If It's Not One Thing It's Another!

Taking a Near Fall

Can someone please explain to me why on earth I continue to live in this climate? Good grief. I was out yesterday in what I thought was a beautiful nearly spring day. We had a good bit of snow the two days prior, but with my biotic woman status I know how to protect myself from falling and potentially dislocating the titanium portion of my body.

Well, I went down a slight, and I mean slight, slope to get to my car in the parking lot and WHAM-O almost down I go. I say almost because as I said, I know how to protect myself from the dreaded fall down with potential dislocation. So, what ended up happening is that I tweaked, wrenched, twisted, turned and maneuvered myself to such an extent to not fall down that I managed to now have myself in a position of enormous pain laterally around my titanium hip and deep inside that hip joint. In essence, I probably should have just taken the fall instead of using my body as an acrobat.

However :: Plan of action:: Call my paramedic sister and triage! I call her still shaking from the experience and she says to call the Ortho team I see and talk with the on call doc. On call doctors? Who knew? I guess I knew of them by word only, but I have never actually needed to call an on call doctor. First time for every thing I guess. Then I am to ice for two hours and heat for two hours and do that until I can't feel a thing and then take some ibuprofen, which I am not sure I can take because I am already on an NSAID.

Sooooo, I place a call into the oncall Dr. Meisterling and he is on the phone with me in seconds, literally. He says if my toes are facing forward and I am upright and not passed out from pain I have not dislocated. Yay!! Good news. Then he says ice/heat scenario which I am already managing to do. Sofas are good!! Doctor M says that if the pain worsens over night or if my symptoms do not improve and become worse I must try and get in to see Dr. Palmer, master surgeon of all six of my hip surgeries. Well, suffice to say that I will be calling their office today and getting that appointment. Even if all it is a quick assessment and that's it. MRI's R US!

I didn't sleep a wink. I was constantly awakened due to pain, meaning, pain would wake me right out of a sound sleep. Argh, I hate it when that happens. It is the most frustrating thing that can happen to a person. Up I am at 4a and ready to gingerly get downstairs to have my coffee while I lay down and ice/heat in the wee morning hours. Now it is the waiting game. Waiting for the switch board operators to get to their desks. Waiting for people to begin their days working on my behalf by answering those phones and getting me to the right doctors. This is such a blessing.

I don't think anything major has happened or that I have sustained some major injuries. But I do have enough acute problems to warrant a little parade of doctors. My house sitter will be stopping by this afternoon for a basic run-down of home stuff and I want her room to be spotless and the dogs to be in good form. If this is all I accomplish today I will have had a good day. Simplicity coupled with good common sense is always a winning combination.

I will keep you posted. And I am not going anywhere without my IceBugs on!! Jeez. If you don't know about IceBugs Google them because they are the best winter boots, period.

Cheers all...

Upper Respiratory Infection Be Gone!!

The Yuck Continues!

Well, you would think after five weeks of this nasty upper respiratory infection that I would have some relief, but NOOOOOO. I am still battling it or at least my broken body still is. And to make matters worse my RA doctor is still not allowing me to be on my RA drugs which gives me such nice relief from achy, puffy, joints. So, it is now the fifth week of this junk and I must say it is getting a tad redundant and tiring. However, the good news is that it isn't as bad as it was and I still rise in the morning with a little spring in my step since spring is right around the corner.

The other good news is that the husband and I will be on vacation to the Keys soon and that is always a perk. We stumbled across the most amazing Hilton and use Hilton points to stay there for free. We know and love our own amazing walking encyclopedia, Dixie, who helps us scout out new locations for great local food and has even given us tips on where to go for great swimming. If you've been to the Key's you know there's not much beach associated with that area, so one must be vigilant in discovering and uncovering new places to go for the best of everything. Dixie is our man for telling us everything we need to know about Key Largo and beyond.

