Good morning to everyone. It is a balmy 61 this morning and supposed to get up near 70 today, but looks sort of like more rain coming through.

Jean: Sounds like you got a nice piece of Christmas for half price. I can't believe they can't seem to diagnosis your poor sister. She must be having an awful time of it with the liver being involved. I will remember to pray for her again.

I am finished felting one bag and it is drying and am working on the other. The buttons came and one is smaller than I like, but it will be perfect for the bag so I am definitely going to use it even if it is just for decoration on the bag.

Nothing much going on here. I need to get to morning chores and get some housework done, but that may slide until tomorrow. It is one of those lazy days with the overcast skies and such.

Hope everyone has a good start to their week!
Faye

Good morning to you all! I finally was able to finish up the first felted bag and I think it turned out great. I call it "Stormy" because it reminds me of a dark thunderstorm. I hope my friend's sister likes it. I still have about 30 rows to go on the other one then I can get it felted and put together and shipped off. The only thing with my bags is that they are true one of a kinds. I fool with a pattern and forget to write down how many stitches, rows, and what I did to shape the bag so I can't recreate it. My friend's sister and dd's liked her bag I made her last year for her birthday, but I told her I couldn't make them alike as I didn't save the pattern. This one is similar except it is taller and Sharon is a larger lady so it will probably be nicer for her anyhow.

Jean: I know what you mean about rv. It is terrible, especially on weekends when there are so many sports games on. I am not a football or basketball fan at all and of course that is all that is on right now. Looks like we are getting rain today, but it is nice and warm out for a change. I watched an old western early Saturday morning and then yesterday watched a couple episodes of Gordon Ramsey's show on BBCA and Jack and I watched a couple episodes of Dominick Dunne's program about rich people killing spouses, or whatever. It is pretty good. When I went upstairs I watched Andy Griffith and First 48, which is about murder cases around the country. Memphis gets picked a lot for this show! lol

Gosh I have a lot to do today. I am going to make a lasagna for dinner, try and get the upstairs cleaned, get my downstairs regular chores done and get that knitting accomplished.

Looks like B is going to the vet on Friday. Jack is taking the day off and taking him. He has just lost too much weight and now it looks like he is eating very little. I have no clue what could be wrong with him, but I am sure Doc Montgomery can fix him right up. He is never around any other animals except Fortchy and stays in the house all the time. Who knows at this point, but he is just not coming around to his old self so to the vet he goes the end of the week.

I guess I better quit fooling around and get to work. I have a ton to do today that is for sure. Tomorrow I keep the car to go to the surgeon's appt just for him to look at my tummy and tell me my scar is healing, but I have to go anyway. Maybe he will clue me in on when he wants to test me to see about reversing it all.

Have a good Monday everyone!

Faye

Good morning gals! I finished the other bag, dried it and will mail the two of them when I go out to the doctor's this morning. Jack decided to take the day off so he is going with me.

I did an experiment this morning with the cat. I opened one of those individual cans of "people" tuna and put it in front of him. He ate about half of it before stopping so I think you might be right Jean that he needs a food change. I am going to get a couple varieties of tuna canned cat food and see if he will start eating again. I hope it works as he has lost a lot of weight. He was overweight before, but he must be about 5 lbs underweight now.

Jean: We are having lovely weather here too. I have back door open this morning and B stayed downstairs last night so he is sitting in front of the door enjoying himself. I didn't get the lasagna made as I had forgotten we had spaghetti just a few days ago so made homemade potpies instead, which took almost as long! I had never made them before, but they came out really good. I did a quicker version than most people. Jack doesn't like potpies from the store because of all the veggies in them (I know, I know, but what can you do?) so I made one with lots of cut up canned carrots, celery, some julienned canned new potatoes and canned chicken. I mixed it up with cream of chicken soup and added some thyme and then took the Pillsbury pie crusts you roll out and used them to put in the little pans. They came out yummy.

