Tea with the birthday girl

This past weekend Olivia had a birthday party at Jewel's House of Teas

Happy Birthday Olivia!

About 6 weeks old.
At 12 months.
We used to go to Huber's every October for pumpkins.

Eating a piece of birthday cake.

Today was a wonderful day

We are all back together again. It feels good to go in and see him sleeping in his own bed. We are going to take things slowly, going back to school in a day or two, maybe on a half day schedule. He is very happy to be home.
I want to thank all of you so much for your support. I was overwhelmed by the love and care that I felt with each comment left. I have some incredible friends.

Hi everyone, today's visit went well. He seemed much more like himself. Told me he felt better than the day before.
But then later in the afternoon he had what he calls a breakdown. Unfortunately it carried on into the evening. I got a couple calls from the place and was able to talk to him. It is very loud and chaotic there, he says it is very scary. The other children are yelling, cursing and at times fighting with the staff. He had not told them how bad the atmosphere makes him feel. I was able to talk to a staff member and explain that his anxiety level goes over the top when the chaos starts. She assured me that they would pay attention and make ever effort to find him a quieter place.
He has always had issues with sensory overload.
We took the kids with us to visit. It went ok but was hard on Eli and Olivia cried, but they were glad to see him. We get to visit again tomorrow.
Thank you all for your kind words. It helps me to read them, to know that you are out there thinking about us.

Much more than normal.

I am opening up much more than I ever normally would. Sharing things that I would have kept very private, but I realize that my family needs all possible prayers and good thoughts. We, and I mean me, need all the strength you can send.
I will greatly appreciate all of your kind comments but I may not be able to answer them. This is an extremely difficult time for me and some days I can reply and give updates and other days I can't see to say or type the damnable words.



Wednesday, October 22, at 4:00pm John and I took Alex to an inpatient facility.

He had be on a downward spiral for the past 2-3 weeks. The final straw seem to be when my parents left to spend
several weeks at their home in Florida. His depression became severe and he was unable to go to school. He is suffering anxiety attacks while at school. Several through out the day. His doctor sent a note to give him about 4 days off from school.This past Monday was supposed to be the day he went back to school and be able to stay the entire day. It did no go well. We went to a Dr. appt. Tuesday at 2:30 and the Dr. is very concerned and wanted Alex to be assessed at an inpatient facility. That was too much of a shock to us, we were not prepared to hear them say that he was going to be admitted.
So we came back to the facility today. We were more prepared and ready for what seemed inevitable.

At 8:15pm John and I walked away from our child. Hoping and praying that the strangers we were leaving our child with, will be good to him, make him feel safe and reassure him that we do love him very much. And that we are coming back for him.

Fiber in the Fall- the people

My friends Ashely and Judy took a basket weaving class.
Here she is with the basket she made and one she bought.



Half of the Ravelers that met up at noon. I think there may have been at least 20 if not more.

This is Lara at her very first fiber festival. She had some beautiful stitch markers.








It is such a wonderful atmosphere. Fiber and yarn everywhere you look, beautiful handmade items and the smiling faces of fellow fiber enthusiasts.

Fiber in the Fall

Olivia and I had a wonderful day at the Fiber Festival. The weather finally turned cool, like it should be in mid October. I was getting pretty tired of 80 degree temps.
The festival was held in Corydon, Indiana. Corydon was the first state capital. Normally the drive would be very pretty this time of year, but not much color to see on the trees. We found more than enough color when we arrived.







I have lots more to show you, so much more that you will have to wait until tomorrow for Fiber in the Fall part #2

Touched by friends

I want to thank all of you that left comments, emailed or messaged me on Ravelry. It meant a lot to have friends that may not have understood, but knew that I was in need of some kind words.
It has been a very long week. I am hoping for things to return to what passes for normal around here, early next week.

I hate feeling helpless, not knowing what to do for someone. I am here to do my best and right now I am failing miserably. I have to be able to do something or what good am I. I can't just sit back and watch someone hurting. But goddammit I don't know what to do. I keep hoping that each new day will be better than the previous one. So far it has not.
I take care of people, that is what I have always done. It has cost me though. There came a time a few years ago that I had to stop. Stop taking care of everyone and only focus on the people that live in this house. Me included. I will admit it was hard, I was the "go to girl". If you had a problem I would fix it or figure out a way to make it better. If you needed something I would bend over backwards to do it for you.
I never needed help, I could do it all. I was expected to always have it together. I was the one that could always be counted on. So of course I never needed fixing but when the time came that I did, it was very hard for me. Some days I still think that I can do it all, or that I should be able to do it all.
Well, here I am at a place where I need to know what to do and I don't. It is killing me.

Party at the Possum!

We partied well into the night at Grinny Possum Fiber Arts
We had cake, chips & salsa, fruit, cheese and crackers and wine.
About 20 people came to celebrate.
Knitters are a rowdy bunch.....add some wine and they can get even rowdier. Ann and Gerry ordered the cake from a local bakery. They asked about having a ball of yarn on the cake, the guy asked if they wanted some of those sticks on the cake too. Non-knitters can be so cute.




Becca brought her wheel, she said it is easier to spin in a big group than try to pay attention to some knitting.

Tata was there too. I don't know how she got away without a pic or two. Ann and Gerry are missing too. I did have battery issues. I always do.






Jayce and his new girlfriend are pictured below. We think she needs to get some sun.
In the last picture Ashley shows us her new sweater. She did a great job. I love all the cables.

















































Here are a few of the less rowdy party goers.

Dogs On Thursday!

I was walking yesterday morning and saw this little girl running back and forth across a busy street.
It took over 15 minutes for me to catch her. She had a collar but no tags. Having no idea where she lived, I brought her home.
Called the local animal shelter asking if anyone had lost a beagle mix and placed a found ad in the local paper.
I'm guessing that she is about 3 months old.
Alex helped hang up "found" flyers around the neighborhood. We took one to the animal shelter too.
Today I took her to our vet office so they could check if she was chipped. She wasn't.

Olivia took a flyer to school and showed it to her classmates.

She is a very sweet baby, but is not house trained. I haven't had to clean up dog messes in the house for quite some time.

Hutch really liked her, they had fun playing together. I have no idea what was going on with Starsky but he tried to hurt her. He chased her up the back steps and grabbed her on the back of her neck. She yelped and cried. I did something that would upset me if i saw it being done. I hit Starsky with a stick. On the third hit the stick broke and he finally let her go. Once we got her back in the house he growled and made snarling noises at her through the door. He has never acted like that before He had fun with all the other dogs at the pool.


Well, this evening I got a phone call from a little boy asking if the puppy I found had four white feet.
She does.
You can see them in the fourth picture down.


I was so relieved when he and his mom pulled up. The little girl recognized the car and as soon as the boy got out she stood up on her hind legs and mad happy noises. It made me feel good that she recognized them. I was worried about handing her over to any Tom, Dick or Harry that called.

I'm glad her family found her. I had been wondering what the hell I was going to do.