Everything Is Coming in Twos!!

Just as well I'm not pregnant isn't it!  But then again I always did want twins.

Sorry I've been absent but I caught a bug from Oliver!  I thought, mistakenly so, that I could babysit for him last Sunday afternoon for about an hour and I wouldn't catch anything as he was at the tail end of it.  But I was sooooooo wrong and I caught it.  Now the good part is I have lost 7 pounds I put on through stress.  Yes guys I am a BIG stress eater and a couple more to boot and I'm still not hungry.  But I am drinking loads of water which I usually hate.

Now to start the twos!

Well for this lot of twos I have received two awards.  The first one is:

The Sunshine Award

And the rules for this award are:


1.  Put the logo on your blog or within a post
2.  Pass the award to 12 Bloggers
3.  Link the nominees within your post
4.  Let them know they receive this award by communicating on their blog
5.  Share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award


Thank you so much Andrea for giving me this really lovely award.  I saw other people get this and I thought 'boy would I love this award' and lo and behold you gave it to me.   I love getting awards, but then so does everyone (ok mostly everyone) else.  They are so fun.


Here are my twelve:
1.  Lisa 
2.  Susan
3.  Deb
4.  Sharon
5.  Mary
6.  Marilyn
7.  Vivi
8.  Karin
9.  Cindy
10. Olga
11. Alice
12. Su


The other Award is the one underneath which I received recently from Lisa a couple of weeks ago but I'm sure I can come up with some more uninteresting little known facts about me and this time I received it from Theresa whom I thank so very much.

With this award I have to write 7 things about me and give it to 7 people so here goes (AGAIN):


1.  I am absolutely anal about my linen.  It has to be overlocked before I even put one stitch in it.
2.  I am really funny about using bathrooms and I hate public ones with a vengeance because in England they don't have toilet seat covers (not even to buy) and the doors open inwards so you always have to touch the handle of the door and you never know who has and who has not washed their hands.
3.  I HATE cotton (cotton wool) with a vengeance.  I hate the feel of it and the sound of it.
4.  Because of the above hate I never ever used that stuff on my children when they were little and we didn't have wipes in those days either.  Nightmare it was a total nightmare.
5.  I am a terrible spendthrift.  That does not mean I'm thrifty - in fact just the opposite.  Money just goes through my hands like water.
6.  I am the gadget Queen.  I love gadgets of all price and it is £140.00 so guess this is one gadget I will not be getting.  No room for it anyway.  But I still want a Kindle - part of the same gadget obsession.
7.  I have spent nearly my whole entire life dieting.  My mother started me on my first diet when I was around 11 and I haven't stopped since.  Such a bad circle to get into it just isn't true so I never ever tell my children they look anything else but wonderful.


Okay that's over and done and dusted with now so as instructed I am giving this award to 7 people who so deserve it.   And on that note here goes:


1.  Mayte
2.  Elisa
3.  Chris
4.  Melissa
5.  Cathey (aka Pumpkin)
6.  Lynn
7.  Berit


So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt


P.S.  I can't stand the way Blogger now makes extra lines when you don't want them and I'm not going to take them out sorry.

The 2 Great Bits of News + Presents Received and Sent

The very first thing I want to do is thank everybody from the bottom of my heart for their comments and emails as they really did mean a whole lot to me.  They were all so full of encouragement and feel good stories when we both were feeling so low and hopeless.  

So, onto my news!  My first bit of great news is we went to the specialist yesterday and Larry does not have Cancer of any description.  They could have saved us almost 3 weeks of sleep deprived nights and worry if they had only written in that darn letter that scared us witless that this was a standard letter sent out to all patients after having a biopsy taken and does not mean anything because they don't know anything yet so please do not worry unnecessarily!  But they didn't - instead they worried us sick and all for no reason.  Okay there is something wrong with his waterworks but nothing that can't be fixed with a simple pill!  So this is my first bit of great news.  He does have to go for a PSA test ever three months but heck that is only a blood test and after being diabetic for so long he's really used to them.

My second bit of great news is our elder daughter called on Monday and asked if she could come over and we said (okay Larry, for once, answered the phone) and said yes of course and we spent a couple of hours talking and all is okay for now.  We saw the children yesterday and I was so happy yesterday nothing could have spoiled it but seeing the children again was amazing.

