LIFE GOES ON

I always wonder about my ancestors, the ones long ago.  Am I like any of them?  Were there any beadmakers in my past?  Honnybunny and I have 4 grandchildren and each one of them is so special to us.  The oldest is 7 and the youngest is 2.  HP is our daughter's son and already he is very athletic.  I don't even know that much about sports, as you all well know if you read my encounter with softball as a child blog, but when I see him play baseball or soccer, even I can recognize that his form is something special.  His paternal grandfather played baseball in his youth, and I often think this must be where HP's talent comes from, but maybe it's back even further. HP's grandfather is still here to see him play and I know that brings him so much joy.  Kate, is our son's oldest daughter.  She will be 6 next month.  She started horseback riding lessons three weeks ago.  Last year she wouldn't even consider getting on a horse, but this year was different.  Kate has had three lessons and her instructor told her mom that Kate was able to post instinctively when the horse trotted.  Apparently this is not an easy thing to learn.  She said she only had one other student who could do that so soon and she was 7 years old.  I couldn't help but think of my HB's mom, Kate's great grandmother.  She was an avid horseback rider as young girl.  I know she won many ribbons and we have pictures of her in her riding habit on several horses.  She's gone now and will never see Kate ride, but she would have been so proud.  So Honeybunny packaged up some pictures of his mom and sent them on to Kate.  I guess this is just part of growing old, seeing other generations in your children and grandchildren.  It's kind of bittersweet.

RE-LEARNING

So, I'm teaching myself to crochet.  Actually I learned to crochet about 35 years ago, so I guess you could say I'm re-teaching myself, however, it's not the same mind that learned to do this 35 years ago.  I'm not a fan of aging, until I consider the alternative, but I sure can't remember things like I used to.  Therefore, I spend a lot of time going back and counting stitches to see where I am in the pattern.

 Crocheting used to seem like an "old lady" (and that would not be me ) hobby to me and when I learned it the first time it was to make my then 3 year old daughter a little jumper out of granny squares.  Once it was done I didn't make anything else.  Recently I joined Pinterest.com.  WOW is it a fun website.  You have your own boards where you can pin your favorite items.  Or you can repin someone else's favorite item.  There are pictures of everything....quilts, glass, beads, crochet, recipes, photography.  It's a party for the eyes!  Crocheting has changed dramatically.  First in the way color is used and then the things that are being made.  Anyhow it's a really cool site.  You might want to check it out.  Here's a picture of my first square, which is still round because it isn't done yet, and it also has a big error in it, but it's my practice square so I can live with it.  Well, I'm off to make beads.  If HB was honest he would probably say I have too many hobbies (although he is always my biggest fan) and he could be right, but I'm retired and isn't that what retirement is all about?  Doing what you want when you want? Well, that's what I think it should be, so I just go wherever the creative part of me wants to go, because I think I need to enjoy the time now. Someday I may forget to count those stitches and then what kind of mess will I be in?

BACK TO NORMAL

It's been a rough couple of years for my Honeybunny.  He has a very rare blood clotting disorder and has had some severe medical issues in the past.  A specialist in New York, whom I consider to be a miracle worker, a genius and a very kind man, suggested that HB start an experimental drug that has shown some success.  It's extremely expensive but since HB is a vet the VA has agreed to pay for the medication, and it appears to be working! At long last he is beginning to act like his old self.  I know this because he has started to cook again.  He loves to cook, and I have to say that after 43 years of cooking, I really like that in a man.  He likes to prepare things on the grill, but he experiments with indoor cooking too.  Tonight he made hamburgers and baked beans, and it was yummy.  Then after dinner he, who says he doesn't like sweets, decided he wanted to make beignets....yes, I said beignets.  Now HB is not a neat cook.  When I walked through the kitchen about an hour later every cabinet door was open.  There was not one speck of open kitchen counter space, and I think he used every single cooking utensil that we own.  However, also on the counter were little tiny miniature beignets....and they were GOOD!  But the best part was that HB was in the midst of all of it and he was happy and so was I.

UPDATE

Just thought you might want to know today's count:
Harriet 5  Flies 0.  I'm thinking about going to the batting cage tomorrow. I'm pretty sure I'm a late bloomer in the sports department.

Another new bead.  On Etsy. Have a good Sunday everyone !

