New projects....New focus

Hi all.

So a coworker is about to give birth soon. I have decided to make her a baby blanket from some of the organic cotton yarn I got for my birthday. I found that this would match her nursery theme as well which makes it even better! She is due on the 25th but we all expect her to go sooner. So I am knitting furiously. :D I am using the same pattern I used for Adelina's blanket but being a solid color, it looks different, and perfect for a boy. I just love this pattern. It works up fast and is just nice.

I might be done this weekend. I hope!

I worked on the tree of life blanket but it was so hard. I think I psyched myself out. I managed to get through one set of trees and then stopped. I just got nervous and then realized I screwed it up. I need to start over. So in the meantime, I got some adorable yarn to make a different blanket for Jun that she can actually use. But I will still make her this one or maybe I will make the adult size for Aki and Javi. IDK. I will work it out. :)

Oh, I saw another project for my awesome alpaca yarn. I think it will look GORGEOUS. A butterfly lace scarf.

constipated creativity

I love my job. I love the people I work with...it just makes for an easier work week when you love what you do, right?

However, what I hate, is when I feel like my creativity goes poo. I have these major design projects for one of our major PITA (trust me) clients and I want to make it AWESOME SAUCE and stuff but it just wouldn't come out for me today. I think it started to at quitting time...so that sucked. LOL It will come to me. Maybe tomorrow it will just be, "TA DA! See, I didn't really leave you at all! I was just resting."

So tonight, I want to go to bed early. I have said it every single night for the past several days and it hasn't happened yet. Last night was right around 1AM after I fixed a work project for an 830 AM meeting that someone else originally designed. I am going to work on my Jun Project first though. That is what I will continue to call it until I am done. Then I have to ship to Japan. I imagine that won't be cheap. Good thing I *am* doing the smaller one.

Isn't this the cutest darn cake?!!? I think I must have it made for me. *ahem*

Source: jessicakesblog.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

KNITTING UPDATE: Baby Blanket

I mentioned that I was starting a new baby blanket for my new niece, Jun. Well, I am doing this pattern that looks like it would be horrifying to do just by looking at the pattern and charts but so far, it's going well. I understand all that I am to do and nothing is freaking me out just yet. It is just an intimidating piece when you look at it. This is what I am making. And this is where I am right now.

I want to keep going but I need to go to sleep and this time change sucks cause I am awake! I took a sleeping pill and pain meds to help me crash out and the only way I will is if I attempt to shut down my brain and put my knitting away.

So good night Internets. Until next time... I do have to work in the morning. YAWN! Lots of design work to do!!!

Sunday surprise!

So today I ventured outside of my house for the first time since before I was sick. I went to a friend's house for a Stampin' Up! party. I woke up late and we didn't go to church at all like I had planned. :( The time change forward always screws me up. Brian took Christopher to rehearsal on his way to work while I went to the party. I am glad I went though. It was nice to interact with other adult women while doing something creative. So theraupuetic! I haven't wanted to interact with other people much at all since I have been back. I tire easy and my steroids make me moody and kind of a bitch anyway. lol

I am trying to do a little more every day so I don't start getting stuck in a routine of doing nothing. Today, I came home and had a come to Jesus meeting with the boys about them helping out around here. They are old enough and we are tired of doing it all by ourselves when they can help. So...that being said, the boys helped me rock out a bunch of stuff and Brian is not even home yet from work. I am sitting here on the bed, writing this and folding laundry. I did manage to get one load from the washer to the dryer and a new load in. It about killed me which is why I am sitting here folding. My right arm doesn't do some things very well right now. I have trouble doing some movements, which is awkward and weird for me. I know it will get back eventually but in the meantime, it sucks.

Today was a gorgeous day. It was sunny and in the 50's. After we got home today, I opened all of the windows to let light and fresh air inside. It was glorious. I was really hoping it was now finally Spring but Christopher said that it was supposed to snow again this week. Oh well.

Soon Brian has to go to Colorado for work training. So he will be gone for a week. Money is super tight thanks to my hospital stay and they didn't give him enough advance money to buy his ticket. We do not have the extra money to cover the rest. Hopefully they can take care of that for him. Not sure when he is leaving but he will be back before his birthday and Easter. I hope we can figure out this disability thing and I can get some back pay that I lost. That would help us out tremendously. I really hate worrying about money. We have no food right now and we have to wait until Wednesday before I can really go grocery shopping and we missed the food pantry. :/

Chris is in purple

In other news, I am creating the HPYLA website and I am super excited about it! I am donating the web hosting, domain and my time and skills to make it awesome! Well, I hope! :) Lacrosse starts tomorrow but Christopher's vocal ensemble rehearsals will interfere with the first three practices so the next couple weeks will be kind of hairy...but I do love lacrosse!! Christopher also has a ton of performances scheduled the rest of this month for vocal ensemble and all county. I love that he is so involved in things but man it makes me tired when I am already exhausted just from folding some towels.

Javi, Aki & Jun

Today, Javi posted some pics from a christening-like thing they do in Japan. Here is my brother's family from the event. I am so tickled they finally have Jun. She is precious and I cannot wait to meet her. I really would love to be able to go to Japan this summer. Maybe I will win the lottery or something.

What a cute family. :) Right?

I suck at blogging.