I bought a painted wood ornament from Prim Originals and she is called "Joy".  When the parcel came yesterday, of all days, not only was Joy there but these were too ..

There was another painted wood ornament called Hope as well as two small paintings which can be hung around your neck on a chain (might be a good idea because Smoliver really loves the heart that I wear around my neck) but I don't want the chain broken either so I guess I shall have to see.  One will definitely go on my keyring though to remind me of Lisa - I mean Liz!  Private joke - what happened was when I left Liz's feedback on Etsy I called her Lisa and I know full well that her name is Liz because I have purchased a lot from her because I love love love her things and so does everyone else that I give them to.  But these things are going nowhere and will stay firmly in our home.  I really really LOVE them and I just can't thank you enough Liz - you are one very special person that's for sure.


Now for the present I gave Angela (no blog but a picture album you can see on my Pictures list) for her birthday which was last month and I wasn't even that late in giving them to her.  Surprise surprise with everything that had been going on at the time:

loved the keyfob Angela made for me when Smoliver was born last year that I decided I wanted to make her one too.  All right so it didn't turn out quite like hers did but I did try.  And no I'm not very trying.


I know Angela loves pink anything so I gave here these things too:

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all your comments and encouragement as they really meant the world to both of us - even him upstairs who knows nothing about my blog or computers because I told him how many comments were left and read each and every one out to him.


So finally, the crying machine has officially LEFT THE BUILDING YAYYYYY!!!

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

I just can't think straight

I have turned into a crying machine.  I just can't think straight at all.  It isn't all about me at all.  I have to stop crying because I am upsetting him upstairs big time.


I figured I really need to share this with somebody and who better than you guys who are always so supportive.


Firstly our elder daughter hasn't spoken to us for around a month.  We are the worst parents on earth and I am definitely the wicked witch of the west and we haven't seen our two older grandchildren for over a month now.  Well that's upsetting enough and would make me shed a few tears but nothing like this.


A couple of months ago one of my oldest friend's partners Mike (they are getting married at the end of May) had a PSA Test done.  I had never heard of this before but it is a test to see if a man has something wrong with his Prostate gland, not necessarily cancer but to see if everything is not okay. It turned out Mike (friend's partner) has Prostate Cancer, and not the good kind - if there is such a thing.  It was so far gone that there was no point in taking out his Prostate because the cancer had already spread.


So we went to the doctor and Larry had a PSA Test done, which is only a blood test so it's no big deal.   And so the merry-go-round started about four or five weeks ago.  The first thing that happened was the doctor called us about a week or two after the test and arranged for Larry to go and have his bladder checked to make sure that there was no blockage there.  There wasn't - everything there was clear.  Then we got an appointment for two weeks after that for him to go and have biopsies taken from his Prostrate.  I wasn't allowed in with him when they were doing it but I saw him straight after and he was as white as a sheet and was obviously having a Hypo.  Larry has Diabetes and takes insulin for it and even though he had certainly eaten enough that day the 10 biopsies they took had an adverse effect on him.  I asked when we could expect to hear anything and the nurse said about two to three weeks and knowing the NHS we expected a 3 week wait.  This was the Wednesday and they posted a letter to him on the Thursday which we received on the Saturday morning giving him an appointment to see a surgeon next Tuesday.  The letter was really fast and our Doctor said that they wouldn't even have had all the results in by then.  I stupidly went on the internet and saw that the level of the PSA test means very little and as Larry's level was much less than Mike's level I thought it was okay.  I am usually the glass is half full person in this house and Larry is generally the glass is half empty person here but it has turned 180degrees around.


I am so scared it just isn't true.  He is my very best friend and has been my total rock for the past 45 years but especially the past 20 since I was diagnosed with MS (which is really no big deal in the scheme of things).  Then today we were in M&S and they have this campaign on at the moment informing all and sundry about Prostate Cancer and how it takes lives without warning or symptoms.  So we won't know anything for sure until Tuesday but I just wanted you too to know that if your husband/partner/brother/father is over 50 he has to get a PSA Test done immediately an one at least once a year forever.  If only we had known .....

