I really want my other blog to be my primary blog and I have no idea why it won’t let me do that. Very confusing
After a flurry of activity the last couple days, today is surprisingly calm. Only a few things on the to-do list, and all day to accomplish them. I have 5 days off in a row, I am so excited! I’ve been a terrible quilt slacker this week because I got sucked into a knitting project, and while I love fabric, I truly love yarn more. I got sucked into a shawl, and then discovered that there’s an error in the directions. I’m not about to rip out fifty couple rows, I doubt anyone will ever notice that one stitch error!
I was hoping for a nice, calm weekend, but Max had other ideas. On Wednesday we went to the groomer. On Thursday he played with Keno. Thursday night I discovered blood on his neck, and what looked like a cut. On Friday we went to the vet, who took one look and pronounced “hot spots!” On not one side of his neck, but both. So my poor baby got shaved – he was not impressed. And medicated. He was less impressed. Two shots, one an antibiotic and the other a steroid for the itch, and we were sent home with medicated wipes, anti itch spray, and told to clean and treat three or four times a day. Oh, it’s such fun to do this by myself! Last night, the Bear held him while I cleaned and sprayed, and it was so much easier.
The steroids make him hungry and thirsty and he’ll be almost asleep when it’s like something bites him in the butt and he’s up and running. Part of it is no exercise the past couple days, I’m not taking him for a walk with this going on, so all we’ve done is a few car rides and otherwise we’re home. Yesterday he started scratching so now there’s one spot that looks sore still, but otherwise it’s all drying up nicely. What an ordeal for both of us!
Just grateful it’s healing, and trying to convince myself that I’m not the worst puppy parent ever.
Today is cold and rainy and my bones ache. But then again, my bones always ache! There’s cleaning to be done, and sewing to be done, exams to grade, books to read, knitting to knit! It shall be a good day. I so decree. 🙂
I got a surprise, sort of, today – I read back over the last 6 or 8 posts I’ve written and holy cow, what a Debbie Downer I’ve become!
So today ……….something happy.
Max and I took our usual mile walk yesterday, and happily, his best friend was home. He got to play with Keno, a 2 year old Husky, for over an hour. They do the bitey face game, and the wrestling game, and the chase each other game. He was one tired – and very happy – boy.
(Okay, why did this person sit down next to me and start talking?)
So today’s plan is to go home, have lunch, get a nap, take a walk, and come back to school. I get to teach adjusting entries. It’s very amusing to watch the confusion, and very rewarding to watch the lights go on over their heads. 🙂
AND……..the Orioles clinched! I think that’s the term, anyway, my husband is very happy about it!
I didn’t know the planes had hit the World Trade Center till after I went on the computer that morning. We never turned the tv on till after lunch, so we didn’t see the news that morning. I went online to talk to my friend, the man I had fallen in love with, although neither of us realized it at the time. He told me, and the images were there on the screen – the plane hitting the tower, and then the second plane hitting, and the news of the Pentagon being hit, and the plane in the field in Pennsylvania.
I cried. I couldn’t believe this was happening to my home, that there were people in the world who hated us so much that they would do such a horrible thing – and celebrate it as a victory of some sort. How could they hate us, when they didn’t even know us? How could people think so badly of a country that always had seemed so full of joy, so big, so confident, so filled with light? I couldn’t make sense of it.
I didn’t realize how badly shaken I was till I was driving to school a few weeks later, and a plane flew overhead -circling to land at the airport. I had to pull over. I was shaking and screaming “GO AWAY!”
And I cried – again.
I’ve given them enough tears. I didn’t lose my family – that day. I didn’t lose any friends. I’m very grateful for that.
I spent most of the day on the sofa. I overdid it yesterday, and the day before, and now I pay. It’s so tiring to be in pain – it’s more sore and hurting, not really pain. And tired. I slept for 2 hours and then slept some more. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.
I’ve been aggravated all week by things I can’t control. So here’s the thing. I can accept that I can’t change them………..or I can keep on being annoyed. I’m trying really hard to accept………..and ignore………what I can’t change.
I can’t stop stores from putting out Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving – but I can refuse to decorate my home, or do any shopping, or talk about Christmas, or make plans …………until I’m ready. I can unsubscribe from facebook friends who start talking about it before I want to hear about it.
I can’t control the weather. I can stop watching the news more than once a day, I can ignore dire predictions of a winter to end all winters (Oh, my GOD, we’re all GONNA DIE!).
I can’t control the stupidity on other forums I read. But I don’t have to respond.
Maybe if I can remember that it’s not up to me, I won’t get so pissed off when people don’t do what I think they should.
days before we got Max. And how lonely I was.
There weren’t any toys on the family room floor. There were no sheets or blankets on the furniture. When it got dark, the house was closed up and I didn’t go back out. I didn’t get frustrated not knowing what this creature wanted or what he was thinking.
And I didn’t get puppy kisses, or happy dances when I got home. I didn’t have friends and I didn’t go very far.
I guess I’ll keep him . Cuz I can’t imagine going back to living without him.
