06-18-17 This has been a quilt-type morning :)

 Sunday, June 18, 2017 @ 8:31AM

Good morning.  This is me and we’ll have to consider this a sluggish morning.  Sorry about that.  This hasn’t been a real organized weekend so far and it’s nearly over.  I know – first thing Sunday morning, and there is a lot of time to turn things around, just we are a little disappointed about not being able to keep on top of things over the last two days while Rich has been gone away.  This is something we should probably note in our hard things for Dr. Marvin.  Not sure how to label it yet, but maybe we can think of that in a few.

So, ANYWAY, it is Sunday morning and I’m sure the birds are chirping, but for now we are in our nicely air-conditioned home and am at the computer, and that is fine for now.  All the morning routines have been taken care of and Dakota’s doing great.  He let me sleep in this morning.  BUT, for the sake of record, our last dream we were in a mental institution, and they had not fed us and we had just gotten to our room and realized that the dog needed out and everyone needed to be fed.  How’s that for interpreting our first assignment of the day unconsciously through our dreams?  Pretty Good, right?  I think Dakota’s sub-conscious was working with ours hehe.

One of the things we did this morning in our waking-up routines was to pencil in our fitness pal that we were going to eat just such and such.  Maybe that will help with the diet.  I know for sure that we are going to need talking about it to Dr. Marvin on Tuesday.  We are going to be in the car coming home from Ohio with Rich, so maybe we can list some things to be talked about in Trello, and then send him the password.  Better recall that, hmm?

AHA!  That reminded me we hadn’t saved the Dreammapper password to AOL.  We did have it in our capture journal, but we just made the transfer.  Those kinds of things are important.  Hmm, this is new Dreammapper.  It is the corresponding App that goes with our new C-Pap machine.  Tomorrow, we will have to contact our provider and see if we can get it to work through the modem.  I believe that is the proper way, and then they will connect to something called encoreanywhere, and then we won’t have to take the card out and put it in our computer every morning to get our numbers.

The numbers aren’t a lot, and it won’t go back to the numbers we’ve had already, although that too may be something we can ask the provider to get for us.  The basic numbers are AHI which is better toward zero and under 5 is great.  It has something to do with another ratio to do with apneas, but I don’t have that down yet.  Yesterday, my number was 4.5, but today, it was a great 1.7!  YAY.  It also told me that yesterday I had 7:36 hours, and today, I had 8:22 hours of sleep – that is great, unless you are not getting in enough writing time – boo!  The next number is the mask fit.  Yesterday, it was 98% fit, and this morning it was 100% YAY!  Seems then, we didn’t knock it off during the night.  Good stuff! 

The next number is Total Sleep apneas.  This is the time that your oxygen is reduced by 80% for longer than 10 seconds. We’re labeling this TOA and yesterday it was 13 and today it was 8.  And, then there is THA which is total hypopneas which went from 21 to 6.  I don’t know how we did that, but good job!  I think hypopneas is the same as TOA’s, but it’s only 40% reduction of air flow for 10 seconds.  And, then the last number is the number of mask total disconnects.  I think this is good for when we go to the bathroom, and must take the mask off.  So perhaps, in the morning is one, and then the other number in addition is for getting up to go to the bathroom.  While last night was 2, the night before was 3.  That’s it 😊

I just got the fiver.  I think we’re going to clear the table.  Hold on.

Good-good.  We’re back.  We put a few more things in the dishwasher and picked up a few things on the side table in the living room and kitchen counter, and then we did the kitty litter and the garbage, and we cleaned off the kitchen table.  It is back to where we like it.  It only takes a few moments – and shame on us for not being able to do this more often at least in the “old days.”  This five-minute timer on the computer has worked extremely well in getting us to do some of this short-term stuff.  I might have gone over a few moments, but we were able to do it in one standing – so, that couldn’t have been too long.  I’m thinking now of the dishwasher.  It contains all four measuring cups.  I had to make Jell-O this morning with a regular cup measurer and a regular bowl.  Hmm, this is going to affect my being able to make oatmeal for lunch.  Better get that started now too.

THERE!  AND, we filled our sunflower seeds.  It should be said once for the record, that is the same time we empty out the cup next to it for the seed shells.  YEEKS … looking at the time now and it is 9:06AM.  I think we’re going to keep on schedule or get back to it anyway, by jumping in the shower and getting dressed.  Think that’s a good routine, we want to keep.  BRB.

BACK @ 9:25AM!  YAY!  We’re doing it on time!  We did the shower, dress, picked-up dirty clothes and made the bed, OH and we’ve been opening the curtain back there.  At least one.  It lets in more light in the house.  I would do the other, but I think it’s too clear a shot to the bathroom, and we don’t want to share that.  Yup – that’s how we roll!

SOOO, everything is pretty much taken care of, and we let Dakota out too.  He’s all good now.  We might have to get ourselves something to drink.  We’ve done 1 ½ bottles of water, but that’s not kicking our thirst.  We haven’t had a can of pop all weekend because we’re trying to drink more water, but I think this is a good time to do one – one meaning a can of diet coke.  I know, they are supposed to be terrible, but we’ve not gotten into all that yet. 

We’ll finish the last bottle of water first.  There.  AND, we are using the old Fitbit.  We got a note from CS yesterday saying she’d mail the charger on Monday, so that means we’ll be back to the old one for the better part of the week.  I hope she sends it, but she’s not the most dependable there.  She’s already a week later than she should have been.  I know beggars can’t be choosers.  We didn’t ask for the Fitbit, but we think there is a little lingering in her thoughts of having volunteered it.  I think that’s the way these kinds of things go.  It’s the same with our art quilt.  There is no perfectly good reason to postpone finishing it, but here we are, and it is still not done.  Maybe after we get these baby quilts made into one big one, we should go back to that.  How can we fault CS, if we can’t do much better ourselves?

As to the baby quilts!!!  We are back in the saddle.  I believe we finished putting together the last one as an individual of the nine.  I still must iron it, but I might find that the same with many as we now go back over things.  I believe 3 are put together in one of the three rows, but we need to place them all out on the floor and assure they are where they should be in order.  Our number system was lost for various reasons.  Not a big deal.  Should be kind of fun.  So, then we will so the remaining two rows (3 pieces), and then we will sew the three rows together, and it will be done.  We are very close now.  Even with going to Ohio overnight on Monday, we should still finish it this week.  We should also measure it to find out if someone is going to be able to quilt it.  I think it is going to be too big for Linda’s machines.  Hmm, maybe we could do that now.

