Re-do!

I can't believe it's May 9th and we had snow last night!! Ugh! Everyone just wants to go outside and walk, or I'd love to just hang out on my patio. Paul and I could roast dogs on the fire-pit..it sucks!!

I posted my Project Life pages yesterday from January and February of this year and I neglected to add photos of Eric and Jenn's birthdays. I'm chalking it up to not having pictures of either of their birthdays on my computer and part of it might be not just because I didn't have pictures but it's May, we're in the middle of a pandemic and I broke or have a hairline fracture of my rib. I'm definitely not thinking clearly.

So, I asked Jenn for pics from birthday (which I should have had since I was there!) and I found a pic of Eric from Christmas that will have to do as I can't find any pics of his birthday. They may have been out of town.

I had to do a bit of rearranging which was easy to do. I do want to add some thoughts here. I bought a Life Print printer a couple of years ago which is great for printing live photos. Everyone in the family has iPhones so that would work great, the only thing they would have to do is download the app to view pics live. But, I have noticed some of my online PL buddies are using Q Codes for their videos. Wondering if that would work with live photos and if it would be easier for the family to view. It's something to think about.

Here's my January pages.

                                

And February...

It's kind of hard going back to when the virus started and writing about it as it's now May. We're in a much darker place now. I'll keep my political views to myself so as to not turn my blog into something it was not meant to be and just put my thoughts in my journal.

As always...

May 5th

Hey! It's Cinco-de-mayo! But more importantly, yesterday was May The 4th Be With You!

Before I go on with my post, I've noticed some pictures I uploaded to my blog have disappeared and were replaced with a minus sign inside a circle. After doing some searching I discovered that Google and Blogger are aware and trying to fix it.

Last week on April 29th was little Elliott's first birthday!! Jenn made her outfit and used her Cricut to make her onesie. She made her skirt too!!

Since we're social distancing and not really going to the store but maybe once every 2-3 weeks, and even then Paul goes since I've had asthma in the past, (he's a good egg) and we don't want to chance it it's very infrequently that I do go out. But, if I wanted to give Elliott a card on her first birthday I needed to make her one. I love making them so this was fun!
Here's the card I made...

I really like how it turned out.

We were able to Zoom with Eric and Jessie. I've never used Zoom before but I hope to play some games with friends or family using it.

Paul has some gorgeous flowers blooming. My whole kitchen looks like spring!!

My favorite

I finished my scarf!! Finally. To be honest, it was a very relaxing and fun knit. I memorized the pattern fairly quickly so I didn't have to keep looking at the chart. The only thing that made it take longer to knit was stopping to add a bead. I do love it though!

It's very light and airy. Perfect for spring and summer!

I've been wanting to knit Elliott a little sleeveless sweater for a while now. It's called the Watermelon Cardi and it's the cutest thing! The problem is, with this lock-down all yarn is bought online and for the life of me I can't get the watermelon color right. The one ball I bought is a pale peach color and the other is a BRIGHT pink, almost florescent. So while I'm waiting for the 3rd ball to come in the mail, I thought I'd make a practice cardi using stash yarn. Thanks to Stephen for my Knitters Pride Cubics I got for Christmas. First time I've gotten to use them and they are a dream! Square needles, who'd of thought?

Notice the little yarn overs look like seeds?

I'm glad this is a practice one because I've discovered the original buttonholes are on the wrong side and the yarn overs need to be staggered. I can fix those two things when I start the non-practice one.

Today my yarn came for me to knit the Wizarding Transportation Scarf from my Harry Potter Knitting Magic book. I'm so excited!!

While we're still hunkering down with the pandemic, some places are slowly opening but with that comes a lot of stupid people. For instance, my sister in law Sue, posted a photo on Facebook of their local ice cream parlor, K-Cream opening. You would think these people have never heard of face masks or social distancing! It's sad for the rest of us who have and do practice it. Who wants to go stand in this line??

A couple of mishaps this week. Logan was at his aunts house in the water and cut his foot on a piece of driftwood...OUCH!

13 stitches!!

And then my neighbor Debra was taking a bowl of boiling water out of the microwave and it spilled onto her foot!! Another huge OUCH!!

As always,

thanks for stopping by.

Wait, what?

I haven't posted since we, the world, have discovered this new virus is invading.

It's the Corona Virus also known as Covid-19. I don't need to explain or elaborate here what it is or how it's affecting me, my family or anyone else (we all know). I will make at least one Project Life page about it for my future generations and I do want to express my feelings.

It's scary.

