April 16th…has been a pretty good day

I am still home. Lea headed off to Lubbock this morning to spend the weekend with Greg. I kept Catey (Lea’s 6 yo. daughter) today, while Brian and Brayton (Lea’s husband and oldest son) worked to clean up the mess at our shop. 70 mph straight winds ripped off a good portion of our roof, and it’s quite a mess.

The first report from Lubbock today came from Terry May, who has been staying with Greg this week. What a great friend. He headed home today, and before he left he told Greg he was leaving, and Greg opened his eyes, and Terry told him he would see him when he comes home. He said he thought he nodded at him, but he wasn’t completely sure.

Well, when Lea got there, she confirmed that he is nodding a little now, in response to questions. She said it’s a little dip of the chin. He was really moving both of his arms around again today. She said he is using his right arm a lot, and even rubbing at this eyes and the corner of his mouth with it, and scratching at his nose. She said once, he even had both index fingers stuck in his ears. We aren’t sure what that was about. She said it appears that he is trying to use his shoulders some, to readjust himself.

Lea was saying a prayer with him, and when she said Amen, one of the pulmonologists said “amen” with her, and nearly scared her to death. She hadn’t even realized he had come in. He said he is breathing totally on his own, just a little pressure support from vent, and said he is looking better every day. When he left the room, he raised his hand up and said “we’ll keep the prayers going”!

The nephrologist came by later, and they started the IV fluids this evening. He said if his numbers continue to decrease (creatinine, BUN), that he may get to go to a Tues/Thurs dialysis instead of Mon/Wed/Fri. Will just have to wait and see what the labs look like on Monday.

Back to my day here, Catey and I enjoyed our time together. This afternoon, I decided that I would see if she wanted to work on some quilt blocks with me, and she did. She loves crafty things.  I have been trying to squeeze in my blocks every month, for my guild’s Block of the Month challenge, and so far have managed to get them done, even though I haven’t been to a meeting since January.  I did the cutting and the “steering”, while Catey pushed the “gas pedal” for the sewing machine. She loved working on these with me. I may have a new quilter in the making.

Here is a pic of the rest of the blocks I have completed, thus far.

Today sure has seemed like it was more good news than bad, and for right now, I will be thankful for that, and keep hoping and praying for more of it!

Been Busy, Busy…and Sick

Meant to get another blog post up before now, but life had other plans.  Of course, there was district golf, and traveling for that.  I happily and proudly present the 2010 District Champs!

The first one on the left is MY golfer.  Hopefully, I will be on the road to Lubbock Sunday, for the regional tournament, Monday and Tuesday.  I say hopefully, because I have been down for the count since Wednesday evening with some nasty flu.  I managed to get out of bed around 11:00 this morning.  I was up and down all night with a horrid headache.  I tried ice, I tried hot bath water…nothing would ease what felt like a vice squeezing my brain.  And the nausea.  Yuk.  My poor DH has even been home with it since mid-afternoon Wednesday.  I am praying that Derek does not get it.  At least not til AFTER regionals.  That would not be good.

I finished the quilting for the guild’s donation quilt.  The pattern is Lucky Stars, by Terry Atkinson, with an added applique border.  I think the guild members were happy with it.  I used Quilter’s Dream blend batting, Superior’s Rainbows thread on top, and Superior’s So Fine thread on back.  The top is all batiks, and the backing is a wide batik backing from Sew Batik.  It was wonderful to quilt.  I was worried about using a fussier thread with all those batiks, but I didn’t have any troubles.  I started out with a larger needle…a size 20 titanium from Groz-Beckert, and that seemed to work very well.  I had fantastic tension, top and bottom.  I was very happy with the way the quilting looks on the back.

Here are some block close-ups so you can see how lovely this Rainbows variegated thread looked on this.  I was using the color Rain Forest, in the stars and borders, and Sand Castle in the background.  The Rain Forest blended so nicely with all the different colors in this quilt.  I love it!  The Sand Castle was a perfect match for the range of colors in the batik background fabric.

The ladies at the guild did a great job putting this together and it was a pleasure to work on it.  I fell totally in love with it, and it sure was hard to give it back! Just a couple more…

It will be a lucky person that gets to take this Lucky Stars home with them!