@1:05PM Back again.  That all seems to have taken some time – by that I mean, checking into the baby quilts “stuff.”  We made a big advancement in pulling the BIG baby quilt together.  We figured out for one, that the quilt is going to be 120” x 120” in size.  We also found the number of someone we either used in the past, or my sister used in the past.  We had her business card and she goes by the name of Cotie’s Machine Quilting.  She does seem to do, according to her web site, quilts that are this large, and it turns out that quilts my size are a “California King.” Didn’t know that, cool we matched up!  We read on and found that all quilts that Cotie does (Cozetta) are to have a backing that is 8” oversize on all size.  So, that meant that are quilt back will be 136” x 136”.  Ok, we’re moving along here …

We finally found what we seemed to be looking for at Missouri Star Quilts.  It is a fabric store (and other) that can be trusted much more than going to a JoAnn’s.  We ordered 4 yards of Wilmington Essentials – Scroll White on White 108” backing.  This means, it is specifically used as a backing fabric, and is white with the faintest of patterns.  I don’t know if we can catch it in a picture.  It is very nice.  We got 4 yards, so the one length (36” x 4 = 144”) so the difference of that side minus 136 means that we will have to cut off 8”.  No problem there.  THEN, with the other number being 108” though we are going to need the second side ALSO 136, this means that that side is going to be 28” short.  We figured then that we were going to order 4 more yards of material (42” WOF –  28” = 14” extra). WOF is Width of fabric which in most cases is 42” like this particular fabric. So, we’ll cut the 108” fabric maybe by 1/3 to give it a weighted top, and then we’ll add 40” of fabric and sew it between the two 108” fabrics.  But, as previously noted, we’ll be 14” extra, so … well 12” extra, because we’ll cut off 2” with the print on it, so that means we’ll take the third by two-thirds fabric and subtract 6” from each of them so we’ll have for the one width 32” + 40” + 64” = 136” SEE!?  It all works out. 

OH!  And, do you want to see the really cool fabric we found?

The princess/unicorn picture is on white fabric 44-45” wide with a double border … hmm, we have to do our math a couple inches different, but you get the picture.  So, our quilt with the nine baby quilts (3 x 3 row/columns) runs diagonally from top left to bottom right.  All nine quilts run the same pattern though with ALL different fabrics – all my Grandma’s flannels.   Bottom line is that there is a top and bottom.  SO, to keep track of that … on the back of the quilt, the top will show because this princess insert will be after the top third of the first white piece.  I couldn’t be happier with the way this is turning out!

BUT!  There is MORE!  We couldn’t find it at this quilt store, but we went to another quilt store, and we ordered a bulk size of 25 yards (we need 16 yards, plus some more to do the corners), bu it’s a light blue satin blanket binding that is 2” on each side.  This is what it looks like …

And, then one more picture … well, we’ll show you that picture when it shows up in our email.  It’s always slow to mail ourselves pictures. We also sent ourselves a picture to Evernote.  We’ll see which one gets there first, but so far – no show.  Ahh there it is … hold on … (whoops – you already saw this at the beginning of this entry.  Scroll up again please?!)

(Scroll up)

There’s more blue on the baby quilt then shows in this picture, but the shot is representative of the whole.  Can’t you just think how wonderful she is going to look with a soft blue baby edge?  I’m thinking, we’re close to thumb-sucking as we speak hehe.  Bet my Grandmother never thought of making a full-size baby blanket for an adult – well two!  It is going to go at times … when we’re not using Rich’s deer quilt … but at times we’ll use it on our bed.  We figured that it is going to be perfect.  We found AFTER we had made the quilt that we did JUST the right size!  The top of a normal Queen size bed like ours is 60” x 80”.  THEN, we measured the drop, which is the side of the bed where the length DROPS from the top of the bed to the floor.  We thought that was important because our bed is very high.  AND, when we measured her, it turns out the drop is 30” … when we add 60” + 30” + 30” = WALLAH 120”!  And, that is exactly the size of our blanket!  The other side – long side of the bed (80”) is ok, because the extra inches will tuck around the pillows. 

This is just exciting us to pieces.  We didn’t directly talk to the quilt person, but we found in her scrolling stash a perfect meandering pattern we liked.  This is it

This quilt is just getting more and more wonderful!  And, the top is within a week of being done – the other stuff is on the way – managed the bank account by forwarding Rich’s birthday money to our account 😊 Just must see how long now, IF this quilter is willing to do our quilt – as to how far down would we be in her schedule.  That’s it!  ALL our quilting progressive thoughts in one place!

06-14-17 Our cherished Grandson came for a visit :)

Wednesday, June 14, 2017 @ 6:19AM

Good morning 😊 This is us!  Yay!  We got here!  It’s already 6:20AM Hmm, Missy just got here too.  I think because I was up, she was meowing to be let into the guest room.  I’m thinking now she might sleep there during part of her time.  BUT, naturally AUSTIN gets the room first!  I just didn’t realize she’d taken it up … it was a mental possibility, but that was all.

Hey, before I forget all of it.  My dream I had waking up had something to do with the Garvey’s palatial place and all the kids were back (our age) for celebration … and we were in and out, but seemed to start at a bank where several familiar people were.  I think it started with us toward the back, and there was a comfortable chair and we were trying to figure out some messages, we were trying to copy, then there is a sense that things were on cut-up little pieces of paper, and then there was some movement to another place, probably the Garvey’s, and then we were at the bank comfortably – whole thing was a sense of figuring stuff out.  But Vince – someone we used to work at JVS was there and there was some conflict in that he talked to me, and that got his girlfriend also at the bank jealous, and then he and someone else followed us home – one was a border of the Garvey’s and everything got things more confusing … and at the house, we vaguely ran into people … at some point had to go to the bathroom naturally, and I think we were trying to clear the air one more time, but then Vince got upset and told my sister something – I think she’d stolen a legal book from one of my ex-BIL, Brian, and she was being put out … and then just remember problems with Mary Fran and Mrs. Garvey, not enough time and trying to figure out stuff.  I remember trying to leave, but there was flooding on the street like it was four feet deep – not sure how that happened now, because we had been standing on the sidewalk, but the street seemed to be lower because the water was deep.  Had to go back to the Garvey’s house – think bigger and more palatial than the Oak Park House. 

To be fair, Austin is here and we talked a few moments of the Garvey’s and my father.  It seems we are consistent in telling him about his other Great Grandfather’s, must be because we want him to know them … it started with an argument – line of thinking had come up that seemed like something connected to Mr. Garvey.  Anyway … I don’t even want to read over what we just wrote to figure stuff out, maybe we could just copy/paste and put it on Dr. Marvin’s hard page?  There won’t be time for him to look at it, because it’s a short time on Thursday, but like to have it out.

Ok, better move out – I skimmed it and it’s over on the other Trello Board.  We skimmed it a couple times, but not enough to really draw from except to think Garvey’s … Go figure.

Moving on … SOOO Austin is here!  Very excited about that.  We had a good day yesterday.  There was a part where we were both sitting on the couch – I believe Rich was picking-up in the kitchen and Austin and us were going down the list of politicians and other people in the news, but mostly politicians and he was like, “What do you think about …?” And, then we’d respond in a short paragraph, and then we’d say, “What do you think about …?”  It was VERY fun.  That might be one of our most favorite moments, because we listen to so much news on politics and we seemed to know a lot of stuff IN our country and it seems that all his reading about news on the Internet was matching our knowledge from watching CNN.  Of course, as to news OUTSIDE the US … we knew next to nothing, but the major countries like N Korea, Russia and so forth. 

