Erica’s Blog

Oh, crud.  As I was typing up the meme, I got a call from our friend Erica.  Her husband Joe’s mom went into the hospital all of a sudden on Saturday evening.  She had a weird rash on her leg.  She’s diabetic, and when they checked, one of her kidneys was starting to shut down, and it looked like she was having heart trouble.  They wanted to do more tests, but she wasn’t very stable.  They sedated her, planning to do more tests in a couple of days.

A little while ago, they got a call from the hospital that Joe’s mom is expected to die within the next couple of hours.  Please pray for her, Joe’s dad, Joe, Erica & little Joshua, and all the rest of Joe’s family.  What a horrible thing to happen!

Gah!  I wrote this and did a “save draft”, and blog.com ate it!  Time to try again…

Magic Knitter tagged me for this meme, and I haven’t done one in a while, so here goes the A - Z meme.  If you haven’t done this one yet and you feel like it, consider yourself tagged.

A = Age:  41

B = Booze:  Merlot, Margaritas, or a good, thick, dark beer/ale such as Guinness

C = Career:  Full-time mom

D = Dad’s Name:  Walter William (goes by Walt)

E = Essential Item to Bring to a Party:  dessert, usually a cake

F = Favorite Songs at the Moment:  Hmmm.  Not sure.  I’ve been listening to a lot of Elvis Costello, Green Day, and Matchbox Twenty lately on the iPod.

G = Goof-Off Thing to Do:  sleep, lie in bed reading for hours, sit in Starbucks alone while knitting, stay up late watching movies or late-night stuff like MADTV

H = Hometown:  San Francisco, CA

I = Instrument You Play:  the stereo, the iPod

J = Jam or Jelly You Like:  raspberry or strawberry preserves

K = Kids:  two daughters at home (Thing One & Thing Two), one son waiting for me in Heaven (Paul)

L = Living Arrangements:  1,100 sf circa 1944 house with Hubby, Thing One, Thing Two, and The Lovey Dog

M = Mom’s Name:  Ella Euthene (and her maiden name was Eggers — initials EEE!)

N = Names of Good Friends:  Oy.  Bobbi, Mary Ellen, Zib, Laschaunda, Chrissy, Patrice, etc., etc.

O = Overnight Hospital Stays:  pneumonia (as a kid), testing (as a kid), delivering Thing One, delivering Thing Two, pre-eclampsia & delivering Paul, uterine infection five weeks after delivering Paul

P = Pets:  three-year-old sweet Pit Bull/some kind of cattle dog mix

Q = Quotes You Like:  “Leave the gun.  Take the cannoli.”;  “Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people.”;   “Mawige.  Mawige is what bwings us togevva today.”;  “Blave!”

R = Relationship Status:  Happily riding the roller coaster of marriage with Hubby since 1995

S = Siblings:  Brother Walter Jr., stillborn 1969 or 1970, Sister Christa, born 1971

T = Tea:  Blackberry Sage, Zhena’s Gypsy Teas, Good Earth Original, Green tea

U = Unique Trait:  I’m a VERY loyal friend.

V = Vegetables You Love:  Asparagus, Mushrooms, grilled eggplant, grilled bell peppers

W = Worst Traits:  control freak, bad temper

X = X-Rays You’ve Had:  lungs, sinuses, regular dental ones, foot, ankle, plus various ultrasounds, CT scans

Y = Yummy Food You Make:  extreme brownies, 10-layer bars

Z = Zodiac Sign: Sagittarius

 

Remember that mystery F.O. from the other day?  Well, it was Nana’s Mother’s Day gift.  Though I didn’t get to see her today, I “gave” it to her virtually by emailing her the pictures of it, so now it’s OK for me to show it to you.  I give you Roxy Lady (designed by the illustrious Zib for The Garter Belt):

Yarn = Wool of the Andes in coal (approx. 330 yards) and red (approx. 220 yards).

“Airy Scarf” from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts for Beanie for her birthday, which was Friday.  Yarn = Crystal Palace Yarns Kid Merino in black, half a ball or less.  Approximately 6″ x 42″, post-blocking.  I do love this pattern.  It’s so simple but so pretty.  I hope she likes it!

Well, to continue the story…after the aforementioned puking incident, my Mother’s Day started out like this:

(Uh…for all the non-moms out there who won’t recognize this pose, I’m not stabbing her; I’m taking her temperature in her armpit.) 

Called Poppa & Nana to let them know, and Nana decided she’d rather wait to celebrate on a day when everyone could come.  Sooo, I called the restaurant and cancelled our reservations.  Hubby took Thing Two to church (he’s the head teacher in the Sunday school class we teach, so he HAS to be there, esp. since neither of the other guys are the type who could handle the class w/o him), Thing One watched a little PBS, then eventually took to her bed with a book.  I took a shower, spent some time on the computer, then lounged about in bed, reading and snoozing, getting up from time to time to make Thing One something bland and “safe” to eat.

