Hope You Like Cats.

 Pieck has been Queen of the House for 4 years now

 

             

 

In March 2026 we found this little lady abandoned in Mam Mam's neighborhood.

She was turned out on the street when her owner died.

.Natalie named her The Grunch, but I call her Ruby. 

It was perfect timing, because the mice were getting bolder in the downstairs since Brian & Jess left and I had just been thinking about getting a downstairs cat.

Then also in March Noelle brought her cat, HoneyMoon, to live at our house after getting a second job which seriously cut into her free time.  She didn't want HoneyMoon to be shut up in the bedroom for long hours, so of course we said yes.

And then I learned that at the end of May, Theresa and Jamison are moving back home and bringing two cats with them.  

 

So I decided to stitch a wall hanging to warn any visitorswhat they were walking into.

First I decided on a design, and a font. 

I stitched the words and the border.

Then I took a picture of the Aida cloth and printed it 8 x 10, 

which I wanted the finished project to be.

Then I searched Cricut Design Space for cat heads that seemed to match their personalities.

Then I used a lightbox (actually a tablet computer) to trace the heads onto the printout

I had to turn all the cat heads into similarly sized pixellated drawings 

so it could translate to cross stitch.

I used a free website called StitchFiddle and tediously counted the squares on the printout and copied them onto the StitchFiddle canvas.

Then I took screen grabs of each cat and printed them out.

And now it's time to start the stitching.  

They don't call this COUNTED cross stitch for nothing.

Today, May 1, I started stitching Pieck.  I got through the left edge of her head with one piece of thread.  Then I had to go do something productive.

To be continued...

Turning Over a New Leaf

I've been composing this in my head for three weeks.  It's a daunting task because I want to recount how we got to this point, but there are so many strands I couldn't figure out where to start.

I guess I could make a long story short(er) by saying that I started homeschooling almost 27 years ago, and I'm TIRED, but there is more to it than that.  

Even though Philip is the youngest of ten, at this point he is basically an only child.  The twins are turning 19 and Gean has been living with Sarah and attending public school since summer 2024 - that's another long story.  And Philip doesn't really have many friends in the neighborhood.  His best buddy lives 25 minutes away.  He's been pretty lonely the past year or two.

He started attending a weekly Catholic homeschool co-op in August.  He made friends and had his first taste of a classroom setting.  Co-op day quickly became his favorite day of the week.  That experience, along with Gean's positive reports about public school, gave him the courage to consider mainstream school as an option.

At the same time, I'd been meeting with more and more resistance from him over his schoolwork.  This started last year in 5th grade, but this year his loneliness and boredom, alongside my fatigue and health issues, were causing us to have an inordinate amount of "bad" school days.  It came to a head when we got back from our beach week at the beginning of October.  Neither of us could work up any enthusiasm for schoolwork, and it got to the point where I felt I was doing his education a disservice.  I told him plainly that he either had to do schoolwork HERE or somewhere else, and he said he was ready to try.  

That was on Tuesday, October 14.  The next day was co-op day, so while he was gone, I arranged for a tour of the public school.  At this point I hadn't even considered Catholic school, because we felt it was financially out of reach.

9:00 a.m. Thursday morning the two of us were walking the halls of the public elementary school.  The tour was very bland and it wasn't giving me a favorable impression.  I kept trying to picture him there, but the image  brought me to tears.  There were SEVEN 6th grade classes, but we scarcely saw or heard any kids.  Afterward it occurred to me that it felt more like an institution or prison than a school.  I left there with a very heavy heart.

On the way home, on a whim, I gave the Catholic school a call to ask if we could take a tour.  To my surprise they told me to come that same day at 1:00.  Philip and I went home for lunch, then out again for tour #2.  

The difference was starkly obvious:  This place was not cold and institutional.  It was full of noise and life.  I immediately felt welcome and comfortable.  The tour guide was not only the Admissions Director, but also a former classmate.  At the end of the tour, the principal invited Philip to spend the following day shadowing with the sixth graders.

I guess I should say here that the Admissions Director assured us that financial assistance was available.  After discussing it with Andy, who was never really on board with the notion of public school, we decided to take a leap of faith and send him to Catholic school, even if it meant one of us taking on a part-time job.

The following morning, October 17th, I presented Philip to the sixth grade teacher, then went to the office to fill out some forms.  At this point I could barely hold myself together because  I was so heartbroken about quitting homeschooling.  I could barely hold back the tears all that week, and I was deeply worried that Philip would not adjust well.  He had terrible problems with anxiety in 2023-24, another long story.

