I’m back, and things are better

We are home again, which is nice. We’re starting to shed the exhaustion that plagued us on our…adventure. Greg’s grandfather is still alive (something of a medical marvel), and it seems he’ll stay that way for a while. The doctors kept saying things like, ‘basically, 1% chance he’ll survive the surgery‘ and ‘well, people in his condition don’t usually live this long,’ in these amazed and puzzled voices, but he made it through the corrective surgery and the failure of several major organs to plant his feet firmly on the path to recovery.

Those of us who know him can’t help but not be too surprised that he refused to die.

In other news, the LOVE mini-issue of Crochetme has arrived! If you’ve seen it you may know already that Max is headlining there, with some crocheted thing also in the photo. (He does make a very cute little cherub…) This little issue comes as a bit of a snack to hold us over as they rearrange the publication schedules to a more seasonal one. I’m glad that they decided to give us a metaphorical cookie a bit early instead of just making us wait a month for dinner (as we starve to death from the dearth of snappy articles and new hip patterns). Anyway, I’m off to update the link to Pieces of My Heart in my Free Patterns section. Later!

Well, I’ll spill…

Dying to know why I’ve been AWOL recently? sure. Why not.

Greg got a phone call from his mother at 3 am Saturday telling him that his grandfather was on his deathbed. We got up, packed, and drove 15 hours to see him. We were able to see him twice before he went in for surgery, and he was able to see Max, his only great-grandchild, again - which Greg’s grandma tells us was one of his hopes to have happen before he died. As of today, he’s still alive, which is by all accounts amazing and unexpected, although he has not been brought out of the medically induced coma since the surgery a few days ago. So long story short, we’re lingering up here at the family farm (on REALLY unreliable dial-up, erk!) until he dies or takes a significant turn for the better (well, up to another week, no longer), a day away from home because he is NOT expected to walk out of that hospital and we can’t afford to make the trip up here again should he die after we leave. Although I would probably make Greg go, for his own emotional sanity.

Obviously that only accounts for my absence this last week, but trust me, I’ve got more.

Shortly before Christmas, our doctor told us that Max has some sort of developmental disorder, and although the final diagnosis isn’t in yet, we’ve been kept busy going to various specialty referrals, sometimes more than one in a week. So far the consensus is that it isn’t too serious, and that with therapy he’ll catch right up, but it does keep me occupied. *sigh*

Huh? Oh, that’s not it. I was holding off on posting about this until I told my family, and hey - funny story - the perfect opportunity to break it to them came during this trip back to the state where both my family and Greg’s family lives. Anyway, I’m also pregnant! So that’s been something to do, in all of my free time. (The baby’s due in August, if you were wondering.)

So maybe Kim will read this and forgive me for submitting my pattern for Crochetme’s LOVE issue a week after the final deadline. I despise being late. She’s putting it in anyway, because she’s awesome like that. So, um. I’ll be back later, sometime.

Christmas Moment

I thought I’d share a Christmas moment (featuring a past project, of course) with you all, guaranteed to bring a smile.

And another one - it seems this horsie is doomed to spend its days upside-down. I don’t think Max understands what it is…but he likes it.

Long time, no posteee

Huh. How unlike me. But hey, here I am. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year! And while we’re at it, happy birthday to me! And Greg. Greg and I have the same birthday, oddly enough, and it was this last week. Among other things, this means that my little greeting graphic to the right there is inaccurate, as I’m now 21. Must deal with that at some point. *makes a list*

Anyway, the long awaited day is here!

It’s done!

That’s right!

Yaaaay! I’m so excited. Eventually this pattern will be available for sale, but at the moment, I haven’t even typed up what I did, much less begun calculations on different sizes, something I have to do before it goes into testing. So it will be a while.