Sept 26/09

Mandibular tori----a new to me medical condition. My dentist saw me yesterday morning and told me that it is a benign, bony growth that is not treated unless the growth starts to interfere with the function of one's mouth. Apparently it is rather a common thing as my dentist showed the growths in his own mouth and a couple of my friends have also revealed that they have them as well.

Not much stitching has been going on here, but tonight looks like a good stitching night. We had a true frost last night so we are all complaining about the cold here. I had thought about sitting out by the fire this evening, but I feel the cold when I am tired (just worked 9-6 and then went to the funeral home to pay respects to friends of mine from the high school orchestra) so I think that I will wrap myself in my sweats and take up the position in the stitching chair.

Poor Hayes may have to go to the vet after all. She has a large cyst under her upper left eye lid that has been getting worse despite the antibiotic/steroid drops I have been using when she lets me put them in her eye. It looks like it is pressing on her eyeball and I am not 100% sure that she can see much out of that eye because the cyst is so big. At least she has gained 3 pounds this past week so I am in no danger of being accused of animal neglect any more. She is now soft and fluffy again although at 8 lbs she is still rather boney.

Alright, time to change out of this dress and into some comfy wear. Bring on the stitching!!

Sept 24/09

Stitching has been therapeutic for me this week. Besides having Hayes curl up with me and snuggle while stitching, I have also enjoyed having my mind taken off a little medical issue that has developed. I have a bump on the inside of my jaw on the right side. It has been there for a while (i.e. several months), but it recently got really inflamed. My family doctor looked at it this morning and she suggested that I get my dentist to look at because she had no idea what the bump could be (no open sores like a cancre and no pus when inflamed) so I am going to see my dentist in the morning. The next stop after that will be an ENT if my dentist is not sure what it might be. My doctor agreed with me that it is definitely more than my jaw bone not being symmetrical, but she could not come up with any idea as to why the bump would be where it is.

The problem for me is that I am in health care so I already have visions in my head of needing surgery and chemo. I go whole hog when it comes to imagining medical bogey men! In reality, at most, it will be a day surgery procedure to remove what is probably some weird calcification thing from my jaw bone.....

One other reason that stitching has been therapeutic for me-----a little boy from our town moved to Toronto recently with his family because he needs a double lung transplant. News came yesterday morning that he was in surgery and I read his mom's blog this morning that said he is now in recovery and will be sedated for the next 48 hours while his new lungs settle into his body. The whole town was on edge yesterday as we were waiting for updates from his family. He is only 11 years old and is so brave that he told the nurses to look after his parents while he was being wheeled into the operating room.

Sept 22/09

Here is my little darling Hayes at the beginning of her de-fleaing, lots of eating and treatment of her eye infection. Since then, she has gained 2 pounds, had flea medication smeared on her head and her eyes are looking much better. The upside of her being so tiny now is that my bed pillow can hold both my head and her when she makes herself comfortable (and me, not so much) in the middle of the night. The downside is that she is a kitty bag of bones at the moment. She is no longer my "Fat Cat" as I have lovingly called her for years, but she has not lost any of her attitude so I figure that she has increased her attitude to pound ratio by quite a bit recently!

Sept 19/09

I have been stitching on some ornaments all week and they will be posted when I have finished stitching all six! They are not that big and take on average one evening to stitch each one. The other night as I was dropping threads into my ort jar, I realized that the jar is starting to overflow so I decided to photograph it for posterity before I throw out its contents. How does everyone else deal with their threads? Do you pile them up beside you while you stitch and then promptly throw them out when you stitching session is over? Do you have a little container that you keep like I do and empty when full? Just curious.

My friend Janet stopped by the pharmacy yesterday to thank me for the breast cancer card I sent her this week. She said that it was nice to get something in the mail that was not a bill! She starts her chemo regimen in just over a week and is going through 8 cycles in two months time. Her mother and her 2 sisters are glued to her side so she has strong family support and I told her that I will do whatever I can to make things easier for her at the drugstore. I felt so bad that I had to tell her that her copayment for one of her drugs will total around $4 000 for this chemo cycle. Yup, that is her COPAYMENT. Even in the land of Medicare, becoming sick can be very expensive. Anyhow, the main point of this paragraph is that we should all make an effort to reach out to those around us. Even the small effort of mailing a card to let someone know that we are thinking about them in good times and in bad can mean so much.

Here is a little miracle for you all. I announced the other day that Hayes the kitty was gone. The other cats had gone into mourning and Hayes was gone longer than she had ever been before. Last night, I had gone into the city to do some shopping. When I came home, I was greeted by one of the other cats. Then, I heard Hayes' meow behind me. I was in shock for hours because I really had thought that she was dead. She is two pounds lighter (and probably ate her weight last night!) and her eyes are a terrible mess, but she claimed her spot on my pillow last night and has not left my side since she came home. She is terribly thin and has no fat on her whatsoever. Stroking her back makes me shiver because her spine is so prominent now. She was gone for 19 days this time.