Key Largo in itself is not the greatest stopping point but not far are a myriad of places that are extremely fun to visit and be privy to. One of those places in the Conch House. I hope to load pictures of the place where we dined almost every night we were in Key Largo...seriously, their food was that good. Apparently, conch meat takes on the flavor of what ever ingredient it is being cooked in so this was an interesting thing for us to know. Our first night of conch was garlicy. The second night something else. For the unknowledgeable food enthusiast it was a revelation to know this about a weird muscle inside a gorgeous shell. The place is fantastic and we highly recommend it.

My father also did a ton of work for the federal government from Key Largo down to Key West and beyond, so his suggestions for where we should go are equally valuable. I would love going across Alligator Alley and visiting the Everglades again too. Nothing compares to this fantastic part of Florida and Southern Florida is our dream retirement destination. Well, that and the Hill Country of Texas. I am certainly a Texan at heart and will not be stopped in finding places to live in both areas of the US. Perhaps one location should be in our very own 28ft CCD Airstream. LOVE that idea.

So, wait until I start popping up pictures of the highlights of our trip. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

Cheers and more to come.

Robin

One More Little Word

Meet the wonderful Ridley's

At the Benini Sculpture Ranch

I just had to mention this incredible home and guest house on a land development very near the Benini Sculpture Ranch in Johnson City.

The picture at right is the guest house and I have spent many a night here with the then caretakers and sellers of land, Mike and Judy Ridley. Their job was to manage this development in terms of its animal population, conservation development, and generally oversee any selling of lots and the building of homes and models on this large land development. I will always recall with such fondness the amount of passion Mike has for developing and implementing conservation land developments. One would not think that this is important to Texas considering most of its land is privately owned. But this development is the product of some people who reside in Jackson Hole, Wy., and they certainly picked a great piece of property, however, it required some major work and some highly intricate detailing of exactly where homes should be situated on the land. Making use of the wind is very important when deciding where to place the house to capture the coolness of wind in summer. Mike did an amazing job at this and Judy was overseer of all the cowboys on the property--a very big job I might add.

The Ridley's remain one of my most beloved couples and I hope to one day live a little closer to them, but one never knows what's in store. More will be revealed I think. In the meantime, should you ever need an expert in conservation developments please contact Mike immediately.

Okay, that's it. Next is Homestead, promise.

Enjoy!

More From Fredericksburg, Texas

Richard's Trademark Outdoor Shower

The Diamond Belle

This is such a wonderful find and is off the beaten trail and well off Main Street, which is really good because it is horrifically loud with traffic noise.

It was built by premier builder, Richard Laughlin and is situated on a small piece of his property. It also includes an outdoor shower, which has almost become his signature. I have spent a lot of time in this little cabin and can safely say it is a dream. My next trip down to Fredericksburg always includes a stay at this B+B. There are major long horn cattle in the area and there's nothing quite like sitting out on the porch and listening to them. I highly recommend this gem of a place should your travels take you to this gorgeous part of Texas.

From this B+B you can then run down to Johnson City where the wonderful Benini Sculpture Ranch resides. Located on the old hunting lodge of President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Benini's have created a wonderful place to show case the work of artisans and their work.

I wish I was a little more savvy on these blogs because I would love to pop in a picture of sculptures by Russ Thayer, but unfortunately, the pictures don't match my words and that really bothers me. Hah! Too much of a perfectionist I guess. Well, at least I am working on that little issue. Russ Thayer is an artisan of the highest order and does many, many custom projects for builders in the area. The last time I interviewed him he was working on two matching lions that will be situated in the pool area of a home in San Antonio. They have holes in their mouths where the water will spill into the pool. Thayer mostly gets his work by word of mouth and there's no better marketing in my book than a good referral by other builders.

As I have mentioned before, this area of Texas is hopping in terms of its real estate market. With this comes inflated land prices and inflated building prices, however, people are still pouring into the area from California, Colorado, Houston, and Dallas. I am confident that Thayer's work will continue to be sought after in terms of his exquisite sense of art. The Benini Sculpture Ranch is definitely a must-see place while touring this area. Here's the link for more information:: http://www.sculptureranch.com or http://www.benini.com.

