Day 274 of 365

I needed a holiday tradition today and I wound up having to fight hard for it.

Every year when we decorate our Christmas tree, my daughter and I decorate and my husband makes Mexican food. Our daughter has been extremely busy working and she's not able to help this year so hubby and I decorated the tree together last night. Going with the less is more idea I've been tossing around lately, we didn't put all our ornaments on. But even with fewer ornaments, last night we were too darn tired to get the angel on the top and too darn tired to cook up our usual Mexican feast. We saved those activities for tonight, thinking that after my rheumatologist appointment today I'd stop by the grocery store and pick a couple things up and we'd be good to go.

Yeah, right.

The rheumatologist is working on getting the insurance company to approve the infusions. Because of how insurance has been dragging out the process, and with my blood-work numbers and arthritis symptoms continuing to be problematic, he felt some major changes were in order in the meantime. An increase in the amount of the chemotherapy drug I have to inject each week. An additional medication taken daily. Encouragement to start taking pain medication. And a steroid shot to try and get some of the body-wide inflammation down. (A shot which unfortunately had to be given in a not fun place.)

So more hair will probably be falling out and I'll start a new medication which can cause blindness. Before I even take this new medicine I have to see the ophthalmologist and have a special test so he can get a baseline on my eyes. My other injection, Enbrel, is the only thing staying the same. Or so I thought.

When I went to the pharmacy to pick up all these medications, the Enbrel wasn't there. Even though I've been on this medication for almost a year now, insurance has now decided to deny it because it needs to be pre-authorized. Even though it has already been pre-authorized for all this time I've been on it, it seems it has to go through the process again.

What a wonderful day.

So despite how crappy I felt about all that, I still had to get some groceries for us to have our Mexican feast. I would have skipped it, but I knew I needed our tradition to happen. I needed something familiar, something comfortable.

Tortillas, tortilla chips and a couple jalapenos. The plan was for something simple this year - tacos - but with some homemade salsa. Salsa made from the tomatoes I canned back in August on Day 177. I didn't need to pick up any hamburger meat since my husband told me we had some in the freezer.

What appeared to be hamburger meat in our freezer turned out to be Italian sausage. With me waiting on a return calls from three doctors - rheumatologist about the denial of Enbrel, ophthalmologist about the eye test, and my regular doctor to deal with some other issues - I didn't want to leave the house. And hubby couldn't go by himself since he doesn't drive. Option two was going out to dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. I nixed that idea as well. Option three allowed us to stay home by the phone for an even simpler dinner. Nachos. Those tortilla chips, a can of chili, some cheese, and some absolutely delicious homemade salsa became the closest thing to a tree-decorating Mexican feast tradition we were going to get.

And the angel made it on the Christmas tree.

Day 273 of 365

For the most part, I try and stay out of trouble. I might make mistakes (and that has been happening more often lately), but I try and do the right thing. I try not to take advantage of others. I obey traffic laws. I always have worked at being the "good girl".

But a couple weeks ago I got an infraction. An infraction from the quilting website I've been visiting for the last few months. The one where I give away fabric and quilt blocks and quilt tops. The one where I share my quilt projects and my sewing-based tutorials.

The quilting website had gone through a change over the past month. From what I understand they sold their site to another company. They then took on a radically new look and a bunch of additional advertisers. They lost a lot of the members as they became frustrated with the changes. It didn't matter much to me either way, but thinking about those changes probably should have been a heads up to me that things were different.

The site doesn't (and never has had) the capabilities for quilters to post videos. Since all my tutorials are videos, I usually post a picture of what I made on their site and then link to the how-to video. When the change-over to the new website occurred, I wasn't able to post pictures anymore. So I just posted a link to the video.

And that is where the problem lies. One of the moderators that patrol the website deleted my link and let me know I'd been given an infraction. An infraction for posting a "spammed advertisement".

Now, I have never collected e-mails from anyone. I don't advertise anything on my blog. I don't ask for donations or money. I don't even have my YouTube videos set to air advertisements. So how the "spammed advertisement" came about, I'm not sure. Of course, my messages to them attempting to find out more have gone unanswered.

At first I cared about getting in trouble. After a while, not so much. I occasionally go to the site to get an idea for a pattern, but haven't posted any free fabric or quilt blocks or quilt tops or tutorials or pictures or anything since.

The way I see it, the site has served its purpose. It gave me lots of ideas for quilting, but even more importantly it is where I found out about all the different charities that needed donations. Because of that site I've done work for the Quilts for Kids organization, Operation Kid Comfort, The Painted Turtle, Quilts of Valor, and Stocking for Soldiers. But now it's time to move on.

Although after my $5 ebay purchase that arrived today, I'll need to search out some ideas somewhere. The big box of fabric being sold was called a "Quilter's Dream". It sure is.

Yards and yards of beautiful fabric and dozens and dozens of very, very old  hand-stitched quilt blocks. Someone obviously put in a lot work into something they couldn't finish. Now if I could just figure out what to do with it all...

