Slow days, cold days.

Hello and happy Monday everyone!  

It's a new week and a good day.  It's very cloudy outside and chilly, but I just lit a fire in the fireplace and it will soon be cozy and warm in here where I plan to knit the afternoon away.  If it doesn't start raining, Chloe and I will take a little walk too.  I'm trying to get outside and around the block everyday and see if that helps me with the shortness of breath I've been experiencing.  We only have enough wood left for about 4 or 5 days.  Spring needs to come soon.  We do have a regular furnace but we prefer the wood stove.  The heat feels warmer.  Does that even make sense to you?  :-)

Dennis has been back at work for a week now and doing VERY well.  Thank you so much for the sweet thoughts and all of your prayers.  They are much appreciated and not taken for granted.

Last Tuesday I got industrious and baked sugar cookies.  Nothing fancy, just plain, rolled and cut cookies.  They're Dennis' favorite cookie so I thought I could do something nice for him. 

I put cream cheese icing on them and a few pink sprinkles in honor of Valentine's Day just past.

Yum!  They may not look like much, but they sure taste good.  I've been having one or two at night with a cup of tea or hot chocolate.

This was the view from the deck on Saturday.  Mt. Spokane with lots and lots of snow on it.  Thank goodness.  I never tire of seeing snow on mountain tops and after all of the fires last summer it is a very welcome sight.

Then I turned around and saw this sign that my best friend Jenny got for us last summer on our anniversary.  We hung it on the outside of the house by the patio door.  Life is indeed better at the lake.  

We had intended to drive out the the trailer yesterday after church, but it was much colder and damper then the weather forecaster had predicted.  Next Saturday the promise is 60 degrees so the plan was changed to next week.  We want to make sure everything is okay and no leaks, etc.  Usually we go out and walk around in the snow several times through the winter, but not this year.  It's been an icky and strange winter around the Queen house.  I'm determined that it WILL get better though.

I'm still making mittens.  And enjoying them too.  I haven't knitted on the shawl since my last post.  I'm determined to get as many of these done before spring as possible.  I'm sure the shawl will make it's way back into my hands before too many days have passed.   Piper saw this pink color this morning when we face timed and she sure liked it.

I don't think I showed you what Mandy sent me for my birthday.

I bought a small sampler bag of this when we were in Annapolis in December and I love it.  So yummy.  So she bought me the big bag for my birthday.  Well, the bag burst in the mail but was contained in the packing envelope.  I put it in the ziploc bag after I opened it.  We laughed and said it was a good thing nothing leaked out of the envelope or they may have thought she was sending me an illegal substance!

This is REALLY good tea.  I was surprised, but then, nothing chocolate can be bad can it?

I hope you all have a wonderful and happy week.  I think I've even managed to catch up with all of your blogs.  I am so grateful to each of one you.

"Let us not become weary of doing good, for t the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."   Galatians 6:9

Blessings,

Betsy

Is it Spring?

Happy Tuesday!  I'm going to apologize in advance for these terrible pictures.  I took them last night long after the sun had gone down, so they're pretty dark, especially the first one.  But, I wanted you to see that I really did decorate a little for Valentine's Day this year.  With all of the "stuff" happening here, I just never got a picture to show you.  These hearts are Teresa's Scandinavian heart pattern that I made into a garland.  This morning I put out the St. Patrick's garland but I thought I should share this with you before I take a picture of the new one.  :-)

A rainbow of mittens.  

At last count there were 27 pairs in the bag for next winter.

The past few days I have been making a pair of mittens and then knitting a few rows on my "Zilver" shawl.  It's a free pattern on Ravelry and very easy if you're thinking of making a shawl.  I desperately needed to make something other than mittens for a change.  It's fun and mindless. I'm using Caron Simply Soft yarn in Country Blue.

Yes, these are fake flowers but I still like them.  My little birds are out and waiting for spring!

We sent our Grandson Caleb, money for Christmas and for his birthday and he's been saving it up.  This weekend he finally had enough to buy the Millineum Falcon Lego set.  Jamie said it took them 6 hours to put it together.  Isn't he the cutest thing?

