Boy...life...go figure

Yes, I'm back.  It's been so long since I've wrote anything here.  I've been dealing with some family stuff and it's starting to be something good...I hope...I think...I'm afraid to say...

Like Cher and Nicholas Cage on the movie, Moonlight, it is now time to snap out of it.  Juggling so many balls is going to have to be a way of life and I've got to deal with it.  It doesn't do me any good to try to eat my feelings.  I've put on 33 pounds since my last family crisis.  That doesn't do anyone any good, least of all me.  So it's time to be true to myself and get back to the things I love.  I'm beginning to use the My Fitness Pal app to track my food and exercise.  I'll be getting back to volunteering for my 2 favorite causes, WFPK and the public radio partnership and my church.  Hmmmm you say?  Well, I'm of the thought that what's wrong with a little conversation?  Can't we agree to disagree?  I don't agree with everything my church is about and I don't agree with everything my favorite radio station is about.  When I don't like something, I can turn it off, or look ahead to the sermon series and decide if that's something I want to hear or not.     

Besides volunteering, my husband, Bob and I are SLOWLY trying to downsize.  We've done the upstairs of the house and now we are almost done with the first floor of our house.  We have painted every room and packed up all the house, except for our kitchen and master bedroom.  We just don't need this big of a house and this big of a yard, 1 1/4 acre.  I'm not a great house cleaner, but, we still have to mow and that kills half a day or more on the weekend.  

My training for triathlons is going to have to take a back seat.  As much as I love, love, love, swimming, biking and running, it's got to wait.  I still see women older than me out there, so I can hold.  

Well, there you have it.  I'll be uploading the progress of all these things.  The family business is still fluid and working itself out.  Children are the joy and loves our lives and so you do what you have to do.  

I got a hat and I'm ready to attend the Winning Purse Luncheon

Yes, I got a hat.  I think I was inspired by the Royal Wedding.  America has it's own big hat day, that's the Derby at Churchill Downs.  The first Saturday in May is our version of the Royal Wedding, I suppose.  Women don their best dresses and hats for the day.  

I'm going on the Wednesday before the Derby.  The Derby is just too much chaos.  You can't even see the horses, there are so many people there.  I will be in the Trophy Room on the Wednesday before.  We will be helping to raise money for the Mom's Closet.  It's a charity that gives women a hand up, not a hand out.  In other words, you must be making movement forward in your life, attending school and working.  So these women need help with their children and finances.  Each woman that in the program needs about 2,000.00 a year to help them through the year.  This includes financial aid for school.  This sometimes excludes them from the Food Stamp Program from the government so there is a pantry of donated items on hand for weekly help with groceries.  

Quilters through Quilters' Day Out, this year, gave about a ton of groceries to them.  My part in that was to bring them into our program and give them some publicity for the good work they do.


Now I'm donating, at least 2 quilts to the silent auction and raffle ticket sales.  I'm hoping to finish a third quilt, but, things keep coming up and I can't seem to get motivated to complete the third.


When your daughter has had cancer, things just change.  And I know it's up to her to make the moves, and I can't do it for her.  All I can do is pray and wish she was the Queen of Spain and every move she makes is done for her.  Nope, that is not her life, she chooses to live it in her room and not come out and not eat and life is not good right now.  Yes, she was dealt a crappy hand, but, life does go on and she's got to live it.  We are not her handmaidens.  She needs to reinvent herself and become the Queen of Spain.  Or just suck it up and get on with it. 

Moving kids around the country.

Life in the fast lane of youth, can't always be accomplished without the mom around to help drive. That was me a week or so ago. First, Chelsea, DD #2 had to move from the USGS to start her Master Degree work, in geology, at the University of New Mexico. So off I flew to San Francisco to help move her/drive her to said destination. Jennifer, DD #1 took the opportunity to come up a few days early to enjoy the last few days of Chelsea in California.

Leaving the bay area, we drove for one last visit to Yosemite. It really was a drive through one last time to salute the Captain, smell a tree and maybe see a bear or other such wildlife. The sad fact is that this park is hugely populated with cars. These signs are everywhere, and I'm sad to report this bear might have been the casualty of some crazy driver in the park. Of course any wildlife viewing causes major traffic jams, and this was no exception. If you go get there EARLY.

Jennifer is in a pickle again

The world hands us difficulties.  Jennifer has been handed a bonanza-a nasty kind of cancer, no one should ever have.  Ewing's Sarcoma is a childhood cancer.  It's not the glamour cancer that breast cancer has become.  I suppose it's because so many people have breast cancer, it only makes sense that the research dollars should go this way.  But, what about the "freak" cancers, as Jennifer likes to call them.  There are no pink ribbons or walkathons for them.  There is no great politician, that I know of to champion these lesser known, and dare I say, lesser cared about cancers.  Children have no vote.  My daughter can vote, but, her lone vote does not matter.  She's a 25 year old with a classic childhood cancer. 

I don't begrudge anyone the benefit of the research done for breast cancer, my mom and grandmother are both survivors of breast cancer, both having mastectomies.  This is a wonderful thing.  

The picture above was in Jennifer's art show, that won acclaim around the area, and why she never ended up on Oprah, I'll never know.  It was so poignant and beautiful.  

So, without saying it, you can guess, it's rearing it's ugly head.  The cancer nightmare has returned.  She doesn't want to go through the treatment.  Someone so young shouldn't give up.  Oh my goodness, she does not know what she's doing to us.  Woes me.  

White water rafting and skunked at fishing...still all goodg

The girls have flown the coupe.  Jennifer is in Spain and Chelsea is in San Francisco, doing what they are supposed to be doing-abandoning their parents. Well, you know it seems that way.  We raise them to be responsible adults and then they are off to live in the world, without us.  

