titles are hard

I've run out of titles to call the posts already *shrug*

I went through my second torture session with the physical therapist today and it was a torture today. I was hurting very bad when I woke up this morning so going through all the exercises was very painful. The pain in my leg has shifted from the front of my leg to the inside of my leg and groin area. The therapist again says this is a good sign because less of the nerve is being pinched. I told him that he wouldn't think it was a good sign if it was HIS groin that hurt! He did agree with me on that one. I got a new set of exercises to go through thanks to the pain shift. I got a series of stretches this time too. The only good part about the session was the wonderful little electric shock heat treatment at the end. I love that part cause it relaxes all those muscles and eases up the pain quite a bit.

I did have a wonderful weekend. DH and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary on Saturday by going to Cheesecake Factory for lunch and I brought home an absolutely sinful chocolate lover's dream in the form of Godiva chocolate cheesecake while Dh went with the toblerone swiss almond cheesecake. We spent the rest of the evening hanging out with each other and watching movies. I also broke down and started stitching sewing seeds.

Sunday was a little miserable for me. I only got 6 hours of sleep on Saturday thanks to the cats and DH snoring so I was a lot sleepy and a bit cranky all day. I spent the whole day watching TV and stitching. It wasn't very active but I did get a lot of stitching done. I also watched Joan of Arcadia, Stargate altantis and stargate sg1 since we had to tape them on Friday. I really enjoyed JOA & SG1 but Atlantis just wasn't holding my interest this week.

I have followed Valerie's example and spread birdseed out on my balcony. Saturday saw the first bird landing on the balcony and Spike's obsession with the window. He is so cute as he stands there completely still (even is tail) until he gets impatient that the bird isn't coming closer. Then he starts to chitter and the very tip of his tail starts to twitch. If that doesn't bring the bird closer, his tail goes into hyperdrive and anyone near should beware cause there is a lot of power behind that tail! Smokey really noticed the birds on Sunday and has spent a lot of time on the back of the couch sleeping with one eye on the balcony door. It is very cute. I'm still waiting for Mischief to notice and I'm sure that will be VERY interesting.

mkawefio

First, I should say that I had an absolutely fantastic day on the 19th. The perfection of the day was only marred twice by my tummy but I can ignore that. The time with friends and the money spent at Norwood's Nice and Hobby Lobby were the perfect way to kick of my 29th b'day.

Sunday was spent in complete indecision. Do I stitch or do I make fobs? If I stitch, what do I stitch? So many things I want to start. There are the Tw's and DD's that I bought but there are also the 3 mermaids sitting in my stash that I had special ordered fabric for. Then there are all those freebies that I got... sigh...

Monday was spent in complete agony. When I was drugged out of my gourd on percocet so I didn't have to feel pain, I was crying in pain. I hate my back.

Tuesday was spent much in the same way as monday.

Today was my first physical therapy appointment. After some feeling around and see how far you can move this way tests, the therapist sent me for an ultrasound. Turns out that I didn't hurt any disk after all but I did twist my spine. There are these little spikes that stick out of your vertebra toward the back.... well two of mine aren't pointing toward the back at the moment so 2 of my nerves are being pinched and grinded as the vertebra try to twist back into the right position. I got given some exercises and two more therapy appointments for next week. He also put this thing on my back that feels like there are little needles stabbing me all over even though I know that wasn't what was going on because I thoroughly inspected the device for needles before he got near me with it. I did feel much better this morning and was actually pain free for a couple of hours but now that I sit here typing, the pain is coming back. There isn't anything to do here at work. The boss won't go home. I'm so tired that I may fall asleep sitting in the chair even if the boss is here. Hope the next 2 hours goes by quickly or I'm not gonna make it!

sugar heaven

Mmmmm... After reading Erin's blog yesterday, I talked DH into going to Cracker Barrel for supper. The peanut butter pie was just as good, if not better, than Erin described and the chocolate lover in me fell in love with the coca-cola cake.... ahh... that is truly heaven.

DH is feeling better today. His thumb is still very bruised and swollen but his nose looks better. Mischief is still in "I love you and you can pet me all you want cause I know I've been bad" mode which is very nice.

