I Haven't Been Ignoring Everyone, But...

This has been a very trying time, and I just haven't been about, reading and commenting in everyone's blogs. I want to let you all know how much I love you all and appreciate your comments to my blog. I received a lovely card from Tammy in Missouri, and I know she has to be a stitching blogger because it had adorable kitties all over it. Tammy, doll, I'm embarrassed about this, but I just can't put your name to a blog name, and I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your card. Maybe she or someone here can fill me in. Dianne Collins sent me the most incredible and appropriate bear; also a fabric, embroidered sign to hang on a cabinet knob. I'll get pix when I'm able.

This is the story I've written to my Yahoo Groups, and it's killing me, but I have no choice:

This is going to be very difficult for me, but I went to have my leg x-rayed today, and I suspected this, but I have done more damage to the break by going up & down stairs and getting around too much, putting weight on it as I do so. Our computers are down here in the basement, along with my sewing room, my recliner, big screen TV, etc. My family has moved my Dazor lamp, my cross stitching, my stitching frame with the recliner attachment (still have to keep my leg elevated) up to our bedroom, where this is another Lazy Boy recliner and a smaller TV. They can care for me easier with the laundry room just outside out bedroom, and of course, the kitchen up there too. If it will save me from surgery, I'll do it. I have to go back in two weeks and hope it has begun to mend before it gets any more crooked. If I move it anymore, I have to have surgery, so the computer is on hold till then.

Faith and Shelleen, please take care of things while I'm gone on Stitching Sisters, though I know you will ;-).

May you all know that I'm dying to get all this behind me, and I'm deperate to cooperate so I can sooner than later.

I'll be thinking of you all and biting at the bit to see what's been going on while I've been away. I'm still stitching and will have some nice pix when I get back.

Love to all and keep those needles flyin.'

You Know You're Old When....

you come home from the doctor with a walker. Yup, 'fraid so. I told them I couldn't get the hang of the crutches, so the doctor wrote a prescription for a walker (I'm guessing so Medicare Part B would cover it, being on SS Disability as I am). The only dignity I have left is that I requested a lime green cast with sparkles. It truly is just that. Silkweaver Gang Green Reflections??? Gangrene isn't nearly as pretty as this lime green, though. Eeeeeeeww! Horrors! This font is the color of my cast.

Anne, your Mum sounds a lot like me, being stubborn and all and not getting the hang of crutches, bless her heart! So we get this walker and my mom has to push me in a wheelchair to get me outa there. I can't use the walker either, cuz I have to hold my casted leg up (put no weight at all on it) and hop on my good leg. It takes a lot of upper body strength, which I no longer have. Plus, I have have a bad shoulder and wrist, and I have sores on my palms from the fall. I'm starting to feel hopeless and depressed. And because of health problems and all the swelling I still had, I'm supposed to keep it propped up above my heart as much as possible. Yes, someone mentioned getting pampered, and it was great at first, but it's getting to be a problem at times.

I'm going to try, in the next few days, to get to all your blogs and leave comments and see what you've been up to. I love this feature of blogs---ya'll are so inspiring!!! In the meantime, though, I want to thank all of you for all your kind comments about my piece for the 24 Hour Challenge, and now, your kind, soothing words of comfort for my current condition. You are all such blessings in my life!

If I Didn't Have Bad Luck...

I would have no luck at all. I posted this to my Yahoo Groups, but I hesitated to blog it because I didn't want to get labeled a "whiner (I've whined a lot lately)," but I just read Anne's pitiful post, and all I felt was sympathy for her, and I thought I should explain my absence in that I'm feeling that my stitching blogger friends are family now. The good news before the bad news: I wrote the incident below two days ago. Since that time, I've taken up the needle again and will have some progress pix to scan when I feel more stable with my permanent cast, which I hope will get put on tomorrow, though I think he'll have to work me in. I'm hoping that the fact that my husband plays golf with him and that he's our neighbor will have some influence on him busting his poor butt on his first day back after vacation. He's in surgery all day, so I don't know what kind of schedule they have for him. I've got this poor temporary thing ripped to shreds from sticking things in it to scratch. I don't know how I'm going to handle this whole thing, and at my age, my attitude ain't gonna change. Phooey on keeping a positive attitude. I'm miserable!!!

