In the Pink!

Despite waking up with the headache that I went to bed with and grousing with my husband, today is definitely moving in the right direction.

My husband and I made up and decided to be nice to each other again after a few days of general crankiness.

I have a baby shower to go to this weekend, and had grand fun putting together a little gift basket for the occasion. Was able to find this lovely pristine basket at a thrift store and had hung on to the pink wired ribbon from a Christmas past, so felt downright resourceful as well as getting to be uber girly!

I have a spa day to look forward to on Friday, with a facial and massage giving me a glorious 2 full hours of me time at the lovely Avant Salon where I get my hair cut.

I just shipped off a pretty little package to Florida of one of my favorite Etsy items, which is going live on a handmade feather tree (squeeee!).

I also received a package from Bobo's Oat Bars this morning of three of their delicious and nutritious coconut oat bars to replace one that I found mold in prior to opening. You've got to love the smaller independent companies! These bars are great food for babies, organic and yummy and soft and oh so portable!

My headache is starting to get better and my baby is asleep, so I'm going to see what else I can do with my burst of positive energy!

What kind of project will this be?

I have this vintage table runner that I've been hanging on to for God knows how long. I've never used it for a couple of reasons. 1. Wasn't really in the place in my life where I had occasion/desire to put it out 2. It has a somewhat unsightly stain in a conspicuous spot.

Now that I have my little girl and Easter is just around the corner, I have lovely notions of putting out my little bunny figures and sweet, festive decorations. I pulled this out by chance and felt it might be just the thing.

I've hand washed it in Woolite, using Grandma's Secret Spot Remover on the stain, and hung it to dry. This did wonders for generally livening this little linen up, but did not do anything for the stain, and has made me aware that one end of the runner is a shade darker than the other.

With the prospect of simply not being able to do anything about the stain, I'm entertaining camouflaging it with coordinating embroidery motifs. I've found some really good candidates/inspiration here. If I were to do this, I'm also considering tea dying it so that the color fade is not so obvious.

It's vintage, but I don't know where it came from and have no sentimental value to attach to it other than I think it's very sweet.

Is it passe' to add your own embroidery to a vintage piece? Are there stain removal secrets I'm not aware of that are suitable for this task? Should I tea dye the whole thing, or will the discolored end just dye darker than the rest? I'd love to get some input!

What's on my wall: Inspirado

This little darling has always been in my life. It hung in my mother's room when I was growing up and she was nice enough to let me have it when I moved out. I don't know where it came from, or who it was made by.

On the back of the frame, in two places, is written B 350. It almost looks like a price, but I don't know if it is, or even if it is, if the price refers to the frame or the entire piece. My good friend KatinkaPinka used to have a storefront in South Austin with a couple of other ladies and they would have initials on their price tags to indicate who made what; that's my best guess for the B.

It hangs on a little strip of wall just big enough for it right outside my bedroom door. I look at it a little bit every day, some days more than others. I never get tired of getting up close and examining the variety of careful stitches that are so much more than they even needed to be. The extra touches of detail in the stitches is what gets me every time. I love to embroider and it seems to be somewhat of a fading art.

Someone doing a piece like this today is probably a fractional likelihood compared to when this was probably made, but even if someone were to take the time to do it now, I doubt that they would include all the nuance and care that went into this. I look at it and think, well, I can do that stitch, or I could probably figure that one out, or how did she do that? But I'm almost always struck by how the artist "went the extra mile" in a way that I'm not sure I would have. This is somewhat sobering, as I pride myself on being someone who "brings their A-game" most of the time, especially on craft projects. I have to imagine that it came from a time when there was simply less to occupy yourself with. No computers, TV etc. It must have been quietly lovely, but I won't get all romantic about times past, there's no point to it really. At any rate, it wouldn't be as inspiring to me if it were more on my level. My mother, the art teacher, summed it up with "If their work is better than yours, learn from it. If it's worse, feel better about your own."

That's not entirely fair though, because artists who are less practiced or comfortable with a medium than you can still inspire with their ingenuity, style, spirit or sheer drive to create.

Anyway, was taking another look at it and thought I would share my little moment.

Costume Basic for Baby 12 easy steps!

This is a pattern that I created for my 10 month old (who is a little on the small side, but this would fit a wide range of sizes) daughter's Bride of Frankenstein Halloween costume using cloth diapers! She will be wearing a long sleeved white onesie, long white pants and white socks underneath. I have also made her a Bride hairdo hat to complete the look. This tutorial is for the white gown/robe/tunic portion of her costume. Click on the pictures for larger versions of these images!