• Scary in the way it's made social distancing a common phrase. 
• Scary that our nation, the U.S. is so unprepared that we don't really know when we'll be able to get back to some kind of normalcy. 
• Scary in how unprepared the U.S. is by not having enough tests, positive or antibody. 
• Scary in how unprepared we are by not having enough PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for the medical personnel. 
• Scary that our president is using his daily briefings as a platform for the upcoming election in November. 

It's sad.

• Sad because of the quarantine, there are so many kids stuck at home with no food, have abusive parents, friends and family and their only safe place was school.   
• Sad for the people who have no food and have an abusive spouse but their only safe place was work. I pray they call a hotline.
• Sad but also enlightening as to the atrociousness this president has in him to constantly berate, embarrass and harass the news media. It's awful to watch so we don't anymore. 

I'm blessed that I'm not alone at this time. Paul and I play games, watch a lot of tv, we're doing a puzzle together (that freaking thing!) and we get to FaceTime with Ellie almost every day. I truly am grateful to live in such a technological era where FaceTime and the internet including Facebook and especially Instagram are a huge part of my life. I'm also knitting and reading.

So let's move on...
HAPPY EASTER!!
It's a strange Easter that's for sure. We don't have a basket. We don't have a ham. We didn't color eggs. But we did FaceTime with Miss Ellie this morning and we woke up healthy and HAPPY. So I'm grateful and blessed (as I say so frequently here).

 Elliott is now crawling and has 2 teeth!! She can stand really well and has started pushing her little cart all around.

For the last couple of weeks I've been making masks. I contacted my doctors' wife, Kay, and I asked her if she could find out whether or not cloth masks are okay. At the time (a couple weeks ago), I was wearing a disposable mask everywhere I went (I had a box from last year when I was sick but had to go into the office), but the CDC and Dr. Fauci were saying it won't prevent you from getting Corona Virus etc. Come to find out, and this is just my opinion, they didn't want people to run out and buy up all the masks because WE'RE so short on equipment for the healthcare peeps, that they didn't want us to hoard them all. Which is understandable since so many idiots in our country hoard toilet paper and sanitizer it's ridiculous!! But she asked the head of the hospital and it was a resounding YES! So, the hospital was giving out pre-cut fabric and instructions to anyone who would make masks for them. They can use them for the workers not in direct contact with the Covid-19 patients, those people wear the N95 masks.
Anyway...the material they sent was cut wrong 😖. They had the patterned material on the inside AND they ran out of elastic..the whole world has run out of elastic. I called my local Joann's and they had some. When I went to purchase the lady said she just sold it - 64 YARDS OF IT!!! I thought that was a bit selfish. So the hospital sent the extra cut material expecting me to use it to cut long strips to make ties with. Well, 2" x 42" per mask and there's 10 masks? Not with this arthritis. So I bought shoelaces and went with those. Here's some of the hospital masks I made with leftover material I had...

I had a bit of bias tape I used on a couple of the masks. 

So after I made the masks for the hospital using of the pattern they wanted, I found my sister in law, Sue, had this pattern that made so much more sense! It's made exactly like the disposal ones I had been wearing. Much more comfortable and easier to make.
Since elastic is so scarce I was able to use the elastic from the disposables along with the little nose wire for a perfect fit.

I made these for Jenn, Dan and Elliott (although we know Elliott won't wear it, it's cute!)

We drove out to meet Jenn half way to give them Elliot's birthday gifts and for me to get my Cricut back (I lent it to Jenn). We did keep our 6' distance from each other but it tore me apart not to be able to hold, cuddle and kiss Elliott! My heart aches to hold her. I keep telling myself, SOON!

I like that it covers my double chin. WIN!

I ordered something from Target online and this was the first time I'd actually been to a shopping center. Pretty sad but thrilled that Governor DeWine gave the "stay at home" order so early compared to other states.

About a week ago, we had a terrible storm come through. It rained and rained. Paul was talking to his dad and mentioned to him to not forget to check his basement for flooding. We didn't even think about ours! Needless to say, our beautiful basement flooded. Apparently, the switch to our sump pump quit. We had our plumber out and he replaced the sump pump with 2 sump pumps, along with a battery back up and they also come with an app that can alert us.

I felt so very sorry for Paul. He had to remove ALL the carpet and padding by himself. He would carry chunks of the padding upstairs in those large, clear plastic tubs. I could see a few inches of water in them and knew they had to be super heavy. It was all so horrible.

Our first glimpse

Trying to get the pad to dry before taking it to the dumpster. I do have to say, our insurance, State Farm, didn't pay for ANY of it. I'm thinking of looking into Farmers. Paul for some reason feels an obligation to our insurance agent, like he's family or something..he's not.

This is going to be super FUN!!

