Saturday, July 10, 2010

Tragic Fourth of July - Saturday, July 10, 2010

I also wanted to add to my posting regarding the tragedy on the Fourth of July in this area.

One of the horses involved in this tragedy was injured and had to subsequently be put down!! This is so very sad for so many!! Rumor mill has it they did an autopsy of this horse and it was found to have had
a bee sting in one of it's ears. Thus, the eye witness accounts of the horses rubbing against each other with their ears and the horse bridle becoming loose and dropping off. I am not a horse person, but that would appear to make sense - if there is such a thing in such a tragedy!!

I still offer prayers for the injured and sympathy for the family of the lady who was killed.

Love and Hugs!!
Deborah

Three Days, Two Nights............!! - Saturday, July 10, 2010

YES, today is number 41, I think, and counting!! I am not sure if these pictures ever got posted on my Blog as I am not good at dealing with UNPLEASANT MEMORIES!! I could not even get this picture rotated properly!!

Please reinforce with me everyone, "Three Days, Two Nights................
Any One Can Get Through These!!

Last year, Max surprised me with a birthday gift of a week's vacation in this one room shack!! For MY own birthday no less!! It was nothing short of the "Griswold's Vacation" and more like the "Markham Vacation To Hell"!! And, Max did not want to come home!! He reminded me, but yet he does not know it is a new day and time to change his underwear, that Eunice and I promised to take him back to this one room shack this year for a much shorter vacation perhaps even a few times during this summer!! And, the poor guy is constantly pacing, looking out the window, to see if Eunice might have come home from Chicago all last weekend and in to this week, so he might have an opportunity to go fishing!! I thought this is just a passing thought and he will give it up when he gets tired of it!! Nope, not this time!!

I kissed my garage floor upon re-entering my own home last June and I vowed "NEVER, NEVER, EVER AGAIN"!! Well, after hearing Max whine all week, I had a moment of temporary insanity upon his asking me just to "check and see if we might be able to get the rental cabin for even a day or two" yesterday and took a cancellation that had just come in!! OMG!! I am totally over the cuckoo's nest!!

I swear to God that every one gets their own favorite blankie and pillow, the clothes on their backs and munchies for three days and two nights!!
I will give in packing the baby gate only to save me from jumping up and down every time Mi decides she is on the lam again!!

Darn little Mi told Juanita she wanted to go out Wednesday as she arrived. Juanita did not know any better and let her out the gate just as I was arriving on the porch!! BRAKES EVERYONE!! Juanita and I began pursuit of her immediately while Max heard my screams and came out finally!! Mi had gotten down the length of our drive and to the curbing where the mail boxes are!! I thought my heart was coming out my chest!! All of a sudden, Max screams out, "get your black a$$ over here"!! Sort of, kind of, wrong pick of words Max!! My beloved Juanita is of the black race and so are several of our neighbors, many which are new and do not know us and now probably do not care to know us!!
No more than got Mi back onto the porch and she went straight for my potted plants and stuck her little hand and nose in them and threw a bit of dirt from each!! Yesterday, Mi again escaped from front door onto porch as church lady was taking Max to dialysis!! She did not get out the main gate, however, she went down the first stage of steps to upper courtyard and decided she would park her self there until her "Daddy" returned!! Do not think so Mi!! She has simply been full of the devil the past few days in the things she has found to amuse her self. I guess she is bored with the three huge baskets full of toys!! I am not hauling all those things down to the "shack" for three days!!

And, wait till I get some pictures taken of "every thing" I have stitched on this week. I am not sure, right off top of my mind, if there are seven, or if there are more!! I did start a surprise kit I found among all the other hundreds in these two stitching rooms full one day this week. It turned out to be a 40-COUNT Lizzie Kate!! What am I doing with a 40-Count any thing!!!!

I woke today thinking it was one horrendous nightmare until I saw Max's fishing equipment stacked along with his pillow and a few other things of his in the corner of my kitchen!! Do not think of leaving any thing until last few days - nope!! We will be packing, unpacking and re-packing for the next 41 days!! I have been here one time too many!! I just have to smile and think that the dialysis nurses will finally see Max at his finest as he will be as a caged animal wanting to escape their clutches that final day of dialysis on August 20!! Hopefully, I can sort of pack and re-pack while he is gone that day!! However, I will have to have every thing ready to go that day and most likely pick him up my self that particular day to begin our drive out to the river and get us set up by sunset!!

Yes, I have had a week comprised of several "moments of temporary insanities"!! Good Lord, what have I done??!!

Love and Hugs!!
Deborah


This is me after a morning of some great catches!! Enlarge, there are some beauties of fish on there!! And, you should have seen the one that got away!!

See, I told you, I had some real fishies!!

