I had suspected! Better yet, the vet who works with people trying to import animal insulin called. When I mentioned the name of the doc who had assisted me in completing the form, she broke into gales of laughter: seems that, despite the 16 months he's spent on developing this form, it has caused many problems for the people trying to help those applying...and all the permits expired this year so that all of us would get a chance to use the swell new form! She's frustrated because she's the one who helps people desperate to get the damned permit so that they can order insulin! She gave me her direct phone number and e-mail address so that the next permit renewal should be much easier. Good news is that this permit will last for five years; bad news is that I'll need to log in every couple of months to avoid having my password expire, which would prevent me from simply renewing the permit when this new one times out. AARGH! Best of all, she had fast-tracked the permit and sent it to me right then...no two week wait!
So, I finally was able to place the actual order and confirm that it had arrived, all nine forms present. We can hardly wait to have the Canadian affiliate call to ask to charge the thousand-buck order to our debit card! We should have a 3' square box (that insulates and protects the 10 tiny vials) arrives via Fed Ex Air week after next! So, it was the usual long, frustrating process of preparing to order, but with a good chuckle toward the end of getting the USDA permit. All the requirements are pretty insane, considering that you can buy artificial insulin in the US without even a prescription! The requirements are intended to discourage anyone from buying drugs outside the US, to protect the very US pharmas that refuse to make a single slower insulin that the 5% of diabetics could use safely. I always feel that their attitude is, "it's only 5%...let 'em die!" I can assure you that when a person's blood sugar drops below 25, they quit breathing. I don't really want to see that ever again. <g> All I need to do now is to remember to go to the USDA EPermits page every couple of months AND to renew his passport before it expires in 2026.

@loribmt Golleee, Lori. Those Chihuly glass pieces are awesome. If I had pearls, I'd be clutching them right now! Thanks so much for that virtual tour!

@joyces What a tale to tell! I hadn't heard of slow-acting insulin. how does that get figured out for a patient? Do you have a calendar book to refer to, and mark down every couple of months a reminder to log in and not let your password expire? In my situation, I keep a paper calendar book for general and medical, another one for just medical, and a third purse size that carries the same infor as the general/medical/ Never have been comfortable with electronic calendars.

Bet you are seeing the summer increase of tourists in your coastal home, now, right? I was speaking to a gentleman last week at my cancer center in Eugene, who had driven over from Florence. He was lamenting the fact of increased traffic and delays, let alone the draw bridge going up which all add to his drive time.

We have cloudy then rainy then sun then wind today. BLM has advised us of nearby scrap wood coming available this week so we are putting the sides on utility trailer and will head out for a cord or two with the neighbors before it gets too hot. Soon there will be the chainsaw restrictions in place, so we need to hustle!
Ginger

@loribmt, @artist01, @john bishop, and all...
Attaching some rescue Plat updates. Growth in 2 weeks. 2 orchids are new rescue...got better in a few days and began putting out blooms. 2 orchid are older, had for years. Never did well but now 1 has buds!!!! and 2nd has new leaves. Don't know who they are...nice ones, maybe Sara Palin and Red something??? We see... happy they're improving.
Showing the white shell pot I'm ythinking would make a nice focal piece, but hate to mess with them too much.
Money tree is taking off since I pulled out dead trunks and moved it closer to window.
Enjoy my babies...elizabeth