You will need:

4 white cloth diapers (the kind everyone uses as burp cloths these days)

white thread

needle

4 snaps

(sewing machine is preferable for a couple of steps*, but not necessary)

Steps 1-2

First, you lay out two of the diapers; then fold over the inside edges to the middle, away from each other.

Steps 3-4

Next, sandwich the top edges of the diapers together so that the open flaps of the foldover are on the inside. Sew all four layers together just to the width of the folded over section. This creates your first shoulder seam. You will repeat steps 1-3 on your other 2 diapers so that you have 2 halves of your costume.

This caption reads (other side of stitched edge) It shows you what the shoulder of your finished costume looks like when it's folded right side out.

Steps 5-7

Now, lay your costume halves wrong side out again. Bring the two long edges that were folded over in step 2 together to make a side seam *easier with a sewing machine; leaving space for an armhole. Again, do this for the other half of your costume as well.

Step 8

Now to start bringing your two halves together! First (a somewhat optional step - mostly for aesthetics, somewhat for fitting) accordion fold and stitch the top edge (the leftover part that was not sewn into your shoulder seam) of one of your front-of-the-costume pieces to create a gather at the neckline of the costume. Do so to the other half as well.

Steps 9-10

Next, bring the two long edges that form the front of your costume together and sew the entire length *easier with a sewing machine. The gathered edges should be at the top of the seam you are creating. You will then (another aesthetic step) fold over just the edge of your gathered section and stitch it down so that the serged edge doesn't show on the front of the costume.

Step 11

Check your costume. It is almost complete! 11a is what the front should look like; 11b is the back.

Step 12

On the back of your costume, there are two side pieces of cloth diaper that will overlap easily when you hold the garment by the shoulder seams. In order to finish the costume, you will need to sew 4 snaps (2 pieces to a snap = 8 sides to sew) so that they will serve to adequately close the back of the costume and keep it from falling open when your child bumbles around in it. You could do this step with velcro, ties, buttons, hooks and eyes, etc. Whatever your preference is will probably work just fine.

I'm using this pattern for the Bride of Frankenstein, but it would work for many fun characters; such as Princess Leia, Gandalf, Mr. Spock from Star Trek IV, a ghost who didn't like to have their face covered...and that's just with it being white! You could throw it in the sink or washing machine with some fabric dye of your choice and the possibilities would be endless!!! :D*

The cloth diapers I used were ones with a pretty thick middle section. I preferred these as they created the big square shoulder that I was trying to achieve. You could use a less padded diaper if you wanted less of a shoulder pad effect.

Guerilla Embroidery

So, my shoppe may have no sales, but my lovely mother-in-law has bought 4 of my Christmas ornaments and commissioned 5 more from me.

One of the 5 is a special request custom ball with a University of Texas theme. This was interesting for me, as I would have never chosen to do this theme on my own, but it was a fun challenge. It also necessitated some guerrilla style embroidery. I graduated from UT Austin in 2001 with a BA in Theatre/Dance and a concentration in costume design, so I dusted off the old school spirit and gave it a go.

Everyone is mystified by these balls I make, but the actual stitching technique is quite basic. Admittedly, you will have a better finished product with some needlework experience under your belt, but I really do think this craft is something anyone could learn. I taught myself from a book, after all. (There are temari artists out there who put me to shame, mind you, but I'm fairly proud of what I've been able to master in the short time I've been doing them - I made my first one for my daughter just before she was born, 9 months ago).

Cloth provides normal hand embroidery with a very regular and predictable "grid" to place your stitches in. Think warp and weft; you can place your stitch on one side of the thread or the other, giving you precise control over where your stitch appears in your design. This enables you to embroider anything, pretty much anywhere on the fabric and make it exactly the shape you want.

Temari embroidery is different.

After you wrap the ball with your base color thread (I use styrofoam balls, not the traditional and eco-friendly cloth scrap wad, I know I'm terrible!) you have an irregular, randomized network of thread going in all directions to cover a spherical surface. You are officially off the "grid" (*dork!*).