Susan: Haven't heard from you in awhile, hope all is alright. I didn't see where you said you would be gone so if you posted it, I apologize. Just wanting to make sure you and Stan are a-ok.

Since there will be no vacation this year with the surgery dead in the middle of summer, we decided to start planning for next year. I think we are going to go the weekend of the 4th, leaving on Sunday the day after and coming home the following Saturday. Because it is so hot there that time of year, you can get really good deals on hotel prices. Since we rent a car, we don't walk long distances outside so we don't have to worry too much about the heat. I learned my lesson the first year we were there for Jay's wedding. We walked about 2 miles along the strip and it was only about 80. I got a terrific nosebleed from the dry heat. Jack got all freaked out because we hadn't rented a car and had to go about a mile to get to the shuttle we road back to the hotel. He wanted to get a cab, but in Vegas you can't hail a cab on the strip. You have to go to one of the casinos and we were dead inbetween them where all there were was a bunch of little tourist trap shops. He saw some bicycle cops and wanted to get them, but I calmed him down and told him I had stuff in my fanny pack so here I was walking down the street with those little WetOnes stuffed up my nose pinching it as we walked. I was a sight! So, no more walking the strip for me in the heat. One of these years he and I want to go at Christmas time so we can walk outside a lot then.

Well, better get to morning chores. They don't do themselves!

Faye

Good morning, ladies. I've been AWOL because Stan is back in the hospital and has surgery coming up on Wednesday or Thursday. Another infection. I am really depressed about the whole thing. I took him to emergency and had to do a lot of talking to convince him to stay in the hospital and get the IV antibiotics (they make him sick to his stomach all the time) and have another surgery. I'm really afraid he's reaching the point he's just going to give up.

If I didn't have work to come to, I'd probably just lay in bed and stare at the ceiling, that's how I feel.

Good morning gals! It is a good morning for me, mainly because when I am feeling a bit sorry for myself, God picks me up by the bootstraps and shows me things aren't so bad for me. I had the appt with the surgeon yesterday and he is thrilled with my progress. So much so, that he wants to start getting ready for the surgery and do it around the middle of April instead of in June. Unfortunately, in February I have to go in and have a barium enema and though I have never had one, I know from information that they are very uncomfortable and unpleasant. The nurse informed me yesterday that it is really hard on ostomy patients to "purge." I have to drink goodness knows what and her words were that I should get a trash can with a trash can liner, sit it between my legs and open my ostomy bag and just let it gush into the trash can and when it fills up, take it out and put another one in! She says it takes about four hours to do this. The next day, they will not only go in through the rectum, but also my stoma, filling my intestines with barium so they can make sure eveything is healthy enough to do the surgery. I will again have to purge the day before surgery. So, I was all upset last evening being anxious about it. I came in here and peeked to see if Susan had posted because I was worried about Stan and saw her post and then the one of Jean's about her sister. God says, "See, others are suffering much more than you!"

Susan: Like Jean, I wish we could sit with you and talk quilts and knitting while you wait. I cannot say how sorry I am that Stan is again having problems. He must be so beaten down that poor man. Just know there are people praying for you both and God is going to help you through it.

Jean: Your poor sister, what an awful thing to go through. My stuff should be a walk in the park compared to that. I surely hope things go well and this helps her. I had to laugh that you are now knowleagable about felting since I post so much about it! Thank goodness the teacher got it as a gift and was not the maker or you might have gotten stuck on the finer points of how to go about it! I am now working back on the sweater for my friends birthday and whizzing right along. It was knit on circular needles so it has no side seams and I have one side done and the other has probably about 40 rows or so then I can bind it off too. I can make the two sleeves and sew them in and it will be done. Her birthday isn't until May, but since we are going up there in April and I will be seeing her, I am going to give it to her.

