Is It Naptime Yet

This is just a post of a few things that have happened lately.

First off Eden did the cutest thing last night. I had a stomach ache after introducing mashed potatoes to my diet and was telling Jon how my back hurts when I get these stomach aches. Eden overheard and brought me a little pillow from their things because she wanted to help me since I had a sore back. ( I’ve been using another pillow, so she knew pillows help my back.)

Last night Lilah had turned off the TV while I was getting Eden her sandwich. I had been watching some entertainment shows, my guilty pleasure, when I came back in Lilah was sitting on the couch with a Friend magazine opened and wanted it to be quiet so she could hear Heavenly Father read to her.

Lately it seems we haven’t been eating together that often. I eat when I need to so I’m not always at the table for meals. This morning when I sat down with the girls I realized it must have been a while because all they wanted to do was talk, and not eat, a sign that we’ve been separate at meals.

Some of their favorite things to talk about include: black widows and tarantulas and how we should kill them or stay away from them, kids who are mean and what to do when they are mean, why they are mean and why we should not be friends with mean kids, and mommy having another baby, which I’m not, but they would like me to.  I know there are other very redundant conversations, but those are the three that stick out in my mind.

We’re not a big beef eating family. In fact I buy no beef products to make at home, only when we go out do I eat beef, and that’s only if we eat fast food, but we are eating more chicken than I would like, and need to cut back on certain things, like pre-made meals. ( I just love Trader Joe’s  Chicken Pot Pies and Mandarin Orange Chicken, though it’s not like I can eat it right now.)

Anyways, Mark Bittman, a New York Times Columnist and author has been talking about the effects of meat and the meat industry, more specifically in an article called Rethinking the Meat Guzzler and his book Food Matters.

To put the energy-using demand of meat production into easy-to-understand terms, Gidon Eshel, a geophysicist at the Bard Center, and Pamela A. Martin, an assistant professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago, calculated that if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan – a Camry, say – to the ultra-efficient Prius. Similarly, a study last year by the National Institute of Livestock and Grassland Science in Japan estimated that 2.2 pounds of beef is responsible for the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide emitted by the average European car every 155 miles, and burns enough energy to light a 100-watt bulb for nearly 20 days.

This isn’t the only reason to not eat as much beef, and farmed animals, but I’m not going to list them. Go read the article and find out for yourself why  we should eat less meat and in essence help our environment and our own health.

I missed the actual inauguration due to enjoying some time in bed with my girls, but I loved watching this.

Since I’m feeling more myself at this particular moment I’ll make my 5 things list.

1. A husband who takes wonderful care of me for three days while I’m stuck on the couch in pain.
2. Mini series on DVD to keep me occupied while I am stuck on the couch in pain. Pride and Prejudice and North and South to name the two I’ve watched.
3. Interesting shows on PBS. I love the new season of Masterpiece and we watched some of the Make Em’ Laugh series yesterday too.
4. Kind girls who share favorite stuffed animals with me while I’m sick.
5. Banana’s and 7-Up. I only wish the bananas had been ripe two days ago when this whole thing started and that I had tried the 7-Up sooner, though I may finally be getting better. (Knock on wood.)

I saw this on a friends blog and entered, or was the first of three commenters, and now must do my duty and post it.

The Rules

1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me.

2. Winners, you must post this challenge on your blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!

3. The gift that you send to your Three Friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the Spirit and the Thought That Count!

4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it, sharing appropriate Linky Love!

If you are not one of the Top Three Commenters on this post, you can still play along. Please take the button and post it on your blog; start your own Pay It Forward chain, and encourage your blogging friends to do the same!

I will add you have an option of what I might make you:

Apron
Truffles- around 20, though I don’t know how these will ship so if you live out of state, this probably isn’t an option.
nursing cover
cookies of some creative sort, or your favorite kind.
two baby swaddling blankets
I’ll sing you a song- ha, I’m just kidding on this one.

Or if by some chance you can think of something I made on this site that you would like me to make you you can tell me, as long as it doesn’t cost more than $20 to make, I am on a budget. 😉 If you want me to surprise you, it may be something comepletely different than what’s on this list.

Also it says I have 365 days to get it to you, so I’m hoping to get it to you in the first 182 days. 😉

This week I was a part-time parent. I had the girls Tuesday and Thursday and The other “parent” had them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Yeah, I was sewing or doing something sewing related on my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so Beth and her daughters watched the girls.

Tuesday I babysat for Kristi and did other things. Thursday I watched Britta in the morning for Sam and then after lunch we went over there to let the kids play and to sew and serge the pajama pants. Serging them was so much easier than french seaming and I know if I ever decide to sew for money I will invest in a serger.

Beth had the girls from 9:30 am till 2:30 or 3 pm when they were over there. They were very well behaved and let me tell you always excited to go over. I packed school stuff to do, though on Monday they were so engaged in playing with the Lincoln Logs and animal toys that Beth didn’t want to stop and do school stuff with them. Beth is a firm believer in letting kids play and do things for as long as they are engaged, as to help with attention spans. The longer they can do things without being directed the better.

