I just marked down almost everything in my shop...MARCH MADNESS SALE!I plan on doing a lot of designing and creating this weekend and hope to have new pieces listed very soon! Visit my shop to check out all the great bargains by clicking below:
Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Mother Nature Is Going Thru Menopause
Rain rain rain, all day, and again all night. The map shows what we're getting right now. It has been raining pretty much non stop since about 9 this morning, at times so heavy that traffic comes to a halt. The thunder and lightening have been steady for the last hour or so, and the weather prediction for tonight is for some severe storms.Then, to top it all off, they predict temperatures to drop and we have a possibility of snow by morning!
I truly believe Mother Nature is going thru the "CHANGES".
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Memories
I'll admit, I've been slacking off lately. Something has been trying to get hold of me, and I've been fighting it tooth and nail, literally (I split 2 fingernails LOL). I get home from work and I am so exhausted that I sometimes don't even check email, let alone do anymore designing. I have to get moving and start making new pieces for my shop. I have so many new ideas and hopefully this weekend I will have the time and energy to start creating again. I have one custom order to complete and my buyer has been very patient with me, which is priceless.
It seems like every other weekend something comes up and there is no time to relax. Last weekend my husband and I took a short trip to a resort in Northern Illinois, right on Lake Michigan. It was a well needed rest and respite from reality, not to mention some alone time for Valentine's Day. We had a room with a lovely view of a State park, and it even included chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne on Saturday night, along with a delicious dinner in the hotel's restaurant, which had a lake view.
We got to talking to a woman who was staying there while her husband was at the Cancer Treatment Center nearby. I was very impressed with her courage and outgoing personality, considering she was alone in a strange city. I used to travel for a former job and I could never bring myself to go to a restaurant for lunch or dinner alone. I usually ended up picking something up from a fast food place and going back to my hotel. We invited our new friend to join us for whatever meal we happened to be having whenever we saw her. She spent most of the day at the treatment center visiting with her husband. I don't know how I would feel if I was in her shoes, especially since it seemed there were several set backs in the progress of his condition. I gave her my business card and asked that she keep in touch with us. Since the hotel isn't that far from our home, we told her that whenever they returned for treatments, to let us know and we would try to drive up to visit with her.
Meeting her brought back memories of my mom when my dad was in the hospital for over 3 months in Minnesota. She stayed in a boarding house across from the hospital and ate all her meals in the hospital cafeteria or at the little waffle house next to the boarding house. She was alone, but bonded with many other women who were in the same position as she was. It took a lot of courage to deal with most of the situations that arose on her own. We would take turns going up to visit for weekends, but we all had families and jobs and couldn't always go every weekend. She had her needlework for the times she was in her room at night, but I know she was wishing one or all of us could be there with her. It took a lot of courage and strength to do what she did and I really admired her for that.
Saturday will be 19 years since my dad passed away, and I still miss him. I can still remember the last time I talked to him, it was Valentine's Day 1990, the week before he died. We had been up there for 10 days and had to return home. The doctors told my mom as we were leaving that they would be sending him home the following week, on a med-jet. We knew there was nothing else that could be done and that he was going home to die. It was what he wanted..to be home with his family. Like the song..."he did it his way". I still think of the song "My Way" as his theme song, and almost asked for it to be played at the funeral mass, but didn't know if some would be offended. That is the only thing I regret, is not doing that, because I really believe he would have gotten a kick out of it.
He had the last word, again, the day of his funeral....there was a blizzard that pretty much paralyzed the city of Chicago. He worked for the city and we always used to give him grief when it snowed and the streets weren't cleaned off. Sitting in the limo outside the funeral home, we talked about that and laughed at the memory of it, and everyone walking by and looking in at us probably wondered what we were talking about. But then they knew my dad and his sense of humor and I'm sure they had their own memories that gave them a chuckle that day.
A very good friend gave us something to consider. I can't remember her exact words but it was something along the lines of:
"Don't look back and be sad, but remember all the good times and enjoy the memories over and over again."
It seems like every other weekend something comes up and there is no time to relax. Last weekend my husband and I took a short trip to a resort in Northern Illinois, right on Lake Michigan. It was a well needed rest and respite from reality, not to mention some alone time for Valentine's Day. We had a room with a lovely view of a State park, and it even included chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne on Saturday night, along with a delicious dinner in the hotel's restaurant, which had a lake view.
We got to talking to a woman who was staying there while her husband was at the Cancer Treatment Center nearby. I was very impressed with her courage and outgoing personality, considering she was alone in a strange city. I used to travel for a former job and I could never bring myself to go to a restaurant for lunch or dinner alone. I usually ended up picking something up from a fast food place and going back to my hotel. We invited our new friend to join us for whatever meal we happened to be having whenever we saw her. She spent most of the day at the treatment center visiting with her husband. I don't know how I would feel if I was in her shoes, especially since it seemed there were several set backs in the progress of his condition. I gave her my business card and asked that she keep in touch with us. Since the hotel isn't that far from our home, we told her that whenever they returned for treatments, to let us know and we would try to drive up to visit with her.