This is our total bed on the right hand side of this one room cabin shack!! Right where our heads will be is the wall hiding the flushing toilet. Thank God for walls that hold flushing toilets in places like this!!
Mi recognizes little else, so you usually find her sitting right on top of the bed!!

The bed is to the right of this picture. The flushing toilet and vanity sink is behind this small wall. Towards the back is our entire kitchen area complete with microwave, however, no cook top or oven. Below the microwave is the refrigerator/freezer!! To the right of all this is a small aluminum sink with running hot and cold water!! Only slight problem is I do not allow any water to be run in this place as it smells far worse than some kind of "sulfur" smelling some thing!! Do you see the spacious and lovely cupboard in the middle?
And, just to left is our spacious dining room!! One stop living bed, dining table, furnished kitchen and spacious bathroom with flushing toilet!! What more could a person wish for!!




This is a reverse view of what you just saw above!! This is lovely loft area!! You just need to be a billy goat to be able to climb up there. See that slightly slanted board with slant to the left!! That is a wooden rung ladder that you simply just tip toe up!! Yeah Right!! It is a beautiful area up there with a lovely window that over looks the river and is a beautiful view at night, especially during full moon time. There is a great plenty of lovely mattresses of your choice stacked up on the right hand side of the loft for your sleeping pleasure!! Yeah Right!!
If you look through the trees you just about can see the river view!! And, here sits my Chevrolet Van in front of our home away from home!!
Welcome to Markhams' Vacation in Hell!!


I am so happy this will make Max happy!! It will hopefully erase the horrific Monday, Wednesday and Friday from his weeks for awhile with giving him some thing to look forward to!! I hopefully can find a piece os stitching, that will be so hard, that can take a bit of roughing it with me and hope my days pass very, very quickly. I am just in great hope and will be praying for the best of weather so Max can simply fish, fish, fish to his heart content!! I just hope he does not want to bring his catch home with him!! Last year, I caught all the fish, but then Max had to bait my pole, help me put my pole out in to the water and bring my pole in with a fish on it and he barely got me in to the water when he had to get up again and tend to me!! Thus, this year I hope to just stitch to my heart content while he does his fishing thing!! I am already going through withdrawals from knowing I am not taking a floor lamp with me and thus I will just have to get along with out it evenings!! This could end up paiful!!
Love and Hugs!!
Deborah




Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Fourth of July - Sunday, July 04, 2010


The above picture came from our local newspaper last evening!!
Unfortunately, it does not appear all too clear.
The Fourth of July turned absolutely horrific for this immediate and next town north of us area (about 20 miles).
As for locally, we have acres and acres of beautiful land edged completely with some hundred feet plus cliffs over looking the Mississippi River, preserved as Eagle Point Park on the very northern edge of our city. It is actually only about 20 city blocks from my home.
And, never a holiday passes, that some child will fall from these bluffs despite the warning signs and/or fences!! It leaves me to wonder where in the world are the parents and what were they thinking!! And, this Fourth of July was very much the same with a twelve year old boy falling some 80 feet down the bluffs. He ended up with some head and spine injuries, as well as some fractures.
These cliffs ultimately have several sets of operating railroad tracks at the bottom of them with the tracks running aside full length with the river. Most rescues have to be made from going miles to one end or the other via these railroad tracks and then after attempt the rescues!! After the person has been rescued and stabilized, it is a long several miles to where an ambulance can accept their patient. This particular rescue took the ambulance transporting the victim to a small neighborhood park that happened to have a baseball field among it about twelve blocks away to an awaiting helicopter which was able to fly the victim to the University of Iowa Hospitals. The local paramedics finally constructed a gurney of some kind with wheels that will attach to the railroad tracks and allow them to simply push it to the waiting ambulance!!
However, things turned very tragic for the town of Bellevue, Iowa about twenty miles north of us. They had their usual Fourth of July parade early Sunday morning. At the end of the parade were the usual horses, horses and carriages and various other horse related riders and things.
I was just sixty years old. All of my life, I have been scared to death of horses as my mother instilled this in me from the time I was a few months old. I was taken to my first parade, in all ten freezing degrees, for Mardi Gras about five months after I was born!! What was SHE thinking!!
My father was on the Police Department and many times he was in the planning of the parade line up. Each parade my mother wanted to know exactly when the horses were going to be put in, how many there were and how far away they were. At first sighting of the horses, my mother promptly grabbed my brother, sister and my self and we were immediately placed inside of our car!! We were always quite upset by this!! This was usually Santa's big premiere for the year, around these parts, and we always managed to completely miss him as he was always the very end of the parade!!
However, my mother hated horses in general, I think!! I always also wanted to see them!! NO WAY!!! Those animals could be "spoofed" and then stampede right through us and/or over us. All these years, right up to this present situation, I always thought how very, very stupid and it just would not happen!!
Well, you live long enough, unfortunately you see every thing!!
During this parade, the horses some how rubbed up against each other and a bridle fell off one and this spoofed them and they went straight forward on a speed run through the rest of the parade. The horses stomped and a carriage wheel ran over several children simply stooped over to snatch up the candy thrown from the moving parade vehicles.
(Thankfully, our town passed an ordinance that no candy could be thrown, but rather had to be passed out by accompanying walkers in parade.) Last count I heard was at least 24, mostly small children, had been seriously injured!! One adult, the driver's wife, was thrown out of carriage and on to a cement driveway from the runaway carriage and was killed!!
The man driving had seen his poor wife be thrown to the ground, but also had his daughter-in-law, 7-year old grandson and 5-year old granddaughter in the yet runaway carriage. The carriage finally crashed and overturned. The daughter-in-law was able to put her arms around her two children and hold them close to her. They escaped with many bumps and bruises only.
But, then that poor man driving. He desperately clung, for all he could, to the reins as tightly as he could. Witnesses say this man's shirt was in shreds as the horses continued on dragging him for over a six block distance over cement streets!! When rescuers reached this poor man he totally refused any type of medical attention and was only worried about his wife and other people injured!!
And, the poor horses were finally stopped in an intersection after colliding with another float!! They went down to the ground and dozens of bystanders immediately jumped on these poor animals to contain them!! I know these horses had to be stopped, however, they had to be even more scared upon dozens of people jumping on them!!
This was just simply one of the most horrific and strange accidents I have seen in some time!! My heart and prayers go out to all the people affected, especially the poor driver of the horses and carriage who lost his dearly beloved 60 year old wife!! How very, very tragic for all!!
Thus, I am posting this to simply say, "I guess my mother was not as crazy as we all thought her to be"!! It is truly some thing to consider when you are attending your next parade and to truly get your hands on those precious children of your own "just in case"!!
Love and Hugs!!
Deborah

