11 Rules for Life

It's so true.

Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.

Rule 1 : Life is not fair - get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3 : You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4 : If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5 : Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.

Rule 6 : If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8 : Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9 : Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11 : Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

When You Gotta Go

I love to travel, and do so whenever I can afford it. Several years ago, we traveled to London. This was my first trek out of the continental US, and I was surprised by a lot of things, one being bathrooms.

The bathroom in our hotel (a country inn) was very primitive-looking, with the toilet sitting on a dark wooden box that obviously held the pipes and ran across the entire wall. The toilet in the airport had the tank up high on the wall over the toilet, like we see in Victorian pictures.

Our most eventful bathroom story was when we had a long day of shopping and tried to go to the bathroom in Harrod's. This fine, upscale store, with multiple floors and lavish everything, also had an attendant outside the bathroom and a machine in which to deposit your pound sterling. At that time, a pound was about a dollar and a half, and for the three of us in the group to go would have cost us four fifty. To go to the bathroom!

Two of us begged off from being "scalped" by the bathroom mafia, but one of our group could not wait and paid the pound. After depositing the coin, the attendant smiled and held the door. Inside, he said, was a lavish bathroom with soft hand towels and another attendant standing by to keep the sinks and floors sparkling. Hey, for a dollar and a half, they should have even wiped your butt.

We take many things for granted in America. One is a certain amount of privacy. In other countries, this seems to be a bit more relaxed. Take for example, the VERY public urinals of Amsterdam. Men don't seem bothered by this, and don't ask me what they have for women. I have no idea.


In Japan and Taiwan, they have a very unique style of toilets that look like this:


And this:


It's called a "squat toilet" and I also found instructions on how to use it here.

We Americans take many things for granted, and at age 51, I admit I may have some bathroom hang-ups. I won't go in a bathroom that has no doors on the stalls. I won't go in a toilet that is nasty, no matter how bad I need to.

On the other hand, I have used an outhouse, as my uncle and aunt used to have one. They had a mountain cabin and I guess there were no sewage systems back then on the mountain. All I remember was it was dark, stinky, and had flies. Afterwards, my dad told me I was lucky not to have seen snakes, as they tend to love outhouses. He then recounted how his family used to love to get the Sears & Roebuck catalog because they would use it for toilet paper after everyone was done looking. They also used dried corncobs. Can you imagine? If it's not Angel Soft, I don't want it near my hiney.

So after posting about my granddaughter every post for a month, I thought you all might like to read something a little different, and I guess this qualifies. C'mon, share your favorite bathroom story!

Sitting on My Butt

I seem to be going through a very lazy period right now. I get up, shower, dress, and sit on the computer, read, or watch TV all day. I did all the laundry last Sunday. We ate out tonight for dinner. My granddaughter has gone back home. I have a lot of things I could be doing.
I'm trying to read all the Harry Potter books before the 21st. ha. I am halfway through number one. The seventh comes from Amazon then. Oh well, even if I don't read them all before the new one comes, I'll still have it to look forward to.
I keep thinking I need to update this blog but nothing really exciting is happening right now. I like to have periods like that though. My friend said it's because we've gone through all the things with the new baby being in the hospital, and now that it's over, I'm trying to recharge. Maybe. I do tend to isolate to recharge.
I wanted to start a walking program going to the mall every day. But my feet still hurt and I guess it may take awhile for them to get better even with the orthotic thingies. I don't want to push my luck. I need to lose some weight. I think menopause should be menopounds because they sure seem to be adding up lately.
My husband is on the phone with his dad. His dad walked out on him and his mom when he was sixteen. As my husband puts it, "When I have to, I take him off the shelf, deal with him, and then put him away." He didn't want to talk to him tonight but his dad keeps calling and calling, so he had to call him back to stop it. His dad and step-mom are fighting again, and they call my husband so he can listen to their arguments. Lucky him.
I think the last half of this year will surely go smoother than the first half has, although I know we've been blessed in many ways, it just seems like there's been a lot of bad luck, too.
Well, I'm feeling boring again so I'll stop.

Hey, Where are the Chair Legs? Where are MY legs?

I'm always up for trying new things, and one thing my son, David, loves is a Japanese restaurant near his house. It has all types of tempura, teriyaki dishes, miso soup, sushi, and rice bowls. My daughter is here visiting with the baby, so we thought it would give she and her brother a good chance to catch up with each other if we met him for lunch. They have booths that are surrounded by privacy walls on three sides, so we thought that would be perfect, since we have the baby.

