It’s been almost 3 weeks and I still can’t talk about it much. It was time. She left us with dignity and grace, just as she lived her life. She will always have a special place in our hearts and memories.

This is Cate our neighbor and dog sitter. We got Heidi right after Cate and her family moved in next door. In middle school she started a pet sitting business. She just finished her junior year in high school and has been the greatest friend to all of our animals. When she heard that we were preparing for the inevitable she came over to say goodbye. You can tell by the looks on both of their faces how much they loved eachother.

This is my best friend Jayne with Heidi the day before we made our final journey. Jayne and I have taken our dogs to the local off leash forest preserve for years. She also dog sits for us when Cate isn’t available. She came by to say goodbye and offer her love. Again, it is obvious how much Heidi touched lives.

Had to do the total BORG routine last night. My new dentist thinks that some of my jaw problems may be caused or aggravated by sleep apnea or other sleep disturbances so she ordered a sleep study. I had to suit up with a plethora of wires, probes and other paraphernalia to test how I sleep. I don’t think I have a sleep problem that wouldn’t be solved by sleeping in an isolation tank with no snoring husbands, snuggling dogs, or purring cats. We’ll see what the results tell me.

Now that I frightened away the last 4 readers with that scary ass picture of my bedtime mug (trust me, there was an even scarier picture that if I get cranky enough I will pull out to scare away the rest of you intrepid readers!) I will leave you with some pretty to cleanse your eyeballs.

Still not pretty enough? How about this?

I had an appointment with a new dentist yesterday. I’ve never been so happy when I got home from a medical appointment in my entire life except for maybe after my LASIK surgery.

For the past 20+ years there have/had been three things about my physical self that have given me grief. Number one was my years of endometriosis. From practically my first period on I suffered terribly from pain and all kinds of other nasty things. The only times I had any relief were when I was pregnant and nursing. A hysterectomy about 4 years ago changed my life. The second was my extreme near-sightedness. I got my first pair of glasses at 7 years old. When I finally got LASIK surgery and could wake up and go to the bathroom with out fumbling around my bedside table for my glasses it was like my life started all over again. The third has been the pain and immobility I have had with my TMJ since college. I don’t remember specifically when my jaw problems started but I think it was sometime between when my braces came off at age 13 and getting my wisdom teeth out my freshman year of college.

I’ve sought treatment for this problem from every dentist I’ve seen for the past 20 years. I even went back to my original orthodontist (who probably caused it in the first place). I’ve had numerous bite guards and other dental appliances fitted. But they never got to the root of the problem. They also always fell short because most of them were made to be worn at night while I slept and while I do grind my teeth in my sleep I also clench my teeth all day, every day. I needed something I could wear while talking, eating, and just generally going about my daily activities. I also needed someone to look to the cause of my problem and not just treat the symptoms.

I think I may have just found those people. Yesterday’s appointment was initially for a general cleaning and TMJ consultation. One of the things they did was measure just how far I could open my mouth. 23 millimeters. That’s right, I can only open my mouth about 2 and a half centimeters. SMALL grapes are about the only whole food I can fit in my mouth, every thing else has to be cut up.

Also the hygienist that cleaned my teeth is also a TMJ sufferer and for once I didn’t have a hygienist that just didn’t get it that I had to take a break every 3-4 teeth to rest my jaw muscles. She didn’t continually berate me to “open wider” and “don’t bite down on that!” or “I’ll be done in a minute.” There have been dentist visits in my past where I was literally crying in pain, in my face and jaw not my teeth, by the end of my visit. The best part was that at the end of the visit they used a cold laser on my jaw muscles and joints to relieve that pain and inflammation that was inevitable from holding my mouth open for over an hour.

Even with all that special care and consideration I’m still in pain today. But I do have hope that maybe sometime in my future I may have relief from the last bane to my existence.

