AGAIN

Yup, I feel like I am living in a revolving door.  Hubby and I spent 6 hours at the Emergency Room today.  I won't bore you with all the gory details.  We are quite hopeful not to be going back.  His nose has been packed with absorbable hemostat material.  Look it up, it's cool stuff.  We have a follow up Friday with his ENT and pray it will be the last time we see him.

I did get some great knitting done today though.  I have cast on Faroese.  It is super easy to memorize.  No need to pay close attention while knitting away on it.

I also cast on for Daughters scarf 

It called for a crochet cast on.......little problem........I crochet left handed and knit right handed.  Doesn't work so well.  I talked to my knitting guru and he said to go ahead and do a long tail cast on.  I did that.  It take a while to cast on 414 stitches lol.  I also have my knitting guru coming to my home this week to help me with the pattern.  It is written in a way that has me totally confused.  We only live about 2 miles apart.  How nice to have him close. Yes, I do pay him for his time and wisdom.  It is well worth it.  He has never made me feel stupid or ignorant when he corrects me in my knitted thinking.  That, to me, is worth a fortune.

We have settled in for the evening.  I did not get a darn thing done today that was on my to do list.  I am going to have to cram a bunch of things in tomorrow morning.  I need to visit my mom tomorrow afternoon and pick up the Grand after her play practice and help her with homework, so the morning will see me rushing around to grab groceries, get water for our cooler, clean bathrooms, do some laundry and make sure hubby has what he needs while I am gone.  He is on lifting restrictions and was told to relax until Friday.  That leaves it all to me.  If I can keep him out of the ER, we will be golden.

OK, gonna sit back, watch some TV and knit on the shawl.

Until next time...............happy crafting!!!!!!

WEEK 18 UPDATE

 Hello my blog followers.  It is a beautiful day here in the deserts of Arizona.  We actually are going to be below 90 degrees starting tomorrow and looks like it is going to stay that way.  Today will only be 91 but the nights are getting into the high 50's and low 60's.  Very pleasant weather for us desert rats.

I have been busy this past week...............and not just with the hubby and his never ending nose bleeds.  Nope, I actually got another shawl off the needles and I steamed blocked 2 of them this afternoon.

First up:

Miami Vice.  This was a pretty fun knit and went quickly.  If I make it again, I will not use such a soft yarn.  It was a bear to steam block and since it is acrylic, I had to be careful not to melt it too.  It is going to the prayer shawl closet and will be marked as a small shawl.

Next item off the needles:

Grainne by Knitterarium.  This is a lovely shawl but once again, I will choose a different type of yarn when I make it again.  It is a fingering weight shawl, which is fine, but the plain yarn I used for the mesh areas is too springy.  This too, is going into the prayer shawl closet at church and will be marked as small because of the small depth of it.

That means...................my needles are open for another shawl.  I will peruse patterns this afternoon.  I have plenty of yarn to make shawls with, just want to find a pattern that will speak to me and then find the right yarn to go with it.  I might decide to do a crocheted shawl this time.  I received some lovely patterns from fellow prayer shawl members and would like to try them out.

My Petty Harbour socks have been stagnant while I worked on the shawls.  I still have one more shawl to increase in size.  I should probably get to that one before I cast on a brand new one, huh.  

Hubby update:  We are doing better.  The only time he has anymore bleeding is about 3 in the morning and it only lasts for about 5 to 10 minutes and is a very minute amount of blood. We decided to wait until Monday and then he will call the Dr to see if he wants to let it ride or if he wants to see him again.  Hubby really does not want to go back to the ER.  He doesn't want to go back to the ENT either but he needs to let him know what is going on.  If we can make it through one night without incident, it would be lovely.  I would really like to have 1 night of uninterrupted sleep.

That is all for today.  Wednesday, I will be doing daily updates for the month of November.  I have not heard of anyone doing the NaBloPoMo 'officially' this year.  But I thought it would be fun to see if I could actually do a daily update.  No matter how small it may be.  Anyone want to join me with it?  It could be fun.

Until next time.........................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hope

I have to keep telling myself, there is always hope and the light at the end of the tunnel is NOT a train.  

Took hubby to the ENT on Thursday.  He found several little bleeders in the front of the nasal passage and cauterized them.  He also cleaned out hubby's ear from all his wax.  Bet he can hear me now.  He was told he can finally go ahead and lay back down in bed but just to keep his head elevated a bit.  We have an articulating bed, so that is not an issue for us.

We got home and I went to visit my mom for a little while.  She is still having a bit of memory problems.  I don't know when the Doctor was going to start decreasing her medications.  I will see how she is on Monday and if there is no change, then I will contact him again to find out if anything has been decreased or discontinued.