My next blog will be highlighting the now defunct retail space created by nationally know interior designer, Carol Hicks Bolton. Her shop was simply titled Homestead and was housed in a gorgeous old brick building on the busiest part of Main Street. I am going to have dig out all the pictures I have taken of the wonderful merchandise and visual merchandising that was apart of this store. I believe that Homestead has moved to another town within the Hill Country and will research to find out exactly where it is located for you. Russ Thayer's wife Cecelia helps Bolton design fabrics and she has merged her talents with E. J. Victor out of Highpoint, North Carolina. More to come on this place and hopefully I will locate their new digs.

Have a wonderful day people and I will be digging out my images as fast as I can. I am planning on taking on some additional work and am considering ramping up my magazine, TrendSavvy. I absolutely love writing about what I find incredible and hope you will enjoy the contents of the magazine. I hope to cover artisans and their work, people you need to know, and areas of the country that need to be visited. I can't wait to begin.

Enjoy this prelude!

Thived, hmmm....

Lovely home outside Austin, Texas

Hardship, adversity and suffering :: Very important for spiritual growth in my opinion!

I was just reading my "idea" for this blog. Originally it was to write daily on how I was doing from a health standpoint and how I survived and thrived these years. Well, I just realized that I am still in these years. I am not over these years at all but I want to believe that I am. Hah. Acceptance is such a difficult thing to do, but so important for my health.

I am doing more than surviving. One of the simplest notions that I get from my wonderful holistic therapist, Julia Crowley, is the notion of writing on my book daily and when I do my mind does not rest in negativity nor is it locked in on my pain scale. It is engaged in something else. It is engaged in creative thinking and that distracts me out of the pain/illness etc and lands me instead in positivity and creativity and miraculously my pain isn't something I dwell on. It is still there, but I am not dwelling on it. When my mind goes elsewhere it doesn't rest in negativity. It is about getting out of myself long enough to think about something besides myself. Wow. What a concept! It is a little more complicated than that, but the concept is accurate.

I still have problems with accepting my health limitations. Limitations are another matter altogether. Limitations are different from feeling handicapped by my health. I have another dear friend who thinks I should consider myself handicapped so that I learn how to slow myself down. Although I know her heart is in the right place I simply refuse to consider myself handicapped. Limited yes, handicapped, no. There are so many things that I want to do with my husband that I don't know if I can do because of my health and it scares me. It scares me that I won't be able to keep up with him and so I may lose him and our marriage. Now, this is the epidemy of negative, fearful thinking because it isn't true. But in my mind it is and that is where fear resides. In the mind. My wonderful primary doctor, Dr. Wilkens often reminds me that there are no more what if's..what if I am on vacation and this happens...what if scenarios are almost always negative and they are a working part of my mind and they are getting in my way. My dear friend Lynda tells me not to board the train those negative thoughts are on and instead let the train pass without getting on board. I think of Casey Jones and I instantly smile and feel much better. Remember Casey Jones?? Gosh that was a great show. My sister still remembers the birthday song of theirs. Round House Rodney was the other character on the show, I think. If you can recall anyone else there please, please, chime in and tell me so that I can post it later. Happy, Happy Birthday to every girl and boy.....remember?? Hah! I have to finish learning that song and I need your help to do it.

And what is thriving anyway? How does one thrive in the face of suffering, loss, hardship, Thriving is to prosper and flourish. Hmm. I am not sure I have done that completely, but I have come a long way in this regard. I feel like I have begun to flourish in the face of all of this hardship. I have begun to grasp the notion of a world where I am not in constant pain and suffering both mentally and physically. I am convinced that suffering is a necessary part of our lives and suffering is needed for our complete emotional and spiritual growth and maturity. I hate to admit to negative emotions but these negative emotions seem to work in a good way for my development. I can understand this completely, completely. As I was pausing here for a moment gray carpeting just popped into my brain box. What a hoot. It is amazing when I am thinking of one thing and then something else happens which connects me with something else and my mind creatively solves a problem. It never ceases to amaze me our minds. Actually, how our hearts and mind work together for our good. Amazing, God is simply amazing.

