HAPPY DANCING

This was such a joy to stitch from start to finish. I don't know if it was the fabric or the silk or the sparkle of the beads or the fact that this entire kit was a surprise gift from a dear stitchy angel friend, but I do know that it was completely wonderful.

Rich commented that I had a peaceful smile on my face every time I played with this, and that's exactly what I will remember every time I look at it...peace and happiness.

Glendon Place
Red Velvet Cake
28ct Opal from Picture This Plus
Dinky Dyes silks
Mill Hill beads

Stay warm and safe and dry today, Dearies! Do something wonderful for yourself and come tell me all about it!

MID-WEEK BREAK

Like the rest of the world, we are experiencing our share of weather at the moment. As I type this it is -14 degrees outside with a windchill of -44.

Tonight the actual temperature is expected to drop to -21, an official record cold for Hoosierville.

I'm happy enough to stay inside, because this means no dialysis for me today!  An unexpected mid-week break!

No stitching or beading to report.  I was a complete lump and did nothing yesterday except watch TeeVee and look at stuff on my iPad thingie. I watched Housewives and two really really awful movies and then called it a day and went to bed early.

If there were a prize for complete inertia I would have most certainly earned it yesterday.

Today I will finish my damn good, have a nice hot scrubby shower, and finish Red Velvet Cake. I have about a quarter of it yet to bead, so that should hopefully comprise about an afternoon.

So that's it for me, Dearies. If you are participating in this Polar Vortex, I hope you are warm and safe and dry. God keep you if you have to be out in it....stay safe!

MONDAY...MONDAY

The snow is coming down and I'm getting ready to head out into it to the d-chair. But before I go, here are some progress pics of the beading adventure on Red Velvet Cake:

Happy Monday, Dearies!

EASY LIKE A SUNDAY MORNING...

Oh, what a wonderful morning we're having here in Hoosierville!

It all started yesterday when JB Magoo asked me what I would like to do. 

"I'd like to clean the apartment to within an inch of its life, change the bed, flip the mattress, do the laundry, put the Christmas decorations away, deep clean the fridge, freezer, and pantry, organize the studio, read the paper cover to cover, finish my book, stitch, and take a nap."

And then we laughed and laughed and laughed.

I finished my second cup of damn good, sat in the Happy Chair for a minute, and then proceeded to accomplish the entire list.

(Pause for reaction.)

I had no earthly idea where all of the energy and motivation came from until Magoo pointed out that it seems like every OTHER Saturday is good. This was a little strange until it dawned on me why that is.

Every other Friday I get a big fat dose of a drug called Mycera. This is used to boost my red blood cells, because my type of kidney disease causes anemia. I used to get the Lance Armstrong drug called Aranesp, but apparently my insurance company got tired of paying $22,000 a month for it, and demanded that I go with the cheper alternative.

Anywhoose, this drug apparently makes me feel like an Amish Wonder Woman, because the taking of it seems to correspond with a day long cleaning frenzy that results in a very happy Sunday.

Which brings me to today.

I woke up to a clean apartment, had my damn good, made cinnamon rolls, and lit a new Yankee candle called Cozy by the Fire. I read the paper, got my blanket situated just right, picked up my stitching, and announced "Today is starting out to be a very good day."

For all I know the new head meds have kicked in, but I'm not going to question it. All I do know is that happy and calm and feeling well sure beats the daylights out of hurting and feeling terrified at the bottom of the well.

Beading on Red Velvet Cake has commenced! I was trying to remember the last big beading project I played with, and I think it's Vaceila/Angel of Love. I do like the beading, but I am struggling with finding a comfortable way to hold the project and negotiate the beads at the same time. Today, I might try to rig up the floor stand and sit in the recliner to see if that helps.

So that's it for me today, Dearies. It's cold and snowy and a bit blustery outside, but we are warm and safe and dry and well fed with lots of tasty leftovers. I was going to make a big pot roast today, but we are expecting significant snow tomorrow, and it occured to me that coming home to a hot meal out of the crock pot might be wonderful on a dialysis Monday.

Come tell me all about life in your corner of the world. I hope it's swell and everything you want it to be!

FRIDAY NGHT HAPPINESS AND...BULL RIDING

Last night was wonderful and a bit nuts.  I came home from treatment, drank two big cups of tangerine tea, made No Peek Chicken (*) for dinner, and then settled in to stitch.

I finished the stitching portion of Red Velvet Cake!

Please excuse the wrinkles, but I didn't want to waste time finding the iron and getting it all perfect before I showed you.