Sept 13/09 part deux

I just finished the back stitching on the Bear card and assembled both cards! They are kits from a company called Design Works Crafts. I picked them up for a song when the Lewiscraft store in Saint John was closing out. At the time, I think I bought 10 or 12 of them and these are the last two cards! A few more things completed and done for Christmas and a few less things sitting in my stash!

Sept 13/09

Here is my breast cancer card. The design is found in JCS October 2009. I stitched it on a 28 count scrap of linen and inserted it into a card frame that I found at Michaels in the sale bin a while ago. I did not have DMC899 so I used DMC 894 for the word "Cure". Now, to get it into the mail to my friend to let her know that I am thinking of and praying for her.

Sept 12/09

No piccies to post today so far. After I come home from shopping and have a chance to stitch a bit this evening, I should have some photos of two Christmas cards that I have been working on this week. Then, I plan to stitch a breast cancer card that reads "Faith, Hope, Cure" for a woman who grew up next door to me and who has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. Her cancer is in the milk duct. In my job, I deal with people everyday who have cancer, but this hits a little too close to home. She and I used to make mud pies together in her front yard and sit together on the school bus. She and her sister were the first two friends I made at age 4.5 years when I moved to New Brunswick.

Life truly is a precious gift and the days where everything is going well and our health is intact are rare gifts that we should treasure. A 80 year old woman taught me a saying the other day which I can not remember verbatim, but it was essentially that if you are feeling bothered by old age, remember that there are those who will never reach old age.

Sept. 10/09

This Daydreams kit was bought and stitched for a friend of mine as a joke. One day, I was at work and ran into this friend. He has lots of bird feeders so I told him that I had recently been seeing a cardinal at my bird feeder. Cardinals are not a common bird to this area, but this past winter/spring there were a couple of pairs seen in the area and I was blessed with one of them! Now, what I know about birds and their names is really not worth knowing, but it was bien evident even to a bird dummy like me that the bright red bird at my feeder was a cardinal. My friend asked me, "Was it a male or a female? Males are brighter than females." Now, he just happened to realize at that moment that he was surrounded by three women who all burst out laughing when he said that! We all said variations of "Oh really?!!" while we were laughing! Then, he tried to dig himself out of that gender landmine hole, much to our great amusement. The hole just kept getting bigger no matter what he said and we women just kept laughing harder and harder. We knew full well that he was referring to the colour of the cardinal feathers and not the intelligence levels of males and females!

My friend's wife called the store a few days later and I happened to answer. She said to me, "Now Virginia, could you not give my husband such a hard time when he comes in!" as she burst out laughing. He had gone home and told the story to her much to her great amusement as well! He has also gone on to amuse his extended family with the story as well. So, when I saw this kit in the Mary Maxim catalogue recently, I could not help myself! I am off this morning to sneak it into his mailbox. He will know immediately who it is from!

Sept 8/09

Not much stitching to show as I just spent a 3 day holiday in a little village called Cocagne on the southeastern shore of New Brunswick. The sea air and quiet of the area had me catching up on sleep when I was not reading! I devoured "The girl who played with fire" by Stieg Larsson and made a big dent in "The Australian Trilogy" by Bryce Courtenay. The inn was lovely, but I was the only guest there for 2 of the 3 nights which was a bit spooky. On the other hand, I was not disturbed by other people so I could blissfully sleep and laze about! My room was the best bedroom in terms of the view as I could see the ocean out of the window and the patio door.

One afternoon, I drove to the Irving Eco Centre just outside of Bouctouche. The dunes and the boardwalk were gorgeous!

I have only seen a few blue herons in my lifetime in the part of the province where I live. Blue herons nest in the Bouctouche region and this is one of several that I saw in the marshes there.


Some very sad news to report. My long time stitching companion, Hayes the kitty, has gone to the happy mousing grounds. She used to spend her evenings either curled up beside me or behind me on the back of the couch while I stitched. She is known to go walkabout for several days at a time, but she left home over a week ago and not one sign of her has been seen by me or any of the neighbours. The other two cats suddenly became very clingy and needy a day after she left which is unusual behaviour for them when she goes walkabout so I am 99.9% sure that she has passed away. She has not been well for a while with a 6-7 pound weight loss in the past year, but she was still as cantankerous and full of character as always despite the arthritis that was slowing her down a bit. I know that they can not live forever and that she would leave me sooner rather than later, but I was kinda' hoping for much later. I have 15 years of great memories so the tears are tempered with smiles as I remember all of her little quirks and attitudes. I had many nicknames for her that sum her up: Fat Cat, Fuzzybutt, the Punkinator, Mrep Mrep (her meow was kind of bizarre), Chumba (short for "big fat chubby cat"), Miss Moo and more recently, The Old Lady.

Sept 2/09

Not much stitching to show just yet although I am working on 2 Christmas card kits that I found in my basket beside the couch. Gabby was being helpful last night as I was surfing the net. In this photo, she was letting me know that her ears needed scratching. A few minutes before, she was sleeping with her head on my hand that was moving the mouse around. Annoying, yet adorable at the same time!