Day 994

Shock and awe.

Why is this still happening?

Day 993

Someone has spent more time than I have with my new sewing machine.

Day 992

What is up with our roses? We might wind up with a rose centerpiece on the Thanksgiving table.

Day 991

The days are drawing to a close. For the blog and for the rose garden.

Day 990

I don't know which picture is more adorable. Kitty glaring at me while I was drying her off after her bath.


Or the Mohawk that appeared in my sewing room. (And no, I didn't style her hair that way.)

Day 989

8:00 AM.

30 degrees outside. 

Frost on the roof. 

In a short sleeved t-shirt, sweats, and house slippers a crazy lady wanders the rose garden with her phone. 

Looking for a picture of frost on roses. 

Think I got it.

Day 988

Gotta love eBay fabric lots, especially such a cheap one with yards and yards and yards of high quality fabrics. But I need to stop buying. Soon.

Day 987

Yeah, the leaves are out of control.

Day 986

The day is coming. The day I can no longer make it out and about. It became quite clear after a series of events today. Between phone calls and home and work and the doctor's office and the pharmacy and back home again things were rough every moment of the day. So when I got home I forced, absolutely forced, myself to the rose garden to take another picture of a bloomer. Because I know I may never, ever, for the rest of my life, be able to see a rose up close at this time of year.

Day 985

I sure wish this picture of ice crystals on my tail light was a bit clearer because they were so interesting. At least to me.

Day 984

On Day 939 I posed this fill-in-the-blank question:

When my daughter and I walked out of the ______ ______ she said, "A mom should never have more ______ than her 25 year old daughter."

The answer was :
When my daughter and I walked out of the tattoo parlor she said, "A mom should never have more tattoos than her 25 year old daughter."

I held off on the picture because I was waiting for the bruising to go away. I got the tattoo just a few days after infusion and my body's defenses were down.

But it still hasn't gone away. I've found out it's not bruising, it's from ink leaking into a layer of my skin. Now it's time to cover up the "bruises". At a different tattoo parlor.

I'm not exactly someone who knows where to look when it comes to a tattoo place. But the gal who draws my blood every time I go to the rheumatologist's office does. Go figure.

It was a good recommendation. Just look at the before and after. Amazing what color can do. And it looks so much more joyful!

Day 983

When I looked through my bedroom out to my rose garden it sure looked like things had finally been killed off by the frost. Only when I went into the garden itself did I find I was wrong.

How can I be so lucky to find even more roses still in the bud stage?

Day 982

I do it at home, but not at work.
I do it in my recliner, but not in my sewing room.
I do it in the doctor's office, but not the waiting room.
I do it when the car is being serviced, but not when I drive.
I do it in the bedroom, but not the bathroom.
I do it in a hotel room, but not a cruise line cabin.

I play Words with Friends. And occasionally, ever so often, I get a score I can be proud of. 111 this time.

Day 981

What makes this next kids' quilt project so special? Why is it that I need to spend more time thinking and planning than sewing?

Is it because I'm doing two quilts, one for each sibling?
Or because they're for another military family in Alaska?
Or because the kids' pictures are in them?

Maybe.
But mostly because these were special request quilts. If you remember, recently I made one for a niece who was super-close to an uncle who was killed on Christmas Day.

These two new ones will be different. The Operation Kid Comfort gal contacted me and wondered if it was even possible. Knowing how much it would mean to the family I couldn't help but say yes.

The request?

Use dad's Air Force fatigues in the quilt. The project is still in the thinking stage.

Day 980

There could be any number of numbers of significance in October. It would be impossible to choose one that is most important.

625 Christmas stockings for Stockings for Soldiers.
4 days I couldn't breathe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
3 shots in my knee.
4,438 dollars won on a penny machine at the casino.
1 new sewing machine.
13 doctor appointments.

Even though November is just beginning there is one number of great significance. (And it isn't the 10 doctor appointments already scheduled.)

It's the number 1000. I imagine you know why that's important.

But I'm surprised I didn't list the number of nights going out to dinner for the two months. I haven't kept track but the number would be high. Really high. Hit the pizza place tonight. How many local pizza joints serve corn chowder? Don't know but ours does.

Day 979

When you're walking out of the house
at 7:30 in the morning
on the way to the doctor
who is going to shoot your knee up again
you aren't thinking about using a camera.

Sometimes your energy
is so drained
the best you can do
is grab the phone.

And take a picture
of sunrise.

Day 978

It took every bit of breath I had in me to make it into the rose garden today to take pictures. Only through that oxygen-depleting activity did I realize how lucky I am. 

Who else, in Idaho, with these cold temperatures, in the month of November, could still manage to have roses that are putting on a show? 

Lucky me. 

Day 977

I'm embarrassed to say I'm still opening boxes of fabric I picked up on eBay. It's like Christmas but without 625 stockings filling my house.

I'm not sure which cat or dog fabric I like best.

Day 976

Just because I've been crazy with Christmas fabric it hasn't stopped me from buying non-Christmas fabric. (Thank goodness it came in the door after the stockings were gone.)

Beautiful.

Day 975

625 Christmas stockings will be heading out my door on their way to Afghanistan. I don't have words for today. Do you?