Thankful.

I am so thankful for modern medicine. I recently had a small detour on my road to recovery. I was in a lot of pain on Thanksgiving and the following weekend. The pain was mostly around my belly button, which has an incision that sort of spirals around inside it. I thought I had just done too much the day before Thanksgiving. On Monday night, I found out I had an abscess near my belly button. How did I find out? It broke open. I won't gross you out with the details of that.

I called my doctor, who told me to go to the ER so they could clean it and pack it. Whoa, that was painful. The ER doctor pushed and pushed on my stomach to get as much as possible of the infection to drain. He prescribed an antibiotic and more pain medication.

I've been having my mom and Mark pack the wound because it was so painful I couldn't pack it well myself. It looks like an open hole on the left side of my belly button. Basically, the incision opened up to release the abscess. This morning I'm feeling much less pain. I think my feet are now firmly planted on the road to recovery.

And now on to something more fun... I bought this pin in a local shop. I like the art deco look it has, not to mention the sparkle! I don't wear a lot of pins, so I might make this into some sort of necklace. I'm still pondering what to do with it.

I've been doing some bead work while lounging in the recliner. I finished a bracelet yesterday as well as a gift for a friend.

Once again, thank you so much for all your positive thoughts and well wishes. It really means a lot to me. Let's hope I can get back to posting about bead work now!

Recovering.

Just a quick pop-in to let you know I'm on the road to recovery after having surgery to remove a chocolate cyst from my ovary. The cyst was not the size of a grapefruit; rather, it was larger than a football! The surgery was more complicated as well and the incision is much larger than anticipated. Recovery time is six weeks rather than two.

The good news is that the cyst was just a cyst and I should feel great once I'm completely recovered! Thanks so much to all of you for your well wishes.

Here's to a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with loved ones. Hopefully I'll see you back here next week.

It only took three years to finish.

I took this Jeanette Shanigan workshop at Bead & Button about three years ago. It took me a long time to finish. Why? I don't really know. I had the flower embroidery part of it finished during the class, so maybe it was just the tedium of stitching the two pieces together.

I even put it in the center of my studio table to force me to finish it, but all I did was push it aside and work on other things. You can see an example of this in this photo, which I originally posted on my blog in May. See? There's even a strand of beads for another project lying on top of it!

I took the class with my mom. Don't tell her I told you this, but hers still isn't finished.

The pattern called for some spiral rope type of embellishing around the edges, but that was a little much for me. I like things a little more simple.

There's an article about Jeanette in the latest issue of Bead & Button. She has coordinated a Bead Artists Against Breast Cancer project that is really amazing. Bead artists submit their small beaded squares of a particular theme (this year's theme is roses) and Jeannette sews them together into bead quilts that are then auctioned off to raise money for breast cancer research. View some samples of the quilts on her site.

The surgery to remove the cyst on my ovary is tomorrow. I cannot have any solid food today. I thought I should post now in case I get cranky from hunger later! :) The recovery time is two weeks, so I'll see you back here as soon as I can.

Apatite.

This is a bracelet-earrings-pendant set I made for my mom with apatite she purchased.

We had a low-key weekend. Very nice. We went to lunch at Red Robin and took N. to see Bee Movie, which was very cute. Good message about bees, too. I had no idea honeybees are disappearing.

Yesterday I made chicken noodle soup in the crock pot. I also made some carrot cupcakes that were delicious. I had seen them on Healthy Appetite on the Food Network on Saturday and wanted to try them. Very good. I think there are only two left! Mark ate two before I could even put the cream cheese frosting on them.

And now, it's on to the work week. Happy Monday!

The purse.

I mentioned a while ago that my mom made me a spectacular birthday present. I was finally able to get a decent photo of it.

The flower design is needle felted onto the wool. If you don't know what needle felting is, Betz White has a nice tutorial on her site.

My mom said she finished needle felting the design and then thought that it needed a little something else. That's when she decided to add some bead embroidery to the center of the flower and the leaves.

I'm often stopped by people wanting to know where I got it. It's fun to say, "My mom made it! Can you believe it?!"

Thanks again, Mom! :)

In other news, the surgery has finally been scheduled for next Friday, November 9. I'm glad to have it scheduled so I can get it over with. Thanks again for all your well wishes - you guys are the best!

This weekend I think we are going to take N. to see Bee Movie. I'll probably be making some soups and things to have on hand for when I'm recovering from the surgery. A nice, low-key weekend.

Hope yours is enjoyable as well! See you next week.

November 1.

I really cannot believe it's November. Where has this year gone?

Here's N. in his skeleton costume with his skeleton bag. It was pretty chilly here, so he needed a hat and gloves.

When we came back home to warm up, he decided to make a sign so all the other kids would know that we were open for trick-or-treating - and what we had to offer.

I'm going to be a little bit sad when his spelling is better. I love seeing how he spells things by sounding them out. He was a little upset to see he'd spelled the candies wrong. He made the sign first and then had the idea to tape the candy to it.