Yeah! My first post for 2009!

I am seriously in need of keeping up with this blog. I love writing, I like writing about daily things, yet this blog eludes me for some reason. I much prefer the format of this then the other blog I barely keep up with (Livejournal). Yikes!

I have picked up stitching again...here and there....but so many things compete for my interests lately. I've started the Denali Institute for the study of Runes and I am currently working on the Elder Troth, the pre-lore precursor to the Lore Program through the Troth. I like reading and studying stuff like that. It keeps my mind sharp and focused.

I have met many wonderful people at Trothmoot 2009 and some have added me to their Facebook lists. It's good to see what's going on with their daily lives and to see other people I do have some things in common with. I hope to get to know other people better.

It is also great to have found some of my former stitching buddies *waves to them* I am trying to keep up with them and their stitching progress...I confess...my albums leave a lot to be desired but it's encouraging and inspiring to follow their progress and see the projects they are working on now.

I am in the midst of a Tarot bag exchange and have the needed materials to work on my bags for my exchange partner. She has already mailed hers off to me...I must get cracking!

So...how do I make a blog that fits all of my interests? Tarot, Heathenry, Lore, Stitching and other things of interest...including some stuff from Law from my studies when I was in school.
I guess I could make sub-blogs, but have a hel of a time keeping up with just this one. So I guess I'll post what I feel like and deal with it then. So many interests...so little time.

At least I got the entry in for 2009, lmao!

I'm currently getting my apartment ready to rehouse an african grey parrot...might even blog about that experience. We shall see!

I love writing to myself and for those who even bother to read this or follow me, thanks. I'm glad you care about what I think and I hope to hear what you think on your blogs too.

W.I.P.'s and update (somewhat)

Yep, I figured I'd better put in another post before NOVEMBER comes knocking on my door.
Lately I've been itching to stitch and have found some great freebies on the internet (all legal) mostly from a great thread on EMS's freebie forum (thanks to Birthe who keeps it up and others who contribute). It's strange....I feel like Rip Van Winkle in many ways as I took a hiatus from stitching for about three years due to a heavy courseload in college...I graduate and things have seemed to change so much!!!! But I am fortunate to have run into some of my stitching friends from a previous group so it's good to touch base with some people that I do know.

My current "small" w.i.p.'s are the skinner sisters "Runic Alphabet" http://www.skinnersisters.com/ I plan to turn it into a rune bag for my runes that the bradness and kids have gifted me for Mother's day.

I'm also stitching a redwork snowflake, I need to make two more then it will be *hopefully* a three sided ornament. At Michaels today, they had some glass beads with pearls at 50% so I grabbed a thread to incorporate with this ornie. I'll post pictures when I figure out how to upload and get around this blog!

Overall, it's nice considering that I haven't stitched in ages. I also finished a tiny squirrel that I have dubbed "Ratatosk" and will make him into a small scissors fobs. Anyone have a great site that shows interesting ways to make a fob? Please share!

I just kitted up Witches Stitches "Nordic Rune Sampler". Most likely it's my next project and probably will be a long-term Work in Progress....I tend to want to start more things then finishing them.

It's funny...when I started stitching ages ago, it's amazing how my tastes in stitching have changed...I went from my amish phase when I started out... to dragonflies....to many things...now I see with the changes in the three years I have been "out of the loop"...I'm wanting to try my hand at a biscournu to having a growing interest in blackwork and redwork. Overall, while I see that an interest in cross stitch has waned a bit, there is still plenty out there for me to get involved again. Over all, it's a great feeling. I feel like I'm "coming home" again so to speak.

Wooo hoooo.....my fingers itch to stitch again!!!!!

I suppose I should post more then once a year....

I tried the Livejournal thing...it is not for me. I think I will stick with this genre and with a few sister stitchers who have blogs here already, I think I will build up this blog instead. I hope to be able to incorporate most of my interests here. Time will tell. We shall see and all that jazz.....

Gigi is now in a nursing home full-time and much further then I am able to drive to see here as often as I would like. I miss her. She is depressed and slowly declining. I try to do what I can, but there isn't much I can do.

I have graduated October 7th and once I get the childcare situation figured out, will be seeking full-time employment as a paralegal/legal secretary/law clerk...whatever I can do to get my foot in the door. It shall be interesting to see where I end up.

