Happy Spring!

Guess I’ll join the bandwagon and herald the arrival of Spring along with all the other folk who got to enjoy totally unpredicted 70+ degree weather here in Michigan, in March! Normally, at this time of year here in the Great Lakes State, we can expect lots of rain, possibly snow, and perhaps tornados…but SUMMER weather early? Not very likely. What, you ask, did I do to enjoy this ‘windfall’? Went out walking with my youngest son; that’s two days in a row for the now ‘exercising grammie’! I used to walk regularly, just for my health and to keep the blood glucose levels low but sort of fell into a pattern of “I don’t really feel like it”; time to change all that…the weather is gorgeous! Last evening while driving to our tax man’s house, I had the windows down in the car, no jacket, actual sandals on my feet, light-weight clothing…it was really nice. While driving along with the wind blowing through my hair I could hear the sounds of birds AND, in one area…peepers! Frog Songs! I certainly didn’t think they’d be here THIS early! I love that sound; that, and crickets in summer.  Yesterday was, as I told my youngest son, the kind of day where I, as a child, would find a large hill and lie down in the grass gazing at the blue-blue sky and watching the clouds go by…now THAT’s glorious! When is the last time you can say you did that!?  It’s getting on time that this grammie takes her own words to heart and just ENJOYS LIFE!!!

   I have a new project! While sitting in the office of my middle son’s Scoliosis doctor and knitting, the doctor’s assistant asked me what I was working on. I’ve been knitting these 7 inch squares for the Habitat for Humanity afghans a fellow blogger puts together for families receiving Hab. for Hum. houses, in New York. The doctor’s assistant told me she had ‘just the project’ for me: making small afghans for children in Sierra Leon and Ghana. It seems that this doctor and many of his friends make a trip to these countries once a year to do free gratis surgeries on needy children there. Last year a lady who works in their office brought in a small afghan she’d knitted and didn’t have an actual purpose for. They took said afghan with them on this trip and gave it to a very needy young girl there: it became her only possession and she clutched it, constantly, to her and carried it everywhere. It became her only sense of security. The doctor’s assistant must have sensed that I’m a real softie when it comes to ‘good causes’ because she gave me the information on this expedition. I asked her, rather tentatively : “IF I were to make an afghan, where would I take/send it?” She said: “Oh, you could just bring it here to me! We’d be very grateful to take it!” Well, I’m sure you know the rest of that story…guess who’s decided that this is my next “great cause”.  Since I’d already made about 16 of the seven-inch knitted squares I decided that I’d see just how big they would be if laid out on the floor. It looks like about 20 of them, 4 to a row, would make a small ‘one small child’ afghan’.  Being a person who loves ‘great causes’, I’m off and running (or knitting, to be more exact), excited to see just what this first effort will look like, finished. (NOW is when I really wish I knew how to put photos on this blog site!) I realize that this is a small project, but one that I can look forward to completing. I’m anxiously looking forward to this Friday, as I’ve been invited to join a Ladie’s Knit Night with a newly-made friend. She told me about this group of 7-8 ladies who get together once a month to knit, chat, and enjoy each other’s company. What an opportunity! I would LOVE to go! To explain here: I’m one of those ‘odd ducks’ who don’t knit the ‘normal/usual’ way…my mom taught me to knit and she was left-handed, hence I had to learn to knit by standing in front of her. Many years later, I’ve discovered that my method is called either: the “German Method”, “Continental” or “European” method. In this new group I’ll be joining, I guess there’s one other lady who knits this way…I’m excited! I’ve never met anyone else who does this and I’m very eager to ask her several questions about how she does certain stitches using this method. Believe me, it isn’t easy trying to adapt patterns to this method…it’s down-right difficult! Since I’m only doing 7 ” squares, learning new patterns is very exciting and, having the propect of someone else who knows my method, is making me down-right giddy! (it doesn’t take much!)

   Anyway, dear friends, that’s what’s going on around here these days. We’re watching the world around us burst into bloom, looking and listening with ‘new eyes and ears’ at what God has set in front of us to enjoy.  Enjoy your Spring days!

Hugs;

Pammie  

It’s Almost Spring and…

there are new resale shops popping up in my neighborhood! I love to go to yard/garage sales in the summer-it’s one of my ‘secret’ passions! Recently a rather large resale shop opened and, driving by it this morning, I was feeling that old urge to ‘go find treasures’. My only problem? When I have the time, I don’t have the money and….on the reverse, when I have the money…I don’t have the time! Ain’t life interesting that way?  Oh well, “Cheer Up” I told myself, Spring is just around the corner and soon there will be the definate signs of Spring…garage sales, again! (sigh of contentment).

Hugs;

Pammie

Sometimes It Seems…

when you think you’re ‘out of the trouble’, something else has to occur before you totally see the ‘other side’. Remember my episode with the fish hook? While I was in the ER the attending physician wrote me out a prescription for Bactrim, a sulfa-based antibiotic (I’m allergic to penicillin and cephalosporins…makes me turn into the Michilin Man…I swell up terribly.) After experiencing a very painful neck muscle (enough to not let me sleep at night) and feeling very fatigued, my husband suggested I check the side-effects of that medicine…BINGO! “Stiff neck and fatigue”! I stopped taking that on Monday. Last night, not even thinking, I noticed that my right ear was extremely itchy, so I scratched…and scratched, and…you get the picture. A little later my left ear started, then my scalp…still NO clue! When I went to get my nightgown on I just happened to catch a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror; good heavens! My whole waist was covered, my backside, ears, scalp, etc. with HIVES! Yep, those are familiar to me…thank heavens I stopped taking that when I did or it might be another trip to the ER for emergency anaphalactic shock. (That’s how I originally discovered I was allergic to penicillin-had taken it all my life then, all of a sudden, I became severely allergic and swelled up to the extreme.)

