karenika

December Daily 2009 – Day 14

Here are my pages for day fourteen.

I decided today I will write letters to both my kids. The front is David.

and the back is Nathaniel.

I sewed the papers on to the fabric and will slide my letter inside.

December Daily 2009 – Day 13

Here are my pages for day thirteen.

Since I don’t really have any other photos, day thirteen is about our *fun* time in Gilroy.

same journaling I put on the post below.

In quite a bit of pain today but mostly my back not my nose.

December Daily 2009 – Day 12

Here are my pages for day twelve.

Hard to tell from this shot but the photo has journaling all around it.

and the back is about out trip to the model train exhibit.

One of the things I noticed in the last month was that I really like stitching on my layouts. It’s hard to do that on this album since both sides are pre-prepared. So I did this on a separate sheet and then adhered it.

The 55-Dollar Shot

So we made it to Gilroy Gardens last night and it was mostly drizzling so I was all excited about finally being there.

As we entered I grabbed some shots and saw this beautiful scene.

So I decided to run and grab a photo of my family as they walked in. Except that I was wearing the wrong shoes and I was stupid and I slipped and fell. And the camera fell with me and the lens hit my face.

It all happened pretty quickly and since my running had prompted David to run Jake was trying to get him to stop and not looking at me at all. When he came over to see if I was ok, we both saw the blood dripping out of my nose. I’m told I was covered with it within seconds though I never got to see my face like that.

We waited around for the EMT to show up, all the while I cursed myself for being so stupid. Several times I told them that we should just go in and I was fine. But Jake insisted we wait. Finally the woman showed up, cleaned me up and said we needed to go to the hospital cause my cut was too deep and it was going to need stitches.

I had just told someone last week that I never had stitches in my life. Never.

We got in the car and drove around for a bit, trying to find the urgent care she gave us directions for and the woman at the Walgreens drive-through told us that it was closed so we then got on the road to find the Gilroy hospital. Halfway through, we decided to bail and just come back home so we could go to Stanford hospital. By now, it was already past Nathaniel’s bedtime. We called up the hospital and they said that I had 12 hours to get sutures so it was safe to take the extra 45 minutes to drive there.

When we got to the emergency room, the nurse looked at my nose and sent me to the extension which is a quieter, calmer portion of ER where less serious patients are sent. After several visits from hospital personnel, the resident showed up and looked at it. He said he might be able to just glue it. (Which made me happy, I am still nursing so I wasn’t keen on getting any drugs for the stitches. Not to mention my track record of not having any stitches.) We all waited for the attending to show up. Nathaniel was a champ the whole time.

The doctor came and decided she agreed and we could use dermabond. We were very concerned about any long-term scars since it’s on my nose but she assured there’s no difference between stitches and glue for that. So they cleaned my nose off really well with saline and went to get the stuff. I asked Jake to snap some photos while they were gone. I had still not seen what I looked like. Here’s the only one that came out relatively clear.

The resident came back, glued me up twice and put some small bandages on. The doctor came back and checked his work. And then the nurse came and gave me a tetanus shot (I hadn’t had one since I taught for Teach For America in 2002. And I guess you need to have had it in the last 5 years.) which made me bleed all over.

So at 8:15pm, we were finally done and could go back home. Everyone was exhausted and worn out from being on adrenalin for four hours. After having paid the $15 admissions fee for all three of us and the $10 parking fee, the above one is the only photo I have to show for the almost four hours we spent driving back and forth to Gilroy this weekend.

The $55 photo.

Catalyst 92 – Peace

This week’s catalyst is: If you had to pick one single thing you wanted to do or accomplish before your next birthday, what would it be? What’s stopping you from doing it?

The one thing I’d like to accomplish before my next birthday is to find a way to feel more peaceful inside. To choose peace and joy. To let go of worry and feel a little lighter, look at the world in a more positive manner. My life is really full and beautiful and I would like to be peacefully blissful. So I stitched this dove and created a little olive branch out of wire and beads. This would, by far, be the greatest gift I can give myself.

Daily Photos – December 13 2009

Nathaniel puts everything in his mouth so I decided to get him these teething biscuits and he loves them.

And then I remembered the mess they make!

On a completely unrelated note, I’ve had this toy for years and just realized that its in the shape of a face. The blue eyes, yellow eye brows, green head and blue hait. The smiling red mouth. Holy cow! How did I not ever notice that before?

Yesterday’s Gilroy Gardens attempt had to be aborted. So today we try again. We ended up in the model train show yesterday and then a long trip to Target. Let’s see if we manage to get there today.

December Daily 2009 – Day 11

Here are my pages for day eleven.

I loved this fabric so I wanted to not cover it.

and the back celebrates David being the Shabbat helper:

I have so many mixed feelings about this album. I love documenting our family but on one side I wish I were craftier, on the other side I wish it were plainer and more classic, and everything in between. Then I remind myself it’s about documenting. About being present. Everything else is icing. And documenting, we are.

December Daily 2009 – Day 10

Here are my pages for day ten.

This one is actually a continuation of day nine since we did the wreath on the 9th.

and the tenth:

Keeping it simple still.

Daily Photos – December 12 2009

My first pedicure in six years. Holiday spirit.

It’s been really rainy here so we’ve been cooped up at home. But it’s lush and green outside.

And here’s boy number one.

And boy number two.

Off to see if we can go to Gilroy Gardens. Here’s to hoping rain stops.

Daily Photos – December 11 2009

Hanukkah begins.

David was the Shabbat helper today at school so we all went to be with him.

Here he is collecting sadakah.

It was lovely watching him and how comfortable he was.

Nathaniel woke up at 4am today for his second feeding and I could not fall back asleep so I really need to go off to bed now. Happy weekend.

Weekly Layouts – Writing Your Letters

I forgot to post the weekly layout this week. So here’s one with the December AMM Kit.

David, one of the things I regret a lot is not spending more quality time with you. Especially now that I am working from home and we’re together more often. I worry that maybe I am not teaching you enough. Maybe when you go to school, you’ll be behind all those other kids. I want to make sure that you have all the opportunities you deserve.

A few weeks ago, I decided it would be a good idea for us to start practicing our letters. I knew you could already write your name but I wasn’t sure how many of the other letters you could write. So we started practicing. Every day, we’d pick one letter and write it ten, twenty times. Over and over again until it came easily to you.

About two weeks into it, we did start to slack a bit and I was feeling guilty again, so, one night, you wanted to play with my beads and I made a deal with you, I said you have to sit and write one of each of the letters in the alphabet and you could come play with me. So you did. You sat down. And began to write. ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUvWXYZ.

You wrote them all. Perfectly.

I guess maybe I don’t need to worry after all. You’re doing wonderfully all on your own.

Daily Photos – December 10 2009

This is from the wreath project David and I made yesterday. I found it here and had been saving it for an occasion.

And despite resisting it, David actually enjoyed it.