I BET SHE KNEW...

Some while back I offered to put the prairie points on DS Isobel's king-size quilt. As I recall she had cut a few and I whisked them up with the rest of the fabric and brought them home to await Nines' quilting completion. I don't remember when I got the quilt from Nines, but that's been a while, too.

Well, I was waiting for matching border fabric for binding, which DS sent in my christmas box, so no more excuses. I was procrastinating a little (procrastination is one of my flaws, sigh) - but with reason. Upon receipt of the binding fabric, I set out to press the cut squares. All this time, in the back of my mind I wondered..."how ever will I get these things attached evenly?" And then, "how ever will I manage this monster on the floor as I pin them unevenly." Mind you, I wasn't sorry I offered, but you know how it is. Sometimes those sincere offers turn into bigger jobs than you first visualize.

Can you tell? ...like Nines I'm in the throws of holiday denial. Surely I have time to finish off this quilt before I start baking.

All that worry for nothing. Those little points went down in perfect precision first time!! I BET SHE KNEW. Isobel probably figured out the dimensions and knew it would take 4-inch squares before she finished the top. Not only that, the king-size quilt spread quite nicely on my queen-size bed with the 'quilt vault' footer. THANK YOU DB-ANDY! When I got to the third side, I even figured out I could sit in Grandpa Millers oak chair and pin away without as much as the tiniest bend in my spine. (I must have gotten the slow genes in this mix.)

The moral of the story is, "Don't put it off...it might be a whole lot easier than you think [especially with the help of clever siblings]." Now go try and tell that to a dyed in the wool procrastinator!

NOTE: The picture won't tell, but the quilt piecing and applique on the apples is admirable. Nines quilted inside each apple with a different pattern. My favorite is the corner one, swirled with the worm poking out its little nose. How clever!

FOLLOW THE LEADER

It’s one of those little jobs that talks to you in your sleep. You can’t put it down. A low black ink cartridge keeps me from printing out DDIL’s wedding pictures, so I started at the other end of wedding memories. A full tray of photos are waiting...to follow the leader(s).

DD-Laurie was the first to wed in May 1986. Always a ‘do it myself’ kid, she ran the full gamut for her wedding. Designed and made her gown, the bridesmaids’ dresses, the flower girl’s dress and even the ring bearer’s suit. She also designed, baked and decorated her wedding cake. She did let me do the flowers (though I’m sure she’d have done as well or better). A bit Victorian; all white - everything. It was a very crisp, fresh wedding.

The local paper ran a piece on Laurie’s gown. I started my scrapbooking from that photo shoot. And there are loads and loads of pictures taken at the wedding to choose from when I move on to color – another day, depending on how my dreams progress. Right now I’m looking at family and friends in those pictures and remembering that first of wedding days was on a Sunday afternoon - Mother’s Day. Whew, were we tired!

And of course, I simply had to include photos of the flower girl (then and now), because she was married just last month and DD Laurie designed and made her (another) white wedding dress for the occasion. As Nines would say, “How cool is that!”

TIMELESS TREASURES

My project for this month is to get a few wedding pictures out of old cling-style albums into safer storage. The plan is to make scrapbook pages for each of our children from a few of the best wedding shots, and catalog the rest. Since I had no pictures of youngest DS Craig's wedding, request was made and quickly filled by DDIL Lisa.

This picture came by e-mail today. Looking at it fills my heart with wonder. The toddlers in this shot are now 19 and soon 18; and the rest of us have a lot more white hair, too. [And, in case you're wondering, Nines looks a bit peaked, because she's in premature labor...poor baby.] Oh, but I think we're ALL beautiful!

What a sweet host of memories a single photo can evoke. And aren't all pictures like that? I sometimes wonder if I would have any memory at all were it not for snapshots to prompt it. And pictures definitely fill out stored memories. I know there are photos that bring back my own childhood in ways long since lost otherwise.

So I guess I'll hang onto these timeless treasures. You know what they say, "In case of fire, grab the picture albums!" And thank you, Lisa ...you're a treasure!

For Nines - DS's back yard / herb garden ... NOT related to post :)

REVOLVING DOORS IN THE LAND OF BARBARIANS

A friend of ours coined the phrase ‘medical revolving doors,’ noting that once primary doctor’s care considered a condition, it’s doors revolved – between all known cohorts – until everyone got a stab at you. The friend called it sharing the bounty … tongue in cheek, maybe sharing more fee than wisdom.