CATCH UP

I got an email from my sister this morning telling me it was entirely too long between my blog posts and I know she's right.  I just have too many irons in the fire right now.  I'm working with my IT guy to get my website up and running.  It's kind of been a trial by fire, but we are getting there.  I've had to rethink some things about where I want to go with my bead business.  I love making beads, but when you make them you need to sell them.  It's just not happening on ebay right now.  I know it's the economy for the most part, but when you judge yourself by your work and it is not accepted (bought) it makes you doubt yourself, at least this is what happens to me.  The set of pink beads that I showed here didn't get a bid last week, so I am left to wonder if they were priced too high, they are unattractive, or floral beads no longer "in".  Ebay is being flooded with Chinese beads that are not annealed and of coarse much cheaper.  I think my main focus will now be selling on Etsy.  I have several beadmaker friends who have been very successful using that site.  I hope by next week I will have everything up and running.  I do have an Etsy store now, but I want to change it's appearance. So people, that's what I have been up to and why I haven't updated.  Oh, I have had one success the past several days.  For anyone who read my long stand off with a fly in my bathroom, my aim has improved considerably.  The score this week Harriet 4  flies 0 and I got them all on the first swat !

A BEAD

These pictures are the front and back of a bead I made recently.  It took 1 1/2 hours to make this bead and I loved every minute of it.

GOOD NEWS

Mr HB is home from the hospital and doing fairly well.  He still thinks that no one has ever had pain as bad as his.  I just kind of "uh huh" him.  I was thinking the other night that I don't do well with sports injuries (not that I ever played any sports after the baseball fiasco) but if I sprain an ankle I am not a good patient, so I think we all have trouble with pain.  I am no longer Nurse Rattchet and I am taking very good care of my patient.  It's homemade chicken and noodles with homemade peach cobbler tomorrow night for dinner. Hopefully that will put a sparkle in his eyes. :)

Here's a picture of some beads I made recently.  They are on ebay and called Summer Bounty.

MAKING CHOICES

HB is still in the hospital.  His plumbing hasn't been working like it should so they decided to keep him several extra days.  He doesn't have much of an appetite and he sure isn't very eager to get up and walk around.  He's kind of happy just staying in bed.  Today he called me in the morning and said the aide wanted him to start his bath, but he wanted to wait til I came down and then I could give him his bath.  Seriously?  So I went down with my nurse Ratchett face and helped him bathe himself.  I did wash his back, but the rest was pretty much up to him.  You know it's kind of hard to do that, but my nurse self tells me he needs to move around, get his circulation going, push himself a little bit.  The wife part of me just wants to do it all, wrap him up in a blanket and rub his forehead until he falls asleep.  Sometimes being a nurse/wife has been a good thing because I understand his disease and what needs to be done.  I can talk some of the medical jargon.  What I don't understand I can look up. Then there are other times, like today, when the nurse part of me is kind of hard on him, and I wish I could just be the wife.

It's All Relative

My Honeybunny had surgery today, three hernia repairs.  One of them was really big, the result of another abdominal surgery that never healed properly.  Actually my HB has lots of big medical issues and he is a real trooper most of the time.  He had a cancerous area on his liver about 18 months ago that was a result of medication he was taking to treat his major disease.  It was successfully removed with a small incision.  That area never healed properly and that's where the hernia grew and grew.  The doctor was able to fix the two little hernias from the inside but he had to make an incision for the big hernia.  Actually, it's a pretty big incision.  So when I first got to see him in the recovery room he was not feeling very well.  He said. "Man this hurts, I mean really hurts.  Did you ever have anything that hurt like this?"  Hmmmm,  let me see, oh yeah there was that time I had a foot of my colon removed for diverticulitis, yeah that kind of hurt.  Then I had that ectopic pregnancy that ruptured.  Yep I remember that being kind of painful too. Oh and wait what about two of our children who were C- sections, one because he weighed 9 lbs...yeah that was just a tad painful too!!  Hello, you were there, don't you remember?  You know I don't think he could even relate.  About two hours later our oldest daughter called and he began telling her how painful it was and began questioning her about her experience with this kind of pain.  She reminded him of her son, our oldest grandson who got here by, yep, C-section.   I could tell that he still could see no comparison.  As a retired nurse I've seen many men in pain.  They seem to do well with sports injuries or accidents, but surgeries, especially of the belly area, not so much.