Tilt-a-whirl

Numb's The Word

There seems to be a spate challenges going on around our circle of friends and I first of all send my thoughts and prayers down to Southern California where the sky is orange. I live in the woods and so the F word is not something that I take lightly. May your homes come through undamaged and may the winds blow in from the ocean.

Kerry, I send you strength to help you get through your mom's fight.

Here in the clearing in the woods, life has been more than challenging. I guess that I will have to commit the Serenity Prayer to memory and do my best to get through these days, one at a time. My mother has just not come back from this whole trip to the hospital and pneumonia. Yes, her lungs seem to be much more clear but she has not regained much strength after this thing put her to bed weeks ago. She has had a lovely home health care worker come to give her pep talks and exercises for both lungs and legs but after one day of trying to Be Good, (after NOT doing the work for a few days) she was flat on her back in bed for a day, once again. This morning she was trying to be good and got herself up and out to the breakfast table but looked SO bad that she went back to bed right away. I thought for sure that she was on The Big Banana Peel...seriously. I was shocked to see her up at the table when I came in from the dye room this afternoon but this evening she took her dinner in bed again. I go from being angry to sorry to sad to worried to worn out. I feel as though there is a giant anvil on my heart right now and I am sorry that my mom is so done with life. It has to be so awful to feel so tired all of the time and I have to tell you that this is one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.

Sometimes it feels ridiculous to think of going ahead with building the cottage because I honestly can't imagine her being strong enough to ever set foot in the place but we will build it because it is in the works and it will house the studio. The architect has made the revisions to the plans, to accommodate a handicapped person and the elevations that have been drawn up are a perfect match to this house. I call it Mini-Me. It will be perfect. Mom does not want to see the plans. I understand. She sat with the woman who has helped us work through the design, two days before she was admitted to the hospital and surprised us with the news that she did want her grand piano in her house, after all. This gave me great hope for her future and happiness, even on the day that she was falling asleep mid sentence. Now, we will just go forward, one day at a time, even though my heart tells me that by the time the building is complete, she may not be with me anymore. Anvil? Try a bus in my gut. It is an enormous roller coaster each day and I never know from one day to the next...from one hour to the next, if she is going to get better or worse. The more that she stays in bed, the more she is deciding to leave.

In the meantime, here in the clearing in the woods, the air is crisp and the noise of the yellow leaves falling to the ground is fascinating. I finally live somewhere that I can HEAR the leaves banging into one another on the way down. I can hear the little frogs barking away. I can watch as Tank does his best impression of a Greyhound thudding up the back hill and then over across the dry creek after some hoodoo or whiff of a deer. The Chinese Pistache trees planted all up and down highway 50 are in a riot of color that drives me wild and in the full moonlight I can see the glowing yellow leaves outside of my bedroom window at 2 in the morning. I know that I will survive this and that my mother will thank me from the Other Side. In the meantime, we take her "you're a good egg" compliments as thanks on This Side. One day at a time...one hour at a time.

Home and happy about it

I started this post a couple of hours ago and then POOF! Disappeared. Oh nooooooo, as my little grandson likes to say. Oh no, indeed.

I want to thank the East Coast contingent for a lovely time and Baltimore in particular. It is tough for someone who lives in the quiet of the woods to now come back to a full fledged city and immerse herself in all that that entails but Baltimore is a friendly place and how lucky were we to have a convention center so close to the Inner Harbor and all of the great restaurants. Thinking of coming to DC and the area? Don't miss Baltimore. A special thank you to JACKIE!, who is our angel. She fed us and kept us sane during the day, doing mama duty over booths within a wrapped candy's throw from one another...AKA Sheila.

We had quite a journey to get us across country and I don't mean the crappy flights...I mean what began on Sunday. I woke up and took charge on Sunday. I woke up, took charge and told Mom that she was going to the hospital. She just blinked and got in the darned car. It took TENNNNNNN HOURS to get her admitted from the emergency room to the hospital. The woman has pneumonia and had fallen while we were on our walk to get the paper the day before. Ten hours of listening to hang nail people and menstrual cramp people clog up the emergency room with their free visits to the doctor while this 82 year old woman languished. It took all of my mama lion routine to keep it together. We waited through three shift changes until a kind doctor let mom be NEXT. I got the word...pneumonia and no broken bones and when he told me that it was not my fault that my mother was so dehydrated that dust came out of her veins, I lost it. Well, it WAS almost midnight...boo hoooooooooo. While I was waiting for that nice man I just put my head down on mom's bed and told her that I had NO idea of what I was going to do. She says...you are going to GO and I am going home. Yeahright. Into the hospital she goes and home we go, knowing full well that the weight of the guilt of going to Baltimore would take years off of my life.  If my boxes were not sitting at Penn Station for me I would have canceled. Case closed.