There is a lot that goes on in my life that I could post about daily but who really cares what goes on in MY life? I mean I just spent nearly three weeks in the hospital and I could have posted every single day about my adventures there. I definitely had a lot to say about the goings on at St. Luke's but I honestly did not even think about blogging. I have had this blog for years and yet I never think, "I need to blog about this."

I will try to do better because I really do need to journal and sometimes I am witty. Sometimes I have something profound to say. HA! Mostly I have nothing at all to say but feel I should write it out for my kids to read later in life when I am gone. Who knows with my health, that could be sooner rather than later. :/ I will try to stay positive here. Seriously. 

Sent the baby blanket off to Grand baby and I think they (baby and mom) liked it. I don't see her with it in pictures that often. She usually has a different one but I don't really care. It was a handmade gift of love. This is her with the blanket when they came to visit after Christmas. 

Baby Jun! 

Javi & Jun

Jun, Isn't she adorable?!

I am about to start on one for my brother's baby, my new niece, Jun!!! She is frigging adorable (as you can see from picture) and I am going to make this extremely intricate and way out of my comfort zone blanket. I really hope they like it. It might take me a bit of time to do.

I have a few more projects that I want to do but really I am sucking in the motivation department. I am also working on a blanket for ME to enjoy and use for when I am at Christopher's Lacrosse and Football games. It is an HP school colors afghan. It is not hard but will be time-consuming and I am feeling lazy.

I did just get out of the hospital last weekend. I went to the doctor after feeling sick for a few weeks and an ER visit which resulted in antibiotics for sinusitis and a random viral infection diagnosis. I had extreme shortness of breath, sweating and an elevated heart rate at the doctor so he sent me to the ER for tests. He was afraid I had a blood clot in my lung. The CAT Scan revealed no blood clot but an enlarged spleen and liver so I was admitted. Several weeks later and a million tests, a bronchoscopy, and a thoracoscopy (which resulted in a dishwasher-like tube protruding from my body for several days after, GROSS and OUCH, and STILL no diagnosis. I was often called mystery woman by the nurses. 

My saving grace of my entire hospital stay, besides the fact that Brian works at the hospital I was at and being able to see him often, was my roommate, Gail. A woman in her late 50s/early 60s, she had already lost one leg but had learned to walk again with a prosthetic which sat in the windowsill of our room proudly. It did freak me out at first before I knew I had a roommate. HA!  Anyway, she had the BEST attitude EVER. She was a diabetic and in end-stage renal disease and was on dialysis. She actually recognized Brian from when he was training out in Oneida, which is her usual place to get dialysis. So that broke the ice between us for sure! 

She was in the hospital because her dialysis wasn't working right and not clearing out her system and her body was not doing so good. On top of that she had a really bad infection in her foot which they deemed she would have to lose her other leg in order for the infection to stop spreading. :( So here we were... me, mystery woman, and her waiting to lose her other leg and going to dialysis every single day to get the toxins out of her body sharing a room. 

She was out of it the first few days and I thought neither of us would get any rest. But she was feisty, a smart ass, and full of God. She would often say, "I have God in my life and that is all I need." AMEN to that! She would often get me and the nurses laughing, often at the nurses  expense. We would joke together about the food service, the nurses, both good and bad, and our doctors and the ignorance of all. She helped me every single day get through my ordeal and I hope I helped her too. I really feel like we connected and I made a friend.

Since I know she went to rehab after I finally got out, Brian works there too and I really hope he can help me stay connected to her. The day I was leaving she was in surgery and dialysis and I had left a message on her white board. She came back before I left but got to read it. She thanked me for the kind words but there was so much more I wanted to say. I believe she will walk again. I KNOW she will. I pray for her healing every day. She has a long road ahead of her but I really hope they get her dialysis under control so she can be here on this earth for as long as possible. 

Anyway, coming home from the hospital has been a rough journey. I have good days and bad and my steroids that are helping me breathe better also make my blood sugar spike as well as my temper. Brian and I have been fighting a lot and that is so unlike us and maybe it is the steroid and maybe it is just something that needed to happen. I don't know but I love him and he does try so hard to take care of me and I appreciate him for it.

The boys are doing ok. Christopher is in that annoying teenager stage and Nicholas is slowly but surely showing signs of getting ready for some more independence. His father and (paternal) grandmother seem to keep wanting to pressure him to go to college and we both want that but he is not ready. I am not going to force him. It pisses me off and it pisses HIM off cause these people show no interest in him whatsoever most of the time, well grandma does, but that seems to be it. His father has not tried to contact him since summer. NOT ONCE! Irritates me. Irritates Nicholas too. Anyway, he has started to get things together and will start soon but I will not make him do anything he is not ready to do. He IS a special needs kid. Everyone seems to forget that...that doesn't mean he CAN'T but it means if I force him NOW he will NOT do well. He has to be mentally ready and he is almost there. Ya know? SIGH anyway... 

I go for my first mammogram on the 27th. I am nervous. I have booby lumps and possible complications from my surgery (lumps in there as well as extreme pain). So we will see. I go see a new endocrinologist and I will discuss with him possibilities of switching to an insulin pump since I hate giving myself shots. FIVE SHOTS A DAY IS TOO MUCH!

Well, I guess this is long enough for an update right? I suck at blogging. I should change my title to that instead. Maybe you will see another update from me soon. I do have other things to discuss! I feel like each one of these should be like a HUGE summary of my life since last time and that is not really what blogging is, is it? Oh well I don't have any readers anyway! Who am I kidding. LOL