Wedding And Babies

My first grandniece was born in 2016. My brother's first grandchild. She is such a joy.

I had a quilt sitting in a drawer that was unfinished because I ran out of sashing material. It was square and so I wasn't quite sure what to do with it all these years, until my grandniece's birth. My PCAs helped me back it, tie it, and bind it, and I gave it to her the first time I met her. When she arrived she was wearing a sweater that I crocheted for her, and it meant so very much to me.

This precious one lives about 8 hrs awaty, so I don't get to see her very much, but thanks to social media I get to see pictures and videos and talk to her online. She's growing so fast. I know she loves birds from what I hear, and she already speaks German as well as English (or is beginning to anyway :-))

The niece I mentioned in a previous blog, Elizabeth (my brother Mark's oldest daughter) has, in the last year or so, gotten engaged, moved twice, married, bought a house, started a new job, and had a baby. That's a lot of rites of passage in one year!

On April 16, 2017, Easter Sunday, Reagan Alma Neseth was born.

Alma is my middle name, was my maternal grandmother's name, and was also the name of one of Reagan's dad's grandmother's, or great-grandmothers (I can never remember), so obviously I'm thrilled with her name.

I drove down to see her the day after she was born, and got to hold her. She was all of one day old. (I'm crying right now just thinking about it.) I gave her one of her great grandma's pins, and showed her the unfinished quilt I was making for her (actually one of my PCAs did the sewing, I did the designing).

During all the festivities for Elizabeth's wedding, I came to know a dear lady named Nona. She was a big part of Elizabeth's life growing up, and one of Mark and Julie's (Elizabeth's parents) dearest friends. She'd been diagnosed with a neurological disorder and was in a wheelchair. Because of that, she had an aluminum ramp, which allowed me to go to Elizabeth's bridal shower and her baby shower. I otherwise would not have been able to attend. To say, being able to do that meant the world to me, is the biggest understatement I have ever made. I will forever be grateful to her for making that possible and for allowing me to become closer to my nieces and my brother's family. The neurological disorder has since taken Nona. But I know I for one, will always be grateful to her, and will never ever forget her.

I have plans to go down and have lunch with Elizabeth and Reagan next Monday and am so looking forward to it. Now I just need to find someone to sew the binding on Reagan's quilt before then.

UPDATE 12/8/2017: I thought I'd published this but I didn't. We did go to Mankato to have lunch with my niece and grandniece. She loved her quilt.

My Mother's Jewelry

My mother loved jewelry. Most of it was costume jewelry, but back in the day costume jewelry was beautiful. After she passed away I ended up with most of her jewelry. On days when I was lonesome for her, I would pull it out and look at it and remember her. It was bittersweet.

This summer during garage sale season, I happened upon three memory frames for a very reasonable price. I bought them immediately, knowing just exactly what I was going to do with them. Flash forward now to November.  I made the above for Christmas using mom's old jewelry. It turned out beautiful, much better than I even expected. There are some very unique pieces on this one, and I smile every time I look at it. There is a sewing machine key, very ornate old-fashioned key, the ballerina pins, earrings that she wore fairly often. There is a gold leaf with a pearl that is actually from Avon and has a small cream perfume dispenser inside that still has perfume in it -- it still smells like mama. There's some beautiful brooches and some stray earrings. I had to make the hard decision of taking the backs off of all of them. I kind of hoped to be able to keep them wearable in case somebody wanted to wear them one day, but it just didn't work. Anyway, I suspect those days are long gone.

I hope they become heirloom pieces for the family one day. Now I think about it, maybe I'll put a small informational sticker on the back for future generations.

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It amazes me how the little things can bring comfort, like looking at a piece of jewelry, or a Christmas ornament made long ago. Many will say they're just things, and they are, but they're precious things filled with the energy of loved ones. They bring good memories filled with love and light, and more importantly comfort. I do not believe when we die it is the end. I believe we are all light and energy, and that we choose to come into a physical existence. I believe when we die we are just released from our physical bonds. We still exist, just in a very different form. While we are in physical form we are here to learn what it is to love and to care, without guilt or negativity. We learn to forgive ourselves, and others. Forgiveness is a powerful force.

