Friday was one of those days.......

Yesterday was not the best.  It started out with me spilling not one, but two cups of coffee.  I was in a hurry to get to St. Louis to see a doctor who specializes in inflammation and infections of the eye so naturally things just kept going downhill.  Driving to St. Louis is about an hour and a half and wouldn't you know I would get into pouring down rain and hail.  Thank God it didn't last long.  I finally made it to Barnes Hospital and the Center for Advanced Medicine with no problems so things were starting to look up.  I was there for over 3 hours being shuffled from one room to another to another and seeing doctor after doctor.  I finally headed home after they x-rayed me and took about a pint of blood to test for every disease they can test.  I really don't know much more than when I went.  I just know I go back in two weeks.  The main doctor. intimated I may have some kind of auto-immune disease which keeps feeding this inflammation in my eye.  I hope they can find the answer to give me my normal vision back in my right eye.  I'm tired of looking through a white cloud/film/frost and having the pain and using all those drops.  I'm thankful my left eye is great or I would really be in a fix. 

I finally made it home and no electricity.  First clue was when the garage door wouldn't go up.  I came in and set up my battery powered magnifier light, turned on the big camping lantern and settled in to stitch.  Ameren said it could be 5-6 hours.  What???? No TV and no internet for that long? Yikes!!!!  I survived and it finally came back on in a couple of hours.  So that was my day.  I hope Saturday will be more productive.

It feels so good to stitch again.

Thi is going to be a difficult day as it was three years ago today that my grandson collapsed at basketball practice and died of sudden cardiac arrest.  I know he is in heaven and that I'll see him there someday, but right now I just miss him so much that it is almost more than I can stand at times.  Keith, I love you and miss you.  You brought such joy to all who knew you.

I haven't been able to stitch for the past month due to a major problem with my right eye.  I had cataract surgery and two weeks after the surgery, I awoke with what seemed like a white gauzy curtain on my right eye.  I immediately went to the eye dr. and have been going 2-3 times a week since.  It seems my rt. eye developed massive inflammation and it is going to be a slow process getting rid of it.  They have done laser surgery as well as a shot of cortisone directly in the eye and I've had so many different eye drops that I've lost count.  Right now, I'm down to a strong cortisone drop every two hours, a dialating drop twice a day, a pressure reducing drop 3 times a day and prednisone by tablet once a day.  I can now make out lights, shapes, and some movement with my rt. eye.  Thank goodness, my left eye is doing fantastic. 

This is a project I started for a class at Celebrations in St. Charles MO in September.  I'm finally getting back to it.  The blue flowers are Algerian eyes over one.  I'm anxious to get this stitched so I can get to the finishing before I forget how it was done.

Keith Urban Concert

My granddaughter Taylor has been with me all week and Wednesday night we went to St. Louis to see Keith Urban.  We first went to the Hard Rock Cafe to eat and then off to the concert.  We had a wonderful time.  Harriet, a fellow stitcher and friend, went with us.  Keith rocked the place for over two hours and at one point was five rows from us to do a couple of songs.  If you get a chance to see him perform, go, go, go!!!

A New Member of the Family: Miss Ginger

I finally gave in and got another dog.  I swore after having to have my darling sheltie Sally Ann put down a year ago, that I was through with dogs.  I was tired of having to get up early and stay up late to take them out and having to kennel every time I wanted to go somewhere overnight.  Then my granddaughter Taylor called and told me about this toy Pomeranian that she wanted me to get.  I've had her for about 10 days and so far she has managed to chew just about everything that isn't at least two feet off the floor.  She drags in my underclothes, chews on my shoes, tears the stuffing out of a pillow, and on and on.  But she is a dear and I'm slowly but surely getting her house broken and making her behave better.  I have to admit that I've really missed having a dog.  I have a cat, but they just aren't the same.  So, here is Ginger at 3 months:

French Alphabet Sampler is finally finished.

It took 1 year and 21 days to stitch this huge sampler that has all the names and initials of my immediate family worked into the various alphabets.  It was stitched with Vikki Clayton Hand-dyed premium silks on 32 ct. linen.  I don't know the name/color of the linen as it was a yard piece I had on hand.  I'm ready for some very small projects that do not require 12 letter sized sheets to show the chart.  

At the retreat

Here in Branson with all my stitching buddies and having so much fun.  There are 13 of us here from the St. Louis Stitchers.  We have shopped and shopped and shopped again and have only been to one store....Cecelia's Samplers.  It's 4 p.m. and I haven't taken a stitch yet today but I did stay up until 3 a.m. this morning stitching.  Fuddruckers just pulled up to set up their grills for a cookout.  I hope they have those wonderful brownies again this year.  Be back later.......

I'm sitting in a hotel room waiting for Harriet to arrive.  Tomorrow morning we are on our way to Branson for Cecelia's Samplers' Spring Retreat.  I'm so looking forward to this.  It's a miracle that I made it this far as it seemed that everything I did took twice as long to do and nothing seemed to go right.  It was a two steps forward 10 steps back kind of day yesterday.  I at least got this new computer up and running and have the wireless network at home installed.  I hope I get used to Windows 7 soon.  I have the software to upgrade my desktop computer and will do that when I get home. 

I've started back re-stitching that blasted border on FAS.  I found a mistake over half way back on the bottom border and had to rip out almost 12" of stitching.  Of course, it had to be this scroll border which is a bear to stitch.  That probably why I made the mistake in the first place.  If it hadn't been for all the frogging, I would have FAS finished by now.  I hope I get it done at the retreat.  It would only be fitting to finish it there since it was at the 2010 Spring Retreat that I started FAS.  More tomorrow on my retreat adventure.