Tale of a Shooting Star…

A package arrived on Friday for me from Outi. I opened it and saw a Silkweaver plastic bag with yummy fabric in it, but Outi put a note on the outside that there was something tucked inside the fabric and I could choose whether or not to wait for my birthday to open it. I held off opening it… until Sunday night. In a moment of weakness, I opened the bag, pulled out the fabric and unwrapped the most gorgeous, tiny biscornu I have every seen! The funny thing, Outi, is that I’ve been meaning to make one for myself on this scale, just to have one that teeny and to see how it would turn out. And here you’ve already done it for me!
Outi said that she chose the fabric named Starry Sky and the floss from Polstitches named Love and Laughter just for me. Isn’t she sweet? [Edited to add: Outi says that she hand-dyed the fabric herself!] It’s stitched over one, too. It’s absolutely fabulous! Not to mention that the fabric that she sent is beautiful, as well. It’s a nice warm, neutral color that will go well with several designs that I can think of. Maybe I’ll stitch a dragon on it in your honor, Outi. 😉

Since I’m trying to rest my shoulder a bit, I decided to bead up the bracelet for Mary. I added a second repeat of the purple because I needed the length, but it also gives the piece symmetry and symbolizes that she is a cancer survivor and will continue to be one. 🙂 I strongly encourage you to click for a closeup because I think it turned out amazingly well. I can’t wait to give it to her!

Usually I answer comments individually, but I’ve received so many lately that I thought I would just respond here. I hope that you don’t mind. 🙂

First, thank you for all of the compliments on my new hair style. All of your kind words have really helped me to get used to the new cut. To answer a couple of questions about the curls, my hair is fortunately very versatile. It can be curly or straight. It just depends on how I dry it. If I put in mousse and dry it with a diffuser while scrunching it, then it turns out curly. I can also dry it out straight using a large round brush. I’ve opted for curly lately because it seems to behave better and is much easier to do. I’ll try it straight one of these days and have Terry take another picture, if it comes out okay. 😉

Second, for those who have received their scissors from the giveaway, you are all quite welcome. It was my pleasure. There is one pair that hasn’t gone out yet to Michelle as Terry needs to finish sharpening the blades. They will go out next week, probably. And for those who entered and didn’t win, if you haven’t received a pair already, they will be posted soon. 🙂 And Susan, if you are reading, I still don’t have a mailing address for you, so please email me at jenna at magees dot net so that I can send those out to you.

Third, thank you SO MUCH for your overwhelming support of my friend Mary. Angela, thank you for your suggestion of gathering people together to do some practical things for her like bringing dinners, etc. Once she starts treatment, I think that would be a very welcomed gesture and she has a lot of people who care about her at work that we should be able to round up. I know I can always count on the wonderful, caring people who share my life with me via my blog to provide support and inspiration when it is needed the most. You are all very special to me.

And finally, I pulled a muscle in my right shoulder late last week (which is part of what has been triggering the headaches) and it has slowly gotten worse and worse. It reached the point yesterday where I really aggravated it at work, having to use my laptop on a variety of different conference room tables, as I was in meetings all day. It’s pretty sore this morning, so I am going to have to severely curb my computer (and probably stitching, too – eep!) time over the next few days as I encourage it to heal. So, if I’m quiet for a little while, both on my blog and in commenting on your own, you know why. I’ll try to post shorter posts (am I capable of doing such a thing?) as I can.

Hugs to all of my friends in cyberspace!

Well, I did it. I stopped at Michael’s on my way home from my Dr. Steve appointment this evening and I purchased materials to make matching bracelets for my friend Mary and I to wear:

I have decided to use the design used for the pink Hope bracelet that I made recently, except the design will be customized with very special meaning for Mary. There will be two repeats of the pink beads, to symbolize her two bouts with breast cancer, 1 repeat of the white beads to symbolize her latest fight against lung cancer and a final repeat of the purple beads to symbolize that she is (and will continue to be) a cancer survivor. The charm assortments along the bottom contain angels on the left side and hearts on the right. I have yet to decide which to use, but I’m leaning towards the praying angel charm, as I truly think that she will love it the best. I will make her bracelet slightly longer than mine to ensure that it fits because my wrists are small and bony. 😆

I’m excited to feel like I am doing something. I will take some time this weekend, I think, to put the bracelets together (I estimate it will take me about 30 minutes each) and then I will see if she’s available for a visit so that I can take them to her and give her a BIG hug!

