Out of Whack

I'm enjoying watching the neighbors setting up all their lights and decorations around their homes.  I'm only just starting to get in the holiday mood--after having our Thanksgiving usurped by medical issues, I was having some difficulty being all merry and bright.  Now that we're settling into a new routine with scheduling new medications (only one more week of this chaos), and things are looking good (medically speaking), I'm now feeling more of the joy creeping back in.

Unfortunately, my back is still out of whack.  I'm going to call for an appointment with the chiro tomorrow and see if he can unkink things.  The Miracle Balls aren't doing quite enough to untangle my hips, back, neck and shoulders, so a big nudge from a professional is what I need.  I'm not totally crazy about the guy I've seen before, but the reason I stopped seeing him was for unprofessional reasons--he was routinely late for morning appointments, which ticked me off.  I talked to the gal who recommended him, and she said that I should just tell him why I stopped coming.  She agreed that it's not cool to pull that kind of thing; she's been seeing him for years and said that he would appreciate the honesty.  We'll see if I actually say something.

One other things I realized about using the Miracle Balls is that the carpet stinks.  I don't have a shampooer anymore, and with my back all tied up, renting and carrying the industrial thing up the stairs doesn't sounds like a great idea.  A friend suggested that I sprinkle baking soda on the carpet...I'm going to have to get an industrial size box.

I quilted up two small quilts yesterday.  The first is a small wall hanging for Michele.  I quilted some leaves into the yellow sections and did a simple echo around the foliage, and then removed it from the frame.  I think I will put it back on and do some quilting in the brown frames--maybe something that looks like wood grain.  I didn't have any brown thread, so it seemed a good time to stop.

Then I put on a quilt for a new customer, Karen M.  She is a teacher and is making this baby quilt for a co-worker--her first quilt ever!  She took a simple panel and added a couple borders on it, then did the same for the back to make it large enough.  I quilted it with Dr. Seuss feathers, but I called it "Monkey tails and banana peels."

I started putting Emma's quilt top together by sewing the half-hexagons into strips.  It takes a lot of organization to do this.  The first problem was that I had laid them out horizontally on the design wall and I needed to take them all down in order to make room for tacking up the finished rows.  Actually, the rows have become columns...if that makes any sense.  I couldn't take them down one row at a time and put it back easily...it would have taken a lot more pins to tack it up and keep it organized.  In this way, I only need one pin to hang each column and keep them in order.  In addition, each row had to have 15 or 16 pieces in each row sewn in order.  If one gets out of order, the whole pattern will be thrown out of whack.

Did I mention that when I got my blood drawn, they hit a nerve?  Yeah.  That was delightful.  Instead of feeling the stick in the elbow, I felt it about 3" above my wrist, near my thumb.  Like someone jammed a nail in my arm.  It took about an hour before it stopped stinging, and now three days later, the stinging sensation is back.  I was looking online, and it happens sometimes and can take days or weeks for it to stop stinging...and in rare cases, is permanent.  I hope this isn't permanent--it wasn't like she was digging around looking for a vein, she just snagged it when she stuck it in.  Hopefully that's not something that's permanently out of whack but will just take a few days to heal up.  However, even though my weight has creeped back up to where I was a couple years ago (sadly), my blood pressure is still 107/80, and my resting heart rate is 72.  Weirdly, my temperature was 97.0.  I'm just a cool chick, I guess.

Cammie and Ben got to assemble the tree the other day and did all the decorating themselves, including putting the lights and ornaments.  They did a great job!  There are still a few more items that need to be set up (like the nativity and the Advent quilt), then we can take all the boxes back out to the garage.

I'm looking forward to feeling better, decorating more, and fully enjoying the holiday season.  I have some great ideas for Christmas shopping and making quick--but thoughtful--gifts.  I wanna be all Christmas Cookies & Holiday Hearts...bring it on!