Turns out I needn't have worried.  At the end of the day there were kids passing in the halls, patting him on the shoulder, saying, "Bye Philip!  Hope you come to school here!"  And Philip, who had it in his mind that public school was cool and Catholic school was lame, had a complete change of heart.

I spent that weekend procuring uniform shirts and pants (and crying) and completing the online financial aid application.  And first thing Monday morning, October 20, he began his school career.

It was a soft landing from the beginning.  I was afraid that he would struggle to catch up 7 weeks into the semester, but he did fine.  He had to learn how to take notes in a hurry, but otherwise it was pretty seamless.  Academically he was on track, and he made friends without a problem.

By the end of the second week we still had not received a decision about our financial liability, made a payment, or received an invoice.  It was on Monday of the third week that Andy received a call from the Director of Development informing him that Philip was the recipient of a very particular Memorial Scholarship, covering 100% of our financial portion.  It was so unexpected.  I still get chills thinking about it.  

Without giving away too many details, what happened is that the news that Philip was going to attend Catholic school made its way through the family grapevine, and unbeknownst to us, a family member who is also a graduate of and donor to the school set up a scholarship fund and designated Philip as the recipient.

Happily, my tears dried up by the end of the second week.  Not only that, but the same child who would slump dejectedly into a heap at the mere mention of homeschooling was now asking for my help with homework and proudly showing me his daily achievements.  I wasn't irrelevant and obsolete, as I'd feared.  It really soothed my broken heart.  My constant weight of guilt about being a failure at homeschooling is gone.  The boy who hated math and said he sucked at spelling now says math is his favorite subject and rattles off spelling and vocabulary words with confidence, and even his penmanship has improved greatly.  Dad takes him to school every morning and if it's nice weather, he walks home.  Otherwise I am waiting to pick him up.  Best of all, he's one of the guys and has a group of friends.

At first I threw myself into cataloguing and selling off my homeschool library to put away some Christmas money.  Now that the holidays are upon us, I think sales will slow down, so I'll keep everything boxed up until the end of the school year and do one more round of sales, then donate the rest.  I'm up consistently early for the first time since I was in high school.  I'm trying to keep the house a little nicer and stay ahead of the chore.  I'm sure there will be more as time goes by, but for now this is where we are, and it's a pretty good place to be.

And we owe everything to those special someones.  You know who you are!

Bowl Cozy Tutorial

This project requires all cotton fabric, all cotton quilt batting, and all cotton thread.

I would not call this a beginner project...  Maybe intermediate.  You need some sewing skills and experience.

Start with two squares of your desired fabric and two squares of all cotton batting.  

The squares all have to be the same size, but they can be any size.  

9" squares will fit a small bowl like a small Corelle soup bowl.  I used 11" squares for a large soup/cereal bowl like this stoneware bowl from Walmart.  15" squares work well for a pie dish or serving bowl.

Sew one piece of batting to the wrong side one square of cotton in a big X from corner to corner.

I don't usually pin at this step, but you do you.

Do the same for the other square.

This is probably the trickiest part.  

You have to fold one square in half with the batting on the outside.  

Position the folded square with the fold closest to you.  

 

Now you have to draw a line to make a triangle on each folded corner.  

2" up the side edges and 2" in from the sides (along the fold) will accommodate most bowls.

The higher you go up the sides of your bowl, the deeper your cozy will be.  For a pie dish or shallow bowl, you only need to go up about an inch.  

Make a mark on one side 2" up from the fold, and a mark on the fold 2" in from the side.  Connect the two marks with a straight line.  There's your triangle.

Place a pin along the line you drew, and stitch.  Don't backstitch at this point.

Do the same on the other side. 

Personally, I made a bunch of cardstock triangle templates in various sizes,
depending on how deep the bowl is.  But that's just me - you can just measure.  

Unfold the square with the stitched sides, and fold the other two edges together.  

Measure and mark two more lines at the other two corners just like the last step, and stitch them together.

When you open it all up, you will have your basic bowl shape.  

Now is the time to inspect how deep and wide it is.  Put a bowl in it for size.    

If it's not deep enough, go back a step.  

Take out the previous stitches and make a mark higher up on the side edges.  

If it's too deep, make a lower mark. Then sew it again and recheck.

Once you have it the way you want it, go back and stitch the lines again, this time backstitching at the end of each line.  This makes a difference later on. 

Do the same for the other piece of fabric and square of batting.

Now is the time to trim off the triangle corners where you stitched.

Do this on all four corners for both pieces.

Turn one piece side right side down, and the other right side up. 

Fit them together with right sides touching.  

Adjust them until all the corners are lined up, then pin.

.

