Scattered Thoughts . . .

A s I've mentioned a few times in this blog previously, Sheila has been practicing her figure skating in an effort to be as prepared as possible for our trip to Manhattan with Lukey and Kenzie.  Until a couple of months ago, she hadn't skated in decades so she knew she needed to get on skates again before we were at Rockefeller Center and Bryant Park.  Lukey and Kenzie want to skate as much as Sheila has wanted to skate at these two popular rinks so this has been the plan since we started talking about a Christmas trip to Manhattan with the kids quite a few years ago. We've been heading to a couple of different rinks a couple of times a week so Sheila can practice.  Sometimes Sheila skates with Kenzie before Kenzie's skating lessons but most times she is out there alone while I practice my video and photography skills.    Sheila has improved quite a bit over the past few weeks but she is now done practicing.   She took a bad fall the other night and has been left badly

Shortly before arriving at our house the other day to spend some time with Gee and Papa, Kenzie got whacked under the eye by Ace's hard head.  I'm not sure Ace felt anything but Kenzie's eye quickly started swelling up.   Even after arriving at our house, she still spent much of the night with an icepack on her eye trying to bring down the swelling.  That night the swelling was just in a relatively small area right where Ace's head made contact with her face...  right on her left cheekbone.   By bedtime, her eye was becoming more bruised and it was becoming more obvious.  By the next day (yesterday), she had a more noticeable black eye and the swelling was more like a puffy swelling all across under her eye rather than just on her cheekbone!   She kept asking us whether or not her eye would be better by the time school starts later in the month.  Of course Gee and I teased her by telling her "oh no...  it will just keep getting worse...  with oozing puss and you