Diary of a Mad Fabri-Holic

Somehow life goes on, even when maybe you'd prefer it didn't...

I've been back home in Denver for just over a week.

I stayed with Mom for about 10 days after Dad died.  We had the memorial service one full week after his death, which allowed folks to make plans to attend.  As he was cremated, and the ashes were not present at the service, we had more flexibility with time.  In September I will return to SC, and we will kayak his ashes out to his favorite spot on his river- they even make biodegradable urns for just such occasions.

The service was perfect.  The chaplain from Hospice opened with a brief prayer, and then everyone shared stories and memories about Dad.  The chaplain also gave a brief sermon/eulogy, and then we viewed an amazing dvd slide show created by my uncle.  I have had no luck uploading it to YouTube, so, I can't share.  But it was great.  Then Dad's friend Jim played Amazing Grace, and we all shared a meal- fresh fried fish, of course! 

Some of you may know about Dad's backyard gator- there house backs up to a small lake, and over the nearly 6 years they have lived there, there have been a succession of alligators sharing the lake with them.  Dad truly loved his gators- watching them in the lake was one of his pleasures.  The last night Dad was really with us, the gator acted very strangely and swum over to the bank by Dad's window, and sat staring into the house for a very very long time.  He's never done that before.  The memorial service was held at the Outfitters Center where my folks live- the nature center- because the river and Lowcountry in general was Dad's true church.  The Outfitters is right on another lake, and we realized that an alligator observed the entire service and hung out until we were done with the meal.  We are quite certain that he came to pay his respects as well.

The Hospice staff told us they had many, many stories of animals reacting to people's deaths- dogs, cats, birds and more- but Dad's was their first gator.  I know somewhere, that made him smile.

Now I am home.  It's been a week.  I have a tiny bit of the mess under control.  My desk at work is still pretty awful.  But my co-workers have been amazing- I am not a huggy person by nature but I have had some of the best hugs of my life in the last 6 days.  I'm settling back into being a mom and an employee, instead of just being a daughter. What I really need is a good cry, but the breakdown has yet to materialize.  I'm still in shock, I think.

Thank you all for the comments, emails, prayers, love, and everything else.  I haven''t responded to many commens or emails- but I will eventually get to everyone. Meanwhile, know I am thankful to each and every one of you.

Can you still be a daddy's girl when your dad is gone?

This afternoon my father passed away, peacefully and painlessly, in his own home, with my mother and me in attendance.  He went exactly the way he had wanted (given the circumstances of terminal liver cancer and complications from extreme PSC).

But that doesn't make my heart any less broken.  Relieved that he went in a good way.  But still completely heartbroken.

Here is the last photo of my dad, taken at his request. 

Teddy is 62 years old (Dad was just 6 weeks shy of 64 himself).  Teddy will be coming to live at my house with my daughter now.

Rest in peace Daddy.

Another Charleston Update

So, if you follow my Tweets or Facebook, you know I am still here in Charleston.  On Thursday, a few minutes after I booked my flight to go home on Friday, we heard from Dad's doctor re: some test results.

And as it turns out, the worst is true.  After 38 years of fighting an autoimmune condition, 14 years of living with an ostomy, the last year of horrible bile duct infections and so much more, my dad has inoperable liver cancer.  Even if he were healthy enough to survive chemo or surgery, the tumor is in a place that can only be resolved in 15% of people...

Dad has chosen to stop fighting, and we strongly support him.  There is no chance to beat the cancer, and the solutions available to prolong his life in the interim of painful and invasive.  We are now working with Hospice and plan to take him home on Monday.  While his doctors think he could last a while- the cancer is not super rapid- the infection and other issues are fairly serious.  Dad is ready to go, and our goal is to see him through it, to love him, to make him comfortable, and to get him to see his backyard gator again...  (Their house backs up to a lake where a gator often makes his home... and Dad loves to watch him.  The photo below was taken from just off their back steps.)

I plan to stay here in SC with my mom and dad for as long as possible.  Rich and the kids are flying down tomorrow, Sunday, and we're not sure how long they will stay.

My internet friends have been a source of incredible support for me in the last week, and I am so thankful for all the virtual love and real prayers headed our way.  You are all amazing, and I know I'll come back and ask for more support before this is over.  And after, too.