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Long Day - July 03, 2010



I had hoped for a bit larger of a picture, however, this is what I got!!
And, after all day, and until 10:00 p.m. this evening, this is all I got stitched!! Not really complaining, as I do thoroughly enjoy each, and every, little "x" I can accomplish. I did get almost entire "sugar" container finished and two pieces of the "lace". The lace is a bit hard as I have to make tiny "pulled eyelet" stitch in the center of each piece. Not quite used to these yet. However, from the amount shown on chart I should be a pro by the time I am finished.
I am truly looking forward to finishing this table topper and displaying it very proudly in my home!!
I had several questions regarding this chart and emailed the designer, Claudia Dutcher. Within a very short time, she responded and very kindly helped me over my questions. She also offered some very helpful suggestions to me for completing this project. Best of all she told me it was not absolutely necessary for me to "pull" any threads at all, if I did not wish!! YEAH!! This was added incentive for me to get this to completion now!!
My poor hubby, Max, spent his entire day pacing in anticipation of fishing!! He has had some very severe confusion in recent weeks. I simply could not get it explained well enough that there would be no fishing by us today!! He even was upset with our dear neighbor as he decided she had taken off fishing without us, while in reality she simply went in to Chicago for a few days!! Guess I am going to have to make sure some one takes him the first of the week, if not before - just not me this time!!
I had so much relaxation, once I got started, that I finally relaxed for first time in several weeks. Guess today worked so well that I will extend my "virtual stitch-in" through tomorrow also!!
Love and Hugs!!
Deborah

FINALLY - Saturday, July 03, 2010


Hopefully, I finally am settled back into being centered on my stitching and my Blog. It has been sooooooo long!! I did not have a clue as to how long!!


I got up to I.L.C.S. Group having their "Virtual Stitch-In" today and decided good day to begin some thing new. I intend to incorporate a whole lot more and form a new rotation this week!!


Today, I started the Tea Time chart for a table topper by DUTCH TREAT. I choose a lavender afghan fabric to stitch this on. I am quite leery of how this is going to come out as each instruction step seems to get more unclear to me!! Been offered lots of help so I am intent on doing this.


However, in the midst of beginning to stitch finally, I have a whole five stitches, Max came in and told me I had to come out to my deck on my handicap ramp. Was not too keen on moving, however, I did as Max is a bit upset that he can not go fishing today and thought I better check on what he was up to!! When I got out there Max was standing pointing to a very favorite lily of mine which has taken to almost full bloom. Hopefully, I will be able to post a picture on here some where!!


Hope to post more later with real pictures of real progress on my table topper!!
Love and Hugs!!
Deborah