I finished December 2018 Project Life. A lot happened that Christmas so I have quite a few pages...

This is so strange. I got an email from the nail salon I go to. They were giving out kits for people who had gel nails as a way to help them remove them. I haven't had mine off for years! Anyway, I took them off yesterday and so far they're okay. I've been babying them with frankincense essential oil and hand cream.

Well, I've babbled enough. I hope you have a nice Easter. It will be different as most churches are holding services on the internet and families won't be gathering for Easter dinner. But think about how blessed we are!

As always...

Hey March!

Hi there,

Lots going on as usual but nothing important. Except when I get to spend a few days with Ellie, which is mega important!! And which is what I got to do a couple of weeks ago.

Before reading on, WARNING, this is me venting about my sinus infection and yes I'd like cheese with my whine..thank you. You can skip it if you want.

So I woke up on Friday the 28th with a horrible sore throat which by Saturday morning was no longer a throat problem but had turned into a sinus infection...huge! It was awful. Of course my doctor was booked the next week so I went to the little "wellness clinic" next door. I saw a nurse practitioner (didn't I say after my leg disaster that I would never see a NP again?!), and she tells me that she isn't going to prescribe antibiotics for this since she "thinks" it's viral (I guess since I didn't have a fever) and she told me it would go away on it's own.
Now, I've had sinus issues for 20 years. 15 years ago I had sinus surgery which has really helped but only lasts so long. My doctor ALWAYS prescribes an antibiotic, for my sinus infections (why do they call it an infection if she thinks antibiotics won't help? Aren't antibiotics for INFECTIONS?) Anyway, I know what you're thinking, there's vial and bacterial blah-blah-blah. So, I decided to be the good patient and follow her instructions which was to take Mucinex and these little clear cough pills called Benzonatate. Also use a saline nasal spray (insert eye-roll here) which anyone with a sinus infection can tell you is mute! I continue to feel like shit for 4 more days. NOW, it's in my chest and sinuses. I can't stop coughing and my head feels like I'm in an aquarium. So I call the DOCTOR. He's still booked. Even the girl who answers the phone says "doesn't he usually give you antibiotics?". So she leaves a message for him and says she'll see if he'll call something in. He must have talked to the NP because she calls me the next day. Not feeling better? I said no, I'm actually worse. She calls me in an antibiotic. This is on Thursday. Yesterday I went and bought some Robitusin DM Max. It's now Monday and although I'm getting better, I still have coughing and wheezing issues. I'm using my inhaler 10 times a day and at night I'm taking codeine cough syrup from 2018. I don't care..it helps me sleep without coughing for a good 5-6 hours. I feel like I've wasted a whole week of my life, all because she didn't prescribe an antibiotic!
Paul's such a sweetheart...yesterday morning he say we haven't eaten out for a while, why don't we go to Cheesecake Factory? I was excited but realized I don't have the appetite and my senses are out of wack, so I ask for a rain-check. ABSOLUTELY he says. So we have plans for next Sunday or Monday afternoon to eat there.

Whew...thanks for letting me vent. The last couple of days I've been trying to catch up on my scrapbooks. I'm working on December 2018 but first I discovered a very cool app called MOLDIV. I've had this on my phone forever but never used it so I was able to make a few collages in a 4x6 size, one for December '18 and two for February this year. They turned out great I think...

I did fix the misspelling of turned. 

I love my salt-lamp/eo diffuser I got from Steve for Christmas and diffused a blend for sinus/cough issues all week! It was lovely! The reason I no longer am a "wellness advocate" for the MLM company DoTerra is some heavy post for another time, maybe, but for now I have to say the oils I buy from Edens Garden are amazing! They're pure, reasonably priced and always have FREE-FAST-SHIPPING!
Here's a referral link if you'd like to try their oils Referral and if you do I get points towards future purchases.

My socks are coming right along...

Last night Paul and I watched A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood. IT WAS SO GOOD! I was surprised how much of an impact a sentence in the movie had on me. As you probably already know, Mr. Rogers was all about making kids feel better, especially when going through difficult times. Sitting in a cafe the gentleman in the movie sees Mr. Rogers' vegetable plate and asks if he's vegetarian. Mr. Rogers says "I just can't eat anything with a mother". Most people I talk to who are vegetarian or vegan say they don't want to eat anything with a face, but see what he did here? He related it to kids. I thought that was very cool!

So, I'm off to play in my craft room and keeping my fingers crossed I'm going to get ALL better soon. I have plans!! Tomorrow is calling bingo at the assisted living. Wednesday is a dentist appointment, and Thursday is bunco!!

I hope you have a great week! 

As always, thanks for stopping by.