Missy's blog: December 2021

In preparation for Christmas I went into Haven to laser cut a block to try to make my own Christmas cards.

It was a good try but didn't end up working. I will probably try wood block cuts again. I will aim for simpler images.

It almost worked.

I had an adventure working on my new fish lyre. I wanted to make the sound holes look like and be placed like air bubbles. The problem here is that the board is thin spruce and the holes had a tendency to rip the wood. Really I should have put them in before the soundboard was glued down.

I got some new tool bits because the forstner bit that I planned to use did not work. I wound up getting some hole saw attachments, thanks to some good advice from the Haven group. It mostly worked. I flied the insides and edges so that everything seemed pretty polished in the end.

The next problem was that the first peg hole was too close to its neighbor and the too deep cut from the cnc machine was filled but not sufficiently. Both got refilled generously and then set to dry down for later filing.

I went back and forth about the type of bridge to use. I was initially thinking bone like my OG lyre but I was reluctant to get bone dust everywhere and also I have some very nice dense maple in my wood bin. So I tied wood (which is traditional).

I freehanded all of this based on some basic measurements. Then I did the tail piece in the same maple and did a tiny bit more kolrosing. I put a fish tail (which matched the main body fish) on the tail piece. I think its so small that only I will ever really see it.

The maple feels so smooth and wonderful. I sanded it for a very long trim and it feels as smooth as alabaster. It feels warm and I love wood.

We went Christmas tree hunting. Megan got to pick the tree this year as she was overruled last year.

She took full advantage of her power and sent us all over the county to check out the available options.

It took many hours and much marching around but we found one that met her criteria.

It was a cold and beautiful hunt.

I think brining in a tree and lighting it is one of the best traditions. Everything feels magical and smells wonderful.

Megan hit a heavy goth phase.

We went to the orthodontist and had her wired off in prep for getting a tooth out. The orthodontist said that she has a traffic jam in her upper jaw. He hopes that removing some of her loser baby teeth will let the others come down straight. So they took off her wire and she got to go to school late.

Unfortunately her commitment to her fingerless gloves led to a hard fall from the monkey bars at recess.

I got a call from her school saying that she had hurt her wrist and seemed fine but was still in pain and did I want to come pick her up. I asked to speak to her and she sounded hurt and scared and brave. She was not just scared from the fall. I left to pick her up right away. We went home and got a look at her arm and wrist gave her some Tylenol and headed over to urgent care.

Her wrist was fine but her arm was badly broken. Both bones were snapped and they wouldn't set it there. They gave us a number to call to schedule an appointment with a pediatric orthopedist. Partially because of covid and partially because life, they had nothing for us for weeks.

She was in an arm wrap for those weeks. Vacation kept her out of school and appointments kept her out some. The First appointment, in Baltimore, told us only that her arm was even worse than thought.

She called it her banana arm and it was broken and twisted and they went from thinking about setting it to trying to decide how many pins she would need in her surgery. They scheduled us for a week later.

At work my friend Joyce and I decorated our office door for a holiday contest.

We wound up winning third place and they put us on the Leidos LinkedIn.

David's company had a cool Christmas party. We got all dressed up and headed out to a fancy restaurant.

We had the opportunity to stay at a hotel (an idea I was so excited to fulfill) but Megan was in pain and needed a good deal of attention so we went straight home.

We had a good time for sure.

Chris and Pammy were also at the party so I didn't have to sit with strangers and because of Covid we were all spaced out.

We got a seat by the fireplace and had food and friends and warmth.

We got a call from Scearce's that their water pump had died. This, combined with their being out of wood, meant that it was time to move up to Licia's place a little early.

David stopped by on his way home and picked up their computers, and Licia picked them up.

We were relieved to have them up in Mount Airy.

Megan went in to have her pre surgery Covid test and was climbing all around the urgent care office

Then we went to the dentist and had her tooth out to help with her overcrowding and braces.

Then the next day we went to the Hospital to get her worked on.

She wasn't allowed to have any food or drink. She then decided she wouldn't take the IV. This was a mistake but they wouldn't force her. The said that they would knock her out first then put it in.

There were only 2 surgeries scheduled and hers should have started at 1. We got there at 11.

By 3 she had a terrible splitting dehydration headache. I haven't seen her in this much pain ever. She was crying and so so miserable.

Finally at around 5 they took her in.

Her 1-2 hour hour surgery took 3+ hours. They put a rod in and there was a fair amount of tissue damage so they didn't put a cast on.

When she woke up she was in an immense amount of pain around her eyes and one of them was swollen shut. Even though I had written that she had a latex sensitivity ( because of her reaction to latex Band-Aids and temporary tattoos (bad rash) we had decided she was latex sensitive) I hadn't considered an adhesive issue.

They tape your eyes closed during surgery and the adhesive destroyed the skin around her eyes.

So we washed her face and put cold compress on her.

She ate a little bit and drank a lot and was discharged. I gave her some strong pain meds in the car and we drove home. All told we were out from 10 am to 930 pm. It was a long hard day.

I am grateful to the hospital but hope to never go through that again.

She spent the next week pretty drugged. I slept with her and re dosed her throughout the nights and was super tired.

We watched her arm for swelling and and kept ice on it as much as possible and sent her to zero school.

We took the truck to Scearce's and loaded up a ton of necessary furniture and exercise equipment. Then we drove back up to Licia's and started making them more at home.