After I left my mom's, I went to pick up the Grand and her friend from our church's program that passes out food boxes to those in need.  She loves working there after school and they were pretty busy too.  I got them home about 6 and when I got home................nose bleed AGAIN!.  It did not last too long.  Maybe about 10 minutes, but it was supposed to be done.  

I grabbed us some dinner and cleaned up the kitchen just in time for me to go to adoration.  Hubby wanted to go also, but I told him there was no way, just in case he started bleeding again.

When I got home, he had had another bleed for about 10 minutes again.  This is really wearing on him and me both.  We went to bed and in the morning he sheepishly told me he had had another bleed about 20 minutes after I fell asleep.  Again it was only for about 10 minutes, but that 10 minutes gave me 2 loads of laundry that I needed to do today.  Including a pillow and mattress pad.

Hubby called the ENT and they said they would work him in and to come out about 2.  He actually felt pretty good this morning and since it was grandparents day at the Grand's school, he decided to go with me.  She was so happy to see him there.  Ten minutes before Mass was over his nose broke loose again.  As soon as Grand was done singing in the choir, I grabbed her, signed her out and got hubby home where he could take care of the issue.

Grand and I went out and picked up lunch for the 3 of us.  I had to take the Grand back to school at 1 for her play practice.  After I dropped her off, I grabbed hubby and off to the ENT we went again.

The Dr found another bleeder on his septum and cauterized it 4 times!  He told us if there was anymore bleeding to go to the ER and have them call him and he would either come in or instruct them on how he wanted hubby's nose packed for the weekend.

So far......................no bleeding and it has been almost 6 hours.  His nose is so sore, but he said it will be worth it if this stops everything.

Needless to say................I have not had much knitting time with all this going on.  I only have 9 more rows on my shawl and then I can bind off.  You would think I could have finished that by now.  Sheesh!

I did finish one of my books though.

I loved it and gave it a 5 out of 5 stars.  She really developed the character so well and I felt like I know each one as if I was in their knitting circle.  It is not just about knitting, but about the healing properties of knitting.  I truly believe this to be true.  I have never felt so calm as when I am knitting.  It takes me to my happy place and the problems of the world are no where near me.

We have the Grand is spending the night with us.  She is so much fun to have around.  Makes us laugh quite a bit.  

Until next time....................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mid-Week update

Yup, see that photo at the top of this update?  I am tired of seeing that sign.  As you know, I had hubby at the ER early Saturday morning.  We thought things might settle down after that.  NOPE!  It continued and the longest time we had without and epitaxy (nose bleeding) was 31 hours.  I thought we were home free and then................BOOM!!!!!!!!!  The mother of all bleeders started.  Before you ask.......................NO, he is not on blood thinners OR an aspirin regimen!  I told him to get his happy bum into the car and we were going to a different ER this time.  We got there and within 15 minutes he was being seen by a super nice PA (Physician Assistant)  He thought he had it stopped after about 30 minutes and then as soon as hubby got up to walk out..........................more bleeding.  This went on for 5 hours.  (Good thing I didn't have any plans for the day LOL)  They finally go him stopped (without having to pack his nose) and we went home.

I was going to cancel my plans with my daughter that night but hubby insisted I go out with her.  We had planned on going to dinner then to the LYS for a little fiber therapy.  Daughter does not knit or crochet but loves me to make things for her.  We had a lovely dinner at a Mexican restaurant and had a lot of great conversation.  We got quite a few belly laughs during dinner too.  It also helped, we had the absolute best waitress ever.  We walked into the LYS and you would have thought we had interrupted and hush hush conversation there. All eyes turned to us like we were in the wrong place.  Didn't stop us though.  We barreled our way in and started talking to everyone and asking questions about patterns and yarn.  Pretty soon, we were the life of the party LOL.  Daughter found something that she was just dying for me to make for her so with my permission, she purchased all the supplies I would need.

This scarf out of this wool....................and yes, it is wool.  I will wear my knitting gloves while making it for her.  I'm the good step mom!  I am looking forward to making it as it has a couple of new stitches I have never done before.  The instructions are pretty good but I will probably pull up a you tube video also, just to make sure I understand it.  This yarn was not cheap and I don't want to mess it up.

I walked out of there with 4 skeins of sock yarn.  Bet you didn't see that coming, did you?  I was going to take a photo of them but when I went into my craft room..............Schnikies!!!!!  It was a mess and so I decided to get to putting it back to order.  (Note to self: no more of letting grand child mess with the yarn 'just for fun')  I now can walk in there and go right to the area of the room I need.  Let me show you what I mean:

This is all my worsted weight yarn, other than the upper left cubbie.  That is my lace and specialty yarns.  All my patterns are on the top of this storage unit.

