UGH-UST INTO SEPTEMB-AAAHHH

Stewey and I awoke to a crisp, breezy, sunny day.  It truly feels like I can come out of my little hovel now.  Thank you, dear friends, for all of your concern regarding my absence.  This was a lousy summer for Yours Truly, and although I have been decidedly unwell, methinks I will be on the mend soon.

What can I say?  I'm just too damn ornery to be sick.

The good news is that Stewey has found a new calling as a home health care aide.  He has become very adept at pulse monitoring (he stands on top of me while I'm sleeping and measures my breaths in and out on his little stopwatch), bathing (he has an afternoon snack on the bath mat while I soak in the tub), and medication dispensing (he stuffs all of my daily pills into a sesame bagel, but insists on a small piece of Virginia ham sliced to within one millimeter of paper thin as reward for not killing me by means of overdose.)

What's wrong with me, you ask?  Well. I suppose that I had hoped to remain an international woman of mystery, but the truth of the matter is that I am a kidney patient.  I have stage four FSGS, which means that I am one bad lab result away from starting dialysis.  I've had kidney disease for about thirteen years now, and have managed pretty well, but age is catching up with me and things are progressing pretty quickly.  I spent the last eight months on a drug called Acthar to see if we could slow things down a bit, but it doesn't appear to have worked, and I got the lovely parting gift of 30 pounds and the lovely side effects of powerful steroids.

I am also a thyroid cancer survivor and a Crohn's patient, so when I tell you that I've got more pills in me than a Walgreens, I'm not exaggerating by very much.  Needless to say, I am the poster child for autoimmune disorders.  

Which leads me to the conclusion that my parents were brother and sister, or I was hatched in some kind of toxic waste disposal facility.  

Or even more tragically, both of those things are true and I will never be Grand Marshall of the I Love Lima, Ohio celebratory parade.

So there you have it.  The deep dark secret that I have been holding close to my ample, yet saggy bosom for quite some time.  I am terrible at sharing these types of things, mind you, since I hold firmly to the belief that if I close my eyes tight enough and put my hands to my ears while chanting la la la la la, all will be rainbows and unicorns again soon.  I also seem to have some strange patholical need to remain positive and very vague, and not share every single detail of every single moment of my life despite this age of The Facebook posting and The Twittering and whatnot.

But for those of you who DO share all of the intimate details of your lives on The Facebook and The Twitter please don't stop!  I scour those things like some kind of crazypants stalker and can't get enough of the vicarious living, traveling, eating, stitching, parenting, organizing, dating, homekeeping, and whatnoting contained therein.

I have friends who have had the misfortune of knowing me my entire life who will tell you that I remain an enigma and that they couldn't tell you anything about what goes on in this head of mine, so please don't feel bad that all this time you thought I was a normal person....that's all part of the circus, my dears, and life behind the curtain is going to stay just that.

Unless, of course, Stewey finally publishes his expose' on life with spinster, and then I imagine that I will have to confess that I am just a hot mess of fear, loneliness, sadness, and frustration like the rest of the planet.

It's definitely not easy being me, but I'm happy to report that things in the reading, sleeping, and needlework departments are going swimmingly.  I have been devouring good novels at the rate of two or three a week (Holy Schmoley am I thankful that we have such an amazing library system here in Hoosierville!), and if all goes according to plan, I'll spend tomorrow up in the studio assembling The Spinster Stitcher Basket Of Autumnal Needlework fun.

I've been happily stitching away in the evenings, and have managed a finish and some good progress on pieces that have languished in the WIP bin for far too long.  Here are a few craptastic photos of the  progress:

The top piece is by Laura J. Perin Her Very Self and the bottom two are from Miss Threedles.

I do hope that you will forgive such a personal post, and I hope that this wasn't overstepping the bounds of our lovely little world.  I'm sure that Betty will send me an angry email about my crappy writing and the fact that I felt compelled to write about something other than stitching, but that's just the risk I will have to take.

I really do thank you for your notes and calls and "Where are you, dear Spinster Stitcher"s.  They have been so lovely and are just what the doctor (or in my case, entire team of doctors) have ordered!

Happy Fall, y'all!

With much love from The Spinster Stitcher and Her Little Dog, too!