   One of my sons asked if he could play ‘connect the dots’ with my hives…cute, but I’m not amused. I’m doing OK, just a little exhausted (another part of the hives thing), so I’m taking it easy and reading mostly. One of the small joys of homeschooling is: when the teacher’s sick, there’s no (or very little) school that day. Just so happens that my babysitting duties were cancelled for the day due to oversleeping on his parents part…worked out just fine for me all around.

   One big lesson I’ve learned from my 58 1/2 years here on earth…life will ALWAYS throw you curve balls, you just have to learn to side-step them and keep on goin!

Hugs;

Pammie

It All Started Out…

as a normal day. We were expecting a man from our furnace repair company to fix the blower motor on our furnace. My husband called to ask me to move things around in the furnace room to give the man some extra room to work. “Oh, and would you please move my fishing tackle box away from the furnace area?” Sure! No problem! As I was coaxing a few boxes away from the furnace area I picked up said tackle box and moved it…once. A little later I decided that I could probably put it in a better, ‘less-apt-to-be-bumped’ area. I picked it up and noticed that it was not securely closed…no problem. There was a ‘stringer’ (that’s a long, large chain that fishermen hook their caught fish onto) hanging out of the box so I sort of draped that around the box also. As I went to set the box in another area I felt a light feeling much akin to pulling on one hair on your arm; I didn’t think anything of it UNTIL I tried to set the box down and that area was instantly filled with hot, searing pain! This box is not small and it took a bit of maneuvering on my part to see over the box in my arms and to the very painful area. Yes…I had done the unthinkable…somehow there was a “Rapala tri-pronged” lure attached to the stringer which was now firmly imbedded into the muscle of my left lower arm..deep enough to be up to the part where the three prongs joined. I came upstairs and called for one of my sons to take the weight of the heavy box out of my arms so that I could try to get this ‘thing’ out of my skin. THAT was a mistake! My poor son tried, but every time I moved in the least, more hot, burning pain raced down my arm. To endeavor to make this a bit shorter-we tried finding something that would cut metal…anything! This lovely tri-pronged lure was also attached to several others and all was a big, tangled mess which was perhaps an 18th of an inch from my skin…no room to try to get any instrument close enough to cut the thick shank of the lure! Also at this time it occurred to me that I was supposed to be babysitting my 8 month old grandson in about 1 1/2 hours and that would probably not be possible as I could envision myself at the Emergency Room very soon…the fishing lure was also very RUSTY! While on the phone with my oldest son (Dad of my grandson) I was pouring out my tale of woe and before I was totally done one of my other sons said: “Mom, turn around.” My oldest son was behind me, still on his cell phone…the Lord had worked it out so that he just happened to be driving by our house at just the same time I called…he was on his way to breakfast with his friend. He put his son in the playpen and raced downstairs, grabbed just the right wire cutter and freed my arm! Yes, the lure was still stuck in me, but now I could drive myself to the ER! As the Lord worked it out, my son was able to get someone to watch the baby so I could get help.

  It was a long ordeal, but the people in the ER were very gracious (they didn’t laugh…said they get things like this alot in the SUMMER!) Several people wandered over just to hear my story…I guess it’s OK to be the brunt of a ‘good tale’! After a tetanus shot, the doctors (two of them) were able to cut off the barbs from the other two hooks, then work on the one that was embedded. Thank heavens for Novacain! After the numbing shot to the area, they did alot of wriggling that nasty lure around (nasty looking to see it being wrangled under my skin) but I’m none-the-less-for-wear, now. There are 5 small holes in my arm and I’m sure it will bruise quite nicely by evening.

   Now do I get to call myself: “The One Who DIDN’T Get Away?”

Hugs;

Pammie

Here We Go!

Yes, It’s March! That lovely wintry month that either blows in or creeps in. For those of us who live in the “Winter Wonderland” that is Michigan, today was March 1st…the kind that blew in with a vengeance! I’m not sure which was worse, the biting cold snow mixed with rain, or the tiny rock-hard pebbles that made up hail pelting the windshield as I drove. Just as I was settling into my favorite recliner with the thoughts of “Ah, now I can finally STAY HOME for the rest of the day/night” that other niggling thought hit: “Oh, No! Wait! I scheduled my middle son’s flute lessons for tonight because he’s had to work for three weeks now and missed them.” Oh, joy….another trip ‘outside’!

   Have you ever had your own words come back to haunt you? As I’m complaining and grumbling about this being a very gloomy, nasty day, my conversation of last evening with the drug store clerk (who was, by the way, doing exactly what I’m doing…complaining) came back to mind. My words of last night? “Hey, it’s Michigan…this is typical of our state’s weather!”  Oh well, while I’m eating humble pie, hope you’re home or somewhere comfortable, cozy and warm; perhaps even enjoying something nice and hot to drink (cocoa, tea, coffee, etc.). 

   Rejoice in the thought that: “Spring is Coming!” (albeit not as soon as most of us would want!)

Hugs;

Pammie