You know when you buy a new car how it suddenly seems like your car is everywhere? That every is driving the exact same kind of car as you. I always wonder why that is? Am I just noticing “my” car more now or is a deal or incentive that enticed me to buy my car enticing other people to buy the same car and it’s not just a trick of my mind but an actual phenomenon.

Cancer has kind of been the same way for me this year. It seems like every time I turn around, the word Cancer is finding it’s way into conversation, message boards, commercials and t.v. programs.

So, what is it? Are people talking about cancer more or am I suddenly noticing “my” issue more because it’s mine.

I visit a message board where I lurk a little and post less. A woman on there is now dying of cancer, with three young boys under the age of six. I cannot describe to you the feeling in my chest. Tears are pricking my eyes as I think about it. Her baby, younger than Cadence, is just learning to walk and thinking about her not being physically present for the precious moments of her boys lives leaves me absolutely breathless.

And so I say I will pray for her and I will. I’m a practical prayer though. Do I believe in miracles? Indeed I do. I live with two. And beyond the miracle of my two girls, I do believe that God can intervene in lives and make AMAZING things happen, but still, I’m practical.

When my Mom first told me about her tumor, I went home, called Eric in Mexico, put Emily to bed, got in the shower where my sobs wouldn’t be evident and, well, sobbed. Not MY mom. This couldn’t happen to MY mom. I needed her. We needed her. As I began to cry myself out I prayed to God, practically, of course, for what I really needed; strength to get through what was to come and the ability to accept our course no matter what it was. I didn’t pray for a miracle. I could have, I suppose, but I knew that if God intended a miracle, there would be one and what I needed to ask for and recieve was tha ability to deal with a non-miraculous situation.

I prayed a similar practical prayer at the beginning of 2005 when things weren’t going right. I prayed that we be lead to people who could help my Mom. The next day, she was called to have an appointment with her new oncologist. As quickly as her disease progressed in the end, I have no doubt that this man extended my Mom’s life to the end that she was able to have some more good times and most important, to me, meet Cadence.

And so, as I read the post today on the message board and cancer was standing in the corner, looking pretty smug, I promised to pray for a stranger, because I believe in prayer and once again I turn to the practical; that she’ll have more time and the time that she has will be GOOD time.

And, of course, I’ll pray that someday there will be a cure or if not a cure, a treatment that will end this so I don’t have to notice cancer around every corner. I’m sick of cancer.

Eric is off work today. He has strep throat and is staying home today and tomorrow to wait for his antibiotics to work. When Eric does stay home, his “treat” is Mexican food (something he loves dearly and that Emily and I can live without). I got home from dropping Emily off at school and suggested a breakfast burrito. I was hungry and had yet to go to the store. We were also out of coffee.

We called and ordered breakfast, picked it up and stopped at the corner 7-11 for coffee. Coming out of the store as Eric was walking in was an old guy holding a carry tray with two coffees and a newspaper. His hands were shaking heavily and when he got to the curb he was having an issue figuring out how to get off of the curb.

Cadence was asleep in the car and there were people around. I thought if he needed help someone else would be able to help him. I don’t like to leave the kids in the car alone EVER, particularly not Cadence alone. The old guy realized he needed to hold on to something to get off of the curb and onto the street and decided to hold onto the handicap parking sign mounted in the cement. He realized he was going to have to set he coffee down and try to manuver down from the curb.

I was faced with a huge dilemma. He needed help, obviously. But my baby was in the car and Eric was in the store. In the time I watched him, two very able bodied looking man passed right by him and our local police officers even drove by as well, but no one stopped to help. I couldn’t bear to let him suffer/struggle any more and I pulled the keys out of the car, locked Cadence in and offered him help.

I helped him off of the curb and carried his coffee to the car (he had very shaky hands. Like Eric, but worse) He told me my voice sounded familiar and that he had just moved here from Vermont. He lived in our neighborhood as he turned left into the neighborhood as opposed to going left.

It made my stomach ache, literally, that people passed him by that the police had to see him struggling (the car let off an officer who presumably went into 7-11 for coffee) and just couldn’t be bothered to stop and help him.