I'm going to put this puppy on big q-snaps later and get to beading.

After my little happy dance, I was wide awake, so I flipped on the TeeVee and got completely mesmerized by the PBR (Professional Bull Riding) championship.

Until 3am.

Let's not even try to analyze that one, shall we?

Today is cold, but the sun is shining. I am going to putz a bit...maybe do a little cleaning and cooking and un-decorating...maybe not. I'm going to let the day tell me where it wants to take me.

Maybe back to the big girl sleigh bed for a nice long nap?

So that's the report for today, Dearies. I hope your very own Saturday is wonderfully swell and that you get to do whatever makes your heart sing!

(*) No Peek Chicken isn't exactly a culinary masterpiece, but it is something my dad used to make right after mom died as a means of making sure a hot dinner was on the table. Mix two boxes of wild rice, a can of cream of chicken soup, a can of cream of mushroom soup, and a soup can full of water (or chicken broth) in a 9 x 13 baking dish. Then put four boneless skiness chicken breasts on top, sprinkle them with an envelope of Lipton Onion Soup, and cover tightly with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 for a couple of hours...depending on the size of the chicken breasts (mine were huge). Let rest for five minutes. No peeking!

ALMOST THERE!

I didn't get needle and thread in hand until a bit later in the evening, but did manage to make a fair amount of progress on Red Velvet Cake:

Only a few small areas to go and the stitching will be finished. Then it's on to the beading!

Today I will visit with three docs in the space of three hours. First, Dr. Melfi will help me unpack all of the stuff in my head that threw me to the ground, and then she'll help me make sense of it and put it into perspective. Then, Dr. P will examine Buzzy 2.0 and remove the surgical tape. Finally, Dr. Barbara (my very favorite family doctor who is a dead ringer for Nicole Kidman) will conduct my annual physical with soft encouragement and a few pats on my arm when I break out into the ugly cry over how completely overwhelmed I am.

Which leads me to two big decisions I made while tossing and turning in the big girl sleigh bed last night.

I have decided to put the 24/7 worry, stress, and management of my health on a shelf. For what feels like forever, I have been obsessively fretting over every single component of everything having to do with the physical functioning of myself, and I'm exhausted. The dialogue in my brain is a loop of worry. Worry about weight and blood pressure and potassium and phosphorous and my heart and lungs and whether I'm in menopause and what is that pain and am I going to pass out and when will I get a new kidney and how much is the needle going to hurt and did I remember to floss and why are my eyes so dry and how bad will my arm be scarred and is there a blood clot and when will I regain use of my left hand and why is my hair thinning and am I sleeping too much or not enough and should I be doing more exercise and why am I not losing weight anymore and ....

Somewhere along the line I got bogged down. Hard. 

I am smart and careful and compliant with all the things I should be doing. For the most part, I eat well, watch my fluid intake, and take all of my meds on time. Could I stand to lose another hundred pounds? Yes.  But obsessing about it every day has put me in a bad place and I need to pull out of it.

This doesn't mean I'm quitting dialysis.  Quite the opposite. I will still do my thing every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday like a big girl, but instead of stressing myself into a stroke over what might happen, I am going to trust my team to do their thing and just...breathe.

I thought I knew how to manage this, but it turns out that living with chronic illness and ambulatory life support is actually a fluid situation...it is not a nice neat flow chart that remains in order. You have to be able to adjust yourself and adapt to what comes and understand that change doesn't always mean decline. Sometimes it just means change.

(About the only way I can describe it is that I feel like I'm driving a semi truck full of explosives up a hill. I have a map and a plan. But every now and then something blocks the road I'm on, and turning the wheel feels like I'm going to plunge off a cliff. What I haven't realized yet is that sometimes turning the wheel PREVENTS you from driving off the cliff.)

So this is me turning the wheel.

My second big decision relates to this thing of ours.

You know this facacta rotation I started in which I go back through the blog and pull all the stuff I haven't finished for that month and work on it?

Well, the only thing that did was throw me into a very sad place of remembering what my life used to be. Seeing all of the pictures of my house and Stewey and reading stories about my old life with my sister and Bosco and all of our shenanagins wasn't a happy trip down memory lane. All it did was bring the grief over losing all of that back with a vengeance. That pain is sharp still, and I really don't think I need to do that to myself...especially now.

I don't know for sure if it was the anasthesia that did it, or the accumulation of everything, or pain, or the moon, or what. But I do know that I was able to clearly see two things that certainly aren't helping me shake it off, and for that I am truly very grateful.