I managed to finish my first hardanger ornament with cutwork last night. I actually cut for the first time, wrapped bars for the first time, and did my first dove's eye last night. I liked it so much that I dived right into another one! Enchanted dreamer may be put on the back burner for a bit. :)

I'm bouncing in anticipation for Saturday. I just can't wait. I just have to make it through one more day of work after today and then I get to go... YEAH!!!

Hope you are all having a great day!

Mischief's Great Escape

Let me start with the statement that she is home and safe so that you don't worry as you read through this.

Mischief loves going outside. We have leashed trained her so that we can indulge this love for her. We don't let her out on her own because she will not leave a collar around her neck for long plus she can't find her way home and we live on a busy street. DH took our oldest boy Smokey with him to return the DVDs last night because Smokey loves to ride in the car. Mischief became very angry about this and stood at the door howling until DH came home. To make it up to her, he then put on her harness and leash to take her for a walk.

They were gone for quite a while but I didn't think much of it because she really loves to walk outside. I finished an ornament that I was working on and started another. I heard an urgent loud knock and the door and got up to answer the door. I was a little annoyed because we have people trying to sell us tamales all the time and I figured this was the same thing or someone who had the wrong apartment. When I opened the door the first thing I saw was DH's face which had blood on it. I then looked down to see that he had mud and leaves all over him and that he was holding a leash-free Mischief who was also covered in mud and leaves and that there was blood dripping from DH's right hand. I of course opened the door wide and let them in right away.

DH dropped Mischief onto the floor and she promptly fled under the couch. I took DH into the bathroom to clean him up and tend to his wounds. As I was doing this he told me what happened.

They had been walking along and Mischief had tried to go into the street (something she has never done before) but he pulled her back. She tried several times to go across the street but DH wouldn't let her. They were walking along an area that has a wall and a drop off. Mischief likes to walk along the wall and look down. She's done this many times. Well last night she decided that it wasn't really that far down and jumped. As she landed the harness slipped off of her. When she heard DH call her name, she realized she was loose and made a run for it. The first place she went was of course across the street much to DH's panic. He dropped the leash in his mad rush to chase after her. She ran down the other side of the road and into some bushes which gave DH a chance to catch up to her because she of course had to stop and smell the bush. Just as DH got close, she darted back across the street with a very upset and frantic DH right behind her. When she got across the street she looked back and saw that DH was still right behind her so she dashed back across, just narrowly missing being hit by a car and ran back up the street through the bushes and then got sidetracked by a aromatic bush again. This time when DH got close she was still distracted by the bush and he dived into the bush after her and caught her. When she realized that something had hold of her, she bit into DH's thumb just as hard as she could.

DH managed to keep ahold of her and get her out of the bush even though she continued to hiss, growl, and snap at him. Once she was out of the bush and could see who had grabbed her she stopped snapping but continued to hiss and growl. DH hugged her close and she took this opportunity to sink her claws into his nose. After prying her claws out, he rushed her home and knocked frantically on the door because he was scared to loosen his grip enough to get his keys and unlock the door, which brings us back to the beginning of where I come in.

After getting DH's wounds cleaned up, we went back out and found the leash. When we got back home, Mischief had come out of hiding. I asked DH if he wanted to punish her and he replied that he was just so relieved to have her home and safe that he couldn't think of a punishment. I was not so nice. After looking her over really well and making sure that she wasn't bleeding and that all limbs were fine and unharmed by DH jumping on her in the bush, I clipped her claws and took her into the bathroom and closed the door. I then started the water running in the tub. Mishief realized at this point that she was getting a bath and started to cry and howl as if she was under the most horrible torture ever devised. DH came back to see what was going on. Upon entering the bathroom, he realized what I was doing and asked if it was really necessary to give her a bath right then. I told him that she was filthy and she needed to be cleaned up and the bath had an added bonus of punishing her because she hates to be given a bath.

