Erica’s Blog

Well, I went to the SAND group last night for the first time in about a month.  We’ve both been wanting to go, but we didn’t have a sitter for the Things and the dog, so only one of us could go.  Hubby thought I should be the one to go, even though I was going to be out for a while tonight and tomorrow night.  He thought that, with Mother’s Day coming, it would be good for me.

Knowing that he’s usually right about these kinds of things about me, I went.  As it turned out, I was the only parent who showed up.  Even one of the facilitators didn’t make it, so it was essentially a private appointment with the social worker.  It was good to talk.

One of the things we talked about was that I’d like to do some kind of small something on either Paul’s birthday or the anniversary of his death.  She gave me the words to a couple of songs that rang SO true for me: 

The first is called “Visitor From Heaven” by Twila Paris.  You can read the words and hear the song here.  I don’t especially care for the melody — it sounds pretty sappy to me — but the words so much express how it was to let Paul go. 

The second is an Irving Berlin song called “How Deep Is The Ocean”.  It sounds like a typical love song, but apparently he lost a child at one point, so the song could have been written for his child.  You can read the lyrics here.

A BIG step for me was that a couple of weekends ago, Hubby and I went to go sit with my brother-in-law and sis-in-law while Baby Michael had surgery.  If he had been in the ICN or had been at UCSF, Hubby wouldn’t have let me go, but it was OK.  We were there for about seven hours.  We would have stayed all night if they had let us — we would have appreciated the support if we’d been in their shoes — but they kicked us out.  I only had a moment of flashback to the days in the ICN, but it passed quickly.  It was all so different than with Paul.  Michael was so much bigger and so much healthier (even with needing surgery).  Last weekend, we saw both babies at our nephew Jesse’s birthday party, and it was OK.  I’m still not ready to hold a baby, but I was OK seeing them.

Yes, I’ve been knitting.  I just finished a big project.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you about it yet.  Sigh.  One of the hazards of having the recipient reading this.  ;->

About half-way through another project, this time with Lion Brand Chenille Thick & Quick.  Again, can’t give details or pictures yet.

STILL waiting to get a picture of my friend in the poncho I made her.  Ahem!  If you’re out there, MEY, I’m waaaiiiittttiiinnnngggg!

Hubby let me do some major stashing today.  www.joann.com had Fun Fur and some other yarns marked down significantly.  I get free shipping from them, and they also had a “free priority shipping” special going on, so he said it was OK for me to stock up and get “as much as you want”.  WOW!  Them’s dangerous words!  Here’s what I ended up getting:

• Fun Fur Yarn Self Striping! - Night Sky (HMMMM…Black, grey & white stripes?  What COULD that make me think of?)
• Lion Brand Fun Fur Yarn - Hawaii
• Lion Brand Fun Fur Yarn - Fuji
• Fun Fur Yarn - Black (Got lots of this to have on hand for various different projects.)
• Fun Fur Yarn - Tropical
• Fun Fur Yarn - White
• Fun Fur Yarn - Soft Pink
• Fun Fur Yarn - Raspberry
• Fun Fur Yarn - Red
• Fun Fur Yarn - Mango
• Fun Fur Yarn Self Striping! - Mexicana  (LOVE those bright colors!)
• Divine Yarn-Halo Blue (Will look good with the Denim Storm Divine I still have left.)
• Homespun Yarn-Coral Gables
• Homespun Yarn-Florida Keys Green
• Homespun Yarn-Mexicana (Yes, a different type of yarn but the same colors.)
• Homespun Yarn-Delft
• Lion Brand Homespun Yarn - Harvest  (I’m just drooling over the idea of making prayer shawls from www.shawlministry.com out of the Homespun!)
• Lion Brand Homespun Yarn - Olive
• Lion Brand Homespun Yarn - Cobalt
• Lion Brand Homespun Yarn- Plantation
• Divine Yarn-Richest Rose
• Divine Yarn-Floral Fantasy (Love these pink colors!)
• Wool-Ease Yarn -Gold
• Wool-Ease Yarn -Fuchsia

NO, I won’t tell you what all the Fun Fur is for.  Let’s just say that some of them are for specific projects I have in mind, and some are just “for instance”.  Drool, drool, drool….

Oh, and YES, I saved about $100 dollars.  Gotta love that!  This is also why my pantry is so full — buy a bunch when it IS on sale, even if you don’t need it just now so that when you DO need it, you have it already and don’t have to pay premium prices.

Yes, Jenna came for a one-night sleepover on April 1st and hasn’t left.  I don’t know why we haven’t done the paperwork yet to make it official — at this point, if she left it would break all our hearts, including hers.  We even got her a tag on Tuesday with her name and our address and phone number.  Heck, I’ve even added stuff for her to the Amazon wish list! 

It’s really cool to see her different relationship with each one of us.  Thing One reads Bible stories to her every morning before school, plays with her after school, and brushes her.  Thing Two tries to see how close she can get her nose to Jenna’s before Jenna starts licking her all over her face (euw!).  Hubby takes her out for a walk most evenings, tucks her in at night, and Jenna goes nuts when he comes home from work.  They all play “bone” with her, also known as tug-o-war with her red rubber Kong bone.  Funny how since I stopped playing “bone” with her, my back hasn’t been hurting as much….Me, I’m the food source, the one who takes her out to potty, sometimes walks her, plays ball, and pets her a lot. 

Now, if we could just find a new collar for her that we can all agree on.

Oh, and I’ll be glad when she’s done with her warm weather shedding.  Blech! 

FYI, you can see pictures of Jenna’s first bath here on Hubby’s blog.