rain on tulips

It was a slow weekend, again, on the posting front, and I will figure out someday why that happens!!

I finished the afghan I was knitting, and it turned out really cute! I need to weave in a couple of yarn ends, but then it is ready for use! I tried out the same pattern using some different yarns I have, but they are thinner (Red Heart Soft Baby and Red Heart Super Saver Camouflage), and on the US15 needles, they were just too ‘netty’, rather than ‘afghany’. Maybe if I tried the same pattern on smaller needles, with more stitches… but then it wouldn’t finish up as quickly, and that was half the beauty of the thing!

I went back to trying to crochet DA’s camouflage afghan, and I think I finally found a pattern that will work well… open enough that it won’t take all year to complete, and solid enough to serve well as a blanket. He approved the pattern after I worked on a couple of rows, so I think that’s what I’ll go with.

Still looking for a fun knit pattern to work on. Mabye I will just have to go with smaller needles and find a cute something to do with the pink/pink variegated yarns I have sitting here. I’m sure EK could use yet another ‘thing’, right?? (Too bad all my friends/family having babies are having boys; I have a lot more ‘girl’ yarns around here right now!)

I was hoping to get back to my writing this year; it was kind of a goal, if you want to call it that. I keep reading all the writing blogs, and composing in my head, but it seems such a huge drain on my energy to even start something that requires thought (sewing/knitting/crocheting are pretty ‘mindless’ activities, which is kind of the point, I guess!) what with all the stress of medical stuff going on around here.

And the past 3 mornings I have gotten up to the joys of a swollen throat. Its not ’sore’, per se, but it sure hurts! The glands aren’t swollen, at least on the ouside, and I don’t have a fever, but the insides are just miserable — swollen and red. I don’t have time for this, so I whine a lot and talk as little as I can get away with, and keep taking Advil as the clock allows… I just don’t have time to be sick now. Maybe next year.

So, my writing blog with bits of life is being officially sidetracked — at least until next month! — as a life blog with bits of writing. Or something.

I have 12 days until my mother-in-law comes up to visit and help with the kids while I am up at the hospital with EK. I’m glad she’s coming; she hasn’t had the chance to see the baby yet at all, and she hasn’t seen the kids since last August in California. They are excited beyond all measure, counting down the days until she arrives!

So, the problem? My house looks like a hurricane struck and we just moved back in on top of it. Really. I keep trying to make progress, but I have these 5 mini-hurricanes that come along in my wake and undo it all!

Last fall, before EK was born, I had a dumpster out in front of my house for a month, and I filled it to the brim every week. And still, the house looked beyond rescue! I gutted all my kitchen cabinets, and made a huge pile of stuff to garage sale. This week, I finally gave up on ever having the time or inclination to do a sale, and carted the whole pile off to Goodwill.

In the last week, I have pulled out the couches in the living room and cleaned all the stuff out from under there, and I gutted and sorted the girls’ room. I tried to do the boys’ room one day, but in the hour and a half I was in there, I only succeeded in getting all the books back onto the bookcase in some semblance of order. I think I need a bulldozer to attack their room again. But it has to be done.

If I had the time…

Two years ago, I found Flylady, and, over time, I was able to get the house into a pretty good state, doing set chores on set days, and leaving myself the weekends ‘off’ from housework. I could run through all the things that needed to be done to maintain in under an hour each morning, plus laundry.

But, somewhere along the way, being pregnant and running kids to and from football and school and dance and and and… well, I seem to have fallen off the Flylady wagon.

I really need to just pick up and get back on, but sometimes its so hard to figure out where to start! And right there on the Flylady page, they have “Where to Start”: its called Crisis Cleaning 101. Its a simple list of 9 rules that lets you get everything done, in a crisis, in only 15 minute intervals! I can do ANYTHING for 15 minutes, right? (And those 15 minutes add up!) Guess that’s where I need to start today. (Wish my printer was working!)

Now, I just need to dig out my timer!

Friday morning brought us back to the Pediatricians office for our weekly weight checks, and she had received the written report from the radiologists about the CT scan.

First, on the weight front, she’s stalled again. Last week, she gained 12 ounces in one week, with our adding in only two 3-ounce bottles of 24 calorie formula a day. This week, same protocol, NO change in weight. She is still exactly at 11 pounds. So, this week we are working on adding in four 3-ounce bottles a day. We’ll see if it works, I guess. We did finally get the UA done (ever try getting a urine sample on a 3-month-old?) and it came back fine, but they were going to culture it anyway.

So. The radiology report.

(more…)

Holly writes an interesting and thought-provoking article about the growing segregation of books and genres into ever-smaller — and more dividing — groups.

Communities are the places that shelter people who have something in common and permit them the space to pursue common dreams while protected from the hostile outside. Communities are self-selected — the members choose to be there because they share values that they hold tightly.

