Please pray...

To those of you who read this who pray, please pray for my other grandma--my mom's mother who lives in Florida. She was taken to the hospital this morning, and they just found out she has a combination of asthma and congestive heart failure, so they're trying to get her moved to the ICU. So please pray. My family doesn't need to lose two in the same month. Please pray.

Thanks.

Thoughts on Home

I think there are some things you just have to deal with in life because they’re not going to get any better. For example, it seems that I may never feel entirely safe while living by myself. No matter what neighborhood I live in, or how many locks are on my doors, my imagination will always be able to picture a scenario in which I die and no one knows for days. At night, after I turn the lights out in the front part of the house, I suppose I may always feel that I ought to tiptoe to avoid waking up unknown monsters who lurk in the darkness. I will probably never be able to bring myself to look out of the window at night because I just know that when I open the blinds or pull back the curtain, there will be a scary man waiting out there, with his face peering back at me through the glass. I will probably always whirl around when a strand of hair catches the corner of my peripheral vision as I brush my teeth. Or turn off the blow dryer, just for a second, because I think I've heard something.

So, at that point where I’ve done all I can to make my home safe, I just have to sit back and admit that I live in a fallen world, and this world will never be a safe haven. Bad things happen to good people, even good people who pay good money to live in good neighborhoods and take all the advised precautions. I suppose it further reinforces the fact that this world is not my home. It is at this point that I have to say, “God, I’m about to close my eyes on this darkness, and I’m gonna have to just trust that you’ll either protect me while I’m temporarily here, or take me to the one place where I will feel safe and at home.” At the end of the day, that’s all I can do.

Lately...

Lots of things have happened in my life since last time I blogged on here. I did move to a new apartment, just down the parking lot from my old one, but much roomier, and with space enough for my washer and dryer. But, the most important thing that's happened recently is that my grandmother went to rest in the arms of Jesus. She was 90 (would have been 91 in November) and had a tiny bit of dementia, but was still as stubborn and hard-working as ever. She had been in an assisted living home in Chattanooga, and near the beginning of July, she started going down hill mentally and becoming more and more confused. Then, a sore on her leg got infected, and when my aunt took her to the emergency room, her blood pressure was 190 over something! Turns out (after further research) the home had run out of her medicines, and hadn't bothered to let us know, so my grandma hadn't had her blood pressure medicine or her Aracet (sp? it's for the dementia/alzheimers) in THREE WEEKS!!!!

So my aunt did what any good daughter would, and took her out of there immediately. She lived at home with my aunt (which is where she'd been before the assisted-living home) for about a month, but she was still really confused, and my aunt had to lock the doors to keep her inside, and it was really sad. Then, one Saturday the door was left unlocked, and my grandma got her clippers and went outside and started clipping weeds in her rose garden. (I should mention that my grandma loved working outside and clipping things more than anyone I know, so this was fun for her...) As she was clipping, she fell and broke her hip. They had to do surgery on Sunday, and the doctor said afterwards that it went really well. The only problem was she didn't ever really wake up from the anesthesia. She was in the hospital from Saturday, August 25th, when she fell, until September 4th. I went down on Thursday, August 30th, when they decided to move her into hospice care. My parents drove all day on Friday the 31st, and got there that night. They said if she'd had just the broken hip, or just the anesthesia trouble, or just the dementia, or just the pneumonia...but she didn't...she had all of them at once, and her body couldn't heal. We stayed at (or near) the hospital until Tuesday the 4th, when she started breathing quieter and quieter, and then, with my aunt, my dad, my mom, and me standing next to her, she stopped breathing and went home to be with Jesus. My siblings drove out on Thursday, and we had her funeral on Friday.

And then I came home to boxes everywhere, and catching up on a week's worth of missed work, and being alone again, and (I'm sorry to say) just not feeling up to trying to blog about it all.

So, at some point I'll get back to normal, though I don't promise that it's now or anytime soon.


This picture was taken about a year ago, when my baby niece was visiting Grandma at the assisted living home.

I'm Still Alive!

I'm not actually dead...or still in Iowa...I've just been (and will continue to be) very busy. So here are a few hightlights from the last few weeks:

~ I went to Iowa, where I: drove a tractor, shot a gun, went to a tractor pull, rode a horse, and picked raspberries.

~ My lovely roommate, Katie, came to see me in Nashville! We: spent hours talking, painted pottery, found pretty clothes on sale, finished each others' sentences, and just had fun being "us" again.

~ I drove home to Texas, where I: saw my family, got my car inspected, visited with good friends, and helped with the release party of the 7th Harry Potter book at "my" bookstore! I ran a trivia contest, organized a covert operation to spy on Hastings (they only had about 200 ppl, compared to our estimated 800 or so), and then at midnight, I got to help sell more than 700 books in less than an hour on only 4 registers! It was awesome!

Hi from Iowa

Hi from Iowa! More to come after I get back on Sunday night...

Now in Color!

I just discovered how to change colors on my template!! Please note that I'm not done, but I just don't have time to finish at the moment. I know it looks like an Easter basket at the moment, but bear with me.

Felted Tote Bag Update

"Hi. My name is Bethany, and I'm a perfectionist." I admire those people who are comfortable with posting pictures of WIP (work in progress) projects (for examples, see: Betty's great series on designing knit patterns or Jen's many lovely socks). I hate letting people see the not-yet-finished project. I also feel like I work very slowly since I'm still learning, which only adds to the frustration. No one wants to see pictures of a 58 row project on row 8, row 12, row 30, row 42, row 50 and row 58. So I'm never sure when to post pictures and when to wait until I've gone "just a little further."

But here goes...

This is the progress I've made on my felted tote bag so far:

And here's a close-up of the pre-felted WIP (I'm really loving this color!):

The next step will be to add this yarn to the two strands of wool, so that it gets felted in by the wool and forms a band near the top of the bag: