Fundraiser: Beeswax Candles

Hey readers, someone who is very important to our family is battling a sixth reoccurrence of cancer. She’s gone through chemo twice, radiation therapy, and has endured six surgeries . . . and the damn cancer is back again. She has found a promising treatment, but it has not been FDA-approved which means her health insurance will not pay for any part of it. So she’s having a fundraiser to help with some of the costs of this treatment.

Debbie is very environmentally-conscious, and I love that the fundraiser she’s chosen is for beeswax candles. If you could use some of these lovely candles, or would like to purchase some as gifts for others, click here to go to Debbie’s webpage. She has it set up so you can order via Paypal or you can print off an order form and mail the order to her (shipping info is shown on the order form, and Texas residents will need to add tax but that info is also shown on the order form).

If a lot of people could each place a small order, we can surely make a difference on helping to defray the cost of this treatment. (Of course, if someone wants to place a large order, that would certainly be fantastic!!)

Thanks, y’all!!

Embroidery: Cute Ice Cream Girl

This is the last towel I stitched on for the Craftster Tea Towel Tour 5 swap. I’m sad for the swap to be over — it was one of the few swaps (the only swap???) in which I’ve participated for which I didn’t feel stressed at any point along the way. I had an easy time finding inspiration and designs for each person’s towel, and I had an easy time meeting the week turnaround time for each towel (probably because I didn’t commit myself to any other deadline-type crafting projects when I had a towel in-hand to stitch on).

This design was for I Sew Cute’s towel, and I used this free coloring book page for my design.

I did crayon-tinting for the hair, eyes, ice cream, and purse. The lotus blossom stitch I added to the tank top is one I saw in Jenny Hart’s new book; however, since part of the flowers are “under” the purse strap, I opted to use a backstitch rather than a lazy daisy stitch for the flowers. The embellishments on her hat’s brim and her purse are some goodies that I believe were sent to me by Monika (if someone other than Monika sent these to me, please correct me!!) — I really enjoyed being able to put a few of them to use on this design.

My towel only needs one more person to stitch on it, then it’ll head back home to me. I can’t wait!!

Lookee What I Bought for Myself!

I’m a fan of Elsa Mora’s papercuttings (all of her stuff, actually), and when I saw her post this morning offering some wooden, laser-cut bookmarks using some of her papercutting designs, I promptly clicked over to her Etsy shop and ordered a set for myself. Check ‘em out, and feel free to be jealous [wink]. There is no such thing as too many bookmarks!!

Health

I saw the dentist last week about my jaw pain. He did xrays and a thorough exam and there’s nothing hinky going on with my teeth, so apparently the pain actually was related to a sinus/ear infection, for which I’d already been taking meds. The pain was gone by the time I saw the dentist, but it’d been a while since I’d had a dental checkup so I kept the appointment. This week I will have my teeth cleaned, and then my mouth will be in good shape for six months to a year.

Today I (finally!) had my new-patient appointment with a new-to-me general practitioner. He has been my hubby’s G.P. for close to fifteen years and came highly recommended by my hubby. It’s been a while since I’ve had a G.P., so my ob/gyn did a bunch of wellcheck-type labwork (cholesterol check, kidneys, thyroid, etc.) for me during my visit to her earlier this year, and I took the results of that labwork to New Doctor and he explained what each item was and where my numbers fell for each item.

The only area in which I was outside the “average” range was my LDL (bad cholesterol) — mine was high (although the rest of my cholesterol numbers were comfortably in the “average” range). I know what needs to be done to lower that number — modify my diet, lose some weight, be more active. I tend to go through spells of two or three months when I’ll eat really healthfully, then for two or three months I’ll slack off and eat poorly, then back to the healthy eating, and so on. In the past two or three months, my eating habits have been sloppy and lazy and I’ve gained six or seven pounds, additional weight that I definitely do not need on my short frame!

I talked with New Doctor quite a bit about what I thought have been asthma symptoms I’ve experienced in recent months, and he agreed the recent symptoms, as well as symptoms I’ve had at different times from my teens forward (mostly, exercise-induced wheezing), point strongly to asthma. So now I have an inhaler I can use before I work out, and if I find I need to use it more than a couple times a week (other than before a workout), we’ll go on to something more proactive than reactive. I can’t tell y’all how relieved I am to be able to pick back up on the workout program I wanted to start a month ago!