And, really, what has become of us when in a safe suburban neighborhood, in the broad daylight with lots of traffic no one but me could be bothered to spend the 45 seconds it took to help him down and walk him to his car? But, at least I went back to the locked car and my sweetly sleeping baby able to know that I did the right thing, at least and hoping that my willingness to do that will rub off on my girls and they’ll help too.

So much time, this time of year, is spent being generous to our loved ones. We shower our children and families in gifts, we drown our kitchens with food, we light our houses with millions of tiny lights, but yet we can’t be stopped or bothered to show the tiniest kindness to a stranger. Why can’t our generosity extend that far? It’s such a small step to take.

Last night, I had a dream about my Mom. Eric, the kids and I were at home in Michigan for a visit. Mom came outside and she looked BEAUTIFUL. Just like I imagine her (when I can mentally get past the concentration camp image I have of her at the end of her life which I wish desperately that I could erase because those few weeks is not indictive of how BEAUTIFUL my Mom was). I gave Mom the biggest hug and said that she looked great. Just like she did before she got sick. She smiled She really DID look great. Glowing. Perfect.

I told Eric about the dream. It was a happy dream.

This morning at Church we were singing the first hymn and I was immediatley drawn to my Mom. The general just of the lyrics were, I’m going to before you. I’m smoothing your path, when you’re standing in the fire of evil, I’m there. And then, they played Joy, one of my Mom’s favorite classical song.

And I felt connected. Even just for those minutes.

I have several hobbies that I love and these hobbies come in and out of popularity in Jamiedom. Over the course of the last few months, I’ve been very much in love with sewing and it’s been getting the bulk of my “spare” time. What this means is frequent trips to the fabric store, buying notions, fabric, patterns, trim and other goodies.

But i have conflicting issues.

First, I love to collect “things” that relate to my hobbie. I love to collect scrapbooking goodies. I love collecting paper. I love collecting yarn and right now I LOVE collecting fabrics. Thursday I was cleaning up the bedroom and amassed a huge pile of fabric (well, huge for me) that needed to be washed in order to be ready for projects. I was rather embarassed by the amount that was there and I said to Eric that I REALLY shouldnt buy ANY more fabric until I used some the yardage that was here. And he agreed, but a trip to Joann’s yesterday found me with 6 more yards of fabric to do “something” with (granted, all three have current projects planned for them, but still….)

And this is where the “at odds” part comes in. I find that I’m actually MORE productive when I have LESS things standing between me and my projects. Searching through piles of fabric, patterns and notions seems to squash my creativity and productivity and I understand that around me. At my core, I think I’m a minimalist, and I try to remind myself of this when I’m out shopping (only buy what you need, don’t buy just to have), but I seem to have a materialistic devil on my shoulder that urges me forward to buying things I have no plans for just to satisfy the part of me that is materialistic.

My mom and I would always talk, as Christmas drew near, about the sometimes annoyance people seemed to have with us starting Christmas so early. We both agreed that, becuase of the work load associated with Christmas (work I, frankly, adore doing) that we HAD to start early. That a week’s time or even two week’s time wasn’t really enough to do everything we intended.

So, as Halloween past and I tucked away the pumpkins and ghosts and witches the Christmas season, for me, began. Oh, my excel spreadsheet with my gift life and budget had been set up MONTHS ago, but now I began shopping. Fine tuning. Planning activities and events to make the season EXTRA special (like i do every year). And, this year, that specialness ;o) includes a LOT of sewing.

My current Christmas sewing list is fifteen items long and I’m hoping to accomplish most of them in NOVEMBER. What’s that list look like?

1) The girls matching Christmas dresses are in current production. I’m strugglign with the zippers, but think they’ll done today or tomorrow in time for taking pictures for our annual Christmas card

2) Five cloth dolls for Cadence and little baby cousins and a little baby friend (free of worry from the MIC fiasco)

3) Skirt for me to wear to church and on Christmas day

4) Cloth diapers for C-note (I have two done but need at least three more to make any sort of dent in our disposable diaper useage)

5) Matching pajamas for the girls. To be found in their stockings on Christmas eve morning.