@8:13AM Totally discombobulated.  We have been offset by Missy’s meowing.  Finally, we had enough sense to grab her from where she was next to Austin’s door (apparently, she’s been sleeping in the guest room), and then we put her in our bedroom on the opposite side of the house.  Earlier, Austin had come out and grabbed his headphones, so should have been ok, but we were going a little crazy.  And, then we were figuring out our schedule – adding Jell-O of all things – because … shoot forgot to make it again!  And, now we are waiting for a financial document to d/l.  Whoops, there she is … hold one more moment please.

@8:30AM Back again.  We are still going to take our shower at 9AM, but go back to writing until Austin needs us.  He stated he’d try to wake up at 10AM and Rich should be making pancakes breakfast/lunch.  And, then we’ll probably go to a matinee and see wonder woman at 1PM.  Austin had seen two of the other movies.  Austin tried to find something more interesting last night and we were with him at the time, but nothing was found near that I could handle also.  Rich may or may not go to the movie with us dependent on his work.  He is good with Austin, and Austin went with Rich to get KFC last night.  Not sure why, but that seems to be the bend this trip.  Trying to let it go.  I think there is more behind it, but we told Austin, we’d only ask him once, and he just said, “I like Rich.”  It’s just different and dramatic.  Letting it go, don’t need to know why – though it’s like a bad cavity.  Austin doesn’t trust us like he had, which made him sit so close to me last night talking about politics so important.  Anyway.  We had to tell him, we missed it before, but Rich will be playing poker with his guy friends tonight from about 6PM to midnight.  Those are the times he is leaving and coming back.  Austin said it would be ok.  I hope it’s Ok.  Usually, Rich’s game is the first Wednesday of the month, but last week a couple of the guys were in MN fishing – Rich and Ron.  *sigh*

9:12AM Not sure where we were before, might have to read-up.  I do know in the last bit we made the Jell-O, took a shower, got dressed, picked-up the bedroom and made the bed.  You know that sweep.  It looks like the dishes are still drying.  Austin’s estimate was 10AM up, so, we’re about 45 minutes away from that.  Oh, and Missy has settled down under our bed.  Ok, everything here is normal.  I think Dakota is going to ask for the bathroom, he usually does after our shower, but that hasn’t happened yet.  We were ten minutes early on the shower, so there is time.  Just next time he is up visiting me, he’ll go out.  Doing a mental checklist.  The only thing on the kitchen table is Austin’s things, LR picked-up and kitchen is neat again.  It only takes a few moments.  Rich vacuumed yesterday. 

So, what’s next?  Anything on yesterday? Whoops, caught a business email from Rich.  I had to talk to him first before printing out his picture – he must do something first before I can do it.  So, we’re on hold from him, he’s just answered the phone.

Yesterday, we wrote almost until the time we left, but left at 10:15AM where writing cut-off at 9:30AM … think your filled-in there.  We listened to Al Franken a little with Rich, but then I stopped right before he got to Bass Pro.  We had forgotten to go to the bathroom.  He was only in there a minute, and we were even quicker.  And, then we went to the bank and got to Dr. Marvin’s about 15 minutes early.  We talked to Juliana about her dogs and her garden, and we talked to her about the gym and weight.  Our time with Dr. Marvin is going to take a while to figure out, but might be the basis of this entry.  After Dr. Marvin’s, we picked-up Austin and all went fine there.  We were having a little trouble, because we were listening to the riled-up part of Sessions hearing, and we had to turn it off, but it was the right thing to do.  We hung back a little after Rich told us by hand signal to stop talking about something.  I think we’d gone into the difference between Austin’s two Great-grandparents on Thom’s side.  After that, we didn’t really want to talk much.  But, we got back in the groove later.

So, now for Dr. Marvin’s because we don’t have the day all planned.  If there is free-time where Austin is just doing the computer, we will either address all the emails we are behind – most junk, and we will address Evernote and our capture notes.  I think we left our phone out in the car. 

Whoops again.  Rich came out and we got his situation figured-out and his picture is printed, and he is on his way.  Whoops, he’s back pestering us in “little” conversation.  Well, I guess that gets written-up!  Hehe.  Shoot, when I typed that last sentence, my come-back got lost … oh well, he’s off to work again.

SOOO, Dr. Marvin’s office … first, was we said hello and discussed the weather, then I realized that I forgot to go to the bathroom, so I excused myself and put Dakota in a “stay” command.  He didn’t follow me to the door, but I didn’t catch the door, and when I was gone and it floated open, he thought I was coming back, so he got-up.  Dr. Marvin said all that, but he didn’t whine this time when we were gone.  Usually, we stop before getting to his office, but we were eager to meet Julianna because our time was short.  Kind of silly, hmm?  Dr. Marvin costs a WHOLE lot more for his time.  He’s probably got the per minute cost down, but thinking he wouldn’t respond to it if we asked.

After that, it gets a little fuzzier.  Opened the dishwasher to let them cool-off.  I want to empty it on the next fiver, so that dishes don’t become a problem when Rich makes pancakes.  Oh, and btw, we talked to Rich and he’s going to need doing some business tomorrow.  Today, he said he could make the pancakes though and see wonder woman with us, and then he’s later making hamburgers for dinner, and then going to poker.  We keep going over these details repeatedly.  Austin will ask for the same, until he’s crystal clear and can trust them.  Tomorrow though, Rich is going to take care of some business in Joliet, then he’s going to swoop this direction and pick Austin up, and then Austin should be home at about noon (he wants to meet-up with his cousin), and then after Rich drops off Austin, he’s going in up north of Chicago and take care of some more business.  He had thought of bringing me, but it would have been a couple hours, he was going to be with his customer, and Austin seems more attached anyway to Rich right now.  I know, he won’t object. 

Just thinking of one of the things Austin talked about.  He wasn’t going to need hearing “noise” from his brother’s – maybe there is crying sometime?  Maybe just shoes running on his ceiling.  Doesn’t matter, and then he said he gets one more quiet day at his other Grandma’s, so that is nice for him too.  OK, moving on … Dr. Marvin’s?  Is someone avoiding?

It probably be me.  I never know what happens there until we start asking questions, and it seems like a lot of effort, and sometimes makes my head hurt.  We KNOW we’ve been there, but the middle is hard.

Ok, what is the first thing we remember?  Think!  Oh, we know we talked about my sister and our solution to that all situation, but that only took five minutes, and we spent another five minutes talking about what a great time we had, and some of the silly things.  Oh, and we told him about Debbie’s Granddaughter’s blanket.  I’m hoping CS called to check on it, but we should check now on her to see what she said, and to know if she sent the charger for the Fitbit or whatever brand it was she gave us.  Why she did that, not sure.  Just know sometimes CS feels the need to give away, and because our Fitbit was really choking, we decided to take it.  Just, we need to go through some things like getting it up on the computer under our name, and we must figure out how to change the timers she was using.  She always says she has two, and I never know whether to believe her, but greed got the best of me, and we accepted.

Ok, one thing down, many more to go.

