What about those ...

TwistedNTangled Threads ???



While I have been talking about new grandchildren, sick dogs, accident prone husbands and rocks I have neglected to talk about what this blog originally was started for and that is my Stitchin !!! 

Way back in January I ordered a couple of cross stitch related items from The Stitching Post, a little shop in Tulsa, OK that I have been doing business with for many years.  When I received my package in the mail (oh, BTW, post office rant to follow) tucked into the envelope were 2 sheets of paper.  One was a really interesting article about Harikiyo, The Festival of Broken Needles which I posted about on February 8th.  The other was a flier for a Summer Stitching event to be help there next month.  Well, I had hoped to attend the Celebration of Needlework in Missouri this year, but sadly the couple that sponsors it are retiring ... so I thought "Why Not !!!"  After paying my registeration fee I got an envelope of small patterns designed by The Drawn Thread and La D Da to stitch up in preparation for the finishing classes.

The Retreat is July 14 - 18 so I have about 2 weeks to finish up this last one !!!

So, I've also mentioned that I am going to Hernando for a Quilting group/class.  I am having fun with "Fabric Art" piecing scraps of material into quilt squares !!

Tiny left over scraps - some 1x1 inch stitched on adding machine paper

Border is the strip of adding machine paper stitched scraps ! 

English paper piecing

Foundation paper piecing

Foundation paper piecing 

Applicaide Heart

Wonky left over Flying Geese squares

Tiny 3" blocks made into a 4 - 16 patch squares

Foundation paper piecing

Drunkard's Path

And then there is the sewing classes I am helping my friend Kaye teach to 7 little 9 - 12 year old girls.  The first class we taught them how to thread their sewing machines and how to sew a straight line.  They all made little 9 patch pillows.  Last week they learned foundation sewing and all made these cute little pin cushions using fabric selvedges!

Next week they are going to make aprons like this one .....

..... so I batter say ...'till next time and get things prepared for class !

Till next time.

Cindi
6.26.2015

I AM A ROCK .....

....magnet



.....but more about that later ...

When I left you 2 weeks ago, I was telling you about Nestle and his little health issue that delayed my trip to meet my new Grandson, Wesley.

Nestle is so much better and although his hindquarters are still weak, he is walking and actually has learned a little hop/run that gets him around quite nicely.  And I have noticed for the first time since Bruno went up and over The Rainbow Bridge, that Nestle is carrying his beloved toys around again.  Dogs grieve, just like we do, I have discovered.

Well finally on June 13th I headed southeast to Georgia.  My car (AKA Sassy) came with this really cool system that syncs up my phone where I can talk on it hands free AND it has an integrated Navigation system.  So I plugged in the address of the hotel I was staying at and off I went.  Five and a half hours later when I should be pulling into the Hampton Inn I found myself (following Sassy's instructions) turning onto a gravel road (just outside of Gadsden, AL.)  Now mind you, this road was about as wide as my car (which is a Ford Escape and not very big) was VERY curvy and hilly with nice deep gullies (along the side) and nice, deep "pot holes" (if you can even have pot holes on a gravel road ???) and all I could see on both sides was thick woods with trees overhanging the road.  Any minute I was expecting to see toothless fat men in whitey tighties with banjos.  The movie  Deliverance came to mind.  After carefully driving the hills and curves, I was finally spit out into a nice little VERY country town....and still 2 hours away from where I had planned to be about this time !!!!!

I finally arrived at my destination 2 1/2 hours late and Mr. Wesley was just about to wake up from his afternoon nap. 

I know all grandmothers think their babies are beautiful, but I am correct about this little cuties, right ???  

And he is such a GOOD baby.  While he has his fussy time between 6 & 10 p.m. It is not really his fault (Granna says) !!!

His mom has him on a pretty strict schedule and while he is fed every 4 hours and allowed to play or nap during the day, in the evening they make him stay awake after the 6:00 bottle and at 9:30 he gets his bath and then he attacks his night time bottle (all 7 ounces of it!). The bouncing and rocking and walking and taking him outside is stressful !!! But it works.  He has slept through the night (until around 5:30 a.m.) since he was 5 days old !!! Neither of my boys slept through the night until around 3 months ... So It Works!

