It's Catch Up Time

It's been too long since my last post and a LOT has happened.

We had a really nice Christmas. My brother and his wife and daughter came from Texas, my nephew and his bride came from New York and my youngest nephew came from the Carolina's (I can never remember if it's North or South Carolina!). They all stayed at my Mom & Dad's house because it is more centrally located and easier for the rest of the gang to get to, plus it's almost twice the size of my house. My daughter and son and their families live closer to my parent's than we do, so all the holiday festivities took place at Mom & Dad's. It was great to have the whole family together AND everyone got along!

How great is that?!

I ended up knitting 15 pair of fingerless gloves before it was all said and done. All of them were similar, but I did make a few changes to accommodate the type of yarn I was using and to better suit the recipient. Most of them were made from yarn I already had, but I did purchase a few new skeins for others.

Originally I made the gloves to fit the females of the family and my female co-workers and friends. Then my brother and my oldest nephew decided they would like a pair. They put in their request for the color they wanted. I checked my yarn stash and found what I needed to make a pair for my brother (camouflage of course!).

but my nephew wanted dark grey, so I had to buy some yarn for his.

No worries though, my local Michael's was having a big sale and I got some Vanna's Choice yarn for $2.50 a skein. Plus it was a good opportunity to plump up my stash!

I rarely make myself anything, but I made a pair for me too! They have really come in handy during our latest cold spell.

So here we are already to January 21, 2010. I can hardly believe how quickly time has flown by.

January 5th was our youngest Granddaughter's first birthday. There was a party at her house on the 10th and LOTS of little ones and their Mommies and Daddies came. I think she really enjoyed her cake!

My sweet 81 year old Daddy had a stroke on January 15th. It seems to have affected both sides of his brain, hist left more than his right, but his speech doesn't seem to have been affected, thankfully. His long term memory is pretty good, but his short term memory is barely there. He is in a certified stroke center rehab hospital and seemed to be getting a little better. However, my daughter just called to let me know that the hospital called my Mother to let her know that they think he has had another one. I'll leave in a few minutes to go see how he is. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers. Mom too.

And as an update on the fall I took in the chicken coop back on November 17th - I had an MRI and they discovered that I have a compression fracture in my T12 vertebrae! Great - I've been walking around with a fractured spine for 2 months! No wonder my back keeps hurting!!!

I'm doing OK. Pain medicine works wonders! I'm working as usual and now sporting a fancy new back brace that makes me look like the hunch back of Notre Dame! I was given a choice of wearing the brace or having a special type of bone cement injected into the fracture to fix it - I think I made the wrong choice! This thing is driving me crazy(er) - so I've called the Dr.'s office to see about scheduling the other procedure. Wish me luck!

You know what they say - "When it rains, it pours"! I'll keep you posted on my Daddy's progress! Pray for a miracle.