Typical temari designs are not affected much by these irregularities. You tuck your needle basically where you want it, but can push, pull or cover any error you make in stitch placement. It's a bit more of a nebulous process, more forgiving in many ways. In temari, you can pull stitches much tighter than you can with cloth, because you have a solid base, not a flexible piece of fabric. Your stitches are also more unpredictable though. You may put a stitch in and think it's going to show it's end point or origin point in a specific place, but when you pull through your next stitch, the nexus of thread may have mislead you, or have a gap, leaving your stitch shorter or longer than you intended. With regular temari embroidery, this is no big deal, you can make up for it on your next round of stitching more often than not.

Also, temari designs are just that; designs. They are not letters or numbers or curliques. They are flat sided shapes. When you put a stitch in, lay the thread across the ball and secure it with another stitch, you are creating a flat side to a shape. There are no circles, or curves. When you attempt to put such things into the design, this is when you need to employ guerilla embroidery tactics. On cloth (a grid) it's easy to be precise and make little stitches all in a row to create a curve. In a random nexus base, you lose that control, so you have to be more persistent and determined in order to get your design to look the way you intend it to.

I try to not do too many of these designs, but they are an interesting challenge, nonetheless!

I'm also including a little experimental ball design where I free handed some temari style presents. This was fun to do, don't know if I'll make any more though.

Inspirado

One of my favorite things about working at the art school was being surrounded by art and artists and looking at all kinds of art everyday. I miss it. I am glad that there are places like Etsy and Blogspot and the internet in general to help make up for my loss, but it's not the same. I need to do more craft nights, but that is hard with everyone living far apart. I've decided to make sharing art with others a focus of my blogge.

Audrey Kawasaki is an artist whom I stumbled upon just poking around on the internet. I am in awe of her. I could pore over her website for hours and still want more. I lovelovelove that she includes her sketchbooks on her site. She is the main reason I started drawing on wood. Her work also helped me to feel validated in my penchant for drawing pretty ladies. I've never seen her work in person, but I can imagine that it is only more spectacular and haunting. I am on a mailing list. It is a life goal of mine to own a print of her work. She also has a live journal!

The rest of the artists featured are sellers on Etsy. Most I have hearted for years, some I have discovered very recently; all of them make me so proud to be an artist!

Marmeecraft: I love her folk art/victorian sensibility and her simultaneous use of whimsy, symbolism and cuteness. There's something so innocent, yet eerily wise about her aesthetic; I find it to be quite engaging. I also obviously respond to sister imagery; especially when it's mixed with lots of hair. (I have an identical twin sister, we, until very recently, had exceedingly long hair). It's just a bonus that she also draws pictures of cute woodland creatures! Blog too!

sheridesthelion: Ok, so not technically drawing/painting, but I don't think anyone should argue with me on this one. Sonia Romero is the only linocut artist I need. I was initially drawn to her work for the alphabet series, but continue to find everything she does to be artfully and masterfully made and with a really intriguing point of view. She also has a website.

TheBrilliantMagpie: The most wonderful collection of special ACEOs I've seen. Each one of Amy Abshier Reyes' sweet paintings is a story in and of itself; a petite window to another world with a lovely narrative teaser. Her work really invites you in to an interesting little world.

There's also a blog!

mystikaz: My newest find in this list, an artist named Karen A. Townsend (KAT). I just happened upon this shop very recently and was stunned by what I saw. I had to blow the pictures up to their largest just so that I could study them and convince myself they weren't digital/photo art. You have got to love portraiture with this kind of detail and realism; plus, who doesn't love Erroll Flynn?!

www.pencilportraitsbykat.com

- The next two sellers mentioned have obvious talent and style in the drawing department, but maybe should have been in a separate post about artists who work with paper in 3 dimensions. But, I'm doing the post now and I'm including them anyway. So what?

LittleRobot: I love the strangeness and obvious quality that I find in

Lindsey Carr's shop.* This is work that is so different than mine I cannot help but be attracted to it. (But I still get my long hair ladies mixed in!) I adore the jumping jack/art dolls and paper theatre. I am filled with fascinating questions when I look through these

items and I find that so exciting! There's also a blog!

*another shop that I feel the same way about is crankbunny. This shop, however, is closed for an important project at the time I am posting. The link still has interesting info and other sites where you can learn more about this seller.

A major motivating factor in my becoming an artist was simply loving things that other people created. I continue to be prodded along by what is out there and what speaks to me. I think it's magical that art makes artists make more art.

After sharing some of my inspirational artists (specifically for drawing/painting); I would LOVE it if any of my readers shared theirs. I also plan on doing additional posts for other artistic media.

Daily?!

