Gustav

My mother is still here and settling in. I'm still trying to get all her financial/medical affairs in order and that's like a continuous, annoying headache. But it's SLOWLY coming together. I can't begin to tell you how sick I am of navigating government websites.

It's taken some getting used to with all the changes involved with having my mom here. Running errands sure isn't as easy as it used to be! I'm getting a bit of cabin fever, as well. It's just too hot for me to be outside much right now. Mom's doing well, though, and is still happy. I have a hard time getting her to come in the house (even when it's hot outside) because gazing at the foothills and snoozing have become her favorite activities. She can no longer read - her once favorite thing to do - so she looks at magazines, catalogs and newspapers over and over. We get a lot of mileage out of one newspaper around here. Jigsaw puzzles are even a little overwhelming for her, though she does have days when she likes to try. She wants to help out and feel useful, but her mobility is so limited that I really have to think of things she can manage without a lot of frustration. She folds laundry, makes her bed and sweeps the porch from the comfort of her chair. Don't ask me how she does that, but she does!

I've managed to slide in a few new projects when Mom naps. I'm learning needlefelting from Joggles.com, and here a couple of photos. The first one shows all my supplies: beautifully dyed wools, a foam pad and a felting needle with a wooden handle. These felting needles are sharp!!

Next is a pic of the beginning of the class "final project" a bunny (Easter in September). I start with a fluff of wool ( on the left) and used the felting needle (on the right) to make a nice big felted blob that will eventually be the bunny. Really! Trust me!

Below are the first projects from the class. I love my little chick, Gustav.

A New Adventure

Wow, have things around here changed recently! Jim and I traveled to Colorado last month and brought my mother home to live with us. She was in a pretty bad living situation and suffers from dementia, so it was time for her to move on even though she didn't want to. She doesn't know she's moved permanently. All in all, it was a great move. Her apartment was a downstairs condo which was dark, cluttered and had recently flooded requiring all the carpeting to be removed. Since the homeowner's association refused to pay for it, new carpeting hadn't happened. It's a complicated family thing as well. Anyway, mom was so depressed and negative. She spent her days alone, slept almost constantly, stopped reading or doing any of the activities she used to love, rarely ate and only peanut butter sandwiches when she did eat. She said she'd lived too long and wanted to die. We packed up a bunch of her favorite stuff, left the furniture (my brother lives there still), and brought her here for a "visit." The change in her was immediate!

Our house is very bright, we have a fantastic view, there are 3 huge loving dogs (they live in the house with us), 2 outdoor cats, my 13 cherished, beautiful Shetland sheep and lots of chickens. All the activity, light, and interaction did wonders for her. She's very happy, upbeat, pets the animals until they actually walk away (!), smiles, laughs, jokes.....in short, she's a new person. She likes going to the bookstore for magazines. She reads again, loves to work jigsaw puzzles and crossword puzzles. Her favorite activity is sitting on one of the porches looking at the mountains and petting our cat, Dweezle. It's true that she can't remember a lot of the more recent things in her life, but maybe that's a good thing. She doesn't remember where she lived and can only remember living in her childhood home. She doesn't talk about my father much (he died in 1987) but remembers people from her childhood. She eats well, stays awake much of the day, and tells me her stories as she remembers them. It's true that they're the same 10 stories over and over, but she doesn't know that and I'm not going to tell her.
Having her with us has changed my life dramatically. I have to watch her when she walks(she can barely walk) , have to prepare meals for her (she never gets hungry), make sure she has enough to drink (she never gets thirsty), make sure she puts on clean clothes, and I really am mostly housebound. Social activities are difficult for her because she's completely deaf. But she's added so much to my life. She sees the humor in things ("Isn't it funny that I can't remember where I live?"), notices the small stuff ("I love that little man, he looks so devilish" .... she's referring to my devilish looking gnome), ignores the small stuff ("Oh, don't worry about the flies, you can just shoo them away."). I don't know how long she'll be able to live with us as her disease progresses, but I intend to enjoy her company while I can.

Ooops!

It's come to my attention that I've been remiss in my blogging. Ooops! There's been plenty going on - I've been to Black Sheep Gathering, I've finished several projects and started several more, I have 4 more sheep that I bought while at BSG, we had a mountain lion scare which had me sleeping in the car for 5 nights, we went to Oahu for 5 days with Jim's family, and my mom's coming to live with us (though she doesn't know it yet). I've been busy, what can I say? So I'll start out with a picture of my finished "Equestrienne" project from joggles.com.

I did finish this project a while back. It was really fun, and I feel it's a project I could definitely continue to add to except I've started a few others. I did finish another project....

This is a quilted bag. I used gold thread for the quilting, though you can't see it, and I quilted around some of the images. I love it!
I've also finished a couple of quilts and have a few in progress, as well as a knitted shawl and a 2 more joggles.com classes. I'll try and post pictures soon.

Can a person have too many projects?

I'll let you know. My summer is jammed packed with projects. I'm currently taking a class from Joggles that involves making a paper mache horse and cloth equestrienne. I never knew paper mache could be so hard. I figured since I'd made a Halloween candy carrier in the shape of a pumpkin when I was 9 I'd be an expert, but since the project didn't require a balloon covered in newspaper strips and flour/water glue, I had a tough time. The structure started with carved styrofoam and was covered with Claycrete, some sort of mystery paper mache mixture. Anyway, after a couple of false starts here's my horse!! I was going to smooth it out but decided I like the rough texture. Only took 2 weeks....

The semester is finally over! I turned in grades yesterday and now have time to relax. Last night my good friend, Christie, and her husband, Dan, came by to weed their garden and dropped off this lovely gift. It's a beautiful layout that the ever-talented Christie made of me with 3 of our 4 newfies. Thank you so much, Christie!! It's found a home on the only available dining room wall - a real place of honor.

There is nothing I can't do

Well, maybe a few things. Okay, a lot. And there are many things I refuse to do. But I have learned to do a lot of random stuff through the years. It came up at the last crop at PSB that I do in fact shear my sheep and spin their wool (I also knit and weave the stuff). Here are some pictures to prove that if it becomes impossible to buy yarn at any point in time, I will in fact be warm.

In this picture I'm shearing Faille, one of my Shetland ewes. This was taken about 2 weeks before the birth of little Westley. Since then, I've sheared the rest of the girls, so I'm drowning in fleeces at the moment. They will all eventually be washed, carded, spun and knitted - hopefully before next year's shearing!

My first entry!

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