This week

Well, Elsa arrived Saturday before noon.  We had a lovely weekend.  We went to town for lunch.  We stopped in the Village because i wanted to go to the scrapbook store for some paper.  She & i worked in her room (cat-free) for most of the afternoon.  She's making a baby quilt for Ellen (wish i'd taken a pic of it) & i was using the paper for an art project.  We later got some tamales from a restaurant we like & brought them home.  Watched TV in the evening.   


Sunday we went to the ELCA church.  Then to our "after Church" routine of eating at Mountain Munchies.  We spent some of the afternoon garage sale-ing.  Came home & rested.  Duane & i made dinner.  We had pasta (quinoa) & Alfredo sauce, with mushrooms & broccoli.  Duane & Elsa also had biscuits & blackened chicken.  (I still need to clean the kitchen.  Today's goal.)  Watched more TV.


Oh, i also learned that Elsa does read my blog (i didn't know that) so i need to watch what i say!


She left Monday about 9 AM & i went to the knitting group.  Also did a little shopping in town.   Rested on Monday PM & did some on the art project.


Yesterday we went to the Farmer's Market.  Also picked up some items at the hardware store.  Ran a hose to water our plants more efficiently.  I spent much of the afternoon resting as i was bone tired.  Evening we watched TV & i worked on the art project.

(My computer quit on me today; i'm finishing this with Duane's.  No telling how long mine will be out of commission.)

Today we went to the movies at noon.  Then stopped for lunch.  Also a couple of other errands.  I'm still working on the art project, & am working at finishing the one baby blanket.  Hopefully by this weekend i'll have pics of both to post.  


Tomorrow i've got another knitting group.  Also i might go to the cooking demo at noon.  Depends on if i can find someone to join me.  :)  I've so many projects i want to work on this week.  Colder weather is suppose to be moving in tonight & tomorrow.  The high tomorrow is suppose to only be in the 50s, the low tonight &/or tomorrow night in the 20s.  (I started this in the morning, but because of the computer problem, i'm finishing now at nearly 11 PM.  According to the service we check, it is 49F out right now.)


Friday is our anniversary.  Not sure what we'll do during the day, but in the evening (well, 5.30) we have reservations for a fairly nice place in town, The Peppercorn.  


Saturday Duane is going down the hill to do helicopter training for SAR.  He is excited.  


Those are the plans thus far.  Not sure about Sat/Sun/Mon.  


The visit with the new doc went quite well.  I felt none of the red flags go up that i experienced with other docs recently.  He very much "gets it" for the fatigue & other issues.  I think he is reasonably familiar with the condition.  There are some areas of which he may not be as aware as i'd hope, but all indications are that he is willing & interested in learning.  I had a ton of blood drawn, & an appointment to see him again at the end of the month to go over those results.  We did have to pay out of pocket for some of the tests as my insurance (which i rarely use) wouldn't pay for them, but Duane & i decided that it would be best to have them run.  We feel that not to run tests he requests would be to tie his hands in trying to help me.


One of the tests is for food sensitivities.  I'll be honest, i'm a bit concerned about that one.  Frankly, it feels like my diet is already so very limited.  If i have to give up eggs, cheese, dairy in general, or nightshades, it will feel like i've not much left.  However, i do need to keep in mind that if it would help my functioning, then it would be worth it.  Also, that a week or two will not be enough time to evaluate.  I have the bad habit of not seeing a change after a short time, giving up.  I'm trying to keep in mind about what Dr. Cheney said about it taking at least a year.  Sigh.  :)  Rome wasn't built in a day, neither is good health after years of garbage.  (Not recent, but certainly in my 20s & 30s.)


When i was in town yesterday, i saw 2 different families at K-Mart.  Each had a child about the age our Kaylee would be.  They also had a younger one & the mama was pregnant as well.  I still find it hard.  I think i always will find it hard.  It doesn't seem to be getting any easier.  Yeah, i know, life is unfair.  

Then it hit me, with our anniversary coming up, we got pregnant with Kaylee right before our first anniversary.  It has been 5 years.  We lost her in October.  Five years!  It is hard for me to believe.  Have had 2 other very early losses.  I guess i always thought that if i was just patient, if we just "waited on the Lord" it would happen for us.  It is quite clear now that it never will. 