Tuesday, I was going to take my grandkids to school and took a terrible spill down my daughter's concrete steps from her porch and broke my leg. I was really shaken, wind knocked out (hit chest first and you can guess what I thought got ripped off, but just the right one, lol), palms of hands got hide peeled clear off. I just lay there while my grandkids scrambled to put my cellphone together, pick up the beads from my favorite Southwestern bracelet, and kept asking me what they should do. My 15-year-old granddaughter wanted to drive me to the hospital (she has her permit to drive with an adult), but I assured them I was going to be OK, and I managed to get them all to their respective schools. Thought I had sprained my ankle really badly for the 19th time, and I was more worried about my hands and face, which looked like I'd been in a hatchet fight, and all I had was a handle. I went to McD's and took my breakfast home, where I took off my clothes to inspect the damage. Nothing got ripped off my chest (though it wouldn't have made much difference); I didn't rip my jeans, but I tore up my knees and other places on my legs, and got some immediate bruising about everywhere I looked. I got the ice packs, wrapped up my left ankle and up around my knee, which was also very sore, cleaned and bandaged skinned parts, then I just put on my nightgown and got my leg up in my recliner. My mom, dad, and daughter all tried to get me let them take me for an x-ray, but I swore I was just banged up and would recover nicely. My husband was at his job 3 hours north of here, where he works 3 days a week. He wanted me to let my parents take me to the hosp., but I insisted I just needed a few days of home care. Unfortunately, I had to use the bathroom and getting up for that was torture. By Tuesday night, I was running a fever, was nauseated and felt like I was going to pass out when I had to get up for anything. I couldn't take anything but Tylenol (what a worthless drug!) for pain, as I was scheduled for a colonoscopy next Tuesday for intestinal problems I've been having, so my Rx pain meds were taboo for a week before. I don't remember much of Wednesday, as I slept with fever nearly all day. My cats hovered around me, and my family called several times, but I just thought I was coming down with something, and that was also the cause of my intestinal problems. When my husband saw me Wednesday night, I was in our finished basement in the recliner looking pretty crummy, I'm sure. He got really scared and wanted to call the ambulance to get me up the stairs. I refused and told him I'd get up on my own power, but I started fainting, and I ended up sitting on my butt with my head between my knees (to keep from fainting), while he pulled me up backwards with his arms locked around my chest under my arms. I actually did faint near the top of the stairs, but the poor guy got me up to the top and lay me down while he started up the car and got my purse. Somehow, he got me into the car, and before I even knew it, he had me in a wheelchair and in the hospital. Sure enough, my left leg is broken---the fibula (I think) bone - that thinner bone on the outside part of the calf from ankle to knee.They gave me morphine and lots of nice things that revived me, yet mellowed me so that I wouldn't have cared if they'd cut my head off. I've canceled my colonoscopy so I can take these lovely narcotic pain pills, and I've slept around the clock for 2 days. But here I am up in the middle of the night because I kept thinking I needed get on the Internet and see what's been going on in the world. After all the sleep I've had, I feel like I need to be awake to feel alive again. As for feeling ill, fever is the body's defense system going to work, and the nausea, dizziness, and fainting are reactions to trauma and shock. I had to research a bit on the Internet to find out more about all this when my nurse told me that it was a good thing when a patient runs a fever after breaking something.

I've had to stay down most of the time, mainly because I just don't feel well and because of the narcotics making me sleep, but the crutches are a nightmare for me. I'm very unsteady on them, and I've nearly fallen several times trying to use them. I'm just a klutz, I guess.

So, that's where I've been, and it's going to be a while before my life returns to normal. I'll be so glad when this is all behind me. I'm 58, and this is the first bone I've ever had. My bone density test was excellent, even after being on prednisone for 12 years, which tends to weaken bones. Not me! I'm a corn-fed girl from the IL plains, and I have bone to spare. I'm just an accident waiting to happen, and I can trip over air.

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week

Comment on your comments (giving and receiving): Do you love comments or hate them? Do you check them every day, never check them, or find them helpful? And finally, are you convinced no one is reading your blog if you don't get any?

I love both receiving and giving comments. I'm a slow person by nature, and I get behind in everything, so I sometimes look at the pix, speedread (ironic, huh?) a bit about what my friends are up to, then move on, without leaving comments, depending on how my day is going and how much I have/don't have. Just looking is so inspriring and helps me get to know these girls better. I feel they're all family by now, as I was slow getting into blogging. Not surprising....I never feel no one is reading my blog if there are no comments becuz I know everyone is busy and do the same as I do---catch up when I can. I try to comment first on the ones who take the time to leave comments on mine

Great question, Heather! Thanks!

My 24 Hour Challenge Piece

I just had a weekend from hell, but I still got a pretty piece done for the 24 Hour Challenge on Becky's Friends Gather BB. I'm very tired and have a big day ahead, so I'll tell you about hell later.

Last of My Bargain Kits

Don'tcha just love the way my torty
runs between the camera and the display of kits?