He then sat down on the floor and she climbed into his lap and did her best "I'm a good girl and I love you so much, please don't let mommy put me in the water" routine. DH asked if we could do it the next day instead. I replied with a firm no and picked her up to put her in the water. She must of realized just how upset I was because she didn't fight anywhere near as much as she usually does. I was actually able to give her a bath by myself when it usually takes one of us to hold her in the water and one of us to scrub. She got a nice long 20 minute bath. After I let her out of the water, she crawled back into DH's lap and did her best "I'm really sorry and I look so pitiful, please don't let her get out the hair dryer" routine. DH bought this one so instead of the hair dryer, he toweled her off for about 30 minutes and petted her for a while longer and then let her out of the bathroom to go bathe herself the rest of the way dry.

Needless to say, we will be buying a tighter harness when we decide to start taking her out again and it will be a long time before she goes on another walk.

We finally got to bed around 1am this morning and I am doing my best to stay awake and alert at work today. To Mischief's credit, she does apparently realize when to stop pushing because she didn't bother either one of us all night long and after she realized we were awake this morning, she got up on the bed and loved on us which as you know is not normal Mischief behavior. I guess she was asking if she was forgiven or not. The boys on the other hand were steering clear of us last night and this morning in the hopes of avoiding a bath for themselves.

DH's nose has two claw marks in it but they aren't immediately noticable. His thumb however looks the worse for wear. He has 2 very deep puncture marks and the whole top half of his thumb is black and blue. He is thankfully still on antibiotics from having bronchitis so hopefully they will stave off any infection. He went to work this morning with an aching thumb and the left over crispix treats from the GTG. As for me, I'm really glad that I didn't know she had gotten free until after she had been caught cause my heart couldn't have handled that again.

Nashville Releases

I got my first look at ALL of the Nashville releases today.

I had preordered all of the limited designs and the TW designs and the DD designs.
*Whew* It's a good thing my parents gave me so much money for Christmas. I do see two other patterns that might tempt me though (Dragon Fire Designs - Mythic Creatures & Dette Designs - Dragon Seasonals).

I'm very excited to get to Norwood's on Saturday now that I know what the patterns look like. I am anticipating several starts on Saturday night :)

I've been invited to a party on Saturday night at 9pm but I don't really want to go. Dh's friend who I'll refer to as Perv got married and is throwing this party so his new wife can meet his friends. I've met her before and do not like her. Perv is an okay guy but he doesn't have very good morals as far as relationships. He thinks nothing of cheating on current girlfriends. If I ignore this about him, I can get along with him. Anytime DH starts a sentence with "You're never gonna guess what Perv did" I know I'm about to hear a bad sex story or a cheating story or a threesome story or a ... well you get the idea. I don't mind DH being friends with him cause I know he's as loyal as they come and would never do this stuff and I don't mind being around him as long as he doesn't talk about sex but I have trouble being around his current girlfriends because some inner voice keeps telling me that I should tell the girl to run while she can. DH has told me that I don't have to go and has already told Perv that he doesn't think I'll make it cause I tend to be in bed by 9pm. I'd rather stay home and play with my purchases anyway.

I've been looking at my sleeping habits lately and I've realized that they've changed quite a bit since my surger in September. Before surgery I was usually in bed by 9pm and dragging myself out of bed when the alarm went off at 7:30am. Now, I notice that I'm staying up till 10 or 11pm with no trouble and waking up at 7am before the alarm goes off. It is kinda nice that I'm not sleeping as much. I used to feel like I was missing out on so much when I was sleeping like 10 hours a night. Now that I don't sleep that much, I know that I wasn't really missing anything but it is nice to spend more time with DH and actually go to bed together now.

Hope everyone is doing well!

I love GTG's

I had a lot of fun on Saturday. The morning started off with some cooking since I made chocolate mousse and dark chocolate mousse. I also brewed up a batch of hot chocolate thinking that it might be enjoyed on a cold day.