Today a care package from Sunne arrived at my hotel room, full of everything I'll need to make some nice simple knit-without-thinking-about-it socks. Knitters and quilters are the best people in the world.

The kindness of friends is truly the most amazing gift in the world. 

Thank you.

Please pray for a good, painless end to my dad's long, hard journey.

Still in Charleston...

I need to start by thanking every single one of you.  I have not had the time or energy to reply to all the amazing supportive comments but please know that you are really helping me through this.  I can handle posting Tweets from my phone... but entire emails are exhausting right now.

The situation here has been a rollercoaster.  My dad came in and was worse than anyone thought.  He is fighting back, but, he has been fighting all these for 38 years- since well before I was born.  A LOT is wrong right now, and I think I can honestly say this is the beginning of the end.  His spirit has been the main thing pulling his body along for a very very long time, and I think his spirit is wearing out.  No one should have to fight as much as he has...  he got dealt a really shitty hand in life and he rose to it amazingly. 

Tomorrow I am flying home for a few days- will see Annie in her big play (break a leg at opening night tonight kiddo!)  I plan to regroup, repack- much more underwear and yarn this time and also my kids- and return next week.

On the crafty side, I finished a sock here at the hospital but don't have the energy to cast on #2.  Turns out lacy thinking type knitting=not good when you are stressed and distracted.  Dad's kidney DR is a knitter (and a new ravelry friend of mine, and a quilter too!) and she has hooked me up with an LYS- tonight is thier late night and I might take a much needed therapeutic trip over there...

Charleston, once again. For the same not so great reasons as last time.

About sixteen months ago, I told you about how I had to rush down to SC as my dad was in the hospital and not doing well at all.  He recovered, as he always has, from a myriad of complicated and awful illnesses and conditions that have plagued him for nearly 40 years.

But it turns out that maybe he didn't get all the way better that time, and an infection has actually been raging in his bile ducts for the last almost year and a half.  (He takes anti-rejection drugs, like after a transplant, to fight an autoimmune condition and these drugs may have let the infection go unchecked for all that time).

His doctors have been trying to treat the infection for the last 6 weeks or so, since it was discovered.  Unfortunately, he's been getting worse.  Thursday he was hospitalized for aggressive treatment, and I flew down first thing Friday.

I hadn't seen him since March, and he looks awful.  I am very very very worried, and I am putting all this out onto the blog to ask for prayers, good thoughts, karma, juju, etc.  Anything you could send his way, he needs.  So does my mom, who has been by his side for nearly 40 years, most of them plagued by all these illnesses.

Thank you.

Here's dad a few weeks ago, doing one of his favorite things in the world...I'm hoping he will soon be up and able to catch some more great ones, but, it doesn't look so good today.

All the news that's fit to air...

I had *planned* a post about my latest quilt for this evening.  I've been working with a fabulous pile of fat quarters from the Robert Kaufman Project Runway line.  I was so sick of that quilt for my folks, you know, the one that didn't get done in time for Christmas?  It was hanging out on my design wall taunting me with its dull colors and poorly matched seams (still not sure if it was me or a not great pattern...)  So I taught it a lesson by ripping it down, and starting a new quilt, just for me and just for fun.  It's been a while since I did that...and this fabric is so much fun, it was just the thing to break a slump.

But it's not at a good point for a photo, and besides, I have something way more interesting for blog fodder today.  Remember back in August, when I had the absolute best night of my life, ever?  Well, after Nov. 4th, I decided that the smartest thing in the world to do was to go to DC for Inauguration Day.  And to take Annie with me.  After all, a huge part of my family lives in the area, so we had a free place to stay.  And we got not hideously expensive airfare, and a rental car at a decent rate.  It appears 3-5 million other Americans had the same idea, however, and the big day looks like it will be beyond insane.  But totally worth it.  Annie is so excited and she really does have a great grasp of how historic it is.  We can't wait to get there.  We're going to at least one museum, one quilt exhibit, my favorite restaurant in the world, and during all this, we'll be catching up with family I haven't seen in 5 years, and also, one friend who had the nerve to move away from Denver.

Okay, Sam, that's nice and all, but you said you had some good blog fodder, you might be thinking by now.  True, true.  But you needed the backstory.  Because, you see, through the connections of a good friend (who is a neighbor, co-worker, and book club pal Pam), Annie and I got to be interviewed for the local NBC new affiliate today!  They wanted to talk to Denver locals who were headed to Dc for Inauguration Day- hey, wait, that's us! And so this afternoon, Pam, Annie and I headed into the 9news studio for our 15 minutes of fame.