With her gone for a week Emma and I are once again on our own. Last year we booked a couple nights at an indoor water park resort north of Chicago. It was great having some time together without Dad and Sarah. Being the youngest she and I don’t get a lot of just Mom and Daughter time together. This year we hadn’t really planned anything ahead of time.

Sunday night we were just hanging out watching television and talking. Because the weather forecast was so good I thought an outdoor adventure was a good idea. Many people have been telling me for 18 years that Starved Rock was a great place to see but I’d never gotten down there. I got online and when I realized that it was less than a 2 hour drive from here and practically on the way to my niece in Iowa’s I had a plan. We would spend a day or so hiking and then drive to Iowa to see our new cousin/niece. Steve looked up rooms available in the area and we had a room booked for Monday night using his many Marriott points.


We headed out Monday morning and were hiking by noon. We hiked for almost 4 hours the first day. The weather was perfect. Just hearing Emma exclaim over and over, “this is awesome!” “I love this place!” “OMG, look at that!” made every sore muscle worth it. After all our hiking we headed back to Peru and our hotel for some rest. After a game of Phase 10 and a change of clothes we headed across the parking lot to Target to buy bathing suits because we didn’t think to pack any and then to Red Lobster for dinner. We enjoyed a great meal of “Chum Stuffed Fungi” (stuffed mushrooms) and crab legs and I had one of those ginormous Lobsteritas, the waitress was all, “You know that drink is huge right?” I was like, “You’ve never met me but trust me, it’ll be fine. Plus I only have to get about 100 yards to the hotel.”

We ended the evening with an hour in the hotel pool and hot tub. Even though it was spring break we didn’t have to share the pool with anyone. I guess Peru, Illinois isn’t on the top 100 list of spring break destinations.

The next morning we headed back to the park to hike to a couple of canyons we’d missed the day before. We were sore and tired but we had looked online the night before at photos taken in these canyons and felt the extra hiking was worth the effort. It paid off. The first canyon we hiked to that morning was the LaSalle Canyon and we were the first ones back there that morning.

It was so beautiful and peaceful, like a natural cathedral. I’m glad we hadn’t made it that far the day before because we would have been too tired to enjoy it and there would have been a bunch of other people there too.

We then made a quick stop at the Lodge for a potty break and ice cream cones. I learned that hiking around waterfalls when you have to pee is really uncomfortable! Our last hike was to the St. Louis Canyon where the tallest waterfall in the park can be found. Again, definitely worth the hike.

I took almost 100 pictures during the 24 hours we were there. You can see most of them on my Flickr page

I’m now looking into selling my super 100-300mm zoom lens and buying a 14mm wide angle and the fast 50mm that I’ve always dreamed of and heading back down there as the seasons change. You can bet Emma will be joining me for many more of these trips as well. I’m looking forward to it, I have been since about 6 hours after we got home last night!

Emma and I took a little mini-spring break Monday and Tuesday (I’ll post about that in a few.) and we topped our trip off with a brief stop in Iowa to welcome Kolbie and take gifts to her and her big sister Kaija.
Emma made this cute flannel kitty pillow for Kaija.

I made this little busy bag for Kaija and filled it with coloring books, stickers and Easter story books.

Kolbie got a quilt. (And my brother Scott got another girl!)

I made this quilt out of the Tula Pink Hushabye fabrics. It is only about 36″ square so it will make a nice stroller blanket or car seat cover. I really like the block pattern for this. It looks complicated but is really easy to assemble. It would be even easier if I used the precuts from Moda that it was designed for originally. But cutting the squares and sashes isn’t that hard, just time consuming.

It was nice to get back to my sewing room and to actually make something again. Now I just have to get back up there and clean up the mess I made! I still don’t have the actual sewing area set up the way I’d like it but just doing something is a start.

On other sewing news, I’m going to be teaching some sewing classes at the new Bernina dealer in town! I talked with the owner last week and we are still working out the details of what and when but it looks like I will be starting with some kids’ sewing classes this summer. I’ll update the blog with more information when I have it!

Go here and comment to enter!!!!

