How was your weekend?

Mine was a little hectic. Voici la deuxieme partie:

Friday: Amy is feeling slightly better, but just trying to rest because of the big Confirmation retreat at the parish the next day. But Amy and helpful secretary have to go to the Warehouse Store to buy chips and drinks for the retreat and Amy still has to administer eyedrops during lunchtimes at school. This is the last day and the boys are highly cooperative.

Scott takes Primo to the Cub Scout skate that evening at a county park in town. After they are there for an hour and a half (with me dozing on the couch while the young ones watch TMBG, my friend M. (a nurse whose son-Primo's BFF-and husband are at the rink) calls my cell. "Amy, don't be alarmed," she says (don't you love it when the conversation starts that way?), "but Scott has fallen at the ice rink and it appears to be serious. I think you should get over there." Next the house phone starts ringing. It's the rink. "Your husband fell on the ice and he's shaking...." puts Primo on the phone, he's crying, scared. I try to my best to reassure him as I try to keep myself together: "Daddy's going to be OK. You stay there with Den Leader and I'll be there in 5 minutes." M. will meet me at the rink. I get shoes on the little ones, get out the door to put them in the car and think to take them to the neighbors across the street. A., the husband, offers to drive with me but I want to go alone. God drives my car to the park and the ambulance is still there which I take as a good sign since it took me 15 minutes to get there.

Scott is in the ambulance, slurring, arguing with the EMTs to let him get up.

"Hey you," I say through tears.
"Hi," says Scott, looking at me like I'm the first thing he's focused on in a while.
"How are you?"
(still slurring) "I'm fine. I'm telling them to let me up. They won't. I keep telling them I'm fine."
"We're just trying to help you," says one EMT.
"You fell and hit your head real hard," I say.
(slurring, astonished) "Really?"
"Yeah, you really whacked your head. I need you to do what they tell you to do."
(Slurring) "But I feel fine. I want to get up."
(choking up since I am now noticing that Scott's hands are tied with zip ties) "For once in your life, will you just do what I tell you and listen to these guys?"
(slurring, resigned) "Okay."
"I'm going to find Billy. I'll be right back."

I am now feeling MUCH better. I know he's going to be fine.

A policeman pulls me aside and asks me to help him fill out a police report. I ask someone to get Billy from the rink for me. First thing the cop says is, "Your husband is really strong." Apparently, when he came out of his 3 minute siezure, he was very disoriented and tried to stand up. Since they didn't know the extent of his injuries, they wanted him to stay still. It took 6 people to hold him down and what the ambulance got there they had to handcuff him to the stretcher since they didn't have any other restraints for him.

In hindsight, I find this to be very amusing. It's like he's the Hulk. He cannot be contained!

I finally get to see Primo, he's shaken up, but seems to be OK. They let him see Scott on the ambulance. The EMTs have freed his hands and sat him up on the stretcher. He was able to wave to our friends standing outside of the ambulance. He's smiling and looks totally normal.

Long story short, he goes to the local trauma center where they do a CAT scan that night. He has no brain injuries, no fractures; only a mild concussion, a bump, and a scrape on his head and we are home within 4 hours of the fall. Scott mourns the loss of the coat and brand new sweatshirt he wore that night and they had to cut him out of. Primo got his first sleepover at a friends' house and he is fine with everything that happened. He was scared then, but he's not worried about daddy anymore. He felt better when he got to sleep at M.'s house. My in-laws got the young ones from my neighbors and they got a sleepover out of the deal, too.

Saturday: We pick up Primo and head over to the in-laws where everyone but me will stay since we have our big Confirmation retreat at the church that day. I go to work, but mt heart is not there. I call a few times during the day and Scott rests and is fine. By Saturday night (24 hours later) he feels great.

Sunday: He is still a little tired and very sore from fighting, but Scott feels normal otherwise.

Monday: He goes to work.

I just want to take this time to say thank you to the Den Leaders who were so great to Primo and the other boys. They went with me to the ER and stayed until Scott was discharged. They were great to our family and I am so grateful.

My friends and neighbors were also wonderful to us during this time. I will be forever grateful that the first person I heard from that night was M.

I leave you with this: You never know what a day is going to bring. My husband was one weird fall from being dead, a vegetable, or a quadrapelegic. Make sure the people you love know you love them. Never part with an unkind word or a hard heart. Always kiss him goodbye.

And make sure your kids wear a helmet when they go ice skating. Primo was. And if he had been the one who fell, he probably would have been fine, too. If he hadn't been, well, it wouldn't be a happy ending.

Cool pic

Scott took it, I doctored it up using some Photoshop tips from The Pioneer Woman, I posted it to her Flickr group and......

She liked it so much that she put it on her Photography page!!!

I'm glad she liked it and I'm glad that one of Scott's pics is getting such a wide audience! That's our Bub, last summer age 4.

This is one of Primo that I posted also:
I love the way this one turned out. Also last summer, Primo age 7.

Look what I did!

I was reading one of Donna Boucher's guest posts on Pioneer Woman Photography one day and Miz Boo was talking about how in Photoshop you can take your photo and make it look like a painting. Well, we got Photoshop the other day and, well, see for yourself:

Here is my photo of the Empire State building at sunset:


(First, let me just say that prior to Sept. 11, 2001, all you would have seen from here is the twin towers. The ESB would have been hidden. )

I don't like this photo for a few reasons, one of which is that it is too blurry. That will teach me not to bring a tripod. But, if I turn it into an oil painting, it doesn't need to be tack sharp, does it?



You can tell the difference a little more if you click on it. Here comes a better example.

My photo of a lifeguard chair at sunset:



Same day, same blur. No tripod. I tried the oil painting effect on this one and I didn't like it so much. Scott suggested trying it as a watercolor and after some fiddling, I came up with this:



You sort of lose the sunset feel a bit, but I really like this one.

So, thanks Miz Boo, for teaching me something new and thanks to PW for her blog and having you guest post! Now I am off to use more time I don't have to spare to play with Pictures. Like owning Lightroom wasn't bad enough!

I Rock? No, you rock and you know that! -Chick Hicks

I'd like to thank Jesus, the academy, Homefront Corp., and of course my best girl, Aimee, who gave me this wonderful award. And where would I be without my DH, who tolerates my internet usage only because he's on as often as me since we got the wireless network. I promise to post more often. I think I can guarantee three posts a week. At least until CCD starts.

And now, some more girls who rock:

Penni at Martha, Martha rocks! She's soulful and generous and has been known to quote David Bowie in her posts.

Barb at SFO Mom rocks! I haven't known a Franciscan with this much soul since Fr. Stan! She plays the guitar and sings at Mass, she's an awesome mom, and makes great pierogies.

Karen at Gem of the Ocean rocks! I just "met" Karen from San Diego. Her dry wit keeps her blog posts super funny and she loves musical theatre. What's not to love?