Week 28 of the 7th year

Good day to all my readers.  It has been a roller coaster of a ride this week.  I will say, it has not been boring around here.

I was able to get a bit of crafting done this week.  But just a bit.

Hermione Sock was my only project I worked on.  I got the FLK heel done and have about 2 more inches of the foot to do before I start the toe.  Then I have the second sock to start and complete.

I was able to get into my craftroom this week and do a bit of cleaning in there this week.  That is kind of our catch all room when we need to get stuff out of the way and out of sight.  It felt good to be in there working.  My DIL's mom brought down 2 large garbage bags of yarn for my friend and I to go through and then the rest we are donating to the prayer shawl ministry at our church.

This is most of the yarn I selected.  I have 3 partial skeins that will be going into a shawl and then 2 skeins of a cotton blend for dishcloths.  My friend took 99% of the Vanna yarn for her toy making.  I still had over 1/2 of a bag full of yarn which I took and caked up to make it look nicer and neater.  

Once our lives get back into some semblance of order, I am hoping to be doing more knitting than is happening right now.  We have had 4 days of no company and we are once again having our house filled with relatives.  It is all my hubby's side of the family coming to visit his mother.

My MIL is still in the hospital with her stroke.  Her brain is still bleeding and 2 days ago she had a heart attack.  (not sure how severe at this point, tests still being done.)  We thought we would be loosing her soon so the call went out to all the family to come and visit.  Our son from Seattle arrived yesterday as well as a brother from New Mexico.  The son leave today and a sister arrives from Colorado.  Not sure who else or when the others are coming.  I have 2 nieces arriving today also.  Most everyone should be back home by the end of the week and then we can try and settle into some kind of new normal.

We think my MIL will be discharged this week to a skilled nursing facility.  I am searching for one that I approve of.  So many of them have bad reports.  We still need to get her strong enough so we can transport her back to Nevada.  Not sure if this will happen or not.  The Dr's said we could loose her as early as in 2 weeks depending on her heart and brain.  Hence the reason everyone is coming down now to see her.

As for me and my grief..................that got cut really short because of all that is happening with my MIL.  My mom is still in storage (That sounds so awful).  Seems the Medical Examiner wants to go over her records before he releases her for her final destination.  I am a bit upset and angry over this.  I have calls into the ME's office and I will continue to call daily until I have an answer as to why they are doing this to a 90 year old woman.  They will come to know my name before this is all over.

Hubby has left to go to Mass (I went last night).  Brother in Law is up and having some coffee with me.  Think I will go and work some more on my sock and try and figure out how the day 'might' go.  My bullet journal has really helped me with keeping my 'to do' list straight and journaling my feelings.  

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

Wednesday

I am super blue today.  I have cried, screamed and thrown things.  The grief has started.  It hurts a lot.  

2018 FINALLY

Happy New Year, friends and family.  I hope this finds all of you healthy, warm, happy and loved.

We had a small gathering of friends and family yesterday for a little football party.  Hubby and I did not get to enjoy it for long because....................................We ended up rushing hubby's mom to the emergency room.  I am glad we went as quickly as we did as it turns out she had a hemorrhagic stroke.

I am beyond numb now.  MIL (Mother in law) is now in the ICU Neurology unit at a hospital that is 20 miles from our home.  That is the only hospital with a stroke unit that had any beds available.  It took 8 hours just to get that bed for her.  The flu is rapid here and the hospitals are overflowing with sick sick sick people.  The hospital she is at is an excellent place and is well known for it care and advances in medicine.  It is also a teaching hospital so you know it has to be good.

We have no idea how long she is going to be there.  We figured for at least a few more days.  Then they will decide if she is a candidate for rehab or what.  Right now they are testing her to see if she can swallow.  They are also doing CT scans to keep an eye on the bleed in her brain.  Her speech has been affected horribly and her walking is pretty much non existent too.

Please say a prayer for our family.  We are in need of strength right now and the courage to face what ever challenges lie ahead of us.

Here she is with our local Grand Daughter on the 30th!  What a difference 24 hours makes.  And NO!!!!!!!!!!  Our Grand is not a giant, my MIL is barely 5 feet tall.

Until next time....................Happy Crafting.............which is what I am going to go and do now.

Week 27 of Year 7

Another week has flown by.  Today will end the year 2017 for us.  Good Bye 2017, not my favorite year, to say the least.  Loosing my mom this past Tuesday was the final straw.  I am looking forward to 2018.  May it bring all of you happiness, health and lots of crafty goodness.

Since this past week was pretty emotional for me, I only worked on my sock.  It is slow going and I am no even finished with the leg yet.