So, I'm still being fairly good about focusing on my shoppe and gleaning what I can from the internet sources at least once a week or so. (When I'm not having to take my baby girl to the ER!) She's doing well now, so I'm looking back at my shoppe and thinking about what I can do to not neglect it as I prepare for (hopefully) a winter show.
I look at tips from other sellers and have a hard time picturing myself actually doing a lot of what they advise. Everyone loves twitter it seems but myself. I can't remember my password anyway, so, even if you want to follow my exceedingly rare "tweets", you're out of luck. I feel pretty accomplished just doing a semi-regular blog and keeping a presence on Etsy, Flickr and Facebook. Which brings me to the title of this post. Someone I was reading tips from advised doing a daily blog post. Daily?! I can hardly muster a weekly one. Maybe this will change when my daughter goes to school, but I've got other stuff to do too! Are other people doing daily posts? How does it work out for you? Do you think it makes a big difference? What do you write about? I'm just curious.
Another tip I've seen multiple times is to create a fanpage on Facebook. Has anyone else done this? Is it useful? I'm an extremely reluctant computer user/networker, but am not wanting to miss out on anything that is really great.

I'm a bit sidetracked right now with a bit of DIY fever. My across the street neighbor recently moved out after 15 yrs. of living there with his wife and daughters and we were able to score several items from his garage clear out. I got a tiny toy piano and painted in purple (teachable moment: Purple Piano). Am currently repainting a cabinet which I plan to use in her room for toys and puzzles. Had some pale blue paint left over and thought of a Cloud Cabinet design which I'm itching to finish. Thought it would just be a simple prime/paint job, but it got a wee bit more drawn out because, being a handmade cabinet, the doors, once painted, became too tight a fit to close properly. In comes arranging to borrow a sander from my father, then waiting for a time when watching baby girl will allow for sanding in the garage to commence. Also, an additional plank of wood had to be attached to the bottom of said cabinet so that, when opened, the doors had enough clearance for the carpet in her room. So, am currently waiting for the hopefully final coat of blue paint to dry and for night time, so I'll have the luxury of time to paint little fluffy clouds all over it.

Currently in garage, awaiting renovation/TLC are an easel and a child's table and chairs set. Inspirado has not taken ahold of me yet on these two because she won't be able to use them for awhile yet and they will be even better once I have a studio with a child's art area set up.
The studio has a framed out wall finally, but progress is slow. Steady, but slow.

Dicey's also been invited to a cowgirl themed birthday party. I recently acquired some hand-me-downs from Katinkapinka's nephew; one of which was a cute plaid shirt in pale colors. It was a decidedly boy-cut shirt, which would be fine, but I have a super skinny and tall baby girl and wanted to take it in a bit to suit her frame. Have also added a few touches of lace. Once finished and paired with her denim jumper, this will be the perfect outfit for such an event. I have it pinned very succesfully, so am eager to see how it actually turns out once I start sewing it. It will be my first foray into sewing for my daughter and I'm very excited about it. I see all these adorable dresses on Etsy, some created out of old men's shirts and am set aflame with a need to try it on my own. I especially love this upcycled tuxedo shirt dress by allthenumbers I also have a reversible pinafore pattern and some great left over fabric from curtains that are burning a hole in my ability to focus on more immediate tasks. Meanwhile, my machine is amidst a pile of disorganization on a table that was temporarily set up in my garage as a work space, even without a/c, but is now pushed aside and unusable. I'm going to have to lug the machine inside to my kitchen table and I'm just in denial about it right now.

I totally thought this would be a short post, but, as I write, I find more and more things I feel the need to discuss. Am trying in vain to distract Dicey while I write as she woke up earlier than I'd hoped from her nap. This is my one opportunity to go to the grocery store and I just found out that I burned the rice I was making for her because I plain forgot about it. Maybe more frequent posts ARE in order. Argh.

Intussusception

I don't know why I had never heard of this before my daughter was diagnosed with it. It is something that can apparently just "happen" and is fairly common in babies aged 5 mos. - 10 mos. and can be fatal if untreated.

The symptoms are confusing and hard to put your finger on and it is right in the prime age range for teething behavior which is a catch-all for fussiness and many other "off" behaviors. It is also supposed to be more common in boys than in girls.