Ghettos are different. They’re composed, also, of people who have something in common, but they aren’t self-selecting — membership is imposed, not chosen, and the common ground is what others find unwelcome in their midst, not what the members find welcome.

Communities can be ghettos, too, and ghettos can become communities.

Its a really interesting article, and you can >.

Tamara Siler Jones responded to Holly’s post, and made this point:

I don’t think that separating books by their writer’s race/class/creed/religion is the answer. Sure it might make the expected audience have an easier time locating them, but is that really doing the reader or the writer a service? Doesn’t it just pigeon hole us all? What about cross pollination? I face that too, every day. I write mysteries but they happen to take place in a fantasy setting so that’s where they’re shelved. Is Dubric’s world like Pern? Nope, not at all. What about Middle Earth? Nope, not that either. I think his world is highly approachable by any fiction reader. Straight mystery/thriller readers like my book, the problem is getting them to even know it’s there, then they have to step into the fantasy isle to pick it up. I hear that a lot, actually. I heard Ghosts was good, but it’s in the (insert whine) Fantasy section. (eeew! that’s disgusting!) I’m sure writers like Monica face similar trials, probably a lot worse than I do.

Great points! I guess I should start venturing out from my sci-fi/fantasy aisles a little more often, and see what else is out there!

By the way, Tamara Siler Jones’ book, Ghosts in the Snow is a wonderful, exciting, twisting and spinning page-turner if I ever read one!! The sequel, Threads of Malice, is scheduled to be released October 25, 2005. I can’t wait!!

We shipped off all the kids but EK Tuesday night to sleep over at friends houses, and took off at 6ish this morning to go to the hospital. The techs were wonderful. The peds shot tech was wonderful! The anesthesiologist was great!

I think the worst part of the day was that she couldn’t eat for 4 hours before anesthesia.

They did the IV after putting EMLA cream on both hands and both feet; the IV wound up going into her left foot.

They let me carry her (fallen asleep on her own, of course) into the CT room, and we tried to lay her on the scanner to see if we could get the scan without having to anesthetise her, but she woke up when I put her down. They gave her the anesthesia (Propofol) and she was OUT in like 2 breaths!

We left the room, and they had us back in to get her maybe 5 minutes later! The anesthesia is supposed to last about 30 minutes, so we had quite a time trying to get her to perk back up afterwards, just because it was so quick!
After about 20 minutes, she woke up enough to eat, and they let us take her home.

They also let us have a CD of the CT scan results.. Fuul is going to see if he can make it into a movie so we can put it online. We’re not radiologists, so we really can’t read all of it, but it sure looks like her sagital suture is much more closed that any of the others. (The weird thing is that the scan seems to stop right at the point where the most information would be found … or we’re just looking at it wrong!) We did get it to display in a 3D version, instead of just slices, so we were able to see the images a lot better. Disclaimer:we are not radiologists, and have not yet spoken with radiologists or doctors since EK’s CT scan, so all the impressions and annotations are simply our lay opinions based on what we understand, and what we are expecting to see. (We’re pretty sure that they show the sagital suture (the top, vertical one in the back photo) fusing; it is not as transparent as the open sutures on the bottom, even though it ought to be. And, in the side view, the base of her skull is jutting out, spreading to allow for brain growth along the un-fused sutures. We are scheduled to see the Neurosurgeon on March 9, and the Cranio-facial Surgeon on the 14th. We see her Ped tomorrow to check on her weight gain,
and I’ll see if she’s heard anything about the results yet. (Probably not long enough, but I’ll ask anyway!)

Anyway… we are back to the ‘hurry up and wait’ portion of this thing. I’ll ask her ped on friday at her weight check if she has heard anything about the results, but I’m not guessing we will hear much from anyone until March 9 when we see the neurosurgeon.

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers… maybe we are reading too much into films that we can’t actually understand, and she’s fine!? (We can hope!)

updated to add what we think the CT says in a more clear manner.

I’m counting down the hours until we leave to take EK up to her CT scan in the morning.

12 1/2 hours from now. And counting.

I’m trying to keep busy, and sleep as I can, since I don’t sleep well at night. I have only one and one half borders left on the afghan I am knitting; I finished the matching sweater last night. I think I might use this same pattern to make up a bunch of afghans with all my extra yarn, just to have as I need them! I could do some really fun patterns, with stripes and everything….

Anyway. I’m just babbling to keep my mind off of things. I still need to pack up the kids’ clothes so they can sleep over with friends tonight so I don’t have to try and get them all up and out the door tomorrow at 6am. Just more stuff I don’t wanna do!

AE went to her Achievement Days activity on Wednesday afternoon, and they had a guest instructor who taught the girls the first baby steps of knitting! She is so excited! She is working on a scarf — though I am certain that the yarn supplied will not produce an entire scarf — and has gotten it almost to a whole square now! She knits in all her spare time, and the other night I caught her sitting up in her bed in the mostly-dark of after bedtime, knitting away and trying to keep the needles quiet!