And this, of course, is just a tiny portion of what I’ll actually do. It seems like a lot of stress, doesn’t it? It is, but it’s something I love. Flat out LOVE. Over the course of the next few days, I’ll be ordering more gifts, planning crafts and outings and doing everything I can to make our Christmas season MAGICAL.

I cannot wait. :o)

You all know it right? Basically what can go wrong will?

About six weeks ago, Emily got her annual cough. Emily gets this cough around the start of the school year and it lingers, on and off, through Christmas and into the new year. The past several years, we would run to the doctor and get sent home with meds. for her nebulizer. This year, we decided that we weren’t going to run to the doctor. We knew what she had and how to treat it and started giving her nebulizer treatments. But, this year Emily decided to change it up and started coughing so hard she would throw up. That accounted for three trips to the doctor and a just about that many days of missed school too.

Cadence, during this time gets a runny nose and a little baby cough. Nothing too horrible (and the cough was so little it was almost cute).

This week Monday, Emily is back to school We have a clean bill of health. We’re off the nebulizer for the first time in weeks. We get a call from the school. They think Emily has pink eye.

So, we’re back to the doctor. We get eye salve. Emily misses ANOTHER day of school to make sure she’s no longer contagious. Weds. morning I notice that the bloody patches Emily has on her eyes have gotten worse. I suck it and get her another doctors appointment and she misses a half a day of school. She has a < href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subconjunctival_hemorrhage">subconjunctival hemorrhage. She gets two different eye medications and a note so she can go back to school. The doctor makes a quick inspection of C’s eyes and pronounces her clear.

Thursday, I notice Cadence has a little baby fever and her runny nose is back. When she wakes up friday morning and starts “talking” it becomes obvious that she has Croup. Argh. We treat her at home, but she appears to be having trouble breathing over night from Friday into Saturday so we get out of bed and talk her to the ER. She has a breathing treatment, a chest x-ray and a steroid shot. We got home at 4 a.m. and cancel our activities for the biggest part of the weekend.

And now, to make matters worse, Cadence woke up from her morning nap with a goopy eye. Sigh.

You know I like to stumble….. and I found this and even though I think it’s probably just a coincidence, I still think it’s sweet…

Link
Why should the wedding ring be worn on the fourth finger?

Finally, join your Little fingers, and try to separate your Ring fingers (representing your spouse). You will be surprised to see that you just CANNOT….., because Husband & Wife have to remain together all their lives - through thick and thin!!

<3

Eric just got home from work. It’s starting to get dark outside and I have the side table lamp on. XM is playing Christmas music and even though I’ll be sick of it in a couple of weeks and then will lay off until right before Christmas, things feel cozy.

Emily was home from school today because she has pinkeye which isn’t so blissful, but Cadence just woke up from her nap and I can hear Emily upstairs, with her tambourine, playing and Cadence is screaming with glee.

Not long before Eric got home I heard the alarm going off my cell phone. I leaned over next to the chair to see where it was and found the bag from McDonalds that we had for lunch. I gathered it up to threw it away and realized that Cadence had been using to hold goodies including the remove from the ceiling fan, the DVD remote, a hem marker and my memory card reader.

And now the baby is downstairs and Emily is running in joyous circles and even the dog is joining in and I’m just about the luckiest girl in the world.

Really. :o)

I was stumbling around, you see, even before i put the stumble button on the top of web browser. One of my most favorite things to do was to go to links on blogs that I enjoyed because I assumed, usually correctly, that if l like them i might like who they like.

So, I started here, at Wee Wonderfuls the website I totally adore and scrolled down her blog roll. I decided to click on….

Whip Up I poked around a bit and scrolled down and found out that….

Sew mama Sew was featuring a thirty day handmade holiday feature. That was cool enough, but in scrolling through their archives I found a link to

Montessori by hand. She has a few really cute tutorials and a link to….

the Angry chicken written by Amy Karol who authored a very cool, fun sewing book that I adore and, you know, since I love her work and her style wouldn’t I also love people she loves?

And on it goes.