P.S. On an unrelated note, I tracked down the furnace installer (the company was bought out and moved, which is why their old number no longer worked) and they came out today and fixed the furnace. Yay! We have heat until the new system goes in. 😀

I would count this as a realization, but I’ve always known this for a fact – Life is NOT Fair.

My best friend at work has been having some breathing difficulties on and off for nearly 6 months. She has gone to the doctor repeatedly and was told that it must be allergies. Given that I think we currently reside in a “sick” office building, I wasn’t surprised. However, last week her chest congestion and breathing problems worsened and she became very concerned. She went to the doctor for the third time about this issue and this time he sent her for a chest x-ray. The x-ray revealed that something foreign had infiltrated both lungs, so they sent her for a CAT scan with the contrast dye injected into her bloodstream. She was told that it could be lung cancer, damage to her lungs from previous radiation and chemotherapy treatments or a bad infection. Obviously, she was hoping for the latter. Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. Yesterday, she went to her oncologist and received the news that it was most probably lung cancer. They need to run some needle biopsies and several other tests to prove the diagnosis conclusively and determine treatment.

This is where the “life isn’t fair” part comes in. My dear friend has survived breast cancer – TWICE. She also had a small mass removed from her arm a couple of years ago that required no further treatment. This woman has been through hell and back (excuse my language) and now she’s going to have to go through it all over again. Cancer has cast a huge shadow over her life for so many years. Everytime she has a health problem, she worries that the cancer has come back again. And here it is.

I called and spoke with her yesterday afternoon and she was very calm about it, but she did admit that she was still in shock. Of course, my selfish instincts have me wracking my brain to figure out what I can possibly do for her. I found a website that sells products for every cancer known to man (practically), so I filled up a cart. I then abandoned it, thinking that there is always still some remote possibility that she won’t have it and that I should wait until all of the test results come back. I know that it is wishful thinking, but part of me insists on waiting.

And yet another part of me groans inwardly, saying “Not again!” You may remember that all hell started to break loose in my life around this time last year. By this time last year, I had lost my maternal grandmother, my mother-in-law (Mom2) and was a little over a month away from losing my paternal step-grandfather. He had lung cancer, too.

I feel like I’m going through all the stages of grief nearly simultaneously and I haven’t even lost her (and hopefully, I won’t). I am in denial, I’m scared, I’m sad and I’m angry, all at the same time. I just want to beat my breast, look up towards the heavens and scream “WHY?!” I feel an insatiable need to rip the pink bracelet off of my arm, run out and buy supplies to make a new one in pearl/clear, which is the color of the lung cancer awareness ribbon. Better yet, I want to make one in three colors – pink for breast cancer, pearl for lung cancer and purple for cancer survivors – just for her. In fact, I may stop at Michael’s on my way home from my appointment with Dr. Steve tonight to pick up the beads. I feel so helpless, powerless to help her. And yet, I feel guilty because I know that what she is going through is worse and so much more important than my own reaction. But I can’t help her deal with this challenge until I deal with it myself.

I wonder what the life lesson is here, both for her and for me. For her, I told her yesterday that I think it’s yet another wake up call. She has so many things that she has always wanted to do in her life and she hasn’t gone out and done them. I told her that we need to come up with a plan to get her where she wants to go, doing what she wants to do, being who she wants to be. This may be her last chance or it may not. But how can you go wrong with knocking out those important life to-do items that we all put off?

My friend’s name is Mary. Please keep in your thoughts, send her healing energy, pray for her or whatever you happen to do for people in need.

Thank you for allowing me a venue to express my feelings.