I will be signing up for a woodcarving class in December. I am interested in learning more about woodworking and carving and eventually furniture making. My great-grandfather (Gigi's father) made furniture. My dresser in my room is made by him. His father before him was a harness and buggy maker, so we have a rich history of working with our hands. I am also a lucky recipient of a cross stitched piece of linen by my great-grandmother (Gigi's mother) I will have to post a picture. The back is absolutely pristine and so neat...so I have much to strive to match.

I am currently working on a mini blackwork rune sampler by Skinner Sisters and hope to make it into a pouch for my runes. I shall have to post that. I hope to complete it by tonight.

Other than that...now I will have more free time now that school is over and I shall look forward to building up this blog, keeping in touch with old friends, and hopefully making new friends as well.

Gigi

They put my grandmother into a nursing home yesterday for rehab purposes. She will be there for physical therapy and to heal for 21 days, then hopefully she will be able to go home and resume her life. She was doing so well on her own, this was her first "serious" fall. She will be 89 in March.

I spent most of yesterday with her in her room. She was out of it. No pain meds, no sleeping pill, just exhausted. It was hard listening to her tell me that my eyes were bloodshot from swimming in the pool and that I shouldn't swim in the pool when there is a blanket of snow on the ground. (There wasn't any pool and any snow.) I then watched her eat a bowl of cereal and spill it all over her in the middle of a conversation with me and there was no bowl of cereal. She was upset and asked me to help her clean it up. I told her I would take care of it and distracted her with another topic of conversation. This is not my grandmother. She went from vibrant, feisty woman to talking about random things. I talked to the Nurse Manager of the wing she's in and he told me that it's normal, they've seen it before. She is overtired, new schedule and disoriented. I'm hoping it's because she is over-tired. He assured me that they would check for UTI. as sometimes elderly get disoriented if they have a Urinary Track infection and they aren't getting enough liquids.

It was hard watching my Grandmother having to punch a button for someone to help her to go to the bathroom as they don't want her getting up and going herself. It was hard watching and waiting until someone was freed up to help her. I would have helped her if I was trained to do so, but knowing me, I would have hurt her or something and wouldn't be able to live with myself if something else happened to her. All I could do was be her voice that day. I could see the staff rolling their eyes if I asked a question or reported something not "normal".

Yesterday I realized my grandmother was really a "person". It's funny when you think about it. I know she is a person, with thoughts, feelings and opinions etc. but to help her go to the bathroom, to give her toilet paper...it's stuff you just don't imagine your grandparents ever doing...hard to explain into words. She transformed from this lively, tiny woman who would chase me with a wooden spoon if I misbehaved (heh heh) to this frail woman who needed my help. She was like my second mother as she took care of my sister and me when my parents divorced. She taught me to bake and to sew and told me stories about her childhood and her family.

I'm researching her family because I want to know where I came from. What the people were like that I descended from. I share what progress I make with her and she smiles with delight. I have always lived to make her smile. We share a lot of things in common, one of which we both have a hearing problem and we both wear hearing aids.

I'm hoping this isn't the start of the "decline" in which, the fall jolts something loose in her. I hope this isn't the start of her not being able to live on her own anymore. I am keeping an eye on her house as is my sister (who lives the next block over) and I was told I could go over there to do laundry instead of fighting the woman down the hall from my apartment. (The laundry wars, another blog post in itself!) I will leave a few bucks on the table for my uncle to pay the bills for the use of water and electricity. No sense in adding to the family "talk" about my taking advantage of the situation. (I'm not, but idle tongues have nothing else to talk about, especially my Uncle's wife.)

I see my grandmother getting more frail and I am faced with the fact that we are all getting older. Death no longer scared me as it once did when I was younger. I have my own thoughts and feelings on the matter. I see how it affects others and I look at my children and think, "one of these days...they will think/feel/wonder" like I have.

Life is a big circle, no beginning and no end. It just goes around and around and around like the seasons. Some seasons are more fruitful then others, some are more drier, some more pleasant, but it continues and moves onward.I am taking my youngest child, Spudgey, aged 4 with me to visit Grandma today while the laundry is running at her house. I know with her red hair, she will be a delight to Gigi (as she is called by my children) as Spudgey has inherited the red hair from her. I'm sure Spudge will make new friends at the home as will I.

Life, it goes on. When Gigi moves on, I will see bits of her in my daughter's red hair. Yes, Life, it does go on.