IT'S NOT EASY BEING ME

This is one of those days when I wonder why I bothered to get out of bed. I started ANOTHER new med yesterday, and this one makes me feel like I left my car and several articles of clothing at a dive bar on the wrong side of the tracks someplace, and that a small, rabid-yet-friendly possum slept on my face.

(I swear, if I survive this, I'm going to find a way to make sure that everybody who ever wants to get a medical degree has to at least try every drug they're going to prescribe at least once.)

Friday I will go to the hospital for a "gastric emptying" test, which I just described to my friend Gail as showing up at 8am, eating a radioactive egg salad sandwich, and then laying under a CT scan for four or five hours.

Really? 

We can put a man on the moon, but we can't figure out why one simple, portly-yet-loveable Midwestern Spinster can't manage to eat anything without making a terrifying runwaddle to the nearest ladies room?

Come on, people. Work with me.

I did, however, manage to finish another diamond painting. I know, I know. Not one damn stitch has been made on anything in any one of the fifty-eight baskets of stitching crap I have laying around here, but I'm in a bad headspace, Dearies. Something is definitely broken in there, and despite a small retail pharmacy's worth of pills, we haven't yet quite fixed it all. The new compound cocktail that I started yesterday, however, shows promise, so let's keep fingers crossed that as soon as the side effects clear I will be back to my non wig-flipping, non profanity-spewing, non remote control throwing, and non getting escorted out of the Targets Optical place happening (I swear it to be true), self.

(She looks friendly, right? But if you want to know just how completely bad it's been around here, ask Rich how many hours and minutes until he can flee on the train for his Christmas visit to New Jersey. 🙄)

Anywhoo...here's the diamond painting finish, Autumn Mandala from Paint With Diamonds:

I logged it into my little notebook (because I do things like that now), and then I stuck it in the book/portfolio thing that lives under my chair.

That's the last of the stash, so until I replenish my pin money fund, it's back to stitching or coloring I go! I do want to start playing with some Christmas things, even though the tree isn't up yet (Saturday, I promise), but at the same time, I also am feeling like a 7:30 bedtime with a book might not be too bad of an idea either.

Thanks for hanging in there with me, Dearies. This too shall pass...I know it will. I just need to keep doing all of the things they tell me to and stay out of trouble, I suppose, and we'll quickly be calling this a "blip of bother" in an otherwise wonderful year.

What's new in your neck of the woods? Come tell me all about it!

 

 

EIGHT YEARS WITH A BIG PIECE OF MY HEART MISSING

MEMORIES

Sometimes I like to look at my posts from years past.  This one is from November 13, 2009...15 years ago today. I still LOVE Laura J Perin designs, and need to do more of them:

Idaho Star

Laura J. Perin

18ct. mono canvas

Vineyard Silks, Silk&Ivory, Mandarin Floss, Ribbon Floss

Also...a little more progress on the Autumn Mandala diamond painting:

Off for my second cup of damn good, Dearies! Happy Futzingday!

SUNDAY...LOVELY SUNDAY

 

Hello, Dearies.

I've had a delightful, quiet, happy, healthy Sunday.  It started a bit late, but that's because I was up watching my Irish beat the Seminoles until the wee hours, and then the sun came into the window and across my pillow, and we all know how much I love to put my face in the sun while snoozing away in the big girl sleigh bed.

I finished the Autumn Birdhouse diamond painting on Friday night and am just so tickled at how much fun I'm having with these. The only one I've "framed" is the huge Village Under The Moon, but all I did was stick it in an inexpensive magnet frame from the Amazons and hang it on the front of my cabinet, because it wouldn't fit in my book.

(I have a book/portfolio that houses all of these finished pieces, and it lives under my chair.)

I started another Fall-themed DP...this one is called Autumn Mandala:

(It has a protective plastic covering on it, Dearies...that's why it looks so dull in the photo.)

I'll play with this for a few hours tonight as soon as my nails dry:

I'm back to using stickers/wraps...these are from an enormous gift of wraps that I received from a lovely stitchy friend. I know I've explained them before, but there are basically stickers that you apply to clean, dry, alcohol-wiped nails, and then after you've trimmed the excess, you add a nice clear top coat. I can usually get between 2-3 weeks out if them, and as long as I don't pick and remember to use my Solar Oil every night, my nail beds stay nice and healthy and the nails themselves grow long and strong.