All three of us were interviewed individually, Pam first, me in the middle, and Annie last.  It was the high point of her life to date, I think.  She was quite at ease in front of the camera, my little ham.  In fact, the reporter called her a "sound bite machine."  She is quite clearly the child of a raging liberal who plays too much NPR on the car radio!

Who knows- maybe this is the beginning of an illustrious public career for her?  Meanwhile, the reporter was fabulous and treated Annie to a tour of the 9 news control room as well as the news room.

All in all, a wonderful day.

We were told the piece will air at 4pm (MST) on 9News Denver on Inauguration Day itself.  It's also going to stream on their website, and of course, I'll post that link as soon as I can :-)

Now, to finish the army man blankie before Annie and I leave for DC on Sunday...

The Happiest Halloween Place on Earth (super duper extra photo heavy...)

We're back!  (Okay, we've been back for just over a week but I got a little bit distracted by that whole President Elect Obama thing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

And we had a simply wonderful time...  We got to meet a friend in person for the first time.

Debi shared her favorite parade viewing spot with us, and it was awesome. Thanks again, Debi! 

We also got some of our best friends ever to join us at The Disneyland Hotel for dinner and fireworks viewing from our balcony.

Can you tell how much the kids love Chris and Elise? We do too- and we miss you guys!

And we spent a fabulous day with our friends Wendy, Charlie and Molly (and baby-to-be).

We ran ourselves ragged doing everything that we love.  The kids met their idols.

We had so much fun at the Haunted Mansion all done up for Halloween.

We even went to Mickey's Trick or Treat Party at Disney's California Adventure! 

Truly, we had an awesome time.  I could go on and on, but I won't cause I'm betting it would be dull to anyone but me.  My favorite photos can be found here, and if you're really masochistic, all 4.5 days worth are here...

We packed so much Disney and friend fun into 4.5 days that I didn't really work on either pair of socks that I took with me. I worked on my Pomatomus on the plane on the way up, and my new Jaywalkers on the way back...  I only have a photo of the latter.

That sock is done now and I'm on the heel of #2. I also managed to finish my Dick and Jane baby quilt, just in time to include in the baby-shower-in-a-box for my cousin in CA.

I was worried I might be sad when we got back.  I hate after-vacation and not having anything to look forward to.  I also hate snow.  But Denver is on track to have the latest first snowfall in many many years (hooray for me!)  And my folks will be here in 2 weeks, driving our new minivan from Savannah to here (a long story, but we got an amazing deal from a neighbor and friend of theirs who owns a Toyota delaership in GA...)  So we have the new car to look forward to.  And another vacation, even though  I swore I was staying home for ages, for both sanity and bank account reasons.  However, I was SO fired up on November 4th that I made the rash decision to head to DC for inauguration!!  I'm taking Annie with me- she's missing a week of school, but how often do you get to see history in person?!  We have family to stay with in the area, and so all we had to do was get the plane tickets and rent a car- done and done!  Now, there's something to look forward to!  I have emailed my congressman and senators in the hopes of getting tix for bleacher seats, but I assume I will be lining the parade route with millions of others.  The best part?  A friend from here is also going, and so is some of my family from PA.  And maybe a blog pal, too!  This will be the best party of the century!

But first, surviving the holidays!  Time to stop knitting socks for me and start my many holiday gifts, yikes!  I'll leave you with some fireworks...

A brief break from it all

Tomorrow, we'll be right there.

It's time for the annual visit-my-folks-and-relish-the-fact-they-retired-to-the-good-life.  We leave in 13 hours and 15 minutes, but who's counting?

Bathing suits are packed.  New socks are ready to be cast on (go, Socktoberfest!)  3 new books are in my backpack.  Life should be good.

We'll be gone an entire week, and we need it.  I have been feeling not a little bit of stress lately (it's no fun when your job is to get people to part with their disposable income in this climate!)  For the next 7 days, I have vowed: no election news.  Not even the debate?  We'll see if my resolve is that strong.  No economy news.  In fact, no news.  No computer, unless we match a DVD on the laptop.  I'm taking a vacation from real life.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and I'll check in when I'm back to reality.  Hopefully, with great pictures and a new pair of socks.

