One Year After That Nasty Appendix

Just about a year ago (April 9), I started having some abdominal pain. It was during General Conference, so, I just took it easy thinking it would go away. The next morning, Monday, I got up feeling a little better, but as the day went on I started feeling bad again. It was not too bad, so I just put up with it. My husband had come home for lunch and told me I needed to go to the doctor. We had someone coming to do some repair to our roof, and I didn't have time to mess with going. Later, Bill called to check up on me and insisted I go. It really was not that bad! I finally told him that if he took me, I'd go. In the back of my mind I was wondering if it might be my appendix...nah....it's not that bad....

Finally, I made that trip to the doc, and she sent me over to ER to have a CT scan, and yep, that is what it was...my appendix, and it was pretty bad. This was exactly two weeks before we were scheduled to go on a cruise, so I was a tad bit upset.  The doctor on call was the best, and he assured me that I would be on that boat. 

Surgery went well, and the next morning, the doctor came in and told me, "I was one lucky girl!" As he was removing it, it ruptured. He told me that I better be glad this did not happen while I was out in the middle of the Caribbean. I was VERY happy it did not happen out there.

I was told I would be out of the hospital in no time...well that was not exactly true. I wound up being in there for nine days. My white count was up, meaning I had some type of an infection. I have horrible veins, and so we had issues with my IV, finally they had to put in a pic line. I was actually pretty grateful for it! 

Sorry, but I had to gross you all out, lol

Then they started pumping in the heavy duty stuff...boy, did this make me sick, with this and morphine, I felt AWFUL!!!

At least the weather was cold and rainy, not much I was missing...

And at least I was in pediatrics. The hospital was pretty full, so I was on the best floor.

Nice happy colors, and the nurses were the best...not many patients on that floor during this time, so I got lots of attention and good care.

Soon, I started hurting again, much worse than I had when I first came into the emergency room, so back for another CT scan...infection, ugh! In went a tube in my abdomen and one in my backside. The one in my abdomen came out after a little while, but not the other one. I was so uncomfortable. I couldn't sit, I couldn't lay on my back,  I could only stand or lay on my stomach. After a few days of this, my neck started to kill me. I wanted to go home soooo bad! At least I could stand and walk.

Well, to make a long agonizing story short, I made it on the boat.

I was told not to lift anything for a week. I was basically told to just enjoy my vacation and relax. 

I didn't get to do something that is on my bucket list, but I got to see the horses up close and take some pictures of them....someday.....I will be on a horse riding up and down the beach...someday....

Take it easy, I did, and I enjoyed every minute of being alive, being with my dear husband, and enjoying the sun and beautiful world God created. 

The Color of Dreams Blog Hop

I've joined another blog hop and am really excited about it. See this beautiful bead? It is made by Patricia Handschuh of The Color of Dreams Boutique on etsy.   Patricia and Rita of Jewel School Friends were nice enough to share a bead with about 48 participants.  I got mine Monday. As soon as I had it in my hand I started creating, and I love what I came up with. Stay tuned on April 6 for The Color of Dreams Blog Hop to see what I came up with and what my dream is....


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Thou Shalt Not Judge Others...

A few weeks ago, I went down to visit my husband in Louisiana. Yes, we still have not sold our house, and he is already working down there; sadness....

While I was down there, we took a short trip to Baton Rouge to visit my daughter and her husband. On the way back to Monroe, we had a very strange thing happen. A group of young guys, look to be college age, drove by us and flipped us off, and started yelling. They weren't being very nice. I was puzzled, as we didn't do anything except drive down the road. Yes, we stopped at a red light, but not sure they were upset about our driving. They finally turned off another road, and were gone.

Bill and I sat silently for a few seconds, until I asked him why he thought they did that. He just shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know. Then a few seconds later, he said, "Unless maybe it was because Kentucky beat LSU." I started to laugh. Awww, yes, that was it. Funny thing is we are not from Kentucky. We have Kentucky license plates, but we have lived there less than two years. We really don't care about either team.

So, this brings me to one of my pet peeves...judging others. We were being judged, and little did these hoodlums know, we were more Louisiana people than Kentucky people. We have lived in the Louisiana area for a total of about eight years.