For those of you convinced that I have abandoned the Good Ship Stitching, never fear. I spent the afternoon gathering and kitting four Christmas projects...one canvaswork WiP, two cross stitch WiPs, and a cross stitch do-over, but methinks I might wait a few more days and play with Autumn at Hawk Run Hollow just a bit longer. I'll reveal the Christmas projects later, but for now...

This will be a busy week and a rough week. Tuesday will be 37 years since my mom died, and then Thursday will be 8 years since I lost my Stewey. In between will be a few doctors' appointments and tests, and then Saturday will be the last Notre Dame home game.

Nothing else new to report, I'm afraid.  

How was your Sunday? Full of everything you wanted it to be, I hope! Come tell me all about it!

 

IT'S NOT EASY BEING ME...

 Holey Schmoley...recovery day is pretty rough thus far. 😱  But never fear, Dearies. I am from hearty peasant stock, and a few more cups of damn good and a vat of Tylenol will have me right as rain before you know it.

In the meantime...

IF YOU KNOW...YOU KNOW

OH...MY VERY DEAR DEARIES

I am always so overcome with love when I come to this here blog and see that you are sending me your thoughts and prayers and good wishes. 

Gobsmacked, really, since I am not feeling very much like somebody who deserves such lovely treatment...especially when you consider that I have been (and still am) a MAD. COW.

I'm not going to bitch and moan and complain about it here. God knows I'm doing enough of that in real life, and this is our Happy Place, right? But for those of you who are reallyreallyreally worried that it's something catastrophic...the truth is that I just don't know yet. The big game of Whack-a-Mole that is my medical life at the moment will continue with some tests this week that might get us closer to answers. 

So in the meantime, why not a quick little update on crap I've been up to when awake and upright(which has been about 6-7 hours in the afternoons). (Imagine the following as a moving picture display with some lovely music playing in the background):

That's it for now, Dearies. I'm sleeping, eating, slurping, reading, stitching, and diamond painting...pretty much in that order. Not a lot of any one thing, but enough to keep me going. BellyBean is still hanging in there (thank God), and he has endured a lot of poking and prodding and medication changes with courage and good humor.

Bear with me a bit longer, please. Until I feel better I might need to stay quieter than usual.

I love you...most sincerely...I do!

BACK IN A BIT, DEARIES

 

TUESDAY PLAN

 

VIEWER MAIL

Hello, Dearies, and Happy Saturday!

As I type, JB is doing his thing over on campus, I'm slurping my second cup of damn good, and the most beautiful cool and sunny day is happening right outside the bedroom window.

A few quick answers to notes, emails, and comments Yours Truly has received...

DIAMOND PAINTING : Yes. I really really like it, and to date I have completed a total of six canvases that now live happily in a book thingie that is kind of like a big scrapbook. (Note to self. Pressing finished stitchy pieces and then slipping them into an album-type book might be better than wadding everything up in a big box under the big girl sleigh bed). No. I haven't abandoned needlework as my favorite passtime, and no, Betty, I will not be selling/auctioning/donating/or trashing my needlework stash. Diamond painting is just something I tried and discovered that I a) liked and b) can do whilst this damn head of mine has the wobbles.

STITCHING : I seem to be able to stitch in very short spurts, mostly in the morning/early afternoon, so I continue to play with the Emily Call Autumn project. I really do love the colors of it...the details are here, since more than a few have asked: Chart is called "Cozy Autumn Medley" from Emily Call Stitching on etsy. (You purchase a pdf chart and can download it instantly.) Fabric is Autumn Squash from Colour & Cotton, as are all of the threads. (I belong to a monthly subscription service from C&C and receive fabric and threads from them, so whenever possible, I try to convert my projects so I can stitch from stash.) 

MY CRAZY HEALTH : Remember when they told me that life after transplant might be a constant calibration of meds to keep me in balance? No? Yeah, me neither.  To put it succinctly, at the moment I am a complete mess. The vertigo has ramped up, my once-quiet Crohn's disease decided to move back into my basement like a college kid home on break, and it seems that my 58 year old female self said "Hey! Watch this!" and decided to put every hormone in my body into a cocktail shaker and have a party. Add to all of this the decision to stop anti-anxiety and anti-depression meds, and throw some ridiculous seasonal allergies in there, and you've got a very fat, very tired, very dizzy, mean, weepy, frustrated, sick, dehydrated, angry, crazy lunatic, running to the bathroom every fifteen minutes, miserable, all over the place, exorcist spewing, head-spinning, banshee screaming, almost bald because her hair is falling out ... cow.

