Madness dropout!

Hi, my name is Rachel and I am a Sock Madness Drop Out! (pout). I just couldn’t keep up. The thingis that  it is WAY more intense than I thought it was going to be and I had pretty high expectations.  It didn’t help that I was completely naive about how much the girls would want to spend time with me and how busy I actually was going to be for Spring Break. Now if I was able to go to a cabin in the woods for complete alone time, I could do this, but I’m pretty sure that that is impossible. Especially when it is running from March 13 – May something.

So I finished a sock, I’ll show it to you later, however, I’m rather glad to have the monkey off of my back. Mr. Outdoors is getting ready to be a vendor at a Taste of Home cooking school here in our town next month, and  of course he has me do the flyers, display, etc.  I actually want to start putting things up on the walls here in the house. And dangit all that these children want to spend some time of their mommy….how DARE they! LOL. So the sock will go alone to the UFO basket and then I’ll get back to working on baby blankets, booties, etc.

 I am going to do two small Christmas gifts a month at least.  Also, does anyone know where I can find a cute cardigan, with possible cables, for a girl in a US size 10 (children’s)? I’m looking for a birthday gift for Em.

 Pictures later, however, for now, I”ll just give you a glimpse of what I see outside.

that is the radar link from my local channel. You can’t even see where we are!!! There has been hard rain since about midnight last night and it hasn’t stopped and it’s not going to stop all day long! So the girls have a birthday party this afternoon and then we are going to the movies with a friend.

Madness. Madness I tell you!!!!

Ok, I’m not sure if it is the madness of Sock Madness 2 that I’m feeling (it starts tomorrow!), or just madness in general. I’ve been in a real funk in the past few weeks, and not at all that fun to be around.  Now, I’m also thinking that there is a little insanity coming my way because I have decided to enroll and participate in Sock Madness 2, which is basically a series of time challenges for knitting socks and with each round they get more difficult. Not having the pattern is making me CRAZY! The coolest thing about it all is that even if I get knocked out soon, I’ll still keep getting the patterns and knit the socks and by the end of May I’ll have quite a few pairs of socks to give as gifts for birthdays and Christmas.

 On the home front, it is almost Spring break! WOO HOO! So many people want us to do so many things, I’m afraid I’ll be saying “no” quite a bit!

Well, I’ll surface when I’m done working on the sock! YIKES!

Of Mice and Dishes…

I have several friends that are due between April 1st and October 1st. So, I decided that it was time to go ahead and get started on some baby things so I wasn’t inudated all at once! This is the Pinwheel baby blanket that I got from a pamphlet from who knows where.

Since Em got to have a pair of fingerless gloves, little sister had to have a pair as well, but this time in pink.

Nan informed me at 8:30 last night that she had to be a storybook character for school the next day. Enter momma to make a nosewarmer with some shortrow shaping and add some classy permanent marker whiskers and a black nose! LOL.

I also designed a headband for Em, that I still need to put together.

These are just 3 of the 6 washcloths I have made in the last week or so. I already have 3 of them to my SIL because I was tired of listening to her whine. LOL.

Lastly, here is the house. I haven’t talked about it much but we are done and moved in….well we are moved in at least. We are no where near done. The weather has to cooperate so we can finish the painting and the yard, but it is coming along so well. It just seems that there isn’t enough time to work on everything AND knit, so I decided while it’s still dreary out I’m knitting and then as it warms up THEN I’ll put the needles down!

Regarding my last post, Frank is still not doing well, but not doing worse yet either. Please keep the family in your thoughts!

Prayers…

It has been a busy busy week, and lots of knitting has taken place since the last post, however what I’m asking for is prayers and positive thoughts in the universe for an old friend of mine, Becky, and her father Frank.  Apparently Frank accidentally swallowed part of a toothpick that was in some food he cooked:

He was in surgery for about three and half hours and when the doctor came out to talk to Karen, Becky, Lynn (Frank’s daughter) and me (his other daughter, Betty, was listening on speaker phone).  He told us that Frank had gone into acute kidney failure and that when he was an hour into the surgery, he discovered the broken toothpick in Frank’s intestine.  (When thinking back, both Karen and Becky remembered that Frank coughed and choked a little the day they were eating the hamburgers.  They said he had a surprised look on his face after swallowing and they asked if he was Ok and he said he was. Frank wears dentures and we feel that he probably didn’t even realize he had swallowed the toothpick because he didn’t ever make the connection of that to his pain). The doctor speculated that due to Frank having surgery for colon cancer previously (when they had already taken out yards of his intestines), he had a great deal of scar tissue in his intestine which caused the toothpick to lodge in the colon. The intestine was compromised on both sides of where he found the toothpick. Blood flow had been stopped to the small intestine and some of it had died.  The infection had spread into his abdominal cavity and Frank had become septic. He removed approximately three feet of colon and  the doctor said he could not reattach the large and small intestine during the surgery.  He was cautiously optimistic that Frank would survive the transfer to the main SF.  They called for a specialized ambulance to transfer him.  He needed dialysis( and other specialized care that SF South couldn’t supply) due to the total shutdown of the kidneys and that coupled with his other health issues the doctor said surgery would be done on today (Sunday, 3/2) to reattach the large and small intestine.

Saturday (3/01), 1 AM Frank arrived at SF and went into a room in their Surgery ICU. Due to total renal failure, Frank was started on dialysis with one of the new machines that circulates the blood for 24 hours.   He was sedated into a paralytic coma to stop all movement and control pain.  They knew the pain was controlled because they were monitoring the heart rate and blood pressure.  His blood pressure was very low (62/24) and medicine was given to raise it to a life sustaining level.

Today (Sunday, 3/02), Frank was taken into surgery this morning at 8:40 AM. After about an hour into the procedure the doctor stopped the surgery. He talked to Karen and said that it appeared  the small intestine was ischemic (no blood supply)  throughout the entire abdominal area and that any of the pieces that you would use to reconnect were dying. The doctor gave him a very grim prognosis. However, they have not completely given up and they are going to try to adjust his blood pressure medication and to see if that might possibly improve blood flow to the intestine. The doctor said that if he survives another 24 hours, they will look again to see if any of the small intestine is viable to try reconnection again. He is still in the induced coma, using a ventilator,  and connected to dialysis.

My heart is just breaking for this family. They need all the help they can get from this strange accident!