Eskimo Nebula

John Scalzi's Monday Photo Shoot

The Monday Photo Shoot:  Show off your favorite Hubble Space Telescope image.  Tell us why you love it.   

                             The Eskimo Nebula

            

I have loved nebulas for quite awhile now, since my now fiance introduced them to me several years ago.  There are so many that are beautiful.  I loved looking at even more of them today that I have never seen.  I chose this one because I thought it was particularly humerous.  It is called the Eskimo Nebula because if you look closely you can see a face in the middle of it and it is surrounded by a parka!   

Monday Morning Question

Monday Morning Question:

Everyone has a special place, somewhere they repeatedly go back to time and time again because it holds special memories - for example, a holiday destination or the place you were brought up.  What is your special place?

My special place is right where I am now - right at the home I live at.  I love the area I live in.  When I first moved to Central PA, I used to go back to the DC/Northern VA area where I grew up, and felt like I had to be there all the time, but now I don't even need to visit there anymore.  I love it here because I have made my home here.  If I want to visit somewhere I can visit in my mind.  That is what my memories are for!

How 'bout you?   

This Week's Hunt

This week's Photo Scavenger Hunt (#23) will be due on Saturday, April 30, at 8 PM EST. 

This weeks topic will be to take a photo of something that is very special to you, and to explain why it is special.

Entries for Scavenger Hunt #22 (Cont'd)

mkolasa101:   Park 

kkasey47 (Spring):        here            here

photographybymon  (Spring)

Please check out the photos in the entry below also.  Above is just the end of the list!  I still feel very uneasy because I feel there are some entries that I have left out.  If I have done that, please email me and I will add them tomorrow.  (I remember seeing a beautiful park with palm trees somewhere!  Now where did that entry go???). 

Thanks to all who participated, especially the new people!  Glad to see so many joined in.  I am so sorry I took so long to post these.  They were great!

Love, Krissy

Entries for Scavenger Hunt #22

Category:  Spring

fasttrack58

pixiedustnme

MattelMichele

promiseluv372

sylviam4000

dvlwitgrneyes

sarajanesmiles

levi1023

quartrlyfecrysis:       Spring        Park

Right now this computer is not allowing me to add any further entries so I am going to start another entry.  Did I exceed the space limit???

Wow!  It has been awhile since I have written an entry.  I guess I have been just a little overwhelmed lately, and when I get overwhelmed I don't do much of anything, especially write journal entries.  I just freeze up.  

Actually, I have been doing a lot, for my weddidng.  But making wedding plans is quite daunting, and it is stretching me some.  It is making me do things that are a little out of my element.  But this is a good thing.  Normally just making a phone call is hard for me, so making phone calls to the priest, the organist, somebody to sing for my wedding, etc. is a lot.  It is causing me both anxiety and making me stronger, lol.

So I am excited about being married soon.  It is less than two weeks away!

The retreat we went on was wonderful.  I was worried at first but it turned out to be fantastic.  We learned so much.  I am glad we did the family trees because I did not know who my ancestors were.  We also did something called a genogram of our family.  In it we could see different kinds of problems that ran in our families.  The purpose of that was to avoid making the same mistakes.  We also did some exercises to decide who was going to do what in the marriage (how the finances would be handled, etc.).  We talked about what traditions we wanted to have when it came to our faith.  Whether we wanted to say grace together, read the Bible together every day, etc.  We had a lot of quiet time to discuss with our fiances very many topics.  It was a very productive retreat.

Well, that's it for now, except to say that today (well, really Sunday) we had large snowflakes falling to the ground and sticking!  Who would have thought snow in April?  Now, it had better not snow on my wedding day.  I don't think a blue coat will go with my wedding dress, lol!

