life is good!

and today I spent some time in my studio dyeing! definitely a good day here!! and tomorrow at noon i'm leaving for a weekend at the beach (a rental condo in Rockaway, OR) with a few twisted sisters. here are some of the fibers i'll take with me...

this is a 50/50 merino and tencel blend that has been languishing - i mean aging - in my stash for a very long time. I really love the soft, muted colors. See, it isn't ALL about in your face color, just mostly.


dyed mohair locks using lanaset and/or pro washfast dyes with the heat it up in the electric skillet, add vinegar, splash on dyes and simmer.


Blue Face Leicester top featuring "in-your-face-orange" and "attitude pink" which may not make the cut for the beach trip. i'm in the mood to spin some silk and love spinning it on my Journey wheel which is packed and ready to go! will need to go digging in the stash for some sensuous silk.

My dad has improved to the point that he wants to go back to his apt. at assisted living, so Curbhead will take him there tomorrow. Hoping Home Infusion nurses will come early tomorrow a.m. to remove his picc line... last infusion is midnight tonight, for which he and i will both be grateful!

my Dad's 90th birthday party

and what a party it was!!! THe day of the party (22nd) i had doubts he'd be able to find enough energy to last the 5 hours the party was scheduled for... but he seemed to be having a good time up until the end and was more than ready to crash into bed when we got home. I don't have an exact count of how many people showed up, but had 110 who RSVPed that they would be there! The setting was very nice... The Kingstad Center in Beaverton, OR, which is a conference center that used to belong to Nike, was bought several years ago by the Kingstad brothers and is used for meetings, receptions, parties, etc. Their menu choices gave lots of choices and the buffet table they set up was wonderful... great food and nicely presented. Hawley, the event planner, was great to work with and was there while the party was going on. Bud (Curbhead) really came thru with entertainment, a trio and a keyboardist who alternated with each other for at least 3 of the 5 hours of the party. And David had put together a slide show of family pictures which included some of Pop's baby pics. Anyway, it was a wonderful event!! but i'll wait awhile before planning another one of this magnitude!!!

So Pop stayed 8 days at King City rehab and i was not happy with their "nursing care". he had already had a week of inactivity in the hospital, and other than the 30 min. of PT and 30 min. of OT/day, they seemed happy to just let him lie in bed. he was still on his 3 weeks of IV therapy and even if we'd arranged to have that done by the home infusion nurses, he was no where near able to take care of himself. so, i brought him home to stay with us, with the warning to him that i would not let him just lie around in bed or sit all cozy in a chair all day... so he had advance warning!! Kaiser has been wonderful about the home care... 2 RNs from the home infusion dept. came out the day i brought him home,and the next day. we picked up his antibiotics at our nearest Kaiser pharmacy, the pharmacist called to be sure i had the equipment i needed, PT has been to visit him and OT is coming tomorrow. there is a 24 hour on call person if i need help. and everything is going very well. i took the infusion to the party for his afternoon dose. so he'll be here til he finishes the iv on Thursday, and since he's already doing well with his own care, he'll probably go back to his apartment on friday.


i've got a couple of fiber projects this week... a custom dyeing job for a friend and a pile of blue face leicester roving that's dyed and ready for weighing and tagging and taking to NW Wools. friday some of the twisted sisters are going to the beach for the weekend... and i am SO looking forward to it!

very cute..

hard to believe that my grandson, Alex, is almost 6 years old! I snitched this from Kate's blog. She took it when the 2 of them were out whale watching last weekend. He looks like he's enjoying his day!!

Friday already

A short update.... took my dad to King City rehab on monday to continue the iv antibiotics and get him steady on his feet after a week of lying in bed in the hospital. He's doing well and is anxious to go home!

Accomplished my 2 goals of the week... get the paper work done for taxes and get them to the tax guy, and clear out/clean up my studio for a dye workshop on saturday. well, the studio is almost ready. i guess i need to do workshops more often to keep it from looking like something the board of health would condemn. and i discovered a LOT of dyed fiber and yarn that needs to be moved out of here and into someone elses stash! being a pack rat can be a real burden sometimes!

so, today i'll finish up in the studio and then go visit my dad. didn't go yesterday, but knew Curbhead would be there so Pop wouldn't be without family there to visit with him. and next week... finish up the party planning, including figuring out what to do for table decorations. hoping some inspiration will come to me soon!

long week...

