Archives for January 2010

It’s A Girl!

Remember back in the dark ages when we old grandma’s were having our babies,and we had to actually wait until we woke up after the delivery to find out if we had a boy or a girl? Sigh…

We found out yesterday that our newest FabGrandchild is going to be a girl. We are all so excited and can hardly wait until May for her to get here. The proud parents, my son and his wife, are still debating names for her. I’m just calling her Baby Girl until she’s named.

I was so happy to know there is going to be another FabGranddaughter, that I drove 35 miles to Tuscaloosa yesterday to go shopping. OK, we also had to go get FabGrandpa some new pants, but seriously, I couldn’t wait another minute to look at girlie girl baby clothes.

Isn’t that just the most adorable outfit?

And ooooooooo

ahhhhhhhhh! cutie cute cute! You know Fabgrandma is going to be sewing for this girlie soon!

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FABrics I Love

Karen · 8 Comments

As you may have noticed, I love to sew. I mostly make quilts and crafts, but have been known to sew a little bit of clothing every now and then. One of the reasons I haven’t been sewing a lot since I started living the RV lifestyle, is that I am always in remote locations where there is not a decent fabric store within hundreds of miles.

The internet has come to my fabric rescue! Over the last year or so, I have found quite a few sewing, quilting, and fabric blogs, and I read them every day, and drool over all those fabulous fabrics the writers of them are using in their projects. One of my favorite fabric blogs, True Up, is hosting a MEME where they want you to show your 10 favorite fabrics of 2009.

Since I didn’t get into internet fabrics until last summer, I missed out on some that debuted earlier, so some of the ones I am listing here may be older than 2009, but I still love them.

My most favorite fabric I found this year (but probably came out earlier than that) is the Fairy Tip Toes collection by Tina Givens for Free Spirit Fabrics. When I saw it, I fell in love with it, and searched for three weeks before I found it online to buy. I haven’t cut it yet, don’t know that I ever will, but I HAVE it and that is what matters most to a fabric-aholic like me!

My next favorite is called Large Whimsy from Pillow and Maxfield for Michael Miller Fabrics. I am making myself a quilt using the brown/green/turquoise colorway. I already have the pieces cut and ready to sew.

There are just so many beautiful FABrics out there these days, it makes me wish I had more storage room for it. I have only a wicker trunk to keep it in, though, so I have to be very selective on what I buy.

And I used two fabrics from the Meadowsweet Collection by Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller to make a dress for my FabGranddaughter, Sarah, for Christmas:

Here are some things that are in my list to get in the coming year, that is, if something new doesn’t come along that I love more!

Echino Fall: for Kokka Fabrics

Far And Away by Heather Ross for Kokka Fabrics

Hushabye: by Tula Pink for Moda Fabrics

Goodnight Monkey: by Erin Michael for Moda Fabrics

MoMo Odyssea: for Moda Fabrics

Full Bloom: by Bari J. for Windham Fabrics

Brandon Mably: for Westminster Fabrics

Girly Girl: by Patricia Bravo for Art Gallery Fabrics

And for reasons I don’t have to explain, I love these two cute fabrics:

Travel Trailer: Michael Miller Fabrics

Happy Campers: by American Jane for Moda Fabrics

I don’t know how many of these gorgeous FABrics I will actually get this year, but oh, isn’t it wonderful to dream about them?? Oh, and I see I have gone fabric crazy again, since they only asked for my favorite 10. Hello. My name is FabGrandma and I am a fabric-aholic.

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Had My Decade-ly Physical Exam Today

Karen · 10 Comments

FabGrandpa and I have not had health insurance since 2001 when I was laid off from a job in the telecommunications industry (the second time). At that job, my health insurance went into effect on January 1 so we both had scheduled appointments on the same day. Our last insurance benefits had expired in 1996, so we figured it was about time to get a check up. On January 10, 2001, he was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the tongue, and I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. It was a memoral day.

My job lasted until April 30th, and my health insurance benefits that went along with it expired on May 31st, one day after his last radiation treatment. That coverage kept us out of the poor house and bankruptcy court, and I was so thankful that we had it.

In 2007, FabGrandpa signed up for his health care benefits through the Veterans Administration, one of his benefits from having served in the Navy back in the early 70’s. But that still left me with no health care insurance. I dealt with this lack of coverage by getting my prescription drugs from Mexico, where you don’t need a prescription, and only going to the doctor when absolutely necessary. Like when I had that palpable mass and pain in my arm, and that kidney stone last summer. All of that was paid for out of pocket, but there have been times during those years when I had to make a decision not to go to the doctor because I simply couldn’t afford it.

Among my many goals for 2010 was to establish a relationship with a doctor, and to get my health care taken care of on a more regular basis. I asked people around here who they would go to, and Dr. Lee was the name that came up most often. Today was the day for my appointment with Dr. Lee. He is a general practioner in a small town in Alabama. He is one of those guys who does all the labs, x-rays, and EKG’s right there in his office. He was knowledgeable about Celiac disease, and that made me happy. And he didn’t holler at me too much about my lackadasiycal attitude about my health care over the past decade.

The exam went quite well. I peed in the cup, they took blood for an hbA1c, kidney function, and blood chemistry; did a chest X-ray; and EKG; and took my blood pressure. We talked for a while about Celiac disease: He asked me why I thought I had it, how long I have not been eating wheat, did I feel better not eating gluten, did I want to be tested? He said he wished more people would listen to their bodies and believe that the foods they eat could be more of a factor in their diseases. He told me that there were tests he could to determine if I have Celiac, but they are expensive, and I would have to eat gluten again for a while for them to be accurate, and if I was feeling better not eating gluten then I probably do have Celiac and he wouldn’t recommend the testing.

We are waiting for the blood test results before he writes any prescriptions for me, but he said he would probably continue me on metformin 500 mg per day, as my blood sugar this morning was 110. He will probably add a low dosage blood pressure medication because my blood pressure was 143/91, and he was afraid that combined with my type II diabetes could cause some kidney damage. They are scheduling me for the dreaded mammogram, and will wait the results of the stool sample to decide if I really need a colonoscopy. All the things Dr. Lee did today came to a total of $186 plus whatever the lab charges for the blood tests he sent to them. If this had been in the Atlanta area, it would have cost about $350. But believe me when I tell you there have been lots of times in the last ten years when I didn’t have that much money in my pocket.

And, while he DID reprimand me somewhat for my long wait between physical exams, he commended me for taking control of my healthcare issues. I have taken my medications, even if obtaining them from Mexico was somewhat risky. I did get an hbA1c every 3-4 months, even if I did buy them over the counter from Wal-Mart most of the time. I found out I could be gluten intolerant and deleted gluten from my life. So, even though I haven’t been faithful to the medical professionals, I have been getting healthcare in ways I could afford.

UPDATE: the doctor’s office called this morning. My hbA1c was 6.1, where they want it be less than 7. Kidney function was fine, all blood chemistry was normal, not even high cholesterol! The NP who called said she was very impressed with the numbers, and again commended me for taking good care of myself, and AGAIN said she was sure that not eating gluten was helping to keep my numbers normal. I will be taking blood pressure meds, but I expected that.

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So The New Year Is Upon Us

Karen · 12 Comments

Now that 2010 is here, I am spending my day making a list of goals for myself. I don’t make resolutions. A “resoulution” is an “act of resolving or determining upon an action or course of action, method, procedure..”, and what I am doing is by no means a determined course of action. I find that in my life, setting out on a course of action usually leads to something other than what I started out to do. So, if I set goals instead, no matter what course of action leads me to the desired result is ok.

Some of my goals are simple, direct things that accomplish a specific task:

I want to clean up my computer, and by that, I DO NOT mean dusting off the screen. I want to get rid of files no longer needed; bookmarks that lead to pages that make me wonder why I bookmarked them to start with; organize folders in some kind of order that make sense, and put the ones I use the most at the top of the list. If I accomplish that, it will make my days infinitely better and help me save time.

I want to get organized in my life. I do so many different things that I sometimes just get overwhelmed with the list. I want to make myself a schedule, so that I have an hour a day to write; an hour a day to sew, an hour a day to play, and an hour a day to exercise. (Not that putting the hour a day on my calendar will actually make me do those things…)

I want to get a tripod and learn to take better photos. If I had done that last year, this photo of the gorgeous blue moon rising over Payne Lake on New Years Eve would have been better than this:

Other goals may prove to be a little harder for me to do, but not starting to work in that direction will assure me that they won’t get done:

I want to move my blog to a hosted website with my own URL. I have some very specific and some other vague goals for myself for this blog, and have already started working towards them. I want it to be the most Fab blog, ever. (Now how is THAT for a goal???)

I want to get my Etsy store up to date, and get all the purty things I sew listed on there for sale. I want procrastination to be a thing of the past.

I have a goal to get all my gluten free recipes sorted out, typed up, and presented in some type of cookbook, whether it is an e-book or a printed one. There are other gluten free cookbooks out there, but I am a southern girl who cooks in a “southern” way. I want other gluten free cooks from the south to feel comfortable in the kitchen, making all those mahvelous southern comfort foods we grew up on, minus the gluten.

I want to make myself a quilt with these fabrics. I have already started it, by cutting all the pieces. All I have to do now is the sewing (HA! that’s easy to say!) I have a baby quilt to make, and a couple of other big sewing projects that I want to finish by spring, but of all my goals, this one will probably be the easiest for me to accomplish.

So, there it is, out there for public consumption, and public scrutiny. Making these goals public will put me at greater risk of completing them. What are YOUR goals for the year 2010?

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