I knew something was wrong, but I was still worried I was overreacting and our trip to the doctor was going to end up just as something to reassure me that nothing was really wrong. I am a stay at home mom and I spend all day every day with my daughter. For parents out there who don't have the luxury of that much time with their little one, I would think the symptoms could present for much longer without alarming anyone. The longer they go untreated, the more complicated correcting the problem becomes. Several of the typical symptoms never really happened with our daughter. She wasn't curling into a ball when she was in pain and didn't have a distended belly or seem to mind when her tummy was palpated. I think I caught it early enough to pre-empt the bile/waste symptoms. I know that not many people are going to read this, but I hope, in some small way to help expose this condition so that it is more well known.

Ok, so I'm really sorry for the length of this, it's something I wrote for myself so I could remember all the details in years to come.

Dorothy's first trip to the ER

We had gotten back from a visit to Houston the previous evening. D went down for her morning nap, waking around 11:45 am. I've been working on doing regular solid food meals with her, so instead of nursing her right away, I put her in her high chair for some finger food. She ate a little, then wanted out of her seat. Bryan and I were working on a grocery list and we let her play and crawl around. She got a little fussy, so I figured she was still hungry and wanted to nurse. She didn't really seem to take to it though and would pull away and cry, which was a bit unusual. Her fussiness was escalating somewhat and we were both focused on cheering her up. We took her into our bedroom, checked her diaper and tried to play with her, but she kept crying again even after distraction. I resolved to take her in the shower with me, which has always been very soothing for her. We went in and she settled for a moment, but soon started crying and struggling in my arms. When she wasn't doing that, she would lay her head on me and close her eyes. I said that I thought she was in pain, the way she was crying and struggling was the same as when she had gotten something in her eye, but her eyes didn't seem to be the problem. Bryan asked if I thought she was teething, but I had no idea because she has shown signs of teething off and on since she was 4 mos. and still had no teeth at 8 mos. She was acting very sleepy though too.

We thought it was unusual for her to be so sleepy right after a nap, but thought maybe she wasn't feeling herself yet since the road trip and put her down again. She seemed fine to go back to sleep. I went to go put my clothes back on and was listening to the monitor. She soon got upset again and was crying. I went in to look at her and found her writhing in her crib, just like she had before when her eye was hurting her and I knew she was in pain. I picked her up and saw a baseball sized wet spot with a little chunk of food in it and could smell that she had thrown up a little. Bryan was there too and she swiftly went from crying and struggling to going limp in my arms and looking asleep. She also was very pale and her head felt clammy. I was alarmed, especially by her listlessness, and said that we needed to go to the doctor and was even wondering if she was having an allergic reaction and whether we should call 911. It seemed like her condition had worsened so quickly that I was holding her close so I could make sure her breathing was okay. She only had a diaper on, so I wrapped her favorite puffy blanket around her to keep her warm and waited for Bryan to talk to the doctor. It was a little after noon and the office we normally went to only had an appt. for 3:30, I balked, and Bryan told the doctor that I felt that it was more of an emergency situation than that; they offered up the other office with an appt. time of 2:40, but that we could go right away and they would see if they could fit us in.

We packed Dorothy in the car seat, she was limp and sleepy and pale. I could really tell she was pale because the normally quite pink soles of her feet had lost their color. She has quite fair skin and it was a somewhat subtle difference. Every once in awhile during the trip she would wake up and look at me and seem just a little sleepy, but otherwise good, but she would also whimper and sometimes burst into crying again, then fall asleep just as quickly. I kept my fingers on her tummy to make sure her breathing seemed normal. We got to the office and I bundled her up and held her close. People kept getting called before us (because they already had appointments) and I was freaking out just a smidge, feeling like no one was paying attention to how dire my baby's state was. When she would struggle in my arms and cry because she was hurting it was all I could do just to hold on to her and keep her from falling. She did lay still (too still) a lot though. While we were waiting she threw up again; this time much more than before, there was breastmilk and fluid and chunks of food all over me from the top of my shirt to the bottom of my shorts and through to the chair. A little got on the blanket, but it was all we had to put her in, so we had to keep using it. We apologized to the other mom sitting in our area and moved our stuff to the "sick cowpoke" waiting area. She was so tired and very unhappy.

