Labor Day - Break!

I've been busy the past two weeks -working on this- my latest project that I completed on Sunday afternoon.


Because of the size of this tablecloth, I can't get a shot of the full item. It is a 50x50 inch tablecloth though, titled "Showtime in the Snow" and has a snowman in each corner, a row of blue snowflakes along each side and a square in the center consisting of more blue snowflakes. Really a cute piece -if I do say so myself - and really didn't take all that long (only 2 weeks) to complete it.

This is the tabletopper I completed just prior to doing the Snowman cloth. (This one took a bit longer though -like almost 4 weeks to finish -but then too, it had a whole lot more stitching involved in it!














This is a piece, about 33x33 inches and is a nordic Christmas design. It was supposed to be embroidered completely in a gold metallic thread but after trying to work with that stuff that came with the kit, I decided it would take me the better part of year, working with that miserable thread. So I went and got some floss, in the closest shade I could find to the gold metallic thread and it still took me four weeks, at least, to complete this puppy!

Now, I'm working on another tabletopper which has a trimmed Christmas tree in each corner. Hopefully, this one won't take quite as long to complete it though.

This past week marked a big event for Miss Maya -her first day in school as a FIRST GRADER! And boy, was she excited about that too!

So far, the comments written by her teacher in the little notebook that goes back and forth from school to home in her backpack have all been good. She even got a really nice notation from her teacher when, on her second day in this classroom, the teacher said she got extra points for having helped a classmate. For Maya, that's a really good start because the social skills are not always her strong points. (At home, she frequently forgets about being nice to her little brother!)

One day last week, when she had done something that was actually a nice gesture on her part to Kurtis, I complimented her on that, reminding her that is how she should always be to Kurtis -nice, comforting, helpful, etc., and loving too because, after all he is her baby brother and that's how big sisters should be to them. Her response to me about that was "Gee thanks, Gram, for telling me that cause I didn't know that before!" Hmmmm. Maybe the memory thing doesn't apply to how to act with little brothers, huh?

On Labor Day, Mandy, her friend, Ken, the older grandson, Alex and Maya, Kurtis and I went over to DelGrosso's Amusement Park in Tipton, PA. It's a nice, clean family amusement park about 40 miles from here and they had a Labor Day Special of $3.99 per person admission fee that was good for all rides plus the water rides too in the park all day on Labor Day. A price too good to pass up, for sure!

Although Kurt and Maya very much enjoyed the rides and the park, I think poor Alex got the raw end of the deal today though as the lines for the rides for older kids/adults were long -very long -so he didn't get to ride much and ended up just tagging along with the adults, watching Kurt and Maya having a great time.

When we left the park, Mandy and Ken took Alex back home to Bellefonte and I took Kurt and Maya home with me. I promised them a little "sumprise" (Maya's word for surprise) and we stopped at McDonald's -always a treat for them -where they had McNuggets and I had a double cheeseburger that tasted pretty darned good too, I must say! Kurt did eat probably two of the chicken nuggets and a smattering of french fries while Maya polished off about 8 of the chicken pieces! Both kids though were very good while we were eating -no fussing, no feuding either! The no feuding thing is something usually generated by Maya, who feels it is her calling in life to totally boss Kurtis around which then usually results in his telling her, in a pretty loud, clear voice too, "You don't tell me what to do!" That sentence, along with the standard "NO!" seems to be the things Kurtis knows best and uses that much of his vocabulary the most too!

Although I did start walking a bit this past week -even took the dog for a fairly long walk one day too -I am still not back up to my standard walks either alone or with Sammy. Last week, I had several days that were really filled with doctor visits, including one on Tuesday when I had to go back to Pittsburgh for my final post-op checkup then Wednesday, I had to have a thyroid test that involved being at the radiology department at 10 a.m. to have the dye administered and then, return there at 4 p.m. for them to actually do the test. In between those times, I also had a check up with my family physician too. Plus, the thyroid test also involved having to return to the lab on Thursday morning for the last of the images to be done to complete that test.

This week -on Wednesday -I get to go to the Cancer Treatment Center at 8:30 a.m. for blood work, followed by a check-up by the doctor there and then, at 9:30 (depending on the results of the blood work) I will begin getting the chemo treatments I have to have as a result of the findings from the pathology reports from the surgery last month. As yet, I have no idea how many chemo treatments I will have to have, the type of chemo I will get is still an unknown too nor do I know if this time around I might have some other side effects from the chemo that I didn't have the last time I had chemo -seven years ago this summer! Lots of unknowns there that I will no doubt get answers about on Wednesday morning so stay tuned for the updates on that in the near future.

Tomorrow -or rather since the clock on the computer now reads 1:56 a.m. -today, Kurtis will return to his pre-school program now too. Ah, four days out of the week with relative peace and quiet from 11:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. -Tuesdays thru Fridays! Lovely thing to look forward to ya know! Although, to be really honest, when the kids are away at school, much as I do enjoy that there is no one I have to worry about then for 4.5 to 5 hours on those days, and yes, aside from the constant of the tv playing (I use that to tell time so I don't have to get up to check the clock, ya know), I still miss not having both the kids here, harassing each other, making messes that generally only one of the two will help to clean up afterwards too. But, I learned last week that the reason Maya doesn't want to help clean up toys and such is because it is not part of her job description for a first grader to do things like that!

When she rattled that response off to me the other night -as I was trying to convince her and Kurtis to clean up the toys off the living room floor, I was more than a bit taken aback by that piece of information. So I asked her then to tell me what her job entails anyway. She told me she is "Supposed to go to school, study, learn, do homework and then, make a lot of money!"

So that's how it works, huh? I'm still waiting for the "make a lot of money" part to come true!

Peace.