When we arrived, they said "No booths available. We have table?" I looked at my daughter, since she has all the baby equipment to balance, and she said fine. We were lead to the back room, told to take off our shoes and shown to a table in the corner. A table for four, with four seats on the floor, and a table without legs. I'm fat, my daughter is not too flexible giving she just had a baby, my son is 6 ft 5 inches barefoot. We just couldn't see how we would make that work. It was hilarious watching each other trying to get around that table. I swore if I ever got down there, I'd never get back up again. We laughed so hard. My son couldn't resist taking a picture, and even though its a terrible picture of me, I still think it was one of the funniest experiences we've had in a long time.

I Have Granny Shoes!

Not only am I a Granny, but now I have Granny shoes. I saw the podiatrist and he said I have plantars fascitis, need to keep my feet up, use ice, and wear these supports in my shoes that he gave me. He also said no sandals, going barefoot, or wearing house shoes. So I tried to fit them in my sneakers, but ended up having to put them in some black lace ups I had when I used to work. And so here I sit, with black Granny shoes. I have gray hair, Granny shoes, wire rim glasses, and love to sit in the rocking chair with the baby. I guess I've officially graduated from Granny school.

My friend who is getting the divorce got another lawyer. Her church took up a fund for her to pay an attorney who is suppose to be a real aggressive type, so hopefully she will have her life resolved soon. She's depressed, but doesn't want to hear that. I told her she needed to see her doctor about meds, and she sure didn't want to hear THAT. But she told me "she's so tired" and that sometimes she just wishes she would die so all this would end. If that's not depressed, what is. I'm concerned for her.

It's been fun this weekend watching my daughter with the baby. She's really such a good mom already. I got up last night with the baby so she could have some time off. She got up at 4 and said she was missing the baby. ;-) I look at her giving the baby a bath and remember when I gave her the first bath and it seems like such a short time ago, but it was almost thirty years. I told her to enjoy this time because it's over with before you know it.

I bought all the Harry Potter books, and when my son was hospitalized a few years ago, I read the first one and part of the second. I've gone back now and began at the beginning, so I'll be one of the few people in America who will begin and read them all straight through the series, because I figured I'll be ready for number seven when it comes out on the 21st.
That's about it for now.

Weekend Plans

I spent the day doing some shopping at the fabric store, doing some secret shops, and making some baby blankets. My daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter will be here tomorrow for the weekend, and we are excited to see the baby. I think my next sewing project will be to attempt some more jeans.
My friend that is going through the divorce last heard that the judge had canceled their court date because she felt "they were so close to settling everything and should go into mediation." That was the last thing her lawyer told her. That was over six weeks ago, and since about that time, her husband has been giving her $100 a week child support for eight children. Yes, eight. When she asks, pleads, begs to him about it, he simply says he has bills of his own to pay and she will just have to manage.
She made over twenty calls to her attorney, was told first he was out of town, then that he would return her call, and eventually, she just started being sent to his voice mail. She was at a loss. I am no expert on legal matters, but I do know she has a woman judge who went through a divorce herself. I told her maybe she could go up to the courthouse and plead her case with the clerks in the circuit court's office and see if anything could be done. They told her to draft a letter and they would present it to the judge. I helped her write it. We basically said everything I just said above, plus the fact that he had enough money to move his new girlfriend into the house he still jointly owns with his WIFE, bought his girlfriend a car, and my friend can't manage on 400 a month for eight children.
She got a letter back from the judge's office. It was a copy of an order that her attorney set up mediation immediately, and that the next court date was set for the first week of August. Attached was a note from the clerk saying they had contacted her attorney and he said he was no longer her attorney. This was the first she had heard of that. Her lawyer agreed to take the case for a set amount of money rather than hourly, and he decided he wasn't making enough on it, so he dropped her with no notification. She has called numerous attorneys and has been told they either "don't handle contested cases" or that they need a big retainer, which she does not have. So she has cried for two days, and I have no idea what to advise her, except to show up on the court date in August and explain her situation. She is so intimidated by the whole thing. It's such a shame that it is this way.
I have a doctor's appt at 2:45 with the podiatrist. I've never been to a podiatrist, but I think I have something wrong with my heel because it hurt all the time I was walking at the hospital. When I sit it feels fine. If I just walk around the house, it's ok. But when I get out and walk at a store, etc. it swells and throbs. I don't even know what a podiatrist does when you go, but I guess I'll find out.