They finally brought us in and we were seen by a nurse and a trainee. I was a little miffed at getting a trainee for what I perceived to be such a serious case, but was calmed also by the fact that they weren't acting too alarmed. The nurse kept commenting on how pale she was and when we brought her out to be weighed, she asked the others if they had ever seen a baby that pale, none said they had. When I put her on the scale she just laid there flat out and didn't move. She weighed 14.5 lbs. A little bit less than she had the previous week. The nurse also put a monitor on her to measure how much oxygen was getting to her blood because of the way she looked. A good score was 90 and Dorothy measured at 98, the nurse was really surprised because she expected that to be an issue because of her color. We had to wait a little while longer for the doctor, but not too much. She agreed that Dorothy wasn't acting right (she never saw her in her pain mode) and didn't look right. She ordered a blood test. Dorothy never ran a fever and her blood test was inconclusive, it wasn't quite normal, and it could be just the beginning of whatever was happening in her system. Dr. Thorstad was still concerned and said that Dorothy was a bit of a puzzle and that she didn't feel okay just sending her home, even though she wasn't sure it was something serious. She did mention intussusception as a possibility, but wasn't positive. She said that she could do a urine test there, but that she felt like she might need more bloodwork and possibly a procedure if it did turn out to be an intussusception. She advised us to go ahead and take her to the ER because we could get everything we needed done there and it would be the best way to figure out what was wrong. She sent us to the ER at the Dell Children's Hospital.

We got to the ER and there were no close parking spots, we had to walk in the hot sun with Dorothy covered by her blanket the whole time. I walked quickly. The ER waiting room was gross and chock full of germy kids. Many people were wearing masks for protection because of the recent flu outbreak (H1N1). There was an older girl sitting in a wheel chair near the door waiting to be seen who was sobbing and crying that her stomach hurt. It was like a scene from a movie. The lady at the desk also did the monitor on her to check the levels of oxygen in her blood right then and there before we waited at all because she was concerned about her color. It was over 100 that time (even better!). I was relieved because everyone we saw told us to wait somewhere besides the waiting room. I stood outside in the foyer while Bryan waited inside for us to be called. Dorothy had another pain episode and then threw up again; it hit one of the glass panels of the doorway. I told someone about this, but no one came to clean it up that I saw. Fortunately, it wasn't that long a wait.

We were brought into triage and the nurse checked her over and took some blood for another test. She fumbled with putting the band-aid on Dicey's toe and was having a little difficulty getting it on quick enough so that the blood didn't get everywhere. She said "and here I was afraid that you wouldn't bleed" (another person convinced that her paleness was a major problem sign). She also weighed Dorothy and she just laid there again. She processed all Dorothy's symptoms and said that someone would be seeing us soon. We waited again, but not for long.

We were taken into a room. The nurse there had a 10 month old girl at home and agreed that Dicey didn't look well. She did keep saying how gorgeous she was and how she just couldn't stop looking at her though. They gave us a little hospital gown, but it was more for a child than a baby, so we just laid it on top of her. She just laid on the gurney, all splayed out and still. They put the little monitor sticky things on her chest, a tiny blood pressure cuff on her arm and a red light thing on her big toe. She had many cords running off of her that we kept having to maneuver around as we switched from me holding her to her laying down and her having things done to her etc. The nurse said they were very busy, but that she had been classified as acute, so we would be seen by a doctor soon.

Bryan made some calls, we waited, a doctor came and saw us and was able to see one of her pain episodes and seemed to think right away that it was likely to be an intussusception as well, especially when I explained how she was vacillating between all these different states. We waited. Two nurses came in and tried to do an IV in her hand, but ruptured the vein, rendering it useless as a port for medicine, they brought back our original nurse who did an IV on her other hand and taped it all up so that she couldn't move her hand. She threw up again while being examined and the doctor ordered her to be given medicine for the nausea and to be put on fluids. She hadn't eaten in awhile and they didn't want me to nurse her. She had to have some urine taken via catheter, which she didn't like at all. The nurse who took that was sure that the white blood cells that showed up in her urine meant that she had a urinary tract infection.

She had to have X-rays of her tummy. They did one of her lying on her back and one of her on her side. She didn't like them. I was able to stay with her and had to wear a lead apron. Bryan had to sit in the room outside.

We waited. The doctor came back and said that the X-ray did look suspicious for an intussusception and she was going to go ahead with ordering the air enema procedure to hopefully correct the blockage. We were going to have to stay overnight afterwards for observation to make sure that it didn't recur. We got the Bears on board to bring us some food and essentials.

Around 5 or 6 she got the procedure. I was able to hold her and sit on the gurney while they wheeled us really far to the procedure room. People were all looking at her and saying how cute she was.

