Rationalizations

 Happy Spring, everyone!  Hope you're getting in some nice, warm, sunny days wherever you are! We've had some lovely warm weather, followed by lots and lots of chilly, rainy days.  The forsythia have peaked, as have the daffodils and the Bradford pear trees. Tulips are beginning to bloom, and so have the trees I know only as tulip trees, as well as the weeping cherry trees.  I got a little bit of raking done in the front flowerbed, but nothing else yet.  So what HAVE I been doing? Not yard work.  Not quilting. Not making jewelry. Not taxes. Not housework. Bless J-Man's heart, he so rarely complains, even when the dishes are piled up in the sink and the hamper is overflowing onto the bathroom floor and you can write your name in the dust on the end tables. I do think the Christmas tree still up in the dining room is getting to him, though.  That's on my agenda for the long weekend I have coming up.  Of course, I said that the last weekend I was off, too...

Actually, I've been pretty unproductive lately.  Finally finished up physical therapy, and have just been lazy as a result.  After 8 weeks of either staying late after work or getting up early and driving 30 miles roundtrip to go to PT, I rebelled. Last Monday, my first offday from PT, I stayed in my PJs until about 3 in the afternoon, playing on ancestry.com.  What a black hole that is!  I get to searching around on that site and just lose track of time entirely. Have you been watching their show Who Do You Think You Are?

It's been simply fascinating to me. Some folks have complained that they should profile non-celebrities' searches, but honestly, would you rather learn about Ashley Judd's family history or that of Joe Blow down the street? And yeah, I don't have the money to zip here and there across the country to visit actual sites, but hey, it's still entertaining to watch folks who can afford it.

It doesn't help matters that I broke down and bought myself a Kindle, either.  Back when I first started going to PT, my therapist would set me up in a room after our exercises, and attach the electrical stimulator thingy with a hot pack onto my shoulder and there I'd be by my lonesome for about 20 minutes. After the first visit, I dug around in a box of yard sale finds and took a paperback book with me.  I used to be such an avid reader, but have drifted away from it in past years.  Well that's changed.  One book led to another and then another and then I was talking to one of our surgeons who always arrives on the unit with his earbuds in place.  Turns out he's listening to books on his MP3 player, downloaded from audible.com.  He spends quite a bit of time traveling between the office and 2 different hospitals and this satisfies his need to read. I looked into that, but it seemed a little expensive over the long run, and besides, I have podcasts over a year old that I have yet to hear.



And I don't know about you, but I really never spent much time reading the classics when I was younger. I think teen years are generally too young to really appreciate the classics, no matter how much one loves to read. When I was in high school, we had to read 6 books a school year for English: 2 fiction of our choice, 2 non-fiction, and 2 from a list of required reads, such as  Last of the Mohicans or Lord Jim. Frankly, Lord Jim was the only book I ever fudged and read "Cliff Notes" instead.  I just could NOT get into that book.  But when you have 6th period English Lit, all the good books have been checked out from the school library.

However, any book published before 1923 is generally out of copyright, so most of the classics are free on Amazon. I've downloaded about a dozen books, some free, and some that cost about half the published price. Currently, I'm reading Les Miserables. Besides being lightweight and easier to tuck in my purse or even jacket pocket, the Kindle also has a built-in dictionary, which is convenient for searching those old English (or old French) words unfamiliar to me. Yes, I know I can borrow books from the library for free. But when I go, I always come home with more than I can read in 2 weeks' time, so I rack up big bucks in overdue fines. As in $8.00 at a whack. 

Now there are some books I'll always buy in hardback; my Stephen King books, for example. I also bought a boxload of hardback James Patterson books at a yard sale this weekend for $1.00 each. I won't keep those; I'll donate them to a thrift store when I finish, because I just don't have the storage room for every book I want to read. But with my daughter also owning a Kindle, we can swap books easily--even though we're 7 hours apart.

Okay, that was a totally unpaid advertisement for Kindle.

Oh, and did I mention "Dancing With the Stars" is on again?

With all these distractions, who can concentrate on mundane things like cooking and laundry?

Yes, Virginia, There Really IS a Quilt Police Force.

I just have to link to this post today; it really burns me up to read of such snobbery.  With a little research, you can figure out exactly who the Quilt Police are.

Stephanie to Blog World: Come in, Please.

Well, I'm jumping back into the blogging game, even though I don't feel I have anything very interesting to write about.  I think it's just been the usual winter blahs. So I'll just do some "bullet point" posts here to catch you up to speed.