How to Make Lollipop Homemade Christmas Tree Ornaments - Day 272 of 365, Tutorial Tuesday

I'm crossing my fingers. Crossing my fingers and closing my mouth.

I  need to make sure the words I can't do this don't wind up slipping from my mouth during either one of my meetings today. After thinking it yesterday, I'm going into today with some I can do this thinking. Now whether that will carry me through the day, I'm not so sure. But I'm going to try. Today is a new day. Doesn't mean it's going to be any better, but there's a chance it just might.

There is a chance I might get some ornaments on my Christmas tree, though. Yesterday's picture didn't include all my new ornaments. I made some new ones this weekend for today's tutorial. A piece of fabric, some clothesline cord, and a lollipop stick from the candy making section of the craft store led to these.

Let's hope when I get home tonight the I can do this has carried through the day and at least a few ornaments make it on the tree.

Now available in my Etsy store as a digital download with the written directions, step-by-step color photos, and link to the tutorial video. Click to find out more!

Looking for something else? 

Check out some of my other Christmas sewing and crafting projects!

The step-by-step how to tutorial for the homemade lollipop Christmas tree ornaments made with fabric scraps and clothesline cord can be found here:

Looking for more holiday sewing and crafting projects? 
Check out some of my other projects:

*Fabric Easter Eggs

*Stuffed Fabric Carrots

*Fabric Easter Bunnies

Day 271 of 365

As I was sitting at a training at work today all I could think was, "I can't do this."

I can't sit here any longer. I can't stand how bad my back hurts. I can't stand how much my hands are aching. I can't stand how stiff and painful my knees are. I can't concentrate on what the speaker is saying. I can't pay close attention to what others are saying. I can't form my words to get out anything intelligent to add to the conversation. My mind is numb. I can't will myself out of this. 

Something has pushed me over the edge. I'm not sure if it is the combination of working and holiday stuff or the weather or what, but something is off. Something has hit me like a ton of bricks. My pain is worse than usual, bordering on severe.  I usually can will myself out of the pain slump, but it didn't work today. Usually I can put on an act so no one knows what is going on, but I couldn't today.

I have pain pills at the ready, but still have avoided taking them. Days like these make me want to go back to them. Days like these make me wish I hadn't gone back to work. Make me wish I didn't hurt so much. Make me wish things weren't like this.

As much as I want to focus on others, right now I can't. I have some new pictures from Operation Kid Comfort to make into some quilts and pillows for some kiddos with parents in the Navy, but I can't get my mind into it right now. I have quilts to make for my husband and daughter for Christmas, but I can't get there, either.

A feeble attempt at keeping my mind off the pain happened this evening when I thought I might decorate our Christmas tree. Our daughter put it up last week when she was home for Thanksgiving so I could decorate sometime this week. I desperately needed a mental distraction. Unfortunately, a pre-lit tree and a determined deep-into-the-pain person with non-cooperative joints did not equate to a decorated tree tonight.

What I did manage to accomplish was to sort through our new ornaments for the season. Every year we pick up new ornaments, mostly at the after Christmas sales. I always forget what I had purchased, so every time the next Christmas rolls around, I get excited about the new ornaments I bought the year before.

New this year we have a Charlie Brown and Luci ornament that plays lines from their "sessions". A See and Say that tells us what the animals say and a View Master that works. A Playschool Jet. Clark Griswold from Christmas Vacation on an ornament that plays music and lights up. A kitty cat that looks like ours.

The tree may not have gotten decorated, but my ornaments are ready when my body is ready.

Day 270 of 365

It's FlyLady time.

After Mommarock posting a comment about FlyLady and me thinking about FlyLady as I was piling up trash yesterday, I decided it was time.

FlyLady is about housecleaning and management of housecleaning. It's about cleaning in zones. About shining your sink before you go to bed. About always getting dressed - including shoes - every day. It's about a household notebook/control journal and the use of the 27 fling boogie for decluttering.

I've done FlyLady for years. Because of her, our sink is always shining before we go to bed. We've had a household notebook sitting on our kitchen counter for the last several years. Most days, even when I'm home by myself, I make sure I have shoes on.

But the 27 fling boogie she writes about has long disappeared. The zone cleaning has stopped, even though I have lists typed up in my household notebook, a notebook that is rarely opened. I even have a monthly menu plan that was used years ago (but hasn't been looked at since).

So today I'm back to reading the book that has been sitting on my bookshelf for years.

My first few items I tackled today? One of the printers, one of the staplers, and one of our bath scales are headed to the donation bag. And a start on revamping our household notebook. Today we have new zone cleaning lists specific to our house, all on different colors of paper, ready to slip into sheet protectors for checking off.

The cleaning lists might not seem picture-worthy, but I know having them hanging out here on the blog will give me an additional reminder to keep on top of them. (As well as an additional layer of guilt if I don't.)

Baby steps.

If you haven't heard of FlyLady but are interested, under today's picture I've posted where you can find the book on Amazon. She also has a website http://flylady.net/