what to do, what to do??

Fri, 16 May 2008 12:26:50 GMT

I've been going back and forth in my mind trying to decide what to do with the blog. do I keep it here or do I use my blogspot blog. They both have advantages and disadvantages. I may go back and forth between the two. Here is the link to my other blog:http://splinters-and-threads.blogspot.com/

Let me know which one you like better.

I have SO much to do today. I can't believe that Bryce graduates from high school in 2 weeks! It seems just yesterday as if I was walking across that stage at the same school. After living in many areas of the world, I never thought I would end up back in Merkel Texas. blech! But, family is here and the best husband in the world is here.

I'm sitting here watching tv and all the hubbabaloo about Barrack calling people "sweetie." My goodness, that is a common everyday term here in the "south and southwest". It's not condescending at all. It is a term of endearment. I can't believe the things that reports pick to make a big deal about when there are much more important issues on the table. ooo, I'm getting too close to stepping on my soapbox. =)

My plate is SO full! There has been so much that has happened over the last several weeks and so much soon to come. Last wednesday, as I was eating a bowl of granola cereal, I thought some got wedged in between some teeth, so when I went to flick it out, it was a big chunk of my tooth! Michael looked at it and said there were fractures all over it. Pieces kept just falling out over and over. I was supposed to get up early Thursday morning and leave for a quilt show in Arlington. Praise the Lord that I have a great friend who is a fabric rep. She happened to be on her way back after making some rounds and was staying with mom for the night. She said that she would set my booth up for me while I stayed behind and get my tooth fixed. I was able to get a 2:30 appointment. They didn't get to me until 5. I sat in the chair reclined all that time.....very impatiently. Long story short, it took 45 minutes to extract my tooth after numerous novacaine shots in my mouth. I drove to Arlington as the novacaine was wearing off and took a hydrocodone when I arrived at my destination. =) Then 2 days of quilt show and pack back up and head home. Got home after midnight but my arms were hurting so bad and the muscles twitching that I couldn't go to sleep until about 3. Hubby and kids let me sleep in Sunday while they went to church. Spent the rest of the day with family. Monday was spent putting together 65 kits for the quilt guild. YEA!!! My LAST meeting that I am responsible for the programs. I'm ready to be a peon again.

Tuesday was spent filling orders.

Wednesday morning was Morgan's CT scan. (He's the 5 year old). He did really well. On the way to WalMart to do grocery shopping and pick up prescriptions, I called mom and she mentioned that my dad was in town getting his hearing test done for hearing aids. That reminded me that I needed to talk with the VA to have a re-evaluation on the disability on my back. I had called several places and got the run around (so typical). I finally found the right place, We got the resquest for re-evaluation sent off. He asked me about other things that I had been to the doctor to while I was on active duty. There are quite a few different things, so hopefully all of those will be disability worthy. One of them is my feet. I had hairline fractures in them when I was in Japan and have never been the same since. I can't wear the cutesy shoes or heels. I have to wear either crocs or z-coils. Even tennis shoes (many different kinds) hurt my feet.

Thursday was busy...worked on orders and updating site. Doctor's office called about Morgan's CT scan. His ear infection is only in his left ear now, but still have the sinusitis and infected mastoids. They are improving, but not gone. So, they prescribed him another 20 days of antibiotics. It didn't hit me until about an hour later that the prescription the nurse mentioned was the first prescription he was on that we couldn't get him to take (augmentin). I called the office (of course got an answering machine....grr) and left her a message that he wouldn't take that one. So, I'm keeping him on the Bactrim until I can talk to the doctor. Mom was over here today and I had her try both of them. The augmentin almost takes your breath away, even with just a little tip of it on your tongue. I can't stand it, no wonder he can't. Mom said it tastes like it has paragoric in it. It burns to me, so I can only imagine on a 5 year old what it feels like.

Friday was busy digitizing and stitching out all the faces of the winner ribbons for our quilt show. I had 26 of those to do. Mom ended up doing a few of them. They took 40 something minutes each to stitch out. I was working on getting Bryce's graduation announcements done. Went to scan a picture of him and my scanner won't work. grr. Why is it always something?????? He graduates from high school in two weeks! I'm not ready I don't feel old enough. today has been spent taking care of kids, filling orders, taking inventory. Does life ever slow down? I still have to do taxes for the past 2 years and can't find the time to do that. i have to before Bryce (17) can apply for financial aid. CALGON!!!!!!!

