Buttons & Surgery Update

Many years ago, I used to be a button collector.  Not a collector like most of you probably think of ... a prim or crafty person who buys a jar of old buttons at a yard sale or at the local peddlers mall.  No, I was an actual "sure I'll pay $25 for that button" button collector.  I had some real treasures in the button world.  After a while, like many things I've dabbled in, one day I woke up & thought "why in the world am I doing this" & I sold the whole shebang of a collection for about 1/4 of what it was worth ... but it was out of the house & thus made room for my next collecting venture, whatever that was ... lol!

When purchasing those collectible buttons I did come across a few types that I really loved & could not part with.  One type was the plastic novelty buttons used on children's clothing in the 30s/40s/50s.  The others were old utilitarian buttons such as underwear buttons, mother of pearl, bone, & various china buttons.  I didn't have a whole lot of either of these types but I did keep the ones I had with the thought that I would use them in future crafting projects.

Over the past year or two I have been looking for more of these old utilitarian buttons when we are somewhere they might be for sale.  I have had no luck at all finding them.  I have also been unlucky when bidding for them on eBay.  The price has always been bid up much higher than I'm willing to pay, & I can only assume that the reasonably priced "buy it nows" were snatched up the minute they were uploaded because I never saw any.  Well, recently ... maybe because it's so soon after Christmas & many people don't have a lot of extra money to spend right now ... I have been able to win a couple small lots of old utilitarian buttons.  Hooray for me   : )

Most of the small button lots I've won ... 3 or 4 ... have been quite nice, but on Friday I received one that was so bad I actually was wishing I had put on rubber gloves before I touched them.  They were grossly filthy things ... not something you could tell by the auction photo.  They were mostly china buttons with a couple MOPs.  I needed to clean them, but ugh!  Then I got a pretty good idea ... either that or I remembered this from my old collector days.  John has to use those denture soaking tablets every night for his partial.  I thought soaking these buttons in that kind of solution might work quite well so he gave me one & I did an overnight soak.  It worked wonders!  There were still quite a few buttons that I had to use an old toothbrush on ... or scrape them with a single edge razor blade or push a toothpick through the holes to get the crud out ... but most of them didn't need anything else done to them!  I then washed them all off in a soapy solution, rinsed well, & dried them with several paper towels, finally placing them on a fresh bit of paper toweling for the air to get them thoroughly dry.

Naturally I had a bit of a "moment" while going through this final button cleaning process this morning.  I had a small plastic container which I was soaking them in.  I placed it in the sink & then got my strainer to dump them into & rinse them before using the toothbrush & other tools to get them thoroughly clean.  As I placed them in the strainer, the thought occurred to me that it might be a good idea to put the drain cover over the sink drain, but then I thought "nah." I figured I would be careful & not lose any buttons.  After getting about 3/4 of the buttons done, one of them popped out of my hand & went down the drain.  I immediately thought "hmmmm ... I should put that drain cover on that drain."  I looked at the drain cover, just a few inches away, but again thought "nah."  The very next button I was working on then popped out of my hand & joined it's friend down the drain.  It struck me as a rather comic occurrence.  I just shook my head & finished cleaning the rest of the buttons without mishap.

On Friday I went back to the endodontist to have my stitches removed.  Although not a pleasant experience, it was not horrible & was over relatively quickly.  He talked with me a bit more about the surgery & I discovered that I was somewhat confused about the procedure from the start.  I often referred to it as "gum surgery," but it was much more than that.  He made his incision through the gum right above the crown where that infected root canal had occurred.  I had that much right.  However, the damage that the infection caused to that point ... the hole that it had eaten away in my bone ... that was my upper jaw bone.  I asked him how large this hole was.  He said it was the diameter of a nickel ... that's a little over 3/4" ... & slightly over half an inch deep.  Good grief!  No wonder a bone graft was involved & no wonder he was doing so much cutting & scraping & no wonder this all resulted in such pain!  To get the full impact of this, go get a nickel & place it up above your lip between your lip & the right side of your nose at the right edge of the nostril.  It boggles the mind.  We discussed what he will be doing with the other infected root canal & thankfully that will not require the same type of surgery.  He will simply address that one like a root canal ... drill up through the crown & then clean out the infection that way ... because that infection basically just began in the last year or so.  

I am doing much better now.  Yesterday was the first day I could make it through without having to use pain medication.  I still have a bit of soreness & a bit of swelling, but nothing major.  Thank you once again to everyone who gave me their good wishes & prayers.

I also want to welcome all my new followers! Welcome!  I am glad you came to visit my blog & decided to stick around   : )   

I hope everyone is having a great weekend ... & an especially productive one if you are participating in IHSW   : )   I've been doing as much stitching as I can ... not a whole lot, but some ... & I will share the photos soon.