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?

Day 974

Sure doesn't look like Halloween around my house, does it?

Day 973

The gals from work were right. They knew after my long day at work I'd come home to my recliner and not be able to get up. So I sat in my chair, turned down stocking cuffs, and had hubby put them on the couch so I could organize and count the last batch. But as you can see by the picture I was too tired to organize and count. Even too tired to get up to take the picture. It is what it is. A picture taken after dark, with a phone, from the recliner. The counting will have to wait. Unless you're talking about sheep.

Day 972

Why would anyone have three shots in their knee joint before heading to work? (It originally started like this, but then the doctor also brought in an even bigger shot to add to the bunch.)

Just look at the length of those needles. And guess what? I have to go back next week and the week after to have the same thing.

So again, the question...why would anyone go through that? The story is in the pictures.

What you are looking at is an X-ray underneath a knee cap. See the large, even, curved spacing under the kneecap?

And take a look at mine. Notice anything missing? So until I can have a knee replacement we're adding synthetic synovial fluid, cortisone, and another drug in the mix to try and provide some lubrication/ relief. So fun.

Day 971

What do Christmas stockings for 205 soldiers in Afghanistan look like?

And the sewing continues.

Day 970

I know my elf is expecting to see a picture here tonight of the 100 stockings she sewed over my way. But I had more pressing issues at hand. Issues like trying to determine what could cause a sewing machine to get a bit of a hitch in its giddy up.

After some finagling it became pretty apparent what the problem was. When you have this much stuff clogging up a machine - and that's just around the bobbin area - it's no wonder the machine wasn't operating as well on stocking number 400 as it was on stocking number one. Looks pretty tinted with that red felt I've been using.

Day 969

I enlisted the help of an elf today. Two sewing machines operating at the same time from opposite sides of the table created this. Depending on the time of the day it was either a great project or a big ole mess. Come back tomorrow and find out our total. (It's 11:00 PM and we're still working so no number yet.)

Day 968

The best reason for sitting through a day-long meeting in Boise? I get to see kiddo. And her kitty.

And the pumpkins kiddo and fiancé carved.

Day 967

1. Cut fabric.

2. Sew from top, down around toe, up to heel. 

3. Open stocking and sew felt cuff across top. 

4. Pull felt up out of the way and sew from heel to top. 

5. Turn stocking inside out. 

6. Sew felt edges together. 

6 steps take a very long time when you're talking about hundreds of stockings so I use the assembly line method. At first it was in groups of 25 at a time. Then it was 50 at a time. And now it has become a few hundred at a time. 

At least for steps one and two, that is...

Day 966

Straight from the doctor's report on the ultrasound I had the other day:
"worsening disease activity as compared to prior scan despite infusions."

That'll start your day off well. Add to that another trip to the eye doctors, a follow up from a couple weeks ago. Did you know you can have arthritis of the eye? That's enough to keep your day rolling smoothly. I so wanted to try and go shopping by myself but between a meeting this morning, those two wonderful pieces of news, three separate conversations with three other doctor's offices...and I was defeated. Defeated and tired.

So here we go again. Another night of collapsing in the chair unable to move. I'm not sure any stockings will get sewn together tonight. If I get a burst of energy I'll get there. Otherwise it's time to keep admiring things in my Joann's box. Pretty fabric and thread snips. I love thread snips!