Next?  Thinking!  Hmm, Sunflower seeds, don’t mind if I do.  THINKING!  We talked about resetting time with Linda, that evens out the quilting girls.  We talked about … umm … I’m looking for little clues, flags if you will.  It’s all those missing signs.  Maybe if we think of our checklist.  AHH, there is one … quilting!

We told Dr. Marvin about the two quilts we finished – baby ones.  We told him how much we had enjoyed quilting.  I didn’t talk about how much we like our room, but we are thinking about that now.  We didn’t seem able to put ourselves in the direct position of having been the sewer, so we didn’t, I think talk about the direct experience.  Just about the beautiful buzz, we are all getting from doing what “we” wanted to do. 

I think it was a big deal, and I remember someone saying something about doing EVERYTHING.  This might have been the last thing talked about.  In the last two days before talking to him, we did writing, gym, diet, Rich AND quilting!  TWO DAYS STRAIGHT!  Not last night, but before that.  It’s everything we wanted to do in our new revised grown-up life.  Maybe, we’d still sneak in coloring, maybe when we weren’t quilting, and we still wanted to sit next to Rich and do something other than sleep.  Last night, we were mostly in the living room and when not talking to Austin or Rich, we were slipping off into our sleepy places.  Rich woke us for bed at 10PM.  But, we have a guest … not that it’s good to sleep, but Austin was with his computer at the table and wasn’t with us directly.

Let’s go back to the exciting part.  We haven’t been able to set-up a quilting schedule that was comfortable, like we’re thinking this could be, for probably about three years.  Our big year was 2013 when we moved her and were pulsating in the new wonder of the place.  I guess in-between, we got bogged down.  I know my Mother was a part of that, and there was another part with trying to make improvements on the house.  Working on things, working.

06-13-17 Using those *SUPER* Skills!

SORRY SORRY… THIS is better!

Tuesday, June 13, 2017 @ 5:58AM

            Good morning.  This is just us … hey, do you ever expect anyone else?  Just wondering.  It’s ok … you weren’t wrong.  We’ll let it go 😉

            So, here we are at a brand-new day.  What’s in store, Lord only knows.  I’d like to think optimistically.  It took us about 20-25 minutes to get to the writing, AND we’re not doing all the old things we used to do – well, at least some of them.  We did glance at emails and open a few, but there are about 218 gathering there.  Yesterday, I still couldn’t get to them and I certainly didn’t do them over the quilting weekend.  That would have taken too much something, we don’t have.

Today, is the day we get Austin for a visit.  We are so looking forward to seeing that kid!  He’s likely to have grown in so many ways! I don’t want to get too much into that, but we are picking him up after Dr. Marvin’s about 3-3:30PM.  Rich is driving with me today, and we should leave a half-hour early, because he needs to stop at the bank.  Maybe, we’ll leave just 15 minutes?  Hmm, maybe he knows, he must stop for gas too.  I think he was home most of yesterday except grocery shopping.  It would have been more likely he stopped for gas yesterday instead though because he gets his gas at Walmart.  We’ll see.  Those fifteen extra minutes?  We’re going to live dangerously!

Rich and us looked at movies yesterday that we might see, but we’d have to go tonight and we don’t know what’s on Austin’s mind.  We only have him until Thursday, and Rich is going to be playing poker Wednesday night.  I sure hope that will be OK with Austin.  I didn’t even think of that before.  Ok, ALSO letting that go.

I think we’ll be talking to Dr. Marvin about the quilting, but what else?  We did make a few calls yesterday, but just things we were supposed to.  We called Austin for a last time check and food/drink check, we called our dentist, the diabetic shoe guy, our financial guy, and our remodeling guy, oh and our nurse.  Plus, we canceled Dr. Marvin on Thursday and gym on Wednesday.  Dr. Marvin had a glitch in his schedule anyway, but it is going to be the first day we missed gym.  We made sure to tell people.  I don’t want them to think that we wouldn’t be there out of disinterest.  We REALLY are interested hehe. 

This morning for a minute, we checked a few body parts and we’re thinking – hmm, maybe those aren’t quite as big any more, but STILL PLENTY of room to go.  I think if there is time, we are going to ask Amie to check our measurements tomorrow.  She is the one that is confident that we are already turning some of our fat into muscle.  I don’t think it happens that quickly, but we’d be up for a nice surprise.  She did the measurements the first time too.  Then maybe we could get her one last time before she goes.  I’m pretty sure that after mid-July, she will be done.  I would miss her a lot, but understand she probably has a lot sicker patients.  She has done a terrific amount in helping us stabilize new diet plans.  She’s been with us back about three months.  Probably nearing the three-month anniversary – this is the good stuff.

AHA!  I think fuzzy-face is getting up.  I hear some movement.  He’s about 15 minutes late for work! He is pretty good at waking up the first time the chime rings at 6AM.  I NEVER hear it from the bedroom, but he’s much more regular … hold-on about time we turn around and wait for him.  *Sigh* back.  We like to smooch him good first thing in the morning.  He’s not so much for our playfulness though so we must dial it back a bit.  Hehe, he had to go back for his glasses, so we got him for an extra round of hugs coming back through our hug machine.  Good job ladies!  He squeaked out an “I Love you,” for which we marveled.  It was only moments later, but he said he was up much more now.  Good moods all around!

AHA!  BACK!  7:29AM 😊 We were gone for about an hour.  We followed Rich to the sitting room and talked and talked – BOTH of us!  And, then a half hour later, we fed Dakota, took our medicine, made the Jell-O and ate our breakfast with Rich.  It was schmooze nice!  Oh, and there was a lot of petting for Dakota in-between things.  He’s such a silly puppy. 

We had some very good conversations.  The bulk of it was talking about losing weight.  Rich decided that Amie was on top of it in saying that you gain some weight with building muscles, and he had no doubt that we were already gaining muscles.  We’re not feeling that yet, but we’ll maybe ask Dr. Marvin about it.  Are we specifically … gaining muscles yet after about two weeks at the gym?  We are trying to pay attention and you heard earlier, we’re going to ask Amie about measuring.  We’re a little afraid at this point, which is maybe why we keep going back to it.  We just REALLY want to see a difference. 

We gained another .4 lbs. this morning.  We are hovering JUST below 270, with 267 being our tough numbers to break.  A good amount of Rich’s losing weight talk was on plateaus, and we figure we are on a doozy.  We told you after gastric bypass, we got down to this same 267 and we couldn’t bust it.  Rich said something about staying on the same numbers for a month.  OH LORD!  That be terrible!  But, if that is the case.  Might as well start a new countdown.  Let me go back and figure it out.  OK – GOT IT! 