Thursday night I got home from final dress rehearsal for the Christmas show Emma and I are in at the Albright Theater and Sarah practically met me at the door to tell me to go onto my Facebook account immediately. While we were gone she had gone on my computer to do some homework and she read on my Facebook page a bunch of entries from my online friends that something had happened to a friend of ours. I logged on to find to my horror that our friend Traci had been killed that day. It got more horrific from there. (Story is here.) A typical commute home from work ended in tragedy and lives are forever changed.

Friday was filled with friends coming together, trying to find others that had not been in touch for a while and generally sharing in our shock, grief and disbelief. We also gathered in our virtual world to share memories, laughs, and support in a way not understood by others who don’t have this kind of community and don’t get how a group of women from all over the country and world could ever be this close. Some of us have met in person but the majority of us only know each other through our keyboards and modems. That doesn’t change the depth of our friendship and may even be the reason why we are so close. The anonymity of the internet gets blamed for crappy mean behaviour all the time but sometimes it also takes away the barriers people put up and enables us to be more open and honest with each other. This group of friends have shared the joys of new relationships, births, new jobs, new homes and the pain of divorce, accidents, lost jobs, deaths and other family tragedies.

Traci was a catalyst for our group staying together through some really bad times. She was always there for us even when things were pretty crappy for her. She shared her joys and pain with us and helped us understand our own difficulties better and get through them. She never hesitated to open herself up to us. She could find the joy in the simplest things and make us smile in spite of ourselves. Another friend described her as “a heart with legs”. One time early on in our friendship on one of the early message boards where we all “met” for the first time a silly online personality test, “What’s Your Rockstar Name” was circulated. She was given the moniker of “Shimmy Diamond” and it stuck. It personified her perfectly, she was a rare jewel that shimmered and shined her light on every one and everything around her.

The last time I saw Shimmy in person was at our last pool party of the summer. She and her fiance Jase drove down here from Grayslake after I put out a general invitation to everyone on my Facebook page. My friends and neighbors were immediately charmed by her. A few of them couldn’t believe that we had met online and had only gotten together face to face once before. We knew so much about each other and it was like she must have lived next door to me for years. She spent a great deal of time loving on the dogs, especially Heidi. When Emma mentioned that she had a snake Traci insisted that she bring Bindi downstairs so she could see her. She cuddled and admired that snake for almost an hour! There was no limit to her love and wasn’t shy in sharing it.

She and Jase had been together about 3 years. Over that time they had had their troubles but had finally worked through them and she was so happy and in love. They were planning to get married in January. Jase has three young children from his first marriage that Traci took into her heart like they were her own. She was loving having little kids to share the joy and fun of Christmas with again. Her son is 18 and just graduated from high school last spring. He has been her life and bedrock through it all. I can’t even imagine the lose he is suffering right now. I do know that he was the light of her life and she did a fabulous job of raising an amazing young man and that love and foundation will serve him as he grows into a man in spite of this tragedy.

If Traci’s life could be summed up in one simple motto it would be, “Don’t postpone Joy!”

Right now I’m having a hard time finding any joy in my world but I’m looking for it. Today I found joy in seeing Heidi go out into the snow and roll around on her back like a puppy again. I found joy in driving my girls to school even though they missed the bus and it took time out of my day, it gave us a few extra minutes together and time for me to say I love you before they left for their day. I found joy in asking my online friends for some extra love this morning because I was finally allowing myself to experience my grief after holding it all in for the weekend and they returned it in spades. I am looking forward to the joy of not having anywhere to go tonight and being able to spend it at home with my girls just hanging out.

What brings you joy?

I have been knitting and crocheting a lot lately. Mostly in the evenings in front of the tv. I have about for different projects going right now. I just pick up whatever strikes my fancy and do a little on it at a time. Unfortunately never enough to actually finish anything though.