I’m so glad she is so excited about this; she is quickly picking up all those ‘crafty’ skills that are so much fun and so quickly falling out of the norm!

We have actually spent some time the last couple of days knitting together — at her request! Its not so much a social thing, as quietly enjoying productivity with a peer!

(Why do they grow up so quickly??)

I’ve been rapidly cycling through all the emotions associated with the pending surgery, and getting quite a workout doing it! I float through helplessness and anger and sadness and fear… and a few others thrown in for good measure, I’m sure!

I’ve been cleaning kids’ rooms, and thinking of cleaning more; I’ve spent an hour mindlessly running through karate forms at full force; and I’ve been knitting.

I’ve knit 2/3 of an afghan in 24 hours. The last time I ripped through a project this quickly was when I was pregnant with JS and on mega-doses of Terbutaline and crocheted 3 queen-sized bedspread afghans in only a month!

Granted, this afghan I am working on is only a baby-sized one, and I’m using US15 needles and fluffy yarn, but still… its pretty impressive for only a day’s work! The result feels almost like a nice chenille blanket! (Wish I had one for me!!)

I keep looking at the piles and boxes of books in my house as I’m trying to clean, and wishing that I had wall upon wall of bookcases, preferably the built-in kind! I have a whole office that has wire-frame shelving right now, but not really any room for books.

Its frustrating knowing that I own so many books that I love (and that Fuul does, as well) and that most of them are ‘lost’ in the piles and boxes, and are unreadable because of that.

And my kids are getting old enough that I would like to start introducing them to the books I loved (and own, somewhere ‘out there’) when I was their age! Just have to find a place for them!!

…and no, not the eating kind!!

The nurse from the Children’s Hospital called today to let me know that they scheduled EK’s CT scan for before surgery, and I told her that we hadn’t heard about any of the appointments, so she started running down the list. So, for now, here is what we know:

Wednesday, 2/23/2005:
–CT Scan at University/Children’s Main Hospital. Check in time 7:30am, 8:30am sedation, 9:00am scan. (7:30-10am)

Wednesday, 3/9/2005:

–Pre-op appointment with Dr. S. (Pediatric Neurosurgeon), Children’s Hospital. (9:00am)

Monday, 3/14/2005:

–Meet with L. (NP) for pre-op paperwork, Children’s Hospital. (10:45am-12pm)
–Meet with Dr. O. (Cranio-facial surgeon) for pre-op examination, Children’s Hospital. (1:00-2:00pm)
–Pre-op lab work, Children’s Hospital. (2-2:30pm)
–Prep Clinic and tour of OR, Children’s Hospital. (2:30-3:30pm)

Tuesday, 3/15/2005:

–Surgery date, Children’s Hospital. Details to follow.

It all seems so fast. Apparently they are fitting us in wherever they can; the early CT scan appointment is because that is all they had open before the 3/15 surgery date.

Anyway. Because you all were wondering when this is going to happen. Its under a month.

this is really happening, isn’t it? *sigh*

EK won’t be 3 months until the 17^th, but I got a great pic of her today with the digital camera, so I’m calling it her 3 month pic!! (Close enough, right??)

Anyway, I’m posting it here, because I love showing off my kids at every possible opportunity!!

Enjoy!

I’m trying to catch up on the laundry that has grown to explosive proportions in our house of late, and wishing that I had a set (or two??) of these. I hear you can wash 25 towels in one load, and dry them again in 1/2 hour. I could tackle the whole laundry thing in one day, if I only had some of these!!

Ah, the joys of domesticated dreaming!!

Just a quick ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ to anyone out there reading on Tulips. Its been a long one, and now the kids are home from school and hyped up on sugar….

JS brought home an interesting little bag of candies from one of his classmates: conversation hearts with spiritual quotes on them, like “Try God”, “Jesus Bless Me”, and “Jesus Loves You”. (I think the link says there are up to 15 different versions of the print! I thought that was such a nice idea; some, I suppose, would feel like it was a little pushy.

But maybe for treats for the kids at church?

Anyway. Happy Valentines Day, All!!

OK. I have a confession: I’m a shoe junkie. I am good in that I tend to not buy too many pair of shoes, but I can’t resist looking at them online, and trying them on in the stores, and dreaming. So, when a friend points me to a cool new pair, I have to go look and drool for a while. The attraction of the day? These Harley Davidson Ladies Limited Black Erin Harness Clogs.

drool!!!

I got a card-reader at Fry’s the other night, as well, and was finally able to get my Mother-In-Law’s pictures off of her camera (the cord has been misplaced for more time than I like to consider!). Which means that I was also able to take pictures!! Finally got EK *almost* to smile when I took a picture (she tends to quit just as the shutter closes!), and DA and I had some fun while we were buzzing his hair! I almost had him convinced to keep it, but he thought it was better to just go short all over!