No news is good news, but makes for boring blogging.

You'd think, with the crazy 13 day birthday party madness behind us, I'd have time for my crafty life. but you'd be wrong!  Life has been so crazy, still.  With Annie's martial arts class 2 nights a week, tutor once a week, and then, of course, everything else in life, it feels like we never ever sit down.  I did manage to finally take pictures of the socks I finished several weeks ago...

In retrospect, the yarn was fabulous and stripey, and the pattern was fabulous and easy, but, they don't really go together.  The stripes lose the lace and the lace loses the stripes.  and there was crazy pooling on the gussets.  Ah, well, live and learn.  I'd really like to knit these up again in a more solid yarn...

No sewing happened this weekend. Saturday was meant to be devoted to cleaning the garage (now that the basement is done, the toys can come back in, but, we're going through each toy to be certain we still need it... a long and arduous process.)  We didn't make it that far because Annie's room was such a sty that she and I spent 4 hours ripping it apart.  I'm really proud of her, though- she chose 2 entire garbage bags of stuffed toys to give away.  And she really tossed a lot of junk- she's a worse hoarder than me, and for her, throwing anything away is huge.  Her room looks the best it has since, oh, the day we moved in.  Henry is next.  It's much harder with him- he's not really good at saying goodbye to things.  We'll take it slowly.

Last night, we started to place toys on the shelves and hung art on the walls.  If I ever finish the bento box quilt and the curtains, I'll post some photos of the whole room together.

Meanwhile, we leave for the beach and visiting my folks in 5.5 days, and I am so not ready!  Well, I am ready for the beach, but I have too much to do before we go...  ACK.  Pre-and post-vacation is always so stressful.  But so worth it, too.

Five, five five five, turning five, turning five...

(sing it to the tune of Stayin' Alive...)

Where have I been?  Watching my baby turn 5.  5 is big.  5 is school age, even though he's not starting kindergarten until next year.  5 is no more baby, toys with 10,000 pieces, and an interest in toy guns I can't seem to curb.

His birth was a whirlwind, and it feels like the last 5 years have been, as well.  I'm so happy he wasn't ready for kindergarten- I get one year more of my baby...  Thank goodness he still hugs and kisses and cuddles with abandon.  I know one day he'll realize that's not cool, but not yet!  He got up at 6am on Saturday, his lucky #13 birthday, and jumped into our bed for lots of snuggle time.

That was the only calm moment of the day.  We celebrated 5 in grand style with a wild and crazy pirate p-aaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-ty.

First, there was the cake. Special order: Pirate ship with Star Wars guys, by request of the birthday boy.

We found, through the magic of blog-land and a knitting friend, a local bakery that could pull it off for us!  (And for way less money than you'd think- I know this because everyone asked how much we paid and said they'd guessed waaaay higher.)  So, I'm not quite as insane as everyone thinks. And man, was it one cool cake.  Tasty too- chocolate with chocolate mousse inside.

We served, amongst other things, pirate ship hot dogs on a sea of fritos.

And we played pin-the-eyepatch-on-captain-henry thanks to a nifty cool website.

(We also decorated cheap plastic pirate swords, as you can see above.)  There was much other pirate themed mayhem, but I'll spare you that many photos. For those dying to see, you can go here.

The birthday boy had a blast,

we all survived, and I will be picking legos out of my vaccuum for the next 10 years.

Aside from that, I've been knitting away on- what else?- some socks.  I finished my trip-to-boston socks and even wore them to work on Friday last, but I have yet to take a picture.  My new socks (rav link) are black, lovely black, and a stunning simple lace pattern.  I also spent 3 entire hours cleaning the sewing room yesterday.  3.  Sheesh.  Streamed the last 3 episodes of last season's Lost while doing it (time to catch up before the new season).  It looks fantastic- ready for me to mess up again!

Oh, and also- we put furniture into the FINISHED BASEMENT ROOM.  I'm in heaven- the playroom is no longer skanky and sad.  I'll get photos when we finally have it all together- 2 bookcases and a desk need to be built.  But hey, in 2 to 3 years, I can refurnish in style when Ikea finally gets to Denver.  first, Obama's speech HERE, now Ikea?  After 8 years, I'm starting to feel like Denver could be home...