New Doctor also explained to me why GERD (reflux) can trigger asthma — acid can travel up the esophagus and over into the respiratory tract. Eek, right?!! Now I understand why, when my reflux is flaring up in a big way, I have the mucos-y cough I’ve come to identify as the asthma cough. It’s just fascinating to me how the body works . . . and how food choices can cause so much aggravation . . . and how one aggravation can trigger another.

So I go back to New Doctor in six months to have my cholesterol rechecked. In the interim, I want to work my way back towards a mostly vegetarian diet (ie, having non-vegetarian meals only a couple times a week), which will reap multiple rewards — some weight loss, keeping my GERD under control, and getting my LDL back down. In the past, I’ve slacked off time and time again and gotten away from eating this way, even though I feel better when I adopt a mostly vegetarian diet. I suppose laziness is the biggest reason I get away from it, but another factor is that I get the itch to bake and I definitely eat what I bake (portion control is a problem). It’s a big challenge to retrain my brain, and it’s a challenge I’ve not been successful in meeting in the past. But I don’t mind trying again!!

I was about 20 pounds lighter five or six years ago, and, even now, I distinctly remember how much lighter my body felt with just that small amount of a loss (I had lost 25 lbs to get to that point back then). I was actually able to take up running after that weight loss, without feeling like it was killing me! But then I twisted my ankle and I just never settled back into the working-out-and-eating-right habit. For me, eating healthy works better if I’m also working out consistently, and vice versa. So, I’m excited to have the inhaler to help me get back in the groove of working out, and I’m happy to have a deadline of a six-month recheck with New Doctor to encourage me to get back into and stick with a mostly-vegetarian diet. I feel like if I can stick with both these things for that six-month period, they will become habits that I don’t want to discontinue after that point.

I also have the carrot dangling of wanting to be fit enough to take up kayaking for my next birthday!!

All in all, it feels good to get these dental and health checkups done, and I really appreciate finally having another G.P. again.

Polyvore & Other Stuff

I’m a little late to the Polyvore party. After giving it a look-see tonight, I discovered yes, you really can lose hours puttering around the site!! While I love looking at dresses and skirts, I don’t particularly care to actually wear them — I’m very much a jeans-and-shirt kind of gal. It was fun coming up with both a casual and dressy look to accompany the fabulous shirt and jeans I used as my base. These are things I would actually wear if I had an unlimited budget . . . and could actually bring myself to spend the money some of these things retail for.

Jeans & Fushia Top – Dressy & Casual by wrenandstitchy featuring Diane von Furstenberg

In real life, I have little patience for clothes shopping. I wish I was a more “average” size (height and weight) so that I could easily shop online and not have to try on every single thing — seems like that would make shopping much more enjoyable!

I did a quick clean-out and organization of my clothes today and was a little surprised by the fact I have several brown tops. Used to, you’d never find brown in my wardrobe. But in recent years, my taste has mellowed a bit and I find myself drawn to neutral colors I wouldn’t have given a second glance to in the past. This is true in how I want to revamp the common rooms in our house, too. I find myself ready for soft, neutral walls and neutral colors in the curtains, knowing I can bring in color with pops of red. Funny how tastes change over time!

We’ve had fabulous weather this week — mid-70’s, sunny, minimal wind. This is, for me, perfect weather!! Our backyard was getting flooded with fallen leaves, so rather than rake ‘em and bag ‘em, I raked ‘em into an evenish layer and then mowed over them. I’m hoping to do that as often as needed until all the leaves have fallen. I also cleaned out our garden a bit — the yellow squash and okra plants were turning brown, I think because of some cold nights we’ve had (not freezing, but close), so I put those into the compost bin. The lettuce is holding its own, so I’m hoping to get salad fixings this weekend so we can eat as much of that lettuce as we can before the weather gets cold enough to give it frostbite. Our pecan tree is dropping pecans like crazy, much to the enjoyment of our dogs — if you ever doubt the strength of even a small dog’s jaws, all you have to do is watch our dogs crack pecans with their teeth!! They were pretty happy that I mowed over lots of pecans [g].

Today I received the last towel I’ll be stitching on in the Craftster Tea Towel Tour 5. I quickly found the perfect design for it tonight, so will transfer the design and start stitching this weekend. We have no plans — hubby gets back from a long trip Saturday, so will be ready to do a whole lotta nuttin’. I want to do some home-cookin’ meals, because those are always appreciated after a week-plus of fast food and restaurant food. I’m hoping we’ll get some time in at our firepit in the evenings — we have marshmallows left from our camping trip, and they’re just begging to be roasted!