Sunday morning before heading back to Memphis, we went to a local (VERY GOOD) Mexican restaurant and while the grownups were having lunch, Wesley slept in his car seat/carrier the whole time like a good boy!  (Just what I like to see kids do at restaurants)



As I discovered after Robbie said something about the Nav settings on Sassy, it was set to avoid freeways !!!!! I seem to remember my older son, Ned changing my settings when I was in Clarkesville a few weeks back, so INSTEAD of going through Birmingham it took me through Gadsden and was 2 lane roads the whole way (plus Deliverance).  So I changed the settings and had a lovely, fast 5 1/2 hour drive back home on nice 4 lane highways!

Now .... back to that "I AM A ROCK" thing ...

So on the previous Thursday, I was tooling down Highway 51 between Horn Lake & Hernando with Sam on our way to our weekly Quilting Group when WHAM it sounded like a bullet hit my car ... and there just below my field of vision was a huge rock hole .....

those extra spots are just bug guts ... and please ignore the orange nails !

Thank goodness for Tennessee Farmers Insurance and the fact that I have a zero deductible on comprehensive coverage.  And as it was Thursday, of course the glass company was booked up on Friday and it would be Monday before it could be replaced.

One brand new windshield with instructions to not wash it for 48 hours and I was back in business!

Until ......

Wednesday .... when I was driving home (again from Hernando and another sewing class) and as I was rounding the curve on I-40 just before the Hollywood Boulevard exit ..... WHAM .... ANOTHER DAMN ROCK HIT MY WINDSHIELD !!!!!!! 

About 2 inches below where the first one did !!!!!!! Another call, another appointment, on another windshield install on another Monday !!!!!  Thank GOD I have good insurance because each of these windshields were $654.97 .... Yes .... Six Hundred Fifty Four Dollars and Ninety Sever Cents !!!

I just want to cry at what I could have bought with that $1,309.94 .........

Friday, I got up early and put a 10.5 pound pork shoulder on the smoker to take to Clarkesville the next day to my OTHER son's house.  Sunday was to be Chelsea's "Tennessee" baby shower and all the grandkids were going to be there .... AND IT WAS RAINING !!! I moved Jere's truck out of the carport and rolled the smoker around ... mind you, the shoulder would need to smoke for around 12 hours and I would need to "mop" it about every 45 minutes, so I was NOT going to do that all day IN THE RAIN ..!!! 

Well, it turned out perfect, and everyone enjoyed it Saturday night along with baked beans and KFC slaw.  

Oh and btw, the drive to Clarkesville was perfect ... no gravel roads, although I did have a short distance on 2 laners.  

Sunday the shower was really nice and Chelsea got SO MUCH STUFF (I'm sure she is still "nesting" trying to find the right spot to put everything in it's proper place) ...   Look at this cute little centerpiece someone found made from Pampers! 

After the shower I believe they have everything they need to take care of business (and then some) .... now all we need is a baby ...... Arriving July 19th !!!!!

I think that about catches things up.  Next post will be a lot of stuff about my quilting and cross stitch projects.  I've been neglecting posting about that, but production is still happening on that front.

Till next time,

Cindi
6.24.2015















My travels ...

A pretty neat linc popped up on Facebook and after completing it I was kinda amazed at all the states I have visited !!





 

Create Your Own Visited States Map

Two ... count them ....

....Two post in One week .....

Things were clicking right along ... Life was good ... Jere & I attended the ballgame last night between the Memphis Redbirds and the Las Vegas 51's (get it ... Area 51 )  and our Boys of Summer showed the stuff they were made of ...  The boys scored first with Dan Johnson getting a single Home Run in the bottom of the 1st.  Then came the 3rd inning ... OMG ... LV got 2 runners on 1st & 2nd and the 3rd batter up got a double scoring those 2 runs.  Then the next 2 batters loaded up the bases and then WHAM .... a grand slam .. making it 6-1.  But our guys didn't give up ... slowly, inning by inning they chipped away one run at a time until the bottom of the 7th with a score of 8-4 LV the Birds tied it up with 4 runs ... 8-8 ... The game then was a battle of the wills  ... LV got another run in top of the 8th .... 9-8 .... but then came the bottom of 8 ... A ground ball to right field scored one tying it up again and then a sac fly by our new hometown boy, Jacob Wilson brought Xavier in !!!

It was a GREAT game !!! Really love those "edge of the seat" battles of the bats & balls !!

Arriving home later than usual, I noticed that Nestle, our male chocolate cocker didn't meet me at the door as usual, but I came on in and he was politely waiting at his eating spot.  I got food down and after taking one bite he sort of stumbled around like his back legs weren't working.  After a few minutes he yelped.  I tried to direct him back to his food but when I touched his hips, for the first time in his life he acted like he might snap at me ... This was so NOT like him and his docile self.  