On a final note, thanks to everyone that took time to vote in the Circle Lord Challenge contest, whether you voted for my quilt or not! And thanks to those that have sent me good wishes and words of encouragement, and did vote for mine.  Now, we just have to wait til the winners are announced.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  Think I will go lay back down for awhile.

We won!

The Perryton Rangers won first place! And my  baby boy won 1st place individual.  In fact, it was a medal sweep with the Rangers taking 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th individual, as well as 1st place team.

the whole team

my kid!

Finishing out with a birdie putt to finish with an even par score of 72.

I must mention that it is his last tournament on his home course as a high school golfer.  Mama was a little teary eyed. What a great day!

And then the blasted hail came :-(

Last night,  a storm blew in with a vengeance.  I was about to drift off to sleep when the hail started pounding the house.  It was fairly small, mostly marble size, but relentless.  I stood watching out the patio door, helplessly wondering about the baby doves and my favorite toad, Zapper.  He had not come to the patio last night, which he does about every other night, to eat his fill of June bugs and other insects, underneath the patio light.  This has been his (or her) routine for the past three summers.  I’ve grown very fond of this toad.  I had seen him last, laying underneath the iris leaves, in the southwest corner of our yard,  one of his favorite hangouts. When the hail finally let up, I threw on a rain jacket over my jammies, slipped on a pair of flip flops, grabbed a flashlight, and went to check on him. It was after midnight.  It was raining. I know, most sane people would’ve gone to bed.   It’s a TOAD.  But,  I couldn’t.  I had to look.  When I rounded the corner of the house, and the light hit “his spot”, I was so afraid of what I would find.  The hail had completely covered his little corner, like a snow drift.  I began to dig it away, and sure enough under about two inches of a solid pile of round hail stones, was Zapper.  As I got more moved away, he wiggled his leg.  I got him pulled out and he was so freezing cold.  I went straight back to the patio with him, where I could get a better look at him.  He looked ok, and once he got warmed up, he ate a couple of June bugs on the patio.  Then he hopped off.  I haven’t seen him today, so I hope he didn’t have internal injuries.

And sadly, at least one of the little doves is dead.  I’m not sure about the other one.  I *may* have seen it this morning as I was leaving for work, still alive, but I couldn’t be sure.  I haven’t found it’s body, so hopefully it made it.

The yard is littered with leaves from our trees. This was the view of the backyard this morning.

And this is the little hole where Zapper was.  He was literally buried in hail.

This is the front yard debris and a picture of the roof, where the doves used to be, covered with Mimosa tree leaves.

Poor little things didn’t stand a chance, it hit so hard & fast.  But other than that, all is well.  It could’ve been much worse.  I know that.  And I am thankful that it wasn’t.  It’s all part of the circle of life, the natural order of things.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t be a little sad for a little bird (or a toad) for a few moments, does it?

It’s like a birdie nursery around here!

Meet a few of the new kids in the neighborhood.

Babies in the next door neighbor’s tree, that overhangs part of our front yard.  Mama, Daddy or both were really squawking at us while we were looking up at them, and I was taking pics.

Of course the swallows came back to nest above my front door again.  Oh the mess they make.  But this is the 2nd batch of babies this year.  Soon they will be fledglings, and I can clean it all up again.

And this is a pair of dove babies.  They spend most of the time hanging out on my roof, underneath the mimosa tree branches that hang over.  Once in awhile they fly over to the neighbor’s roof, and then back to ours, or a branch in the mimosa tree.  Aren’t they little cuties?

This is a picture that has one of the parents in it, and they were on the neighbor’s roof, at the time.

Hope you enjoyed my Monday Mini Bird Show!

Weathering (or should that be feathering?) the Storm plus Stash Report

My stash report is short & sweet.  None new in, none new out.  I have continued to work on blocks for my One Block Wonder quilt.  That’s about all I’ve done quilty.  I haven’t even touched the longarm since I took my last customer quilt off.  Well, I have touched it, just haven’t turned it on…lol.  I have that king size quilt of my own all ready to go and just can’t get motivated.

Our blizzard brought much needed moisture to our area, and for that I am very grateful.  It did ruin the blooms on my magnolia bush, though.    I’m not sure how the tulips will fare, but I suspect better than the magnolia.  So much of it is already melting away.