Around 2:00, Hubby and the Things gave me my Mother’s Day presents.  It was really terrific.  Hubby had bought some special handmade cards from some creative girls at church who were trying to raise money.  The one from him was specially commissioned (to add the little diaper in the sky for Paul).  The gifts were cool, too.  Hubby had clearly remembered my mentioning that I want to take skorts to Italy with me instead of shorts b/c of the dress code in some of the churches we’ll be visiting. I tell ya, what a guy!  Here are the highlights (full album here):

After presents, I got up for good.  B/c I hadn’t left the house since Thursday afternoon b/c of Thing One being sick, I was rather stir crazy, so while Hubby and the Things hung out at home, I got out of the house (he did the dishes, too!).  First stop, the library.  I dropped off some stuff that was almost due and came home with this and this (No idea what to expect from these books, but I know they have knitting in them or something, and I needed some lying-in-bed-trying-to-sleep fiction, so I thought I’d check them out.).  Next stop, Target.  Oy!  I got a powerful reminder of why I don’t go there on the weekends.  Blech!  Next stop, Starbucks.  Ahhhh.  It was hot out, so I got me a nice “Iced Venti Nonfat Latte”, plunked myself down in a big, squishy chair (and wished for a pillow for my back) and made some good progress on the baby cardigan for Sanjesh’s baby.  Put some mail in the mailbox on the way home, then got home.

Since we weren’t going out, we ordered takeout from here, which Hubby went to get.  Thing One barely touched her dinner.  Uh, oh.  When she’d been gone longer than it would take for her to get ready for her shower, I went to find her.  She was lying on our bed and said she didn’t feel good, that her stomach was bothering her and she wasn’t up to taking a shower or even walking to her bed.  UH, OH.  I got her into some clean jammies and carried her (and a pukey bucket) to her bed.  She started to read her book, but she was asleep within 10 minutes. 

Later, Hubby decided he was tired of all of us tripping over the Roomba, the Dustbuster, and the Scooba charger, so he did this.  And so ends another Mother’s Day.  It didn’t go according to plan, but that’s OK.  It was a great day in spite of it all.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you…

• To the moms we all think of, the ones with happy, normal, healthy kids
• To the moms of special needs kids who may never be able to make them a card or a silly macaroni/Froot Loops bracelet
• To the single moms, struggling to do the work of two people all alone
• To the bereaved moms who ARE moms but don’t feel like it b/c they have no living children to show that they’re moms
• To the moms for whom today is bittersweet – they’re grateful for their living children, but grieving the loss of the ones they lost
• To those grieving the loss of their own mothers
• To those with abusive moms who feel no reason to celebrate b/c they haven’t experienced a healthy mother’s love
• To those who wish to be mothers but, for whatever reason, are not able to have them who hate today

…etc., etc.  So, after Thing One threw up Thursday night and Friday morning, we naturally kept her home from school on Friday.  Her stomach was fine on Friday, but she was fighting a fever all day.  It never hit 100, but she was clearly not feeling well.  The Things & I had a jammie day — I got a lot of odds & ends done, they watched a metric boatload of PBS and movies (the “no TV until after dinner” rule goes out the window on sick days).

Since Hubby was scheduled to golf in a charity tournament w/Big Mike on Saturday, and I didn’t feel like dragging both Things out of bed early and to my WW meeting w/me, I had planned to go weigh in on Friday morning.  With Thing One sick, that didn’t happen.  Didn’t happen on Saturday, either.

My general rule of thumb on fevers & puking is that I won’t let them go back to school/be around other kids until they’ve been fever-free for 24 hours or haven’t puked in 24 hours.  With that in mind, we had to cancel on going to Hayleigh & Karina’s fancy first communion party (at least I had the foresight to all Frank & Tanya on Friday and let them know it was likely).  The Things couldn’t go to babysitting co-op, etc. 

I had grand plans to do a bunch of laundry, clean the floors, etc. during the day so that I could relax and enjoy a clean house and a chore-free day on Mother’s Day.  To that end, I put the dry laundry on the bed, waiting to be folded and threw in another load.  Then, I cleared the floor in our room, set the Roomba running in there, and shut the door so it couldn’t get out.  Later, when the Roomba gave its “I’m doooone!  Come turn me off and eeeeempty me!” chime, I couldn’t open the bedroom door.  Apparently, someone had flipped the little lever to “locked” (we have a weird, old doorknob that can be locked from inside but can’t be unlocked from outside in any way) w/o my knowing, so when I shut the door, I locked myself out.  So much for those plans!

Since I couldn’t do my chores (oh, darn!), I got a lot of odds and ends done and had a block(ing) party comme ca:

Thing One was fine all day Saturday.  When hubby came home, he ended up taking her here to see this (uh, after taking the doorknob off, unlocking it, and putting it back on for me), despite the fact that she had said she was starting to feel bad again.  Well, after waiting around for an hour in the choice viewing spot on Treasure Island, she puked.  Yupp.  She puked.  She managed to get it all outside the car, but she puked 15 minutes before the fireworks were supposed to start.  B/c they’d waited so long and it was almost time, they stayed for the fireworks.  Poor kid.

…or are these two pictures the same person?