They had to strap her down to a little board with three big velcro straps all down her body and put a big tube in her bottom, taped her butt cheeks together real good and then put air into her. They had an X-ray going during the procedure so they could see what was happening. There was a risk of rupturing the colon, in which case she would have to be rushed to the O.R. She would also have to go to surgery if it relapsed after the procedure. I had to wear another lead apron and I had to step a little farther away from her so I could only hold her hand and reach to touch her. Bryan was with us in the room, also wearing an apron and holding my hand. It went well. I was concerned because she looked like she was gagging or seizing or going to throw up or something, but they told me that was just the air coming out of her. They unstrapped her and took the tube out and she farted really big a few times. She already seemed to feel a little better, especially considering what had just happened. I held her and got back on the gurney. We were wheeled back and she started crying a lot when she had a bowel movement, not really calming down afterwards. I was a little worried that it was happening again, but they gave us a pacifier to help her pain management. The nurse wanted to put sugar on it, but I told her to try it first without. Dicey had been fine with giving up her pacifier at 5.5 months, but still liked to suck on her stuffed animals. She took the pacifier right away and seemed more soothed with it. I would've like to let her comfort nurse, but they didn't want anything in her system.

She pretty quickly went to sleep on me. The Bears came with chinese food and Max. The nurses brought some toys for us while we waited for our room. They were really backed up and didn't have many rooms to spare. We ate, Dicey woke up and seemed happier. She played with the toys and Max a little, but kept just wanting to be held, which was fine with me. She was really enjoying her pacifier too. They brought me a breastpump in case I wasn't able to feed her and needed to express some.

We went to our room and the nurse took her vitals and measured her at just over 28 inches. Dicey had some angry red marks on her arm from the last cuff and didn't like her club hand with the IV port still in it. We were able to take the band-aids off though, and she didn't have any more hookups to machines. She rested pretty well when we first got there, still pretty out of it and exhausted. Celena and Jack stuck around for awhile as these new doctors (another trainee!) came in and asked us a bunch of questions, saying they didn't know anything but her name. It was taking awhile, so we sent the Bears on their way, Jack was going to come back later with a few more items for us. It was past her bedtime already and she was getting more and more fussy, even though she didn't seem to be in pain any more. I asked and the doctors said it was alright to nurse her, I was so happy to be able to feed and calm her. They also said that they would follow up with us to get us all the results from her tests and answer questions and check up on her. We thought the fold out couch would be only big enough for one person, but it was fine for the both of us, so we told Jack he didn't have to come back with a cot and could just stay home. We put her down and she went to sleep fine, she kept getting woken up, however, by people coming in to check her vitals every few hours. We had to write down all her feedings and weigh all her diapers. She had a hard time settling back down once she got woken up because we were right there next to her. I nursed her a lot and held her a lot. None of us got very much sleep.

She woke up right on time and I was able to order breakfast because, even though I wasn't a patient, I was her food source, so they had to keep me fed. The food was perfectly respectable. We kept trying to get her to sleep because she hadn't gotten a full nights rest, but it was difficult. I was able to rinse off from the previous day of having been vomited all over and put on some clean clothes, courtesy of Celena. Bryan went out to try and find some more diapers of a certain brand because she was having issues with diaper rash that we were concerned may have been a diaper allergy. I laid down with her and nursed her to sleep in my arms, trying to get some sleep too. We got about 30 min. when Celena called the room and woke us up. Bryan came back with magazines, but hadn't found the brand of diapers we were looking for. We used the hospital ones. We tooled around, just focusing on Dicey. We went to the gift shop and bought a mama and baby lamb figurine set and a pig stuffed animal that fit her preferences. We found a board book from the Half Price book cart and they brought us some little toys too. We also visited the playroom where the staff was just wonderful and we played with a keyboard and blocks and cars and soft bowling pins. Even with her clubbed hand, Dicey was having fun. There was a lot to look at, it was raining, so we stayed inside. She liked finger walking down the long hallways. The ladies in the gift shop all oooed and aaahed over her too. We met a little girl there named Grace that was having a much more difficult time than Dicey, whose parents were very nice and friendly, saying how good Dicey looked, how she looked ready to go home. (There but for the grace of God go I).

A doctor came and saw us in Dr. Thorstad's stead and said that we could go home, that he didn't think we needed to wait the full 24 hours in the hospital, that he knew we would do better with the comforts of home and some good rest. I had already ordered lunch, so we stayed for that, which was timed well for all the discharge stuff and them finally taking out her IV port. She didn't like it being taken out, but was so happy to have her hand back. She looked at it and moved it around for a little while afterwards.