So today we're moving onward. I have about another hour left before I have to get it together to leave the apartment. Fortunately, I have my second cup of damn good ready and the newspaoer all ready and waiting. The blanket is keeping my toes cozy and it almost looks like the sun is trying to come out!

Thank you, Dearies, for listening to my blathering today. I hope things in your corner of the world are a lot less angst-ful than they are sometimes here in Hoosierville. If you're driving your own semi...steady on, friend! Steady on!

TEST 2

TEST

SO MUCH BETTER...EDITED TO ADD PHOTO

I stitched!

Last night, bolstered by a cup of tangerine tea, I hooked up my lap stand, took a deep breath, and decided that I was going to put one stitch into Red Velvet Cake or else.

It was very slow going, and first it felt very awkward, but before I knew it, I had completed another whole section!

Here's a picture of my progress:

Oh, wait. I forgot.

DANG YOU, BLOGGER ERROR 400 AND YOUR REFUSAL TO PUBLISH PHOTOS! 

(Because, let's face it. Without photos, this is just a long rambling mess of drivel from a neurotic old portly broken down lunatic spinster.)

(And nobody needs very much of THAT in their life on a random Wednesday.)

I suppose it will all work itself out, but confess that the stress of not being able to use my iPad to engage with the world in this way kept me tossing and turning last night. I finally embrace technology and then it bites me in the heiney.

Today will be a day for research into how to solve the problem, but if any if you have insight that would keep me from throwing a perfectly good iPad across the room, that would be swell too. (Once again...I am able to compose a post using Blogger, but if I insert a picture of any kind I get an "Error 400...unable to publish" message if I try to save or post it. Text only seems to be working just fine.)

The big black dog (*) is still here with me, I'm afraid, but tomorrow I will visit with Dr. Melfi, the surgeon, and then my family doc for a good look-see. Between the three of them, I'm sure we'll come up with a solution...even if it's eat more kale and ramp up the morning treadmill time.

(But I'm really hoping it's more along the lines of eat more doughnuts and ramp up the stitchy time.)

Another very heartfelt thank you for visiting with me down here at the bottom of the well, Dearies. I am especially grateful for the personal notes and all of the beautiful pictures on the social medias.  (If one is going to lie flat on one's back in the cold dark mud of wallowness, it sure is nice to have sweet notes from friends to read and pretty things to look at!)

Onward!

(*) Does anybody know which author used this metaphor for the d-word? I knew once, but forgot...Hemmingway? Roth?  

(It's here that I should clarify that I am in no way implying that big black dogs are in any way bad. It's just an expression that I have always used because it stuck in my little brain.)

(But I am completely terrified of big black dogs...both the actual and metaphorical kind.)

What is Blogger error 400, and why does it keep taunting me so?!

For some reason, I am unable to post anything to this here blog without encountering an error message. I can publish text, but anything with a picture seems to go completely awry.

Oh, bloody hells bells anyways.

Thank you for indulging my funkety funk funk, Dearies. This is a very deep dark mysterious one, since it lingers hard and is baffling even to me. I suspect that anesthesia and post-op pain meds are the culprit, and since both are now a week long gone, I imagine I will feel better soon.

Staying in the Happy Chair and not giving a flying fig is a challenge, but one that I embrace wholeheartedly and with impunity.  The not stitching thing, though, is an enormous problem, and one that I am going to remedy today.

Or else.

OK...enough. I'm here and awake, alive, and well-fed. The snow is sparkly, I've got a big fat cup of hot damn good, and a lovely winter candle all doing their respective things.  Time to sit up and get my bearings before climbing out of this well...

Crossing my fingers that this will publish...

DAMN, DRAT, AND FREAKIN PHOOEY....OR IN OTHER WORDS...WE SEEM TO BEHAVING A MONDAY

Oh, my goodness, Dearies! If I don't snap out of this...whatever...I'm in, we're going to have to put me in permanent time out.

I'm miserable. And sad. And tired. And irrationally angry. 

In other words...completely not myself at all. Even Rich has commented that I seem to have been replaced with a version of myself that seems contrary to my nature...very "off" somehow and not at all interested in catering to his every whim or making the world a big fat happy chalk painting jolly holiday adventure with Bert, and the kids.

I'm blaming it on pain and anesthesia and the grinding horror of dialysis, as well as the Super Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse thingie that I completely missed because I had the covers pulled over my head for the better part of an entire weekend.

I haven't stitched, read, blogged, cooked, or slept well...a real recipe for spinster disaster if there ever was one.  The Christmas decorations are still up, my apartment is a filthy mess, and my laundry is in shambles. 