Cruddy picture, but then, not much natural light at 4 in the morning.  I asked last week if any of you recognized the pattern I choose to remake.  Not one of you even tried to guess.  This is the Hermione Sock.  This is such an easy pattern to memorize and works so well with all kinds of yarn from solid to super patterned or striped.  I am not working the socks concurrently this time.  I didn't take the time to wind the yarn into 2 cakes.  I got lazy.  Hopefully I don't fall prey to second sock syndrome.  

My daughter in law's mom brought over 2 large bags of yarn, yesterday.  I went through them last night and scored about 10 skeins of super soft yarn that I will be making into either shawls or lapghans for our prayer shawl ministry.  I was so excited to go through all that fiber goodness.  (no photos yet)

Today we are having a get together with our dear friends from Las Vegas.  We are doing very simple food this year.  I have not been in the mood to do mega cooking, so my phone did it for me.  We ordered fruit trays and a 4 foot sub sandwich.  We will be making a meat and cheese tray as well as a veggie tray.  There will also be chips and dip and hubby's homemade salsa.  

While the guys watch loads of football, us ladies will be knitting away and laughing.  I will have my friend go through the bags of yarn to see if she lusts  wants any of it too.  There is quite a bit of chunky yarn and she does quite a bit with that.  There is also a lot of Vanna's yarn, which will be perfect for her toy making she loves to do.

Hubby's mom came down with his brother on Friday for a short visit.  They are leaving on New Year's Day to go home.  My Brother left yesterday morning to go home.  So I had a full house for 1 night.  I am ready for everyone to leave so I can have some down time and be allowed to grieve in private.  I am not good at crying in front of others, so I have bottled up my emotions for the past 5 days.  I can feel them coming to the surface and trying to leak out of my eyes.  I need time.......I need quiet......I need to grieve......I need to find my new normal.

For 2018, I have made my own bullet journal.  Last year I bought a ready made one and so enjoyed using it.  This time, I knew what I wanted as far as journaling.  I figured with a lovely blank journal book, a ruler, stickers, washi tape and some writing instruments, I could design, my own the way I wanted it.  I will be doing daily 'to do' lists and making notes on feelings or ideas for the day.  I am keeping it simple for the first couple of weeks to see how it goes.  I can always change up the way I design it.  This will be fun as well as new territory for me.  My drawing skills are lacking, so there will not be art work like many of my blogging buddies do.  

I still use my; craft, recipe, prayer and reading journals.  I find having separate journals for specific areas of my life works much better for me.  They are all in a lovely basket by my knitting space.  

This year is, once again, going to see me decluttering/organizing my home.  We are planning on finishing up the remodel this year so..................it is the perfect time to get rid of 'stuff' that is clogging up my life.  My home is not messy.......don't think that.  But I have a lot of 'stuff' that is unnecessary in every room of my house.  It is time to part ways with it and be happy with having the necessities of life at the ready.  Hubby gets a little twitchy when I head to the book cases......It's kind of funny to watch.  Yet, I have 5 bookcases full of books and there is NO need for that.  I am not talking about children bookcases.  I am talking about 6 feet tall by 4 feet wide cases.  And NO................I do not have a 'library room' in my house.  My journal will come in quite handy for this!

That wraps up my blogging for 2017.  A big hug to all my readers.  You make it all worth while to put my thoughts and feelings on here.

Until next time/year.........................Happy Crafting!

Tough One

It is just around 3:30 in the morning here.  I can not sleep.  Sleep has been escaping me for the past couple of days.  Maybe I should rephrase that................I was sleeping but woke up around 3 with tears streaming down my face.  They won't stop.  My heart is hurting too.  The past 2 days have been surreal to me.

Most of my family left yesterday.  My brother has stayed with me for a few more days to help me get through some very tough decisions.  We both are grieving for this lady:

This is our mom.  Our rock, or matriarch, our champion in everything.  She left us Tuesday afternoon to be with her Lord.  Words can not express the empty hole I have in my heart at the moment.  It doesn't seem possible that I will no longer be going to see her twice a week or that I will be calling her to ask her about a knitting problem or a cooking issue.  In the past few years, we had become extremely close.  We formed a bond that I never thought would happen.  We became friends..............best friends.  And while, she could irritate the stuffing out of me, I know I could do the same to her.

We were so fortunate to have been able to celebrate her 90th birthday with her on Monday.  She was surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great grand children.  She was in great spirits and enjoyed all the attention she got and the gifts that she received.  It was such a lovely time with her.  She even blew out her candles on her cake.

When I got a call on Tuesday that she was being sent to the hospital because of breathing issues and extreme pain, I was stunned.  She had been fine the day before other than the pain where her fractures were.  I was even more shocked when I received a call 90 minutes later to let me know she had passed away.  I had been told by her Doctor NOT to go to the ER with her because of all the cases of the flu here.  (I have a compromised immune system)  I am so glad all of her great grand children got to see her one more time on Monday.  I am so thankful my brother has stayed behind to help hubby and myself with cleaning out her things and helping with her arrangements.