We are now on our SIXTH day of being over 267, since hitting it on the 5^th.  Hmm … 13 – 5 = 8 days … whimpering … recounting – oh, it was the 7^th since hitting 267, so minus 6 days - … 8^th, 9^th, 10^th, 11^th, 12^th & 13^th.  Yup-yup … the math works.  WOW!  Are we lousy counters!  But, if it takes about a month – we’re on day #6.  That will teach our goofy body, we’re just going to make a DIFFERENT game out of it – GOT YOU FOOL!  Hehe.  Sorry, no intention to insult.  GOT YOU BUNNY-FACE *Giggling now*

Ok, we can be then merrily on our way.  We better check the schedule again … we must leave at 10:30AM and not 11AM, so what gets cut?  Ahh, email/Evernote time after our shower.  So, that is what gets cut.  I’d be so happy to at least get rid of the first level junk emails.  I’d started that before, but hit the wrong key, and then we lost all our deletions, and we didn’t have the time or tenacity to go back from the start.  Probably today is considered the next probably time to fix that.

Let’s think about yesterday for a few moments.  We do have to wrap it up in an hour and fifteen minutes.  This kind of time goes by in a flash!  I LOVE that we get to be more productive.  OK, let’s start with that.  Do you know that yesterday, we slept with our C-Pap and did good, then wrote about eight pages in our blog, and then went to the gym, got stuff done, talked to Linda for just over an hour, had smooch-face time with our friend, did ALMOST TWO hours of quilting, AND went to bed on time after massaging said smooch-face hehe?  Oh Lordy, when did all that kind of gooey goodness start?  That was a LOT of VERY nice things to be happening.

As to the C-Pap, I think we’re averaging about seven hours a night, and that has happened over the last five days.  OH MY!  Is that all?  It feels like forever.  I think this is going to be a good blend!  I am still falling asleep or coming close to it during the time right after dinner, and yesterday, we still had an hour nap after gym.  BUT, we’re going to say that gym is kicking our but, rather than we weren’t sleeping well the night before.  Another nice thing happening with the C-Pap?  Rich has been able to stay in bed with us all night, for two nights in a row.  He says there are probably other things happening, I forget what, but we’re thinking it is awfully coincidental.  I know he was tired from fishing.  We went over that argument in saying he’s been fishing before.  SOOOO, instead of sleeping LESS with us, he seems to be sleeping more.  I think the steady hum of the air is more comforting than our distorting snores. YAY, score another point!

We’ve also gotten past the part that we are afraid of frightening the pieces out of him.  It helped last night when about 9:30PM, he asked if we wanted to go in before bed time (10PM) and get some snuggling in.  We both agreed that watching a little TV would be good.  He said this morning, we made it for about nine minutes.  He then had to put us to sleep official AND with the mask, but we didn’t fight him on it.  We were very dutiful.  YAY US!  Do you think we are the ones that capitalize a lot?

The blog writing has been EXCELLENT! Other than the weekend when we were out of town, everything seems so perfect with being able to write steady again.  I think this is the part we write home about.  We haven’t talked to Dr. Marvin much about it, so maybe that will come up today.  I’m not sure what else there is to say about this.  Hmm, let me think.  The first thought was that I don’t know when over the last ten years since Rich has lived with me that we’ve felt this solid about our core writing.  I am sure that we’ve written more daily at some point during all those ten years, but the part I remember the most was writing like this before he came to live with us.  I suppose, we might try a small check?  That might take too much time.  Let me see if I can do it in just a few moments. 

It looks like this blog only started in 2010 … I remember now – it was the time we had written our book.  We were sketchy and missing some months.  2013 seems the best, and even at that, we were writing four to seventeen times a month.  After that, we were writing only up to 34 times for the year.  Let’s see if we can get to before that.  Ok, we found that blog – it’s the same as this last, but there were 1200 entries and it went back to November of 2005, that is when we came over from AOL Journals.  It looks like the months were solid, in that we were at least writing each month.  Hmm, and then it gets too hard.  The roll on the side doesn’t list by years, only month, year and then we’d have to open up each month, and we wouldn’t even get a count during the month, we’d just get the feed to the left, and we’d have to follow each story to see what dates they were being labeled.  AND, we’re not going to do all that.  BUT, suffice it to say, that at least from 2005 through 2010, we were at least writing every month.  Not sure about every day.  BUT, it would be easy to then say, that over the last SEVEN years from 2010 to 2017, we have NOT been writing faithfully on a near every day experience.

I think after Rich moved in, the C-Pap machine went, and so did the daily writing.  There was just too much to do because I’m sure we preferred talking to him, and we no longer went to bed early so we could get-up and write.  SO, with this BIG weight lost at the hard to reach 267 lbs., this window has opened-up.  We are finally, back to regularity in the writing that has not happened for a VERY long time, BUT, we’re now doing it again, and that fact should be celebrated!  For sure, it will at least rate high in the Dr. Marvin book!

Funny, we just read an excerpt from the old blog on the screen we had been scrolling in looking up that other information.  It stated, “Dr. Woollcott used to say that we can go so far and then there’s a relapse or are doing fine and then give up the ship.”  We’re going to shut down that blog, because we don’t want to go back into yesteryear, but for the sake of record, this excerpt came from June 10^th, 2010 at 11:18 AM.  This goes to show you, that until you resolve your issues, things reappear over, and over until you REALLY get past something.  At the time, we were discussing weight issues and issues with my sister’s medical as being overly problematic.  Neither, of these issues have stopped.  That’s kind of depressing.  Let’s make tht another Dr. Marvin set of issues to go over.  OK?

Let’s move on.

Next, is going to the gym – what thoughts have you?  Hmm, first, we had Laura, the hard teacher, but by now we’re saying we had Laura the more professional teacher.  We like her more day by day.  She still has trouble sharing things that are lighter, or at least further from her, like she now admits it might be good for us as a group to talk a few minutes between us before she comes in.  She likes to be though 100% in charge during the full sixty minutes of the course.  WHICH, of course, makes her good at her job as to getting us to be moving.  She’s especially happy when we’ve all turned that corner and are moving in sync following all her movements.  I do like that part.  AND, we should say here, she leads the group in the swimming area right before our class, and she probably has them in sync too!  I think one or two of our group, is in her other group, but I would have absolutely NO idea how they could carry on that kind of energy!

We did talk a few moments to the other members and we got far enough to mention how we did over the weekend.  We mentioned our quilting, and they both mentioned how hot it was, and that, they both stayed inside.  We only had three people – Pat, Nancy and us.  That is a fine group, but now Jodi has us worrying about them canceling class.  It is clear she doesn’t want to be giving up her private time she could be on her 1-to-1’s, to be with us.  That kind of irks me and we’re not sure what to do other than to talk to Dr. Marvin.  I don’t want to shake the boat at the Y, because it seems like teachers and rooms are in short supply.  I think things slow down after the summer, but we’ve got a LONG way to go, before then.  So, should stay in line.

One thing though with Laura.  During some part of her routine, we told her about (out loud with the group present) that we met with the other quilters, and that I had shown them Laura’s movement when we finished group … It is where we pull both arms out past our side – toward as far as we can stretch, and she says breath in, breath out, and then she indicates that we’ve completed the work and that we did a good job.  I told her that now the quilters have started doing the movement as they finish quilting something.  It has become a cherished expression all around, and my way of sharing one group with the other.  She didn’t say much at first, maybe didn’t know what to do with that, but then later, she indicted a clear and present smile while doing it at the end of the day, and we could tell she was remembering fondly to our story.  YAY!  She does have some shareable space, AND if we don’t say anything the rest of the term, we said something important here.  Otherwise, barely any talking as we work in gym.