Please don't judge until you know the whole story....and even then, you really should not judge.  Unless we were that person, we really don't know the whole story, how they feel, what they have been through etc.

Now I will have to say there are times that we do have to judge...somewhat, like should we hang around people who will bring us down, or well, stuff like that. What I'm saying is be very careful about passing judgement on others.

Another Guitar String Necklace

Yesterday, I was working on jewelry using new medium...old guitar strings. I finished this pendant, and really was not that thrilled with it. It was ok, but I thought it needed just the right thing to hang it on. Today, I came up with something....

And I think I really like it!

Yep, I am very happy with it now. 

Guitar String Pendant

 I got my bead soup yesterday, and so I've been busy making jewelry. So far, I got 3 1/2 pieces made. I decided to take a break and work on some other creations. I was able to get some old guitar strings and so been "playing" around with them...ha! no pun intended.  I decided to keep the curliness of the old strings and came up with this pendant. 

 Then I put it onto this wire necklace. What do you think?

Last night before I went to bed, I was finishing the last coat of glaze on these sparkle paper beads. This morning I checked them out after they had dried, and the beads look really nice. Maybe I will use them with my soup...

Bead Soup 8 is Simmering....

It's that time again....BEAD SOUP BLOG Party!!! YAY!!!!

First I would like to introduce you to my wonderful Bead Soup partner...Tracy Martin of Nutkitten's Handcrafted Jewelry . You should go pay her a visit and see what nice stuff she makes.

Before I show you all the neat ingredients I got from Tracy, I'd like to show you what I sent her. 

I have had a couple of these strands of flowers for awhile. I love them, and decided to share a strand with Tracy.

I also had a couple of strands of these purple beads and decided to share them too. As I was digging around in my stash, I saw that I had a matching focal, so I threw that in.

I've just started making paper beads, and wanted to throw a few in to see what Tracy thought of them. These are a few of my first batch, and I hope to get better at it. I'm working on batch three.

My last bead soup partner, Tammie Everly, sent me sari ribbon, I had never used it before, but now I love it.  I decided to see if Tracy would like to try some and then also threw in some lace.

Ha! Just realized the name of my last two partners....Tracy and Tammie are the names of my two sisters. Tracey and Tammy, spelled different, but same name. That is funny....and weird.

Ok, so on with the ingredients.

Here's a fancy clasp

There is a store I like to go to that has all their jewelry for $1. It is not top quality, obviously, but some of it I like to take apart and repurpose. I decided to see what they had available, and I found a couple of things, one of which is the necklace above. I love the turquoise look of the focal.

Then I saw this. I love tropical/nautical stuff, and figured I'd through this in the soup too. These were just for fun pieces that she can either repurpose, or wear, or whatever...heck for $1?

So, there you have it. It is very random, I know, but I figured it gives her a lot to choose from. I hop she likes it!

Ok, now for what Tracy sent me. As I go through the ingredients, I want to you to look at the similarities.  It's kinda funny...

The first thing I opened were these focals. Hmmm purple. How funny is that!? By the way, the lighting really doesn't show the true color of purple very well, I have found. At least some purples...

More purple, lol. I guess we both like purple.

These are pretty cool. My daughter's wedding was done in butterflies, so I know she will like these; and I like them too.

Here are a couple of fun clasps, beads, earring wires, and wire. Silver is my favorite.

So there is my soup from Tracy. I've been gone for the last two weeks, and was worried my package would get misplaced, but it didn't.

Well, I better get to working on my soup.

Hand Crafted Beads

 Here are some of the earrings I've made with my paper beads.

 Yes, paper! I cut, then hand rolled these beads. They've been triple dipped in a heavy glaze.

 Some of the beads need a little help, as I know you can see some of the glaze, but I'm working hard on perfecting them.

I'm hoping to be able to open an etsy shop when we get settled in our new home.

Personal Preparedness...

This is something The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints teaches us, and how important it is for all of us to be self sufficient (as much as possible), and personally prepared.