Meeting her brought back memories of my mom when my dad was in the hospital for over 3 months in Minnesota. She stayed in a boarding house across from the hospital and ate all her meals in the hospital cafeteria or at the little waffle house next to the boarding house. She was alone, but bonded with many other women who were in the same position as she was. It took a lot of courage to deal with most of the situations that arose on her own. We would take turns going up to visit for weekends, but we all had families and jobs and couldn't always go every weekend. She had her needlework for the times she was in her room at night, but I know she was wishing one or all of us could be there with her. It took a lot of courage and strength to do what she did and I really admired her for that.
Saturday will be 19 years since my dad passed away, and I still miss him. I can still remember the last time I talked to him, it was Valentine's Day 1990, the week before he died. We had been up there for 10 days and had to return home. The doctors told my mom as we were leaving that they would be sending him home the following week, on a med-jet. We knew there was nothing else that could be done and that he was going home to die. It was what he wanted..to be home with his family. Like the song..."he did it his way". I still think of the song "My Way" as his theme song, and almost asked for it to be played at the funeral mass, but didn't know if some would be offended. That is the only thing I regret, is not doing that, because I really believe he would have gotten a kick out of it.
He had the last word, again, the day of his funeral....there was a blizzard that pretty much paralyzed the city of Chicago. He worked for the city and we always used to give him grief when it snowed and the streets weren't cleaned off. Sitting in the limo outside the funeral home, we talked about that and laughed at the memory of it, and everyone walking by and looking in at us probably wondered what we were talking about. But then they knew my dad and his sense of humor and I'm sure they had their own memories that gave them a chuckle that day.
A very good friend gave us something to consider. I can't remember her exact words but it was something along the lines of:
"Don't look back and be sad, but remember all the good times and enjoy the memories over and over again."
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Five Year Anniversary - Lots To Celebrate!
Five years ago today, February 5, I quit smoking. I also had a heart attack, and that was the reason I quit smoking. The smoking was one of the main contributors to my heart attack; stress and a lousy diet were other contributing factors. A vicious circle to say the least.
As it turned out, I had an 80% blockage in the left main coronary artery where it meets the aorta. There was another smaller blockage a little further down the artery.
The day started out as any other; got up, showered, went to work. Came home from work and hubby suggested we go out to dinner. I thought it was a good idea, but by the time he got home from work, I wasn't feeling well and decided to stay home. Nothing unusual happened, just sat around and relaxed, took a nice long bubble bath and got ready for bed.
I was laying in bed, about 9pm, when I started to have what I thought was a hot flash. Usually they would come and go and a cool cloth on my chest would help it ease up, but this one didn't go away. In fact, it started feeling like someone was dragging molten hot barbed wire across my chest. When they say a woman has different symptoms than a man during a heart attack, they aren't kidding. I didn't have the numbness in my arm, or the pain in my shoulder, jaw or anything else that is considered a common symptom of a heart attack. I had a burning sensation in my chest, and an upset stomach. Then the headache started. OH MY GOD!!! Excruciating, crushing headache, like none I've ever experienced before. By the time the paramedics arrived, my head felt like it would explode, but the burning in my chest had subsided, or maybe I just didn't notice it anymore because of the headache. They put me on oxygen, slipped a nitro under my tongue and rushed me to the hospital.
There, they hooked me up for an EKG, drew some blood, and told me that I had had a heart attack and would require more tests to see how severe and what damage, if any, had been done to my heart. I was admitted to the cardiac unit upstairs, hooked up to a telemetry unit and confined to bed. My husband was there as was my mom and my son, and I finally convinced them that they should go home and rest. Of course I didn't get any rest; every five or ten minutes someone came in to get answers, blood, urine, blood pressure, glucose levels, EKG readings, you name it, I gave it. By the end of the first day they had blown just about every vein in both my arms, and the only way to get blood from me was to dig. OUCH! Finally they put one of those central lines in me so I didn't have to get poked everytime they wanted to draw something, or inject something.
As it turned out, I had an 80% blockage in the left main coronary artery where it meets the aorta. There was another smaller blockage a little further down the artery. I required a double bypass instead of stents because the placement of the stents couldn't be performed due to the location of the blockage.
Surgery was on February 11, and I was home on February 15.
Strange as it may sound, February 5, 2004 was also a Thursday, just like it is this year.
I'm doing good, haven't had a cigarette since then. Still have some weight to lose, also found out 2 years ago that I have Type 2 Diabetes. I have to take medication daily for blood pressure, Diabetes, and acid reflux disease, but it's better than the alternative.
Women suffer more heart attacks and have a higher risk for heart disease than most men, and the symptoms in women are so different from the ones that men experience, that more women's heart disease goes undetected until it's too late. I was one of the lucky ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)