We’ve only got 25-minutes left, so we are choosing next to talk about the quilting.  25-minutes goes by FAST while writing!  Oh, that’s one thing we remembered while using the restroom just a little bit ago.  We remembered the feeling of being timed while we wrote.  We are trying to start and stop on our schedule, so that for example, when we come back from our shower, and we still have just over an hour before leaving to Dr. Marvin’s, that we don’t continue our writing instead of doing something else.  In the old day, we had to stop writing – on the clock, because we had to take our shower and go to work.  We remember plenty of times not showering, because we couldn’t lose the writing time, or times we stayed home, because, we just had so much to write about.  We don’t want to do that now.  Not for the same reasons, but because we’ve been trying over these last three months to do self-discipline.  It all starts back to the term “self-regulation,” but we don’t want to do that now straight away, it’s all just another feeling from the old days that we are battling with this plateau.  I’m sure there will be other memories that come back, but as to now?  Quilting!

Let’s see where to start.  I guess the first thing would be is that not only did we have an excellent quilting weekend which we are now pretty done with talking about, well, we have also now had two days of quilting where sometime between 7-9PM we have been in the sewing room.  Some a little before and some a little after, but we are doing what it takes to restart the new routine.  We have to turn on all our lights, and we’re remembering how we used to have a light over the ironing board, which we might need back again.  That light might be in the guest room?  We have two of the four lights in the living room, one in Rich’s office, and the other?  Let me look quick.

AHA!  It is in the guest room.  Thought so! 

We will move it back to the sewing room probably tonight.  There IS a lot of clutter in that corner of the sewing room- behind the ironing table and seeping out all around.  I don’t have time to do it right now, but maybe this weekend when Rich goes fishing again.  Shoot, forgot Austin is coming.  Might not get to quilting tonight – just depends on how talkative Austin is.  He may talk, or he may need some quiet computer time.  We’ll see, and we’ll be open.

Ok, so that’s one thing solved.  The next thing is that we found the tall fan, and that still works well, and I’m not going to give that up over the summer!  It’s the biggest fan in the house, but back when we were sewing before – MAYBE all the way back to 2013, we used to spend a lot of time in the sewing room and it was purchased by me for that reason.  So, we’re glad to have the fan restored.

Shoot, time is moving too fast.  We’ll have to maybe start with sewing tomorrow morning.  BUT, let me say this much.  I am LOVING IT!  Absolutely!

We are working on my grandmother’s blanket, and I know someone told you about that a day or so ago.  BUT, we finished the second quilt yesterday, and we did the first finish on Monday.  Pswhoo!  We’re doing great.  We do get to a part of finishing, where we come out with the product to do a “show” for Rich.  He is gracious enough to turn off the TV and allow me to put on the light, and then we tell him whatever ever is on our mind about it.  So, we have that little piece of happiness too.

But, I think more than anything there is this pleasantness, when the machine is humming just right, and your sliding the fabric under the needle, and the corners are slipping into place – locked, and that is all perfect.  There’s another part where you are matching corners to be sewn, or when you hold your rows together, and realize that all is well and they are going to run in perfect diagonals.  Even pressing seams so they all lay sharply in one direction or the other.  Man!  It is ALL good!  It’s hard to explain much more than that.  I don’t know what keeps all quilters that have devoted themselves to quilting into it.  It’s the whole process, I’m guessing.  There are so many “feel good” moments.  There’s another series like when you are talking to other quilters – now either the up north folks, or the gym folks, but more than that is the beauty of these quiet times – with or without TV/Music, but the times, you are by yourself and everything is humming under your command and wisdom.

Yup-yup did we just add the word “wisdom?”  I think that’s right.  Good call ladies!  Quilting does take some wisdom.  We get that from a lot of practice, so I’m thinking there are a WHOLE lot of ladies MUCH more experienced or wiser than us.  We’re not going to contradict that, it’s just that we’ve developed some wisdom too.  Maybe we’ll get back to understanding it enough so that we’re working on other things, beside simple blocked baby quilts, but for now our mind is on a “slow and easy” ride, and it is SOOO pleasant!

Maybe we’ll learn to take you with it as we bridge our two biggies, writing and quilting.  I think no one understands those values better than Dr. Marvin, AND we get to talk to Dr. Marvin today in just a short while, and maybe all we will do is gush over that!  Hehe, probably not … we must do some of the hard work too, which includes diet and exercise.  I think we’ll go over some CS stuff and quilt weekend too, but we’re not wanting to labor over all that.  It had gone well, right?  We might hear something back from Linda, because she talked to the twins last night too after their sewing group, but if we hear nothing back.  We’ll probably tuck that even in our heart and move on hehe.

Tonight!  We get Austin here and while we HOPE while he’s here we can show him part of us which has become not so tired at night that we fall asleep before our quilting.  It’s good for him to have these images of us.  Also, the image of us talking, but we’re SURE there’s going to be some absolutely, if I may, FABULOUS talking on the way home!  Ok, 9AM we got to go.

Hey, do you remember the times, we used to count words?  Let’s try that again. Hehe

Page 9 of 9 3943 words 😊 Hey, there’s the chimes! Later!!

 

  

06-12-17 It was an EXCELLENT quilting weekend!

Monday, June 12, 2017 @ 6:10AM

Good morning.  This is me and it’s an entirely new week 😊 AND, this is the week that Austin is coming.  With all reality, he’s coming tomorrow, YAY~ must put that in its own cool private place, but DID want to make that notation as the first thing thought of.  WOOHOO!!!

We woke up about 40 minutes ago, and it’s taken us that long to get going.  Most of it wasn’t to do with my measurements in the morning.  It was due to not being orientated to my screens.  It is a new couple of days – We hadn’t been on the computer since Friday – It is Monday now, and while we were gone, Rich shut-down all of our screens.  We pulled up the calendar first, then we thought we’d just throw-out the stuff we weren’t interested in email – since we hadn’t checked it all weekend, but just toward the end, we hit something off-key, and all our check marks disappeared.  There may have been a sound like, “oh shit!”  Maybe, maybe not – we’re not committing, but we decided to move on – nothing earth shattering AND it was now taking up my writing time. 

Shoot … lost a few other moments.  I wanted to make sure my WHOLE right screen was up – Google Calendar, MyFitnessPal, AOL email, Rescuetime & Trello so it took some time – AND we had to make some notations over the weekend, so we could start the week fair and square.  All together, we didn’t eat too bad, though we were still off – sorry just did MyFitnessPal last … we had

Saturday – 1681 cal., 175 carbs, 63 fats, 112 proteins and only 5504 ACK Sodium

Sunday – 1319 cal., 150 carbs, 39 fats, 80 proteins and 878 sodium – obviously someone goofed up the scrambled eggs, because we can’t believe Holiday Inn – didn’t divebomb the eggs with sodium – they are coming out with 0 sodium.  NOTHING has zero sodium – PLUS over the weekend a total of 85 carbs over – that’s like almost adding an entire extra day – but sodium on Saturday?  It’s registering 64% over for the day BLAH!