Krissy

Exhausted

Due to the fact that I am 100% exhausted from my retreat (I just got home tonight) I am going to list everybody's Spring photos tomorrow.  Sorry that I am so late.  I am also going to do the Monday Morning Question a day late also.  So here is hoping you will come back again.  I will also tell you a little about my retreat tomorrow or the next day.  I really enjoyed it!  Krissy 

I took my pics

Just wanted to let everyone know that I took my pics for this week's Photo Scavenger Hunt (Spring).  But I am not going to have them done by Saturday's deadline because I will be on the retreat.  I will come home and have them posted in my journal by Sunday night however.  And then I will post all of yours.  Just wanted to let you know I am not slacking this week and I got some photos!  Well off I go to finish packing for the retreat.  Love you all. 

Retreat Weekend

What a week!  I have been so busy all week making wedding plans.  There has been so much to do.  A lot of it my parents are doing, and my sister Valerie and my niece Chelsea are helping also, so that takes a lot off my shoulders.  But there is still a lot I have to do.  Yesterday was fun.  I had a phone consultation with the organist and the music director (soloist) to plan my music for the wedding.  I am going to meet with them for about an hour this Tuesday to pick the final music selections for my wedding.  That should be fun!  And when I get back from the retreat this weekend I have to go select wedding flowers.

Ahh, the retreat!  John and I are leaving for an Engaged Encounter retreat this weekend.  They decided to do something different this year.  Instead of making it about how to communicate, we are making family trees!  I have no idea why.  We have to list birth, marriage, and divorce dates of relatives, all the way back to our great grandparents!  We also had to interview our parents about how they met and about the first years of their married life!

John got a call on his answering machine last night from the leaders of the Engaged Encounter.  It said that since the weather was so nice that we were going to have a large portion of the retreat outside of the retreat house!  They asked us to bring two lawn chairs, and walking shoes!  Now I have all kinds of things envisioned in my mind, lol.  Lectures in lawn chairs, and then a cross country hike or something, lol.  I know behind the retreat house is a massive expanse of woods because I have been to this retreat fascility before.  Well, I am not up for a walk in the woods.  I still have disability issues (fibro).  I was getting better but I pulled something in my back, and now the past couple of weeks I just scream out in pain it is so bad.  I hope I don't have to go on any walks in my comfortable walking shoes!  I will just have to decline!

Well, I guess I should go now.  I still have lots to do today, including calling the priest to ask him lots of wedding questions.  And I have to go with John and price the lawnchairs at Wal-Mart, lol.  At least I am packed.

Hope everyone has a great weekend! 

Baltimore, Part 2

I promised in my Baltimore entry to tell you want the results meant for Valerie's procedure and I never did.  Her intercranial pressure is too low.  This can cause all kinds of problems.  The problem is the hospital doesn't know what they are going to do about it.  You see, they can't just adjust the shunt that is in her head.  Because when they did the last operation and put a shunt in, they put in a nonprogrammable shunt in instead of a programmable shunt!  Now they have to make a decision if they want to take out the old shunt (the one they can't program) and put in a new one.  It depends on how bad they feel her symptoms are.  As in how sick she is feeling right now.  She has her really bad days but her headaches aren't severe right now, so they haven't decided what they are going to do yet.

I hope she won't mind that I put in all that information in about her.  

Hope everyone is having a good day.  

Monday Morning Question

Monday Morning Question:

What occupation would you be in, if you could wave a magic wand, and suddenly find yourself in the job?  (this question comes from bookncoffee)

Excellent question.  I would counsel those in crisis pregnancy situations.  I would love to run a pregnancy help center. 

This Week's Hunt

This week's Photo Scavenger Hunt (#22) will be due Saturday, April 16, at 8 PM EST. 

This week's topic will be Spring.  Show us how Spring is beginning to appear in your area of the country/world.  Perhaps it is in full bloom, or perhaps it is just starting.  Maybe you think there is nothing at all Springlike in your area, but look closely and use your imagination and you will come up with something!

Baltimore

Evening everyone.  Finally I get around to writing an entry.  I was tired after the trip with Valerie to Johns Hopkins Hospital, and then after that making wedding plans. 

