Lots of things happening, and not enough time in the days to handle it all.  I woke up and could not return to sleep right away, so here I am at long last.

Karina and Frank are in Ohio settled into their home, and our fourth grandchild - a girl - is due in a couple of weeks.  Keegan is excited about seeing his little sister.  I am SOOOOOOO hoping to be there for the birth as I was with the others (I got to actually witness Keegan's birth - how utterly awesome to see such a wonderous event, and was at least in the hospital for Clayton and Chris as Joan had to have c-sections), but I am not sure if I will make it with a 6 hour drive ahead of me when I get the call!  From this point on, I will have a bag packed in the car trunk so I don't have to take extra time for that.   John wants to be there too, but he may be out on the road driving to some distant location at the time.  Hopefully not!  I really do hope we both make it there.  All is fine, and Karina plans on working up to the time of labor onset.  She is teaching aqua-aerobics classes and is at a one-hour photo lab too (yes, she has two jobs and is working a lot even now).  She will be off work for awhile, which will be different for her for sure!  I brought Karina and Keegan here (yes made the drive both ways to get her and then take her back home) just for the weekend 2 weekends ago.  She got to see a few people, they both went to a ballgame with me - Frank was supposed to go to the game but he had to work - and it was a good but all too fast time while they were here. 

Joan and Marty are doing well, as are Clayton and Chris.  Clayton loves his new teacher and enjoys school, and Chris's leukemia is in remission (only another year or so for the chemo treatments, and then lots of checks after that).  

My oyster parties are doing okay, but I need to pick up more parties.  Life was crazy more than usual for awhile and I could not handle doing very much, so now I don't have as many lined up.  It is perfect timing for the holidays though, so I am working on it.  Pearls do make the perfect gift!

Reason why it was crazier than usual... I have been having some health issues, and the doctor sent me for a stress test and EKG.  They showed heart damage from previous heart attack(s), irregularities, blockage, and two different sets of rhythms going back and forth from slow to fast to slow.  When they followed up with a cardiac catheterization a week later, there was no longer any damage or blockage, the irregularites were gone, and I still have the two sets of rhythms (they are not sure about how to handle that yet).  There were a lot of people concentrating on me, and I feel that is a pretty powerful thing.  The procedure was interesting, and I was totally awake for the entire thing.  I found out the reason I only felt anything was at the point of entry and certain other items such as dye was because there are no nerves inside veins, arteries and heart.  The screen showed some cool stuff, and the doctor was fine on answering my questions about what I saw and heard.  The bad part was not being able to raise my head past a few inches and having to lay with my legs and torso totally still for hours (or the artery would have opened up - and I would have had to have some very fast repair before bleeding to death!) They put a special closure device around my artery which takes 90 days to dissolve.  If that was not used, it would have been an extra 9 hours of lying there!  I am grateful to whomever invented that tiny but awesome item.

Well, I am heading back to bed.  I am not sure if I will be back here before our newest angel arrives.  Until next time, be happy and enjoy life!!!!