This is all my DK weight yarn.  It is hard to tell, but these are stacked 3 to 4 deep (not the bottom shelf, that is single file)  I have so much here and I really want to get back into making spring sweater tees for me to wear.

Here is my sock yarn.  See the white yarn in the middle shelf?  That is 2 of the skeins I bought and the black and white skein to the left of them is another one I bought.  The top 2 shelves are stacked 3 deep again.  I can make socks for quite a while and never run out.

The sad thing is:

The 2 small bags are full of sock yarn and the larger back is full of worsted weight.  These are being donated to the prayer shawl ministry ladies.  I had way more than I could ever use.

It sure feels good to have the completed.  I got all my needles put away in their proper places and all the patterns I had used are now safely in page protectors and in their respective folders.  This will help me so much when I am in a hurry to pick out some yarn and a pattern.

I have some finished items, but will hold off until Sunday to put them on my blog.  I am hoping to have one more item completed by Sunday too.  But in order to do that I need to be home to work on it.  It is a shawl and it has quite a bit of lace on it and I need to not be interrupted while working on it.

Tomorrow, hubby has an appointment with ENT (ear, nose and throat) Doctor.  We have had a pretty good day today.  There have been a couple of times when he had a bit of blood, but it stopped very quickly for us.  PTL!  Hopefully, tomorrow will be the end of it and we can go back to a normal life.  He has not been allowed to do any of his normal housework or even been allowed to leave the house to go to the store, just in case he would have a little 'accident'.  It's not nice to bleed all over grocery stores.  LOL

That is all for today.  I need to get back to my shawl I am working on so I can complete it.

Until next time.....................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

Photoless Week 17

If you are looking for a post with photos, this is not it.  I have an update, but no photos.  Why?  Because, I have not taken any of my progress and hubby is still asleep in the place where I take my photos and I am NOT going to disturb him since he has not had a good couple of days.

I am still working on the blue with yellow variegated yarn shawl.   I have one side completed and am about 1/3 of the way done on the other side.  I have not worked on any other shawl than this one.  I did work on my petty harbour socks for a bit this week and did manage to get to the 12th pattern repeat of the second sock.

Gosh, when I put into words what I have done, it doesn't sound like much.  (sad face)  I did get a little bit of excitement very early Saturday morning.  Hubby woke me up with his second nose bleed that had been going on for more than 20 minutes.  He could not get it to stop and needed my help to clean up a bit of the mess off the couch and floor.

Needless to say........................he got taken to the Emergency Room immediately.  Luckily, we were the only ones there so we got seen right away.  The other lucky part is.........it is not the back of his nose that is causing the bleeding.  It is just very inflamed from all the blowing, sneezing and coughing.  He was given instructions on how to care for said nose along with 2 prescriptions for cough medicine and we were sent on our way.  We stopped at a 24 hour pharmacy to fill the RX and then went home to get some sleep.

Nothing like getting your nights sleep from 6 AM to 9:30 AM.  LOL  I was awakened by a phone call from our local grand daughter.  She was so excited because she had made 1st honors at school for this quarter.  This was her first time to make it.  She really struggles with Math, so for her to make honors is quite an accomplishment.

As for hubby....................he has had 2 more episodes with his nose.  If he is no better by Monday, I will call his Dr to see if she wants to see him or send him to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist.  So, please, say a little prayer that today there will not be anymore nose bleeds at my house.  I will say, he is feeling much better now other than the nose thing, so that is a plus.

Until next time.........................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS:  Has anyone heard if there is going to be a place to sign up for NaBloPoMo this year?  I would love to give it a try and see if I can succeed.  (National Blog Posting Month)  I may just go ahead and try it on my own anyway.  It will be quite a challenge since I already know I will be away from home for 5 days of November, but I am sure I can still manage a small blog post those days.

Playing catch up

The past couple of days have been so busy.  I don't know where the time went.  Well, yes I do but can not believe I hardly have anything to show for all I feel I did.

Wednesday evening, hubby and I finally got to go out for our anniversary dinner.  That was at 8 pm and the place we went closed at 9.  We just ordered appetizers since it was so late. When we got home, we watched a little TV and that was all of our big celebration.  We are such an exciting couple.

Thursday came early for us.  We had a Mass said for my father in law, who passed away 10 years ago.  Mass was at 8 am!  It takes me almost 2 hours for my joints to function in the mornings.  The 5:30 wake up was not a welcomed thing but oh well.........I managed.  Prayer Shawl ministry was at 9:30 but I was available to help set up since I was already on the church grounds.  We received 23 shawls from another church and we had to go through them to sew our tags and medals on them.  There were some that were way too small again too.  Guess who has 2 more shawls to enlarge...........yup.........I need to learn to say no.  Unfortunately, some of the other members just wanted to toss them away.  I was appalled.  they are perfectly fine items that just need a bit more TLC.

