Tale of a Shooting Star…

Isabelle asked for updated photos of Phoebe last week and I just happened to have snapped some pics with my new camera while I was home sick the day after my birthday. Hmm… that sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? 😆 Hah, I wish! Anyway, here’s my baby:

Don’t Look at Me	What, Mommy?	Sweetie Pie

Momma’s Little Baby Girl	Who’s Cute?

I swear, when it rains, it pours…

I just found out that Mary’s daughter was in a serious car accident on Saturday night. Like they didn’t have enough to deal with. Her daughter was driving home at night through a remote area, following a friend, driving too fast, hit a set of railroad tracks, went airborne, flipped three times and landed in a marsh 30 feet off of the roadway. If she hadn’t been following her friend, she might not have been found for a long time. They were going to fly a helicopter in because of the remoteness of the area, but we had very high winds this weekend, so they were unable to fly there. The paramedics and police were amazed that she was alive; they fully expected to find her dead in the car. She was partially ejected from the vehicle. It is by a sheer miracle alone that she came out of it with only a broken arm. She was in surgery yesterday to repair the two fractures in the arm and will be in the hospital for a couple of days.

In the meantime, Mary has had two scans over the past two weeks and had a biopsy done on her right lung on Friday. She was supposed to get a lot of rest this weekend, as the first 48 hours of recovery from the biopsy are crucial. Obviously, this hasn’t happened, so she is exhausted. Hopefully, it won’t affect her health too negatively.

Mary sees her oncologist this Friday to get the results of all of the testing and determine the course of treatment. He said before that the cancer is definitely back and that it is metastatic. The tests are to determine where the cancer is located (lungs are most likely, possibly some in the brain) so that they can develop the best course of treatment for her. It is likely to be intensive and aggressive treatment as they’ve caught the lung cancer later than desired.

Please keep her in your thoughts and prayers, especially on Friday.

My beloved Aussie twin Anne sent me the most wonderful package of birthday goodies that I received in the mail today. I had to laugh because I knew there was something sizeable jammed into the mailbox when Terry practically ripped it out of the ground trying to extract the mail. Have I mentioned that I think I’m going to write a complaint letter about my mailman? Anyway, when he finally dumped all of the contents of the box into my lap, I saw a big envelope from Anne. I wondered why on earth she used such a large envelope!

So, after we got the poor, drugged-up doggy gal (Phoebe’s still woozy from the anesthesia from her dental procedure today) all settled in, I sat down on the floor (one of my favorite places to sit, too, Anne) and ripped into the package with great fervor. 🙂 Of course, she wrapped everything up nicely. I’m sorry that I never do this for anyone else, since I don’t own anything but Christmas wrapping paper. I should make that a New Year’s Resolution for 2007. But I digress… again. I open the bow (purple, of course), rip the paper to shreds and the first thing my eyes land on is this flabbergastingly, jaw-droppingly GORGEOUS purple bag. Anne brought it back from Hong Kong just for me. I’m so tickled that she even thought of me while on her trip and this bag is absolutely to die for! The silk fabric is primarily purple, but can also take on a red or blue hue, depending on how you hold it. It also has this gorgeous, multi-colored, metallic medallion in the center with dragons in it. Oh, I just can’t get over it! It’s so beautiful, I’m afraid to use it! Inside of it, Anne had tucked a card and three more wrapped presents that were numbered. In the card, she explained what each of the numbered gifts were about (it’s a good thing I opened the card first :lol:). The first one was a stress reliever, which was the yellow star. It’s made out of squishy foam and is immediately going in to work with me tomorrow so that I have something to squeeze when I get aggravated. 🙂 The second is a beautiful star thread sorter. I believe it was made by Jodi’s dad, who does lovely work. I’ve actually been wanting one of these for a while, but just hadn’t splurged on one. I bet I can stitch something tiny, over one that I can glue to the center. Perhaps something with a star… 😉 And the third package is a lovely hardanger sachet filled with lavender. Oh, how I love lavender! It is truly a most heavenly scent. I want to grow my own lavender plants one of these days just so that I can make my own sachets! This one, of course, is going straight in to work with me tomorrow, as well. People will wonder what I’m sniffing, but it is a such a wonderful scent that should also help ease my stress at work. And Anne did such a beautiful job with the hardanger! I’m so flattered that my friends know my love of hardanger and respect it enough to make wonderful things like this for me. Especially since I can’t manage to make any hardanger pieces that I keep for myself. 😉

All in all, an incredible package of gifties that truly lifted my spirits after two days of being ill. Thanks so much, my friend!