There are trials in life, which remind you how blessed you are to have particular people in your life.....a) My husband tripped on Sept 9 at the farm, falling into a gulley where we have dispose of broken concrete and other stuff we needed to "make go away." He landed on his right (had to be his dominate hand) wrist and broke both bones and crushed the little wrist bones all out of place. He basically lived on pain killers for a week, then had surgery where they installed a steel plate and 8 screws. Over two months later, this man who handles pain really, really well (he walked on a broken leg for 3 days once) is still hurting on a daily and nightly basis. The dr. says this may very well be permanent. b) My 82 year old father came down with appendicitis on 10/7, the day after Lace Embrace. (Very unusual, the dr. said if you have had your appendix that long, that you usually keep it.) Because he was on plavix (sp?) and blood thinners, they had to build his blood up with plasma and platelets before he could have surgery. By the time he wouldn't bleed to death during surgery, the appendix perforated. Already having very serious heart problems, his heart rate decided to beat around 200 times a minute. So we started a very complicated game, fix the heart rate and the blood pressure would drop. Fix the blood pressure and the heart rate went up. After a few hours, we started fighting infections as well. The father I know, has always been very aware of who he was, where he was and what he was doing. Well, EVERY night in the hospital, he had hallucinations. They put him on sleeping pills, anxiety drugs, depression drugs....it only seemed to get worse. I would have hated to be member of the medical staff the night he dreamed the his nurse was trying to kill him. His room changed often, medical/surgical floor, step-down from ICU, ICU, Step-down from ICU, in=house rehab.... It was such a relief when on 10/31, he was able to come home--where he had no hallucinations. He still received IV antibiotics from a home healthcare nurse for a week, and therapy sessions will continue for quite awhile strengthening his respiratory system, endurance and balance issues. (More information than you ever wanted to know!) Anyway--lots of things to occupy my head and time. I have stayed out of the hospital. That doesn't mean I have been healthy, the bad days still outnumber the good days. But the good days seem to be slowly increasing.
Crazy...I "tried out" doing my very short nails with a lace theme a
month before Lace Embrace. I painted them a lovely burgundy color and
then stenciled a doily pattern on them in gold. They were so pretty! I was so busy the week of the event, that I had bare nails
This was a very different year for me--a) I taught the tatting class b) My husband and I ran a table for Tatting Corner selling the things that they uniquely carry. The event was waaaayyy back the first weekend in October.and I haven't posted anything here since August... but I do want to put down my thoughts and memories about Lace Embrace....
Friday night of Lace Embrace, we had a hard time getting out the door... It was one of those "if it could go wrong, it did" things. We finally left home, about the time we had hoped to be finished getting the Tatting Corner merchandised displayed, as well as putting out my personal tatting display. My husband was also acting as IT person, fixing power point projectors,, etc. We eventually made it to Bartlesville (a two hour drive from home), where the event is held, checked into our hotel and after visiting a very nice member of their local constabulary about a mechanical malfunction with our vehicle (one of our headlights needed a new bulb) we met Paula and her husband for dinner.
I enjoyed our room at the hotel. I was able to (now calmly) unpack and repack so that I only needed (what felt like) a couple dozen totebags and boxes the next morning.
I am so very blessed to have such lovely tatting friends. Seeing them and spending time with some of them is one of the many reasons why I look forward to Lace Embrace each year. I was so surprised when I received gifts this year! I hadn't been putting up my display very long when Paula (chair of the Lace Embrace committee) came up and gave me this gorgeous antique turtle pin cushion. l He looks so adorable holding some of my turtle stick pins!
Brigitte was next--(last year she brought me a pair of tatted turtle earrings!) First she gave me two jars of her handmade cherry preserves. (She remembered I liked it from the "weekend at Sonya's' a year ago! Isn't that awesome!?! I can't tell you what we ate a year ago!) Then --ooooh sooooo cooool!! She gave me the cutest little pair of beaded turtles!! I wore them again yesterday and they were quite the topic of conversation around the table for awhile. Brigitte was one of my first Lace Embrace friends...years ago, she volunteered to be my partner during a tatting olympics event at my first Lace Embrace. She has a wonderful blog--it has been neglected but she has some wonderful entries http://tattingandbeading.blogspot.com/
I want to talk about goodie bags, demos, classes, etc in the next post.... Here is an article that I put into our guild's newsletter.
*I "talked" to Kathy via email. The company that provided this silk thread is no longer in business/ I have a UFO that isn't totally because I am a great procrastinator!