 

While setting up the booth on Wednesday, a call came in from the doctor in charge of mom's care who informed us that she was being released that morning. WHAT??? We are in BALTIMORE! It seemed like hours of wrangling and cell phone calls and we were able to get help with this nightmare...our neighbor stepped up and volunteered to stay here with Mom. How amazing is that? I felt like the weight of the world slipped down off of my shoulders and on to the Convention Center floor. We could do this.

Opening night came and we had a lovely visit with Miz Wendy who I am happy to see came through the surgery well. May your recovery be speedy!

Saturday was a great day because we had the pleasure of hosting the book signing for Alison Jepson Hyde Hey, this woman travels with a POSSE! Yes, a grand time was had by all.

Isn't she CUTE and how funny that we both had to fly to Maryland to hang out together again. :o) Ah, yes...by the way, we brought home a handful of signed copies of the book and so if you are interested, drop me an email and we can hook you up.

Brenda Patipa dazzled us with some new offerings...things that showed up at the last minute to surprise me. Her Envy shawl in the top right photo is just spectacular and I am looking forward to photographing it properly for the website. So beautiful and soft in Baby Alpaca Lace. She also sent the jazziest new addition to the Things To Wrap Around Your Neck offerings...she calls it Red Delicious. El Dorado and Fat Bunny...a great combination.

Now I just have to blow up the new inflatable women that were the hit of the show so that I can get the pieces photographed on one of those va-va-voom bodies. We used double stick tape ala J-Lo at the show and tried to keep all of the bazooms under cover. :o)

Last but not least...I want to thank Karen P, Jody and The Queenie Sisters for all of the hugs and concern. You know that someone cares when they look at you and tell you that you seem to need a vacation/massage/stiff drink or countless other things that might pop to mind. It's true...this time with mom really aged me but the hugs and stories and wacky faces that made me laugh were like medicine. We came home to a changed woman. She got a good scare and has finally let us see what we are facing. We went to the doctor today and she really likes this woman young enough to be her granddaughter. She is accepting that we mean well for her and that we are doing a damned fine job. The day culminated with an emergency call from Lauren, who took sick and needed us to bring Schnickle home with us from daycare. Yup...never a dull moment but that is what families do. She was there for us when we needed mom sprung from the hospital and we could be there for her today. This move was important for all of us and the transition is becoming a little sweeter. As I told mom today...one day at a time. I will get back to the dye room for you tomorrow, as long as nothing goes wrong. Thank you for your patience and understanding...I am swimming as fast as I can.

Not young anymore...

I don't care WHAT my birthday candles say tomorrow, even if Sheila thinks that she is sooooo much younger than I, normally I feel a lot younger than what that blaze is supposed to signify. I swear to my guardian angels, having that little Schnickle here for three nights was enough to kick my butt into another decade. I was a new mother at 22 and the mother of two by the time I was 25 and I do NOT know how the moms starting this stuff at a much later time survive! Our lovely daughter Lauren  seems to be the typical young mother of the day, having the first at 29, with plenty of energy to handle a career, motherhood and all that goes with it. This little monkey is a go-go 21 months and he babbles until 9pm. Nine Pee Emm. That is MY bedtime on a tough day and I could be found begging him to go nightnight. Ummm, not until his little internal clock said DING could he be taken to his little bed.

The DOGS were over the moon to have the Schnickle with us for fun and refreshments and Truck Talk. Here they are lying around in the sun, waiting to get their tongues on him.

By the time Sunday morning came around, I think that even THEY were extra tired. :o)

Saturday was our day to play and so I took the day off and we hopped into the little car to enjoy the clear as a bell day that came after Mother Nature dumped rain on Friday.  We decided to start exploring more of our new home county and headed north on highway 49 toward Coloma, where Sutter's Mill and the discovery of gold happened in 1849. There are some old buildings that line the historical little town and some are housing small businesses or period activities. We ended up at the shore of The American River and thrilled that little Schnickle to pieces by having Grampy show him how to toss pebbles into the river. What will a kid remember? He will remember having permission to toss rocks with his grandpa and have that grandpa show him how it sounds to plop a BIG rock in the river...peeeeelunk. Squeals of joy. We got back into the car and followed the river a bit more and found a place where we could watch  kiyackers and rafters maneuver the white water, which thrilled the little guy to PIECES. He waved and shouted bye-bye to the folks bouncing and rushing past us. Pretty darned cute. It was a lovely day and ended with a refreshing time in the water for one grubby little dude. The big black blurry head is his Nurse Dog, Miz Sashie. She was more than thrilled to be able to be so close to her baby...our baby, who is NOT a baby anymore. He is a little boy who is happy to end each sentence with truck, big truck.