Sew all along the pinned edges, leaving 1/2" seam allowance.  In the picture below, I make two black marks on one of the points about an inch from the highest and lowest points.  I start sewing at 1, go all the way around the other three sides, and stop at 2, backstitching at beginning and end.

It doesn't matter which direction you go, but it does kind of matter that you leave the open space in the middle of a straight side, and not overlapping a corner.

Turn the cozy right side out using the open space.  Use a pencil or chopstick to make sure the corners are pushed all the way out.  

Fold in and pin the edges of the opening, and topstitch 1/2" all the way around the edge for more structure and a cleaner appearance.

I added a hanging loop, but that isn't necessary.  

These are machine washable and microwave safe as long as you used all cotton material, batting, and thread.

Hope this made sense!  

The Day I Nearly Drowned in My Bedroom.

 Monday, September 23, 2024 just past 7:00 pm    

I was sitting in the dining room after supper with Brian, Mam, and others.  Andy had gone to the grocery store.  I was scrounging around the bottom of a pan of 7 layer bars, looking for broken pieces worth eating while still saving some whole bars for Clare.  I took a bite of a piece and almost immediately felt a massive spike of pain on the right side of my face. It felt like a lightning bolt.  There was a broken, infected tooth on the top, and I was  usually careful to chew on my left side, but a large pecan got over to to the bad side and I chomped down on it.  Hard.  Directly in the middle of the broken tooth.  I immediately froze.  It was obvious to everyone at the table that something had happened. I sat in frozen pain and carefully probed the tooth to remove the nut and assess the damage.  I thought it had broken in half or was ready to fall out.

The previous time I experienced pain in this tooth was about 5 weeks earlier.  The tooth has been infected for years, but I was afraid to deal with it, and most of the time the pain was low-key.   The dentist recommended oral surgery, which was expensive and sounded AWFUL, and I was hesitant to have it extracted.  So I was biding my time.  The last time it flared up, I took a massive dose of OTC painkillers and went to bed while it was still light out, praying that it would subside by the time I woke up and promising God I would deal with it if He would get me through the night without having to go the the ER.  

So this time I left the dining room and went up to my third-floor bedroom, by myself, to take painkillers and lie down.  Nearly fatal mistake.

Time passed - ten minutes maybe - and I noticed some slight congestion, which increased as the minutes ticked by.  I sat up and tried to clear my throat.  The congestion increased.  Soon I was clearing my throat constantly and beginning to cough up some fluid.  I caught the fluid in a paper cup and it was pink.  Not good.  I couldn't keep up with the congestion and now I realized that this was SERIOUS.  I don't remember who I called first... I think I called Andy and told him I thought I had to go to the hospital. This may have been at 7:43 and he was still at the store.

I called Natalie at 7:44 to ask her to bring me an inhaler.  I say called - it was more like the breathless, high-pitched gasp of a drowning person.  Poor Natalie.  She had been sitting in the living room with Theresa, Clare, Brian, Jess, etc.  Philip was playing at a friend's house at this time - thank God he wasn't in the house to witness this.  I stumbled through the rec room, numb with panic and fear and disbelief, and Brian met me on the steps.  I tried to use the inhaler but I couldn't draw a big enough breath.  

He helped me to the living room and I sat down on the piano bench, trying to use the inhaler effectively while the rest of them in the living room looked on in stunned silence.  I remembering noticing that Clare was there and said a weak hello to her.  Brian helped me to the Suburban and I remember Andy putting it in overdrive to get to the hospital (thankfully only a 5-minute drive) while I repeatedly attempted to spit some of the congestion out the window.

The ER wasn't busy and I walked in on my own two feet.  They provided a wheelchair and I tried to talk at the reception window, but I was gasping for air.  I had enough presence of mind to tell the guard that I had crochet scissors in my bag, which had to be surrendered for security reasons.  I'd say they took me back to a treatment room within two minutes.  As soon as I got into a bed, they put a pressurized  oxygen mask on my face, which gave me instantaneous and enormous relief. I found out later that my pulse oxygen was 74 when I got to the hospital, and the doctor told me later that people usually lose consciousness when it gets below 70.

The next four hours are a blur. Two IVs.  Two or three nitro pills under the tongue.  Two nebulizer treatments.  One Xray.  One trip for a CAT scan.  Multiple persons asking to verify if I was SURE I didn't have blockages.  Didn't have history of heart failure.  Didn't have asthma.  Didn't have COPD.  They were treating me for a heart attack because nothing else added up.  Around 11pm, not knowing what was wrong or what would happen, I remember having the presence of mind to write a goodbye message to my family.  I didn’t want to send it and scare them (even more), so I sent it in a text message to myself.  Enough of them know my pass code so I knew they would find it eventually.

