karenika

December Daily 2009 – Day 15

I apologize in advance for the quality in these photos. It gets dark so early here so I wasn’t able to snap good quality ones. I will try again tomorrow and replace these if I can get better ones. (Fixed now :))

For the 15th, I glued a paper to the back of David’s writing to Santa photo and stitched it to the overlay to create a pocket. Inside the pocket, I put his letter. Here’s the front:

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And here’s back. I put a little xmas tree on the letter that shows through the overlay.

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And a detail to show the stitching:

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Keeping it simple still.

Daily Photos – December 15 2009

I spent the whole day making some changes to my website. This is my yearly redesign and it’s very much unfinished. But I had to move because for the first time in ten years, I moved to not using my own database. I am now using hosted WordPress. There are many reasons to do this but I need to spend the next few weeks playing with it and seeing if I like it. So I thought why not now. It’s not like I don’t have 5 million things going on.

Here’s me this morning. I woke up to see a much more swollen face.

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I also woke up more depressed and sad. I am guessing the reality of what happened is finally hitting me now that the adrenalin and shock are wearing off. It’s going to be ok and I am already feeling better about it but I had a rough day today and so the kids very kindly played by themselves a lot.

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David spent the day in his Buzz Lightyear costume. He still has a runny nose so I’ve been keeping him at home.

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All was well until Aurelia woke up from his afternoon nap and he was very hot. I took his temperature to find out it was 103. I didn’t even want to think of what might be wrong so I took him to the doctor and despite the Tylanol, his fever was still 102. They checked him and said he was ok and to watch and see if he feels better by Thursday. He’s been all sweet and mostly happy but I’m a basket case of course.

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It’s only Tuesday but I am so ready for this week to be over already. Tomorrow I’m back at work after a long break which means hundreds of emails to be read and a ton of catching up. Fun fun fun!

Ok I am off to sleep. More changes tomorrow. I haven’t moved over the comments yet and some other things either. But you are welcome to leave me comments on this post. Hopefully it will work. I am afraid you will have to change your RSS reader if you’ve been reading me on Google Reader, etc. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Daily Photos – December 14 2009

A whole slew of photos today. Just felt like capturing my family.

David decided he wanted to write a letter to Santa. He wrote it all by himself. I sounded out the words to him so he could recognize the letters. Here he is writing it.

And writing some more.

And the finished product.

Aurelia is still loving these biscuits. I took it away for two minutes and he cried until I gave it back.

And it makes a mess. Huge mess.

He’s standing all the time now. Still can’t sit down by himself but can stand up just fine.

And here’s me. It’s hard to see my bruise. I am not all black and blue but my nose is swollen quite a bit. And my thigh and back hurt a LOT.

Thank you for your kind words. I am trying to rest and relax. I happened to have taken today and tomorrow off work and David’s sick at home so except for a quick trip to work (to pick up a Christmas present) I’ve been home all day. Oh and the camera is all fine as you can see.

Happy Monday.

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 Aurelia.

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 Aurelia’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. Aurelia 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

Aurelia 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.