Ok, doing well though hardly seem to be writing.  I just caught the 5-minute timer and took closer to 15 minutes.  We made Jell-O for later, we put away the clothes that Rich had washed from being out, and then we opened checks from the mail, added them up, put them away and told Rich how much money he’d earned … that made him breathe easier.  YAY!  It was a good “up.” We are making adjustments to Rich being home and STILL being on a schedule.  We ran into it this morning when we told him, we eat between 7-7:30AM.  He thought about it for a moment, and then came back saying, “You eat when the cook cooks!”  EEK!  That’s a little scary.  AND THEN!  He came back and said it wasn’t time to serve me coffee yet.  Ok, this kind of thing can get blown out of proportion!  BUT, we did get his kitchen clean and the truth of the matter is that we write before AND after he makes our eggs so it really doesn’t matter – just so everything is done before 9AM shower, and we’re not kept starving ourselves.  By 7:30AM it is – forget it!  We’re going to get our own cottage cheese!  Yup-yup that’s how we roll!

In a minute, it’s going to be Dakota’ time though – 7AM AND time to get medicine.  That part seems ok for us to do hehe

WooHOO!!!  We did our first breakfast with Rich and we’re not too off-schedule.  It’s now 7:40AM and we’re done eating breakfast.  We talked with Rich the whole time and we went over my schedules.  He listened ALMOST patiently, but he kept wanting to come back to being adaptable.  I get that the first time and I don’t like continuously hearing about it, but he was belaboring the point.  So, we really hit it as to our time spent with him.  I said, we have a half an hour in the morning – remembering he’s at work first thing, and then two hours around the dinner time area, and then an hour to watch shows from 9-10PM, and then we sleep with each other – or at least go to bed together from 10-5:30AM optimally.  So, that’s another 7 ½ hours. 

We did good getting to bed last night, but it was a bit of an adjustment.  I came out five minutes early to move the C-Pap machine to our bedroom.  We took a 45-minute nap with it out in the living room while he was preparing dinner so that he could adjust to seeing me in the mask while he was slightly focused on other things.  And, so at night, we whimpered a bit after sitting down on the bed on our new side.  He was like just put it on.  We didn’t know how to do that with him watching us directly.  We were complaining it looked like a Silence of the Lambs.  He asked if we knew how to do it in the dark.  And, we thought, and then acknowledged, we weren’t ready for that yet.  So, he waited at the light for us to adjust it. 

But, first came the part, we worried like hell about how were we going to snuggle him.  The short-story of that is that we can still do it – THOUGH we aren’t able to put our chin or nose on his back because of the mask.  There will have to be some testing and he was willing to try some snuggle time before the mask got put on, because some time we just like to lay next to him and watch the last part of TV with him, or talk to him, or listen to some music while snuggling.  I guess we have time to play with it, but just the first night, there were a few tears.  We DID get through it.

There was one other thing about the mask.  Before our nap – and we did deserve a nap because we’d been up until 2AM, woke up at 7:30AM and stayed up, plus drove the three hours home – including stopping for gas.  Again, we were ready to take a nap.  What we figured out though was the reason the mask was so uncomfortable, was that it was all-hooked up wrong.  We couldn’t figure out what was supposed to be happening.  So, we found the directions in our cubby hole and worked the six straps and two connections from the start and got it all straightened out.  I think I have it now, but we left the directions in a closer place in the carrying container.  It felt a LOT better yesterday, then it had the night before at the hotel.  I was VERY happy about that!

One of the other VERY nice things that happened last night – OTHER than Rich calling me out to show me how adorable Dakota was being with bunnies in his yard, was that he brought our sewing machine and supplies in the house, and then we moved them to the sewing room.  YAY!  Not only did we put the machine up and the things away, we did some sewing too.  That is why this morning, we rearranged our schedules so that we could be sewing a couple of hours each day.  We really needed some sewing time.  I was hearing Dr. Marvin not drop the quilting part like we were doing, and so figured, we’ve excited him to pieces to include it back in our world.

We could rearrange the schedule by taking off the Trello option alongside social time between 4-5PM and moving to that side – so that if we weren’t socializing, we could organize or read at that time instead of the evening.  We figured it was OK to mark less time for reading, because we had gained with the Audible programs – almost three hours of reading each week by using our driving time to and from Dr. Marvin to be listening to books.  We can’t do that all the time, but that’s when we have those other options.  Maybe we’ll free-up a little more reading time on the weekends, and another option would be to read during Rich’s time at 9-10PM if he was watching a show we didn’t like – though we’d be sitting right next to him to be doing it.  Perhaps with earphones covering the bad TV with music.  I think this is all doable, and still MUCH more time to reading than we were squeaking in before.

The other thing we talked to him this morning about in being flexible with Linda and the social time, she primarily uses is that we’d open up a block of time between 1-5PM to give her an hour each day other than the 4-5PM time she doesn’t like, but that in no way could we go back to chatting in the morning.  I know we have both enjoyed that in the past, but bearing in mind that it is my most productive time, and that now we must shower and go to the gym also during the mornings, we just can’t do that anymore.  The other things like email, Evernote and editing, can be arranged around Linda’s schedule a bit.  We still like having our hour to ourselves after the gym to watch TV and eat lunch QUITELY – especially after being out with people, or out in the car driving.

Hopefully, that will be more acceptable to Linda.  I don’t think she really likes the structure of ANY time, but there is a lot happening.

The point that we must emphasize is that for a long time – the better part of five years, we’ve identified more with being disabled – and being a “no-work” person.  We want to build our ideal identity as a writer/publisher – WHICH takes writing and editing and publishing time.  We can’t tell you how happy we’ve been with the Evernote and other programs that have gotten us back into some nice tracks.  Those parts will continue.  Sometimes, we will write about those programs too, so it will come into our writing a little – but mostly in discussing what is happening.

Going back to last night and the section where Dr. Marvin should be so pleased, is that we’ve laid claim to having REAL quilting time again between 7-9PM.  That was always the ideal time to be doing it.  We’ve faced a lot of time talking about Rich-time and him being able to hold our hand.  BUT, we need to be reasonable.  Including sleep, Rich already has us for 11 hours of the day!  That’s a LOT of time in all reality!  Plus, one of the things we found last night, was that with me working in the back-sewing room, Rich found himself ALSO in the back in the room next to me, his office.  He wasn’t working, he was doing one of the things he really wanted to do which was going over some of his fishy lakes on his computer.  Maybe many of the nights, he will be too tired, or maybe we’ll be too tired to be back there, but it is a VERY good idea or goal to be trying.  We were sharing the same sounds and didn’t feel so far from each other.

The part about sewing?  OMG!  That was SO very nice.  We haven’t even gotten to the point of talking about the weekend.  BUT, just last night?  WHAT a wonderful time!  We’re still not settled as to TV or music, but we have both options.  Pandora is set-up to work on the TV in ALL the rooms.  YAY!  It is so perfect!