I have my toe in that revolving door again. Yesterday, my D-twin-S wrote about my visit to the hospital for tests, “Sorry you had to be in the land of barbarians.” DS is an RN (the best I’ve ever seen) and knows whereof she humorously speaks truth. This time the doors revolved in a comedy of confusion, too.

The doctor, who was seeing drop-ins in family physician’s stead, told me I could just ‘drop in’ the imaging center anytime for kidney/bladder x-rays. When I called to be sure (Rule # 1: Never trust a doctor under 30, no matter how pleasant) I was told in answer to my questions about the procedure that (1) the dye is the same as is used in cardiac cath’s; (2) test must be pre-scheduled; (3) patient’s with dye allergy must have the procedure done at a hospital instead of imaging center; and (4) there is a 24-hour prep for the test. I was given the phone number for scheduling at the hospital and that call led to further discoveries: the ordering Dr. would have to supply Rx for pre-dosage steroids, a 24-hour (colonoscopy type – ugh) prep-kit as well as an order for bloodwork 48+hrs post test. More phone calls and another trip to pharmacy so that I myself could do the prep, take the pills (prednisone and benedryl), stop the pills (diabetes drugs) and have the bloodwork a few days after the test to see if my kidneys can tolerate resuming the diabetes meds. And of course pay the bills. . . which always goes unmentioned.

As sometimes happens, the prep was worse than the test. Sorry guys, but colon cleansing is barbaric! The steroids make me wired - I slept maybe 2 hours before night between that and tummy rumbles. But, the Benedryl helped me rest some during the test - which ran a 2-hour course, trying to lie still on a cold steel table. I noted that the equipment might have been around when DS David had his first kidney x-rays in 1969. On the bright side, the dye-needle went in with one poke instead of the usual 3-4 and only a moderate amount of subsurface probing; and that probing nurse brought blankets – heated ones!.

A few hours after returning home from my exciting adventure, my flesh started crawling. Yep, a look in the mirror found swollen eyes, red neck and drew the obvious conclusion that the pre-dose steroid needed a boost. More phone calls and another trip to pharmacy took another five hours. Let's just call this little dance the Barbarian Shuffle. By this time I’m saying, BEAM ME UP SCOTTY, I want Bones’ hand held scanner and 30-second diagnosis!!!

Lame humor aside, the results were good…no major problems, just a few more revolving doors.

Further, for those of you who are/know good health care providers, I truly do appreciate modern medical science and am grateful to have had first hand experience with life-saving intervention. I thank God for those who with insight, dedication and compassion serve needing patients…for such care makes the rest of the land of barbarians bearable.

Luxury's Lap

Does this not look like resort living?

We traveled to Florida for Thanksgiving holidays, spending a few days on either coast. First, DH's family (except DBIL Paul) met in Ormond Beach Sunday-Thursday. This included the typical rounds of easy company, shopping at St. Augustine outlet mall, dinners together at DSIL Eva's and a holiday feast at DSIL June/Bob, for which DD Laurie/family joined us. The weather was at first quite cool - we left fruit and excess food on the screened porch 'refrigerator' - but warmed as the week went on. All of our family gatherings seem to gather around food, and T-day just magnifies the proportion. What would T-Day be without dressing, smoked turkey, ham, onion pie, Laurie's fresh cranberry salad and desserts [many of which have evolved into low-fat/sugar versions]. I still vote with the kid who said she liked the bread the turkey ate best, though.

We hitched a ride back over to the gulf coast for a few days with DD Laurie where we were put up in luxurious style. The pic is a corner scene from the guest bedroom...no, make that suite. We rattled around in that suite in total privacy - an area about the size of our living quarters here at Teelside. There's a big ole recliner beside the brass bed and GF took up station there. We hitched a cold/respiratory virus on the east coast; my round was quite mild; his was anything but mild. For the duration of our stay the poor baby reclined with remote in hand. Fox News with a little CSI/Law and Order kept him reasonably distracted from misery. The programs were reruns, but since we've lived sans TV since 1999, that was not an issue.

Beside sneaking in LOTS of extra affection between kids/grandkids, I had the first-in-a-lifetime joy of attending a namesake's wedding. How sweet! Penijean and Brian were married on the Gulf beach - a warm and casually beautiful affair. The weather was perfect and in my sentimental state I could but believe that heaven was smiling on this precious pair.

Such lovely experiences lead me to wish I could be everywhere at once. We have such a wonderful circle in which to bounce around!!! But it's good to be home, too.