Finally! A Post!

I was helping my mom with her blog the other day and I realized that I haven't blogged here in almost a year. When I started this blog, it was a way to connect with my family and friends who lived so far away. A way to share everyday happenings with them. Now that I'm closer to family, this blog has taken a back seat. Time to rectify that!

Anyway, a lot has happened in the past year. I'm still on the never-ending, or at least it feels this way, quest for a teaching position in elementary education. I have my feelers out for this upcoming school year, but haven't heard back from anybody yet. In the mean time, I obtained a position as an Independent Study Teacher for a local high school. I really love this job, I mean A LOT! I think I could be happy doing this job for the rest of my life actually. I'm excited about this because I don't think I've ever felt this way about a job - at least not in a long time. I'm not sure what's going to happen next year as the Independent Study curriculum is going to be online, but I'm so looking forward to the challenge. :)

I also obtained a position in an elementary school as a Kindergarten Teacher Tutor. This position was fun! I got to work with two Kinder classes and pretty much got paid to play! We went on two field trips, went to the park next to the school, painted, colored, counted, added, subtracted, read, played, ate lunch, told stories, learned sight words, and just had a ball! I am hoping to continue this position next year, but these positions are filled in some interesting way that's based on funding and school politics that I'm not all together sure of. We'll see. If this position doesn't pan out, I'm already planning to substitute again. I also love to substitute, so it's a win-win for me!

I started an urban garden this year! I have many pots and containers out on my balcony. I'm hoping to get tomatoes, bell peppers, mariachi peppers, chocolate mint, lemon balm, rosemary, basil and oregano from my garden this season. I also have plans to grow celery, carrots, lettuce and radishes. Inside, I am growing sprouts in this nifty container I got at a local nursery. I've always been afraid of gardening. I just thought it was too hard to maintain. With containers, though, all I've had to do is plant the plants, remember to water them and then just wait. So far the bell pepper plant is growing two little bell peppers, the tomato plant has flowered and is getting ready to grow tomatoes, the potatoes are growing and the herbs are doing great! With container gardening, there isn't any issue with weeds either. Easy!

For some reason, maybe it's living next to the ocean again, but my craftiness has returned. I've been sewing, and crafting up a storm! The penny ball you see in the garden picture above is illustrated in the picture below. (Speaking of pictures, I've jumped on the Instagram bandwagon! :)

I glued pennies on a bowling ball I found at a thrift store for $3. Then I put it outside. Some of the pennies have come off, but most of them are staying strong. Also, the pennies are no longer shiny and have a worn patina, but that doesn't matter to me. If you recreate this project, and want the pennies to stay shiny, seal it with some kind of top coat to prevent the patina.

Have you heard of Meetup.com?! I joined this year and have never looked back. I LOVE it! I belong to a few meetups, including a craft one. I've even met some really great people and made friends that have lasted outside the meetups. I made the pendant on the left for my mom for Mother's Day at the craft meetup. This took two meetups - one to form the pendent out of polymer clay and the other to do the wire work. The heart, tiled brick I also made at the craft meetup. Eventually this will go out in the garden, but I have it sitting on the windowsill in my sewing room where I can look at it while I sew.

I made this cute teacher gift for one of the teachers I worked with this year. I just printed out the tree and the words on a regular sheet of paper. I then had the kids make thumbprint butterflies. Lastly, I wrote their names really small next to their butterfly. The teacher loved this gift! I thought it came out pretty cute, if I do say so myself! :)

I've started up my wire working again. So far, I've just made this tree of life and some other wire wrapped jewelry that I'm planning on selling at my quilt guild's fundraising boutique this year.