For those of you that pray, keep me in your prayers. My arms have been hurting terribly lately. It's a combination of both the carpal tunnel and tennis elbow. they hurt so much that it affects my sleep. The muscles twitch in them. The pain shoots down into my shoulders and behind my shoulder blades. I'm going to try to take it easy for the rest of the evening (just a couple hours) and tomorrow too. I got a massage pad that you put in your chair for mother's day. It sure does feel good, so will spend some time on that and hopefully relax. i am dying to digitize but have other things to do. Oh yea, I'm writing a booklet too that has to get finished soon. I didn't get it done Monday on time to include in the kits. It will be a great source for basic dying, painting, batiking, and discharge dying.

Kids are so funny. I cooked chicken spaghetti the other night. I'll put the recipe here after I finish writing this. It was yummy. =) as i was cooking it, Blake (11) asked why I was cooking so much. I replied, "Because you boys eat so much." He laughed and said, "you got me there mom. You are right." LOL Wednesday night we were having our Bible time and I took it in a different direction instead of reading from the story book. I had found a website that had colors and shapes that represented different things. Only Marshall (6) and Morgan (5) were home that night for the study, so it was a good time to do that. Here is the site: http://www.cherbearsden.com/eastertots.html We got to the diamond and Morgan blurts out, "Actually, it is a rhombus." Michael (my hubby) shot me a look like WHAT????!!!! i told him it was the geometrical name for a diamond. LOLOL Morgan is too smart. Last weekend Michael took the boys to the air force base for the air show that was open to the public. They had planes there for them to go in and see what they were. Morgan read "Emergency Exit". We think he can read and doesn't even realize it because he has done it many times. When you ask him, he can't tell you, but he'll read things out of the blue and be right. His teacher said that she suggests that he skips kindergarten and go straight to first grade. I said no because that would put him and Marshall in the same grade. I feel that doing that might affect Marshall negatively and I don't want to do that.

Okay, signing off. I have my mind full of things that I want to do, but life keeps getting in the way. I wanna digitize. =)

Blessing in Disquise

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:39:20 GMT

April 3 I sent the following:

My life the last 2 months have been a total whirlwind. I've had 3 quilt shows to vend at (was supposed to be 4 - I backed out of one of them), hosted a quilt retreat, and attended several funerals. One of the funerals was the first day of our quilt retreat. The first death was a friend's husband killed in a car wreck, another was a friend's mom died to diabetes, another friend husband died to COPD and other complications, my dad's aunt died, class mates of mine lost their 9 year old to flu and the next day a friend's mother in law died. The last 4 deaths were within a week of each other. During that time I found out I may have fibromyalgia...for sure have chronic fatique and high blood pressure (on meds for that now). Also, my youngest son has a hearing loss that we have to get seen about. His Dr appointment is Thursday. I'm SO tired of bad stuff!!!!!!!

I sent the following Tues, April 8 to friends and family:

Hi Ya'll,
I'm writing from the hospital. Let me start off by saying that a little over a week ago they did routine hearing tests at school on Morgan (he is the youngest, just turned 5 last month). He did not pass his hearing test. So, I set an appointment with the doctor and we went in last Thursday. The reason for not hearing well was because he has a double ear infection. No fever, not fussy, a little bit of a cough every now and then, no runny nose....nothing! Completely asymptomatic. We started him on an antibiotic treatment. I got a call from the school today saying that Morgan had fallen and had scraped his forehead above his eye and then turned white and started throwing up. My oldest son was only a block from the school, so he picked him up and brought him home (saving 20 minutes). As soon as they got home, he was throwing up more and was non-responsive to me. I am not a mom that freaks out at every little boo boo, but I knew something was wrong with him! I called the doctor, they said to come in. Got in the car and could not get Morgan to stay awake for anything. Called my mom and she met me on the way to the doctor to try to keep him awake. With a waiting room full, they got us in right away (which is a shock). The doctor came in and saw that his eyes were starting to roll back into his head, was non responsive, couldn't keep his eyes open and couldn't focus. After not getting a response, he said to take him across the street (hospital) to the children's ward. They would start an IV drip, do a cat scan and have a neurologist look at him. Mom and I were even more freaked out by that point. They got his cat scan done right away and back into the room. He never cried when they put the IV in him but he still would not respond at all to the nurses. You could tell that they were even worried. My step sister met us in pediatrics. She is a pediatrics RN about to be FNP. After 2 hours I finally got one response from him but haven't had any more since then. The neurologist came in and said the cat scan was clear, no bleeding on the brain. About an hour later his regular pediatrician came in. Here is the part that I mean by God working in mysterious ways. He said that when they did the cat scan they saw that his ear infection is much worse than he thought, he has sinusitis, and his mastoids were infected. That is what is causing his loss of hearing. BUT had we not found it now, he very easily could have completely lost his hearing. So, even though he has a concussion, thank the Lord that they found these other things. He's been asleep for several hours and is on an IV drip with major antibiotics. They want to monitor him for 48 hours.

Keep him in your prayers. He's such a sweet little boy that loves the Lord.

Gina

And I sent the following last night, April 10:

We've been home about 2 1/2 hours. It is so nice to be writing you from my own bed. =)

He will be on antibiotics for 20 days and then we have an appointment for him to have another x-ray to see if the infection is gone. I did some investigating of his infections with the mastoid. The infection quickly disintergrates the bones.....in a matter of 10 - 14 days. we were told that this type of infection often goes undetected because of the lack of symptoms. We were that close to him losing his hearing completely. He was on antibiotics for an ear infection before this happened, but they weren't strong enough to take care of all the infections that he had. We wouldn't have known until his hearing was almost gone that he had the infection if it weren't for the concussion. We do think that he suffered a minor hearing loss, but not to the extent that it could have been.

I want to thank everyone for your prayers, thoughts of well wishes and all the emails of support. You guys are awesome and I love you.

Online resources

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:12:01 GMT

I posted the following a couple of days ago. yep, put it in the wrong spot. LOL

You Tube is well known for having all kinds of videos from wacky and silly to sad and somber to those aspiring to be the next american idol. Have you ever thought of You Tube for a resource for quilting and embroidery?? There is a fantastic 3 part video by well known quilter Sharon Schamber. She shows a way to do binding that is fabulous. For so many of us quilters, binding can really become an issue to get it perfect. Sharon has the secret: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PE0Yq9iGlc

While you are there, look at this amazing quilt that one lucky viewer won. The quilting on it is exquisite: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bqXrITMKY8

Sharon has a total of 36 videos listed on You Tube. It is definitely worth your time to view these: http://www.youtube.com/user/SharonSchamberNet

Eleanor Burns has joined the in the You Tube madness. If you have had to opportunity to see Eleanor in person, you know what a fun person she is. She is definitely one of the leading experts in the field. She has several videos on You Tube. You can see them here: http://www.youtube.com/user/quiltinaday

While you are there, do a search for various quilting and embroidery topics. There are 1,030 embroidery related videos and 2,070 on Quilting. Some of the videos are on trapunto, MacTavishing, longarm quilting, etc. There are some fabulous videos for beginning quilters. You will defintiely need to set aside some time and have a pot of coffee on. You too will get bit by the You Tube bug. =)

Blogging

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:09:16 GMT

LOL. I wrote the following yesterday to post on this blog and I put it in the wrong spot. I tell ya, I'm no good at this blogging stuff. LOL

Gosh, I'm so bad at this blogging. I get so busy that I forget to add to my blog. Hopefully this will give me a little practice and get into the habit of writing quality content instead of just short blurbs. I can sure elaborate in person or on the phone, but with emails and blogs i have a tendency to be short and to the point. This sometimes can be mistaken as being curt. I certainly don't mean it to be that way at all. To know me is to love me. =)

A great blog

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 23:05:14 GMT

Joan Hawley has an awesome blog. If you haven't visited her blog, it is a definite must visit. She is informative and inspirational. Today's blog was about not stressing over adding a zipper. While you are there, peruse her site. She is a great person.

http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=983

Muse

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:41:26 GMT

Splinters & Threads Musings ...... What is a muse???

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Greek mythology, the Muses are a sisterhood of goddesses or spirits, their number set at nine by Classical times, who embody the arts and inspire the creation process with their graces through remembered and improvised song and stage, writing, traditional music, and dance. They were water nymphs, associated with the springs of Helicon and with Pieris, from which they are sometimes called the Pierides. The Olympian system set Apollo as their leader, Apollon Mousagetēs. Not only are the Muses explicitly used in modern English to refer to an inspiration, as when one cites his/her own artistic muse, but they are also implicit in the words "amuse" or "musing upon".^[2]

So, as you can see, a muse is an inspiration. Want to see my muses??? Look HERE

Welcome to my blog and to my website. I hope I can get used to this blogging thing. LOL

Moving Blog to my own space

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:37:54 GMT

I am moving from my old blog to this new and improved area. =)

To see my previous posts, please visit http://splinters-and-threads.blogspot.com

Welcoming post

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:33:48 GMT

Welcome to my new forum. I think this will be a fun place to visit. Please let me know your thoughts.

Greeting from Starwel Group, LLC

Wed, 28 Dec 2005 07:00:00 GMT