About the only thing I have going for me is that I'm clean and well-showered, which my techs do truly appreciate. My legs might be a bit stubbly, but at least I smell Irish Spring freash.

Now after all of that, you know that I will snap out of it and return to normal soon, but methinks I am going to enjoy a bit more of a wallow before I kick myself in the heiney. A little guilt-free pity party is not going to kill me, so give me a minute to strap on my paper hat and we'll get on with it.

Somebody pass me the cake and a really big fork.

SUNDAY STITCHY DAY...I HOPE

If I can, I'm going to try to get needle and thread back in hand today.

Pray for me...I'm going in!

IN WHICH WE DECIDE TO REST...

I am going to enjoy some quiet recovery today, Dearies. Yesterday took everything out of Yours Truly, so today will be full of a whole lot of nothing.

Bliss.

FRIDAY...HOLEY. SCHMOLEY.

Well, Dearies, I am in the d-chair and hooked up to the machine. There is really no way for me to tell you what the needle insertion was like, but I can honestly tell you I am surprised, glad, and relieved that I survived it.

Yup.

It was as bad as I imagined.

My team surrounded me and Miss Lori actually cried right along with me, which was oddly comforting somehow. Even the poor maintenance guy took pity on me and stopped vacuuming the rug outside my pod while they were working. (i swear I saw him bow his head in prayer, but that could be the Tramadol talking.)

Now that the trauma is over, I'm going to settle in with my goofy juice, my breakfast cookies, and Flosstube. I am not going to fret about another thing today...I'm all fretted out.

No plans for the weekend. We are anticipating weather, so that means I will hunker down with something in the crock pot and Netflix. If I can, I will stitch, but my poor arm might need a little more time before that can happen.

Thank you for your love and encouragement. Hopefully this will become a distant memory soon and we can get back to our regularly scheduled programming!

Hope your weekend is wonderful! Stay warm and safe and dry and stitch all the things! 

THURSDAY BLUES

I'm not sure if it's the pain or the meds or the grey skies here in Hoosierville, but I am decidedly...blue today.  Well, the only remedy I know for that is a nice long snooze in the big gurl sleigh bed, so off I go.

Night, night, Dearies!

Holey. Schmoley.

This one has knocked me for a loop, Dearies, and methinks it is going to be a fair bit of time before I am back to myself. Dr. Peterson, my surgeon, was able to salvage Buzzy, but it involved quite a bit of revision and a much bigger incision than before. It's a little too gruesome to share with you here, but suffice it to say I won't be showing my arms anytime soon.

The pain is rather extreme, and despite the meds on board I find myself getting hits with waves of wanting to pass out and tumble gracefully to the fainting couch. (Or in my case, face first into the Happy Chair while a horrified Magoo looks on helplessly.)

Even though it's Wednesday, I am not in the d-chair. Given the level of pain and swelling, all parties involved felt it better to skip a treatment and go in on Friday. Poor Lori is going to have to try to find two new spots to stick me, since the old ones are right in the midst of the "construction zone" and won't be ready for another four to six weeks.

(If they are unable to use my arm at all, they will install a temporary port in my neck, but this is not a route we want to go down...too high a risk for infection, especially for somebody on the dosage of immunosuppressants I'm on.)

OK...enough of this. 

We are expecting weather here, apparently, so I am writing a grocery list for Rich. If these were the old days, I could look forward to hunkering down for a week with nowhere to go and nothing to do, but alas...d-chair time is a must.

Phooey.

I'm going to spend the day moving between the Happy Chair and the big girl sleigh bed, Dearies. I don't imagine there will be a lot of stitching happening, but if there is I will be sure to update you accordingly.

OW

Surgery today.

Home safely.

I want my mommie.

MONDAY MONDAY

I ended up doing more than I anticipated yesterday, thanks to the permission to do absolutely nothing. Maybe that's the secret...tell myself that I have absolutely nothing to do and can just sit on my heiney all day. Whenever I do this, I seem to naturally putz through at least five or six things.

Yesterday it was laundry and bed changing and organizing at my desk.

I did a little stitching on Winter Quakers:

It was very slow going for some reason, but I did finish the moteef in the upper right corner. That puts me at a little over half way done with this one, so I am pretty happy with that.

Time to leave for dialysis, so I suppose I better get moving. It is a cold eleven degrees outside, so I need to bundle up and get the car cleaned off and warmed up before heading that way.

Happy Monday, Dearies! I hope your day is wonderfully swell! Come tell me all about it!