Nursing Home

Ok. Mom is in a nursing home. The care seems adequate, which is good, but the place is old. The hospital she was in is brand new, automatic everything, and the inner goof ball in me wanted to see what all positions I could get the bed into! Moms bed now has a crank. Not an old man, a crank, as in model T car. Mom wanted to be sitting up higher, so there I am looking for the buttons to push. I saw the funny crank things at the foot and passed them by.  Hah. Moms bed doesn't have that top crank, where it would be handy, no sirree.

At least it does have a mattress!

I am tired today.  I am usually at home in couch potato mode.  I did some more weaving of leaves last night while watching a John Wayne movie!!!  It's not often I get the remote to control.  

OH oh oh....and last night, the 3 girls showing off their prom finery to Grandma....it WAS priceless, mom loved it!

Visiting your Grandmother dressed for Prom? Priceless!

I am trying something different for leaves for the butterfly block.  I saw this on another blog, of course, and decided I HAD to try it!  If I use this, I will cut the leaf out around the fabric it is on and applique the whole she-bang. Click the pic to get it up close and personal!

Who says you can't combine purple and yellow?  Not Mother Nature!

Found this amazing picture on this blog....

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Stephanie has Prom tonight.  She let me help with her fingernails, press her dress and drive her to her friend's house in Port Orchard.  There she will get dressed up with the other 2 girls,  zoom to Gig Harbor to show themselves off to My Mother, then zoom back to Port Orchard to get the 'boys' to go get pix taken at the High School....then....dinner, prom, whatever. 

Needlework and other News

My mom improves every day and after a bit of rehab time in a nursing home, she will hopefully come home. [there will be no tempting of fate around here thank you!]

I have been getting some needlework done in the evening. Here is the butterfly block in it's new setting.  The wild roses in front are made with cotton batt that I dyed.  Acts like felt.

I cut this one from the original fabric that  the butterfly was stitched onto, after cutting that fabric off the block.  This flower section is stitched on top of another piece of batt.  

The log cabin is still in progress.  I added felt for the roof, but am not really sure what it's supposed to being imitating.
This gray stuff is some wool I kinda felted, the divots in it are the stitches.
This side strip is from where I hacked it off the quilt it was part of.  I kept turning that seam over to see how it looked on the block....I think I need to keep it there....

Tonight...I have to make sure the prom dress is stitched up nicely at the halter-neck-strap, because it's too long as is.  Steph isn't even getting dressed here for prom, she is doing that at a friends house.  So I will have to wait for pix!

Next week is busy for Steph, final finals and such.  June 4 is the last day of school for the seniors, they go back the next am for grad. ceremony rehearsals, then they are kicked out of the school and told not to come back as they are no longer students there!!!!!

Laurals

Stephanie didn't go to Laural's Evening at her high school because she didn't know she would be getting anything.  She did!  

1. She got the Honor Cord, which is just a rope to hang from her shoulder, but it tells all that you have a GPA of 3.5 or higher.  Sweet.  Then I can use it for curtain tiebacks!  Double Sweet.

2. certificate~ "The Washington State Principals' Scholars Program." Steph said this was for being in the top 5% of her class???  Make a nice scrapbook page.

3. certificate~ "Washington State Honors Award...in recognition of...top 10%.....[of the whole friggin' state] of high school grads for 2009"  I thought this was for her school alone, considering there are like 800+ grads at her school!  I don't think Steph really realizes what this is either!

4.  Thank goodness she isn't Valedictorian.  I could not stand the stress she would be under to stand in front of thousands of people!

Thrift Store Finds

thrift store finds. scarf. big flower and fabric texture, the wrinkles are set in somehow.

Red scarf. Red. Red.

scarf. interesting design.

scarves. frolicking deer! green one...not sure what to do with that one.

dress.  homemade. the top fabric-lacy-battenburg-tablecloth-looking piece is what caught my eye.  threw it in the wash, think it shrank 3 sizes. don't care, got it for the lacy stuff.  anyone want some?  

Megan's curls.

Ashley, with less than 2 months to go.

Rat update.....I had to go out and pick it up and toss in trash can because NO ONE else would do it.  Megan came with me to 'help', but one whiff of the dead thing sent her off to the side!  She told me many times how gross it was.  How did I pick it up?  With my teeth, duh!

First, Curls, Second, GROSS

Ben gave Megan her first real haircut today.  

[I will take a picture of the dried curls tomorrow.]

She got bangs!  I hope her curls came back....

This is a Rat. Dead. 

This was here to great me when we came home from the hospital today.[Mom is better, but the same, make sense?]  Stephanie totally walked past it, did not see it at all.  We do not know if cat or dog brought it home. The cement circle is about 18", and no I wasn't going to put my hand or foot near it for size....Gross!

Stopped at the thrift store.  Scarves.  I will get better pix in the daylight.

A dress form.  It still has the Target tag on it, a valentine do-dad.  Dumb, huh?  But....Steph has a male friend who loves to sew and will enjoy the joke in this as a graduation gift.