I'm late, quite late this month.  But i think that this is the start of what used to be called "the change of life."  When i've been pregnant before, i had very clear symptoms, particularly that my sense of smell was incredibly acute, almost super-human it seemed to me.  Nope, nada.  Of course, with my current functioning, i don't know how i'd even manage to carry a baby, much less take care of him.  We'd have to hire nearly full-time help, & we haven't the money for that.    


Hopefully in the next couple of days (my computer will be fixed!) i will have pics to post of all the projects i'm working on.


To finish with something funny, check out this blog:  The Lutheran Chik  Very, very funny banner she posted.  You'd think a church would have a better idea!  :p


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Create?

Gitz is one of my favorite bloggers.  She is uplifting & upbeat & up about everything.  :)




She's begun a "You : Create" series, today is the first day.  So here are some pics.

 I've shared these before.  They are a project i'm working on, but haven't gotten very far with yet.  (I did try to sew one of the bottom ones up.  Utter disaster.  Going to have to work at it harder.)

 The only other thing i can create today is playing with Photoshop Elements & seeing what i can do with this squirrel.  I took this pic a week or so back as this little guy was  sitting on the deck nomming down an almond.  (I just realized this is Mister Three Paws.  He is missing his R hind paw, but seems to get around just fine.  In fact, he is "top squirrel" of the very competitive squirrel community.)

 These started to all look the same to me, especially in thumbnail.  But it was fun.  I need to learn how to use PSE more efficiently.  

Go check her out & the other things folks have created.  :) 

Eva is in So Cal (with Elsa).  They will arrive to be with us on Sunday AM.  Yeah!  :)



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Mostly pics

This is the "path" we took Saturday evening in that Jeep.  All the way to the X where we found we couldn't get out & then back again.  We then got onto the road at the bottom of this pic, headed W (left) & back down to the main road.  As you can see from this pic, we were surrounded by town roads all around.  I can honestly tell you, however, it felt like we were out in the middle of nowhere, those hills were steep, & if we'd had to walk out i would have had a hard time with it.  And it was cold! The snow storm was moving in.

This is the placemat i took for a pattern.  My MIL likes the size & shape, but they are getting worn & the color isn't quite right for her dining table.  

This is what i've completed so far on one placemat.  It will never be finished.  

• I can clearly see that these won't be done until Christmas or so, & i just don't want to devote that much time to them.  
• It is a simple pattern, but needing constant counting & if i mess it up, the mistake is very apparent to me & i don't want to pull out a lot of rows to fix it.  Others might not notice the mistake, but every time i sat at the table i would.  
• The only yarn i could find that matches well is 20% wool.  I'm allergic to wool.  I thought with only 20% i could manage.  My hands have been fine, but my eyes itch the whole time i'm working with this.  
• Time, again.  I just don't want to devote this much time to something i just don't think that important. 

So i bought some fabric & figure i'll do a simple quilting pattern.  I'm not 100% sure about the colors (the green might be a bit bluer in her dining chairs), but i think it will work.  I cut some of the pieces to try out how it will work. 

This pattern is called "around the world."  There is a "simple" way to do it, but for the first one i went ahead & cut all the squares to lay it out to see how it looks.  I learned i didn't have enough fabric, & i don't want to do this pattern.  I probably will do one of these as a thingy for the center of the table, or i might do a runner with the pieces.  But i'm not going to do this for the placemats.

I didn't like the way the top two came out with wider strips.  So i tried doing narrower strips, moving out from a center line.  I think i like this bottom one best.  The strips will be 1 inch wide.  This is just a general layout for an idea of what the finished project will look like.  

Mac was being silly yesterday.  He jumped up on the hamper thingy, then on top of the gas heater to get up on one of the beams.  Nowhere to go from there.   

I checked the trees today.  The pear tree doesn't look like it was much effected by the snow.  The apple still looks hopeful that we might get some fruit anyway.  Neither of the peach trees is doing anything, but that was true before the snow.

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