 The Red Cross also talks about being prepared...mostly for disasters. I don't want to be a dooms dayer, but there are all kinds of things that can happen in our community, and we should all be prepared for them. I actually blogged about this before. The 72 hour emergency kit is something we should all have...whether you live in a hurricane area, a place that is struck by tornadoes or floods, what whatever, all of us should have one of these.

I've decided to do another blog about it since it is time to go through and pull out all the stuff that is getting ready to expire and restock my bags. 

Since I sell Thirty One products (mythirtyone.com/terryjeanettecarter), I decided to try out of their bags, and the Super Organizing Utility Tote works great! Thirty One actually has several bags that would work for this, but since these were on special a few months ago, I decided to save some money and purchase these...one for me and one for my husband. 

For the next three days, I am actually eating my 72 hour preparedness food. I wanted to make sure I could survive on it. Usually, I don't like to eat like this, and I did try to be as healthy as possible, but I still got a lot of processed stuff. 

As you can see, I have a lot of protein bars and drinks, but I also got fruit cups and juices. Today was the first day I actually ate from it, and it wasn't too bad. To be honest, I have a lot of food, but hey, figured I might have to share a little, and you never know who might be with you if you have to evacuate.

So besides natural disasters, you might wonder why anyone would need to evacuate. Well, let me share a true story with you...

A few years ago, my parents were sound asleep in their home. Shortly after midnight, there was a loud banging on their front door..."POLICE! You need to evacuate NOW!!!"  My parents stumbled to the front door to see cops and swat team running all over the neighborhood, (yes, really), and the police told them they had to leave, "NOW!" They did not have time to change, just get their shoes on, and their keys and go. If they had had their 72 hour emergency kid, with food and clothes, they could grab that too. They were lucky in this incident that they were able to come back in a couple of hours. But how many times have you heard a stand off lasting for days?  Don't know about you, but I really don't want to go shopping for something to eat and clothes in my pj's.

So, what do you put into one of these things? Well, you can go to the Red Cross website for more info. One thing that is important is that you put things your family will eat into it; every six months, you go through it and make sure nothing is expired or about to expire. I have heard of all kinds of ways people do this. One family I heard had a mock emergency every six months. They would out of the blue, get the kids up and head out with their emergency kits and go camping. That sounded pretty fun to me.

Our church has a world wide general conference every six months, and I've heard of people eating their stuff and replacing it that weekend. I think that's what I plan to do. This time, since we are in such limbo with the move, not sure where we will be during that time, and since it is so close to that time, I just decided to switch it out now. Besides, it was September that I put mine together, and that was six months ago.

Well, hope you all get your 72 hour emergency kit together soon. You never know when you will need it....hopefully never...but...it's always good to be prepared.

What Type of Jewelry Do I Like to Make?

I have been making jewelry for a loooong time. Lately, I've been branching out a little. 

Last year, my bead soup partner sent me some sari ribbon. I had ZERO clue as to what to do with it. I figured it out.

I had a lot of fun branching out.

Then I decided to try to crochet wire and beads.

I've done a little recycling...this necklace has a few curtain rings that I no longer needed.

A couple years ago when I was in the Bahamas, I decided to go to the bank in Nassau and get a few coins. I made this necklace to give to my mom as a souvenir. I really should make me one too.

I've also used old instrument strings to make bracelets. This bracelet is made from some old dulcimer strings.

 Oh, and then there's the old telephone wire. I've been making stuff with this for YEARS!

And then, of course, are these crochet necklaces. These are fun and easy to do!

Lately, I've been getting into these boogers...

 Paper beads!

I have hand wrapped these, glued them together, then used Modge Podge to coat them for stability and to stick together better. I then put three coats of a thick glaze on each bead. I hear they are pretty durable. They are water resistant, but not water proof. Before I start pushing these too much, I am giving them to some of my family to "test drive." I'm also thinking of maybe giving some to my Bead Soup Partner along with some other beads. I'm hoping she will also  "test drive" them.

So, if you ask me what type of jewelry I like to make, I'll have to say I don't really know. I like to try a lot of different things. I do like to use seed beads as accent beads ONLY, so I am not technically a seed beader.

I do like to mess with a VERY wide variety of stuff.