So, I am going out today to do my physical therapy and I am happy about that. I am learning more about myself through PT. I am learning how I sabotage myself by NOT doing the PT and I end up back at square one physically and I am tired of doing this to myself over and over! I wish I could just stay with it so that I can get better everyday and that I can watch myself doing so. As soon as I am over this nasty upper respiratory sickness I am in the pool baby!! My father is going to join me.

But, thriving is an interesting notion and one that I hope to accomplish someday. I want to believe that I can prosper and flourish during and after a season of suffering. I want to believe the best in myself. I want to believe that I can learn and grow and accomplish wonderful things despite being limited by my body. I mean really, it's not like I am Stephen Hawking. He was an amazing human being whose body was broken, broken. I can do that too. I can have a broken body and still have the shining eyes of Stephen Hawking. Do you remember the shine in his eyes? I do and it was amazing. I can accomplish great things in my life despite my new limitations. I will learn what those limitations are and work with them. What a novel concept. Learning something new and adapting to find a solution. That is thriving in a season of suffering don't you think? Now, I love the word adapt. I am going to look that word up and give you the definition by tomorrow. Adapt. Adapting. Adaptable. What a great word, what an interesting definition.

Have a great day!! Love is all around us even in 2 degree weather. PTL Baby!!

Robin

Red In Fred!

RED IN FRED!

The picture highlighting this missive is of a fabulous retail store in the hub of Fredericksburg, Texas called, Red. Red is a store which is one of a very small number of modern retail concepts in the Texas Hill Country. Let's just, for a moment, think about what one would consider as great, traditional Texas interior design? For me it would be animal hide, dark leather, dark cedar wood, limestone, wool blanket, enormous scale furniture --due to the massive square footage of homes in Texas. I mean, everything is BIG in Texas think of the new football stadium for instance. Gorgeous, no question, but huge! Most homes in the Dallas area are huge, but this is not the case in Fredericksburg.

Fredericksburg is what most people consider to be the epicenter of the Texas Hill Country. It was founded or settled in the late 1800's by German immigrants. The homes in the downtown area of Fredericksburg are small in scale and for the most part look as if they have been periodically remodeled to increase the square footage. You'd be right and here are the reasons ::

When the immigrants settled they purchased enormous tracks of land for their cattle to graze on. With this came the large family home, barns and more. As one would think of in a large family farm estate, the sheer size and magnitude of these ranches made reaching out to your neighbor for a little socialization, difficult at best.

So, the ranchers would hitch up the buggy, throw the family into it and run into town. Unfortunately, running into town took one to two, sometimes even three days to drive to. However, what would happen was that the family would begin their trip to town early Saturday morning, do a little shopping and enjoy some social interaction with their neighbors, spend the night, and then attend church on Sunday. Spending the night was a bit of a problem. However, by being solidly Texans by now, the family simply built a small home in Fredericksburg so they would have a place to spend the night and then attend church on Sunday, which was a VERY important social activity in those days. These types of homes and architecture came to be known of as the Sunday House. And as the family grew, so did the Sunday House, which is why most of these homes look as if they have been repeatedly added on to -- they have been! Hah!

I do wish that I could figure out how to place my TrendSavvy Magazine pdf file on this darn blog. I went into much more detail about the Sunday House and the settling of Fredericksburg in that first issue. You all would have loved it. It could still be on my old website, http://www.trendsavvymag.com, but I am not sure of that either. For health reasons, when I went on my work sabbatical these past few months, I allowed some of my many, way too many actually, websites to perish so that I could make way for the new positivity and energy to flow forward from me, trusting that this process would be an enormously creative endeavor and one that is very important for me to capture and move forward with. That is my mantra you know, move forward--actually it is:: Trust God - Move Forward. I am still somewhat cautious when writing or speaking about God because God is such a HOT topic. Some people are extremely turned off by the subject-for unknown reasons- and simply can't communicate at all about our Creator, but I can't tell you how much enjoyment and joyfulness just this act has provided for me. Speaking about God is an essential act for me. It is in my soul. Plus, this mantra is on my lips constantly through out my day mainly because God saved my life in every way possible. Period. I have died spiritually and emotionally a couple of times and God has literally lifted me out of this horrid and self-destructive place and saved me from being one of the walking dead. What a horrible place to reside. Looking like you're alive, when you're really dead inside is an awful way to live. It is a sad, sad place to be and one that I would not wish on anyone. However, of course, I digress...back to the positivity of the Sunday House and fabulous Fredericksburg retail!