Beth is one of the few people I people I trust with having my girls for long periods. Her and her daughters are so good to my girls and they really take an active part, especially Hannah who probably played more than she should have, and should have done more school work, since the girls were there during school time.

I finished all the sewing Friday, and sewed the buttons on at Beth’s house since I was lonely and not feeling well on Friday. I thought it was due to not getting enough sleep and not eating as much as I should have. Jon and I went to the movies that night while my parents watched the girls. I had a sore neck the whole time because of the position of the chair.

With having sore muscles I borrowed a heating pad from my mom and used it Friday night. It helped but I woke up Saturday morning with a low fever, headache, a hurting stomach, and I felt nauseous whenever I stood for too long.

Jon took good care of me and the girls all day since I’m a baby when sick and couldn‘t do much. I  just laid or slept on the couch the whole day, taking breaks to go to the bathroom and to take a short nap with Eden in our bed.

Today since I am feeling mostly myself, I still get a little lightheaded when I stand for too long and tummy aches after eating, Jon is studying all day and has sequestered himself in our room. I’m in charge of the girls and I’m hoping to resort to a day of movie watching only if they start fighting a lot since I really don’t want to deal with fighting today.

I’m just grateful I was able to get all the sewing done before I got sick. I think my body may have known that my stress would be going away and it was OK to get sick, though it wasn’t an ideal time for Jon since he’s in school and needs regular studying time.

Life will be back to normal and, at least for a long time, I don’t see  myself being a part-time parent. It was lonely being by myself on the days Beth was watching my girls. I had no one to show me the cute things they were doing or to watch me as I sewed.

I like being a full-time parent.

Time for some random pictures I’ve taken lately, though they each have their own reason, I just don’t want to make several posts about each subject and instead will roll them into one.

Here is Eden holding cutie pie Zarina when Andrea and Brien were down.

I just think they’re cute.

Next, while on vacation Jon decided to grow a beard. The only problem, I can’t stand kissing him when he has facial hair, and I have no idea how any woman can kiss a man with a beard or mustache.

To remedy this, Jon shaved around the mouth and left just a  beard along his jaw line.

I kept calling him Amish, which he didn’t mind, and I teased that he could have been in a Weird Al video.

It grew on me if his glasses weren’t on, it was a little rebellious, but once the glasses were on all I could think was Amish.

I dared him to go to work with the beard, but he shaved it off.

Giving me a silly look.

Hello Brother Jonathan, or whatever the Amish call each other.

Deep in thought. The funny thing is this and the eyebrow lift, are probably two of the most used poses of Jon’s. He’s so silly.

The next set of random pictures are of my necklace.
No one has asked to see it, but I love it so much, partially because I love my girl’s names so much, I had to post pictures of it.

Next we have the nursing cover I made for Sam. It has a piece of boning that bends and opens the top of the cover to help the mom see her child and what’s going on down there.

The blankets are made of lightweight flannel since she’s having Matilda in the winter, but I don’t think the weather has gotten the memo that it’s winter. It was like 70 degrees today. Very crazy weather this year. The week we had snow has probably been the longest and coldest and then everything else has been above average temperatures.

Lastly, here are my silly girls wearing every dress up necklace and items we have practically.

Today I made an impromptu lunch outing to McDonald’s on our way home from gymnastics. I didn’t want Lilah going in the play area in her socks or bare feet so I told her to keep her shoes on.

She had a very, very hard time with this.

She was about to go in and then she came  back to me.

“It says ‘No Shoes’. I can’t go in.”

“It’s not a big deal. Mommy says you can go in there with shoes.”

Then she whispers in my ear, “I don’t want you to go to jail.”

I chuckle a little and I reply, “I won’t go to jail. Only people who do really bad things go to jail.”

Luckily the play place police weren’t around, otherwise I may have gone to hamburger jail for having my girls break the no shoes allowed rule.

On a side note, the substitute who taught Lilah’s class just came by to drop something off and she just gave some wonderful compliments on how well behaved Lilah was, but also how impressed she was that Lilah read the word “trust” when she wrote it on the board and that Lilah was so smart and was answering a lot of questions. I love my good girl.  She surprises us with words she knows. Last night we got some Greek and Latin root flash cards and she read ‘friendship’ in the back of one.

My friend Beth’s daughter, Hannah, is going to be in the play Aladdin for her acting class. She needs her costumes sewn, and Beth asked me and I said yes.

I thought it was a shirt and some pants, but it’s a shirt, pants, sash, long gown, like a Shepard, with a cover coat, also like a Shepard, it’s literally from a nativity pattern. (I don’t blame Beth though because she didn’t know how much had to be sewn until we looked at the web page.)

Oh, since we were both so busy with the Holidays I have a week, maybe a week and a half to sew them. The play is on the 23rd, but of course they have dress rehearsal earlier that week.

Beth and her daughters be watching the girls for me when they can so they’re not totally neglected and so Lilah will still get some school in.

