It actually hasn’t been all that bad with splinted thumbs. Every day I get better at using my fingers and finding ways to do what my thumbs use to do for me. I’m already two weeks into this little adventure and I’m quite sure I’ll make it out the other side still smiling. After all, I still have my thumbs.

The colored tape arrived so I can now alternate between beige, teal, hot pink, and neon green. When I placed the order green wasn’t an option so it was a nice surprize to open the box and see that it had been sent as a replacement for the purple.

I’ve been working on cleaning up the craft table. It was mostly piles of paper and small items that I could deal with, even without thumbs. Now that I have some space I’m itching to sit down and play. I just need to figure out something that won’t get my splints all messy and doesn’t call for a lot of cutting. I’m not very good with scissors right now.

Thanks for all the comments and well wishes. Each one has brought a smile to me.

It has been too long since I last posted. I’ve been meaning to get back here, really I have been. It’s just that mundane parts of life keep getting in my way. You know, like ebay shopping, playing computer games, spending 5 hours in an emergency room. Yeah, that kind of stuff.

And yeah, 5 hours in the E.R. I did that Sunday night just because it’s been so long since I checked in with the nice folks over there. Well, and because I broke both of my thumbs. I did it good too, you should see the x-rays. Lots of breaks and bone bits hanging around.

I’m sharing the story for two reasons, one, it actually is a little funny if you try and imagine all the chaos, and two, it has been a long time since I posted and it’s all I got right now.

Recliner Man was replacing the vent fan in the bathroom ceiling. He needed to be up in the attic so he could hammer the thing in. I needed to be on a ladder in the room below so I could hold it flush to the ceiling for him. But before I could do that he needed the ladder to get up into the attic.

It was one of those multi-hinged ladders that weigh a ton and can be bent into a scaffold strong enough to hold a truck. At least that was the marketing claim when I bought it for him close to 15 years ago. It was one tough ladder and in my case, one mean opponent.

After Recliner Man was in the attic I had to fold the ladder down so that I could move it into place in the next room. Somewhere along the line things went horribly wrong. (This is where the comedy part comes in.) Recliner Man is up in the attic with no way down and I am on the floor yelling and chanting OMG, with my thumbs firmly pinched between the two sides of the ladder. He thought about jumping down but the ladder was right below the opening and there was no way he could miss landing on it. This has to be a comedy because how else could everything be so perfectly wrong? Anyway, I had to pry my thumbs out on my own and hurry to a phone with my blood covered hands and call our son to come help.  After I made the call it occurred to me that my feet and fingers were still working so I managed to get the ladder up high enough for Recliner Man to grab and join me down on the main floor where all the excitement was happening.

All that was followed by a trip to the ER, a long night of waiting, and the news that both thumbs were broken. They sent me home with a prescription for Percocet and instructions to see a hand surgeon within two days.

That Percocet is some nasty stuff. There were a couple of times that I felt sure I was going to stop breathing and I had to fight against some killer fatigue to stay awake and force myself to breath. After that I stopped taking it. A lovely little note about Percocet is that in some people it can cause slowed and shallow breathing or stop breathing all together. I now qualify as “some people”. That was actually more scary than seeing my thumbs flattened out like pancakes.

So now I’ll spend the next several weeks with my thumbs bandaged up learning how to cope without thumbs and teaching Recliner Man the finer points of “Take-Out”. I have to say that until now I never fully appreciated my thumbs. I’m sorry Thumbs, I love you. And I’m awfully glad that mean old ladder didn’t chop you off.

All of my searches on ebay haven’t been fun and game trips down memory lane.  I’ve spent years trying to find and buy two very special items. One of them is a Gravity Clock like the one shown above. The first time I saw a clock like this was in 1979. My parents had received a catalog from a company that marketed to businesses as a source for corporate gifts and rewards. On one of the back pages was a “Saw Tooth Clock” for $99.00. That was a lot of money for me, so much so that I didn’t even consider ordering the clock. I’ve regretted it ever since.

I’ve been crazy about clocks since my 4th grade class took a field trip to the Mystic Seaport, a living history museum of a 19th century New England whaling community. One of the buildings at Mystic Seaport is the Nautical Instruments Shop and I remember it as having its walls lined with more clocks than I had ever seen in my life. Most of the clocks had chimes and our teacher made sure we arrived at the tiny shop just in time to hear them all go off. It was a magical moment for me. Because of that experience I’ve been collecting clocks for years and my home is never without a background of tick-tocks and chimes.

I found the clock shown above listed on ebay this week. I tried to win it, placing my bid near the end of the auction to increase my chance of not being outbid. For a while it looked like I would come out a winner but in the last two seconds a new bidder came in and beat me out with an extra $2.50.

An hour later there was an auction for this clock. It is the same model as the first one but in need of cleaning, oiling, and a little TLC. I won this one at a fraction of what the first one went for. Even if I need to get some work done on it at the local clock shop I think I’ll come out ahead.