Oh well, more time for quilting and white water rafting.  

We got to the Rivermen, our fishing guides were waiting for us.  Our boats were loaded into the upper Gauly and down the river, for 14 miles we were paddled by our guide, Peter.  Peter is probably a very good fishing guide, if he weren't working with such inexperienced fishers.  Honey Hole after Honey Hole we were guided to and told now toss it right there and you'll catch a fish.  It seemed he was right and we did what we were told.  Maybe we got a couple of bites, either that or a snag.  Needless to say, they call it getting skunked and since we were paying for it, it was our guides fault.  But, we really can't blame it all on him.  Getting skunked was probably mostly on us.  Even the other group of well outfitted fishermen, only caught 6 fish so we weren't the only ones not getting our share of fish.  

Mostly it was a little smooth and a little rocky ride.  But, one section we did have to walk around while our guides rode the boats down a treacherous bit of river.  In the end it was a nice boat ride and the guides had to work really hard, paddling against the wind.  

To cap it off, we had dinner at a great outdoor restaurant called Smokies, directly across the street from the Rivermen campgrounds.  

I joined another quilt guild!

Yes, it's happened, I didn't have enough quilting in my life, so I joined another quilt guild.  The guild is Y Knot Quilt?.  We meet every other Thursday at the Buckner, Kentucky YMCA.  This is where the young quilters can have babysitting and go to quilting.  The Y offers lots of tubes and toys and responsible watchers for the kids.  The maximum they can stay is 3 hours and guess what, that's how long quilting lasts.  

This quilt group is predominanty beginning quilters.  I don't mind this, because the pattern we are currently working on is easy.  I have so much fabric, that it's nice to have some sit and the machine and sew and not think too much about it.  Making something with your hands and seeing the completed top is a wonderful thing.  We are making a Christmas quilt pattern, and I've started 2 Christmas quilts I haven't finished, so the fabric is prepped and we traded squares for a charm quilt scrap effect.  

In the past this quilt group has made many charity quilts.  I happened to have some connections at Kosair and so they gladly gave me 7 quilts to deliver for distribution or possible sale to benefit the hospital.  I machine quilted this one and the rest were done while the quilt group was learning .   Jennifer went with me to deliver the quilts at the Cancer Research Center in downtown Louisville.   

It's always a good thing to suppliment your quilting and it's not uncommon for quilters, who recognize a good thing, to go out and find another group to join.   

Today's Woman has Jennifer's Art Show in it

Today's Woman is a local free magazine that highlights some interesting women in the community.  This is the cover of the magazine.  And inside Jennifer's exhibit is the #1 thing to do in Louisville this month!  In all seriousness, art therapy helped her through this horrible time.  There is no better way to channel your energy in a constructive way than through art.  Whether its making a quilt, taking photos or using Photoshop, creativity is a wonderful nonmedicating release that makes you feel good.  

Make Art!  Make Art! Make Art!   It's so good for the soul in so many ways.  

Auditioning Fabrics and Jennifer's Art Showp

This is my house block and my light, medium and dark fabrics I've chosen for the outer border.  Thisi is called auditioning fabrics.  A digital camera really helps when you have to make the choices.  Another method I like to use is looking at the quilt in a mirror.  It allows a better perspective for auditioning.  You can also look through the wrong lens of a pair of binoculars.  

Lest you think it a little boring, I intend to embroider "Finish, Finish, Finish, What you Start, A Quilters Dream at Heart".  Or something like that.  The blank rectangle to the left of the house is going to be embroidered, "Quilt Show Today".  And then there needs to be a bar embroidered about the quilt in the middle of the top of the house.  I'll probably put a few flowers in the blank window boxes.  This will be my entry into the "Home" quilt challenge that our Quilters Day Out 2009 quilt has thrown the gauntlet down to us.  

Jennifer went through a pretty awful time of chemo and through it all I took a bunch of pictures, that she then took and used photoshop, pastel pencils, and paints, and different things to make her feel more in control and creative about the situation.  The result was the art therapist at Kosair, liked what she was doing so much, the hospital is sponsoring her art show, spending thousands of dollars printing and framing 80 of these photos/art works.  

This is the postcard advertising her show.  She also has invitations printed for a private cocktail party prior to the opening night of the art show, which will run through April 30.  

Jennifer's Central Line is finally out!

This is Jennifer heading home, after a year of "what the hell happened?".  She was living her life and bam! a huge lump on the side of her face.  Turned out to be a 1 X 3 inch blue cell tumor called Ewing's Sarcoma.  Ah well, click on the label at right for all the updates on the soon to be forgotten best seller about the ways and delays of light never shining for a train gone terribly off track.  

The day begins at our home away from home, Kosair Children's Hospital, where the geriatric patient has an apprehensive look of the before photo.  Then the double lumen Broviac was removed in out patient surgery this morning around 10:00. Immediately (not really immediately, nothing in a hospital happens immediately) following registration, off she's sent to the bowels of the surgery center for general admitting information.  Attempts at decoration are only enhanced by Casper's warning-"Run Away, Run Away, No treats in here".  

This is a lovely picture, it means there's no more instant access to her blood and she must be accessed the old fashioned way.  Wake up Sleeping Beauty, all well.  Here she is with her cherry slush, starting to wake up and enjoying the only good part of the hospital, all the cherry slushes you can eat.  Oops, tachycardia, no go home yet till the heart rate lowers and it did.  After a few consultations by doctors off she was wheeled to have said pipe removed.  

"Oh, it'll be very fast, maybe 15:00 minutes".  Of course that means at least one thousand dollars per minute-you must, you must, you must carry insurance.