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week

Describe your "perfect" project. (Include the designer or specificpattern, the fabric, the floss, and anything else that would make thatproject "perfect" for you.)

My "perfect" project would be a Drawn Thread done with Needlepoint Silks on 32ct linen or evenweave, and maybe even a hand-dyed fabric, though not a dramatic coloration, but the key is that it must be addictive and hard to put down. It's what I'm working on at the moment. This question could include many different combinations, but it's much easier to describe one's current project---very hard to quit! It's a SAL doing "Sanctuary" by The Drawn Thread.

Couple More eBay Steals and A New Start

These are a few of my many eBay secrets, but it's only if you're willing to waste some real time. It's a fun challenge for me, but I have to quit doing it after awhile because it's addictive, unproductive, and self-indulgent. You look under the option for price first (low, of course), and I find that inviduals sell for less than stores. There is an art to placing a bid and off hours are best, but the art is too long to explain here. This is a great secret: look for incorrect listings, but this takes tons of time. Look for patterns where kits are supposed to be listed, and vice versa. People don't spot these so easily, and many times you have the advantage of being the only bidder. Here a couple of El Cheapo kits I'd been admiring that I felt guilty for getting at the prices I paid.

I got a decent start yesterday on a new piece I'd been wanting to do. The finished image is in my sidebar.

Stash of the Month Shipment and a Cheap Kit

I nearly forgot about my Silkweaver Stash of the Month for January, but here it is on the left: a nice piece of navy cashel linen and great colors of GAST to use on it, if the occasion fits. Below that is the little Mill Hill Spring Bouquet Wreath pin kit. On the right, the lovely "Angel of Bounty" kit cost $2.25 on eBay, less than the postage. I sniff out eBay bargains like a hound. I have secrets, and I have several kits more yet to show. Spent amazingly little. Wasted a ton of time.

My beautiful kit got cut off on the right hand side in the pic because my grey tabby (barely showing) couldn't resist getting in the way. After several tries, I gave up, and this was the best one. My grey tabby, Caiti (Cat-Tee), is possibly my favorite of the 3 cats, though I hate choosing a favorite. She's the dumbest, yet a sweet, gentle little soul with a very tender heart, and she's just beautiful. I read a quote somewhere that the child you feel sorriest for is the one you love the most.

I'm going to have to get a referral to a gastroenterologist (sp?), and my mom & dad are going to take me. Everything is going right through me, and I'm getting dehydrated even though I'm drinking plenty of fluids. I know my intake of food is not being absorbed as nutrients. I'm getting help, but I know it won't take long for me to get my body back in sync after getting the right treatment. I'm really a tough old bird, and my brother, a doctor, told me once I was indestructible. The picture here isn't too good of me, but at least it shows in my eyes how crummy I feel. That's my favorite purse too. It doesn't match my outfit in the pic, but it's great to fend off the randy old men.

4 Leaflets and An Unproductive Weekend

I still plan to sit down to stitch this evening, but I've spent the last 48 hours fighting the same intestinal problems I'm having trouble shaking off. I think this must be a virulent bug that loves my system and won't leave my insides. Doesn't say much for what I'm made of, does it? Kinda scary. I've read and heard much the same from others though, so maybe I'm not the only freak. It's made me so weak and feeling so crummy, I can't stitch, and last night, I gave it a try, but Amber would not leave the needle and thread alone, so I gave up in disgust, thinking this weekend was not meant for me to stitch.

Here are the last of my leaflets that I've acquired lately, but I have yet to share the kits I've been getting for a steal on eBay. I had to quit that. It was getting totally ridiculous and out of hand. It's called greed, addiction, and having eyes bigger than my needling fingers.

Teeny Finish and Another Dab of Sickie Stash

This Lizzie Kate 2002 Flip-It series (left) has become a UFO for me, and I joined Shelleen's LK forum on Becky's Friends Gather board to finish these. Now I have June through December to finish.

I had a piece of Silkweaver Ametrine Reflections (right) custom cut to fit Mirabilia's Forest Goddess. You can also see the specialty Kreinik and treasure and beads with the fabric. I'd like to jump in and start stitching right away, but I need to finish something first. Yikes!

Stitching Bloggers' Question of the Week

With the exception of your online stitching friends, do you have any other stitching buddies?

My best friend and neighbor, Sylvia, is my stitching buddy here in town. She and I have a great time together with our stitching, shopping, and playing tricks on our husbands, who also work together and are golfing buddies.

I'm back from a wonderful trip with my family, and I'm really glad to be back. Now, I need to get to get back in the groove, blogging, stitching, reading blogs and commenting, and getting more pix of my newly acquired stash.

Hope you are all well and stitching away.