Crappy pic.  The sky fabric around the log cabin is really pale.  

But, progress so far.

The rough stuff is a yarn, couched for a pathway. 

I'm her mom....

Christine Thresh said...."Your lifelong position of being the child changes to being the grownup."  This is so true, at least with me.  At the hospital, my mother is the patient, and when anyone, new, on staff walks in, I always speak up with "I'm her mom"....and when I start to correct myself, the staff waves it off.  I think they have heard that one many times.

My mother is doing better.  She had a Super IV  inserted in her arm that snakes around inside to her heart area.  As soon as that was set up, she started improving rapidly.  [my brain hides in the gray matter when tech stuff is being explained to me, and then comes up with an easy explanation.]  

The sun is shining today!  All sorts of RV's were heading down the road yesterday, so I hope they have a nice weekend. Being near the freeway, I get to see that kind of thing.  Not many cars with piles of stuff strapped to the roof, these days.

56°F

Current: Mostly Cloudy
Wind: W at 3 mph
Humidity: 78%

Sat

70°F | 47°F

Sun

68°F | 47°F

Mon

67°F | 50°F

Tue

67°F | 49°F

Food.

On Sunday, Mom's birthday, Ben grilled HB's, because Dan was at work, and this is how they looked!  They were very good! Oh and chicken!
Well my mom is in the hospital.  It seems I suck as a caregiver for an older person.  I hated forcing things on her, though I would try, and she was good at pushing things away from me. 

On a lighter note, it's supposed to be nice weather this weekend, but then this is May.....come June, the weather gets crappy here until after July 4th, usually....

Stuff...just stuff...

I have been zoning out a bit lately.  

My mom suddenly 'got old' on her 88th birthday Sunday.  I guess I haven't been taking as good a care of her as I should have, like she would let me!  

Then we zoom 70 years in the other direction to 18 year old Stephanie who is needing me too.  I think she has "OMG...I graduate from life as I know it on June 5th" anxieties....like she would say it that way....but you get the idea.

Good thing I learned to parallel park long ago.

With a Ginger On Green note...here is a site I love to go to every day.

About Cats.  Of course. 

Pictures....the pictures taken from the airplane by my daughter were taken with her cell phone, and then e-mailed from it to me/my computer, as she sat in my living room.  She didn't have to download them to a computer first. Or anything.  Wow.  Then I just used Picasa to 'collage' them for your viewing pleasure.  And add text to them.  So I guess I can say Wow to me too.

I have been doing some stitching at night.  I am working on the Log Cabin I showed a few posts ago.  I don't like the Butterfly, so I put it back on the design wall to mull over.

Words

Wordle.  Finally made one I like.  Got it here.

Plane Trip!

Without 'captions'. both click able.
My girls got to go fly. Fly in a small plane.  For 45 minutes they got to see our area from the air-ea.  These pix were taken on a cell phone. The camera, taken along for just this reason, was somehow left in the purse. ???

Beach and cameras

My daughter Ashley and her SO, DannyMan, went to the WA coast to the beach recently to get a good whiff of salty sea air.  This is Pacific Beach, also the name of our favorite campground. You can just barely see an RV peaking above the grass....that's where the camp is...and campfires are done on the beach itself.  And kite flying as you can see.

Birds

Seagull skimming

Seagull begging

camera posing.....what????

Mendofleur asked what camera I use.  This one.  I got it at Target a couple of years ago.  It has a 'flower' setting so I can zomm in...but doesn't help with spelling worth a spit...I tried the regular soom for...more typos...

ZOOM, regular, for the hummingbird, and got a blurry blob of bird, and great clear background.  When I put the 'flower' setting on, I got the bird in perfect focus!!!!!!!  And caught him/her blinking!!!!  I have 2 birds, that I know of, and still not sure which is boy and which is girl.

{normally I use spell check, but today I thought I would treat you to typos}

And I am glad you like the new look of my blog, I got tired of that skinny strip done the center...

More Fabrics!

I got another variety of fabric scraps.  I am having fun with the ideas for all these.
I got plastic needles for the girlies, Megan for starters.  That big blue one is it....the stinkin' thing won't even let a macaroni pass over the eye!!  So I let Meg use that regular needle that comes with a sharp point, and she did just fine!  Not once did she poke herself. NOT ONCE!  Better record than I have.
Steph got this after her calculus exam...Nerd-dom Certificate!
oh look...no don't...it's just more fabrics....
The girls gave me a paper cutter for moms day, so I made a bunch of straight cuts, woowho!, on pictures of blocks I have made for others.
Butterfly progress.
You should be able to click and enlarge the pix.
i put one of the new fabs under the crochet.
Neighbors cat, Boots at the bottom of our yard.  I love my camera too.

Urban Hummingbirds

Talk about being lucky...me that is...with the camera!

See the feet and tail under the white thing?  From branch to feeder, and back.

The hbird blinked!  I was there!
the last post went goof-o on me.  that's what happens when you change the picture placement.

Urban Animals