My dad is still in the hospital and on IV antibiotics for a 3 week course. The short story is: infection in his wrist of unknown origin and unknown organism, finally went to surgery on Wed. or Thurs. to flush the wrist with antibiotics and put in a drain, lots of pain and pain meds and very little activity, will go to King City rehab center tomorrow for a week to work on getting his strength up so he can go back home with a calibrated pump which will deliver the antibiotics every 8 hours. and 2 weeks from yesterday, we will whisk him away to his big 90th birthday bash to be celebrated by family and lots of friends, with some musical entertainment, lots of good food and wine and merriment! Della, my nephew's wife, made a wonderful invitation and is working on banners and scanned enlargements of lots of photos of Pop and family thru the years. if you can manage to have a graphic artist in the family... go for it, as it's very good thing! which reminds me i need to do some web searching for some ideas for table decorations. have spent a lot of time at the hospital this week, which means that i STILL haven't gotten all my tax stuff together. luckily (i guess), it was a pretty slow year on the business front with 3 months in Crete, so there are fewer papers to shuffle this year. Also, high on the do it list is getting my studio in shape for a dyeing workshop next saturday, and the way it's lookin', that ain't no small task. where is Cinderella when i need her???? and i am SO wishing for that simple life in Crete!

Fiber Workshop with Lynne Vogel

Lynne Vogel, author of the Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook, will be teaching Spinning for Colorwork Knitting at the Red Rooster Retreat, Crane Hill, Alabama June 29-July2 2006, assisted by Sandy Sitzman, twisted mom. Red Rooster is a residential craft retreat center where we can come together and indulge in color up to our eyeballs to the exclusion of all else, except maybe the swimming pool. We will cover loads of colorwork knitting and spinning techniques during this three day, three night intensive. We hope you will join us for the fun.

You can find more information on Lynne's Blog

http://workshopcentral.blogspot.com

We are asking that you reserve a place in this workshop by April 15. Please contact Blaine Harkness at BHark12345@aol.com to register.

a long night in the ER

My Dad came up with a sudden onset of swelling and pain in his wrist and hand, so I took him to the ER about 7p.m. last night. Foolishly, I thought since there was no full moon, no big events going on in town, it was not friday or sat. night, that the ER wouldn't be TOO crowded... and was I ever wrong! There were 16 people ahead of him.. lots of them children and very unhappy screaming babies and very sick-looking folks. So, we sat and waited as his pain and swelling increased. He had no fever and for an almost 90-year-old man, is really in pretty good health, so he didn't get on any high priority list (if there is one) Finally, about 10:45 we were taken to an exam room, and the first diagnosis was probably cellulitis and they started iv antibiotics and then gave him some morphine... which did not even touch the pain, about which he was becoming more and more vocal. So, because of this pain they began talking about other possibilities for diagnosis. So, before being admitted at 4a..m., he was seen by the ER resident, Kaiser Internist, surgical resident, xray, CT scan, had blood work. Poor guy... i felt SO sorry for him and couldn't do a thing for him! He kept trying to send me home, but I stuck it out til he was in a room and had morphine PCP going. Today, an orthopod was added to the mix, thought it might be gout and tapped his wrist for fluid... and there was none. so, hmmm... still no definitive diagnosis, but he still has iv antibiotics and morphine going, blood work still to come back and still in pain if anyone touches his hand or wrist.

I'm glad it's still more than 2 weeks before his big 90th birthday celebration, so he'll have time to recover from this whatever it is! He said he wanted a huge blow out birthday party, and that's what we have planned! We've rented a room at a really nice conference center, ordered up lots of yummy sounding food, plenty of wine, Curbhead and David are in charge of entertainment, there will be a slide show of some sort... and we've sent out about 110 invitations (so far!) Sounds like a good party, huh?

Think i better go take some magic vitamin C potion to ward off anything nasty i might have breathed in while waiting in the ER last night.

coffee

followed the link from Charleen's blog to discover what kind of coffee am i..... and now i know!

You Are a Plain Ole Cup of Joe

But don't think plain - instead think, uncomplicated You're a low maintenance kind of girl... who can hang with the guys Down to earth, easy going, and fun! Yup, that's you: the friend everyone invites. And your dependable too. Both for a laugh and a sympathetic ear.

What Kind of Coffee Are You?