First let me say that Valerie is alright.  The hospital stay was somewhat of an ordeal (as all hospital stays are!) but the procedure of actually putting the needle into her head, she said, was not painful at all.  Unfortunately the needle slipped out during the first night and she had to stay a whole nother night and day for them to get a proper reading.  They had to insert a longer needle the second time.  So there were two procedures.  Both of them were done in her room.  They let me stay for them.  I had to wear a nose/mouth mask and cover my head.  I was glad i was there for Val and I squeezed her leg so she could have something to push against when they inserted.  But she said it was just fine.  She is such a trooper and is my hero!

I guess the worse part of the stay there for both of us was our comfort levels, lol.  Val was flat on her back and couldn't move!  Once they put the needle in and taped her up she could not move up or day or any which way actually.  If she needed to use the restroom the nurses would have to unhook her and recalibrate the machine.  She was truly nailed to that bed.

My problem was I never got the cot they promised me when they said I could sleep in the room with her.  There just wasn't enough room to put it in the room with all the machines they needed.  So during my stay in Baltimore I slept in four different chairs, two times in different lobbies!

I don't mind though, I was glad to be there for Val.

So what did the results of her needle monitoring mean?  I will have to tell you that in a later journal entry, John just came over with Chinese food!

Love always, Krissy

No Scavenger Hunt This Week

This week there will be no Photo Scavenger Hunt due to the fact that I will be at Johns Hopkins Hospital with Valerie.  We will do one the week after.  Perhaps we need to give our brains a break anyway!  Bye, I need to go finish packing! 

Entries for Scavenger Hunt #21

Category:  Your favorite Park or Nature Place

ryanagi

hope4meeeee   nature place     &     anything you want photo

kokoapuffy1

fasttrack58

sylviam4000

promiseluv372

Wash Out!

Well the previous entry was a wash out!  For some reason I couldn't get my photo to load.  What a disappointment.  Oh well.  I spent about 45 minutes trying to do it and I don't have any more time.  Anyway, about the park, it is really nice.  It has a soccer field, a basketball court, and on of my favorite things - a bunch of grills so you can cook hamburgers or steaks!  There is also a beautiful butterfly garden.  It is full of beautiful flowers and butterflies.  There are also paths to walk run and bike ride.  I wish I had a picture.  Anyway, I must get off here and finish some things folks.  Bye bye for now.   

Photo Scavenger Hunt #21

My Favorite Park

This entry was hard because I have so many parks that I absolutely love.  The reason I picked this park though is because I love to watch children.  John and I go down to this park and sit on the bench and watch the children play.  I wonder what the parents think, as we don't have any children and we are watching their children play!  Kids are so joyful that we just get a kick out of watching them.  Here is some of their playground equiptment.  I could only get one pic because it started to snow!

      

It's been a long time

Wow.  It's been a long time since I have written a regular entry.  I have been so busy.  I had flu/bronchitis four times this winter!  Strange because I got a flu shot this year.  And I have also been getting ready for my wedding which is May 7th.  It is really coming up soon!  So much to do and so little time.  I will tell you all more about it soon.  But first I have to get ready tonight and tomorrow because I am going with my sister Valerie to Johns Hopkins on Sunday at 3:15 am.  I guess I won't be getting much sleep Sunday night!  Valerie is going to have a procedure to see how her spinal flow is (I think), and if it is not good she is going to have a new shunt put in.  Her old shunt was the wrong kind (nonprogrammable) and she may need a programmable one.  At any rate, if I find a place to stay I am going to stay down there with her, if not I will turn right around and come back home.  If I come home, I will let you all know in this journal.  If I don't report anything, you will know that I have not come back, and have had no access to a computer.  That way you will know there will be no Scavenger Hunt next week, and no Monday Morning Question.  But this week I will still wrote up the list of whoever played the Scavenger Hunt before I leave for John's Hopkins.  So still try to get your park pic in or your outside shot by Sunday!

I promise I will do a wedding entry when I get back.  I keep meaning to.

Well, one more thing.  I am saddened that the Holy Father died today.  And I am really wondering who his successor will be.  I know it is up to the Holy Spirit, but these things are a little nerve wracking in the interim until somebody is chosen. 

Well, that is all for now.  Hope all are doing well.  Love you all, Krissy