I believe that we choose our lives, before we are born, with a great deal of guidance and wisdom. Some of us choose harder lives than others, choosing to experience things that we do not understand, or did not understand, in previous life experiences, in order to choose more wisely – – to learn that we can do no wrong, that everything we experience (no matter how horrendous) has a reason and purpose, and to remember who we truly are, and in so doing, why we are here.

I don't understand it all, and sometimes it's very, very hard to experience, but I know in the end it is all for good. To those of you who are born-again Christians, I am as well. I know some of this flies in the face of what we have been taught, but I'm not so sure it does. One night I was laying in bed and I thought to myself, "Why are the people in my church not getting better?" The next thought that came into my mind was, "How big is your God?" My life has never been the same after that moment. God is beyond so much more than what we are taught, and that's saying something. So much more.

I hope this holiday season is a blessing for you all. When things get really tough, just ask yourself, "How big is my God?" You just might be surprised by the answer.

Spring Day on February 17, 2017

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood today. Sunny and in the 60s, and yes it's February in Minnesota. (But climate change isn't real, she writes sarcastically. ;-))

UPDATE: I Have Experienced My Mortality Face to Face

I just discovered this draft from 2011. Not too dissimilar from what I just went through, Feb. 2017.


I have just returned home from a stay in the intensive care unit at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.  I experienced a number of infections that caused my heart rate to rise to as high as 155, a white blood cell count of 30,000 something and a blood pressure that was 50's over 70's.  I just returned Sunday (today is Wed.),and it's just hitting me how very sick I really was.  Much of my family was at my beside.  I heard today that my home health aide nurse was told I might not be coming home.  Bottom-line: I was dying. 

Medical Update and Popsicles

So much for blogging more once I got voice-recognition. But here I am now.

Last Wednesday evening, February 8, 2017, shortly after going to bed, I started to cramp terribly in my lower abdomen, followed by bowel incontinence, and the dry heaves. Initially I thought I had food poisoning, but after about six hours I finally called the ambulance.

I found out later that my first blood pressure was fiftysomething over 25. Not so good. Once they got me stabilized, they had to send me to a different hospital because ours was full. I chose St. Cloud hospital over Abbott Northwestern Hospital and I'm very glad that I did, for the most part. They were very thorough. They have a unit there called Medical Progressive Care Unit. The care is partway between a regular medical surgical floor and intensive care unit. They watched me closely and were very gentle with my overwhelmingly painful body.

The final diagnoses, after some varying conjectures, was an antibiotic resistant E. coli UTI that had gone septic (in other words the bacteria had gotten to my bloodstream). I was a pretty sick little girl.

That was one week ago tonight, February 15, 2017. I'm still pretty tired out, but I'm here and getting stronger every day.

NEED INNOVATIVE HELP

I'm putting this out to the cyberspace universe to see what happens.  

I am/was a quilter and love to sew but because of Rheumatoid Arthritis my shoulders have degenerated, which makes sewing at a sewing machine almost impossible. I have use of my forearms and hands for the most part, I just can't raise my arms up and forward in order to sew the way most do. If the machine were at lap level it would be more doable but I'm in a power wheelchair full-time and couldn't handle the weight directly on my lap.  

Here's what I'm asking: Is there a mechanical engineer, inventor, tinkerer, mechanical R&D, etcetera, out there that would be willing to work with me to develop something? 

Please pass the word: you never know whose reading. Thanks.

UPDATE ON MY TABLET EXPERIENCE AND LOTS OF RANDOM STUFF

It ended up that the first tablet I got was Windows 8.1 and was very difficult to use, so I traded it in for a Fire HD 6.? and it works much better: it's an Android. I also just discovered that it has a voice recognition program so I can type more easily just by speaking. Hopefully I'll do more blogging because it's been so difficult and slow to do until now.  As I speak, I'm sitting outside under the tree, with my dog, on a beautiful summer day, blogging . I could really get used to this, it's really fun . Now just to think of things to write about .

I planted a garden this summer. A local church offered free garden plots and they gave me two. I planted some Honey Bear squash, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, some lavender, herbs and some flowers. I'm already harvesting onions, a few potatoes, cutting flowers, playing hide and seek with baby bunnies, and looking forward to the squash and some more tomatoes .