When I got home, I noticed hubby was sounding funny.  Great...........he was getting sick.  He said it was allergies.  FINE!  I went to visit my mom ( that's another long story) Let's just say she has deteriorated mentally in the past 2 weeks.  I was shocked at what I saw and was validated when I spoke to the nurse about it.  I will be calling her Dr on Monday to see where we go from here.  When I got home.........hubby sounded horrible.  I called and got him a Dr appointment for this morning.  I was not going to go through the weekend with him being miserable.

Thursday evening, I went to adoration and left the sick man at home.  He slept in his recliner so he could breath.  I know he did not sleep well,  Its hard to get comfy when you have a hard time breathing.

We made it to the Dr appointment and he was diagnosed with a Man Cold. (Very different from a woman's cold)  She still gave him antibiotics for prophylactic reasons as she could tell it was going to get much worse.  Sure enough, by noon, it had moved to his chest.  He is blowing, sneezing, coughing and right now we are dealing with a bloody nose that doesn't want to coagulate and he is refusing to go to the urgent care.  MEN!!!!!!!

I have dinner cooking.  We were supposed to have our friend over tonight for dinner , needless to say we cancelled that since he has heart issues.  I am still going to take dinner over to him though.  I have pork chops in the oven, rice in the rice cooker and mini apple cheesecakes in the fridge.

Nothing says fall like something with apples.  This was a super easy dessert to make.  I made a double batch so hubby and I could have them for a few days. Everything should be ready in about 30 minutes.  

If the bleeding has not stopped after food is done, we are going to urgent care.  And, NO, he is not on blood thinners or aspirin.  He just bleeds easily.  His blood work is all perfect so we do not know why.  I was really hoping for a glass or two of wine tonight.  Oh Well.

I am working on prayer shawls this week and hoping to get all of them done his week.  I have 2 to enlarge and 2 of my own to complete.  Fingers crossed that things quiet down for the rest of the weekend.  I have so many things on my to do list and it is backed up.

Food is about done.

Until next time...................Happy Crafting!!!!!!!!!!!

42 and counting

It seems impossible that I have been married for 42 years.  My hubby and I were introduced by my ex-sister in law.  We dated for 4 months and BAM......................married.  We have a blended family.  He had 2 children and I had one when we got married.  We had another child together a couple of years into the marriage.  We have been blessed by 7 grandchildren and love our 'large' family.  We seldom get to have the entire family together due to being spread out all over the USA, though.

This morning I had a nail appointment and when I returned home, I found this waiting for me.

Such a lovely bouquet and with my favorite yellow roses to boot!  What a special guy.

He really liked his statue and knew right away it was Jack Black design and was so touched that I remembered how much he likes Jack Black.

Yesterday afternoon, I had to take the Grand's friend home.  She was feeling so awful and I have a feeling she was getting quite ill.  I just pray the Grand doesn't get it.  I have been sanitizing her room and washing all the linens in there.

I took the Grand home last night.  She was so happy to see her parents and be back to her things and her bed.  I know just how she feels.  I get the same way when we are away for a while.

I was asked to share my Chicken Taquito Recipe.  I must tell you, last night is the first time I have ever made them.  No one complained and there were no leftovers either.  So here is how I made them.

1.5 lb of well trimmed chicken.  (I used boneless skinless thighs or you can use boneless                                                          skinless breasts too)

1 tsp season salt

1 tsp cumin

1 cup chicken broth

18 corn tortillas

shredded cheddar cheese

Optional:

Salsa

guacamole

sour cream

cut up chicken into large chunks.  Place in crockpot (I used a 2.5 quart) and sprinkle with season salt and cumin.  Add broth and stir to mix in the spices.  Set to low and cook for 4 hours.  Shred the chicken and leave in the crockpot on warm until ready to use.  When ready to make the taquitos, drain the chicken well.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Warm the tortillas either in a pan or in the microwave.  To warm in the microwave place 2-4 tortillas between damp paper towel and heat for 45 seconds.  Put about 2 Tsp of chicken on one edge of the tortilla and sprinkle with cheese.  Roll up as tight as possible and lay it on a baking sheet.  Do this until all the chicken is gone.  Place baking sheeting in the oven for 15 minutes or until the tortillas have browned and gotten a bit crispy.

Serve with salsa, sour cream and guacamole or any other garnish you may desire.  Enjoy!

My house is so quiet right now. Hubby has taking our friend shopping at Costco.  The dogs are napping and here I am, updating my blog.  I think I will go and read for a little while and maybe even work on the socks some more.  I got 2 more pattern repeats done yesterday so progress has been made.

Until next time................happy crafting!!!!!!!!!!!!!