Angela was the first to arrive so I got to meet her for the first time and I'm really happy about that. Next came Valerie. I always love when she visits. Of course her arrival was Mischief's chance at escape! Thankfully Angela and Valerie managed to find her hiding in the next building over and Valerie actually managed to pick her up! I thought she was very brave! Then Chris came and the rowdyness started as it tends to do when you get more than 2 or 3 cross stitchers together. We were later joined by Erin and then Jen, who I met for the first time. I had a wonderful time eating and chatting and seeing all the pretty work from everyone else! I was very happy for Erin since it was some stolen time away from motherhood which I'm told is a wonderful thing. I also love talking to her and hearing about the baby so that helped.

My cats decided to provide entertainment that I hadn't planned for. Smokey did his best to go home with Angela. He tried crawling in her coat and when he wouldn't fit there he made several attempts to climb into her purse! When he wasn't trying to do that, he was sniffing her with great interest. I think my little boy is in love! Mischief of course pulling the freedom escape only to be caught. She then told us vocally for the rest of the day that if we wouldn't give her food, then we could at least let her back out or move the darn stick! Spike in true spike fashion hid in the bedroom under the covers the whole day. Dh says that we have named him wrong because a cat named Spike should not be afraid of EVERYTHING!

I didn't realize how tired I was till everyone left and I tried to do the dishes. I finally gave up and went to bed.

Sunday, I was a lay-about and stayed in bed till 11:30. Dh and I then went out to buy lunch and cat food and books. Then back home to tackle those dishes that I had ignored the night before. We then spent the evening being lazy in between loads of laundry.

Monday (today) I got to work and the heater had quit. It took the boss till almost 11 to fix it so I spent a good 2 1/2 hours being cold and wishing that I had taken DH up on his offer to stay home since Mischief had kept me up all night (I think this was revenge for not giving her food or letting her out on Saturday).

While the boss worked on the heat, I surfed the boards and saw a lovely pic of the new TW and Dragon Dreams patterns. I've been bouncing ever since and hoping that this Saturday comes very quickly! I've been searching my brain to see if I know anyone that owns a reliable van so that we only have to take one vehicle to Rome for Nashville day. Taking two cars not only splits us up so that we can't talk as much as a group but it also runs a risk of losing the second car and that would be bad. I would rather borrow one and just buy gas than rent one.

what a week

I did go home and sleep on Friday night and most of Saturday but on Sunday, the housework demanded attention so I picked up a little, started the laundry and then set out to clean the litter boxes. Looking back, this was the big mistake that I made. I emptied them out into the waste can, then took them out to clean them outside with the water spigot. No problem there. The problem occured when I tried to take the trash out with 40lbs of litter in it. I ended up doing something very wrong with my back.

I managed to finish cleaning the boxes and getting the laundry done but then I was forced to take a pain killer. When I woke up monday, I couldn't even walk so Dh called me in sick and made an appointment with the doc.


By Tuesday morning, I was thanking God that I had painkillers left over from my surgery. The doc took exrays and told me that I either tore the muscle or hurt one of the discs in my back. He gave me some muscle relaxers and told me to wait it out a couple of days and see how I was feeling. If I was still hurting real bad, he'd order and mri to check my discs. I had also managed to catch the flu by this point from DH and had started medicine for that too.

I spent Wednesday and Thursday in a drug induced fog but the cats were very happy to have me home in bed.

This morning, I dragged out of bed to go into work so that I wouldn't feel guilty about having people over on Saturday. The flu bug is gone and I'm feeling better there but the back is still giving me twinges here and there so the GSFL get to come to a GTG with a fuzzy Ginny. It should still be fun though!

I'm very much looking forward to seeing everyone again even if I am a little loopy. I have to stop by the store tonight and buy some milk, bread, tomato, lettuce and cheese so I can get everything ready though. Dh said he'll clean up while I make mousse so I won't have to do any lifting (YEAH)

Sleep... Sleep is my precious!

Well... I'm may be rambling a bit here but at least I'm somewhat aware that I'm able to ramble :)

I was up for quite a bit Tuesday Night since Justin was sick as I wrote before. Well, it was even worse Wednesday night so after work on Wednesday, I took him to the hospital cause he sounded AWEFUL. After sitting in the ER half the night, We found out that he was dehydrated and has severe Bronchitis.