The other item I’ve been searching long and hard for is a mechanical Santa Claus bank like one my family owned when I was a child. My grandfather, whom I never considered to be particularly thoughtful or generous, sent us the bank one Christmas when we were young.  When you dropped a coin into the bank Santa would come alive, ringing a bell, shaking his head, and flashing his eyes.

It also had a switch on the back that allowed you to turn it on for a non-stop session of bell ringing. This mode was not very popular with the parental units but was a big hit with us three girls! We loved this bank and unpacking it each December was always one of the season’s highlights. It gives me pause now to realize that the man I thought to be cold hearted and stingy is responsible for giving me one of my most treasured, enduring, and heart warming memories.

In all the years I’ve been searching for this bank I’d never even seen a photo of one. I can’t tell you how excited I was a few days ago when I came upon this one listed at ebay. I knew I wanted it badly and have agonized over how much I could allow myself to pay for it. Part of me was channeling my grandpa and demanding that I keep a firm grip on my purse strings. Another part of me wanted to throw common sense to the four winds and take out a home equity loan if needed to claim this prize. I finally settled on a figure that lie closer to the sensible end of the spectrum but was still high enough to startle Recliner Man, and give me hope of actually winning the bank. This time I was a bit more calculating and didn’t place my bid until the final 10 seconds of the auction. Then I sat and watched for an agonizing 5 seconds, during which time my heart skipped a couple beats and the screen showed activity from another last minute bidder. Another breathless moment and the screen congratulated me on my win!! The best part is I won with a price that would have made even dear old Grandpa happy! It never came close to my maximum bid. I may be too busy doing a happy dance tonight to get any sleep.

I’ve been window shopping on Memory Lane. OK, so it is actually Ebay, but with so many of my childhood favorites up for auction it feels like memory lane. This plate is a match for one my grandmother owned. Every time we visited she would serve us from it. Usually it was piled up with hamburgers. I loved that plate and I love the warm memories it brings back for me.

Remember when products came with cool and useful items tucked inside. There were dishes in the laundry soap and these wonderful spoons in the cereal. I had a Huckleberry Hound spoon while my sister had a Yogi Bear spoon. We loved our spoons. I still have my Huck but her Yogi has been misplaced.

My mother had a chalkware string holder that looked like this. Kids today don’t even know what a string holder is but back then just about evey mom had one in the kitchen.

I think I was in the 4th grade when I got a toy Noah’s Ark. I wish I’d taken better care of my treasures back then.

This has to be our all time favorite toy. Every year or so we would get a new can of bricks and my sisters and I would spend countless hours building our dream houses. I loved, loved, loved these.  The company that made these bricks changed hands a few time and over the years they lost out in popularity to Legos. Given the choice I’d still prefer the American Bricks because the buildings looked so realistic. Well, to a 10 year old they looked realistic.

There was always one of these beat up old metal cars in the toy box too. I’m not sure where it came from or how long we had it but it seems to me that it was always beat up. You would pull the lever on the side and it would roll across the floor.

If I could find my old Donald Duck lamp online I’d be one happy gal. I’ve been looking for a long time but have yet to see one just like the one I had. Another treasure I didn’t take good care of. That poor thing had a burn hole in the shade, missing fingers and countless lines where my dad had glued it back together again. I was always a big Donald fan and this lamp was my prized possession at the time.

It’s been a lot of fun looking for the old goodies on ebay. Every search seems to remind me of other memories, and lead to new searches,  so I’ve lost a bit of time this week. It’s all been worth it though, because I am basking in the warmth of good times now. I’ve been sharing these finds in email with my sister and sharing that warmth, which adds it’s own good feeling to the mix.

Aren’t these flowers beautiful? Our local grocery store had them on display the last time I went there and I knew right away that they would have to come home with me. Every time I glance at them I can feel their energy and joy, it was money well spent.

The kids have headed back to their home in Illinois and our lives here in Arizona are getting back to normal. Abbey is happy to roam freely about the house without running into another cat around every corner, although she still is very careful about passing by the open door to the guest room. I’m happy that I don’t have to keep her closed in a bedroom or stay on alert to where the various cats are, but I’m missing my girl and her husband.

Before they left my daughter and I had time for one more craft project. She made this Butterfly Shadowbox for her home. We used some of my scrapbook paper scraps for the butterflies. My gift to my sister this Christmas was a kit I’d put together for her to make a Butterfly Shadowbox of her own. These are fast becoming a family tradition!

I’ve been sitting here looking at the photo of Shannon’s butterflies and feeling refreshed. They remind me of spring flowers with all their bright and pretty colors. I think I’ll have to make myself a new one using more spring colors. It seems kind of silly to me, since I never really feel like we have moved into Winter here, but I’m excited by the thought of Spring being on its way back. I’m sure my anxiousness for its arrival stems from my childhood in Connecticut. Winters were long and cold and the first sunny days and brave little Crocus peeking through the crunchy snow were a cause for celebration. There may be a couple of months left before those days return but with Christmas and New Year’s Day behind us my mind is starting to race ahead.