Annie Part 2

A few years ago, my Mother was diagnosed with 2 Brain Aneurysms.   This is the story of our journey.

For Part 1 of this story click Here

The 40 minute drive home from the airport was agonizing. The frightening thoughts that were flowing through my head caused the tears to continually flow down my face.  


I was deeply terrified of losing my Mom.


I knew very little about Brain Aneurysms, and I wasn't aware that people could survive them without major consequences.  At the time, the only thing I knew was that my Mother would require brain surgery and that alone made me feel nauseated.


I finally made it home.  


I sat in the driveway for a few moments listening to the raindrops pound against the car.  {Attempting} to pull myself together, I walked in the house and went immediately to bed. 

I cried myself to sleep that night.


The next morning, I drove back to my Mom's house to be with her.  To console her and try to make her feel better about her recent diagnosis, but at the end of the day, she was consoling me.  


Funny how that works.

The following day (Friday) we went to meet the Neurosurgeon at the hospital to find out their intended course of action with regards to her 2 Brain Aneurysms.  


This was real.  


After meeting with the surgeon, my Mom was admitted to the hospital immediately.  Her surgery was scheduled for Sunday, but as a precautionary measure she would have to remain in the hospital in case of a sudden aneurysm rupture.     


The arrival of Sunday was bittersweet.  Knowing the risk of surgery was petrifying, but we were relieved she would finally be operated on. 

My Mom and I at my wedding.  3 months before the surgery

Unexpected Emergencies filled the operating room, and the surgeons were well beyond their duty day. Finally, at 9:00 pm we watched her being wheeled away on her stretcher.  Pit in our stomach and tears in our eyes.  


I don't think there is anything more agonizing in the world than waiting when someone is in surgery.


And waiting...  


And waiting...


We sat by the door that my Mom was supposed to be coming out from.  Every time the door opened, we would peek in as if it would make her come out faster.  She was the last scheduled surgery of the evening and it was well past midnight.


She finally came out.  


I was shocked when I saw her.  The bandage where they had shaved her hair.  Her eyes were still closed and there was a lot of swelling in her face.  


I'm not sure why I was surprised, but I was.


The surgery was successful, but they were only able to get one of the two aneurysms, which meant we would have to go through this whole ordeal again in the near future.


The surgeon told us my Mom would be taken to the intensive care unit, and we would be able to see her within half an hour. 


We felt a sense of relief.


This was short lived, when approximately 15 minutes later we heard 


"CODE BLUE, INTENSIVE CARE UNIT.  CODE BLUE, INTENSIVE CARE UNIT."  


We knew it was my Mom.


To be continued...

For Part 3 of this story click Here

In Preparation for Bake Off

After the devastating tragedies which took place in Japan, my friend Sue Jean and I decided to organize an Easter Bake sale to raise money for the Canadian Red Cross-Japan Earthquake/Asia-Pacific Tsunami Fund.  


The sale took place on Wednesday April 20th at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, targeting the employees of Air Canada.

I can't lie... I was seriously nervous! We had absolutely no idea how many people to expect and this was my first bake sale.  

 

I envisioned the two of us coming home at the end of the day with boxes and boxes full of cookies and squares that hadn't sold.

Still, I set a personal {unrealistic} goal of $1000, and {secretly} I felt a little sorry for our husbands.  


You see, Sue Jean and I had decided that if we didn't sell everything, the husbands (Mike & Dave) would either be selling our leftovers to their colleagues, OR they would be purchasing everything themselves at double the asking price. 


It made sense.  If we had that much left over, we would have no choice but to charge Mike and Dave double to make up for lost sales.  :) 

 

In total, we went through 24 pounds of Butter, 22 kilograms of Flour, 15 Kilograms of Sugar, and 7 flats of Eggs.

Incredibly, we managed to sell out of everything 2.5 hours before the end of the sale.


Lucky for Mike and Dave.


We were so busy during the sale that we didn't manage to get any decent pictures...but that's okay... busy is good!  

We surpassed our goal and raised a total of 

$1461

for the Canadian Red Cross.

I would like to thank the following people for all of their assistance in the planning and execution of our Bake Sale.

Carin Brown and Mike Trauzzi of Air Canada 

for all of their hard work with the permits, tables, and set up for the event.

Nathalie Rebelo of Rebelo Photo & Design

for designing and donating posters

I would also like to thank a number of companies for donating baking supplies, allowing us to keep our costs low, and surpass our fundraising goal.


To the Air Canada Employees and our Family and Friends who purchased items from our Bake Sale.  


Finally, I would like to thank Dave, Mike and my Mother, for all the work they did to help us out.


Thank you for making our event a success!

The Zucchini was Doomed From the Beginning...

I made Zucchini bread tonight.  

I multiplied the recipe by 4...  I didn't have enough Zucchini, so I re-wrote the recipe for 3 loaves.

Ran out of oil.  Ran to the store for more.  forgot the zucchini.

For some stupid reason, I kept both recipes side by side... and somewhere along the way, I reverted back to the 4 loaf recipe and added 2 extra cups of sugar to...

You see, with lack of sleep, comes lack of brain cells... and I have definitely been lacking both this week.  

So now, it's after 1 o'clock in the morning, and I am left with some very ugly... very collapsed zucchini loaves with a crust of sugar on top (that don't even warrant  a decent photo ~ so here you have one from my iphone).

On the brighter side of things...Guess what's for breakfast!  

Sock Monkey Cookies

My latest cookie adventure involved these Sock Monkey Cookies

Now, from this photo the little guys don't look that bad right?  

Well, unfortunately this Photo was taken before things went terribly wrong for us ("us" meaning me and the monkeys).  

The icing wasn't drying, and I was *running out of time*.

  

By Friday morning I was certain these little guys wouldn't be dry in time for delivery (They were for that evening), but I crossed my fingers and carried on.  By the afternoon, I thought things were looking up as they seemed dry enough to package... I mean they had been drying for a couple of days. 

I packaged all the cookies individually in cellophane bags and tied them with pretty ribbons, and I was pretty happy with them... until I looked down and noticed the red mouth was sweating and the black icing had smudged all over the place. 

They looked like The Joker... and I almost cried.

{insert word of choice here}... What. A. DISASTER!  

I found out afterwards that the cookies did not need to be packaged.  (I know... had I asked in the beginning, the joker face could have been avoided all together!)  

But, not having to re-package the monkeys, allowed me to carefully rub off the black and re-draw the mouth.

The bleeding red icing is a whole other story..  

Do you have any tricks for working with red icing, and icing that won't dry?

Utensil Organization

When we purchased our house we had the intentions of renovating the kitchen within the year.  Of course one year led to another, and {finally} after five years we took the plunge.

The original kitchen was a fairly decent size, but it just did not function well at all.  I'm not going to lie, it drove me absolutely bonkers!

What started out as a kitchen reno, quickly turned into a kitchen/living room/dining room renovation.  Walls and cupboards came down.  Tile and carpets came up.

It was utter chaos, and I was so excited!

It has been over a year since we moved back into the kitchen, and although the renovation has not yet been completed, it is a gazillion times better than it was. 

One of my favorite new additions was a 2 level custom cutlery drawer, which I turned into a storage drawer for my baking utensils.  Spatulas, piping tips, couplers, brushes, etc. all in one spot.

You don't need a custom drawer to achieve this.  There are many companies that make cutlery inserts that you can simply slip inside your existing drawers.  

I know it has made my life so much easier!

Posted on I'M LOVIN' IT FRIDAYS!