Andy says it was 2:30 a.m. when I left in an ambulance for the main hospital.  The EMT fiddled  painfully with my both my hand IVs the whole way, because they kept getting blocked.  Apparently the hand has to be curved at just the right angle to keep the flow going.  I don't remember what was being administered through the IV.  

I concentrated on every curve and turn of the road to the hospital, which I have driven time and time again.  We stayed on the main highways at that time of night, and I could feel when we got to the narrows and made the turn across the bridge.  I saw the lights of the tunnel and felt the turn at the walking bridge.  Soon they came to the Advanced Medicine entrance and wheeled me up to the eighth floor.  

My primary nurse was a young man about Clare's age with a beautiful boy-band head of hair.  His name was Stephen.  It must have been a slow night, because he seemingly talked to me for the next four hours straight, asking all the intake questions and making me comfortable.  I have no concept of time from that night, but I think I remember waking around 7 and learning that I was going to the catheterization  lab Tuesday morning anytime after 9 a.m.  Gina was away at school and didn't know any of this was happening, so I called her phone and left her a message.  I tried to be cool about it, but I guess it sounded more like goodbye, because she listened to it on the way to school and broke into sobs.  She was a mess when she got to school and I think she had to visit the counselor's office.

I was aware of the risks of catheterization, especially after my wonderful cardiac nurse/daughter told me the story of the first catheterization she assisted at, a nice woman in her eighties named Ruth.  She reassured Ruth about this routine procedure, assuring her that she'd be fine.  Then the probe punctured her aortic artery and she died on the table.  It sounds like a horrible thing to say, but you have to take into account our family's morbid sense of humor.  I wouldn't have had it any other way.

I tried to get a priest to come see me before the procedure, because of the risks, but one didn't come visit me until Wednesday evening.  Oh well.  RIP me.  I was more than a little scared and feeling very mortal.  I couldn't believe when they came for me on the early side - maybe around ten?   I couldn't think of anything else but to pray the Act of Contrition and the Memorare on repeat.   

The cath went smoothly and no blockages were found - go me!  Not too shabby for someone with a sedentary lifestyle who takes butter intravenously.  I also have prize-winning LDLs, triglycerides, HDLs, through absolutely no effort on my part.  The diagnosis was non-ischemic myocardial infarction caused by Takotsubo Syndrome, otherwise knows as Broken Heart Syndrome.  I count myself as extremely blessed, because most people who get it do not survive, but if you manage to pull it off, the  recovery rate is excellent.

Those three days in the hospital went very slowly.  Most of the time I was extremely drowsy and my sheets were always damp with sweat.  I could barely stay awake on Tuesday, but every time I opened my eyes, Andy was there.  I didn't even know he had come.  Natalie and Noelle came to visit for a bit, and Clare came, bringing dinner for Andy - all he had to eat all day was half my hospital lunch - but I couldn't even stay awake to talk to her.

Over the course of the next two days, every  time a new team of doctors from another department came to talk to me, I made sure I mentioned my tooth pain and how I really wanted to see a dentist. I told my sob story to everybody that walked in the room.  Finally on Wednesday a dentist briefly popped in and I told him my story. His manner was rather brusque but before long I had an appointment to be seen in the hospital dental clinic shortly after discharge the following day.

Xrays showed that , unbeknownst to me, I had another bad tooth with a large cavity that was affecting the nerve,  right next to the aforementioned infected tooth.  It was this other tooth that had actually caused the problem.  This was September 26.  I couldn't get an appointment to have them extracted until December 30.  I don't have to tell you how careful I was with every bite I took for the ensuing 3 months.  I had to keep up heavily with the OTC painkillers as well.  

The extraction itself was a breeze.  The numbing shots hurt worse than the procedure, although there was a lot of tugging, pushing, pulling, and uncomfortable noises coming from my mouth.  I wanted to keep the teeth, but they wouldn't let me because they were classified as infectious biowaste.  I did take a picture, but no way am I posting it here.

I was discharged from the hospital with four cardiac and lung medications, which I will probably stay on for a year.  The first month was very slow going for me.  I was so easily tired that I couldn't walk across a room without stopping, walked with a cane, and couldn't lift my arms above my shoulders.  I was definitely like a new person by November, though.  I felt fantastic, like I had a new lease on life.  I had also dropped 25 pounds without even trying.  I spent 4 months doing at-home cardiac rehab.

I will update after my 1 year follow up.

Best. Note. Ever.

 I hope someday to receive a note as good as this one.

I know I have anger issues and I'm sorry

but I love you more than I hate you

and I know I'm an idiot.

Love Natalie xo