I thought I’d share a few pics I took of the birds that were seeking shelter on my patio, and congregating in my tree for food, during the blizzard.  There were finches, doves, red wing blackbirds, blue jays, sparrows, grackles, starlings, and something I didn’t recognize.

During a time when they had flown back out and away from the patio, I slipped some seed out there in an old cat food bowl that was still out there on a bottom shelf.  When they came back, they had a nice surprise.

These are eating seed that they had knocked out of the feeder.

I tried to keep seed out for the, and the trees in my yard were full of birds most of the day.

And you thought from the title that this was going to be about quilting, didn’t ya?

Snow is good for something else, besides moisture.  Snow ice cream!

It was fun while it lasted, but now bring back Spring! Have a great week everybody!

More Snow, But The Skies Are Blue Now

I have family members wanting to see pics of our snow, so here ya go! This was a funny looking snow “sculpture” made by the blowing wind.

This morning, it was more like a wall.

Please ingnore the broken dishwasher on the patio.  It makes me think of “you might be a redneck if…”  That is my old one that we had to replace last weekend, and that is as far as my hubby has gotten with hauling it off.  It really won’t stay there forever.

Lulu says, “no, Mommy…I don’t wanna go outside…I just want to stay curled up right here on Daddy’s lap…I’m not going to help you get my sweater on.”

How am I going to get out of here?

Notice, it was no problem for Libby the “snow plow”.

Drifts on the north side of the house.

I cleared all the snow off of the hot tub about 7:00, last night, and this is how it looks this morning.

Drifts on the south side of the house.

I thought this looked neat, hanging off of the house.

Where’s the sidewalk?

I can see the water tower and the rest of town again.

I’m not sure why my husband was laughing at me this morning…???

What tulips?

The tree across the street, and the tree next door look really pretty today.

This is a huge drift in the front, south side of the yard.

Between us and the neighbor to the north.

And a couple snow close-ups.

And that concludes this morning’s snow show!

Oh Yes, It Really Does Snow in Texas! :-)

My snow plow!

This one does NOT like it AT ALL!

No, I didn’t fall down, I just had the camera at a weird angle…lol.

I’ve been out a couple of times to fill up the bird feeders and it’s been quite a popular hangout for the neighborhood birds today.  I’ll be posting some pics of them over the next few days.

Also, I want to thank everyone for their prayers and thoughts, good wishes and advice offered about Greg’s upcoming ankle surgery! We appreciate it greatly!!

Waiting on the snow!

We are supposed to be hit with a blizzard, tonight til Saturday morning.  They have predicted as much as 17″ for my area.  We shall see!  The winds are supposed to blow something fierce, and it’s possible we could have power outages, so if I “disappear”, I prolly just don’t have electricity!

Update On Hubby’s Ankle

I mentioned an upcoming ankle fusion being a possibility for my husband a month or so ago.  Some of you have asked for updates, so I’m posting what I know so far.  We met with the doctor in Amarillo again today, and went over his bone scans.  The good news is that the arthritis is limited to the ankle joint only, leaving the rest of the joints in his foot unaffected.  That is a positive for the ankle fusion.  The fusion is really the only “fix” for his pain and discomfort, and will probably have better mobility after the fusion.  We are going to put it off til October, partly due to the fact that my husband’s work is typically busier in the summer, and he has a fishing tournament he really wants to go to in September.  We own a glass & tile business, and this will have him out of commission for quite awhile.  It’s going to be tough, no doubt about that, but I’m praying the long term benefits will outweigh all the hardship.  When he has the surgery, which is a day surgery, he will have to keep his ankle elevated, at head level or a little higher, for two full weeks, only allowed up to the bathroom.  No weight allowed on the ankle for at least 6 weeks after that, (or maybe including that two weeks-I’m not sure about that now) and then he will be allowed to start putting limited weight on it, depending on if the fusion “took” or not.  He said by the three month mark, he should feel better than he feels now, but it will take a full 9 to 12 months to heal completely.  In the meantime, he is taking Celebrex, and if he has a really bad spell, or some times he will be on his feet more, they said they can give him some cortisone injections.  He is to try wearing some lace up ankle boots to give it some more support, and ice it.  We sure aren’t looking forward to the process, but we are so hopeful about the end result.