Oh yes! The quilt guild! I also rejoined the SLO Quilters Guild and became their librarian! This is a fun job as I get to play with books. However, the previous librarians left me and my cohort with a tiny mess on our hands with regards to inventory. Some books are in the book boxes, but not on the inventory list, some are gone but on the list, and some are just floating around in the cart with no home. We have two months until the next guild meeting. During this time, I'm going to redo ALL the library cards so they are all uniform. Right now, some of the cards are index cards, some are just card stock, where some are proper library cards. I love organizing and doing things like this, so I really don't mind. I've made a few quilt tops this year too. I don't have all the pictures, but here are a few. The one on the left is called "Birds on a Fence." The one on the right is a wall hanging I completed at a mystery quilt along.

I'm in the process of making two others, one for my husband and one for my mother-in-law. I've also got one more in mind that I hope to start on this summer.

Another thing that changed this year is the way we eat. We've cut out all dairy, a lot of processed foods, and all fast food. We have also been going to the Rutiz Family Farm and getting their Harvest Box of organic fruits and veggies every week. 

Doing this has increased the number of vegetables and fruit we consume as well as forces us to be more creative in the kitchen! We don't get a choice of what is in the box week to week, which is what I love about the box. We've only had a few things spoil on us, but that was when P was away for a week. I just couldn't eat everything by myself before it went bad.

The kitties are doing great. They are thirteen now, and still going strong! They have found the garden on the balcony and love to sniff the plants and relax in the sun. Quixote has succeeded in killing one plant by chewing the leaves off. He also figured out how to get on the railing, which scares me! So now they aren't allowed on the balcony without supervision. I think they are really loving being back in California. They just seem happier and healthier. They are shedding a lot less too!

Anywho, this blog is getting pretty long so I'm going to end it here, with the cute pictures of the boys. :) My summer list includes blogging more, so there will be more updates. I hope everyone is happy and healthy!

A Difficult Post

This post has been mulling around in my head for a little bit now and I think it's time to write it out.  Over the holidays this past year, my family and I got some horrible news.  My Mom was diagnosed with colon cancer.  We knew something was going on with Mom because over Thanksgiving she had lost a lot of blood, was admitted into the hospital, and given a blood transfusion.  During the month of December, Mom was checked out to try and figure out where she was loosing blood and they found a tumor in a bend in her intestines, near her colon that would have been invisible to doctors unless they were actually looking for something.  They tested the tumor, found it was malignant and took it out. While the doctors were operating, they did not find any other cells migrating from the tumor in the area where the tumor was and also did not see any indication that her lymph nodes are involved.  She is still waiting to see an oncologist to see if she needs to go through any radiation/chemo, but so far, everything looks good.

In the mean time, Mom is healing.  She had fluid under her incision site that needed to be drained, but other than that, she's doing pretty good.  She is slowly being able to sleep in her bed but still needs to go out to her chair after a while because she is still in pain.  Mom seems to be in good spirits right now and is expecting a clean bill of health after seeing the oncologist.  We are all hoping for the clean bill of health.

I really haven't been able to talk about this, really with anyone.  I felt that if I did, somehow it would become MORE real and turn into my worst nightmare, loosing one of my parents - loosing my mom.  I am not ready to loose my parents, I can't even think about it.  I just don't know what I would do without my mom.  I feel like even though we have always been close, that our relationship just keeps getting better the older I get.  And even though she will always be my Mom, she is also my best friend.

So, to all my friends who are learning about this for the first time through this post, I'm sorry I didn't talk to anyone about this.  It's not that I don't trust you, it's not that I didn't want to - I just couldn't.  I couldn't make this any more real by talking about it.  I wanted to wake up and have this all be just a nightmare.  I couldn't let this cancer have any more power.

But, the other night I went to a Grandfather Fire Ceremony with a new friend.  The talking stick was passed around and I was SURE I wasn't going to say anything.  When the talking stick got to me, this story flooded out of me and I felt a release.  I realized I had been holding on to this so tight!  I didn't even notice how much I was being affected by NOT talking about it.  So, I decided to write about it.  I decided to write this post and to put it out there into the universe.  I should have done this a month ago.

Thank you for reading.