• Still doing physical therapy on the arm, and it's much stronger, though not up to speed just yet.  I am getting tired of PT, though, so this is probably my last week. I can now sleep at night and do most things without discomfort. Yay!
• Because I'm still on lifting restrictions, and my arm still fatigues quickly, there has still been no sewing or ironing, and that Christmas tree is still in my dining room, fully decorated.
• Finished precepting one student nurse, a gal after my own heart, and now am co-precepting another to help him get all his hours in in time to graduate.  I've really enjoyed this.
• Planning a cruise to Alaska!  We're booked in August and now I'm trying to get the info together to get our passports.  Jack has never had a birth certificate, so his will be a challenge.
• Stuck at 35 pounds lost; juggling the same 3 lbs over and over again. 
 
• Took a 2-hour class at a local beading store making a pendant out of microscope slides.  I still have some more accessorizing to do on it, but when I finish, I'll post a picture.  It was a lot of fun, and I'm thinking of playing with some funky jewelry making.  Nothing fancy, but they will make fun gifts.
• Along the same line, I've been playing with my Kumi-loom and discovered the neatest yarn shop, where I bought some yarn to use for my funky necklaces.  The shop is run by a husband and wife team, and I think he's from the middle east, but they both knit and teach knitting--he teaches lefties and she teaches right-handers. The yarns are so lovely, it almost makes me want to start crocheting again!
• I've decided to sort out and sell a lot of my rubber stamps and supplies, keeping only a few special ones. It's been years since I made Christmas cards or Thank-You cards, and I'm not into scrapbooking, so the stamp pads are probably all dried out. Heck, I can't even remember what some of those supplies are for. 
• My oldest Compassion child, Dalia from El Salvador, turned 18 this month, and has graduated from the program.  We've been writing for 10 years now, and it makes me feel like an empty-nester all over again. I'm allowed to write her one final letter, and then that's that.  Fortunately, I still have Aduri in Bangladesh, and she's only 11 so there are many more years til we have to say goodbye. 
• But I did miss my  Spanish-speaking gal enough to go online and find another little girl: Maria in Columbia.  She's 8 (I'm drawn to the 7- and 8-year-olds) and born on one of my favorite days of the year. Can you guess which day?

• The weather is greatly improved!  After getting home from PT, Tandi and I took a walk at a nearby park, and look what we saw:

Daffodils, I think!

Maybe daylilies?

The first forsythia blossom. ( Sorry for the blurriness--it's my new Coolpix point and shoot and I haven't mastered it yet.)

Spring is coming!

2 in One Month

Wow, I'm on a roll, right?  2 blog posts in the same month!

Okay, let's play catchup.  First off, I am trying to get caught up on all your blogs.  Usually I'm able to knock off 10-12 posts or more while at work on slow nights, but I'm precepting a student nurse who will graduate in March and feel I ought to at least  pretend  to work.  She's doing so well, though, she should be finished with me in a couple more weeks.

What else? Well, Workers' Comp is still "investigating" my arm re-inury, but in the meantime they've sent me to one of their docs.  Xrays show no fractures, so it seems I have strained my rotator cuff and my deltoid muscle.  I'm on Celebrex ($130.00 for a 30-day supply!), Flexeril as needed (knocks me for a loop!), physical therapy, and a 40# lifting restriction with no overhead work.  This means Christmas may extend into February.

Yep, the tree's still up. I don't turn the lights on anymore, though.

The PT scheduler, knowing I work nights, tried to be helpful and made my appointments for 8am Mon-Wed-Fri.  People, I don't see the sunrise unless I've worked all night. This getting up at 6:15 to be showered and dressed and at someplace by 8am is killing me! It's not by accident that I work night shift.

Appointments are ruling my life these days:
     Last Tues. I had a repeat mammogram and ultrasound at 10:45 (just fluid cysts again), met with the home medical folks at 1pm to get a new C-PAP mask, and saw the WC doc at 2:45. 

     Today I had PT at 8am, saw my ENT doc at 9:30 and endured the yearly GYN exam at 10:30. 

     Fri. I will have PT at 8:00, get a bone density scan at 9:30am and try for a hair appointment by noon.

     Next Tues. I only have 2 appointments (so far): dental cleaning and a WC follow-up Whatever will I do with myself the rest of the day? 

No sewing or quilting yet this month.  I tend to hunch my shoulders when machine sewing, so that doesn't work, and the forward motion of rotary cutting is one that causes difficulty. I need to dig around and find some handwork to take with me to all these appointments. 

In the meantime, I ordered a Kumiloom starter kit and additional book.  Have you ever heard of kumihimo?  I hadn't til a couple of months ago when someone in blogland mentioned it (can't remember who.)  The starter kit had a few strands of yarn in it, and easy as it looked, my braid was still a little lumpy.  Guess the tension wasn't even.