Nestle in his favorite spot... Jere's chair ! 

Another middle of the night trip to Memphis Veterinary Specialists, and a tense 2 hours while he was evaluated.  When the doctor came in I was DEVASTATED ... She said he most probably had a slipped/ruptured disc and the ONLY way to determine was a CT Scan under general anesthesia and if she was correct in her suspicions  would require surgery to the tune of 4 - 5 THOUSAND DOLLARS... OMG !!!  but she would send him home with Meloxicam, Tramadol for pain and Methocarbonal which is a muscle relaxer.  I was to take him to his doctor on Saturday for re-evaluation or bring him back to emergency if he got worse.  

I got home at 2:30 a.m. and headed to the barn to dig out the wire kennel.  Medicated him and went to bed finally at 4:00.....

When I got him out of the kennel the next morning he was not able to even push himself up on his FRONT legs ... I immediately called my vet and was there at 9:00.  Dr. J wanted to keep him for the day and do X-rays of his spine, suspecting that he DID NOT have a slipped disc.  

When I picked him up at 2:30 that afternoon, I reviewed the X-rays and Dr. J pointed out that the disc space between all vertebrae was evenly spaced, so there was NO indication of disc slippage, but based on symptoms he suspected that he had a fibrocartilagenous embolism.  In layman's terms small particles of fibrocartilage believed to come from the disc between the vertebrae break loose and block blood vessels within the spinal cord.  At the onset it is usually very painful but tends to resolve itself within hours. AND unlike disc slippage, the treatment is not surgery, but anti-inflammatories and therapy.  He changed his meds to Prednisone and took him off the muscle relaxers.  The problem was neurological and not skeletal so all the muscle relaxers were doing was dope him up and exasperate the lack of control over his hind quarters.  He did continue the pain meds for 48 hours and will re-evaluate him on Monday.

I thought he was going to drain the water tank when we got home .... He is so pitiful on his knees!!! 

6.5.2015

I kenneled him and he slept off the remaining muscle relaxers and when I took him outside around 4:30 he PEED !!! No bladder issues which is GREAT !! But he still couldn't get his back feet under him to walk.  

This morning (Saturday) when I opened the door to his kennel, he "belly crawled" out and looked up at me like "really, you're going to just stand there and expect me to walk outside to pee?" ...So I picked him up (all 321/4 pounds) and carried him out and set him down in the damp grass ... he immediately got up on his back legs and peed !!! Then shuffled to the concrete patio, got his back feet under him and "duck walked" to the door !!! GOOD BOY ... those legs ARE going to work again !!! 

I have now given him his first dose of Prednisone and another Tramadol and he is passed out for the morning ... 

Walking is such hard work !!

Needless to say, this pet emergency has derailed my trip to Georgia to meet my new grandson, Wesley, but here is a new picture !! 

He is getting SO BIG ... look at those hands and long fingers !!! I'm sure those socks are big on him but he looks all hands &b feet.  Maybe I'll be able to meet him before he starts to school !!! 

Well, I need to jump off here and get out in the yard before the rain hits again this afternoon.  One of these days, I will actually have time to get some stitchin in ... I HAVE TO...There are 2 more X-Stitch projects I need to complete for my upcoming trip to Tulsa in July !!! 

Till next time,

Cindi

6.6.2015

So much to share, so little time ....

 .....and oh my, it might take me a week to record ALL that has happened during the month of May, 2015 !!!

In no particular order of excitement or importance, here is a list of "some" of what has been going on in and around Casa Jackson the last 30 days.

1.  Our "hockey son" Peter's wild success in Perth, Australia !
2.  My trip to Clarksville and seeing Chelsea's 30 week ultrasound of our little Nash-tater!
3.  The TRAUMATIC events of Mother's Day, 2015!
4.  Progress on our friend Kent!
5.  The arrival of my newest grandson, Wesley!

To start the month of May off, Peter arrived safely in Sydney, Australia on May 1st (Australian time) and proceeded to lead the Perth Thunder to 6 .... SIX ... consecutive wins (with 2 SHUTOUTS !!!) ... I am so glad to have him back in the northern hemisphere but am so happy he had the wonderful opportunity to visit "down under" and that he has another wonderful item to add to his resume!  I also am keeping fingers and toes crossed that we will see him back in net at Lander's Center in October, but also will be so proud to see him called up to the ECHL ... which would be a great career move.

He plans to visit south Mississippi and Christine in August, so hopefully they will venture north and we will get at least a short visit... (your guitar is still safe).

