Tomorrow!

The bags are packed,  except for those last minute simply must take things!  I've done all the chores that are going to get done, only thing left is for me to get ready and pay the bills!  Tomorrow I'm off to Chicago then on Saturday to NYC and on the Shannon Ireland.  I'll be checking in from time to time but no blogs until I get back as I'm leaving the laptop at home.  Cell phone won't work as I don't have international calls in my plan so I will be unplugged from the world.  Well, sort of.  I'll have both Kindle and Ipod but you can't reach me on those!  Take care while I'm gone and MISS ME!

It Came!

A while back, like maybe three weeks, Kris released two new patterns and had a giveaway!  I won!  This is only the second time I've won, but I don't enter every one I come to either.  My copy of her really cute "Moon Dance"  came in the mail yesterday.  I get excited at any mail (mostly I only get junk mail) and mail from Australia is doubly exciting!  So I photoed the stamps as well.  Brayden is likely going to talk me out of the stamps as one has a train on it!    We've had a geography lesson from them as well--Australia is "far, far, far away!"

One week from tomorrow I FLY!

I can't count!

Okay, I have 9 more get ups before I fly!  That means when I posted yesterday I had 10, darn it.

Eight More Get-ups!!

Until I fly!  First to Chicago, then the next day to New York and on the Shannon, Ireland!  I'm in a difficult state of mind, I have nearly everything I need for the trip but it's too soon to pack.  I have the antsies! 

After being sick for five days I gave up the gluten-free diet, I just kept remembering the allergist saying that if you got worse you were looking at the wrong thing.  I may try it later, still thinking about it, but it's so difficult to do that I'll have to have medical advice in person I think.  Just as I was feeling better, I decided to clean up the sticks that were littering my front yard courtesy of the Sycamore tree.  There were so many I had to rake and filled two yard waste bags with broken up sticks.  Then I decided to mow.  About halfway through all this I realized I should have been wearing a face mask.  That darn tree gets me every fall!  One week later I'm now coming out of the allergy and asthma attack created by that yard work! ERGH! 

For the first time in weeks I managed to clean my house today, still a little left for tomorrow but that's okay.  I've been working on a couple of non-sewing projects, sort of secret one of them, that have been in the works for a long time.  A very little sewing has been done, more tonight I think.  I meant to cross-stitch last night but we have HBO on a free week (Once a year, I think) and "Australia" was on last night.  I so wanted to see it but it required all my attention and staying up to midnight.  Movies often make me think.  I've done quite a bit of it since last night.  (Wish now I had seen it in the theater.)  I have never understood people who hate, just because another person is different in some way.  I think something must be broken in them and in the end it breaks them.  There is certainly a parallel between US treatment of First Nations peoples and Aussie treatment of Aborginies,  here people hated Indians(or blacks) just because they were here.  I know that if you intend to take control of a country from another group you must in some way make them less and you more but to just hate for no real reason is senseless.  In all times there have been people who have seen this, I hope that had I lived in those times I would have been one.  I hope I can remember to be one now.

The week just past

This will be a short update, unlike my usual novellas!  I haven't done much of anything on anything.  The gluten-free diet is going fine diet-wise, do you hear the "but"?  I began having intestinal issues on Wed. and am more fatigued.  I'll admit to feeling side-swiped by this, I didn't expect to feel improvement right away as it can take 6 months but no one warned me that I might feel worse.  I'm hoping it is gluten withdrawal and that I get better, again that "but", I don't know if I'll be able to hang in if on top of the difficulty of the diet I continue to feel like crap!  No sewing, no housecleaning, just pushing myself to do what I absolutely must.  This is my favorite time of the year and I'm getting ready for Ireland I hate feeling rotten.  (Well, who doesn't?) I feel pretty discouraged about it.  Perhaps my next update will be more upbeat?

Labor Day-the official end to summer

Labor Day weekend.  When I was a child it was the sign that school was about to start, my birthday was near and the hot weather would go away!  Now the school children have been back two weeks (or so) but my birthday is still near and the not weather should be done for and replaced by cooler days and nights plus the colors of fall.  My favorite time of the year.  Things are winding down out in the garden, which just means that I have them tidied up and the fence rows cleaner.  Soon I will need to bring in the few potted plants I intend to over-winter in the house (only 5 total and 2 are already in.)  I have only the touch up painting to finish, clean out the shed and a bit more clean up for now.  November 1st we'll drag out "Hank", the snow thrower, shovel and ice melt then we'll be ready for whatever the Missouri winter hands us.  My new gardens in front are looking pretty good, I'm hoping I don't lose anything over the winter but usually I lose plants to the heat so-o-o.

Scott and Bri were here for Saturday and Sunday, I cooked a turkey I'd had in the freezer for a while on the grill (it was cut in half)  so Beth and Lucas joined us and we all ate together.  Turkey, grilled corn on the cob, jello salad and quinoa salad.  Totally gluten free.  We all went out for drinks at Sidepockets, played a little pool, goofed around, came back and did some more (well, no pool as I haven't a table).  Much laughter!  Sunday we took the boys along and went to Santa-Cali-Gon, we pushed our way through the craft tents, bought Hawaiian ices, lemonade, kettle corn, string potatoes and funnel cake as well as the homemade rootbeer/cream soda we all love.  We saved the bottles from last year just so we could get a refill!  We had Kolby in the backpack as strollers are just hard with the crowds, when it was my turn he just couldn't stay awake so he crashed on my back.  He's a little big, I'm a little short or the pack is badly designed but the poor guy just couldn't find a good spot for his head!  So we headed home after that.  Scott and Bri headed back to Columbia after loading the gas grill I'd been saving in the shed for 3 years!  I visited with my Baylor roomie (HI Gloria!) then I went back up.  The crowds had lightened up and I bought some Christmas gifts--I like giving things that are a bit unusual and the craft tents are nice.

I have decided to eat a gluten-free diet.  I have been reading up on autoimmune diseases and the first recommendation for treatment is nearly always to go gluten free.  It sounded hard but it's been okay so far, I'll need to learn to cook in a different way and cross-contamination is an issue but I'll figure it out--I love a challenge!  It may take as long as 6 months for all the gluten in my system to leave but the long term heath improvement will be worth it.  I have lost 4 pounds already, too.  I'll give updates!

Only 25 days until I leave for Ireland!  Can't believe it's that close,  I am nearly ready and very excited!

One Year

Larry crossed over one year ago today.  We are healing, there are still days when we cry.  I especially have a hard time when I think about our grandchildren and the fact that they won't remember him.  He didn't even get to met Nora.  We talk of him often, watch the photos of him on my digital photo frame and laugh--he was such a goof!  I still have trouble making some decisions but I've found that if I just let it go the answer comes to me, I am lucky in that I can afford to just put it off.  I have been busy trying to catch up with things let go during his illness and the time following his death, but I sometimes can't seem to function in any but the most basic ways.  It's getting better.  Today I went to the cemetery where his ashes are and "chatted" with him.  I know he isn't there and I don't go often but it seems helpful.  There were tears but I didn't feel kicked in the gut so that's an improvement as well.  We are forging new lives as I said we must.  We have a lot to look forward to in 2011, Rob graduates with his BS in Computer Science, Bri with her law degree and the grandchildren will grow and delight us all!