THANK YOU ANNETTE TATUM!!

warning: post may be long winded! These photos aren't the best because my light in the foyer right now is not that great.

Yesterday I received a most wonderful package in the mail. The 3 kids had just walked in the door from school. Cole carried the package and nonchalantly sat it on the island. I didn't really notice it at first but when I realized what it HAD to contain I shushed them all into silence. If you have a kid or so and they are in school, then you know that this is almost an impossible task.  When kids get home from school there is some weird wiring in their brain that is attached directly to their mouth and stomach and it short circuits. They are LOUD and they want FOOD. NOW. It's like they walked forty days and forty nights without speaking or eating.

I just wanted a moment of silence so I could enjoy the grandeur in that cardboard box. The kids thought I had lost it. My mind, that is. Again. I pulled the wonderful fabric goodness from it's cardboard cage and we all ohhhd and ahhhd a bit! Me, especially! I even had to call my neighbor/friend and tell her! Annette was so sweet to include 2 LOVELY coordinating pillow cases to go with the duvet. It's even more lovely than I could have hoped and the fabric is such a wonderful silky cotton. I'm in LOVE with the colors! We have a cherry bedroom set with a 4 poster bed that was mine before we married. I think it's going to be GORGEOUS on the bed. I took the photos on my husband's grandmother's tunnel tufted upholstered chair that has cherry arms and legs to see what it would look like. It's so perfect that I think this chair is going to have to be moved from it's home in the foyer to our bedroom! The colors are PERFECT! I just have to decide if we (actually Matt) will paint the room a soft dove grey or a soft butter yellow.   If you haven't seen Annette's catalogs of visual design yumminess , you MUST check it out!

ANNETTE TATUM Home Collection and Maria from DREAMY WHITES, you have made me so happy and I certainly appreciate your generosity! Both girls were sweet enough to post on THEIR blogs about it!

Here's the lengthy part...the room probably won't get done for a bit so I won't be able to show it off for a while. If you read Maria's post or the sweet note attached that Annette was kind enough to write, you may have a hint. It was decided last week that I will have another surgery on my lumbar spine in early/mid May. This is a crazy time of year anyway with the girls dress rehearsals for dance and their picture days and more dress rehearsals(photos will be coming soon!) at the theater and then the actual recital. Plus I have many things to do to get ready for the surgery, doctors appointments etc. I think because we only have a few weeks to get ready, the room won't be the first thing on the list. Last year, (almost exactly 1 year ago and 1 week) I had a similar surgery. My husband put a twin bed up in our family room because I had to limit the stairs. Obviously, I'll be spending a lot of time initially there.

If you are wondering what I'm having done, read on... (I'm kind of sorta writing this just for me! LOL)

Without giving you all the background (it's all here in the blog somewhere starting July 08), I had a lumbar fusion last year on L3-4 with a faux disc and pedical instrumentation. My disc at L3-4 had a previous surgery called a discectomy because a chunk of it had ruptured, broke away and migrated down my spinal canal. It continued to plague me and re-herniated so 8 months later we did the fusion and put in the fake disc. My MRI's at that time showed that the disc below was also diseased (I had a test on 3 discs called a discogram and I failed at L4-5 not at L3-4. I don't think there was enough disc there to cause pain). Because my neurosurgeon was conservative (which is NOT a bad thing) we only fused L3-4. Unfortunately, that added stress to the already diseased disc and area below and it now is possibly ruptured as well. During this surgery, all of the titanium instrumentation will come out and they will take out the bad disc at L4-5, replace it with a faux disc, mix up some ground up bone that they sand off and mix it with a hormone containing polymer and add BRIGHT SHINY NEW titanium rods and pedicals to the whole thing. New Robot Robyn! ;-)

Expect several guest posts from my friends during that time plus I'm going to ask some great fellow bloggers to post as well! Should be a good time for all~!