Our weather has been warm and sunny/rainy/sunny.  But no snow here in the Valley.  Lots in the mountains.  This is just the way I like it.  We are getting the mountain snow that will help with the fire season this coming summer, but we don't have to deal with it here.  Temperatures in the 40's and 50's!  I'll take it.  Unusual for February to say the least.

Dennis went back to work a short day yesterday.  Only 7 1/2 hours and he's supposed to do the same today.  He usually works 11-12 hour days with no breaks for lunch or coffee.  I drove him yesterday to make sure he came home early.  He promised me he will do the same today.  It's amazing the difference a week has made.  The doctor told us another day or two and he may not have survived.  As soon as he came out of surgery he felt great.  It was like night and day.  He is very tired still, but I think that's from undergoing general anesthesia twice in three days.  They tell him that can take weeks to get out of your system.  I'm so happy that he seems so much better.

I am also doing better but having a difficult time adjusting to my medicines.  Thank you for all of your sweet thoughts and prayers.

I'm so thankful for the sunshine.  It does seem to help.  I hope you are all having a wonderful week.

"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." John 10:28-30

(I have no idea why part of this printing is underlined and color changed and the rest is normal. I guess it's Blogger doing it's thing!)

Blessings always my sweet friends,

Betsy

What a week!

Hello everyone! 

I'm so sorry I haven't been around to comment on your blogs this week.  I wish I could say I would go back and try to read them all, but I'm not sure I won't miss a post here and there.  I WILL try to catch up though.  I promise.

This picture below is why I haven't been online this week.  I had to take my handsome husband to the emergency room Sunday night.  He had emergency gallbladder surgery Monday and another procedure to remove "rogue" stones yesterday.  I got to bring him home late in the afternoon yesterday.    They said it was to the point his gallbladder was dying and then he would have really been in trouble.  I didn't even know it could do that.  Apparently he has been getting so sick he was vomiting for a couple of months now but he hid it from me because he didn't want to worry my with all of my heart "stuff".  Crazy, silly man.  He was SO SICK on Sunday night and his back was killing him too.  I have never seen him like that and I didn't like it one little bit.  He turned 60 last month and this was his first time in the hospital or ER since he was 2 year old.  

His boss sent him these gorgeous orchids...

And both of the following two arrangements.

The florist actually had all of the flowers in these last two photos crammed into one vase and you couldn't see the individual flowers at all, so when we got home I separated them into two vases.

Here is the oval doily I ended up making for Lori.  I think this pattern was from Pammy Sue.  Thank you to everyone who sent me patterns and links.  I gave it to Lori on Saturday and she loves it.

Today is my big sister's birthday and I made her this bookmark for her Bible.  I sure miss her and wish we lived closer to each other.  She's back in Iowa in the same little town we were born and raised in.  I sometimes wish I still lived there too, but I LOVE the Pacific Northwest and the mountains.

She sent me this for my birthday.  It's a doormat for the camper.  She knows how much I'm looking forward to lake time this year.

Mandy sent me this picture of her and Piper at the White House last week.  One of her former co-workers from Portland was in D.C. for some meetings for work.  They met up one morning and Mandy and Piper took her to see the sights.  I love this picture of my happy girls.

Well, God obviously had a reason for us not to go on that cruise.  He used my heart going wonky to keep us here.  Dennis was really sick last Thursday too, but didn't tell me.  Can you imagine being that sick on a boat?  We would have been at sea and he would have needed surgery.  That makes three out of the four of us that have had something happen.  I think Larry is a little worried. Ha! Ha!

It was so good to be home together last night.  I slept at the hospital in a chair for three nights because I didn't want to leave Dennis alone and came home every day to shower and change clothes.  We were both glad to be in our own bed and slept very well.  Mandy called, texted and face-timed constantly, as did Alex from Japan.  Jamie drove over on Monday morning from Montana and arrived while Dennis was in surgery.  He stayed until this morning and just texted me a few minutes ago to say he was safely home again.  We have wonderful, wonderful kids who showed us this week just how much they love us even if they live far away.  Our friends were here for us too, visiting, calling and praying.

It's been a rough couple of weeks health-wise around here, but I'm hoping we've now got things out of the way for 2016 and the rest of the year will be a breeze.  :-)

Have a wonderful Thursday my friends and I'll try to catch up with your blogs soon.