Last month when the new Knitty came out I was trying to find the perfect project for the new Cascade Greenland yarn that my LYS had just gotten in. I fell in love with this yarn and its rich deep colors. Cascade 220 has been my go-to yarn for a while and this one had all that and more. When I saw the Girl Friday pattern I knew I’d made a match. I bought the yarn and had the back done in less than a week. The fronts didn’t take much longer. But I’m stuck on the sleeves. I have crazy long monkey arms and I planned to add a bit of length to the already long sleeves but I misread the pattern and knit them even longer than intended. I was thinking I’d have to frog a pattern repeat before moving on. But last week I did a little remeasuring and decided they would be okay as-is. But I still haven’t picked it back up and finished off the sleeves. I could’ve been done and wearing this by now but I’ve lost my momentum.

(I apologize for the crapitude of these pictures. It was still dark when I took them but I was motivated so I went ahead anyway.)

The other big project I’ve been working steadily on makes me so happy.

It is the ugly as sin crocheted granny square afghan Emma and I have been doing together. I don’t know what it is about this that just makes me smile whenever I see it. It may be the mismatched bright colors, the fact that we are doing this together or the over all tackiness of the entire thing I don’t know. But it makes me practical cackle in glee. I just grab random balls of yarn, whip up a square and block it whenever the moods strikes. When I have 6 finished squares I crochet them together and add them to the blanket. The plan is to have it be 6 squares by 8 squares when it is finished (each square is blocked to 8 inches) but it may continue to grow beyond that if the mood continues to strike me. I’m glad I’m assembling as I go because otherwise I’d end up with a bag of finished squares and never get around to putting it together and my grandchildren would inherit them someday and just chuck them in a Goodwill bag I’m sure. Also there is no rhyme or reason to the square placement, I just add the last one finished, so the finished project will be about as random as possible. Another reason it makes me happy.

I am playing the part of Mrs. Armstrong in the “Best Christmas Pageant Ever” in December and this afghan may make its stage debut as part of my costume. Mrs. Armstrong is layed up with a broken leg and I think her character would have one of these afghans across her lap while recuperating.

The next to last project I’m working on is another basic crocheted blanket.

Once I learned the basics of the granny square I decided to try just making one big square that kept getting bigger and bigger as a baby blanket. This is some left over Caron Simple Soft I had in the stash from a cardigan I made Emma years ago. I love the bright colors and the soft washable (cheap!) yarn. I don’t know this things final destination. My niece is having another baby in the spring and if it is another girl I may give her this. If not I may just donate it to our church’s Prayer Shawl ministry. They give new blankets to all the new babies born/baptized in our church.

The last project I started recently is a Noah’s Ark and animals from an Alan Dart pattern insert I’ve had lying around for some time. They are intended for my grand-niece at Christmas. We’ll see how far I get. I have the parts for one elephant done so far. No pictures because it is just a bunch of little grey shapes in a pile.

So there you have it. That’s what I’ve been doing recently. There is more going on in my life and now that I’ve made a start on catching up with blog posts you may hear more about the other stuff sooner rather than later.

Today I got it almost completed.

From this.

To this.

This unimaginable mess.

Became this!

I also added some new plants.

I also unburied this bench from under a mountain of weeds and coneflowers and moved it to a better place. Planted at its base are Lady’s Mantle.

One of the biggest parts of the job was dividing about eleventy-billion green and white hostas and moving them to the edges of the driveway. I still have a load and a half of the two-toned green (Frances Williams I believe) ones to divide and use to edge the front (street facing) side of the big bed. You can see them as the big clump in front of the red shrub in the after pictures.

There are some areas that still need work. (mainly weeding)

This gigantic clump of ornamental grass was just three tiny little bits that I transplanted from elsewhere in the yard about five years ago. It is hiding the well.