Anyway, look at some of these examples:

    Bracelet

Examples of braids

I wish you could get a closer look, but that's a fish with bubbles coming out of his mouth--so cute!

How clever is this one?

Not your average friendship bracelets, wouldn't you say?  Apparently some of the art quilters are using this in their work, too, especially with the beading.   I have a lot of beads left from when I used to bead earrings many moons ago, and other sizes that I've added over the years.  I love beads, but really haven't used them in quilting except for that one daisy wallhanging.  I can see myself playing with them again, but doubt I'll ever aspire to this level:

In the true traditional form, you should be on your knees in front of the maru dai, and lifting each thread with the open fingers and hands--not between the thumb and finger.  Very graceful and oriental, but I don't do knees. Or grace.

But I can see how it would be very meditational to work on one of these.

One thing the month has brought, however, has been a LOT of reading.  So far I've read the entire Hunger Games trilogy: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay.  (Yeah, I know they're considered young adult fiction, but I liked them. The author really knows how to grab your attention and not let go.)

I've also just finished Sundays at Tiffany's, by James Patterson, author of the Alex Cross novels and the Women's Murder Club mysteries.  It was fluff, a quick read with an interesting premise, but not much thought or substance to it.  No matter. Getting interrupted to go from one waiting room to another requires light reading.

Just to let you know that I do read non-fiction, one of the books I'm currently reading is Handbook to Practical Disaster Preparedness.  No, I am not a Rush Limbaugh fan.  Nor do I want to learn how to skin a squirrel with a pocketknife or eat pine bark.  However, we've had a rash of snowstorms the last couple of years, and I thought it might just be a good idea to figure out a preparedness plan, what to stock, etc., especially since I've had to leave Jack here alone while I spent a couple of days sleeping at the hospital or hotel. If I can have everything together and easily accessible for him, I won't worry as much when I'm gone.  This book encourages you to look at your own situation, what emergencies are likely to occur, and any special needs  you may have, such as small children, pets or disabled adults.  This guy's writing style is  conversational, easy to read, and, well, practical.


Last, but certainly not least, is the $376 plumbing bill today.  Sheesh.  Yesterday I spent several hours trying to plunge and then snake a plugged commode, and the only result was more arm pain.  I felt somewhat validated today when the plumber didn't have any success, either.  So we have a new toilet in the master bath, and a new floater thingy in the guest bedroom's toilet.  I'd post a picture, but really doubt you'd want me to.  Suffice it to say the commode is taller, which is easier for Jack, and it's low-flow. That's not what I would have chosen, but between that and fixing the slow leak, we should see the water bill go down considerably next month.

This has been an expensive month!  If this keeps up and if WC denies my claim, I may meet our annual deductible of $3500.00 all by myself in the first 32 days of the year.

More snow and sleet in the forecast for tomorrow, but no accumulation is "expected".  Doesn't mean it won't happen, though.  But at least we don't have the same problems as this guy:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1453678875/ref=oss_product

Snow Day

Can the month be 1/3 gone already??  I had bigger plans for January than this.

Christmas is still in force here at the Scraps household.  Tree's still up, inside and outside lights are still up (but not on!) and there are still gifts in their boxes, waiting for someone to play with them. Seems all I've done is work and lie around in bed or on the sofa. The sinus infection left me so congested, I couldn't use my C-PAP for 9 days, so sleeping was a distant memory, and I think that's why it's taken so long to get over this virus thing.

But Friday night I found the right combination of meds and got my first night's sleep in over a week and wow, what a difference!  The bathrooms are now cleaned, groceries were bought, the sewing room was put back together, Mount Washmore has almost been conquered and there was even some cooking done! 

And then it snowed.

And it snowed some more. 

And I shoveled.  And shoveled. Then the snowplow came and re-deposited snow onto my driveway.

I have a love/hate relationship with the snowplow.

Thurs. night I was put on call, which was great for me, since I was so tired, but they called Fri., Sat, and Sun. to ask me to work.  I felt really guilty saying no, but I had worked sick for 3 shifts, and was exhausted and the house was a mess.  When I got up Mon. morning, I was so glad I'd said no.  There was no way I'd have made it home until 3pm when the snowplows finally got to my road, and I have to work Tues. and Wed. nights as it is. 

Tandi amused herself by attempting to prune the rosebushes for me.

But after sticking with me through repeated shovelings, even Tandi was losing her enthusiasm for the snow.

So was I.

Then my little Halloween helpers came by and spent some time re-posing Napoleon Bone-apart.

Napoleon sported a Santa hat for Christmas; now he just serves to remind me where the edge of the driveway is.

Maybe on my next offday, I can get the cars taken care of, and on the one after that, take down Christmas, and THEN maybe I'll get to sew.

Maybe.