It will be a while before we take her to her final resting place.  She is to be interned in Kansas.  I had warned her, if she passed away in the winter, she would be sitting on my mantel until it thawed out back there.  So her services will be held sometime in the spring in her home church with all her friends back there.  In the mean time, I will have her in my house where I can look at her lovely butterfly urn and remember all the memories we made in the past 10 years when she moved to my town.

So, if you have a living parent...........give them an extra hug today.  Give them a hug from me.  Tell them how much you love them.  Forgive them for their faults (there is no parent handbook).  Listen to the stories of their youth.  Acknowledge the fact, their life was way harder than yours, growing up.  You will be thankful you did all this when they leave you.  I am thankful I did.

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

Year 7 Week 26

 

Merry Christmas everyone!  I did not forget to post this week.  Bet you thought I was going to miss it LOL.  Just a little busy and not the best kind either.  Will get into that later.  Let's see what has been crafted on this week.

If you missed my post earlier this week..........The Petty Harbour socks are completed and have been worn already.  He loves them.

I could not think of anything new I wanted to cast on so I pulled this out:

The Faroese Prayer Shawl.  I put about 6 rows on it.  But.........it just could not hold my attention.  So I cast this on:

Socks!!!!!!!  I just can not stand m sock DPN's laying around without some yarn on them.  I cast these on the 22nd.  That means I was 4 days without socks on my needles.  Shameful, right?  If you have an aversion to wool, as I do, I suggest you try Naked Sock yarn.  It wears like iron and has a nice cushiness to it.  There is also a lovely stretch to it that makes it great to work with.  

Question:  Can anyone guess which pattern I making this time?  (Hint: I have made it before)

Onto life happenings:

My family all arrived safe and sound on Saturday the 23rd.  I was thankful for that.  We were all pretty excited about Mom's surprise party on Sunday.  But................Mom decided to surprise us instead.

She fell out of her wheelchair Saturday evening.  I received a phone call around 6pm that evening from her to let me know and she  said her bum was really sore.  We were not too concerned as she fell on the side that has a titanium hip in it.  Alas, Sunday morning, she said the pain was a lot worse so she asked to be taken to the hospital for xrays.  For hours later we find out she has fractured her pelvic bone in 2 spots.  They are keeping her at the hospital for a day or 2 just for pain management.  I ended up telling her we had planned a surprise party for her but DID NOT tell her who all is in town to celebrate.   We are hoping she will be released today or tomorrow and we will all gather with her at her facility and still have a party for her.  Fingers crossed........the family is leaving on Wednesday and really would like to spend some time with her.

We are all gathering at my Son's house for dinner today.  I am really looking forward to all of us being together.  I am getting my camera all ready for some candid photos of the day.

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

Last normal day

This will be my last normal day until next year.  The family starts to arrive tomorrow afternoon.  We won't be home when they do.  LOL  We will make sure they can get in the house by leaving a key with a neighbor.

Here is what our next few days look like.

23rd...........Open house at our Daughter's and Son in Law's.  We will attend Mass on that side of town for the 4th week of Advent.  They live about an hour away from us.  Brother and Niece arrive in town too.

24th............Pick up bday cake from Costco at 10.  Call discount cab to make sure they will be at my mom's to pick her up by 1:30 for her party.  Shhhhhhhh......it's a surprise.  Party with the family and friends from 2 to 5:30.  Attend Mass at our church for Christmas Day Obligation.  Open house with our oldest friends from our church.  Come home and CRASH!

25th................Christmas dinner at Son's and Daughter in Law's house with the whole family.

26th...............Family time with Niece's family of 5 and Brother's family of 2.  Maybe will get a nice walk in this day with my dogs.

27th...............Niece and family is leaving...............brother might leave.

28th..............Brother will for sure leave this day if he is still here

29th.................hurry up and clean the house again as Brother in Law from Vegas will probably be coming to stay with us for a few days.

30th..................Start prepping food for company

31st..................Annual party with good friends from Vegas.  Lots of food and love passed around all day.  Lucky for me, she is a knitter and we sit and knit while the guys watch football.  I have all the food pre-made and don't have to do anything once everyone gets here.  

January 1, 2018...........................Life will be back to normal again.

I have decided to go ahead and cast on another pair of socks.  Not sure when that will happen.  Maybe tonight while I am unwinding from my day of grocery shopping, laundry and rearranging our guest room.

I want to thank all of you for your prayers for my blood work.  It is getting better but not back to normal yet.  Please continue to pray.  Until my levels are normal again, I have had to go off all my Prescription drugs for my Arthritis.  I will just say that my body is not happy about that.  By 5 in the evening, my joints are screaming at me and they want drugs.  I am learning to deal with the pain (level being an 8) through prayer and concentrating on knitting.  

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