I. Am. Out. Of. Order.

I do appreciate your tips, tricks, suggestions, referrals, potions, lotions, herbs, recipes, and nuggets of wisdom, and I especially appreciate your thoughts and prayers. I made it over to the Grotto on my transplataversary, so fingers crossed that whatever Catholic voodoo thing happens there will kick in any minute now ... but as with all things Spinster, methinks we need to be patient.

I will see both primary care and gastro docs this week, as well as visit the lab and (hopefully) get results back from a Pharmacologist who is supposed to be able to corral all of these different meds and straighten it all out. So don't cry for me, Argentina. We'll get there. Eventually. 

IN THE MEANTIME : Let's drink coffee and talk of happy things. As soon as I get myself somewhat pulled together, I'm going to try to stitch a bit, sleep a bit, diamond paint a bit, and drink enough water to float a barge. I have a new stitchy project to kit up (a canvas work piece from Nancy's Needle) and a new diamond painting to distract me today. No Notre Dame football, but Phillies/ Mets at 4:00!

Happy Saturday, Dearies! Come tell me something fun that's blowing your skirt up today!

THE FRIDAY REPORT...A FINISH AND SOME PROGRESS

 

😮

 Sorry, Dearies...but I couldn't find one that said heiney. 

TRUTH

 

THREE YEARS...

Forgive me for repeating words I've already written, but I can't think of a better way to say it.  If you would have told me during the dialysis years that someday I would be celebrating THREE YEARS of a new life, I'm not sure I would have been able to believe it.

But.

A man I never met gave me the gift of a new life. I don't know his name, or his age, or his hometown, or his favorite color, or whether or not he was a husband, a brother, a father, or an uncle...but I know that he was loved, and I know that he was extraordinary.

In my heart I've named him Angel, and his is the first name I mention when I ask God to watch over those that have gone before me, and his gift is one of hundreds that I hope to be worthy of by living a good and grateful life.

Thank you, Dearies, for all of your love and support and prayers and encouragement and good wishes, and for a constant reminder that this life of mine is very blessed, indeed.

And thank you, Angel, for giving me a chance to live it to its very fullest.

 

FRIDAY

 

 

UPDATES ABOUND

Happy Monday, Dearies!

Thank you for all of your lovely notes and cards and comments asking how I'm feeling! They are so appreciated, and I confess that more than a few grateful tears have fallen all over the front of my old lady t-shirt.

Virtigo and I are still Besties, I'm afraid. I have been diligently taking the prescribed meds, drinking lots of water, and watching my blood pressure, etc...but alas...the room is still spinning. My entire medical team is on top of it, and they assure me that it will eventually pass, so my job is to exercise some patience and follow orders.

Betty is irked at my recent foray into diamond painting, but Betty is going to have to just go to bed. Enjoying diamond painting doesn't make me a lesser person, Betty. I'm sorry you don't like it, but I do, and it has provided a lovely change of pace when stitching has been too difficult for me to navigate while trying to hold onto the sofa.

So there.

Here's the latest:

Lots of questions about my affair with this:

I am not normally a flavored coffee kind of gal, but this had me at Butterscotch. I had quite a few rewards points to use (ahem), so I thought I might enjoy this for a Sunday treat.

Lovely. 

I did brew it along with a French Roast pod to cut the strength of it a bit, but as a change of pace, it definitely hit the spot. I added cream, but opted not to add any Truvia, and the overall sweetness of it was just perfect.

I busted out the crock pot with hopes that it would mean cooler temps, but we're not quite there yet. Despite rain and cloud cover, the temps stayed high enough that the a/c stayed on.

What's in that magical little ball of goodness?

Mexican shredded beef, which was then made into nachos:

And on the stitching front:

 

The alphabet is coming along very nicely, thank you. I know that once it's complete, the tree and bottom checkerboard will go pretty quickly, so fingers crossed that we'll have a FeeNee soon!

So that's that, my dear sweet friends. I hope you're all well and safe and happily entering Fall! Come tell me all about what's new and exciting in your neck of the woods!