We were working on our baby quilt, and we’re going to underline here, OUR baby quilt.  We may have discussed this before because we were working on the project the last time we sewed with the girls too, but what we’re doing is taking some of my Grandmother’s quilt blocks – she’d given us through our Mother, when both died one at a time – well, they passed down this older quilting material.  Much earlier, probably two years ago, we had cut most of the material into 6” blocks, and then we put together about twenty-some baby quilts, primarily using the diagonal pattern, and each small quilt was seven squares, by seven squares.  That means that each quilt has a total of 49 squares.  You caught that, right?

I’ve given out nearly every quilt, we’ve ever made, so at the suggestion of one of the girls – probably last year, we decided to put nine of these smaller quilts together, for one bigger quilt for me.  That might sound selfish, but we are still giving away at least a dozen quilts.  Five of them have already gone to my sister, who is preparing them to go to Peg, my Mother’s Pastor.  Of course, before my Mother died.  My mother used to make afghans for Peg to give to people in their church who had had a baby, or to needy people in the community, she had met in her role as a minister.  Both CS and we have agreed, it is a worthwhile goal.  It is a way to respect our Mother’s work in that community, and in the state, Connie Sue and I had grown-up in.

So, in the meantime – other than giving away quilts to that community, we were working on our quilt.  Well, almost.  As it would turn out, CS and us working on a project on Saturday that benefited one more person.  Each time we go to the same hotel in New Berlin WI – six to seven times a year for about the last seven years, we have met a couple favorite people.  Especially, a few who work at the hotel – Holiday Inn Express.  One is Carol, the manager of the hotel, one is Debby one of the worker-bees, and then there is another worker-bee who works at the breakfast bar.  Speaking now of Debby, each time we are there, she comes in once or twice to say hello and to pet the dog.  That is what brought her in the first time.  Her dog had just died, and she was attracted to our big old silly mutt.  By this time in history, she has elevated the situation, whereas, she has a box of dog biscuits AT the hotel, and she brings Dakota a snack when we are there to visit.  Dakota loves her and allows himself to lay next to her and she pets him for the entire time she is talking.

What Debby has been talking about the most when she visits – is something the girls will ask her about.  She has a Granddaughter who is now about fourteen months old, and this poor little girl has been going through hell.  The latest part is they finally took her to Children’s Memorial, and then found a tumor and the little girl had brain surgery.  We just felt terrible.  She is doing better health-wise now – this just happened since the last time we were there a month ago, although she is still having trouble because her body does not know where to put the fluids. 

The other part of the conversation was asking Debby, “How many hours are you sleeping each night?”  She looked at me like she needed a good cry.  She says, she sleeps 3-4 hours each night and that she and her daughter have been worrying so much and taking turns staying up trying to comfort this baby.  The whole group felt agony over what was going on in their life.  So after Debby left, we looked at CS, and suggested, you know Connie Sue, if it would be ok with you, do you think we would be able to make today a baby blanket for Debby’s granddaughter?  Connie Sue immediately said, “of course.”  She is like that.

So, a plan was formed that was quick and simple.  We had an extra quilt top – we had ten with us, although we only needed nine to put together our quilt, which was far from complete.  We asked CS, and it turns out that she had no problem not only putting the flannel back to my flannel quilt, she also had it with her.  She had a very soft white to go with a white background of my top meaning there were blocks that were also white – with pink or blue patters – EVEN some red hearts.  She said, she could make it just like Grandma did and that she’d practiced beside my Grandmother, even in making the mitered corners.  I was so thrilled.  We then discussed how we should quilt top to bottom.  First, she was going to sew it, which wasn’t a problem for her, but with the help from the twins, we ended up with white yarn and we tied each of the 36 quilt corners.  I was SO excited.

Even the quilting/tying was a together task.  We each had our own gifts to add, and the other’s area of expertise seemed harder.  For the most part, CS would thread the yarn to the needle – two of them, we were working those poor needles, and then we were doing the part where the yarn gets attached the quilt blocks.  It was excellent!  It took us a little more time than expected, and at one point, I tore the fabric a little, but CS cleaned that up.  I so very much loved the product and where it was going and what it meant to both of us to be giving it to Debby for her Granddaughter. 

I’m sure they already have a blanket, but this one is special in having started at my grandmother’s will and continued even through my Mother and then my sister and us. AWESOME!  Debby wasn’t there when we finished the project, but we talked to Carol about it, and then we ended-up giving it to another Debby in housekeeping, who was going to leave it at the front desk for OUR Debby!  We arranged it so that Connie Sue would call the hotel to talk to Debby to find out what she thought/felt, and just to make sure the quilt got to the right place, and Debby understood how she came about this.  We’re pretty sure she’ll realize it came from her favorite quilters, but just want to tie it up with a bow!  Hehe the twins had not only gone home for the yarn – they live also in New Berlin, but they also happened to have a small gift bag and paper to wrap the blanket in.  Just couldn’t be happier with the group!

There’s a lot more that happened than we can discuss in the next fourteen minutes, but the picture above of Dakota laying on the baby blanket, is a reminder of how special the day was.  As to the Saturday – maybe we can talk more tomorrow about it, but everything went along as a dream as most quilting weekends go.  The company and conversations were TERRIFIC!  There was no problems other than a six-minute blip where we yelled at CS for the trouble she caused over the week in getting to the weekend.  I don’t know where it came from, we were good ALL day long, up until this time.  It came suddenly and was over within moments.  All four of us heard what happened and our profuse apology.  Basically, what had got stated, was that we were angry at CS for the drama she had caused the group.  This was simply not necessary.  It was ok to deliver the message and perhaps, it was important to do so, but not in the manner, it happened.  We were showing TOO much anger.

As to how, we handled it previously – the yelling incident was within a half hour of leaving, well pretty much somewhere in our brain without real thinking being done, we decided that if CS was having emotional problems, and that her lack of boundaries and social etiquette, did not give her the proper means to communicating her emotions, then we would better reward the good things that were happening with solid hugs.  This happened eight or nine times during the time together.  And, we were giving “good-deed” hugs to the twins too.   So, little events like Connie Sue paying attention to national news, which was GOOD thing for us in being able to converse another topic with her, then that’s one of the times she was rewarded with a hug.  This time there was a lot of vocalization – oh man – here comes another hug as we’d scoot across the room to her.  It was fun and enjoyable.

We did miss Linda not being there, but her being gone did not detract from the solid time we still had as a group sharing time.  We do want to quickly add, in case we don’t get back to it, that the overnight went well, and we got together with CS in the morning – because we’d both slept over in separate rooms, but we got together from about 8:30AM-11:30AM and just talked – A LOT.  It was excellent!  We’re so blessed to have met this circle of friends and family – oh and bonus?  We got a private ride with Both Janet and Jean – on separate trips – to picking up our meals.  AND, Dakota learned how to PERFECTLY lay down a couple of poops ALSO at two separate times, when we asked, and in a very small piece of land, at a very quick pace.  So, gosh darn proud of him.  I know what else could have been more exciting hehe?