Sharing the Torch

One of the great things about being a kid (at least from my former-kid's perspective) is doing Arts & Crafts. Nearly every child likes creating something from next to nothing, and while that something might be unrecognizable to us, it's the Mona Lisa to them. I sat at Bible Day Camp with the best of them and churned out God's Eyes like there was no tomorrow!

I've been making things for as long as I can remember. One of my very early memories was of my grandmother staying with me while my mom ran a few errands. I must have been three, because we lived on Reavis Place in Webster and my dad was in Viet Nam. I was sick, and she brought over a box of straws and some string (resourceful grandmothers can spin straw into gold on command, pardon the pun). We cut the straws into beads, strung them onto the strings, and voila!--designer necklaces! From there, I learned how to trace a heavy metal paperweight onto felt to make a perfect-sized Barbie skirt. Cutting several layers of felt into an apple shape, then stitching the top together by hand created a needle holder that my proud mom still uses 40+ years later.

I've spent my summer learning some jewelry making techniques, starting a new quilt, finishing a sweater I was knitting and starting another, filling hand-sewn organza squares with home-grown lavender, turning currants into jelly, and learning to lay tile with Sweetie. I've always got this intense need to create something, and without having more children (who, while absolutely wonderful, are probably better left to future generations at this point) I look for raw ingredients everywhere I can.

Tinkerbell and I went to the fabric/craft store this morning and used our handy dandy coupons to pick up a couple of craft kits for her--more pot holder loops (a staple in many homes) and a really great bead-making kit. She reverse-painted some glass beads and glued them onto mirrored backs to make bracelets, which turned out very cute and kept her occupied for quite awhile. The Easy Bake oven is out, the pot holder loom is waiting in the wings, and a spool knitting kit is hiding in my dresser drawer. I'm not giving up our summer break without a fight!

Jane Austen's Fight Club

It's pretty unlikely I suppose, but we can dream, can't we? This is what a bunch of LA Mormon girls can accomplish when they put their minds to it!

Tigerlily is home!

Our Adventure Kitty showed up about 3am when Elvira checked "one last time" for her. Just ran in the house, grubby and hungry, but seemingly all right. No idea where she had been, but we're happy to have our little family all back together.

I had no idea I would be one of those people who gets weird about pets. A little disturbing, but there it is.

The Little Engine That Could

My Dad is in the hospital with late-stage cancer. He was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer more than 19 years ago and given six months to live. The tricky part of that diagnosis is that he had an eight year-old at the time, and dying wasn't a particularly convenient option. So he didn't. Or he wouldn't. He went to Washington University for a horrifically experimental treatment that destroyed his general health, but kept the actual cancer at bay for awhile. It came back. He banished it. Repeat. Then it came back when Caro was more or less grown up, though still in college, and he decided to try to just keep it at bay, but not vanquish it. It settled in his bones and made his life pretty miserable, but time passed and my dad became a medical anomaly/miracle who lived and lived without any seeming justification for it.

Tuesday night the paramedics took my dad to the hospital, dehydrated, unable to walk, and dizzy. He had excellent care at home, but there's only so much you can do when your body just tires of the fight. Mom stays at the hospital all day and evening, knitting like a fiend to keep the stress to a dull roar. Emily and Jim go visit, Suzy, Caro, and I call incessantly to check in. We try to keep him cheerful and happy, but we can't fix this.

How does a perfectly healthy 54 year-old man end up with a deadly cancer? It happens every day to someone, doesn't it? One of those "mysteries" that we just have to accept.

Except that we KNOW how he got cancer.















"Leaving for war", August 1966 and "Homecoming", August 1967

My father went to Viet Nam in August 1966 and returned a year later with a deadly toxin already sitting in his cells, biding its time until it could end my dad's life. Don't believe me? Check it out:

Agent Orange, Vietnam Veterans and Prostate Cancer

My dad refused to file for compensation from the military. His feelings were and are that serving in the Army was an honor and a sacrifice made willingly, and exposure to Agent Orange was just an occupational hazard. It's a shame that he got cancer, but so did a lot of other people so why should he be an exception?

That's very honorable, and those words came as no surprise to any of us that know him.

But I'm still mad about it. Two of my nephews serve in the military, one as a combat medic headed for his second tour in the Middle East, another in language school with the Marines. My son wants to fly for the Air Force. I'm not anti-military. But I'm still very ticked off that so many thousands of men have had agonizingly painful deaths from exposure to a chemical that completely devastated a country, its people, and our own people with no lasting benefit to anyone. We lost that "police action", so-called since there was never a declaration of war. We will lose this one. And 40 years from now someone's father might very well be dying of a preventable cancer after exposure to God-knows-what in Afghanistan back during that disaster of a war. That is not a reflection on our leaders or our soldiers. I firmly believe they are doing their absolute best and doing heroic things every single day.

But all wars eventually end, no matter how many battles are won along the way.

I have added a link to my Dad's CarePage on the right sidebar. If you would like to see updates on his condition, you will need to register with their site.

All The Pretty Beadies In The Trees

I've been making beaded bookmarks this week. Lots of fun, and they look very pretty in the magnolia tree, don't you think?

Breathing Room

Oh my, that was a crazy month. So glad June is over, though it means one month of summer break is gone. Kitty Boy had marching band from 7-10 am every weekday, drumline on Mondays and Wednesdays, and parades every Saturday. Elvira had Summer Orchestra from 9-12 every day, and Girls Camp the first week of the month. Tinkerbell had swimming from 11-11:30 every day, and skating from 6-7 every Thursday. All three kids had Tae Kwon Do on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings. But now all we have is Tae Kwon Do, though Kitty Boy will still have band stuff on and off during July. Now "Camp Season" begins: Boy Scout camp in July, Diabetes camp in July and August, Youth Conference in August.

Sweetie has been working hard tiling the laundry room. He got about 2/3 of the room completely done, and will finish it off when I get the laundry caught up today so we can move the washer and dryer. Then we'll lay hardwood flooring in Elvira's new room so she can get all moved in before school starts. The bathroom will have to wait a little bit, but that's going to be a huge tiling job that will really tax poor Sweetie.

I've been cleaning and organizing like crazy. Got all my mending and ironing caught up, have a huge pile of old filing to shred, finished knitting a sweater and started another one, started a new moley for the next Ravelry round, sorted tons of beads from Elvira's and my collections and combined them into one, organized all my yarn, and am churning through books and audio books as I work. We've been packing in all the doctors appointments so we're all caught up before school starts.

I've gotten precious little weeding done, which I'll need to rectify ASAP. Currant season is nearly here, so I'll be making lots of jelly soon, then canning pears. I'm going to try to juice our grapes this year before the birds and wasps drain them. The kids are eating peas like crazy, and we have strawberries and raspberries now, too.

Quilting is something I've wanted to learn in earnest, and while I've made a couple of quilts over the years, I wouldn't say that I really know what I'm doing yet. I'll be starting a new quilt next week, and I'm so looking forward to it! When I was a little girl, I used to spend the night in my dad's old room at my grandparents' house in Webster. Hanging on the wall was a quilt made by one of my grandmother's sisters, Aunt Janie probably. I loved to look at all the fabrics and thought they must have all had the prettiest clothes that the pieces had come from. It wasn't until later that I realized it was probably all fabric from flour sacks during the Depression. American Quilting is starting a block-of-the-month quilt using fabrics from the 1930s, and I squeaked into one of the last spots in the group. I'll post pictures of my "surprise" blocks, as I won't know what the finished product will look like until it's actually done!

Off to pick up Kitty Boy from band and take Tinkerbell to a doctors appointment.