I'm sitting at work fighting to stay awake. I'm muching on gummy worms and bears and drinking coke trying to stay awake. So much sugar. I've had about 10 hours sleep over the last 3 nights. If I can manage to stay awake another hour, I will have made it through work and then I'll only have cat adoptions and I'm free to fall into a coma for at least 12 hours.

Poor DH is on so much medicine. They gave him vicodin cause his chest is hurting to much. They gave him fenegrin for the nasea and an antibiotic that has to be the biggest pill I've ever seen and those of you that know me realize just how big this pill has to be! There's also a liquid medication that goes into the humidifier to be dispersed into the air and smells funny.

He gave me a call about 2:30pm to let me know that he had woken up and he does sound a little better so I guess the meds are working.

Don't worry if you don't hear from me this weekend cause I'll be sleeping. I love my bed. ahhh...... bed....

Learning new stuff

I ended up buying a bunch of hardanger ornament kits for the beginner when I was shopping for stuff for my secret stitcher. I finally sat down last night and started to work on them. I got all the Kloster blocks done on two of the ornaments and decided to leave the blanket stitches for today. I did realize that the blanket stitch isn't too hard and that I've actually done it before in embroidery but it was called something else. I have also realized that this stitch is not meant to be done in a place where you can and will be interupped frequently.

I'm all by myself this morning because the boss is at home babysitting two of his grandkids. Since I can't do the blanket stitch due to a phone call every 15 minutes, I've been reading the boards and doing my taxes. I'm a little sad to see some nastiness going on at the JPC board. I've very sad after looking at my taxes in depth and realizing that we owe over 300 to the federal government despite witholding single 0 all year! At least we will get some state back even if it isn't enough to cover the federal taxes.

DH is home sick. He was up half the night throwing up so I told him he had to stay home today. I think he would have tried to go in but I threatened him with harm if he did. I know he only had about 3 hours sleep. I know that he's already feeling better and that his stomach has settled somewhat but he needs rest too and if he went into work today, he'd just feel lousy tomorrow too. I'm also going to try to make it to the adoption center without him tonight. I think he needs to stay home but we'll see if he will actually agree to that one. I must admit that if felt really wierd to call his boss this morning and tell them that he wasn't coming in. I haven't had to do that before. In the 5 years that we've been married, he's never missed work due to his illness. He has missed work because I was sick or in the hospital but never because he was sick. He asked me this morning how I knew he was sick and I told him that I heard him every time he got up and got sick. He thought I had slept through all of it.

DOH!

It has been an interesting weekend.

After getting out in the "worst" of the weather on Saturday, I figured that getting out on Sunday would be no problem.

DH and I went to TGIF's to get some lunch/dinner. We were able to get into the restaurant and eat. I managed to navigate the completely iced over stairs into and out of the restaurant just fine. Then as I'm getting into the car and being oh so careful not to slip on the ice, I slam my head into the top of the door frame cause I wasn't bent over enough to get into the car! DOH! I've got a doozy of headache that has been there since I hit my head 2 days ago!

Work was insane yesterday. There were lots of claims being taken. My favorite was a man that yelled at me because we wouldn't cover his claim since he had liability only. The man lost control of his vehicle and hit a retaining wall. I explained to him that it wasn't covered because he didn't have collision. He tried to tell me that it wasn't an accident and I explained that hitting a stationary object, like a retaining wall, is considered an accident. He tried to tell me that it was an act of God because of the ice. I tried explaining that act of God would have been if a tree or ball of ice had fallen on the car but since he was going too fast and lost control of the vehicle, it was an accident. He tried to argue for quite a while and I finally told him that it didn't matter because he didn't have comprehensive to cover an act of God either. My favorite line that he said was that he was only doing 40 on the 55 mile an hour zone. It never even occured to him that maybe he should have only been doing 20!

Things have slowed down today. DH got his test results back from the doctor only to find that his triglycerides are dangerously high. His came back over 400 when they are supposed to be below 90. No more candy for DH! Everything else looked pretty good with his cholesterol only being slightly high so that's a good sign at least.

Hug your loved ones tight and stay warm!