Baby is Home and So Are We

Our grandbaby is home from the hospital, and my daughter says she is doing well adjusting to being home. She is still on oxygen, but not a lot, and the doctors think she won't have to have it long. She's taking a lot more at a feeding, and they see the doctor tomorrow to see how her weight is doing. I haven't seen her in two days and it seems like two months.
My husband and I were cooking breakfast and started thinking about how we could see her. He reminded me of a wooden TV tray my daughter wanted to borrow to use beside her rocking chair. He said, "Do you think we could convince them to come to get it?" Then he remembered my son-in-law wanted a place to store some of his work tools he's not using right now, and our case was building! But I called and mentioned those two things and maybe they could come soon, and my son-in-law said he's trying to figure out something.
I wish I wasn't allergic to cats. I tried everything I knew to do, taking weekly shots to build up my tolerance, etc. but nothing seems to be helping with the cat thing.
We sat down last night and made up a picture album with all her pictures we have so far. We put them in an Anne Geddes book and it has a baby on the front. Really cute.
I'm trying to get back into the swing of things now that we're not spending all our time at the hospital. The carpet cleaning guy is coming tomorrow. We really need to get out and buy groceries, as we let everything run out since we weren't eating here much. I've got a lot of sewing projects in the works. I have plenty to do and just need to get motivated to do it.
I've gotten encouraging emails from many of you during the baby's hospital stay. I just wanted to say how much I appreciate all the thoughts and prayers, even though I didn't get to answer everyone yet. I know the prayers made a big difference in how fast she recovered from her surgery and everything.
If any of you sew, I have a sewing question. I bought a jacket awhile back that is a patchwork of different batik fabrics. The jacket is too small, and I'd really like to re-work it so I can wear it. I thought of taking it apart and adding some matching fabric to it. If anyone has any ideas, let me know. (What do you think, Jessica???? )

Stuff and Other Stuff

My husband and I came home yesterday, and are taking it easy this weekend. I made a big pot of chicken and dumplings today, and we pigged out. It was good to eat something besides hospital food. We got soooo tired of that stuff. I also went and bought some new glasses. The frames I was wearing was driving me crazy because they never fit right. I took a pair of frames I had worn before and liked, and they had them ready in an hour.
The baby is now going over her last hurdle, getting off the oxygen. She's doing great with weaning from it so far. She's eating well, gaining weight, and may get her pic line out soon. I really expect my daughter to be bringing her home soon. I won't get to see her much when she goes home, until my daughter can get out and come here. They have four cats, and cats give me asthma attacks. I will miss the baby so much! I'm so attached to her already. I am going back next week each morning, to the hospital, and drive back home at night. It's about an hour and a half each way, but we've been staying with one of my daughter's friends and I feel like we've imposed enough.
I read a couple of books while I was sitting at the hospital. One was "The Road", the Oprah bookclub one, and the other was "Magic in Ordinary Time." Both were good. Those are the first books I've finished in awhile.
Tomorrow I have to do a ton of laundry. I think everything we own is dirty. I spent most of the day today working on baby bibs and receiving blankets out of some flannel and fleece I had stored in my fabric stash, so I can take them down there on Monday.
I am so tired tonight, nothing is on tv, nothing on our TIVO. When I was a teenager, I hated sitting home on Saturday night, and sometimes I still do.

Cutie!

The baby is doing great. She is drinking breast milk from a bottle now, and they are thinking about moving her to a "transitional nursery" and out of the NICU. I have been able to hold her and feed her.

I think we will probably stay until Friday and then go home once my son-in-law is off work and can stay with my daughter at the hospital.

I really LOVE being a granny. Everyone told me how great it was, but it's better than I imagined.

Claire is OFF the Ventilator!

She is now just on oxygen in the little cannula around her face. She's doing great! She is now in a big girl crib and loves her new mobile and aquarium, but these were taken before the vent was taken out.

Hello World!

We had quite a scare today with the baby. She started having trouble breathing and her blood gases were coming back worse as the day went on. The doctors said there was a slight chance it could be the tube they used to intubate her, but they were apprehensive about changing it because they had such a time getting it in to begin with. But they decided around noon that they had to change it because she was doing so badly. They took out the old one, and sure enough, it was clogged. Poor baby couldn't breathe because of the tube and nothing was coming out of the tube! They got a new one in, and said by the time that sort of thing could happen to this one, it will be out of her anyway. Now she's doing great. They turned the vent way down, and she's awake and looking around and feeling much better. Here's one with her eyes open. They are going to try to wean her off the ventilator this weekend.
We came home but plan to go back on Monday morning. We needed to retrieve our puppies from the boarding place for a bit, get some laundry done, get mail, etc. But we feel so out of it being here and the baby being there! I can't wait to get back down there to see her. Her grandpa feels the same way.

Surgery Update

The baby had surgery last night, and it took from 6:15 PM until 10:20. They were able to do it laproscopically, which was a good sign (that she withstood that like a trooper.) She is swollen quite a bit from the fluids. They did not have to use a patch for the repair, but were able to use her own tissue, which "grows" with her, unlike a patch. The doctor said her diaphragm was very thin, more like a membrane than a muscle, but the muscle around it gave her enough to work with for the repair.

She said our next step is to let her rest a few days and then start weaning from the ventilator. That process takes about a week, if it goes perfectly. Then she plans to begin feeding by mouth, which also takes another week, if it goes perfectly. She said she will be in the hospital then, a minimum of two more weeks.

Thanks for all your prayers. Keep them up!

Baby's Surgery Tomorrow

Our granddaughter is doing so well, they plan to do her surgery tomorrow afternoon (Wed). She got one of the best pediatric surgeons for this type of surgery, and so we were very relieved to get this one. They said the surgery will take about two hours, and then they will keep her in the surgical suite for a couple of hours before bringing her back up to the NICU. Keep praying, as we are all concerned.
She was resting better, but today has been arching her little back and holding her breath, trying to cry. Of course, with the ventilator, there is no sound. It is the most pitiful thing you've ever seen. My daughter cries, I cry. It's like she's mad at all the tubes and wires and not being held. We feel very helpless. The nurses are very compassionate and keep her sedated as well as they can, but I guess there will be times like this no matter what they do. The good thing is, after she gets over being mad and calms down, her levels all go back to normal without much intervention. After the surgery, they will try to wean her from the vent slowly, and then attempt to feed her by mouth rather than the IV stuff she gets now.
We are tired, but very happy she's doing so well. I'll keep writing as I can.
I've gotten so many nice comments lately on the blog, on new entries as well as old. I just want you to know I appreciate all the comments and well-wishes from new friends and old.

Baby is Here

My granddaughter was born on Thursday night. She is in the NICU for a diaphragmatic hernia but is doing very good. They plan to do her corrective surgery on Wed afternoon. My daughter is doing well but still has quite a bit of swelling, especially in her feet, especially after sitting all day in the NICU with the baby, but there's not way we are getting her out of there!
She's the prettiest baby I've ever seen. Yes, I know all Grandma's say that, but she really is! :-)
I am staying near the hospital and will be here probably for some time, but will update my blog as I can.
Please continue your prayers for her.
She weighed 5 lbs 8 oz and was 19 inches long. She's a cutie! I'll try to post a picture on this site soon.

Baby's Coming

My daughter saw her OB today and her blood pressure is "through the roof," she said. They said she has pre-eclampsia. They want her to be admitted now and will try to induce this afternoon. She has been having a LOT of swelling but Tuesday of last week, her BP was fine. Things change quickly. We are on our way down there. I will keep you updated and take my laptop to the hospital. Keep them in your prayers.

Don't Go Into Labor, I'm Sewing

It was another lazy weekend. My husband and I went shopping awhile on Saturday. Yesterday he watched tv while I played a free online lottery game.I'm trying to win a gift card and I'm half-way there after two days, which tells you how bored I must be to spend all day playing a computer game.
I told my daughter she can't go into labor until I get some jeans made, so I start on those today. She said she would do her best. ha. I need some new jeans to take down there so I won't have to do laundry as often.
My biopsy came back normal. I figured it would as my doctor overreacts to everything. But it was glad to hear anyway.
I've been doing a lot of secret shops lately as a famous fast food restaurant that starts with a Mc.....and have noticed I've gained two pounds, which I sure don't need. So this weekend I took my husband with me, and then we dropped the food off at my friend's house. Her kids loved it. So that worked out better than me eating it. See, I don't like the grilled chicken. When I go, I want the Big Mac. I know, I know. It's loaded with fat. But it's still good.
I'm trying to convince my husband that our eating out is as cheap as eating in, if we use coupons. He's not completely sold on the idea but did say he didn't care if I just made soup and sandwiches or hot dogs or something simple instead of a full-fledged meal every night. I guess tonight's menu is tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That's one of my favorites.
Geez, this whole blog is about food, but since I haven't had breakfast yet, I guess that explains it.
I bought some sock puppets to make at the hospital when I go with my daughter. It says you have to hot glue them, but I didn't realize that when I bought them. I think I could probably hand sew them instead, but haven't quite figured out if that would work or not. I may just end up taking some magazines and forgetting the crafty thing. Reading makes me so sleepy though, especially if I am just sitting.
Saturday night my middle son, the one who just graduated and moved into his own apartment came over for dinner and brought Vacancy for us to watch. It was the spookiest movie since The Hitcher. The previews made it look terrible, but it was much better than the previews.
Well I have to go get started sewing. My daughter can only hang on so long.....

The Fabric Stores Love Me

It's getting really close to time for the baby to come. I have canceled appointments so I am free for most of June and July. I am both anxious and excited. I'm sure my daughter is too. On one hand, we want to get the baby here. On the other hand, we worry about how she will do. My daughter writes to a lady who's son was at the NICU when we toured there. He also has CDH and had been in there for some time. My daughter wrote her to get an update and found out he had died. But he was one of the worse cases they had seen.

Right now, I'm on a sewing kick. I made a pillow today, and I think it turned out well. I was happy with it. The new sewing machine sews great. The old one that I just had tuned up was sewing good at first, then started getting threads all bound up in the bobbin area. I tried everything I knew but nothing worked. I just switched to the new machine, and finished it on there.

I made that duvet cover and still need to make a bed skirt, curtains, and pillows for our bedroom. All in time.

I'm up at 130 in the morning because for some reason, I just can't sleep tonight. My brain won't shut up. ha. Some days are like that. My mind jumps from one thing to the next. I feel like I have to be doing something every minute of the day. I'm either on the computer or watching tv (usually both of those at once), or cleaning, or sewing, or calling my friend, Dawn. I am terrified of just sitting and doing nothing. I've been shopping way too much lately, and we can't afford what I've been buying, so I'm trying to make up for it with my secret shopping and writing. I've submitted fifteen articles in May for Associated Content on everything from Mormons to choosing a refrigerator. Pretty much anything I see on tv that gives me an idea I research and write about.

Between my secret shopping, writing, and my clothes at the consignment shop, I should be able to pay down my credit cards, which I have cut up to stop the spending. It called for drastic measures. I wonder why people shop compulsively. I shop compulsively, eat compulsively, and also obsess abut whatever my current interest is, and for right now it's sewing. Before I went through phases on studying the Dulcimer, making jewelry, scrap booking, collecting books, studying different religions, whatever my latest kick happens to be. I pick something, think about it all the time, collect everything I can to read on the subject, buy everything I need to have to do it with, and then quickly move on to something else. I don't know why I do it. A psychic friend said I am in an information gathering stage in my life. All I know is it doesn't feel normal.

My therapist told me a few weeks ago that there are actually "some
people who do nothing and never are bored." I just stared at her. She repeated it. I still stared. I still don't get that. I think if I'm not busy, I'd go stir-crazy.
I love being holed up in this house, only going out when I absolutely have to, and otherwise just isolating here. It's comfortable to me.

It seems like there has been a wide range of bad luck this year. If I knew anything about horoscopes I would figure it's got to have something to do with that. First my friend's divorce, my daughter's baby's birth defect, her husbands business problems, now her best friend got laid off this week, her brother in law is having problems that affect them, the list goes on and on. I really feel like I desperately need a cruise, badly, or at least a weekend at a retreat somewhere. But oh well....Maybe later.

Memorial Day Weekend

My husband has a four-day weekend for Memorial Day. We went Friday night to buy groceries and stocked up on all the things we were out of, which was everything.

Today, I bought some soft fleece in pastels to make a baby quilt with the embroidered disney characters for the grandbaby. She should be arriving July 1st, but my daughter keeps trying to go into labor. She pops one of the pills the doctor gave her and they stop, temporarily. They plan to wean her off the pills soon, so I don't much think she'll be able to hold off until July 1st.

No I haven't quite figured out everything on the sewing machine yet. But I did get a bobbin wound, the bobbin inserted, and the thread cartridge wound. Yes, I know on a regular sewing machine, that's like a piece of cake, but with all the new "easier" methods on these new machines, it takes hours. ha. I guess the idea is when I get the hang of everything, it will be faster? Who knows...

Today, we were watching tv when we noticed the hot air balloons out the window. Our town has hot air balloon races every Memorial Day weekend. We got some good close-up pics and I got to practice the zoom on our camera. My kids always were so excited to see the hot air balloons when they were children. I still am.

Tomorrow we plan to do a little Memorial Day sale shopping, and I'm going to work on some sewing while he works on his army models.

I had to have a biopsy done this week, because my family doctor over-reacts to everything. He sent me to a specialist who also said he thought my doctor over-reacted, but if I went ahead and had the biopsy, then my doctor would be happy and we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. So I had it. It should be back this week, but I don't expect anything from it.

I hope all my readers (aka my buddies!) have a good Memorial Day weekend.

Sewing Machine- You Won't Get the Best of Me

Well, the sewing machine arrived yesterday on my birthday as planned. I was so excited to get it. Then I started reading some of the manual....I unpacked everything, set it on my sewing table and didn't even turn it on. I was scared of it. Yes, I said scared. I started thinking what do I know about a computerized sewing machine? I have to get my daughter to tell me how to do things in MS Word, which everyone else in the universe has figured out forward and backward.
Today, I went down to a sewing shop that carries these things, and the lady told me a lot of things I didn't know about bobbin thread being different than embroidery thread and all the different brands and weights and stabilizers and when to use which one and I really freaked.
So I came home and all day I thought I need to at least try it out. It took me until after dinner to get up the courage. I sat down, opened up the manual, and started trying to wind a bobbin with the automatic hoopty doopty auto bobbin winder. After an hour and half, three bobbins that looked like birds nests on crack, I finally got one wound right. I had a few choice words to say to the machine, which I can't repeat because I might get thrown off blogspot.
Anyway, the challenge was on. It's either me or the sewing machine and it's not going to be the sewing machine that wins. Tomorrow I'm going to lasso that sucker and at least load some thread.. I hope. But that could take awhile. It has an automatic threader too.....Maybe one like the picture would be more my speed....

Happy Birthday To Me

Today is my birthday, and after checking online a billion times this weekend to see when my sewing machine would ship, today it said shipping info was available, so I tracked it and guess what! My sewing machine is out on the UPS truck due to deliver today, on my birthday. I'm so excited to get it.
My husband was not only NOT mad about me getting it, that he even went and ordered me the software so I can download free designs off the internet to embroider and the cassettes for the machine to load them on. And thread! So now I'm just going to be spending my days embroidering everything in our house. :-)
I finished a duvet cover I was making, and it looks like this:



I also made a nightgown for me for summer. I think it turned out pretty. Here it is.



My machine does Disney designs so this new grandbaby is going to be decked out in Mickey and Donald. It's only six more weeks until she'll be here. My daughter keeps dreading the labor part, and wondering what it will be like. I can't help her because I had c-sections and never had labor. But they didn't have epidurals back then, so maybe it would have been worse on me than it will be on her. However, I'd do it for her in a heartbeat if I could. She's my baby, even though she's having a baby of her own. I guess it is always that way, isn't it.
We're not doing anything for my birthday. My husband said to just do something simple for dinner and we'll go out this weekend to a restaurant of my choosing. He has a four day weekend this weekend, since he gets off every other Friday and Monday is Memorial Day.
I was suppose to go to court today with my friend who is getting divorced. They were suppose to go before the judge, and I was going for moral support. Then last night her attorney called and said since they are so close to a meeting of the minds, the judge wants them to see a mediator and not come before her unless that fails. Yes, she's a woman judge and a woman mediator, and my friend's husband doesn't like women who are positions of authority. Is that justice or what. He's already moved in his new girlfriend, and she's 35 and he's 53. He has a daughter just a few years younger, the old coot. Oh well, his grown children are all mad at him, so I guess there will be justice in the end.