Greetings, I am still here. Our son passed a large kidney stone this morning after struggling with it for a week. For this we are very grateful and relieved. He joyously canceled several medical appointments. We still have no idea how much of his expenses his medical plan will cover. For the past week, his bank account account has been hemorrhaging; now he is able to return to work and reverse that.

Right now our internet access is set on a path that will only deteriorate. Earthlink is our ISP; its signal travels on Qwest lines. Because we are so far away from the station source of the Qwest line, our service is deteriorating and will continue to do so as more customers are added between us and the station source. There is a new station source which is less than half the distance of our current source and has upgraded lines. Qwest is willing to switch us to the new station source but Earthlink has to approve and will not do so. Unless we can personally negotiate something with Earthlink to use the new station source, our only option is to find a new ISP which will probably be through Qwest. If so, the transition will be extremely rocky. Qwest insists that we must disconnect from Earthlink before they will connect with us and there is no guarantee that it will be very quickly. We are not certain that Earthlink will forward our e-mails for any period of time after we disconnect from it. I want to scream.

Right now a higher level customer service person within Earthlink is checking possible options for us. She knows what we ideally want and what we have been told. I really hope she can find a way through this morass for us.

I continue to deal with health and health care issues. It seems that there are fewer and fewer primary care doctors, not just in the clinic we prefer to use but throughout our area and probably into the US as a whole. I am being sent out to specialists to deal with issues that my primary care provider used to deal with. My primary care provider maintains office hours two days a week; the scheduling office insists that she is double booked and cannot see me before the beginning of December. Meanwhile, I have scheduled appointments with two specialists according to her request but I have no statement from her about what she wants the specialists to examine and cannot schedule an appointment with her to do so prior to both apppointments. Do not get me wrong, I know what the general issue is in both cases but there is more information that she should have but I do not know what it is. I have copies of all the lab work plus a CT scan on a disk. I guess that I will take everything to each appointment and lay it out with an explanation of what led up to each appointment allowing them to each decide where to go from there. That seems to be all that I can do. I feel like I am being fragmented between specialists with no one to look over me as a whole person.

This past week seemed to be extremely hectic. It certainly did not go according to my plans. I spent a lot of time in doctor and hospital waiting rooms for both myself and one of our sons. I am happy to say that neither of us is as bad off as it might seem; however we will both have a few follow-up appointments. We are both hoping to make quick recoveries. During my waiting times, I worked on a knitted baby hat and a crocheted baby hat. It seemed prudent to work on or to read my own things rather than touching anything in the waiting areas. We are all trying to prevent the spread of H1N1 as well as seasonal flu.

Yesterday we decided we needed a little relief from reality. We dropped several Mentos into a 2-liter bottle of diet Coke. The pictures tell the story. Here are a couple YouTube Coke and Mentos performances. I think these fellows have way too much time on their hands.
Mentos and Diet Coke #1
Mentos and Diet Coke #2

The Postal Service has been doing well. I posted the gift pictured below on Thursday and it arrived half the country away yesterday. I could ask for nothing better.

Yesterday was a gorgeous day, unseasonably warm for November with clear, sunlit sky. Today is supposed to be more of the same and I can hardly wait to see it. The sky is currently becoming lighter and showing color.

This has been an unusual week for our son the firefighter. His department was called to assist a neighboring community Thursday night. The house was a total loss. He feels that effective firefighting was hampered by some unusual construction techniques. Yesterday just before dinner he was called to a fire in our community. It was a large, expensive house. It did not fall into the basement but does have extensive damage.

Today shows promise of being a lovely autumn day. I hope the entire weekend is as nice as the promise of today.

Here are the project bags that go with the ornament. The gift is now on its way to its recipient. I feel reasonably confident that the recipient will not see this. But then, I have no idea how many people are lurking here and why.

I know that there are some who may be lurking because I invited them and suggested that they may feel more comfortable lurking without registering with Blogger or BlogSpot.

A couple weeks ago, I was quite surprised to discover from a mutual acquaintance that there is someone who is lurking here. I was surprised because I would have never thought that person would be interested in my random thoughts. Now the ironic thing is that that person who is lurking is a mutual acquaintance of the recipient of this gift.

Do you suppose that the gift is no longer a surprise? If you are lurking here and I did not invite you to lurk, will you please show yourself so that all of us may know who you are?

Tuesday brings morning volunteer time at the local Hospital. At the time I left to come home, we had already had four babies. We love those new little babies.

Yesterday afternoon, I finished the ornament by Blue Ribbon Designs. It appeared in the 2008 Just Cross Stitch ornaments issue. I had already decided on this design when I discovered that the recipient likes samplers. I think this qualifies.

The day started with a bang; well, it really was a crash. One of our sons knocked a large, think large wine bottle size, glass bottle of carbonated apple beverage from Germany on the floor. The floor is ceramic tile so of course the bottle shattered into minute shards. I think we were saving the apple beverage for Thanksgiving. There is plenty of time to pick up something to replace it. We have picked up most, but not all, of the glass and mopped up a lot of the beverage. Right now we are waiting for it to dry so we can vacuum the remainder of the glass from the floor. Then I can wash the floor. Normally I do not wash the kitchen floor on Monday morning but this will give us a nice, clean floor at the beginning of the week.

November Already?

As promised, here is a picture of my fabric covered papier- mâché box. Alma Allen, Blackbird Designs, presented a wonderful tutorial in her blog, One Stitch at a Time. Because her directions are so clear, anyone can do it. The link will take you to the first segment of the tutorial which begins on 27 October 2009. There is a second part so do not miss it.

Yes, Alma has posted this same picture. I sent it to her so she could see my fabulous fabric. I got to skip all of the fabric antiquing steps. This is the fabric right off the bolt. I knew when I saw it last year that I would have a very good use for it; I just did not know then what it would be. More boxes will follow, I just do not know when I will do them. ;-)

The first day of a new month always makes me wonder what I can do better in it. It hardly seems like we have almost finished another year. During the night, we went off Daylight Saving Time. I wonder why we did that. In five more months, we will turn the clock forward again. We are now spending more than half of the year on DST. I really miss the early morning daylight when we are on DST.