Close your eyes for minute and think about what images come to mind when you consider Texas interior design. Do you think about gigantic square footage, enormously scaled furniture, animal hide, woven wool, longhorn bone, dark leather, mahogany, cedar plank and more. I would wager to guess that this type of home furnishings have been the standard for years in the state. Not bad at all, unless your leanings for home furnishings run more towards cleaner lines and a more creative use of the materials I just mentioned above.

Red is a store which is the epidemy of modern interior design for a smaller scaled Sunday House or any house for that matter. As you can see from the picture the use of materials are creative and interesting, fun, and eclectic. During the time I have been visiting the Hill Country and Texas in general nothing like this type of a retail store has been noted except for recently...meaning within the last two to three years. Seeing a more modern batch of home furnishings crop up in this area has been exciting to watch. Equally exciting is the continued housing growth taking place in the hill country. Red had perfect timing when it came time to open its doors and since I haven't recently been back down to this area of Texas, my hope it that they are still finding success with their business. The manager is a woman who was the visual merchandiser at Homestead {a fabulous retail store by Carol Hicks Bolton}, so Red is exceptionally well merchandised and the selection of merchandise could not be better.

The next blog will be about the store that USED to be in Fredericksburg called Homestead. The store concept was from nationally noted interior designer, Carol Hicks Bolton and was probably one of the most gorgeous retail stores I have ever seen. Similar in many ways to ABC Carpet and Home in New York City, so if you liked that store, you will love seeing Homestead. The other retail store still in Fredericksburg and also a very good retail concept is a shop called Slick Rock. Hopefully, I still have some great pictures from both stores so that you can see classic, but fun, Texas home furnishings.

Enjoy!! Oh, and, http://redinfred.com

Texas + My Health

Hello kind readers. My cat Lily is currently climbing all over me, which makes writing on the computer a little difficult, but so much fun and loving.

I am still not over this darn respiratory illness but keep listening to my body for its inner promptings. Yesterday it was sleep. I slept three solid hours yesterday afternoon. I had no more dropped my husband off at the airport than I went home, ate lunch, and fell asleep for three hours. Unbelievable! But my wonderful doctor Jane Wilkens once told me that I can think what ever I want but my body will call the shots and there's nothing I can do about it. No truer words were spoken.

My mother-in-law let me know that I had not written a blog in quite some time so I apologize for not being more prolific in my blog writing. I do love it and I am starting to realize that you do too, kind readers. The topic of my blog this month is going to center on Fredericksburg, Texas and the Texas Hill Country in general. It is by far and away the most fantastic place on the planet. I think I have hinted at this as a topic for some time, but really feel a yearning to write about it now. I haven't been down there in a long time and my soul misses the place!! I will write about the Benini's, Russ Thayer, great Texas residential architecture, retail in Fred, my dear friends the Ridley's, and how I came to love this place in Texas so very much.

So, I hope you will enjoy getting to know the Benini's and their sculpture ranch on Lyndon B. Johnson's old hunting lodge and property in Johnson City, Tx. Their home is the old huntint lodge and is absolutely gorgeous and full of smatterings of Benini's colorful and visionary work. The quonset hut on the property is where President Johnson housed all his hunting gear and the Benini's have instead created a fantastic art gallery with the space. I must admit I would much rather see the works of Benini and other artist's than see a bunch of ATV's and such. But, it is always personal preference!

Okay, I will get going on finding the right pictures to highlight this area of Texas and my next blog will be on health matters.

Cheers and stay warm...it is awful here in Minnesota and my poor body sure feels it!

Robin