I’m annoyed with the Golden Retriever board.
I’m annoyed with facebook
I’m annoyed with Amazon
I’m very annoyed with Verizon
I’m annoyed with my body
I hurt most of the time. I have a chronic condition – I hate to even say that. I’m tired of hurting. Yep, I’m tired.
So I went looking for support groups and found next to nothing. Guess that means I have to support myself! The best advice I saw was to turn the pain into a positive, to focus on the good stuff instead of inviting in the hurt. By saying to myself, “my chest hurts,” I’m sort of affirming that my chest does, indeed, hurt. So I’m trying to tell myself that yes, it hurts, but not that much! If I let it get to me, I’ll sit down and cry and do nothing and it hurts no matter what, it hurts when I do nothing, it hurts when I do stuff, so I may as well do stuff!
I’m annoyed with Amazon because they removed the quick link to the 100 top free Kindle books from my Fire. But I’ve adjusted. I can simply type “free” into the search box on the books page, and it brings up the list.
I’m annoyed with facebook because seriously, why do people use it as a diary and then get mad when people comment? If you put your stupid decisions out there, you’re asking me to judge them. Kinda like – if you use your phone in public, you’re asking me to comment on your conversation.
I called Verizon last week about a problem we’ve been having with our DSL. Simple question – can you check the modem? I got a guy in India, with a very heavy accent. I told him, politely, that I was having difficulty understanding him, and asked to speak to someone with less of an accent. He refused to transfer me to another agent. After 20 minutes of me asking him to repeat himself at least twice for every sentence he spoke, and asking him several more times to transfer me, I hung up. I called back, pressing different numbers this time, and got a guy who said he would have to transfer me to customer service. I begged him not to send me to India, telling him what had just happened. He told me to ask to to speak to someone in America, that they were required by law to transfer me. Again I got someone with a heavy accent, told him to transfer me to America. He put me on hold for 20 minutes. When someone picked up, it was a girl with a very heavy accent. I told her to transfer me. She said she’d open a case file. I said, “no, you won’t, please transfer me.” She put me on hold for 15 minutes. Finally I got a girl who said she was in California – and within 5 minutes the problem I was having with the DSL was resolved. So I go online to register a complaint with Verizon, because this is ridiculous – and can’t find a link, an email address, a phone number, nothing! After searching for close to an hour, I found an email address and sent off a letter – which I’m sure will have no effect, but I felt better!
I have way too much to do this week. And I’m going to be grateful for the fact that I have the ability to get it all done.
Back a few years ago, there was a thing that people did on blogs – where are you from? I started it and never finished it, but the part I did stated that I am from quilts, from fabric cut into small pieces and made anew into something better, stronger, more beautiful. I grew up with quilts, watching my mother cut fabric and sew tiny pieces together to make blocks, thread needles and sew tiny stitches to hold the quilt top to the back, lying on the living room floor to pin the back, the batting and the top together.
I made my share of quilts through the years. I started with a piece of fabric that had a Raggedy Ann print, on top of a plain back, quilted in straight lines from one corner to the other. I made a pattern called Grandmother’s Flower Garden for my best friend, another one for a friend’s baby – that one was tiny hexagons sewn by hand.
The last quilt I finished took over 8 years. Quilting was a love I shared with my mother – she used to say that while she was finishing one, she was planning the next. She taught me everything I know about putting a quilt together – about planning, choosing fabric, sewing seams just so.
When she died, I didn’t pick up a needle for 5 years. I had started a quilt, a Double Irish Chain, for my best friend. She got married the weekend before 9/11 – and my mother died a year later. The quilt was pinned, and the quilting was begun. I had to move, from the home I’d called mine for years, but that’s another story. The quilt was rolled and packed, and pulled out a few times, but very little progress was made. It hurt my heart to work on it, and I found excuses to let it lay.
After we moved into the house, and the excuses didn’t really fly any more, I brought it out and finished it. It felt good, it was the closing of a chapter in my life. Or so I thought.
My best friend’s daughter is getting married. I adore that girl, she’s a rotten brat but I love her like she was my own. On impulse, I offered to make her a quilt as a wedding present, and she was thrilled. She chose, of all things, Double Irish Chain.
We chose fabric, I bought some fun things like marking pencils and a template for the squares, floss to sew the corners down, everything I could think I’d need.
Pressing the fabric was the first step. Something about folding the fabric over the ironing board opened a door in my heart, a door that’s been closed for 10 years. Memories have been washing over me for the past week – memories of the snick my mother’s scissors made as she cut fabric on the dining room table, memories of my niece sewing blocks on Mother’s machine, of the three of us pinning her quilt together, tying it off, sewing the borders. A niece who no longer speaks to me, she was such a big part of my life.
I thought the pain would be less as the years went by. And then I cut a piece of fabric – and opened up a wound that will apparently never heal.
Trying to get back to what passes for normal around here. I miss Anna. I have a doll she made, and I’ll have another next week. It helps a little, to have something that she made, that she loved. But it doesn’t make the hurt go away.
I’ll get there. Somehow
Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues 