I’ll be cutting out the patterns tomorrow and the fabric on Monday. Hopefully I can start sewing something Tuesday and be done by Friday.

Most of the things are relatively easy, the shirt will be the most difficult part.

I don’t know what we’ll be eating over the next week, so maybe I should go to Smith’s and stock up on Pizza’s, or have Beth pay me in dinners, though she doesn’t cook much so she’d be buying them and that would total more than I’d want to have her pay me. She’s wanting to pay me, but I’m not really wanting her to pay me, except it is a lot, but she does a lot for us.

I think I’m crazy.

On an up note I did sew yesterday and finish some gifts for my friend Sam. I’m giving them to her tomorrow so I’ll post pictures after I know they’re in her hands. It felt really good to sew and create something, since I was kinda avoiding my machine for some unknown reason during the holiday.

I think I now know why I was avoiding it.

Yesterday I was inspecting my incredibly ugly scars from different mole removals before I got into my shower and I noticed pigment in the scar of a mole that was removed last September, or whenever my last dermatologist appointment was.

I was freaked out when I saw this.

You see the last time I had pigment in a scar they sutured me for a second time on my right shoulder. This mole was also on the right shoulder. I didn’t know if the tests had shown it was precancerous or not because if they think they’ve removed all the cells they don’t call you and let you know, they just wait till your next appointment.

So while I took my shower I wondered what the heck I was gonna do if they had to suture and I knew they were going to need to suture me because 4 out of the 5 moles I knew the results to were precancerous, and so this mole, statistically, probably was too.

I wondered why I hadn’t noticed it sooner.

Sure it was on my back and I don’t normally do body inspections, plus when Jon sees enough skin to see my scars he’s not thinking about my scars, let alone inspecting them.

I was just upset that I hadn’t looked at it sooner. If I had it could have been sutured while Jon was on vacation over the last two holiday weeks, where as now he was back to his regular meeting attending schedule and to take even a week off would be difficult. I’d have to deal with my aching, healing shoulder, needy kids, and messy house all alone, and he’d have to do double duty for a couple weeks until I could even bend over to put or take dishes out of the dishwasher.

This sucked.

I took a little longer shower than I normally do as I tried try to let my mind settle on the thought of another surgery.

I remembered the pulling of my skin as the doctor put stitches in my shoulder and the piercing pain like needles being pushed deep within my shoulder when I did too much. Feeling like needles are in your shoulder I guess is a natural affect of having layers of skin and tissue removed.

I also envisioned my scarred body as I got yet another long scar in my right shoulder.

I was becoming a regular cross stitch, just with ugly results, not beautiful pictures.

I knew I needed to call my doctor’s office to confirm my suspicions, but once out of the hot shower I dried off and put my robe on and the first thing I did was instant message Jon. Instant messaging is how I keep in touch with him throughout the day, or whenever we need to talk.

“I just noticed pigment in a mole Dr. Betten removed in September. I’m going to call to see if it was precancerous and if it was she’ll have to suture it, if it wasn’t precancerous I imagine it won’t matter.”

I sent the message and then called my doctor’s office.

I dialed the number and waited.

“Dr. Betten’s office, will you please hold?”

“Yes.”

I listened to the sunny hits being played on the other end of the line, somewhat mocking my depressed mood.

“Hello, this is Tammy, how can I help you?”

I rattled off my situation as quickly as possible, not wanting to take too much time, but also wanting to get the information I needed as soon as possible.

“Hi, um, I’m a patient of Dr. Betten’s and I just noticed pigment in a mole she removed the last time I saw her. My name’s Lacey Blake. The last time this happened the mole had been precancerous and needed to be sutured so I was wondering if you could look at the results and see if it was precancerous and if I needed to come in sooner than my March appointment?”

“OK, let me get your file. Hold one minute.”

onto the night
Hold onto the memories
I wish that I could give you something more
and I could

“Hi Lacey, the tests turned out just fine.”

“The test from my last appointment?”

“Yeah.”

“On my right shoulder? It wasn’t precancerous?”

“Yeah, it wasn’t precancerous, you don’t need to come in.”

Huge burden lifted from my shoulders.

“Great! Thank you so much.”

Jon finally replies to my instant message.

“Sorry, I just noticed your IM. If you call, can you make my appointment, pretty please. Check my calendar, but mornings are usually safe.”

“I just hung up.”

“Darn.”

Just a short note:

I’m thinking of writing a personal memoir of my experiences with my mole removal and scars, coming to terms with a body I don’t always like and hopefully learning that being cut and tested piece by piece is a good thing in the long term.

It’s also to help me improve on my writing skills.

This is more of a personal post about what my morning was like yesterday, but I think it will be very similar to the style of writing I want to practice; drama with comic relief and then possibly some posts with comedy and dramatic relief, though I think writing comically will be a stretch for me.

It’s probably going to be more of a memoir for me, but I may post it, or the chapters on my blog, or make a separate blog, or keep it to myself. I haven’t decided yet.

Was this interesting to you at all or am I just a narcissus?

What would you improve upon writing wise?