We got all packed up and walked out to our car in the sprinkly rain, so happy that our little girl was on the mend and not hurting anymore. She took a nice long nap right away when we got home. We rested and had Popeye's chicken that night while the Bears and Zoe, Marc and Alden came for a visit. Dicey went to bed early and woke up right on time the next morning. She seemed a little more insecure and needy the next day, but who wouldn't?

Tips?

another example of my not-too-fresh attempts at things I see other people do on the internet!

So, this is an informal, in between blogge posts blogge post. I'm still fairly new to this game and don't have loads of time to sit and fiddle with things until I figure them out. I use a Mac computer and there are some things I would love to do on my blogge, but just don't know how. This is a cry for help concerning the following:

1) A lovely blog Lenox Knits gave me a lovely blog award. When I feebly attempt to get the award to show up on my page, I just get the actual html script as opposed to the nice little image. I do it on the add a gadget feature and copy link. That is not working. Tips?

2) Am I missing something big by only being able to see if people have commented on my posts by scrolling through them to see the little hypertext at the bottom? This lovely blog award was discovered late because of this, and I would think there would be a way to be notified if someone comments on a post. Is this the case and I'm just missing out?

3)I did the google alert thing, but find the emails cryptic and/or telling me that I've just posted something new, which I already know, so is, therefore, superfluous; leading me to ignore most google alert emails. What am I doing wrong?

4) I would really like to post links with pictures to other people's blogs and/or etsy pages etc. I get that there are some pics that aren't able to be used, but know there's a way. I found Lenox Knits because she was gracious enough to post a pic of one of my shoppe items along with a link to my store. When I try this (in my ineptitude) nothing happens. I am reduced to simple text links, which are not nearly as enticing.

I'm totally open to help/critiques from anyone out there. I recently changed my background in an effort to make my blogge easier to look at. Did it work? Or do you like the old format better? I'm not wild about the advert in the corner, but I like the background and it was a nice user-friendly and free site, so...

I feel like there are many tricks out there that I will never master, but these are some that I feel should be pretty basic, if only I weren't such a feeb. If you know of anything else that is uber-useful that I am not using, it's because I don't know about it. If you have the time, I would love to know of any tricks or jibbets or whathaveyou that have been useful to you other bloggers!

Thanks Thanks in advance and much love from my little corner!

Selah

ASHRO!

For those of you who don't know me well enough, I have a bit of an Auntie Mame complex. I yearn for the dramatic silhouettes and fancy accessories of yesteryear. Hence, my recent craftings:

There are those among us who do an admirable job of putting flair back into current ensembles. My lovely friend katinkapinka is a soldier of fanciness. In person, she is her own best advertisement, making everyone around her wonder: "Why don't I wear feathers regularly?".

I have stumbled across fellow fancians on Etsy of course. A few of my most recent faves are: jenniferloiselle for her wonderful headbands, threehorses' fantastic fringe neckpieces, and terrygraziano for her versatile and stylish hats!

Now you will appreciate even more what I am about to tell you.

The other day, I walked into my living room (as if it were any other day) when, much to my surprise, a special catalogue the likes of which I've never seen, was laid upon my couch; as if waiting there just for me. I speak to you of ASHRO. This is a clothing/accessories catalog/website that is marketed to an ethnic or african-american demographic. These silhouettes I've been mourning the loss of were not ever actually lost, at least not completely. ASHRO has shown me that even though my personal demographic has seemingly forgotten how wonderful fashion can be, not everyone has!

This is just a sampling of notable looks:

Irina

Jazmine

Fur Capelet

Jennifer

Ericka

Liona

Francesca

Jacintha

They also have pretty shoes in larger sizes! Most of their styles go up to size 12! Usually, by the time you get to 11, you're reduced to choosing between sneakers or house shoes! The Lacy T-Straps are my fave, but I give an honorable mention to the Rose Kitten Heels for whimsy.

This catalogue of wonders also carries lovely wigs. I adore wigs. I used to be the wig mistress for my high school drama dept. These are a nice quality and have the bonus of particularly fetching names, such as: Fabulous Stacey, Marvelous Justine, Lady Paulette, Spikey Agnes, Queen Heena, Funky Constance, Blissful Crystal and, my favorite, Tender Lois.

Kudos to this publication and the women who shoppe it!

Studio Renovation Update: