Happy Halloween!

Make sure your pumpkins are carved and your treats are ready...

Say a prayer for those who have passed in the past year. Be sure to honor your ancestors today, light a candle for them, leave them a plate of their favorite foods or visit the grave and leave flowers or something that they would like.

Watch for spooks and goblins tonight and be safe.

Have a blessed samhain...

Blessings
~*~

Tomorrow is not promised...

... so enjoy every moment of today.

Yesterday, I found out that the significant other of an acquaintance of mine, one of the girls I made the NOLA trip with, was killed on Tuesday. She was crossing an intersection after work and was struck by a bus. She died several hours later at the age of 33. It is so very sad.

The other girl that made the trip with us called me yesterday to tell me the news. She is just as sad and worried as I am about our friend. I don't know how to help her, I haven't spoken to or seen her in over a year, but my heart is still hurting for her and how she must be feeling.

Tonight I will light a candle and say a prayer, for the spirit of the one who passed and the ones that are left to carry on.

Take a moment today to let the ones you love, know how you feel. Give them a hug, send an email with a smiley or just call and say Hi. We all need to know we are loved today, because tomorrow we may not be able to hear or say it.

I love you.

Blessings,
~*~

emerging from hiding...

I've been in hiding this week. From what, I could not say. I stayed home from work three days, sick, miserable, despondent. I don't know where this comes from or why it comes. I wish I did. I just try to make it through whole and sane.

Today I made it out of the house and went on small trip with my mum. It is our annual trip to the county to get Brunswick stew and also to a sell of one of our favorite artists. We had a wonderful lunch, bought several neat things at the artists shop including two prints, one for her that was already framed and another for me that is still there to be framed.

After that we went to this little "antique" store down the road. Last year I found a cool hatpin there and this year I found 4 old skeleton keys...


and a porcelain pincushion doll...



I'm so excited about the keys - I've been looking for skeleton keys for over a year. The doll is a real find even though the cushion part is in very bad shape, the doll is in great shape and I've yet to decide what to do with it. One of my favorite people makes jewelry with dolls like this. I could never make anything as fabulous as hers, but I want to do something with it.

Tomorrow is another short outing and then back to work on Monday. I have to make it back to work. I've missed too many days in the past two weeks. Ugh...

Blessings,
~*~

Wow.. .really?

Snagged from Crazy

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are an Ingrid!

You are an Ingrid -- "I am unique"

Ingrids have sensitive feelings and are warm and perceptive.

How to Get Along with Me

• * Give me plenty of compliments. They mean a lot to me.


• * Be a supportive friend or partner. Help me to learn to love and value myself.


• * Respect me for my special gifts of intuition and vision.


• * Though I don't always want to be cheered up when I'm feeling melancholy, I sometimes like to have someone lighten me up a little.


• * Don't tell me I'm too sensitive or that I'm overreacting!

What I Like About Being an Ingrid

• * my ability to find meaning in life and to experience feeling at a deep level


• * my ability to establish warm connections with people


• * admiring what is noble, truthful, and beautiful in life


• * my creativity, intuition, and sense of humor


• * being unique and being seen as unique by others


• * having aesthetic sensibilities


• * being able to easily pick up the feelings of people around me

What's Hard About Being an Ingrid

• * experiencing dark moods of emptiness and despair


• * feelings of self-hatred and shame; believing I don't deserve to be loved


• * feeling guilty when I disappoint people


• * feeling hurt or attacked when someone misundertands me


• * expecting too much from myself and life


• * fearing being abandoned


• * obsessing over resentments


• * longing for what I don't have

Ingrids as Children Often

• * have active imaginations: play creatively alone or organize playmates in original games


• * are very sensitive


• * feel that they don't fit in


• * believe they are missing something that other people have


• * attach themselves to idealized teachers, heroes, artists, etc.


• * become antiauthoritarian or rebellious when criticized or not understood


• * feel lonely or abandoned (perhaps as a result of a death or their parents' divorce)

Ingrids as Parents

• * help their children become who they really are


• * support their children's creativity and originality


• * are good at helping their children get in touch with their feelings


• * are sometimes overly critical or overly protective


• * are usually very good with children if not too self-absorbed

Take Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz at HelloQuizzy

and the winner is...

me. :-)

Just kidding.

I saw my doctor today and I have steatohepatitis. He said there was significant scarring of the liver and that if I don't get it under control, it will move on to cirrhosis. Oh. boy.

He also was not at all concerned that I had spent the last week in excruciating pain. He said he thought it was from the biopsy and since it had stopped, he wasn't worried about it.

So, I am to lose weight as that is the only "treatment" for steatohepatitis.

In other news, I woke up on Saturday with no pain (Yay!) and spent an amazingly long day working on my kitchen. I cleaned it from top to bottom and reorganized the cabinets. Over all it was a good day.

Oh and I also did something that I haven't done in a while. Yes, that's right, I pulled out the knitting needles! I worked a few rows on my never ending afghan. It took me a few minutes to figure out where I had left off, but it was great to get back to it. I've missed it.

I've also worked on several wreaths. I'll finish them up tonight, tag them tomorrow and take them to the shop on Thursday. I'll try to get pictures and post tomorrow.

Oh... happy full moon! If you get a chance, take a look outside tonight. I'm sure it will be beautiful!

Blessings,
~*~

still nothing..

I still don't have an answer as to what is wrong with me and why I'm in so much pain. It is driving me crazy. They want me to come back tomorrow and see a fourth doctor. I just don't think I can do that.

Work has been hectic and I've been coming home and pretty much crashing. Tonight I have more work to do from home which I'll get to once I eat dinner. I'm cooking spaghetti for dinner and am also cooking the green beans that I got at the farmers market this weekend.

I've decided to start using my other blog again. I started the other day and it is really under construction. When I opened it back up, I had to upgrade it and so I lost my background (which I loved). The link is in my sidebar. I feel like this site is my darker side and I need a lighter side too. I know... weird...

Anyhoo...I'm off to finish fixing dinner and getting back to work.

Blessings,
~*~

mystery...

Apparently, I am a mystery. Or rather my body is. Saturday afternoon I started having pain in my side, just below where they did the biopsy. I suffered through, took some percogesic and went to bed. I tossed and turned all night as I could not get comfortable. Sunday morning when I finally got up, I went to the Urgent Care. I hate going to those places but was in immense pain and couldn't stand it. After 3 hours there, I was sent to the hospital for an ultrasound.

The urgent care doc's opinion was gall bladder. But because of the recent biopsy they needed to make sure that it wasn't the biopsy site bleeding out. After the ultrasound, i had to hang around in the radiology waiting room for the results. Turns out everything looked good and normal, including my gall bladder. So the doc says for me to take ibuprofen, rest and if it gets worse during the night to go to the emergency room (fat chance) or come in to the office in the morning if it is worse.

Well, that's a big huge frickin help. Here is the problem: it feels like I'm being stabbed when i breathe in anyway other than short shallow breaths. If I yawn, sneeze, cough, burp, or just try to take a regular breathe, it really hurts. No matter which way I lie down, it hurts, some worse than others, but still intense pain. I'm currently at work, as I feel there is nothing to be gained by going back to the doctor.

The doctor seemed quite puzzled yesterday afternoon when I talked to him. This isn't the first time my "phantom" pains have puzzled someone. I guess my body enjoys being mysterious. I just wish it didn't have to include pain. :-(

Blessings,
~*~

autumn is grand...

Isn't autumn fabulous? I love this season of the year. I love how the air is so brisk and clean, I love the flowers, the changing of the leaves and the pumpkins. My mum and I decided to do something we haven't really done since my Grandmother passed last year. We had what mum likes to call, a mother daughter day. We went out for breakfast (pancakes!), then went to the farmer's market and I got so many things! I got apples, peaches, half-runners, collard greens, a flat of pansies, two mums, a ghost pumpkin and a regular pumpkin. It was so much fun!

We also went through some of my Grandmother's close that my mum still had and will take them to mum's church to donate to a yard sale. My Grandmother would like that. It was a little tough, going through them, remembering her wearing them. But it needed to be done.

After I left mum, I went to grocery and then came home and emptied the car. I had a ton of stuff to bring in and it took quite a while. I haven't finished planting all my pansies, but I did get the window box done.


Don't you love autumn?

Tomorrow I'm getting my Halloween decorations down and setting them out. Yay!

Blessings,
~*~

PS...I did hear from the nurse yesterday, she called to schedule an appointment with the doctor so he can go over my results. My appointment is not until the 14th so I'm assuming it can't be very bad news or he wouldn't wait so long. Dontcha think?

Where I talk about something other than me...

Well, maybe this will be a little about me or my feelings on a certain subject. I have a question.

Why is Casey Anthony not in jail? Why has she not been put under the jail, put on the rack, hung by her toenails and disemboweled, given electric shock treatment, or truth serum or something...until she tells us where her daughter is? She has not said a single truth in this entire event. She knows what happened to her daughter, she knows where she is and so do her parents. She should be tortured!

This reminds me of Susan Smith from many years ago. You remember, the woman who claimed she had been carjacked with her two small children in the backseat but it turned out she drove them into a lake and watched them drown.

People like this make me violently ill. She is guilty and I know it. It is one of those "knowings" although I don't think there is anyone in the world that actually believes she is innocent.

Casey Anthony better hope we never meet. I think I would probably beat the living hell out of her if I ever came face to face with her.

Light a candle, say a prayer for little Caylee Anthony and hope that wherever she is, she is safe now and loved.

Blessings,
~*~

Results are in...

...but do I know them? No, of course not! The nurse called me this morning and left a message for me to call her. I don't know how I missed the call, the phone was right beside me but I never heard it. Anyhoo, I called back within 2 minutes and she was on another call. I left a message, never heard... I called back at least 3 or 4 more times (only left 2 messages). By the end of the day...still hadn't heard back. I hope I didn't tick her off with all the calls but I really really need to know!

Hopefully I will know something tomorrow. I think if I don't, I really will go insane. :-)

Blessings,
~*~