The biggest challenge with the garden has been keeping up with the weeds. Either it's been too hot, or there's not been enough staff to help me. Now we're just pressing them down with "our" feet or when we do pull them out, we place the dead ones on top of the live ones. [Don't you just love the "we"? I can't do any of the physical labor, my staff does it all. LOL]  I also had numerous "volunteer" plants come up, including cucumber, pear tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, spaghetti squash, other tomatoes..

I haven't been on Facebook very much this summer because I've been outside so much. It's hard to keep up with all the posts. I usually check in at least a couple times a day. Sounds like everyone's having a wonderful summer. I'm so glad.

I sure miss Tia [my Yorkie] this summer. It was hard losing her after 14 years. She was the love of my life. Tia's godmother got a hold of me shortly after she died, and told me of a lady who wasn't feeling well and needed to find a home for her dog. So on June 6, 2015 I adopted 5 1/2 year-old, 9 pound Ava Jo. I'll try to attach a picture to the blog .

She is a sweetheart and very very smart but she is a very different puppy dog from what I'm used to . They are two very different little beings and I love them both . Ava seems to be settling in well and we're both getting used to each other. She loves to lay outside on the grass while I'm reading or playing with my tablet. I am grateful for her love, for her being here. I believe Tia let go so Ava could have a new home. I have so many conflicting feelings: sad that Tia is gone yet happy that she was here, happy that I have Ava, but missing Tia deeply. I definitely feel torn at times.

 I started going to the Courage Center again. I'm still having trouble with this wheelchair and it's been three years and still it's causing me problems . We may not be able to get a new chair yet but we're going to try and update the seating to see if that helps with the pain . I'll be going once a week for eight weeks. It's about an hour and a half drive.  (Update since first writing this : I only went to Courage Center for a few weeks. They're sending me to a clinic affiliated with Gillette Children's Hospital where they have the ability to adapt the equipment on sight.)

I now have almost full-time personal care attendant (PCA) hours, though I don't use them all. There's been a large turnover of staff the last couple of months because of health issues. A couple blew out their back,  one is going to be having surgery, another one's going on sabbatical for a while but she'll still be able to help fill-in, and one fell in love and moved up north (she has since moved back and has returned to my staff), so it's been trying but I'm very grateful for all the help I have and when I get discouraged I just remember I'm not in a nursing home, I'm in my own home with my dog, and  I can come and go as I please. The girls I have are great, I love them dearly, but it is hard work. As my mom used to say, I'm a high maintenance broad.

About a month ago, on a spur of the moment idea, my PCA Cheryl and I drove out to our old lake cabin at Lake Jennie. I had the wonderful surprise of seeing one of the gals I grew up with next door out there. She's was there from Virginia with her family . It was good to see her. It was also nice to see that their cabin was still in the family. We wandered around the old place

for a little while and then said our goodbyes. It'd been a long time since I'd been out there and it was nice to see it again. I did a lot of my growing-up out there in the summers . It was a bittersweet trip.

It's been a beautiful summer here in Minnesota. I especially love the balmy warm evenings. On the hotter days I've been sitting under a tree, with Ava Jo lying in the grass, reading books or playing with my tablet a little bit ( I'm close enough to my apartment that the Wi-Fi works if I'm in the front circle of the building, so I can use it outside. It's kind of nice)

My niece, Elizabeth K, my brother Mark and S-I-L Julie's oldest daughter, got engaged while she was on the road trip of a lifetime this summer. I'm very excited for her and her family. She is one half of the Buffalo Lake-Hector Junior High Social Studies department. Her fiancé is the other half of the department.

She's been there about two years now, I think she's starting her third year this year. Next June brings wedding bells.

As for my health, it seems to be slowly improving . I haven't been in the hospital, except for elective procedures, for at least 2 to 3 years. When I went down to the initial appointment at the Courage Center this time, I could do much more physically than the last time I was there (3 yrs ago). That was encouraging. I'm in the process of getting what are called AFOs (ankle/foot orthodics), which are braces to keep my feet from rolling. They cast you with the casting material and then they make the braces from there. They're made out of plastic with some foam padding. Hopefully my legs will be much more comfortable after I get them. (I now have them and so far so good.) The recurrence of infections seems to be getting better, not as close together.  I've had three separate skin cancers removed, two on my scalp and one on my cheek.

I hope you've had a rewarding summer/winter.  I have enjoyed it.

The future brings many exciting changes for my family and I for one can't wait!