Seeing Double

Yesterday, while Dan the Carpet Man was working, I picked up Maria and Cordelia and we met Mike and Sam at the mall for lunch.  Before we left their house, though, we let Bumblebee and Bode play.  They hadn't been together for a couple of weeks while Bumblebee recovered from a little surgery.  They were SO happy to see each other.  It was sweet.

The trip to the mall was fun.  We just kicked around awhile, enjoying time together.  While in Target, I used my cell phone to snap pictures of Cordelia.  She was trying on hats and having fun with a full length mirror.  She couldn't be cuter, could she?

It was just lovely to watch her entertain herself.

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Crocheting Can Be Dangerous!

As I said, Maria and I are going to try our first table at a craft fair this Saturday.

We're delightfully excited!

We've a lot of items to offer but yet I think I should make more and more and more....

I have to be cautious, though.

Did you know you could be injured by crocheting?

Several years ago, while I was still working as an oncology nurse, I crocheted hats for the chemo patients.  A LOT of hats.  I was using small hooks and doing a nice tight crochet and apparently I was pretty intense about it.

I developed a very painful right arm.  I didn't figure it out on my own.  I thought I had some kind of nerve entrapment or something.  I reached the point where it was difficult to even lift my hand without experiencing a sharp pain.  Starting IV's on patients became a miserably painful experience so I finally spoke to my doctor about this weird pain.  I was sent on to a neurosurgeon as the suspicion was still an entrapped nerve.

The neurosurgeon did a careful exam and declared that I had lateral epicondylitis, also known as "tennis elbow".  I likely had a tear in my tendon, which is holding muscle to bone.  I'm telling you, this is not a fun injury.  It hurt WAAAAAY more than having my shin cut to the bone by an evil plate.  Click here if you missed that story.

The neurosurgeon was perplexed, however, as to how I could have developed this.

I do NOT play tennis.

He told me it had to be something repetitive.  I thought and thought and mentioned I had been crocheting a lot in the evenings.  He asked me to show him how I crocheted and when I tried to simulate the movement he smiled and said,

"That's it!"

Later, I heard him chuckling out in the hall while telling someone

his patient got hurt crocheting.

It was kind of funny.

Anyway, I had to undergo 6 weeks of physical therapy, which actually felt pretty good.

I also had to be fitted for a splint.

That was fun because I needed to fill out insurance paperwork regarding my injury.

I remember some questions that made me laugh out loud right there in their office.

How did you get this injury?  CROCHETING

Where were you when this injury occurred?  IN MY ROCKING CHAIR

After the 6 weeks of physical therapy and splint-wearing I was still having a lot of pain that restricted my movement.  Finally, I went back for a steroid injection.  I'd heard that would be quite painful but actually it wasn't bad at all for me.  It brought relief quickly so I was very, very happy. 

I don't really want to go throught that again but I also love crocheting.  After taking a couple of years off I've been doing it now even more than before.  I've had to adapt my ways, though.  I brace my arm a certain way, usually against the arm of the chair or something, and it seems to be doing the trick.  I stop and stretch out frequently as well.

Anyway, enough of that!

Here are some of the things we've been making.

Some will be for the sale and some will be for Wyoming Rose Boutique.

I'm going to figure out how to use Random.org today to choose the give-away winner.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for that announcement!

Have a great day!



My Work Daughter

Yesterday I had a lovely morning visiting with my daughter and my "work daughter".

I work from home now but for quite some time I was working at an oncology clinic. 

I really enjoyed working with that patient population, although I hadn't meant to be an oncology nurse...that's a story for another day.

At the clinic, I worked with some really, really great co-workers.  I developed relationships that sustained me through some pretty rough days, friendships that I still value today.  One of those relationships was especially unexpected.

My first summer at the clinic an unfortunate chain of events occurred one week that left me as the ONLY full-time nurse working in an area that needed a minimum of 3 nurses.  A nurse practitioner came to help part of the time, but she wasn't used to working in that area and she had her own responsibilities that she kept having to go do as well.

I was frantic!

It was that week that a new nurse came to work there.

She was in her early 20's and as desperate as I was for help, I admit that I was disappointed to see such a young face arrive.  I'd hoped for someone more experienced, preferably someone with chemotherapy experience.  

Well, as they say, don't judge a book by its cover!

Her name is Kerry and as it turned out, she was like an angel sent from heaven that week.  All I had to do was show her something one time and she was able to remember it.  She was also incredible at taking the initiative and noticing things that needed done without even being told.  She was fearless!  That is not easy when you are thrown into a new situation, especially one as busy as that! 

I'm a middle-aged woman.  It feels weird to even write that because in my head I've not yet grasped that whole middle-aged thing.  Nevertheless, there it is.

This young nurse, Kerry, became one of my best friends.  We don't really have that much in common, I suppose, but somehow we just clicked.  I really came to admire her for her spunk, her intelligence and her nurse's heart.  I also felt very protective of her. 

I worried when Kerry had to face the reality of enduring the death of patients.  We would often get very close to our patients, which was great, but it made a loss all the more painful.  She was so young to have to withstand this heartache so frequently.  One day we were talking about that.  We are both people of faith and I made some comment about when we get to heaven we will know a lot of people.  Kerry was quiet for a moment and then smiled a little smile and said, "Yeah, we'll be the popular girls!"  I knew then she also possessed a quiet strength well beyond her years.

Somewhere along the way, after hearing me speak of "Kerry this" and "Kerry that", my own daughter (who is actually older than Kerry) said that Kerry was like my "work daughter".  It was kind of funny and we often referred to her as that from then on.  Kerry has a lovely mother who is my age.  She's close to her mom and had no "mom void" to fill.  I also have a relationship with my daughter that is beyond anything I ever imaged.  I had no void to fill either.  But nevertheless, a small part of our friendship probably is a bit like mother and daughter.  However it is defined, thinking of Kerry  makes me smile.

One day recently, Kerry asked if I could try to crochet a hat for her baby daughter.  She wanted it to have the look of an owl.  I wasn't sure that I could do it but gave it a try.  Since that day, Maria and I have made many, many hats to sell either on our shop site or at craft fairs or to any shop that wants to carry them.  We are having so much fun making these hats,  making them up as we go.  I thank Kerry for getting us started!

Yesterday Kerry and her two kids came by and posed for me with their new hats.

Shane as a bear.

Shane as a very serious bear.

Riley, probably wondering why this lady

is making her wear a hot hat on a warm August day!

Yarn Sculpture

Maria and I have become yarn sculptors.

What?  You've never heard of that?

Well, people can make sculptures out of everything else so why not yarn?

We are really letting loose with our creative sides and are making up these hats as we crochet.  Both of us get bored quite quickly when following a pattern.  We prefer to "wing it".  Sometimes that doesn't turn out so great for us but I am thinking we are onto something now.  This is another one of the little hats we've sculpted.

At least it is working out better than when I "wing it" with my cooking.

That doesn't usually go as well for me.

I'm interested in what you do for a creative outlet...knit, sew, paint, cook, bake?



Grandpa's Girl

Cordelia Loooooooves Grandpa Mike.  She was at our house when I was folding laundry.  She wanted to help fold Grandpa's shirts.  When she talks about him it comes out more like "Grumpa" which I think is especially cute.

When Grumpa wasn't home she found his hats and wanted to wear them.  She also wanted Sam to wear them.  For awhile she wore 2 at a time!

Anything that is Grumpa's is special to Cordy.