Jack decided to take the rest of the week off so he is snoozing upstairs. We plan on moving living room furniture today and shampooing the living room carpet and doing the dining room tomorrow. The dining room is spot cleaning, just the places where Fortune stained the carpet with a little blood when he came home from the kennel. I am going to get up here in a couple minutes, take out the trash to be picked up today and do some of the downstairs housecleaning. We left here at 9:30 yesterday morning and didn't get home until nearly 3 pm yesterday so I didn't get anything done at all.

Speaking of that, I guess I better get started. I hope you all have a great day!

Faye

Good evening, ladies!

Faye, I'm happy for you getting a good check up. Sorry about the barium, it sounds very unpleasant.

Jean, I hope things go well for your sister.

Stan's surgery took 2 hours. They removed the cow vein, dead tissue and the infected area. They had to patch the artery in his groin with a piece of vein. He came through the surgery fine, but because he is such a poor healer they are going to put a wound vac on the incision tomorrow and see if that will help with the healing. There is always the possibility for another infection and more surgery until it heals. Also, and a lot more scarier from my point of view, until the patch on the artery heals completely there is the possibility it could blow out and he could hemmorage and even die if they can't get it stopped quickly.

I probably told you already his birthday is tomorrow so I'm going to get a nice dinner and a cake and that and his gift to the hospital.

Sorry, but I'm about worn out with sitting and worrying so that is all for tonight.

Good morning to you all! I hope you all are having a great Thursday!

Susan: Glad Stan came through the procedure alright. I sure hope what they are doing will work well and help him get healed correctly. I know the stress on you has to be awful. I will continue to pray for his progress and your peace of mind.

Jean: I don't envy you with the algebra thing. I think I could still do those beginning equations they give you when you first learn and that is about it. Sort of like the folks to want to be citizens, I would have to study a lot to pass an algebra test these days.

I have much more peace of mind about the test. It was just the first day anxiety. I talked to a couple people from here on the site that have had the procedure and 3 or 4 at my knitting site, one a nurse, and one an xray tech so I know what to expect. I didn't hear from the surgeon's nurse so I expect to today I hope so we have a firm date. Jack felt so sorry for me that he told me to order this handbag I saw in a catalogue I got yesterday. The man must feel bad if he is willing to let me expand my handbag collection!

I only have one sleeve to go on the sweater and then put it together. I haven't ever sewn in a raglan sleeve though and I am not sure the directions are very clear, but guess I will figure it out.

I am going to go and get back in the recliner for a couple hours. I just woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.

Faye

Good morning to you all! It is going to be a busy day with taking B to the vet and try and find out why he is losing weight, antisocial, etc. I got not a thing done yesterday as I had to go out and run around and do errands and since it has been pouring rain we have held off shampooing the carpets so in turn the furniture and stuff hasn't gotten moved, and on and on. I am shooting for sometime this weekend. I have to go commissary shopping and I am putting Jack and I back on WW so I have lots to shop for.

I finally found a support website about my ostomy where I could go and ask questions. I finally found some help about my raw skin under my bag so hopefully I can get a handle on that and get it all healed before I have to have my enema. I don't want people fooling around sticking in tubes and such when the skin is like it is now.

I have one sleeve to knit and the sweater is done. Shouldn't take me long at all. It looks pretty nice I guess. I decided to change patterns for my sister's sweater and will probably be able to cast on for it tomorrow sometime.

We are going to go see "Bucket List" either this afternoon or tomorrow. It looks hilarious and I love Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson so it should be a hoot. It is nice to be able to go to comedies about older folks instead of the stupid stuff they put out for teens and young adults.

Well, I need to get hoppin'. You all have a good Friday and a great weekend.

Faye

Good afternoon, ladies! Had a bit of rain this morning but the sun is out now and we are heading for 72 degrees.

Stan is doing better but will be in the hospital for awhile - all the redness has to be gone and healing taking place. In about 4 months they want to try it again. I'm going to leave it up to him. We haven't had any luck with grafts and I really don't want to put him through it again but it will be for him to decide.

I can't wait for tomorrow - I'm going to sleep in (if the cat will let me).