This has been a LOT of work but it has really been enjoyable. The first weekend I started weeding it out I thought I was going to die! Every muscle and tendon in my body hurt. My toenails hurt. I had rug burns on my forearms and thighs from where I pushed myself up after bending over. By Monday afternoon I was in the groove. I still hurt but not nearly as much. I even got up this morning and took Maizey to the dog park with my friends for a long hike before starting in on today’s work. I’m re-energized. I feel strong again. This is the best I’ve felt physically and mentally since I closed the store. A month ago I was plagued with continuous back spasms. Sometimes just yawning would set one off. I was worried that this would trigger them again but instead it seemed to have healed me. I’m on a roll and I just want to keep going and going as long as the weather cooperates. I’m sure I’ll burn out eventually, I always do. But in the mean time, watch out, I have a weed whacker and I know how to use it.

(I should also take photos of the GIGANTIC weed piles we now have back in our woods and on the compost pile. I think the final count was 5-6 full loads in the John Deere wagon which I think is 3.3 cubic feet. All pulled by hand. Mine.)

Last but not least I have one other garden feature to share. Emma and a friend were playing “CSI” or “Criminal Minds/Profiler” or something one day over the summer. This little guy was their “victim”. He is still chained to the address post out at the end of the driveway next to the telephone switch box and yes, he’s wearing little red plastic handcuffs. I think I now know why our neighbors all think we are a little bit off. (Note to self: maybe it is time to increase the funds in the children’s future therapy account.)

Sooooooo, today you get random thought farts. Lucky you!

Twitter I signed up for Twitter (Follow me! I’m Snarkdog) this summer. I’m still not sure I really get it. I follow about 20 or so people. I find following “famous” people the most interesting thing about Twitter. Jason Mraz sends regular inspiration/gratitude/thought-of-the-day kinds of tweets. (He doesn’t actually type them himself which is kind of a bummer.) It has been interesting to read P!nk’s posts from her Australia tour this summer too. I also follow Dooce and she has just recently started Tweeting a lot. But I have to say, I don’t think if I ranted about crappy customer service anyone would be offering me a free washing machine. I guess having 1000s of blog readers really helps in that regard.

Facebook Oh Facebook, how I love and loathe you! I think I have a serious addiction problem with Facebook. Screw vodka, I walked away from that bitch with hardly a tremor, but take away my social networking and Bejeweled Blitz/Farkle fixes and I may have to be institutionalized. Of course as anyone can tell you, the coolest/scariest thing about FB is that it is like a cyber high school reunion except at this reunion you can avoid the people you hate and those that you don’t want to know that you got fat and did nothing to live up to your potential. (But you can show them that your hair finally recovered from that unfortunate perm you had 1980) I’ve heard many people talk about old flames finding them on FB and just for shits and giggles I did a search for an old high school boyfriend. I found him, didn’t send a friend request. He didn’t go to my high school so we don’t have any friends in common, he did have a friend in common with a couple of my friends but it was like 3 degrees of separation and quite frankly, he was a douche and no one liked him so I doubt he’ll be mixing with my cool crowd anytime soon.

I do have the usual complaints/annoyances with FB as a lot of you do I’m sure. While I do love a stupid quiz to pass the time on occasion, I do get annoyed with the constant stream of them from some people. I equate them to Christmas cards. Follow along with me here. Do you get those Christmas cards from people you’ve known for years but never get to see anymore that are just signed with their names and no note or anything? Or worse, a photo card with pictures of their kids that you’ve never seen in person and the card is “signed” by the computer that created it. I would much rather receive a long treatise of your year in review complete with details of your last surgery and pics of the scars and photocopies of your brilliant 3 year old’s transcripts from Harvard than some bullshit generic holiday greeting. But I digress…These are the same people that do nothing on FB but play games and take stupid quizzes and post EVERY score and result on their feed. (You can disable these notifications and believe me I have!) They never comment on anyone’s status or shared photos. They rarely even update their status. Facebook is about connecting with people, getting to know them better or reconnecting after years apart. It is a dialogue. Also, I don’t care if your cow is missing on Farmville or if you are looking for an exploding cigar in Mafia Wars or what your latest Hatchling became, especially if you are over say, 12 years old.

