iseecerulean

Audra's got her blog post up with more pictures from our shopping trip on Friday.

I picked Audra up from her hotel bright and early.  We had breakfast at a cute little eatery downtown...we spread out exchange minis all over our table, barely leaving enough room for the waitress to set down our plates.  Audra had already mailed me some things a couple of weeks ago, but brought me some small print fabric scraps, some small wood pieces for scratch building and some awesome wooden shelf brackets.

I love the orange and blue striped fabric, I'm pretty sure it's going to work as a blanket in the boy's room in the Chantilly.

We walked down to the lake shore to catch the very end of the sunrise...the sun rose earlier than I expected.  The only picture I got is blurry, I hope Audra's turned out better.

Audra playing tourist

We spent a lot of time at the toy store pouring over the miniatures before we headed across town to a small craft store that also carries some.

We went to a cool home decor and furniture resale consignment shop next, where Audra spotted a great house shaped curio cabinet...if it had been reasonably priced we would have had to fight each other for it.

Our next stop was my favorite bead store where we each got a few for mini use.

By that time the stores downtown had opened up, so we window shopped, wandering in and out of a few stores.  Audra picked up some fudge to take back to her family and a sweatshirt for herself, tried to convince me I'd look good in a mohawk hat (ha!) and she bought me some little rubber animals for my birthday. :)

We saw Brae's stove at the antique store (only real size).

Our last stop before I took her back to her hotel was the old asylum, where we wandered around admiring the architecture and peeking in the broken out windows.

We had a fantastic day!  Audra's a great person, I'm glad we got together.  I'm still smiling.

I don't have a picture of the both of us but Audra had her husband take one of us when I dropped her off...we'll have to wait until she gets back home to post it.

One more picture before I go make a cup of tea and have a sandwich...this is my loot...a suitcase on a stand from the toy store, rubber hippo and elephant, and some beads.

The surgeon gave me a clean bill of health at my follow-up appointment on Wednesday...said I'm healing fine, that the bone graft and gum will still be painful for another week or two but that I'll be back to normal before the end of the year.

I'm finally feeling well enough to spend some time in my studio.  Yay!

Yesterday I made a loveseat for the living room, since our Thanksgiving meal wasn't until late in the day.  It's more second-hand lumpy looking than I wanted...I'm not sure yet if I'll use it as is or make another (neater) one.  For my first scratch built (with no pattern) upholstered piece I suppose it's not too bad.

When I first started designing the built-ins I pictured them wrapping around the front and side walls, then decided it would take up too much floor space to have them on the front wall.  Now, remembering that a tab is visible in the wall and that the top of the wall is stained, and noting the lack of contrast between the walls, door, window and loveseat, I realize I do indeed need to wrap the blue shelving around the corner onto that wall. 

I'll work on that tomorrow, today I'm taking fellow miniaturist Audra out on the town.  We're both early risers so I'm picking her up from her hotel bright and early to take her out to breakfast.  If I've timed things right we'll be done eating in time to catch the sun rise over Lake Michigan before the first miniatures store opens.

The bruising is almost gone, the incision has closed, my pain has receded from excruciating to a dull throb, and I can eat again.  I see the surgeon tomorrow for another check-up, cross your fingers for me that he thinks everything will be okay.

I was feeling much better after my surgery, but not now.  Now I'm in more pain than I was before.

The reason for my surgery is that I am still using a baby tooth, and that baby tooth has gotten wiggly enough that I have to prepare for an implant to replace it when it finally falls out.  The adult tooth that never came in to push the baby tooth out was sitting sideways above the other teeth, in front of the roots of the other teeth.  It was in the way of an implant so needed to be removed.

The surgery went well.  They reflected back the gum tissue, removed the sideways tooth, filled that void with some bone graft material to support the titanium post they will put in later, pulled the tissue back down, then stitched me up.  Easy peasy.

The surgery was on a Thursday afternoon.  My recovery was going well, the pain was bad but manageable, the swelling went down after a few days, the brusing was fading....then on Wednesday most of the stitches pulled free, exposing the incision. 

When I saw it I wasn't quite sure what I was looking at...I thought that the swelling had gone enough that I was seeing  more of the front of my gum...I didn't realize I was seeing up inside the incision.  I thought I hadn't been cleaning my mouth well enough so I pulled my cheek up out of the way to get a good look at everything, gently rubbed my toothbrush.......then picked myself up off the bathroom floor. 

Seriously, I passed out...the pain was so intense...I got extremely dizzy, sweat started pouring off me, my heart was pounding...I sat down on the side of my bathtub because I thought I was going to fall down...then I picked myself up off the floor.  I've never fainted before and don't care to again, that was a horribly scary experience.

The next morning I went back to see the surgeon, who told me that can't re-suture it because the tissue is too fragile, that it will have to heal as is...that it will heal just fine, as long as I leave it alone, don't touch it, and keep it clean.

I cannot begin to describe how excrutiatingly painful it is to have the part of your gum that is supposed to be on the inside now be the outside.

They call me mellow yellow....

I'm feeling much better now than I was last time I posted.  Don't get me wrong, my mouth still hurts horribly, just not as horribly.  I haven't had solid food in days but I'm managing to sleep through the night now, which has greatly improved my attitude.  I even spent the entire day at the office today instead of coming home in the afternoon.  :)

I'm starting to turn shades of yellow...

My husband said if I was going to post this I had to make it very clear that the oral surgeon did this to me, not him ;)

I was home from work yesterday recovering from a little dental surgery I had Thursday afternoon.  I spent my time moving back and forth from my studio to my couch, depending on how bad the pain was.  I was mostly on my couch...ouch, ouch, OUCH!  I'm all swollen and bruised...I look like a purple cheeked chipmunk. 

Oh, wait, my European readers aren't going to get that reference...a chipmunk is a cute little striped  ground squirrel with cheek pouches it can stuff full of food so it can carry the food to its nest to store for the winter.  When I say I look like a chipmunk I mean my cheek is so swollen it looks like I have it stuffed full of nuts.

This morning I woke up looking like someone had punched me and given me a black eye, only it's not black under my eye, it's bright red.  My nursing student daughter assured me it was just blood draining upward overnight while I was sleeping.  It's weird looking.

Anyway, back to minis....I started work on the built in shelves for the living room...I don't know what is going to sit there yet, so I made them with adjustable shelves. 

I discovered that an advantage of working under painkillers is that I have more patience for fiddly work, but that a disadvantage is not remembering that I wanted to leave room between the shelving units for the cabinet I already made.  Oops!

I have an easy fix for that...I'll simply move the cabinet upstairs to replace the rickety desk I quickly threw together when I was roughing out the rooms, then I'll make a new one for the record player to sit on...or maybe I'll just sit the record player on a shelf....hmm...

No building today though, I'm going to drive over to my parents house instead....my mouth hurts and I need my mommy and daddy.

I made the adjustments I needed to the record player and the stand.  The stand now looks like a cabinet which holds records instead of a looking like a large speaker, which was not what I intended it to look like.

I also made my first component, an integrated amplifier, which will sit on built in shelving I haven't made yet.