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

The Four Girls

I wish they were mine but alas they are not.  My friend Frances (a very out-of-date blog) finished these and I asked her if she would mind if I put them on my blog as I thought they were so gorgeous.  So without further ado here they are in all their glory:

 

They, of course, are from Carriage House Samplings and are from left to right (click on the photo and it gets way bigger):

Molly,
Elizabeth,
Suzanna,
and Mary Margaret

and aren't they all just gorgeous in every sense of the word.  I can say this because I didn't stitch them or frame them which, Fran did.  She is also half-way through finishing 'Spot' by CHS because she felt the girls needed a guy.  I think he will be just perfect for them.

Also in one of Fran's very brave moments she dyed a piece of white 'cheap' (well Fran called it cheap and I'm only repeating what she said) fabric with red wine.  Well I have an opened bottle of red wine sitting on my kitchen worktop and guess what's going to happen to it?

Here is Fran's dyed piece of linen:

Which I think came out absolutely perfectly!  So here I go - well soon.  Because right now I am stitching.

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt

An Exchange to Israel received and I got another Award

Hi,

It's me again.  Amazing isn't it and after only a day or so.  I told him upstairs after he asked me to go and look for a new Palm PDA for him that if I got on this darn machine I would still be on it 10 hours later.  Okay so I exaggerated a bit but here I am 5 hours later still here!  I knew it. 

I sent my exchange to Vivi last Friday and you will never ever guess but she got it this morning.  Hey it beats mailing from within England to England.  She said she would have received it yesterday except the Post Office in Jerusalem was closed yesterday because they celebrate Purim a day later than everywhere else because it is a walled city and I never knew that.  So here is what I sent to Vivi (her photos are better than mine by heaps but I took the so I'll share them)

I stitched and made the Pincushion for her

but the Doll and little wooden Picture were made by Primoriginals

Here is a close-up of the Pincushion 

This is Vivi's photograph of what I sent

I had my DH buy a very large bar of Cadburys Chocolate and put

it in the package to Vivi

The little picture is by Primoriginals as well.  Liz is just THE nicest person alive and her things are just amazing and my photo really doesn't do them justice.  Please use the link and go and see what she makes.

I am just so lucky, even though lately I haven't felt it much.  But let's not dwell anymore and let me tell you why I feel lucky now.  I received an email from Lisa whose blog is called Lydia's Treasures emailed me and asked me if I would accept an award from her.  I have accepted quite a few blog awards in the past happily an couldn't understand, until I read her Blog, why she was emailing me and asking me.  It was because Lisa wrote to 7 people and so far three have refused.  I am the only person she has given this award to that has accepted it out of the 7 people.  Well now for the award (DRUM ROLL Puuuuuleeeze)

I have to tell you seven interesting things about myself and pass the award onto seven people, but I'm not going to do that.  I have decided to give this award to one person only and make them feel really special.

Here are the seven (this is going to be hard) interesting things about me... 

1.  I was born and brought up in New Jersey but only lived there until I was 15 yet still have a N.J. accent!

2. I adore my grandchildren even more than my stitching - and I love stitching a lot.

3. The new love in my life (besides Smoliver) is quilting and I love that almost as much as stitching.

4.  I have only been stitching for around 12 years.

5.  I started stitching because I wanted to give one of my sister's something very special for her big birthday and so I decide that in order to give somebody who has everything something special I would have to make it.

6. I graduated from University with an Honors Degree in Computer Science when I was quite old(ish)

7.  I own a little Yorkshire Terrier (or she owns me) named Gracie (after Gracie Alan) Amelia (after Amelia Earhart) who is now 14 years old and she has two names because my cousin's ex-wife (he was married to her at the time) was here when we got Gracie, said she wouldn't get into the best private schools with only one name.  Gracie is as funny and zany as Gracie Alan ever was and as brave as Amelia Earhart, so I guess I named her right.

Silly Moo that I am, I forgot to give this award to my one person.  After much thought I decided that Terri would get this award.  I know loads of you that really deserve it but as I said at the beginning I am only giving this award to one person and she's it.  So Congratulations Terri.

Well this post is longer than I thought it would be and I really want some blueberries now ...

So until next time ...

Lots of Love

Patti xxx
Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission - Eleanor Roosevelt