"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God." 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

Blessings,

Betsy

Snow Day!

Hello my friends!  Gosh, it's been a whole week since I posted.  I can't thank you all enough for the sweet comments and the care and love you've shown for me the last few weeks.  I am blessed.  Many of you said not to stop telling about my life because you're my friends and you want to know.  So I'm not changing anything about my blog.  Here I am I guess.  The good, the bad and the ugly!

This morning I had an ultrasound of my carotid arteries.  Of course I don't know anything yet, but I'm guessing it will all be fine.  Thank you for your sweet thoughts.

Thank you to all who sent links for the oval doily pattern for Lori.  I'm going to be making one of them very soon.  I appreciate the time and effort you went through to send them to me.

Larry and Nita ended up not going on the cruise either.  You aren't going to believe this.  We took them out to breakfast on Saturday morning and dropped them at their house afterwards.  Nita went into the house and fell right inside the door and broke her foot!  She saw the foot surgeon yesterday and she will not be able to put any weight on that foot for 8-12 weeks!   What are the chances?  The travel agent told me that in 21 years she has never had two people in the same traveling group have to cancel for totally different medical issues.  So we're all home and the ship left without us!  Makes me wonder if there was a reason we weren't supposed to be on that boat?

Saturday afternoon we had a paint day at church.  One of our young ladies is a fabulous painter and she walked us through this painting step by step.  I have heard of other places doing this and was excited to try it since I almost failed art at school.  It only cost $10.00 and was so much fun!  Everyone's painting looked just a bit different but similar.  Here is mine...

I really like the way it turned out.  It's not as pretty as a lot of the other ladies paintings, but I still like it.

I got a birthday package in the mail from Becky in Portland.  You'll find her on my sidebar as GrandmaBeckyL.  The socks are really soft and squishy and I'm looking forward to using the frog plant ties next summer..  Tea and chocolate, what could be better?  And poppy seeds to plant too.  Thanks so much Becky, it was a very nice pick-me-up.  :-)

Another surprise was in the mail yesterday from someone who wishes to remain anonymous.  It's a signed copy of Morehouse Farm, Merino Knits.  I can't wait to sit down with a cup of tea and immerse myself in this book.

I bought myself a bouquet of flowers at the grocery store for $5.00 yesterday.I'm enjoying their happy color that I can see from my knitting chair.  Lots of birthday cards too.  

This sweet angel cross necklace was the gift I received from my sweet husband.  The wings make up the cross piece.  I love it.  He took me to Applebee's (my choice) for dinner.  They make a very nice steak and I very rarely have steak.  Being a Nebraska/Iowa girl, I get a craving once in awhile.

It was a very nice birthday.  Mandy face-timed a couple of times with Piper.  Alex face-timed twice from Tokyo and Jamie called too.  I got lots of texts and emails and Facebook messages.  All in all, I felt love from family and friends and I'm very grateful.  I don't take it for granted one little bit.

So, I'm on a few different medications now to lower my BP.  It's still fluctuating quite a bit and they've talked a bit about a possible ablation in my future.  But nothing for certain and not right now.  I want to avoid that at all costs because from what I've read, it would make me 100% pacemaker dependent instead of the about 10% I am now.

No travel for a few months until they get everything figured out and settled down.  It's hard for me to know that I can't go see Mandy & Piper if I want to.  Or Alex in Tokyo.  Even if I don't have plans to go at this time, the knowing I can't go frustrates me.  Does that make any sense whatsoever?

I'm still making mittens.  I'm thinking I may take a break and join a KAL in a group I'm in on Ravelry.  They're making a shawl and it sounds like a nice change for a couple of weeks.  On the other hand, I should probably keep plugging away on the mittens and just get them all done for next year.  What do you think?

I hope you're all having a great week and not dealing with too much snow and ice.  For those of you experiencing summer right now...I'm jealous.  I'm very ready for lake time.

"But if anyone obeys His word, love for God is truly made complete in them.  This is how we know we are in Him:  Whoever claims to live in Him must live as Jesus did."  1 John 2:5-6

Blessings,

Betsy