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.