The other really interesting thing I’ve discovered via Facebook is just how many LGBT people went to my high school. I graduated in a class of 106 students in a very small town in rural Michigan in the mid 80s (1985 to be exact, and yes that song was written about me, why do you ask?) I knew what gays and lesbians were and even knew a few personally but no one was “out” in the way we are familiar with today. My cousin moved to California sometime in the 70s and I remember when he came home to visit with his “friend” (or maybe we were progressive enough to call him his “partner” I don’t remember) and there were assumptions and rumors about a girls’ volleyball coach or two over the years but that was about it. But it seems that the “10% rule*” holds true even in small rural communities. (*Common belief is that 10% of the population is LGBT) Many of my gay/lesbian classmates haven’t attended any of our class reunions over the years and I think it is probably due to the worry that their lifestyle wouldn’t be accepted or understood. I’m hoping that through the buffer of “coming out” on FB and reconnecting with some of us they will realize there is nothing to fear and feel comfortable enough to attend a reunion in the future.

Blogging and reading other people’s blogs. I have been blogging since about ‘01 or ‘02 I think. One of my old original blogs is still floating around out there in Blogspotland and a couple years of original posts to this blog were lost in an unfortunate database accident about 2 or 3 years ago. I come and go with how diligently I post new things. Probably because I change my mind every 6 months or so as to what direction I want to take with my blog. (Which incidentally is why I chose “eclectic mess” as my name because I knew I would change my mind and naming it something with Knitting, Mommy or Crazy in the title wouldn’t make sense in the long run, well except for that last one maybe.)

I really enjoy reading other people’s blogs too. I’m very much a voyeur that way. (Which is also why the game/quiz/signed-card only people annoy me so much I guess.) Right now I only have about 30 subscriptions on my blog reader and I need to weed those out further too. I’ve been adding a few new ones here and there now that I have a little more time to go link surfing and comment reading. I’m always curious to try to figure out how some blogs get so many readers and especially commenters. I’ve never been very good at self-promotion (see: failed business venture 2008). Because I read so many blogs in my blog reader I don’t often see other people’s blog templates or sidebar junk but often to read comments I have to click through to the actual blog. (BTW, if you only have a partial feed sent to the RSS reader, I will drop my subscription to your blog unless I really love you. Just saying.)

This leads me to a question. Can someone explain how BlogHer works? I think I joined it or signed up or posted my blog address there ages ago but never had the time to figure it all out. Recently I found a few new blogs that I really enjoy (Aunt Becky I’m talking about you again in that weird stalker way I have) and I know they are “members” of BlogHer but I still don’t quite understand what is involved and how one goes about getting involved. I’m not sure I’m really down with the big ugly (sorry) advertising thing I see in sidebars across blogland so if that is required I may have to think it over more. The other problem I have (and I have many as you are well aware) is I don’t know how to classify my blog. Is it a craft/knitting/sewing blog? Yes, sometimes. Is it a parenting/mommy blog? Yes, but rarely. Is it a humor blog? Only because if I don’t laugh I may never stop crying. Is it a lifestyle/personal blog? Most definitely, sometimes too personal. But what am I to do? It’s my life.

School started this week Both girls are fine with it. Sarah is a sophomore and Emma is a 7th grader so neither of them had a new school to adjust to so it was pretty smooth sailing yesterday. They both came home with fairly standard first day of school reports. A few weird teachers, a few annoying students, no locker problems and the usual complaints about the bus. I’m trying to acclimate to the 6 a.m. alarm and it has been cold and rainy so I’ve had to drive them to the bus stop. But all in all it is just another school year.

Maizey got spayed a week ago. She is still wearing the “cone of shame” because she is a tad bit obsessive about her stitches. She slams around the house and into things and people. It is a quite entertaining and a bit annoying. I tried taking it off her and putting a T-shirt on her but she found a way around that too.

Plus she looked even more ridiculous wearing a “Have you hugged your Big Dog today” shirt than one would imagine.