So, we went to the river, played at the park, (had no camera in the car) had lunch, went to the book store (trucks and vehicle books ONLY, please) and then finished up with a baby Jamba Juice before heading back Up The Hill from Folsom to Placerville. We were still running on adrenaline, Rod and I. What can you do when you have to keep up with a little Sag? Sunday came and his exhausted mom came up the hill to retrieve him after spending her time manning a booth at the ADA convention. She thought that it was kind of a blast from the past, having been a Craft Show Kid for all of those years and now manning a booth herself, albeit quite a different venue. When we said goodbye, Rod and I knew that we had to put the pedal to the metal because there was a garage full of yarn and only so much time to inventory that yarn and get it packed neatly into the shipping boxes for the train the next day. Howey Cwap, it took forever and by the time 9 PM rolled around and we were still farting around with booth bits I said...I am going to do this on the bed. Next thing you know...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ OUT.

We got up the next morning, still thinking that we were chipper beings and finished boxing the last bits and bobs, marking all of the boxes and then loading them into the BAV for the journey to the Sacramento Amtrak station. We keep getting reminders that we are NOT living in the Bay Area anymore. Nope, the train station is not 15 minutes from home anymore, it is an hour. Pish tosh, say we...it takes 10 minutes to get to town, after all...no big deal. Uh huh. We got there at 11:30 and made the poor baggage guy's eyes water when he saw the boxes and boxes of yarn roll in. People looked at us like we were on fire. Nope, just SMART. Put the boxes on the train and it costs 1/3 of what any other freight service would charge. :o) We got through the paperwork and chatting in just under an hour and went to find the airport...another bit of time. Oh, goodie...we are going to be flying out of this place BEFORE the butt crack of dawn on Tuesday, which means that we have to get up at dark o'clock to drive the 90 minutes to the airport. SWEET! Nope, Toto, we are not in the Bay Area anymore. The point is... people of the east coast, we salute you. We are coming  back to Baltimore to honor those of you who have been such great customers, even before meeting us in person. The stock is all on the train and we will be on a plane next week.

We thought, after checking out the airport...HEY, while we're HERE, let's pop in to Ikea. Suuuuuuure, we have all of the energy in the world and why the heck not? We need a kitchen island and well, why not! Are you seeing anything coming? Do you feel the cracks in the facade? Do you feel the chills coming on at dinner time? Yeah, that's right...BAM, right in the kisser. Probably from kissing a little boy...shiver, shiver, shiver...ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I think that I have been running on overdrive at full throttle for 6 months, getting us packed for this move, getting mom packed for this move and all of those other things that have happened since we knew that the job was ending and I just ran right into the invisible wall. Know what? I spent Monday in bed ALL DAY, finished The Bone Man and rested my weary not SO old bones. (The book is fabulous, by the way...the best yet...a real "and then" book, which is how I describe a page turner.) I came back to myself by the end of the day today and mom looked at me as I was saying something silly and said "you're feeling better, aren't you"? Yup.

  Thanks to Rhonda for lunch today. This is a woman who started out as our buyer's agent up here and has become an instant friend...a sister by another mother. If any of you readers out there are looking to sell or buy up here, you could NOT find a better, more down to earth, terrific agent and I could not be more lucky to have her now as a friend. This year that ends tonight has been quite monumental with all of the changes. Rod's year ends on Monday and so the changes continue in his year with the construction of Mom's cottage and my studio being signed into motion on Saturday. See? A BIG year and I no longer feel like I am going to be One Hundred. :o)

We are lucky to have our extended family around us and a little grandson who enjoys the heck out of helping to haul our trash bins all of the way down the hill, over the bridge and up to the road. We are lucky to have found good friends up here already. I am grateful for all that I have learned about what I can handle and how to get over the demons of the past while caring for my aged mother. I am proud of myself and how this has all come together as I imagined it could. I am SO looking forward to having our son and daughter in law  come to visit and see what WE see. (bring your camera, Vicki!)

So, NOW...it is time to quit waxing poetic and get to dyeing the yarn that has started stacking up in the queue again, thanks to the KID, The Sick Day and The Train. Thanks for being patient...we'll get it to you.