On May 7th, I headed to Clarksville to spend a couple of days with my son, Ned and DIL Chelsea.  They invited me up to attend Chelsea's 30 week ultrasound and see our little Nash ...

My sons were born in 1974 & 1980 and this was before the days of ultrasounds so this was VERY exciting for me.  To see that little fella moving around was amazing!!! He was so cute when he put his hand up to his face like "Leave me alone, I'm trying to sleep in here"!

I can see so much of my son in this little face.  Can't wait until the middle of July to meet our little Nash !!!

MOTHER'S DAY ..... oh boy !

The day started out rather nicely, with a trip to AutoZone Park and a lovely Mother's Day brunch up in the Champion's Club.  The best thing on the buffet was Shrimp & Grits !!! and I had 3 plates full !!! Afterwards, what every mother wants to do on Mother's Day, we watched as our team got sadly shut out by the New Orleans Zephyrs. 

After the game, we came home as normal, fed the dogs and while 3 of my four legged crew are picky eaters and have to be prodded to eat, Molly is always the first to the table and finishes scarfing down her dinner in 3 minutes flat! Well, not this night ... she ate a couple of bites and rushed to the door ... outside she tried and tried to go poo...but nothing happened.  This wend on for about an hour .. Run out ... try to poo ... back in .... out ... in .... out ... in .... she just wouldn't settle down, and I have never heard of a dog being constipated !?!?! ...Finally around 11:00 I noticed a few spots of blood in her bed and got on the phone to Memphis Animal Specialist after hours clinic.  The said I needed to bring her in... WELL ... poor baby wasn't constipated ... When we got there she suddenly peed a pool of blood .... FOUND IT ... a raging UTI !!

Two shots, Two prescriptions and Two hours + $328.49 later we were on our way home. 

When I got into the car, (since it was 2:00 a.m.) I called Jere to let him know what the doctor said and that we would be home in 15 minutes ....

As I walked into the door, Jere called out "Honey, I think I need your help" ..... I rounded the corner into the kitchen and it looked like the scene from Psycho .... (except no shower) .... My kitchen floor was covered in blood and Jere looked like this:







After cleaning up capacious puddles of blood, we headed the human ER ..... CT scan, X-rays, 2 IV doses of Dilaudid and 6 stitches later we were back home with TWO prescriptions for him....

Apparently after talking to me, Jere got up, went into the kitchen to get a drink of soda and started choking.  The doctor said that apparently while coughing and choking he hyperventilated and subsequently his blood pressure dropped and he passed out.  We still don't know how long he was out (he says it was at least 10 minutes),  what he hit when he fell but suspect it was just the floor or where he popped his head open like a smashed pumpkin.  What the doctor didn't tell us (which he found out when his doctor reviewed the ER records a week later when the stitches were removed) was he had a concussion !!! He came home, took a couple of pain pills and went to bed.  The scary thing is that he slept most of the morning.  WITH A CONCUSSION !!! He could have woke up dead !!!

This is what it looked like 2 days later:

I think we will just skip Mother's Day next year !!!

The one good thing that happened on Mother's Day was we visited our friend Kent.  I am so very happy to report that he is OUT of the hospital (but in a rehab facility for probably 2 months) and doing well.  They have removed the cast from both arms and his left leg.  He still has those two awful rods and "halos" around his right leg, but they are intensely rehabbing him. 

And now .... for the BIG news !!!

Wesley Drake Salemi

May 19,2015 @ 5:35 p.m.

8 lbs. 7 oz.

22.5 inches

I'm a GRANDMOTHER again!!

My younger son Robbie and his wife Mallory welcomed their first child, little Wesley into the world !!!



So if you get easily bored with baby pictures, just scroll on down to the end !!!

Yes Robbie, you were SMALLER than this at one time !

Mom & Wesley
(Sorry Mallory, he looks JUST like his dad!)

Robbie is already teaching him bad habits!

What a difference a week makes !!

I don't know about the "more saving" ... but I'm sure there will be "more doing"!

And just one more !!!

Two Weeks already!

I'm finally heading to Georgia on Saturday to meet this little guy .. CAN'T WAIT !!!!!

That's not ALL that happened during May, 2015 (isn't it enough ???) but I won't bore you with the mundane details of my exciting life. 

I am happy to report that Jere is fine ..... Just a new crinkle to his wrinkles and Molly is back to her happy, hungry self. 

More to report next week on my trip to meet my new Grandson!!!

Till next time,

Cindi
6.1.2015